Posts Tagged ‘personal development’

Experience Has No Substitute

Posted: June 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Inaction is the norm in the first world. It’s hardwired into us since we no longer have to be hunter-gatherers but still have the brains of hunter-gatherers.

Back seat drivers, armchair quarterbacks, and hindsight critics abound.

Paralysis of analysis, has become the new gold standard of inaction origin, in the so called information age. I know I had a detrimental perception of action, doing the work, and getting the reps in on actions, abilities, and ways of life I was passionate about for a long time.

Resistance, as the great author Steven Pressfield puts it, is in all of us. We all have our own unique form of resistance that stops us from self actualizing. The most common terms for resistance are laziness and procrastination.

Laziness and procrastination are as easy as they are deadly. Deadly for our spirit, psyche, and self esteem. They feel so right in the moment of choice. It’s the devil we know. The warm blanket of certainty. What we think we want as long as we’re warm, fed, and dry.

Yet to lack experience is to not know what one wants. We don’t know because we haven’t done.

There is no substitute for experience. First new experiences to find who we really are and what we really like, for ourselves. Not what we inherited or were told or had forced upon us. Then we need repeated experience. We need to get our reps in to gain proficiency and hopefully maybe one day mastery.

Competence breeds confidence.

Action begets more action. Inaction begets more inaction. Inertia.

Fear of failure likes to crash the party when planning and early action gets put into place. Fear of failure is let in by the ego. Again, it’s natural, it’s normal.

“You mean I can try and not only fail but also might find out not only am I not great but that I’m not special?!”

That’s right. Taking right action is only the minimum. It’s the cover charge. Action doesn’t guarantee one’s desired outcome. Taking action guarantees a result. The result could potentially shatter our self perception.

Self perception is often, to put mildly, a delusion. Having the idea of who we think we are popped like a bubble is often what we fear more than external failure. It’s the internal perception atomic bomb that we want to avoid most. And with good reason. We aren’t taught how to handle ego death. In fact culture and society pushes us in the other direction. The more ego the better. Bigger ego = better person.

Better to keep lying to ourselves on the sidelines than face the truth in the arena.

Failing is hard, I know from vast experience. Being forced to see and admit one isn’t as good or as special as one hoped or assumed we were, that’s harder. A lot harder. I know that from experience as well.

Sometimes our mental/emotional cuts callous and we’re tougher, but sometimes they remain open wounds. Life can be hard and complex as it is. Going through life, accumulating more metaphorical open wounds, can make living much harder.

So it’s normal and natural to not even try and invest deeper into the stories in our heads. Double down on identifying with our life situation, our thought streams, our mental movies, our emotional narratives. I understand that. I spent, oh, probably the majority of my life in that space.

It’s still day to day, what isn’t? I know I had to live that way, and experience that way of living to know that that way of living isn’t experience and is no way of living at all.

I would never want to consciously go back there. Yet I’ll wake up in the middle of a day and realize I slipped into unconscious, detrimental habits and have been living on the sidelines instead of the arena for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months…

It’s day to day, action to action, choice to choice… what isn’t?

I’m finding as I get older that the fulfillment, contentment, and satisfaction of effort and action are far greater than the pleasure of passive consumption. Rest, relaxation, and escapism are not to be confused with purpose, but it’s easy to get them mixed up.

Inertia.

Inside Out or Upside Down

Posted: June 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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“Cliches are cliches because they are true.” – Harsh Bhogle

Self-improvement, like all things, has many cliches. One of the longest-lasting, most prevailing self-help cliches is that everything you need is already inside you. That can come across as a slap in the face to someone who has experienced trauma and/or is currently experiencing mental-emotional suffering.

But if what we needed to live a life of fulfillment and contentment was outside of us, something that we could buy or consume, that would be the world’s most sought-after product. What’s the most valuable company in the world right now? Apple? Amazon? Are they selling a fulfilling life of purpose and contentment? 

The path that we all must walk on our journey of personal development involves looking outside of ourselves initially. Just like learning to walk or ride a bike. We have to fall. This can hurt because it is often a metaphorical fall that brings us to self-help, personal development, and self-actualization knowledge in the first place. 

“I already fell, I’m already hurt, I’m already broken…now you’re telling me I have to fall again?!”

No, I’m saying you’re going to fall way more than just one more time. I’m saying you’re going to fall so much your body is going to callous like if you were training for the military, martial arts, or pro wrestling. 

There’s no getting around pain, no avoiding suffering, no matter how much we may initially wish it wasn’t that way. When we get to the other side, those of us who are lucky enough to live long enough to get to the other side, we always find that our pain and suffering were our greatest teachers and wisest guides. And they don’t point us out there, they point us back inside. 

Now we do need external things to trigger awakening in my opinion. Trigger doesn’t have to be a dirty word regardless of what the last decade-plus of the white-privileged culture war in America may lead us all to believe. 

