Alright, so one question that I’ve been letting bubble around recently is “What does it take to just be HAPPY?” I mean really. No B.S. here. A simple question. Pretty basic and universal. What does it take?

It is often said that what we are seeking is always here, yet that’s often not the experience that we have, is it? In fact, we often experience that we don’t have what we want. Why the discrepancy?

Well, it seems that one of the big keys to experiencing happiness is resistance. The more we are resisting something, the more tension, negative emotion, knots in our stomach, dis ease, and all those unpleasant things we experience.

In the Sedona Method, they talk about resistance taking two primary forms: attachment and aversion.

Aversion

Aversion we are all pretty familiar with. This comes in the form of hate, judgment, complaining, saying no to, trying to push against or destroy something, etc. It’s basically a sense of war to various degrees. It’s a lot of that “bad stuff” in the world. On a small scale, it may show up as an internal felt sense of opposition or conflict. Someone says something and we notice ourselves subtly going into opposition against them. There they are, and here I am, pushing against them. This is how the experience of an enemy is born. This internal opposition then can grow and manifest into emotional opposition, physical opposition, and when taken to the extremes such as murder and war. Even suicide counts here, which involves an aversion to life and to yourself.

Aversion and this war-like conflictive pushing-against energy is usually pretty obvious when it shows up. It can be very violent and so it is pretty easily recognized, particularly in its more intense forms.

Attachment

Attachment, on the other hand, seems to be far more subtle. Attachment, the way I want to use the word here, is a sense of grasping or trying to get and hold in order to fill a presumed sense of lack. To illustrate attachment, try this quick exercise. With one of your hands, repeatedly reach out in front of you and grasp the air with your fingers, trying to pull it back towards your body. This is what that grasping energy is like. It is that grabbing and holding on energy that we are talking about here. Examples of attachment this context would include trying to gain approval, trying to control, neediness, clinginess, trying to get something to be other than it is, resisting change, trying to elicit a particular response from someone such as them liking you, and on a very basic level, somehow trying to “extract” happiness from something or someone else.

It is this clingy grasping process that I’d like to explore here, how it works and what life is like as we let go of that sucking energy. I’m finding this change to be fantastically transformational thus far…

A Closer Look at Seeking Happiness

Lately I’ve been exploring the idea of happiness and whether or not it really comes from living the dream life, whatever that means to you. To me it involved traveling. (CaterpillarWoman from the forums actually brought up an eye-opening perspective. She explained that she was a military brat and had traveled a lot growing up, so to her traveling doesn’t hold a lot of glamor. This was a big ‘aha’ for me. Sure lots of people want to travel, but it’s not a universal desire.) So again, we’re talking about what “the dream life” means to you.

Looking into my own experience of trying to derive a sense of happiness and freedom from living a mobile traveler’s lifestyle, I’ve found that it felt like I would (without consciously realizing it) subtly demand (perhaps too harsh a word as it feels far more subtle than this), but I would try and obtain a sense of happiness from the experiences I was having. Follow your bliss, they say, but we may mistakenly get caught in thinking that the blissful thing we’re chasing actually contains that bliss! Go get it! Go! Go! This is not the point of following your bliss. When looking at this more closely, it was like constantly trying to get something from the someone/something, be it approval, love, control, money, positive experiences, or whatever else.

Honestly it almost feels like inserting energetic tendrils into other people or things and quite literally trying to extract the happiness that I seek from them.

The pattern was “do something and get happiness from it.”

Withdrawing Your Tendrils

Recognizing this happiness seeking/sucking/leeching pattern consciously, there was then the ability to stop that grasping and withdraw my tendrils.

This is something I’ve been exploring the past few days. For me, this subtler sense of grasping attachment happens more often than the aversion. Both still happen, sure, but the grasping energy feels a little more ninja-like and less obvious to spot. Whenever I experience tension, fear, or basically anything other than happiness or peace, I now look to see if I’m energetically reaching into the world and trying to get something from it. My experience with this has been quite profound and I’d like to share a few examples with you guys.

Experiences with Relationships

Can anyone relate to this?

How many millions of missed opportunities and how much unnecessary suffering has there been due to experiences like this?

With women, particularly the ones I’m attracted to, often I’d look at them and notice a sense of discomfort. Exploring this this more closely and seeing what it is that I wanted from them, I noticed the thought pattern “I want your approval. I want you to like me and think I’m attractive. I want your love. I want this to go well.” Already, before a single word has been spoken, I’m already reaching into her and trying to get something from her, trying to extract approval, love, and even impose a certain response upon her. “I need you to react this way. I want you to like me.”

Seeing this and withdrawing that tendency to get something from her, I noticed a sort of falling back. It’s not a falling back into fear like you’re running away. Rather, you simply observe and notice without manipulation. Surprisingly, happiness and appreciation naturally arise on their own. A sense of warmth and love would be present as well. Rather than focusing on getting something from them, it felt more like I was just glowing in happiness and love within that I wasn’t conjuring up deliberately or talking myself into. It was just naturally present every time I’d withdraw the tendency to try and get happiness and love. Really cool…

Reaction-wise I’ve noticed far more smiles from women, I’m far more comfortable with them, and I’m much more lighthearted and relaxed. The sense of anxiety drops and I’m free to be much more intimate. It’s like without trying to pull them in, you automatically feel closer. Go figure… It’s a much more enjoyable experience for me, and it takes away a lot of the stress of trying to accomplish something. Anything.

No fear of rejection. No desire to try and be loved. No worrying about how things will unfold. That stuff just doesn’t even seem to come up when I stop trying to get something from the situation. Very surprising! What freedom!!

Amazingly, there is the experience of already having everything I’d want from her: Love, approval, appreciation, joy, and so on. I find I actually really enjoy being with people whereas it used to be a source of stress and anxiety. HUGE improvement!

