School Talk 26 - Motion

(*Audience participation is in parentheses--notations in brackets have been added for clarification )

As I go through my day as an "observer" of "self" and "others", I see a lot of arguments, criticism, judging and derogatory statements between people. It has always made me uncomfortable inside -- especially when it's directed towards me. I once called Dr. Bob at a time when I was particularly stressed over some incoming motion. I told him that intellectually I could see it was inaccurate and had nothing to do with me, but on a feeling level I was unable to rise above and deal with the events and circumstances at the time.

He told me to go out for a walk and walk until I no longer felt those feelings. I have used that method at times when I could or when the inner feeling got too overwhelming inside. However, he does deal with those emotions in the School Talk entitled "Motion". Here are some excerpts from that talk:

Ok, so we'll have a little discussion, and I thought today we would talk about motion. Now one of the attributes of life is that it's always in some kind of motion--if there's no motion, it's not alive anymore. No matter what--you can be sittin' sound asleep, but your hearts beating and a whole bunch of other things are going on--so there's always motion.

The part of motion we are mostly concerned with, of course, is motion from other people. So let's say that somebody comes up and gives you a nice compliment--maybe you can return that by you would give them a compliment. So you might return the motion. Maybe you just say thank you and hold it and keep it for good feelings. You can remind yourself of what wonderful things that person said about you. Maybe you can tell everybody you meet for a few weeks that somebody said you were a wonderful person.

I went home one time and told my mother that some kids had said that I was a nice guy. She said don't let that go to your head, there's no market for them. So that slowed that down in a hurry.

So we can return motion which is the most common thing that's done with motion is we return it. Somebody comes up and says, "Why don't you go to hell?" We then tell him where he can go--right quick. So that's returning motion. Somebody comes up and says something unkind to you. Well, you can return that motion by saying something very unkind and uncomplimentary to them. So we have returning motion and holding motion.

Now this is what the usual human does with motion is either hold it or return it.

Now if you were insulted and you hold that motion, it probably could give you a nice ulcer before very long because you'd keep "hacking it over" inside about how terrible those people talked to you. You resent them and what-have-you -- you could carry all kinds of aggravation and annoyance. So the usual person without any particular instruction would either return motion or hold motion which we kind of think that neither one is very healthy for everyday living or for the well-being of the body or for the peace of mind.

Now there is another thing that we could possibly do which we will try to talk about at more length today is destroying motion.

So if somebody comes in and says a nasty word to you--you could destroy that motion.

There's many ways of doing it, the most simple one is consider the source and figure that anybody who disapproves of me has poor taste anyway and let it go at that.

You could possibly do a little "imagination technique" where you would hit them over the head with a baseball bat. You could drop them in wells and then you would pull them out and say, "Now you feel better?" and drop them back in the well again. If it's really a bad one, why you could have a good "imagination session" of blowing him into little pieces and putting him back together--one time just wouldn't be near enough. So pretty soon you start laughing when you see the ridiculous end of that, so you have then destroyed that incoming motion to you. [You have taken the importance out of the event]

Now when you have destroyed those incoming emotions, you can do something.

Now we might have destroyed only the ones started today. But most of us are carrying around a bunch of motions from way back down the road [the past] that somebody insulted me and I still it rehash it [in my mind] every now and then. Sometimes, something is about to remind me of it, and I get very upset [even though everything in the moment is going just fine].

A lady told me one day that every time she saw a Cadillac, she got upset because something happened around a Caddy that was related to some motion that came into her that she couldn't return. She had been holding it.

So I wonder if it is sometimes well to look at the things that annoy us--without us knowing why. It may be that we look at a person--whoever it may be--and we feel annoyed, or we feel upset, or we feel aggravated, we feel fearful--any number of things.

So destroying motion is probably a job that we can keep up for a while; but certainly we could destroy the ones that come in today, tomorrow and the next day, instead of holding them or returning them.

Now once we have destroyed motion that somebody kicked out and I didn't want to either hold it or return it, and I destroyed it, now then I'm free to originate motion.

Now to originate a motion is to start that motion and it is of your own free will and agency. This is what I want to do. So we have talked at various times that maybe each day we could originate a motion of

being what to me is a good guest, or

I could contribute to a pleasant harmonious mood or whatever it may be.

Now if somebody else has sent something to me and I'm either holding it or attempting to return it, they're in charge of my inner state, not me. But if I destroy the motion, now I can originate whatever inner state I want to and then I can put out whatever kind of action I want to.

So those who are returning motion or holding motion have considerable loads to carry around while they are trying to earn a living. We have a lot of "loads" that interfere with--well, earning a living. If we could destroy motion so that we're not carrying around any "emotional state" from the emotions that have come into us from outside, then we could originate the type of motion that I might want to originate today. [A motion that is to my advantage rather then just a reaction.]

