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Lost and Found

Guess I had a summer break without planning one. I have had some posts itching in me for the past couple of weeks, so tonight the first one is on.

I have had many experiences with getting lost, in myself and others. There are limitless ways of getting lost and limitless degrees to getting lost, but the reason for it is always the same: complete ego-identification. That is the beauty and simplicity of it. When we get lost, we have all these ways of describing, defining, defending and justifying our lostness. It makes sense to us and once we are lost, we are already fully committed. Once we’re fully committed, it gets harder and harder to see it for what it is, ego-id, and instead becomes a closed logical circuit that builds on itself. It’s akin to buying property in Crazytown.

Getting lost takes a lot of thought. Thought is at the root of our human experience of course; without it, we wouldn’t exist. Unconscious thinking is the issue and is what we employ on our way to getting lost. It may begin with a harmless remark by someone, with an action, anything really that we notice and hold on to, in whatever small way. That tiny bit of holding on, and the thought that goes with it, is like a seed. If we happen to forget to water it through repetition, it will disappear, but if we begin to repeat the notion and keep revisiting it, it will grow. This can happen over years, months or within seconds. Once it takes on some weight and thus meaning for us, the thought will swell up, gain momentum and compound. When that happens we are lost in our thinking and no longer experience it as thought, but as fact. Has someone ever come to you with an issue they had with you, often a while ago? And once they get started you are almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of thinking they have done about it, and the level of assumptions they are relying on in their minds? It can be quite the spectacle, and we can see that they are lost in their own thinking and rationale, and it has nothing to do with what actually happened any longer. The thinker has become the thought. At that point they’re lost in that thought package, in the ‘issue’ they have.

I have done this so many times, and until I gained some insight into the very elaborate trappings of my ego-identification and how it functioned by making particular thoughts and their patterns real to me, I ended up in Crazytown frequently. Didn’t own property there, but certainly kept an apartment. It’s fascinating to me how even now my thinking can get to me and lead me into lostness. One of my favorites is still the idea that I haven’t amounted to anything in my life. If I am very tired, have an off day and my mood is muffled, this is one pattern that can get a hold of me pretty quickly. Thing is, no one knows me better than I do, so if I fall for that thought pattern even a little bit, bam!, I am right in it. It’s like a hurricane in my head at that point. ‘What have you achieved? No one likes you, you really have no friends. Everything you have ever tried amounted to nothing. Your life is impermanent as it is, and there ain’t much time left, so you may as well face the fact that this was pretty much it…’ On and on it goes. I get completely lost in my thinking. And of course I am the only person on the planet who feels this way at that point, so loneliness usually comes along with it.

The good news is that we can be found again. Sometimes it’s something or someone on the outside that snaps us out of it. It’s important to remember that even though it’s seemingly coming from the outside, we are making the shift internally, snapping out of it. I say that because we never want to lose sight of the fact that we always create the life experience we are having at any moment, and that means that we are always creating our experience. Not to be too repetitious, but it is so important for us to remember, because if we are lost and someone we meet says or does the right thing that has us stop our thought pattern and gain perspective, we often think that they did it for us, but they didn’t. It is of course wonderful to have that happen and have people like that around, but we are the ones who hear them and make the shift. Then we find ourselves again. We realize that what we have been dealing with was not a reality, but our unconscious thought pattern. That what we thought was real, was just that, a thought. A compounding thought nonetheless that kept adding to itself only to create more reality, more fact and justification for feeling the way we did. It does not matter how long we were lost, or to what extent, once we become aware of our thinking as the source, it’s over. Just like that.

In my case I feel as though I am waking up and begin to notice the present moment again. Once I am in that space, gratitude about my life flows in and my mind settles down. Getting found does not mean that I begin to recite a list of successes in my life or come up with anything that counteracts my litany of ‘poor me’ thoughts; that would be like painting my apartment in Crazytown a nicer color. Getting found is all about becoming aware of the pattern, and letting it be. It’s all about not being interested in the drama, the heaviness, the quality of it any longer. That is truly enough. Disinterest kills nagging thoughts.

So welcome back to all who are here. I hope you have had a great summer and managed to stay found most of the time. If you got lost and found yourself again, welcome back as well. If you became lost and still are, I hope that you will consider that it’s all a thought (pattern) and that no one except you gets to decide whether you stay interested in that line of thinking or not. Give it a shot, you may find it (helpful).

Cheers,

Ralf

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Curiosity

I have been a curious human all my life, though the quality and intention of my curiosity has changed over the years. It went from insecuriosity to curiosity.

Insecuriosity is the kind we employ and have when we are in an ego-identified state. In that state, curiosity has an end in mind, there is a reason for it, I have it to achieve something, usually for me. I am curious about people or circumstances because I will gain something from it. It is a curiosity linked to an outcome, not curiosity for curiosity’s sake. The feeling with insecuriosity is investigative, I need to find out, I have to know, it is important to me to gain information for whatever reason. There is an end I have in mind. I used to do this all the time, I would meet someone new and my ego mind would size them up and analyze instantly how meeting this person was (going to be) meaningful to me. Were they simply interesting? Would knowing them further my career/agenda/personal goals? Was it simply cool to call them an acquaintance or even friend? If any of those came back as a positive, I would engage in insecuriosity about them. I would be an ‘active listener’ and ask many questions, and I would try my best to find out as much as I could about them. I did this for two reasons: I would create more trust and intimacy with them by knowing something personal, and I would gain insight into them that could be used at a later point. Even writing this makes me feel icky inside now.

