Do you prefer that you be right or happy ?

This blog is about relationships.  By relationships I mean friendships, romances, marriages, colleagues, parent-child relationships and your relationship to yourself too.  It's a new game I have come up with. One that has brought huge freedom, smiles, relief and relaxation.

Relationships are challenging.  They push our buttons, they bring out of us things that we sometimes didn't even know existed, and sometimes we are horrified at ourselves when we witness the words that come out of our mouths or the actions we take when our buttons are pushed.  Some say that relationships are the real work of our lives.  That in relationship, enlightenment lies.

A game I have invented recently is the quote on this image: 

I have been learning to say this out loud when I get into a conflict or difficult situation of any kind, but particularly in relationship.

It seems to me that in relationships we have a strong tendency to think we are right, justified and correct in our thinking, our approach or our opinion about something.  And maybe we are, in our perception, in our interpretation of what's in front of us, we are totally right.  And we feel it. And we know it.  And something in us will not budge.

And, this doesn't make for peaceful times if two related parties are up to the same thing.  This repetitive theme breeds distance, polarisation, contempt and conflict.  Which is often in direct opposition to what you actually feel about the relationship.

Truth be told is that we love each other, we want to be in each others' company, we enjoy one another and there is a deep desire to feel peaceful, happy, joyful, satisfied, inspired, content....and the list goes on.

There is a line in A Course in Miracles which has deeply stuck in me, in fact it's a question: 'Do you prefer that you be right or happy?' (Chapter 29, V11.1:9).  And this has always made me very curious.  What is this relationship between right-ness and happiness.  Why is it that in relationships, they often don't go together ?

I have found that saying the line: "All my opinions are wrong. Everything I think is incorrect." Has been a huge gift to me.  It was so hard to say at first, my interpretation of the line from A Course In Miracles that I mentioned above. It was so hard for the person opposite to say it too.

I tried this out first in my relationship with my boyfriend, and now, when we say this to each other, in the middle of a conflict, something other than what's always happened occurs.  Mid argument, mid disagreement, we get to laugh and feel the blessed relief of remembering our connection, remembering ourselves and something way more real than the argument or the disagreement.

One of my favourite cards that I bought for my boyfriend is of a woman and a man sitting next to one another on a sofa.  The woman has her hands clasped eagerly in her lap, leaning forward and the speech bubble coming out of her smiling mouth says "Say it again, Matthew!", and the guy sitting opposite her is sitting back on the sofa, looking a little resigned and his speech bubble says "I'm wrong, Lizzie, I'm always wrong".  And this was also my inspiration for inventing this simple intervention.



Not everyone in relationship with you is going to be willing to play this game - sometimes you wont be willing either.  In a relationship, it only takes one of us to do something like this for the whole situation to shift.  It takes two people thinking they are 'right' to make an argument.  It takes one person to take a moment and consider whether they would prefer to be happy or to be right.  

I want anyone who reads this to understand - I am not a pushover, I am a feisty, strong willed person with standards, values and morals.  I see and appreciate the wonder of this and also the shadow side of having such strong views on how people are, what's going on in the world and what happens in life.

What I stand for is important to me - it matters.  And this is a great source of wisdom, direction, honesty and truth - I believe all of us need to take a stand for what matters to us so this world can become a healthier place - but we all need to learn to dance.  There is taking a stand and there is also oneness.  There are opinions and there is also is-ness - what's happening right now.  And learning to dance between these is the key.

When we argue with what is, we are in pain.  And when our rightness is opposed to someone else's rightness, we all suffer.  And when we are suffering, we are way less likely to make any change, have an effect on someone else, be powerful or purposeful.  When we are suffering we are not living our true calling, we are leaking our power and expending our energy on things that do not serve us. 

This line from A Course In Miracles: 'Would you prefer that you be right or happy?' is an example of how just one line from this amazing text could keep you enquiring for the rest of your life - and there's over 1,000 pages of lines like this.

So, I dare you to try it.  Just once.  No matter how hard it feels. No matter how right you believe you are.  And see what happens to the mood in the room.  See what happens to you.  See how your thinking changes and whether you see things even slightly differently.

