Category Archives: Choice

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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

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Waking up

In order to get out of ego identification, we have to wake up first. The kind of waking up that happens is very unique to this circumstance.

To initially wake up to my ego identification required a jolt of some kind, at some point. What it reminds me of is the feeling you can have when you take a nap and end up falling so deeply asleep that it is a serious struggle to get yourself to wake up again. You are aware of the fact that you are sleeping, and at the same time have to pull yourself out of sleep. If that has ever happened to you, you know what I am talking about. That’s almost the way it felt when I first really woke up. I had a jolt, which caused me to see my ego, and my full blown identification with it, all at once. Then I realized that I really wanted to wake up from this, but that ended up being incredibly hard at first. It took some baby steps. It reminds me now of learning a martial art, at first you learn very basic moves to teach balance, movement and flow. You repeat this to no end. And it seems as though you are not making progress or learning anything. Then you graduate to more complicated moves until you become a master at it. At this point you realize that the most basic moves are still there in everything you do, they actually make your mastery possible.

When I woke up to my ego identification, I had to start with the basic moves. I had to trust my awareness of the ego in me. I had to quite literally tell my ego thinking ‘I see you,’ and that I was no longer interested in it. Sometimes I did this out loud. Then I had to choose to stay away from all the sticky ego thinking, but without choosing anything else. This created space for something new. This whole process felt very tedious to begin with, it felt as though ego was everywhere and there was no way to get away from it, and it didn’t feel as though I was making much progress. Then something in the balance of what was on my mind shifted. It was the tipping point. The ego sourced identification began to recede, it had less power and when it showed up, I found it truly uninteresting. I didn’t have to do anything with it. From that point forward, everything changed.

Once on that track, the awakening simply continues. The awareness of having an ego rather than being one sinks in, it becomes the new experience of myself. This does not mean that I don’t occasionally fall asleep or take a nap and fall into some ego identification – to say that does not happen is a big fat lie. The most important thing here is that I notice it usually very quickly, and when I do, I automatically use my basic waking up moves I learned way back, to come to. Much like the martial artist, the foundational moves have become part of me and I can use them in my sleep.

I guess what I wanted to share is that the awakening does have an initial jolt to get us to wake up, but after that it’s a lot of practice at first, which eventually leads to a different state of awareness that enables us to stay awake more, and wake up more quickly if we happen to nap out. In all of this, the biggest change for me has been in the quality of my life and relationships, and realizing that being is always here, no matter what I do or believe. I feel as though my life is not about anything in particular anymore, and it doesn’t have to be, it is enough to just be here and do whatever occurs to me out of that feeling. No fear, no expectation, just choice and its expression.

The next time you see yourself operating from your ego, and you don’t like how it feels, consider that this means you are waking up at least a bit at that moment, and then see if you can drag yourself out of your slumber and to the surface. You may just realize that you have been trapped in a nightmare and are about to step into a world of your creation.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Need

Need sucks. Literally. And we are the suckers.

Need is the ego’s super food. It is also its most essential food, and has the nutritional value of a sucker. But since suckers can be so sweet and tasty, it is hard to resist them. Living in ego identification requires a lot of energy, both psychologically and physically. The more we think, the more our brain is working, and the brain uses a lot of energy. Add to that the psychological energy of thinking and we end up with a very exhausting combination. And it never ends, it is incessant. It knows no bounds, it never stops. Need is like a psychological virus. And I know that people have trouble with the idea of need being a ‘bad’ thing. Aren’t there the ‘basic needs’ that have to be met for all of us? Doesn’t everyone need food, water, or even basic human dignity? That belief around need makes it very difficult for us to even entertain the possibility that it might be a choice.

I am not saying that need is ‘bad,’ I am saying that it is never ending and very limiting. I am also saying that we actually don’t need anything. When this first showed up for me, I had a lot of trouble with that idea, but then I decided to consider it. This has made a huge difference in my daily life. We really do not need anything. Even the idea that we need food or water is inaccurate – our body does not need food. It uses it to function and be alive, and when it stops receiving the sustenance for its survival, it stops functioning. It has no feeling about this, the cells in our bodies simply reproduce and do what they do, and they stop when they cannot go on. They don’t feel any need around it.

