Witnessing is a very powerful technique that will help you immensely to improve your trading. In fact, it is probably the most important mental tool you are going to learn about. Witnessing is the Ferrari of all mind control methods and I will explain to you why this is so. I teach it in all my workshops, because it is an indispensible necessity on your journey to mastery.
Witnessing your thoughts and actions is the key that unlocks the many hidden paths
to true mastery in all areas of your life and at the same time reveals the roadblocks
that stop you from being consistent and fully congruent in everything you do. I can
promise you now, if you are new to witnessing you will want to make it a lifestyle.
Witnessing does not stop with watching your trading behaviour. Once mastered witnessing
is the vehicle that drives your personal growth and your evolution. You as the witness
are in control of this process and that is its immense power and strength. Persistent
practice, as with all things, makes perfect.
Learn to witness yourself and notice how your inner mind continuously opens new vistas
for you along your path. There is no end to this journey, just the promise of more
interesting revelations about yourself. With every new revelation about you, you also
learn about the fabric of your existence and the structure of the entire universe.
The theory, as always, is great, but putting witnessing into action can be quite
a job, at least if you are new to the process. The EFT sessions and Micro EFT sessions
in the second part of this book will assist you greatly and shorten your journey to
becoming a first class observer of the most important object, you.
I am often asked if witnessing yourself all the time does not make you more ego centric.
The answer is: “No”. Witnessing your thoughts and actions has nothing to do with ego
because you are watching yourself from a neutral stance, free from judgement. You
watch and you accept what you see. You are unattached to the insights you receive
about yourself. They have no meaning other than assisting you to gain clarity about
you. In a nutshell, detachment is what proper witnessing is all about.
With witnessing the emphasis is entirely on seeing how you do your thinking that
precedes your emotions and actions. We are not interested in any evaluation here.
What you witness is neither good nor bad. Witnessing yourself has one purpose only.
To let you see more of the canvas that is the real you, and thus give you more clarity
about how you function. It is designed to help you see more and more of the big picture
that is you so that you can take control over your thoughts and emotions and ultimately
over your actions. You can only change something if you know how you are creating
it. If you make trading decisions without the expanded conscious awareness the witnessing
process provides, you cannot improve your game.
The biggest challenge with witnessing yourself is breaking through to the subconscious
levels, because most of your thoughts and actions happen at a subconscious, automatic
level and not consciously. You already know that your mind only sees a very small
number of things consciously at any given time.
Just to remind you, as much as four million pieces of information get buried in the
subconscious mind at any given moment. You are forever only consciously aware of a
minute part of your overall reality. If you could see reality in its entirety you
would have all the answers for everything readily available. As it is, you only ever
see a tiny part of your overall reality. Hence your view is always skewed.
If you could consciously see and know everything evolution as we know it would take
on an entirely different meaning, because you would consciously know everything there
is to know. This would be unbelievably boring though, at least from our present mental
perspective. Life in human form is very different though. Your mind’s filter system
edits out the few bits of information that are relevant for you to make decisions
and gives you the illusion that you are acting on a fully conscious level seeing everything
there is to see.
Witnessing not only allows you to see more of the entire picture that is you, but
you will also see and understand much more about everyone you interact with, and that
goes for the market too. A better understanding of your own nature deepens your understanding
of the psychology of the markets. Let me remind you again: The markets and you are
one.
Witnessing can be a very challenging task for traders for two reasons. We have already
discussed, that your mind is pushed extra hard if you are in front of a computer for
hours every day. In addition to taking on many pieces of market information in extra
quick fashion your mind must also overcome the added strain of fighting the electro
magnetic emissions from your computer screen which interfere with your natural brain
waves. You already know what to do about this problem.
If you need further convincing, just think of this fact. When we write copy for the
internet it has to be written in a very different way from copy for a magazine or
newspaper. Every well seasoned copy writer knows that the mind does not concentrate
too well reading information directly off a screen. The brain translates the information
in a different way when it reads information directly off a computer or a television
screen. This also goes for reading market action on screen and adds to the challenge
of staying vigilant of your every thought particularly while trading a fast moving
market.
