A HABIT WORTH BREAKING IN 2016!

A new-Year's NOT Resolution.

Broadcast on January 6^th, 2016 on Radio KSA's “Cool & Comforting”.

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions, and here's why:

Firstly, the well-meaning, caring, inner do-gooder who made those resolutions didn't consult with the rest of the Board of “You Inc.”, and that person's microphone has been turned off, possibly until you get sentimentally pissed again next year.

Secondly, nearly all of us beat up on ourselves too much as it is, to no real effect other than creating dis-satisfaction and dis-ease. Yet we still expect seeds of dis-satisfaction to yield satisfaction, and seeds of dis-ease to produce ease and contentment. That is insane. Unless you really want to die dissatisfied and disappointed, stop living dissatisfied. Can I make it any simpler for us (me too)?

When the new year rolls around, it's easy to say "This year I'm going to fix my deficiencies! I'm going to get to the gym at least three times a week, I'm going to save more money and I'm going to read more books."

Yes, well we treat our bodies as the donkeys for our minds. We treat our bodies like beasts of burden. We say "Body, work harder! Body, get to the gym! Body, keep my house looking sharp so I don't have to worry about what the neighbours think of me!"

Our fully-compliant bodies know a lot more about us than our unkind minds do. Each of our bodies knows how hard we work and how much we worry. In our minds we pretend that our frenetic pace is fine, sustainable and even virtuous, but our bodies know better. Unfortunately, though, we leave our ego-minds in charge.

Every resolution, regardless of when it is made, is a Position taken up by the mind: it is a Ruthless Rule of Reality that every position creates, in moment it is created, an equal and opposite Op-position. Without unanimous resolve, resolutions will never work. And the human mind is incapable of unanimity.

Skip the Resolutions. But all is not lost if you can gently, gradually and intentionally create a new habit of behaviour by breaking just one old habit.

If you can do that, you'll help yourself much more than you would by flogging the donkey to get to the gym more often, save more money, eat better foods, work harder at the job and keep up with all the other demands you put on the poor beast.

What is the habit you will break in 2016?

The habit to make is to trust your gut. The habit to break is the habit of criticising yourself. Give your Inner Critic a new job description.

You know intimately the habit of criticising I'm referring to. Out of new-born innocence we bought the lie that we are inherently”sinful”, and that we will keep doing “wrong”, unles we “wake up to ourselves”. We do that by inventing an Inner Critic, a watchful, tyrannical “border force” that will get to us before the authorities do, and save us from dire consequences. The socially and religiously sanctioned tool for this kind of abuse is a totally synthetic emotion called Guilt – and over time we have become junkies for it. And it is demanded by society. Just try turning up to court for some misdemeanour and not showing “remorse” for what you've done. Watch the judge give you a loaded sentence and the media scream for your blood.

The Old English word “gylt” derives from an older German word “geld” which meant “to pay”. Guilt demands that we pay for our sins here and now. Bugger waiting for God to do the job, bugger waiting for karma. They're too slow. “I want the shit kicked out of this – NOW!”

In the past, guilt was not a feeling – it was a fact of responsibility. But guilt has now taken over the role of Remorse, and now labels “a ghoulish sort of stagnant feeling and a queasy sensation that keeps reappearing whenever our minds become undistracted or slow down. Feelings of guilt can be hard to work off because we have no bloody idea how they got there in the first place. We were “guilt-tripped” before we had any say in the matter. We were guilt-tripped by parents and teachers who themselves had been guilt-tripped into behaving compliantly. The currency of Guilt is Fear and Dread Guilt is a particular favourite of those who take too little responsibility, and those who take on too much. The familiar face of Guilt is that of your Inner Critic.

The Inner Critic is the one who says things like these to yourself in your head:

Shit! I missed my exit. Now I have to drive an extra five k's to get home. I'm so stupid!

Why did I eat that cannoli? I was already having trouble getting into my jeans.

Why is this credit card statement so confusing? What's wrong with me? I suck! 

It's all my fault mother died. I should have........

It's my fault Mum and Dad separated. I was such a bad child!

I should never have quit my job last year. I'm such an idiot.

Hey! When you spend so much of your time and emotional energy trying to atone for something that was none of your business, you won't get much joy out of life. Jesus the Christ came offering release from Guilt in the most spectacular way. But sometime later the King got the Bishop onside and said - “We can't have this! Freedom is not good for the hoi-polloi. You keep them guilty, I'll keep them poor; that way we've always got them under control.” (Colin Hayes). The deal was done. Church and State secured the compliance of the other institution for domination – Family, and the prison was complete. Guilt is good business for Bishops, Kings and other Control Freaks, but those people leave a trail of suffering behind them that has carpeted the world, wall-to-wall, a thousand times over. They make mining magnates look like sandbox cuties.

You don't have a bobcat big enough to clean up the global mess. Personally I think it's too late for anything but Mother Nature herself to restore balance.

But you can go to work on your own house. If you can catch yourself threatening yourself in your head, you can quiet the nasty little voice you hear by saying "It's fine. There's nothing wrong. This was supposed to happen. Can't tell you why yet – I don't yet have that level of insight. But after this, we will know. Just be patient, OK?"

It's true that it was all supposed to happen, but it's only true when you realise that every cannoli, missed exit and quirk and facet of yours is exactly the way it is for a reason, and for no reason.

Everything that has happened in your life brought you to this exact place to hear these words. None of it was a mistake, and nothing was wasted (except time, which doesn't exist)

Unless there is no reason for this moment, in which case there's been no reason for any of this. But did you have anything better to do at the time? Do you have anything better to do now than read and contemplate this? Yes, you do? Then don't stand here bitching any longer: bugger off and do it. This will be here waiting for you when all else has subsided.

