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Ways to Leave

Your Karma

50

Freedom, Fear and the Art of Getting Unstuck

By Eric Klein

2011 by Eric Klein. All rights reserved. Help your friends leave their karma Send them to www.wisdomheart.org/50ways so they can get this e-book. Go deeper Get more teachings and practices at www.wisdomheart.org Facebook Wisdom Heart http://tinyurl.com/3klmp3t Follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/ericklein Get in touch Feel free to write with any questions, comments, or suggestions. eric@wisdomheart.org Dharma Doodles for your home and office The art in this book is available as art prints and t-shirts at: www.dharmadoodles.com What are you doing this Sunday? If youre in the vicinity of Encinitas, California on Sunday, come to our Wisdom Heart Meditation. Learn more here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/programs/sunday-meditation/ Wisdom Heart 1455 Hymettus Ave Encinitas, CA 92024 USA Email: eric@wisdomheart.org Phone: 760-436-5535 Typo patrol Youre invited to join the typo patrol. If you find spelling, syntax, punctuation mistakes in the text, tell us: eric@wisdomheart.org Each month we will select one member from the typo patrol to receive a special bonus.

Gratitude
To Goswami Kriyananda for transmitting the teachings. Big Dave Blair (Goswami Kripananda) for the first draft. To Devi for walking the Wisdom Heart path with me. To Jann for editing and more. To Lynn for years of graphic beauty. To Jess for behind-the-scenes grace. To my Brain TrustJenn, Mark, Michael, Michele, Molly for revealing the concealing. To all who have supported and shared this workmay we realize the blessing.

Whats karma and why does it matter?


I love rock gardens. So when a notice on Craigs List offered free rocks and boulders, I jumped at the chance. For two days I hauled rocks from an excavated site near my house with the help of three really strong guys. On our second trip, the truckladen with 3 tons of rockgot stuck in loose dirt around the excavated site. The driver gunned the engine to escapethrowing up clouds of dust and burying the tires deeper.

Sometimes life is like that.


Youve got a heavy problem. You want to move your life forward. All your efforts spin you deeper into an all-too-familiar rut. Theres an ancient Sanskrit word for the way you spin yourself into a rutkarma.

Karma isnt some mysterious energy or fate.


Its not a cosmic Santa Claus process for handing out rewards and punishments. Karma is action and its results. Karma is what you do in thought, speech, and action to generate your life experience. When youre spinning your wheels, cycling through the same problems in relationships, at work, with money, again and againthats karma in action. Your life is not happening to you any more than the loose dirt was forcing my truck to be stuck. Its a result of karma of your thoughts, speech, and action.

Imagine a friend comes to you all excited about her new relationship.
Shes glowing. Youre wary. Youve seen her like this before. Youve heard all the same words. And based on her history, youre pretty sure where this relationship is headed right into the same rut.

You can see the pattern of her karma.


You see the pattern of thought, speech, and action that keeps her spinning through repetitive relationship dramas. Its clear to you that her problem is karmica consequence of this signature pattern in intimate relationships. As long as she perpetuates it, shell continue to get the same resultsdrama, pain, breakup.

You can see her situation clearly; she cant.


Youre able to witness her pattern as it arises without believing this time it will be different. Not because youre psychic or cynical. But because you can see clearly with compassion and detachment. As a compassionate detached observer, you see her pattern as a pattern. Youre able to witness the karma as it arises without being swept into the drama, without buying into it. But your friend doesnt see her own karma. She doesnt witness it arising. She gets sucked in and experiences the same drama over and over again. To leave her karma, your friend needs to witness her own karmic patterns.

She needs to step out of her karmic patterns in order to generate new life experience.
But, how can she do this, when the sensations, emotions, and thoughts that are swirling through her body and mind all insistthis is the one. She needs to observe with compassion and detachment her own thoughts, words, and deeds as a pattern, and then see the connection between that pattern and failed romance. And she can. She just has to learn how. But, heres the rubthis isnt really about your friend.

This is about where your life is like my truckstuck in the sand.


Its about how your patterns of thought, speech, and action keep you stuck. Because theres some aspect of your life thats not working. Some part of your life where you spin through repetitive cycles of struggle and drama, where you need to leave your karma. Take a moment and reflect on that.

This book is about how to get un-stuck.


How you can get un-stuck from that pattern. And you can. But not when youre identified with your karma. Being identified with your karma means: Not witnessing your patterns as they arise Being swept up in repetitive thoughts and emotions Reacting in ways that perpetuate the experience of struggle. Whatever you identify withyou cant observe.

Un-observed patterns of thought, speech, and action continue to generate experiences without your conscious participation.
If you arent mindful of the connection between your pattern and its results, if you dont witness patterns with compassion and detachmentthe karma repeats. For example, if youre identified with the thought, Nothing comes easily for me, that unobserved thought will automatically generate experiences that reflect, verify, and reinforce the unobserved thought. When youre identified with your karma, the experience nothing coming easily continues to happen to you. When you observe your karma with compassion and detachment, you see how that thought propels your life experience, moment-by-moment. You witness this pattern as it arises with an open heart and clear mind.

Building your witnessing capacity is the key to getting unstuck.


This book provides you with 50 ways to do just that. These methods have been tested and refined for thousands of years by spiritual practitioners, yogis, and meditators from many wisdom traditions. Modern neuro-psychology is confirming a scientific basis for why these methods work. The bottom line: they work. Theyll work for you when you practice them. Then, when you find yourself spinning your wheels, you wont rev your karmic engines. Youll witness the patterns as they arise, and know what to do to free yourself and enrich your world.

Love and Blessings,

Does Your To-Do List Matter?


Theres so much to do. So many items on the ever expanding to-do list. How can you set priorities and focus on what matters most? How can you whittle the list down to the core so that your actions and choices align with your hearts deeper dream?

The wisdom traditions from around the world suggest using death as your advisor.
These traditions view the awareness of death, far from being a morbid preoccupation, as the light that illuminates the sacredness of this moment. I remember teaching a meditation retreat on Maui and waking each morning to the most amazing spider web bedecked in glistening drops of dew. Each drop sparkled like a jewel in the morning sun. The very sun that would cause each radiant drop to evaporate within the hour.
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Isnt every moment as amazing and radiant as a drop of dewand as fleeting?


Yes, theres a lot to do. And awareness of deathwhich is awareness of the sacredness of this momentclarifies the relative importance of the items on your to-do list. Awareness of death brings into sharp relief this moment-to-moment choice: will you devote yourself to what matters most or pour your life into busy-work? Fidelity to your hearts deepest dream isnt a matter of self-discipline or following a complicated task management system. Its more a practice of remembering that this life is jewel-like, radiant, and fleeting like the dew on a spiders web.

Try this alternative to a long and complicated to-do list.


Several times each day, pause and ask the question that poet Mary Oliver poses: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And, I would addAnd what is a simple, direct choice that will move you in that direction? Okay. Go do that.

How Success Limits You


When I was thirteen years old I learned to play blues riffs on the guitar. I practiced for hours until the patterns were ingrained into my fingers and I could play them effortlessly. Very cool.
It took practice, but now after decades of playing those same riffs, Im unconsciously competent. I can play those riffs in my sleep. And thats the problem. When I sit down, forty years later, to learn new riffsits really tough. My fingers dont easily cooperate. They automatically return those well-grooved patterns of notes.

Thats the problem with success.


I succeeded in learning a specific pattern of notes, which is wonderfulas long as the band keeps playing the blues. But when the music changes and my fingers dont adapt, no matter how masterfully I play those old blues riffsthey dont work. My well-grooved guitar habits are in the way of playing beautiful music. Its the same with any successful pattern of behavior.
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Youve reached your current level of success based on patterns of thought, speech, and action.
Youve mastered a pattern of mental, emotional, and physical riffs that are characteristic ofyou. You can play the riffs-of-you effortlessly. These are your karmic success habits. Youve practiced them for years and now they run on auto-pilot, which works welluntil it doesnt. When your automated patterns of thought, speech, and action no longer work, its a wake-up call. For most people, the wake-up call comes as unexpected failure: A presentation you make bombs. A conversation with a loved one turns sour. A project you developed falls flat. A skill that youve grown to rely on, no longer produces the same results. You dont plan on the wake-up call. The music of life around you changes and your tried and true riffs no longer work.

Its a shock.
Ive asked thousands of people what kind of emotions they experience when their welldeveloped patterns of success no longer serve them. Here are a few: Shock Disappointment Anxiety Fear Embarrassment Doubt Anger Shame

Its not the new skills or behaviors that are the challenge.
Its these surging emotions. They can easily overwhelm. And when they do, your awareness fragments, your flexibility and creativity evaporate, and your connection to those around you is broken. The key to growth is to maintain awarenessconsciousnesswhen these powerful emotions errupt. Because the tendency is to go unconscious and slip back into the patterns that you know so well. Its soothing to the nervous system to be back in the familiar routine. It feels safe.
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But retreating into karmic patterns, while temporarily soothing, only amps up the intensity of the wake-up call. As the disconnect between your outmoded patterns and the needs of the present situation growspainful emotions magnify. And your capacity to deal skilfully with the situation decreases. Better to face the difficult emotions sooner than later.

How do you faceand transform challenging emotions?


By understanding that their true message isntdanger, danger, danger. Itswake up, wake up, wake up. Every emotion is a wake-up call. Its a call for mindfulness and the need to infuse awareness into: Your inner experience The situation youre in

Theres a difference between awareness and emotion.


Emotions arise within awareness. Theyre objects of your awareness. Notice this and breathe. Awareness is the witness of emotions. Awareness isumsimply aware, even as emotions jump around. Keep breathing and be aware. Your breath is your greatest ally as you strengthen your capacity to be mindful, present, and awake in the presence of strong emotions. Breathe, not to make the emotions go away, but to rest in the distinction between emotion and awareness. Really feel the distinction. Awareness issimply aware. The emotions rise and fall. Developing your capacity to rest in awarenesswhile emotions move through your systemis the key to accelerated learning, growth, and development.

As your capacity to rest in awareness deepens, you can let every emotion be fully itself.
You dont have to manipulate or manage emotionsreactively pulling some towards you and pushing others away. You experience, breath-by-breath, that emotions cant threaten awareness. Rather, awareness provides the unshakeable context in which you can experience emotion completelywhile remaining fully present.

To the degree that you are fully present to emotions, they naturally come to rest.
When your fear button is triggered, you arent swept away in a tidal wave of emotions. You surf the wave of emotions with a sense of compassionate and detached awareness. And within that uncontrived field of awareness, emotion, like a wave in the ocean, completes itself. Through the power of awareness you can naturally replace outmoded habits with wiser and more skillful ways of interacting with others and contributing to the world.

Its not that youre suddenly able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
That would be wishful thinkingnot mindful awareness. Rather bringing awareness to inner experience frees you from the confinement of success. Youre not limited by what youve mastered in the past. Through the power of awareness, you open to untapped inner resources and to the world around you. Youre able to listen and learn without defensiveness. To experiment with new ways of being.

Your focus shifts from defensiveness to discovery.


Youre not concerned with preserving your past as much as curious about whats possible. Soon, the very conditions that once threatened you and caused you to retreatbecome reminders to wake up, be aware, and explore. Then while you can still enjoy playing the blues, youre open to learning new riffsand jamming along with the radiant melodies, rhythms, and radiance of life.

Lean Into Your Discomfort


When I was six years old I loved Roy Rodgers. I wanted to be a cowboy. I longed to sleep out on the range. But I lived in a New York City apartment. So in lieu of nights under the stars, my mother let me set up a tent and camp out in the living room.

The hardwood living room floor was uncomfortable.


But that very uncomfortable-ness was satisfying. Whenever I felt my bones rubbing against the hard floor, I knew I was getting closer to being a cowboy. What does sleeping on hardwood have to do with freedom and getting unstuck?

Getting unstuck is a learning process.


And all learning includes uncomfortable moments. When youre learning a new way of being in the world, its inevitable that youll be clumsy
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at first. Youre out of your depths; your nervous system is working hard to wire in the new way of thinking and acting. Whenever you take on a new behavior, new project, or a new way of relating to your life you wont have it mastered on day one. Youre at the base of a learning curve and walking your way up will include some stumbling. Its not the stumbling that makes you uncomfortable.

Stumbling and bumbling doesnt have to feel uncomfortable.


In fact, it can be very satisfying. Its your interpretation that counts. When I rolled over onto the hardwood floor and bruised my hipboneI took that as a sign of progress. I was that much closer to being a cowboy.

What makes being uncomfortable satisfying?


When you recognize that the discomfort is taking you closer to your goal. When you understand the discomfort as a signal that your body/mind is working intensely to build new patterns. Then youll gladly lean into your discomfort.

Youll seek out experiences and opportunities where you can lean into your discomfort.
Not simply to feel the hardwood rubbing against your ribs but because you want to grow, learn, and develop. And opportunities abound. Think about a conversation that you know youre going to have in the next three days. Pick one that is important and that will take both courage and skill on your part if it is to go well.

Let yourself sense the energy that starts swirling in your body.
When you bring the upcoming situation to mindintensely picturing and feeling it youll activate your body/mind. As neurobiologists tell us, even if the intensity seems to be less than when youre in the real situation, the neural pattern is the same.

Because your neurology doesnt distinguish between being in that conversation and thinking about it.
The same neurological patterns are stimulated whether youre having the person-to-person encounter or imagining it. This is good news!! You can start to lean into your discomfort before you walk through the door. You can begin to change your experiencebefore youre in the conversation. You can begin to develop new and more creative responsesin the privacy of your own awareness.

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Explore through your imagination what it would look like for you to show up in that conversation with just a bit more courage.

Picture what it would look like.


What you would do, how you would move, speak, interact. Inwardly, push yourself just a bit. Lean into your discomfort and let your neurology system experience a new way of being in that situation. Rememberpracticing this new way in your imagination builds actual neural pathways that support new ways of behaving and interacting.

You can do this in 60 seconds.


Make an appointment with yourself a few times a day. Just lean into your discomfort in the privacy of your own mind. By intentionally and mindfully leaning into your discomfort, you stimulate your body/mind and catalyze inner experiences that develop greater flexibility and choice. Notice how you approach the conversation differently.

Remember, the idea is to lean into your discomfort.


Not to radically transform yourself overnight. Learning doesnt happen that way. You build mastery incrementally. By leaning into your discomfort not by leaping over it. Because you dont have to become a full-fledged cowboy overnight.

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Be Still
Action is seductive. When youre in action mode, a torrent of adrenalin runs through your body like high octane fuel. Theres no time for reflectiononly forward motion, production, outcomes, and making it happen.

If you dont take actionnothing will happen.


Thats how weve been conditioned. But is it true? The only way to find out is to be still. But stillness can be terrifying. Especially in a culture that confuses multi-tasking for meaning and staying-busy for being whole-hearted. But until you settle into stillness, youll never discover whats guiding your actions.

Can you be still without getting restless?


Without feeling like the train is leaving the station without you. That youre missing out or

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falling short? Take a few moments each day to stop, settle into stillness, and find out whats behind your busy-ness.

Feel the tangled web of disparate voices.


When you first slow down, you discover a chorus of contradictory voices giving you directions. Each voice has its own point of view and its own urgent demand. Each voice is fixated on its own survival. When I listen within, I hear the voices of: Ambition Self-doubt Competition Service Creativity Confusion And more

When the voices keep insisting you do what they say, how can you be still?
You cant make it happen. You cant force yourself to be still. But you can just attune and open up to stillness. Its a paradox of the spiritual lifefinding what is ever-present. Stillness is always present. Even in the midst of intense activitythere is stillness.

The stillness is truly ever-present.


Its your attunement that wanders. And your openness that contracts. Fortunately you dont have to rush to catch the stillness train. Stillness is here, now, surrounding and interpenetrating every level of your beingright nowas you read these words.

Feel the stillness even as you read.


Notice what its like to read and simultaneously connect to that deep stillness. Let the stillness support you as you read, sit, breathe. Throughout your day, notice the everpresent stillness. Open up to it and discover how it can breathe life into your daily actions. Allow stillness to guide you.

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Pull the Trigger


Our family cottage on Lake Canandaigua was built over 100 years ago and the foundation has settled unevenly over the decades. Hence the wood floors are not level. Theres one part of the floor where the planks form a slight bump that is barely visible to the eye.
You have to get down to floor level and look really hard to find it. And although I know it is there, when Im walking along not noticing it can still trip me up. One summer it happened almost every day.