Watching television induces an alpha state of mind and so does the computer screen
while providing all kinds of stimuli at the same time. You may think that this is
a good thing and it can be up to a point, provided your mind runs its programmes in
a way that is appropriate for the task you are performing. However, for most of us
this kind of brain entrainment is harmful, because it does promote stimuli that disconnect
you from your inner self instead of connecting you to your inner core. The issue compounds
when you have suppressed trauma. This can make you very tired and we all know what
happens when we are feeling tired: Every task becomes more difficult. If you have
unresolved issues you may find that you react to the markets and act out old conflicts
subconsciously, because your conscious mind just does not have the energy to override
the issues, while dealing with the strain of keeping EMR at bay. You will find it
more challenging to observe yourself under these circumstances. I know many traders
who cannot read anything that is longer than a paragraph on their computer screens
and have to print the information out. But they trade for hours off their screens
every day.
However, you can train yourself to step outside of yourself and adopt the witnessing
role, even in these more challenging circumstances. Your mental vista will be broadened
and therefore you can see more of what you are doing and how you are doing it. You
see, it is absolutely vital that you understand exactly how you get the results in
your trading. If you like what you are getting, great. In that case you obviously
have no problem and your mind thinks consistently the right thoughts. Of course, this
is not the case for the vast majority of traders. If you are like most humans, you
will get good results sometimes, while at other times your results are less desirable.
This kind of fluctuation is natural up to a point. You cannot expect to perform peak
levels all the time. This is impossible. The fluctuations should be relatively small
and manageable though. Let me say it again: If you are experiencing regular periods
of downtime, lack of concentration, anxiety or indecision, then there are issues that
need to be dealt with. You can start to deal with them by observing how you create
these fluctuations.
For every feeling you experience there is a thought preceding it. Even if you are
unaware of this process, the thoughts and images you have create your feelings and
emotions. You cannot have an emotion without having an associated thought first. It
is impossible.
So, how do you become a good observer? We have already discussed the one challenge
you will have with the witnessing process, here is the other one: Since you have so
many subconscious thought processes, you are presently unaware of, you may believe
that it is impossible to get uncover all those subconscious layers. Where would you
start to unearth these subconscious thoughts that run the show called “you”.
Fortunately, the answer is actually much simpler than you think. In order to observe
the actions in your head you need to slow these actions down. Once you can do this
you have the choice to reduce unnecessary and in appropriate thoughts. This is the
real secret to self observation. When you slow down the actions of your mind you can
see with much greater clarity how you create the feelings and emotions which create
the outcomes in your life. You will notice those thoughts which are good and those
which are a handicap to your progress. Clearing your stuff is one of the techniques
that will slow down your thoughts, meditation is another way. Ideally you will use
both.
The process is similar to running a film in slow motion. If you see the film in slow
motion you notice the countless individual frames which make up the film. In other
words, you see how the film is constructed. The same principle applies when you slow
down the thoughts in your mind. You see how they are constructed. In slow motion you
will notice how you are layering thoughts upon thoughts. The loudest ones are the
conscious ones. Hidden beneath that top layer are many other thoughts and associated
images which you do not readily see, while your mind operates at its usual full speed.
These thoughts and pictures slide in and out of view. As you become more adept at
controlling the speed of your mind you also become more adept at controlling the thoughts
and images as they arise. On other words: You notice them earlier.
Presently you will consciously notice some of your thoughts, but only when they have
already happened. You do not as yet notice your thoughts just when they are about
to arise. Right now, if you are lucky enough to have observed a thought you do not
like you have to neutralise it, reframe it or do something else to get rid of it.
This is a cumbersome process and can take a while as you are also dealing with neutralising
your emotions associated to the thoughts. This will become unnecessary once you are
the perfect witness of your actions. Good witnessing cuts out a few steps that are
at the moment running your mental computer.
Witnessing gives you more control over the speed of your thinking. Right now you
have limited flexibility in your choice of thought speed. True, there will be times
when you can speed up the thought process and times when you slow it down. Imagine
though if you could increase the speed to twice of what it is now and alternatively
slow your mind down twice as much as you are capable of at the moment. Now imagine
doing this at will. Can you see how useful this could be to you?
Once you have become really good at witnessing you will catch all your thoughts before
they arise and also increase the depth of your conscious awareness. This means you
will notice more and more of your mental processes as they arise, and before they
translate into emotions and emotion driven actions.
