A feeling of dread? Ennui? Listlessness? Dissatisfaction? Lack of contentment? A dark heavy cloud hiding at the edge of my awareness?

I really don't know.

And that, in a nutshell, is exactly the problem.

How do you let go of something that's a combination of dozens of little factors, most of which are well below the level of consciousness? Something that has become so much a part of ourselves that we can no longer see it?

I don't think I'm alone in these feelings. If I were, there'd be far fewer middle aged guys with sports cars. Far fewer teenagers hurting themselves.

So here's what I've learned.

There's two parts to what's going on in our noggin.

The stuff we can see (or hear) — those hyper-critical inner voices — and the stuff we can't. No no, that's not the bit I've learned. That's just the intro. Stick with me here.

The stuff we can see

This is (relatively) easy to dump.

To clear this, you can simply ask yourself questions and go with whatever pops up. Just love it & let it go. Super simple.

So, any emotion or feeling you can think of that's non-loving, go with that. Whatever feels right. Whatever resonates. Whatever seems to get results.

Some examples:

I love that part of me that:

• regrets…
• has disappointment myself by..
• feels let down by…
• is never good enough…
• is never good enough for… (mum, dad, partner, boss)
• will never be good enough for…
• wants…
• wants control of…
• wants safety from…
• wants approval from…
• resents…
• hates…
• still hates…
• hates myself…
• is unhappy that…
• will never be happy until…
• wants to change…
• doesn't want to change…
• is still sad about…
• is still upset about…
• feels let down by…
• is nervous about…
• worries about..
• always worries…
• doesn't believe I can…
• is hesitant about…
• won't let me be happy…
• is afraid of…
• is bored of…
• is ashamed of…
• is embarrased by…

You can see — all we're doing here is going for any non-loving emotion that we think might be even slightly related to the darkness. If something resonates, great! We can let it go. If it doesn't, no problem, just move on to the next.

I went through maybe another 40 or 50 phrases — just anything that popped in my head. You get the idea, you don't need to be spoon-fed.

How To Release It

Simply get quiet, say the phrase (for example) "I love the part of me that will never be good enough for…" and let your mind fill in the gap. Let go of any tension that arises — just love it & let it go. Keep saying it (in your mind or out loud, doesn't matter) until you feel calm & peaceful about the phrase.

This is also one of the reasons that writing morning pages works so well. Morning pages (or stream-of-consciousness writing) simply entails sitting down somewhere relatively quiet, and writing down everything that pops in your head. It gets all those voices out in front of you, out into the light of day.

As a bonus, it's also great practice writing.

Often just acknowledging that these thoughts exist is enough to see through them to the truth and effortlessly let them go.

THE STUFF WE CAN'T SEE

No big surprise, this stuff is a little trickier to release.

So how do you get rid of something you can't see?

Well, here's the trick. Much like with dreams our subconscious is communicating with us.

Working logically though it:

1. If whatever-it-is isn't affecting our lives, then it's not a problem.
2. If it is affecting our lives, then even if we don't know why or what it's about, we can describe that effect.
3. Since our subconscious is the one hiding the root cause from us, we can let it do the work, let it connect backwards from our description of the effect to the root itself.

If we want to heal dreams, we work on them as if they're reality. Why? Because it's the clearest way to communicate back with our subconscious — in exactly the language it's using to communicate with us.

So, do exactly the same thing here.

Be as explicit and specific as you can, but don't worry for a second about anything below what you can see.

If you get a deep cloying feeling every Monday morning, then go with that. Same as above, just say "I love having a deep cloying feeling every Monday morning." Repeat this, letting go of all emotional, mental, physical tension that arises, until you feel at peace.

If you don't get any resonance (despite having the feeling), try amping the language up a bit. "I completely love.." "I deeply love.." "I love everything about…" etc. Just go with your gut.

The more you listen to your intuition, the more you'll realise it has all the answers you'll ever need.

Don't worry if your description might sound ridiculous to anyone else. You're not doing it for them, you're doing it for you.

If the thought of spending time with your inlaws makes you feel purple and violent, then "I love feeling purple and violent when I see my inlaws" is perfect. Once you feel peaceful saying that, of course, you can step it up even further "I love spending time with my inlaws." Ha ha. Good luck. You'll be awesome. It'll be gone in minutes (or faster).

Obviously this will bring up a lot of tension, but that's exactly the point. All those feelings are coming up to leave. They're just feelings, nothing more. There's no need to react to them or be afraid of them. Just send them love, welcome them up and let them go.

So, just keep paying attention, describing whatever you're feeling as accurately as you can and then releasing it.

Nothing wrong with a little mindfulness.

Don't be surprised if you get radically different descriptions every time you come back to it. Typically (and particularly with the stuff that our subconscious is hiding from us) larger or more immediate issues will mask smaller or older ones.

That's ok. You're an onion. Peel away a layer and what's below it? Yep. Just another layer. It beats being a potato (just kidding Mr Potato Head).

The sign that you're making progress is when stuff that used to bother you doesn't in the slightest any more. You couldn't care less about it, or it just seems funny now.

If your visual description of what you're feeling no longer resonates for you, that's because it's gone. If the descriptions are changing, that's because you're working down through the layers.

It is, as they say, all good.

