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Posts Tagged ‘Feelings’

A Gift To The World

Nov 11th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
17 comments

On this day in 1963, something happened that fundamentally changed the course of my life. It wasn’t something that hit the headlines, but it was something that still has repercussions to this day. In fact, this event is having an effect on you right this moment as you wouldn’t be reading these words if it hadn’t taken place.

1960-2002-0004

11 November 1963 was the day on which I was born.

How To Celebrate

Last night Mona asked me how I want to celebrate my birthday.

My immediate reaction was the same I usually get in relation to my birthday; ‘uuuugggghhhh,’ together with a strong desire to hide in a corner for the whole day and hope everyone else has forgotten it. It’s not my age that’s the problem as I enjoy whatever age I am and 46 is a nice round number.

My problem is partly about celebrating. I don’t really know how to do it.

I watch others celebrate at parties and in bars. Singing, dancing and obviously having a good time. I sit there and just can’t understand it. Externalising my celebration of life is just not my way. I can speak about it, I can feel it deep inside – but expressing it in a ‘traditional’ way is not my style.

1147773_club_1There have been times when I faked it, but that’s pretty tiring and I’d prefer to be more authentic. Christmas, weddings, other people’s birthdays, holidays, parties I can just about cope with if I’m in the right frame of mind. I can celebrate with others, though I do generally avoid random parties. I got fed up with drunken revellers demanding I enjoy myself – then dragging me onto the dance floor, trying to get me drunk or, in one horrible incident, trying to persuade me to take cocaine. NO WAY!

I prefer to celebrate quietly. Peacefully. On my own, or with those closest to me.

Still, I’ve struggled over the years to celebrate in any way on my birthday and have tried to hide it where possible.

But not this year.

My Birthday Is About – Me

1076955_vibrant_giftI’ve long claimed my reluctance to celebrate my birthday was in respect for my grandfather who died on my 21st birthday or that it’s because it’s ‘Remembrance Day‘ or ‘Veterans’ Day’.

Frankly both are weak excuses.

Mona pointed out to me last night:

‘If you can’t appreciate the ways in which you are a gift to the world, then it’s hard to fulfil your potential. And birthdays are the one day in the year when I think you could be doing just that.’

This hit the proverbial nail on the head.

I was brought up to be modest and keep my light hidden. At times I’ve kept it so hidden I’ve actually lost sight of the fact that it’s there.

Each and every one of us is a gift to the World.

Each of us has a light inside that can shine out for the benefit of all – if we choose to let it.

10 Ways I’m A Gift To The World

This is probably the hardest list I’ve ever written. Every cell of my body is crying out,

“Don’t do it! Who are you to blow your own trumpet? You’re going to lose all your readers if you do this. It’s just not DONE!’

So I say ‘thank you’ to the helpful voices in my head … and I’m going to do this anyway.

  1. Three people wouldn’t exist without me … my beautiful daughters Laura (17 years), Elena (6 years) and Nameless One (- 3 months).
  2. My humour which has made many people laugh
  3. My smile which has infected many people with smiles of their own
  4. The simplicity of my material world which inspires several people
  5. My writing which has stimulated change in people
  6. My capacity to listen deeply which gives others the space and love they need to find themselves
  7. My dedication to bring peace into my own life and to share that with others
  8. Through my presence I’ve brought joy to the lives of many people – and Mona is one of them
  9. I make Athos and Balki (our 2 dogs!) wag their tail whenever I give them attention
  10. I tend to inspire quite intense feelings in other people (not all of them enjoyable!).

And Finally …

I had a wonderful early birthday present – my last article had an avalanche of readers (around 30,000 over two days). It came just at a moment I was again asking myself if this blog is really worth the effort I put into it. So a big thank you to all who contributed to the overwhelming success of that post. It made my day!

As it’s my birthday I’m allowed one birthday wish.

I would like to hear, in the comments or by Email the answer to the following question:

In What Ways are YOU a gift to the world?

How To Fully Enjoy Life

Oct 23rd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
30 comments

We all judge, whether we want to or not. Transforming our judgements can take us closer to experiencing, and enjoying, the world as it really is, rather than how we think it is.

To Judge Or Not To Judge

Raw judgements rarely help us except in urgent situations where we don’t have time to process our thinking. A figure approaching us from a dark alleyway with something silver glittering in its hand is probably going to trigger a judgement that this is ‘dangerous and bad’.

