Rob first what does it look like to “give yourself wholeheartedly” to what you believe?

I’m going to slightly modify the question because the benefit of giving yourself wholeheartedly is not seen, but felt.  It might sound a little pedantic and I think it was written more as a figure of speech, but it is a critical distinction.  The benefits of giving yourself wholly, or living joyfully, are not primarily physical, but emotional.

Life is to be consumed like a culinary delight.  Yet to taste and enjoy life, like tasting a wonderful meal is not understood by being seen, but by it’s taste.

Many people study that which they can observe from others and recommend that we all do X.  You get news articles like this, everywhere now. Studies show that more people who exercise/go to church/drink wine/morris dance etc are happier therefore Psychologist Joe Bloggs says we should all morris dance while drinking wine in church.

It’s over-simplified and primitive.  You cannot just observe someone’s behaviours and actions, you have to analyse why they work, which gets deep to the core of the person’s psychological structure and then understand what is translatable into someone else’s situation.

To address the question, we must first consider what it is to live?

Medically, we consider living to be the presence of a beating heart.  I would consider that to be existing though.

Let me explain my view of what it is to live.

Everything in the world, the planet earth, the people on it, social structures and so on, operates within the concept of time.  It is born.  It dies.  And in between is it’s existence.  So if we imagine it’s path of life to be the path from birth to death like a line.

Now wherever we meet situations and other people it is where our paths cross.  So it looks a little like the diagram below.  Although each real life situation would be the intersection between every person and factor involved.

Now what happens to all of us, to some degree is that we get swayed from our path.  Sometimes through fear and doubt.  Other times through greed and ambition.  But once we do we fall into a limbo like land where we lose our sense of self.  Though we may gain the rewards of the world, we have lost ourselves and so the vehicle through which we can taste the world.

If you look at the glossy magazines you can see example after example of Celebrities who have lost all sight of what is really important to them in the pursuit of money, fame and power.  Week after week, their tumble into limbo is documented as they chase physical symbols to supply their emotional cravings.

Life:  The Greatest Game Of All

Games need a context in order to be enjoyed.  Call of Duty or Snakes and Ladders wouldn’t be any fun without the context they are in.  Simply clicking a mouse or rolling a dice without the images to give the moves meaning would be very boring.

Likewise we enter a world that has a whole history of events as a background to give meaning to the decisions and actions that we take.  And just as you can play any game half-heartedly, with one eye on the telly, you can live half-heartedly.  But any game or action taken less than wholeheartedly will lack meaning and so feel boring.

And so will life.

But to engross yourself in the game, to make it’s nuances real to you, is to bring the game to life, to make it meaningful and intensely enjoyable.  When people find a context in which they can do this, they will travel the world to attend Star Trek conventions, they will invest fortunes in golf, shooting, fishing, horse-riding or boating equipment, they will spend hours delighted to share their perspectives on the smallest of details that seem to others to be boring or even ridiculous.  But only because they do not see what the other sees in the same vivid detail.

I believe the greatest game is Life.

To live wholeheartedly is to play the game of life.  The game of life is to meet the situations you face, which all conflict, and decide where you stand and what you believe is the right way forward.

Not what will bring you the most approval, love, financial reward or what is easiest, most expedient or least effort.  But the way forward that is right to you.

It is to give that perspective, voice and discernment, which is uniquely you to the world.  In this sense your participation in life is a gift.  And without giving, you cannot truly live.  You can exist, but it is as fulfilling as playing a game half-heartedly.

Your Value In The World Is Determined By Your Purity

Purity is always valued.  Purity in gold, in food, in knowledge, in anything is always the rarest and hence most valuable form.  Since the pure version is scarce we get diluted and cheap versions for the masses.

There are really two versions of you.  There is that which is purely you.  Uncontaminated by the influences and pressures of the world.  This is the version of You when you are at your absolute perfect best.  The You that is wise, loving, calm, tolerant, patient and radiant.

Then there is the You that lives among the hustle and the bustle.  The You that fears for it’s survival.  The You that fears not being liked, loved and respected.  The conflicted, tortured and human You that has really become a watered down caricature of your pure essence.

To give yourself wholeheartedly is to live in the world as the pure You.  To remain true to yourself in spite of every worldy influence and pressure to change who and what you are.

It is to be in the world, but not of it.

The world will naturally pressurise you to fit into it.  For the world has never known you and therefore it was not designed to accommodate you.  So there is a continual conflict between you and the world.

Do you to adapt to it or must it expand to include you?

We are taught from birth that it is us, that should compromise and adapt. But when we conform and adapt, the world gains nothing. It does not progress, expand or improve. The world is enriched and improved by those of our Ancestors who have refused to be broken by the world and have left their legacy imprinted on the world.

Anything less than the pure expression of You, is to hedge your bets and live in a conflicted state.  Hence why Buddhists say, all of life is suffering.

Life Is A Continual Journey

Living is in many ways analogous to driving.  Life at it’s essence, is a journey to a continually changing destination.  There is always somewhere else to get to.  I’m here, but want to be there.  It is a continual journey.

Now when you drive in your car in a busy city at rush hour, you might be lucky to move 10 yards in 5 minutes.  It’s irritating.  You don’t feel as though you are getting anywhere.  You feel claustrophobic.  Hemmed in and everything frustrates you.

When you drive on a wide open road, well out of the way of speed cops, it feels exhilarating.  You can put your foot down as much as you like and the only limit is what speed you personally feel comfortable with.  You never have to brake.  Nothing can stop you.  The wind flows against your skin.  The stereo is blaring.  You are free and moving towards where you want to be.

photo credit: WTL photos

Likewise, it feels great to be productive and moving towards the things and states you want to have.  But it sucks to feel stuck and blocked from your goals.

Happiness Is The Freedom To Be.

Every form of stress, frustration, depression and angst, stems from fear.  Fear is the brake on how fast you consume life.  Excitement is the accelerator of your experience.

To give yourself wholeheartedly to what you believe, is to transcend fear.  It is to head out onto your path without braking.  To be free of the man made limitations, inhibitions and constraints.

It is to be you.  To say what you feel.  To do what feels right.  Without doubt.  Without equivocation.  Without fear and insecurity.  It is to live without anxiety.  Without boredom.  And without second guessing yourself. Just in perfect integrity and congruence between what you think, feel and do.

Right now as you read this, there are things that you want.  Big goals and lesser goals.  The only thing holding you apart from all those things that you want, are fears and doubts in your own operating system that inhibit you from really going for it.

Think about it.  Anything you want, someone, somewhere has achieved.

• A loving relationship.
• A rewarding career.
• Financial success.
• Perfect health.

So it is achievable also for you. There is a direct path from where you are to where you want to be (though you may not be aware of it).  However, there are two possible obstacles to you achieving them.

The Two Blocks To What You Want

One is that you lack the resources to obtain it. There is a something on the path blocking you from passing it.

You lack the knowledge or the skills to enter the race.  For example, if you want to be a Surgeon, you have to train in the technical skills.   These skills are learnable and your apprenticeship is the price of entry.

The most common problem though, is… self-sabotage.

• You want to lose weight, but you can’t resist food and can’t get yourself to exercise.
• You want a relationship to work, but you can’t stop being so jealous and possessive.
• You want to have a better social life, but you’re so afraid of rejection that you never suggest going out to potential friends.

Life is really a blank slate.  Anything is possible.  Anything can happen.

But when you are so riddled with conflicts that push and pull on every desire, you get nowhere.  You take one step forward and get pulled two steps back.  Every part of life, that you don’t enjoy, anxiety, depression, frustration and so on, is rooted in internal conflict.  Your internal angst works like a dog being tied on a leash.  Held back from straying too far.  Yet just out of reach is you heart’s desire.

photo credit: quinn.anya

Excitement for the goal accelerates you towards it, but fear brakes and slows down your progress.

So often, we end up almost paralysed in a limbo state.  Taking much longer to get there or never quite reaching the promised land.  All because of our own conflicting thoughts and feelings.

Share Who You Are Right Now

So do you agree with my response to Brian’s question?  Share your thoughts below.

If it is ourselves that sabotage our own success and happiness, then we should identify the ways that we do this.  I have a few listed and ready to share in the next few posts, but I’m sure there’s more ways that you can think that I have missed.  List them below and maybe we can focus on them individually and begin to loosen the leash.

What has taken hold, is that I’ve become sure I will always be sad about losing the family we had and how it’s taken so much from kids. I can’t imagine in any new life, not feeling the weight of that loss, the guilt for my part in it and the regret that it is unalterable. It feels like the unsheddable burden.

One of the most powerful and draining things you can do is to live with regret.  Regret is really about loss.  It’s a grieving for something you feel could have been, but you have now lost in your life.  It’s a closed door that you feel will never be open to you again.

When you are in a situation such as Brian’s, everything about you has been set up to head towards a certain goal.  An idealised outcome.  So as you go about your work or play, progress takes you towards that goal.

