How to Stop Suffering: Morty Lefkoe at TEDxHoboken 

The main message from this: - Suffering is caused by attributing meaning to the things people do or say. Dissolve the meaning to stop your suffering. - Use the following exercise: - Recall the negative feeling. - What happened before the emotion? - Identify the event before the negative event. - What was the meaning that you gave the event? - Make a clear distinction between the event and the meaning. - Find alternative meanings behind the event. - Meanings can cause emotions only because we think it’s a part of reality. Remember it’s only in your mind. - Think of the event and notice the feeling has disappeared. This talk is brilliant. Such an awesome human being!

I have developed several processes for change, including one that permanently eliminates beliefs (like I'm not good enough and Life is difficult) in about 15-20 minutes (150,000 have tried that one), one that de-conditions the triggers for emotional eating and other addictions, and one that de-conditions the events that cause negative feelings. Those processes and the Lefkoe Occurring Process, which dissolves meaning (and the feelings it causes) in seconds, comprise The Lefkoe Method.

A legend and grandfather to removing limiting beliefs RIP

"its not the pain that causes us suffering, its the *meaning* we give our pain that causes us suffering"

Morty Lefkoe method changed my life. 📈

One of the best things about beliefs I have ever seen

This is probably the best self help video I have ever seen. no religion no weird 'out there' stuff, just plain common sense. in my opinion

Applying this process has increased my self-esteem

A Course in Miracles workbook begin with Lesson 1: "Nothing I see MEANS anything." Lesson 2 is, "I have given everything I see all the MEANING that it has for me." And it continues with lessons about meaning and forgiveness and such. Mr. Lefkoe's exercises are the practical application of those lessons and he has clarified the value of the first lesson to me... "Meaning" - our perception of meaning and meaninglessness - permeates all the rest of the Course, which covers everything we need to know to live a happy, healthy life while on this planet. Thank you, Morty, for this wonderful talk.

There's the event, then there's the story you make it mean and believe is true. I learned this great teaching in the Landmark Forum.

It’s always nice to have people like this who spread spiritual concepts under a veil to get through to the more closed minded and/or unaware individuals.

I have much respect for Morty, -always have. R.I.P. Morty. ♥

Morty has a golden heart and lives his truth.

So empowering. “This is an idea worth spreading” absolutely Morty, thank you for this gift you left us, it keeps on giving 🌈

I had to learn the terminal illness diagnosis the hard way, but my life is so much happier now that I have accepted it and let go of the meaning. I live more now than I did before.

This man was absolutely brilliant in his work, he perfected his craft well and helped so many 👌

Watch the video again, the guy never said that people should be satisfied with everything that is in their live. He just shows how to stop the suffering. You still can strive for better, not because you think you do a shitty job, but because you want to become a doctor and do whatever you like to do.

morty was a real one. R. I. P.

I LOVE THIS< it is so simple, and brilliant, thanks Morty and Shelly for the incredible work you do

Morty past away on 11/11/15. Godspeed.

I was just emphasising that doing the work you suggest is harder when the person has a lot of difficulties in their life. And I also know how it is to find alternative meanings for huge events, Mine was deportation, losing husband, doggies, land, the life. We had to decide that it was because my voice needed to go back to the UK and reach more people in our return to earth mission.

I could not have imagined but know, I'm going to stop my suffering!

Even better I think is to give GOOD meanings to events. In his example about his wife leaving glasses all over the place by the end of the day, he does give GOOD meanings to that.

The only truth is the event, not the meanings we give to events. Whenever there's more than one possible interpretation, yours can't be THE truth. Just realizing that, dissolves meaning and suffering. Can you really conclude 100% she's a bad person because of her behaviour or even that you are a bad mother because of how your daughter treats you? No, you can not..

Absolutely Incredible!!!

Oh wow....I have been watching ted talks looking for different ideas to help my loved ones go through healing and acceptance of 2 loved ones passing. Just realized reading the comments some speakers have passed away....its still sinking in and I don't know how to feel about this.

To me, a lot of what he is saying is helpful if you unnecessarily interpret events or ideas as negative that don't have to be (things that are rather trivial)...But what about events that are inherently negative from someone or something such as bullying, sexism, brutality, racism, crime, victimization, environmental degradation, injustice, etc We use critical thinking to assign meaning to events or ideas and then use our free will to respond. This leads to a more positive world in many ways! We have to allow for negative emotions and have those emotions empower us to help create a better world.

Incredible process! We choose from an inifinite number of meanings about an event, that meaning (or story) determines how we feel and our response. If we choose that the event has no meaning, then there is no feelings attached to it and hence no response. We have the ability as creative beings to disolve the meaning and our suffering.

