Any good tool, technique, practice, or philosophy, can help you out of suffering and into greater happiness and love. And when that tool, technique, practice, or philosophy is taken too far, it can become a dogmatic trap that creates unhappiness and suffering. That dual edged sword applies to the tools, techniques, and practices I teach as well.  The Buddhists refer to this dynamic as a “Near Enemy.”

A hammer can pound a nail so you can hang your picture.  Miss the nail and you hurt your finger.  A skill saw or table saw can cut that piece of wood just right and help you build a house.   But if you cut a board the wrong length it costs you time, money, and you have a pile of waste.  That same saw helping you build your house can also take off a finger.

Tools can help you build a home and everything in it so you are warm and comfortable.  They can also hurt you if you mishandle those tools.  There are techniques you apply to changing your beliefs and emotions so you can be happier.  Take them too far, or misuse them, and you hurt your self or others unnecessarily.

Acceptance vs. Boundaries

The practice of acceptance can allow you to be gentle with your self.  It’s a new inner communication softening the words of the inner critic and even dissolving them completely.  It’s a way to relax internally that you feel physically and emotionally.   If taken further you dissolve judgmental criticisms in your mind about other people.  This can relieve you of lots of toxic thoughts and emotions in your head.  If you take the practice of acceptance too far you allow people to be disrespectful to you and take advantage of you. You avoid putting up boundaries with abusive critical people when it is called for.

Then, when you feel the emotional consequence of the other party’s disrespect, your overdeveloped faith in the acceptance tool tells you that you aren’t doing it right.  You should be more accepting of people who disrespect you.  You end up telling your self, “If I was just more accepting of them and myself then their words wouldn’t bother me so much.”  Self judging words inflict more emotional harm.  This is the result when you try harder with a tool that you have already taken too far.

It is a fine point of balance to stand in acceptance of your self where you are in your journey while you push forward with changes on your emotions and beliefs.  You will probably cross over this balance point many times before you stabilize on it.   That’s just part of the practice.

Left or Right?  Which way do I go?

More than once people have pointed out what seemed to be contradictions or problems with the tools I share.  Often the problem is that the understanding of the practice has been exaggerated or taken too far and is no longer helpful.   Being mindful that any practice or technique can be taken too far and it becomes harmful will help you be more skillful in your practice.

One student complained to his teacher, “A while back you said I should do more of A.  and now you are saying that I should do more of  B.   That’s almost the exact opposite of A.  I think you are contradicting your self.   The teacher responded, “Yes I did tell you those things.  That’s because last month you were veering too far off the path to the right.  So I told you to come left.  Now you are veering too far left and leaving the path so I’m suggesting you move more to the right.”

Work Ethic vs. Rest and Play

Lisa has a well developed work ethic.  She applies it to everything.  When she took on my Self Mastery program she went at it with the same work ethic she applied to her education, her job, and her triathlon training.  She made a lot of progress fast.  She saw a lot of amazing changes within her self and changes in her relationships and her life.  That inspired her to work the program harder.  Her discipline and consistent focus of time and attention was reaping rewards.  However as hard as she worked, some issues still hadn’t changed.

A conversation with Lisa revealed that no matter how hard she worked, she still wasn’t getting there as fast as she wanted.  “Where do you want to get to?” I asked.

Lisa described an extensive number of big changes she still wanted to make, including achieving levels of emotional mastery.

“What is driving you to push so hard to make those changes?” I asked.

Lisa was quiet for a while and then said, “It seems like it is a critical voice in my head of the inner Judge.”

“And how do you feel when it is beating you up for not working hard enough?” I asked.

Lisa took some time to think and feel into the dynamic.  “I feel like I’m not good enough.  Like I am lazy, like I’m failing,” she said.

“So let me get this straight. There is an image of perfection you have in your mind that your belief system says you should get to.  It’s a  kind of super spiritual ego image.  Your judge is there pushing you to it, criticizing you for not being that image already.  All under the assumption that it knows the time line for how long these changes take.  And the result of believing in the image of perfection, and the inner Judge is that you push your self hard every day, and feel like a failure of a victim while you do it.  Is that about right?”

