HOW TO GET EASY WITH UNCERTAINTY

For Jared..........

and anyone else faced with Uncertainty...... 

How do I get easy with the uncertainties that come with just being alive? Big question, huh?

[How Can I Be Sure? – Daryl Braithwaite (A) – 3:33]

There is a cliché that goes “We live in uncertain times”. It's hardly an observation of great daring – it's my perception that, throughout our history (personal and cultural) we have always live in conditions of uncertainty.  Certainty is a fiction; it exists nowhere. It is an addiction of the human ego. Parented as it is by Uncertainty and Ignorance, the ego seeks to hide its bastardy with brash displays of hollow "certainty". The level of righteous energy and control we seek to exert on situations and folks around us is directly proportional to the levels of our own refused Uncertainty, Anxiety and Grief that underpin the condition. 

The popular response to The Big Question is to avoid uncertainties and risks. That's a common and futile human reaction; it flies against nature and comes with a hefty price tag -- your vitality and aliveness. Dodging uncertainty goes against the flow of evolution; it leads to virtual death, because it guarantees that only stale eyes and ideas will be brought to the table.

Even before conception, life was impossible without risks. Several million sperm cells and only one gets the cigar!? Was that supposed to cheer us up with the thought that, after that, everything else should be a breeze?

 

There are few cushions or guarantees, and all of us face decisions, daily, that could turn out badly. We're encouraged, and in some case legally forced into an insurance industry that's based on a blatant principle of engendering a climate of Fear of Loss, then making promises of Security in return for your money, then paying out less than they take off you. Even on Sunday we don't escape the barrage of positive blather -- we get to sing hymns lauding "Blessed Assurance"...

 

At every level of our life we take daily leaps of faith, large and small. We lean our trust against others, hoping they'll do the right thing. We count upon predictions and trends that could slam into reverse at any moment. Risk is simply another word for Uncertainty and Insecurity, and it has been shown many times that uncertainty and insecurity increase the chance of a stress response. Risk is unavoidable, even in the most reclusive life. 

How you choose to handle risk will be vitally important to your emotional and physical well-being, peace of mind, comfort, your stress level, and your success – whatever that means to you.

Psychologists have shown that it is impossible to remove emotions from decision-making. Therefore, to handle risk well, you must not only inform yourself thoroughly on those in whom you invest your self, you must equally take into account your own pattern of psychological reactions to uncertainty, opposition, paradox and ambivalence. 

 

[Blithe Bells – Aust. Chamber Orchestra (A) –]

The good news is that, if you know yourself well enough, you can make risk your friend. Here are some guidelines for you:

1. Know your prevailing ambient anxiety level, know what triggers sudden surges, and be honest about it.

2. Be patient with your emotional reactions.

3. By all means be rational, but don't be fooled that reason or positive thinking can defeat risk or the resulting anxiety. It cannot. Logic and reason are but a part of the equation. Do something irrational for a change -- welcome uncertainty as an invitation to look at he situation freshly, with new eyes, from another perspective.

4. Gather as much useful information as possible.

5. Take in other points of view, and put them straight into your "Maybe" file.

6. Don't trust the crowd. The crowd nearly always gets it wrong. Never underestimate the pervasive popularity and alpha-power of stupidity.

7. Don't believe that trends and odds are anywhere near the same as certainty.

The parts of yourself that you might like to get more familiar with are those parts of you that are patient, rational, gatherers of information, not swayed by what the rest of the group thinks, and psychologically at ease with who you are.

Here's a meditation that you may find as revealing as I do – Assume each of these following experiences I'll give you to recall is an answer to a question you've temporarily forgotten. See if you can find the forgotten questions for yourself that have been answered by each of these experiences as they are with you......... now this is entirely for you and, rest assured, you cannot be wrong.....

