What are some insights and "Aha!" moments that came to you as you read the PDSP book?

[seeker5]

I had a number of clear realizations as I've been reading the books. I'm very curious to read about other people's instant insights and "aha!" moments.

Here are some of mine:

1) About how our relationships to others - even among friends and acquaintances is really a reflection of our relationship to ourselves! This doesn't just apply to the relationship with a loved one, but with everyone. Lots of people had told me I had to love myself first, but I never understood what that meant. But now I feel a much better understanding of it. I'm happy so far with the preliminary results so far in what I've experience in the past two days despite the fact I'm still not done with the chapter on love.

2) I understand now both the strength and the weakness of Tony Robbin's approach better. I had studied his material for a few years a number of years ago and I gave it up after my life wasn't improving and I had gotten stuck. So in an instant, I applied the power-love-truth principles and applying them to Tony Robbin's teaching, here is what I found. His teaching is most strong in Power - in teaching people to take personal actions toward an objective. His teaching is also moderately about increasing Love - in teaching people to go for what they love within their heart and in connecting with others. However, his teaching get people to lower their Truth about themselves. For example, when you feel down, you're to "lie" to yourself about feeling better. It's about pumping yourself and giving yourself false confidence. Thus, it can be very hard to be honest to yourself about what's going on within yourself when you follow his teaching. Perhaps other people experienced a different facet from his teaching, however from my perspective Tony Robbins' teaching seems to be ++Power, +Love, -Truth.

What insights have you had while reading PDSP that you'd like to share?

[Dan.Linehan]

The love connection exercise, where you meditate on sending love to something inanimate, like a pencil.

That really made me realize that love energy is always there. It's always available for use. I just need to decide to tune into it.

[bradgatewood]

There are so many of these moments it is hard to pick just a few. The book is really insightful and makes you take a hard look at yourself. There were so many times while reading this book that a question was asked to clarify a point that just made me put it down and go think for a awhile. I still have a lot of questions to answer and my head is spinning right now.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by bradgatewood

There are so many of these moments it is hard to pick just a few. The book is really insightful and makes you take a hard look at yourself. There were so many times while reading this book that a question was asked to clarify a point that just made me put it down and go think for a awhile. I still have a lot of questions to answer and my head is spinning right now.

Heh, that's true. I love the really deep questions he asks in the book.

[MissK]

I'm not sure where i got this habit but i read everything once right through VERY quickly and if its good i read it again. I finished Steve's book in one night. I am on my second read and can not get passed the first paragraph of page 6. It is so good!!!

The epiphany I'm stuck on, mulling on, rolling over at the moment is the prediction part of truth- yes you know you have limiting beliefs to an extent but my goodness!! I have been watching my mind all day to see what its been up to predicting- and theres so much garbage rolling around in there that makes zero sense. I don't even believe half of the predictions i've made but i've been habitually responding as though i do. I have made so many conscious updates in the last 3 hours...mmm this book tastes so good to my spiritual palate, i feel a quantum leap coming on...

I will definitely keep coming back to post more. The organization of the book is spot on!! I feel in the past year that i've been consciously pursuing development, i've picked up so many wonderful bits and pieces and this book is really helping me pull it all together.

[Daniel Becerra]

"To love is to say 'We Are The Same'"

"The world is well served when those who are aligned with truth and love gain this third element (Power). If you can be such a person, then I encourage you to consciously develop your power, since that decision benefits us all"

(I'm going to change the world! )

[BlueCrane]

I loved chapter 10 about money - I had never really made the distinction between personal value and social value ... that was an Aha! moment for me.

Chapter 4 about oneness sticks out for me as well - I feel that I got a lot closer to intuitively getting into that state, as opposed to understanding it intellectually. The description about Oneness World on page 79 especially moved me.

I am so happy thumbing through the physical book right now! And what synchronicity that the pre-ordered hard copy arrived here in Austria from Amazon.com this very morning, a few hours after I had published my review of the book in German on my KOMPASS blog - reading the review eVersion on screen was only half the fun.

I'll read the whole thing again now ... bye!

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

Originally Posted by Daniel Becerra

"The world is well served when those who are aligned with truth and love gain this third element (Power). If you can be such a person, then I encourage you to consciously develop your power, since that decision benefits us all"

I liked that too. It wasn't really a Aha moment though because I could sense it already in Steve's blog, but with the book I had a much better and more comprehensive understanding of the importance and the nature of power.

Before reading the book, I considered power as being a little less important than principles deriving from love and truth such as compassion, connection, understanding, wisdom, and curiosity for truth.

