So where the mind goes, the Qi or chi follows what you focus on, becomes a reality. So this is really about where you choose to put your intention.
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I want to thank the AAC for inviting me back, um, to their live stream, to the point my name’s Lorne Brown, um, a little background, I’m a CPA, a certified professional accountant. I’m a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. I’m also a clinical hypnotherapists. I’m trained in psych K um, rapid tribes, transformational therapy, the Mercer of pure technique. And I’m the founder of healthy seminars.com offers continuing education, um, for acupuncturists as well as the founder of acrobatics wellness center. The first and I guess longest serving integrated fertility clinic in British Columbia, Canada. And I’m the author of this book missing the point. Why acupuncturists fail? Um, I want to, um, have a discussion with you about, um, ignoring or getting stain out of the negative gap trap. This trap is where, um, you lose your confidence. You feel frustrated, you feel depressed. And so, um, I promise you that for this lecture, um, I always like to set the intention. I hope to one day be remembered as the guy that keeps everything really simple, powerful, and effective. And I started his quote here is make everything as simple as possible, just not simpler. Um, and that idea, the risk of being too simple is that you may ignore it or dismiss it all together, but I will do my best to keep this simple, because I don’t like to do complicated, but yet powerful and effective.
So where the mind goes, the Qi or chi follows what you focus on, becomes a reality. So this is really about where you choose to put your intention. That is the key. And I like to use the idea of, um, the missing the tile syndrome, um, concept here. And so in missing the tile syndrome, the idea here is you have this beautiful, um, tapestry, this beautiful let’s think of our, our ceiling has been hand painted. There’s a million tiles and every tile has been beautifully hand painted. However, unfortunately in the corner of the ceiling, one tile has cracked and half of it has fallen. And because of that, the museum has closed the exhibit and notice it as worthless. And this is this idea that you have 999,000 beautiful tiles. But if you focus on that one damaged tile, then it becomes worthless to close the exhibit.
Um, I like to say when again, where the mind goes, achieve follows, what you focus on becomes your reality. So if you have nine good things happening and one bad and you focus on bad, then you suffer. Life is not great. Vice versa that if you have nine, not nine bad things happening and good, and you focus on that one, good, then life becomes great. And so it’s really about which Wolf you’re going to feed a, where are you going to put your attention? Where the mind goes? The chief follows what you focus on becomes reality. And I’m sure many of you who, who drive or purchased a vehicle in your life have probably had this experience that once you’ve decided on a vehicle that you like, all of a sudden, you see more of that make and model, and maybe even color of that vehicle, that car on the road.
It’s not that there’s any more of that car on the road. It’s just that that’s become your focus. And that’s what gets percolated up from your subconscious to your conscious mind. And you start to notice that you start to notice it more. These opportunities were always there. These vehicles were always there, but now that you’ve put a bit of focus there, you start to notice it more. And so this is how life happens. You start to experience, notice that, notice things more, this becomes the life you live, and this is why you could live in suffering and stress, or you can live in joy and gratitude keyword. There is, it’s a choice. Um, I really enjoyed a book called minding the gap and it was by, um, Dan Sullivan. He’s a coach and I really liked his metaphor. So I want to share my version of it, um, in this idea and how to stay out of this gap.
The gap is where you do not want to be. Um, he, he gives us idea that you set sail basically, and you untie your, your boat from land. And as you said, sail, you look out to the horizon. Now you gotta remember the horizon is a mental construct. There is no place where the sky and the ocean meet or in sky and land meat. It’s just a mental construct, but that’s where you set your target out. Um, those are those big audacious goals. That’s what you say, your target. When you leave the land on your sailboat and after 24 hours of sailing, you, you go down and retire at night. You have a nice sleeper below. When you wake up to your dismay, you notice that the horizon is just as far today as it was yesterday. And if you keep just focusing on horizon, then over a period of time, this can lead you to a lack of confidence, frustration, and depression.
So the antidote for this, the solution is to look backwards, to look behind you and notice how far you have come each day. And that’s the issue for a lot of driven people is they’re constantly focused on their long-term goals are focusing on that horizon, but they’re not stopping each day to do gratitude, to be grateful for what they have, where they have come. And so the gap is from the gap is the area from where you are today to where you want to be. That’s the gap. But what we have to remember is there’s also a position from where you are today and where you’ve come from, and this idea of, of practicing daily gratitude, where you look for things that you can be grateful for. It basically forces your mind, your brain to search for the last 24 hours of what has been going well for you.
