Beyond O.K.
by Win Wenger

Original Review from Anakin’s Brain, slightly updated

State management. When things are going well, we take a lot for granted. When things aren't going well, we long for the time when life can be taken for granted.

First of all, Beyond O.K. is an old book - copyright 1979. That in itself made me hesitant to take it seriously. Anyone who has read more than one book by Win knows that there's a certain overlap of information that's necessary with each book. For example, image streaming of one sort or another is mentioned in every book I've read.

Yet very little of the book is outdated and there is a lot of material I haven't seen elsewhere. Having read Beyond Teaching and Learning, I figured I had gotten the gist of Beyond O.K. and its information on breathing patterns and such. I was delightfully surprised.

The book's main focus is on health--not just being "not sick", but being as healthy as possible in both body and mind. And it keeps raising the bar of what is considered the goal as Win encourages the reader to reach the next level of control.

For those of you who have read any of my writings, you'll know that I consider State Management to be one of the cornerstones of intelligence. [Update – State Management was one of four “pillars of intelligence” in a previous incarnation of Genius By Design, along with perception, strategy, and wisdom]I personally have struggled with state management for a long time. Tony Robbins and NLP and others have helped, but nothing I've read goes as deep as Beyond O.K.

What do I mean? For those of you who are familiar with Tony Robbins, he takes you through a host of strategies to get yourself "into state". But his approach is often to get yourself motivated, energetic, passionate - which is not always appropriate, especially with image streaming. You'd be best to be relaxed, alert and confident rather than passionate.

For those of you who are familiar with Natural Brilliance by Paul Scheele, he explains that the "Release" step in learning must precede all else (including the "Notice" and "Respond" steps). Since image streaming is definitely part of Notice, this distinction is of particular note to this group. Alas, Paul doesn't go deep enough into actual strategies in his book to really get me into the right state for image streaming. This doesn't discredit Paul in any way. I just needed a little more.

So where do you turn? If the surface strategies don't help, you turn to the two-way mirror between body and mind - breath. But not just deep belly breathing or "velvety-smooth" breathing as Win suggests in The Einstein Factor. In order to really "unblock" anything that is getting in your way, you must use the powers of visualization along with breathing.

Win takes you through noise-removal breathing, blow-torch breathing, satisfaction breathing, and more. All of them are designed to give you progressively more control over your mind/body state FROM THE GROUND UP. There is nothing more foundational than breath. From there, you are clear to explore image streaming and other wonderful tools from a much easier place. Just doing the noise-removal breathing for 10 minutes in the gravity position brought several image streams to my consciousness without even prompting them.

Although a lot of the book isn't directly applicable to accelerated learning, it does hold the key for many who have turned image streaming and all learning situations into a performance rather than a simple, NATURAL task. For most of us working of our own, state management is a considerable factor, especially in the early going. Thus, for anyone struggling to get started with any advanced learning technique, I highly recommend this book.

As for the rest of the book, it has an esoteric feel without confusing map and territory and going off into "la-la land" as many books do when they speak of the bodies considerable powers to heal itself. Talking about invisible energies certainly isn't mainstream, but nor is it unheard of as more traditional medicine establishments are recognizing the value of non-mainstream therapies.

But the book is not about therapy, though it does offer a tremendous amount of insight as to how one would go about supplementing traditional medicine with visualization and breath control. It's all about taking the next step in controlling mind and body, from whatever level you're at now.Recommended for:
Anyone looking for some interesting and original techniques on state management.

Anyone experiencing any chronic condition, you certainly have nothing to lose by reading this book - and it may, as I hope it does in my case, provide the key to finally getting a handle insidious little triggers that make physiological mountains out of mole hills.