Now though, it seems that the route to it is blocked.  It seems that as you take a step forward you just amplify the pain.

Unless you upgrade your Operating System to generate a new dream, there is always going to be this sense of reaching a barrier where you can only peer at where you really want to get to.

Let’s take this a step deeper.

We almost never really want, what we think we want.  People go to a Gym thinking they want to build muscle or get really toned.  Deep down they don’t care about having muscles or being toned.  They care that other people think they are attractive.  At the deepest levels they want to be loved and acknowledged.

The picture Brian had of an ideal outcome wasn’t what he really wanted.  It was his representation of what he really wanted.  It was the best guess, given his Operating System’s limitations.  Yet what Brian really wanted was a deeper state that best served him, his wife and his children.

It’s important to distinguish between the real goal of a healthy and happy state of connection and intimacy and thinking it can only show up how you think it should be.

photo credit: dilivion

What We Really Seek Is Beyond Words And Images

A nameless state so deep that our words and images are not capable of expressing it.  Language and images are only useful for shared understandings.  But we have inner wisdom and experiences that go vastly beyond anything we could share with others

However it is impossible to think of something without words or images to attach to it.  And so we make up the closest words or images that we can perceive as their representation.  That’s what we do with these nameless states that go beyond our comprehension, such as God, Heaven and Hell.  So to represent it in your mind, you created an image of what your most perfect, possible outcome would look like, based on your operating system.

Then when it seems that this outcome is no longer possible, of course, you feel a deep sense of loss.

Back when I was studying NLP, I learned about a concept called synaesthesia.  It’s basically where two different things get so closely associated in your mind that when you think of one, the other comes to mind also.

This is the essence of Phobia’s.  You get terrified by a spider once and such a strong emotional connection links up in your mind between spiders and fear.  So then every time you see a spider, you also feel the terror.

In your case you have connected this image of what a perfect outcome will look like with the deeper state you want to achieve.  Therefore there seems to be no other way of reaching that deeper state without making yor life match the representation of it you have created.

Going Beyond Cultural Auto-Pilot

But let’s think about this logically.  If we were living two hundred years ago, the nature of family life would be very different.  If you were in some remote Amazonian tribe, the family relationship would look very different.

I’m sure if you looked you could find examples of people who no longer live with their children as a family unit, but still have created a deeper bond than they previously had.  Having spoken to other Father’s living apart from their kids some of them have told me that this is true for them.

Often when you are with your family all the time, you are with them when you are pre-occupied, stressed, tired and trying to get other stuff done.  You are with them when they are whining and petulent.

However when you only see them on certain days and times you are able to be completely in the moment with them.  You can clear away all the everyday details and put normal life on hold while you just have fun together.  You can have total focus on them.  So the time that you do spend with them is of a much higher quality than it previously was.  As a result your bond can be stronger.

What I’m trying to get at, is that the perfect outcome that you believe has been lost to you, is limited by your cultural perspective and the belief, that there is only one way the relationship will work.

There are many ways that you, your children and your wife can relate together that will achieve the outcome that you really want.

You see, thinking that it has to show up in a certain way, puts a lot of pressure on everyone.  But if you are more relaxed and trust that since deep down, you all want the same result, then you can work together and find the right outcome that works for all of you.

And that form you have in mind, may be the best form.  However the paradox is, that believing it must be in that form can actually prevent it happening.

The Beginning Of The End For Relationships

There’s a distinction between the actions of someone wanting to be right and wanting to be happy.

When someone believes that there is only one possibility for everything to turn out for the best then it puts an enormous strain on them.  And consequently on others.  They feel that they are holding everything together.  So if they let anything slip, everything is going to fall apart.  Then when others don’t see eye to eye with them, it feels like they have to control, persuade and cajole others to fall into line.

This is the point where they stray from the line of authenticity, of calmness, of peace.  And it’s also the point where the relationship comes under strain.

photo credit: doug88888

Because what happens is that other people may conform with their wishes or they may not.  Either way though, you have pushed them away.  Depending on their personality they may split with you physically or emotionally shut off.

If they do conform, they feel resentful because they are now going along with your vision and they will blame you for taking them away from their vision.  They will feel that same loss for their vision, that you feel.  So there is always that bitterness, which becomes associated with the person who seemed to be the one who took them away from their dream.

If they don’t conform, you just end up in a stalemate.  Butting heads and with constant underlying fighting until one gives in or gives up on the relationship.  Either way it has caused a split in the relationship, which will drive you apart emotionally, if not physically.

Unless it becomes healed.

Conflict Can Bond Or Split A Relationship

To avoid this happening though, you have to connect with the state that you really want to achieve.  The state that was the power underlying that vision.  Then you act with the philosophy of living without conflict.

In other words, when you get into a situation that threatens conflict, you seek not to be right, but to merge both of your visions.  You don’t go in wanting a specific outcome, just looking to find a resolution that is authentic for you both.

photo credit: René Ehrhardt

Say for an example, you are booking your holiday.  You want to go to Hawai and your wife wants to go to Florida.

Well you want Hawai because maybe that represents calm and relaxation to you.  So you talk.  Not with the intent of persuading, manipulating or pacifying.  But with curiousity to get to the root of the conflict.

You find out that your Wife wants Florida because it’s exciting and there’s lots to do.

So you have a seemingly irreconciliable conflict.  Peace and quiet or frenetic activity?

But as you talk deeper you find that you want peace because you’ve been very busy and stressed recently and you just wat to lie back and recharge your batteries.  Your wife agrees that it’s been hectic and that’s just why she feels you all need something completely different.  She sees Florida being a chance for you and the kids to let your hair down and have fun without any worries for once.

It’s going for the same goal of recharging and relaxing, but in two completely different ways.  Either could work magnificantly, as you could many more options.  But none will work if you enter them, feeling it’s not the right choice and, with simmering resentment and hostility.

During the process of talking openly and honestly, you’ll get to know not only the other person better, but also what you really want at a deeper level.  By the end of the discussion you’ll be a different person and what you want may change.  But certainly by working together openly and honestly for an authentic solution, you will create a deeper bond and sense of authenticity.

A marriage or partnership is supposedly entered into for both parties to work together for a better outcome.  Yet many times, couples really hope the other will fail.  They agree to go along with someone else’s way, but they want it to fail, so that they can be proven right.  Once you get into such a position, you now have three people in the relationship.  You. your ego and the other person.  It is another form of unfaithfulness.  And as damaging as infidelity with a third person.

When You Are Relaxed About The Outcome, You Are More Likely To Reach It

The interesting paradox is that the less you push for your way, the more likely it is to happen.  Once you become tied to a particular outcome that you believe is essential for your wellbeing, you are likely to feel under so much pressure that you are more irritable and snappy and therefore your message is not communicated so clearly.

One of the most interesting findings from the early days of NLP was the difference between great marksmen in the army and lesser shooters.

The key distinction seemed to be that the best Shooters put less pressure on themselves.  They had an attitude that one bad shot wasn’t the end of the world.

In contrast, the people who didn’t perform as well, believed that each shot was critical.  As a result, they put so much pressure on themselves, that their anxiety ruined their performance.

This finding seems to be replicated in a number of fields and I would guess it to be universal.  I bring it up, because I think when we believe it is critical for us to get other people to buy into our vision, I think our insecurities make us less able to express what we truly feel and more inclined to try to control or manipulate others.

When we only care about getting to the truth, specific outcomes aren’t critical and so we can relax and be ourselves.  This generally allows others to feel as though they can relax and open up and so you get to the core of what is really important to you both.

“When you give yourself wholeheartedly to what you truly believe, the world forms around that giving you everything you truly need and want”.

Rob first what does it look like to “give yourself wholeheartedly” to what you believe? And second, what does it mean when you know what you believe and yet act in defiance of it.? Here’s why I ask.

Since my own “cauldron of difficulty”, I’ve come to see things about myself that I’d ignored for years. Selfishness, needing to be right, control issues and fear dominated how I lived and led to a divorce I never wanted. However the awareness and new-found truths that I’ve come to see and believe, haven’t moved me near enough. I still have the anger and bitterness and am as short tempered with my ex as I ever was. I’m not processing through it, even with a considerable amount of new-found clarity.

What has taken hold, is that I’ve become sure I will always be sad about losing the family we had and how it’s taken so much from kids. I can’t imagine in any new life, not feeling the weight of that loss, the guilt for my part in it and the regret that it is unalterable. It feels like the unsheddable burden.

I’m going to address the part of acting in defiance of what you believe here and the rest in a separate post.

I can really empathise with this question.   Much of the time I am very calm and patient.  But at other times, when I’m tired, preoccupied with something else or in a hurry I am aware of being short tempered.  Especially to those I am closest to.

The more I have come to understand about us as a species, the more I see that our basic nature is savage.  Sure we are capable of great kindness and altruism, but also pettiness and viciousness.   Thinking on this question clarifies in my mind that there are two groups of people in relation to this issue.

photo credit: aerodesign.pl

The Two Types Of People

The first, and by far the largest group, are vicious savages and are completely unaware of it.

