TAKE CARE OF YOUR SELF

PAUSE A MOMENT

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

Good morning. Welcome now to Pause a Moment – a time we take each week to reflect on ways to ease the ups and downs on your roller-coaster.

What do you really need if you want to lead a successful life? A soul-mate? An exciting career? A loving family? The comfort of a set of beliefs? It seems odd in hindsight, but for a very long time no one seriously asked “What is essential for a successful life?”.

[All I Need – Wendy Matthews]

For a long time life has been seen as divided into traditional compartments - work, family, and religion. That hadn't changed for centuries and, for many people, still hasn't. But early last century, a breakthrough on that perception began when the psychologist Abraham Maslow offered a new insight model where he noticed that people already have an identifiable hierarchy of needs – they naturally and automatically put basic needs first, and then work up a ladder of other needs in a fairly predictable order.

The most fundamental and basic four rungs of the ladder contain what Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "d-needs": Physical needs, Security, Friendship & Love, and Esteem. If our "deficiency needs" are not met we will feel anxious and tense, and our health suffers. Maslow's theory suggests that these most basic level of needs must be met before we will strongly desire (or focus motivation upon) the secondary or higher level needs. Our motivation to go beyond the scope of the basic needs and strive for constant betterment is simply not there if we feel insecure, unhealthy, and/or cold, thirsty or hungry. Now that kinda makes sense, doesn't it? Jesus knew it – he fed the folks first before he tried laying his message on them.

[Who Cares? – Catherine Britt]

Physiological needs are the basic physical requirements for human survival. They include the metabolic requirements of air, water, food and warmth, along with clothing and shelter to provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate and healthy birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape the sexual instinct. If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; and you seriously should be meet them first.

Then comes the need to feel safe.....

[Blithe Bells – Aust. Chamber Orchestra]

With our physical needs relatively catered to, our safety needs rise to take precedence and dominate behavior. In the absence of physical safety – whether due to war, natural disaster, family violence, childhood abuse, – people may (re-)experience post-traumatic stress disorder or transgenerational trauma. In the absence of economic safety – due to economic crisis and lack of work opportunities – these safety needs manifest themselves in ways such as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, reasonable disability accommodations, etc. This level is more likely to be found in immature humans because they generally have a greater need to feel safe.

For us adults, our Safety and Security needs include:

• Feeling Personal security in body and mind.
• Feeling protected from threats to anything our ego considers important.
• Feeling able to take care of our financial affairs into the forseeable future.
• Feeling healthy and emotionally capable.
• Having a safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts.

Love and belonging

After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third level of human needs is interpersonal and involves Feeling like you Belong. This need is especially strong in childhood and can override the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to abusive parents, and adults who cling to abusive partners. Deficiencies within this level of Maslow's hierarchy – due to hospitalism, neglect, shunning, ostracism – can impact the individual's ability to form and maintain emotionally significant relationships in general, such as:

• Friendship
• Intimacy
• Family

According to Maslow, humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance among their social groups, regardless if these groups are large or small. For example, some large social groups may include clubs, co-workers, religious groups, professional organisations, sports teams, and street gangs. Some examples of small social connections include family members, intimate partners, mentors, colleagues, and confidants. Humans need to love and be loved – both sexually and non-sexually – by others. Many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression in the absence of this love or belonging element. This need for belonging may overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure.

[Respect – Max Merrett & the Meteors]

Esteem

All humans have a need to feel valued and respected; this includes the need to have self-esteem and self-respect. People often engage in a profession or hobby to gain position and recognition. These activities give some people a sense of contribution or value; others at the other end of the scale just want to be “famous”. Nobody with an ounce of ego wants to be a forgotten nonentity – me included. Low self-esteem or an inferiority complex may result from imbalances in this Esteem level of the hierarchy.

People with low self-esteem tend to rely on dodgy identifications (“That's me”) for internal support; they often need recognition and respect from others; they may feel the need to seek fame or glory. They fall disappointingly short because fame or glory will not help the person to build their self-esteem until they accept who they are internally; and once Who-You-Really-Are is recognised, fame and reassurance no longer matter . In fact, fame or recognition can have the reverse effect, and can prove fatal. Existing psychological imbalances, such as chronic depression, can and will hinder you from obtaining a higher, more stable level of self-esteem or self-respect. You'll settle for a soap-bubble of Self-Importance instead. POP – GONE!

Most people have a need for stable self-respect. Maslow noted two versions: a "lower" version and a "higher" version. The "lower" version of esteem is the need for respect from others. This may involve a grab for status, recognition, fame, prestige, notoriety or attention. The "higher" version manifests itself as the need for self-respect. For example, the person may have a need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, and freedom. This "higher" version takes precedence over the "lower" version because it relies on an inner competence established through experience. Whenever I suffer from an inferiority complex, or feelings of vulnerability or helplessness, deprivation of Esteem is high on my list of the usual suspects.

Esteem and the higher levels of wellbeing are not strictly separated; instead, the level of Esteem is closely intertwined with a need for Self-actualisation.

[Be What You Be – Angus Stone – 4:52]

Self-actualisation/Altruism

There's a Ruthless Rule of Happiness that goes "What a man can be, he must be.” And there's another one that says something like this – “Happiness is no kin to Complacency. You'll never find out what's possible until you explore the impossible.” If we don't keep stretching our potential, we steer ourselves into a doldrum of disillusionment and dissatisfaction, and then we blame that on others [he/she let me down].

I seem to spend a lot of my life these days challenging reluctant players to do better than they are. Where they experience disappointment, I often see blatantly unrealised potential. This dis-ease arises from an unfulfilled need for self-actualization. This level of need refers to what a person's full potential is and how completely that potential is lived out. Maslow describes self-actualisation as the inherent, (usually unconscious) human desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be. 80% of humans don't even get that they're short-selling themselves and will even get quite uppity at the mere suggestion they're giving up instead of living up. Maybe that's why I have few close friends; I require those who profess they want to play with me to do better than they think they can. It's a bugger being able to see wasted potential go down the gurgler in gushes of self-righteousness or oozing leaks of smug complacency.

