Psychology

Egos and Salespeople

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Richard and Alice didn’t even want to be there, but they had been in an accident and they needed to replace their car. They tried being stealthy but the salesman’s training took care of that. He was ready. Everything about his training taught him how to take full advantage of whatever kind of personality was in front of him.

Alice was just as shy as Richard but, for little more than sexist reasons, she pushed–and Richard accepted–the lead shy person’s position and so he’s the one that talked to Sammy. Richard immediately tried to play his cards close to his chest, but all that he and Alice talked about were safety features, so Sammy figured out that scaring them into buying it was the fastest, surest way to sell them a new van that was more expensive than the one they came in for.

Sammy talked about features, but he was sneaky about always adding in little references to how his van had this or that feature that kept them safer than other vans. Half the time Sammy was making the name of the feature up, and he had no idea what the competitors vans had for safety or features, but he knew if he said his was safest and the customers trusted him, then they’d never check. Besides, Mac was the kind of salesman that told the truth about that sort of thing and he was always in trouble with their managers for reading research instead of selling. Sammy didn’t need that hassle. He wanted to be a good employee.

In a short time Sammy had them scared into dealing with him only, and he had scared them into his van specifically, and then he scared them into a price. Of course his manager started them far higher than the monthly payment number they gave him, but that’s how Sammy’s boss contributed to the psychological assault. And that way Richard and Alice are so off balance that they never even noticed that the monthly payments added up to a lot more than the van plus the interest.

For their part, Richard and Alice are legitimately scared. They can’t deal with those other lying, thieving salesmen. Good thing Sammy warned them about them. And it has to be the D-Lux model, not for all of those expensive features, but rather because that’s how they get the best safety equipment. Besides, Sammy had got them such a great deal. (Sammy also made sure they felt in line to have several more accidents during their driving history.) So they felt they had no option except to nearly double their original monthly payment budget.

Once they’d agreed to that, Sammy handed them over to Polly. She’s the dainty, cute girl that works in the finance office. She was going to take care of the “paperwork” with Richard and Alice, and Sammy had told her about his good friends Richard and Alice, so innocent-looking little Polly also knew to tell a bunch of really frightening stories as she recommended various insurance or protection options. Totally scared of theft, accidents, death and every projectile imaginable, Richard and Alice doubled the price of the van again.

Finally they get word back from the bank but now they’re scared again! After all of this work and planning, the bank won’t approve the loan. Oh no! They can’t let the van go now! It’s the last one like it! Of course none of this is true, but with Sammy, Polly and their manager saying it, Richard and Alice panic. Yes, of course they’ll pay more!

Boom. Polly got her bonus–because had they not been willing to pay more, then the interest rate problem would have suddenly been solved by Polly’s genius instead or Richard’s wallet. So in the end, Richard and Alice got the van that will destroy their future finances and they’re even relieved to have it. They’re so grateful to Sammy for focusing on their safety and not their wallets that they’re planning on sending him business.

On a sidenote, when they picked up their van, Richard and Alice were so excited and happy that they didn’t even notice Mac, the honest salesman, being escorted out of the building with his belongings. Which was too bad for Mac, because the next day he ended up missing out on the free cake to celebrate Sammy’s win as Employee of the Month.

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 Guru

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1093-relax-and-succeed-my-love-is-unconditionalYou can become conscious of externalised thoughts and act in the moment. You can become conscious of your judgments of others and you can meditate to create more understanding. You can silence your own attacks on a thought-created identity you mistake for the real you. And you can understand that each of those actions are subdivisions of one universal action.

The only remaining step for meditation is to be challenged. This can come through text, as it does here and through books, or even through visual and/or auditory means. But each of these will be generalised deliveries. And like young monks, that is plenty as people first begin to shift their awareness.

Once that initial stage is over it is common for people to feel motivations to connect. This is a healthy impulse emerging from the person’s sense of certainty. There is a point where people have crossed the line from wanting the world and ourselves to be better, to taking responsibility for reality and ourselves and then learning to manage that. It’s a very big moment of spiritual maturity.

