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While in NLP Practitioner Training this weekend I was fortunate once again to be re-united with Master Coach and trainer Helen Attridge Green as we studied Success Strategies. Helen is an extraordinarily successful coach, so it was a lot of fun taking apart her process to see what her goals are and how it is that she assesses who she wants to work with.

The first step of success lies in having an outcome, so the question was asked of Helen, what if you honestly don’t have any idea of what you want? What if all you know is that you’re not happy with the way things are?

This question spawned a number of things one can do to get the focus to shift toward a desired experience, one of the most powerful though was the Four Levels of Consciousness.

A Self-Assessment Tool

What I love about this model is how it can be quickly applied to just about any situation. It makes it really easy to identify what level you’re operating from, where you need to be and the single most valuable thing that will lead you to your desired place. For anyone well traveled on the personal development road…this is amazingly handy!

Life is Happening TO ME

The first level is Life is Happening to Me. In this stage you feel victimized and helpless…as if you have absolutely no power and that something else has to happen in your external environment in order to make a change. To move out of this stage you have to give up blame.

Life is Happening BY ME

The second level is Life is Happening By Me. In this stage you will feel that you have complete control over everything and that it will happen because you will make it happen. This is the highly driven personal action stage. In order to move out of this stage you have to relinquish control.

Life is Happening THROUGH ME

The third level is Life is Happening Through Me. In this stage you feel that you are here for a reason and that you have a purpose. You have gifts, you ‘re in touch with your Higher Power. You trust that you will get what you need, you don’t even have to try that hard to get it and know that worry just cuts you off from Source. In order to move out of this level you need to release separation.

Life is Happening AS ME

The fourth level of consciousness is Life is Happening As Me. In this stage you feel that there is no separation between you and Spirit and you and others. You show up without the beliefs that keep you separate so you are operating from a perspective of compassion in which you don’t necessarily feel that you need to change others or the environment because you see yourself as an extension of it.

Constantly Moving

In any context we are constantly moving back and forth between these different levels of operation all of the time. We often do this unconsciously in reaction to whatever is presenting itself to us within our life situations.

The Four Levels of Consciousness model allows us to purposefully assess where we are currently operating within our contexts and if that is the most appropriate and productive approach or if another level might serve us better within our experience?

It also provides a platform from which we can understand how it is that we participate in each level, how we create it and where to make the change in order to create something else.