The second are like us, reforming savages, becoming more aware of our nature.

Ghandi’s quip when asked what he thought of Western civilisation and he replied that ‘it would be a good idea’, comes to mind here.

Our society is so puffed up with arrogance about it’s own importance and achievements that it fails to see the hypocrisy it is based on.  It amazes me that almost no-one seems to learn from history.  When I discovered what now seems like the foolishness of believing the world was flat, of believing that God wanted sacrifices, of believing that a dance could bring rain, it was a lesson to me that much of what we currently believe must inevitably become laughable to more sophisticated, future civilisations.  So I wanted to find the flaws in my beliefs.

When the last recession happened in the eighties I read up about it’s causes to understand it and found out that this has happened in cycles for about the past four hundred years.  Yet Politicians and Economists, still want to believe that they, in their brilliance, have managed to turn around or compensate for human nature.

In exactly the same way people are butting their heads against brick walls complaining about the state of the world, other people’s incompetence and so on.  The cause of most stress is the belief that ‘everything is fine with me, it’s just the other people I have to deal with’.

Brian has now reached the point, where in his more reflective and considered moments he is honest and aware enough to recognise what is.

So now with that known what do you do about it?

We need to start a little further back to be able to pull all the pieces together so that hopefully,  it will all make sense in the end.

In the last post I said what we see is just the tip of the iceberg.  I want to emphasise this in more detail now by examining the stages of awareness.

In our lives, we spend our time in three zones.

The Auto-Pilot Zone

Much of our time engaged with the world.  And most of this is routine in the Auto-Pilot Zone.  We go through our day doing much the same things in a semi-automatic pattern.  We greet people the same way, have the same kind of conversations and do much the same tasks.  We slip into a patterned groove.  Like a conveyor belt where habits take over.

The Artistic/Creative Zone

Then there’s the parts of life that bring us our greatest joy.  The parts where we create and fashion new grooves.  These are the aspects where we have to really focus on what we are doing.

The Contemplative Zone

photo credit: Ed Yourdon

And finally there’s a small part of our day, where we spend time reflecting on what we have done, what we want to do and where we want to go.

Awareness develops as we spend more time in reflection.  Gradually we notice more and more of what governs and determines our auto-pilot zone hours.  That is how our levels of awareness develops.

The Artistic/Creative zone is never a problem.  It’s here where we love to be, where we carve out and discover who we are and what we are all about.  It’s you being you time.

The Problem With Living On Auto-Pilot

The problems all come about in the Auto-pilot zone.  If you examine when you are most angry, bitter and so on you’ll find it is in those moments when you are caught up in the auto-pilot zone.

To understand this we need to ask why do we do, what we do?

In order to function we learn and then act from lots of automated programs and knee jerk responses.  These are a complex mix of genetics, social conditioning, learned responses and previous personal decisions.

We are the hard wired product of billions of years of evolution.  We have instincts that originated to help reptiles survive and out of which we evolved.  We have customs from thousands of years ago that have become deeply etched in our cultures, which became the framework from which we look through out into the world.

From these two sources, someone could function for their entire life.  Most people spend 95% of their time operating from these bases.  But it is a deeply, unrewarding and robotic existence.  And as it plays out, the hypocrisy and conflict in the flawed logic shows up as problems.  The problems get your attention.  They require contemplation and so make you aware of a problem that has been there all along.

Now when you notice the conflict and resolve it, you upgrade your Human Operating System.

The key to your success in the world and your effectiveness and so your level of happiness is determined by the quality of your Operating System.

If you observe general life, you’ll notice that much of it doesn’t work.  If you have to deal with big bureaucracies, you’ll find that many of their systems don’t work.  What was designed and planned for maximal efficiency turns out to be so flawed that we wonder how anyone could ever have hoped it would work.  Even in small businesses and our own households, we find that what we were certain was a great idea was hopelessly flawed.

These are all caused by our Operating System and reality clashing.  Failure, in all of it’s forms,  is due to a bug or glitch in the Operating System.  This in turn is caused by some habit or belief which lives in the dark and unexamined area of the iceberg.

That’s really the way I think of it as a Human Operating System.  But now I want to put this in a slightly different way, that might make it a little clearer to you.

What Enlightenment Really Is

Often people talk about enlightenment and becoming enlightened.  So that means that they see more of the iceberg.  More aware of themselves.  They see the flaws and in seeing them they unravel them and transcend them.

Now the pressures of the world keep you in the auto-pilot zone.  It’s deeply unfulfilling, but it seems to be what you should do.  And so you operate from that deep, murky basis without ever really examining what you are doing or why.  Just keeping ahead of the treadmill so you don’t fall off.

That means that you are riddled with conflicts and problems.  Most that you have no idea about, but are all lined up and waiting for you to reach them.  Each of the conflicts is heavy and burdensome.  Even if you are unaware of them, they are a weight that holds you back and slows you down.

Each that you resolve and so clear, results in you becoming more enlightened and therefore, emotionally and mentally lighter.

If you ever meditate or get engrossed in exploring ideas, you’ll notice how much lighter you feel emotionally.  It’s because you have shaken off the shackles of these conflicts that you carry around with you.

So enlightenment is really a process of purification.

photo credit: Freddy The Boy

It’s much along the lines of what Environmentalists want for our planet.  Only to complicate things we have two basic systems that determine how we react and behave.

Our nervous system is an outgrowth of billions of years of evolution.  Yet what worked marvellously for reptiles or chimps doesn’t always work so well for us in today’s world.  For example, the stress response is a fantastic instinct in the wild where stress is, as Dr. Robert Sapolsky puts it, either over in 20 minutes or you are.

Stress, or the stress response, is never a problem.  The real problem comes from prolonged stress.  It’s when the stress response goes beyond 20 minutes that it literally begins to destroy the body to maintain a state of readiness.

The second system is that of our social conditioning.  It’s the way we learned to make sense of the world.  We have progressed from living in Caves to our current high tech lifestyles.  But each progression came at a cost to the environment.  And later we found less toxic ways to achieve the same result.

For example, initially cars were huge gas guzzlers.  Now they have reduced their emissions and it is almost certain that they will one day cause only a fraction of the toxicity they have historically.

In exactly the same way, we have progressed our society, but at a cost.  It is known that our way of life increases mental illnesses.  Groups working with developing countries to become more materially successful plan in for the costs of dealing with increased levels of stress and depression.

As an example, much of our wealth comes from the concept of specialisation, so trumpeted by Adam Smith.  Henry Ford made his fortune from the efficiency of his assembly line production methods.  Yet despite paying workers more than they dreamed of earning, his factories were the scene of literal battles.  Even today, there are sweat shops that exploit workers in order to bring us products.  Then you have slavery and many other historical ills.

Though thankfully as a society we are becoming more aware of the toxic side effects to our progression, our culture and so the conditioning that we learned has been developed from this framework.  So the society that allows slavery is built from individual minds that believe that others can be used for their own good.

It is in removing toxic beliefs that we become enlightened and so purer.  To be in the world, but not of it, is to be pure.  To live in a complete (or almost complete) state of transparency and awareness as opposed to the darkness of  our inherited conditioning and nervous system.  It is to override instincts and conditioning in favour of choosing our actions and responses.  It is to live consciously, now, in this moment.

The Human Problem – Knowing What To Do, But Not Doing It

Now we can look at your original question in a new light.  So why do we not do what we know would be best for us?

It’s because in our moments of reflection we can see clearly.  Intellectually it’s easy to accept and know what to do.   However somewhere from 70 – 90% of our lives are lived in the auto-pilot zone, where we do not have the mental time or space to be in the moment and consciously choose our response.   Therefore we act primarily from instincts and habits.

Intellectual understanding is rarely enough to create behavioural change.  It can happen instantly, if the lesson is emotionally powerful enough, if the person has reached a tipping point where the pain of the old way is too much to bear any longer or if there are no deeper bonds clutching at that behaviour.

Typically though, there are deeper rooted fears, insecurities, perceptions and flawed beliefs that hold onto old habits.  To change a behaviour, you have to address these.  The intellect is like a leaf on a tree.  It is the most obvious and visible, but it exists as an extension, an outgrowth, of the roots.

The core of the system is not controlled by the thinking mind.

What the thinking mind can do, is promote awareness and detoxify the system.  Then the purer system will respond with habits that get the same or better results, but without the toxic side effects.

How difficult purification is, obviously depends on a number of factors.  Let me digress for a moment to make a point that might put this in perspective.

How To Achieve Purity

photo credit: star5112

The quality of a pint of beer is determined by it’s purity.  I recall reading, how in the 1920′s Claude Hopkins was amazed by the process Schlitz Beer used to go through to ensure their beer was as pure as possible.  Actually all beers go through a similar process.

Even though the factory was right on the shore of Lake Michigan and the water was at that time unpolluted and a cheap ready source, they still dug 4,000 feet deep artesian wells to provide the purest possible water.

