Reacting to worry

I worry a lot.

I am calm a lot.

I think I picked it up from my father who is a champion worrier. He worries so much that he rarely sleeps. I remember being young and feeling sorry for him, also being terrified of being that way, and vowing never to be that way.

When I sense worry or stress approching I deflect. It has become such a habit for me now that I do it automatically, without even realising I’m doing it.

In other words, I find distractions. I watch television, I play video games, I read web pages, I respond immediately when anyone has a problem. All of these things are to distract me from the things I really don’t want to face or deal with myself. Eventually they weigh me down.

I think I started doing this as a child. I REacted. I decided I don’t want to worry. I want to avoid worry and I did everything in my power to do that, even though deep down I’m worrying all the time anyway and it tends to paralyse me in ways.

If I had been able to think about it PROactively as a child rather than REactively I would have decided instead to seek out the cause of the worry and eliminate it. I would have, in other words, ensured that I had no cause to worry.

That’s a very hard thing to change when you’ve been at it your whole life.

I think most people do it to some extent.

Do you?

You probably tell yourself you’re tired or whatever and you’ll just watch TV for a few minutes but that’s an ego lie. It’s just a way of deflecting.

It’s hard to change that. It’s hard even to admit the truth to yourself.

Don’t try to change it. Don’t use your willpower to force things to change. It takes extraordinary willpower to change lifelong habits and most of us don’t possess that willpower.

Relax and Redivert

Instead relax and redivert your energies. Allow your awareness to grow.

One way of doing this is to remove all distractions for one day per week. No TV, no games, no Alcohol, etc. Cut out everything that you use as a distraction spend time with your own awareness of reality. 

Let your real inner strength come through.

You’ll have to face your worries but you’ll also start to notice things. You’ll see things clearer. The way forward will become apparent to you. You’ll start to see what you want in life rather than what you want to avoid.

As the awareness grows your desires will grow stronger.

Then you won’t need willpower to make them happen.

The power will just come to you.

Then you can make your life what you want. 

There’s too much good stuff out there to miss in avoidance.

Most of all, enjoy it!

Shane.

What do you do when you’re pissed off.

Every day I try to learn and grow as a person.

I try to do the right things.

I try to be patient.

When things aren’t going my way “I say what can I learn from this?”, or “what did I do to cause this?”

But some days I’m just pissed off!

Like today!

I’m in bad form. I tell myself I should be getting work done, or I should be working on my projects I really want to get done, but I’m just pissed off. 

Often I can fight the bad form feeling. I can get over it and do what needs to be done. But when I feel like I do today I feel like I don’t deserve anything good to happen to me. I feel like I don’t deserve my life to get better. I live in more fear than ever of things going wrong or taking a step (fall) backwards in life.

Despite this I have to make sure I do two things:

• Eyes front. Keep focussed (even ever so gently) on my next step up in life. No matter how tiny that step is, it’s better than focussing on what’s behind me because if I do that I’ll fall
• Be aware of myself. I may not be able to bring myself to moving forward or getting better or being good to myself, but at the very minimum I can be aware of my thoughts and feelings and how things affect me, and hopefully learn from that. Maybe next time it’ll be easier to deal with or avoid the down time due to what I’ve learned. One way or the other I’ll learn something, and that’s always good

So I’m wallowing today…but I’ll use my wallowment for my betterment!!!

The God Delusion – An open letter to Richard Dawkins

Dear Mr. Dawkins,

Apologies if I should have said Dr. Dawkins, but the book is way over there and I don’t want to move.

I have been reading “The God Delusion” and it is excellent.

Brilliantly argued.

Your logic is flawless.

The rationality is unbreakable.

Every point is excellently made.

But all of it is irrelevant.

Trying to prove that God doesn’t exist with rational arguments is just as pointless as trying to prove that God does exist with rational arguments.

You are arguing against people who’s arguments are as pointless as your own.

This book is primarily an attack on Faith. I think Faith is a beautiful thing and those that have a true pure faith are for want of a better word blessed. 

I agree with your motives on many points. I completely agree with you when you attack people’s misuse of faith. I think that the misuse and misrepresentation of faith has been the cause of many terrible acts through history.

But that is not the main motivation behind your book.

