How many times in a day do we hear ourselves asking the question, “Why did I do that?” Well, definitely more than once. You know you should have showed up for that interview for that dream job of yours but you don’t; you ought to have kept clear of eating dessert at that party as you were on a fat-cutting diet but you don’t; and you should have just put one step forward to experience the taste of success, but you don’t. You are certain of what you should have done but defying all logic and reason, you end up self-sabotaging yourself and doing the exact opposite. Why? The answer is – your self-sabotage behavior. Self-sabotage refers to the process of going out of the way to hold back, prevent or limit yourself from achieving your goal due to unidentified fears, lack of self confidence and negative self image. Self-sabotage encompasses a combination of negative thoughts, feelings and actions that create a stumbling block to success by fighting against your own self interests.

Self-sabotage and the Subconscious

“Was that really me?” The truth is, it was YOU. The decision to self-sabotage yourself was and always is purely your own choice. You might be wondering how could you purposefully do harm to yourself or prevent yourself from getting what you want. Unfortunately, you can and the root cause of the problem lies within yourself, within your subconscious mind. To be precise, self-sabotage is the result of a mental tug-of-war between the conscious and the subconscious mind in which the subconscious mind always wins.

Imagine you have a found an exciting new business idea or have been assigned a challenging project. Initially you find yourself all enthusiastic about it and begin to work dedicatedly towards achieving it. In a few days, you find yourself losing interest in it for no particular reason, all the excitement and enthusiasm fading away and eventually you leave the project unfinished and sweep it beneath the carpet. Most of us have been here, haven’t we? Have you ever stopped to think why this happens to us? Well our subconscious mind is the culprit. Although our conscious mind wants us to stay positive and work towards achieving our goal, our subconscious mind which houses our fear of failure, lack of confidence and “Oh! I can never do this” attitude, ultimately triumphs. Your subconscious mind prompts you to withdraw your efforts and leaves you a failure. So from now on, it wouldn’t be wrong to say – you are what your subconscious mind is and you get what your subconscious mind desires. Hence the harmonious relationship between the conscious and the subconscious mind is key in eliminating self-sabotage. Next time you do something, make sure you want to do it and have complete faith in yourself. After all, you can only lie to others, not to yourself!

Some Common Reasons for Self-sabotage Behavior

1. Fear of Success – Your own past experiences or those of others condition your mind to behave in a particular manner. You may have seen near & dear ones of your friend turning hostile to him after he became successful or you may be afraid that once you succeed, people may begin to pin higher hopes on you and you may not be able to reach their expectations. These experiences and thoughts linger in your mind and become part of your subconscious mind which then associates success with fear or pain. Hence every time you get close to achieving success, your subconscious mind will trigger your self-sabotage behavior and you end up losing.

2. Low Self-worth – You firmly believe yourself to be unworthy of success, achievement, relationships or money, i.e. you feel you do not deserve to have any of the good things in life. This low self-worth stems from your low self-esteem and poor self-image and ends up destroying you.

3. Lack of Self-confidence – You do not have faith in your own abilities and you feel your goals are unrealistic. Your characteristic way of reacting to any challenging situation is “I can’t” and your negative self will always whisper in your ears “This is complicated, back off.

4. Denying the Real you – This behavior manifests itself in the form of a “just-to-please yes” when you actually mean to say “no I don’t want to.” Every time you do something you really don’t want or like to do, you are denying your true spirit, sabotaging your desires and your right to live life the way you want it to be.

Tips to Overcome Self-sabotage

1. Identify and Accept your self-sabotaging behaviors – Some people may show self-sabotaging behaviors when it comes to success, some with money and some others with relationships. Realizing and knowing the areas where you sabotage yourself and learning to accept them are the most important stages in the first step to overcoming self-sabotaging behaviors.

2. Stop making excuses and Take responsibility – Stop blaming others or your destiny for all the things that go wrong in your life. You should understand that only you are responsible for your failure and only you are the one in power to change it.

3. Positive Visualization and Self-talk – Once you have taken responsibility and made plans to change, put your plans into action. In order to change yourself, you should change your self-image. Positive visualization is a method of creating vivid mental images of already having achieved what you really want and experiencing its pleasure. You should consciously allow your mind to visualize this image several times a day and soon you will find yourself believing in it and making efforts to make it happen.

Your mind constantly talks to you and most of the time the communication is negative and scares you away from your goals. Make an effort to listen to your inner communication and replace every negative word, phrase or thought with a positive one. Gradually you will find a tremendous change in yourself and you will emerge a more confident, capable and worthy individual.

