Learning Success - The Transformative Power of Failure

In the field of personal change we hear an awful lot about success. Thats all fine and good we should concentrate on what we want, as we tend to get what we focus on. Then I came across this quote and it made me think

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates

You may be thinking to yourself, Thats alright for a multi-millionaire to say. Personally, Id rather be successful and never put a foot wrong.

The big question is can you realistically expect that? That everything will always go according to plan? Think about it for a moment, and youll realize there are certain consequences to getting an easy time.

1. If you havent experienced what can go wrong, its more difficult to plan for what might go wrong.

   Of course, you can learn from the failures of others theres nothing that says you have to struggle through everything, reinventing the wheel in the process. My point is that there is a certain value in learning your path through experience both good and bad.

2. If everything went according to plan on your first attempt, you dont know any more about getting there than before you started.

   This can work out well, as you might have struck the perfect formula first time and only need to reproduce that.

   However, in our complex and constantly shifting world, this does not happen very often. Most formulas for success require constant adjustment through awareness of the potential pitfalls.

3. An easy success can hide the potential risks of further, similar development.

   A person can become a victim of their own success, if they expect everything to be so easy that they overextend themselves. Think of a gambler on a winning streak, taking greater and greater risks. And, of course, winning streaks run out.

   Its important to leave as little to chance as you possibly can. If your success is based on luck, then youll be subject to both winning and losing streaks.

What successful people fear most.

That is the number one fear of many successful people What if it was a fluke? Suppose I was just lucky?

Because that presupposes that If good luck gave me this, bad luck can take it away.

This is the dread of every successful musician and writer - the One Hit Wonder. Do they really know how to make success? If they lost it all, would they know how to rebuild? Would they know how to be in the right place at the right time by design?

And every successful person is a One Hit Wonder at first. Those who really know how they succeeded can get there again. Those are the ones who made a study of failure and turned it into success.

The power of polarity

Success and failure are polar opposites. In most cases, there is a spectrum of choice between such polarities. Its not just total success or total failure in most cases, though many people will see it that way. There are usually degrees of success and degrees of failure.

How are you defining success? Is it a rare 1% condition of total excellence or just a 50/50 chance? Is it a state of perfection, or a regular life experience? And is that down to your definition?

Focus on what you have learned from the experience:

• Are there elements of the project that were successful?
• Even if you didnt get your outcome, did some parts of the process go well?
• If you were to do it again, would you know how to improve those areas that were lacking?

If so, then even a disastrous failure can contain the seeds of future successes.

Celebrate early, enjoy often.

Getting there is very often about how well we keep ourselves going. And thats down to how much we enjoy the process. Naturally youll enjoy the heady bliss of accomplishment when youre done. What can you do in the meanwhile?

Its important to realise that success is not just in getting your outcome its also in every step you take towards your goal. Most people give up somewhere on the road to success as they do not celebrate progress; they put off all celebration until they arrive at their goal. And if that goal is a long way in the future, it can be easy to get discouraged.

Take it from someone who knew the value of persistence:

Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison

What would it be like if you got to enjoy a little bit of that accomplishment every day? Ill bet that would keep you on the right road and moving steadily. Edison is well known for his countless inventions as he was extraordinarily tenacious. He was also unafraid of hard work and enjoyed every minute of it.

Its said that Edison worked past 10,000 failures to invent the light bulb. Thats a lot of hard knocks. How did he keep going in the face of that?

He knew that every failure was valuable because he learned something from it. Those learnings brought future success even closer because it was his philosophy to draw positive value from every experience.

So how do we turn failure into the substance supporting success?

Ive already mentioned the power of polarity, so here is a way to put it to practical use.

Exercise Utilising failure to create success

1. Imagine a horizontal line in front of you with success at one end and failure at the other. Be aware of how they are connected.
2. Focus on success at one end be aware of any colour, texture, temperature or sound it seems to have.
3. Add in all the examples of success that you can think of. They may be images, sounds, words or feelings. Just let them go to the success end of the spectrum and notice how the whole line changes as a result.
4. Focus on failure' at the other end be aware of any colour, texture, temperature, sound etc associated with it.
5. Add in all the examples of failure that you can think of. They may be images, sounds, words or feelings. Let them go to the failure end of the spectrum.
6. Allow the two collections of experience to work together. Keep the feelings of success and failure in place as information passes between them. Notice how the success part of the spectrum gets even stronger as a result of having added examples of failure.
7. Allow the success to learn from the information of past failures.
8. Allow the failure to be transformed into a more useful feeling by its contribution to future successes.
9. Reach out and pull the whole spectrum inside yourself and allow it to settle into place.
10. Test by thinking about a project that you struggled with in the past. Does success seem easier and more attainable if you were to do a similar sort of project in the future?

Allow all your experience, both failure and success to teach you the best way forward and youll win more of the time.

