Your Unmistakable Turn

Seth Godin on the Unmistakable Creative Podcast gives an example of how rejection often depends more on the rejector's perception than on the value of the offer. If someone goes to a public space, such as a bus station, and tries to sell a stranger a 5 dollar bill for 1 dollar, he says, this person would most likely be rejected.

He explains how each person who rejects would have their own reason such as not trusting, however it is obvious the offer has 5 times more value than current situation.  Then he says “listeners would be thinking that they wouldn’t buy the 5 dollar bill from the stranger” and as he was saying that I was thinking just from the opposite side “there is no question in my mind I would sell the 1 dollar bill”

In what specific situations have you found yourself  thinking, hearing, perceiving or operating different than others or what was expected?

The 3 Reasons For Which My Girlfriend Didn’t Break Up With Me

My girlfriend broke up with me three weeks ago -thus blogging hiatus is over. It was the first time she was breaking up for no particular reasons, she just wasn’t in love and didn’t see a future together. It wasn’t what I wanted and we loved each other, so it wasn’t easy for her. Kudos to her integrity.

I needed more than “no particular reasons” -aka rationalization- so I did some introspection to find where I could have done better. I found these three reasons:

1. Lack of joy, enthusiasm, self-expression and adventure

2. Arrogance: talking as if I was right and she wasn’t –in a very unconscious way

3. Immaturity: a car accident, a speeding ticket, disastrously cutting my own hair, not having a paying job, etc.

Another previous ex-girlfriend would most likely nod if she read this. I’m connecting two dots and seeing a pattern. This makes my pattern even more real to me. I am sure I can articulate them even better than my ex-girlfriend. And of course I am, because this is the story I tell about myself.

Rejection usually is at least as much about the rejecter as the rejected. The real reasons why she left me are her story and have to do more with her than with me.

Nothing to Win

“You have nothing to lose” is a reoccurring phrase we tell others to help lighten a situation in which they feel overwhelmed by pressure such as a job interview, asking a girl out for the first time or in an important business meeting for instance.

I get the spirit of which the phrase is said. I find however that saying  “you have nothing to lose” to imply there is no downside but only upside of a possible action is ineffective and confusing. This is exactly because we tend to perceive a lack of upside as a downside, so when we receive this message our minds process as “there is nothing to lose but there is a win that can be lost” the whole thing doesn’t stand on it’s feet.

I feel like if you really want to get the mindset right and live free of fear a more profound and liberating motto would be “THERE IS NOTHING TO LOSE & AND NOTHING TO WIN”.

Bonus: A friend once told me –and he meant it: “There is no moment more important than other. All moments are the same”

The sort of classiness that owns me

A couple posts ago I shared how this potential partner totally lost it trying way too hard to make me sign the agreement he wanted. If he had been more relaxed most likely we would be partners today, however, from all his bullying, I had no choice but to end up walking away.

The guy totally lost it, he was possessed by all his demons, he didn’t know what he was doing or saying. In summary, he didn’t own himself.

I am coming back to this because yesterday I talked over the phone to a girl who had reached out to me to do business together. I had done a bit of research on her before our call and really liked her. She was nice, smart, entrepreneurial and friendly. Plus she seemed warm, fun and really, really classy.

At the end of my call with her when she had suggested in a friendly manner to hopefully one day meet for a coffee I was all over the place. If she had lived in my city I would have arranged that coffee in a heart beat, but since she lives a few thousand miles away the situation was ambiguous for me. Flying to where she lives to meet her was way too much, not doing anything seemed like a stupid waste and the natural thing of leaving it open to the future didn’t seem sufficiently appealing to my controlling mind. In these circumstances I started talking nonsense and didn’t  know what I was trying to do or accomplish anymore. Was I trying to set up a following meeting? To accept her suggestion to follow up with one of her colleagues? To do business with her? To arrange a meeting in person? To find a way to see each other?... chaos in my head…

This story has two  “negatives”, two “positives” and one takeaway:

Negative one: I had created a huge story in my head of how perfect she would be for me that my imagination got the best out of me and I became very poorly articulated.

Negative two: As a consequence of number 1 I felt like I blew it.

