How To End Hate (& its nasty side effects)

Ever heard that saying "What you resist persists"?

Ahh yes.

I've noticed a few patterns in my life recently.

In general, I've spent the last few years on a bit of a spiritual journey. Clearing out, well, pretty much everything.

The downside to this is, as I've got clearer, what remaining crap is there has echoed stronger & more powerfully through my life. Ahh, I wish I'd been told that when I started. Actually, probably best I wasn't.

The bad news is, there are parts of my life that still suck. Like you wouldn't believe. Well, ok, I'm human. The good news is, they stand out like nobody's business. Also, it's much easier to see when they're repeating.

So, here I am, looking at my life "Wtf? Didn't that same crappy situation happen 6mo ago? What's going on?"

Then, the other day, it hit me.

They've all been things I hate.

Now, of course, very early on, I went through all the core 'negative' (if there is such a thing) emotions, assessing all the places in my life they affected, healing them etc.

Of course, my life drastically improved. Quelle surprise.

When I looked at hate, I came up blank though. "Huh? I don't hate anyone." My Mum brought me up way to well for that nonsense. I've gotta say, there have been a few people I probably should (according to society) hate for the roles they've played in my life, but I still don't (thanks Mum).

What I realised lately though is - there's a lot of things I hate.

Guess what's recurring?

Situations, behaviours in those around me, limitations, frustrations, ongoing problems.

Yep, no frickin' surprise.

Hate is resistance.

I'm resisting this nonsense, so of course, I'm just drawing it into me. However you want to explain that (law of attraction, reticular activating system, self sabotage) is largely irrelevant.

The empirical evidence is this: Stuff I hate I just see more of in my life.

The big (& incredibly obvious) lesson? STOP IT.

Ok, so I like to keep things vaguely useful/practical around here. Bob has great advice above, but really, how do you stop hating something?

I've shared lots of ways of doing this kind of thing before, so here's a real simple way that's been helping me lately:

1. Give the issue a percentage, 0-100% where 0=Hate It, 100%=I'm 100% ok with this thing happening.
2. Ask yourself, can I increase that percentage? Say "Yes", out loud & as emphatically as possible.

Maybe it's just my analytical math brain, but that really resonates for me. I typically get a number in my head instantly. Uhh, 20%, or 3%. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's just a starting point.

To work with this, there's a core realisation. You're the boss. You, the real You. Not your physical body, not your mind, not even your ego. The large, spiritual you. The essence of you. Your consciousness.

For example, if you decide to stop thinking about something, who makes that decision? You do. Not your brain. Your brain is just the tool. That's the real you making that decision. The core of your being.

Soooo. Once you realise that you're the boss, then everything is really just a decision. Including the decision to actually be ok with something you used to hate.

How/Why Does It Work?
1. Saying 'yes' puts you in a positive mindframe rather than negative (ie, resistant, hating). Salesmen have known this for eons, of course. Nothing new there.

2. Saying 'yes' releases resistance to the issue. Even just accepting it a little can help shift things, open you up & let go of that hate (or secret shame, as is often the case with deep hatred) and thus resistance. Once the floodgates open, voila, you're on your way.

I know, sounds crazy, but give it a bit of a go, be patient & watch what happens.

Of course, if you feel like using EFT, releasing, reiki, NPA or anything else at the same time, so much the better. Whatever helps.

When you do finally get up to 100% you'll realise. You just don't hate it any more, in fact, you couldn't care less. Know what? You'll stop seeing it in your life too.

For me, I got a piece of paper, on the left wrote "Things I f'n Hate", on the right "% Ok with it" then just made a list. Going down, even just saying "YES, I hate ..." it's the craziest thing, but I could feel the hate lifting off & that percentage rising.

Another interesting side effect? All this saying yes. I've had inner tension (that my sensei can feel, but is hard for me to pinpoint) for, well, probably my entire life. With this? I can actually feel it easing. Don't know how, or even what it is, but it's definitely lifting.

Whoever thought being positive would be beneficial? *grin*

The Moments That Define Us

Now, from a title like that, you may be thinking I'm talking about those lifetime events that mark our place in history - ala Bill Gates selling DOS to IBM, or Lawn Chair Larry.

No, I'm talking about the moments that define our character, and as a result, ultimately us as human beings.

It breaks down like this. Anyone can be magnanimous, compassionate or loving in good times. What truly defines us is how we behave when things go wrong.

That's right, when something or someone pisses us off. The neighbour runs over our dog, our girlfriend runs off with a leper or someone just doesn't quite behave the way we want them to (which is really a control issue on our part, but I digress).

I once heard the definition of maturity as "The difference in time between our emotional & rational responses to a situation."

That's succinct, but I don't necessarily believe that what's rational is always what's best.

Is it rational to be unconditionally loving towards someone that is treating you like shit? No, but it sure as hell is the fastest way to defuse the situation. See also: Gandhi. It worked out pretty well for him, except for, you know, right at the end.

A less succinct but more accurate definition might be "The difference in time between our fear & love based responses to a situation."

As we get more mature, our love based responses get closer & closer to the surface, and that time delay between fear & love gets ever shorter until it disappears altogether.

For example, I know when I was younger, kids screaming or leaving mess everywhere used to drive me mad. I mean, really crazy. Growing up as the oldest of eight might have done that to me. Heh. These days though, I watch myself, & my first reaction is just "Is it happy screaming? Ok, that's cool." As for mess, well, they're kids. You gently guide & provide a consistent example over a period of years, & eventually they'll sort it out, but there's no rush, they've got a ton of other learning to do too.

This is where those minor daily upsets are actually a good thing. They provide feedback in two ways:

1. Are we still instinctively reacting badly?
2. How long is it taking us to calm down afterwards?

The first tells us whether we still have more healing/growing to do in this area, while the second is a quantifiable measure of the progress that we're making.

This doesn't mean I think you should welcome bad/upsetting events into your life, but given that these sorts of things tend to happen anyway, why not take advantage of them?

Ultimately, it's this ongoing collection of upsetting or unexpected situations & our reactions to them. That's what defines us as people.

As we grow & improve, these things bother us less & less.. & we become better people.

I guarantee you one thing. If you can remain positive & loving when everything is falling apart around you, you're going to be incredible when times are good.

The Rat And The Rose

I was at a friend's place having a coffee when I saw the weirdest thing (to help you out, I circled it):

Can you see it? Nope, neither could I, at the start.

However, we'd been watching the cat (a delightful Burmese). The cat had seen something interesting, so we were curious what it was. Usually this sort of thing is just a bird. This time though, it was a rat, about 6 inches long (plus tail).

Then we watched the rat climb the trellis. Uhh, what? A climbing rat? Well, ok, I used to be one of those, so I can dig that.

That's when it got surreal. This rat grabbed one of the roses in its teeth, pulled it off & started climbing down. Now, I got to my camera after it got a foot down the trellis, but check these pics out (I've tried to keep the same rose in the top right hand corner so you can track the rat easier as it progresses downwards):

Just behind the 'marker' rose.

now well below it

even further

and right off the bottom & into the garden.

Wow, crazy.

Oddly, Google doesn't have much in the way of "hey, rats love to eat roses!", so maybe I just got lucky.

Confession

Nobody has their shit together, or has all the answers. No matter how much they pretend otherwise.

This, of course, includes me.

Turn Every Down Into An Up

I had a realisation recently.

Fundamentally, the only person that has any control over how I feel is me.

I choose how I feel.

So, any time I feel bad due to someone else's actions, I know that's just a pain body reacting. That's just my ego, getting in the way, hurting me, wanting me to feel pain.

Therefore, by releasing that pain when it comes up. Feeling the feeling & letting it go, I'm healing everything I experience, right there & then.

For more disturbing, larger or messier things, giving it a good old bash with EFT has also helped kick this stuff out.

Every time that I've felt less-than-blissful, it's been an opportunity for me to heal - to heal whatever it is inside me that is reacting to external stimulus, & leaving me feeling bad.

Ha! And life being what it is, there's been a lot of chances for that.

As a result? I know I'm in a much, much better place than I have been, simply as a result of doing this.

Now, this journey hasn't always been pleasant at all. I wouldn't wish some aspects of it in anyone. However, I have observed that things that have recurred have bothered me less & less till they haven't bothered me at all.

Know what happens then? They seem to stop happening at all.

pic by ceeceedotca

Why is that?

Well, some people would say that we draw things into our existence because we are a vibrational match for them. Like attracts like, you know, the law of attraction stuff.

Which means is (as unpleasant as it is to hear this) that every miserable thing I experience is there because some part of me wants it there.

Ok, now before we go getting all suicidal here (because that train of thought can get a bit damn depressing if you follow it too long through every bad thing that's ever happened to you), realise this: These things appear so you can learn.

