Tag Archives: perspective

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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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Lost and Found

Guess I had a summer break without planning one. I have had some posts itching in me for the past couple of weeks, so tonight the first one is on.

I have had many experiences with getting lost, in myself and others. There are limitless ways of getting lost and limitless degrees to getting lost, but the reason for it is always the same: complete ego-identification. That is the beauty and simplicity of it. When we get lost, we have all these ways of describing, defining, defending and justifying our lostness. It makes sense to us and once we are lost, we are already fully committed. Once we’re fully committed, it gets harder and harder to see it for what it is, ego-id, and instead becomes a closed logical circuit that builds on itself. It’s akin to buying property in Crazytown.

Getting lost takes a lot of thought. Thought is at the root of our human experience of course; without it, we wouldn’t exist. Unconscious thinking is the issue and is what we employ on our way to getting lost. It may begin with a harmless remark by someone, with an action, anything really that we notice and hold on to, in whatever small way. That tiny bit of holding on, and the thought that goes with it, is like a seed. If we happen to forget to water it through repetition, it will disappear, but if we begin to repeat the notion and keep revisiting it, it will grow. This can happen over years, months or within seconds. Once it takes on some weight and thus meaning for us, the thought will swell up, gain momentum and compound. When that happens we are lost in our thinking and no longer experience it as thought, but as fact. Has someone ever come to you with an issue they had with you, often a while ago? And once they get started you are almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of thinking they have done about it, and the level of assumptions they are relying on in their minds? It can be quite the spectacle, and we can see that they are lost in their own thinking and rationale, and it has nothing to do with what actually happened any longer. The thinker has become the thought. At that point they’re lost in that thought package, in the ‘issue’ they have.

I have done this so many times, and until I gained some insight into the very elaborate trappings of my ego-identification and how it functioned by making particular thoughts and their patterns real to me, I ended up in Crazytown frequently. Didn’t own property there, but certainly kept an apartment. It’s fascinating to me how even now my thinking can get to me and lead me into lostness. One of my favorites is still the idea that I haven’t amounted to anything in my life. If I am very tired, have an off day and my mood is muffled, this is one pattern that can get a hold of me pretty quickly. Thing is, no one knows me better than I do, so if I fall for that thought pattern even a little bit, bam!, I am right in it. It’s like a hurricane in my head at that point. ‘What have you achieved? No one likes you, you really have no friends. Everything you have ever tried amounted to nothing. Your life is impermanent as it is, and there ain’t much time left, so you may as well face the fact that this was pretty much it…’ On and on it goes. I get completely lost in my thinking. And of course I am the only person on the planet who feels this way at that point, so loneliness usually comes along with it.

The good news is that we can be found again. Sometimes it’s something or someone on the outside that snaps us out of it. It’s important to remember that even though it’s seemingly coming from the outside, we are making the shift internally, snapping out of it. I say that because we never want to lose sight of the fact that we always create the life experience we are having at any moment, and that means that we are always creating our experience. Not to be too repetitious, but it is so important for us to remember, because if we are lost and someone we meet says or does the right thing that has us stop our thought pattern and gain perspective, we often think that they did it for us, but they didn’t. It is of course wonderful to have that happen and have people like that around, but we are the ones who hear them and make the shift. Then we find ourselves again. We realize that what we have been dealing with was not a reality, but our unconscious thought pattern. That what we thought was real, was just that, a thought. A compounding thought nonetheless that kept adding to itself only to create more reality, more fact and justification for feeling the way we did. It does not matter how long we were lost, or to what extent, once we become aware of our thinking as the source, it’s over. Just like that.

In my case I feel as though I am waking up and begin to notice the present moment again. Once I am in that space, gratitude about my life flows in and my mind settles down. Getting found does not mean that I begin to recite a list of successes in my life or come up with anything that counteracts my litany of ‘poor me’ thoughts; that would be like painting my apartment in Crazytown a nicer color. Getting found is all about becoming aware of the pattern, and letting it be. It’s all about not being interested in the drama, the heaviness, the quality of it any longer. That is truly enough. Disinterest kills nagging thoughts.

So welcome back to all who are here. I hope you have had a great summer and managed to stay found most of the time. If you got lost and found yourself again, welcome back as well. If you became lost and still are, I hope that you will consider that it’s all a thought (pattern) and that no one except you gets to decide whether you stay interested in that line of thinking or not. Give it a shot, you may find it (helpful).

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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Drama

Drama is the mojo of the ego-identified life. Without drama, ego-identification has a hard time hanging around.