Not Trying to Get Happiness from Travelling

With travel, I’ve noticed sometimes I’d travel around and yet still feel miserable. Okay, wtf, something’s definitely off here… Seeing this, I’d look more closely and found that I was subconsciously expecting some sort of magical *something* to come in and fill me up with happiness. The thought pattern was along the lines of “Here I am, now let’s go out and find all the things I can do or see that will make me happy.” Make me happy. I was reaching into the world and trying to find the experiences that would be my source of happiness. This sensation of grasping, when you pause and pay attention to what’s happening just below the surface, it’s clearly present and very real.

Seeing this, I would then withdraw the sense of grasping for happiness. Just stop trying to grab anything at all. Grasping seems to lead to suffering, not happiness. With this withdrawl, there would be a natural stopping of waiting for something special to happen in order to be my magic pill. There was a stopping of needing to get anything from the experience at all.

To some degree, it’s a death of an entire way of life. It feels like something very important is dying. In fact, if you’re identified with this grasping, it feels like you are dying, with no hope for the future. Pretty scary…

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

What I’ve noticed happen every single time thus far when I withdrew the grasping is that a natural sense of appreciation and happiness would again come up from nowhere. Oh here it is! There would actually be an immense sense of happiness that would arise, a profound blossoming of appreciation, simply because I stopped demanding that the situation give me anything at all. Weird…

I’ve found that when I travel without seeking happiness from traveling, I actually enjoy traveling 10x more than I did before. Whoa.. It’s like this moment is already so beautiful. It’s not because there’s anything particularly special about what is here or where I am, but it’s like a much more pure seeing. It’s a different type of seeing when you’re not trying to get something from anything. It’s like everything is seen to be beautiful. At the same time, I find I’m not concerned with trying to get more more more in this moment or the next. This moment is already filled with peace, satisfaction, happiness, and joy. All the things I was trying to find! Sweet!

Whether sitting in a coffee shop, driving in my car, going somewhere new, being with friends and family, or being at home and not going anywhere.. this doesn’t depend on where I am or any of those external conditions or places. In a nutshell, when I stop trying to get something I want, I find that I already have it. It just reveals itself when the search for it stops.

It’s almost like the search itself actually overrides the experience of actually having it, ironically enough. It’s like you can have anything you want. Just don’t go out looking for it.

This pattern seems to happen a LOT. Trying to get a sense of comfort, security, and on and on. It’s pretty amazing to look and see how often this grasping tendency seems to happen when you become aware of it. It’s shocking actually…

What About Wanting “Things” Outside Yourself?

What we’re talking about grasping for here is mainly internal things. It’s emotions, feelings, states of being. Happiness, love, that sort of thing.

What about wanting stuff outside of us? Perhaps a good mate, a certain amount of money, a new car, a trip up into space, etc.

We could say that that’s different. After all, money isn’t inside of us. Going to the moon isn’t inside us. Our ideal lover isn’t inside of us… okay wow, that sounds like the setup for an awesome sexual joke, but I digress…

In any event, it feels like physical things other than emotions and feelings are outside of us, and I used to think that too.

3 points about this:

1) Sure those things may appear outside of our physical bodies and we may perceive our bodies to be the physical limits of “us,” but it seems that the “cause” or source of all this is actually within us. Our perception and experience of the world is driven by thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and states of being. It’s that whole “your inner world creates your outer world” bit.

2) There may also start to be the experience of a collapse of both space and the perception of inside and outside as you lose the perception of being centered in a particular point in space and time. When this happens, you find that nothing exists outside of you. In fact, since you don’t exist in any particular location, nothing can truly be said to exist within you. As a manner of speaking, we can say that it all exists within awareness, but perhaps a more accurate way of saying it is that it’s all simply HERE. Since it’s already here and can go no place else, why grasp, try to bring something here, or try and keep it here? None of that even makes sense when it’s all already here.

3) Is it really the *things* that we want? Let’s look at money for example. Money is boring. It’s sheets of paper and chunks of metallic discs. It’s 1′s and 0′s in a computer. There’s nothing special to it. It’s dead and lifeless. It’s not the money itself necessarily that we want, but the experiences that money can give us. Whether it’s the ability to afford different experiences, the feeling of being rich and successful, or whatever else, in the end we want the feelings and emotions that the money brings about. The emotions are available now. We think “I’ll be happy when I get the money.” Why not be happy now? Why wait? What you want, even if it appears to be some thing outside of you, it’s the internal effect that it has upon you that we truly want. In a nutshell, whatever it is that we want, we want it because we believe it will make us feel better. It’s that simple.

So even external things, it again comes back down to the internal game. It’s within. The key is within.

What’s Your Experience With This?

So what about you guys?

Do you find yourself also reaching for something in life?

When you stop and take a look during those times when you feel uncomfortable and want something, do you experience the same sort of energetic tendrils trying to grasp something you think you want?

If you stop doing that, what happens then?

What’s it like for you?

So I’ve been living on the road for two months now, mostly sleeping in my car, but occasionally throwing up my tent when I feel like camping somewhere beautiful,  grabbing a hotel room when we get a snowstorm, or staying with friends along the way. It’s been really nice and it’s amazing how valuable I’m finding social interaction and friendship to be. I’m not sure I’ve valued it more my entire life than now after spending so much time flying solo. Have you ever seen the movie Into the Wild? It’s very much been a source of inspiration as me, with a kid my age, living here in Atlanta, with the similar driving forces, taking off and heading out to travel solo across the country. Anyways, at the end of the movie, there’s a quote where the main character, who earlier in the movie had said that God’s place is all around us so the joy of life doesn’t come principally from human relationships, but at the end of the movie, he changes his stance and says that happiness is only real when shared.

There’s been many changes here, many of them amazing and many of them challenging, but they have all contributed to my growth and expansion.

I’ve got to say that the time I’ve spent with people has been some of the best time I’ve had thus far, even if it’s something as simple as sitting together on a couch without saying anything. Quality time together is very valuable to me, and from the bottom of my heart I am grateful beyond words to everyone I have had a chance to spend time with thus far.