That's why, when you learn the lesson (or heal), they simply stop happening to you.

In my case, I've had several occasions where I healed enough of that pain & the people responsible quite literally disappeared from my life. Moved away. Overnight.

So that's the good news.

The point here is this: Every bad thing that occurs to you is an opportunity to instantly, easily & significantly improve your life.

Every upset is a chance for growth.

By immediately letting go of the negative emotion you're feeling, as you're feeling it, minute by minute your life is getting - even right through the middle of horrific pain & unpleasantness.

For a start, you'll stop feeling bad even while things that used to upset you are still happening.

More interestingly, those (previously) negative external situations will, as if by magic, stop occurring.

Now, don't take my word for it, check it out yourself, by all means.

However, let's say I'm wrong - what does it matter? If you've let go, completely, of your internal reactions to these painful events, then you won't care anyway. You'll just sit there like a Hindu cow, cool as a cucumber while things spiral around you.

I know because this is exactly how I became. Their pain & suffering would be swirling around in a way that I know would previously have upset me enormously, & it didn't bother me in the slightest. The pain body inside me that had been reacting to that particular stimulus had been completely neutralised.

Also, this comes back to our pain bodies discussion. If there's no internal reaction at all from you, then there's nothing for the other person's pain body to push against - so it naturally dissipates - in the quickest, healthiest way possible.

The key things to remember are:

The sooner after the upset you can heal, the better. The fresher the emotion is inside you, the easier it is to get to & remove completely. Ideally, heal it immediately. This is where releasing is so helpful, coz you can do it while the person is still abusing/shouting at/crying on you. With EFT, you have to imagine tapping the points (or discreetly finger tap) - which works but is harder to do if you're largely concentrating on someone else. Not impossible, but harder than just releasing anything you're feeling inside yourself.

Be persistent. Don't get discouraged if it seems like the same pain keeps coming up. Humans are very layered, & some times it takes a while to really get to the bottom of something. There may be many emotional reactions to a situation, or many subtle variations on a theme (eg, someone can insult, demean, disrespect, dismiss. ignore, put down, or disregard you - all basically the same, all subtly different). Just keep lettinig it all go, it all helps.

The Pain Bodies Inside Us

Ever catch yourself doing something really stupid? You watch it happening in slow motion, yet can't seem to stop yourself going right ahead and doing it?

Now, there's a ton of things that fit under the heading of 'stupid', ahh, and by goodness, I've done a lot of them.

What I'd like to talk about today is deliberately creating pain, in ourselves & in those around us. When we feel automatically compelled to do things that increase suffering in the world. Typically this is done verbally, but in more extreme cases it can escalate to physical violence.

Eckhart Tolle has a description for this phenomenon, he calls these internal proclivities "Pain bodies."

It's a useful approach. Metaphorically distancing ourselves, even slightly, can give us power over the behaviour. Seeing it as something separate from ourselves helps us gain control.

Of course, this kind of things fits handily under the heading "Self-sabotage." Whereas a lot of forms of self-sabotage can be happily done alone (eg, procrastination), our pain bodies generally require company.

pic by catb

So what to do about them? Well, Tolle's suggestion is simply to be as present as possible, and this is pretty reasonable advice. If you're in the moment, then these occurrences become quite jarring. The behaviour stands out so starkly You can't help but think (whether it's yourself or another) "Hey, where the hell did that come from?"

To kick Tolle's suggestion up a notch in terms of effectiveness, I'd also recommend releasing whatever feelings come up.

Ever notice how hard it is to fight someone who's not responding at all (except with love)? There's a reason for that. Your pain body is trying to latch onto something, something to feed itself with.. and finding nothing. This is, of course, pure Aikido at work.

The same thing works in reverse. When someone near you behaves in a way that is pretty obviously just spoiling for a fight, by releasing any internal reactions inside you, remaining calm, and adding nothing, the entire situation defuses in the fastest way possible.

I've experimented with this extensively, & there really is nothing good or bad you can say that will calm things down quicker than releasing & saying as little as possible.

pic by ladyinpink_1

Of course, in yourself, the same applies. I lose count of the number of times I've felt something ugly or nasty whelling up inside me. By releasing the thought, noticing it but not attaching it & simply letting it go, I'm weakening those pain bodies inside me. Not once have I looked back & thought "Gosh, I sure wish I'd said that nasty thing." Nope, every single time it's been a variant on "Oh man, that would have really hurt someone I care about."

The more you can release at the time, the weaker the pain body becomes.

In yourself, it's simply a case of letting go of the compulsion to hurt those around you. When someone near you is letting their pain body take control, there's two things to release.

First, your reaction to whatever they're saying. Yes, it's going to be hurtful, painful, ugly. That's the nature of a pain body - to try and provoke as extreme a reaction from you as possible. Sure, that person is fully responsible for anything they say, & they shouldn't say it. But that's not the point. Blaming them, or having other negative feelings towards them is only going to make you feel bad, so let it go. Secondly, & once you've let go of any negative reactions to their behaviour, let go of any internal response you may be feeling. That's only your pain bodies trying to get in on the fight.

You could also use EFT or similar - if you're able to identify a specific motivation or drive behind the pain body so you can tune into it & tap later. Starting tapping in the middle of dealing with someone angry or hurt is likely to just piss them off even further. Not recommended.

Can you think of any people who just seem to bring out the worst in you? One minute things are fine, next there's a flaming row & you really have no idea how it started? That's what happens when two pain bodies get in sync and start feeding each other. If either party is able to take even the slightest amount of control, the whole thing defuses incredibly quickly.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm suggesting for a second you should stay in a situation where someone is wilfully trying to harm you, whether verbally or otherwise.

This isn't about being a martyr, just a little better than yesterday.

Even reducing your pain bodies by the tiniest amount results in exponentially more love in the world. Every interaction with every person for the rest of your life will be just that little bit better. Totally worth the effort.

How To Stop Feeling Bad

Why do we feel bad?

It's a good question.

An easy answer would be "because bad stuff happens to us", but what for one person would be a disaster, someone else might barely notice.

So what's actually going on here?

In a nutshell?

We beat ourselves up.

That little voice in our heads giving us shit. Yep, it's our ego.

No big surprise there then. So what can we do about it?

Well, stop complaining is certainly a good start, but there's more to it than just that.

For example, how many different ways are there of beating ourselves up?

Regrets, disappointments, undesirable events, worrying about the future, things we dislike about ourselves, or (even sillier) things we dislike about others ("Why oh why did I choose a husband like this?") That's the craziest of all. Resentment about someone else is like drinking poison & expecting the other person to get sick.

Notice that all of these things are either in the past or in the future? Yep, that's not a surprise. More on that later.

A good rule of thumb though? Any time we say something to ourselves that makes us feel worse, that's beating ourselves up, in one way or another.

Ok, so we've mapped out the field, how to deal to this behaviour? How to stop it?

The Reductionist Method
Here's one method that has worked wonders for me.

Every morning I sat down & brainstormed a few lists "Things I disapprove about myself", "Regrets", "Disappointments", "Worries" etc. (You can use any phrasing that resonates). Next, I just worked my way down each list I'd made, healing each item in turn. The whole thing would take, 10 maybe 15 minutes tops.

pic by gwilmore

What I noticed was, each day the lists got shorter, & the items I'd healed didn't come back (or they looked like they came back, but were actually subtly different - i.e. different sub-aspects of a larger issue).

After a few days, I couldn't think of anything for any of the lists. Oh, & I also wasn't thinking any of those crappy thoughts about myself any more.

The fewer negative thoughts you have, the better you'll feel. It's not rocket science.

Of course, when you're making these lists, the things that come up first will be the things you're thinking most often. Those at the top of the list will be the loudest complaints. As you clear those out, you'll naturally work deeper & quieter, till eventually you're clearing out more & more subtle negativity. It's a great, natural way to clear through internal noise in a way that gets you the greatest benefits immediately, but gets more deeply powerful the longer you continue.

It's also good just to do it a little bit each day. Often we need a good night's sleep to fully process & clear things out of our systems.

How to heal this negative self-talk? Well, you can use whatever tool appeals to you. Some of the things that came up I used EFT on, some I used the release technique (aka the Sedona Method), & some I used Reiki. I just trusted my intuition & used what felt right (mostly releasing).

Our ego has a thousand ways of making us feel bad. Constantly nattering at us, trying to bring us down. This is just a good, time effective way I've found to proactively clear out a huge chunk of that crap. Each day getting clearer, lighter & happier.

The Holistic Method
Ok, so, remember how all this negative self talk was either in the future, or in the past? Well, that's not an accident.

Remember Eckhart Tolle? Well, he's way ahead of me on this one. See, if you're the kind of person for whom a methodical approach is just not for you, well, here's what he recommends.