I know if I look back at my life, I've had a definite dark layer to my existence, bubbling along beneath everything else.

Historically I've masked or escaped from it — with alcohol, caffeine, sex or bursts of flat-out enthusiasm. I can look back now and see that it's cost me relationships, "You're down and nothing I do gets through to you."

That's kinda crap.

Over the last month or so, I've worked my way through all of the above; First the visible then the hidden stuff below that, and I can feel with absolute certainty that something has left my life.

Something big, something dark. Somethings (plural).

Life just seems.. lighter somehow. Easier. Less overwhelming. Less threatening. Less difficult. More fun.

What's gone? Well… I really don't know.

And that, in a nutshell, is exactly the point.

I don't need to know. I never needed to, and really, who cares? It's gone and I feel great.

Well, today I went for a walk.

I'm a sucker for a stylish suspension bridge

Many of the interesting walks around here start with this wonderful bridge. Apologies the sky isn't bluer, but on the upside, less sunburn risk. Good walking weather.

The shade of these gorgeous trees is visible from miles away

walking in the bush

waaaaalking

waaaaaaaaaaaalking

Lots of walking.. but then, that's the fun of it, right?

Part way along is this segmented swing bridge, which shakes like crazy — great for terrorising nephews. Uhh, not that I would. No. Of course not. Not shown: upset nephews.

There's a bubbling brook which runs alongside the path.. interspersed with the occasional waterfall

What is it about water? So incredibly soothing. The Japanese definitely know a thing or two, with their garden design.

and if you ever wondered what New Zealand hills look like, pretty much like this (foreground left is a shrubbery, not a hill)

There's a very particular shade to the greenery in New Zealand. The light is quite silvery. It's especially noticeable if you've travelled to Australia (where the light is more golden). So, many of the trees here have that rich, dark green shade. Once you know it, you can pick it anywhere (eg, a single frame from the middle of Lord of the Rings).

Many of the hills are also covered in gorse (an introduced pest), which are covered in SPIDERS! These are Nursery Web McMansions. When the spiders are ready, out pop thouuuuusands of baby spiders. Exciting!

Lunchtime we found a gorgeous stand of pines to lie under and eat

Peaceful. Gorgeous. No doubt pining for the fjords. Also surprisingly comfortable.

and look! Fud! (also, coffee. Extra yum!)

Even on an overcast day, the hills are pretty damn beautiful

The path back treks through a picturesque stand of macrocarpas

In case you're curious about macrocarpas (I know you secretly are). They're also really good for making fake swords and whacking your friends with. So I've been told.

Mum also weeded pretty much the whole hill on the way down, removing introduced pests (in this case ragwort. Not related to regular warts)

There are massive stands of ferns everywhere

When they're tiny, oh boy, they're like a flurry of grass

and when they grow up, they can take over entire hillsides

To see just how red those leaves are, check this contrast

back to civilization!

You may recognise this park.

The view south from that same initial bridge

Even on an overcast day the beauty around here takes my breath away.

The basic problem is judgement. As soon as our brain screams "This guy doesn't deserve love" or "Yes he does!" then voila, it's no longer unconditional.

Yes, even deciding someone does deserve love is not unconditional.

But ok, let's back up a bit. Why the hell bother with love anyway?

Several reasons:

1. Being loving is the highest, happiest place we can be
2. It's healthiest for us
3. It's the best for those around us (i.e., those we care about)

Check it: think of someone you really like. Now imagine them in front of you, while you're being the nicest you possibly can be. You're doing something they enjoy, saying something they adore hearing, and they're happy happy happy. How do you feel? That's right. Unbelievable.

Now true, there's definitely an endorphin kick to improving someone else's life (philanthropists aren't in it just for the tax breaks), but the real secret is that it feels great to be loving. Even more so than being loved. Now that is a surprise.

Based on modern media, you'd think the happiest you could ever be is when someone (preferably on a horse, wearing armour, maybe holding their lance) loves you.. but it's quite possible for someone to love the hell out of you while you remain stubbornly miserable. Trust me, I've been there (uhh, sorry, ex-girlfriends).

Why do you think limerance, those early stages of a new relationship, feels so great? It's not just because someone is flattering us (while forgiving our *cough* more human aspects). It's because we're being unconditionally loving (ie the same) to them.

Not only that, but as our new lover holds a mirror to the best parts of us, we are unconditionally loving towards ourselves. For a brief moment all the self-criticism pauses and we are truly self-loving.

Being loving is peaceful, happy and it's zero stress. It enhances our health and makes us a hell of a lot nicer to be around. Perfectly desirable, you might say.

On the flipside, non-loving feelings feel crappy, and who wants that?

Keeping Our Brain Out Of It

Since being loving feels so great, why wouldn't we want to feel it all the time? So how do you love consistently, without the ol' lizard brain jumping in the way?

The trick is to make the decision to always love. Then keep reminding yourself as often as possible. This way you never have to make another "Does this person deserve love?" type decision. If your default response is to always love, you never need to think. It keeps your brain out of the picture altogether.

Now, I'm not usually a fan of either-or thinking, but in the case of love it's useful.

Every thought or feeling can be easily divided into loving or non-loving. If it's non-loving, we can simply let it go (I'll explain how in a bit) and replace it with the opposite, loving feeling.

