Category: Cambia tu Vida – Augusto Cury

Chapter 12

MAKE LIFE A PARTY,
A GREAT ADVENTURE

Twelfth law for quality of life

TWELFTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE ACADEMY OF INTELLIGENCE
1. In modern society, dialogue is in trouble. Solitude has come to our homes, schools and workplace. We are ever closer physically and farther away from our own selves. Parents hide their tears from their children; children hide their dreams from their parents. Professors hide behind blackboards. Many hide behind statues, culture and money. We speak more about the world in which we live and are quiet about the world we are.

2. Knowledge has multiplied like never before, but we aren’t training people to think. Medicine, psychiatry and psychology have made enormous advances, but statistics show the norm is to be stressed and anxious…

… and that health is abnormal. What kind of society are we building?

3. Human beings tend to be giants in the world outside but children in the territory of emotions and the scenery of thought. Many know how to manage questions of logic, but ignore how to confront their tears, how to benefit from their loss, and how to gain lessons from frustration. Science has taken us to conquer outer space and the smallest atom, but not how to conquer our own selves. Having quality of life is becoming a mirage in the middle of the desert: beautiful but unattainable.

15. Having quality of life is knowing how to value smiles as well as grief. It’s showing humility in success and garnering lessons from failure. It’s giving thanks for applause, but knowing the greatest treasures of emotion are hidden in the most simple and anonymous of things.

16. Having quality of life is being conscious that each human being is a world to discover and a history to explore. Everyone has hidden treasures within, even those who are the most difficult and complicated, as well as those who make mistakes and always fail. Follow the gold in the interior of the person you love. Look for gold in your own being. Few know how to…

… find it, for that reason not many are able to have happy days.

17. Having quality of life is not fearing your own feelings. It is better to have the maturity to say, “I made a mistake;” look for the courage to ask for forgiveness, be valiant to accept a “no.” Having quality of life is being temperate in receiving criticism, even if it is unjust; it is making new friends, but never putting aside the old ones.

18. Having quality of life is being a sailor in the waters of emotion; kissing your children; hugging your parents and looking into the eyes of that someone special for you and telling them passionately, “I love you! I need you!”

19. It is being a friend of God and thanking him (her or it) every morning for the miracle of life… It is knowing that it is worthwhile to live despite each and every crisis, challenge, and difficulty, since having quality of life is to know how to use the psychological tools to obtain benefit from loss, strength in forgiveness, security in the middle of desperation, experience in the valley of fear, happiness in the territory of pain.

20. Above all, quality of life is being convinced that in spite of our errors, defects, and weaknesses, that life is…

21. A PRECIOUS AND UNIQUE GEM IN THE THEATER OF EXISTENCE…

Chapter 11

SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE: OVERCOMING EXISTENTIAL CONFLICT

Eleventh law for quality of life

ELEVENTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

I. SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE IS:

1. Being conscious that life is a great question in search of a great answer.
2. Looking for a life’s meaning and the reason for existence.
3. Trying to understand, independent of our religion and our cultural formation, the mysteries of life and the secrets of the Creator of existence.
4. Looking for answers to the questions science cannot answer: Who are we? Where are we going? Es the end the beginning or the beginning the end?
5. Being conscious of the temporal nature of existence.
6. Discovering hope in desolation, comfort in trying times, courage in loss, wisdom in chaos.

3. Spirituality fed by serenity brings peace socially, stimulates love, and enriches pleasure; but when controlled by extremists and authoritarians, it produces discord, promotes hate, and generates anguish. All social systems linked to consumerism, cosmetic surgery, leisure, clubs, and work do not satisfy human needs, since the same concerns which perturbed primitive civilizations continue to preoccupy modern man. Among them, death and finite existence.

25.  Darwin’s theory of evolution, confirmed by mutations and genetic variability, can explain adaptation of species due to inclement weather in the environment, but cannot justify illogical processes occurring in the dressing room of the human soul.  It’s entirely too simple to explain the source which produces the world of ideas and emotions.  The psyche of the human soul requires God, to be explained.

29.  On one occasion, Einstein was asked if he believed in God.  Surprised by the question, he answered that a scientist, such as himself, could not help but think about God.  On another occasion, he said he was more interested in knowing about the mind of God than about the phenomenon of physics.

