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Change

What’s the deal with change being so hard, especially when we don’t want it? And even if we want a change, it still takes some adjustment that can be uncomfortable. Why is that?

Change is the enemy of permanence, the very thing that the ego uses to make itself seem real. Thing is, nothing is permanent. Absolutely nothing. Literally. Let’s think about this for a moment. We like to believe in permanence in our lives to varying degrees, certain habits and rituals that we do repeatedly, people that we love and have in our lives, etc. Even though we somehow know that none of this is permanent, the repetitive nature of our thinking let’s us believe that they are. It gives meaning and certainty to our lives. We may rationally know that things never remain the same, that they change all the time, but on the level of experience it doesn’t really register. We like things in our lives to be just so to one extent or another. Some people can get very adamant about things staying the same. When I do what I can to keep change out of my life, I am missing a very vital point: That change is the nature of life. There is nothing we can or have to do about it, except to see it or not.

This is what makes all the difference. If I don’t see change, I am resisting what is. Resistance is the flip side of change. They go together. Resistance as I mean it is not a conscious resistance against something, it is a subtle, ongoing and very powerful trick of the mind to keep us in a state of predictability and permanence. This resistance is made up of the constant talk in our minds about the situation at hand, how it’s good, bad, right or wrong, uncomfortable or wonderful, sad or happy, and on and on in opposites it goes. It’s the labeling that goes on internally all the time. It tells us what to think about what’s in front of us, and by doing so we give ourselves only the experience our mind allows us to have. Let’s say we’re going to our favorite restaurant to have our most favorite dish in the world, and it has all this expectation and joyful anticipation attached to it. We look forward to it all week or at least all day and can’t wait to have the experience. And then we get there and the restaurant has gone out of business. Shock, dismay, disappointment, maybe even rage. We cannot believe it. The night is ruined. I will never have the dish again. Life has been changed and altered in a way that I did not expect or want. We are resisting what is at that moment. We do not want the reality before us to be real, we do not like it and refuse to accept it, at least for a while. That is the resistance I am talking about. It keeps us from accepting what is. Sometimes only for a few seconds or minutes, sometimes for months or years. This happens when we hold on to resistance for a long time, like a grudge against someone, or some other misfortune that has happened to us. We resist the way things are, and instead hold on to our mind’s picture of how it should be. And then we may walk into another restaurant that night, just because we need to eat something, and end up meeting the love of our life, who knew? We all have had experiences like this where a dramatic or even unfortunate event lead to something that far outweighed the drama and instead presented us with a wonderful new gift. All resistance does is prolong the drama in our minds, which is a result of the tension we feel between what we would like the world to be versus what it actually is.

What is important to understand is that the level of subtle resistance in our daily lives is in direct proportion to the uneasiness we may feel during any given day. The more we resist to what is in numerous small ways during a day, the harder of a time we have. Why is traffic so bad, why is my spouse or partner such an ass, why are the kids so difficult, why is my toast burnt, why are people rude, why is it raining, etc.? The second we ask questions like this in our minds, we are resisting what is, if in the smallest ways. The answer to every single question we could ever ask about the circumstances in our lives is always the same: Because it is so and we choose it to be so. I know that’s another toughie, and I still have trouble with this too at times. Still how it is, whether I like it or not. When we do not accept life as it is in every moment, change becomes a pain. Accepting what is without resistance leads to a natural relationship with change.

That’s when change becomes a part of life. We live with the awareness that everything is in constant flux and motion. Ask any physicist about this. Change is the only constant in the world. Nothing is at a standstill, ever. Think about all the molecules and atoms in your own body right at this moment as you’re reading this, that are coming and going. Things dissolve and are created every single moment. Never ending. If you think that you have the same body that you had yesterday, think again. If you think that the home you walk into every night is the same, think again. If the people in your life are the same, think again. Because it is the thinking about these things that keep them seemingly the same, not the ‘things’ themselves. All of the above is different every moment. Never the same. Ever. I know that I am repeating this, because it so important to consider and eventually see. To make it part of our lives. The body, the home, the people in our lives, anything and everything are never the same, except for the thoughts we allow ourselves to have about them. It is thus our thinking that makes change a challenge and hard, not change itself. Change simply is. All the time, all around.

So when you find yourself in resistance the next time, e.g. pissed off, upset or disappointed with the situation at hand, see the resistance you are putting up to what is and allow yourself to consider the possibility that this may simply be your mind messing up your day. And then look at it, laugh at it, and move on. Who knows what may be next, and what change life has in store for you?

Cheers,

Ralf

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Momentness

I am not sure whether this word exists or not, but in any case I think it should. To me it describes the feeling of being here more accurately than the word ‘now.’

