Why is this happening to me? Why? Oh Why?

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Why is this happening to me? add the whiny voice… and you can hear that this is not a useful question.

On the other hand, when you can answer that question (without asking it first), it has the same effect as a light switch flicked in a dark room.

So, how do you get to the answer without first asking that whiny question?

It happened to me today. I saw the answer without whining and asking the question… and I am forever grateful I could see it… really.

The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.

Let me first create the context for you and then I tell you what I found out.

A certain person in my life has been mistreating me. Now that I am thinking it’s not one person, it’s probably three people… they are obviously not an isolated incident, though I just made the connection. I haven’t seen the connection before.

In one of this week’s coaching calls I debuted a new exercise. In this exercise each participant, myself included, examined an area of life that wasn’t quite working the way we envision it to work.

Most people chose fitness, I chose my relationship with one of my ‘mistreating me’ friends.

In this process, you look at that area. You ask questions and you observe and take note of what you see.

• What are you doing in that area, that may be relevant to why it’s not working well
• Who are you being in that area.What is X in the phrase: ‘I am X’, the X stands for who you are being, a behavior or attitude. Smart alec, arrogant, holier than thou, procrastinating, lazy, fearful, protecting myself… these are some examples that come up repeatedly. Literally there are thousands, tens of thousands way you can be in any situation. So it is important to see how you are being in that one, where life is not working so well for you.

It is best to do this exercise with someone who can see beyond your pretenses: your tendency is to want to look good. It’s automatic. I am good at detecting your pretenses, and feeling what the truth you are hiding.

And the third step in the exercise you will be looking what is missing.

Most things, if you throw money at them, forgiveness at them, diligence at them, won’t change.

The most missing is your being. Your attitude. Your WHO.

It is hard to see who you are being. And it is even harder to see what’s missing. What beingness is missing that if it were there, if you were THAT it would make a huge difference.

When I did that exercise I discovered, to my dismay, that who I was, who I have been: I have been NEEDY in those three relationships. Needy.

You’ll find that more often than not, that is your current beingness as well. Neediness.

When you manage to identify your being exactly, you do the one-handed slap: you slap your forehead and say: of course… no wonder.

When you are needy, the abusers abuse you. When people find out that they are the only game in town, they are tempted to abuse you… Got that.

So, how do you turn that situation around? Enter the ‘what’s missing’ part.

Who could I be so I’d stop being needy?

The change is 100% internal: I need to change my mind about them being the only game in town for me… So how do I do that?

I could find another chiropractor. I could take the bus to the grocery store, find another apartment…

But all these are still just doing… and the neediness is not gone away.

To have a new beingness I need to change my attitude to life and in particular to my everyday existence: BE self-sufficient. Scary thought… Become an adult. Life wants you to be an adult. Self-sufficient, not needy.

People, when they do this exercise find that going in the direction Life is going is a good move.

• Being humble
• being willing to be a beginner,
• willing to look bad completely changes the quality of that area of their lives. The part that wasn’t working.

And if you manage to bring it to all areas of your life, it changes to the better every area of your life.

Because what is behind the ‘how you do anything is how you do everything’ is really saying ‘who you are anywhere is who/how you are everywhere’. And if you are like this here… you are probably the same there… everywhere.

And although it looked to me that this day to day living has been the last ‘bastion’ of neediness… every other area I have been self-sufficient… The way I was self-sufficient was still NEEDING MYSELF sufficiency…

If that confused you, don’t worry. You are probably not quite there yet.

Becoming self-sufficient is a big step for me, and I am looking at it with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

But when I look at who I have been being, needy, there is no doubt that all the work it may take to become self-sufficient is worth doing.

All your attitudes, all your who, all your beingness come from a fundamental delusion that is underneath it all.

Unless you handle the delusion, unless you learn to manage it, your old being will creep back like a thief in the night.

In the Face the Tiger workshop we’ll address your fundamental delusion that is underneath all your attitudes, behavior, beingness that don’t allow you to be happy, productive. Don’t allow you to be a person in a world of persons… Instead they keep you an object in a world of objects.

Let’s face your Tiger… so you can beat it 

If you buy he workshop before August 29 midnight EDT, use coupon code TIGGER for 50% off. If you buy between August 30 and September 4 midnight, use coupon code TIGGER2 for a 25% discount.

And if you miss both deadlines… the price is so low, you’ll still get more than what you pay for.

The workshop has a recorded part and a live workshop. Online, of course.

If it is necessary and you live in an area outside of most participants, I’ll find a way to give you the one-on-one you miss…