Our snap judgement could be wrong, of course, and there’s a chance (albeit very slim) they might have a handful of silver they want to give us. We’ll quite rightly respond to our immediate analysis by taking action – running away and shouting loudly would probably be a sensible thing to do.

At a basic level we think something or someone is ‘good’ or bad’ and at more advanced levels we have a rich vocabulary of adjectives to name our judgements.

Whatever level we operate at, those judgements are our thoughts. No more, no less.

Those thoughts often interfere with our capacity to fully experience life, and especially the people we share it with.

Many of us can recognise judgements as they pass our minds and see through them to reality, but it takes practice to consistently transform them from static statements of perception to more flowing and deeper explorations of our experience.

I believe this is true whether our judgements are ‘negative’ or ‘positive’.

The Mona Lisa Is Very Small

monalisaI remember my only visit to the Louvre in Paris when I was about 22 years old. It’s packed with some of the greatest works of art we’ve ever produced.

I walked from one painting or sculpture paying cursory attention to each with an internal running commentary going something like this:

‘That one’s nice. This is ugly. This one is beautiful.’

5 seconds at the Mona Lisa was enough to conclude ‘It’s small’ before passing on. The most famous painting in the world – and all I took away from it was its size!

With each piece I was more focussed on judging and categorising than I was on experiencing it. What a missed opportunity!

Now I realise that I used to do the same with people – still do sometimes, but I’m learning to change.

Transformation in 3 Steps

I’d like to share a simple 3 step practice that I’ve been using for a few years that has helped me immensely. It works equally well with things I don’t enjoy – but I’ll stay with the positive things to illustrate the practice.

  1. Observation
  2. Feelings
  3. Life enrichment

Step 1 Observation

I experience the world, then I filter it through my memories and belief systems, analyse and interpret it. Presto! Out pops a judgement. Instead, I try to imagine a full sensory video camera recording and I’m watching / hearing / touching /smelling / tasting the replay.

By bringing myself back, as far as I can, to what I actually see, hear, touch, smell or taste – without my ‘black box’ processing – I can find greater freedom in relation to it.

As an example I’ll use a true event, with the name changed (but you know who you are!).

Judgement - Katarzyna is a thoughtful, sensitive person with impeccably good taste in what she reads.

Transforms to – Katarzyna said to me last week that she reads my blog every few days, has printed out several articles and one article in particular touched her so much she cried.

The judgement stops me exploring further and takes my attention away from, in this case, the words I heard. Transforming my judgement allows me to savour the sensory experience.

Step 2 Feelings

Feelings are an important part of my humanity and I want to experience them as fully as possible. They are mine and do not belong to anyone else – in fact, people can’t make me feel anything. They’re involved but are the trigger and not the cause – more like catalysts.

When I believe they cause my feelings then I risk setting up an emotional dependency that reduces freedom and autonomy for both of us.

Judgement - Katarzyna makes me feel moved, grateful, proud and inspired.

Transforms to – I feel moved, grateful, proud and inspired.

The difference is subtle yet important.

The transformation helps me enjoy my feelings as coming from within and from my experience of life rather than received from the outside world.

Step 3 Life Enrichment

My life is continuously enriched in so many ways. It can be hard to define exactly which aspect of me is being enriched and words are often poor guides to describe this. Yet finding words is often the only way I have for connecting with that life energy deep within.

Judgement – Katarzyna cares and respects me and finds my writing meaningful and helpful.

Transforms to – My life is enriched through my needs of respect, meaning and making a difference to other people.

By finding the elements of my life energy (I call them ‘needs‘) that have been enriched I can connect more deeply to myself – and to Katarzyna. In this place I feel gratitude to Katarzyna for telling me this, and to myself for my role in the creation.

In this place I’m not focused on who is giving and who receiving – we are both givers and receivers. The transformation breaks down the boundaries between us and helps me connect to the universal life force that binds us all together.

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Tips On Using The Practice

At first it may feel a little artificial and take time to transform judgements, but after a while of regular practice it becomes natural and automatic.

  • Gratitude journal – Keep a daily journal to use the 3 steps to record a few things that happened during the day that enriched your life. 5 – 10 minutes a day is a small investment in gratitude to others and to yourself.
  • Expressing gratitude – Practice using the 3 steps to express gratitude when someone does something that you enjoy. Tell them what they did, how you feel about it and how it enriched you.
  • Transforming criticism – Use the 3 steps to transform negative judgements. The process works equally well with things we don’t enjoy and the ways our lives were not enriched.
  • Share your experiences – If you use the process and find it helpful, bookmark this page and come back and leave a comment. That way you’ll enrich my life and maybe inspire others.