We learn to live in a world of ‘thenness’ very early on in our lives. We do not start out this way though. It is not how we show up. We start out completely living in the present moment with no thought to the previous or next moment. Have you ever watched a baby crying and upset only to smile and beam, literally the next second? That is what I am talking about here. There is a complete commitment to the moment. It’s a great reminder of how we all begin in our human journey. Obviously we learn stuff along the way, we have to in order to live a functional life, no question. But instead of simply learning things and relying on the fact that we will utilize this knowledge on a need to know basis, we go ahead and turn all that we learned into us. We become the things we learn. When we do this, we immediately add weight to it. I think that this is not only figuratively speaking, but very real. As we ‘take on’ the things we learn and make them about us, we get heavier. We can see this in people, too. Have you ever met someone that seemed heavy, that felt as though they are carrying something around with them? Chances are that they are, and that they are full of thoughts about themselves and their lives. They are caught in time, and being caught in time means that we hold on to eternally repetitive thought patterns.

When we take on the things we learn in this way, this repetitive thinking about ourselves is all we have. That leads to a life almost exclusively lived in the past or the future. It has to, because all we see and experience is a thinking that is either looking at what’s ahead or what’s behind. People will argue to no end that this is not only normal, but absolutely necessary. How could you live without thinking about the future and the past? How could you exist or live a life? These questions make a lot of sense, but they are asked from the vantage point of ego identification. It’s all about the perspective. When we believe to be our past and future and thus the story they create, we may not exist outside of this construct. For if I am not the story, who or what am I? Pretty much nothing. There is nothing left. And from this perspective this is absolutely true. Without the reference points of a personal past and future I cannot exist.

But is that really true? What about people who suffer from partial amnesia, the kind where they remember language, motor function, and all the essential functions of a human being, but they cannot remember details of their past lives (their stories)? They exist, don’t they? If anything they often have a childlike quality about them, a certain lightness, precisely because they are not carrying around years of memories that create, define and limit them. Much like small babies. They very much exist. As a matter of fact, they exist with such intensity if you will that people have a hard time resisting them and their unbounded presence and joy. This is powerful stuff. It’s the stuff of momentness. We are all drawn to this, we try to bring it into our lives as much as we can. We try to create situations in our lives to make this happen. We all have hobbies, activities and things we do in order to put ourselves into momentness. It may be a vacation, it may be hanging out with friends, playing a sport, going shopping, being alone, eating, cooking, you name it. All of these attempts of ‘unplugging’ in whatever small way in every day are aimed at creating a respite from the maelstrom of our constant thinking about the past and the future. We need a break from it. But this break is only necessary as long as we choose to live in time or our thinking.

I have heard many stories of people who had faced death in one way or another and afterwards talk about a deep shift in their perspective on things. They often feel much calmer in their everyday lives, don’t worry much and have very little concern about the past or future. They have stepped outside of their time bound story and right into momentness. Only, I used to think that one had to go through an experience like this to be able to have this change. You had to have faced death to qualify. Now I know that this is not true. All it takes is a shift in perspective and a choice. A moment-to-moment choice for momentness. I admit that in the beginning this felt a bit fatalistic if not morbid. To allow myself to think that every single time I said goodbye to my wife could be the last. That waking up every morning was not a given. That talking to my family and friends was a singular event that may never be repeated. In fact this is a wonderful feeling once we drop the above ideas about this. This is what happens to people who skipped death. This is momentness. It is the awareness of the fact that everything is absolutely temporary and only given the appearance of permanence through our own repetitive thinking. Seeing this not only keeps us in existence, it also creates a life of vibrance, gratitude and joy, knowing that it can end in this form at any time. This is not depressing, it is light and affirming. The moment is all there is, so we may as well not miss it by thinking ourselves out of it incessantly.

The next time you find yourself in a funk or situation that has you caught in time, see if you can watch your thoughts that are giving you the experience you are having. This is the doorway into the moment. By becoming present to our thinking about and in time, we get to be here in the moment, and enjoy a dose of momentness. Beauty is, we never run out of them. Moments that is.

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Unknown

Somehow that word has gotten a bad rap. Most people shudder at the unknown. It’s the space in life no one likes to go to, or have to deal with. And most certainly won’t invite into their lives.

It reminds us of our childhood fears maybe, remember when we stood at the top of the basement stairs, maybe at the Grandparents’ house, and were looking into the dark abyss below? It was a scary and dark place with odd smells and weird sounds. It was the great unknown. Then there was the first summer camp or overnight stay at someone’s house, so many unknowns in that as well. When we start out on this planet as babies, we do not fear the unknown, because we are unknown. We literally know nothing. We are a blank and filled bundle of focused consciousness shoved into a human body. We don’t even know that we have a body in the very beginning. We do not know where we end and something else begins. Nothing is known to us. But that’s not an issue then, because we are a simply (a) being. In being there is nothing but the unknown. Think about this for a moment. Whenever we are completely present in a moment, we are not thinking about the future or the past, we are here and now, now here or nowhere. If you have ever looked into someone’s eyes with utter and complete love, you know that sense of momentness. Nothing matters and nothing in particular is on our minds, there is no room for anything to distract us. We know nothing, except that we are here. We are in the unknown.

