Fighting Monsters: Part 2

Yesterday, I posed a few questions: When a child, say 3 to 6 years old, is scared of the monster in their closet, what do we tell them? How do we react?What do we point to about the nature of fear? Where does it come from?

So how would you deal with this situation? Would you tell a child fears are not OK and must be dealt with swiftly?

Would you hand a child a magic potion or a protective amulet and expect it to work long-term to help them understand fears?

Would you send a child to boot camp to train them to increase strength and toughness to defeat monsters?

If you moved to a bigger house with bigger closets, and the child assumed the bigger closets held bigger monsters, would you then send them to more boot camp to get even stronger and tougher?

My guess is that you would respond very accurately and logically by smiling, telling the child that monsters do not exist, and reassuring them that the fear will disappear.

Monsters do not exist. Something that does not exist certainly has no power to scare us, so fear cannot be caused by monsters. What causes children fear are thoughts about monsters.

Fearing monsters may seem silly to us, but we do the same thing when we believe a score on the scoreboard is causing us to feel pressure or the pile of work on the desk is causing us to feel stressed. Nobody (literally no body or living thing) and nothing (literally no thing or situation) can cause a specific thought or feeling response in all of us. Our individual and momentary thoughts about those people and things are what cause the feeling.

If you believe something outside you causes you fear, there is a very high likelihood you are going to remind yourself of that belief in that thing’s presence and feel fear. The thing is not causing your fear. Your thought/belief is.

If you believe something outside you causes you stress, there is a very high likelihood you are going to remind yourself of that belief in that thing’s presence and feel stress. The thing is not causing your stress. Your thought/belief is.

Fear is a normal feeling. It naturally follows worried thinking, surprise, confusion, and uncertainty. Further, it doesn’t have to be dealt with or trained out of existence. It will disappear without any intervention, and the better we understand the source of the fear as thoughts rather than some outside source, the less we will believe we are in the grips of an outside force that has control over us.

By exposing this illusion of external control, we gain freedom.

By remembering that we are imperfect and will forget the nature of fear from time to time, we gain freedom over the belief that we must be perfect and in control of ourselves. It is perfectly fine to let thoughts and feelings arise and subside as they will. Doing battle with them is what exhausts us and drives us to distraction.

There’s no need to fight monsters or our own reactions.

From Uncertainty to Known

“The unknown kind of sucks.”

I don’t know that my friend’s words did justice to the news he’d just received. But even if he hadn’t just gotten shocking news, don’t we often think the unknown sucks?

One reason we think the unknown sucks is that we are holding two opposing thoughts in mind. These thoughts try to wrestle each other into submission, and to make matters worse, we often wrestle both, trying in vain to make one the victory while wishing the other would disappear.

What we rarely stop to consider is that – while sucking – uncertainty is a normal state. We cannot ride life’s whims without experiencing some conflict and uncertainty. If it sucks, perhaps it is supposed to. Tension and dissonance in one’s own thoughts is normal and always resolves.

The other thing about uncertainty is that we assume we are feeling competing future situations. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that we never feel any situation, current or future, directly. We feel our thoughts about situations, and that is a much different understanding than believing we can actually feel the future directly.

This understand, while accurate, can often seem like a double edged sword. When worried, we understand that our worries neither accurately predict the future nor effectively ward off our fears from fruition. When hopeful, we enjoy it, but we remember that hope guarantees nothing.

And yet, with this understanding, perhaps a new wisdom and certainty settles in, a certainty that lies so deep inside it feels more universal than it does personal. With this certainty, perhaps we will come to know….

A courage to be strong enough to handle anything that comes our way;

A belief that life is good, even when it appears otherwise;

A confidence that things will work out;

A desire to shine brilliantly;

An honor in the way we carry ourselves through the darkness;

A knowledge that we live forever in the hearts and minds of those who love us;

A faith in a heavenly afterlife (or if you prefer, a merciful fading away to where started);

An understanding that we have today, and that’s all we ever get.

