Category Archives: Empowerment

The Day When Suffering Stopped

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I was in a session with a client at my centre the other day when I witnessed the precise moment when suffering ended.  It was breathtaking.  In that moment, I saw the endless grasping –  the controlling, fixing, righting what’s not right, perfecting what’s imperfect, knowing what’s not known, searching for answers – STOP.

In my work as an addiction therapist, my job is to lead people to the edge of the door beyond which lies their heart waiting to awaken, and guide them to travel through that door and emerge the other side as their authentic self.

For most people, recovery from addiction is a long journey, since the addictive behaviour is the outermost expression of many layers of imbalance and conventional treatment for addictions tend to focus on the most apparent symptoms first.  As a result, people can spend years in therapy and never really get to the deepest source of their imbalance.  Some might manage to stay on track for years, slowly working off the drive towards addiction as they re-educate themselves to a new way of coping with life – yet never really doing the deep healing that would set them free and tolerating a life of being an addict.  For some luckier ones, they might reach a stage at some point when the latent drive towards addictions eases off.

What drives addictive behaviours is a deep feeling of not having enough of something or other.  This feeling can come from unresolved emotions, unhealed traumas and losses, giving rise to a state of unwholeness in the pit of an individual.  In our attempt to cope with this feeling, we reach out to all kinds of things to make us feel better.  When we do this excessively and we’re unable to stop, we’re said to be addicted.

Almost everybody suffers from this unwholeness.  Almost everybody is addicted to something.  Addiction is not confined to drug and alcohol taking; just in the dimension of computers and internet alone, you can be addicted to checking emails, Skyping, Facebook, playing Free Cell, etc.

Addiction is a behaviour that is acted out excessively and you feel as though you can’t stop that behaviour.  You can also be addicted to being in pain and anxiety – where your thoughts are continually generating those states of being.  The thoughts which you have trained yourself to run in a repeated loop are what you can’t stop, trapping you in pain and anxiety.

Therefore, addiction and suffering are synonymous.  Suffering is when you try to get out of something or towards something, and feeling as though you can’t change the situation.

Like many people, my client had spent most of his life being in suffering.  A painful past and an addiction to feeling bad were the sources of his long-term suffering.  He had undergone treatment for addictions a number of times throughout his life but the deepest source of his discomfort within himself was still plaguing him.

Through our guidance, he had gone to the deepest, darkest places which he’d been too scared to go in the past.  Armed with admirable courage and complete trust in our guidance, he had forayed into the depths and reclaimed parts of himself by stretching the capacity of his heart to love and forgive those who’d wronged him.

The power that came back to him was so palpable that it imbued the room with an electrifying presence.  As the sense of separation dissolved, replaced by a merging with the light that was revealed to him beneath the human dramas, he said:

“I am full, filled with the most incredible energy…. and it is all mine, it comes from me.”

This, to me, is the heart of addiction work.  That emptiness, hollowness, void, deep loneliness or whatever it is called, must be filled from within in order for addiction to stop.  Otherwise, the drug is only going to be replaced by another drug.  Maybe it’s alcohol, pills, relationships, exercising, Tweeting or anything that seems to be a lesser evil but is nonetheless a drug in disguise.

It is not so much that the addiction is bad for you.  It is that the gem it can point you to lays forever buried.  Like a pebble in your shoe it pokes at you to get your attention but you spend the rest of your life trying to ignore it, yet putting up with the discomfort.  If you stopped walking and examined the pebble you might find out what wondrous gifts it contains.

How to End Suffering

Stop running from your pain.

You can’t stop your suffering while you continue to run from your pain.  When it feels counter-intuitive to stop, take a deep breath and make an about-turn and face your pain.  Stay there, face-to-face with it, for just a few more moments.  Resist the urge to run away.  Feel the power, disguised as fear.  Stretch your capacity to remain there.  You’re there… and you’re still there…

Let the truth of what you’re facing cleanse you.  For the longest time, you’ve probably been covering it up with a number of defensive behaviours which have manufactured a false self.  You’ve probably been secretly yearning to return to your authentic self – freely expressing who you truly are.  With self-honesty, you are on your way to reclaiming yourself.

Change the direction in all levels.    

You can’t stop physically acting out a behaviour for long unless you also change the direction in your emotional, mental and spiritual self.  Just as the first tip above tells you to stop and change direction in your emotional reality, you should also explore what’s keeping you in suffering mode in your mental-cognitive realm – stopping the kind of thinking, self-talk, beliefs and attitude that perpetuate suffering, and adopting new ones.  Equally, look at what you’re doing spiritually; if you’ve been keeping your energy small and self-punitive, reach out and connect to concepts that give you a sense of expansiveness.

Let go of the past.

Do you hold on to your past way too much?  This can provide a great distraction for you and generate a lot of conflict with yourself – such that when you’re moving towards the things that make you happy, you sabotage your own happiness.  You might do this by shutting down emotionally and further confusing yourself – as a kind of blurring-it-up mechanism to avoid facing your problems.  If you aren’t aware of it, you might even seem to be hitting a wall wherever you look and end up having your focus all over the place.

We hold on to the past because we believe we might lose an essential part of us if we cut ties with it.  But letting go of our past does not mean wiping it off our memory.  Whatever painful experiences you’ve gone through have made you who you are today.  It simply means deciding that you no longer want to be governed by the sense of guilt, loss, disappointments and tragedy of the past, and move forward in your life.

Even if you think you’re not choosing it, I invite you to take a deeper exploration to see if there’s a part of you that might need to make a clear decision to let go of what’s been pulling you back from happiness.

Notice what is already good.

In the throes of suffering, you may be focusing only on the bad stuff.  Without dismissing that the bad stuff is there, turn your head around and see what else you notice.  Physically look up and around you, taking your attention away from you for a moment.

Do you notice a certain heaviness at the thought of doing this, or even as you’re doing it?  A kind of sticky web that glues you to your preoccupation with the bad stuff?  This is the energy that traps you in suffering mode.  It also contains a lot of your power which you’ve put into it every time you perpetuate the cycle of addiction/suffering.  When you break out of the cycle, even if temporarily, you break that strand of web and free up a pocket of power.  This pocket of power will return to you as you move forward in a direction of higher vibration.

Maybe you notice a certain colour in a painting that is your favourite shade.  As you focus on it, you notice the same shade jumping out from a few other places and catching your attention.  You may start to feel a sense of richness evoked in you as you admire the shade, and you feel a certain openness in you – as though the world seems a little less bleak now.

As you do this, you still battle with the sticky web that tells you that you haven’t finished with your suffering, that there’s more suffering to be done.  At this point, you can yield to the sticky web or you can push through to move into an increasingly expansive state.  By staying with the opened feeling, you will start to notice other things that can give you more positive feelings.  You may remember that you have people who are loving and supportive in your life, or the opportunities you do have to create happiness.

Give something of yourself.

One of the most powerful ways to turn suffering into empowerment is by turning your attention to someone else.  It doesn’t mean you have to solve someone else’s problem; just by engaging with someone you may gain a different perspective on your own problem and a renewed sense of self – which might turn out to be the very thing that sets you on a different direction towards greater happiness.

No matter how depleted you may think you are, you do have something of yourself to give.  Even a quick phone-call to a friend can stop the cycle of self-beating and put you on a different path.  The sense of fulfilment when you feel as if you’ve contributed to someone else’s happiness can even heal you of the pain that made suffering a prefered choice.

 

Ending your suffering can be easier than you might imagine.  The state of non-suffering can be yours with just a slight shift in your focus.  It doesn’t mean that you will forever be free of difficulties as you go through life.  What it means is that a type of situation that tended to provoke an intense and emotionally charged reaction in you will stop having that kind of effect on you.

If certain people’s behaviours tended to provoke anger or irritation in you, you’ll find that you no longer have such reactions.  If the idea of people laughing at the ideas of your project embarasses you, you stop having the constant feeling of wanting to hide aspects of what you do and find it easy to share it with others.  If someone criticising you would make you feel so bad about yourself that you’d automatically consume a substance to numb you of that pain, you now find that it doesn’t bother you that much and you can cope with it calmly.