1093-relax-and-succeed-sometimes-one-createsOnce people have lived in this new way for three or four years they can easily tell the difference between the many false guides who use the right words, versus the few who speaks from knowing. They sound almost exactly alike from a position of ego, but nothing alike to people living with clarity. How’s that for some spiritual irony?

Watch for humility. It is the balance point between confidence and ignorance. In humility we know what we know and we also know what we don’t know–and we’re entirely fine that both realities exist because they are merely expressions of the idea of yin and yang. At the same time, you will hear a particular confidence in the voice of someone who sees clearly.

Even the “wrong” guru can be a worthwhile aspect of your search in that they will eventually trigger your wiser self and you’ll feel it as a sort of resistance. Your denial of true responsibility might upset you, but deep down you’ll know a real guru’s correct shortly thereafter. The other kind of upset will build over time because the process itself will feel either too organised and general, or otherwise it tends to feel as though it lacks direction.

1093-relax-and-succeed-i-cannot-but-see-you-as-myselfYou could find a guru in any walk of life. Some are professional and some not. They can also be in traditional uniforms of knowledge. Over the years I’ve worked with a variety of counsellors, doctors or psychologists or psychiatrists on their own challenges, and yet I would submit they could be very useful guides. As someone further down the path of their own earnest discovery process, the person doesn’t need to know the whole forest to know the way in certain parts of the forest. And some of them know the forest well.

The opposite of that is seen when I get reports back from readers about their counsellor, doctor, or even religious leader presenting these very posts as modified versions of their own work. This unwillingness to engage in humility is a sign that the person may be a useful example for learning from, but the people confirming with me are correct to sense the person is likely not a legitimate guide. A real one is happy to use whatever is helpful in conveying aspects of the otherwise invisible reality at hand.

Contrary to that are the professionals who love to expand to their own awareness and connections. They feel almost childlike in their excitement. That innocence and enthusiasm is always a good sign. You’ll see some of those people commenting on various blogs here and elsewhere. There is no end to discovery within this infinite realm. You’re just looking for someone who understands how to see it, not someone who can see it all at once.

1093-relax-and-succeed-take-a-smileThey won’t have to be near you, they won’t have to be anything like you, but when you feel the compulsion to connect regarding your journey, that is when a guide should be sought. They will never have difficulty metaphorizing their wisdom for you regardless of who you are, and while you absolutely will feel challenged by them, you will just as certainly feel cared about.

More important than which meditation you do, and more important than who you do them with, is simply that you do them. Maintain your commitment to this week’s awarenesses and you will notice a shift in your understanding. And that shift, will bring increased peace. That shift is what you’re really looking for.

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.

Beefs and Bouquets

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1079-relax-and-succeed-the-first-rule-of-kindnessFriday’s meditation made you uncomfortable. It was awkward trying to act and think like you were sin and fault-free. Isn’t that sad? You’ve been taught to treat yourself as though you don’t deserve the same unconditional love that you bestow on the imperfect people you love the most. Why do you think your closest friends and family love you?

Those closest to you are aware of all of the challenges that you present just like you’re aware of theirs. But like you they don’t really care because you’re so easily worth it. You’re not supposed to get rid of your faults, you’re supposed to accept that everyone has ways of being and there are times and places where those ways are ideal, and there are times and places where those ways will be unsuitable for creating success. That’s not a fault, that’s just being an individual.

Everyone around you is doing this. Stop for a second and think about that. Whether you realise it or not, everyone around you is wrestling with things they call faults. What they really mean is that instead of doing something meaningful in the moment they are in, they’re instead busy sitting still so that they can think up an internal argument against themselves.

1079-relax-and-succeed-self-criticism-is-just-another-opinionWhat a giant waste of time. Why is anyone even bothering if no one is thinking about you anyway? They’re all just as worried about themselves as you are about you. That’s a whole lotta invisible brain-yakking for no good reason.