Most of us have learned--that has been in business for a while--that it is far better to have a real top mood when we go out to earn a living, than it is to be annoyed or aggravated or carrying around some kind of an unpleasant mood.

I like to study people inasmuch as that's mostly my business. You can go in a restaurant somewhere and hear somebody with a cruddy mood--they are holding motion or they are trying to return motion and their telling somebody off. So if they could destroy that motion, then they could come out and originate the motion of pleasantness and contribute to a pleasant mood. They could treat me like I was a guest in their place. I would probably have a much more possibility of returning to this place of business than I would if I was treated with the mood of, "What the hell are you doing in here to annoy me while I was busy."

I found that several times in the last few days that I was treated in a restaurant as though I was an intruder, rather than a customer. Now this is not because people don't know any better, it is because they were holding a motion from something that had happened and they were very upset over this. They're all nervous and tangled up and thinking evil thoughts towards somebody. Sometimes they are attempting to return motion--they are dreaming up what I'm gonna tell that jerk the next time I see them. So in either case, it is not that there isn't any effort on their part to really generate something for themselves.

Now people like enthusiasm--you like enthusiasm? You like to go into a place where there's a nice mood and an enthusiastic state, right? You like to go there. So does everybody else--so we can generate those moods and attributes around us.

Three of the people here have worked with me at one time in the same place [a restaurant] that we only used a pleasant mood as advertising for public relations. We had some 60 odd people working in a place and all of their mood was seen to every day that it was "up"--real enthusiastic, nice mood. We never ran an ad, we never put a sign on the building, we never put out any publicity--but still there was an average of 1,000 people a day came to this place of business, and spent money. They didn't just come in looking, they came in and spent money. Now the only thing we did was originate a very good feeling and everybody stayed busy.

Now there is another thing about originating motion. If we all set here and said, "Well, we hope some business comes in today, maybe somebody will come." Or say we talked about how much money we were going to make next week, or next year or next month with all our "big plans"--very little would happen.

We've found that if you could keep everybody in motion--a deliberate originated motion that when you are going to do that motion--it generates tremendous activity.

So at times in my existence, I have done things that were purely worthless as far as the activity itself is concerned at the moment.

When I was going to school--I worked in shoe stores because it was an easy place to work. I could work my own hours--I worked for straight commission. So when I showed up, I was there and I could sell and that was it. There were times I'd go in and the store would be vacant. There were no customers there. Nothin' much was happening. So I would start shifting boxes around--just moving them for the sole sake of moving boxes from one place to another. I'd take all the empties out and put them together to condense all the stock purely for the sake of generating motion in the place. Usually in fifteen to twenty minutes the place would be full of people.

Now we used the same thing in big restaurants--the one we were just talking about where we used only a mood to bring people in, but we also used activity. If it started out the least bit slow, everybody started cleaning something, you can always clean in a restaurant. It doesn't make any difference if it's been cleaned a minute ago, you can clean it again.

Now when we started everybody cleaning, we got them a little wet rag and a little something going over the tablecloths or going over something else--all of a sudden the place would be full of people because motion does attract people.

Now you can sit and be all ready to take care of customers to your hearts content, but that doesn't generate anything; however, if you are in motion, you're generating--your doing something--you are setting up a tremendous force that brings people in.

So if one could only think in terms of motion--now you don't have to think of a lot of other things; this is a fairly simple one--let's just think of it in terms of motion.

I can "look down at my nose" at returning motion. I'd certainly be very opposed to holding motion. I think it's kind of fun to destroy motion and it's extremely profitable to originate motion.

So if you want to start a business or you want to start an activity or you want to start more customers in the business that you do have; first be sure you've destroyed all incoming motions you don't like.

If you want to hold a few pleasant nice compliments from a few hours ago, why you can hold that if you want to; but there is not too much use of it--but you can hold it. It's not detrimental and you could hold a few smiles that somebody may have given you and so forth, but the main thing we want to do is to be free to originate.

If you have any held motion or your attempting to return motion, you are not originating, you're only reacting--reaction only causes more chaos. So if we originate motion--it does not have to be any particular kind, it is something where you are generating motion and generating in you an inner feeling that you like.

Now if you pick one foot up, slowly take it forward and drop it and then you slowly pick up another one and drag it forward and drop it--that's not much of a motion. That is a very slow motion and it doesn't get much going and it doesn't give one a feeling of enthusiasm or exhilaration or even vital interest. But if, when you walk, you look like you know where you're going and why you're going there, you move not hurriedly but rapidly. We always told people never to hurry, but move rapidly. You can pick your feet up and go without hurrying.