PS. This is a really important subject for me in terms of Sacred Rebellion.  Because it's the people who are less prone to fight that truly make a difference in the world.  It's the people who are consciously rebelling, and who maintain healthy relationships and support networks who are able to make the most difference.  It's those of us who are doing our inner work and cultivating peace who are more able to overcome and face the obstacles to our dreams becoming manifest.

Training the Dragon - Nothing's gonna keep me small!

Something that we all encounter when we are attempting to create something new, or break into new territory for ourselves is the voice inside of us that wants to keep us small, to hold us where we are, or even make us smaller.  The personality is into comfort.  It's into having us remain the same.  In reality, there is way more to being a human being than having thoughts, feelings and sensations.  And yet we spend so much of our lives being defined, refined or bound by them.

What if your thoughts, were simply just passing clouds, that we could pick up and put down as we choose ? What if our feelings were currents passing through a vast ocean of being and we could see them for what they are rather than things which define us ? What if the image we have of ourselves was a mere reflection of reality rather than being as real as we make it with our self-judgement, comparison and constant assessment ?

I think of my personality as a fence that defines an established paddock or field.  The fence is sturdy and strong, and deeply routed in history. It determines where I can play, where I can work and who I can be in relationship with and in what way.  In fact, my fence is like an electric fence.  Each time I step beyond it, I get some kind of electric shock which is intended to bring me back into the established field. The electric shock could be one of the following: 

Who am I to do something great ?

Who says I am good enough to do that ?

There is no way you'll succeed at that ?

How would you even make a living doing that ?

What will people think ?

Everyone will think you're an idiot. 

What if I fail ?

The thing about this familiar field, is it's quite alright here.  It's pleasant most of the time, and I have a space in the world that I occupy comfortably. It may be small, but it's mine and it's fine.  And I know what's what here.  I feel safe.  I am as people have come to know me here. I feel like 'me'.  So as you can see, this presents a dilemma - if it's fine here, why would I want to go beyond  it?

Within this boundary, what's familiar to me exists - my job, my relationships, my way of being in the world, my way of seeing the world, my body shape, my house, the amount of money I earn, the friends I have, the degree to which I take risks, who I take myself to be.  If we listed what's familiar, we'd have a huge list - one thing you could do is make your 'familiar list' - you could have a go at it by answering the following questions:

Where do I feel comfortable ?

Who do I feel OK around ?

What do I do every day ? What's my routine ? 

What's my 'not routine'? What patterns do I see each day in my life ?

What activities bring me a sense of calm and peace ?

As you'll see from your list, you could add many more things that will make up the field you are comfortable in, and it's clear that what's familiar is where we feel most comfortable. 

The challenge arises when we start to step beyond this - either by choice or because circumstance demands this of us.  

For example: I have to sell my house because we do not have the funds to continue paying for the mortgage.  One of the familiar items on my list is where I live and how comfortable and safe this makes me feel in the world.  Now my personality starts up, and the way it tries to keep me small is through fear: What if you move somewhere else and you don't feel safe ? What if there is no where else to move to that you feel safe in ? What is moving house is a terrible experience - they say moving is one of the most stressful events in peoples' lives.   This is an example of circumstance changing - and circumstances are normally familiar, so when they change, we feel challenged. 

Another example: I want to change career - I no longer want to work as an Assistant, I want to be a presenter who speaks about meaningful things to the world.  What's familiar is getting a salary, working for someone else, doing something I am skilled and experienced at, going to the office each day, being with people I know and enjoy being around.  

Now my personality starts up - I want to do something different and the system that so efficiently keeps things the same is switched on full: You are not good enough to do this ? It's too risky - you might not earn enough money to earn a living from it. Who am I to talk to others about what's meaningful ? Plenty of people do this already, why do I think I can add anything ? 

What's important is that we are able to identify the mechanism at work - some call it the Inner Critic, some call it the Monkey Mind - find a name that feels like your mechanism.  Mine is actually a more fearful version of me - the voice feels familiar - it's sneakily made itself sound like my voice of reason in my head - but I know it's not thinking or feeling with my greater expression as it's most heartfelt and meaningful orientation.  It takes a while to identify what your inner critic sounds, feels and looks like.  I have heard people talk about theirs in different ways.  For some it's the voice of a parent, for others it's a cynic, a dragon, an old hag, a coach, an old teacher, the 'logical one'.  And it can appear in the body too. Notice what happens in your body when you step into something new - how does your body react - does it become tired, slumped, puffed up, arrogant, shy, collapsed, sweaty ? The body is a great way of looking at what goes on for us when we step out of our norms.  