Positive one: As soon as I hang up I was 100% conscious of what I had done. I held myself 100% responsible and acknowledged how I created the hole in the ground and how I jumped into it.

Positive two: She followed up with a nice email, so probably I didn’t sink as low as I thought.

Takeaway: hole in the ground or skyrocketing to success, I am the owner of my actions and responsible of the outcomes. The same way I screw up when my mind plays tricks on me I can not screw up by not letting my mind play these tricks on me.

Our actions matter, we are responsible, we make things happen one way or another, we can learn, we can change, we can be more relaxed, more trusting and not try so hard, we can ultimately live the lives we desire.

We can stop being the victimized training boxing bag of the stories that only exist in hour head and live a more joyful existence in which we feel we are in control through owning ourselves by acting from consciousness.

A More Natural And Simple Way Of Doing Things

The other day a friend called me in the afternoon, “hey, this conference is about to start and you need to come check it out because it relates to your start up and it’s right by your place”.

I went there and after talking to a few people I was able to get the director of the conference get me a booth for the following day which was the actual start day. The location wasn’t the best for sure but the price I got was, that’s for sure as well.

At 9 am I showed up there with my recently appointed brand/education manager and all our paraphernalia, including 3 boxes of our product and a tripod I had bought the previous day to start recording video testimonials. The morning was so busy for the director that instead of charging me right away she asked me if I could pay later in the day. Since I like to be nice to people that are making me favors and I’m never in a hurry to pay I said “of course”.

The conference was extremely slow and the corner my booth was in extremely invisible. So at 4pm I shoot her an email letting her know that “I hadn’t even collected a single business card yet and that I’d rather put the payment on hold for now” –whatever that means, yes- I closed my email telling her that I would let her make the decision whether I’d come back for the second day of the conference or not.

She responded that if I picked up my things before 9am following day she forget about the whole thing and I wouldn’t need to pay.  

I soon caught myself worrying that nobody would see me packing up my staff and leaving in the middle of the two day conference. I then realized how much embarrassment and guilt I was feeling about the whole situation that I wanted nobody to see me pack.

But then I decided I wasn’t going to hide, and of course wasn’t going to make a scene. I was just going to be natural about it. When I got there at 8:30 am the second day, people were actually talking about me in a good way because of the good impression I had made the first day and introducing me to other people they wanted me to meet. I said good bye to most of the people I had talked the previous day.

And instead of hiding away from the director out of shame, I went to her and thanked for “going out of your way to get me in and even more out of your way to get me out” and gave her one of my products. She wished the best to my business.

As my business coach says Life and business are simple, we just make it complicated.

Sunday of Wild Stallions, Departures & Self-love blossoms

A couple weeks ago a couple of friends invited me over for dinner. I went to the living room to say hi to their four year old. He must had learned the parts of the body, or perhaps better said, discovered his own body recently because he was very excited to show me the different parts of it’s different parts. He quickly showed me his ankles, his knees, his arms his wrists and then pulled down his pants and innocently pointed to his little penis. “What are you doing?” I asked in reaction mode as I was gotten by surprise. Then I caught myself about to tell him that he shouldn’t do that, but instead of doing so I thought to myself: “no, it wont be me the person who is going to make him feel awkward about his sexual organs and treat differently than the rest of his body at this age. It wont be me, and ideally it won’t be anyone else either”. I wish that this little kid -and all the kids in the world- never feels any taboos about his sexual organs and when he grows up he is able to have wonderful natural sex as if he was a wild stallion.

The other day I watched for the second time Departures, the Japanese 2008 Foreign Film Oscar Winning Movie. It’s my favorite movie of the last 15 years. The movie is about death, resentment, beauty, forgiveness, how random (spelling) accidents can change our lives and these 2 more things:

1.   Shame and fear: The main character discovers a gift working as the person who prepares a dead corpse before being buried or cremated by cleaning up the corpse and making it look as beautiful as the living person ever looked. This is considered an embarrassing job in Japan and the main character “has no choice” but to shamefully hiding it from everyone, including his wife.

2.   Conscientiousness and Truth: The quality of the care, attention, sensibility, conscientiousness and love that the main character puts into his work makes the audience completely forget about the negative perceptions one may have about the job. If anything, the negative judgments we may have about the job make the dedication he puts into it more admirable. The “how he is doing it” completely sweeps away the “what he is doing”.