I have thoughts like that bump in the hardwood.


I can be cruising along in my day, doing my work and feeling good. When something happens. It might be a comment from a colleague, an email from a client, a certain look or tone of voice from someone I care about. And I trip.

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For me, some people are bumpier than others.


These are my trigger people. You have yours, too. We all do. Theyre the folks who can just show up, be themselves, andwhamyouve lost your balance. They dont have to do anything dramatic. With just a glance, a phrase, or tone of voice, they can trigger doubt, fear, rage, anxiety, shame, or overwhelm.

So what can you do about these trigger people?


You cant avoid them, really. Because even if you stop seeing a specific trigger person another one will pop up to take their place. There will always be another trigger person as long as you havent turned around and smoothed out those bumpy reactions. Its your inner bumpiness that makes trigger people sodifficult. By smoothing and softening your inner bumpinessyou become less trigger-able, less reactive. But heres the secretyou dont have to wait for the trigger people to do their thing in order for you to smooth your reactivity.

You can pull the trigger all by yourself.


And you can change your reactionby yourself. You can do this in your own mind. Because from the standpoint of your neuropsychology there is no appreciable difference between the thought of the trigger person and the physical trigger person.

You can change your inner responseand learn to dance around that bump.
Then when they do what they doyou dont trip, stumble, or react. Nice. Through a simple inner practice of meditation (which I will teach you on the link below) you can learn how to stay balanced, clear, and resourceful when interacting with a trigger person.

Are you ready to stop tripping over those internal bumps?


Heres the link to a short audio program that covers: Where the trigger people in your life really live How to shift your inner reaction A guided meditation for re-patterning your neuropsychology. Heres the link: Trigger Person Meditation http://www.wisdomheart.org/trigger-person-meditation/ Let me know how this works for youand any questions you may have.

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Are You on Fire?


We recently took three days off and went to a hot springs. Theres one bath there thats hot enough to boil an egg. When I first step into the molten water, I cringe. Im only in up to my knees but already it seems impossible to go deeper. My whole nervous systems is shouting Get out of here!

Thats what its like when youre moving deeper into your life.
Everything heats up. Your mind, emotions, body, relationshipseverythings on fire. In the ancient language of Yoga, this fire is called tapas. Its whats burning in times of transformation when youre moving to a deeper level of authenticity and embodied wholeness in your life.

You dont light this fire.


The fire of transformation or tapas arises not through effort, will power, or goal-setting

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but through awareness. Effort, will power, and goal-setting generate improvement not transformation.

Transformation takes less effort and more awareness.


The fire of transformation is stoked by the naked, uncontrived awareness that sees without blinkingthat your old patterns of thought, speech, and action are outmoded. Seeing this can feel like stepping into incredibly hot water.

It generates a burning sensation all the way to the bottom of your soul.
And rather than allow the tapas to burn and the transformation to proceedtheres a tendency to pull away. How? By moving into action. By doing something to fix, modify, or improve the patterns of the past. These strategies can be very useful. If what you want is to improve. But its not transformation.

To transform, you dont have to know what you want.


You dont need clear goals. Or steps. Or programs. Or even a vision. You only need to rest in the fiery awareness that emerges as you see that the patterns of the past no longer serve you.

The patterns of the past arepast.


Thats the simpleburningmessage of the fire of tapas. Your past patterns have taken you this far but cant take you deeper. Naked awareness heightens your sensitivity and illuminates the tension between the well-honed patterns of the past and the fiery imperative of your soul. Awareness turns up the heat.

And your whole system reacts.


Your mind starts spinning and kicking up dust, pebbles, thoughts, and emotions. You want to move out of the fire. The burning awareness that the life you have known is overcan feel too hot to handle. Its true. The old patterns of identity cannot handle the fire. Your old way of being has had its day. Now its time for the fire to do its work.

The fire is there to teach you, purify you, and transform you.
This teaching, purification, and transformation occurs as you stay steady. You dont have to do the transforming. You cant. The fire of awareness does all the work. Your role is to stay present. To allow that which is burning away to do so.

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Whats burned up in the fire?


Your outmoded self-images ways of imagining who and what you are. As these selfimages dissolve away, the fire reveals a deeper teaching: You are not your self-images, not your personal or cultural history.

You are not the ideas, projections, hopes, or fears you have had about yourself.
As self-images fall awayyou do not disappear. But the you that remains is not an idea or projection. Its a living presence that has more in common with the fire of awareness than with thoughts of self. Discovering this fiery self, beyond words and ideas, you suddenly find that the hot spring isnt boiling you alive. Its healing you. So, you eagerly step in deeper. Deeper than you ever imagined.

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Change Your Brain


When Devi and I ran the North County Yoga Center, a subset of our students were serious athletesworld-class runners, volleyball players, tri-athletes. It was amazing to hear an Ironman champion sweating away in downward dog say, This is hard!
Huh? What about swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles without a break? To me thats beyond hard. Yet the same people who competed in the Ironman were challenged by a basic yoga class. How is that possible?

You get good at what you practice.


Its really that simple. Whether youre running up hills in the blazing sun, playing arpeggios on the violin, baking sourdough bread, or teaching kids to readyou get good at what you practice.

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If you practice intentionally for about 10,000 hours you get more than good.
You gain mastery. Thats what K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues discovered. Now theres more news on the power of practice. The practice principle doesnt just count for externally observable skills. The principle also applies to inner states of mind. Thats what the research in the relatively new field of contemplative neuroscience suggests. Contemplative neuroscientists study the brain science of meditation. And what theyre learning provides hard scientific support for the discoveries that yogis, mystics, and meditators have said for centuries: meditation practices work. We all know that if you engage in certain kinds of exercise on a regular basis you can strengthen certain muscle groups in predictable ways, says Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin. Davidson and his research team have hosted scores of Buddhist monks and other meditators for brain scans. Strengthening neural systems is not fundamentally different, he says. Its basically replacing certain habits of mind with other habits.

You can build your inner capacity without joining a monastery.


Contemplative neuroscientists say that the regular practice of meditation strengthens brain circuits responsible for maintaining concentration and generating empathy. But the study also found that expert meditatorsthose with more than 10,000 hours of practice appeared to have permanently changed their brains to be more empathetic.

Now 10,000 hours may seem like a lot of time.


And it is. But every moment of intentional practice makes a difference. You dont have to be a meditative Ironman tomorrow. There was a time when the Ironman champ couldnt run a mile. Taking time to be still, focus, connect with your breath, and attune to loving kindnessbuilds your neural capacity. The key is practice. A little bit every day. Every journey is completed one step at a time. Heres a link to a guided practice: http://www.wisdomheart.org/center-of-gravity-meditation/

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Get Wired
I live in Encinitas, a town mentioned in the famous Beach Boys song Surfin USA. There are many wonderful surf spots along our stretch of the Pacific Ocean: Swamis, Cardiff Reef, Stone Steps, Bamboos, Beacons, Grand View, to name a few.

When the waves are big, boards break.


Colorful, wildly decorated boards are snapped into pieces by the pounding surf. When the boards are broken open, whats revealed is that they all have a foam core. Regardless of their surface design, the boards are the same on the inside. Just like people. Inside we are all made of the same motivations, emotions, and human concerns. In the day-to-day challenges of life, its easy to forget this and see only our surface differences.

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The surface differences are real.


People can bring different values, perspectives, and agendas to shared problems. People do reach differentand equally validconclusions about what solutions make sense. Differences are real. But when youre interested in resolving conflicts, reaching agreements, and moving forward togetherits important to go beyond the surface and connect to whats deeper.

To connect with others below-the-surface motivations requires empathy.


Empathy is your ability to feel and understand anothers inner experience. When youre being empathic, you connect with another persons experience at a deeper level. But to do this, you have to be connected to the deeper parts of yourself. When your perceptions, insights, and understandings come from your surface-self, all youll be aware of is the other persons surface-self. And this superficial view will highlight your differences.

Its your deeper-than-surface self that is able to connect with their deeperthan-surface motivations and needs.
Fortunately evolution has wired your nervous system to do just that. Youve got the neurological hardware to be empathic, an empathy-enabling structure in the brain called the insula.

Youre wired for empathy.


Heres one indication of how important this part of the brain is: the insula consumes 8-10 times more oxygen and glucose than even your major muscles. Heres how it works: When you feel basic emotions, your insula lights up. When you see others in emotional states, your insula activates. Whether the emotional state is inside you or outside you, the insula lights up. The insula replicates the inner states of othersby generating interior bodily sensations within you, which allows you to resonate with anothers inner experience.

The more youre in touch with your own bodily sensations, the more youre able to attune to and understand the inner experience of others.
By strengthening the insulayou strengthen your neurological empathic hardware. By strengthening the insula, empathy gets easier. And also more precise.

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A well-developed insula enables you to tune in more deeply and more precisely to anothers inner experience.
And when you are more tuned in, youll be able to respond skillfully to others inner needs. Without empathy, your attention is focused on what others are doingwithout any connection to their inner experience, motivations, or needs. When what they are doing isnt working for you, the tendency is to attribute all kinds of negative intentions or qualities to the other person: Hes not capable of collaborating. Shes just a difficult person. Instead of taking other peoples emotions personally, you become aware of the other persons inner struggles. That shes not just being a difficult person, shes really a struggling human being. Struggling to adapt to change, navigate through difficult choices, and balance conflicting priorities. In short, dealing with emotional challenges just like you.

But how do you strengthen your insula?


By attending to your own inner bodily sensations you build your insula-ability. Sensing the temperature and texture of the breath in your lungs activates the insula. Noting the sensations in your muscles and joints lights up the insula. When you pay attention to your own inner bodily states, the insula lights up. Its a simple thing to do with huge pay-offs for your life. Who would have thought that simply by regularly attending to your breath and bodily sensations, you could get better at understanding others? But its true. The same neurological hardware is employed to do both tasks.

The simplest way to do this is through the regular practice of meditation.


Research shows that meditation dramaticallyand positivelythickens the insula. Meditation literally builds your empathy hardware. This means that you can get better at empathyreading and understanding otherswith your eyes closed. Through mindfully attending to your breath and body sensations, you can improve your ability to resolve conflicts, manage differences, and influence others. Just by sitting still and mindfully breathing for just a few minutes each day.

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Its regular practice that provides the best results.


Im including a simple practice with this chapter. Click here for a guided practice (that takes 3 minutes) you can download and use daily. http://www.wisdomheart.org/sensing-breath-body/ If you take time each day to pay attention to your breath and body, the next time youre in a conversation and the emotional surf surgesyou wont have to break any boards. Youll empathically hang ten, dude!

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Can You Cross Invisible Lines?


I just recently visited my brother in Colorado. He lives on 22 acres that back up to thousands of acres of National Forest. Because theres so much land, he has installed an invisible fence, so the dogs, Rama and Tandi, dont wander off. An invisible fence creates an electric boundary line that keeps the dogs within a 12-acre area. The dogs quickly adapted to the shocking parameters.

The day before I arrived, my brother expanded the dogs territory.


He moved the fence line to include an additional five acres. More space, more exercise, and access the river. But when we went for a walk to the river, the dogs hesitated. They wouldnt cross the previously established boundary. They knew what was in store for them if they didshock and pain. And so they sat in the dirt. Come on Rama. Come on Tandi, we called in our most encouraging you-can-trust-us voices. But the dogs wouldnt move. They were held in place bymemory.
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Memory creates invisible fences.


Your memories of past events, relationships, experiences create invisible fences that shape your present thoughts, speech, and actions. Sometimes these memory-based fences are useful. They provide a sense of reliability, consistency, and coherence. You know who your allies arebased on the memory of past collaborations. You know who you need to be wary ofbased on the memory of past difficulties. You dont have to assess every situation or interaction in the moment.

You rely on your memory to guide you.


This reflexive way of engaging with your world works wellas long as the world doesnt change. But when the world changeslike when my brother moved the electric fence boundariesthe memory remains.

But relying on memory can limit you.


Because even when situations change, the memory-based patterns of thought and action persist. Because they operate at a level of functioning that is faster than conscious thought, the patterns of the past assert themselves before you know it.

Your memory-based reflexes seem to have a mind of their own.


And in a very practical sense, they do. Having been deeply encoded and streamlined into your neurology, these reflexive programs of thought, speech, and action dont have to waste time thinking before reacting. These reflexive patterns are somaticwoven into your body-mind at the deepest levels.

To communicate with this somatic mind, you need to use language it understands.
Wordy-words and logic wont communicate with this somatic mind. You cant argue with it. You cant lecture it. It doesnt respond to logic or words. You can communicate to your somatic mind through the breath. You do this by intentionally approaching the invisible fence. Simply activating a memoryof a person, situation, event where your memory-based habits no longer serve you, where you want to show up in a new way. But where you keep falling, reflexively, into patterns of the past.

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Activate the memory just enough to stimulate your somatic reactions: tightening muscles, tension, anxietyto initiate the pattern of tensionbut not enough to get overwhelmed. Focus your awareness on the obvious place of tension in your bodywhere you feel the reaction percolating. If you can, place your hand there with a gesture of care and attention.

Feel the gentle warmth and reassuring touch of your hand.


Now communicate to that place in your body via the breath. Let your breath find its own natural, gentle rhythm. Let the message of your hand and the rhythm of your breath communicate care, safety, and acceptance. Notice how the touch and the breath allow the somatic reaction to relax. As the tension relaxes, feel the energy that has been locked up in the reflexive pattern spreading through your bodyenergizing and strengthening you.

You can free yourself breath-by-breath.


By communicatingvia breath and touchto the places of tension and reactivity in your body, you become the healer, guide, and liberator of patterns of the past. When challenges arise, rather than revert to automatic, out-dated, and unconscious reactions, you can respond creatively and step beyond your invisible fences.

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Un-habituate
When Devi and I first moved to San Diego, we lived in Ocean Beach, a neighborhood close to the ocean and the airport. I loved being close to the beach. But the roar and rumble of jets overhead tortured mefor about a month. Then I habituated. I didnt just get used to the noiseI stopped noticing it. The noise didnt register in my awareness. Through habituation, the roar had receded into the background.

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Its natural to habituate.


Habituation serves a function. Its necessary in a noisy, information-glutted world to shut out the racket. Theres just too much input for your nervous system to absorb. So you dial down your awareness, habituate, and the din recedes into the background. This allows you to function. To not be overwhelmed. But youre also not present, no longer in touch with whats happening around you.
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Habituation protects you and it blinds you.


Because whatever you habituate to hasnt really gone away. Its just moved into your psychological blind spot. Its like those jets. After I habituated they were still roaring by. Their din was still pounding away at my nervous system. I just wasnt aware of their effect.

When you habituate to a situation, you stop noticing the effects.


Its still affecting you. Its still there. Youre just not paying attention. The longer a situation persists, the more likely it is that youll habituate to it. And do nothing to address it. Until you bring the situation into your awarenessit will continue to affect you and your life. But how can you become aware of what youve stopped noticing?

Its tricky.
Lets face ithabituation has its benefits. Turning off your awareness protects you. So before you make any changes, appreciate what the habituation has done for you. And with the very next breath, recognize that habituation confines you.

Here are 3 steps to overcome habituation: Step 1. Go on a rant.


A very specific type of rant with a very defined goal. The goal of this rant is to bring into awareness those concerns, issues, conflicts, that you have ignored, given up hope about, and wish that someone would do something about. To perform this rant successfully you cannot be polite. You cant be indirect. You need to unload. Put your politically correct persona aside and give your rant free rein. Here are some unfinished sentences to get you started: I cant stand it when I am so tired of Why cant we I wish someone would do something about What drives me crazy around here is

Step 2. Discover what you really care most about.


The rant brings up your raw material and releases a torrent of emotional energy. Dont get swept away by the river of emotions. Breathe. Youre about to discover the creative impulse thats below the surface of your emotional river.
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Heres how: realize that you wouldnt rant about something you didnt care deeply about. Your rant is actually an expressionemotional as it may beof your deep caring. So turn your attention towards that caring. Shift your attention from the drama of emotions to the depths of caring. Become aware of what really matters to you, what you really want and care most about. Complete these sentences: What matters most to me in this situation is What I care about is What I really want is What I am deeply committed to is

Step 3. Determine a small, immediate action.