About The Author:

Philip Callaghan is an NLP Trainer and Coach who has been working full time with private clients for several years. He is a Licensed Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a member of the International Association of Coaches.

Visit Phil's website http://www.resourcefulchange.co.uk/ for further articles and sign up for his free series of NLP articles here: http://www.resourcefulchange.co.uk/nlp_primers.shtml

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10 Natural Childbirth Myths

When weighing your options for childbirth, it helps if you have accurate information about the options available to you. Unfortunately childbirth is an area where myth often pervades fact. What you hear may have started as truth, but has become such a distorted version, there isnt much truth left. Here are ten of the most common misunderstandings about natural childbirth and the truth behind them.

1. You have to have a super-high pain tolerance.

Almost nobody likes pain, and it is easy to assume giving birth causes large amounts of pain so only the most pain tolerant women can do it. What is less well known is how a womans body increases endorphin levels during labor. This means as the intensity of the contractions build, so does her ability to handle them. Also, contractions peak at about 30 seconds. This means once your contractions become about a minute long they may increase in duration (get longer), but they do not tend to continue building in intensity.

2. You have to do HEE HEE HOO HOO panting the whole time.

While Dr. Lamaze did include patterned breathing for distraction in his natural childbirth training, it was one of several tools and his was the only program that recommended it. Dr. Dick Read, Dr. Bradley and others recommended natural deep breathing relying instead on positioning and relaxation. Patterned breathing remains one of many tools a woman can use in labor if she finds it helps her manage contractions, but most women use normal breathing.

3. It feels like pulling your lower lip over your head.

I enjoy a good comedy routine, but we shouldnt base our understanding of childbirth on stand up comedy. After having given birth without medication twice, I can most assuredly promise you it feels nothing like pulling on your lips. The parts of the body needed for childbirth are designed to stretch and make room for baby your lower lip is not designed to be pulled over your head.

4. You have to be at home to do it.

Homebirth is an option, but it is only one option. Women interested in natural childbirth can also give birth in birth centers or hospitals. It is not the location that matters, but the support you have to help you through contractions. While hospitals have access to medications and emergency equipment, many also have birth tubs, balls and flexible staff who will work with a family to achieve the birth they desire. Hiring a doula gives you even more support and increases your chances of giving birth naturally.

5. Women become screaming lunatics, yelling at their husbands.

Childbirth is not a psychosis where a woman suddenly takes on a new personality. Although in the earlier half of the 20th century women were given labor drugs that made them act very strange indeed, becoming crazy isnt a part of the natural childbirth process. What does happen is a woman uses all her energy to focus on the work she is doing and distraction makes this harder. Women in hard labor will use the least amount of energy to communicate this may mean body language, grunts or one word commands. Without the understanding this behavior is normal, a support person can feel as if they have somehow upset the laboring mother.

6. Childbirth is the worst pain you will ever feel.

A childbirth educators husband figured out from her normal 12 hour labor that the time she spent in pain in contractions totaled to about 3 and a half hours. You can be in pain longer than that for a migraine. And unlike other types of pain, contractions build to a peak, release from the peak and then give you a break. Even in a longer than average labor, there are breaks between contractions. In a 12 hour labor, you might not even need to work through contractions until the last 2 or 3 hours before pushing because most of the time you spend in labor is early labor.

7. If they know you want a natural childbirth, the nurses wont give you anything for the pain.

Wanting a natural childbirth and achieving a natural childbirth are two different things. While most doulas, nurses and midwives will work with you to achieve your goal of a natural childbirth, they never force you to give birth without medication. Whether or not to use medical pain relief remains your choice regardless of what type of labor you prepared for.

8. There is no reason to go through labor pain anymore.

There have been ointments and herbs to treat labor pain as far back as the Roman Empire, and probably further back than that. There are also positions and non-medical techniques that work extremely well for keeping mothers comfortable and helping labor progress. It isnt so much the use of a treatment to manage pain that bothers modern women as much as it is the possible side effects and risks of using the treatments. There is a big difference between the risks of having a massage in labor and having an epidural. Although the massage may not eliminate all the pain, if it allows the woman to labor without having to add the risks of an epidural then why not use it? Studies show just the change of using a doula for additional support decreases requests for pain medication while also decreasing needs for additional medical interventions. It should more rightly be said that with all we know today, there is no reason to add the risks of medical pain relief to manage labor pain anymore.

9. Women used to die giving birth.

Yes, and women still die giving birth. It has nothing to do with the natural childbirth process. Instead factors such as poor nutrition, infection and inadequate sanitation are the causes of high mortality rates. In fact, the highest childbirth mortality rate happened because birth was moved to the hospital and infection spread quickly among laboring women when doctors didnt wash their hands. Pain medications increase the risks of having a problem in labor, not reduce them. Cesarean birth adds the increased risks of surgery to childbirth, which means for a normal, healthy pregnancy your risk of dying from childbirth goes up.

