If you're not doing something you love, and doing it the absolute best way you know how, you're wasting your time.
If you don't love your job right now, can you find things that you love in the job and do more of those?
If you don't love your relationship right now, can you find things that you love in the relationship and do more of those?
Certainly, there are things you can find that you love about your life. Do more of them. Do less of the things you think you should do but that really drive you crazy. You're not doing anyone any favors with begrudging compliance.
Life is way too short to be stuck doing things that you don't like. And I refuse to believe that we all can't find ways to spend more time doing things that we love.
Jeff
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Our Inner Resonance
"There’s a class of brain cells called “mirror neurons,” which act as a neural Wi-Fi, attuning to the other person’s internal state moment to moment and recreating that state in our own brain - their emotions, their movements, their intentions. This means empathy is not just based on reading the external signs of someone else’s feeling, like the hint of a frown, or the irritation in their voice. Because of mirror neurons, we feel with the other. Empathy, then, includes attuning to our own feelings in order to better sense what’s going on with the other person."
Daniel Goleman, "I Feel Your Brain"
People sometimes talk of the "vibes" or "energy" of a group or a person or even a guru. While many might dismiss that kind of talk, what Daniel Goleman is explaining is a scientific basis, a specific identified brain function, that tunes into the people around us and allows us literally to feel their state. And allows others to feel our state, too.
What is even more compelling is that those who are the most effective at this are those who are most able to quiet the random mental chatter that might otherwise distract them. In other words, empathy, like mindfulness or awareness itself, is a state that can be identified and cultivated.
And shared.
Jeff
Thursday, January 27, 2011
No God Required
The core of much of my writing is based on nondual philosophy, which is also behind wisdom traditions such as zen, dzogchen, and advaita vedanta.
Over the years, when people of all traditions have started down these nondual paths, they have been on a quest for God, whether as an inner divine spirit (the typical eastern approach) or as a separate "ghost in the machine" that created the visible universe and to some extent still oversees it.
But the realization of the nondual path is to see that there never was any separation between that which you would call God and that which is not God. Either everything is God or nothing is, and the nondual doesn't have an opinion on the matter.
Simply put, the nondual is "what is," without a story. What is with God is a story. What is without God is also a story.
But this what is can also be what is at work, or what is in relationship, or what is in addiction and recovery. Everyone brings their own circumstances and beliefs and stories to this work, and they all can be fuel for seeing through. For dropping our constructed world and seeing what is in all its ordinary simplicity.
We start down a path thinking there is an end, and find not only that there is no end, but that there never was a path.
We don't find the answer; we lose the question.
Jeff
Over the years, when people of all traditions have started down these nondual paths, they have been on a quest for God, whether as an inner divine spirit (the typical eastern approach) or as a separate "ghost in the machine" that created the visible universe and to some extent still oversees it.
But the realization of the nondual path is to see that there never was any separation between that which you would call God and that which is not God. Either everything is God or nothing is, and the nondual doesn't have an opinion on the matter.
Simply put, the nondual is "what is," without a story. What is with God is a story. What is without God is also a story.
But this what is can also be what is at work, or what is in relationship, or what is in addiction and recovery. Everyone brings their own circumstances and beliefs and stories to this work, and they all can be fuel for seeing through. For dropping our constructed world and seeing what is in all its ordinary simplicity.
We start down a path thinking there is an end, and find not only that there is no end, but that there never was a path.
We don't find the answer; we lose the question.
Jeff
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Goal
One of my coaching clients asked what he should be feeling at the end of the nine month Radiant Mind course. (The third and final weekend is coming in February.) He was trying to get a sense, I think, of whether he had done well, of whether he had made use of all the course has to offer (exercises, phone calls, in person weekends, and so forth).
My answer was that the ideal student would see that none of the work had been necessary.
We're so used to thinking about goals. In almost all areas of our lives, we measure ourselves by explicit or implicit goals. Sometimes, we write these goals out and put them somewhere so we can keep track. Sometimes, though, we merely compare ourselves to others to see how we are doing. All in the context of an idea that we have about where we should be, and how we should be feeling.
What we often don't see is that those thoughts are not reality. The truth is that we are here, exactly right here, feeling and doing and thinking exactly what we are feeling and doing and thinking.
And this is always true. We will never get to any imagined future. We will never undo any regretted past.
We spend so much time trying to get to someplace else that we don't notice where we already are. Where we always are.
Just here. In this moment.
Things change when we see this. Yet the only difference between "before" and "after" is that we now see there is no other place we can be. That we were never anywhere else.
The paradox is that it often takes years of work to see that.
Jeff
My answer was that the ideal student would see that none of the work had been necessary.
We're so used to thinking about goals. In almost all areas of our lives, we measure ourselves by explicit or implicit goals. Sometimes, we write these goals out and put them somewhere so we can keep track. Sometimes, though, we merely compare ourselves to others to see how we are doing. All in the context of an idea that we have about where we should be, and how we should be feeling.
What we often don't see is that those thoughts are not reality. The truth is that we are here, exactly right here, feeling and doing and thinking exactly what we are feeling and doing and thinking.
And this is always true. We will never get to any imagined future. We will never undo any regretted past.
We spend so much time trying to get to someplace else that we don't notice where we already are. Where we always are.
