Don't Give Up!

Hello Speed Readers,

By now, some of you are in the flow of the Speed Reading process and digesting books, articles, reports, and websites easily. Others of you are still wrestling with your conditioned expectations and working on getting used to how different it feels to learn this new way. Be patient, it will happen for you if you let it.

Still others of you will have hit a roadblock and may not have practiced for quite some time. For you, these well intentioned emails may represent guilt and even shame that you aren't where others are. It is important to realize that there is nothing wrong with you or the process. One cannot underestimate the power of decades of conditioning that makes you want to do things the way you always have. In fact, the process may actually be working but your brain is really good at trying to convince you that it doesn't!

Some of you may just not have had the time to practice or there have just been too many distractions to get going. Now some of that resistance is real while the rest is that conditioned part of your brain again, which is really good at coming up with excuses. But whatever the reason you may have stalled, here are some ideas to get you back on track.

1.    Don't be afraid or discouraged

I talked about this in a previous post. The late Gabriel Roth who was an amazing author, dancer, and musician, said, "I find that virtually everyone is locked in fear; people are afraid of everything - losing their job, losing their lover, losing their life; they're afraid of success, afraid of being too happy, afraid of the truth, afraid of feeling, afraid of moving, of changing." Unreleased fear stiffens the jaw, contracts the forehead and locks the knees. And it stifles learning, keeps us from enjoying our work, and sabotages relationships.

Roth says, "Fear writes its signature all over the body, but we are all so used to it we've become desensitized to the loud-and-clear message of our body language. And this pervasive fear simply compounds itself; it paralyzes our life energy, seizes up our feelings. We're so afraid of what we are going to lose, so painfully attached to what we have, that we numb ourselves into a living death to shield us from the pain of real living. By clinging to life as we have it, we deny ourselves a vibrant present and future."

Fear keeps us from learning new things, even those things that could change our lives.

When the immobilizing energy of unexpressed fear is released, fear can be transformed into what Roth calls its "natural dynamic partner," excitement. When we give appropriate attention and expression to our fears as they arise, then the pent up energy and the paralysis can be released. Roth says, "Fear properly channeled yields wide-awake engagement."

Experiment with this. Look at your own fear response. Is it in proper proportion to the circumstances? Are you adequately and appropriately expressing your fears? Are you afraid of those things that could actually help you?  

When learning something new and you feel that familiar resistance or hesitance, always ask yourself: "Really now! What harm could it do to try?!"

2.    Start up again.

 If it has been some time since you practiced, go to the Audio Tips section of the website and listen to the very first audio - "Getting Back on Track." This gives you a quick review.

3.    Review your PowerPoint charts from the class.

4.    Now - Grab a book or article and JUST DO IT!

There is no mystery or trick to this. The only obstacles you feel, the only resistances you encounter, is solely based on the conditioned fear response you have built up to change and transformation. It's not your fault! Most of us experience the same thing, since so many of us have had uninspiring schooling that, at an early age, helped make us resistant to learning new things. And you have used an inefficient system for reading for so many years that it is hard for your conditioned mind to let it go. But you absolutely can do this. You have the power within you to create any life you want. 

5.    Keep practicing all the steps of the process with everything you read.

Remember, you can call or write me anytime for advice and if it has been less than 5 years since you have taken the class, you can take it again for FREE!

Apply these principles to anything in your life you want to accomplish. There need be no limits on your dreams. Go for it!

Jackie

Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
President, Center for Lifelong Learning
PO Box 77316 | Seattle, WA 98177 | USA
Cell: (206) 755-9272
FAX: (206) 494-7689
jackie@readfast.org
http://www.readfast.org

There is really nothing to be afraid of

Hello Speed Reader or Soon-to-be Speed Reader,

A student in the speed reading workshop this past weekend said after our notetaking discussion that she felt like her head would explode if she took notes in this very different new way! I told her that it was quite unlikely that her head would explode under any circumstances and that she really didn't have anything to fear. She didn't seem convinced. I noticed that during the reading and notetaking exercise that followed, she drew her note taking line down the middle of her page, not diagonally across the page as instructed. 

The power of the conditioning in our lives is so strong that many folks have very irrational fears about learning something new. What harm would it have done to do it our way for a few minutes, just to try out a process that presidents and world leaders and millions of other people have tried? Conditioning breeds fear. Fear of trying something different, fear of doing something unfamiliar. Even though her old notetaking and reading methods weren't very good, I suspect that doing something familiar felt safer.

