friendship

What’s Your Hidden Agenda?

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1255 Relax and Succeed - The moment I saw youOur ego is sly. It’s been with us since we were little, so its voice is so ubiquitous that it just disappears into the background. But it has an agenda, and the problem for our soul is; that isn’t our agenda, it’s our ego’s.

Our ego doesn’t like challenge, or discomfort or pain. Avoiding those experiences means that our ego makes us pay for that resistance with anxiety, insecurity and suffering. It’s really not a very good trade; living in an ego state where you need things to be your way when your soul is fine with how things already are–including you.

A good example of this is when people are super upset. Presuming the experience isn’t common, people rarely see anyone extremely upset and it can be alarming at first because everyone’s family does that differently. Some people talk about suicide or destroying things, others go dark and silent for days, other attack those present with lashing words. Regardless of what it looks like, it’s when someone is in in an egocentric state and they are experiencing serious distress.

1255 Relax and Succeed - Never in the history of calmSo how does an ego react? Our ego isn’t really interested in the world, it’s focused on its own personal impression of the world, but our ego can’t even have a personal impression of anything because it is created by other people and experiences. It’s like a recording, or a Turing Machine, or set of levers. It’s not very flexible and it only has access to knowledge but no wisdom.

When someone is extremely upset our ego wants them to calm down quickly because it’s uncomfortable for our egos to be in challenging circumstances. Instead we generate anxiety as we struggle to figure out what to say to achieve our own agenda, yet when someone’s in distress, our agenda isn’t going to be relevant whether we want it to be or not.

Our soul has no agenda, so it needs nothing from the other person. It merely observes and responds by nature. This means rather than trying to think of the right thing to say, (which is like using our hand to smooth the ripples out of water), our soul can simply be present. It rightfully understands that it is present for the other person’s experience, but it’s not having the other person’s experience. That alone should generate some helpful gratitude.

1255 Relax and Succeed - To obtain satoriOnce we’ve taken away our personal resistance to the behaviour we’re witnessing we can then have our natural wisdom take over. When we’re in that state we seem to say just the right thing, even if it immediately might not feel like it to our ego. Rather than asking the person’s ego to find the soul that creates it, instead our soul invites their ego to surrender and be at peace in the chaos. Your ego wants them to feel better, your soul is prepared to join them in feeling badly.

It isn’t hard to see that if we’re prepared to feel badly then we get to avoid the anxiety, worry and second-guessing involved with trying to figure out the right thing to say. Sometimes there is no right thing. Sometimes the person just needs time while they feel loved and then the process can unfold. But no matter where anyone is in that state, no one is wrong, no one is lost, and no one is right and no one is found. We are all simply either being an ego or being ourselves and we will balance between the two as the act of living our lives.

Take time to be present with suffering even if it’s your own. Rather than fix it just observe it. Prove to yourself, that can be more comfortable being present than being happy, and in doing so, enjoy your day.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

The Confrontation

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

She let him have it. How dare he speak to her that way? They were friends, she was hurting and he attacked her. He went right for the jugular, refusing to respect what was happening and what it all meant. Her heart was broken.

“I can’t believe you said that to me.”

“I can’t believe you asked me to believe something so ridiculous.”

“I never asked you to believe anything! I was hurt. I came to you for help and you acted like my problems are nothing!”

“What problems?”

She’s incredulous. He was right there. He did it! And now he’s claiming he doesn’t know what’s going on?! She was livid. “I just finished telling you about how my boss has been treating me and you acted like it didn’t matter!”

“Okay, first off, can we at least try to calm down enough so that we’re not yelling back and forth?” He took a breath and steadied himself. His voice was warmer when he spoke. “Look Syd, we’ve known each other a while now. If you haven’t figured out that I care then pay more attention because it should be obvious for a variety of reasons. Who rescued you when blew your rent on that crazy gift for your Mom?”

“She was worried she was going to die!”

“I remember. That’s why I gave you money I really didn’t have. Of course I thought your Mom was important. Who took her special meals up every time you couldn’t? Who sat and played her dice game with her? Don’t act like I haven’t shown I care.”

She shuffles in her place, uncomfortable. He puts his arm around her. “When that guy dumped you I’m the one that invited you over for dinner, and it was me that was sitting beside you and it was me that put the mirror on the chair across from you because it was me who told you I wanted to make sure you had dinner looking across the table at someone beautiful.”

