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There are two certainties in life – Change and No Free Lunch. Yes, I've heard the one about "death and taxes": well, Change and Death are the same thing either way – change is the death of some things and death is the biggest change of all. Taxes? Tax is government's way of saying "If you think our services are expensive, wait 'til you see what they cost when they're free."

It may be time to upgrade your biocomputer's operating systems, because the pace of Change and the costs of No Free Lunch are escalating at an alarming rate. Haven't you noticed?

If you find yourself slowing down and facing your own version of the dreaded blue-screen of death, it's time to update your self.

We develop coping skills in line with our innate temperament, our developing personality, and within the scope of the landscape of our early upbringing. As soon as I left home, though, changes and crises changed the landscape out of all recognition, and it has since radically trans-formed more times than I can count. Changes of career, geographical and social location, education, status, role, function, vision, responsibilities, awareness, perceptions, values and beliefs have compelled me either to empty and re-stack the fridge over and over again, or drown in out-of-date, perished garbage. And I don't think I've been alone in this experience.

I don't think there's much doubt that the rate of social, scientific and spiritual change is accelerating, so fast indeed that many of us struggle to keep pace and we barely have time to question and test whether a particular progression is an advancement, or five steps backwards. Stress cranks up, levels of anxiety and uncertainty blister, and self-confidence correspondingly oozes away. It feels sometimes like I'm on a bus being driven along a route map that blew out the window several blocks back, piloted by terrified bombasts, caught in the traffic flow, with their feet on the brakes and their heads stuck in the rear-view mirror. No wonder we're getting a bumpy ride! This might be a good time to re-stage the Anthony Newley/Leslie Bricusse musical "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off"!

Removing challenges from life is no "cure" for anxiety and nervousness; it is not even an option this side of death. If we are ever going to be able to stand on our own two feet, we must learn to adapt. I notice that rigidity, inflexibility and dependency in individuals go hand in hand. When I found myself stalled in this place, I saw two alternatives – either take myself permanently out of the game or learn and practice some coping skills. Being a devout coward, I chose the latter.

The evidence is that most of us don't change in any major way until the sky falls in and the earth refuses to open up and swallow us. We're left standing there like a shag on a rock, ready to do ANYTHING to make this go away. It's our Gethsemane Moment. We don' feel it at the time, but you can put this in your "Maybe" file – "Crisis is your friend.".

In a trice it became blindingly obvious to me that Barrie Barkla Mk#1. was obsolete, past it, powerless, over the hill, impotent, expugnable, paralysed, ataxic, buggered. Actually, those who loved me had realised it years before, but had either been too polite to say so, or saw a spark of divinity that was worth hanging around for.

It was time for a reinvention. Disassemble the wreck, ruthlessly and unsentimentally chuck out what no longer worked, prioritise what I want to do from here on and, using my hard-won experience and new materials, design something that will actually fly in this new environment – something solidly based, flexible, adaptable to all climates and reliable. I called in the RAF – Resilience, Adaptability and Flexibility.

The test-flights included taking on the tasks that lay under my nose, experimenting with new solutions, no matter how scary and illogical they might seem. Even the outrageous is worth a try. It rarely fails.

And live in the present. Mind frets about the future and chews over the past, and none of that makes a milligram of difference, other than driving you into a tailspin. Sanity and Serenity live in only one place – here/now – the only place your unkind mind can't get at you. Sit, stand or lie quietly, feel your clothes where they touch, feel the air on your skin and the breath entering and leaving your nostrils, be aware of your food digesting, and notice anything else that might be going on right now. Don't interfere; just notice. 

I wish I'd known about this before I turned 17. You don't need to wait for the holocaust like I did. But I know now, and it's one helluva wonderful way to live between now and when the last bus comes to take me home. And I can pass it on to my grandchildren at just the right time. How good is that!?

We each have 3 "selves" – our Natural Self which is like out Temperament; our Manufactured Self which equates with the Personality we've put together; and there's Who We Are – the Awareness is which this all arises. 

 

As Petria King said on the ABC: "When you bring the whole of your self harmoniously to every thing you do, everything is well attended to."

WHO AM I NOW?

Would you like your life to stay exactly as it is today forever and more?

If your answer is “Yes”, I have some bad news that someone should have given you long ago. That's not going to happen. You're in the wrong universe for everlastingness. Here on Earth your life and its context are not ever going to say the same, any more than the ocean stays the same from moment to moment, day to day, or season to season. It's always there, but never the same.

Change is a human given. The only variables are the pace and magnitude of change.

If your answer was “No”, I have some good news for you, and that is –

 This today

Will pass away.

Unless you resist Change, in which case the scenario will repeat itself over and over, with changes of scenery and cast - until - you get the message – “the game's often transferred, without notice, to another ground where the rules, the goalposts and the scoreboard are different. Now, on your bike!........”

If your answer to the question on top was “I don't know”, you need to know that, in this context, “I don't know” is victim-speak for “Please don't challenge me. Please let me take an early retirement from exploring.” Of course, you are perfectly free to select the "Quit" option. But if a life of resignation is your choice, please proceed down there to the dead-end and huddle with the other walking dead. If nothing else, you'll get heaps of sympathy from them. Sorry, I don't do Sympathy. Sympathy is the surest way to de-power both giver and receiver in one fell swoop. 