Now that you know what you care most abouttake action. Do something small that allows you to demonstrate your care and commitment. Something you can do that: Reflects what you care most about Is relatively easy to start Will engage others commitment Dont take massive action or try to resolve the situation with a single move. This three-step process is not designed to finish the job. Just focus on breaking yourself out of habituationso that you can be more present to the reality of your experience. Once youve broken the spell of habituation, the next move will become clear. Is that the sound of a jet I hear?

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Heed the Call


Have your heard the Call? The Call to a deeper lifeto a more powerful expression of your gifts? Yes?
Something bigger than you has your inner attention. Its knock, knock, knocking on the door of your soul, saying HelloAnybody home? Lets talk.

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You can turn up the volume on the TV to drown out the Call.
Or throw yourself into highly demandingbut soul-deadeningprojects. Overbook your schedule so theres barely a second to pull your head up, look around, and wonder, What am I devoting my life to? But distractionseven of the highly profitable kinddont contain the minimum daily requirements of spiritual vitamins that your soul needs. And when your soul is malnourished, every area in your life withers. Your soul wants to heed the Call.
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How do you start to heed the Call?


You start by going into the desert. Not the desert desert. Just a place thats empty of distractions. A place where you can receive the Call in an undefended way and let yourself be moved where it leads you. Rest assured where it leads you will thrill you and terrify you. Because the Call is all about courage.

Why does heeding the Call take courage?


Because to heed the Call requires: Whole-heartedness: love, passion, deep caring Whole-mindedness: savvy, smarts, thoughtfulness Whole-body-ness: guts, sweat, and a visceral engagement with the world The Call asks for all of youheart, mind, and bodyto do what needs doing.

The Call needs your best stuff and your worst stuff.
Your well-polished skills and your clumsy bits. Your flair and your flaws. The Call doesnt want you dressed-for-success. The Call knows that for you to serve fullyyou cant leave bits of yourself behind. The Call wants you to go all in.

The tendency is to wait.


To wait for a better time. For things to be sorted out. For the schedule to calm down. For your net worth to hit a magic number. Theres always something that could be a little clearer, safer, a little more certain.

But theres no safe place to be courageous.


When you step forward whole-heartedly, that doesnt mean you wont be trembling. Bring the tremble with you. The doubt too. Bring it allthats what wholeness means.

Life is always in flux.


Always not-quite-right. Its messy. And its in the midst of lifes not-quite-rightness that you step forward to follow the Call. It is within the unsatisfactory and unsettled conditions that you say Yes!

The broken nature of the world is your invitation to engage.


To lead. To live. To offer your gifts. Its your own unfinished nature, your own not-quiterightness with which you act.
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The incompleteness of the world and your own incompleteness fit each other.
Thats what the Call is telling you. It says, Your need for wholeness and the worlds need for service complete each other. Heed the Call.

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Are You Playing Chicken Games?


I was heading for a showdown. Having finished my speaking gig, I was lugging a heavy box of books and my arms ached. The guy coming down the hall the other way was coming straight for me and wasnt going to step aside.

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My head was pounding.


The tension from carrying the books and getting lost in the labyrinthine hallsmade my head ache. And now theres this guy barreling down the hall right at me!?! The closer I got, the more it seemed that he was going to force me to move. We were locked into a weird game of chicken.

I plowed on.
I was going to force him to step aside and let me pass.

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Im not giving into him, I thought as I walked angrily into the mirrored wall at the end of the hallway crashing smack-dab into my own reflection. The threatening man was none other than myself. I stared into my own angry eyesnow blinking with shocked embarrassment.

Even if you never walk into walls, you will confront people who oppose you.
It comes with the territory whenever you exercise leadership and take a stand that challenges conventional thinking. When you put yourself and your work out there, when you advocate changenot everyone will welcome it.

Theyre coming from a different direction.


Often an opposite direction. When they dont show any signs of budging, listening, or cooperatingyoure heading for a showdown. What started out as a conversation turns into a conflict and then a game of chicken. Its no longer about exploring possibilities, seeking understanding, or collaboration. Once the game of chicken is underwaythe conflict gets personal and your focus shifts.

When the conflict turns personal, the primitive centers in your brain fire-up.
Now youre not interested in understanding. Couldnt care less about feedback, possibilities, or collaboration. Nope. Youre in a game of chicken, which leaves you with only three options: Overpower them. Placate them. Avoid them. Picking any of these options will only sever the eroding communication connection and perpetuate the power-struggle.

How can you turn the game of chicken around?


By embracing a basic psychological principleprojection. The concept of projection says that the qualities in other people that really bug youare the qualities within yourself that you dont want to acknowledge or own. Owning your own projections is as shocking as walking headlong into a mirrored wall. It means focusing less on whats wrong with themand more on your own reactive tendencies.

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You use conflict as a mirror and ask, Am I more prone to overpower, placate, or avoid the opposition? Personally, I find myself using all three strategies. But mostly I avoid or overpower. Depending on whether I think I can win. Not elegant or particularly enlightenedbut true. What about you? What do you see when you look into the mirror of conflict? Whats your preferred strategy when it comes to the chicken game?

The deeper you look into the mirror of conflictthe more you see your own reactive tendencies staring back.
Conflict situations that have degenerated into chicken games offer you a stark and soulpurifying mirror. It can be uncomfortable to look. But looking is one of the most powerful acts of liberation and leadership you can perform. Because when you look, it becomes clear that substantive change in the world around you hinges on whether or not you are willing to do most of the changing. As you own, integrate, and transform your own reactive tendencies, you reshape the world around you. This isnt easy. Its just the inevitable choice when you see how your own reactive strategies keep the chicken game alive and perpetuate the very situation/relationships/world you long to transform. So the next time it seems like someone is challenging you to a game of chicken, pause. Take a deep breath. And dont crash into the mirror.

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Dont Wait to Feel Like It


Making significant changes rarely feelscomfortable. When your toes are hanging over the edge of the high dive, when youre about to step off into space, when youre about to do something that will take courage and skill, you often wont feel like it.
Waiting to feel like it will only make the time delay between todays sweaty palms and tomorrows satisfaction longer. If youre waiting to feel like it, youre in the wrong line. Thats the line that never moves.

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Get out of line and start moving forward.


You dont have to leap into the void. Just take a step. Inch your way forward if need be. But just start to move. Feelings of doubt, anxiety, and confusion are part of the package when youre taking

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actions that require courage and skill. They come with the territory. They are not the signal to run. They are the early indicators that youre leaning into your discomfort, discomfort that is a necessary part of growth.

Where in your work or life are you waiting to feel like it before moving forward?
Take a deep breath and let it out. Now, whats a small step you can take to move forward? Take it.

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Dont Be Positive
I was at lunch the other day with a friend. While I waited for my soup, I kept smelling the spicy aroma of Tabasco sauce. When my soup arrived I liberally dosed it with the spicy sauce. I went overboard. By adding too much of a good thingI ruined the soup.

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Its the same with positivity.


Its good to be positive. The research on the impact of positive mind states keeps revealing more and more benefits: from health to wealth. But too much positivity shifts you from actually being positive to being a Pollyanna.

Being a Pollyanna isnt the same as being positive.


In the book Pollyanna the heroinePollyannareceives a set of crutches instead of a doll in her Christmas charity box. She wanted a doll.
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Her father tells her to be thankful for the crutches. Why? Because theyre reminders of the fact that she doesnt need crutches because she can walk. Excuse me?

That isnt being positive.


Its denying disappointment and degrading wholesome desire. Its turning away from whats real. And as the great science fiction author, Philip K. Dick, remarked, Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Reality endures. Reality has a much longer life span than any Pollyanna spin. No matter how hard you try to cover over reality with Pollyanna spinreality doesnt go away.

Positivity that doesnt face and embrace whats really going on isnt positive at all.
Turning away from disappointment, anxiety, upsetsufferingisnt being positive. Its denial. And denial just perpetuates and intensifies suffering. You dont transform the causes of suffering in your life by putting on rose-colored glasses.

Theres another way to be positive.


A way that doesnt require rose-colored glasses. Its a healthy positivity that: Embraces realitywhether its good or bad Offers a way of working with life struggles and strong emotions Transforms turbulent emotions into clarity and wisdom

Many people are afraid to approach strong emotions.


Theyre afraid that they will be overwhelmed and self-indulgent. Valid concerns. But denying, avoiding, and turning away from strong emotions isnt the answer. Rather, you need to develop your capacity to engage with powerful emotionswhile sustaining clear, open, and all-embracing awareness. You can build this capacity through meditation practice. Because meditation practice strengthens your capacity to face reactivity with composure and awareness.

Its not that emotions disappear.


This isnt about developing the frozen smile of a Pollyanna or distorting your vision with rose-colored glasses.

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Meditation doesnt remove your neurological wiring. You still have natural human responses and reactions. But you develop the capacity to stay present even when strong emotions arise. Anxiety, anger, fear (and all the other emotions) can still arise. More than likely, they will. But with meditative awareness, you wont need to deny, avoid, or override emotions with platitudes like: Dont be negative. You can infuse emotions with awareness. And this reveals something amazing.

In the depths of strong emotions lie deep life-giving values.


Emotions arent there to threaten and destroy your life. Theyre there to gain your attention. If youre experiencing strong emotions, its because at the soul level you care deeply about something. The emotion doesnt tell you what that something is. Its only an alarm bell, a signal to pay attention.

Its your soul calling you to attune to what matters most.


Pollyanna positivity blocks you from receiving the deeper message, the deeper call. And there is a deeper message. At the heart of every emotion lies a life-enhancing value. By infusing emotions with awareness, you move below the surface drama of emotions to discern the life-enhancing values.

Theres no reason to hide from emotions.


No need to be Pollyanna. You dont have to deny whats real. You can let emotions be what they arethe ringtones of your soul. You can answer the deeper call, rather than react to the ringing. Simply through the power of awareness you attune to the life-enhancing value at the heart of emotions.

Soon the very emotions that scared you become reminders to slow down, attune within, and heed the deeper call.
And with this deepening awareness, you realize that rather than pretending that everything is fine you can take off those rose-colored glasses and allow what is real to guide you.

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Open the Bag


A woman emailed me to ask: Can I harness my power and still be nice? The short answer is no. Because power is the ability to create and sustain what matters most in your life. And what is nice?

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Nice is a knife.
Its a knife you use to cut-off parts of yourself that are unacceptable to you. You started using this knife when you were young. Cutting off the parts that didnt fit with family expectations. We all do this. Its part of the human condition. But those dismembered parts are still there, are still part of you.

The dismembered parts dont disappear.


They go into, what Robert Bly evoking the work of C.G. Jung, called the shadow bag. All the cut-off parts of your soul go into the shadow bag. Heres how it works

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Imagine youre a child feeling the buoyant energy of Spring.


You run into the living room. Youre feeling pure joy. But to your parents your being noisy, wild, loud. They tell you in no uncertain terms to cut it out. And, you do.

You cut out the buoyant, leaping, energetic parts of yourself and stuff them into the shadow bag.
Year-by-year the bag gets heavier, filled with the unacceptable parts of your life. The parts of your soul and self deemed unacceptable by powerful othersparents, teachers, leaders, friends, lovers, etc. Those parts arent gone. Theyre in the shadow bag. You drag them behind you but dont offer them to the world. You tiptoe along. You modulate your voice. Youre nice.

Every cut diminishes your power.


You can still proceed with your life with parts cut off. You can even do quite wellyoure nice after all, and people respond positively to nice. But theres that bag and all those cut-off parts dragging behind you.

Sooner or later things start to stink.


You begin to notice a strange odor. At first it comes and goes. Its bothersome but not persistent. If you neglect it too long, the stink gets stronger. Soon, everywhere you go you can smell it.

Its the odor of your cut-off parts seeking to rejoin your life.
Theyve been reaching out to you for years. But you were trained not to notice. So you didnt. You were taught from a young age to hide your deepest longings, to deny essential and sacred parts of who you are. In your family, school, and at work youve been encouraged to act as if you are complete while simultaneously cutting of parts of yourself and exiling them to the shadow bag.

When you cut off parts of yourself, you cut off the flow of your life.
To get unstuck and live a more powerful authentic life, start reclaiming whats in the bag. This starts when you notice that persistent stink. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

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The stink that is pursuing you isnt a problem to make go away. Its a call to live more fully and contribute more completely.

But its not easy to turn and face the stink.


Let me be the first to admitId rather use air freshener than face my own shadow bag. But at a certain point, it becomes clear that turning towards the stink is the way forward. The path to freedom travels through the shadow bag.

Its not a matter of being either nice or being powerful.


Its a matter of facing your experience fully, truthfully, without leaping to conclusions or solutions. So how can you proceed? Theres really no road map. Its a step-by-step process. Step towards the unacceptable places within you. You dont need to do anything else. Simply step with awareness towards the shadow bag. Take your time.

As you step forward, your experience of the stink changes.


You begin to see how the difficulties you encounter (especially the really stinky ones) are precisely structured to call forth the cut-off parts that are waiting to be redeemed from your shadow bag. The conflicts that you face at work and in life point towards the unintegrated parts of yourself in order to return them to life. I dont want you to think that this path is automatically strewn with flower petals. But I do want to encourage you to pay attention. Notice the stink. Step forward. Keep breathing. As you breathe, youll notice something strange. That stinkwhich had been so noxious is starting to smell like flowers. Now, thats nice.

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How to Get into the Flow State


I was in my twenties, recently married, when my father-in-law invited me to join him for a Sunday morning golf game. Id never played a round of real golf, only the miniature kind. But given that I was the hippy-new-son-in-law, how could I say no?

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I stepped up to the first tee.


I swung. The ball lifted into the sky forming a perfect arc, bounced, and rolled within a few feet of the green. I putted onto the green. With the next putt, the ball was in the hole. Par!! My father-in-law shook his head in awed disbelief, That meditation stuff must really work. Ha! I thought. That was amazing. Hes right. Im going to meditate my way through the course.

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It took me sixteen strokes to complete the next hole.


On the first hole, Id stumbled into the par zone. But I hadnt developed the capacity to sustain play at that level. Shooting par, for me, was a happy accident.

Youve had those happy accidents.


Times when your ability to think, act, and interact, leapt to a new level. Times of extraordinary performance when you tap into dormant, and often unexpected inner resources. Its a heady, exhilarating feeling.

Its called being in a flow state.


When you stumble into the flow state, as I did on the golf course, it can feel like an act of grace or a happy accident. But like all accidents, happy or otherwise, its not intentional. By definition, accidents arent chosen. They just happen.

You could be in a heated disagreement.


Voices raised. Fingers pointing. Then, as the other person lashes out, suddenlyit happens. Something in you shifts. You dont react to their attack. You dont get emotional. You still feel the initial burst of adrenaline but something else kicks in.

Its a different state of mind.


Youre in witness consciousness: both in the conversation and not in the conversation. Theres a part of you, a skillful, non-reactive part, that shapes your perception and guides your behavior. You see the emotions and suffering thats driving their behavior. You dont take their words personally. Andheres a biggieyou dont judge them.

Youre present and engaged without being caught in the drama.


You listen and respond clearly. Youre focused and responsivewithout needing to control or manipulate. Youre able to lay your cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may. Because when youre in the flow, theres a deep trust, a grounded knowing that by acting with integrity in the momentthe next moment will take care of itself.

These extraordinary states of flow are often happy accidents.


The question is how to become more accident-prone. What would make the flow state become more the norm than the exception? What can you do to unlock the door to this extraordinary state of performance and the joyful feelings that accompany it?

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The key is to develop your attention muscle.


Well, its not really a physical muscle. Its the capacity to focus awareness on a specific object and to sustain that focus without effort. If your attention muscle is weak, you cant sustain focus. You will be easily distracted. This unstable bouncing-around quality of attention is called, in spiritual traditions, the monkey mind. Like a precocious monkey, undeveloped attention is in constant motion.

When your attention muscle is strongyou can focus awareness on a chosen activity, idea, problem, or person, and it will stay there.
This allows you to infuse your experience with full awareness. As your attention settles into effortless focus, the door to the flow state opens. But you will need a strong attention muscle.

How do you build a strong attention muscle?


