How far are you willing to go to be authentic?  At what point do you decide to compromise yourself and accommodate others? How much compromise/accommodation is really necessary in our relationships, our work, our lives?

My answer today, in this moment, is hopefully very little. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t do the self-betrayal thing any more. My body just won’t move in that direction. The resistance that comes up feels like I’d have to move a mountain of bricks to do something I really don’t want to do. My whole being shuts down energetically if it even gets a whiff of sacrifice in the air.

Does this mean I am selfish or that I don’t like doing things for others? Of course not. But when it comes to giving, I’d rather step into the stream of effortless flow where the giving bubbles to the surface naturally and just moves me in that direction. My heart expands with joy when I give from that place. Besides no one wants to receive something from someone who doesn’t have it to give or who tangles the giving in a web of expectations and resentment.

No thanks. Don’t bother.

We all need to feed and nourish ourselves. Take time out and recharge and restore ourselves. When we are fed and nourished, the desire to give comes more readily. So many of us live on a self-starvation diet, depleting our stores of energy in exchange for money or some other commodity, that we’ve forgotten what really listening to our own needs even feels like.

It doesn’t have to be like that, even down to the simplest level. If you hate getting up early in the morning and that is truly authentic for you, find a way to structure your life to support that. If being alone helps you to feel grounded and centered again, make sure you have enough solitude in your schedule. If it’s authentic for you to be in nature on a regular basis, then make life choices around that.

Too much compromise and sacrifice makes us cranky. Long periods of habitual self-betrayal can wear deep grooves in our psyches, leaving us depressed or angry or full of anxiety. Allowed to go on long enough and you’re creating fertile ground for a major illness, a meltdown or both.

Not a pretty picture. And certainly not worth it.

So what to do? Stop it! Right now. Just stop.

Take a breath and step back from your life and assess the damage. In what areas of your life are you betraying yourself? In what areas do you deny your needs in favor of another’s? In what areas of your life is it more important to be liked and approved of than it is to follow your own way? How much of yourself do you sacrifice (negotiate) in order to get something you want or hang onto something you have?

On the flip side, how much do you expect others to sacrifice or compromise on your behalf?

Can we all just put an end to this unnecessary martyrdom and suffering?

I think we can, without too much fall out. Most radical change requires going to the opposite extreme. You may have to start by simply practicing the fine art of saying no. To everyone. Or at least to as many people as you can get away with for as long as it takes to break the habit of saying yes when you’d rather not.

Another thing that helps is to start paying attention to your body and your energy levels. If something drains the shit out of you…by all means, don’t do it. If it energizes and excites you, obviously, say yes.

Sounds so simple, but most of us have developed a pretty strong override button that effectively silences our needs in one fell swoop, essentially taking us out of any equation that comes up. Because our needs are cut off, we aren’t factored in. Instead, we simply move into and through our lives on automatic pilot reacting to things and putting out fires, without regard to the inner yearnings of our souls.

People aren’t mind readers. You have to know what you want and ask for it. You have to stake your claim or you will get walked on or at least left out. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but the juicy, fun part of life happens when we engage with it full out with our entire being.

So stop censoring yourself. Stop holding back. Stop second guessing yourself. And for God’s sake, stop worrying about what other people think.

Create the space for the real you to emerge. Then, and only then, will you be free to give.

Life essentially gives us what we ask for. How do we ask? By what we put forth. Everything that leaves our circle of being…and I do mean everything—our thoughts, emotions, judgments, beliefs—comes back around in some way. We are all connected and there is no place in that field of connection to hide. If we soil the ocean of existence, there is no way to escape accountability for that.

It’s taken me a good many years and many hard life lessons to realize that life has certain rules of operation and the sooner we align with those rules, the easier our lives become. Those rules include showing up to do our part, being fully accountable for ALL of our actions and keeping our corner of existence clean. A tall order, indeed.

Spiritual maturity is not about finding easy answers to life’s problems. It is about meeting what is head on without resistance, embracing it fully with all of its confusion and chaos. It’s also about knowing that life is always a reflection of what is happening inside of us on ALL levels, both conscious and unconscious.