• Living with the family I've got. Your experience of this is your  answer. What might the original question have been? ( eg. How do I get to experience pride and a sense of accomplishment?)
• In the middle of this relationship.
• In the middle of abundance.
• In the middle of scarcity = What do I experience? What was the question that might have led to this experience?
• In the middle of knowing.
• In the middle of not-knowing. 
• In the middle of sex – your experience is the answer. What might the question have been? (What does it feel like to......?)
• In the middle of feeling.
• In the middle of not-feeling.
• In the middle of freedom.
• In the middle of restriction.
• In the middle of experience.
• In the middle of all that is.
  
• In my middle.
  

Notice, as you went through this list with me, any question/answers that came up more than once, as the source question of more than one of the answers you just recognised. There might be one originating question that leads to several experiences. Similarly, you will also find multiple questions that lead to one experience. This is a marvellous way of getting to know your true self, and what has motivated you and led to your current circumstances, state of mind and mood.

At first glance, it's hard to see how risk could be anybody's friend, which is why there has been such a push to remove the human element. "Rational risk" seems preferable to the kind of risk that keeps people up at night and promotes a nagging state of anxiety. Far better, it would seem, to turn risk into a matter for the number crunchers. The rise of computerised risk assessing testifies to the popularity of Quantified Risk. But at the same time, Rational Risk has proved to be a dismal failure. The complex financial instruments that led to the economic collapse of 2008 were devised with the input of physicists and mathematicians, who supposedly had reduced risk to a sliver. What they didn't count on, and still don't, is human ego. Human jealousy, greed and rivalry intervene, along with other psychological factors - denial, competitiveness, temptation, self-importance and over-reaching. Irrational forces toppled the whole rationalist scheme - as it was bound to do. D-u-u-u-hh!

The psychological downfall of those who misjudge risk is writ large in the current political and economic debacles we find ourselves in. Now is your opportunity to look into yourself to see the factors that even the most prominent figures are prey to. What are your stakes in this....?

1. Denying that there is a problem with your choices and decisions.

2. Freezing, or flipping out in the face of crisis.

3. Your inability to deal creatively with anxiety.

4. Your fixations on winning. Obsession blinds you to process -  you adopt the thought that "the ends justify the means. The rules don't apply to me – I'm above criticism."

5. Competitiveness - refusing to lose, no matter what it takes, or who it takes out. Destroying any opposition or dis-agreement. “If you aren't for me, you're against me.”

6. Over-attachment, making the crisis and controls personal.

7. Over-controlling, focusing on irrelevant details while losing sight of the big picture.

8. Obfuscating. Looping and distracting attention away from what's really going on.

At the risk of over-simplifying, these psychological blind spots can be overcome by asking every day, "How am I doing?" I don't mean this in the sense of how you are performing, or did I win that one, but rather how do you feel about what's just happened? Do you rest easy? Can you look others cleanly in the eye, without having to stare them down. Do you detect signs of stress or anxiety? Is joy emanating from you, or do you look as if you've just sucked too hard on a pickle? If so, what are you doing about it? 

We're not talking about psychoanalysing yourself. We're talking about being aware, and being in touch with yourself. Your psyche is constantly changing; change is the only constant. Being able to stay in touch and in harmony with your self is a huge benefit if you want to keep up with the shifting scene. When you are flexible, open, and alert, you are becoming the master of risk. When you're defensive, aggressive, fearful, jealous and closed, you will be toppled by your own excesses. Bank on it (pun intended).

In the end, risk becomes your friend when you have enough self-awareness and humility to be comfortable with change, uncertainty, and unpredictability. These are inescapable aspects of life. They're what make it interesting. Otherwise, we might just as well have stayed home in heaven. It's up to you whether risks create stress inside or the very opposite - out of uncertainty can come excitement, creativity, new solutions, discovery, and the fulfillment of your inner potential.

I earned this wisdom back in March 2009 on a 7-hour bus trip from Bangkok to Surin City. I had sold up everything I owned, packed a few belongings, and flown to Thailand to start a new life with someone I deeply loved. Suddenly I felt more utterly alone and vulnerable than ever before in my life. And this is what I wrote ==

[Rufiyaa – Phoung Anh]

ON THE BUS -- BANGKOK TO SURIN (March 2009)

[Post Script: I had absolutely no idea when I wrote the notes below, that these experiences would turn out to be a vital dress-rehearsal to surviving the physical and transformational upheavals immediately following open heart surgery just 12 months later  There are no accidents......]