PS – I know the title is grammatically incorrect, but I think it sounds better that way. You know … ‘To boldly go’ versus ‘to go boldly.’

The Secret Of Happiness

Sep 28th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
28 comments

Plenty of people claim to know the secret of happiness. They sell books about it, run seminars and some even get rich by revealing it. If I knew the secret to happiness then maybe even I could make a small fortune, catapulting this site to the top and making me famous.

happy_puzzle

As you probably guessed, I don’t have the secret to happiness. It’s not because I don’t know what it is but because there is no secret to happiness.

That’s right.

No secret.

“But what about all those gurus who claim to know what it is? Surely they must know something? After all people pay good money for their books, CD’s and workshops.”

I hate to be the one to tell you (don’t shoot the messenger, ok?) – but they are teaching you something you already know. They are packaging what we all possess and selling it back to you. They certainly know something, and it’s not the secret to happiness!

What is happiness?

I think it’s important to be really clear about this because I hear many people say their goal in life is to be happy or to achieve a state of happiness.

Happiness is ‘the state of being happy’, but what does that mean?

Happy is a feeling and conveys a wide range of emotional experiences including joy, contentment, elation, bliss and pleasure. We can feel many shades of happy, but we can’t be happy. This is important because if we’re striving for some permanent state of feeling happy we’ll never reach it. Best to recognise that right from the outset!

Realising that ‘happy’ is a feeling is incredibly liberating. Feelings come and go. It’s part of the human experience. To believe we can reach a state where we only feel one thing is to believe we can exclude all those other transitory emotions. It’s to believe we can become something less than human.

Feeling happy is wonderful. We all enjoy it and many of us would like to feel it more often. I think that’s what we mean when we say we’re searching for happiness. Not that we want to achieve some permanent happy high, but we want more of the feeling in our lives.

And there really is no secret to it.

Each of us has felt happy at times. We know what it feels like and we know the things that stimulate the feeling. We don’t need any secrets to be revealed. Every single one of us already knows how to feel happy.

Feeling ‘not-happy’

956734_desolationThere are times for feeling happy and there are times for feeling something else that’s not-happy.

  • If I experience a loss in my life, that’s a time for mourning and feeling sad
  • If my safety is threatened, that’s a time for feeling afraid
  • If I make a mistake and someone gets hurt, that’s a time for feeling upset or ashamed
  • If I use up all my resources and need rest then that’s a time for feeling tired
  • Etc..

The point is that as we go through life there are things we do, things that happen to us that don’t fill our needs and there’s no place for feeling happy. It’s part of evolving, growing and living to feel the full range of human emotions. If we strive to reach ‘happiness’ then we miss out on that part of being human. We deny the other, less enjoyable, experiences.

When I’m feeling ‘not-happy’ I know I will feel happy again, but for now I want to honour the emotions that are alive and not try to deny them. They’re telling me something important as they’re clues to what’s missing right now – and they’re signals towards action I can take to change that. For the moment anyway. Not-happy will come back just as surely as happy.

Happy people

We often talk about ‘happy people’ and this can mean at least two different things. We can mean someone who has a propensity to feel happy often or someone who frequently expresses when they do feel it. These are related but not the same.

I have a ‘happy propensity’ when my inclination is to focus on the positive experiences in life. I actively seek out opportunities to feel happy and I attract the things that are good for me. There’s no secret to this either. It’s a choice, a decision I can make at any time. There’s nothing in the external world that can force me to choose this – it’s up to me. In the same way if I choose a negative outlook on life, that’s my decision too. It’s surely influenced by upbringing, by environment and maybe by genes – but I’m not a victim of these unless I choose to be.

I can also develop my skills at expressing the happy feeling at the times I’m experiencing it. I smile, laugh, take a particular tone of voice and describe things in a positive way. Expressing happiness is contagious. Again there’s no secret skill involved and we all know how to do it.

The 2 ‘non-secrets’ of feeling happy

If you want to feel happy more often you already know how to do it. There are basically two ways:

Joy1   Do more of what makes you happy

You’ve doubtless discovered many activities, environments and people that fufil you in some way and bring about this feeling we call happy. Spend more time with the people you enjoy and seek the activities and environments that make you happy.

