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It is March.

How did it get to be March already?

I run my intensive hypnotherapy diploma for 9 days as of this Saturday, so I will not be writing Adam Up next week - however Keith will fill in with what I suppose you could call a 'Keith Up' next Thursday-

You'll hear directly again from me in the second half of March, and before we know it, it'll be April... Blimey, 2014 is speeding by.

This week, Adam Up is not a step by step process or a technique. It is more of a philosophy that I think very rewarding regardless of your take on any kind of personal development. Well, you have had a few months worth of techniques and strategies... about time I was allowed to rant some.

I did some fun things this week. Here in England we have Shrove Tuesday which is the beginning of Lent in religious terms and that is when people should use up the remains of their larder before they fast. Typically, this would be flour, eggs and milk - Pancakes!! Yay. I love eating pancakes. Heck, I am currently in the full swing of marathon training, so I had worked those pancakes off. My children loved making their own too, it was a lot of fun.

It reminded me of the time I celebrated pancake day with friends after I had just left University and was sharing a house; we had pancake day together with lots of friends and I made pancakes with a variety of toppings. I have been to a great deal of pancake celebrations and this is one particular occasion that serves as a very interesting metaphor for what I am going to write about today.

I made a big load of pancake batter - I made it with wholemeal flour so the pancakes were not as they usually are. They were received well and eaten by all. In England one of the traditional ways to eat pancakes is with lemon juice and sugar. We had all kinds of toppings and things laid out - I mean lots and lots of choice.

One of my friends is very English and fanatically kept on saying how wonderful it was to have lemon juice and sugar and everyone agreed and the vast majority of people there ate the pancakes I made, to my recipe, though with the topping sold to them by one of my friends. Interesting. I piled on strawberry jam, natural yoghurt and toasted almonds on to mine and scoffed the lot down. Yummy!

One of my favourite books is entitled "The Fountainhead" by the wonderful author, Ayn Rand.

The lead character has red hair, so I liked him instantly! The real reason I liked the main character is because of his sense of individualism. I am not going to get political this week with Adam Up, I just want you to think about how much you think for yourself because this is important in so many aspects of our own personal development.

How individual do you allow yourself to be?

Thousands of years ago, the first person discovered how to make fire. What a moment that must have been! That person may have been considered an evildoer, or a sorcerer who had dealt with the devil in some way. However, from then on humans had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. There was a gift they had not conceived and had lifted darkness off the earth in many ways.

Centuries later, the first person invented the wheel. Heck, they were probably put on the rack and maybe considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, people could travel past any horizon. The world was left a gift that they had not conceived and had opened the roads of the world.

Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with an individual and that that individual often paid for their courage in some way. They often paid for standing up, standing out and for shining.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received was very often problematic.

The great creators, the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, often stood alone against the people of their time. Most great new thoughts were opposed. Many great new inventions were denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The aeroplane was considered impossible. Anaesthesia was considered sinful. But the people of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

I want to suggest that we can all make a unique contribution to the world and life - in the way we are and the way we allow ourselves to be. We do not have to invent anything other than our own existence with our own vision.

So many people that I work with in my therapy rooms and classrooms are afraid of failure or success. Afraid of what others might think. Afraid to do things differently to their friends. Afraid of doing things that their parents would not have done and subsequently many explain that they have lived a life punctuated with dissatisfaction.

We humans cannot survive except through our minds. Our brain is what we are armed with when we are born. Everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute - the function of our reasoning mind. So why not be in control of our minds and allow them to be free for us to use as we choose? I believe this is so important to find true happiness - whatever that may be for you.

Now the mind is an attribute of the individual. I bet my mind is different to yours and yours is different to everyone else you know. There is no such thing as a collective brain despite what my favourite sci-fi TV shows would suggest. We are each unique. Our mind is unique, isn't it?

Many of us find safety and protection in numbers and I understand that, how about getting naked every now and then though? Please, not literally...

The next time you leave the house, or the office, have a very good look around you. How much of what you see would have existed if someone had not designed and built it? Wherever you are reading this now - look around you - all of that stuff was an idea in someone's mind once. Someone who thought their own thoughts.

We inherit the products of the thoughts of other people, don't we? We inherit the wheel. We make a cart of some kind. The cart becomes a car. The car becomes an aeroplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking.

How much of your creative, critical thinking faculty are you using today?

Generally, we can survive in one of two ways; by the independent work of our own mind or as someone fed by the minds and influences of others. How much of what you are doing today is because you truly chose to do it?

We are often taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. How often have you thought critically this very day and have disagreed? Of course, we do not have to go around arguing for the sake of it, however, have you disagreed with something because you felt differently in your mind?

We are often taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. How many times did you go against the current today? Again, I am not suggesting that you be different just for the sake of it, just that you do what fulfils and inspires you.

We are often taught that it is a virtue to stand together. When was the last time you stood alone? Metaphorically, when was the last time you chose not to have lemon and sugar on your pancakes and had your strawberry jam, natural yoghurt and almonds?

What films have you watched recently? Have you noticed that TV has a very high density of Police or detective based programmes? How do you think that affects our reality? If all those programmes were about something else, how do you think life and the public consciousness would be affected?

Relevant to our former theme in February of creating a wealth mindset reminded me of a book I read a few years ago by Randy Gage called "Why You Are Dumb, Sick and Broke" and he talks about what he considers to be the most poisonous film in history - Titanic. As with so many films, Gage states, this film can subconsciously been seen as programming a 'lack mentality' into peoples minds. The wealthy people are all evil and uncaring and all the fun is to be had by the care-free, happy, poor people in the lower decks. They are perceived as honest and virtuous because they are poor!

Look at the baddies in many of the films - all wealthy. How does this affect the mass idea of what it means to be wealthy and how we respond to wealthy people?

This is the tip of the iceberg - what other areas of our lives are we programmed by in emails, on the internet, on the TV, on the radio in our newspapers? By opinions, thoughts and feelings of other people close to us?

How much are you really thinking for yourself?

I have no specific steps to take this week. We'll get back to strategies and techniques in a couple of weeks when I am back in the office. Until then, I am just going to suggest that you police your own mind and look at what you put into it.

Do you wake up and have the man on the radio programme what you think about from the moment you open your eyes?
Do you choose what you do with your life?
Do you feel capable of satisfying what you want?

How about you take just 10 minutes of each day this week and meditate. Meditate in silence. Meditate and think your own thoughts and really tune in to what they are and who you really are.

Or learn self-hypnosis, go get my book 'Science Of Self-Hypnosis' and learn how to programme your own mind with good material regularly.

Have a great couple of weeks. Spend some time really being an individual and see how you like it.

Would you choose to have jam, yoghurt and flaked almonds upon wholemeal pancakes if that is what you wanted?

Joke Of The Week

A man and a woman were having problems at home and each giving the other the silent treatment. 

Suddenly the man realised that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00am for an early morning business flight. 

Not wanting to be first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00am."  He left it where he knew she would find it. 

The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00AM and he had missed his flight.

Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. 

The paper said, "It is 5:00am. Wake up."

Hahahahaha, I loved that. Thank you to everyone who sends me the jokes each week, they keep a smile on my face. 

If you want to train to be a hypnotherapist, there has never been a better time, we are thriving in this economic climate! 

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The spaces are going at some pace right now though... 

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I'll be back in two weeks, enjoy being your unique self until then ... I thank you for reading...  Goodbye for now.

Bulooo!

Adam.