Now, if you’re with me so far, the next leap will make sense to you: we choose to need. In fact, everything we are and experience at any time in our lives is a choice. So it is with need. I can choose to say that I need to be loved, that I need to make more money, that I need someone to do something specific for me in order for me to feel good about them, I can choose to need specific things, people or circumstances in my life in order to feel good. It is our choice. Period.

When we are in full ego id mode, however, choice tends to disappear from our view and we often become victims to circumstance as well as our need. Since living as my ego is all about me, me, me, so is need. An ego identified life is based in need. The basic need to exist. It’s all or nothing, and thus the ego has a limitless need to prove its own existence and make it more real. Once we are committed to that charade of life, need takes over. Sometimes need even comes along dressed up as a selfless idea. I need to give to people. But it is about me. My needs have to be met. Then I might meet someone else’s as well. Need comes with a constant give and take, first within ourselves and then with the world around us. It starts out as a harmless want, quickly turns into a need, and eventually ends up as greed. These are all varying degrees of the same thing. It is a veritable mental food chain.

Check it out for yourself. Notice the next time you feel the need for something. It doesn’t matter whether it is about something you need physically or psychologically. Whether it’s something you need to own or be. Whether it is ‘I need a new car, house, job, partner, etc.’ or ‘I need to be valued, recognized, tell someone off, take a stand, etc.’ The next time a need comes along, see how it feels. Feel the urgency rising in you, however slight. Notice that it feels very important and wants to be taken very seriously. If you notice it, you will also realize at that moment that you may choose not to be interested in it. You can choose to let it be and not follow through on it and see what happens.

You have nothing to lose except the constant and uncomfortable urgency that comes with need. You have nothing to lose but the limitation that need puts on you and the options before you. Step out of your need and into your preferred choice at the moment, and watch new options show up out of nowhere. It’s quite amazing.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Ego attack

Ego attacks can come in all varieties, from vicious and mean to subtle and sweet. That makes them so tricky.

I had one the other day. It came out of nowhere and was the vicious kind, the kind that comes at you like a hurricane, except without warning. You find yourself in the midst of the worst mental shitstorm imaginable. It comes at you from all directions, and it knows exactly how to hit you in the most effective way possible. Those storms pack quite a punch and can overwhelm us in no time, because the devices used are usually deadly. This ego is made up of our collected memories and thus it knows all intimate details of our lives. This is what is utilized in a full blown attack. All the registers of a well informed agent provocateur are put in play to scare us into submission.

If it’s one of the vicious attacks, it will usually come at us with all kinds of ideas around our failures and shortcomings. We haven’t done enough, we are too lazy, too dumb, too fat, too ugly, too stupid, too careless, or not trying hard enough, not ever going to make anything of ourselves, and on and on it goes. There is one thing all of the arguments have in common, they are fear mongering in one form or another. Then we panic. What if this is all true? What if we are failing in some major way? After all, we all want to be responsible people at the end of the day. So then we begin to consider the very urgent and alarming arguments set before us, and bingo, we are hooked. We get sucked into the drama, and once that happens, we have to deal with it all. We can either work through the list of challenges one-by-one, or go into denial about them all by arguing our way out and around them. No matter what we do, we are now in full ego identification in all its glory.

The other way the ego attack can come at us is the subtle and sweet kind. It tells us in some way that we are so great, perfect, deserving of praise and generally wonderful. It’s like watching a hurricane from the safety of a bunker. It doesn’t seem to be based on fear, because it feels really good and lulls us into a state of comatose self-delusion. This self-delusion is the fear part. The delusion that I am nothing but this wonderful ego, which has to constantly be afraid of not being good enough, perfect and wonderful. Buying into this one will usually lead to complacency on one end and big time arrogance on the other end. And neither one of those ever allows us any peace.

Both attacks have in common that they are made of the ego and nothing else. It is about me, me, me. So whether we fall prey to a sweet or vicious attack, we always end up in the same place as a result. So what is there to do?