At the end of the day, what it means is that you are free.  Free from all these torments that make you feel uneasy within yourself.  Free from the constant need to right an injustice because you can’t bear the deeper feelings inside you which you’re afraid to face when you give up your personal crusade.

Freed from all these low-level struggles, bullshit, pretenses and dramas, you can allow the full force of your highest self to embody you.  Who you are, is not who you think you are… and that is very good news.

Ohmee

Why Law Of Attraction Is So Yesterday

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Ever since the movie ‘The Secret’ came out in 2006, a whole new sector in the global self-help industry has blossomed.  Suddenly, people were finding the message that we can create our own reality an empowering alternative to what they had put up with previously: being stuck, sick, poor and unhappy.  Six years later, after countless of books, audios, videos, programmes and systems being produced to cater to a mass of people hungry for more info, more details, more secrets to master this ‘secret’ – I see two things in terms of where this has taken us in our conscious development.

On one hand, we have seen people deepening into the awareness that there’s more than just visualising getting the money, job, relationship, house, car, vacation.  We’re seeing people moving on from what started as quite a shallow level of approaching the concept of our spiritual powers, to understanding that we cannot force our external reality to change without doing the work to change our internal selves.

For example, by adding the dimension of our emotional states to check where we are internally and doing the work to bring our vibration closer to that which we want to manifest.  By working on the blocks that get in the way of us feeling a certain way internally, we have to examine our stories of injustice, hurt, betrayal and abandonment and heal those issues inside us in order to be able to change our internal state – and then as our external state morphs to mirror it, we’re said to have succeeded in manifesting what we want.

This can be good thing.  As our awareness deepens and we’re able to appreciate beyond face value, our consciousness as a whole can continue to expand further away from the level of struggles in which so many of us are trapped – so that we can finally reclaim our true spiritual powers.

But I also see this whole LOA business as a terrible thing for our growth.  I am all for people wanting to exercise their personal power and take control of how their lives turn out to be.  People are, however, getting it wrong with the law of attraction and unless they wake up to the truth, they will continue to be side-tracked to a false path of empowerment.

I’m going to take a risk and say something bold here.  Practising law of attraction keeps us stunted in our growth.  The way it is generally being practised is limiting.  It keeps us stuck in a limited perception of who we are and the extent of goodness the Universe is capable of showing us.  It prevents us from fully expressing ourselves as the true, magnificent beings we are.

The reason for this is, in the practice of LOA there’s usually an over-emphasis on manifesting a specific outcome.  People are taught to put all their energy into making one specific thing come true.  The problem with this is, the idea of this specific thing which we believe we want, is usually borne out of our limited, egoic selves.  What I mean by that is it comes from a part of us that doesn’t know any better.

This desire which we have – and which drives us to go in search of techniques and tools to manifest it into form – is not a higher desire, or a spiritually inspired desire.  The reason I say this is, a higher, spiritually-inspired desire would not put us in a state of desperation, neediness and obsessiveness – like the one that drives us to go looking for more secrets to ‘The Secret’.  We would be relaxed about it, since we’d have a sense of knowingness that it will come to manifest, and we’re not obsessed about ensuring that it will manifest.  We would recognise it as a divine calling and know that we will be supported to have it.  Actually “to have it” is not quite accurate, because it denotes the same “I must possesss it” energy behind most LOA practices; rather, it’s more accurate to say that “we will be bestowed this thing at the right time”.

LOA is usually practised in such a way that it’s a dynamic of opposing energies.  It’s like we’re trying to force something into being.  We’re taught to summon our will to make it happen, to max-up the intensity of our desire, to keep seeing in our minds the thing we want with all the details of exactly how we want it.  I don’t know how some people can claim to enjoy practising the law of attraction!  Sounds like such hard work and so much of working against what feels natural.

Don’t get me wrong.  I practise manifestation from time to time since I’m very human and have my own fears and desperations.  I’ve even ‘perfected’ my own manifestation ritual incorporating breathwork, movements, energetic alchemy and ceremony, which works very powerfully.  I am merely pointing out the gap that’s found in what seems to be excessive and off-track in the way we’re practising it.

The thing that bothers me most about the LOA practice is how we’re encouraged to want something so badly that we’re not willing to accept not having it.  This is one of the supposed ‘secrets’.  Sure, we’re also taught to add in the phrase “or something better” after stating what we want.  But people don’t mean it!  Their focus is still on the desire; the “something better” is a token addition just in case something goes wrong with your manifestation so you’d better spread your net a little bit wider.  It is still borne out of fear of not getting that thing you want.

Sure, we’re taught to practise “letting go” of the desire to want it after we’ve performed the manifestation ritual.  Again, this almost counters the intense desiring, intending, forcing that happens when we’re “putting it out there”.  Why pretend to let go when in truth we’re obsessed about getting it?  The two opposing steps do not make sense to me.

At this point (if you’re still with me) you may be reacting with the thought, “But I only want this thing!”  I understand that you do not and cannot know anything else that might make you feel more fulfilled and happier.  This is what you’ve got right now and you only have this to go with.  Right?  Not really.  I invite you to consider the possibility that if you can move past this stage of only accepting having this thing which you want, you stand a chance of liberating yourself from what is yet another disempowering paradigm and really stake your claim on your true powers.

A Much More Empowering Paradigm – The True Path to Freedom, Abundance, Joy

The way that most people practice LOA limits their true potential for joy and happiness.  Even if we’re tapping into our spiritual powers to create something into reality, it is still a shallow level of exercising our powers.  We are capable of far more than that, and we deserve to stop limiting ourselves to only such limited options and dive into real joy and happiness.

We are aiming for more of this-and-that when we should be just letting go of it all and dropping into what we already are – which far surpasses what we can gain from manifesting this thing we think we want.  Our true purpose or destination should be to enter into what I call the Realm of Miracles, where true beauty, joy and abundance is found.

The place where we truly want to go, but which we normally don’t realise, is to return to and to live in Wonderment.  I truly believe that this is our final destination.  Bearing witness to the contrast of how things were and how things turn out to be – which fills us with a sense of ecstatic joy, inspired awe, complete marvel at the sheer ingenuity of how a certain situation has turned out to be, or the deeply-moving beauty of a sight before you.  To be surprised, to see now what we didn’t see before, to be presented with a creative solution we never could imagine before.  To feel joyful and happy for no apparent reason, just from being alive, freed from all agendas to gain something or other…. This is the joy we’re really meant to experience on a daily basis.

To get there, we need to transform our default template from one of negativity, harshness, scarcity, sadness, depression to one of joy, beauty, abundance, inspiration.  Where every day of your life – whether you get the things your mind thinks it wants or you don’t – you are fully awake at every moment and able to sense the life in everything around you.  This is the work we ought to be focusing on, not the limited work of aiming to manifest one specific thing outside of us.

You might at this point say, “Well, if you had to go through the financial stresses I have, you wouldn’t be sitting on your high horse and telling me to aim higher for the Realm of Miracles.  Right now, the only miracle I need is some hard cash to pay my bills!”  That is, of course, understandable; our fears make our perception so narrow that we can’t see outside of the problem and it’s natural that we respond in fear/limitation.

But let me tell you.  When I didn’t get the money I was fervently trying to manifest, I’d experienced more joy and happiness.  Not from having a lack of money, but I found a source of joy and happiness somewhere other than money.  This was a real gift to me.  That door to more joy and happiness than I could ever imagine, regardless of whether I have or don’t have money, was closed until I found it and opened it.  I was able to find it by looking somewhere apart from where my mind told me to look.  I don’t mean looking towards something dysfunctional to distract myself.  I actually looked into a place inside of me – the last place one would think to look.  Had I manifested the money, I would’ve gone on with my life without having any reason to look in this place.

I’ve had many such experiences.  When my relationship didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, I learned to connect deeply with myself and healed my deep insecurity.  When a job I wanted didn’t materialise, I reconnected to my original passion when I started doing this type of work and discovered how beautiful my powers are.  So don’t judge yourself as having failed if your LOA ‘fails’ – you have not failed in your spiritual growth.  If I had gotten the money I wanted, the relationship I wanted, and the job I wanted, I might not have had the chance to experience all these unexpected and highly-creative outcomes.

