Category Archives: Transformation

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What if…?

What if the world operated in the way we teach our children?

Since my wife and I have become parents to our daughter, I have often asked myself this question, and as I was paging through my book for the first time in a few years recently, stopping at random pages, reading little bits here and there, I also came across the part where the bird talks exactly about this. How we teach our children to be honest and authentic, to be kind, not to lie, not to hit, not to hurt other people’s feeling, to apologize when we do.

We tell them that everyone is unique and should be treated with kindness and respect. We tell them that they are safe. I have not met a parent who does not have love overflowing while watching their children play with others in this way, knowing that they are seen for who they are, and that the other children are treated the same. No parent would ever wish harm upon their own or anyone else’s child, no matter who that parent is or where they are from. It is innate. The love we feel for our children is innate and beyond the limitations of this world.

The love that children express, exude, in fact are, is transcendent and that is why they will extend it to anyone freely. Everyone is always invited to the love fest that life is to them. They don’t think in categories of worthiness, they do not see difference, they are truly present to what is and their fresh egos are simply there to do their job, to store experiences and to aid in navigating this material world.

I wish everyday that my daughter and all other children would be able to stay in that experience, that state of unbridled curiosity and being. A place where kindness rules, where love and encouragement are the main attraction and sharing experiences is the main activity.

But now that she is getting ready to go to Kindergarten in the fall, I see how different things will become, how more of the ‘real world’ will begin to creep into her consciousness. How the older kids’ ego identification is setting her up to walk a similar path, and a part of me is deeply saddened by this, because I keep asking myself the ‘what if…?’

What if we as adults behaved more childlike? What if we were more authentic? What if we didn’t spread around our own judgments about everything, peddling them as ‘being honest,’ when we all deep down know that it is simply our judgment, and that it will add nothing to the world and hurt someone else’s feelings? What if we honestly tried our best to see the light in the person next to us? What if we sought out to connect with others, share a kind moment with them every single day, every single moment, to the best of our ability? What if we let ourselves be happy for others and let them know? What if we spread kindness and love to everyone we meet through a laugh, a kind word, a compliment, an encouragement? What if we sought to help others to become their best self? What if we stopped comparadging all the time? What if we allowed the world around us to be filled with love? What if we stopped taking life and other people so personally? What if we looked at life and everything in it as the miracle it truly is? What if we spoke up when we witness an injustice, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem? What if we assumed the best about each other?

What if we were all more childlike and aimed to create a world that reflected that, a world in which the love, joy and freedom we all remember from our own childhood was not limited to the first few years of our lives? What if we had a world in which all children get to have a childhood like this to begin with? To paraphrase L.R. Knost: Maybe it shouldn’t be our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world – our job should be to make the world less cruel and heartless.

What if we never had to utter the words: ‘Welcome to the real world.’

I am acting on my ‘what ifs’ as much as I can every day. I invite you to think of your own ‘what ifs,’ act on them, and see what happens in your life as a result.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Comparadging

We do this, as a matter of fact we do it so much, we hardly notice it. This new word describes the ego’s way of constantly running a comparison between the ‘me’ it claims to be and someone or something else. And to judge the result of this comparison.

This is a nasty little habit that we form early on in our lives, when we are taught the very helpful habit of differentiating between things. It is not until a few weeks into our human form that we actually begin to realize that we are in fact a being separate from our environment, that we are not part of everything that surrounds us. Think about that for a moment – we don’t see ourselves as separate from the world, we are (in) it. Watch a baby that is only a few days or weeks old and you will see very quickly that they have no idea that the hands and feet attached to them are theirs. This has to be discovered. Once this awareness of our own body as separate from everything else emerges, the idea of differentiation enters.

This is obviously a natural and important process. Without it, we couldn’t lead a human life. So differentiation is a good thing, but when we take it to the level of ego id, it goes sideways. Then we start the comparison game. It begins with small things like ‘the other kid is bigger/smaller than me, has more/less toys than me,’ then grows into ‘he/she is smarter/dumber or prettier/uglier or more popular/less popular than me.’ Eventually we end up with at worst ‘I am less than others, and there is nothing I can do about that’ or at best ‘I am better than others and have to keep it that way.’ And this creates more separation between us than we realize. It doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative, it simply separates us.

It still shocks me how much I do this unconsciously and when I do notice, how harsh it feels. The resulting judgment is always absolute and quite condemning. My ego is either better or worse than, and there is no arguing this. And once we have arrived at this absolute conclusion, we operate from it. The result is either arrogance or humiliation in some form. So I am then stuck with either continuing to do what I have been doing, so that I may continue to be ‘better than,’ or fighting to change the ‘less than’ to a ‘better than.’ At worst I resign to the fact that I am ‘less than,’ and there is nothing I can do about it.

