Garret Kramer's Blog, page 18

Love in the New Year

As the holidays fast approach, here’s a simple thank you: Thank you for opening your heart to the words I write each week. I feel so fortunate and humbled to have stumbled upon the subject of these articles, the inside-out paradigm, many years ago. If this paradigm interests you, too, we share an unbreakable bond. Just considering the fact that our feelings are connected to the spiritual principle of thought, and not to the circumstances of our lives, is the ultimate answer to improved performance on and off the field. But that’s only because the inside-out paradigm is the answer to everything.

You see, in this basic truth we hold the key to peace, to being of service, to resilience, to leadership, to gratitude, to passion, to care and to kindness. And, more important, since you and I have caught a glimpse of this truth, it’s up to us to set the example. Understanding that we work inside-out will not exempt us from the compulsion to look outside for causes and cures. That’s why we must hold as steadfast as possible when we feel insecure, angry, or arrogant, carry on and not lash out at the world. As I’ve said before, an off-gut feeling (a struggle) is a gentle nudge from above to stop taking life personally. To turn inward. To self-correct and reconnect. So simply listen.

My hope for 2016, then, is that each of us will see this powerful truth just a little more clearly. That we’ll understand just a little more deeply that answers are never found in looking outside. Rather, let us never forget that answers are only found in the one thing in life that does not come from the human ability to think. In the one thing in life that prevents us from putting our personal needs before the needs of others. In the one thing that guides us to oneness, brotherhood, and strength. Answers are found in Love.

Happy Holidays everyone. Love,

Garret

The Necessity of Not Going Back in Time

Early this morning, I received a text from the coach of one of the teams I work with. One of his best players had performed poorly the night before (in the coach’s mind, the player lost focus), and he wanted my opinion on what he should say to the player before today’s practice. The text exchange went like this:

Coach: “Any tips on what I should say to him?”

Me: “Not really. To me, you guys should simply get back to work. And btw, we (the player and I) have a FaceTime call at 5 today.”

Coach: “Oh, so you’re going to talk with him about his lack of focus?”

Me: “Nope. Why don’t we both stay out of his way? He’s probably already snapped out of his funk.”

Coach: “Man, of course, how could I have forgotten that?”

Me: “In an immediate desire to make things right, we all do sometimes. Talk soon.”

Indeed, this is a principle that almost all mentors overlook. Players (like all people) won’t find answers if we strategically take them back in time. Digging into the past requires a tremendous amount of thought, and this actually clutters the mind, increasing a lack of perspective or focus. Rather, if we simply carry on—in this case, just get back at it the next day—the mind’s intuitive ability to clear and, thus, refocus on its own is activated. Inner wisdom and solutions moving forward then have room to rise from within.

In fact, here was our text exchange after practice:

Coach: “It’s like last night never happened. It looks to me like he cleaned up all the mistakes on his own. He asked me a few questions about our defensive-zone coverage, which we reviewed. That’s it. He was great.”

Me: “You’re a godsend for him.”

Coach: “You, too.”

P.S. If you’re wondering what I’ll say to the player later today during our FaceTime call, I’m not exactly sure. But I can tell you what I won’t do: Drag him back to a moment in time, and a funk, that doesn’t exist now. We’ll probably talk briefly about the holidays, his family, some good new movies, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll sprinkle in a few subtle reminders about the mind’s extraordinary power to self-correct.

The Blame Game

Virtually every day on social media, we see a quote about the detriments of playing the “blame game,” or blaming someone else for our own feelings of anger, insecurity, stress, or fear. They are wise and true, but they don’t address the real issue: Blaming someone else is not what’s detrimental. It’s blame, all by itself, that is.

As I’ve offered on this blog many times, our feelings spring from our thinking (or, said another way, the uncontrollable principle of thought), not from a circumstance or person on the outside. That’s why it’s illogical to blame someone else for what we feel on the inside; they’re not truly connected.

And while most understand that, what we often overlook is that we are on the outside, too. Blaming ourselves for feelings that we’re not in charge of is just as illogical as blaming someone else. In fact, many of us today are stuck in a sea of self-blame—and, thus, not feeling or performing up to par.

Do you want to stop playing the blame game and start feeling and performing your best? Then it’s essential to see that human beings work inside-out. Meaning: What you feel comes only from thought, thought is uncontrollable, and thought alone is on the inside. Other people, traffic, the opposition, critics, money—even you are on the outside.

