Where are we all going?

31 January 2012 By

When we’re stuck and “down in the dumps” it’s an important question, what’s the point of all this, where are we going? Apart from the stock, usually religious, “answers” which are other people’s ideas anyway but which you get invited to believe in and which you’re perhaps struggling with, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking…and (huge, deep breath!), what’s your idea of where you are going?

That’s more pertinent, since it draws it in to you, and away from the abstract and other people’s perceptions and closer to home and your goals, plans, intentions, dreams and purpose.

Crises of faith test our resolve, and can expose our gaps and our lack of thought to what we’re creating individually and where we’re going. Upheavals and change have this effect, to lead us to question what it’s all about, and to create new meaning. Existentialists would say that that is what we do with life. It has, they say, no purpose or meaning except that which we choose for it. So it’s down to us.

That still might not deal with the crisis of faith. As St John of the Cross found, we can go through Dark Nights of the Soul, which can severely test us but have a healing benefit, since we can purge our ego and resolve long-standing obstacles to our growth. The point is to be able to see beyond the immediate to the bigger picture. Hence it helps to know where you’re going.

It also tests us to manage the mind and to teach us to “get off” the thinking pattern which is pulling us down. Which means you need to know what that is all about. Hence the vital importance of practicing awareness and witnessing, and finding these things out.

Our program, The Point of Awareness, is specially designed for this task.

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When adversity can divert us from our purpose

30 January 2012 By

We have a grey, cold late January day, with a wet sleet falling. It’s the sort of day people dread, as what’s outside seems to reflect what’s inside, or it may be felt that what’s outside impacts what’s inside. A drab, cold, wet day and a cold, drab spirit.

It’s hard on days like this to motivate yourself, and yet it could be that’s what’s being called for. People maybe need things of you. So many of us will go on automatic pilot on days like this, and dream of warmer climes and lazy days, no doubt spent far away from this.

Yet with a recession on the cards, it could be money is more scarce this time, and job prospects scary. So people think they are forced to put plans on hold, “knuckle down” and “put up or shut up”. So the urge to expand outwards and open up is repressed, and the frustration turns inside, and slumps in some depressed state.

Yet to dream of better things is very important, even in adverse times or bad weather! It is important not to allow our spirit to be diminished. The power of intention is to put it out there that you intend to change things, grow, change your life, do different things, be in different places, or whatever it is. This is when we get tested and holding on to your vision is testing you to be clear and genuine and committed to what you want. Holding to it like this keeps it alight and continues to draw it to you at some level.

The function of the ego is to play it safe, to protect us. There is, for example, the hope/disillusionment cycle. Our hopes get raised, only seemingly for them to be dashed. When this happens enough, we start to expect it to happen, almost to protect ourselves from disappointment, and so we even think “it won’t work out” or, say, “something will get in the way”, seemingly as a failsafe but actually in effect to negate our aspiration and block it coming to us.

So, here’s a very good time to use the mind to challenge the ego: “This is not who I am”, and reaffirm your intentions and stay on purpose, even when nothing seems to be happening.

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Our awakening to consciousness can come with a struggle

24 January 2012 By

The idea that we all have growth potential is well established, as too is that we evolve over time. This is not just at the personal level. Organisations now often describe their training function as “Learning and Development”. Growth is not limited to the physical and economic. It is also psychological and even spiritual, where our awarenesses, insights, understandings, thoughts, feelings and behaviours go through a process of change over time.

Often these can occur in spurts, not infrequently following some form of crisis. What I’ve been struck by is how often this crisis is a crunch time between a familiar self which is, outside of awareness, now past it’s sell-by date and some new self, or sense of self, that is struggling to emerge.The crisis can take the form of a relationship break-up, bereavement, reaching a particular age, job loss or leaving work, birth of children or children leaving home, major illness, moving home, an accident, and so on. These transitions can affect all of us in some way and how we handle them can have a big impact on our development. Often they are accompanied by some form of crisis or change at the psychological level and can be experienced as life-changing. Sometimes shifts at the personal level can run parallel with events around us, locally or more globally.