Attention is like a physical muscle. When you strengthen your bicep at the gym, that strength carries over into daily life. Similarly, when you strengthen your attention muscle by meditating even for short periods of time each day, the capacity to focus, be fully present and aware, starts to develop in your everyday life. A strong attention muscle allows you to choose the flow state. You learn how to shift from effort and struggleinto presence and flow.

Strengthening your attention muscle opens this grace-filled door.


Once you build this muscle, you dont have to wait for happy accidents to land you in the state of flow. You can go there volitionally through engaging your trained attention muscle. And when youre in the flow state, youre not reacting or lost in patterns of self-limitation. Your actions, choices, and thoughts allwellflow. They arise from a place of inner clarity and stillness. You dont have to think things through, you naturally respond from a place of uncontrived integrity.

You start to recognize that happy accidents dont have to be accidental.


You see that the opportunity to flow, to be effortlessly engaged, to tap into the reservoir of wisdom and creativity isever present. The flow state isnt some far away magical land. Its right here, right nowavailable in the exact conditions of your life.

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And you see that rather than struggle against conditionsyou can meet them with effortless focus.
You can let go of efforts to control and manipulate experience to allow deeper and more skillful ways of being shine through. Your work, relationships, healthevery domain of experience is enhanced as your attention muscle develops. It can also be useful on the golf courseas long as youre not trying to impress your father-in-law.

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Trust Not Knowing


The last page of O magazine has a short article titled What I Know for Sure. Its where Oprah reflects on her experiences and extracts lessons and reveals insights into what she knowsfor sure.

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Knowing-things-for-sure is tricky business.


And theres a lot of it going around these days. Consider the over-heated and combative rhetoric among politicians, pundits, and self-appointed experts that fills the airwaves, printed pages, and blogs. Why is there so much knowing-things-for-sure?

Certainty comforting.
It means youre right. That you see reality as-it-is. That youve got the answer. But as comforting as it is to know-for-sure, spiritual traditions have always valued questions more than answers.

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The path of awakening is paved with questions not answers. It takes a deep faith to leave the smooth, well-traveled road of knowing for the unmapped path of the soul. The conditioned self believes that without certainty it will drift about lost in the world. So it clings to fixed views, to knowing-for-sure. The more it clings, the less secure it feels. Because deep down at the level of soul, what you really know-for-sure is that you dont know for sure. That you are floating in a vast universe of mystery.

Its not answers you need more of.


Its the capacity to: Be present, aware, and at ease in the mystery of life Receive ever-deeper revelations and to gently let them go Allow certainty to dissolve away without falling into unconsciousness Meditation practice builds this capacity and takes you, breath-by-breath, beyond knowing into direct communion with life unmediated by thought, emotions, oranswers.

Its not that you dont get to have any answers.


You do. Every time you let go of what you know-for-sure and rest in the presence of notknowing, an answer will arise. Life is filled with answers. When you let go of your old beliefs and rest in the unconditioned presence that is prior to any point of view, an answer comes.

What is an answer?
It is a point of view. Thats it. An answer is a particular way of seeing and experiencing self, life, and the world. Its not definitive. Not the whole story.

Its a rest stop on the spiritual journey.


A place you get to pull over to take in the view. To reflect on where youve been, see where you are, and maybe glimpse where youre going. But mostly just to stop and look around. Sometimes the view is inspiring. Other times its disappointing. Regardless, its not something you have to know-for-sure. Its not the end of the journey. Its a rest stop. Just enjoy the view for what it reveals.

You dont have to grasp for answers.


They come on their own. Points of view naturally arise. But heres the key: the depth and transformative power of the answers that arise will correlate with your capacity to rest in the state of not-knowing.
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Not-knowingness allows you to meet life on its own terms, not those devised by your mind, memories, or expectations. Breath-by-breath, as you meditate, you let go of knowing, fixed ideas, and points of view. You return to life as-it-is without needing to know-for-sure. Try it right nowlet go of these words and what they mean to you. Feel your breath and restin the mystery.

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Trust the Knowing


There something youre here to do. Not just for today, this quarter, or this year. Its not a project you can finish. Not even all those goals on your bucket list, quarterly goals, weekly action plans, or daily to-do lists.
Its more fundamental. So fundamental, in fact, that you cant think your way through it. You cant youre your way or plan your way through it. Its the white-hot center of your life, not a project to complete rather a purpose to serve, experience, and embodycompletely. Breath-by-breath. Moment-to-moment. How to find your way to this white-hot center? By letting go of all your inherited concepts of success, fulfillment, and enlightenment. As you strip your soul bare, you come to a place in you that knows. It knows fully and completely what youre here to do. This place in you is totally focused on that.

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You can trust that knowing. Because the knowing wont abandon you.
No matter how many times you turn away: Distracting yourself with new toys, tools, and techniques. Pursuing what looks easier, more rewarding, or more prestigious. Overwhelming yourself with expectations, plans, and activities. Through all thatand morethe knowing wont abandon you. It will wait for you seeking those quiet moments when youre alone. And then it will tap you on the shoulder to say, Over here. This is the path you came to follow. Over here, Sometimes when you look into the depths of your morning coffee, the knowing is there staring back at you with unblinking, truthful eyes. Because, the knowing wont abandon you. You could be driving in your car when you hear the knowing speak in a steady voice that cuts through road noise, radio, and mental chatter. Its message is always the same: Come this way. Listen to your heart. This is the way to your true life. Trust the knowing. It wont abandon you.

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Are You in the Yes-but Rut?


Have you ever fallen into the Yes, butrut? (I have many, many times). It starts like this: Your colleague or friend says, Ive got this problem. Id like your advice. You nod. They explain the situation. You ask a few more questions and then give them your best advice. As you do, you notice somethingtheir eyes glaze over.

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They shake their head.


Yes, they say, but and explain carefully why your suggestion wont work. You try again. Yes, they respond, but Its frustrating. They asked,but no matter what advice you offerthey push it aside with a Yes, but

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They dont really want your advice.


I know they asked you. But notice what happens when you give the advice. They resist it. They push back. The more you try to explain, the more they dig in with Yes, but It may be hard to face, but clearly they dont want your advice. Even though you love giving it.

You want to be helpful.


Theres nothing inherently wrong with this impulse. Just notice where it takes you. Because when it takes you into a Yes, but rut it simply isnt working. Youre in a karmic vortex, a vicious cycle of: Your advice. Their Yes, but Your advice. Their Yes, but You both end up mired in emotional mud. Frustrated, with no real change.

How do you get out of the Yes, but rut?


First of all, realize youre in the rut. And that all youre responsible for is getting yourself out. Not them. You. And learn to about these three mindset shifts that can break you out of the rut.

Mindset shift #1: Realize they dont want your help.


Yes, they asked. I get that, but it doesnt matter. Asking for help or advice is just their way of starting a conversation. Its not a real request. Its a red herring. Theyre not really interested in your advice.

Mindset shift #2: Realize you dont know.


You dont know what they should do. You may have ideas. You may even think your ideas are wonderful. But the more enamored you are of your advice, the deeper into the rut you go. And you really dont know what they need to do. Really. This shift can be difficult to swallowandan incredibly liberating move. Because if youve structured your identity, work, and life around being helpful and giving adviceits this very identification that sends you into the Yes, but rut.

Mindset shift #3: See them as fully capable.


Instead of relating to them as needysee them as strong, capable, fully equipped to

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handle the situation and take action. Look past their furrowed brow and pleading eyes. Cut through their story of being victimized or lost. Look past these surface faades and see them as capable of turning the situation around.

After shifting your mindsetask questions instead of giving advice.


Dont ask questions that are designed to give you more information about the problem. Dont dig into analyzing the situation. Asking those kinds of information-gathering questions will deposit you into the Yes, but rut.

Ask them about goals.


Ask them: What is it you want to accomplish? What is the result you want to make happen? What is the outcome youd really like to create? These kinds of questions put attention on their goalnot their complaint or their story. These questions focus on their creativity, strengths, and ability to make something positive happen.

Notice if they actually answer your goal-focused questions or if they revert to a litany of complaints.
They may repeat their well-rehearsed complaint. They may try to lure you back into the Yes, but rut. Be alert. Dont take the bait, even though it will be tempting.

After all, giving advice is quite seductive.


It can lure you in. But there is a simple way to prevent yourself from falling completely into the Yes, but rut. Just be on the lookout for those two little words Yes, but Because those two words are your reminders. And when you hear themstop. Take a breath and mentally step back. Readjust your mindset and realize that: They dont want your advice. You dont really know. And they are fully capable. Then with a sense of real curiosity ask, What is the result you want to make happen? With a little practice, youll soon enjoy the freedom that comes from staying out of the Yes, but rut.

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Chew the Pickle


The first time my son, Nathaniel, tasted a dill pickle he was two years old and his whole body responded. He shook and shivered from head to toe. Nathaniel stuck out his tongue and spit the offending green morsel onto the table. Yuck. Sometimes feedback is like that picklesour, unwelcome, and difficult to swallow.

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What can you do when you get this kind of pickled feedback?
Other than stick out your tongue and spit, I mean. The first and most important thing to do is focus is on your body. Why? Because receiving pickled feedback will send your body into fight-flight-or-freeze response: narrow vision, shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat, tense tight muscles.

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In this state, you cant process what youre hearing.


Not when your body is in hyper-drive. And forget about trying to say anything helpful. Stick with your body. Because your body needs kind and skillful attention right now.

Start with taking care of your breath.


Breatheallthe wayout. Then, feel your breath flow in. Take several measured and mindful breaths. Let your belly relax and breathe into it: Inhalebelly expands. Exhalebelly releases.

Soften your eyes and gaze off into the middle distance.
Dont look at anything in particular. Certainly not at the person in front of you. Soften your eyes. It will relax your mind.

If you have a glass of water, take a couple of sips.


Feel the temperature of the water on your lips and pay attention to the sensation of the water as it glides down your throat. Do these practices to put the criticism aside and take care of your body.

Because until your body is back in balanceyou wont be able to respond skillfully.
All of this body re-balancing can be done in a matter of 1020 seconds. Really. Just as a few pickled words can trigger a fight or flight response, a few measured and mindful breaths can produce a profoundly calming effect. It only takes a few breaths to return to balance. The challenge is that when your heart is racing, it can feel like you dont have the time. You do. Give yourself the care you need to meet the situation from a position of wisdom and strength. Because once youve shifted your physiology from flight-or-fight to a state of equilibrium, you will be able to reflect on the feedback and address it in a balanced manner.

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So what should you do when someone tries to get you to swallow sour pickled criticism?
Shift your attention away from them and what theyve said. Attend to your body: Notice where your body is tensing up and relax it. Breathe. Soften your gaze. Take 1020 seconds to soothe your body. Once your body is back in balanceyoull know whether it makes more sense to chew on this feedback and digest itor spit it out onto the table.

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Find Your Blind Spot


Imagine that youve been at a dinner party, laughing, talking, and feeling good. Then you go into the restroom, look in the mirror and see green. A piece of salad stuck in your front teeth. Just hanging there for all to see. You know everybody you talked to saw it. But nobody said anything.

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You cant see the green stuff thats stuck in your teeth until you look in a mirror.
Or until somebody tells you. Heres a karma liberating secret: theres something about the way you show up in the world thats like a piece of lettuce in your teeth. Its not pretty. You cant see it. Other people can.

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Its your blind spot.


If you think you know what your blind spot isyoure wrong. The things you know about yourselfabout your behavior, your foiblesarent blind spots. Theyre on your radar. Youre aware of them. Even if youre not able to change them easily, you know they are there. But blind spots are different.

You can only learn about your blind spot from others.
Their feedback is your mirror. Its the magic mirror that reveals the assessments youre creating in others. Read that last sentence again. Most people assume that feedback is the assessment others are making of them. But they have it backwards. When people give you feedback, theyre revealing the assessment you are creating in them. Are those the assessments you want to create? Does the feedback youre getting mirror the way you want to relate to the world?

Youll never be able to answer these questions without others peoples feedback.
And if you havent shown that you welcome and take their feedback to heart, people wont tell you. Theyll work around your blind spot, compensate for it, and avoid talking about iteven when you ask. Particularly feedback thats hard to hear, that contradicts your self-image. So, you may need to ask more than once.

Then when you do get feedbacktake it in.


Treat it seriously. Make an out-loud commitment to change. Then initiate some changes and check back in to find out if youre on track, if youre changing the assessments you are creating in others, if youre changing your relationship to the world. Until you ask for, welcome, and actively appreciate feedback from other peopleyoull walk around with green stuff stuck in your front teeth.

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Name the Fog


Its so easy to get lost in thought.
Its what the mind does bestgenerate thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. And then the mind looks out at the world through these thoughts/emotions/words/beliefs and builds a matrix of words, a veil of language that separates you from direct communion with life. Words upon words thicken into a fog of thought. No wonder its hard to walk harmoniously through life. Its hard to navigate when your perceptual windshield is fogged with thought.

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How can you free yourself from the fog of thought?


The first step is accepting that regardless of how much it appears that youre perceiving life directlyyoure not. Youre seeing, sensing, experiencing life through the fog of thought.

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Accepting this allows you to take a step back in consciousness and notice thoughts as they arise and fog up your windshield. Rather than see the world through the fog of thought, you begin to observe the movement of the fog. And when you do, you see something important.

The fog of your thoughts follows a pattern.


You discern the repetitive patterns of your fog. You see how the same thoughts and emotions arise and dissolve away, arise and dissolve away. You observe thoughts conflicting with other thoughts.

You see how patterns of inner conflict generate a cycle of struggle.


Through mindfulness you realize that the struggles youve been experiencing are more predictable than a TV re-run. Its the same storyline, the same dynamic, over and over. New actors may appear but the plot never changes. You see how your life keeps cycling through an unvarying sequence of struggle-release, struggle-releaseall driven by thought. Just seeing this stops the cycle. Because when you see it, youre not caught up in it. Awareness is the liberating principle. Dont try to wrestle with the fog. (Thats just more thought-fighting-thought patterning). See. Breathe. Fog naturally dissolves in the light of awareness. Take a step back in consciousness, right now, and see

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Slow for Yellow Lights


I was riding shotgunsitting in the passenger seat. Aaron, my 20-year-old son, was driving. He picked me up at the airport and we were now weaving in and out of the afternoon traffic. Up ahead, the traffic light went from green to yellow. Aaron gunned the engine and I let out a yelp.

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To me a yellow light means slow down and get ready to stop.


To Aaron a yellow light means speed up and make it through the intersection before you have to stop. We both recognize yellow lights as a warning. But this warning triggers very different behaviors for each of us. Yellow lights arent only encountered while driving around town. Yellow lights are part of every conversation you have at work and at home.

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Every conversation you have is dotted with conversational yellow lights.


Conversational yellow lights are warningssignals that the person youre talking to is: Not following your reasoning Not accepting your assumptions Not understanding your point of view Not connecting with your message

How can you tell if youre approaching a conversational yellow light?


Whenever the person youre talking to: Disagrees with your opinion Expresses doubt or concern Asks a challenging question Voices an idea that you dont agree with Sends non-verbal signals of confusion, discomfort, disagreement, or disinterest These are all signs that theyre out of synch with what youre saying. Youre not influencing them in the direction youre intending.Youre not connecting with them. Theyre flashing a conversational yellow light. How you interpret their yellow light will determine what you do next.

Many people interpret a conversational yellow light as a signal to speed up.


They see the yellow light as a threat to their agenda. They want to move forward, not lose momentum. They believe that slowing down the conversation will cause them to lose ground. So when a conversational yellow light flashes, they: Talk more Argue harder Go into detail Provide more evidence Show more charts and graphs They do this because theyre afraid of yellow lights and they recognize that theyre out of synch with the other person. So they try harder and talk more in an attempt to accelerate through the yellow light. But heres the problem. Whenever you blow past a conversational yellow light, you miss the opportunity to make a stronger connection with the other person, understand them better, and have the outcome you want for your conversation.
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When you hit a conversational yellow lightslow down.


Every conversational yellow light is a gift. Every doubt, concern, objection, or question that the other person expresses is a gift. By flashing a conversational yellow light, the other person reveals exactly where theyre stuck, uncertain, and how youve lost them.

Their questions and disagreements tell you precisely what matters most to them.
Their non-verbal signals of confusion, discomfort, disagreement, or disinterest, highlight exactly what you need to understand them more completely. When people flash yellow lights, theyre telling you to slow down and shift from being convincing to being curious. When youre curious, you naturally slow down to learn, investigate, and pay attention.

