Advice

The trick is to keep breathing. This is the only advice, I find, that is worth heeding. (HT Garbage)

Restless

Being caught up in the self-improvement loop is better than indulging self-destructive alternatives. Still, you’re fundamentally operating from restlessness—wherein: Rather than letting the truest impulses find you, you are busy rushing things. Your mind compels you to bulletproof and forcefeed:

• your ’’brain’’ with knowledge and information
• your ’’persona’’ with newsletters, updates & feeds on social
• your muscles and tendons with (over)corrective stretches and excessive exercise
• your ’’gut’’ with supplements and supposedly nutritious foods
• your ’’soul’’ with spiritual teachings

Etc.

All too busy deferring and buffering against the very wholeness that you seek.

 

Word Up

You can’t get away with anything in life. All illusions end up in pain. Never mind what happens: respond rather than react. You see what you aim at. Your ego keeps the scope fuzzy. Aim at the truth. Stay with your deepest intent, bracket the noise. Allow what arises without indulging or personalizing it. Stay empty handed, congruent only to the truth of this moment. The only thing that you can give is your presence and the only thing you can get is presence in return. Stay loose, go with the given. Notice nuances. Don’t mind what happens. Roll with what gives. See where it goes.

Space For It

Rather than getting lost in the grip of self-grasping: Self-massage during bad moods. Sit with it and wait until you can give voice to your emotional pain and once there is a voice to it just let is speak & then make fun of it, by gradually amplifying the phoney, whiny tone of it.

STFU

Given the choice between being dead, inert emptiness & being the embodied, incarnate emptiness which one would you choose, really?

Stuff I wish I had been told before entering “adulthood”

Not that it would have mattered (or meant) much, but still:

• Keep warm. Eat for heat. Keep your feet, your hands and nose warm in the colder seasons. Keep blood sugar elevated and relatively steady.

• You are not responsible for how others feel and act. Everybody is responsible for themselves. The slightest sense of guilt and shame you feel signal that you are playing games with yourself.

• All emotional pressure is self-imposed. Nobody is responsible for how you feel. Most of your pain is psychological which can be let go of by relaxing and seeing (through) it. Opportunities for this (in the form of problems and cringeful moments) will recur until there is total recognition.

• Girls are not like boys. Girls emote and they’re geared to react. Don’t be logical with her, ride her emotional waves instead. She doesn’t want to be impressed: she wants to be seen, met, felt, desired and taken by someone who has (loose, relaxed) poise and knows what he wants. Transparency is a big turn on for her. She wants to be ’thrusted’ by someone who can be totally trusted.

• Don’t take yourself (too) seriously. Don’t take things personally. Stay loose, at ease. Keep things light and simple. Stay cool.

• An argument doesn’t mean the end of a relationship. Conflicts are not ominous precursors to impending abandonment. They are an integral part of relationships. Nothing is ever personal, really. All things in intimacy are transpersonal, which is to say: Conflicts are openings.

• You cannot lose what/who truly belongs to you. The truth can’t be harmed. You always have what you need at the moment.

• You do not violate anyone by ’inconveniencing’ them with (your) truth—only your fragile little ego, which is always a good cause.

• It’s OK to be solitary in nature and to be a semi-recluse if that’s what makes you tick & feel alive. It doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve (to) care (for others).

• Don’t rush (into) anything, let things come to you. Things come to you when it’s time for them to come to you. Relentlessly: keep decelerating.

• Whatever you achieve in life you achieve despite your efforts, to the extent you give it space (~pure attention). Your life is a reflection of where you tend to place your attention. The more relaxed you are the more you tend to place your attention where it belongs.

• Wallowing in occasional bouts of sorrowful self-pity and emotionally abusing yourself is perfectly natural but remember that it’s also one of the easiest thing in life you can indulge in doing. That’s why everybody is doing it. Enjoy the odd melanchoholic binge but don’t overdo it unnecessarily. Don’t be a bitch, please.

• Much like everybody else you’ll feel some-one truly special compared to others, the uncrowned king/queen of (your little) universe, unrecognized and underappreciated. And that’s why you are going to struggle to be (seen as) better than ’’them’’. It’s totally futile.

• Your most important task in life is to find out the truth about who/what you truly All else is secondary.

• Nothing is a big deal. All is well, even when it’s not. Just stay available.

 

Coaching 101

If the first few sessions feel weird, confusing, irritating, frustratingly directionless and unnerving it’s a good sign that there is deceleration happening which is a necessary component. The truth that is shining through the one who plays the role of the guide will sharply interrupt most of the familiar, deeply conditioned patterns of relating. It takes trust and proper surrender on both the part of the guide to be as transparent [to the truth of the moment] as it gets and on the part of the client to be as receptive [to the guide’s translucent ’dictation’] as it gets. The guide is a tuner of sorts, tuning (up) the client into subtler frequencies of energy [within]. Authenticity acts as a psychological tonic in both directions. Ideally, guide and client mutually co-evolve in the moment of engaging and a session is a different experience not only with each client but with the very same client on each occasion as well. The more transparency and trust there is the quicker the attunement occurs. The client is basically self-guided to tune into their inner fountain of wisdom and intuition. Once the tuning is sufficiently habituated the guide can be jettisoned.

This type of coaching is not goal-oriented but more like ground-zero oriented, less in the spirit of facilitation than that of deceleration, of coming to a standstill where the guide and the client mutually explore the moment as it unfolds organically. It’s not building on pre-existing ego-bound values (of purpose, goal, success) but interrupts most of these surrogate patterns. It is typically an experience of failure and frustration accompanied by a sense of liberation. Instead of priming target emotions [of fulfilment] there is no target here other than a fuller presence to the transitory (e)motions in/of the moment, to the already given, to the foundation of inherent fulfilment. In essence, it’s a training aimed at aligning with the truth of the moment.

Qs for the Self-Improvement Folks

Are you still convinced that you can resolve your disagreeable issues? Are you still relating from the illusion of agency? Do you still dismiss the truth of this moment [the real essence of your being]? Do you still prefer to argue with it? Is it still the exhausting spin of your wheels that brings you peace of mind? Do you still need to (repeatedly) crash instead to relax and have a rest?

Especially When That Someone Is Yourself

if you really want to help someone
let them help you understand
where they are coming from and
where they are supposedly going

just pay attention

effortless effort

there is this seeming paradox
of resisting less and less and slowly relaxing into and freely expressing who you already are
and resisting more and more and progressively detaching and pushing away from who you think you are