Jake Eagle's Blog, page 10

What Awaits You On The Other Side?

Imagine you are walking down a dusty road between two tall hedges and carrying a heavy load. This is the road of an ordinary life.

You notice that some people get ahead of you and some fall behind.  You have struggled at times along this road to keep up, to get ahead, to connect, to find love.

You tire yourself, collapse on the side of the road, and then notice a light on the other side of the hedge. You can’t clearly see what lies on the other side but you are peering into a world you never knew was there.

You choose to push your way through the hedge and the burden you’ve been carrying gradually gets left behind—as if it’s too cumbersome to pull with you through the hedge. And once you break through, you realize you haven’t lost a thing in your effort to push through to the other side.

What burden do you carry?

What do you have to give up in order to get to the other side? What is the burden you need to leave behind?

It is the way you’ve been making meaning all of your life.

What will you get if you let go of your old ways of making meaning and push through to the other side?

You’ll begin living a life you love

You’ll have a clear view of the you that you want to live with for the rest of your life. You’ll choose who you want to be and you’ll let go of old stories that you hold yourself back with and you’ll begin to live in a new way.

And after giving up your old ways of making meaning you’ll realize that you would give up just about anything to stay here, because being here allows you to be more present, which creates a sense of calm and deeper intimacy. You can be the captain of your soul, celebrating your life and living with a sense of purpose.

How is this possible?

When you learn to change the way you speak—to others and yourself (in your own head)—you shift the way you make meaning of the events in your life. You stop feeling like a victim. You stop resisting yourself. Instead, you choose to live a life you love—a life of love.

Are you trying to get to the other side? What do you imagine you need to do to get there?

For me, it required a change in direction, taking a different path, committing to something new and working at it. Reology is one such path—not for everybody—but it is the safest, most practical, self-empowered path I have discovered.

If you’d like more information please contact me at hannah@reology.org

 

 This writing is inspired by E.M. Forster’s “The Other Side of the Hedge” (1911) 

 

Thinking about going?
Our retreat is full, but if you want us to add your name to our private wait list, fill in the form below, and we'll notify you if there is an opening.


Name*FirstLastEmail*EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

Or—plan ahead and join us at the beautiful location in January 2016. Click here for details.

 

 

The post What Awaits You On The Other Side? appeared first on Reology.

The Secret to Why You Are the Way you Are: Your Timeline

There were three kids in my family. I was the youngest. I’m quite certain that each of us felt fully loved when we were infants. We received lots of attention and were kept safe. We were raised with the same values and in the same environment, yet we turned into three very different people. Why?

Were there two or three seminal events that shaped each of us, or was it an accumulation of little things here and there? When I think about my wife’s family, again, I see three siblings raised in the same environment and they turned out to be extremely different people. I can see how for my wife, Hannah, one traumatic event had a disproportionate influence on who she became. But why did she respond the way she did—becoming a seeker of growth, while other people who experience a similar trauma seek a place to hide?

Creating a coherent narrative

What about you? Were there two or three things in your life that really shaped you? Do you have a clear sense of why you are the way you are today? Is it useful to know? I think so. I think that when we have a coherent narrative about ourselves—a story that makes sense—we tend to be more relaxed and empowered.

The primary factors that shape us are our upbringing (nurture), our temperament (nature), and the environment in which live (culture). If you want a good overview of how nature, nurture and culture intersect, we’ve written a short 20 page booklet you can download: Why Wait To Be Happy?

In this article, which introduces our Video Timeline, you can explore yourself in a very personal way by thinking about each of the ten stages of development that you have, or will, grow through. At each stage of development there are certain tasks or rituals that, ideally, you fulfill.

To explore those tasks and rituals we’ve created a Video Timeline. We’re including some questions for you to consider as you go through our Video Timeline to make your experience more interactive and informative.

Infancy

In the beginning, the earliest stages in life, as “infants,” we each need to:

Experience safety.
Experience being deeply loved.
Experience ourselves as separate emotional beings.

Few of us are fortunate to have all of these needs completely satisfied. To the degree that they’re not fully satisfied we will move forward with a hole in our development.

Questions: How did you experience this stage of your development? Do you remember the first five or six years of your life? What stands out for you?

Young and Old Child

During our years as a “young child” and an “old child,” which we consider to span roughly from age 7 to 35, we need to:

Develop healthy life scripts.
Start the process of individuating from our parents.

Few of us fully complete these tasks.  We may begin the process of individuating from our parents, but most of us will continue this process well into our thirties, forties, and beyond.

Questions: Did you grow up with healthy life scripts? Good role models? And where are you in the process of individuating—from your parents and from your partner? (To learn more about individuating read this series of articles).

Young and Old Adult

During our years as a “young adult” and “old adult,” which extends roughly from age 35 to 50, we need to:

Realize our potential as adults.
Develop a deeper level of self-understanding that leads to self-acceptance.

It’s extremely rare that any of us fully satisfy these challenges—especially self-acceptance.

Questions: Have you reached your potential? Are you now self-accepting? If not, what do you need to do?

Elder

During our years as an “elder” (65 to 80) we need to:

Continue differentiating (growing).
Find ways to contemplate our lives.
Make a contribution—give back.

Not many of us fully have these experiences because we were never taught how to live this way—but it is possible.

Questions: Are you continuing to grow and discover more of yourself? Do you have some contemplative practice? Have you found a way to give back, to share your experience and wisdom with others?

Self-actualized

During our final years as a “self-actualized” (80+) we need to:

Expand our consciousness so that we don’t fear and resist the final stage of life.