It's the kind of assessment you can do without going via your brain: Loving is super easy to see; non-loving is everything else.

Keeping our brains out of it is critical. It stops us tying ourselves up in knots. Ye olde Keep It Simple, Sexy.

Getting Started

Best of all, it really doesn't matter if you suck at being loving — or if you feel you've never experienced love. Every time you let go of a non-loving thought & decide to be (more) loving, things get a teensy bit better. It's just a practice. Every step you take is a step in the right direction. It gets much, much easier the more you do it.

Oh, and you can always try (I did, with great success) "I love that I suck at loving", "I love that I can't (feel) love" and so on. Whatever feels right to you; It all helps.

As an end goal, if it was possible to be loving all the time about everything (spoiler: it is), then you'd feel great every second of every day, no matter what happened around you.

To start with, even feeling great for a moment is better than not, so it's totally worth trying. You find joy on the journey and every step towards that goal gets more joyful, and easier.

Of course, if you consciously want to feel crappy about something, this may not be the approach for you.. but that's ok too. Everyone chooses their own path.

"I Am Loving" vs "I Love"

Now, what I'm talking about is being in a state of loving. Ideally always, but every second helps.

English is a little tricky here, since when we say "I love cheese" we're talking about our attitude towards cheese. "I am loving cheese" indicates a state of being. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Unfortunately, "I am loving" is a far more passive sentence, so it's less useful in practical terms, but I'll get to that in a bit.

The short version is this: it's quite feasible to say "I am loving about this" while holding onto non-loving feelings. Remember "love the sinner, hate the sin" (and other hypocrasies)? Yeah, that.

So even though we're aiming for "I am loving cheese", it's most powerful to say "I love cheese." Uhh, or other, you know, not-cheese stuff.

How To Do It

Right. Enough of the chit-chat, how do you do this?

It's very simple. You remember how to let things go, right? (hint: just choose to.) You're the boss. Every voice that pops up "Wahh, I can't because.." well, they're wrong. Persistent, convincing, LOUD, yes, but wrong. You're the boss. Just keep reasserting yourself, and bit-by-bit you will reclaim your inner power.

Now, think of something you hate. Something that bugs the hell out of you, really tickles your monkey. Now say (out loud, preferably.. and tapping your karate chop point, if you feel like an extra boost):

"I love (whatever it is)"

Feel the tension rising up? Getting pissed off? Brain screaming loudly "No, I don't love it, because.…[insert whatever bullshit reasons here]."

Yeah well, guess what, that bullshit coming up is not describing the issue, it is the issue. Letting go of those thoughts & feelings is what matters. That's the paradox, the crux of it all. You let go of those feelings and voila:

a) it doesn't matter whether the external situation continues or not, and

b) half the time the damn thing will disappear anyway.

Crap sticks around until we learn what we need to, then it moves on.

Love is the strongest positive emotion, so invoking that is guaranteed to bring up all opposing thoughts & feelings.

Just keep saying it and keep letting go until it's all gone and you feel loving. That's it.

You're The Boss Of You, Always

This whole thing is about re-asserting your authority. You're the boss, of your thoughts and of your feelings. You're choosing to love, so that's the end of it. Keep choosing it, keep letting go, and all that crap will disappear, leaving you peaceful and happy. The more you do it, the happier you'll be.

You're the boss, remember. If you choose to love something, even if you've hated it your whole life, well, that's the way it's gonna be from now.

Also, remember, you're doing this for you, not for (what or whomever it is).

Say someone's really hurt you. Ok, well, that sucks, sure. But listen, you feeling crappy about it now is only hurting you. Continuing to feel non-loving about it is only harming who? Yes, you. So, choosing to be loving is choosing to feel better about it. It's deciding that you are the boss of how you feel.. and whomever it was that hurt you doesn't have the power to continue making you feel bad now.

You are the boss of you, not them.

When you first do this, it may seem like the toughest thing in the world to say "I love (this terrible thing)" but you'll get the hang of it. Just stick in there. Keep reminding yourself: You're the boss.

A lot of times, just setting the intention is all that's needed, and those non-loving feelings will dissipate in seconds. Yes, seconds. Sometimes with messier stuff you might need to sit with it a bit, or come back to it the next day. Maybe if it's really overwhelming throw some EFT at it, but the key is to aim for feeling genuinely loving about it.

That's all there is to it. It's just a choice. Like choosing to lift your arm. Seriously.

So, for all the screaming our brain does — really it's all bullshit. It's our amygdala, our lizard brain trying to frighten us, telling us we have to freak out or we'll die.

It's always bullshit. You choose how you feel.

This doesn't mean you have to put yourself in harm's way. You can safely cross a road, but it's not necessary to do it quivering in fear with tears streaming down your face. Get in a loving space first, and no matter how scary the road used to be, you'll be optimally placed to cross it in a way that is most loving for you and everyone else involved.

Yes, it can take a little practice, but that's ok. What's the potential downside? You stay feeling as crappy as you do now about that situation. Not much of a risk.

Loving The Big Stuff

In terms of getting started, you'll get the biggest bang-for-your-buck by starting with the stuff that pisses you off the most. That'll shift the most detritus, and having you feeling better the soonest.