I am a stranger here.
Leaving the country of my birth
At age 66, I have come to live in this beautiful land,
But a country that has no niche with my name on it...........
I feel like a homeless tourist,
Welcome (up to a point)
And alien.

I have no control;
I am suddenly so very ordinary
And lost.
I feel my physical and mental well-ness
Being stretched and stressed with such rapid and drastic changes in locale.
My mind's reaction is to search for and attempt to restore
Something familiar --
To retreat from this landscape
To a country more familiar
Into rituals of familiar normality.
But I can't;
There's no-where to escape to.
I feel isolated, fearful and un-well.

I can feel myself creating this moment.
In this strange country I must accept whatever comes in the next,
Moment to moment
On its terms, not mine. I have no authority here.
Here, barrelling though picture-card rice paddies
Populated by alien people
Whose lives are filled
With their own concerns,
Notions of my self-esteem and meaning
Have no currency whatsoever.
They have lost their former power
To define and control this experience.

There's something I can do, though
And I'm doing it with all the focus I can muster --
I'm sensing into the the energy of each new locale --
The air-plane, the stopover terminal at K-L,
The Bangkok customs hall,
The bus station booking counter,
The lunch-stop markets.......
And maintaining a sense of balance in each place,
Observing and assimilating "How it's done here",
And being appropriate to that.
Balancing at that level.
Making it deeply OK to be shifted and swept off my feet
By the unfamiliar currents and eddies of a new environment,
Going along with the flow,
And creatively harmonising with it as much as I can.

Surrendering to just this much;
Until I have no more resistance.

When the current slows and allows,
I open up carefully like a newborn babe,
Exploring new and strange sights, sounds and smells gradually
Allowing uncertainty, fear, sadness and loss
To rise and fall --
And allowing a new energy to flow over and through me,
Dissolving the old boundaries between "Will"" and "Won't".

I've been blessed at just about every check-in counter along the way
With fellow-travellers who seem determined to do it the hard way,
Hanging on for dear life to their “shoulds”,
Bristling with self-important "Won'ts";
People who resist the way it's happening for them.
Thank you. You remind me that's not the way to do it.

...... I'm learning a lot today
About transformation.”

Handling the unknown can be a bit like going to live in a new country --

Get out and around, get familiar with the layout,

Allow yourself to get creatively lost in strange surroundings.

Learn the language,

Smile "Hi" to the locals,

Get to know the new rules, the customs, and "the way it's done here",

And be respectful and appropriate to them.

Expect some stress,

Our minds usually tolerate only so much

Before resisting the unfamiliar.

That's just how minds are.

Practice extending the threshold of your tolerance.

As you get older, take it from me – you're going to need it.

Make it OK to be shifted and tossed around

By the currents and eddies of change.

Drop every urge to fight the flow.

It's just culture shock

Make it OK to open slowly

And explore everything gradually.

There's no need to rush.

Surrender to each new experience,

And gradually get into harmony with it.

(Unison is not required – create a harmony that is pleasing to you).

Wherever you find yourself,

Sense the energy of each new space;

Strike a fresh sense of balance.

Allow times of uncertainty, fear, sadness or loss if they crop up --

Such feelings are common and natural responses to radical change.

Make them OK. Allow new energies to flow over and through you unimpeded.

Allow old boundaries to dissolve.

Allow the fullest possible flush of new freedom

To sweep you up.

Now is the only available time

To be stretched and re-shaped

By the powerful forces of what is

As yet unknown.

You need only three items in your travel kit --

• Willingness to venture
• Openness to experience
• An elastic personal integrity.

With these three willingnesses, you can be whatever you choose. All you have to do is decide your destination for today and embrace the journey. You don't have to make Uncertainty and Risk your closest allies, but life is a lot easier and much more memorable if you do. Shoulder your belongings, and put one foot in front of the other. The path will open before you. It always has, hasn't it? It always will.



Namaste.

