A.C. Ping's Blog, page 3

Why is this perfect now?

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all others."
Cicero

 

 

The conflict had been going on for many months and the young man was getting tired. As the normal avenues for resolution had evaporated the other side had resorted to underhanded tactics - rumour, innuendo and unfounded allegations of the lowest kind were used to try and smear his character and turn the community against him.

In the midst of this, self pity called; "Oh poor me" it spoke "I don't deserve this"

The young man was tempted, his spirit had been wounded by the ongoing taunts. He'd been forced to defend himself to others and question his very being in his quieter moments.

Suddenly, his melancholic state was broken. An old man appeared before him, his hair silver with wisdom, his eyes clear and bright.

"Before you the path diverges," he said, "If you choose to go down the path of self pity, you will relinquish your power. Your judgement of the situation will close the gate to possibility and you will be forced to release your freedom to choose.

Your self pity is thinly disguised self importance. You will tell yourself you are the victim and that you need to be saved but you will not be willing to take any action to save yourself. Hence you will wallow in self pity and cry to anyone who will listen, hoping against hope that someone will come and save you. All along you will have denied yourself the opportunity to embrace your own freedom."

The young man was taken aback, no one had ever spoken to him like this before and although a part of him wanted to tell the old man to leave him alone another part yearned to know the rest of the story.

"And the other path?" he asked.

The old man's eyes lit up, a smile curled his lips and he chuckled softly.

"The other path involves power. Not over others but over the self and the challenges of spirit. To seek freedom is to know that in every situation one has a choice. But that freedom is not given by others, it is taken by the self through the act of exercising our will. Free will.

As judgement locks the gate to possibility, gratitude opens the door.

Your life is a precious gift and every challenge you face contains a gift - a gift of power.

Gratitude transforms the pain of whatever challenge we may face in life. It gives us the opportunity to ask a question of ourselves that we didn't even know we should ask. And through the answering of the question we give ourselves the opportunity to grow and expand.

Without duality there would be no growth. By embracing any challenge and seeing it as perfect we claim our chance. We exercise our will and claim our freedom to choose. In doing so we receive the gift of power."

The young man reflected on how he had been dealing with the conflict. All too often he knew he had rejected the situation as unfair. Anger and resentment had arisen and he had poured out his feelings to anyone who would listen.

Slowly it had poisoned his mind and zapped his energy.

The old man's words shone a light into the darkness. There was a way forwards. It wasn't all about him. It wasn't personal. He was free to choose.

"Thankyou" he said. And as he did so the heavy weight that had plagued him for weeks began to lift and the very life force began to flow back into him.

The old man smiled again, "You're welcome", he replied and turned to go on his way.

In peace and love always.

Why Good People Do Bad Things

The recent drugs in sport controversy together with the revelations of the behind the scenes antics of the Australian swimming team at the London Olympics has left many of us wondering how this could possibly have happened?

The instinctive response to such events is to point to one of three things; character flaws - the perpetrators are 'bad apples'; greed - they did it for the money; or, lack of values - they've been brought up badly and need to be re-educated. Heaven forbid that we could possibly accept that 'they' could be just like us - much easier to condemn them and declare "I would never do anything like that!"

But reality and research reveals a far more complex answer. You see if you scratch below the surface of this issue and look closely at the people involved you won't find bad, greedy people with fatal character flaws. Instead you will find family minded people who've often done a lot for the community and in many cases have gone beyond the call of duty for their clubs, team mates and country.

So, what's going on? How do good people end up doing bad things?

It's all got to do with stories and justifications. All of us tell a story about ourselves that describes our moral identity - whether or not we are a good or bad person. When we do something bad we have to re-adjust our story to reflect what we've just done. The thing is there's a certain degree of flexibility in the way we can describe events to ourselves and this is where we have a big of wriggle room to let ourselves off the hook.

Rationalisations allow us to justify taking certain actions that if we saw someone else do we would be most likely to condemn. Common rationalisations include; denial of responsibility - "I was just following orders"; denial of injury - "It didn't hurt anyone"; denial of the victim - "They deserved it"; condemning the condemners - "You have no right to judge us"; an appeal to higher loyalties - "We did it for the team"; everyone else is doing it - "If we don't do it then it wouldn't be fair" (see Lance Armstrong for a good example of this!); claim to entitlement - "We've earned it".