The good news is that we can develop ways of engaging with our inner critic that enable us to continue to move in the direction of our dreams, and not be guided or controlled by these critical thoughts, feelings and bodily reactions which aim to keep us small and unseen.  The more skilful we become at identifying these patterns of criticism, the more capable we be become of working with them.  Some people tell their inner critics to 'f**k off' or they simply say 'thank you' and continue on with what they are doing or heading in the direction they are going.  Some people interview them and then tell them that they have had enough of the conversation and gently tell them to be quiet.  If we can get to grips with our inner critics - a whole new world of possibility can open up for us.  And we can begin to be supported by our innate energy for the things we love.  

It's the Sacred Rebellion inside all of us, by the way, that chooses something greater than this smallness, this criticism, this judgement.  Because we all know there is more to us, more to life than feeling small and insignificant.  

One for the comments below - what do you call your inner critic ?

It's how we meet the hurdles that matters.

I have the capacity to experience intense and overwhelming happiness, rageful frustration, expansive joy and compassion, grief filled sadness, deep gratitude, fiery resentment, liberated expressiveness, paralysing shyness, robust confidence, acute self-doubt, passionate determination, crippling shame, inspired creativity and a low lying dissatisfaction with life.  And this is just to name a few of my experiences of being a human being on planet earth.

I remember attending one of my first courses on happiness with my wonderful brother in law, Robert Holden and it was the first time I had really come in to contact with a human being that would tell me something about my experience as Lizzie.  Robert said that our emotions are only there to be felt, they are here to be felt and listened to.  They are intelligent and if we accept that they are welcome in our experience, and we do not fight them, they can move through us and they do not have to be the sole determinant of our happiness.  

When I deeply asked myself what I had asked for in life, I realised that I have always asked for a FULL life - which, when I look more closely, means that I have signed up to receive the full experience of being a human being.  And a human being is about so many different emotions, thoughts, experiences, sensations, learnings, relationships.  If I signed up to them all, who am I to decide which experiences, emotions or thoughts are good and which are bad.  My job is to accept them all and be a vessel, be someone who welcomes whatever experience I am having and then I get to learn from it.  

From what I can tell, from my own life, and the lives of all the people I have coached, taught, been in relationship with in some way, we all experience highs and lows, ups and downs.  Things go 'right' for us and things go 'wrong' for us.  People die.  We get promoted.  We lose jobs. We fall in love.  We split up. We are wealthy. We have little money.  And most of us go through the whole range of experience in one lifetime.  Depending on these outside circumstances being 'favourable' seems such a flimsy thing to rely on.  Who knows what's going to happen to us next ? What if there is a deeper contact we can make with ourselves, with life, that we might remain in touch and deeply connected to something that's more real, more reliable, more consistent than the situations we find ourselves faced with in life ?

This feels is a life long enquiry for me - and one that I have been reflecting on ever since I saw that there was something else to life, other than my interpretations of the situations or circumstance I find myself in.  There was me. I was always there. I was the common denominator for everything that happened in my life. And I had never really changed.  I could feel my 'Lizzieness' when I looked at any situation in the past and any circumstance that I find myself in today, it's still here. 

This sense of me, of my essence that supports me, stands by me, holds me, sees me, is always here - and it always will be.  And I can trust this.  I am going to be with myself until I die (and possibly beyond!) and this feels to me like the only thing I can know for sure.  That there is a source of me - and I suspect that this is the source of everyone else too - which is the ground of being that I so crave, and that I try and find in others, in experiences, in things, in objects.  I am what I am always looking for - and how many times a day do I forget to look to me for that which I seek in the world ? About a million probably.  

What if I were to interpret the events of the day in a different way than usual.  What if, instead of orienting myself to my life in a way that has events 'happen to me', I decided to experiment with the approach that everything happens in my best interest? What if I saw my mac breaking down (which it die a few weeks ago) as something that was entirely in my favour ? What if it's just what I needed right when it happened? How far will my mind open to accept this as a possibility and truly experiment with it ? Am I capable of this ? I'm giving it a good go and I wonder what I will learn.

