ARE YOU IMPERFECT? PERFECT!

JUST A MOMENT

YOU ARE IMPERFECT?  PERFECT!!

[Broadcast November 14^th, 2011]

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This is Just a Moment: I'm Barrie Barkla. This morning we're going to spend some time being with the possibility that our supposed imperfections are actually perfect, just as they are.......

[Help Me – Casey Donovan (A) – 4:10]

Casey Donovan – Is there any way to set my mind free? Well – yes. Fortunately, there are many ways, and it’s well worth while exploring some of them because you may find that the more areas of your mind you liberate, the more self-governing you become.

Let’s look first at why I bother to ask questions like this at 4.20am. Well, I’m awake at this moment because I have a radio programme I’ve committed to do. If you’re up and about because you have a job to do or someone dear to you urgently needs your attention, then maybe the next 40 minutes or so won’t be of immediate relevance to you. But if you’re awake right now when you’d rather be peacefully asleep, then perhaps it’s perfect that you tuned in this morning…….

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, you and I and everyone else, awake or asleep, are searching for something. We are trying to find that One Thing that will give us the freedom and peace that we crave. When it’s soul-based, the urge to be better is evolutionary and uplifting. But once the mind gets hold of it, the censure of deficiency is a burden. And our minds won’t let us rest.

The human mind is always after something. It’s always trying to change something outside of itself into what mind thinks it should be, but it rejects any challenge to radically change itself. Left to its own devices, your mind will not change. Not much. Some people’s minds, like mine, set up expectations for us, then beat us up if we’re less than successful in living up to its idea of how we should be. Lurking in the back of my mind there’s a thought that rears its head from time to time when I feel a bit low -- “I should be better than I am” Have you got one of those “be perfect, or else” minds?  OK, I’ve got something for you tonight.

How do we get ourselves into this bind of compulsory perfection? It’s not a simple question to answer, but if you look back along your life line you’ll notice that you, like most others, were groomed to “be someone” or “do something with your life”, yes? By our parents, by the school system, and later by career pursuits, we were persuaded that there were still more steps to climb before we could say “I’ve made it!” And that someone or something we were supposed to live up to probably had less to do with our innate temperament and talents, and was more tied to their family, academic and cultural expectations. There were rewards for compliance and meeting benchmarks, and penalties for failure to live up to their expectations.

But in trying to comply, we moved gradually further away from our core self. As we grew into teens and young adulthood, we gradually lost sight of a lot of what we are, and no-one else could get to know us either, least of all those who pushed us into this estranged state. We were too occupied trying to perfect expectations that may not have been even ours.

How might we deal with a Tyrannical Impost to Be Perfect?

Here's a way that works for me. It involves, firstly, being willing to loosen up a bit on my fixed ideas of “perfection”. My prejudices around “how I should be” proved to be mostly beyond my reach, and impossible to live with – both for me and for others having to put up with me.

I got started on the Great Escape from the tyranny of faultlessness by being willing to get off an ideal of “perfection” that polarises itself opposite “imperfection”. Years of struggling to hide or completely get rid of all my “bad bits” proved to be fruitless. One or more of them would pop up or ooze out at the worst possible times. Just when I thought I had my dark side licked, there it would be back in my face.

So, I eventually tried something different. I decided to embrace my imperfections as being OK for the time being. I began training myself to look at Perfection rather as a context, a state of being that allows imperfections to comfortably co-exist and co-operate with classic ideals. Surprise! It’s demonstrably how the world works!!

Look at nature around you – isn’t it replete with “imperfections”. On my daily walks I pass eucalypts and peppercorn trees whose images would never make it into any coffee-table books on Landscaping or Gardening. But not only does the Creator of these trees not seem to mind, I find some of them inspiring the most beautiful moments in my day! And if an imperfect tree that’s had a hard life, expressing the joy of its being, is OK to be part of the Big Picture, then maybe there’s a place in this same picture for me!

Nature speaks to me about fullness, a richness in life and living, and of how experiences shape and colour us into an infinite number of variations on the theme of Being What We Are. Maybe “perfect” was an idea dreamed up by a masochist. Behind it I hear echoes of the doctrine of Original Sin – ie. there’s something basically wrong with all of us, just because we’re human. What party-pooper dreamed that one up!?? That’s not the creator I see out there in the wilderness. If God doesn't bother to clean up “imperfections” after her, if she sees a place for them in the Big Picture, what gives us licence to think we know better???

[La Raya]

When you're troubled or stuck........

For just a moment.........

Try another way of looking at it.........

[Fade....]

There's a widespread dis-ease abroad, arising from an assumption that we should be better than we are. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there’s an arrogant Topdog-to-Underdog note of censure behind it that causes enough needless emotional, physical and mental discomfort, unrest and suffering for me to seriously question whether “I should be better than I am” is right? Does it make for better people? I don't see much evidence of that. Does it bend a lot of people out of shape trying to live up to some impossible external ideal? I see plenty of evidence of that. The quickest way to condemn someone to hell is to convince them that there's something wrong with them, something vital missing from their makeup. Children whose well-meaning parents used such in-vogue negative “motivations” to get them to be “better”, by and large now comprise a generation of people who, when left to themselves, have no idea of who or what they are -- broken, depressed, dysfunctional,  anxious shells for later generations to deal with.

You should be better than you are smacks of standover bully stuff. It’s nasty. Why would you feel it necessary to do that to yourself?

Do you think that perhaps you could be a bit better tomorrow? Gives you some wriggle room. It opens up some choices. It invites you to author-ise what happens next.

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[Something's Missing In My Life – Marcia Hines (A)]

V/O: [12 secs]

If we were not subjected to that treatment ourselves, most of you listening tonight probably know someone who had that done to him/her in childhood by overbearing family members.