Rationalisations allow 'good' people to keep their moral identity intact even as they do 'bad' things.

What goes hand in hand with rationalisations and makes unethical practices endemic is socialisation. Socialisation is the process of including individuals in a group to reinforce meaning. The more one desires to be a part of a group the more one is likely to bend one's own values and behaviours to fit the group - see the bizarre initiation ritual described by the Australian men's relay team for instance.

Socialisation is negative when old 'players' model 'bad' behaviour; newcomers are encouraged to emulate and idolise them; newcomers are consistently told "This is the way we do things around here"; and, any concerns of the newcomers are dismissed as their personal naiveté or shortcomings.

Established rationalisation and socialisation is hard to overcome simply because the people perpetrating the behaviours are not 'bad' people. Attempts to address the 'bad' behaviour are recast as personal attacks on 'good' people. Witness the way in which Rugby league players have rallied around sacked coaches, community members have stood up for the 'good blokes', and fans have called for Board members to be sacked.

When 'bad' practices come to light we want someone to blame, a bad guy to take the fall. The problem occurs when at the end of the trail of clues, investigations find instead of an Ogre, a community minded family man with a track record of caring for others.

The Perils of Rumination

In Book X of his work 'The Nicomachean Ethics', the Greek philosopher Aristotle extols the virtues of contemplation as

"both the highest form of activity (since the intellect is the highest thing in us, and the objects that it apprehends are the highest thing that can be known), and also the most continuous, because we are more capable of continuous contemplation than we are of any practical activity."

In our current crazy world full of smart phones constantly connecting to wifi networks whilst syncing themselves to all manner of other gadgets just to make sure that all the machines and us might miraculously end up on the same page, we rarely get enough time for contemplation.

So, what would a person with only limited time left in the world but released from the concerns of the world spend their time contemplating?

Recently I've had the opportunity to ask this question as two of my friends have been dying - and yes I know we are all dying but what I mean is dying in a more accelerated way - read terminal illness and visualise doctors frowning and stroking their chins as they try to determine exactly how long you've got...

In any case, contemplation - or in the initial case rumination - "chewing the cud" - begins with 'Why?!' or more specifically 'Why me?!'

And here's where we get to see pain because 'Why me?' is a question about fairness and justice. And we can extrapolate this type of thinking into any bad news or perceived injustice afflicting us in our world.

A refusal to accept the reality presented before us and a vain attempt to try and dredge through history to find a reason 'WHY!' so that the world may make sense and we can find a solution to the underlying feeling of injustice.

Rumination like this keeps us up at night, frustrates us on a tautological merry-go-round that haunts our dreams and taints our world.

Neuroscience researchers tell us that part of our brain seeks meaning in the events of life and absent of meaning will actually make something up to fill in the details. The merry-go-round of 'Why?' keeps engaging this part and keeps us trapped in an analysis of the past.

Freedom arises when there is surrender and acceptance. One friend has been in terrible pain. At one point after days and days of suffering he had an epiphany - stop fighting and allow yourself to see through the pain. We joked about it later. About embracing your destiny.
"Welcome teacher, thank you" he said.

There is only the present and no amount of rumination on the past will change history.

I asked my other friend what he thought about whilst he sat for days and days on end, having medical treatments but knowing that quietly the doctors were calculating 'How long'.

I expected a truly profound and philosophical response - especially given that he had long ago cast himself off the merry go round of why and had instead embraced the moment.

He laughed at me, at my naivety I guess, "I'm thinking about surviving" he said "just thinking about surviving every day."

So, there is freedom. The ability to embrace every moment as if it's your last, the will to release yourself from the perils of ruminating about the past and to instead direct your contemplation towards the future.

It doesn't have to be that complicated.

Aristotle cautions us about studying ethics, or how to lead a good life. He says that our aim should not be the acquisition of knowledge about the action, but the action itself. It's not enough to contemplate the 'good life' we must get ourselves into action and live it.

George Bernard Shaw was a great exponent of this view

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

 

In peace and love always.

Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds

Arriving a little early to pick up my daughter from school I see the kids form a circle to finish their day and as they stand the teacher leads them in the following rhyme.

"Our work is done, our day is past, we'll go our separate ways
and I will hold so tight and fast, what I have learnt today
I've given with my heart and mind the effort that it needs
and I will strive in me to find
good thoughts, good words, good deeds."