Get yourself completely "in the present." Just be here now.

It's that simple. Let go of all the noise in your head. Stop thinking your thoughts. If they come up, simply let them go.


pic by savannahgrandfather

The important thing to remember is - you are not your thoughts. It's your mind thinking them, not you. Which means you have a choice, seriously, whether you want to keep thinking them or not. As with all things, you always have a choice.

Same thing with any feelings that come up. Just observe them, but let them go too.

This way, you stay 100% in the present moment. You can still be going about your day, doing whatever, but any thoughts & feelings that come up from the past or about the future, just let them drift off.

Now, there's a couple of interesting things about this. Firstly, if you genuinely do welcome up (without attachment) any thoughts or feelings you have, & let go of them fully, they won't come back. (Very loosely, this is how you release).

Be gentle with yourself though, because one large issue can often have a ton of little sub-issues to it that may all need to be cleared. It may seem like you're making no progress, but just keep letting go, keep letting go. Pretty soon you'll start to see the difference.

Secondly, the more you can hold yourself in that present moment, the more junk will naturally come up. Why? Because being in that state holds you in a very specific (very powerful) state of vibration. Much like shaking a dirty glass of water, anything counter to that vibration will float to the top. Of course, the important thing is just to keep letting go of everything that comes up. You feel bad? Great! Let it go. Nasty thoughts or memories? Wonderful! Let those go too. They're only coming up because they're not in accordance with the person you're becoming, with that powerful "Now" vibration that you're holding.

It's all good stuff.

Plus, if you're truly present? Well, it's feels great. Best feeling in the world. So that's a nice bonus too.

Oh, & there's nothing saying you can't use both methods - making lists and being present. Every little bit helps. As Buddha said, "There are many fingers pointing at the moon, but only one moon."

I Love Myself For Hating This

Sometimes life just sucks.

Well, actually it never sucks, but that's a whole other story.

Sometimes it feels like life just sucks.

Everything seems to be going wrong. We're in a terrible mood. We ate some bad clams & the neighbour just ran over our poodle.

In these situations, despite everything we know (in our brains), it can be super hard to even motivate ourselves to do the simple things that will help. Meditate, EFT, go for a run, you name it.

So, here's a simple trick I learned. Enough to kick you out of a slump & get you calm enough to bring your other tools into play.

Just say "I love myself for hating this."

That's it. You don't even have to believe it, just say it. Keep saying it. You'll feel yourself calm down super quick.

Like so many of these things, the more energy you put into it the better it will work, of course.

If you've got the space, hell, scream it.

Why not? & besides, a good scream now & then can be cathartic. Just don't scare the cat.

Why does it work? Well, firstly it takes your focus (ie your energy) away from "it" - the thing you're hating, angry about, upset by or whatever, & brings it onto yourself.

Secondly, you're giving yourself love, approval, acceptance. Even just saying the words "I love myself" with zero energy behind it is helpful, if you're in a really negative space. If you can say it & mean it, well, so much the better.

What's this all about? Well, self-love, self-approval, self-acceptance are the corner stone of any deep healing.

& what better time to heal than when you're pissed off about something? Maximum emotional connectivity, so maximum effectiveness.

Oh, & feel free to change the words around to suit your situation. "I love myself for being upset", "I love myself for throwing up", "I love myself for dancing badly." It's your life, you make the rules.

One thing I've been learning in spades recently is that life can always be easier, if we just get the hell out of the way & let it be.

Oh, & here's another awesome technique I found that helps too. Super simple, takes about 2 seconds. It's all great stuff!

Just Be You, The Most Awesome You Ever

Comparing ourselves to others is for noobs!
As people, we're funny. There's this natural tendency to compare ourselves to others.

Typically, we do something like this:

1. Me: $30
2. Donald Trump: $eleventy billion
3. Conclusion: I suck

or maybe

1. Me: kinda good looking
2. Angelina Jolie: super hot (if you go for that sort of thing)
3. Conclusion: I suck

There are a couple of obvious issues here. One might be our choice of attribute to compare. I'm sure this won't come as a surprise, but people are a bit more complex than just hotness + wealth.

So why compare ourselves based on wealth, or hotness? Just coz people are generally deluded into believing they're important? It's as arbitary & ridiculous as lining up the planet according to nose freckliness!

So, maybe if we are going to compare ourselves to others, we should just choose better. Eg

1. Me: Nice hair
2. Donald Trump: Nice toupee?
3. Conclusion: I rock!

Now, this isn't about taking cheap shots at famous people. Far from it.

It's a natural tendency to compare ourselves to others, particularly when we think they're better than us in some way. Know what though? It's pretty much bullshit.

Making these comparisons is a recipe for misery & disaster. But you already knew that.

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. ~Malcolm S. Forbes

So here's a better suggestion. Just be you.

In fact, here's a even better suggestion than that. Why not be the most amazing you you possibly can be?

Do you reckon when you get up to heaven, God'll say to you "Man, you were the lousiest Jack Black ever!"? Of course not. There's already a Jack Black here & he's doing a perfectly good job of being him, thankyouverymuch.

You're here with one purpose. To be you.

Not to be anyone else. Not even to be like anyone else, unless you really want to be (& I've gotta admit, Jack's maniacal grin does have a certain appeal).

Other people's opinions are none of my business
Hey, & while we're on the subject, what's up with caring what anyone else thinks?

They're here to live their life. You're here to live your life. If they want to think your life is particularly silly? Well, uhh, so what?

After all, they are allowed to have any opinion they like. Doesn't make it true! And, while we're there, you're welcome to have any opinion you like about their life. Doesn't make your opinion true either (although, of course, we all like to think we're right. Heh)

If you've been hanging out on Twitter, you'll know exactly what I mean. You say something, & suddenly people unfollow you. What the?!? Well, you know what? If they don't like what you say, why would you want them following you anyway? If they don't like who you truly are (assuming you're being genuinely yourself, of course) then they're going to make pretty lousy friends.

Ahh, life, it's a funny old thing.

So, to recap. Just be you. What anyone else thinks of you? Well, that's really none of your business, so just let it go. That's their problem, not yours.

But who am I?
Now of course, all this just raises another question. How the hell do you know who you are? The "Why am I here?" question is one of life's biggies.

Well, here's a secret. This is why we have emotions. They're like little signposts.

Basically, anything you do which takes you closer to a place of true joy? That's you. That's you really being you.

I'm not talking about enjoyment - the brief happiness that comes from eating an icecream or a particularly satisfying game of Halo - I'm talking about deep, abiding joy.

Here, watch this video. See the spark on their faces? That's joy. That's a couple of people doing what's nearest & dearest to their hearts.

Know what? You have that inside you too. Maybe you've found it, maybe you haven't yet, but it's there.

There's something, or many things, that are super easy to you. That you just happen to be great at. You probably don't think it's so much, but other people look & go "Wow, how are you so awesome at that?" Well, that's where you should be looking. That's a clue.

If time seems to stand still, or the whole day disappears while you're doing something? That's a clue too.

If something is making you feel crappier? Well, that's a sign you probably shouldn't be doing it so much. We're here to be happy, after all. How do I know? The Dalai Lama told me, & who am I to argue with him!

Finding that joy, that raison d'etre? That's the thing to chase. Or rather, that's the thing to chill out, stop stressing about life & let it find you. Just pay attention, it's there, you'll see it.

Bigger is not better. Think quality not quantity
Oh, & while we're on the subject? This whole fascination the western world seems to have with changing the world? That the only life worth living is one where the whole world knows your name? Well, screw that too.

Life is much, much simpler than that. Sure, some people are gonna be the Mother Therasas, the Bill Gateses, the Michael Jordans (ha ha, name plurals crack me up) of the world, but that's not what it's about.

It's about the people around you. Those are the people that you're really affecting.

If you're filled with joy & doing what you love, even if it's something as simple as tending the garden out the front of your cottage, you're adding so much light to the world. When you're happy, the people around you feel that. They get happier. The world needs more happy people, so start with you.

Forget about the starving children in Africa (unless that's where your joy is). Every day you're slightly happier, slightly more full of joy, doing that which brings you joy, the world is a better place. The people around you will be in a better place because of you. You'll be inspiring them.

That's all that matters. Everything else is just details.

It's ok to have what the world might deem a small life. What matters is just that you lived it fully. That you followed your heart. That, as much as possible, you felt that joy inside you & let it spill out into the world around you. Whether the world that you influence has five billion people in it or only five is entirely irrelevant. Think quality, not quantity.

Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, so you in your joyful place will lift all those around you. Be that tide. Be truly you.

Stop Whining, Start Winning

How often do you complain?

No, I don't mean half hour long soliloquies at the barista because your coffee is cold, I mean just everyday complaints.