10. I dont need to prepare to give birth, its a natural process.

While your body is doing the work with or without you, how you respond to labor will have a large impact on how well labor progresses and the amount of pain or discomfort you feel. Knowing positions, tricks and techniques for labor greatly improves your chances of being successful at giving birth naturally, and greatly improves your chances of staying comfortable during labor. It takes physical and mental energy to labor; if you havent practiced natural childbirth techniques enough to use them without thinking you wont be able to use them during labor. Preparing for a natural childbirth doesnt necessarily guarantee you will give birth without medications, but not preparing almost always guarantees you will use medications.

Jennifer Vanderlaan is a childbirth educator and doula who helps families learn tools, tips and techniques for natural childbirth at http://www.birthingnaturally.net

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The Scrolls and the Grail

DEAD SEA SCROLLS: - Dr Norman Golb is a top scholar who makes a plea for the de-politicization of the Dead Sea Scrolls. His plea is not related to the current argument that Palestine will own or control the Scrolls but to the Generals and politicians who piecemeal and with apparent deceit are doling out access to these important documents for the examination of scholars. The original involvement of the Catholic scholars and the Scrolls being housed in a Museum named for the Rockefellers is of more concern to me. The management of the life of Jesus and his brother James ('the Righteous) who led the group at Qumran that some are calling Essenes is why the concern exists for myself and others who know the ways of the Christologists. They have blamed the Jews for 'killing our Saviour'.

The documents discovered at Dag (or Nag) Hammadi in the same decade were fully translated by 1971 and they are of equal if not greater insight. The life of Jesus as a 'Therapeutae' or Gnostic with a 'Source' of learning in a large family of adepts is contrary to all sorts of proselytes and his involvement of an equal partner and wife puts a lie to a lot of 'only begotten' or other Divine appellations sought by the Popes who have claimed to be the only representatives of the Lord on Earth. This 'Source' is described correctly by Barrett as the very Grail that the Dag Hammadi scrolls represent from the verbal tradition or Qabala. If you consider that there was no name or actual Christians at the time of Jesus we will be starting at a fair beginning. The Copper Scrolls that made coded references to the site of Solomon's treasure were found here as well. That is of import to our continuing effort to know what trade and designs exist (ed) in the Templar to Benjaminite or Merovingian lineage. It is more important to start with this 'Source' as many Biblical scholars are calling it. They call it this rather than a pagan tradition of Bardic and nature worshippers or Phoenicians, as the Father of Biblical Archaeology assures us that even the Bible itself should be seen as being. We are of the opinion that all documents and related things that reflect on the life of Christ are part and parcel of the 'Holy Grail'; and the churchians were crusading and killing to get them and control the truth that might upset their marketing and other plans. Thus we should provide a little proof of the actual religions and politics of the time that Jesus was alive upon this earth.

"The Bible imagines the religion of ancient Israel as purely monotheistic. And doubtless there were Israelites, particularly those associated with the Jerusalem Temple, who were strict monotheists. But the archaeological evidence (and the Bible, too, if you read it closely enough) suggests that the monotheism of many Israelites was far from pure. For them, Yahweh (the name of the Israelite god) was not the only divinity. Some Israelites believed that Yahweh had a female consort. And many Israelite invoked the divinity with the help of images {Remember Onias' Temple in Egypt and the archaeology of the sacrificing of Ibises practiced by Moses and later Jews.}, particularly figurines. I call this Israelite religion pagan Yahwism.

The archaeological evidence we will look at comes mostly from Judah in what is known in archaeological terms as the Assyrian period, the span from 721 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, until 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and brought an end to the Davidic dynasty in Judah. This period, to put it into perspective, is several centuries after King Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple {Actually done by an architect Mason from Tyre named Hiram but not the King of that name and time.} in about 950 B.C.E. So the archaeological evidence we are about to discuss documents a level of Israelite paganism long after Solomon built an exclusive home for Israel's god. {The Incas and other used such techniques of social management rather than garrison armies in occupied territories.}

While Yahweh was the god of the Israelites, other nations had their own national gods. The chief god of the Phoenicians was Ba'al. For the Philistines, the chief god was at first Dagon {As noted earlier we suggested a Berber/Phoenician connection to Philistine. This Dagon is almost the same as the Dogon of West Africa who are early observers of Sirius the Dog Star. This is a Berber influence to be sure.} and later also Ba'al {He could mention Bel in Mesopotamia is the same as Ba'al but he is just developing the extensive similarity of the actual worship of people with different names within a gradually degrading or devolving 'Brotherhood'. We can't expect all of these things to be integrated all at once, can we?}(Judges 16:23; 2 Kings 1:2). For the Ammonites it was Milkom. For the Moabites {In Deuteronomy 23 you will see prejudice and hatred excluding them from the 'House of the Lord', 'Yes, even unto the tenth generation' along with 'bastards and 'he who is wounded in the stones'.}, Chemosh. For the Edomites, Qos. And for the Israelites and Judahites -- Yahweh. Except for the Edomite god Qos, who appears only in the archaeological record, all of these gods are mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 11:5, 7, 33).

