Category Archives: Choice

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Coming and Going

The past seven days have been quite eventful around here. My favorite aunt passed away and one of my best friends welcomed a beautiful baby daughter into the world. Wow. Funny enough, this made me reflect on all the coming and going that is going on all around us, all the time.

My aunt, who became my aunt through my marriage to my amazing bride, was one of my favorite people. She had already suffered from MS for decades when I met her, and she was reduced to control of her left arm and hand, and that in limited fashion. But that was the only limitation that existed in this remarkable woman, for she was working on transcending the limitations of the human body. That is how I experienced her. When she ended up bed ridden for months because of some medical complications, I ended up going to her house weekly to read books to her and have the most amazing conversations about her life, our shared philosophy on things and what it may or may not be all about. This was an incredible time for me, and I hope for her as well. The first time one of the staff nurses came to check on her when I was there, she introduced me as her nephew, as if I had always been. It touched me so much, how she so naturally just thought of me that way and allowed me into her life. It reminded me that at the end of the day we are all human, all on the same planet, all mortal and doing this thing called life. And she chose happiness over self-pity or depression any day. Given her circumstances, this was a wonderful thing for her to choose, and it was not always easy of course.

Many times we would talk about how life was an inside-out affair and that she often would visit places in her mind and go on trips to places of and not of this earth, contemplating life and what may be beyond. She would tell me that doing this was giving her a sense of peace and acceptance of her condition, and a sense and experience of freedom at the same time. She told me so many stories of her childhood and pre-MS life, but they were never filled with regret or bitterness because that was lost. And she always talked about what MS had given her, and she would always say one thing: ‘MS showed me the deep and true love that my husband has (had) for me.’ I will leave it at that.

Within a week of her passing, one of my best friends welcomed a baby girl into his life. This is a man of great heart and compassion, who has loved our little girl since her birth in the sweetest way, and I knew then that he had no idea what would happen to him and his capacity to feel love once he had his own child. When I talked to him yesterday morning, he was in tears of joy in the face of such overwhelming love, we both ended up crying. One second your child is but an idea or concept, and the very next second, it is here, on earth, and we are in its presence. There is a purity of presence in a newborn that transcends all language and concepts and can only be felt. It is the most amazing, wonderful and awe inspiring feeling a human being can feel, I believe. It changes you instantly and completely, and for the rest of your life. And you never want to be without it again. I know that my friend is feeling this right now as well. At first our mind cannot process it, because it is outside of our experience, outside of thought. Outside of the ego identification, that is what makes it so powerful.

Only a parent can fully relate to this particular experience of love of course, but any and all human beings have the built in capacity for this. There never has been or ever will be a human being that is not born in the same state of utter perfection and purity of feeling. We all start out this way, and thus we all know what this state is like, whether we are conscious of it or not. That is reassuring to me. The world is in such a mess, and sometimes these days I feel like an alien visiting earth and observing the level of insanity that people engage in is beyond me, but at the same time I know I am part of it, I am here and I chose and choose to be here. So I vow to do my best to be.

We all come, and we all go. My aunt went to where my friend’s little girl just arrived from. And short of a belief that we all may have about what that ‘somewhere’ may look like or be, we can agree that we come out of someness and return to it at some point. Lest we forget that we are eternally temporary. All of us. Every thing. We tend to remember this during times of coming and going, also known as birth and death, but then we move right back into our daily routine of habitual patterns that are but a mere echo of those feelings of awe and humility in light of the impermanence that is present in those moments. Our lives and planet would be greatly altered if we all decided to live in awareness of this rather than turning from it as we usually do. It’s a gift to be in the presence of those that are coming and those that are going.

So I invite you to spend the rest of just today to look at yourself and all around you like an alien visitor to the planet. Look at your own body as the vehicle you get to use during your visit here, and dare to think about the fact that your departure is always imminent. You may be asked to board your flight back home at any moment. Use the time you have, use it to love, to laugh and enjoy your stay here, for it could be over at any moment.

Goodbye Aunt Ruth, and welcome Maya.

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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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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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 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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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