Nine Really (Really) Important Principles
Author: Bill Harris

I've just returned from our latest Centerpointe Retreat. These retreats are
always an incredible experience for everyone. Somehow, we've created a space
where people become very intimate and very trusting in just a few days. People
generally feel so safe, their deepest fears, problems, concerns, and traumas come
out and in return they are supported, nurtured, and loved as they work through
healing as much of it as they're ready to heal. (Of course revealing anything
about oneself is entirely voluntary at these retreats; people do so because they
feel totally safe and because they can see that the staff is incredibly skilled
at helping them to create positive change.)

Providing this experience for the people at the retreats is very satisfying for
all of us on the staff. We're quite frankly amazed each time when we see what
happens for people, even though we intentionally created the space where it could
happen.

When I returned, I decided I wanted to improve our ability to create the same
kinds of changes through our Telephone Hotline staff. These people are incredibly
skilled and do a superb job with callers, but I realized we could do even better.
But what, I wondered, were the retreat participants getting that the callers were
less likely to get? I could think of a number of things (some of which we just
cannot give over the phone), but one that stood out was the information we give
at the retreat. By the end of the retreat, I have taught people a series of
principles I believe can really change a person's life, if adopted and mastered.
While we discuss these principles with callers, I realized we haven't done it in
a very organized way, so I decided to try to put them down on paper as a way of
codifying them so we can zero in on them in our Hotline calls.

Every presenting problem we deal with, I believe, can be traced back to a
"violation" (if you want to call it that) of one or more of these principles. If
someone is following all of these principles (and I reserve the right to add more
as I think of them), life goes along pretty nicely, with a lot of happiness, a
lot of inner peace, and a lot of personal power. Some of them overlap each other,
but that's okay. They are different facets of the same diamond. I hope they are
helpful to you. Some take time to "get" but I hope you'll try them on and see how
they fit.

So here are my "Nine Principles for Happiness and Healing":

1. The Principle of "Letting Whatever Happens Be Okay"

The amount a person suffers in their life is directly related to how much they
are resisting the fact that "things are the way they are." If there is suffering
or discomfort, there is resistance. Addictions or attachments to things being
different than they are need to be upgraded to preferences, so when "what is" is
not what you want it to be, you do not suffer over it and your happiness and
peace are therefore not controlled by forces outside of your control.

To the degree a person is willing and able to let whatever happens be okay, they
do not suffer. People with many rules about how things are suppose to be suffer
more because no matter how much care they take to protect their rules and see
that they and the world follow their rules, these rules are often going to be
violated. This does not mean a person cannot be goal oriented and work toward
making things they way they want; however, the emotionally healthy person prefers
the outcomes they seek rather than being addicted to them.

The key, then, to handling challenging situations, thoughts, and feelings is not
in resisting them, but rather becoming as fully accepting of them as possible.
Accept what happens to you and what you think and feel, even if it is
uncomfortable. Though it looks as if the discomfort is created by the thing we
are resisting, in actual fact the discomfort we feel is 98-99% from our
resistance to it and only 1-2% from the thing itself.

When we stop resisting, the discomfort stops also. Through acceptance, you
empower yourself to heal, transform, or release any unresolved mental or
emotional material. When you sense resistance, meet it with acceptance.
Ironically, once you stop resisting, you are much more effective in creating any
external change you may have a preference for (not an attachment to).

2. The Principle of Threshold

Every person has a personal threshold for what they can handle coming at them
from their environment, based on their personal map of reality. When a person's
map (their concept of who they are and how they relate to the rest of the
universe) cannot handle its environment, stress is created and the person begins
to deal with that stress by exhibiting various coping mechanisms learned during
childhood. These include anger, depression, anxiety, fear (and greater and lesser
degrees of these), substance abuse, overeating, plus a number of other coping
mechanisms considered more "healthy", such as exercising, talking with friends or
counsellors, isolation, and thousands of others.

All dysfunctional feelings and behaviors are really coping mechanisms designed to
deal with the stress of being pushed past this threshold, and therefore the
"cure" for dysfunctional feelings and behaviors is to raise that threshold, which
is what Holosync® does. Dysfunctional feelings and behaviors are not caused by
the environment or other people regardless of how it seems. People with a high
threshold for what they can handle coming at them from the world remain happy,
peaceful, and centered even when they are around difficult people or in difficult
situations.

