STUCK? HERE'S HOW TO GET TRACTION

GETTING UNSTUCK

“Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where you are more concerned about what you have to offer than what you have to hide.” ~Unknown

As “What-Ifs” go, this one is a power-keg! It invites us to imagine a world very different from the one most of we Westerners live in. The current state of the world is better described by the poster I once spied in the office of a political advisor – “protect, defend, and resist”. I could hardly agree less. I far prefer this quote from Irving Wallace’s “The Seventh Secret”, which suggests, “Connect, Understand and Accept…”

Why is this Secret so important, at least to me? Well for one thing, it's the way the universe without humans is stitched together, haven't you noticed? No? Perhaps you might get out more – into nature.

Connect, Understand and Accept becomes even more relevant at those times when you feel you're stuck in some kind of rut that's limiting your freedom to play around in the playground. That has been me at several times in my earlier life – paddling like hell and getting nowhere. And at such times, a quiet inner inspection usually reveals that, somewhere in there, I’ve been protecting or defending the very thing that’s keeping me stuck, and resisting the call to change. The instant that I’ve let go of the “protect, defend and resist” habit, the atmosphere relaxes, space and daylight start seeping through and life gets sweeter.

Do you feel stuck? Or is it possible you're stuck and you don't know it – you just have this feeling that there has to be more to life than what you've been experiencing lately?

A TEST FOR STUCKNESS

American psychologist, Dr. Phil McGraw has come up with some neat questions that may help you clarify if you're stuck or not. Would you like to know? Well have a look at each of these and give yourself a rating out of 10, where 0 = Never, and 10 = A helluva lot.

Here goes:

• Do you spend a high percentage of your time each day (more than 3 hours) on a couch or in a chair with your attention lost to what's on some kind of screen?
• When you're at home, do you find yourself wearing the same house-dress, T-shirt and baggy pants, shorts or pyjamas that have become some kind of “indoor uniform” for you?
• Do you stand staring into the refrigerator, looking for something that wasn't there when you last looked a few minutes ago?
• Do you feel like you're a cheap-seats spectator to other people's lives?
• Do you live vicariously through characters on TV, and discuss with others what happens on “reality” shows as if they actually are real?
• Do you actually count and recount the items in your shopping trolley before you decide whether to dive into the Express Checkout Lane?
• Is your job or your kids all you ever talk about for more than 3 minutes at a stretch?
• On the rare occasions you do go out “for fun”, do you spend more than 3 minutes debating with yourself where to go?
• When you do eat out, are they at places where you have to look up, or look down to read the menu?
• Do you have sex quarterly and within a time frame that lets you get on with something else?
• Do you fantasise about things you never actually do?
• Are you suspicious of the genuineness of people who look really happy? Is there a lurking thought that “they're faking it”?
• Do you have a lesser standard of conduct when you are alone than when you are in the company of others?
• Is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in your life something that has already happened?
• In that twilight zone while you are awakening, is there a moment of dread at the start of another day before you tuck it away out of sight?
• Do you ever feel alone, even while other people are around?
• Do you ever feel “bored with....”?
• Do your appearance and standards of grooming and personal hygiene appear to be on the decline?
• Is your main goal in life mainly focussed on how to get through the coming week or month?
• Do you say “No” to a high percentage of questions, regardless of what the question is?
• In order for you to meet someone new, do they have to throw themselves under your bus, or pull up a chair between you and something you're lost in?

How are you doing now? Got a clearer picture?

To get ourselves unstuck from thought, feeling and habit patterns that prevent us from spreading our wings and soaring to a life we were born to live, we must also remember that our world is changing rapidly. Although there have always been dangers and threats, they appear to be coming at us faster, and seem noticeably heightened with the advent of the information age and its instant forms of digital communication. Our sense of safety is also impacted by real major life transitions we all experience: job security, financial challenges, illnesses, loss of a loved one, aging, moving home, etc. We also allow our equanimity to be undermined by the unchallenged efforts of well-resourced businesses and political organisations who do their effective best to raise our anxiety levels “for our own good” with fake threats about everything from the kind of deodorant we use to terrorists under the tarpaulin.

In the face of this, I think it is no wonder we find ourselves a little breathless, bewildered and sometimes averse to change. We reach a point where we silently protest “Please just back off for a minute – gimme a break!!” Very understandable. (I sincerely wish we could grant the same understanding to those poor wretches we’ve trapped on Manus, Christmas and Nauru).

If we want to get unstuck, live lives of quality and dignity, accomplish our dreams, celebrate our talents, and pass on our gifts and wisdom to others, we would be wise to take The Secret to heart: Let go of protecting, defending and resisting. Just notice when you're doing it, take a deeper breath, and just stop. Do nothing until it subsides. Let nothing be there for as long as you can. Then consciously and deliberately Accept something in this moment. It doesn't matter what it is..... the way the room is, a feeling you've got – anything simple will do. Just accept it as it is. Then Explore something – such as getting a cup of coffee or going to the toilet.... just be deliberately present and available for the whole of it. Engage with it. Do this as often as you remember to, until these moments of aliveness become proactive habits.

Transformation requires clear intention, courage and persistence, but the very act of purposely taking on such a challenge empowers you to transform where you may feel stuck. I use the word “transform” very deliberately. This isn’t about change. Change is when a caterpillar turns into a bigger, fatter caterpillar; transformation is when it turns into a butterfly. In your case, the actual circumstances of your life may not immediately change. What will change is that your feelings of being stuck begin to become transparent and dissolve. You become aware that you have freedom to choose something different. Do it. Maybe go for a slow walk around the block before you make that cup of coffee, and pay attention to how your body/mind feels 5 minutes after you get back. If you do, even the coffee will taste different this time, I guarantee it.