Can you imagined if we filmed a busy street and you could see and/or hear what everyone was saying? It would look crazy as we all passed each other trading useless barbs and comments with ourselves and others when all of that energy could have been applied to the sort of internal silence that is very healthy, or an external activity that is, in response, more enthusiastically engaged.

People in pain are stagnant. People who are creating new daily experiences in an active way are better off, even if their circumstances are worse. It is the lack of thinking that’s at the core; what naturally fills that gap is creativity. Sometimes that’s creating a healthy meal. Sometimes that energy goes toward some enjoyable time with friends, or studying to grow. But if all of your energy is spent worrying and judging, you won’t have much left for actual growing or living.

1079-relax-and-succeed-the-best-cure-for-the-bodyYou need to get more comfortable with seeing yourself as you, rather than as an imperfect potentially perfect person, (wouldn’t we all have a different idea of what that would like for you?). You are awesome at criticising yourself. You do not need my help in that regard. But you seriously have to start exercising the self-appreciation part of your brain.

This isn’t you being a narcissist, this isn’t you having some huge infallible ego, this is just you seeing yourself as the person your friends routinely see. You’ll all have different ideas about each other, but as long as those are positive then good things will emerge from those friendships. But only you can learn to look at yourself and truly see a worthwhile, capable, unashamed person who is deserving of love and respect.

Today’s assignment is a competition. You and your partner keep score. The idea is that you get -1 point for criticising yourself or any other part of the world, and +1 point for giving yourself some entirely deserved credit or for noticing something nice about the world. Keep track on your phone, on a post-it note, whatever. At the end of the day, you compare scores.

1079-relax-and-succeed-slow-down-your-thinkingThat score will be informative in some ways, but it isn’t nearly as important as your intention to win. That very intention creates the focus that allows you to filter reality through your intention, meaning you’ll see more things in alignment with that intention. This is otherwise called, going with the flow. Minus one and plus one. Whatever your score is it is. But be aware. Keep score. 

Even your general frame of mind and the events that happen around you will have a lot to do with your score. As you count your constructive things and criticisms; you’ll catch a tiny percentage of them right now, but that’s fine. Doing these exercises each day is like building up part of your mind. So watch for your insights, because they’ll congeal out of nowhere.

Now go have an aware and awesome day.

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.

Internal Interventions

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We have done the meditations and we’ve started to learn: 1) the act of switching emotions; 2) the act of patience taken in order to decide if an emotion should be changed or experienced; and 3) we’ve gotten to know how our emotions impact our physical self so that we have clear indications of when we’re happy and when we’re otherwise.

872 Relax and Succeed - Dear uncertaintyWe use our posture, a smile, our tone of voice, or a manner of walking–anything that is likely to incite activity in the parts of our brain where we’re better wired-up for easy happiness. This is like when we teach little kids to have a happy place.

As we’ve discussed, we can have some go-to thoughts that we like, but if we don’t manage to grab those better thoughts in the heat of a moment, we must make sure not to add to our negative narrative by scolding ourselves for having missed the opportunity to take those emotional reigns.

We have to learn several things: a general awareness of ourselves; an emerging understanding of how our psychological self emerges within our physical being; and the wisdom necessary to know when to change to how we feel, versus the wisdom of knowing when to accept things as they are.

It is perfectly useful to us to become aware of an emotion and still not do anything about it. If we’re initially upset that we didn’t escape a ‘technically unnecessary’ bad feeling, then that means we have fully accepted that we can change them. We just haven’t refined the skills associated with switching, or our acceptance in cases where we don’t switch.

Just our awareness alone is a bigger part of this than we realize at the start.

When we change emotional tones it does feel really nice pretty much immediately. But even when we succeed at that, we’ll still be on tilted ground and we’ll have to stay conscious to stay balanced. If we sense that an external source did anything that we felt exacerbated our issue, then our recovery might well slide backwards into ego emotions immediately.

But that’s fine too. We have to come to know this landscape in order to master it.

872 Relax and Succeed - Those who don't

We don’t need to change or alter our emotions as much as we need to just slow them all down so we can see how they form more naturally. Our emotional state is effectively where we live so we should know our own currents and eddies.