She jags a cry. She’s emotional, and he’s mixing a bunch of sweet and awful moments together really fast. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That’s us Syd. That’s what we do. A girl dumps me, I come see you and you tell me I have a nice ass or that girls are dumb anyway and you help. Even if I’ve been a dick. You show you care. And I do too. So that’s who we are so you can’t take today and rewrite all of that. You can if you want, but to me you’re the same person, which is why I don’t want to hear this shit anymore.”

She’s incredulous that he’d attack her after they just calmed it down. “What shit?”

“This shit about you being weak. This shit about you going into a depression because of your boss. I know you. So it’s insane to ask me to believe that you’re too weak for this. It’s offensive to you, and you asking me to pretend you’re weak is offensive to me. I know who I know, I know who I see every day.” It’s weird. He’s complimenting her and giving her shit at the same time. She gets up, back to him, crosses her arms and paces nearby. It doesn’t seem to bother him.

His tone shifts down a bit. “And who I see is a strong woman who made it through her Mom’s cancer and her parent’s divorce, and her breakups and mine–and she survived Grady Marsh in high school and yes, she was knocked around for sure.” He leans in to stress his point. “But the weeble wobbled and it didn’t fall down Syd. You were fine then you’ll be fine now, so all of this dramatization is exactly that.”

“Don’t reduce my life to some lame plea. And so I’m just supposed to go everyday and get treated like shit? Is that it? I should just be fine with how she treats me?”

“Of course not. She’s a classic over-compensator. She feels like a fraud who doesn’t really deserve her job and so she feels uncomfortable around any capable person and she over-compensates. It’s classic. It’s hardly personal. She’ll do it like a robot to everyone who she perceives has the ability, intelligence or beauty that she doesn’t have. And don’t act like you’re helpless.”

“Oh what, I confront her and wait for her to get angry and undermine me and then just surrender my job? That’s what she’d do.”

“Maybe. Depends on how you approach it. But regardless, either fix it, leave it or stop bitching about it. She’s always been like that; you should either go in and accept that as the landscape of the job, or make a formal complaint and wait to get fired, or just leave. But stop talking like you’re weak with no options when you’re really only scared. You’re an adult.”

“This is a painful thing, why can’t you see that?”

“I can. But no one said there’d be no pain. You live around enormous numbers of people in horrible pain. My point is it won’t last so it doesn’t need us to engage with it so much.”

“I’ve put in five years there. Why should I have to leave!?

“Why not leave? Why are you assuming where you go would be worse? Maybe it would be better. Maybe you’d meet your new boyfriend who becomes your husband there. Syd, stop acting like these mental attachments matter.”

He urges her to sit back down next to him and she does. “Let me clear it up Syd: the world isn’t fair. Go to a children’s hospital and see people with real challenges. Even your own sister. She’s a single mom of a sick kid, she has to work two jobs, and your once-had-cancer mom helps but you don’t. Your life looks pretty good you know. I know it’s no princess-life but come on. We gotta remember, 25% of the people walking past us will get cancer and a bunch of the rest of them are those people’s families. Maybe that’s still us, so maybe this isn’t so bad really.”

“I don’t think you understand what being depressed is.”

He’s not angry, but he is firm. “Now you’re being disrespectful to me. Please don’t pretend you’ve got some feeling I don’t. Don’t pretend that everyone you know hasn’t suffered horribly in their life. All of us feel like just throwing in the towel sometimes. I know that hurts and so does everyone else over about ten years old, so don’t put a spotlight on your problems like they’re the only ones that count because the rest of us have some challenges too you know. When was the last time you asked about Brian?”

Her eyes widened and she hid a gasp. “I’m so sorry. I was so caught up in what’s been happening that I didn’t even think to ask. I’m so sorry.” She takes a step toward him but she can see he needs some space.

“Thanks. Mom says he’s good. We’ll wait and see how the chemo did.”

“I’m so sorry. We should go see him.”

The whole thing between them is a bit weird for her now. He seems comfortable, just stung. “Yeah. He’d like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Syd, just stop okay? Just stop with all of the whining. You’re not depressed, it’s just when small shit goes wrong somehow your dad taught you this habit of spinning it around in your head for forever and for what? What’s all that thinking do but dump a bunch of awful-feeling chemicals into your brain? How does that help you solve your issues with your boss, or Palestine and Israel, or climate change, or women’s rights, or any other thing you’ll get all down about? It’s just a stupid waste of time and a bad habit and you always defend it. It steals energy from our friendship that could be used more wisely.”

He turns toward her, almost intimately. “It’s why you forgot to ask about Brian. You’re always too wrapped up with thoughts about yourself that you never stop to ask what you’re missing and yet you’re famous for not noticing major things in people’s lives.”

“I am not!”