“That’s about right,” she said.

It turned out that some of the motivation for doing this inner work was being driven by the same judge/victim belief system of suffering that existed in other areas of her life.  A strong work ethic has rewarded her well in life and she should benefit from it.  It seemed she was over using her “go to” tool and in the process abusing her self with it.

Some of Lisa’s work ethic was driven by the harsh critic voice of the inner judge.  The more she followed what it said, the more she reinforced the Image of Perfection beliefs and Victim feelings as well.  The result was that the “hard work” dynamic was reinforcing negative beliefs instead of allowing her freedom from them.

Balance and Moderation

Lisa’s new assignment was to take some time off during the week and have fun. Go do things just for enjoyment and pleasure.  Maybe it was a day off from the inner work, maybe it was an afternoon here and there where she didn’t need to struggle to be “aware.”

At first Lisa resisted this approach thinking she wanted to go faster.

“It will help you to go faster,” I said.  “It’s a different way of accomplishing the same thing.   Right now the strong work ethic approach has been corrupted by judgment and victimization.  It is inflicting emotional suffering which is what we are trying to alleviate.  So it is time to back off that pattern and work on changing those beliefs a different way for now.”

I explained that the new approach of taking time during the week to enjoy your life and have fun is actually a different way to break the pattern of the Judge/Victim beliefs causing  suffering.  When you are laughing, you are not in self judgment or a victim state of suffering.  When you are playing and having fun you are not in a judge/victim state of mind.  When you are enjoying you life you are freeing your self from suffering.  These are all ways to transcend the emotional suffering of the judge/victim mind.  Going out during the week and taking time off to enjoy your life is a direct way to do it.

In one of the early emails you get after signing up for the Self Mastery Course I tell people to make time to have fun.  I think many people over look this point or don’t understand the importance at the time.

Practice all things in balance and moderation.  Any approach, even the “hard work” approach can be taken too far and trip up your steps down your Pathway to Happiness.

Any self help tool or technique can help you to be free of unhappiness.  The same technique can also be misused, abused, and exaggerated and become self destructive to your process.   This is why the Buddhists call them “Near Enemy’s” They start out as your friend and you hold it close.  But if you hold too tightly it becomes distorted or exaggerated enough to become an Enemy that is hurting you.

It will take time to learn how to properly use the many different techniques effectively.  You will no doubt misuse some at times, particularly in the beginning.  That’s to be expected and is okay.  The over all use of any practice should help more than hurt.  And with practice you will become more skillful with each exercise so that after a while you don’t use it against your self, or others, at all.

It’s not just practice that will make you a master, but skillful practice will make you a skillful master.  In the beginning things may be a bit clumsy, but so is everyone when they start something new.  The way to solve that is to practice and observe what happens.  Put the tools into action and allow your self the freedom to change how you use them in a way that works for you.  That will help you avoid becoming dogmatic.

As you practice each tool, do so while being aware of the results as best you can.   Be aware that you can take it too far, become too dogmatic, or become too attached to its use.   If you keep each practice in moderation and balance it with skillful use, you can avoid using these tools as Near Enemy’s against your self.

Hope that helps.

Gary

Specific exercises and practices for becoming more mindful and changing beliefs can be found in the Self Mastery Course. The first few sessions are free for you to try.

In summary:  a Near Enemy is a Buddhist term used to describe how the ego distorts a useful spiritual practice into one that causes more suffering.

More than once people have been told by professional that their personality is fixed by the time they are 6 or 10 years old. They have emotional aspects when they are adults and told that they can’t be changed. “All you can do is manage the condition.” I don’t believe this one bit. And now there is good evidence for you not to believe it either.  A neuro-imaging study of the brain indicates changes in areas of the brain related to self awareness, compassion, and introspection.

The study points out that it doesn’t prove a direct link, but that’s understandable considering that it is rather difficult to show a direct link between where and how we focus our attention and how our brain matter responds.   What it does indicate is that there is more here going on than assuming there is no relation at all.  It is also worth noting that areas of the brain associated with our emotional state do change.  So the notion that our personality is “fixed” should be considered a myth lacking evidence and not the other way around.

