Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? Do I “know” you?

The ultimate spiritual practice is dis-identifying with that which we think is us—objects in our awareness. It may be our possessions. It may be our finances. It may be our looks. It may be our intelligence. It may be our social reputation. It may be our behaviors, our sexual orientation, our beliefs, or ideas. And yet we are none of that.

As the Buddhists would say—we are the pure witness. As Mark Michael Lewis would say—“We are not [XYZ], we are that which is experiencing [all of it]”. As Ken Wilber would say—“[You are] the witness, the original face you had before you were born—before the big bang…is not a thing or an object. It is a feeling…an atmosphere”.

I would agree with all of that—indeed, the ultimate spiritual practice is dis-identifying with that which you think is you—anything other than pure awareness—pure witness, and add: before we can dis-identify, we must first recognize when we are identified—when we have a case of mistaken identity. Yet even before we can recognize this, we must have developed self-reflexive awareness.

Simple, but not easy, as in the moment [any moment] when we are in our experience, we are often IN our experience—That is to say our experience has us, we do not have it. AND, to the degree we have built the muscle of self awareness and self-reflection by being able to take our very self and make it an object in our awareness is the degree to which we have choice.

Even further, to the degree that we have “meta-cognition”—that is the ability to think about our thinking—is the degree to which we have choice around our thinking. And as most of you know, how we think about something creates our emotional experience around it. The more we exercise and build the muscle of witnessing, the more we move from misery to emotional choice and finally to emotional freedom.

How do we know if we are identified? If you imagine anything being taken away from you and you experience a high degree of fear or anxiety—or if it has been taken away from you and you are in grief or misery—you are identified. You have a case of mistaken identity [or a “confusion of identify location” as I like to phrase it]–and you are identified with something other than who you truly are—pure witness; radical spirit; God.

Yet we judge ourselves [and often go into shame] when we do not attain what we think we should with the objects in our awareness. We are judging our degree of success with them as us—as our very Self.

All this is sad enough, yet we don’t stop there do we? We go even further and we judge others [and indulge in self-righteousness] with the same case of mistaken identity. We judge them for their dress, their speech, their intelligence, their attractiveness [or lack thereof], their possessions, status, sexual orientation, political affiliations or positions, etc. etc., etc.

While it sometimes makes sense to judge behaviors [and even at times to insist they stop or are dealt with from a justice standpoint] we do not judge just the behaviors—we judge the being at their core for a behavior. Something external to who they are truly. This is all too easy to do and too often indulged in to feel superior or reinforce our fears or…

The bottom line is that collapsing behaviors [or any other object in our awareness] with identity is a gross confusion of logical levels. To do it to ourselves creates misery in one form or another. To do it to others allows us to feel superior or reinforce our self-indulgent fears—or both.

To free yourself from this trap is the ultimate spiritual practice.
To do so means taking on five simple steps:

1. Develop self-reflexive awareness
2. Notice how you are thinking about yourself or others [meta-cognition] and whether it serves your ultimate happiness
and thrival
3. Recognize when you are identified [fear, anxiety, misery, loss, or grief in specific contexts]
4. Notice that it is not really you—there is the noticer—behind what you are aware of is that which is aware. This is you.
5. Take this on as a daily spiritual practice

And as an additional exercise, step into the belief that we are all in evolution and are therefore always deepening and changing and therefore we never really “know” anyone. As a result we must take on the practice of continually updating our internal representations [our interpretations] of others. Continually looking to increase and update our accuracy in who we think they are. But that is another thought to flesh out at another time.

May you be happy and free.

–

For more on dis-identification, read The Key in the Darkness, which can be found at The Priest and the Punk.

“it’s okay to lose, so long as you learn from every game you choose…”
“If there is no future, and there is no past; if all we’ve got is right now, then…let’s make it last.”
“Remember your dreams because your dreams become the life you lead…”
–Prince

Human beings have a strange relationship to time.

We sometimes get stuck in moments and replay them over and over again. We often fail to live in the present—not hearing the person right in front of us. Some of us are so focused on our goals in the future we often fail to enjoy them when we attain them—rather, setting new, bigger, more impressive or more challenging goals without ever pausing to enjoy the view from this new height.