There are questions worth asking when you, or someone else close to you adopts a mien of I’m not good enough…….

·       Not good enough? For who? For what?

·       Who says so now?

·       OK. What has to happen before you’ll know that you’re “good enough”.

The legacy lives on; we do it to other people. Either directly by accusation, or indirectly by implication, expectation or attitude, we leave people whose standards don’t measure up to ours in no doubt that they are failing our pub test. The drop in temperature can be felt in Alaska.

[@ -3:56 = Fade]

There are two separate imperatives going on here – one natural and evolutionary, one artificial and destructive. The first is a relatively healthy, innate urge to continue to grow and evolve as a person and as a member of a social group and a species. The other imperative is a mind-induced, somewhat hangdog search to be perfect that arises from a false perception of Deficiency and Lack in what we are now. The evolutionary urge to change and grow is in harmony with a universal force and is self-administered. The drive to overcome a mistaken perception of deficiency is guaranteed to keep you stuck in a rut going nowhere. Now there’s a surefire handicap to start with! If you, like me, got the “there’s something wrong with you” message stuffed into your emotional saddlebags, here are a couple of questions to stand in.....

·       This idea that “I Lack” – where did I ever get that from?

·       Who gave it to me?

·       Who else fed it along the way?

·       What if it isn't true?

·       What if it never was true?

Sure, we can all in some way be better today than we were yesterday. Most of us want that. But unless we’re getting some feedback that we’re making progress, the wanting becomes a chronic condition of futility – and it's in that chronic resignation to feelings of inadequacy that we get stuck. In this condition “wanting better” comes from a presumption of dissatisfaction and lack, a recipe for failure. Trying to grow seeds of Improvement in a soil of unhappiness and impoverishment isn't going to work.

If you were brought up by harshly critical parents, caregivers, authority figures and age-peers, then it’s quite possible that your self-worth gradually imploded and that you’ve seeped into adulthood with a thin veneer of bravado masking a deeply entrenched belief in being not-up-to-it. You were conditioned to feel this way, and it takes a lot more than a few “Well-dones” to overcome a downpour of put-downs.

Your first homework will be to get to know who you really are, because accurate self-knowing is your first key to freedom and accomplishment. Do not for one second longer allow anyone, including yourself, to fill you up with either unrealistic expectations, or snide reminders of failures-to-meet. At any time you catch yourself trying to live up to an ideal that might not have been yours in the first place, please remember this – While I’m trying to be what someone else wants, I cannot be my self. How, then, can I ever know my genuine place in the world, and be anything but feeling  Lost?

We cannot become better than we are until we first undertake and embrace a realistic appraisal of our qualities and their potential right now. And no-one can give that to us; we each have to find it for ourself. If that takes some time to undo years of negative influence, do not despair. Be patient, and take the time to appreciate yourself for your efforts and conjure gratitude for the chance to turn your life around in good time. Out of acknowledgement and gratitude, the tide turns – naturally. Learn to ride it.

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[All the Things You Are – Martin Taylor & Steve Howe]

While ever we continue to put a separation wall of shortcomings between what we think we are and what we'd rather be, we're creating and widening a gap of empty “Am-Not”-ness which gets filled with all manner of unhealthy crap. Separating-from creates an illusion of isolation; it stops us from experiencing the absolute self-balancing perfection of the universe – the universe of which we are each reflections. We start to get a sense of Perfection when we stop ways of thinking, feeling and doing that artificially separate us, and swap them for ways of thinking, feeling and doing that honour and merge us with the manifold unity.

Consider this possibility – just as a possibility – You do not yet know just how great you are. If you did, you wouldn't be losing sleep over the Crap Gaps --- those chasms between who you think you are (limited), and who someone once told you that you should be (impossible), and who you really are (as yet unexamined). How the hell is anyone supposed to find fulfillment and happiness twanging around between the Limited, the Impossible, and something you haven’t yet realised?

<< >>

You are Light. You are Thought. You are Feeling. You are Worthy, for you are God, getting to know, through what we call “you”, what it's like to feel less-than-God.

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X-fade.....

While you are dwelling in a question like “There should be more to this; how do I get there?” you are absent from the here/now and perpetuating the habit-thought of Insufficiency and Lack. You can test this for yourself right now. Think about something that you lack. Hmm-mm? Something you think you’re not…. Yes, that. That’ll do. Think about it…... Now notice something in the room where you are….. Now go back to whatever it is you think you don’t have….. Now notice the object again….. Back to the lack feeling……. Back to the object ------ Did you notice that, in the moments you were simply present with the object in the room, there was no thought or feeling of loss or lack or insufficiency? You had to flick yourself out of Now and go back to it, to the past, to a place that has no power to effect change.

That kind of stinkin’ thinkin’ is just habit. Most times you don't consciously think “insufficient”; it is thinking for you automatically. You just go along for the ride, and it's a bumpy one, isn't it? Everywhere we go, we go looking for “Missing”, and we always find it. We go looking for Disappointment, and we're never disappointed not to find something to be disappointed about. We always find what we're looking for. Who was it said “Seek and ye shall find”?

Right now, nothing is ever missing.

[More – Ferrante & Teicher – ]

And there is more – always. More, lying waiting in an infinite field of here-and-now possibility. Ready to serve. Waiting for you to notice it.

In the past, we’ve gone looking for “more” in the field of Missing and Lack and Loss. Well, that hasn’t worked, has it? We can only connect with “more” in the one place we have not yet thoroughly explored – in the fields of Enoughness and  Abundance. We’ve thought all along that if we allowed our selves to be satisfied with having enough, there would be no space for more to turn up. How mistaken we’ve been!