 I am willing to see things differently, I am willing to find the gift, however frustrating it has the potential to be.  I am willing. 

It looks unlikely that we are going to go through life with a seamless perfection of happiness, peace, abundance and well being.  At the very least we'll have flu or we'll fall over, or someone will die. And of course many other things may happen over the course of our life. What if this experience is all my interpretation, and I am a powerful human being who can choose how to see the world and all that happens in it ? What if all that happens to me is happening for me ? What if there is a curriculum here, a lifetime of learning, that's lined up for us ? What if we lived like this as a big experiment and saw the difference in the qualities of life we experience in this human body ? 

I am saying all of this because sometimes bringing ourselves and our dreams to life, in the Sacred and Rebellious may that we are talking about might not be easy, we might not always be met in our cutting edge, passionate ideas.  The world might not be ready for us.  Our families may be frightened for us, as we follow our joy instead of the career path that's laid out in their heads.  What if we were able to face these challenges because we knew they were lessons?  What if we met the obstacles as learning points and wisdom givers rather than blocks and set backs ? 

We know that the 'great' people of our world didn't have it easy - look at Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Marc Zuckerberg, Mahatma Ghandi, Steve Jobs - find anyone you admire who has done something amazing in the world - and look at the challenges they faced, look at what they overcame to realise their dreams and you'll see that none of us have it 'easy' - it's how we face the hurdles that matters.  

 

What is a Calling ?

Have you ever heard someone saying 'I was called to....' or 'the purpose of my life is....' and wondered what the hell people are talking about ? Well for a long time I felt like I was totally left out and I used to ask people who I thought were a bit psychic, 'what is my purpose?' and they used to say to me, purpose is something you choose.  And I was still at a loss because there are so many purposes that you could take up in the world, and choosing things from many options is something I find very challenging.

My orientation then changed somehow, and I think this came from seeing people working in the field of development, seeing how troubled the world was and noticing my need to contribute in some way.  I started to look at the world and ask what it needed from me.  What does the world look like to me that I may answer the call it's making for me to act in some way ?  This feels like a very different orientation and one that gives me another way of looking at life. 

What does this world want from me that I might be able to give ? What calls to me as mine to do ? Without necessarily believing I am capable or skilful enough to do it, what might the world want from me ? What would it take to have this happen - that I might answer the world's call ? What is mine to do ? What is not mine to do ? What am I up to right now that doesn't serve the deeper calling of my heart and my life ? How might I organise my life that the world's calling might be heard and acted on ? What support would I need (through people and circumstance) to have this be a reality ?

For me, the experience of my calling comes from somewhere inside my chest when I see, hear or experience something that relates to what my contribution might be about.  When I am present to someone's transformation, when someone sees the world differently, when they experience a freedom they haven't before, when the same happens to me - I feel the calling.  I can see that there are not enough people in the world, in enough places doing development work - facilitating human beings in becoming freer, more liberated and more loving.  

The reason I am writing this is that I have a deep desire to play my part in relieving some of the suffering in this world.  And if only one person reads something I have written or attends a workshop that I have run and they experience a loosening of the grip that their personality or ego has on them, then my real work is being done.  I take great joy in seeing the freedom that comes with a greater awareness of the present moment.  Of course this is a different story for everyone.

So what are the things that bring you joy and what is the thread that connects these things together ? What's common to all of these 'joy triggers'? Where in the world do you recognise yourself coming to life ? Who are you with when you experience yourself most fully ?

And what does all this tell you about what you could be contributing or bringing to this world of ours - this world that deeply needs us to show up with our gifts without delay?

A Sacred Rebel's Manifesto

I thought it might be an interesting thing to publish my own manifesto for life as a committed Sacred Rebellion practitioner - so here goes: 

LIFE MANIFESTO 2013

Relationship:

We are in this together.  Whatever challenges life brings us.  Whatever challenges we bring on ourselves - and even when it looks like the world is dealing us a rough hand - we see it as our responsibility and we own it.  Relationships (romantic and otherwise) are where we process life and work with what's here.  We have  'karmic' and meaningful relationships in all cases - we have lessons and gifts to give and receive from one another. We know that truth is present whatever we are going through. Something is here in every moment that is way more intelligent than our small personalities, our conflicts, our tantrums, our annoyances. Our true selves are present; we are life itself.

