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OK, this is a biiiig topic… and the article is like a dip into the sea… but read it… it’s going to teach you something you need.
I don’t think I have ever truly distinguished what seeing the big picture is and what it isn’t.
I’ve read somewhere that this woman advocated doing what she is doing. She starts the day solving some algebra problems.
I mostly start my day with playing Freecell… while I am drinking very bitter black tea that I don’t like the taste of.
The first few games I lose. But then, without any seeming effort, I start winning some games. Then I lose again…
What happens there?
Sleep is a reset.
(I muscletest every sentence so I don’t say anything untrue. I am saying this just so you know…)
A reset is not necessarily a good thing. Reset to where?
Reset to ordinary. To low. Reset to the bottom of Mount Everest.
- Possibilities disappear.
- Ambition disappears.
- Motivation goes out the window.
- What may remain is the memory of it all, but a memory is like a shadow: it is not the thing.
I find it utterly moronic both to start the day with something that needs brilliance, and to start the day with something that doesn’t.
Brilliance is not there, upon awakening.
My playing Freecell is like lubricating… Lubricating what? My brain. Limbering it up. So it can see itself.
My brain catches itself being on a low branch of a tree… and start climbing up… towards the top of the tree.
Why? Because what you see is what gives you your actions, and from a low branch you only see partial picture, and your moves come from an incomplete picture. Not the BIG picture.
The little picture
And what you see in the little picture is mostly mundane, top of the mind, and ordinary… selfish… entitled.
Yeah, entitled.
I notice that at the beginning of the day I start moving the cards as soon as I sit down. No looking. No re-looking. And no looking deep. NO. I am ENTITLED to move the cards, because? Who knows. Maybe ‘I can do what I want!‘ What’s the age of that? Preteen?
But we now know that entitlement is the scourge of humanity. What keeps us destroy ourselves, destroy the planet.
So what I am seeing is that we wake up entitled. And that also means stupid, and a small picture to look at everything.
It takes lubricating… it takes seeing the obvious signs of stupidity, to encourage the brain to climb higher.
The obvious signs stupidity: losing an easy Freecell game, in my case.
If you use reading, read something difficult to get… and fail to get it. If you use writing: make it something for the wastebasket.
This also answers the questions: why raise your vibration, and how.
But before any of this is useful, you need to have at least one (1) distinction. 
A distinction is a view that allows you to catch something that isn’t, that doesn’t belong to the distinction.
For me what allows me to climb is catching the hurry.
Catching the not looking. So I can slow down, so I can rein the entitlement in.
For my students who have been, or will be in the Drink your Food challenge, their first distinction will be ‘present/not present’
They will catch themselves not being present. They will catch pretending to be present. Catch being on automatic.
A student who successfully distinguished being present in the challenge is now able to see herself and her behavior through that distinction and maybe start contemplating, adding other distinctions.
She writes:
I think I may be starting to see one of the ‘Opponents’, I’m not sure if I’m accurate on that, but I’ve started to notice that if I’m in a hurry and not present, it’s easier for positive thinking to creep in. Meaning I’ve had to stop myself and ask myself if I was being ‘fake’ nice, or if I was authentically showing respect and kindness.
What I’m seeing is that showing respect, for me, requires pulling in my attention and re-looking at the other person, and also considering my purpose.
In the bigger picture she can see her behavior
In the bigger picture she can see her behavior, her inauthenticity, and also that she has lost sight of her purpose: ‘what would be juicy would be to have a life partner who is on the same team, where communication is easy and enjoyable and life is more fun together than not, and to love and appreciate him exactly as he is’
I used to teach that to see the big picture, you need to change the width of your cone of vision. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. But today I see that climbing higher from where you can naturally see wider is the way to go.
And the more you see the bigger the picture, the more accurate your assessments will be, and the more astute your decisions and actions will be. The more dots you can connect. The more you see the consequences of your actions.
And that is why you want to raise your vibration
And that is why you want to raise your vibration, and that is why you want to pay more attention to what you do after you wake up… It prepares your day. It prepares you to be ordinary or extraordinary.
And I must admit: some mornings it is two steps up, one step backwards. Arrogance, fueled by entitlement, wrestles back control… again and again… and it doesn’t surrender.
Some days I don’t manage to raise myself… That low grade blah rules those days.
Now, the next question
Now, the next question would be, or should be: what is the force that keeps you on the low branch of that tree? The Opponent that won’t let go?
After working with hundreds of clients, the crucial enemy is self-concern. The concern to be right, to look good, to win every moment, to avoid domination, and to avoid responsibility.
Ultimately to be right. Right about what? Most of the time being right about what you said about yourself. Even if it was bs.
Even people who manage to climb high on the Tree of Life, that is a daily battle to wrestle themselves free from that self-concern. I promise.
Whether you said ‘I was right‘. Or said ‘I am worthless‘. Or maybe you said ‘I was wronged‘, or ‘I am good‘. If you can’t wrestle control back from that statement, you cannot climb the Tree of Life.
And to my dismay: you won’t allow yourself to HAVE any of the distinctions through which you could look… and get a foothold on the vertical plane.
And as long as you don’t let go
And as long as you don’t let go… you cannot be healed permanently, and whatever is killing you will keep on killing you.
It’s a catch22 that as long as you cannot let go of your self-concern you cannot get your first distinction… and vice versa.
So what did the two students do who managed to get their first distinction AND are willing to let go of their self-concern?
Two is not a large enough sample, but so far this is what I’ve seen: whatever you said in your first incident, ‘I am wronged‘, ‘It is not fair‘, or ‘but I am good!‘ is what you need to let go.
If you can, and not just give it lip-service, you can grow. Can’t let go? Can’t grow either. Most people test no. Some clients test maybe.
What fueled that thing you said was entitlement.
As if you were, as if you had been entitled to do whatever the f… you did, without consequences.
So ultimately what keeps that in place is the entitlement.
We have learned that I can turn the gene expression off, and the behavior remains… and turns the gene back on.
So Life, nature, wants YOU to do the work. You either will or you won’t.
The eight billion hasn’t, and probably won’t.
Billions will be killed by rising sea levels, weather, hunger, illness… because humanity, both individually and culturally isn’t willing to let go of their entitlement.
I am going to do a workshop for the people who have done, or are doing the Drink your Food challenge. Why them? Because they have showed some willingness that we can build on. When? One morning… because two of those people are on the Far East… that’s why.
In the meantime, if you want the results but don’t want to participate… get off it… Sign up to the Drink your Food challenge, and start chewing. Keep in mind that the goal is dual: get healthy, and get being present… the distinction.
Start your journey up the ladder