Now. I can't rationally explain how deciding to be satisfied works; all I know is that it brings us into Now (the only place of power) and that it DOES work.  [Jeshua the Christ spoke about it in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30)]. Everything we need for this moment, we already have – right now. Nothing to “get” that we don't already have; nothing and no-one to be “worked on”. Nothing to “work out”. Not now.

And when we get that this moment is already completely sufficient to itself, the next moment takes care of itself, and then so does the next, and the next…. When you alight on this here/now, nothing can be missing. If you are aware of “missing”, you have left your present to drop into mourning for a past or worrying about an imagined future. Here and now, everything is, and there is nothing that is not. In Now, everything is always whole and complete.

If there were anything that you are not, then you would not be who you are. And you are who you are, aren't you? You just haven't got to know the full extent of yourself yet......There is a lot more to you yet to get to know and embrace with empathy, delight and gratitude. Right now, you are everything you need to be – perfect for this moment. Don't worry about the next moment – live this one now.

Your old thoughts and concepts and ideas and beliefs of perfection were just that – ideas. And most of them weren't even your own ideas – you adopted them without question from someone else. That's OK – they got you this far, but no further.

Know this –

Perfection does not have a mould, or even a template.

You will never, ever reach someone else's idea of Perfection;

You're not supposed to.

Their perfection is their business; yours is yours.

For now, you ARE perfection. Even your imperfections are just perfect for now. Your world and everything in it is perfect for now. And what other time is there ever, but now? Let that be so, and your perfection will be eternal.

Be grateful for the God-given freedom to be all that you ARE.

Perfection is the aligning of all that you are, just as you are, aligning with all things just as they are. In that suchness you will find the experience perfection you’ve been looking for.

Once you have surrendered to a state of grateful perfection, it gathers you in, in gratitude. That’s when you find perfection is not a static state but the ever evolving movement of the Creator.

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[ I Love You Just the Way You Are – Billy Joel – 3:20]

[This has been Just a Moment; I'm Barrie Barkla. Thank you for listening....]

POLITICS -- BRAND OR BULLSHIT?

BRAND, OR BULLSHIT?

WHY I'M LOOKING TO VOTE INDEPENDENT IN THIS ELECTION

I’m fed up to the back teeth with bullshit. By “bullshit”, I’m referring to that huge spectrum of public statements that fall between the anchor points of Fact and Outright Lies.

It's really simple. I've had it with people who hide or obfuscate the entirety of a truth when it’s there to be spoken. I feel a visceral revulsion to right-fighters who slant and spin bits of the whole of a situation in order to divide people and win an argument. I’m also done with being talked at by would-be public leaders who feel it’s OK to be so lacking in ordinary human experience of the real world, people with so few meat'n'potatoes social skills, so little empathy with the breadth of people they hope or claim to represent, such a dearth of  knowing or  talent for effectively communicating, and such a lack of intellectual, emotional and psychological maturity that they feel the need to crawl into a political party, to play their clandestine games until they’ve acquired enough skill at bullshit to qualify for the Inner Ring. On a magic carpet of bullshit they then rustle up “the numbers” to get on to the passenger list to parliament, get themselves a territory to shit on, and ride in on the coat-tails of a leader they think will get them a seat in the Inner Tribal Cubbyhouse.

No wonder most of them deliver crap; they are crap. Crap at so many aspects of being human. Crap leaders. And like all people who want something from someone else, they're a pushover for any vested interest that beckons.

I have some experience of what I'm talking about here. In my younger days I worked for a while in an electoral office, not because I wanted to be a politician, but because I knew, respected and supported the guy I worked for. Later on, as part of my PR business, I got the job of attempting to train politicians who had actually got themselves elected without having a clue how to relate to anybody outside of the party machine, or how to effectively represent them while spending 5 days of the week in the Clubhouse, out of their electorate.

On the other side of the coin, I've worked for a social services agency of what is now the Uniting Church and, years later, for Lifeline. I've been down and dirty with the large numbers of people who fall through the cracks of government “services” that open up due to sheer neglect and a want of basic human respect, resulting from the appalling ignorance, contempt and ineptitude of the people that get elected to look after these things.

So much for my motives and credentials for writing this.

My first reaction to a party politician, or anyone thinking seriously of going into politics and doing some good for someone other than their party bosses, their lobbyist “friends” and themselves is this – “Forget It.” Forget about your Personal Image. Forget about who's-who in your party, and who pulls the strings. Keep going to Branch meetings by all means, but make your first priority to go out and build some character. Get a real job – preferably one in which you'll actually get more than just your hands dirty, learn about yourself and what really makes you tick, learn your shortcomings and do some serious work on them. Earn your way up through creating productive results, learn how to relate to real people and how to get them working with you on a vision of something that's bigger than all of you and worth the while. Become personally responsible for the welfare of people who don’t belong to any of your tribes. Start creating projects that will be measured in real results, and not just to a performance review by some pasty-faced academic with a degree in HR.

For the first decade of my professional career, I kept my mouth shut. SHUT! And my ears open. So what the hell was I doing before I got so loud? I was learning. I was working. I was working like steam to catch up on an upbringing that gave me no idea about myself, about the world outside a hymn book, and possible places for me in it. I was building a life, several vocations, and eventually a one-man business. I wasn't loafin' or dreamin', or looking for a handout.  Drama school and auditions were daytime occupations, so I worked all-nighters and most weekends to support my family. I got wise (slowly) to the ways of the world, and then found out that much of that was more of an appearance than real. Start again…...