Many people on the spiritual path make the mistake of thinking that prayer and affirmations are enough to shifts things in their lives and the lives of their loved ones. But it takes more than that. Showing up is a big part of manifestation. In order to attract what we want into our lives, we need to demonstrate our desire and willingness to receive it through our actions. It is a way of meeting life halfway. We cannot complain that things are missing from our lives if we aren’t willing to put ourselves forth to meet these things fully. Hiding out in our habitual comfort zones, and then wondering why our lives are so full of lack, makes no sense, but that’s what most of us do. We passively wait for the good to show up for us.

To spiritually mature, we also need to put our attention on our accountability. Many of us are conscientious when it comes to our behavior in the world, but lazy when it comes to our thoughts and emotions and what comes out of our mouths. This won’t fly because everything that moves from us, touches everyone else and eventually comes back and touches us. If you knew that when you spoke a sharp word about someone, it traveled from you and pierced another, would you be so willing to let it go? If you knew that the reason you felt pain at a given time was due to that same sharp word you sent out, would you still allow yourself to be the originator of that pain?

Of course not. But most of us have not cultivated an awareness of that level of accountability yet. If we had, our conversations with others would be quite different, as would our conversations with ourselves.

Finally, how do we clean things up if we do make a mess? It’s quite simple: honesty and forgiveness. Being honest with ourselves and others, taking responsibility and then apologizing for our part in the mess cleans it up. We don’t have to beat ourselves up or even hold onto the mistake, except to receive the lesson it imparts. Rather, it is really only necessary to see it, acknowledge it, clean it up, forgive ourselves and then MOVE ON.

There is nothing to be gained by lingering in the mess. As we move through this process of cleaning things up, we will find ourselves far more forgiving and compassionate when others make a mess. This creates all kinds of space and openness around us and then there is finally room for the good stuff: love, joy, peace, etc.

The magic of life comes in when we embrace life and ourselves fully, messiness and all.

Growing up sounds terribly dull and boring, but in fact it is quite the opposite. All of that mess that we were unconsciously creating was in fact blocking all the good things we’ve been seeking. It created distractions and constant fires to put out. When we begin to take responsibility for the mess and clean it up, this allows us to clear the channel so that we can receive what has always been there. It allows us to become childlike and look at life with wonder again.

My sense is that we will also have much more access to the parts of ourselves that are mostly dormant and unused…the parts of us that are able to transcend time and space. Most of us have had glimpses of that, and the possibilities are endless and tremendously exciting.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I’ve been speaking to friends of mine about why life seems so hard much of the time, and through a circuitous route, we ended up with a number of conclusions, none entirely satisfying. People’s theories ranged from, “none of this is real” to “your outer world is a reflection of your inner world” to “suffering and struggle are necessary” to all theories in between.

Even those of us who put lots of attention on the meaning of life seem baffled most of the time. No amount of our intricate story-weaving really even touches the mysteries of life nor answers our demands for an explanation.

I’ve always cultivated a fantasy that somewhere, sometime I would meet someone who would tap me on the shoulder and point me in the direction of the Truth. That like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain would be outed.

I suppose the not-knowing is what keeps life interesting and magical. The uncertainty keeps us in the game. But, and most would agree, sometimes, it is just all too much. Sometimes, I’m just tired. Moving through the density of the 3-D feels like a trudge through the mud, and once in a while — without the help of mind altering substances or the nightly out of body forays of the dreamstate — I’d like to have the sensation of flowing freely through and with it (sober AND awake).

The best I’ve come up with so far is to not resist what is. Rather, I just let myself fall into what’s happening in the moment…fully and completely, until I’m so in it, I don’t differentiate myself from it. I merge into it with a full out embrace and trust. Seated in the Is-ness, I am gifted with periods of real peace and even joy, but not what I would call freedom. Sorry, but that’s what I’m really going for. Sadly, I think that’s the one thing I cannot really have. At least not in the way I imagine it.

Being here on this plane of existence doesn’t appear to be about freedom or transcendence or nirvana. If it is, it certainly isn’t the easiest door to open. Believe me, I’ve tried, and paradoxically, it is that trying that has led to my failure. It seems as though the very act of wanting and seeking and desiring a way out of the limitations of physically existence, actually seals the door even tighter, whereas, letting go of the need for things to be different, being with all that is as it is, tends to crack it open just a hair.

In other words, if you’re here, be here. Death is your ticket out. Life has a built in exit plan. Knowing that, wouldn’t you want to hang out here and see what happens next? Besides, how do you or I know that once we die, we aren’t lining up to come right back? How do we know this isn’t one of the coolest places in existence to incarnate?

