Tag Archives: perspective

by

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

by

Rationalization

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Ralf

by

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

by

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

by

Busyness

The other day I was listening to someone talking about the busyness in their life, only they didn’t realize what they were talking about.

It is so interesting to see how we have come to look at ‘being busy’ as such a badge of honor. Someone who is busy is equated with being valuable, a hard worker, and a good person. Unless they get too busy and begin to suffer. Much like it is with having an ego. There are very different forms of busyness, we can simply be physically busy, we can be busy with meetings, chores, general appointments and things that ‘need to get done.’ This is all very obvious and there are many people out there offering all kinds of tools to be more effective with this kind of busyness. I am talking about another kind of busyness though, the kind this person was unknowingly demonstrating.

There is an underlying self-absorption going on that keeps us busy in a very subtle but powerful way. It tells us that we constantly need to think about ourselves in one form or another, because if we don’t, we basically aren’t functioning or exist. It is incessant. This self-absorption is all about me, me, me. I have to think in order to exist, and I have to express that thinking to the rest of the world in some way to show that I exist. This can take on limitless forms of course. It can also be tricky, because a quiet person in the corner that feels that no one likes them and that they have nothing to contribute may look like they’re not busy, but they are just the same. They are simply busy thinking about themselves in this particular way of unworthiness, rather than worthiness, and it shows up differently. But this is the same self absorbed thinking on two different ends of the ego identification spectrum.

This busyness eats up our lives. It won’t ever let us rest, for even when we are ‘resting,’ we are thinking about the fact that we deserve or need this rest as a break from the busyness … It is so incessant because this type of self thinking is entirely focused on my existing. There is a built in idea in our ego identification that requires this type of thinking to make me real, to make me more permanent in this world and life, which this ego sees squeezed into the life span. So it makes perfect sense to do this. This also creates a never ending restlessness and underlying urgency to all things me, because I only have so much time to accomplish whatever I choose to. This is a very hard way to live. And it’s always dramatic to varying degrees.

There is a whole other way to be in this life. It requires a willingness on our part to have some perspective, a perspective that goes beyond the time bound and limited idea of ‘me.’ Every religion or spiritual tradition that humanity has ever created is pointing to this perspective in one way or another. Funny enough, even Atheism is ultimately pointing beyond this life as well. Whenever we step into this perspective, something inside shifts. We have a bigger sense of space inside, more time, more peace with everything. The urgency drops off and we can see our own lives a bit more impersonally. This sense of the impersonal, looking at our own lives as more of an episode in a larger stream of all that is this life and beyond, expands us. With this comes a decompression, quite literally, because we see ourselves more as an aspect of something larger rather than this small me compressed into what I call my life. Busyness has no place in that. Here we are simply taking action when required and have the thinking necessary to deal with the life situation at hand, no more and no less. Decisions come easier, choices are clearer and life in general loses a lot of its drama. I begin to participate in what I observe to be ‘my life,’ rather than being that life. It really takes a load off.

I hope you will play with this perspective and see what happens.

Cheers,

Ralf

by

Opinions

Opinions are so uninteresting.

We are all raised to believe that having an opinion is very important, and that being able to express it or stand up for it is a sign of a strong person. In a world of ego identification that makes total sense, doesn’t it? If I live my life as my ego, then everything about me is about that ego, and since ego has to maintain a sense of separateness from everything around it, opinions are a great way to prove and solidify its existence. For if I have no opinions, I may as well not exist. Having an opinion and making it known to the world is the mark of the ego. It is expressing its existence and showing its uniqueness and strength to the world, and most of the time competing with or aligning itself with others’ opinions. It makes it feel real.

Plus, through the constant exchange of opinions with others, the ego can measure and test out its validity. ‘How real am I?’ it asks. And through the constant forming, shaping, expressing and having of opinions, it answers that question. It makes no difference if my ego believes whether its opinions are worthy, the best in the world, unworthy or the worst in the world, these are simply expressions of the opposite ends of the same idea: that I am somehow my ego. Whether I create that ego to be weak or strong, and the opinions to go with it, still only gives me the limited ego experience.

Within this framework, opinions are so interesting and basically serve as the currency of ego exchange. They are traded and (e)valuated constantly and most people want to be part of this market. That is the world of media today. If you take a moment and watch any news media, talk show, or read a paper, blog, or, for that matter, social media, you will find this market of opinions. Everyone tries to have the most original, interesting, powerful and self-assured opinion possible to be the most attractive to the buyers out there. They talk over each other, they judge other opinions to no end, they bully and persist with their opinion to be the most right. That is the state of affairs.

I used to be addicted to this opinion market, but not anymore. When I now find myself having an opinion on something, my ‘ego alert’ comes on and lets me know that I am in ego identification mode. I shut up, get quiet, call a time out on myself, and let it pass. For whenever there is an opinion going on, ego is afoot. Living with (rather than as) my ego, I still have my own views on things, I still agree or disagree with things, I still like and dislike … but in that space it is merely my preference for the moment. It’s a very different feeling. And much easier to be with. Not only is it not attached to my sense of self (worth), it is also something I can much more easily change and thus it remains fluid and flexible. I don’t have to express preferences to validate me, I don’t have to convince others of them to feel superior or right, I don’t have to defend them, because they are not me, they are simply something I feel at the moment.