Politicians devote most of their learning time to getting hep to the ways of their party. Their primary aim is to survive and serve the political game, and only secondarily to actually serve the public. No wonder there's a yawning gap of ignorance between those who vote and those who get themselves voted. Nowadays I (obviously) spend more time with my mouth open, but not at the expense of hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling and tasting the feedback. Seriously, go and Google my name. Even as an actor, you won't find a damn thing that predates me going to NIDA and serving an apprenticeship with amateur theatre companies, the Ensemble Theatre (where I got paid, not for acting, but for washing the dishes after the show each night), the Pageant Theatre Company, the Australian Theatre for Young People, The Canberra Repertory, the Canberra Theatre for Young People, and the Melbourne Theatre Company. And those who knew me before then also knew that, even as an amateur, I was studying seriously the theory and the craft, and going anywhere and everywhere, working mostly for no pay, in order to get experience, and experimenting to see for myself what worked and what didn't. I looked for opportunities to fail. I still do. I don't like it, but I'm not afraid of it. If I fall flat on my face, I'm embarrassed for 5 minutes, and sometimes have to clean up a mess I may have caused. That's good for character, too.  During that process though, I learned something of depth about the project, the world, and myself in it. I got (God knows how) that there’s no growth without risk.

“Risk averse” politics, and those who currently practice it, give me the shits. Apparent busy-ness and a string of “enquiries” doth not make for progress or growth. Not a single breakthrough in human history, as far as I'm aware, was ever achieved by a Careful Person. No monuments have ever been erected to someone who said “Let's not do anything. Let's just sit tight, and maybe no-one will notice, and we'll get elected again next time because we can say 'See? I didn't stuff it up: it wasn't my fault that it went wrong. It was...........(the legacy of the last mob)'”

Thank the lord for social media. When I first became politically aware, the guy who won the election then pretty much forgot about those who voted, and looked after those who donated instead. Until the next election when he pretended – again. Now it's different. Day after day they're reminded “We're watching you” which is why they’re funded by their party to take classes in lying, and hiding and ducking and weaving weasel-words. Every time a minister makes a statement, you'll find an Emergency Exit lying in it somewhere. Very rarely will you find an unequivocal commitment. And they're no longer bothering to bring some subtlety to bear. Ask a question nowadays and politicians openly ignore it and go back to their songsheets. They get away with it because they can. We – yes, you and I – let them. It’s only a matter of time, though, before people at the bottom of the drip-line who are actually falling further and further behind will rise up and get nasty. It’s already breaking out in random acts of rage and frustration. But the signs are there that the dispossessed and disillusioned are getting organised.

I don’t want to be around when that erupts. It’s called “a day of Reckoning”.

It stuns me that people “go into politics” without having a clear understanding of what the founding fathers intended a representative should bring to the table. It is my understanding that a candidate would first have acquired knowing of some truths about his/her temperament, and the personality built on top of that, and how that comes across to others. It was intended that you first be successful in a useful career – not a mediocre lawyer of policeman, not an elected official of a trade union, or a banker or accountant whose only success in life has been to help rich bludgers avoid paying their dues to society. You are supposed to rock-solid know out of bitter experience what your values are and in what hierarchy you stack them, and under what circumstances you'll re-order that hierarchy. You will have seen a real need in our society, and have a clearly articulated idea of how to fill it. You have to learn how to read the duality and the importance rankings of others, too, and get utterly familiar with, and become an acknowledged authority on the subject matter of what you think you might stand for.

I think, too, that our forefathers envisaged that every politician should do his time in public service, then bugger off back to join the ranks in his/her former life in the real world, not suckle up to another teat for the rest of a bloated, parasitic life.

What’s getting my goat is this notion that is so prevalent right now, which is that you can just come out of nowhere, have your photo taken with the party leader, and build a concocted brand through various marketing tactics. To position yourself as an expert is not difficult; If the Salim Mehajer and the Kardashians can do it, so can anyone with enough money to buy or wangle a spot on “A Current Affair”. Experts are a dime a dozen on the nightly news and comment shows, but most of them have never left school! And those who pretend to engage in discussion with them aren’t asking the hard questions like “What's the answer?” and “How do you know?” Except Leigh Sales who bailed up La Turnbull one night with “You say all this is true, but where's your evidence?” He just stared at her with a stunned mullet look that would have done Tony Abbott proud. Busted! What I’m hearing are too many vague policy utterances carefully crafted, not from vision or any appreciation of a real need, but from tepid cauldrons of opinion polls and focus groups.

Unless you want to spend the rest of your life inert and dripfed on the kind of fluids one gets when the water in the fishbowl isn’t changed, you need to ask the same questions of yourself -- “Come on precious, you think you're so special, and suckholes who want something from you are telling you you're so special. But special at what? What's your particular gift? What use is it, and to whom? When did you last successfully exercise it for someone else’s benefit? What's your proof? How do you “know” you're not just jerking off? What do you want to provide people with? What are you great at? How do you know that?”

Show me your evidence. Show me the fruit that tells me what kind of a tree you are. Who is being nourished by it? What do you love? What is your emotional and social currency – Approval? Praise? Security? Wealth? What is your Legacy going to be (because legacy is always superior to currency)? What's your step-by-step plan for achieving that legacy, and what's the time frame for each step?”

We have two well-padded political “leaders” right now who keep playing hoppo-bumpo around each other, talking about so-called “plans”, but there are few active verbs in their sentences and no detailed evidence of a real plan, or of any actual planning going on. There’s scant detail – just a slogan with no verbs in it, a few splashes of coloured bullet points, some fasntasy picture-book CGI and a bit of a media strategy for selling something that doesn't exist. There's nothing joining up the dots. No map that I can read and see a) where we're actually going (really); and b) how we're going to get there if we follow that plan; and c) what are we going to have to risk in order to get it (if there’s no risk, it's not worth anything)? Nothing. Nothing except slick-looking, obfuscating bullshit. Which leads me to suspect that there may indeed be a plan, but it's nothing like what we're being told. The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are still out front and centre, covering for an agenda that will not be spoken, except later on Wikileaks, when it's already too late (eg. The Free Trade Agreements with hidden clauses that allow corporations to sue governments if they don’t get what they want).

