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The Riddle
A Spontaneous Awakening
Introduction
When I was a child someone asked me the question, “What’s black and white and red all over.” I thought to myself, this seems so simple, but I haven’t got a clue. I was frustrated, and after a while I gave up. Then I humbled myself, and I asked for the answer. A newspaper. I didn’t get it. And all of a sudden it came to me; what is black and white and “read” all over? It was a riddle! I had to change my perspective to get the answer. I couldn’t plan when or how I would see it. Expanding your awareness is spontaneous.
It is like getting struck by lightning. No one knows the exact spot the lightning will strike but if you want to be filled with electricity you should stand on a hill and wave a metal object around. In this same way you can put your self in a position were your chances of having significant realizations increase dynamically. Realizations have to do with your awareness and they are not physical things. One of the most important steps to figuring out the riddle of life is to break free of life’s physical struggles and addictions. I’ve learned that life is a riddle. I see it now and I am awake for the first time. You can be too.
There are three parts to this book. The first is my story. You will get to know me. The second is what I learned about myself and others. It is about how I first experienced freedom. The third is a different perspective of the world. It is about how I became awake. My hope is that you will learn a different perspective from all three parts. It is about where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going. Each part of life is a riddle, and I had to figure that out. I hope that you figure that out as well. If you become frustrated and you want to give up take a break. Try to come back with a different perspective. The answer is right in front of you.
Change inspires us. We all recognize and admire the idea of change even if, and often because, we don't change ourselves.
When I was a child someone asked me the question, “What’s black and white and red all over.” I thought to myself, this seems so simple, but I haven’t got a clue. I was frustrated, and after a while I gave up. Then I humbled myself, and I asked for the answer. A newspaper. I didn’t get it. And all of a sudden it came to me; what is black and white and “read” all over? It was a riddle! I had to change my perspective to get the answer. I couldn’t plan when or how I would see it. Expanding your awareness is spontaneous.
It is like getting struck by lightning. No one knows the exact spot the lightning will strike but if you want to be filled with electricity you should stand on a hill and wave a metal object around. In this same way you can put your self in a position were your chances of having significant realizations increase dynamically. Realizations have to do with your awareness and they are not physical things. One of the most important steps to figuring out the riddle of life is to break free of life’s physical struggles and addictions. I’ve learned that life is a riddle. I see it now and I am awake for the first time. You can be too.
There are three parts to this book. The first is my story. You will get to know me. The second is what I learned about myself and others. It is about how I first experienced freedom. The third is a different perspective of the world. It is about how I became awake. My hope is that you will learn a different perspective from all three parts. It is about where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going. Each part of life is a riddle, and I had to figure that out. I hope that you figure that out as well. If you become frustrated and you want to give up take a break. Try to come back with a different perspective. The answer is right in front of you.
Change inspires us. We all recognize and admire the idea of change even if, and often because, we don't change ourselves.
Part One
How I woke up
---didn't read*
The Start
Pat 1 Chapter 1
I was taken from my mother as an infant and put into foster care. I found out later that my biological mother had mental issues and was not able to care for me. That's all I know about her. I don’t know anything about a father. I went to a few different foster homes and I'm told I was named Jason at one home, and Terry at another. No offense if you have either of those names, but I'm glad I ended up with Rob.
I grew up in Rochester, New York. I’m told that the area was once nice and quiet. I knew it to be “the hood”. The community was a strange mix of older people that had been there for 60 years, vacant houses and low income renters and people that belong in rap video's. It got very hood in the time I grew up.
I was adopted at a young age. My parents had good intentions. Good intentions don't make you good parents. We were provided for. They were never on drugs or anything like that. They just had no idea how to be authentic. I always thought they were twenty years older than their actual age. They would sit around watching the Lawrance Welk show. If you don't know who that is then my point is made. I had an older adopted brother who had some very major issues. He is not developmentally disabled, but if you spent five minutes with him you would know that he's not all there. Socially he is very rude, selfish and immature. We never got along, and I always thought of him as my younger brother.
We grew up in the city, and I was very scared at school. I was fat and nerdy, but worst of all I was timid and shy. I hated school. I never fit in. I was on the outside trying not to be noticed. I always look back at school like being in a rap video. I don't know how much of this was real and how much was in my head. For example: in sixth grade the thing to do was to find a nerdy kid and pants him. That is when a group of people or one random unexpected person pulls the nerds pants down. This happened to me. A lot. My greatest fear was that someone would pull my pants down and my underwear would fall down too. This was a constant threat. So I walked around holding my pants up with both hands. I had no self respect. This happened so often that I think I started the sagging trend without knowing it. That gives you some insight to how school was for me.
My parents never liked each other. My mother was always disgusted with my dad, and my dad never did figure out that women do not like sweat, and they don’t like stink. My father worked hard but was timid and awkward. He grew up on a farm. He would try to grow corn in our little back yard in the hood. I never understood it. We didn't have much but I never thought of us as poor. We had lots of food that I ate. Eating was my coping mechanism. I had a negative family experience. My adopted brother made life very difficult. My parents had no idea how to set boundaries and enforce them, and because of that my brother walked all over them. He is thirty four and still lives with them. He does whatever he wants.
There was a time when my parents were trying to control my brother. My dad and my brother would get in fist fights. I would fight with my brother. I would fight with my dad over my brother. And, of course, my mom and dad would fight. My brother was willing to go further than everyone else. He would pull knives on us and things like that. We would call the cops, but as soon as they came my parents would tell them it was nothing. They always said they were going to kick him out, but they never did. There I was-a fat and nerdy kid in the hood, scared at school, miserable at home, and I ate. A lot.
All the while, I was a "good kid", living in a "Christian" home that taught me that life is misery and then you die. And, if you are lucky, maybe you get to go to heaven. I was scared of God, and I always felt guilty for not liking the life he gave me. The Christianity that my parents had was so fake. We would go to church all the time. We would wear our nice clothes, put on our fake smiles, and go. I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong and that was why I was being punished.
At church the kids went to a school in the suburbs, and they seemed to be much more normal than me. I asked Jesus into my heart all the time. Every alter call. Maybe I would get it right this time.
We would wear our nice clothes, put on our fake smiles, and go to church. I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong. There must be a reason I was being punished. At church the kids went to a school in the suburbs, and they all seemed to be much more normal than I was. I asked Jesus into my heart all the time. I got saved at every alter call. Maybe I would get it right this time.
When I went to my junior year of high school my brother left for college. I started sleeping and exercising. I had my own car so I was not home often. I immediately became popular. I lost about sixty five pounds, and my self confidence went way up. I made a lot of friends. All of a sudden all of the girls that “just wanted to be friends” before, now wanted to date me. I dated a great girl who was happy and sweet. I always remember sunshine when I think of that year. I know that year wasn't perfect. I had many of my own issues, but for the life of me, I can only remember good things.
My brother came back after nine months. He had flunked out of college. When he came back he was twice as bad as when he had left. Once again I felt empty, anxious, and sleepless. My brother would keep us up all night. And, once again, we all fought. A lot. Now my parents didn't even try to control him. Instead of getting my brother to stop coming in my room, they put a lock on my door. Instead of getting him to be quiet at night, I was given ear plugs and sleeping pills. I took them every night. I snapped. I blamed my parents for everything. They had told me they would kick him out when he turned eighteen. I was tired of doing everything right with no reward. Because of the time that my brother was gone I knew what it was like to be happy. Losing that happiness pushed me over the edge. I broke up with the girl I was dating. She was too happy to be around someone so miserable. I thought of myself a s a poison. My parents hated that I insisted on telling them to change. I bought a leather jacket, and I started smoking. Then I had my first beer.
My First Drink
Part 1 Chapter 2
The moment I had my first drink I knew I had found what I had been looking for. I went from having never drank to being a full on drunk. I stopped taking the sleeping pills, and I just started drinking myself to sleep every night. As much as I hated my brother, I would even pay him to buy me alcohol. Needless to say, my senior year was a blurry time. I am still surprised that I made it through high school.
It wasn't about my brother anymore. Now it was about me. I changed my thinking overnight. This time it was not a positive change. I have changed my thinking many times since then. In the form of realizations. This book is all about instantaneous change. At this time in my life I realized that life can be very painful. So in response to that realization I consumed as much as I could. I completely self medicated. I consumed something every moment of the day. I was either drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, eating, or drinking coffee. I was miserable. I had no beliefs. I thought of the world as a very cruel and fake place. I had no real relationships. I became very trapped. Nothing seemed to make any sense. I didn't understand why I couldn't awake up from the fog I was in.
I had partied at normal colleges. I knew that I wanted no part of that. I wasn't some who partied. I went, I drank and I numbed myself. In fact, I hated watching people act stupid. I went to parties for the drinks, but I hated the party itself. I hated other drugs. I didn't want to be around them. I was a very careful drinker and others were sloppy and annoying. I liked to drink alone.
I left and went to a Christian college. I had heard them talk about the college at church. The school had rules. No drinking or smoking was just a part of the culture there. It was nine hours away from home. I thought that I would clean up once I was away from my family. I really believed that my life would be just like my junior year of high school. It wasn't. I was happy to be away from home, but the alcohol and cigarettes were all I had. Instead of cleaning up, I learned how to be a good manipulator. I thought of myself as skilled at hiding things. I would watch other people get in trouble while I walked around with my pop bottle full of vodka. I hated all the rich and happy people around me. I was alone and I was totally depressed.
During this time I found a girl that didn't mind that I was a punk. She was nothing like me. She seemed confident and didn't drink or smoke or anything like that. She was happy, but she didn’t like all of the ditzy Barbie doll girls or macho football guys at the school. Neither did I. I liked her a a lot and I wanted her to like me too. She made me want to clean up, but I was afraid if she knew how messed up I was, she would leave. We started dating. She found out that I had a lot of issues, and we argued a lot, but we also had wonderful times when we weren’t arguing.
I was two years into college with no major, but I definitely did not want to go home. I was a mediocre student, at best. I was getting by. I was a functional alcoholic. I was depressed, and was very much into the punk culture. I embraced it wholeheartedly. I had the leather jacket, fire engine red hair, metal everywhere, belts, rings, and chains. I was very angry, and I tried to keep everyone away. My friends were the bands that wrote lyrics as depressed and drunk as I was. Down deep I was always a sweet guy, but I didn't know how to feel like life was worth it.
Many people leave home to try to figure out what they believe. I was just like them. I left home, moved across the country, and started trying to figure out what I believe. I knew that what I had believed up to this point was not working. I moved because I was not awake. I thought if I moved I would find a new truth. Wherever you go there you are. My problem needed a solution. So I argued with people, all of the time. I would debate all kinds of stuff, and my views started expanding. Defending my view helped me to get rid of the weak ideas and form new ones. I realized that even though my basic education was low quality, my strength was in concepts. You don’t have to defend concepts. I didn't have anything to defend. I decided to get into politics and religion. People can always defend politics and religion. They are definitely more foundational than whether the bears or the 49ers are a better team. If I decided to continue to be into politics and religion I would always have something to debate.
I took an economics class and that is when I started learning about humans, including myself. My professor was an older guy from Croatia. He was the kind of guy you either loved or hated. He didn't care either way. So I liked him just because he was a rebel. He said, "99% of American Economics is mathematical garbage attempting to calculate things that don't remain constant." He told us, "I am going to teach you the other 1%, and it is the only part that matters". He said economics is the study of human action.
I got very interested in understanding the way things work, and why people do what they do. I developed the circle, a way to critique every political position. I was able to show everyone's weaknesses using this model. The circle later became part three of this book. It was the beginning of my journey toward freedom. I was seeking. But I didn't start to figure everything out until much later.
Things went on like this for a while. I was depressed. The fact that I now understood the truth about my lack of beliefs made it worse. I was a loaner in college, but I made a friend named Andy. He was into the heavy metal culture. He dressed in all black. He was not into the gothic culture. He liked metal. He hated when people didn't recognize the difference. Anyway, he was into loud, dark, evil metal. He loved screaming, which was not my thing, I liked singing punk. It is kind of like 50's rock, but faster, with a distorted guitar. Andy was anti-social, but he was also extremely intelligent. He didn't spend time hanging out with people. He spent a lot of time reading. He read so many books. I had my inner city education, which had not required me to read many books to pass. He was interested in history, religion, and politics. We became good friends. We spent hours discussing these topics. We pushed each other to the next consistent position.
Andy was always frustrated with me because he had studied so much more than me, yet I always seemed to accurately critique his positions. After a while I explained the circle that I was using. I showed him how no one position on the circle wasn't any more right than any other. Andy was already depressed and angry. He had issues but this seemed to end his quest for knowledge. He kept reading. He kept trying to find a way out. He kept looking for truth. Then I saw firsthand how destructive the circle can be if you stop here.
I had a conversation with Andy. He had given up. He concluded that there was no objective truth. There was no right, and there was no wrong. When people cross over to that position all they are left with is hedonism, which is getting the most pleasure out of every moment. So Andy became a drug addict and became more evil.
A few years later, after he had gotten addicted to crack and heroin, he got really messed up and brutally killed a girl he had been seeing. He did sick things with the body, and then he tried to kill himself by overdosing. His parents found him before he died, and now he is serving a life sentence. He mailed me a letter explaining how he had a momentary lapse from reality. I knew better. People used to tell me they could feel the evil coming off of him.
Six years later I graduated from college and married my wife, Bekah. I got a job, but I did nothing with the circle. It didn't bring me any joy. I had seen the circle destroy my friend. After college it didn’t seem that anyone cared about the circle. Andy was the only one that ever seemed to care, and that didn’t get him anywhere. I got no more pride from it, and I could no longer be right or feel good about having any positions. I wished I had never met the circle! Stupid circle! I was working and investing in real estate and doing pretty well. I was buying and selling properties. I was managing rentals. But I was empty.
My wife left, she went to Romania for the last semester of her master's degree but she really left as a trial separation from me. She had given me an ultimatum. It was either her or the alcohol. I couldn't figure out how to give up alcohol. I wanted to and I hated what I had become. We had moved from place to place. I had tried so many jobs. I was trying to become someone else. When she left I was alone, so I drank. I went from being a functional alcoholic to a dysfunctional alcoholic. I had closed a real estate deal and made a lot of money. I felt empty. So, I drank. The money didn't make me happy. So, I just kept drinking. I had a horrible black out experience.
The Change
Part 1 Chapter 3
The next day I knew that my body and my brain were failing. I knew that if my sweet wife came back and found me this way she would be gone. But, I didn't know how to control the drinking. I cried out for help. I guess I cried out to God, but not the God that I was raised with. I cried out, and that is when something clicked inside me. I saw things clearly, and I knew I could stop drinking. I had a realization, I wanted to live! I also cried for days. I cried all of the time. I cried at work. I cried alone. I cried in the grocery store. If you have never cried, especially as a guy, you are probably still holding on to a lot. And, it’s probably pride.
I started to put the pieces together. I got honest. I began to understand myself. I asked who am I if I am not the drinker, smoker, liar. I started studying alcoholism and addiction. I started to believe that I was not the addiction. I stopped smoking. I started working out. My wife came home. She found a skinnier and sober husband. We moved to Indianapolis so she could get a job using her degree, and I could do larger real-estate projects. We lived happily ever after. In my dreams. Actually, that would be nice but that was when the housing market crashed. My wife didn't have a job. The banks stopped lending. I started losing things.
I had prided myself on my perfect credit. I had prided myself with my ability to make things happen with houses. So, that was the first to go. My credit went bad. I poured every dime into the properties thinking that I could make something happen. Nothing happened. I didn't understand, I had gotten sober, and now this!? We had no income. An office building that I believed was going to bring in enough money to turn things around got horribly vandalized. In that area it was big business to have people break in and rip the plumbing and electrical out for the copper. This happened to me several times. One house had a break in, and the person was smoking crack. The house caught fire. We had also taken in a teenage girl drug addict that was trying to get sober. She was difficult, but by telling her to be strong I was strong enough to stay sober. But our finances got destroyed.
We didn’t know what to do. There was a residential treatment facility in the area that was hiring. I had worked there before, and it was a pretty good job. This particulars position was for house parents. My wife and I would live in an apartment. Our apartment would be in a building with sixteen teenage drug addicted boys. These boys had been placed there through the courts. They were involved with drugs and gangs. They came from broken families. This was not a lock down facility. It was not a jail for kids. It was a place that was attempting to provide a safe, stable environment for the teens to learn a different way of life. As house parents, we were paid a small salary. Our housing, utilities, and other expenses would all be taken care of, though.
We took the job. We moved all of our stuff from the big city back to where we had started years earlier. We went back to a little organization that was surrounded by corn fields. I felt like my struggles could help others. I had been sober for less than a year, but I had made it through some hard times. The house parents that we replaced were leaving abruptly. I don't know why. I had heard all kinds of stories. Apparently, the house dad was cheating on his wife with the daughter of the boss. After they left, he became a drug dealer, and a few years later was shot to death.
I only mention that to let you know that we were walking into an addictions cottage that had been run by someone that was not living ethically, let alone were they teaching anything ethical. It was tough, and that group of guys was difficult. They always pointed out how the other house parents had been so great. What they meant was that they got away with a lot more stuff. This is when all the pieces started coming together for me. I started to learn about change. I never wanted to be fake with these guys. In order to teach them how to change I began changing. I was eating right. I was working out. I completely changed my views. I became aware of ways that I had manipulated people. I became aware of how I had justified things. I did all of that in order to show the guys new ways of thinking and acting. Slowly, the first group of guys were replaced by a new group. This group of guys never knew the old house parents. It was the new group that really began to change. Don't get me wrong, all of the guys were tough. Some of them were tougher than others. Most of their families were on drugs. Many parents would come to visit their son when they were high. The guys had done so much. They were so young, but I was authentic with them. I didn't hide my struggles. I let them see me overcome things. They were watching me as I learned freedom.
As time went on I became very passionate about addictions. I had become a totally new person. The success that we were having with the guys was unbelievable. I made real connections with some of them. I started an accountability group that was by invitation only. They never wanted to go to a group until they were told that they were not invited. I would take the ones that I saw potential in, and I would go work out and spend the time. I loved those guys. As new guys came in they saw what I had, and things became easier. The guys now saw that I thought of myself as one of them, and I wasn't fake. That group really changed. There were a few guys I was closer to than others. One called me last month. He graduated from high school. I got a letter from another. He is in jail. I learned about myself, and I learned how to control my actions. I have always had an emotional storm going on inside of me, but I am able to use my brain to override my emotions. It doesn't mean that I am happy all of the time. It means that my actions are not affected by whether I am happy or not.
I was growing. I had removed my physical struggles, and I started becoming the best version of myself that I could be. It still wasn’t an easy time. We were broke, and the sixteen boys we worked with were emotionally draining. Losing the properties had ruined my credit, and my wife and I were denied an adoption because we were considering bankruptcy. That was super hard because we can't have kids.
I was tired of driving past the same bars I used to go to. I was sick of driving past the properties I used to own. I wanted a new start. I wanted a place to try out my new self. We started looking for a way to change our situation. I loved the job we had, but I knew that if you stay too long you get burnt out. I had seen it happen. Even though we were having success with the guys I knew we couldn't keep it up forever. I would either have to leave or not be so invested. I had to choose whether I was going to have quality relationships or quantity of success. I chose quality relationships. We began looking at ways to get out of the area. We applied for several different jobs in different locations.
We got a great job offer in California. It was a great job working with six kids. It was more pay doing exactly what we wanted. I thought to myself, “good my hard work has paid off.” I felt that we were being reworded for staying on the good path during the hard times. We sold as much of our stuff as we could. We quit our job. We told the sixteen guys that we had grown to love so much that we were leaving. Two weeks before we were set to leave we got a call. They were removing the job offer. Another couple who worked for the organization had been stealing money, and there was a legal battle. Our credit had been picked up off the fax machine by a guy in legal instead of human resources, and he had convinced them to remove the offer.
I was walking the right direction. I tried my best to remain unaffected. I was doing the right thing. I scrambled. I randomly found another job in California. This organization had foster children, and we parented them, but we lived on the grounds. We drove an old U-Haul across the country. This was in May of that year. We chose to believe that this would be even better than the first job offer.
The moment we arrived I met another person in the same position we were filling. He and his wife were quitting. He told me to turn back. He said the organization was involved in a lawsuit, and that it was run horribly. He warned me of the corruption. He told me about his frustrations. He told me how the children were used as pawns, and how they had tried to keep him from adopting. I had no money, and I simply responded to him, "I'll have to make it work."
He was right. As the months played out our situation became worse and worse. The organization was fraudulent with their money. All of the warnings I had been given were true. We were treated horribly. My wife and I were under constant stress. We had no “plan B”. This was very difficult because the children that we fostered were making so much progress! They were just starting to feel safe. Each kid had horrible stories, and they all just wanted a home. The children we are fostering got very attached to us. We didn't want them to be disrupted. We had been in California for six months. We did everything we could to make things work. It was two weeks before Christmas when the organization fired us. They also tried to move our kids.
Once again, we scrambled. We were able to get a place to live. The county helped us. The organization had done this to three couples prior to us. My four foster children handled the disruption the best they could. On Christmas morning, we moved an old picnic table into the house, and we ate a meal that we had been given by a local church I was definitely angry.
I now had four boys to parent, and no outside support. They all have their own issues. But things somehow worked out. We didn’t have much, but at the last minute something would come through and we would make rent. People gave us money and other tangible items. I had gotten very sick from the stress. A few months went by. My wife got a job and the kids settled in. A wise person I know suggested I do a water fast to kill the bad bacteria that had grown from stress. I did the water fast for a week. and this is when I broke out of survival mode. I started to give things up. I started to let go of my frustrations. I started to stop thinking of myself as my financial situation. I stopped feeling like a failure. Not only did I get well but I remembered everything I had learned. I started to come alive again. The stress of the physical world had made me forget about the spiritual world that I had started to tap into when I was back in Indiana working with the guys. I picked up where I left off, and I have had a season of exponential growth.
This story is not over. I have come a long way. I have stayed true to myself. I hope that you see that life is full of seasons. Life is full of times when learning happens, and other times when there is nothing. Life has uncontrollable factors. The good news is that I have started to learn how to control myself. I have begun learning how to be myself, regardless of the situation I am in. I have been fat. I have been a drunk. I have been a punk. I have been poor, weak, afraid, and angry. I had no hope, and then in an economics class in Marion, Indiana I started to figure out who I really am. It took me ten years and a lot of hard choices to get this far, and I'm not done yet. But, as I break free from life’s struggles, I move closer to being awakened.
All four of my foster children have since been found out. For several months they have been involved in numerous behaviors that made it clear that they would need to be moved to a more supervised facility. This is a real heart breaker. We have been through so much to keep them, but I don't need my kids. I want them. I love them. But, I don't need them to be a complete person. I am not defined by them, and I can't control them. I can say that I gave them my best.
My wife and I will move on and start over again. I am not afraid. I don't think this world owes me anything. If you think someone owes you ten dollars and you get five you feel ripped off. If no one owes you and you get five dollars then you are blessed. I am blessed.
I was exercising at the gym the other day. I am in the best shape of my life and I have gotten in the habit of pushing my body to see what I am capable of. I was on an ellipse machine with my eyes shut for about twenty minutes. A song came on my mp3 player. It was a typical love song, nothing special. But one of the lines mentioned giving everything up “just to be with you” all of a sudden I saw myself in three parts. My body, my mind (consciousness) and my soul. I saw how my body had been in control for so many years. It had told my mind what to do and think. It had pulled me away from my soul. In that instant I realized that everything that I have done has been an effort to get back to my soul. I saw my soul as pure and infinite. It was beautiful and clean. At that moment out of joy I began crying. I opened my eyes realizing that In was in the gym. It was like waking up from a dream, I was trying to hold on to it but it was gone.
I have thought of that moment so many times the past few days. My soul exists when I am asleep, when I am not conscious and my souls existed before my aging body was born. My pure soul is the real me. It doesn't die and can't be forgotten like the fleeting memories in my mind. My soul is all that matters now. I am not afraid of death, and if I’m not afraid of death what am I afraid of. I have been incorporating fasting into every day, I am not afraid of going without food if I can go without eating what can't I go without? My body and my consciousness now exist to protect my pure soul. Every moment is a blessing. I am in the eye of the storm, I am free.
I realized that my mind or consciousness is constantly changing every instant. I am forgetting things every minute. This doesn't scare me. My mind is changing every instant of my life so I am sure that when my physical body dies my mind will change again just like normal. I tried to explain all this to a friend who is into computers. I told him your soul is like the internet, your mind is like the software and you body is like the hardware. If your hardware is messed up the internet doesn't change, you just aren't able to access it. If your software is messed up the internet doesn't change you just can't access it. The internet is not a physical thing it is unlimited and is everything and nothing at the same time, so is your soul. Where is the internet located? Where is your soul located. If your body is pledged by addiction or struggle you can't access your soul. If your mind is troubled and conflicted you can't access your soul. Your body and mind are linked and they effect each other. A physical reaction to a drug can change your consciousness but it will make it difficult to connect with your soul. Some people don't use the internet, it can be done. Some people choose not to use the internet because it has potential to be misused. Some people don't ever connect with their soul, they deny it's existence. They miss out on a lot.
The other important realization with all this is that heaven and hell aren't black and white. My soul is clean and the closer I get too it the more truth I see. I have been horribly afraid of hell my whole life. Largely because my body would tell my mind to do things that moved me away from my soul. I know I'm not perfect. We are all walking toward one or the other. We are moving toward humility and truth or pride and lies. I am walking toward heaven, toward truth. If I am walking toward heaven then I don't have to worry about ending up in hell. It is much less about weather you are in or out and much more about how far away you are.
The second part of this writing is an effort to help you take the power away from your body and give it back to your mind, then hopefully taking it to the next level and moving from your mind to your soul. You can't be more spiritual and hold onto the physical. You will have to give up things in the physical world to have things in the spiritual. So ask yourself do I really want to be awake. Do I really want what the spiritual world has to offer? Some do, some don't. It doesn't matter. This writing is for the person who wants to wake up but does not know how. So figure out what you want and then do that, there are pluses and minuses either way.
I am not one to have different saying and things written on by desk or posted on my walls. However, about two years ago I watched a documentary about the mathematician that first proved infinity. He got into levels of infinity, they say he went crazy and killed himself. One of his students picked up where the first left off and also went crazy. One of them said,
“You will never know whether the problem you are working on is very difficult or fundamentally unprovable.”
I don't remember which one.
started ___________________________*
I have kept that by my desk all this time. It has been a hard journey. I could not figure out if I was very close
and not there yet or if all these problems simply can't be fixed. It doesn't matter what problem you are
referring to, financial, marital, social, physical, whatever. I have thought long and hard about this and have
seen it every day for two years. This is a riddle. Today I was sitting here at my desk. Listening to a friend
explain why if he just had more money it would be enough. I read my post it note and without thinking I
wrote on a sticky note... There is no problem. I can't believe I never realized it before.
Econ thoughts
Part 1 Chapter 4
Here are some of the concepts that I learned in the economics class. They helped me start down the right path I hope they start you in the right direction as well.
subjective value- stuff is only worth what you think it is worth
This seems easy, everything is worth what the purchaser is willing to pay for it. I thought to myself "yeah of coarse" But then I started realizing how my choices were so often made based on values other people established my perspective started to change.
What is worth more, a gallon of water or a pound of gold? Now let me change your perspective, you are in the desert about to die of thirst. If you value life then the water is the way to go. How many times do we see a sign 50% off, so we determine that it is a good deal. I learned that marketing is an attempt to get people to forget that value is subjective. I started to look around. I now had the power to decide for myself what everything was worth to me.
-It depends -the only real answer to every question
Now that I believed in subjective values the answer to every question is it depends. What is two plus two? Does the value of two remain constant. What political party is better republicans or democrats. What is better rap music or anything else. For me anything else, to my kids rap so it depends. As I began to gain perspective I realized that most people spend allot of time trying to make their subjective opinions into objective truth. I'll use an extreme example, is it ok to kill someone? it depends. Are you at war, is it self-defense. All of a sudden I found it hard to hate people for being wrong which made up allot of my personality. I saw that most people look for groups. They find other people who have the same subjective views. They feel a connection with this group and then agree that their group is right and other groups are wrong. I was into punk rock so I thought of myself as rebelling against groups. Sure enough that put me in the rebel group. I looked like other people in the punk group and I felt a connection with them. Sports teams, religions, political parties, punks and so many other groups.
Don't worry groups are ok. It is good to feel a connection with others as long as you realize you are agreeing about subjective perspectives. So I can join an "I don't like rap music" group and feel connection. It only becomes a problem when I declare my view to be the objective truth.
-Opportunity cost- the cost of anything is every other option
Opportunity cost is a idea that can be difficult but if you understand it you may find that you have much more freedom than you thought. The price on a bottled water at the grocery store says $1.00, what does it cost? You will have to spend a dollar to purchase it but the real cost is anything else you could have spent your money on. I could start to list out other things you could have spent your money on but the list is infinite. So if you are trying to sell something you aren't just competing with whoever is selling the same thing as you. You are competing with any other option the person has.
This works when we're not talking about money, it works for everything including time. Anything you do with your time cost you anything else you could have done with it. Anyone that you are with cost you everyone else. I started thinking this way and was immediately disappointed. I felt like I had made bad choices, I had. The sooner you start thinking about opportunity cost the quicker you can start to own your life. When you chose something it is what you really what more than anything else. So it can make life brighter, every day can taste better. When I choose a band to listen to I feel good because I know that band is who I would rather listen to than any other band at that moment. I have been able to take ownership over my choices, ownership over my life. So at this moment there is nothing more important to me than trying to explain this to you. If you are reading it, thank you. I am honored to have this writing be more important than anything else you could have done at this moment.
Part Two
***********************************************************
Perpetual Acceptance
One perspective on Struggle
_
You don’t get to be a hero by slaying a squirrel.
You have to do the hard thing and slay the fire-breathing dragon.
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Justification
Part 2 Chapter 1
Introduction
I’ve figured how to stay in perpetual acceptance. I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is you can be in total control of yourself. The bad news is that you don’t get to be trapped any more. Free people live in perpetual acceptance. When you are trapped by something you do what it tells you to.
Anything that controls you is a struggle. What we consider normal behavior in our society is often struggle. Historically there were areas where slavery was socially acceptable. That didn't make it right. So try to look at things outside of what is “normal”, it may not always be. Just because everyone else is ok with it doesn't mean it is ok, or healthy or that it won't ruin your life. I have spent the vast majority of my life feeding a number of struggles. First you have to deal with the physical struggles and then the emotional struggles then everything else. My struggles led me to discover some truths behind human behavior. If you have anything in your life that you want to improve or remove than this is for you.
Most of these concepts are the very practical ideas right in front of us that we spend allot of energy ignoring. We want the basic rules of life to be different but they aren’t. They were there before us and they will be thereafter we are gone. I want you to think about the concepts and apply them to your own life. Make them personal and specific to you and your situation. Challenge them and see if they work in every situation. Some of it will apply and some of it won't. I am not more knowledgeable or smarter than you--I am you. Once you learn the concepts my hope is that you can break free from them all together and be free but this is a good place to start.
As you read this, I hope that you will take a very systematic, proactive approach toward accomplishing your goals. I want you to either feel empowered to change into the best version of yourself or realize that you already are exactly who you want to be for better or worse. You will be able to stop just talking about changing and do what you want to do. How does any of this apply to struggles? The truth is it applies to everything, every action every person who wants to have control of their own lives.
I want people to stop being conflicted. Once you get a taste of freedom it is so unbelievable that you can't help but tell others about it. If your reading this and you are free but you know someone who is still trapped, realize you can't change them. I repeat: You can't change them. All you can do is change in front of them and hope that they are watching.
I am not making moral arguments. This is an effort to provide a subjective perspective to help anyone who feels conflicted. If you are at peace with yourself, great. If you want to change something and can’t seem to figure out how, then you are conflicted and being conflicted traps us. So why don't we live in perpetual acceptance?. We justify our actions.
The Concept of Justification
Any conscious action that a person takes has to be justified. In other words, every time you act it is because you have given yourself good reason and permission to do so. Every time you make up your mind to do something, whether it is to read this book or to eat your next meal, you convince yourself that it is ok to do that thing. In other words you use reason all the time weather you are conscious of it or not. If you want to do something but can’t convince yourself it is ok to do in your own mind you will not be able to do that thing no matter how hard you try.
I say conscious because if you accidentally hit someone with your car it was just that an accident and the person doing the hitting probably did not think it was ok to do it. This type of accident is very different from the person who says to them self that person just cut me off they deserve to be hit by a car and them proceeds to hit them. The second person justified hitting the person based on the action of being cut off.
The importance of the concept of justification is that whatever you are doing you have decided it is ok, ultimately you are responsible for that decision. In the example of hitting the person that cut you off you decided that because he cut you off he needed to be punished and that hitting him was a fair punishment and that you needed to be the one to carry out that punishment. Another person may disagree entirely but you are the one who decides. You may try to explain the reasons you felt justified to others and they may disagree, possibly everyone you tell may disagree but you will be able to continue to do that thing as long as you decide it is ok for you.
Here is my top ten lists of common justifications. These are not the only justifications out there and these can be phrased in any number of different ways but if you really want to stop struggling you need to learn them and learn them well.
Common Justifications
1. Minimize- It's not a big deal.
2. Compare- point out someone else who is worse
3. Pay back- others did this to me before, so I can get them back
4. Self Pity- I don't matter so my actions don't matter
5. Arrogance- I am the best so it is ok to hurt lesser people
6. The I don't care lie- repeating "I don't care" to try and convince yourself
7. Lesser of two evils- I could have done something much worse
8. Identity- I define myself as an addict so I'm just doing what an addict does
9. I'm only human - everyone is addicted to something, so am I
10. Blame shifting- Billy did it too (substitute Billy for any other name that applies
and if those don't work....
11. Screw it- no thought I want it so I do it
Each one of these justifications has an opposite. The opposite is the statement that has the potential to undo the justification. I will keep the same list but after the explanation I will give it's opposite.
Justification Responses
1. Minimize- It's not a big deal -It's not a small deal
2. Compare- point out someone else who is worse -point out someone who is better
3. Pay back- others did this to me before, so I can get them back -it wasn't ok when they did it and it's not ok for me to.
4. Self Pity- I don't matter so my actions don't matter -If it doesn't matter then it shouldn't matter either way
5. Arrogance- I am the best so it is ok to hurt lesser people -It wouldn't be ok for people that think you are a lesser person to hurt you
6. The I don't care lie- repeating "I don't care" to try and convince yourself - you only have to repeat "I don't care" that many times about things that you do care about
7. Less of 2 evils- I could have done something much worse -you could have done much better
8. Identity- I define myself as an liar so I'm just doing what a liar does -define yourself as an honest person so you will be an honest person
9. I'm only human - everyone is addicted to something, so am I -Classic- if everyone else jumped off a bridge would you, letting the culture make your decisions
10. Blame shifting- Billy did it too (substitute Billy for any other name that applies -True and changes nothing about your guilt
and if those don't work....
11. Screw it- no thought I want it so I do it - there is no stopping this one which is why when the other justifications are gone people just do it, this admitting total defeat. It is saying I have no control over myself my struggle makes the decisions. This is being totally trapped.
The key is to decide not to use justifications when it comes to the thing you are struggling with. Remove the justification and you remove the action. If you are trying to quit smoking start to think about what justifications you use to smoke. Do this before you quit smoking. Get familiar with yourself and the way that you think. Start to use the opposite side of those justifications and you will start to remove power the struggle has and then quit smoking. You will have much more success than if you quit without knowing what the struggle will whisper in your ear.
The smokers justifications are the same as the heroin addicts and the man who beats his wife as the child who steals a pack of gum. Now, before you think that I'm saying all these actions are the same and slam the book down don't. Realize the actions are very different but the justifications are the same. As you start realize that the justifications are not yours but instead are the same justifications everyone else uses you will hopefully stop thinking that your situation is different and instead realize that it is the same. Learn to remove the justifications and learn to remove the power from addictive thinking in all its forms.
Once you see these justifications in yourself you will start to here other people use them constantly. Allot of the time people feel the need to say them out loud in hopes that someone will agree. Then the person can mentally shift the blame to the that person. These are also powerful if you have kids. Children think they are the first one to say “Billy did it too”. Learn these for yourself but also learn them to teach your children not to use them. In order for you to do any action you must justify it to yourself in your own mind.
Action is information
Every conscious action that you do gives the rest of the world information about you. Every action the person next to you does tells you something about them. I’m not saying what is good or bad information. I just want you to understand that the conscious actions that you have justified to yourself tell others about who you are. We give people information about ourselves in two different ways. We tell other people about us with our words and we tell them about us with our actions. Sometimes we tell someone something with our words that goes directly against what we are telling them with our actions. At this point the other person is getting mixed messages and it is up to them to decide which information they will accept and which they will reject.
Action Reveals Priority
Talk is cheap, watch people. Subjective values are found in action only. If someone is holding a glass of water while they tell you "I would never hold a glass of water". It is safe to conclude that at that moment, in that circumstance the person subjectively valued water, regardless of what they tell you. The action revealed the priority. This was important because I instantly realized that I was a total hypocrite. Constantly I would say one thing and do another. While smoking I would say "I'm going to quit smoking". I did quit smoking years later but when I did I didn't have to tell anyone, they knew because I wasn't smoking anymore. Action reveals priority at that moment in those circumstances and has nothing to do with desires or intentions or morals. It simply tells you what the priority is every time without fail regardless and it doesn't ask for excuses.
This removed my ability to deceive myself. It also made it difficult for others to deceive me, because I never believe any ones words. The actions speak louder. Not a new concept but it had never really hit home. Instead of telling myself and others things a just owned it. The point is that everyone is showing what they subjectively value every minute of every day with their actions. So what is the most important thing in your life. Whatever you do, whatever takes up your time, energy and money. Economics is a democracy. Everyone votes with dollars. What did you vote for today? Is your priority what you tell yourself and others?
Part 2 chapter 2
The concepts of change
Change
Chances are if you are reading this there is something about yourself that you want to change. All that means is that you are somehow discontent with your current situation. Don’t think that is a bad thing, I’m not saying whether your current situation is good or bad only that if you desire change it is because you believe your current situation is lacking in some way specifically it is lacking whatever you want your situation to change into.
If you want to lose five pounds that means you are discontent with your current weight and your current situation is lacking a skinnier you. If you want a raise that means that you are discontent with your current pay and your situation is lacking money. The path to awakening is often paved with discontentment. Recognizing that helps us to change so that we don't remain in discontentment.
Awareness
The key to all change is awareness, or an expansion of your awareness. What does awareness mean? When I say awareness it is the part of you that is not your physical body. It could also be called your consciousness. I know this sounds deep but it's an easy concept that has been very important to me.
Humans are made up of the same material as other physical things but our awareness is different. There is a connection between the physical and your awareness. Each one effects the other. So if your physical body changes, let's say you start to go gray. Your physical starts to change before you notice and as you do notice you become aware of the changes that are taking place. At this point your awareness about your aging has increased and now both your physical and your awareness are changed.
So now reverse it. In the gray hair example your body changed and then your awareness followed. Your awareness can change and then your physical will follow. In other circumstances your awareness will change and the physical will follow. Thoughts are things that effect other things. Let's say you won the lottery at 2:00 pm but you don't find out until 4:00. You were unaware but once you become aware your thoughts change this change in thinking immediately starts to change your body. You may have a an accelerated heart beat, you may turn red and be unable to sit still because you are now so excited. Nothing about your physical environment changed. You did not change, your belief about yourself changed and it resulted in a change in your physical body which then starts to change the environment you are in. This same principal applies to bad news. If you find out someone died two days ago your tears start as you become aware of the event.
Everything I am going to share with you is an attempt to increase your awareness. It will then be up to you to decide whether or not your physical body or physical environment follows. At this point I hope your starting to make up your mind to change or at least keep your mind open to the possibility. As awareness increases so do the opportunities to solve the riddles of your own weaknesses and insecurities.
