Social timidity is frequently a result of approach anxiety. Instead of proactively approaching new people to form connections (for friendship, dating, networking, etc), these people often hold back. There can be a variety of reasons for why they hold back, but it typically boils down to fear caused by limiting beliefs about approaching people, initiating conversations, expressing interest, etc.

When I shared this with Morty, I figured there might be 5-10 common limiting beliefs that contributed to approach anxiety, such as “being rejected is bad” or “I’m not good enough.”

Morty grew curious about what limiting beliefs he might find if he investigated this further. Since his specialty is helping people eliminate limiting beliefs quickly and permanently, this was right up his alley. I’ve been recommended Morty’s method for more than two years now, and many people have found it an effective way to remove beliefs that were previously holding them back, so I figured the subject of approach anxiety would be a worthwhile area for him to explore, one that would be a good fit for his process. Morty agreed.

Morty also knew that if he could figure out the most common limiting beliefs that contributed to approach anxiety, he could use that information to create a new product that would help people with this specific challenge, so this undertaking made good business sense as well.

Investigating Approach Anxiety

To explore this more deeply, Morty recruited volunteers who felt socially limited by approach anxiety, those who rated their fear at least a 7 on a scale of 1-10. Then he interviewed them to discover what beliefs were making them feel anxious or hesitant to connect with new people.

To Morty’s surprise (and to my own as well), he discovered a great variety of beliefs that contributed to approach anxiety. There weren’t just a handful of them — there were dozens that he was able to identify.

The main problem wasn’t the quantity of beliefs, however. The bigger issue was that there was very little overlap between participants, meaning that each person had different beliefs that contributed to their experience of approach anxiety.

This meant that it wouldn’t be practical for Morty to create a single product to help people eliminate this problem. Morty can still use his method to help such people one on one by phone or Skype, but he can’t turn it into a product because there’s too much variety in people’s limiting beliefs. To eliminate a limiting belief, it must first be identified, and that identification process plays out differently for each person.

I was disappointed that we couldn’t use this idea to create a new product that would help people afflicted by approach anxiety. I liked the idea of helping people to permanently and inexpensively eliminate such a problem. But I didn’t want to let Morty’s initial research go to waste, so I asked him if I could share the backstory about this idea and the beliefs he was able to identify with his volunteers, and he graciously agreed.

I expect this may still be helpful to many people since identifying a limiting belief is an important first step in eliminating it. Sometimes just being aware that you have a negative belief can get you started on the path to letting it go.

Limiting Beliefs That Contribute to Approach Anxiety

For this project Morty focused his interviews on men, so all of the subjects were male. He surely would have uncovered even more limiting beliefs if he expanded this to include women as well.

The age range of the participants was 20-38 with most in their 20s. And as I mentioned previously, Morty asked people to rate their fear on a scale of 1-10 and chose people who answered at least a 7.

Here are some of the feelings these participants reported:

1. Anxiety when talking to a woman
2. Fear of being criticized or judged
3. Fear of talking to an attractive woman

And here’s a list of limiting beliefs related to approach anxiety that Morty and his participants were able to identify:

1. Change is difficult.
2. I can’t do anything right.
3. If a woman isn’t attracted to a man initially, she never will be.
4. I’m a bother to people.
5. I’m a dangerous person.
6. I’m annoying.
7. I’m a loser.
8. I’m broken.
9. I’m inadequate.
10. I’m inferior.
11. I’m not acceptable.
12. I’m not attractive.
13. I’m not good enough.
14. I’m not interesting.
15. I’m socially awkward.
16. I’m ugly.
17. I’m unlovable / not lovable.
18. I’m weird.
19. It’s wrong to show sexual interest in a woman.
20. It’s wrong to be attracted to women.
21. It’s wrong to be turned on by women.
22. My sexual desire is bad.
23. People aren’t interested in me.
24. People aren’t interested in what I have to say.
25. Relationships are difficult.
26. There’s something wrong with me.
27. What makes me good enough or important enough is having people like me.
28. Women don’t want nice guys.
29. Women don’t want to be bothered.
30. Women don’t want to talk to guys.
31. Women want more financial security than I could provide.
32. Women want men who are assertive and get what they want.
33. Women want attractive men.
34. Women want interesting men.
35. Women want men who are confident / flirtatious.
36. Women want men who are witty / make them laugh.
37. Women want men who treat them badly.
38. Women want men with exciting lifestyles.
39. Women want men with money and stability.
40. Women want popular guys.
41. Women want security / to be protected physically.
42. Women want successful men.