Some acquaintances of mine properly and reasonably disagree with me about the political class. For example, “Cabinet Ministers”, one pointed out to me recently, “don't need to know education and science and arts and agriculture etc. That's why we have a public service. Look at football coaches”, and what she meant by that is: good coaches aren’t all good football players. “You don’t have to be a great player to be a great coach”. To that I added: “In some cases, true. But have you looked at every football coach?” Ignoring the fact that there are skill sets to being a coach, teacher or mentor that are entirely different to being a star player (because that’s another whole conversation), there is no football coach that comes out of nowhere at age twenty-three and takes his team straight to the Grand Final. Coaches are often people who grew up the son or daughter of a coach, and played and coached for decades in the lower grades... Turnbull grew up the son of a “battler” (from Double Bay), and judging by his first year, he's running true to form. Oh and, by the way,” I couldn’t help adding, “How come public service top brass are now outnumbered and over-powered by privately contracted “advisors”?? The expert, experienced advice part of “coaching” is being drowned out by “brand-makers”.

By combing our viewpoints, we got to a deeper understanding of at least one shortcoming in the present practice (or lack) of “ministerial responsibility”

The “Join-a-Party” political shortcut to Somebodyland, this quick hack of using a political party, social media and modern tech to build up a Self-Image that will get you elected by the same people who vote for contestants on “The X-Factor” – is not enough.  Not nearly enough. Look at Julie Bishop last week, when questioned about one of her party's central bits of election flummery, looked stunned, miffed and snapped “Well this is one of your gotcha moments is it?” Did she say the same thing in school in an aural exam? Probably. She is, by her own manipulation, Deputy Leader of the party and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and she hasn't bothered to even pre-read her script for the day???? If I’d done that on stage, radio and TV, my career wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes. But somehow a lesser standard is OK for appearing to running the country and its relations with other countries???

I think not.

There is no substitute for assessing and founding proper groundwork. That means getting honest about your self and innovatively addressing the deficiencies you find. That entails answering the three constant invitations that life sends you every day:-

·       The invitation to be honest and authentic in the moment.

·       The invitation to let go of what’s over (if it happened more than a second ago, it’s over), and get on with growing.

·       The invitation to dissolve your prejudices.

Groundwork for wannabe politicians also means doing the research on the skills and the content that you could profitably master. It means seeking out and getting with people who can teach you by example. It means honest, committed hard work, and developing a vision for exactly how you'll measure your success in making a difference to others. It also means becoming an authority on what you and the Party are actually doing, or “promising” to do. It means having nothing to do with pretending to do one thing while you're actually doing something quite different. It means thinking things through and not doing a Sinodinis and bleating, “Look, just vote for us and I'll bring it up at a party meeting after the election.” How lazy and arrogant can one get???

Like Nick Xenophon, Tony Windsor, and, yes, even Jacquie Lambie you have to earn the privilege of having a “personal brand”, and the only way to do that is to actually know what you stand for, and why, formulate a plan, recruit willing participants, and execute it. If you're looking for short-term “fame” and recognition in politics – believe me, you're not even barking up the wrong tree; you're in the wrong bloody forest. As a nation we have well and truly had it up to the eyeballs with emotionally and psychologically deprived egotists who, on no real evidence, have decided what is “right” for everyone.

Ask yourself “Where will I be 10 years?” If the answer doesn't involve someone other than yourself and envisage firstly a determined regimen of self-improvement, please do yourself and everyone else a big favour, and find another line of work for which you really do have to grow up if you're going to keep up with it.

Now, if you’ve met all those requirements above, if you’re really a business badass and your legacy is strong, here are some tips I have for getting your brand out there:

o   Be a Creator of Contexts, for yourself and for those you take with you on your journey.

o   Be a teller of stories. Paint pictures of what has been and what could be – if only..... Detailed pictures, please.

o   Give up being right about anything, and instead be a devout student of Further Possibilities.

o   Be like bamboo – firm and flexible.

o   Level with people. Take them into your confidence. They will reward you with their confidence. Whatever you want to reap you must first sow.

o   Cultivate real openness. Avoid pretences of it. Notice when Malcolm open his arms in mock surrender, one of them (usually the righthand one) is either a barely disguised finger-point, or a karate chop. He's such a lousy pretender!

o   Trust. To do that, you have first to trust yourself; that involves knowing where you cannot be trusted – where you might sell out. And don't kid yourself that you don't have sellout points – you do. And it's the ones you don't acknowledge, at least to yourself, that will bring you undone sooner or later.

o   Have yourself regularly tested for levels of Empathy. Empathy is not the same as Sympathy – the latter is “feeling for”: Empathy is “feeling with”. If your Empathy levels are getting low, do something about it before you start doing serious social damage.

o   Take a course in reclaiming your Integrity. Very few people even know what it is. They confuse it with one of its ingredients – honesty. Integrity is much more than just “honesty”. Begin by looking it up in a really good dictionary. When you get to something like “a state of being in which nothing is missing, nothing is hidden”, you're getting warm. A person with Integrity is an open book – not a trait to be found in the present Treasurer, Finance Minister, Environment Minister, Minister for Women, or Immigration Minister. A person with integrity is never compelled to plead “Trust me!” If anyone says that to you, open your eyes and ears and have your “Maybe” tray ready. Without Integrity (even if you don't know what it is) you are not to be trusted and, deep in the core of your soul, you know that.

o   Decide if you’re ready to put yourself out there. Do you know what this is?