Feels pretty great, doesn’t it? And then we go and limit our ability to experience this feeling, because we thrust ourselves back into ‘reality’ and start up our good ole ego identification to get back to the busyness of thinking about the future or the past. That is what we know. To plan, to prepare, to anticipate, to plot, to assume, to hope, to worry, to fear, to wonder, and on and on it goes. It is such a hard existence. We spend almost the entirety of our lives doing this, and by doing so are so desperately trying to hide from the unknown. It freaks us out and scares us to no end. The cosmic joke is on us though. While we spend all this time and energy to try and avoid the unknown, the Universe, God, Allah, the Great Nothing or whatever you choose to believe in is laughing heartily. They are laughing because we are always living in the unknown, whether we believe it or not, and there is nothing to fear. Truly.

We are all made of the same wonderful and mysterious stuff, we are all swimming in the same quantum soup, making ourselves up as we go along. And then we go and keep repeating the same thoughts and patterns endlessly to feel as though we know who we are and what we are doing. This way we may have a sense of control and know who we are. But what do we really know? If we look at it we quickly discover that all we know are our own thoughts and their repetitious patterns. It’s known, it’s reliable and most of all, very comfortable. Especially in opposite to the unknown. But we are always living in the unknown. Our habitual thoughts simply give us the illusion of knowing of what’s to come. We wake up and know what we are going to do, we go through our days with the idea that we know what’s next. And if we ever even feel a sense of the unknown ahead, we try to get as much information as possible on what may lie ahead so that we can regain a sense of knowing. The truth of the matter is of course that we never know what lies ahead. We cannot and we will never be able to. Period.

So what to do then? Take a look at it. We never know what lies ahead, we only believe that we do. And we like to believe that, because we are scared shitless otherwise. Why? Because in ego identification we have to try and know as much as possible about everything – in the past, the present and the future. The ego exists only in the concept of our lives as a time horizon event, we are born, we do some shit and we die. Within that short time frame the ego would like to do two things: Be in total control and hide from the fact that it is temporary. This way, the unknown becomes the most fearful experience. Conversely, the unknown is the space where control and permanence go out the window. It’s like the antidote to the ego id life. Once we are willing to step out of the ego, the unknown becomes a natural way of living. And it becomes the preferred way to live. Everyday I marvel at the fact that I have no clue what is going to happen, ever. I wake up and have no idea what will happen, or rather, all I have is an idea, and that can change at a moment’s notice. I plan for things I want to do, and I try to organize for what I have planned, but always knowing that in fact none of it may happen, that every moment of my life is an unknown. It is a lot of fun. Nothing is set, all can happen and you never know what that may be, but that we can know. Knowing that our lives are unknown is deeply reassuring. At first it’s like jumping into the pool on a hot summer’s day, a bit jarring and then immediately refreshing and comfortable, and then we simply float in the cool water and let it carry us. Much like the unknown. And then we realize that there is nothing to fear.

So go ahead and give it a shot. Start your day, plan and anticipate, but keep an expectant smile in the back of your mind that you really have no clue what is actually going to happen. That you are walking into the unknown. That everything could work out the way you anticipated or planned, or not at all. You never know …

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Impersonal Life

We take so much shit personally in life. Seriously, it’s out of control. We are all prone to doing this, just think about it.

We will actually sit in traffic and wonder why it is happening to us. We will get to the check out at the store, all the lines are busy, and we will think that this always happens to us, especially when we’re in a hurry. Bad weather ruins our grill party, flight delayed, car accident, cut off in traffic, dropping a plate full of food, someone else late for a meeting, someone does not return our call/email, guess what, it’s personal, it’s against me, and it sucks. Talk about full ego identification. May as well call it the ‘life is about me’ syndrome. Funny how that sneaks up on us and sets up shop in our consciousness. Once that has happened, life is a very personal affair. Everything is in some way about me, me, me. I know, I say that a lot, but that’s just how it is. In the ego id life, that’s how things come out, that’s what it’s all about. In all these different ways.

One of those ways is to take shit personally. As listed above, most of it doesn’t hold up as a personal issue for very long when looked at with a bit of perspective, meaning whenever we are not in the middle of it. Then it is blatantly clear that traffic is just traffic, lines are lines, etc. But when we are in the middle of it, it sure looks personal. I have taken it personally when a flight on one of my business trips was delayed because of a tornado outbreak in the Midwest. I actually sat at the airport, exhausted and wanting to get home, and felt sorry for my ‘personal bad luck’ that these tornadoes had to hit when and where they did, so that this would happen to me. Not a thought about all those poor people in the middle of that. As I am writing it, it sounds horrible, but at the time it made sense. Notice something? When we take shit personally, it’s seriously about me. We become self-absorbed monsters who couldn’t care less about anyone else. It may only last a few seconds or minutes, or even a lifetime, but while we are in this state, we are not very caring and loving people. Because this shit is about me, damn it, and who looks out for me but me?