Then he was taken to the laboratory to see the mother yeast cell, from which all yeast used in the beer making process was developed.  It was created from 1,200 experiments to bring out the robust flavour

He observed beer dripping over pipes in plate glass rooms that were filled with filtered air to ensure that it cooled without any impurities.

Then he was told how every bottle was sterilised 4 times before being filled.  He saw huge and expensive filters that were filled with white-wood pulp to provide a superior filtering process.  Every pump and pipe was individually cleaned twice daily.

If we go to this extent for beer, should we not be as vigilent of our own mind.

Purification comes from eliminating all possible sources of toxicity.  One sloppy element in the beer making process can lead to a foul tasting beer.  In exactly the same way, one element of toxicity in your Operating System can lead to behaviour that intellectually you don’t want.

Every action is preceded by perception.  And perception is dependent on mood and the thought structure your Operating System is based on.  So our actions and habits have a long chain of thoughts and effects.  Most of them are below our level of awareness.  So you have to uncover the process, the chain of thoughts and beliefs from the action that is the leaf of the tree back through the branches and to the root.

That is what the beer producers did to perfect their product.  They analysed the entire process and purified each step of it.  And so when you are as stringent about the process from an incident happening to your response to it, then your actions will be as pure as a top quality beer.

So now let me finally answer your question of how do you react more positively?

There’s  really six steps to enlightenment on a given issue or conflict.

The Six Steps To Enlightenment

photo credit: batintherain

Step 1 – Symptom

This is the stage where you become aware and notice that there is a conflict or a problem.  Typically it’s after a problem, but you can develop the skills of awareness to see it before it physically manifests.

Step 2 – Diagnosis

This is the stage where you identify and diagnose what the problem is.  Initially the problem might be X.  Later in the process you might find that Y keeps you doing X.  So these steps can be cyclical, until you have really got to the root of  the issue.

Step 3 – Prescription

Intellectually you can see what the solution is to the problem.

Step 4 – Treatment

It’s one thing to know what the problem and the prescription for it are, but you have to have the awareness in the moment to apply the treatment during a flare up.

Step 5 – Reaching The Tipping Point

To change a habit requires numerous applications of the treatment.  There are times when you will react without being consciously aware in the moment.  And so you have to bring your focus and awareness to the situation so that you consciously choose your response.  Again and again, until you reach the tipping point for your new habit to become the new default.

Step 6 – Purification

Your new behaviour now is the new automatic response.

The Problem With Hypnosis, NLP And Other Tricks And Techniques

It is possible to change behaviours by techniques such as Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic-Programming.  I used to do it.  But I became disheartened because in my experience, all that happened was people developed new problems.  There was no real growth in character or a sense of someone becoming more enlightened.

These tools can be great for someone that is debilitated by something like a deep fear or phobia.  But life is not about the absence of problems.  It’s about transcending problems and transforming them into stepping stones for growth.  Just as a caterpillar cannot turn into a butterfly without struggle, we cannot grow without adversity.

There are always lots of huge promises with this or that new technique that’s going to make life easier.  But we are still grappling with the same essential human issues that were written in the ancient mythologies.  Our environments and lifestyles may be more comfortable, but the essence of being human hasn’t changed.  There are no shortcuts to enlightenment.

The people that I really admire and aspire towards are people like Buddha, Lao Tsu, Jesus, Socrates and Krishnamurti.  No-one has ever reached anywhere close to their level by hypnosis or any other method or technique.  Because life must be understood.  It all comes as a holistic package.  Everything affects everything.  It’s all part of the one.  You cannot cut it into segments and piece it together perfectly.  It’s an organic, living thing.

Our actions are a reflection of our current level of enlightenment.  It is, what it is.  It is the judgement of good and bad that hampers growth.  Fear, of looking or feeling bad, leads people to waste their efforts and energies pretending to themselves and everyone else that they are something other than they are.

Accepting where you are, frees your energies to heal and so move to a new level of growth.  And that is why Brian’s openness and honesty in his assessment of himself will move him past this issue.

The only way that you get to be more enlightened is by spending more time in the contemplative zone.  If you look at the six steps they are all based on contemplation.  The actual change happens by pausing life by bringing your awareness to the moment and applying your pre-planned prescription.

What you are doing in your contemplative period is training and preparing yourself to be fitter, stronger and better prepared, so that you are ready when the tough challenges of life occur to treat them as the opportunities that they are and knock them out of the park.  But most people never think of this as training.  And so they never go about it in an organised and structured way.  It’s all out when they have a big problem and nothing when the sun is shining.

It is to create a more organised and structured basis for growth that I have been working to create a place where you can train and prepare to be ready to seize the opportunities in life.  This question has made me see how important this is to get out immediately.

And though, it’s not as polished as I would have liked it to be, I feel I should open this up now and polish it as we go.  So you can read about the new Coaching Club here.

how do you know of all the options, which one is the authentic you?

I’m going to start my reply by looking at the foundations and then the answer should make much more sense.

Have you ever noticed that Toddlers tend to play to a much greater degree with stuff like sand, play dough and plasticine than older kids?

photo credit: AmandaLouise

These are all open ended play that allow lots of possibilities.  There’s no set outcome, just a sense of curiousity and exploration.

Then as they get older they play more with dolls, action men and so on.

And as they get older still their play becomes more organised by rules and regulations.  Until eventually we squeeze all the fun out of life and end up sat in meetings about point 4 in paragraph 2.1b.  Then worrying that because it bores us, maybe we have ADD or something.

Society is set up to train us to believe that there is a right and wrong way to do things.  There’s religious commandments, moral obligations, social duties, professional responsibilities and on and on.  And often they collide with one another.  Yet before we learned ‘the rules’ we loved to just play with lots of opportunities.

What happens when people seek to find themselves, is that they get all serious about it and believing they need to find the one true path, they go on a quest to find their ‘authentic self’.  As if it is a treasure hunt for the ‘holy grail’ that has been hidden from them.

What Exactly Are You?

Let’s back up for a moment.  First of all, we need to be more explicit about what the authentic you is.

It’s not your physical body.  Your body is nothing.  It’s just your current mode of transport.  It is your spirit, your energy that animates this hairy bag of chemicals into a physical expression of the deeper flavour you are.

You are a flow of energy.  Living in a body means living in a world of perception.  And so we can only see a reflection of what we are, through our actions and words and other people’s reaction to those.

Much like an echo.

Of course, there is much more to us.  We all know that we have more potential inside us, don’t we?

But that potential is like the Toddler’s playdough.  We just see a bunch of goo, until someone makes it into a form that we can recognise and appreciate.

In exactly the same way, you may have a vision, but all anyone else sees is a mass of goo.  They can only see the vision, when you start to form it into your vision.

The biggest mistake people make is to quest for their authenticity.  There is not one authentic you, there are many possibile authentic you’s.  Just like play dough, you can create a form and then reshape it.  Over and over again.

Think of it this way.  You know how on the beach, there’s someone who’s been buried up to their head.  So all you can see is their head.

Well, that’s analogous to your authentic self.  What even we ourselves see,  is just the tip of the iceberg.  Let alone anyone else.  It is only when we are put into new contexts that challenge us that we are able to discover more of ourselves.  Because until then it is just goo.  Waiting to be formed.  And it is your decision, in the sense of what you prioritise and what you discard, that crafts it into the sculpture you become.

photo credit: hans s

A Blacksmith plunges iron into the forge so that he is able to mould and shape it into the form he wants.  Likewise we become what we are through the cauldron of difficult situations.  Hero’s are not made from mundane situations or conscious decision.  They are born from difficult situations in perilous times.

When you go about the routine parts of your everyday life on auto-pilot, you only see what has already been set.  It is in the moments of strife that we become able to be transformed.

Healing The Fractured Psche

Robert in his comment on the last post, pointed out that the Psyche isn’t integrated.  It’s fractured into lots of conflicting parts that don’t fit together peacefully.  So we are continually finding ourselves faced with difficult choices.  I want this because I think it will be good for my relationship, but then I want that because it sounds more exciting.

We hate the tough decisions, the awkward moments and heartbreaking conflict. Our instincts tell us to run from and avoid such situations.  But it is in that conflict, that we have the chance to heal our fractured Psyche and so makes us what we become.

We evolve, grow and develop only as fast as we integrate and transcend conflict.

Let’s use Jeff’s case as an example.  His conflict comes out of his thought structure.  He cares for his Fiance and wants to live up to what he perceives as his obligations to her.  But equally he wants to live his own life.  They are both very powerful wants.  It’s checkmate.  A stale stand-off with no clear winner.

Yet sooner or later, he has to move in the direction of one choice.  His life is paralysed in limbo, until he does.  But which one?

This is the point when people most seek answers.  Some certainty to grasp hold of.  So they seek advice or look for sources of wisdom to find the answer or inspiration.  Some people give up and just take the easy route because they cannot bear the tension.  But the easy route leads to inauthenticity.  And sooner or later the conflict will play out again in some form or other.

