Whether you are new or familiar with spiritual concepts, the one key thing across all of the teachings (meditation, kabbalah, mysticism of any kind, personal development classes, and yes, even Tony Robins) is that humans in general are not present. In fact most of us have never had a present moment in our lives or very few of them. If they are experience, most people experience being present during extreme stress situations. For example, anyone who has ever been in a car accident and time seems to slow down. That's being present. You are so in the moment, time literally seems to change form. For anyone who has ever been sky diving or for that matter done anything one might consider extreme or adrenaline inducing. You know that rush you get? That's being present. It's that "super-focus" you get when you are really in the NOW. You aren't worrying abut some point out there in the future and you aren't regretting some event in the past. There's only the present moment.
In order to become conscious on a higher level and I'm talking about self-awareness here. Not conscious as in you wake up in the morning, you breathe and you brush your teeth. So you assume that you must be conscious. Hardly! Take notice how often you are really there while you are brushing your teeth. Most likely the body is on auto-pilot while you are pondering, worrying, stressing, or imagining how this day's events will unfold. You wonder will it be a "good or a bad day". This happens a lot if you take notice. While you drive, while you watch TV, even while you talk to another person. You are supposed to be present and listening, but how often are we really just listening to what we are thinking about what the person is saying rather than what the person is saying. It's an amazing phenomenon that a humans can talk to one-another and in their own mind can be having a whole other conversation with themselves. Personally, I find that fascinating. Maybe even odd, it's a wonder we communicate at all!
So what does it take to truly be present to have awareness? Well, indulge me for a moment and try this out. Have you ever noticed there's a "little voice" in your head? Take 15 to 30 seconds, be quiet, and just listen. Listen to it wonder about the kids, about your job, that person at work that did you wrong today, how your best friend doesn't care about you anymore, how things will never change, etc. It's quite a chatter box isn't it? For those of you sitting there thinking "What little voice?"...That's the voice!
I've had this conversation with many people over the years and most of them failed to notice their "voice" until I mentioned it. Or if they have noticed it, they had believed up until that moment that those were their thoughts they were having. Let me break it to you gently, it's Not! I repeat, those aren NOT your thoughts. This is what in psychology or philosophy is more commonly referred to as the Egoic Mind. When Freud talks about your EGO, that's what he is referring to. If that was you having thoughts in there, then how could you listen and observe them the way you just did? It was more like listening to something speak, then having them yourself, wasn't it? Take another 15 to 30 seconds and really listen to it this time. What is it saying to you? My assertion is that "it" never has many good or positive things to tell you. It's usually where fear, anger, depression, and so many other things we consider as negative are often derived from.
How many times have you been in a room filled of people and you want to talk to that guy/girl and your "voice" kicks in and says to you "Yeah, go over there and talk to him/her. You're great! They'll love you!" How many? Zero? Probably. That's what it does. It's a survival mechanism of a human being. The only thing it is concerned with is your survival, your "safety" if you will. This is well and good when you have your hand on a hot stove or that car is barreling down on you ready to strike. You clearly need to move quickly to safety and something inside you has to have you react to the threat. But now consider that this mechanism, this "voice", is also having you survive your life, the many circumstances that surround your life, and almost all social situations are usually just us trying to survive the moment. (Did you know the number one fear is public speaking! Yup, number one. People rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy - Seinfeld Joke. Why do you think that is?) A threat whether real or imagined is still a threat to humans. The Egoic Mind is masterful at creating illusionary threats. The things it will tell you, you would never say to yourself. Why would you? Would you ever really put yourself down, tell yourself you aren't good enough, or be paralyzed with taking action if you had a choice? Doubtful. Consider that this is not your "true" voice, that your voice is not a voice at all, but more of a feeling inside of you. When people speak of intuition or "your gut", that's much closer to your what your "true" voice feels like. Notice that "following your gut" or "trusting you intuition" is considered a positive thing in language.
So Now What?
