A Conversation with Dr. Faye Mandell
(The complete Flip interview, with only minor edits, not found in the book)

Faye Mandell, Ph.D. (www.namastepublishing.com/mandell.asp), is the author of the groundbreaking book Self-Powerment: Towards a New Way of Living. Faye is a psychologist, organizational consultant, and executive coach. Over the years, her studies in quantum physics have led to the conception and development of her watershed Self-Powerment Model. This model marries data from science to human awareness, making practical use of both of them. It provides a link between what is accessible and known only to a few and what is accessible and knowable to everyone.

We asked Faye how feelings control our individual worlds. “First, we have to understand that there is a difference between feelings and feelings of thought,” she explains. “Most of what our culture has labeled feelings are not feelings, but rather feelings which are combined with thought – which are combined with an abstraction.

“As an example, if I’m working on a report that’s due at three o’clock and it’s twelve o’clock and it’s not done yet, I might experience anxiety. That’s a present moment feeling that allows me to focus to get the report done. But when I take that feeling and I combine it with a thought which says, ‘Oh my God, I’m never gonna get it done and they’re gonna fire me and I’m gonna lose my house and my family,’ then all of the energy that would be used to focus and be creative to get the report done is instead used in the combining of the feeling and the thought.

“There are only three pure feelings that indicate three pure emotional states. The emotional states are secure, in control, and adequate. The feelings – which let us know when these emotional states are in ‘wobble’ – are anxiety, frustration, and disappointment or sadness. These feelings are not supposed to be connected to thoughts. They’re supposed to stand alone. Feelings are supposed to be experienced. But in our culture, we’re not permitted to feel the ‘wobble’ feelings. Our parents tell us over and over again, “Don’t be anxious. Don’t be sad. Don’t be disappointed.” We listen and we trust them. We try to be good kids. We learn to apply thought and convert our pure feelings to more socially-acceptable ones. That combination of feeling and thought takes us out of the present moment in predictable ways. Combined with anxiety, thought takes us into the future; combined with frustration, it takes us to other people and things. When thought is combined with disappointment or sadness, it takes us into the past. That is how feelings get connected to abstract thought and poison our capacity to do what needs to be done.”

How might people use that knowledge to flip away from conditioned responses and remain in the present? “If a person doesn’t know the methodology of how he combines his feelings with his thoughts then he will continue to do it because that’s what our culture conditions. The flip is to move from believing in thought as the way to understand the world to direct experience as the way to interact with the world. So we learn understanding-by-experience and then we can choose to think when we need to. If we allow ourselves to experience our feelings, then we will stay in the present moment and we will be self-powered.

“Feelings are indicators that emotional states are out of balance and the feelings then translate simultaneously into an action – because this is an action-orientated model – to keep people clear, focused, and in control. And when you are focused, clear, and in control, you know and can immediately experience the illusory nature of thought.”

We pressed for a real world example. “If I am feeling frustrated because I am in a traffic jam and I am late to an appointment, I could do two things. I could piggyback that onto the anger and I could go, ‘That %@$# so and so…’ and then I would be combining a feeling which is my frustration, with a thought, which would then get me so tense and frustrated I might run into the car in front of me. But if I was feeling my frustration and I said, ‘Okay, frustration is an indicator that I’m not in control. I can’t be in control of the traffic, but what can I be in control of? What can I do with this moment here that’s going to keep me clear and in control and focused? Well, I can muse on something that I need to think about or I can listen to some music. What is self-evident is that I can’t control the traffic, but I can control me.”

So, how can people separate their feelings from their thoughts? Faye responded, “That pairing of feeling and thought happens in a nanosecond, so the only way you can separate it is to know where you are in time and space. You stop listening to the stupid content of the thought and start focusing on where it takes you. The minute you’re in the future, you know it must be anxiety that you piggybacked. The minute you focus on other people and things, you know it’s frustration that you piggybacked. The minute you focus on the past, you know it’s sadness or disappointment – get back and experience the feeling, immediately translate it into an action in your present again. When you become more present, then you have power, because our energy is created in the present moment.

“We need to recognize that thought is the culprit. And our culture believes that thought is God. We’re slaves to our thoughts. Whereas the Aborigines and the Navajos, they never had past and present; they never heard of such things. They never had other people and things. It wasn’t about that. It was about them and their experience of being in relationship to the universe on a moment-by moment basis. That is reality. In the center are fluid values like clarity, focus, compassion, service, gratitude, and joy. When you are in the present you are connected to and motivated by these fluid values, rather than bounded concepts.

“Thought is very useful and practical but it’s not real. Thought is not something like digestion or breathing that is essential to survival. Thought is a tool that our culture has developed so that we can re-reference ourselves in time and space to do things like get to meetings and solve finite problems. But thought has nothing to do with the essential nature of how people participate in their life. Nothing. And yet we’ve somehow let it become everything…and that’s the flip. As long as we believe that thought is the truth, we’ll never be able to get back to direct experience of reality, of what is self-evident at that moment. Thought abstracts us; it takes us away from reality. And anybody can put in thought whatever it is that they want to. It is emotion that allows us to see patterns rather than separate details. Abstraction can be manipulated. Direct experience can’t be manipulated. All we have to do is stop thinking. And the way to stop thinking is to shift from the content of a thought to the structure.

“Listen to the structure of your thoughts. Listen to the tenses and the pronouns. By shifting your attention from the content to the structure, you get distance from the content and you can see its illusory quality. Thoughts are only an abstraction. They are the map and the not the territory. The territory is the truth, what is self evident, what is absolutely right in front of you – right here and now – without the filter of conceptual thought. You want to be present with the feeling of ‘I am.’ If you’re thinking in terms of he, she, they…whatever, then you’re projecting onto someone or something else in the past, present, or future. ‘Am’ is a verb. It is the first person present singular of ‘be.’ So any of the tense verbs – should’ve, could’ve, will, might, perhaps, did, was, wasn’t – they’re all not ‘am’ and take you away from what you’re actually feeling. It’s so simple. Always return to ‘I am.” That is the feeling you must address. ‘I am mad; I am hurt,’ and so on. And when you feel it you state it out loud. That gives you power over your emotions and your thoughts – ‘I am.’ The ‘I am’ is the feeling.

“Let’s say that you’re watching a misguided world leader speak, and you find yourself becoming more and more fearful over the fate of the planet… and more and more angry with the ‘idiot’ speaking. But you stop yourself, realizing that fear has you focused on the future and anger has you focused on someone else. Backing up to the pure emotions and states, you realize that you’re actually experiencing anxiety and frustration because you can’t be in control. So you acknowledge those pure emotions. And you say, ‘Okay, what is it that I can control? What innovative ways can I come up with in my life to – as Gandhi said – ‘be the change I want to see’ out there?’ Your fear and anger dissipate, and your energy is no longer being wasted on the speaker. If we all did that, no one would pay attention to that so-called leader anymore. We’d be paying attention to our own actions for transformation, and he would just go away. The only thing that allows the leader power is that we attend to him!”

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The Flip, by Jared Rosen and David Rippe, illuminates a clear path to a vibrant enlightened world where millions of people already live and thrive. It describes in vivid detail and real examples evidence of an upside down world in decay and a Right Side Up world of authentic beings bright with possibility.
The Flip is an owner’s manual for the twenty-first century full of insights, conversations with recognized experts, thought leaders, and visionaries, and actionable exercises and tips you can use to begin your own personal flip.

To read more about The Flip and additional interviews from other luminaries, experts and bestselling authors, please visit www.theflip.net

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