I used to think that the alternative to this is to try and think of others before me. To focus on other people’s needs and make my own second. This way, I figured, I would be a good person who will do good things for people. After that I could focus on my own stuff. It was as if thinking of others would make me more selfless and force me to not think of me first, and also not take things personally. After all, if I am at the airport with my flight delayed, I would divert my personal frustration immediately to think about the poor people who may have gotten hurt or lost their homes. My flight delay loses its drama. There is nothing I can do for those people at the moment, but thinking about them and commiserating may help in some way at least. Only, it’s still about me.

I know that this is the moment where I lose some people, because it seems so awful to say that thinking about others is about me. But it is. The only thing that happens here is that we shift the focus of our very personal thinking away from ‘me’ and onto others, but in doing so, my ego id remains fully intact, because now I get to feel good about ‘me’ since I am a good person who cares about others. Others now will see me this way. I can see me this way. I care about others and put them first. That’s the kind of person I am. A good person. And others should know this and recognize this. I give of myself to serve others, others are more important than me. Do you see what’s happening here? It’s still about me. Granted, I may actually help someone else, but it’s not freely shared, it’s given from me to someone else. Strings attached, and if only to be thanked or seen as a good person.

There is a whole other way. It’s the way that is a natural byproduct of living with as opposed to as my ego, or outside of ego identification. Life gets increasingly impersonal. Quite literally, shit simply happens, and we actually choose it to be shit or not. The choice thing again. When we live life more in the here and now, we see choices before us all the time, in all kinds of ways. And if I choose my life experience moment to moment, then why choose to take what happens personally? It actually isn’t, it’s just life happening and unfolding in front of our eyes. It is what it is. Then we choose to turn it into a personal matter, or not. The former leads to all of the above, the latter gives us the impersonal life. We are participating actively in our lives, but we aren’t it. We feel what we feel, but we aren’t the feeling. We experience what we experience, but we aren’t the experience. We are the creator and observer of all this. Life becomes very intoxicating and interesting when lived that way. We still get to do it all, without having to be it all. We can share whatever we choose to share with others freely, and expect nothing in return. We help because we feel compassion, not commiseration. Our lives have a different quality when they are impersonal to us. There is more space and freedom, and more of a sense of sharing in it all, with everyone else. Totally different motivation for one’s own existence. Life is a more expansive affair that we share in, as all others do, and we get to choose our participation in it. Moment to moment, again and again.

Our lives are just a story, and we are the creator of this story. When we think we are the story, shit is personal. When we are not the story, there is no shit and it’s impersonal.

Next time you take something personally, pretend to zoom up above your head and survey the situation you’re in, or look at it as if you were weeks in the future looking back, anything that will help you create some space between you and the drama at hand. Then see what happens. You may just find yourself in a space of compassion for that poor schmuck taking it all so seriously and personally and have a lighter sense about it all.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Beyond busyness

There is busyness and then there is busyness. The first is the level of thought activity that has become accepted as normal in our culture, the second steps it up a notch and looks a bit much even to ‘normal’ people.

I have a few people like this in my life, do you as well? They are so busy that I can be around them only for short periods of time. It is that intense. They can barely sit still and have a hard time focusing on anything, or on the person in front of them. Not only are they incredibly busy in their thinking, they also have to pay attention to every single thought. It is as though they live in a constant state of heightened alertness and can never shut it down. Every thought is interesting, every idea has to be considered, every notion looked at. It never stops. I look at them and wonder how it is possible for someone to do this, and to be unable to stop it. One thing that has occurred to me is that they are addicted. Completely and utterly addicted to their thinking. This is a very hard way to live. Much like a physical addiction, we crave the object of our addiction all the time and in increasing doses and levels. Only that in this case there is no object to the addiction. It is untouchable, immaterial, comes and goes and yet makes us possible: Thought.

In and of itself thought is a wonderful tool that gives us the ability to function and create. Without thought, we would not exist. It’s a wonderful ‘thing.’ For someone who lives beyond busyness however, thought runs amok and takes up the entirety of their existence in a way that makes it impossible to be present. For people who are addicted to their thinking in this way, the present is hidden. They cannot see it or experience it, because they are in their thinking all the time, or rather are their thinking. And thoughts are always time bound, about the past, present or the future. They have lost the ability to be the thinker and have fully become the thought. This really limits their abilities and possibilities. All they are is whichever thought they have, and since there is one thought after the other in constant succession, they cannot see that they have a choice about the thoughts they have, because they aren’t having them, they are them. When I am something, I will do whatever necessary to defend it, for by defending it, I am defending me. I am my thoughts, so I will defend them and go to great lengths to do so. To the point of harming my own body. People like that will develop physical symptoms sooner or later, or they will end up in physically dangerous situations due to their lack of presence. And unless they are interested and willing, they will never change this.