 

Such a simple affirmation, days later I sit in a group coaching session with senior business executives who have just completed a leadership program. We discuss the notion of honouring others and the benefit of building high trust environments. The concept of intention comes to the fore.

How often do you just roll through the day never really stopping to think how you actually want to be but rather reacting to circumstances as they occur?

A colleague at University gives me a book "The How of Happiness - A scientific approach to getting the life you want" by Sonja Lyubomirsky. In it the author extols the virtues of Intentional Activity - "50 percent of individual differences in happiness are governed by genes, 10 percent by life circumstances, and the remaining 40 percent by what we do and how we think - that is, our intentional activities and strategies. ... If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen." (p.64)

I work with this concept in coaching people - "Bookend the day" I suggest "In the morning set intention and at the end of the day manage your focus by asking 'What did I do right today?'"

I've found though that most people when asked to set intention will focus on activities rather than states of being. For instance, "My intention toady is to complete my report, hold two meetings and go for a run after work".

But intentions that focus on doing stuff can become rope to hang ourselves - you didn't go for the run so therefore you failed in some way and hence you don't deserve whatever it is you want....

Intention focussed on BEing is better - "Today no matter what happens I intend to be focussed, present and peaceful" - then regardless of whether or not you go for the run you can still be happy with yourself and hence tell a positive story about who you are and how you are living your life - create a sustainable way of being that is internally self supportive.

So - back to the Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds.

I pick my daughter up and as we are driving out of the car park a woman in a red Audi speeds past "Slow down you silly ..." I hear myself think - oops strike one!

Forgiveness of self and a resetting of intention gets me back on track.

"Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds"

In peace and love always.

Ode to the Petty Tyrant

"Sweet are the uses of adversity
which like the toad ugly and venomous
wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
Act 2, Scene 1, 'As You Like It' William Shakespeare

Your goal is power over others. Your need arises from a deep seated lack of self worth and self love. Your method is manipulation. Your currency is fear and guilt.

You are the boss who subtly takes credit for another's work, not by claiming it outright but by simply failing to correct an incorrect assumption.

You are the ex husband who uses money as a way to manipulate and control your ex wife, the one who you supposedly loved and probably still do. You are the ex wife who uses the children to get back at your ex husband by making them doubt their own father.

You will never attack me directly, or choose to fight in public for your public face and ever so often trotted out story is the one of the victim. "Oh poor me" you wail to all who will listen "You'll never guess what so and so has done now..."

You lead me to the brink of despair. How can these people believe such lies? Surely the truth must come out?

You temp me to buy into anger but I know this is exactly what you want. An outburst of mine, a wrongful deed, a harsh word, would all be met with a scream of pain from the roof tops as you called people to your cause.

You are the petty tyrant. Your game is not a nice one and you cause me many hours of anguish as I deal with the question of why I have called you into my life.

But I see now that you have a purpose. I see now the gift that you have come to bring me. In taunting and harassing me in such an unfair and underhanded way you have shown me my edges. You have pushed my buttons and shown me the weak spots in my character. You have made me ask myself questions that I didn't even know I should ask. You have made me clarify what it is I believe in and most importantly what I am willing to do about it.

But you have also shown me the darkness. Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back flashes into my mind as I think of what you do. Darth Vader is tormenting Luke as they battle with light sabres on some futuristic floating space station "Feel your anger Luke" he says.

To heal your darkness first you have to feel it. You're never going to feel it sitting in peace and comfort on your own. In Carlos Castaneda's books about the Yaqui Indian Sorcerer Don Juan, he talks about Petty Tyrants and how import it is for the warrior to find a good one. The more impossible, the more unreasonable the better. And preferably one who has some sort of grip of power over you - yes a parent of the child you love, the co-owner of a business or asset, your boss at work.

Petty Tyrants are one of our greatest teachers on the path to enlightenment. By needling us and tormenting us in the most unsavoury way they tempt us to react in anger but in reacting we give away our power and buy into their game.

Power is the ability to seize the moment of opportunity and choose how you wish to act. Choose to act from a space of love not fear.

 

"The sage battles his own ego; the fool battles everyone else's."
Pir Vilayat, Sufi Master

The gift that you know you need to give a petty tyrant - the one that they crave the most but will never ask for - the one that you will be most unwilling to give, even though you know you should - is love. Pure and simple - love.