To get into the eye of the storm. When I had my attack the other day, I was taken aback, because I had not experienced this level of intensity in quite a while. For a moment I was like a curious customer checking out the goods presented for sale. I picked it up, looked at it and considered whether it could be useful. I considered all the scary crap my ego was throwing at me. And it felt awful. It also felt overwhelming. That’s when I stopped for a moment and looked at what was going on. That pause is the eye of the storm. That is the moment or space where we get to see what is going on, and that opens up choice. To choose whether we want to continue to listen to the shitstorm or not. If we choose not to engage, we stay in the eye of the storm, it is still going on around us, but we can watch it and feel calm in the midst of it. If we do this, it subsides surprisingly quickly. For me that meant making a run to the grocery store, not talking to anyone and simply watch the bs my ego was throwing out at me. Once I got home, it had moved on.

All we have to be is willing. Willing for this to pass us by. To be willing to consider that the storm is of our own ego’s making and has no meaning or reality beyond that. The next time you see the storm coming, or find yourself in the midst of it, see if you can remember that every hurricane has an eye, and put yourself there.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Standing next to yourself

Have you ever experienced this, where you are in a situation, you react to it and almost at the same time you hear yourself think or talk and then wonder what is the matter with you? I certainly have. It’s an interesting and odd feeling when it happens, almost as if you were talking to someone else. But aren’t we?

In my mind this is exactly what is happening in those moments. We are literally seeing ourselves in action, we notice what we are thinking, and doing or saying as a result and we literally wonder what is wrong with us. But we never stop to see this moment as impactful as it actually is. We are actually watching our ego in action. We are being the observer. And what do we usually do with it? We laugh it off or turn into a funny story to tell others. Every single one of those times is a missed opportunity to see something beyond the usual story of who we tell ourselves we are.

Rather than thinking of it as standing next to yourself, think of it as being next to yourself. Because we have to be in a moment of awareness or being in order to see ourselves operate like that. That’s a beautiful thing. We get to be aware of the part in us that is doing the reacting, the story telling, in other words: the ego. The one who is aware, is the being. This is good news to me, because I used to believe for years that all this being stuff was for the evolved, the enlightened and real devoted spiritual people, and that unless I completely changed my life circumstances I would never get to be. Not the case.

Being is what we are all the time, whether we believe it or not. There is nothing we can do to change that. Whether we are aware of this makes all the difference, and that is also all that it takes.

To be aware.

Awareness is powerful, it changes our perspective on whatever we focus it on. It gives us a chance to step outside of the routine of our story and ego identified ways and see them. Seeing ourselves operate like that gives us a choice at that moment to walk away from our own story and let it pass, and instead stay in the awareness. When we choose that, we are instantly in a state of being. It really is as simple as that. But as simple as it is, it is also as powerful. It’s also very hard to do when we are completely committed to our story and think that this is who we are, because this story needs perpetuation in order to keep us from realizing the one thing that this story of ours is designed to hide from us: that we are not permanent. And that scares the hell out of our egos.

But it is really simple. Seeing ourselves operate and going further with that awareness is all it takes to break the cycle of ego identification and instead be. The good news is that this is not a one shot deal – we get to choose this every moment of our lives, again and again. And when we do choose awareness instead of the ole story, our lives are transformed instantly. And then we look for it more and more, because it feels so natural and wonderful. And eventually we lose all these important ideas of who we think we are, and what we think our lives have to be about. It becomes uninteresting and instead we are filled with this sense of momentness (just made up that word).

Next time you are watching yourself do something, stop for a moment and realize what is happening. You are being aware of yourself, plain and simple. Question is, what will you choose at that moment?

Cheers,

Ralf

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About

As we are coming to the close of another year, the idea of resolutions comes up a lot. It feels good to look back at what has been and to look ahead to what will be, what the new year may be about. Why is that?

I find that when we are fully in ego identification that every thought we have should be about something, it should have a reason to exist, at the very least it needs to mean something. The ego abhors idle or meaningless thinking. Since in this state of identification everything is about me, me, me, it’s always about something that somehow relates to me and my needs. This is serious business that requires my attention, because by having these thoughts and expressing them, I make myself known to the world. Without doing this, I would not exist, the ego tells us. By doing so it operates under the guise of fear, the fear that we may not exist without having all these thoughts about ourselves and the world. After all, ‘I think, therefore I am.’

