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.

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 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?

Since any mind map should ideally be about a single subject, if you want to clear a bunch of different subjects, each subject will require a different map.

So, unless we want to the spend the entire rest of our lives tapping frantically, instead of, well, living (*yawn* been there, done that. BORING), you need a fast way to hammer through these. Then you can head off happily to the pub (or wherever) with the freedom of knowing that whatever-it-was that had been bothering you is now a thing of the past.

OK. SO.

My general approach (as I outlined here) is to scribble out a map, then next to each item jot if it's about wanting or lacking Approval, Control or Security (or all three). Finally, I flick on the video & tap along, saying "I love that I lack control (etc) about.." (whatever the item is).

So, here's the trick to clearing a lot of these things quickly. First of all scribble out all your maps, one after the other. When you've finished that, then go through each item on each map & put it into a/c/s (or combos). Only when you've completely finished, go through & tap each map.

I find when I'm in that kind of flow, it's super easy to just flick from one map to the next, with barely a pause in between. Doing them one at a time took forever!

There's something about not needing to context switch (writing, assessing, tapping) back & forth that makes this way much, much faster than just doing each complete map one at a time.

Anyway, have fun clearing stuff out. I've been doing a ton of these over the last month or so & the difference it's made in terms of inner peace is almost ridiculous.

What I've learned recently is just how subtle this body/mind interaction is.

After 20 odd years of Aikido, this shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did.

In Aikido, we often sit in seiza. Basically, you kneel with your knees apart, your bum on your heels, back arched and head up.

This posture is well known across the universe.

Here's Spock doing it

(From this excellent site on Vulcan meditation. Ha ha, you think I'm kidding. Oh Internet, you have everything!)

The most important part of all this? The arched back. (Spock does it well)

If you prefer more beard, here's how it looks from the front:

Long white beard is optional. Grass, preferred. Katana, mandatory.

The basic Aikido pin looks like this:

Shake my hand would you, fool?

No, wait, like this:

No! You sit over *there*!

Ok ok, I'm joking around. It's actually like this:

See? There's that seiza again. And you thought we'd just been sitting like that coz we hated legs.

(a few minor corrections — most importantly knees apart will drop her centre more, but that's actually pretty good)

Now here's where the arched back comes in.

When you're on the receiving end (i.e. face down, eating grass) if the person doing the pins arches their back or not makes the difference between:

"Someone's leaning on my arm"

and

"My entire being is pinned to the centre of the earth by a large truck"

What's even more interesting is that when it's done correctly, zero effort is expended, and the person is not just squashing you as hard as they can — that's actually a weaker pin.

Now, out of the dojo, and back to real life.

Here's what I've noticed: When I'm healing, or hell, doing anything sitting down, if I sit just that little bit straighter, and yes, arch my back, everything goes much better and becomes extraordinarily easier.

Stuff that might have been tricky to drop or heal fall saway instantly.

I feel more in control of my code, my writing, my life. Things become… possible.

Everything.

The only thing I'm changing is maybe pushing my butt further back on the chair, and arching my back, very, very slightly. Of course, this pushes one's shoulders back and also tends to raise the head slightly — but really, it's just a little back arch.

Such a subtle shift, such huge effect.

After a while though you may start to notice, there's always more crap.

What's going on?

It's easy to get discouraged, feel that whatever you're using "doesn't work like it used to", or even convince yourself that it never worked in the first place (I've seen this a lot).

What's really happening though?

Well, there's a couple of things.

First of all, our problems expand to fill our horizon.

We have this thing called our Ego (aka the nasty little voice inside), that thrives on misery. So, however big our problems are in reality, if we're not fully present they can seem to fill our universe.

I used to live with a girl. Not very smart, but lovely. I would come home from work and she'd be worked up into a tizzy, almost in tears. It took a while before I eventually figured out what she was so upset about.

Shortland Street. The New Zealand soap opera. "Something terrible" had happened on the show.

The first couple of times this happened I couldn't believe it. Eventually I realised, this girl was serious. To her, this was a very real crisis. To her, this was reality and yes, it filled her horizon.

Important lesson there too: Always respect someone else's pain. (One I've mostly learned, although I do still slip up from time to time in my enthusiasm to help people).

The second thing to realise is that as we heal more and more of our lives, we go through stages:

1. You work backwards through time, dealing with earlier & earlier events in your life (and past lives, if you're into that)
2. You heal more and more subtle issues. You may have started with major life traumas, but the next thing you know you're letting go of anger when you knock your coffee over (it's still non-loving, so you might as well chuck it out, right?)
3. You deal with higher and higher emotions (aka moving up the vibrational scale). Abraham Hicks have their emotional guidance scale. The releasing guys talk about AGFLAP-CAP — Apathy, Grief, Fear, Lust, Anger, Pride, Courageousness, Acceptance, Peace. It's all the same. You start by healing the lower, duller emotions, then work you way through the higher ones.