This is an interesting collection to be sure, but it’s far from exhaustive. I’m sure you can identify many more, especially if we consider limiting beliefs that women have as well.

We can loosely categorize this list into beliefs about oneself, beliefs about others, and beliefs about interactions.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Many of the self-related beliefs are linked with low self-esteem and a low sense of attractiveness. Eliminating the negative belief is one way to fix those problems. Another way is to shift your focus onto your overall lifestyle, and take more action to create a life that fulfills you. When people are pleased with their lifestyles, it shows. It’s easier to attract people you like when you’re enjoying the other parts of your life. It’s also easier to attract compatible partners when you’re already living a life you enjoy.

As for the beliefs about others, the main issue there is overgeneralization. Everyone has different standards for what they find attractive and what they don’t. These patterns certainly aren’t universal.

With billions of people on earth, we can find many people who may fit those patterns and many who don’t. And in any given week, people can oscillate between matching and not matching these patterns. Sometimes people feel social and would be glad to be approached by almost anyone. At other times people turn inward and prefer more solitude.

One pattern I see here is the implied limiting belief that if you approach someone who doesn’t want to connect with you (for whatever reason), and you get rejected as a result, then you made a mistake and never should have approached in the first place.

Of course there isn’t much real danger in trying to initiate and deepen connections, but that doesn’t make the fear any less real. The fear may be rooted in false beliefs and erroneous assumptions, but it can still exert control over one’s behavior.

There is a matter of calibration involved here, so as you gain experience, you can increase your hit rate, but this doesn’t mean that getting a rejection now and then is a terrible thing to be avoided at all costs. It’s really no big whoop. You basically have to risk some rejection in order to build experience. The more experience you have, the easier it is to read people and get a sense of who’s open to connecting with you and who isn’t. Making a mistake here isn’t the end of the world.

The good news is that when these limiting beliefs were eliminated, the fear went away too. And when the fear goes away, that’s where the fun begins.

Finding Counterexamples

One of my favorite methods for eliminating limiting beliefs is to deliberately seek out counterexamples. If I can find even one or two counterexamples for a belief, then the belief tends to collapse. My mind can no longer pretend that it’s true.

A long time ago I had the belief that women aren’t interested in sex as much as men are. I also had some related beliefs about sexuality being bad or sinful. I can credit 12 years of Catholic school for installing such notions. This certainly isn’t uncommon.

Then I saw the movie Kinsey, which opened my eyes to the notion that sexual desire is a very individual thing. That helped put a dent in my overgeneralized beliefs.

Later I met women who were comfortable talking about sex openly, and they shared thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that contradicted my old beliefs. It took me a while to make the 180-degree turn from my Catholicism-installed falsehoods, but I eventually collapsed those limiting beliefs.

I also had to be careful about installing opposite beliefs like “women love sex more than men do” since that’s an overgeneralization as well. I find it more helpful to accept the notion that this is a very individual thing.

Accepting Variety

Overgeneralizing is an attempt to treat everyone the same, as if you can come up with a single pattern or strategy that works well with everyone. Generalizing works okay in some areas of life, but in other areas there’s too much variety, including in the area of human relationships.

Our brains automatically and unconsciously seek out patterns in specific data, but sometimes they make mistakes, and we need to consciously adjust their conclusions.

Deep down we may indeed have similar needs and desires, but we have different ways of satisfying those needs and desires. So what one person finds attractive, another person finds creepy, boring, or repulsive.

If you can accept this, you’ll see that it’s silly to expect everyone to like you as you are. Some people will. Some people won’t. Such are the vicissitudes of life.

Instead of trying to get someone to like you or worrying about saying or doing the right things to create attraction, it makes more sense to express your personality and preferences openly to the degree that’s possible, and then let other people self-select if they feel they match you.

