The Rainbow Seed Story

I received my first huayruro seed in 2003, after I’d told the story of seeing a lunar eclipse at Lake Conchas, New Mexico. I was in a deep trance when I told the story. But that's a story for another day! I didn’t know what the seed was, really, but I felt deeply happy when I received it.

Huayruro seeds come from a Peruvian jungle plant. Wikipedia tells me that they’re considered lucky. And inedible. They probably won’t turn into an actual plant if you plant them in most places – they would require just the right amount of relentlessly humid heat, found in few places other than the Amazonian jungle. If you'd like to see a picture of these red and black seeds, go here.

Rainbow Seeds are a tradition created by Tom and Bobbi Best. How many Rainbow Seeds have been given away over the last 20 years? Hundreds? Thousands? I’m not sure.

So, if you’re the recipient of a Rainbow Seed, you’re part of a global matrix of people who have participated in the following way, or some way like it.

Here’s what to do with your seeds.

First, carry them with you. Whenever you feel a strong feeling of love or connection, imagine sending that love and connection into the seed, filling it with that love.

Second, plant the seeds in the following way. While you’re carrying around the seeds, you may come upon a place so beautiful and full of love that you want to honor it with your love: you can plant the seed there. You can also plant the seed in a place that’s devastated and lacking love. And you can gift a seed to a person that’s full of love or that’s devastated, too.

When you plant your seed, imagine a rainbow leaping out of the seed, imbuing the recipient with your love and connecting the recipient person or place with the matrix of rainbow lights that now covers the planet.

Happy planting!

Why My Life is So Great

In my government training job, we were asked to watch a 25-minute video about emergency situations that could affect the entire state, such as a possible global flu epidemic.

That is not why my life is so great, by the way.

I surfed to the video website. I closed my door and put an “in training” sign up. I got my headphones all ready.

And I pushed play.

That’s when something unusual happened.

The spoken audio track was exactly what you’d expect: a dry, unexcited voice reading statistics about death and suffering in monotone.

But the background music was something else.

My teacher Tom Best sometimes puts together beautiful movies of the footage he takes on his international adventures, particularly his extended shamanism explorations. If you’ve ever been the recipient of one of his videos, you know how powerful it is to receive video of the sights, sounds, people, and teachings of a life-changing experience. It’s a strong anchor for the feelings and new states of consciousness you experienced on the trip.

For a particular Peru trip video that I’ve seen many times, he used a unique, upbeat acoustic piece of music for the background to a series of photos. That music is indelibly linked, in my mind, to this series of heartfelt snapshots of happy, contemplative trip participants and the people of a particular Peruvian village. The colors are bright and vivid, the people peering directly at you through the movie. I’ve seen the video many times.

Whenever I watch this segment of the movie and hear that piece of music, I feel very open and happy and full of life.

Here’s the unusual thing: the global flu epidemic movie had that same piece of music in the background.

So when I clicked “play,” that familiar upbeat, acoustic music started. Before I could even make sense of the familiar music, I noticed that the background of the global flu epidemic movie looked a lot like the “filaments of light” that Tom talks about connecting us all.

I heard the flu movie monologue, too, for sure. But I couldn’t help but imagine the smiling, full-of-life faces of the children from those portraits, superimposed over the bulleted slides.

I felt open and happy and full of life… while I was listening to the death statistics from the early 20th century flew epidemic.

I felt my breathing deepen and slow like it would during deep meditation, while I was watching the required supplies for an emergency kit fly across the screen.

This had a strange affect on me. Somehow, I was able to make room for these grim facts along with feeling really good.

In this life, it seems that we will always have our own feelings and states of mind to contend with, and we will always be surrounded by others who have their own maps of what to say when and what makes them feel happy.

When we can choose exactly how we feel and take in the information that is presented by others, we’re doing something worth doing. We’re doing the work of making peace in the world by holding two different possibilities in consciousness at the same time.

To start, all we need to know to begin this work is that it’s possible to hold two opposites in mind at the same time.

To continue, it requires practicing these internal, positive states so much that they become as easy as doing something from the external world, something as simple as pushing the play button.

Living 1000 Beautiful Lives with the 12 States

Imagine yourself in a place of wondrous beauty, and seeing, hearing, and feeling even more than you usually do. We all have an increased, expanded awareness when we're in such a place. But what if you could measurably, noticeably experience more?

That's what the 12 States of Attention are about. You already use them in some ways. Learning more about the 12 States gives you the chance to use these unconscious processes, at will, whenever you want to "get more" of the scene around you... or within.

