our creative breakthroughs, and that “thinking ahead” is often an attempt to combat our fear of the unknown, which can obscure the very answers we seek. Infants and young children do not “think ahead” or look for anything. In fact, they respond to whatever calls their attention, guided by a flow of knowledge available to us all.
So I began to encourage patients’ awareness of the subtle machinations they performed while facing tasks they deemed difficult. I helped them shine an inner light on the thoughts and concerns that arose, the strategies they employed to “succeed,” and most importantly, whether those strategies worked or not. In the process, they directly experienced how thinking ahead actually kept them behind.
For one of the exercises, I adapted a technique introduced to me by my dear friend and colleague Dr. Ray Gottlieb and originally developed by Dr. Robert Pepper as part of Pepper Stress Therapy. Using a chart with several rows of arrows, each pointing in a different direction, I asked patients to call out the direction of each arrow while simultaneously moving their arms in the opposite direction of what the arrow indicated. As you can imagine, this resulted in confusion (if not panic) — and the desire to “get it right” along with the tendency for them to hold their breath. However, when they discovered this and started breathing again, their brilliance emerged free of charge.
I remember a young woman who attended one of my workshops. I asked her to remove her thick glasses and stand as close to the arrow chart as she needed to see it clearly. Since the arrows were fairly large, she was able to see them from about three feet away. Every time she mastered an exercise, I asked her to take a deep breath and step a bit farther from the chart. Within twenty minutes she was twenty-five feet away and still able to see it clearly. I checked her eyesight after that experience and it had improved by 200 percent.
I have since used this exercise and others like it with thousands of individuals, including members of the US Olympic Team and world-class athletes. Time and time again it has led to significant improvements in attention, memory coordination, and sports performance, as well as speed, accuracy, and fluidity of response to complex situations. Most interesting was my observation that our systems seem naturally equipped to respond to life rather than direct it. This became the thrust of my later philosophical inquiry.
We excel when we stop thinking and start responding. When we try to anticipate and control what happens to us rather than responding to life as it presents itself, we tighten up and our performance drops. However, when we flow with life, following wherever it leads us, we meet life head-on with our eyes open. This experience allows us to discover a new level of ease and presence without any effort. Acknowledging that the intelligence of life always has the first move inspires an organic and balanced form of collaboration, as we follow life’s invitation toward our greatest potential.
The following story tells of my own “invitation” to explore my potential. In the spring of 1969 I was accepted to dental school under the condition that I complete three summer courses prior to fall enrollment. I contacted the only accredited university in Miami (where I would be spending the summer) and learned that two of the courses were being offered simultaneously, making it impossible to fulfill all three prerequisites before fall enrollment. This meant I would need to wait another year before starting school.
That afternoon, one of my fraternity brothers told me he was going to Memphis to visit his family and asked if I wanted to join. I said yes. After we arrived, my friend took me sightseeing. As we drove down one of the main roads, we passed a college of optometry and I felt compelled to stop there — odd, since I had never considered optometry as a career. “Turn around!” I yelled. He pulled over and I literally ran to the admissions office to ask for an application. Since most of the staff and students were on holiday break, the office was not busy and I received an appointment with the head of admissions the following day.
I told the admissions officer how something inspired me to stop as I passed their campus. I showed him my letter of acceptance to dental school and asked how their course requirements compared. He said they were almost identical and that there was only one space left in their upcoming class; he asked if I wanted to apply. I pulled out the application that I had completed the night before, along with my transcripts. He reviewed them and looked up with a surprised expression. “I’ve never done this before, but if you want the slot, it’s yours!” He then indicated that I was only required to pass two of the three science courses required by dental school.
By the time I returned to the University of Georgia the following week a conditional letter of acceptance was waiting for me. I passed the two courses at the University of Miami that summer and began studies at Southern College of Optometry in the fall of 1969.
Foresight Is 20/20
Many years ago while observing an artist at work, I noticed he periodically stepped back and gazed at his canvas. I asked him what he was looking at. He told me he was not aware of looking at anything specifically but just stood back to see if anything seemed incomplete. As he stood there I noticed that his eyes were randomly scanning and only paused when something called their attention. It soon became clear that the artist’s eyes showed him where more attention was needed on the canvas, in the same way our eyes are drawn to whatever requires our presence in any given moment.
Our eyes are continually responding to the light that catches them. As we discover this subtle yet profound aspect of our makeup, we begin to trust its guidance and follow it without question, heightening our ability to see the inner workings of our lives with greater clarity and acceptance.
During the separation period prior to my divorce in the late 1970s, my life consisted of a series of extremely upsetting events. I kept having recurring confrontations and reacting to them with angry outbursts. One day, after one of these experiences, I recognized why this pattern was repeating itself in my life. After that, the lag time between one of these incidents and my awareness of why it was happening shortened. I realized that consciousness evolves and, at times, I was able to recognize what was happening as it occurred. Immediately I thought, “Aha! I’ve finally arrived!” — but as soon as my ego wanted to take credit, I ended up right back at square one.
After a while, however, I had a magical experience. In the midst of a situation that previously would have disturbed me I felt calm and fully aware. I felt a deep sense of humility, as if I were in a state of grace. Shortly after that experience I was once again stopped in my tracks. An event would occur and I would immediately realize that I had sensed it happening just a few minutes earlier. Was this merely a coincidence or can awareness precede experience? Is it possible that we are inseparably connected with the intelligence of life, guided by a form of precognition?
Before giant waves slammed into Sri Lanka and India’s coastlines in December 2004, wild and domestic animals seemed to know what was about to happen and started shrieking and fleeing to safety. As a result, very few animals died when the waves hit — yet more than 150,000 people were killed.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, experts believe that animals possess a sixth sense that enables them to recognize imminent danger long before humans do. But humans also possess this sixth sense. The only difference is that we have been taught to question what we instinctively “know” and to trust what we “think.” We believe “hindsight is 20/20” because most of us become aware of things after they occur. But what if we are designed to perceive things before they occur? What if foresight is actually 20/20? In Jungian psychology, intuition is the psychological function that allows us to sense what will occur before it happens. Many artists are “ahead of their time,” trusting their intuition to guide their visionary work.
Seeing the Invisible
In 2010 I was elected president of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM), an organization of scientists, physicians, and wellness practitioners interested in the impact of consciousness on health and well-being. Three weeks after our annual conference, I had an extraordinary experience.
After falling into a deep sleep one night, I became aware that I was observing myself sleeping in bed. I noticed the rise and fall of my chest and the sounds of my breath. I was also cognizant that my sleeping body was dreaming, as I was able to see the dream.
In