Motion concept
I learned about motion in my high school physics class. I didn't pay much attention. Years later thinking back I was struck by how applicable the laws of motion are to the concept of change. What is in motion wants to remain in motion. This deals with momentum. When an object is moving one direction it has force behind it. It takes friction to oppose that force and slow it down. It takes an equal force to stop the object’s motion altogether and it takes an even greater force to change its direction I'm not into baseball but go with me. A baseball won’t move until it’s forced.
Someone has to throw it. Once it’s hurtling through the air wind resistance, or friction, will slow it down. Over time, with enough friction, the ball will stop and land on the ground. You could stop that ball faster if you aimed it at a wall. The force of the wall is at least equal to the momentum of the ball. The ball will hit the wall and drop to the ground. If the force is great enough, the ball might even bounce back a little. Now let’s say you want to change the ball’s direction. You want to hit it out of the park. You’re going to apply much greater force by swinging a bat at the ball. When that bat connects, it will drive the ball the opposite direction.
People are just like baseballs. For whatever reason we’re hurtling in one direction. Sometimes we’re flying down a certain path in life and nothing is slowing us down. Sometimes the friction of life is enough to slow us down. But if we want something different, we need a new force to stop our momentum and a much greater force to change our direction.
Let’s go to another example. If your car is rolling down a hill it has momentum behind it. It will take greater momentum to push the car back up the hill. One time my car stalled just as I crested a hill. My car immediately started rolling backwards down the hill because gravity was providing momentum. I jumped out of the car and yelled across the street for three guys to help me. They were able to push the car up the hill into the safety of a parking lot. They provided a greater force which changed the direction of my car.
Just like pushing my car up a hill, change can be hard. At the very least, all change requires a greater force to change than it does stay the same. if we can accept this concept we will stop daydreaming about how nice it would be if change was easy. We can understand that we cannot change direction without friction and that we need a greater force to make change.
Struggle is...
Struggle is anything that a person wants to stop but can't. That means if you can't stop gossiping you should start to view it as a struggle. If you can't seem to stop overeating yup it's a struggle, this is anything. Usually the reason people want to stop doing a thing is because that thing has become more important than responsibilities, commitments, personal relationships, goals, promises, physical health and any number of other things that should be valued by a person. Struggles often turn into additions and addictions are struggles. Some of the examples that I use are struggles some are viewed as addictions. It doesn't matter. The concepts work on both. The line between struggle and addiction is blurry. In my life there is no line. But if you ask someone if they have an addiction they will probably think of a heroine addict or something and say no. If you ask if a person has struggles often the person responds off coarse, everyone does. This is why most of the time I will use the word struggle.
Change Equals
Change requires a few things, one is that things not be the same. Simple enough You can't change if you stay the same. So we need a change in action but we are not looking for a temporary change. Struggle wants to convince you that if you just take a break from the struggle you can come back to it and it will be just like that first time. Well, that is not the change that I'm working toward. My change is action plus consistency. This means that real change only takes place when time is added to it. The more time in between you and the struggle the more changed you will be. This gives you something to look forward to because once you are free you look forward to every new day. Each day is a day when you are that much freer. I can't emphasize the consistency enough. You don't get to take a vacation from being trapped.
Think of struggle like a big fire breathing dragon that wants to kill you. You can never train it. Struggle never gets to be your pet that behaves itself and walks by your side. Many people try to keep their struggles around but under control. That is why consistent change is so powerful. Once you have mastered consistently living in freedom you never have to fear struggle again and that is what makes you free. That means you never get to go back to that old struggle. Not even on special occasions. But not even when I'm old and....no never. The good news is that if you truly do this right you won't struggle with that. It is good news, you will never be trapped again, that's what makes you free. Desiring something different does not equal change. It is doing something different that brings the change…the doing….the action. You must consciously do something different than you did before.
What You Can‘t Change
There are some things that we as people cannot change. We have limitations.
I don’t want to spend much time on this because I want to empower you to see that change can happen in your life. But what I want you to stop doing is trying to change things that you can’t and devote that energy to things that you can. Most importantly you cannot change other people. I cannot control you, I cannot make you agree with this , I cannot make you better, but you can. Realize that you cannot change anyone else and start working on changing yourself. Use these concepts on yourself, even though it is tempting to go around and accurately critique others, you can critique them but you can’t change them. Also, you cannot change the past or future.
Regret has a very specific function. It is a negative memory that exists in your brain to keep you from repeating the same thing that caused the regret in the first place. If you had no regret it would be difficult to learn from your mistakes because you would not be able to make the connection between the negative feeling and whatever actions cause it.
So if I write something foolish on this page and realize it I may think to myself. I regret writing that and that recognition will keep me from writing the same foolish thing on the next page. Regret is just information about your past that tells you what not to do in the present. Unfortunately, many people are plagued by constant regret. Anyone who is doing something now that they have regretted in the past is missing out on the simple idea that regret is information. These people start to hate their past which is where the regret is coming from. Then they start to hate the present where the action that is triggering the feeling of regret is coming from and then sure enough based on the past and present they start to have expectations about the future. They start to expect that regret will always be a part of their lives, that it is unavoidable like aging.
The good news is that once a person realizes that regret is just information to help us learn they can change the current behavior that is causing it. This is figuring out the riddle of regret. At this time the expectation that their future has to be filled regret goes away. The future opens up and starts to have possibility. This process of learning from regret has to be repeated over and over. Most of us don’t have just one regret so the process of learning from regret can’t happen just once but over and over until our regret list starts to get shorter and shorter.
Things That Oppose Change
There is a long list of things that oppose change. To many things to make a list. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to change in the first place. The things that oppose change are anything that is not changing. People places and things. As you change some things will change along with you. They will change to remain close to you as you change. Most people places and things will try with all their might to stay the same and if you change you just won't have anything in common anymore. I remember being a child and loving my action figures. I remember thinking to myself and telling others I will always love these action figures. Well, years later guess what. I changed and the action figures didn't so we grew apart. No hard feelings just nothing in common. I can look back on them with fond memories but I'm not tempted to go back to playing with them. I look back on my struggles the same way. I changed and all that stuff, places and those people stayed the same, I changed. No hard feelings just nothing in common.
As much as I loved the action figures and my struggles I'm glad I grew up and now I love new things, no regrets. I hope as you change you feel the same way.
The Change Circle
There is a place where change seems to happen most of the time, not all the time but most of the time. It is a window where it seems to be easiest for change to take place
Thinking in terms of change happening based on discontentment you decide when enough is enough. On one side you are not discontent enough to change other side you are so discontented that the a person doesn’t believe they are capable of getting the (force, momentum, friction) required to change)
(diagram 1)
There is a window where change happens, where you discontent motivates you to action. You are not in a set place you are in motion going one direction or the other, once you become aware of this you see that you have the power to figure out where you are on the circle and move yourself to the window where change can take place. Some people believe the window is very small. I hope that you see that every position on the circle has the opportunity to change. Once a person buys into the idea that there is a place where change is more likely to take place they can immediately become more proactive about their situation.
Proactive vs Reactive
For most of my life I was reactive. Life gave me situations and I responded to them. I knew that I didn't have control over very much so I was stuck. Since I had no control over people places or things I gave up on control and slipped into a powerlessness state, believing that somewhere there was a big guy in the sky throwing things at me and my job was to see if I could get out of the way fast enough, I reacted. I still have no power over people places or things but the one thing that my all or nothing thinking missed was my ability to control my subjective perception of people, places or things.
I can't change anything outside myself but I can decide whether to shut my eyes or put glasses on. If I shut my eyes everything is still there but I can't see it and if I put glasses on objects don't change my site does. I have a choice about how I see things. I have control over my own site. As this really started to sink in I soon changed from reacting to life to being proactive about life. Constantly changing my focus, choosing to shift my mind's eye toward positive things and shutting my eyes to the unnecessary. I can't make bad things go away but I can choose to not focus on them. I decide what I focus on.
This same concept holds true for things both physical and conceptual. I can't remove self pity from the world or from others but by focusing my attention on self worth myself pity becomes very small and insignificant. I can choose what to focus on and that choice makes me proactive because I decide how significant things are in my life. Now start to apply this proactive perspective concept to struggle. I can decide how big or small cravings are. I can decide what I really need and what I don't. I can choose to no longer do addictive things. I can shift my focus away from them making them so insignificant that there is no struggle. I can give things up and never pick them up again. That's right, never.
The Struggling Mind
There are different types of people this why two people can do the same
thing and have totally opposite results. The severity of the struggle effects the type of person you become and how you understand struggle.
Some people tend to have an all or nothing mentality. Many end up with nothing. The good news for the person who struggles in this way is that if the tendency is to view things in an all or nothing way. That person can choose all and in this way can have everything life has to offer. The story of the prodigal son has three characters. The father who loves his sons. The prodigal who takes the money lives in excess. The third is the brother who never leaves. The prodigal has more pleasure and more pain than the brother. But he leaves seeking. The brother never seeks and because of this he doesn't find the same celebration as the prodigal. It is important to note, people who struggle don't lack self control. They are simply discontent with their situation. Is it better to be the prodigal or the brother, it depends. People see the grass greener on the other side. The reason I mention this is that if you see a person seeking, looking for pleaser in wealth, sex, drugs or anything else don't think that they are weak. Just wish them well as they seek. Many prodigals never make it back home. So don't judge people, don't label them addicts. The prodigal had to spend some time in the mud in order to come home and enjoy the celebration when he returned. I am a prodigal and if you do choose to humble yourself and come home the celebration is great.
Relationship with self
Most people know the golden rule. Treat others how you want to be treated. I think we can take that further and say how you treat others is how you will be treated by yourself. This is another variation of reaping what you so. You will get what you give...to yourself.
The most important relationship we have is the relationship we have with ourselves. This is so often missed because our eyes look out way from ourselves at others so guess what we focus on distractions. We look for as many distractions as we can. Silence is boring for one person and relaxing for another.
We spend so much time trying to get other people or substances or things to make us feel good. If you can learn to have a right relationship with yourself you can learn how to change yourself. So many of the ideas are connected to this one. Self respect, self discipline, self esteem. Realize that the conversation that you have within yourself before you do something is the most important conversation that you have. Our relationship with ourselves follows all the same ideas as a relationship with others. If you don't have positive relationships with others, if you lie, manipulate, or abuse other people chances are you have also done those things to yourself. If you hate others chances are you hate yourself. How we treat others is a window into how each one of us treats ourselves. We as people do what we practice as we practice lying to others it becomes easier and easier for us to lie to ourselves. The good news is that by learning to have positive relationships with others we can also begin to have a positive relationship with our self.
When someone has been struggling with an issue for a long time and they tell a friend, "I'm quitting" often the friend doesn't believe it. Normally the person has said "I'm quitting" many times. So I'm quitting starts to sound like "I'm lying". So when the person says "I'm quitting "this time and they start to change often the other person doubts. The friend has to test the person to see if they are for real this time. The person has to convince themselves. You have to prove to yourself that even though you sound the same you are different. Building truth with yourself or others takes time and consistency.
Negative Accountability
Many times other people don't like change. If you decide to change you will affect the other people in your life. Often when people see a person moving toward freedom they feel a sense of desperation. For example when I was a drinker my friends were all drinkers. They didn't want me to stop drinking. They often felt the need to be the audible voice of the struggle. The combination of the internal voice of struggle mixed with the audible voice of the "friend" is usually enough to keep change from happening.
Many times people united in the love of a substance or anything else will use negative accountability. My friends and I would agree to never change or sell out, we will stay true and never leave the precious struggle or each other. They agree if either one tries to change the other one will stop them. This mentality is not rooted in companionship but in the selfish desire to never be alone in struggle. If the people around you concur struggle and you do not you are left staring at your own weakness and loneliness. Then you must quickly find a replacement, someone who understands what you're going through. Someone who will never change and the cycle continues again. When people change they are often forced to move themselves away from their social world, friends family. The cost of freedom is great but so is the reward.
The Enabler
Some people resist change. One way that people remain trapped is to find an enabler.
This is a well intentioned person that doesn't share the same struggle. They don't know about the deception, manipulation that people will use to avoid change. The enabler provides the stability required to continue in struggle. This is most clear in the world of addiction. I come from this world and tend to view anything you can't give up as some form of addiction. So many people are trapped in addiction to one thing or another that I feel the need to explain what I know of it.
Being an addict is expensive and time consuming. The addict has to stay stuck in lots of real problems so they have excuses to use but also so they can make excuses to the enabler. The enabler probably really wants the addict to change. They feel an obligation to the person and at times even help an addict so that they can appear comparably strong and stable not having to look at their own character issues.
The addict wants to be cared about and also wants to continue to use. The addict likes the idea of change and that is why they can make convincing change statements. The problem for the addict is I really want all the good things that come from being sober now if I could just get that and still use. The addict will use charm and affection or anything at their disposal to make the enabler believe that this time they are for real. The addict lies to the enabler about changing but in turn and enabler will lie to the addict saying this is the last time I will help you out or continue to support you while you use. Yet they continue to come back and allow the addict to take from them. The enabler tells themselves that this is for the sake of the addict but it is another selfish act because the enabler doesn't want to believe that they are being played and that the addict never meant any of those wonderful things they said.
Many times the enabler knows the situation and prefers it because of the safety and control that is involved. Think back to high school and then think of the hottest girl you knew. Ok, now think about her ugly friend. Was the hottest girl really that hot or did she just position herself to appear hot by comparison. If the ugly friend becomes hot all of a sudden then the first hot girl has allot more work to do. What a perfect place to be if you don't want to have to change anything about yourself and you want to control everything but still not be alone. The enabler can have people feel sorry for them, appear so loyal and caring, and is never under threat of being asked to change. This is why many enablers get very scared if the ugly person next to them becomes good looking all of a sudden.
Both the addict and enabler lie to each other and lie to themselves. To break out of enabling clear boundaries must be set. If you use I will stop supporting you, and then the key is when the person uses actually stop supporting them. The addict will not believe the enabler any more that the enabler believes the addict when they say that was the last time. The addict will then test the enabler to see if they really mean it. This is the same testing that goes on by the enabler when the addict tries to convince the enabler that they really are sober. That is why it is so important to watch the actions of the person. The words are the same when someone actually changes and when they want people to believe actual change has taken place when it hasn't. The action is different every time.
Don't be an enabler to people, it will prevent them from changing.
Battling the "moderation is healthy" lie
I get the impression that in our society we have convinced ourselves that moderation is healthy. It may come from the idea that all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial. I believe that the idea behind this phrase was an attempt to get people to step away from a set rules for everyone and to realize that we all have different struggles and the problems lie much more with the character of the person than the thing they are doing wrong. I tend to think about the idea that playing cards is evil. There were and probably still are people who thought anyone who played cards was a horrible person. I don't believe cards are evil but for someone who has a gambling struggle they may not ever be able to touch a deck of cards again. So we need to know ourselves. We all have different struggle and anything that makes you feel conflicted is a something that you should be able to do away with.
Unfortunately, a person who is struggling with gambling and admits that he can't play cards ever again is looked at as weak and inferior by people who have no struggle with playing cards. They may say "playing go fish isn't a problem" and "we're not gambling" They may say that everything is ok in moderation.
For people who have struggles things are not ok in moderation. It is very easy for people to always try to control their struggle thinking that everything is ok in moderation. If fact the hope is that someday their struggle will be controllable. It seems to make sense but moderation is a lie, maybe the best one people tell themselves.
The reality is that it is very hard to quit something that you keep doing in fact it is physically impossible by definition to stop doing something that you are still doing. So only by rejecting the moderation is healthy idea can we quit anything.
Another idea that goes against moderation is healthy is the fact that many things in our lives are entirely unnecessary . So much of what we eat, and watch and do are not required, we would only be better off without them. I'm not saying that you have to give all these things up but you could and you may be better for it. We actually need far less than we think we do. There was a time when there were no cell phone's computers or the internet, no processed foods. People lived. If it all went away today we would still live. So we can actually remove unnecessary things from our lives. Less is more in many cases. But most people want to believe that they need things so they criticize those of us that continue to remove unnecessary things from our lives. For me, no fast food is better than some fast food. If people started to find out that we could be much healthier simply rejecting the idea of moderation and cut out the things that are not necessary we could be happier people.
Parts Of You- physical, relational, mental, emotional and spiritual
We are all made up of different parts that all work together. Some parts are seen and some are not. We are physical, relational, mental, emotional and spiritual. We are much more than this but this is a broad explanation. These five parts all effect each other and are meant to be balanced. If we focus too much attention to one than the others can be neglected and your whole self will suffer. In this same way when we fall to struggle it destroys every part. Only by recognizing the interconnected nature of our parts can we remove struggle from our whole self. Understanding our parts helps us to understand that all struggle starts because at least one part of our self is lacking. We choose to try to fill that empty space with the thing that later becomes our struggle. The faster we realize that struggle is a symptom of an existing imbalance in one or more of our parts the faster we can begin to treat the cause of struggle then removing the need for the struggle.
We tend tend to move from one part to another. The body builder who's physical self looks great but can't seem to stop gambling. The mathematician who spends so much time learning about math that he has no relationships. We tell ourselves that if one part is ok than the whole is ok. If it can't destroy all parts than we are often happy to settle and take four out of five.
That is why many people can overcome a specific struggle in their lives and still not see a real change. Someone may stop drinking and that is great, sad to smoke twice as many cigarettes and start eating terrible to die of lung cancer and a heart attack at an early age. We must recognize struggle in every part of ourselves and then began a total retraining of our body, mind, relationships, emotional responses and our spirituality including exposing ourselves to positivity.
Many people get overwhelmed when they realize that in order to concur struggle they have to change every part of themselves. It is important people hear the hard truth about struggle early on so that they can truly prepare for what is to come. Too often we think that we just have to change the thing that we are struggling with. Every part effects another so change brings change. I find it is better to be real and not minimize the situation. Most people do not have total victory in their lives but they could. Change is chosen. Don't be overwhelmed life is a process and so is the process of removing struggle from our lives entirely. Total removal can be the end goal with small goals along the way. If a person is trying to bench press 300 pounds they must first bench 100. If a person that can't bench 100 goes to the gym everyday for a year and tries to bench 300 they will probably make no progress but the person that recognizes the process will go lift 100 and then 200 and work up to 300. First work on your biggest struggle then move on to the things that you have started to do more of since your biggest struggle is gone. In time you will be able to have control over physical struggles and you can start working on concepts, quitting fear or sadness.
Situational Truth, Lies and Universal Truth
There are different forms of truth or maybe better explained is different levels of truth. There are situational truths. These are things that are true in a certain circumstance. Green means go is a situational truth in a physical traffic situation this is a true statement but there is no concept behind it and it doesn't apply to anything besides that situation. There are universal truths, these truths are concepts. Concepts that work and apply in the physical world but also our relational, emotional mental and spiritual selves. I'll give you some examples.
-you reap what you so (also meaning cause and effect or karma)
-the only way to get to a solution is through a problem
In the first example this can apply to you physically, in planting seeds. Relationally in that how much you but into a relationship is directly proportionate to what you get out of it and so on. How much effort you put into quitting something is directly connected to how much success you will have in quitting. This concept deals with our personal responsibility to take ownership of our lives.
In the second example we talk about lifts difficulties and problems. We can decide how to view them (it doesn't matter whether it is a spiritual problem or physical problem ect.) if we recognize that no victory, success or satisfaction has ever taken place without first having a problem we can start to choose to view all problems as opportunities. Struggle is such a difficult problem that if you choose to overcome it, it will give you a true sense of victory in your life. Allowing you to have huge rewards not possible without the problem of struggle to begin with.
Once we start to believe in universal truths we don't have to think so hard when making decisions. The universal truths work all the time and we don't have to look so hard at our situation. These universal truths give us wisdom where situational truth as good as it is can be only make us smart. This is why you can have brilliant people that are very successful in a situation but a total failure in other parts of their life. The business man that knows he only makes money if he works hard and makes sacrifices but has a failed marriage and problems with his children. He understood the reap what you so concept in the situation of making money and didn't apply it universally to his family relationships.
Some more universal truths are - you can't start and stop at the same time, the real concept is you can't do two things that are in total opposition to each other at the same time. This sounds simple but we try to all the time. This is the have your cake and eat it too concept. You can't quit something and still do it. You can't move forward and move back at the same time. The wisdom is seeing this and realizing that if we are moving backward the only way to move forward is to change directions. In my own life and in speaking with others it is amazing how much of the time I have to say. We don't change by doing things the same. This is key. If we are doing things the same we can't get a different result. How do we quit anything by changing things. If we choose not to do things different we choose not to change.
Truth, Reality and Beliefs
Many people make the mistake of only looking at the physical world and thinking that where ever they are or whoever they are at this moment is the truth about them. Where I am at this moment is my reality. But the truth and reality can be different things, they can also be the same. I'll explain. Clark Kent works for a newspaper, wears glasses and has a hard time with the ladies. This is his reality. But what others don't know is the truth about Clark. The truth is that he is an alien and can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes. Now there was a time that Clark didn't know the truth about himself he got hints that he was different and as he experimented he discovered the truth. His belief moved from the idea that he was a normal guy to the belief that he was a super hero. He didn't change, he always had the ability but his belief changed and as his belief changed so did his reality. It soon lined up with the truth. He is superman. These superpowers are awesome but they also mean that he will never really fit in with all the people who don't have superpowers.
I have news for you, you have superpowers. Powers that can allow you true freedom. You won't be controlled by any substance, action or situation you can remove shame and fear from your life. You can do what you want when you want. In your current reality you are weak but that is not the truth. Start to believe in the truth and your reality will start to move toward it. The truth is that the things you think you can't give up are totally unnecessary. You can do what you want when you want, it is your wants that will start to change.
Many people make the mistake of fighting with their struggles. If you fight with something it becomes your target, you start to focus on it. Victory over struggle is letting go. Realizing the struggle is unnecessary. Balancing the parts of yourself so that the symptoms of struggle go away. Realizing this will help you see that you are only playing a part. A part that can change at any moment. It will change the instant that you realize it can. As soon as you realize you can change you already have.
Attempting To Control
Some people realize they have a problem and then try to control the thing they are struggling with. Most of the time this control comes from a love for the that causes the struggle. I have struggled with alcohol personally so I'll use it as my example. An alcoholic may get into this frustrating pattern of thought. I need to keep drinking. I need money to buy alcohol to keep drinking. I need a job to get money to keep drinking. That is the thinking but this is what happens. The person likes to drink. They go to work. They get paid so now they can buy alcohol. They drink the alcohol which makes it harder to go to work. Which makes it harder to get paid. Which makes it harder to get alcohol. So the pattern goes on. This is when the person realizes they need control. They have to limit the alcohol in order to have the alcohol. This is a difficult concept. I want to have alcohol and drink it too.
When control fails the alcoholic begins to get creative. Working to get money to drink makes it hard to drink so are there other alternatives. Can I lose my job and collect unemployment? Can I get on disability? Can I steal money? Can I get a job at a bar so that I can get paid in alcohol? Can I find a way to make allot of money at one time? Can I find an enabler to provide for me?
Another way that the person may try to control the struggle in order to hold onto it is to let it go for a time. The thinking here is that if I can quit for a week or a month than I will be able to prove to myself and others that I'm not a entrapment to it. This is usually a goal that the addict tells no one about so that when an excuse comes up there is no shame or failure socially, only personally. To make this control easier the person may try switching struggles for a time. While the person is taking a break from the preferred struggle.
Some people can maintain a functional struggle position for a long time even years. They are able to hide the truth and spike back and forth from diet to binge, from a little to allot. The person that is able to function with struggle often has a harder time getting free. They don't hit rock bottom for so long and as time passes the chance of them changing goes down just as I explained with the change circle. These people desperately need someone to help them come to a place of honesty. The person still lacks all the positive characteristics that are found in freedom.
The path of struggle can take a long time or things can fall apart all at once. The important thing to know is that only the person can decide when they are tired of being trapped. Only the sick can decide when to treat the disease.
You Are What You Say You Are
That's right we are what we say we are. You define you or you let others define you but either way you are defined. That means that at some point in struggle a person starts to identify himself as a person who struggles and what do people who struggle do they struggle. If someone lies to you and you say " you are such a liar" they will probably start to identify themselves as a liar and what do lies do...they lie. A better response is this. When someone lies to you say you are an honest person why would you choose to lie. This shows the person that they are acting in conflict with their identity and they have chosen to lie and therefore could have chosen not to.
This applies even more to how we choose to define ourselves. We may say to our self you are so stupid, self. You are then defining yourself as stupid and stupid people make bad decisions. Start to realize that the first step in changing from one type of person to another is the choice to change the identity, the choice to change your name from struggler to victor from stupid to wise.
It is very difficult to change but it is so much easier once you have changed to remain changed. By saying that you are something different you can then start to become something different. Now notice that I said the first step in change not the only step. If you stop that this first step you will be smack in the middle of denial. This concept like every concept can be twisted. That is only done by the person that does not want to change. These people will not find freedom. The freedom and power that come with change are only found by people who look for them. Finding involves seeking. If you are reading this you are seeking. Welcome to the club, the seekers who find club.
The Grieving Process Concept
The future is uncontrollable, we make expectations based on our past experiences and core beliefs along with our current situation. We expect to be able to use substances/ food/ dishonesty and any number of other negative concepts in the future if it has worked as a coping mechanism in the past.
Every time our expectations don’t match up with reality no matter how big or small they are we have the potential to have a very negative reaction. We grieve our unmet expectations. The person that we expect to be exists in our minds and when we end up not being the person that we expected the future self that existed in our mind dies and we have to grieve him.
If you wake up in the morning and put on a shirt you expect that you will end the day in that shirt. You make a cup of coffee and accidentally spill it on your shirt. At this moment the end the day in that shirt expectation dies and you enter into the grieving process you may move to anger or depression. You can then have this incident ruin your whole day or week or however long it takes you to get to a point of acceptance. At this point you realize you have no control over a past event so you move on. You no longer stuck in anger or depression or any other part of the grieving cycle. The danger is when your expectations are not met over and over again you may start to expect bad things to happen to you. Then you are trapped because either bad things happen and your prepared for them because you are expecting them so no grief or good things happen but you are so focused on the bad that a good thing would be outside of your expectations and you would actually grieve your unmet negative expectations.
People that struggle with anger or depression and remain there for a significant amount of time are trapped in the grieving cycle. There is only one way out of the grieving cycle and that is through the door of acceptance. You can't escape it any other way. Guess what other ways people try to get out through, their struggles. But when they choose the struggle they expect to get out of the grieving process. Struggle doesn't take them out but further in. This leaves them with a new dead expectations and still trapped in grief but now they are pulling around a big heavy bag of struggle, and that is a big burden.
So what can be done? The first thing, no matter where you are in this process, stop expecting things. Expectations are closed thoughts they say I expect to get a raise in pay today at my meeting with my boss. No raise, begin the grieving process. Switch to hoping and get rid of expecting. Hoping is open minded positivity. I hope I get a raise today and if you don't you can carry your hope into the next day. Hoping is starting the day with a perspective that says I am open to hoping for an infinite number of positive things that will come my way today. Hoping is unknown. I hope good things happen and then good things do come our way, things we would have missed if we would have had our expectation blinders on. Hope is in things didn't even know about when our day began. Expectations are limited to the knowledge we have at the beginning of the day and hope is in the recognition that we have no control over that day except our perspective of it.
(diagram 2)
The next thing you need to do is choose the actual way out. Choose acceptance. "But I just still feel so ....." acceptance is a choice you make with your mind. You don't wait until you feel like accepting your lack of power over the past. Acceptance is when you decide to accept that you can't do anything about the past but can change the now and at that moment you decide to accept and then you go back to the first suggestion I made and hope that you feel like it at some point down the road.
The third thing you do is practice. Having a hard time accepting that big thing that happened in your past start with the cup of coffee you just spilled on your shirt. Then work up to accepting that you didn't have the childhood you wanted or whatever other thing happened to you.
I am not saying that this will be easy at first but it can get easier and easier.
Once we become aware of the grieving process, when our expectations die, we can recognize the process. Then allow the feelings to come in freely but work through them almost instantaneously getting to the point of acceptance. We can then move on in the actual reality that is not what we expected but is what we hoped for.
All denial, anger, bargaining and depression are a result of the grieving process and are completely avaiodable.
Grieving Yourself
Let me repeat that. Once you figure out that every time you feel depressed or angry you can move to acceptance instantaneously. You can spill the coffee on your shirt and instantaneously accept it and move on. At this point you are free. Unaffected by unmet expectations and enjoying finding unexpected treasures in every day. Your life becomes a treasure hunt and all you have to do is live and hope to find the great things you didn't know about in the morning. awakening is found in acceptance.
Gain is change, loss is change so only change remains. If you can accept change then you will not be controlled by the pursuit of gain or the avoidance of loss. Gain never gives enough and any loss is always too much loss. Accepting that change is constant lets you shift your perspective. Up close a river may look choppy and harsh with the waves crashing against the rocks. Pull back and the same river seems so tranquil. Acceptance of change brings tranquility to the chaotic motion of life.
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Grieving Process -
Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of situations and individuals that will be left behind after death.[1]
Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Any individual that symbolizes life or energy is subject to projected resentment and jealousy.[1]
Bargaining — "Just let me live to see my children graduate."; "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the hi is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just have more time..."[1]
Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die . . . What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect oneself from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.[1]
Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."
This final stage comes with peace and understanding of the death that is approaching. Generally, the person in the fifth stage will want to be left alone. Additionally, feelings and physical pain may be non-existent. This stage has also been described as the end of the dying struggle.[
Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness, and later to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom).[1] This may also include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, drug struggle, an infertility diagnosis. Kübler-Ross claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two. Often, people will experience several stages in a "roller coaster" effect - switching between two or more stages, returning to one or more several times before working through it.[1]
Significantly, people experiencing the stages should not force the process. The grief process is highly personal and should not be rushed, nor lengthened, on the basis of an individual's imposed time frame or opinion. One should merely be aware that the stages will be worked through and the ultimate stage of "Acceptance" will be reached.
Those Who Have Ears
This concept really unfolded for me when I was listening to my wife describe a person with a speech problem. She explained that when people are about one or two it is the best time to learn new languages. As we get older we start to hold on to the language that we use and it becomes increasingly difficult for us to learn new languages. Our hearing becomes so in tune with what we know we don't even hear what we don't know. So the person with the speech problem actually had a hearing problem. His brain had never learned certain sounds so of course he can't replicate a sound he can't hear, hence the speech problem.
This is the same problem we have in other parts of our lives. We are so in tune with what we have learned that we stopped being able to even hear what we haven't. So those who have ears let them hear. The idea is that not everyone does. Some people have an ear for music and others don't, the sounds are the same it is the listener that changes.
If you want change in your life you will have to work hard to unlearn what you think you know so that you can then replace it with what you don't. This starts with listening. So listen close. A free person starts as a listening person with struggles.
Treating The Symptom
In this concept I'm talking about a crying baby. When a baby cries the loud noise is a problem. You could solve the problem of the noise by covering your ears so you don't hear it. No more noise, problem solved. But this would be treating the symptom problem and not the cause problem. The other way to remove the symptom problem (the crying) is to stop and ask the baby why it is crying. The baby is probably not going to answer so you will have to do an investigation. You will have to think. You will defiantly have to spend more time and energy than just covering your ears. But if you care about the baby you will ask yourself does the baby need food or changed or to be held? You have to go through and start to meet all these needs and how will you know when you've found the right one, No more crying. The cause problem (let say hunger) is solved so the symptom problem (the noise) is no longer necessary.
This seems simple enough but what do we do when we have a headache. We take a an pain reliever, but the head ache is a symptom. The pain reliever is just like covering your ears to the baby. It is a symptom. Instead we need to ask ourselves about the cause of the headache. Am I dehydrated or have I been staring at a computer screen too long? There could be any number of causes but you have to care enough about your head to do the work to fix the cause and the symptom goes away. I am repeating this concept because I see in my own past and in the lives of others around me lots of symptom treating. Here is another example but this time I'll use an action instead of a physical thing. Lying is a symptom of unappealing truth. If the truth was better the lie is unnecessary.
Addictive behavior starts as symptom treating. I'll say it again because this is the thing that everyone involved in a struggle where it be with food, porn, drugs or any number of other struggles needs to realize. Behaviors that trap us start as symptom treating also called self medicating. It doesn't stay that way. As the struggle gets stronger the initial cause seams to fade away and many times that is just what the person wants.
Let's say your father was verbally abusive to you as a child and because of this you feel bad about yourself. You may start an unwise behavior that makes you feel good. So we have cause (father problem) symptom (feel bad) and a choice. Do I treat the cause and deal with the problem or do I go for the quick fix and treat the symptom. destructive behavior treats the symptom. The problem is that when you're not doing the destructive behavior, the cause (father problem) is still there along with new problems that come with the unwise behavior. Go to the cause and the symptoms will be unnecessary. Destructive behaviors are used as a coping mechanisms for your past abuse, trauma or unmet expectations. Got to the cause to remove the destructive behavior.
Pain
Getting to the cause always involves pain. I heard it said once that pain is inevitable but suffering is not. Why pain? Pain can be the friction that happens with a change in direction. Pain can be focusing on the symptom and not the cause. Like many other concepts pain is information that something is out of balance. Pain is the feeling that comes when you touch a hot pan. It is important information that you need to stop or your hand will have even worse physical problems. If we numb our hand we can touch the hot pan. We feel no pain but still get burned. A burn is a thing separate from the pain felt when burning takes place. Our nerves that allow us to feel pain are very important to our health. Simply by knowing what pain is we are able to know what it is not.
The goal of change cannot be to avoid pain. Avoiding pain is often the reason change cannot take place. The goal of change must be to avoid suffering. Suffering is long term pain doesn't have to be. Struggling in struggle is suffering a long drawn out ache that doesn't go away. Pain can be a quick jolt, a shooting pain that makes up jerk away from something. The longer we avoid the pain that comes with change the longer we will suffer.
The Struggle Exodus
I'm going to tell you a story. The journey to freedom starts in a cold jail cell with Joe, Tom and Anthony. In the jail their cells are lined up one next to the other.
Joe was put in jail at such a young age that it's all he knows. He has never been outside the cell. Tom remembers the outside world as a harsh and hostel place. It was lonely and fending for himself was hard. Sometimes he gets sick of jail but at least here he has three meals a day, a roof over his head and he is never alone. Anthony was put in jail as punishment for something he had done wrong a long time ago. He still feels so guilty about what he did that he figures he is right where he belongs.
Then a person named Nick comes along and visits the jail. He is happy and has a strange smile like he knows a secret. Nick says "Joe, Tom and Anthony there is a wonderful place called freedom where there are no bars and you can come and go as you please. It is the most wonderful place. That's where I'm from." Each one replied in their own way. Joe excitedly said "I've never been out of this cell that sounds great." Tom replied," I have heard of that place but never really believed it existed. The world I remember was nothing like that." Anthony quickly started to laugh, "There is no place like that, Nick is a liar and a fool." Even if there was a place like that we are locked in these cells. How cruel you are to come here"
"The land of freedom is real and I can take you there." said Nick. "How?" Joe asked. "Reach in your pocket you'll find the key to your cell." replied Nick. "This guy is crazy! There is nothing but dessert out there." yelled Anthony as he turned away and refused to listen anymore. Joe and Tom reached in their pockets and sure enough they each found a key to their cell. Filled with joy they both unlocked their cells and ran out of the jail but before they left Joe yelled back to Anthony "Come on the key is in your pocket!" but Anthony just turned away. He felt like he deserved to be in jail, if he made it to freedom he would feel even more guilty. So he stayed, sitting there punishing himself.
As soon as they got out side Nick started to lead the way through a hot desert. They walked on a wide road with tons of people. Nick kept talking about how great the land of freedom is. Joe and Tom were so glad to be out of their cells. They found themselves in a crowded desert. As the days passed and they kept moving Tom asks, "How much further is it? I'm starving and the sun is too hot. You never said it was this far away and if there is a land of freedom what are all these people doing here." Nick replied, "These people could come too if they wanted to but we just have to keep moving." More time went by and Tom finally yells, "Forget this! Anthony was right even the jail was better than this dessert." Then Tom turned back and started walking toward the jail. He found the dessert too unfamiliar.
"It's just a little bit further just down this narrow road." said Nick. Joe tired out didn't say anything but he kept walking. Then all of a sudden the dessert faded away and there was the land of freedom in all its beauty. A wonderful place but only a few people. "That cell seems so far away. I can't believe I'm here." said Joe. "I'm glad you trusted me." said Nick as they both sat down to relax.
Struggle is imprisonment. Whatever reason a person is in a cell time goes by and as it does a person in jail becomes institutionalized. This means people get used to the cell and are comforted by it because they know what to expect from it. In this story everyone did what they wanted, when they wanted to. The only question was did they want freedom or not. Are you Joe, Tom, Anthony or one of the people in the desert. The people in the dessert are glad to not be in jail. They are surrounded by others and would rather be normal than free.
Hoarding
Hoarders have a compulsion to collect positions, they pile up stuff. The stuff may not be sanitary or useful in any way they just have to keep everything. In other words hoards are addicted to stuff. Since this is an struggle I believe all of the concepts that I'm trying to unravel apply.
Some people reading this may be thinking oh good I'm defiantly don't have a hoarding problem. But we all have things we don't want to get rid of, we have a compulsion to pile up stuff in our lives. The stuff may not be physical but it is still a bunch of useless things that we hold onto. People will hold on to useless beliefs that just get in the way of progress. We hold on to people that have no use to use. We hold on to our huge list of needs, that are really wants. We watch TV shows about hoarders and say those people are so nasty and then we use their physical mess to help us over look our own emotional, relational, mental or spiritual mess.
What do you tell a hoarder when you want them to change. "Just get rid of all that junk, it's not worth anything." But have you ever heard that in your own life. Has anyone ever said "just don't" has a skinny person ever said just don't eat? Has a sober person ever said just don't drink? Has a happy person ever said just don't be sad? I have heard these things in my past and every time I found myself thinking this idiot just doesn't know that I need this stuff. I personally never struggled with hoarding physical stuff. I think hoarders are just people who are making their environment look like their inside. When I was depressed I wanted my environment and those around me to be depressed.
Two ideas here. First, you know struggle because you have struggled and second. Try to convince yourself to get rid of the useless stuff in your life physical and emotional, spiritual, relational, and mental. What are you clinging to? Chances are you thought it just then but said to yourself no I don't have to get rid of that I need it. You don't. I have found fasting to be a very powerful thing. If I go without food the long list of things I tell myself I can't live without seems to go away and things get put back into perspective.
Time concept
I always want to point out things I have said in the past or things that I hear all the time that make no sense at all but people say it anyway and other people agree. This is one of those things. "It'll be easier to change later."
Is it easier to climb out of a 1 foot hole or a 2 foot hole or a 15 foot hole. 1 foot simple enough. Is it easier to run 1 mile 2 miles or 15 miles? 1 miles simple enough. Is it easier to quit my struggle after 1 year 2 years or 15 years. 1 the answer is always less is easier. So get out of you struggle now and it will be easier. The longer you wait the harder it will be, always. Tomorrow is the worst day to quit anything. If we really embraced this concept we would spend much more time doing things and much less time thinking of reasons not to do things. Today is the day even better, yesterday. But some people just prefer to plan to change.
Perpetual Preparation
I have met allot of these people. I was one of these people. They always have a great plan of attack. When they see you they are telling you about the newest diet but they are still over weight. They may be at the bar telling someone about the AA meeting they are going to start going to. Or my favorite, the person with a cigarette in their hand telling someone about how they know how to quit because they've done it before and how they are going to do it again next Tuesday. When people would tell me to quit smoking I would say ok I'll quit tonight. Tonight? yes tonight as soon as I fall asleep. Then I would have to tell them that I would probably start again as soon as the coffee is brewed the next morning.
People that carry around too many plans don't have space left to carry any actual change. Plans are fine, I'm not knocking planning. Just know that any plan to change that does not result in change is not a good one. People who have struggles often struggle with planning as well. If you do have a plan don't tell the world in an effort to get props just for thinking about it. You will feel better telling others how you changed than how you plan.