As I said it is primarily an attack on Faith.

The thing is you can’t attack faith with logic or rational arguments. 

There is no logic to faith. It just is. (I know people try to argue rationally in favor of, and against faith but really you can use logic to prove just about anything you want).

There is nothing wrong with faith. There can be problems with actions taken in the name of faith but that doesn’t make faith wrong.

The interesting thing about your book is that the most prominent illumination in it is the strength of your own faith. 

Your faith that there is no God!

It’s still faith.

Let’s all have a little more magic in our lives!

Life really is crap…but you made it that way

Life’s hard.

Life’s tough.

Life’s a bitch…etc etc etc.

I agree.

Life is hard. Very hard. For some more so than others.

But then we can’t compare ourselves to others. 

My pain is my own. Yours is not mine. Mine is not yours.

The thing to remember is that mostly the reason life is hard is because you choose it to be that way. I know you want to argue that point but it is a fact that everytime you are sad it is because you are reacting to something in a sad feeling way. You are choosing sadness. Your ego doesn’t want to believe this so it will make you come up with suitable rational arguments. It doesn’t matter. The truth is the truth no matter how you spin it.

We can, at any time we want to, choose to be happy. No matter what is happening or how you are feeling you can choose to smile. You just think you can’t. Your ego doesn’t want you to. It’s trying to protect you.

Try it.

Next time you’re feeling sad or angry or whatever, think about this. Are you choosing to be that way? Could you just flip the switch and choose to be happy? Your ego won’t want you to know the truth, but you’ll know it. Deep deep down you’ll know.

And that’ll make you angry.

You are monumentally greater than you can ever imagine

This world is beautiful, I have no doubt of that.

All you have to do is look at it to see it.

It is beautiful everywhere.

Yet we fear to look at, and see it.

We fear to see the beauty in nature.

We fear to see the beauty in other people.

We fear to see the beauty in ourselves.

Do you know that you are monumentally far greater than you could ever imagine?

I’m not saying that in a feel good you’re so special kinda way.

I mean it.

It’s a fact.

Consider all the good that’s in every person in the world, in every person that ever lived,

I know we can see badness in people and at times its hard to see anything else,

But seriously you know there’s good in the world,

You know there’s good people,

And you have to admit there’s good (even a small amount) in what you might perceive to be the worst of people,

Now imagine if you gathered up all that good, all that beauty and could put it in one place, in one container,

It’s all in you.

You contain all that good.

I don’t mean that potentially you could be that good. You just are that good.

Consider a car that can go at 250 miles per hour, but the owner only drives it at 60 miles per hour. You don’t say the car can only go at 60 miles per hour. It’s a 250 mile per hour car no matter what.

So matter what you do. You are that good and even better. You are far better than you can imagine.

You are everything you see.

you are this entire universe.

You are God.

So stop hiding away in this little word referred to as the perpendicular pronoun in “Yes, Minister”,

Stop believing you are just “I”.

You are everything.

I don’t mean you are part of everything.

I don’t mean you are connected to everything.

I really mean you are everything.

Don’t try to understand this, It can’t be understood with a rational mind.

It can only be known.

Just know it.

Just be.

That body you’re driving around is just a shell.

Next time you consider your body don’t say “My body”, refer to it as “This body which I use” (It’s a very liberating thought).

Use the word “I” as little as possible

The word “I” tries to squeeze you down, make you small. Imagine trying to compress your entire essence into “I”. Try not to use language to know who you are, I wish I didn’t have to use language to write this.

You are so much more than “I”.

Don’t be the little mouse scurrying back into it’s hole,

Fly out and up into the light.

Be.

I didn’t want to use the word “you” so much in this blog, but due to my limitations with the language I knew of no other way to say it. (I didn’t want to use the word “I” either but there you go…)

Look out at the beauty of nature and know that it is you.

Don’t just think “This is me”.

Thoughts are too limiting.

Feel it.

Know it.

This body which you use is just a tool.

Thoughts are just tools.

Use them. Don’t be them.

You’re conscious mind cannot possibly conceive the amount of goodness and beauty which is you. Just know that it is. (You’re conscious mind is probably trying to refute this right now, tell it to shut up for a while).

Try to fathom the vastness of the universe…You’re goodness is immeasurably greater than that.