But above all, if this movie was about one thing, it would be about number 2 (Truth) winning over number 1 (Fear).

I have spent over 6 weeks negotiating with a potential partner for my start up. After 4 weeks we agreed verbally. Then he sent me a written draft to which I didn’t agree as out of no-where, some new points had been added to the agreement and some other important points had gone missing. I made my edits and sent it back. Then I went to meet him trusting that we would come to a final agreement as we both really saw the opportunity of working together. He was passionate about what I did and I could use some help to lift this company off the ground. Instead of having a respectful open discussion with both parties trying to understand each other and bridge positions he tried to make me sign to his draft through intimidating, blackmailing, belittling and me. I left the meeting feeling the deal was broken. He emailed me the following day with a manipulative email for me to agree to his draft again. I responded, no adult had ever talked to me like that and respect goes first no matter how much money I’m leaving on the table. If he doesn’t apologize the agreement is over.

My advisors are clearly telling me to walk away from this guy but I can still see my mind thinking “well this guy could do this for my company”. What I also do is see this voice not coming from a place of abundance. This is a needy voice for which it’s okay to compromise on self respect for the sake of business. I can also see how this voice leaves a door open “well, if he apologizes…”

I aspire to have a generous heart and therefore don’t want to operate from resentment. However, I am not going to be a “victim” that goes back to his aggressor rationalizing to myself that there could be some potential benefits.

That’s why today I am really happy and proud of myself, because I can see how I’m letting go of this agreement, trusting in myself and changing how I operate. I’m starting to put self-respect first.

Plus my company is not where I’d like it to be, but at least there is one thing I will be able to chose as an entrepreneur, to work with people whose values I look up to. Bullying is not one of them. Kindness is.

Blossomy Happy Sunday night.

I Don't Know How To Be Happy

I see it Universe, stop bombarding me with tips at every corner. It’s overwhelming.

1.   This girl from previous blog, mirroring me how I’m limiting myself.

2.   This other great girl that seems interested in me but, in the mocking words of a good friend, I feel like “I like her but I shouldn’t”

3.   This Episode of Frasier in which he breaks with a girl to be with the “perfect woman" for him and as soon as he is with her he also breaks with her because he can’t stop thinking about the previous one. “I don’t know how to be happy”, he said.

I get it.

Leave

This girlfriend that came to visit me and stayed with me over the weekend annoyed me like no one else has in a long time. Couldn't wait for her to leave. 

She is so narrow minded.

She limits herself so much.

She gets on my nerves. 

She is so full of “nos”.

She is so closed down and not open to receive.

She is so rigid and constricted.

She tries to be cool and doesn’t know what she is talking about.

She is no fun.

She is so out of reality that she doesn’t get it.

She is all about her image and pretending on facebook she is having such a great time.

She puts this stupid voice so often that she doesn’t even know how her own voice actually sounds.

She is very hot and hasn’t been in a single date in like a year because of this and because of that. Mememe mememe, blablabla blablabla. So much b.s.

Thank god I had already started questioning myself all these judgments towards the poor girl that when another girlfriend of mine responded to my complains abut this girl by saying “she is like him (me) but in woman”, it didn’t get me by surprise.

Agree. During my whole life I had never experienced a conscious observation of projection like this time. Glad I have already started changing. I don't want to be like that. 

A More Fun Way Of Observing Yourself

The other day a friend asked me to go with him salsa dancing on a Sunday. I agreed to it letting him know that I wanted to be home by 11pm. Well, at midnight we were still in the club and he suggested we went to celebrate his birthday on that just barely born Monday to Perfect 10, “an upscale Gentlemen’s club with over 300 elegant women eager to entertain you”.

I have only been a handful of times in my life to these places and it shows. I’m like a duck in a garage. I’m not in my element but probably not only because I don’t have much experience, but more relevantly because I have so many judgments about these places that I’m unable to relax and have a good time.

So, even though I “should” have already been in bed by 11pm, the following three things: going “against” my rules and “shoulds”, challenging myself to go to a strip club with an open mind and celebrating my friend’s birthday made me end up going there on Sunday night/Monday morning with him.