The good news is that external circumstances and emotional climate do not have to change in order for you to get unstuck. Your Circumstances and Being Stuck are not connected anywhere other than in your mind and that connection is imaginary. Other people are confronted with the same circumstances as you and, rather than get stuck, some of them seem to be able to rise above the situation and use it for a launching pad to something bigger and brighter. Those who opt to stay stuck get together and either join in a group whinge about how they’ve been “wronged”, or compete with each other to play “I've Been Wronged More Than You?”

So what's the difference between committed victims and those who say “Nup Not for me.”  Former victims who embrace The Change find their lives transforming when they stop seeing their circumstances as “the problem”, and begin looking at them instead as opportunities in disguise for them to completely change direction.

In my one-upon-a-time need to be one of the herd, I used to be a devout victim, until I made a conscious choice to take another road and become one of the “others” I've just cited. I did some research and found out how they made the switch. Then I did it…. again and again and again until Life got the message – “Barrie has changed his mind”. That's when reality flipped over and I discovered that, where there is a perceived threat, there can be a new sense of openness and curiosity, empathy, accord and, dare I say, reassurance and gratitude! Where there used to be distrust, there can now be greater receptivity, balance and the ability to stay in the present more often.

All you have to do to change your experiences of life is to change is your mind. That can be hard to do in company, though, because a lot of “other people” get twitchy when you change your mind, have you noticed? And some of them will really put the screws on you to “conform”. They need you to  obey their "Do Not Disturb" rules.

Change is worth the price of courage, though. This new mind-change approach will give you a new sense of freedom, new levels of energy and passion and a greater understanding of the role your temperament, your personality, your identities, your attitudes and your beliefs play in determining the quality of your life.

It will also give you the insights and power to rewrite your past without changing the facts, re-constitute your present as the time and opportunity to break with your conditioning, and re-envision your future as a panorama of consequences -- some foreseen and some pleasant surprises -- of your transforming.

In the end, it all comes down to what and how you choose your options. Each of us can choose to be reactive and at the mercy of a world that appears threatening, or we can choose to be open to life and its remarkable possibilities. We can plod on being defensive and protective, or we can live with a new spring in our step and spirit, eyes that truly see, ears that really hear, and a heart that can feel a growing wonder and celebrate the magnificent mystery that is life unfolding.

In every now moment you become open to possibility, rather than reliant on defence against threats. Are those threats real? Yes, they are. But mostly only in your mind. An imagined threat is just as real to the sufferer as an actual threat; emotional memory does not discriminate.

What matters now, though, is how you respond to what's “real” for you. It may help to know that most of your fears are imagined rather than actual. But that knowledge alone isn't going to fix them. Your fears – none of them, were ever reasoned into in the first place, so logical reasoning is not going to cleanse you of them. I've tried that over and over – it never, ever worked for more than 30 seconds. The way out is through emotionally. Drop every temptation to label a feeling because labelling a thing distances you from the thing. Be with your actual feelings as fully as you can, for as long as it takes until they leave you be.

Change is one of life’s true constants. But transitions like changing jobs, moving homes, losing loved ones, and getting divorced can be hideously trying, confusing, and very, very scary. Even when change is positive, it’s usually not possible to experience it without an up-front impulse to recoil and withdraw, and at least a little bit of trepidation when you choose to notice that, and engage with it anyway.

Because of fear, the first step is possibly the most difficult – to open yourself kindly and willingly, in the face of panic at becoming vulnerable, to the present you have brought yourself to. Later steps will still be accompanied by varying degrees of trepidation and uncertainty, but as you get more practised at embracing fear and going ahead anyway, you’ll get better at it and, hopefully, reach a place similar to mine where a twinge of raw anxiety is a signal to me that “that's where I need to go.” It's an indicator sign that has never misled me. Instead of defending and protecting, you can live with your eyes and ears fully open. It’s amazing what just a slight shift in perspective can do…like falling in love, it can make all the difference in the world. 

In fact venturing out of your shell IS falling in love. With Life.

Three final things that I've noticed -- 

• Life never misses an opportunity to offer us new chances and fresh starts.
• Life’s timing is spot-on. We are never thrown a challenge that is so great that we can't keep our balance even when we feel like we are on the shakiest ground. Life knows when we're ready, often some time before we do. Sometimes I've been right through a crisis before I realised “Wow, I was ready for that!”
• If we develop a new habit of purposefully accepting life's invitations to rumble – if we embrace challenges and changes as they are delivered to us, reconnecting with ourselves to become more capable, enlightened and empowered, it is not only possible, or even probable, but actually certain we can finally sign off on something important that we came for.

NO-COST GIVING THAT WILL GET YOU EERYTHING

GIFTS THAT EMPOWER THE RECEIVER

AND DON'T COST YOU ANYTHING.

For just a moment now, think about people you truly respect.

Who are they? When did you encounter them? In what context?

Think about people you truly admire. Think about people you love to be around. How many of them are filthy rich? How many of them are highly accomplished? How many of them are household names across the country? Yet you love to be around them--and you would love to be more like them. Why? If it isn't primarily their financial wealth, dazzling achievements or fame that draws you to them, what do they have in common that, for you at least, sets them apart from everyone else?

Let me guess – in your experience they're givers, not takers? They give of themselves, generously, selflessly, and without needing something in return? The expectation of spending time with them does not prompt you to hide your silverware, close your computer, lock up your daughters or put on your “best face”? Your past experiences with them have left you feeling better about yourself and somehow of more value? Rather than draining your energy and creating a sense of “you owe me”, the presence of these people adds something of intangible but real value to your life? You're glad and grateful that you know them?

People you deeply respect give because their happiness--and their success--comes from your happiness and your success.

Here's what they give:

1. The Gifts of Attention, Acknowledgement and Encouragement. 

Even relatively poor performers, do something well, something that comes from the heart. For that, each person deserves specific and genuine recognition, support, endorsement and appreciation. It's easy for most of us to recognise great employees; after all, they do great things. (Of course it's very possible that consistent and appropriate acknowledgement is one of the reasons they're doing great.) it takes a higher degree of insight to recognise latent talent in someone who has not yet been mentored.

