Is my life an exercise in… what? … futility?

Is my life an exercise in… what? … futility?

Yesterday’s article fell flat on its face… as it was predictable in view of my almost 40 year experience.

If I started again from where YOU are, no distinctions, I would print out the ‘koan’ I heard many times from Forum Leaders:

For you everything is the same as everything else… except that not always.

Continue reading “Is my life an exercise in… what? … futility?”

Why You’re Dumb, Sick, Broke, and miserable

Why You’re Dumb, Sick, Broke, and miserable
Just like the front and the back of the hand, being and action are distinct yet inseparable. WernerCorrecting the language

This article tries to explain something I heard 30 years ago, and it took, till today to understand. So it’s not easy, but it has the answer to the question in the title, and it has the key you’ve been looking for, though you didn’t know what exactly you were looking for.

The reason you are unhappy, lonely, and afraid because language directly leads there. Continue reading “Why You’re Dumb, Sick, Broke, and miserable”

There’s a difference between it’s wrong and I don’t like it

There’s a difference between it’s wrong and I don’t like it
Intelligence is being able to tell the difference. The difference between something being wrong and you not liking it. Intelligence begins there.

If you can’t tell the difference, then you will continue to collapse the two. And you are the person about whom the saying goes: for you everything is the same as everything else… except that not always. No distinction. Clueless. Not a compliment.

In essence you will be the guy who cannot tell their ass from your elbow. In my experience you’ll be always angry, or sad, or disappointed. or feel slighted, not loved, lonely, deprived, bored, trying, attacked. the billions of moves that keep you unhappy… unfulfilled. Continue living a subhuman life.

No distinction? No intelligence.

Continue reading “There’s a difference between it’s wrong and I don’t like it”

Are you a successful person or just a not unsuccessful one?

Are you a successful person or just a not unsuccessful one?

What’s the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful one?

This article is really important. If you read nothing else on this site, read this. I’ll do my darned best to make it simple, and to reach your dense brain. How do I know it’s dense? Because successful people don’t read articles like this, or not often. Skinny people don’t read how to lose weight articles either… got it?

If you take two people, maybe even twins, and watch them, their results in life, most likely, will be different. Their actions will be different. Their likes and dislikes… Continue reading “Are you a successful person or just a not unsuccessful one?”

Your brain can help you become an Expanding Human Being

Your brain can help you become an Expanding Human Being

tools and techniques for self developmentSummary: Most of us don’t know who we really are. We don’t know what we really want. We don’t know where to start, what to do to become an expanding human being.

Here is an exercise that can be really helpful. With it you could start exercising the faculties that will lead you to clarity about who you are and what you want… eventually.

‘The most complex problems can be stripped to their essence through unemotional critical thinking. Successful problem solvers simplify complex problems while seeking kindergarten solutions’ ~ Steve Siebold

The complex problem I have been struggling with is how to teach people to start using their faculties. How to start using their brain for what it is really good for. Doing that instead of searching for answers outside of them, or in their minds. Instead of asking questions from others and never actually think.

A simple solution showed up in a conversation with a client today.

First time client, totally immersed in the current culture (politically correct). When asked to share about himself he said he gave blood every two weeks and helped out with the high school in his town.

Typical outward directed focus. Selfless. He didn’t say anything about himself. What he said though said that he wasn’t an independent thinker. Or a thinker at all.

I shared with him about my collapsed dreams with Amazon. I shared how I learned a lesson. He praised me for being tough. Then I shared with him that I had thoughts of suicide. He said that he thought I was stronger than that.

thought-policeIn Christianity, especially in Catholicism, even the thought of a sin is a sin.

So Christians are commanded to avoid thoughts of sin. Thus they avoid thoughts of anything worth thinking about. They avoid knowing themselves.

I told him that because I was able to tell the difference between my thoughts and my actions for me there was no harm in thinking through any action, any reaction. No harm thinking about suicide. No harm thinking about the aftermath, etc. Or no harm thinking where my current actions in life are leading me… even if it is a horrible place. The more I can see it the better for me. I said that thinking ‘bad thoughts’ was actually a useful exercise.