To an aware person, “Who am I now?” embarks him/her on a curious journey into self-discovery. For most, sadly, "Who am I now?" is the psyche's automatic wail of protest against any threat to, or loss of anything we identify our Self with. It doesn't matter whether I identify with my integrity or a contact lens; if it is lost or even seriously threatened, I'll react like my home's in a tree. 

Ken Keyes declared "Identification is the only cause of suffering". If we didn't identify with a particular thing, person, belief, perspective or quality, losing it would not cause us suffering beyond (maybe) a little inconvenience; we'd just shrug and move on. If you are stuck on any kind of repetitive pattern, it's time you woke up to the possibility that you have attached your identity to something that isn't really you. You've hooked your star onto a falling piece of space junk.

Perhaps you might like to sit with that for a while......

There are several techniques to fossick out the myriad of ways you've attached your identity to (“That's me!”). Here's one ….

Notice what you do, why you do it and, consequently, how you do it. I'm not talking only about big-ticket, significant things, but also about the ordinary unremarkable things you do that, at the time, don't seem to be important. Go back in memory over your last 24 hours and look at everything you've done and what you've said. Ferret out the mundane things you've forgotten about. No varnishing or justifying, please. Stick to the raw facts. (eg. "I told that bitch to F*** off" Maybe not out loud, but I did it, with anger.) For the moment discount who was involved and disregard why. The question is "what have you done? What have you said? And how? This is what 'I' did." 

The answers may not be flattering, but they will give you a peep inside the character of the fictional personality - the front you've shaped yourself to be. You did this in the mistaken belief that what you've created would work better than being Your Self. You were quite mistaken about that. Seriously mistaken. Because you have become inauthentic and not-real, pretending to be authentic and real. And inauthenticity spawns in you falseness, deceit, falsity, untruth, inaccurateness, carelessness, casualness, confusedness, misapprehensiveness, fallacy, falsehood,  subjectiveness, self-deception and fallibility. 

Does any of that ring a bell with you? Don't answer that question, please. Just sit in it and be with it.

Another way of finding what you've created as your self is through your relationships -- all of them. Relationship is the mirror that allows us to look at what's reflected back to us off all the people we know and have met. 

Looking through the seeing-glass of relationships -- yours and those around you -- will test the integrity of your intention, because you're not going to like all that you see. Your "look-good-to-itself" mind is going to wriggle and squirm like crazy. Let it. Pay no attention. You look at someone and assume that what you see and hear is “them”. It's not. Not even close. What you see is You! You're looking at a mirror.

That's partly why, when really close relationships or a job, are threatened, or end in separation or death, we feel empty, lost, and start to question “Who am I?” Something external has left, but the vacuum is felt deep inside ourself. We took this person/thing on board and said "This is Mine; this is Me." Now that it has gone we cry, “I can't live without......(what?) Without this relationship, this role, my contact lens or my morning coffee, what am I? Without this, what is my worth as a human being?”

Even the threat of this existential vacuum makes us chary of change. We get so fearful that we deny, shirk or resist the existence of the law of Inevitable Change. Human beings, just like anxiety-induced lab rats and dogs, are far less likely to explore their situation, and more likely to spend their time and energy looking for way of diverting and dodging their stress. We forget that this stress is what we came for. And if we avoid, avoid, avoid this until death do us part, it's possible we may have to come back and do this all over again until we get the message == embrace this. (Have you seen "Groundhog Day"?)

The naysayers, the avoiders, the control freaks and the timid alike seriously doubt their resources of Resilience and Adaptability, perhaps with good reason. They've been denied the training. “Spoiled” children, deprived of opportunities to learn how to deal creatively with change and adversity (“No” is a very under-used child training tool), find real life and relationships very difficult to navigate in the later years. They stay “childish”, and try to back-pedal at the first sign of progress, equating “change” and any threat to their status quo with “trouble”. To some, Jesus Christ was the Saviour and the Lamb of God; to others he was TROUBLE! Same bloke. How do you explain the difference in perceptions?

[You Are a Child of the Universe]

There is a delightfully enlightening programme on ABC-TV at the moment called "The Dreamhouse". It follows a group of three intellectually challenged young adults who, under supervision, break away from sheltered home lives and learn to live, work and socialise independently. We watch and learn as they successfully learn, almost in slow motion, how to face the same challenges and stresses, and develop the skills that you and I may have glossed over or even missed out upon. My heart sobbed last night as one of the housemates, after the initial euphoria of asking a girl he likes out on a date and getting a cautious "Yes", sits in his room in a funk of anxiety quietly sobbing to himself "It's too much. It's too much." God, I know the intensity of that stage fright!! I hope the WA-produced series gets repeated. It's an eye-opener of the sweetest kind.

If your sense of your personal value is to have any permanence – and I assure you that is more than possible – it can not, and must not, be tied to anything or any one, including anything you think you are. In fact, severing those emotional bonds is essential before you'll ever experience freedom. Cut yourself loose from your person-ality; it's keeping you tied down.

