Beyond Secrecy, Privacy and Insecurity

I previously wrote a post called “Secrets, Confidences & Privacy,” in March or 2006, promising to write more. You can click this link:

Secrets, Confidences and Privacy

That blog gives some of the development of my thinking on the matter.

I notice that it was written a year before April of 2007. When I share this blog with people, I give a disclaimer that I no longer believe much of what I was writing prior to April 2007, but I leave it up as historical development and to connect with people who might connect better there. But what I would write now on the same subjects is significantly different. I re-read what I wrote, and while I would alter my allusions to spirituality and inner guidance to be more factual, and include conversation on “whose business am I in?” I would generally stand by most of what is written there.

My theme was the question of whether the expanding & contracting universe is a safe place or not. Let me review and then continue.

I will use words & phrases like “generally,” “usually,” “often,” and “most of the time,” for the benefit of those who are not seeing things the way I do.

Secrets generally hide something that we believe would hurt another or ourselves. Usually, we hold things secret out of shame or guilt, or fear of the judgment of others. We keep secrets usually to deceive or hide.

The Online Merriam Webster gives the origin of the word, “secret,” from the Middle English, from Anglo-French secré, secret, from Latinsecretus, from past participle of secernere to separate, distinguish, from se- apart + cernere to sift.”

It might be informative to check the synonyms and antonyms listed there:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secret

“Synonyms: backstairs, behind-the-scenes, clandestine, covert, furtive, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, private, privy, sneak, sneaking, sneaky, stealth, stealthy, surreptitious, undercover, underground, underhand, underhanded

Antonyms: open, overt, public”

Confidences, on the other hand, are generally held in areas where we may feel we are vulnerable, sensitive, “wounded” or learning. A confidence may be more temporarily held, and more likely to be shared when we learn … confidence! Internal confidence in ourselves, our views, our choices, preferences & lifestyle. We keep confidences to protect.  A confidence is held out of respect or for healing. Once we feel safe, we may share these more freely.

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary definition of confidence that applies is “reliance on another’s discretion.”  “Discretion,” it says, comes from the “Middle English, from Anglo-French discret, from Medieval Latin discretus, from Latin, past participle of discernere to separate, distinguish between.”

Privacy, as I wrote before,  is often not explicitly spoken of, and thus, is harder to pinpoint, define or follow. It is quite a slippery subject, particularly from culture to culture and from era to era.

The Online Merriam-Webster, gives the origin from  “Middle English privat, from Anglo-French, from Latinprivatus, from past participle of privare to deprive, release, from privus private, individual; probably akin to Latin profor, in front of.”

The bold in the definitions is mine. I highlighted separate, deprive and individual.

Secrets, confidences and privacy separate one person or a group of people from others, deprive others of information or knowledge and are a feature of individuation, a word which contains the same root as “divide,” which also means “to separate.”

While I was Googling for other information on these topics, I found the following article by Thomas Nagel, “Concealment and Exposure” at:

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/nagel/papers/exposure.html .

Nagel writes more about the social and political effects of constraint versus personal confrontation on matters that are generally private, and Nagel believes in a kind of privacy that protects people who hold unpopular views as a means to smooth wrinkles from the social fabric for the purposes of a “smoothly fitting public surface.”  Nagel writes that “it protects one from the sense of exposure without having to be in any way dishonest or deceptive, just as clothing does not conceal the fact that one is naked underneath.”

Such privacy seems to be a requirement in a society that is largely expressing itself in any of the following World Views:  Survival, Safety and Security, Outer Success and Relationship Lessons. From these perspectives, there is very much “two,” duality, not one. While truth is more than mere non-duality, this will do for now as a distinction for the purposes of this conversation. Everything seems to come from “outside” – until it doesn’t, about the time we become more inner directed, less blaming, less focused on others to meet our imagined “needs” and “wants.”

Unless society as a whole, is largely more secure and inner-directed, trusting and safe, it seems reasonable (is it?) and natural (oh?) to hold secrets, confidences and privacy. Anything outside of ourselves seems threatening, or at least holds that potential, and society adopts “norms” that “protect.”