This ego-identified curiosity is not authentic, because it comes from the limited experience of me, me, me and thus is about me. It is not about the other person. It is about finding out information for ego advancement and gratification. Most people do this. I now see it in others all the time, there is an element to their curiosity that wanes. It comes and goes and depends entirely on their level of interest in what I may or may not share, and how interesting or useful this may be to them. Haven’t you ever met someone who seemed curious about you, asked you questions and you ended up feeling as though you were either talking to yourself, or conversely felt invaded upon? The kind of conversation that may as well not have taken place, because you could feel that it wasn’t actually about a genuine interest in you as a person, but about something for them? I remember watching the movie Bowfinger a few years ago that was chock-full of scenes of this kind of curiosity. Every single moment of curiosity between people in that film was about the insecuriosity about each other. Once someone’s curiosity revealed that the other was uninteresting or unimportant, the conversation ended or drifted into nothingness. A wonderful portrayal of insecuriosity.

Authentic or natural curiosity is another world. Literally. We enter another world when we are truly curious. In order to be curious in that way, we have to suspend all self-interest and judgment. We have to be engaged in the business of now. The only thing that I am curious about is being here and experiencing it with as little interference in my mind as possible. This applies to people and circumstances equally. I talk about this to my business clients all the time, because this is not only powerful, but also extremely practical and effective. When one of my clients faces a dilemma with a colleague, the first thing I ask is whether they have gotten curious about it. Almost without fail, they have not. Instead they talk about everything they already know about the person and their behavior, why they’re doing it, and what the best solution would be to remedy the situation based on their assumptions. This is of course not very helpful and usually quite off the mark. That’s when we talk about how to get curious about the situation and/or the person.

This takes some willingness on my client’s part to acknowledge that they have been operating purely on judgment and have never taken it upon themselves to talk to the person at issue with genuine openness and curiosity. One client once had a team member who would leave the office at stroke of five and go home. They would often do work from home at later hours in the evening, but never stay in the office with the other team members to finish an important project or help make a deadline. They never came to team events, always saying they were busy. When pressed a bit by the team, they would give elusive answers and never really explain their lack of team spirit. The team began to question the motives and value of this team member. The manager was flustered and didn’t know what to do, this was damaging to the team spirit, but they also felt that this team member was productive and a good performer. Instead of judging the behavior and trying to come up with their own answers, the manager decided to take the team member out to lunch privately. After spending some time talking and sharing on a more personal level, the manager asked for permission to speak openly. At this point all he wanted was to find out from the team member what was going in their life that made them behave the way they did, and that if they couldn’t or didn’t want to share, that would be alright as well. He went into the conversation with curiosity for curiosity’s sake. The team member opened up and shared that their spouse was dying of cancer and that their job was keeping the roof over their head. Their spouse was extremely weak, and the only quality time they could spend with them was after the nurse left for the day at 5:30 until their spouse went to sleep around nine every night completely exhausted. That was the time when the team member could get on the computer and do some work. They did not want to talk to anyone about this because it was so painful for them. They were also drowning in debts from insurance co-pays. They swore the manager to secrecy, which he honored. After the spouse passed, the manager got permission and shared the story with the team who ended up hosting a fund raiser for some of the medical bills.

We never know what may be on the other side of unbridled curiosity. It starts with us. We have to be willing to be curious about ourselves and our own intentions and judgments. Next time you find yourself judging away about someone or something (including yourself of course), sit down and have a meal with yourself, get curious and find out where all this is coming from and what it’s all about. That curiosity may just lead to curious insights.

Cheers,

Ralf

 

 

 

 

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Disappointment

That’s always fun, especially coming from a parent or partner. “I am so disappointed in you” are those words we all love to hear. Even better when they are coming from our own voice inside.

Recently I had a moment of disappointment when I found out that Flying Leap did not make the shortlist for the literary award, at three o’clock in the morning, which ended up being a blessing, because it made me move through the disappointment rather quickly. Having an 11 months old child around means that I have not had a normal night’s sleep for that many months. So it wasn’t unusual that she woke up that early and I woke up as well. Since I knew that the shortlist was to be announced that day in the morning and Ireland is six hours ahead, I figured I’d check real quick. And there was the list, a moment of anticipation and then seeing that it’s not there. Immediate let down, strong opinions on the jurors and then bummage. Since it was in the middle of the night, I quickly moved through it, took a deep breath and let it go. Then I fell asleep again. It wasn’t until the next day that I looked at what happened and all this interesting stuff about disappointment popped up. So here it goes…

The word disappointment hit me first, because I saw it differently than I ever have: Dis-appointment. So I am appointing meaning to something, except it’s a dis-appointment, and the way I read that was that it was wrongly appointed. Totally changed the experience of the word and its effect. We choose to appoint meaning and importance to something or someone, and what should happen or what they should or hopefully will do. Why do we do this? Because appointing meaning to something makes it more important and valuable in some way. And when something is important and valuable, it has more weight, more meaning. It’s an interesting process that takes place here, because obviously we choose this entirely, and what I deem important and valuable may be nothing to the next person of course. So we appoint this meaning and then, we wait. We wait to see whether the person, the outcome will happen as expected and appointed. If it happens exactly the way we wanted, we get to be happy for a while, and then the next thing gets appointed. And if it doesn’t happen, we get to feel the level of dis-appointment that is in direct proportion to the appointment we assigned to it. And then the next appointment happens. It never ends.

The good news is that we choose this, the bad news is that we choose this.