A great way to slow down is to ask questions.


Show your interest, respect, and care for the other person by asking questions. And take your time. Ask real questionsquestions that you dont know the answer to. Take more time than feels natural. The more you slow down and ask questions, the more clearly, precisely, and deeply youll be able to address their doubts, concerns, and confusion. Shift your attention from making your point to exploring and understanding their doubts, concerns, and objections.

Next, time youre driving your agenda forwardpay attention to those yellow lights.
When you see one, put your foot on the brake, not in your mouth. Slow the conversation down, listen more than talk, ask questions, and deepen your connection with the other person. When you slow down, youll reach your destination much more quickly.

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Thunder and Lightening


My wifes family owns several cottages on Canandaigua Lake. Weve been spending summer there for decades. Its green and serene, unless theres a stormlike the other night. Brilliant flashes of lightening, booming thunder, and pouring rain woke us at 2 am. Natural drama. Its like a scene from some monster movie, I remarked as the lightning struck again, illuminating our room.

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My brain was making an association.


Dark and stormy night equals monster movie. The brain is always making these kinds of associations. This is both efficient and limiting. It saves time and energy because you dont have to start every situation with a clean mental slate. You rely on associations to guide you. But when youre filtering the present moment through memories and images of the past, youre unable to respond in creative, fresh ways. You perpetuate the past.
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Imagine youre about to have a difficult conversation.


Think about sitting down with your boss, a friend, or family memberto talk through a complex, emotionally laden issue. Before you walk through the door, your brain is associating. By the time you sit down, all your filters, memories, and associations are shaping your thoughts, speech, and action. This is karmathe unconscious re-playing of past patterns. So how can you meet the experience of this moment in a more unfiltered way?

You start to notice the filters as filters.


Rather than look at others through your filtersstep back and become aware of your filters. Turn your awareness towards the filters themselves. How? By infusing mindful awareness into your bodily sensations and tensions. Because the filters are encoded into the cells of your body. By becoming a student of how your body feels and reactsyou learn to discern the physical presence of these automatic filters. Heres how. Think about that difficult conversation. Imagine the person that youll be talking to. Picture the setting.

And then pay attention to your body.


Notice what youre feelingphysicallyas you recall that difficulty. Just stay with the physical sensations. How does your body respond to that memory? Where is there tension? Heat? Discomfort? These sensations are the somatic indicators of the filtering process. Theyre evidence that your inner resources and outer perceptions are being karmically determined by filters from the past. You dont need to be in the actual situation to study your bodily reactions. You just need to think about it. The good news is that this somatic pattern doesnt just relate to this particular situation or person. Its a karmic pattern. A self-limiting reflex that you have reinforced each time you allow it to automatically play itself out. Any experience with a similar emotional flavor will activate the same karmic patterns in the body.

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And this physical redundancy is good news for these reasons:


1. Somatic reactions are simple to observe. Figuring out your karma can be complicated. Noticing how your jaw tenses, shoulders tighten, or stomach churnsnot so hard. You dont need to understand anything esoteric to be aware of how your body reacts. 2. Somatic reactions are consistent. You can count on your body. You can trust it. Whenever the pattern of tension arisesit means a filter is being stimulated. The filters are in place and youre about to go on karmic auto-pilot. You can count on it. So whenever this pattern of tension arisesSTOP. Dont make a decision. Dont take an action. Dont reach a conclusion. Just stop and be aware. Notice the bodily sensations and recognize that this means your system is entering automatic-reaction mode. Take a breath and feel the sensations. Do this for 1520 seconds. As you breathe and infuse the sensations with awareness, they release.

When the bodily reactions release, the filters release as well.


They arent two separate things. Your karmic pattern of thought, speech, and action are supported and sustained by a signature pattern of bodily tensions. By becoming aware of and releasing your body tensionwhich is relatively easyyou become unstuck from the karmic filters.

Then you can choose to engage with life afresh.


You can open not only your ears but also your mind and heartand begin to discover new insights, ideas, and options as you meet your life liberated from habitual filters of the past. Then, even when thunder and lightning strikeyou wont end up in a rerun of some old monster movie.

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Read Your Gut


Theres a lot of teachings on trusting your gut. But your gut isnt always trustworthy.

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Heres why.
Imagine sitting in a meeting. Youve just presented your thoughts on a project. A colleague looks over at you like you just coughed up a hairball on the conference table. Then someone makes a jokea not-so-cleverly disguised put-down. You see another person trying to muffle a laugh. At this point you can feel a churning in your gut. Its your inner Neanderthal waking up from a nap. Yes, theres a Neanderthal napping lightly in your nervous system. He or she is on the lookout for danger. Hes monitoring the environment for threats.

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Your Neanderthal interprets any challenge as a life or death scenario.


And while logically you may know better, your Neanderthal cares little for your logic. Your Neanderthal knows only gut reactions unmediated by nuance or reason. And he/she cant tell the difference between the imminent attack of a saber-toothed tiger and a difficult conversation. Thats why trusting your gut isnt always a good idea.

Not all gut reactions are created equal.


There are two kinds of gut reactions. Theres the Neanderthal Alarm and theres the Congruence Alert. Lets examine them one at a time.

The Neanderthal Alarm works well when something is threatening your very existence.
Your Neanderthal keeps things simple. If something appears to be threatening you, your Neanderthal assumes it needs to be destroyed or avoided. Your Neanderthal has only three options: fight, flight, or freeze. No gray areas. Thats whyunless youre in a life or death situationthe best response to a Neanderthal Alarm is to breathe. Breathe slowly and deeply. Take your attention off the apparent threat and focus on soothing the Neanderthal with full, relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing. Despite the sense of urgency it generates in your body, the Neanderthal Alarm is not a signal to act. Its a signal to stop, breathe, and re-balance system. Its a primitive response that rarely brings out your best. The wisest response is to cool down. But there is another kind of gut reaction that you need to pay attention to: your Congruence Alert.

Your Congruence Alert is not focused on external threats.


The purpose of your Congruence Alert is to get you to pay attention to the alignment of your actions with your values. So it goes off when you are in danger of abandoning your core values. Heres how it works: Youre in a meeting. The team is about to make a decision that will have long-term impact. Your boss has clearly stated her opinion and the rest of the team seems to agree. But youre not so sure. Do you voice your opinion or do you sit quietly?

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As you sit there, you feel restless. Your face is hot and theres a churning in your gut. Whats going on? Theres no external threat. Its your Congruence Alert letting you know that youre teetering on the edge of incongruence, of potentially acting in ways that dont fully reflect your core values.

Youre at a choice point, a fork in the road.


And youre free to choose which way you want to go. Your Congruence Alert is just there to make sure that you pay attention. Its there to help you realize that you can chooseeven in complicated situationsto act in ways that are congruent with your values.Your Congruence Alert is your ever-present coach.

Its built right into your body.


When you start to turn away from your core valuesthe Congruence Alert will let you know. The Congruence Alert feels distinctly different from the blood curdling rush of the Neanderthal Alarm. More like a nudge from your soul; a subtle, but definitely physical, alert that youre about to sacrifice your values. The Neanderthal Alarm arises the same way in all human bodies. But the physical dynamics of your Congruence Alert are individualized. The key is to distinguish the difference between the two. Just because your stomach is clenching or your heart is pounding doesnt mean that youre feeling a Neanderthal alarm. Every intense bodily reaction doesnt need to be soothed into submission with slow, rhythmic breathing. That churning in your stomach could be the still small voice of your core values trying to get your attention in the only way it knows how through your body. It could be the call of your soul, which needs to be heeded not smoothed over.

Become a student of your gut reactions.


Learn to distinguish the difference between the Neanderthal Alarm and the Congruence Alert. Theyre different. And your Congruence Alert will have a definite physical signature. Get to know it. Then, when you sense the Congruence Alert is active, focus inwardly and ask yourself: What are my core values trying to tell me? What would it look like for me to shift into deeper congruence with my values? Because all gut feelings arent created equal. Some are there to protect you from wild animals. Others are there to help you live in alignment with your core values.

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Chuckle at the Truth


My grandmother used to say, The truth will set you free. And then shed pause before adding, but first it will make you very uncomfortable. And shed chuckle.

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I didnt find her funny.


Though over the decades, Ive come to appreciate her insight more and more. The pathway to change, to creativity, to freedom tends to pass through Discomfort-ville. But, its a special kind of discomfortthe kind that comes with increased awareness. It takes awareness to instigate substantive change.

Superficial changes can be implemented without awareness.


Band-aid solutions can be applied to mask problems. Quick fixes can be instituted in reaction to unsatisfactory results. But the illusory effects of rearranging the deck chairs wears off and youre left to confront the harsh reality of a sinking ship.
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The truth of your situation becomes clear in the light of awareness. Such clarity, while liberating, can also beuncomfortable. Thats why what happens next is the key to the transformation process.

The tendency is to spring into action.


Action has its place in transformation. Its just not first place. Moving too quickly to action short-circuits the transformative power of awareness. The more you truly see what youre doingthe more clearly youll realize what to do differently. New perceptions, new actions, new choices emerge as awareness infuses fully into your mind and body. You dont need to think of a new strategyrather deepen your awareness of habitual patterns. When unconscious habits are infused with awareness, they naturally transform.

Awareness is the secret to accelerating change.


One of my all time favorite books is a slim volume called Extraordinary Golf by Jerry Shoemaker. I dont play golf, but his wisdom can be applied to any area of human life. Shoemaker points out that most golfers who come to his programs say, Theres something wrong with my swing, and I must fix it. Shoemaker explains that in order to change something you have to be aware of it. How can you correct what youre doing when you dont have any idea what youre doing? The best way to become aware of what you are doing is not to fix it. Premature fixing inhibits the transformation that only awareness can bring.

To adopt an awareness-based approach to change is counter-cultural.


Most of us have been raised in a fix-it culture with a find the problem and make it go away orientation. The notion that awareness itselfnot techniques and actionwill give rise to substantive change seems absurd. It begs the question, How can I improve whats wrong if I dont fix it? But this question cant be answered within the framework of the fix-it culture. All you can do is notice the consequences of the fix-it orientation. One of the first things youll notice is that the fix-it mindset is rooted in dissatisfaction and perpetually searching for whats wrong. The awareness-based change isnt looking on whats wrong or whats right.

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Awareness illuminates whats sowithout judgment.


Free from judgment of right of wrong, awareness reveals previously unseen possibilities for thinking, speaking, and taking action. Awareness illuminates deeper and finer distinctions which naturally point the way to change. The fastest path to change is to let go of the need to change and instead to cultivate awareness of what is true.

You can cultivate awareness while performing any simple manual task.
This gives you an easy way to practice awareness-based change. Simply go about your normal activity. But instead of doing it habitually, infuse it with awareness. For example, when youre walking, be aware of your feet touching the ground. Sense the swinging of your arms. Bring awareness to the rhythm of your breath. Washing dishes, chopping vegetables, pressing an elevator button, opening a door, brushing your teeth, and folding clothes are also great activities for cultivating awareness. By cultivating awareness in activities that are simple and unimportantyou build your capacity to practice awareness-based change with behaviors, habits, and situations that are more demanding. Youll see the truth and it will, in its own time, reveal the path to freedom. Of course, it will probably make you uncomfortable first. Maybe youll even hear my grandmother chuckle.

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Wait at the Crossroads


Imagine youre walking down a dusty road in the hot sun when you come to a crossroads. The road divides in two and you have to decide which way to go. Creative work, often compared to a journey, includes many crossroads. Not physical crossroads, but inner, psychological, even spiritual situations that bring you to a crossroads in your life.

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The crossroads is an uncomfortable place to be.


When youre at the crossroads you know youve got to make a move. Theres pressure to get going, start doing, initiate action, and forge ahead. But what will inform, guide, and motivate your next step? Thats what the crossroads demands you clarify. The crossroads is a sacred place on the creative journeya place where you can redirect your life.

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At the crossroads youre poised between the paths of Conditioning and Calling.
At the crossroads, youre in a suspended state that endows you with a kind of stereophonic consciousness. In one ear you can hear the voice of your Conditioning. In the other ear, theres the voice of your Calling.

Both beckon you forward.


Which path will you choose? That depends on how slowly you proceed. Yes, how slowly.

Its important to take your time at the crossroads.


Slow down so that you can begin to discern the different flavors, textures, tensions, and qualities of your Conditioning and your Calling. The discomfort at the crossroads comes from both your Conditioning and your Calling. And its easy to confuse the two.

But these discomforts are very different from each other.


By taking your time, by slowing down at the crossroads, youll be able to distinguish the discomfort of Conditioning from the discomfort of Calling. On the surface, theyre similar. Both generate discomfort. But in fact, theyre not the same at all.

What is the discomfort of Conditioning?


Conditioning creates the experience of discomfort whenever you stop acting in accordance with yourumconditioning. Growing up, you were taught what was expected, what you needed to do in order to survive and even thrive in your family, school, religious community, peer group, etc. You were given precise messages by authorities of all kindsfrom parents, to teachers, to coaches, to media celebrities. You were given verbal and even more powerful non-verbal messages about how to act, how to fit in, how to win approval.

The underlying message of Conditioning isyoure not enough.


No matter what youre doing, achieving, realizing, or creatingits not really enough. At the crossroads, this not-enough message intensifies. Because when youre at the crossroads youre not doing anything. Youre waiting, being still, seeking to decide your next move.

Conditioning cant stand waiting.


In the stillness, the pause of waiting, theres the chance for you to choose a direction other than the one dictated by Conditioning. The forces of your Conditioning start to rattle inside you and make you very nervous.
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Conditioning needs your attention to thrive.


The forces of conditioning dont really have a life of their own. The forces of Conditioning feed on your attention. When you act in ways that give attention, validation, and life to Conditioningit relaxes. You feel relieved.

When Conditioning is satisfied that youre doing as youve been told it relaxes.
It stops causing you discomfort. It stops reminding you that youre not good enough, that you dont measure up, that theres more to do, and that youd better hurry up. It stops putting pressure on youas long as you continue to follow its dictates.

The discomfort of Conditioning comes from convincing you that youre fundamentally blowing it.
That youre a failure. A fraud. And that unless you get with the programyoure goin down. And hard. Its just too painful to hear that. So you take the blue pill, follow the dictates of Conditioningto prove that youre worthwhile.

Calling also causes discomfort.


But this discomfort is different. Callings discomfort isnt imposed by outside standards. Its more like the pressure that an acorn might experience as the oak tree inside it starts to grow. The shell of the acornthat has provided structure, safety, and security for so long is now in the way.

Whats your acorn shell?


Its all of your skills, talents, ways of working, interacting, and being that have taken you to your current level of achievement and fulfillment. Its what has taken you this far but isnt designed to take you further.

Theres an oak tree inside you trying to grow into full expression.
Theres something that wants to be expressed through youthats yours alone to do. Thats why its a Calling. Its calling you. And you cant delegate this Calling. You can turn away from it. You can delay enacting it. You can even dull the pressurethrough a variety of self-medication strategiesincluding following the promptings of your Conditioning.

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But, your Calling will just keep growing.


From inside you. The work that is emerging wont abandon you. The creative impulse wont die. It will keep applying pressure. Which is why you need to slow down at the crossroads. So you can distinguish the discomfort that comes from: Conditioning: which tells you that youre fundamentally flawed and offers you a path of relief. Calling: which tells you its time to allow yourself to be broken open by what is emerging and offers you a path of transformation.

Transformationits a nice word.


Even a popular one in some circles. Theres a shorter way to spell transformation. Its d..e..a..t..h. Not as appealing as the relief that Conditioning promises. At least not at first. But if you look down the road a bit, you see a different picture. Because while Conditioning offers you relief in the short term, it guarantees youll be caught in a perpetual struggle to prove your worth.

Calling has a different offer.


In the short term, taking the path of Calling offers the death of certainty, security, and clarity about who you are, what you do, and how you serve the world. But in exchange for this short-term confusion, Calling offers you: An ever-deepening sense of your unique place in the world An ongoing development of your gifts An expanding horizon of awareness that dissolves the need for egoreassurance in the ocean of gratitude for the oak tree that is taking shape through you

So the next time you find yourself at a crossroadsslow down.