The people who make the most favourable impacts on me are those few who have noticed qualities in me and merits in what I've done and the way I do it that no-one else has picked up on, or that even I hadn't been aware of. I had several such a tutors at drama school (NIDA). I get a really warm realisation that such a person has really been paying attention and found genuine merit in what I have on offer. I'd walk barefoot over stony ground for that kind of appreciation. So would you. Unfortunately it's a rare experience because so few people do it

Relatively few of us bother to find genuine reasons to praise the person who simply meets standards. But those who do, know that a few words of recognition--especially when that recognition is publicly given--could just be the nudge that inspires an average performer to work at ways of surpassing themselves.

Remarkably, people who Give can often see potential for excellence in another person before that person sees it in him/herself. I think they're able to do that because they're wired in to Possibility. They live their lives in an open context that picks up subtler signals. The recognition they sow may just provide a spark that motivates another to reach into his/her full potential. There's something catchy about a culture that celebrates even small break-throughs.

2. They give the Gift of Receiving, or Requesting Help. 

I had an experience a couple of weeks ago when a local candidate in the upcoming State Government election knocked on my door and asked if there were any issues I wanted to talk to her about. I was surprised and pleased that she was taking the trouble to get out amongst her constituents. My gratitude was short-lived. Every time I started a sentence, a key word triggered her “Ah, I know what he's talking about now” response, and she started over-talking me. Time and time again. After about 6 minutes and five unsuccessful attempts to finish one particular sentence, I thanked her for her time, and bade her goodbye.

Because we all are able to think many times faster than we can speak, most of us fall into the trap of listening to another for just as long as it takes to work out what we think they're about to say, and we then spend our time working out what we're going to say next, just as soon as the other pauses for breath. But this woman didn't even wait that long – she just started talking right over the top of me. And she had no idea from the body language I purposely gave her that she wasn't cutting through. She just had to keep talking. But then, before politics, she used to be a lawyer.

Pretending to listen won't do it. Just watch someone like Simon Birmingham on a panel show; there's something vaguely creepily patronising about the way he looks at a speaker. It's all for show.

When you genuinely ask for help, however, several things happen. You implicitly show you respect the person whose insights and assistance you're seeking. You show that you respect that person's experience, skill, intuition and/or wisdom. And you show you trust that other person, since by asking for help you make yourself vulnerable. But then generous people know that true strength lies inside the one place most people won't venture --- vulnerability. Yes, strength, might and vulnerability work in ways opposite to what's accepted as “common knowledge” It's why the lives of tyrants have always ended badly – but bullies never seem to learn.

While it's relatively easy to ask for general help, it's harder to ask for help when the assistance wanted is personal. Both parties have to risk vulnerability.

Remarkably generous people frequently ask for help, in part because they're aware that they don't know everything, and partly because they realise the person who provides that help receives a lot in return in terms of self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth and feeling they now have a stake in someone and something worth the while. Such people engender trust in others. When you generously ask for assistance, you offer others the opportunity to receive one of the greatest gifts of all: knowing that, at least for a moment today, they made a difference in your life.

Let others make a difference in your life, then watch the blessings begin to flow.

3. They give the Gift of Forbearance. 

For some people, we're willing to give our all. Why? Because we know they care about us, they believe in us, we believe in them, and we don't want to let them down. Patience says “no” to contraction. Patient forbearance opens space. Showing patience is an extraordinary way to let people know we truly care about them. Showing patience and expressing genuine confidence and trust in another's ability to work through own challenges is an extraordinary way to let people know we truly believe in them.

Showing patience is a remarkable gift—because by putting someone else's agenda a little ahead of your own, ultimately, it shows how much you care. It shows once again that you're prepared to make space in your life for that person to achieve success.

4. They give the Gift of Privacy. 

We are all, at our deepest core, inseparably connected, and what ever we do affects everyone and everything, so to a greater or lesser degree, everyone shares. Non-invasive sharing forms an essential part of a healthy emotional, psychological, social, spiritual and even intellectual life. With the explosion of social media, most people “share”, “like” and “tweet”. For better and for worse, lives have increasingly become open books. Gradually, we've come to feel we have a right to know more about others than we ever did.

But our right to intrude, particularly in the lives and affairs of public figures, is balanced by their rights to privacy. And there are times when my “right to know” is akin to having the “right of way” on a public road – it may exist in theory, it may even exist in legislation, but if the other person doesn't give me the right of way, I don't get it. There's a prang.

Well, often we don't have a right to pry---simple as that. Often, in order for the social areas of our lives to function healthily, we and others also have a balancing right to privacy. Part of developing relationship skills and growing into a mature social adult involves learning to separate our own life responsibilities from other people's life responsibilities – “Whose task is this? Social evolution invites us to mind our own business, learn not intrude on other people's responsibilities and never allow another person to intrude on your responsibilities. Politicians are masters of crossing this last line – “Elect me and I'll do it for you”. The greatest casualty of allowing this to happen is your freedom. Alexander the Great, the man who cut the legendary Gordian Knot declared that destiny is something that is brought about by clearing away one's own stuff with one's own sword, and empowering others to clear their own stuff with whatever weapons they have.

How do you decide where the responsibilities lie and where the boundaries are? Ask yourself “Who will reap the ultimate benefit of this activity?” The ultimate benefactor is the one whose task it is.

It comes down again to Respect: self respect in claiming personal space, and respect for others in giving it. Often the best gifts we can give another are the gift of responsibility and the gift of privacy, of not asking, not prying; not intruding--yet being available if and when another person does want or need to share their private stuff with you.

Separating life responsibilities in areas like career, family, relationships and social life does wonders for everyone's personal authority, autonomy and freedom.

Giving-oriented people not only respect another person's privacy, they help them guard it--because they realise it's not always necessary to know every detail about another in order to give care to him/her. Paradoxically, genuinely generous people are very good at minding their own business and communicating their own boundaries. I treat people who pry without permission with the utmost suspicion. And sometimes a stern warning lecture on Boundaries.