I have realized in myself that drama isn’t limited to the big events in life, you know, the kinds of events that most people would agree are dramatic. Usually death, war, relationships, etc. When a lot of people agree that certain circumstances are dramatic, then for most of us these circumstances are dramatic when we find ourselves in them. And while we’re in the middle of experiencing this drama, other people confirm this for us in may different ways. They call us or come by to listen and share about similar dramas they have had happen in their lives, by reassuring us that we are not crazy to feel the way we feel, letting us know that this has happened to many other people as well, and to generally agree with and confirm our feelings. This is all beautiful, because they are honestly trying to help. Only, does it really?

When this happens, the drama at hand is still real. I still have to deal with it, experience it and go through it with all the emotional bells and whistles it comes with. Relating to other people in this way does not add perspective to the situation. It keeps me in the drama, and if anything confirms that it is real. I cannot do anything about it. I am in it, I am it. Others are confirming it and sharing how it was for them when it ‘happened to me.’ The idea is that talking to others who have been through a similar drama will lift some of the weight, some of the sense of doom or inescapability of the drama at hand. It shows me that this too shall pass. At some point.

I have had enough drama in my life as well. I used to be addicted to it, as a matter of fact. My complete ego-id life was so full of drama that it had become normal. Actually, when there was nothing to worry about, no drama to deal with, no matter how small, I would freak out a little bit. Why wasn’t there any drama or worry? That was impossible after all. If you had no drama in your life you were either lying to yourself or full of it. Usually I would have a period when there were only the small every-day-middle-of-the-road-dramas, such as the cable bill had an issue and I had to spend time and emotion to fix it through lengthy discussions with the cable person, after punching my way through ten phone menus to reach an actual person. Or a friend was having a crisis (another word for drama) that needed attention. Money issues always came in handy when there was no pressing or serious drama at hand. If this collection of small dramas went on too long, I would freak out a little bit and wonder what was coming, surely something big was about to hit, because there hadn’t been any major drama for so long. It was background noise and always had to be there in some way. Without drama, something was wrong. A life without it meant that you were not serious about life, or dead.

I used to be in this boat, but I got out. I got out the moment I became aware of the fact that everything that had ever happened in my life up to that point made sense. It fit, it had gotten me to where I was at that moment. The good, the bad, the ugly, no matter what had happened to me in my life, no matter how dramatic or traumatic at the time, it fit. I did not suddenly see the trauma or drama as a great thing, no, but I saw it as a circumstance that had happened in my life of endless circumstances, and that all of these combined made sense. This happened to me during a major drama I was experiencing, and with this insight came the instant realization that the current drama was fitting into my life as well. I wasn’t able to see how yet, but it was. This changed the experience of the situation dramatically (pun intended), I was no longer a victim to the circumstance, but simply experiencing it, knowing full well that it made sense. It gave me instant perspective.

As more awareness is in my life, it changes everything. Most of the time I don’t see it, I don’t know how different my life has become, and then someone tells me about their issues or drama, and I have a hard time commiserating, I cannot get myself to participate in their drama, because it simply does not make sense to do so. I recognize that it is real to them, that they are distressed and feeling all of the drama they’re describing, but I also see that it is a mere product of an ego-identified state, and that this is a choice on their part. To some people that looks cold and uncaring, because if their drama isn’t taken seriously, then they aren’t taken seriously, because of course they are it. That’s not it though, I take them seriously, but their drama is simply uninteresting. Much like my own ego’s bs is uninteresting to me as well.

How many times have we worked ourselves up about something, only to find out later that it was the best thing that could have happened? We tried and tried to make that relationship work, lots of drama, and after we finally walked away from it we ended up enjoying the solitude or met a more perfect match. We really wanted to buy that one house, but the seller wouldn’t budge on the price, big drama, and two weeks later another house went on the market on the same block, and it was nicer and we got the price we wanted. On and on it goes, what looked like drama was nothing but the effect of buying into the pompous dance of ego identification and self importance. Drama is serious business and wants to be taken seriously. But that is a choice, not a given. We can sidestep it, cut to the chase and wonder instead what is going to be on the other side of it.

The next time you find yourself experiencing some serious drama, consider that it’s simply life letting you know that you have your head up your ego-id butt, that it is time to drop it, step back, be uninterested in it, and look at your life as a whole. It all fits, it always has, and always will. The drama will pass the moment we are willing to see this, because perspective kills it.