However looking back I realise that a big part of my personal development so far has involved the development of my power, and I now understand that it's a very important principle as well and that developping it was good.

So I liked the chapters about power and authority. (I'll have questions about these though, but I'll put them in another thread )

[Niki]

What I had several times was.

"This Steve guy really nailed it"

[Dan.Linehan]

The comparisons of habit change to chess, with a beginning, middle and end game -- really spoke to me.

[InterfaceLeader]

Everything about power :P

I realise that I'm already fairly well aligned with truth and love, but I'm the most unpowerful person in the world! And that the lack of focus or care about power has meant that none of the secondary principles derived from truth and love plus power are as strong as they could be as a result.

Also the chapter on money. I know I've argued a lot when the subject of money has been brought up in the past, but when I read the book something clicked in my head.

In a weird piece of coincidence, I was talking to my Dad about wanting to help people via counseling, and he said "You just want to be a martyr. You can't help anyone if you're poor and weak, and you'll just end up surrounding yourself with unhappy people."

This seemed pretty similar to what the book was saying about money and power. I still want to help people recover their lives and fulfill their potential after being damaged, and I still think that my compassion, ability to empathise, lack of prejudgement etc etc. are skills I need to build on rather than fight against, but I need to consider myself and my own needs in relation to that.

Because I know I'm tired of being trapped by poverty/fear.

[seeker5]

Interface, seems that what you're describing may be lightworking syndrome - where you have truth and love and not power.

My guess is that darkworking syndrome would be truth and power but no love. Or possibly only power with no truth and love.

[Akashic_Librarian]

I realised as, I read, that my strongest aspect is Truth, although Its not very high.

As I read I felt it resonate deeply with me, and my life temporarily came into focus very sharply, in that time I decided what I wanted to do.

I now intend to use the principles in this book to make my life better. (Obviously)

[Rose of Cairo]

My first AHA-moment: in the chapter about Power, the section about focus. I love what Steve wrote about our goals being there to improve our life right now, not in the future, and how they should inspire and motivate us and make us feel empowered right now.

I totally like this approach which is new to me. I also realized, after dwelling on each of my goals for a while, that most of them kinda inspire me "for later", once they will be accomplished, but not right now. Some even make me feel pretty bad right now. So that's something to examine more closely!

[Rose of Cairo]

Wow! I'm going to repeat exactly the same in this post, sorry, but this paragraph about focus still amazes me every time I think of it.

Till now I used to set goals using the perfect life method: imagine your perfect life in five (or ten or twenty) years from now and set your goals based on that. I always had problems with this method, because I have many interests and a lot of fantasy so I can imagine dozens of perfect lives for me...

Now I can see why it's not only a difficult but also a bad method. Because those wishes come from my imagination, my fantasy, and that's not the same as what really resonates with me on a deep, deep, emotional level! That's why right now my goals did not fill me with burning desire, powerful motivation, etc. All of this is nice, of course I imagine nice things, but that's a weak motivation.

I discovered that my goals, no matter how great they were, were weak for me personally, and disconnected from what truly drives me.

Many aspects of my "perfect life" don't resonate with me right now, even without being goals. For example it's never been an explicit goal of mine to be in a relationship, but I always thought that being in a healthy, loving, etc., romantic relationship, sorta kinda is part of every fulfilled life. In my "perfect life" there always was a boyfriend somewhere. And now I realize that a boyfriend totally doesn't make me feel good when I think of it right now. I'm not thinking of any relationship problems or foreseeing doom and gloom on my path to a relationship. No, no... Thinking of being in a healthy, loving romantic relationship just doesn't make me feel empowered, joyful or happy. Just like thinking of a big car wouldn't be of any interest to me. I always thought that if some day I am in such a relationship I would feel happy about it. But do I feel happy about it right now? No. Does it improve my present-moment reality? No. On the contrary!

This is just one example but there are many of them. It's like almost everything I have ever wanted was not worth it, or even disempowering. Steve is such a pain in the ass, he just destroyed my life Now I'm sitting on a pile of shards and have no clue about what I want.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Now I'm sitting on a pile of shards and have no clue about what I want.

You are so lucky! You are like a newborn baby, and everything is in front of you, everything is possible for you. Congratulations on these new turns.

[Savage]

@Rose: The goal-setting paradigm was a big breakthrough for me personally, so I'm glad to see it affecting you as well. Be patient because it takes a while to sink it. It took me many months to really internalize it, but eventually I started naturally thinking in those terms.