As I started writing this last night, I was actually feeling a bit heartbroken. It feels like my lifelong dreams, my current way of life, and my familiar sense of self are all being crushed right before my eyes. Those things I had been clinging to for years, it’s like I’m being swept right off my feet and there’s nothing left to grab onto. Just a falling into an abyss. Death. Resisting this is incredibly painful and so there’s just a letting go of trying to do anything and allowing what is to be.

Seeking through Traveling

It’s funny.. most every time I tell people about what I’m doing, just taking off to go wherever I want whenever I want and traveling across the country by following my intuition, the typical response is something along the lines of “That’s so cool! You’re living the dream! I wish I could do the same thing!” and yeah it is amazing, but actually going through this process really takes the rose colored glasses off your head. A lot of naiveté about “living a free life” is all smashing down in the face of reality. I had a chance to talk with a friend tonight who’s gone through a similar experience when he spent several months hiking 2,000 miles up the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and it was nice to be able to relate to someone as they went through the process of watching their romantic notions about taking off on an epic adventure all get swept away too. I suppose you could say it’s part of the maturation process. People always think that this whole experience is amazing and that this is some sort of dream-life, but my experience of it after two months is that it can be fucking HARD at times. It’s truly not what I was expecting. It’s a lot of growth and much of it has been painful. When people suggest that traveling the world must be some sort of ideal dream life, I used to agree. For a while it would make me wince. I used to think so too… For years I did actually. It’s NOT the key to happiness!!!

See, I’ve always loved traveling and I’ve been blessed to have many opportunities to do so over the years. Admittedly, much of my fun travel has stemmed from the idea that “out there” there’s something that I want, whether it’s fun new experiences or whatever. One of my favorite questions to ask people for years has been, “If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?” Invariably more than 90% of the responses would include “travel.” There’s a saying (I think it was Yogi Berra) that no matter where you go, there you are, and that’s so true! You take yourself with you, your happiness and your pain. You can’t run from your pain or towards your happiness. Try as we may, it just doesn’t work this way.

This desire to “grab happiness” manifests in many ways, whether it’s trying to gain the approval or love of another, control another, be a good person, be successful, make a lot of money, be a good manifester, live the life of your dreams, or whatever it is… how much of our activities come from the idea of trying to “get more happiness,” really, as if it was an emotional thing to be obtained? Intellectually we may know better, but how often do we feel and act that way regardless?

I don’t know what the answer is for you, you have to look for yourself. What I’m finding happening here is that I’m watching lots of the old familiar dreams (the ones based in seeking something outside myself, primarily) be torn away while simultaneously finding that I’m losing the drive to try and resurrect that familiar sense of grasping. (Thank God…)

I thought I was gonna be moving to Boulder, CO, but now it seems that the intuitive push was simply to get me to go out into the world, to make the move, to grow comfortable with not having a home, to make a home in the unknown, to be at home in the here and now, quite literally and even physically. Where I am in any moment, this is my home. Here I am.

There has been much avoidance of simply being in the here and now. The thought of “what’s next” or “how can I make this moment better” can be very tantalizing and a great way to avoid noticing and being present with what is, in this moment.

Going Anywhere from Here

Just had an ‘aha’ while writing this. I can go anywhere from HERE. Everything is HERE.

When my traveling is seeking based, it always ends in a let down. The experience of actually being “out there” is never the same as my dream of out there.

Being HERE, there is the ability to go anywhere without ever leaving HERE. By this I mean the locationless Here, the spaceless and timeless Here. It’s totally okay to travel, but if we fail to recognize the present moment, the world can never be a satisfactory replacement.

We can experience this over and over and keep trying, thinking that the next adventure will be different, but it doesn’t work that way. When there’s a grounding in being Here, there’s a freedom to enjoy wherever you are, whether you’re traveling or not. It seems like when you give up your focus on being in any particular physical location, you find that you’re both always traveling and never traveling. This sounds kinda paradoxical, but it’s kinda like realizing that you’re always in the present moment and the deeper part of you within (not sure how else to word it), which is not based in space and time, never goes anywhere. Simultaneously, there is the recognition that every experience here on planet earth is a trip through space and time. Even if you’re sitting at home in your room, you are traveling.

Traveling without seeking feels very different from traveling with seeking. It’s not the traveling itself that is the issue, but the seeking energy behind it. Traveling with seeking feels like chasing that elusive carrot and thinking you’re enjoying that carrot now when you’re out there. Traveling without seeking, there is no carrot, and it’s realized there need not be one. Being HERE is already sufficient and there need not be a something else to be viewed as a source of happiness.

This seems to be reflected in many areas of my life. Seeking love/joy/happiness/approval/whatever in relationship repeatedly ends poorly. Experiencing relationships without seeking something from people I have less experience with, so that’d be something else to discover. What are human relationships like when you give up that grasping movement that manifests as neediness, clinginess, control, attachment, aversion, conflict, and so on? What’s it like to completely and totally give up needing something from another and yet still fully being present with them and enjoying the experience? Again, let’s find out, without desperately trying to find out.

Moving Right Along

So yeah, where do I go next? What’s next in store for my life? I don’t know. I really don’t. That question doesn’t seem to be the most important thing right now, as it feels good to just BE, and not because I’m making it feel good, but because the seeking energy has dropped. At the same time, I am open to this sense of at-home’ness that is already here now manifesting in physical form as well and finding somewhere dry to live and with rugged landscapes and wonderful people to enjoy. Right now I’m enjoying being at home within, and this is enough. It feels heavenly and divine.

The idea that “traveling must be a dream life” doesn’t even make much sense anymore. Just doesn’t even register. In the dream world, it very well may be. To the soul, or whatever this is, that is very secondary. To dream about that is to miss this. I have no idea what this is, but here it is. Spacious and empty.

Wayne Dyer has recently come out with a film called The Shift which is centered around the topic of recognizing how the ego operates in us, living a life beyond what the ego wants, and being lived by this higher power.

He discusses a number of excellent topics and there are a number of other characters who go through a shift from selfish egoic consciousness to a more loving life of service. It’s really well done.