34.  Who are we?  Where are we going?  How is it possible to recover the identity of our personality after death if trillions of secrets in our memory are dissolved in the chaos of our tombs?  Everyone who looked for the answers in science, died in the midst of his doubts.

To enhance quality of life, spirituality can develop the most important functions of intelligence:

1. Learn to give but not impose ideas. We must impart what is thought and believed but without imposition; after which, freedom should be given for listeners to reject or accept what is said.
2. Think before reacting. Spiritual intelligence should develop the art of thinking, softening instincts, stopping aggressiveness, hate, and anger.
3. Being capable of tolerating and creating solidarity. Tolerance is the art of respecting differences, and solidarity, that of perceiving the pain and necessity of others in an attempt to resolve them.
4. Live in love with life and for human beings. Spirituality should contribute to the enrichment of human emotion, the development of sensitivity, the capacity of forgiveness, comprehension and inclusion.
5. Wisdom. Spiritual intelligence enhance ability to recognize errors, perception of our own limitations, comprehension of the vast array of possibilities of existence.

42.  The yearning for medicine is to prolong life and alleviate pain.  Philosophically speaking, religion shares the same aspiration, though medicine is a natural science and spirituality is a transcendental search.  Every religion considers the alleviation of pain, the prolongation of life, and overcoming finite existence.  Without doubt, it has to do with a fantastic dream.  Meanwhile, the fact is one day we will be without friends, without children, achievements or status, in the the main phenomenon opposing life.  We come to life alone, and also leave her in solitude.

60.  Human beings are completely free to be atheists, to obey what their conscious ordains.  But there is no doubt that the development of spiritual intelligence through prayer, meditation, and the search for answers to existentialism, besides resolving internal conflict, quiets thought, appeases the waters of emotion, and gives us a healthier psyche.

Spiritual intelligence calms thoughts, tranquilizes emotion, gives comfort in loss, courage against injustice, hope in chaos.  Have you calmed the waters of your emotion?  Is the future for you a dream, or a nightmare?

Chapter 10

BE AN ENTREPRENEUR: WORK ON LOSSES AND FRUSTRATIONS

Tenth law for quality of life

TENTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR IS…

1. Creating opportunities and not waiting for them to appear.
2. Having important dreams and setting goals to transform dreams into realities.
3. Opening up the possibilities of intelligence, taking charge of sensibilities and being more courageous to be able to acquire what we love, admire and most need.
4. Not being afraid to travel unknown roads, even when we don’t know the way.
5. Learning to use failures as trampolines for great victories; valuing losses as a starting point for the best triumphs; employing weaknesses as food for wisdom.
6. Believing in life and never wasting it.

Our destiny is not predetermined, rather chosen.

 

Those who want to be an entrepreneur should have the belief that life is a huge university, but that it teaches little to he who doesn’t know how to be a student.

9.  Beliefs, paradigms and judgments found in the matrix of memory are the biggest obstacles to being an entrepreneur.  An entrepreneur should be someone who is open and should have a keen sense of observation.  We cannot hide behind our diplomas, status or financial situation.

13. We must be entrepreneurs. Even though we make mistakes, we should not be ashamed of admitting it. If we need help, we shouldn’t be afraid to say, “Show me.”  If we make a mistake along the way, we should not be afraid to start over again.

14. An entrepreneur is not infallible or perfect. He falls and gets up. He doesn’t feel bad for his failures, but rather give thanks for the ability to be able to stay on his feet. The theater of his mind is not controlled by fear and auto-sufficiency, rather is a sponge modestly absorbing the experience of others.

21.  Those who fail are the ones who succumb to their doubts and insecurities.  An entrepreneur has doubts, but doesn’t become a prisoner of them.  What attitude do you take when you are losing the one you love?  Does it make you mad, do you feel fear and blame others?  An entrepreneur never blames others, rather opts to change.  He chooses a path and is not content to find fault.

26. Unfortunately, many people lived enclosed in a capsule. They are cultured, but rigid. They are eloquent, but do not know the language of emotion. They want to be leaders in businesses and institutions, but are not leaders of themselves.

