Handbook To Higher Consciousness
Chapter 14
Consciousness Focusing


Chapter 14

Consciousness Focusing

Consciousness Focusing is one of the most powerful Methods for reprogramming strong addictions. When used effectively, a lifetime addiction can sometimes be wiped out of one’s emotional programming in a surprisingly short time. The greater the opportunity that something offers us for security, pleasurable sensations, or power, the more we will have developed addictive programming that exposes us to disappointment and suffering. Consciousness Focusing helps us reprogram these strong addictions that make us expend so much futile energy in guarding them and living them out in our daily dance.

Consciousness Focusing helps us to use our present life situations to grow maximally. To use this new Method, we go forward in life rather than retreat from it. For example, if your marriage relationship is uncomfortable to you or if you are upsetting yourself in your business affairs, you can use this effective technique to grow much more rapidly than if you did not have such heavy life problems.

Consciousness Focusing is based on the fact that your emotional programming is established by whatever you tell yourself with strong feelings when you are in pain and suffering. Actually, you’ve been using Consciousness Focusing all of your life. Perhaps when you were a young child you stuck your finger into a light bulb socket and received an electric shock. You instantly withdrew your finger in pain and told yourself that the light bulb socket was the cause of the pain. That may have been the last time you ever did that because your biocomputer strongly programmed an instruction, will not put my finger in light bulb sockets because it hurts. From then on in your life, whenever your finger even got near the inside of a light bulb socket, a red flag went up in you to make sure you didn’t get shocked again.

When you are peaceful and calm, you have the best opportunity to reprogram your rational mind — but not your emotion-backed addictions. For example, you can study a book or listen to a lecture most effectively when you are calm. Your biocomputer will not handle the lecture or book very well when you are upset because your addictions have the ability to dominate and override other processes in your biocomputer. But when you are emotionally upset, you then have a superlative opportunity to reprogram your addictions by using the Consciousness Focusing Method. Thus every time you feel fearful, jealous, anxious, or angry, your life is giving you a golden opportunity to use this method to liberate yourself from an addiction.

Consciousness Focusing can be used at any time to work on an addiction. However, it is most effective in getting rid of a deeper level security, sensation, or power addiction when, in the past few weeks, you

  1. have applied the Pathways,
  2. are aware of what Center of Consciousness you were using to make yourself upset, and
  3. have used the Third Method to connect the addiction with the suffering that you are feeling.

You may use Consciousness Focusing to reprogram a heavy addiction when you want freedom from the addiction more intensely than you want a change in the external world. For example, after a five-month period of repeatedly experiencing jealousy, I wanted freedom from the addiction that triggered the separating emotion of jealousy more than I wanted to control the woman I was with. At that point, in about 90 minutes of Consciousness Focusing, I apparently reprogrammed the addictions which trigger jealousy for the rest of my life. Usually, however, repeated reprogramming sessions are necessary.

A description of this experience is available in a cassette entitled My Triumph Over Jealousy which can be obtained from Ken Keyes College Bookroom, 790 Commercial Ave., Coos Bay, OR 97420. Cost is $6.95 plus $1.50 for postage and handling.[no longer available]

Here’s the way to use the Method of Consciousness Focusing:

Step 1. Explore The Suffering

First, review the bare facts of the incident that triggered your fear, anger, jealousy, or other disturbing feelings. Then let yourself experience the suffering that you are creating inside of you. Notice how your body feels — your head, your shoulders, your heart, your stomach, your legs, your back, your arms and your insides. Describe to yourself in simple words what you are feeling. Use words such as afraid, anxious, depressed, jealous, angry, resentful, irritated, etc. Don’t think about it or give reasons — just observe what you are feeling and give one word descriptions that refer to feeling states.

Step 2. Pinpoint The Addiction

Now pinpoint the addiction (or addictions) that are responsible for your suffering in the situation you outlined in Step 1 above. Clearly formulate the exact addictive demands that you are making. You may wish to review the Third Method explained in the previous chapter which tells how to formulate the addiction. To get rid of suffering, you must first know the immediate cause. The cause of the suffering will always be an emotion-backed program in your head. This addictive programming must always be present as an intervening variable between the chain of events in the outside world and your uptightness and unhappiness. If you did not have this addictive demand, the outside events would be powerless to trigger what you are now experiencing. It works this way

addictive chain

If you remove the middle factor, there is no way the outside event can make you generate an unhappy experience. Your ego and rational mind have been blaming the left hand box (the outside event) for your suffering. You are now training your nervous system to take responsibility for your experience. You’ll have to deeply convince your rational mind that your addictive demands are the immediate cause of your suffering. Be very specific in pinpointing the demand.

