We are all trying to live a great life, stay clear headed, be productive, feel good about ourselves.
But, it seems, the world is full of negativity. Gurus teach us to isolate ourselves from that negativity, to think positive, to remove negative friends from our circles… but with all that hubbab, we are more miserable today than we were before we started to protect ourselves from this negativity.
Why? Find some of the truth out from this article…
A few years ago I was talking to a client. He said he was doing my cloaking and bubbling exercise, but it made him even more anxious inside. I muscletested, and he needed to be protected from his own negativity.
At the time I didn’t know what I know: that there is no protection, that the protection is the next problem, instead of solving the “problem”. I now know that the only think that can restore your sanity, well being, peace of mind, is creating a distance between you and your own negativity, not fixing it.
My shortcomings and my relationship to them
Yesterday I wrote about Max and his axiology profile. Rarely have I the opportunity to be measured myself… especially so soon after saying: he is smarter than me…
This morning I went and done my own profile. While I was doing the “test” I felt that I am a different person than I was 14 years ago when I last did it. I was scared. I felt real fear that what I was going to find out is that I am really really stupid and that I will never amount to anything.
Luckily I have learned to create a distance between my Self and my feelings, (positive or negative feelings) between my Self and my thoughts, (positive or negative thoughts) so they didn’t stop me from completing the “test”.
here is the test I just did. Without someone to evaluate it for you or with you, it’s worthless… but luckily I still remember some of what I learned 14 years ago, so you can always ask me… https://www.qis.net/~jschmitz/hvp/test1.html I need the url, web address of your result page… go to your address bar and select the whole address, copy it and paste it into your email. I may decide to charge for this if you are not a regular student of mine. Students will get it for free.
The effect of finding out that I am not perfect
The result shocked me, shook me, and I am still somewhat reeling from it… for a few minutes there was no distance between Self and feelings… ugh, that was terrible. That is where you live all the time… that’s where most people live… that is where the misery comes from. I am so happy I have managed to get out of there!
The shocking element in my axiology profile was that I don’t quite know who I am in the world, other than my work. That my personness (is there such a word?) is missing. In axiology they call it “role awareness” but in reality it is your awareness of you, your Self, your self, your place in the world.
My imperfect place in the world
No wonder I don’t have relationships, no wonder I only want to talk about what I want to talk about… my “job” in life, humanity, mind, transformation, and such.
That never came out in my last “test” because that was centering on my ability to build and run a business… although, if I want to be fair, it did hint on it in my ability to communicate to employees and the team what they are supposed to do. I guess that’s why I decided to become a lone entrepreneur with no staff… avoiding what I don’t do well… because I don’t know how to change, or even if I can change. Really.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Not that you pity me. Not that you feel superior to me. Although you probably will.
I am sharing this with you because with all that weakness, with all those difficulties, I have managed to create a life for myself that I love. Where I make a living. Where I have people that love me. Where I feel whole and complete, even though I am far from being perfect.
Where my weaknesses allow me to relate to other people’s weaknesses with compassion. Where I don’t give up on people because they are not smart enough, good enough, diligent enough, quick enough, well-spoken enough, nice enough… where I can see that all those can fit into a good life, a life that makes a difference, if they just use what they have well enough.
What can you do if you are not perfect?
And this is the point: using what you have well enough. Grow where you can. Cook what you’ve got. Become all you can be… all YOU can be with what you got and can get with a little work.
When I look back at me career, school, work, I see that I carried that weakness and it never got better. It is built in… it is a deficiency that stays, like your hair color, or your eye color, probably won’t change, no matter what you do.
My dyslexia just got a little easier to manage. My weakness at seeing processes, designing processes didn’t get better. No matter what “job” I had, architect, magazine publisher, coach, course designer, book or article author… my weakness in creating a structure, an order in which things get said, built, taught, written, didn’t get any better.
And yet, I do the best I can, and I am happy. Not perfect, but happy.
What saved me from misery, from the negativity arising from not being perfect?
Why? Because I have developed the ability to pay attention to what I have, work with that, use it to the best of my ability, and ignore the rest. Ignore the shoulds and the should nots, ignore what other people do that’s successful, and pay attention to MY path, emphasize the things I do well, or maybe the best in the world, like teaching getting a distance between your mind and your Self, between your feeling and your Self, so you can listen to your Self instead of the cacophony of conflicting feelings and information the mind is trying to force you to listen to.