My Last One
Here is a mistake I made a thousand times. This is my last__________. Yeah, fill in the blank. It doesn't matter what it is. You never get to have that one last magical experience with your struggle because then you'll remember the magic and forget it was your last time. You have to quit when your half way through or when it's already over. When you're hung over, feeling sick or guilty because of the shame. That's where quitting lives, stay there. You give yourself one last great celebration and the chances of you not going back are slim to none. Think this way the last time I _______ was my last time. The next time is never the last time.
Rewarding Yourself
The struggle will whisper things in your ear and most times it will make no sense. We listen because we want to believe so bad. This is a lie the struggle uses and it makes no sense but it was so powerful. You're doing so good not ________ing you deserve a _______. Never ever reward yourself with the thing you quit. Reward yourself with something you're not struggling with. If you reward yourself with the thing you're giving up you won't be giving it up so what is the reward for.
Cheat days are a lousy idea if you want a change in your life. People say well it's too much to just give it up. If you have a cheat day planned than you haven't changed. Diets don't work. They don't work on food or drugs or depression or anything else. You can't be victorious if you already have a planned failure coming up. You don't get to be victorious for a few weeks so that you can go back to loosing again. If you are taking a break from lying but have a new lie planned out for next week then you never took a break to begin with you just used some patience to make it a good one.
Three Types of Thinking
I clearly remember people telling me you should stop before you get addicted. I had the first kind of thinking. I don't have to stop because I'm not addicted. So I didn't stop. Then I woke up one day and someone told me I should stop and I realized I couldn't stop because I was addicted. That is when my thinking changed to the second type. I started telling myself that I was an addict and that was my new reason to not stop. The reality is that with both those ways of thinking have one consistent theme use.
Struggle exists where ever use exists. The thinking may change but the use is the same. The third way realizes that if an action makes you conflicted not an option to get what you want out of it. This just makes it unwise.
Buzzer example
Struggle is like an arcade game. Imagine walking into an arcade with $20. You see some people standing in front of a game and every time they press a big red button they get shocked. That is strange you think but you move on and see a machine "get $5 for nothing", the machine says in big letters and there is red button on it. So you reach out and press it and $5 comes out. You look around thinking this can't be right so you press it again, $5. This is crazy you think and you start pounding on the button and five dollar bills keep coming out. Now you've got 30 or 40 five dollar bills and you feeling pretty good.
Then there is a small shock when you press the button but you still get the $5. Oh well it's worth it, you think. This keeps up and the shocks get a little bit worse but you hardly feel them because the money is piling up. You remember seeing other people standing in front of machines getting shocked, they looked foolish but their machines didn't pay money.
Time goes on and then all of a sudden a shock and no money. Try it again a shock and no money. Is the machine out, I'll try it one more time just to see you press the button the shock is worse and then a $10 bill pops out. You've lost track of time now the shocks are bad and sometimes no money comes out but when it does it is always more. Eventually the money is few and far between but when you get money it is worth it. Eventually your hand is so horribly damaged from the shocks that you physically can't press the button. So you decide to stop, you count your money you've got $2,500.00. When you finally leave you see a sign that says hand surgery only $2,600.00.Through out this story the person has many opportunities to quit. Some people stop with the first shock others keep going. There are different types of people in different stages of struggle.
Three Types Of People
One of my main goals so far has been to point out that everyone can get something from learning change. The vast majority of people today have some struggle on some level. For example a person a drinking problem but that doesn't mean that they are not over weight and struggling with a food struggle. A person who has an struggle with anger may not have a struggle with prescription medication.
With that said I'll go back to the start. There are three types of people when it comes to a specific struggle, let use alcohol for example. The first kind of person has never drank. This person is not addicted and I call them doesn't use. Simple enough, the second person drinks socially and so I will refer to them as the social user. Finally, the third kind of person is an alcoholic and I will call them the addict.
I know that there are places where the line between social user and addict are blurry, the addict loves this fact. A sober person is in the doesn't use category. The goal of the addict is to find a away to move from the addict category to the social user category. The addict will try with everything they have to prove to others and themselves that they already are just social users. Only when the addict gives up on becoming a social user and accepts that they must choose to either remain an addict or move to the doesn't use category do they become free.
Struggle Give Away
How can you tell if you or someone else is struggling? Here are some things that are give a ways.
-They spend allot of time explaining why they are not struggling.
-They tell you they aren't struggling while doing the thing they are telling you they aren't struggling with.
-Here's one for alcoholics. The alcoholic may spend time reading the Bible and pointing to the water into wine miracle as a reason to drink.
-They never leave half way through.
-There are many more tells. Some are pretty standard. If you hide your struggles or lie to cover them up that is a good indicator that you have a problem.
The last one that I will share is a hard one for most people. In most cases a person that has an issue they are struggling with can't go six months without the thing they are struggling with. If the idea of going without a person place or thing strikes fear into you then you are controlled by that fear. Since you are controlled by fear you are not living in freedom. I have thought about this and there are people out there that love their struggles so much they could wait a week or even a month but six months is a long time. The challenge here is to be truly free. If you are thinking to yourself. I don't have to give _______ up. Give it up and then find yourself starting to use the justifications. If you really want to change, know yourself.
Opposing Characteristics
Struggling involves certain actions and concepts that are in direct contrast to free actions and concepts. Building the concepts of one takes away from the other. That means that seemingly unrelated actions and concepts are actually direct contributors to being free or not. If you realize this you can start to focus much less energy on the symptoms of the thing you can't give up and use that energy on things that you can. Be creative, think of it this way. If you are in a deep hole you might try with all your might to climb out with your bare hands. Eventually you may get tired and give up but look around. There may be a something that seems to be unrelated to the hole that you can use to get out. Maybe something to build a latter. Possibly something you can use as a rope. Don't waste your time trying to get out of struggle with your bare hands use other concepts and it won't be a problem. The struggle is clever you have to outsmart it. It sees you coming when you run up and try and fight it head on with no weapons. It knows you don't stand a chance. But when you build these characteristics in your life you walk up to struggle well armed and there is no fight. The struggle has to run away and look for someone weaker and with less character than you.
It is also important to mention that these characteristics are be exercised in other parts of your life and they will automatically reduce the amount of addictive thinking that you have. You must use them or you lose them and this is how people fail. As long as the characteristics are strong struggle is weak. You can build them up and have "victory" for a time but you never get to stop using the characteristics. As soon as you do you will find yourself struggling again. Think or some pro athletes after they retire. They stop training and their bodies stop performing. Stop training your character and it will stop using its struggle fighting power. Freedom is lifelong and it's not something that you need to retire from.
Here are the tools to freedom
Freedom Characteristics
1. Honesty
2. Selflessness
3. Self-discipline
4. self-respect
5 Accountability
and their opposites
Trapped Characteristics
1. Dishonesty
2. Selfishness
3. Impulsiveness
4. Shame
5. Isolation
I am going to break these down for you. These are the tools, the weapons that will bring you to freedom.
Freedom Characteristics
1. Honesty / Dishonesty
Honesty is the most important part of freedom. Take your attention off of the things you are struggling with and focus on honesty. Being honest is nice for the person you are being honest with but honesty is the most powerful gift you can give yourself.
Honesty is an art that needs to be practiced. The more you practice being honest to others the stronger truth will get and all struggle is connected to lies. The lies we tell ourselves and others in order to continue struggling. No lies, no being trapped. Truth is freedom. Once you start to learn the power that truth offers it will blow your mind. Fear, shame, hiding all run from truth. Better yet liars run from truth. If you master truth in your own life then you can start to see the lies that other people tell. Lies only work if the liar is believed. If you learn the standard lies that you tell yourself as well as the lies you tell others you will never be a trapped again.
Because truth is so powerful you have to earn it by giving up everything that you are hiding. Yes everything, all the junk that you have tucked away hoping that no one ever sees. That is why most people never become free, they want the lie. Liars are trapped and live in fear that someone fill find out the truth. So truth becomes the enemy.
Be warned. Choosing honesty is choosing power but it is also choosing quality. It is saying I would rather have a little honesty than allot of lies. It is like saying I would rather have a pound of gold than 1,000 pounds of dirt. It is saying I would rather have 2-3 friends that really know me than 1000 people who don't know me at all. If you don't want honesty, if you don't choose gold don't be surprised at how much dirt is in your life.
It is important to note that lying is only necessary when the truth is unappealing. If you get an A on your test there is no need to lie about your grade. So lying only exists because people believe that the truth isn't good enough. When you realize this then liars just seem sad. Liars are always in a state of poverty.
Truth is a big deal but don't get overwhelmed just remember the more you tell the truth the less dishonesty will be in your life. If you need a place to start, start by telling the truth. If you are struggling with anything start telling the truth in other parts of your life and as you do it will become easier to be honest about your struggle. I said to start, so once you have done that and done it consistently finish by adding truth to the struggle. No lies, no being trapped. No lies no struggle. It is possible.
Types of Lying
There are lots of ways that we lie to ourselves and others. People lie so often they often have no idea that they are not being honest. Sit in a coffee shop for a while and listen. If you hear people talking chances are you will hear some people lying.
To help you here is a list of common lies.
1. Lying- simply not telling the truth
2. Omission- telling part of the story but leaving out the part about you
3. Distraction- quickly look at anything that is not connected to question or situation
4. Truth while avoiding-saying true things that have nothing to do with the question
5. Blame shifting - they..he...It's not my fault (finger pointing)
6. Hesitation- trying to wait in hopes the other person just moves on
7. Half truths- I kind of, sort of, maybe I did
8. Joking- telling the truth and following it with just kidding
9. Silence- Refusing to answer the question
10. Minimizing- no big deal
*11. Exaggeration- when a person makes something bigger to make their rightness bigger
This was a personal struggle of mine.
(example- Every single time we talk this happens. or All the people at work are ridiculous, every last one without fail.)
If people pointed out my exaggeration I would say "I used an exaggeration to make a point and the point stands." the problem is that the point was never strong enough on its own I had to prop it up.
Hopefully you are starting to think back to the list of justifications. Most of the justifications that we use are lies. If we can't justify something we cannot do it. This is power, freedom and peacefulness.
Some people will practice and take pride in their ability to lie. They practice their lying skills hoping to fool everyone. This is particularly sad. Liars can never trust anyone. See it's built into lying, the more you lie the less you trust, the less you trust the less peace, joy, freedom, you have. The judgment for lying happens instantaneously. Even if no one ever knows and you forget you have still lost something.
2. Selflessness / Selfishness
Selflessness is tricky. It is true that all conscious human action involves self. If you give your friend the best birthday present ever it is because you value that persons happiness, so you get something out of it and therefore where really giving in order to get. I don't want you to get hung up on the this even selflessness is selfish idea and I only brought it up because in the past I would justify my own selfishness using this kind of thinking.
Selflessness is thinking about others instead of yourself. Struggle is all about self. When I say selflessness I am talking less about giving to others and more about not feeding yourself. We are consumers we are taking in from the minute we wake up until the moment we lie down. We feed on food, stimulants, caffeine, sugar, entertainment, sex, drugs. This is the selfishness that traps us.
I found out recently that if you put huge amounts of food in front of some animals they will eat until they die. They never get full enough to stop and they just think they are blessed until the blessing kills them. Don't be like those animals.
It is for this reason that not all struggles are bad in and of themselves. It is never about the thing you can't give up it is about you and your perceived need to feed. I think of a fisherman. Catching fish is great until you have so many that the boat starts to sink. Then there is a choice to make. This is not an argument for moderation, it is the acknowledgment that if the fisherman is unable to cut the nets to save the boat he should quit fishing all together and try being a farmer.
Look at the word selflessness. This has become the background music to my life, me telling myself, hey self have less. The less you have in other areas of your life the better able you will be to have less of your struggle, less means less being trapped. So whatever you struggle with try exercising the muscle of selflessness in other areas. As this characteristic grows the struggle will shrink.
3. Self-discipline / Impulsiveness
In the past I would make promises to myself and others. Then I would decide to lie and do the thing anyway. Once I made that decision I would turn off my self-discipline and go straight into impulsiveness mode. I probably looked like a dog sniffing around for a bone. I was focused on a target no time for a conscience. No time for thought about the consequences. This is the self discipline that I am talking about. Mastering the ability to either pull yourself out of impulsiveness or catch yourself before you go into it.
Easier said than done I know. There were times when I did pull myself out of it and then I would reword myself by doing it anyway. The way to strengthen your self-discipline is to start using it in seemingly unrelated things. If you can't seem to quit smoking. Keep smoking and start exercising. Focus on exercising. Get an exercise routine. I'm not saying to give up on quitting all together just realize this is one way to help you quit. When I was a smoker I didn't exercise. There didn't seem to be much point I was unhealthy and couldn't breathe very well. But do it and exercise your self-discipline while you are at it. This is a great way to weaken struggle.
4. Self-respect / Shame
Self respect is another characteristic that can drive struggle out of your life. The more self respect you have the less you will be controlled by people or substances. Self respect involves being secure enough in yourself to not be controlled. The opposite of self respect is shame. Shame is everywhere in struggle, it is in hiding. We always hide what we are ashamed of, our problems, our fat, our weakness. But self respect comes in when there is no shame, nothing to hide. Commit to not hiding anything because of your self respect. The more shame you let into your life the less free you can be.
Self respect is something that so few people have that when we find it we are amazed. We see it so infrequently that when we do we feel the need to find something that the person is doing wrong. We do this because of our own insecurity. We want to continue to believe that self respect is a myth, like Santa Claus. We are all skeptics now. Even as you are reading this you may be thinking yeah right I know this guy is hiding something, he must still be doing something.
The tricky part about self respect is that you can never know whether it is real or not from the outside. Only the person knows, you can get glimpses of the person if you listen and watch closely. If they feel the need to lie or hide that is information telling you at this moment the person does not have self respect. But don't write them off. As soon as they start being honest and admitting instead of hiding they will immediately get self respect.
I do have to make note that some people figure this out and try to cheat their way into self respect. I'll give you some examples. Have you ever seen or heard someone claiming to be proud of something that involves them being trapped. Sometimes it is a tee shirt or a bumper sticker. It is the person that thinks that if they tell the world that they are proud to be a promiscuous, or addicted or any number of other negative things that they will be free. The person has figured out that shame is bad but unfortunately telling others that you are proud to be trapped never makes you free. You get the benefit of not hiding and all the draw backs of the negative behavior. No amount of bragging about being trapped ever made anyone free. So if you catch yourself saying "yeah I'm (insert your issue here) " That is information telling the rest of us that you are so trapped that you just don't have the energy to lie anymore. Never be that person and if you are I hope that explaining it to you helps you choose the third way. Stop lying and bragging about being trapped and get yourself free.
To get self respect you must remove shame. To remove shame you must make your secrets known. Shame hides in the shadows and is afraid of light but self respect is out there in the light.
5. Accountability / Isolation
The fifth and final characteristic is accountability and it's opposite isolation. So much goes into accountability and I have thought long and hard about what it means. It like the other characteristics is all about you. In the same way that being honest is for you, so is accountability.
Accountability involves telling other people about your goals. It is recognizing that some moments we are weak and others we are strong. Some moments we are not tempted and other moments we are not. Accountability comes in when you are in a good place, when you aren't tempted. You recognize that at this moment you are thinking clearly, you are feeling strong and at the same time you recognize that a time will soon come when you feel weak and defeated. So when you are strong you have to prepare for when you are weak. You need to find someone and tell them to be the strong voice when you are weak.
Here is an example. Hey Joe I'm trying to stop __________ing and right now I feel good. Unfortunately soon I will change, I will lie, I will try to manipulate you and myself into justifying my actions. When I feel this way can I call you?
So accountability requires the other four characteristics. It is not easy but it is a very powerful tool. It is recognizing that shame can be controlled; it can be used as motivation to do what is right. Accountability is an effort to bring others into the truth about your weakness. It is not about hiding and it is not about the other person. The reason I say that is because in that crucial moment before you slip into impulsive mode, when you are deciding whether or not to do what you said you wouldn't you know you can call someone. The act of calling is enough to get you to stop. By the time you have called the person you have already resisted going into impulsive mode.
The person shouldn't be a person that is currently struggling with the same problem. It could be a person that has defeated the same problem. This would allow you to learn from someone who knows. It could be a person that doesn't have a just a person that won't make garbage excuses for you. Or it could be a person that is struggling with an unrelated problem. I have had some good bonds with people when I made myself accountable about one thing and they made themselves accountable about another. Both people are vulnerable and seeking victory. It would be great if it was a person you respected and someone that you wouldn't want to lie to. Accountability must have honesty. Lying to someone immediately removes the entire purpose.
Isolation is the trapped characteristic because there is no trust among thieves and no friendship among liars. Isolation doesn't mean that you are alone physically it means that you don't have anyone but yourself. I know that you can be in a bar full of people but the only friend you are there to see is alcohol. Isolation is the feeling that all you have is the thing that is trapping you.
You may find someone that you have allot in common with the person may be struggling with the same thing, they may love it just as much, they may have all the same problems and use all the same excuses as you. You may try to use negative accountability with this person because you don't want to be alone. "Let's stay the same, let's never change." What is really being said is, "let's stay trapped, never leave me, never become happy and health or I will be alone." Negative accountability is never for the listener it is always for the one doing the talking. Chances are the only thing that you have in common with the person is the struggle.
Explanation About Characteristics
So those were my five characteristics of freedom and my five characteristics of struggle. I know that I could have added to the list and there is allot of overlap between those five. I have a hard time talking about anything and not having truth be a big part of it. The root word of characteristics is character. Having character is the key to overcoming struggle of any kind. I hope that you see that character is not something that you do to avoid going to hell. Character is the mechanism of change for the here and now. I know this is hard to believe, it was hard for me. The reason we treat others good is not for them, it is because it is to only way we can learn to treat ourselves good. Don't get me wrong, the thing that makes it great is that others still get the benefit of being treated good weather it was for them or not. Character is a win, win and without these characteristics I don't know how to become free. These are the ways do what you want when you want. It is hard to be free when all your time is spent, hiding, lying, manipulating.
Manipulators will
When people are trapped they have to manipulate the people around them. You may not even realize it. Here are some ways that you may be manipulating people or ways that you may be being manipulated. Realize that manipulation is very common. I hope that you see something on this list that you have said recently. Maybe you didn't even know. I also hope that this keeps you from being manipulated by others.
Success/ Failure
Manipulators will make their success of failure hinge on you. This means that they will position themselves so that all the pressure falls on you and all the manipulator has to do is be there. I remember calling people when I was tempted. I would call when they were unavailable on purpose and let it ring once. That way it was their fault, they didn't support me and all I had to mess up.
Another example of this type of manipulation is when the person makes another person the decision maker. Have you ever said to someone or had them say to you. You should just leave me, you would be better off without me. This is a word trap that puts the other person in the place with all the responsibility to make the hard decision. Never say what other people should do about your problems. If you think the person would be better off then leave them and save them the hard choices. The other way that this is a set up is that if the person does leave the manipulator is perfectly positioned to have an excuse to do the thing that made the person leave in the first place, it allows for self pity and the person can be the victim.
Keeping Score
Manipulators love to keep score and make deals you don't know about. This is when the manipulator does lots of nice things for another person but the whole time is keeping track so that they can then have guilt free use. A husband may clean the whole house for his wife while he drinks. The wife comes home and is upset to find him drunk again but she is trapped, he can point to all the things he has done and say I have done all this for you and you can't let me have...She then finds out that there was a deal going on that she didn't even know about.
Gift giving is another form of this. The manipulator will get a large gift for the person knowing that he can then spend that same amount of money on his own struggles. Be careful taking gifts from people who like to attach strings to them. The manipulator will try to make you feel so good that you won't remember to be angry about the struggle.
Your Problems
Manipulators seem to forget their own wrongs but always have a list of things to point to in the people around them. This way if anyone tries to tell them to change that person will be hit back with their own insecurities. Here's one "Oh, I should quit smoking how does that fast food taste?" See how the health of smoking is immediately ignored and fast food is now the topic.
The best way to deal with this is to start changing yourself. The power that is found in being free is never having to worry about what someone will say if you try to help them. We have to teach people to change by changing ourselves. If you want your friend to stop doing drugs, then make sure your not overweight because the person will never hear what you are saying as long he or she knows that you're not really free. People know that they never have to take advise about beating a struggle from someone losing to struggle so they will look carefully to see if they can see if you are being controlled by something. The thing they find may be small, any struggle is enough to ruin good advice. If you can't give up your coffee how can you tell anyone else what to give up?
If you know that you have your own issue but don't want to change it then you have no business trying to change anyone else. But if the person sees you change they can then see that it is worth it, see how to do it, and see that you are real. Nothing is harder for me to see than a sick doctor giving health advise.
Where You Down
Manipulators will were you down. They will keep bugging you until you give in. Children learn this one at an early age and keep it in their pocket all the way up to adulthood. The manipulator knows that if they have more endurance than you then you will give in. If you are going to take a stand against something you have to be willing to stand longer than the other person and they are very motivated. If you are not up for the endurance race with a manipulator then don't start. If you start and stop you will teach the manipulator just how to get you.
Parents if you really love your children then learn how to say no. You are teaching them things every time they ask you for something. A lot of people are enabling parents. They want their children to change but they don't want to change themselves. The child never sees the parent change and never learns how to change them self and the cycle continues. As a parent don't get worn down.
Abusers
Once a manipulator's tricks don't work they tend to do one of two things. Move on to an easier target or switch things up and become abusive. Have you ever pointed out someone's lie and before you know it they are yelling and screaming as you've done something wrong. That is the shift from manipulation to abuse. Being abusive has to do with the father that beats his kids but there is allot more to it than that. You may be being abusive and not even know it.
All abusive behavior is rooted in a double standard. I have not been able to think of one abusive act that isn't. A double standard has to do with hypocrisy and hypocrisy sounds like this "do what I say and not what I do". Any time someone says this they are trying to establish a double standard. Often kids pick up on this but have a hard time understanding it conceptually. You may tell your child to go to bed at 8:00pm. But you stay up until 10:00pm. This is not a double standard. When I say do what I say and not what I do I am always referring to the characteristics of freedom. It is ok to stay up later than your kid. I wouldn't say it is ok for you lie and expect them not to.If you lie but you punish your child for lying then that is a double standard and it is entering into abusive behavior. Unfortunately parents often think "well in order to not be hypocritical I will not punish my child for lying". Then lowering the standard for everyone. We'll get into low standards later but this is not the way to handle a double standard. The thing to do would be to stop lying so that when your child lies your criticism legitimate.
Abusers love double standards. I'll give you some examples. I have a gun and you are unarmed so give me your money. All theft is abuse, I take from you but you don't take from me. If each person took something it would be an exchange and would be a great. All types of bullying are abusive. I get to make fun of you but you don't get to make fun of me so on and so forth.
Abusers always want to make sure that they are going up against someone weaker than them. They travel in packs or seek out woman, children, elderly or even animals. Abusers always have allot to say when they are looking down at someone and nothing to say when they are looking up.
I want to explain all this because abuse and struggle go hand in hand. People use substances that hinder brain function and when they do their ability to manipulate quickly goes away and they become abusive. So this is important whether you are the abuser or the abused. Many people use the substance to justify their abuse. Whisky makes me crazy is one I've heard several times. If you become abusive every time you have a substance and you continue to use the substance then you are choosing to be abusive, it is no excuse.
Understanding abusive behavior is the best way to guard against being abused or being abusive. People are abusive for a reason. Abuse is always information about the persons inability to be free. That's right abusers can't do what they want when they want and that is why they believe that being abusive is necessary. If you seek power over someone else it is always because you don't have enough power over yourself. If you have to control other people through double standards it is always information that you don't have control over yourself. If you are struggling with abusive behavior it can stop. Abuse is an outward expression of inner weakness. Like all other struggles if the inner problem is dealt with the symptom will go away.
I'm not justifying abuse I'm only trying to explain it so that if we understand it proactively we will better know how to deal with it in our own lives. If you remove double standards from your life it will be very difficult to ever be abusive again whether it be anger, theft, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual predators or any of the other ways that this type of weakness shows itself.
Only when you remove abusive behavior from your life are you free to do what you want when you want. Until then you will be to busy being controlled by weakness. Many abusers don't like being abusive they simply don't know how to stop. This is the same concept that we find in other types of struggle.
Timing
When dealing with struggle timing comes into play. Social users tend to make exceptions to use. A social drinker may only drink on a Friday night with friends. The alcoholic will be there but he will also drink on Saturday and Sunday and so on. A healthy person may have cake on someone's birthday were a person struggling with eating would have cake any day of the week. The point here is to know timing.
This is a type of justification. I had a bad day, I had a good day, I had a stressful day I had to work today, I had a day off, I was with friends, I was alone. When you are struggling with something the struggle doesn't care what day or time it is. The response when the struggle uses this type of excuse has to be, I will not do that today.
You must have the mentality that as long as I don't fail to struggle today I am ok. The trick here is that every day is today. That's right as long as you don't lie today you will not lie, as long as you do not steal today you will not steal. When you see that you can always choose not to be trapped today you have already stepped into victory. You have acknowledged that you don't have to do that thing today, you have become proactive and you have taken personal responsibility for your situation. The struggle never wants you to be free and so it will always use timing to get you to continue in being trapped. The struggle will either get you to think about the past or the future.
"I have always ________'ed in the past." Or, you mean that I can never ______ ever again as long as I live?" Thinking too much about the past or the future can be a distraction from this moment. Freedom lives in the moment. Freedom is always in today, it always stays in the now far away from the trap of who you were in the past and the fear of the unknown future. Be controlled by nothing in this moment and you will see that you are free.
The way that people often try to cheat their way into freedom is to try and buy now and pay later. Struggle loves this. You can drink tonight and you won't feel the effects until the morning. What if you instantaneously got hung over, maybe it would change things. No matter what your struggle is you are probably trying to put off the consequences. The idea is that if you can push the consequences to tomorrow at least you have today, but you don't. So be careful running too much makes you tired and weak and that is just the way the struggle wants you to be.
Replacement Vs. Removal
It is far easier to replace something than remove it. People tend to either remove, replace with something the same, or replace with something different. Let's start with remove. This is when people just try to give stuff up. To just remove it from life and it can be done. But it doesn't seem to be sustainable because with any void comes an ache that often drives people back to the thing they gave up. Many times they go back and are in even deeper soon after. I would not suggest this option.
Then there is replacing with the same thing. An example of this would be when a person shifts from one struggle directly to another and believes a change is better than staying the same. There is no freedom here, just changing masters. Sometimes people can step down from one struggle to a another. An example of this would be not drinking but chain smoking cigarettes. For some this can work as it shows the process of change as you move from one destructive habit to another. But be careful the struggle wants to kill you and has no preference weather you die of liver failure or lung cancer. Never stop there. Another important point with this type of replacement is that many times the things we switch to are leading us back without us even knowing it.
In the case of an alcoholic, the body breaks down alcohol as a sugar and a switch to consuming lots of sugar can trigger a relapse. This is important information that many alcoholics don't know. They may walk into a meeting after smoking a cigarette which injects your body with toxins. You then eat a doughnut which further trigger craving for alcohol as your blood sugar levels change. Followed by a cup of coffee that acts as a depressor on the body, it causes a spike that is followed by an energy crash and finally as the meeting is over the alcoholics is biologically set himself up to go straight out and drink.
The third way is replacing the struggle with something that will not lead you back to it. This is the best thing a person that wants to break free can do. It always depends on what you can't give up, but this often involves gaining knowledge like I'm trying to give you. Know your struggle in order to know what to replace it with. This often involves going deeper. Knowing that alcohol strips the body nutritionally the best thing to do is to replace it with nutritious foods. If you are struggling with internet porn you should replace your time in front of the computer with the things that you have been neglecting, family friends children or work. Every struggle concept must be replaced with a free one, every negative action should be replaced with a positive one.
Dry Drunk
It is important to bring up the dry drunk scenario. This is when a person stops the symptom but never stops the problem. This is why I keep emphasizing freedom. It is possible to never drink again and stay trapped. Well, why quit then you might ask. I didn't say you had to stay trapped, I said you could. Sometimes the realization that, you can't do what you want when we are trapped, ticks people off so much that they feel the need to walk around destroying people whether they still do the thing they struggled with or not. This is the miserable guy in the meeting who knows the horrible things that will happen if he drinks but knows that he is still not free so he just makes people miserable. Don't be this person, the struggle loves a miserable person. What better thing to point to in order to keep someone from getting free. Where ever you are go further there is still more for you.
The Law
Struggle is never about the law. Notice at no point so far have I said don't struggle with things that are against the law. Struggle traps people, it doesn't matter whether you are struggling with cocaine or food. I'm not saying that they are the same but the thinking is the same. Is it worse to struggle with cocaine or food? Well that depends on whether you are about to die from an over dose or from a heart attack. The struggle doesn't care, either way you're dead.
People who struggle with illegal drugs know all the excuses about why it is ok. An adult that drinks and then tells their kid not to is probably making some argument about it being against the law. The kids probably knows that the law isn't perfect. There is no law that says how much alcohol a person can consume in their home. The law doesn't say that a person can't huff glue.
Don't stop reading here, I'm not saying that we should do away with laws, I'm trying to fulfill the law. I'm trying to get you and the people around you be free, I don't want you to be struggling with a legal substance or an illegal one. So remember that if you're struggling with something that is legal get free before you criticize those struggling with illegal substances.
Giving Things Up-
Very few people have ever given anything up. Everyone has had things taken away but that is totally different than voluntarily giving something up. Not because of someone else and not because you have to. Not because the thing is bad and will send you to hell but have you ever decided I am going to give something up. Most people haven't, if you haven't you may not have any idea how to change anything about yourself. It may be as small as going into your closet and getting rid of any clothes you haven't worn in six months. Feel the struggle when you are trying to get rid of something that you like and you don't think is wrong. Practice, try fasting. As you learn to give things up you will learn to do the opposite to get things that you want.
Changing Yourself First
This has been a reoccurring idea so far but it is too important to not emphasize. Do not try to change anyone else until you have changed yourself. A liar is not the person to teach honesty. If you are struggling and you try and tell someone else to stop struggling you run the risk of doing more harm than good. You are showing that you have a double standard and as I pointed out in the abuse section all abuse comes from a double standard.
Don't think that you shouldn't try to help others first remove the struggle from your life and then go out and remove the struggle from others. Often your change is the best way to change others. If they see how to change they will much more likely to respond than if you just tell them. You may be thinking but I'm not struggling with anything, look harder.
If you want your kid to stop smoking pot give up bread. What? yeah, give up something that you enjoy on a daily basis. Something that you don't need. Something that everyone around you is doing. Something that you feel no moral conviction about. Something that makes you feel good. Give up bread, give it up in all forms. Hopefully your brain is being flooded with reasons why you don't have to. Hopefully you are feeling a little defensive or thinking about how hard it would be. Good, by changing yourself you will experience the same thoughts feelings and emotions that the person you are trying to change is experiencing. Let them see your struggle. Maybe you will fail and will be tempted to hide it from the person maybe you will make excuses. The best leader is often the person one step in front of you.
Worst Case Scenario
If you are free and are victorious over your struggle then it is dead and gone. Lots of times people start to get free but they keep one photograph of the old times. Instead of leaving it all at the grave of the struggle mourning and moving on they keep just one little thing. It could be any number of things sometimes it is an actual photo of the person doing the thing they struggled with but most times it is a mental worst case scenario.
It is that one horrible thing that could happen and it would justify going back to the old ways. For some it is if a family member were to die. For others it may be a spouse leaving or a job falling through. Whatever it is you must get rid of it. Freedom cost you whatever you don't want to pay for it. This is not your intention but you risk starting to wish for the worst case scenario. You may start subconsciously or consciously pushing away a spouse or day dreaming about losing that job. You may start to wish for that one perfect excuse to go back. Be on your guard. Admit this and then decide that even if that worst case scenario would happen you will remain free. Once the door is completely shut it blends right in with the wall. It is always there but you would have to look for it.
Sorry
Sorry is something that you have probably said or heard today. We hear sorry all the time. The problem is we don't see sorry very often. When I was struggling I got good at saying sorry. It's not hard to say when you don't mean it. When I would say sorry I usually included the word you in it. Let me give you an example. "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way." That is not an apology. Any time a person say I'm sorry you...it is an insult. When I realized this it really caused me problems because I did it so often. So if you yourself say it or someone says it to you never for one second believe that it is an apology.
There is another kind of sorry. It is a "sorry I" statement which is good but unfortunately it is no apology. This is a very easy "I'm sorry" it is the I'm sorry with no change of action. Any apology without a change in action is a manipulation attempt. It is an effort to remove guilt, shame or punishment while continuing to do the wrong thing. To explain this to people I might start poking the person in the arm, while saying "I'm sorry for poking you in the arm" If you're sorry then quit. Yes, that is right. The goal of this section is to try and get way more quality apologies and that will probably mean way less apologies, that's ok.
The only real apology is one that comes with a change in action. If the action doesn't change the sorry is either an insult or a manipulation. So listen carefully both to yourself and others. Saying you're sorry and changing your action is a very difficult and humbling act. I know because I still struggle with it. But it is one of the most important things to learn. If you want your family and friends to apologize to you then start teaching them how by doing it. If you master apologies you will see what it is to be truly free from guilt.
If your thinking "but I'm can't change", "it's their fault" or "I'm not sorry" cool. If that is the case then alright, just don't apologize. If you apologize and either don't mean it or don't change then it will become increasingly difficult to actually apologize.
The Benefits of Struggle
No matter what your struggle you are getting something out of it. Instead of treating our issues as entirely evil it is more important for us to stop and understand what am I getting out of this thing. If someone does something that sickens you, stop. Resist the initial temptation to condemn them and think. What are they getting out this, what is the benefit? If you are more concerned with getting the person to stop than with your own greatness then you will figure out what need is being met by the act. What need is the person meeting. Find another way to meet that need and you will help. Condemnation and removal are far less successful than grace and replacement. In doing this with others it will encourage others to do the same to you.
What You Don't Know-
You don't know what you don't know. Other people don't know what they don't know. I so quickly judge ignorance but the truth is that what I know now I have only known for a short time. It will change and grow and I can't wait to find out what I don't know. What will it be? I don't know that is why I am excited. There can be fear in the unknown. Sometimes the best way to teach people is to ask them questions. Sometimes the best way to help someone is to ask them for help.
I had a friend who was struggling with anger. He was a great guy but he would snap at people and get so frustrated with people. I know what it is to struggle with anger. Instead of telling him what I thought he needed to hear I tried a different approach, because frankly I didn't want to get him angry. So I went to him and asked him if he could help me with my anger issue. I asked his advice, I made myself accountable. When I would see him getting upset I would pull him aside and ask him how I was doing with my anger.
The funny thing is that he was able to give me great advice. As time went on my vulnerability caused him to work on his anger, he was taking his own advice. Eventually he thanked me for asking him for help because it had helped him and then he figured it out. I understood that I was giving him an opportunity to teach himself.
He knew all about dealing with anger, what he didn't know was how to listen. We have to find out what people know and what they don't. Often they know the right answer they don't know how to apply that right answer to their own lives. We have to stop focusing on what people don't know and shift to what they do. We can never be angry with people for not learning only mad at ourselves for not teaching.
Knowledge can be a big responsibility. That is why so many people subscribe to a life of ignorance and call it bliss. It is sad because I can say they literally don't know what they are missing out on. I can remember when my goal was to forget, to know less. now I know better. Even though knowledge can be dangerous I choose it. I believe it can lead to freedom.
Defensiveness
Every time you or someone else gets defensive you are telling everyone around you right were your weaknesses are. Of course you would protect the weak spots more than the strong ones. I'm not saying that defensiveness is a problem. I am trying to get you to see it as valuable information to understand yourself and others. You have to know yourself. The struggles in our lives know our weaknesses if the struggle knows more about you than you do then your odds of being free are slim. Admit your weaknesses so that no one can control you with them. If you find yourself defensive and you don't know why than stop. Figure out what weakness is being revealed and then take the steps necessary to strengthen that weakness. Once the weakness is removed you will no longer have to be defensive.
The Snitch
In the world of struggle you can lie, cheat, steal, abuse or anything else that you want to do as long as you don't break the only rule. The snitch rule. The one thing that liars never allow is telling the truth. Liars do everything they can to keep the truth covered. They spend their lives running from the truth, the truth that they are not free. So the snitch rule has been established. The snitch rule states that anyone who tells the truth is punished.
I have seen people with no morals what so ever totally crippled by this. They can't tell the truth. They have been convinced that it is a sin, the only sin. I tell you this because you may find yourself punishing someone for shinning light on your darkness. Realize that having a problem with snitches is always a problem with fear and weakness.
One time I was having a conversation with a young guy. He was ready to punish someone who had told the truth about him. This is what I said to him. "Come here, close. I have to tell you the solution to your snitch problem. But I don't know if you can handle it." "I can handle it" he said. I said "Okay but this didn't come from me. What I am about to tell you is the key to never having to have a problem with snitches ever again." His eyes grew big as he leaned in. "Don't hide anything." I whispered to him. He waited for me to go on. That was it, if you never hide anything no one can ever snitch on you, ever. There is power and freedom in honesty.
Rock bottom
This is hard to explain but very important. Rock bottom is the best worst place there is. Not everyone has had a rock bottom moment. I don't think it can be planned. It is a place where you are so shattered and broken that you let go. Rock bottom is when you know the only way out is up. It is a powerful place if you are lucky enough to get there without getting destroyed. I had a hard rock bottom experience and I think other people depending on what they are trapped in may have different experiences. There is defiantly a moment of authenticity where you realize this struggle isn't me.
A rock bottom moment of authenticity only last so long and then it moves on. Rock bottom is like a thunderstorm that scares you, out in the pouring rain the loud thunder and crashing lightning. Sit in it, stay there and when the storm is over you will find that that frightening rain has washed all the dirt off of you.
Unfortunately many people never get to a rock bottom moment of change because well intentioned people around them keep them from it. This is when an enabler doesn't want a person that is trapped to feel any pain and there is pain at the rock bottom point. Here is a word of advice, let people reap what they sow. If you disrupt this law it will deny the person that you think you care about the information that they need to change.
High Standard vs. Low Standard
Unfortunately many people spend allot of time and energy getting others to expect less from them. Setting a low standard for someone is an insult. If someone sets a low standard for you that is information telling you that they think you can't do more. At least I get to do less you might think, but then that pesky reap what you sow law comes in. When you set a low standard or you let others set the low standard you give away your power. Once it is given away it takes work to get it back.
Set high standards for yourself and others, this is a choice. You may be far stronger than you think but when you were young people insulted you and set low standards for you. Maybe you started to believe that those were your actual limitations. I'm here to tell you that you are capable of so much more. Compliment yourself with a high standard today. Challenge yourself and remember that the human brain, in order to change, has to rewire itself. This rewiring process takes some time. You could be trying to do things differently, maybe your brain is rewiring itself as you are failing. You may not know that every failed attempt is bringing you one step closer to that new connection being made and you changing.
Why is it that we see that everything in life worth anything requires effort and probably involves failure. We still try something once and then say see it didn't work and quit. Get back up.
Struggle Role Change
There is a role change that goes on that I didn't know about. As you get deeper and deeper into struggle the role of the struggle changes. At first it is your best friend, it is always there for you and it helps you through some hard times. It makes you feel good and gives you a feeling of power. People who get involved with struggle aren't idiots. Unfortunately we get into a relationship with something that sucks us in and then turn on us.
As time goes on the struggles role changes. It goes from being friend to master. At this point the struggle starts to do the talking. You find yourself saying and doing things that you wouldn't have done in the past. The struggle starts to get you to turn away from anything it considers a threat. It is now leading you. You may go along with this. This is often where people with "soft struggles" stop. Soft struggles are socially acceptable. They do damage but as long as you go along with them no pain.
Once you stop going along with the masters plans then the role changes again. This is when the struggle becomes your enemy. You start to hate the struggle that you once cared so much for. This is when it punishes you every time you try to break free. You are no longer doing the thing because you want to, you have no choice. As your enemy the struggle makes you do what it wants.