Dont rush ahead. Take your time and allow yourself to experience the confluence of pressures that surround you. Pay attention to the voices in your head. Notice the emotions, the anxiety in your heart. Sort out the different discomforts and put them in two piles. One: your Conditioning. The other: your Calling. Remember, at the crossroads they both generate pain. But down the road they take you to different lives. One path, promises frustration and an endless struggle to prove your worth. The other breaks you open to experience the ever-deepening revelation of the creative energy of life expressing through you. Which will you choosethis moment?
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How to be Coachable
When I was learning to ride a bike, my father would run along side of me holding the back of the seat to stabilize my balance. At a certain point, he would let go. Id be riding on my onfor a few seconds. Then my balance would wobble and hed take hold to stabilize me again.

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All learning involves wobbling.


You are clumsy as you integrate new ways of being and doing into everyday behaviors. You get it partially right and partially wrong. Sometimes you over correctlike a kid learning to ride a bike. Sometimes you fall down and skin your knees.

Thats when a guiding, coaching hand is so helpful.


Life is your ever-present coach, teacher, and guide. Life offers you this guidance through people. Every person in your life is your teacher and coach. They teach you by responding to you. Their moment-to-moment response is your coaching.
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But sometimes the way people respond is challenging.


Even though youre making decisions and taking actions with the best of intentions, people can react in ways that challenge you. They push back, dig in their heels, argue, or avoid you. They resist what youre trying to do until the situation gets contentious.

Thats when your old patterns arent helpful.


Relying on your old patterns will only perpetuate their resistance. You need to do something different in order to break free of this karmic cycle. And that means youre going to wobble a bit.

Wobbling isnt a problem.


Its a sign that youre exercising a new way of being, embodying a new pattern, and stepping out of your habitual karmic cycle. Wobbling is intrinsic to growth.

When youre wobblingyou need a guiding, coaching hand.


And youve got onein the very person whos challenging you. Their responses, reactions, and resistance are your coaching. They provide you with customized timely feedback.

The key is to be coachable.


The key is to experience their resistance to you as feedback about your behavior. To accept their reactions to you as teachings illuminating the limitations of your patterns of thought, speech, and action. This can be tricky. Particularly when the way they react seems unreasonable, illogical, and difficult; when their response seems to clearly be about them. It is about them. They have their own karmic patterns. But, first its about you. Because, your first job isnt to change themits to be coachable. To receive lifes teachings and guidance coming through this other person. Life will respond differently when you listen to lifes guidance, adjust, adapt, and change.

But, its not my fault! They are being unreasonable! you may think.
And Im not arguing with that. Im just suggesting that holding this thought wont help you receive lifes coaching so you can transform yourself and your situation. The more you focus on their unreasonableness, the more off balance and ineffective you become. The key is to be coachableto sit at the feet of life and allow it to teach you.

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How can you receive their resistance as feedback not judgment? How can you accept their reactions as lifes guidance? What will help you allow their responses to guide you into new ways of being?

Try this: 1) Take a giant step backwards.


Inwardly shift your perspective outside of the situation so you can see both yourself and the other person. Observe the scene as though you were both in a movie. Notice which of your behaviors triggers their resistant response. See how your actions get those unwanted reactions.

2) Take a deep dive inwards.


Having observed yourself from a mental distance, move into your heartnot your head. From the heart of your being, ask what you really, really want and why it matters to you.

3) Get curious about them.


Now staying in your heart, turn towards the other person. Let go of any desire to convince or change them. Attune through your heart to their heart. Connect with what they really, really want and why that matters to them.

4) Stay curious.
As you interact, spend more time listening than you would normally. When you feel like youve listened enoughstay with it. Remember, youre letting life guide you. Youll know youve listened enough when you see them shift and the signs of their resistance begin to soften.

5) Let your heart speak.


When you do talk, share what matters most to you. Reveal that youre struggling with how to let go of old patterns, that you want to communicate in ways that build connection.

6) Inch forward.
Moving the situation forward will proceed more quickly if you take it an inch at a time. Dont look for a major breakthrough. An inch will do. Remember, youre learning how to act differentlyin order to get a new response. And youll tend to wobble at first. So small moves are better. They allow you to practice your new way of being and receive lifes coaching as you go.
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The next time you encounter resistance, think, Ah, life is coaching me.
Become coachable. The more you open yourself to the coaching that life providesin the form of other peoples responsesthe more quickly youll rebalance yourself and peddle smoothly on.

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Love the Goo


Before a caterpillar can become a butterfly, it must become goo. Within the cocoon, the caterpillar dissolves into a liquid that is rich with nutrients and potential. Its super goo. All transformations include this gooey phase. Whether the transformation is individual or collective, goo is part of it. Whether youre seeking transformation or its seeking youget comfortable with the goo.

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You cant skip the goo.


Theres no skipping steps on the transforming journey. Every phase of the process has a purpose and must be completed before you can move on. You cant leap from newbie to expert in a single bound. Theres a developmental sequence that you must follow. Its an organic process that moves according to developmental time.

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The cadence of developmental time contrasts sharply with the pace of contemporary life.
We live in a nanosecond culture where most of us are what author Sue Monk Kidd calls quick-aholics. Were addicted to the instant response. This speedy tempo is ill-suited to the goo-ification process. The goo phase cant be rushed. It will dissolve the addiction to speed along with everything else.

How can you tell if youre in the goo?


You know youre into the goo when an old form has completely dissolvedbut the new form has not yet emerged. But lets make this practical. Consider your life. Specifically an area in your life where the old form is dissolving away. It may be that your business is turning into goo, or if not the business itself, your motivation and engagement. Here are some common areas of life where people experience goo-ification (check all that apply to you at this time): Identity - I cant go on being the person I have been, but Im not sure who Im becoming. Work - The work is changingbut Im not sure into what? Is it dying or being reborn? I cant tell. Role at work, family etc - My old role and my old skills no longer work. But, Im not sure what I need to do next or how to continue? Relationship - Our old ways of being together no longer make sense. But how can I be in this relationship when I dont even know what it is anymore? Motivation - The needs and values that used to drive me dont anymore. Im not sure what matters or how to even reconnect to a sense of passion and purpose. Beliefs - Ive outgrown my former beliefs. But now Im not sure what I believe. I cant go back. But Im not sure how to go forward.

Only by letting go of the old forms can you make space for something new to be born.
In spiritual literature goo-ification is called the dark night of the soul. When youre navigating through goo, your old ways of staying on track no longer work. Its like youre adrift in an inner sea without stars overhead to guide you. All you can do is let go. Its time to become a mystic.

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Goo is the natural habitat of the mystic.


Youre being called to be a mystic in the area of your life thats undergoing goo-ification. This means being called to: Let go of the known and the past. Trust the darkness. Recognize that those who dwell in darkness shall see the light. You allow the old structure of identity to dissolve into formless goo. It doesnt matter whether you used to believe I-am-a-success or I-am-a-failure.

Whatever form your identity used to takeits over.


Youve outgrown the beliefs, attitudes, images, structures, and goals that defined you in the past. The vision that inspired you no longer works. The self that you identified with has become outmoded. This is the time of profound letting go. Your work is to consent to goo-ification without knowing how you will be re-formed. To hold yourself together now is to fight against your own destiny.

The way forward comes through letting go and surrender.


As you consent to goo-ification, you shed layer upon layer of thoughts and beliefs. These layers have insulated you and comforted you. Now is the time to discard all coverings. Its time for stillnessnot action.

As your old identity dissolves, the stillness deepens.


When you rest completely in the goowithout clinging to the past or straining towards the futuresomething that you cant plan for happens. Within the stillness, the creative impulse of your soul stirs. Just as a butterfly emerges from the goo, your renewed life arises from stillness. But, now freed from out-moded identity structures, it breaks forth with fresh energy and renewed purpose. Love the goo.

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Feed the Mouth


Feed the mouth
Once upon a time there was a hand. The hand lived a busy fulfilling life typing, playing the guitar, digging in the garden.

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Then one day, the hand was hungry.


So the hand went into the kitchen and grabbed an apple. The hand squeezed the apple. But that didnt take away its hunger. The hand opened a yogurt container and plunged instill hungry. Really hungry.

In the midst of its hunger, the hand heard a voice.


The voice said, Feed me and you shall be fed. Whos that? asked the hand. Looking up, the hand saw that it was the mouth talking.

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The mouth smiled and said: If you feed me, youll be fed.
The hand wasnt sure. It didnt want to just give away its food and get nothing in return. Using its thumb and index finger, the hand opened up the mouth and peered in. Oh, I see, said the hand, Its the tongue and the teeth talking. You just want the food for yourself. Im not going to let you take whats mine.

The hand pulled away from the mouth and grabbed a croissant.
The almond pasted oozed out but the hand was still hungry. By this time, very weak and hungry. It simple, said the mouth, if you feed me, youll be fed. Seeing no other options, the hand reached up and put the rest of the croissant into the mouth. The food disappeared inside. The mouth smiled as it chewed and swallowed. The hand was livid. I was right, the hand cursed, the mouth just wanted all the food for itself.

Then something strange happened.


The hand felt a surge of energy, of strength and vitality. The hand looked up at the mouth. Its true isnt it? If I feed you, Im fed. Yes, the mouth said, smiling, By the way, do you have any more of those delicious croissants? Certainly, the hand answered. Commentary: Hand = you. Mouth = life. Teaching = Feed life and youll be fed.

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Break the Chains


When you look deeply at whats in the way of fulfilling your dream, reaching your goals, experiencing the bliss of being its simple: your mind has latched onto and identified with self-limiting thoughts.
Your mind has fashioned its own prison comprised of thought, memory, language, and belief. How to get free? Unlock yourself from thought chains with the key of mindfulness. If youve seen movies involving lock pickers, than youve seen mindfulness in action. As the lock-picker begins working, he becomes very still, focused, and completely absorbed. He listens closely and feels deeply into the structure of the lock. He moves slowly with full awareness. Breath be breath the lock opens. To pick the lock of self-confinement, develop these same qualities.

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Develop your capacity to be still, focused, and completely absorbed.


You can do this by meditating on an object of beauty (link to guided meditation on object of beauty is at the end of this chapter). The advantage of meditating on an object of beauty is that the mind more easily inclines itself towards forms and patterns that generate pleasant feelings. You can than apply your strengthened capacity to be still, focused, and absorbed to picking the locks of your limiting thoughts.

No thought can remained locked when it is infused with awareness.


Start the lock-picking by reflecting on those recurrent thoughts that get in your way. Often these thoughts begin: I cant I must I should If I dont Finish these sentence stems and determine which represents a thought that is currently limiting your life. Then gently repeat the phrase in your mind until you feel a pattern of tension or contraction in your body. Then shift your attention from repeating the words to feeling the feelings in the body. Dont try to fix, correct, or adjust what is arising in the body. Be a lock-pickerand simply focus your attentioninfuse the pattern of contraction with awareness. Emotions may come. Images may flash. Remain mindful and allow awareness to more and more completely infuse your experience. Thoughts, tensions, and emotions naturally rebalance as they are bathed in the healing waters of mindful awareness.

Link to guided meditation:


http://www.wisdomheart.org/object-of-beauty/

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Love Demands
Love is much more demanding than Law. Desmond Tutu knows. He lived in a country where Law dominated Love. And he fought back with love. Intense. Indomitable. Encompassing love.
Law is easier than Love. Law follows instructions. Love heeds the Call. Law says, This far and no further. Love propels you into unmapped territory. Love pours it on. Law takes a number.
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Love throws you into the deep end of the pool and then says, Go deeper. Law gives you a job description. Love says, Now. Law punches the time card. Love says No to what limits you. Law sets up barriers. Love demands your own voice. Law hands you a script. Love sweats. Law requires temperature control. Love acts before its safe. Law gets insurance. Love shows upeven when theres no audience. Law measures your value by the numbers. Love is much more demanding than Law. Whats Love calling you to do?

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Spell Dog Backwards


Think about someone youre at odds with. It could be a family member or a member of congress. Someone you know or someone youve only read about. Pick someone whos really bugging you these days. Someone who causes your stomach to clench when you merely bring them to mind. Notice what you call that personin the privacy of your own mind. What qualities do you ascribe to him or her?

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These inner judgments are less about them and more reflections of your own mind.
You dont see the personin truth. You see them through your emotionally colored lens. There is a person out there. But not the one you see. What you see is the person filtered through your personal history and cultural conditioning.
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Youre lost in the mirror world of your own projections. So youre not connecting with them. And youve lost touch with your deeper being as well. Youre in the karmic maze of thought, emotion, and memory, which perpetuates the image you have of them and blinds you to who they (and you) really are. Heres a poem by the 17th Century mystic poet Tukaram that offers a method for seeing through the colorings of your mind and removing the emotional labels that blind you to the sacred nature of everyone you meet: I could not lie anymore so I started To call my dog, God. First he looked Confused, Then he started smiling, then He even danced. I kept at it: now he doesnt even bite. I am wondering if this Might work on People?

Nice poem. Are you ready to try it? Heres how:


Think of someone youre at odds with. And inwardly see them as God (if the word God doesnt work for yousubstitute some other term that has sacred resonance).

What does it mean to see them as God? It means:


Seeingand more importantly feelingpast the labels that your mind places on them Recognizing their basic humanityindependent of any particular cultural, ideological, emotional, or behavioral expression Empathizing with their struggles Feeling the ways in which you are both caught in suffering Sensing a palpable connection between your heartbeat and theirs

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Synchronizing your breath with theirs Experiencing the sacred presence that surrounds and interpenetrates both of youand all life Heres a video of my conversation with Ram Dass describing how he does this very practice: http://www.wisdomheart.org/2010/love-everybody-ram-dass/

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Stop Raining
Are your thoughts raining on your parade or encouraging you to move forward towards your deepest dream?

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When you begin to move forward towards your dreamits inevitable that youll stir up doubt, confusion, and uncertainty.
The creative process inevitably calls out all the hidden emotions that kept you from moving forward in the past. These hidden emotions need to be brought out into the open, into the light of consciousnessso their energy can be released and re-channeled towards your dream.

If the emotions of doubt, fear, and uncertainty remain in the shadows they will keep you from moving forward.
Youll unconsciously identify with them and theyll drive your life in directions that are more congruent with fear and doubt than with your dreams fulfillment.
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Put mindfulness in the drivers seat instead.


Be aware of the doubt, be conscious of the fear, and witness the uncertainty. In this way you shine the light of awareness on those shadowy emotions. Basking in the light of awareness, emotions naturally transform. Fear melts, doubt dissolves, and uncertainty evaporates. What is left is creative potentialenergy that is available to be re-formed into thoughts, words, and actions that support your cherished dream.

So the next time you find yourself raining on your own paradepause.
Become aware of the thoughts that are raining down. Sense the emotions that get activated and course through your body. Thank them for making themselves known and lovingly shine the light of awareness upon them. Dont seek to change, improve, upgrade, or repair them. Just allow them to bask in the sunlight of awareness and witness these emotions transform into creative energy all on their own.

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Tune Your Instrument


Creativity in sports, the arts, at work, or in daily life comes about when you balance effort and effortlessness. You need effort, focused, intentional action to achieve any kind of result, whether its cooking a meal, writing a report, or making a presentation. But too much effort, while it may get the job done, rarely produces great results.

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Too much effort tightens you up.


Your capacity to respond flexibly and readjust to the call of the moment is hampered when youre fixated on following your plan or achieving a specific outcome.

Sometimes what appear as obstacles arent really in your way.


Whether its a bottleneck in the system or an objection to the logic of your presentation from a colleague, these obstacles may not be in your way at all. They may be signposts, not

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barriers. Theyre pointing you in new directions that seem off plan but can lead you to something better than your highly focused, effortful mind can envision.

Openness is as necessary as having a laser focus.


Being loose, flexible, and adaptive is as necessary as being decisive, determined, and deliberate. Rather than developing a watertight perspective, let your attention be more porous so that ideas, insights, and information can leak into your mind and enrich your understanding in unpredictable ways.

But too much openness doesnt work well either.


It disperses attention and causes you to lose focus. In the words of Virginia Gildersleeve, "Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."

Effort and effortlessness, focus and openness, need each other.


Creativity, greatness, arises when the balance is right. Getting the balance right is, as the Buddha suggested, like tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight and its out of tune. Too loose, you have the same problem. You need to tune your body/mind in the same way.

Because your body/mind is an instrument.