Thank you

Felicidades ! Gracias por explicarlo tan claramente

This is the exact 'lesson' I'm learning to understand. I've had quite a hard time being able to 'see' it happening in the moment, probably due to my Aries Moon. But I've glimpsed some clarity as of late. Definitely an idea worth spreading/teaching/shining light on. Thank you.

Thank you so much

This is an excellent talk. Thank you.

Brilliant...I'm so thankful that I'm studying with you!

Thank you for this message of enlightenment! So helpful.

This is helpful. Meanings/beliefs are ways we pretend to know things we do not know.

i love this.very great message there

Aw sorry to hear he passed.

I dont think he means dissolving meaning would stop progress, but rather to progress without the suffering

Thank you so much for this video Morty :)

simple , although it takes lots of practice !! glad i know now it's up to me ...( which won't mean that the event will not be repeated..!)

great advice, approach to dealing with life's event

Amazing method

Thank you, Morty :-)

Very powerful

Great man

The only reason that you suffer is because you are trying to manifest every single desire at the same time, and the only reason for time is so that you can manifest every single desire one moment at a time. When you put your faith in time and start to believe that with time everything that you want will happen, with time everything that you want starts happening.

Must watch

Very simple and effective

Brilliant Event and experiences are neutral They happen out there The meaning we give it, happens in the mind, only internally By changing the meaning to a neutral or positive feeling The bad feeling and suffering is permanently dissolved

that was great. Very powerful idea.

Wonderful in that the message of this TED talk is ultimately helpful in life...however as much as I, to some extent, understand its effects in lessening the suffering process, I am rather confused. I know it could be due to the fact that in my mind there might not be a clear distinction between different concepts such as fear, pain, sadness, hopelessness, judgement, and etc. I remember just one of the many reasons that made me suffer in a partnership that broke down was this exact method. Instead of associating the correct meaning, I would use alternative ones which made my angst go away. This came at the price of me not figuring out the red flags earlier on. Yes, paradoxically, the meaning I associate with the failed partnership is NOW stopping me from suffering; however, at that time in the context that I was in and with my overly optimistic personality and naivety in believing everything, this method wasn't useful.

what a distinction to distinguish a meaning from event and emotion ans suffering , this man is so clear , thank u raja hirekar who shared this video, i learnt it to dissolve my meanings , ashok narayan

If it can help suffering people, so far, so good. What surprises me about addictions is how they come and go in life without clear reasons : Coca-Cola, chocolate, Gini, coffee after lunch, I saw all of them, and many others, affecting me at one time or another and then vanishing some months later almost without I noticed anything. Strange :-/

R.I.P Morty

Must amazing perspective of thinking , thats true , we have to give a positive meNings for events

I also returned with no money at all other than the $2 given to me by a fellow deportee through the bars in the cage of the van that took us to the plane. I spent five months in jail. All of this I have changed the meaning of and knew I had to do it very quickly. Losing my best friend and my animals was the worst capped by returning here to find my dad had terminal cancer and my mum dementia. Now I live with them helping out. Every day I have to exchange meanings!

Very awesome

Great talk, but it's important to realize that often times it's not an event that triggers the process (event, meaning, feeling) but thought, and it gets trickier.

If you have any questions, this man goes more into detail in his book called "Re-Create Your Life"

It's such an amazing video!!

But what if the meaning you give to a behavior of a person towards you is congruent with what the person meant by doing so? We always talk about: there are so many different possibilities this or that could have been the reason, you don't know. But what if you were right and not just clinging to a self-constructed illusion in your mind?

Briliant

I like this a lot. And one comment - Valerie Harper dealt positively with terminal cancer. However, I assume [!!] she has it fairly comfortable in terms of providing for the necessities - a nice home, etc. Someone diagnosed with terminal cancer who has not the means 2 make their life comfortable might find it a lot harder if they don't have the means 2 be in a nice hospital or have home care or is homeless I think this works for not so deep stresses that make up most of our suffering.

Beautiful video 🤩

And we thanks to Anges Vivarelli!

I get it!

Except everything in life does have meaning, and there's no escaping suffering. The better questions to ask relate to discerning correct meanings whenever possible, and gaining the wisdom to respond best to whatever life throws you.

This just left me more angry than before. Yeah, I get that my thoughts are different from actions in reality, but that doesn't mean they're not linked. This just made me focus on how upset I am and made me feel justified in my anger.

Meaning in an event can also be a good thing, like when we derive a great positive emotion from it. Any comments anyone?

The problem I have with this is it doesn’t address the core beliefs that are the cause of the meaning we attribute to any event. The core beliefs can’t be changed through reasoning and logic. You can gloss over them with intellect but they’ll still be there filtering your perceptions and will ultimately win out. How does one truly change core beliefs? I don’t know yet.

