Experience is Educational

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Written By Eugene Morgan

“Experience is educational if it’s reused.” Eugene Morgan

What we can take away from our experiences is wisdom.  Each time we gain experience, we gain a little wisdom.   Experiences are educational when we learn from them.  Experiences are treasures of wisdom; they can help us see things clearly.  Enough about knowing something; it’s more charming to experience something.  Experiencing something sets in our minds better.  Experiences are the things that last a lifetime.  Experiences become a part of us.  Experiencing something has more of a lasting effect than knowledge.   Our unconscious mind is always ready to have us experience something, because we seem to enjoy it better.  Life is all about are experiences.

 

Mistakes convert into a Wealth of Learning

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Objectivity, observation

Wrong Way
Written by Eugene Morgan

“There’s a wealth of learning you get from making mistakes.” Milton Erickson

We have to risk doing something to make a mistake.  It’s okay to make mistakes as long as we can learn something from them.  Learning something from a mistake means making adjustments to the situation.  If we continuing to make the same mistakes, this means we haven’t learned anything yet or made any adjustment to our attitude and behavior.  Making adjustments mean making changes.  As long as we’re alive we’re going to make mistakes but also we’ll have accumulated a wealth of learning. Learning used as resource to breathe wisdom into a difficult situation.

“I win Olympic Championships”

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Abilities, Barriers, Effort, Ericksonian Principles, Failures, Goal, Potential, Reward

Gold
Written by Eugene Morgan

“Out of a wheelchair I win Olympic championships all the time.” Milton Erickson

As you can see from most of Erickson’s quotes, he’s good at turning a phrase. It’s interesting how he links “a wheelchair” with winning “olympic championships” together. The message he wants us to get is that in spite of  our limitations, we don’t have to yield to them.  Erickson made himself an example for people around him that he set goals and carry them out even in a wheelchair. All of us have different kinds of limitations that get in the way of our goals. Erickson wants us to stop looking at our  limitations, and start looking toward our goals we set  and win championships. It’s also interesting that Erickson didn’t say he won the state, national, or international championships, he said Olympic championships.  In other words, he’s saying be unafraid to go for the big win—go for gold!

Feel with the Finger, the Heart, and the Mind

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Emotions, Ericksonian Principles

The Heart of Santorini
Written by Eugene Morgan

“We do not just feel with the fingers, but with the heart, the mind.” Milton Erickson

Erickson is reminding us that we feel with our heart as well as our mind. The heart is generally a metaphor of our emotions. Therefore, we feel our emotions. Our minds identify the emotions based on a situation or event in our world. Erickson always bring us back to basics, to experience things fully. Experiencing something different breaks up the routine of our thought processes to help in relieving repressed emotions so they can be felt fully in our heart and mind.

Seeds of Ideas

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Divergent Thinking Puzzles, Ericksonian Principles, flexibility, Frame of reference, Understanding

Flowers
Written by Eugene Morgan

“There is nothing more delightful than planting flower seeds and not knowing what kind of flowers are going to come up.” Milton Erickson

Erickson enjoyed planting seeds of ideas to his patients, students and subjects to get them into another training of thought.  When we get stuck into certain train of thought, it is hard to get out.   Like this quote, “The way out is through the  door.  Why is it that no one will use this exit?” Confucius.  What seem obvious to one person, isn’t alway obvious to another who’s thinking a certain way that’s not useful. We all have experienced someone pointing something out to us that seems obvious to them; and then it dawns on us what’s so obvious about it. After it dawn on us, we feel silly and ask ourselves why didn’t we think of that before. It’s also like an “aha” moment when we get after looking for solution. Then when we see things in hindsight , it seems so clear to us now.

We Appraise Things we Learn

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Beliefs, Biases, Ericksonian Principles

PICT0001
Written by Eugene Morgan

“And all of our days we are learning things-learning how to appraise them, how to assess them, how to feel about them.” Milton Erickson

When we watch an event unfold before our eyes, we tend to automatically appraise the event based on our background experiences.  How much value we put into the event depends upon how personal it is.  After it’s been filter through, we know how we feel about the event based on our background experiences. Sometimes our perception gets distorted because our filters are too narrow. Learning to appraise, assess and feel about things really tells something about us. It tells us what are likes or dislikes.  It tells us what’s important to us.  It tells us how we’re feeling.  When we begin learn these things about ourselves, we can expand our perception, if we wish.