This is important to know because at every point you are doing what the struggle says. It doesn't care what role it is to you as long as you follow along. The struggle hasn't changed it has been controlling you from the first day. Be careful, often the most abusive people pull up with some candy and a smile. The struggle is no different.
Your Role Changes
There is another role change that no one told me about. When I started breaking out of struggle my role started to change. When I was in struggle I knew my role. Be desperate, wallow in self pity. Everyone around me knew what to expect. As I started to break free my role as defeated addict started to change into the role of a victorious sober person. I was changing from a follower to a leader.
I thought that this change would have people singing my praises. I was surprised to find out that any role change tends to cause problems for others. Now I know that people oppose real change most of the time. When the change started for me people thought it was just another weak attempt and didn't think anything of it. I don't blame them I had cried wolf before, saying this time it's for real and remaining the same. As time went on my role continued to change and so did my relationships. I quickly realized the people who were friends with me because of my weakness because the simply went away when I got strong. Some people will never believe that you are really free and others will hate you for it. The good news is that you will find people who appreciate your new role. They will offer you quality relationships, it just may not be quantity.
Relapse
When you have gone some time without the thing that you were struggling with you will be able to remember having a positive experience. Chances are that you did the thing so frequently that you were desensitized to the negative effects. Now that there has been some time you start to wonder would the old thing give me the same good feelings that I remember. If it has been long enough your brain has already rewired itself to not be the same as you were. This when a relapse occurs it.
Relapses can be confusing to talk about because a relapse can be the best thing ever or the worst. Here is what you need to know to make sure if you relapse that you make it a learning experience. It is all about conditioning. If you are conditioned to be health than unhealthy will hurt. If you are conditioned to be unhealthy than healthy will hurt. Initially change is uncomfortable either way. It can never be planned. You never get to think "well a relapse is part of the process so I'll have one in two weeks, I can't wait." Only you know if the relapse is authentic or not. But there are some actions to look for. There should not be excuses, there should be shame.
When a relapse happens there is a moment of truth. If you hide it and start on the old path then that is the direction you will go and fast. Or if you do what you would not have done before and admit your mistake then you will know that you are different. If you do the old thing hopefully it will not feel the same because you should now be filled with enough positive things that there is no hole left to fill. You will have to decide do I want to go back to being trapped or keep moving forward. Relapse can function to retrain the brain. Relapse = pain = bad instead of Using = pleasure = good.
This is why you do not want to have one last great time with your struggle or that is what you will remember. When you relapse and see that the old thing just doesn't satisfy the new you hold onto that memory, hold on to the guilt, shame and the just plain stupid feeling. When you ask yourself what was I thinking. Remember that hang it on the wall of your mind so that when the struggle comes knocking again you will not forget.
You may not have a physical relapse but a character relapse. If you have built the freedom characteristics into your life you may have a character relapse. The has the same function as a physical relapse. You may think I used to lie and be just fine. So you lie and now you feel like crap because you know that all lies are rooted in fear and weakness, great hold onto that. Successful character relapses will prevent you from a physical relapse.
Genes and Upbringing
I was adopted at a young age. I have never met a biological relative. That means that for me genetics is a guessing game. When I was fat I imagined my biological parents to be fat. When I lost my hair I imagined my biological father bald. I was removed from the home so I am assuming some negative things were going on.
In the home I was raised in no one else was overweight. They were just skinny and I was very fat. No one drank or smoked, ever. I was not raised around alcohol or cigarettes. Yet I latched on these things just as tightly as someone who was raised around them. We did have our fair share of addictive concepts but the way those concepts manifested themselves in my was very different.
Genes play a powerful role in who we are. The danger is that we will use them as an excuse to continue the cycle. My past has lead me to believe that genes play more of a role in struggle than upbringing. Many times people have both. If you are raised in a home with an alcoholic father then you are getting attacked both from the inside (your genes) and from the outside (your upbringing). But when you are a kid you don't get to make allot of the decisions for yourself. When you can make those decisions you will have to work that much harder to over throw your genetics or your upbringing. If you don't then you will just be giving your children the same disadvantages you were given. As always know yourself. If you have a history of anything negative in your families past use it as information instead of an excuse.
Stress
Stress is strange, it does so many negative things to the body and the mind. It kills and that is why the struggle loves it so much. I knew what it was to be stressed my entire life but I never took the time to learn about it. Don't get me wrong there is allot of biological responses to stress. I'm going to try and break down two types of stress. I'm calling them situational and physical. This is my perspective and it may not line up with some much more complex stress explanations.
The first kind of stress is situational. This is the type of stress most of us think about. For example you get chewed out by your boss, that is a stressful situation. That situation causes a stress response in your physical body.
Another kind of stress is a physical stress. this could be explained in a number of ways. The way I want you to understand it is from the perspective of substances. Any substances that makes you spike and crash, highs and lows. Any substance whether it be caffeine, nicotine, sugar, alcohol all the way up to any number of other less socially acceptable drugs or prescriptions causes a stress on the body.
Here is how the stress cycle works. You have a bad day, that is the situational stress so then you consume a substance to cope with that stress, that is the physical stress. Here is the important point, your body can not tell the difference between situational stress and physical stress. The body only sees it as stress. So let's repeat the cycle, you have a bad day and the body feels stress and then you consume something and the body feels a physical stress. So the body is stressed and then it is stressed.
The reason this is important is because the things we are doing to release stress are causing stress, so we feel worse. We feel worse so we need something to pick us up, probably a stressor. See the problem. The body stays stressed all the time.
Your body is designed to handle stress. It handles all types by shifting you into fight or flight mode. When the body is in fight or flight mode it shuts off all long term stuff like healing the body. It forces all your energy to survival mode. Your body can't tell the difference between a tiger casing you or having an argument with your spouse , or stress from chemicals. The body sends all the blood to the head so you can be alert. To escape the tiger. This is why some students believe that they only perform under pressure. This is also why we lay awake at night tossing and turning. There are lots of other biological responses that stress causes. If the pressure doesn't go away your body just gets drained and is unable to shift into fight or flight mode. When this happens and a stressor comes along instead of fighting it or running you just lay there and your problem gets you.
The things that we are doing to cope are often causing are the problem. Toxins are a stress, if you need caffeine, nicotine, drugs, pills, junk food or a number of other things to remove stress than you are using a stressor to stop stress. It is the same as trying to put a fire out with gasoline. I have to tell you this because for years I used stressors to relieve stress. The stress got worse and I needed more of the stressor to get the same effect. This why we have to free ourselves from these things, they are unsustainable and leave us defenseless against the situational stress that life brings.
Change Your Surroundings
Sometimes it is helpful to change your surroundings to change your life. If you leave the old places you are much less likely to constantly think about old things that you have given up. We naturally follow paths we have walked. Sometimes the best way to go a different direction is to go to a place that has un walked paths. I realize not everyone can just pack up and move across the country. If you can I would try it, I did actually and it was a big help. The idea here is to change your surroundings in some way. If you want to feel different start dressing different. Paint the walls in your house a different color. Start trying new things that are not related to the old baggage. Try new food, new friends, try learning things. There was a time when I would have rolled my eyes at this suggestion but I didn't know about all the things that I now love.
A change of scenery has a lot of power to but not all the power. This suggestion is a good one but don't think that a new place will make you new. There is a trying new things and running away. If you are learning how to guard yourself against the lies of struggle a change of scenery can be perfect. However, if you are not doing the work no amount of exterior change will change your interior. If you are establishing the characteristics of freedom those characteristics should not be comfortable around the old things. If you still have the same old characteristics of struggle then you will change the place from new to old quickly.
The Shift
At some point there will be a shift from freeing yourself from physical struggles to freeing yourself from conceptual struggles. You may have started this process when you started looking to the root of the physical struggle. Most times because the concepts are the cause of the physical struggles they are stronger and take more time to get rid of. The good news is that struggle only has one play book, full of lies and fear. Once you learn the tricks that struggle uses to keep you physically addicted there are no surprises for quitting concepts. In this way you will be better prepared.
The main concept is fear, but there are others like stress, insecurity, anger, dishonesty, shame and many more. You can quit these things and never go back to them the same way that you can quit smoking and never go back to it. The most common response here is "no body's perfect". Which is a popular response because it is both true and sets a low standard at the same time. You will always make mistakes but you do not have to repeat them. You can quit fear in every way that you have experienced it in the past. When you experience it in a new way in the future that will be one more expression of fear that you can do away with. To remove these concepts use the same freedom characteristics.
Giving Up More
Here is one of the secrets to victory that I never heard when I was struggling. I think that it has made all the difference. Once you have given up your drug of choice or dealt with your major struggle and are getting a taste of freedom you are going to want to set up some major walls in-between you and the old ways. The best way to do this is to start giving up more things. I know this sounds crazy. But here is a trick that most people never realize. You will tend to think about the last thing that you gave up. That's right you will tend to think about the last thing that you gave up. This means that if you want to stop struggling with thoughts about alcohol then give up coffee. If you have been off alcohol longer than coffee than your body will shift its attention to the substance that it most immediately craves. So you are now struggling less with a more destructive drug and more with a less destructive drug.
The other great part of this is that once you have given up the second struggle it sits in between you and the first one. Following my alcohol and coffee example, you have given up alcohol and then coffee so if you fail and start drinking coffee again you will know that you are headed toward the first struggle. What better way to always know where you are at and which direction you are headed.
Another reason that the giving up more concept works so well is because as you are giving up more you are you are strengthening your the freedom characteristics. You start to realize that because you have given up the big struggle, other substances or concepts are really not that hard to quit in comparison. You will start to feel powerful. You will start to realize the true nature of freedom. Guess what you do after you have totally given up the second struggle, give up a third. As you go on you will have set up so many road blocks between you and the first struggle that you will have a hard time getting back. You will start to see the investment that you have made and how you have changed and you will think of the old struggles the way you think about toys from your childhood. You will remember that you liked those things but you will have a hard time remembering why.
You will start giving up things not because you are struggling with them but simply because they are unnecessary. You will give them up because it will be fun. This will seem strange to other people and they probably won't like it because you will be giving up things they don't think are a problem. They may get defensive and that's ok just keep going. If you want to stay free this is necessary.
The freedom characteristics in your life are the key to success. Giving up more allows you to exercise the characteristics without being anywhere near the initial struggle. Giving up more can be as enjoyable as physical exercise. Working out is just that working, but it is enjoyable because it makes you strong and you feel good after. Same thing here. You are working out your freedom muscles. Just like physical muscles if you don't use it you lose it. So find ways to use them constantly.
Living In Wisdom
Most people that break free from their struggles still battle those struggles for the rest of their lives. My goal is to get people not only free from the struggles but off the battle field and on to living a full life. Once struggle had been removed a person can start to see that there are two ways of living. Motivated by fear or by wisdom. I lived in fear long after I got sober, in fact I thought that I needed fear. I needed to remember the past and use my fear of returning to it as motivation to move forward. This fear life worked for a while and I didn't back slide but after a while you have to ask you self how long do I have to run from something that is supposedly gone. I asked myself do I ever get to say I was an alcoholic. The mainstream view is once an alcoholic always an alcoholic and that is true in the sense that you are always allergic to that disease so you don't get to drink. The thing that changed for me was motivation.
I stopped running, I stopped telling people I am an alcoholic. I started living in wisdom instead of living in fear. Fear says I can't do that because of the consequences. Wisdom says I choose not to do that because of the reward I get from not doing it. Either way you're not doing the thing that once controlled you. Living in wisdom just allows you to make you decisions from a confident and secure place of strength.
If you tell someone "I can't drink beer I'm an alcoholic" it has been my experience that they make a comment about you being weak. That way they can go ahead and drink thinking of themselves as strong enough to control it. If you tell someone "I choose not to drink because I know the negative effects of alcohol on the body" you are being honest but you are explaining your position from a place of wisdom. It then becomes very difficult for them to perceive you as weak. As you give up more and more struggles both physical and conceptual it will be very important to remember that your reasoning is rooted entirely in wisdom. You are not making judgments of others you are simply holding yourself to a high standard. When you do this people will make comments like "I couldn't give up my ____________." looking for validation. Never be apologetic for making wise decisions.
Detachment
In our culture we view detachment as a disorder. In other cultures it is viewed as the ultimate goal. Being detached from things does not mean that you don't interact with things it means that you recognize your inability to control things so you do not try. The concept of attaching involves holding onto, this writing is all about letting go. Once you truly realize that you can't control anything outside of your own perspective you will stop trying, when you stop trying you let go, in other words you detach. This means that you can do things, interact with people or anything else. You just don't have to. You hope for things, but you don't expect them. You appreciate everything that you have access to but you don't own anything. If there is anyone or anything that you need, that completes you that thing controls you. In order to be free you must detach from it. You have to define yourself. Whatever it is that controls you will also in the end disappoint you because it will go away, Time passes, things die or change. That is ok if you didn't need any of it to begin with. Love is pure appreciation. There is no control in it. No agreement. Love is choice. You choos e something because you want to, not because you have to. Stop telling yourself you have to do anything. Start saying I choose to. As you do this you will begin to empower yourself and take control away from everything else.
Alright
Others will try to twist your wisdom into lower standards so that they can feel good about doing unnecessary things. I have found the word "alright" to have power form a wisdom perspective. When others try to get you to compromise yourself respond with the word alright. Don't argue with people about their decisions. Wisdom says always worry about yourself, knowing that you are the only person you can control. Saying alright acknowledges what the other person is saying. It does not ignore it or dismiss it. Alright also does not retaliate. If someone calls you a nasty name your first instinct is to fight them or run away by avoiding them. These two impulses come from the body, it is our fight or flight response. Wisdom does not come from the body it comes from your awareness. Wisdom says alright, and acknowledges their opinion and absorbs their negativity. The lack of retaliation shuts the other person down. You have absorbed their best attempt at controlling you, then remained unaffected. Free people are unaffected people acting out of wisdom and not retaliating. Turning the other cheek out of the security.
You only fight or run from threats. When you are truly free, yourself worth is not contingent upon others opinions, you define yourself. You are free if others oppose you say alright, knock the dust off your boots and move on.
Staying Ninja
If you are not sharing the message enjoy your freedom but stay ninja. This means be aware and discreet at all times. I'm not telling you to hide or be dishonest, those days are gone. I'm telling you to be aware of your surroundings, don't get sloppy or complacent. Once you are free your confidence will go up. Others will mistake this uneffectedness for arrogance. Don't use your new authentic self as an opportunity to become arrogant. You will hear every lie that people tell you, you will know every excuse. You will see the struggle all around you, be in this world and not of it. Your battle field is always inside yourself so remain unaffected by what you cannot change.
Sharing
Once you have learned the tricks of struggle and removed it from your life. You will feel free, alive for the first time, unaffected. At this point you will be tempted to start telling people about the journey because you will see struggle in their lives and remember.
Sharing the message has potential to help others get free. It allows you to strengthen yourself through teaching the concepts to others. If others respond positively and become free you will feel an unexplainable unity with them. But be warned most people are not free and they don't want to be. They want to convince you and themselves that they are voluntary entrapments. They will try to destroy you, so they no longer have to feel dirty next to someone so clean. If you want to change others you have to welcome opposition. I am trying to make things easier on you than it has been for me. Hopefully you can say "here read this and let me know what you think."
If you choose to help others focus on quality not quantity. Remember just because others don't believe freedom exists doesn't change the fact that you are free. History teaches us that truths only become widely accepted when a chosen few lead the way and discover them. Don't share the message with just anyone. Look for those who have ears and let them hear. If you give the message to people who can't hear it you are trying to feed a wonderful gourmet feast to a bunch of people that have been stuffing themselves on fast food. They couldn't eat it if they wanted to they are already full. Wait for hungry people to feed.
Never work harder than the person you are trying to help. Remember when you didn't want to hear the truth, so you didn't. Be patient wait for people to find the place of optimum change. Wait for the rock bottom, wait for them to become seekers, they become the finders.
What You Consume
After I stopped being trapped I spent a long time in the desert wandering around and complaining. I had broken the struggles and my thinking was getting sharper and sharper. I wasn't listening to the old lies anymore. The problem was that I still felt like crap, physically. Many people stay here. Then I learned cleanse the body and you will start to cleans the soul. This is why fasting is both a spiritually and physically beneficial experience.
I finally got out of the desert and got to the promised land. I started living a healthy lifestyle and I started to learn about the reasons I was feeling so much better. As time went on I kept changing. My moods got better, I lost lots of weight, I rested, I exercised, even my tastes started changing. I kept learning more and other people started noticing all the changes. The past struggles where interior and now I was happy that others could see the difference. My confidence and self esteem went up and I was constantly exercising my freedom characteristics.
Getting free is a process. I would have been overwhelmed to try and give up all my comfort foods the same time as the alcohol or the nicotine. So don't be overwhelmed just know that every step moves you closer to freedom. The cleaner your body get itself the easier it will be for you to quit you struggles. If you are struggling with non- physical struggles like gambling, a change in nutrition will have a positive effect.
No one who is addicted to the physical world can enjoy the benefits of the spiritual world. The biggest symptom of struggle for me was alcohol but the root of my struggle and what I have found to be the root of all struggle is fear.
The reason I tend to use the examples that I do is because of the struggles that I had. But my goal is to get give people a map out, no matter what type or how many struggles you have. Then you can help the people that you know that are struggling. I want to make sure others have gotten a chance to hear the things that no one told me. I am not a doctor or a psychologist. I am free from the list of things that at one time controlled me. Do what you want, when you want...you already do.
You have always been doing what you want when you want. I hope this has helped you to either stop saying you want to be different or make some changes. Being conflicted is the problem freedom is the solution.
Part Three
The Circle
One Perspective on Waking Up
-
Loss is another word for change
Gain is another word for change
Everything is change
Because everything is change, nothing is change
Everything is
This is the key to perpetual acceptance
Warning
The cost of awakening is whatever you don't want to pay for it
Qualification
Before I begin it is important that you understand that the circle concept is one perspective. It is not fact and not an argument just a way of looking at the world. I have found it to be helpful for me in some areas of my life and difficult in others. I felt like I should share it and let you decide. It changes all the time and by the time you are seeing it I would guess it has changed again. So take what you like and enjoy.
Some people will not be able to understand and that is ok. There are so many times in my life when this information would not have made any sense. I do hope that it finds some one that is looking for something more.
Those who have ears let them hear
Keys To Unlocking The Circle Concept
There are some important keys to unlocking the circle concept. I don't mean keys like your car key
but a key to a puzzle. It is much easier to put a puzzle together if you get to see the final picture of what it should look like. It is still difficult to fit every little piece together but the key gives you direction. It does not tell you which piece to place first or second. How you put the puzzle together and how long it takes is up to you. Here are three keys that have given me direction.
1st Key -To Learn You Can't Already Know
If you are approaching this thinking that you know everything already it will be no good to you. There have been times when I listened to new ideas just to rip them apart, so that I could feel powerful and further establish in my own mind that I already knew everything being said. Try not to do that. Some concepts you will already know some you may not.
You can't add anything to a cup that is already full. So if you want to learn anything you first have to acknowledge that you don't already know. To learn from someone else you have to realize that they have something you do not. Every time you ask someone to teach you something you are asking them for help. This is a universal truth. In every situation and every circumstance asking someone to teach you requires humility. Humility is built into the learning process. The prideful cannot learn from others. This puts them at a disadvantage and makes waking up more difficult.
2nd Key -Seek and You Shall Find
People walk past things of value every day. It is important to look for what you really want. The world is full of distractions, most people want to be happy but they spend their time worrying about things that will not make them happy. I say this because I have struggled with it for so long. The more I slow down and actually look for what I want the more I find. A person may tell you they want to know God, for example. They may say it is the reason for their whole life. But how much time in a day is spent really looking for God verses watching television. There have been times in my life I have tripped over truth but that does not happen very often. Since I have started looking for truth I have found much more of it. Just remember the treasure is at the end of the path, not the beginning.
3rd Key- Backward
If he circle concept seems backward, it is. Have you ever seen one of those pictures that is two pictures at the same time. In school teachers would use them to try to get us to try and see things from a different perspective. One was a young woman and an old woman. I would always see the old woman, I would get frustrated but as I looked eventually I saw the young woman. I could go back and forth between them. But which one was it? Both or neither? It is an optical illusion. I always liked that picture and the more I have thought about it the more I can see that all of life has an optical illusion quality to it. I just have to try to see it.
Take your time and look harder. Start to look at things backward and you will see beauty in what is normally considered ugly and so much ugliness in what others think is beautiful. Close your eyes to see. The first are last and the last are first. Those that serve lead, the poor are rich. This is not new stuff but try to look at it from a new perspective. Take the time to think about what it really means for you. The less stuff you have the more free you are. A person who doesn't own anything never worries about thieves. A person that accepts that they can't control anything but their perspective doesn't spend life trying to control everything and everyone else.
Subjectivity- Your perspective is yours, it may not be theirs
Subjectivity is so important. I have to mention it early on because the circle will make much more sense if you are able to embrace subjectivity. It often gets a bad rap. allot of people think that if you are a subjectivist that you don't believe in anything, this is not true. Everyone is a subjectivist whether they know it or not. In fact we can't speak to each other without it.
When I say subjectivity or a subjective perspective I mean that all of us see through our own eyes. ,We can only imagine what it would be like to see things differently. I were glasses the way that I see the world is blurry. When I put corrective lenses on things appear much more clear. If I'm not wearing my glasses and am talking to someone about High definition TV I may be convinced that it is a total waste. They may think it is awesome. Which one of us is right? We are both speaking honestly from our own perspective. I heard recently that Tiger Woods had Lasik eye surgery that improved his vision past 20/20. This gives him better perspective when playing golf. When we learn our vision can change and our perspective can become much more sharp. This gives us an advantage when viewing the world.
The best example I can think of for subjective view or subjective opinion is music. I don't like rap music and my kids love it. In my opinion it is horrible, but just because I think it is horrible doesn't mean that it is objectively, it just means that I think it is horrible. If you listen you will hear people argue about subjective opinions all time. A few years ago I was in an evangelical Christian Sunday school class and the topic was objective truth. The leader divided the class into two groups. One to defend objective truth, specifically that the Bible is the Objective word of God. The other group had to play the devil's advocate and argue for subjectivity. I was placed in the subjectivity group. The objective truth group went first. They began "I don't believe in subjective truth because..."I listened patiently and when they were done I pointed out that every one of them began by referencing them self before speaking and this showed that they the subject had an opinion. I then asked "How do you know you are right?" They responded confidently "That's just the way I feel". For me that statement is translated "from my subjective perspective that is the way it looks."
Before you get too bummed out that you can't have any beliefs anymore realize that subjective truth hold on and keep reading. Just because we all see things as the subject doesn't mean that there is no objective truth. It just means that we have to put on different glasses to see objective truth differently and stop arguing over whether rap music is horrible or not. So here is a little experiment. Get another person and a piece of paper that you can't see through.
Diagram 3- person writing side 1
Diagram 4- person writing side 2
diagram 5- people arguing over the paper, arrows and labels
You write something on one side and have them write something else on the other. You can't see what they wrote. At this point you can both confidently insist that the paper says what you wrote. But you can't see their side. So the paper is the object you are both subjects viewing the object from two different perspectives. You are both right and both wrong at the same time. But the paper exists. There is objective truth, we only see it though our eyes and our vision can get better or worse.
Subjectivity may be obvious to you but once again many people spend their whole lives defending subjective views. People kill over subjective views so I think it is important to mention. If you hate everything about this subjective topic. No problem you are entitled to your opinion. Please recognize that everything you are reading is my opinion.
The First Perspective-(Chapter 2)
The Line
I was sitting in an economics class listening to people argue over how much government we should have. I tend to think in terms of extremes, the grey has always seemed very arbitrary to me. Which explains why I always struggled with moderation. Why one cookie and not more? Why one beer and not more? So sitting in that class the question I had was why limited government and not more or less? Other people in the class seemed to have very specific ideas on how much was the right amount.
I didn't have a position but I wanted one so I asked myself ....
Don't get hung up on this example. I'm not making arguments for any position, just explaining how I got introduced to the circle. I don't what you to spend your time thinking that I'm wrong about my example and miss the point......
I asked myself, What is the farthest you can go to the right. Right wing anarchism says that all taxation is legalized theft because if the individual refuses to pay taxes the individual is punished, they must pay the money or face the consequences. Right wing anarchism states that limited government does not go far enough. The only consistent position is no taxation, so no government. I thought to myself "OK can't go any further than that, the government owns nothing."
Then I asked, How far can you go to the left. Communist utopianism says that man will evolve and as he does the government will continue to grow. The public sector will increase until the world arrives at the utopia where the private sector no longer exists. Communist utopianism states that the only consistent position is when nothing is privately owned, the government owns everything. Ok, can't go any further than that, the government owns everything.
diagram 6 (line)
As I looked at the two extremes and all the space in between them I started to realize. Go all the way to the right, no government. Go all the way to the left, all government and because everything was government essentially nothing is. So right, no government left no government. Both extremes do away with the thing the discussion is about. They are not right or left they are identical.
I started to look at other parts of my life that had nothing to do with government. At the time I loved smoking cigarettes and was looking for a way to figure out how much was too much. Two extremes- Option 1 -don't smoke at all or option 2- smoke so much I die. Option 1 no smoking, option 2 no smoking.
I went to a Christian college people would argue about how many rules to follow. Some people were very moral and believed to get to heaven you can never smoke, drink, curse, be homosexual, whatever. Others would say do whatever you want, you can get to heaven no matter what. Option 1 all rules no one gets in no Christianity, option 2 no rules everyone gets in so Nothing makes you a Christian.
Option 1, no Christianity Option 2 no Christianity.
I can keep going. Look at the two extremes of anything, eating pizza or exercising. Both extremes are identical, not only that but they are completely consistent. I'm not saying they are good or bad the two extremes are logically consistent. No arbitrary divisions. So I thought, if I want to be totally consistent I have to pick an extreme.
I started discussing different topics with people picking an extreme and sure enough everyone that I spoke to said my extreme was impractical. What? I final had logically consistent positions, now I'm impractical. I was very frustrated so I drew diagram 1. If the positions are identical what happens if I connect them. Welcome to the circle.
The Second Perspective - The Circle (Chapter 3)
I hope this makes sense. Stop thinking linear and connect the dots. Both extremes are identical and are in fact the same.
(example of connection)
diagram 7
This is the circle. Think of it as a clock. That will help me to explain it. The 12 is the point of total consistency. All of the space around the circle represents the positions in between the two extremes. Once I made this connection I was reminded of everyone's criticism of my consistent arguments. I was impractical. The opposite of consistent is practical.
(diagram 8 -show consistency & practicality)
So the six on the clock, or the bottom of the circle is completely practical. In the first political example that I gave this is the middle point. Our government as it is. Very practical and very inconsistent. How much government should we have? Some. It seemed to make sense that people trying to represent a wide variety of perspectives would be the least consistent. I realized that all of life is a question of consistency vs. practicality or in other words quality vs quantity.
The 3 And The 9
The three on the clock was simple the right. What the left called too little. The right wing limited government people were inconsistent because they still wanted taxes just not very much. The nine or the left side of the circle What the right called too much, an inconsistent position but moving around the circle toward the top.
(diagram 9)
Using the smoking example, the 3 is a social smoker and the 9 is a two pack a day smoker. Still smoking but allot.
So this was my model, the circle.
I had been looking for some truth, trying to figure out what I believed and all of a sudden I was able to see everyone's views on the circle. I could see who was more concerned with practicality and would was more consistent. Who wanted too much and who wanted too little. The first time I drew the circle I felt excited and then almost immediately saddened. Every position on the circle was flawed. I still had no beliefs. The pride took over. If I couldn't have beliefs at least I could accurately critique everyone else and I did. I was able to use the circle like a cheat book. In my classes discussing how much government or which party was better I could ask two questions-
-do you vote? - If yes the they are on the bottom half
(diagram 10)
-which party do you vote for? If right too little, if left too much
(diagram 11)
I would simply argue from the other 3 positions. If we use the smoking example I was able to see how everyone justified their position.
two questions
do you smoke- if yes then inconsistent because they smoke and they are still alive-
if not they have an absolutely consistent position on smoking
(diagram 12)
How much?
-Everyone would look 1 point further and justify their position. At least I don't smoke more than I do. If the person smoked allot they would rest on the fact that they were honest or if you are going to smoke you might as well smoke. Implying that practical smokers are inconsistent.
I started to view the world through the circle.
Their are so many different points on the circle some people are more consistent some more right wing. Depending on the thing being discussed the position changes. Talking about how much to discipline to give a child a person may be fall on one spot
(diagram 13)
and the same person discussing how much TV to watch may be on a totally opposite position.
(diagram 14)
People justify their position by comparing themselves to others. That is why people build a group or a culture around them that matches their position. This way they establish a cultural norms and chances are they can find a person with in the culture that does more of the thing than them. Drug attics hang out with drug attics. That way it is not a question of whether to use drugs or not but how much. Republican hang out with other republicans. So on and so forth. I could understand groups.
I started to see that everyone was on the circle but me. I felt powerful and yet so weak at the same time because if anyone found out that I didn't actually have a position they would conclude that their position was better than nothing. I really was on the circle because I kept living a practical life and my beliefs tended to go toward consistency but at the end of the day I was unable to think any of that was the right position. It was just my position.
I took the circle to a professor of mine. Not the one I mentioned earlier. One that never gave his own opinion. He wanted to teach objectively. I really wanted to see what he thought of the circle because I had no idea what he believed. I explained it to him, drew some diagrams like the ones you have seen and then waited. He thought about it and said "yeah it works but where is God on your circle" I answered quickly, "no where this is not a question of morals it is a way of critiquing positions" which is all that I thought the circle was at the time. he said if it doesn't have God then it is useless. I was angry and wrote him off as a religious freak. I wished that I had gone to a school with some atheist professors. I with the is shut down I didn't mention the circle to anyone.
The Perfect Point
As I spiraled into my own struggles my life got worse and worse. Finally I hit rock bottom. I was alone life had become so blurry. I had to decide is something better than nothing or not. Life or death, can I accept that there is no perfect position. The I realized that there is no perfect position on the circle. But the point inside the circle.
(diagram 15)
The center sees all perspectives equally. The perfect position is not on the circle at all. The center is the point of perfection it is not trapped on the circle. This is the absolute. The all knowing position, the truth. I found God. Don't get hung up on the word. If you are an atheist and God causes you problems just call this perfection or the absolute. I will call it the center. The name doesn't matter. I'm not talking about a old guy sitting on a cloud. I'm talking about pure light, pure energy, awakement. The center is not a man or a woman, a republican or a democrat a Christian or a Buddhist. I started to believe in something that is bigger than me that I could not accurately critique using the circle. I started to change..
The Third Perspective- Chapter 4
The Path- Some Make it This Far, Not Many
I was excited because I was becoming a new person. I had a goal I had hope and I started to realize the path toward the center.
(diagram 16)
The path is the way the truth and the life no one can get to the center unless they walk the path. It is a path of humility. When you recognize that there is no perfect position on the circle you realize you can never be right. As you start to consider the fact that you may not already know everything you start to move around the circle. But your consideration of others positions brings you closer to the center.
This filled me with joy, I was moving toward truth. The more I looked around I realized most people never break off the circle. They spend life defending the point that they are at, refusing to consider the idea that they are wrong. Never moving closer to truth. You can't learn anything if you think you already know the answer. I looked at the world, hate, aggression, war could all be explained. People living in pride, people living in fear, fear. They are afraid that their beliefs are chance and not objectively right. Two people randomly born into war one on each side of the line.
Now I understood that I had been trying to misuse the circle to have pride by pointing out how wrong everyone was. If you do that the circle will punish you. You never move closer to the center and you will never get to have a position on the circle. Two people can be at the same point and one is much closer to truth than the other. In the government example you could have two people, both voting republicans.
(diagram 17)
One may be much closer to truth than the other based on how humble they are and weather they have considered other positions. The more someone thinks they are right the further they are from the truth.
Know yourself, you will always tend to fall on the same spot on the circle that you always have that is where you are comfortable. Use your mind to over ride your comfort and consider the other positions. Even if you land in the same place as you move around the circle you will have greater understanding. Better yet never stop considering and remain on the path moving toward truth. It is less important where you are on the circle than whether you are moving toward or away from the truth. Life is not about your position as much as your proximity to truth, your proximity to the center.
The Forth Perspective
The cylinder
I started to realize the path I was on was always moving inward. Complete perfection or breaking off the circle and being in the center is never possible when you live a practical life. I could stop trying to get to the center and enjoy the path knowing that in this life it stretches infinity forward or backward.
(diagram 18)
Being able to accept that I will never reach complete truth pushed me back for a while. The circle was always teaching me that I have to accept imperfection. Accept humility. The good news is that if you accept it you don't have to spend your time thinking about every little point on the circle or how close you are to the center. Just make sure you are headed the right direction. If you are then you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Realizing that you are where you are supposed to be frees you.
The more I think about the cylinder I see that even in the physical world it keeps getting bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller as our microscopes and telescopes get better. As our vision improves we are bigger and smaller all the time. I used to ask the guys I worked with if they were big or small. I would pull one aside that I knew had a huge ego and ask. Big he would say. Or I would pull aside someone with a low self esteem small they would say. My answer to both was the same. Compared to a house what are you? Small. Compared to an ant what are you? Big. What are you. Both neither. I am. Yes you just are. So don't ever think that you are too big or too small you are. Find heaven in the moment. Everything fades away, maybe it doesn't, maybe death is just a shift where we get different glasses and our perspective changes. Every moment the present dies and becomes the past and at the same time the future is born into the present.
The Sphere
The circle could help me understand individual issues. I could use it on different beliefs but as you can see this started being about me a s whole. The circle changes when you stop focusing on the pieces, pull back and look at the entire picture. I realized that the different pieces of myself all fit together moving toward the center creating a sphere.
(diagram 19 )
I could pick out pieces of myself if I wanted but over all I could look at myself and ask. Am I expanding or contracting. I know that we think of more as better, our goal is often to expand. The circle is always backward. You contract as you move toward the center. Toward the point of perfection. Every moment humility is causing me to contract and as I get smaller, I am losing pride. Think of it as being refined. Contracting is the cutting away of the impurities. All the details melt away and I just make sure that I am being refined contracting inward toward the center.
In this way all the lines on the circle are arbitrary. Math, sound, time, light all flow freely. We try to control them to break them down so that they will be more practical but they are consistent. They are all energy and so are we. So is everything. There is no separation.
Completeness
In completeness even the circle itself fades away. As you become refined you get to participate in the light. Imagine a ceiling light and a flashlight. You cannot tell when the ceiling light stops and the flashlight begins.
(Diagram 20)
They are the same but different at the same time they are one. When you reach completeness you are detached from the physical world so that you realize there is no longer you and them but we are all participating in the same light. Lots of flashlights and a ceiling light. Some lights shine brighter than others.
Completeness is waking up. If you begin on the path toward becoming awake a strange thing will happen. The more enlightened you become the less of you there is. The price of awakening is anything you don't want to pay for it. It costs you everything. The cost of awakening is that you never get to have it, it has you. You are no longer separate from it. There is awakening, there is no you.
O O
diagram 21
There are two worlds. One is the physical world and the other is the spiritual world. Both worlds mirror each other. If you look hard enough in between the two circles above you will see them come together to make a third circle directly in between them. That is where awakening lives. The physical world is the one we see with our physical eyes. It is what we know. The spiritual world is the one we don't see with our eyes. It is conceptual, it is our awareness. Our bodies are physical and are shells for our soul. The circle is one way of trying to show you some of what is going on in the spiritual world.
Imagine a calm pond on a sunny day the clouds reflect on the top of the water. Under the water there are fish and plants and all kind s of other things going on that have nothing to do with the clouds. When you see a reflection on the top water it is not connected to what is going on under the water. For now we are above the water in the physical world so we see a reflection of the physical world that is backwards. This is the reflection. Something entirely different is going on in the spiritual world.
The more you free yourself from the things that trap us in the physical world the more you will be able to see the spiritual world. We do live here in the physical world so it is important to see the circle in the middle. The place in between them both.
_______________________________________________________________________
Completeness exists in the spiritual world that is going on all around us. All this doesn't change the fact that you still exist in the physical world but if you are aware of your true self your complete self, death has lost its sting. You may not be as popular. There is a social cost but if you are complete you are unaffected.
You can't control the world or others. Bad things happen and most people never see truth but be glad that you do. Accept that you cannot control anything but your perspective. You control your place on the line and the circle, you control your proximity on the path, your direction in the cylinder and your completeness. The world can spin around you and you are in it and not of it. I cannot promise you wealth or fame from the circle but I can offer you a different perspective on awakening that I hope brings you as much peace as it has brought me.
Life is filled with riddles. Change your perspective and open yourself. The physical world is an analogy for the spiritual world. In the physical world your eyes look away from yourself to see. To see in the spiritual world you must do the opposite, look inward. If you figure out he riddle that is existence and become aware of your own infinite existence, then you will be awake. Realize that none of the fears that you have are real. You exist when your body dies, you exist when your memory fails and you forget. We are all being thrown into the ocean. If you are free you will swim with nothing to fear. If you hold onto your beliefs they will be like large stones tied around your neck. You will not swim. Only by cutting them and letting them go will you be free. Only then will you be awake. Know yourself and you will be known.
___________________________________________________
Organized Belief Systems
I put this at the end because I didn't want it to be a distraction.
In the first section I wrote about growing up in the church. I realized later after learning about church history and reading the Bible a lot that the church I attended, and the organized Christian evangelical church as a whole are not Christians, “Christ Ones” at all. They are Paulists. Paul wrote most of the new testament. He formed an organized church as a missionary. Later Rome got a hold of his church and used it for political power. The Romans made it so that the church was the only way to get to heaven. Constantine the Roman ruler at the time needed an organized book to follow so he called the meeting to assemble the Bible. Later the protestants realized that the Roman church was corrupt so they tried to reform it with a return to the original Paulist church. However they kept the instruction manual that the Romans created, the Bible. They made this the only way to get to heaven. This church likes what Jesus did but doesn't listen very much to what he said.
Jesus spoke in parables , you had to seek to find. He gave people credit for healing themselves. He talked about the kingdom being inside you. He tried to get people to stop worrying about fairness. He told everyone to give up whatever they were holding onto, pride money, family, the church of the day, politics and much more. He tried to get people to live in the moment and not to worry about their cloths or food or future. He tried to explain that everything is backwards, that you have to die to live and serve to lead, be poor to be rich. I love what Jesus said. I think it is strange that the modern church puts the same emphasis on the words of Jesus as the words Paul wrote about Jesus. Read the words of Jesus alone. He has a very different message than the one preached in churches all over the world. Jesus never formed and organized church. I believe that the great commission was about spreading truth. The good news that you don't have to fear death and that this physical world doesn't matter as much as you think it does. People in Jesus time didn't have the Bible or the organized church. They just had his teachings and that was enough. This is not an effort to convert anyone to any belief system. All this is just an opinion. If Evangelical Christianity is working great. It caused me lots of hardship, so I wanted to put this thought out there just because I wish someone would have told it to me years ago. The wise men that brought gifts to Jesus when he was a baby were from a distant land and had very different beliefs. I would like to be a wise man. I shared this perspective with a Christian friend. He had never read the words of Jesus alone, in large sections. In the past he had just read verses and there are many things that Jesus said that he had never heard preached about. He called me and could not believe how different the message of Jesus and of Paul are. Read it for yourself. You will see that Jesus really had harsh words for the organized church at the time.
All organized religions and belief systems face an issue simply by being closed. Buddha was not a Buddhist. The person must think how can I make this truth fit into the box called my beliefs. If you ever get to a point where you think you have it all figured out then you don't. A person with no box will find that truth is very large and can't be contained. Anyone who sends people to hell is not moving toward heaven. Those who claim to be right never are. Remember I am not claiming anything. Simply sharing from my own subjective opinion.
The kingdom is within you.
Know yourself and you will be known.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand, in other words the kingdom is now.