Interestingly, while each nation's chief god had a distinctive name, his consort, the chief female deity, had the same name in all these cultures: Asherah or its variants Ashtoreth or Astarte. (As we shall see, this was even true of Yahweh's consort.)

Not only was the female consort the same, the various nations used the same cult objects, the same types if incense altars made of stone and clay, the same bronze and clay censers, cult stands and incense burners, the same chalices and goblets and the same bronze and ivory rods adorned with pomegranates. It was easy to take cult vessels of one deity and place them in the service of another one--and this was commonly done. For example, in the ninth-century B.C.E., stela erected by Mesha, the king of Moab, he describes himself as the 'son of Chemosh,' and tells how he defeated the Israelites (see also 2 Kings 3:4-27). He then brags,'(I) took t(he ves)sels of Yahweh, and I hauled them before the face of Chemosh.'

We sometimes get the impression that after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, Yahweh had no other sanctuary in ancient Israel -- but this is not the case." (1)

It is possible that the prevalence of the 'one god' was actually a one goddess as we see in the fact they all worshipped one similarly named(identical really)goddess. The reality as we see it was almost the same for Ba'al in this period as well. He goes on to show these multiple and pantheistic practices seem to disappear when the exiles are returned from Persia, so maybe Cyrus and Zoroaster were able to convince them of the error of their ways and we might see what many have pondered in regards to the magi of Zoroaster being a major influence on Christianity in the original foundations and not the more ritualistic Moses. At Qumran many scholars note the people called themselves 'Covenanters of the Law'. Most of them note this law was Mosaic but my perception is different and I believe it was a syncretism akin to Gnosticism and with many adept understandings such as the healing practices of the Therapeutae. Golb makes it clear he is on the side of the Qumran library having been a collection of all the factions of religion and practices in a large area even beyond Judaea. The Roman practice of destroying all literature and writing new ones around old beliefs which were in line with their approaches was the reason for this, and all tribes, zealots or cults knew it.

The henges of the Emerald Isles which were once wood as some are seeing today, are in the Negev and Sinai deserts as well. The 'Bedouin' ('tent dweller') fiction is not the root as we showed from the scholars of the excellent book Carthage. The article following the one just quoted from Biblical Archaeology Review says this:

"Take even a one- or two-day trip through the Sinai or Negev deserts and you'll come across scores of them--standing stones erected in a variety of combinations. These stone installations may help us understand the very origins of Israelite religion. (2)

Last year the word about pre-hieroglyphic alphabets in the Sahara were accompanied by more on the agricultural savannah people who had henges too. This is where the Berbers were from and the connection if no simple chance occurrence. The article goes on to discuss 'fertility triads' and whenever you see triad or troad (Greek) you are looking at the central laws of the philosophic Kelts. These parables of process and moral or spiritual concepts are a wealth of insight to this very day. The Triune Nature of Man that was plagiarized into the 'Holy Trinity' and raised to a deity took more of man's self awareness and divinity away from humanity than any of us can imagine. A central theme in the Dead Sea Scrolls is said to be very Zoroastrian in nature (and the Mani attempt to join Christianity and it in one ecumenical religion that Augustine was a promoter of until bought out by the Catholics); - it is simply this: 'There are two spirits 'truth and error'. We surely see the real original sin of the Gnostics who saved the Dag Hammadi Scrolls and gave their lives protecting the Library of Alexandria in this. These people who were with the Cathars a millennium later say 'The original sin that separates us from God - is IGNORANCE!'

Another culture that really worshipped this goddess at one time is the Greek or Hellenic culture of Dionysius and Aphrodite as we see a practice that was at work while Yahweh became the one and sole male god Jehovah and that development was not mentioned in BAR.

"In Cyprus it appears that before marriage all women were formerly obliged by custom to prostitute themselves to strangers at the sanctuary of the goddess, whether she went by the name of Aphrodite, Astarte, or what not. Similar customs prevailed in many parts of Western Asia. (3)

Casting aspersions on great thinkers like Augustine is easy and I don't want any readers to think I'm saying these things without basis in fact. We have his own book to work with in that regard. Here is a little from Augustines autobiography called Confessions.

"As literature, the Scriptures compared poorly with the polished prose of Cicero and he thought them fit only for the simple minded." That was when he was a Manichean before "the mercy of God had saved him from this evil. (4)

Author and activist for ecumenicism and Brotherhood

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