UU

It’s the International Symbol of Commitment – put your arse on the line. If you're not prepared to risk your arse for a better world for everyone, bugger off back to Twitter; it’s where you belong for now.

o   Be responsible.  Make “The Buck stops here” a daily practice, not a slogan.

o   Never automate anything that should be human. Politics, whether in public service or in boardrooms, is personal. Always. Robocalls have me hanging up annoyed before the first sentence is complete. If some area of your life becomes impersonal, you've lost the plot. Whatever you do, or don't do, affects people – personally.

o   Lead from in front. Never send anyone to do a job you're not prepared to undertake yourself. And never squib on doing everything to completion. No loose ends. That requires doggedness, and commitment to something larger than yourself.

o   Keep your commitments. Make your word your wand on your own authority.

o   Make no promises. Promises are made by people who secretly know they might not deliver. They may not be aware of why, but they promise in order to sweep niggling self-mistrust under the rug. They’re using an altruistic value (eg. Trustworthiness) as a whip to keep its opposite chained up in a back-kennel. Promise nothing; instead, state your clear intention and your plans to fulfil your intention. When you know you're going to deliver what you intend, or something even better, a promise is no longer needed. Intentions have the validity of purpose and direction; promises are meaningless vacuums. The jokes about politicians' promises are no longer funny – not after Tony Abbott and his cross-party heirs and successors.

o   Keep scaling you’re the content of all that you think, feel, say and do. Make sure your substance stays substantial. Constantly review – “How am I doing, and is there another, better way right now?”

o   Do everything you do in the utmost humility. Acknowledge your successes, but keep them quiet. Learn from your failures and openly acknowledge “I can do this better”. Constantly check -- “What am I leaving behind me as I move my world along the path?”

There it is. Have you noticed that nothing on the above list is particular to politicians? It applies to all humans who are engaged in being. So I have one more suggestion –

o   Get all of the above under your belt first, then decide if you really want to engage in politics.

People will follow you anywhere as long as they know where they are now, where you're taking them, and how far they've come so far. Do just this much and you'll have already a “brand” without wasting resources having to construct one.

Hustle. Yep, hustle. Widen your armoury of ways and means to wangle, so that you can always apply methods that are appropriate to the people you're dealing with at the time. Get used to horse-trading.

And once you become a brand, the work never stops. If you truly love your legacy, respect it and maintain gratitude for the opportunities to create one, your chosen path today will be the best decision you ever make.

IF YOU CAN'T CHANG E THE WORLD, CHANGE YOUR STRATEGIES

PAUSE A MOMENT

CHANGING STRATEGIES

Good morning once more. Welcome now to Pause a Moment. Tonight = Changing Strategies.

[Change Partners – Frank Sinatra – 2:43]

I think I'm pretty safe with tonight's topic being relevant; we all surf waves of wanting change in some area of our life, and at other times we see change coming when we don’t really want it. Although we often get a fit of the wobblies when a Change looms threateningly on our horizon, Change is actually what we came here to experience. Change is a not-negotiable price of Evolution. Life-forms that do not change become extinct. Life without change gets boring. Change is even mandatory for non-sentient forms of existence like rocks. The question of the role of Change in life is not one of fact, but one of subject, speed and degree.

Let's start tonight by looking at how we might change the way we go about changing our lives – by changing the means we use to effect change – our Strategies for creating and handling Change.

But there’s something that needs to be handled first. No matter whether it’s just our self or those around us negotiating a turning point, change affects everyone. So, let's begin with some strategies for Communicating with ourselves and others.

[La Raya – Eric Serra]

Do you feel you're misunderstood?

Do you get caught sometimes misunderstanding others?

How effectively do you communicate?

One of the keys to success in anything is your ability – an ability that you already have – to make new, crucial distinctions and decisions. So that you can deal more creatively and effectively with people, we’ll look firstly at how to make breaks with the way you’ve habitually tried to communicate in order to broaden your own skills for generating empathy.

Firstly, cease being a theoretical believer in a notion about Possibility and instead become an avid student of what’s actually achievable. That will involve working on yourself, dismantling the fences you put around "what's possible" and noodling out your long-ingrained habits of rejecting radical ideas instantly as “not possible”. Unexamined assumptions, beliefs and conclusions from the dead past bind and blind us. They bind us into limited and limiting social, religious, cultural and political teams of like-minded can’t-doers, and blind us to alternative perspectives and possibilities that may be more valid, useful and effective.

Constantly notice the people around you. Note how you blur the lines around your reality to fit in with what’s popular and agreed upon among them. Watch, too, how they blur their own “truths” to get along with each other, especially how they change from moment to moment and day to day, all the time unconsciously revealing more of their inconsistencies. Recognise specific patterns each person has for perceiving the world. Notice under what circumstances they employ certain patterns, and under what circumstances they’ll do the exact opposite. Examine under what circumstances you employ those same patterns and begin to notice when others adopt similar, or opposite, patterns to you. Notice how people send out indistinct or conflicting signals through the way they speak, the quality of energy driving what they say, and dissonances between what they do and their demeanour, and what they're saying.

Understand that people may not always remember exactly what you say, but they will never forget how they felt while you were saying it. Through this approach you can develop a whole set of distinctions and connections with people that can empower you in knowing how to communicate effectively with all types of people.

[Friendly Persuasion – Prague Philharmonic]

Bring up under>>>>

If you want to be an agent for change, you really do have to learn a bit about reading the effect you’re having, and to vary your communication with differing kinds of people. For example, once our initial, moral reaction to a situation has snapped in, some people then sort primarily by feelings and others sort by logical thinking. And some people embrace change (neophilic) and other people avoid it like the plague (neophobic). Would you try to persuade them all in the same way? Many people blindly try, and wonder why they're not getting through.

Some people make decisions based only on specific facts and figures. Firstly, such people have to know if the parts will work– they’ll think about the broader picture later. Others are convinced first by an overall concept or idea. They react to global chunks. They want to see the big picture first. If they like it, only then will they think about the details.

