New and Exciting?

I portion of a post I made - it sparked some new thought:

I enjoy learning, growth, exploring. I am currently recapturing that youthful perspective that makes every moment an exploration. I once asked someone in list conversation why footloose restlessness was attractive and received a few answers around the theme of new things being exciting. This led me to think about how really focusing on an old thing can make it seem new.

So, is the excitement of new things really a sort of unconscious yearning for presence, for the experiencing of everything fully? Is the horizon's call actually a reminder to look more closely at what is right next to me? Why run from here to there, superficially experiencing new sights when I could spend a fully aware moment right here that is just as thrilling and fulfilling?

The world was bright and new and exciting when I was very young. As I explored and constructed conceptual models of everything, it became reduced to what I'd already seen and what was new. But much of what I have experienced still has new things to offer - why do I feel I've already fully experienced them? What is the boundary between interesting and worthless?

Interesting is subjective, but one of the objectives of mindfulness is to see with new eyes. When I do, the old thing becomes new. Is this all I needed to become fully alive in the current moment?

D

Lost Lives: The Illusion of Rules

A friend asked me if I would write something related to my thoughts of how we treat parts of our life as a game. Especially about how we set and relate to the rules of that game. Or something like that. I had to laugh, as I can't really think of much that we do that isn't relevant to a project like that. Where to start? How to select one game from so many that we play? What do they all have in common that would allow me to express what I see?

This article first appeared in the e-journal, The Life of Games, in April of 2000.

Illusion

Aren't the rules all illusion? Of course they are. Rules are a way to create an environment within which we can perform certain actions, pursue certain goals, and justify certain conduct. The environment isn't real unless the observer agrees to the rules. It is an illusion, having substance only within the mind of those who have opted in to the game.

Read that again. Then think about it for a moment. How many times have you considered yourself "trapped" in a situation that was causing you discomfort, or even pain? Were the walls real, or did you make them by agreeing to the rules of that situation? Were you really being hurt by something/someone...or were you twisting the knife yourself in accordance with the rules of some unchallenged illusion.

Consider a common situation where John Human in an unhappy work environment stumbles through day after day with no real consideration of exploring alternatives. The boss is hateful, the work is deadly boring, and the workplace is unsafe and depressing.

John's entire life, home and work, is nothing but a dreary, gray haze of unhappiness. Yet, what can be done? After all, John has responsibilities...perhaps a family, financial debts, people who depend on him...not to mention the need for food and shelter.

He has thought about maybe looking elsewhere for different work, but isn't it all the same? Except for the "lucky" ones, of course...the ones who had more opportunity, or better education, or just better luck...

John has built his own prison! He is the one responsible for his situation. He made the rules up, or he adopted someone else's rules. Voluntarily. Because there's no other way.

People don't usually get forced to obey a rule...ask any criminal, or any child with a hand in the cookie jar. People accept the rules...they agree to be bound by them.

John accepts the rule that he doesn't have the resources to change his situation.

John accepts the rule that his responsibilities allow him no freedom of choice.

John accepts the rule that only "other people" can do the things that would make his own life richer.

John has chosen a path of depression and unhappiness for himself by refusing to challenge the situation. Even worse, John is wasting his life! He is alive now, today...yet he passes each day away as though his life weren't going to start until some hypothetical point further along, when things get "better".

It's not hard to compare John's problems to other situations. A lover pining for a lost romance, or a child waiting to "grow up"...or parents waiting for the children to grow up! Yet, how often is the problem simply a matter of having accepted the Rules of this particular Game?

"I can't be happy without him!"

"I can't afford to quit!"

"I don't have the education to do anything else!"

"I'm too tired to think about it."

"I can't be happy because..."

All rules, all made up by someone...all accepted as Law when they are, in fact, only illusion. They may be descriptive of some part of the game they belong to, but they are still illusion. Stated definitively, as though they were immutable conditions of living, the rules gain all their power from the mind that obeys them.

There may be consequences to throwing out a rule, but it's important to realize that it can be discarded. The illusion of the game is usually the loss of choice.

We play the game of office politics because "we need to," because "we need our job," because "we have responsibilities," because "that's the way it's done"...

There are indeed obligations and necessities in life that we need to consider. The question is not whether action needs to be taken, but rather whether one is considering all the possible options...or have some been arbitrarily ruled out as being "against the rules"?

Have you ever decided a certain course of action was not possible, only to see someone else succeed at it? Was that other person really better equipped, or did you just create an obstacle for yourself that they didn't have to deal with?

This is the nature of Illusion: that it exists only within your mind. The rule is not real, the game is not real, and even the problems that weigh so heavily on your mind are probably not real. They may be based on real circumstances, but the power to dispense unhappiness or depression, or to set limits, exists only within your own mind.