Alternatively, you can focus on initiating connections with people you find attractive, while accepting that your interest may not be mutual. If the other person doesn’t feel the same, it doesn’t mean you aren’t awesome. It just means the other person doesn’t agree that you’d be a good match. Certainly that isn’t the end of the world. There are billions of other people you can seek to match with.

For the past several years, I’ve mainly been using the expressiveness strategy because I’ve had so much social input coming my way. All I really had to do was to express myself openly and shamelessly, and then I could select among the people who seemed to resonate with what I shared. If people didn’t like me, they usually filtered themselves out of my reality, and if they didn’t, then it was easy for me to decline to interact with them. If people initiated interactions with me as a result of what I shared, then I could choose to accept some of those invites, and at least I was guaranteed to have an interaction with someone who was interested in connecting.

This worked well for attracting people who are interested in me, but it doesn’t give me as much opportunity to connect with people that I find equally interesting. So for the past several months, I’ve been closing most of those open doors (like my Facebook page, the forums, and my contact form), so fewer people can approach me to connect. This gives me more opportunity to initiate my own connections with people I’d like to get to know better and to be more selective.

With my old socialization strategy, I would sometimes stray into my own version of approach anxiety, but of a different sort than the one discussed earlier. I actually worry more about being approached. Will the person be interesting? Will they be honest about their intentions? Are they just trying to get something from me?

As my social interactions became increasingly patterned, I felt I was at risk of developing limiting beliefs like “Everyone needs something from me” and “People are energy vampires.” I thought it best to turn off the flood of incoming connections for a while, so I could have more space to consciously think about what kind of social life I’d like to create and experience.

The benefit of getting limiting beliefs out of the way is that it creates more room for conscious choice.

Training Up

Another favorite way to tackle limiting beliefs is with progressive training. I see limitations as a weight to be lifted. The more you train the relevant muscles, the easier it is to lift and finally dispose of the limitation.

As a child I was very shy. In kindergarten I used to play in the sandbox alone most of the time. If I had any friends, it was just one or two close friends that I played with. I didn’t feel very comfortable socializing with other children, especially in large groups.

In grammar school what I hated more than anything else were speech contests. These were mandatory every year in my school, but I never felt comfortable presenting in front of the class. I got nervous, my hands would shake, and I was pretty bad at it too.

I improved a little from this forced practice, but I still didn’t like that I got nervous when I spoke in front of the class.

Eventually I decided to conquer this fear, and I thought that progressive training would be a good strategy. I started volunteering to speak tech conferences. Then I joined Toastmasters and later the National Speakers Association to keep making progress.

This approach took time, but it worked. The more practice I got, the more comfortable I became with speaking, and the less nervous I was. Now I feel just as comfortable in front of a group as I do playing video games with my kids. What used to be anxiety producing now gets channeled into enthusiasm and fun. I now find myself looking for ways to make it more challenging; if it feels too easy, it isn’t as stimulating for me.

Enlisting Social Support

Another important thing to realize is that you can be afraid and still take action. This is hard to do on your own, but it’s much easier to do when you have some social support. Without social support it’s too easy to succumb to fear and make excuses. But when you’ve committed yourself to people who will hold you accountable, it’s harder not to act.

For example, if you agree to give a speech, you’ll usually find that you can still follow through even if you’re really anxious about it. People do this all the time. They get up to the mike, and for the first several minutes they’re nervous. You can see their hands shaking. Or their voice cracks and they can barely catch their breath. They’re clearly having an emotional reaction, but they still do it.

What may surprise you is that many pro speakers with decades of practice still get nervous when they speak. But they’ve learned that if they agree to speak anyway, they’re going to follow through even if they’re nervous.

Think about how you can apply this idea of social support to other forms of social interactions that may be troubling you. Can you invite a few friends to encourage you along the way and to hold you accountable?

I’ve seen how well this works at some of my workshops. People who can’t get themselves to start up a conversation with a stranger can suddenly take action when they have two accountability partners encouraging and supporting them.

Further Help

Although we don’t have a singular solution that works for everyone, approach anxiety is a problem that can be overcome.

If you want more information about how Morty can help you with such challenges, feel free to call him at 415-884-0552, and ask about working one on one with him. For help in overcoming other limiting beliefs, be sure to read my blog post about this. You can also test Morty’s method to eliminate a limiting belief for free.