Those I am closest to perceive or focus on Self-Actualisation very specifically in some area of their life. For example, one person has the strong desire to become an ideal parent. In another I can think of, the desire is expressed athletically. For others, it may be expressed in painting, performing, organising events, inventing, or producing and presenting radio programmes. Maslow believed that to understand this level of need, you must not only achieve the previous needs for health, security, safety, love & belonging, and esteem, but you have to also master them. If you haven't; go no further. Go back to basics. It's nigh impossible to contemplate the meaning of existence // when your kids are cold, wet and crying from malnutrition. You cannot be an effective, empowering broadcaster when you're main concern is how many phone strokes you get to your ego (I got ten calls today!)

By exposing this "hierarchy of needs”, Maslow has had a huge impact, and his way of seeing it suits common sense. A successful life requires firstly a secure foundation. My Dad, a child of the Great Depression, did his hamfisted best to drum Security into me every day of my life. Secure job; rock-solid faith. Wham bam, thankyou Sam! Yet it didn't seem to make him happy, and life as it presented itself to me in my late teens and early 20s was just not that simple. To this curious mind there were too many unanswered questions. In my experience, life keeps changing, and I think there is now one need that supersedes all others. Without it, money and family won't make up for it. A prominent career and professional status will be undermined. Without this, the very possibility of leading a happy life is jeopardised.

[Take Care of Yourself – Charlie Byrd]

This one need is the need for Self-Care.

Self care? Yes. If self-care was treated in our culture with more awareness and due respect, services like Lifeline and Beyond Blue would go begging for business. Multinational pill pushers would go broke tomorrow if people became aware of how easily they've sold out their self reliance and esteem // in favour of promised cure-alls and an easy ride to La-la-land.

The accumulated knowledge of medicine, psychology, and longevity studies agree about Self-care. Each of us has the potential to avoid disease, retard aging, and achieve a higher state of well-being // if we pay attention to looking after what we've created. A new horizon has opened that millions of people are not fully aware of. They continue to hold on to old worn-out notions that deprive them of power over their present and their futures.

[Old Fashioned Morphine – The Hillbilly Goats]

These outdated notions include the following:

1. It's your GP's job to keep you well.

2. Old age is a state of decline.

3. Money solves most problems, and the more money you have, the better.

4. Everyone has inner demons and they are to be feared. It's better to keep quiet about them.

5. What you don't know won't hurt you.

6. Life is unfair and bad things happen randomly.

7. There must be something wrong with people to whom bad things happen.

8. Chronic disease is all genetic, and there's nothing you can do about your genes.

Every one of these notions is contradicted by Self-Care. Looking after yourself, as I mean it, involves engaging the following possibilities –

1. Wellness of body, mind and spirit becomes your individual responsibility.

2. How old age shows up for you reflects your beliefs about it. Vital beliefs lead to a vital old age. Beliefs in decline and decrepitude lead to ….. you got it!

3. Money provides for basic needs. After that, there's no correlation between money and happiness.

4. Facing your personal issues now has a huge impact on how healthy you will be in the future.

5. What you don't know gets either ignored or repressed and creates emotional and physical difficulties. Your cells metabolise everything that happens to you, whether you're aware of it or not. This is why I keep banging on about “Be Aware”, as distinct from “Beware”

6 & 7. Life matches your conception of it. Whatever your opinions you get to be right. And you think being right is all that matters. How wrong can you be? Your mind shapes how events turn out in your experience, not vice versa.

8. Genes change. Your genetic makeup is fluid and dynamic, responding at every moment to your world and your response to it. And your genes can't differentiate between your inner and outer world; they react equally to both real and imagined stimuli.

The bottom line of this list is that you have the power to create your personal reality. Life doesn't care whether you believe that or not, which is what self-care is ultimately about. Whatever personal reality you create will affect how you function, and the whole lot will be passed on to your children, one way or another. We are badly in need of a new model for well-being. Decades of public information about prevention has made headway, but the whole subject feels less than urgent to most people, especially when they're still young enough to make changes that make a difference. Most people still segment their lives into work, leisure, and family. Little time is left for self-care. Yet caring for yourself today is exactly what determines your life for decades to come, and those of your offspring.

OK. Verbs in sentences: Consider including the following suggestions in a new regime for looking after yourself:

- Make Happiness a high priority. Try sticking this on your fridge door – “Happiness First, Then Take Out the Garbage, Then Save the World..... in that order.”

- Make sure your life has purpose and meaning. If it doesn't, make something up, just for today. Then tomorrow, make something up again. Make your day ABOUT something, bigger than yourself. Be a participant of it, and include others in changes for the better.

- Live according to a higher vision. The best form of self-care is to merge yourself into some wider, higher possibility.

- Expand your awareness in every decade of your life.

- Devote time and attention to personal growth.

- Pay attention to the fate of the world around you, and your role in that. Are you a player, or a spectator?

- Follow at least a minimal regimen of good diet and physical activity. But don't go overboard about it. Remember Oscar Wilde's dictum “Everything in moderation – including moderation.”

- Allow your brain to reset by introducing downtime several times a day.

- Get to know your inner world through awareness, meditation, contemplation, and self-reflection. Remember Socrates? – A life unexamined is no life at all. As I write this I'm looking at a neighbour who's come outside her unit to smoke a cigarette. She puts a white cotton glove on her hand before she lights up, and sucks the acrid smoke into her lungs. She won't coat her home or her fingers with whatever shit comes out of those things, but she's happy to let her lungs cop it. And she doesn't see the absurdity of that? Who knows? Maybe she does. It's none of my business. I'm grateful for her reflection of my own stupidity.

- Practice gratitude and appreciation. Find something to be happy about in the moment. Spread it around.