Anytime you verbally express a negative thought, that's a complaint.

Why do we do this? Habit, typically. Sometimes boredom, But deeper than that - oftentimes it's a social thing (f***mylife is an example) - it's socially encouraged to bond over misery stories. To sympathise, express empathy & so on. Sometimes it's a way of adjusting social hierarchies - I'm your superior, but if I express misery that makes us more equal, & thus you more comfortable. If I feel inferior, complaining about you might (in theory) make me feel better about myself by diminishing you somehow. Many entire cultures have whinging as a core attribute (England, I'm looking at you).

With all those people doing it, what's the big deal? I mean, really?

Fundamentally, it damages us.

Talking about something gives it our attention, our energy. Gives it power.

Focus on the moon, not the clutter of trees.

Basically, whining makes you feel shitty.

If you believe in the law of attraction, then the more you talk about something, the more you're going to attract more of that thing. Want a miserable day tomorrow? Spend a bunch of time talking about how miserable today was.

If you think LOA is a bunch of hokum, well think about it this way - why the hell are you wasting you time, energy & attention focussing on something you don't like? How on earth is that making you any happier? Any more productive? Sorting the problem out, or improving your life? It's not.

Sure, undesirable things happen. So what? What really matters is how we react to them. Martin Seligman in Learned Optimism discovered that the key difference between success & failure in life is how we treat setbacks. Fundamentally, we do better, get luckier & have more success the less energy we give to these negative events. Pessimists talk a lot about setbacks. Optimists dismiss them. This is eloquently summed up by Sylvester Stallone who likes to dismiss negative situations with "They probably just ate some bad clams."

As Viktor Frankl said, (paraphrased) the only real freedom we have is the freedom to choose how we react to any event.

The less attention you give negative events (other than the minimum necessary to physically deal with them, of course), the more of your time is focussed on things you actually want. Your goals. Your happiness. Feeling good.

Whinging takes us out of that zone of joy. Out of expressing ourselves in the world. In the process, it adds nothing positive to our lives at all. The more we can reduce it, the better we feel about our lives. About our days. About how things are going for us. Why? Because how we feel about ourselves is the sum total of our thoughts. The more of those thoughts are positive, the better we feel.

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

Your quality of life is directly proportional to how much of the time you feel good.
Yes, that's incredibly obvious. You want to have a better life? Spend more of it feeling better.

Of course, the question is - how do you increase how much you feel good? Well (& a big duh to this one) stop making yourself feel miserable so often. You may not be able to help what happens to you, but you can definitely change how much time you spending talking, thinking or focussing on these bad things around you.

Try it for a week. Anytime you catch yourself whinging, deliberately let that thought go, & think (or better, say!) something positive instead. Or heck, if you can't do that, just shut the hell up - that's a great first step. See how great you start feeling, by comparison. Notice how much better things get in your life - people reacting more positively to you, opportunities arriving, things just somehow going smoother.

We only have so many minutes each day. Make them count. Make them positive ones. It's just a choice.

[If you'd like to read more, my man Dhrumil has a great podcast here about why we complain, & how to help others we see complaining. Also worth checking is AComplaintFreeWorld]

Meditation for HeadBangers

Meditation typically brings to mind images of sitting in full lotus on a mountain top somewhere, head in the clouds, a slight levitation visible.

Ever meet anyone that's done that?

pic by pureenergy

No, me either.

Fortunately, if you step back & look at meditation as a concept, it's really just aiming to do two things:

1. Empty your brain of thoughts (you remember those, they're the things that are not-you)
2. Bring you into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness

This is pretty much the description of flow. Any athlete in peak performance has that. In fact, any peak performer, in any area, is in that state.

No thoughts, no noise, just pure beingness.

If you're anything like me, you've heard great things about meditating. Sat down, tried it, & given up due to distraction. Or, you know, found something more important that urgently needed doing.

So what's the trick?

Well, to start with, yep, it can be hard. Thoughts swirl around us like dust in a tornado. We're assailed from every direction. It can seem damn near impossible.

Here's a trick though. Who said you have to be sitting still to meditate? Try going for a walk, or a run - or just sit & jiggle your leg if you're feeling lazy. That's fine too.

Second, who said you have to be quiet? It's your mind that you're trying to get to shut up.

So, how about this. Get some music you really like. Preferably stuff without words - you don't want to be putting new thoughts into your mind. Preferably reasonably fast - otherwise your brain may (will!) start wandering in the gaps.

For me, I'm a fan of high bpm (beats-per-minute) dub, drum & bass, and other electronica. It has a regular rhythm, which means you can kind of tune it out, but it's fast enough that it drowns out most of what's going on upstairs.

Crank it up loud & start walking, running, or jiggling.

You'll find the music & movement will swamp most of your thoughts. This is a great start. It just makes it easier to see any remaining thoughts that peep out from above the noise.

Now, what to do when you do catch yourself drifting off? Well here's the trick.

Just pay attention. When you see thoughts arising, bring your focus back to the music (or the exercise). Let the thought go. You can always worry about it later, turn it into a haiku or scribble it on a balloon & fling it to the wind.

Each time your brain starts burbling away, get back into the music. You did choose loud music you absolutely adore, right? Well, that'll make it easier.

(be sure to stretch before attempting this super-advanced meditational asana)
pic by juljo

As an added benefit? It'll make you happier. Less crap going on upstairs, listening to music that makes your heart beat that little bit faster, endorphins pouring through your body...

Besides, you can always sit still & just breathe when you reach the top of the hill.

ps. If you're keen to try some other non-standard techniques for stilling the mind, my good friend Dhrumil has an excellent 15min audio on "Falling Still" (or if you prefer, a 20 min video). Then there's always those old saw-horses EFT & releasing, of course - to get rid of specific thought patterns. Or, you know, just try all of it & see what works for you.

Better Communication In One Second

I'm going to start a little geeky, but be patient, I'll keep it super short & it's totally relevant.

What's interesting about TCP (heard of TCP/IP? Yeah, it's part of that) is how the initial communication, the 'handshaking' bit goes. Very roughly, it's goes like this:

1. Hello? [SYN]
2. I can hear you! [SYN-ACK]
3. Me too! [ACK]

Here's a picture I found to stop you falling asleep. See? They're just starting a wee conversation:

(ok, geek stuff over. Told you it'd be short.)

So what, I hear you say. Well, TCP runs everything. The entire internet, any smart phone, hell they're even talking about using it to talk to satellites out across the solar system. Anything smarter than a toaster these days depends on it to operate properly.

So yeah, it's important.

And so are those "ACK"s. Notice how 2/3 of the initial conversation is just ACKs? Computers like to be ACKnowledged. It makes them feel safe & secure.

Well, here's a secret - so do people.

See, the ACK doesn't really add any useful information to the conversation, and yet, it's critical.

It doesn't answer any questions, doesn't actually 'do' anything, and yet everything falls apart without it.

Same thing with human communication, we're just more resilient, so that falling apart is less obvious.

If you say "Hey!" to a friend, and they don't respond, how are you going to feel? Pretty terrible, I'd bet. At the very least, you'd wonder if they saw you, or maybe if you upset them somehow, or if there was something wrong.

All it takes is a flick of their eyes or a smile to let you know that your communication has been received & all is well in the world.

Of course, face to face communication is pretty obvious like that.

How about other forms, like email (or even twitter)?

How often have you received an email that you weren't ready to answer immediately? Maybe you were busy, it was long, required thought, or you just weren't in the mood. A response as simple as "Thanks for email, crazy day, will respond later tonight" can work wonders. It lets the other person know that their email has been received, that you're just busy, and that they're not being ignored. Plus it buys you a little time.

Twitter (or texting) is even more extreme, of course. But how often have you tweeted someone & got no reply, then wondered "Did I offend them?" "Are they ok?" "What's going on?" Any of these thoughts would be a reasonable response, and all could be removed with a simple "Thanks! :)" or equivalent.

It's not the length of reply that matters, just the emotion behind it. In fact, the shorter the reply the better, generally. Just enough to let the person know you're there, you care, & you're thinking of them.

It may feel like you're over-communicating, but really you're just acknowledging the importance of that other person to you.

How long does this sort of thing take? About as long as flick of the eyes across a crowded room. Maybe a second.

Quality communication is not about length. It's about emotion & clarity. A quick genuine reply followed by a considered response later is far superior to a mammoth missive in a week, with the other person left hanging the entire time.

Also, it's much less stressful for you, as you don't have it hanging over your head with that same sense of urgency. You win, they win. What's not to like?

These Are Not Your Stories

I was at a shaman workshop last weekend, and the concept of "the stories of our life" came up.

This makes a lot more sense than merely the singular "story of our life."

Our lives are a multitude of layers, thousands of experiences, all layered upon each other, all combining together to make the gloriousness that is us!