The irony of this is that when you cut your emotional  tether of need to some one, you become free to love that one! Yes, I know, that doesn't make sense. It's never going to. That's my point. Love isn't "sense-ible". Loving your lover and loving your lover's lover is a matter of the heart, not the rational mind. Hellooooo!

Consider these propositions -- Anything you put after “I am...” is NOT you. Whatever you stand for or refuse to fall for is NOT you. Whatever you think, feel or believe you are – that's .. not .. you. Why? Any and all of those things can change and even cease to be, yet YOU still will BE. Whatever comes … can go again, and you will still be. So you are not anything that can appear and disappear (including the bodymind you get around in).

 

What you ARE is that which is real and immortal, that which is immovable and unchangeable (and, by the way, that has nothing to do with being pig-headed and stubborn). So when major changes and crises hit, they fly right on through. Any loss, emptiness and vacuum you feel are not in you, but in the "not-you", and that, despite how it feels, is disposable. It really is. The damage done by natural disasters, loss of employment, breakup of relationships and such will probably be physically, emotionally and maybe spiritually devastating, but what is being destroyed? You? No. What you think and believe you are, yes. And the more identified you are with that hologram, the more you are likely to suffer.

Anything not you is where your suffering begins, lives and dies. And that false you is where the question “Who/what am I now?” originates. That doesn't make it a bad question, but you'll never find the answer inside those cell walls. You really ought to get out more!

How do you prepare for the unexpected and become self-reliant and self-sufficient? Well, you could try purposely getting out of your comfort zone occasionally, on your own, looking for challenges. Any sort will do. Experiment and practice. When you're trying out new ways to see what works, you cannot fail. Who knows, with the dread of falling flat on your face out of the way you might find managed risk can be fun!

Through experimenting, you can develop a range of ways and activities in which to value yourself, ways that do not rely on the recognition of others, but on the value you bestow on your own courage and initiative, on what you decide to do, and why.

We can all use a gentle hand occasionally, and it's a great gift you bestow when you graciously accept a kindness. But if leaning on others outside of yourself has become a habit, your equanimity has become dependent on what they do. Where's the freedom in that?

Only a suspiciously needy person wants anyone to lean on them for long, and that kind of person rarely can be honest about why they need your dependency. But here's a social problem – "I want you, but I don't need you" doesn't fit the popular romantic idea of a good pickup line, does it? Why? Why does "I need you" creep into the lyrics of so many silly love songs? (I use the word "creep" purposely).

When you need something from somebody or something else, you literally give yourself away. You sell yourself short, and no healthy person wants that burden. And needy people suck. Keep your balance by cultivating a calm Enoughness within yourself.

Not all change involving major adjustments is harsh or arduous. Some lifechanging upheavals are welcome and even enjoyable. I'm thinking of huge changes like getting into a primary relationship, or expecting your first child. But nervousness, uncertainty and stress are still inevitably involved in the process, and if you're not adept at navigating emotional rapids, you could still end up getting hurtled into white water, laid low in slack pools, snagged on hidden branches and marooned on rocks. I think it's called "adventure".

Stress is the package of symptoms that arise in any new situation you haven't fully experienced before. Stress symptoms result from tension between the situation as it is and your resistance to it. Stress is evidence of an internal emotional cat-fight going on. The resistance emanates from your unkind mind, the source of all opposition to change. In the early days of partnership nature provides us with the distractions of romance and sex to disencumber and lubricate the early explorative stages in the journey of negotiating and adjusting to each other. In parenthood, we get the miraculous joy and novelty of the new being entering our world and raising our hopes for this close brush with immortality. We get biological and psychological fillips to get through the initial upheavals. But they are only temporary! Don't expect them to last "forever after".

Most other sudden dramas come with a surge of adrenalin to help. But it's up to you to develop the skills that, fueled with your natural chemicals, will see you through to a new world.

Other changes are not actually change at all; rather they are opposite ends of the same dynamic. For example, Mrs. Truck marries Mr. Mighty, and she finally has to get rid of him because he won't let her have her own way all the time. So she then marries Mr. Wimp, who does exactly what he's told, when he's told. Unfortunately, she still doesn't get to be herself because he's such a spineless dickhead he can't tie his own shoelaces without supervision. She's still trapped. Opposite dynamic – same result.

It's a darn sight easier to cope with change and crisis if you know yourself intimately, and know what kind of activities are guaranteed to allow you to recuperate, replenish and aerate your self. Petria King calls it "Fluffing yourself up." If you, armed with that self-knowledge, take the time and space to revive yourself you will cope far better with major and sudden changes by embracing them with your resources freshened, rather than having to fall back on an already exhausted, frazzled, flustered, morose, miserable, anxious and depressed condition.

The unexpected, the unthinkable, the unmentionable, the unfathomable and the unimaginable are always on the menu – see in fine print under "Side Dishes". They're there to test the workingness of Who you Think You Are. When your "I am" creation no longer works, you can blame the test (what most people do), or create something new that works.

Life examinations are rarely pre-announced. No press releases. No Emergency Warnings.