Both Christianity and Positive Thinking

That both Christianity and Positive Thinking rob people of choosing for themselves. Rob them of being able tell apples from oranges, their thoughts from their actions.

That not being willing (or able) to be in the presence of unpleasant or ‘sinful’ thoughts and ideas render them ready preys for the powers that be, for the marketeers, for everyone and anyone who want to exploit them.

When you cannot tell the difference between your thoughts and your actions, you have to act on every urge. you are a puppet on the string for your urges.

When you see an advertising for a chocolate cake… you need to have it. When you see the picture of a half naked woman, you need to do what the urge tells you to do: you are not in the driver’s seat, you are not the boss.

You cannot just be… and live your life, drive your life where you want it to go.

And that’s when it hit me”

If you cannot separate your thoughts from your actions, you’ll never make good decisions either.

If I asked you to imagine situations where the decision can be confronting. Where the decisions would be revealing, ugly, or ethically challenging. Where you would really look what decisions you could make. You would feel into what decision you like, what decisions you dislike. What decisions you would entertain. What decisions you would be too cowardly to make, fearing the consequences.

If you were willing to contemplate the question, then, through these ‘mental imaginings’ you could actually start growing. You could start getting some self-knowledge. And you could start telling apart yourself from others. What others told you and what you feel, what you think. Your own judgment. And thus you could exercise your brain, exercise your thinking, use your mental tools. Review your moral values, awaken your self-awareness.

You would access the thinking functions of the brain instead of the limited storage device mind.

My story

Until the age of about 40 I was largely a mystery to myself, because I didn’t know what I liked, what I disliked. I couldn’t tell.

I didn’t know what were my preferences, because I was cut off from my feelings. Because I was an empath I felt too much. I felt everything and the opposite.

I couldn’t tell my feelings from ‘not-my’ feelings.

For me the only way to avoid confusion and maybe even schizophrenia, was to not feel. To suppress ALL feelings. To live entirely for the mental pursuits, for intellectual pleasures. And outside of that be an automaton.

At exactly 40 I was refused admittance to a week-long course, because of my inability to tell the difference between thought and action.

Each thought occurred to me as an action in and of itself. And I needed to be able to tell them apart, and become clear.

This is just a thought… this is an action.

Sometimes the thought was totally independent, not resulting in anything, not resulting in an action…

Until that point I was thinking of every thought as action. For example,
  • Thoughts of violence (considered an action) would make me a murderer… and yet I never murdered anyone.
  • Thoughts of suicide sent me to the emergency room thinking I needed help.

You may have different thoughts.

  • Delusion of grandeur is a result of thoughts and is an illness itself.
  • Thinking yourself kind when you are really nasty is a confusion similar to this.
  • Thinking yourself stuck but there is no stuck in reality is a confusion similar to this.

Since that realization at age 40 I have been pulling myself up by my bootstraps. My power became distinguishing, aka telling apart. Slowly but surely, telling things apart. Not being the ‘for you everything is the same as everything else except not always‘. I started to become able to tell apples from oranges, myself from others, actions from thoughts. And started getting to know me, my machine, my desires, my urges, my aspirations that have taken me to where I am.

distinguishing thought from actionsI want this for you. I want you to get clear distinction between thought and action

The exercise, putting yourself mentally in situations where you can test your mettle, is simple, but not easy.

Your tools of imaginings are rusty. Your imagination is weak. And you may find yourself squeamish. Hesitant. Unwilling. Scared. Pretending. You may try to outsmart the game by hiding, outrunning, outsmarting the issues, but never actually facing them.

You can get the hang of the game. And you’ll get better at it.

But bewares: You’ll do this game like you do everything else. That means most of you will quit before you start. Another half will quit after tying it once. And one or two in a hundred will hang in there, and grow.

How you do anything is how you do everything. This will only change you if you recognize your how… and consciously counter it.

It could become a mode of meditation. A meditation where you imagine up situations, and imagine yourself in them, and go back and forth and test different choices, different actions… Thus start getting to know yourself.