Various models exists that try to describe this process, and you can take your pick as to which one works for you. One useful model, in the Transpersonal domain, is that of Ken Wilber, who writes of developmental stages that we go through. A familiar one for many is our development from the ego and “centaur” stages through to subtle, causal and non-dual levels of awareness. One big shift that he describes in A Theory of Everything is that from one level of consciousness to another: using language from Spiral Dynamics he argues that we are poised for a major quantum shift from a “first” to a “second” tier, from the “blue” (mythic fundamentalism), “orange” (scientific materialism) and “green” (as in Green) memes, who tend to oppose one another, to those of the “yellow” (integrative) and “purple” (holistic) awarenesses. For example the “yellow” meme is characterised by flexibility, spontaneity and functionality and “egalitarianism  is complemented with natural degrees of ranking and excellence”. (Interestingly I was reading yesterday about the growth of Pirate Parties in Europe, appealing to Generation Y people.) With the “purple” meme we have a sense of One-consciousness.

At the risk of sounding almost millenarian, I’d be strongly tempted to suggest that this is going on now, because things are moving at collective levels too. What many of us are I think witnessing is a developmental “crunch” taking place, in one way not unfamiliar to people who’ve experienced these times, but now on a much bigger scale. This is where the ego is being challenged on a big scale and where we’re very aware as humans that the status quo isn’t working at the psychological and spiritual levels and that we’re being not just invited but almost it seems forced to choose a big shift in awareness, to “awaken” as Eckhart Tolle says (in A New Earth). It feels like one part of us is struggling with the other part. The emerging part, perhaps we might say the soul part, is already awakened but now needs to bring the unaware part with it, and hence the struggle.

How we manage this transition is in part down to how much we consciously work to develop our awareness.

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Shifting into a positive creative state for 2012

30 December 2011 By

The post-Christmas sluggishness. People here, those that are on holiday that is, seem to go into a kind of torpor in which we feel sleepy and disinclined to do much. Not that we really behave like others in the animal kingdom as shortly we’ll be springing back into frenetic activity. So it’s an odd one in some ways as we’re also coming to year-end calendar-wise, there are the usual New Years Eve celebrations, and many are also thinking about what might be different about next year. And after the Christmas hype, there’s also the let down, with its accompanying depression for many.

So, it can be useful to shift your mind to moving on, and put some energy into making plans: what are you looking forward to in 2012? What do you intend for this next year?

Of course from one point of view it’s just another date and, from the perspective of living in the moment, why does it matter? Yet these collective thoughts have an impact in that a lot of us think about it around now, and we could say that it is convenient to have times to take stock of how things have gone, think about changes we’d like, things we want to continue and what we might do to carry plans into action.

The current economic climate tends to induce a feeling of helplessness, as though we’re a victim of circumstances, which is another good reason for doing this. It’s well-known that recessions, especially big ones, produce innovation, and this can occur at a personal as well as a collective level. Also, why surrender to collective impassivity? This time of year is a good time to be thinking about what you want, and what you want to create.

In setting intentions, we’re connecting to the creative impulse of the universe, which is in any case waiting to respond. The pure thought of connecting with what you want sets off waves that go out to those forces for whom it has meaning and they respond. The thought needs to be positive and put out in a positive state. So, you would be thinking about what you are creating, not what you are against or don’t want. So you’ll need to ensure there’s no negative creation there. Also, it follows that the thought is free of “negative” feeling and rather that you are in a good state emotionally. Then you will be creating with great power. So, think about what you want, phrase it as something you intend, make it as specific as possible, SMART even, and ensure you’re doing it while in a positive state.

You might of course need to let go of any negativity in order to do this. Otherwise you’ll actually be sending out mixed messages and not get what you want. Imagine how others might feel if you expressed what you want while feeling say resentful. They won’t want to oblige, and may even respond more to the resentment. The same goes for the universe.

So, now is a good time to start working on your dreams – despite how things seem, which is in any case an illusion.

I do coaching to help people develop and manifest their plans and their dreams.