5. They give the Gift of Opportunity. 

Every task, every job, every challenge has the potential to lead to greater things. That's the very essence of the game. Every participant in the game has the potential, both professionally and personally, to accomplish greater things (note my deliberate uses of the comparative form). We have the ability always do better today than we did yesterday. Always. We humans invented concepts like “next” and “before”, “tomorrow” and “yesterday” so that we can measure how we're progressing with our current opportunities.

Remarkably giving leaders are a bit like actively creative parents. They take the time to develop colleagues, not just for the role they're currently doing, but also for a role they someday hope to land, even if that job is with another company. Remarkably giving people take the time to help another person to find what they want to achieve in life, and give them provocation and practice in seizing opportunities by throwing challenges in their way.

When I worked at Lifeline, I felt honoured to be in the company of many people who were cultivating their ability to feel with another person's pain and help them work through that pain. A few, a special few, have the ability to sense another person's dreams and help them work towards those dreams--and to help open doors that might otherwise have remained closed. The whole thrust of Lifeline's counselling process is to accompany each caller to a space where they can see a desirable opportunity that is within their immediate reach.

6. They give the Gift of Sincerity. 

By “sincerity”, I mean a state of being that is free of any duplicity, pretence or deceit. An action that is fully integral and free of dissimulation, overt or covert, is called “sincere”.

Two of the opposites of Sincerity are Political Correctness and Lip Service. Lip service is easy to pay; anyone can do it, and all of us do at one time or another. Acquired professionalism often masks lip-servers. But the fact that they get paid for doing it makes no difference whatsoever to the hollowness of their masking. 

Much more rare are the people who can be highly professional yet also openly human. These are the people who are actually talented at their chosen profession. Instead of using their position as a hide or refuge, these people use their profile in the community to actively evolve, themselves and everything around them. (Being professional or being an amateur is no indicator of whether or not anyone is actually suited for what they're doing. I've met many more amateurs doing more good in the community than so-called leaders who get paid – sometimes obscene sums – for what they purport to do.)

Giving people are willing to show, and sometimes unable to hide, sincere excitement when things go well. They intentionally and naturally show sincere appreciation for hard work and extra effort. They're willing to reveal sincere disappointment in themselves when they fail those who look to them, and openly set about cleaning up when they mess up. They're leading by example – it's OK to mess up; it's not kosher to leave the clean-up to someone else. Then they openly celebrate what went right, and what everybody learned from the whole process. They openly feel with their fellow man. To them, everyone, including those they don't like, is a comrade. They openly concern themselves in anything from which they will reap a direct outcome. In short, they're palpably human. Remarkably giving people combine a brisk blend professionalism with a healthy dose of humanity--and more importantly allowing other people to do the same makes them irresistible go-to people.

6. They give the Gift of Tough Love. 

They have a very clear vision of the differences between “support” and “agreement”.

I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. Some of us really want to be better than we are, and are prepared to do something about that. But we all fall into unhealthy habits, fall into patterns of unmindful thinking, feeling and doing that contract upon vitality, We develop blind spots, and that's why we all need constructive feedback and provocation from outside.

We all need advice, guidance, and sometimes a swift kick in the pants or a good slap awake. It's just too easy to make one-off comments. It's relatively easy to provide watery, politically corrected feedback during structured periodic evaluations, but they are rarely transformative in any way. It's a lot tougher, and requires the courage to be disliked, to sit someone down and say in firm kindness, "I know you're capable of a lot more, and here's how. It's your choice, but if you're up for the challenge, I'll follow through with you until you get it." Such people give the gift of Possible Growth – the basis of life. In this respect, untalented leaders actually spread confusion, doldrums, jealousy, resentment and the eventual death of whatever it is they're supposed to be responsible for. And they're very quick to blame anyone or anything else for their failures.

Think about a time when a remarkably giving person told you what you least wanted to hear and yet most needed to hear in that moment. Think about a time when a remarkable person challenged you to require more of yourself. You've never forgotten what they said, nor the way that they said it, have you? It changed your life. Don't you think it's time you paid that forward? Or are you happy to let an investment someone once made in you die for lack of nurturing.

If you can't remember such a person or moment, you might like to look around for different people to run with.

The gauntlet I throw down to you is to go change someone's life, starting with your own. Teach your inner critic how to do his/her work kindly, firmly and with empathy for the thoughts, attitudes and experiences that led you to the learning experiences you're now facing. First be your own best parent, your own mentor. When you prove you can empower yourself, then be available to sharing what you've learned – when you're asked.

8. They give the Gift of Respect (here's that word again!) 

The 80/20 Principle means that most employees aren't outstanding - yet. Some are far from it. Maybe they aren't as smart. Maybe they don't work as hard. Maybe they aren't as skilled. Maybe they make bigger mistakes. (Some employees ultimately deserve to be let go, an action that may prove to be the turning point they've been waiting for.)

Let's assume for the moment that every person on earth has the right, and the ability, to live up to their unique potential. I learned this from working with “handicapped” people, and was astounded at how happy most of them were! Fulfilling our best possible self is an essential ingredient of contented Happiness. Giving leaders hold themselves and others accountable to that ever-expanding standard of full potential self.

Now every individual bears the sole responsibility for the way they play the life cards they were dealt with, and it's no-one else's right to interfere. Really. This falls into the realm of “mind your own business”. But giving leaders train themselves to sit down with their colleagues and ask “Do you want to do better?” If the answer is “Yes” – game on. If it's a “No”, walk away, without recrimination. For lots of people, the time is “Not yet”.

Regardless of their level of performance, all employees deserve to be treated with respect. Sarcasm, eye rolling, bullying and biting comments all chip away at at least two person's self-respect – theirs and yours. Yes, yours. You had no idea about that? Yes, well empowered and empowering people are acutely aware of the two-way flow of Consequence. And now you know. And in case you didn't recognise it, that was a potentially empowering poke in the ribs – from me.