It would not be so hard. As always it has to start with a choice. To entertain the possibility that we are not our thoughts, but the thinkers. That they don’t show up on their own, but have to be thought by us. We do the thinking. Not someone else. They are not put in our minds by anyone but us. A thought addicted person considering this is akin to an alcoholic admitting that he has a problem, it’s the first step. This will open the door to more choice. When we are completely our thoughts (or completely ego identified), there isn’t much choice. Thoughts simply come all the time, unstoppable. The moment we consider that we are the thinker, choice reenters the picture. Just that bit of awareness will change our perspective. We see that thought is happening, rather than being it. This opens the door to stop. To simply choose not to have a particular thought. To see it, acknowledge it and send it on its merry way. Once we start this and stick with it, our perspective on our thoughts gets clearer and eventually our minds quiet down and less thoughts show up.

Then we enter into a world where we are the thinker. We realize that we have thoughts and thus get to choose them. We are no longer victim to them and develop a natural kind of quality control which makes sure that our thinking is serving us rather than the other way around. Thought becomes our vehicle to create our experience at every moment, whatever we choose that to be. Thoughts that feel too busy or intense are of no interest to us anymore and thus they move on quickly and show up less and less. Our lives go through a tremendous shift. To the fully addicted this sounds at best practically impossible and at worst like a nightmare. The nightmare being that we end up having no thoughts to speak of and turning into empty, thoughtless vessels. Far from the truth. We are able to have the thoughts that fit the moment, no more and no less. It is far more efficient than any busy mind could ever be.

If you find yourself to be beyond busyness, and managed to read this post to the end, I invite you to consider the possibility that your thoughts are simply that, and that you are the thinker. Play with that idea and see what happens. You may just end up choosing something else entirely. Or not …

Cheers,

Ralf

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Rationalization

If opinions are the currency of the ego exchange, then rationalization is the Federal Reserve for this currency. And it will print endless amounts of currency…

Living in ego identification requires a lot of rationalization to justify all the crazy bs our ego comes up with and make it seem at least reasonable and at most absolutely necessary. As a matter of fact, justification is the flip side of this coin. Those two live in beautiful harmony and co-dependence with each other. When we are totally into our ego identification and thus fully committed to being the story it makes up about us, we have to follow through on the story in order for it to work and continue. This is where rationalization comes in. It is a tool for the ego to make us believe and do what is necessary to perpetuate the story, and for it to make sense. Have you ever done something that later on made you wonder whether you had lost your mind? I certainly have, and this is only possible because our ego id story has this built in bs justifier, called rationalization.

The ego will make anything look rational and reasonable to us if it serves its perpetuation. Literally anything. When taken to the extreme this can lead to what we may call mental illness, or horrible trespasses against others (or us). There are mentally ill people that will very reasonably and rationally explain to you, why garbage trucks actually eat people and this is why they have to stay away from them. There are people that can very rationally explain to you why they have to take drugs. This list is as endless as humanity may have thoughts on this planet. There are also a lot of normal people that will rationally explain to you why they knowingly make a product that will harm others. There were (are) people that will very rationally explain to you why they are standing on a train platform at a concentration camp and send people to ‘work’ or into the ovens. Do you see how intricate and perfected this ego tool is? Rationalization will have us say and do things we would never do if we had some perspective. But when we are completely immersed in our ego story and its perpetuation, the perspective we have is limited to the rational and justified options of my ego story. In other words, the perspective is limited to me, me, me.

Rationalization starts out really harmless and takes us wherever we need to go in our story in baby steps. The drug addict didn’t start wanting to kill themselves with drugs, they had to get there one step at a time. It takes time and a lot of rational ego id thinking to get us there. The doctor on the train platform did not start out ready to send people to their certain death, it took time and step-by-step rationalization to get to that point. The ego identification route is one of constant whispers in our mental ear, constant little compromises to get us to take that next step into the story, so that it may continue and make sense. Rationalization provides the ego with the mental ammunition we need to close that access point to our Self, the observer, the common sense, whatever we may call it, that would give us a broader perspective. To open that access point, we have to be willing to stop.

Stop the train of thought even for a moment. To create a space in that deluge of our ego thinking that immediately opens up a gap. Have you ever found yourself going crazy over something and out of the blue you saw yourself going crazy and literally stopped, because you saw the craziness? That is what I am talking about. None of what I write in this blog is rocket science or some big secret that requires years of earnest study, it is ultimately simply a choice. At any and all times, a choice. Whenever we choose to stop and see where we are coming from at any moment, our perspective shifts. We see more. We realize that we can choose to walk away from the story. When we step out of the story, we find ourselves in a land of opportunity, a state where we do not have to rationalize anything in order to do it. We simply feel what makes sense to us at any moment, and our actions are no longer about perpetuating some story, but are about expressing our choice, knowing full well that no one else has to agree or made to agree with it. The motivation is no longer me, me, me, the motivation is being in a space of boundless expression. In that space we are not interested in perpetuating anything about us, we are interested in what is. To be with it, to experience the life situation we find ourselves in, whatever it may be, and move through it. Movement is more interesting than anything else. Life takes on a flow that is pretty amazing actually. When something ‘bad’ happens, we experience it and move through it, when something ‘good’ happens, we do the same. There is nothing to hold on to. That sounds pretty irrational and crazy, right? Well, it does to anyone living in their ego identification anyway…

