I am noticing a phenomenon that is both interesting and terrifying:
When people include themselves in their cone of vision, in their visual field when they need to answer a question, give a view of something, they literally become stupid. Moronic.
What is happening? The ‘about-me’ stands in the picture blocking the view to what is actually happening. So you cannot see much, so you’ll make decisions from what you see: the ‘about-me’, and not from what’s going on.
I can see it on people, whether I know them or not…
One of the measurable ‘results’ is your low ‘how much of what you hear/read gets through to you?’ measure.
If what you hear, what you read has to go around your ‘about-me’, then most of it will not get through. Your ability to grok, to understand, to use what you hear/read gets lowered, occasionally to a moronic level.
Which means, for you, that your performance in life depends more on the size of your ‘about-me’ score than on your smarts, on your intelligence, on your education.
If it is a question, you’ll answer a different question… making the other person not understand what happened…
Dutiful is part of this. Wanting to impress is part of this. Being overeager is part of this.
For your intelligence to do its job, it needs to hear or read the question or what is going on to provide an appropriate response… or to allow you to learn something.
Another ‘function’ of a high about-me is to make you narrow your cone of vision, and see only one thing, and not the connection between things, connecting the dots, seeing things in context.
Fear, concern, wanting to please, wanting to do well, wanting to win, wanting to feel good about yourself, wanting this and wanting that… even wanting to help, in fact any desire will do that to you.
When I observe myself in situations where I am effective: I have no concerns, no desires, no ‘ambition’, I am just there to be a vessel, a channel, a nothing, a no one. And then I am available to see, hear, and respond to whatever happens.
Like an animal. Like the deer in my backyard. Like the squirrel on my deck. NOT like the birds drinking from the water from the bird water feeder, birdbath, or whatever it is called.
Birds are too concerned with their survival, too concerned with danger.
The more emotional baggage, for example, you bring to a call with me, the higher your about-me score is… and you’ll be, ahem, moronic on the call, until I manage to calm you down.
Some students need to hear that they are OK exactly the way they are… and then they can calm the f… down.
For other students nothing works…
How did the about-me score get so high?
In my current understanding, the more someone ‘needs’ to prove that they are not something, stupid, nothing, bad, worthless, whatever they invented as a little kid, the higher their about-me score.
And the more threatening the environment, from their vantage point, the higher the about-me score climbs.
Most people consider me a highly threatening environment.
The other day I contacted a student’s sister to find out if she knew if the student was going to be back by that same afternoon from their travels.
She freaked out. Totally.
I had never spoken to her before… so it was a combination of the student’s fear of me, and her own low TLB…
Being afraid of me is like being afraid of your mirror… The mirror only shows you to yourself… what is the fear?
So the second layer of cause of stupidity and fear is the discrepancy between how you fancy yourself and how you really are… the distance between your precious I and your real I, the person who is doing all the things, thinking what you think, and achieving the things you actually achieve.
Here is an email from the student whose sister freaked out:
Hello Sophie
I see that when my mother gave all of her attention to my little sister and very little to me. I then came up with the idea that I was nobody, so to become somebody, I needed to get attention, like what my little sister got, so I went through life looking for attention by training harder, working harder than everyone else to be somebody.
Thank You
His email talks about his precious I’s view of who he has been. Hard working, hard training… better than anybody and everybody. Amazing, isn’t it?
But who he has been in the world is more like an angry, demanding, touchy, always ready to be offended, attention seeking/attention avoiding confused puppy.
What is the reason he has such a high about-me score? Because:
- 1. because he decided that not getting attention had something to do with him
- 2. because he decided that the way to get attention is to extort it
- 3. because he is doing everything in the hopes that it gets him what he wants, not for the fun, the joy, the enjoyment of it
- 4. because he feels that everything and everyone is encroaching on his self-interest
Of course he has a high about-me score.
Here are the numbers: the brain, can do 100.
With the about-me score, that same brain can only do 10…
And that is how you get in your own way, by having your about-me score sky high… or however high it is.
How did I lower my about-me score?
I said to myself, and then proved it to myself, that it wasn’t about me. None of it. Area by area, person by person, topic by topic, concern by concern.
Today my average about-me score is 7%… so if we look what I can do, without that about-me 100, my ability to produce is 70… and that is, if you ask me, a tragedy… lol.
So I am still in the process of reducing my about-me score, removing myself from my own way.
To win at this ‘spiritual practice’ that doesn’t only make you feel better, but also makes you considerably smarter, you need to know the truth about yourself.
Not like this person, whose about-me score I measured at 99% and her astuteness at 1%
She writes: I leave the typos in… for authenticity…
Get your own starting point measurements… but beware: if you are too conceited, too full of yourself, you’ll be offended, like Reena…
Get your Starting Point Measurements