When you are able to watch your thoughts just as they arise persistently, you will
substantially reduce all emotions. Emotions simply will not have time to arise. Remember:
Emotions are the consequence of your thoughts and the images you make in your mind.
Just imagine how cutting out the step of dealing with a lot of your emotions will
speed up your mental processing ability. Imagine how much more information you will
be able to cope with calmly and competently because of the space and time you are
freeing up in your head. Can you envisage how this ability alone will propel your
trading mastery forward at lightening speed? Yes, I thought so.
And here is an added bonus: Ridding yourself of all the surplus garbage in your mind
will re-energise you too. Dealing with all those emotions is hard work. It not only
requires constant attention and takes energy away from where it could be better employed,
but surplus thoughts literally are energy vampires. They drain you, because at some
level they have to be dealt with. You will do this consciously at times, but in most
of the time the process is subconscious. Either way your energy system will process
your all thoughts and emotions. You cannot get away from this fact.
I have been using the witnessing method for many years now. Granted, to begin with
I did find it a challenge. But I persisted and looking back now, I can see the immense
benefits I am reaping as I am still working every day on myself and increase the depth
of my self knowledge as well as honing the depth of my perception of all the things
that go on around me.
Now that you understand the importance of witnessing here are four things you can
do to help you witness your thoughts and actions like a pro. You must learn these
techniques because they are essential for your success. I teach them in my workshops
and retreats and facilitate peak experiences in the course participants which help
them to induce these states for themselves. You can also learn much more in my on-line
psychology of trading course. I promise you, with practice you too can do become very
good at witnessing at will.
Let us look at all four techniques, beginning with your “intention” to become a first
class witness of yourself:
The above may appear a little simplistic at first glance, but please bear with me. I know that you have heard the some old intention stuff being rehashed over and over again.
So, we know that your intention is obviously the very first thing to get you to consider
change and move forward. Without intention nothing happens. You would be swimming
around in the cosmic sea, just like a single cell organism, for the want of a better
expression. Your ability to intend consciously is one the privileges you have as a
more evolved human being. This is what sets you apart from less developed organisms.
So, here you are and you have made up your mind that you are going to become your
own witness. You have intended that from now on you are going to notice all those
thoughts that you did not notice until now but which precede all your actions. You
have determined that you can do this and that you are going to be very good at this.
You have also decided that you will keep practicing because each time you practice
you are getting better at this. You also have intended that you are enjoying this
journey of self discovery even if it may get a little uncomfortable from time to time.
You have intended that you are a master at self observation and that you have already
got the hang if how much good this is doing your trading performance. And finally,
you have decided to be totally okay with anything that comes up in the process.
Do you recognise the method? Are you aware of what I have been doing with you in
the above paragraph? I sure hope so. There, in the above paragraph, you have a template
for proper intention setting. Simply saying something like “I am now going to witness
myself” will not get you the outcome you are after for two reasons.
First, you are talking in the future tense, which is one of the worst things you
can do. Your mind only acts on instruction now. The mind has a hard job distinguishing
between past present and future. It “knows” though when you intend to do something
now. When you “will” work on yourself tomorrow or next week, this means that there
is always tomorrow and there is always the next week. The word “will” clearly implies
a lack of urgency. Therefore, nothing much will happen “now”. So, no projections into
the future, please. State your intentions in the present and whenever possible as
if they have already happened. On a different level they have already happened and
all you need to do right now is to get into an energetic alignment with that energy.
I will talk about the concept of “now” in the next chapter.
Second, be specific. Do not leave room for too many interpretations of your intent.
At best you will get sketchy results. As you can see I have incorporated a number
of scenarios in my intent. For example, I have said that you can do this new process
and that you are a master at self observation, and so on.
There is a fine line between being too vague and too specific with your intention.
I would advise you not to be too specific, because that can go against you. You are
learning something new and you do not know how this learning will ultimately unfold.
If you put yourself in a mental straight jacket you are limiting the creative process
of universal forces. Always remember this: You should be working with universal laws
and not against them, as so you may have been used to doing until now.