So, first thing to do is recognise these stories for what they are. How do we find them? Easy, just switch off your thinking brain, & start writing!

Eg, for me, they'd go something like:

• I was born in Australa (that's a story)
• We moved around a lot when I was a kid (another story)
• I grew up in a lower-middle class family

and so on..

The critical thing here is this - when we think about identity, ourselves, who we are, it's these stories that define us. These are the things that we tell ourselves over & over each day, in the back of our minds.

And that's exactly the problem.

The more we tell ourselves these stories, the more they define us.

You get in a troubled relationship, make the mistake of extrapolating a bit too much, & start telling yourself "I always fall for the wrong guy/gal", and hey presto, you're going to start doing that in your life. These are self fulfilling prophecies.

Imagine having a guy who followed you around all day, whispering in your ear "you suck!" or "you're a failure!". How long do you think before your life really did start sucking? (or, perhaps a better move, you punched him out).

The problem is, this is exactly what our mind is doing to us. It's why shamans deliberately let go of their stories as part of their training. Why buddhists learn to detach themselves from their egos. It's all the same thing.

Now, that's a pretty big goal, so what's a good first step?

Well, how about realising that a whole bunch of these stories aren't even ours?

90% of what happened before I left home? Those aren't my stories.

Anything I didn't directly choose, or was just something I was told? Those aren't my stories.

I didn't choose to move around as a child. I didn't choose where to live, how much money the family had, & so on. These were my parents' decisions. Sure, they affected me at the time, but they're only my stories if I choose to make them so. They only continue to affect me if I choose to make them part of the collection of stories I tell myself.

Even just changing the focus can help enormously. "I'm from a lower-middle class family" to "I had lower-middle class parents" or "My parents were lower-middle class." At each step removed it's less & less self-defining, so the story has less power. If you want to keep it at all.

Ditto with relationships. How many relationships have you been in where this person, that you chose, respected & loved has told you something terrible about yourself? You're a terrible lover, useless in business, embarrassing to be seen with, and so on.

Why are you choosing to continue telling yourself that story? ("I'm embarrassing to be seen with"). It's not your story, it's just their opinion, their story.

We have the choice, we always have the choice not to continue telling ourselves these stories.

Realising that we have these stories is an important first step.
Identifying which ones we can let go of is enormously empowering.
An easy first step is to chuck out all the ones we have that were never ours to begin with.
When we can finally release them all, then we're well on the way to being truly free to live.

Rewrite Your Past

Memory is notoriously unreliable.

It's a fair bet that most of the memories we have are confused, jumbled, or otherwise incorrect. Certainly not accurate enough to hold up in court - this is, after all, why policemen write down everything at the scene of a crime.

The funny thing is, these are the memories that we torture ourselves with. Regret over things done or not done. Disappointment at other people & ourselves. Perceived failures & missed opportunities.

Even when we're not actively beating ourselves up, those memories are still there in the background, providing (unpleasant) flavour.

If our memories are likely to be wrong (to some degree) anyway, why not at least make them pleasantly wrong? Who's to say they have to be an accurate reflection of the past? Surely what happens in your head is 100% your business?

Of course, changing your memory of your phone number isn't the cleverest thing in the world, but there are plenty of other juicy candidates. How about

• all those situations where you've been socially confident, the life of the party
• the successful presentations you've given
• how popular you were at school
• all those payraises
• the deeply loving & supportive relationships
• the peaceful breakups
• how effortless it's been for you to meet new people
• those moments with your parents where you truly understood how much they loved you
• that long history of high figure sales
• the times you've stunned those around you with your brilliance & insight

You get the idea! Make your (remembered) life as beautiful, poetic & magical as you like!

pic by alicepopkorn

It's your brain - own it!

So how to do this? Well, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than finding a quiet spot, remembering back to specific life situations you've had, and imagining them going however-you-want. Keep imagining them until the old memory fades away & the new replaces it (this is very well researched phenomena). If you feel like part of you is struggling with this, you can always tap while you do it, but that's totally up to you.

Your life is nothing but the sum of your memories. Why not start a new life, right now?

Just start with whatever pops in your head. Recreate your memories, making them as awesome as you possibly can. As Orwell famously said "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Well you control the present.

As within, so without.

& here's a little anecdote to whet your appetite. I had a particular situation with a certain person a few years back, where perhaps they didn't give me the recognition or appreciation I would have liked. In the few years since then, they've never really mentioned this, let alone made any kind of big deal about it. Just not in their nature.

So hey, I did the above. Imagined them really understanding how much effort I'd put in to help them.. and showing me. I imagined myself feeling deeply appreciated. Loved. Thanked. It was awesome! *laugh*

Didn't take long. The whole thing? Maybe 5 minutes.

The only difference I could outwardly detect was that I felt more loving towards them. That aside, I promptly forgot about it.

Next day, I'm surfing the web, & what do I find? A couple of paragraphs in a very public location, from them, acknowledging & stating exactly what I'd imagined. Giving me that thanks, that appreciation. Exactly how I (now) remember it going.

Coincidence? Maybe. You decide.

Bring In The Clowns

I'm not usually a huuuuge fan of clowns, but I got an urge to go for a walk this evening, & I stumbled across these..

..dancing to music, often upside down, as part of a giant advent calendar..

..part way up a 10 storey building. I figured, well, in this case they're probably worth cheering on.

While I was out, I took a pic or two of the local river..

..which is hellishly pretty at night.

And it seemed to be a night for clowns, since I passed this (advertising god knows what) on the way back:

Although I like to think it's just saying "Eat more vege's & dance like a loon!"

The 4 Most Powerful Phrases In The World

I read a while back about a therapist in Hawaii who practised something called Ho'oponopono (took me weeks to learn how to spell that reliably).

Annnnyway, the way the story goes, this therapist, Dr Len went to work at an ultra hardcore insane asylum. The staff turnover rate was crazy high, and the patients were so violent that most of them were pretty much shackled up. Not a nice place.

So, Dr Len starts working there, and never sees a single patient. He just sits in his office, all day every day. After a few months, the shackled patients were being allowed to walk around freely. Others were coming off their medication. Staff absenteeism & turnover dropped to zero. After three years, all the patients had left & the place closed down.

Yes, an asylum for violent & criminally insane patients closed down because everyone was healed & there was no-one left to treat!

Needless to say, this pretty much got my attention. What the hell was Dr Len actually doing in his office?

Well, he looked at the patient's files, looked within himself to see how he created that person's illness, and then healed himself. As he healed himself, the patients got better.

No, I didn't mis-type that. He healed himself, and the patients got better. You can read more about Dr Len here.

The next question, of course, is how did he heal himself? Actually, it was very simple. He just looked at what needed healing inside himself, and said four things (the basis of Ho'oponopono), over and over:

• I'm Sorry.
• Please Forgive Me.
• Thank You
• I Love You

So imagine my surprise when I was recently reading "The True Power of Water" by Masaru Emoto. You may remember Emoto (what a great name!) - he wraps bottles of water with words, and then photographs the crystals that develop (or don't).

Given that we're 70% water, I figure it's probably worth paying a little attention to what he has to say on the subject.

Now, Emoto has spent decades trying different words, different languages, all to see the effect they have on water. His basic discovery is that negative words (whether written down, sung, or thought at the water) result in ugly looking water, whereas positive words result in beautiful looking water structures.

Which I guess also means that whatever we're bombarding ourselves with is more than just affecting our brains, it's actively changing 70% of our physical bodies.

The really interesting thing though?

Guess what the single most beautiful crystal he ever found was.

The water that was wrapped in words for "Love" & "Gratitude". That's right - I Love You, & Thank You - or two of the magic four phrases from Ho'oponopono.

What IS Me?

For years, I've figured that if I thought about who "I" was, it would look something like this:

Food in, everything else out. Input, Output, all pretty straight forward.

Thing is, there are some obvious flaws in this.

I can observe my thoughts happening, so obviously, I am not my thoughts.

Nothing new or startling to that particularly revelation.

Also though, I can see my emotions happening. Often times, as a direct result of the food I eat for example. The key question is - "how often do I choose which emotions to express, and how often is it more like they're just happening to me?"

So maybe I'm not my emotions either.

Now sure, I can definitely change both my moods & my thoughts by altering my environment - the people I surround myself with, the food I eat, and so on. I can also alter both consciously, but there's a huge difference between 'automatic' or background thoughts & using my mind as a Rational tool. There's also a difference between the vast majority of emotions I have (since I can't speak for anyone else here), which more or less wash over me on a daily basis, and if I very deliberately "choose to be happy now".