I believe in forgiveness. Forgiveness sets us free.  Forgiveness lets us live this day without yesterday or tomorrow ruining it! Forgiveness is a letting go, it's being in the present and releasing all our judgements and criticisms of self and other.  It's also trusting the path of life we are on - our own path and others'.  Trusting that the challenges of personality, the story of each of us is just that - it's a story.  Without the story, who are we? Without the story what is here ? What's present without the story I am telling about myself ? What's present without the story I am telling myself about the person in front of me ? What's here without the judgement I have on my husband, my kids, my parents, my friends ?

Each day I tune into the purpose of why we have been put together.  I feel into the heart of the connections in my life.  

I remember to see you, in your uniqueness, your wholeness and your heart.  The heart of you is what's most inviting for me and that's where I focus my loving and full attention.

Immediate Family and Parenting:

My deep wish is to co-create and, as a team, sustain a 'home' where we can nurture our joy, have fun together, be healthy together, spend time reflecting and be in a lifelong genuine enquiry about what it is to be happy, joyful and fulfilled.  By the word 'home' I mean ourselves - of course we will have a building we live in, eat in, play in and sleep in - but we create how it feels here - the atmosphere we cultivate has a deep impact on us.

I am interested in creating a home that's centred around how we hold each other in  our hearts and minds - and have that be the feeling of home that we all yearn for.  I also feel we can be a home to ourselves - so we can love ourselves to the extent that even with just ourselves we feel loved, warm, at home, seen and happy.  The extent to which we do this impacts on the demands we place on those around to us to make us happy.

I believe we are all equal as spiritual, human beings. We have intricate karmic paths to walk in our lifetimes that are shared and we are each major parts of one anothers' life lessons. 

I believe our children choose us as we have chosen them, for the unique contribution we each make to one another and to the world.  I believe that we are chosen by our children so we can be given the gifts that they have for us - whatever they look like to us in these human perceptions we have.  And I believe it's our responsibility to give our children the gifts we have for them.  It's also our responsibility to nurture and make space for the gifts that they have for one another as siblings.

There is a deeper meaning as to why we are together and why we find ourselves living under the same roof, sharing and living in a system that we create.  I believe adults in the home begin creating the atmosphere and setting the scene and determine in a significant way, the sense of possibility that lives  in the hearts of the entire family (including themselves, and importantly in the younger in years people who arrive to be with us).

I know I am fearful about safety - financial and physical and I know my work as a partner and mother will be around trusting, asking for help - from seen and unseen sources (friends, family, unknown people to me, the benevolent universe and god) - and letting the benevolence of life take care of us.  I also know I have work to do around receiving.  I am someone who gives naturally but I expect things back in return, which sets everyone up for unhappiness somehow. 

My intention is to love domesticity and taking care of a home; creating a loving environment for a family to live, love, laugh, support, receive, give, create and be happy in.  I believe a home is a place where we can also go through and be supported in whatever life lessons are sent our way.  Whatever struggles we face, our home is where we find kindness, support, faith, courage, love and deep contact with our family members.

I believe that our 'home' atmosphere will be created through a genuine sharing of ourselves, through our being real and vulnerable, by all of us living our truth and our dreams while loving each other and feeling loved.  We are encouraged to live our lives to the full by those closest to us. 

I believe we all  have an equal right at any age to have our needs met, to feel comfort and human warmth, to be acknowledged for our unique and wonderful selves, to be heard, to feel safe, to receive comfort and reassurance, and be loved, encouraged and empowered by our family of origin.

I commit to this manifesto for my life as it becomes a statement that can bring us back to truth when we inevitably slip up along the way. 

I believe we are not bringing up our children to become something one day.  Who knows what will happen tomorrow ? I believe we love one another not to arrive somewhere - we are not getting through this day just so that we can be grown up and have a job and a family of our own one day. We are living for this moment, for the sake of this love we feel as human beings.  This moment of parenting, of loving, of living is for the sake of it. Not for any other purpose than to be here right now and receive all that life has for us. 