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Recessions are opportunites for those willing to seize them, depending on how you think

28 November 2011 By

It’s been interesting to read that the UK economy is stagnating at the moment. That sounds like it could be a revealing mirror image for many of us perhaps of our own lives. Life on hold, not adventuring forward, fearful of going back, perhaps an inability to get things done, businesses and individuals not spending, nervousness, a fear of things getting worse. Yet this can be just the time to be planning and making preparations for the future.

Recessions are often when new businesses start, often with new ideas. Well-known examples are GE, when Edison developed the light bulb, Microsoft, HP and CNN. So too with individuals. Economic difficulty is often a stimulant to new thinking, new ways of doing things, action to overcome the current limitations, new perspectives. A challenge many of us face is in what we think and our motivation. So often we can allow the current perceived situation to describe for us what we think is possible, what in NLP is referred to as the boundary conditions of our thought. What we believe to be so, is so.

In seeking to manage the mind, we can challenge that mind set. We can choose another way of seeing things. Yes, it takes an effort of will, and we need to combat the tendency of the mind to get sucked back into its habitual ways of thinking.

There’s masses of material on this out there, dating back to books like Napoleon Hill’s classic “Think and Grow Rich”, which was based on a study of the most effective lines of thought. An interesting contemporary and very accessible study of this process is available to anybody who reads for example the books by Esther and Jerry Hicks about the Law of Attraction, or the material surrounding “The Secret”. Of course, we don’t have to limit this to what we can learn about making money, although that is probably the big draw for very many people. We can apply this to life in general, and whatever change you want.

This is about challenging the habitual thoughts of the mind. It also means thinking about your vision and purpose, where you are going and why, and about setting intentions, with clear goals that you are motivated to act upon. And it means doing it. All through such a process, we are watching and monitoring our thinking. When setbacks occur, it’s about re-focusing. It means managing our own morale, taking care of ourselves, having practices which sustain us, and which serve to support us in staying on track. It is of course an effort, as any successful entrepreneur will say, and the same applies to any life-change work.

At the beginning of all that is the re-think of your vision, purpose and goals, based on a thorough assessment of the current situation. This is exactly where getting a good coach is important, someone to support in developing your thinking, challenging the resistances and keeping you on track moving forward.

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When thinking gives place to being

6 October 2011 By

Thinking our way out of our difficulties and relying on logic and reason has served us well. Yet in the upcoming challenges that seem beyond our current problem-solving capability, we are probably increasingly going to need to be reliant on our inner genius and to access the powers of awareness and insight.

One could argue that the whole self-help and coaching industries are based around the personal responsibility or accountability model and on the power of thought. This approach stresses the value of you (or me) taking charge of your life, creating a powerful vision, setting empowering goals, taking action towards your goals, overcoming obstacles, staying on track. It depends on you having a strong belief and motivation towards change and you being in control of your destiny.

And it’s not surprising. The self-help industry is enormous and claims adherents from high and low, celebs or not.

This action-orientated approach, with its strong emphasis on thinking differently, has powerful appeal and plentiful results. While everybody was feeling prosperous and had money to spend, this was a frequently sought-after way forward. However, when the clouds darken and events seem to conspire against our fortunes, we find our beliefs get battered and it feels much harder to invest belief and trust in the optimism required.

It is in times like these that a more fundamental approach is perhaps timely, and this involves us in looking more deeply into how we create what occurs for us and how we need to shift to another paradigm of consciousness in order to impact our way forward more significantly. After the logic and the action hits up against the underlying negative belief patterns that re-emerge in a crisis, people need to re-design their approach. The cognitive approach has its limits.

By enquiring more deeply into the nature of Who we Are, by accessing the subtle forces of awareness, by discovering the potential in shifting state, we can step beyond the constraints of ego consciousness and open up a new paradigm of awareness. This is a shift of awareness, and while thinking places an important part, it is not in itself sufficient.

Yet this is scary for people to do. Thinking is what people do a lot and it keeps them in control and they can work their way out of difficult situations using thought. However the shift in consciousness that humankind is now faced with is distinctly right-brained, imaginative, insightful, creative and based on awareness. The injunctions of traditional science, on which much modern psychology has been based cannot do it alone. We’re moving into a dimension that cannot be “measured” as psychologists would like, and admit itself to reason alone.