Then there is this idea that there is only “the now”– which is certainly one way to think about it. At the same time, while the past and future may only live in our minds, so do so many other things. Does that mean they do not exist? Memories? Fondness for someone? Plans for our future? They are indeed “real” even if they are strictly intra-subjective experiences. If we declared they were not, we would have to say intentionality, compassion, hope, love, our memories, etc. were not “real”.

Aside from the most dogmatic scientific materialists, I know very few who are willing to support that argument.

What then is the most appropriate and useful relationship to time that we could cultivate, such that we accelerating our personal evolution? How can we use our internal representation of time for emotional choice and ultimately, emotional freedom?

The Past

The past, in the context of accelerating our evolution, is really only useful for one thing: learnings. It is a treasure trove of opportunities for learnings and therefore evolutionary advancement. If, while we review past events, we simply ask two questions:

1. How am I responsible?
2. What can I learn?

…then our relationship to the past is a healthy one. That is, it is one that supports increasing our spiritual depth and emotional freedom while building on mistakes in a useful way.

The first question builds esteem for the self as all responsibility does, so long as we are taking responsibility responsibly—that is free of shame. If we use it instead as an opportunity to shame ourselves or judge ourselves, then we have been irresponsible in this exercise and defeated the very purpose of it.

The questions must be answered with a positive or empowering forward look. In the case of a “failure” or a negative event, or perhaps in exhibiting behaviors that are out of alignment with our values: what can I learn such that this will not happen in the future? Or, What will I do differently in the future? In the case of “successes”: what can I learn such that I can continue to model this behavior? How can I increase my effectiveness even further?

The Present

People often speak of “staying present” or “being present” or “being in the now” as if we were somehow absent. We are always present—the question is, “what are we present to?” Often when people are not paying attention to what is in front of them, they are paying attention to their internal representations. Their internal thoughts, fantasies, imagery, or internal dialogue. Building the muscle of mastering our minds such that we are present to what is in front of us when we need to be—fully present without atemporal or past-related thoughts—is one of the critical components of the game of Personal Evolution. There are times when we are not even aware of our internal representations. We must bring these into consciousness so they can be managed appropriately and responsibly.

Once we become conscious of them, it may be necessary to use certain mental shifts and practices to “shelve” these thoughts to be dealt with later when it is more appropriate for our lives. Sometimes it is a matter of learning to simply quiet the mind through meditation. Or both.

The Future

Often when I work with clients and they are in despair, I elicit their internal representation of time and find it compressed. They are seeing perhaps only two weeks into the future and the events that are occurring in their present are unpleasant. When we extend their sense of time out to include another 100 years these feelings often turn into convictions about what needs to be done.

The truth is that regardless of what is occurring—everything has a nature: it arises and passes away. Nothing lasts forever. This is especially true for human beings. In the greater scheme of things, or in the larger view, or with an expanded sense of time, as we literally zoom out, we become more emotionally free from whatever may be troubling us at that one moment in time. Once the events become objects in our awareness and we are no longer identified with them, we are free form them and can use the events for learnings and make more appropriate choices.

This practice is especially useful for fear and anxiety. The structure of fear and anxiety is that we are imagining some future event with a negative result or outcome. However, since we know that the future exists only in our minds [although in our subjective experience it is very real] then we can bring that imagined future into consciousness and change it to a positive one. Given that neither is more “real” or “true” than the other, the evolutionary master of their own mind will change the imagined future to a positive one and “live into” that—thereby aligning their consciousness around it.

While a high level of facility is required, we can all build the muscle of a more responsible and useful relationship to time. Just like all exercise, at first It may cause soreness. So we start off light. We increase the frequency of our exercise gradually. Eventually, we are lifting heavy weight indeed and are excited about how are new habit is transforming the way we experience ourselves and how we feel. And it is then, that we are becoming free.

Many of you heard Jason [me] talking about Personal Evolution on the Reality Sandwich radio show on KPOO 89.5FM with Julie and Martin Mathews. It was a rich hour of conversation. If you missed it and are looking for it, look no further. It is available now in MP3 format:

Download Here.

[As a preface, this piece assumes the rules of justice are commonly agreed upon and in place. That people are free from force and fraud as a matter of justice, principle, and integrity. These ideas are meant to build creativity within, and are not meant to give a way to violate that premise.]