Exactly what do you want in that situation? What would you like to change in that situation? Tune in to your feelings and check to make sure you feel that you’ve pinpointed the demand which is causing your suffering.

Step 3. Select Your Reprogramming Phrases

First look back at all the past suffering you have brought to yourself in similar situations. Usually your ego and rational mind blamed others for your unhappiness. This kept you from seeing that it is your own addictions that have created the problems in your life. Look at the long chain of similar events in your past. Take full responsibility for the fact that you were doing it to yourself. Now look beyond the present into the future. How many years do you probably have to live? How long do you want to continue to make yourself unhappy over this sort of thing? Have you really had enough unhappiness and feelings of alienation, pain and separateness from this addictive demand? Proceed when you are sure.

Now select a reprogramming instruction that you want to forcefully put into your biocomputer. This will be a direct command to your biocomputer. Experience has shown that this command can either be in a negative form such as, I don’t have to be jealous when my lover is with someone else or a positive form such as I am enough. Your marvelous biocomputer is excellent at handling instructions both to do something or not to do something. Choose a reprogramming phrase that is short, pithy and that feels good when you say it rapidly with intensity behind it. Start out with a reprogramming phrase that directly refers to the situation covered in Step 1 above. Thus, I don’t need to feel worthless when Sue rejects me is a specific level to start with. Then you can go on to more general programmings like, It is really harmless to be rejected! I don’t have to get upset when I’m rejected! You win some and you lose some! Don’t start reprogramming until you are completely fed up with the addictive demand. When you see clearly that it is your addiction that is immediately causing your suffering and not the situation in itself and when you see how unnecessary it is to make the demands you have been making, then you are ready to start reprogramming. If you still feel you would rather satisfy your addictions than get rid of them, you are not ready to reprogram. In that case, use the other methods to gain insights. Link the suffering with the addiction, continually looking at the suffering which that addiction creates in your life and seeing how it is just your addictive programming which creates the suffering — not the outside world. Remind yourself that negative, separating emotions never help you to get what you really want; they only work against you.

Step 4. Focus Your Consciousness On Reprogramming

Now tense your body all over to build up tension in your autonomic nervous system and thus add to your readiness to modify your emotional programming. You will find that a position kneeling on the floor with your head down near your knees will facilitate this method. (It does not need to be done in that position, however.) With maximum determination to get rid of the addiction that is causing your suffering, forcefully repeat one or more reprogramming phrases you have selected. Do it over and over and over again. It may help to yell or cry when you repeat these phrases. But it’s your determination and will to be free of the addiction that really accomplishes the reprogramming — not the noise. Clench your fists or beat on the floor as you say the reprogramming phrase. Tighten your arm or leg muscles, or do anything else that feels good to you while you repeatedly hammer your reprogramming phrase into the deepest parts of your biocomputer. If you are yelling during Consciousness Focusing, you can use a pillow or a small plastic waste basket (head size!) with a sponge in it to reduce the noise. The wastebasket both amplifies the sound in your ears and helps you keep your neighbors happier by greatly cutting down on the outside sound.

Keep focusing your reprogramming phrases into your biocomputer by forcefully repeating them over and over again with intense determination to be free. If your biocomputer is ready to let go of the old programming that is causing your suffering, the emotional charge that you experience as you repeat these phrases will become less and less. You will begin to develop a feeling of buoyancy and freedom. Consciousness Focusing feels great when done correctly. Constantly keep in mind that this procedure for Consciousness Focusing is effective to the degree that you have thoroughly linked your suffering with a specific addictive programming that your ego and rational mind have been guarding and defending. Consciousness Focusing works to the degree that you really desire freedom from the addiction. If part of you still really wants the outside world to change in order for you to be happy, your attempts at Consciousness Focusing will be only partially effective. You can’t fool your biocomputer into reprogramming unless you really mean it and want it.