When people suffer trauma in their childhood, this threshold does not mature in
the same way it would have had the trauma not happened. These people have a lower
threshold than "normal" people who did not experience any trauma, or who did not
have as much. This means interaction with their environment pushes them past
their threshold (which is lower) much more easily, and they are caught in
dysfunctional feelings and behaviors more often.

It is the raising of this threshold as a result of using the Centerpointe program
that causes dysfunctional feelings and behaviors to gradually disappear, because
the threshold eventually becomes so high very little can cause a person to be
pushed beyond the point where these feelings and behaviors are triggered.

3. The Principle of Chaos & Reorganization

Chaos always precedes growth. Therefore it is a GOOD thing.

The coping mechanisms mentioned above (dysfunctional feelings and behaviors) are
really an attempt to keep one's internal map of reality (which is really what is
being stressed when one's personal threshold is exceeded) from falling apart,
i.e., from going through the natural process that happens when our map of reality
cannot handle its environment.

This natural process, based on Nobel Prize-winning research, involves the map
going into temporary chaos in response to too much input, finally falling apart
when the chaos becomes so much the old map cannot hold itself together, and then
almost simultaneously reforming itself at a higher level that CAN handle the
environment that was previously too much for it. This reorganization is a natural
process, and always results in a new system/map that can handle what the old
system/map could not handle. It is helpful in this process to recognize when you
are in the initial chaos state, and to remind yourself that this is the prelude
to positive change -- if you know how to get out of the way and let it happen.

4. The "Map is NOT the Territory" Principle

There is a tendency to try to protect the old map (which is really a person's
concept of who they are and how they relate to the rest of the universe) when you
go into this initial chaos stage of growth. This attempt to hold the old map
together comes from the mistaken idea that this map is who we are - that "the map
is the territory" - rather than a convenient tool used to navigate through life.

This map is often called the ego by western psychology and is your concept of who
you are and what your relationship is to the rest of the universe. It is the
limitations of this map (its inability to adequately "map the territory" or
otherwise deal with the situation one is in - whether psychological, emotional,
relational, mental, or spiritual) that creates the "over-threshold" experience
and the resulting dysfunctional feelings and behaviors (i.e., suffering).

Therefore, letting the map go through the evolutionary process of going into
chaos temporarily and reorganizing at a higher level results in relieving the
problems and limitations of the old map and a new ability to deal with what was
previously stressful or overwhelming. It is very helpful to learn and recognize
your favorite methods of trying to save the old map, which again is based on the
mistaken idea that when the old map falls apart, you are falling apart, rather
than just getting a new and better map.

5. The Principle of Responsibility as Empowerment

You are responsible for every feeling or behavior you have, in the sense that it
is either your chosen response to something that happens, or an automatic
unconscious response based on the way your internal map of reality has been
structured.

This is very different from saying you are to blame for every feeling or behavior
you have. Taking personal responsibility is not about blame but rather about
personal power. If someone or something outside of you is the cause of how you
feel or behave, you are relatively powerless - a victim. If you, or at least your
unconscious processes are at cause, you have power and can do something to change
the situation to one that is happier and more peaceful. Things outside of you may
be a stimulus for you, but how you respond comes from you, either consciously or
unconsciously.

6. The Principle of Conscious Change

It is impossible to consciously do something that isn't good for you or is in
some way non-resourceful (destructive) to you. You can do something destructive
to yourself (feelings, beliefs, values, behaviors, etc.) over and over as long as
you do it unconsciously (without continuous conscious awareness), but once you
begin to do the non-resourceful feeling, behavior, belief, value, etc.
consciously, it will begin to fall away.

The trick is remaining conscious, and we have many ways of going unconscious so
as not to deal with what we are feeling or how we are behaving: eating, drugs and
alcohol, projection and blaming, spacing out, and countless other distractions.
To become conscious, it is necessary to identify our favorite ways of going
unconscious, be vigilant in noticing them, and be committed to gradually facing
ourselves by stepping outside ourselves and watching what we are doing, feeling,
etc. instead of allowing ourselves to be unconscious, automatic response
mechanisms. Use of Holosync® over time creates and increases the ability to
remain conscious and deal with things consciously. When this happens, many
non-resourceful feelings, behaviors, and approaches to life fall away and are
replaced by healthier approaches that bring happiness and peace to one's life.