He just looks back at her. She can tell that it’s true. She has a moment where she caves in a bit. She hates the thought that among her friends she’s known as the one who hogs the pain limelight. But to her credit, that reputation doesn’t feel comfortable, so she takes a good breath, sits up straight and she turns to him. “Okay… okay… so you’re saying I’m strong and so you’re not mad at me and you’re mad at me for acting like I’m weak.”

“Yes. You I love. I know you. It’s the behaviour. It’s beneath you. It’s like watching an alcoholic hurt themselves. I won’t blame the alcoholic for drinking themselves, but I won’t buy them a bottle either.”

She sits with that for a bit. If her parents made it to Canada, through all of that hell back home, then how could the child of those strong people act like a shitty boss would be enough to knock her entire life off track. The longer she considered it the more the stronger feeling built until finally she turned to him. “Okay. Okay then tell me what your brother loves and then lets go get a lot of whatever that is.”

He turns to her. He’s crying. She touches his shoulder. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“I’m not crying about that.”

“What’s wrong then?”

“Nothing. You’re just so beautiful when you love people.”

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

All of Us

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

You know those Russian nesting dolls? The ones that all look essentially the same but are painted a little differently as you progress down in size? Those are a great metaphor for what it’s like to get along with others. Back in the days of them always being hand made, each set had its own theme and each doll was not only a slightly different size, but each was also given its own unique take on the overall theme. These layers of identical dolls are like the many aspects of people, including ourselves.

Maybe you like music, you have a really close family, you like discussing things from a philosophical perspective and you think trust is a relationship’s foundation. That would take us four dolls down, but they go forever, with many more superficial interests at the surface and many deeper needs expressed in the smaller, hidden versions of you.

People you immediately like have outside shells that look a lot like yours, so you immediately feel comfortable around them. Good friends will match a lot of your layers, giving you lots of things and perspectives in common. Those are the friends you not only do things with, but you’ll talk politics or religion with them.

Deeper dolls are reserved for lovers and lifelong, best friends. These people seem to be able to match you as far down as you can go, and even then, by the time you find some that don’t, no one cares because it seems so insignificant compared to the tons of matches that you do share. These are the people you can bring your smallest, darkest selves out with.

Likewise, people you don’t like at first have a shell that you find unappealing in some way. It’s boring or threatening or depressing. People you develop a real dislike for are ones where you can go down several layers and not find a match. Neither of you feels comfortable. But it’s important to remember that it’s not anyone’s fault or failure when we run into cases where there are no apparent matches. They’re just non-matches. A pear isn’t letting an apple down by not being an apple.

Of course, eventually everyone has a match. We have been a lot of people. We all have a lot of layers. If we go down deep enough, we eventually find some kind of touchstone–some kind of thing that relates us. We were both beaten by our mothers, or we both found out our partners were gay when we got left in a divorce, or we both secretly want to be DJ’s.

Enemies are nothing more than people who gave up on you–or who you gave up on–before you found those matches. And I’m not saying you should look for them because there’s a lot of other people you can be out having fun with. Life isn’t a test. You don’t have to take the hard way through it. But it’s helpful to remember that; if life forces you into a situation, there are ways to develop a bond.

Even if you got down to your last doll and there was no match, you then realise that you do have something in common: you’re both made of layers and you both have some small dark ones very few have seen. There’s no reason to hate that. Thinking someone has no value means you are falling for an illusion. You’re causing yourself suffering by voluntarily putting your own psyche through the act of hating, or actively thinking badly about, another person. You’ll blame them for your feelings, but that’ll be you.

People you like aren’t better than people you don’t like. They just agree with you more. Remember that when you’re agreeing–and especially when you’re disagreeing–because maintaining an awareness of that fact will truly help the whole world to get along better, and that will bring the most out of all of us.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

MoK: Compassionate Connections

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

Even in times of trouble or pain, authentic compassion can connect us to others in a very meaningful way. If most of us stopped to consider it fully, we would have a greater appreciation for compassion as a positive, binding and powerful force in our lives.

When we feel good we call compassion friendship. It’s when we share in someone else’s life and life feels better that way, no matter what’s happening. When you stop to really think about why your friends are your friends, you’ll tend to think of the times when you bonded over particularly awesome, or particularly terrible circumstances.

Our relationship highs and lows are what bracket the known limits of a friendship. For some people that means they’ll be invited to every party but they wouldn’t help you move on a long weekend. For others it means you may have anointed each other as best friends at your weddings, but maybe you also had to share a kidney. None of these are right or wrong, they’re just what frames your relationship with that person.