I could write a book on the benefits of meditation and trading. Meditation benefits you whatever you do. If I have one regret over missing out on an opportunity it is that I did not learn to meditate earlier in my life. I started regular meditation about seven years ago and I meditate regularly for an hour every day. The benefits are enormous and I strongly recommend that you start the practice right now, if you do not already meditate.
Meditation slows down your brain waves to an alpha and theta state and even delta
state. With practice you can observe yourself dreaming and also influence your dreams.
This is an absolutely amazing thing to practice. Dreams literally have healing properties.
I have explained to you about the health dangers of geopathic stress. If you are sleeping
in a geopathic stress area your ability to heal and rejuvenate yourself through dreaming
can be severely impaired. Just the inability to dream properly creates health problems.
During the second world war the Russians would wake up their prisoners at regular
intervals during the night and interrogate them. They used this method because they
knew that the lack of dreamtime would deprive the prisoners of their will to remain
silent and get them to disclose secret information.
In your dreams you can solve many a problem you may have. If you become comfortable
with connecting to this subtle dimension more consciously through delta brainwaves
and work on this level you can work wonders in clearing your emotional path and speed
up success. Through regular meditation you can train your conscious mind to be aware
of these deeper realms. As I mentioned, with practice you can even consciously manipulate
the outcomes of your dreams. This is a powerful technique that helps to clear conflicts
at very deep levels.
When your brain waves slow down you rejuvenate yourself, literally. Time, as you
know it, slows down during meditation; actually it becomes almost a non entity. Studies
have shown that people who meditate regularly take years off their real age. In other
words, regular mediation can in part reverse aging.
Another very useful benefit of meditation is that your mind begins to slow down even,
when you are active. When your mind slows down in this way it also becomes more focused.
Needless to say a calm mind slips easier into the position of the witness. Over time,
you can hold alpha brainwaves easily for hours, a very handy situation, when you must
spend hours upon hours in front of your screens every day while trading. As you hold
alpha waves for longer and longer periods your concentration sharpens in line with
your observation or witnessing skills.
You will also become calmer in general and lose the need to react to everything.
Action is a much overrated quality in our society. The still mind receives much more
information than the active mind. Everyone should train to become still for long periods
in their day. Your patience increases and with that your peace of mind increases too.
As if that were not yet enough, another positive side effect of meditation is that
it helps you to gradually stay in the present more often and for longer periods. If
you can stay in the present you will also increase and speed up your performance,
because you focus better and you are cutting out all those mental distractions that
slow down your ability to manifest the outcomes you crave. You see much more of yourself,
the markets and the world in general, which is what witnessing is all about.
Meditation helps you to make all these processes automatic. When you enter an alpha
state of mind your conscious thinking recedes into a quiet zone. It goes on auto pilot
as do all the other activities of your life, including your trading.
Now, do I have to tell you how that would stand you in good stead with pretty much
everything you do? I trust that you have got the point. I recommend that everyone
meditates for a half hour every day and builds this up to an hour. This is not a waste
of your time. Quite on the contrary. You will gain by becoming more efficient in everything
you do thus more than making up for the time you spend on meditating. The quality
of your life in general will improve, because you will feel happier and calmer.
When I am working I often listen to brain entrainment music, to help me remain focused and to train my mind to stay even longer in alpha. This is not for everyone. Particularly, if you have an over active mind and have problems with A.D.D. you may find brain entrainment music somewhat agitating, at least to begin with.
I have had problems with attention deficit order all my life, due to an eye problem
and also early life trauma that would rear its ugly head when I first started listening
to Hemisync and later on to Holosync brain entrainment music. I could not cope with
the artificially endued alpha and theta states. I have worked with a number of clients
who also had problems with these recordings.
So, if you do suspect that you fall into that category I advise caution, because
from my own experience you might be in for a nasty shock when you first start out
with these brain entrainment programmes. You may find yourself suddenly reacting to
things over emotionally and not really understand what is going on. This is what happened
to me when I first started out with these recordings. Some made me feel very antsy
and anxious. Some brought out reactions I did not even know I had inside me. I was
totally unprepared for the emotional roller coaster that was unleashed by these recordings
and I know other traders who have given up on them because they felt that hey could
not cope with their reaction to these recordings and were unwilling to persevere,
which is understandable.
