The Why & the Lie
By Peter Shepherd
Most fixed ideas that we cling to - even though they don't really hold up under rational inspection - were originally made for what seemed to be sensible reasons.
These are some general questions that can be used to weed out fixed ideas:
1. "What things do you say to put others in their place?"
2. "Do you have ways of dominating others?"
3. "Are there any ideas that make you feel safer?"
4. "Are there things about which you are sure you are right?"
5. "How do you prevent anybody else from getting the upper hand?"
6. "What ideas and beliefs do you firmly consider to be true?"
7. "What ideas are constantly with you in your life?"
8. "What things in your life would you not be willing to change?"
9. "What principles do you use in dealing with other people?"
10. "What are your principles for evaluating things?"
11. "What don't you want to get involved in? Why?"
12. "What don't you like? Why?"
13. "What is an acceptable level of activity? Why?"
14. "What bothers you about others? Why?"
15. "What routines do you follow in day to day life? Why?"
16. "Is there anything you do to prove you are better?"
17. "What do you use to make people feel sorry for you?"
18. "What weaknesses have you shown to get people to do things for you?"
19. "What must people think of you for you to feel alright about yourself?"
20. "What ways do you get people to pay attention to you?"
Some of the possible "Whys" follow:
To solve a problem?
To solve a conflict?
To fill a scarcity?
To fulfill a need?
To getting rid of something?
To suppress?
To cover up?
To falsify?
To bypass?
To avoid?
To make fail?
To inhibit?
To invalidate?
To destroy?
To escape?
To enforce?
To influence?
To gain admiration?
To gain recognition?
To gain an acknowledgment?
To gain sympathy?
To obtain agreement?
To increase communication?
To be able to understand?
To please someone?
To resolve confusing thoughts?
To resolve a painful feeling?
Because you couldn't grasp something?
Based on an earlier assumption?
Based on a misunderstanding?
Based on an uncertainty?
Because of an injustice?
Something that can't be faced up to?
Somebody else's evaluation?
Because of an invalidation?
A failed effort to help?
A failed attempt to control?
An effort to resist change?
As a withdrawal?
Trying to give something up?
Because of a something judged to be wrong?
Because of something held back or kept secret?
Because a justification was felt necessary?
As a game?
As a challenge?
To get revenge?
As punishment?
Because it seemed a good idea?
Because you went along with something?
Because you noticed something?
Because you accepted something?
Something Else?
If you can clearly see a truth, then it no longer sticks in the mind. A fixed idea is based on some sort of untruth, something that's not being seen clearly, some resistance. That which is resisted tends to persists, as attention sticks on it, even if subconsciously. So the next step in clearing fixed ideas is to locate the "Lie" - what was untrue that resulted in the above Why being perceived? Was it based on one of the following factors?
Wrong evaluation?
A changed sequence of events?
Cross orders?
Wrong sequence?
Copying another?
Incorrectly included data?
Wrong time?
Admiration for the originator?
An assumption?
Omitted time?
Sympathy with something?
A presumption?
An over-generalization?
Thinking "always" or "never"?
Something inaccurate?
A wrong source of information?
A misperception?
A self-invalidation?
A threat?
Omitted facts?
An altered importance?
A wrong target?
An added falsehood?
Contrary facts?
The wrong place identified?
Something Else?
The basic idea is that if one feels confused, then one will try to find an idea that helps to clarify things, so one can then move out of the confused state. But if one chooses a wrong explanation, because one hasn't realized it has faulty logic, then the idea does not resolve the confusion. One holds on to it anyway as some sort of solution and continue to see the world through this distorted filter.
Try working through the Why and Lie lists above. Provide several examples - from your own experience or imagination - of each item in the lists. Then do this in combination, i.e. the why and then the lie. Also note that a further why and lie may undercut the first pair, i.e. these may go in chains.
Nobody said the mind wasn't complicated. That's why it sticks there - unraveling that labyrinth of lies helps you to see the underlying truth, which on the contrary is always simple and aligned with love, the nature of your being. Bon voyage!
