When people fall out they lose contact with the bigger picture

10 December 2011 By

When people are having a row, positions are usually entrenched, they aren’t listening to each other and they are more concerned with being “right” and in having their own way than in what be possible for both or all of them. In such situations, people are emotionally caught up. Their ego buttons have been pushed and they are in “fight” mode.

To take a step back and look at the bigger picture seems impossible. The emotions stirred by the conflict can quickly overwhelm any attempt to do that. Yet the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture is what awareness is all about. And it means including yourself in what you are looking at.

Becoming aware can occur at any moment. However a very good opportunity for it is paradoxically in a crisis, when you’d expect the opposite, more conflict.

You might be busily embroiled in the row, but a part of you has woken up. You might still feel caught up in it all. But somewhere inside something is happening. Part of you starts to notice what’s going on. That’s the breakthrough, and if you’re trained in awareness you can then work to get into witness mode and potentially interrupt the pattern. The more training you’ve done in this, and the more you’ve practised it so that it is more embedded within you, the more you can exercise awareness to rise above the conflict. And if you know the skills that go with it, like managing the mind and letting go, the more quickly you can connect with the still part within, and no longer be part of the conflict.

You then have more options about how to behave.

The other party or parties also then have more options, because the energy has gone out of the conflict, the racket in TA terms has halted.

But you’ll need to know about awareness to do this. We teach this in our major upcoming programs, the Power of Awareness and The Point of Awareness starting on 26 February 2012.

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Seeing the essential good in others stems from thinking well of ourselves too

18 October 2011 By

I was today reading about an aspect of Indian philosophy that regards the Self as divine and about its logical consequence, that that same divinity would belong to other people, and the further consequence, that it was ethically intolerable to think, say or act in any way that would be adverse or harmful to another being. Or, as my guru puts it, “See God in each other.”

Quite apart from any religious position here, and this blog seeks to rise above that stuff, I’m struck by the undercurrent of fundamental respect for my fellow humans implicit in this philosophy. They are not alone in this of course, witness for example the traditions of hospitality world-wide or the Muslim obligation to acts of charity, or the Christian injuction to “love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Yet I’m also curious about how we still, despite these traditions, still manage to knock hell out of each other, if not for political, religious, social, sectarian or criminal reasons. There are today published some graphic images from a photographic essay by my son in this matter, the hardships experienced by one minority at the hands of their fellow refugees from another religious persuasion. You would have thought they would have been in solidarity as fellow refugees, but not so, such is the legacy of old thinking.

Perhaps this is yet another reminder of how as humans we perhaps need to continually re-mind ourselves of who we are, both as inherently worthy beings but as also capable of much evil. It is so easy to think ill of another person, and yet this can so easily escalate.

For the self-aware who seeks to manage the ego, it is important to keep this in our minds. Each time we find ourselves starting to think ill of another, we are replicating this age-old pattern, and creating yet more bad karma, to borrow once more from Indian philosophy, or to put out more bad energy. We need to constantly re-member, re-connect, with ourselves, and this re-connection, this making contact with our centered Self, brings us at some level into contact with core love. When in touch with that energy, it naturally flows to others, and our love for other beings is natural and spontaneous. Then thinking ill of others does not occur.

This is the gift that our fellow humans continue to offer us.

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Take time to connect with who or what really matters for you

15 October 2011 By

You might already take a long time to get to work, in which case you might not be surprised to read how long many people now take to commute in the US. It’s happening here too in the UK. What was once the dream of away-from-the-city living has turned into a bit of a nightmare. For others, it is simply a result of getting around in today’s congested travel conditions.

So, as you get to the end of your week, you’ll be likely to be glad of a break from it, unless you’ve got a stack to catch up on that you didn’t get time to do during the week.

What can happen with busy lifestyles is that, under stress we lose touch with the things that really matter, until they blow up in our face. So, as you get to the end of your week, how about some reflection time around what really matters to you?

Like time with your partner, like really listening to them and what’s going on for them. Not easy to do if we’re out of the habit. Listening to others when we’ve got things on our own mind can be irritating: “why can’t they just sort it?” “If you think you’ve got problems, you should hear mine!” It can seem that we can’t afford the time to listen. The result? Others don’t feel we’re there for them. They feel unappreciated, unvalued, a bit like a lot of staff at work right now.

So, now’s a good time to shift the pattern. Listening to another enables them to feel supported and they just get to feel closer to you. It relaxes us. To really listen to another, we need to really let go of our own stuff, or put it on one side. So, it takes us out of ourselves. And we feel more connected.

So too, with going out together. If money’s tight, maybe a walk instead. It’s the quality time, when one is present for another, right there. The same can apply with kids, or relatives. For children, so many feel their parents aren’t really present for them. As in the example at the top of this article, people are out so long and then tired when they get back. It’s tough. Yet, in this assessment of our quality time, the point is to think about what really matters, or rather who really matters, and to give them our attention. It’s a nice test of letting go, and the benefit of that is a new freedom.

We can get so caught up in whatever that we lose sight of what really matters to us, until we wake up too late and they’ve gone, or we get terminally ill and we won’t ever get to do that, or we have an accident and lose what we value.

It’s time to pause in the seemingly ceaseless grind of life, breathe, connect and take in the very heart of life. It’s there as a gift for us, if we only take the chance to take it.

Have a good weekend.

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