Remarkably giving people allow others to maintain a sense of dignity even in the worst of circumstances. They're only able to do that because they have first developed a keen sense of self-respect. They know that nobody has ever been able to give away what they don't have. To give Respect, you must firstly have it. Without deep, genuine self-knowing, your displays of respect to others are shallow and phoney sycophancy – lip service.

I have had to fire people (and it's never easy), but I've never felt the need to demean or humiliate them while I'm doing it, and I sincerely hope I haven't.

9. They give the Gift of Freedom. 

For managers and supervisors there are often guidelines and rules of best practice and procedures to be adhered to, so most manager follow and enforce rules and procedures that will foster efficiency and productivity and, consequently, satisfaction.

But that's not enough. For most of us, engagement and satisfaction are largely based on autonomy and inter-dependence. You care the most about something when it's "yours", you feel you have moral and emotional ownership of the quality of effort you put in and the results you generate. You care the most when you feel you have the responsibility, flexibility, the blessing and authority to do the best you can.

Remarkably giving people create strong, well-delineated standards and guidelines but then go further and give employees the resources, autonomy and independence to work the way they work best within those guidelines. They allow employees to turn "I have to" into "I want to," which transforms what was just work into an act of creation; what was just a job into a personal project – something much more meaningful: an outward expression of each person's unique creativity, skills, talents, and experiences. Any workplace thus endowed by any one of its participants becomes a place that everyone in the group looks forward to getting involved in each day.

Yesterday, I went in to have my hearing aids cleaned at a shop in the Adelaide CBD. When I got there the shop was closed “For Lunch”. When I returned later, for the second time in a few months, I still couldn't get service because the lady who does that work was away sick – again. I know her; she's a lovely, healthy lady and very good at what she does, but her boss can best be described as a manipulative, smart-arsed bitch. I'm not surprised that her staff take “sickies”.

10. They give the Gift of Purpose, Commitment and Follow-Through. 

Fulfillment is often found in becoming a part of something bigger than yourself. People with a pulse love to feel that special sense of teamwork and togetherness and dynamism that turns a task into a quest, with a group of individuals who, under the guidance of a skilled coach, coalesce into a real team that is more than just the sum of its parts; a comm-unity that can achieve more than any one person can accomplish on his or her own

A few people (though obviously not as many as we'd like there to be) can write meaningful Culture and Mission statements. But far fewer still can create a mission that makes a real impact. Even tougher is finding someone who can show other people how what they do affects their customers, their business, their community ...and themselves. Mediocre managers take it for granted either that their charges somehow just “know”, or don't even think about it at all.

Remarkably giving people give the gift of caring--and the gift of knowing why caring beyond self is so important.

You, too, can be a benefactor. You don't have to be Bill Gates to make a real difference in this world. You have deep within you each and every one of these gifts. You don't have to manufacture them – they're within you – trust me on this. Find the faintest whispers of them, and start giving them to yourself. Then when you feel confident enough, practice sharing them with others quietly, in small ways at first. You will notice an immediate lift in your feeling of wellbeing. And let the process of becoming a Giver swell within you.

And the beauty of it is – giving of your self won't cost you a cent.

5 THINGS A MAN WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT HIS WOMAN

…..AND, I'M SORRY GIRLS, YOU DO HAVE TO TELL US.

There are certain things about women that men just do not get. Not naturally anyway.

A Good man will be ready and willing to get what women want, but not able. Ladies (and others of the female gender) you have to swallow your indignation and tell us. "You ought to know" simply won't solve anything. Refusing to tell us is simply meeting masculine Stupidity with feminine Meanness. And as understandable and gratifying as that may be, it ain't ever going to work for either of us.

I will move mountains for you, but I need you to tell me where you want them. Is that too much to ask?

Please tell me....

1. What you like, and when and where you'd like it.
2. What gifts you want, otherwise I'll end up getting you a vacuum cleaner or an ironing board.
3. When you're angry, and why.
4. What your plans are.
5. What you're worried about.

Please. I want to know, and I'm not equipped to read your mind.

PS. If you're a mother, for god's sake pass this on to your daughters, and teach your sons to ask their girlfriends.

I WANNA BE RE-GUSTED.

There is no evil, unless and until thinking makes it so.

We all know the thoughts and feelings we bundle up and label Revulsion and Disgust. Curiosity prompted me many moons ago to stand in two questions -- What is it that disgusts us? And who then is the author of that feeling?

Having de-energised a major portion of  what dis-gusts me (Middle French -- robs me of taste) I find myself swimming against a growing tide of social disgust swirling around me. And how is it, I wonder, that, in this present time as in the past, forces who seek to control and mobilise ordinary folks are able to so easily provoke fear and disgust to turn us against manufactured "enemies" and call it being "united"?

One of the things we do know is that revulsion (disgust) is a primitive, primary emotion arising deep inside the base of the brain -- that area of the limbic system that takes care of our most basic functions and primitive freeze-fight-or-flight reactions. Disgust's prehistoric purpose was to identify possible dangers to our survival and stop us from ingesting stuff that made our ancestors sick to death. Prehistoric beings without disgust tended to die. Stuff that disgusts us, we avoid and that avoidance helps keep us healthy. Well, that was the original purpose.....

But not for the first time, and probably not for the last, I find that something that started out as a good idea turns, somewhere along the way, to become toxic. That process is part of Evolution. Part of the evolution of our parallel aspects of becoming human, that biological/emotional mechanism we call "disgust" spreads from yucky substances to ideas, people and happenings we decide not to like, and seems to get adopted by default as we develop socially.

That's probably down to our families, carers and later friends and others we allow to influence us. In the name of Caring, these people deliberately tied our primitive "disgust" response to unrelated situations, ideas, beliefs, opinions, so-called "pests", and other people that they themselves had learned to react to with the tool of revulsion. Their dis-gust was conveyed not only by repeated mantras like "dirty" and "naughty", but also more subtly through feeling, meaningful looks, body language, and attitude. Most kids are incredibly sensitive to subtle reactions, and they respond in like manner because they want the approval of those offended. Kids may not know what's wrong, but they sense that something is "wrong". and they anxiously fall into line.