He brings up many things discussed by Lao Tzu, quotes Byron Katie and A Course in Miracles, and really demonstrates what it’s like to live a life of service, appreciation, respect, and gentleness. I’ve never really looked into his stuff very much, but I really respect and enjoy what he did with this film.

One of the things that was really cool was that he discusses how this transformation of going beyond pure ego shifts in both men and women. For example, men are very success and achievement oriented in our society and the shift has them being more interested in spirituality and honesty than in trying to get respect and all. Women, on the other hand, are often taught by society to look pretty and devote themselves to others. After their shift, women often learn to appreciate and live for themselves instead of trying to please others. It’s discused in a bit more detail of course, but it was fascinating to see how drastically these shifts occur between the two sexes.

Another thing which was awesome was that it discussed spirituality in a very practical way. How parents can relate to their children, how to respond in relationships from an egoic point of view versus from something deeper, how to follow your passions and find your purpose in life, the importance of giving and how that plays out with respect to being lived by this higher power instead of trying to control life, and so on.

Really, very well done.

Great job to Wayne and the crew involved in the creation of the film!

The trailer I’ve posted below and the actual movie can be found online at Amazon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEM0SF04Rw4

Often times other people can be the source of so much of our suffering. This can include friends, family members, celebrities, or even just random strangers. Like many other things in the world, sometimes people just really piss us off. This is a common experience for many people in life.

Making Your Happiness Unconditional

We have this idea that if someone else were to only change their behavior then we’d finally be happy, and this is true given that we’d then be focusing our attention upon something we do like and thus no longer offering resistance to what we see (and therefore not suffering), but this is actually tremendously giving your power away because it’s saying that your happiness and well-being is completely dependent upon another person’s behavior. You basically give someone else the keys to your happiness. Yikes! When we do this, it only makes us want to try and control the other because, well, our happiness quite literally depends on it!

We may try to play this game with a few people around us and it may work to a limited extent, but if we make this a way of life, this is really just not a healthy way to live, you know? It’s just not realistic or healthy to think that the whole world is going to do what you want.

Now this isn’t meant to excuse other people’s behaviors. Not at all. There are so many examples of unconscious behavior out there we can point out. Of course that’s there. What we’re talking about here is releasing ourselves from the suffering that we create for ourselves as a result of the unconscious behavior that occurs all around us. We want to release ourselves from our own self-imposed prison, regardless of what’s happening in the world.

This is about making our happiness and well-being unconditional. Literally. It’s taking down the conditions we have imposed upon ourselves for whatever reason and finding that freedom we so desperately seek.

It’s about changing ourselves and allowing others to change (or not) out of our/their own volition, not because of attacking or being attacked.

Let’s listen to a wonderful Abraham-Hicks talk that gives a hilarious example of this and takes a look at how we can allow ourselves to be in this world and have healthy experiences in our relationships without letting the little things in life tear us apart.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjy1u1inOSc

Closing The Gap

Have you noticed that the reason we suffer is only only only because of the story we are telling ourselves in our head, and even more importantly, our belief in our story as if it was actually true. That’s it! The negative emotions are showing us that our story (thoughts) about life has nothing to do with the reality. It’s not true. That’s why it feels so bad.

Most of us are familiar with practices like focusing on the positive aspects, loving what is, being present, being in the now, surrendering, and all the other wonderful stuff, and yet nevertheless there seems to be this gap between what we “know” on one level and how we live, as if this knowingness has yet to penetrate the totality of our being. We all have this gap and one of the games of the spiritual journey is closing this gap. It’s really LIVING from the truth of your being, living what your heart knows to be true. Your life becomes a living manifestation of your inner being.

From this space you can still make changes in your life, like getting a second tube of toothpaste as mentioned in the video, for example.

Loving what is doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything about life. Not at all. Actually, it’s not about doing or not doing. Loving what is simply means to truly love what IS and then FROM that space, you live your life, however it naturally arises. It means to live from the love rather than let the ego run the show.

How this love manifests may be laughing things off, making a compromise, expressing more gratitude, changing certain things, talking about your issues, or perhaps even leaving the relationship. Who knows? There’s countless possible responses. It’s not really a “if this then that” thing. It’s more spontaneous and part of the flow.

But the whole “demanding that a person be different than they are or else you will withhold your love/acceptance/approval of them,” yeah, not so much…

Transcending Life vs. Facing Life

Some people may also have this idea that when we have problems in our lives, all we have to do is simply raise our level of consciousness to the point where they no longer bug us and then we’ll magically fix our lives. Yet this can actually become a subtle form of escapism and avoidance.

Instead of actually facing life, facing what’s being shown to you in the mirror of life, we may try and spiritualize ourselves beyond our current experience.

Yet the interesting thing is that if we can face what life is showing us with sincerity and without turning away, life itself becomes the catalyst to our greatest transformations. It’s all right here, ready for us. As is often said, life is our greatest teacher.

Trying to understand someone is not the same as loving them, though we might think that’s a path to love. What that is is an attempt to access the heart by first going through the mind, as if the mind is a gatekeeper for the heart. (It’s not, but we can act this way.) When we live this way, when we feel a lack of love, we may seek to recreate it by seeking to create a sense of mutual understanding, but that’s actually placing a condition upon love and thinking that external things need to be a certain way for us to have a particular internal state of being.

Love can flow during both understanding and misunderstanding.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t value in seeking clarity with another person when there is misunderstanding present. Of course that can be a very helpful and beneficial thing to do. What I am saying is that we don’t have to require the prerequisite of understanding another person’s point of view mentally and making sure they see your point of view before we allow ourselves to open up to the flow of love. Mutual understanding can certainly help us open and take down our walls, yes, but it doesn’t have to be a requirement for us to love what is, for that makes love conditional. The following quote is taking on deeper meaning for me tonight:

“Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love even when you feel hurt, closed down, tense, angry, misunderstood, or hated.”