27. If you know how to open the windows of your mind, expand the art of thinking and practice the laws for quality of life in this program, the labyrinths in which you live won’t be dangerous ground, a desert, or a jail, rather a place where you place your most beautiful projects.

31.  Don’t think people are complicated, rather that you do not yet have the ability to win them over.  Don’t think your job is too stressful, maybe it is you who cannot transform it into an oasis.  For many, pain is a problem, for the wise it teaches a lesson.  The objective of the twelve laws for quality of life is to give you the tools you need to become a wise entrepreneur.

45.  We are sparks of flame which shine for a few years in the theater of life and are then extinguished as mysteriously as they were lit.  There is nothing as fantastic as life and nothing as ephemeral and brief.

48.  Some suffer form depression, anxiety and stress, not as a consequence of conflicts when they were small, rather because of existential anguish, a true lack of meaning of life.  Remember what we have seen:  some have fortunes, but beg for bread of happiness; they are cultured, but lack peace; they are famous, but permanent companions of solitude.  In a few words, they haven’t quite figured life out.

Life is a labyrinth, as such, plan for it.  Never spend more than you make and never spend everything.  Nobody knows the valleys through which they will have to travel in the future.

• See life as a labyrinth to be discovered instead of a problem to be resolved
• Create my own opportunities instead of waiting for them to happen
• Remember there are not “complicated” people, only those who must be “won over”

Chapter 9

THE ART OF SELF-DIALOGUE:
THE ROUND TABLE WITH ONESELF

Ninth law of quality of life

NINTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

2. This law of the quality of life is one of the most important intellectual exercises for human beings. The amount of wisdom and maturity of someone has doesn’t come from their wealth of academic knowledge or from their business or social success; rather from the ability and frequency with which they organize a round table with themselves, by which they question their thoughts and emotions, and criticize what they believe is true, meditate on their lives, remake their paths.

14. There is an emotional bomb behind our apparent calm. Surely, it doesn’t escape you that there are many who lose patience for silly things. Does this happen to you?

15. This emotional bomb explodes and produces psychosomatic symptoms or social problems. The principle cause is that we haven’t lived the fundamental and universal laws for quality of life, analyzed in this program, in particular with self dialogue. Disarm your emotional bomb.

16. The high incidence of social violence, terrorist attacks, youngsters who commit suicide, children who shoot their companions, are all shouts from a species in crisis, but are unheard by those who lack sensibility.

Traveling towards our own self: becoming humanized

17. Speaking with oneself seems to be an act of dementia, but real craziness is the absence of intelligent self diologue. Someone who practices auto diologue is not only in a position to overcome psychic misery, but also to humanize themselves…

19. The greatness of human beings lies in their capacity to be humble enough to put themselves in the shoes of others and understand what is behind their reactions…

35. Precisely because it is activated during a moment charged with tension, the technique of DCD (Doubt, Criticize, Determine) “edits” the movie of our unconscious, generating new experiences registered in the sick, unhealthy “files.” The technique of the round table with oneself not only does the same thing, but also has as as a primary objective to open parallel windows in the memory to enhance the panorama of the unconscious and generate a new space exercising more lucid reasoning.

36. These phenomenon are among the most important secrets about how the mind works. If you are able to understand them, you will reconstruct your life’s direction. Let’s take a look.

Window of Memory

37. The human memory opens small windows which are read. Each window has an associated group of files containing a large quantity of information. En the cerebral cortex there are millions of windo

38.  Some are beautiful, generating pleasure, courage, intelligent responses. Others are sickly, producing affliction, hate, blockage. At certain times, it brings out in us happiness for no reason or sadness without cause.  Why?  Because every day we open random windows producing completely different reactions.

47.  Some “killer” windows destroy the intelligence of the brightest students.  Every time they have to present an exam or participate in a contest, their level of anxiety, which at the same time, blocks the readability of the areas containing the countless amount of information accumulated over such a long period of time.  As a result, their intellectual capacity becomes terrible.

49.  Drastically doubting our aggressive reactions, criticizing our impulsiveness, and determining to have self-control in tense moments, are acts of love for life, which are unfortunately not put into practice very often. We should learn to shout silently within ourselves.

59.  These phenomenon are valid for all psychic and social sicknesses.  It isn’t possible to eliminate the past, only to “re-edit” it or open parallel windos which allow us to construct a new vision of the world and of things.

