The less you fear, the more power you will have.

Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent)
Musician, entrepreneur, actor, producer

‘It's as though a lifetime of limiting beliefs and negative ideas about myself have just fallen away…’

Donna Churchman had been terrified of public speaking for as long as she could remember. Despite being extremely accomplished (Donna's an award-winning designer), she wasn't able to express herself well in large groups. She felt extreme anxiety and she worried about saying the wrong thing or looking stupid. I wasn't aware of this when I met Donna on the first weekend of my coach training programme. She was quiet through the first day. Then, partway through the morning of the second day, Donna had an earth-shaking insight. When I asked her what had happened, she told me, ‘It's as though a lifetime of limiting beliefs and negative ideas about myself have just fallen away’. She'd had a sudden realization and seen through the illusion of her extreme worry and anxiety.

Worry, anxiety and fear of criticism are ‘optical illusions of the mind’, with no more reality than a daydream or a highway mirage. By the time you've finished this chapter, you're going to start seeing these phantoms for what they are, and further harness your ability to create results.

So what do I mean by ‘optical illusions of the mind’?

The teddy bear factor

Let's take a universal example: the teddy bear. Small children are often given a stuffed toy or security blanket that they take to bed at night. If the child ‘bonds’ with the teddy bear, then (before long) it seems to the child like the bear is a source of peace, comfort and security. But this is a trick of the mind – 100% of the feelings of peace, security and comfort are generated from within the child. It seems like they're coming from the teddy bear, but the bear is neutral. If the teddy gets lost, or left behind when the family goes on holiday, it seems to the child like the absence of the bear is the source of their feelings of worry, anxiety and insecurity. But this too is a trick of the mind. The feelings may seem like they're coming from the lack of the teddy bear, but 100% of them are coming from within the child.

This example is uncontroversial, but how quickly do we change our tune when we substitute the ‘adult teddy bears’ of money, jobs or romantic partners? Of our future hopes, fears or uncertainties? Of our past victories, defeats or indiscretions? How different does it seem when we ponder the ‘teddy bear’ of our physical body, our health or our personality? 100% of your feelings of worry, anxiety and insecurity are generated from within you, even when it seems like they're coming from an ‘adult teddy bear’. The same goes for your feelings of peace, security and comfort. The teddy bear is always neutral.

It appears as though the sun rises, but it's an illusion caused by the rotation of the earth. It seems like our feelings of security come from our income, our relationships or our teddy bears, but it's an illusion caused by our conditioning and perception. Of course, this doesn't just apply to our feelings of security; it also holds true for feelings of insecurity. Remember the trick of the mind from Chapter 2? Now we can expand on it…

The illusion that tricks us into believing our felt experience is being generated from something other than THOUGHT is both compelling and invisible. We all get fooled by it, and we will continue to get fooled by it from time to time. There's no immunity from this trick of the mind. There is, however, an inoculation…

As you continue to deepen your understanding of the principles behind clarity, you'll be tricked less often and wake up more quickly when you do get tricked.

Why feelings of worry or anxiety are not the problem

Everyone sometimes experiences feelings of insecurity, such as worry, anxiety or self-doubt. That's not a problem. Those feelings are giving you feedback on the totality of your THOUGHT-generated experience in the moment, and that's really useful. The problem is that you sometimes believe your feelings are letting you know about something other than THOUGHT. And why is that a problem?

Here's a simple analogy: Cars have a fuel gauge and a speedometer. These are feedback mechanisms, each designed to measure one thing. The fuel gauge gives feedback on the amount of fuel in the car's fuel tank. The speedometer gives feedback on the speed the wheels are turning at. The fuel gauge is an expert on the fuel level and nothing else. The speedometer is an expert on the speed and nothing else. The fuel gauge doesn't know anything about the speed, and the speedometer doesn't know anything about the fuel level.

Each gauge is a mechanism that gives feedback on one thing. If you mistakenly believed that the speedometer was giving you feedback on the fuel level, you would soon be in trouble.