-David Deida

By love I don’t mean affection towards another, approving of them, having them be a part of your life, or even liking their behavior and choices. Not that.

It’s more about accepting others the way they are, accepting yourself the way you are, being a YES to life, and being open to allowing what is to be without closing down and attempting to separate yourself from the moment. Love is what we feel when we surrender our resistance to what is.

Surrender means to love without limits. It means to relax your guard so your lover can feel your core–authentic, unhidden, and undefended. Your muscles relax. Your breath becomes full. Your body and heart willingly open to your lover. If you are hurt, then you are hurt, but in any case you practice to remain open and full, like the ocean.

-David Deida

Ahh, life…

Today’s post isn’t about something I know, but about something I’m still learning about and would like to have your input on. It has to do with the topic of emotional interdependence in relationships. The question itself is at the end. The majority of the post is just contextual setup and lead-in.

Dependence

When we’re little kids, we’re very dependent upon our families for food, shelter, love, and so on. Without those things, we’d shrivel up and die.

Independence

As we grow up, we begin to develop a sense of independence. We often start to rebel against our parents in our teenage years, go through a time of trying to “find our identities” and develop an independent sense of self, and then eventually move out of our parent’s place and start a life of our own. We develop our independence.

In this independent stage, we can recognize that our happiness is in our own hands. No one else makes us happy. All our emotions are available within, and our mind can act as a sort of gatekeeper or trigger for our emotional states. Realizing this, we recognize that we can simply give ourselves whatever it is we want. For example, the sense of happiness, peace, abundance, well-being, joy, success, or whatever else. Our emotional state of being is completely independent of our external experiences.

Seeing this, we could then say that we could sit around all day visualizing the life we want, injecting ourselves with the emotional stimulation and visualized experiences that we prefer, but you know what? Life is meant to be lived! Visualization and giving yourself what you need yourself is not meant to be a replacement for life, but an addition to it.

Interdependence

Eventually we may come to see that no man is an island. Although much of the journey within is an internal journey that must be walked alone, there’s more to life than the just internal journey. Other people are very important in our lives as well. We can accomplish much more together than we ever could alone. In fact, there are many things in life that you quite simply can’t do yourself. Other people are not only important, but flat out necessary.

Seeing this, we can begin allowing ourselves to become more interdependence and this is where my questions for you guys lies.

We are responsible for our own emotions, yes. No one else is responsible for our happiness and it’s a recipe for suffering to give someone else the responsibility for our emotional well-being. That said, when we enter into a relationship with another, it can be wonderful to have someone there to cheer you up when you’re feeling down, to encourage you and inspire you when you’re feeling discouraged, and to celebrate with you when you’re feeling great.

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

-Swedish Proverb

Nevertheless, the person shouldn’t feel obligated to help you, like it’s their duty or their requirement as part of the job. There’s a balance between standing in your own strength and leaning on another for support, between not requiring another to help you out and yet fully opening to them and allowing them to help you out anyways. Where is that balance?

What Do You Guys Think?

There may not be one “right answer” to this, but in terms mutually supporting one another emotionally from a place of unconditional love, what would you guys say is a beneficial way for the two people in a relationship to relate to each other?

Maybe sometimes you help them heal. Other times you leave them be. Things change depending upon situation, context, personality, etc. and so there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Nevertheless, what have you guys done in the past in your relationships and what’s worked for you? What would you say the role of a partner is in terms of emotional intimacy? This applies both to platonic relationships (friends) as well as more intimate relationships, but perhaps moreso the latter.

There’s a tremendous freedom in letting go of our expectations.

With expectations, we have this inner need for something or someone to be a certain way so that we feel happy, loved, safe, or whatever else, and so we make our way through life requiring it to show up in a certain way or else we will subtly or overtly reject it.

Without expectations we go into events and experiences with tremendous freedom and openness. How will things turn out? We literally have no idea, and that’s totally okay! and the ironic thing is that when we give the world its freedom, we find ours. By giving the world its freedom to be as it is, we allow people to blossom in their own way and it’s so much easier for the world to manifest itself in a way that is in alignment with love, freedom, truth, and joy, in a way that is an expression of the highest good for all concerned, yourself included!

mmm, yes

I’ve been spending some time with someone recently who I really enjoy being with. One of the cool things is that she is able to pick up on the expectations I’ve been bringing to the table (and not been wanting to admit to), can point them out while accepting me fully as I am anyways (so healing, my goodness…), and helps me let go of so many unconscious patterns of thought that I’ve been living out for years.

Many of you guys have probably experienced this as well, but I’m finding that when I go into things with a mental story I’m trying to live into and super-impose a made-up story of “us” onto what is, it actually inhibits the natural flow of life. On the other hand, when I let go of my need for things to show up a certain way and just be authentic and get REAL, our experience of each other can be pretty incredible…

With some people you’re compatible and with others you aren’t. Totally normal. How wonderful it is when both people drop their masks and find that who they are within already clicks with who another is within and they don’t have to do any of that nonsense as far as trying to impress the other, make them happy, or any of that. You just enjoy yourself for who you are and the other for who they are while simultaneously shedding every false thought you’ve ever had about yourself or the world, as discussed in Conversations with God.

Conscious relationships are such a wonderful opportunity for expansion and growth…

Expectations as Definitions

When we seek to define ourselves, we actually limit ourselves. “I am THIS and not THAT.” Instant limitation. Why don’t we just be ourselves without needing to define ourselves at all? Just be yourself, however you happen to show up. Who cares what words define you?

In this context, defining yourself includes such definitions as “spiritual” or “loving,” as well as the attempts to strive to live up to some mental ideal such as perfect, masculine, strong, or whatever else. Just be YOU. Maybe you’ll find out that who you naturally are is already enough.

Now, by doing this, you can no longer control the outcome (or at least give yourself the illusion of control). Yes you can try to control the outcome by pretending to be this or that, but when you drop all the games, you find you have zero control over situations or other people. Here you are and here they are and that’s that. You expose yourself for who you really are, pure and naked. Is this vulnerable and scary? Sure… but so liberating!!