Wherever you are, you can take a moment to practice through the 12 states:

visual-external-broad -- notice the big picture in front of you
visual-internal-broad -- close your eyes and remember the big picture you just saw
visual-external-narrow -- look at something specific in front of you
visual-internal-narrow -- close your eyes and remember the specific thing you just saw

auditory-external-broad -- listen for the entire soundtrack that's happening around you
auditory-internal-broad -- close your ears and hear, inside, the soundtrack you just heard
auditory-external-narrow -- listen to one specific sound that's happening around you
auditory-internal narrow -- close your ears and hear, inside, that one specific sound you just heard

kinesthetic-external-broad -- notice what's happening, all over your skin
kinesthetic-internal-broad -- remember what you just felt
kinesthetic-external-narrow -- notice a specific feeling in your body
kinesthetic-internal-narrow -- remember that specific feeling you just felt

(As a side note: There's a lot of wonderful discussion on what, exactly kinesthetic external/ internal is, and how you fit the proprioceptive pieces in, etc. That's a story for another day! I just have outlined one way I'm currently practicing the 12 states.)

Imagine using the 12 States in a cool, black cave with waves at the entrance. Or water rushing down the mountainside in the form of a 50 foot waterfall. Or sitting with friends, staring at the sky. Or watching and listening to a meteor shower.

I feel as if I've lived 1000 beautiful lives. I've had a great time playing with Nelson Zink's 12 States of Attention, especially in Maui, ever since Mary Ann Reynold's presentation at Austin NLP in September. Many thanks to Nelson Zink and Mary Ann Reynolds.

Welcome to the Control Booth of Your Experience

You don't have to be an NLP rockstar to use what you've learned in an NLP class right away. You don't even have to practice hard or read a million books. Indeed, that's the beauty of NLP: we're already using our brains and bodies and emotions all the time, whether we know a slip of NLP or not. And knowing NLP puts you in the control booth of your experience.

This post is about how I learned the power of being able to change representation systems easily.

First, some definitions.

In NLP, a "representation system" is the way a person represents the world. You can represent the world in pictures (visual), in sounds (auditory), in feelings (kinesthetic), in smells (olfactory), and in tastes (gustatory). We use these 5 senses to experience the present, remember the present, and consider the future.

Some people experience senses beyond these 5 senses, but that's a story for another day.

Most people use all 5 of these Representation Systems, with a strong emphasis on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic information. And many people tend to favor one "Rep System" in a given context. In order to represent the past and future and to sort through the present, we must delete some information (otherwise, what's happening on the inside would take exactly as long as what happened on the outside, but we can all remember an event and play it back in our head faster than the event actually occurred). Representation Systems help us do that sorting and deleting.

For example, when I write, I like to use auditory information (the way the words sound in my head) and visual information (how the words scan on the page). This kind of deletion is a great gift when things are going well. And when it's time for change, trying a different Representation System can be one way to get more information.

Now, onto the story of how I learned about the power of representation system changes.

Just after I completed my NLP Practitioner training, one of my friends complained of feeling overwhelmed whenever she went into busy restaurants. "There's so much going on in a place like that -- everyone is talking and laughing so loud, silverware is clanging on plates, there's just too much input." I could see her eyes move left to right, the classic pattern for accessing auditory information.

I remembered my teacher Tom Best doing a demo with a woman who had a similar dislike of noisy places. He had her remember a noisy experience and then, just as it was starting to become uncomfortable, turn down the volume. Once the volume was almost inaudible, he asked her to turn up the amount of visual information coming in: soft lighting, smiling faces, beautiful food.

It worked beautifully in Tom's demo, so I thought I would try it.

Sure enough, my friend visibly tensed when she started to remember the last time she was in a noisy restaurant. And when she turned down the volume, her face relaxed. By the time she finished turning up the visuals, she was glowing!

After going through the sequence a few more times, and practicing for the future, she was relaxed and curious about trying her new strategy. A week later, she called, excited that "it worked!" when she tried the strategy out at a restaurant.

When I asked her about how her restaurant strategy was working, she had actually forgotten that it was an issue.

Authentic Speaking

Here's an exercise that Keith Fail developed for a group of Toastmasters, to help them practice speaking with more presence and from the values that are important to each of them personally.

After teaching the prerequisite pieces (see below), he had the group do the exercise. Once they put all the pieces together, they didn't want to stop talking!

This post assumes you know the Circle of Excellence and can use the meta-outcome questions to come up with a core value.