Few of us fully experience, or are even aware of, this possibility. We had the good fortune to witness John and Joyce Weir, our mentors who originally created this body of work, living this possibility.

Questions: Do you have a model that tells you what’s possible for life after 80? And if you haven’t yet reached this stage, will you be prepared when you do?

Since none of us can totally satisfy all of our human needs as we grow up, what happens to us as we grow older? When we get to be whatever age we are now we will find we have some gaps in our development—some holes. There are certain things we needed that we didn’t get. There are certain things that happened to us and maybe we’d be better off if they hadn’t.

Some parts get left behind

Along the way some “parts” of ourselves get left behind, cut off and isolated. These parts remain stuck in the stage of development that they were in when we left them behind.

Maybe when I was a young child other kids made fun of me for crying. I felt embarrassed and ostracized. I started choking back my tears from that day forward. The feelings I had as a young boy, who learned not to cry, still live inside me and those feelings are stuck at that stage of my development.

The “good” news is that there are many things I can go back and address. I can still access those old feelings. I can learn to cry today even if it’s something I repressed for most of my life. As I do this, I embrace and integrate that younger part of myself and I become more integrated, more whole.

The “bad” news is that there are some things we can’t go back and fully address. Perhaps as an infant you weren’t cuddled by your mother or made to feel safe by another human being who was willing to take total responsibility for your well-being. After you have grown up this is not an experience that you can recreate for yourself. At this point in your life no one is willing to take that level of responsibility for you. Nor should they.

There are some therapeutic processes that can help us revisit and work with our past wounds, which can be extremely valuable, but these processes don’t eliminate the original event, they help us learn to live with it. Even so, that “hole” in our development remains part of our narrative.

Acceptance leads to growth

Understanding our developmental journey helps us to identify the “holes” from our past that we can address and the ones that we can’t address—or change. The things we can’t change, we must come to accept. Ironically, when we come to accept our “holes” we heal and grow ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we fill in the original hole, but instead of denying it or resisting it we end up learning from it, deepening ourselves, and adding to the quality of our character.

If I don’t attend to my personal growth—“do my work”—there will come a certain point in my developmental journey when I will start to shrink and close down my consciousness as a way to avoid feeling my pain and disappointment.

But this isn’t necessary. It’s possible to allow my consciousness to keep expanding until I die. If I choose to stay open, keep expanding my consciousness, and live in an undefended way with an open heart, I can access higher states of consciousness.

We explore the questions outlined in this article in our new Video Timeline. We hope that it will help you appreciate each of the stages of development that you have grown through, and become aware of the ones that lie ahead.  During our Reology retreats we delve more deeply into all of these questions. We create a safe space in which to explore:

Re-parenting
Individuating
Connecting with our potential
Accepting our limitations
Defining the meaning for our lives
Recognizing our mortality

The first four people who viewed our Video Timeline cried as they watched it. Notice how you respond. Tears, resistance, judgments, envy, confusion, curiosity, compassion . . .

There is no right response, but there is something to be learned by paying attention to your own experience. And please share your experience, if you’d like, in the comment section below. Also, if you enjoy your experience, please share our Video Timeline with your friends on Facebook. We’ve provided a link to make this easy.

To taste a sample and open up to your own exploration we hope you enjoy our Video Timeline.

Explore this moving and enriching video timeline to discover some answers »

 

The post The Secret to Why You Are the Way you Are:
Your Timeline appeared first on Reology.

There is a time to whine

In my office I have a sign that my clients can see from their chair. It says, “Thou Shalt Not Whine.” It’s partially meant to be a joke, but it’s also indicative of my approach to therapy. I’ll say more about that in a minute, but in this article I want to acknowledge that I’ve come to believe there is a time to whine.

Recently, I’ve gone back into therapy—as the client. I do this every few years as a way to explore my own frontiers. And it’s through this experience that I’ve come to recognize there is a time to whine. And when I say, “whine,” what I mean is there are times when we feel like victims and it is appropriate to give voice to those emotions.

Is a mature voice always better?

For many years I’ve been an advocate of giving voice to my emotions, but I’ve advocated using a mature voice. And I still do. I believe this is actually one of the most effective ways to grow myself—giving mature expression to my immature emotions. When I do this I transform my old habits.

For example, let’s say I receive what I perceive to be a rude or nasty email from someone who I think of as a friend. My immediate response is to boil my blood and want to shoot back a superiorly nasty email. If I actually do this, I’m just getting better at immaturely expressing myself. I don’t need to get better at this.

If instead, I take a moment to look at the situation reologically, I realize the other person is trying to tell me something about him, not about me. When I understand this I may begin to have some compassion for him. I realize he’s upset and hurting. I’m now able to give my immature emotions—feeling judged and rejected—a mature voice. I let him know that I hear he’s upset, and I also tell him that I disappoint and hurt myself when we aren’t getting along and I would like to do what I can to better understand his feelings and the situation.

Of course this kind of response from me, will in turn generate a completely different response from him, than if I had blasted him by immaturely expressing my emotions.

So, that’s an example of what I mean by giving mature voice to my immature emotions. Please note that I’m not ignoring my emotions. I’m not burying them. I let my friend know that I disappoint and hurt myself with his correspondence, but I’m not blaming him. I’m taking responsibility for my own emotions and feelings. I believe that each time I behave this way I actually heal something in myself.

This process I just described has eliminated the vast majority of interpersonal conflicts and drama in my life. It’s why I am a tremendous proponent of maturity. I believe that when I learn to maturely express myself, regardless of what’s going on around me, I achieve a significant milestone in my life—I’m no longer a victim. This is huge. It means I will not be reactive or defensive. I’ll be capable of listening to you even when you and I see the world in a very different way.