As we study ourselves our knowledge grows and we will find ourselves intervening with ourselves and others –sometimes in surprising and seemingly unintentional ways. It’s as though wisdom is speaking or acting through us.

These aren’t pieces of wisdom we calculate using brain knowledge, these are more the things we know through a more immediate wisdom. These are those moments where we suddenly ‘get’ something, or the way we know we’ve fallen in love.

Even in less profound situations than finding love, by quieting our thought-based emotions, our wise self often knows what to do in a profound way. But it does need access to the steering wheel of our mind.

If our ego is busy trying to steer around pain then it can dominate the steering wheel for so long that the real us falls asleep –which is problematic, because in the end our ego won’t really avoid any pain, but all its useless swerving will create a lot of unnecessary suffering.

We can benefit by seeing the ’emotional us’ as someone who is very simply addicted to the chemistry for our Dominant Negative Emotion. It’s why people with an abusive parent will date abusive people, or even why people will go to horror films to intentionally frighten themselves, or date perpetually sad people.

Everyone’s hunger for each chemical varies, but our Dominant Negative Emotion is one worth knowing because we will subconsciously seek it whether it is good for us or not.

By changing or even muting that emotion some percentage of the time we will instill in ourselves this capability. Over time it will become so ordinary that someone else is likely to eventually describe our ability as our personality. We’ll be referred to as extremely patient, or extraordinarily compassionate or forgiving, and that will feel good.

But again, this isn’t about us looking good to others, it’s about us seeing the truth and being selfishly authentic. We act in accordance with feeling ‘right’ with ourselves. The byproduct happens to be that it leads us to generally be good others. But that part was up to the universe, not us.

872 Relax and Succeed - If you want to liveIf we’re truly free then we won’t be as willing to bow to counter-productive social norms. Others might see us as difficult or arrogant, but really what’s happening inside is that we’re focusing on the things that matter instead of pleasing others to no meaningful end.

Yes, the wrapping paper on anything says something. Politeness has value. But that’s messaging. The contents are what ultimately count. It’s fine to wrap something up beautifully, but only if it isn’t to disguise the fact that it’s not really what it purports to be. People’s wisdom will eventually spot the fakes.

We should see our ego as more distinct from us. We should see it as a literal other person. Enhance that distance. It will help us see that our ego is only our shadow. We can’t do things by changing the shape of our shadow, we must alter what is happening within us. When we see the world differently we behave in a different way and thereby we cast a different shadow.

Let’s all spend the next few days focused on body awareness and listening to our ego as a separate entity. If we can catch ourselves a few times doing each, then we’ll have done well. Even if we need some post-it notes to remind us of our objective, if we’re serious about doing these meditations then we will already have advanced our awareness considerably. We deserve to feel very good about that.

Let’s go have a great day.

peace. s

The Movie We’re Making

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In film your shooting ratio is how much footage you shoot relative to how much of it you end up using in your finished production. Back when we shot on film and had to worry about hairs etc. getting into things during film-loading, and there was no way to see what you had just shot, we still shot a small fraction of what people currently do. What does this have to do with your mental health? I’m getting to that.

829 Relax and Succeed - Have much and be confused

Today a 25 year old can literally have a 30 to 1 or even 150 to 1 ratio, while people in their 50’s will often have ratios closer to 1.4 to 1 or 2.8 to 1 etc.. An actor’s director like Clint Eastwood doesn’t like to wear out his cast, so now that he can see what he just shot he’ll often only shoot a single take and he’ll do that for 30 to 40 percent of the film.

This is a good metaphor for minds today. Bombarded with much shorter edits in the media their minds get trained on, add many more distractions and responsibilities, not to mention and overall busier lives everyone’s leading, with many more schedule activities, texts etc. etc, many young people today are understandably taught to hyperthink, leaving them to be tortured by their own whirling thoughts. There’s so many decisions in a day now; so many things outside of us and our control that demand our attention, that it’s as though the Editor that works in our memory is overloaded with footage and it’s getting hard to tell the useful stuff from the stuff we’re better to leave on the editing room floor.