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

-Anais Nin

When we drop all our expectations about one another, what would that look like? Let’s allow Jeff Foster to share his experience of this with us:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSm816G_uZk

Note: This has been previously shared here before, but I feel it’s worth bringing up again.

So when you heard about spiritual awakening or enlightenment, what was the prize that you wanted in the end? What was the story that got you hooked?

Perhaps it was something about experiencing endless bliss and joy, or maybe it was the end of suffering, or perhaps it was about experiencing constant Oneness with the Divine. Maybe it was the answer to all your life’s questions.

It may be something else entirely, but whatever the case may be, I’m sure the bait was very shiny and attractive, yes?

It turns out that they don’t give you the full story when you start playing the game. What I’m about to share isn’t meant to discourage people on the path, but simply to help them be conscious if and when these things start occurring. These things don’t necessarily mean that something has gone wrong, although it may certainly seem that way. A helpful book to those who are experiencing the following symptoms is You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up!

Now, if spiritual awakening was to come with a series of warning labels, what would be printed on those labels?

Warning: All your beloved attachments are going to be taken away from you. Everything you hold near and dear to your heart you must be completely and utterly willing to lose them. The more you hold onto them, the more you’ll suffer. It is only in the willingness to let go that find your freedom. By the way, letting go as a technique to trick the universe into granting your freedom, as in saying that you let go while peeking over your shoulder to see what’s to come, that doesn’t cut it. You can’t B.S. your way there. Believe me, I’ve tried… No one else has been able to pull that one off either.

Warning: You will experience dark nights of the soul. You will experience your entire world crumbling down. You will experience intense emotional roller coasters, to the point where you literally may feel like you’re going crazy.

Warning: You must let go of all of your judgments and false sense of worth. You know all those accomplishments you’ve achieved in this lifetime? What do you brag about? You must let go of holding onto any of them as a way to enhance your self-worth and boost your sense of self. Your trophies and medals, while certainly valuable in their own right, they must lose their importance as something that makes you feel better or worthy. You are not valuable because of anything you have ever done or ever will do. You are valuable simply because you are. Because you exist. All the blows to your pride and are ways to help you let go of your false sense of worth and open up to the realization of your true worth.

Warning: You must let go of all your ideas about God. In order to find God, you must quit telling yourself you already know God. All the ideas that you’ve grown up hearing, being taught, holding onto, or rejecting, all of them have to be let go of in order to be seen through.

Warning: You will find yourself entering a place with no rules, no shoulds and shouldn’ts, no technique, no strategies, and no room for all of your egoic stuff and the energy of division.

Warning: Your ego will throw fits. Your painbody will go crazy. Your buttons will get pushed. Your ego will throw out every trick in its book. When you start learning how to get past its tricks, it’ll become more sneaky and subtle. As you advance, your ego advances. It all happens to bring more awareness to the energies within, to help you let go of that which you previously have been unconscious to.

Warning: The egoic dangers don’t end after awakening. In fact, as Adyashanti points out, the dangers after awakening get more dangerous and there’s much more of them. For example, one can settle in to seeing the Absolute as the only valid perspective and disregarding the world of the relative because it’s all “illusion.” This can lead to some very unconscious behavior and a letting go of changing that because “it doesn’t matter” and “there’s no one to change it.” Remember, the world is illusion, yes. Brahman alone is real, yes. BUT, the world IS Brahman. This is true non-duality: seeing the Reality in the so-called illusion as one.

Warning: Just because you wake up, that doesn’t mean that everyone will love you and you’ll never have any struggles in life again. Just look at Jesus if you have any doubts about that one.

Warning: You must come out of hiding. All the dark stuff within you that you haven’t been wanting to look at and be truthful about, it’ll all come up to the surface. All that stuff you hide from other people, the things you don’t want to show to others or to yourself, your inside will become your outside. There’s no hiding ANYTHING from anyone. It’s a deep deep level of vulnerability, sincerity, and self-honesty.

Warning: All your life lessons will come to the surface. You’ll have to look at and accept everything. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to go. You can only be here, now. There’s no one to become. Waking up isn’t a self-improvement course. Although it may appear this way on the surface, the point of waking up isn’t to become more spiritual, more loving, more enlightened, or more acceptable in the eyes of God. It’s about Self-realization, about realizing who and what you really are. You return back to your natural state and be who you really ARE, that which doesn’t have to be created, manifested, or maintained.

Warning: The farther you go, the more painful it becomes to deviate from the Truth of your being. Think of it this way: If you walk into a tree at 2 mph, it’s no big deal. If you whack a tree while running as fast as you can, it’s gonna hurt. The deeper you go into Being, the more painful it is when you lie even just a little bit, hold back your Truth, don’t allow yourself to be who you are, resist what is, judge another, or in any way violate natural laws. You get a lot less slack. In Zen they call it walking the Razor’s Edge. Deviate even a little bit and you quickly get cut.

Warning: You have to take complete and total responsibility for everything and everyone that shows up in your life. As your consciousness begins returning back to its natural state of timelessness, manifestation starts happening much more clearly and the link between inner thoughts and vibrations and outer manifestation becomes REALLY clear. No longer do you get the luxury of blaming others or judging others. Everything you see as a problem in others instantly gets turned around and becomes your problem. You’ll begin taking on a lot more pressure once everyone’s problems start to become yours. The world truly is your mirror. All the problems you really have with others really are problems you have within yourself. Get to work on surrender. It becomes a much more necessary skill later on.

Warning: You must accept that you’ll never “get there,” that you’ll never “arrive.” You could spend an entire lifetime on this journey and never wake up. Indeed that has happened to many people. In fact, so long as you cling to your desire to get somewhere, you’ll never actually wake up to what’s already here. You must surrender completely your desire to succeed in your path of awakening. You must accept the fact that you may embark on the journey, never to actually get enlightened.