7. The Principle of Witnessing

When faced with a feeling that is uncomfortable (and is therefore the result,
either consciously or unconsciously of not letting "what is" be okay), the best
course of action is to mentally step aside and, with great curiosity, watch
yourself have the feeling or behavior, perhaps saying to yourself: "There I am,
doing ___" or "There I am feeling ____". This stepping aside to watch helps make
you conscious of what is happening and, because it takes part of you out of the
feeling or behavior, makes it difficult to continue the suffering. This needs to
be done, however, without attachment to the outcome. In other words, you are
doing it to objectively and curiously watch what is happening, not to change
anything. The ability to step aside and watch yourself as you feel and act is an
acquired skill and takes time and practice to develop, but it will totally change
your life. Using Holosync® naturally develops your ability to do this.

8. The Principle of "Good & Bad" Generalizations

Based on our early life interactions with our primary caregivers, we all develop
generalization about who we are and what our relationship is to the rest of the
world. These generalizations (part of our "map" of reality) divide different
aspects of us and the qualities we may have into two categories, those that we
think are "good", or acceptable, and those we think are "bad" or unacceptable. To
keep from experiencing the shame or other uncomfortable feelings regarding the
"bad" things, we either 1) repress them into our unconscious mind to keep them
out of conscious awareness, or 2) project them onto others (this results in
extreme emotional reactions to others who exhibit the characteristics we believe
are "bad" or unacceptable about us). In many ways, emotional healing involves
"unlearning" these old generalizations and making new, healthier ones. In
reality, there is nothing about any of us that is innately bad. Holosync®
facilitates this healing.

These generalizations, especially while we are still relatively unconscious, seem
so real and true the idea that they are not true may seem ridiculous. Any
generalization about yourself that is painful to you, however, is probably not
true.

9. The Principle of the Neutral Universe

Everything in the universe is neutral. The old saying "Nothing is good or bad but
thinking makes it so" is true. We interpret everything we come in contact with as
being either good or bad (or somewhere on the spectrum in between these two), or
in some other way give it meaning. This good/bad interpretation, or assigning of
meaning, becomes part of our map of reality. Then, we tend to "forget" that
nothing has any intrinsic meaning and that we assigned these qualities and
meanings to the people and things in our lives (or they were assigned for us when
we were too little to know any better).

This is why different people find different things to be good or bad, and can
assign completely different meanings to the same thing. It is the ultimate reason
why you have the ability, once you learn to exercise it, to create whatever kind
of world you want just by assigning meaning to things in your life in whatever
way you like. Make everything good, and the world is good; make everything bad,
and the world is bad. In most cases, the way we assign good and bad and other
meanings to the things in our life is not something we chose, but rather
something chosen for us by our primary caregivers and other cultural influences.
We can, however, realize that these assignments of meaning are arbitrary, and
that we can reassign them in any way we want.

A wise man once said "It's okay to play Hamlet, but don't fall into the trap of
thinking you are Hamlet." If you think you are Hamlet, your life is a tragedy,
because everyone dies by the end of the play. If you know you are just playing,
you can have fun with it. Similarly, if you know everything is innately neutral
and that you have assigned all the meaning (including good/bad) to everything in
life, you are playing, and you can therefore be the creator of your own
experience; if, however, you forget and think things are innately good and bad -
or have certain innate meanings taught by you when you were too small to question
them - you become a victim, you are not the creator of your life, and you will
create suffering. Again, Holosync® gradually creates the awareness that allows a
person to step back from thinking that meaning is innate rather than created by
you.

This is NOT a way to say that a person has no obligation to act responsibly or
honestly or that anything you do is okay because "there's no right or wrong."
Behaving toward others as you would want them to behave toward you is always the
best policy. What you put out toward others does come back to you.

I hope these principles will be helpful to you. When you are in distress, check
to see if you are violating any of these principles or if viewing the situation
through the filter of these principles creates a shift for you.

As always, we are here to help you grow. Let us know how we can help.

Be well.

Bill Harris, Director

***

Glowing Testimonial of the Month

Hello! I just received and read Letter #4. Thank you for another great,
informative and supportive letter.