Fearing Little is the Only Way Out

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Biases, Defenses, Doubt, Emotions, Ericksonian Principles, Learned limitations, Rigidity, Uncertainty

Frightened sticker
Written By Eugene Morgan

“And what do you need to fear? Very little that you need to fear.” Milton Erickson

Fear is a feeling. Fear saves lives. Fear is paralyzing. Fear speaks the truth about something. Fear speaks lies, too. Our assumptions about things can fuel a fear. Fear, if not felt, is projecting into something threatening that doesn’t exist. Fear is very real but a perceived danger isn’t. There are big fears and little fears. Big fears are unmanageable but if broken down into smaller fears— manageable.  Erickson, says in his above quote, there is very little that we need to fear.

Make It Simple

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Understanding

Simple Flower
Written Eugene Morgan

“And one usually starts with rather simple things. Because human beings are essentially, fundamentally, rather simple creatures.” Milton Erickson

Sometimes we make things so complicated, however, Erickson says because we’re simple creatures, we should make things simple.  When learning something new, its seems complicated at first. However, it’s easier to grabs something new if we take it in a bit at a time.  But using this approach can test our patience because it’s time consuming. So patience is just another thing to learn to do, if we want to make learning something simple.

We probably make things complicated because it’s an excuse to avoid learning something new—whether it’s about ourselves, or a situation.  We know that learning something new adds knowledge. And knowledge is only power if it’s used and not avoided.

Another thing why we make things so complicated, it’s that we use the wrong frame of mind.  Before we can get a new frame of mind, we need to begin learning something about it.  As we learn something about it, we then begin to think about what we just learned. When we find the right frame of mind in the situation then we can see clearly how to go ahead with things.

Athlete with signs of Potential

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Potential

Athlete on Chester Road
Written by Eugene Morgan

“Little is really known of the actual potentials of human functioning.” Milton Erickson

Erickson is correct that we don’t know how far we can go with our potentials.  We don’t know our actual potential until it is fully developed.  We can’t find out what those potentials are until we do something.  Accumulated potentials are experiences that lie dormant until it’s needed.  When we hear other say about an athlete who has potential, they’re really seeing the beginning signs of potential.  It will be up to the athlete to see how far he will take to develop his potential into something useful.  Although, we don’t know how far an athlete will take to see his potential develops, we can see signs of it.  These signs are important to note.

We shouldn’t ignore these signs in ourselves, especially, when others in our world often mentions these potential signs to us.   Because we have the potential for something, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to develop it into something great.  The most talented person is constantly fine tuning his craft to get to a higher level because he still sees signs of potential in himself.

Today Was Once Tomorrow

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Doubt, Ericksonian Principles, Goal, Responsibility

Life starts today
Written By Eugene Morgan

“People always have that tendency to put off working on a problem to tomorrow,” Milton Erickson.

Working on a problem isn’t always fun and games. When we put off working on a problem, it stays in front of us. It never leaves our sight. It hovers around the top of our heads like flies—waiting for us to do something about it.

When a problem is dealt with, it’s no longer in front us, it’s behind us; we have noticed it lessened our anxiety level; we have realized that we have made the problem bigger than it actually was; and we have felt the weight of the problem lifted from us. So whatever the problem was, we got through it, since we have experienced working through it before.

Erickson is implying, in the above quote, that the capacity in us can help us deal with the problem. Notice that Erickson says “working on a problem;” not fixing or solving a problem. He wants us to begin the process of working on a problem today; thus giving our full attention on the problem today.

If today was tomorrow and will be yesterday, then there is nothing we can do about tomorrow and/or yesterday, but we can about today!

“But You Do Like Reality”

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Dreams, Ericksonian Principles, Reality

A glass of water

Written Eugene Morgan

“You don’t want a charming movie to end, you don’t want a flower to wilt, but you do like reality.” Milton Erickson

Sometimes, we like to keep our fantasies alive.  In fact, some of us would rather live inside our heads. We create fantasies because we are trying to fulfill an unmet need.   In the quote above, is an example of Erickson trying to return the subject, he was talking with, back to reality.