On the other hand, it could also be a prison matrix where we’ve been sent to learn some heavy-duty lessons as part of some kind of karmic debt. Or even further down that line of thinking, we could be prisoners with no real reason behind our imprisonment other than we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In that model, those of us looking for an escape would be considered heroes.

This illusiveness and speculation is precisely the problem. Like a kaleidoscope, our experience of life shifts depending on how you look at it. Turn it one way and it looks like a cosmic dance filled with divine blessings and opportunities. Turn it another way, and it looks like a cruel, painful phenomenon filled with unnecessary hardship and suffering. Turn it again, and it falls somewhere in the middle and looks like the most ordinary thing in the world.

Maybe it’s all of those things, plus more. Perhaps we’ll never really know what this is all about. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I don’t know…personally, I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking for answers or wondering what’s around the next corner. Maybe that’s a good thing, too.

One of the best ways to penetrate through the mundane states of being is to step back and question why we do the things we do. What is it that compels us to follow a set of rules that oftentimes costs us dearly in terms of our freedom and autonomy and authenticity?

We conform because it typically serves the greater good, even if it inconveniences us. For the most part, this works. However, sometimes rules simply cease to work or never worked in the first place and need to be looked at and changed. Instead, they are held to because people fear change or get stuck in the “this is the way we’ve always done it” mentality.

My father questioned our man-made rules, often to an extreme. In fact, he perpetuated a mythology that fostered a family-held belief that we were above the rules and were entitled to special treatment. His argument was simply that because a select group of human beings made the rules without consulting the rest of us, we had a right to challenge those rules or disobey them altogether. Again and again, my sisters and I witnessed him refusing to wear a tie and jacket into restaurants that required it and paying heavy traffic fines for “forgetting” to renew his license and registration. He never went anywhere without his radar detector. If there was traffic on the highway, he would simply drive on the shoulder. Once when he locked his keys in a rental car, instead of calling the rental company or the police to help him get into the car, he simply grabbed a hammer and broke the window. Patience was not a virtue of his.

My father just didn’t think the rules applied to him. About his own death, he used to say, “I’m not leaving.” About that he was wrong – he died in 1980 in a fatal car crash.

This sense of entitlement, this assumption that we have a pass and can get away with things that others can’t doesn’t work. Even with an extended grace period or a long lucky streak, rule breaking catches up with you. Believe me, I know. This lesson has come up and slapped me and my sisters in the face many times.

While I’m not advocating blinding following the herd and being a sheeple, what I am saying is there are no shortcuts. Yes, we need to become conscious of our actions and our thoughts, but we must respect the fact that we live in a 3-D world that is governed by both natural laws and man-made rules. Perhaps in an evolved state of consciousness, we can transcend both. However, we have to be careful not to ASSUME we are in that evolved state when in fact we’re not, because there will be consequences. We may think we’re getting away with something, but skirting responsibility for our actions has an insipid way of catching up with us, either immediately and directly or karmically, with a bit of a delay. Either way, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable, we will eventually get caught with our pants down.

Life has a way of calling us to task when we try and run from facing certain aspects of ourselves. It can be humiliating and painful to have to face our own delusions, but on the other side is a cleaner type of freedom, which doesn’t require being on the run to maintain it.

So it’s about a healthy balance. On one end of the spectrum you have blind obedience and on the other end you have a kind of reckless “anything goes” abandon. Somewhere in the middle is an awake person who questions the way things are while at the same time navigating through life with respect for oneself and others. On that rare occasion, we can find ourselves with a get out of jail free pass. But these kinds of passes are not something to count on or live by, just appreciate them when they do come.

The rest of the time, we’re on our own.

I recently read that when Marlon Brando was asked why he didn’t memorize his lines, he replied, “Real people don’t know what they want to say.” I relate to this because when I teach or give a presentation, it flows much better and more authentically when I don’t prepare beforehand. I can reflect on what I might like to do and have a few triggers or props handy, but the REAL stuff emerges when I get out the way completely and just let what wants to come through flow unimpeded. Amazingly, I end up learning a hell of a lot as well…it’s as if I tap into an infinite, universal well of knowledge and I become a conduit for a greater source of knowledge than I would have if I’d spent time efforting at it through research, creating outlines, and writing copious notes.