This fearful thinking can show up in all kinds of forms, but it always has at its core the idea of disappearance without it. It does not matter what the content or flavor of my thinking may be, it is designed to make the experience of me more real. I may be scared, hopeful, depressed, arrogant, happy or sad, as long as my thinking happens from an ego identified perspective, it has to be about something. That is very limited and tiring thinking. It never lets me rest. The project of me is a 24/7 affair after all, and it is the most important project we can undertake. If there ever is a moment of idle thinking or even no particular thought, it may feel nice for a moment, like taking a rest, but then we quickly turn back to the business of thinking about something meaningful.

This type of thinking always has to be about the past or the future, as usual all of this has to be time bound and focused. And at the end of a year it makes perfect sense to reminisce about the past twelve months and look forward to the next twelve. But when we are our ego, the future cannot be unknown, because that feels uncontrollable. What if we didn’t do that? What if we allowed ourselves not to have any particular thoughts about the future? In ego identification this is at the very least a weird idea and at worst frightening.

But what will happen if we simply say to the future, ‘I don’t know you and I have no reason to know you?’ That is what is actually going on of course. We have no idea what the future is, or rather, that is actually all we have, an idea. Why not simply be now and here instead of nowhere, which is what it feels like to the ego when we don’t have an idea about the future. Let us be open, trust that our thinking will serve us in the best possible way given the situation. Let’s trust that we will have the right ideas at the right time, the inspiration to create something new, and the means to put it all together in the perfect way. That our thinking naturally shows up in the most meaningful and appropriate way given the situation, that it will do its job and move on. What would life be like?

Let’s welcome the new year without an agenda, a goal, or a fear about the future. Let’s instead welcome the year as an unknown, something that has no meaning yet and something that will unfold in whatever way we choose. Let’s be willing to say “I have no idea what will be.’ And because of that, anything is possible.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Marriage

I once believed that my future wife and I would have a loving, peaceful, kind and drama-free relationship. And then I got married …

We were young and in love, and we were both addicted to our drama, which was completely based in our full blown ego identification. This lead to what we would think of as a fairly happy and normal marriage. We had our ‘differences,’ we had our fights, but you got to have make up sex for those. We would gladly take breaks from each other by hanging out with girlfriends or best buddies, and we would try to communicate the needs we each had as best we could. We would try to fight fairly. I knew when my wife was in a good, bad or indifferent mood, and I would know exactly how our (my) day or evening would go as a result. Fights had a clear structure, we would know who would start it, how it would go, how dramatic it would get, and where we would end up as a result. It sometimes felt as though it was completely scripted, and completely predictable as a result. But this was also normal, and in certain ways comfortable, because it was so predictable. There was such a familiarity with it that it also felt certain and safe in a way.

We kept tabs, too. On all kinds of things. We would remember who did what last, how many times, who had messed up how badly in how many ways, who had disappointed, hurt, forgotten something, broken a promise or not delivered on something. And based on that emotional list of errors, trespasses and wrongdoings, we would know in our own minds who had more to make up for. This was marriage after all, and marriage takes work and commitment. It also means give and take. And that’s what those lists were helpful for. So when the other made up for something on the list, it would feel good, we would feel closer and love(d). For a while things would go well. Only it didn’t last. We both figured out that this was not working for us, and we got very amicably divorced. We are much better friends than spouses.

I promised myself that there would only be a next time if it could be like the first sentence at the top. I thought that was a long shot. And then I met my second wife.

We have been together for almost seven years, married for four, and I can honestly say that we have not once raised our voices to each other in anger in that time. We have had three fights exactly, and to an outsider they would have not looked like much. I have not once had a disrespectful or mean thought about my wife in all this time. Not a single day goes by that I am not grateful for having her in my life. She tells me that she feels the same. We love to hang out with each other, and we literally are sad when one of us has to go on a trip for a few days or weeks and will not be around. We talk a lot, and we are also quiet with each other a lot. We just really enjoy each others’ company. In the beginning, when people asked how things were going with us, I almost didn’t know how to answer that, because I felt strange about having such a loving, peaceful, kind and drama-free relationship. It was eerie. As though there was no way it could last. It did and it still does.

