The Lightning Process: Taking Charge

An important concept that people learn on the Lightning Process Seminar is differentiating between the things that we can and can’t influence. Jack Canfield, co-editor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, talks about the equation E+R=O.

E stands for the Event, R for our Response and O stands for Outcome. So for instance, if we are stuck in a traffic jam, E is the event; the traffic jam. Lets say the traffic jam is something that we are not able to influence, i.e. we can’t get off the road. I suspect that many people would start to get stressed, i.e. their response is to generate stress. They would not consider that they have a choice as to how they respond to the situation. However the reality is that how we respond is up to us, and the more we maintain awareness that we are in charge of our response, the more we are influencing the outcome; for instance feeling calm.

If you have responded to being stuck in traffic 100 times by getting stressed, then guess what your likely response is going to be. That's right, it is probable that you are going to respond the same way and just get stressed again.

What makes the Lightning Process unique is the way it teaches clients how to:

• Break these conditioned responses and how to break these patterns of behaviour,
• Choose how they respond, how to take charge of our brain; our thoughts and reactions, rather than just repeat learned responses
• Practice more useful responses to situations so that they become automatic. 

One client loved this idea so much that she made a bracelet with the equation on it!

Simon Pimenta