[The Tender Trap – David Bridie (A) – 5:05]

KARMA

Have you ever said, or thought to yourself “Lets get out of here. This place (or this person) has bad karma.” We're referring to those feelings we get somewhere in our body about the good or bad energy emanations felt to be generated by someone or something.

Karma also means bringing upon oneself predictable, inevitable results, desirable or not, either in this incarnation or in another. And by "another incarnation", I'm not talking about some future lifetime – I've been to the threshold a few times and I really don't know about that: I'm talking about the many reinventions we experiment with and go through in this lifetime. If you put your hand on a hot stovetop, it burns us in this lifetime – not in some future fantasy.

According to Buddhism, human inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also to Karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. In Karmic culture, we ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.

 

Karma has been defined as “A continuous, present-time acting-out of an accumulated, uncompleted past”, a past that lies hidden under a blanket of pretending, deceiving, and a wall of smoke, mirrors and distracting – Don't look at me, will you just look at that!!??

I prefer to use the term “consequences” because it comes with somewhat less religious provenance and aroma of moral “punishment” than the word “karma”. But this is semantics. What I get is the we are both cause and consequence, living person-ally in a continuous ebb and flow of of cosmic causes and consequences. None of us lives in a vacuum. We are part of the bio-organism that we live in. Science presently confirms that not one part of a whole can change without affecting the whole. This means there is a flow-on from everything we say, do , think and feel (or not, as the case may be). And, whether we believe it or not, are aware of it or not, the effect is immediate. We live in a milieu of action and reaction, action and interaction. And this Law cannot be manipulated without causing further consequences.

Bottom line? Ignore or dismiss the flowback effect from your choices and decisions at your peril. If you spit in the wind, it lands in your face. 

Be aware.

[I Chose You – Paulini (A) – 3:35]

DON'T COMPETE -- CREATE.

Why can't we have a world that works for everyone? If this is your experience, perhaps I can answer it for you with a few intensely personal questions that may start you rolling again on your journey of self-discovery :-

What is it you're attempting to accumulate? Is it money? Affection? Respect? Loyalty? Security? Power? Possessions? Knowledge? Wisdom? …..

Why? What's the poverty you're trying to hide?

Does someone else HAVE to lose in order for you to gain? From my experience, only if you're lazy, lack imagination, or there's something seriously out of whack in your psychology and social skills. In any case, you can never truly have anything you take from another because you're always expecting to lose what you “know” you don't deserve. You're well on your way into a lifetime of chronic dissatisfaction, anxiety and disappointment.

Life coach, Stephen R, Covey once wrote: The key to life is not accumulation. It is Contribution. But for as long as we live in duality and feel separated and powerless, we so easily get hooked up in parent thoughts of Lack and Loss, and games and rackets of Jealousy and Competition. For some personal reason it does not occur to us that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we have the power to create what we want for ourselves. We are awesomely powerful at creating what we DON”T want; how is it that we so vehemently refuse to trust our ability to create heaven on earth?

Out of that ignorance and contrariety, we re-enact the same old strategy of, by fair means or foul, stealing from others what we won't give ourself. Individuals, families, groups, tribes, and nations get caught up in “I”, “Me, and “Mine”, and go hammer and tongs to “grab it while I can get away with it.”

“Don't compete, create”. Freeing words! Byron Katie, in her book Loving What Is: writes “As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything else is responsible for your situation, it is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.”

Wouldn't a life of creating be more fun and satisfying than continuing a life of impotence? 

Sit with these magic words for a while – “Don't compete, create”.

[That's the Way It is – Celine Dion – 4:02]

SICK & TIRED? THEN STOP.

Why is there so much unhappiness in the world? The short answer – because you and I put it there. The world we see and hear and smell and touch is our world – our creation. “Wrong!” you cry. “It was here before I was born; I grew up in it!” Hmm. I wonder about that. “It was here before I was born” is an assumption, an assumption that's worth exploring, but on another day. For today's purposes it doesn't matter whether or not our world was here before we became aware of it. What matters for today is that if we don't like our world, we don't have to stay in it. We can swim out of this unhappy backwater into clearer streams that are going somewhere.

