When you ask the question why you are reading my articles, your answer will be saying what you want.
More, better, different.
You may say: you want to raise your vibration, so you can have more, better, or different. What…
You may be prepared to do different, maybe even more, but you surely aren’t thinking that it is NOT what you do, it is how you do it.
When I talk about beingness… you think it’s a what. But it’s a how.
When I say “love,” you hear “what”. but I mean “how”. When I say generous, you hear “ugh, I have to give” which is a what, while generous is a how.
You live as if “how” weren’t within your reach, only the what.
And you may learn to do more, better, different, but never learn to “how” you do things, your approach to things, to doing, to having, to life.
Why? Because the how is in the invisible part of reality, in the under the water level part of the iceberg. And you need to look to see it.
It is also part of the circle of all knowledge: the part that is marked “You don’t know that you don’t know it”.
And even when someone points it out, you quickly turn it into a what…
Being loving is turned to loving gestures, loving words… except it has become a what, not a how.
I give you an eye exercise that is designed to alter how you see the world. So you do the exercise, and then look at the world the same way. You have turned the exercise into an exercise… no gain, none at all.
I feel that Victor Frankl’s approach to being in a death camp will be a useful “how” for me, teaching the unteachable. 1
His approach was 2, if I remember accurately, living with dignity, and if must, dying with dignity.
If you look, he didn’t look at the what you would look at… surviving, eating, freedom. No, he looked at the how, and he lived to tell the tale, while 98% of inmates died. They had looked at the what, not at the how.
Circumstances give you the what, but you are in total control over the how. How you are going to approach what life has given you.
You have a default way to approach anything. Entitled, victim, powerless, worthless, small, weak, inferior, outsider, unlovable… etc.
And you bring that same approach to everything… unless you ask a different question, and invent a different answer.
It doesn’t matter what you invent, as long as you can match the words with your behavior, your approach.
In my life I have experimented with tens of different approaches, and I am not done.
- Ownership: I do it seeing that I am causing all of it…
- Humility: I do it allowing all new learning to come, because I left all my knowledge at the door.
- Self-trust: I do it with confidence, because I know I can handle whatever comes up, I can change direction, self-correct, go back to the beginning… I am not dead.
- and so on. 160 spiritual capacities, 160 how’s
I am currently experimenting with the hows that come out of looking way beyond how I already know how. It is a very advanced how… find something that is easier to define… 3
I get to the “beyond” area by doing the same eye exercise I give you when I activate your capacity to see the Big Picture/forget what you already know (humility).
It’s not easy, and I am only able to bring it on about 30% of the time. But those 30% are pure heaven. Arresting, surprising, and unexpected.
The shift in “how” gives me “what” to do that I never dreamed I would do, I never considered that it would be doable.
I am kept alive and in action by this experimentation. It’s the joy that makes it all worthwhile.
- Man’s Search for Meaning. The pdf is in my paid subscribers’ area https://free-stuff.by-sophie.com
- the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering
- How about slow and steady?