Their pain arises from a lack of love. Their story is one of being bad. Their salvation is of showing you that you are worse. By tormenting you and provoking you until you crack they show themselves that they are better than you. But it's not really what they want - who is the worst is not an empowering question to ask - nor does it fulfil their need in any meaningful or long lasting way. Soon their lack of love and intense self criticism will raise its ugly head again and they will seek another round of the game.

Are you willing to keep playing?

Or is it time to say "STOP!"

Re-activeness will hold you in it - even though their tactics are unfair and their lies hurt most deeply. Seeking to expose them and take them on will never work because to beat them you must lower yourself to their level of deceit and dishonour. Lies do not cancel out lies, rumour does not negate rumour, hate does not deny hate, anger will not quell anger.

Love really is divine power. But love must be consciously chosen. Power must be held with an open heart. Freedom must be granted. Action needs to be taken.

In the maelstrom of emotional chaos that arises when confronted with a petty tyrant it is easy to react with anger. "Why me? This is so unfair! These lies are untrue! This person is deceitful!"

The challenge that the petty tyrant places before you is a great one. In the midst of the chaos can you find the courage to hold an open heart, to choose what it is you want and to act in alignment with that wish and from a place of love?

Do you have enough trust and faith to let go of the fear that the truth will not prevail?

If you can rise to that challenge then you can give thanks for the gift that the petty tyrant has brought to you.

 

"But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God's heaven or hell."
Oscar Wilde

In peace and love always.

Embrace Your Dark Side

"The great epochs of our lives come when we gain the courage to rebaptise our worst qualities as our best."
Nietzsche

 

 

The 'war' had been going on for months and was characterised by insidious intimidation - windows being broken ,fences cut, cows mysteriously finding their way through fences into carefully prepared vegetable gardens, staff threatened until they would no longer risk working. An age old standoff that could have occurred in any colonised country.

Time brought with it an escalation of events. Threats were made and soon investors became nervous and wanted quick solutions - people were called. When things become difficult there are always people that can be called - ones who will provide solutions on a fee paid and no questions asked basis.

And so I sat opposite a man who resembled a rhino, short of stature but built like the proverbial. When we'd met my hand had been shaken in a vice like grip as beady eyes that had seen too much bored into me.

Conversation eschewed as the watchers, in their terms, 'held a perimeter'. The deal was simple - "Tell us your problem" he said "we will tell you how much, then you pay us and we fix it". And fix in this instance did most definitely not mean sitting down for a cup of afternoon tea at the negotiation table.

A simple nod, a shake of the hand or any other subtle and ever so brief form of agreement would have ended one person's life. Deniability lay in the details. Shock came at the recognition of how long that course of action was actually contemplated - even if it could only be measured in milliseconds.

Anger had driven me right out to the edge.

"Only when the land is darkest can you see the stars"
Martin Luther King Jnr

Fear draws its own test towards us. Deep within us lies the darkest aspect of our nature. The parts of us that have been wounded and hurt beyond our ability to consciously process. Hidden under layer upon layer of padding lie the bits of us that never see the light. But there upon lies the conundrum, for those parts of us that we would wish to hide, even from ourselves, still resonate in the quantum field. Like the pinging of a sonar radar they seek something to bounce off and so they draw towards them ever so slowly but ever so consistently, circumstances that will allow them to test the truth.

Is it true?

It is not until you have the courage to face your fears that you have the opportunity to release them. Often we don't like what we see but more often we don't even recognise what we see. Confronting circumstances drawn to us are met with indescribably shock - "Why is this happening to me?" 

Projection onto others soon follows as a far more acceptable course of action than, heaven forbid, taking responsibility.

But if we embrace the notion that everything is perfect then deniability is not an option. Owning anger and fear is a start. Early life pain burrows deep into the psyche and manifests as a limiting story - I am not good enough, I am unworthy, I am unlovable.

Fear that this may be true radiates out into the universe and draws to us events that will allow us to test the truth of these testaments. Always we get the chance to grow.

"Where there is great light there is great darkness"

 

Circumstances allow us to ask "Is it true?"

But no-one can answer this for us in any meaningful, long lasting and healing way. No matter how many people tell you that you are loveable, there will be no healing of the wound until you decide the answer for yourself. No one can release you from your fear except you.