So here is how my dis-appointment about the nomination played out: I had found out that Flying Leap had been nominated by a small library in the Czech Republic of all places. I had no idea how that was possible, how a copy of the book would have made it there in the first place. So I called them and ended up talking to the woman who nominated it. What followed was really curious – her English was limited and she decided not to nominate an obvious contender by a well known author, but wanted to find something that was more unknown and deserved to be made known to a larger audience. So she went ahead and did a search in Google books by entering some specific search criteria, and three books showed up, Flying Leap being one of them. She read the first review that came up (on GoodReads, because Google owns it), which was very positive, then proceeded to look on Amazon and BN.com, and ended up reading a little bit in the book on Amazon, as well as the back cover. She shared that it was clear to her immediately that this was the book that needed to be nominated, it felt right, and it was talking about a subject matter that most people will think about at some point in their lives. So she nominated it. But she never read it. They didn’t and don’t have a copy of it in their library. At that moment I appointed meaning to all this. I chose to believe that this was some divine serendipity at work, that this meant something. Surely this book was going places on its own, and this was it. It would have to make the shortlist, because that fit my appointed story. I didn’t go as far as believing it would win, but my appointment went as far as the shortlist. Only it didn’t, and I got to experience the results of a dis-appointment, an appointment I had chosen. Once I saw that, it was done. Now I am left with a feeling of gratitude for the librarian and the experience of having seen the book nominated for something. Pretty cool. Who knows what may come next, I am not going to appoint anything else to this. I will simply be enjoying what is.

We appoint meaning to stuff all day, all the time, from the smallest to the biggest in our lives. And more often than not we end up with a dis-appointment. But rather than taking an honest look at the fact that we are entirely responsible for this dis-appointment, we build and harbor more and more emotional energy and fallout to these dis-appointments towards others and life in general. All because we refuse or are unable to see that we choose this, that we are the one setting it up in the first place. We create it, we experience it, and we hang on to it. That’s the bad news in this, because if we are willing to play with the notion that we create this dis-appointment we are experiencing, we can no longer hold anyone or anything else responsible for it, and that’s a toughie for the ego-identified life to do. The ego needs someone or something to be responsible for the dis-appointment, it’s part of the cycle. Only then can I create more meaning in my life story, more content that I can add. Dis-appointments are a great addition to the library of our life story. But ultimately it is up to us to choose this. To choose to live in ego-identification and thus with all the dis-appointments that come with it, or not.

I invite you to play with this. Next time you are dis-appointed in yourself, someone else or by someone or something, take a look at what is going on. Trace it back to its origin and you may just find that the seed was planted by you. And you may just end up dis-appointed that you aren’t anymore, but that will be the beginning of the end of ill appointments …

Cheers,

Ralf

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Drama

Drama is the mojo of the ego-identified life. Without drama, ego-identification has a hard time hanging around.

I have realized in myself that drama isn’t limited to the big events in life, you know, the kinds of events that most people would agree are dramatic. Usually death, war, relationships, etc. When a lot of people agree that certain circumstances are dramatic, then for most of us these circumstances are dramatic when we find ourselves in them. And while we’re in the middle of experiencing this drama, other people confirm this for us in may different ways. They call us or come by to listen and share about similar dramas they have had happen in their lives, by reassuring us that we are not crazy to feel the way we feel, letting us know that this has happened to many other people as well, and to generally agree with and confirm our feelings. This is all beautiful, because they are honestly trying to help. Only, does it really?

When this happens, the drama at hand is still real. I still have to deal with it, experience it and go through it with all the emotional bells and whistles it comes with. Relating to other people in this way does not add perspective to the situation. It keeps me in the drama, and if anything confirms that it is real. I cannot do anything about it. I am in it, I am it. Others are confirming it and sharing how it was for them when it ‘happened to me.’ The idea is that talking to others who have been through a similar drama will lift some of the weight, some of the sense of doom or inescapability of the drama at hand. It shows me that this too shall pass. At some point.

I have had enough drama in my life as well. I used to be addicted to it, as a matter of fact. My complete ego-id life was so full of drama that it had become normal. Actually, when there was nothing to worry about, no drama to deal with, no matter how small, I would freak out a little bit. Why wasn’t there any drama or worry? That was impossible after all. If you had no drama in your life you were either lying to yourself or full of it. Usually I would have a period when there were only the small every-day-middle-of-the-road-dramas, such as the cable bill had an issue and I had to spend time and emotion to fix it through lengthy discussions with the cable person, after punching my way through ten phone menus to reach an actual person. Or a friend was having a crisis (another word for drama) that needed attention. Money issues always came in handy when there was no pressing or serious drama at hand. If this collection of small dramas went on too long, I would freak out a little bit and wonder what was coming, surely something big was about to hit, because there hadn’t been any major drama for so long. It was background noise and always had to be there in some way. Without drama, something was wrong. A life without it meant that you were not serious about life, or dead.

I used to be in this boat, but I got out. I got out the moment I became aware of the fact that everything that had ever happened in my life up to that point made sense. It fit, it had gotten me to where I was at that moment. The good, the bad, the ugly, no matter what had happened to me in my life, no matter how dramatic or traumatic at the time, it fit. I did not suddenly see the trauma or drama as a great thing, no, but I saw it as a circumstance that had happened in my life of endless circumstances, and that all of these combined made sense. This happened to me during a major drama I was experiencing, and with this insight came the instant realization that the current drama was fitting into my life as well. I wasn’t able to see how yet, but it was. This changed the experience of the situation dramatically (pun intended), I was no longer a victim to the circumstance, but simply experiencing it, knowing full well that it made sense. It gave me instant perspective.