Hurrying is a state of mind--rapid motion is a state of the body.

So you could be moving it along and you begin to feel enthusiastic, you begin to feel delighted. You have a decided increase in consciousness of a higher level of feeling and a very nice inner feeling. You keep oneself in motion. You're originating. Why are you doing it--not because you've got to do something, but because you're attempting to originate a lot of activity in your area--a lot of good feeling?

You see, feelings are probably the most contagious things in the world and feelings are either read by or generated by how you act.

If you take a look at somebody that is coming out with sounds like, "Ohhh, Ahhhhh." they're pretty far down in the dumps. So you see--they didn't have to tell you how they were feeling. If you meet a person who is enthusiastic and moving around--a person who is glad to shake your hand and is glad to feel good and has a smile for you; you know that that person is alive. You can tell that that person is somewhat interested in you and very definitely interested in living and doing and being, is that correct?

So you can do all of those. You are doing things for the other person and you are doing things for yourself when you act like you are on the go. You are on the way up; and as you keep going up, the other people around you go up--they're enthused.

If you're enthused about something, it's contagious and a lot of other people will get interested in it also. You can go outside and stand out there in the front of the building and stare at the sky and holler for Jeff, "Hey, come here." and keep pointing up. Everybody will see something up there in just a few minutes--I don't know whether there's anything up there or not, but they'll see it and they'll begin to speculate as to what it might be They are now interested because you are interested in showing something as going on there.

So what we would be interested in doing from our little discussion today is to be able to originate motion that we want somebody else to respond to--or hold, or return. They're going to do that anyway. About 90% of people in the world--I'm very liberal when I say 90 per cent because more than likely it's 99%--but say 90% of the people are going to return what you're putting out, huh? So what do you want to put out because it's going to be returned to you?

Now if I go out and put out a bunch of belligerency, I'm going to get a lot in return. Obviously at my stage in life, one doesn't need too much belligerency to come in your direction. I'm not good at the fighting game anymore; but if you're out there putting out enthusiasm--you're putting out delight--you're putting out friendliness--you're putting out exhilaration and you're putting out vital interest, that's what's going to come your way. That's what you really get paid for is when people are feeling delighted or enthused about what you have to offer, is that right? Huh? That's absolutely right? If you get them up there, they say, "I got the best deal you've ever seen." I think you'd probably see that if you looked at it carefully. Would you care to look at it? [You put out a good mood, enthusiasm and vital interest and those around you get caught in the "up" mood and everyone feels better, things smooth out and everyone profits in more ways than just money.]

This morning a gentlemen I know very well walked in. I have known him very well many years. He had a packet for me. He said, you might be interested in this; and if you have time sometime next few days, look at it. If you like it, give me a call and I'll see what I can do to set you up. I still have the packet; I haven't looked at it. I did offer it to somebody else--they didn't seem to be very interested either, so I put it back in the drawer and left it there.

(Is that the package that I get to take home?)

Yes, you can take it home; I don't care what you do with it, I want it out of my sight--then and now.

I'm quite sure that this man will not set the woods afire with his proposition. He can go around and hand a lot of people brown manila envelopes saying--it's got a couple of brochures, a book and a tape; and you can listen at it when you want to. If you're interested in it, let me know.

Now he didn't even say it with that much enthusiasm. He said, "Let me know." So, I don't imagine very many people let him know anything from that--it would be my humble viewpoint. He's a very dear friend of mine. I like him very much and I hope he does well, but some way or other--there's a but there. I don't think anything will happen from his mood. It doesn't seem that way to me.

So we can--if we pay attention--see what am I aware of. I don't care whether you have a job or you're in business for yourself--whether you're looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever the case may be. If you originate motion, you're going to have something happen.

If you're going to sit and talk and talk and talk some more . . . I've heard millions of dollars made around a coffee table, but you had to wait until somebody came in that could pay for the coffee. So you know about those games--people who sit in restaurants of a morning and talk about these big games, "Boy, we're going to do it and I know all about this thing". But they don't get caught up enough to get any motion going.

Now without motion, nothing is going to happen except stagnation, and stagnation is kind of a detrimental thing to have in the world. So when you are showing something that you are vitally interested or enthusiastic about, or exhilarated about, then you're going to have other people who will give that project enthusiasm too. That is mostly what we make our livings off of. Ok, now I've talked a bit, let's have somebody else ask questions? Comments?

(Emotion? When you were talking about returning motion or holding motion? Where does it come from?)

You're talking about where the word emotion came from?

(Yes.)