It seems more reasonable to me, to question these assumptions, to find out if our attachment to “privacy,” is really only a way to divide and separate us from ourselves and others.

Does the desire for privacy actually spring from insecurity in a world that is truly safe in a bigger picture sense?  (Yes, bodies may die, be in pain, be injured – does that actually equate to a lack of safety?)

If you’ve been reading this blog much at all, you know what to do, and you have choices:

Write out a Worksheet. Ask the questions. Do the turn arounds.

Re-Pair Opposites

Release and Receive

Email me or Comment if you need help.

Love, Ann

“One and one don’t make two. One and one make one.”

~ Pete Townshend, The Who

No Blame, No Credit, “Not I” and Lather, Rinse, Repeat

No Blame is the secret to having all of your relationships work, all the time.

No Credit is the secret to releasing the feelings of desperate need for something or someone outside of us.

“Not I’ is the secret to relaxing and being peaceful inside. Not only is that not found outside me, it just is, and I can’t blame or credit myself, either. It simply is.

All of these true, or factual, concepts contribute to each other. I find them indispensible to feeling peaceful and content. I find that my peace, openness, connection and bliss are a by-product, a side-effect of these ideas, whhhen I practice them. Suffering disapears. They take only the time it takes to stop and notice what is true.

No Blame

I learned “no blame” by *doing* The Work of Byron Katie.

There are 2 requirements for doing The Work:

1. No goal. Do The Work simply to find the truth.

2. The Work is not meant to “fix” any seeming “problems.”

If you try to use it with a goal or to “fix” something, “failure” is guaranteed.

No Credit

I learned “no credit,” through the meditation of The Work, but mostly through IAM Meditation by Steven Sashen.

I find that meditation is how I notice my inner bliss and connection. My girlfriend asked me to define meditation. What I came up with was this: Mediation is the process of opening & relaxing into “what is” or “reality.” It tends to leave me anywhere from neutral to blissed out.

It does this no matter where I am, who I am with or what I am doing.

Therefore, I learned that nothing outside of me gets “credit” for my bliss and inner peace – not sex, not music, not people, not any particular activity – including the meditation itself, since I can do that “anyway, anyhow, anywhere.”

“Not I”

Last, but not at all least, I learned that it is “not I” doing *anything.”

Ever.

At all.

In the same way that I cannot blame or credit myself or others for anything, I cannot truthfully or accurately take blame or credit myself.

A dense, but helpful book on this is “The User Illusion,” by Tor Norretranders. “Stumbling on Happiness,” and “How We Know What Isn’t So,” were also helpful to me, along with others.

The theme quote from “User Illusion,” is by James Clerk Maxwell:

“What is done by what is called myself is, I feel, done by something greater than myself in me.”

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Last, I learned that the idea of some kind of permanent blissful “enlightened” state is a myth. So, I lather, rinse, repeat. Sometimes my mind gets a little “dirty,” and it is time to question my thinking again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

These ideas, when I remember them, when I PRACTICE them regularly, have the side effect of freeing me from the idea that I need to control or fix anyone or anything – other people, situations or myself.

I think that’s about it.

Love, Ann

“If I told you what it takes
to reach the highest high,
You’d laugh and say ‘nothing’s that simple’
But you’ve been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
And no one had the guts to leave the temple!”

– Pete Townshend of The Who
From “Tommy: A Rock Opera”

This post is dedicated to an extraordinary Who fan, to my personal community and to my “tribe” whoever they are!

Important Note: Just because these understandings came to me through a certain method or author or teacher does not in any way imply that this is the only way.

“Connection”

I am realizing that I need to say that “no blame” *** is also “no credit.” That is, nothing outside of you gets credit for you feeling open, connected or blissed.

That, too, is your thinking.

Practicing meditation will teach you that and how to do it.

Then you will no longer feel so needy & desperate – to yourself or others.

That is why I keep inviting you to do IAM Meditation. (See Pages on the right.)

Most meditation teachers are shooting in the dark. They know it “works” sometimes & they think it is unpredictable. So they teach myths & superstitious behavior.