- Learn how to love and be loved. This is a lifetime challenge. I'm still learning how to be a father to my darling daughter. Thank God it's not too late.

As you can see, self-care goes far beyond eating our vegetables and signing up for the gym. It has nothing at all to do with “Every man for himself”. It amounts to a new model for success and happiness, a model that abundant evidence supports. Right now, most of the existing models feel very dead-end-ish. Consumerism is a ticking time bomb; "work hard and play hard" leads to exhaustion and eventual physical, emotional and mental debility. Postponing happiness until you retire wastes decades of life and risks terminal disappointment. "Looking out for number one" deadens the soul.

 

Higher-Self Merge Meditation:

[Bon Voyage – Vangelis – 2:33]

Close your eyes

Imagine your favourite peaceful place.

Go there. Look around you; take it all in, and feel at home.....

Imagine a figure walking toward you. It is yourself – your self at its fullest potential. Your self -- calm, content, assured and quietly powerful in your being. Let this being walk towards you, until it stops just in front of you. Look at you. Feel the welcome warmth of your truest and fullest self....

Now step forward and merge into your self. Turn and sense the world with all of your senses through your new and perfect self.

Be this.....

Self-care as the one need you can't afford to ignore; include it into your balancing act. This one simple idea can change how you live today, tomorrow and every day after that.

[Bring Yourself Home to Me – Jimmy Little (A) – 3:44]

"MIDLIFE CRISIS" -- AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

PAUSE A MOMENT

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM – MIDLIFE CRISIS

In my years as a counselor for Lifeline, particularly on overnights, I encountered a lot of crisis situations that could conveniently have been classified as occurring in that awful midlife period – that time when many of us realise, or are waking up to the possibility, that the way we put our lives together so far // simply is no longer working. And we suspect with some horror that it hasn't worked for a long time, but we kept doing things the same old way // in the forlorn hope that luck would swing our way again.

But for many people it doesn't, and sometimes the crisis is exacerbated by their biology and psychology being impacted by menopause (women) an andropause (men). 

 

Take the recent high-profile case of the suicide of Charlotte Dawson...

They're saying she was killed by bullies and internet trolls. Or by those pesky, ubiquitous, annoying word alerts like "inner demons". Hmm-mm. Maybe. But I don't think that's the whole picture. It wasn't just depression that claimed her. I suspect she also fell prey to a much larger epidemic – The Fears of imminent Ageing, Regression, and creeping Irrelevance.

I watch people claimed by the fear of getting old. It is a hard bump realising you've passed forty-something, fearing a loss of your sexual currency and becoming invisible. Those experiences are not inevitable, by the way, but that doesn't stop the fear of them, which has exactly the same power over us as the real thing. Psychologist Joseph Burgo says getting older inevitably involves some kind of narcissistic injury: as our bodies age and younger people find us less physically attractive, they seem to look right through us, as if we no longer exist.

Fearing we are losing our sexual currency can come as a blow to our self-esteem, even those of us who have not relied on our looks or mojo to get and hold attention. So it hits hard those who do identify with their youthful looks and sharp intellect, and can devastate those whose living depends on them – people like Charlotte. Dr Burgo says men and women who can't bear the shift to a supporting role may ape the behaviours, clothing and attitudes of the young, trying to preserve their sexual appeal. They may opt for hormone injection, plastic surgery, or sports cars, or trophy partners. Socially, they become more self-absorbed and insensitive, demanding to remain the centre of attention. Sound familiar?

The famous fashion muse Isabella Blow, who at age 49 also lost her battle with depression, was anguished over her inability to "find a home in a world I once influenced".

We might not all walk the red carpet at glamour gigs but we all struggle to find a way to feel we matter as we get older. "I'm not a brand. I'm a human being," Charlotte Dawson said in a tweet not long before she gave away her life. The problem is, the persona many of us created for ourselves was a brand, actually. In fact, that's all it was. All packaging and no substance. And deep inside, we knew it. Part of the morbid fascination I find in early episodes of My Kitchen Rules is the whacked-out characters who play out ridiculous fantasies in the guise of a “reality” cooking competition. There's nothing real about any of it, but some are deluded enough to think it is, contestants and audience alike. It's human delusion // bottled for entertainment.

I know about this stuff. It took me a long time to let go of my invented sense of self, the fake persona called Barrie Barkla. I was trying to become real, without any real idea of what “real” was. It is hard. I am clever and intelligent, but that was not much help. To do well in rebuilding yourself piece by piece requires a lot more modesty than brilliance. Oh, having grandchildren helps, too.

Ageing can be gentle; it can be brutal. I definitely think we need to find a new way to age, to feel valued, to not be wiped out. I was excited to read in the Guardian that there might be a bit of a fledgling new movement for women of a certain age to get stroppy, to boil with fury, to refuse to go beige, to refuse to become invisible.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for a woman, and I don't pretend to know. All I can do is listen to their stories, and be there for them as they search for their path. The Guardian's Melissa Benn points out that women aged over 50 face deep injustices - divorce leaves most women financially worse off, and women earn less and do more - yet they tend to stay silent in public.

Benn is agitating to say women should speak up and start being witty, daring and stroppy. For some, the idea of rebelling means they risk being tarred as alone, unsuccessful, troublesome and now old to boot. But don't say it like those qualities are bad things! They're not. It's those phonies who pretend to be “nice” that I'm very wary of. “Nice” is a coverlet for nastiness

That is the path to freedom, I think: embrace the idea of being subversive, powerful, batty old bastards and broads. Could Charlotte, or Princess Di have been one of those? I doubt it. (It's why so many women go back to university. They want to follow in the steps of luminaries like Doris Lessing, Mary Wesley, Germaine Greer or Iris Murdoch.) But to get eccentric old-bat status, you have to stop caring what other people think of you. That comes genuinely hard, especially for those who live large in the public eye. Individuals with low self-esteem hidden under their undies tend to be more concerned with what others think of them than what they think of themselves. “I've been maligned!” they cry, and threaten to head straight for the nearest lawyer – as if that's going to fix anything.

