When it was the best, was it really really good?

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Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship is the title of the book that had a deep impact on me. I read it some 20 years ago…

That question is underneath most of my life… including my commitment to go where I am celebrated, not where I am only tolerated.

It isn’t about relationships for me, by the way, it is about the question it poses, the only question I remember from the book. The one question that you can ask about anything and allow that question to guide you in your life.

When it was the best, was it really really good?

When I go back in my life I can see where I was really really happy, or fulfilled, or whatever you feel when something is really really good.

You can start with food… Or activity. Or person, or country, or work, or experience.

I bet your temperament will matter, so don’t try to be like me: I have a DEMANDING temperament… demanding of myself, of others, of life. Demanding fullness.

You may call the same things I call ‘meh’, ‘mediocre‘, ‘have had better‘… and you call it really really good. Look inside and call it.

You may suck on a cotton candy and call it really really good. Or put a handful of Saltine crackers in a soup and call it really really god.

And call work, where you have to effort for little personal benefit not very good, I may call it really really good… because, obviously I look somewhere else to make my judgment call from, not where you look to make yours.

I like hard because I get measured against it. My excellence in contrast to the hard shines more.

I like bitter and sweet pitted against each other… same principle. Contrast.

You may like potato chips, or mashed potato, or roasted peanuts… to soothe you.

For me that’s pretty good, but not really really good.

Really really good touches my soul, makes the spirit stir, maybe even flap its wings in me. Uncomfortable and yet, really really good.

I lived in Israel for three and a half years.

I was poor, very poor. And I was alone. And yet, when I look back, something inside me says: it was really really good… and the tears come. Fast.

I loved one man…

…although I had a few relationships. He was rough around the edges. He was not good looking. And he was married. He loved me and I loved him. It was never said. The tears are already coming. Soul mate? Maybe. But being with him was really really good. And when I wasn’t, I yearned to be with him.

I didn’t know it was love at the time. It’s taken this question to know it.

Mira Kirshenbaum

Mira Kirshenbaum is a therapist who, I say, considers her main job, like me, to bring people to asking new questions that bring them back to look in reality.

Without those questions people remain, forever, entangled in the cave of the mind… lost, never found.

She wrote 11 books. The book I read: ‘Too good to leave, too bad to stay‘.

Another one of her books, ‘When good people have affairs‘ is a must read for everyone… whether they are having an affair, whether they think of having an affair, or when they are the ‘offended party’ by their partner having an affair.

It takes an awful lot of looking in reality, of looking in the emotional reality of humans, of ourselves, of our partner to get to a place where you can have this happening and remain human or return to being human… not a machine… You won’t… if you live in the mind… In the mind you’ll go that repeating cycle, and never have a satisfying resolution. The Mobius loop path, never getting anywhere.

In my last relationship

In my last relationship my then boyfriend had an affair with another woman. I left not because of that affair… but because when it was the best, it wasn’t really good. Not even close.

And still using my examples, when I cheated on a boy friend when I did… I did it because even when those relationships were the best, they weren’t really good.

You need to look at your own relationships. Not just with people… with work, with habits, with everything… And tell the truth.

Otherwise you likely get stuck with a so-so life, with a so-so occupation, with a so-so everything.

And alternatively, you may choose so-so… The safety of whatever… And OWN that YOU’ve chosen it. And be true to your word.

With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt. ~ Zig Ziglar

He, Zig Ziglar also said:

• • • ‘The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for’
    • ‘The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.’
    • ‘The real opportunity for success lies within the person and not in the job.’
    • ‘Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem.’
    • ‘Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.’
    • ‘Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.’
    • ‘You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great’
    • ‘Some people find fault like there is a reward for it’
    • ‘Failure is an event not a person’

I am almost sure you can find the perfect ONE quote in the Zig Ziglar quotes that can set you straight and set you on the path to a really really good life. If not on this page then go to this page. When you find your ONE THING come back and share here…

Once you have your ONE THING… you can focus on that.

For example, if your whole life is to get to someplace, other than where you are… then the first quote may be the perfect Organizing Principle for you and your life… ‘The more you are grateful for what you have the more you will have to be grateful for‘, because your ungratefulness anchors you where you are, and your efforting to get out of there is killing you slowly.

If your enthusiasm is short lived

Or if you notice that you get all excited about ideas, but the excitement fizzles out in 2-3 days time… then one of the motivation quotes should be your ONE THING… or else you’ll be stuck in 2-3 days turned on, weeks, months on end of dullness…

‘Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.’
‘Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running.’
‘Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.’

If you have never started anything

If you have never started anything because unless you can do it well from the get-go you don’t consider yourself good enough, then I recommend this quote as your one thing
‘You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great‘

And if you are one of those judgmental nobodies… Try this quote on:
‘Some people find fault like there is a reward for it‘

If you grab for all

And if you are like I used to be: I want it all, all at once… then the quote will be about integrity: Honoring my word as myself. Choosing ONE THING and unchoosing everything else. When you reach for everything you’ll end up with an empty hand… Zig Ziglar didn’t say that. I say that. lol.

It’s taken me this long to get there… Heaven. Peace. No mind-noise. Quiet.in.here. Unless when I want to sleep… lol.

Here is a hint:

Your ONE THING will feel distasteful to you. Why? Because it is likely your soul correction.

• So my client with the 27 soul correction will not want to commit to anything… because he will want to resist it.
• Or the person with a 28 soul correction will not want to stop judging, lest he would have to actually be as good as he fancies himself to be…
• And the person with the 32 soul correction would have to choose something that strips him of being pitied… and power his life himself.

Oh, if you want to find out about YOUR Achilles Heel… we’ll attempt to find it in tomorrow’s noon workshop… Look for resolution and look for the ‘quote’ that can become the Organizing Principle.

It’s at noon. On Thursday.

Find your ONE thingPS: If you were in the Reality Challenge, or if you have enough awareness to look into your ‘shoulds’, you’ll notice that even if you obeyed all your shoulds, you would never get to the really really good.

Your shoulds encourage you to pay attention to the irrelevant, the not important, the not joyful, not satisfying, not heartwarming. To the ‘meh’.

The more you believe your shoulds the duller and the less satisfying your life becomes, with probably no ‘really really good’ anything in it.