Operating from a comparadging state of mind is very exhausting and always results in limited options in our lives. This is the ego id way of life. This is what keeps us from making choices that may move our lives into a different space, keeps us from even considering that anything different may be possible. And when we are in ego id, the very idea that we could achieve something that someone else has achieved, seems absurd. ‘There is no way I could own a business, get a degree, get that job, have a mate, love or success in my life’ we say to ourselves after the results of our comparadging are in. So we don’t even try.

Every ‘successful’ person in the world will tell you that one day they simply started acting on their idea or inspiration, that the thought of comparing themselves to others was of no interest or consequence to them. They stepped out of comparadging into inspiration. Once they made that choice, possibilities presented themselves, people and circumstances began to show up seemingly out of the blue, propelling them forward. Things began to unfold and work out. And the people who reached their success through happiness never play the comparadging game. It doesn’t occur to them. They are simply following their inspiration and are happy to have others come along for the ride. Differentiation and appreciation of differences is their life blood. They are inspired by differences and diversity and as a result include others.

Inspiration is the inoculation to comparadging and lets us appreciate differences. We have all met people in our lives that we comparadged ourselves to and thought of them as ‘less than’ us. Then for some reason we got to know them, forming a friendship and appreciating how different they are from us. They ended up teaching and showing us things we would otherwise not have experienced. They enriched our lives as we did theirs. These encounters and friendships inspire us. That is the power of seeing and appreciating differentiation. That is where love lives.

As always I invite you to play with this. Pay attention to those thoughts throughout the day, when you hear your inner judge comparadging. When you see it, notice how it feels, and see how you experience the object of your comparadging and yourself. Then challenge yourself to turn it onto its head and instead of comparadging, appreciate the difference. You may end up feeling very different…

Cheers,

Ralf

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Possibility

Anything can happen. Anything is possible. Always and in all ways.

Like most people I live my life in patterns and habitual ways most of the time, and that is certainly useful in many ways, especially when it comes to functioning effectively in a complex world. But limiting our life to this alone and letting our thoughts run in the repetitive patterns also closes us to the magic of the above, to the fact that every moment is a possibility and anything can indeed happen. It just hardly ever feels that way when we let our mind habits run the show and control every aspect of our lives.

When we live that way, predictability is the key and makes us comfortable, and usually it is a dramatic event of some kind that shows us that anything can happen and is possible at any time. We fall in love unexpectedly, we win something ‘out of the blue,’ we have an accident, someone close to us dies. All of these events have the effect of jarring us back into the moment and into the realm of the unknown, which is where possibility resides. Our minds are brought to a halt and many people who experience a dramatic event will report afterwards that they didn’t know what to think, that they were incapable of holding a thought, that their minds were reeling. This is literally what happens, our minds are reeling because they have no preset pattern to fall into, no habitual response at the ready for the situation in which we find ourselves. People say that they felt in a daze of sorts and often cannot remember much about the moment they heard the news. Why is that?

They were busy experiencing it. Remember a moment in your life when something completely unexpected and dramatic happened, positive or negative, and you will probably have a hard time recalling exactly what was going on with you at the moment. Our habitual small mind or ego id is taking a break because it does not know how to process the new information and our big mind swoops in and instantly thrusts us into the actual experience in that moment. The full force of the present hits us. This may last for seconds, minutes, hours or days, all depending on the individual and the situation, but it happens to all of us. It’s the present moment saying hello and reminding us that while we are busy making plans, living in our patterns, life is happening and unfolding all around us in limitless ways. We choose whether we pay attention to this or not, whether we are listening or not.

All it requires on our part is to become uninterested in our own thinking and the same old stories and patterns within which we make ourselves exist. I still catch myself all day, I notice my seemingly random thinking and that it has, in fact, a very familiar tone and pattern. That it keeps telling me the same thing about life, my life, all the time, and thus making me hide from the unknown that life is, making possibilities impossible or at the very least unlikely. Constantly barraging me with thoughts of limitation, reasons why something won’t work, cannot happen and is simply not in the realm of possibility. But when we notice it, we can also consider the possibility that there is more to life than the patterns we live in. So much more, in fact, that we cannot begin to truly comprehend or understand it.

This is a much more fun place to live. We don’t have to contemplate the meaning of life here, though that is fun as well, but I am saying that what we think is possible is so infinitesimally small that it would behoove us to consider more. Think of how many people are on the planet having thoughts at any moment, how many molecules are moving about, how many processes are at work both physical and metaphysical – it is limitless, no number could be put on this. And in our deluded ego id states we think we have it all figured out… Sounds pretty funny, doesn’t it? All the great thinkers, explorers and inventors in human history have had one thing in common – they refused to be limited by what the common thought patterns at the time deemed possible. They saw beyond the limitations and knew that realm of possibility, often before they had thoughts, concepts or words to describe it. They were present and thus open to that which had in fact been pre-sent from the space of infinity. They just tuned in and paid attention.