If you prefer a very hands-on approach to improving your social skills, I invite you to attend the 3-day Conscious Relationships Workshop (Feb 17-19 in Las Vegas). Approach anxiety is one of many topics we’ll address, both with group discussions and interactive exercises. At CRW you’ll have the opportunity to experiment and receive feedback in a positive, supportive, nonjudgmental environment.

However you decide to tackle the challenge of approach anxiety, try not to be so hard on yourself. It’s not the end of the world if someone doesn’t want to connect with you. No matter how weird or broken you think you are (or how cold you think other people are), many people would enjoy your company.

People can provide value to each other in the simplest of ways, such as by listening to each other, sharing a meal, and holding hands as they go for a stroll. If you can smile, you can provide something that millions (probably billions) of people would receive as valuable and worthwhile.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Be grateful for the strength you’ve gained
Your inner muscles bulge
But lips are drained and legs are chained
By fears you still indulge

Your animator kept from view
Locked up inside a cell
It pleads release long overdue
While you secure the shell

If you should seek to sow the seed
Of peace within your heart,
The breathless breather must be freed
No secret self apart

Your essence never lacks the nerve
Its power shines divine
To be in spirit is to serve
With courage by design

So dig your cowardice a grave
And lower it to rest
Your daring, dauntless dreams will save
The slave still dispossessed

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

I think the best way to do it is to let the other person see you naked.

I don’t mean this in the physical sense, but in the emotional-spiritual sense.

As you converse with the other person, talk about your career; then let it go. Talk about your past; then let it go. Talk about your other relationships; then let those go as well.

Keep talking and connecting without re-hashing the same subjects. Eventually you’ll come upon a thought that’s uncomfortable for you to explore. This is where you must summon the courage to delve in and share.

If there’s an end goal here, it’s to reach the point where you feel so safe with each other, that you can ask absolutely anything and get an emotionally deep and honest answer in response, no matter how embarrassing the questions may seem or how painful the inner wounds are. You become completely naked to each other with nothing left to hide.

In practice this involves a bit of a dance. Sometimes you’ll come upon new truths that are too intense or too difficult to face right away. Sometimes you won’t feel very connected to your inner truth, so you won’t be sure what to say. When that happens you can back off a bit and discuss something easier and more mundane for a while, or simply take a break. Then later when you feel ready, you can return to exploring the deeper levels of yourselves once again.

As the other person shares herself with you, let her know that she’s unconditionally loved and accepted by you. Don’t judge her or invalidate her experience. Just keep your heart open, and quietly observe.

Making yourself vulnerable by sharing truths about yourself in turn makes it easier for the other person to feel accepted by you because you’re giving her the chance to accept you first.

Don’t wait — initiate. When in doubt about who should take the next step to reveal something deeply personal, you go first. Prove to life, the universe, and your partner that you’re willing to take a risk and that you’re willing to trust. Magical things will happen when you do that.

Emotional risk-taking creates emotional depth. When you open your heart to someone and share the deepest truths about yourself, and they do the same, you gradually strip away layers of falsehood and self-deception, aligning yourself with ever deeper truths. Doing this with someone else creates an amazing sense of connectedness.

It’s a life-changing experience to see another human being as she really is and to allow her to see the real you — to see your inner beauty and magnificence reflected back to you in the eyes of another… and to see so much of yourself in her.

You are loved.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Freeing Mental RAM

Up until that point, holding that perspective was a major cognitive burden. My mind often felt fried at the end of the day. The experiment required a serious conscious effort, a lot of dedication, and perhaps a twist of fanaticism.

Holding the subjective perspective required a significant amount of mental RAM. Multiple times per hour, I had to keep refreshing that perspective. Otherwise I’d fall back into an objective mindset by default.

This was difficult to be sure. I don’t think I could have succeeded in making this shift if I hadn’t dedicated myself to 30 days of total immersion.

While it can be a fun experience to try holding this perspective for an hour or perhaps an afternoon, doing it as continuously as possible for a whole month is a whole different animal. It’s like the difference between having an idea for a new business and actually starting one. The first is easy and fun; the second can be fun too, but it requires a lot more work. One is dabbling; the other is doing. Most of the gains are only accessible on the doing side; dabbling only gives you a glimpse that something cool is there.