How many times have we heard somebody saying they wouldn’t trade their difficult experience for anything because of what they now know.  They might be talking about having gone through a huge financial crisis that saw their whole world crumble overnight, a terminal disease, five years of imprisonment, a painful breakup…. things the mind could not have fathomed any other way of resolving except to manifest that specific thing directly related to the situation.  Yet they may report afterwards about some great unexpected gain which totally took them by surprise and healed them into more wholeness than ever.

The bonus is that when this happens, your reality will change anyway.  That thing which you want, will come at the right time and maybe not in the way you wanted.  From this viewpoint, I’d say that effortless LOA works, because you’ll always get what you deeply want.  But you may not get what your egoic self wants if it’s not aligned with your deeper desires.  Trying to do techniques to try to make it come true isn’t going to work and if it does it’s not a lot of fun.

Practising ‘deliberate creation’ (another LOA term), the way it is usually being practised, keeps us stuck on a limited perspective of who we are because it reinforces our sense of lack.  I believe the real work we need to do right now, as a collective, is in healing our inner insecurity – to fill up the emptiness, void, lack-of inside us with our spiritual essence so that we’re strongly connected to the divine, and it triggers memory of who we really are and how powerful we are.

Elephant Medicine: Healing My Relationship With The World

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Only three months into the year, and 2012 is already looking to be a widly adventurous and creative year for me.  I am driven by a great enthusiasm to create – inspired by a curiosity to move into unknown territories.  In the material sense, it has translated into me taking up projects that test the boundaries of conventional thoughts/methods – allowing me to explore insights, knowledge, wisdom that may yield more exciting ways for people to experience the world.  It also allows me on a personal level to challenge my own beliefs and expand my perception of life.  All of this coincides with a deepening of my spiritual connection that has significantly raised my awareness in the last couple of months.

One of the projects I’m most excited about is the development of the first “elephant-assisted therapy” in the world for addictions.  For several years, I have felt a calling to connect more with animals and work with shamanism – both in my personal life and in my work.  So when I came upon this project, I had an inspiration to help develop it further, in a no-question, no-doubt-about-it, moment.  I was filled with an instinctual knowledge, a deep knowing, of what this modality could do for people recovering from trauma and addictions.

I sat with this knowledge and inspiration for six weeks – eager to connect it to an actual experience.  I was excited to see what would unfold when inspired knowledge and physical experience came together.  To my frustration, week after week, my planned outing with the elephants got cancelled.  I now understand that sitting with my instinctual knowledge was an important part of the process.  The wisdom had to come from that direction first, to be confirmed and expanded through an actual experience, at the right time.

Two days ago, I found myself in the elephant conservation centre where I was introduced to the animal that was to be my ‘healing partner’.  Jum-Pui is a 41 year-old male elephant with the longest tusks in the sanctuary.  What I had signed up for was a day of training with the animal’s mahout and learning to interact with it.

Part 1: Entering into a Strange World

I approached Jum-Pui with some trepidation.  The first thing that struck me was not only the size of the animal, but his impressive white tusks that curved upwards at the ends made him look more like a mammoth than an elephant.  That, and amidst the wide space it was walking through, lent the whole vision before me a surreal quality – as though I’d been beamed into a forest of millions of years ago.  By then, I’d been given the safety rules and taught a list of commands which the elephant could respond to.  But at that point, they were only mental concepts and I wondered clumsily how many mistakes I’d have to make.

How many times had I found myself with that same feeling – in a crowded shopping centre, a social event I didn’t want to go to, being forced to leave the comfort of my isolation cave?  I remembered the brutal contrast between being in my safety zone and being exposed in a world that didn’t seem to offer any safety railings to hold on to.  A world I didn’t care to know…

Part 2: The Habit of Conjuring Up Distress

As much as I looked forward to the process of getting to know and bond with Jum-Pui, it seemed a long way away.  I was nervous at the prospect of having to climb on top of the mammoth-like beast and riding it without one of those seats secured on an elephant’s back.

Rather unelegantly, I managed to climb up to his back, at the tallest point just behind his ears.  It was only then that I remembered my fear of heights.  I had trouble bringing myself to sit upright.  After a few moments of being frightened to death, I reminded myself that it was too late to back out; this wasn’t just a recreational ride, I had a mission to accomplish and a commitment to fulfill.  With that, I forced myself to sit up.  It felt wobbly; I didn’t feel safe.  There was nothing to hold on to apart from a few bristles on his head.

Then the animal moved, slowly and to a short distance to drink.  I was close to panic.  Certain that I wasn’t safe on top of the elephant without any contraption or harness, I began to imagine falling off the animal.  I imagined having my legs broken and my head cracked open.  I imagined a whole production out of it – the dramas that would ensue, each scene that played itself out in my mind progressively more chaotic and intense.

Suddenly, I had an awareness of how my mind would often go into fearful scenarios.  My tendency to create distress in situations and expecting bad things to happen was being played out in an exaggerated way for me to see.  In that moment, I decided to counteract that pattern.

I scaled down the level of catastrophy in my mind.  I expanded my fear into exhiliration.  I got myself to act as if I believed I was safe.  I relaxed my body a bit and trusted a little more.  I breathed calmly.  My fear lessened.  But I still felt rather vulnerable, exposed and insecure.

Part 3: A Desperate Need to Control

Then the animal started to walk across the open space, and I was thrown into a frightful state again.  Guided by the mahout, I tested out some of the commands I’d been taught.  Go forward, turn left, right, lay down, stop, move backwards, etc.  But my commands did not seem to work immediately.  I wanted to manoever him the way I could make a car move: instantly.  Jum-Pui was very good at responding to commands but there was a period of delay between my command and his response.  That delay would fill me with a feeling of being out of control.

I wanted instant result.  I wanted to feel like I had full control of the situation.  I wanted to close the gap and eradicate any feeling of not-knowing.

After some time, I began to get used to the rhythm of command-and-response.  Instead of expecting instant result, I allowed more time for him to respond.  It highlighted to me another pattern I’m familiar with: the desperation to seek control in situations that make us feel insecure.  In trying to regain a sense of control, we may act out in ways that can lead to bigger problems, such as addictions or destructive behaviours.

Behind addictive and destructive behaviours, there’s usually a lack of tolerance for discomfort.  Part of the process of recovery is building our tolerance for discomfort by examining how we might have exaggerated the intensity of the discomfort we feel and changing the way we perceive our discomfort.

We learn to stay with these feelings instead of trying to escape from them.  We learn that allowing ourselves to have these feelings doesn’t kill us.  By letting these feelings be there, we allow them to evolve and move through our bodies.  We learn to accept and embrace the myriad of emotions that give us depth as human beings.

Out of this, we acquire the qualities of patience and trust.  Rather than trying to close the gap, we see it as a window that opens up to new beauty.  We begin to notice the quality of grace in our world.

Part  4: Taking the Focus Away from Me (Selfishness vs Altruism)

I was feeling more confident being on top of the elephant, until the mahout allowed it to wander off to feed itself.  I grew worried when Jum-Pui found the juiciest leaves near a ditch.  I imagined being thrown headlong into the ditch.  My pleas for the mahout to come and stay close were ignored.  I felt annoyed and it aroused the part of me that felt injustice.  Inside, I screamed, what about my safety?  I tried to get the elephant to move away from the ditch, but it kept on tearing off branches of leaves.

Then I heard someone saying that the elephant must be hungry.  Suddenly, I realised that I had been focusing so much on my own safety that I completely did not pay attention to the elephant’s needs.  It was supposed to be a two-way communication, yet I’d focused solely on getting my own needs met.

This kind of selfishness occurs more often than not in relationships when one party takes the other for granted – requests turn into barking orders, uncommunicated needs become expectations, unfulfilled expectations become a source of outrage.  We can be so taken over by our own drive for survival that we forget we are in partnership with another person, whether it’s in a personal or professional context.

Feeling guilty about my selfishness, I focused my attention on feeling Jum-Pui as a living and breathing creature, and not simply as a vehicle.  Slowing down my breathing, I connected to the life force that emanated from him.  A tiny fraction of my consciousness dropped into his massive body, and I felt his pulse synching with my heartbeat.  The noise in my head subsided.  Rather than nurturing my own fears, I now nurtured the creature’s need for self-nourishment.  Fear gave way to humility.  There was two of us now… and we were partners.