Okay, so where does the whining come in?

First of all, it comes within the context of being a client in therapy. This is because the therapist is capable of witnessing me in a much more neutral way than anyone else in my life. And the way we are witnessed affects us. For example, if I ask Hannah, my wife, to witness me as I express my childhood fears, she may react with her own fears in which case I might receive the message that what I’m expressing isn’t okay. So I want to emphasize the value of revealing myself to a neutral witness. This can happen in therapy and it is part of what happens at our Reology retreats.

Second, presenting myself as a victim is appropriate when I’m expressing feelings from a time in my life when I was a victim, a time when I wasn’t in control and I wasn’t fully responsible for myself. This is primarily when I’m dealing with events that occurred when I was a child.

Why not give mature expression to those experiences too? Because if I was truly victimized I need to give voice to my experience in a way that’s congruent. And I need someone to witness me. We see this with upset infants who are witnessed. They calm down. They have an experience—often they can’t express themselves in words, but we can sense from looking at them how they feel. If we witness well, in essence we are saying, “Yes, I get it. Yes, I understand. Yes, what you feel makes sense.” When they are witnessed in this way, they calm down. I think they feel like, “my experience makes sense.”

When I feel adequately witnessed I release the energy (effort) I am using to resist my feelings. After someone witnesses me I no longer feel alone with my experience. I comfort myself.

A recent discovery

And what I’ve discovered in my recent therapy—as the client—is that there is a constructive way to express my childhood feelings by using the following expression:

“Sometimes I feel _____________(angry, hurt, scared, sad, alone, etc).”

What I appreciate about this expression is that it suggests my feelings are temporary—“sometimes.” I also appreciate that it doesn’t require me to take responsibility for how I feel, because as a child I didn’t feel responsible.

Now, let’s contrast this to how I generally encourage people to express their feelings using ReSpeak. If you aren’t familiar with ReSpeak, one key aspect is that I speak as the creator of my feelings. For example, instead of saying things like, “You irritate me,” I will say, “I irritate myself.” Instead of saying, “You disappoint me,” I will say, “I disappoint myself.” Instead of saying, “You make me unhappy,” I will say, “I make myself unhappy.” It’s true that another person may act in some way that stimulates my feelings, but I am the only one who interprets their actions and therefore I am the one responsible for how I make myself feel.

I believe that both of these expressions are extremely healthy:

“Sometimes I feel ________.”

“I make myself feel ________.”

I have worked with clients who spent a few months integrating their childhood experiences before they could accept adult responsibility for the lives they live today. At the time I wasn’t aware of the “Sometimes I feel ______” speech pattern, but I’m sure it would have been very helpful. After these clients felt sufficiently witnessed they moved on and started using ReSpeak.

And recently I have discovered some of my own un-integrated feelings. On my own, I would have pushed myself to take responsibility for those feelings. But with the help of a talented somatic therapist, I’m now expressing my feelings in a healthier way. I’m grateful to her and have a renewed appreciation for the value of good therapy and the power of language.

 

Thinking about going?
Our retreat is full, but if you want us to add your name to our private wait list, fill in the form below, and we'll notify you if there is an opening.


Name*FirstLastEmail*PhoneThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The post There is a time to whine appeared first on Reology.

Healing Myself With My Dreams

One of the many things I love about the practice of Reology is that it invites me to embrace all of me—the practice hinges on self-acceptance—not tolerance of poor behavior, but acceptance.

I begin exactly where I am—accepting my past, my present, my failures and successes and then honestly ask myself, “Am I pleased with how I conduct myself?” If I’m pleased with how I live in the world then I keep doing what I’m doing, but if I’m not content with myself, Reology offers me practical ways to change and grow.

Healing dreams

One of the tools offered in Reology is to use my dreams to ascertain what’s going on beneath the surface of my conscious thoughts. I learned how to do this with guidance from Hannah and Jake Eagle at a Reology Retreat. As a result, I have been healing myself with my dreams. And, no, I don’t have to lie on a couch and listen to them tell me what my dreams mean. Just like everything else in Reology, no one tells me about me. The heart of Reology revolves around me taking responsibility for me, owning and embracing all parts of me, and one of the ways I can help myself is to write down my dreams and then translate them into ReSpeak.

Here’s a recent short dream that I worked with:

In my dream Obama is my dad. I am about 14 and my dad, Barack Obama, and my mom are busy doing a spring-cleaning and they enlist the help of my brother and me. We are really tearing the house apart and throwing everything out that needs replacing or isn’t useful. At one point I walk through the 1960’s gleaming white kitchen and look in a box and there is my broken laundry basket and I feel so excited that I won’t have to carry my dirty clothes downstairs in my broken basket anymore, I am getting a new one.

Around lunchtime we take a break from cleaning and go outside for a picnic lunch prepared harmoniously by our parents, but before we eat we fly a kite with our dad. It is a perfect April day—just enough wind to get the kite soaring and just warm enough to eat outside. We have a picnic table in the backyard and a huge tree that is ideal for climbing. We have a lawn, and there is a pitcher of lemonade on the table.

That’s my dream . . . in real life my dad was nothing like Obama and I didn’t grow up with a shiny white kitchen or a picnic table with homemade lemonade.