Embrace your dark side and hold it close to your heart for it is the most wounded part of yourself and the greatest place of growth and ascension. Denial and revulsion will not serve you. You need to own your fears and the anger that springs from them. Repressing the feelings that go with them will not resolve them. Toeing the line, fitting in, putting on the fake smile, saying all the 'right' things is just lying to yourself.

You have to walk in absolute truth otherwise you're only lying to yourself and limiting your ability to ascend. Self love cannot happen without self truth.

Is personal comfort more important than truth? Would you rather be liked by others than by yourself?

To honour yourself, embrace your dark side. Feel the anger that arises from fear. Allow it to show you your wounds. Give thanks for the opportunity to grow and then rebaptise your worst qualities as your best and shine your light in truth and love.

In peace and love always.

How to Build Resilience

 

If you're like me and many other people I've spoken to recently you may have found 2012 thus far a rather challenging year. The thing about challenges or crises or whatever you like to call them is that they knock you off your game, divert your attention away from what you want and send you into a reactive spin - something which can take you a while to recover from.

Whilst pondering this I watched a great TED talk about sustainability and change, in which the speaker extolled the virtues of resilience and the ability of systems to be internally self sustaining. Now, much has been written about resilience but what always comes to mind for me is the poem 'If' written by Rudyard Kipling and inspired by Dr Leander Starr Jameson, who led a failed raid by British forces against the South African Boers in 1895.

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise."

How then would you create an internally self sustaining system for yourself - and your personal mastery - that will allow you to absorb external shocks without blowing you out of the water? (read - 'Lose focus and get reactive to other people's agendas').

For me this is all about creating systems and processes that support your way of 'BEing' in an existential sense. So, let's come back to the model for being that I've used before.

 

I've written a lot before about how we all exist in these three domains of time - Past, Present and Future. In each domain we need to do specific things that will allow us to BE how we want to BE.

Most of us live about 90% in the Past/Present loop so that the majority of the time we are simply reacting to events as they occur. All of this is fine, as long as there is not any major change in the environment, we can simply settle into our routines and make continuous improvements to make our lives easier.

However, living this way is not systemically sustainable or resilient to major outside influence because by definition it is reactive so an outside shock can knock us way out of alignment. Consider how a major shock such as loss of employment, relationship breakdown, illness or financial difficulties affects a person living mostly in this realm.

In 2012 I believe that we have faced and will continue to face ongoing major external shocks to our systemic way of being.

So, how to become resilient?

First step is to clearly determine how you want to BE. This is a question of character.

"A person's character is their destiny."
Heraclitus

Character is about what's under the surface - about what you see as being most important in life - about the principles and values that you live by. Values provide us with a foundation for our BEing. Now lots of people would say they believe in common values such as freedom, justice, truth, peace, love and acceptance but we live in a cause and effect world so belief is not enough.

"Action is character."
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Action though in our modern world comes with attaching consequences and the thing is, I'd suggest, that most of us have become consequentialists when it comes to determining our response to ethical or moral dilemmas. Although we may believe in higher values what we consider is what the outcomes of our actions might be and what the consequences may be for us - yes - "What's in it for me?"

So, what's this got to do with resilience?

Well, a value is not a value unless you're willing to pay a price to uphold it - and in most cases the price you pay will be a loss of a beneficial outcome to yourself. A banal example would be working for a bank where you are privy to market sensitive information about a corporate client. You could rush out and buy shares in the company hence exploiting your inside knowledge - or you could be honest and do nothing. A consequentialist might consider the risk of trading, might even consider getting a friend to buy the shares so the risk of being caught would be almost non-existent. The payoff might outweigh the risk. The justification may be that 'others do it all the time' or 'they pay me badly and I deserve more'.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Martin Luther King Jnr.

But what happens when we do things that compromise our values?

Even if nobody else ever finds out there is always one who knows - ourselves. And the self that knows tells a story about who we are based on what we've done.

This story about ourselves lives in the past and helps us to construct our story about who we are, our place in the world and how the world works. We carry these stories with us where ever we go. These stories can either strengthen and nurture us or they can become unwanted baggage that weighs us down.

Resilience is about building a strong foundation and then acting with integrity in alignment with that way of BEing. So aligning BEing and DOing.

An internally self sustaining system is one which is internally supportive. In an existential sense this means recognising the benefits of DOing in a way that supports your intended state of BEing. Knowing that you can never escape yourself - you can never escape your conscience.

How do you line it all up then?