And this is the antidote to staying out of the gap and enjoying life more. Uh, there’s this quote that if you cannot feel gratitude, then you cannot be happy. And so, so many of us still suffer, even though you have material possessions, I’m talking about the people that have, you know, if I, if I just have this, then I’ll be happy. Well, they have this, but yet they still don’t find the joy in their life. And the key quote here is if you cannot feel gratitude, then you cannot be happy. And I will say I was one of those people, very driven, um, that kept on achieving, but never finding that fulfillment. It was always short-lived. And I’ll talk more about that. And again, the key here is to state of gratitude and the solution is daily practice of gratitude. And let’s talk a little bit about how gratitude works as well from a scientific perspective.
Um, remember that this is your free will, gratitude is a choice. And it’s one of those things that I like as a mind hack. I like to do mine tax. And again, I’m always looking for these simple things. So what I’ll do is I’m just going to read a little bit, um, from some research here. Um, so again, on gratitude, um, many of us are always looking toward external factors. We’re always looking outside of ourselves to experience joy and happiness. When really it’s all related to internal work. This is a lot of the stuff around conscious work that many of you may have been exposed to. This is something science is just starting to grasp as well as shown by research out of UCLA mindfulness awareness research center. According to them, having an attitude of gratitude changes, the molecular structure of the brain keeps gray matter functioning.
It makes us healthier and happier when you feel happiness, the central nervous system is affected. So your whole autonomic nervous system changes, which many people say is the subconscious mind, the autonomic nervous system, you are more peaceful, less reactive and less resistant. Now that’s really a cool way I’ve taken care of your well-being. Now I suspect when you’re practicing gratitude, I suspect that you’re going into, um, alpha brainwaves. So when you’re in high tech high beta brainwaves, that’s that state of stress overwhelm anxiety you’re suffering at that time is that nice, um, state of detach relaxation. And when you’re an alpha brainwaves, basically you become resourced. And again, through research, what they’re noticing is that when we’re in this state of gratitude and in the state of alpha brainwaves, we now are able to access more of our mind that is normally not normally available to us in particular.
They say the research that we’re able to access more of that creative mind. And so when you’re in that stress response in high beta, you’re likely focusing on the problem. And when you go into gratitude, it has a shift in perception, and it takes you from focusing on the problem to now focusing on the solution. And that’s when, when you get into gratitude and alpha brainwaves, you now are in inspired thought, and that’s when one of these solutions inspired thoughts pops into your mind for what you can do. And you get really excited about I’m just going to read another little line here from some of the research. Um, scientists have discovered that feelings of gratitude can actually change your brain. So they’re measuring things and seeing the brain structure changes, synopsis that fire together wire together, and feeling gratitude can also be a great tool for overcoming depression and anxiety, more important now than ever.
Right? Furthermore scientists have discovered that the heart sends signals to the brain, your thoughts and feelings of gratitude create a physiological response in your body. So if you want to feel happy, practice joy and gratitude. If you want to feel happy, practice joining gratitude, it’s not going to be this relationship. Or when you make this so much money or you have this health, that’s going to make you happy. It is an internal experience. And remember, it’s not happiness. That brings us gratitude is gratitude. That brings us happiness. And so if you practice a daily, um, basically if you cannot feel gratitude, you cannot be happy. You can not feel happy. And so the idea of practicing gratitude daily is, um, you revisiting the past 24 hours and some people will find this a challenge by the way, but that’s okay. That’s just showing you that you’re not practiced at gratitude. And it’s taken a little bit of effort to get those wires to fire, right? Those synapses to fire. Last little piece from this research in short practicing gratitude seems to kick off a helpful self perpetuating cycle in your brain, perfect momentum, right? Counting your blessings now makes it easier to notice and count them later. And the more good you senior life, the happier, more successful your life becomes.
So in Shawn anchor’s book, he’s an author on the happiness advantage. He talks about a study where they take people that are basically, um, uh, you know, think of negative and positive. Um, people I’m losing the thought of the word. That’s not the word that he used in the book. Um, but it just, I just lost my head and normally it does it, but it, it, it will be okay still with the exercise that we’re going to do. So he has two groups of people, um, and one group, um, they’re, uh, both groups actually are asked to count how many images they see in the magazine and it’s timed. And this was a magazine made for the study. And what they notice is the, um, people that, um, I’m going to call it negative again, negative thinking, right? Things don’t go well for the victim thinking versus the people that are lucky enough, good things happen to them.