After 18 years of teaching, I only discovered this recently when I began to teach teenagers. Knowing I needed to make my classes more dynamic and exciting to capture and sustain their attention, I accidentally stumbled upon a core truth at the heart of all creativity: THE LESS I TRIED to teach them or inspire them, the more I actually did and THE MORE I TRIED, the more I failed. The REAL juicy passionate fun stuff happens through you when YOU get out of the way. As soon as you put the “I” into the equation and you try and manipulate or control the outcome, your efforts flatline and the passion gets sucked dry.

My presumption that we are not the doer was confirmed by a recent conversation I had with an engineer. The engineer explained that the perception of ourselves as the doer and the originator of an idea was actually caused by a split second delay in the left side of our brain, the part that perceives the “I”. He agreed that when the “I” tries to do anything, it messes things up.

I shared this conversation in an email to my brother in-law, an artist, and he responded by describing his experience when he paints, “When I go into a painting, you might say that I intend to be spontaneous once that the brush has its first dip into the paint. When the painting is going well (here I begin to sound like Jackson Pollack) “I” have no idea of how it will go or come out. The more I try to intervene, the worse the result in the long run and “I” recognize it as a failure or simply as a bad result (since I’m an old hand at this). But then, I always hear the voice of Carl Sublett, one of my favorite professors, who said. “We never LOSE a painting,” which means that your spontaneity can have freedom after you re-evaluate the painting and align yourself again with your original intention. You “repaint” the painting. In other words, it seems like intention is a program of the ego and spontaneity is when one releases oneself to that “cosmic intelligence” or “great spirit”. When the two are one, then you’re on a roll.”

Releasing oneself to that cosmic intelligence or getting out of the way creates the space for magic to happen. Life becomes more of a dance that way with us as both the participant and the observer.

If you really knew that the part of you that you refer to as the “I” was really a perceptual trick and actually wasn’t deciding or controlling anything, imagine the freedom that would come from that! Imagine truly knowing that you could trust what is happening as it’s happening rather than feeling the need to control it or change it! You would be free to just experience it, to be in it without an agenda.

This of course, would not mean you would become completely passive or catatonic. Instead, you would simply shift from directing things to following where you were directed to go. The cool thing is that there is no one exactly like you, so what comes through you is a specific set of experiences that can only manifest through your particular form with all of its unique characteristics.

Ultimately, what this all means is that you would remember that you are not the “I”, but the life force and awareness behind the “I”. The “I” is merely there as a tool to use to gain experience. Where we get tripped up is thinking it’s who we are.

I used to think these peak experiences, spontaneity and the feeling of being in the flow was something random that just happened here and there. Now I see that this as the natural state of our being, and the best indication that we have finally gotten out of our own way.

Something’s gotta give. The planet is strained to the breaking point in its ability to sustain our burgeoning human population with our ever growing waste and toxic lifestyles.

We need help. But short of an evolved extraterrestrial species arriving at the eleventh hour to bail us out of our stupidity and ignorance, we’re on our own.

To some people, plain and simple, that would mean we’re doomed. However, I would like to suggest that left to our own devices, we actually DO have the capacity to transform our current situation. The problem is that we’ve forgotten how. We’ve forgotten that in addition to being human, we also have within us something quite extraordinary, something mostly unseen and unnoticed, but something not at all limited by the boundaries of time and space.

This transcendent aspect of us is the energy or intelligence within us that created us and gives us life. Don’t you find it strange, how little attention we give to this core essence of our existence? Instead, few of us acknowledge that this even exists or that we have any access to it or would know what to do with it even if we could access it.

It’s as if life is a puzzle and we’re born into it with a bit of amnesia and confusion and only a handful of clues about our existence. As our life unfolds, we have many opportunities to remember and become clear and even to work the puzzle. Our tendency is to look outside of ourselves for answers. There are so many sources of information and teachers out there who promise to answer our questions. All ultimately lead us astray, except those who redirect our query back to their source: ourselves.

It is only then that we can begin to discover for ourselves not only the answers to our questions, but the source of the questions themselves. We begin at the end and end at the beginning. All our fruitless searches return us to where we started, with the greatest discovery of all being that there is nowhere to go and what we seek we already have.

With that said, how will that discovery save us? It will not only save us but it will relieve us finally of the burden of having to figure it all out. Because whether we know it or not, we are not in charge of the show. We are simply playing our small role. There is instead, a director or cosmic intelligence that can see the whole thing as it plays out. Our only duty is to make sure we listen to that intelligence as it gives us our cues and tells us our positions in the grand drama that is unfolding.