After the point of subconscious integration, everything became easier. Conscious effort was no longer required.

In a way this has been an eerie transition. It almost feels like I’ve shifted dimensions. It’s one thing to condition a new belief about financial abundance or eating healthier, but changing my beliefs about the very nature of reality has really turned my life inside out. This was not an easy transition.

In this article I want to document some of the ongoing effects of this experiment, now that I believe I have a clearer understanding of where this is leading long-term.

Beliefs Are Buried

First, this experiment really drove home how easy it is to take beliefs for granted and not even be aware of how they filter our experiences. Because I made such a big shift in my beliefs in a few weeks’ time, I was able to see the marked contrast between the old beliefs and the new ones. It felt like I went through a major reprogramming of my subconscious.

Most beliefs are subconscious. They run on autopilot. We don’t even notice them.

Installing a new belief is like putting on a Band Aid. At first you can’t help but notice that you have some foreign object sticking to your skin. But after a while, the sensory input patterns stop making impressions upon your conscious mind. You stop noticing the Band Aid. Essentially it becomes a part of you. Then later you see it again, or maybe someone else notices it, and you say to yourself, “Oh yeah… I’m wearing a Band Aid.”

The subconscious mind is very pliable and programmable. That makes it very powerful. But it has a downside as well. Once some programming is installed, it takes more effort to uninstall and reprogram it. A half-assed effort won’t get you very far; you’ll just solidify the old programming by piling more code on top of it.

One of the best ways to change your beliefs is through a process of immersion, which is what I used for making this shift. I consciously set the old beliefs aside and pushed myself to adopt the new beliefs 24/7. And I did it publicly, so other people would hold me accountable and help to push me. It isn’t easy but it works.

Hacking the Mind

As a result of this experiment, my mind seems to be running a different operating system. Instead of running an objective operating system, it’s now running a subjective one.

As with any good operating system, it takes some getting used to, but after a while your comfort level increases, and you don’t notice it so much. You run programs on top of it, but you take the underlying OS for granted much of the time. However, the OS is always running, and it dictates which programs you can and can’t run. You may not notice it, but it’s still doing a lot of work in the background.

What I didn’t realize before this experiment was that a mental OS has constraints that are similar to a computer’s OS.

Every OS has its strengths and weaknesses depending on its architecture. Even if the underlying hardware is the same, switching to a different OS can unlock new capabilities. Some things may be easier with a new OS, if only because you can gain access to new high-level software that’s written for that OS.

On my Macbook Pro, I’m running Mac OS X, but I also have Windows 7 installed. There’s some Windows software I really like, such as The Journal, that isn’t available for Mac OS. So I run Windows programs on my Mac using Parallels, which creates a virtual Windows machine that runs along with OS X.

Objective Subjectivity

When my mind was previously running an objective operating system, it’s strength was running programs that were built upon that architecture. But it wasn’t as good at running subjective programs.

In order to run subjective programs on my objective OS, I first had to run a subjective virtual machine. That allowed me to see reality through a subjective lens. Then I could run subjective programs on top of that.

This was very mentally burdensome though. It took a lot of mental RAM to load a subjective virtual machine into my conscious mind. And that didn’t leave much room for running subjective programs.

For example, suppose I want to try having a conversation with someone as if they’re a dream character, but my underlying subconscious belief is that reality is objective in nature. How can I make this interaction happen?

First, I have to load up my subjective virtual machine. In other words, I have to imagine that reality is a dream while suspending my belief that reality is objective. It takes some conscious mental effort to do that.

Then I have to imagine that other people are dream characters, and I have to retain that perspective while conversing with them. And finally, I have to pay attention to what I’m experiencing.

That’s a lot of mental work! It’s no wonder my brain felt fried at the end of the day.

Moreover, with an objective OS and a subjective virtual machine running on top of it, there wasn’t as much mental RAM available for subjective programs and their data. This turned out to be a serious limitation that prevented me from having the fullest experience of subjective reality. Ultimately it required too much mental effort. I needed to get the subjective OS running natively instead of as a virtual machine on top of an objective OS.

Installing a Subjective OS

My subjective reality experiment was basically a process of installing a subjective OS to replace my objective one. At first I had to run it as a virtual machine. But eventually I was able to get it running natively (i.e. subconsciously).