What Steven Sashen is teaching is the real deal.

For me, *doing* (not reading about, it’s actually *doing*) The Work of Byron Katie showed me that there was no blame. Doing IAM Meditation showed me that there was no credit, either. It’s all in me. Or, more accurately, what I learned reading “User Illusion,” by Tor Norretranders, it’s all in something unfathomable that lives through me.

Learning to connect & feel peaceful inside without the idea that it is circumstantial, rare or unpredictable will free you in ways you can barely imagine.

Love, Ann

*** No blame is the only requirement for relationships that work. (see prior posts)

“If I told you what it takes
to reach the highest high,
You’d laugh and say ‘nothing’s that simple’
But you’ve been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
And no one had the guts to leave the temple!”

– The Who, Tommy

“Setting Intentions” is STRESSFUL

This was my reply to someone who invited me to a “wild woman weekend.”

No, thank you. You can make space for someone else on this one. I can’t drink alcohol much. I avoid being anywhere I have to participate in or view skits. And most of all, I avoid setting intentions.

For a humorous take on the last, see:

Especially:

http://sashen.com/blog/91/die-your-potential/

http://sashen.com/blog/90/shoot-me-shoot-me-now-why-its-beyond-a-secret/

and

http://sashen.com/blog/146/98-pound-positive-thinking-weaklings/

But in my own words, setting intentions is STRESSFUL, especially since there isn’t a damned thing we can ever do about what life brings us. “Setting intentions” is an attempt to control the uncontrollable. It is doomed from the start.

That may sound horrible, but only until we recognize and relax into the fact, the reality, that I NEED DO NOTHING. That’s A Course in Miracles quote, and I wouldn’t really recommend that to anyone anymore because it is needlessly long, needlessly convoluted in phrasing and contains untrue Christian mythology and other superstitions.

However, asking questions: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it’s true? How do I . . . well, nevermind. You can read “Loving What Is” or watch a Katie video at http://www.thework.com, there are several. Anyway, that, done thoroughly, with curiosity and fearlessness, questioning even cherished beliefs like “setting intentions” will inevitably lead to the truth and the release and relaxation, sometimes even bliss that we were looking for in other false & stressful ways.

This will sound arrogant, and in some ways it is, but in other ways, the most humble thing I can tell you about all of this is that I am no longer a seeker. I don’t want or need anymore workshops, books or processes (and neither does anyone else) because I accept reality as it is and that alone literally gets me high. Setting intentions only stressed me out, as it does everyone who honestly checks to see how that feels and whether or not it is working. It’s not.

I say this is humble because I had to admit that reality knew better than I did. There is no problem. There is nothing I need a solution for. Everything was all taken care of long before anyone ever thought of “setting intentions” about anything.

And yes, Katie has her problems. I know about some of them. Her feet still hit the ground when she walks… big time. You can find total rants about her if you look. Steven, too, rubs a lot of people the wrong way. And God (another mythical and stressful concept) knows that *I* don’t always make friends when I open my mouth (or my keyboard), but like you, I say what’s true and Devil (right, whatever) take the hindmost.

Love, Ann

Weight and Safety

You know, our grandmothers and great grandmothers knew things that we have forgotten. Ancestors farther back than that may have been in tune with their surroundings so much that they didn’t even have the questions we have.

Like what?

Fat, for example. Farmers and those who raised animals knew what caused fat. So do we, but we ignore it.

Diet products and exercises and diet food, books & programs have got to be a multi-billion dollar business.

And why?

Because we have forgotten (or ignored) what our ancestors took for granted, and in so many ways. But I’m only going to mention one:

Safety.

Every time I have lost significant weight I have been between office jobs, had a solid lover that helped me feel safe and/or was doing Flow Chiropractic which restore a sense of safety to the central nervous system (www.flowwith.com)

What does an animal do when it is afraid besides fight, flight & freeze?

It stores food and provisions in case there isn’t any more on the way for a while.  We produce hormones that tell our bodies to hold fat. Insulin does that.

This is one of the answers to the fat dilemma, not just in my own body, but lots of us. We are scared.