My experience has taught me that positive external things can trigger an internal awakening,  internal paradigm shift, or internal growth of one’s locus of control. Were those external things needed for me? Are they needed for you? 

Well, we all have to walk our own path in this life. No two people experience life the same way. No magic pills, no cure-alls. What is external can serve as an aide or a salve or a push or a rail. But nothing external can create permanent change within us. If it was possible then that’s what Apple or Amazon or Walmart or Google would be selling. 

So we have to do it alone because it has to come from within, but nothing great can be accomplished alone. So of course external factors play a role. They certainly have for me. But a personal trainer can’t make a person get into shape. A dietician can’t make someone eat healthy. A doctor or surgeon can’t give someone health or life. 

So ultimately it comes back to us, over and over and over again until we pass on. We have to find and cultivate and grow abundance, grit, discipline, positivity, and all the ways we wish to see and live in the world from the inside out. 

And like everything else in life, it’s not a one-time thing. We don’t sweep and mop the floor once and it stays clean forever. We don’t mow a lawn once and it stays trimmed forever. We don’t do our laundry once and we have clean clothes forever. We don’t lift weights once and stay strong and muscular forever. We don’t eat once and stay full forever. We don’t take one drink of water and stay hydrated forever.

…and the beat goes on…

It’s a lot. It really is. It never ends until our physical life ends. So if that’s how it is, and it is, then we really need to find within us that which can never be taken away, that which can never be exchanged for goods and services. We have to find it, we have to accept it, we have to cultivate it, we have to nurture it, we have to love it, we have to live it.

I never thought I’d be a walking talking writing new-age self-help stereotype but here I am. And I’d never want to go back. 

I never want to go back to sleep. I do sometimes. Just because you awaken once doesn’t mean you stay awake forever. We slip, we fall backward, unconscious living and detrimental habits show up, and go on auto-pilot in the blink of an eye. 

Then what? I awaken, tune in, pick myself up, dust myself off, and get back on my path. The inner path first, then the outer path of tasks, goals, etc. 

But none of the external is possible without getting the internal aligned first. Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the rich and famous. Take a real look, past the filters and Photoshop. Do they seem aligned? Do they seem content? Do they seem fulfilled? That’s why they need to be in public right? That’s why they need to be constantly, externally validated…because they’re so fulfilled and content…

Inside out. Internal to external. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself perpetually upside down. 

Allow Us to Get Actual

Posted: June 2, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Let’s get real.

What does that mean?

What is real? Do you have to be able to touch it for it to be real? 

Do you have to be able to feel it? 

What about the things that can be felt but not touched? Are those things not real, or more real?

If it can be felt but not touched, is it the realest? Or the fakest?

Just a figment of your imagination. Until you learn that thoughts create things and our lives become what we focus on. So are our thoughts real? Are they not real now but are real later when they’re outside of our mind, manifested into physical reality?

If our thoughts dictate our reality, there would be a lot of lottery winners and no poor people or war or suffering. It would seem that way if you had little to no life experience dealing with and/or living in a densely populated area. 

Live long enough, and deal with enough people, and you’ll learn that; it is not just possible but probable that; people manifest their suffering through their thinking. Some don’t know. Some don’t want to know it. Some are dependent on it. It in this case is negativity.

Can verify. I know I’ve done it. It’s a consistent fight to not be that way myself. With just a little awareness I was able to disidentify from the constant streams of negative thoughts, perceptions, judgments, emotions, and actions. 

But a lifetime of habitual identification means those detrimental ways of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and acting have roots. They’re very much real. The thought of waving a magic wand in front of me or swallowing a magic pill to serve as a one-time fix-it cure-all is very much NOT real. 

So maybe once upon a time, my negative thought streams and emotional reactions were not real. But repeated often enough, and I did, they became very real parts of my life and my ego identity. Awareness IS the way out. But knowing the path and walking the path are two different things. Walking the path is what’s real.

Let’s get real.

Action is real. 

Not talking, not intent, not planning, not promising, not hoping, not thinking…

Action is real.

Real is where the rubber meets the road.

Thinking about action is a good place to start. Focusing on action is a good next step. Planning specific action real adjacent. Executing the plan, taking action, now we’re getting real.

If only our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and reactions aligned perfectly with the new beneficial efforts we want to solidify into permanent habits. They say

“Nothing worth having comes easy.” Theodore Roosevelt

I suppose that’s why just living can be so hard. 

Because life is worth living and attempting to manifest our dreams and live as the best version of ourselves is a goal worth pursuing as much or more than any other.  

“Sometimes even just to live is an act of courage.” Seneca

Hard Remarkable Compassion

Posted: May 23, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Compassion can be hard to give and confusing to receive.

Experiencing suffering, to me, is the spiritual equivalent of eating our green vegetables. The trauma that can be associated with the suffering is what makes us feel unworthy of empathy or compassion.