Play with that idea. See what happens, see if your mind is tickled, your concepts start to to feel less solid, your opinions and thoughts about the world and yourself lose their solidity. What if in fact we have no clue, simply because it is impossible for us to understand that anything is possible and anything can happen. And that, as a matter of fact, this is going on all the time. What then?

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Light

I have had a couple of rough weeks by my standards. It started a little while ago when I was sitting in the bathtub (great place for reflection, right?!), when I realized out-of-the-blue that I had to let go. Not sure of what, not sure how, but that it was time to let go in a big way – once again. I have been through a life changing experience a few years back that was a tough one to say the least, and my life did change in a big way as a result of this experience. After seeing my own manipulative and controlling ways that had been my entire life, they began to untangle and eventually fade away, and a new way to be with myself and the world settled in. And I am beginning to see how that is the challenge, the settling in part.

I certainly am not the same person I was for all those years before and know that I am different, but another kind of mental routine has set up shop in me, and that is now catching up with me. First I began to feel ‘stuck’ and uncomfortable in my life, nothing to pin down, nothing in particular, but it was there, in the background, like a shadow, haunting me. A newborn and general life kept me busy and distracted enough to ignore it, until that night in the bathtub. So, I had to let go, but what on earth that meant I had no clue.

Then I began to feel depressed, I got sick and very tired, which intensified those feelings and last week one evening I was home alone with the other love of my life, my daughter, and something strange happened. She was sitting in my lap, eating her dinner, I was smelling her hair and contentedly looking out the window at the trees when I was broadsided by the deepest feeling of sadness I have ever felt in my life; it was as though the entirety of humanity’s dread, torture, pain and suffering was coming at me and through me all at once. I almost lost it, the sheer magnitude of feeling this feeling was almost too much. I barely could hold it together, I did not want the little one to freak out. I felt so distraught and disillusioned about the state of humanity and the level of pain we are experiencing with each other, and with ourselves. I couldn’t believe that we live on this beautiful planet, and the best we can come up with is the current state of affairs. I don’t know why stuff like that happens to me, maybe I am mental, I know for sure that I am making it up in some way, but why on earth do I?

After that night I got worse, save for my wife and daughter I lost my joy, all I began to envision was to remove myself from the world as much as possible and stay away from it, that crazy place full of crazy people, who in the best of circumstances hate each other for different political views, and at worst behave like they do in the IS in the name of a religion. Not a pretty picture. I had lost my faith in humanity and did not want to be part of it anymore. It sucked.

Today is different. A phone call with a dear friend and a video changed it.

The phone call was with a friend who is very dear and close to my heart, and who is much better than me at getting his ideas around similar themes as the ones on my blog out into the world. For the past sixteen years he has been tirelessly and with utter resolve bringing his version of peace into the world. And it is bearing fruit. He has had an HBR article published, was on the radio this week, and will be doing a TED talk soon. I was so happy for him, because he is one of the most kindhearted and smartest people I know. He then asked me how I had been, and I told him the above. He went silent for a moment, told me he understood. Then he tells me that he wakes up almost everyday with a similar feeling about the state of things and knows that he is going to get up and do what he can to help change it. He will not quit. Ever. Trust me, I know the guy. I definitely felt better after hanging up.

Then I saw this video and was blown away by it, because I realized it was showing me the light. I am talking about the light that is in every thing in form on this planet, but is particularly strong and maybe even condensed in human beings. It is the light of being, the light of existence, the light that is on in us, the light that shines through so clearly when people are kind to others without any expectation of return, when a child laughs and looks at you with love, when a dying husband or wife looks in their partner’s eyes with more than just their eyes, when you meet someone and for some reason they are so familiar to you, the light we see when we watch videos about acts of kindness, the light we see in each other when we see beyond the physical, the light that shows us that underneath we are all from the same place. And eventually return to it. The light that erases differences, hatred, judgment, arrogance, and the ability to do harm to another. For every moment we are in its presence, we leave our ego behind and become beings, we are no longer human-have-been’s or human-will-be’s, we are human.

This is waking me up. I don’t know what that means yet, but I do know that I forgot to see or at least look for the light, because it is in everybody at all times, sometimes it’s harder to find than others, but it is there without fail. For a while after my experience I saw it all around and in almost everyone, but I got lost in something else, and so the light was lost too, first around me, and finally I couldn’t see it in myself anymore either. Wow. As I just wrote that, this became clear. So it is time to get up and get going, time to become a light(er) again. First with me, and then, who knows… I still don’t have a clue what I have to let go of, but I will and it will be fine, and I will participate again in my own little way, and if because of my participation one other person will see the light as well, in them and others, that will be enough.