Most emotions & thoughts are things that are happening to me, not things I'm necessarily consciously choosing. So maybe 'Me' looks more like this:

Of course, as Tolle points out, any use of the words 'I', 'me', 'myself' etc are generally just our ego trying to assert control. There is, however, an important question here:

Who am I?

A while back, I stumbled across some Yogic talk like this.

Which really got me thinking about what that core, that real essence of 'me'ness actually is.

It's pretty obvious this isn't a novel idea - Hinduism (which has been around for ohhh, 5-8000 years or so) has this concept of Advaita Vedanta - that your atman is part of Brahman. Very roughly, this translates to our soul is part of God/The Universe/whatever. From a quantum physics perspective, us as individuals being part of a universal whole is (more or less) predicted by Bell's Theorem (more readable explanation here - under 'The Physics of Interconnectedness'). For the moment let's ignore the intentionality or not of a universal whole (ie "Is the metaphysical 'God' the same as the quantum physical 'Universe', or even 'All possible universes'"), since it's largely irrelevant to this discussion. Having spent wayyy too long in the Catholic church, I'm also hesitant to use Christian terminology in a discussion like this, since it brings an enormous amount of baggage with it too, but we'll let that slide for the moment too.

All this talk of souls & God, atman & Brahman was merely a catalyst. It got me thinking.

I can change my speech, my actions, what food I eat, my thoughts & emotions. This is more or less what I've been doing extensively for the last few years now. While this has caused me to change enough that it's pulled me away from certain ex-friends and ex-girlfriends, my primary fear was that I would lose myself altogether.

Oddly, almost the complete opposite has happened.

If anything I've become more 'me', but the best of me. Many of the emotions, thoughts & behaviours that I had thought were 'me', simply weren't. I'm just the 'me' that's been there at the core of my life - now more consistently, and with less baggage stacked around the outside. Fortunately, I guess, it seems that the actual 'me' is less of an asshole than I'd always figured I was. Changing the inputs on the above diagram has really helped with that (gigantic-hint-to-19-year-old-Si: minimise caffeine & booze. OMG yes!)

So maybe there's something to this "We're spiritual beings have a physical experience" thing. Maybe we really are just here as 'spirits', 'energy beings', 'souls' (whatever-the-hell terminology works for you), hanging around here on earth in meat-sacks, our bodies, doing what we do. Hanging out, having a beer (or a green juice), getting to know one another & generally palling around.

All the things I thought were me aren't, and the more I clear away, the more truly I seem to find who I really am. And the really good news? All of the negative crap? That was never me. The miserable emotions, thoughts, eating habits, speech & behaviours. All those I can (& mostly have) let go of, and I'm still 'me' without them.

No, it really does seem - from watching myself change - and from seeing those who are further down the path than I, that the more you change, the more you remain the same - except now it's just the best of you.

There really is nothing to fear, & it feels just like coming home.

What The Hell Is Karma?

I was talking to a friend the other day about karma, and I got to wondering - what the hell IS it, exactly? I mean, everyone thinks they what it is, right?

You do something bad - in this life or past - and it'll come back & bite you on the arse.

Ok, well that's simple.

But hang on, the wikipedia page on karma is almost 4000 words. What the hell?

Ok, so maybe there's more to it.

The basic gist of that enormous page is that the effects of all deeds actively create your past, present & future experiences. Ie, you're entirely responsible for your own life.

There is a subtlety though - and that is, it's not any old deeds, but only deeds that have thought behind them. Only volitional, or consciously chosen deeds, create karma.

So, ok, if I choose to do something, that will create karma, and I'll then have the fruits of that, good or bad, echoing through my life.

Over time - and particularly if you believe in reincarnation - that's got to add up to one HUGE amount of karma, all banging around, recreating the same bad (or good) stuff, over and over.

(pic by consumerfriendly )

Wow. Nutty.

Now, there's a profoundly thoughtful guy called Ram Dass, who has spent most of a lifetime thinking about this stuff (after he finished hanging out with Timothy Leary & doing a ton of acid). He's interviewed in a thoroughly excellent documentary called Ecstatic States, and he has this to say on the subject:

Interviewer: Could you tell us exactly what karma is?

No. *laughs* That take care of that question?

You could say it's.. uhh.. It's a very complex concept of cause-and-effect. What it says is, if you drop a pebble into a clear pond. There'll be all these little waves going out and out and out. And even though you could almost see them stop, with your naked eye, if you looked at it with technical equipment, you'd see that the thing keeps going and going and going.

So what it's saying is that every action starts a sequence of events. And then who we are at any moment is determined by all the events we've started in the past that are reverberating into us now, over time. Over lots of time.

It's like, you know, for example, that your childhood experiences affect your adult personality. That's sort of an example of karma.

It's your karma, meaning it's the previous causal forces that are creating this particular effect. So if you look at your life, and if you have a larger sense of who you are than your physical body. I'm talking about reincarnation, or the whole idea that an individual's soul goes through birth after birth after birth. Each birth is determined by the karmic residue of all the previous births. Then in a birth, you are living out the karma created by the previous births. Now, as you awaken more, most people are not only living out the old karma, but they keep creating new karma all the time, which keeps propelling them into the future, more and more.

To be free means to be free of this kind of karmic law that you're just being a mechanical run-off of. So, the beginning of awakening means that you no longer create new karma, because you see how karma's created (which is another little discussion). And then you're just running off old karma. So a lot of the beings you see are people that have awakened sufficiently so that they don't create any new karma, and then they're in a body, or they continue their work, like the inertia from the past, until it runs out.

Interviewer: How do you not create new karma?

By the awareness no longer being identified with the motivation. It is the desire that creates karma. It doesn't mean you don't have the desires, it means your awareness is not identified with the desires. You still do what you do, but you're not caught in being attached to the doing of it. Which is kind of sneaky, because when you're not attached, it changes what happens.

Clear as mud? Thought so!

(pic by vidular )

What to do, what to do?
There are a couple of issues here:

1. How do we stop old karma from continuing to screw up our lives?
2. How do we, practically, stop creating new karma?

Here's where everything gets a little speculative.

From what I've seen in my own life, I'm pretty sure that by healing (eg, using EFT) anything bad that happens to us (including negative thoughts, emotions, feelings), we short circuit our karmic looping of old problems. This seems a proactive way of doing what Ram Dass describes as "running off old karma".

EFT isn't the only way of doing this, of course. I know people that use falling still, yoga, chanting, eating raw food, meditation, and so on, to achieve the same end (or, hell, all of the above!). As Buddha says, "There are many fingers pointing at the moon, but only one moon."

So, if this helps to speed up getting rid of old karma, how do we also stop creating new karma? (otherwise we're going to be chasing our own tail a bit here)

"Not being identified with the desires" or "not being attached to the doing" is fair enough, but how do you actually do that, without spending 30 years sitting on a mountain top somewhere?

Well, let's look at it a subtly different way. Anytime we react angrily, that's got to increase our karma, right? Similarly then, if we act from any other emotions. The only exception would be coming from a place of pure peace. If we have a still mind, and an open heart, that would have to be a place from which no new karma would be generated. It meets both Ram Dass' & wikipedia's criteria. Action without attachment.

How to reach that place of still mind & open heart? Is it perhaps unsurprising that the healing tools listed above seem to coincidentally result in exactly these outcomes?

Does that mean these tools will take you to a place of nirvana? Reduce all your karma to zero & have you strumming a harp on a cloud? I couldn't possibly say. It's a complicated thing that people have been thinking & arguing about for thousands of years. All I can say is from where I stand now, these seem like good steps to be taking in more or less the right direction.

Less attachment & suffering in this life, fewer karmic echoes in the next.

Three Airports, Two Days

It's not every day you get a text message telling you your grandfather is dead, and yet there it is, as cold as tonight is long:

Stan Durdin passed away on Thursday. We have just been told by the vicar of Victor Harbor.

I'd been spending my typical Saturday morning, drinking coffee (well, him a short black, me an orange juice) with my Sensei. Enjoying his inimitable charm & wisdom, utterly oblivious to any sense of impending doom.

We'd just been settling up - discussing the relative merits of bottled vs freshly squeezed juice (the juicer at our cafe had broken the previous week) when a beep came through on my rattly old phone. Whoever it was could wait, I only had a few minutes more before we parted ways.

I'm painfully aware of the limited time we have together - him too soon off to Germany, or perhaps Japan, in search of dressage glory for his wife. Me off to who knows where who knows when. Perhaps another year or maybe two. Perhaps only another week. Neither of us really knows, or really can. Life is fickle like that.

Regardless, each Saturday morning I'm reminded of our relative frailties in time & space, and once more, I sit down to treasure our time together.

Eventually, bill settled, goodbyes said - him off to the Hill of Content (a local bookstore) to check for the latest spy thriller, me off to haggle with local retailers, I'm crossing Exhibition Street in downtown Melbourne when I finally check my phone.