Some people are turned on by beginnings. They’re most excited when they get a new idea off the ground, and then they soon tend to lose interest in it and go on to something else. Others are fixated on process and completion. Anything they're given to do, they have to see all the way to the end, whether it’s reading a book or doing a task at work. You are, I hope, beginning to see the importance of strategically recruiting a team of individuals with individual styles that will, directed in concert, deliver you the results you want.

The way we look at the world influences the way we ARE in the world. People sort and classify by different criteria that are particularly significant to them, and that’s how they see the world. For example, some people sort by food. That’s right, by food. Almost anything we do or consider doing is evaluated in terms of what's important to us. Ask a foodie how to get someplace, and they’ll say, “Go down the road until you get to Hungry Jacks, turn left, and then continue down until you get to McDonald’s and turn right, and then hang a leftie at Kentucky Fried Hormones until you get down to that chocolate-brown building.” Ask about a movie they went to, and they immediately begin telling you about how the candy bar was. Ask about the wedding, and they’ll tell you about the catering and the cake.

A person who sorts primarily by people will talk mostly about the people at the wedding or the characters in the film. A person who sorts primarily by activities will talk about what actually happened at the wedding, what happened in the film, and so on. My point is that, if you are ever going to be any good at communicating, you have to –

•    be aware that people do talk and organise their perceptions in different languages. They have different code books and are motivated by different priorities – from coldly rational through to wildly emotional. To be effective you must adapt your pitch: you have to step away from your position and into their world, and look at your proposals from there.

•    practice actively listening to the people with whom you want to communicate with the clear intention of discovering what turns them on and, just as importantly, what turns them off. Active listening is a skill, and usually has to be learned, unless you really do insist on being a hermit.

•    practice talking in languages and relevancies other than your own.

•    Practice creating contexts-in-common and bridges across which you can lead people willingly into your space so that they can see for themselves from your point of view. You can't do that by force.

[Friends and Lovers – George Martin]

Bring up under >>>>

If I may use myself as an example, I begin this programme every week on one assumption about what you and I have in common –  at 20 past four in the morning, neither of us can sleep. I've got some entertaining to do and you have your own reasons for being awake. In order to be relevant to you and your reasons, I use my knowledge and past experiences as a counselor and as a broadcaster, and my skills as a creator of contexts to speak to you in languages that are more likely to be relevant to you. And I deliberately set about casting around for possible causes of your insomnia (that takes care of the first hour), suggesting possible healings in the second hour, and in the third hour celebrating any “a-hah's” you may have gotten in the context of a new day dawning.

Another deliberate undertaking of A Little Night Music is to provide a framework for variety and balance in the content of the show in order to dilute any depression and anxiety that may be accompanying your insomnia. That’s how I plan this programme so that it has the best possible chance of being relevant to you at this time.

We tend to follow one strategy or another for seeking personal rapport. It is observed by others as our “style”. For some solutions we may lean slightly more to one side than another. For others we may swing wildly to one strategy instead of another.

There’s nothing carved in stone about any of my strategies. I'll try anything that works, and I constantly encourage others to do the same. If you find you’ve hit some kind of bothering roadblock, it may be that you have made choices and decisions that put you in a condition of depoweredness. If that’s so, you can now make choices and decisions to direct yourself toward a more empowering state. You can choose to adopt strategies that help rather than hinder you successfully making that U-turn.

But that isn't going to happen until you're ready.
And simply saying "I'm ready" is not going to open any escape hatches from the comfortable prison in which you're incarcerated.

Dr. Phil McGraw has articulated four possible incentives for "wanting to change", only one of which has any hope of being permanently beneficial to you. Here they are:-

1. When change is compelled by an authority -- for example, when you're offered some kind of rehabilitation programme as an alternative to punishment.
2. When you impose behaviour change on yourself to escape censure or isolation.
3. When you are intellectually aware of a need for change, but your heart is, at best, lukewarm about doing the hard yards.
4. When you are mentally, emotionally and spiritually lifted off your foundations to let go of everything you've held to be "true" and try something you've never tried before -- I will move, or die.

I think you can guess where I'm going here. From ground-shattering personal experience, I know that Dr. Phil was on the money when he said, "Stage 4 is when you can honest to God say, ‘I am so sick to death of this that I will not put up with this from myself for another second, for another minute of another hour of another day. I don’t care how scary it is, I don’t care what’s on the other side, I will not put up with this from myself for another second. I will change this, I don’t care what it takes.’ That’s when you get change,”

When you deliberately decide on any strategy it immediately starts suggesting to your mind what to focus on and what to ignore. Things start moving in the direction you’re implicating. If you’re moving toward something desirable, for example, the things you’re moving away from are being deleted. If, however. you’re trying to move away from a troublesome way of being, then you’re deleting things that could be moving you toward. This is why focusing on what you don't want and don't like, and the people that embody those negatives, is NOT a good idea. You're deleting the very things that will put you back on your feet. It's self-defeating.

To change your strategies, all you have to do is become aware of the things you normally delete and choose to focus your attention on them and develop them. Don't make the mistake of going to war on the old choices and habits that have been holding you back; just leave them alone. They will gradually drop away, wither and die from lack of your attention. Give them no more energy. Look to what you do want. Let your old concerns lie where you left them. Let them be, and they will let you be. Focus on what you DO want, and open your mind to everything that shows up. If you want new things, make new choices of what to give your attention to.

And let go the habit of making another common mistake, that of confusing yourself with your behaviours or making the same mistake with someone else. You say, “I know her. She does this, this, and this.” Well, you don’t know the whole of her. You know her only through a limited range of her behaviours in a limited set of circumstances, and through the lens of your limited interpretation of those behaviours. But she is much more than some of her behaviours, just there is more to you than some of the things you’ve done in the past. Give yourself and others a break! Separate the person from the behaviour.

