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Calling something wrong is a complaint.
I drink a lot of tea. Tea needs brewing, and I hate tepid or cold tea, so I have a mug warmer. But it needs to be on.
Often I forget to turn it on.
Then I snap at myself ‘I am such an asshole’. And then laugh.
How can I be an asshole and brilliant as well?
This is what this article will be about: holding two opposing thoughts at the same time…
We, the core group and I, we are working on allowing.
Allowing is relatively simple, but very difficult, because it is a very high vibration DNA capacity. Not as high vibration as love, or caring, which are above 500 vibration, but in a way similar: to allow you need to take the ‘I’ out of the way.
In all three as long as there is an ‘I’ who allows, loves, or cares, it is fake, and not real. And therein lies the difficulty.
The pesky EGO that wants to take center stage.
Resistance, pushing, force, violence, lying, pretending all stem from that EGO wanting to express itself, not allowing Life, Reality, Others to do so.
It wants to be the ‘one man standing’. In this regard EGO is the same as the Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins talks about. Low consciousness…
That doesn’t mean that high consciousness people don’t take care of themselves or their needs… they just do it from a non-ego position.
Back to allowing: A smooth, productive, well-lived life has no or relatively few of any of those low consciousness moments. And when they come, they are shorter duration.
So the bridge to high consciousness is therefore the ability to allow, to take the EGO out of the way, so it doesn’t gum up the works.
My core group clients are practicing allowing. Allowing WRONG to be wrong, at this point.
Somehow the culture trains people that they need to resist WRONG, even though they are not allowed to say the word WRONG.
So at this stage people practice saying WRONG or other strong words about what they normally would resist calling wrong.
Some succeed. and with the disappearance of resistance their life suddenly feels smoother, more enjoyable, less encumbered.
Allowing wrong to be wrong seems to create space, it seems to create time. Resistance takes up a lot of your time, crowds you in, and makes you feel brittle.
Powerless.
Others are still not able to allow, because if they did… Yeah, what would happen if they did allow what is wrong to just be?
The illusion is that resistance holds those ugly things at bay… but of course no. Actually resistance makes those ugly things 1./ first occupy all the space, and 2./ then they become permanent, gets stronger by the resistance.
If I resisted being an asshole every time I do assholish things, and I confess, I do assholish things. And now that we are dealing with the topic or wrong, allowing wrong, I do more stupid things than I normally do.
But I ALLOW that WRONG to be. No big deal, it’s all in a day’s work,
Saying that allow me to not even stop to ponder it. It means nothing. It means nothing to me, nothing about me.
I can see that if I didn’t allow it, it would tie me up.
I have had three altercations in the past two days. And I allowed them to be just blips on my screen, no big deal. Two of those were telling people, people who paid me, that I didn’t want to do business with them.
It is all in a day’s work, no need to get upset.
Now, back to that statement about intelligence.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. ~ F.Scott Fitzgerald
The two opposing ideas, of course, that something is wrong, and the second is: it is no big deal. Or can’t be helped.
While my students are working on allowing WRONG, some of those wrongs would be better off being dealt with.
For example: last night I was awakened by the police being at my door. Turns out that some people were seen going in and out of the garage. So the next door neighbors called 911.
I rent one of the two apartments, the other one is not rented.
I emailed the landlord to alert him. That the garage is open, and people set it up to smoke, or do whatever…
I am not sure what is the WRONG for me. That I was woken up? That the security of the house is in danger? That the landlord will probably will come up with some measures that will make my life unpleasant?
Whatever it is, this WRONG needs to be addressed.
There are two kinds of wrongs, two kinds of complaints:
- idle complaints
- committed complaints
You rarely hear a committed complaint, because a committed complaint takes care of the wrong. it takes effective action to remedy it. Not fix it, but remedy it.
Often it is simply talking to the person who can take care of it, like in my case talking to the landlord.
So most wrongs need to be allowed, and some wrong need to be addressed.
And this is where that Fitzgerald quote makes sense: to hold that wrongs can be dealt with two ways, and to know how, you need to know what you are dealing with.
You need to be able to distinguish what kind of complaint you are dealing with and act accordingly.
Here are some examples:
this client was driving in bumper to bumper traffic. (Yes, I have written about it before!) wrong #1: A woman driver was stuck in a parking lot. When he got there, he let her come out. Wrong #2: She wasn’t grateful. and he said: that’s wrong.
Which is which? Which is the idle (EGO) complaint and which is the committed complaint?
Here is another example:
some 30 years ago a woman was attacked in Brooklyn NY. Killed or raped, I don’t remember. Hundreds of people saw it. No one called the police.
When interviewed each said that doing that to the woman was WRONG.
Some 35 years ago I was walking home from work. I was attacked by a purse snatcher. I fought. And I was yelling very loud ‘No’. Ten people on that street called the police.
I haven’t been able to go out after dark since then, by the way. Quite crippling an experience. Before that I used to do my running in the streets at night…
Anyway…
you may want to sort out your WRONGS, your complaints, and decide which one are idle complaints and which one are committed complaints, if any.
And then take the consequences.
If you don’t life will remain the same. You will remain the same.
Nothing wrong, just sayin’
Just please know, that forcing, resisting will give you one kind of life, allowing will give you another kind of life.
Of course it is ALWAYS a matter of degrees. To the degree you allow, allow yourself to do what needs to be done, for example, to the degree I can coach you, I can teach you.
And to the degree you resist: I can’t. I can’t help you, can’t teach you.
Here is the rub:
I specialize with smart, talented, good people who under-achieve. Where their results are lower than they could be, if they could use what’s going for them.
In all these years of doing the work, I see that my job is to get these good people unstuck. So they can start having the kind of life, the kind of results that match their abilities. Finally.
So they can feel free, so they can feel accomplished, so they can love themselves.
I have seen that allowing may be the missing piece. Including:
- allowing your rules to change,
- your identity/personality to change,
- your actions to change,
- allow your goals to change.
That is what I call Pleasure Island.
You now live on Pain Island. let me take you to the other island, the Pleasure Island.
If you could have anything you are willing to work for. how would that make you feel?
- Free?
- Happy?
- Valuable?
- Belonging?
- Right?
- Powerful?
- Worthy?
- Lovable?
Please comment or email me.
Until I decided that question for myself, I didn’t know what I was really going for, so I didn’t go for what I really wanted. I went for what other people thought was important. Money, feeling smart, feeling superior.
None of those made me feel good about myself.
And I have decided that feeling good about myself is the most important thing for me.
And being an asshole occasionally doesn’t, can’t change that. I even feel good about myself when I make a mistake. Because I allow the mistake to be just a mistake. That is how allowing works. It allows a pebble on the road remain just a pebble, not a rock.
- Of course if you have not committed to anything…
- if your motive power is too low,
- if you are OK with how your life is, because you are getting benefits, you didn’t work for
then this whole WORK will not work for you.
Not until you make a commitment to a future that will never happen without you putting in the effort, without you allowing all the wrongs to be, without you acting about all the wrongs you can do something about…
I measure this in my Starting Point Measurements.
After I make your report, you can BLAME all the responsibility on your low motive power, of your too little commitment, and you’ll be fine, I promise.
But until you choose to do something I can’t help you. As long as you complain without any commitment to change, I can’t help you, and honestly, I don’t think anyone can. Including yourself.
So I recommend that you PRAY FOR RAIN…
Find out where you are at…