Are our fears rational? Most of the time, no. We fear a lot of things that just aren’t a problem. We terrorize ourselves with “what if’s” that never come to pass. We act like our boss, our spouse or the government is “out to get us.”

And in our fear?  Our bodies start holding onto food and fat like there is no tomorrow. We have convinced ourselves there won’t be.

I have noticed that I always gain weight in an office job. Is it the office? Is it some kind of trauma response because I worked for my father when I was a child?

Oh, I can make up those stories.

But really, all I want to do is to notice that I am in no danger. I am safe. Now and always. With or without a partner, or a chiropractor or constant outside reassurance that I am safe.

Lately, I have forgotten to remember. I am surrounded by people who are maybe even more frightened than I am, both the customers and my co-workers. A few weeks ago there was a death in the office, a suicide. A few weeks before that, an ex-lover was contemplating ending his life.

But I know what to practice when fears come up.

I question my thoughts:

1.  Is it true?

2. Can I absolutely know that this thought is true?

3. How do I react when I believe this thought?

4. Who would I be without this thought?

Turn it around (to self, other or an opposite). Is that Turn Around at least as true (or truer?) than the original thought?

Find another Turn around.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Thank you, Steven. Thank you, Katie.

Love, Ann

“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”
 

                     – Frank Herbert, Dune

Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Meditation Truth

(Reprinted with Permission From the Excellent library of articles on Meditation at   http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602)

Which Meditation Techniques Are Right For You

Posted: 18 Dec 2008 04:17 PM CST
If you’re looking for meditation instruction or want to learn some meditation techniques, whether you’re looking for meditation and relaxation techniques, or if you want what you might call spiritual meditation techniques, whether you need anxiety relief, and whether you’re looking for meditation for beginners or advanced students… no matter why you want to meditate, you might want to realize that there are different types of meditation. And not every meditation technique is right for every person.

There’s a reason why Tiger Woods doesn’t play football.

There’s a reason why you don’t want see Henry Kissinger on Dancing with the Stars.

There’s a reason why, as it’s said in ancient texts, the Buddha taught 84,000 different meditation techniques to his 84,000 different students.

There’s a reason why in Hinduism they say that each person has his own god and must discover his own way of praying to and, ultimately, becoming one with that God.

And the reason is obvious: we’re each unique.

Who you are is different than who your neighbor is.

So it’s helpful to work with the way you are, rather than fight the way you are.

In other words, if you are Christian, you may want to explore Christian meditations.  There are dozens.

If you are Jewish, there are many Jewish and Kabbalistic meditations.

If you’re Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, there are meditations that emphasize the beliefs and ideas inherent in each of those religions.

If you don’t think of yourself as religious, you might want to take a moment to think about your own personal nature, your own psychology.  For example, are you someone who enjoys sitting still in a quiet place, or are you someone who needs to be moving in order to process information? Are you someone who is able to feel sensations in your body easily, or is your body just that thing that happens to be attached to your head?  Do you enjoy probing philosophical ideas and looking for the way things work?  Are you better at following instructions, or would you rather have the barest bit of direction and then go off on your own? Do you easily get absorbed in something that you’re reading or in your own thoughts or feelings, or does your mind easily move from object to object?

You see, none of these are a problem.  There are meditations and meditation techniques designed to work with any one of those situations… and many that I haven’t even brought up.

I have a good friend who was one of the first Western meditation teachers. And asking him to sit down and keep his attention focused in one place for an extended period of time doesn’t produce deep meditation results for him, because that’s not the way he’s built.  But practices that allow his him to move his attention throughout his body, from experience to experience, and investigate deeply what he’s experiencing and how he’s experiencing it… well, with that technique, he’s an ace.  If he had gone to a meditation school that said, “Concentration is the only kind of practice,” he would never have become a great meditation master.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a test that you can take, a meditator’s personality test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Meditation Personality Inventory, that identifies different characteristics that you have and different meditation techniques that might fit who you are.  So you may have to poke around a little bit.

This is where your discerning wisdom is important. Because some meditation teachers will say their technique is “the only one” and that you can’t go jumping from practice to practice.  “Like digging a well,” they’ll say, “you have to just keep digging until you hit water.” That’s a great metaphor, but sometimes there’s no water where you’re digging!