So how do we feel better? We slow things down. We don’t give our Memory Editor a deluge of stuff–especially if it’s negative–because it wears us out. Even funny scenes get tiring if you have too many of them. So in the real world of mental health we’re not so much looking for fun scenes as much as we are looking for absorbing ones. As long as you’re thoroughly involved you won’t even notice the time passing regardless of the scene content. You just need to be present and in the Now.

829 Relax and Succeed - Reasons my wife is cryingAnother way to help out is to take control over your Director of Photography regarding what you’re going to commit to film. For the filmmaker the film isn’t so much in the showing of the film as it is the making of it. So your day is what you shoot. And the lens is like your attention. Where you focus it will tell you what kind of shot you’re going to get. If you shoot sad scenes expect a sad experience. Likewise for happy ones etc. etc. etc.

In daily life everyone around you is performing improv so life is less like a movie and more like “Reality” TV. The reality TV that currently gets watched focuses its lens on tension, conflict and challenge. That’s what appeals to the most common part of all of us. But again, you have been the viewer but this is about breaking the wall and inviting you behind the screen, where you can Direct.

If you focus on conflict-laden scenes then that’s what your day will be made up of and that’s what you’ll have to review in the editing room at night. But if you focus your attention on what you’re grateful for, then that’s what you get to spend your night with. And if you want those nights to be peaceful then don’t overshoot footage during the day. Don’t comment on things that don’t benefit from your opinion. Don’t judge yourself or others. Have a quiet mind. Have a low shooting percentage.

Remember, Clint Eastwood can have a seemingly risky though Zen-like shooting ratio and yet the proof is in his record: he’s Directed five different actors to Academy Award wins and he himself has been nominated for a dozen and won five. And he’s known for liking his Set quiet…

829 Relax and Succeed - The bird in a forestClint will still film both joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, gain and loss. Again, the profound living is less so in the content and more so in the depth of our appreciation of that content. Even in the sad scenes we can authentically feel that Clint loves his work, he loves the people he works with and he loves his stories–and it all shows in his incredible track record. Your life can be the same.

Don’t shoot too much, shoot a high percentage of footage that is enjoyable to experience whether that’s someone jumping out of a plane, getting a new puppy or enjoying a great conversation. And if you’ve gone out and shot a bunch of depressing footage then don’t be surprised if you and your editor end up depressed. And that’s not good because it makes shooting the next day harder, and you’re going to be more likely to develop a habit of shooting the crap instead of the beauty.

Start today. Focus your attention on the film you want to make, not on the one you’re afraid you might make. And the healthiest choice after shooting is to do like a lot of big cinematographers and never see the finished film. That’s the healthiest of all because then you know for sure that you didn’t make your film for anyone else but yourself, and that was entirely the point. Because replaying our own films is just memory-based ego. But the making of our films is our lives. So it is worthwhile to be mindful of the movie we are always making.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is a writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations around the world.

Body and Soul

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799 Relax and Succeed - Leap of faithIf you’re paying very close attention you’ll note that my blogs actually fall into two distinct categories. People come to me seeking two different things. Some just want straightforward psychological peace. They want what they would go to a counsellor or psychologist for–some answers about how to feel better about their past, their life and about themselves . No problem, I can help with that.

I also write about your spiritual life, which exists in a different sort of way from your life inside the illusionary world. The world you generally live inside is the world of your thinking. The world of your beliefs. It is shaped by your language, your status, health, wealth, height, weight, education, friends, the media, random experience and everything else. That world is where your problems are.

Your spiritual life is the life that watches and enacts your thinking life. There is a thinker and then there is the person that emerges from the thinking. Those are the same but separate. One is the shadow of the other. They co-exist like a wave and a particle.

799 Relax and Succeed - I didn't changeMuch like Newtonian Laws and the Laws of Quantum Mechanics, these two worlds can appear contradictory when in fact they are just different perspectives on the Oneness at the base of all reality. Yes you’re a person from the country you’re from, but you’re also your cells and you’re also vibrating energy at a nuclear level. These things are all simultaneously true, but sometimes I blog to one aspect of you and sometimes to another.