Changing my relationship with my past

When I use ReSpeak to make sense of my dream, this dream represents a deep healing in me. I’m changing my relationship to my past. I’m spring-cleaning the old stories that I have limited myself with, throwing everything out that needs replacing or isn’t useful, and I’ll no longer have to carry myself in a broken container because I’m giving myself a new one. And I’m experiencing my life more and more like a perfect day.

If someone else helped me create this interpretation of my dream I might think it’s clever or somewhat interesting, but in Reology the emphasis is on how I make meaning of everything in my life, including my dreams. There is no fixed meaning. There is no right interpretation. I find this to be so liberating.

So this is my interpretation and that’s why it’s so empowering for me. I am the one changing my relationship to my past. I am the one who is cleaning out my old stories. I am discarding parts of my past that aren’t useful. I am giving myself a new container, a new identity. And I am deciding that my life is more and more like a perfect day.

The beauty of Reology is that my dream is my dream, no one else tells me what it means. No one tells me about me when I live in this orientation. And I stop telling other people about them. I can use my dreams to see more deeply into myself and recognize that I am the one who is making meaning of everything that happens in my life. Sometimes I can change the meaning if it doesn’t serve me, sometimes I can’t. I’m still working on myself.

I delight myself with my progress in the Reology orientation and I encourage anyone who reads this to explore the possibilities that life presents in sweet and unexpected ways. If you’ve been to conventional therapy and not had much success, if you’re tired of people telling you about you, or if you’re searching for a richer way to live I encourage you to reach out. Reach out to the Eagles, read other blogs on this site, get the book, ReRight Your Life, come explore the richness of your inner possibilities at a retreat.

 

Thinking about going?

We have a very limited number of spaces available.

Register Now »

 

The post Healing Myself With My Dreams appeared first on Reology.

The Story Of All Stories

Once upon a time there was a story . . . a story that helped people to change their lives. The story teller was a man made of sand. Depending on how the wind blew, he would take on different shapes. So everyday he had a different appearance.

When I stopped to look at the man made of sand, and asked, “Who are you,” the man made of sand said, “I’m a story teller, just like you.”

After spending time with the man of sand, I came to understand that all of us are storytellers and we tell ourselves stories as a way to make sense of the world and our lives. As the wind blew and the weather changed the stories he told covered a wide range. I came to recognize the story of all stories, which is this:

Each of us can become a really good storyteller.

To become a “good” storyteller means that I make meaning of the events in my life in ways that help me live according to my values. For me, this means my stories—the ones I tell myself—encourage me to treat my wife well, take good care of myself, do work that I’m passionate about, and try and make positive contributions to the world. Someone else might tell stories, equally valuable, that lead to very different results—results that feed their values.

If we remember that our stories are made up then we’re less attached to them.

Remembering that my stories are made up helps me be more flexible, open minded, and less attached to a particular outcome. In addition, the whole notion of being “right” and “wrong” evaporates. I can’t take myself as seriously when I remember that the stories I’m telling are fabricated.

When I say “fabricated,” I don’t mean that the events themselves are fabricated, but rather that the meaning I make of the events—that’s the part that’s made up. In an earlier article I referred to this as The One Truth, the idea that meaning is made up.

So, if I accept this idea that my stories are made up, when I’m upsetting myself with compulsive or hostile thoughts, ongoing ruminations, feelings of jealousy or insecurity . . . I can recognize they are made up and let them go—Poof!

Is Poofing a form of repressing?

What is repressing? It’s pushing down, restraining, subduing my thoughts and emotions. Repressing is not good or bad. There is research demonstrating that repressing is a helpful strategy after receiving a serious medical diagnosis. Apparently, the people who initially repress their emotions after getting this kind of bad news and then later get in touch with and express their feelings; they have higher rates of successful recovery.

But, generally, I think repressing is not the best strategy—except as stated above, when done for a temporary period of time. My concern is that eventually my repressed thoughts and feelings clutter up my system if I don’t acknowledge and release them.

For many years I offered “brief therapy” to my clients, and as part of my training to become a therapist I received a good deal of brief therapy. When I say “brief therapy,” I’m referring to therapeutic approaches that tend not to delve into the deeper recesses of our minds and spirits. Instead, they tend to focus on bringing about a desired outcome in a relatively short period of time.

And I did experience relief from this form of therapy. But years later, many of my feelings—which I never fully dealt with—resurfaced. This happened when I turned forty, actually on my fortieth birthday. If you want more details, I write about this in my book, ReRight Your Life. When I turned forty I was shocked to find myself feeling the same kind of anxiety I had experienced when I was a child. And as a result of having these feelings reemerge, I shifted my therapeutic approach, with myself and my clients, and I began working at a deeper level.

What is “a deeper level”?

A deeper level involves addressing questions having to do with living in a world of uncertainty, recognizing my own mortality, realizing and accepting my own limitations, facing my aloneness. It is as a result of dealing with these deeper issues that I fully addressed—and largely alleviated—my anxiety.

Could I have done this kind of deeper work when I was younger? I don’t know for sure. But I wish that I had been given a clearer choice. I wish I had understood that I could push away—repress—some of the causes of my anxiety and unhappiness—knowing I would likely have to deal with them later, or I could do a deeper kind of psychological work.

I suspect that engaging in brief therapy and some repressing is most appropriate during our teen years and in our twenties. This is a time when we need to hold onto our stories, to fill out our narratives. But if we continue holding onto our stories in our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, I suspect we’re wasting precious time. There is only so much rummaging around in the past that is necessary—trying to figure out why I did what I did, why my mother and father did what they did, why my first partner did what he or she did. When I realize that my stories are made up, I’m better able to shift my attention from my past to my present.