As more awareness is in my life, it changes everything. Most of the time I don’t see it, I don’t know how different my life has become, and then someone tells me about their issues or drama, and I have a hard time commiserating, I cannot get myself to participate in their drama, because it simply does not make sense to do so. I recognize that it is real to them, that they are distressed and feeling all of the drama they’re describing, but I also see that it is a mere product of an ego-identified state, and that this is a choice on their part. To some people that looks cold and uncaring, because if their drama isn’t taken seriously, then they aren’t taken seriously, because of course they are it. That’s not it though, I take them seriously, but their drama is simply uninteresting. Much like my own ego’s bs is uninteresting to me as well.

How many times have we worked ourselves up about something, only to find out later that it was the best thing that could have happened? We tried and tried to make that relationship work, lots of drama, and after we finally walked away from it we ended up enjoying the solitude or met a more perfect match. We really wanted to buy that one house, but the seller wouldn’t budge on the price, big drama, and two weeks later another house went on the market on the same block, and it was nicer and we got the price we wanted. On and on it goes, what looked like drama was nothing but the effect of buying into the pompous dance of ego identification and self importance. Drama is serious business and wants to be taken seriously. But that is a choice, not a given. We can sidestep it, cut to the chase and wonder instead what is going to be on the other side of it.

The next time you find yourself experiencing some serious drama, consider that it’s simply life letting you know that you have your head up your ego-id butt, that it is time to drop it, step back, be uninterested in it, and look at your life as a whole. It all fits, it always has, and always will. The drama will pass the moment we are willing to see this, because perspective kills it.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Expectations

We have them all the time. We have them of others, of ourselves, and even of life itself. Add to it the idea that I ‘deserve’ something, and expectation can get out of control pretty quickly. Then it becomes a chain reaction.

I have been seeing this in myself a lot lately. I have been working with someone on a project and, without noticing, formed expectations around the whole thing. I expected certain outcomes and reactions from the other person. I expected them to do exactly what they said they would. Sounds reasonable, I know. I can hear you saying that this is normal, to expect a person to do as they say they will. And it is. But how does it serve me? What does it do for me to expect them to deliver exactly the way they said they would? Let’s check this out a little more.

So someone tells me that they will do something by a certain time and date and I rely on this. I expect them to do exactly as they promised. A lot may depend on them delivering this. Maybe a whole project or jobs are on the line if they don’t deliver. Maybe people could get hurt if they don’t deliver. With all this in mind it is perfectly reasonable if not responsible of me to expect them to deliver, right? Well, yes. What has been bugging me about this is that the expectation I hold in myself creates an uneasiness and weight. It is as though I am walking around in a sort of limbo state, waiting for my expectation to be met. Until that happens, the weight and tension around it is within me and won’t release until the expectation has been met. Then I feel that release and for a moment I feel lighter, relieved and as though things are now on track; except the next expectation shows up almost immediately. And if my expectation is not met, disappointment sets in and I end up with double the weight. But no matter what, the next expectation is right there. Whether it’s positive or negative makes no difference. The weight remains, and it’s one after another. It’s really not very pleasant.

All expectations do is add this weight and tension of anticipation. The limbo feeling. They do not produce any movement or creation. They have me hanging around and if I am waiting for someone to ‘come through’ it’s even worse, because now I am stuck with this feeling until they act. I have placed my peace of mind in their hands. If I have expectations of myself to do something in particular, that really sucks, because now I have the added feeling of me having to deliver. Meet my own expectations. Ever had one of those? I better get that project done by the deadline, I better get that A in the class, I cannot forget my partner’s birthday, every New Year’s resolution, etc. A lot of fun to be had there, right? It sucks. So what is there to do about this?

Let go of all expectations. Every-single-one-of-them. I don’t care what the expectation is about. Expectations are based on made up ideas about made up circumstances that we made up to be of importance to us. I can hear you wondering that without expectations nothing would happen. Expectations motivate us. Sure they can, but all I am asking is what the quality of this motivation is. Expectations are like a straight jacket on creativity. They pretty much define what is supposed to happen by whom and when. It’s limiting. Not having any expectation is opening. I am not saying that we don’t make commitments to things, or that we don’t promise to do the best we can. That’s different. I can have someone promise that they will do something and then simply let that be and see what happens. If they deliver on their promise, great, if not, then they don’t. Their choice, not mine. I get to be with this in any way that I choose. I can create any story around it or simply accept that the situation that is presenting itself as an outcome is the one in front of me and I get to be with it any way I choose to. Period. It circles right back to the idea that we create our life experience moment-to-moment, at all times. No one else does this for us. It is my choice to have expectations or not. I let go of all my expectations with the person I was working with and felt an instant sense of relief and room to breathe. I realized that they were either going to do what they said or not, but that this was simply their choice and had nothing to do with me. I let it go and decided to work with them for as long as it feels right, and when it doesn’t, I will stop.

Haven’t you ever had an expectation unmet, got upset, were disappointed, and created whatever drama around it you felt in line with the ‘size’ of the expectation? Then something happened that would have never been able to happen if your expectation had been met? Let’s say you expected your best friend to show up for dinner and they didn’t, and because of this, you decided to go to the library and work on the paper you’ve been avoiding and ended up meeting a girl/guy that you fell in love with? You expected that plane to be on time and it wasn’t, but because of this you met someone at the bar in the airport who ended up offering you a job? You expected your coworker to email the slides on time, but they didn’t and because of this your presentation sucked, you lost your job but ended up deciding to go back to school, or write that novel you have been thinking about? All I am saying is that expectations are a waste of energy and time. With them shit happens to us, without them, we decide what happens.