Um, the ones that were in the negative thinking group, they took longer to complete the exercise, then the positive mindset group. And that’s not the terms of use by the way, but it will work for what we’re doing. Now. What was interesting is they all had identical. So what’s the time difference. And in each magazine, there was an image and right under the first image, it said, um, if you’re reading this to finish this exercise, now go to the second to last page. And so on the second to last page, it said, show this line to the supervisor and collect $250. So these people would look at the picture, read this, flip it and hand it in. But there was a whole group of people that went picture, missed it, picture, picture, picture, and it took longer. This is that idea that I mentioned about seeing your make and model of the car on the road, where the mind goes, the chief follows what you focus on, becomes a reality.
There’s only so much information. The conscious mind can take five to seven bits of information. Your subconscious is a supercomputer. And so if you’re in that negative mindset, it’s only going to percolate up to you. That’s matching what you want. Like when you’re looking for that car, all of a sudden, you’re now noticing that car. So if you are of a positive mindset, that gratitude, you start to see more opportunities. They saw that line right away and were able to collect $250 by completing the exercise quickly where the other group were not able to read that line. They opportunities are always there. It’s there for everybody. So what’s the difference. The difference is what have you put your focus on? And gratitude is a way to start focusing on opportunity and what’s going well in your life. And when you do that, you start to notice more. And because you were experiencing that, it’s an inner experience. You’re enjoying life. And they’ve shown that it’s happy people that become successful. It’s not successful. People become happy, happy people become successful.
And there’s that quote, successful. People are happy, happy people are successful. We often think if I get this, then I’ll be happy. And that is not how it works. Pleasure is temporary success. That kind of success, material successes, pleasure is, is only temporary. And it puts you in a vulnerable state as well, because you’re always needing an external environment to be a certain way for you to feel a certain way. And in conscious work, this is about inner work and that you’re feeling good despite the external environment. So that’s a skill. Can you deny the five senses and what’s happening now, um, and bring up that feelings of joy and like attracts like, and this is how happy people do become successful. So happiness is more about the joy and striving for your potential than the actual end result. So enjoy the journey versus focusing on the destination idea.
So it really is less about the external world. I’m John anchor, again, the happiness advantage and before happiness, it was two books. Uh, one of the studies that he looked at is they looked at wanting to raise success rates and happy, uh, when you try to raise success rates. So in corporations that try to raise success rates. So profit margins, um, revenue, you know, on the material side, they saw happiness would flat line, but yet when they raised happiness inside these organizations, success would rise dramatically, educational and financial. And so again, happy people become successful in same thing for your organizations, happy organizations become successful.
So it’s a cause and effect. And we can take this from a Newtonian level to a quantum level. So on the Newtonian level cause and effect, we are using the external environment to make ourselves feel gratitude. So we’re looking at what has happened. So in that gap, minding the gap exercise, we’re looking behind us and in the last 24 hours, what can I be grateful for? Um, that’s cause and effect, and that’s on a Newtonian level and it’s very beneficial. And that’s where the research is has been done on the causing effect is kind of a quantum idea where you’re starting to feel gratitude in advance of what you desire and want before it’s actually manifested. And this is more beyond the scope of our discussion today. Um, but in that quantum level, you are now, um, using your imagination to create what you want in your life and you’re causing the effect.
And so, you know, um, to, you know, to, if you want to be healthy, then start to feel whole and complete, right? If you want to be happy, then start to feel joy and gratitude in advance of what you see physically, right? And so that’s causing the effect and that’s a quantum level idea that people talk of and that I love. And that’s more on a manifestation level. And today we’re really focusing on cause and effect where you’re looking at, what you can be grateful for, what I invite you to do now, while you’re listening to this, this is really simple. Um, but I would invite you to take a moment and write down three things that you’re grateful for. Oh, this was the part I, you know, it’s, I’m going to share this now. Cause I didn’t add this to the slide with the Shawn Achor lecture, um, research that he talks about, where they looked at those two groups of people where they looked at the magazine, this is very key.
So I’m glad I remembering this. Now it kinda ties it in together. So a quick, quick summary in that study, one group took much longer than the other because they missed it where it said, go to the supervisor and collect two 50. They miss that opportunity and just focused on the pictures. What they did is they took the pessimist. That was what it was pessimists and optimists. That’s how they kind of define the groups. So they took the pessimist group and they got them to write down for 21 days, three things that they can be grateful for three original things. And so every day they would write, not think, but write down three things that they be grateful for. And what they notice is not only did they see changes in the brain structure, so the brain wired differently, but these people started to feel more optimistic and start to notice more good things happening in their life that like attracts like, and so this is something that can be learned.