For the older beings, reacting with overt distaste is easier than looking more deeply into the situation and seeking more creative responses. Disgust is so dead-easy. With the kindest intentions from our elders, we were taught to dis-gust ourselves in order to protect us from perceived evil influences.

And I've found that my tick-tock reactions of disgust to situations, ideas and people that I find repugnant are not easy to let go of. Resorting to Reason won't do it. We didn't learn through reason to be offended or disgusted. No-one set us down and said to us "It's time we had a rational discussion about spiders/snakes/goo/ nose-picking/One Nation supporters...." We got into this powerless place emotionally, and that's the only effective way of reversing out again.

One of the most tenacious disgusts rooted deep in my ego is my repulsion against ultra conservative flat-earthers who go around disgusting over everything they feel challenged by. I find it really hard to keep my mouth shut. Odd isn't it? I was born into blue-ribbon conservative liberalism. These people used to be my tribe.

Conservative personalities are thought to have a considerably greater propensity to be disgusted than liberal personalities do. One illustrative study in 2011 found that people who were more physiologically disgusted, a reaction that was measured by skin reactions to a photo of a man eating a mouthful of worms were also more likely to self-identify as conservative. They were also more likely to have a negative response to what they see as too-radical social change – I've watched and experienced within myself this phenomenon many times in my life. 

I see it showing up right now in some reactions against current social-change issues like gay marriage, refugees and any cultures and religions that aren't "christian".

It appears that conservatives are wired to be a little more easily disgusted and fearful. They are a little bit more wired to defensiveness in an environment challenged by change. This is particularly apparent for sexual issues—not just gay marriage but for topics like paedophilia and pornography as well. And the more conservative they are, the more intense their reactions of fear and disgust.

But conservatives don't have it on their own. The same study also found that some liberal minds may also harbour implicit “revolted” associations. Our egos are no respecter of pigeonholes. If your ego has been so inclined by its prior conditioning, pretty much anything that can be labelled “abhorrent”, “an abomination”, “detestable”, “disgusting”, “distasteful”, “loathsome”, “objectionable”, “odious”, “repugnant”, or “repulsive” with a noticeable degrees of emotional energy and relish will meet with a wall of resistance, a lot of chest-thumping and yodeling, and an intellectual shut-down. I've heard, and seen these labels freely applied to neighbours who play their music too loud, refugees, and struggling farmers who see farming wind or coalseam gas as a means to survive government policies that have let them down. I've been guilty of attaching some of these labels to politicians whose choices and decisions I take umbrage at.

The disgusted ego is disgusted (i.e. avidly happy) to embrace and target anyone and anything – from broccoli to Daesh – regardless of race, creed, colour, ethics, politics or religion. There's no rhyme or reason to disgust. If we take a dislike to someone or something, disgust is always on hand to give us a justification for our dislike. But we won't go responsible for our disgust -- it's always the "other's" fault, isn't it?

It gets worse – the human ego being what it is, reactions such as disgust or pleasure can be transferred from one object to another by casual association. These associations are usually accidents of co-incidence, but they can, and are being objectively engineered by marketers, political parties, corporations to subjectively influence people toward their own ends.

In a recently published experiment, university researchers demonstrated that the presence of a distasteful element had some noticeable effect on the expression of totally unrelated social attitudes. Random samples of participants in the study were sorted into either an odour group (the researchers added a vomit-like smell to a room) or control groups (where no odour was injected). The participants were then asked about their feelings on an array of social and political issues. The results are clear: in the disgust (odourised) condition "participants exposed to the smell ... reported increased subjective disgust and more politically conservative attitudes concerning gay marriage, premarital sex, pornography, immigration, and Biblical truth." Interestingly, though, the disgusting odour had no impact on opinions on non-sexual political matters, such as tax cuts or energy prices.

This kind of disgust-by-association was used famously by the 1930s Nazis in engineering mass public attitudes towards Jews. Newsreels of Jews were intercut with revolting images of butchery, rotting corpses and flyblown meat. And if you think that kind of propaganda is dead, watch the nightly news on TV. Just tonight I saw an item on violence surrounding Donald Trump's rallies intercut with library footage of mob violence at other functions. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of D.Trump; I'm asking you to be more aware of how your perceptions are being manipulated, not only via juxtaposition of news items, but also in everything from commercials for deodorant to campaigns against violence to animals or how we "should" treat other humans.

Now, to get back to Professor Stewart's experiments on disgust, how can an odour change a person's political beliefs? It's best to think of it like this: The disgusting smell temporarily made the liberal minds more conservative, shifting the liberal attitudes to the right. In that more conservative state, the participants reacted more conservatively to tests that actually had nothing to do with smell.

I find this experiment interesting because I'm very curious whether the presence in the room of other people known to us can have an effect on how much disgust we'll reveal. Could our need to be liked or disliked by certain others change the behavioural form and intensity of the disgusted ego? Do we switch from satire to rant, or from mild, politically correct criticism to denunciation, depending on who's in the audience? I'm putting money on a “Yes” outcome. In fact, I strongly suspect that “political correctness” has come into vogue to save people from suffering the consequences of deeply felt Disgust. We don't say what we feel, nor do we mean what we say. Like most things human, it's a complex of the issue. "What we're finding here is that the environment plays a huge role," Stewart says. Conservative, ain't he?

In terms of biology and psychology, is the disgust one feels toward something objectively gross—like vomit—the same disgust that people might feel toward say, refugees, Muslims, Christians, politicians, paedophiles or gay people? Is it intrinsically the same emotion?