What does freedom really look like?

To me, freedom means there is a lot of space and room around me and my life. Lots of room to breathe and move and be flexible and spontaneous and intuitive. Lots of space for options and choices and sudden bursts of ideas. Freedom is flow; freedom is effortless doing.

Is this pure fantasy? Or is it possible to have a life imbibed with joy and meaning?

Yes and no. It’s possible, but from where most of us are sitting, it’s not easy. In fact, true freedom goes against everything we’ve been taught and shown and told to believe.  To be truly free means to question the very structures that make up the life we’re involved in on a daily basis—the structure of work, family, community, education, government, etc. Our very lifestyle and the decisions we habitually make are all up for grabs when it comes to shifting our perspective.

The problem is that we are terrified of not fitting in, of not conforming or adhering to the status quo. Perhaps we have stepped out the box in one aspect of our lives; we’ve dipped a toe in the water, but when we truly question our state of being in any given moment, how many of us can truly say we are free or that our lives bring us joy and fulfillment?

Where is the passion in our relationships and our work? Where is the wonder we felt as very young children when we are exploring the world around us? Why were we told again and again to put away childish things? Why were we required to suppress our natural curiosity and submit to the will of others?

This makes no sense. From a very young age we have been on a path of soul destruction. Told to deny our natural urges and interests, we lost touch with our inner voices. Instead we tuned into the cacophony of signals coming in from experts and authorities who told us what to do and how to think.

Is it any wonder that the very idea of freedom is such a foreign one when what is natural and innate in us has been diverted and sabotaged by the very world we live in?

Sounds pretty bleak when looked at with such razor sharp eyes. However, there is a way to soften the blow a bit. You can start where you are. Examine your life and look for the small pieces of it that bring you joy, the areas where you feel the most authentic, in which you are expressing yourself without hesitation. Take that part of your life and expand it a bit, just keep adding to it bit by bit. Kind of like remodeling an old house—sometimes it requires that you take down some walls.

What would a life without walls look like? Personally, it is radically different from the life I have lived for most of my adult life. It is a life that first questions, and then breaks through paradigms one by one, and doesn’t stop until there is enough room to express yourself freely and fully. Any hindrances must be looked at—and I mean ANYTHING that is standing in the way of being who you are and expressing it fully. For many people this typically implies looking at the work they do everyday. For others, it is a relationship. And still others, it is an overall lifestyle issue. Finally, for some brave souls, it means looking at EVERYTHING.

Face it, we all lie to ourselves and others about who we are and what we want. We do this, and rightly so, to survive. Our society and culture expects this of us. We want to fit in and engage, so we play along.

However, there comes a point, in which these lies or walls need to come down. The time most likely for this to happen is midlife. This is when many of us come face to face with our choices and realize that they are not reflective of our innermost being. This can manifest as an existential crisis in which we make rash decisions to try and remedy the situation or make up for lost time. Our mortality looms large and there is an urgency to make things right. The ability to suppress our desires and passions wanes and instead this energy bubbles and boils in an almost volcanic turbulence below the surface begging us to finally honor our need to be authentic.

Unfortunately, our culture is not too supportive of breaking down walls. Many become frightened by the intensity of their discontent and seek professional help to quell it. For those who don’t choose that option, and depending upon how far off the mark they really are from living authentically, it can be nothing short of a complete upheaval. The level of upheaval is usually in direct proportion to the level and amount of time a person has been holding back.

I like to think of myself in an ever expanding process of walking the talk. To whatever degree my life doesn’t reflect my values and the ideas I put out to others, then I’m a hypocrite. In the areas of my life where that inconsistency exists, then I need to remain silent. My words are empty and meaningless, unless I am demonstrating them by embodying them and living them. This sounds harsh, I know, but without this standard then there is no place for me to go. Authenticity and freedom and especially joy are the mile markers that let me know I’m on the right track, and that I am honoring my soul and its gifts.

The best part is that none of this is the means to an end. The journey itself is what’s so profoundly beautiful about being alive. Having an epiphany, a breakthrough, a shift in perspective is part of the fun of being here. We never know what’s around the next corner and I just want to make sure my view isn’t blocked by some poorly erected wall. Eventually, I would like to think I won’t need any walls at all to feel safe.

In the meantime, the fresh air is feeling pretty good.