A good example of this shift is described in Neale Donald Walsch’s books. In these, it is argued that humans create by thought, word and deed. However, a far more powerful creative force is available when we shift our state, and create from our space of Being. It is on knowing and being true to our state of Being that the new paradigm will be based.

Our programs are based on this new paradigm approach towards change.

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How much do you genuinely believe you create your own reality?

5 October 2011 By

If we were really honest, we would many of us probably say we struggle with the idea that we create our reality. We would probably attribute at least some responsibility to others or events. Many in the news industry would be out of a job if a big number gave up on this way of thinking.

Perceiving ourselves to be at the effect of people or situations, to be the victim, is a classic ego characteristic. “Who I am… ” is one who finds things happens to them, or is done to by others. The positive side of course can be that good things can happen to you (or me) too, but we’re more inclined to notice the victim orientation because we won’t like it and think or feel others do it to us or events or circumstances work to our disadvantage. There’s no or a limited sense of our contributing to it.

One of the classic treatises on this subject is that of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, in which he suggests that we may not be responsible for how we got to be in a certain situation but we are responsible for how we deal with it. He was referring to how the few survivors of Jewish inmates of Auschwitz handled the trauma of incarceration. He noticed that those that took responsibility tended to survive. Others would go on to say that we are 100% responsible for our lives, that we create our own reality. You’ll find this for example in the Law of Attraction material, in that how we think and feel affects what we draw to us, in other words create.

This can be a very hard one for many people to accept, since it flies in the face of their experience and their beliefs about themselves, other people and life. Some of us can get very invested in being a victim, almost to the point that it defines who they are. “I am how I am…” because of what happened to him or her. It can be etched on their faces, expressed in their words and acted out in their behaviour. Others get it partially, and work with personal responsibility in parts of their lives, but not in others. Or, for some, the personal responsibility model is one they believe in – until something big comes along, and then they flip back into victimhood.

The power of responsibility can be seen when, after a period of blaming others or life for what’s going on, we finally begin to let go of the victim drama and start to accept that we have a part to play, that maybe somewhere we are contributing to this and then think out ways of responding differently and to take control of the process from our side.

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It is all in the mind

31 March 2011 By

How conscious are you of turbulence in the world at the moment?

As I write, it is a windy, almost stormy day here in the UK. Not unusual at this time of year; after all we speak of “March winds”. The balmy, sunny days of the last few days have gone, replaced by wet and windy weather. Out in the wider world, we have continuing alarming news about radiation from the Fukushima reactors, people are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives in north-east Japan, the Arab spring continues to rumble on and we have a civil war in Libya, there is another civil war with reports of atrocities in the Ivory Coast. Perhaps, nearer at home you have various disruptions going on. And then you may not.

As has been written before in this blog (and what’s wrong with repeating it?), what we focus on, grows. The world mirrors back our internal state, at some level. So, it is worth attending to our inner state, what’s going on in our mind.

I had an interesting time over the last 3 days, travelling to Birmingham to deliver a workshop, and then to Edinburgh for something similar, both interestingly on leadership. I began to become aware that my journey was anything but smooth. For example, in no particular order, the motorway was blocked, my hotel room had various non-functioning bits of equipment, my car battery was flat (I left a light on), one event was not apparently running as advertised and therefore nobody seemed to know about it resulting in my wandering pointlessly round a very large campus, and so on. A very good time for very deep breaths and letting go, big time!

What is useful is to pause and notice what’s happening, and to ask, “What am I creating here?” Pausing is vital, interrupting the mental process that is potentially keeping the stuck state in place. Doing this brings us back into the moment, and potentially disengages us from our stuff. To also ask, “What am I creating here?” may puzzle people but the point here is to take ownership of our own part in what is happening, or appears to be happening, at any given moment. And then to let go, surrender, give it up and crucially let go of any attachment to things being the way we might want them to be, to let go of ego investment in a particular set of circumstances that may not be serving us.