So the best suggestion is to find a meditation practice that gives you immediate results, and then dig there for a while.  And if it doesn’t continue to give results, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you’re trying to dig a well in the desert, or whether you haven’t dug deep enough.  My recommendation is trust yourself rather than getting answers from anyone who has a monetary interest in you agreeing with them.

In other words, if you ask your teacher, “Should I stay, or should I go?” and they say “Stay! And you need to come to the advanced workshop for $5,000,” then, personally, I would go to another meditation teacher.

It’s not uncommon, and in the Tibetan tradition for teachers to say to a student, “I can no longer help you. Here is the name of someone I’d recommend you study with instead.” If your meditation teacher isn’t willing, or able, to make that kind of suggestion then you might consider that important information.

I don’t think that meditation requires believing everything the teacher says.  It’s about becoming independent, and discovering and trusting what is genuinely authentic for you.  Be careful, if someone suggests that they know better.

From Meditation Truth
http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2721602

where there are numerous other highly entertaining and interesting articles on Meditation.

Truth/Lie, Pain/Pleasure, Works/Fails

I read something in Steven’s blog (http://www.sashen.com/blog) where he said there was only one thing he was interested in. I wondered what that was, so I asked. He says he is interested in how systems work. I asked if that includes things like his body and he said that was one of his favorite systems to learn about. He’s taken up sprinting and has a couple of meets coming up. It seems like he’s trying to see what he can do with that body-system-thingy.

Hmm. “How systems work” didn’t sound like anything I was interested in, but I tend to be interested in things he writes and says, so what is the overlap?

I’m sure that “how systems work” includes how minds work. Just look at the reading list at http://www.quantumwealth.com/resources.

Of course, I was wondering because I’ve always said there was only one thing I was interested in. But it has changed. Well, what I’m interested in didn’t really change, but how I think about it has definitely changed.

I used to say that spirituality was the only thing that I was interested in.

Nowadays, I can’t find a “spirit” to have a “ual” much less an “ality!”

Now what? I still have this stuff I do and stuff I don’t do.  🙂  

In fact, you may recall that questioning that has led me to some very interesting insights.

For example: 

I’m a person who is spiritual. Is that true?

or anything beginning with:

I need . . .

or

I want . . .

Is that true?

Anyway, there are a couple of other people who seem to have, if not just one interest, at least one umbrella interest that covers what I know of what they do. 

I’ve found myself very interested in what they do, so maybe there is something similar there. I’m curious. Maybe the one thing I am interested in is learning, but there are a lot of things I could care less about learning – how to fix my car, for example. I’m happy to pay someone else to do that! So, learning doesn’t really cover what it is that interests me, but it is part of it.

If I’m reading them right, it seems to boil down to:

Katie – Truth/Lie, which she seems to equate with Pleasure/Pain.

What she actually says is “If it hurts, you’re lying.”

Steven – Works/Fails

This is my way of expressing what Steven said as a duality about he is only interested in “how things work.”  Works/Fails is not what he said, but my interpretation of what he said. I think this may be important because saying you are interested in how things work could  be something that isn’t exactly a duality, but more beyond the idea of works/doesn’t work. 

(Bear with me, I write to think these things through.)

But, let’s start with Katie. She says that she is “someone who knows the difference between what hurts and what doesn’t.”  The Work of Byron Katie is based largely on finding out what is true and when we are lying to ourselves.

Question 1 is “Is that true?”

Question 2 is “Can you absolutely know that is true?”

Question 3 explores what happens when we believe the thought, “How do you react when you believe that thought?” Most of the time, it seems like the reactions are things I would describe as painful or undesirable.

Question 4 is “Who would you be without that thought? or that story?”  and most of the time, I find things like peace and other pleasurable feelings, experiences and situations.

Then we Turn It Around, another important thing about checking for truth:  check both sides, all sides, all possibilities. 99 times out of 10 (not a typo) I find that the Turn Arounds are at least as true as the original thought. Sometimes they are simply Someone Else’s Business, not something I can know.

