Monthly Archives: January 2013

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More honesty…

After writing the last post on honesty and authenticity, more came to mind about it, specifically my own learning around this. To actually be honest with oneself is a toughie to say the least.

When I began to catch on to my incessant ego machine, I was shocked and horrified with how deep the rabbit hole of this was. It was mind boggling, and frankly I had my doubts that I was ever going to be able to get away from this monster that had taken over my life. It felt like a tumor that had spread into every nook and cranny of my existence. How can one get rid off something like that? Die? That was one option I considered, because I was not going to continue to live like this, no matter how. Then I discovered that honesty with myself was going to get me headed in the right direction. I thought that would be easy and ‘do the trick.’ Well, let me tell you, I found out that real honesty with one’s own bs is not for the weak…

The hard part was to realize that I could not believe anything I was telling myself anymore. Nothing. It was a mental tabula rasa if you will. During that time it was almost unbearable to look at the constant shitstorm of my own psyche, everything I was thinking was a lie, a lie based on a lie nonetheless. Everything I was thinking about me or anything in my world was based on the lie of my complete ego identification. Based on this lie, I then told myself that I had to make sure to look good, get my share and generally try to make out ok. This became the basis of my existence, which meant that I would lie to myself and everyone else to varying degrees about pretty much anything that would serve my purpose. That is what I had to face and be honest about.

In the ensuing weeks and months I got to practice being honest about my own thinking. Was I asking someone a question out of curiosity or actually running some kind of agenda? When being nice to someone, was I trying to gain something from them, and thus really for me? Whenever I would make deals with myself, wasn’t I simply avoiding some deeper fear I was running from? When talking to my family, friends or loved ones, was I not trying to manipulate them in even the smallest of ways for my agenda? When meeting new people, was I only talking to them because I would ultimately gain something from it? You can tell that this was quite encompassing and exhausting. In the beginning of being honest with oneself, it can be very discouraging to see what we do to ourselves on a daily basis. The lies we employ to manipulate ourselves and everyone else are truly stunning when seen in the light of awareness. But it gets better and it is worth it.

Now I find myself in a place of a much quieter mind that is not focused on me, myself and I as much, though I certainly can have my moments. Honesty about those moments, owning them and at the same time not holding on to them makes it much easier to be. Plus, when this kind of honesty becomes a habit, there is not much room left for the bs we like to produce, and if we do, it is honestly very uninteresting. I am no longer interested enough in the lies my ego tries to whisper in my mental ear in an attempt to take over and make my life miserable again. Because that is exactly where it will lead, and I have been there and done that.

So honesty of the helpful kind, the kind that is not of the ego, really challenges us to stay the course of authenticity with ourselves and thus the world around us. It is not for the weak, it takes rigor and discipline in the beginning, only to get easier with practice and eventually becoming part of who we are: someone who is no longer interested in the dishonesty and lies of an ego identified life.

The next time you catch yourself in one of those sneaky little and oh-so-comfortable lies, stop and take a look at what you’re doing. And then choose whether you would like to see what happens if you didn’t believe yourself.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Honesty

There is honesty, and then there is authenticity. Two completely different things.

Honesty is most certainly a virtue, but in a world running rampant with ego identification, it can also be a big problem. When I am in full ego id mode, my opinions and thoughts about myself and all else around me are all I see, and they are what make up ‘me.’ What this ‘me’ thinks is of existential value, and thus has to be expressed and defended at all times. We are talking about our very existence after all. This ego has to express itself to other egos in a dance of meaningfulness, and telling the truth about the other egos and/or one’s own ego is the hallmark of honesty in this. Only that this honesty is based in an illusion to begin with, and thus tells the ‘honest truth’ from this limited self. A self only interested in its self.

This limited approach to ‘me’ is laced with self-interest and what I may express out of this position as an honest thought, is in fact nothing but a product of this state. In this state of full ego id, my thinking tends to be judgmental in one (mild) form or another, and about me, me, me. So what I think of as an ‘honest’ answer, suggestion, or observation, is really an attempt of the ego to make itself more real with the person or circumstance at hand. This is especially true when emotion is afoot. Telling someone (honestly) that their behavior is wrong, inappropiate, insulting, hurtful or bad in some way is an ego’s way of showing up to draw its line in the sand. Telling someone (honestly) that they are wonderful, perfect, incredible or awesome is an ego’s way of showing up to try and connect with someone else, at the ego level.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that honesty is bad, I am simply suggesting that the ego based honesty we often celebrate is at best limited, and at worst self-serving. Don’t believe me though, you can observe it in yourself. Haven’t you ever been in a moment of awareness, where you watched yourself being honest with someone, and you knew right at that moment that you were not telling a truth? A moment where you knew that you were saying this only to manipulate or control the person/circumstance to be right? That is all I am talking about here. We all know at the end of the day that when we were being ‘honest’ like that, we were in fact full of it.

Authenticity on the other hand is a state of being. This is not something one can do, but only be. And as I like to say, you cannot do being, you can only be it. You can’t act authentic. We all know authenticity when we encounter it. It’s a feeling, and it’s pretty obvious. An authentic person does not have an agenda, they do not seek to manipulate, convince or control in any way. This is not interesting to them. They will listen a lot more than they talk, they are not interested in opinions, and they will not judge people for them. They have preferences about things, and they will not participate in anything that does not feel right to them, but they are not acting this way, they are this way. They speak to things and how they see them, without any expectations, because their ego is not involved.

To ego identified people, these characters look weak, because they don’t run around promoting themselves or their opinions and ideas. They are not interested in making other people think the way they do, and what others may think about them does not matter. These qualities all fly in the face of the ego, and the ego does not know how to be around this, because there is nothing to latch on to. So it cannot engage with someone like this. Thus it will either try to fight or ignore them. Same with ourselves.

Next time you are telling someone something ‘honestly,’ pay attention to how it feels. Check in on your emotion meter, it’s probably going off. As always, it’s your choice what you may do with that information.

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