Funny enough, to the ego, preference looks weak. Opinions are where it’s at in the ego world. This is a big lie. Because the rigid never does as well in life as the fluid; one breaks eventually, the other moves and evolves.

Opinions are rigid and separate people. Preferences are fluid and keep our minds open. Which one do you prefer?

Cheers,

Ralf

by

Recovering from ego identification

I used to be into ego identification. I am now recovering. Let me explain.

The whole ego thing had always been something of a confusing concept to me. I grew up learning that having one was not only important, but that you needed to make sure to have a strong and good one, and be able to show that to the world so that others may take you seriously. You didn’t want to overdo it though, too big an ego was frowned upon and not seen as an advantage. Thus it was important to find just the right balance with this, not too much and certainly not too little. So I worked on mine and tried hard to find the right balance.

Over the years I ran into all kinds of definitions and theories on ego, but they all had as a common theme that it was real and something to deal with. As I got into the spiritual community and became a ‘spiritual seeker,’ the ego was often talked about as the ‘enemy,’ or at the very least something to ‘transcend.’ I created a version of ego that looked spiritual, sounded spiritual, but wasn’t spiritual. And that, as I found out to my surprise years later, was simply so, because the ego is neither the enemy nor does it have to be transcended, it has to simply be seen for what it is: A keeper of information on an individuated level to enable us to have a functional human experience. Nothing more and nothing less.

Once this realization hit, the ego and the idea that it is me diminished rapidly. There is a choice to be made here. Do I live my life as my ego or with my ego? Huge difference. With this the questions about how to overcome or transcend it become meaningless. Once I see that, I live with my ego, which makes my individuated functional human experience possible. That’s it. Your whole perspective shifts. Suddenly there is this other ‘me’ that sees ego in its rightful place and function, but I am no longer the ego, rather it is simply a useful aspect of me.

This is freedom. We see the ego doing its job most efficiently, and when we have bouts of ego identification (as I call them), they tend to pass rather quickly because they really don’t feel very good. Ego identification is fear. For when I am my ego, I am trapped in the time bound version of me, the one that is born, does some shit, and dies. And that even sounds depressing. The ego is temporary and when I am identified with it, I desperately try to deny and hide from that fact by making it more real and more permanent through personal experiences, and that is one fearful existence. For when the ego dies, I die. That is why the ego identified state is one of constant alert, after all, we know deep down that it is only temporary and try to hide this fact from ourselves. So we make a lot of noise, and the best noise in ego identification is one of competition with other egos, only second to competition with itself. Thus we spend a lot of time of our lives defending and building up our egos only to find out at some point that it is the least real part of us.

Even entertaining the possibility that we are not our egos, but the one seeing it, changes everything. I don’t have to worry about keeping up my ego/me, doing maintenance on it/me, making sure other people see it/me, always making it/me look its best, etc. Life is no longer about me in that smallest way, instead it is about living here and now, while being able to see this at work in others with the compassion and understanding of a recovering ego addict.

So I invite all of us to have some fun with this idea and choose to stop the ego identification when we notice it. Whenever we feel any kind of negative or positive drama, no matter how mild or severe, we are in full ego identification mode. Dramatic emotions are a hallmark of this state, and can serve as great information and wake up calls. They can either put us deeper to sleep or awaken us. Our choice, as it always is.

Cheers,

Ralf

by

Fargo

I had the pleasure of being asked to give a short speech at the Barnes & Noble in Fargo, ND last Thursday and had so much fun doing it. I am more of an introvert, so hanging out with and talking to a bunch of people takes energy out of me, but this was a wonderful event. It was themed ‘New Author Night,’ and there were probably another eight authors besides me there. It is amazing to be able to share something about your own adventures in writing and publishing and then have people come up to you afterwards and engage in the most interesting conversations with you.

As opposed to my earlier life, where something like this would have been about me, me, me, it is now about simply being in the presence of other beings and listening to their life stories. Everyone of us is in the same boat on this planet, we are born, we do some shit, and then we die. Only that this entire concept is just that, a concept. One that we have made up at some point, and continue to make up. Operating from that perspective (which I find myself in most of the time these days) makes meeting people so interesting. Every single person is a fascinating collection of stories, some more serious than others, some more happy, sad, exciting, whatever it is at that moment. None of it is really who we are though, they are simply ideas we formed in our minds about what something means to us, how that is important or not, and what it means about us. We do this, it is not who we are. When we forget that we are a simply doing these things, we get lost in our stories and become them, and our perspective on our life goes right along with it. That’s when we find ourselves being depressed, shy, upset, sad, happy, excited, etc., rather than simply feeling those things temporarily. All of it is simply eternally temporary. More on that next time.

I had a wonderful time in Fargo. I also got to sell a few books and am continuously baffled and excited to see that perfect strangers are willing to buy and read it. I also was given a hilarious and very reflective book, How Fargo of You, by its author, Marc de Celle, and am really enjoying it. You should check it out here.

Cheers,

Ralf