Take a look inside and see if you can find any expectations hanging around in the background. See how they feel. Notice the weight and tension they have. Then ask yourself what would happen if you simply let them go. Give it a try, the result may not be what you expected …

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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Memories

We have them. We make them. Without them what would there be?

I often wonder about memories and how important they are to our lives, or not. With my father’s passing this year, the notion of memories and particularly his memory have been on my mind. We are spending Christmas at my mother’s house (still odd to say that) and it has been the first time for me to be back in the place I grew up in since I was here this summer as my dad was getting ready to die. I had been wondering what it would be like to come here and not have him be in this space, but to have only my memories of him. Would it make me sad again, would I miss him, would it be strange to be here without him, my last memory of him sitting in his favorite chair which now sits empty? I honestly had no idea and went into it with an open heart and mind. Well, I am experiencing something I least expected and am frankly a bit unsure with yet, and have a hard time saying on here, because I still have some judgment about it, what are other people going to think? I figure since that usually doesn’t stop me, it shouldn’t now.

I don’t miss him.

As I am reading this, I am still a little bit taken aback by the statement, but that other part in me I like to talk about so much is letting me know reassuringly that this is a very accurate statement about the way things are for me. Ever since I arrived and had this realization, I have been asking myself how this can be. How could I not miss him? How is it possible? Am I a heartless being that has no feelings? Seriously, I was shocked at first. I tried to make myself miss him. I literally walked into his office, sat at his desk and tried to make myself miss him and feel sad. I thought that maybe I was denying myself feeling those feelings because I want to be evolved or something like that. As I muddled with this for the first couple of days it began to occur to me that I may want to leave this alone, simply be with this feeling and see what happens. Interestingly enough, a whole slew of ideas around memories started to show up, and they explained to me what was happening and why it was perfectly natural.

As I say in the intro, we make memories. Let’s think about this sentence for a second. We make them. As in we create them and make them up. Literally. Every moment of our life experience is only the actual experience at that moment and then immediately turns into a memory. Every-single-moment. No exceptions. This is a humdinger, at least to me. Everything in my life outside of the present moment is a memory. In a way, even thoughts about the future are a memory, they’re just a memory about something that may or may not happen. So memories are what create me. Without them I wouldn’t be able to exist. So they are a good thing. They let me remember all the useful things in life, like walking, cooking, talking, driving, remember where home is, and to remember to actually go home, etc. What occurred to me with this insight was that this is how memories are designed  to work for us. They are not meant to limit us, by defining who or what we may be based on them. We are not supposed to be our memories, but to simply have them. Big difference. Huge difference.

This is why I do not miss my father.

I loved him dearly and we had a wonderful time together those last few weeks we spent together, and I am lucky and grateful that I got to have that time and all the times before. What I have realized in being here now is that for as long that I have lived, my father and all other people in my life are a memory whenever I am not present with them. When we are present with each other in some way, in person, over the phone, via Skype or FaceTime (wow, how times have changed), we are hopefully present enough to experience each other fully without memory getting in the way. Any other time, we are experiencing our memory of each other. Realizing this has changed my experience in this place without him. Now that my dad is not here anymore in a physical way, I am experiencing him fully in my memory when I do. It has shifted my reality. I know that he has departed from the physical plane, so I do not expect him to be here anymore, and do not miss him. I would if I expected him to be here. But I am experiencing my memories, and they show up in different ways at different times, and their quality has changed. They are no longer attached to him in the same way as they were when he was alive, they stand on their own and let me have them whenever I choose to. They have taken on another meaning. I know that I will not get to create more memories with him any longer, because he is no longer, but that is ok. It is the natural way of things. We all will depart at some point, period.

With all this I can see more clearly how memories are a wonderful thing to have, but a very limiting thing to be. When we are our memories we will go to great lengths to defend them, justify them, keep them, for if I don’t have those memories, I disappear. People go to war over their memories, because when we have a collective memory to uphold our identity, we will not allow to have them ridiculed, threatened or taken away. When I am my memories, I have to to do what is necessary to keep them, or even make others take them on as well. When I have memories, they aren’t me, so I am not at stake. Total game changer.

As we are in the holiday season, I invite all of us to enjoy our memories as something wonderful that we have. I challenge us all to remember that we aren’t our memories and in the process rediscover the moments we are in right then, so that we don’t miss them for the sake of making a memory. Give yourself and all around you the greatest gift possible, the present of presence.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Gratitude

This has been bugging me, I have to admit. The fact that I am grateful for stuff, but also manage not to be most of the time. We all know that it’s a good thing, but how often, how much are we really grateful?

Speaking for myself, my ratio could be far better. Too many days I am not grateful, really. I may have a moment or two, there are certain ‘things’ I am pretty much grateful for all the time, such as having my wife in my life, my baby girl, but that is about it. I have been thinking about this and wondering how this can be. Here I am, having written this book, writing this blog about a whole other way to live life, a way that is more aware, more conscious, more by our own choice, and yet gratitude seems to be limited. What is up with that? Shouldn’t I be grateful pretty much all the time? Shouldn’t I know how to choose gratitude? Shouldn’t gratitude be part of living this kind of life? Apparently not.