Back to the question, is Poofing a form of repressing?

When I repress I override my feelings and circumvent some of my thoughts. I go around myself. I take another route to get to my destination.

When I Poof! I acknowledge my thoughts and emotions. I feel myself. I lean into myself instead of away from myself. I own myself. Then, I also acknowledge that my thoughts—which stimulate my emotions—are made up. I see through my own stories. They become transparent. I become transparent.  Sometimes when this happens, I sense how malleable I am—like the man made of sand. At these times, I can Poof! with great results.

Other times, I end up wrestling with this idea that meaning is made up. I hear myself saying, “No, this is really the truth.” That’s when I’m attached to my story and Poofing is unlikely to be successful. If the story comes back, or the related emotions continue to coarse through my nervous system, that’s a sign that I’m not ready to Poof! More often than not, when this happens, it’s because I need to say something to another person. I need to renegotiate an agreement. I need to establish new boundaries.

Poofing isn’t always sufficient

And sometimes, the problem resides solely in me, but Poofing is still insufficient. For example, as I talked about in this previous article (The Worst Thing I Almost Ever Did To Myself), when my mother had recently passed away, and inexplicably didn’t honor an agreement she had with me, I urgently needed to understand why.

Now, isn’t’ this funny? I know that whatever reason I come up with, it will be made up. I know I’m just creating a story, but I so deeply unsettled myself with my mother’s actions that I couldn’t find peace in myself. I needed an explanation. I worked for a few days before I found one that helped me settle down.

So what’s going on there? Why would a made up story help me settle down when I know it’s made up? It’s because my story fits with my values. I come up with an explanation that makes sense to me and is acceptable to me. In my particular case, my solution allowed me to preserve my appreciation of my mother while simultaneously explaining her recent behavior, which I considered to be out of character for her.

My story allows me to hold my world together

But, is it real? Is it true? No, neither. And now, several weeks later, I no longer even need my story. I don’t know why my mother did what she did. I never will. I don’t need to know. I know I loved her. I know she always did what she thought was right. That’s good enough for me. But when I was really upsetting myself, I needed something to help me find my bearings. I needed some way to make sense of what was going on.

And here’s the paradox. Until I make sense of what’s going on—in matters that are really significant to me—I can’t let go of them. I need to create a meaning before I can let go of the meaning.

And this combination of creating meaning and then letting go of the meaning I created is proving to be a powerful combination for me. When I really challenge myself with something, first I make meaning of it, a little bit later I let go—because I realize the meaning is made up.

With the little stuff in life, which is most of what my life consists of, I don’t even bother with step one—making up meaning—I just let go. And since I’ve been doing this, well the ride is getting smoother and smoother. And I’m not making that up!

If you want proof about how valuable it is to Poof!—go ask the man made of sand.

 

The post The Story Of All Stories appeared first on Reology.

The One Truth

http://www.mcescher.com/

As far as I can tell there is only one truth. The one truth is that all meaning is made up. Religious ideas, political ideas, psychological models—all made up. Our brains are meaning making machines. Put an image in front of me and I’ll make meaning of it. I’ll interpret it based on what I already know.

And when something happens that is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before, I’ll stump myself. I’ll be at a momentary loss until I can categorize, label, identify—all of which are ways of making meaning.

Recently, working with my clients, I’ve been shining a brighter light on this idea that meaning is made up. And I impress and excite myself as I witness people freeing themselves of so much mental clutter.

The most typical response that I hear is:

“This means that I can change the meaning of whatever I’m perceiving.” And, yes, that’s true. You can change the meaning of what you’re perceiving.

Let’s say that your partner lied to you about something, but he comes forward a week later and admits he lied. You can look at this as a disaster, realizing that if your partner is willing to lie to you about one thing, maybe he’ll lie to you about other things. And worst of all, even if you ask him if he’s lying to you, you can’t believe his answer because he’s lied to you before. This is a real mess and potentially something that you never recover from. Suspicion grows and trust is never reestablished.

Or . . . you might realize that your partner coming forward and telling you he lied is a remarkable opening on his part. He is actually taking responsibility for his inappropriate behavior. This could be the turning point in the relationship. This could be a chance to relate in a more genuine way and by appreciating his honesty you reinforce his new behavior. You stay in the moment, the moment in which he is being honest and revealing and you choose not to punish him for having lied to you.

What’s the difference in these two stories. Which one is the truth? The one truth? Neither of them. They’re both made up. So, yes, you can change the meaning of any event that happens in your life. And this is probably the place to begin practicing. If you disturb yourself with some meaning you make, change the meaning and see what happens. Just try it . . .

One specific way to change the meaning in human interactions is to look through the eyes of the other person. Listen to them and believe them. Just this simple act is likely to help you create new meaning. It’s a powerful technique that I use with my wife, Hannah. Whatever she tells me, I believe her. After all, she’s a very honest person, so why argue? Why not stop and allow myself to experience events through her eyes? This is a great way to recognize the malleability of meaning.

Then, the next step—and this is the one that I find so extraordinary—doesn’t  require me to change the meaning, simply to recognize that the meaning I’m making is made up.

It’s all made up.

We each make up meaning of everything that happens all day long. Even if we understand this idea on some intellectual level, the chances are that we don’t live with this knowledge in the forefront of our minds. What would happen if we did?

I can tell you what’s happening for me as I live this way. Then you can try it for yourself and see what happens for you.

As I fully recognize that all meaning is made up I deeply relax myself and become present. I experience non-attachment. After all, why be attached to stuff when you realize it’s entirely made up?