In terms of how you experience it biologically and psychologically? Yes. Disgust is disgust, regardless of what you pin it to. When we hook people up to psycho-physiological equipment, how they experience disgust in terms of activation of their sympathetic nervous system or what have you, it's very very similar. Which begs the question, is my present disgust really about this person, or am I targeting this person to avoid putting it where it really belongs -- somewhere in the past? The human mind makes associations between things and events, sometimes after rational deliberation and sometimes due to pure chance, and it thereafter cannot tell the difference.

Is there a direct cause/effect link between propensities to conservatism and disgust. I doubt that. As much as my disgusted ego would like to rant otherwise, I think it's a tie-up between disgust and pre-programmed Attitudes. Most of the research points towards disgust as an habitual reaction to one's conditioned (and conditioning) attitudes -- righteous viewpoints on sex-related policies: gay marriage, abortions, premarital sex, sex education in schools, paedophilia — those sorts of things. It's my suspicion that Attitudes are unconsciously allowed to influence where we classify people on the scale between the extreme ends of "conservative." and “liberal”.

As I said at the outset, we do know that disgust is a primitive, primary emotion. We also know, anecdotally at least, that the biological/emotional tool, along with anger, outrage and resentment seemed to get adopted by default as we expanded socially. 

Now, not unlike a lot of other primitive first-stage systems and strategies, what once ensured our survival in one context now threatens our survival in changed circumstances. History tells me that there's nothing more dangerous to survival than an inability to adapt and change, and I'm pushed to recall anything less conducive to adaptability than Disgust. It belongs more with truculent self-righteousness, and as a tool for survival, it's self-defeating. If something disgusts me, that's it. Any attempt to force me to override “my” disgust serves only to entrench it deeper. I'm burying myself deeper into my own grave.

We cannot yet be certain but one of the ways that this plays out is that people who have a strong disgusted ego, while claiming all rights to freely unload their opinions, at one and the same time tend to be in favour of tighter social and religious regulations of anything that might be construed as “individual freedom”. How crazy is that? Of course it's nuts. But in general it's my experience that if I scratch a righteous conservative, I find a bully -- in sanctimonious vestments. And bulling cloaks very frightened arch-conservatives.

Where does ideology come from?
Why are some people extreme liberals; why are some people arch conservatives at the other end of the axis? And ultimately, why are some people so self-identified with and attached to an ideology they claim to be “theirs” that they believe in it so much they will go to extreme lengths to support what is essentially an abstract belief system which, when you look into it, was inherited/adopted from others? They'll engage in arguments and acts that violate their own normal hierarchy of values, up to and including dishonesty and violence, some of it sparking revulsion in others?

Answer: Ego is the prime product of the social and family soup we showed up in. It is a given of the condition of being human. Extreme ascetics may free themselves of its influences to a point where it seems to no longer exist at all. But such people are rarer than hen's teeth, and they are the first to admit that they still have one.

We constructed an ego from the temperament we were born with, the environment, from the attitudes of those around to us, from our experiences of those elements, and our natural inclinations. Most of it was inculcated into us; some of it we picked up by osmosis. If you come from a good family of (say) liberals, you're raised in a particular culture, and surrounded and encouraged/discouraged by people with similar values, attitudes and priorities. You'll grow up leaning definitely to the right. Like fish in an aquarium, it's the surrounding environment you showed up in. In other words, we come into the world as political, social, ethical, moral and spiritual slates with very little written on them, and we soak up our attitudes and ideology from what's dished out to us by our primary carers and, later, from our conscious, chosen experiences as we respond to those early influences and make a way through life. Later in our development we may take a choice, at least for a while, to rebel and reject outright whatever we were brought up with and do whatever the opposite of that appears to us. Later we will probably knuckle under to our habited leanings. and create a persona that will, to the best of our knowing, take us to whatever experiences we think we want. Whatever path we choose, it's important to surrender to the reality that we are still a direct function of our raising, and our history is always perceived as proof that we're "right". Later still, we'll probably strike some sort of life crisis that forces us to realise that the persona we put together is not what we really are at all. At this point we hopefully find a way of breaking free of our past, dropping our belief that we are the Effect of an upbringing Cause. In so doing we create ourselves as the prime author of what happens from here onward. Using the lessons we've learned to this point, we deliberately undertake a more awareful reconstruction of our selves.

Disgust and Genetics?
Now, the burning question of the moment – could genes have anything to do with whether you are in favour of gay marriage, or letting Muslims into Australian citizenship -- or not?

Well, we now know that our attitudes, choices, decisions and actions affect our DNA – immediately. It's become uncomfortably plain that we cannot change a part of anything without causing change in The Whole, and that goes just as much for each of us individually as it does for us and the world at large. There's a big, long causal chain—there has to be—between your genetic information and your stance on stuff that really matters to you.

At this point what we believe is not that you have a gene for being for or against gay marriage or anything like that. But what you have is your brain, your central nervous system and your peripheral nervous system and what I can best describe as your soular plexus. These are processing systems. Within them, habit patterns of thinking, feeling and doing burn well-worn pathways into those systems. Your genes, influenced to some degree by your attitudes and behaviours, build and rebuild those information processing systems and make them more sensitive to certain environmental stimuli and less responsive to other environmental stimuli and that, in turn affects your attitudes and behaviours, and your autonomic reactions. Everything comes full-cycle.

This Ego thing evolved to help us get things started in answering the first big questions -- What am I? and How and where do I fit in to all of this? Ego also helps us avoid pathogens (things that are harmful to us). Unfortunately, the same system works to “disgust” us with social, psychological and grownup things that we feel to be threatening and so find a strong, un-reasonable. visceral aversion to. The feeling I get when I hear a politician openly lying is the same feeling I got when Mum gave me a cup of tea with a skin on it and bits of clotted cream floating on top. I gagged then, and I feel the same way now. That's how the crazy logic of an untrained ego works --- "This is the same as that, and that too, and maybe this too -- except sometimes. No wonder we find simply cranking up disgust much easier, and justifying it -- in terms of finding fault in the "other" -- even easier.

