You’ve got to define what’s enough for you. And that is what you should aim for
Until you do that, you are dealing with too much freedom. To much freedom often leads to unclarity, to confusion, or inaction, where fear, ego, delusion rule.
It is smart to define that and it takes smarts to define the dance floor where you can win.
What is winning?
Winning always needs a game.
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I should be doing some laundry. I have run out of socks… And anyways, I want to tame this beast of not doing my laundry.
I gather a load’s worth of stuff, carry it to the washing machine… and the distaste, the disgust is so strong… I take a beeline… and sit down by my computer.
Distaste, eh? Yeah, says muscle test. Disgust? yes. Was it always there? No. Was it from when i was 3? later… from age seven.
What was happening at age seven? I went to school. We had a live-in help: my mother was working on her Masters Degree, coming home around nine every night. My brother was about a year old… and was probably driving the live-in help bonkers.
And I recoil from dirty laundry…
I sit really quietly. The fear joins the distaste. I feel terror. I feel being beaten. Screamed at. Wrapped in wet sheets… Can’t breathe…
I must have wet my bed. I don’t remember. My body remembers. The fear, the disgust, the gagging.
The body remembers.
As a rule, I don’t have many marker feelings in a day.
A marker feeling is a feeling associated with a set of words… like “you are stupid” and then you feel bad.
Or “you are making a mistake” and you feel fear.
This morning I wanted to work on my presentation on tomorrow’s webinar: the remarkable system of getting to a life worth living… or whatever i called it in the email…
So, as it is totally normal, not a single cell of mine wants to do that work. It’s normal.
Doing something new, doing something public, upsets the ess… it’s not comfortable… it is not what I normally do day in and day out.
Now, if the work were to write an article… none of this would happen. But the webinar format is different… I cannot pause and think between sentences like when I write an article. It has to flow… and there is a fear… A fear of mucking it up. A fear of losing some subscribers. A fear of losing face. A fear of looking bad.
Normal. Not pleasant.
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It was 1991. Georgia… some miles from Atlanta, in a hunting lodge. November. Communication Commando Course.
Just the name was enough to put the fear of god in me. But then they ushered me in this little room where I needed to answer some questions about myself, name, age, where I live, who I live with… in front of a camera.
Now, by that time I had been on television twice, seen and recognized by millions of people. And yet, I was terrified.
What was I afraid of?
This is what this article is about… what is it that you are afraid of, that you cannot tell what it is, but it is as real as that if they keep you underwater long enough, you’ll be dead. Dead dead….
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Some 35 years ago I participated in a Creativity Seminar. Creativity: LIVING at risk.
It taught: move towards the fear, call it excitement.
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I got a thank you note today. I get quite a few of those, I must admit.
They are a great way for me to track how the methodologies and principles I use in my teaching work. I mean, how effective I am, how effective the methods are. They track my ability to make a difference in the world. (Someone please remind me to write about how I view my making a difference… OK?)
This note reads
Today was a huge success. I did not even recognize myself. I was attempting to have a conversation with my sister when she became extremely aggressive upon trying to control me and failing. She was in my face yelling and pacing around in circles. I remained calm and did not attempt to defend myself as the lies flew at me. I was able to stick to the subject and not accuse. At this point her husband jumped in and tried to intimidate me, pointing his finger in my face and yelling. They both looked like mad men ganging up on me. I did not raise my voice or get emotional. This is the first time in my life I had no fear in a confrontational situation and it felt GREAT! To be honest I think it frightened my sister & her husband. They did not know what to think of me, I have had many weaknesses in the past but now I am strong.
One of the capacities an architect needs to possess if they want to be a good architect is being able to move their attention at will, and to widen and narrow their field of vision at will.
Interestingly, these are the capacities that are needed for a lot of professions, CPA, business leader, politician, scientist, movie maker, coach, and, although it is not a profession, for someone who wants to get out of the morass of the human condition, and onto the vertical plane of clarity, joy, fulfillment.
I won’t explain why you need these capacities for the professions although I could.
Because the business I am in is taking people to the vertical plane, so I am interested in people practicing, using these capacities.
‘Enlightenment’ is the word other people use for what I am attempting to do here. Continue reading What prevents you from getting what you want?
