March 27

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Build Character: How Mussels and Chips Taught Me the Secret

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How can great Belgium food help you build character? Well, Belgium food is well known for a few things like chocolate, beer and also its famous “mussels and chips” meals.

Mussels are abundant in the North Sea, and we find plenty of mussel farming along the coast.

Mussel farming is quite easy to do. The farmer plants poles in the sea water and mussels cling on it and grow until the poles are entirely covered with clusters of mussels.

In order for the mussels to cling on the poles, these must have a rough surface.

If there is no pole or if the pole surface is smooth like pure glass, we would not be able to grow mussels.

The Mussels and Pole Metaphor

Now as a metaphor, imagine for a moment that mussels are thoughts and poles are character traits like courage, optimism, joy, self-confidence, sadness, anger or any other positive or negative traits of the human nature. Let me explain how this will help you build character.

If you have a pole named “courage” in you, even though you don’t know you have it, then when thoughts of courage will cross your mind – maybe because you are witnessing courage in a rescue scene in real or at the movie – they will cling to your “courage” pole in you.

The more thoughts of courage that cross your mind, the more of these thoughts will cling to your “courage” pole, and as a natural and effortless consequence, your behaviors will be more and more filled with courage. This is how you build character in the courage trait.

If you have in you a pole named “depression”, the same mechanism of attraction will operate, so that when thoughts of depression approach you by one way or another, they will stick to that “depression” pole.

On the other hand, would you NOT have that “depression” pole in you, depression thoughts would come and pass through you without any effect. Actually you wouldn’t probably even notice them.

“This attraction-repulsion mechanism obeys to a Universal Law called the Law of Growth (also known as Law of Attraction) and works permanently in us and on us, whether we know it or not, we like it or not, we want it or not.”

Luc Griffet

This might look frightening at first, however it becomes a great opportunity once we discover the existence of this mechanism and learn how to properly deal with it.

Once we do, it becomes possible and even easy to use it exclusively to our advantage to build character.

The principle consists of looking for the “poles” (ie. character traits) we want to grow in us, and those we want to get rid of.

Let us see how it works in each of these two instances.

Acquiring and developing a desired character trait

Imagine you would like to improve your capacity to discipline yourself in performing your workout sessions every day without failure.

You know that these exercises could help you get in great shape, therefore you really want to do these workouts, but you lack the discipline and you regularly miss your daily session.

If you know that you need to increase your “discipline pole”, then it means that you already have it in you… All you have to do next is to increase the amount of discipline thoughts clinging to your “discipline pole” until discipline naturally and effortlessly appears in your behaviors, allowing you to perform your workout sessions 7 days a week and to see in the mirror your body transforming like in your wildest dreams.

That’s great, but how could I increase the amount of discipline thoughts clinging to my “discipline pole”? would be your next question (I hope!)

Answer: you start by investing a few minutes thinking about and taking inventory of all the examples of discipline you could observe around you in your daily life.

Many activities and events can easily be connected to discipline, for example, you take a shower and brush your teeth every day (I hope!). You drink a cup of coffee before leaving home every morning. Every day the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. In spring, the trees grow their leaves every year and the birds come and go to feed their baby birds. You too, by the way, take your meals every day.

build character

You notice every morning your colleague John going to the coffee machine at 9:13AM sharp (I hope not!); etc, etc, you get the idea.

Now that you have associated the idea of discipline to all these daily activities, the thought of discipline will automatically fire in your mind each time you will observe any of them. This is how you build character with any trait.

Furthermore, your awareness towards discipline will also progressively increase (as more and more thoughts of discipline will stick to their “pole”), and you will start noticing every new instance of discipline at home, at work, in the street or at the movie… until your subconscious mind, totally filled with the idea of discipline will trigger automatically for you your daily workout sessions.

That approach is taught in the Master Key Experience training as the “Franklin Makeover” skill, according to the practice Benjamin Franklin put in place to build his own character.

Getting rid of an undesired character trait

Here too the Master Key Experience teaches us a powerful skill to improve our character and raise our consciousness.

It consists of applying one of the seven Laws of the Mind named the Law of Substitution.

Suppose that you want to get rid of a habit which is really poisoning your life and the one of your loved ones, namely anger (that was me some time ago).

Again, we start by investing a few minutes to build character, this time to identify one or a few harmonious and joyful things we want to think about each time we notice thoughts and feelings of anger in us or in anyone around us.

It could be a happy event we lived in the past, or one we plan to live in the future, or a mantra which has the power to rapidly reconnect us to harmonious thoughts and feelings (for example, the Ho’oponopono mantra “I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you” currently works beautifully for me).

Now that our “countermeasure” against anger is ready, the goal is to trigger it each time anger is showing its scowling face, no matter if it is inside or outside of us, the goal being to dry out our “anger pole” from all its remaining anger thoughts and then to polish it until its surface becomes as smooth as glass… a great way to build character.

In my experience, this practice of the Law of Substitution allowed me at first to spare my beloved ones from my outbursts of anger (as I was isolating myself each time I felt one coming), then progressively to calm my anger after a few minutes, and eventually to replace it with harmonious thoughts and feelings in just a few seconds…

Help in Building Character

We can only be aware of the character traits which are already in us, whether they are associated with harmonious or discordant thoughts and feelings.

Also, we have the power to reinforce character traits we want more of and to disempower the character traits we want to get rid of by learning simple and powerful skills based on the Law of Growth and the Law of Substitution.

These Laws of the Mind and these skills are the main topics of the Master Key Experience training which will start again in September. Go ahead and get on the list now so you won’t miss out. You can’t buy a seat in the class, but you can apply for a scholarship once you’re on the list.

I’ll be happy to meet you there and why not, to invite you to eat a delicious “mussels and chips”!

With love,

Luc

Read more articles by Luc Griffet

About the author

Luc is a trainer and mentor in individual transformation towards a harmonious and joyful lifestyle. He has experienced numerous transformations during his life; software engineer, successful corporate consultant, efficient networker, entrepreneur, Integrative Energy therapist. Luc is a happy family father, and currently a fulfilled trainer and MKE master guide. In the realm of individual transformation everything is possible, providing you believe in it. Are you ready?

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  • Luc, you remind me of Luc Picard, Star Ship Captain, because your blogs invariably take us on some fascinating and fantastic journey. This one here is no exception. Well done! 😉

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