Why feelings are nothing personal

Your feelings are an incredibly precise and accurate gauge or signal. They've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, to help you live, thrive and survive here on earth (remember, you're built for reality). Your body has countless feedback loops and signalling systems to govern things as diverse as body temperature, hydration and pH level. Just as your car's gauges give you precise feedback about fuel level and speed respectively, your internal ‘gauges’ each give you feedback on one thing:

Your feelings are a feedback mechanism, designed to measure one thing.
Your feelings give you feedback on the principle of THOUGHT taking form in the moment.
Your feelings are a reflection of THOUGHT in the moment and nothing else.

Feelings are impersonal. Our feelings don't know anything about our past, our future, our circumstances, other people or what we're like. Our feelings are a mechanism that give feedback on one thing: the totality of our THOUGHT-generated perceptual reality in this moment. When we mistakenly believe our feelings are letting us know about something other than that, we've slipped into La-la Land.

We sometimes believe we're in La-la Land

‘La-la Land’ is a nickname for a world that people believe in, but that doesn't actually exist. Here are some examples of historical or fictional La-la Lands people have believed in:

When we believe in a La-la Land, we're believing the world works in a way that is not based in reality. We've slipped into misunderstanding and contaminated thinking. And here's the thing:

You're not built for a non-existent La-la Land…
You're built for reality.

The fact that you understand the reality of germs means you wash your hands regularly, cover your mouth when you cough and observe the three-second-rule if you drop a sandwich on the floor. These behaviours are grounded in a better understanding of reality than people who lived 200 years ago had. As a result of having a better understanding of how life already works, you get to prosper, thrive and be healthy. You're not caught up in the superstitions about illness and disease that contaminated the perceptions of people who lived 200 years ago. Your understanding is aligned more closely with the reality you're built for.

When you're ‘hanging out in reality’, you do very well. You get intuitions about what to do, about when to rest and when to take action. Your innate capacities are fully available to you when you're hanging out in reality, living in the present moment. You have a natural capacity to connect with other people. You have a natural capacity for insight and realization. You have a natural capacity to take action on things that matter to you. All of that and more is available to you when you're hanging out in reality. But it's a little harder to come by when you're hanging out in La-la Land. The moment a person believes that they're feeling something other than THOUGHT in the moment, they've stepped into an illusory non-reality; a world that doesn't exist.

Our instincts, our intuitions, our natural capacities… they just don't work quite as well when we believe we're hanging out in a world that doesn't actually exist. It's tough to get results there! In fact, when we believe we're hanging out in an outside-in La-la Land, our natural capacities get utilized to wake us up to reality. But here's the best bit. You already live in reality and you always have done. The outside-in non-reality is a dream, an illusion, a fantasy world. The only place La-la Land exists is in our heads. In reality, all is well, and you have everything you need to respond powerfully in the moment.

Once again:

Feelings are giving you essential feedback about THOUGHT in the moment; the glasses you're wearing…
That's not a problem. The problem is that we sometimes believe our feelings are letting us know about something other than the glasses we're wearing…

So let's dispense with these illusions, one by one…

When we slip into the La-la Land of the outside-in misunderstanding, we go into ‘victim’ mode. Our thinking accelerates and multiplies as we mistakenly attribute our feelings to external factors. But the moment we wake up to the fact of where our experience is coming from, our heads start to clear, and we fall back into the reality of the now.

Speak to 100 people like you're speaking to one person

On the day of her realization, Donna stood up and talked to the 40-person coach training group about what she'd seen. A few weeks later, she told her story in front of a Meetup group of 70 people. A few months after that, she gave an online masterclass called ‘Speak to 100 people like you’re speaking to one person'. These experiences awakened a passion in Donna to support her peers in the creative industry, and she now works helping creative professionals understand the principles behind clarity. In March 2015, Donna and her fellow CLARITY^® Coach Ian Webster flew to Berlin and gave a presentation about these principles to 350 of the world's leading creatives at the ProMaxBDA Conference. It took courage, but Donna was surprised to discover how easy and enjoyable she found it once she realized she could express herself, free from worry, anxiety and fear.

As you see through the illusion of worry, anxiety and self-doubt, you open a space to create results.

So what fills the space left by these optical illusions of the mind?