60.  “Killer” windows can transform a cockroach into a monster (simple phobia), an elevator into a cubicle “without air” (claustrophobia), a meeting into a storm (social phobia).

67. If you have learned something about these secrets of how the mind works, you will never again think of life in the same way. Never again will you be a passive spectator in the theater of your mind.

91.  A few words can contaminate a life.  Upon being rejected, some people are blocked.  Others convert the rejection into trampolines to grow, but even if they have apparently overcome the trauma, it may be they have not fully overcome it in their own self, and continue to suffer.

Self talk is an open dialogue, intelligent and creative with oneself.  Construct a romance with life.  Have you lived this romance?  The worst solitude is not when the world abandons us, rather when we abandon ourselves.  Have you abandoned yourself?

We should use DCD (Determine, Criticize, Determine) to “edit” the movie in our unconscious and the round table with ourselves to create parallel windows.

Chapter 8

THE ART OF LISTENING AND THE ART OF DIALOGUE

Eighth law of quality of life

EIGHTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

I) THE ART OF LISTENING IMPLIES THE CAPACITY TO:

1) Empty oneself to listen to what others have to say and not what we want to hear.

2) Putting ourselves in the place of others and perceive their troubles and social needs.

3) Penetrate into the heart of their psyche and uncover the causes of aggressiveness, shyness, anguish, strange behavior.

4) Interpret what words don’t say and what images don’t reveal.

5) Be sensitive to be able to respect tears which are visible and to perceive those never cried.

The art of dialogue implies:

1) Talking about oneself

2) Interchanging experiences of life.

3) Revealing secrets of the heart.

4) Being transparent: not simulating feelings or intentions.

5) Not feeling ashamed of our defects and not fearing our failures.

6) Respecting limits and conflicts of others; not giving superficial answers.

7) That an interpersonal dialogue exists which crosses psychic worlds and breaks solitude.

3) The two arts complement each other; one depends on the other. He who doesn’t learn to listen, will never know how to dialogue; he who doesn’t learn to speak about himself, will never be a good listener.

They (couples) hear sounds, but don’t listen to the voice of emotion. They have the audacity to fight, but are afraid to talk about their own feelings. They spend years together without ever becoming great friends.

6) They (couples) don’t reveal their heartbreaks, don’t talk about their conflicts, don’t refer to their difficulties. If you want to cultivate love, the best way isn’t by giving expensive gifts, rather giving a jewel which has no price: your own self. The art of listening renews the relationship, and the art of dialogue feeds love. They are universal laws which sustain the quality of life in social relationships.

9) There couples who have beautiful beginnings which have sad endings because they don’t prepare to be friends, don’t train themselves to exchange experiences. They are great when it is time to defend their points of view, but rarely recognize their errors. Who has never made a mistake? Who has never had dumb attitudes? They win battles, but lose in love.

15) Parents who give things to their children are remembered for hours and days, but parents who give of themselves, become unforgettable. Do you want to be a father or mother who is unforgettable?

16) Have the courage to talk to your children about your most difficult days and your defeats of the past. Tell them about your adventures, your dreams and refer to the happiest times of your existence. Allow them to get to know you. The majority of children never even get to know the hallway to the entrance of the personality of their parents.

19) If you make a mistake, give an example: ask for forgiveness, recognize your errors. These attitudes won’t cause you to lose authority, rather to become the base of real authority, an authority which humanizes and develops the art of thinking. Be aware that educating implies penetrating another’s world.

21) Many parents work to give everything to their children, but forget to open the book of life. Many professors give millions of bits of logical information to their students, but never tell them about their chapters of life.

27) Professors and students spend years together without having their own stories ever cross, without learning mutual lessons of life. The result? Students leave the university with a diploma in hand, but without being prepared to handle failure, deception, challenge and competency. They don’t know how to open the windows of their minds, ignoring how to free their creativity, how to think before reacting, how to interpret what images don’t reveal and recover the leadership of “I” in the most difficult times of tension.

46) The social system is so aggressive that it has caused youngsters to become passive, it has controlled them from within themselves, it has stolen their identity, transformed them into a number. They don’t criticize the venom of consumerism, the paranoia of how yo look, the craziness of instant pleasure created by publicity and the media. For many of them, the future has no importance: what is important is today. They don’t ever find an important cause to fight for.