Part 5: Bonding and Caring For Another

By the time my partner and I moved into the lake, the tension and rigidity I had felt earlier had left my body.  I felt bigger.  Aligning in partnerships can do that to you.  Resources are doubled, and areas of insecurity are made secure through the strengths of another.

As I felt more secure, I relaxed into playfulness and fun.  Fear puts a shield in front of us that blocks the expression of who we really are.  When it is stripped away, we begin to come from a more authentic part of us that is capable of responding with spontaneity, much like a child who knows no fear.

In playing and having fun, we naturally bond with others because the shield around our hearts are kept down, allowing our true feelings to flow.  Jum-Pui liked spraying water with his trunk, which delighted me since I’ve always liked the sensations of water dropping onto my skin.

In between the water sprays, the mahout guided me to wash the elephant in the water.  I only managed a few tentative moments of doing this before choking back tears as I was moved by the act of giving love.  The fear of love is something I hear expressed in one way or another by the majority of the clients I work with.  Recalling this, I felt a deep sadness for the loss of what the world can potentially gain from the greater connectedness that comes from us feeling freer in our capacities to give and receive love from one another.  A simple act of love, carried out with devotion, with an undefended heart, may begin to heal the way we relate to the world.

Part 6: Surrendering to Uncertainties

As we emerged from the lake, I noticed a certain calmness in myself.  The atmosphere around me seemed to be imbued with a softness.  Everything seemed to move at a slower pace, whereas previously everything seemed to be moving dangerously fast and I was rendered out-of-control within it.  The harshness of trying to survive in a world that wasn’t safe had fallen away, and I was fully present with all my senses.  Jum-Pui’s legs felt like an extension of my own legs, moving forward in one unhurried, certain step after another.  I didn’t care where it was taking me nor worry about what would happen to me.

I stopped wanting to control.  In that act of surrender, I felt liberated from the mental weight of trying to fix, achieve, resolve, understand, compartmentalise.  As my body relaxed, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the elephant’s head.  It gave me a different view of the experience – one where I could appreciate how high up I was above the ground.

Suddenly, I was able to transcend everything around me.  From my higher perspective, I was acutely aware of my own livingness and my connectedness with the elements.  Below me, I could hear the voices of people talking, shouting, laughing – but it was just noise.  I was aware but unattached to anything that was taking place.

In that moment, I saw the difference between choosing to get sucked into our stories and rising above these stories.  There’s always a choice, if only we slowed ourselves down to see that.  It doesn’t mean trying to ignore what’s going on (a fearful act) but to make an empowered choice to not engage on an emotional level whatever it is we know is happening.

Part 7: Total Trust is Earned

Eventually, I felt comfortable enough to lean forward until my body lay on the elephant’s head.  I learned something new then – that total trust is earned through the act of surrender.  When we surrender, we come out the other side with total trust.

Total trust is the state of being in absolute abundance.  When we trust completely, we experience no limitations, restrictions or scarcity.  We’re in a state of infinite possibilities and freedom of creativity.

I felt I could fly if I wanted to.  I could make the clouds form any shape I wanted.  I could do a back-flip and land perfectly.

Part 8: Merging with Divinity

Yet I descended the elephant the same way I had climbed up (but without the drama).  I felt a little sad that our journey together had come to an end.  I felt a deep bonding with the animal and a desire to come back to see him again in the near future.  I asked the mahout how long he had been with Jum-Pui, knowing that a mahout looks after only one elephant and throughout the elephant’s life.  Twenty years, he said.

“Just imagine,” he said, looking at me.  “And you’ve only had one day with him.”

I went up to Jum-Pui and looked up at him, marvelling at how incredible an opportunity it’d been to interact so closely with this majestic animal.  Then as I looked into his eye, I saw Ganesha, the Hindu elephant deity.  Prior to the journey, we had prayed to Ganesha at an altar in the conservation centre.  Now, looking up at my ‘healing partner’, I felt Ganesha’s presence.  I got a sense that the deity had been guiding, facilitating and overseeing my journey all that time.

In my spiritual belief, all deities are aspects of the greater divine spirit.  As I connected the dots all the way to the intelligent force that created us and that governs all life, I knew there was nothing unsafe about my world.

I walked away richer and fuller – infused not only with the shamanic properties of the elephant and what Ganesha brings to a devotee, but the lessons learnt about trust, surrender, love, selflessness, courage, vulnerability, spontaneity, making empowered choices, and transcendence.  I carried with me these lessons and an impression that was to last for days, reminding me to look out for divinity amidst the turbulence in life.

Addiction For Human Drama: Are You Addicted to Stress, Anxiety & Dramas?

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A common scenario when I’m working with a client – whether they are dealing with addictions, eating disorder, weight issues or relationship problems – is listening to how their life has gotten out-of-control and the resulting stress and anxiety they battle with.  They want to get rid of these uncomfortable symptoms, and I understand that.  But sometimes, I notice that the client does not actually want to give up their dramas.  “I just want to have a peaceful life,” they say with a  heavy sigh.  Yet I may sense in them an attachment to living a highly-strung, chaotic life. 

In this article, I want to explore why and how in certain cases we might be addicted to stress, anxiety or human dramas.    

It is true that some people thrive on chaos (although ‘thriving’ is more of an illusion than true accomplishments, if you were to investigate closer).  In the absence of drama, they feel lost and the idea of structure scares them.  This can come from a fear of responsibility and accountability.  So they strive for vagueness and ambiguity to blur the lines, so that dramas can always seep through and they don’t feel contained. 

To some people, that space where drama has been made absent is deemed to be starkly empty and a scary place to be in.  So they fill this void with food, drugs, sex… or stress.  Stress and anxiety may be uncomfortable, but it is somehow more bearable than feeling the void.  So what happens is they set up their circumstances (usually unconsciously) to create dramas to generate the stress and anxiety that take their attention away from the greater discomfort. 

For others, it is not a void but a place teeming with unresolved conflicts.  Creating dramas becomes a form of escapism from self – where you’re always engaged, busy with something outside of you so that you don’t feel the deeper turmoils inside you.    

Sometimes people do this as a form of attention-seeking behaviour.  Underlying this motivation may be a fear of being ignored, neglected, trapped in loneliness and a craving for connection. 

Not only is this pattern of creating stress, anxiety and dramas damaging to yourself, it has toxic effects on those around you.  It harms relationships because those around you will feel drained by being in your presence; after being around you, they usually report being in a state of confusion and feeling spun around. 

I invite you to take a good, hard look at yourself.  Do you really want to be free of your anxiety or do you secretly crave it?  What would it be like if your life was devoid of stress, anxiety and dramas?  Will you miss it?  Be honest now. 

If you recognise this pattern in yourself, it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person.  Owning up to a destructive pattern of behaviour is very powerful and deserving of respect, even if you choose not to do anything to change it for now.  Because you can now stop lying to yourself that you wish it to go away.  You can truly breathe a sigh of relief as you can at least live your own truth.  You can simply continue with what you’re doing, only with full awareness.  See where it takes you. 

On the other hand, if having this awareness makes you realise how self-destructive you are being and you’re inspired to move forward from it, take these three easy steps:

Step I: Take Back Your Power

Look at what is causing you stress or anxiety and move it into your realm of control.  Instead of saying, “Things happen which are beyond my control are causing me stress,” say, “I have made or am making certain choices that are causing me stress.” 

If you continue to blame your stress on what’s happening outside of you, you’re admitting defeat to your circumstances because you’re stating that you are powerless to do anything about it.  Note that this is a common excuse being used by those who crave stress and anxiety – there is a secret agenda to staying in a state of stress and anxiety. 

Granted, on the surface, it may appear that what’s happened is outside your control.  But I want you to break it down into smaller units.  Do not look at the bigger picture!  This is one instance where you’ll benefit from looking at the individual trees that make up the forest.  What has led to this current situation?  Where did you have power to make certain choices that led to this?  Don’t dismiss it offhandedly, really examine where your power lies, because it’s the same power that will get you out of it. 