You can shift your perspective right now, and say "I just realised that I have no faults. I have no weaknesses. If , in my mistaken identity, I have done anything harmful, I surrender it now to the Great Silence. What I do have is a trusting, open space in my heart to fill with a new vision for myself, just to see how it works out. If, in the future, I find an even better vision or a better way, then I'll clear my space and set up for a better adventure-experiment.

"Once I see clearly what I want for myself, I can step out of this past and step into the new. All the critical chatter was - and is - just background noise to suck my mojo away and keep me off my path."

You are perfect now and you have always been that way, but a lot of influences going back to childhood have told you that there's something wrong with you. Telling people what's wrong with them is baked into our culture. We picked up on that before we were born, because our mother lived and breathed “There's something wrong with me.” Even when they cut that umbilical cord, they started pummelling and poking you, cleaning you up – and looking for something wrong.

We get what we expect. We expect to get messages about how we fail to measure up -- at work, at home and everywhere we go. And if other people let us down in the race to criticise, we get in first and tell ourselves our faults, too. And we're devastatingly good at that – much better than anyone else – because our Inner Critic has access to all the secret files and knows exactly what our problems are. That's how our minds think, and we're so sure we're right about that!

Then we realise that we chose our “faults” -- that is, we chose to think of them as faults. But what if we were wrong? Maybe they are gifts. Maybe there's nothing about yourself that you need to change -- not your financial status, your looks or any of the other stuff you worry about.

When you notice the critical voice in your brain and take a second to hush it up when you hear it, you will quickly realise that the critical voice in your brain is not you. It's a distant echo from all the people who have criticised and limited you since you were a tiny pumpkin.

Now most of those folks aren't around to keep you feeling bad about yourself anymore, so your ego has taken over the job. Your ego. Yes, that dick whom you promoted to run your life while you went and hid in the basement.

You will never get closer to your goals by flogging the donkey (yourself) forward. That's a bit like strapping yourself into an aircraft seat, then hauling upwards with all your might to help the 'plane get off the ground.

Sometimes we set New Year's resolutions from a place of "Now hear this!!" Your topdog critical brain is in charge at that moment and your underdog, compliant brain is glowering from behind the couch, thinking “Oh, yeah?! I'll get you for this.” This is the reality of Duality. And Duality doesn't give a shit whether you know about it, believe it , or not. Every Position you take, you also hold in Opposition. And you wonder why you keep getting sabotaged?

The problem with a compulsive, law-and-order approach to New Year's resolutions is that there is no one but your Opposite Self to listen to you when you're talking to yourself. And your Opposite Self will resist and resent the shit out of what you're saying and the way you're saying it. And later protestations of “I'm only doing this for your own good” just do not cut the mustard with any downtrodden entity who has a milligram of desire to make their own decisions about what works and does not work for themselves.

You can set resolutions from a place of authority,  like "Now, I'm serious! This year, I'm getting my life together!" as long as you don't expect that approach to work. That's just your “I” and your “Me” doing the parent/child thing, and that stopped working for you decades ago. Real resolution comes from a space of calm and co-operastive willingness, a statement (without John Williams music) of conscious intent, followed by a surrendered “So be it”. Then simply observe what happens next. Allow habits to take their time to overcome the forces of inertia. Be patient, and keep your endgame in view.

Your body will take you to the gym or not. Your body might decide to spend the evening sitting in front of the TV rather than working out. Could it be that your body knows best? If you can accept the decision to watch TV as the right decision in that moment, you can relax. You can stop beating up on yourself. Then your mojo will rise, and the next day you might say "I feel good today," and go to the gym after all.

Be good to yourself in 2016. That's the most important thing you can do. The beaten donkey can't get excited about anything other than a good night's sleep!

You hesitate. Now what's stopping you? Whose permission are you waiting for here? Who are you looking to for The Nod? You're not going to get it. Who/Whatever it is you've sold out to will never say “Yes” in the present circumstances; too much has already been invested in holding you back from yourself. The Big “Yes” for change has to come from You.

You have a lot to get excited about, if you can only take the yoke off the poor donkey and say "I trust you, my friend - we are in this together.

"My unkind mind doesn't always know best. I let my ego run this operation for too long. I'm shutting off the faucet of self-criticism and putting me back in charge this year."

When you shut off the flood of self-critical remarks, something incredible will happen. Your vision for yourself will begin to take shape. And it won't matter so much whether you pay off the mortgage as quickly as you planned to or whether you read enough business magazines in 2016. When you give yourself permission to imagine the life and career you want, your daily to-do list won't go away. It will still be there, but it will take a back seat to your creative process.

As you create a vision for your life and career, many details will fall out of the picture. That's okay -- your vision will inspire you and call you forward much more than your critical brain ever could.

Your job is to stop paying heed to the old recordings and give yourself permission to think about your life from a higher altitude, a vantage point from which anything is possible.

But your fearful brain may try to tell you to stop dreaming so big. Your brain may say "Who do you think you are to imagine yourself with a different life? I'm opposing you on this for your own good?" You can tell the critical voice exactly who you are, and keep saying it over and over. You are mightier than you can even imagine, and your power will grow with every step forward you take.

Here's a good question that requires a pen-and-paper answer. Who, exactly did you ever give permission to put limits on your dreams? Make a list. Allow time for memory to deliver your answers. If you have less than 20 people on your list, you're not fair dinkum; this is a waste of time. Go and do something else.

You have no reason to limit your possibilities for anyone - especially an old, dusty tape playing in your head! The tape may play on, but why would you listen to that annoying voice now? You are flying at a higher altitude, and you are on a mission.

Your time here is limited. Don't waste it; you cannot get it back. Refuse to throw away any more of your time to naysayers and haters – particularly the ones inside your head. Re-programme the inner wasters and the outer ones will miraculously take care of themselves.