47) Parents and professors should sell dreams. They should plant the most beautiful seeds possible inside youngsters to make them into intellectually free and emotionally brilliant people.

Chapter 7

WORKING ON THE FUNCTION OF MEMORY: “RE-EDITING” THE MOVIE OF OUR SUBCONSCIOUS

7th law for quality of life

SEVENTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

6.  In computers, saving something in the memory depends on the user.  In human beings, the registry is involuntary and is done by the phenomenon of RAM (Automatic Registry of Memory).

9.  The more we try to reject something (a person who bothered us, a loss, a social humiliation), the more deeply it is registered, the more it is read, and in this way becomes part of thousands of thoughts.

10. The best way to filter stressful stimulants no is through anger or hate, rejecting them or complaining about them, rather:

i. Understanding them
ii. Criticizing them
iii. Considering them “multi-focally”, in other words, from different angles.
iv. Using them as opportunities to grow.
v. Deciding to not be their slave.

You save millions of experiences yearly, but tend to recover those with the most emotional content, like those involving loss, happiness, praise, fears, frustrations.

22. Never forget you should be the protagonist of your own history.  Control your thoughts, administer your emotion, doubt your incapacity, question your fragility, look at things from multiple angles.  If you don’t protect your memory, you won’t be able to have quality of life.

25. You can try with all of your strength to eliminate your conflicts, you can try with all of your ability you possess to destroy those who have hurt you, as well as erasing the most difficult times of your life, but you won’t have the least bit of success.

26. There are two ways in which we can resolve our conflicts, traumas and psychological problems:

i. “Re-edit” the movie of your unconscious.
ii. Construct parallel windows to the unhealthy windows of memory.

When we utilize the technique of DCD (Doubt, Criticize, Determine), when we find ourselves in a critical moment of tension, we can produce new experiences which are recorded where the unhealthy experiences were previously stored.

One of the most important functions of our “I” as protagonist of your own history is to rewrite the past, “re-edit” the movie of our unconscious.  Changing, reorganizing and transforming personality isn’t easy, but neither is it impossible.  It depends on training, perseverance, the objective and re-education.

34.  We don’t understand that we construct sick neighborhoods in the city of memory, contaminating its air, dirtying its streets, destroying its light.  Don’t forget about this simile.  If we don’t filter little by little stressful stimuli, if we don’t “re-edit” the movie of the unconscious and protect our memory, we can lose our emotional health.

There are people who are poor who make a new experience of each day.  They don’t have designer clothes, luxurious cars or a house on the beach, but their memory is a garden which spontaneously sprouts forth a wealth of emotions and beautiful thoughts.  Their winters are short and their springs, long-lasting.

Chapter 6

MANAGE EMOTION

Sixth law of quality of life

SIXTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

2.  Emotion can give rise to the most ample of liberties or the narrowest of prisons:  the jail of emotion.  Many live locked up in this prison.  Though it can be administered, it is impossible to completely dominate emotion.

3.  If you want to be a person who is perfectly balanced, forget it, you will never achieve it.  Emotion goes through a continual process of transformation.  Happiness alternates with anxiety, which at the same time combines with calm, which turns into apprehension.  Nevertheless, brusque fluctuations between these sensations reveals sickly emotions.

5.  Emotions is more difficult to govern than thoughts.  It is illogical.  But the result is so beautiful.  A mother will never give up on her children, no matter how much they disappoint her.

For being illogical, emotion produce huge benefits, but also causes big problems.  An offense may sour a week; criticism can generate insomnia; a loss can destroy a life; a failure can produce tremendous trauma. (Very true!)

9.  Today, society is so stressful and competitive that if we do not develop our capacity to administer emotion we run an enormous risk of having a terrible quality of life.  Don’t run this risk.

10.  There have been kings who have ruled the world but were never able to dominate their emotion.  There have been generals who have won battles but lost wars in the territory of emotion, held prisoners of anger, of hate, of pride, and of anguish.

If you don’t manage emotion, you will be like a ship without a rudder, controlled by praise, by giving up, by criticism and frustration.  If the social winds are good, you will have to get to a decent port, but if you must confront bad weather, you will likely get stranded.