One is ideological and biological so I’ll talk about beliefs and ideas, and brain chemistry and thought–and yet another is about the divine sensations that emerge from giving serious consideration to the pure vibrational energy at the base of the universe. The stuff the scientists at the Super-Collider are looking for. These definitions are all true and in person I would address whichever one you wanted addressed.

Philosophically, just remember that you are the only person who sees things exactly the way you do. Everyone has a separate sense of reality and values. In regards to the physical world, the main point is: don’t over-think things. Be as much in the moment as you can and take things as they come. Do not use your internal voice to argue with the world. No matter what comes in the physical or psychological worlds, stay spiritually aware of the fact that these are all ultimately psychological events. They all take place in that energy-soup and they’re all made of energy-soup. We might experience pain but we cannot remain there. We always maintain the ability to create more happiness in our future.

799 Relax and Succeed - The best dreams happenUltimately we can choose to lay back away from life more as an engaged and empathetic observer, we can become involved in sharing our sense of peace, or we can even choose to dive into a full and human life without regret and to simply live it deeply and fully. All three of these things are accomplished through the maintenance of a genuine sense of mindfulness.

And even if you’re not mindful, that’s fine too because without an out there can be no in. Yin and Yang. So when you see yourself as failing, that event is still only taking place within the arena of your being. Even when you’re failing as a human your soul can still be succeeding. In the end there is no way to lose at existence. The universe is your stage, your can play any character you can imagine and there is no real judgment, so you are free to create a life using nothing but your own natural sense of drive and enthusiasm. And yet we are fundamentally so great that it can be intimidating to imagine life without the limits we place upon ourselves.

The stage is yours. Will you play the character you’ve historically played? Or will you begin testing your courage by slowly making the choices of someone else? It’s easier than you think. But no one can do it for you. It is you who must choose to come alive within your own life. What different choice will you make today?

peace. s

Scott McPherson is a writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and nonprofit organisations around the world.

Freedom From Judgment

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Why is it that so many of my clients would prefer to work at a distance? Why is it that they feel more comfortable talking to me over the phone than they would in talking in person to a psychologist in their own city? There’s reasons for that and in the end they’re pretty logical.

758 Relax and Succeed - The best gift you are ever going to giveWhat many people want to do before they embark on getting healthier is to clear their head. If they’re religious maybe they’ll formally confess to a priest, but for the secular world people like me are the non-judgmental representations of the God-perspective. They want to say who they really are out loud and not get clobbered for it.

I don’t even have clocks on my sessions let alone judgments. I can let people know where their thinking is generating pain or confusion but I have no judgment about who they’ve become with that thinking. They’re welcome to learn, leave and entirely ignore what I showed them. Once people realize I’m serious about that and they open up, which is necessary to them changing.

You’re correct about the fact that there are likely several people in your life who would not accept the real you. But that’s exactly the tension that must ultimately be removed. I’m just the first safety strap. The desire to not to disappoint others is just an extension of our insecure idea of our Selves.

758 Relax and Succeed - The greatest illusionWe have insecure thoughts which lead to insecure feelings which cause us to feel separate to the point where we all dedicate our lives to try to reconnect that separateness. But you don’t need to make connections to others–you are connected to others inextricably.

Just like the acid from your stomach could destroy other parts of your body not designed to contain it, separate parts of one whole can be individually incompatible and yet still be cooperatively part of an effective, happy and complete life experience. In short, you can have some people really not like you and you can still be leading a worthwhile and soulful life.

Can you see the paradox that is established? You’re seeking acceptance, and so you call me to confess your sins. I accept you despite whatever you say and you get the notion that it might be possible for you to be you and still be loved. From there we alter your understanding to the point where you will feel so profoundly connected to others by your shared pursuit of a good life that you will ultimately be able to meet an aspect of the universe that doesn’t like you and you’ll still be fine. You will have accepted yourself!