4. Ask for Help – If you feel you are unable to get rid of your self-sabotaging behavior all by yourself, ask for help. Join a support group where your friends will constantly reassure your efforts and make sure you are on the right track. If your self-sabotaging behavior goes way beyond your control and you begin to have suicidal tendencies, be wise, turn around and seek the help of a professional therapist or a doctor. They have the skills and expertise to take you through procedures like hypnosis and dialectical behavior therapy in order to read your subconscious mind, find your sabotaging behavior and its reasons and advice remedial measures to overcome it.

As a closing note, a point that repeatedly needs mention is – “always choose what you want and what you believe” and dedicatedly work towards achieving it. By now, you all must know that nothing can stop you, not even your own self, if YOU decide so!

Related posts:

1. Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny
2. Zen Proverbs, Koans and viral codes of the mind
3. Striptease of the mind: A peep into your naked self

I often get back & make reference to Ekhart Tolle’s works in my article. No doubt that his books, mainly “the Power of Now” and “A new Earth”, have been deeply influential as I’m sure they were with most people who have read them. Tolle’s commentary on the deeper spiritual side of humanity is somehow profoundly revelatory and awakens a lot of your spiritual self, as I guess it’s meant to do.

Central to Tolle’s teachings is the notion of being. I would be rather pretentious if I’d expect to convey the concept in one humble post so I will not try. I will however try to make some simple points.

To start with, your being is different than your doing. So far this is linguistically self-evident but not obvious to us all the time. Many times we identify ourselves with our doing – our actions, achievements & failures. Our doing is however transient, only meaningful in a very narrow situation. What we did yesterday may not be relevant today. Our being however is always the same. It doesn’t change. You just are. It’s simple, profound yet elusive.

Our being is not our distorted self-image – our physical countenance, our life history, our socially formed beliefs, our wants or needs. Our being is that deep underlying essence which is not separate from other things around you or in the universe. It is one and the same with all things. Some people call it the inner self, some call it the Tao or God, the pervasive spirit underlying all existence including your own.

Our sense of separateness is a mind created illusion of the ego. The ego, in Tolle’s words, is trapped life energy which is cut off from the energy flow of being. It has a seemingly life of its own and can be self-destructive by feeding on pain, drama, suffering and fear. Collectively it causes the insanity we all witness around us –alienation, war, anger, disenchantment, hysteria and the whole shebang.

The egoic self-centric mind is responsible for much of our created suffering and self-deceit. It makes us feel separate from others and the rest of nature (and this is the arrogant starting point in many religious doctrines). It makes us feel that others are a threat and that the world is a hostile place. It forces us into undesirable behavior – reacting to others’ words or actions, by competing, being envious or judgmental and feeling threatened by others’ successes. On a different level it makes us attach ourselves to certain beliefs and objects of the mind. It makes us react by creating drama if we feel others are a threat to those attachments (think about religious fundamentalists in the past and present killing other humans in the name of God or their ideologies). This is the insanity created by the egoic mind and we are in it to the chin.

Our Being is the extreme opposite of that. It is light and free of any drama, attachments or needs. The being doesn’t react. It doesn’t need to. It just is. We have a glimpse of it in moments of deep calm and peace when we feel grounded and unshaken by happenings around us. We feel a deep sense of joy. It is a moment in time when our ego subsides and goes temporarily dormant. In that moment we are free from desires – momentarily free from that endless cycle of desiring and dissatisfaction – that eternal sense of never reaching your goal but always expecting it round the corner. Some people call this moment “at peace with oneself” or “communion with God” and some spiritual traditions have the objective of reaching this state through meditation and practicing the mind.

Whatever it’s called makes no difference because unlike the ego, labeling is irrelevant for Being. We can access Being sometimes. As I said, I believe this is the objective of some meditative practices. The reason why is simple to see. Meditation quiets the mind from chatter and inner commentary. When the mind becomes still and focused it becomes an entry point to that deep underlying calm called being. If you connect with it often, even for just a few seconds, you are reconnecting yourself with life’s creative energies. Life will start flowing through you. You will feel lighter, happier, more creative and your life will gain deeper meaning. This is not wishy washy talk. This is the long forgotten root of most religions and spiritual traditions.

If we had to embrace our lightness of being and make it our life strategy, the effect would be immense on an individual level. On a collective level I guess it would be the proverbial heaven on earth.

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“The secret of life is to die before you die and find that there is no death.” Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now

That’s one hell of a powerful quote don’t you think? but what on earth does it mean? How can you die before you die? and how can dying paradoxically be the secret of life?

Well it’s only in the second ‘die’ that Tolle refers to physical death. The first ‘die’ actually refers to the death of our identification with mind.

Throughout our lives since we are very young we form a self-identity. This is who we think we are which is partly based on our experiences and partly formed by our social environment – that is how people see us and interact with us.

We have a nexus of ‘evidence’ – images, memories, impressions, beliefs – that make up the mental profile we have of ourselves. A cumulative life-history that gives us a sense of self. It’s a long list full of “I am this, I know that, I have this, I love this, and I wish that”.  I think you get the idea.