Cheers,

Ralf

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Expectations

We have them all the time. We have them of others, of ourselves, and even of life itself. Add to it the idea that I ‘deserve’ something, and expectation can get out of control pretty quickly. Then it becomes a chain reaction.

I have been seeing this in myself a lot lately. I have been working with someone on a project and, without noticing, formed expectations around the whole thing. I expected certain outcomes and reactions from the other person. I expected them to do exactly what they said they would. Sounds reasonable, I know. I can hear you saying that this is normal, to expect a person to do as they say they will. And it is. But how does it serve me? What does it do for me to expect them to deliver exactly the way they said they would? Let’s check this out a little more.

So someone tells me that they will do something by a certain time and date and I rely on this. I expect them to do exactly as they promised. A lot may depend on them delivering this. Maybe a whole project or jobs are on the line if they don’t deliver. Maybe people could get hurt if they don’t deliver. With all this in mind it is perfectly reasonable if not responsible of me to expect them to deliver, right? Well, yes. What has been bugging me about this is that the expectation I hold in myself creates an uneasiness and weight. It is as though I am walking around in a sort of limbo state, waiting for my expectation to be met. Until that happens, the weight and tension around it is within me and won’t release until the expectation has been met. Then I feel that release and for a moment I feel lighter, relieved and as though things are now on track; except the next expectation shows up almost immediately. And if my expectation is not met, disappointment sets in and I end up with double the weight. But no matter what, the next expectation is right there. Whether it’s positive or negative makes no difference. The weight remains, and it’s one after another. It’s really not very pleasant.

All expectations do is add this weight and tension of anticipation. The limbo feeling. They do not produce any movement or creation. They have me hanging around and if I am waiting for someone to ‘come through’ it’s even worse, because now I am stuck with this feeling until they act. I have placed my peace of mind in their hands. If I have expectations of myself to do something in particular, that really sucks, because now I have the added feeling of me having to deliver. Meet my own expectations. Ever had one of those? I better get that project done by the deadline, I better get that A in the class, I cannot forget my partner’s birthday, every New Year’s resolution, etc. A lot of fun to be had there, right? It sucks. So what is there to do about this?

Let go of all expectations. Every-single-one-of-them. I don’t care what the expectation is about. Expectations are based on made up ideas about made up circumstances that we made up to be of importance to us. I can hear you wondering that without expectations nothing would happen. Expectations motivate us. Sure they can, but all I am asking is what the quality of this motivation is. Expectations are like a straight jacket on creativity. They pretty much define what is supposed to happen by whom and when. It’s limiting. Not having any expectation is opening. I am not saying that we don’t make commitments to things, or that we don’t promise to do the best we can. That’s different. I can have someone promise that they will do something and then simply let that be and see what happens. If they deliver on their promise, great, if not, then they don’t. Their choice, not mine. I get to be with this in any way that I choose. I can create any story around it or simply accept that the situation that is presenting itself as an outcome is the one in front of me and I get to be with it any way I choose to. Period. It circles right back to the idea that we create our life experience moment-to-moment, at all times. No one else does this for us. It is my choice to have expectations or not. I let go of all my expectations with the person I was working with and felt an instant sense of relief and room to breathe. I realized that they were either going to do what they said or not, but that this was simply their choice and had nothing to do with me. I let it go and decided to work with them for as long as it feels right, and when it doesn’t, I will stop.

Haven’t you ever had an expectation unmet, got upset, were disappointed, and created whatever drama around it you felt in line with the ‘size’ of the expectation? Then something happened that would have never been able to happen if your expectation had been met? Let’s say you expected your best friend to show up for dinner and they didn’t, and because of this, you decided to go to the library and work on the paper you’ve been avoiding and ended up meeting a girl/guy that you fell in love with? You expected that plane to be on time and it wasn’t, but because of this you met someone at the bar in the airport who ended up offering you a job? You expected your coworker to email the slides on time, but they didn’t and because of this your presentation sucked, you lost your job but ended up deciding to go back to school, or write that novel you have been thinking about? All I am saying is that expectations are a waste of energy and time. With them shit happens to us, without them, we decide what happens.

Take a look inside and see if you can find any expectations hanging around in the background. See how they feel. Notice the weight and tension they have. Then ask yourself what would happen if you simply let them go. Give it a try, the result may not be what you expected …

Cheers,

Ralf

 

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Reactive reactionary

That’s a beautiful combination right there. Those two are the gatekeepers of the ego identification castle. When we are a reactive reactionary, we are fully engaged in the ego identification. In other words, we are either reacting to something or want to keep things just the way they are.