The truth is there is no right or wrong answer.  Either can be an authentic choice.  Let me explain why.

photo credit: ?

Right now, Jeff is facing the fork in the road.  Both paths can lead to equally beneficial outcomes.  They might even intersect later.

Whatever he chooses, will change his entire thought structure.  It will determine how he will integrate the two parts and heal the conflict.  In doing so, he will create the Jeff he will become.   As long as he truly believes in his choice rather than settling to avoid the conflict.

In other words, Jeff could decide that he’s trained to be a Dentist and it’s a good comfortable living.  It enables him to live to a nice standard and though he doesn’t enjoy the way he’s currently doing his job, he will focus his energies on bringing more of himself to the role.

Just because up to now, people have seen a Dentist in a restricted conventional pattern, doesn’t mean it couldn’t be done differently.  Jeff could decide that he will heal the conflict by bringing more of himself to the traditional Dentist role.  In which case, Jeff needs to dig deep into his sense of identity and decide what he’s really about, what he sees as the problems in  Dentistry and how it could be improved.  For what makes you most unhappy is that which jars most with your sense of identity.  Therefore identifying that conflict and healing it leads to you expanding the field and indelibly leaving your mark on the world.

It is through such conflict that innovations is born.  There actually is a Dental role model for Jeff.

Paddy Lund was driven to the point of suicide by his work, until he decided to revolutionise his work and the field of what is possible in Dentistry.  It’s an inspiring story, you can read about it later here, but don’t go yet or you’ll lose the thread and miss the point of this article.

Or Jeff could decide that work is a big part of his life and he really can’t stick Dentistry.  There’s nothing about it that suits him and continuing would just make him more and more unhappy and affect his relationship anyway.  So he’s going to investigate some other paths and find something that can pay the bills and put a smile on his face.

The decision is neutral.

It’s Not Which Path, But How You Choose The Path That Matters

You can jump either way and be authentic and have everything work out perfectly.  However the key is that you believe wholeheartedly in whatever you decide.  This only comes from really grappling with the issue to a conclusive decision.  Then as you leave the furnace, your new thought structure sets and you become a new upgraded version.

If however you do not fully resolve the issue.  If you choose one and yet still flirt with the other, you remain in the furnace.  Not in the centre, but just enough to remain malleable.  And so when tested in battle, you are the sword that breaks.

photo credit: busbeytheelder

When you believe wholeheartedly in something, you make it happen. You have hardened steel at your core and that will outlast every obstacle you face.

It is your authenticity that creates your experience of life.

Many people who like to talk of the Law of Attraction, misunderstand it.  They tell you that you must think positively and believe in what you want to create it.  Actually they have it back to front because they believe the result is more important than what you are.  They are saying, become what you have to, to be a match for what you want.  The rub is that often the things we think we want, are not the things that satisfy us.

It is better to understand what you truly believe and live in congruence and integrity.  Then techniques and tricks are unneccesary.  When you give yourself wholeheartedly to what you truly believe, the world forms around that giving you everything you truly need and want.

Our authentic selves are not something we live up to or achieve, they are something we create from our conscious choices.  Like our muscles they grow stronger upon the battle scars of our erupted Psyche.

You see, your mind is broken.  Insane.  Mine too.  And everyone else’s.

If you observe yourself or others closely, you will soon realise that we act completely irrationally.  But we only get to be aware of that when we encounter some context in life that allows us to see that the insanity of our beliefs.  So in this case, Jeff has had this conflict lying dormant for years.  Yet it’s only when the conflicting ideas are able to play out sufficiently to their breaking point, that we are able to see the conflict that was always there.

If you want to grow and become enlightened, evolved, actualised, reach your potential, be the best version of you that you can, then you need to speed up the velocity of your life experience so that you integrate more of the conflicting parts that make up You.  Some people do this by great highs and lows in their experiences.  They learn from lots of bumps and drama.

How To Develop Your Own Authenticity Quicker

photo credit: hitchhicker

Personally, I prefer a quieter life.  And I’ve learned that a conflict in my mind is just a problem lined up waiting to happen.  So I try to become aware of it and deal with it before it ever develops into a problem.  It’s much like car crashes.  They only happen when we, or the other Driver, don’t pay attention to the warning signs.

If you can resolve conflict mentally, then you don’t need to have it play out in your life physically.

That’s the real meaning behind the name of this site, Live Without Conflict.  It’s not that you won’t ever have conflict, you always will, but that you reconcile it so quickly, that it doesn’t hang around long enough to bother you.

I have been working away at developing an online membership club that is designed to help you to do this.  It’s almost ready to open it’s doors.  So if that sounds interesting to you, keep an eye out for an email invitation.

Now the topics that I generally write about would tend to be classed by many as personal development, so it might seem strange for me to say such a thing.  The problem is that I don’t really fit into an existing category.  And neither do you.  

I think personal development is flawed.  In truth, I write about the same things as spiritual writers, but I don’t typically use a lot of esoteric language, because I don’t see any distinction between physical and spiritual and so I’m not classed in that group.  So this post, which is a kind of manifesto for my philosophy of following your bliss, might disturb a few people, but hopefully it will clarify and explain why I believe it is a sounder basis than personal development.

Why Personal Development Is Screwed?

We are naturally multi-dimensional beings.  We react differently to different people and different contexts and we seek multiple goals.  

• We want to be healthy.  
• We want to be rich.  
• We want to be loved.  
• We want to do things that are meaningful and significant.  

So, often life seems like a delicate balancing act.

The traditional cultural belief is that happiness is the result of some kind of equation.  The equation changes depending on your beliefs, but most go something like this.  If you reach great health and have lots of money and people to share it with, then life will be perfect.  So most people would agree that we need at least;

• Health
• A satisfying career
• A rewarding relationship
• A smooth running household
• And probably some degree of spiritual meaning.

Let’s plot out that belief visually.

Now to achieve each aspect of that equation, we would have to take into account lots of different aspects of each factor.  For example, to be happy with our relationships, most of us would need;

• At least one intimate relationship,
• A healthy relationship with our Parents (Maybe Step Parents and possibly Grandparents)
• If we have Children (Step Children) to get along with them,
• Extended family, such as Aunts, Cousins etc
• Some trusted Friends,
• The ability to relate to those we meet socially,
• To get along in our career, we’ll need to be able to get along with people we interact with professionally and also acquaintances like neighbours and so on.

 So this would probably look like this visually.

In dealing with our health, we’d need;

• To pay careful attention to our diet,
• To take some exercise,
• To avoid or limit consumption of toxins, such as Alcohol and drugs,
• If we’re on medication we should be aware of the side effects and the best treatment for conditions we have,
• We’d need enough sleep and fresh air,
• And we’d need to manage our stress levels and general emotional wellbeing.

Visually, it would look something like this.

Then we have to manage our homelife, doing such chores as;

• paying our bills,
• doing the shopping,
• balancing the accounts,
• dealing with schools, sibling squabbles and other Parenting issues,
• keeping up with housework and maintenance and so on.

Here’s the visual of that.

Now each of those elements can then be broken down into more detailed steps, you need to be aware of and increase your competence levels at.  If you were to take just one aspect of one of those Relationships, for arguments sake, the ingredients of a successful intimate, personal relationship, you’d need to consider lots of other aspects to be sure the relationship was working for both sides.  Questions such as;

• Are you paying the other person enough attention?
• How is the communication between the two of you?
• Are you still physically attracted to each other?
• Is the sexual relationship still working?
• How open are you both, or are their barriers between you?
• Is there trust between you?
• Do you have the emotional intelligence to work through issues?
• Does your relationship work for your social life or are friends and your Partner completely separate?
• Do you have common goals and interests?
• Does the relationship still allow you to maintain a sense of personal balance?

Visually it would look something like this.

The default perspective on this is that if we get a big tick, next to each goal we will automatically be happy.  And so it seems that we have to run around keeping lots of plates spinning at the same time.  

Today, when we have reached a point where just Youtube alone has 20 hours of video uploaded every minute, we are exposed to such levels of information overload that it is impossible to keep up with almost any topic.  

And so almost all of us are stressed, exhausted and burnt out from running to keep everything we are juggling in the air.  Because once we stop everything will come crashing down to earth.  

It’s crazy.  So to put this into perspective, let’s look at just some of the plates we are trying to keep spinning.

And that’s without breaking down most of the main factors into more detail.  And when you consider that it takes 10,000 hours to develop excellence at anything, what chance do we have of mastering more than one of these tasks?

Is it any wonder that people are so burned out trying to keep up with everything they think they need to keep up with?

Conservatively, depending on how complex your life is, that’s something like 180 – 300 plates spinning in the air.  Can you really be aware of and develop all those aspects in your life?

The problem is that much of the areas that people are spending their time developing their skills is because they are trying to fit a cultural ideal rather than what is truly them.