Even Prime Ministers aren't immune. Remember Julia? Women seem particularly prone to feeling shunned for being single, being childless; and as for having a mental illness! If Andrew Robb were a woman he'd have been out of politics and home doing the dishes a year or more ago. Remember Mary Jo Fisher? Yet the truth is few people really care. And for some dedicated sufferers that's even worse.

It is terrifying to think of becoming insignificant, being wiped out, being annihilated. So, ultimately, one or more of you, like James Dean, like Princess Di, like Charlotte will chose to preserve the more glamorous, manufactured brand, and remain frozen in time... aged forty-something.... forever. For you, suicide may not be an act of desperation but an alluring option. But what if you're wrong? What if there's nothing wrong with you, and you find out, too late, that redemption was just around this next corner and you may have to come back and go through it all again just to get to this point of Decision?

This realization led me on a quest to find one interview question that would yield a universal “a-hah!” from callers contemplating suicide. It took 20 years of trial and error, but I think I found it. It has certainly worked since. Here's it is:

What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your life to date?

To see why this simple question is so powerful, imagine you're the caller now and I've just asked you that question. What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your life to date? What accomplishment would you select?

Now imagine that over the course of the next 15 minutes I asked you these follow-up questions. How would you respond to these?

• Can you give me a detailed overview of your accomplishment?
• Tell me how old you were, where you were, your responsibility, your role, and who else was involved.
• What were the actual results you achieved?
• When did it take place and how long did the project take?
• Why were you chosen? How did you come to be in the position to take the responsibility you did?
• What were 3-4 of the biggest challenges you faced and how did you deal with them?
• Where did you go the extra mile or take the initiative?
• Walk me through the plan, how you managed it. How did you measure its success?
• Describe the environment and resources you could draw upon to support you.
• Explain your partner's/manager's style and whether you liked it.
• What were the technical skills needed to accomplish your objective. How did you acquire them and how were they used?
• What was the biggest mistake you made?
• What aspects of the project did you truly enjoy?
• What aspects did you not especially care about and how did you handle them? How would you deal with them if they arose again?
• Give me some examples of how you managed and influenced others.
• How did you change and grow as a person?
• What type of formal recognition did your receive?
• Knowing what you now know about yourself, what you would do differently if you could do it again?

With answers detailed enough, this one line of questioning can tell you everything you need to know about yourself and your strengths. The original question itself invites you to shift your focus for a few minutes from present feelings of failure to past memories of accomplishment. The insights you could gain are remarkable. But the real secret ingredient is not even in the question; that's just a spoiler on my part. The most important elements are the details and strengths you come up with that underlie what you accomplished. This is what real self- discovery is about -- delving into the strengths of the Who-you-are that accomplished it – still alive and kicking in a back room.

Spend time learning to get the answer to just this one question. What single project or task are you proud of? Then ask it again in the light of more of your accomplishments. Begin to connect the dots. As you do, a fuller picture will emerge of a person who is worth getting re-acquainted with. With willing persistence on your part, you'll soon get to know yourself better than ever before, and feel more comfortable inside the skin of the new person you're going to spend the rest of your life with – You.

WHO ARE YOU?

Behind all the brouha-ha
You are god
Dancing through godness
Experiencing godness
In all it's forms.

There is nothing that is not-god
Yet you are that,
Pretending it is not-god.

BE YOURSELF-FULLY

Doing good for others is our second duty.
Our first is to be fully ourself,
Warts and all.
With out that,
All else is a hollow clang --
A straw in the wind,
A window display.
Insubstantial
And un-trust-worthy.

SEEING IS........???

Let me correct a huge lie right off the top.....

Seeing is NOT-believing.

There are two meanings to that

1. Seeing and Believing are two very different activities; and
2. Once something is Seen, the existence of, and need for Belief evaporate.

Once something is seen, it is known;
Once something is known, there is no need any longer to believe in it:
Both Belief and Disbelief are the lowest form of Not-Knowing.
We believe and/or disbelieve in what we do not yet know.
Once something is known, believing is no longer necessary.

The problem for us humans,
And the reason I bring this up right off the top
Is that we do not often distinguish
Between what we truly see and know, and what we believe,
And
Our minds and bodies don't distinguish between the two.
We broadcast and react to our beliefs as if they are fact.

Believing is not Seeing.
Seeing is a fresh experience of the Is-ness of a matter:
Belief is a stale bunch of second-hand ideas and opinions about what might- or might not be.

Now that that is out of the way....
Let's look at these possibilities around Seeing ---

In an un-aware state -- 

• We see what we expect to see; and

• We see what our past experience and dodgy pattern matchings allow us to see.

Just so much, and no more.

There is a story that the native American medicine men did not see the three ships that Christopher Columbus arrived in, simply because "ship" did not compute with their life experience. They'd never seen one or even heard about a ship. There wasn't even a word for it in their language. An idea of "Ship", in their reality did not exist. So when three of them turned up unexpectedly, they were simply in-visible. The educated medicine men were blind to what was there because they weren't expecting it, and what was there did not fit with their known learning and experience. Had a child come down to the beach, however, it probably would have pointed to the horizon and asked "What's that?"

I have no way of knowing how true that story is, but I do know how the principles of unconscious, selective blindness apply in my experience.

As toddlers, we saw just about everything, and we saw it, at least at first, unjudgmentally in curiosity. Then we began some sifting and sorting of what we saw in order to make some "sense" of all that was coming at us. It's a natural process that prevents us from going into intellectual, perceptory and emotional overload: we do it to survive.

Additionally, some of the things that came at us in the past were accompanied by experiences that varied on a scale from Pleasurable to Painful. Those we related with pleasurable responses we labelled as "Good for us"; those that were accompanied by any measure of discomfort or pain got labelled as "Bad for us". Things falling in the middle between "good" and "bad" were dismissed as "irrelevant". From soap-suds makers to politicians, anyone who wants to sell you something will try to make themselves relevant to you by either promising you pleasure or relief from pain. Hadn't you noticed?