Reacting is what we do all day. We get up and react to the weather, the news, our spouse or partner, the kids, our own mood, the way we look, etc. We are reacting to the world and what it presents to us. So when I get into my car and drive to work, and someone cuts me off, I react. And boy, do I. In the interest of my G-Rating for the blog, I may not repeat the things that come out of my mouth in reaction to the … other person. Driving is one of my weak spots, well, that and watching my favorite soccer team suck. I easily slip into my ego skin and find myself reacting. When I am my ego, I am constantly and perpetually repeating the same thoughts over and over again. I do this to create permanence and predictability and therefore feel in control of my existence. A lot of repetition goes on there. So when someone cuts me off in traffic, guess what, been there, done that before, so I know how to react. Open and shut case. Depending on my state of awareness, I may entertain these thoughts for a couple of minutes or a couple of seconds. But I will fall for them most of the time. As mentioned, definite weak spot of mine.

What is fascinating to me about all this is the fact that I am doing the same damn thing every time. I re-act. I act the same way again and again. First in my thinking and then in my actions. So I am literally acting the same way I did before in light of the same ‘situation,’ which is to say in light of the same thoughts. That is a very limiting way to live to say the least. It denies us choice, to be able to see another way of being with a situation, or to act in a way that we may never have before. Instead we go with our well established and comfortable routine and even call that a good thing. I know my brother, sister, best friend, spouse, this is what they’re like, reliable like an old dog, you can count on them to react the same way every time, and it’s also hard to teach an old dog new tricks. By saying this, we simply solidify the idea of that person, and solidify the illusion that they are a permanent fixture in their ways. And what we end up with is the comfort of predictability and repetition. The ego enslaves us to the fake comfort of fake permanence.

The ego is also the ultimate reactionary. It wants to keep the status quo. It does not like change and has to keep things as they have always been, so that it may keep up the illusion of control over its own existence. It holds on to patterns and rituals and declares them essential. The perfect reactionary holds traditions as holy and sacred. They may not be challenged or questioned, and most certainly not changed. That is tantamount to sacrilege. They may not be messed with. If you dare to, you will be met with fierce resistance. This can go as far as physical violence. The ego will stop at almost nothing to defend its status quo and that can include its own demise. It never questions the origins of its dearly held traditions it is willing to die for. It will not entertain the possibility that it was simply made up by someone at some point. Everything the reactionary is so attached to was indeed made up at some point. But the idea that it could be changed or unmade is unthinkable.

There is another level to all this repetition, which is habit. Habits are what the ego is really good at. As the keeper of memory, it is actually the best at it. When I do something a couple of times, the ego stores this experience and makes sure to automatically pull that information when needed. So I will remember not to touch a hot stove. I will know not to grab a knife by its blade. This is incredibly practical and helpful. This does not limit my life experience, it makes it safer. It does not make me fear or hate stoves or knives. I simply use the information to make sure I won’t get hurt. I will remember how to speak my language, how to do math, drive a car, get dressed, eat, walk, etc. All of this is automatic and enhances my experience as a human. It’s a beautiful design. And then we start turning these habits into us, and bingo, we are a reactive reactionary.

All because we forget that we are temporary, that the ego is nothing but the story keeper of our human existence. Because we fall so deeply asleep to forget our own impermanence and that our life is but a mere moment in the vastness of all life. Billions of people have come and gone, billions of stars have come and gone, and billions upon billions will continue to do so. To the ego this is the most frightening fact of all, because when we dare to think like that, our life loses its importance to us, it becomes something we get to enjoy and do, and is no longer who we are. Our mind gets cleared up and quiets down. We begin to get back to our original state of human beingness, not human has been or human will be. The ego goes back to doing what it is designed to do, to give us a safe trip through human land.

Next time you see yourself re-acting, stop the show and realize that you are in the (insert your name here) show and get to call the shots about how this particular episode is going. You are the writer, director, producer and star of this show called your life. And who wants nothing but re-runs all the time?

Cheers,

Ralf

P.S.: I can now talk about the nomination for my book, check out The Book page on the site if you’d like to know more.

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Life

This is going to be my most personal post yet, I reckon. My wife and I had a daughter in May. My book was nominated for a literary award in Europe. My father passed away last week. Bam. I can see people reading these sentences and going from ‘aww’ to ‘oh no.’ Interesting, because I don’t.