As always, I invite you to play with this. The next time you see something crazy in yourself or someone else playing out, choose whether you are going to step in and do something to stop it or not. If you don’t, the craziness will only build, if you do, something will shift instantly and your perspective right with it. Promise.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Insecurity

Such a broad term, such a small word with such implications … I think of it as the emotional package deal that comes with ego identification. Actually reminds me of a scene in a movie I really enjoyed years ago, Galaxy Quest, where the main character, Tim Allen as an accidental space ship captain, flies his ship into the oncoming evil nemesis’ ship. The evil captain tells him that he will die since he has no chance against his ship, to which Tim Allen responds that Captain Evil should see what he can do about the dozens of space mines he’s dragging behind him. He makes a sharp turn, and all the mines hit the evil ship right in the gut. That to me is how insecurity comes in tow of that shiny and great looking ego ship. You don’t know it until it hits you. And that’s that.

We just have to deal with this pesky emotion when we live the ego identified life. No way around it. Wherever the ego ship goes, it has some good insecurity mines in tow. They not only pack a punch, they also hit you unexpectedly at times and can blow you to pieces if they hit you just right. And who has better aim than our own ego? No one.

Insecurity can show up in almost limitless ways. It can creep up on us slowly or suddenly hit seemingly out of the blue, it can be like an old, pussy wound, it can be highly charged or underlying and festering like a slow growing virus. It can also come along hiding behind a great looking outfit, and show off how great, wonderful, the best and most lovable we are, only to hide under that shiny story, like the man behind the curtain. I may think that I am on top of the world and a gift to myself and the world, but of course underneath this lurks the insecurity of losing all of it. I may have achieved some goal I created, and the ego will let me have my moment of satisfaction, but only until it makes a sharp turn and gives me a taste of the insecurity bombs in tow. ‘Great that I have made it, but will it last? This was great, but what’s next? Is someone else already beating me? Am I going to ever do this again?’ are just some of the punches that hit me.

Then there is the obvious insecurity ordinance which tells us that we may as well not even try, aren’t liked, a loser, not appreciated, hate ourselves and possibly the world, or are constantly reminded of our own shortcomings by looking at all the people around us who are more successful, prettier and simply better at everything than us. So we either have to try and better them, destroy them or simply avoid them. Insecurity really sucks. In whatever form it shows up, it feels very unsettling on the one end and like crap on the other. It’s a first rate ego created emotion. That is also its telltale sign, because like any feeling that our ego produces, an emotion always has two qualities: It has some level of drama to it, and it’s always attached to something. Be it a circumstance, a person, a goal or condition of any kind, it is attached to something. Like those mines behind the space ship, ultimately all emotion is attached to me, me, me.

But there is another way. Once we catch on to our own ego identification and disengage from it, we see the ego ship coming and know full well what it has in tow. We can then get out of the way and not even get involved with the shiny ego ship. At first this takes some maneuvering on our part, and the ego ship keeps coming at us, but we get better and better at evading it all.

In other words, getting uninterested in our ego identification also packs a punch. Outside of ego id, insecurity has nothing to hit. We get to simply be ourselves without the limitations of insecurity. This does not mean that we think we’re perfect, it means that we are who we are at any moment, doing the best we can do; and we are in total acceptance of ourselves at any moment. In that kind of space we are more creative, aware, responsive and free of doubt. Oh, and we also have no fear in that state. None. Seriously. As a matter of fact, that is the defining feature of this feeling: It is not attached to anything in particular. Ever. It is simply a state of being. And thus no fear, there is no room for it. Out of that feeling we do whatever we are inspired to do, sans any insecurity. Freedom baby!

The next time you find yourself in the middle of an emotional insecurity explosion, remember that you can stop the ship, beam off it and get back on the other ride, the one that takes you wherever you want to go, no mines in tow or anywhere near.

Cheers,

Ralf

 

 

 

 

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Choice

Choice is a beautiful thing. It’s also a real toughie, because if you believe that it exists, your life is your choice, and if you believe that you don’t have a choice, then someone else is choosing for you. In either case, not easy.

I choose to believe that we have choice. About everything, every moment of our lives. No exceptions. As a matter of fact, this really showed up for me in the book towards the end during an exchange between the bird and the protagonist, where they discuss that everything is made up:

“”…I can make up anything I want about anything then.”

“Absolutely.”

“So I am made up as well?”

“Continuously. As long as you choose to.””