It’s as though I have to remind myself to be grateful for things. I’ll go about my day, everything is fine, I am meeting people, having interesting experiences, feeling pretty happy and content with life, and yet gratitude eludes me, and I will quite literally have to stop and consciously wonder what I am grateful for. Which means that it’s not there otherwise. This had me stumped for a while. I wanted to feel grateful, I wanted to be appreciative of what I have, and thus be a grateful, humble kind of person. The kind of person who doesn’t expect things, the kind who counts their blessings. That does sound good after all. And especially during the holidays this becomes prominent for most of us. Let’s pause and be grateful for what we have. For the people and the circumstances in our lives. Let’s stop and say thanks. When I do gratitude, it is within a world of comparison. When I had to remind myself to be grateful, I was always grateful about something in my life, such as the people, health, job. It was a gratitude attached to the opposite of all those things. If I didn’t have the people, health and job, then my life would not be as nice and I wouldn’t feel as grateful. I was looking at comparisons, and by saying that things were as good as they were, I should be grateful, because they could be worse, and in fact are worse for others. Some people do this every day, they have that moment of pause to be grateful. After thinking about this for a while something hit me.

Gratitude is not something to do, it is something to be. It is a tude after all not an ing. That’s why I had to consciously stop and make myself be grateful. I was busy doing a bunch of important thinking and had to stop it to find my gratitude. Once I paused, I felt it pretty quickly. But if I stopped the maelstrom of my thinking for longer, it turned into more than gratitude, into a sense of wonder and awe with what was going on at the moment. Almost the way I was as a kid when most of the time the world was a cool and wondrous place. Always something new to discover and do. New experiences to have, newness all around. Something happens when we are in this state, we experience a kind of gratitude for being here, for having experiences. Rather than gratitude, it is a state of grace. Being in that state goes beyond gratitude. It is not about anything anymore, it is simply a state of being. A state where I can see and experience the world differently, again and again. The only way to do this is to know that my repetitive ego identified thinking is giving me the same experiences over and over again, and that once aware of this, I can choose to not engage in it. The second I do that, a space opens up in my mind that is not filled with a particular thought, and bingo, whatever situation I am in looks pretty new and interesting. Seriously, it works.

Whenever I get pissed about someone or something and happen to notice it, I step back, tell that particular thought that I am not interested, and the release and shift in my mind changes the circumstance instantly. It lets me see the moment free of my labels and ideas about it, e.g. how unreasonable/crazy/stupid/mean/awful a person or situation is, and instead move into a state of observation, no judgment about it, and the pompous and urgent action required disappear. The situation has shifted. I am in a state of grace, a state beyond gratitude, a state where it’s not about anything anymore, but about being here and enjoying the crap out of it. Beats gratitude by lengths. Gratitude is good, don’t get me wrong, but it is limited to the world of opposites, whereas a state of grace or being is unlimited. It never ends.

Here’s to gratitude. The next time you remind yourself to have gratitude, take a look at the list of things you are creating. Ask yourself if that is a limitation on your ability to have gratitude.  If you answer yes, step back from the list, and take a look around right here, right now, and take in the world in all its wonder and awe. You may just find yourself graceful.

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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Reactive reactionary

That’s a beautiful combination right there. Those two are the gatekeepers of the ego identification castle. When we are a reactive reactionary, we are fully engaged in the ego identification. In other words, we are either reacting to something or want to keep things just the way they are.

Reacting is what we do all day. We get up and react to the weather, the news, our spouse or partner, the kids, our own mood, the way we look, etc. We are reacting to the world and what it presents to us. So when I get into my car and drive to work, and someone cuts me off, I react. And boy, do I. In the interest of my G-Rating for the blog, I may not repeat the things that come out of my mouth in reaction to the … other person. Driving is one of my weak spots, well, that and watching my favorite soccer team suck. I easily slip into my ego skin and find myself reacting. When I am my ego, I am constantly and perpetually repeating the same thoughts over and over again. I do this to create permanence and predictability and therefore feel in control of my existence. A lot of repetition goes on there. So when someone cuts me off in traffic, guess what, been there, done that before, so I know how to react. Open and shut case. Depending on my state of awareness, I may entertain these thoughts for a couple of minutes or a couple of seconds. But I will fall for them most of the time. As mentioned, definite weak spot of mine.

What is fascinating to me about all this is the fact that I am doing the same damn thing every time. I re-act. I act the same way again and again. First in my thinking and then in my actions. So I am literally acting the same way I did before in light of the same ‘situation,’ which is to say in light of the same thoughts. That is a very limiting way to live to say the least. It denies us choice, to be able to see another way of being with a situation, or to act in a way that we may never have before. Instead we go with our well established and comfortable routine and even call that a good thing. I know my brother, sister, best friend, spouse, this is what they’re like, reliable like an old dog, you can count on them to react the same way every time, and it’s also hard to teach an old dog new tricks. By saying this, we simply solidify the idea of that person, and solidify the illusion that they are a permanent fixture in their ways. And what we end up with is the comfort of predictability and repetition. The ego enslaves us to the fake comfort of fake permanence.

The ego is also the ultimate reactionary. It wants to keep the status quo. It does not like change and has to keep things as they have always been, so that it may keep up the illusion of control over its own existence. It holds on to patterns and rituals and declares them essential. The perfect reactionary holds traditions as holy and sacred. They may not be challenged or questioned, and most certainly not changed. That is tantamount to sacrilege. They may not be messed with. If you dare to, you will be met with fierce resistance. This can go as far as physical violence. The ego will stop at almost nothing to defend its status quo and that can include its own demise. It never questions the origins of its dearly held traditions it is willing to die for. It will not entertain the possibility that it was simply made up by someone at some point. Everything the reactionary is so attached to was indeed made up at some point. But the idea that it could be changed or unmade is unthinkable.