It’s life. Yes, I have gone through these experiences, and I am doing it in a way that some people find and found ‘unusual,’ and others may have thought to themselves that I was nuts in some way. Because I often don’t fit what’s generally expected, normal or even accepted behavior in our current culture. Going through my life experiences the way I choose to most of the time now has truly changed my perspective, and having had these notable events happen to me in the span of five months has shown me that my perspective has taken hold in me and cannot be pushed aside, even by my own ego. And I am glad that this is so. Let me explain.

Before our daughter was born, I had heard numerous stories from other friends who are fathers how having this baby born changes you, how when you see them for the first time, you realize your life is no longer about you, that there is someone else now you have to think of first, and that you are instantly in love the moment you lay your eyes on them. Well, not for this father. Labor was amazing, all natural, no interventions, and I was awed by my wife’s resolve, groundedness and strength. I knew women were strong, but holy crap, that was some kind of strong. Then our daughter suddenly pops out, is placed on my wife, I see her for the first time and my thought was: ‘Holy shit, what the hell is this?!’ No bursting heart, no realizations of any deep kind about anything. Just a big unknown I was looking at. I struggled with this silently. My ego stepped in, trying to make up a positive feeling for me, when that didn’t work, it began to analyze me and concluded that there was something wrong with me. My wife sent me home (it was 5 am), and when I returned a few hours later, she asked me right away what was going on as I walked in the room, and I told her that I didn’t know what to feel for this baby, that I had no sense about it belonging with me. She looked at me and said, ‘me neither.’ Bless her. We laughed and talked about it and decided to trust that we would feel everything in our own way and timing. And we did. We love her until death, she is a hoot, and she has become part of our lives only another parent can understand. But we do not own her. We simply chose each other to share our lives here on earth as child and parent, and we love her, and we will do our utmost to take care of her, and most of all, not fill her head with our own stories of what (her) life should be about. But that it is her choice, always.

So then my father dies. We didn’t live close to each other, so we would talk on the phone or skype, and we knew how to have distance without creating one. In the past few years he had joked more frequently that he was tired of living and really wanted it to be over. One time last year he and I were talking and I asked him if he’d be willing to make a deal with me about this; that he would tell me when he was done joking about it and was serious. He agreed. The call came this August. He had developed some more issues with his prostate cancer, nothing that couldn’t be handled, but on the call he said to me, ‘I am serious, son. I am done. No more.’ It was beautiful how clear and peaceful he was about it. Within a couple of weeks he lost 40 pounds and went downhill fast. I flew to see him and hung out with him for two weeks, talking, laughing, having fun and reminiscing about life and what it is and isn’t about. We talked about his upcoming departure, and that was good too. No fear on his part, more curiosity, if anything he was worried how my mom would do without him. He bounced back for those two weeks and everything I wanted to say and share with him I did. Except my daughter, which was alright he said. After I left he plateaued for another two weeks and was gone within another two. On his terms, and in his way. And I was with him all the way. And now that is complete.

I have been through both of these life changing experiences, and I felt stuff. The whole time I did. From fear, to worry, occasional self-judgment, joy, sadness, loneliness, you name it. Point is, I felt those things, but I never became them. My perspective on life in general and mine in particular have aligned. The perspective that my life is not mine to own, but mine to experience, and that I choose that experience every moment of it. Nothing can change that anymore. Not the birth of my child, not the passing of my father. They represent to me the eternal rhythm of the cosmos (or whatever you may call it) breathing in and out. There is nothing and no thing that is permanent. First we forget this, and then we try everything we can to not remember this. We lose our perspective on life. We get sucked into our story, and we will fight until death to maintain it. And we tell each other all the time that our stories are real and that who and what we are as a result is not only ok, but justified.

The most interesting challenge for me in going through these experiences this year thus far has not been my own feelings, it has been having to listen to other people’s attempts to try and share in them by coming from their limited story perspective. People were well intentioned, I know that, but most of them were coming from their story, and from reiterating the agreed upon collective stories around the joys (and trials) of becoming parents, and losing a parent. I get it. I can appreciate their honest wish to share and to support. But most of it was not helpful, because it wasn’t real. It was a story. The few people that were simply in a space of being with me, asking what they could do, without expectation, were the helpful ones. They did not have to say anything, their presence was what was helpful. Throughout all of this, my perspective remained solid. I will feel what I feel and keep moving through life. I am in a great place about having a daughter, and I am in a great place about my father having gone back to swim in the quantum soup. I am in the unknown as it is. That’s life.