Okay, that’s one person’s take on things. 

Steven’s interest in “how systems work,” sounds a bit more complex – a bit trickier.

The minute he said it, I could see how that fit. I love listening to him explain how things work once he has them figured out. On the other hand, sometimes I do tune out. I’m not interested in how everything works, just some things.

For the title of this blog, and for a little Re-Pairing the Universe (see Shampoo Methods on the right or Steven’s IAM Meditation on it) I rephrased what Steven said as works/fails. It’s often when something doesn’t seem to work, at least not the way I thought it would, that I start noticing it at all. We’re all that way. We can’t notice everything all the time, but when something isn’t working, we notice.

At the same time, as I think about it, it’s pretty clear that being interested in “how systems work” is quite different from just focusing on works/fails. That pairing is great for Re-Pairing, but the interest is beyond that. It’s quite subtle. And seems like it could be fairly potent – analogous to a quantum leap, even, which is to say that small difference can result in big differences. It’s one thing to be interested in a process and how it works, quite another to focus on whether it is “working” or “not.”

I wonder if the one thing I’m interested in is “how people work?”

No. That’s not it. I can see how a lot of people “work” and I can’t do anything much about how other people work.

Maybe it’s how I work? That’s pretty self-centered, but it’s honest. I can’t really know how anyone else works, exactly, except that we’re all pretty similar, as I discussed in a recent post.

I do tend to take whatever someone is saying and immediately check how that would be for me or how that would work for me, or I instantly think it wouldn’t be the same for me or wouldn’t work for me.

Hmm . . . people, communication, teaching, learning, words, all of these things interest me. I am certainly interested in truth. This morning while I was first thinking about this, before it became a blog, I was wondering if it’s truth I’m really interested in. I am very interested in truth. Genuine people, stories that give me an “aha,” things like that. It’s the “aha’s” combined with people that is part of what led me to say I was only interested in spiritual things, and then, that really, everything is spiritual. But I’m not really interested in everything. What is it?  

I’m open for comments here. 

I’m still wondering what it is that interests me. I’m looking for a little clarity here.

Side-Effects of Clarity

My friend, Steven, says that “Success is a side-effect of clarity.”

He’s right, you know. 

Anywhere I am not experiencing “success” (and what does that mean anyway? When am I not a success?  Ever?) I can rest assured that I have some corresponding lies, stresses, foggy thinking or misperceptions of reality.

I noticed that I haven’t written a blog yet this month and it’s the last day of the month. 

Why is that?  Well, I haven’t had a lot to say.

There are no dramas, issues, concerns, or opinions that I just had to put fingers to keyboard over. It’s not that I’ve lost the desire to write, or at least I don’t think I have. It’s just that I haven’t had so much to say.

Also, I look back at what I’ve written, and while it isn’t terrible, I have a clearer perspective Now on a lot of it than I did Then.

I was reading a book last week and the author mentioned a similar thing. He said that by the time he got his words onto paper, he had already gone deeper or found something truer. Something like that, yes. That’s what it seems like.

So, do I continue writing and just let it get truer and not worry about my misimpressions of the past?

Probably. It’s a blog, after all. Authors evolve.

Love, Ann

Yes, But I’m Different . . .

Two sentences out of my email last night to a friend:

I THOUGHT I WAS DIFFERENT.  OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

I’m not even bothering to censor that. I typed it as you see it – all caps and everything.

Since April, I have been experiencing a cascade of revelations, an internal psychological Flood of Biblical proportions.

Christian analogies aside, I thought I was living in a world, a body, a mind that was a certain way, did certain things, did not do certain other things, and was, on the whole, rather unique and different from all other worlds, bodies and minds – not only different from those I know, but different from all that ever lived or ever will live.

WRONG.

Let me say that again:  WRONG.

Now let me get personal: I WAS SO WRONG.

It started when I did that piece of The Work on “work” with Steven that I blogged about. That somehow reminded me of a sentence stem we often use for The Work:  “I’m a person who . . . (fill in the blank)” I started questioning all the “I’m a person who . . . ” sentences I noticed. 