Photo by Julian Fann

Training the ego is like training a dog—no one wants to be around a poorly behaved dog. It’s not the dog’s fault he barks too much, bites people, chases cars, soils the carpet, etc., he just needs to be trained. Our egos also need to be trained, to be put in their place, not to run rampant and out of control wreaking havoc wherever they go

An untrained mind is that is out of control is our responsibility. We live on a planet surrounded by millions of similar untrained, out of control minds; because of this, things are a mess and bordering on total destruction. Bad decisions, addictions, consumerism, waste, conflicts in relationships, boredom in work, etc., are all ego-based. Imagine a world in which we took the ego out of the equation!

In a battle with two egos, there is no way to win. It’s reduced to trying to prove who’s right and who’s wrong, and that end, once achieved, is a hollow victory. It creates a winner and a loser, but neither benefit from the outcome. Real connection and communion can only occur when both parties are open and present and egos are in check. Keeping the ego in check in a relationship isn’t easy—there are so many opportunities to be offended, misinterpreted, confused, and so forth, mainly because we are entering into this connection with pre-conceived ideas rather than coming to it fresh and open. We base our relationships on the past and the future bringing with us assumptions, expectations, stories, judgments, and concepts— in other words, lots of baggage that we automatically project onto that person. This essentially renders the relationships both mute and blind, because instead of really hearing and seeing other people, we are actually having a conversation with our concept of them—they might as well not even be there.

One way to change this is to begin to break habitual patterns in our lives. But, as most of us can attest, that’s easier said than done. The subterranean levels of the psyche—the deep and murky shadowland of the unconscious, the really ugly dirty stuff of the core wound survival stuff—is not an easy terrain in which to move or breathe. That’s why we need to tread carefully. We cannot actively attack the ego—that only makes it stronger. Instead, we have to take our attention away from it and essentially refuse to feed it; through neglect, its power will weaken and eventually fade away. Again not simple, and that’s where the need for training and undoing old bad habits comes in. Many seek a teacher for this, a shaman, a guru, a sage or monk. But let me warn you…this is a slippery slope filled with teachers whose biggest problems are their egos. And there are no short-cuts. Just like learning anything else and doing it well it takes daily, and in the case of the ego, sometimes, hourly or even moment by moment practice. As a wise person told me not so long ago, we have millions of thoughts per day, so don’t expect to get control of them overnight. However, just knowing they need to be controlled is half the battle. The other half is a lot of blood, sweat and tears…lots of trial and error…two steps forward and ten back…that kind of thing.

Are you up for it? Unless, you’ve been dragged along the pavement of life and are tired of being scraped up, probably not. This type of practice isn’t for the light-hearted or the lazy. It’s for those who want to finally once and for all turn down that incessant meaningless chatter, and find out what lies behind all this insanity and senseless suffering. It’s for those know there’s more and are willing to do whatever it takes to access it.

Yes, things have to get pretty bad, to the point where we decide that enough is enough, and we won’t tolerate the suffering the ego generates anymore

With that said, there are also innumerable ways that people have stumbled upon this egoless place…quite by accident. One woman whose story is circulating like mad around the internet got there when she suffered a stroke to the left hemisphere of her brain. Others simply have a sudden awakening with no rhyme or reason.

Perhaps you’re one of those. For the rest of us, we can begin freeing ourselves from the tyranny of an untrained mind today. Some wise teachers suggest starting with the question, “Who Am I?” and see what opens up from there.

Think about it…if you’re not your personal history, your stories, your concepts and beliefs, your daily roles in life, then WHO ARE YOU?

I recently began to imagine what might happen if we truly wiped the slate clean – eliminated all activities, habits, and engagements with others – just stopped doing for as long as it took to find out what might happen.

In that pure state of relaxed being-ness and non-doing, my guess is that eventually the impulse to do something would arise naturally, not from some kind of external pressure, but rather an innate sense that it was time to move and do…time to act and to create something out of nothing.

This temporary retreat from the world, if done in complete immersion, would successfully create a gap between the inauthentic and the authentic, essentially a limbo or void of just pure existence that is not attempting to self-express. It is within this gap that a true bridge can be built from the false to the real. This gap is what cuts the cord between the past and the future and immerses us in the present fully, and it is only from that place that anything close to being real can emerge.

By expanding fully into the space of the present, we can break free from all the things from the past that were holding us back and keeping us in bondage. For it is only when you stop doing long enough and shift into a state of just being that you begin to see what matters. Otherwise, the habitual default mode continues to operate, keeping you comfortably unconscious.

