Peter E. Pflaum - Golden Globe - The Synergy Network
http://www.wiredbrain.net/documents//  pflaump@cfl.rr.com

	I am afraid it take wisdom and judgement to do wise work and grant quality to our efforts. The point in the Sufi story is that one must desire and seek truth and it's not all that easy. The is no free lunch, you get nothing for nothing, you get what you put in. (To coin a phase)

	Simple statements may help or be completely meaningless. I ran into one I thought was good. "Get out of your own face!" let yourself be. There was a woman in the computer lab - she had a simple WP task to do - she was on a machine I wanted (its connected to the only modem in the place) but took hours because she was saying - the teacher this, the teacher that - I had it but I messed up - she put dozens of BOLD in trying to bold one word - etc. She could not focus on the task because she was screaming in her own face, and standing over her own shoulder, being her own scolder.

	We talk to ourselves ant 400 wmp all the time. If the messages are negative, like a wild back-seat driver - look out - what a bad driver you are - you can't pay attention to the task. (Dancing with your Books, The Zen Way of Studying - JJ Gibbs PLUME book) The dancer and dance are one. If you are self-conscience you can't dance. His goal was learning with joy - its natural and fun. 

	Our students are dull and boring. I want to enlighten them and help them become energized. I'm afraid the school system, pathetic parents, evil TV and commercial youth culture has done harm. In education as medicine the first rule is do no harm - I think schools have broken the first directive. Iatrogenic - problems caused by the treatment. Is there a civil suit against forced public education that harm children like Mental Hospitals without cures or reform schools that produce crime ?

	My student can't focus. We do exercise in paying attention. I play calm mood music (designed for this purpose) Halprin is most common - we do the eat the raison - focus task from medical stress programs - we do breathing - Bioenergentic exercises (Alexander Lowen, Harper & Row, 1977) There is a excellent book with every technique in it The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook from New Harbinger Publication 2200 Adeline, Suite 305, Oakland CA 94607 (1982) includes Meditation (simple) Imagination - Nutrition etc. including Assertiveness training - you can't learn until you pay attention to the task not all the noise in the background. They like it - there is a little nervous giggles but hey they know something of sports psychology and stress in medicine. 

	Focused and relaxed attention - first - then desire (goals) then hope and effort. The emotional basic of reform and change is that people who are just hanging on the illusions and can't see the reality or the vision of the future - can't change. They are hanging on their material lifeboats in a stormy sea. They need to get their feet on the ground and move up the mountain. This is simple truth and because people can't or don't want to face the fact "we can't hear what you are saying because we see what you are" - the message is in the person. You can't teach what you don't have.  (Also Stephen Covey 7 habits is principle based rather than personality interdirected rather than outer)