After this point the cognitive burden was greatly diminished. More mental RAM was freed up, as well as more CPU cycles. This meant that I could run more complex subjective programs. In practical terms, I could do more than have subjective conversations with friends or write subjective articles. Now I could see how to run my whole business subjectively and make plans for the long term, based on reality being a persistent yet flexible dream.

I had to rewrite a lot of code to add useful software to my subjective OS. I had to figure out how to eat, how to exercise, how to have relationships, and so on. I had good programs for these functions on my objective OS, but they couldn’t work the same way on the subjective side. The porting process required a lot of thought.

I’m still going through this process now, but at least I have the basics figured out. I’m able to function just fine, but so much has changed that I’m not living the same way I did before this experiment. It was very much like switching to a new OS on my computer and having to learn all different software. At first, productivity drops because so much is unfamiliar. Now I’m at the point where I have some good basic programs, and I’m able to be moderately productive again. This past week has been very productive for me.

I like the OS analogy since it helps me understand and explain what’s happening, but let’s not overplay it and get into dual booting and such. Dual booting may be a nice option for a computer, but I don’t yet see an equivalently easy way to do that with my brain. Then again, maybe that’s what happens when we go to sleep and have a dream.

Synchronistically, my relationship with my iPad (which I bought during my subjective trial) has been tracking the same relative progression. At first I couldn’t do much with it, and I was doubting whether it was an intelligent purchase. It took me a while to figure out how to use it productively.

Fast forward a month, and now I’m loving my iPad. I educated myself on how to use it effectively, tested lots of apps to find some good ones, and tweaked the settings to suit me better. Now I’m able to be very productive. Some days I’m using it more than my Macbook.

In a dream world, this all makes sense because my outer experience is a projection of my inner experience.

Subjective Objectivity

During my 30-day experiment, my sense of reality was all over the place. I often felt ungrounded and emotional. Some days were just so strange. But near the end of that trial, I began to reach a new place of stability and consistency, which has continued to this day. I’m really glad for that.

I realized that even though this reality may be a dream, this dream world contains its own form of objectivity. There’s a certain degree of persistence that’s predictable and reliable. It’s not completely random and chaotic.

From the dream world perspective, the world seems to be fairly stable because my beliefs are stable. If I don’t shift my beliefs around so much (like I did during my trial), then reality settles into semi-predictable patterns.

This stability means that I can still effectively apply objective-world skills. I can think and plan ahead. I can predict the likely consequences of my actions (or inactions) with reasonable accuracy. I can set and achieve goals. I can learn and grow. It’s very refreshing to know this.

For me this is an exciting place to be. It means I don’t have to completely abandon the objective OS software that was working well for me. With some tweaks here and there, I can port those apps over to the subjective side.

It’s not quite the same on the subjective side though. Every app runs a little differently. But I can still run them.

A New Sense of Possibility

A major benefit of perceiving life subjectively is that I’ve gained an incredible new sense of possibility. I’ve released many self-imposed limitations. I realized that the objective mindset was causing me to hold myself back too much, especially when it came to my career path.

From an objective frame, it’s too easy to fall into a pattern of playing it safe. Most of the time you don’t even realize you’re playing it safe because it’s a subconscious pattern. It’s the Band Aid you don’t even realize you’re wearing. Other people can see it more clearly than you can though.

I was aware of this pattern and would often push myself (and others) to be more courageous. But now I don’t feel that as much courage is required because the risks are less real. I’m willing to accept any outcome without feeling attached to it. It’s hard to get too attached to elements of a dream world. Change is inevitable.

From a subjective frame, I’m asking questions like, “If this really is a dream, what now becomes possible for me that I previously considered impossible?”

Story

Initially when I asked questions like this, I thought about how cool it would be to do seemingly magical things like I might do in a lucid dream at night. Wouldn’t it be amazing to fly, perform telekinesis, etc?

But then I began to seriously ponder the implications of that. If I could actually create those things, would I really want to? At first I noticed some fear coming up about what that would do to my sense of reality. But once I had the subjective OS installed, I didn’t feel much fear about it. Instead I began thinking in terms of story.