There is something extremely powerful about removing old habits; it has a way of shedding instant light on what’s left in the shadows to be seen and faced.

In my own life, though I have come a long way, I have not gone quite deep enough. Indeed, while I give myself little breaks, here and there, there is always the energetic pull of what was left undone, yanking me back, because God forbid, I might fuck something up and have to fix it later. Right now though, I’m being called out to stop all the incessant doing and just allow myself to release the judgment and fear of rejection that comes from not feeling as though I measure up.

What is needed is a full scale rebellion…almost a revolution of being, in which I’m immersed in the space of no-thingness until I’m satiated, and then able to move into the doing authentically. I need a complete break from the mundane so that I can fully break ties with the old and then move into the future authentically, and stop dragging around the balls and chains from past beliefs about myself and others.

I know this…and yet, I’m still reluctant to let myself fully fall into that void of being. There are so many good reasons not to. So much support to stay busy and be productive. So many judgments to avoid and expectations to fulfill.

But I also know that in giving myself permission to discover the truth in this, that I can then speak about it from my own experience, which will in turn give others permission to do it.

Most people wait until something happens to them and forces them to take a break. Very few volunteer. But why wait until you’re ill or in a state of trauma? Then you’re busy trying to get better.

Why not simply move into it?

What will the people in my life say? They won’t allow it. They won’t accept it. I will feel guilty.

Sounds like bondage to me.

In fact, the whole entire way we live our lives makes absolutely no sense to me. Never has. Never will. Practically none of it is working. Our relationships. Our work. Our communities. Our environment. Our schools. Our government.

My theory is that the core reason for this is that no one knows what the hell they’re doing or why they’re even doing it. Most are doing what they do because everyone else is. Most are doing what they do because they are afraid of what other people will say and do if they don’t. This leaves very little room for anything real to emerge.

Authenticity takes time, and time is a rare commodity, doled out to the elite, who mostly waste it anyway. A true rebellion would begin when people take the time to stop doing and listen. This is where the most power lies. In silence. In the present moment. In the nothing-ness.

It is from there that real change can take place. It is there that true freedom lies.

Such a simple idea, and yet so seemingly unattainable.

The fear of being alone is what causes most people to enter into or remain in bad relationships. Fear, being the poor adviser that it is, leads to poor choices. It tends to keep company with scarcity and evokes the flight or fight response regularly. The energy associated with it is downright toxic.

What starts as simple enjoyment of the way we feel when our partner is around, can, when coupled with fear, move into attachment and even addiction, in which we feel tremendous suffering when they aren’t.

Essentially, when our well being is dependent on another person, we become enslaved to him or her. Take it another step further and you might even say our very survival is dependent on the relationship.

I call this type of relationship, the “save me from being alone relationship” in which one or both parties will literally put up with anything as long as they are assured they can hang onto the relationship.

People become each other’s life preservers.

Typically, my observation is that in most of these over-the-top co-dependent relationships one person plays the role of savior or master and the other plays the role of saved or slave. The person saved from being alone becomes indebted to the one who is doing the saving and is willing to do anything to repay this debt and please their savior.

The savior or master, on the other hand, holds all the cards and is in a position of power in the relationship. They call most of the shots and tend to exert great control over the relationship. There is a sado-masochistic dynamic at work here as well.

The slave is held hostage by the fear of being alone and the master uses this need as leverage against the slave. Both the controller and the controlled are each happy with this arrangement, because each is getting what they need.

This dynamic works until the master gets bored or the slave gets tired of being controlled or when either one or the other or both finds a new master or slave.

To break the spell or enchantment may require cult member style deprogramming as the fear and survival needs that created this dynamic may be buried so deep in the subconscious that neither party may even be aware what is at play in their relationship. Bringing the nature of the relationship into conscious awareness is one step on the road to healing.

But this begs the question: what does fear have to do with love?

Absolutely nothing.

Love doesn’t take hostages; fear does.

Love isn’t about control; fear is.

Love isn’t worried about the future; fear is.

Love is without conditions and restraints. Love is about freedom.

Fear has its own agenda, and that is to make sure you survive.

But life is not about mere survival. It’s about growth and learning and living…really living.

No one can save us from being alone.

We’re all alone. We’re born alone. We die alone.

Holding on tightly suffocates what’s near and dear.

Is that what we want to be doing?