“I would never die for one of my beliefs. I may be wrong [about it].”—George Bernard Shaw

“I am not interested in being right. I care about finding out whether I am or not.” –Albert Einstein

What Einstein and Shaw were both saying was that they would rather be accurate than be “right”.

Have you ever had a friend who thought they remembered something a certain way while you remembered it differently? Have you ever had a friend willing to argue with you about this very discrepancy? Have you ever done the same? While some may be eager to tell you how you are wrong, still others are willing to say “you may be right…but I remember it thus…”. Oh, what a difference a few words can make.

And it is that difference that makes the difference. It is that difference that can create ease, or foster dissonance. Generate grace, or create tension. Resolve differences or create new ones out of thin air.

Some would rather be right than be accurate. That is to say that they are constantly looking for evidence that their positions are “right”—buttressing their opinions in the face of contradictory information. This shows up in a range of behaviors from eco-terrorists violently attacking companies based on junk science to others ignoring the evidence of man-accelerated climate change. From those blaming intolerance for incompetence on racism whenever they can to the Bush Administration only listening to views that supported the existence of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs and the call for the invasion of Iraq. From someone judging an acquaintance on limited information when their own self-esteem issues are triggered by them to having a fixed perspective on someone without direct personal experience with them. On both sides of the aisle—both ends of the spectrum—equally distasteful manifestations of this mind-set can arise.

At the same time, others would rather be accurate than be “right”. That is to say they are constantly taking in new information to verify their interpretations—and in fact working constantly to update them—having far less identification with them. They know they are not their opinions or views. They have their views. However, their views do not have them. These people are far more enjoyable to engage in political dialogue, they are truly intellectually curious.

Let us briefly examine both mindsets.

As usual, self-esteem plays an important role. As well as attachment. As well as ego—the antitheses of true self-esteem.

If one is interested in being “right”—they have their ego wrapped up in whether they are right or not—they are then deeply identified with their perceptions as an extension of themselves—then you can expect them to defend their positions as a matter of “honor”. They will be “up in arms” doing so. What follows may be a rather distasteful display of emotion in support of their belief, perception, etc. And, as a useful side note, you can always calibrate yours or another’s attachment to their view by whether or not they have a sense of humor around it. A sense of humor is a signal to a fluid perspective.

If one [you] are interested in accuracy, then they will be open, curious, have a lack of attachment to their views. They will be constantly working to verify their interpretations of the events in the world around them—of the people around them. This person will inevitably have high[er] esteem for the self, as it is only from this place that one can relax into the not-knowing that is required for fluidity around one’s perceptions.

What if one [you] in their self-reflexive moments notice that they are being attached to their view as “right” being blind to new information that may correct their accuracy?

What to do? As usual, the answer is to witness it, and then choose another path. Build the muscle of a lack of identification with your views. Build the muscle of witnessing. As it is from this place of pure witnessing that your spiritual path may lie ahead of you—quite clearly. Enjoy the view…and then step down and begin to walk the path. One. Step. At. A. Time.

WHAT is N.L.P.?
by Jason McClain

NLP–the set of tools titled Neuro-Linguistic Programming–is misunderstood far more often that it is understood. There is nothing new in NLP. There is no magic. It will not revolutionize your life whole-sum in one foul swoop, contrary to the marketing of some. So what is it?

The co-founder of NLP, John Grinder, says that it is simply a learning tool. Nothing more than a set if filters and tools to give you access to more of your neurology for the purpose of accelerated learning. Gregory Bateson, the world famous behavioral scientist, said that NLP is the only class 3 learning tool on the planet. What does that mean? With NLP you learn how to learn.

So then, why is NLP used the way it is used in the world most often—for brief and result-oriented therapy? This is a good question and certainly worth addressing.

In the beginning, in the early 70s, there were therapists producing amazing results. They were Virginia Satir, the founder and pioneer of Family Therapy; Fritz Pearls, the pioneer and founder of Gestalt Therapy; Milton Erickson, the grandfather of medical hypnotherapy. Additionally, there was the genius of Gregory Bateson–the world-renowned behavioral scientist. Given the results they were producing, the founders of this class of tools called NLP wanted to find out what patterns these geniuses were employing (at the meta level) that could be modeled, distilled, and reproduced. So, with their permission, they were studied by the co-founders of NLP along with the supporting staff. Who were these people that modeled the original patterns of these therapeutic geniuses? John Grinder and Richard Bandler assisted by Robert Dilts, Judith Delozier, Todd Epstein, and Leslie Cameron-Bandler. If you’ve a scientific or skeptical mind, read anything by Robert Dilts on NLP. He will make you a believer.