If you want to engage in some practices of meditation and mindfulness you will find some free exercises in the Self Mastery course.

I understand that an agreement can be changed regarding an emotional reaction.  But, people do move to California for better weather, or move away from Los Angeles to get away from traffic, or in your case, you said that there are people you just don’t want to have lunch with anymore.  To me, these are preferences.  I’m not sure how you would distinguish a preference from an emotional reaction.  It’s the emotional reaction that causes the preference?

Thank you JJS

Hi, JJS,

Yes circumstances and our preferences for certain circumstances make a difference but there is another factor that we have to consider.  That there are beliefs in our mind that are playing a part as well and that is something we can change.

At the other extreme we can take Nelson Mandela who was unjustly imprisoned for 27 years.  He walks out with no bitterness and no sense of victimization or hate.  He forgives his captors as if he never judged them to begin with.  His emotional state contradicts his circumstances.   So what is really causing his emotional state to be in such a way?  It is not his circumstances.  So what is it?  I propose that it is the interpretations in our mind that we believe in,, or don’t believe in.   If we can find these beliefs in our mind, and change them, then we can change our emotional state without having to change other people, or even our self.

So I have avoided the question.  Where and when are our emotions caused by our beliefs and where and when are they being determined by our circumstances.   The only way to find out is to honestly and ruthlessly challenge the beliefs and see where  our emotions shift.  When they do not, then perhaps we are dealing with a circumstance issue.  But we can not be sure that is the case until we have removed any possible beliefs that are interfering.   In summary, what I am saying is that I can not answer the question for you.  You have to discover it for your self.

Happy Hunting,

Gary

In response to one of the free exercises in the Self Mastery course.

]]> http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/2010/08/21/power-over-happiness/feed/ 0 http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/2010/02/24/self-mastery-success/ http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/2010/02/24/self-mastery-success/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:41:01 +0000 Gerard van Warmerdam http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/?p=240 Suggestions for Success

To help you get more out of the Self Mastery program here’s a suggestion:

1.    Don’t go for Perfection

This may sound strange but the assignments I give aren’t always things you can accomplish, at least not right away.

Some people think that session 4 is the hardest.  They just agree with people or disagree as an automatic reaction before realizing it.  The assignment is to refrain from doing this, but I’m not expecting success.  As a matter of fact more can be gained by failing.

If all you get out of this exercise is to realize that you don’t control the words coming out of your mouth, and that much of your behavior is on automatic pilot,,, then I’d say that’s enough for a start.  While it might seem like you’ve failed at the goal you’ve actually accomplished a lot in the process. You are now aware of this dynamic.  Your awareness has expanded.  You are now being self reflective and beginning to adopt a new perspective of being an observer. You also have an insight into how agreements/beliefs are made in subtle quick ways and how quickly we accept opinions as fact and truth.  It is this new perspective that is most important at this point.

You might not like what you notice, but that’s the inner judge starting to take over.   You’ve taken an important step towards change because you can’t change a behavior until you know about it.  Just noticing these types of things in the free sessions, even if you aren’t able to change them is the most important lesson.   The exercises in the paid sessions are more focused at successfully implementing change.  The exercise used to help you discover and become aware of behavior dynamics is not necessarily the one that will be useful for changing those dynamics.

If you come out from these exercises feeling like a failure or  pissed off at yourself for failing then you’ve had another self judgment.   Not necessarily good, and not my intent, but that’s the nature of a mind out of control at this point.  Exercises in Session 6 and later begin to address this.  These somewhat humbling realizations are a necessary part of the process.  They cause us to see things about our self, our emotions, and our belief system running automatically that was previously unconscious to us.  That’s part of the waking up process.  Listen to my January podcast on Conscious Awakening for more insights into this.