Now sometimes people ask us how we do it, they think we are extremely lucky, they think it can’t last, or that we are lying. We laugh and wonder how we would answer the question, and here it is:

We do not have any expectations of each other. None. Zero. Zilch. Seriously, none.

We love and accept ourselves the way we are, at all times. We ask things of each other, but always free of any expectation. We say what we see when we need to, but we have no expectation of the other to have to see it too, or to have to change as a result. We each get to do what we choose, because we both cherish the freedom to choose above all else. We choose to be with the other every moment, and we know it. We don’t expect to be loved or to be together forever, but in doing so that is exactly what happens. There is a tremendous freedom and joy in being with another person without any expectation. There is no room for ego identification in this. Once that sneaks in, it feels like dirt dropping into pristine water.

No expectations. Try it out in your relationship with yourself first, and see what happens. You may just like it. Then try it with a loved one. You may just love it.

Cheers,

Ralf

by

(Dis)Connectedness

This theme has been going through my mind in the past few days.

When I was part of the spiritual scene, this term was used a lot. People often spoke of feeling disconnected and looking to be connected to others, something I was annoyed by. The whole theme had that ‘kumbaya’ taste to it, something I really had trouble with and ultimately kept me at arm’s length from the spiritual community. I have always been too much of a pragmatist to go for that sort of thing. At the same time I knew that somewhere within me the notion of (dis)connectedness was important and made sense, I just didn’t know how.

In the recent past it has come up again, and it makes sense in a completely different way now. I used to think that in order to connect to other people, I had to be interested in them, like them and have the ‘you’re ok, I’m ok’ attitude. Only, this was exceedingly difficult. I would come across people that were annoying, dumb or a waste of my time with their odd or stupid ideas. Not much connection happening there … It seemed a tall order to try and overcome these judgments in order for me to connect with them, and then the question of ‘why?’ still remained. I was experiencing other people through my ego, and vice versa. There is only a very limited connection, if any, possible this way. Here you have two people, completely living as their ego, in full ego identification mode, trying to connect to another for ego reasons. It does not matter what my story about this connection I am seeking is, whether I want to meet someone like minded, I am looking to advance my own agenda, to be appreciated, liked, loved, or whether I am trying to make myself or the other look good or bad, no matter what that reason is, I will not be able to truly connect, because we are only connecting on the limited ego level at best. And, I am not connected to myself to begin with.

When we live as our ego, we are experiencing our own self through the limited idea of the ego story. We are disconnected from the part in us that we are, while the ego is actually only what we do. Have you ever had a moment where you watched yourself doing something and thinking at the same time, ‘what the hell am I doing?’ That is the being in us watching the doer. When we see this played out and choose to stay with the ‘being’ part, we reconnect to our Self. We instantly realize that there are these two aspects to us, and that the being part is the real deal. That moment of reconnection changes everything. The jig on our ego identification is up. We see it everywhere and all the time, quite overwhelming at first, and then see it all around us and in others. We see that other people are in the same boat and that they fall for the ego con in varying degrees as well. In seeing this first in ourselves and then all around, we not only feel connected to our Self again, but we also see the that we are all connected to each other through this adventure called ‘life.’ It’s the whole ‘No man is an island’ thing realized. Pretty cool actually.

Ever since I have had this increasing experience of being, which I also call ‘wysiwyg,’ my life has become simpler and clearer. And it comes naturally to see the same playing out in others, and that there is a connection at that level at all times. Whether they experience themselves in this way or not makes no difference. When we feel a sense of connectedness to our own Self, we feel it with others. Thus we can be with other people in a completely different way. It doesn’t matter who they believe to be at their ego identified level, because we are tuned into a different frequency. We are sending and receiving on a frequency that takes place on the impersonal level. The drama and details of our stories are simply that. It’s a very different and much more fun way to walk to through life and feel connected in this way.

Next time you see your Self, say hello and hang around. You might enjoy the company.

Cheers,

Ralf