Warning: You may feel very connected and One with Source/All That Is at times, and you will also experience yourself feeling totally disconnected, lost, confused, and cut off. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s the experience of pure separation, they very illusion we are trying to see beyond.

Warning: Even if you get a glimpse of the Truth of your Being once or twice or a hundred times, the egoic structure may rebuild itself, leading to the experience of being unenlightened, or what we call a non-abiding awakening. Adyashanti reports that it usually takes people anywhere from 3-15 years for the momentum of awakening to settle in. Although it doesn’t happen in the future and can only happen in the now, don’t expect an overnight insta-fix.

Warning: Just because you have a clear seeing of who you really are, that’s not the end of the journey. The first question is “Who Am I?” Once that’s discovered, it now becomes a matter of how what I AM manifests itself in this world. The second question upon realization is, “How then shall I live?” It’s not enough to have the inner realization. That realization must express itself out through the totality of your being for it to become a living realization.

Warning: You must completely and utterly let go of control, of even controlling your survival, much less your destiny. You must be willing to die, to face the fear of death and surrender into it without attempting to stop it or control it in any way. The fear of death and the unknown become your friends. No longer will you be running from them.

Warning: The more you begin living in the moment and letting go of the domination of your consciousness by your mind, you may begin experiencing memory loss. Whole blocks of memory will begin falling away. It’s not exactly like Alzehimer’s, but there very well may be some significant loss of short-term and/or long-term memory as you begin relying less upon memory and more upon a deeper intuitive knowingness.

Warning: You may have intense kundalini awakenings to where it will feel like your entire nervous system is being overloaded. Many people have literally gone insane from this. It can be helpful to seek out some helpful resources including other people who have experienced similar symptoms, various practices you can do to work with the energies, and even a guru to help guide you safely through the process.

Warning: You may experience cycles of confusion and clarity. In one moment you may be very wise, deep, loving, and compassionate, and in the next moment the cloudiness of the veil will return and you will no longer have a clue as to what’s going on. You may become sucked right back into your ego, experiencing your deepest and darkest fears.

Warning: There is tremendous value in working with others, but you must learn to stand in your aloneness. Many of your relationships may change. Friends and family that have been close to you your whole life may be let go of. Some people will come, others will go. Some stay for the long haul. Which ones will stay and which ones will go? Who knows? The flow of the river will determine that more than any conscious decision. You can try to make it a conscious decision, but that will actually be more of a resistance to the flow and a desire to control than anything else. You don’t get to control the process. It happens. The you you think you are doesn’t make it happen.

Warning: You don’t get anything as a result of awakening. There’s no thing you get as a prize such as a good feeling such as a constant never-ending wonderful enlightened experience or a boost to your self-esteem. (What self would we be talking about anyways who has a self-esteem?) You get nothing, but BOY what a nothing it is. By seeing that you ARE that nothingness, and that you ARE the entire universe arising from that nothingness, you realize that what you ARE is already more than anything that could ever be wanted, as Gangaji so beautifully puts it.

Whew!!

Now as I say all of this I’m laughing. In certain moments it can be a crazy, wild, intense, OMG-I’m-gonna-die experience, yes, particularly when you’re in the heat of the moment, but it’s like waking up from a dream at night… You recognize that it was all just a dream and it doesn’t feel like it was actually all that real. What you ARE is infinitely more real than anything that appears in this world. Those experiences will begin to feel so distant and faded, like a memory that you can only partially and vaguely remember, as if it happened to another person entirely in another far-off world.

That said, it’s worth it. It’s all SO worth it. The direct realization of who and what you really are is SO worth all of the bumps and jolts that we experience along the way. Things to lighten up as you do.

Note: All of the above pictures were created by my dear friend Patty LaPlante. The quotes come from the book Oneness by Rasha.

Not everyone will necessarily experience every single thing listed above. For some people, some experiences may be more profound than others. In fact, there are many other things that one may experience that haven’t been listed in this post.

Either way, there is a book I’d HIGHLY recommend that people check out titled You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! by Michael Mirdad. You can read my full review of it here.

For those of you who’ve also been walking the path for a little while now, what “warnings” would you give someone who’s getting started and doesn’t know what to expect?

Being. It’s one of those spiritual words that’s tossed around like presence, meditation, nirvana, and so on. Not exactly one of the words that’s commonly used in day-to-day life, but is still vitally important in the whole spiritual game that can be played.

So, being. What is it anyways?

Let’s start this post off with Adyashanti going up to bat first. Batter up!

Adyashanti – What Is Being?

(Can’t embed this video, so you gotta clicka the linka.)

He describes being as the You you’ve always been. The You that you really really are, regardless of how old you are, if you’re enlightened or not, if even you’re doing the whole spiritual shebang or not.

One critical thing he points out is that “being” is “form without a particular attribute.”

This is so key.

Being vs. A Being

Typically when we think of being, we think of a being. For example, a person is a type of being. Cats are beings. Dogs are beings. There are lots of living beings and maybe even some non-physical beings running around this place like ghosts or guardian angels and whatnot.

So the word “being” is thought of as a pointer to a particular creature of some sort. An individual.

But this is not what the word “being” is pointing to when we talk about what you really are. It’s not about this being or that being. In fact, it’s not about any particular being at all!

It’s just about being. Not individualized or part of any particular living thing.

It’s not so much a thing, like a human being, but more a presence. It’s existence. It’s just here, whatever the heck it is. It’s just here.

Look to your own experience. This is easily confirmed and verified if you look within and see for yourself instead of trying to wrap your mind around some words and theory.

Look within.

Exploring Being

Being is here within.

Does it have any attributes that make it human? Do you own a human being as opposed to a cat being? Where does being end? Does it have any boundaries that you can locate? Does it have an age? Does it have a size? A color? A shape?

The living beingness that is here is formless. It is nameless. It’s just a presence that is here. and it’s always here.

It’s so obviously here that it’s totally overlooked as we make our way through life.