Now that I write about it, it feels like I need a previous tone of rationalization to let go of my pre-established plans and do something fun and spontaneous. -Note to self: Look into that.-

However the most important thing was that I was able to observ lot’s of judgments, let them go and have a good time.

A true spiritual path means that you are open to everything, that you let go of all pre-conceived judgments, that you live with your heart and not with a list of should and shouldn’ts. Just free, responding to the moment in the moment without pre-fabricated answers.

That is total freedom, every situation, every observation, every insight and every decision need to point in that direction. Lucky me, and lucky all, that not everything is suffering and fear when taking the ghosts of regret, resentment, gilt and embarrassment out of the closet. Occasionally you can take them out with fun and style and naked women are a better way for doing so than smart ass guys.

Screw You Smartass

The other day in a meeting I told a guy that he was unable to receive feedback. The conversation went like this:

Me – You just got feedback and instead of taking it in you are more worried to prove that you understood it and act on it to look good. I have the impression that you can’t listen…

Him –abruptly interrupting- No, what happens is that...

Me- interrupting as well- See…

He realized what happened but he didn’t give it any importance. How about that!?!?! That guy is as screwed as I am but continues being so happy in lala land making non-stop empty contributions, stupid jokes and meaningless questions to show as all how smart he is. He get’s on my nerves. F@&# that guy and the “ignorance is bliss” expression!!

Umm, what? Don’t tell me you are thinking that that’s not a very spiritual approach and that I should take all these as a present to look at what he is triggering on me? Screw that too! I’ve been too tired of all this crap lately!

To my loyal reader friends, I hope from this post you take exactly what not to do. Regarding me, I can only hope that this will be the “break down before the breakthrough”.

You Must Be Very Respectable

So you are very self demanding and have lots of rules for yourself? You must be very respectable.

A couple days ago, I had some girlfriends staying over for a couple of nights as part of their road trip and one of them said “I have these rules that …” I wish I hadn’t forgotten the rules but you can substitute for your rules –the more respectable the rules better this exercise works.

What a nice and very unexpected surprise when one of them responded in a light hearted way “it must be very sad living by those rules”. This comment completely won me over. We tend to think people with rules must be so morally proper and true to their values. People who know who they are and are true to themselves.

I disagree. To me these kind of rules are for people who need preset answers because they don’t trust their own free judgment of a situation on the spot. That’s why I’m taking her response and applying it to your rules.

What a smartass you think? Here is a question for you: Are those rules helping you set a healthy discipline based in love? Or an enforcement based in self imposed image or fear of what you might do without them?

Last part of the “rule exercise”, answer with honesty this question: what would you do without your rule?

There is one other thing that makes as look as respectable as if we had lots of rules and that is to be self-demanding. I read the Spanish actress Penelope Cruz a few years ago say “I’m my hardest critic”. It’s not infrequent that actors, sport players and other famous “successful” people would say that.

Not sure why they like to say that and why they always do it with such pride. Perhaps they want to seem respectable, perhaps they are proud of it and thank this “trait” for being key in their success or most likely they don’t know what they are talking about.

I have this respectable trait too, I’m my worst self-critic. It’s a great trait, it keeps me nice and tight in warm small box with a comfy little pillow. Too bad I need to stop that because it’s killing me.

I’m being so demanding on myself –the word auto-exigente in Spanish conveys the meaning better- that I’m totally unproductive. The psychological pressure on my head is so big that feels like physical pressure and often times makes me not operational.

I’m starting my own company which takes big commitment and energy, but I’ve realized I have barely made any progress last weeks because I’m overwhelmed by what I demand to myself and by how I beat myself up when I don’t meet those demands. This hard self-criticism blocks me and therefore makes me less productive, with results in more criticism. The term death-spiral couldn’t be more appropriate.

And it’s also affecting me in other aspects of my life. I’m considering cutting vacations off because I’m not meeting my expectations and “monitoring” my fun because I have all these unconscious judgments about myself. That’s not fun. It’s torture.

Since as some wise person once said: “we are not here for a long time, we are here for a good time”, my number one goal for the next weeks is to distance myself from this inner critic, be less respectable and more loving with myself.

Time to go into a life-spiral, how about that?