Best wishes. Be aware, be awake, and be alive today.

Running into Fire

When explaining that nothing outside of us makes us feel or think anything specific, I often like to point out examples from my clients’ own experiences.

One recent day I encountered two great examples based on the same act: Saving people from a fire.

First I had a fireman in my office. I was able to help point out that while most people see a burning building and assume it makes them fearful, he sees a burning building and confidently says, “I’ve got this.” Thank goodness there are people like him who understand that the situation does not control their thoughts and feelings.

Often when I use an example like this with someone else, they will say, “Well yeah, but he is trained to think that way.” This may be true, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that his feelings are coming from his thoughts about the burning building and not the burning building itself. Actually, it emphasizes this fact. It also does not mean that all trained people react to situations with the same thoughts and feelings, or that every person responds with the same thoughts and feelings every time a certain situation is encountered. Our past and our tendencies don’t dictate a specific response either.

Another client the same day illustrated that training isn’t necessary to understand that outside circumstances don’t control our thoughts and feelings. This gentlemen had no training in fire fighting, but he once ran to a burning car and pulled out the teenagers inside while other onlookers gasped in horror or honked their horns, frustrated that he left his car blocking the middle of the road in order to save lives (it is very interesting to me that annoyance was their response to the situation). He said he did so with confidence and without a care for his personal safety. If the burning car could make us think or feel any certain way, all human reactions to the burning car would have been the same. However, my client was able to feel confident that he could save lives (and he did it without any training), others were scared, and yet others were annoyed.

Training or not, when we understand that we have a level of mental and emotional freedom from the events of the world, we gain possibility. What you do with that possibility is based on your understanding of what you can do, but at the very least, please understand that you are not controlled by outside events even if it seems that way. I don’t suggest running into a fire, but it’s a great example of an extreme situation that does not control our response.

My question to you today is this: If I met two guys in one day who run into fires to save lives (one guy trained, the other not), what’s possible for you today? What situation can rise above?

You Are Where You Should Be

Do you believe there is something from your past holding you back in some way (e.g., holding you back from greatness, happiness, contentment, awe, etc., )? Or do you believe that some situation that exists now (or even worse, multiple situations that exist now) is holding you back?

The more you can say yes to these questions, and the more situations you can list that are holding you back, the more you are giving into the illusion of external control. Giving into the illusion too often or too tightly can sap inspiration, and it runs counter to the understanding that you can rise above the conditions of life because you actually live above the conditions of life.

Pursuing greatness, happiness, contentment, awe, etc., is only a thought away, and this is no trivial matter because it is the only place greatness, happiness, contentment, awe, etc., reside. Thoughts or feelings arise and reside internally, and they are free to vary from external control. The external world is a simply where we project them.

So if we pursue greatness, happiness, contentment, awe, etc., we will project them onto the outside world no matter where we live, and we will experience greatness, happiness, contentment, awe, etc., no matter where we live and no matter the external circumstances. This is essence of understanding, “You are where you should be.”

Of course, none of us are perfect, and each of us is unique. So we attach ourselves to people, things, and situations, and sometimes we find it difficult to get past what we perceive as problems, tragedies, etc. This is completely understandable, and the way it works for the vast majority of us. But the more we understand that even tragedies do not define us or hold us (even though it appears that way, sometimes for quite awhile), the more grit, determination, motivation, tenacity, and effort we will manifest toward overcoming those perceived problems. Furthermore, the more we understand that the idea of problems is just a projection of a personal mindset, the more easily the effort will flow.

Don’t wish time, place, and circumstance away. You are where you should be.

Feeding Your Self(-Talk)

As I more often understood and remembered that my thoughts or feelings are free from external control, it occurred to me that I wanted to change my vocabulary. Or perhaps more to the point, I realized that what I said to myself and others contradicted my messages when I used certain phrases that I have used for the majority of my lifetime.

One of those changes is that I try to remember not to say anything like…

that makes me happy,
that drives me crazy,
this makes me angry.