I hardly ever think about financial goals anymore because they simply don't inspire me. Instead I keep thinking about "What would I love to do?"

This is about clearing our heads of socially conditioned goals, pausing, and listening to what really calls to us. Then we need to give ourselves permission to just do those things -- simply because we want to experience them.

A big part of the conditioning I had to release was what I picked up as an entrepreneur. I got stuck in the mindset that everything I did in my business had to have a profit motive and that I should always be thinking about ways to grow the business and increase revenue. But that led me to put too much of my social and emotional development on hold. There were so many things I didn't do because I couldn't see how they'd help my business. It was hard to give myself permission to do things just because I was attracted to them and to allow that to be reason enough.

Today I spend a lot of time doing things just because I enjoy them, like reaching out and making new friends or conducting interesting experiments. This practice has really enriched my life, and I'm much happier for it.

[ellie]

There were many, but at the moment I cannot find the strength to comment on them. At the moment I am my reaction to the book is stress! I finished the book a few hours ago and throughout the whole book I was feeling great, but now stress has set-in as I face some home truths. I know this stress will pass and I will feel much better when I start putting into practice the things I have learnt, but at the moment I need to try and ride out these initial feelings. I know it has a lot to do with me taking responsibility for things. I'm sure it will be all good

Anyone else came away with the same initial reaction?

[Thomas H]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Steve is such a pain in the ass, he just destroyed my life Now I'm sitting on a pile of shards and have no clue about what I want.

hahahaha

[Dev]

It's too early for me to say what insights or "Aha" moments I had, but I can tell what chapters like liked(as in touched me). I got the book on 20th Oct & just finished reading Part 1 yesterday. I plan to re-read Part 1 to 'internalize' and apply the concepts(this time very very slowly).

The chapters I like were Intelligence,Power,Authority,Courage,Truth,Love & Oneness(in order of how it touched me - at this stage I would like to call it an aerial-survey of Part 1 from my perspective). I liked the "Growth Blitzing" concept the most.

My secret: Deep inside I know that Truth should have been the 1st one

[Pequod]

I haven't been through the whole book, but so far one thing is sticking out: the power of the 7 key concepts when making difficult decisions and communicating.

When I have to make a difficult decision or send a difficult email I make a concept and then I run it along a checklist with the 7 principles while asking myself whether it is in alignment with them.

As checklist I use the summary on the homepage of Steve's site:

• Truth: Accept reality and rid your life of falsehood and denial
• Love: Improve your ability to connect with yourself and others
• Power: Build your motivation and discipline to create the life you desire
• Oneness: Stop fighting against resistance, and make the world your ally
• Authority: Take command of your life, and learn to make clear decisions
• Courage: Summon the inner strength to take action in spite of fear
• Intelligence: Live authentically, and express your genuine creativity

By using these principles as guidelines in a few real-life-messy-as-hell-situations, I found out how profound these principles are. Before that I had only intellectual appreciation for them.

[carenkh]

This is simple, but very profound for me:

"Never pretend your finances are strong when they're really weak."

I have questioned, with LOA, etc. - isn't NOT getting what I want playing into a scarcity mindset? Isn't making a donation somewhere, even though I *really* can't afford it, helping the "flow"; and if I didn't donate, I'd be blocking the flow?

It's something I've wondered about, tried to get clarity on - and that one sentence just helped it all make sense. Take care of home, first. It really helped things click into place.

[Playlife]

How do
"Never pretend your finances are strong when they're really weak."
and
"if you have goals you'll pursue when you have a certain amount of money, then skip the money step and begin pursuing those goals right now. Waiting for money is a fear-based delay tactic." (from another thread)
mesh?

Or is Steve saying that (relatively) strong finances is not a prerequisite for my goals?

[carenkh]

My take is that strong finances aren't a prerequisite for decisive action, and certainly not for setting goals.

[Brutha]

Or is Steve saying that (relatively) strong finances is not a prerequisite for my goals?

I think that he actually is.

[allen080105]

Oneness - I had read about the concept in his blog and for some reason it was hard for me to feel that we are all connected, and I had qualities of self-centeredness and neutrality. His whole section of Love kind of cleared it up for me. Love is probably the area I need to do the most work on.

Journaling - I knew journaling was beneficial because I had done it before I ever even heard of Steve, but I would often get stuck writing, write the same things, or be wondering what's missing from my writing. When he said look at your journal not just as a record of what you do from day to day, but to solve problems, brainstorm and bring clarity, it really hit me and writing started to come more easily and I rarely get stuck when I start.