Tag Archives: emotion

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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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The F Word

As you can probably guess, it’s not that word, I am talking about feelings of course. It has been a while since I have written here, since March 6th to be exact, and the topic had been Possibility, and how anything is possible…

At that time my mother had come home from the hospital from cancer treatment, was on a very effective medication and there was talk of her coming to visit us here in the U.S. at some point during the later summer, she was working hard at getting her strength back – and a little over three weeks later she passed away on March 29th, talk about anything being possible. I managed to get over there in time, in time to see her in her coma, still alive, not all there anymore, but somewhat still. I was able to sit with her, hold her hand, talk to her and to make sure that she was as comfortable as possible until she passed, with most of her family by her side. Both parents in a span of two and a half years.

I honestly don’t think that she saw it coming, she was so determined to get stronger, to be around, to see her third granddaughter grow up to be a teenager at the very least as she told me many times. I think she was surprised by this as much as we were, though my feeling in talking to her those last few days had been that she seemed more tense, more tightly focused on being here, and this has me wonder whether on another level she did feel something, she was preparing herself for her impending departure, but did not allow herself to acknowledge this, she wasn’t ready.

Which leads me to feelings. For the longest time I have believed that we as human beings are nothing but one big feeling. Everything we experience and are, is a feeling. I have never attempted to explain or explore that any further, until now. With what has happened, I was so broadsided by feelings, an onslaught, a maelstrom, a seemingly never ending storm of them for the past months. It was a mix of feelings and FEELINGS.

What has emerged so clearly for me is that we have both of these. The first are the ones of the ego identified state and life. The feelings we have from there are the feelings of self concern, the feelings that ultimately are about us, even though they may at first glance be about others. These feelings are always tied to the ego, they are about me. They limit my experience of life, because they inherently serve the idea of a me in the smallest way. The ego is me. The story is me. And from that position every feeling is either positive or negative and tied to the ego’s agenda of self preservation. In other words, they are conditional feelings. They are always linked to the ego and the circumstances it finds itself in. It is happy when it gets something it wants, it is thrilled at personal victory, it craves the great feeling of acknowledgement, of winning. Just as much it has us feel depressed, lonely, lost and less-than in so many ways. A constant up and down of emotion, a motion that never lets us truly be at peace or rest.

That is the nature of this kind of feeling. Because it is tied to our sense of ego id, and this ego knows that it is the least permanent part of us, it has to constantly keep itself and us busy with feelings tied to circumstances. This way it says ‘I am here and exist, because I am feeling this because of what I did or didn’t do, I am real.’ This way our emotional life is exhausting, because it never stops.

Then there are FEELINGS. They feel very different. They are simply in us, and when there is a moment of quiet in us, they show up, become feelable. They come out of now here, out of being present to here, and they are so big and reassuring and wonderful that we deep down know that they are not personal. They are impersonal, but we get to experience them at that moment, and we get to be enveloped and held by them. We all have these FEELINGS, every human being on earth knows them. They are universal and are before and beyond our personal ego id experience. They ‘happen’ at the oddest moments and for the oddest reasons, it can be as ‘silly’ as a moving commercial on TV, witnessing an act of kindness, receiving something from someone, a hug, a smile, a thank you, a gift, no matter what. It happens when we are awed by looking at the night sky and feeling that sense of endlessness to it all. A child’s laughter, a friend’s embrace, looking at a sunset, you get the idea.

The point is they often show up without ‘any reason’ because the ego has not been involved and thus provided the logical reward system for having the feeling. FEELINGS are simply there, and they are powerful. I honestly believe it is your God or the Universe whispering in your ear, reminding you that this human life is but an aspect of a much grander existence, that it is temporary in this form and that this is how it is, and it is good that way. These FEELINGS serve as an experiential reminder that we are not just a human being, but so much more. Not that I can claim to know what that means, but I cannot dismiss the FEELING.

I think my mother could FEEL that things were coming to an end in her human form, and I think that her ego could not and did not want to face this, did not allow this, and thus kept her busy feeling her personal purpose and goal of getting stronger again, of hanging on, of staying here for all the reasons it could muster. I want to believe that when she fell into her coma out of the blue, she was at first confused and then settled into the FEELING that was there all this time letting her know that it was all ok, that everything was alright and that she would be fine on her journey back into it. And that this was her choice.

Take some time to let your self listen within. Look for that quiet spot and find out what may be waiting there for you. Those FEELINGS are a wonderful part of our lives, they immediately put us in a space of less self or selflessness that isn’t about anything but the experience of it. And when you FEEL like that, act out of it in whatever way moves you.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Curiosity

I have been a curious human all my life, though the quality and intention of my curiosity has changed over the years. It went from insecuriosity to curiosity.