At the "Bad" end of the scale, filters and blinkers ensure that we no longer have to look at certain things. ("If I don't see it, it's not there.") Try telling that to a bus bearing down on you as you cross North Terrace. But in the eons-old jungle strategy we still "freeze" in an attempt to shield ourselves from possible harm.

Unfortunately, in early childhood, we also got distracted from creatively supervising this selection process. We left the board room and left the office mailboy to run the process and empowered him make the choices and decisions about what is "good" or "bad" for us. Consequently, the mailboy (our ego) makes decisions about what he'll allow us to see and what we won't see. The pity of it is that our ego is spectacularly unqualified and incapable of effectively running our lives anywhere except off into the largest ditch. But our ego doesn't care. Neither your ego nor mine gives two hoots about how well or badly it does the job of running our lives, but it is obsessed with keeping its position. Ego will do anything to make sure that it, and all its rules and values and opinions and anything else it considers itself to be, remains in charge. It will even allow you to die, as long as It gets to be Right about its concepts, its beliefs, its opinions and its decisions. Egos are designed for Survival; but not the survival of us -- the survival of their Selves.

Tied in with our ability to screen out what we will and won't get to see, is our Imagination -- our human ability to predict likely outcomes of possible events. Not too many other sentient beings share this unique capacity. Unfortunately, we left that gift also in the hands of our ego. So we got stuck with the human experience of Expectations. We allow possible scenarios to develop in our minds. They fester away until they've developed the same emotional wallop as something that's real and actual, and we create expectations on the basis of these dodgy scenarios.

We see what we EXPECT to see. When our expectations are met, we get to be right. When our expectations are not met, we start carrying on like our home is in a tree.

So, to sum up. Until we step in and take our lives back, we will see what we expect to see (and we'll be right about that), and we'll only see what our past experiences allow us to see (and as far as we are concerned, that is all there is).
Period.

We rarely see unadulterated reality, and even if we did, we can't tell the difference between fiction and fact.

Do you know what sages are? They are seers. They are people who know about their egos, but exercise their author-ity to choose to reclaim the CEO's chair, and the humility to stay open to possibilities they haven't seen yet. They consciously and actively open up to "other" possibility. They see everything.

You, too can become a seer. Become aware of how unaware and undercooked you are, and tell the truth about that. Start consciously Noticing -- noticing things that you haven't noticed in the last few minutes. It doesn't matter what they are, as long as they are happening somewhere in your field of awareness right now. Just notice them. No need to do anything about it. Just notice this, then that, then something else. Wake up. Every time you remember to, flick your awareness around to what's going on around you. A really useful exercise is to start a habit of regularly noticing what's going on in your peripheral vision.

Over our lives we have been narrowing down and focussing more and more on less and less until we now see everything about nothing. It's just a habit. We change restrictive habits by replacing them with healthier, more open ones. Start noticing what's going on around you.

If you want to see more, start looking.

You'll be amazed what shows up.

And at what you've been missing out on.

MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE

There are certain givens that seem to go with the condition of being human for human beings. They might not be ideal for peace of mind, but they seem to be an inescapable part of the human package. Two of these are our needs for Significance and Meaning.

I spent nigh on 50 years of my early life being towed around by a need to search for the "meaning and significance of life". Then I got the joke, and it was on me -- there is no meaning or significance to life, and it doesn't mean anything, nor is it significant that there's no meaning or significance to it Wow. Still chuckling, I was freed to get on with the joy of experiencing whatever was happening, without getting distracted from the experience and bogged down in trying to figure out "What the hell does this mean about life, the world and me in all of it?"

Free at last! .... except sometimes. When my ego stepped back into the office, an emotional need for some sense of perspective and purpose once again reared its ugly head. And since I'm stuck with my ego, at least for the time being, I found  myself challenged to deal with this illegitimate, unnecessary, but nevertheless real need for Meaning and Significance. Here's what I found that helped me and has helped others who've brought their quest for meaning up with me.....

A sense of Meaning arises from adopting --

• A coherent philosophy of life
• An optimistic interpretation of why we took on the challenge of materialising as a human being, rather than as, say, a microbe or a lump of rock
• A firm handle on what is important to "me" -- a sense of values
• Something to do each day that allows "me" to express these things.

Let's expand briefly on each of these four launch-pads for meaning.

1) A coherent philosophy of life involves having a clear idea about life in general and for the "I" and the "me" in it. A philosphy that works for you. It's a framework that makes emotional sense to you and serves you in your quest for peace and purpose. Don't worry if it's "right" or "wrong"; those terms were invented by others who wanted to manipulate you into adopting their beliefs and opinions which, truth be known, probably weren't working for them either. And don't buy into criticisms that having your life work for you is "selfish". If your life is truly working for you, and my life is truly working for me, then life is working.

Now since life is always twisting and turning (hadn't you noticed?), a vital philosophy of life won't be carved in stone. It will change and adapt as you grow in experience. It's essential to get that, whatever ideas you adopt, they should serve you, not the other way around. If you find yourself getting defensive or fighting for your ideas about life, they've probably gone way past their Use-By date and become a Belief.

2) An optimistic interpretation of what being alive is all about for you does not mean "positive thinking". It means recognising and accepting that positive and negative attitudes are two, inseparable sides of the same coin, and that all positions are self-proving. No matter where we stand, we get to be right about it, well, in the only place that matters -- in our own minds. But Life has this habit of throwing up situations that invite or challenge us to move around and try out new points of view and strategies that work, just for today. If we find ourselves feeling righteous about something, it's a pretty good sign we've sat there for too long.