When you experience an addiction, if possible use Consciousness Focusing immediately. It always works best when you use the initial emotional surge that makes you feel afraid, angry, jealous, or resentful. If you are not ready to do Consciousness Focusing, use one of the other methods so that you can gain the insights which will enable you to drop the addiction. If your emotions cool out, it will be more difficult to generate the emotional energy. But using Consciousness Focusing at a later time can still be very effective. It always helps in some degree in chipping away part of our heavier rock-like addictions.

If you get in touch with an addiction when you are in an elevator, or seated in the middle of a big auditorium, it obviously will not be practical for you to immediately crouch down on the floor and engage in vigorous verbal reprogramming. In public situations, you can develop the ability to step up your determination and just silently use the reprogramming phrases you have selected.

The above four steps are basic procedures for Consciousness Focusing. There are, however, a number of background techniques that will help you improve your skill in Consciousness Focusing. The next chapter will discuss the basic attitudes that enable Consciousness Focusing to work most rapidly.

A more detailed description of how to apply the Living Love Methods in your everyday life is contained in Gathering Power Through Insight and Love
by Ken and Penny Keyes. It is available in bookstores or from the Ken Keyes College Bookroom, 790 Commercial Ave., Coos Bay, Oregon 97420 for $6.95 plus $1.25 for shipping and handling. See Appendix 5 for more information.

A Life Saver…

When You are Drowning in Negative, Separating Emotions

Step I: Explore The Suffering.

  1. Take several deep breaths; close your eyes; tune in to your feelings; let yourself really experience them.
  2. Mentally re-create a factual objective picture of the scene you were involved in just before you experienced the most intense emotions. Who is involved? Where is it happening? What is happening? What is being said?
  3. Now put yourself back in that scene and consciously experience the emotions you are generating: a. Tune in to your body. Describe the physical sensations. Describe the feelings. Exactly what emotions are you experiencing? Name them: fear, anger, disappointment, etc. B. Get in touch with your interpretation of the incident. Ask yourself, What words are going through my mind? What am I telling myself that is producing these emotions? get in touch with the basic insecurities that underlie addictive demands, ask yourself: What is it that is bothering me the most? What is the worst thing that could happen?

Step II: Pinpoint The Addiction.

  1. At the time of the incident, how did you want things to be? What programmed attitudes or models did you have of how you should be, of how others should be, of how the drama should have been played?
  2. To find the deeper underlying addictive demands, ask yourself: If things go the way I want and my programmed model is fulfilled, what do I get?If I don’t get what I want and my model of how things should be is not fulfilled, what does it mean about me? How do I feel about myself?
  3. Now pinpoint your principal addictive demand or demands by asking yourself: In this situation, exactly what am I addictively demanding? What do I think I have to have in order to be happy?

Step Ill: Select Your Reprogramming Phrases.

  1. Do you see how this addiction makes you act like a robot that responds automatically?
  2. Do you see how you are making yourself suffer because of this addiction?
  3. Can you see the repeated pattern of suffering that this addiction has created in your life?
  4. Have you had enough suffering? Are you willing to let go of the demand? If not, make sure that the demand which you chose is what is really bothering you in that situation and repeat Step III.
  5. To change the old programming, choose one or two short, pithy reprogramming phrases that counteract specific demands. Thus to counteract the demand for approval, the phrase I don’t need approval would be appropriate. To counteract a demand not to make mistakes, I don’t have to reject myself if I make mistakes would help. They should feel right when said rapidly with intensity.
  6. Prepare to reprogram by replaying the scene and re-experiencing your emotions. Really get in touch with the suffering your addictions have caused you and with your determination to get free. Let your energy build for a drive toward freedom!

Step IV: Focus On Reprogramming.

  1. Close your eyes. Take ten deep, rapid breaths. Tense your muscles. Build up all the emotional energy you can.
  2. Then reprogram with intensity and power. Repeat your reprogramming phrases with gut-level determination until you feel that they have clicked into your biocomputer.
  3. To get helpful insights, read the Twelve Pathways aloud and look at the Centers of Consciousness you are using.
  4. Put yourself back in the same scene — this time with the new programming in operation. Reaffirm the new programming by visualizing yourself responding to the situation with new positive responses and feelings based on your new programming. Reaffirm that you can be free of old programming — free to be how you really want to be in order to enjoy all of your life.
The conscious, loving energies of Norma Lewis and Kris Nevius have made important contributions in developing the above reprogramming guide.
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