We attach these things to our own self. That is to say we identify ourselves with them. In other words, we identify ourselves with external things or partial and fleeting perceptions we have about our world and how we feel about it.

We don’t do this intentionally or with purpose. It is a default ‘program’ of the mind to make associations between things, identify fixed points of reference and make sense of reality by categorizing things and experiences.

There is no fault as such in this. The problem comes when that program completely runs your life unconsciously. This means that you are not conscious of the fact that you can be different or more than that image or identity you have of yourself.

You run the risk of attaching yourself to a false identity. This is what some spiritual traditions call the illusion of mind and of the self. You become completely entrapped in that reality like there is nothing more outside of it.

The essence of the problem is that because you identify yourself with certain beliefs, ideas or external things you strongly believe that if you lose them you will lose who you are (this is why we react badly when we feel that one of those things – like our beliefs – are being challenged or threatened). Or else that in order to be more complete you need to get more of those things like possession, social status, recognition, knowledge, special abilities, relationships and what have you.

The truth is that none of these will actually bring completion. When you get them you realize that you’re still not there and you search for more down a bottomless pit. It brings eternal dissatisfaction which no self-gratification can relinquish.

Death, according to Tolle, is the stripping away of all that is not you. It is the stripping away of those beliefs encoded by society, those fears, those assumptions, those half-baked truths that become your internal reality after many years. Death is when that bubble bursts and you see yourself as you truly are. You understand that you are much more than you thought.

This brings us back to the quote. To die before you die is a way of saying that you strip off those illusions before you physically die and realize that there is no death for you are more than your physical embodiment and those limited perceptions you identify yourself with.

To die before you die is realizing that you are not what you possess or achieved or your inclinations and dispositions. It’s understanding that your being is much more than your having or your doing. It’s peeping in your naked true and authentic self and being more alive than you can ever be.

Related posts:

1. Developing Awareness – Part 2
2. Zen Proverbs, Koans and viral codes of the mind
3. Self-Sabotage & the Subconscious Mind:Overcoming self-sabotaging behavior

Innovation is one hell of a hot buzz word these days. Everyday we  hear a lot of talk about technological, social or business  innovation. There is this felt need of innovating our social and  organizational practices together with our technology and business  processes so as to meet the demands of a fast-changing world. Not  less pressing is the continuous struggle to narrow the void of an  increasingly uncertain future.

Innovation is really about changing and tweaking something to make  it behave or work in a different new way. It involves the input of  creative thinking since it’s about looking at old things in new  perspectives. It requires getting out of the old mold and break  patterns of habitual thinking so as to reveal a fresh new outlook  on everyday things.

Sometimes we are stuck into looking at something in a set way. It  can be the way we go about a particular task or problem. It  becomes a ‘given’ that we unquestionably assume it’s just the way  things are. A fresh new perspective can give it a whole new  meaning and to our own amazement we realize there is a better way of dealing with it we never imagined could be possible.

Yet we always tend to think about innovation in terms of changing  something in the world around us. How about innovating ourselves?  Would that be a teasing thought? I think so.

I have a gut feeling that women can be more receptive to this. The  reason is that women tend to have more self-motivation to go  through regular ‘make-overs’ like changing their hairstyle and general look, revamp their wardrobe, re-decorate their living space and re-design other things in their immediate physical and social environment. On the other hand we men tend to go through such ‘make-overs’ as frequent as celestial alignments of an inter-galactic scale.

Truth being said, it however remains doubtful whether change in appearance can count as genuine innovation – although it’s a start nonetheless.

Here are a few of my own ideas on how we can truly innovate ourselves and keep a fresh stand on our ever-changing lives.

1. Observe and be conscious of recurring patterns of behavior that have been with you since you were a child. Lately I’m getting  more conscious of this. Did you ever notice that there are some traits, like a behavioral response to a situation or a mental predisposition that could be traced back many years as long as you can remember? The weary side of it is that there are many patterns of behavior which determine us throughout our life – most of which unconsciously. The upside is that you can be conscious of them if  you will and reprogram them. Easy said but doable nonetheless. Awareness is the first and greatest step forward.

2. Embrace the habit of change and novelty. Fear of change is the greatest inhibitor of any form of innovation. Fear causes resistance and immobilization. Install the habit of changing minor patterns first. As an example I was walking down a favorite walking path in the countryside a few weekends ago which I have been going to occassionally for some years. Upon entering the usual path, a spontaneous idea sparked of taking the other path at the bifurcation – something I never really done before out of  habit. This is a small pattern change. Habit will lead you to bigger and bigger ones such as the ones in the previous point.

3. Play with the idea of innovating  yourself. How would you like yourself to be? More creative? Young spirited? a better communicator? a tech-savvy, trend-conscious forward-thinker?