Just here. In this moment.
Things change when we see this. Yet the only difference between "before" and "after" is that we now see there is no other place we can be. That we were never anywhere else.
The paradox is that it often takes years of work to see that.
Jeff
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Twenty Seconds
Despite my post from yesterday, we still need goals sometimes. And the question becomes how to meet them more often. How do we establish more positive habits in a world in which eighty percent of New Year's resolutions fail?
In a great book about positive psychology, Shawn Achor talks about what he calls the Twenty Second Rule, which helps people maximize the chances of establishing a new habit.
Simply put, the idea is to structure your life so that things that you want to stop doing take twenty seconds longer, and that things that you want to start doing take twenty seconds less. Studies have shown that willpower is something that is in limited supply. The Twenty Second Rule takes advantage of human inertia when trying to change habits.
If you're trying to lose weight, keep all the tempting food further away. Put the snack food in the basement or garage, for example. If you are trying to stop checking email so often, completely close down your email program (or your computer, even) so that you have to log back in when it is time to check it.
If you are trying to exercise in the morning, sleep in your workout clothes. Roll out of bed, put your shoes on and go!
The Happiness Advantage has lots of other useful suggestions, too.
Jeff
In a great book about positive psychology, Shawn Achor talks about what he calls the Twenty Second Rule, which helps people maximize the chances of establishing a new habit.
Simply put, the idea is to structure your life so that things that you want to stop doing take twenty seconds longer, and that things that you want to start doing take twenty seconds less. Studies have shown that willpower is something that is in limited supply. The Twenty Second Rule takes advantage of human inertia when trying to change habits.
If you're trying to lose weight, keep all the tempting food further away. Put the snack food in the basement or garage, for example. If you are trying to stop checking email so often, completely close down your email program (or your computer, even) so that you have to log back in when it is time to check it.
If you are trying to exercise in the morning, sleep in your workout clothes. Roll out of bed, put your shoes on and go!
The Happiness Advantage has lots of other useful suggestions, too.
Jeff
Monday, January 24, 2011
Prison Break
"If all I have is my conditioning, then how can I respond to what each moment is calling for?"
--Shayla Wright
My good friend and teacher Shayla is offering a course that she calls Mutual Evolution, in which we are invited to rest in a paradox.
We are constantly evolving as human beings. There is virtually no way not to change in our human lives. Even if we feel "stuck," the qualities of that very stuckness are changing in each moment.
As conditioned humans, we like to think we can change by making goals for ourselves, and yet any goal that we come up with is a concept, a thought. And those thoughts limit us. Maybe, for example, we want to be more loving. There's nothing wrong with this, but there are times when life will require a response that does not fit with that concept of loving, that might feel fierce and even unloving in the moment.
Can you see how the goal, then, can get in the way of what is required? We will either try to gloss over the requirement of the moment, because it does not fit with our concept of being loving, or we will meet the moment exactly where it is, and feel bad because we did not meet our goal.
There's another way. Instead of building a prison of goals and requirements, we can open to all our possibilities. We can rest in not knowing what is best, and trust that we will do what is called for.
We can also find others who are looking to break out of this prison of conditioned thought. And together, we can support each other's efforts to see that we made the prison, that we hold the key, that we are already free.
This is what Shayla is offering. The possibility that we can best improve by seeing there is no need to do so.
Jeff
--Shayla Wright
My good friend and teacher Shayla is offering a course that she calls Mutual Evolution, in which we are invited to rest in a paradox.
We are constantly evolving as human beings. There is virtually no way not to change in our human lives. Even if we feel "stuck," the qualities of that very stuckness are changing in each moment.
As conditioned humans, we like to think we can change by making goals for ourselves, and yet any goal that we come up with is a concept, a thought. And those thoughts limit us. Maybe, for example, we want to be more loving. There's nothing wrong with this, but there are times when life will require a response that does not fit with that concept of loving, that might feel fierce and even unloving in the moment.
Can you see how the goal, then, can get in the way of what is required? We will either try to gloss over the requirement of the moment, because it does not fit with our concept of being loving, or we will meet the moment exactly where it is, and feel bad because we did not meet our goal.
There's another way. Instead of building a prison of goals and requirements, we can open to all our possibilities. We can rest in not knowing what is best, and trust that we will do what is called for.
We can also find others who are looking to break out of this prison of conditioned thought. And together, we can support each other's efforts to see that we made the prison, that we hold the key, that we are already free.
This is what Shayla is offering. The possibility that we can best improve by seeing there is no need to do so.
Jeff
Friday, January 21, 2011
Just to Rest
Sometimes, the right thing to do is nothing.
Sometimes, the right thing to say is nothing.
We have a tendency to always be in motion. To talk, to read, to be making projects out of something.
And yet there are times when this is not necessary, when what we need is just to rest.
It can be freeing to invite in this rest, and the spaciousness that can come with it. And to see that it is OK, just for this moment, not to do or need anything.
Jeff
Sometimes, the right thing to say is nothing.
We have a tendency to always be in motion. To talk, to read, to be making projects out of something.
And yet there are times when this is not necessary, when what we need is just to rest.
It can be freeing to invite in this rest, and the spaciousness that can come with it. And to see that it is OK, just for this moment, not to do or need anything.
Jeff
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