It was two years before this incident that I began a pilgrimage of personal development and it was here I had been introduced to Sandy MacGregor's work. The Peaceful Place concept which I believe is the genesis of Sandy's work, has been incredibly powerful for me. I have utilised it countless times to have pain literally vanish in seconds and it is here where I often turn to before making important decisions. Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, but too few of us ever utilise our power within us, based on this simple truth. Sandy MacGregor is an exception to this rule and I would say Einstein's statement is the essence not only of his profound work that he delights in sharing with us, but also the basis of his phenomenal success in life.
Michael Dayes, New South Wales
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PATHWAY TO THE PRESENT
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It often takes a crisis before we discover our inner strength. What a pity that this quality so often lies dormant for years and is only activated when our backs are well and truly to the wall. This has certainly been true in my case. It is sad to reflect about the waste of human potential represented by these long periods of dormancy in all our lives.
So that you will understand how I have come to this position I would like to take some time to share some things about my life, my own journey, with you. None of the things I will tell you is for the purpose of blowing my own trumpet, or engaging in self pity, or in seeking sympathy. The purpose is so that, as you continue reading this book, you will know exactly where I am coming from. Later in this book I may say some things, about forgiveness for example, which you might find extremely challenging. By understanding my journey you will be able to see that I am not just repeating things that I have read in text books. I have really experienced the power of my inner strength and I have seen others also experience the same power in their lives.
To understand my background, I'm a military guy, a retired Colonel. I went through Duntroon, the Royal Military College in Canberra and graduated from there in 1960. When I was still a young officer the army sent me to Sydney University where I completed a Civil Engineering degree. This was necessary because, on graduation from Duntroon, I was allocated to the Army Engineers. Then I worked for a few years as an engineer, building roads and bridges and other field constructions and ....... Oh! ....... Here there was a minor difference from the work my civilian colleagues were doing, in the army we also learnt how to blow up our constructions once we had built them! Believe me you cannot get a more analytical, logical, prove-it-to-me, black/white person than a combination of being a military guy and being an engineer. It is, I think, simply impossible. I fitted the mould exactly and valued the concepts of logical thought, meticulous planning and careful analysis above the ideas of intuition, emotion and dreaming. All this was before the Vietnam War.
Then, in 1965 I went to South Vietnam with the Australian forces at the Bien Hoa airbase. I commanded 3 Field Troop – the first engineers to support the infantry.
We'd heard about the Viet Cong tunnels all over Vietnam but up to that point none of us had actually seen one. One day in October, 1965, in an operation in War Zone D the infantry soldiers found some tunnels and called me forward. I remember standing there near the entrance and thinking, “There's the tunnel, boys ... what do we do now?”
Up until that time tunnels hadn't been searched out. When a tunnel entrance was found the procedure had been to pump smoke and tear gas through the tunnel to expose more entrances, and then seal up the entrance by blowing it up. What we did was to actually go down the tunnels and crawl around in the silent blackness of the still dank air. Some of the tunnels were so small that you could not turn around in them. You had to keep on going until they opened out and then when there was another room off to one side, then you could turn around. But then again some other tunnels were just a little bit higher so that you could squat up in them and turn around. It was extremely frightening work but as soon as we went down the tunnels we found intelligence (that is, paperwork), and that was particularly so in that very first area of tunnels that we had found, the tunnels of the Ho Bo Woods. We had landed right on top of a major Viet Cong headquarters and we took out ammunition, equipment, tons and tons of explosives, and over a hundred thousand sheets of paper. One of the things we obtained was the current assassination list that the Viet Cong had compiled on their political and military enemies in Saigon.
For the role I played in the tunnels I was awarded the Military Cross, one of the highest orders for bravery. I also received the American Bronze Star from the United States Government as recognition of my work.
When I returned to Australia I progressed in my military career, for a time continuing in the regular army, and then, for a time, in the army reserve. Upon leaving the regular army my civilian career progressed well and I joined the ranks of the ambitious corporate executive. My moment of personal crisis had certainly not yet arrived. Up until this point my experience of life had generally been a favourable one where I had succeeded at just about everything I had put my hand to. Sure there had been problems along the way, including a most stressful few years in my married life, but I thought I could handle everything that came up. Through the work that I did as the National Production Manager for a bedding and furniture company my mind was constantly confirmed in the analytical, logical processes I had picked up in my army days and in my education as an engineer. All in all things were looking up.
During the 1980s something happened which caused me to realise that the scientific advances, particularly in medicine for example, were not necessarily providing all the answers we wanted.
During this time I faced a family problem involving my son, Andrew. It was this experience that was to start me on an inward journey of discovery about the use of the mind, relaxation states, faster learning and power of the inner strength that is in all of us. This was not to be my crisis but I later realised that the experience was like a guidepost which pointed me in the right direction when my crisis came.
Andrew had suffered the effects of asthma for fifteen of his seventeen years. It had always been a problem and it just seemed that the conventional way of treating it didn't really work. Andrew's attacks became worse and worse until his bouts with asthma required hospitalisation and treatment with a cortisone drip in his arm. The worst thing was that there seemed to be no medical prognosis for Andrew's recovery. In army terms, all we were doing with Andrew was fighting a delaying battle with no real plan of winning. There had to be a better way, a way in which we could win the battle against asthma.
I took Andrew to a doctor and the doctor taught him how to relax and release stress quickly _ during the actual asthma attack. It really helped Andrew. One of the problems of asthma is that, once a bout commences, it is not unusual for the victim to become frightened and panic a little. This panic causes more difficulty in breathing, the difficulty in breathing causes more panic, and so a dangerous spiral pattern of cause and effect sets in. Relaxation can break this pattern and Andrew was mastering it, taking control of it. Andrew's deliberate use of his mental persuasion over his body was more powerful than the latest drugs. What an interesting insight that was!
Then Andrew, who rode a motorbike, had an argument with a bus one day and lost. His leg was badly broken below the knee – a ghastly mess with bone shattered and sticking out. For a time there was every chance that Andrew might lose his leg. He was advised that cortisone, which he needed to control the infection (nothing else would work) inhibited the growth of bone marrow, so the best solution was to amputate the leg.
I called back the same doctor who had previously helped Andrew control asthma.