758 Relax and Succeed - I think I fall in loveYou will learn you can be cared for despite your history. That opens you up so much and your connections to others are so profound that by accepting the people who don’t like you, you paradoxically get to find love by accepting hate. That’s the Yin and Yang of it. You just can’t get one without the other.

It makes sense that you don’t want to present your true self to just anyone. Losing people in your lives would be painful. I’m not in your life so losing me costs almost nothing. And so with no personal price to pay you can be free. But that freedom will at first seem so foreign, so strange and so distant that it might just seem that they only way to reach it would be by phone. 😉

peace. s

Scott McPherson is a writer, mindfulness instructor, coach and communications facilitator who works with individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations around the world.

Separate Realities

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It wasn’t until my massive insight while living in Budapest that I realized the rest of you were taking your thoughts seriously. That answered a lot of questions about why people did what they did. But it also presented some new questions like; is there a way to bridge those realities?

743 Relax and Succeed - Life is a single tatamiThe simple answer is: yes. you can bridge them with any genuine connection. The Greeks had a lot of words for love because it could arrive as romance or it could arrive as a friend’s wisdom (which is separate from people’s advice). Or love could come in the form of brotherly support, motherly care, a stranger’s compassion, a partner’s tolerance, a sexual connection with a lover, or the meaning in a work of art—these are all forms of love.

Whether it’s sexual and we’re literally inside each other, or whether it’s over space and time and we are connected to an artist via a work of art, we are connected. At that point we do not see difference. We perceive that they are experiencing the same thing as us. We are sharing an experience.

The universe has fractured into definitions. Our subject and object view of the world keeps creating greater and greater sub-definitions. We find more out in space and more in the sub-atomic world. We find new diseases and species. We discover past discoveries have been wrong and we split them into new categories. We file and sort and define and order and value. So when we look at people it’s easy to sort them, file them and then react to that instead of to the person we actually see in front of us.

Don’t make your spirituality something separate from your day. Don’t make the management of your psychology something you only do when you’re suffering. Become conscious instead. It feels wonderful and it allows you to steer past so many obstacles that you would otherwise collide with. But to do that you have to surrender labelling the world for being present within it.743 Relax and Succeed - Pain is psychological

We know love as a feeling. We can quiet our thoughts when we’re enthralled in love. Well we can do the same thing with peace or with silence or with the present moment. They are also things that can so fully occupy our being that we don’t have room to construct a personal identity to have personal thoughts. We are simply having an experience. There’s no one having it. It’s just an experience experienced.

As you move through your day try to genuinely connect with the people you engage with. Don’t talk to them as a role or an identity or from a role or identity. See them in that moment as though you were told they were going to surprise you somehow today. Watch for the surprise. Be awake. It will change you.

It’s hopefully for 70-100 years. Accept that this play we’re all performing in requires us all to have separate roles—separate ways of seeing the world. Life is the interaction of those views. Things aren’t going wrong when we tangle with others for better or worse. The tangling is what it is to be alive. And when you accept that and make friends with where you are and the moment you’re in, you’re life changes dramatically.

Endeavour to be conscious. It’s not hard and it’s easily worth it. You’ll have more energy, clarity, emotional control and you’ll end up happier in the end. And you are easily worth that and more.

Have an awesome day.

peace. s

Mood Music

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

I think this metaphor will really stick and be effective for a lot of readers.742 Relax and Succeed - You are wise

Lots of people will charge themselves up for a workout with music. They’ll plug in their earbuds and play their era’s version of Eye of the Tiger. The associations your brain makes to that music lead you to react chemically, which in turn gets you physically aroused and you feel stronger. You can choose music to stir an emotion but that system works both ways. That’s why Rene Zellweger is playing All By Myself at the start of Bridget Jones Diary. We can musically incite emotions or, emotions can incite our musical choices.