Chest Pains, The Hinge

I live in the US and my parents live in Europe, where I’m from. We tend to talk on the phone once or twice a week. Yesterday I told my parents that I was experiencing pains on the lower part of my right thumb but not to worry because I thought it was a good thing. Since I haven’t noticed injuring it lately I figured I was unlocking old memories that have been stuck there for around 20 years, and these memories were provoking these sensations. When I was a kid I remember experiencing lots of pains on my in that area. Their reaction was similar as if I had told them that I could make myself invisible and teleport. “Don’t tell us this. You know we don’t believe in these things”.

I was a bit miffed, but not much, for two reasons. Firstly we all know each other by know, so their response didn’t come as a surprise. But secondly and most importantly, which was actually a bit of a surprise for me, is that my need for external approval is plummeting. I am going in the right direction. That’s nice.

I told them that it had happened the same with my right knee a few months ago but quickly dropped it I when my mom said “You are business man now, let’s be a bit more serious”.

Not that I need to tell everybody or need anybody to believe me but it would be nice to be able to share the biggest accomplishment of my life with people I love. Seems like an irony that the more fascinating the things that one accomplishes, the less people are open to believe them.

The really fascinating thing here is how close-minded people become and how people soon start not believing or being open to anything that doesn’t conform to what they already know.

For this reason, it was an easy choice not to tell them about the short and sharp pains I have been experiencing in my chest lately, which feel like an arrhythmia, and my hypothesis behind them, that my heart is opening up. I am not 100% sure that there is a causal relationship between both –only 97%- but I’m a 100% sure that both things are happening.

How closed is your mind? Are you opening up your heart?

If you are not opening, you are closing.

Good To Meet You and Let You Go My Thought

“I live off of hating myself. If I stop hating myself I’m going to die.”

This is a thought I caught the other day. Some time ago I would have never admitted I had this kind thoughts, I was 100% sure I didn’t. Seeing these thoughts is normal today for me. I don’t see them very often but when I pay attention I do.

We have thousands of thoughts per second. Lots of people agree that the subconscious is like the underwater portion of an iceberg, meaning it accounts for 90% of our behavior.

But it doesn’t need to be like that. It doesn’t need to be a black box and it certainly doesn’t need to be of this proportion. It has taken me years to start developing some awareness of my underlying current of thoughts and despite not seeming like a very valuable or joyful activity, it’s changing my life.

Rather than denying these thoughts or judging myself for having them, I see them and let them go. As I do this I create some distance and “desidentify” with them. I become free of them as an outcome.

Can you admit that you are currently having multiple thoughts you are not aware of? That some of them may be negative and self-destructive? That in a way they run your life? That you can start being aware of them? That when you can watch them go as a car passing by? That if you do this you’ll become more free of them and lead a more conscious and joyful life?

First the Bitch, Then the Witch

After working in corporate America for almost 4 years, I was laid off a few weeks ago. I was offered to look for another position within the company, but couldn’t do it. I was done. I decided to dedicate myself full time to my own start up which barely has any revenues to date.

In the last few week I have tried to stay focused on what I agreed with my partner were our company’s top priorities. I haven’t been able to do great job at that. Not only because It’s very hard to keep focus on a start up, some goals are harder to achieve than you originally thought and new possibilities come up. I have tried to stayed focused but didn’t want to be too rigid. It was a hard balance for me, but I realized what made it harder was that I had a total lack of clarity. That didn’t help at all.

What has happened since I stopped this corporate job is that I am suddenly feeling happier and more alive than ever. I feel liberated and want to enjoy live. All these new things I want to do, like going 5 times a week to the gym, doing yoga, got a new cook book, wanting to go to salsa and bachata classes 3 times a week, signed up for 7 weeks of acting classes, an 8 week entrepreneurship bootcamp, I’m in the middle of a 21 day meditation series, I want to get a dog… Yes, I feel liberated, full of life and am completely all over the place.

It has become obvious to me that a I have to let a lot of steam out before I can focus again. This reminded of what a trainer in a 3 week breathing course I did many years ago used to say to those people, mostly women, who had spent a whole life compromising and were resented, full of anger inside and numbed out of touch with their own feelings. He asked them to completely feel free to express themselves, to shout, to jump, to insult, to scream, to cry, to do whatever they needed to start peeling all the layers of repressed emotions they were buried under. He asked them to be “The Bitch”.