Kindness is the most important part of our humanness to cultivate in all of the above.  However many times we fail to meet our intention, however many times we feel imperfect, we get angry, we upset someone, we get impatient - we find healing in the return to something truer, more connected, more kind.  We create the space for apologising, being kind - to ourselves and each other, and we forgive one another and ourselves each and every day. 

Work:

We all have a responsibility to contribute ourselves to this life.  We are the only one of us.  We are the only one like us.  There is only one instance that we are this body, this self - EVER.  We are entitled to a life where we engage in work that is meaningful, fulfilling, happy, flowing and graceful.  We are also entitled to support ourselves financially by responding to our calling and living our truth and joy in the world.  Our work can be our joy and we can be compensated for it.  And the degree to which we receive this depends on how receptive we are willing to be and how many of the blocks we are able to clear so we can allow the universe to pour its benevolence into us to receive.

My commitment is to truly living this for myself.  I commit to living my joy through my work and all of my relationships and wider life - they are not separate things.  They are intertwined deeply and intricately.  

What would your manifesto look like ? Remember, this is something that no one can argue with - it's simply a statement of your intent, your heart, your truth.  It's not open for comment. It's just yours. 

I feel there is more to come from me on my manifesto - writing this, it seems there is so much more.....

Put Your Heart into it.

It's 2.45pm and this day has already seen so many feelings and thoughts from me: life today has included difficulty, confusion, sadness, happiness, laughter, the mundane, the ordinary, beauty, quiet, dancing, singing, mischief.  Life is interesting right now because it seems that so many transitions are happening, and yet so many things are staying the same.  And what I'm interested in is looking at my relationship to it all.  It feels like so much of life is unfolding each day, life is filled to the brim.

I was at Findhorn this last weekend in Scotland (www.findhorn.org) - and if you haven't been, you probably should go because it's so beautiful, peaceful, fun, inspiring, affirming, comforting and healing.  

One of the insights I had about myself was to do with my perpetual tendency towards dissatisfaction and how this feeling is directly related to my capacity to receive.  I saw clearly for the first time that when I forget to consciously align myself with my receiving nature, when I forget to accept, to see what or who is here for me, I feel dissatisfied.  No wonder these two things go hand in hand - the less we are present to what's here, the more dissatisfying life feels.  I had not linked this fully together before now and it felt like a big lesson for me.  One where I now feel empowered around my dissatisfaction.  Those are the realisations that mean something to me - the ones where I end up feeling empowered around an experience of life where I feel I am stuck or it's always going to be the same.  

I guess that's why this note is called 'Put your Heart into it.' In order for me to truly see, feel and experience how giving life itself is, I have to be in receiving mode, I have to be in my heart.  I have to include my heart's perception in my practise, I have to relate to life with my heart - I have to remember my heart when I'm feeling the world, feeling life.  

Today I came back to centre when I saw the difficulty through the perception of my heart instead of my analytical, future focused mind.  The way I came back to centre was to dance, to sing and to move my body around.  I felt life flowing through me and I could feel its goodness once more, it's vibrancy.  And from there I moved.  From there I wrote this.  From there I made the phone calls I needed to make so that I could explore more of my calling through putting myself out there, making myself available.  From there I connected with Matthew, my boyfriend.  From there I made us a sandwich for lunch.  From there I ordered some envelopes on Amazon! 

What a difference 'putting my heart in it' has made on this most ordinary of days. 

What does it take to get you to see from your heart's perspective ? What encourages you, invites you into experiencing life with your heart ?  

The wall of my mind.

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about perception as I sat in the garden looking for inspiration for the pictures I take on my iPhone and which I then put with words so I can post images on the Sacred Rebellion facebook page.  I was drawn to taking a picture of the wall in our garden because I like the look of bricks. They're all different colours, lined up somehow, but still higgaldy piggaldy.  Come to think of it, possibly a bit like me!

So where is this note going ? Well, in San Francisco this year, I met Norman Fisher who is a Zen monk (www.everydayzen.org) and one of the things he said has stuck to me and gladly it wont go away.  In a way I think it forms part of the essence of what I mean when I talk about Sacred Rebellion. 