You know the ones: 

I’m a person who makes X amount of money, does X type of work, likes coffee-flavored ice cream, and hates green peppers. Yeah, any and all of them. They are all fodder for self-revelation. Try it. You’ll like it. At least, the results of the inquiry are likely to be quite freeing. And isn’t that what we were after?

I realized that if life is a school, I was (from some perspectives) flunking some basic courses (you know – money, relationships, career – little things.) If life is a game, I was losing. If life is a play, I had a tragedy. And that NONE of that was necessary.

In fact, I have had the answers to the tests; the rulebook & the moves; the script and the score, for over 20 years now. It is no secret. (It’s not even “the” Secret.)

But I was different.  Those didn’t apply to me. 

You may be thinking the same thing about what I just wrote. I can’t stop you. But read on. Ask some questions. See what you find.

Why is it that we still have things we call “problems” or “issues” or “patterns” or . . . anything we go to therapists and self-help books and ministers and religious texts and weekend – even week-long and longer – seminars to try to “fix?”

Why?

Why, when people give us answers, even answers they say worked for them, do we not “solve” the “problem” and get on with laying in hammocks and smelling roses and enjoying the Darjeeling?

Okay, I’ll admit there is more than one correct answer to the question. In fact, it will probably take at least 3 answers to get a fuller picture. I’ll tell you what they are:

1.  The people we paid for “answers” were wrong about what actually worked.

2.  “Problems” are a feature not a bug.

3.  We . . . I don’t know how to tell you this . . . we, each of us, is no different from anyone else – at least not in any way that would prevent us from “solving” “problems.”

I know. It’s a hard pill to swallow. It makes no sense at first.

There’s just one tiny little – majorly important – fact – about this:  it’s true.

So, let’s look at the first answer: the people we paid for answers are also . . . wrong.

Because memory is reconstructed from fragments, not saved en toto like a video, but with many additions, deletions and distortions – nothing is as we recall it – not even the well-intentioned interpretations of those who want to teach us how to “solve” a “problem.”

Daniel Gilbert’s book, Stumbling on Happiness, contains explanations and more, with pages and pages of footnotes documenting the research. I just finished reading it, and none too soon! Get one.  There are 130 used copies on Amazon starting at $4.50. With shipping, it costs less than a lot of us will spend on lunch today (another topic I’ve been questioning – my “latte factor” see David Bach’s book Smart Couples Finish Rich, but I digress.)

The point is – because of the way our minds work when looking at the past to see what “worked,” we will invariably misunderstand and reconstruct it in some way it ain’t never been. Then, because we may have had some success since then, and because we have a charismatic personality (or a good agent) we get to sell books & seminars and go on Oprah to tell everyone what we mis-remember that didn’t actually work.

When it doesn’t work for everyone, we tell them they didn’t hold their mouths right – that ain’t it.

According to the research in Gilbert’s book, the only time we can get reliable data from someone about what is making them happy is in the middle of the experience. He says that we can, and should, use this as a guide for our choices, but only if we want to have the most reliable answers possible. Otherwise, we can continue to count on mis-remembered and mis-reported and misunderstood memories from those who are trying to sell us something.

The second correct answer is a variation on the “That’s not a bug; it’s a feature” wisdom from computer geekdom.

Problems:  Bug or feature?

Well, we all have them. They are built-in. We have them regularly. They don’t stop. Even those who have achieved what we think we want have had them – in abundance!

So.  Bug or feature? 

Feature.

Definitely.

Get used to it.

If these ideas intrigue you at all, if you’ve ever spent a dime to solve some personal issue – then spend these dimes to see what Gilbert says would actually work. And there is always the libarary. 

I’ll bet you still won’t do it. Why? 

Well, let me tell you:

This is the kicker, yet another truth that set me free, another answer I didn’t want to hear, another perspective that might have saved me 3 decades of ignorance, that I was finally suddenly able to accept after Gilbert’s book and Sashen’s classes and the Conspiracy of the Universe led me, as they say, “kicking and screaming into my bliss”

I AM NO DIFFERENT FROM ANYONE ELSE

– not in any way that matters when I want to know how to be happy.