So do a Baden-Powell --

"Be Prepared"

HAPPINESS = ENOUGHNESS ALREADY!

When catastrophe strikes, we are sometimes rocked far enough back on our heels to ask, "What's going on here? Is this how I want to go on living? What do I really want from life?" These can be life-changing moments of the and death and rebirth of Self.

Here are four questions that you - and only you - can answer:

How bad do things have to get before you'll do something about it? 

How much do you need to reach “enough”? 

 

Who or what is in charge of your Enough Meter? You, your addictions or some marketer you've never met? 

 

Who or what does a hankering for "more" give you over to?

Are you caught in the lie that “More is better”? We plod on through our gloom, sustained by a vain hope that when we get more of whatever we yearn for, then we'll be happy. Well, it's a dead-end folks. Go on down there if you really have to, but I've been there, and it ends up nowhere/now-here. But what the hell, don't believe me – find out for your self. I'll be here waiting for you when you return.

I'm finding that permanent happiness lies waiting just behind our ability to be contented in what-is, here and now. I call it “Re-acquired Suchness”. We had it once; we were born with it, but we lost it along the way. To some people this kind of equanimity comes more easily than to others, but it can be learned, firstly by dropping our attachment to expectations – of circumstances, ourself and others – then by surrendering creatively to things as they are. It takes willingness persistence and practice.

A lot of satisfaction is available from striving and achieving. Meaningful activities that grow and develop you not only keep you alive and ensure the survival of your issue, but there's a goldmine of gratitude and fulfillment awaiting your efforts. So if there's stress, struggle or effort on the menu today – for God's sake, enjoy it for it's own sake.

How many homes can you live in at a time? How many cars can you drive at a time? How many places can you be at one time? One? Yes, me too. Try and live anywhere and any time other than here/now. Go on, try! You can't do it, can you? 

 

One is enough. Here and now is enough. 

 

So where can you find Happiness guaranteed? Any where or any time else? I don't think so. 

 

What say you?

GROW UP - THIS WON'T WAIT ANY LONGER...

Part of the challenge of this game called Being Human is that it is played out in a push-pull tidal zone between our ego's addiction to predictability and continuity at one extreme, and the reality of constant change at the other.

Some of us get stuck in the mud somewhere in the middle.

Shit happens.

And we are affected by it. So we are given a choice: either automatically recoil and be a victim of the situation, or awarefully respond and be an author of some re-solution. There is always a point of balance in this tug-o-war, and that is where training in increasing flexibility and adapting skills is so important to adult happiness. The faster we can sense shifts in the weather and respond appropriately, the better we will fare.

Childhood is, among other things, the training ground for adulthood. A lot of people get stuck on some trauma and never make it to emotional maturity. I see 50-year-olds reacting to setbacks like toddlers, grizzling, crying and throwing tantra of self-important rage. It seems to me that those who cope better with change are those who, early in life, were given practice, preferably supervised, in dealing with setbacks and change. 

Informed, understanding, aware parenting is of enormous importance in mentoring children to develop coping strategies that are in keeping with each child's individual temperament and developing personality. Setback and crisis rehearsal beget personal resources of the two essential ingredients of happy and fulfilling living – Resilience and Flexibility.

Whether you had a happy or a terrible childhood and the stories you rely on to justify you immaturity are almost irrelevant; you and me and the man over the road -- we all have our own work to do on ourselves, and the sooner we get cracking the better.

LORD, PRESERVE US FROM SAVIOURS.... AMEN

From my early teen years I have continually sought ways to be of assistance and make a difference wherever I've found myself. I don't know exactly why that is -- maybe my Mum's example had something to do with it. It doesn't matter. What matters is that, having made that choice, I decided I'd better be good at it or find another career.

In retrospect my personal triumphs have been OK, but I didn't learn much from them. My “disasters”, however, drew out all that I now like and respect about myself. Crises have collectively taught me the differences between good care and bad care, the distinctions and different techniques between inspiring and empowering. I've learned the value of hard work, facing down fear and overcoming obstacles. The real, raw experience of suffering, showed up what works and what doesn't and, most of all, adversity has led me to transit from ladling out insipid sympathy to sharing robust, comforting empathy. And I've learned that insight into “others” begins with knowing my self, and empowering others begins with first enabling my self. 

 

I know from past experience that when I'm caught in a rip and in danger of drowning, the last lifesaver I need is some nice do-gooder who can't swim. No-one can give away to another anything they don't have. My daughter is now in a vegetative state because she was put at the mercy of an inept medical system -- “qualified” psychiatrists who had crammed enough textbooks to pass exams but had acquired no Knowing whatsoever, and specialists who couldn't find a convenient pigeonhole to cram her into. Recovering from brain damage and mind-shattering depression, she was shuffled off between the Eating Disorders and the Stroke wards! Overwhelmed by her symptoms, no-one thought to enquire as to the possible causes of her disease.

But I digress.....