Coherence of the few sounds
Coherence often takes taking out the noise. You can try to force the noise out of your life, the noise of others, the noise of the world, the noise of the media, the noise of the economy, the weather, and such, or the noise of your mind and the noise of your feelings.
But the truth is that force doesn’t remove the noise, just keeps you busy paying attention to noise, useless input, input you don’t need. And while you are busy forcing… your life is passing you by. Your work suffers. Your relationships suffer or die. You feel miserable and powerless.
What can you expect?
Instead, you could learn distancing yourself from the noise, both physically and internally and pay attention to what you are doing, what’s important, and the remote noise of the world or your mind or your feelings, like the remote noise of a highway, are just a humming background… not irritating, not disturbing, not relevant.
Imagine being able to sit at your work, and watch as hunger is screaming… but it’s muffled, not something you need to act on. Or hear the mind whispering to you: you are doing it all wrong. you are wasting your time. it’s never going to work. you are too stupid… and such… and not be bothered by it… it’s like the bubbling of a mountain stream… you don’t have to listen to it. it’s just noise.
Or be able to watch TV and not be bothered by how others look… they look the way they look, and you look the way you look… it has no relevance whatsoever to who you are… and who you are is enough, who you are is OK, and who you are is why people love you.
What happens if you are with people who don’t like you?
Or be able to be in the same room with people who don’t like you, and not worry about it. Not even having to discuss it with yourself that you don’t have to be liked by everyone. The trees don’t like you. The bees don’t like you. The cars don’t like you, and you don’t seem to be bothered by that… but you never had to decide that… they are just there… and you are here… no connection.
Not even being bothered when your spouse or your child, or your in-laws don’t like you. It will pass… it is noise, there is nothing to do…
I measure my evolution with how many things still bother me.
And it seems that I have turned a new leaf: even being deficient or defective doesn’t bother me.
A year or so ago dogs barking, kids partying in the park, cars honking, were still bothering me.
Now, don’t be mistaken: I did not become resigned, or have given up. I am getting clearer on what is important to me and what isn’t. And I am paying attention to what’s important to me.
I am willing to learn new stuff, I am willing to be taught, I am willing to fumble my way through stuff that is hard to follow, hard to understand (to me!) and stuff that sounds like Chinese to me… for what is important to me.
And that is what I mean… living MY life, pursuing MY values, MY goals, MY horizons.
Is this for you?
Would not you want to learn how? Instead of still hoping that positive thinking will work! Or mind control will work! Or chakra healing, aura cleansing, crystal healing, incantations, energy healing, hypnosis, cleansing your space from negativity, feng shue, and such stuff will work… and finally, my magic, you’ll attract the perfect life to you, without having to do any work on yourself?!
You have been lead down a slippery slope to believe that you are supposed to feel good all the time, and when you don’t, there is something wrong. That you are supposed to think positive thoughts and that matters…
Words don’t matter, what you do does, what you “BE” does…
Anyway, this article is getting too long.
If you are interested, join me in a coaching session… one on one, or in a group, and let’s start working together, so you can learn the art of being a Human Being.
I have removed you from my newsletter list.
PS An interesting story as a follow up to my previous post at 7:42. Twice a few months ago I tried unsubscribing from your newsletter with no success. (No offense, I just felt I was engaged in other things in my life to make the time to read all your newsletters). I gave up trying and created a filter to have your emails go directly to my ‘trash’ folder. All the newsletters since that time were rerouted, EXCEPT for this one! I assume because there was something for me to learn from this article. All newsletters after this one are again rerouted to ‘trash’.
Thank you Sophie for your thoughts.
Though I’m guessing perfection has been a pursuit of mine since childhood, every so often for the last few years, I will choose to become aware of my goal to ‘BE’ perfect. Last night, while my ego thought system was engaged with the TV, I experienced a fearful thought. What is my life, if I am not pursuing perfection? How can there be anything that replaces the goal of perfection? Though it felt terrifying, I was surprised and happy that I didn’t feel the panic to immediately provide an answer. In the end, I just decided to ‘let this be’ which eased the anxiety I felt. Then, I chose to trust that the answer will reveal itself when my fear and resistance has lessened.