Sometimes it’s hard to see past the trouble in front of you
I heard this sentence in a Netflix film… and wrote it down quickly. 1
Anything that threatens your well-being, anything that threatens your reputation, anything that threatens your self-image shows up as trouble, and fixates your view, in an ever narrowing way on the threat. And you stare at it, and see it with the exclusion of everything else.
The challenge is to just look, and allow the urge to do something, to run, to say something, to explain, justify, fix, to just be there…
When you can do that, when you can just look, you are able to bring conscious awareness to what you see.
Most things don’t have to be fixed… especially because fixing creates the next bigger problem.
Fixing is busy work… the “best” way to lose sight of the big picture, of your direction, of the context of your life, the context, the purpose you have created.
Most splendid ideas die through a series of fixing… and deteriorate into ordinary, mundane, dull… not worth going for.
So, how do you strengthen your ability to just look, in spite of the trouble that’s in front of you?
One of my mentors, Werner Erhard, said: I can stand in front of it not working longer than anyone I know.
If you ever read his life story, he wasn’t always like that… in fact he had a tendency to run, to fix.
He married his pregnant girl-friend: definitely fixing.
He ran away after his wife bore plenty more children.
And then he ran and ran and ran.
Even changed his name. Fixing galore.
So, how did he become someone who could stand in front of stuff, life, course, etc. not working and just look?
I don’t know how he did it. I’ll now look how I did it…
The first capacity that is needed is “allowing.”
Allowing is a beingness when you can be OK in spite of what is going on. Maybe even hurting, itching, being hungry, tired, penniless… and be OK at the same time.
Because what pulls you to fixing is the urgency that can be summed up: I am not OK.
I am always OK.
The question is: where is that I? I live from the Observer position. And that means I am not my body that hurts, itches, hungry, or tired.
I am also not my ego… I can see it scrambling, protesting, wanting me to scream “bloody murder!” but I am not there… I am here watching, observing.
I am also not my soul… The soul is restless, the soul is nudging… but I am not there, I am watching, I am observing.
I am not my past, not my future, not my memories, not my knowledge either. I can see it, I can look at it, but I am not there… I am here, in my favorite Observer position, seeing it all.
Wide cone of vision. Seeing it all.
Before I got there… I observed myself.
There was a definite shift when I considered that there is something outside of what I considered “me” and I can connect to it.
How far outside? I didn’t think to ask. But just knowing that I wasn’t alone, changed my life.
It took another 30 years to know what it is, and to live from there.
The 67 step coaching program, if done “wrong” will take you to places you didn’t want to go.
The program consists of 67 steps. Each step has a recorded lecture, and a few questions to answer.
The 67 questions, I assume, cover all of life, all of your life, and if you do it from a wide cone of vision, willing to examine your life, your belief system, your friends, your family, your inclinations, your urges, your work, your habits, your attitude, will cumulatively work.
Which means: no individual question will fix anything. No individual lecture will let you see it all. All of them are needed, and every time you jump the gun, and make a binding commitment to anything, especially in the funeral test, you just shot yourself in the foot.
Sometimes it’s hard to see past the trouble in front of you…
In each session you need to allow this saying to guide you… so you can see past the trouble that is in front of you, past it, around it, into it.
The seer is wordless. The seer is Conscious awareness.
Words block seeing. Be wordless. A word here and there won’t mess it up. It’s not a bomb you are building, it’s a capacity, and an overall sense.
If you are in the 67-step coaching, you’ll notice that my job is to get you out of fixing mode, self-deprecating mode, and into wide cone of vision.
If I notice you stay on the surface, I ask a guiding question to look deeper, or further.
Very interesting experience for me. I have never done anything like this.
Quite extraordinary.