Note above what I was saying about the subtle distinction between "I am loving" (the desired end state) and "I love this" (the most effective thing to say).

Now, there are many terrible things people do to each other, so let's Godwin this discussion right away: What about Hitler?

11 to 17 million people killed. Jews, gypsies, blacks, Poles, Soviets, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, the disabled… all slaughtered in cold blood. How could we possibly love that? Wow, in fact, as I write this, even thinking "I love Hitler" is bringing up emotion, and I was born 30 years after he died.

Here's the point: Even if I was in a position to do something about Hitler, I can do it from a loving place, or a nonloving place. Guess which is better, more powerful, will yield optimal results? Yep, that's right.

Just ask Gandhi, he kicked the British Empire out of India. They had all the guns but he had all the love.

So, the reason we're saying (in this ridiculous example) "I love Hitler," is because what we're doing is bringing up every single contrary thought and emotion, no matter how deep.

"I love (whatever)" is the single most powerful statement for pulling up this junk and clearing the subconscious.

The intent here is to get to a state of unconditional loving.

• Does this mean we have to agree with what happened? No, of course not.
• Are we doing it for their benefit? No, we're doing it for ourselves, so we feel better.
• Will it all disappear at once? Not necessarily, but every step closer is better for you.
• Does this mean we will put ourselves in harm's way? Of course not.

Becoming loving doesn't mean that by some magical transference we suddenly lose 50 IQ points.

Quite the opposite. When we're cleared of muddying emotional reactions, we're no longer reacting like amoeba — stimulus-response, stimulus-response. Being loving brings clarity.

(Now, since we're all little energetic sending & receiving stations, ultimately it will affect the other party too, but that's a whole other conversation)

Additionally, in order to get to that loving place, we will clear out all the pain, anger and emotional trauma we've built up around the situation — whether real or imagined (and our imaginations are terrible things when it comes to self-torture after a traumatic event).

Let's say you have a crappy relationship with someone at work. Do you really believe they don't know you're pissed off? We're a lot more sensitive than we realise, even if we can't always identify why. Getting into a state of loving about that person helps you. It makes your life better, regardless of their (mis)behaviour. Additionally, how assholish do you think they're going to be if you do genuinely love them? Ha ha, really not. They'll pick up on that too.

As surreal as this sounds, I've seen this several times in my life. People who've absolutely hated me, or even wanted to kill me (yes, I know!) — when I got into a place of pure loving towards them (which really just meant dropping all my antagonism) the situation naturally resolved itself, without me doing anything at all. They called saying they'd missed me, or out of the blue paid for a flight for me to go see them.. or, they just up and disappeared out my life altogether — and I don't just mean "leave" I mean, "move city" or "move country."

Never underestimate the power of love.

So, to get a damn good start, just work through all the stuff in your life that brings up non-loving feelings. Take 'em one at a time and just say "I love this", feeling as loving as you can manage and letting go of all internal tension. If you can't manage that, start with "I choose to love this." Persist. You'll get there.

How will you know what to start with? Easy. Whatever pops in your head. Don't save it till later, get in the habit of just doing it wherever you are, whenever. That way you'll be dropping stuff all day every day.

Non Loving Thoughts and Feelings

Now, non-loving thoughts can be a bit harder to identify than giant chunks of things-we-hate.

The subtle thing here is — how often do we think about something? Well, it's hard to know, isn't it. We have tens if not hundreds of thousands of thoughts a day but how many of those are we consciously aware of? Very, very few.

Tell you what though, the emotional payload that comes with these thoughts definitely affects us. Maybe only for a fraction of a second, but boy, it adds up.

So how do you get rid of stuff you can't even see?

Here's one neat way. Any time you have a non-loving thought, eg, "I suck at this", respond in four ways:

1. Let go of the thought (choose to stop thinking it, imagine it floating away, whatever works for you)
2. Repeat "I love the part of me that sucks at this", and release all tension
3. Repeat "I love sucking at this", and release all tension (ho ho, this is a goodie)
4. Finally, emphasise "I rock at this!", releasing all tension.

Do this till you feel great.

Note the subtle variations in two and three. Not just loving the thought, but also any beating yourself up that came with it.

The phrase "I love the part of me that…" is super helpful here. It helps dissociate yourself from whatever-it-is, just enough to help let things go.

The trick, as I said, is the unconditional bit. Leave judgement at the door, ignore the why or why not and do it for everyone and everything. Get out of your head and into your heart.

Additionally, don't worry too much about trying to figure any of it out. If you have an icky feeling, just say "I love this icky feeling" and let it go, without trying to nut out what it's about or why. It's much more effective.

I'm finding that often if I'm be feeling lethargic (say), I can spend a couple of hours trying to get to the bottom of why I'm lethargic and maybe figure it out. Alternatively, I can just say "I love that I'm feeling lethargic" and it floats away relatively effortlessly, without me ever having any idea what it was about. And really, if it's gone, then who cares why?

I've been doing this for the last couple of months now, and every day is getting better than the one before. There's a ton of related stuff I've discovered that ties into this but I'll cover that later. This is the core. Do this one simple thing (love everything) and you'll be amazed at how much better you feel, as you love all those non-loving thoughts & feelings away, and life gets exponentially better.