There is another level to all this repetition, which is habit. Habits are what the ego is really good at. As the keeper of memory, it is actually the best at it. When I do something a couple of times, the ego stores this experience and makes sure to automatically pull that information when needed. So I will remember not to touch a hot stove. I will know not to grab a knife by its blade. This is incredibly practical and helpful. This does not limit my life experience, it makes it safer. It does not make me fear or hate stoves or knives. I simply use the information to make sure I won’t get hurt. I will remember how to speak my language, how to do math, drive a car, get dressed, eat, walk, etc. All of this is automatic and enhances my experience as a human. It’s a beautiful design. And then we start turning these habits into us, and bingo, we are a reactive reactionary.

All because we forget that we are temporary, that the ego is nothing but the story keeper of our human existence. Because we fall so deeply asleep to forget our own impermanence and that our life is but a mere moment in the vastness of all life. Billions of people have come and gone, billions of stars have come and gone, and billions upon billions will continue to do so. To the ego this is the most frightening fact of all, because when we dare to think like that, our life loses its importance to us, it becomes something we get to enjoy and do, and is no longer who we are. Our mind gets cleared up and quiets down. We begin to get back to our original state of human beingness, not human has been or human will be. The ego goes back to doing what it is designed to do, to give us a safe trip through human land.

Next time you see yourself re-acting, stop the show and realize that you are in the (insert your name here) show and get to call the shots about how this particular episode is going. You are the writer, director, producer and star of this show called your life. And who wants nothing but re-runs all the time?

Cheers,

Ralf

P.S.: I can now talk about the nomination for my book, check out The Book page on the site if you’d like to know more.

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Life

This is going to be my most personal post yet, I reckon. My wife and I had a daughter in May. My book was nominated for a literary award in Europe. My father passed away last week. Bam. I can see people reading these sentences and going from ‘aww’ to ‘oh no.’ Interesting, because I don’t.

It’s life. Yes, I have gone through these experiences, and I am doing it in a way that some people find and found ‘unusual,’ and others may have thought to themselves that I was nuts in some way. Because I often don’t fit what’s generally expected, normal or even accepted behavior in our current culture. Going through my life experiences the way I choose to most of the time now has truly changed my perspective, and having had these notable events happen to me in the span of five months has shown me that my perspective has taken hold in me and cannot be pushed aside, even by my own ego. And I am glad that this is so. Let me explain.

Before our daughter was born, I had heard numerous stories from other friends who are fathers how having this baby born changes you, how when you see them for the first time, you realize your life is no longer about you, that there is someone else now you have to think of first, and that you are instantly in love the moment you lay your eyes on them. Well, not for this father. Labor was amazing, all natural, no interventions, and I was awed by my wife’s resolve, groundedness and strength. I knew women were strong, but holy crap, that was some kind of strong. Then our daughter suddenly pops out, is placed on my wife, I see her for the first time and my thought was: ‘Holy shit, what the hell is this?!’ No bursting heart, no realizations of any deep kind about anything. Just a big unknown I was looking at. I struggled with this silently. My ego stepped in, trying to make up a positive feeling for me, when that didn’t work, it began to analyze me and concluded that there was something wrong with me. My wife sent me home (it was 5 am), and when I returned a few hours later, she asked me right away what was going on as I walked in the room, and I told her that I didn’t know what to feel for this baby, that I had no sense about it belonging with me. She looked at me and said, ‘me neither.’ Bless her. We laughed and talked about it and decided to trust that we would feel everything in our own way and timing. And we did. We love her until death, she is a hoot, and she has become part of our lives only another parent can understand. But we do not own her. We simply chose each other to share our lives here on earth as child and parent, and we love her, and we will do our utmost to take care of her, and most of all, not fill her head with our own stories of what (her) life should be about. But that it is her choice, always.

So then my father dies. We didn’t live close to each other, so we would talk on the phone or skype, and we knew how to have distance without creating one. In the past few years he had joked more frequently that he was tired of living and really wanted it to be over. One time last year he and I were talking and I asked him if he’d be willing to make a deal with me about this; that he would tell me when he was done joking about it and was serious. He agreed. The call came this August. He had developed some more issues with his prostate cancer, nothing that couldn’t be handled, but on the call he said to me, ‘I am serious, son. I am done. No more.’ It was beautiful how clear and peaceful he was about it. Within a couple of weeks he lost 40 pounds and went downhill fast. I flew to see him and hung out with him for two weeks, talking, laughing, having fun and reminiscing about life and what it is and isn’t about. We talked about his upcoming departure, and that was good too. No fear on his part, more curiosity, if anything he was worried how my mom would do without him. He bounced back for those two weeks and everything I wanted to say and share with him I did. Except my daughter, which was alright he said. After I left he plateaued for another two weeks and was gone within another two. On his terms, and in his way. And I was with him all the way. And now that is complete.

I have been through both of these life changing experiences, and I felt stuff. The whole time I did. From fear, to worry, occasional self-judgment, joy, sadness, loneliness, you name it. Point is, I felt those things, but I never became them. My perspective on life in general and mine in particular have aligned. The perspective that my life is not mine to own, but mine to experience, and that I choose that experience every moment of it. Nothing can change that anymore. Not the birth of my child, not the passing of my father. They represent to me the eternal rhythm of the cosmos (or whatever you may call it) breathing in and out. There is nothing and no thing that is permanent. First we forget this, and then we try everything we can to not remember this. We lose our perspective on life. We get sucked into our story, and we will fight until death to maintain it. And we tell each other all the time that our stories are real and that who and what we are as a result is not only ok, but justified.