Turning Problems Into Challenges
By Peter Shepherd
The mark of a successful individual is not whether or not they have problems, it is whether or not they have the same problems they had last year! In other words, do they understand problems? And are they solving them? Or are they just worrying and fretting and doing nothing?
Everybody has problems. Whenever we have a goal, there are barriers to achieving that goal - otherwise it would be too easy and no fun. The goal blocked by the barrier is a problem. Overcoming the barrier and attaining the goal is the game of life. This is also called problem solving. Without problems as challenges, life would be boring indeed! Problems are the essence of life. Difficulties arise when you are at the effect of a problem - when a problem has you, not when you have a problem. Then you experience stress and worry.
When a problem has you, you don't realize that you are creating it. You don't know that you, and only you, have to do something about the problem - that is, if you want to solve it. You are waiting for something to happen or someone else to solve the problem for you, or for it to fizzle out. You aren't looking clearly, facing up to the reality, seeing the truth and therefore being able to solve the problem. And it isn't fun. This is also called not taking responsibility and being at effect.
When you have a problem, you know that you made it because you wanted something - you have a goal - and there are always barriers to attaining every goal. So you have a goal opposed by a barrier - a problem! So you know you have to do something about the problem - to overcome the barriers and move forward toward the goal. And you have to do it (no one else can). And you are doing it! You are solving the problem. And it's fun! This is also called taking responsibility and being at cause.
There are always problems in life. The question is are you going to have problems or are problems going to have you? Better to let your problems become challenges, a game you can enjoy.
First you need to identify the problems in your life and there are inevitably lots of them! The following technique will help you identify some problems that you may not even be aware of, perhaps because you have just got so accustomed to them...
Practical
Ask yourself the following questions:
1. "What are you doing in your life that you want to do?"
2. "What are you not-doing in your life that you want to do?" In other words, what do you wish you were doing and are nevertheless not doing?
3. "What are you doing in your life that you do not want to be doing?"
4. "What are you not doing in your life that you indeed do not want to do?"
Question 4 identifies those things that a person really does not want to do and therefore is not making a part of his life. For example, he does not want to work for somebody else, and in this way he limits his options.
Ask yourself these questions until you have run out of answers.
Now look at what you've got. The answers that you have written down for questions 2 and 3 are the problem areas of your life. Question 4 may also represent an unresolved problem. With this data - hopefully an increased clarity on your situation - you will be able to take action on the real underlying source of the problems.
Note: If lack of energy is a problem, realize that you can promote mental fitness by becoming physically fit, and exercise gives you more energy not less. Also, you can talk yourself into exhaustion; most people are about as tired as they make up their minds to be.
If you have practical problems, take action to resolve the problem, rather than worry and complain about things. Most problems have simple solutions: you can lose weight by eating less, you can stop smoking by simply stopping. Simple enough but not easy to do, otherwise you would have done it already.
To resolve the impasse you need to look at the counter-intention that is holding you back. I like eating and I like smoking, yes, but why? Normally the why is unmet needs, that the compulsion has become a substitute for. What is not being confronted here? Look for the real underlying problem and sort that out first. Try to gain more clarity about it, to identify your thought-distortions that have been making the problem seem more of a barrier than it actually is.
Then what is required is intentional daily effort, focused toward a goal that you genuinely feel is worthwhile. Observe yourself in the process and when you become distracted bring yourself back on task. Refocus and begin again.
When you are working toward a goal, something that you want to achieve, it helps greatly to do two things. Firstly, to get a very clear picture in your mind of where you are going, and what it will be like when you get there. Feel it with all your senses, as if you have already achieved it.
Secondly, measure your progress, not by how far you still have to go to reach that target, but instead, how far you have already come. Realize how important your first steps are. Keep doing that and you will get there.
Difficult Times
By Peter Shepherd
When painful events happen in life, such as losing a job, breakdown of a relationship, illness or when one fails at an important task, this is naturally distressing. Like the pain we feel when we fall to the ground, it is a reality of life that we need to accept, then pick ourselves up and continue a little wiser.