—

A quick review:

What you feel (emotions, sensations) comes from the inside. Not the outside.
The inside: Thought.
The outside: People (including you), places, and things.

Thanks for reading!

Garret

A Simple Solution to a Climate of Violence

In light of the climate of violence that surrounds us, here’s an excerpt from chapter 3 (Your Intuitive Guide) of The Path of No Resistance. It speaks to why bullying (personal attacks, terrorism, war) exist. And one seventh-grade teacher’s simple solution.

I hope you find it valuable.

Garret

—

I once heard Syd Banks say that wisdom is everywhere: “It’s in our libraries, our religions, the arts, on billboards, even in the grocery store.” Syd claimed that we are hiding from wisdom; wisdom is not hiding from us. The trick, though, is to know what to look for.

I must have listened to the Beatles’ “Let It Be” five hundred times before I finally realized where John Lennon and Paul McCartney were guiding us: to the self-corrective power of the human mind. Before that, my outside-in misunderstanding didn’t permit me to see truth, even when it stared right back at me.

Today, I remind myself of the significance of “letting it be” when I get indignant in my own thinking. Everyone is doing the best they can to the degree that they see the role of thought in their life. We each have a different perspective on the source of our feelings, and that perspective can switch on a dime.

Think back to the “acuity gap” (see chapter 1). This is the distance between our perception of a circumstance and the moment we see that the circumstance has no power—that it’s neutral—since our feelings can only come from thought. As I expressed, it works the same for all of us. No one is more grounded in this principle than anyone else. The extent of our errant thinking at any particular moment always accounts for our outlook.

This is why, for no apparent reason, “mean” people or bullies sometimes turn compassionate. They get distracted from their depressed thinking, their thinking clears out, and, by design, compassion fills the space—until their thinking (not their life) churns up again. Even those whom the mental health establishment classifies as “psychotic” occasionally show glimpses of lucidity or love. The potential for mental health, therefore, rests within every person. We’ve just been focusing our efforts in an outside-in direction—on behavior, the past, or a genetic diagnosis instead.

Much can be accomplished when we look at mental health through the lens of inside-out. Here’s an illustration. Perhaps the most touching moment of my career occurred when I received a call a short time after I wrote Stillpower. The call was from a seventh-grade teacher in New Mexico named Maria Venegas. Maria, who is also an athlete, originally bought Stillpower to improve her sports performance. But after reading the book, she became most interested in the chapter where I discussed bullying. Bullying, I’m sorry to say, was running rampant in her classroom and school.

Maria wanted to learn more about my inside-out approach, primarily with regard to feelings. She asked if I believed that “feelings” held the key to healing the bullying epidemic. I told her she was on the right path.

I explained to Maria that current anti-bullying protocols, while well intended, make matters worse. Telling students in the midst of dysfunctional thinking—the only reason a person would bully or fall prey to one—to be respectful and considerate, or brave and resolute, is nothing but a recipe for more dysfunctional thinking and thus disaster. As we’ve seen, overthinking is what distorts perceptions and behavior. Codes of conduct require students to think more.

Rather, we must teach students (adults, too) that feelings actually have a divine purpose: They’re our intuitive guide, our navigational instrument. We feel our thinking. So it’s our feelings that let us know if our thinking is helpful or hurtful, or if we’re seeing life with understanding or disdain. For example, if I disagree with the actions of one of my friends, my feelings are telling me if I’ve got a bona fide gripe or not. If I feel insecure and angry, I don’t. If I feel secure and composed, I do. Inside-out never fails.

Back to Maria. I said to her, “If you can show your students that as their feelings move up and down, so will their judgments of each other, bullying just might cease.”

What happened next is beyond description in words, but I’ll do my best. Maria had an insight: She developed a device called a “mood chart,” which she hung on the wall in her classroom. The “moods” on the chart ranged from love to hate, from happiness to misery, from compassion to judgment. Each morning, her students put a magnet next to the mood on the chart that best described their feelings. They did this five times throughout the day.