Its the instrument you play every day of your life. Its precious, irreplaceable, and it needs to be kept in tune.

When situations, projects, relationships in your world are not working well, its likely that your instrument is out of tune.
Youre either pushing too hard or not being engaged enough. Youre either over-focused on doing it one way or open to so many alternatives that the path of action is obscured.

Youre being too tight or too loose.


You need to re-tune. Heres how: Think about a situation where youre not getting desired results, where youre frustrated by the progress or the interpersonal dynamics.

Now consider: Do you need to tighten up? Or loosen up?


Have you been straining to control the situation, insisting, or stonewalling? Those are examples of being too tight. Or have you been avoiding the tough conversation, smoothing over differences, or sidestepping difficult decisions? Those are ways of being too loose.
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To get yourself back in tune, you need to either tighten up or loosen up.
Once youve decided which it is, you can begin to re-tune your mind/body by doing the following: Sit in a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths to release excess tension. Feel the quality that you needthe quality of more tightness or more looseness spreading through your nervous system. Get a sense of what being in tune feels like in your body. Then visualize yourself stepping into the situation in a way that is tuned up. Picture yourself taking that tuned-up action. Feel what its like to act in this way. Finally, let go of the visualization and open your eyes. Keep the feeling of being tuned up as you step into the rest of your day.

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Try Chopped Liver


My grandmother loved to serve chopped liver on crackers. I couldnt stand the stuff. This is horrible, Id tell her. Its delicious, shed respond, popping another cracker into her mouth. In every argument there are four truths. My truth. Your truth. Our truth. And THE truth. If you insist on your truth and I insist on my truth, well never find our truth, she smiled, But, I dont think well ever know THE truth. Particularly about chopped liver.

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Where are you stuck in a chopped liver argument?


Whats the idea, project, decision that you think tastes great and someone else cant stand (or vice versa)? Where you argue over whos right. Youre stuck in your truth and theyre stuck in their truth. To move forward, whats needed is a shared truth: an understanding that supports mutual action.
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Whats needed is our truth.


Youll never get there as long as you take your truth for THE truth. And when theyre doing the same.

Its easy for the mind to confuse strong opinions with facts.
The mind holds that your truth is THE truth, which is why its hard for you to see things any other way. Loosening your grip on your truth, even a little bit, feels threatening. The mind equates loosening with losing. And not just for this specific argument but for its total grasp of reality.

Its not that having strong opinions is wrong.


Just be able to hold them lightly. Because grasping your truth too tightly shuts down your ability to connect with others. When you cling to your truththey cling to theirs. When you dig in your heelsthey do too. Its a stand-off. If you want to move the conversation forward, hold your position lightly. You dont have to let go of it completely. Just hold it more lightly. Consider your truth to be one perspective, one angle on the situation.

The first step is gently relaxing the minds insistence on your truth.
Become aware of how the mind holds on. Notice how defensive thoughts, emotions, and tensions arise when you begin to loosen the minds grip on your truth. Tell your mind that whats happening is no more drastic than taking off a favorite pair of sunglasses. Youre not tossing them away. Youre just setting them down or slipping them into your pocket.

Your point of view is still close by.


Its just that youre not totally identified with it. So you can temporarily adopt alternative views. Take a breath. Pause. Try on other perspectives. Learn what the world looks and feels like from these different angles. You can safely encourage your mind to sample other versions of the truthknowing that your truth is close at hand. Temporarily letting go of your truth isnt a magic bullet for creating harmony and accord. Its a way to inject movement and flexibility into a stuck conversation. Its a way to stop arguing and start exploring, listening, and learning.

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When its time for you to pick up your truth againit will be enriched.
Your truth will be informed by the other perspectives youve explored. And most powerfullythe emotional tone behind your position will be softened. You can still support the value of your truth. But you wont mistake it for THE truth. Youll hold your truth more lightly which encourages others to hold theirs lightly too. And this replaces the struggle to determine whos more right with a mutual exploration for a shared truth that will allow you to move forward together. Even if the menu calls for chopped liver.

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Back Away from the Desk


Sometimes your work can become so intenseit feels like your life depends on it. Not just your rent, mortgage, meals, tuition, clothing, and utilities. But your life.

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Fear and hope cloud your eyes.


You cant see what youre doing, where youre going, or what matters most. When youre lost in fear and hope, the signs and signals around you are all muffled and distorted.

And the tendency is to dig in and try harder.


Digging in and trying harder are reactivity masquerading as productivity. Because when youre being spun around by the competing force fields of hope and fear, youre no longer even doing the work. Youre sinking into emotional quicksand. The more you scramble, the more stuck you get.

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Its time to back away from the desk.


Thats rightas difficult as it may beback away. Slowly nowand nobody will get hurt. Just slide back gently and release your fingers from the keyboard. Goodnow keep moving your chair back until you can stand up.

The next step is to leave the area.


Get away from your workspace and do something that has nothing to do with work (but everything to do with life). Move your body. Make a cup of tea. Take a walk. Prune a plant. Breeeeaaaaathe.

Regain your perspective.


When it seems like your life depends on your work, its time to back away from the desk. To remember what your life really depends on. Because if you insist on trying harder, working longer, and digging in more deeply somebody is going to get hurt. Think about it. Now, please, back away from your desk.

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Talk with God


How do you feel about the G-word? What were the messages, teachings, ideas that you received growing up aboutthe G-word? Because whether you were raised in a religious family or notyou did inherit layer upon layer of meaning when it comes to the G-word. Why am I calling it the G-word?

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Because it is a wordlike orange or kiss.


If you take the word orange for the thing itselfyoull never feel the sweet sharp burst of flavor come alive in your mouth. If you confuse the word kiss with the experience itselfyoull miss the thrilling intimacy. Same with the G-word. If your connection to the G-word is as a word onlyyoull never feel the sweet sharp burst of love permeating the cells of your body and lighting up the petals of your mind. In short, youll miss out. Because theres more to God than words can say.
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The G-word is also a symbol.


As a symbol, the G-word contains many levels of meaning. Its a rich, multi-leveled metaphor, an image that can be explored for a lifetime. Unlike a word, which masquerades as the-thing- itself, a symbol functions as a portalinviting you to touch and taste the reality that is deeper than words.

The G-symbol transmits energy and meaning.


God-as-symbol functions as a meeting place where you can touch and be touched by qualities, energies, and perspectives that lie beyond the boundaries of your personality. Words dwell inside the boundaries of your personality. But symbols carry you into the spaciousness of the soul.

Your G-symbol appears in the form of your deepest longing.


The G-symbol that ignites your imagination and opens your heartreflects what your soul thirsts for. Symbols contain and transmit energy. When you touch the symbol, it touches you back. Theres an exchange of vitality and meaning. As you commune with your G-symbol, it becomes a vehicle for healing.

But theres something deeper than words and symbols.


To talk about this deeper dimension, I have to use words and symbols. But lets be clear its beyond all descriptions and metaphors. Its the G-silencethe silence from which all words and symbols arise and into which they return.

The G-silence surrounds and interpenetrates every dimension of your experience.


Youre already in that silence right now. Its also in you. Every breath you take is the rhythm of that silence. That silence is breathing you.

To talk with God you can use words, symbols, or silence.


When you communicate with the sacred dimension of your life using wordsit can feel like making love with your clothes on. You know something good is happening, that something real is there but youre not making full contact.

When you talk with Godusing symbolstheres a surging, intense, energetic exchange.
The energy of the symbol feeds you, heals you, and completes you. If youre in the dark, when you touch the sacred symbol, the light goes on. If youre thirsty, contact with the G108

symbol quenches and satisfies your thirst. If youre fearful, your heart is filled with courage. The G-symbol is a catalyst of completion. When you attune to it healing happens.

Then theres silence.


Father Thomas Keating says that silence is the primary language of God. And by extension, the primary language of your life. Every word and every symbol that has defined or energized your life is an expression, a version of the primary languagesilence. Become a student of this primary languagesilence. Dont get caught in symbols or words. Go deeper. Let the syntax of silence renew you. Become a student of the primary language. Listen to the silence. Bathe in it.

The deeper you sink into that silence the more your words come alive.
As you rest in silencewords flash forth like sparks from a fire. Words come alive and transmit more depth, power, and meaning when infused with the presence of silence.

As you enter more fully into silencesymbols appear everywhere.


To the silent heart all life is rich with meaning and energy. Everything and everyone in your life appears in its conventional form and as a portal to the sacred dimension. The light streaming in the morning window is just lightand also the blessing of the sacred. The water glass on the table is just a glass of waterand also a blessing from the source of all healing. The worldyour worldis alive with meaning and energy. Through this symbolic interchange, you actively talk with Godwith the sacred dimension in every moment.

The communicationthe communionis ever-present.


If this sounds too fancy-pants-spiritual for you, remember thisdon't stop with words and symbols. Go deeper. Return to your primary languagesilence. And then allow that silence to breathe into your work, your relationships, your daily life. Let silence animate the words and the symbols of your world. As your life is infused with silence, everything you think, say, and do becomes a sacred ritual of awakening.

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Widen Your Listening


My mother-in-law has been visiting. Shes a Cornell graduate, retired from the familys lumber and hardware store; and a party girl whose favorite song is Mack the Knife. She was fun to be around until she started listening to Fox News.
Now, when she gets on a rollI start imaging that Bill OReilly is in the house. This makes it hard for me to listen to anything she says. Why would I want to listen to someone I disagree with so vehemently?

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Because I want to keep learning and growing


I want to strengthen my capacity to stay open, curious, and attentive when faced with ideas and values that differ from my own. To expand my horizon of awareness and not drink my own Kool-aid.

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One way to do this is by having conversations with people who dont think like me. I want to keep an open mindnot to believe as they believebut to be able to deeply and truly hear what theyre saying.

Its not easy.


In fact, its uncomfortable. Its easier to put up defenses. Erect cognitive barricades. Argue and make snide remarks. All these strategieswhich Ive honed over decadesprotect me from the uncomfortable discipline of loosening my grip on the belief that Im right.

Which doesnt mean that Im wrong


The attitude that promotes optimal listening and learning is epitomized in philosoper Ken Wilbers phrase everyone is partially right. No one is completely wrong. Everyone is partially right. Imagine what it would mean if you adopted this perspective the next time youre facing someone you habitually disagree with. Try it for yourselfright now.

Think of a person whose views you disagree with.


Take a mental step back and imagine you and the other person sitting next to each other. (Its like youre in the balcony of a theater looking down on two people having a conversation). From this observing perspective hold the thought that both peopleyou and the other person are partially right. Say to you and them, You're partially right. Notice what thats like. How it feels different. Take the next step: Identify whats partially right in their point of view and in your own. Acknowledge the partial rightness in your opinion and theirs. Be specific. Focus on a real, concrete, aspect of their perspective that is partially right. Do the same for your point of view. Appreciate the partial validity inherent in the opposing points of view.

Dont try to resolve anything.


Thats not the point of this exercise. Just develop your capacity to appreciate the partial truth in opposing views. The more you appreciate the partial truth inherent in widely divergent viewsthe more you can flexibly shift perspectives.
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Its your capacity to enter diverging perspectiveswith curiositythat builds your capacity to learn from life. Particularly from the people life presents you with that appear most different from you.

Who cant you learn from?


How do you protect yourself from people with opposing points of view? Consider how you might use these challenging conversations as a chance to strengthen your listening and learning muscles. Its good for your health, your work, and the world. It also makes mother-in-law visits a lot more fun.

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Choose Nothing
We had gathered to celebrate our friends 60th birthday. Between sips of chai tea and bites of dhal, I was catching up with the woman sitting next to me. She was relating her recent relationship adventures.
When I met him, she told me, I knew at some level that he wasnt a fit. But I thought its better-than-nothing. So I started dating. After a few weeks I began to wonder, is this really better-than-nothing? After another month I decided that nothing was actually better than better-than-nothing. And now that Im experiencing nothingits not bad.

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This is the choice that we confront at the threshold of change.


Its the choice between nothing and better-than-nothing. Nothing is the unknown. The void. The uncontrollable mystery that awaits you on the
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other side of the threshold. To step across the threshold is to enter into uncharted territory...into nothing.

Better-than-nothing is the known.


Its the recognizable choice that allows you to preserve the strategies, behaviors, beliefs, and identity of the past. To choose better-than-nothing protects you from the anxiety of fathomless nothing and perpetuates the world you know. The mind recoils from the unknownfrom nothing. But what it recoils from isnt the experience of nothing.

Its the ideas and images of nothing that terrify.


When the mind thinks of nothingits not really nothing. It is the images and ideas of nothing. The mind creates a story of what it means and what it will be like to cross the threshold into nothing.

The mind tells a scary story.


A story that is designed to keep you from letting go of the known and opening to that which lies beyond the threshold.

Its a story thats activated whenever you approach the threshold of change.
Whether that change is focused on work, relationship, money, your body, health, childrenit matters not. The minds strategy of telling scary stories is the same.

What causes you to pull back isnt nothing.


Just think about crossing the threshold into the unknowninto nothing. Now watch how the mind reacts. It will quickly fill the open, undefined experience of nothing with ideas and images. Here are two common examples:

As you approach the threshold of change in terms of your love/relationship lifethe mind flashes warnings.
Step away from the threshold, the mind screams Warning, warningif you cross over you will doom yourself to a life of loneliness and isolation. Youll wander endlessly down draughty hallways wishing for a companionDo not proceed any further. Stay with the knownno matter how painful its better-than-nothing.

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As you move towards the threshold of change in terms of your workthe mind sends up flares.
What are you thinking? Do you really want to lose your house, your reputation, the respect of your kids and your peers, as well as all your savings? Stick with what you know, regardless of how deadening and soul-sucking it may be. All the propaganda about living your dreams is just thatpropaganda. On the other side of the threshold is endless failure. Stop while you still canits better-thannothing.

Its the thoughts of nothing that your mind uses to maintain its sovereignty.
The mind uses its powers of memory and projection to keep you from experiencing nothing. Because the mind is a big fan of better-than-nothing. But if you follow the fearful dictates of your mind, all youll experience is versions of the past. Youll never open up to the richness and limitless potential that is waiting within nothing.

Nothing really isnt nothing.


Its the untapped potential of your being; the beckoning embrace of a deeper, fuller, more authentic life. The realization of that life comes out of nothing. You dont create ityou open to it. Which is why its so important to pause when youre considering whether to choose nothing or better-than-nothing. Take your time. Find your breath. Be still and gently open your arms to nothing. Theres so much waiting for you there.

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Reduce Drag
When I was thirteen years old, I capsized a canoe and swam 100 yards to shore with all my clothes on. It wasnt an accident. I was at a Camp Takajo and this was the test I had to pass before I could to take out a canoe on my own.
If youve ever had to swim 100 yards fully clothed, you understand a basic idea from physics called drag. Drag is the mechanical force that opposes your bodys motion through the water. When youre fully clothed you experience a lot of drag. Contrast this image with that of a dolphin. Dolphins slice through the water. Evolution has honed the dolphins body to minimize drag. Even when were skinny dipping, the human body cant match the dolphin design.

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The worlds fastest swimmers only convert 9% of their effort into forward motion.
That means that 91% of their effort is spent moving water out of the way. Thats why great swimmers focus much of their training on reducing drag. What does this have to do with your life, your karma, getting unstuck? Well, drag isnt just a matter of physics.

Drag is a factor of life.


There are many forceswithin you and around youthat consume your energy, energy that could be channeled into creating what matters most to you. These forces create drag on your psyche, your relationships, your workyour life. The more you reduce dragthe more efficiently you can translate your energy and activities into meaningful results. If you want to create art, strengthen your relationship, build wealthyou need to understand and reduce drag.

Drag is created by both internal and external factors.


There are psychological, biological, behavioral, interpersonal, and environmental factors that create drag. Some of these can be easily reduced. Some take persistent attention. Other aspects of drag are part of life. Struggling to reduce them just wastes more energy. The idea is to reduce the factors that are reducible. Remember, drag is inevitable.

Water is thickbut life is thicker.


Youre not going to reach 91% efficiency. Dont even try. But you can reduce drag by:

1) Aligning your goals with your values


Some of the goals youre pursuing may not reflect your core values. You may be working really hard and pouring lots of energy into achieving goals that arent congruent with what matters most to you at a deep level. Theyre discordant with who you are and how you want to contribute to the world. These goals may be fine for someone else. Theyre just not your goals. They dont reflect your core values. Pursuing discordant goals takes a lot of energy. You have to pump yourself up, hype yourself up, threaten yourself with consequences, cajole, bribe, and beg yourself to move into action. Discordant goals create soul-level drag.