4. Let the idea of a new you sink in. This is what many refer to as an ‘incubation’ process where the seed of a new idea starts forming. An other way of saying to give some time and space for the idea to settle in.

5. Start considering new ways of thinking. Before taking a decision, think of whether you were following old patterns of thought. Here is one method from Edward De Bono. The method is called APC (alternative, possibilities, choices). It’s basically a brainstorming exercise where you look at a given issue or problem and start spooling out different alternatives, possibilities (even crazy ones) and eventually considering different choices. May sound foolishly simple but an effective method for directing our minds ‘outside of the box’.

6. It’s not whether others see you differently but whether YOU see yourself differently. And this points at why changing your wardrobe might not result in innovating yourself. Others might see a ‘new you’ but do you? or do you see yourself in the same way? And this takes us to the next point.

7. Start talking to yourself differently. In previous posts I have frequently made reference to positive self-talk as an effective self-development tool. It comes in very handy in this context too. If you haven’t yet noticed (quite unlikely) you talk to yourself all the time. There is that internal commentary ‘in your head’ that never shuts up. Yet the language and metaphors we sometimes use can determine whether we build up the right attitude to succeed in something or sabotage ourselves in defeat and surrender. If our ‘self-talk’ contributes a lot to our self-image, then changing the way we talk to ourselves means changing our self-image, hence ultimately innovating ourselves. Can you think of ways to talk differently to yourself? I might come up with a future post on this.

8. Use your internal resources creatively. We all have something we are good at. Something which makes us stand out even if not in the most obvious or conspicuous ways. It might be that you are good at seeing the big picture or spot the slightest detail. It might be you can catch a new language very quickly or have good interpersonal skills. You might be a good organizer or a group motivator. Whatever it is that shines in you, try to nurture it more and start using it for something outside the habitual parameters. Expand it and use it creatively.

9. Focus your energies on the future not the past. Innovative people don’t stick around much in the past. They prefer keeping their eye on the future – in particular anticipating the future through innovating something in the present. We often tie ourselves and our self-image to our past. We tag our identity to our life history – the story of ourselves. To innovate yourself you need to project yourself forward and place yourself where you want to be in the future with enthusiasm and positive expectations.

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What is it with Zen proverbs really? Or even more so – Koans? Dry, cryptic, mind-bending and thought provoking up to the point of sounding perfectly nonsensical! Why do they fascinate us so much yet we love to hate them and shrug them off as some eastern-mystical hogwash? Think of the classical Koan: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Interestingly they have found their way in western pop-culture probably starting through the 50′s beat generation and then mostly seeping in with other eastern-inspired notions and ideas in the 60′s counter-culture (That time Zen started being introduced in America through a handful of masters and Gurus from the East who established schools and retreats).

We have romanticized the idea of Zen sayings and rendered them iconic in movies – stereotypically as some long-bearded old Asian sage inciting timeless words of wisdom to his now-ready student or disciple. Karate kid comes in mind since there is now on the screens the 2010 version of Karate kid with Jackie Chan – an all family fun movie which I’d probably love to watch.

Anyway, whether we have installed them as some background furniture in our western pop culture or not, the fact remains that old zen sayings,proverbs or Koans are not digested quite easily by the western mind. The famous depth-psychologist Carl Jung would have probably explained this as a deep-rooted difference between the western and eastern psyche – the western one being and extrovert and outward looking while the eastern one being more introvert and inward seeking. I think this is probably right on many counts.

Zen proverbs, but to a larger degree Koans, are in a way intended to hack the mind and puncture a hole through its veil of reality. It is meant to invoke a sudden moment of clarity and the grasping of certain inner truths (hence why it comes more easy to introverted characters).  The short cryptic message is a code that like a virus is meant to shock the sytem. It is meant to be the Neo in the matrix so to speak – the code in the matrix that awakens itself and the whole system.

Zen masters usually hand down a Koan to their students for them to come up with an answer if they’re ready. The point is that a Koan cannot be cracked open by analyzing it rationally for it doesn’t make any rational sense. It is meant to bypass the student’s rational mind  and keep sinking down through deeper layers of his or her subconscious where it is ‘worked upon’ in an intuitive and synthetic way rather than in an analytical way. The idea is implanted deep inside the student’s subconscious where it remains there like a key swimming inside the mind until it finds the right lock to open. Then zap! – awakening!

I find this as a curious way of looking at it but yet again it’s probably me, a western mind, trying to make sense of it by using metaphors and points of reference embedded in our own western culture. Maybe so but what the heck? In the meantime I’ll leave you to enjoy some nice (and not so cryptic) Zen proverbs in the slideshow above.