Did you agree to something that led to this?  Did you hold back on speaking out, against what your instincts told you?  Did you give in to something you disapproved of?  Did you act dishonestly in any way?  Did you let your pride, ego or fear get in the way of your actions? 

Try answering these questions without any sense of self-berating.  We’re not trying to push the blame onto you but to give you a sense of where your power has gone to.  The more honest you are, the more power you can retrieve that is going to help you move forward to a happier life. 

Write down your answers.   

Step II: Consolidate Your Power

As you look at your list of answers, try to locate the pockets of power within each choice you made.  I know, you may not feel powerful looking at each statement, because chances are you did not exercise your power when making those decisions.  But that is exactly why there is power contained in them!  Or you might have thought you were exercising your power when making certain decisions but you’re realising now that the power was misused.  In any case, you’ve located some sources of your power. 

If you did not speak up about your reservations with someone, you’ve located your power to speak up.  If you were too proud to express your doubts about your ability to accept a position, you now have at your fingertips the power to be more honest and vulnerable, and to hone your skills.  If you agreed to let your partner take care of you financially, you can now reclaim your power to be self-reliant.  If you let your fear of losing your status get in the way of your happiness, you have the power of making a stand for what makes you happy. 

Step III: Exercise Your Power

As you can see, there’s more than one way in which you can exercise your power in each instance.  You’re not trapped with one option.  The key is to recognise that your power is an energy of unlimited potential.  Even if you can only see a limited number of options, know that the potential exists for many, many more ways to exercise this power than you can currently see.  Decide how you are going to exercise your power given what you know at this stage. 

Just taking one pocket of power you have located, whether it was previously unused or misused, can give you a sense of empowerment.  By turning this potential energy into a tangible form, you will show yourself just how much power you really do have. 

Then keep exercising your power by making different choices than you are used to making, acting and behaving in new ways.  Notice how the dramas fall away from your life and how you’re reacting to this new way of being.  If you find yourself initially resisting this, tell yourself that it is uncomfortable because it’s a new sensation, not because it’s bad for you.  Allow yourself to get used to a new sense of peace and how much more fulfilling it is.  In time, you will reverse your pattern of creating stress, anxiety and dramas… and begin to look forward to creating more peace, balance and harmony in your life. 

Why We Stay In Abusive Situations

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When working with clients, I see a common theme that crops up all the time, no matter what life issues they are struggling with at the time.  It is the feeling of being trapped, unable to find a way out of a situation.  Whether it is in a relationship, a job situation, or their home life, there is a huge emotional need to create change but also a daunting prospect of what taking steps towards change could entail.  These problems manifest as stresses, confusions, frustrations, worries and conflicts.  The word ‘stuck’ is very apt in these situations, as they struggle internally with wanting things to be different and yet are crippled by thoughts of negative consequences of change.

You may know of a friend or family member who complains about being in an emotionally abusive relationship.  Or a former colleague who still hates his job but can’t seem to find the resources to leave the job.  Or someone who continues to invest in the same business after repeatedly running into disappointments.  Perhaps they are hoping that things will be different this time, while continuing to stay in the same behaviours, or that things will improve on their own.  I call these and similar types of situation ‘abusive situations’ because you are in a position of being abused by others or by yourself (self-abusive).

If you find yourself stuck in an emotionally unhealthy situation, it may be time to honestly examine your motivations and begin breaking apart the energy of stuckness.  This will begin freeing you to move in a more fulfilling direction.  The first step is to commit to looking at your situation with total honesty.  That means owning up to the pain being in this situation is causing you.  What are you sacrificing or not honouring in yourself by being in this situation?

It also means acknowledging that it’s a choice you have made to stay in this situation.  Granted, it may seem that staying is the only option, at least for now.  That may or may not be true.  But the power comes from acknowledging the truth of why you are staying in this situation.  We tend to make excuses to justify a choice or behaviour – in short, we lie to ourselves to make ourselves feel better.  By looking at the real reasons you are still in this situation, you take your power back.  Honesty gives you power, even if the thought of being honest makes you feel weak at the moment.

Start by listing the external factors (e.g. money,  social obligation, a promise made to someone).  Then list the emotional factors (i.e. what are your fears?).  You’re likely to find that listing the emotional factors is more challenging than listing the practical reasons.  In fact, practical reasons are often used to cover up deeper, emotional motivations.  So let’s explore some of these motivations together.

Fear Of Being Judged

Perhaps you’re afraid that others might judge you for having made a mistake.  Again.  If you have an emotional history of having failed before, you may refrain from coming clean with others that things aren’t going all that well for you in the same department.  What transpires then is a painful need to hide what is really going on for you.  In time, you may even be driven to isolate yourself.

The thought of telling someone is too embarassing.  Or maybe you’re afraid that people might worry about you (after all, you’ve worked hard to change your life around after the last ‘failure’).  Were there sceptics around when you had first gone into this situation?  People whom you imagine are dying to find a chance to say to each other, “Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it?”

As real as it may seem, all these things are taking place in your imagination.  The mind has a tendency to blow things out of proportion.  We tend to believe that we are judged by more people and more harshly than in reality.  Accept that some people will judge you, but also acknowledge that some people will be supportive of you.  How we tend to focus entirely on one aspect and magnify it until it is the only thing we see in our reality!  Seek out those who support you rather than those who run you down just because you are about to take a courageous leap.

I’ve found that too few people can admit to having made a mistake.  There is nothing wrong with saying, “Looks like I made a mistake.”  It is honest, simple and humble.  Very few people would be able to pass negative judgements on that for long.

Punishing Yourself

How much of you staying in an abusive situation a way for you to punish yourself?  Perhaps you are harbouring feelings of guilt from your past, and you are now motivated by a need to allay your guilt by putting yourself through pain.  If this rings true for you, look at where this guilt is really coming from.  The true source of this guilt is seldom from a person involved in the current situation; rather, it’s likely to be displaced guilt projected onto the current situation, so that you feel compelled to ‘make up’ for whatever pain you perceive you are causing the person involved now.  A kind of displaced or misplaced loyalty.

In self-destructive acts, this person you are punishing yourself for might be you.  You are perpetrating abusive acts on yourself because you are punishing yourself for something you feel guilty about.  If you did or are doing something that conflicts with your ethical principles, you may take it upon yourself to correct that imbalance by punishing yourself.

Give yourself permission to forgive yourself by reflecting on the lessons you can learn from your mistakes.  How can you become a better person because of the experience?  By focusing on how more whole you are when you incorporate those lessons into who you are from now on, you can stop the self-beating and change your actions from self-abusing to self-loving.  Consciously choose self-loving acts to reinforce moving towards healing and forgiveness.  Ask yourself, “Is this act or thought self-loving or self-abusive?”

Disempowerment & The Fear Of Responsibility

Making empowered choices can be scary.  We fear stepping into our power because we fear the responsibility that comes from exercising our freedom.  If we allowed other people to make decisions for us, we won’t have to be responsible for making a wrong decision.  There may be a link to some deep-seated guilt from your past (see above), which may have made it feel safer for you to take a back seat in life.  Yet if this conflicts with your desire to be in control of your life, it will cause you to be resentful of who you leave the decisions to, as well as yourself for choosing not to honour your power.

We choose the route of disempowerment because we see getting empowered as hard work, that it’s too far a destination for us to reach.  Truth is, empowerment is our natural state.  It takes more resources to move away from empowerment than it does to move away from disempowerment.  We have to sacrifice our integrity, dishonour ourselves, compromise our values to become disempowered – and we suffer the pain of moving in such an unnatural direction away from our authentic self.  By reversing all those choices – by staying in integrity, honouring our truth, living in line with our values – we immediately return to an empowered state.

Low Self-Worth

Perhaps you suffer from low self-worth and you believe that being in abusive situations is what you deserve.  Even though you profess to want to change things, deep down you don’t believe that you deserve better than the situation you are in right now.  If you don’t work on improving your self-worth, you may forever devalue yourself in an attempt to fit in with your perception of yourself.

Holding yourself in poor light makes you feel unworthy of a better job, career, relationship, home, lifestyle, etc.  You may wonder at times why you still choose to move back to this and similar situations, thus perpetuating a cycle of self-abuse.  Raise the value of yourself in your eyes.  That is the only way out of this cycle.  If you don’t heal your relationship with yourself, you will eventually find yourself in the same situation.  Even if you take conscious actions to move into healthier situations, if the source of your low self-worth is not examined and healed, the results will only be fleeting.