3) A third source of Meaning is a sense of Values. We all have values, but very few of us have a clear idea of exactly what they are. Most of us would be hard-pressed to name more than 10 of our values (although we have scores of them), and even harder pushed to describe what we mean by them. For example, "honesty" --- on a scale of 1 to 10, how much honesty do you want? From 1 to 10, or from 4 to 5.5? Do you really want an honest answer to "Does this make my bum look big?"

There are several advantages to discovering what our values are. One is that we find what our guiding beacons really are; what principles govern many of our choices. Another advantage is that we discover that we have many values that contradict and conflict with each other, depending on the circumstances. Such discoveries take us a long way towards those times when we behave seemingly inconsistently, or why we might be "in two minds" about something. A third advantage to finding out what our values are is that we discover that our values sort themselves into hierarchies of importance, and that those hierarchies flick and change in less than a blink of an eye, according to circumstances and who we're with at the moment. Once we know this about ourselves and others, we are less likely to be taken by surprise at when we, or others, behave in ways that are judged as inconsistent or even hypocritical.

4) The last source of Meaning is the kind of activities we choose to undertake each day. If we have a fluid, coherent outlook on life and how it works for ourself, if we have a reasonably optimistic interpretation of what opportunities for experience just being alive as "you" provides you, and if you have a good grasp on what's important to you in the present situation, then you are more likely to choose activites and things to do that help you express those aspects of the self you are creating yourself to be. That is a major source of contentment and fulfilment.

So much for satisfying our need for Meaning. How about Significance? How do we satisfy our need to feel considerable and that we make a difference? Having already covered most of this ground, the rest is fairly simple and straighforward....

Having people depend on us is part of the picture. Be the kind of person that can be depended upon. Keep your agreements, not out of some misplaced sense of duty, but as an expression of the who-you-are.

Another part of feeling significant comes from becoming involved with something bigger than your self. What that might be is entirely up to you. You could start with where you are employed. Start with your family. Start with your friends. Start with something that appeals to your spirituality. Start with something that appeals to your sense of community. Start involving yourself with something that aligns with what gives you a sense of Meaning and offers you an opportunity to express what you've discovered is important to you. Anything that offers you an opportunity to explore and expand your experience and stretch you possibilities, preferably on a daily basis. Remember the adage, "If you don't use it, you'll lose it."

As a result of undertaking any or many of the above opportunities, you will begin to develop the final skill for owning the ground you stand on -- developing a coherent self-image that works for you. We all have a carping critic within whose negative evaluations don't serve us well at all. The words he/she uses and the quality of emotional energy that drives them home may originally have been meant to motivate us to do better, but they went into a desperate overkill years ago. It's time to put that critic to better use. He/she has the advantage of knowing all your secrets, and that's a rather handy person to have on your side.

You might like to try this game. Imagine you are an understanding aunt or uncle who cares deeply for you, and you are having a kind conversation with your critic. As this caring aunt/uncle, ask your critic what he/she thinks about your shortcomings. Your critic may say "He's rude. He's arrogant. He's a coward. He's scared." Now let this uncle/aunt say back to your critic, I know this person. You misunderstand him. He's not rude; he's up-front and very honest. He's not arrogant; he's highly perceptive and intelligent -- and honest. He creates you as able to handle the truth. He's honouring you. He's not a coward; yes, he's afraid, but that makes him courageous because he doesn't cop out. Sure, he's scared, but that doesn't stop him facing up to his fears. You can trust him to be there for you, whatever happens."

In this game, you become your own best friend, and you acknowledge that every criticism that was ever levelled at you was done so in love -- because you say so, and for no other reason. You choose to change the way you see yourself, not denying the negative stuff, but balancing it out with the positives that have so far escaped your attention. The opposite of a negative self-image is not a positive one, but a comprehensive and coherent one that acknowledges and integrates all your traits and characteristics into a coherent and authentic wholeness.

That is the essence of Integrity. Everything in balance. Nothing omitted. Nothing denied. Everything significant, and nothing more significant than anything else.

SELF-WORTH -v- SELF-IMPORTANCE

There are certain givens to being human. One of these givens is the need for a sense of Self, and a feeling of Worthiness around that. Whether our need for a sense of self-worth is good or bad, or right or wrong may make an interesting topic of meditation for ascetics and spiritual purists, but the bottom line is that a Self is something we've all got. Although it's not who or what we are, it is what we think and feel we are, and that is a quite different kettle of fish. The reality is that we do all have a big bunch of ideas, beliefs, concepts, opinions and feelings about what we are, and we're continually having to work out ways to prove, justify, and live with them. For ordinary mere mortals like me, the need for a sense of Self Worth is so strong that it cannot, and ought not be ignored. Without a strong, healthy sense of being worthwhile, we tend to fall into an unhealthy default, substitute condition of Self-Importance -- the breeding ground of suffering.

Self-Worth flourishes when our emotional needs are being met.
Self-Importance rears its ugly head when one or more of our emotional needs is not being met, and expects and demands that someone or something else ought to "fix the problem".

So it's probably a good idea first to check how emotionally fulfilled we are. Here's a simple audit you can do right now, if you like..... On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest level of satisfaction, and 10 being the highest, how do you rate yourself on the following questions?

1. How secure do you feel -- in your home life?
2.                                        -- in your work life?
3.                                        -- in your social environment?
4. How much attention do your feel you get -- at home, at work and socially?
5. How much attention do you give -- at home, at work and socially?
6. How much do you feel you are the author and cause in your day-to-day life?
7. How much do you feel part of a wider community?
8. Can you obtain privacy when you need to?
9. Do you have at least one close friend? How close?
10. Do you have an intimate relationship in your life -- one where you feel you are physically and emotionally accepted for who you are by at least one person other than yourself? How are you with yourself? Tell the truth.
11. Do you feel an emotional connection with others? How connected are you with your own emotions? Do you experience them, or do you spray them all over other people?
12. Do you feel you have a status that is acknowledged by someone who is important to you?
13. Do you feel you are achieving things and feel competent in at least one area of your life?
14. Are you mentally and/or physically stretched in ways which give you a sense of meaning and purpose?