His intention was not to create this kind of monster who was completely out of control but to give permission and encouragement to these women to explore themselves and liberate themselves. “The Bitch” was only a temporary stage, the crossing of a dark tunnel towards the light of “The Witch”, someone who is joyful and free from the frustrations and resentments of past.

I feel like I may be trying too hard to once more do what I should be doing instead of what my gut needs me to do. I am trying to have the focus and clarity of  “The Witch” to no avail because what I really should be doing is just having fun and giving myself a break to be “The Bitch”.

Watch Out for Fun Leakages

Yesterday I went out to have fun with a couple of friends and invited a girl friend I hadn’t seen in a couple of years to join us. She was late and arrived at the bar in which we were at just right when we had to move to another place for an event. She got a drink and instead of engaging in conversation and having a good time with us she was disconnected texting one of her friends in another city. I don’t remember going out with someone who spent all the time looking at their phone like that or who would choose to eat by herself in a table in an empty room when everyone was having fun eating and chatting standing up where the main event was taking place.

I realized that the situation was making me frustrated and stealing the fun away from me. I also realized that I wished she acted different or better yet, she hadn’t come with us. This is very dangerous because it means that I was judging the situation to a point that I was hoping for a different reality. When you hope for that “you lose, but only 100% of the times” as Byron Katie would say.

Then I remembered what Eckhart Tolle has said so many times -I wonder if he says this everyday- “Its not about the situation, it’s about the awareness within that situation”.  From here, I tried to be aware of all my judgments that were keeping me grumpy and letting them go as they appeared. I ended up having an ok time.

Next time that a situation is stealing the joy away from you, be aware of what’s going on, let go of the judgments, stop acting like a helpless victim and see what more you can do with what you have.

Piñata Your Anxiety

A few days ago a girlfriend of mine who I like invited me over for dinner. I canceled my previous commitments and I accepted the invitation. While I was getting ready to go for dinner I noticed that I was becoming anxious.

As I become more aware and know my true self deeper I am becoming quicker at observing these reactions and percieving when I’ve felt similarly before.

A time in which I felt similarly anxious for a very different reason –my computer wasn’t working and I wasn’t able to call into a meeting- an awakened friend who was more aware of my own feelings than me asked me “Can you see how many things you are believing right now?”

I knew this anxiety was coming from an irrational stream of underlying chaotic thoughts, hopes and fears and asked myself the same question: “What are you believing right now?” Like all the masters say, it’s most of the time not a situation that makes us anxious or fearful but our beliefs about the situation. And I also know something that I haven’t heard from the masters, anxiety doesn’t work well with girls -or anything else for that matter. Therefore I tried to open up my mind and watched the thoughts and let them go with the anxiety.

The best way to ask yourself that question is as if you were a diabetic smashing a piñata:

1.   Smash open the piñata = Ask yourself the question “What am I believing right now?”

2.   See sweets flying around = See thoughts coming to the “front” of your eyes/brain

3.   You are tempted to go after the sweets = You are going to follow your thoughts

4.   You remind yourself not to eat sweets or your sugar levels will skyrocket and you lose interest in the sweets and forget about them= You remind yourself to just watch your thoughts and not follow them because you don’t want to go insane and let them go

Follow this Rule so I Can Be Happy (Continuation of previous post)

All these courtesy/politeness social norms come from the history of humanity (starting 200K – 2M years ago), during these years millions of norms have been added and another big chunk have disappeared.

At this point in history, meaning today as I write, we would all be better off if we asked ourselves the following two questions instead of robotically following all the norms that we have learned: “Are these rules really necessary?” and “what would happen if these rules didn’t exist”?

Sub-questions for “Are these rules really necessary?":

• What are they for?
• Are they intended for people to feel better? If so, should they stay? -I say no-
• To show something to someone?
• If so does it need to come through a rule?
• What happens if someone is not shown what that person expected?
• Are the rules trying to cover a need or lack?

Sub-questions for “what would happen if these rules didn’t exist?":

• What are we afraid we might do if these rules weren’t in place?
• What natural aspects or behaviors of the human condition are we judging that do we need to regulate with rules?
•  Is it really a problem of the behavior? Or perhaps a problem of the judgment?