Reality is where we can get our unmet needs met, not in dreams or fantasies.   When we get thirsty, we don’t have to fantasize about getting an ice-cold drink of water, instead we can get up and go to the kitchen and pour ourselves a glass of water. A useful fantasies is when we’re in the middle of the desert with only a short supply of water.  Knowing we would have to ration the water so it would last long enough to find more water.  But in the meantime, we can fantasize about drinking as much water to quench our thirst as we wish.

 

 

Treasure Chest of Happiness

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles, Expectation, Future Orientation

Trail through Pine Scrub

Written by Eugene Morgan

“Leave a trail of happiness…and look forward to the days when you can look back,” Milton Erickson

Whatever we do to make us happy, we can collect and put them in our treasure chest.  We can save them for later.  When we have an investment of happiness, in our later years, we can look back.  Our happy events in our lives are the past events that happened to us. When Erickson says to “look forward to the days,” he’s saying to us to anticipate recalling the happy times in our lives.  So instead of us focusing on our regrets, he want us to focus on our collected memories of the happy events that took place early in our lives, because these events become powerful resources to our lives later when we especially need them as we age.

Diversity and Acceptance

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Acceptance, Appreciation, Ericksonian Principles, Objectivity, observation, Perfections, Perspectives, Respect

Written by Eugene Morgan

“I think the faults that you recall in human beings give their charm to that individual that enable you to recognize and remember that individuals,” Milton Erickson

No one is perfect.  We all come in different shapes, sizes and colors.  Perfection is an internal standard that blinds us from what is real. It can keep us from being objective and observant.  But in the above quote, Erickson reframes it nicely.   He wants us to see our faults as charming and unique.  Erickson believes that acceptance is possible when it comes to our faults. When we accept ourselves as we are, then we can focus on our potentials and on what’s possible for change.  And when we accept ourselves, we can then easily accept the faults of others.   So let us charm ourselves and everyone around us and no longer look for faults to fit some internal standard.  Instead, we see that our faults are just another characteristic or attribute of ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claim Our Independence

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Choice, Ericksonian Principles, Freedom, observation

2011 4th of July Fireworks
Written by Eugene Morgan

“When one knows the boundaries, restrictions and limitations that governs them he is free to utilize satisfactorily whatever is available.” Milton Erickson

Today is Independence Day.  This is a time to celebrate our Independence, not just with our country but ourselves.  When we started learning how to walk, we were on our way of claiming our independence.  When we started learning how to speak, we were on our way of independence.  When we got our driver’s license, we were on our way of independence. When we graduated from high school we were  on our way of independence.  When we got our first job, we were on our way of independence.  When we turn 18 and then turn 21 years old, we were on our way of independence.  Erickson’s implication in the above quote is that if we don’t know the boundaries, restrictions and limitations that we place on ourselves we won’t believe we have at our disposal the choices to claim our independence.  Apparently, knowing something is about knowledge and knowledge is power.  Therefore, knowing the boundaries and restrictions that governs us is even more powerful; because we are free to use satisfactorily whatever is available within ourselves.

Reconcile To the Unfairness of Life

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Acceptance, Ericksonian Principles, Unfairness

Life ring
Written By Eugene Morgan

“I had to learn to reconcile myself to the unfairness of life,” Milton Erickson

Life is not always fair and we must reconcile ourselves of this truism.  If we put  effort into something, then a reward should come our way.  If we give or make sacrifices for the greater good we should get something in return.  When good people work so hard to get somewhere but find that there is nothing at the end of day, that’s very difficult to reconcile.

Erickson learns this early on in his career as a physician when he had to tell the grim news to a young beautiful girl that she’d been diagnosed with a fatal disease and then Erickson treated an older patient who has lived his life as an alcoholic and is in reasonable good health, who may live way into his 80s.  Well, Erickson had to reconcile himself to the unfairness of those two examples.  Erickson had to close his eyes and increase his scope of his entire career.  Because he know he had better reconcile now, because as he grows into his career, he will alway meet the unfairness of life.  This is a good lesson we should all live in our own careers and personal life that life is not always fair.