The educational model in modern society has failed, since it is unaware of this fundamental law for quality of life.  For years youngsters are taught to solve mathematical equations, but not their existential problems.  They are shown how to take exams at school, but not the tests of life, the rejection, the anguish and the difficulty.
Our “I” should come out from the audience, get up on stage and direct the play of thought and emotion.  (LOVE THIS ONE!)

24.  To manage emotion, our “I” should also practice the technique of DCD (doubt, criticize, determine).  You should doubt perturbing thought immediately, from the sickly content of your emotions.  You should question the motives of your reactions, criticize your anxiety, demand freedom in this moment.  Finally, you should take advantage of the tool of silence, practice introspection and recover leadership of your “I”.

36.  Depression is not a temporary condition lasting a few hours or days.  It is a sickness.  If is sever, it should be treated by a medical doctor, preferably a psychiatrist with experience.  Treatment with anti-depressives can be and should be complemented by psychotherapy.

37.  Depression takes the strongest to sobs.  It is the last stage of human suffering.  Only he or she who has experienced its dismal spectacle can know its drama.

39.  In the end, he who thinks about dying feels hunger and thirst to live.  He is looking desperately for a way to destroy anguish and not how to end his life.  Many of my depressed patients who though of suicide made a great leap in their quality of life by discovering that, in reality, what they wanted was not to die, but to live.  They got out of the audience and learned to recover the leadership of “I”.  In a few words, they stopped being victims of their emotional misery.

We should never give up on life; we need to confront our losses and deceptions with humility and courage.  Daily we should criticize, confront, and manage our sickly emotions.  Shout silently in your interior.

When we are abandoned by the world, loneliness can be overcome; when we are abandoned by ourselves, the loneliness is almost incurable…

CONTROL YOUR THOUGHTS

Fifth law of quality of life

FIFTH WEEK OF PROGRAM

2.  Be free when it is time to think and not slave to our thoughts.  Be master and not slave to our thoughts.

2.  This law of quality of life is one of the most important for a healthy life.  The world of thought can become a source of pleasure or terror for human beings.

10.  AUTOFLOW is the phenomenon which reads the memory thousands of times per day and produces the great majority of thoughts in the theater of our mind.  The thoughts that distract, those that encourage and those which make us dream.  Some who travel so much in the world of ideas that they live distracted, unable to concentrate.  Without this phenomenon, we would die of boredom, of loneliness and of existential anguish.

Thinking is healthy, the problem is thinking too much and anxiously.

21.  One of the great discoveries about the theory of multifocal intelligence is that the excess velocity of thought provokes an important symptom called ATS – Accelerated Thought Syndrome.  Do you know how many people suffer from this syndrome?  The majority of those living in modern societies.  Billions of people.

23.  The excess of information in the modern world, the competitiveness in work and the paranoia of consumerism are teh three greatest causes which overstimulate the three secondary actors in the theater of the human mind.  These three phenomenon construct accelerated thought like no other generation, producing Accelerated Thought Syndrome.

28.  Think about this!  A person who is very stressed with Accelerated Thought Syndrome can consume more energy than ten manual laborers.  Wise is he who does much wasting little energy.

The person who has Accelerated Thought Syndrome is not anchored in the present, generally they go from the past to the future, which strangles their tranquility and pleasure of living.

It is estimated that more than 90% of what we worry about never come to pass.

36.  DCD (doubt, criticize, determine) is a technique which structures and strengthens leadership of “I”.  It should be done silently, several times a day with sensibility and sincereness.

 Doubt everything you believe and which perturbs you.  Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.

Doubt the lies of your negative thoughts.

39.  Criticize every pessimistic idea, all excessive worry and each worrisome thought about the future.

Decide to be happy, sure of yourself, strong.  Decide not to be a slave of your conflicts.  Decide to feel the pleasure of living, contemplate beauty and fight for your dreams.  Proclaim it in the theater of your mind.

43.  We fool ourselves.  Never have there been so many slaves in a free society.  Education teaches us how to run machines, vehicles, industries, homes, professions, but not to control our thoughts.

Doubt everything that controls and perturbs you.  Criticize every negative thought.  Determine what you want to think and feel..  Lead yourself.