Are we creating rules and expecting others to follow them for us to feel respected? I am done doing things I don’t want to do so other people feel better about themselves, so how about this question: Why don’t we just get over ourselves?

How about we start compromising? And as we do so we also start allowing people not to compromise for ourselves, meaning not needing other people to act a certain way for us to feel valued? That would be nice.

If there were no lack, need for of external approval, fears or judgment towards the human condition …we could all leave these courtesy rules in the other side of history and start discovering who we are beneath and beyond them.

Isn't that rude?

The other night I was with a group of friends at a bar. We had been there for a couple of hours drinking cocktails and a friend and me wanted to move to the next place to dance. When we were about to leave a friend of a friend arrived and that made everyone stay longer. I asked my friend if she wanted us to leave earlier and have the rest join us later and her response was “Isn’t that rude?”. What is supposed to be the correct and polite attitude from her triggered in me thoughts like “this doesn’t make sense to me, does it matter if it’s rude or not?, I don’t know if it is or not, it probably is, but I don’t care”.

I realize that all the rules and social norms that I have learned during my whole life are progressively starting to make less sense to me. This idea of having to do something you don’t want to so someone else feels respected and valued is starting to become harder to understand for me. This idea of abandoning yourself to do something you don’t want to because it is “correct” plus people feeling offended because they were “disrespected” when someone had no intention of hurting them makes everyone resented victims who put their wellbeing at anyone’s mercy and turns this world bananas.

Another Definition for Spirituality: Not to Seek, Not to Avoid = Not to Deviate

Most definitions of spirituality focus around our true divine nature of love, oneness and consciousness. I agree with them but feel that they may be too abstract. For practical purposes it is more useful to observe behavior and ulterior motives or fears rather than focus on the definition itself. Am I doing something to gain something? Or on the opposite side, am I avoiding something because of fear or resentment?

As I become more conscious I realize that much of my behavior and all of my obsessions have taken place along the right-seeking and left-avoiding margins of the spiritual river, while the flow of life takes places in between them.

This is what Buddhists call The Middle Path or Middle Way and has been compared to the finest sound of the guitar which takes place when it’s strings are not too tight and not too loose.

My Theory over My Life?

The more we think we know ourselves and identify ourselves with a theory we have come up to explain a situation that occurs to us the more screwed we are. Often times, when we have a theory about ourselves we unconsciously define so much with it that anything that could question it is automatically discarded.

I just spent a week in a spiritual community and instead of listening to what others had to point to me I was more worried in making them understand the things I already “knew” about me, making sure that they understood the problems I had already “nailed down” so we could then focus on the solution. It took me some time to understand, but I finally did, that this approach was flawed because it was based on the false premises that I knew what happened to me and that I had a problem.

The problem wasn’t to have a “problem”, the problem was seeing something that happened to me as a problem to be solved. The problem that needs to be solved existed only in my imagination. Solving an imaginary problem is pretty hard and focusing my energy on fixing it not very smart. It is also very tricky and dangerous because when we lock down negative theories about ourselves we end up holding on to them tighter than to our own lives.

Wouldn’t it just make life easier to not believe the problem in the first place? “Yes, but how can you say I don’t have a problem that I need to solve when I’m always sleepy, I haven’t slept 4 hours straight in my life I don’t even have energy to fix myself a sandwich”. Great arguments, exactly, that’s the mind coming in explaining you very well why you have a problem. We need to be watchful that the arguments in favor of a problem don’t lock us into having a problem, and the more convincing the arguments the more we need to be careful not to let them dictate our behavior.

In my case I was completely identified with my problem of living in a continuous subtle anxiety. The right question is not so much of whether this problem is real or not but whether I believe it and therefore attach to it or not. If I do believe it then I will focus my energy in solving the problem, if I don’t believe it I will not try to solve it but there will be no problem to be solved.

And yes, there are things that I can do like give myself a second before talking to someone to make sure I’m more centered or looking around to be more aware of my surroundings and make sure I’m present. The beauty of these approach is that the focus is on becoming more of what you already are, conscious awareness, rather then solving something that you are not, a problem.