OK. Look at your ratings. They will give you a guide to how and where your sense of Self-Worth could be improved

How is your sense of Self-Worth?  Wherever Self-Worth is low, there is a strong likelihood that it is replaced by Self-Importance. ("I'm too important to have to put up with this!")

What do I mean by Self-Worth? Self-Worth is that ingrained, largely unconscious self-evaluation that recognises one's talent and attributes. Self-Worth is utterly impersonal. No matter how high or low, how accurate or inaccurate it is, no matter how comprehensive or limited it is, no matter how positive or negative -- you deepest, unconscious self-assessment is regarded by you as Holy Writ, and doesn't give a damn about how much it affects your life. Which makes it kind of important that you should be able to know and tell the truth - at least to yourself - about where you are on the Self-Worth scale in every area of your life.

How much meaning and significance do you directly experience in your life?
How connected do you feel to others around you?
How much does a sense of Purpose (as distinct from Duty or Necessity, Anxiety or Stress, ) keep you awake at night or get you up in the mornings.
How much of your moment by moment attention is occupied with exploring new experiences and stretching your possibilities?

These are all things you can do something about; in fact, you are the only one who can. Life is DIY. If you want a helping hand, you'll find one on the end of each of your arms.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

In the way you live your life,
Are you Cause or Effect.
Well, it's bit of both, isn't it?
In some ways we're aware of being the the author (Cause) of our situation;
At other times we're certain we're the effect of our history.

There are times -- good and bad -- when I realise I'm still the effect of my parenting.
I used to be that way 100% of the time
Until someone challenged me to look at it another way.
He said, "You are the Cause of your parenting -- your back-story.
You are the Cause.
Your parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents.......
They all had to come together to create Me.
"I am" is the Cause."

I am.
I
Am
Cause
Just be-cause........

CONTENMENT, WILLINGNESS & GRATITUDE

I read this morning --
"It is impossible to settle into the present
Without first cultivating Contentment."

Contentment and Willingness
Are the parents of Gratitude --
That heartful YES to life
As she presents herself.

Deliberately choose to embrace what-is-so,
Contentedly,

As an expression of
"This is the kind of person I choose
To be."

MIRACLE

 A miracle is not so much an event
As it is a moment of overwhelming experience.

A miracle is a moment
When we get a profoundly extrasensory flash of recognition
Of the divinity of Existence.
We witness a wider reality
That momentarily washes away all our petty concerns.

Miracles happen every moment;
We just fail to see them.
Somewhere in the process of growing up
We  got distracted from being what we are
In order to experiment with acting some sort of role.
We misplaced our in-sightful innocence
In which everything was miraculous.

But that I-know-sense is still there --
Waiting
For us to come back
And real-ise..........

SOFTEN THE ADDICTIONS

The agitations of the mind are addictive.
When static is buzzing,
Upsetting your equanimity,
Notice the addiction to peturbation;
Soften around it
And see for yourself what lies behind the noise.

INNER PERFECTION

There is an inner perfection
The same for every one.
When the pysche stops dancing, churning and burning,
Its journey done --
There it is,
Where it has been all day long;
Searched for,
Striven for,
Longed for.
Perfection never leaves;
It remains,
Forgetten and unnoticed.

Simply re-member
And notice
This here/now is perfect,
Just as it is.
Surrender to that.

LOOKING/LISTENING/FEELING/SMELLING/TASTING/SENSING AROUND

I cannot see my face --
Not directly;
I can see only reflections of it,
And I see them all around me.
Others are mere created reflecions of "I" and "me" --
How else could I recognise "them"
Other-wise?

Neither can I see the face of God --
Not directly.
I look, and No-thing presents Itself.
But I am surrounded by reflections of That
Godness

Lose yourself
As lovers lose themselves.
Give yourself over
To that Greater Un-known
That is greater than I and Me,
And be that also.

Everything around me exists only as a perception in my mind.
That is
All it is.
What is that thought-thing?

OPPOSITES ARE-TRACKED

Opposites are not separate
But irrevocably inter-connected.
Like the two faces of one coin,
One side cannot survive without the other.
We dance along the strands of that interconnection,
Pretending to be one
But not the other.......
Yet changing sides when it suits us,
Deluding
And deluded.

What makes us vulnerable is not our duality,
Our unexplainable inconsistencies
But our delusions about them.

Each one of us is a complex of dualities,
A mystery of competing contradictions.
Illogicalities and paradoxes,
Challenging us to take a step back
And look from another, wider perspective.

Don't be hostage to surprise;
Don't be troubled.
If you expect life to be fully rational
You are bound for frustration.
Simply notice what-is
One-der within it
And enjoy the play of light-ness.

REAL-ATIONSHIP

This much I know....
We become what we love,

AND

We become what we resist.

So much for our duality.

But I can't just write it off at that.
I'm tantalised by the inner-dwelling relationship
Between what we love
And what we resist.
From that interdwelling interaction
A richness of experience arises,
Mysteriously un-reasonable, often contradictory,
And ineffably human.

POINTING

People become obsessed
With rules, traditions and texts
Only
When they have lost their sense
Of what and where those things point to.

Ivan M. Grainger

AUTHENTICITY

We do not react and interact with the world as it is:
We interact with a world reconstructed by our selves.
What is "real" to us is not actual.
Our realities are seriously flawed.
Until we get authentic about that,
And begin exploring and owning up to our delusions
We cannot be authentic in the actual world.

Our reconstruction of reality is twofold ---

Firstly by our perceptions;
What we see and hear is filtered and reshaped
By what we've conditioned ourselves to expect,
Rather than by the actuality of what-is happening.

Secondly by the interdiction of our guiding operating principles;
We don't react directly with what is happening
But with what we say to ourselves about what is happening in our world.