The Riddle
A Spontaneous Awakening
Introduction
When I was a child someone asked me the question, “What’s black and white and red all over.” I thought to myself, this seems so simple, but I haven’t got a clue. I was frustrated, and after a while I gave up. Then I humbled myself, and I asked for the answer. A newspaper. I didn’t get it. And all of a sudden it came to me; what is black and white and “read” all over? It was a riddle! I had to change my perspective to get the answer. I couldn’t plan when or how I would see it. Expanding your awareness is spontaneous.
It is like getting struck by lightning. No one knows the exact spot the lightning will strike but if you want to be filled with electricity you should stand on a hill and wave a metal object around. In this same way you can put your self in a position were your chances of having significant realizations increase dynamically. Realizations have to do with your awareness and they are not physical things. One of the most important steps to figuring out the riddle of life is to break free of life’s physical struggles and addictions. I’ve learned that life is a riddle. I see it now and I am awake for the first time. You can be too.
There are three parts to this book. The first is my story. You will get to know me. The second is what I learned about myself and others. It is about how I first experienced freedom. The third is a different perspective of the world. It is about how I became awake. My hope is that you will learn a different perspective from all three parts. It is about where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going. Each part of life is a riddle, and I had to figure that out. I hope that you figure that out as well. If you become frustrated and you want to give up take a break. Try to come back with a different perspective. The answer is right in front of you.
Change inspires us. We all recognize and admire the idea of change even if, and often because, we don't change ourselves.
When I was a child someone asked me the question, “What’s black and white and red all over.” I thought to myself, this seems so simple, but I haven’t got a clue. I was frustrated, and after a while I gave up. Then I humbled myself, and I asked for the answer. A newspaper. I didn’t get it. And all of a sudden it came to me; what is black and white and “read” all over? It was a riddle! I had to change my perspective to get the answer. I couldn’t plan when or how I would see it. Expanding your awareness is spontaneous.
It is like getting struck by lightning. No one knows the exact spot the lightning will strike but if you want to be filled with electricity you should stand on a hill and wave a metal object around. In this same way you can put your self in a position were your chances of having significant realizations increase dynamically. Realizations have to do with your awareness and they are not physical things. One of the most important steps to figuring out the riddle of life is to break free of life’s physical struggles and addictions. I’ve learned that life is a riddle. I see it now and I am awake for the first time. You can be too.
There are three parts to this book. The first is my story. You will get to know me. The second is what I learned about myself and others. It is about how I first experienced freedom. The third is a different perspective of the world. It is about how I became awake. My hope is that you will learn a different perspective from all three parts. It is about where I have been, where I am now, and where I am going. Each part of life is a riddle, and I had to figure that out. I hope that you figure that out as well. If you become frustrated and you want to give up take a break. Try to come back with a different perspective. The answer is right in front of you.
Change inspires us. We all recognize and admire the idea of change even if, and often because, we don't change ourselves.
Part One
How I woke up
---didn't read*
The Start
Pat 1 Chapter 1
I was taken from my mother as an infant and put into foster care. I found out later that my biological mother had mental issues and was not able to care for me. That's all I know about her. I don’t know anything about a father. I went to a few different foster homes and I'm told I was named Jason at one home, and Terry at another. No offense if you have either of those names, but I'm glad I ended up with Rob.
I grew up in Rochester, New York. I’m told that the area was once nice and quiet. I knew it to be “the hood”. The community was a strange mix of older people that had been there for 60 years, vacant houses and low income renters and people that belong in rap video's. It got very hood in the time I grew up.
I was adopted at a young age. My parents had good intentions. Good intentions don't make you good parents. We were provided for. They were never on drugs or anything like that. They just had no idea how to be authentic. I always thought they were twenty years older than their actual age. They would sit around watching the Lawrance Welk show. If you don't know who that is then my point is made. I had an older adopted brother who had some very major issues. He is not developmentally disabled, but if you spent five minutes with him you would know that he's not all there. Socially he is very rude, selfish and immature. We never got along, and I always thought of him as my younger brother.
We grew up in the city, and I was very scared at school. I was fat and nerdy, but worst of all I was timid and shy. I hated school. I never fit in. I was on the outside trying not to be noticed. I always look back at school like being in a rap video. I don't know how much of this was real and how much was in my head. For example: in sixth grade the thing to do was to find a nerdy kid and pants him. That is when a group of people or one random unexpected person pulls the nerds pants down. This happened to me. A lot. My greatest fear was that someone would pull my pants down and my underwear would fall down too. This was a constant threat. So I walked around holding my pants up with both hands. I had no self respect. This happened so often that I think I started the sagging trend without knowing it. That gives you some insight to how school was for me.
My parents never liked each other. My mother was always disgusted with my dad, and my dad never did figure out that women do not like sweat, and they don’t like stink. My father worked hard but was timid and awkward. He grew up on a farm. He would try to grow corn in our little back yard in the hood. I never understood it. We didn't have much but I never thought of us as poor. We had lots of food that I ate. Eating was my coping mechanism. I had a negative family experience. My adopted brother made life very difficult. My parents had no idea how to set boundaries and enforce them, and because of that my brother walked all over them. He is thirty four and still lives with them. He does whatever he wants.
There was a time when my parents were trying to control my brother. My dad and my brother would get in fist fights. I would fight with my brother. I would fight with my dad over my brother. And, of course, my mom and dad would fight. My brother was willing to go further than everyone else. He would pull knives on us and things like that. We would call the cops, but as soon as they came my parents would tell them it was nothing. They always said they were going to kick him out, but they never did. There I was-a fat and nerdy kid in the hood, scared at school, miserable at home, and I ate. A lot.
All the while, I was a "good kid", living in a "Christian" home that taught me that life is misery and then you die. And, if you are lucky, maybe you get to go to heaven. I was scared of God, and I always felt guilty for not liking the life he gave me. The Christianity that my parents had was so fake. We would go to church all the time. We would wear our nice clothes, put on our fake smiles, and go. I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong and that was why I was being punished.
At church the kids went to a school in the suburbs, and they seemed to be much more normal than me. I asked Jesus into my heart all the time. Every alter call. Maybe I would get it right this time.
We would wear our nice clothes, put on our fake smiles, and go to church. I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong. There must be a reason I was being punished. At church the kids went to a school in the suburbs, and they all seemed to be much more normal than I was. I asked Jesus into my heart all the time. I got saved at every alter call. Maybe I would get it right this time.
When I went to my junior year of high school my brother left for college. I started sleeping and exercising. I had my own car so I was not home often. I immediately became popular. I lost about sixty five pounds, and my self confidence went way up. I made a lot of friends. All of a sudden all of the girls that “just wanted to be friends” before, now wanted to date me. I dated a great girl who was happy and sweet. I always remember sunshine when I think of that year. I know that year wasn't perfect. I had many of my own issues, but for the life of me, I can only remember good things.
My brother came back after nine months. He had flunked out of college. When he came back he was twice as bad as when he had left. Once again I felt empty, anxious, and sleepless. My brother would keep us up all night. And, once again, we all fought. A lot. Now my parents didn't even try to control him. Instead of getting my brother to stop coming in my room, they put a lock on my door. Instead of getting him to be quiet at night, I was given ear plugs and sleeping pills. I took them every night. I snapped. I blamed my parents for everything. They had told me they would kick him out when he turned eighteen. I was tired of doing everything right with no reward. Because of the time that my brother was gone I knew what it was like to be happy. Losing that happiness pushed me over the edge. I broke up with the girl I was dating. She was too happy to be around someone so miserable. I thought of myself a s a poison. My parents hated that I insisted on telling them to change. I bought a leather jacket, and I started smoking. Then I had my first beer.
My First Drink
Part 1 Chapter 2
The moment I had my first drink I knew I had found what I had been looking for. I went from having never drank to being a full on drunk. I stopped taking the sleeping pills, and I just started drinking myself to sleep every night. As much as I hated my brother, I would even pay him to buy me alcohol. Needless to say, my senior year was a blurry time. I am still surprised that I made it through high school.
It wasn't about my brother anymore. Now it was about me. I changed my thinking overnight. This time it was not a positive change. I have changed my thinking many times since then. In the form of realizations. This book is all about instantaneous change. At this time in my life I realized that life can be very painful. So in response to that realization I consumed as much as I could. I completely self medicated. I consumed something every moment of the day. I was either drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, eating, or drinking coffee. I was miserable. I had no beliefs. I thought of the world as a very cruel and fake place. I had no real relationships. I became very trapped. Nothing seemed to make any sense. I didn't understand why I couldn't awake up from the fog I was in.
I had partied at normal colleges. I knew that I wanted no part of that. I wasn't some who partied. I went, I drank and I numbed myself. In fact, I hated watching people act stupid. I went to parties for the drinks, but I hated the party itself. I hated other drugs. I didn't want to be around them. I was a very careful drinker and others were sloppy and annoying. I liked to drink alone.
I left and went to a Christian college. I had heard them talk about the college at church. The school had rules. No drinking or smoking was just a part of the culture there. It was nine hours away from home. I thought that I would clean up once I was away from my family. I really believed that my life would be just like my junior year of high school. It wasn't. I was happy to be away from home, but the alcohol and cigarettes were all I had. Instead of cleaning up, I learned how to be a good manipulator. I thought of myself as skilled at hiding things. I would watch other people get in trouble while I walked around with my pop bottle full of vodka. I hated all the rich and happy people around me. I was alone and I was totally depressed.
During this time I found a girl that didn't mind that I was a punk. She was nothing like me. She seemed confident and didn't drink or smoke or anything like that. She was happy, but she didn’t like all of the ditzy Barbie doll girls or macho football guys at the school. Neither did I. I liked her a a lot and I wanted her to like me too. She made me want to clean up, but I was afraid if she knew how messed up I was, she would leave. We started dating. She found out that I had a lot of issues, and we argued a lot, but we also had wonderful times when we weren’t arguing.
I was two years into college with no major, but I definitely did not want to go home. I was a mediocre student, at best. I was getting by. I was a functional alcoholic. I was depressed, and was very much into the punk culture. I embraced it wholeheartedly. I had the leather jacket, fire engine red hair, metal everywhere, belts, rings, and chains. I was very angry, and I tried to keep everyone away. My friends were the bands that wrote lyrics as depressed and drunk as I was. Down deep I was always a sweet guy, but I didn't know how to feel like life was worth it.
Many people leave home to try to figure out what they believe. I was just like them. I left home, moved across the country, and started trying to figure out what I believe. I knew that what I had believed up to this point was not working. I moved because I was not awake. I thought if I moved I would find a new truth. Wherever you go there you are. My problem needed a solution. So I argued with people, all of the time. I would debate all kinds of stuff, and my views started expanding. Defending my view helped me to get rid of the weak ideas and form new ones. I realized that even though my basic education was low quality, my strength was in concepts. You don’t have to defend concepts. I didn't have anything to defend. I decided to get into politics and religion. People can always defend politics and religion. They are definitely more foundational than whether the bears or the 49ers are a better team. If I decided to continue to be into politics and religion I would always have something to debate.
I took an economics class and that is when I started learning about humans, including myself. My professor was an older guy from Croatia. He was the kind of guy you either loved or hated. He didn't care either way. So I liked him just because he was a rebel. He said, "99% of American Economics is mathematical garbage attempting to calculate things that don't remain constant." He told us, "I am going to teach you the other 1%, and it is the only part that matters". He said economics is the study of human action.
I got very interested in understanding the way things work, and why people do what they do. I developed the circle, a way to critique every political position. I was able to show everyone's weaknesses using this model. The circle later became part three of this book. It was the beginning of my journey toward freedom. I was seeking. But I didn't start to figure everything out until much later.
Things went on like this for a while. I was depressed. The fact that I now understood the truth about my lack of beliefs made it worse. I was a loaner in college, but I made a friend named Andy. He was into the heavy metal culture. He dressed in all black. He was not into the gothic culture. He liked metal. He hated when people didn't recognize the difference. Anyway, he was into loud, dark, evil metal. He loved screaming, which was not my thing, I liked singing punk. It is kind of like 50's rock, but faster, with a distorted guitar. Andy was anti-social, but he was also extremely intelligent. He didn't spend time hanging out with people. He spent a lot of time reading. He read so many books. I had my inner city education, which had not required me to read many books to pass. He was interested in history, religion, and politics. We became good friends. We spent hours discussing these topics. We pushed each other to the next consistent position.
Andy was always frustrated with me because he had studied so much more than me, yet I always seemed to accurately critique his positions. After a while I explained the circle that I was using. I showed him how no one position on the circle wasn't any more right than any other. Andy was already depressed and angry. He had issues but this seemed to end his quest for knowledge. He kept reading. He kept trying to find a way out. He kept looking for truth. Then I saw firsthand how destructive the circle can be if you stop here.
I had a conversation with Andy. He had given up. He concluded that there was no objective truth. There was no right, and there was no wrong. When people cross over to that position all they are left with is hedonism, which is getting the most pleasure out of every moment. So Andy became a drug addict and became more evil.
A few years later, after he had gotten addicted to crack and heroin, he got really messed up and brutally killed a girl he had been seeing. He did sick things with the body, and then he tried to kill himself by overdosing. His parents found him before he died, and now he is serving a life sentence. He mailed me a letter explaining how he had a momentary lapse from reality. I knew better. People used to tell me they could feel the evil coming off of him.
Six years later I graduated from college and married my wife, Bekah. I got a job, but I did nothing with the circle. It didn't bring me any joy. I had seen the circle destroy my friend. After college it didn’t seem that anyone cared about the circle. Andy was the only one that ever seemed to care, and that didn’t get him anywhere. I got no more pride from it, and I could no longer be right or feel good about having any positions. I wished I had never met the circle! Stupid circle! I was working and investing in real estate and doing pretty well. I was buying and selling properties. I was managing rentals. But I was empty.
My wife left, she went to Romania for the last semester of her master's degree but she really left as a trial separation from me. She had given me an ultimatum. It was either her or the alcohol. I couldn't figure out how to give up alcohol. I wanted to and I hated what I had become. We had moved from place to place. I had tried so many jobs. I was trying to become someone else. When she left I was alone, so I drank. I went from being a functional alcoholic to a dysfunctional alcoholic. I had closed a real estate deal and made a lot of money. I felt empty. So, I drank. The money didn't make me happy. So, I just kept drinking. I had a horrible black out experience.
The Change
Part 1 Chapter 3
The next day I knew that my body and my brain were failing. I knew that if my sweet wife came back and found me this way she would be gone. But, I didn't know how to control the drinking. I cried out for help. I guess I cried out to God, but not the God that I was raised with. I cried out, and that is when something clicked inside me. I saw things clearly, and I knew I could stop drinking. I had a realization, I wanted to live! I also cried for days. I cried all of the time. I cried at work. I cried alone. I cried in the grocery store. If you have never cried, especially as a guy, you are probably still holding on to a lot. And, it’s probably pride.
I started to put the pieces together. I got honest. I began to understand myself. I asked who am I if I am not the drinker, smoker, liar. I started studying alcoholism and addiction. I started to believe that I was not the addiction. I stopped smoking. I started working out. My wife came home. She found a skinnier and sober husband. We moved to Indianapolis so she could get a job using her degree, and I could do larger real-estate projects. We lived happily ever after. In my dreams. Actually, that would be nice but that was when the housing market crashed. My wife didn't have a job. The banks stopped lending. I started losing things.
I had prided myself on my perfect credit. I had prided myself with my ability to make things happen with houses. So, that was the first to go. My credit went bad. I poured every dime into the properties thinking that I could make something happen. Nothing happened. I didn't understand, I had gotten sober, and now this!? We had no income. An office building that I believed was going to bring in enough money to turn things around got horribly vandalized. In that area it was big business to have people break in and rip the plumbing and electrical out for the copper. This happened to me several times. One house had a break in, and the person was smoking crack. The house caught fire. We had also taken in a teenage girl drug addict that was trying to get sober. She was difficult, but by telling her to be strong I was strong enough to stay sober. But our finances got destroyed.
We didn’t know what to do. There was a residential treatment facility in the area that was hiring. I had worked there before, and it was a pretty good job. This particulars position was for house parents. My wife and I would live in an apartment. Our apartment would be in a building with sixteen teenage drug addicted boys. These boys had been placed there through the courts. They were involved with drugs and gangs. They came from broken families. This was not a lock down facility. It was not a jail for kids. It was a place that was attempting to provide a safe, stable environment for the teens to learn a different way of life. As house parents, we were paid a small salary. Our housing, utilities, and other expenses would all be taken care of, though.
We took the job. We moved all of our stuff from the big city back to where we had started years earlier. We went back to a little organization that was surrounded by corn fields. I felt like my struggles could help others. I had been sober for less than a year, but I had made it through some hard times. The house parents that we replaced were leaving abruptly. I don't know why. I had heard all kinds of stories. Apparently, the house dad was cheating on his wife with the daughter of the boss. After they left, he became a drug dealer, and a few years later was shot to death.
I only mention that to let you know that we were walking into an addictions cottage that had been run by someone that was not living ethically, let alone were they teaching anything ethical. It was tough, and that group of guys was difficult. They always pointed out how the other house parents had been so great. What they meant was that they got away with a lot more stuff. This is when all the pieces started coming together for me. I started to learn about change. I never wanted to be fake with these guys. In order to teach them how to change I began changing. I was eating right. I was working out. I completely changed my views. I became aware of ways that I had manipulated people. I became aware of how I had justified things. I did all of that in order to show the guys new ways of thinking and acting. Slowly, the first group of guys were replaced by a new group. This group of guys never knew the old house parents. It was the new group that really began to change. Don't get me wrong, all of the guys were tough. Some of them were tougher than others. Most of their families were on drugs. Many parents would come to visit their son when they were high. The guys had done so much. They were so young, but I was authentic with them. I didn't hide my struggles. I let them see me overcome things. They were watching me as I learned freedom.
As time went on I became very passionate about addictions. I had become a totally new person. The success that we were having with the guys was unbelievable. I made real connections with some of them. I started an accountability group that was by invitation only. They never wanted to go to a group until they were told that they were not invited. I would take the ones that I saw potential in, and I would go work out and spend the time. I loved those guys. As new guys came in they saw what I had, and things became easier. The guys now saw that I thought of myself as one of them, and I wasn't fake. That group really changed. There were a few guys I was closer to than others. One called me last month. He graduated from high school. I got a letter from another. He is in jail. I learned about myself, and I learned how to control my actions. I have always had an emotional storm going on inside of me, but I am able to use my brain to override my emotions. It doesn't mean that I am happy all of the time. It means that my actions are not affected by whether I am happy or not.
I was growing. I had removed my physical struggles, and I started becoming the best version of myself that I could be. It still wasn’t an easy time. We were broke, and the sixteen boys we worked with were emotionally draining. Losing the properties had ruined my credit, and my wife and I were denied an adoption because we were considering bankruptcy. That was super hard because we can't have kids.
I was tired of driving past the same bars I used to go to. I was sick of driving past the properties I used to own. I wanted a new start. I wanted a place to try out my new self. We started looking for a way to change our situation. I loved the job we had, but I knew that if you stay too long you get burnt out. I had seen it happen. Even though we were having success with the guys I knew we couldn't keep it up forever. I would either have to leave or not be so invested. I had to choose whether I was going to have quality relationships or quantity of success. I chose quality relationships. We began looking at ways to get out of the area. We applied for several different jobs in different locations.
We got a great job offer in California. It was a great job working with six kids. It was more pay doing exactly what we wanted. I thought to myself, “good my hard work has paid off.” I felt that we were being reworded for staying on the good path during the hard times. We sold as much of our stuff as we could. We quit our job. We told the sixteen guys that we had grown to love so much that we were leaving. Two weeks before we were set to leave we got a call. They were removing the job offer. Another couple who worked for the organization had been stealing money, and there was a legal battle. Our credit had been picked up off the fax machine by a guy in legal instead of human resources, and he had convinced them to remove the offer.
I was walking the right direction. I tried my best to remain unaffected. I was doing the right thing. I scrambled. I randomly found another job in California. This organization had foster children, and we parented them, but we lived on the grounds. We drove an old U-Haul across the country. This was in May of that year. We chose to believe that this would be even better than the first job offer.
The moment we arrived I met another person in the same position we were filling. He and his wife were quitting. He told me to turn back. He said the organization was involved in a lawsuit, and that it was run horribly. He warned me of the corruption. He told me about his frustrations. He told me how the children were used as pawns, and how they had tried to keep him from adopting. I had no money, and I simply responded to him, "I'll have to make it work."
He was right. As the months played out our situation became worse and worse. The organization was fraudulent with their money. All of the warnings I had been given were true. We were treated horribly. My wife and I were under constant stress. We had no “plan B”. This was very difficult because the children that we fostered were making so much progress! They were just starting to feel safe. Each kid had horrible stories, and they all just wanted a home. The children we are fostering got very attached to us. We didn't want them to be disrupted. We had been in California for six months. We did everything we could to make things work. It was two weeks before Christmas when the organization fired us. They also tried to move our kids.
Once again, we scrambled. We were able to get a place to live. The county helped us. The organization had done this to three couples prior to us. My four foster children handled the disruption the best they could. On Christmas morning, we moved an old picnic table into the house, and we ate a meal that we had been given by a local church I was definitely angry.
I now had four boys to parent, and no outside support. They all have their own issues. But things somehow worked out. We didn’t have much, but at the last minute something would come through and we would make rent. People gave us money and other tangible items. I had gotten very sick from the stress. A few months went by. My wife got a job and the kids settled in. A wise person I know suggested I do a water fast to kill the bad bacteria that had grown from stress. I did the water fast for a week. and this is when I broke out of survival mode. I started to give things up. I started to let go of my frustrations. I started to stop thinking of myself as my financial situation. I stopped feeling like a failure. Not only did I get well but I remembered everything I had learned. I started to come alive again. The stress of the physical world had made me forget about the spiritual world that I had started to tap into when I was back in Indiana working with the guys. I picked up where I left off, and I have had a season of exponential growth.
This story is not over. I have come a long way. I have stayed true to myself. I hope that you see that life is full of seasons. Life is full of times when learning happens, and other times when there is nothing. Life has uncontrollable factors. The good news is that I have started to learn how to control myself. I have begun learning how to be myself, regardless of the situation I am in. I have been fat. I have been a drunk. I have been a punk. I have been poor, weak, afraid, and angry. I had no hope, and then in an economics class in Marion, Indiana I started to figure out who I really am. It took me ten years and a lot of hard choices to get this far, and I'm not done yet. But, as I break free from life’s struggles, I move closer to being awakened.
All four of my foster children have since been found out. For several months they have been involved in numerous behaviors that made it clear that they would need to be moved to a more supervised facility. This is a real heart breaker. We have been through so much to keep them, but I don't need my kids. I want them. I love them. But, I don't need them to be a complete person. I am not defined by them, and I can't control them. I can say that I gave them my best.
My wife and I will move on and start over again. I am not afraid. I don't think this world owes me anything. If you think someone owes you ten dollars and you get five you feel ripped off. If no one owes you and you get five dollars then you are blessed. I am blessed.
I was exercising at the gym the other day. I am in the best shape of my life and I have gotten in the habit of pushing my body to see what I am capable of. I was on an ellipse machine with my eyes shut for about twenty minutes. A song came on my mp3 player. It was a typical love song, nothing special. But one of the lines mentioned giving everything up “just to be with you” all of a sudden I saw myself in three parts. My body, my mind (consciousness) and my soul. I saw how my body had been in control for so many years. It had told my mind what to do and think. It had pulled me away from my soul. In that instant I realized that everything that I have done has been an effort to get back to my soul. I saw my soul as pure and infinite. It was beautiful and clean. At that moment out of joy I began crying. I opened my eyes realizing that In was in the gym. It was like waking up from a dream, I was trying to hold on to it but it was gone.
I have thought of that moment so many times the past few days. My soul exists when I am asleep, when I am not conscious and my souls existed before my aging body was born. My pure soul is the real me. It doesn't die and can't be forgotten like the fleeting memories in my mind. My soul is all that matters now. I am not afraid of death, and if I’m not afraid of death what am I afraid of. I have been incorporating fasting into every day, I am not afraid of going without food if I can go without eating what can't I go without? My body and my consciousness now exist to protect my pure soul. Every moment is a blessing. I am in the eye of the storm, I am free.
I realized that my mind or consciousness is constantly changing every instant. I am forgetting things every minute. This doesn't scare me. My mind is changing every instant of my life so I am sure that when my physical body dies my mind will change again just like normal. I tried to explain all this to a friend who is into computers. I told him your soul is like the internet, your mind is like the software and you body is like the hardware. If your hardware is messed up the internet doesn't change, you just aren't able to access it. If your software is messed up the internet doesn't change you just can't access it. The internet is not a physical thing it is unlimited and is everything and nothing at the same time, so is your soul. Where is the internet located? Where is your soul located. If your body is pledged by addiction or struggle you can't access your soul. If your mind is troubled and conflicted you can't access your soul. Your body and mind are linked and they effect each other. A physical reaction to a drug can change your consciousness but it will make it difficult to connect with your soul. Some people don't use the internet, it can be done. Some people choose not to use the internet because it has potential to be misused. Some people don't ever connect with their soul, they deny it's existence. They miss out on a lot.
The other important realization with all this is that heaven and hell aren't black and white. My soul is clean and the closer I get too it the more truth I see. I have been horribly afraid of hell my whole life. Largely because my body would tell my mind to do things that moved me away from my soul. I know I'm not perfect. We are all walking toward one or the other. We are moving toward humility and truth or pride and lies. I am walking toward heaven, toward truth. If I am walking toward heaven then I don't have to worry about ending up in hell. It is much less about weather you are in or out and much more about how far away you are.
The second part of this writing is an effort to help you take the power away from your body and give it back to your mind, then hopefully taking it to the next level and moving from your mind to your soul. You can't be more spiritual and hold onto the physical. You will have to give up things in the physical world to have things in the spiritual. So ask yourself do I really want to be awake. Do I really want what the spiritual world has to offer? Some do, some don't. It doesn't matter. This writing is for the person who wants to wake up but does not know how. So figure out what you want and then do that, there are pluses and minuses either way.
I am not one to have different saying and things written on by desk or posted on my walls. However, about two years ago I watched a documentary about the mathematician that first proved infinity. He got into levels of infinity, they say he went crazy and killed himself. One of his students picked up where the first left off and also went crazy. One of them said,
“You will never know whether the problem you are working on is very difficult or fundamentally unprovable.”
I don't remember which one.
started ___________________________*
I have kept that by my desk all this time. It has been a hard journey. I could not figure out if I was very close
and not there yet or if all these problems simply can't be fixed. It doesn't matter what problem you are
referring to, financial, marital, social, physical, whatever. I have thought long and hard about this and have
seen it every day for two years. This is a riddle. Today I was sitting here at my desk. Listening to a friend
explain why if he just had more money it would be enough. I read my post it note and without thinking I
wrote on a sticky note... There is no problem. I can't believe I never realized it before.
Econ thoughts
Part 1 Chapter 4
Here are some of the concepts that I learned in the economics class. They helped me start down the right path I hope they start you in the right direction as well.
subjective value- stuff is only worth what you think it is worth
This seems easy, everything is worth what the purchaser is willing to pay for it. I thought to myself "yeah of coarse" But then I started realizing how my choices were so often made based on values other people established my perspective started to change.
What is worth more, a gallon of water or a pound of gold? Now let me change your perspective, you are in the desert about to die of thirst. If you value life then the water is the way to go. How many times do we see a sign 50% off, so we determine that it is a good deal. I learned that marketing is an attempt to get people to forget that value is subjective. I started to look around. I now had the power to decide for myself what everything was worth to me.
-It depends -the only real answer to every question
Now that I believed in subjective values the answer to every question is it depends. What is two plus two? Does the value of two remain constant. What political party is better republicans or democrats. What is better rap music or anything else. For me anything else, to my kids rap so it depends. As I began to gain perspective I realized that most people spend allot of time trying to make their subjective opinions into objective truth. I'll use an extreme example, is it ok to kill someone? it depends. Are you at war, is it self-defense. All of a sudden I found it hard to hate people for being wrong which made up allot of my personality. I saw that most people look for groups. They find other people who have the same subjective views. They feel a connection with this group and then agree that their group is right and other groups are wrong. I was into punk rock so I thought of myself as rebelling against groups. Sure enough that put me in the rebel group. I looked like other people in the punk group and I felt a connection with them. Sports teams, religions, political parties, punks and so many other groups.
Don't worry groups are ok. It is good to feel a connection with others as long as you realize you are agreeing about subjective perspectives. So I can join an "I don't like rap music" group and feel connection. It only becomes a problem when I declare my view to be the objective truth.
-Opportunity cost- the cost of anything is every other option
Opportunity cost is a idea that can be difficult but if you understand it you may find that you have much more freedom than you thought. The price on a bottled water at the grocery store says $1.00, what does it cost? You will have to spend a dollar to purchase it but the real cost is anything else you could have spent your money on. I could start to list out other things you could have spent your money on but the list is infinite. So if you are trying to sell something you aren't just competing with whoever is selling the same thing as you. You are competing with any other option the person has.
This works when we're not talking about money, it works for everything including time. Anything you do with your time cost you anything else you could have done with it. Anyone that you are with cost you everyone else. I started thinking this way and was immediately disappointed. I felt like I had made bad choices, I had. The sooner you start thinking about opportunity cost the quicker you can start to own your life. When you chose something it is what you really what more than anything else. So it can make life brighter, every day can taste better. When I choose a band to listen to I feel good because I know that band is who I would rather listen to than any other band at that moment. I have been able to take ownership over my choices, ownership over my life. So at this moment there is nothing more important to me than trying to explain this to you. If you are reading it, thank you. I am honored to have this writing be more important than anything else you could have done at this moment.
Part Two
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Perpetual Acceptance
One perspective on Struggle
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You don’t get to be a hero by slaying a squirrel.
You have to do the hard thing and slay the fire-breathing dragon.
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Justification
Part 2 Chapter 1
Introduction
I’ve figured how to stay in perpetual acceptance. I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is you can be in total control of yourself. The bad news is that you don’t get to be trapped any more. Free people live in perpetual acceptance. When you are trapped by something you do what it tells you to.
Anything that controls you is a struggle. What we consider normal behavior in our society is often struggle. Historically there were areas where slavery was socially acceptable. That didn't make it right. So try to look at things outside of what is “normal”, it may not always be. Just because everyone else is ok with it doesn't mean it is ok, or healthy or that it won't ruin your life. I have spent the vast majority of my life feeding a number of struggles. First you have to deal with the physical struggles and then the emotional struggles then everything else. My struggles led me to discover some truths behind human behavior. If you have anything in your life that you want to improve or remove than this is for you.
Most of these concepts are the very practical ideas right in front of us that we spend allot of energy ignoring. We want the basic rules of life to be different but they aren’t. They were there before us and they will be thereafter we are gone. I want you to think about the concepts and apply them to your own life. Make them personal and specific to you and your situation. Challenge them and see if they work in every situation. Some of it will apply and some of it won't. I am not more knowledgeable or smarter than you--I am you. Once you learn the concepts my hope is that you can break free from them all together and be free but this is a good place to start.
As you read this, I hope that you will take a very systematic, proactive approach toward accomplishing your goals. I want you to either feel empowered to change into the best version of yourself or realize that you already are exactly who you want to be for better or worse. You will be able to stop just talking about changing and do what you want to do. How does any of this apply to struggles? The truth is it applies to everything, every action every person who wants to have control of their own lives.
I want people to stop being conflicted. Once you get a taste of freedom it is so unbelievable that you can't help but tell others about it. If your reading this and you are free but you know someone who is still trapped, realize you can't change them. I repeat: You can't change them. All you can do is change in front of them and hope that they are watching.
I am not making moral arguments. This is an effort to provide a subjective perspective to help anyone who feels conflicted. If you are at peace with yourself, great. If you want to change something and can’t seem to figure out how, then you are conflicted and being conflicted traps us. So why don't we live in perpetual acceptance?. We justify our actions.
The Concept of Justification
Any conscious action that a person takes has to be justified. In other words, every time you act it is because you have given yourself good reason and permission to do so. Every time you make up your mind to do something, whether it is to read this book or to eat your next meal, you convince yourself that it is ok to do that thing. In other words you use reason all the time weather you are conscious of it or not. If you want to do something but can’t convince yourself it is ok to do in your own mind you will not be able to do that thing no matter how hard you try.
I say conscious because if you accidentally hit someone with your car it was just that an accident and the person doing the hitting probably did not think it was ok to do it. This type of accident is very different from the person who says to them self that person just cut me off they deserve to be hit by a car and them proceeds to hit them. The second person justified hitting the person based on the action of being cut off.
The importance of the concept of justification is that whatever you are doing you have decided it is ok, ultimately you are responsible for that decision. In the example of hitting the person that cut you off you decided that because he cut you off he needed to be punished and that hitting him was a fair punishment and that you needed to be the one to carry out that punishment. Another person may disagree entirely but you are the one who decides. You may try to explain the reasons you felt justified to others and they may disagree, possibly everyone you tell may disagree but you will be able to continue to do that thing as long as you decide it is ok for you.
Here is my top ten lists of common justifications. These are not the only justifications out there and these can be phrased in any number of different ways but if you really want to stop struggling you need to learn them and learn them well.
Common Justifications
1. Minimize- It's not a big deal.
2. Compare- point out someone else who is worse
3. Pay back- others did this to me before, so I can get them back
4. Self Pity- I don't matter so my actions don't matter
5. Arrogance- I am the best so it is ok to hurt lesser people
6. The I don't care lie- repeating "I don't care" to try and convince yourself
7. Lesser of two evils- I could have done something much worse
8. Identity- I define myself as an addict so I'm just doing what an addict does
9. I'm only human - everyone is addicted to something, so am I
10. Blame shifting- Billy did it too (substitute Billy for any other name that applies
and if those don't work....
11. Screw it- no thought I want it so I do it
Each one of these justifications has an opposite. The opposite is the statement that has the potential to undo the justification. I will keep the same list but after the explanation I will give it's opposite.
Justification Responses
1. Minimize- It's not a big deal -It's not a small deal
2. Compare- point out someone else who is worse -point out someone who is better
3. Pay back- others did this to me before, so I can get them back -it wasn't ok when they did it and it's not ok for me to.
4. Self Pity- I don't matter so my actions don't matter -If it doesn't matter then it shouldn't matter either way
5. Arrogance- I am the best so it is ok to hurt lesser people -It wouldn't be ok for people that think you are a lesser person to hurt you
6. The I don't care lie- repeating "I don't care" to try and convince yourself - you only have to repeat "I don't care" that many times about things that you do care about
7. Less of 2 evils- I could have done something much worse -you could have done much better
8. Identity- I define myself as an liar so I'm just doing what a liar does -define yourself as an honest person so you will be an honest person
9. I'm only human - everyone is addicted to something, so am I -Classic- if everyone else jumped off a bridge would you, letting the culture make your decisions
10. Blame shifting- Billy did it too (substitute Billy for any other name that applies -True and changes nothing about your guilt
and if those don't work....
11. Screw it- no thought I want it so I do it - there is no stopping this one which is why when the other justifications are gone people just do it, this admitting total defeat. It is saying I have no control over myself my struggle makes the decisions. This is being totally trapped.
The key is to decide not to use justifications when it comes to the thing you are struggling with. Remove the justification and you remove the action. If you are trying to quit smoking start to think about what justifications you use to smoke. Do this before you quit smoking. Get familiar with yourself and the way that you think. Start to use the opposite side of those justifications and you will start to remove power the struggle has and then quit smoking. You will have much more success than if you quit without knowing what the struggle will whisper in your ear.
The smokers justifications are the same as the heroin addicts and the man who beats his wife as the child who steals a pack of gum. Now, before you think that I'm saying all these actions are the same and slam the book down don't. Realize the actions are very different but the justifications are the same. As you start realize that the justifications are not yours but instead are the same justifications everyone else uses you will hopefully stop thinking that your situation is different and instead realize that it is the same. Learn to remove the justifications and learn to remove the power from addictive thinking in all its forms.
Once you see these justifications in yourself you will start to here other people use them constantly. Allot of the time people feel the need to say them out loud in hopes that someone will agree. Then the person can mentally shift the blame to the that person. These are also powerful if you have kids. Children think they are the first one to say “Billy did it too”. Learn these for yourself but also learn them to teach your children not to use them. In order for you to do any action you must justify it to yourself in your own mind.
Action is information
Every conscious action that you do gives the rest of the world information about you. Every action the person next to you does tells you something about them. I’m not saying what is good or bad information. I just want you to understand that the conscious actions that you have justified to yourself tell others about who you are. We give people information about ourselves in two different ways. We tell other people about us with our words and we tell them about us with our actions. Sometimes we tell someone something with our words that goes directly against what we are telling them with our actions. At this point the other person is getting mixed messages and it is up to them to decide which information they will accept and which they will reject.
Action Reveals Priority
Talk is cheap, watch people. Subjective values are found in action only. If someone is holding a glass of water while they tell you "I would never hold a glass of water". It is safe to conclude that at that moment, in that circumstance the person subjectively valued water, regardless of what they tell you. The action revealed the priority. This was important because I instantly realized that I was a total hypocrite. Constantly I would say one thing and do another. While smoking I would say "I'm going to quit smoking". I did quit smoking years later but when I did I didn't have to tell anyone, they knew because I wasn't smoking anymore. Action reveals priority at that moment in those circumstances and has nothing to do with desires or intentions or morals. It simply tells you what the priority is every time without fail regardless and it doesn't ask for excuses.
This removed my ability to deceive myself. It also made it difficult for others to deceive me, because I never believe any ones words. The actions speak louder. Not a new concept but it had never really hit home. Instead of telling myself and others things a just owned it. The point is that everyone is showing what they subjectively value every minute of every day with their actions. So what is the most important thing in your life. Whatever you do, whatever takes up your time, energy and money. Economics is a democracy. Everyone votes with dollars. What did you vote for today? Is your priority what you tell yourself and others?
Part 2 chapter 2
The concepts of change
Change
Chances are if you are reading this there is something about yourself that you want to change. All that means is that you are somehow discontent with your current situation. Don’t think that is a bad thing, I’m not saying whether your current situation is good or bad only that if you desire change it is because you believe your current situation is lacking in some way specifically it is lacking whatever you want your situation to change into.
If you want to lose five pounds that means you are discontent with your current weight and your current situation is lacking a skinnier you. If you want a raise that means that you are discontent with your current pay and your situation is lacking money. The path to awakening is often paved with discontentment. Recognizing that helps us to change so that we don't remain in discontentment.
Awareness
The key to all change is awareness, or an expansion of your awareness. What does awareness mean? When I say awareness it is the part of you that is not your physical body. It could also be called your consciousness. I know this sounds deep but it's an easy concept that has been very important to me.
Humans are made up of the same material as other physical things but our awareness is different. There is a connection between the physical and your awareness. Each one effects the other. So if your physical body changes, let's say you start to go gray. Your physical starts to change before you notice and as you do notice you become aware of the changes that are taking place. At this point your awareness about your aging has increased and now both your physical and your awareness are changed.
So now reverse it. In the gray hair example your body changed and then your awareness followed. Your awareness can change and then your physical will follow. In other circumstances your awareness will change and the physical will follow. Thoughts are things that effect other things. Let's say you won the lottery at 2:00 pm but you don't find out until 4:00. You were unaware but once you become aware your thoughts change this change in thinking immediately starts to change your body. You may have a an accelerated heart beat, you may turn red and be unable to sit still because you are now so excited. Nothing about your physical environment changed. You did not change, your belief about yourself changed and it resulted in a change in your physical body which then starts to change the environment you are in. This same principal applies to bad news. If you find out someone died two days ago your tears start as you become aware of the event.
Everything I am going to share with you is an attempt to increase your awareness. It will then be up to you to decide whether or not your physical body or physical environment follows. At this point I hope your starting to make up your mind to change or at least keep your mind open to the possibility. As awareness increases so do the opportunities to solve the riddles of your own weaknesses and insecurities.