For whatever reason, probably sheer bloody mindedness, I persevered though and used
other techniques, like EFT to help me over these situations. During this time of trial
and error finding out the best methods which worked to neutralise the emotional traumas
that where inadvertently released I found a number of very effective ways to avoid
this problem or at least to keep it to a manageable minimum. The answer is careful
pacing in everything as you work through your stuff. Hopefully you won’t have the
problems I encountered, because I created the Micro EFT process in part to help avoid
emotional overload. Micro EFT is brilliant to help you change your mental state in
a few seconds without uprooting an entire emotional tree which may not need to come
out to fix a problem. I will share the process with you later.
As I said, caution is advised with brain entrainment music, however, if you tread
carefully, it is a brilliant tool to keep your mind focused and train your brain to
maintain alpha states almost indefinitely. If you are in any doubt, as a precaution,
you should start out using the recordings for short periods initially. Start out with
15 minutes a day and increase your exposure every week by another 10 minutes until
you listen to the full length of the recordings. You will ease your mind gently into
the alpha state and gradually adjust to the new experience of expanding awareness
with sound.
A good way to start meditation is with guided meditation recordings. You will find
some on my website, some of the meditation mp3’s I recorded specifically for trading.
They are powerful tools and do not have the potential side effects of brain entrainment
music. You can initially use these very inexpensive mp3 downloads and move on to the
deeper stuff later if you want to.
I often write my books running brain entrainment music in the back ground. These
days, now that I am fully tuned into this kind of sound, I have them running for two
and three hours at a time and sometimes even longer. I still notice though that my
mind gets stretched after a few hours and I switch the recordings off and work very
well without their assistance, but probably not at quite as deep a level.
I have found that the short winter days affect my ability to maintain concentration.
Brain entrainment music helps me to keep my levels of concentration up and so do therapeutic
ionizers. Both of course, raise brain frequency, but in different ways.
Ionisers, provided you use the therapeutic ones I recommend, oxygenise your brain.
This uplifts your mood and makes you feel better. You will notice how your breathing
becomes easier and feels deeper. Brain entrainment music slows down brain waves and
that also gives you a feeling of comfort and well being which is highlighted by an
oxygenised brain.
I am going to share with you a very powerful exercise from one of the oldest wisdom traditions, HUNA. All the old wisdom traditions taught that we make energy connections with our thoughts. Every time you think of someone, you are creating an energy connection with the object of your thought. The same is true for your actions. Each time you act you create this energy connection. This could be placing an order in the markets, purchasing a book from one of your gurus, or buying that wine you enjoy so much. These energy connections are invisible, thin cords that connect from your body, or should I say the radio mast which is your body, to the object of your thoughts and actions. The stronger the emotion attached to these thoughts and actions the stronger will the energy connection be. The Hawaiian HUNA tradition refers to these connections as aka cords.
The energy connections, or aka cords, once connected, remain in place forever over
all time and space. These teachings, which appear in one form or another in all the
major wisdom traditions in east and west have been scientifically proven by the physicist
J.S. Bell and may prove to be one of the most groundbreaking findings in physics to
date. Bell’s Theorem states that if two particles have interacted and then get disconnected
they remain entangled across all time and space. If one particle acts the other one
reacts also. There is no lag in time. The reaction is immediate. If the interaction
is particularly strong the connection remains also very strong. Whenever one particle
changes its energy the other particle reacts instantaneously to this change. This
scientific study of course adds further proof to the findings of scientists like Heisenberg,
Bohm and Lipton, and many others.
Of course everyone of us makes billions of these connections over a life time. You
are continually feeding off the energies of another person, or even another object
while at the same time they are feeding off your energy. This system can create energy
leakages and weakens you over time unless you contain the leaks.
Just imagine how these energy connections built up over a lifetime of an individual,
will deplete you if you never deal with this continuous build up. You are permanently
leaking energy to your past lovers, friends and foes without realising that you are
systematically depleting your own energy reservoirs. Over time your brain becomes
fussy and your body feels tired and you notice the signs of aging. Your energy levels
simply where not what they used to be. These energy leakages affect everything you
do, including your ability to trade.