So if you’ve loaded some angry music up on your player it’s to match your tone. And that  holds for whether you feel happy, energetic, tired or contemplative. That’s why Songza is divided up by mood. So people are already sound-tracking their lives. And more and more that’s what they’re doing. They’re not listening to music as many will argue. They have morphed into sound-tracking their thoughts.

In a previous blog I mentioned a test where I pulled out a bunch of people’s earbuds as an experiment and I asked them each what they hearing. Shockingly few had any idea what song they were just listening to. They were lost in thought. So we gotta get you un-lost. That way you can enjoy life more fully by living it more consciously and deeply.

742 Relax and Succeed - How does one becomeThink of your emotions like you would think of listening to your song choice. You choose them from playlists of possible thoughts that fit into various genres. So you have happy songs or sad songs or angry songs or victim songs or worry songs or blame songs and you go through your day and you keep choosing a song for the current moment. You either say it to yourself or you say it to other people but unless you’ve practiced being internally quiet and open, you always have something playing on your emotional tuner. It’s only a matter of whether or not you’re aware of what kind of song you chose.

Fortunately you have the perfect feedback mechanism: you can check in with how you feel. Make that simple thing a habit: every 15 minutes check in with how you feel. Know that you chose that playlist out of countless. Yes, your boss or lover or whoever might have highlighted some tracks they strongly suggested you play, but that was then this is now. You’re an adult. You can run with scissors. You get to be truly powerful as a person when you know that the choice is always yours despite whatever apparent pressures appear to exist.742 Relax and Succeed - Be okay with where you are

Whether you pay attention to it or not you’re listening to music all day. You feel emotions all day. Stop putting more time into your musical choices than you do your emotional ones. Because you can blame others for how you feel. You can blame a situation, a diagnosis, a parent, a disease or any other thing and that’s fine for a time. But eventually you have to explain Stephen Hawking. You can use your personal thinking to crush yourself out of existence or you can expand yourself to the ends of the universe. The choice is yours.

You are the universe’s HP3 Player. The Human Potential Player. You sit in potentiality, with the world suggesting a song and you choosing one, the world suggesting one and you choosing one. And you cycle through life like that one moment, one song, one feeling at a time. You never have to worry about the future because you have all of those choices in between. And you can forget the past because those are songs already played. The band cannot take them back once they have graced your ears. You can play the same song again, but you can never hear it again for the first time.

If you pick some angry or sad music every now and then there is nothing wrong with that. But don’t dwell unnecessarily for too long in any emotional state you’re not finding genuinely rewarding. To surrender that choice is to deny the legitimacy of your own music, your own song. And that’s a big deal. Because the universe created you with no other purpose than to sing it. So go sing. Confidently and aware of your choices. You are loved.

peace. s

Special Notice

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

715 Relax and Succeed -Keep goingToday there would normally be a Friday Dose here, but this week we’re doing something a little different. More than a little different. Today is a big day for me. I’ve got a special surprise for you too, but let’s save that for the end. I have to tell you a few things first.

Several people wrote to me at the end of 2014 asking me why my listing of your favourite blogs didn’t also include my favourites of 2014, which I had historically done. The reason was; I was saving them for now.

The two weeks when most Canadian kids get out of school is historically the blog’s slowest period. During that time I’ll be implementing some changes to the website and blog to improve both its performance and content. While I’m doing that, you’ll be treated to what I personally feel are the strongest and deepest examples of my work.

715 Relax and Succeed - Nature does not hurryBecause I did a six month period where I answered reader’s questions, I will divide the two weeks up into the section with my favourite traditional blogs, as well as a week of my favourites from the question and answer section of the year.

Because you’re all used to me leaving you with some form of powerful mental distractions on Fridays, I am still leaving the following video below. I’ve posted it before but it was included with several others and many of you felt it deserved its own day. Many of your described as the kick in the pants you really needed.

This is one of the harshest approaches to happiness I’ve seen, but the bottom line is that what it says is true, and many of you found it worked. So for those of you who would benefit from such a spiritual kick, I offer you this:

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Now have yourself an awesome couple of weeks reading what I feel is my very best work. Thanks everyone!

peace and love to all, scott