The Free sessions in the Self Mastery program are usually not enough to completely and permanently stop most major emotional reactions.   What the free sessions are intended to do is help you become aware of what is going on in your mind.  With that expanded skill of observation arises the intrinsic motivation to address the real issues of underlying beliefs.  Some people will realize this and get motivated to change their beliefs.  But you can’t really start addressing these beliefs until you see what they are and how the work.

Others will get caught up in the self judgment of their belief system that creates a feeling of failure.  If a person is not aware of the dynamic of their belief system and able to observe it as the problem, they will push the exercises away thinking it is making them feel worse.  It’s not the exercises that are the problem.  It’s the unrealistic expectations their mind makes and the self rejection based on that unconscious expectation that they are reacting to.  If this is happening, the problem with the sessions isn’t failure or even you.  The problem is with the belief system in the mind making unreasonable and unconscious expectations about success, and then automated self judgments

So do your best not to get tricked into your mind’s assumption that you need to do these practices perfectly before going forward.  Some people I’ve talked to stop listening to new sessions because they haven’t mastered the current one yet.  It’s a trap of a false expectation that stops progress.

For best results don’t try to do any of these exercises perfectly.  Just do them.  Even do them with little or no success.  It’s not the perfection of these practices that are important.  It’s the doing of them in whatever fashion you can that will make the difference.  Trying to do them perfectly plays into the hands of the way our mind does self judgment.  First an unrealistic expectation, and then a self rejection.  This becomes so painful emotionally that we stop the practice before we have a chance to get decent at it.

Some people will get success with an exercise in 10 minutes.  Some will get success in 10 hours of practice, and some in 10 weeks.   Don’t worry if you don’t get success with an exercise in a few weeks and you get tired of trying.  Give it up for a while and go on to the next one.  You don’t need to get proficient at any of them as prerequisites in order to have success at this process.  Later, after a couple weeks or months of practicing other exercises, come back to the ones you skipped and try them again.  You’ll be a different person by then, and you’ll likely notice different things about the exercise that you didn’t see the first time.

Some people might feel discouraged by the fact that they don’t get immediate results.  To  me the speed at which you make changes in your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors is not as important as making these changes successfully.   After all,, if you are not successful,,, then then your efforts at going fast were wasted.

I hope you are well.
I thought I’d give you an update on how things are going.

Gratitude has become an integral part of my life now and is such a powerful yet simple tool. I thank you so much for introducing the practice of gratitude into my life. Recently I have been reading a lot of material by Guy Finley and have found that it echoes of what you teach.

Realizing that we are not our thoughts was a major shock for me and really made me start asking the question: ‘Who am I?’ It was while I was contemplating this that I remembered the Free Session in the audio course you offer called ‘The Attention’. I couldn’t believe it, all my questions were answered….I had listened to it many times before but this time it made so much more sense. I realized that I have created so many different false selves that I have mistaken them for actually being the real me, but they are not the real me.

I was really excited when this awareness came to me but then I became scared….fear and anxiety kicked in big time. Since then the false self seems to have become louder and I think that this is because I am challenging its existence and it doesn’t want to die. I know that the false self is not real but it does appear to be so much of the time because of the emotions I feel, especially anxiety. It feels that I haven’t moved forward but I know this is also the trick of the false self.

I am confident that with my commitment and persistence with this process of self-awareness I shall succeed….it is inevitable.

Again, thank you Gary for the wisdom that you offer.

Peace and love to you.

M in the UK.

Dear M.
A big part of figuring out what you are involves figuring out who you are not. Notice that I say “what you are” and not “who you are.” That’s because “who you are” is very much a function of the false self.

It is astute of you to notice that the false self is playing this trick of telling you that you are not moving forward. The interpretations the false self makes of emotions is usually that you are moving backwards or getting worse.

Keep in mind that our emotions are real feelings, but the interpretations we make about them are not facts. In the beginning the assumptions we make about emotions are usually incorrect because the come from the false self, or what we can call ego mind. he truth is often about 180 degrees from what the false self thinks it is.

I agree with your assessment that the fear that you are feeling is the fear that the false self is generating. It is afraid of being found out and losing control of the Authentic You. I allude to this in a couple of my podcasts. I think it is on the podcast about on Overcoming Fear.