Norman spoke about how, as children it is necessary for us to become socialised, to learn the norms of our culture and society - the 'rules' that keep us safe, keep us part of something and enable us to get on in the world.  When we are small, a big part of life is about becoming socialised, taking on family norms, knowing when there is danger about, watching those around you, and learning how to be in the world.  This is needed, it's necessary.  Most people accept this to be true.  And this is how we bring our children up. It all started here - the perception we now have as adults began to be formed in this early stage of life. No one can escape this - it's how it is for all of us.

What we forget is that there is another part of human development that needs to happen in adulthood and this part is just as necessary as the one above. I'm calling it 'de-socialisation'.

What I'm talking about here is the journey back to our essential, unsocialised selves. A journey that's about remembering the heart of us which was not dampened by the socialisation that happened when we were younger. 

Norman was running a workshop called Rage and Imagination when he talked about this.  We were thrashing around to Rage Against The Machine in a chintsy, bad carpet conference room with uncomfortable chairs and no windows.  We were finding out what it was like to unselfconsciously throw ourselves about to the music, not caring what anyone was thinking, acting out a mood of rage to see what effect this had on us.  It was hilarious, liberating and fun.  Vibrant, electric and child like. 

During our childhoods we took on messages, teachings, ways of being.  Consciously and unconsciously we absorbed our environments like sponges, soaking up the interactions between our parents, watching them deal with life, and forming our own ways of being. Based on this set of characters, this play we were born into, our perception began to take shape and what we believed about ourselves, others and life was starting to form.

And our parents were not perfect - no one is.   Our worlds of perception are created by all the events of our lives - this perception is in part, a result of our parents doing the best job they could in socialising us, giving it their best shot with the resources they had at the time. 

And at some point, we feel the call to find ourselves.  To find out something more true than what we took on as children (and still mistakenly use to deal with life as an adult).  To discover a way of seeing and being that is powerful, liberating, creative, fulfilling and honest.

Maybe the way we are going about our lives isn't working so well for us any more ? Maybe our relationships have patterns running through them that are unhealthy and unsustainable ? Maybe our partner is asking for something different from us - and we love them, and we don't understand, so we ask for help ? Maybe we find the work we are doing no longer fulfills us? And the journey begins.

Whatever stories our lives seem to be playing out, recovering our childlike, essential selves is necessary if we are to live free, full, confident, compassionate and expressive lives.  We deserve to experience this part of our humanity, the people around us deserve our loving kindness.  Life itself deserves our full participation.

To move beyond our limited perception means something different for us all.  We will always experience our lives in wholly different ways to one another.  There is not one truth, there is not one 'objective reality' that we're all going to share. But there is the possibility that we may see with new eyes, that we may put our stories, our perceptions, our interpretations to one side and truly see who and what's in front of us like we are seeing it for the first time.  And keep doing it again and again.

I don't consider this an easy thing to do.  It takes practise.  It requires love, patience, compassion and kindness to work with ourselves in this way.  This is a heroes journey. A leap of faith even.

The bottom line is that if we don't question our limited perception, our children, our partners, our precious selves suffer from the worlds we are all projecting.  This affects how we parent, how we are in relationships, how we are at work, how we see ourselves, how we learn, what possibilities we can aim ourselves at. 

Here are a few questions we could ask ourselves to see the extent of how our learned perceptions may be making our lives more difficult than they need to be:

What did my parents teach me about loving relationships? What qualities do I bring to my relationships that remind me of my parents ?

What did my family life teach me about abundance, money and work ?

How did my home and school life shape the way that I look at what's possible for my life and my contribution to the world ?

As a first step, we could list our answers to these questions, and simply look at them carefully.  We might discover that some of our perceptions were learned in error, and we can watch them showing up and bit by bit and choose to let them go.  With presence and kindness, we can see them for what they are - perceptions, opinions, interpretations - and we can know they are not who we are, they are not the truth of us, they do not need to run our lives. 

In writing this, I experience my longing to step beyond my own limited perception of life, people and circumstance.  I experience my willingness to see my perception as an interpretation rather than a truth that I need to defend or promote.  I make the declaration that I am my true and playful self, with gifts to bring, life to receive and contributions to make.  May my heart lead the way on the ever continuing path of self-discovery.