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Concordant goals, in contrast, do reflect your core values. Theyre expressions of what matters most to you. When youre pursing concordant goals youre naturally motivated. Every step of the journeyfrom idea to implementationis a chance to embody and express your truth. What are the goals that youre working towards in your work and life? And how can you refine/edit your goals to be more reflective of your core values?

2) Setting priorities
Even when your goals are aligned with your core values, there is still the question of prioritization. In a given day, week, quarter, youve only got so much mental, emotional, creative, and financial energy to spend. How will you allocate your life energy? What matters most?

If you fill your mind/life/day with too many goals, you create drag.
Some goals need to be set asidefor nowso you can focus on whats most significant at this time.

To do this prioritization, you need criteria.


What are the criteria youll use to prioritize your concordant goals? Here are three questions to use: What will make the biggest difference? Whats simplest? Whats most joyful? Using these three criteria, sort your concordant goals and determine where youll focus your time/attention/resources.

3) Letting go of old habits


When Im swimming, I have a hard time turning my head to the left. Why? Because I learned to breathe by turning my head to the right when I was six years old. I developed a habit that was reinforced every time I went swimming for decades.

Habits from the past can create drag.


Just because youre comfortable repeating your pattern doesnt mean its not eating up energy, time, and resources. The good news is that habits are not inevitable.

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Theyre learned. And so new habits are also learnable. (But, youll need to go through a learning curvebefore the new habit reveals its true benefits.) What habits from the past are limiting your progress? What habits do you want to develop that will be more fulfilling, meaningful, productive?

4) Enrolling other people in your process


The people in your life are used to the way youve been. Even if some of your habitual ways of acting arent the most delightful or effectiveother people have adapted to them. Theyve figured out what to expect from you and have developed complementary patterns of their own that work with your patterns. You and they make up a complex system.

When you change your habits, the system gets disrupted.


Some people may celebrate when you change. Others may not. Because your change places pressure on them to change as well. In subtle (and not so subtle) ways, these people will encourage you to return to your former habits.

What can you do?


First you can explain to the people who will be affected by your change what youre doing and why it matters. Enroll them in the process so that they support the changes you want to make. And if they honestly cant get on your side, look for ways to minimize their impact on your life.

5) Taking time for reflection


A key to reducing drag is to stop doing and take time to simply reflect. Reflection is as important as action. Through regular reflection you are able to self-correct your attitudes and actions. You re-calibrate your goals to ensure that they are still concordant expressions of your core values and that youve enrolled others in supporting your change process. As you reduce drag, you move towards meaningful goals like a dolphin slicing through the warm Hawaiian waters. And with a big dolphin smile on your face, too.

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Be Where You Are


When you listen to the Wisdom Heart, youre present. When you listen to the reactivity of mind and emotions, youre not. Heres a guided meditation for returning to the present moment. http://www.wisdomheart.org/i-am-here-practice/

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Get in the Car


A reader who has left the corporate world and is embarking on a new entrepreneurial venture sent this question: At what point does being responsible shift into just being caught in a negative mindset where its all about avoiding risk and liability? When does due diligence change into just putting your energy and focus into the negative?

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Imagine youve landed on the island of Maui and youre at the rental car lot.
The smiling attendant points out your car and tells you to check it for dings, dents, and scratches. You take the little piece of paper with the drawing of a car on it and start circling your vehicle.

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Your purpose is to see whats thereto make notes about the dingsand then get into the car and on the road. If youre still circling the car after 15 minutes, going over the same dings, and leaning in really close to look for variations in the paint coloryoure missing the point.

The point is to be clear about the condition of the car and then to start driving it.
Granted, starting a new business (or new relationship or new project) has more risk than renting a car. But the process of checking and re-checking can trap you just the same.

Its important to complete your due diligenceto see what there is to see, before you move forward.
But if you find yourself revisiting the same concerns and same issues again and again, youve moved past diligence into the hamster wheel of your mind. No matter how hard you run, the hamster wheel wont move you forward. And thats what you need. To move forward. Either get in the car (business, project, relationship) and start the engine or walk away. Both choices move you forward.

Re-checking wont help.


Because youre not going to find anything new by re-checkingjust further reflections of your own anxiety. The same old reflections, the same doubts, fears, and questions.

Some of these doubts can be answered.


These are the technical, practical, issues that you can investigate using logic, analysis, and expert advice. And if youve done your due diligence, youve answered these questions.

Then there are the questions that cant be answered.


Questions that start the hamster wheel of anxiety, doubt, and fear spinning faster and faster. You cant find answers for these questions through logic, analysis, or expert advice. There really are no answers to these questions. They are reflections of the inherent uncertainty of life and the creative process. If you want to live more fully and create more intentionallyyoure going to experience anxiety.

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Not that anxiety is bad.


In the words of Fritz Perls, anxiety is excitement without breathing. You dont handle anxiety with more checking, more due diligence, more analysis. That just intensifies it.

You transform anxiety by accepting it and by breathing.


Accept anxiety as an asphyxiated form of excitement. Appreciate that youre excited and breathe.

The breathing itself will naturally convert the anxiety into enthusiastic energy.
Enthusiasm is a good feeling. But its not the same as being certain or in control. The future is inherently uncertain. Thats what makes it exciting (keep breathing). Its the uncertainty of the future that makes it capable of being shaped by your creativity and actions. But only if you stop circling the vehicle, get in the car, turn the key, and start driving.

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What Are You Waiting For?


Once youve felt it, you cant forget. Im talking about your paththe way of living, being, working, breathing, and creating that expresses your True Life.

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When youre on your path, you can feel it.


Its grounding and energizing. Serene and sparkling. Each step you take on your path re-connects, as Parker Palmer puts it, soul and role. These two need each other.

Your soul needs your role.


And your role desperately needs your soul. Soul without role is a disembodied ideal, a tenuous emotion, an abstraction with no staying power. Role without soul is a deadening routine of culturally conditioned responses thatregardless of external accoladesnever satisfy.
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Your role is the form through which you express the energies of the soul.
Whether as parent, partner, artist, or leader. The role provides structure and context through which the deep qualities of your soul can touch and be touched by the world.

Walking your path binds these two together.


But not all at once. Its a step-by-step process. With each step you risk and open to a deeper dimension of your soul. And with the next step you embody that dimension in the details, relationships, and routines of your daily life.

Each step on the path is a discovery.


You cant predict what will happennot in the external world, at least. But because theres uncertainty and unpredictability, theres huge creativity. Youre never really ready for the next stepbefore you take it. You cant embody the next level of your path before you take the step.

You can delay your next step.


You may say, Im waiting for a better time to take the next step on my path. There is always something that could be a little clearer, a little safer, more certain. Waiting for a better moment can be a long, long, wait. Its in the midst of lifes not-quite-rightness that you step forward. Its within the uncertain and unpredictable conditions that you act.

You cant wait until you feel more together.


Because this very togetherness comes after you take the step. Its with your own unfinished nature, your own not-quite-rightness that you act. The incompleteness of the world and your own incompleteness fit each other. Your need for wholeness and the worlds need for service complete each other. What are you waiting for?

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Watch Your Step


How aware have you been over the past week? Have you noticed reactivity as it begins? What are the signs? What did you do instead of react? Send me an email: eric@wisdomheart.org

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Feel the Gratitude


A reader sent this email:
I've been practicing the morning meditation for a month or two and it really functions great. My days are more aware, my reactions to situations that in the past would make me nervous or stressfulnow are surprisingly quite peaceful reactions. I wanted to ask you about mixing gratitude in the morning meditation. Just wanted to check with you and also to give you some feedback. Best regards, Ridvan

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Answer:
Thank you for writing and asking a question. Im grateful :) Attuning to gratitude is a powerful practice. Incorporate it into your morning meditation
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and recall it throughout the day. As you attune to the feeling of gratitude, youre giving your consciousness a massage. The places that are tight, tense, and constricted begin to loosen and relax and opento receive the blessings that are ever-present.

Youre surrounded by beauty.


As you enter into the feeling of gratitude, it becomes apparent that youre surrounded, embraced by the beauty, bounty, and boundlessness of Life. Youre like a fish in the oceanonly youre immersed in an Ocean of Being, a boundary-free Sea of Awareness.

Every possible experience is here.


Love. Health. Success. Wisdom. Everything. Its all within the Ocean and available when you open and allow it in. Life is absolutely gracious in this regard and will never intrude. Life will never force you to have more happiness than youre willing to enjoy. It is as though all the great sages and saviors are standing at the door of your house. Theyve brought gifts of wisdom, compassion, loving kindness, and freedom. But unless you open the door and allow them intheyre stuck outside.

The door opens on the inside.


In the same way, the fullness of Life resides at the threshold of your consciousness. Theres a door between your current level of fulfillment and the unbounded Ocean of Life. But Life wont rush in uninvited.

Life might slip notes under the door.


Im here. Please let me in. It will be so much fun!! Life might wave at you from outside the window, See Im smiling. Open up, my friend. Life will send you reminders of the possibilities and the richness thats available. But the door opens from the inside. And the degree to which it opens is your choice.

A closed door feels safe.


Theres a certain security living behind a closed door or just opening it up a crack. Theres a feeling of being in control and of managing things your way. But theres also an unresolved longing. By protecting yourself from what you cant control, youre denying yourself what you most deeply long for. Opening the door pulls you more fully into life. Its what your soul wants.

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Still, there's a tendency in the mind to hold back. To only let in those experiences that conform to the past. To keep you barricaded within the rooms of your personal history. So how can you open the door and begin to live more fully and more creatively?

You dont have to open the door directly.


You can simply attune to gratitude. You can forget about opening the door and making yourself vulnerable to the unknown. Just attune to the feeling of gratitude and let that feeling do all the work.

Your attunement can start with the known.


In your history there are experiences that connect you with the feeling of gratitude. Start there. Remember a puppy, a smile, a sunriseand allow yourself to feel grateful. Breathe in the sights, sounds, and energy that is encoded in those memories. Breathe it all into your heart and let the memory of that beauty organically open your heart.

Memories of beauty and blessings incline the mind towards gratitude.


Thats why you begin with the known. With whats already inside the house of your history. The goodness, the blessings that youve known activate the mind of gratitude.

Then you shift the focus of awareness from the memory to the feeling.
As your attention becomes more and more absorbed in the beauty of the memoryallow your mind to shift from focusing on the content to resting in the feeling of gratitude. Let go of the sights, sounds, and particulars. Just breathe the feeling of gratitude. Without content or memory allow your attention to become more and more absorbed in the feeling of gratitude. Let it permeate your body, mind, and heart. Rest in the quality of gratitude. This will open the door of your consciousness.

Because the grateful mind perceives that Life is good, friendly, and beautiful.
The grateful mind readily opens wide to explore, embrace, and realize ever-deeper states and experiences. So you dont have to force openness. As if thats even possible! All you need to do is cultivate the feeling of gratefulness. As you attune to gratitude, the defensive postures of consciousness relax. The cells of your body and the petals of your mind open to receive the ever-present blessings of Life.

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If Only
Many people are chanting the if-only mantra. Day-by-day theyre chanting away: if-only, if-only, if-only. Lost in regrets of the past and fantasies of the futurethey chant if-only, if-only and miss the radiant, open invitation of this moment. They miss the purpose of life.
You came into this life with purpose. Your purpose isnt an abstract idea. Its an aware, breathing force field that gently and persistently seeks full expression. The if-only mantra obscures this expression and traps your attention in stories of unfulfillment. Attuning to your purpose connects you with a living state of consciousness that knows your path to greater creativity, meaning, and joy. When you touch this state of consciousness, it touches you. In that communion you dissolve all hesitancy and open to that which you are here to realize. You bid the if-only mantra goodbye and live your purpose now.

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What Can You Rely On?


Whatever arises in your experiencethe highs, the lows, the in-betweensit is all arising in awareness. Even those aspects of your life that you've forgotten, even forgetting itself, has its home in awareness. Right now, as you read these wordsthe very process of reading, reflecting, understanding is arising in the unbounded field of awareness. Your breath, the sensations in your body, the sounds in the room, your thoughts about what you'll do nextall are arising in awareness itself. Of course in a moment, this blog will be done, and you'll have moved on to other activities. But whatever you do next, whatever experience captures your attentionwork, relationships, health, financeseverything you experience arises and dissolves in awareness. You can rely on that.

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All is Welcome Here


As you build your capacity to witness thoughts and emotions, they dont go away. Reactions still arise. But now rather than scatter your attention and degrade your awareness, you observe the arising.
Whereas before you may have only noticed the reactivity when you were deeply entrenched in struggle, now you can discern the pattern as it begins to form. You watch the thoughts and emotions take shapefearful, angry, doubtful. And you smile, realizing that theyre uncomfortable, scared, and anxious. You see them for what they areparts of your being that need mindful attention and loving kindness. You welcome them into your heart and teach them to meditate with you.

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Jump
In the climactic scene of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana must pass three final tests to reach the Holy Grail and save his dying father. In the first test, called the Breath of God, he must bow down at just the right instant to avoid being decapitated by revolving metal blades. In the second test, called the Word of God, Jones must walk on just the right stones to spell Gods name in Latin and avoid plummeting through the floor to his death.
In the final and most challenging test, the Path of God, Indiana comes to the ultimate learning edgea chasm one hundred feet across and a thousand feet deep. On the other side is the door to the Holy Grail. He is told, Only a leap of faith from the lions head will prove your worth.

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He steps into the void and is upheld by an invisible force. Leaving your karma and embracing your possibilities is comparable to Indianas final trial. Like the hero in the movie, you can choose to take the risk and step forward into thin air. Through the practice of compassion and detachment, youve learned that the emptiness beyond thought is not void of life. Rather, it is filled with the creative energy of life itself. Energy that animates every cell of your body and every petal of your mind. Life is on your side. Life is relentlessly supporting you to awaken to wholeness and to transform unconscious and self-limiting patterns of karma into life-enhancing creativity. Life calls to you at every moment and you, by how you live, answer that call.

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Wisdom Heart Home Study Programs:


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Healing Family Karma


Whether you grew up with Ozzie and Harriet or the Addams Familyyou have family karma. It doesnt matter if youre the most beloved or the black sheepfamily karma still limits your capacity to create and love. It is possible to heal family karma and live with greater awareness, freedom, and creative choice. Click here to learn more: http://www.wisdomheart.org/programs/healing-familykarma/

Mantra & Emotional Freedom


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About Eric
Ive been a doodler since I could hold a pencil.
Im both an ordained swami in the Kriya Yoga lineage and a best selling business author. Ive practiced and taught meditation since 1970 most recently through www.wisdomheart.org Since 1989 Ive worked with over 20,000 leaders to infuse their work and workplaces with spirit, meaning, and purpose. My books You are the Leader Youve Been Waiting For, Awakening Corporate Soul, and To Do or Not To Do have sold over 200,000 copies. The 50 Ways to Leave Your Karma project brings all the elements together: doodling, spirituality, writing and teaching. Its been such a joy to bring this to you. My wish is that these images and words support you in opening to the ever-present blessing that is Life. You can read more about how I found meditation, met Devi, and what we do here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/about/thelonger-story/ Listen to our band here: http://www.wisdomheart.org/free/sacredmusic/

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Dharma Doodles are now available!!


Every dharma doodle in this book (and more that arent in the book) are available as fine art prints for your home, office, or meditation cabin. (If you have a meditation cabin please send photos!) www.Dharmadoodles.com Every image is signed by the artist. And some are available on cool doodlewear t-shirts. Special Discount As a reader of 50 Ways you get a special 10% discount on your first purchase. Heres your secret discount code: lovethedoodles Go to the gallery and start your dharma doodle collection at:

www.Dharmadoodles.com
Eric, your dharma doodles always catch me. They make me stop, breathe, smile, and then almost always something in my heart -clicks- and I can relax and trust. Thank you for cutting through the guff and helping make such timeless wisdom accessible and helpful. You've got a gift, man. Mark Silver Heart of Business, Inc. Designated Master Teacher in the Shaddhilliyya Sufi Tariqa www.heartofbusiness.com

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