 

I'm very wary of people who offer to help me. On closer inspection I'll often find them even needier than I. Years of being a “helper” have taught me that, to delve into somebody else's life and tread the very fine line between empowering and depowering them, it helps greatly to first fill my own life with all the necessaries. I'm talking about things like an enquiring mind, wholesome food and drink, regular exercise, shelter, restorative sleep, healthy self-esteem, connection to something bigger, challenge and exploration, growth, the knowing that comes from raw experience and introspection, and a realistic sense of the inherent worth of what I am to other people. When this vessel is full I can then give needlessly, freely and unconditionally from the overflow. 

If helping someone else is going to cost you something you're short of, please -- for everyone's sake, mind your own business. Anything given from a space of Lack and Missing comes either with hooks and strings of obligation attached, or exuding a definite pong of what my friend Les Sobieraj calls “Burning Martyr” and a hefty dose of resentment dissolved within it. The helper and the helped end up in a worse mess, resenting each other.

There's are very good reasons why the services of Lifeline Counselors remain free and anonymous.

Think about it.

COPING WITH CHANGE & THE UNITING STATES OF MANUFACTURED ANXIETY

Our levels of underlying anxiety are very much a function of the level of Risk we're living in at a given moment. We estimate the level of risk to our person by how easily we can quote examples of it. And there's no shortage of scary stories; we're being force-fed a diet of crises and disasters, masquerading as a “news cycle”, all implying increased levels of risk from everything from speeding cameras, corrupt public officials to ISIS Jihadists.

In the current world of managed information, masquerading as “news” feeds, we are bombarded by a steady stream of scary news stories and simplistic slogans designed to scare us into some kind of acquiescence to an agenda we're never told about. It suits mongers of power to saturate social and public media with such a stream of un-usual events that we get the impression that these catastrophes, crises and acts of escalating violence are usual and prevalent, and that we should unquestioningly cringe for cover. People who feel they no longer have a life are easy prey for a Cause.

It goes almost unremarked that News is only “news” because it is UN-usual. Get out and open your eyes. Get a sense of perspective. The world is actually a wonderful place – except only sometimes. OK? Don't let the spinmeisters rule your life. 

 

That having been said, unpredictable disasters, drought, divorce, disabilities and other disappointments do happen, and when experienced personally, do knock the stuffing out of you. You can feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under you, the life is being crushed out of you, and that continuity has evaporated. At such times of sudden, dramatic change, every habit, strategy, ploy, certainty, belief and hope that in the past has always restored you to an even keel, no longer works. At such times it helps me to remember something one of my nieces once said to me – “A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress rather well.”

When circumstances change, habits and inner regimes have to change. My wife had to leave me after 18 years of marriage before it even occurred to me that “This isn't working any more.” The truth was even then, I first had to work through grief before a “Divine Pissed-off-ness” arose, bringing me to the point where I would ditch everything and start all over again – this time consciously. It's my experience after subsequent years of re-learning, then counseling others that change and transformation are not possible until the student is ready: there's no breakthrough without breakdown. Of course, there are exceptions to that, but not many.

The kind of change I'm speaking of here is not often a mere matter of an adjustment or two here and there. Sometimes you have to empty and demolish the old and begin again from scratch – a new scratch. From caterpillar to butterfly. Jeshua the Christ called it being “born again.” – from the inside out and the ground up.

And it rarely snap-changes overnight. Even after an almighty "got-it", old habits still insist and take time to replace. Even now I notice how my unkind mind, when left to its own devices, is so easily distracted and drawn into thoughts of Lack and Missing, especially around the area of romance and relationships.

So I continue the journey noting what happens like this, and I'm pleased to say it's tougher in the beginning, while your mind is still silently screaming blue murder. It gets easier. After a while, mind calms down, and the ride gradually becomes mostly invigorating and enlightening. Apart from physical wobbles, very little knocks me around any more. In surrender and acceptingness I am ironically internally stronger and happier than I have ever been, with more to look forward to each day. I'm beginning to get all the flavours of the wisdom of “Less is more”. Ironically, while my physical sense of balance is now shot to smithereens, my soul, spirit and mind are better balanced than I can ever remember. It's fun just being alive!

Next!!!......

YOUR LIFE – AN ADVENTURE NOVEL OR A LONG SENTENCE?

There was a coffee mug in a cinema staff room where I once worked (who knows, it might still be there), decorated with an Oscar Statuette. The Oscar was supposedly for “Best Supporting Actor in a Continuing Melodrama.”

And the nominees are....?

It seems to me that we get caught up in melodramas when identify with a character we've created and the dramatic stories to justify it, and then believe our own act. We stop playing with life and start playing AT it. Ham acting-out. In such a vulnerable position, we suffer the consequences of our inauthentic act, and resist the very thing that keeps is alive – change – ebb and flow – come and go. We confuse Peace with Stagnation, deny the challenges of change, and wonder why we're dying miserable.

I have written before about about the only constant in life being Change. And it is apparent to me that species who survive best and longest seem to be those who are flexible and best at adapting to challenge and change.

[Yesterday]

We kid ourselves that we'd like today to be pretty much the same as it was yesterday; some people even insist that everything and every one should be comfortably predictable, and ignore the big, red sign that yells “Wrong Way – Dead End – Go Back”

Tony Delroy pointedly asked on the ABC one night “How do we handle the quickening pace and challenge of change with grace and without becoming a basket case?”