Now, Maria didn’t tell her class why she created the mood chart. That’s the best part of her insight. She allowed the students’ free will and instincts to burgeon, and slowly but surely—as the students started to see that with each trip to the mood chart their feelings changed for no outside reason—she noticed marked behavioral improvement. Pretty soon, bullying in Maria’s classroom stopped and was replaced with kindness, cooperation, and spirit. The rest of the school then adopted the mood chart, with similar successful results. When Maria phoned to tell me what happened, I was reduced to tears.

—

This story reveals the innate power of looking inward for answers. Bullies bully when they attribute their insecure feelings to something other than the natural ebb and flow of their thinking. When a bully looks outside to cope with these feelings, the nearest person often gets caught in the crossfire.

By contrast, when Maria’s students noticed that their feelings changed independent of the actions of others, intuitively, they had two realizations:

The students found that no matter what they thought and felt about a classmate in the moment, there was always an opportunity to see the same classmate differently.
Believing that “I have to fix you in order to fix me” no longer seemed logical. Bullying someone who had nothing to do with the way a student felt in the first place would not help anyone.

What’s more, one of Maria’s students even declared, “Learning that our feelings on the inside are the cause of our views of people on the outside, and not the other way around, changed everything for our class and school.” But, more important, she went on, “If everyone could learn this, the world would be transformed forever.”

Maria Venegas, my friends, is a superstar

Forty-two Insights on Truth

I sat down this morning to write my weekly article, and could not find the words. So, in the hope of getting in the flow, I jotted down whatever occurred to me. When I looked up, these forty-two random insights are what I found. If you have questions on any of them, I’m here to discuss.

Self and soul are not the same thing.
Religion and spirituality are not the same thing.
The brain and mind are not the same thing.
Mental toughness and innate resilience are not the same thing.
Deliberate self-talk and a higher power speaking through you are not the same thing.
Blaming yourself is no better than blaming someone or something else.
An insight or revelation is more powerful than a habit or addiction.
Trying to recall a past success blocks your ability to be successful now.
Trying to control your breathing makes it more difficult to breath.
Trying to visualize an outcome prevents desirable outcomes.
An environment cannot make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable.
The idea that performers need to become “comfortable being uncomfortable” is insane.
Another person cannot make you feel negative.
Another person cannot make you feel anything.
Wisdom cannot be acquired.
The best teachers do not impart the best information. The best teachers don’t impart at all.
The best teachers do not teach personal beliefs.
It’s easy to mistake personal beliefs for truth.
I sometimes mistake personal beliefs for truth. How do I know? It’s the reason I sometimes feel insecure.
Data or research is never necessary to explain truth.
We can never control our thinking. Ever, ever, ever.
Pain is a neurological phenomenon, but (like all feelings) it’s still a byproduct of our thinking.
One’s past has nothing to do with one’s present state of mind.
No one would choose to be unhappy. So why do some experts insist that happiness is a choice?
Letting go, accepting, and forgiving cannot occur on purpose.
The notion that another person can motivate you, or that you can strategically motivate yourself, is making you less motivated.
It’s sad that people don’t catch on to the dangers of coping strategies. Even so-called healthy ones like meditation, exercise, or a walk in the park (when used for the purpose of finding relief) obstruct our innate ability to self-correct.
The act of meditation does not cause the state of meditation.
When the intellect (personal thought) obstructs the connection to a higher power, a person isn’t capable of being accountable for his or her behavior. That’s why, if you want to help others, a “behavioral focus” won’t work.
Never underestimate the peril in telling another person how to think or behave.
We often focus on the steps people take on their road to excellence. This is never productive since excellence isn’t caused by the steps. It’s caused by the clarity of mind that created the steps.
Mental health rests deep within every human being.
Not doing harm to others is everyone’s responsibility. But so is interceding when we observe injustice, mistruth, bigotry, or persecution.
Fear is never an excuse for not helping someone.
One’s nationality, religion, or personal-belief system is never an excuse for not helping someone.
When sages say “look within,” they don’t mean within yourself. They mean within the soul of mankind.
The more truth I speak, the more people are critical of my work.
Don’t mistake the number of followers you have with the impact you’re making. The most dangerous person in history was followed by millions; the most sagacious—a handful.
The theory that we need time for ourselves, that we need to focus on self first, or that it’s okay to be selfish at times—is completely false. And harmful.
We’re so concerned with self-improvement these days that we’re separating ourselves from the source of ease, passion, compassion, and love: the spiritual connection between us. Oneness.
Everything will make sense at the proper place and time. If something doesn’t make sense, it’s not the proper place and time.
I really hope that at least a few of these insights make sense to you. Thanks for reading!