I am grateful for the suffering I have experienced in my life. I know that it has added value through giving me grit, toughness, endurance, patience, perspective and the wisdom that comes from living a life with the previously listed traits.

The traumatic experiences I’ve gone through, I’m not so sure I’m ready to be grateful for those yet. I’ll need more meditation, journaling sessions, help and life experiences before that gratitude comes around, if it does.

But the suffering, that really has helped me. I really am grateful for the suffering I have experienced. Getting to the other side of it and looking back on the trials by fire, molded me beneficially. Certainly for survival, for thriving, well maybe not so much. A hardened edge with layers of empathy and compassion is preferable to walking around as an open wound.

Because of suffering; I’m much more grateful for the self compassion I give myself in dark times, and exponentially more grateful to others, who extend empathy and compassion to me in trying times. People that give empathy and compassion are the real ones and in my experience are few and far between. Those are the ones to keep close and prioritize relationship nurturing.

The suffering I have experienced has made me empathetic to the suffering of others. When I see suffering written on people’s faces while they try to go about their lives and maintain normalcy and sanity, as I have, I gain instant respect for their strength and courage. It takes monumental strength and courage just to keep the train on the tracks sometimes.

Giving ourselves, and others compassion is a zero cost gesture with infinite reward. To feel a token tinge of love and appreciation in the world eases the burden of existence.

Compassion is love adjacent, and we all need more love. Compassion, empathy, love are real and we all need more real. Because real is hard, fake is easy. Indifference, harshness, and hate are easy. The strength it takes to be vulnerable and understanding to the pain and confusion experienced by ourself and others is as remarkable as it is immeasurable.

And we need more remarkable and immeasurable in this world almost as much as we need more love and understanding almost as much as we need more empathy and compassion.

We’re Not Our Thoughts?

Posted: May 16, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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We’re so conditioned to believe that we are what we think.

That who we are is our mind, our thoughts, our emotions.

Even if we aren’t taught that by our; culture, our schools, our families, our communities; and we are; it is natural to assume that. The voice in our head. The streams of thoughts and perceptions and feelings must be who we are. If not that, then what?

What does it mean to be a human being?

If we are our thoughts, our mind, then how does our hair know to grow? How does our heart know to beat? How do our lungs know to breathe? We’re not consciously doing any of that or any of the million other things that our body does on auto pilot. Try to stop breathing and see what happens.

If we are our mind then what does that mean about our dreams?

Bad thoughts and negative emotions are a normal occurrence, but if we have a certain amount of both does that mean we’re a bad person?

It was a wonderful and liberating experience when I learned that we are not our thoughts, that we are the being or the state of consciousness that recognizes our thoughts and emotions. I came across this concept from Eckhart Tolle. He isn’t the first or the last spirituality philosopher, he’s simply the one who’s message resonated and stuck with me for almost two decades now.

Wonderful and liberating, but not a miracle cure for all my ills. No such thing unfortunately. But to even get a sliver of space between by thoughts/emotions and my reaction to them was like coming up for air after almost drowning at sea.

Learning about something doesn’t equal mastery. One can know something beneficial but still do the opposite, detrimental action out of habit. I think that’s the norm actually. It certainly has been for me on my spiritual path and personal development journey.

However, it is a big help on the bad days to know that the negative thoughts are happening to me and not from me or because of me. Couple that with the classic advice of; this too shall pass, and you’ve got a one two punch to get through the tough times just a smidge easier than before.

A meditation practice helps me process and incorporate self improvement knowledge better than just passive information consumption. A journaling practice helps me embed the personal development knowledge even further. Yet I still have much work to do, many miles to go. At times, I’m still a dog chasing it’s tail.

But we all have to walk our own path. Eckhart’s teaching help take some of the self imposed pressure off, as well as the pressure our cultures forces upon us. The pressure of more more more. Do more, say more, take more, buy more.

Our culture gives us a lot to think about. Information overload is the fitting term for it. Information overload is the expressway to burnout. I’ve had textbook burnout a few times in my life. Each time it was Eckhart’s teachings that helped me find my way back to myself.

What is myself? Who am I? What was I finding my way back to? My thoughts? My emotions? My perceptions? My past? My life situation? No, none of those things.

Then who am I? How did I find myself?

By cultivating my inner awareness and spaciousness. Those are the portals to connecting with our essence, our being. We’re human beings. We’re being human.

By getting still, silent, paying attention to one’s breath or inner energy field in specific areas of the body; we can connect with our consciousness, our essence, our being.

I am so happy and grateful that I was able to realize what I am and connect with it. I still aspire to connect with my true self more frequently as thoughts, perceptions, and emotions still swallow me up from time to time. But practice makes progress. And if there’s one things I’m not getting tired of practicing, it’s remembering that I am not my thoughts and emotions, I am the awareness that witnesses them.

Namaste

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