If you have trouble remembering the details, just do this: Any thought or feeling that arises, simply say "I love the part of me that…(whatever it is)" and let go of all tension that arises. Feelings come up because they want to leave. Repeat until you feel loving.

Give it a shot. See how you feel. Guaranteed you feel better, in exchange for almost no effort at all. How loving is that?

Well, you know, for crappy versions of 'inner peace.'

It's very easy to think we're at peace and have finally accepted something, when really we've accidentally slipped into apathy.

You might be peaceful, but you probably won't be happy.

All healing, growing or goals we have are only ever with one intent (if you look underneath it all): happiness.

So why is apathy an issue? Because we can't be deeply happy about something if we're feeling apathetic.

It's easy enough to tell if you're hanging out in apathy: simply pay attention to the attendant thoughts and feelings.

Apathy is surrounded by grief, disappointment, despair. Thoughts like:

• Why bother?
• There's no point anyway
• There's nothing I can do
• It's out of my hands
• I just don't care any more
• I'm powerless here

Acceptance has a very different feel. It's similarly neutral, but there's a core of love that surrounds it.

A good tip here is to watch for humour. If the situation feels gently amusing — and no, not sarcasm or black humour — regardless of how it goes then you're in acceptance.

In a nutshell, the difference between apathy and acceptance is the difference between giving up and letting go.

Of course, once you see the signs for apathy town you can easily move to acceptance by just letting go of those thoughts & replacing them with loving ones, as usual.

Just a little trap to watch out for on this occasionally tumultuous road to bliss.

Of course, Jesus also said "forget that old testament, honky, all you need is love." Jesus was way cool.

*cough* I may be paraphrasing a little.

The real problem is, there's judgement everywhere. Yep, even in the new testament. If even Jesus can't avoid it, what hope is there for us regular folk?

Growing up a Catholic, I've had a lot of time to think about the 10 commandments. Sure, don't murder, don't covet your neighbour's wife's ass, these all make sense. Frankly though? I think judgement is worse than all of them (except maybe the ass thing).

Why?

Because it's insidious. It colours everything we think and do. It worsens our life in ways that are far reaching but not immediately apparent.

When Shakespeare said "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," this is what he was talking about. Judgement.

Oh, and did I mention it's insidious as all hell?

Even as we try to run away from judgement, we pull it closer to us. "Judgement is bad? Ok, I won't do that" — oh, wait, haven't we just judged judgement?

It's a tricky little bugger.

So, let's break it down a bit.

Why would judging something as "bad" be a bad thing (ha ha, circular logic alert!)

For a start, it makes us feel crappy.

Test it out. Think about something you believe is truly evil, vile, disgusting, abhorrent. Rush Limbaugh? Fish fingers and custard? Christmas shopping?

Feel better? No, of course not.

Additionally, any time we judge actions, behaviours, words or personalities as deficient, we pull our energy away from those involved. We hold ourselves back. Our negative judgement limits us. We can't be fully present, we can't be fully loving.

Ok, so let's say we choose to let go of negative judgement. Do we become a pollyanna? Should we just say "it's all good, bro" (hair flick)?

Well, not quite.

The even more subtle issue here is this: judging something as positive is problematic too.

Let's say we really like cake. Cake is great. Cake is always welcome. In other words, we've judged it as 'good'.

• If cake goes away? We'll get sad.
• If someone takes cake away from us, we'll resent them.
• If we can't get cake, we'll be angry, disappointed or jealous.
• When we don't have cake, we'll lust, or be needy.

Huh. All that just coz we like cake?

Well, there's nothing wrong with enjoying cake, while it's here. Sure. However, you can start to see why Buddha said "Desire is the root of evil."

Loving something is wanting more of it, hating it is wanting less of it. Two sides of the same "desire/wanting" coin.

Letting go of judgement takes us out of wanting.

If we love cake while it's here, but love its absence as deeply, well, then we can remain calm & centred regardless of the cakiness of the situation.

Someone takes cake away from us, we can deeply enjoy our lack-of-cakeness… we're becoming more svelte, we're eating healthier, our cholesteral is dropping and boy howdy, if we have cake again we're gonna really enjoy it.

There are so many benefits to not-cake.. provided we can stay in that place of not-judging.

Non judging is, in short, non attachment.

You know the old story. Farmer's horse runs away — ohhh, terrible luck! Maybe. Next day it brings back a herd of wild horses — ohhh, great luck! Maybe. His son tries to tame one, falls off & breaks a leg — ohhh, terrible luck! Maybe. Everyone is conscripted for battle, except his broken-legged-son — ohhh, great luck! Maybe.

At the root of peace is non attachment. At the root of non attachment is the letting go of judgement.

Right. Practically speaking, how do we do this?

Ahh, it's easier than you think. In fact, if you've read more than three posts on here you've probably already guessed. Uhh, unless the three were the one about horses, the one about snow and that post about cheese.

Just repeat to yourself "I love having cake" — and let go of all thoughts & feelings that arise, until you can say it and genuinely feel it.

If you're a life-long cake abolitionist, this may take some time. That's ok, no rush, there'll be plenty of cake tomorrow.

Next, repeat to yourself the opposite "I love having no cake" (or whatever phrase resonates most strongly for you). Keep repeating that and letting go until you feel genuinely loving about your not-cakeness.

