Introduction

It's amazing. I was able to get through my whole educational experience without having taken a physics course. In my naïveté at that time, I just thought that physics was something to be feared. Physics was for smart, scientific people, not for average folks. Imagine, four years of college, a master's, and a doctorate without one physics course. After finishing my last degree, I went to work. One night I was browsing through an adult education brochure and saw a description of a course called "Quantum Physics and the Face of God." I just knew that I had to take it. I dragged two of my colleagues along, and from that day forward, my life has never been the same. Although part of the course dealt with mathematical formulas, most of it dealt with the relationship of physics to awareness. I was surprised that there was a connection between physics and psychology. It was as if a vast door unlocked, making a primal connection for me. I was hooked.

Furthermore, I had no idea that I was engaging in transformational possibilities. I didn't even know what transformational possibilities meant. I was a psychologist and was interested in helping people. I never before understood that there was another whole level, or more, of awareness that up until now had been unavailable to me.

The relationship between physics and awareness became my focus. It allowed me to shift my view of reality. We are taught certain things in our culture about what exists and what does not. Our thoughts are regarded as truth in our society. It never dawned on me to question the validity of my thoughts and my thought process as a whole. Today I can chuckle and grin at the bumper sticker that reads YOU DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK. However, before I could detach from my own thoughts, I spent most of my time doing just that believing and listening to the racket of thoughts that would control my attention at all times of the day. For instance, I spent energy when out with other people, constantly comparing myself to them and finding myself inferior. Be it at work, at a party, or just in a public setting, much of my energy and focus was on my nagging insecurities or on what others might have (looks, money, talent, and so forth) that I did not. I gave time and energy to my thoughts that created these insecurities. When I looked in the mirror, I always saw the things that were wrong with me. I had a habit of creating scenarios in my head of what I should have done to look prettier or say something smarter. By doing this, I was living in the past with guilt, and I focused on others, feeling angry. While using my energy on these thoughts, which were far from productive, I believed what I then took to be fact: I would never find a meaningful relationship or great job. And by spending my time on these thoughts, I was fulfilling my own prophecy.

It never occurred to me that there were alternative ways to understand my relationship to others and myself. Teachers, friends, or other sage folk may have tried to show me this, but they made little progress because I trusted my thoughts. Along with the high value we place on thoughts, there is also a devaluation of feelings.

By going along with society's general negation of feelings, I tried to fit in, but I never felt at ease. There was a constant battle within me between what I was told was right and appropriate, and what I felt. I couldn't speak of these conflicting experiences, because I didn't have the words or concepts yet to do this, but I did know that I did not feel clear, focused, and at peace. As a matter of fact, I felt dis-ease, and this continued throughout my life until I bumped directly into the interrelationship between psychology and physics.

Now, with my new discoveries, I began to understand the uneasiness I had felt all my life. I began to see beyond my own limited perspective. There was a dimly lit recognition that I had touched upon something magical, something unknown, a virtual gateway to possibilities. I became aware that when we experience life directly in the present moment and ignore thoughts, we open to a whole new way of being. My gut feeling of what life is all about was affirmed. The shoulds, the what ifs, and the thoughts about the need to be perfect, lovable, attractive, and smart were just that only thoughts. These are the thoughts that compare, judge, and negate. I have discovered that thoughts by themselves are different from the actual experience of living. Instead of clarifying and being helpful in practical ways, I realized that thoughts, being at least one step away from the direct experience of the present moment, can also distort, confuse, and mislead. I became aware that the fleeting glimpses of clarity, focus, ease, and gratitude I felt when experiencing life directly in the Here-Now could be expanded so that I could spend more of my life appreciating it rather than judging, comparing, negating, worrying, being angry, or feeling guilty for who I am.

These discoveries were so new and so thrilling that I felt both excitement and apprehension. Through reading, I began to explore more about this gateway of using the hard sciences, such as physics, to explore awareness. Reading from a lay perspective in physics and having, through years of schooling, a highly intellectual perspective in psychology, I felt a unique awareness of how these two disciplines can be interwoven. This awareness has led, over time, to the development of a working empirical model, which relies on the interconnectedness of the two disciplines to make practical, everyday use of both of them. Self-Powerment is about this Model.

The Model that is being presented in this book combines elements from the disciplines of psychology and physics. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this Model and because new material is being presented, common terms such as thought, feeling, time, and space, among other concepts, are redefined and used in novel ways to convey the new understandings, the new awarenesses. Language always has had to adjust to accommodate our growing consciousness and changing worldview. In this book, you encounter new terms, such as wobble, piggyback, feeling-thought, Here-Now, and Self-Powerment. I define these in the new context in which I am using them. For your reference, there is a glossary at the back of the book, as well. It is best to refer to the glossary to review definitions only after you have encountered them in the text and not before.

These new words and definitions might feel a bit unusual and alien until you become familiar with them. Try to remain open to the way they are being used in the Model. When new material is presented, we have a habit of going into judgment, comparison, and negation to avoid experiencing it. Often, we try to guard and protect our current perception of the way we believe things are. It is fundamental to remember: as long as we are judging, we cannot fully experience changes in awareness. Because of this, I request that for the duration of your reading of Self-Powerment, you suspend any impulse you might have to compare this Model to other workshops you have attended or material that you have read, and refrain from premature conclusions. A good way to do this is to recognize, identify, and avoid what I call "killer thoughts," which are thoughts about all the ways the Model can't work. New ideas need to live long enough to have a chance to prove their validity and worth. It is helpful to see these killer thoughts as conditioned patterns that keep you from the present moment. Watch your thought process in action. Negative thoughts, such as "This won't work for me," "I've already tried this," or "It can't be that simple," are killer thoughts. These always have a negative message that ultimately does not allow us to see clearly. Watch for these and become an aware observer of your thoughts. As I have said, see them for what they are just thoughts. You exist apart from them.

As Eckhart Tolle said in The Power of Now, "The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind." This is a valuable instruction, and the Self-Powerment Model provides a practical step-by-step way in which to do this in our daily lives.

When you read, don't hurry to the conclusion. When a new term is being used or an important concept is being explained, it is a good idea to pause and let yourself experience it. In this book, I share with you things you already know but that have been covered up by learned ways of thinking. When you experience a moment directly, you are returning to information that has always been within you but has been put into such artificial categories that it is no longer accessible. For example, many children are placed in the category of "slow learners." Yet these children are gifted in so many ways. As soon as we have separated them into a category, we are unlikely to see them in their true capacity, in their fullness. This Model provides a way to bypass these artificial categories and return to direct experience in the Here-Now.

Many people have written about the benefits of living in the Here-Now; in this book, I provide a practical, simple way to do this.