All Unhappiness is caused by a thought with a feeling attached to it. The feeling wallops itself and the parent thought in two directions -- home into your cellular memory and out into the world's soup of social consciousness. Whatever we pick up from our environment, we amplify it, carry it and add it back where we got it from. We give it life. In this sense, the thoughts and feelings we hook into are using us to survive themselves. They're parasites!

It's little wonder to me that we so readily pick up on ways and means to be unhappy. We're literally drowning in them. Unhappiness and dissatisfaction seem to be the international currency of bartering and negotiating for what we want, and think we can't get unless we can manipulate someone or something else to give it to us. You can blame your ego for that.

Well, how is unhappiness working as your means to get happy? Not well, huh? Sounds like an exercise in futility. Sounds like it's time for another way.... Take heart from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.” So here we go...

Firstly, it's absolutely counter-productive to turn your back on what and where you are right now. You don't have to like what you've become, but its a lot easier if you can relax that far. It's far better to celebrate everything you've done so far, good and bad. Every bit of whatever you have lived up to this point has been essential to get you to this point of change. OK? Nothing has been wasted.

It's counter-productive to resist. “Sailor” Bob Adamson writes: No matter how hard and long you try, you cannot negate yourself. I can attest to that; I've tried it. I adopted beliefs like “I'm not good enough”, and “I'm guilty”, and “I'm an embarrassment” (amongst heaps of others) – 70-odd years of solid, energetic negating myself, and yet one constant stayed true – “I am” – still. How could I have missed that for so long? “I am”.

How about you? With what self-beliefs and ideas have you tried to limit or write yourself off with. Good. Now, have they successfully negated you, or are you still here and is it still now? Of course you are. So negating yourself is futile. Splitting and separating yourself is futile. Conflicting is futile. Because that which you are remains untouched, eternal and empty/full.

Am-ness, Here, and Now....... The Holy Trinity.

Sailor Bob continues - The thought “I am” is not what you are, but it is the closest you will get to what you are with the mind. I call this bit of mind my Aware Ego. My Aware Ego is where I write and broadcast from, because I need my ego-mind to communicate with you. “I Am” is close. But not It. That's why I say you will never get to what you are with the Mind. And I cannot take you there. The closest I can get is where we are now, and I can point you to it. Crossing the threshold between Aware Ego and pure Awareness is up to you. Keep saying to yourself, "What is it that is aware of this?", and click to that space where words fail.....

So, given that Mind is not going to get us there, how do we bale out of Mind? Figuring out how to get out of the mind is just more mind stuff. The only way out of the Mind is a full stop. The searching is pointless. Stop. Stop everything. Stop and just be with that sense of Am-ness that remains. Now that you've stopped, are you still here, are you still now, are you still present, and are you still aware? Good! Go to and merge with that aware presence. Then turn and see how the world looks and feels from there.

This has been another Postcard From Out Here. I'm Barrie Barkla.

[Stop This World – Diana Krall – 3:59]

SYMPTOMS -- ILLNESS OR WELLNESS?

Author, Murdo McBein wrote in “Beyond the Himalayas” -- Sickness is the symptom, showing that your bodymind has lost its natural rhythm. The struggle to regain natural rhythm is the disease.

Dis-ease considers itself, and is treated in general by the medical and psychiatric professions as separate from the whole being. That separation would make Hippocrates – the father of medicine – gyrate in his grave! OK let's ask him – “What is illness?” Illness is energy invested in a faulty assumption, energy heading in the wrong direction, energy out of harmony with the whole being.

Consider this – one of those faulty assumptions I'm talking about is that your symptoms ARE the disease. They're not. Symptoms are messengers and messages of something untoward going on. So why do we go on an all-out offensive against friendly messengers. How about looking instead at what the signs might be pointing to? 
 