We come in with a breath and we leave with a breath, how beautiful is that? So I wish for you that you can gain your perspective on your life that lets you experience it in all its facets, without having to become trapped in it. No matter what you are going through, remember that you are going through it, but you aren’t it, you are the experiencer. You get to choose what that looks like, no one else, again and again.

Cheers,

Ralf

P.S.: I am not allowed to publicly talk about the literary award nomination until November, when the list is announced.

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Momentness

I am not sure whether this word exists or not, but in any case I think it should. To me it describes the feeling of being here more accurately than the word ‘now.’

We learn to live in a world of ‘thenness’ very early on in our lives. We do not start out this way though. It is not how we show up. We start out completely living in the present moment with no thought to the previous or next moment. Have you ever watched a baby crying and upset only to smile and beam, literally the next second? That is what I am talking about here. There is a complete commitment to the moment. It’s a great reminder of how we all begin in our human journey. Obviously we learn stuff along the way, we have to in order to live a functional life, no question. But instead of simply learning things and relying on the fact that we will utilize this knowledge on a need to know basis, we go ahead and turn all that we learned into us. We become the things we learn. When we do this, we immediately add weight to it. I think that this is not only figuratively speaking, but very real. As we ‘take on’ the things we learn and make them about us, we get heavier. We can see this in people, too. Have you ever met someone that seemed heavy, that felt as though they are carrying something around with them? Chances are that they are, and that they are full of thoughts about themselves and their lives. They are caught in time, and being caught in time means that we hold on to eternally repetitive thought patterns.

When we take on the things we learn in this way, this repetitive thinking about ourselves is all we have. That leads to a life almost exclusively lived in the past or the future. It has to, because all we see and experience is a thinking that is either looking at what’s ahead or what’s behind. People will argue to no end that this is not only normal, but absolutely necessary. How could you live without thinking about the future and the past? How could you exist or live a life? These questions make a lot of sense, but they are asked from the vantage point of ego identification. It’s all about the perspective. When we believe to be our past and future and thus the story they create, we may not exist outside of this construct. For if I am not the story, who or what am I? Pretty much nothing. There is nothing left. And from this perspective this is absolutely true. Without the reference points of a personal past and future I cannot exist.

But is that really true? What about people who suffer from partial amnesia, the kind where they remember language, motor function, and all the essential functions of a human being, but they cannot remember details of their past lives (their stories)? They exist, don’t they? If anything they often have a childlike quality about them, a certain lightness, precisely because they are not carrying around years of memories that create, define and limit them. Much like small babies. They very much exist. As a matter of fact, they exist with such intensity if you will that people have a hard time resisting them and their unbounded presence and joy. This is powerful stuff. It’s the stuff of momentness. We are all drawn to this, we try to bring it into our lives as much as we can. We try to create situations in our lives to make this happen. We all have hobbies, activities and things we do in order to put ourselves into momentness. It may be a vacation, it may be hanging out with friends, playing a sport, going shopping, being alone, eating, cooking, you name it. All of these attempts of ‘unplugging’ in whatever small way in every day are aimed at creating a respite from the maelstrom of our constant thinking about the past and the future. We need a break from it. But this break is only necessary as long as we choose to live in time or our thinking.

I have heard many stories of people who had faced death in one way or another and afterwards talk about a deep shift in their perspective on things. They often feel much calmer in their everyday lives, don’t worry much and have very little concern about the past or future. They have stepped outside of their time bound story and right into momentness. Only, I used to think that one had to go through an experience like this to be able to have this change. You had to have faced death to qualify. Now I know that this is not true. All it takes is a shift in perspective and a choice. A moment-to-moment choice for momentness. I admit that in the beginning this felt a bit fatalistic if not morbid. To allow myself to think that every single time I said goodbye to my wife could be the last. That waking up every morning was not a given. That talking to my family and friends was a singular event that may never be repeated. In fact this is a wonderful feeling once we drop the above ideas about this. This is what happens to people who skipped death. This is momentness. It is the awareness of the fact that everything is absolutely temporary and only given the appearance of permanence through our own repetitive thinking. Seeing this not only keeps us in existence, it also creates a life of vibrance, gratitude and joy, knowing that it can end in this form at any time. This is not depressing, it is light and affirming. The moment is all there is, so we may as well not miss it by thinking ourselves out of it incessantly.

The next time you find yourself in a funk or situation that has you caught in time, see if you can watch your thoughts that are giving you the experience you are having. This is the doorway into the moment. By becoming present to our thinking about and in time, we get to be here in the moment, and enjoy a dose of momentness. Beauty is, we never run out of them. Moments that is.