I am living more and more in the space that exists between the stimulus and my response. This is one of my favorite quotes:

Between the stimulus and the response there’s a space, and in that space is our power and our freedom.

Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning said that. And I think it is the most helpful idea I’ve ever heard—but remember, even it’s made up.

One key thing to consider is whether or not the meaning you make up is helpful—to you. Are you helping yourself with the way that you make meaning? If you are, stick with it. If you aren’t, change the meaning you make to something that is helpful, constructive, productive, comforting, motivating, clarifying . . .

This is part of what happens during the Reology retreats, people learn a different way to make meaning. So many of us grow up learning that human interactions are based on the model of a perpetrator and victim, or a winner and a loser, but Reology offers a completely different way to understand human interactions. When we learn this different way of making meaning we stop being reactive and taking things personally.

Some ways of making meaning are healthier than others.

Finally, I want to reiterate my other key point—for me it’s even more freeing. Sometimes I don’t need to change the meaning that I’m making, only to realize that the meaning I make is made up. That’s the real source of leverage. Whatever I’m thinking that is causing me to suffer—I’m making it up.

When I realize that the meaning I’ve assigned to something is made up—I can let it go. So if I’m driving myself crazy with some compulsive thought, or if I’m triggering myself with some story, as soon as I remember that what I’m telling myself is made up—I let go. In a previous article I refer to this as Poofing!

And, I want to be clear that “letting go” is not the same as repressing. I’ll explain the difference between “letting go” and repressing when I write part II of this article.

Do you want to “let go”?

Whether you want to “let go” of particular thoughts depends on how you want to live your life. This approach that I’m sharing with you is very effective if you want to experience balance and tranquility. If you are the kind of person who loves the highs, maybe you even enjoy the emotional roller coaster ride, letting go and non-attachment may not appeal to you. Is tranquility better than emotional drama? That all depends on how you make up meaning.

Reology offers me many pearls, but two that I find most useful are:

A new way of making meaning that helps me step out of the perpetrator/victim model.
Awareness that all the meaning I make is made up, like a story, and I am the storyteller.

 

The post The One Truth appeared first on Reology.

Why Are We So Scared?

Photo by Jonastas Cunha (creative commons)

Other people see me as abrasive. I perceive this is because much of my dialog with people comes from a defensive place in me. I don’t want to be seen as abrasive. That’s why I recently attended the Reology retreat in Roatan, hoping I would learn to communicate better with people in my professional and personal life—in a more respectful and clear manner.

Every second I choose…

I ended up getting so much more than what I hoped for. I didn’t know how I thought this experience would change me, but it changed me—or I changed myself—in such a profound way. I now have a clear view of the me I want to live with. I excite myself with every second of my life that I get to experience from now until whenever. And I know that every second I can choose how I want to be.

The most powerful thing I took away from the retreat is the belief that no one can ever really hurt me. Think about how you would live your life if you believed that. Here’s a quote from Jake Eagle’s book that helps explain how I arrived at this belief:

No matter what we do, with few exceptions, the nature of Identity cannot be destroyed. If we deflate ourselves, we can re-inflate ourselves. If we wound ourselves, we can heal ourselves. If we make mistakes, we can learn. If we lose ourselves, we can find ourselves. If we are without meaning, we can create new meaning. Whatever happens to us, we grow until we die. When Nietzsche, the German philosopher, said, ‘Anything that does not kill me will make me stronger,’ I imagine he was talking about Identity.

I also came to understand the idea that we each make up meaning of whatever is happening in our lives—we create our own stories, so why not create the one that best suits you and helps you live the way you want to live.

In coming home after the retreat I find it hard to even explain with words the change that I underwent and when I do come close I am flooded with tears of love and joy for the other people with whom I shared this experience.

What if…?

I now wonder, what if the whole of humanity were to do this? What if we all shared this experience? And I wonder why are we so scared to take responsibility for ourselves.

It is clear to me that if you are ready to change the deepest core of yourself, your life and your relationships—then you should go to one of these retreats.

The post Why Are We So Scared? appeared first on Reology.

The Worst Thing I Almost Ever Did To Myself

If you consistently read our blogs you know that, recently, my mother passed away. The way I have processed her death has been very—I’m searching for right word—nourishing, affirming, enlightening. These seem like strange words to use when talking about losing someone I dearly love.

Yet, I feel good about the way I spontaneously responded to my mother’s death. And I’ll share that experience with you before I tell you the worst thing I almost ever did to myself.

I grieved—crying uncontrollably—shortly after learning my mom had died. Then, within a couple of hours, I experienced myself at a fork in the road of my consciousness. If I went in one direction, telling myself or other people stories about my mother—which is what people were encouraging me to do—I felt unsettled. I unsettled myself.

The stories would have sounded like this:

“She lived a good life . . .” “She was getting to a point when life was becoming less enjoyable . . . ” “She did almost everything she ever wanted to do . . . ” But even when the stories were positive, I still disoriented myself. The stories were true, but they were not happening in the present moment. They were part of the past, and I think that by trying to hold onto the past I was preventing myself from being present.

When I went in the other direction, which involved no stories at all, but being present with my awareness of her and the fact that she was gone—I felt love. Nothing else, I just felt love.

And this experience of staying present is how I nourished myself. I think this was possible for a few reasons. One reason is that I had individuated from my mother. I started my process when I was very young, only sixteen, and continued for another two or three decades. But eventually, I felt complete in my process of individuating. We had established what I refer to as an adult/adult relationship. Another reason I felt able to stay present was that I had no unfinished business with my mother. There was nothing I wanted to say that I didn’t say. And I believe this was true for her as well.