Furthermore, I posit another possibility to you – that the symptoms may be signs, not of what's wrong, but good news of the body and mind healing itself of what's wrong. The disease has already happened; the feeling of illness is the body recovering. Health is not the absence of disease: disease is the absence of health/whole-th. Symptoms are signals of the presence in the bodymind of something unhealthy that your bodymind is healing all by itself. Why don't you find out what is awry, and give your bodymind a bit of assistance, but don't shoot the messengers! Well, you're not encouraged to, are you? Why not? Could it be that, whatever disease you've got, there are probably more people getting rich off it than there are people like you suffering from it? If cancer was cured tonight, there'd be a lot of people lining up at Centrelink tomorrow.

Who was it who said "Heal yourself!"? Try switching your consciousness from one of trying to cure your unease/disease/discomforts, to one of being healed BY them. Stop going to war on the body healing itself! Then watch the medical industry turn itself inside out over that one!

Suffering is the bodily, mental and emotional fallout of conflicting thoughts, feelings and values skirmishing with each other. Mind thinks that if it doesn't oppose whatever refuses to fit in its existing pigeonholes, something dreadful will happen. Byron Katie, writes in her wonderful book Loving What Is: -- “You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer".” 

The ensuing melodrama is a concocted story playing in your mind, creating uncomfortably perverse energy flows through your bodycells. You feel sick. Wake up. Become aware. Notice the conversations taking place between your story and your body. Ask yourself “Why do I go on needing this story? What beliefs is it supporting? What good is all this argy-bargy doing me? What goodies is it getting me that I think I can't live without?”  

When you end your story, you begin living your life as it is. When what-is becomes more important to you than what you thought should be, suffering ceases, and healing begins. When you argue with what-is, you lose. Every time.

Healing cannot begin until every scrap of pretence, deceit and delusion is cleared away. Become aware, and begin telling the truth, at least to yourself.

[Heal the Pain – George Michael – 4:41]

IN PRAISE OF HOPELESSNESS

Yes, I mean what I say in the title, and, No, I'm not feeling especially sadistic today. I just can't bear to see worthy people suffer any longer, lost in needless Hope......

I invite you, just for a minute or two, to look at "hope" another way...... 

HOPE – can fuel the spirit and torment it – Hope can lead and mislead.

Hope is an activity of the ego. I feel it as an optimistic yearning for a desired outcome that we identify our spirit with. There's something warm and milky about Hope. Maybe weaning time has come? 

We cling to hope probably because once upon a time we hoped for something and, purely by chance, it came our way. So we put it together in that moment that “hope will get us what we want”. It hasn't worked since (maybe except sometimes), but our egos are never too fussed about being effective – just right, no matter how futile its conclusions, opinions and beliefs may be.

Hope is both a feeling and a way of being in the world. Hope arises from expectations, and is fueled by a parent thought that comes from a ground being of Loss or Lack and Insufficiency. If where you're going to is where you're coming from, there's little wonder that Hope begets more feelings of Missing-Out.

In a fictional gospel according to Judas, one of the Beatitudes could well be “Blessed are the hopeful, for they shall be lonely, but never be alone”. Hope does get you plenty of companions, all waiting for the Lucky-Break bus and agreeing with you that “while there's life, there's hope”, but that's about all. As such, hope is ultimately self-defeating.

There's a covert element of holy manipulation in hoping, too. Dishing out Hope has long been a favoured ploy of kings, bishops, and others who would like you to comply with their agendas. Well, good luck with that one.

If you come from hope, you will produce – yes, more hope, more expectations, and a permanent gap between you and what-is. Hope gets in between you and what you want and, like the carrot on the stick, keeps what you want tantalisingly out of reach.

There's more, much more to life than Hope. 

(I hope you get it.)

[I'm Always Chasing Rainbows – Aust. Girls' Choir _2:07]

DON'T LET YOUR GOALS GET IN THE WAY

Let's consider Goals for a minute or two. If there is something in your life that you want to change, something which you cannot let go of the need to change and allow to be as it is, you can set it up as a Goal.

You know the drill -- write down a list of those desired changes that you cannot allow to be as-is. Make sure to phrase each one in the Here/Now, and list only what you want, not what you are trying to avoid or get rid of. When you've done that, read each goal silently to your self, as if it is already done and happening. 