In that model for BEing time is going from right to left - the Future becomes the Present which then becomes the Past.

Vision and Values live in the Future - we aspire to BE them. First step then is clarity - where are we headed? What's going to guide us? Clarify your Vision and Values.

In the Present we need to translate the Vision and Values into action. What systems and processes would support this? Daily practice - setting intention in the morning for how we want to BE during the day. Taking the time to undertake activities that allow us to broaden the gap that is the Present - so as to allow us to be less reactive and more proactive - read - meditation, yoga, walking the dog, exercising, staring at sunsets etc. Ending the day with focus management - ask 'What did I do right today?'

It's never too late to change.

"History is constantly being rewritten by the present"

 

Your actions in the Present flow into the Past - today becomes yesterday.

The Past either nurtures you with supportive stories or it becomes your baggage that you must carry everywhere.

Good actions in the present need to be integrated into a habitual way of being.

"Excellence is not an act but a habit"
Aristotle

What systems and processes will support your way of BEing? Daily practices become weekly routines. A good workout can become a weekly ritual of supportive practice. A weekly ritual soon becomes a supportive internal story - remember you can't escape yourself so even better if your internal story is self supportive and hence promotes resilience.

Then you need to take out the garbage. Look at any sustainable and resilient system and it will have a method of dealing with garbage - what's yours?

Garbage in this sense is any limiting beliefs and fears associated with past performance failures and/or any painful or disturbing emotional issues from past events or relationships that negatively affect self confidence and self esteem.

Effective garbage control systems vary from person to person but can include insight meditation, exercising with intent, talk therapy, acupressure taping, breath work, yoga, bilateral therapy (walking). There is NO one answer - anyone who tells you otherwise is delusional - we are all different and different things work for different people - the key is to work out what works for you. The important thing to note is that, in terms of creating a self sustaining resilient system for self management - you need a garbage control system.

So - resilience, existentialism and self mastery - recognise that we all exist in three domains and that in each domain there is work required to establish and then maintain a sustainable system for BEing. Know that there is no one cure all answer - that you have to find your own answers but the blueprint for a sustainable system is readily available - you just need to fill in the blanks.

In peace and love always.

 

(Image credit Jimmy Deguara)

Are You Living What You're Listening To?

A little while ago I extolled the virtues of being a joyously and unapologetic delusional optimist. Now I'd like to share a little piece of research that recently came across my desk.

In 2010 three Princeton University Neuroscientists conducted a series of experiments1 to explore the relationship between the brain activity of a person telling a story and those listening. Using fMRI machines they found that "Speaker and listener brain activity exhibits widespread coupling during communication." In other words - the brains of speaker and listener sync up...

Even more interesting is the fact that the speaker and listener weren't even in the same room - so you can rule out body language and non-verbal cues. Instead the speaker told her story and had her brain activity mapped. The listener then jumped into the fMRI machine and had their brain activity mapped whilst listening to the recording.

But wait - there's more - the experiments assumed that there would be a short lag between the brain activity of the speaker and the listener. That is, it would take the listener a moment to comprehend what was being said before they would react to the story. However, to their surprise they found the opposite - that listener's brain activity at times actually preceded what was being said - that is - they were predicting what was going to happen.

So, what does this all mean?

Well, cast your mind back to the whole Delusional Optimism versus Depressed Realism and you'll remember that I proposed that the stories that you tell about the events of your life actually create the reality you live by drawing your attention to either good or bad things.

And now you can see that whatever you are listening to you are responding to in a neurological way. That means if you are listening to sad, depressing stories that paint the World as a bleak place - guess what your brain is syncing up with?

Consider now that according to Dr Bruce Lipton, author of 'The Biology of Belief', your conscious mind is able to process about 40 bits of information per second where as your subconscious mind is able to process about 20,000,000 per second. How do you choose which 40 bits out of the 20,000,000 get passed through to the supposedly executive function of the conscious mind?

Add - that the field of Neuroplasticity tells us that the brain is actually extremely malleable through our entire lives, such that neurons that fire together wire together.

Translation - whatever you pay attention to and give emotion to on a regular basis shapes your brain...

Ergo - listen to crappy stories about the World - feel crappy about the World.

And more to the point - tell crappy stories about yourself - feel crappy about yourself...

Which is a neat link to the stuff I've written about Drama Syndrome recently...