Compassion is the force that both establishes and maintains our relationships. The more people we feel compassionate toward the more connected we feel. If we want a better world we don’t have to make friends with people we’re already friends with, we have to find ways to connect to those we feel are quite different.

Today your assignment in the March of Kindness is to simply watch for an opportunity for compassion with someone you normally wouldn’t think to share it with. Maybe they’re a stranger, or maybe you know them too well and have never even considered enhancing the bond between you. Maybe it’s boss to employee, or child to parent, or teacher to student, or maybe you just never even talk to strangers to help them feel more comfortable.

You’re not looking for something big, just look someone in the eye for long enough that they know you mean it, and connect with them. It can be in words or actions or even non-actions. It doesn’t matter if all you’re saying is something as small as thanks for stopping at the crosswalk, or something as big as sharing in the death of a loved one, it all counts.

The point is only that moment of connection. If we all did this consciously every day then everyone would feel seen, heard and appreciated much more than we all do know. And why don’t we do this otherwise? Mostly because we’re lost in egocentric thought, and that’s the very point of these exercises. To get us out of our heads and back into the world.

We’re not trying to make some huge change overnight. But during one month, we’re actually consciously improving our relationships with others, the world and ourselves. And by practicing it each day, we really do become more sensitive, aware and responsive.

Your assignment is one compassionate connection before the day’s end. If you do more, you’ll benefit more; that’s up to you. But even that one example will make you more conscious of the value of these connections, and as each of us makes these intentional choices each day, we all add our individual drops to the collective bucket of a better world.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.

What Defines You?

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1085-relax-and-succeed-the-ability-to-observe-without-evaluatingYesterday we meditated on the sources of judgment. Who is it you want to be better for? Today we’ll ask about what their definitions are made of. Where did they emerge from and why are they so different depending on the source? Why do some people hate you and others love you?

Humans named a bunch of things so that made us feel like we’re somehow above what we are, but once people get pushed near the lower two echelons of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we’re all pretty much apes. If the lead chimp in a group is decent at sharing, then the group is stable and tight. But if the leader is greedy or selfish, the others can sense that and they will, one by one, band together, and they’ll eventually take action.

We would all like to believe we’re above that, and yet we all know most parents would easily die–or even kill–for their children. This would include stealing food from someone else if your child needed badly enough, and it would justified by your love and sense of protection. The problem is that we’re all still individuals, and so we all put the line where we’d start stealing in a different place.

1085-relax-and-succeed-opinion-is-the-mediumYour friends are essentially the people that agree with where your line is because there’s is in a similar place. They’ll call that match correct, right, moral, or even sane. If you’re either inside or outside their line you will be incorrect, wrong, immoral, dangerous and crazy. Of course these are just judgments within the confines of their own consciousness. But people will act on those thoughts, which is why they matter to a degree.

This line is circular, but more importantly it’s also irregular. It might be shaped like a D or it might have a wedge cut out of it like pie. A person could be super-nice in almost every way and yet be a terrible -ist. Misogynist, racist, even a terrorist. That’s why the neighbours of double homicide say things on the news like, “I never would have expected it. He kept such a nice lawn.” The housekeeping and home maintenance part of his circle was nice and round–the rest, not so much.

Everyone assumes everyone either is, or is supposed to be, a perfect circle, when in fact there is no such thing. With others, if you see a good chunk of curve then you extrapolate that its curves won’t change. No matter who they are, until you see those sides you’ll assume they have a nice round circle when you might have just been judging an entire human being based on his lawn.

1085-relax-and-succeed-one-of-the-greatests-tragediesSince the advent of popular psychology people’s expectations of this perfect roundness has become very firm and unforgiving. Others are disappointed if they mistook you for someone else. They guessed your circle was round and anything short of that is you failing.

When people fall in love their senses are impacted by chemicals and they naturally round off every wobbly or irregular part of their partner’s circle. But, as they know each other longer and longer, and wander further around each other’s circles, their expectations rise. Before they could round off those wobbles in their own head. Eventually they’ll start asking you to do something about them. And that’s when trouble starts.

Our circles are too big and changing them is challenging because that’s not really the way to live. You’ll actually do more to improve the roundness of yourself by accepting the shape you already are, then watch for opportunities for you to use that shape in some way that benefits you and others. Otherwise you’ll spend your entire life neurotically bouncing around the inside of your circle, trying desperately to round off every side that someone meets. This is why weddings are stressful. There’s so many other circles to try to match at once…

1085-relax-and-succeed-who-am-i-to-judge-othersEach of these judgments exists only within the reality of the person making it. You do the same with others and you all do it with yourselves too. Today your meditation is for you to find three occasions where; 1) you did change your circle and you regretted it, 2) you didn’t change it and regretted it, 3) you wanted to change it but couldn’t, and 4) and a time where you did change and you didn’t regret it.

