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I have read at least one article about each possibly missing virtue saying that it is the root of all failure.
Some I may have even written myself.
But now that I am working closely and intensely with one student, and listen in to what others have to say, I must reconsider.
When in spite of some teaching, when in spite of a new way to look at one’s life, a person still comes up with the same garden variety ineffective behavior, than there must be something there that literally prevents them from from self-correcting.
To actually self-correct one must be willing to tell the truth:
that one has caused the mistake, the error, the misery, the trouble… whatever was the case.
Instead humans assign cause, assign blame to something that is not them.
For example: I was hurt. I assigned stupidity to be the cause, not me. And even if today I sound very transformed, secretly I keep up the charade that it was stupidity that caused me to get hurt.
Why? Because, I think, I reserve the right to make the same mistake again… maybe as part of my Free Will.
The difference between you and me (maybe there are only some degree of differences…) is that maybe you cannot yet see that indeed you were causing it and then have been lying about it.
So, in my experience the two sticky points are: 1. being able to SEE that nothing ever happens to you, and you are causing everything that you experience. 2. Choosing, at least some of the time, to do/be different than you have been.
One of the frequent ways people don’t change, don’t grow… is when they have a coach, a teacher, a trainer.
There is this 2000 year old little poem that says: ‘Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them.
Start with what they know. Build with what they have.
But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.’‘
And that, ‘we have done this ourselves‘ is a lie.
So some of my clients, when they get into their heads that they are ready, start doing it themselves… and the result… nothing good gets done.
We are a species that does best when we, like the Sequoia trees, connect to each other under the surface.
So the lone rangers is type 1. Type 2. The other kind: they cling and get nothing done…
I am going to use myself as an example, because you can’t really know anyone but yourself.
When I am willing to take complete responsibility that I do things to damage my business, my health, my life, then I can take a few steps that don’t…
I can set ‘I am stupid’ to the side, and do the right thing.
And when stupid takes center stage… I just do a version of what I did when I was three and a half… and kill life.
The secret for me is to catch the trigger: ‘I don’t wanna‘
I guess this is some version of some liberty ‘fetish’ that maybe we all have.
And then I manage to return to the Sequoia state, and do what I need to do. I do know how… Do you?
In the Sequoia state you don’t have the right to destroy the grove by flinging you Free Will, and your right to kill yourself.
As you can see, this is a journey. It starts with seeing, for the first time, what is your particular way of avoiding seeing reality.
We will do that work in the Saturday 1 pm workshop…
And then there will be a ton of followup… because knowing is the booby prize.
Let’s find you Achilles heel.