This is why people end up taking expensive holidays to exotic locations and end up in a different location, but their time and attention are still stuck miles away through their mobiles and laptops.

The irony is that even when they reach the threshold that they thought they’d get the tick marked off, they find it doesn’t fulfil them anyway.  Because their fundamental assumption was flawed.

Here’s Why So Many People Find That Despite Running Faster To Get Ahead, The Treadmill Just Keeps Speeding Up 

If you pursue great health and achieve it, you will get healthy.  

If you pursue a loving relationship and attain it, you will get a rewarding relationship.  

If you pursue and create a rewarding career, you’ll end up with a rewarding career.

But great health does not equal happiness.  Nor does a loving relationship.  Or a rewarding career.

You see, people have misunderstood this distinction for so long that it is a foundational flaw in our cultural mentality.  

Happiness is not an equation.  It is a state of being.  An emotional location of consciousness.

There are many people that are happy in poor health.  And many that are radiantly healthy and unhappy.

There are lots of people in a happy relationship, that are still unhappy.  And many people who are deliriously happy without a relationship.

And again there are people happy without a rewarding career and those unhappy with one.

So Why Are There Unhappy People Who Seem To Have It All And Happy People Who Seem To Have Little?

The first and second commandments that Moses gave are;

ONE: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.‘ 

TWO: ‘You shall not make false idols.‘ 

In other words, I’m the one to focus on and don’t get distracted by worshipping false idols.  I propose that the cultural pursuit of happiness has been one of worshipping false idols. Let me explain.

We set off along a path, our path, in the journey of life, that we hope and believe will lead us to happiness.  And as we travel along this path we meet crossroads that signpost great health, wealth, relationships and so on.  At the end of each path seems a prize so bright, that we are drawn to it.  

The challenge of life is how well we can deal with the temptations of false idols.  Most of the time we fall into the trap of believing that if we can just contort our life out of shape for a little while, until we attain the glittering prize, we can then put everything else straight and life will be perfect.

And that is how we lose ourselves.  

We throw ourselves into our careers headfirst and sacrifice our homelife, our health and sanity.  ’If I can just get that promotion’.  

Or maybe your achilles heel is in relationships.  Do you lose contact with your friends and own interests to develop a relationship?  Do you give up your own interests, pursuits and aspirations for the sake of a relationship?

Some people get so obsessed with what they should be eating, what their exercise routine should be and delving so deep into their health and appearance that they lose all sense of balance in their life.  

Buddha covered this well with his idea of the middle way.  You can get a grasp of most issues, enough that will affect you by using the 80/20 rule.  

Now let’s deal with the God issue.  What is the idea of worshipping God?

That you can join with him and become complete, thereby achieving a state of blissful ecstasy.   Therefore aren’t the promise of the two states, being at one with God and happiness, the same?

So then if you replace the word happiness for God, the first commandment says to pursue happiness before every other goal.     And the second warns against falling for the temptations of false Gods or false goals.  

So now if we look at the path to bliss in a new light, we can see that those oh, so tempting diversions cause us confusion as we are focused on too many targets.

The truth is that there is no equation or no single path to happiness.  Happiness is the result of you being you.  It is the idea on which personal development is based on, that you have to be better, that makes you get off your own path and follow someone else’s.

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”

Joseph Campbell

It might sound a little confusing if this contradicts everything you’ve previously believed.  It is not that happiness cannot co-exist with good health, happy relationships and a fulfilling career.  It’s just that you cannot ever place any of those things in front of your own happiness without losing your self and sacrificing your happiness.  

And yes, personal development can be a part of your evolving happiness.  But it’s not your business to be perfect.  Your business is to be perfectly yourself.  And being yourself might mean obsessing about a particular topic.  My path is to obsess about the nature of finding and following your bliss.  

The difference is that you do it, not because you think you should or it might make you happy, but because it takes you deeper into what you are.

So when the topic of health comes up, don’t fall for the media’s fear stories or medical doctrine,  find where you stand relative to that issue and carry on your path.

When your relationship has your attention or you begin a new relationship, don’t lose yourself to please another, find your centre and act from that.

When your Employer or major Customer demands X, Y or Z, don’t bend yourself out of shape to pacify them, act from who and what you are.

“For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.” 

I’ll summarise the questions;

How do you keep enthusiastic when the world grinds you down?

I can daydream what I want, but can’t see how to get there?

How can you live with integrity when the people around you judge by money, results and status?

So really the questions amount to, how do you follow your bliss, when the world pulls you away from it.

After the 30 day challenge, I’m embarking on an in-depth study of something that will provide the framework of a course to achieve this.  But for now, I’m going to give you the theoretical overview.

Be In This World, But Not Of It

The solution really lies in the words, be in this world, but not of it.  But to many this seems like a riddle.  And it has been misunderstood for centuries.  So let’s start with something more modern, that maybe is easier to relate to. 

I’ve already written a post explaining why I didn’t like The Secret, but from following the work of Abraham-Hicks whose work, ‘The Secret’ was based on, I’m pretty familiar and aligned with the ideas contained in the law of attraction though.  To sum up, the idea is that you focus on what you want and by maintaining a happy and unconflicted emotional state, you bring it into your reality.

The problem with ‘The Secret’ though, was that it was designed to make money.  So it took some deep principles and presented it, in a way that pandered to the lowest common denominator of greed.  

A guide to getting everything that you want.  So people thought it was a quick and easy way to riches.

The truth however, is that you can create your world, but it’s not that you actually create it, more that you evolve emotionally and spiritually to the level where they already are.

The makers of The Secret, I think, got excited about something they didn’t really understand and in their excitement they actually got it back to front.  Here’s why…

The world has nothing that will ever fulfill what you really want.  It is filled with temporary desires and fulfillment.  

photo credit: Svadilfari 

Food, sex and toys.  All you will crave and once sated you will crave again.  That oh so tempting dessert.  That hot model.  That dream house.  Once you have tasted these desires you will become dissatisfied with them and chase something else.  

The world works on false ideas.  Everything is temporary.  It works, until it reaches breaking point. 

Yet we are eternal beings.  And so our real desires are eternal.  We might just see them masked as objects in the world, but what we really want is;

Peace,

Joy,

Growth,

Bliss,

Belonging

Love

And Connection.

I think Bruce summed it up perfectly in his comment (on the second page of comments) on the post, what is the end goal, where he said what we are really seeking is completion.  Wholeness.

For Happiness Find Your Own Path And Follow Your Bliss

Following your bliss can never be achieved in the desolate, emotionally barren world around us.  When we seek these in our relationships, our careers and in the success of the world, we find only temporary glimpses.  But it is never a stable state.  

Because these deeper states of being need a Carrier, someone who can maintain the connection with the eternal to bring them in.  A bridge from the eternal.  

photo credit: stage88 

Our planet physically keeps us down through gravity.  Emotionally it also keeps us down through emotional gravity. I wrote about the idea, in my emotional stress management guide.  You see, there’s actually an ongoing battle taking place.  Each of us is going through life fighting the world saying,

‘this isn’t fair.  That isn’t right.  This needs to change.’  

And the world is saying,

‘No. I’m fine.  Actually it’s you who needs to change.’

So from the moment we dirty our first nappy, we are at odds with the world.  And so they have put in place all these laws and institutions to school us out of our ‘savagery’ and into conforming with it’s nice orderly patterns.  The world cares not a jot about you or your wellbeing.  It cares not about fairness or rightness.  It only cares about maintaining it’s status quo.

The world and the people in it can never supply you with what you want.  

Unconditional love and approval.  

Because to do that they would have to place your wellbeing above their own.  And that is not something it would ever do.  Anymore than you would unhesitatingly and unquestioningly give up your opinions and beliefs to be replaced by another’s. 

People often talk about having spent twenty or more years climbing the ladder, only to find that it was propped up against the wrong wall.  To try to achieve anything in this world is futile.  Because it will always end up rusting, dying or decaying.

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius?

Upon force.

Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love;

and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Throughout history there has never been a shortage of people who are willing to go to any extreme to dominate the world.  However their domination has always been short lived and illusory.  It never brought them peace from the inner fear and insecurity that drove them.  

Follow Your Bliss Into The Eternal

In contrast, think of those who pursued their passion for ideas and philosophies that were not of this world.  Socrates, Lao Tsu, Mohammad, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Ghandi and many, many more.  

Part of them lives on in the world today.  Because through their excitement and love for what was not of this world they pursued it until it became part of the world we see.  And so their passion and love is with us today, built into the fabric of our society.

When you follow the path to your bliss, sooner or later, you will connect to something eternal.  Something outside of this world.  And in that place you will find peace and a level of joy that you will never find in this world.  When people meditate and find great comfort and peace, they are touching on this place.  But it is in following your bliss that you will create your own home there.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar 

This will become your sanctuary.  The true ‘happy place’.  From time to time the world will pull you back into it’s reality.  But you will notice the drop in your emotional state and so it becomes more and more tiresome to you.  You will care less and less about what people say about you.  You will care less and less about the judgements made about you.  And you’ll care less and less about your success as the world judges it.  The everyday world holds less and less appeal.  

