using this website

johnbrasted.com centers around expanding awareness by oneself with a minimum of outside help or interference to find understanding within.

Just reading it will not get far. The exercises and suggestions have to be tried out using the whole body with all its habits, senses, feelings and emotions. It is more than just mental.

There are over a hundred pages of practical suggestions and information, with few technical terms, for therapists or anyone else to test for themselves, rather than theoretical or philosophical ideas. And over two hundred links to research further.

The first step is to notice what is getting in the way. Old habits, hurts and conditioning can so colour perception that opportunities are invisible and destructive situations attractive.

Pain, stress, drugs, preoccupations and cultural conditioning that get in the way might have to be sorted out first and there are some strategies for getting them out of the way as quickly as possible.

People resist change. Easy ways out of misery can be invisible and inconceivable. New ideas and activities may seem strange, silly or unfamiliar. Even unthinkable. We know how to deal with our own familiar world no matter how dissatisfied we are with it and somehow accommodate even its most miserable features and find power and pleasures there.

Once there is personal satisfaction or social leverage in an illness, injury or persistent mood it is difficult to let it go, regardless of the damage it does, especially if we don't notice what is happening. And it can be almost impossible to spot in the busyness of everyday life.

Most of us continue down these well trodden paths until a disruption or catastrophe focuses our attention. However johnbrasted.com is an opportunity to get in first while things are going well and expand awareness and capability. Much easier than at times of stress.

Some of the ideas may be a bit unfamiliar at first until they are tried. It usually takes a few visits to wade through my explanatory chatter and experiment with the suggestions to find something that works. They are based on a range of different senses and ways of thinking so there is a good chance of finding something here or being reminded of something that has worked in the past.

When we have a breakthrough new possibilities become visible. One exercise or idea can initiate habits of seeing, feeling, hearing and questioning that will carry over into day to day life. We see, hear, smell, taste and feel more vividly when our body, mind and feelings are clear of stress and preoccupations. We are more intelligent and alive.

No expensive rituals, pills, potions or magic formulas. Here is an opportunity to step off the merry-go-round of other peoples ideas and expand on your own experience and understanding to become ones own expert. Gurus and theories have to be interpreted anyway.

The secret of success is to turn up. Putting in the time to understand the ideas and the effort to try the suggestions. Willing to have a go and bold enough to make a move.

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 21. Dec. 2011

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