Related posts:

1. Self-Sabotage & the Subconscious Mind:Overcoming self-sabotaging behavior
2. Striptease of the mind: A peep into your naked self

When we’re self-aware, often it’s because we’re allowing negative thoughts to influence the way we perceive ourselves. For example, you’re self-aware when you’re at work and realize that you’ve left your cell phone on the kitchen table. But for most people, what results from that self-awareness is a string of negative self-talk that seems to come out of nowhere, berating you for being forgetful and careless. That’s not the kind of self-awareness that contributes to success, happiness, or a sense of inner peace. However, you can prevent this kind of negative self-talk: not by ceasing to make mistakes, but by increasing your sense of positive self-awareness. Once you accept your humanity and learn to appreciate its qualities in your mind, body, and spirit, you’ll be less likely to experience subconscious attacks on your mood.

Becoming Aware of You

Everyone has positive and negative attributes, but for now, it will be most helpful to focus on the positive. Think back through your personal and professional experiences and try to remember whether or not anyone has ever written you a recommendation letter. Many people have them from at least one point in life when it was necessary to have another person list their positive attributes. If you can find any of these, read through them and get an idea of what people really notice about you. You should be able to pull out several key elements of your personality, work ethic, attitude, abilities, and skill sets that can serve as a starting place to define yourself in a positive way.

If you can’t find any recommendation letters, try birthday cards, personal letters, e-mails, social media pages, and anywhere else you might find a kind and sincere word from a friend or colleague. This is a great way to build up your self-confidence, which will be helpful in becoming self-aware.

Liking What You See

Once you have enough material to inspire you, start writing down your positive attributes. It doesn’t matter how generic they are because you can always get more specific, so you can start with words like “kind” and “friendly” if you need to. Spend enough time on this to write a full page of your best qualities, then get to know yourself. You might be surprised at how much you didn’t know or didn’t acknowledge about the way you improve the world around you. Work toward reaching a deeper level of consciousness, trying to determine how you really perceive yourself. Try to build that image into a more positive one that reflects your best qualities instead of projecting external frustrations onto your inner self.

Staying Empowered

In addition to remembering that you have so many good qualities, there are several things you can do to maintain positive self-awareness.

1. List your good and bad habits. Acknowledging the fact that you have positive habitual behaviors can improve the quality of your self-awareness, and when you take the initiative to change any bad habits, this is also empowering. When you can prove to yourself that your impact on the world is positive, your self-awareness will benefit.

2. Take good care of yourself. If actions speak louder than words, the way you treat yourself is the biggest indicator of your self-awareness. Do what’s right for your mind, body, and spirit by eating well, exercising, and engaging in reflection or meditation.

3. Stay out of ruts by trying new things. If you view yourself as a dynamic person, you’re more likely to maintain self-awareness, so learn something new every day, try different foods, engage in a new sport or outdoor activity, or change your surroundings.

4. Find some mentors. It’s easy to identify people with positive self-awareness, so spend time with them and learn from the way they live. Watch for people who are honest, truthful, patient, sensitive, and open-minded. When you’re around people with positive self-awareness, you’ll benefit from their company and be less likely to experience negativity yourself and in others.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Related posts:

1. Developing Awareness – Part 1
2. Developing Awareness – Part 2

I was re-reading a passage from “A complete idiot’s guide to Zen living” by Gary McClain and Eve Adamson when I was struck anew by a very simple concept (don’t be misled by the title – it’s an excellent book for both newbies or otherwise and it’s a reference guide I regularly come back to).

The idea was posed in a very simple question which read: If you were to write an autobiography what would you start the first chapter with? Is it going to be something along the lines – “Someday I’m going to be….” or something like “Today I lived…”?

The question is raw and simple as it can get yet it’s profoundly intriguing. The answer defines whether you are living in an illusory self-definition of  yourself or one in which the concept you have of yourself truly reflects who you are.

Bang! It zapped me right between the eyes. It very much points at one of my failings and shortcomings. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating on my chest in guilt, but I do have to admit that I sometimes conceive of myself in terms of what I want to be or achieve rather than what I am doing at the moment. I envision myself by means of my potential self and not my actual self.

Did this ever occur to you? We are all driven by some goal or mission that we want to reach in life be that having a successful career, being leaders in a particular field, having a life full of rich experiences and inspirations and so on. And yes, we all day dream about it with our mind floating away into some imaginary future episode of our lives where everything is as we think it should be.

We project this future autobiography in our heads. We design the plot, characters and scene settings down to the slightest details and enthrall ourselves in this self-created fantasy minutes or even hours at a time only to have our playback paused or interrupted only by someone or something.
Isn’t this normal and kind of OK? don’t we all do that? Don’t we all have aspirations and dreams about how we want ourselves to be in future? Aren’t goals and visions of my self in the future necessary to make me thrive forward?