Before Doing the Exercise
Before beginning, gather this information for yourself and a partner:

• What is one important value of yours? Use meta-outcome questions to get a really good one.
  
• Create a Circle of Excellence for that value (each partner does so for his or her own value).
• Practice "being present" with your partner, looking into each others' eyes, without talking, for 30 seconds, and then a minute.

The Exercise
Standing up, position yourself about 5 feet from your partner, facing each other.

1. Each person imagines his or her own Circle of Excellence one step in front of them... and then steps in.
2. After fully stepping into the Circle of Excellence, each person adds "being present" to that circle, looking into their partners' eyes.
3. Each person takes a turn speaking a few sentences, only as quickly as he or she can hold both the original Circle of Excellence value and "being present" with the other person.
   

Modifications
You can modify this exercise to be used with increasingly larger groups of people, one person standing at the front as a speaker, with the rest of the group as an audience.

You could also modify this exercise to use it with a couple. The Circle of Excellence could be individual states, as outlined above, or a shared resource state.

Stand Up and Breathe Deeply

That's how an old boss of mine used to start meetings: "Everybody stand up and breathe deeply. Good! Breathe again."

He had been in the military, so he knew how to issue an order that people would follow, even if it was a little unusual in business settings.

Breath is also one important part of rapport.

In NLP, we use rapport, such as matching another person's breathing rate and depth, as a starting place in helping someone get what they really want. Without rapport, it's difficult to help much.

The Hawaiian culture, where I just spent an extended vacation, knows a lot about breathing. The word "ha" means breath and is also the number 4. Ha is in the word for family (ohana) and thank you (mahalo). The word aloha is used to say "I love you," "goodbye," and "hello." On the islands, the word aloha is often pronounced, "ah-low-hhhhaaaaaa," to emphasize the breath at the end.

After spending a month in the land of deep breathing and easy rapport, I ended up back at a typical work meeting on a Monday, on the mainland.

Fifteen people were sitting around a table.... not breathing! Their chests were not moving. When they talked, they were gasping for air between sentences. After about 20 minutes, people began yawning huge, gaping yawns. How did I never notice this before?

Technically, you could say that these folks were in rapport, right? They were not breathing in very similar ways to each other.

But looking around at their faces, they weren't enjoying themselves or engaged, even though we were discussing a project that could save everyone at the table a lot of time and hassle.

And it became instantly obvious why this group often complains about stress and boredom. Spending an hour with your colleagues and holding your breath -- regardless of what decisions were made -- would be incredibly stressful to the body. And not breathing much would certainly prevent you from engaging with the discussion much. It was as if the group was hunkering down for the meeting, hoping it would end as soon as possible.

If you literally couldn't breathe during a meeting, wouldn't you want it to end as soon as possible?

I decided to try a small experiment.

I started to breathe deeply and quietly.

I certainly felt more relaxed, but now I was out of sync with the group. The guy next to me, for whatever reason, started breathing deeply with me immediately.

Most of the conversation was happening between 3 people (unfortunately typical for a 15 person meeting!). If I could unconsciously encourage one or two of them to breathe a little more, maybe the room would follow. Then, I could get some feedback on my guess that breathing would help this meeting become more engaged, so that decisions could be made and the meeting could end.

I knew one of the talkers really well, so I thought I could start with him.

I slowed my breath to match his. Then, I noticed that he was indeed breathing, just very shallowly. I matched his breath for a minute. When there was a pause in the conversation, I took a big breath. He followed me with a big breath. The other two people in the conversation took a big breath shortly after.

A guy down the table yawned.

Somebody paused to tell a joke! I certainly didn't expect that.

The conversation returned to the meeting topic. At the next pause, I took a big breath. This time, I returned my breath to a deeper breathing pattern that matched the speed, but not the shallowness, of the colleague I knew well. Sure enough, he followed me.

The other people in the conversation followed shortly after.

And somebody else told another joke!

After we all finished laughing, I returned my breath to an even deeper breath. Those in the main conversation followed.

The group made the decision it had been dancing around for the entire meeting, and the meeting ended 5 minutes later. Was it really as easy as adding some breath into the meeting?

I asked around for some feedback about the difference between the beginning and the ending of the meeting.

One person told me that the meeting had ended when the colleague I knew well had finally taken control of the meeting.

Another person told me that they were relieved when the 3 main decision makers finally got around to the topic at hand.

Someone else said that he thought the jokes brought a "breath of fresh air" and helped refocus everyone so we could get down to business.