Connecting With Another

It is what is seen when you gaze into the eyes of any other living being. Again, being not as in an object with any particular attributes, history, personality, or any of that superficial stuff… but just living beingness. Aliveness. It is Life itself peering through the eyes of another.

Looking into the eyes of another, when you do this without labeling, categorizing, or in any way adding additional mental processing, you’re seeing Life itself. It is Life connecting with Life. Awareness seeing Awareness. Being being with Being.

No identity is necessary. No person. No man. No woman. No story superimposed upon what arises. None of that. Just Being.

There is no separation when Being connects with Being.

There’s no “me” in the way of being. There is nothing to cloud the unification.

There is simply Being with Being.

This unity we call Love.

It is One without a second.

The way that social interactions are experienced seem to change significantly when one comes from this place of this one non-thing. Let’s reflect on some of the more prominent changes that occur, some of the fruits of oneness, if you will.

Everyone is You

First and foremost, everyone and everything is literally seen to be the same whatever-this-is that you are. Everything, including whatever it is that would be referred to as yourself, is this same nameless presence. Truly can not be named. It just is. It’s a presence. It has no more substance than the fact that it exists. It is formless isness.

This is fundamental. This is clear. There is no such thing as anything else when all is this isness. Everything is. Nothing else is. There are many faces to this one isness. It is this isness that is now at the forefront, not the masks that the isness wears.

Seeing the masks, it’s almost like you can look at everyone you see playing their roles, and you can smile and give them a knowing wink, recognizing who they REALLY are despite external experiences.

A Distinct Lack of Fear

Now that this isness is present, no longer is there anything or anyone to be afraid of. If it’s all you, what else is there to be afraid of? There is ONLY you.

No longer is there the intimidation of people whose labels and roles include things such as hot girl, celebrity, president, criminal, homeless guy, police officer, famous person, or whatever else a person could be that could be a cause for fear, worry, anxiety, discomfort, or dis-ease.

You see through external appearances, recognizing the innate beauty equally present in all beings.

There is an immense appreciation and love of self, and by extension for all “others” for all others are one with what you are.

All others are simply new ways for you to experience yourself. That’s it. Nothing more than that. The entire universe is simply a huge playground of possibilities for the One to experience itself by interacting with itself.

Social Freedom

There is also a dropping away of worrying what others think, about judgment, about looking good in front of others, or in any way trying to compromise yourself so that you fit in. The sense of judgment just doesn’t seem to come up much anymore. All that stuff exists on a layer of mental abstraction that is a layer above pure being. Everything is being. Mental stuff is on a totally different realm, and doesn’t really get accessed much anymore, though it certainly may occasionally without being taken as seriously since it is beingness that is at the root of experience, not judgment and mental perception.

Not only is there no “me” to build up and look cool without a distinct lack of separate self, as discussed previously, but there’s no one to live by the traditional rules of social dynamics and how life “should be.”

This isn’t to say that all rules are broken entirely, no, but there’s an easing up happening on the limits one places upon themselves on how they “should” act and a freedom to act in a way that is more natural, light, fun, and free. There is a space to truly just BE  YOURSELF, in whatever way life chooses to expresses itself in this moment. In this life here, life is moving to experience itself in a few fun new ways. For example,

Wanna jump into a pool with your clothes on? DO IT!

Wanna walk into a place wearing something comfortable and casual instead of something appropriately formal yet uncomfortable? GO FOR IT!

Wanna smile and relax instead of be uptight when the socially acceptable thing is to be stressed out and serious? ENJOY YOURSELF!

Sure you may not necessarily “fit in” with how others think you should act. Sure you may even get kicked out of certain places. (haha… :D )

What happens is that you start to find your groove and you begin to notice the difference between people and situations that ARE in harmony with you versus people and situations that ARE NOT in harmony with you. So you begin to create around yourself a world that is in sync with this new sense of freedom and vitality that is radiating from your presence.

Some old friends may leave you. Sure. You’ll probably make new friends. There can certainly be a lot of rearrangement in relationships once you start being more genuinely yourself and free, finding that this “new you” is compatible with different energies as compared to the “old you.”

No Expectations

What we would call success is no longer measured in results or expectations being met. No no.

Success, if there even was such a thing, would be a way to denote how deeply one can truly be WHO THEY ARE. How deeply can you shine your light? Literally right now. In the moment. THIS moment. It’s here and now, being yourself. It has nothing to do with the results of being yourself, and everything to do the degree of transparency of self, allowing for the presence of Self.

and I don’t mean to set this up as some sort of measurement system or goal to reach. A sun shining with only a teensy weensy cloud in the way is in no way better than a sun shining through a completely overcast sky. Not at all. One view of the sun is simply more pure and unobstructed when viewed from a point on earth than another view of the sun. That’s all. Not better or worse. Just less distorted.

Without worrying about how others will perceive you, there is a space to be unbelievably vulnerable and truthful, both with yourself and with others. and the funny thing is most of us are thinking the same thing anyways! You know, the pink elephant in the room. You can say things that are going on for you and others will laugh because they’re thinking them too! It’s just a matter of opening up and being real with yourself and others.

Allowing Others to Be

Along with the freedom to be yourself comes the space to allow others to be whoever they’re choosing to be.

Being yourself is its own reward. No longer getting caught up in the drama of others is its own reward. The freedom to just BE, my goodness… how liberating!

In no way do you need anyone else to change or see the world the way you do. If anything, you’d rather them simply be who THEY are. In this, there is the space created for others to remember who they are and to let go of their self-imposed limitations.

You are literally being the change you wish to see in the world, a living model of social freedom. Yet you are not doing it to prove anything to anyone, but because it just feels so RIGHT to be the infinite free being that you are in your very essence.

There’s no need for others to be like you, but a space created for others to be like THEM.

You be who you really are. I’ll be who I really am. And all the details will take care of themselves thanks to the magic called synchronicity and divine flow.

Freedom. Truly just freedom…

Share Your Experiences

I know many of you are going through your transformations into Oneness. What changes have you noticed with respect to relationships and how you interact with others?