That's all there is to it. As usual, love is the answer. Keep loving both sides till you feel great. When you feel great regardless, you'll do so because you are no longer judging.

Oh, it works for non-cakey things too.

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since New Zealand only exists because two tectonic plates decided to get together and have a rub-yourself-up-against-each-other party. To the West we have the Indo-Australian plate, to the East the Pacific Plate. Which I guess actually made it something of a "bring your own plate" party. Ohhh, I'll be here all week, try the veal.

More specifically though, the actual faultline was about 50 metres (160ft) from my house.

What's it like growing up in this kind of environment? Well, let's just say, anything under a 5.0 on the Richter scale you might lift your coffee off the table while you assess it & check your nearest safe zone (table, doorway, etc), but other than that you more or less ignore it.

You become blasé surprisingly quickly.

A more interesting question is: what the hell does a faultline actually look like?

Well, my folks have moved since I was a kid, so I'm now living much farther away. About 50 metres farther.

To get there I have to cross this most excellent bridge:

Awesome bridge

I do like well considered architecture (and blues skies).

I also have to pass this rather interesting (non earthquake related) tree:

Because we're on the other side of the world, the sun goes in circles, confusing plant growth patterns

Definitely an odd tree — there's only one of them.. ahh!

Anyway, just past that, you get to this rather innocuous looking bank:

Innocuous Bank

Just like any old golf course really. Except for those weird blue poles. What's up with them?

Well, if you sight along them, they look like this:

Two poles. Perfectly aligned

Notice how they're perpendicular to the bank. That's not an accident.

These poles were put in by the government white coats to track plate movement.

That innocent looking bank above? It keeps going in both directions… and there's an identical looking bank on the other side of the river. That's the faultline. Twenty years ago that ground was bulldozed flat.

So why do the poles line up, if there's been all that movement?

Because we're standing too close. Here are three poles:

Uh oh, someone stuck one of those poles in the wrong place. Yeah, that's it.

Notice how the two on the other side of the fault are angled off to the right of the viewer (ie, the most distant pole is to the left of the central pole).

That is very, very much out of alignment.

When they were put in, they all lined up perfectly. It would have been done with one of these. Theodolites are great, love me a theodolite. If you've never used one, I highly recommend it.

So let's step even further back:

Oh dear.

Remember how the most distant one is slightly to the left?

So you can see that drawing a straight line between the two most distant poles goes off to our right. A straight line between the two poles on this side of the fault goes screaming off to the left of the furthest two.

Not only has there been significant vertical movement, but a ton of lateral motion too.

So here's the odd thing: There's been no major earthquakes here, certainly nothing like Christchurch.

What's happening is something that scientists have only really been able to track since about 2002 — slow earthquakes. These are tricky to spot, since they occur over hours or months, and don't typically register on seismographs (the scientists use GPS to track them instead).

Many of these slow earthquakes are huge though (R7-9) and they're radically altering New Zealand's shape. This isn't a terrible thing though, NZ's a weird shape to start with, a bit of a haircut might do us some good.

Why can't we be an elegant, tastefully shaped country, like Italy's boot?

Update

I found this brilliant overhead view which shows the faultline perfectly:

the overhead view

The middle arrow is about where I was standing when I took the last four pics above.

The view is stolen from this thoroughly informative page on the subbject. Kudos to them!

Gratitude lists are super popular (yes, 60 million pages). It's very simple why — by focusing on what's good in your life, you attract more of it.

Ever start a morning, stub your toe, feel shitty, then suddenly everyone you meet seems to be in a shitty mood too?

Yeah, it's like that but in reverse. So you know, more fun, with less toe-stubbing.

As a bonus, the more sincerely you feel grateful for the positive things in your life, the more you genuinely connect with the present feeling of them — and well, the better you feel.

Giant "duh" there. This isn't rocket science.

Now, here's the caveat.

I've tried gratitude lists several times in the past. I'd wake up every morning, make a list of 5 (or 10) things I was grateful for, then get on with my day. I also tried at night, right before I went to sleep.

But for me? They never seemed to do, well, anything.

I didn't feel much better and my life didn't improve in any noticeable way.

If there's one thing I'm a stickler for, it's reproducibility.

I did try. Note the "several times", above. Bottom line though, if something isn't giving me significant, reproducible results, I throw it out.

Recently though, I've realised something.

There's quite a difference between being grateful for something, and appreciating it.

Here's where we get into the airy fairy bit.

If you've read back far enough, you'll know I've spent a lot of time working with energy. Healing, shifting stuff around, all sorts of bibs & bobs. Trouble is, a lot of this is experiential. I know what I've seen and done, but it starts to get a bit tricky since I often can't simply say "just do *this* and *that* will happen." There's a lot of background (& practice) required.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Simple, right? Yeah, exactly.

I try to keep stuff on here pretty concrete since me describing my experiences doesn't do much for you if you're in a very different place in your life. If you're in a similar place, well, you'll be seeing results like that anyway, so you won't need me telling you.

So, if I say "Energetically, 'appreciation' is much softer and closer feeling whereas 'gratitude' is more distanced with little energetic connectivity" — well, that's kinda hard to put into language that doesn't depend on my personal experiences. Put frankly, if you're not me (or energy weird like me) it's gonna sound like crap.