Go look for the light. It is there. It shows itself in the oddest and most unexpected places. And when we see it, we know it, we recognize it, and we feel it, and it feels good. I challenge you to find some light today, and tomorrow and the day after. It will make the world brighter.

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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Projections

I know that ultimately my blog posts and ruminations keep circling around and back to the same. Here is another awareness, another piece of consciousness creeping up on me. I think that this may be one of the reasons I haven’t written lately, because it always seems to be about the same ‘thing…’ I wonder if I may ever reach the point that I have said it in enough ways, discovered and became aware of enough, to be done? Guess I’ll find out.

Projections have really been on my mind ever since we have had our daughter. From the day she was born I became über conscious of my own mind’s thinking which was so full of the memories, stories and assumptions about me, and the world around me. I think this happened because I was in the presence of this pure and unclouded new earthling that was a blank canvas of consciousness. I vowed to myself that I would do anything possible to try and show her the world with as little projection of my world put over it as possible and instead would simply help by describing it and for her to form her own thoughts on things. Going alright thus far, but I have become painfully aware of these projections going on all the time, and in ways I never expected.

As I have been observing other parents and people hanging out with our daughter, I began to notice how much people project themselves onto the little beings. It is completely unconscious and innocent, but it’s happening. I have actually had another father tell me that he was tired of his six-month-old trying to manipulate him into feeling sorry for her. That hit me between the eyes, because this particular person is actually very manipulative, and it was shockingly clear to me that he was looking at his daughter through his unconscious lens and thus projecting his own process onto her. A six-month-old does not know how to manipulate, they barely understand that they are a singular human being, so this was a humdinger for me to listen to. I gently asked him to consider this fact, but he shook his head and stuck to his story. This is what I am talking about. We look at the child, and if we are not awake, we look at us instead. And then we base our actions on our own projections and assumptions. As I am writing this, it hits me how messed up that is.

Being with my daughter has put me on high alert with my own movie projection that is going on. I can see it playing more and more and walk out of the theater to make sure that I see my daughter and not my projection placed on her. I don’t always succeed of course, but when I get caught up in the show, I snap to it and stop whatever it is that I am doing at that moment, and then everything shifts and she comes back into focus. It always feels so good, too. Since I have been at this I have begun to see how my projector is running a lot in my everyday life as well.

These projections are of course simply another way to describe the eternal story telling my ego does in all these different ways, but it has been painful and helpful for me to see it this way. It shows up in the simplest stuff, the other day I started saying to my bride ‘Well, you know how (fill in the blank) makes you think…’ assuming that of course it would make her think exactly the same thing as me. These words actually came out of my mouth?! It was one of those nasty little projections doing its thing. Of course no one but me thinks what or how I think, period. But these little projections make me believe that anyone worthy of my attention would be in the same theater as me, watching the exact same movie with exactly the same reactions to what is going on. It sounds silly, but that is precisely how these projections work and in the process create that very limited world view and experience that we have.

Think about this, and how many times in any given day we do this. Why doesn’t this person see how wrong, stupid, ignorant, silly, annoying, dumb, offensive, insulting, etc. they are? This is a question asked from within the theater looking at someone sitting in an entirely different theater and us wondering why they would ever watch their movie, don’t they see how silly their show is? Come over here and join me in my theater, where we watch it all in Imax 3D, it’s like the real world in here. We show you how it really is, not like your little show over there, 16mm projector, sound all messed up, in black and white. Can’t you see that it is just a movie? Come here, let me show you reality. This shows up in the real world in the form of well meaning advice, criticizing, judging, all out fighting, and eventually, war. And we are all missing that we are being duped by our own show.

Having been aware of this little charade has made my life more exhausting lately, simply because there is so much of this going on, but I am also grateful to see these projections, because it is just another way to catch on to the intricate ways of my ego trying to keep me bought into the idea that I am my story, and that this story is all I am.

So here’s to all of us looking around once in a while to make sure we are not sitting in the theater of our ego projections where we get fed nothing but what we already know in so many different shades of grey (see how I did that?). Let’s get out of our seats, and walk out of the theater to see what is really going on. It may end up being a much better experience, especially since we wouldn’t know what’s next…

Cheers,

Ralf

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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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Memories

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

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

I don’t miss him.

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

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

This is why I do not miss my father.

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

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

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

Cheers,

Ralf

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Change again

Funny how these come in twos sometimes…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Ralf

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Beyond busyness

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Ralf

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Insecurity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Ralf