As you might guess, the middle two are to help you understand the world better, but the main value is in the difference between why #1 felt like it did and #4 felt so different. The first is where you became someone for someone, while the other is you became more of your true self. Your job is to be your true self, that’s why that one feels so good while the other is unpleasant.

Find your examples. Four of them. Try to spend some time examining your headspace at that time. Recognise your fluctuating state, and that the judgments of others are not absolute. They are based on their own circles. Your friends accept your circles no matter how they’re shaped, and your health will be represented by how many imperfect circles you will accept. Now do your spiritual exercise or I’ll judge you. 😉

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.

Rocking the Boat

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1025-relax-and-succeed-its-okay-if-people-dont-like-youOur ability to remember things only starts a little before most people start going to school, meaning our general idea of how the larger world works is formed at home. The struggle that will define our lives will often be formed when our personal reality goes to school to encounter and painfully intersect with other children’s personal realities.

If we’re Korean and our family and friends are all Korean then being and acting Korean is fine. But if the kids in the school happen to notice that the child has a Korean face or a Korean name, they can think the new kid is strange and someone to be avoided because the kid does not align with their own home-based idea of ‘normal’ which included no Korean kids.

All of these judgments are really just a hold-overs from an ancient reflex that sees all conscious creatures cautiously managing new things until their intentions are better understood and safety can be assured.

Virtually everyone has had this experience of clashing with other’s realities simply because even kids from the same culture would have quite different households. The differences that get attacked include everything from a kid’s weight, to clothes, names, lunches or even just a single relatively minor mistake in class.

These events happen when confused people meet in social and emotional territory that is largely new to all parties. That leads to clumsy mistakes that can lead to major insecurities that can last a lifetime even though there’s nothing really wrong with any kid, they just need to find the right context for themselves.

Eventually in school everyone does make at least a one or two friends if they make even the slightest effort. Even if we’re ostracized, there’s usually more than one ostracized person who could use our support.

Interestingly, the kids with the fewest friends are generally outcasts who are already functioning or appearing in some way that causes society to pass judgment on them. Nerds are cool now, but it wasn’t that long ago that being good in school and knowing anything about Dungeons and Dragons or comic books meant you’d be beat up and laughed at.

The strange upside to being ostracized is that it’s actually much more analogous to adult life. We can go through school as the most popular person but that still won’t save us from all of the judgments others will make about us behind our backs. Some of those judgments will be true, others will be entirely false, but we’ll lose just as many friends over the lies as the truth –likely even more.

1025-relax-and-succeed-do-what-you-feel-is-rightMeanwhile, the teased kids eventually give up their self-hating and realize the issue is that other kids are making very shallow judgments. At that point those kids just start being themselves without apology because they get too used to the teasing.

This, it turns out, is one of the most important lessons a person can learn. Those kids gain emotional resilience and eventually become largely impervious to the opinions of others. This helps people be more assertive about their goals and it often contributes strongly to their success.

Being real and avoiding pretense also helps us to connect more productively with others, and that is a profoundly underrated thing.

Real Friends

One of the best advantages to being ourselves is that it helps our real friends find us in a crowd. Often people will connect with the wrong people because they think someone’s this or that way when really they’ve just been performing those identities to maintain their status with others.

The strategy above is always doomed, because our egos do this even though the real us will eventually show up and disappoint everyone who was taught to think that we were someone else. Meanwhile, a bunch of people who love the way we really are still exist, but they can’t find us because we’re in disguise as someone we’re not.

Compromise and genuinely enjoying the act of making someone happy is one thing, but it’s not a healthy or enlightened thing to make people happy if we’re spending that time performing actions or saying words that feel painfully unnatural to us.

Eventually we’ll get hangry or be short on sleep or we’ll have had a stressful time and then we’ll show our true selves. Then just watch a how people will desert us for nothing more than a few low days. But the problem isn’t us and human fallibility; it’s their inability to tolerate anything less than their idea of perfection.

1025-relax-and-succeed-friendship-is-weird

Frankly, if we look back at our lives we can probably easily find people we’ve never spoken to again and yet if we looked at things fairly and from a less emotional distance, all they would have done is offend us with an opinion or approach that wasn’t one we’d personally use.

But look at how remarkably conditional our affections are; we see how people are so often that it becomes our idea of our own normal. That means we get to the point where we actually expect people to perform for us. They’re not supposed to be themselves, they’re supposed to be who we expect them to be so that things can be normal for us.