Because of the pain, we may be tempted to avoid the reality of life through resistance and denial. Something bad happens, and we look the other way. We pretend that we don't have a problem when we do - "It's not my problem the sales figures have collapsed," "I'm not upset she's left, good riddance." But the problem doesn't just go away, and neither do our suppressed feelings - they build up and fester inside, causing anxiety, tension, depression, and a host of stress-related problems. The emotional energy these suppressed feelings create eventually drives you to behave in ways you don't like or understand, and which you cannot control.
Another way of avoiding reality is through exaggeration. This is when you make the situation out to be worse than it is, to justify your resistance. Whenever anything mildly unpleasant happens, you start imagining all the bad possibilities of what may go wrong, as if they were real and already happening. So of course you cannot face up to this and you 'blow up' or lose your temper to relieve the pressure of the accumulated emotions. This can feel good because it puts the feeling into action - but it doesn't change the reality of the situation that you are still not confronting.
A third common way to cope with feelings is by attempting to avoid the issue altogether by attending instead to distractions - by talking, watching TV, eating, smoking, drinking, taking drugs, having sex, etc. But despite our attempts to escape them, the real issue and our feelings about it are still there - and still take their toll in the form of stress.
But there is another option for handling a feeling - you can focus on it, fully experience it, and then let go of it: release it, discharge it, as we described in lesson 10. Release requires acceptance; acceptance occurs when we no longer resist - no longer look at things in terms of black and white, no longer judge. When we tap into our capacity for unconditional love, including love for ourselves.
Whenever you are experiencing any kind of discomfort, you are resisting the fact that some person, situation, or thing is the way it is. You may be doing so unconsciously and automatically, but nonetheless, all suffering, all discomfort, all pain, comes from not allowing what is to be what it is. If you could be totally nonresistant to what is, life would flow easily and happily, without discomfort, no matter what the external circumstances.
This does not mean you can't take action in order to make things different. It just means that when faced with something that is the way it is, and cannot be changed, you do not, as a result, suffer over it.
Do what you can to create what you want, but don't become attached to the outcome; that way your level of well-being can remain the same, regardless of the outcome. Your happiness comes from inside, not from what does or does not happen around you.
When you want to change yourself or help others to change, you need to gather information, the noticeable parts of a problem, the symptoms one is uncomfortable with. This is the present state.
There will also be a desired state: an outcome that is the goal of change. There will be the resources that will help to achieve this outcome and also side effects to reaching it, for oneself and others. There will of course be the barriers and difficulties. But if it is a worrisome problem and not simply an interesting challenge, there will also be underlying reasons that create it as a problem: what does the person keep having to do that maintains the problem, and why? What is not being faced up to? These causes are inevitably to do with resistance, the denial or exaggeration of a reality, and the suppression of accompanying emotions.
The element of conflict is intrinsic to problems and the trick of solving them is to be able to spot the counter element to one's own intention, and to recognize that one does indeed have a causative contribution to the situation, otherwise it would not be intention versus counter-intention - a problem! The 'solution' to the problem is simply a realization of the structure of the problem itself. To accept and no longer resist the honest truth of the reality of the situation. To recognize the denial or exaggeration that has been going on, and the emotional attachment to an outcome. The emotional charge or confusion of the problem will then drop away, and appropriate actions may be taken.
The amount a person suffers in their life is directly related to how much they are resisting the fact that "things are the way they are," because they are not as they are "supposed to be." Attachment to things being different than they are needs to be "upgraded" to a preference. This means that when "what is" is not what you want, you do not suffer over it (get angry, sad, fearful, anxious, and so on), and your happiness and peace are therefore not controlled by forces outside of your control. You then have the clarity needed to much better be able to actually improve the situation.
Practical
As you go about your day, notice when you are feeling resistance or feel that what is happening is not acceptable to you. Then switch your viewpoint to: "I'd prefer it to be different but I can accept this as a starting point, really it's OK." See what you learn about yourself and if it actually empowers you to be both happier and more effective.