AlexK’s Blog


How do I know that I am PhotoReading?


May 13

Posted: under Blip page, Mind Stuff, PhotoRead, Photoreading, confusion, photofocus, success.
Tags: ,

People have often asked me how do I know I’m in photofocus? `In the seminar I teach how to see the blip page. That is one of the ways to know you are in photofocus. However most people find it challenging and try too hard to get the blip page. They won’t trust the rest of the system until they get this right.

Hey you don’t need to see blip page. The imaginary X-technique works just as well and if you have vision in only one eye you won’t ever see the blip page. That doesn’t stop you from being a successful PhotoReader. 

flip So how do I know when I’m in photofocus? As I’ve taught in my classes and explained on the forum to me it feels exactly like I’m day dreaming. I’m looking without looking through whatever is in front of  me into space. Looking beyond. PhotoReading to me has always felt the same as daydreaming.

Of course daydreaming has always been associated with switching off. So I think many of my students were reluctant to try this. How can the mind take anything in while one is daydreaming. How do I know it’s being processed? How when daydreaming is switching off, lazy, non-functioning aspect of brain activity?

Well exciting news! What we’ve been taught as a truth has been proven wrong with fMRI. Daydreaming is active activity. It switches on the brains problem solving functions.

“Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."

…The study finds that the brain’s "executive network" – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex – also becomes activated when we daydream.

This is a surprising finding, that these two brain networks are activated in parallel," says Christoff. "Until now, scientists have thought they operated on an either-or basis – when one was activated, the other was thought to be dormant." The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated. 

This for me is the most exciting evidence that we do  gain something from the PhotoReading step. A step that to me always felt like I was switching on daydreaming. Now I know I’m switching on the brains problem solving network.

So if you want to get into photofocus, daydream. Because big stuff is happening while you daydream.

Source: University of British Columbia (2009, May 12). Brain’s Problem-solving Function At Work When We Daydream. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 13, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/05/090511180702.htm

© AlexK Viefhaus

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Is your e-mail inbox getting you down?


Mar 20

Posted: under Personal development, motivation, reading, success.
Tags: , , ,

 170309mush If your e-mail inbox is anything like mine right now it probably is and  more than you know. With the talk of a recession, in most of all Western countries in the medi. Many accuse the news agencies of fear mongering.  The truth is it isn’t that bad. Unemployment at 10% means there is still 90% of the population who are the had employed. I’m not sure of any western country with unemployment at 10% that wasn’t already in dire need of a solution before the "recession". It  hasn’t reached 10% and the US isn’t predicted to reach 10% unemployed until August 2009 (source: http://forecasts.org/unemploy.htm)

True, that is not good news for those who wind up unemployed and maybe, many of those still in employment have to budget more closely. Finding other ways to nurture themselves than with spending excess on waste in our throw away society.

What has this got to do with my inbox?

The inordinate number of fear mongering, e-mails. They  push the mindset that guarantees that those who could never win the lucky door prize fall into the 10%

who will win the unemployment ticket. Come on! 90% of the population will make it. Maybe not with spending excesses is like we’re doing now. Do you really them to pollute your mindset.

So why is suddenly important to start your own home based business because you might lose your job? With that mindset, many people would fail at the new challenge because they are working from fear not love. Thus wasting their time and money on the venture. Whatever happened to be your own boss, take control of your life and do what you enjoy doing? Why must people be coerced by fear to buy?

It’s not only those selling bow to build your own business online. Probably the worst culprits  are those in the self-help industry. Selling courses  and seminars based on fear. What ever happened to the positive aspect of self-help? Doesn’t the industry realise that this kind of salesmanship is keeping the same people they want to help in mediocrity at best? And don’t these industries realise that they too are falling into mediocrity when they use these tactics. They are seeding their customers with a fear mindset. Fear will make them doubt they will succeed even at the material that is supposed to help them. If you’ve been in the industry a while you know a success mindset breeds success and a fear mindset breeds fear.