The word makes implies external control, and that doesn’t exist.

Instead, I try to use phrases like, I am happy about that or I’m upset about that. The word about is the key for my mind (you may have others that seem to work better for you).

This recognizes that the thought/feeling is mine and free from external control. Nothing makes me feel a certain way, but I am free to feel any way about anything.

After that, I try to remember that I don’t truly control my reactions either, so there is no need to cast self-blame and fuel further frustration over a reaction I don’t control. For example, I find many people are not only upset about a situation, they are further upset about being upset. Having too many thoughts and feelings about feelings seems to be quite exhausting, particularly when the thoughts and feelings are negative***.

My reactions are what they are based on a number of factors, some of which I am aware of, some of which I am not. No matter what my reaction, I try to find my influence, which is my can do thought or action that makes the most sense to me.

I like to think of finding my influence as feeding (or fueling) my self-communication, and I try to be as nutritious as possible (with a cheat day thrown in once in a while because, hey, I’m human and imperfect).

If I like my thoughts and feelings, cool. I usually find that I can keep feeding that state with more positive thoughts.

If I don’t like my thoughts or feelings, I try to starve them by replacing them with the understanding that a feeling can’t hurt me or control me (mentally, emotionally, or physically), and I try to keep my composure. Composure and emotional control aren’t the same thing, although I do suspect many people think of them and use them interchangeably (and that’s fine, although I would contend not optimal). True emotional control doesn’t exist as far as I can tell. Composure is keeping a calm, cool demeanor even though you are boiling emotionally. Put yet another way, composure is knowing you have influence and believing you can even when your emotions or the circumstances seem to be pointing to can’t.

The more I trust I am allright and free to change my mind, the quicker the unpleasant thoughts and feelings seem to leave. After remembering that I am free from all types of control, internal and external, I then try to awaken to my own influence. What can I do about this? What thoughts come to mind? If I don’t like this thought or feeling, fine…..can I change my experience in this moment by having a certain thought occur to me?

If a positive thought occurs to me, I try to feed it and see where the feelings go from there. Sometimes the thoughts are familiar to me, and sometimes they are true insights, new and unique ways of seeing the world. In any case, I try to see if I can feed the positive and starve the negative.

Of course, I make mistakes and buy into illusions of control at times, sleep on possibilities, and screw up plays on a daily basis. When I catch myself doing so, I try to starve the negative and feed my self-communication nutritiously again with as much positivity as occurs to me. This cycle repeats as I try to live a life aware, awake, and alive to making plays.

I happen to believe that our self-communication is one way of feeding our thoughts and emotions, so it seems important to feed it nutritiously. Pay attention to your vocabulary and the implications your words point to. I think you will find that your vocabulary points either toward or away from illusions of control, awareness of possibilities, and influence to make plays. Here’s to hoping you frequently find self-talk that feeds a sense of freedom, mental clarity, and personal power.

***Truth be told, I am not a fan of the terms positive and negative. I am using them here because other people are fans of them, and frankly, I can’t come up with anything better at the moment. Please realize that positive and negative are vague terms open to personal interpretation.

It’s a Great Day to be Alive

I’ve been writing for a two weeks about how no person and no thing outside you can make you think or feel any certain way, yet I advocate for positive communication. This can seem like a contradiction without further explanation, so I’d like to explain how communication and sharing our light works upon the world around us. As you know from reading my other posts, it’s not through external control.

A quick story will help me illustrate my point:

Albion, MI 1992

There’s a fire in the sky. The sun burns hot and bright already at 7:45am, and its rays punch me as soon as I step out of the locker room. As a biology major, I understand that the sun is the source of energy that fuels all life on earth, but lately its August heat just seems to drain me of mine.

I can smell the freshly cut grass and the unmistakable stench of sweat-soaked football pads. My own gear is damp and uncomfortable, and pain radiates through my body, hard-earned through pounding runs on the rock hard practice field and crushing collisions over the past week’s two and three-a-day practices.