There is a simple technique you can use to cut off these aka cords. I have used this technique for years and still do it most mornings. This technique has been used in different forms for thousands of years. The HUNA tradition refers to it as aka cord cutting. When you use this technique for the first time you will notice a weight dropping off your shoulders you feel lighter and energised. When I do this exercise with groups in my workshops the participants are always astounded at its effect.
The best time for this exercise is first thing in the morning, before you get up
and last thing at night.
I will explain the technique to you as you should do it when you are doing the exercise
for the first time. So, when you are ready, make yourself comfortable. Take a few
deep breaths and close your eyes. Imagine that you have energy connections with your
parents and their ancestors. See your parents, grand parents and all your ancestors
behind them and notice the aka cords as you are facing them. There are energy cords
from you to your parents and from them to their parents, brothers and sisters uncles
and aunts and so on. Now disconnect these cords from your parents in your mind with
a tool of your choice. This might be a knife or a saw, or even scissors. Let your
imagination run freely. Feel the cords disconnect from you. You may even hear a sound
as the cords drop to the floor in front of you.
Now disconnect the cords from your grandparents and great grand parents and all their
respective siblings. Cut off the aka cords of the entire ancestral line and transmute
them to light. Do this for both the maternal and paternal ancestral lines. Now do
the same with your friends and with all the cords that have formed through your entire
live time.
Visualise the cords disconnecting from you. Notice how the disconnected cords from
you go back into your body and how the other ends of the disconnected cords go back
into the bodies of all the people that were connected to someone in your line and
ultimately through that line to you. Heal all the disconnected ends by sealing them
with a diamond at each end of the severed cord. This means you are healing all the
cords that go back into your body and those that go back to all the other persons.
Feel your parents, ancestors, friends and foes reclaiming their energy back just as
you are claiming yours back.
Now see your body glowing and sparkling with the all those shiny aka cords each sealed
with diamonds that have now receded back into your body. You are glowing with refreshed
energy. Notice how all the other people are also glowing with the light from their
sealed energy cords. You are a beacon of light looking at countless beacons of light
all around you. Wherever you look there are happy re-energised beacons of light. Take
a few deep breaths to breathe in this wonderful scene.
You may consider this exercise a bit way out. I assure you if you go through the
process for a few days in a run you will be amazed how it increases your energy levels.
You may also notice other interesting things happen too. People you have not heard
from for years may make contact with you. Problems you have had and could not resolve
suddenly get resolved. And, well your trading may take on a life of its own too.
I have done an mp3 recording of a guided aka cord meditation which is available in
the audio section on my website. You may find it easier to use that recording instead
of following the description I have given you here.
You do not have to cut the aka cords with your ancestors and friends every day. I
recommend though that you do it at least every night for a week when you first start
out. Some connections are very deep and it will take several times to disconnect them
fully. You will feel when the disconnections are made properly. After a week you can
just cut the aka connections you made during the day and during the night. This takes
only a few minutes to do and will help you to maintain your own energy and keep it
sealed in. This exercise does not disconnect desirable connections like love and joy.
HUNA tradition says that positive energy connections stay in place. You do not need
to do anything to make sure of that, it happens automatically. You are only disconnecting
from the unhealthy negative cords that cause energy leakages and clog up the energy
channels.
When your energy does not flow unimpeded your brain gets fogged up, literally; and
you will not be able to see anything with clarity. You will find it much more difficult
to make changes that will benefit you.
To sum all the above up, when you do the four things I have just described, your
mind will basically be in a happy state. A happy mind finds it much easier to learn
new tricks. Your mind will obey you by witnessing your thoughts and actions. There
will be less stress and you can observe how you do your thinking from this enviable,
detached vantage point. As and aside your decision making process gains clarity and
speed.
Once you get to know how you do the things you are doing and do identify the ones
you do not like you have the option to change them. Please do not expect to get results
right away. Witnessing is a process and it will take a little while until you feel
comfortable with it. It is not going to happen over night. It will happen though if
you put the techniques you are learning from this book into practice, I guarantee
you as much.
I promise, that you will notice improvements in your trading in due course as you
are identifying subconscious limiting patterns and beliefs. Remember, that everyone
is different and how long it takes to get results depends on your present level of
cognitive awareness and how well you cope with change.
Becoming comfortable with operating out of your comfort zone each and every day could
be an important intention you may want to set.