However, let's give it a shot. Just for fun.

Interestingly, just focusing on the words (in English) shows a lot.

Gratitude is quite a hard word (all those consonants). You could quite literally spit "I'm grateful for blah" at someone through angry teeth. Ha, I should know, I've done this, on particularly grumpy days.

Appreciation has all those soft rounded sounds.  Saying "I appreciate blah" is a much gentler experience.

Of course, the key question is — is this a factor of the experiential difference between these terms, or is it merely a linguistic difference in this particular language (English)?

Tough to say. What came first, the experience or the description?

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but if it didn't, would it have been named Rose in the first place?

Appreciating something feels (I warned you about this, right?) much closer, softer, more vulnerable, more open, more connected.

Gratitude ("I am grateful for..") feels more analytical, more distanced, more of a third party description.

So again, perhaps this is merely a linguistic difference. You don't say "I grateful" you say "I am grateful" — you're describing a personal state of being — passive.

When you say "I appreciate" — you're describing an action — active.

So maybe it's just that difference — the insertion of the verb "to be" in the sentence.

Maybe. What came first, the behaviour or the linguistic variation in methods of describing that behaviour?

What I've been trying to do is tease this all apart. Is there actually a difference between gratitude and appreciation, or does it just feel this way because of how English is structured?

Let's try and get the sentences as close as possible:

•     I am grateful for foo

•     I appreciate foo (no)
•     I am appreciating foo (not quite)
•     I am appreciative of foo

See, even then, the aural shape of the word "appreciative" softens the experience of saying it (particularly out loud). It's also interesting how many ways you can dance around appreciating something (or someone), and yet with gratitude you're forced to take a fixed position in time & space.

Interestingly, while we can say "I appreciate foo" (whomever foo is) there's no equivalent form for gratitude. You can't gratitude foo, you can't grateful foo. You're forced to be grateful, or express gratitude. It's always one word, one state of being more abstracted.

All this word-nerding aside, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

If saying "I appreciate foo" feels better for you, more powerful, more connective, more useful then great, use that.

If you still reckon "I am grateful for foo" rocks your boat, well, do that instead.

As always, the trick is to find what's right and what works best for you.

For me, since I've been thinking about this, I've noticed that every day I'm finding more and more things I appreciate. Plus, better yet, I'm verbally acknowledging them — and feeling better for it. So really I'm doing gratitude lists all day every day — by appreciating instead.

It's working for me.

This is one of the reasons I've come back to live with my folks for a while. I'd got about as far as I easily could peering into my own navel. Much easier to look at them to see what else is there in me. As the old saying goes: "If you think you're enlightened, spend a weekend with your parents." So far, it's been about six months and boy, I've grown lots. Ha ha. Oh boy. Yes.

What I've started to realise over the last couple of days is something of a corollary to the above truism.

What I want most from others is what I'm not giving myself.

For years, the thing that has made me the most angry is if I feel someone isn't listening to me — particularly if they're insistently asking me something, despite my attempts to explain.

The very few times (historically maybe twice a decade) I've got truly "red mist" angry, that's been the situation.

At some level, the reason it has had such a strong effect on me is simply because I feel I haven't been listening to myself.

Isn't it funny how it's ok for us to treat ourselves like shit, but if someone else does it, it's suddenly outrageously unacceptable?

So here's the interesting bit: what the hell does that even mean? "Not listening to myself?" I honestly have no idea. All I do know is, when I healed* on not listening to myself, I felt a huge rush of energy leaving and a great peace come over me. Now, if I think back to those times when I've been aggressively not-listened-to (ha ha, yes), I find the situations oddly amusing.

This, by the way, is great news.

Why? Because it shows you don't have to consciously understand what anything is about to heal it. You don't have to figure it out. Just let your subconscious sort it out. It is, after all, the part of you faffing about and being all stroppy in the first place. It's only fair it should pull its weight for once. Take that, inner child! Slobbing around on the sofa all day watching TV and eating cheerios!

Over the last couple of days, as a background task, every so often I've answered two questions:

• "What pisses me off (about others)?"
• "What do I really want (from others)?"

Often these are opposite sides of the same answer. It pisses me off when people don't respect me. I really want people to respect me. The reason for both of these? I'm not respecting myself. If I do that, well who cares what anyone else does? The craving for it disappears.

I want people to love me? (And frankly, who doesn't?) I'm just not loving myself.

I want people to listen to me? I'm not listening to myself.

I want people to value me? I'm not valuing myself.

This is such a stupidly simple thing, it sounds almost ridiculous to write down. All I know is, this has been incredibly helpful.

When I give myself what I want, I no longer crave it from others.

*Oh, and the silliest thing? How did I heal this? That's the easiest bit yet. More on this in a little while, but for now all you need to know is this:

1. I simply said: "I love that I don't listen to myself," while releasing all the energy, physical tension, emotional responses and thoughts that arose in response to saying that.
2. I mixed it up a little with "I love that I still  don't listen to myself."
3. I kept going until I felt peaceful.
   
4. I then plugged in the positive "I love that I listen to myself," "I love that I always listen to myself," "I love that I listen to myself completely." Again, releasing all resistance that came up.
5. I kept going till I felt peaceful and the positive statements felt true.