Yes and no. Yes goals are important and so is visualizing yourself having or living those particular goals but identifying yourself with what you want to be rather than what you are, presents a series of problems which are not apparent at first.  Here are a few:

1. It diverts your attention, energy & focus from the present - the only time you can act to change your future.

2. It gives a false self-identity based on mental clippings and cuttings of your imagination rather than a faithful self-portrait of the present self

3. It undermines your current efforts. By attaching yourself to an autobiography based on your imagined future self (me as a social entrepreneur – me as a Yoga school owner, etc), you might find it hard to appreciate the small steps you are taking NOW in the present. This is because everytime you succeed in making a small step you see it as insignificant because in your head it still feels a long way from the destination. This deflates your efforts and demotivates you.

I often fall prey to all the three problems listed above.The first point is pretty clear to most of us (especially those with good background reading in personal development).

We spend a lot of our waking time wishing and daydreaming about that time and place we want to reach in our life and in so doing we do not realize that we are stealing away that very scarce and precious time we have to act and make things happen. That time is now in the present.

Here is a quote from Zen and the beat way, by Alan Watts:

“The concept of time is one of the great ways in which we are fooled. We believe that the past and the future are, as it were, more solid and of longer duration than our present…We live in a sort of hourglass with a big bulb at one end (the past) and a big bulb at the other end (the future); we are at the little neck in between, and we have no time. Whereas when our vision becomes changed, we see that…we have in, in fact, an enormous present in which we live and that the purely abstract borders of this present are the past and future.”

The second problem is more subtle and slippery. This is because it is not immediately obvious why it is a bad thing to have a ‘pimped up’ self-image. In fact a lot of self-help books would tell you that your self-image is the blueprint of success. A strong self-image gives you confidence in your actions. This is true on many counts. But what the self-help advice is saying is that actually one should have a solid and undistorted image of oneself rather than one which is skewed because a) it either is negative or underestimated (hence the cause of lack of confidence) or b) that it is based on some idea we have about what is perfect or not.

The latter is the root of our illusion with ourselves and it is a theme which has been addressed many times in zen philosophy. So yes, it is good to have clear goals of where you want to be but to have an image of yourself which does not reflect where you are now can cause dissilusionment, frustrastion, dissatisfaction and will make you give up. Besides, we can very easily attach ourselves to an idea of what we ought to be or achieve which is not fully authentic but influenced by peers or social values at large.(think of advertising)

The last point is one which I believe to be the major cause of my quitting certain side projects. It is what I call ‘the commensuration problem’. If you have a goal and a hundred or so steps along the way (which require work and perseverance in different degrees), the evaluation of each goal has to be commensurate with the level of progress you are achieving and not the finishing line or the end goal. That is to say that whenever you progress a tiny bit forward you don’t each and every time cross-check it with how many more steps are still needed to achieve the goal but with how much you moved forward from your starting line.

Well this is another way of saying that you should focus on how much the cup filled up and not how much left there is for it to be full.

When we look at ourselves and see what we want to achieve rather than simply and honestly what we are (and trust yourself you are just perfect the way you are) we tend to fall very easily for this ‘commensuration problem’. We tend to think “Hey where did this task get me?…What? am I still at this stage? It’s hillarious, I should be there already by now! (In fact I am there already in my head). Gosh this is getting tiring! It’s such a long way till there!”.

You get the point. This is one danger of writing your ‘future autobiography’ in your head rather than your present and actual one.

With this thought in mind I think I will allocate some time to ponder about this. I would love to rewrite my autobiography and yes, feel confident and serene about what I am doing write now, like writing this article, having fun with my wife and daughter, enjoying summer and working hard to follow my dreams. I think this is a good start for a first chapter.

What about you? I would love to hear what you think.

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Most of us, myself included, grew up with the notion of our bodies as  bio-physical machines that no matter how astoundingly beautiful,intricate and complex, they are in the end merely physiological.Nothing more, nothing less.

I had this general assumption challenged when I read Eugene T. Gendlin’s book called ‘Focusing’ a couple of years ago.

Gendlin considers the body to be intrinsically linked to the person as a whole and not just a separate physical system that answers to the brain’s command.He however keeps his literature free from metaphysical notions such as mind, consciousness and spirit.

The idea behind Gendlin’s concept of focusing is not novel per se. It intersects with several other key ideas from ancient philosophies such as the practice of mindfulness meditation. The difference is that he offers a series of simple practical steps to develop awareness of our inner bodily sensations and use this ‘felt sense’ to listen to the wisdom of our bodies through what he calls the six focusing movements.

In essence, the focusing method is a way to use awareness of inner bodily sensations as an entry point to an inner mental space. So far this is perfectly the same methodology as mindfulness meditation – using inner awareness as a way to get into the ‘gap’ between our thoughts and, to use Eckhart Tolle’s words, access an undercurrent of stillness beneath our frenetic stream of conscious jitter. This is the first of the six focusing movements, Gendlin calls ‘clearing a space’.