It’s such a short little line with incredible implications. This basically says that we choose to make up ourselves, or in other words, we choose to exist. Now, I have heard something of this nature before, but never in that context. Think about this, we choose to exist. As long as we choose to exist, we continue to have this human experience. When we choose not to, it’s done. What happens after, well, who knows. The point is that by and through our choice, we exist every moment of our lives. If and when I choose to end my life, it ends in its current form. Now, this is where an interesting conundrum arises, because this concept makes sense when we actively choose to end our life: we can jump off a building, drown ourselves, take pills, shoot ourselves, set ourselves on fire, drive off a cliff, jump into a volcano, in short there are a lot of ways that we could do this. It makes sense that this is our choice. But what happens to that choice when we die of natural causes or through a tragic accident or event? Is that still our choice or is this the point where we say that someone or something else is choosing that for us? We like to believe that, because who would ever choose an untimely or horrible death, right? But this is where we have to make a very fundamental decision about our take on choice. If I believe that I can choose my existence to end, than this is how it is, no matter how that choice shows up or plays itself out.

I either choose me or not. If I do, than this happens all the time, under all circumstances, always, and in all ways. The kinds and number of choices available to us depend on two things – whether we believe we have a choice and our awareness of it. In the past few years this has become increasingly visible to me. I have been experiencing my own life as a result of my choices more and more. It begins with the mood I find myself in, moves through the circumstance I am part of at any moment, and ends with my place in the universe. It’s my choice. I choose every thought I have at any moment in my life, and when I am aware of this, I choose and thus create a kind of thinking that is clearer rather than confusing, that produces calm rather than agitation, and puts me in charge of the experience I am having. This is very empowering and also freeing. The choice is mine. All the time. To believe this changes our lives.

How far does this choice thing go then? As far as I can tell, all the way, and I am not sure what this means exactly, but I can feel it. This goes as far as believing that even if I was murdered today, that this was my choice. That I chose to find myself in that circumstance, to act the way I did, and to end up getting killed. I truly believe this at this point, and with this I also believe that we choose our lives at different levels of awareness, some of which are not visible to us in our current state of humanness, but are nonetheless ‘there’ and real. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and that we may only be aware of different aspects of this at any time. Including the choices we make at different levels about this human life we are having. By choosing to believe this, the horrors we create, the trespasses we commit against each other, look different. When we dare to believe that we are the creators of our experience at different levels, obvious and hidden, at all times, then the possibility comes into view that we also choose all the horrible things mentioned. We choose this outside of our human view, but we still choose this, and we choose from a place where the duality of good and evil, pleasure and pain, right and wrong, have no meaning. Because limitless, all inclusive beingness is all there is ‘there.’

Told you this was a toughie. It still is for me, and I could be completely wrong, of course. All I know is that choosing to believe in choice this way has made my life more spacious, peaceful and fun. I choose my life at any moment, and am grateful for that. How about you? As always, I invite you to play with this in your life. Will you or won’t you? What’s your choice?

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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Control

Control is everywhere in the ego identified world. It really likes to hang out with need. It’s like this: Control and Need walk into a bar. They go up to to the bartender and Need says: “I need a drink now!” Control says: “Yes, but make that three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”

Control is as important as need in ego identification, and one of them tends to be behind the actions we undertake out of that state. They are the foundations of ego identification. Because in an ego id world, control is an essential tool in making the ego more real. If I can control something or someone, then I exist. Only someone that is real and has some measure of control over the world, exists. This is the basis from which the ego operates. So it finds things to control. Our own thinking is where it begins, if I cannot be in control of my own thinking after all, where else is there to go? Once that is established, we go forth and establish all kinds of domains under our control, no matter how limited that may be. It’s not about the ‘amount’ of control that the ego seeks, it’s about control. That is why having control over the oddest or sometimes seemingly most insignificant things can be so important to people. And then we go ahead and laugh at those people, because they get so bent out of shape over nothing, they should see our lives, and the really important things we are in control of… Ego identification abounds.

The tough part with this control addiction of the ego is that in good times, when things are ‘under control,’ we get to feel good somewhat, while always having to make sure that things stay that way of course. We have to check on people, make sure tasks are done correctly, always demonstrating to ourselves that everything is just so. Have you ever caught yourself on a morning, and things were off somehow? Your mood was bad, your spouse was difficult, your kids were a nightmare, your car was old, your job sucked, etc.? Almost inevitably at some point during a mental shitstorm like that, the thought that we really don’t have control over our own life shows up. We then either keep going with it, and end up feeling worse and worse, until that moment when we have to throw up our hands and say ‘I don’t have control over anything in my life!’ or we commit an act of control. Make a decision that affects us and (even better) someone else as well. We make the kids do what we want them to, we tell our spouse or coworker that we need them to do something for us, and they do it, and bingo, we feel more in control again. Taken to the utmost extreme, our minds go completely out-of-control, we succumb to every thought we have, and we end up in varying degrees of mental illness. The ego after all says (to quote the bird from Flying Leap): “…that control is the measure of a certain life, and that knowing what is real is the test of your existence.”

Thus is the story that comes with control, it’s one or the other, I am in control or out-of-control or somewhere in between. It’s a game of duality, and a game that only works in duality. Outside of duality, it has no existence or meaning. Outside of ego identification, that is. That is the other possibility.