It is kind of amazing that the false self has an emotional reaction to being found out and then tricks us into thinking it is our emotion. It then gives us a false interpretation of what is causing “our” emotion. We believe the thoughts that aren’t our own about emotions that aren’t our own. This is a very clever trick and one that requires a good deal of self awareness to slip out of.

The journey to discover what you really are is mostly about discovering what you are not. When you dissolve all the illusions about your self, only the Truth is left.

About your commitment to succeed, be wary here. The idea or ideal of “success” can also be a trick of the false self. This is particularly true if we hold beliefs about failure in relation to our definition of success. When we use terms like success in this process we are often getting set up for some type of false self judgment about measuring progress and failure.

It would be wise to clearly understand what you have defined the symbolic word success to mean.

If you define success as love, peace, happiness, joy, compassion, and Truth, then yes, continue to use the word success. But if this is what you mean, then why not use these symbolic words instead.
By the way, in your quest to sort out all this false self stuff from the authentic you it might be helpful to be aware that only the False Self asks the question, “Who am I?” The authentic self doesn’t bother with such questions.

Gary

I wrote to you about a week ago about how my jealousy issue and how I have a problem with my girlfriends past, and how that is very hypocritical of me because my past is less pure then hers. I have taken your advice and picked up “The Four Agreements” and “The Voice of Knowledge”. I am half way through “The Four Agreements” and I am very pleased with it. I have also listened to the “Gratitude” and “Abdication of Power” audio lessons. Once again very pleased.

The question I have is about the “Abdication of Power”. I understand that when I am getting angry, jealous, or frustrated to take a look at what exactly is going on in the current situation in the way you describe. But what I don’t understand is why take a look at a situation as to where I’m happy? Why break down that situation to change my emotional state?

For example I just got off the phone with my girlfriend and like usual we get along and we love talking to each other and this of course makes me happy. So why break it down to get away from being happy. When I am mad, jealous or angry I want to break the situation down to get away from that…so pretty much kind of confused..
Thank you for your time, SK

Hi SK,

First of all email is a really poor communication medium. It’s too easy to misunderstand what you are specifically talking about, and then too easy for you to misinterpret my reply.

As I understand your question, why break down where all the happy feelings come from? I don’t think I directed you in the Power Sessions to do that. (maybe I’m wrong cause I haven’t listened to them recently.)  But basically happiness comes from expressing love. No problem there.

Making sure I hit the point, I don’t think anywhere did I mention to get away from the happy feeling.  That’s not the direction I’m suggesting. If you got that impression from somewhere let me know and I’ll go look at my material and make the clarifications.

Don’t try to understand or dissect what isn’t broken.
Apply the exercises to the emotional reactions that you don’t enjoy for starters.

Understanding all the sources of our happy emotions is a bit more challenging and should be done later. Why would you even do it later?

One advantage of doing it is that you discover that you express love and are happy from certain triggers. Suppose someone says to you that are very smart and good looking. If your reaction to that compliment by way of your belief system is to feel good then your emotional state of happiness is dependent on compliments from other people. By this belief structure you are likely to feel poorly if they comment to you in derogatory way.  This isn’t a very empowering way to live.   You will be at the mercy of having to fish for compliments from other people. If they are having an emotionally down day then they won’t be as likely to serve them up.

We are then trapped because our happiness relies on that trigger from other people verbalizing their opinion. This can make us a slave to other people’s opinion. Maybe we do it just a little bit, but why do it at all.

But this is all a bit more advanced. Start with the emotional reactions that are unpleasant. You will be more motivated to dissect and find the false beliefs behind those emotional reactions.

Not sure if I’ve clarified the questions you might have. This is my long range stab via email. It’s much easier to address these types of things in a session over the phone.

Gary

Changing habits can take some time. But changing your attitude to one of gratitude usually has a hidden core belief that creates an obstacle of resistance. That hidden core belief often prevents us from living in gratitude. Eliminating this core belief can help make the change faster. It is a paradigm of the mind that filters the way we see the world. It filters our perception in such a way that the feeling of gratitude becomes nearly impossible to sustain.