And so you bring your blissful home into your everyday world.  And this then becomes hailed as a work of genius.  It was never worldly genuis, but actually just a translation of something that is run of the mill in another world.

And in the process of achieving this, you find heaven on earth and live not a worldly life, but an eternal life.  Freed from the grip of emotional gravity, that would depress you.

But it all begins with a choice.  Yours.  Which path do you take?

Do you choose to be judged by worldly standards?  

Or do you create your own world?

photo credit: Rodrigo Soldon

I seriously hate routine.  My whole being screams at any inkling of restriction.  And being organised or routinely following rituals, by their nature, means excluding choices and options.  

One of the reasons that I am able to process stress quickly and to learn this kind of information, is because I am open to almost any idea.  It literally hurts me to shut off possibilities.  

The downside of this is that it’s almost impossible to ever make a decision.  I am probably the most indecisive person you could ever meet.  Waiters hate me because to choose just one dinner, takes me forever.  And my expanding waistline can’t take two

photo credit: star5112

So all my life I have loved to be free to wake up and decide what to do.  But this is the most inefficient use of time and energy possible.  And so every now and then I’ll design or learn a new system of working.  I love the planning about it, but I hate the sense of restriction I feel in implementing it.  And so they never lasted very long.

As I have matured, and have more that I am enthusiastic about getting done, I’ve had to look at this issue in a different light.  Getting Things Done by David Allen, was insightful to me, because I read it just after coming to a conclusion on dealing with emotional issues, that exactly mirrored his philosophy on dealing with physical stuff.  

So now I recognise that much of my mental energy was being wasted in working out what to do, what to eat and so on.  Allowing that level of my life to flow on auto-pilot has the effect of freeing my thoughts to focus more powerfully on what I really want to work on.  So if I’m happy to bumble away, not getting very much done, I can be free to start every day from scratch.  

Either way there is a limitation.  I either limit my ability to be effective, or I limit the choices I have to make about mundane issues to conserve energy for the more important issues.

Like everything to do with stress, it essentially boils down to a matter of prioritisation.  What matters most?

 In much the same way, I have always hated the idea of rituals.  When I think of rituals I think of the Sunday masses I had to attend as a child.  I could never understand what the point was of reciting the same words, every week.  How could that ever lead to any kind of growth or deeper connection to God?

photo credit: Princess K8

However it was in reading David Deida’s excellent book, The Way Of  The Superior Man, that I first considered that a ritual may have value.  Since I had no personal experiences or observations, I wasn’t convinced.  So as I do with ideas that I don’t yet believe, I held it in the back of my mind to evaluate against the situations and experiences I observe and encounter.  

Recently after considering all the views you gave on what is the end goal and reading Joseph Campbell talking about the same ideas, I’m considering the idea in more detail.

Let me give you some context.  The phrase from Deida, I remember is;

The boy must die

Essentially the argument is, that more primitive civilisations have always had a ritual where boys were separated from the women of the tribe and often through some terrifying physical ordeal they undertook, they became initiated as a man.  The ritual was a metaphor that demonstrated that fear could be mastered and gave a sign so that everyone understood the boy had crossed the line to Manhood.  

photo credit: Wonderlane

Today we are missing that clarity and stepping stone into becoming a Man.  (I’m assuming that there also must be a female equivalent process, but this doesn’t seem to be talked about.)

Evolution has resulted in the victory of those who reacted most violently and aggressively to danger. We are the children bred with the quickest nervous system.  If we were dogs, we’d be the breed that was muzzled.  

As we look at our society today, it’s clear that teenage and young Men have an innate need for adventure, for danger and for violence.  Gangs, knife crime and so on are the result of putting creatures with a hypersensitive nervous system and strong drive for status and to validate themselves into a world sterlised from danger and excitement.

There is little difference between young gangs today and the Knights of the Templar, except the Knights were in a context that guided them to use their aggression in a way that was considered chivalrous. 

Extroverts in particular (Psychopaths are the extreme version of this), need danger to feel alive.  Yet schools try to remove any level of competition and outlet for aggression.  And so where are young males full of physical energy and aggression going to prove themselves and ease their fears of insecurity and inadequacy, but in rebellion, danger and violence. 

Our society has changed so dramatically and so quickly that it no longer has rituals that we can make sense of our life stages.  We have Bar Mitzvah’s, Communion, Marriage and so on, but they don’t have the real meaning that other tribe’s rituals have.  

I think also, there is the disagreement over when someone is an adult and a child.  It seems that most Parent/Child arguments boil down to; is the Child mature enough to make their own decisions or are they still dependent on the Parent’s guidance.    

So as I’m considering rituals in this light, I have a question for you.  And this applies equally to men and women.  

When did you know that you were grown up? 

What happened to make the shift from child to adult?

Also, when did other people consider you to be an adult?

By the nature of the format of this blog I do most of the speaking.  And so to reply to a comment too quickly, may mean that I inhibit someone else from commenting.  It’s like if you’re in a group talking and the one who speaks the most says something, with some people, it can guide the conversation in a certain direction.  So I like to hang back and see if there anyone’s got any different ideas before replying.

photo credit: christophercarfi

However, after the last post heroes, heroic actions and stress free living, there is so much to say that I need add it all into a post.  All of the comments worked towards developing a much more refined sense of awareness.

Ruth kicked thing off by delineating between my definition of hero and hers.  I actually think that we mean the same thing, but the references that we are using mean different things to us.  Let me explain.

My definition of a hero was, someone who lived perfectly at the heroic standard.  I defined my Hero’s as Buddha, Jesus and Lao Tsu.  And I think that is where the misunderstanding comes in.  The standard story for these people is a mythologised idea that they were perfect Saints.

I absolutely do not believe that any of these three were born any different from us.  It’s clear in the story of the Buddha that his was a journey to enlightenment.  Where he was born in abundance, rejected materialism, almost to the point of death and then came into balance with the ‘middle way’.  I think that religion, certainly in the case of Jesus, has created an ‘idol’ which as Roland points out creates an image that we can’t live up to and so disempowers us.

photo credit: xmatt 

Jesus was a great man, but my understanding and so the base I refer to,is that his greatness was achieved and not bestowed.  I don’t believe in the immaculate conception, resurrection or other supernatural tales except in a metaphorical sense.  Having read speeches that he was reported to have made, I believe Christianity to be a social/political organisation based on a limited understanding of what he meant.

You see, when you strive for acceptance and popularity, you have to lower your standards to the lowest common denominator to be understood.  And so I think concepts and principles were dumbed down by the Church, to be made understandable for the general population at that time who were for the most part illiterate and had very primitive levels of understanding of the world.    

So to come back to Ruth’s point, I don’t believe in the idea of Sainthood.  I don’t think anyone ever has been unstained.  However I do think some people attain a level of growth and maturity, so that they remain almost perfectly pure from that moment onwards.  And so I think we agree on the standard, but obviously disagree on our judgement of who’s attained that level.  Which is obviously a factor of personal bias.

I’d like to think that Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama were as pure as their public image suggests.  But personally I just don’t believe that someone can be motivated to be so heavily involved in such political arenas and remain completely unstained.  But that’s a symptom of my personal distaste and distrust of politics.

photo credit: mrpattersonsir

However I do recognise each of them to have been heroic.   Each has a cause greater than themselves, that they have worked tirelessly and selflessly towards.  And as Michelle says just the conscious effort to ‘mostly’ live heroically is worthy of our deepest respect. 

However I still feel Hero, if it is to have meaning for me, means consistently heroic.  I’m just reminded of a scene in Devil’s Advocate that captures the essence of ego management. 

To give you some context, the first video shows how Keanu Reeves’s choice, influenced by pandering to his need to win over his ethics led him to a devastating outcome.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOfUGixqV0A[/youtube]

Then he has just been given a second chance to go back to the original scene, the forked path that began his descent, after seeing the consequences of falling for the temptation and rejects Al Pacino’s temptation and walks away only to fall at the second hurdle.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGXvj2BjZLA[/youtube] 

Life is much like Al Pacino (in that film anyway), where when we avoid falling for one and then just turns around and tricks us again with a different weakness.  Which is why when we jump to any other beat than the one inside us, we might as well walk across a minefield.

Brian pointed out that it’s all under our control, it’s our choices and so we can be heroic if we consistently live with integrity.  And that’s what it’s all about.  Bringing our inner and outer worlds together until we live in a unified and non-dualistic way.

Anything other than this is slower, ineffective and unproductive in getting to a happier life.  Osh made the excellent point that we need not just the intellectual or technical skills to do what we are doing, but also the emotional motivation and readiness.

Productivity has for too long been seen as being acquired by following prescribed systems and procedures when actually it is really about matching tasks with the emotional states that produce the greatest readiness to complete them.

