Wrong 5

Wrong continues to show up in how important it is for me to "make people right." I can't tell you how often I reword my statements, even in short little emails, to avoid any hint of criticism. I've gotten so good at it, that some people think it comes naturally to me. With kids it does, but not with adults. And so what do I do? Teach parents and teachers how to see that kids are always right somehow! And I use extreme acceptance to coach myself through breakthroughs.

Acceptance and right are closely linked to me. I wonder if that's a collapse, too. If right=liking=acceptance=happy, that would be consistent with wrong=not liking=rejection=anger. Why not? I spent most my life with the collapse anger=rejection inherited from my mother whose dementia is revealing all sorts of family belief patterns. Anger=rejection is a big one; she now threatens to push people down when she gets mad at them -- a pretty physical display of rejection. It seems to me that anger and "wrong" are completely tied together in my family. Nothing will tick me off faster than "wrong" things.

Next?

Wrong 4

You should read tchow's response to "Wrong 3:"

"...At this point, there is no concept of 'right'or 'wrong' in one's head. The challenge of deciding between the two is gone and all I'm left with is raw, unaltered and pure experience..."

That's exactly what I would like to do here--provide a public forum for sharing of breakthroughs and insights, and in so doing deepen our insights and generate more breakthroughs like that for us all.

One other thing I would love to know from tchow and you is, "To what do you attribute your insights and breakthroughs?" While I have the same opinion of "right" and "wrong" as tchow, it currently rests as an awareness and requires conscious focus to disregard. Somehow he adapted his realizations to everyday life and now lives from them without effort. It's just how he sees the world. That's a breakthrough.

The best avenue for me is a kind of extreme acceptance and inquiry into how a belief works for me, as I'm sharing in my YouTubes (see sidebar -- more to come next month.) How about you?

Sometimes my unconscious beliefs peek out in conversations with others. For example, a friend just brought up independence. When I started to look at that one today, my first thought was, I don't have an issue with that, but what the heck, I'll look. I am already amazed at the awareness it has brought. And as suspected, it is related to my current line of inquiry into "wrong." So far I can see "wrong" as a super power I use to remain independent, but it's also my Kryptonite. More on that later.

BTW, if you're wondering what this is all about, this blog is far more than a mental exercise (though that's fun, too). It's about creating a world where we all can live together at ease and in mutual support with permission to be as great as we knew we were when we were small children, before "wrong" entered our minds.

Wrong 3

Applying more logic to the collapse equation -- if things have to be wrong for me to not like them, then clearly I believe I have to like everything. Dang-it! It's so true. Just like Betsyyyy said in her comment on the previous entry "Wrong!"

Funny how you can know you think something, but not really know you think it until you see it from another perspective.

Wrong 2

This morning I realized that not only do I not like everything that is "wrong," (of course, how could I?) but it goes the other way, too. Everything I don't like is just plain "wrong."

Here's the equation for the collapsed concepts: not liking = wrong. Interesting how completely true this is for me.

I've got to do a YouTube segment on this.

[Look at that! Mixed fonts. That's just plain wrong!]

Wrong!

I'm working on a new breakthrough around the concept "wrong." So far I've been able to see how it works in relationship to my childhood inability to say what I don't like. If I make something wrong, then I'm justified in not liking it. Ta-Da! That's as far as I've gotten, but I can see it's the core of judgment in my life.

Perhaps it will stir some thoughts in you that you could share, though I have to tell you, this one has been no fun. Everything is showing up "wrong" right now and guess what, "I don't like it!"

Normalizing and Amazing-ing

My new video posted on YouTube talks about how we can make normal things go from gray to amazing. Sorry Ohio--all those years I missed how amazing you really are, but I enjoy you immensely now, every five years when I go back for high school reunions. Especially the trees!

What have you made normal? What have you made amazing?

Efficiently Late

In Nov 2008, I was driving to a meeting, leaving at the time I should've been arriving, as usual. I thought about an example from my childhood I'd just written into my book about always being the last one in the car. What was I trying to communicate with this 50-year pattern of behavior?

I'd gotten as far as understanding that I liked to be prepared. Hearing that from my parents instead of the rhetorical question, “What took you so long?” would have helped, but that wasn't the whole thing.

Neither was my more recent awareness that I like to be efficient. Efficiency explained why I use every last minute to do "just one more thing" before I go and moved me in the right direction but didn't break the pattern. I still felt compelled to do one more thing before leaving. What was that about?

In the car it finally hit me. What I was trying to communicate since childhood was, "I have things I have to do first!" Simple as that. Notice the "have to?” That's what kids say when they think what they want doesn't matter.

But now I can see my real communication to the world has always been: "I have things I want to do first." There it is – breaking through my subconscious after years and years of denial. How better to express that what I want matters than to have it come up as a “have to” just at the time when I’m supposed to leave? It can't be missed when people are waiting.

I hated that, too, by the way. My first thought was always, “Just go on without me.” I never could deal with making people do things they didn't want to do, especially if it was "just" because I wanted something. My deep denial kept me safe from seeing my communication until I was ready to accept that what I want matters.

Now that I get it, I can see it was a brilliant unconscious strategy. When people don't leave or start without you, you get a glimpse that what you want matters. Forward natural movement by tiny increments is better than none at all, but figuring out your communication and SAYing WHAT YOU SEE to yourself works quicker!