Motion concept
I learned about motion in my high school physics class. I didn't pay much attention. Years later thinking back I was struck by how applicable the laws of motion are to the concept of change. What is in motion wants to remain in motion. This deals with momentum. When an object is moving one direction it has force behind it. It takes friction to oppose that force and slow it down. It takes an equal force to stop the object’s motion altogether and it takes an even greater force to change its direction I'm not into baseball but go with me. A baseball won’t move until it’s forced.
Someone has to throw it. Once it’s hurtling through the air wind resistance, or friction, will slow it down. Over time, with enough friction, the ball will stop and land on the ground. You could stop that ball faster if you aimed it at a wall. The force of the wall is at least equal to the momentum of the ball. The ball will hit the wall and drop to the ground. If the force is great enough, the ball might even bounce back a little. Now let’s say you want to change the ball’s direction. You want to hit it out of the park. You’re going to apply much greater force by swinging a bat at the ball. When that bat connects, it will drive the ball the opposite direction.
People are just like baseballs. For whatever reason we’re hurtling in one direction. Sometimes we’re flying down a certain path in life and nothing is slowing us down. Sometimes the friction of life is enough to slow us down. But if we want something different, we need a new force to stop our momentum and a much greater force to change our direction.
Let’s go to another example. If your car is rolling down a hill it has momentum behind it. It will take greater momentum to push the car back up the hill. One time my car stalled just as I crested a hill. My car immediately started rolling backwards down the hill because gravity was providing momentum. I jumped out of the car and yelled across the street for three guys to help me. They were able to push the car up the hill into the safety of a parking lot. They provided a greater force which changed the direction of my car.
Just like pushing my car up a hill, change can be hard. At the very least, all change requires a greater force to change than it does stay the same. if we can accept this concept we will stop daydreaming about how nice it would be if change was easy. We can understand that we cannot change direction without friction and that we need a greater force to make change.
Struggle is...
Struggle is anything that a person wants to stop but can't. That means if you can't stop gossiping you should start to view it as a struggle. If you can't seem to stop overeating yup it's a struggle, this is anything. Usually the reason people want to stop doing a thing is because that thing has become more important than responsibilities, commitments, personal relationships, goals, promises, physical health and any number of other things that should be valued by a person. Struggles often turn into additions and addictions are struggles. Some of the examples that I use are struggles some are viewed as addictions. It doesn't matter. The concepts work on both. The line between struggle and addiction is blurry. In my life there is no line. But if you ask someone if they have an addiction they will probably think of a heroine addict or something and say no. If you ask if a person has struggles often the person responds off coarse, everyone does. This is why most of the time I will use the word struggle.
Change Equals
Change requires a few things, one is that things not be the same. Simple enough You can't change if you stay the same. So we need a change in action but we are not looking for a temporary change. Struggle wants to convince you that if you just take a break from the struggle you can come back to it and it will be just like that first time. Well, that is not the change that I'm working toward. My change is action plus consistency. This means that real change only takes place when time is added to it. The more time in between you and the struggle the more changed you will be. This gives you something to look forward to because once you are free you look forward to every new day. Each day is a day when you are that much freer. I can't emphasize the consistency enough. You don't get to take a vacation from being trapped.
Think of struggle like a big fire breathing dragon that wants to kill you. You can never train it. Struggle never gets to be your pet that behaves itself and walks by your side. Many people try to keep their struggles around but under control. That is why consistent change is so powerful. Once you have mastered consistently living in freedom you never have to fear struggle again and that is what makes you free. That means you never get to go back to that old struggle. Not even on special occasions. But not even when I'm old and....no never. The good news is that if you truly do this right you won't struggle with that. It is good news, you will never be trapped again, that's what makes you free. Desiring something different does not equal change. It is doing something different that brings the change…the doing….the action. You must consciously do something different than you did before.
What You Can‘t Change
There are some things that we as people cannot change. We have limitations.
I don’t want to spend much time on this because I want to empower you to see that change can happen in your life. But what I want you to stop doing is trying to change things that you can’t and devote that energy to things that you can. Most importantly you cannot change other people. I cannot control you, I cannot make you agree with this , I cannot make you better, but you can. Realize that you cannot change anyone else and start working on changing yourself. Use these concepts on yourself, even though it is tempting to go around and accurately critique others, you can critique them but you can’t change them. Also, you cannot change the past or future.
Regret has a very specific function. It is a negative memory that exists in your brain to keep you from repeating the same thing that caused the regret in the first place. If you had no regret it would be difficult to learn from your mistakes because you would not be able to make the connection between the negative feeling and whatever actions cause it.
So if I write something foolish on this page and realize it I may think to myself. I regret writing that and that recognition will keep me from writing the same foolish thing on the next page. Regret is just information about your past that tells you what not to do in the present. Unfortunately, many people are plagued by constant regret. Anyone who is doing something now that they have regretted in the past is missing out on the simple idea that regret is information. These people start to hate their past which is where the regret is coming from. Then they start to hate the present where the action that is triggering the feeling of regret is coming from and then sure enough based on the past and present they start to have expectations about the future. They start to expect that regret will always be a part of their lives, that it is unavoidable like aging.
The good news is that once a person realizes that regret is just information to help us learn they can change the current behavior that is causing it. This is figuring out the riddle of regret. At this time the expectation that their future has to be filled regret goes away. The future opens up and starts to have possibility. This process of learning from regret has to be repeated over and over. Most of us don’t have just one regret so the process of learning from regret can’t happen just once but over and over until our regret list starts to get shorter and shorter.
Things That Oppose Change
There is a long list of things that oppose change. To many things to make a list. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to change in the first place. The things that oppose change are anything that is not changing. People places and things. As you change some things will change along with you. They will change to remain close to you as you change. Most people places and things will try with all their might to stay the same and if you change you just won't have anything in common anymore. I remember being a child and loving my action figures. I remember thinking to myself and telling others I will always love these action figures. Well, years later guess what. I changed and the action figures didn't so we grew apart. No hard feelings just nothing in common. I can look back on them with fond memories but I'm not tempted to go back to playing with them. I look back on my struggles the same way. I changed and all that stuff, places and those people stayed the same, I changed. No hard feelings just nothing in common.
As much as I loved the action figures and my struggles I'm glad I grew up and now I love new things, no regrets. I hope as you change you feel the same way.
The Change Circle
There is a place where change seems to happen most of the time, not all the time but most of the time. It is a window where it seems to be easiest for change to take place
Thinking in terms of change happening based on discontentment you decide when enough is enough. On one side you are not discontent enough to change other side you are so discontented that the a person doesn’t believe they are capable of getting the (force, momentum, friction) required to change)
(diagram 1)
There is a window where change happens, where you discontent motivates you to action. You are not in a set place you are in motion going one direction or the other, once you become aware of this you see that you have the power to figure out where you are on the circle and move yourself to the window where change can take place. Some people believe the window is very small. I hope that you see that every position on the circle has the opportunity to change. Once a person buys into the idea that there is a place where change is more likely to take place they can immediately become more proactive about their situation.
Proactive vs Reactive
For most of my life I was reactive. Life gave me situations and I responded to them. I knew that I didn't have control over very much so I was stuck. Since I had no control over people places or things I gave up on control and slipped into a powerlessness state, believing that somewhere there was a big guy in the sky throwing things at me and my job was to see if I could get out of the way fast enough, I reacted. I still have no power over people places or things but the one thing that my all or nothing thinking missed was my ability to control my subjective perception of people, places or things.
I can't change anything outside myself but I can decide whether to shut my eyes or put glasses on. If I shut my eyes everything is still there but I can't see it and if I put glasses on objects don't change my site does. I have a choice about how I see things. I have control over my own site. As this really started to sink in I soon changed from reacting to life to being proactive about life. Constantly changing my focus, choosing to shift my mind's eye toward positive things and shutting my eyes to the unnecessary. I can't make bad things go away but I can choose to not focus on them. I decide what I focus on.
This same concept holds true for things both physical and conceptual. I can't remove self pity from the world or from others but by focusing my attention on self worth myself pity becomes very small and insignificant. I can choose what to focus on and that choice makes me proactive because I decide how significant things are in my life. Now start to apply this proactive perspective concept to struggle. I can decide how big or small cravings are. I can decide what I really need and what I don't. I can choose to no longer do addictive things. I can shift my focus away from them making them so insignificant that there is no struggle. I can give things up and never pick them up again. That's right, never.
The Struggling Mind
There are different types of people this why two people can do the same
thing and have totally opposite results. The severity of the struggle effects the type of person you become and how you understand struggle.
Some people tend to have an all or nothing mentality. Many end up with nothing. The good news for the person who struggles in this way is that if the tendency is to view things in an all or nothing way. That person can choose all and in this way can have everything life has to offer. The story of the prodigal son has three characters. The father who loves his sons. The prodigal who takes the money lives in excess. The third is the brother who never leaves. The prodigal has more pleasure and more pain than the brother. But he leaves seeking. The brother never seeks and because of this he doesn't find the same celebration as the prodigal. It is important to note, people who struggle don't lack self control. They are simply discontent with their situation. Is it better to be the prodigal or the brother, it depends. People see the grass greener on the other side. The reason I mention this is that if you see a person seeking, looking for pleaser in wealth, sex, drugs or anything else don't think that they are weak. Just wish them well as they seek. Many prodigals never make it back home. So don't judge people, don't label them addicts. The prodigal had to spend some time in the mud in order to come home and enjoy the celebration when he returned. I am a prodigal and if you do choose to humble yourself and come home the celebration is great.
Relationship with self
Most people know the golden rule. Treat others how you want to be treated. I think we can take that further and say how you treat others is how you will be treated by yourself. This is another variation of reaping what you so. You will get what you give...to yourself.
The most important relationship we have is the relationship we have with ourselves. This is so often missed because our eyes look out way from ourselves at others so guess what we focus on distractions. We look for as many distractions as we can. Silence is boring for one person and relaxing for another.
We spend so much time trying to get other people or substances or things to make us feel good. If you can learn to have a right relationship with yourself you can learn how to change yourself. So many of the ideas are connected to this one. Self respect, self discipline, self esteem. Realize that the conversation that you have within yourself before you do something is the most important conversation that you have. Our relationship with ourselves follows all the same ideas as a relationship with others. If you don't have positive relationships with others, if you lie, manipulate, or abuse other people chances are you have also done those things to yourself. If you hate others chances are you hate yourself. How we treat others is a window into how each one of us treats ourselves. We as people do what we practice as we practice lying to others it becomes easier and easier for us to lie to ourselves. The good news is that by learning to have positive relationships with others we can also begin to have a positive relationship with our self.
When someone has been struggling with an issue for a long time and they tell a friend, "I'm quitting" often the friend doesn't believe it. Normally the person has said "I'm quitting" many times. So I'm quitting starts to sound like "I'm lying". So when the person says "I'm quitting "this time and they start to change often the other person doubts. The friend has to test the person to see if they are for real this time. The person has to convince themselves. You have to prove to yourself that even though you sound the same you are different. Building truth with yourself or others takes time and consistency.
Negative Accountability
Many times other people don't like change. If you decide to change you will affect the other people in your life. Often when people see a person moving toward freedom they feel a sense of desperation. For example when I was a drinker my friends were all drinkers. They didn't want me to stop drinking. They often felt the need to be the audible voice of the struggle. The combination of the internal voice of struggle mixed with the audible voice of the "friend" is usually enough to keep change from happening.
Many times people united in the love of a substance or anything else will use negative accountability. My friends and I would agree to never change or sell out, we will stay true and never leave the precious struggle or each other. They agree if either one tries to change the other one will stop them. This mentality is not rooted in companionship but in the selfish desire to never be alone in struggle. If the people around you concur struggle and you do not you are left staring at your own weakness and loneliness. Then you must quickly find a replacement, someone who understands what you're going through. Someone who will never change and the cycle continues again. When people change they are often forced to move themselves away from their social world, friends family. The cost of freedom is great but so is the reward.
The Enabler
Some people resist change. One way that people remain trapped is to find an enabler.
This is a well intentioned person that doesn't share the same struggle. They don't know about the deception, manipulation that people will use to avoid change. The enabler provides the stability required to continue in struggle. This is most clear in the world of addiction. I come from this world and tend to view anything you can't give up as some form of addiction. So many people are trapped in addiction to one thing or another that I feel the need to explain what I know of it.
Being an addict is expensive and time consuming. The addict has to stay stuck in lots of real problems so they have excuses to use but also so they can make excuses to the enabler. The enabler probably really wants the addict to change. They feel an obligation to the person and at times even help an addict so that they can appear comparably strong and stable not having to look at their own character issues.
The addict wants to be cared about and also wants to continue to use. The addict likes the idea of change and that is why they can make convincing change statements. The problem for the addict is I really want all the good things that come from being sober now if I could just get that and still use. The addict will use charm and affection or anything at their disposal to make the enabler believe that this time they are for real. The addict lies to the enabler about changing but in turn and enabler will lie to the addict saying this is the last time I will help you out or continue to support you while you use. Yet they continue to come back and allow the addict to take from them. The enabler tells themselves that this is for the sake of the addict but it is another selfish act because the enabler doesn't want to believe that they are being played and that the addict never meant any of those wonderful things they said.
Many times the enabler knows the situation and prefers it because of the safety and control that is involved. Think back to high school and then think of the hottest girl you knew. Ok, now think about her ugly friend. Was the hottest girl really that hot or did she just position herself to appear hot by comparison. If the ugly friend becomes hot all of a sudden then the first hot girl has allot more work to do. What a perfect place to be if you don't want to have to change anything about yourself and you want to control everything but still not be alone. The enabler can have people feel sorry for them, appear so loyal and caring, and is never under threat of being asked to change. This is why many enablers get very scared if the ugly person next to them becomes good looking all of a sudden.
Both the addict and enabler lie to each other and lie to themselves. To break out of enabling clear boundaries must be set. If you use I will stop supporting you, and then the key is when the person uses actually stop supporting them. The addict will not believe the enabler any more that the enabler believes the addict when they say that was the last time. The addict will then test the enabler to see if they really mean it. This is the same testing that goes on by the enabler when the addict tries to convince the enabler that they really are sober. That is why it is so important to watch the actions of the person. The words are the same when someone actually changes and when they want people to believe actual change has taken place when it hasn't. The action is different every time.
Don't be an enabler to people, it will prevent them from changing.
Battling the "moderation is healthy" lie
I get the impression that in our society we have convinced ourselves that moderation is healthy. It may come from the idea that all things are permissible but not all things are beneficial. I believe that the idea behind this phrase was an attempt to get people to step away from a set rules for everyone and to realize that we all have different struggles and the problems lie much more with the character of the person than the thing they are doing wrong. I tend to think about the idea that playing cards is evil. There were and probably still are people who thought anyone who played cards was a horrible person. I don't believe cards are evil but for someone who has a gambling struggle they may not ever be able to touch a deck of cards again. So we need to know ourselves. We all have different struggle and anything that makes you feel conflicted is a something that you should be able to do away with.
Unfortunately, a person who is struggling with gambling and admits that he can't play cards ever again is looked at as weak and inferior by people who have no struggle with playing cards. They may say "playing go fish isn't a problem" and "we're not gambling" They may say that everything is ok in moderation.
For people who have struggles things are not ok in moderation. It is very easy for people to always try to control their struggle thinking that everything is ok in moderation. If fact the hope is that someday their struggle will be controllable. It seems to make sense but moderation is a lie, maybe the best one people tell themselves.
The reality is that it is very hard to quit something that you keep doing in fact it is physically impossible by definition to stop doing something that you are still doing. So only by rejecting the moderation is healthy idea can we quit anything.
Another idea that goes against moderation is healthy is the fact that many things in our lives are entirely unnecessary . So much of what we eat, and watch and do are not required, we would only be better off without them. I'm not saying that you have to give all these things up but you could and you may be better for it. We actually need far less than we think we do. There was a time when there were no cell phone's computers or the internet, no processed foods. People lived. If it all went away today we would still live. So we can actually remove unnecessary things from our lives. Less is more in many cases. But most people want to believe that they need things so they criticize those of us that continue to remove unnecessary things from our lives. For me, no fast food is better than some fast food. If people started to find out that we could be much healthier simply rejecting the idea of moderation and cut out the things that are not necessary we could be happier people.
Parts Of You- physical, relational, mental, emotional and spiritual
We are all made up of different parts that all work together. Some parts are seen and some are not. We are physical, relational, mental, emotional and spiritual. We are much more than this but this is a broad explanation. These five parts all effect each other and are meant to be balanced. If we focus too much attention to one than the others can be neglected and your whole self will suffer. In this same way when we fall to struggle it destroys every part. Only by recognizing the interconnected nature of our parts can we remove struggle from our whole self. Understanding our parts helps us to understand that all struggle starts because at least one part of our self is lacking. We choose to try to fill that empty space with the thing that later becomes our struggle. The faster we realize that struggle is a symptom of an existing imbalance in one or more of our parts the faster we can begin to treat the cause of struggle then removing the need for the struggle.
We tend tend to move from one part to another. The body builder who's physical self looks great but can't seem to stop gambling. The mathematician who spends so much time learning about math that he has no relationships. We tell ourselves that if one part is ok than the whole is ok. If it can't destroy all parts than we are often happy to settle and take four out of five.
That is why many people can overcome a specific struggle in their lives and still not see a real change. Someone may stop drinking and that is great, sad to smoke twice as many cigarettes and start eating terrible to die of lung cancer and a heart attack at an early age. We must recognize struggle in every part of ourselves and then began a total retraining of our body, mind, relationships, emotional responses and our spirituality including exposing ourselves to positivity.
Many people get overwhelmed when they realize that in order to concur struggle they have to change every part of themselves. It is important people hear the hard truth about struggle early on so that they can truly prepare for what is to come. Too often we think that we just have to change the thing that we are struggling with. Every part effects another so change brings change. I find it is better to be real and not minimize the situation. Most people do not have total victory in their lives but they could. Change is chosen. Don't be overwhelmed life is a process and so is the process of removing struggle from our lives entirely. Total removal can be the end goal with small goals along the way. If a person is trying to bench press 300 pounds they must first bench 100. If a person that can't bench 100 goes to the gym everyday for a year and tries to bench 300 they will probably make no progress but the person that recognizes the process will go lift 100 and then 200 and work up to 300. First work on your biggest struggle then move on to the things that you have started to do more of since your biggest struggle is gone. In time you will be able to have control over physical struggles and you can start working on concepts, quitting fear or sadness.
Situational Truth, Lies and Universal Truth
There are different forms of truth or maybe better explained is different levels of truth. There are situational truths. These are things that are true in a certain circumstance. Green means go is a situational truth in a physical traffic situation this is a true statement but there is no concept behind it and it doesn't apply to anything besides that situation. There are universal truths, these truths are concepts. Concepts that work and apply in the physical world but also our relational, emotional mental and spiritual selves. I'll give you some examples.
-you reap what you so (also meaning cause and effect or karma)
-the only way to get to a solution is through a problem
In the first example this can apply to you physically, in planting seeds. Relationally in that how much you but into a relationship is directly proportionate to what you get out of it and so on. How much effort you put into quitting something is directly connected to how much success you will have in quitting. This concept deals with our personal responsibility to take ownership of our lives.
In the second example we talk about lifts difficulties and problems. We can decide how to view them (it doesn't matter whether it is a spiritual problem or physical problem ect.) if we recognize that no victory, success or satisfaction has ever taken place without first having a problem we can start to choose to view all problems as opportunities. Struggle is such a difficult problem that if you choose to overcome it, it will give you a true sense of victory in your life. Allowing you to have huge rewards not possible without the problem of struggle to begin with.
Once we start to believe in universal truths we don't have to think so hard when making decisions. The universal truths work all the time and we don't have to look so hard at our situation. These universal truths give us wisdom where situational truth as good as it is can be only make us smart. This is why you can have brilliant people that are very successful in a situation but a total failure in other parts of their life. The business man that knows he only makes money if he works hard and makes sacrifices but has a failed marriage and problems with his children. He understood the reap what you so concept in the situation of making money and didn't apply it universally to his family relationships.
Some more universal truths are - you can't start and stop at the same time, the real concept is you can't do two things that are in total opposition to each other at the same time. This sounds simple but we try to all the time. This is the have your cake and eat it too concept. You can't quit something and still do it. You can't move forward and move back at the same time. The wisdom is seeing this and realizing that if we are moving backward the only way to move forward is to change directions. In my own life and in speaking with others it is amazing how much of the time I have to say. We don't change by doing things the same. This is key. If we are doing things the same we can't get a different result. How do we quit anything by changing things. If we choose not to do things different we choose not to change.
Truth, Reality and Beliefs
Many people make the mistake of only looking at the physical world and thinking that where ever they are or whoever they are at this moment is the truth about them. Where I am at this moment is my reality. But the truth and reality can be different things, they can also be the same. I'll explain. Clark Kent works for a newspaper, wears glasses and has a hard time with the ladies. This is his reality. But what others don't know is the truth about Clark. The truth is that he is an alien and can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes. Now there was a time that Clark didn't know the truth about himself he got hints that he was different and as he experimented he discovered the truth. His belief moved from the idea that he was a normal guy to the belief that he was a super hero. He didn't change, he always had the ability but his belief changed and as his belief changed so did his reality. It soon lined up with the truth. He is superman. These superpowers are awesome but they also mean that he will never really fit in with all the people who don't have superpowers.
I have news for you, you have superpowers. Powers that can allow you true freedom. You won't be controlled by any substance, action or situation you can remove shame and fear from your life. You can do what you want when you want. In your current reality you are weak but that is not the truth. Start to believe in the truth and your reality will start to move toward it. The truth is that the things you think you can't give up are totally unnecessary. You can do what you want when you want, it is your wants that will start to change.
Many people make the mistake of fighting with their struggles. If you fight with something it becomes your target, you start to focus on it. Victory over struggle is letting go. Realizing the struggle is unnecessary. Balancing the parts of yourself so that the symptoms of struggle go away. Realizing this will help you see that you are only playing a part. A part that can change at any moment. It will change the instant that you realize it can. As soon as you realize you can change you already have.
Attempting To Control
Some people realize they have a problem and then try to control the thing they are struggling with. Most of the time this control comes from a love for the that causes the struggle. I have struggled with alcohol personally so I'll use it as my example. An alcoholic may get into this frustrating pattern of thought. I need to keep drinking. I need money to buy alcohol to keep drinking. I need a job to get money to keep drinking. That is the thinking but this is what happens. The person likes to drink. They go to work. They get paid so now they can buy alcohol. They drink the alcohol which makes it harder to go to work. Which makes it harder to get paid. Which makes it harder to get alcohol. So the pattern goes on. This is when the person realizes they need control. They have to limit the alcohol in order to have the alcohol. This is a difficult concept. I want to have alcohol and drink it too.
When control fails the alcoholic begins to get creative. Working to get money to drink makes it hard to drink so are there other alternatives. Can I lose my job and collect unemployment? Can I get on disability? Can I steal money? Can I get a job at a bar so that I can get paid in alcohol? Can I find a way to make allot of money at one time? Can I find an enabler to provide for me?
Another way that the person may try to control the struggle in order to hold onto it is to let it go for a time. The thinking here is that if I can quit for a week or a month than I will be able to prove to myself and others that I'm not a entrapment to it. This is usually a goal that the addict tells no one about so that when an excuse comes up there is no shame or failure socially, only personally. To make this control easier the person may try switching struggles for a time. While the person is taking a break from the preferred struggle.
Some people can maintain a functional struggle position for a long time even years. They are able to hide the truth and spike back and forth from diet to binge, from a little to allot. The person that is able to function with struggle often has a harder time getting free. They don't hit rock bottom for so long and as time passes the chance of them changing goes down just as I explained with the change circle. These people desperately need someone to help them come to a place of honesty. The person still lacks all the positive characteristics that are found in freedom.
The path of struggle can take a long time or things can fall apart all at once. The important thing to know is that only the person can decide when they are tired of being trapped. Only the sick can decide when to treat the disease.
You Are What You Say You Are
That's right we are what we say we are. You define you or you let others define you but either way you are defined. That means that at some point in struggle a person starts to identify himself as a person who struggles and what do people who struggle do they struggle. If someone lies to you and you say " you are such a liar" they will probably start to identify themselves as a liar and what do lies do...they lie. A better response is this. When someone lies to you say you are an honest person why would you choose to lie. This shows the person that they are acting in conflict with their identity and they have chosen to lie and therefore could have chosen not to.
This applies even more to how we choose to define ourselves. We may say to our self you are so stupid, self. You are then defining yourself as stupid and stupid people make bad decisions. Start to realize that the first step in changing from one type of person to another is the choice to change the identity, the choice to change your name from struggler to victor from stupid to wise.
It is very difficult to change but it is so much easier once you have changed to remain changed. By saying that you are something different you can then start to become something different. Now notice that I said the first step in change not the only step. If you stop that this first step you will be smack in the middle of denial. This concept like every concept can be twisted. That is only done by the person that does not want to change. These people will not find freedom. The freedom and power that come with change are only found by people who look for them. Finding involves seeking. If you are reading this you are seeking. Welcome to the club, the seekers who find club.
The Grieving Process Concept
The future is uncontrollable, we make expectations based on our past experiences and core beliefs along with our current situation. We expect to be able to use substances/ food/ dishonesty and any number of other negative concepts in the future if it has worked as a coping mechanism in the past.
Every time our expectations don’t match up with reality no matter how big or small they are we have the potential to have a very negative reaction. We grieve our unmet expectations. The person that we expect to be exists in our minds and when we end up not being the person that we expected the future self that existed in our mind dies and we have to grieve him.
If you wake up in the morning and put on a shirt you expect that you will end the day in that shirt. You make a cup of coffee and accidentally spill it on your shirt. At this moment the end the day in that shirt expectation dies and you enter into the grieving process you may move to anger or depression. You can then have this incident ruin your whole day or week or however long it takes you to get to a point of acceptance. At this point you realize you have no control over a past event so you move on. You no longer stuck in anger or depression or any other part of the grieving cycle. The danger is when your expectations are not met over and over again you may start to expect bad things to happen to you. Then you are trapped because either bad things happen and your prepared for them because you are expecting them so no grief or good things happen but you are so focused on the bad that a good thing would be outside of your expectations and you would actually grieve your unmet negative expectations.
People that struggle with anger or depression and remain there for a significant amount of time are trapped in the grieving cycle. There is only one way out of the grieving cycle and that is through the door of acceptance. You can't escape it any other way. Guess what other ways people try to get out through, their struggles. But when they choose the struggle they expect to get out of the grieving process. Struggle doesn't take them out but further in. This leaves them with a new dead expectations and still trapped in grief but now they are pulling around a big heavy bag of struggle, and that is a big burden.
So what can be done? The first thing, no matter where you are in this process, stop expecting things. Expectations are closed thoughts they say I expect to get a raise in pay today at my meeting with my boss. No raise, begin the grieving process. Switch to hoping and get rid of expecting. Hoping is open minded positivity. I hope I get a raise today and if you don't you can carry your hope into the next day. Hoping is starting the day with a perspective that says I am open to hoping for an infinite number of positive things that will come my way today. Hoping is unknown. I hope good things happen and then good things do come our way, things we would have missed if we would have had our expectation blinders on. Hope is in things didn't even know about when our day began. Expectations are limited to the knowledge we have at the beginning of the day and hope is in the recognition that we have no control over that day except our perspective of it.
(diagram 2)
The next thing you need to do is choose the actual way out. Choose acceptance. "But I just still feel so ....." acceptance is a choice you make with your mind. You don't wait until you feel like accepting your lack of power over the past. Acceptance is when you decide to accept that you can't do anything about the past but can change the now and at that moment you decide to accept and then you go back to the first suggestion I made and hope that you feel like it at some point down the road.
The third thing you do is practice. Having a hard time accepting that big thing that happened in your past start with the cup of coffee you just spilled on your shirt. Then work up to accepting that you didn't have the childhood you wanted or whatever other thing happened to you.
I am not saying that this will be easy at first but it can get easier and easier.
Once we become aware of the grieving process, when our expectations die, we can recognize the process. Then allow the feelings to come in freely but work through them almost instantaneously getting to the point of acceptance. We can then move on in the actual reality that is not what we expected but is what we hoped for.
All denial, anger, bargaining and depression are a result of the grieving process and are completely avaiodable.
Grieving Yourself
Let me repeat that. Once you figure out that every time you feel depressed or angry you can move to acceptance instantaneously. You can spill the coffee on your shirt and instantaneously accept it and move on. At this point you are free. Unaffected by unmet expectations and enjoying finding unexpected treasures in every day. Your life becomes a treasure hunt and all you have to do is live and hope to find the great things you didn't know about in the morning. awakening is found in acceptance.
Gain is change, loss is change so only change remains. If you can accept change then you will not be controlled by the pursuit of gain or the avoidance of loss. Gain never gives enough and any loss is always too much loss. Accepting that change is constant lets you shift your perspective. Up close a river may look choppy and harsh with the waves crashing against the rocks. Pull back and the same river seems so tranquil. Acceptance of change brings tranquility to the chaotic motion of life.
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Grieving Process -
Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of situations and individuals that will be left behind after death.[1]
Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Any individual that symbolizes life or energy is subject to projected resentment and jealousy.[1]
Bargaining — "Just let me live to see my children graduate."; "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the hi is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just have more time..."[1]
Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die . . . What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect oneself from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.[1]
Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."
This final stage comes with peace and understanding of the death that is approaching. Generally, the person in the fifth stage will want to be left alone. Additionally, feelings and physical pain may be non-existent. This stage has also been described as the end of the dying struggle.[
Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness, and later to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom).[1] This may also include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, divorce, drug struggle, an infertility diagnosis. Kübler-Ross claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two. Often, people will experience several stages in a "roller coaster" effect - switching between two or more stages, returning to one or more several times before working through it.[1]
Significantly, people experiencing the stages should not force the process. The grief process is highly personal and should not be rushed, nor lengthened, on the basis of an individual's imposed time frame or opinion. One should merely be aware that the stages will be worked through and the ultimate stage of "Acceptance" will be reached.
Those Who Have Ears
This concept really unfolded for me when I was listening to my wife describe a person with a speech problem. She explained that when people are about one or two it is the best time to learn new languages. As we get older we start to hold on to the language that we use and it becomes increasingly difficult for us to learn new languages. Our hearing becomes so in tune with what we know we don't even hear what we don't know. So the person with the speech problem actually had a hearing problem. His brain had never learned certain sounds so of course he can't replicate a sound he can't hear, hence the speech problem.
This is the same problem we have in other parts of our lives. We are so in tune with what we have learned that we stopped being able to even hear what we haven't. So those who have ears let them hear. The idea is that not everyone does. Some people have an ear for music and others don't, the sounds are the same it is the listener that changes.
If you want change in your life you will have to work hard to unlearn what you think you know so that you can then replace it with what you don't. This starts with listening. So listen close. A free person starts as a listening person with struggles.
Treating The Symptom
In this concept I'm talking about a crying baby. When a baby cries the loud noise is a problem. You could solve the problem of the noise by covering your ears so you don't hear it. No more noise, problem solved. But this would be treating the symptom problem and not the cause problem. The other way to remove the symptom problem (the crying) is to stop and ask the baby why it is crying. The baby is probably not going to answer so you will have to do an investigation. You will have to think. You will defiantly have to spend more time and energy than just covering your ears. But if you care about the baby you will ask yourself does the baby need food or changed or to be held? You have to go through and start to meet all these needs and how will you know when you've found the right one, No more crying. The cause problem (let say hunger) is solved so the symptom problem (the noise) is no longer necessary.
This seems simple enough but what do we do when we have a headache. We take a an pain reliever, but the head ache is a symptom. The pain reliever is just like covering your ears to the baby. It is a symptom. Instead we need to ask ourselves about the cause of the headache. Am I dehydrated or have I been staring at a computer screen too long? There could be any number of causes but you have to care enough about your head to do the work to fix the cause and the symptom goes away. I am repeating this concept because I see in my own past and in the lives of others around me lots of symptom treating. Here is another example but this time I'll use an action instead of a physical thing. Lying is a symptom of unappealing truth. If the truth was better the lie is unnecessary.
Addictive behavior starts as symptom treating. I'll say it again because this is the thing that everyone involved in a struggle where it be with food, porn, drugs or any number of other struggles needs to realize. Behaviors that trap us start as symptom treating also called self medicating. It doesn't stay that way. As the struggle gets stronger the initial cause seams to fade away and many times that is just what the person wants.
Let's say your father was verbally abusive to you as a child and because of this you feel bad about yourself. You may start an unwise behavior that makes you feel good. So we have cause (father problem) symptom (feel bad) and a choice. Do I treat the cause and deal with the problem or do I go for the quick fix and treat the symptom. destructive behavior treats the symptom. The problem is that when you're not doing the destructive behavior, the cause (father problem) is still there along with new problems that come with the unwise behavior. Go to the cause and the symptoms will be unnecessary. Destructive behaviors are used as a coping mechanisms for your past abuse, trauma or unmet expectations. Got to the cause to remove the destructive behavior.
Pain
Getting to the cause always involves pain. I heard it said once that pain is inevitable but suffering is not. Why pain? Pain can be the friction that happens with a change in direction. Pain can be focusing on the symptom and not the cause. Like many other concepts pain is information that something is out of balance. Pain is the feeling that comes when you touch a hot pan. It is important information that you need to stop or your hand will have even worse physical problems. If we numb our hand we can touch the hot pan. We feel no pain but still get burned. A burn is a thing separate from the pain felt when burning takes place. Our nerves that allow us to feel pain are very important to our health. Simply by knowing what pain is we are able to know what it is not.
The goal of change cannot be to avoid pain. Avoiding pain is often the reason change cannot take place. The goal of change must be to avoid suffering. Suffering is long term pain doesn't have to be. Struggling in struggle is suffering a long drawn out ache that doesn't go away. Pain can be a quick jolt, a shooting pain that makes up jerk away from something. The longer we avoid the pain that comes with change the longer we will suffer.
The Struggle Exodus
I'm going to tell you a story. The journey to freedom starts in a cold jail cell with Joe, Tom and Anthony. In the jail their cells are lined up one next to the other.
Joe was put in jail at such a young age that it's all he knows. He has never been outside the cell. Tom remembers the outside world as a harsh and hostel place. It was lonely and fending for himself was hard. Sometimes he gets sick of jail but at least here he has three meals a day, a roof over his head and he is never alone. Anthony was put in jail as punishment for something he had done wrong a long time ago. He still feels so guilty about what he did that he figures he is right where he belongs.
Then a person named Nick comes along and visits the jail. He is happy and has a strange smile like he knows a secret. Nick says "Joe, Tom and Anthony there is a wonderful place called freedom where there are no bars and you can come and go as you please. It is the most wonderful place. That's where I'm from." Each one replied in their own way. Joe excitedly said "I've never been out of this cell that sounds great." Tom replied," I have heard of that place but never really believed it existed. The world I remember was nothing like that." Anthony quickly started to laugh, "There is no place like that, Nick is a liar and a fool." Even if there was a place like that we are locked in these cells. How cruel you are to come here"
"The land of freedom is real and I can take you there." said Nick. "How?" Joe asked. "Reach in your pocket you'll find the key to your cell." replied Nick. "This guy is crazy! There is nothing but dessert out there." yelled Anthony as he turned away and refused to listen anymore. Joe and Tom reached in their pockets and sure enough they each found a key to their cell. Filled with joy they both unlocked their cells and ran out of the jail but before they left Joe yelled back to Anthony "Come on the key is in your pocket!" but Anthony just turned away. He felt like he deserved to be in jail, if he made it to freedom he would feel even more guilty. So he stayed, sitting there punishing himself.
As soon as they got out side Nick started to lead the way through a hot desert. They walked on a wide road with tons of people. Nick kept talking about how great the land of freedom is. Joe and Tom were so glad to be out of their cells. They found themselves in a crowded desert. As the days passed and they kept moving Tom asks, "How much further is it? I'm starving and the sun is too hot. You never said it was this far away and if there is a land of freedom what are all these people doing here." Nick replied, "These people could come too if they wanted to but we just have to keep moving." More time went by and Tom finally yells, "Forget this! Anthony was right even the jail was better than this dessert." Then Tom turned back and started walking toward the jail. He found the dessert too unfamiliar.
"It's just a little bit further just down this narrow road." said Nick. Joe tired out didn't say anything but he kept walking. Then all of a sudden the dessert faded away and there was the land of freedom in all its beauty. A wonderful place but only a few people. "That cell seems so far away. I can't believe I'm here." said Joe. "I'm glad you trusted me." said Nick as they both sat down to relax.
Struggle is imprisonment. Whatever reason a person is in a cell time goes by and as it does a person in jail becomes institutionalized. This means people get used to the cell and are comforted by it because they know what to expect from it. In this story everyone did what they wanted, when they wanted to. The only question was did they want freedom or not. Are you Joe, Tom, Anthony or one of the people in the desert. The people in the dessert are glad to not be in jail. They are surrounded by others and would rather be normal than free.
Hoarding
Hoarders have a compulsion to collect positions, they pile up stuff. The stuff may not be sanitary or useful in any way they just have to keep everything. In other words hoards are addicted to stuff. Since this is an struggle I believe all of the concepts that I'm trying to unravel apply.
Some people reading this may be thinking oh good I'm defiantly don't have a hoarding problem. But we all have things we don't want to get rid of, we have a compulsion to pile up stuff in our lives. The stuff may not be physical but it is still a bunch of useless things that we hold onto. People will hold on to useless beliefs that just get in the way of progress. We hold on to people that have no use to use. We hold on to our huge list of needs, that are really wants. We watch TV shows about hoarders and say those people are so nasty and then we use their physical mess to help us over look our own emotional, relational, mental or spiritual mess.
What do you tell a hoarder when you want them to change. "Just get rid of all that junk, it's not worth anything." But have you ever heard that in your own life. Has anyone ever said "just don't" has a skinny person ever said just don't eat? Has a sober person ever said just don't drink? Has a happy person ever said just don't be sad? I have heard these things in my past and every time I found myself thinking this idiot just doesn't know that I need this stuff. I personally never struggled with hoarding physical stuff. I think hoarders are just people who are making their environment look like their inside. When I was depressed I wanted my environment and those around me to be depressed.
Two ideas here. First, you know struggle because you have struggled and second. Try to convince yourself to get rid of the useless stuff in your life physical and emotional, spiritual, relational, and mental. What are you clinging to? Chances are you thought it just then but said to yourself no I don't have to get rid of that I need it. You don't. I have found fasting to be a very powerful thing. If I go without food the long list of things I tell myself I can't live without seems to go away and things get put back into perspective.
Time concept
I always want to point out things I have said in the past or things that I hear all the time that make no sense at all but people say it anyway and other people agree. This is one of those things. "It'll be easier to change later."
Is it easier to climb out of a 1 foot hole or a 2 foot hole or a 15 foot hole. 1 foot simple enough. Is it easier to run 1 mile 2 miles or 15 miles? 1 miles simple enough. Is it easier to quit my struggle after 1 year 2 years or 15 years. 1 the answer is always less is easier. So get out of you struggle now and it will be easier. The longer you wait the harder it will be, always. Tomorrow is the worst day to quit anything. If we really embraced this concept we would spend much more time doing things and much less time thinking of reasons not to do things. Today is the day even better, yesterday. But some people just prefer to plan to change.
Perpetual Preparation
I have met allot of these people. I was one of these people. They always have a great plan of attack. When they see you they are telling you about the newest diet but they are still over weight. They may be at the bar telling someone about the AA meeting they are going to start going to. Or my favorite, the person with a cigarette in their hand telling someone about how they know how to quit because they've done it before and how they are going to do it again next Tuesday. When people would tell me to quit smoking I would say ok I'll quit tonight. Tonight? yes tonight as soon as I fall asleep. Then I would have to tell them that I would probably start again as soon as the coffee is brewed the next morning.
People that carry around too many plans don't have space left to carry any actual change. Plans are fine, I'm not knocking planning. Just know that any plan to change that does not result in change is not a good one. People who have struggles often struggle with planning as well. If you do have a plan don't tell the world in an effort to get props just for thinking about it. You will feel better telling others how you changed than how you plan.