However tools and techniques, especially the Getting Things Dome methodology, can work in helping to manage emotional states.  You just have to remember that it’s the emotional state that is the priority and not the task. 

Stress management is really about managing your emotional state.  Which is about ego management.  Putting aside our desire for minor gratification in order for the bigger goals in life.  It’s sacrificing temporary desires for eternal peace.  

This is much like how a pilot flies a plane.  It gets blown off-course a little, so you compensate.  Then it goes too far to the other side, so you guide it back.  In the same way, you naturally dip emotionally and so you need to top up or re-energise yourself.  

This is why the false idolisation of  ’hero’s’ has been so harmful.  Because people are trying to live up to external standards, when internally they are miles apart from those levels.  So what happens is that they wear themselves out trying to be saintly and exhaust themselves emotionally and so get bitter and depressed and so either lash out or in subtle and silent ways take their vengeance.

So now I’ve shared my thoughts, what do you think?

It’s that the idea of a Hero, as most people use the concept is flawed.  Generally someone may make one great heroic action, after perhaps a lifetime of non-heroic behaviour and could be considered by some a hero.  

As I think about it I am undecided if this is a positive or negative thing.  Or does it even need to be judged?  Perhaps it’s one of the great features of our culture, that anyone can redeem their past mistakes with one grand selfless gesture? 

Personally, I’ve never been a great follower of Hero’s.  For me, only three people stand out in all of history that would qualify.  

photo credit: kafka4prez

Lao Tsu, Jesus and Buddha.  The reason that they stand out for me is that they were pure.  Nothing could sway them from the core of what they were.  Not threat, fear, greed, power or love.  They withstood every test.  It’s this sense of permanence and rootedness, where everything else is in a swirling maelstrom of change that marked them out for me.  And I imagine it’s that sense of rootedness and security that led to major religions being born out of their life stories.  

So I guess, for me a Hero is defined as one who has reached a state of permanent heroism.  I’m sure there are more out there, but that we never encounter.  Perhaps in more recent times, Krishnamurti might also fit my definition, but I don’t know enough of the Man beyond his books.  

photo credit: [ Djordje ]

History distances us from Individuals and so it’s easier to mythologise the people I earlier mentioned who are now as much legend, as human.  Whereas when you read about many of our contemporaries, whom are sometimes considered as Hero’s, such as Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, Sai Baba etc there are so many conflicting accounts it’s hard to separate jealousy from fact.  

photo credit: p_c_w

Whilst in my thoughts, I don’t classify them as Hero’s, I do recognise greatness in specific attributes that I admire and hope to emulate.  But it’s much more of a pick and mix, taking the best and discarding the rest.  I suppose when it comes down to it, the purpose of Hero’s or Heroic actions is that they can inspire us.  Much as Sir Roger Bannister broke through the 4 minute mile threshold, so too do heroic actions show us what it is possible.  They shine a light on an area or attribute that makes us sit up, take notice and become more aware and conscious of what is possible in our own lives.

In which case, does it matter whether they are a Hero or perform a heroic action?

Often I think, it’s some kind of ego defence mechanism that makes us reduce the worth of a heroic action by pointing out flaws.  What then happens is that we distract ourselves from being inspired, reduce the value of the great deed and so convince ourselves that because she’s a Crook we need do nothing to change ourselves.  And so we lose out on the chance to gain from the area that they excel in.  

I think this is true in reverse as the world hangs on the word of Celebrities, merely because they are attractive or well known.  It’s a known psychological fact that attractive people are judged to be more intelligent and likeable despite their not being any logical connection.  

The fact is, that any of us are capable of acts of great heroism and great villainy.  

We are a like a powerful fresh, new computer.  Capable of playing the latest games, software applications and high definition videos.  But some will only ever use it for email and word processing. 

photo credit: pgh_shutter

When they try to use it for more advanced uses, it crashes and they come to the conclusion that it’s not powerful enough.  Yet it only crashed because of a glitch in the Operating System and all they ever had to do was download the updated patch that resolved the problem.  Because they never realised this, they wasted the computer on mundane activities and held themselves apart from all the exciting leading edge uses they could have used it for. 

This is how people live their lives.  ’Oh. I couldn’t do that.  I’m too …  I’m not… enough’.  It’s all hogwash.  There are certain hardware limitations.  I’m never going to be 100m Sprint Champion or partner Fernando Torres in the Liverpool attack.  However I have a lot of lattitude in adding and running software components.

photo credit: Nigel Wilson 

Want to learn Spanish?  It’s just another software program that we can all pick up with effort.

Want to be a better Parent, better Lover, better Communicator?  Again just a set of skills that any of us can master with effort.

Want to deal better with stress?  Just a learned skill.

However in this metaphor, where we differ from computers is that we need the soft skills (the software), but we also need the motivation to act. A computer will do what is asked literally of it.  We act from emotion.  And so the critical factor in whether we perform heroically or like a scumbag depends on how we feel.  When we are loving, selfless and heroic, we all perform heroic acts.  But when we feel angry, bitter, resentful and depressed, any of us can and will lash out irrationally and hurt others.

The Link Between Stress Free Living And Heroism

So we all range from Hero to Villain at different times depending on our emotional state.  We’re all heroic in our minds when we daydream, aren’t we?  

Because then we are relaxed, patient, tolerant and so on.  We are heroic when we have the mental space to think and be ourselves.  But it is when we feel pressured, harrassed and tense, like a cornered rat, that we feel we just have to lash out to make ourselves the mental space to be tolerant, patient and loving.

I have two Daughters. And at times I can be a great Dad.  I can play and have fun with them.  I can ignore all their lashing out and  listen to their frustrations and fears and guide them to seeing the solution.  But for me to do that I have to have fully dealt with my own stuff.  I need to have mentally emptied myself and be in the moment with them with either a positive mood or be completely unstained by what has gone before.

photo credit: bleublogger

And if I haven’t achieved that, then Christ it’s hard getting through a night with them.  

One is so full of energy that it’s impossible for her to be quiet.  And she’s so filled with enthusiasm that she wants to tell you about everything.  But sooo sloooowly.  The other one is going through her teenage years early (We hope so anyway). And if she’s unhappy, she demands, fights, is incredibly stroppy and will never back down.   

Whether I have a rewarding evening with them depends entirely on my mental state and readiness to be with them.  If I haven’t finished what I was working on when they come through the door and mentally I’m still in the flow of what I was doing, but physically with them.  I’m going to be grumpy and easily irritated.  But if I’m glad they’re home and receptive to them, we will have a good night.

In the same way, sometimes I can express myself well and clearly.  At other times when my mental state is more confused, it’s hard to know what I mean, let alone get it across to someone else. 

Don’t you find that sometimes, you just can’t perform.  Your work is of less quality, your thinking is lower quality and you are generally less productive.  It all depends on your mood, your emotional state. 

Actions Are A Snapshot Of Emotions

What I think gets misunderstood in the mention of Heroes generally is something that holds most people back from being heroic.  

It is that people judge themselves and others by their actions, when really actions are historic and largely irrelevant.  Actions are the consequences and side effects of emotional states.  Any action you have ever taken or failed to take was purely a reflection of your emotional state at that moment.  Had you been in a different emotional state, the action you took would have been different.  There are not good and bad people, only people in emotional states that lead to good and bad actions.

You are not your actions.

Your actions are a reflection of where you were at that point on your path through life.

I think one of the reasons why people are afraid of hurting or criticising others, as Mari mentioned, is that they feel people will take a comment on their actions as a comment on their character forever.  

As Eric alluded to in one of his comments, the people I personally class as Heroes didn’t set out to be Heroic.  They are those who in the course of their life strove to live in harmony with life.  In doing so, they developed the skill to manage their emotional state to almost exclusively stay in the upper range of positive emotions.  The art of stress free living.

The path to becoming heroic, is the ability to manage your emotional state.  Achieve this consistently and you too can become a Hero.

There’s a deeper point underlying who we admire.  

Because really our life is all about us.  Our experience of life depends upon the story we make to make sense out of the stuff that happens around us.   And so we judge others according to our own biases.  The people that we admire are a reflection of the beliefs that we hold, as to what qualities are admirable and which are not.

Now the next step is to look at the person or people that you most admire and figure out what qualities and values they encapsulate that you aspire to.  What do you see in them that so resonates with you?

Now you’ve warmed your thinking up to prime the flow, we can get more direct.

What is it that you are striving for, or towards, in your life?

What is the end goal that you are reaching for?

What is your path to becoming a Hero?

What will be your heroic achievement?

Here’s some examples;

Einstein wanted ‘to know God’s thoughts’

Joseph Campbell believed it was summed up in the statement of ‘follow your bliss’.

Buddha’s was enlightenment

Martin Luther King strove for equality.

Jesus’s was to save the world from suffering.

Mother Theresa’s was to help people die with dignity.

So what is your life about?

What is it that you really want?

Do you want to achieve something?

Live according to a certain code?

Or something else?  Share below.