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Unknown

Somehow that word has gotten a bad rap. Most people shudder at the unknown. It’s the space in life no one likes to go to, or have to deal with. And most certainly won’t invite into their lives.

It reminds us of our childhood fears maybe, remember when we stood at the top of the basement stairs, maybe at the Grandparents’ house, and were looking into the dark abyss below? It was a scary and dark place with odd smells and weird sounds. It was the great unknown. Then there was the first summer camp or overnight stay at someone’s house, so many unknowns in that as well. When we start out on this planet as babies, we do not fear the unknown, because we are unknown. We literally know nothing. We are a blank and filled bundle of focused consciousness shoved into a human body. We don’t even know that we have a body in the very beginning. We do not know where we end and something else begins. Nothing is known to us. But that’s not an issue then, because we are a simply (a) being. In being there is nothing but the unknown. Think about this for a moment. Whenever we are completely present in a moment, we are not thinking about the future or the past, we are here and now, now here or nowhere. If you have ever looked into someone’s eyes with utter and complete love, you know that sense of momentness. Nothing matters and nothing in particular is on our minds, there is no room for anything to distract us. We know nothing, except that we are here. We are in the unknown.

Feels pretty great, doesn’t it? And then we go and limit our ability to experience this feeling, because we thrust ourselves back into ‘reality’ and start up our good ole ego identification to get back to the busyness of thinking about the future or the past. That is what we know. To plan, to prepare, to anticipate, to plot, to assume, to hope, to worry, to fear, to wonder, and on and on it goes. It is such a hard existence. We spend almost the entirety of our lives doing this, and by doing so are so desperately trying to hide from the unknown. It freaks us out and scares us to no end. The cosmic joke is on us though. While we spend all this time and energy to try and avoid the unknown, the Universe, God, Allah, the Great Nothing or whatever you choose to believe in is laughing heartily. They are laughing because we are always living in the unknown, whether we believe it or not, and there is nothing to fear. Truly.

We are all made of the same wonderful and mysterious stuff, we are all swimming in the same quantum soup, making ourselves up as we go along. And then we go and keep repeating the same thoughts and patterns endlessly to feel as though we know who we are and what we are doing. This way we may have a sense of control and know who we are. But what do we really know? If we look at it we quickly discover that all we know are our own thoughts and their repetitious patterns. It’s known, it’s reliable and most of all, very comfortable. Especially in opposite to the unknown. But we are always living in the unknown. Our habitual thoughts simply give us the illusion of knowing of what’s to come. We wake up and know what we are going to do, we go through our days with the idea that we know what’s next. And if we ever even feel a sense of the unknown ahead, we try to get as much information as possible on what may lie ahead so that we can regain a sense of knowing. The truth of the matter is of course that we never know what lies ahead. We cannot and we will never be able to. Period.

So what to do then? Take a look at it. We never know what lies ahead, we only believe that we do. And we like to believe that, because we are scared shitless otherwise. Why? Because in ego identification we have to try and know as much as possible about everything – in the past, the present and the future. The ego exists only in the concept of our lives as a time horizon event, we are born, we do some shit and we die. Within that short time frame the ego would like to do two things: Be in total control and hide from the fact that it is temporary. This way, the unknown becomes the most fearful experience. Conversely, the unknown is the space where control and permanence go out the window. It’s like the antidote to the ego id life. Once we are willing to step out of the ego, the unknown becomes a natural way of living. And it becomes the preferred way to live. Everyday I marvel at the fact that I have no clue what is going to happen, ever. I wake up and have no idea what will happen, or rather, all I have is an idea, and that can change at a moment’s notice. I plan for things I want to do, and I try to organize for what I have planned, but always knowing that in fact none of it may happen, that every moment of my life is an unknown. It is a lot of fun. Nothing is set, all can happen and you never know what that may be, but that we can know. Knowing that our lives are unknown is deeply reassuring. At first it’s like jumping into the pool on a hot summer’s day, a bit jarring and then immediately refreshing and comfortable, and then we simply float in the cool water and let it carry us. Much like the unknown. And then we realize that there is nothing to fear.

So go ahead and give it a shot. Start your day, plan and anticipate, but keep an expectant smile in the back of your mind that you really have no clue what is actually going to happen. That you are walking into the unknown. That everything could work out the way you anticipated or planned, or not at all. You never know …

Cheers,

Ralf

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The Impersonal Life

We take so much shit personally in life. Seriously, it’s out of control. We are all prone to doing this, just think about it.