It could be argued that this original modeling is just one possible application of NLP. That argument would be stunningly accurate. NLP is simply a class of tools. It allows you to distill out the structure, process, and context of any given experience. Because of this, I call NLP “the study of the structure of human subjective experience”. Given that emotions are seemingly the biggest challenge facing human beings, then it could also be argued that investing so much time in studying the patterns of genius that have therapists get results was one of the most generous applications possible for this new-found tool. I would agree with that argument.

That was 30 years ago. Since then, NLP has come a long way thanks to the practitioners of this tool. They have modeled out many processes that the human being goes through naturally for the purpose of accelerated movement through said process. For example—how does someone naturally resolve a traumatic experience and come out of it with an outlook of positivity and even gratitude? This has been modeled. How does someone align themselves on multiple, holarchical levels of their experience—environment, behaviors, capabilities, beliefs/values, identity, and Spirit? This has been modeled. How does a human being take a part of themselves that they previously disliked and through greater understanding and negotiation, use it as a gateway to core states of being and connectedness? This has been modeled. How does a human being take some parental experience that was traumatic for them and move to a place of resource, gratitude, and compassion? This has been modeled. What is intuition, the most useful of all trans-rational experiences? This has been modeled.

The world owes NLP a debt of gratitude. This may not even be acknowledged for another generation and that is just fine…

NLP, as a field, does not care for dissertations or academia. This is largely why it is not accepted in the academic world. NLP, as a field, does not focus on whether or not something is true. “Truth” in this context has no meaning. What matters is whether or not something is useful. In that sense, NLP, as a field, is highly scientific. However, scientific in the broad sense, not the narrow sense. By scientific in the broad sense, I mean this: experiment, get some result, and offer up your findings to a group of your peers for rigorous testing. In this sense, NLP is deeply and rigorously scientific. Scientific in the broad sense. Not the narrow sense.

What is NLP? A tool to distill out models of excellence. Human models of excellence. Nothing more, but assuredly nothing less.

WHAT is N.L.P.?
a summary
by Mark Michael Lewis

NLP is sourced in the realization that that all human emotion is a function of how a person re-presents (represents, thinks about) any aspect of their experience. If you shift/change/alter how someone re-presents any aspect of their experience, you will shift/change/alter how they understand that aspect, what they feel about it, how they relate to it, and who they *be* around it.

In more technical terms, a “top 10″ might be:

1. The map is not the territory, the menu is not the meal – human beings make maps of their experience, they re-present their experience to themselves in the five senses/modalities.

2. How we understand, feel about, relate to, and BE around any aspect of our experience is determined by the map we make about that experience (our “occurring” world), not the experience itself.

3. You can change/alter/manipulate the maps (representations, how the world occurs) directly, by altering one or more of the five senses in the “map”.

4. When you change the map, you will change how people understand, feel about, relate to, and BE around that aspect of their experience

5. People work perfectly, they are not broken. They are getting exactly the results that they are getting. They can learn to get different results.

6. People already have all the resources they need and anything one human being can do/be/have/know/relate another human being can learn to do/be/have/know/relate.

7. People always make the best choice they experience as available to them.

8. Every human behavior is driven/caused/sourced by a positive intention, every aspect of human experience is to be respected/honored/integrated .

9. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly AT FIRST.

10. Choice is better than no choice, the element in any system which has the most flexibility will control that system – NLP is about adding choices, not subtracting them.

In plain language, NLP provides tools with which to resolve virtually any human emotional issue. NLP is 1) a set of filters through which to process our experience such that we have more power to achieve our values, and 2) a collection of hundreds of patterns/techniques/”interior rituals” that are specially designed to powerfully and permanently alter how someone represents (feels/BEs about) virtually every/any aspect of their life. Since human behavior (how we do/be/have/know/relate to our “world) is driven by our emotions 99 percent of the time, the more choice we have around how we “feel,” the more powerfully and elegantly we can create and move through our lives. It is the most powerful form of fix/change/improve technology I have ever encountered.