I stop in the middle of the street, stunned. I look right - roadworks. No cars. Ok.

Summoning up 17 years of education, a love of language & all the compassion I can muster I reply to my Dad:

Oh shit.

Confident this has comforted him enormously, I'm left to wonder: Now what?

I spin on my heels. Back to the bookshop, find Ralph. He looks up, surprised.

"I just got a text message that my Grandad has died. Can I have a hug?"

Ralph's thirty years older than me. He's seen a lot of the world. Silently he reaches out with both arms, embraces me deeply. I sink into him, mind spinning.

All too soon, it's over, and I'm left to stumble blankly out into the street. Mumbling my thanks I continue mindlessly on my errands. Pick up a camera from the repair shop. Now what?

Surely checking my mail can't be the most useful thing I could be doing now?

But I barely knew him!

Maybe you should call home.

What could I possibly say?

Am I going to burst into tears right now?

How do I feel.

Numb.

That'll be shock.

What am I shocked about? I knew he was sick for ages.

But he was your Grandad.

Oh shit.

I go home.

On a whim I pick up a coffee. I very rarely drink it these days, so it's an odd choice. Maybe it seems right to kick myself in the brain for a bit. Hopefully take some of the shock away.

It doesn't work, just gives me the jitters. Tastes ok, but now I'm mildly stressed and in shock. Mental note: don't trust brain in times of shock.

I get home. Ring Dad. Talk a little. There's ugly backstory. Mum's really upset, she adored her father.

None of this is a surprise. All of this is information I had before I got on the phone.

I'm still struggling to remember anything about Grandad. He took me fishing when I was 10. Or was that Grandma? It was both of them.

Oddly, Dad & I start talking about spirit possession. We're using different terminology - he mentions a 'jezabel spirit', I thinking 'entity', but it's the same stuff.

This is not the Dad I know. We've never talked about anything close to this before.

I guess grief does weird things to people.

I remember 11 years ago. My littlest brother was in a bad accident. A really bad accident. The kind of accident that has 4 police cars, 2 ambulances, a firetruck & a helicopter land on your front lawn.

I wish I was making this up.

I got a call from the now very much loved husband of my sister - then the dubiously regarded boyfriend. He'd been calling everyone he could think of while Mum flew with my brother in the helicopter to the hospital. Any doubts anyone might have had about him disappeared like a snowflake in a flash fire that day. Somehow he kept his head about him while everything else exploded, including the family.

I remember running out of my house in the city carrying a magazine, a woollen jersey & a meat pie. All I could think was that hospitals were cold, boring & had bad food. An odd time that a meat pie would be considered "good food", but still. I jumped on a bus to the hospital. The brother I barely knew being heli-lifted to the intensive care burns unit & that's not important enough to warrant a taxi? Mental note: don't trust brain in times of shock.

In some odd twist of fate I managed to beat the helicopter there. I guess life is fickle like that. I ran around the hospital in terror trying to find my Mum. Trying to find my brother. I knew I couldn't do anything, but thought maybe, somehow, me being there might help Mum. I didn't know. I just knew being there was important.

Eventually I found them. I'd managed to get there even before they sedated him. "It was an accident" he said, "I don't blame anyone."

Six years old. Third degree burns to 60% of his body, and that's what he has to say. Some kid.

That's all he says. They sedate him, poke six tubes into him, and post three nurses on 24 hour guard. For a week. Two weeks. Nobody will say whether they think he'll live or die. We can't even get percentages. They flat out refuse to say. He's in a coma the entire time.

I see more of my brother in that time than I have his entire life until then.

I guess that's what happens when you leave home before they're born.

Weird way to get to know someone. We're still not terribly close. I don't blame anyone. I guess that's what happens.

He spends three months in intensive care. Mum spends the entire time with him in the hospital. Eventually, a lifetime later, he's released. There's followup treatment, of course, and the scars will never go away, but he's alive, and, strangely, incredibly healthy. More than healthy. He's one of the most well rounded, well adjusted kids I've ever met.

I can't figure it out.

Mum has a theory. She says there were so many people praying for him. Friends. Friends of friends. People we never even knew. All of them praying for that little kid - that huge outpouring of positive energy towards him just healed him of any crap he might have had.

When you meet him it's hard to argue with that theory.

I still can't remember anything about Grandad.

No, I remember the last time I met him. It was briefly, so briefly. I was just flying through town & he was at my parent's house. Purely by accident. It was awkward. Beyond awkward. I could feel him trying to reach out for me. I was in some pointlessly childish self-important phase, running about doing God knows what. God cares what.

He looked so much older than I remembered. He must have been 75 by then. He just looked so worn out by life. Trying desperately to connect with someone he barely knew. I pitied him. Pitied the life he'd had, the pain he'd been through, how old he'd become. I brushed him off. My own flesh & blood, & I brushed him off. Children can be so callous. Even into their late 20's.

I ask Dad a question: "Dad, I can I ask you a question?"

"Sure"

I ask him another: "Do you think it's worthwhile me coming over?"

He thinks. "I have absolutely no idea"

Well, that backfired. I'm in shock. I'm not trusting my brain.

I make a random decision. If I can find a flight for under eight hundred bucks, I'll go.

I don't know why, I just think that maybe, somehow, being there might help Mum. She adored Stan. I adore her.

I hang up, promising to call back. Get to the travel agents across the road, negotiate a flight. There are two options. Stupidly expensive direct flights, or half the price with a stopover. It involves spending the night in Christchurch airport. I choose the cheaper of the two, despite the horrible stop-over. Christchurch is notoriously cold & who wants to spend a night on an airport floor? It's $794.

I guess I'm going.

It's the typical thing with bereavements. You get the news. Life stops. For everyone, not just those who've left.

There's nothing else to do but be there.

What else can you do?

Just be there for the living.

Almost 20 years ago, my favourite grandmother passed away. Nan Nan I used to call her. I've always called her. Always will.

Now her I can remember. I could talk about her, my Dad's Mum, for weeks.

I remember how she used to smile at me, so understandingly. I remember what sports she used to play (bowls & golf). That she always wore makeup (helped keep the sun off, she said). That she used to keep mints in her car. The kind of car she had (a little beige two door manual Mitsubishi Colt). How she used to make the most delicious juice imaginable by buying two different kinds of premade juice & mixing them together. How she never swore. Her backbone, her towering strength & her love. Her ferocious love.

I remember spending time with her, listening to the cicadas outside & feeling that all was right in the world. Even though I only got to fly from New Zealand to Australia and see her a couple of times, I loved every second with her.

I remember hearing about how she slipped over when putting groceries in her car one day. How she broke her hip. How she went from being out & about every day of the week - chairing this, organising that, racing all over town - to bed ridden.

I guess life is fickle like that.

I remember knowing she was sick. In hospital. Unable to get out. No doubt frustrated beyond belief.

I was at university, a country & a giant ocean away. I'd just started. Trying to find my way in the world.

I remember being frustrated myself. Wanting to write to her, but not knowing what I could possibly say that would help.

"I'm sorry you're sick"?

I said that last time. I don't want to repeat myself.

I didn't want to just talk about what I was up to. That sounded.. useless. Selfish. No help to anyone. And besides, what would I say? "Today I had lectures." Ugh. Terrible.

Month after month went by. The guilt built up. As did the unwritten letters.

In my mind, somehow all this would resolve itself. She'd get better. She was strong, she was amazing. I remembered.

And then one day I got the call. That call. The one you always dread.

Well, almost.

She'd stopped taking food.

By that point she'd deteriorated so far they were feeding her with a spoon. She had no body movement, could barely see.

Letters were being read to her. What letters she received.

Eventually, she'd made up her mind. Whenever they tried to feed her, she gritted her teeth. Determined, proud to the end. She'd had enough. It was the only part of her body left that she had any control over, the only power she had left, and by God, she was going to exercise it.

I phoned the hospital. I didn't know what to say, but it seemed important that I call.

"I love you Nan Nan."

How late we realise I could have sent her letters saying nothing more than that, and that would have been enough. That would have been what she'd wanted to hear. All I needed to do.

"I'm getting on a plane to see you. So is Dad. We'll be there tomorrow."

So we did. The money sorted itself out - it always does in these situations.

Tomorrow we arrived.

She'd died in the night.

Proud to the end, she hadn't wanted us to see her like that.

She wanted us to remember her for what she was, not what she'd been reduced to.

She looked beautiful, as always, just how I remembered her, in the funeral parlour. I had a few minutes alone with her. I said some words, I don't remember what. The thought occurred to kiss her goodbye, but I didn't.

There was a veil over the coffin, & I worried. What if I'm not allowed to? What if I get in trouble?