Consider it.

Know it.

Feel the lump in your throat.

Feel the warmth in your chest.

Feel the light in your heart.

Your conscious mind and ego tell you of all your “Must Do’s”, “Should Do’s”, and “Could Do’s”.

If you could just know your true nature you’d never entertain that for even a second.

You may have seen the movie “The matrix”. There’s a scene that goes something like this:

NEO: “You mean I’ll be able to dogdge bullets?”

MORPHEUS: “No, I mean when you’re ready you won’t have to…”

What Morpheus means is that when Neo’s aware of his true nature bullets won’t be able to harm him (It’s deeper than that but it serves for here).

What that example means to us is that if we’re aware of our true nature the “Must Do’s”, “Should Do’s”, “Could Do’s”, etc won’t be able to affect us,

For example, (and perhaps most importantedly) We won’t feel the need for money.

Look at a bird soaring…It never thinks, it just does. It doesn’t need to plan, it just is.

Look at a beautiful tree reaching for the stars…It’s so beautiful and it does that without the least effort. Just naturally.

Look at you and me out there trying to make enough to survive…Is that natural? Is that our natural state of being…I don’t believe that it is.

Everything that exists is you…If I ask you to appreciate that, what will you say? “When you have time!”

What I’m asking you to do is the hardest thing in the world and the easiest thing in the world.

• Easy because you already know all this. It’s your true nature to know.

“It’s like a splinter in your mind” (Matrix again).

• Hard because you feel so attached to everything else, to the “I”, that you don’t want to, don’t know how to, can’t remember how to look at who you really are…

Know your true nature.

Go to nature.

Nature knows.

Go to nature and you will know better.

Turn away from what you feel you should know, and turn toward what you know in the deepest recesses of your being to be true.

The greatest challenge to all of use here is to remember who we are.

Know your true nature.

You are more good than your conscious mind can ever fathom.

Just be.

What we say about people who have died

I was just reading an article about Heath Ledger (The class actor playing “The Joker” in the new Dark Knight movie) and it got me to thinking.

Initially when Heath was cast in the role of the Joker there was a lot of controversy about it. A lot of people thought he couldn’t do it or the part wasn’t him etc. (He wasn’t another Jack N… playing himself).

I, for one, was delighted with the choice and couldn’t wait to see what he’d do in the role.

Sadly, as most of us know Heath passed away some months ago not long after the movie was completed.

Since then, and especially recently there’s been a lot of praise for what he’s done in the movie, with several people suggesting he should be nominated for an Oscar.

Anyway, where am I going with all this!

I was chatting with my friend the other day and he asked the question

“But would Heath be getting all this praise, or be considered for an Oscar if he hadn’t died”.

Ok, the truth is that Heath has been getting this praise since the movie started filming, most people just didn’t hear it.

That’s not what I’m getting at though.

What my friend said didn’t surprise me, because it’s something you always hear in such circumstances.

Like if someone you know dies, people always praise, and compliment that person, and you hear people remarking what a lovely person he/she was.

There seems to be a common belief that this stuff is not sincere, and is only said because the person in question has passed away.

I think the opposite is true.

I think that it is in such situations that we only actually tend to speak a real truth about the person.

In situations such as this it’s more acceptable to be honest.

I think that many people fear to speak positively in such an emotional fashion about a person who is still living for a number of reasons, such as:

• The person is competition to them (specifically to their ego, I think unless you are very enlightened you’re ego tends to feel some sense of competition or threat from everyone).
• They will be seen to be biased in some way.
• They don’t want to be seen to have an emotional connection to that person.
• They withhold their praise, in case they’re wrong (don’t want to be seen to be backing the wrong horse).

These are just a few, but I’m sure there are many other reasons.

When a person has passed away, you have nothing to lose in speaking positively about them in an emotional manner. The person is not a threat, and society allows you to be that way about the deceased. A lot of your inhibitions are lifted.

What’s my point?

Well, simply, my point is that when a person speaks positively like this of someone that has passed away, it is in most cases real, and nice, and positive.

It should be respected for what it is and not judged.

The world would be a better place if we all tried to feel, and speak like that about the living more often.

Although, we all know some BS’ers too!

Enjoy it all!