Let's get one Ruthless Rule of Reality out on the table first. Life comes with discomfort and challenge. The Buddha called it “dukkha”. And he noted three types of Dukkha --

1) Suffering or Pain (Dukkha-dukkha). Ordinary suffering, including physical, emotional and mental dis-ease, is one form of dukkha. And you don't get life without it. You knew that before you came: somewhere in the excitement you just forgot.

2) The second form of Dukkha is Impermanence or Change (Viparinama-dukkha). Every thing is impermanent, subject to change. That, too, is dukkha. Thus, happiness is dukkha, because it is not permanent; it comes and goes. Great success, which fades with the passing of time, is dukkha. Even the purest state of bliss experienced in spiritual practice is dukkha. Because it comes and goes. We have it, we lose it, some of us get it again, most of us go looking for cheap alternatives.

This doesn't mean that happiness, success ecstasy and bliss are bad, or that it's wrong to enjoy them. If you feel happy, then enjoy feeling happy. If you're suffering, get into it. Find a way to enjoy it. Just cover your mouth, don't spray your stuff all over the bus. And don't hang on to it. Allow whatever life brings you to flow on through.

Dukkha #3. is Conditioned States (Samkhara-dukkha). To be conditioned is to be dependent on or affected by something else. For centuries Buddhists believed that all phenomena are conditioned. And quantum and meta- physics have now proved Buddha right. Everything affects everything else. There's no separation, and no exemptions. When everything is changing around us, we change with it, or go under. You don't have to like change; it's just a lot easier if you do.

LIFE IS CHANGE: CHANGE IS LIFE

Regardless of how it may seem to you, every sentient being has difficulties. We sail troubled seas. The ones who seem to do it easily have taken the time and trouble to read the winds and tides and set their sails accordingly. Others on the same ocean, get wrecked on the rocks of Denial and Resistance.

So the difference isn't the climate, but how you go along with the plot and handle the conditions. If you've developed sailing skills, you're more likely to welcome a bit of a blow, and feel exhilaration at scudding through the open ocean. If, on the other hand, you suffer over your trials and tribulations, it's your suffering that's the problem, not what you're suffering about. 

 

If you think you didn't sign on for change and challenge, I put it to you that you're kidding yourself. You have inconveniently forgotten that this experience you've got may be exactly what you came for. Whatever – it's what you've got. Why? Well, try this – wherever you were before you showed up here got boring! So you signed on for this virtual (not-real) Adventure Holiday. (If you haven't seen it, get out a copy of Arnie Schwartzenegger's “Total Recall” – you'll get what I mean.)

Minor changes buff and polish us, improving our lustre and sparkle and others see their own reflections better in us. Major shifts invalidate our habits, break open our pretences and delusions and invite us to to new ways of seeing and deeper awareness of reality. Turnabouts trigger turnarounds, exposing qualities we did not know we had. Adversity provokes us to appreciate the gentler, kinder pastel shades of living love. After the grey, cold fallow of winter. sunny spring days warm these old cockles with simple joy.

[Here We Go Again]

Here's a question – do you experience change and challenge as happening TO you or FOR you? Your answer right then was a fine barometer to the state of your Gross Happiness Account.

Why are we so automatically resistant to change? Off the top of my head I'd say, out of habit, firstly because change opens up something Unknown and every mind hates to not-know. Secondly, we tend to fill our lives to the brim with goals, hopes, addictions, tasks, rituals, chores, appointments and trivialities. We leave no room on our schedules for surprises and contingencies. Change seriously threatens to upset a very precariously teetering applecart. 
 

Any bolt out of the blue triggers shock reactions in the switchroom of the brain, firing off instructions to organs and muscles and initiating physical, emotional and psychological reactions and responses as the body deals with the perceived crisis. In a blocked, inflexible person, these reactions will be far more traumatic than for someone more flexible and adaptive. Resistance is pain.

Regardless of our temperament, the unexpected always throws things out of kilter. It's a matter of degree. There was a time in the first 4 decades of my life when something as trivial as misplacing my car keys might lead to me chucking a major wobbly. By way of contrast, 12 years ago I lost my daughter to brain damage, my mother died, I changed my job, moved house from Gippsland to Adelaide, and was diagnosed with depression and chronic anxiety, all in the space of a few bewildering months. I am pleased to observe that I came through that ordeal, certainly scathed but, a better person. So what had I learned in the interim?

[I'm Still Standing]

Don't wait for the sky to fall in. There's a smorgasbörd of available ways and means to cultivate spiritual, emotional and physical calm and equilibrium. Do some research, experiment and pick flavours that suit and work for you.

THE $7 MILLION QUESTION

OK. Ladies and gentlemen....Here it is... the Final Question …. for 7 million dollars …. 

 

Who are you?

You've lived this long. You've had your experiences. You've written your story. Now, for 7 million dollars, who are you?

Usually, when I ask this question, most people go fumbling around for their calling card, or their Facebook ID, or their CV, or passport, or a rough draft of their obituary . No, that's just your ID; that's not who you are. 

 

Who are you when you are no longer any of those things? You still are; but what are you?