What if control was of no issue? What is we simply showed up in our lives and control was literally of no interest to us? This is not about being for or against it, it’s about living a life beyond control, where it does not matter in our experience of life. What does matter to us, is that we have choice. We choose (our) life, moment-to-moment. No one does this for us, and thus no one or no thing controls what we experience. We create our experience. If you can entertain this as a possibility, your life will change dramatically, and control will go right with it. If we live in a world where we alone create our experience, and we know this about others as well, control makes no sense. I create, you create, whatever we wish. This does not mean that we cannot have clarity around what works and doesn’t work for us, quite to the contrary, we are more clear on these matters. But we do not express this by means of controlling the other, but simply by expressing our view. It’s not about control, it’s about choice. It’s about all of us choosing our life circumstances. They are not imposed on us, which would mean someone or something is in control of it.

Most of our human systems on the planet are built around control, beginning with our own personal ego identified worlds, extending out to groups, nations, and any and all belief systems that tell us how to be. But it only works as long as we believe that we need to be in control to be real, once we choose not to believe this, the world is a different place. Starting with our own.

As always, check this out for yourself. The next time you think that something in your life is out-of-control, and you notice this, stop for a moment, and see how it feels. Then notice how your mind is trying to find a controllable action, something to get you back in control, and how you need this to feel better. Then don’t. Choose to not engage in this, choose to say that you have a choice, and see what happens. You may just find yourself creating something entirely different.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Crazytown

Have you heard of this place before? We probably have all gone there at some point. It’s that place where all the craziness makes sense to the people who are there, and they will support each other by confirming and justifying their different crazy stories. It’s a happening place.

Have you ever gone, or had a friend or relative that went to Crazytown? You could tell when they were on their way there, you could see that this was the direction they were going, you may have even pointed it out to them on the mental road map, but they just kept going. Depending on what they were going there for, it can be frustrating and scary to watch them disappear into town. We have all been there, and made it back out, sometimes we stayed for a while, sometimes we only had a short visit, sometimes we only drove by the outskirts, sometimes we drove past it, and sometimes it doesn’t even show up on our maps…

In order to have Crazytown on our maps, we must have ego identification going on, and the story that comes with it. Our story. The story we believe to be, because ego and the story are one and the same. The nature of the ego and its story is, of course, perpetuation. It’s compounding, and that part is the road to Crazytown. Let me explain.

Let’s say that we have hit a rough patch in our story, lost our job, went through a breakup, or feel totally and utterly unappreciated by everyone in our life, or anything else that may put us in a state, if you will. Not a nice place to be. At that moment we have a choice to make: Am I going to believe this story and go with it, or am I going to become aware of of my ego id and the story, and choose to disengage from it? One puts us in the state where Crazytown is, the other takes us in the opposite direction.

If I go with the former, things are going to get worse, it’s part of the deal. I will justify my ill feelings, confirm them with others, and do whatever it takes to make it real. Now, once I am so full into my story, I will do what I can to feel better, no matter what that is, or what it looks like. I will try to change the circumstances that have caused my drama, I will assign blame to the person(s) that are at fault (sometimes that can be us, also called the ‘poor/bad me’ story line), and I will not stop until the pressure of my bad feelings releases. This can take a few minutes, days, weeks, months or years. Time is of no consequence here, it is all about the level of identification I have with that story that my ego sells me as ‘me.’ You have arrived in Crazytown. We hope you enjoy your stay.

The latter decision above changes the dynamic drastically. I realize that the car is my story and that I am the driver. This ‘I’ is the one who also built the factory that makes the car, is the designer, the worker that puts it together, the one who builds the roads the car drives on, and on and on. The second we remember this fact, we are back in the driver’s seat and regain full control. That’s usually the moment when we want to pull over and catch our breath. It’s the pause that allows us to see what is. As in we see that we are not the story, and bam!, we are thrust back into the moment. And with that moment comes instant perspective. The perspective that gives us an opportunity to take another look at the situation we find ourselves in, and thus an opportunity to choose a different route. Away from Crazytown.

The beauty is that it does not matter how long we have been hanging out in Crazytown, how much we have liked or hated it, when the moment of pause happens and we choose to stop driving around, we can head out of town immediately. We can also work our way out of town slowly but surely, we can do whatever we choose at any moment. It is all about waking up to the fact that we are headed to or in Crazytown, and then making a choice about that. Sometimes someone else says something that triggers our awareness, sometimes it’s a hug, a firm but loving reminder, and sometimes we just have enough of it, it does not matter what triggers our moment of waking up to our own drama – what matters is that this can happen at any moment and we get to see it or not. Our choice.

So the next time you find yourself heading towards Crazytown, make sure you’re prepared for the trip. Bring lots of guilt cookies, indignant huffs and puffs, lots of blaming supplies and self-pity. Or pull over, stop the car, get out and take a deep breath. Take in the beautiful surroundings, called life, and have a picnic. As Crazytown will surely fade away at the horizon, plot a new course and see where it takes you.

Cheers,

Ralf