Where does it come from? You see E, being energy [Dr. Bob used the term intellikey - here I have substituted energy], is an old. old word that meant Life --energy. So somebody enjoined the words energy which is referred to with a capital E as we sometimes use the letter X, and they put the letter together with the word motion--and that's emotion. Emotion always makes a motion on you.

If you have a certain emotion, I can read what your body's doing and tell you what you're feeling at the moment. If you're angry, it doesn't take any great body reading skills to know that old Barbara's ready to do 'em in, huh? If Barbara is feeling pleased and happy, I can also see that.

If Barbara is very angry, I can see that because emotion means that energy puts the body into motion. Barbara doesn't have to think about it--"Well, I'm going to look angry." Life which we use as the letter X, in the old days was the letter E which symbolized the word called intellikey which was joined with the word "motion" thereby coming up with "emotion". That's where the word "emotion" comes from. Does that help you? Next question.

(What is resistance? It seems like there's a resistance.)

Ok. There's a resistance to about everything you originate to do and is talked about that on numerous other occasions--resistance is what makes things get strong.

If everything fell into your hands the minute you originated a motion with no resistance, you would be very much of a weakling.

That's why we sometimes hate to see a child grow up with that child getting everything it wants--it has no "second force" or "resistance" if the parents can possibly prevent it. But every now and then the kids gonna grow up and get away from the house--and everybody else is not gonna be that way to the child. The child is going to get some "second force" and then that child falls apart. I've seen them get psychotic over it because it was such a shock when the child first met "resistance." Somebody's not letting me do just what I want to when I want to--and they get very upset.

So always there's gonna be resistance--to any origination.

(What about returning emotion?)

Returning motion? Ok. I will throw this little pad at you, you throw it back. Now, you're returning the motion. Now we've had a demonstration. Does that answer your question? That returned the motion--I sent a motion to you, you received a motion from the environment and you immediately returned it--ok?

(Are you saying not much was accomplished?)

No very little was accomplished, just a reaction, it goes on.

This is what most of the world goes on, Mary? I throw the pad and somebody throws it back at me and then I throw it back again and they throw it back again until we get tired of that. Now it's like verbal things and so instead of throwing the pad, I could have thrown an insult--only she's a lovely lady and I wouldn't insult her, and you know you don't insult people unless your married to them or their kids or parents--then you feel privileged to do that.

So if you throw the insult out to friend, husband and he throws it back; then you throw it back to him, and he throws it back to you--that's a household of returned motion. If he should be a gentleman someday and not return it and hold it instead then he's swearing at you all day long under his breath while he's gone to work.

Or if he's sent out the motion, you're swearing at him while he's gone to work--whichever way you want it to be. That's holding motion--holding motion will give you ulcers and headaches and backaches and bellyaches--returning motion is dangerous because they're liable to be bigger than you are.

(When the insult is given, then if you can....)

DESTROY IT!

(Supposing your husband isn't good and you in turn are good, in other words...........)

Oh yes, that's the way it is always!

(Laughter from the audience)

(I'm talking about turning the other cheek.)

No, I'm not talking about turning the other cheek, that's holding motion. That will give you ulcers, cancers and headaches.

So what we said was destroy the motion. Consider that a friend, husband said something nasty to you-- at that moment he just has poor taste and why worry about it. In other words, we had in the newsletter not long ago a little blurb that said, "I refuse to react to other peoples reactions." That is destroying motion. I would refuse to react to it. I'm gonna destroy it.

Now I'm free to originate and so I will start talking about something else and the whole argument is all gone and all this hard feeling and all these aches and pains and misery and all this stuff is gone. All this stuff that you "carry on with" is totally worthless.

(When I get ready to hit her, she says you don't mean it, you love me.)

You remember that, ok? Well, she's pretty good at reminding you that people who love beautiful ladies don't hit them. They are nice to them, love them. So you give it another thought then. So you got an intelligent lady--treat her nice. But the point is, you don't want to return all these things that come along that's the least little "twerp."

Somebody says the least little thing and somebody else goes on the defensive. That's merely returning motion and you know all about this defense bit. That goes on and on and on.

We can originate the thing that we would like other people to return or hold, preferably return.

Now if I originate a top mood, then they're going to return that, isn't that what makes you money. Isn't that what keeps your job going. Is that what gets you a raise, it's in the business world and so on.

You wouldn't go down to get a job and say,

"Well, I'm about ticked off at everybody in this whole neighborhood." or

"I've been around here and tried to get a job six weeks and I'm about through with all of them" "You got a job for me?" I don't think you'd get it.

So let's do a little bit of being conscious of motion and what I can do with it. There are several possible things you can do with motion.

You can return it,

You can hold it or

You can destroy it which is creative and then

You can originate one which is really creative.

We will have another discussion next Monday at 2:00 PM.