I'll give you a hint. If you can see it, think it, feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it, believe it or own it – that isn't it.

Who are you? Stick with it. With each answer that pops into your mind, simply respond "Ye..e..s, thank you. But who am I?"

When you run out of answers, and nothing more comes to mind you'll get an experience of what you are, and that you, indeed, ARE, and always have been, and always will be. 

But what IS that?

When you make that discovery, you may laugh, you may cry; you may do as I did, laugh until you cry. Whatever happens for you, you will be moved, and lightened.

Who are you?

CONNECTION -- LEARNED FROM MY "CROMPA"

We all crave Connection; it is THE universal human need. 

 

As a child, the person I grew up feeling most closely connected to was my mother's father. I loved my "Crompa" Friee. Unlike me, he was a fastidious, gentle man; he wore his second-best suit to tend the front garden, and tipped his hat to every lady who passed by. In a time and family culture when love was tough and dour, my Grandpa somehow went against the tide and let me feel that even as a toddler, for him, what I thought felt, and had to say mattered. He was both firm and kind. He accepted me and I happily nestled comfortably into his world whenever I got the chance. 

 

We cannot possibly settle into anything, or anyone, until there is unconditional Acceptance. It is the prerequisite of Love. When you are loved, you know that you matter. In love we experience an overt connection.

When we feel we do not matter, we settle for Respect, or Approval from those we don't feel loved by.

When we can't get respect or approval, we'll settle for Polite Niceness and Social Agreement, thank you. Manners and Political Correctness run at this level of inauthenticity.

When being “nice” is no longer possible, we'll settle for control though Fear.

When that doesn't work, we descend to Anger and Hate. Well, anything but Indifference!

Acceptance, respect, approval, politeness, phony agreement, manners, fear and manipulation, resentment and hate – all ploys for keeping Connected.

What level are you at? How do you stay connected to those you love? Unconditional Acceptance? Or Fear and Loathing? Or somewhere in between? Which level do you think you deserve? I'll tell you – the one you operate in.

Now here's the spoiler: all the above is unnecessary. We are already connected. There is no separation. Try and dis-connect! Go on, try it! The harder you try, the more futile you'll find it.

Thanks to my "Crompa", I know what to give my grandchildren -- my undivided attention, firm example and Unconditional Acceptance of them as people, no matter what -- by the truckload. And just hope that's a blessing for them.

SECRET DO-WAYS TO HEAVEN (in no particular order: just Pick one and Do it.)

DREAM: There's an old Chinese proverb that says “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a simple step.” Choose where you want to go, and take one step in that direction. That's it. That's all you need to do. One step today, another tomorrow. You know the old riddle:- Q. “How do you eat an elephant?” A. “One bite at a time.”

BE PASSIONATE: When passion is ignited and fueled by Vision and Purpose, it rarely fails.

BE ON PURPOSE: Act with clear Intention. Your vision clears when you look and see with your heart.

BE BRAVE: Fear is the key indicator you're on the right track. Fear produces Courage – the kind that whispers “This is a new day; this is the moment you came for.” 

 

TAKE AIM: Take in the long, wide view – one moment, one hour, one day at a time. Think globally, act locally.

BE A CREATIVE YES-SAYER: Remember the dicta “We become what we come from. We become what we think and feel about. We become what we resist. We become what we embrace.” Say “Yes”. Attitudes are contagious: are yours worth catching? 

 

SIMPLIFY: Complexity is falsity. Distinguish between what's urgent and what's important. Never put things that matter most at the mercy of things that matter least.

LAUGH: It puts things into perspective, and floods sunshine into the darkest of days.

SPREAD KINDNESS: It's the hearts you touch that matter.

SING YOUR SONG: There's a Chinese proverb I like that goes = A bird does not sing because it has the answer: it sings because it has a song. What's your song?

LOVE: Make love your song, for Love is what-is. Love just is – justice.

RENEW YOUR SELF EACH DAY: Live each day as if it is the first day of your life.

BE AWARE: How do you return to the innocence of childhood? Let each moment rob you of your sophistication and ignorance. Let them go; you can't take them with you.....

….and

BE GRATEFUL: Every event, every encounter, every moment is an opportunity to practice the secret to accessing Happiness – Gratitude. An attitude of gratitude raises your altitude.

What ever you put out -- vision, direction, intention, willingness, adaptability. simplicity, laughter, kindness, soul, love and insight -- comes back to you. There's a Ruthless Rule of Reality that, stated in words, sounds something like this: If you spit in the wind, it'll land in your face. It's a extension of the universal physical law that there's no such thing as a straight line. Everything you put out will come back to you, sooner or later. Your words and actions boomerang, and you cannot duck them. 

 

Life is like a pillory: it has this habit of picking your fruits and pelting you with them. Will you welcome your fruits back? What you said and the energy behind what you said this morning to your partner ? Your parents? Your kids? To the arsehole who cut you off in traffic? And come back to you it all will, possibly not from the person you put them out to, but you'll cop it back, and probably when you least think you deserve it.

 

You will reap what you sow – a hundredfold. That, too is L-A-W law.

[This Is It – Adam Faith – 1:49]

WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?