What is that core belief that we can ’t see that filters our view of the world? It is simply that we assume the people we love and the things we care about will be there next week. We are so familiar with our things like the comforts of running water, a warm place to stay, our eyesight, and the people we love, that we take them for granted.

Without awareness we assume that not much will change between now and tomorrow. We live by the unseen assumption that not much will change in a month or a year. We look forward with optimism that we won ’t lose what we have. We assume we will just gain more over time as if our lives were accumulating interest between now and when we pass on. We don ’t acknowledge that the health of our body, our time, and the people we love are not gaining any time. You and the people you love are in the process of passing away from this world. When we don ’t acknowledge that the landscape of our life is changing, and sometimes it changes fast, we end up not appreciating the time we have.

Our capacity and feeling of gratitude is inversely related to how much we take for granted. Those that walk around their day filled with gratitude take little to nothing for granted. People that live in an unseen belief paradigm that everything and everyone they care about will be there next week have a difficult time attaining a deep feeling of gratitude, or sustaining the emotion for very long. For these people gratitude may only come immediately following fear filled close calls of tragedy.

Core beliefs are often bubbles of perception. When those bubbles break, either we are angry that we have lost our illusion, or we are grateful to finally embrace life in a very intimate and precious way.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is. I believe in the latter.”
Albert Einstein.

I will post a self awareness exercise in the Gratitude Section of the members area that will help chip away at this blinding core belief.

I see the material as excellent – as close to exact as what I believe I need to get past my own unhappiness and insecurity. I listen to the lessons in the Self Mastery Program, and I think, “I can do this – it’s so simple!” I start a lesson, do it for a couple of days, but when I don’t do it for the third day and I believe I failed. I then feel terrible. If I had done the lesson on the third day and subsequently, then perhaps I would have succeeded in this thread. What can I do?

Feeling Overwhelmed,

S.

Hi S.
It is very common to start one of the exercises and only do it for a couple or few days. I won’t go into it here, but we resist the very actions that would create change.  No need to believe the defeated story because this is how success starts. One of the antidotes to this resistance in the audio series is that there are many different sessions. They change all the time. This way you can do one for a few days. Take a break, and then a few days later pick up another tool and practice with it. Having different exercises to work with also helps overcome the boredom/monotony obstacle.

You get to practice a little at a time with each of the tools. Over time, you spend so much time practicing in little segments that you become very proficient with them.

You can do this. It is simple, but not easy. It may take a little more time than the voice in your head assumes it should take, but that ’s because the voice in your head is a liar. You don ’t need to finish the lesions in their entirety. Just practice them in tidbits as you can. Do your best. Every little action will be a step.

There are faster ways but, they can be more emotionally challenging, and not everyone responds to them well.
Managing Expectations.

Part of the problem here is that your mind has already created a whole picture of expectations of what you are  supposed to do to succeed. It probably has already secretly created requirements of how much you are supposed to do, and when you should have finished. If you don ’t meet these requirements the mind has set up, then it concludes you are a failure.

The critical step in managing these expectations is to first be aware that the mind has created them. The second step is to recognize that they are false assumptions. Your mind hasn ’t previously solved this problem of unhappiness, or done the exercises in my course but it proposes to come up with the perfect solutions you are supposed to follow.

That ’s ridiculous. If the belief system in the mind, with it ’s judge and victim voices, knew how to be happy, wouldn’t they have gotten you there by now?

Manage these expectations by recognizing that they are ridiculous. Start by getting some reasonable input from someone that has either done the process, or from someone that has guided people through the process.

My note above about doing it in smaller steps is one way I ’m attempting to plant a seed in your mind that will undermine those false expectations.

You will also probably find a very useful tool in the first paid sessions that you haven’t gotten to yet. And an even more useful tool in Session 6. These sessions do have a certain order so that future sessions will help you with what you have discovered so far.

My last recommendation is to pick up the book The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz. It is full of great wisdom and insight. I think it will be a helpful companion to the process if you don ’t already have it.

Gary