The Advantages of Being an Outcast

So how do the biggest outcasts in school end up better off? School may have hurt them more at the time because they found out before anyone else about how incredibly silly people can be with their opinions. But in getting used to it early, they get used to the adult world where people’s expectations just increase more and more and more over time.

As people’s expectations grow over time, eventually we can get to the point where an entire 20 year friendship can end over just one series of misunderstood text messages, as though those messages somehow unlock some secret identity that our friends have been hiding for decades.

When I work with couples and a text exchange is the ignition point for the relationship crisis, half the time people show me them and say, can you believe they said that? And I won’t even be able to find the offence they’re talking about without all of the history they’re loading the words with.

Even the word ‘ok’ gets seen as some sign of hostility. If people are going to be that finicky then the problem isn’t any person, it’s our ridiculous standards.

People aren’t here for us and we aren’t here for them. We’re all in this together and we either act like we know that or we pretend we can somehow survive without people that are different from us, disagree with us, or that do things we wouldn’t do.

1025-relax-and-succeed-dont-be-afraid-to-rock-the-boatFortunately, by fifty most people have realized that their giant collection of school friends was really just a bunch of other insecure kids who were taught all kinds of unrealistic expectations different from our unrealistic expectations.

Those same expectations cause people to desert or blame others and over time, and before we know it, everyone’s left with just their true friends; the people who will accept us, warts and all. But the outcast had that already in school. It was the rest of us living in a fantasy, not the nerd playing D&D.

We owe no daily performance to anyone, and we should avoid asking others to perform for us. Our problems aren’t out in the world they are within us. We simply have resistance to other people’s ways of being just like they have resistance to our ways of being.

In life we’re looking for the security of unconditional love. Along the way there’s a lot of people sitting on the gunnels of ours boat and almost no turbulence will knock many of them out. A lot of people never intended to stay in the first place, so they get on and off  at various ports of call. And still others really needed some serious storms to get knocked out. But…

A precious few will cling to our boat extra-hard during the storms, and those are the people who are willing to tough out the hardest parts of life with us. That’s our tribe and those are the most valuable people we’ll know.

As that process happens, we shouldn’t see it as losing friends as we age. In reality it’s simply that the daily friction of life very naturally wears through our less solid friendships to eventually to expose our foundations –the very best friends we have. Far from a process of losing friends, this is much more like finding our way home.

peace. s

The Friend Test

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930 Relax and Succeed - You are the average of the five peopleIf you’re looking for a litmus test to see how well you’re doing at life one of the best ones you have available would be to look at who you spend your time with. And I don’t mean their title, like your boyfriend, or your sister or your coach, I mean what they’re like in the world.

Do they cheat, manipulate for advantage, withhold important information, intentionally mislead others, do a lot of drugs, commit crimes, be violent, or be generally unkind or selfish? Then that is who they are. We are what we do. And so the meeting point between the characters of your closest companions will shape your new normal. Stay there long enough and that’s who you’ll become.

For this reason one of the healthiest things we can do is nurture our relationships with positive, healthy people. You still always want to feel like you could be happy on your own if that was the case, but in general the people you see the most often should be influencing your life toward growth, expansion and discovery.

930 Relax and Succeed - The people we surround ourselves withLife is this series of choices that feel like they’re about one thing when we make them. Later we often find out we were choosing more than we thought. You thought you chose your friends but in fact they were largely your friends because that’s who you went to school with. Proximity did most of it. Families move and kids make new friends. School ends, work starts and before you know it you mostly have a new set of friends. They’re far more incidental than we usually realize. Those few that travel with us throughout our life are the ones that are our deepest and truest friends.

So the deep and true friends are indicators of who you fundamentally are. The qualities that they have that attract you are indicators of your most defining values. Your more incidental friends are the indicators of how you’re behaving, not who you are. So if everyone leaves work to do drugs or go get drunk then that will create a different life than people who go to the gym or take classes.

Expansion is natural. Growth is inevitable. To even slow it down is so painful that people will usually need substances to numb the pain created by their resistance to be creative in the world. Unhealthy people are always hidden away, either wounded or doing things they’d prefer others didn’t see. Healthy people smile, they’re lives are full and they’re active. A lived life looks like it’s being lived.

930 Relax and Succeed - Make your lifeA lot of people slip onto a treadmill and their life becomes a steady uninspiring pattern. No one they know does much and they don’t either. There’s little new and rarely something to get genuinely excited about. Life does not have to be that way. There are people living it with zest and zeal. Not every minute of every day, but a lot of the time. They are moving toward life. They are taking chances, accepting challenges and pursuing their dreams. Where they end up doesn’t matter because it’s the going that matters, not where we go.