Garret

At the Heart of Thankfulness

This is how thankfulness (gratitude) works—for everyone: When our minds are cluttered, we don’t feel thankful. When our minds are clear, we do feel thankful. In truth, thankfulness has nothing to do with the world outside (our circumstances). Like any feeling or emotion, thankfulness is directly connected to our thinking. And because my head is fairly clear as I write this Thanksgiving-week article, I want to share the following with you.

My hope is that someday the world will catch on to the inside-out paradigm described above. That someday we’ll stop falling for the trick of the mind that has us looking outside for causes and cures for what we each feel on the inside. Looking outside—including for what we’re supposed to be thankful for—requires personal thought. And personal thought obstructs both our connection to God and our collective power to overcome.

In this spirit, here then is what’s truly important about thankfulness (in spite of all the personal reasons everyone talks about): People who tend to not look outside for the source of their feelings live in clarity of mind and thankfulness more often. Clear and thankful people give more than they take. They set examples of resilience. They are selfless, inspiring, determined, and loving. They help change the world for the better.

This time of year, many of us deliberately work against our nature. We force ourselves to be thankful, only to end up feeling confused and distressed. What we need to understand, instead, is that our feelings are not linked to the circumstances of our lives—although it often appears otherwise. That’s why those of us who don’t search for things to be personally thankful for are the most thankful, and productive, people alive.

—

Peace to the world this Thanksgiving,

Garret

Terror Versus Truth

Considering the horrific acts of last week, the world’s endured an emotional few days. Here, I’m going to do my best to help. And I’m going to start by pointing out the obvious: Everyone has a different personal opinion about what the free world should do to combat terror. Some are calling for immediate retaliation; others want to thoughtfully plan. Some want to close borders; others want to welcome those who are fleeing. Some are critical of the behavior of certain world leaders; others, supportive. Who is right? The answer is no one.

You see, it is impossible to find truth in behavior (what we should do next). If we could do that, we would all agree about what the next steps should be. Plus, some of us (me included) wouldn’t change our minds daily about the right or wrong next steps.

This is why we’re becoming more polarized by the minute: We’re getting lost in personal opinion because we’re not looking in the direction of truth. Love is truth. We’re all created equal is truth. Oneness is truth. God is truth. We all feel fear—which clouds our inner wisdom and ability to see the big picture—is truth. More important, looking to personal opinion, and away from truth, is exactly what the terrorists want us to do. They know that doing this will divide us, cripple our resilience, and eventually cause us to self-destruct.

As I said, everyone is emotional right now. Everyone is scared. This is normal and perfectly okay. For us to overcome, however, we must take a step back from our personal thinking and differences and find common ground. No matter what anyone says (or posts on social media), please understand that, like you, people are doing the best they can to make sense of the insanity. No one is trying to add to it.

It’s pretty simple, actually. Rather than counter or condemn, offer your neighbor a hand. Offer your neighbor your understanding. Offer your neighbor your love. We all work the same inside. We’re all fighting the battle within. In this realization, there is unity, strength, and power. In this realization, there is truth. And truth will always prevail.

Back in Time

In the late 1800’s, Sigmund Freud formed a causal link in his own mind that didn’t really exist. He theorized that taking distressed patients back to their past—for the purpose of pinpointing the root cause of their distress—was the key to helping them. While it was obvious to Freud that this practice wasn’t always successful, it wasn’t obvious to him that, in truth, it never was. For a link to be causal (or true) it must occur 100 percent of the time.

Flash forward to today. Therapists, psychologists, and mental coaches are still following in Freud’s footsteps, drudging through people’s pasts in order to help them. Do you know that it’s standard practice to take victims of PTSD back to the supposed circumstance that caused their trauma? Sad but true. Yet, thankfully, what a handful of mental-health consultants, authors, and coaches (me included) have now come to realize is that a circumstance cannot actually cause trauma. Trauma can only come from a person’s thinking. This means it makes little sense to take people back to a moment in time that had nothing to do with their feelings in the first place.