As I trudge slowly toward the practice field, I hear Coach Dave Egnatuk’s cleats scratch the pavement as he runs up behind me, and I know what’s coming next. His voice echoes in my head before he even speaks a word. Then I hear him belt it out at the top of his lungs.
“It’s a great day to be alive!”

Coach Egnatuk runs onward toward the practice field and shouts, “It’s a great day to be alive!” every 30 yards or so. A gathering mass of players hustles behind him as he runs, a smaller mass tries hard to stay ahead of him. Many players now echo Coach’s shouts with their own.

“It’s a great day to be alive!”

“It’s a great day to be alive!” I hear Coach shout again, and suddenly I become aware of another fire. This fire is burning inside my own chest.
“It’s a great day to be alive!”

The shouts all around me are reminders of what I already know, affirmations of a core belief about the fire, warmth, and greatness of life, and as my inner fire blazes I kick up my pace to a sprint. It’s a great day to be alive indeed.

I used to think Coach Eggy shouting, “It’s a great day to be alive,” made me feel good. I mean, that’s what we call it when someone says something, we hear it, and then we start to feel good.

But there is a problem with that type of thinking. If you are a careful reader of my recent blogs (such as Be Aware), you understand that type of thinking falls into the category of giving in to the illusion of control. Nobody can make you think or feel anything. Nobody controls your thoughts or feelings. So what was going on there? Why is this concept so important? And how is it that what’s going on is something much greater than it even appears?

As we go through life and take in the world around us, we project our mindset onto it. Therefore, if I hear, “It’s a great day to be alive!” and begin to feel good, it’s because my mindset recognizes the truth or beauty in those words. The sentiment that it’s a great day to be alive was certainly within Coach, but he didn’t make it appear in me. Certainly he provided the voice to that thought at that moment, but I had to recognize my own understanding in his words. The idea that it was a great day to be alive was already within me. It was just momentarily obscured from my thoughts. I needed a reminder from out in the world to recognize it again, and in that regard, Coach was a great leader who did me a huge favor.

The power to influence our own experience of the world resides within each of us, not outside of us, and that’s a very powerful realization. It means we don’t need anyone or anything to make me feel motivated, strong, powerful. However, because we don’t control our thinking (we influence it, we truly don’t control it), we aren’t always aware of what we are overlooking. So sometimes it helps to have a leader who is pointing in the right direction.

Sometimes, you need a leader to point you in the right direction. Other times, you are the leader pointing others in the right direction.

Be a great leader today. Be a great follower today. Point in the right direction. It’s a great day to be alive.

Being Aware of the Light Inside

Being aware of illusions of control is one key to making plays consistently. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the desire to use the word control, and I definitely understand a desire to control. The problem is that believing in control in a very concrete, literal sense always leads to problems.

Control in any way, shape, or form is conditional. Control always needs to be modified with terms like temporary or partial. Control always leads to disappointment, confusion, and frustration. At worst, when someone’s illusion of control is blown at the wrong time, they find themselves lost, terrified, and feeling under the control of a dangerous, scary world.

But it doesn’t work that way. No person and no thing outside you controls you. Certainly, the outside world has influence in ways. It’s fuel or fodder for our senses, which in turn is a major part of our thinking. However, no matter what the outside world presents, it doesn’t control you. Even instincts and reflexes can be overridden when we understand our influences.

After one understands that there is no external control, the leap is to believe that there must be internal control. Do not fall for that illusion either. There is no control. Emotional composure isn’t control. Understanding concepts in math or literature isn’t control. Being able to use your body isn’t control. I know it seems like control, but part of what makes it possible for you to complete these actions – such as your genetics and their phase of improvement or decay – is out of your control. What you truly have is influence, and sometimes it works better than it does at other times.

Look, you often have powerful influence over your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, but I think you have to admit, sometimes you don’t. We all have doubts, fears, misunderstandings, and unintended physical breakdowns and errors. And this is where I really want to make a point today.