Look around your life. Ask yourself what it says about how you’re living. Ask if that’s how you want to be living and if it’s not, begin looking for things to change that will shift you more off balance; something that will require you to act to succeed. That is expansion: solving problems, creating things and friendships and experiencing moments of genuine joy. These things don’t happen by accident, they happen by intention. Take today, assess and then act with intention. Life has much to offer.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Trading Jewels

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902 Relax and Succeed - Imagine a worldImagine we all live on a planet where instead of clothing, everyone is covered in a strange kind of jewel. These jewels contain the energy that keeps the aliens alive, but they will only work on an individual for a short period before needing to be transferred to someone else. If transferred, the act of trading creates a boost in energy for both jewels.

All day long people pass these jewels back and forth. Just like us, these aliens evolved. So just like sex feels good for most of us, trading glowing jewels feels good for them. And all you have to do to accomplish it is be in the presence of the other person and then you touch each other. That’s it. Just making contact in the most basic way will release the jewel into each other’s hands.

While a lot of other really interesting things happen on this planet, this trading of energy is the basis of it all. Take that away and none of the other structures or organizations work anymore. So it’s both enjoyable and important.

902 Relax and Succeed - When we are happyIf someone holds a jewel too long they can take it past its natural point. This stresses the jewel because in that state it cannot produce its full amount of energy, which means the alien will weaken. It also makes it more difficult to trade, because now you must find someone in good shape to trade with you because they’re the only ones with enough spare energy to run themselves and recharge the dull, unenergized jewel back up.

This rescue from a negative position is an important function on this planet because relatively regularly the demands of being an alien will require more energy than the alien has time available for trading. This means everyone inevitably hits periods where their dull jewels really start to show. This of course erodes the energy available for both life and for trading.

Since a quarter of the population will also be low on glow at any given time, they can only trade with the other 75% of the population, and not all of them are motivated to trade. If a “healthy” person is getting close to their own limits for energy obviously they’re not going to be inclined to trade with anyone on the low energy side.

902 Relax and Succeed - I am drivenFortunately that gets made up for by the people who’re the best at trading. They’re very often not only glowing, but they’ll also glow brighter than the average person. It’s kind of like candles. The more you light the brighter it gets around you and the easier it is to stay within that high energy.

These aliens are important because not all of the positives actually have enough energy left to make a trade worthwhile, so they’ll just tread water and then watch for opportunities to wander by that will allow them to get back onto the positive side. If not, they’ll get too dull and then they’ll also need very focused and serious attention by some trained jewel traders or very dedicated volunteers.

These would be people like me. We smooth and ease the processes of trading jewels. Many people grew up while their parents were in a dull stage, and so they only learned observed and learned the habits for a very rare and low quality trade. This creates diminishing returns without the alien knowing why. This generally results in the duller group using each other to vampire energy around, until they one by one eventually figure out that the only long term solution is greater proximity to the glowing group.

902 Relax and Succeed - The first to helpLow energy aliens do not expect to be attractive to people with energy. That’s just not how things work. But everyone knows what it’s like to have low energy, so they just have to find someone who’s in touch with that memory and they’ll have the necessary empathy to be motivated to make a trade where the volunteer will have to choose to lose. On Earth we call those volunteers friends.

The healthiest aliens tend to develop similar vampire networks that the unhealthy low-energy people have, except theirs are much more conscious. They aren’t reactionary (rushing out to get energy after you’re desperate for it), they monitor themselves closely and then consciously create a life that encourages regular exchanges. Remember, jewels gain energy from a trade, so if glowers trade with glowers you can see how easy that can get for everyone involved.

We’re just like this other planet in the end. Except instead of trading different coloured jewels we trade kindness, compassion and generosity as glowing jewels and sadness, bitterness and worry as dull ones. Just like on that planet, few people here are motivated to trade with people who consistently offer only low levels of negative energy in exchange.

902 Relax and Succeed - What you giveThe secret to life isn’t finding some never ending stream of generous glowing people, it’s to understand that the easiest way to keep the energy levels of everyone up is if everyone focuses on regular trades of glowing energy. The glowers have figured this out. They didn’t luck their way into more glowing. Hardly anyone does that. No. Most of them lived their way into that group. They made the choices that lead to that success.

