It's O.K.

"It's O.K." Magic words or PC gobbledegook? The following passage from Wally Minto's COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING IN RELATIONSHIPS shows you a practical way to unlock your creative problem-solving powers, that are often bound up in fear, envy and self-doubt.

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IT'S O.K.

"To help you give up your fear of being wrong, I would like to share with you another concept from THE RESULTS BOOK. It is also one of the world's greatest problem-solving concepts. To use this problem-solving concept, all you need to do is simply understand that all problems are O.K. Every problem you have is O.K. The problem, itself, is O.K.; and it's O.K. for you to be experiencing the problem. It's O.K. if you are overweight. It's O.K. if you can't pay your bills. If you want to solve your problems, you must first realize your problems are O.K.

"The reason problems must be O.K. is because your brain operates under the law 'As you believe, so shall it be done.' Your brain is a computer-like guidance mechanism and it guides you according to the beliefs you have programmed it with; however there are different degrees of belief. What are some of things you believe in? You might answer God, gravity, myself, night and day. These are things we might all believe in, but there are things we believe in more strongly than any of these. The simple truth is that the things we believe in more strongly than anything else are the things we fear. I will guarantee you, if you are walking down a narrow path through the woods and you come face to face with a grizzly bear, you are going to believe in that grizzly bear more strongly than you ever believed in God or gravity or yourself or anything else. If you believed in God that strongly, you would be getting answers to all your prayers, but you've probably never prayed with that much energy and emotion. You see, fear is the same thing as belief, except that you put more energy and emotion into something you fear, and so it becomes a stronger belief.

"You believe in God. You believe in yourself. You believe in gravity. That is believing. Then there is really believing, and really believing is worrying about something. Worrying about being overweight or being depressed is simply really believing in being fat or being unhappy. And then there is really, really believing. And the things in life you really, really believe in are the things in life you fear. If you have a fear of being in debt or being in darkness, you simply really, really believe in being broke or you really, really believe in the bogeyman. Realize that you use the same faculties of your brain-mind functioning to believe in God as you use to fear the dentist, except that when your believing reaches the degree of fear, you are putting more energy and more emotion into it, so it becomes a stronger belief.

"If you can grasp the fact that worry and fear are the strongest forms of believing, and as you believe so shall it be done unto you, then you will understand how allowing your problems to be O.K. will solve 90% of your problems in life without even directing any attention to the problem. What makes this work is so simple . Have you ever worried about something or feared something if you knew it was O.K.? No! If something is O.K. you do not worry about it or fear it. I wish that I could explain this to you in very intricate, complicated terms. Then you might say, 'Oh, it's simple; I understand it.' Well I apologize. I can't complicate it. This concept is so simple I can't make it difficult for you.

"The reason you have failed to reach many of your goals in life is because you have not been aware that worry and fear are the strongest forms of belief. It doesn't do you any good to go on a diet and starve yourself believing you are going to lose weight and then spend the rest of the day worrying about gaining weight, because what you are really doing is believing in gaining weight. There is an ancient message, 'That which I feared the most came upon me.' What the message is really saying is, that which I really, really believed in happened to me.

"Worry and fear are mostly subconscious functions. If you are deeply in debt and cannot pay your bills, you do not have to write yourself little notes to remind yourself to worry about your bills. You automatically worry about them whether you consciously remind yourself or not.

"If you almost have an auto accident, you don't consciously say to yourself, 'I've been frightened so now I'll experience fear.' You automatically experience the fear without consciously thinking about it...

"...If you consciously desire and strive to lose weight, and yet, at the same time, you are constantly worrying about gaining weight, the greater energy of worry is making a predominant brain cell pattern for gaining weight. That predominant pattern is then controlled by the subconscious mind as an attitude or habit of gaining weight. So ultimately you have the conscious mind saying 'I must lose weight!' and the subconscious mind saying 'I must gain weight' and which usually wins? Yes, the subconscious mind.

"You have probably experienced the frustration, the depression, the tension of that battle going on between your conscious desires and your subconscious habits. How many times have you said yourself, 'I don't know why I keep doing this. I really don't want to, but I can't seem to stop.' Haven't you found yourself constantly praying to stop something and at the same time worrying to keep it going---praying to get out of debt and worrying to stay in debt, praying to lose weight and worrying to gain weight.

"If you allow your problems to be O.K. just the way they are, then your subconscious mind will stop worrying about them or stop fearing them. This allows your subconscious mind to stop really, really belieivng in your problems. Then the conscious desire has a chance to become a reality. In other words, by eliminating worry and fear, you allow your mind to see answers instead of problems...

"...If all of your brain-mind-body energy is focused on the problem, you will not see the answers. WORRY SIMPLY DEVELOPS A HABIT OF HAVING OR DOING OR BEING WHAT YOU ARE WORRYING ABOUT.

"Remember, I said that if you allow all of your problems to be O.K., this will solve 90% of the problems in your life without even being concerned with the problem. The other 10% you must objectively do something about as well as know that they are O.K. If you go out to get in your car and it has a flat tire, you can sit down beside your car and say 'It's O.K., O.K., O.K.' as long as you want and the tire will still be flat. This is one of the problems that fall in that 10% that you must objectively do something to solve, and yet if it's O.K. for you to have a flat tire, you have solved 90% of the problem of a flat tire. If you allow 10% of your problems that you have to physically, objectively solve to be O.K., it will solve 90% of each one of them...