Really, I simply said whatever popped in my head, felt right and felt like it would push things a little further, a little deeper. I maybe tapped my karate chop point if I felt things needed amping up a notch.

If you really want to test if something's gone, see how you feel about someone else treating you in that way. Can you say out loud (for example) "I love [person close to you] not listening to me"?

That's all I did. It's all I needed to do. How could I not share something so elegantly powerful with you?

Generally for New Year's Eve I prefer to do something contemplative. Meditate on the past year (or years). Feel my way to a better direction for the coming year. Assess and makes choices that will guide me positively forward.

With that in mind, around 10pm I took off up a nearby hill (it's only 345m high at the peak). It was a 45 minute hike in the dark to the lookout point I was aiming for. I chose to use no lights, partly as a more interesting challenge and partly so I could see the glow-worms on the way up.

Oh boy, they didn't disappoint. Unfortunately, photos just don't do those bright little bundles any justice.

I was right about it being an interesting walk. For a start, it's been raining like crazy the last few days, so everything in the bush is soaking wet. Combine heavy cloud cover with only a quarter new moon, and it wasn't exactly clear where I was supposed to be walking either. The path was (theoretically) fairly light, except so were the ferns on either side, oh, and the rocks… and the puddles… and the grass. Also, that light coloured path? It was covered in various dark coloured flora, tree branches, grass, leaves, stiles, animals, dead bodies, burning cars, zombies*.

* some of these items may be a complete lie.

Mostly it wasn't too bad though. My eyes adjusted pretty quick and I only slipped over a couple of times.

I got to the top around 11, but had wildly underestimated how warm it would be trekking up the hill, so promptly stripped down to let my shirt dry out a little. If there were any ghosts up there, I'm sure I scared them off with my stunning whiteness (it's a sight to behold, I assure you).

I then spent the next hour meditating, absorbing the essence of the previous year and sipping the delicious coffee I'd taken up with me.

I also got treated to lightning on the far off ridges and fireworks up and down the valley. Theoretically fireworks are illegal in New Zealand outside of Guy Fawkes' week (the week before Nov 5) but people still store them up for New Year's. I'm happy they do, it makes New Year's a lot more festive than just a bunch of yahoos yahooing.

Surprisingly, the march back down the hill was significantly more dangerous than up. My eyes had adjusted so I could see better, but even with that I hit a lot of unexpected drops in terrain. I ended up walking most of the way down in a half crouch. Imagine you're sitting in an upright chair. Now take the chair away. Yeah, like that. An odd posture, but effective and a lot safer than walking normally (which had left me unharmed but on my arse a couple of times). When I got back closer to civilization, I also had to shield my eyes from the street lights just to see where I was going. It's hard to comprehend just how much light pollution there is until you're walking back into it from the pitch black.

I did end up soaked to the skin up to my knees — it's hard to see invisible wet grass — but it was totally worth it. Walking down in the dark, brooks burbling by the track, the glow of the worms, giant trees majestic against the skyline, it was an utterly beautiful experience.

And proof you can take the boy out of Scouts, but never take the Scout out of the boy; other than what I wore, I also took with me and used:

• hat
• gloves
• scarf
• camera
• blanket (my Grandma gave it to me over 20 years ago; it's the only thing I have left connected to her)
• thermos of coffee

but took and didn't use:

• three torches
• phone
• bottle of water
• fabric tape
• plastic bag
• leatherman

I figured if I accidentally walked off a bank & broke a leg (a reasonable risk) I might as well take enough to be comfortable & safe until morning.

Turns out I didn't need most of it, but it was worth it without the added excitement. Partly for the peace & calmness that comes from occasionally detaching completely from the world. Partly for this:

Here's to a gorgeous 2012.

For a start, he managed to wangle a free trip, which is always a bonus. A friend of his was coming up and said she had a spare ticket for whomever asked first. Nice one.

They get on the plane, and the guy next to them is doing scratchy tickets. I don't know if you have them where you are, but they're a form of lowkey gambling. It's a piece of card you buy from a gas station or corner shop that costs a couple of bucks. You randomly scratch off some elements, and there's a chance to win a money prize.

Anyway, this guy is doing these and suddenly he says "Oh wow, $20! That'll cover what I paid for them." Pretty obviously this happened because my brother was sitting right next to him — he's got to be a good luck charm, right?

The guy continues scratching away, then leans over and asks "This can't be right, can it?" Guess what? He won $100,000. Right there and then.

That's not the eventful bit of the trip. I'm just telling you that coz it's kinda cool. The eventful bit was about half way through the flight, when the head steward comes storming up the aisle and demands to see both of their boarding passes.

Here's my brother's:

I've, uhh, blacked out some of the more incriminating details

This may not come as much of a surprise at this point in the story, but the steward wasn't coming to offer them a complimentary hot towel for their wit and verve.

The staff on the plane gave them something of a bollocking (local slang: telling off, in this case while the staff standing behind you try not to giggle too loudly).

They were then met at the door by a police officer with rather a lot of pointed questions, although apparently he had the decency to be at least a little amused by it all.

I think my brother might have got away with it though. I reckon it was his friend that really pushed it over the edge.

Her boarding pass? Ms Pimpin' Bitch.