If you’re someone who tends to move away from everything, maybe that’s a pattern of behaviour up until now. If you don’t like it, you can change it. In fact, there’s no excuse for you not to change. You have the power now. The only question is whether you allow yourself to change strategies that no longer work in your best interests.

There are two ways to change our strategies. One is by Significant Emotional Events – “SEEs.” The other is, without waiting for a significant drama crisis, by consciously choosing for change and making decisions to enact the changes you now prefer.

Historically, our parents are a rich mine of SEE's. If you saw your parents constantly moving away from things and not being able to achieve their full potential as a result, those experiences of them influenced what you move toward or away from, and the way you still move toward or away. You might have either copied them, or resisted doing it the way they did it. Either way, you've sacrificed flexibility in your own capacity to respond appropriately to new and different circumstances. Like it or not, you've become a function of the way they did it.

But change is possible. If they, and you, only sorted by necessity, and missed out on some great job opportunity because the company was looking to someone with a dynamic sense of Possibility, the shock of losing the chance may be enough to jolt you into realising: I need to make some radical personal shifts here. 

If you tend to move toward everything and get taken in by a flashy-looking investment scam, it would probably affect the way you look at the next proposal that comes your way. We learn by our perceptions of experience. The mistake we make is to assume that this here-now experience is the same as a past Significant Experience, and we trot out one of our well-practiced reactions learned from the past, that may by now be totally inappropriate in the present. Oh this is some game, isn't it?

The second way you can change your strategies is by consciously deciding to do so, not because your life has come to a screaming halt, but because it becomes clear that it’s a good idea to do so before things get squiffy. Most of us never give a thought to which metaprograms we use; in fact, most of our conditioned reactions use us. We are the naïve victims of our own predilections. The first step toward change is in  recognising something you were previously blind to. You cannot change what you don't cop to. An awareness of exactly what we are currently doing provides the opportunity to see, and make new choices, and thus make for change.

Let’s say you realize that you have a strong tendency to run away from things, or take what looks like the easiest path. How do you feel about that tendency? How well is it working for you? Are you certain of that, or could your short-sightedness come back one day to bite you on the bum? Sure, there are things – and people - you want to move away from. If you put your hand on a hot iron, you would want to move it away as soon as you could. But aren’t there also things – and people - you really want to move toward? If your strategic focus is on moving away, you are not moving toward anything, except by accident. Isn’t a part of mastering your life a practise of making a conscious effort to move toward something worth your while? Haven’t most great leaders and great successes focused primarily on moving toward a vision, rather than away from a nightmare? Now you might want to begin to stretch a little. You can start thinking about things that appeal to you and actively allow yourself to be drawn toward them.

You could also think of metaprograms on a higher level. Do nations have metaprograms? Well, they have cultures, religions, biases and behaviours, don’t they? Then they have metaprograms, too. Their collective behaviour over many times forms a pattern, based upon metaprograms of their leaders and the people who support them. Australia for the most part has a culture that seems to move toward. It also has a counter-balancing sub-culture that pulls back on change. That's why our politics at the moment feels like we're in the middle of a three-dimensional tug-o-war, with a bunch of opportunists pulling in all directions. Watching the Whitlam documentary series recently reminded me that we have a history of short bursts of visionary change followed by long brakes (sic) of reactionary withdrawal. Australia's current overt tug-o-war directly reflects the inner conflicts between the ideals of us, its citizens. We're confused about what to do next – about climate change, boat people, Muslims, immigration, aborigines. And the victims of that confusion are waiting for us to make up our minds, while we scout around for a leader who'll make up our minds for us. This isn't working.

What do you think – do countries like Iran, Syria or Indonesia have internal or external frames of reference? What about our own country? Are we actively creating and re-creating our own identity, or are we looking to hang on to old, external models from elsewhere? And as you ponder this, remember that your perception of your country mirrors your perception of your self. Whatever our government is doing, whatever Her Majesty's opposition is doing – we are doing. It's time we all became more aware of our part in creating and perpetuating what’s happening.

Awareness of our strategies can be useful on two levels. The first is as a tool to calibrate and guide your communication with others. Just as a person’s physiology will tell you countless stories about him, his behaviours will speak eloquently about what motivates him and what frightens him off.

The second useful thing about heightening your awareness of strategies is as a tool for personal change. Remember, your behaviours betray the character you created to run the show while you went out to the world's longest lunch. Your behaviours are an expression of part of you, but they are not who you are. Who dictates your behaviours? Me? Certainly not, and I don't want the job thank you. You? Yes – but which “you”? Your heart or your ego? This “You” that you decree to be “I am” is the author of your behaviours, and of the stories you make up to justify them. If you tend to run any kind of pattern that works against you, all you have to do is change either the behaviour, or the “you” that is creating it – or better still -- both. This isn't rocket science.

But be aware that when you do change something and your heart experiences a liberation, your ego will jump in protesting “I've been robbed!” My suggestion, go with your heart, and let your ego learn to live with it.

*****

You might like to stand in this question for a while….Why would you NOT want to change something that isn't working for you any more?

Let the answers come and jot them down. You may find out how and (maybe) why you’re sabotaging your own progress.

And that may have something to do with a realisation that "change" is not the answer to a life that has run out of potential. "Trying to change" is your mind telling you it can change itself. It can't, and it won't. Have you never noticed how effectively your mind argues with you any time you want to make change? How can something that has caused you so much contradiction possible create congruity? The mind that was originally invented for discovery has become an overlord concerned only for its own survival. We cannot live without a Mind, but it must be dismantled, and consciously re-built. That's a job, not for change but for Transformation.

And that's another story............

[Friendly Persuasion – Prague Philharmonic – 3:44]