The way that focusing parts away from meditation and mindfulness techniques is its application. Focusing uses the awareness of inner bodily feelings, usually in the stomach,chest or throat areas, in relation with a problem or an issue.

So for example, I might be having a creative block due to stress at work and I might use focusing techniques to ‘reach into’ the ‘felt sense’ (say a tight constriction in my stomach). The technique also involves staying with the felt sense for a while and using a ‘friendly nonjudgmental approach’ to get a deeper insight of my subconscious causes of the creative block.

This gets us to another two steps which are ‘asking’ and ‘receiving’. It may sound funny, weird or counter intuitive but the technique actually involves communicating with the felt sense as if you were talking to a friend. It is at this point that one may reach a state of ‘receptive awareness’. Images, words,voices or ideas might emerge that gives us intuitive solutions or answers to a problem and this may direct us into shifting our way of seeing a particular thing or problem.

My opinion about Gendlin’s concept of focusing is that it is a cross-breed between mindfulness meditation (since it involves developing our inner awareness) and creativity stimulation (problem-solving through accessing our intuitive domain). More than that it uses our own bodies as a medium.

If you want to have a go at it I am listing 12 easy steps for practicing focusing:

Note: These practical steps are taken from an article in WikiHow under creative commons license.

1.Say Hello

Find a comfortable position… Relax and close your eyes… Take a few deep breaths… and when you’re ready just ask, “How am I inside right now?” Don’t answer. Give an answer time to form in your body… Turn your attention like a searchlight into your inside feeling place and just greet whatever you find there. Practice taking a friendly attitude toward whatever is there. Just listen to your organism.

2.Begin to describe something

Now something is here. You can sense it somewhere. Take some time now to notice just where it is in your body. Notice if it would feel right to begin to describe it, as simply as you might tell another person what you are aware of. You can use words, images, gestures, metaphors, whatever fits, captures, expresses somehow the quality of this whole thing. And when you’ve described it a bit, take some time to notice how your body responds to that. It’s like you’re checking the description with the body feeling, saying “Does this fit you well?”

3.Pick a problem

Feel yourself magnetically pulled toward the one thing in your stack that most needs your attention right now. If you have any trouble letting it choose you, ask, “What is worst?” (or “What’s best?” ?– good feelings can be worked with too!). “What most needs some work right now? “What won’t let go of me?” Pick one thing.

4.Let the felt sense form

Ask “What does this whole thing feel like?”. “What is the whole feel of it?” Don’t answer with what you already know about it. Listen to your body. Sense the issue freshly. Give your body 30 seconds to a minute for the feel of “all of that” to form.

5.Find the handle

Find a word, phrase, image, sound or gesture that feels like it matches, comes from, or will act as a ‘handle’ on the felt sense, the whole feel of it. Keep your attention on the area in your body where you feel it, and just let a word, phrase, image, sound or gesture appear that feels like a good fit.

6.Resonating the handle

Say the word, phrase, image, sound or gesture back to yourself. Check it against your body. See if there is a sense of “rightness,” an inner “yes, that’s it”. If there isn’t, gently let go of that handle and let one that fits better appear.

7.Ask & Receive

Now we are going to ask the felt sense some questions. Some it will answer, some it won’t. Receive whatever answers it gives.

Ask the questions with an expectantly friendly attitude and be receptive to whatever it sends you.

Ask “What’s the crux of this feeling?” “What’s the main thing about it?” Don’t answer with your head; let the body feeling answer. Now, breathe that answer out.

And ask, “What’s wrong?” Imagine the felt sense as a shy child sitting on a stoop. It needs caring encouragement to speak. Go over to it, sit down, and gently ask, “What’s wrong?” Wait. Now, breathe that answer out.

And ask, “What’s the worst of this feeling?” “What makes it so bad?” Wait… Now, breathe that answer out of your system.

And ask, “What does this feeling need?” Wait… Now, breathe that answer out.

And now ask, “What is a good small step in the right direction for this thing?” “What is a step in the direction of fresh air?” Wait. Now, breathe that answer out.
Ask, “What needs to happen?” “What actions need to be taken?” Wait. Now, breathe that answer out.
And now ask, “What would my body feel like if this thing were all better, all resolved?” Move your body into the position or posture it would be in if this were all cleared up. This is called looking the answer up in the back of the book. Now, from this position, ask, “What’s between me and here?” “What’s in the way of it being all OK?” Wait. Now, breathe that answer out.
Finally, ask your felt sense space to send you the exactly right question you need at this moment. Now ask the felt sense that question. Don’t answer with your head. Just hang out with the felt sense, keep it company, let it respond. Wait. Now, breathe that answer out.

8.Sense for a stopping place

Take some time to sense inside if it is OK to end in a few minutes or if there something more that needs to be known first. If something more comes then take some time to acknowledge that.