Or, so I thought.

A few days ago I learned that my mother made some last minute changes to her will. This came as a complete surprise to me because I was the person who managed her financial affairs. Also, I had specifically said to my mother more than once, “Please don’t surprise me. If you ever decide to make changes to your will, which is up to you because it’s your money, will you let me know? That way I can voice my opinion, and then you do what you want to do. That’s all I ask.”

My mother agreed to honor my request, promising if she ever wanted to make changes she would discuss them with me first. Well, my mother broke her promise. She made changes—to my disadvantage—and never told me.

Why? Why not honor such a simple request?

I think in my mother’s case it’s because she wanted to avoid conflict, especially with her children. And I think this is true for many people, they want to avoid conflict or being wrong or being judged.

Within Reology there is no right or wrong in interpersonal dynamics. There is just being human. People are where they are, with their fears and concerns and dreams and hopes. Living in this orientation allows me to express myself without fear of being judged so that I can move more gracefully into and through life’s challenges. Living in this orientation erases my old ideas about conflict: winning and losing.

When I live in the Reology orientation—fully—I recognize that other people’s behaviors and actions are statements about them, not me.

The issue—outside of Reology—is that I imagine another person’s actions (my mother’s) are a statement about me.

And, even though I live in the Reology orientation—and I know better—I took my mother’s action personally. This is rare for me at this point in my life, but I felt betrayed by one of the people I loved and trusted the most.

“How could she do this to me?”

As soon as I went into this space I was victimizing myself. I saw her as the perpetrator and me as the victim. And very quickly, because I felt wronged, I started making her wrong. I didn’t even want to look at the picture I have of her in my bedroom. And the picture I have of her in my head was changing, becoming soiled.

I was on the verge of making one of the worst mistakes of my life. I was polluting my picture of my mother—a woman who loved me well and who had been a constructive role model throughout my entire life. If I had continued in this direction I would have lost something precious, embittered myself and victimized myself. And, for me, because of my commitment to living in the Reology orientation, I would have truly undermined myself if I had continued to victimize myself.

Fortunately, I have some great friends who remind me of how I want to live my life. My dear friend, Rick, said, “This is who your mother was. She was conflict averse.” He said it in a loving way, not a judgmental way. He reminded me of other things she did in recent years as a way to avoid conflict in my family of origin.

He also pointed out that she and I had different priorities in life—different values. Her priority was creating temporary tranquility, especially in our family. And she was good at it. My priority was, and continues to be, honesty and candor. I’m willing to go through some turbulence in the short term to create stability in the long term.

I reoriented myself

Being an experienced Reologist, it only took me a couple of days to reorient myself and recognize that her behavior was a statement about her, not me.

When I recognize her actions as a statement about her, I feel compassion, realizing she must have anguished herself over breaking an agreement with me. I also looked at my part in this, realizing that I can be rather intense at times, and that probably contributed to why she didn’t tell me about the changes she was going to make in her will.

As I see another dimension of my mother, I realize that even though I kind of thought she was flawless—she wasn’t—she was human like the rest of us. And loving her while acknowledging this feels like a deeper level of love. So, I think I’m continuing to do “good stuff” with her passing.

I chose to share this personal story with all of you because it serves as an example of how even in what feels like pretty extreme circumstances—someone betraying my trust—I have a choice. I can make meaning of their actions by using the perpetrator/victim model, in which case I victimize myself. Or, I can make meaning of their actions by realizing that their actions are a statement about them, not me. They are not doing anything to me. They are who they are. And I can choose to include them in my life to whatever degree I want.

After writing this article I went for a sunset walk on a nearby mesa. The air was chilly, the sun still warm. I took myself through the Reology four-minute meditation. In this meditation when I face the west, the direction of the setting sun, I remember those people who have gone before me. I thought about my mother. I spoke to her. I lovingly told her how I disappointed myself with her decision. And as I expressed myself, the image I hold of her changed—it became softer, or if I were to say that in ReSpeak I would say, “I softened myself.”

If my mother were alive I would share this article with her—demonstrating how I continue to grow myself in relationship to her—and I believe she would respond with one simple word, “touché.”

The post The Worst Thing I Almost Ever Did To Myself appeared first on Reology.

Personal Power

I’ve been working with Jake and Hannah Eagle, learning and practicing the art of Reology for over three years now. The art of Reology is a system of changing my perspective based on how I use language and how I focus myself and my energy.

Back in the old days when many of us were into New Age discovery we used the phrase, “personal power,” which we learned from Carlos Casteneda. Say what we will about Carlos, much of what he wrote still holds true for me today. Don Juan often spoke to Carlos about the idea of manipulating and focusing one’s personal power to assume control of one’s life and take responsibility for one’s actions.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, the idea of controlling my own destiny was powerful and really appealing, and I read and re-read Casteneda’s books and they are still on my bookshelf.

However, whether I was too young, immature, unprepared or not “spiritually ready,” I was unable to follow the teachings of Don Juan to my satisfaction. In fact, I spent the next three decades not controlling my life and not taking responsibility for my actions.

At the mercy of the wind

I lived, as Don Juan so aptly phrased it, as a “leaf at the mercy of the wind.” I wholeheartedly believed in my own victimhood and I had ample support in my past to uphold my beliefs. And the secret to my liberation is hidden in the last sentence—do you see it? “…I had ample support in my PAST…”

The secret for me has been practicing living NOW, and although I’d read many books and been to many lectures and retreats, I didn’t know how to live in the NOW without dragging my past along with me and using it to remind myself that no matter what I do in the moment, my past was heavy and dark. Regardless of the light of today, I would find myself dissolving into the darkness of then.