 

Very Charming Stuff, Capacity

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

puzzling

Written By Eugene Morgan

“It’s very charming, the capacity that we have if we’ll only learn to use other areas of our brain.” Milton Erickson

 

When we begin to use other areas of our brain, our ability to do things increases.  What do we suppose what other areas of our brain is Erickson taking about?  Maybe, the area of the brain that produces feelings, images, and memories.  Erickson use these different area of the brain to aid subjects into expanding their perspectives and to build new positive associations.  His goals were to help to experience a feeling, see an image or watch a memory play out on our internal movie screen.  Learning was a big part of the process.

Learning is experiencing things about the self for the self and by the self.  Erickson describes this process of using the other area of our brain as charming.  Erickson thinks it’s delightful to know that we have the capacity to learn to use other areas of our brain.  We too can think it’s delightful that we don’t have to always use one area of our brain.

 

 

Enjoy Your Discoveries

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Volcano
Written By Eugene Morgan

“I always enjoy discovery what I can do.” Milton H. Erickson

We have many potentials that we’re unaware of that we have not yet discovered.  The possibility is that they lie beneath each of us to discover.  We won’t know what lies beneath if we don’t try new things.  When we try new things, we find out something about ourselves we didn’t know existed.  Our potentials laid dormant for many years because we weren’t confident enough to try it out.

It’s never too late to learn something.   Erickson said the above quote while he was in his 70s.  He was always learning, observing, and discovery what he can do in spite of his limitations.  We can place our limitation aside for a while to see what potentials we have at our disposal.   Limitation is like a cap and potential is like heat.  Limitation caps our potential, it keeps it from rising.  Our limitation doesn’t want to give up the potential. If our potentials rise then the scope of our limitations narrow. Let us lift the top from our potentials and enjoy our new discoveries.

Building Up Your Pyramid

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Pyramids at Giza

Written By Eugene Morgan

 

“If people can build the pyramids and Machu Picchu, they can do anything.” Milton Erickson

The people who build the pyramids and the lost city of Machu Picchu were remarkable. They seem to be beyond their years of building great monument like a pyramid.  What kind of people were they to build the pyramids with such accuracy and precision?

The one thing that’s common with both events were that they worked together to make it happen.  We can do anything if we work together and become as one.  But it takes many people to make a whole.  If we’re of one mind, one spirit with one purpose or one goal, we can do many things like those people who build the pyramids and the city of Machu Picchu.  They have demonstrated that we too can build great things in our personal lives.  What do we want to build today?

 

 

 

 

Crack Open Your Shell To Share Your Uniqueness

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Less Lamp prototype 2007
Written by Eugene Morgan

“And remember always that you’re unique. And all that you have to do is let people see that you are you.” Milton Erickson

How come some of us are afraid to share our real selves?  Wearing a mask can get uncomfortable.  It takes a lot more energy to wear one and act a certain way than to just freely be ourselves. We don’t have to impress anyone to feel liked. It’s impossible to please everyone.  We aren’t all things to all people but we are ourselves.  We all have fears, concerns, dreams that are more similar than they’re dissimilar.   Therefore, we don’t need to hide our real selves. We forget that we’re unique people with unique perspectives, which make life interesting. So lets crack open the shell and let out the light so everyone can see.

 

“Enough In the Way of Bad Luck…”

Published on by Eugene Morgan Category: Ericksonian Principles

Luck is... (explored)
Written by Eugene Morgan

“Enough in the way of bad luck can occur, so that you don’t need to add it yourself.” Milton Erickson

What makes matter worse is when we start to panic about something, instead of taking a deep breath and relaxing for a moment. Erickson is telling us in the above quote that we have a choice.  When bad luck occurs in our lives, we don’t have to react, instead, we can find another ways of looking at it.  We can look at it as just a learning experience.  Or we can look for things that brought us good luck before, and, we can add these good things we think will continue to bring us luck. Thinking of the good things that bring us luck can fill our minds.  When we fill our minds with good things, we can better deal with reality of the bad things that bring us down.  When we switch our focus on the things that bring us good luck, this will give us peace of mind, this will relax our bodies, this will help us to feel better and most of all this will renew our energy.  Energy we need to sustain and help us through bad luck situations.