9.Receive and experience what has changed

Take some time to sense any changes that have happened in your body, especially anything which feels more open or released. This is sometimes called a ‘shift’.

10.Let it know you’re willing to come back

You might want to say to It “I’m willing to come back if you need me.”

11.Thank

And you might want to thank what has come, and appreciate your body’s process.

12.Bring awareness out

Take some time to bring your awareness slowly outward again, feeling your hands and feet, being aware of the room and letting your eyes come naturally open.

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At 36 years of age I am considered to be relatively young…at least by all those belonging to higher age groups than mine. Being in your mid-thirties is a curious thing. It’s like being in a passage way, a midway stage that does not belong anywhere in particular.

You haven’t yet reached that maturation peak in your life and yet you are irreversibly not young anymore, only perhaps youngish depending on perspective. In any case I feel I have somehow switched lanes from one ‘life-stream’ to another.

Let’s be clear, we feel change throughout life all the time as we go through different stages of development and experiences. Yet there are milestones in life in which the change is more meaningful and in a way you are more mindful and conscious of that change.

I used to think that maturity is very relative in the sense that some people can be more mature than others even though they are younger, hence pointing at the fact that age is only a correlated but not necessary cause for maturity. life experiences and character dispositions are the real factors.

I have come to suspect that this is not entirely true. In a way I started believing that even though maturity is more or less relative, there are certain points in life in which your consciousness changes and this happens by time. Hence time is still an important factor.What I am trying to say is that maturity and change in consciousness are influenced mostly by experiential time but also influenced by our biological time. The former is relative the second is more or less standard with little variations.

I feel going through a point in life where I am more conscious of meaningful changes in life. This is driven by my experiential time but determined by my biological time. looking back I have come to identify 5 major changes that characterize my maturity.

Appreciation and gratefulness

Life teaches us time and time again to take things less for granted. Taking things for granted means, amongst other things, that we haven’t come to appreciate the impermanence of life and things around us. It means that our worldview is very static and inflexible and it is not refreshed very often  – meaning that it is not very well equiped for life’s fluctuations.

The more the idea of impermanence sinks in my reality the more I appreciate and am grateful to anything happening around me. It could be just the early morning lights or a short family gathering. It started feeling as if there is no guarantee that any experience is repeatable and in many ways this is true.

Hence moments are more precious now. Sometimes it feels a little bit like that cancer patient living on borrowed time. Every morning is a lottery win.

Seeing my reflection in others

I very often used to see the negative side of others – hypocrisy, bigotry, ignorance,etc. Not just individually but also collectively such as the cultural trait in certain people. sometimes I couldn’t get past it and see beyond it and I have to admit I still struggle with it sometimes. I have realized that this was very often the cause of bitterness and anger.

Not so long time ago I came across a quote of Carl Jung (incidentally one of my greatest influences) that said “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves” and that struck me hard and fast. I immediately realized what it meant. What was bothering me in others was not as such their behaviour or character trait but the reflection of that trait still lingering somewhere in me!

Listen more, debate less

I used to strongly debate and argue my opinions in discussions where that opinion was either challenged or criticized. Of course this is not a bad thing in itself unless it does not get out of hand and I still love a good debate once in a while. But hotly argued debates can make you lose sight of the reason why you have an opinion in the first place…that you are an inquisitive mind interacting with a world of knowledge, learning, sharing, forming opinions and even changing them as you learn more.

It serves no purpose to fortress your opinions and belch fire when others present contrary opinions. It serves a lot to listen to the others’ arguments, reason & evaluate things out, filter noise and accept other’s complimentary perspectives and ideas because as I mentioned it will reinforce the purpose of  why you have an opinionated mind.

Accept more

Acceptance is not a privilege of holy men. We all have the capacity to accept things for what they are. To accept things as they are does not mean that you settle for a status quo in life and never let change happen. On the contrary, accepting means having a grounded heart in the midst of change and impermanence. It means taking a smooth ride on the wave of natural changes in life without anxiety, remorse, attachment, negative reactions and denial.

To accept is to open the door to life, the universe and everything

Focusing more on actions rather than outcomes

When I look back I realize that I used to have my actions immobilized because I used to lock my mind on the outcome rather than on the actions or steps I am taking now to reach that outcome. This used to make me frustrated and give up easily because whenever one of the steps didn’t turn out as expected I used to see the end objective dissolving further out in time  instead of just focusing on that action and trying it out again until I succeed.

This is a cornerstone of successful action.

The balance between heart and mind

As we grow our souls  journey through a long and winding road sometimes going through labyrinths and roller coaster rides. Youth for instance is characterized by stormy and restless passages where the mind and heart are in constant conflict and antagonism.

I see wisdom as being the synchronization of the heart with our intellect. It is the passage in life in which there is the quieting of the storm, where the waves of interference between mind and heart flat out in a sea of calm and transparency.

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