You know what those are, not me and you don’t need any guru to tell you what they are. We’re all different and so it’s not surprising that different things make us happy.

2   Discover new things that make you happy

Chances are you’ve not yet discovered all the things available in life that will make you happy. There’s experiences you’ve yet to have that will bring you to the temporary state we call happiness.

Seek them out, throw yourself into new experiences and enjoy the adventure of life.

And remember – there’s no magic secret waiting to be revealed to you. It’s already been revealed!

The invisible path

Jul 9th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
11 comments

The idea of our lives as a journey is a very old one – Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’, for example, and our language is filled with journey metaphors. We talk about ‘reaching a crossroad’ when faced with a major decision or ‘reading the signs’ when looking for guidance. But what is this journey we call ‘life’?

A reader sent me a message some time ago and in it she wrote the following (repeated with permission, of course):

I work with Tarot. The Fool is called in older decks The Juggler and is often seen balancing on one foot while juggling. One summer, when my daughter was seven, she came up with the idea that she would like to draw her own tarot deck. I gave her some blank index cards and left her to it.

A couple of days later I asked how her project was going.

She pulled me into her room to show me. The fools card was very interesting. It showed a man dancing along a narrow path. He looked a bit like Indiana Jones. I just asked her, wasn’t that path suppose to be invisible?

“Nope,” she answered. “He knew that path wasn’t supposed to be seen, it was supposed to be felt. That’s how he is balancing.”

I had worked with the cards for years and had learned many lessons, but my daughter taught me much that day.

There was something about this story that I really liked, though at first it seemed to me contradictory. But then the wisdom of a seven year old has a certain purity and logic that is often lost on us adults. Well, this adult anyway.

Reading the story several times now, I find some wonderful imagery.

We are all dancing Jugglers

There are so many things to balance, balls to keep in the air. In many parts of the world life is really quite complex and how often do we drop the ball? It’s not always easy to know what is most important and what can be safely discarded. Juggling is frenetic, skilful and can be a beauty to behold when we find our balance and our rhythm.

We are all Indiana Jones

Life is an adventure, a journey to be travelled. It’s full of exciting places to explore and discover, experiences to savour and dilemmas to face. If we choose to take the journey, that is, rather than watch it as an observer. Indie could have stayed put and carried on lecturing at his university, but he chose to get out, solve mysteries, recover ancient wisdom and artifacts. He was also courageous, got beaten up a lot but ultimately was a hero, albeit a fictional one. Don’t we all have the hero inside us? Don’t we all have the spirit of adventure waiting to burst out?

We are all Fools

I take my life’s journey way too seriously at times. Writing about nonviolence is not always light and cheery stuff, I realise, but in the scale of the universe there’s nothing we humans have ever done, are doing or will ever do that is really so important or serious. We are just ‘dust in the wind’ to quote the song, and whenever I believe any different, then I’m a Fool.

Our paths are supposed to be invisible

We walk the path of our lives never knowing for sure what’s ahead. No matter how intelligent we think we are, we can not see the future. And if we did, then would there be a purpose to our lives? If our paths were known to us then what would our free will and our actions mean? It would be like reading the last page of a mystery novel – there’s really not much point then in going back and reading the rest. Or at least it takes a lot of the pleasure out of it.

Our paths are revealed to us

I’m a great believer in signs. As in a real trip, we often take a map and rely on the signposts to help us move forward. With life, we know our destination. In human form our end point is death. There are many theories about what might happen after that, but death is certain for all of us. The important thing (to us as individuals) is the path we take to get there. Signs, if we choose to read them, help us on our way. We can miss the signs if we’re not attentive, and we can misread the signs, but they are all around and within us to reveal parts of our journey.

Felt not seen

We know when we’re on track. We know it because we feel it and our minds can understand that. Provided we learn to listen to what our feelings are telling us. Provided we allow our minds to do what they do well and not allow them to get cluttered up with all the rubbish we feed into them.

When you look in the mirror in the morning, is the person you see smiling back at you. If so, they are probably on their path.

In search of honesty

Jun 1st, 2009
by ianpeatey.
18 comments

Often I hear honesty talked about as black or white – either I’m honest or dishonest in what I say. It’s even combined with the common habit of labelling so that people are then classified into honest or dishonest.