Don’t lock yourself away. Get out and be with people in positive situations or don’t expect your moods to improve. And if you don’t have the energy to help a friend who always seems in need, then don’t dull your own jewels by wasting energy on feeling guilty. Yes it’s nice to be generous, but it’s ultimately a shortage of energy that motivates a poor trader to eventually figure out that the answer isn’t more energy, it’s more trading.

So get out there and trade today folks. Remember, it feels good. So have a great one. Make it so.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Friends for Life

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A good percentage of people have a fix-it parent; that person who perpetually offers advice that no one asked for. They’re generally people who try to create peace by trying to create predictability outside of themselves. They couch it all as advice, but really they’re the type of personality that is often more comfortable when its telling other people what to do. It’s all well-intentioned and in all likelihood a lot of it is useful and true. But all that advice doesn’t add up to what a friend can give you in no time.739 Relax and Succeed - friendship will not stand the strain

Deep friendship is a state of unconditional love. Unconditional love is love without conditions. Conditions are limits or rules or things we’ll tell ourselves a story about. And we’ll do that right up until we exact some kind of cold-shoulder revenge after which we’ll stop telling ourselves that story and we’ll start telling ourselves a more satisfying one. But those narratives, rules and limits are all creations of the mind. They are all thoughts you have about the other person and your situation but they are all based on your personal perspective and priorities.

Friends love us enough—they see enough good in us—that we are invincibly connected. They can make it through any external disruptions because they believe in the core of us. They know where our balance point is, even when we’re profoundly off balance. As soon as we stop moving violently they step in and hug us with words, silence, or arms and soon we are at peace and are gaining perspective. This is the great value of friendship: their peace of mind leads to enough space for us to go through an experience and come out the other side without feeling judged.

739 Relax and Succeed - Maybe the most helpful thingDo you see how love works? You don’t need to build bridges of love toward people. You need to take down your barriers of judgment. Right up until you get to the last one: the idea that you have to know the person. Friends are great examples of how powerful we are because they are the only people we listen to for listening’s sake. And if we’re real friends the only time we offer advice is when we’re specifically asked for it.

A lot of people say their spouse doesn’t listen to them. Well then you probably don’t listen to yours, but you do probably listen to your best friend. Start paying attention to where your brain is at with the friend. Because that open non-judgmental state of mind is what allows the love in you to shine through unimpeded. Practice knowing that feeling. Know it well and conjure it up in other areas of your life. Before you know it you’ll be facing lineups, flight delays and irritable people with grace and humour and everyone will be talking about what a great listener you are.

When we look at it closely our friends are our friends less for what they give us and more for what they accept from us. If two people can still see the best in each other during their darkest times then there is no real reason for that relationship to ever be undermined. Fairweather friends need you to behave in ways that they find acceptable. They’ll be great right up until you disagree with them. But a true friend loves and accepts you regardless of your views or behaviour. And that simple lack of judgment is at the heart of what makes any relationship great.

Call your best friend, thank them for doing what they do and then have yourself an awesome day.

peace. s

Other Perspectives #64

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666 OP Relax and Succeed - Don't fear the enemy

I get why someone would write this quote. It always hurts worse when our expectations are higher. The more certain we are that someone cares for us the more painful it is if we end up hurt when actions they take don’t meet our expectations. But the problem wasn’t actually ever with them—it was with our expectations. People are all the same. The ones we call our friends are the ones that think like us, and so we live within the assumption that they will always think like us, which is impossible. They are them and we are us. They can’t think our thoughts any more than we can think theirs. That’s what an individual is: a person who thinks for themselves. So will you meet duplicitous people? Yes. Will you meet some that agree with you for years and then not? Yes. Will you be able to tell those two people apart? No. Will you change in your lifetime? Yes. Will some other people see those changes as negative when you think they’re positive? Yes. So were you wrong to make those choices? No, of course not. You were being you just like your friends are themselves. People are just being and the ones we call friends are the ones that are being kind of like us during the time we call them friend. But if they start making decisions that we don’t agree with—decisions that don’t meet our expectations—then the ego’s inclination is to make that the fault of the friend when really it’s the natural result of living too seriously in the world of expectation. A stranger can’t really let you down because you have very few expectations of them. So remember, you don’t get friends or lose friends. That’s just a word for convenience. Your friends are the people who see the world the way you do and the way you see it changes and so therefore your friends will naturally evolve along with you too. So you don’t even have friends so you really don’t have to worry about fake ones. Just live. Sometimes it hurts. Meh. So it is for all of us. It’s still easily worth it. Don’t turn people being people into narratives of betrayal. The only person that will suffer is you. Now go have a nice day with the people you enjoy hanging out with. You know, your friends. 😉

peace. s