Now here's where slightly different approach kicks in: write down the first thought or feeling that comes to mind that is the opposite of accepting this goal as already having been accomplished. Then ask yourself, “Could I let that thought or feeling go?”

Continue being with each of your goals and asking “Could I let that negating thought or feeling go?” to each one until a feeling of release – “I can let it go and have this.” – settles on you. In the process of doing this, you demonstrate to yourself what you want in your life, and at the same time you will be dissolving the repudiative attachments and aversions that keep you tied up in limitation. Very importantly, this process will root out one of the biggest hidden spoilers that plague us all - our unwillingness to not-have what you want. That's right. Our unwillingness to NOT have what we want sends out the wrong messages. Unwillingness is an energy of unwillingness -- that's the message the universe gets.

When you try this new approach, you may also get a sense of how much of what you want, you already have.

Next, go back to the Need and ask your self – “What was the feeling I had before this need arose? What was the feeling I had, that I lost touch with when this need reared its head? Can I remember that feeling now?” Don't move on until you reconnect in some measure with the memory of the feeling you had immediately prior to when this need barged into your awareness, and you got involved with this "I don't have" crap instead.

Now ask this question – “Could I completely let go of wanting to create this [whatever your goal is] and rest contentedly in being whatever might be waiting beyond the creation?” In other words, I'm asking you to imagine the feeling you're heading for, and opening up the possibility of something even better than what you want. Are you game to be that free?

Then, make a list of things that have been created in your life so far – things you would classify as both wanted and unwanted. Accept, as best you can, the possibility that everything in your life has been, and is being created by your mind. Ask yourself – Could I allow myself now to accept this as a creation of my mind? Could I allow myself now to accept that wanting this is also just a creation of the same mind? Could I possibly let go of wanting this?

Now make these two statements to your self several times, until you become aware of the quite distinctly different feeling each one gives you ---

I want this. then I have this.

I want that. then I am that.

They feel quite different inside you when you say them out loud, don't they?

Lastly for now – ask yourself: Would I rather want happiness, or Be happiness? Would I rather postpone happiness until certain conditions are met, or will now be an OK time for me to be happy?

Let all your goals be a pointing of your intentions; affirmations of preferences that have already been put in train by a force that conspires with you.

Put out for what you want and love what you get, for no other reason than it hurts you when you argue with what is. 

Byron Katie says it best – “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.” 

This has been another Postcard From Out Here. I'm Barrie Barkla.

[Save Me From What I Want – Dyson, Stringer, Cloher (A) – 4:36]

"I NEED YOUR LOVE".....

“I Need Your Love” is the well-worn theme of many a hit love song. But how does it feel – that “neediness”? Don't you feel an emptiness that you want this person to fill? Don't you feel some trepidation in case you don't get it? Don't you become some kind of slave for their approval? Do you start refacing, discarding and shrinking bits of your behaviour, re-ordering some of your value priorities, and changing some of your attitudes because you can't bear the thought that they might disapprove of you? Do you try to figure out how they would like you to be, and then try to become that, like an actor?

When you do any of that, you never really get their love. You turn into someone you aren't, and then when they say "I love you," you can't believe it, because you know they're loving a façade. They're loving someone who doesn't even exist, the person you're pretending to be. There's no juice in that for you; it will eventually destroy your partnership. Have you never heard the phrase “He's not the man I married!?”

And consider this. Inherent in what you're doing is the thought “See how much I'm giving up for you?" Who in their right mind is going to want to have to carry that responsibility for the rest of their lives?

Yet it's almost a world-wide obsession to hunt down connection in this way, instead of just letting it come to you. And it spawns a toxic brew of Pretence and Deceit. 

In seeking to snare support and affection, you lose what is genuine, authentic and real. For both of you. Singles bars and speed dating are the best demonstrations I know of the kind of desperate pretending, and the lifelong prison of Loneliness we create for ourselves as we're out there searching for what we already have.

Wouldn't you really rather someone loved you for all that you are?

[All the Things You Are – Peter Sellers – 2:10]