I want to express a simple act of farewell to someone I loved with all my heart, & I'm worried about getting in trouble? I guess grief does weird things to people.

I never did kiss her goodbye.

The funeral progressed, as these things do. Words were said. Things eaten & drunk, & everyone dispersed once more to the corners of the globe.

I remember my Grandad was a whizz at crosswords. He tried to get me into them, but it never really stuck. I love words though, love wordplay, & language.

Maybe that came from him.

I remember him telling me once about how he'd been in the second world war. About being in the blitz in London, with the air raid shelters & all. About how Frank Sinatra had managed to escape conscription because off his mob connections.

I think he resented Frank a little, but it made for a great story.

At 10 I barely knew who Frank Sinatra was, but that didn't matter. I would eventually. I do now.

I got back from the travel agents. A friend offered to give me a lift to the airport. Keep me company.

I put my collection of everything ol' blue eyes ever sung on the stereo & started to try and get organised.

I wasn't flying to New Zealand for the funeral. My Grandad was in Adelaide, Australia.

I was flying over for Mum.

I checked the weather. A bit colder. Ten degrees. Think. THINK!

I end up stuffing way too many shirts in a bag. Not much else.

My friend arrives.

We sit on the couch. I drink some water. Try & fail to remember something, anything about my Grandad.

How can someone who's a part of my life be so unknown to me?

How is someone who cared about me able to be so distant? How can that happen?

I give up.

I don't think I feel any grief, although I feel something. I can't identify it.

Maybe it is grief.

I haven't had many people near me die. Not yet. Everyone does eventually though. If they live long enough themselves.

I feel numb, but underneath I can feel something else. It doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it's Mum's. We're pretty close, in an odd kind of way.

I go back to packing, & eventually I manage to throw out some shirts. Throw in a phone charger. Whatever else is required. Maybe. But really, who cares? It's just important I'm there.

My bag still won't close. Now what?

I used to be good at this. This packing thing.

I still haven't cried, but my brain doesn't seem to be working very well. Maybe it's the coffee. Yeah, that'll be it.

My friend helps. Thank God there's someone here still functional.

I eat about twenty bananas, since they will have gone off by the time I get back. Somehow I still feel empty inside.

We drive to the airport, get stuck behind a slow moving tram. It's past check in time, and we're still driving. For some reason I just don't care.

What is that, that feeling?

I still can't pick it.

I rush into the terminal to find an empty desk. Somehow between buying the ticket four hours ago and now, the plane has been delayed an hour.

Somehow everyone else in the world heard about it except me.

I check in anyway.

We head to a bar. On a whim I order a Guinness. I very rarely drink these days, so it's an odd choice. Maybe it seems right to kick myself in the brain for a bit. Hopefully it will take some of the shock away. It doesn't work. I tell myself it's not for me, it's for Stan. For Grandad.

I can't remember if he drank or not.

I figure in the army he probably did, and that's good enough. Right now, that's good enough.

With every sip, I say to myself, "This is for you, Grandad" & send my thoughts out to him, and huge waves of gunk pour off me.

I'm healing myself as fast as I can, but it doesn't seem to be helping. My friend looks concerned.

Maybe that just isn't how you deal with these things. I don't know. I really don't.

Nobody tells you how to deal with grief.

Yeah yeah, all those steps. Anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance. Maybe I've missed one. I don't know, I really don't.

I don't feel angry, and what is there to deny?

Where does sadness fit into all that? Or crying? Maybe it's in the psychologist footnotes.

I have another sip. Try to remember anything about Grandad. Maybe if I could say something about him, that would help. All I can remember is that he was a super nice guy. Incredibly nice, but that hardly seems enough for 90 plus years of living.

Nice? I always used to hate that word. I've mellowed with age, but mellowed to the point where I'm using it to sum up the life of a relative? Someone who lived almost 3 times longer than I have? There must be something wrong with that. With me maybe. Who knows.

I still can't remember anything meaningful about him.

I remember that my friend is a psychologist, but it doesn't seem to help. As they point out, they can't help me grieve, but they can help me get to the airport. I thank them anyway. It's about all I feel capable of doing.

We talk about God knows what. I'm not really listening.

I've deliberately chosen a seat facing a corner of the bar. I figure maybe having a beer will let me cry. Or whatever it is I'm supposed to do.

It doesn't, and instead I wander, alone, through security & onto the plane. Now what?

Plane goes up. Plane comes down.

Now here I am. It's 4am in the morning. I couldn't sleep. I just don't have enough padding on my bones to sleep on a concrete floor, although many people here seem able to.

Every half an hour a voice comes over the tannoy:

"Your attention please. For your safety & security please do not leave your bags unattended. This is a safety & security conscious airport"

I don't think anyone is really listening, but I find it strangely compelling. How does a buildng become an entity? Why the need to inform us that the airport was conscious of anything? What on earth will they do when buildings have autonomous brains and really are conscious?

I think the flourescent lights, lack of sleep & more stimulants than I've had in forever are messing with my mind.

Right now all I know is that I feel like I've been wedged behind these rubbish bins, trying & failing to sleep forever. The night has stretched on, and the freezing air is burning my legs everytime the doors flick open from outside.

In a couple of hours I might have a shower.

It seems important that I arrive tomorrow freshly shaved. I don't know why. Maybe so I don't scratch Mum when I hug her.

She doesn't know I'm coming. Please don't tell her. She has enough to deal with.

Oddly, finally I'm crying. Have been for the last few hours. There are people walking around, but I don't care. It just doesn't seem important.

There's still one airport to go, but the flight doesn't leave until seven.

I still can't figure out what I should do. Should I just heal myself of this pain? Is it even mine? Isn't grieving supposed to be healthy? Shouldn't I just let it take its course?

I just don't know. I have no experience in these things.

All I know is that I probably shouldn't trust my brain. And that grief does weird things to people. And that I could use a hug.

I remember now, after all this, that Grandad was a similar size to me. Mum says I have his bone structure. He was endlessly patient, an incredibly gentle soul. Maybe these choices I've been making, all this healing I've done, this path I'm on, I'm becoming more like him. I think I might be ok with that. That might be meaningful. Maybe he might be ok with that too.

And getting on this last plane to Wellington. That maybe, somehow, me being there might help Mum. I don't know. I just know being there is important.

A Trip To 'The Nongs'

Being a busy Thursday, I decided what better to do than bugger off out of town & head to the local mountain/forest range.

(Some) locals call these "the nongs", but officially they're the Dandenong Ranges. It's about an hours drive east of where I live.

Anyway, they're green, and, you know, mountainy. That's all I care about. Thursday was one of those days where I definitely needed more green.

So what do they look like? Great question. I'm glad you asked, because I have pictures, nothing but pictures, just for you. Really, just you!

Before you enter the ranges, there are important notices to pay attention to. Note the picture. I was relieved my arms & legs would still be attached when I'd left. I was less sure about my head.

There are lots of these. Birds in Australia are very bright, and make particularly unusual sounds. I'm not sure why. Maybe because there are crocodiles ('crocs') here. Not the kind you wear on your feet, although they have those too. The kind that eat your feet. If I had neighbours like that, I'd make weird noises too.

Here's a tree that utterly captivated me. Bizarre thing is, it's actually dead (or perhaps just faking it very well). It still managed to be incredibly majestic. The stunning blue sky backdrop helped. There was a natural clearing right next to this which seemed a great place to hang out for an hour, lying in the sun, listening to birds complaining about our intrusion & watching the trees sway in the gentle breeze.

Here's what walking through the Dandenongs is like. 'nuff said.

A peculiarity of Australian trees is that they naturally lose their bark in summer months. This creates a ton of kindling which helps spur bush fires in the undergrowth. If the fires happen regularly enough, then the forests as a whole are spared. How this evolved just boggles my mind, but man, it's awesome. You can see in the above pics a whole stand of trees where the fires have come through - the trees are still alive, and the burn marks go about 20 feet up the trees.

Here's a close up - an alive tree, but the entire inside has burnt out. Crazy, crazy country this.

I also saw a camo goat.

& in case you had trouble spotting the goat in the above pic, here's a close up. You're welcome.

So anyway, after walking for, I dunno, 4 or 5 hours, leaving from a town called Sassafras, we ended up in a town called Olinda. Umm. We were trying to go back to Sassafras, honest. Middle of the day, being pretty careful to backtrack as accurately as possible, and still ended up one town over. Sure am glad it wasn't raining. Or dark. Or full of man eating goats.

Turns out there's an award winning pie-ary in Olinda.

Oh, and if you're curious (I know you are) a pie floater consists of pea soup, with a meat pie floating in it, all covered in tomato ketchup. It's a lot tastier than it sounds - I had one once. My Dad used to live on them.

Not the best choice for a raw foodist, but I figured we were in pie country now.

I had a salad.