But what about going back to a happy circumstance or as many mental coaches recommend, going back to productive performances in order to find answers to current struggles? Same deal. Thought is meant to come in and flow out. It’s against our nature to try to recapture a former feeling or technique. Several years ago, for instance, a now-famous instructor on the PGA tour decided to film his players’ swings, but only when they were playing well. Then when his players were playing poorly, they had a record of the good swing to fall back on. While, at times, this method yielded short-term success, the long-term results of the experiment proved disastrous.

To be clear, it’s not against our nature for an insight (or revelation) about the past to randomly occur to us, sweeping us back in time. But this type of occurrence is illuminating, freeing, and beneficial. An insight about the past can never be strategically induced or forced. Doing this is a sure-fire recipe for a bad feeling and performance.

Bottom line? If you want to feel or perform better, don’t search for answers in the past. In fact, don’t search at all. Searching requires a tremendous amount of thought and, if anything, obstructs your innate ability to self-correct to clarity of mind. The past rests outside. The answers rest inside. Answers will rise to the surface to the extent that you carry on, stay in the game, or simply walk down life’s one-way street.

How Greg Hardy Looks to Me

Greg Hardy did damage. His actions were completely unacceptable. But like Greg Hardy, I’ve done damage. My behavior, a few times in my life, has been completely unacceptable. And the same goes for you and the many people who have jumped on the bandwagon of judgment.

I know what you’re thinking: “That may be true, but I never hit a woman. Domestic violence is just plain wrong.” Well, violence of any type is plain wrong. Verbal abuse is plain wrong. Bullying is plain wrong. War is plain wrong. My question is: What the heck are we going to do about it?

So far, the standard answer for people like Hardy, and organizations like the NFL, is to throw the book at him. Suspend him from the league forever. Can someone please tell me what that’s going to do? How is suspending Hardy going to keep him from beating someone else the next time, in the heat of emotion and rage, he is tempted? In fact, this type of discipline has been in place in virtually all walks of life forever. Has it served as a deterrent? Is violence getting better or worse? We both know the unfortunate answer.

Greg Hardy needs help. Greg Hardy needs love. Greg Hardy needs to be taught that his feelings (anger, insecurity, frustration, etc.) don’t come from the behavior of his girlfriend. They don’t come from his past. They don’t come from his career. They come from within him! And, again, it’s not just Greg Hardy. It’s Israel. It’s Hamas. It’s the United States. It’s terrorists and bullies around the world. It’s you. It’s me. Feelings come from the inside. When thought is flowing through us, we feel good; when thought gets jammed, we feel bad. Until this principle is universally taught and understood, violence will continue to escalate.

It’s time to wake up, people. We’re all guilty of the same misunderstanding. You can’t wage war with another person if you grasp that your feelings come from your own thinking. Looking outside, blaming your troubles on someone else, and jumping on the bandwagon of judgment helps no one. It’s just plain wrong.

Power Versus Control

Virtually every day a performance expert will tell us: “Control the things you can control, and don’t worry about the things you can’t.” The implication is that there are certain inside things—attitude, effort, and happiness—that we do have the power to control. While there are outside things—the behavior of an opponent, the calls of a referee, or even the weather—that we don’t have the power to control. In my experience, though, the more a person actually tries to control any of the above, the more powerless he or she becomes.

In other words, we don’t really have control over anything—inside or outside. Take my own occasional bouts of insecurity. Do I ever want to feel that way? Heck no. Insecurity has no place in my personal belief system. Yet, every now and then—there it is.

The question, then, revolves around: How are we supposed to move through feelings of insecurity (or a bad attitude, apathy, unhappiness, etc.)? How do we find the power to overcome feelings that are out of our control?

The answer is found in understanding.

In spite of appearances, and unknown to most, our feelings are not connected to the circumstances of our lives. Our feelings are only connected to our thinking. More thinking produces a lower feeling state. Less thinking produces a higher feeling state. That’s why when we try to control or cope with our feelings, we tend to feel worse. Trying to control requires thought. And, again, an overload of thought is why we feel bad in the first place.

The bottom line is that everyone is wired to intuitively handle temporary disturbances from within. But we’ll always falter when we place the blame on outside events or other people. No, you can’t deliberately control anything on the inside or the outside. You can, however, deepen your level of understanding of how you and all human beings work. Those who know that they work inside-out fortify and activate their own inborn resilience. They consistently self-correct to clarity of mind without effort, which leaves them with plenty of power to do wonderful things.