So - why are we watching negative stories on the news?
Why would we even listen to someone else telling us a negative story?
Why would we tell a negative story about ourselves?
Why would we draw any attention to the negative at all?
Why would we try to 'fix' anything?

We create the World in our own image.

"Embrace the freedom that comes from having absolute faith
that what you are getting right now is perfect."

It pays to remember that we all have power. The power to choose. The power to act rather than react. The power to influence the World.

We are living in an amazing time of transformation. What we listen to and the stories that we tell affect us in many ways. What we listen to can make us feel afraid.

After the terrorist attacks in 2001, George W. Bush, the then President of the USA said,

"On September 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country… and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack."

Acting from a place of fear ties us into a feeling of lack and sends us scurrying to protect the things we have and the ones we hold most dear - but will it help us to create a better World? Does it empower us or dis-empower us?

Hope springs eternal but it must be nourished, encouraged and listened to.

"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean;
if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
Mahatma Ghandi

In this time of change I believe we are being challenged to step up and embrace our powers of creation. Fundamental to this is our ability to direct our attention to what we want rather than reacting to what others may foist upon us.

So, what stories are you listening to? What stories are you telling about yourself and the World?

Are these really aligned to what you truly want? Are you acting out of fear or from a place of courage and love?

Take time in your life to draw your attention to the wonder of the World and the beautiful creatures and people that share this World.

"I expect to pass through this World but once;
any good thing that I can do, any kindness that I can show
to any fellow creature,let me do it now; let me not defer to neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again."
Etienne De Grellet

We are all interlinked. We are all responsible. We are one.

Take the time to be perfectly clear about what you believe in, what Values and Principles are most important to you then use your will wisely to tell, and live, an amazing story.

In peace and love always.

Reference: 1. Stephens, G.J., Silbert, L.J. & Hasson, U. 2010, 'Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 107, no. 32, pp. 14425-30.

Stand Up For Yourself

"One should not avoid one's tests, although they are
perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end
tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge."
Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. I have been grappling with my own dramas and coming to terms with a whole new existential expansion.

If you've read by books and blog posts you will know that over the past few years in particular I've faced a few challenges. Many times during these periods I've asked that fatal question "Why me?"

"Why is this happening to me?" "Why can't I just have a nice easy life like many others?" "Why the drama?"

Unfortunately what compounds that is my belief that we create our own reality - hence we must take responsibility for what we are attracting into our lives. And yes I know there's a whole fate question bound up in there somewhere and in recent times I've come to the conclusion that we do indeed choose the circumstances of our lives - that in fact life is about expansion or what I would call ascension. By choosing the circumstances of our lives and then conveniently forgetting why we chose them before we incarnate we begin from a whole new starting point. Hence my post "The Art of Remembering Who You Really Are".

So, what's my point here?

Well - basically where I've got to is "Step up buddy! You created this so own it!"

"One cannot learn wisdom by sitting at
another's feet. One must live one's own life,
 make one's own mistakes, feel one's own ecstasy
 to learn the true meaning of existence,
for it is different in each individual.
Fall down, get up, do it all
 over again in another context.
Experience. And learn.
That's the only way."
The Ninja, Eric Van Lustbader

I've had a great urge recently to fight against what's been appearing in my life. To run away from the challenges that I've faced. To get ANGRY about what's been happening. To ask the question of what am I doing WRONG?

Yeah sure - wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong WRONG! What's WRONG with me? Why is this happening to me?

Hear the fight? Hear the anger?

By fighting against I dis-empower myself and become simply RE-ACTIVE to what's going on - giving my power away to others.

I pulled a Medicine Card on all this - Snake - Transmutation - People with snake medicine have been bitten many times (yep that's me...) so much so that they are able to transmute any poison be it physical, emotional or spiritual. Sure ok...

So, instead of fighting against I sucked it up, pulled it towards me and transmuted it into something better, something loving, something more aligned to what I believe in.

I owned my experience and I slowly came to embrace the idea that ALL life experiences are equal - good and bad. With more work on acceptance and release I finally began to find a way out of my self imposed prison.

Faith.

"Embrace the Freedom that comes from having
complete Faith that what you are getting right now is Perfect"

Total release and surrender.

And now I can go forth and speak by truth with an open heart totally releasing any worries about what others will think about me - for I am at peace with who I am.

Talk is easy action takes courage.

"Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one's courage."
Anais Nin

In peace and love always.

The Limitations of Truth

"Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous"
Voltaire

I'm guessing that by now, if you've read 'Your Greatest Gift is Truth', then you may have spent a good portion of your time taking a deep breath and fearlessly telling people your heartfelt truth?

How many time have you been shocked by the response?

It's kind of like spending a great deal of time thinking about what someone would like for their birthday and then spending even more time carefully shopping for that 'perfect' gift - only to find when you give it to the person their response is something less than what you'd hoped for. Some part of you may feel cheated by their lack of gratitude. Some part of you may feel like explaining to them how much time and effort you put into the gift.

So, here is the paradox of Truth and its inherent limitations.

You see there is a difference between objective and subjective truth.

The great Nagual Don Juan shares the Sorcerer's explanation in Carlos Castaneda's book 'Tales of Power'.

"We are inside a bubble. It is a bubble into which we are placed at the moment of our birth. At first the bubble is open, but then it begins to close until it has sealed us in. The bubble is our perception. We live inside that bubble all our lives. And what we witness on its round walls is our reflection. The thing reflected is our view of the World. That view is first a description which is given to us from the moment of our birth until all our attention is caught by it and the description becomes a view."

In giving others our gift of truth we are in essence just giving a view. One that, nevertheless, we have spent our whole life creating and then reinforcing. One that is simply based on perception.

To let go of our fixed view of the World and embrace the mystery of life is one of the greatest challenges we can face but paradoxically one of the most rewarding.

"It's the best possible time to be alive, when
almost everything you thought you knew is wrong."
'Arcadia', Tom Stoppard

As human beings we are growth seeking. We strive to expand on all levels - when we don't we get stuck in the mire of the past and obsess about who is right and who is wrong. We go to war with others because they have different beliefs to us. We hang our hat on the hook of judgement and work hardest to protect what we have for fear of loss.

To ascend to a greater way of being requires us to open up our bubble.

If you think about it from the Past/Present/Future perspective. All of your stories about how the World works, who you are and your place in it are based on the past. When confronted by a conflicting view of the World you will instinctively point to all of the 'evidence' that has arisen from past events. You will naturally then come to the conclusion that you are right and 'they' are wrong. End of story. End of expansion.

A commitment to speak truth can be made from the perspective of "I'm going to tell you my truth - fully expecting that you will then realise how completely WRONG you are and adopt my point of view instead."

Or it can be made from the perspective of "I've surrendered to the mystery of the Universe. I embrace the ideal of speaking my truth however I accept that my viewpoint is just one of many and I am committed to expansive growth."

See the difference?

Values, Ideals, Visions and Dreams live in the Future. We aspire to live them and MOST importantly - we can't get to them by striving to live in certainty.

And of course, here's another paradox. You see we are hard wired to seek certainty. Our brains are self organising patterning systems that perpetually try to make our lives easier by identifying patterns and then re-enacting stored behaviours.

Faced with a new piece of information (maybe even right now) your super computer of a brain switches into gear and starts madly searching its memory banks to find anything that it has seen, heard, read or experienced before that will help it to make sense of what it is experiencing now and place it in the correct box.

But naturally this limits us to a fixed view of the World based on past experience - which is EXACTLY what we don't want when trying to be expansive.

Can we even see new possibilities then?

Scientists have experimented with kittens to see how their perception changes when inputs are limited early in life. They placed kittens in an environment where they were no horizontal lines. Months later the kittens were still unable to perceive horizontal lines in their environment even when exposed to them.

It is also well tested that the human brain fills in 'blind spots' by speculating and then projecting what it thinks should be perceived in those areas. Note that I say 'it' because it is not a conscious action.

(No the image is not moving... Your brain just thinks it is - see Akiyoshi's Kitaoka's other work http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html)

So, back to the weird and wonderful limitations of truth.

Yes - truth is the greatest gift you can give to another. However, you must have a commitment to emotional and spiritual expansion and an acceptance that your truth may not be the same as my truth.

You might also like to embrace the notion that the World is a mystery. One that we should never stop trying to understand but a task that we should never expect to accomplish.

An open heart. An open mind. A willingness to listen. An absence of judgement. A spirit of adventure and exploration.

And the best bit is - You can't work it out from where you are right now!

"Reality is just an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
Albert Einstein

What sort of amazing World can you imagine?

In peace and love always.