These three sequences are all happening more or less at the same time. So, there's always new ways to look at things, always room to improve.

Compounding this, our roguish ego often makes every step seem enormous.

A good example is relationships:

• First you realise that it's not ok for them to beat you
• Then that it's not ok for them to cheat on you
• Then that it's not ok for them to shout at you
• Then that it's not ok for them to emotionally abuse you
• Then that it's not ok for them to disrespect, dismiss, be condescending to you
• Then that it's ok to have someone who supports you
• Then that it's ok to have someone who loves you as much as you love them
• Then that it's ok to have someone who works at the relationship as much as you do
• Then that it's ok to have a loving, peaceful relationship
• Then that it's ok to be perfectly happy & growing together

(there may be more, but this is about as far as I can see right now)

At each stage, the thought of accepting something earlier would seem utterly ridiculous. If you're at the point where you will only accept a relationship where you're supported, the thought of being with someone who is physically abusive is ludicrous.

At that point however (looking further down the list) the thought of being with someone you can be happy with all the time may seem like a pipe dream. Mr (or Ms) Perfect.

Transitioning from each stage to the next can be a major life revelation — a huge jump forward in your personal growth.

As you grow, heal and mature, you do move further down the list though, until eventually (hopefully) those later things will all seem reasonable, normal and expected.

Sadly it often takes several major relationships, maybe a marriage or two, before we see these things clearly. C'est la vie. This is how we learn. Bad choices lead to experience leads to good choices.

Still, we're all on our own paths and everyone learns at their own pace. If I was a faster learner, I wouldn't be over here talking to you. Why, I'd be over *there* talking to you (and it's so much greener too).

To see clarity along the way, keeping a journal is helpful. As is talking to old friends, or family — to remind ourselves how far we've come.

The important thing is to remember it's a journey. Everything you learn, heal and let go of is improving your life. No matter how troubling things seem today, it's so much better than it used to be, and best of all, it's going to be even better tomorrow.

But first let me wind back a bit.

A few days ago I hung out with a friend of mine. This is someone I've known for a decade or longer, so there's a lot of history there. Mostly pretty good, but some very dark times too. This guy has very strong energy. Historically, he's affected me enormously.

Now, he's going through some shit at the moment (aren't we all?) The catch is, within about 15 minutes of hanging out with him, I could feel his energy making me feel, quite literally, physically ill.

Ok, so that's not good. What to do, what to do?

I tried putting up separation roses, to energetically divide us. They didn't stick. Maybe we just have too much history, we're too strongly connected. Maybe he's just too energetically grasping. I don't know.

I could feel giant clumps of dark energy coming off him and coming towards me, as he was describing the various troubles in his life. Nothing I tried was helping, and things were quickly spiralling downwards.

Interesting situation.

Then I settled on the simplest possible solution.

I focused on the clump of darkness, and simply said "I love you."

Yep, just that.

The super cool thing was, the darkness immediately dissipated. My feeling of sickness left, and (very interesting) he perked up and started talking about something else altogether.

For the rest of our time together, everytime I felt negatively affected, or could sense dark globs of whatever appearing, I'd just address them, say "I love you" and watch them disappear again.

Very. Interesting.

Now, in Ho'oponopono (A Hawaiian healing technique), you cycle through four phrases:

1. I love you
2. I'm sorry
3. Please forgive me
4. Thank you

But I'm starting to suspect, if there was one single prayer to say for the rest of your life, it should be "I love you." The single most powerful thing you can say in any situation.

Since then I have (of course, you know me!) been doing the exact same thing to anything that's appeared — in myself, or those around me. Said "I love you" to it (in my mind) and let it go.

So, to last night.

pic by Cesar T Sanchez

Ever since I started tapping out nightmares, the frequency with which I've experienced bad dreams has dropped precipitously. They've just stopped happening.

So last night was pretty interesting. I had 10, maybe 15 distinct bad dreams in a row.

Why? Who knows (and really, who cares?) Maybe I just unblocked something big enough that it was time to wash a bunch of related remnants out of me. It really doesn't matter too much.

Anyway, in each of these dreams, I settled back, said "I love you" to whatever was happening, and the dream disappeared. Sometimes I needed to repeat it a few times, but every single time the dream would dissolve, along with whatever it was that had been bothering me.

Best of all? I woke up feeling like a million bucks. Now that is a first after a night of bad dreams.

"I love you" — said calmly and with intention — it's continuing to amaze me just how powerful that phrase really is.

I first talked about them here.

These may not be the utterly highest states possible (how much bullshit wankery do we want to get into, really), but they're damn good to aim for.