If this seems too big a task for you to go through on your own, seek the help of a therapist.  There are also lots of effective techniques available in the self-help sector.  The technique is less important than your willingness and openness to healing and growing.  It may takes years of healing but every step is a progress in healing.  That journey can be a joyful adventure as you discover more and more beautiful aspects of yourself.

The Allure Of Staying Imprisoned

Sometimes, we choose to stay in helpless situations because we carry unresolved anger from our past.  Staying in abusive situations gives us an excuse to be angry.  It provides us with an outlet to express our sense of injustice.  Our past indignation becomes an unfinished business which allows us to feel justified in voicing that anger about being mistreated.  So we stay trapped by choosing to imprison ourselves, even when we really do have the resources to get out of it.  We focus on why we can’t get out of it, instead of why we can and must.

Sift through what’s right and wrong in this situation: same anger, rightful anger, but wrong context.  Put the anger back to where it belongs and deal with the anger in its appropriate context.  Knowing that you might have been motivated by a need to feel angry by putting yourself in this situation gives you the power to choose something better.

Along with the need to feel angry is the need to show others that you are being mistreated.  You may be waiting for a saviour because your saviour never came to your rescue last time and you still feel the unfairness of it.  By staying helpless, you ‘prove’ to others how wrong it all is – for someone to say, “Yes, this is unfair,” and maybe extend their love and support to you.

The saviour is you.  This time, there will be no saviour outside of you.  That is not to say that you should close the door to people who offer love and support to you.  It simply means that you take it upon yourself to step into your power and own up to your deeper, emotional motivation in this situation.  When you call it for what it is and deal with your emotions in their appropriate contexts, you relate to your world differently – a world where people are kind, compassionate, loving and supportive.

The Illusion Of Scarcity

If you’re buying into the illusion that the world is a place of scarcity – that resources and opportunities are in short supply – you would feel more fearful about getting out of your situation or “rocking the boat” in any way.  Fear of losing what you have, even if it’s shit.

The fear of running out of resources is such an intense emotional investment that it traps a person in awful situations.  It is a crippling fear that renders you stunned, incapacitated as your spirit withers away.  For all the awfulness that you go through by being in that situation, you put up with it because it is better than nothing.

Are you certain that you’ll be left with nothing?  What is nothing?  Money, house, friends?  How depleted is it really?  Is it really down to nothing?  Tell the truth about it.  Some money to last you a month is not nothing.  A less luxurious house is not nothing.  Two supportive friends is not nothing.  What about the things you will gain?  Having more integrity, self-honour, freedom, happiness, joy, peace is not nothing.  Where you lose out, you will gain in other aspects.  This is a given is you’re being true to yourself.

Trusting that the Right Thing Will Be Delivered

If being in this situation is causing you huge conflicts, start exploring whether you can make any changes while preserving the relationship, job, business, etc.  In other words, is it salvageable?  It may be a case of you learning to stand up for yourself and saying no to abusive people.  Do you have a pattern of people-pleasing?  How might you assert yourself and draw your boundaries to protect yourself from being abused?  Even if you invite unpleasant reactions when you say, “No more!” you come out of it with more dignity and self-respect.

If you are trying to preserve what isn’t working anymore, you risk running into great mental turmoils and eventually destroying yourself.  Maybe you have already been racking your brains and found very little hope for improvement within that context.  Walk away from the situation.  At least you get to clear your conscience with yourself.  What about the fear of leaving someone feeling hurt, abandoned, betrayed?  If you can’t stay in the same situation without removing the resentment, then your choice to stay is a continued choice to be resentful to others.  Your self-sacrifice, your voluntary imprisonment in that situation, will continue to generate anger and resentment and renders both of you joyless.

Things rarely improve on their own under these circumstances.  By staying in the situation, you will become stagnant or things will get worse.  When you cut your ties with that situation and break an unhealthy pattern of allowing yourself to be abused, you trust that in time things will move in your favour.  When you do the right thing by you, your direction will be revealed to you.  I have witnessed many times how giving up something brings in something better which we never imagined before.  This is the gift when we open up to trust.

Simplicity Is The Way To Go

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I’ve been asked what my resolution is for 2010, so I will share it here.  For the record, I have stopped making new year resolutions some years ago.  I had found that the long list I tended to come up with too depressing after a while.  Too much unnecessary pressure, as if life did not present enough on my plate already!  I’ve since taken the route of flowing with whatever life presents, whatever time of the year it is.  This year, if I were to come up with one resolution, it would be to keep every area of my life as simple as possible.

Simplicity is my current buzzword.  It really appeals to me where I am at this stage of my life.  The idea of lightening my load gives me an immediate sense of peace as it creates more room for my creative expression.  Here’s my take on it:

Simplicity cuts out all the frivolous stuff that depletes our energy by taking up too much of our attention.  It frees us up so that we can focus on the things that matter most to us without being pulled in different directions.  When our attention is focused on fewer things, we retain our power to create the fabulous life we deserve.  Simplicity enables us to nurture our own path and to ensure our emotional wellbeing.  Instead of being bombarded by critical thoughts as a result of trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations, we are able to manage the areas towards which we have chosen to channel our energies.  Our load becomes lighter and we’re able to give more to what’s really important to us.

Culprit #1:  People-pleasing

One of the first steps in creating more space for our own pursuits is by drawing our boundaries with people.  I have decided to spend my free time with people I really care for and who supports my growth as I support theirs.  That also means spending less or no time with those who are stuck in perpetual mental poverty and all the behavioural symptoms that come from it – i.e. being manipulative, unreliable, unprofessional, under-handed, lazy, abusive, controlling, etc.

When we try to become all things to everyone, we become overloaded with responsibilities.  These responsibilities drain us mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.  Mentally, we become harsh on ourselves as we struggle to make everyone happy, and we suffer emotionally.  Our spirit is depleted because we neglect our self-growth.  In the end, our health suffers.  Compromising ourselves this way isn’t healthy for any relationship as the imbalance will catch up with us eventually.

Self-nurturance should be everyone’s priority.  Without people-pleasing, you will be able to create a healing space for yourself without feeling guilty about leaving other people behind or neglecting obligations that are borne out of guilt.

Culprit #2:  Over-analysing

Stop trying to figure things out too much.  The mental drain from needing to work out, comprehend and label everything leaves us with little resources to get clarity on the things that really matter to us.  Learn to be okay with not knowing.  What if your mind resists letting go of knowing?  Consciously relax that resistance and allow the discomfort to move through you without further resisting it until you find yourself in the space of not knowing.  After some practice, you will get better at it and eventually master the art of letting go.

Sometimes, we tend to read too much into other people’s behaviours and take them personally.  We generate negative feelings from the stories we create out of what we think other people’s motives are towards us.  To simplify your life, give up the need to interpret other people’s actions and accept that all of us are doing the best we can given our circumstances.

Culprit #3:  Starting too many projects

I have a habit of working on too many projects at a time and end up not completing any of them.  This year, I will focus my energy on completing not more than two projects at a time.  Having one or two pet projects is more inspiring, without the daunting prospect of having to move ahead with so many different projects.

Also in this category, I will finish reading one book before starting another.  Seeing five unfinished books on my bedside table (a few with cobwebs) gives me a certain amount of stress.  For books that I cannot get past certain pages, I will abandon the need to finish reading them.  One book only at a time.

Culprit #4:  Being indecisive

When we can’t make up our minds about something, guess where our attention is.  Everywhere.  And each subject gets only a watered-down version of our attention.  People can’t decide because they’re afraid that what they choose will turn out to be not such a good choice and that what they’ve not chosen turns out to be better.  Sometimes, even after making a decision, people are still wondering if they’ve made a good choice.  Guess where their attention is.  Neither here nor there.