If transformation is all about shifting who we are/BE/relate to our world, NLP is all about shifting how that world automatically occurs for us through time. It is designed to alter not the “fact” of our Already Always Listening (AAL), but the standards by which our AAL automatically judges and assesses our experience. It is a tool for resolving our past (rather than getting off of it) and tapping into the juice/value of any/every experience we have. If transformation gives us the freedom to “be with” our occurring world, NLP gives us tools to shift the unconscious processes by which that world “occurs.”

Often, when we think of “being responsible”, many of us think of paying our bills, attending family gatherings, being on time, going to work, paying our taxes, etc. While that is accurate, there is a deeper level to peer into. One that affects each of us every moment of every interaction we have with others. And the question is, what does responsible communication look like? What does it mean to take responsibility in our interactions?

A woman was out eating at one of her favorite restaurants. She ordered a dish and made a request for a modification—she wanted feta cheese instead of cheddar. Seemingly, a simple change. When the dish came, the modification did not. She immediately blamed the waiter saying, “I told you feta”, quite indignantly. The waiter became defensive and clumsily blamed it on the kitchen, apologized, taking the dish back and soon brought out a new one with the feta cheese.

The rest of the service cycle remained tense and curt.

Perhaps the waiter was in error. Perhaps it was the kitchen. Perhaps she did not speak loudly enough when she made the request. What is certain is that she chose to blame rather than take responsibility.

If communication is about attaining some outcome, we could say that on the surface, she was successful; she got what she wanted. Or did she?

Every moment, we are faced with a choice to increase consciousness or decrease it. Something happens and we can either become more aware—rising to the occasion, or we can blank out. There is a more subtle aspect to this choice—we can either blame or we can take responsibility.

Both choices have consequences: the underlying ability to build or undercut self-esteem. At the same time, both choices have underlying dynamics: blame causes people to contract and defend. It can cause them to regress; to withdraw to more stable ground. And it supports pre-rational ego while undercutting the development of true self-esteem—for both parties, actually. While taking responsibility increases true self-esteem while necessitating the transcendence of pre-rational ego. It requires expansion, and gives both parties room to grow and evolve; to transcend.

Blame=causes regression=contraction

Responsibility=requires self-transcendence=expansion

Imagine the same woman eating in the same restaurant making the same request. The waiter brings the dish, having made the same mistake, and this time, the woman makes a different choice. She notices and, taking responsibility for the effectiveness of her communication asks, “Did I forget to mention that I wanted feta?” The waiter, feeling the space to take responsibility says, “You did. I am terribly sorry, let me fix that for you straight away.” The waiter brings it back with feta and informs her that dessert will be on the house. Instead of tension, there is a sense of openness and rightness and equitability in the sequence of events.

Each and ever day we engage in communication cycles with other people. Each and every day we consciously or unconsciously experience the dynamics of those interpersonal interactions. They impact us and impact others.

The example in the restaurant is a mundane example. But you can begin to notice even now, having turned your awareness to this aspect of your experience, how often you can make this choice in very meaningful contexts.

How often have you blamed [explicitly or implicitly, subtly or obviously] your lover, friend, husband, wife, mom or dad, when something did not go the way you wanted it to? How much has your intimacy with them suffered as a result? How many times have you not achieved some outcome because you were righteously indignant with a service representative, rather than gracious?

The truth is that most of us are not even aware of the costs of our behavioral choices in intimacy and frustrated outcomes. The added stress and tension. The inflated ego and undermined self-esteem. Given that self-esteem has been called the immune system for life, it is worth caring for. Strengthening. Supporting.

Every moment we each have a choice: increase our awareness or decrease it. And once there we have another choice: take responsibility or blame. To regress or transcend.

What will you choose?

Have you ever noticed how some people’s perception of the world seems more accurate than others? How some people’s perception of you seems more accurate than others? Have you ever stepped out and noticed the degree of accuracy of your own perceptions?

Have you ever had the experience of badly misjudging someone’s motives, being, intentions, behaviors, or character—thereby noticing your own inaccuracy? How did you account for this discrepancy? Have you ever noticed that you are more accurate about some people than others and how some people or some people’s behaviors trigger you and other’s do not?