We will actually sit in traffic and wonder why it is happening to us. We will get to the check out at the store, all the lines are busy, and we will think that this always happens to us, especially when we’re in a hurry. Bad weather ruins our grill party, flight delayed, car accident, cut off in traffic, dropping a plate full of food, someone else late for a meeting, someone does not return our call/email, guess what, it’s personal, it’s against me, and it sucks. Talk about full ego identification. May as well call it the ‘life is about me’ syndrome. Funny how that sneaks up on us and sets up shop in our consciousness. Once that has happened, life is a very personal affair. Everything is in some way about me, me, me. I know, I say that a lot, but that’s just how it is. In the ego id life, that’s how things come out, that’s what it’s all about. In all these different ways.

One of those ways is to take shit personally. As listed above, most of it doesn’t hold up as a personal issue for very long when looked at with a bit of perspective, meaning whenever we are not in the middle of it. Then it is blatantly clear that traffic is just traffic, lines are lines, etc. But when we are in the middle of it, it sure looks personal. I have taken it personally when a flight on one of my business trips was delayed because of a tornado outbreak in the Midwest. I actually sat at the airport, exhausted and wanting to get home, and felt sorry for my ‘personal bad luck’ that these tornadoes had to hit when and where they did, so that this would happen to me. Not a thought about all those poor people in the middle of that. As I am writing it, it sounds horrible, but at the time it made sense. Notice something? When we take shit personally, it’s seriously about me. We become self-absorbed monsters who couldn’t care less about anyone else. It may only last a few seconds or minutes, or even a lifetime, but while we are in this state, we are not very caring and loving people. Because this shit is about me, damn it, and who looks out for me but me?

I used to think that the alternative to this is to try and think of others before me. To focus on other people’s needs and make my own second. This way, I figured, I would be a good person who will do good things for people. After that I could focus on my own stuff. It was as if thinking of others would make me more selfless and force me to not think of me first, and also not take things personally. After all, if I am at the airport with my flight delayed, I would divert my personal frustration immediately to think about the poor people who may have gotten hurt or lost their homes. My flight delay loses its drama. There is nothing I can do for those people at the moment, but thinking about them and commiserating may help in some way at least. Only, it’s still about me.

I know that this is the moment where I lose some people, because it seems so awful to say that thinking about others is about me. But it is. The only thing that happens here is that we shift the focus of our very personal thinking away from ‘me’ and onto others, but in doing so, my ego id remains fully intact, because now I get to feel good about ‘me’ since I am a good person who cares about others. Others now will see me this way. I can see me this way. I care about others and put them first. That’s the kind of person I am. A good person. And others should know this and recognize this. I give of myself to serve others, others are more important than me. Do you see what’s happening here? It’s still about me. Granted, I may actually help someone else, but it’s not freely shared, it’s given from me to someone else. Strings attached, and if only to be thanked or seen as a good person.

There is a whole other way. It’s the way that is a natural byproduct of living with as opposed to as my ego, or outside of ego identification. Life gets increasingly impersonal. Quite literally, shit simply happens, and we actually choose it to be shit or not. The choice thing again. When we live life more in the here and now, we see choices before us all the time, in all kinds of ways. And if I choose my life experience moment to moment, then why choose to take what happens personally? It actually isn’t, it’s just life happening and unfolding in front of our eyes. It is what it is. Then we choose to turn it into a personal matter, or not. The former leads to all of the above, the latter gives us the impersonal life. We are participating actively in our lives, but we aren’t it. We feel what we feel, but we aren’t the feeling. We experience what we experience, but we aren’t the experience. We are the creator and observer of all this. Life becomes very intoxicating and interesting when lived that way. We still get to do it all, without having to be it all. We can share whatever we choose to share with others freely, and expect nothing in return. We help because we feel compassion, not commiseration. Our lives have a different quality when they are impersonal to us. There is more space and freedom, and more of a sense of sharing in it all, with everyone else. Totally different motivation for one’s own existence. Life is a more expansive affair that we share in, as all others do, and we get to choose our participation in it. Moment to moment, again and again.

Our lives are just a story, and we are the creator of this story. When we think we are the story, shit is personal. When we are not the story, there is no shit and it’s impersonal.

Next time you take something personally, pretend to zoom up above your head and survey the situation you’re in, or look at it as if you were weeks in the future looking back, anything that will help you create some space between you and the drama at hand. Then see what happens. You may just find yourself in a space of compassion for that poor schmuck taking it all so seriously and personally and have a lighter sense about it all.

Cheers,

Ralf