I have a reputation of being rather indecisive when ordering meals.  I love food, and the more variety is presented to me the more indecisive I get.  I’ve been practising being quicker when ordering food.  I’m also learning to be happy with what I pick out of the menu and to enjoy it fully without wishing I had ordered something else.  Sometimes, if I can’t decide between two items, the solution I take is to order both, which leads me to ask you:

What if you wanted more than one thing?  In the spirit of simplicity, I will say that it is okay to choose two but more than that is a sign of greed and distaste, not to mention it will pass the point of being simple!

Culprit #5:  Forcing things to happen

In one of my previous posts, I talked about the power of deciding and taking actions (The Power Of Saying “I Have Decided!”).  Now, there’s a difference between being proactive and being too forceful in manifesting an outcome.  When you’re being forceful, you risk crossing the line into being desperate and manipulative.  The harshness of this energy will repel rather than support the manifestation of something you desire.

Give it over to trust.  Trust will relieve you of worrying too much and forcing things to happen.  Worrying is not going to help bring about a different outcome, it will make you feel smaller and smaller.  With trust, you will enter the space of infinite possibilities where all the abundance in the world can bring whatever you want into manifestation.

Culprit #6:  Needing to be perfect

This is a killer energy-drainer for so many people.  Needing to be perfect means that you will always be judging yourself against other people and feeling inadequate.  How do we rate perfection anyway?  Whatever you think perfection is, the bar will be raised as soon as you get close to it.  So you’ll be caught up in a cycle of striving for something that doesn’t exist (for more on this subject, read The Perfection Of Imperfection).

When you strive to be perfect, you are in essence saying to yourself that you are not good enough right now.  So your well-meaning projects get abandoned until the day when you feel you have reached perfection.  The question I’d like to ask you is, when will you ever be good enough?

You don’t have to make yourself believe you are perfect now if you don’t feel you are.  Just work on recognising that you are good enough to do whatever it is you are waiting to do.  Focus on your accomplishments so far and know that you are capable of accomplishing more – but only if you get on with it.  Let go of wanting to be the best.  It is better to do a little than not at all while you wait for perfection.

Culprit #7:  Neglecting yourself

Sometimes, choosing to take time out for ourselves may seem counter-intuitive.  We tend to find it easier to carry on with writing that report, making those phone-calls, tending to somebody else’s needs, etc. and end up over-stretching ourselves.  We need to choose to do the things that help reduce our stress levels even in the midst of trying to reach a deadline.  It may seem as if by taking time out we would slow our progress, but a dedicated half an hour of being in our own space would allow us to reenergise and be more productive in the long run.

If you work from home or if domestic chores become overwhelming, taking a relaxing bath or meditating in a quiet corner will clear your head and leave you recharged.  When you’re in front of your computer, you may come across a nurturing article but delete it without reading because you’re afraid of wasting precious time.  Yet the article may contain soul-nourishing messages or give you insights for where you are heading in your life.  The point is, we sometimes make poor choices, thinking that the things that are going to do us good are a waste of time.

Operating on adrenaline may help push you forward when you lack motivation, but one can’t live healthily like that.  That chaotic way of living will lead you to create more madness in your life.  In contrast, a calm, focused, present mindset will help you to make clear choices and make the management of your daily life simpler.

Culprit #8:  Over-promising

This is a behavioural outcome of people-pleasing but deserves its own category because it is such a stress-building pattern.  Overpromising generates guilty feelings when you find yourself unable to deliver on your promises.  Guilty feelings lead you to beat yourself up and feeling lousy about yourself.  Very quickly, it turns into the worst kind of mental self-abuse and creates a massive entanglement of conflicts within yourself.

Forcing yourself to stop the habit of over-promising is not enough.  You need to examine what motivates you to do it.  Some of the common issues behind over-promising include insecurity about who you are perceived to be, fear of rejection, and unresolved guilt around something that happened in the past.  There’s a big, juicy story in your head; explore that story, own up to your feelings associated with that story, and challenge how real it is.  In the process, you chart your way out of being held imprisoned by that story and liberate yourself forever.

Culprit #9:  Wanting to get your way all the time

Most of the people who visit this blog have probably been working on transcending this for a while, but you would remember what it was like struggling from your ego in your dealings with other people.  The inability to let go of being right and getting your way all the time is a massive drain on our resources.  The constant fight to prove a point or win an argument or get the upper-hand in a situation or one-upmanship is a waste of energy.  When you come out the end of it, the price you get is an inflation of your ego, but it might have cost you a few friendships or respect from your peers.

It takes maturity to be able to concede to another person’s viewpoint, to withdraw from an argument, to accept that someone else is better than you, and to be gracious about receiving less than you’ve given.  We can learn to be comfortable with not getting our way by simply accepting it.

Simplicity surrounds you with a sparkling, clean energy.  It allows you to respect the powers of your gifts and in so doing strengthens your sense of yourself as a powerful, magnificent being.

So simple.

A Tribute To Personal Freedom

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In my work as well as my personal growth, I often examine how our fears entrap us in a false sense of imprisonment.  We fear expressing ourselves, making courageous decisions, saying no to those who’re abusive to us, standing up for ourselves … because we might leave ourselves exposed to judgements and rejection.  The cost of asserting ourselves and exercising our freedom is the shame and embarassment of being shown that what we do is not acceptable to others.

What is it about being accepted by others that make it such a powerful drive that stop us from living a happy life?  Reading this, it may sound ridiculous that we short-change ourselves so readily to gain the approval of others, yet it happens more often than we’re comfortable admitting to.  This feared unacceptability can come in various forms – e.g. being told we’re not good enough, being persecuted, leaving someone unhappy.

The rules we learned as children followed by a lifetime of putting into practice those rules (often in inappropriate contexts) have convinced us that straying from what’s kept us safe will bring about the same outcomes we had feared as children.  Our logical minds (A will lead to B; C will lead to D) are influenced by fears that put an irrational spin on how we make decisions.  In other words, we are stuck in a world governed by a set of rules that we ourselves have chosen (whether influenced by others or not) when the reality is that in many circumstances as adults we have the freedom to act as we please – our actions governed only by our conscience.

And what of our conscience?  Our conscience should only be dictated by what we know to be our personal values, and we guide our actions by ensuring that we uphold those values.  What this means is that the clearer we are of what our values are, the more confident we are of making the decisions that are right for us.  Having a weak sense of our values, on the other hand, would make us waver in our decisions and more likely to yield to the desire to seek the acceptance of others at the cost of what we truly want or believe in.

Sometimes, it takes a traumatic experience to enable us to learn our true values.  Those who have gone through great hardships will tell you that having experienced the lack of something they now value that thing much more.  When we value something to the extent that we will do all we can to keep it intact in our lives, it becomes our guiding force in what we choose to do.  Although at times our choice will come at a cost, it enables us to act with certainty and to accept the consequences of our choice.  This is personal freedom at its essence – the ability to make our own empowered choices to shape our own lives.

What we must nurture is self-acceptance – having a respect for who we are and a belief for what we stand for.  Self-acceptance takes the focus away from others and towards ourselves.  Instead of focusing on how we are perceived and judged by others, we concentrate our care on what brings us happiness.  Here we get to sieve out the truth from a generalised belief that it hurts us to hurt others.  This is our bottomline fear.  Only when our personal boundaries are firmly intact can we know the difference between guarding our values and compromising our wellbeing.  Misplaced guilt and the fear of being punished are a result of having loose boundaries – it takes us away from acting from our empowered center and into giving away our sense of freedom.  We become our own persecutor when we’ve discovered that those who persecute us are merely boogey-men conjured up by fear – so real and familiar is that sense of being restricted about what we can do that we continue to restrict ourselves long after any real threat is gone.

An over-inflated and misplaced conscience is the culprit behind many failed dreams.  Who are we really afraid of hurting?  Is it worth protecting this hurt?  Is this protection still relevant in your life right now?  Knowing who the real target of our fear is, we can set ourselves free, so that we no longer spill over this over-protection to those we have no business protecting.

Discarding this mental baggage will lead you to a greater capacity to assert your powerful self.  In recovering from addiction and other dysfunctional behaviours, lapses and relapses (when we go back to our old behaviours) usually happen because we’re afraid of asserting our powerful selves.  That feeling of being weak is more likely to be due to this fear than to a shortage of inner resources to make the right choice.