I want to say that I have never had such amazing results from any other program.
Over the years, I have tried many things, having been a seeker since a very young
age. I have experienced some emotional upheaval, some physical discomfort (not
much) and much deep thought. A subtle shift is taking place in me. I no longer
use food, reading and television to escape from problems or responsibilities. I
have set up an exercise program and I am sticking to it. You don't know how big
this is. I am sticking to it with pleasure. Go figure!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

**

I wanted to send you the summary for my first month, but am just now getting
around to the task. Next week will be two months already. My how time flies
when you are having fun.

And...I am having fun. Right from the start I was impressed with the depth of
the meditation and the sense of centeredness I felt during the meditation. After
the first couple of weeks I noticed that I felt like I had more bottom. (NO, I
don't mean that my behind got bigger, God forbid.) I mean that I feel as if I am
standing on a broader platform from which to "do" my life.

What's interesting to me, is that I felt this in a very profound, but subtle way
as an inner expansion and never dreamed that it was anything that anyone but me
would notice. One night at art class, our instructor, who is a friend of mine,
said she felt I was a completely different person from the woman who had started
the class several weeks earlier. Who knew?

When I asked her to elaborate, she said she could only explain it in terms of how
she felt in my presence. She said she felt more confident and resourceful and
she felt it was a reflection of me. Pretty heady stuff..!!! I was impressed!

In addition to that, I am amazed at how attached I am to doing the meditation
EVERY day. Especially, since I have to get up at 5am to do it. I have never been
able, in the past, to get myself up at that hour to do anything else, no matter
how much I wanted to. Not only do I get up at 5am to meditate, but I am
exercising for an hour from 6-7 and so am starting every day with two Hours of
Power as (as Tony Robbins would say). Believe me this is a righteous way to
start the day. By the time I get to work I am feeling invincible.

I have noticed some fluctuations in my moods. I had a couple of crappy days, but
in light of the positive benefits already realized, I cannot complain. I have
lots of tools for dealing with that from 20 years on the personal growth trail.

It is my intention to run my brain in ways that foster more love, joy, passion,
compassion, health, and prosperity. Holosync is certainly helping me to do that
in a BIG way.

I have already ordered the next level and had a fabulous time writing out my
affirmations. I can hardly wait to get them recorded. Thanks immensely for
realizing your purpose on earth in this work, so that I can better realize mine.

In great joy and appreciation.

Glen M.


***

Book Review

How to Know God The Soul's Journey Into the Mystery of Mysteries By Deepak Chopra
Review by Scott Spencer-Wolff

To learn more about or purchase this book, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609805231/wwwcenterpoincom

I'll admit it. I'm overwhelmed. Just the thought of writing about "Knowing God"
reminds me of trying to review Ken Wilber's "A Brief History of Everything." Too
much. Compound that with some intensive discussions I have had in the past few
days about knowing God, and an overly fertile ground of being in myself (the
usual byproduct of a Centerpointe retreat) and I'm "verklempt".

This morning I received an e-mail from a program participant in the UK, a person
who is very special to me, asking for help. After reading the e-mail I tried to
call my friend but he wasn't home. For a few minutes I rested in God with him
(I'm not sure how to exactly describe that, but it sounds like what I did). I
just wanted to be with him, and the best vehicle or method I could come up with
for doing that was to return to the God space both of us share. That is knowing
God.

A long time ago when I was interviewing for some job with the Church, someone
asked me if I believed in God. I thought about the question for a moment (perhaps
the first time I had thought about it) and responded, "No."

I didn't stop there (fortunately) but went on to say that while I didn't
"believe" in God, I experienced the reality of God throughout every day in of my
life. God, to me, was not someone or something to be believed or not believed,
but someone or something to be experienced as a reality. An organizational
reality. I understood that clearly.

"Belief is a non-experiential way of knowing," Werner Erhardt said in EST, and I
definitely got that.

So, I was very comfortable with Deepak Chopra's presentation of God not as a
person or a thing, but rather as a process -- a process anyone can engage in
regardless of "faith, religious teaching, innate goodness, luck or some other
mysterious factor. " Dr. Chopra explains: "Our brains are hardwired to find God."
This hardwiring is deftly explored as Chopra lists the seven ways humans know God
and how they correspond to the anatomy of our human brains. He devotes a chapter
to each of the seven visions of God: "Protector," "Almighty," "God of Peace,"
"Redeemer," "Creator," "God of Miracles," and "Pure Being--I am." In every
chapter he asks and answers the same questions for the readers: "Who am I?" "How
do I fit in?" "How do I find God?" His answers provide a great deal of potential
for reflection. I found myself reading this book slowly and prayerfully to be
able to not just think about what he had to say, but to move towards an
experience of what he was saying

People ask all the time if Centerpointe is a religious organization. It is not --
we do not espouse any particular religious perception or ideology. This does not
mean that we do not have our personal views and preferences, but we recognize the
very diverse traditions our many participants are drawn from, and (again) come
from the place that what a person believes about God or religion is les important
than what they experience of God or religion.