And then I found Reology and I learned a few simple concepts. The first concept is languaging myself in the present tense, so I stay focused on what is going on in the moment. The second is recognizing that there is no out there, out there. Everything I see, touch, feel, smell, encounter and experience is mine alone. What you see as blue, I call grey—we’re both right and it doesn’t matter—the value is in respecting and honoring that we are different.

Free to accept myself

The other concept I learned is no praise, no blame—I won’t go deeply into this concept, that’s a whole blog in and of itself—and you can learn all about it in Jake Eagle’s book, ReRight Your Life, but what I will say is that the concept of no praise, no blame allows me to be me exactly as I am right now, warts and all. I’m free to accept myself in whatever state I’m in and it’s not my parent’s fault and it’s not your fault. In Reology I’m encouraged and supported to simply be. I learn to reveal myself and all that I bring to the table without criticism, without blame and without praise.

And, perhaps the most profound concept for me is the reality that no one makes me feel anything—I make myself feel, I control my nervous system and when I am uncomfortable with myself, my conduct or my mood, I, and I alone, have the power to shift myself by changing how I use language. Jake can tell you why this works—he knows all about brain waves, and neurons, the primitive brain vs. the pre-frontal cortex, he’s like an engineer of the mind—I am more like a mechanic. When I find I’m not “running smoothly”—behaving immaturely—I can tune myself up with the tools I learn and practice at a Reology retreat.

The next retreat is happening in a week—22 lucky people are meeting in paradise—to play, experiment, discover, and renew themselves. This retreat is full, but there’s another retreat in April and one in July. If you feel like a “leaf at the mercy of the wind”, sign up for a retreat—for the price of a cruise you can change your life—and in my world you’re worth it.

The post Personal Power appeared first on Reology.

Happy New Year 2015

Hannah and I want to wish you a Happy New Year — we hope you make it wonderful.

I believe that I’m more likely to have a wonderful New Year if I slow down long enough to ask, “How will I be a better person in 2015?”

If I were to use ReSpeak to ask that same question, I’d say, “How will I do myself better?” For me, this is the key—well, one of the keys to making my life feel so good these days. I focus on “how I do myself,” or said another way—my personal conduct.

This is key for me. There is much about the world that I find painful to witness, and even in my small world there is much that I can’t control, but I do have a remarkable degree of control over how I conduct myself. By focusing on this, I empower myself.

When someone near me behaves poorly or their immaturity flares my way, my first response is not about them—or, if it is I quickly change it—I ask myself, “How do I want to conduct myself?” I come back to myself. So many of my clients talk about “losing themselves” when they get into intimate relationships. This is because they don’t come back to themselves, instead, they get lost in their perception of the other person.

So . . . if you want to make 2015 a better year—“do yourself better”—learn to stay with yourself and how to come back to yourself when you lose yourself.

By the way, as far as I know there is no better place to learn this than our retreats. Our upcoming program in January has two openings still available. And, if you’ve never been before and want to come, we’ll provide as much financial assistance as we can if that will make a difference. If you want to talk about it, send an email to Jake and Hannah.

Now, I want to share two of the other keys that are making my life feel so good . . .

Fewer and fewer stories

I can’t explain exactly how this happened, but in recent weeks I’ve been telling myself fewer and fewer stories. I’m just not bothering. I really started noticing this right after my mother passed away. I was partially tempted to tell stories, and many people seem to invite me to tell stories—and there’s nothing wrong with telling the stories.

But I didn’t use stories to comfort myself . . . “she lived a great life . . . she avoided a long drawn out death . . . she wouldn’t want to be here if she couldn’t have fun . . .”

Instead, I just stay with my present awareness. When I become aware of her—thinking I’ll pick up the phone and call her to share some good news—I realize that she’s gone, and there is a sensation associated with this awareness, which I allow to expand. It’s as if I feel the absence of my mother—which equates to my love for her—and I just stay with my awareness for some period of time. No thoughts about it. No stories.

For me, this is proving to be very nourishing.

I encourage you to test drive the idea of letting go of your stories, because my sense is that our stories often get in the way of being fully present and experiencing a deeper form of intimacy.

The final thing I’ll share with you this year is the other development that contributes to me enjoying my life so much.

Meaning is made up

Not only are my stories made up, but everything I think is made up. What’s this mean? It means that every thought I have is my own creation and I’m creating thoughts all day long. The quality of the thought I create determines the quality of my days.

With practice, I can learn to nip destructive, depressing, damaging thoughts in the bud so that they never take root in my consciousness. And I can learn to nourish my healthy, healing, harmonious thoughts so that they become my consciousness.

We’ll be sharing much more with you about this in 2015. In the New Year we will continue to:

Share articles on our website
I’ll have a new book coming out in 2015
We’ll be doing a series of one-day workshops in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Click here if you want to be notified of the dates.
We’ll be posting a very cool time-line that explores all ten stages of human development
So . . . stay tuned.

And, again, I invite two of you to gift yourselves with attendance at our next retreat. We will be putting special emphasis on experiences that help us each understand how we have been make meaning, and then learn healthier ways to make meaning. These retreats are life altering events for many people who attend. A graduate of our retreats recently wrote to me and said, “I always thought that one of the best things I did in my life was deciding to come to the Reology retreat.”

 

Thinking about going?

Only 2 spaces are left!

Register Now »

 

 

 

 

The post Happy New Year 2015 appeared first on Reology.