"...When you start using this concept, start with yourself, because if you are not O.K., then nothing else in the world is O.K. Have you noticed that when you are not O.K., then nothing else is O.K. When you are filled with happiness, when you are O.K., the whole universe, and everything in it, is O.K. SO START WITH YOURSELF BEING O.K....

" ...As you begin to allow your little problems in life to be O.K. and you see them dissolve and dissapate, you will understand how you may use the O.K. concept to solve any rpoblems in life, big or small. You will understand it really is O.K. to be disappointed or depressed, to be discouraged or unhappy. It really is O.K.if you are ugly or too fat or too skinny. It's O.K. to be unhappily married or in debt. It's O.K. to be ill or even to be an alcoholic. As you allow your problems to be O.K. you will understand that this allows your subconscious mind to stop worrying about or fearing the problem and allows the conscious mind to focus upon the answer. Once you realize you are O.K. just the way you are, you will have found a beautiful freedom to change and become anything you desire. This is simply because your subconscious mind will stop believing in your hang-ups...

"...understand that allowing the problem to be O.K. is simply a way of releasing the problem. It does not mean that allowing the problem to be O.K. is agreeing to live with the problem the rest of your life...

"...This O.K. concept is not new to you. You have already used this concept to solve some of your biggest problems in life. When you faced a problem and knew there was nothing you could do about it, there was nothing you could do to change the situation, many times you have said, 'Well there is nothing I can do about it, so I guess it's O.K.' And what happened? Most often this caused you to stop worrying about the problem and the problem dissolved and disappeared...

"...Now you might ask, 'If the whole world is O.K., and all problems are O.K., just the way they are, then why change? Why put out any effort? Why do anything at all?' There is no reason to do anything, there is no reason to change, unlesss you want to experience something different than you are experiencing now. If you are experiencing an unhappy marriage and instead you would like to experience a happy marriage, then, of course, you must change. If you want the change to take place without frustration and without problems...then you must first realize that it is O.K. to be experiencing an unhappy marriage now. This will allow your subconscious mind and those people around you the freedom to begin experiencing a happy marriage.

"PLEASE UNDERSTAND, ALLOWING EVERYTHING TO BE O.K. DOES NOT STOP CHANGE AND PROGRESS ; INSTEAD IT ALOWS PERFECT CHANGE AND PROGRESS TO TAKE PLACE WITHOUT PROBLEMS. If the problem is not O.K., this forces you to keep the problem in your mind and you take the problem into the future...

"...But what if someone takes unfair advantage of me---is that O.K.? Sure it's O.K. if someone takes unfair advantage of you. If you had allowed it to be O.K. before it happened, it probably would never have happened. Haven't you noticed that the people who are always worried (really believing) that someone is going to take advantage of them are the ones who are usually taken advantage of? Even more important is understanding you are O.K. and so it's O.K. to do someting about it. It's O.K. for you to do something to make them stop taking advantage of you. You see, the whole Universe is O.K. When you only use the concept halfway, you only get half the results. When you say it's O.K. for someone to take unfair advantage of you, but it's not O.K. for you to do something about it, you are only using it halfway...Allowing it to be O.K. for people to take advantage of you does not guarantee that no one will. However, it does stop you from believing that everyone is going to take advantage of you and, consequently, fewer people do. LETTING IT BE O.K. TO FAIL DOES NOT GUARANTEE SUCCESS, BUT IT WILL STOP YOU FROM BELIEVING IN FAILURE, WHICH WILL CERTAINLY MAKE YOUR SUCCESS A LOT EASIER.

"If your problems are not O.K., then through your worry or fear or guilt or anger or anger or resentment or depression, your subconscious mind keeps the problems with you day after day. If you allow the problem to be O.K. then the subconscious mind releases it and leaves the problem behind. When you leave the problem behind, it naturally causes things to start changing, and soon you have your answer.

"...start with small problems...the little things that frustrate or worry you. As you see these small problems dissolve and disappear, you will understand how you can use this concept on larger problems. You will understand how you can apply it to your fears and phobias. You will understand how you can even apply it to state, country, and world problems. If you start using the concept with big problems in the beginning, many times the impossibility seems so great you lose your perspective before you even get started...

"...The most important reason for applying the O.K. concept is to eliminate fear, worry, guilt, and judgment. Fear, worry, guilt and judging are four of the most destructive forces there are. If you allow yourself and your problems to be O.K., you eliminate the need of worry, fear, guilt and judgment from your life.

"The reason there is so much power in realizing that yourself and your problems, and everyone else and the whole world are O.K. is because letting it be O.K. is a lot closer to love than what you have been calling love. How many times have you said to your husband or wife or parents or children or boyfriend or girlfriend, 'I love you anyway.' What you are really saying is, 'You are not O.K. but I love you anyway.' And friends, that is not love. Instead, when you can say to your friends, to your family, to your enemies, 'You are O.K. just the way you are ,' that is love.'"

---Arlo Wally Minto, COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING IN RELATIONSHIPS

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Sometimes people ask me if this or that 'works for me.' I had the privilege and pleasure seeing of Wally live this and benefit therefrom in his last beautiful years. I saw the 'miracles' first handhand. Only they weren't 'miracles.' They were the intentional results of a loving understanding of life...

Oh, by the way, it works for me as well--- like gangbusters. Like other worthwhile techniques and knowledge, it is a discipline, and the user benefits from occasional reviews to stay on track. jg