I’m unsubscribing from many of my formerly favourite accounts. I don’t like being told that I have something to fear. I don’t like being knocked into fear and helplessness, trying to make choices as to which course, seminar or learn to build your own business package  I need to buy. I choose to read, what empowers me and 10 to 50 e-mails a day, affirming that I’m heading toward disaster, don’t serve me.

So if you ask me why I am subscribed. Here is my answer.

The secret of success is to hold the belief that you are successful even before that success shows up. Allowing the mind to be filled with fear leaves no room for success.

© AlexK Viefhaus

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Getting results


Feb 04

Posted: under Personal development, expectation, frustration, learning, success.
Tags: , ,

Are you getting the results you desire with all those self help audios?

Often people use tools like meditation and hypnosis tapes to improve an area of their lives and despite committing their time to listening to the tapes they feel they have a program running that blocks them. Some even feel like they are going backwards when they use self improvement audios. They find themselves gaining weight or even more fearful or anxious than when they started.

One thing I have discovered through the years is that often people say words like confidence, determination, stamina but they don’t really know  what they mean to them. When I ask them what they want they might say, ‘I don’t want to be afraid.’  They are focusing on what they don’t want. And if you do this the meditation, the hypnosis or any audio guide you’re working with will work to keep you where you don’t want to be.

Think about it. The mind works in pictures. Need help?

Not, a polar bear in a pink polka dot bikini wearing a lime green tutu.

Did you laugh? Did you see the polar bear? Did you notice that your mind pictured what came after Not?

What do you picture when you think of not afraid? Since the mind has no meaning for not it draws up an image or memory of being afraid. Then when you listen to a program designed to help you conquer this fear it winds up reinforcing exactly what you fear.

Since the non-conscious mind takes things very literally it works with the image you bring up. This is where you need to put some conscious reasoning to work. Because if you want to change you need a different picture. The opposite of being afraid. Since using the expression not afraid with the first image or idea that pops into the mind is someone who is afraid we know the non-conscious mind is not that great with opposites so we need to think of a word that means the opposite to us. In this example it might be  “brave”. When you think of this word a completely different image comes to mind.

So when using a self help audio and consider what you want. Pay attention to the word “not”. It’s a valuable cue that you need to discover the opposite image.

Another problem area is with the meaning of words. Or rather what the words mean to you in your experience

For example if someone says the word ‘confidence’, do you get an image of yourself weak lacking in confidence because that has been how you’ve experienced yourself in the past? If you keep this image as you listen to a guided self help audio you’re going to be successful in keeping the image you have of yourself. Again you need to change this image. One of the easier ways to do this is to think of someone who exhibits the quality that you desire. Think of that person and then pretend you are that person. Play it out in your minds eye. When you are ready and can say, that’s what I want. That’s how I want to be. Then you have an image of what you can become and then the audio programs or your meditations have a greater chance for rapid success.

Just to be clear. This article isn’t saying that those audio programs won’t work.  However your mind is powerful and by focusing on what you don’t want you will keep it in your life longer. A good program will get you to make that switch to seeing the image of yourself how you do want to be, eventually. You can help yourself and accelerate that process by checking what you are seeing or sensing in your minds eye. If it’s the image of the problem that you want to end.  Clear the picture and paint the image you do want.

© Alex Viefhaus Feb 2009

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Notice Small Changes and Gain Success


May 29

Posted: under Goals, Persistence, Personal development, Photoreading, expectation, frustration, learning, success.

right-moves-thumb181 After their initial success with learning PhotoReading many students fall back into their old reading habits. There are a number of reasons for this. One the reason I’m going to cover right now is learning to accept the results you get.

New PhotoReaders often excited to apply what they learned and then it doesn’t happen. It’s a problems for any newly learned skill or attempt to change not just PhotoReading. Many have left a self-improvement seminar excited to use these brilliant ideas, only to realise two or three weeks later nothing has changed. What is going wrong?

The unrealistic expectation

“Now that I know it I will automatically apply what I know.” Sorry it doesn’t work that way.

Sadly no matter how much time we can save or how much easier the new approach may be, old habits die hard. The old habits are like well worn, familiar tracks, through the jungle of out neural networks. They are the first one we take when we are on automatic pilot.