Gabrielle Roth, author of the book "Maps to Ecstasy," says, 

"Fear is a vitally useful emotion. It places you on alert, catalyzes your senses, and heightens your awareness in the face of danger. Fear is your friend, the radar for your voyage through life. It is a basic instinct of human survival - physical, psychological, spiritual. We need to have an acute sense of what threatens our well-being."

 

Unfortunately, the way our lives unfold, we often don't fully acknowledge our fears and then we then become afraid of even those things that could help us. Roth says, "I find that virtually everyone is locked in fear; people are afraid of everything - losing their job, losing their lover, losing their life; they're afraid of success, afraid of being too happy, afraid of the truth, afraid of feeling, afraid of moving, of changing."

How many of us have experienced the tightening of the throat, neck, and lower back that accompanies an unreleased fear? Unreleased fear stiffens the jaw, contracts the forehead and locks the knees. And it stifles learning, keeps us from enjoying our work, and sabotages relationships.

Roth says, "Fear writes its signature all over the body, but we are all so used to it we've become desensitized to the loud-and-clear message of our body language. And this pervasive fear simply compounds itself; it paralyzes our life energy, seizes up our feelings. We're so afraid of what we are going to lose, so painfully attached to what we have, that we numb ourselves into a living death to shield us from the pain of real living. By clinging to life as we have it, we deny ourselves a vibrant present and future."

Fear keeps us from learning new things, even those things that could change our lives.

When the immobilizing energy of unexpressed fear is released, fear can be transformed into what Roth calls its "natural dynamic partner," excitement. When we give appropriate attention and expression to our fears as they arise, then the pent up energy and the paralysis can be released. Roth says, "Fear properly channeled yields wide-awake engagement."

What if everyone was wide-awake and engaged? If this happened, the face of the world - and our lives - would change overnight.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would have no fear of new things. We would learn everything and not fear that our views and beliefs were being threatened.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would enjoy our jobs, whatever they were, and see the bigger picture of who we serve in those roles. A welder can be proud of his/her work. Without it, big things fall down! A proud welder knows the weld is like a signature. An auto mechanic keeps the world moving and can do things for people that a nuclear physicist can't!

If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would welcome those things that challenge our beliefs and the assumptions that we have made about how the world works. We would welcome criticism and always be looking for a new way to accomplish our goals and live harmoniously in the world.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, we wouldn't worry so much about always trying to do things that were in our comfort zone. We would stretch, grow, and learn with ease, not shying away from temporary frustration. In fact, we would welcome feelings of frustration, since that would mean we are learning something new!

If we were wide-awake and engaged and walked through the world with well-managed fear, we would love more freely, give more readily, and embrace the iconic principle of "do no harm."

Experiment with this. Look at your own fear response. Is it in proper proportion to the circumstances? Are you adequately and appropriately expressing your fears? Are you afraid of those things that could actually help you?

When learning something new and you feel that familiar resistance or hesitance, always ask yourself: "Really now! What harm could it do to try?!"

Let us help you make it happen.

Jackie

Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
President, Center for Lifelong Learning
PO Box 77316 | Seattle, WA 98177 | USA
Cell: (206) 755-9272

I sometimes get email from folks who have been practicing their speed reading techniques, yet they still don't feel it is happening for them. After talking to them, quite often I find that they are actually doing just fine, but their new reading experience is so different from what they are used to that they think they aren't getting it. But they are!

I recently got an email from a student one month after he took the class. Here is what he wrote:

 Dr. Jackie,

I just want to say thank you! I came to your seminar last month skeptical but hopeful. I have been practicing regularly for 30 days with mostly textbooks and non-fiction reading and while I have by no means mastered the process, I have seen a dramatic increase in the speed and efficiency at which I read and take in information. I am so excited! I look forward to getting long reading assignments from my professors. I have noticed that I have become even more motivated than I already was to learn more, faster and better.

At first it was very difficult to make myself use the techniques and it was becoming extremely frustrating. But I stuck to my guns and last week I had a breakthrough. I used the technique to read my psychology textbook and when I finished I was certain I had not retained anything. But I went on to do my assignments and I was shocked, absolutely amazed, when I only needed to refer back to my notes for minor information.

I just wanted share my experience in hopes that this will help encourage your clients to continue working diligently and they will see results.

Thank You,
JB

The message is to keep practicing and be open to the idea that comprehension is happening with your new system, but it FEELS different.

Don't hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Jackie