It was at 3am my daughter was finally declared “brain dead”. But something else was still going on. Life kept going. In that inert being there was nothing, yet something there that I could talk to. Three hours later, an awestruck nurse whispered “She's coming back!” For 3 hours her brain had been AWOL, and signs of life had disappeared, but life went on. She went on.

Who's in charge? Your brain? You think so? Then who is this “you” that thinks your brain is in charge?

What is “brain”? Well, it's an organ we all have that is at our service. But who is this entity that asked “What is brain?” Where did that question come from?

She who lived on without a functioning brain, is obviously not her brain, but she Is. She still is -- brain-damaged, but not dead. Hell, no! I am not my brain either, but I....AM. You are not your brain, but with or without it, you.....ARE.

Then what is it that is in charge? Who is this entity claiming “my” brain?

It's right back at this fundamental level where we first began to de-rail. We looked in a mirror and said “That's me.” We identified with that image, and we've been identifying with reflections, projections, images, thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions, and beliefs ever since. But none of those is who we are. These are all things we add AFTER “I am.” These are just things that arise  in awareness.

As soon as we identify with anything, including our brain, we are no longer in charge -- of our eternal selves or anything that has a Use-By date. We become victimised by our attachments. Victimness ceases at the instant Identification ceases. If you want freedom – detach. 

 

When we put Brain in charge, we serve the functions of a blob of mushy grey offal. That remarkable splodge of spongy tissue chemically and electrically interfaces and switches relays for all the activities and processes of your physical body and amorphous mind. But even none of that is what you are(unless you insist, in which case you get to experience some ramifications of making that mistake).

You are not your brain, your stomach, your toenails, your love handles, your hair follicles, your boobs, your penis, or anything else that you obsess about; you are that which is aware of having and using those things, pure awareness. Unless and until you quit authorship and allow those things to start playing you – usurping your definition of Self, you are the Awareness in which it all comes up. And you cannot escape it. Try. Go on, try and be not-aware! 

So, who's in charge? Your toenails? Your pride? Your principles? Your values? Your new BMW? What rules you? What do you value most? What do you fight to hang onto? Your so-called “reputation”? Nahh! Meaningful inside your cage; meaningless everywhere else.

Now where does brain come into the process of escaping the  cage you've locked yourself into? Where is brain in enlightenment or transformation?

This is where it gets really interesting! This is leopard-changing-spots time. Every time you have a “now” experience, uncensored by mind, judgment or analysis, the wiring of your brain changes at various levels. This ability even has a name – neuroplasticity. The shape, patterns, tempo and beat of the neuro-chemical dance all change. A flush, and effervescence and a quickening course through your being. You see, feel, and start to think about things differently.

Any change you make to what you habitually choose to do, feel, think and give attention to changes the processes. You are not doomed to remain fixed and rigid, except by your own choice. You, and you alone, make your choices, and you can therefore change your choices at any time.

You and I right now are influencing our own processes, biochemistry, genetics, psychology and the evolution of our species. Evolution is not a process we can opt out of. I make a difference; you make a difference. When we choose differently we become the difference. The only questions are whether we're aware of it or not, and whether we're doing it by choice or by dereliction. 

But the law itself remains intact – we determine evolution.

And it's pointless bleating for some external God to come down from his throne on high like some celestial Kleen-Teem and rescue us from our own frig-ups. This is post-Old Testament folks! That ain't gonna happen. Read the four gospels again.

A SLUT IN THE SYSTEM

I've spent a lot of my working life in cinema projection rooms. As new bits of technology are added to existing equipment, systems and programmes in the race to keep up with rapidly changing advances in the technology of exhibiting movies, theatre houses constantly develop electrical and electronic bugs . One of my colleagues, a gem of a techo called Scott Christopher, laconically referred to the bugs as “A slut in the system”.

Well, humans have similar problems. Some initial operating systems, opinions, concepts, choices and beliefs become outmoded and unsuitable after a while; some were seriously flawed in the first place, but took a while and changed circumstances for their defects to show up.

We all have sluts in our systems -- thoughts and conclusions that have been entrenched so long in our being that they define how we see things, attach and interpret meanings, and react to what happens. They define and limit us. But it takes a special set of changed circumstances to bring them to light. In the meantime, they bring even our best intentions and most well-meant actions utterly undone.

 

One of my hidden tripwires is “I'm not what they wanted.” Now I put that together unconsciously in response to how I thought my parents felt about me (I'm not what they wanted). And I dragged that seriously flawed assumption into every other primary relationship since. (I'm not what's wanted here.) Only following the arrival of my two youngest grandchildren has it occurred to me that this programme even existed, let alone the realisation that it was, and always has been, a big mistake.

I am what's wanted. Always have been. Still am; maybe even more so.

Put in your “Maybe” file everything you think you're thinking. Don't believe everything you think. And certainly don't believe anything or anyone that's thinking you. Test all your assumptions, again and again and again....

And, if it helps, remember this from Mirabai Starr: The world needs you. It needs your bewilderment and your yearning. It needs your broken-hearted compassion and your outrageous boldness in the face of impossible odds.

Does it need mine? Does it need yours? What do you think..........?