The most interesting challenge for me in going through these experiences this year thus far has not been my own feelings, it has been having to listen to other people’s attempts to try and share in them by coming from their limited story perspective. People were well intentioned, I know that, but most of them were coming from their story, and from reiterating the agreed upon collective stories around the joys (and trials) of becoming parents, and losing a parent. I get it. I can appreciate their honest wish to share and to support. But most of it was not helpful, because it wasn’t real. It was a story. The few people that were simply in a space of being with me, asking what they could do, without expectation, were the helpful ones. They did not have to say anything, their presence was what was helpful. Throughout all of this, my perspective remained solid. I will feel what I feel and keep moving through life. I am in a great place about having a daughter, and I am in a great place about my father having gone back to swim in the quantum soup. I am in the unknown as it is. That’s life.

We come in with a breath and we leave with a breath, how beautiful is that? So I wish for you that you can gain your perspective on your life that lets you experience it in all its facets, without having to become trapped in it. No matter what you are going through, remember that you are going through it, but you aren’t it, you are the experiencer. You get to choose what that looks like, no one else, again and again.

Cheers,

Ralf

P.S.: I am not allowed to publicly talk about the literary award nomination until November, when the list is announced.

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Change again

Funny how these come in twos sometimes…

It occurred to me that I didn’t write about the more natural way to be with change, at least as far as I understand it at this point. Like everyone else, I grew up learning that a certain constant in life was not only good, it was necessary. Children need a certain constant or at the very least rhythm in their day-to-day lives to function well. But that does not mean that they don’t handle or hate change, as a matter of fact, they live in a world of eternal change. By virtue of learning new things every single moment for the first decade and more, change is built in. The underlying structure we as parents provide serves a foundation for them to build their experience on. Ideally anyways. And then some parents go nuts, but that’s another blog post…

Point here is that when I was a kid, I learned that there was a foundation I had in my life and with my parents that was a given. It was there. Call it love, support, acceptance, structure, it was a deep sense of being safe. From that it was easy to go out and play and learn, and to be in change. This began to shift as my ego identification took over slowly but surely, and interestingly enough with that came more resistance to change. It turned into a threat to the status quo. It got hard to change. I didn’t welcome it (as much) anymore. All because I had become my story and my ego id didn’t allow for much change, unless it was in control of it.

In the midst of that shift, my grandmother always reminded me of the fact that change was actually a good thing. Sometimes when we saw each other, she would look at me with a warm smile and say, ‘You are going pregnant with something, I can see it.’ I always knew what she meant, and she was always correct. She saw that I was moving into and through a change, that it was on its way. By saying this she reassured me. She acknowledged that she could ‘see’ something, that it was coming and that it was natural most of all. That was so good to hear and feel. Then she would talk about how exciting it would be to find out what that change may be about, and when it would be ready to materialize. This created a different context and feeling around change for me. I began to notice on my own when I would get into a shifted state if you will, it’s the kind of feeling when we feel out-of-sorts, not only for a day but continuously for a period of time. I am sure that you have experienced this as well. It’s a funny feeling, you can’t quite pin it on something, but it is definitely there, the sense that something is off, something is going to happen, to shift. That is the feeling we have when we naturally move through change and let it do its thing.

We know how to be with change, it’s built in. Getting caught up in ego identification messes it up. When we get stuck in our story of perpetuation, change is an uncomfortable necessity at best and a threat to our existence at worst. It has to be. But when we step out of the story and begin to be in our lives, change becomes a companion on our walk through life. It’s always there, and depending on where we put our focus, we see it in little things all around us, or in the big shifts in our world. Maybe it’s a job change, or we move to another place, we welcome a child into our lives, we get married, divorced, someone passes, we win the lottery, no matter what it is, we are simply with the change, knowing that we are changing continuously as well. Our preferences, tastes, thoughts shift and change all the time. We are not the same person we were yesterday, even if we desperately try to hold on to the story and image we have crafted. Change is there. Not living as our story simply makes it easier to be change(d). We are change(d), all the time. We become change. We can be the change we want to see in the world. I love this saying, and I didn’t quite understand it until last week when I had lunch with a friend.

I used to think that this meant we would have to change to be the person we want everyone else to be (you know, loving, kind, benevolent, etc.) and then go out there and try to change the world to be like that. Quite the tall order. And actually quite arrogant. Missed it entirely. During my conversation with the friend over lunch he talked about this while quoting a spiritual person who had been asked by someone how to change the world, and had answered, ‘go home.’ My friend shared how the presenter ended up explaining what he meant by that and it lead directly to the challenge with the above saying about change. When we live our life outside of our story and end up being in momentness, more here, our whole person and being changes (continuously). Thus our world changes all the time, the very world we live in changes. Because we all may like to believe that we live on the same planet, but we do not, and we most certainly all live in our own world. So when I change, my world changes. And by virtue of this, the worlds of those I come in contact with change. However little, they change. Bingo. So elegant, effective and simple.

So here’s to having some fun with change. Challenge yourself to see it in you, and all around you. Notice when something is shifting in you and pay attention. Get enough rest, eat well, and exercise. You may just be going pregnant with something.

Cheers,

Ralf