My Last One
Here is a mistake I made a thousand times. This is my last__________. Yeah, fill in the blank. It doesn't matter what it is. You never get to have that one last magical experience with your struggle because then you'll remember the magic and forget it was your last time. You have to quit when your half way through or when it's already over. When you're hung over, feeling sick or guilty because of the shame. That's where quitting lives, stay there. You give yourself one last great celebration and the chances of you not going back are slim to none. Think this way the last time I _______ was my last time. The next time is never the last time.
Rewarding Yourself
The struggle will whisper things in your ear and most times it will make no sense. We listen because we want to believe so bad. This is a lie the struggle uses and it makes no sense but it was so powerful. You're doing so good not ________ing you deserve a _______. Never ever reward yourself with the thing you quit. Reward yourself with something you're not struggling with. If you reward yourself with the thing you're giving up you won't be giving it up so what is the reward for.
Cheat days are a lousy idea if you want a change in your life. People say well it's too much to just give it up. If you have a cheat day planned than you haven't changed. Diets don't work. They don't work on food or drugs or depression or anything else. You can't be victorious if you already have a planned failure coming up. You don't get to be victorious for a few weeks so that you can go back to loosing again. If you are taking a break from lying but have a new lie planned out for next week then you never took a break to begin with you just used some patience to make it a good one.
Three Types of Thinking
I clearly remember people telling me you should stop before you get addicted. I had the first kind of thinking. I don't have to stop because I'm not addicted. So I didn't stop. Then I woke up one day and someone told me I should stop and I realized I couldn't stop because I was addicted. That is when my thinking changed to the second type. I started telling myself that I was an addict and that was my new reason to not stop. The reality is that with both those ways of thinking have one consistent theme use.
Struggle exists where ever use exists. The thinking may change but the use is the same. The third way realizes that if an action makes you conflicted not an option to get what you want out of it. This just makes it unwise.
Buzzer example
Struggle is like an arcade game. Imagine walking into an arcade with $20. You see some people standing in front of a game and every time they press a big red button they get shocked. That is strange you think but you move on and see a machine "get $5 for nothing", the machine says in big letters and there is red button on it. So you reach out and press it and $5 comes out. You look around thinking this can't be right so you press it again, $5. This is crazy you think and you start pounding on the button and five dollar bills keep coming out. Now you've got 30 or 40 five dollar bills and you feeling pretty good.
Then there is a small shock when you press the button but you still get the $5. Oh well it's worth it, you think. This keeps up and the shocks get a little bit worse but you hardly feel them because the money is piling up. You remember seeing other people standing in front of machines getting shocked, they looked foolish but their machines didn't pay money.
Time goes on and then all of a sudden a shock and no money. Try it again a shock and no money. Is the machine out, I'll try it one more time just to see you press the button the shock is worse and then a $10 bill pops out. You've lost track of time now the shocks are bad and sometimes no money comes out but when it does it is always more. Eventually the money is few and far between but when you get money it is worth it. Eventually your hand is so horribly damaged from the shocks that you physically can't press the button. So you decide to stop, you count your money you've got $2,500.00. When you finally leave you see a sign that says hand surgery only $2,600.00.Through out this story the person has many opportunities to quit. Some people stop with the first shock others keep going. There are different types of people in different stages of struggle.
Three Types Of People
One of my main goals so far has been to point out that everyone can get something from learning change. The vast majority of people today have some struggle on some level. For example a person a drinking problem but that doesn't mean that they are not over weight and struggling with a food struggle. A person who has an struggle with anger may not have a struggle with prescription medication.
With that said I'll go back to the start. There are three types of people when it comes to a specific struggle, let use alcohol for example. The first kind of person has never drank. This person is not addicted and I call them doesn't use. Simple enough, the second person drinks socially and so I will refer to them as the social user. Finally, the third kind of person is an alcoholic and I will call them the addict.
I know that there are places where the line between social user and addict are blurry, the addict loves this fact. A sober person is in the doesn't use category. The goal of the addict is to find a away to move from the addict category to the social user category. The addict will try with everything they have to prove to others and themselves that they already are just social users. Only when the addict gives up on becoming a social user and accepts that they must choose to either remain an addict or move to the doesn't use category do they become free.
Struggle Give Away
How can you tell if you or someone else is struggling? Here are some things that are give a ways.
-They spend allot of time explaining why they are not struggling.
-They tell you they aren't struggling while doing the thing they are telling you they aren't struggling with.
-Here's one for alcoholics. The alcoholic may spend time reading the Bible and pointing to the water into wine miracle as a reason to drink.
-They never leave half way through.
-There are many more tells. Some are pretty standard. If you hide your struggles or lie to cover them up that is a good indicator that you have a problem.
The last one that I will share is a hard one for most people. In most cases a person that has an issue they are struggling with can't go six months without the thing they are struggling with. If the idea of going without a person place or thing strikes fear into you then you are controlled by that fear. Since you are controlled by fear you are not living in freedom. I have thought about this and there are people out there that love their struggles so much they could wait a week or even a month but six months is a long time. The challenge here is to be truly free. If you are thinking to yourself. I don't have to give _______ up. Give it up and then find yourself starting to use the justifications. If you really want to change, know yourself.
Opposing Characteristics
Struggling involves certain actions and concepts that are in direct contrast to free actions and concepts. Building the concepts of one takes away from the other. That means that seemingly unrelated actions and concepts are actually direct contributors to being free or not. If you realize this you can start to focus much less energy on the symptoms of the thing you can't give up and use that energy on things that you can. Be creative, think of it this way. If you are in a deep hole you might try with all your might to climb out with your bare hands. Eventually you may get tired and give up but look around. There may be a something that seems to be unrelated to the hole that you can use to get out. Maybe something to build a latter. Possibly something you can use as a rope. Don't waste your time trying to get out of struggle with your bare hands use other concepts and it won't be a problem. The struggle is clever you have to outsmart it. It sees you coming when you run up and try and fight it head on with no weapons. It knows you don't stand a chance. But when you build these characteristics in your life you walk up to struggle well armed and there is no fight. The struggle has to run away and look for someone weaker and with less character than you.
It is also important to mention that these characteristics are be exercised in other parts of your life and they will automatically reduce the amount of addictive thinking that you have. You must use them or you lose them and this is how people fail. As long as the characteristics are strong struggle is weak. You can build them up and have "victory" for a time but you never get to stop using the characteristics. As soon as you do you will find yourself struggling again. Think or some pro athletes after they retire. They stop training and their bodies stop performing. Stop training your character and it will stop using its struggle fighting power. Freedom is lifelong and it's not something that you need to retire from.
Here are the tools to freedom
Freedom Characteristics
1. Honesty
2. Selflessness
3. Self-discipline
4. self-respect
5 Accountability
and their opposites
Trapped Characteristics
1. Dishonesty
2. Selfishness
3. Impulsiveness
4. Shame
5. Isolation
I am going to break these down for you. These are the tools, the weapons that will bring you to freedom.
Freedom Characteristics
1. Honesty / Dishonesty
Honesty is the most important part of freedom. Take your attention off of the things you are struggling with and focus on honesty. Being honest is nice for the person you are being honest with but honesty is the most powerful gift you can give yourself.
Honesty is an art that needs to be practiced. The more you practice being honest to others the stronger truth will get and all struggle is connected to lies. The lies we tell ourselves and others in order to continue struggling. No lies, no being trapped. Truth is freedom. Once you start to learn the power that truth offers it will blow your mind. Fear, shame, hiding all run from truth. Better yet liars run from truth. If you master truth in your own life then you can start to see the lies that other people tell. Lies only work if the liar is believed. If you learn the standard lies that you tell yourself as well as the lies you tell others you will never be a trapped again.
Because truth is so powerful you have to earn it by giving up everything that you are hiding. Yes everything, all the junk that you have tucked away hoping that no one ever sees. That is why most people never become free, they want the lie. Liars are trapped and live in fear that someone fill find out the truth. So truth becomes the enemy.
Be warned. Choosing honesty is choosing power but it is also choosing quality. It is saying I would rather have a little honesty than allot of lies. It is like saying I would rather have a pound of gold than 1,000 pounds of dirt. It is saying I would rather have 2-3 friends that really know me than 1000 people who don't know me at all. If you don't want honesty, if you don't choose gold don't be surprised at how much dirt is in your life.
It is important to note that lying is only necessary when the truth is unappealing. If you get an A on your test there is no need to lie about your grade. So lying only exists because people believe that the truth isn't good enough. When you realize this then liars just seem sad. Liars are always in a state of poverty.
Truth is a big deal but don't get overwhelmed just remember the more you tell the truth the less dishonesty will be in your life. If you need a place to start, start by telling the truth. If you are struggling with anything start telling the truth in other parts of your life and as you do it will become easier to be honest about your struggle. I said to start, so once you have done that and done it consistently finish by adding truth to the struggle. No lies, no being trapped. No lies no struggle. It is possible.
Types of Lying
There are lots of ways that we lie to ourselves and others. People lie so often they often have no idea that they are not being honest. Sit in a coffee shop for a while and listen. If you hear people talking chances are you will hear some people lying.
To help you here is a list of common lies.
1. Lying- simply not telling the truth
2. Omission- telling part of the story but leaving out the part about you
3. Distraction- quickly look at anything that is not connected to question or situation
4. Truth while avoiding-saying true things that have nothing to do with the question
5. Blame shifting - they..he...It's not my fault (finger pointing)
6. Hesitation- trying to wait in hopes the other person just moves on
7. Half truths- I kind of, sort of, maybe I did
8. Joking- telling the truth and following it with just kidding
9. Silence- Refusing to answer the question
10. Minimizing- no big deal
*11. Exaggeration- when a person makes something bigger to make their rightness bigger
This was a personal struggle of mine.
(example- Every single time we talk this happens. or All the people at work are ridiculous, every last one without fail.)
If people pointed out my exaggeration I would say "I used an exaggeration to make a point and the point stands." the problem is that the point was never strong enough on its own I had to prop it up.
Hopefully you are starting to think back to the list of justifications. Most of the justifications that we use are lies. If we can't justify something we cannot do it. This is power, freedom and peacefulness.
Some people will practice and take pride in their ability to lie. They practice their lying skills hoping to fool everyone. This is particularly sad. Liars can never trust anyone. See it's built into lying, the more you lie the less you trust, the less you trust the less peace, joy, freedom, you have. The judgment for lying happens instantaneously. Even if no one ever knows and you forget you have still lost something.
2. Selflessness / Selfishness
Selflessness is tricky. It is true that all conscious human action involves self. If you give your friend the best birthday present ever it is because you value that persons happiness, so you get something out of it and therefore where really giving in order to get. I don't want you to get hung up on the this even selflessness is selfish idea and I only brought it up because in the past I would justify my own selfishness using this kind of thinking.
Selflessness is thinking about others instead of yourself. Struggle is all about self. When I say selflessness I am talking less about giving to others and more about not feeding yourself. We are consumers we are taking in from the minute we wake up until the moment we lie down. We feed on food, stimulants, caffeine, sugar, entertainment, sex, drugs. This is the selfishness that traps us.
I found out recently that if you put huge amounts of food in front of some animals they will eat until they die. They never get full enough to stop and they just think they are blessed until the blessing kills them. Don't be like those animals.
It is for this reason that not all struggles are bad in and of themselves. It is never about the thing you can't give up it is about you and your perceived need to feed. I think of a fisherman. Catching fish is great until you have so many that the boat starts to sink. Then there is a choice to make. This is not an argument for moderation, it is the acknowledgment that if the fisherman is unable to cut the nets to save the boat he should quit fishing all together and try being a farmer.
Look at the word selflessness. This has become the background music to my life, me telling myself, hey self have less. The less you have in other areas of your life the better able you will be to have less of your struggle, less means less being trapped. So whatever you struggle with try exercising the muscle of selflessness in other areas. As this characteristic grows the struggle will shrink.
3. Self-discipline / Impulsiveness
In the past I would make promises to myself and others. Then I would decide to lie and do the thing anyway. Once I made that decision I would turn off my self-discipline and go straight into impulsiveness mode. I probably looked like a dog sniffing around for a bone. I was focused on a target no time for a conscience. No time for thought about the consequences. This is the self discipline that I am talking about. Mastering the ability to either pull yourself out of impulsiveness or catch yourself before you go into it.
Easier said than done I know. There were times when I did pull myself out of it and then I would reword myself by doing it anyway. The way to strengthen your self-discipline is to start using it in seemingly unrelated things. If you can't seem to quit smoking. Keep smoking and start exercising. Focus on exercising. Get an exercise routine. I'm not saying to give up on quitting all together just realize this is one way to help you quit. When I was a smoker I didn't exercise. There didn't seem to be much point I was unhealthy and couldn't breathe very well. But do it and exercise your self-discipline while you are at it. This is a great way to weaken struggle.
4. Self-respect / Shame
Self respect is another characteristic that can drive struggle out of your life. The more self respect you have the less you will be controlled by people or substances. Self respect involves being secure enough in yourself to not be controlled. The opposite of self respect is shame. Shame is everywhere in struggle, it is in hiding. We always hide what we are ashamed of, our problems, our fat, our weakness. But self respect comes in when there is no shame, nothing to hide. Commit to not hiding anything because of your self respect. The more shame you let into your life the less free you can be.
Self respect is something that so few people have that when we find it we are amazed. We see it so infrequently that when we do we feel the need to find something that the person is doing wrong. We do this because of our own insecurity. We want to continue to believe that self respect is a myth, like Santa Claus. We are all skeptics now. Even as you are reading this you may be thinking yeah right I know this guy is hiding something, he must still be doing something.
The tricky part about self respect is that you can never know whether it is real or not from the outside. Only the person knows, you can get glimpses of the person if you listen and watch closely. If they feel the need to lie or hide that is information telling you at this moment the person does not have self respect. But don't write them off. As soon as they start being honest and admitting instead of hiding they will immediately get self respect.
I do have to make note that some people figure this out and try to cheat their way into self respect. I'll give you some examples. Have you ever seen or heard someone claiming to be proud of something that involves them being trapped. Sometimes it is a tee shirt or a bumper sticker. It is the person that thinks that if they tell the world that they are proud to be a promiscuous, or addicted or any number of other negative things that they will be free. The person has figured out that shame is bad but unfortunately telling others that you are proud to be trapped never makes you free. You get the benefit of not hiding and all the draw backs of the negative behavior. No amount of bragging about being trapped ever made anyone free. So if you catch yourself saying "yeah I'm (insert your issue here) " That is information telling the rest of us that you are so trapped that you just don't have the energy to lie anymore. Never be that person and if you are I hope that explaining it to you helps you choose the third way. Stop lying and bragging about being trapped and get yourself free.
To get self respect you must remove shame. To remove shame you must make your secrets known. Shame hides in the shadows and is afraid of light but self respect is out there in the light.
5. Accountability / Isolation
The fifth and final characteristic is accountability and it's opposite isolation. So much goes into accountability and I have thought long and hard about what it means. It like the other characteristics is all about you. In the same way that being honest is for you, so is accountability.
Accountability involves telling other people about your goals. It is recognizing that some moments we are weak and others we are strong. Some moments we are not tempted and other moments we are not. Accountability comes in when you are in a good place, when you aren't tempted. You recognize that at this moment you are thinking clearly, you are feeling strong and at the same time you recognize that a time will soon come when you feel weak and defeated. So when you are strong you have to prepare for when you are weak. You need to find someone and tell them to be the strong voice when you are weak.
Here is an example. Hey Joe I'm trying to stop __________ing and right now I feel good. Unfortunately soon I will change, I will lie, I will try to manipulate you and myself into justifying my actions. When I feel this way can I call you?
So accountability requires the other four characteristics. It is not easy but it is a very powerful tool. It is recognizing that shame can be controlled; it can be used as motivation to do what is right. Accountability is an effort to bring others into the truth about your weakness. It is not about hiding and it is not about the other person. The reason I say that is because in that crucial moment before you slip into impulsive mode, when you are deciding whether or not to do what you said you wouldn't you know you can call someone. The act of calling is enough to get you to stop. By the time you have called the person you have already resisted going into impulsive mode.
The person shouldn't be a person that is currently struggling with the same problem. It could be a person that has defeated the same problem. This would allow you to learn from someone who knows. It could be a person that doesn't have a just a person that won't make garbage excuses for you. Or it could be a person that is struggling with an unrelated problem. I have had some good bonds with people when I made myself accountable about one thing and they made themselves accountable about another. Both people are vulnerable and seeking victory. It would be great if it was a person you respected and someone that you wouldn't want to lie to. Accountability must have honesty. Lying to someone immediately removes the entire purpose.
Isolation is the trapped characteristic because there is no trust among thieves and no friendship among liars. Isolation doesn't mean that you are alone physically it means that you don't have anyone but yourself. I know that you can be in a bar full of people but the only friend you are there to see is alcohol. Isolation is the feeling that all you have is the thing that is trapping you.
You may find someone that you have allot in common with the person may be struggling with the same thing, they may love it just as much, they may have all the same problems and use all the same excuses as you. You may try to use negative accountability with this person because you don't want to be alone. "Let's stay the same, let's never change." What is really being said is, "let's stay trapped, never leave me, never become happy and health or I will be alone." Negative accountability is never for the listener it is always for the one doing the talking. Chances are the only thing that you have in common with the person is the struggle.
Explanation About Characteristics
So those were my five characteristics of freedom and my five characteristics of struggle. I know that I could have added to the list and there is allot of overlap between those five. I have a hard time talking about anything and not having truth be a big part of it. The root word of characteristics is character. Having character is the key to overcoming struggle of any kind. I hope that you see that character is not something that you do to avoid going to hell. Character is the mechanism of change for the here and now. I know this is hard to believe, it was hard for me. The reason we treat others good is not for them, it is because it is to only way we can learn to treat ourselves good. Don't get me wrong, the thing that makes it great is that others still get the benefit of being treated good weather it was for them or not. Character is a win, win and without these characteristics I don't know how to become free. These are the ways do what you want when you want. It is hard to be free when all your time is spent, hiding, lying, manipulating.
Manipulators will
When people are trapped they have to manipulate the people around them. You may not even realize it. Here are some ways that you may be manipulating people or ways that you may be being manipulated. Realize that manipulation is very common. I hope that you see something on this list that you have said recently. Maybe you didn't even know. I also hope that this keeps you from being manipulated by others.
Success/ Failure
Manipulators will make their success of failure hinge on you. This means that they will position themselves so that all the pressure falls on you and all the manipulator has to do is be there. I remember calling people when I was tempted. I would call when they were unavailable on purpose and let it ring once. That way it was their fault, they didn't support me and all I had to mess up.
Another example of this type of manipulation is when the person makes another person the decision maker. Have you ever said to someone or had them say to you. You should just leave me, you would be better off without me. This is a word trap that puts the other person in the place with all the responsibility to make the hard decision. Never say what other people should do about your problems. If you think the person would be better off then leave them and save them the hard choices. The other way that this is a set up is that if the person does leave the manipulator is perfectly positioned to have an excuse to do the thing that made the person leave in the first place, it allows for self pity and the person can be the victim.
Keeping Score
Manipulators love to keep score and make deals you don't know about. This is when the manipulator does lots of nice things for another person but the whole time is keeping track so that they can then have guilt free use. A husband may clean the whole house for his wife while he drinks. The wife comes home and is upset to find him drunk again but she is trapped, he can point to all the things he has done and say I have done all this for you and you can't let me have...She then finds out that there was a deal going on that she didn't even know about.
Gift giving is another form of this. The manipulator will get a large gift for the person knowing that he can then spend that same amount of money on his own struggles. Be careful taking gifts from people who like to attach strings to them. The manipulator will try to make you feel so good that you won't remember to be angry about the struggle.
Your Problems
Manipulators seem to forget their own wrongs but always have a list of things to point to in the people around them. This way if anyone tries to tell them to change that person will be hit back with their own insecurities. Here's one "Oh, I should quit smoking how does that fast food taste?" See how the health of smoking is immediately ignored and fast food is now the topic.
The best way to deal with this is to start changing yourself. The power that is found in being free is never having to worry about what someone will say if you try to help them. We have to teach people to change by changing ourselves. If you want your friend to stop doing drugs, then make sure your not overweight because the person will never hear what you are saying as long he or she knows that you're not really free. People know that they never have to take advise about beating a struggle from someone losing to struggle so they will look carefully to see if they can see if you are being controlled by something. The thing they find may be small, any struggle is enough to ruin good advice. If you can't give up your coffee how can you tell anyone else what to give up?
If you know that you have your own issue but don't want to change it then you have no business trying to change anyone else. But if the person sees you change they can then see that it is worth it, see how to do it, and see that you are real. Nothing is harder for me to see than a sick doctor giving health advise.
Where You Down
Manipulators will were you down. They will keep bugging you until you give in. Children learn this one at an early age and keep it in their pocket all the way up to adulthood. The manipulator knows that if they have more endurance than you then you will give in. If you are going to take a stand against something you have to be willing to stand longer than the other person and they are very motivated. If you are not up for the endurance race with a manipulator then don't start. If you start and stop you will teach the manipulator just how to get you.
Parents if you really love your children then learn how to say no. You are teaching them things every time they ask you for something. A lot of people are enabling parents. They want their children to change but they don't want to change themselves. The child never sees the parent change and never learns how to change them self and the cycle continues. As a parent don't get worn down.
Abusers
Once a manipulator's tricks don't work they tend to do one of two things. Move on to an easier target or switch things up and become abusive. Have you ever pointed out someone's lie and before you know it they are yelling and screaming as you've done something wrong. That is the shift from manipulation to abuse. Being abusive has to do with the father that beats his kids but there is allot more to it than that. You may be being abusive and not even know it.
All abusive behavior is rooted in a double standard. I have not been able to think of one abusive act that isn't. A double standard has to do with hypocrisy and hypocrisy sounds like this "do what I say and not what I do". Any time someone says this they are trying to establish a double standard. Often kids pick up on this but have a hard time understanding it conceptually. You may tell your child to go to bed at 8:00pm. But you stay up until 10:00pm. This is not a double standard. When I say do what I say and not what I do I am always referring to the characteristics of freedom. It is ok to stay up later than your kid. I wouldn't say it is ok for you lie and expect them not to.If you lie but you punish your child for lying then that is a double standard and it is entering into abusive behavior. Unfortunately parents often think "well in order to not be hypocritical I will not punish my child for lying". Then lowering the standard for everyone. We'll get into low standards later but this is not the way to handle a double standard. The thing to do would be to stop lying so that when your child lies your criticism legitimate.
Abusers love double standards. I'll give you some examples. I have a gun and you are unarmed so give me your money. All theft is abuse, I take from you but you don't take from me. If each person took something it would be an exchange and would be a great. All types of bullying are abusive. I get to make fun of you but you don't get to make fun of me so on and so forth.
Abusers always want to make sure that they are going up against someone weaker than them. They travel in packs or seek out woman, children, elderly or even animals. Abusers always have allot to say when they are looking down at someone and nothing to say when they are looking up.
I want to explain all this because abuse and struggle go hand in hand. People use substances that hinder brain function and when they do their ability to manipulate quickly goes away and they become abusive. So this is important whether you are the abuser or the abused. Many people use the substance to justify their abuse. Whisky makes me crazy is one I've heard several times. If you become abusive every time you have a substance and you continue to use the substance then you are choosing to be abusive, it is no excuse.
Understanding abusive behavior is the best way to guard against being abused or being abusive. People are abusive for a reason. Abuse is always information about the persons inability to be free. That's right abusers can't do what they want when they want and that is why they believe that being abusive is necessary. If you seek power over someone else it is always because you don't have enough power over yourself. If you have to control other people through double standards it is always information that you don't have control over yourself. If you are struggling with abusive behavior it can stop. Abuse is an outward expression of inner weakness. Like all other struggles if the inner problem is dealt with the symptom will go away.
I'm not justifying abuse I'm only trying to explain it so that if we understand it proactively we will better know how to deal with it in our own lives. If you remove double standards from your life it will be very difficult to ever be abusive again whether it be anger, theft, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual predators or any of the other ways that this type of weakness shows itself.
Only when you remove abusive behavior from your life are you free to do what you want when you want. Until then you will be to busy being controlled by weakness. Many abusers don't like being abusive they simply don't know how to stop. This is the same concept that we find in other types of struggle.
Timing
When dealing with struggle timing comes into play. Social users tend to make exceptions to use. A social drinker may only drink on a Friday night with friends. The alcoholic will be there but he will also drink on Saturday and Sunday and so on. A healthy person may have cake on someone's birthday were a person struggling with eating would have cake any day of the week. The point here is to know timing.
This is a type of justification. I had a bad day, I had a good day, I had a stressful day I had to work today, I had a day off, I was with friends, I was alone. When you are struggling with something the struggle doesn't care what day or time it is. The response when the struggle uses this type of excuse has to be, I will not do that today.
You must have the mentality that as long as I don't fail to struggle today I am ok. The trick here is that every day is today. That's right as long as you don't lie today you will not lie, as long as you do not steal today you will not steal. When you see that you can always choose not to be trapped today you have already stepped into victory. You have acknowledged that you don't have to do that thing today, you have become proactive and you have taken personal responsibility for your situation. The struggle never wants you to be free and so it will always use timing to get you to continue in being trapped. The struggle will either get you to think about the past or the future.
"I have always ________'ed in the past." Or, you mean that I can never ______ ever again as long as I live?" Thinking too much about the past or the future can be a distraction from this moment. Freedom lives in the moment. Freedom is always in today, it always stays in the now far away from the trap of who you were in the past and the fear of the unknown future. Be controlled by nothing in this moment and you will see that you are free.
The way that people often try to cheat their way into freedom is to try and buy now and pay later. Struggle loves this. You can drink tonight and you won't feel the effects until the morning. What if you instantaneously got hung over, maybe it would change things. No matter what your struggle is you are probably trying to put off the consequences. The idea is that if you can push the consequences to tomorrow at least you have today, but you don't. So be careful running too much makes you tired and weak and that is just the way the struggle wants you to be.
Replacement Vs. Removal
It is far easier to replace something than remove it. People tend to either remove, replace with something the same, or replace with something different. Let's start with remove. This is when people just try to give stuff up. To just remove it from life and it can be done. But it doesn't seem to be sustainable because with any void comes an ache that often drives people back to the thing they gave up. Many times they go back and are in even deeper soon after. I would not suggest this option.
Then there is replacing with the same thing. An example of this would be when a person shifts from one struggle directly to another and believes a change is better than staying the same. There is no freedom here, just changing masters. Sometimes people can step down from one struggle to a another. An example of this would be not drinking but chain smoking cigarettes. For some this can work as it shows the process of change as you move from one destructive habit to another. But be careful the struggle wants to kill you and has no preference weather you die of liver failure or lung cancer. Never stop there. Another important point with this type of replacement is that many times the things we switch to are leading us back without us even knowing it.
In the case of an alcoholic, the body breaks down alcohol as a sugar and a switch to consuming lots of sugar can trigger a relapse. This is important information that many alcoholics don't know. They may walk into a meeting after smoking a cigarette which injects your body with toxins. You then eat a doughnut which further trigger craving for alcohol as your blood sugar levels change. Followed by a cup of coffee that acts as a depressor on the body, it causes a spike that is followed by an energy crash and finally as the meeting is over the alcoholics is biologically set himself up to go straight out and drink.
The third way is replacing the struggle with something that will not lead you back to it. This is the best thing a person that wants to break free can do. It always depends on what you can't give up, but this often involves gaining knowledge like I'm trying to give you. Know your struggle in order to know what to replace it with. This often involves going deeper. Knowing that alcohol strips the body nutritionally the best thing to do is to replace it with nutritious foods. If you are struggling with internet porn you should replace your time in front of the computer with the things that you have been neglecting, family friends children or work. Every struggle concept must be replaced with a free one, every negative action should be replaced with a positive one.
Dry Drunk
It is important to bring up the dry drunk scenario. This is when a person stops the symptom but never stops the problem. This is why I keep emphasizing freedom. It is possible to never drink again and stay trapped. Well, why quit then you might ask. I didn't say you had to stay trapped, I said you could. Sometimes the realization that, you can't do what you want when we are trapped, ticks people off so much that they feel the need to walk around destroying people whether they still do the thing they struggled with or not. This is the miserable guy in the meeting who knows the horrible things that will happen if he drinks but knows that he is still not free so he just makes people miserable. Don't be this person, the struggle loves a miserable person. What better thing to point to in order to keep someone from getting free. Where ever you are go further there is still more for you.
The Law
Struggle is never about the law. Notice at no point so far have I said don't struggle with things that are against the law. Struggle traps people, it doesn't matter whether you are struggling with cocaine or food. I'm not saying that they are the same but the thinking is the same. Is it worse to struggle with cocaine or food? Well that depends on whether you are about to die from an over dose or from a heart attack. The struggle doesn't care, either way you're dead.
People who struggle with illegal drugs know all the excuses about why it is ok. An adult that drinks and then tells their kid not to is probably making some argument about it being against the law. The kids probably knows that the law isn't perfect. There is no law that says how much alcohol a person can consume in their home. The law doesn't say that a person can't huff glue.
Don't stop reading here, I'm not saying that we should do away with laws, I'm trying to fulfill the law. I'm trying to get you and the people around you be free, I don't want you to be struggling with a legal substance or an illegal one. So remember that if you're struggling with something that is legal get free before you criticize those struggling with illegal substances.
Giving Things Up-
Very few people have ever given anything up. Everyone has had things taken away but that is totally different than voluntarily giving something up. Not because of someone else and not because you have to. Not because the thing is bad and will send you to hell but have you ever decided I am going to give something up. Most people haven't, if you haven't you may not have any idea how to change anything about yourself. It may be as small as going into your closet and getting rid of any clothes you haven't worn in six months. Feel the struggle when you are trying to get rid of something that you like and you don't think is wrong. Practice, try fasting. As you learn to give things up you will learn to do the opposite to get things that you want.
Changing Yourself First
This has been a reoccurring idea so far but it is too important to not emphasize. Do not try to change anyone else until you have changed yourself. A liar is not the person to teach honesty. If you are struggling and you try and tell someone else to stop struggling you run the risk of doing more harm than good. You are showing that you have a double standard and as I pointed out in the abuse section all abuse comes from a double standard.
Don't think that you shouldn't try to help others first remove the struggle from your life and then go out and remove the struggle from others. Often your change is the best way to change others. If they see how to change they will much more likely to respond than if you just tell them. You may be thinking but I'm not struggling with anything, look harder.
If you want your kid to stop smoking pot give up bread. What? yeah, give up something that you enjoy on a daily basis. Something that you don't need. Something that everyone around you is doing. Something that you feel no moral conviction about. Something that makes you feel good. Give up bread, give it up in all forms. Hopefully your brain is being flooded with reasons why you don't have to. Hopefully you are feeling a little defensive or thinking about how hard it would be. Good, by changing yourself you will experience the same thoughts feelings and emotions that the person you are trying to change is experiencing. Let them see your struggle. Maybe you will fail and will be tempted to hide it from the person maybe you will make excuses. The best leader is often the person one step in front of you.
Worst Case Scenario
If you are free and are victorious over your struggle then it is dead and gone. Lots of times people start to get free but they keep one photograph of the old times. Instead of leaving it all at the grave of the struggle mourning and moving on they keep just one little thing. It could be any number of things sometimes it is an actual photo of the person doing the thing they struggled with but most times it is a mental worst case scenario.
It is that one horrible thing that could happen and it would justify going back to the old ways. For some it is if a family member were to die. For others it may be a spouse leaving or a job falling through. Whatever it is you must get rid of it. Freedom cost you whatever you don't want to pay for it. This is not your intention but you risk starting to wish for the worst case scenario. You may start subconsciously or consciously pushing away a spouse or day dreaming about losing that job. You may start to wish for that one perfect excuse to go back. Be on your guard. Admit this and then decide that even if that worst case scenario would happen you will remain free. Once the door is completely shut it blends right in with the wall. It is always there but you would have to look for it.
Sorry
Sorry is something that you have probably said or heard today. We hear sorry all the time. The problem is we don't see sorry very often. When I was struggling I got good at saying sorry. It's not hard to say when you don't mean it. When I would say sorry I usually included the word you in it. Let me give you an example. "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way." That is not an apology. Any time a person say I'm sorry you...it is an insult. When I realized this it really caused me problems because I did it so often. So if you yourself say it or someone says it to you never for one second believe that it is an apology.
There is another kind of sorry. It is a "sorry I" statement which is good but unfortunately it is no apology. This is a very easy "I'm sorry" it is the I'm sorry with no change of action. Any apology without a change in action is a manipulation attempt. It is an effort to remove guilt, shame or punishment while continuing to do the wrong thing. To explain this to people I might start poking the person in the arm, while saying "I'm sorry for poking you in the arm" If you're sorry then quit. Yes, that is right. The goal of this section is to try and get way more quality apologies and that will probably mean way less apologies, that's ok.
The only real apology is one that comes with a change in action. If the action doesn't change the sorry is either an insult or a manipulation. So listen carefully both to yourself and others. Saying you're sorry and changing your action is a very difficult and humbling act. I know because I still struggle with it. But it is one of the most important things to learn. If you want your family and friends to apologize to you then start teaching them how by doing it. If you master apologies you will see what it is to be truly free from guilt.
If your thinking "but I'm can't change", "it's their fault" or "I'm not sorry" cool. If that is the case then alright, just don't apologize. If you apologize and either don't mean it or don't change then it will become increasingly difficult to actually apologize.
The Benefits of Struggle
No matter what your struggle you are getting something out of it. Instead of treating our issues as entirely evil it is more important for us to stop and understand what am I getting out of this thing. If someone does something that sickens you, stop. Resist the initial temptation to condemn them and think. What are they getting out this, what is the benefit? If you are more concerned with getting the person to stop than with your own greatness then you will figure out what need is being met by the act. What need is the person meeting. Find another way to meet that need and you will help. Condemnation and removal are far less successful than grace and replacement. In doing this with others it will encourage others to do the same to you.
What You Don't Know-
You don't know what you don't know. Other people don't know what they don't know. I so quickly judge ignorance but the truth is that what I know now I have only known for a short time. It will change and grow and I can't wait to find out what I don't know. What will it be? I don't know that is why I am excited. There can be fear in the unknown. Sometimes the best way to teach people is to ask them questions. Sometimes the best way to help someone is to ask them for help.
I had a friend who was struggling with anger. He was a great guy but he would snap at people and get so frustrated with people. I know what it is to struggle with anger. Instead of telling him what I thought he needed to hear I tried a different approach, because frankly I didn't want to get him angry. So I went to him and asked him if he could help me with my anger issue. I asked his advice, I made myself accountable. When I would see him getting upset I would pull him aside and ask him how I was doing with my anger.
The funny thing is that he was able to give me great advice. As time went on my vulnerability caused him to work on his anger, he was taking his own advice. Eventually he thanked me for asking him for help because it had helped him and then he figured it out. I understood that I was giving him an opportunity to teach himself.
He knew all about dealing with anger, what he didn't know was how to listen. We have to find out what people know and what they don't. Often they know the right answer they don't know how to apply that right answer to their own lives. We have to stop focusing on what people don't know and shift to what they do. We can never be angry with people for not learning only mad at ourselves for not teaching.
Knowledge can be a big responsibility. That is why so many people subscribe to a life of ignorance and call it bliss. It is sad because I can say they literally don't know what they are missing out on. I can remember when my goal was to forget, to know less. now I know better. Even though knowledge can be dangerous I choose it. I believe it can lead to freedom.
Defensiveness
Every time you or someone else gets defensive you are telling everyone around you right were your weaknesses are. Of course you would protect the weak spots more than the strong ones. I'm not saying that defensiveness is a problem. I am trying to get you to see it as valuable information to understand yourself and others. You have to know yourself. The struggles in our lives know our weaknesses if the struggle knows more about you than you do then your odds of being free are slim. Admit your weaknesses so that no one can control you with them. If you find yourself defensive and you don't know why than stop. Figure out what weakness is being revealed and then take the steps necessary to strengthen that weakness. Once the weakness is removed you will no longer have to be defensive.
The Snitch
In the world of struggle you can lie, cheat, steal, abuse or anything else that you want to do as long as you don't break the only rule. The snitch rule. The one thing that liars never allow is telling the truth. Liars do everything they can to keep the truth covered. They spend their lives running from the truth, the truth that they are not free. So the snitch rule has been established. The snitch rule states that anyone who tells the truth is punished.
I have seen people with no morals what so ever totally crippled by this. They can't tell the truth. They have been convinced that it is a sin, the only sin. I tell you this because you may find yourself punishing someone for shinning light on your darkness. Realize that having a problem with snitches is always a problem with fear and weakness.
One time I was having a conversation with a young guy. He was ready to punish someone who had told the truth about him. This is what I said to him. "Come here, close. I have to tell you the solution to your snitch problem. But I don't know if you can handle it." "I can handle it" he said. I said "Okay but this didn't come from me. What I am about to tell you is the key to never having to have a problem with snitches ever again." His eyes grew big as he leaned in. "Don't hide anything." I whispered to him. He waited for me to go on. That was it, if you never hide anything no one can ever snitch on you, ever. There is power and freedom in honesty.
Rock bottom
This is hard to explain but very important. Rock bottom is the best worst place there is. Not everyone has had a rock bottom moment. I don't think it can be planned. It is a place where you are so shattered and broken that you let go. Rock bottom is when you know the only way out is up. It is a powerful place if you are lucky enough to get there without getting destroyed. I had a hard rock bottom experience and I think other people depending on what they are trapped in may have different experiences. There is defiantly a moment of authenticity where you realize this struggle isn't me.
A rock bottom moment of authenticity only last so long and then it moves on. Rock bottom is like a thunderstorm that scares you, out in the pouring rain the loud thunder and crashing lightning. Sit in it, stay there and when the storm is over you will find that that frightening rain has washed all the dirt off of you.
Unfortunately many people never get to a rock bottom moment of change because well intentioned people around them keep them from it. This is when an enabler doesn't want a person that is trapped to feel any pain and there is pain at the rock bottom point. Here is a word of advice, let people reap what they sow. If you disrupt this law it will deny the person that you think you care about the information that they need to change.
High Standard vs. Low Standard
Unfortunately many people spend allot of time and energy getting others to expect less from them. Setting a low standard for someone is an insult. If someone sets a low standard for you that is information telling you that they think you can't do more. At least I get to do less you might think, but then that pesky reap what you sow law comes in. When you set a low standard or you let others set the low standard you give away your power. Once it is given away it takes work to get it back.
Set high standards for yourself and others, this is a choice. You may be far stronger than you think but when you were young people insulted you and set low standards for you. Maybe you started to believe that those were your actual limitations. I'm here to tell you that you are capable of so much more. Compliment yourself with a high standard today. Challenge yourself and remember that the human brain, in order to change, has to rewire itself. This rewiring process takes some time. You could be trying to do things differently, maybe your brain is rewiring itself as you are failing. You may not know that every failed attempt is bringing you one step closer to that new connection being made and you changing.
Why is it that we see that everything in life worth anything requires effort and probably involves failure. We still try something once and then say see it didn't work and quit. Get back up.
Struggle Role Change
There is a role change that goes on that I didn't know about. As you get deeper and deeper into struggle the role of the struggle changes. At first it is your best friend, it is always there for you and it helps you through some hard times. It makes you feel good and gives you a feeling of power. People who get involved with struggle aren't idiots. Unfortunately we get into a relationship with something that sucks us in and then turn on us.
As time goes on the struggles role changes. It goes from being friend to master. At this point the struggle starts to do the talking. You find yourself saying and doing things that you wouldn't have done in the past. The struggle starts to get you to turn away from anything it considers a threat. It is now leading you. You may go along with this. This is often where people with "soft struggles" stop. Soft struggles are socially acceptable. They do damage but as long as you go along with them no pain.
Once you stop going along with the masters plans then the role changes again. This is when the struggle becomes your enemy. You start to hate the struggle that you once cared so much for. This is when it punishes you every time you try to break free. You are no longer doing the thing because you want to, you have no choice. As your enemy the struggle makes you do what it wants.