This is what Tai calls armchair meditation in step 54 (‘Chess-like Assiduity and armchair meditation)

What situations would you imagine? Any… the world and the internet offers up so many situations to imagine yourself in. 24 hours a day would not be enough if you wanted to play with them all.

Here are some thought starters:

What would you do if you were one of the relatives of the lost Malaysian airline plane? What would you do if your boy friend/husband got ill and he were a nasty patient? Or what would you do if you swallowed your wedding ring? What would you do if you found out you had cancer? (This last one is sorely missing for my clients who refuse to take care of themselves)

Look at the scenarios through your own eyes. Then switch and look at them from outside. Then switch again and look at them from the eyes of another person in the story, or outside of the story.

In my pondering about suicide looking at the fact through your (the client’s) eyes was a really educational experience. It helped that some celebrity’s girl friend just committed suicide. I could see being plastered on social media. It felt like being naked in public.

Do it, it’s amazing!

PsychodramaExpect a growth spurt once you figure this out

Expect a growth spurt once you figure this out, once you get the hang of it. And expect lots of fun. Much like in a psychodrama class… Psychodrama on steroid.

Spend as much time with each situation as you need, until you get clear what the ‘real’ you would do in that situation.

My series of challenges are an excellent place to first dip your toes in, and then expand your immersion.

The best is to start with the Reality Challenge. It is designed to help you distinguish between thought and action. Priceless.

PS: Another article with specific exercises is already lined up for you.

A holographic approach to attitude adjustment

A holographic approach to attitude adjustment

attitude-quotes-1Attitude, the most misunderstood word in the world…

In this article we’ll take a holographic approach to attitude adjustment.

By the way, that word, approach, is another word for attitude. Approach is a physical, kinesthetic word. You can approach something timidly, bravely, unconsciously, sideways, cautiously, and having the body posture of the boss… superior. A thousand different ways. Continue reading “A holographic approach to attitude adjustment”

Still having troubles even after I pulled your attachments?

Still having troubles even after I pulled your attachments?

probable-almost-certain-future
This article closely relates to the soul correction articles AND the attachments, cords articles.

Oftentimes it is a difficult case is what leads researchers to new insights. This is exactly what happened today. I had a client who, periodically, has serious heart symptoms, even though physically there is nothing wrong with his heart.

For a while, whenever I muscletested people for attachments, even after the removal of the attachments, the muscletest answer was yes/no. The fingers opened but only a little bit. Yes and no. Maddening, lol.

I clarified it with Source, that it means: there are some things like attachments on the person, but not exactly attachments. Something else, but close.
Continue reading “Still having troubles even after I pulled your attachments?”

How does self-fulfilling prophecy really work?

How does self-fulfilling prophecy really work?

We are still hanging out with The Sight capacity…

Everybody teaches that what you think about comes about.

What they base this inane untruth on is the bad things that you somehow seem to make happen by concentrating on them through fear.

And although the fear-based manifestation is true a lot of the time, the ‘positive’ manifestation happens only as accident, if ever. Continue reading “How does self-fulfilling prophecy really work?”

Humanity has a tendency to use shortcuts to get there faster

Humanity has a tendency to use shortcuts to get there faster

Humanity has a tendency to use shortcuts to get there faster***… Where is there? Nowhere, really, so it is all about the faster, the cheaper, the less effort for humanity. Going nowhere fast.

Was it always so? No.

I have a theory that humanity cycles through phases of being… beingness… that are, maybe the same as the book ‘Pendulum‘ teaches. The book says that the beingness humanity cycles through is the degree to which it is about ‘me’ or it is about ‘us’. Continue reading “Humanity has a tendency to use shortcuts to get there faster”

The Third Kind of Depression to beat: simple but not easy

The Third Kind of Depression to beat: simple but not easy

depression is a sign that you are unwilling to hit bottom. when you hit bottom, there is the beginning of coming upThis article, unintentionally, has two parts. They are loosely connected. One part is about hitting bottom, the second part is about getting out of the judgment, getting out of the systemic value paradigm where you have no future.

Depression Is A Sign That You Are Unwilling To Hit Bottom.

Continue reading “The Third Kind of Depression to beat: simple but not easy”