This is where "others" come in;
They reflect our misshapen perceptions back to us.
Isn't that nice of them?
Whatever others say about you
Says more about their percpetions
Than it says about you.
Likewise, whatever you say about another --
You give yourself away
(In more ways than one.....)
Now we begin to get a different perspective on what The Christ meant when he said -- "Judge not, lest ye be judged."


Authenticity begins with getting authentic about our arms-length, emotional insulating from cold, hard reality.

WHAT WE ARE

Ego thinks...
We are individual beings.
That is a limited perception;
We are much more.
We are individual points of experiencing and perceiving
Within one infinite being.

PACIFIST OT PASSIVIST?

Antiwar-ists are not pacifists;
Nor are conscientious copouts........
One cannot be an effective Pacifist by being a Passivist.
Equally one cannot be effective as a Pacifist by resisting aggression.
True Pacifism involves meeting yourself where you are
And your circumstances as and where they are,
Recognising the outer reflections of your inner dilemmas
And engaging creatively and openly
With your contributions to all of it.

FINDERS KEEPERS

If you look for it
You will find
You cannot find
Your mind.

When you get that,
You will find
So much more.

(With thanks to Ivan M Granger)

PEACE AND CONTENTMENT

Do you yearn for peace and contentment?
Call off the search.
Strip your self psychically naked.
Drop all pretences and desires for change --
Even the desire for contentment.
Total self-acceptance
Is prerequisite
To stillness.

BLISS

Bliss is being present,
Open
And unreservedly available
To what's happening.

YOU ARE THE ANSWER

You already have the answer
In your here/now experience:
You've just forgotten what the question was.
Let go of your mind-ful of unnecessary things.
Surrender to the inevitable now......
Whittle yourself down
To nothing but the question at your core.
Enter that emptiness
And let it lead you
To ecstasy.
You already are the answer you've been looking for:

CHOSING

We choose the world we live in
And the way we live in that self-created world.
We choose what we give our attention to
And what we ignore.
If something we've created isn't working for us,
Anything we've chosen
Can be un-chosen.

Simple.

Maybe not easy --
The Queen Mary, once under way, takes some effort to change course.
But simple.
So simple, indeed, that it gets overlooked or rejected
By minds that wallow in complication
And avoid effort.

HARD LESSONS

I'm having a bit of a rough time recently,
Learning the difference between Assertiveness and Aggression.
I've had three hobnail-booted women give me a right emotional kicking in the last four days:
Two of them have even ganged up together.
(That's OK. Sooner or later they'll turn on each other.)

I'm finding....
Assertiveness is remaining open and sensitive to the rights of others while I protect my own rights in the matter:
Aggressiveness is when I trample on the rights and sensibilities of everyone around while I protect myself.

I'm standing in the questions --

What does it feel like to be free of (the grip of) anger?
What does it feel like to be at peace?

Interesting what's come up, huh?

REFLECTIONS ON THE ERUPTION OF STRUGGLE IN EGYPT

It is time for transformation,
But the struggles are for Change --
Existing Government and powerful externals like the US
Want to keep the status quo
To survive their own ends.
Extremist elements see a chance to push their own barrows;
Some just want an end to violence and repression,
Even fewer have a vision for honest democracy......

Like each of us,
They're coming from behind the 8-ball.....

From oppositional parenting minds
We learned to survive
By taking a position
And by opposing --

"To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
And, by opposing, end them."

Well, that doesn't work:
Position creates Opposition,
And Opposition staples that-which-is-opposed into permanent position.

Outwardly, effort is necessary,
But inwardly we are invited to yield.
When we finally wake up and realise
That something is dreadfully wrong
We are challenged to yield.
In the end, if we have not already done so,
That which opposes will be forced to yield everything
Unto death.

My suggestion is to yield now
And enjoy all that life offers you.
But we always have the option
Of fighting life all the way to the grave......
Over to you..... Your choice.

EMBARRASSMENT

A "Boo!",
An orgasm,
And the moment we realise
"I've just made a complete dickhead of myself."....
These are the only times we're truly and utterly alive.
Then we muck the moment up
By thinking about it.

Why are we so eager to avoid embarrassment?
It's a lovely emotion.
It brings a flush of colour to your face
And a sparkle to your eyes.
It is a rare moment of being totally human
And alive.
It is a moment of vulnerability
When we could discover how fully loved and protected we are --
If only we'd surrender to it.

WHO WE ARE....

One day.....
That-Which-Is contemplated the nature of it's Is-ness,
That is, It asked itself "What am I?"........

BANG!!!!

It fractured into numberless shards of matter.
Nothing "mattered".

Like a holograph,
Each sliver of matter contained the complete pattern,
The content and image
Of the whole.

As far as I know, humans are one of only three beings
Capable of self-awareness,
(the others being chimpanzees and orang-utans).
And we are probably the ONLY species that is capable (theoretically)
Of recognising our wholeness and divinity.
Certainly we are the only species to reject
The awareness of our godness ,
To lament the imagined loss of, and separation from what we already are
And to go looking for it elsewhere
Outside of our selves.

How sad is that?

SPIRITUALITY & RELIGION

Religion  was useful to me --
It reminded me of myself as Spirit,
And there is more......

Religion is a successful attempt
To limit and control
An experience of awakening and freeing.

Spirituality opens
And possibilizes;
Religion closes
And limits.

The love of Godness is not a limited resource
To be withheld at whim
Or doled out by some priest.
The love of godness
Is what we already are,
Thinking that we need some system to hang onto.

FAITH & CERTAINTY

Absolute certainty is not an expression of faith --
It is a symptom of a lack of faith.
My father lived his entire life projecting an aura of iron-willed certainty -- about everything.
A few days before I last saw him, he had a near-death experience.
It shattered him.
I watched him dying in utter bewilderment and fear,
Drowning in his hitherto unacknowledged doubts.
It was terrible to behold.

The dictum "You can't take it with you"
Applies to righteous certainty.
The mind cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

The ultimate certainty,
The portal to heaven,
Is the Certainty of Not-Knowing.