Acceptance is a higher state than Courageousness. Peace is the highest.

Courageousness

Is described as "The willingness to move out without fear or hesitation — to do — to correct — to change wherever needed. The willingness to let go — to move on."

You can super easily get yourself into this state by just repeatedly & forcefully saying "yes." It truly is that simple. Of course, getting into a strong, powerful posture also helps

Acceptance

"No need to change anything. No judgements of good or bad. It just is and it's OK. It is beautiful as it is. I have and enjoy everything as it is."

This is the "It is what it is" state.

Peace

Summed up by "I am — I am whole, complete, total unto my Self. Everyone and Everything is part of my Self. It is all perfect."

A much argued over term that encapsulates this is enlightenment. We've dropped all our crap, or at least  we're holding a steady state where remaining crap continues to drop effortlessly.

Now, there are three lists that describe each of these states.

The Courageousness List

Adventurous. Alert. Alive. Assured. Aware. Centred. Certain. Cheerful. Clear. Compassionate. Competent. Confident. Creative. Daring. Decisive. Dynamic. Eager. Enthusiastic. Exhilarated. Exploring. Flexible. Focused. Giving. Happy. Honourable. Humorous. I Can. Independent. Initiating. Integrity. Invincible. Loving. Lucid. Motivated. Non-resistant. Open. Optimistic. Perspective. Positive. Purposeful. Receptive. Resilient. Resourceful. Responsive. Secure. Self-sufficient. Sharp. Spontaneous. Strong. Supportive. Tireless. Vigorous. Visionary. Willing. Zesty

The Acceptance List

Abundance. Appreciative. Balanced. Beautiful. Belonging. Childlike. Compassionate. Considerate. Delighted. Elated. Embracing. Empathetic. Enriched. Everything's Okay. Friendly. Fullness. Gentle. Gracious. Harmonious. Harmony. Intuitive. In Tune. Joyful. Loving. Magnanimous. Mellow. Naturalness. Nothing to change. Open. Playful. Radiant. Receptive. Soft. Tender. Understanding. Warm. Well-being. Wonder

The Peace List

Ageless. Awareness. Beingness. Boundless. Calm. Centred. Complete. Connected. Eternal. Free. Fulfilled. Glowing. Light. Oneness. Perfection. Pure. Quiet. Serenity. Space. Still. Timeless. Tranquillity. Unlimited. Whole

WHAT TO DO WITH THESE LISTS

How can you use these lists, to help propel you into those states of being?

You can simply say any of the phrases below, while focusing on each word in turn. I've used all of these phrases (and other variants), depending on my mood at the time, and found them all to be super helpful.

• I am that I am [emotion]. I release and let go of all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I am that I am [emotion]. I drop all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I am that I am [emotion] yes! I drop all disapproval. I approve of you Si. I love you.
• I love that I am [emotion] (my personal favourite)

(replace with your own name, obviously)

Feel free to tweak the words till they resonate most strongly for you. Your own intuition is always the best guide.

After you say each phrase, feel the emotion, and picture it in your head. This helps connect you to it more strongly, and drop any opposing resistance.

Generally it's good to do courageousness in the morning, acceptance in the middle of the day, and peace at night. It breaks it up so they're not overwhelming, but also gets you back into a high state for more of the day.

Yep, the first time you go through the lists, they take forever (well, ok, maybe 40 minutes). They're worth persisting with, it gets much faster as you get the hang of it — down to maybe 10 minutes.

I've also found tapping while doing it helps (either full tapping, or just on your fingers). Oh, and going through the video shown here, one emotion per point (as you like). That way the whole list only takes 8 minutes — super quick.

I'd recommend doing this for a few weeks. I went through the lists daily for a coupla months (not perfectly of course, I missed lists all the time, as life got variously crazy).

I can look back and see these lists providing a phenomenal amount of momentum. Clearing lifetimes of junk out, and getting me in a really high, very consistent state of being.

I also noticed — days when I missed my morning list were always, somehow, much worse than days when I didn't. Even if I only managed to do the first list, it would always get me into a (surprise!) courageous state of being, where I could get up, get out & kick serious ass in the world.

Kickin' ass. It's recommended, encouraged even.

[edit, Mar 2012: After almost nine months of doing these lists every day, here's what I've settled on — it's super fast, and clears deeply.

Tap your karate chop point (side of hand), and say "I love that I'm not [emotion]." If an obvious negation pops into your head — eg emotion=secure, negation=insecure — then use that, otherwise just "not [whatever]" is fine. If you get a resonance on it, keep tapping, saying & releasing whatever comes up. Then, when the negative side is clear, tap & say the positive "I love that I am [emotion]."

It's also more powerful if you're sitting up, rather than, say, lying in bed being lazy.

This is stupidly fast (< 5 mins) and clears very deeply.]