I breathe air.

I eat food.

I walk on 2 legs, have one head, 2 arms, 10 toes, 10 fingers, keep going . . .

I laugh. I cry. I shit. I die.

I want what everyone else wants, and I get it the same way anyone else would.

Considering the landscape of human experience, and I mean the WHOLE landscape, the basics of being human, the things I have held tightly to, the things that kept me so blind, are the tiniest fraction of my entire reality as a human being.

Mostly, I am just like you.

And as I wrote to the Right Reverend Doctor Mr. Sashen last night (really, someone should give this man an honorary doctorate – in life):

I am humbled & amazed.

I’m so in love with the whole thing that I can hardly contain myself.

I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes again.

Love, Ann

PS – I was looking for a closing quote and I found a great review of Gilbert’s book with an interview:

                   http://www.powells.com/authors/danielgilbert.html

Oh, and here’s a quote, from Daniel Gilbert in the above link:

“I can guarantee you that half the things in Stumbling on Happiness will turn out to be false. The beauty of science is that we just keep stumbling along, slowly accumulating facts that we can rely on. I’m talking about a lot of very new research. A lot of it is mine. There may be fifteen or twenty scientists working on related problems, and I’ve talked about their work, but until we have decades of research on this, with hundreds if not thousands of scientists working on the same problem, we won’t know which parts are right and which are wrong.”

                                                          – Daniel Gilbert

 

Adrenaline or Peace ? You Pick

This morning I got an email from someone in my brunch group. It was long, but at the center of it was something like this:

“I’m writing a personal note to you to share something with you that I believe could significantly add to the richness of your already amazing life. A few months ago I became involved with HUB- Humanity Unites Brilliance. HUB is where we connect to change the world. HUB is an opportunity to live your life’s purpose AND create sustained abundance for you personally or for your non-profit. I believe it’s a huge opportunity!
 
I’m writing to invite you to join me for 5 days in Long Beach, CA, June 18-22, for an experience you won’t forget! The cost for the event is $2500 per person, but it is FREE TO YOU.  I get to take 3 people for FREE, and I’d like you to be one the three on my personal list. If you’re interested please let me know ASAP (first come, first serve) so that I can save a space for you, as I know these free passes will go soon! The 5 days will be filled with great inspiration from top business leaders, social change artists, and empowerment coaches, in-depth education from some of the most brilliant minds in the world, and a sense of community like I’ve never experienced anywhere else. ”

Oh really?  Well, I did her the courtesy of replying:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

I can see you’re all full of  . . . may I be honest?  Adrenaline about this.
 
I used to read things like this and think “Oh, this could be it! This could be how I (fill in the blank).   No, take that out of parenthesis. I thought it was how I could fill in the “blanks” I thought I saw in my life.
 
I’ve since learned that I was mistakenly equating these adrenaline highs with truth or some kind of guidance. And I learned this from my own experiences, as well as from listening to the seed-thoughts of Steven Sashen’s blogs.
 
Let me counter your invitation with another one. OK?
 
As you go through this process you are in, just ask yourself a couple of questions when you think of it.
 
1.  Is this peaceful or stressful?  (and go for truly peaceful – not excited, not jazzed, not OMG this is fabulous – peaceful)
 
2.  Whose business am I in?  (God’s, someone else’s, or mine)  with a potential sub-question, when I’m over there in their business, who’s taking care of my business?
 
 
I’m sure HUB is a fine organization with good intentions. And it’s not for me.
 
Here is a second invitation for you.
 
Read some of Steven’s Anti-Guru Blog.  I know you are packing your time with so much excitement (for me that reads “stress”) that you may feel you have no time, and what you do is entirely up to you.
 
But I’ll give you a link to one that might really apply and you can look at some of the other jewels in there if you want. They are both offerings of new words for our dictionary:
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/49/manifrustration/
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/51/hoping-to-be-a-successhole/
 
 
http://sashen.com/blog/
 
 
I wish you all the best.  Hope to see you at brunch when this wears off. You’re a truly wonderful individual.
 
Love, Ann