So wherever you’re at now, I would suggest, and I do this for my patients all the time. I suggest a gratitude practice. I’m going to actually tell you what I do is I recommend and a really nice book. So I buy more of the expensive books, too, a nice leather bound book. This one has like a strap to it. So if you can see that, so some people do a little hill Roy, but I do it on a nice binder because these are your gratitude, your, your joy, uh, books. So it’s, it’s precious. I’m giving it the respect, right? It’s precious. So it’s in a nice expensive book. And each day I write three original. Now the key to this is to take your time, write something you’re grateful for. What’s gone well in the last 24 hours or more. And write that down and allow yourself to feel the gratitude.
It’s the feeling that’s key. If you just write three things down, but you don’t bring up the feelings of gratitude. It won’t be very beneficial. That feeling is chemistry and the body feelings are chemistry, right? And so, and this has an effect on your electrical and hormonal nervous system, right? And so you want to bring up the feelings of gratitude. This is key. And if you have something that every time you think about it, it brings gratitude. You’re a welcome to write that down each day, but now you need four things because it has to be three original each day. So if you want to carry something forward or more than one thing forward, that is fine, but you need three original things. Now what happens if it’s difficult, then be grateful that it’s difficult because if it, if you were super great at it and you’re still suffering, um, that’s unfortunate, right?
Because what else can we do? And there’s lots of we can do if you’re finding it difficult, that is feedback that you don’t have that wiring for gratitude, because if it’s wired, it’s instant, it’s easy. Like you can just bang, bang, bang, and really feel it. Then, you know, it’s worried. Cause that subconscious is like a super fast super computer. So it would be easy and fast. If it’s not easy, then you are now building those synapses. Right? So time you think about it, you’re wiring your brain differently. Like we saw in that study that Shawn anchor quotes in his book, they noticed after 21 days that the brain changed and they felt more optimistic. They noticed more gratitude. They were experiencing more joy in their life. And so write three things down. I recommend an a, an, a book, the research didn’t do it based.
You do it in your head. They didn’t do it on your iPhone notepad, um, or on a sticky note. Um, I recommend a nice book and sometimes I sit back and I reread these things. I go back and I reread, um, what I put for gratitude. And I kind of have two practices, the Newtonian one where I look at what I’m grateful for in my life. And then the quantum level of cause and effect. I share to be grateful for things that have not manifested yet, but I believe we’re going to her. I’m convincing myself. They’re going to start to really imagine and dream that. And gratitude is powerful because gratitude is a form of receivership. When you are thankful when you were receiving something, um, or have received something you’re grateful, you’re thankful. So gratitude puts you in that, to that receiver, um, state.
Um, and that’s kind of basically what I want to share about how to stay out of the gap in today’s world, um, with the media and social media usually bombarding you with unfortunately negative thought patterns. Um, it’s really important for your mental health to develop practices like meditation and daily gratitude to really calm that nervous system, to take you from that high beta stress and anxiety and overwhelm into that alpha detach relaxation, right? To take you from that sympathetic fight or flight survival mode into parasympathetic, the rest and digest, um, system and your body will thank you for it. And these are just really simple mind hacks. So gratitude helps you stand in the gap by thinking about what has gone well in the last 24 hours is still healthy and okay to have to be looking into the horizon. It’s great to dream big.
Um, two things I would add to that, remember to keep looking where you’ve come from. That’s key. Otherwise it’s easy to fall into this gap of frustration and lack of confidence and depression and, um, causing effect, not only having the horizon, these big goals, but taking time to imagine, to meditate, to dream what it would be like if it was fulfilled now not thinking how you’re going to do that. I didn’t say that. Just thinking if it was happening now, what your dream is, if it actually has occurred, what would be different? How would you feel? How would you behave? How would you act? And you’re training your body, your autonomic nervous system, which I understand to believe is your subconscious system. Um, you’re training it and it now has that expectation. And then these opportunities start to show up in your life to help you materialize that in the physical plane here.
So thank you again for tuning in. Um, if you like these kind of topics and talks, I suggest you check out my book missing the point and, um, you can check out my website, um, Lorne brown.com. It has links to, um, where to get my book. It has links to my website that I found in healthy seminars where you can great, great con continued education for PDA and use. It also has, um, uh, a library there of our past 10 years of lectures and links to my clinic. So you can check all that out. And I want you to know the next week you want to tune into, to the point with AAC. Cause we got Jeffrey Grossman from acupuncture, media works, and he always has great business pearls to help you grow your practice. Thank you for listening. And I’d love to hear your feedback in the chat.