Insecuriosity is the kind we employ and have when we are in an ego-identified state. In that state, curiosity has an end in mind, there is a reason for it, I have it to achieve something, usually for me. I am curious about people or circumstances because I will gain something from it. It is a curiosity linked to an outcome, not curiosity for curiosity’s sake. The feeling with insecuriosity is investigative, I need to find out, I have to know, it is important to me to gain information for whatever reason. There is an end I have in mind. I used to do this all the time, I would meet someone new and my ego mind would size them up and analyze instantly how meeting this person was (going to be) meaningful to me. Were they simply interesting? Would knowing them further my career/agenda/personal goals? Was it simply cool to call them an acquaintance or even friend? If any of those came back as a positive, I would engage in insecuriosity about them. I would be an ‘active listener’ and ask many questions, and I would try my best to find out as much as I could about them. I did this for two reasons: I would create more trust and intimacy with them by knowing something personal, and I would gain insight into them that could be used at a later point. Even writing this makes me feel icky inside now.

This ego-identified curiosity is not authentic, because it comes from the limited experience of me, me, me and thus is about me. It is not about the other person. It is about finding out information for ego advancement and gratification. Most people do this. I now see it in others all the time, there is an element to their curiosity that wanes. It comes and goes and depends entirely on their level of interest in what I may or may not share, and how interesting or useful this may be to them. Haven’t you ever met someone who seemed curious about you, asked you questions and you ended up feeling as though you were either talking to yourself, or conversely felt invaded upon? The kind of conversation that may as well not have taken place, because you could feel that it wasn’t actually about a genuine interest in you as a person, but about something for them? I remember watching the movie Bowfinger a few years ago that was chock-full of scenes of this kind of curiosity. Every single moment of curiosity between people in that film was about the insecuriosity about each other. Once someone’s curiosity revealed that the other was uninteresting or unimportant, the conversation ended or drifted into nothingness. A wonderful portrayal of insecuriosity.

Authentic or natural curiosity is another world. Literally. We enter another world when we are truly curious. In order to be curious in that way, we have to suspend all self-interest and judgment. We have to be engaged in the business of now. The only thing that I am curious about is being here and experiencing it with as little interference in my mind as possible. This applies to people and circumstances equally. I talk about this to my business clients all the time, because this is not only powerful, but also extremely practical and effective. When one of my clients faces a dilemma with a colleague, the first thing I ask is whether they have gotten curious about it. Almost without fail, they have not. Instead they talk about everything they already know about the person and their behavior, why they’re doing it, and what the best solution would be to remedy the situation based on their assumptions. This is of course not very helpful and usually quite off the mark. That’s when we talk about how to get curious about the situation and/or the person.

This takes some willingness on my client’s part to acknowledge that they have been operating purely on judgment and have never taken it upon themselves to talk to the person at issue with genuine openness and curiosity. One client once had a team member who would leave the office at stroke of five and go home. They would often do work from home at later hours in the evening, but never stay in the office with the other team members to finish an important project or help make a deadline. They never came to team events, always saying they were busy. When pressed a bit by the team, they would give elusive answers and never really explain their lack of team spirit. The team began to question the motives and value of this team member. The manager was flustered and didn’t know what to do, this was damaging to the team spirit, but they also felt that this team member was productive and a good performer. Instead of judging the behavior and trying to come up with their own answers, the manager decided to take the team member out to lunch privately. After spending some time talking and sharing on a more personal level, the manager asked for permission to speak openly. At this point all he wanted was to find out from the team member what was going in their life that made them behave the way they did, and that if they couldn’t or didn’t want to share, that would be alright as well. He went into the conversation with curiosity for curiosity’s sake. The team member opened up and shared that their spouse was dying of cancer and that their job was keeping the roof over their head. Their spouse was extremely weak, and the only quality time they could spend with them was after the nurse left for the day at 5:30 until their spouse went to sleep around nine every night completely exhausted. That was the time when the team member could get on the computer and do some work. They did not want to talk to anyone about this because it was so painful for them. They were also drowning in debts from insurance co-pays. They swore the manager to secrecy, which he honored. After the spouse passed, the manager got permission and shared the story with the team who ended up hosting a fund raiser for some of the medical bills.

We never know what may be on the other side of unbridled curiosity. It starts with us. We have to be willing to be curious about ourselves and our own intentions and judgments. Next time you find yourself judging away about someone or something (including yourself of course), sit down and have a meal with yourself, get curious and find out where all this is coming from and what it’s all about. That curiosity may just lead to curious insights.

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

 

 

 

 

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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