The good news is that the strong, causal chain between genetics and behaviour, while real, is not the whole truth -- not even nearly so. In every moment of our being we have the choice to break into that line of blame, question what we hope to gain from remaining attached to a victim attitude to "the past", and assume a here-and-now responsibility for making some changes. If you want to change what you've always been getting, start making some changes to what you've always been doing. Some personal intervening, evolving and reprogramming is called for to interrupt the tick-tock robotic stimulus/reaction habits.

For a grub to become a butterfly, some things have to die. For humans, the self-importance inherent in every form of Ego is one of those essential expendables.

Finally, I hope you noticed that I haven't used the words “right” or “wrong” about Ego. It's not what we are; it's just something we have, and we could not be human without it. I feel the same way about Disgust. As I've grown, disgust has morphed into something I call "divine pissed-off-ness", a powerful motivator to re-vision where I am now, let go of what got me here, move out of life's truckstop and get on with the journey I came for. If I can do that, so can you (unless you say "No")

By the way, how do I tell the difference between Disgust and Divine Pissed-Offness? The first induces a feeling of contraction and powerlessness; the second feels expansive and reveals possibilities for directed action.

My guess is that an essential part of this game is – not to get rid of stuff – but to transcend it, and in so doing transform it into something that serves you, rather than dictating to you. We can do that. 

Our disgust and the so-called reasons for it are fictions WE made up. Anything we invent, we can re-invent.

The more we reinvent ourselves, the easier it gets to let go of the old skins, and renew ourselves, day in, day out.

RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE RELATE.

Truly responsible people are set apart, among other things, by the fact that they relate fully with the last people and the last circumstances they feel like getting close to. That's a special degree of Commitment.

This is my current "being human for today" challenge.

I've only recently fully faced the fact that we (me included) judge another person in order to justify our choice to avoid a further or deeper relationship with that person. We judge, criticise and condemn others to justify to ourselves and others our lack of courage and will.

Yes, as we grow older, it takes courage and will to do something that once was as natural to us as breathing. We popped out of the birth canal and immediately set about exploring this new, larger womb we found ourselves in, and bonding with it. It is a natural, innate urge.

So what went wrong? Why did we stop connecting with and start separating from? Well, some of the bonding we undertook didn't turn out as we thought it should, and we got scared and self-protective. We started habits of evaluating risk and selecting who was "in" and who would be "out". And even then some of our "in" choices turned to disappointment. We got hurt, and put up shutters, aided and abetted by well-meaning others who warned us to "be more careful".

When someone dis-appoints us, we may make an unconscious decision to end the relationship. But we don't do it cleanly and openly. We first go fossicking around for unrelated material that we can use to publicly justify cutting off. And finding fault turns out to be the easiest task in the world. As the song says --Everyone's doin' it. We not only find things in their demeanour and behaviour to niggle and annoy us, we'll even take aspects of them that first attracted them to us and turn them around into negatives. For example, the girl who was attracted to her man because he was solid and dependable now finds him "boring", Because he's so unexciting she  can now feel justified in looking for excitement elsewhere. Much easier than engaging with him and her own boredom....

When we successfully find flaws in another person's character, the truth is that the other person has not changed: we have. But we won't cop to that and deal with it creatively. It's easier to find fault and dismiss the other, mostly without insightful explanation. We shift the responsibility on to someones or somethings else, then we lie about it -- to ourself and to others, usually coating our accusations with degrees of anger and resentment.

We react with, and use the power of anger and the convenience of blame to avoid our life-responsibilities of relationship. And a significant casualty of avoidance is our freedom. Ironic. isn't it? We split with someone to "get free" and find the end result is the polar opposite.

Relationship requires Courage. It's far easier to avoid our life responsibilities, cling to the lies that "he's an unfeeling arsehole", and throw up annoying examples of his faults which our "friends" will go "tut-tut" and "there-there" to. Anyone who doesn't give us agreement is also consigned to the Fault-Finder list.

It takes real courage to realise  and admit that, despite how "right" we are, these dynamics are not working any more. It takes intention and guts to change the habits that separate us -- from each other and from our selves.

In failing relationships, I'm finding that Courage is always a key issue.

The things we evaluate others for, whether they be qualities or deeds we envy or condemn, are not the truth of those people. They are parts of ourselves that we project onto them. They are parts of ourselves that we lack the courage to make space for and contentedly abide, in ourselves and in others.

In lying to ourselves about ourselves (and others), we find ourselves mired in an all-too-human quandary -- it seems that we've learned to hang onto lies to get by, and forgotten that we need Truth in order to live. It doesn't take too much imagination to envision where that mistake is heading us.

So what is it that we desire? Wanting is the essence of life evolving. What do you want?

A hideous truth is revealing itself to me. In anxiety and fear the most monstrous and basest behaviour alternatives are closer and easier to us than deeds of empathy, and compassion. To be altruistic we have to get off our arses, reach out, and risk standing alone and getting our hands dirtied. It takes surrender, courage and commitment to a better self to break through to our true and higher nature.

Yet while we won't take the trouble to better ourselves, we expect the world to somehow better itself while we're out on the world's longest lunchbreak, waiting for a saviour. We are gazing balefully into the eye of God and whingeing "Look what you've done to me. It's your fault; you fix it."

My life quest began, I think, with two questions -- "Who (am I)"? and "Why (am I here)"? Those questions have attracted answers in the form of a splendid smorgasbord of circumstances and supporting characters putting together a unique lifetime of artifices and fireside yarns, ending in --- Nothing

Which after all is where we came from, isn't it? We emerged from Nothing (the kind of "nothing" that is Everything suspended in possibility) in order to create Something. Why? For entertainment? For the wisdom of experience?

And if we're doing it this time, we might just have done it before (how many times?), and might just do it again (how many times?). I mean, time is no object, and even Heaven gets boring after a while. Just ask Adam and Eve.

Nothing matters. I find myself now strangely relieved and excited by this.