That said, I am beholden to go on to say that one cannot establish a serious
meditation practice for any length of time without being forced to ask some
questions about the nature of one's being, the reason for one's existence, and
the big scheme of everything. It simply isn't possible.

As we meditate we more towards this quiet space, and in that quiet space we find
ourselves more awed, more in touch than perhaps ever before with a transcendent
reality. How that transcendent reality looks varies widely from person to person.
How the transcendent reality is experienced will depend on your personal filters.
If you want to learn more about those personal filters so that you can begin to
develop a real awareness or consciousness of what they are and how they effect
your experience of the Divine, this book is a wonderful first step.

One of my few regrets with this book was that I read it through, and now it's
time to write about it. I know I need to spend another couple of weeks with it to
really get all that Chopra has to offer -- and he has a great deal to offer.

This is a book for people who flunked out of Sunday school. Do you want to think
outside of the box about the infinite? Who is God? Are you God? Can you
experience God directly?

This is also a book for people who have found deeply enriching lives within the
context of a spiritual community (and got "A's" in Sunday School) and who want or
intuit that there is something more than what is so casually preached and taught
every Sunday. For people who have begun to experience the love and compassion
available by moving beyond themselves, this book offers powerful models of
insight and awareness.

Regardless of what religious point of view you prefer, How To Know God is really
about getting to know ourselves. God is the mirror in which we reveal ourselves
to ourselves. Deepak Chopra shows that we cannot have an angry righteous God
without being governed inwardly and unconsciously by fear. Likewise if we have a
loving God we ourselves have a visionary sense of our own infinite potential.
These are important insights and prove to be one of the most powerful tools Dr.
Chopra uses throughout the book. Knowing God is knowing the self. Knowing the
Self allows us to be in love with the entire dance we call life.


To learn more about or purchase this book, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609805231/wwwcenterpoincom






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Harris has been involved in personal development for over twenty-five years as a seeker, teacher, public speaker, author, musician, composer, therapist, workshop leader, and business owner. A student of ancient and modern research into the nature of the mind, he has studied and practiced a variety of traditional and modern transformational techniques and approaches with a variety of teachers.

A graduate of Portland State University, Bill also has done three years of graduate study in music, studying with world-renowned Czech composer Tomas Svoboda and also with Spanish composer Salvador Brotons. He is a Certified Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming and is also trained in Ericksonian Hypnosis. He is a long time student of contemporary psychology, quantum mechanical physics, the evolution of non-linear systems (chaos theory) and the effects of a wide range of neurotechnologies on human change, evolution and healing. He has participated in a wide range of ancient as well as contemporary methods of personal development and growth. He is known for his ability to explain difficult subjects in a way that makes them easy to understand.

Bill is a private pilot and CEO of Mercury Aviation, LLC. He had played saxophone, flute, clarinet and piano professionally for over 30 years. He has two children: Brisa, born in 1984, and Evan, born in 1993.

Bill is frequently invited to present at scientific forums and conferences across the U.S., and over the years has taught a wide range of workshops and seminars. He currently is president and Director of Centerpointe Research Institute. In the past he has conducted his own private therapy practice utilizing cognitive therapies and Neuro Linguistic Programming.

After five years of personal experimentation and study, Bill started Centerpointe Research Institute in 1989 with borrowed recording equipment set up on his kitchen table. Since then, Centerpointe has grown to include many thousands of participants in nearly 60 countries on six continents. In his role as Director of Centerpointe Research Institute, Bill is the creator of The Holosync SolutionTM (formerly, The End® Personal Growth Through Technology) program. This on-going personal development program utilizes the Holosync® sound technology, embedded beneath soothing music and environmental sounds on cassette tape, to induce deep states of meditation and to cause the human nervous system to reorganize at higher levels of functioning.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------