This is important to know because at every point you are doing what the struggle says. It doesn't care what role it is to you as long as you follow along. The struggle hasn't changed it has been controlling you from the first day. Be careful, often the most abusive people pull up with some candy and a smile. The struggle is no different.
Your Role Changes
There is another role change that no one told me about. When I started breaking out of struggle my role started to change. When I was in struggle I knew my role. Be desperate, wallow in self pity. Everyone around me knew what to expect. As I started to break free my role as defeated addict started to change into the role of a victorious sober person. I was changing from a follower to a leader.
I thought that this change would have people singing my praises. I was surprised to find out that any role change tends to cause problems for others. Now I know that people oppose real change most of the time. When the change started for me people thought it was just another weak attempt and didn't think anything of it. I don't blame them I had cried wolf before, saying this time it's for real and remaining the same. As time went on my role continued to change and so did my relationships. I quickly realized the people who were friends with me because of my weakness because the simply went away when I got strong. Some people will never believe that you are really free and others will hate you for it. The good news is that you will find people who appreciate your new role. They will offer you quality relationships, it just may not be quantity.
Relapse
When you have gone some time without the thing that you were struggling with you will be able to remember having a positive experience. Chances are that you did the thing so frequently that you were desensitized to the negative effects. Now that there has been some time you start to wonder would the old thing give me the same good feelings that I remember. If it has been long enough your brain has already rewired itself to not be the same as you were. This when a relapse occurs it.
Relapses can be confusing to talk about because a relapse can be the best thing ever or the worst. Here is what you need to know to make sure if you relapse that you make it a learning experience. It is all about conditioning. If you are conditioned to be health than unhealthy will hurt. If you are conditioned to be unhealthy than healthy will hurt. Initially change is uncomfortable either way. It can never be planned. You never get to think "well a relapse is part of the process so I'll have one in two weeks, I can't wait." Only you know if the relapse is authentic or not. But there are some actions to look for. There should not be excuses, there should be shame.
When a relapse happens there is a moment of truth. If you hide it and start on the old path then that is the direction you will go and fast. Or if you do what you would not have done before and admit your mistake then you will know that you are different. If you do the old thing hopefully it will not feel the same because you should now be filled with enough positive things that there is no hole left to fill. You will have to decide do I want to go back to being trapped or keep moving forward. Relapse can function to retrain the brain. Relapse = pain = bad instead of Using = pleasure = good.
This is why you do not want to have one last great time with your struggle or that is what you will remember. When you relapse and see that the old thing just doesn't satisfy the new you hold onto that memory, hold on to the guilt, shame and the just plain stupid feeling. When you ask yourself what was I thinking. Remember that hang it on the wall of your mind so that when the struggle comes knocking again you will not forget.
You may not have a physical relapse but a character relapse. If you have built the freedom characteristics into your life you may have a character relapse. The has the same function as a physical relapse. You may think I used to lie and be just fine. So you lie and now you feel like crap because you know that all lies are rooted in fear and weakness, great hold onto that. Successful character relapses will prevent you from a physical relapse.
Genes and Upbringing
I was adopted at a young age. I have never met a biological relative. That means that for me genetics is a guessing game. When I was fat I imagined my biological parents to be fat. When I lost my hair I imagined my biological father bald. I was removed from the home so I am assuming some negative things were going on.
In the home I was raised in no one else was overweight. They were just skinny and I was very fat. No one drank or smoked, ever. I was not raised around alcohol or cigarettes. Yet I latched on these things just as tightly as someone who was raised around them. We did have our fair share of addictive concepts but the way those concepts manifested themselves in my was very different.
Genes play a powerful role in who we are. The danger is that we will use them as an excuse to continue the cycle. My past has lead me to believe that genes play more of a role in struggle than upbringing. Many times people have both. If you are raised in a home with an alcoholic father then you are getting attacked both from the inside (your genes) and from the outside (your upbringing). But when you are a kid you don't get to make allot of the decisions for yourself. When you can make those decisions you will have to work that much harder to over throw your genetics or your upbringing. If you don't then you will just be giving your children the same disadvantages you were given. As always know yourself. If you have a history of anything negative in your families past use it as information instead of an excuse.
Stress
Stress is strange, it does so many negative things to the body and the mind. It kills and that is why the struggle loves it so much. I knew what it was to be stressed my entire life but I never took the time to learn about it. Don't get me wrong there is allot of biological responses to stress. I'm going to try and break down two types of stress. I'm calling them situational and physical. This is my perspective and it may not line up with some much more complex stress explanations.
The first kind of stress is situational. This is the type of stress most of us think about. For example you get chewed out by your boss, that is a stressful situation. That situation causes a stress response in your physical body.
Another kind of stress is a physical stress. this could be explained in a number of ways. The way I want you to understand it is from the perspective of substances. Any substances that makes you spike and crash, highs and lows. Any substance whether it be caffeine, nicotine, sugar, alcohol all the way up to any number of other less socially acceptable drugs or prescriptions causes a stress on the body.
Here is how the stress cycle works. You have a bad day, that is the situational stress so then you consume a substance to cope with that stress, that is the physical stress. Here is the important point, your body can not tell the difference between situational stress and physical stress. The body only sees it as stress. So let's repeat the cycle, you have a bad day and the body feels stress and then you consume something and the body feels a physical stress. So the body is stressed and then it is stressed.
The reason this is important is because the things we are doing to release stress are causing stress, so we feel worse. We feel worse so we need something to pick us up, probably a stressor. See the problem. The body stays stressed all the time.
Your body is designed to handle stress. It handles all types by shifting you into fight or flight mode. When the body is in fight or flight mode it shuts off all long term stuff like healing the body. It forces all your energy to survival mode. Your body can't tell the difference between a tiger casing you or having an argument with your spouse , or stress from chemicals. The body sends all the blood to the head so you can be alert. To escape the tiger. This is why some students believe that they only perform under pressure. This is also why we lay awake at night tossing and turning. There are lots of other biological responses that stress causes. If the pressure doesn't go away your body just gets drained and is unable to shift into fight or flight mode. When this happens and a stressor comes along instead of fighting it or running you just lay there and your problem gets you.
The things that we are doing to cope are often causing are the problem. Toxins are a stress, if you need caffeine, nicotine, drugs, pills, junk food or a number of other things to remove stress than you are using a stressor to stop stress. It is the same as trying to put a fire out with gasoline. I have to tell you this because for years I used stressors to relieve stress. The stress got worse and I needed more of the stressor to get the same effect. This why we have to free ourselves from these things, they are unsustainable and leave us defenseless against the situational stress that life brings.
Change Your Surroundings
Sometimes it is helpful to change your surroundings to change your life. If you leave the old places you are much less likely to constantly think about old things that you have given up. We naturally follow paths we have walked. Sometimes the best way to go a different direction is to go to a place that has un walked paths. I realize not everyone can just pack up and move across the country. If you can I would try it, I did actually and it was a big help. The idea here is to change your surroundings in some way. If you want to feel different start dressing different. Paint the walls in your house a different color. Start trying new things that are not related to the old baggage. Try new food, new friends, try learning things. There was a time when I would have rolled my eyes at this suggestion but I didn't know about all the things that I now love.
A change of scenery has a lot of power to but not all the power. This suggestion is a good one but don't think that a new place will make you new. There is a trying new things and running away. If you are learning how to guard yourself against the lies of struggle a change of scenery can be perfect. However, if you are not doing the work no amount of exterior change will change your interior. If you are establishing the characteristics of freedom those characteristics should not be comfortable around the old things. If you still have the same old characteristics of struggle then you will change the place from new to old quickly.
The Shift
At some point there will be a shift from freeing yourself from physical struggles to freeing yourself from conceptual struggles. You may have started this process when you started looking to the root of the physical struggle. Most times because the concepts are the cause of the physical struggles they are stronger and take more time to get rid of. The good news is that struggle only has one play book, full of lies and fear. Once you learn the tricks that struggle uses to keep you physically addicted there are no surprises for quitting concepts. In this way you will be better prepared.
The main concept is fear, but there are others like stress, insecurity, anger, dishonesty, shame and many more. You can quit these things and never go back to them the same way that you can quit smoking and never go back to it. The most common response here is "no body's perfect". Which is a popular response because it is both true and sets a low standard at the same time. You will always make mistakes but you do not have to repeat them. You can quit fear in every way that you have experienced it in the past. When you experience it in a new way in the future that will be one more expression of fear that you can do away with. To remove these concepts use the same freedom characteristics.
Giving Up More
Here is one of the secrets to victory that I never heard when I was struggling. I think that it has made all the difference. Once you have given up your drug of choice or dealt with your major struggle and are getting a taste of freedom you are going to want to set up some major walls in-between you and the old ways. The best way to do this is to start giving up more things. I know this sounds crazy. But here is a trick that most people never realize. You will tend to think about the last thing that you gave up. That's right you will tend to think about the last thing that you gave up. This means that if you want to stop struggling with thoughts about alcohol then give up coffee. If you have been off alcohol longer than coffee than your body will shift its attention to the substance that it most immediately craves. So you are now struggling less with a more destructive drug and more with a less destructive drug.
The other great part of this is that once you have given up the second struggle it sits in between you and the first one. Following my alcohol and coffee example, you have given up alcohol and then coffee so if you fail and start drinking coffee again you will know that you are headed toward the first struggle. What better way to always know where you are at and which direction you are headed.
Another reason that the giving up more concept works so well is because as you are giving up more you are you are strengthening your the freedom characteristics. You start to realize that because you have given up the big struggle, other substances or concepts are really not that hard to quit in comparison. You will start to feel powerful. You will start to realize the true nature of freedom. Guess what you do after you have totally given up the second struggle, give up a third. As you go on you will have set up so many road blocks between you and the first struggle that you will have a hard time getting back. You will start to see the investment that you have made and how you have changed and you will think of the old struggles the way you think about toys from your childhood. You will remember that you liked those things but you will have a hard time remembering why.
You will start giving up things not because you are struggling with them but simply because they are unnecessary. You will give them up because it will be fun. This will seem strange to other people and they probably won't like it because you will be giving up things they don't think are a problem. They may get defensive and that's ok just keep going. If you want to stay free this is necessary.
The freedom characteristics in your life are the key to success. Giving up more allows you to exercise the characteristics without being anywhere near the initial struggle. Giving up more can be as enjoyable as physical exercise. Working out is just that working, but it is enjoyable because it makes you strong and you feel good after. Same thing here. You are working out your freedom muscles. Just like physical muscles if you don't use it you lose it. So find ways to use them constantly.
Living In Wisdom
Most people that break free from their struggles still battle those struggles for the rest of their lives. My goal is to get people not only free from the struggles but off the battle field and on to living a full life. Once struggle had been removed a person can start to see that there are two ways of living. Motivated by fear or by wisdom. I lived in fear long after I got sober, in fact I thought that I needed fear. I needed to remember the past and use my fear of returning to it as motivation to move forward. This fear life worked for a while and I didn't back slide but after a while you have to ask you self how long do I have to run from something that is supposedly gone. I asked myself do I ever get to say I was an alcoholic. The mainstream view is once an alcoholic always an alcoholic and that is true in the sense that you are always allergic to that disease so you don't get to drink. The thing that changed for me was motivation.
I stopped running, I stopped telling people I am an alcoholic. I started living in wisdom instead of living in fear. Fear says I can't do that because of the consequences. Wisdom says I choose not to do that because of the reward I get from not doing it. Either way you're not doing the thing that once controlled you. Living in wisdom just allows you to make you decisions from a confident and secure place of strength.
If you tell someone "I can't drink beer I'm an alcoholic" it has been my experience that they make a comment about you being weak. That way they can go ahead and drink thinking of themselves as strong enough to control it. If you tell someone "I choose not to drink because I know the negative effects of alcohol on the body" you are being honest but you are explaining your position from a place of wisdom. It then becomes very difficult for them to perceive you as weak. As you give up more and more struggles both physical and conceptual it will be very important to remember that your reasoning is rooted entirely in wisdom. You are not making judgments of others you are simply holding yourself to a high standard. When you do this people will make comments like "I couldn't give up my ____________." looking for validation. Never be apologetic for making wise decisions.
Detachment
In our culture we view detachment as a disorder. In other cultures it is viewed as the ultimate goal. Being detached from things does not mean that you don't interact with things it means that you recognize your inability to control things so you do not try. The concept of attaching involves holding onto, this writing is all about letting go. Once you truly realize that you can't control anything outside of your own perspective you will stop trying, when you stop trying you let go, in other words you detach. This means that you can do things, interact with people or anything else. You just don't have to. You hope for things, but you don't expect them. You appreciate everything that you have access to but you don't own anything. If there is anyone or anything that you need, that completes you that thing controls you. In order to be free you must detach from it. You have to define yourself. Whatever it is that controls you will also in the end disappoint you because it will go away, Time passes, things die or change. That is ok if you didn't need any of it to begin with. Love is pure appreciation. There is no control in it. No agreement. Love is choice. You choos e something because you want to, not because you have to. Stop telling yourself you have to do anything. Start saying I choose to. As you do this you will begin to empower yourself and take control away from everything else.
Alright
Others will try to twist your wisdom into lower standards so that they can feel good about doing unnecessary things. I have found the word "alright" to have power form a wisdom perspective. When others try to get you to compromise yourself respond with the word alright. Don't argue with people about their decisions. Wisdom says always worry about yourself, knowing that you are the only person you can control. Saying alright acknowledges what the other person is saying. It does not ignore it or dismiss it. Alright also does not retaliate. If someone calls you a nasty name your first instinct is to fight them or run away by avoiding them. These two impulses come from the body, it is our fight or flight response. Wisdom does not come from the body it comes from your awareness. Wisdom says alright, and acknowledges their opinion and absorbs their negativity. The lack of retaliation shuts the other person down. You have absorbed their best attempt at controlling you, then remained unaffected. Free people are unaffected people acting out of wisdom and not retaliating. Turning the other cheek out of the security.
You only fight or run from threats. When you are truly free, yourself worth is not contingent upon others opinions, you define yourself. You are free if others oppose you say alright, knock the dust off your boots and move on.
Staying Ninja
If you are not sharing the message enjoy your freedom but stay ninja. This means be aware and discreet at all times. I'm not telling you to hide or be dishonest, those days are gone. I'm telling you to be aware of your surroundings, don't get sloppy or complacent. Once you are free your confidence will go up. Others will mistake this uneffectedness for arrogance. Don't use your new authentic self as an opportunity to become arrogant. You will hear every lie that people tell you, you will know every excuse. You will see the struggle all around you, be in this world and not of it. Your battle field is always inside yourself so remain unaffected by what you cannot change.
Sharing
Once you have learned the tricks of struggle and removed it from your life. You will feel free, alive for the first time, unaffected. At this point you will be tempted to start telling people about the journey because you will see struggle in their lives and remember.
Sharing the message has potential to help others get free. It allows you to strengthen yourself through teaching the concepts to others. If others respond positively and become free you will feel an unexplainable unity with them. But be warned most people are not free and they don't want to be. They want to convince you and themselves that they are voluntary entrapments. They will try to destroy you, so they no longer have to feel dirty next to someone so clean. If you want to change others you have to welcome opposition. I am trying to make things easier on you than it has been for me. Hopefully you can say "here read this and let me know what you think."
If you choose to help others focus on quality not quantity. Remember just because others don't believe freedom exists doesn't change the fact that you are free. History teaches us that truths only become widely accepted when a chosen few lead the way and discover them. Don't share the message with just anyone. Look for those who have ears and let them hear. If you give the message to people who can't hear it you are trying to feed a wonderful gourmet feast to a bunch of people that have been stuffing themselves on fast food. They couldn't eat it if they wanted to they are already full. Wait for hungry people to feed.
Never work harder than the person you are trying to help. Remember when you didn't want to hear the truth, so you didn't. Be patient wait for people to find the place of optimum change. Wait for the rock bottom, wait for them to become seekers, they become the finders.
What You Consume
After I stopped being trapped I spent a long time in the desert wandering around and complaining. I had broken the struggles and my thinking was getting sharper and sharper. I wasn't listening to the old lies anymore. The problem was that I still felt like crap, physically. Many people stay here. Then I learned cleanse the body and you will start to cleans the soul. This is why fasting is both a spiritually and physically beneficial experience.
I finally got out of the desert and got to the promised land. I started living a healthy lifestyle and I started to learn about the reasons I was feeling so much better. As time went on I kept changing. My moods got better, I lost lots of weight, I rested, I exercised, even my tastes started changing. I kept learning more and other people started noticing all the changes. The past struggles where interior and now I was happy that others could see the difference. My confidence and self esteem went up and I was constantly exercising my freedom characteristics.
Getting free is a process. I would have been overwhelmed to try and give up all my comfort foods the same time as the alcohol or the nicotine. So don't be overwhelmed just know that every step moves you closer to freedom. The cleaner your body get itself the easier it will be for you to quit you struggles. If you are struggling with non- physical struggles like gambling, a change in nutrition will have a positive effect.
No one who is addicted to the physical world can enjoy the benefits of the spiritual world. The biggest symptom of struggle for me was alcohol but the root of my struggle and what I have found to be the root of all struggle is fear.
The reason I tend to use the examples that I do is because of the struggles that I had. But my goal is to get give people a map out, no matter what type or how many struggles you have. Then you can help the people that you know that are struggling. I want to make sure others have gotten a chance to hear the things that no one told me. I am not a doctor or a psychologist. I am free from the list of things that at one time controlled me. Do what you want, when you want...you already do.
You have always been doing what you want when you want. I hope this has helped you to either stop saying you want to be different or make some changes. Being conflicted is the problem freedom is the solution.
Part Three
The Circle
One Perspective on Waking Up
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Loss is another word for change
Gain is another word for change
Everything is change
Because everything is change, nothing is change
Everything is
This is the key to perpetual acceptance
Warning
The cost of awakening is whatever you don't want to pay for it
Qualification
Before I begin it is important that you understand that the circle concept is one perspective. It is not fact and not an argument just a way of looking at the world. I have found it to be helpful for me in some areas of my life and difficult in others. I felt like I should share it and let you decide. It changes all the time and by the time you are seeing it I would guess it has changed again. So take what you like and enjoy.
Some people will not be able to understand and that is ok. There are so many times in my life when this information would not have made any sense. I do hope that it finds some one that is looking for something more.
Those who have ears let them hear
Keys To Unlocking The Circle Concept
There are some important keys to unlocking the circle concept. I don't mean keys like your car key
but a key to a puzzle. It is much easier to put a puzzle together if you get to see the final picture of what it should look like. It is still difficult to fit every little piece together but the key gives you direction. It does not tell you which piece to place first or second. How you put the puzzle together and how long it takes is up to you. Here are three keys that have given me direction.
1st Key -To Learn You Can't Already Know
If you are approaching this thinking that you know everything already it will be no good to you. There have been times when I listened to new ideas just to rip them apart, so that I could feel powerful and further establish in my own mind that I already knew everything being said. Try not to do that. Some concepts you will already know some you may not.
You can't add anything to a cup that is already full. So if you want to learn anything you first have to acknowledge that you don't already know. To learn from someone else you have to realize that they have something you do not. Every time you ask someone to teach you something you are asking them for help. This is a universal truth. In every situation and every circumstance asking someone to teach you requires humility. Humility is built into the learning process. The prideful cannot learn from others. This puts them at a disadvantage and makes waking up more difficult.
2nd Key -Seek and You Shall Find
People walk past things of value every day. It is important to look for what you really want. The world is full of distractions, most people want to be happy but they spend their time worrying about things that will not make them happy. I say this because I have struggled with it for so long. The more I slow down and actually look for what I want the more I find. A person may tell you they want to know God, for example. They may say it is the reason for their whole life. But how much time in a day is spent really looking for God verses watching television. There have been times in my life I have tripped over truth but that does not happen very often. Since I have started looking for truth I have found much more of it. Just remember the treasure is at the end of the path, not the beginning.
3rd Key- Backward
If he circle concept seems backward, it is. Have you ever seen one of those pictures that is two pictures at the same time. In school teachers would use them to try to get us to try and see things from a different perspective. One was a young woman and an old woman. I would always see the old woman, I would get frustrated but as I looked eventually I saw the young woman. I could go back and forth between them. But which one was it? Both or neither? It is an optical illusion. I always liked that picture and the more I have thought about it the more I can see that all of life has an optical illusion quality to it. I just have to try to see it.
Take your time and look harder. Start to look at things backward and you will see beauty in what is normally considered ugly and so much ugliness in what others think is beautiful. Close your eyes to see. The first are last and the last are first. Those that serve lead, the poor are rich. This is not new stuff but try to look at it from a new perspective. Take the time to think about what it really means for you. The less stuff you have the more free you are. A person who doesn't own anything never worries about thieves. A person that accepts that they can't control anything but their perspective doesn't spend life trying to control everything and everyone else.
Subjectivity- Your perspective is yours, it may not be theirs
Subjectivity is so important. I have to mention it early on because the circle will make much more sense if you are able to embrace subjectivity. It often gets a bad rap. allot of people think that if you are a subjectivist that you don't believe in anything, this is not true. Everyone is a subjectivist whether they know it or not. In fact we can't speak to each other without it.
When I say subjectivity or a subjective perspective I mean that all of us see through our own eyes. ,We can only imagine what it would be like to see things differently. I were glasses the way that I see the world is blurry. When I put corrective lenses on things appear much more clear. If I'm not wearing my glasses and am talking to someone about High definition TV I may be convinced that it is a total waste. They may think it is awesome. Which one of us is right? We are both speaking honestly from our own perspective. I heard recently that Tiger Woods had Lasik eye surgery that improved his vision past 20/20. This gives him better perspective when playing golf. When we learn our vision can change and our perspective can become much more sharp. This gives us an advantage when viewing the world.
The best example I can think of for subjective view or subjective opinion is music. I don't like rap music and my kids love it. In my opinion it is horrible, but just because I think it is horrible doesn't mean that it is objectively, it just means that I think it is horrible. If you listen you will hear people argue about subjective opinions all time. A few years ago I was in an evangelical Christian Sunday school class and the topic was objective truth. The leader divided the class into two groups. One to defend objective truth, specifically that the Bible is the Objective word of God. The other group had to play the devil's advocate and argue for subjectivity. I was placed in the subjectivity group. The objective truth group went first. They began "I don't believe in subjective truth because..."I listened patiently and when they were done I pointed out that every one of them began by referencing them self before speaking and this showed that they the subject had an opinion. I then asked "How do you know you are right?" They responded confidently "That's just the way I feel". For me that statement is translated "from my subjective perspective that is the way it looks."
Before you get too bummed out that you can't have any beliefs anymore realize that subjective truth hold on and keep reading. Just because we all see things as the subject doesn't mean that there is no objective truth. It just means that we have to put on different glasses to see objective truth differently and stop arguing over whether rap music is horrible or not. So here is a little experiment. Get another person and a piece of paper that you can't see through.
Diagram 3- person writing side 1
Diagram 4- person writing side 2
diagram 5- people arguing over the paper, arrows and labels
You write something on one side and have them write something else on the other. You can't see what they wrote. At this point you can both confidently insist that the paper says what you wrote. But you can't see their side. So the paper is the object you are both subjects viewing the object from two different perspectives. You are both right and both wrong at the same time. But the paper exists. There is objective truth, we only see it though our eyes and our vision can get better or worse.
Subjectivity may be obvious to you but once again many people spend their whole lives defending subjective views. People kill over subjective views so I think it is important to mention. If you hate everything about this subjective topic. No problem you are entitled to your opinion. Please recognize that everything you are reading is my opinion.
The First Perspective-(Chapter 2)
The Line
I was sitting in an economics class listening to people argue over how much government we should have. I tend to think in terms of extremes, the grey has always seemed very arbitrary to me. Which explains why I always struggled with moderation. Why one cookie and not more? Why one beer and not more? So sitting in that class the question I had was why limited government and not more or less? Other people in the class seemed to have very specific ideas on how much was the right amount.
I didn't have a position but I wanted one so I asked myself ....
Don't get hung up on this example. I'm not making arguments for any position, just explaining how I got introduced to the circle. I don't what you to spend your time thinking that I'm wrong about my example and miss the point......
I asked myself, What is the farthest you can go to the right. Right wing anarchism says that all taxation is legalized theft because if the individual refuses to pay taxes the individual is punished, they must pay the money or face the consequences. Right wing anarchism states that limited government does not go far enough. The only consistent position is no taxation, so no government. I thought to myself "OK can't go any further than that, the government owns nothing."
Then I asked, How far can you go to the left. Communist utopianism says that man will evolve and as he does the government will continue to grow. The public sector will increase until the world arrives at the utopia where the private sector no longer exists. Communist utopianism states that the only consistent position is when nothing is privately owned, the government owns everything. Ok, can't go any further than that, the government owns everything.
diagram 6 (line)
As I looked at the two extremes and all the space in between them I started to realize. Go all the way to the right, no government. Go all the way to the left, all government and because everything was government essentially nothing is. So right, no government left no government. Both extremes do away with the thing the discussion is about. They are not right or left they are identical.
I started to look at other parts of my life that had nothing to do with government. At the time I loved smoking cigarettes and was looking for a way to figure out how much was too much. Two extremes- Option 1 -don't smoke at all or option 2- smoke so much I die. Option 1 no smoking, option 2 no smoking.
I went to a Christian college people would argue about how many rules to follow. Some people were very moral and believed to get to heaven you can never smoke, drink, curse, be homosexual, whatever. Others would say do whatever you want, you can get to heaven no matter what. Option 1 all rules no one gets in no Christianity, option 2 no rules everyone gets in so Nothing makes you a Christian.
Option 1, no Christianity Option 2 no Christianity.
I can keep going. Look at the two extremes of anything, eating pizza or exercising. Both extremes are identical, not only that but they are completely consistent. I'm not saying they are good or bad the two extremes are logically consistent. No arbitrary divisions. So I thought, if I want to be totally consistent I have to pick an extreme.
I started discussing different topics with people picking an extreme and sure enough everyone that I spoke to said my extreme was impractical. What? I final had logically consistent positions, now I'm impractical. I was very frustrated so I drew diagram 1. If the positions are identical what happens if I connect them. Welcome to the circle.
The Second Perspective - The Circle (Chapter 3)
I hope this makes sense. Stop thinking linear and connect the dots. Both extremes are identical and are in fact the same.
(example of connection)
diagram 7
This is the circle. Think of it as a clock. That will help me to explain it. The 12 is the point of total consistency. All of the space around the circle represents the positions in between the two extremes. Once I made this connection I was reminded of everyone's criticism of my consistent arguments. I was impractical. The opposite of consistent is practical.
(diagram 8 -show consistency & practicality)
So the six on the clock, or the bottom of the circle is completely practical. In the first political example that I gave this is the middle point. Our government as it is. Very practical and very inconsistent. How much government should we have? Some. It seemed to make sense that people trying to represent a wide variety of perspectives would be the least consistent. I realized that all of life is a question of consistency vs. practicality or in other words quality vs quantity.
The 3 And The 9
The three on the clock was simple the right. What the left called too little. The right wing limited government people were inconsistent because they still wanted taxes just not very much. The nine or the left side of the circle What the right called too much, an inconsistent position but moving around the circle toward the top.
(diagram 9)
Using the smoking example, the 3 is a social smoker and the 9 is a two pack a day smoker. Still smoking but allot.
So this was my model, the circle.
I had been looking for some truth, trying to figure out what I believed and all of a sudden I was able to see everyone's views on the circle. I could see who was more concerned with practicality and would was more consistent. Who wanted too much and who wanted too little. The first time I drew the circle I felt excited and then almost immediately saddened. Every position on the circle was flawed. I still had no beliefs. The pride took over. If I couldn't have beliefs at least I could accurately critique everyone else and I did. I was able to use the circle like a cheat book. In my classes discussing how much government or which party was better I could ask two questions-
-do you vote? - If yes the they are on the bottom half
(diagram 10)
-which party do you vote for? If right too little, if left too much
(diagram 11)
I would simply argue from the other 3 positions. If we use the smoking example I was able to see how everyone justified their position.
two questions
do you smoke- if yes then inconsistent because they smoke and they are still alive-
if not they have an absolutely consistent position on smoking
(diagram 12)
How much?
-Everyone would look 1 point further and justify their position. At least I don't smoke more than I do. If the person smoked allot they would rest on the fact that they were honest or if you are going to smoke you might as well smoke. Implying that practical smokers are inconsistent.
I started to view the world through the circle.
Their are so many different points on the circle some people are more consistent some more right wing. Depending on the thing being discussed the position changes. Talking about how much to discipline to give a child a person may be fall on one spot
(diagram 13)
and the same person discussing how much TV to watch may be on a totally opposite position.
(diagram 14)
People justify their position by comparing themselves to others. That is why people build a group or a culture around them that matches their position. This way they establish a cultural norms and chances are they can find a person with in the culture that does more of the thing than them. Drug attics hang out with drug attics. That way it is not a question of whether to use drugs or not but how much. Republican hang out with other republicans. So on and so forth. I could understand groups.
I started to see that everyone was on the circle but me. I felt powerful and yet so weak at the same time because if anyone found out that I didn't actually have a position they would conclude that their position was better than nothing. I really was on the circle because I kept living a practical life and my beliefs tended to go toward consistency but at the end of the day I was unable to think any of that was the right position. It was just my position.
I took the circle to a professor of mine. Not the one I mentioned earlier. One that never gave his own opinion. He wanted to teach objectively. I really wanted to see what he thought of the circle because I had no idea what he believed. I explained it to him, drew some diagrams like the ones you have seen and then waited. He thought about it and said "yeah it works but where is God on your circle" I answered quickly, "no where this is not a question of morals it is a way of critiquing positions" which is all that I thought the circle was at the time. he said if it doesn't have God then it is useless. I was angry and wrote him off as a religious freak. I wished that I had gone to a school with some atheist professors. I with the is shut down I didn't mention the circle to anyone.
The Perfect Point
As I spiraled into my own struggles my life got worse and worse. Finally I hit rock bottom. I was alone life had become so blurry. I had to decide is something better than nothing or not. Life or death, can I accept that there is no perfect position. The I realized that there is no perfect position on the circle. But the point inside the circle.
(diagram 15)
The center sees all perspectives equally. The perfect position is not on the circle at all. The center is the point of perfection it is not trapped on the circle. This is the absolute. The all knowing position, the truth. I found God. Don't get hung up on the word. If you are an atheist and God causes you problems just call this perfection or the absolute. I will call it the center. The name doesn't matter. I'm not talking about a old guy sitting on a cloud. I'm talking about pure light, pure energy, awakement. The center is not a man or a woman, a republican or a democrat a Christian or a Buddhist. I started to believe in something that is bigger than me that I could not accurately critique using the circle. I started to change..
The Third Perspective- Chapter 4
The Path- Some Make it This Far, Not Many
I was excited because I was becoming a new person. I had a goal I had hope and I started to realize the path toward the center.
(diagram 16)
The path is the way the truth and the life no one can get to the center unless they walk the path. It is a path of humility. When you recognize that there is no perfect position on the circle you realize you can never be right. As you start to consider the fact that you may not already know everything you start to move around the circle. But your consideration of others positions brings you closer to the center.
This filled me with joy, I was moving toward truth. The more I looked around I realized most people never break off the circle. They spend life defending the point that they are at, refusing to consider the idea that they are wrong. Never moving closer to truth. You can't learn anything if you think you already know the answer. I looked at the world, hate, aggression, war could all be explained. People living in pride, people living in fear, fear. They are afraid that their beliefs are chance and not objectively right. Two people randomly born into war one on each side of the line.
Now I understood that I had been trying to misuse the circle to have pride by pointing out how wrong everyone was. If you do that the circle will punish you. You never move closer to the center and you will never get to have a position on the circle. Two people can be at the same point and one is much closer to truth than the other. In the government example you could have two people, both voting republicans.
(diagram 17)
One may be much closer to truth than the other based on how humble they are and weather they have considered other positions. The more someone thinks they are right the further they are from the truth.
Know yourself, you will always tend to fall on the same spot on the circle that you always have that is where you are comfortable. Use your mind to over ride your comfort and consider the other positions. Even if you land in the same place as you move around the circle you will have greater understanding. Better yet never stop considering and remain on the path moving toward truth. It is less important where you are on the circle than whether you are moving toward or away from the truth. Life is not about your position as much as your proximity to truth, your proximity to the center.
The Forth Perspective
The cylinder
I started to realize the path I was on was always moving inward. Complete perfection or breaking off the circle and being in the center is never possible when you live a practical life. I could stop trying to get to the center and enjoy the path knowing that in this life it stretches infinity forward or backward.
(diagram 18)
Being able to accept that I will never reach complete truth pushed me back for a while. The circle was always teaching me that I have to accept imperfection. Accept humility. The good news is that if you accept it you don't have to spend your time thinking about every little point on the circle or how close you are to the center. Just make sure you are headed the right direction. If you are then you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Realizing that you are where you are supposed to be frees you.
The more I think about the cylinder I see that even in the physical world it keeps getting bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller as our microscopes and telescopes get better. As our vision improves we are bigger and smaller all the time. I used to ask the guys I worked with if they were big or small. I would pull one aside that I knew had a huge ego and ask. Big he would say. Or I would pull aside someone with a low self esteem small they would say. My answer to both was the same. Compared to a house what are you? Small. Compared to an ant what are you? Big. What are you. Both neither. I am. Yes you just are. So don't ever think that you are too big or too small you are. Find heaven in the moment. Everything fades away, maybe it doesn't, maybe death is just a shift where we get different glasses and our perspective changes. Every moment the present dies and becomes the past and at the same time the future is born into the present.
The Sphere
The circle could help me understand individual issues. I could use it on different beliefs but as you can see this started being about me a s whole. The circle changes when you stop focusing on the pieces, pull back and look at the entire picture. I realized that the different pieces of myself all fit together moving toward the center creating a sphere.
(diagram 19 )
I could pick out pieces of myself if I wanted but over all I could look at myself and ask. Am I expanding or contracting. I know that we think of more as better, our goal is often to expand. The circle is always backward. You contract as you move toward the center. Toward the point of perfection. Every moment humility is causing me to contract and as I get smaller, I am losing pride. Think of it as being refined. Contracting is the cutting away of the impurities. All the details melt away and I just make sure that I am being refined contracting inward toward the center.
In this way all the lines on the circle are arbitrary. Math, sound, time, light all flow freely. We try to control them to break them down so that they will be more practical but they are consistent. They are all energy and so are we. So is everything. There is no separation.
Completeness
In completeness even the circle itself fades away. As you become refined you get to participate in the light. Imagine a ceiling light and a flashlight. You cannot tell when the ceiling light stops and the flashlight begins.
(Diagram 20)
They are the same but different at the same time they are one. When you reach completeness you are detached from the physical world so that you realize there is no longer you and them but we are all participating in the same light. Lots of flashlights and a ceiling light. Some lights shine brighter than others.
Completeness is waking up. If you begin on the path toward becoming awake a strange thing will happen. The more enlightened you become the less of you there is. The price of awakening is anything you don't want to pay for it. It costs you everything. The cost of awakening is that you never get to have it, it has you. You are no longer separate from it. There is awakening, there is no you.
O O
diagram 21
There are two worlds. One is the physical world and the other is the spiritual world. Both worlds mirror each other. If you look hard enough in between the two circles above you will see them come together to make a third circle directly in between them. That is where awakening lives. The physical world is the one we see with our physical eyes. It is what we know. The spiritual world is the one we don't see with our eyes. It is conceptual, it is our awareness. Our bodies are physical and are shells for our soul. The circle is one way of trying to show you some of what is going on in the spiritual world.
Imagine a calm pond on a sunny day the clouds reflect on the top of the water. Under the water there are fish and plants and all kind s of other things going on that have nothing to do with the clouds. When you see a reflection on the top water it is not connected to what is going on under the water. For now we are above the water in the physical world so we see a reflection of the physical world that is backwards. This is the reflection. Something entirely different is going on in the spiritual world.
The more you free yourself from the things that trap us in the physical world the more you will be able to see the spiritual world. We do live here in the physical world so it is important to see the circle in the middle. The place in between them both.
_______________________________________________________________________
Completeness exists in the spiritual world that is going on all around us. All this doesn't change the fact that you still exist in the physical world but if you are aware of your true self your complete self, death has lost its sting. You may not be as popular. There is a social cost but if you are complete you are unaffected.
You can't control the world or others. Bad things happen and most people never see truth but be glad that you do. Accept that you cannot control anything but your perspective. You control your place on the line and the circle, you control your proximity on the path, your direction in the cylinder and your completeness. The world can spin around you and you are in it and not of it. I cannot promise you wealth or fame from the circle but I can offer you a different perspective on awakening that I hope brings you as much peace as it has brought me.
Life is filled with riddles. Change your perspective and open yourself. The physical world is an analogy for the spiritual world. In the physical world your eyes look away from yourself to see. To see in the spiritual world you must do the opposite, look inward. If you figure out he riddle that is existence and become aware of your own infinite existence, then you will be awake. Realize that none of the fears that you have are real. You exist when your body dies, you exist when your memory fails and you forget. We are all being thrown into the ocean. If you are free you will swim with nothing to fear. If you hold onto your beliefs they will be like large stones tied around your neck. You will not swim. Only by cutting them and letting them go will you be free. Only then will you be awake. Know yourself and you will be known.
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Organized Belief Systems
I put this at the end because I didn't want it to be a distraction.
In the first section I wrote about growing up in the church. I realized later after learning about church history and reading the Bible a lot that the church I attended, and the organized Christian evangelical church as a whole are not Christians, “Christ Ones” at all. They are Paulists. Paul wrote most of the new testament. He formed an organized church as a missionary. Later Rome got a hold of his church and used it for political power. The Romans made it so that the church was the only way to get to heaven. Constantine the Roman ruler at the time needed an organized book to follow so he called the meeting to assemble the Bible. Later the protestants realized that the Roman church was corrupt so they tried to reform it with a return to the original Paulist church. However they kept the instruction manual that the Romans created, the Bible. They made this the only way to get to heaven. This church likes what Jesus did but doesn't listen very much to what he said.
Jesus spoke in parables , you had to seek to find. He gave people credit for healing themselves. He talked about the kingdom being inside you. He tried to get people to stop worrying about fairness. He told everyone to give up whatever they were holding onto, pride money, family, the church of the day, politics and much more. He tried to get people to live in the moment and not to worry about their cloths or food or future. He tried to explain that everything is backwards, that you have to die to live and serve to lead, be poor to be rich. I love what Jesus said. I think it is strange that the modern church puts the same emphasis on the words of Jesus as the words Paul wrote about Jesus. Read the words of Jesus alone. He has a very different message than the one preached in churches all over the world. Jesus never formed and organized church. I believe that the great commission was about spreading truth. The good news that you don't have to fear death and that this physical world doesn't matter as much as you think it does. People in Jesus time didn't have the Bible or the organized church. They just had his teachings and that was enough. This is not an effort to convert anyone to any belief system. All this is just an opinion. If Evangelical Christianity is working great. It caused me lots of hardship, so I wanted to put this thought out there just because I wish someone would have told it to me years ago. The wise men that brought gifts to Jesus when he was a baby were from a distant land and had very different beliefs. I would like to be a wise man. I shared this perspective with a Christian friend. He had never read the words of Jesus alone, in large sections. In the past he had just read verses and there are many things that Jesus said that he had never heard preached about. He called me and could not believe how different the message of Jesus and of Paul are. Read it for yourself. You will see that Jesus really had harsh words for the organized church at the time.
All organized religions and belief systems face an issue simply by being closed. Buddha was not a Buddhist. The person must think how can I make this truth fit into the box called my beliefs. If you ever get to a point where you think you have it all figured out then you don't. A person with no box will find that truth is very large and can't be contained. Anyone who sends people to hell is not moving toward heaven. Those who claim to be right never are. Remember I am not claiming anything. Simply sharing from my own subjective opinion.
The kingdom is within you.
Know yourself and you will be known.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand, in other words the kingdom is now.