Change takes a conscious approach and it takes 21 to 30 days to develop a new habit. We need to make a conscious effort and when we notice we missed an opportunity to use our newly acquired skill to acknowledge it. To first become aware that we have choices.

The other thing we can do is schedule specific activities for the next 30-days in our planner that make use of the new skill. The time need only be 15 to 20 minutes. It’s important to remember it takes 30 consecutive days. If you are not one to use a planner Get a calendar and aim to put a cross through each day that you have successfully applied the new skill.

If you want to succeed with PhotoReading look for opportunities to use your skill. Select one book for the week to work with over 6 days at 15 to 20 minutes each day. Play with the steps of the system and see what happens.

Be aware

It’s important to remember when we learn something smallsuccess-thumb341new we often fall short of our expectation. This means the result we got might have been less than what we hoped for. You may have done really well in the PhotoReading seminar and now on your own you fall short of your expectation. If you followed what you learned as best you can you did get a result. And any result that takes you in the direction you want to go is a good result.

New PhotoReaders they are often uber critical of their minor successes and throw the baby out with the bath water.

Why do we do that?

The problem probably stems from our education system where there is a top grade wins awards and accolades and a passing grade which is considered just barely acceptable and in many cases not quite good enough or even poo pooed. Just passing or not passing left us feeling inferior and to avoid that feeling we procrastinate in doing what we know we need to work on.

We develop an ’All or Nothing’ approach and result to developing new skills. It becomes a stop sign, anything to avoid feeling inferior. It leaves us stuck with the old habit even when we know the new skill we learned would serve us better. If we could just develop it some more.

The biggest problem is we never learned to celebrate small improvements. We ignored poor results instead of using them as a guide post to push ahead. We scratch it and start over instead of keeping going until we’ve given it all we have.

That too is the biggest problem for those who are learning PhotoReading on their own. They do one activation and say it doesn’t work instead of using that activation layer and building on it with another and then another. For the beginner to finish a book in 1/3rd the time it takes them to read it in the traditional way you need to do a few activation layers.

Be kind to yourself and learn to celebrate minor successes. If you only managed 10 minutes of your new exercise routine although you planned to do 30. Give yourself credit. Celebrate. It’s 10 minutes more than nothing. And it makes it easier to add more minutes next time.

Ignoring it or berating yourself about it isn’t going to motivate you. Your mind will think what if I only manage 9 minutes next time that’s worse I better not start because I feel bad about myself then. Only because you threw out the results you got as not good enough. Don’t make yourself start over. Build on it and see if you can do a bit more than that next time.

If you find yourself disappointed after applying yourself to do something, Stop! Reconsider. You did something and you got a result. Can you champion yourself to use that as something to build on? Something to get better than rather than starting over?

Celebrate your successes. No matter how small.

© Alex K Viefhaus May 2008

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Is there a secret to activation?


Sep 15

Posted: under Activation, Goals, Purpose, expectation, reading, success.

  actgrasmWhen I first learned PhotoReading I started with the PhotoReading book. The first page suggested following the path of the little Einstein graphics.

It was about halfway working with the little Einsteins that I figured what was going on. Here the author was telling me what I should read and what I can safely skip. It was brilliant I thought. But how do I know where I have to read. Other authors don’t provide those little Einstein’s That’s where the PhotoReading step came in.

Some but not all of a book is immediately relevant. Students often say, ‘ But I need to know it all for my instructor. I won’t pass the exam otherwise.’

No, you don’t need to know it all in one step and you don’t even need to know it all. Authors are repetitive. You only need to know it once. The right example and you’re done. With PhotoReading you’ve got it all in your head anyway.

Secondly you don’t need to know it all in one drop. Learn it in stages. Follow the course outline to discover when you need to look at the book again. That becomes your little Einsteins.

The information builds in layers. Like the little Einstein in the PhotoReading book first comes one pass, then another and then another as necessary to get the information you seek.

But you want to know what the secret to successful activation is?

Stick to it. Stay with it until it gels. You learn what works and doesn’t work with each activation pass. So keep your curiosity high and stick with it.

© Alex K Viefhaus 2005

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