The only way to begin freeing yourself of the grasp of this "little voice" is to get present to it. This is very simple, but not necessarily easy. With practice it does get easier. I'm pre-warning you that the mind is the ultimate chess master. It will find reasons and excuses to devoid you of any commitments or responsibilities you have taken upon yourself and will trick you into thinking that it's fine to have zero integrity around what you say to yourself and others. As if there is no impact. Ahem - who here has actually kept their New Year's Resolution in 2011. We are only 5 weeks in so far! How's that working for you? Still got that extra weight? Still smoking? Still making the same mistakes? Stop and consider that the very definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Might I suggest something different then?
Like anything in life, in order to become masterful, you must educate yourself, and then put this education into practice or it's quickly forgotten. What you know, rarely, if ever makes a profound difference in life (I'll get more into that in coming posts and exactly why that is, but for now see if you can take my word for it). Taking action and experiencing on the other-hand will carry its weight in gold for a lifetime. Give a man a fish...teach a man to fish philosophy essentially. If you want to begin feeling unimaginable freedom and space in your life, you must begin by observing this "voice" and distinguishing it from who you think you are. Just notice what it says throughout the day. Tell it "thanks for sharing" and let that thought go. The next thought will come, again, "thanks for sharing" and let it go. Notice how much garbage this Egoic Mind throws at you every second of every day. No wonder people are always exhausted! It's as if we are harassing ourselves internally non-stop. How can you ever experience lasting peace living that way?
I want you to consider that none of what the "voice" says is the Truth. It's more like an inner dialogue, a conversation or a story that has been on repeat in your mind for a very, very, very, very long time and hence we take it as the Truth. We forget that we made it up in the first place and it becomes part of our identity. We fight, counter-intuitively I might add, to keep this identity in place even if it's causing us harm. It's amazing how we hold on to what is comfortable and known and how scared most of us are of stepping into the unknown. A good analogy for this process is like when you put on a pair of sunglasses. At first you notice that the world is shaded differently, but if you leave the glasses on long enough, you forget and that becomes your "reality", the filter through which you view the world. Makes sense?
Usually these types of decisions and conversations were created when you are very young (3 to 7 years old) and experienced some type of trauma in your life that may have been real or imagined. You as an upset child then make a decision with your underdeveloped brain (the brain isn't fully developed until the age of 23) about life or about yourself. And that decision becomes the story you've been telling yourself (in your mind) on repeat since that exact moment (the sunglasses are now on the face). That is why life so often feels like we're running on hamster wheels. Almost as if the same things keep happening over and over again. The same relationships, that same boss is at every job, same drama, and so on. It's all a function of these stories we've told ourselves for long periods of time, these stories become the way things are, our opinions, our truths.
"Say the same thing have the same life, say something different, have a completely different life."
Presence is the only way to start understanding the impact this mechanism/voice has on your life and it's the first step to creating space for your life so it can start showing up differently than it has in the past. For those of you that go to the gym regularly, you obviously go there to work out and train your muscles. Well, the brain is one of the biggest muscles you have, so do something with it! Consider this act of being present, as exercise for your mind. Just keep bringing yourself into the NOW, and let go of future worry or past resentment. You can't control either one anyway. Worry is all illusionary and a tactic of the Egoic Mind. Your worry has never solved a single problem, caused anything to happen faster, or given you any peace. You can't change the past, it happened. When you're on your death bed and this has been studied. People don't regret what they did, they regret what they didn't do. If you wish, there is a way to clean up things in your past and that will involve you taking responsibility for things in your life you may have never considered you can be responsible for. That's another way to create freedom and space in your life (a conversation for another post). Your other option is to BE PRESENT. Begin to notice what opens up for you when you are being present. I would write these insights down in a notebook!
In my later posts I'll begin describing how you can experience choice in your life like you can't even imagine.
I leave you with a question to consider: What actions would you take, right now, in your life if you could give up all the reasons you've created that stop you?
Peace & Love
Guy Ferdman
