What about your negative emotions?

There is a hidden monkey wrench in the title. Emotions are neither negative nor positive, but let's just forget that for a moment.

Depending on the answer to that question, you are either a happy, well-adjusted person, or a wretch.

Wow, Sophie, isn't that an exaggeration? The answer to just one question?

I understand your outrage, but yes. The answer to just one question will tell me what kind of person you are. As far as everything... by the way.

I used to be a person you didn't want around. I came from an abusive background, and spread it to others in spades. Misery loves company... lol not funny. 1

When suppressed, when denied, emotions go underground. What is unexpressed yearns to be expressed. It builds pressure and one way or another it will express itself. In self-abuse, in the abuse of others, or maybe even more violent ways.
Continue reading "What about your negative emotions?"

When life looks hopeless, too hard, unmanageable…

What do you do, where do you go, when life seems to tell you that you are not enough? When you feel you are pushed into overwhelm 1

When your precious "I" gets threatened?

When you get a glimpse that you are, in fact, not the knight in shining armor...

I think I am becoming more empathic. I think I am becoming more sensitive to your unhappiness. Maybe even more compassionate?

Compassion is seeing where you are at, seeing that I've been there before, and offering a helping hand to help you get through it. 2

This is not how you had it, am I right?

Anyway, back to topic... what do you do when you find that you are not enough, you are not a match to life? Continue reading "When life looks hopeless, too hard, unmanageable…"

Why is the average truth value of a good article only around 7%? That is a very low number! Please explain…

As you may have noticed, it is harder and harder for me to write an article a day. There are 4000 articles on this site, and they all came easily... if I remember correctly. But suddenly I have nothing to say. Or better said: I have only to say something when someone asks me, like in coaching or on a webinar... otherwise I feel there is no listening for me to say something, therefore I have no desire, no urgency to say anything.

Why? Because I feel that I am far too removed from the mainstream, and other than my students, no one can hear me, and even my students can hear a small percentage of what I say.

So last night I pondered, instead of sleeping, whether I was done. Finished, emptied, used up, dried out. I am not depressed, by the way. Continue reading "Why is the average truth value of a good article only around 7%? That is a very low number! Please explain…"

That sadness, that grief… what is that about?

I don't know... I am still crying. 1

The mini-series I watched is called River... we could have called it Riveting... because it is. For me...

River is a police detective. His long time partner, Frankie gets murdered: shot from a moving car River didn't see, doesn't know who shot her.

River sees and talks to, converses with dead people, especially Frankie. The love is tangible between them, between River and Frankie. The story isn't about being a psychic, afterlife... not any of that... please continue reading, without preconceived notions, or you'll miss what's important to you.

The story is about River's investigation into her death, and into her life.
Continue reading "That sadness, that grief… what is that about?"

How to have all the skeletons in your closet come alive and conspire against the future you invented, the future you desire?

skeletons-in-the-closetThere is a myth humans hold onto, that if they stay angry and something or someone, then they are better people than who they are angry at.

All pretense... which is bad in and of itself, but there is more...

When you are mad at something you did, or mad at someone who did something you recognize... then you are hooked.

Hooked on that angry mode of existence.

Locked in the anger, locked out of freedom, future, happiness.

As long as you hold onto that anger.

I think it may be useful to dig deeper at the invisible dynamic...

Your anger, your hate seems to be against someone. They did something...

But underneath, under the surface, not even deep, is the real cause:
Continue reading "How to have all the skeletons in your closet come alive and conspire against the future you invented, the future you desire?"

How Does Your Personality Effect YOUR Life? Personality is what you interact with…

I wrote this article 12 years ago. I was 60 years old. I had a lot more money than I have now, I wrote my blog only for my personal pleasure, like a journal.

I was the happiest I had been in my life... but I had no idea that I could be happy... every day, no matter what.

That came later... I was still looking for a home, looking for answers to questions, like why am I not liked... as you'll see in this article.

I am republishing the article because, I think, you'll see yourself in it... especially the in comparison part.

I am comparing myself to others and I am coming out short... while I fancy myself better... lol.

Comparison is a very potent misery maker.
Continue reading "How Does Your Personality Effect YOUR Life? Personality is what you interact with…"

What’s important to you? Do your actions mirror that?

Just look at your actions. Words are cheap. Only what you do counts, only what you do testifies about what is important to you.

It seems that being right, looking good, avoid domination of anyone or anything, including your own word, hoping, expecting the impossible... etc, etc, has been really important to you.

Where you are is where you are supposed to be, given all your actions.

Do all actions count? Talking, thinking, watching videos?

Only to a certain degree.

One of the people who have inspired me for many years is Werner Erhard, the founder of the est training.

What did he do? Continue reading "What’s important to you? Do your actions mirror that?"

Reality… the pragmatic approach that removes the misery, the suffering, even frustration

Back in the early 70's I had a live-in boy friend, who was a philosophy student. His father was a famous philosopher, was a Hegel expert.

Hegel, I hear, is one of the most impenetrable philosopher to me. The family, father and three sons, had regular philosophy lessons.

I am not interested in philosophy, not a debating/argumentative person, but lately I am encountering philosophical questions that are at the root of my teaching: teaching you to be in harmony with life, teaching you to live a happy life. 1

One of the most important questions here is what is reality, what is real, because all that unhappiness we experience comes from what is not real. Continue reading "Reality… the pragmatic approach that removes the misery, the suffering, even frustration"

The speed of life… Are you authoring your life, or is life happening to you?

Even though I have completed my 20-day learning challenge, I am still listening to Dr Popper's videos. 1

In one of these videos he says something very important, that i really managed to connect to some of my own experiences only on the third hearing.

Here is what he says:

The speed of life robs us of our ability to fully experience, fully feel. Continue reading "The speed of life… Are you authoring your life, or is life happening to you?"

When Life seems to work against you… or does opposite of what you expected

One of my teachers, via Ayn Rand, has been Aristotle.

He taught me one thing. Most people will not teach you much... they will do one thing and one thing only: alter your foundation.

And with regards to foundation altering: Aristotle's teaching is the most jarring, and the most transformative.

Here is the teaching:

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises.

If you are doing all the right things and still don't have your results... that is a contradiction. Check your premises.

Continue reading "When Life seems to work against you… or does opposite of what you expected"