Freedom to act as we choose is the most fundamental right we have and cannot be taken away unless we give it.  Step into your power and make empowered choices that bring you closer in line with what you desire and believe in.  There is, at the end of the day, only one litmus test which may be crudely spelt out: are you man enough or woman enough to stand up for what is deeply important to you?

Note the word ‘deeply’ – so often we confuse what’s superficially important with what can fill us up from within.  People have a tendency to spend years immersed in something that only satisfies them on a superficial level but that comes at a cost of endless chaos and stresses.  True freedom is when we make the decision to disengage from these superficially important matters and seek out the things that give us a warm feeling of fulfilment – calm, expansive, joyful and soothing.  In contrast to maintaining the superficial, there isn’t a sense that there’s ongoing price to pay – and that is a sign that what we’ve chosen, in exercising our personal freedom, is right for us.

The Power Of Saying “I Have Decided!”

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I remember when I started exploring spirituality many years ago.  At that time, I’d been stuck in a space of self-sabotage, anger, control, rigidity and self-despise.  Exploring spirituality had enabled me to move out from that negative space and to see that life could be so much more.  It taught me great lessons in trust, surrender, abundance, true joy and empowerment – and I lapped up the new experience with great enthusiasm.

But whilst stepping into this new space was a freeing experience, it took many years before I truly understood how to apply those spiritual lessons in my life.  Today, I am still learning.  Striking a balance between walking in a spiritual world and applying great spiritual lessons in my daily life is a constant challenge that makes my life a stimulating experience.  I enjoy making a discovery of yet another level or dimension to a concept that further enriches my life.

In my earlier days of learning to trust in the Universe, I threw away all controls as I allowed myself to enjoy the freedom of being ‘a passenger of cosmic intelligence’, so to speak.  That was refreshing, after obsessively trying to control outcomes for years.  “When you trust, you will be taken to where you need to be,” was a well-known mantra in spiritual circles.  I still believe this (as is evident from my last posting about flowing with your intuition).

But trusting isn’t about being passive at all.  For self-expression, the ability to make empowered choices out of our free will, is a spiritual lesson too.  When we’re in tune with the energies of the Universe, the pathways before us are illuminated – though invisible to our naked eyes, we can sense those pathways.  As we trust in what we sense, we make choices and decisions to follow this guidance.  That choice to move along an illuminated pathway is still down to us.

This is the antithesis of remaining in a state of vagueness, ambiguity or ambivalence.  Being vague/ambiguous/ambivalent gives us the illusion that we have more freedom but actually it leaves us stuck, unable to move forward.  It’s fine if we had taken a year’s sabbatical to sit around to test out the truth of spiritual concepts, but in our practical world it’s just … well, not very practical.  When you want a certain outcome, supported by a strong feeling that it is going to be good for you, it is up to you to take the necessary steps to see the manifestation of that outcome.

I’ve seen many people take the ambiguous stance regarding giving up an unhealthy habit.  They justify it by saying, “I don’t want to commit to giving up completely because if I fail it would leave me totally discouraged.”  This is poor excuse and in fact nonsense, held on only by the fears of giving up a familiar pattern.  It does not stand up to logical examination since choosing not to commit to something we say we want is like allowing ourselves the space to fail.  In other words, we set ourselves up to fail.  Of course, committing to something does not guarantee that we will achieve it, but it maximises our chances of success.  Commitment is akin to covering up the energetic holes around our intention so that all our resources are channelled towards ensuring a desired outcome.

So much has been written, discussed and sold around the hot topic of manifestation.  People are desperate to acquire the secrets to manifesting their heart’s desires, and I can give you THE KEY to bringing in what you want to create in your life:

DECIDING that this is what is going to happen.

Whatever it is that you want to change in yourself and in your life, decide on the change.  Decide that you will change.  Decide this or that will happen.  And you will make it happen, despite obstacles along the way.  Unless you make this shift internally, unless you decide, you are setting yourself up for failure.  Ambivalence leaves you weak.  Make up your mind and move on in that direction whole-heartedly.

In your path towards what you want to achieve, you may draw in the right people to help you.  But nobody can make that decision to achieve it.  Only you can do it.  It cannot be done for you.  Without making this decision, your efforts will only be half-hearted, to match your half-hearted intention.

A simple yet powerful statement of “I have decided!” uttered with total conviction and determination will immediately pull together all your resources and bring them to the forefront of your consciousness, ready at your fingertips.  You allow no leeway for a different outcome and so your every action will be infused with this intention.  You may actually find a different outcome when you get there, but the process of moving determinedly towards what you desired as an outcome is such an empowering act of self-expression and self-actualisation that a differing outcome to what you desired would not feel like a failure when you get there but a delightful surprise.

What can you say “I have decided!” for today?

Making Meaning Out Of Life

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I feel wonderful today.  Fifteen years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined myself saying this on the day I turn 40.  Growing old was just one of the many fears I struggled with, and my age-obsessed self then could not see any reason to go on existing beyond the age of 29.  I remember cringing at every birthday, feeling myself sapped of life, as if another building block to the structure that held me together was being pulled out.  Now I know that it was an illusion maintained by a practice of constantly looking out for bad things. 

The fear of growing old is an easy one to develop as it has been cultivated by the media and used in advertising to reinforce a feeling of lack in people to make more sales.  For someone who lacks confidence, it’s easy to buy into this fear since the message is reinforced around us that we need to be young to be happy.  Back then, I was insecure, depressed and had low self-worth – and growing old became a threat beyond my control: how could I fight time, which seemed to be moving towards me without my having any say in it? 

Today, I have learnt to work not against but with time, to ride along in its progression and gain more power on its back.  Time is a vehicle but it is only one of many dimensions; it does not have the power to define life and death without other dimensions coming into play as well. 

Meanings, associations, symbols

On 1st of January, I remarked to a group of people how great I was feeling.  Caught in a celebratory and capricious mood, I had said in a rather whimsical, new-agey way, “I can feel the new year energy and it feels so positive!”  Someone then solemnly asked me, “I’m wondering if there really are special forces during certain events… I mean, how is today different from any other day?”  A very good question, I thought, and answering it reminded me of how far I’ve come.   

Was the energy of that day better just because it was the first day of the new year?  Maybe, maybe not.  But nowadays, I look for opportunities to feel good.  In the past, I would always look for evidence that life is shit and people are cruel.  Walk on the same trail and you will find whatever it is you are looking for: do you look for ten ugly items or ten things of beauty? 

I have a different mindset now.  I used to look for reasons to feel bad.  Now I look for reasons to celebrate.  This new mindset has changed my whole outlook on life and also my world. 

My colleague Steve Wyer likes to say, “Life instrinsically does not have any meaning until we give it meaning.”  That’s right, we have to look for the meaning in life.  To assign meanings to what we come across in life.  We have the freedom to make life whatever we choose and it is something we can control – we assign negative meanings and it becomes negative, and vice-versa. 

If someone gave you ten dollars, what does it mean to you?  What do you want it to mean?  That they’re being kind to you and so you must be someone worthy of being treated nicely?  Or that they’re feeling sorry for you and therefore you are pathetic and worthless?  We make associations like that all the time, triggered by signs to which we’ve pre-assigned meanings. 

Certain associations aren’t made by us individually but by the collective, and we tend to adopt these automatically to shape the greater meaning of our life.  Some are helpful, like sunsets being associated with spiritual beauty.  Some are damaging, like snorting coccaine being associated with glamour.  As long as the association is attractive to us, it will draw us to that thing.  If we want to stay away from it, we need to change our association to it to something that repels us.  Negative association like this can be used in a positive way, such as in stopping an unhealthy habit. 

Imagine having negative associations to most things in life, where everything you see is a symbol of bleakness, hopelessness and horror.  Who would want to live in a world like that?  My world was very much like that, and no wonder I constantly sought to opt out of life. 

Today, as I celebrate my 40th birthday, I feel myself filling up rather than being depleted.  I feel more abundant than ever, as if life begins on this day.  Am I tricking myself, trying to convince myself that I feel good to cover up bitter feelings about growing older?  You know, I genuinely feel this good.  Is it manufactured?  In a way, because I no longer choose to make myself feel bad every opportunity I get.  I choose something else.  Looking for opportunities to feel good has become second nature that feeling good is now natural.