Removing meanings we become depressed

You're still giving meaning to that event. Your meaning is a variation of: "my daughter MUST respect me, I'm her mother, she OWES me respect and because she doesn't she's a bad person." Though that meaning seems to be THE truth, it's not. Imagine several people watching your daughter disrespecting you. One might think: "she's deeply hurt inside", another: "she needs help to deal with the anger" and another: "that mother didn't teach her daughter how to be respectful". None is THE truth.

Very good! Although I am still irritated by my neighbors little dog barking for every breeze of air that passes lol.

R.I.P Morty.

What do you do if the "meaning" DOES actually exist in the world? Say for example, your daughter mouths off at you because she disrespects you. She has admitted that she doesn't respect you, so that meaning IS in the world. Every time she mouths off, you know from experience (and what she's told you) that it is because she doesn't respect you. How do you dissolve the meaning for something you know is true? There seem to be levels to wade through with this.

Omg I am like your wife. Drove my dad crazy, when 8 cups were sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom, and now drives my husband crazy. I gotta play this for him lol

I am confused. He tells us to dissolve meaning rather than change it but I would have thought the example of the photocopier was an example of changing the meaning of an otherwise boring task into something challenging and even exciting.

So pain can mean strength and endurance if we give suffering positive meaning it almost disappears.

He is conflating all meaning with - I’m-a-victim type meanings. There’s no need to dissolve all meaning - that’s pathological. We need all the other ones! Maybe this is why this work is not very well known but may have some very good powerful aspects.

But why do we apply meaning to everything outside us? Is it because we believe that we know it all? What does it mean about me if I knew it all? If we just stop applying meaning, life be way a lot easier.

Ahh, so a disrespecting daughter isn't a meaning, but another "event" or "state of affairs" to which meaning is being applied? I think I get it. I guess a person must keep digging until one finds only a state of being, or event, at the core. Wow, Finding the root and plucking it out could cause a domino effect...

10:48

What about reframing the meaning we give an event, rather than dissolving it and making an event "meaningless"?

My simple brain has not grasped this but I wish I could. Anyone?

How about creating your own meaning from a place of choice?

Who said that is "revolutionary"? And even if it was mentioned in a book of anyone 400 years ago, this fact doesn't make the technique less awesome. And the sheer fact, that this technique is not applied by most people, makes it a very big potential to reduce suffering in the world.

No don't tell people who are suffering currently to just stop giving meaning to their situation. It's a sure way to make them feel like you don't understand and make them more isolated. "My mom just died and I'm in so much pain" "why? Just stop giving meaning to it and you'll be happy" This is good to teach to those who aren't struggling so bad so they know for the future though.

3:18 Consequences aren't the same as meaning

I don’t get it can rick help explain his point

Like him.......some humans just get it.

"Pain is just the firing of a few neurons, I don't get why people have to associate it with being punished" - unknown

It works on guilt, too?

Where can I find the text of this lecture? Any idea?

Why are there so few stuff about Morty? In spanish language there's almost no reference

"Who said that is "revolutionary"?" The person who posted that video : "Morty Lefkoe is the creator of The Lefkoe Method, revolutionary techniques for change that have helped almost 150,000 people [snip]". How come you ask the question when you have the answer just under your eyes ?

No interpretations at all; always giving a meaning to events: both are talebanic aspects of our mind.

Come me me and I shall give you rest Jesus said

So this is "revolutionary" ? Strange. I would swear Alfred Korzybski said the very same thing in a chapter of his book "Science and Sanity", 1933.

50% brilliant, 50% this method needs additional work. Sorry for the long post, though you may find it useful if you've done work on yourself for some time and have seen little or no results on the long term. 1st you just can't create the habit to dismantle each meaning you give to events that make you suffer or disadvantages you. If you do this you are just cancelling the essence of life, which is to feel good and bad, if good keep doing it, if bad, fix it and re-do it. Ie if your friend yells at you and that upsets you, not a good idea to give it another meaning just so you feel better, but maybe you had offended him with your language and you need to revise your behavior w/ ur friends in the future. Felling bad or pain, in this case emotional, is gold for your improvement. 2nd, this “meaning” think comes from a very important space, and that space is the root cause of your thoughts / feelings. Ie, if you are a positive person, you will be happy that the car that just passed by you very very closely didn’t kill you and you, with gratitude, pray and thank God, but if you are negative, you will swear and blame the driver for trying to kill you. Now, pay attention here, you prayed and thanked God because you were still alive after that car almost killed you because you are a positive person and have faith in life. If you are a grumpy and negative person, yes, you can change the meaning of that event from saying how such a bad driver that person was, how irresponsible he was, into another meaning, whatever make you feel positive. But think about it, you will have to be like a watching dog all your life, continuously monitoring the events that make you feel negative or do not help you. My point is that you need to change you, the way how you see life, the people around you, the world around, your mission on earth. That is the change that last and is effective. All the rest are work arounds. Hope this would help some one out there. Daniel