Being aware of illusions of control will help you connect to your inner fire more often. Consider an analogy:

The sun always shines and provides heat and light for Earth. Sometimes this fact slips our mind. For example, when clouds fill the sky and bring a storm, it’s easy to forget the sun is still shining, especially when it rains on our parade, picnic, or ball game. At night, the darkness can seem scary, and then too, it is easy to forget about the light that constantly shines and fuels life in our world.

Both night and clouds can obscure or hide the sun at times, but they can never douse its fire. Imagine how scary the world might be if you didn’t understand how the sun actually works. Like certain ancient civilizations, I bet you would worry about it and have rituals to help the sun rise each day.

When we look out into the world, if we have the idea that the world can extinguish our fire, there is a good chance we are going to find an excuse to feel cold. This is buying into an external illusion. Don’t fall for it.

Other times, you may look out into the world trying to be positive and still come away disappointed. Too often when someone tries to apply the power of positive thinking in this way, they come away feeling broken because they weren’t able to control their thoughts and feelings. This is also an illusion. Don’t fall it either. Sometimes we get stuck, and that’s ok. If the power of positive thinking works, great. Use it. If it doesn’t work for you at the moment, do not despair or believe you are broken. Your fire isn’t gone. It’s always burning even when the events of your life seem dark and cloudy for a moment. It won’t last forever if you just understand your fire is always burning.

Sometimes the best we can do is to have the understanding that the fire in our lives will seem to be out at times. It isn’t. Like the sun, it’s just momentarily hidden or obscured, or we’ve temporarily been turned away from it. As with the sun analogy, it helps to understand that our fire isn’t really out. It simply seems that way at the moment. It is always still there, burning bright, ready to be obvious to you when the clouds part or the next turn of your life happens.

Be aware of your inner fire. It is always burning. When you truly understand that your fire never goes out but merely seems like it does (sometimes despite your best attempts to keep its blaze in focus), you will begin to experience incredible freedom, confidence, and clarity, and you will begin to make the plays of your life with great consistency.

Keys to Making the Play

Keys to Consistently Making the Play…

I mentioned in a previous post (Making the Play) that there are no absolute musts to making the play, but if you want to make plays consistently, there are certain keys that you should understand and follow as often as possible. This is a quick overview of those keys. Each one will be the subject of subsequent blog posts.

The Keys: Be Aware. Be Awake. Be Alive.

Be Aware

In order to make plays, it helps to be grounded in an accurate understanding of reality.

Be aware of illusions of control. While perceptions of control are real, true control is an illusion. Anything you believe you control is temporary at best. Too many people become frustrated and confused when they confront their lack of control, and this blocks their ability to make plays in the moment.

Belief in control always requires conditions and limits, and ultimately it is disappointing and confusing.

The antidote to the illusion of control is trust. Trust that even when you momentarily lose focus, effort, attitude, or peak physical performance, you are still capable of using your influence to make plays.

Trust in the power of your influence only requires possibility, and ultimately breeds clarity and freedom.

Be Awake
In order to make plays, it helps to see that you are surrounded by plays to be made each and every second of your life.

Be awake to possibilities that exist for you in each and every moment. No matter what your reality seems to be at the moment, be awake to the fact that other possibilities exist.

Being aware of illusions of control will help you be awake to possibilities because no matter what or who it seems is in control at the moment, you will have influence if you can just be awake to one other possibility. And one other possibility is always available with just a simple shift in perspective. Your thoughts create your experience of the world, so a new world is only a thought away.

Be Alive

In order to make plays, In order to make plays, it helps to trust that you are a bright, shining, brilliant being who is capable of doing great things big and small.

Be alive with the energy and enthusiasm of life and make plays! Whatever it is you have to do, do it. Whatever it is you desire to do, get after it. You are a living, breathing, blood pumping, thinking, feeling human, so get moving! Use your influence. Connect and communicate with others. Pursue the life you want to live. Make plays! And when you miss a play, let it go with the understanding that this moment is always filled with more opportunities to make another play.