Some rules may be beneficial, or useful, or fun...so keep them. Just realize that you kept them...it was your choice. They were created from within your mind, and they exist for only as long as you allow them to do so.

As an example, there is one rule, one illusion, that

I personally find offensive above all others. It is the rule that one can not be happy "because...". It's the biggest fantasy of all, as it leads to depression, lack of motivation, and subverts all efforts of that individual to live their lives in a fulfilled manner.

It creates the barriers that prevent it from being questioned...a self-fulfilling nightmare that many people embrace and never even question!

Happiness is a state of mind!

It is not a commodity that can be bought, or a possession that can be stolen. It is not dependent upon another person's presence, or life, or death; it is not an embedded part of any of our games.

It belongs to every person as a birthright, and is obtainable at any time. It's yours irrevocably...just reach out and take it!

Although you may have been taught that various obstacles can bar you from the simple state of happiness, I invite you to look around yourself someday and actively seek out evidence to the contrary. Watch for smiles on the faces of people with little or no money, and watch for optimism in people subjected to misfortune. You'll find examples if you bother to try that might just make you wonder if you want to play the old games anymore...

It is possible that you are setting yourself limits that really don't exist outside your illusion. So, just out of curiosity, let's play a new game today. The rules are simple:

1. We will question every obstacle we think we see before us.


2. We will agree not to accept any rule just because "it's a rule".


3. We will agree that any change to our emotional state is something we did ourselves.

The goal of the game is to achieve a state where we are in control of when we will be happy or sad, motivated or depressed. We will decide what affects our mood today. We will live by a rule because we accept it, and not because we never questioned it.

Maybe, we will gain our lives back. It's just a game...what have you got to lose?

Author's note: Since writing this article, I have modified my views a bit, but I still find these words ring true as far as they go. And they represent a very significant time for me when many hard-won lessons were culminating in an opening cocoon.

Emotional Vampires and Distance

This was a post in response to a request for opinion on two Youtube clips:

I want to be present (Moojiji)

Being Present in Relationships (Eckhart Tolle)

It was part of a virtual conversation at Global Mindshift (http://www.global-mindshift.org).

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An analogy I found helpful in dealing with relatives, close friends and acquaintances was that of the emotional vampire drawn from a book of the same name by Albert Bernstein and from other sources. Essentially, these are folk who validate themselves through responses from other people and so they try to elicit the desired behaviors by drawing those people into their own dramas. It can be draining on someone who cares about the actor but is unable to maintain healthy boundaries.

I deal a lot with personality disorders - DSM IV Axis II diagnoses (http://tinyurl.com/dj4pua) - and addiction. This gives me more practice with such things than the average Joe, but it also means that I have to be better at the skills or risk providing lower quality care to those patients. Healthcare provider burnout is only one of the serious risks associated with this situation and many of my coworkers have expressed amazement at my "patience" and ability to retain my equanimity.

(As with many, I also run into this flavor of behavior in my personal life. Although it is less frequent, I find it actually more challenging to deal with! Something about the clinical setting affecting my mindset - I'm working on it!)

There are defenses against this kind of thing. A common one is to close off the emotional leaks by cutting the person out of one's life. In this scenario, a lover might break up with an emotionally needy, draining person with the full support of his or her friends and family because the vampire is considered crazy or insane, unbelievably selfish and demanding. This is an oft-chosen solution that is sad, unskilled and unnecessary.

In the videos, we find the key that allows me to deal with my patients: space. I one day had the epiphany that I suffered from their neediness because I was running myself ragged trying to satisfy it. I internalized their need as a personal need to satisfy. Over time, I identified with their issues, losing perspective. My first reaction, of course, was to cut them off in self-defense, using phrases like tough love to justify my withdrawal. Except that it didn't feel like love anymore - it felt like withdrawal.

When I began centering myself in the moment, I suddenly found the problem disappeared. I could still love the people and be willing to help them for as long as it took, but I was no longer feeling drained! I felt instead as though I were a conduit to a vast, bottomless ocean of energy and that I could pipe it through to them as fast as they could suck it up. (I don't know why, but that analogy popped into my mind intuitively and it has stayed there.)

More objectively, I realized that the reason I had felt drained was because I had identified with their stories and run my own internal drama in sympathy. I had drained myself by playing out a storyline of how this endless neediness would go on and on forever, thus overwhelming myself with a fantasy of an eternal future of misery. When I just dealt with this moment as it was without building my own drama extending into the forever, it became trivial to retain my balance.

I had been carrying the emotional baggage of the last interaction into the current one and then spent the incident worrying about how much heavier it would be next time. When I just focused on this conversation without envisioning it as an extension of the last one, I was suddenly dealing with just the one act rather than the whole play. I went from being overburdened in these situations to feeling light as a feather and suddenly I can work with these folks all day long with absolutely no stress.

D