If you want to learn more about this process, I’ve written an introduction on the methodology here which you can sign up for and get sent to you over a period of time. click here.

However, what has all this to do with what’s “going on in the world?” Well, everything. This is about attending to our inner state. And letting go.

What can be very powerful is to meditate on peace, to move to a state of inner peace within us. Then you can attract to you more positive things in your life. But while we focus on conflict, disaster and upheaval, we get more of that. We’re not separate from it. It is also part of us, uncomfortable though that might be to contemplate. This is why so many people are now really focusing on their own contribution to global events and seeking to change their own approach. So, when we read of more disaster or conflict, this is yet another invitation to attend to our own inner state.

One suspects this will get stronger, until we finally really get it. And then that too might be another negatively attracting thought! So, think again!

I was sent another Youtube video on this theme from my very good friend, Jules, for which many thanks, and I pass it on in case you find it useful.

 

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What you think, you become

31 January 2011 By

“One’s own thought is one’s world. What a person thinks is what he becomes – that is the eternal mystery. If the mind dwells within the supreme Self, one enjoys undying happiness.” (Maitri Upanishad).

It can easily be overlooked that focusing on the mind as Eastern mystics did was not merely to challenge the patterns of thinking that kept people enslaved. It was also to open them to the greater potential that the mind offers.

Basically you get what you think about. What you focus your mind on will occur at some level. See for example the Law of Attraction: “That which is like unto itself, is drawn”. If you think about it, you get more of it.

So it’s is very important to become aware, to notice what your mind gets up to and to learn to manage it, not only to get more of what you really want (which can be a bit of a trap if you aren’t coming from a higher perspective), but also to use the mastery of mind that you can gain to focus more and more on that which uplifts you.

What Eastern mystics learned was that if they focused the mind in this way, by going within, they discovered that the very self that had appeared to be a source of unhappiness was also the gateway to the bliss of the Self. Once through self-awareness they could become more skilled at being aware of when the ego was getting in the way and could learn to manage that, more and more the underlying peace, contentment and joy of the Self would reveal itself.

This of course takes skill and practice. But the start is to become aware of what the mind is doing, what tricks the ego gets up to and to learn to manage that and let it go. Thus the mind becomes no longer our enemy but our great friend, our Source of joy.

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Consciously managing the mind

7 November 2010 By

Anyone who has spent time being quiet, such as in meditation, will probably say that sometimes their minds will be very active, with lots of thoughts going round in their heads. It can seem as if the outer noise that they might want a break from will continue on the inside.

For example, if you are having a busy day, you might pause for some quiet time, go within, and find as you try to settle for meditation (or silent prayer), that whatever is preoccupying your thoughts will continue in the meditation. Whatever you do, focusing on the breath or repeating a mantra, the thoughts keep coming back.

To avoid something that is going on, without dealing with it, can actually heighten it. There is an expression: “What you resist, you get.” The more you avoid something, the more entrenched it can get.

So the mind needs to be managed.

To manage our minds, to keep our focus on what is uplifting for us, we need to actively look at, become aware of, whatever is going on. Meditation is a good time for this, or silent contemplation or prayer. It is worth examining what the content of our mind is at any moment.

So, look at it and get it.

However, the art is to then let go. This is an intentional act of the will. Once you’ve got what’s going on, then you can breathe into it, so to speak, and as you breathe out imagine yourself relaxing and letting go of the thought and then turn your focus to your breath. Whenever the thought returns, bring the mind deliberately back to awareness of the breath, breathing away that thought. And use the mantra or whatever other technique you use.

This is where personal development requires effort. It doesn’t necessarily happen on its own (and it can). We are seeking to change habits of a lifetime and it takes practice and regular effort, the idea being to discipline the mind to focus more one-pointedly on that which uplifts it.

This also applies, of course, to life in general.

So we need to pay attention to what the mind tends to focus on, and deliberately guide it. Where awareness work comes in here is that you need to get the patterns, habits and tendencies of your mind and what that’s about, so that you know what you are managing.

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