Isn’t it a bit trickier than that? Is ‘honesty’ really that straightforward?

Honesty – a core value

I consider honesty one of the core values we all share and strive for – not least with ourselves.

One of my teachers put it something like this:

‘We’re all searching for our Truth. The problem is we’re surrounded by half-truth, so we put a huge amount of energy simply into trying to separate truth from half-truth. The more honesty we have in our lives, the more we can devote to discovering our Truth.’

I think he meant that ‘searching for our Truth‘ is our quest for understanding our place and our purpose in life, and ‘truth‘ and ‘half-truth‘ are the messages we tell ourselves and others. The more accurate the messages, the clearer becomes our search for meaning.

For me it’s intimately linked with trust. Without honesty, without ‘truth’, it is impossible to build trust. And without trust we can never be sure about ourselves or the people in our lives.

Anyone who has ever been in an intimate relationship knows that one lie can destroy years of building depth and closeness. Anyone who studies the news knows that one lie can destroy a political career. Anyone who has been in business knows that one lie can destroy co-operation.

Honesty and truth are essential qualities in all our relationships.

The value of self censorship

Having said this I also believe self censorship is a key skill.

A couple of years ago I met a guy who’d spent some time in, what he described as, a community based on stream of consciousness. What that meant was that members of the group agreed to reveal everything that passed through them – thoughts, feelings, emotions. If a thought entered his head he spoke it. He said he left the cult community when he started to suspect the founder and leader of using it as a way of seducing women rather than a genuine attempt to learn and foster complete honesty!

As an experiment in understanding and getting control of my thinking this sounds very interesting. But I’m certainly not yet ready for complete honesty. Some of my thoughts are better kept to myself.

For example I was in a hotel elevator a couple of days ago moving from the 5th floor to the ground. The lift stopped at the 4th floor where a women stepped in and pressed the button to take her to the 2nd. The thought that flashed through my head was, “Why don’t you take the stairs, you lazy cow?”

Can you imagine what might have happened if I’d actually said that? If I’d offered this woman a combination of my rather unflattering judgement and a bit of re-education?

If I allowed all of the rubbish that passes through my brain to also pass through my lips I imagine I would have been physically beaten up many times and verbally even more.  Judging from the amount of violence in the world, I somehow doubt I’m the only one who has crazy things in their head. I suspect behind most, if not all, acts of violence sits some such thought.

Maybe one day I’ll be in complete control of my thinking, but until then I’ll continue to exercise a degree of self censorship over my honesty!

Honesty with myself

The value of catching such thoughts is that it gives me a great opportunity to be honest with myself. If I only take them at face value, whether I reveal them or not, I potentially miss the chance to learn something.

Every time I have any judgemental thought is a chance to learn and take a small step towards my own Truth. Thoughts are often superficial and bubble up from some deeper currents within. That surface of thinking could be messages from my emotional world, my belief systems, my core values or my higher self.

In the example above I clearly saw it as a reflection of me and nothing to do with the lift woman. Maybe it was repressed anger surfacing that I’d be wise to have a look at. Maybe it was in that moment I was in a rush  and so was some signal to develop better personal organisation.

Honesty with others

Whenever I ask a question I’m wanting something. Often it is honesty and truth I want:

  • When I want to learn and I’m asking for your feedback to help me with that.

If I ask my wife, ‘What do you think about my latest article?‘ I want to know precisely what she thinks so I can learn and improve. I want her honesty.

  • When I sense something and want to discover what it is.

10 years ago I lost my job. I sensed something was going to happen so I asked my boss to his face, ‘Is my job safe?‘ I truly wanted to know. I wanted to be treated as a responsible adult and respected with the truth. He lied to me.  I wasn’t upset about losing my job, but I was devastated about the lie.

  • When I want to build trust between us

I often ask my wife what’s going on inside her because I want to connect with her. I want to understand and touch more of her inner world. I fully respect if she chooses not to share, but I don’t want her to lie to me.

Do we always want honesty?

Sometimes I want reassurance more than I want honesty, for example, if I’m feeling vulnerable, my self esteem is low and I don’t have the resources myself to bring it back up. If I ask ‘Do you think I’ve lost weight?‘ then I probably only want honesty if the answer is ‘Yes!’ If not, then I’d prefer you exercise some self-censorship!

I have a sense I’ve only scratched the surface here in my search for honesty, and what it means.

I’d love to hear your views on the subject.

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