What would your life be like if you were freed from disproportionate emotional responses and you could see the pure and innocent core of others?

It is commonly known in the world of platform skills training that most feedback tells you far more about the giver of the feedback than the recipient. In other words, if I do something in the world, like give a talk, or write something such as this piece you are reading, or even simply tell a joke in a public a small percentage of the feedback I receive will be solid, objective feedback. A larger percentage will be a demonstration of the person’s level of development, prejudices, beliefs, and—at worst—unresolved emotional events form their past and their issues of esteem for themselves.

Why?

The Buddhists speak of using Vipassana meditation to “clear away the clouds so you can see the sun”. The sun is always there—as it is. But in your perception, it is grayed. It is blocked. It is obscured. The word “vipassana” actually means to clear things away to see them “as they are”. Not as you would have them be, believe them to be, or think they are—but as they are. There is this I.D.E.A. of cleansing your vision. Giving your Self clarity of vision. How is this possible? We are lead to believe in our world of post-modern philosophy that this is not possible. There is only our skewed subjective experience. Yet simultaneously, many of us seek out coaches, gurus, leaders, and friends who have this very clarity. They “see” things—accurately and clearly. And these people are widely respected, valued, and many acquire great wealth in the process. Be it wealth of spirit or community or material wealth—or all of the above.

How is this accomplished? How can we clear our vision such that we see things more accurately and can relate with others in a space of clarity and presence? To answer that we need to back up a bit…

The first step is noticing. Do I have a preconceived notion about the person/organization/community? Am I dealing with and relating to them right now? Or am I dealing with my internal representations of them? Have I verified my interpretations of them/it?

Do I have “disproportionate” emotional responses? Do I experience anger, guilt, shame, blame, fear to a degree that stops me from being fully self expressed in the natural disposition that the spiritual warriors of Shambhala teach, which is the natural disposition of pride, joy, and a general upright posture and attitude? Do the “little things” in life bother me? Do I judge others as bad and wrong rather than experiencing compassion and wisdom for them and if so, to what degree?

Disproportionate emotional responses typically have two sources: unresolved past experiences that we have coded as “negative” in our subjective experience. These may come in the form of parental “imprints” or they may come in the form of a “gestalt” of negative emotions rooted in our childhood when we did not have the wisdom to see the positive learning or meaning in the pain. Meaningless pain leads to misery and agony and creates a deep gouge in our emotional consciousness. This can be resolved with any number of technologies and turned into a gift.

Self-esteem is the other primary source of a disproportionate emotional response. Using the definition that self-esteem is the knowledge that you are competent to handle life’s challenges and the belief that you deserve to be happy [self efficacy and self-regard] then what happens when one has insufficient self-esteem in any given context? One responds with fear, uncertainty, and this can often appear as anger or some other disproportionate response. A person with high self-esteem can respond with graciousness, clarity, and ease. The higher degree of self-esteem one has, the more gracious one will be.

Unresolved events and disproportionate emotional responses can actually “color” or skew our vision—and actually alter our internal representations. We have all heard of the “green monster” of jealousy and “seeing red” when one is angry. An excellent example of this was a client I worked with had their visual sub-modalities colored as red in memories where anger was present beginning at an impact experience when they were 4 years old. In other words, when they visualized the events, there was a red tint to the image. Once we worked with the events using Time Line Therapy™, all of the events had lost the red tint and they were now seen in black and white.

Of course, even to get to a place where one would choose to clear their vision requires self-reflexive awareness and a certain degree of personal responsibility; it requires the ability to notice and assess one’s own behavior and an acceptance of the truth that we are all responsible for our own emotional life and a desire to evolve one’s self. This in and of itself is a monumental breakthrough for most who experience it. The next step is to take the necessary action to clear one’s past and begin to build a strong sense of self, a large component of which is healthy self-esteem, and then to begin to generate a new compelling future—one of your own design that will inspire, uplift, and draw one to new heights unburdened of the past habit patterns. From this place of freedom and generative creativity nothing is impossible.

It is your natural born right to live a joyous and free life full of love and happiness. All that stands in your way is a choice. The choice of course belongs to you.

What will you choose?