A 15-minute lucid dream is a cool experience. Without much time to develop an interesting story, you go for spectacle instead. Fly. Do magic. Have sex. Fight. The experience is fleeting, like riding a roller coaster. If you only have 15 minutes to live, it’s perfectly fine to invest it in an intense emotional experience. Do whatever makes you scream in delight. Enjoy yourself!

But our waking dream world is a different beast altogether. It lasts much longer than 15 minutes. It’s more enduring and persistent. It doesn’t come undone so quickly.

We can still choose to center our lives around spectacle. We can overload ourselves with entertainment, thrill seeking, and drama. But after a while, those kinds of experiences become boring. They’re not very fulfilling in the long run.

Yawn!

Fortunately we aren’t limited to spectacle. We can move beyond spectacle into the realm of story. Story is much cooler than spectacle.

With my objective OS running, I didn’t think much about the story of my life. I thought about goals, projects, and tasks. I thought about life purpose. I even thought about vision. But I didn’t really think of my life in terms of an unfolding story with a plot, characters, settings, and so on.

A persistent subjective world is an ideal place for rich and vivid stories to be told. Such stories don’t have to be told in disjointed episodes like you might see on most fictional TV shows. We can create much grander and more expansive tales.

Isn’t it interesting that TV itself has been gradually evolving to give rise to more intricate stories that play out over a period of years, such as the show Lost? Perhaps the popularity of these shows is tracking our own shift in awareness.

Your life is a story. My life is a story. Humanity’s existence is a story.

What’s the story of your life? Is it a string of random episodes? Does it rely too much on spectacle as opposed to good storytelling technique? Is it boring? Is it compelling? Is it shallow? Is it deep?

What will be the next act in your story? The next scene? What would you like to create? What would advance the plot, the character development, the message?

Instead of thinking about my life purpose, lately I’ve been thinking about my life story and how it’s unfolding.

What story am I creating? What role is my avatar playing?

This shifted me away from thinking about creating a magical dream world because I realized that would rely too much on spectacle. With too much power concentrated at the avatar level, we wouldn’t have the right level of balance between the avatar and the environment. My character wouldn’t face worthy challenges. Life would become too easy, and the resulting story would be dull. It’s like playing a video game in God mode. It can be fun for 15 minutes, but in the absence of a worthy challenge, boredom ensues.

My life story has always been more compelling when I face big challenges. For example, my story became a lot more interesting (at least to me) when I went through a period of shoplifting addiction, and I risked being caught and arrested multiple times per week. My character had to grow from that experience in order for the story to progress. A story where I sat in prison for a few years wouldn’t have been interesting for me.

Another fun challenge was when I pushed myself to go through college in three semesters. At the time I took on that goal, I didn’t know how I’d pull it off. I did it because I wanted to push myself. Creating a story where I graduated college in four years would have bored me to tears, especially if I had to live it. A 3-semester graduation was a cool plot twist.

Getting a regular job would have seemed a very boring story to me. Becoming an entrepreneur has been much more exciting to experience, to watch, and to remember.

Good constraints give rise to worthy challenges, and worthy challenges give rise to good story.

This realization gives me a sense of deep gratitude for all the apparent constraints in this seemingly physical universe. I had to accept that I really want those constraints, not because I’m afraid to face the alternative, but because the alternative would inevitably bore me to tears if I were to experience it for a sufficient length of time.

In order to create a cool story, one that’s exciting and fulfilling and meaningful, I have to be subjected to constraints. So even though this may be a dream world, I want to continue to believe that it has structure and limitation.

In other words, to a certain extent, life has to be hard, or it isn’t worth living. The things that seem most nasty to us contain the seeds of our greatest joys. Every problem is a storytelling vehicle. Without problems there can be no story elements like triumph or heroism. This is, I believe, what Kahlil Gibran meant when he wrote, “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.”

Subjective Living

Lately I’ve been asking myself, “Where do I want to take my life story from here? What kind of impact do I wish to have on the stories of others… or on the story of humanity itself?”

These have been supremely motivating questions to ask. I’ve been coming up with all kinds of cool answers.

During the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a major life review, spending many hours journaling, thinking, and planning. First I tossed out all my old goals and started from scratch with a blank slate. Then I thought each part of my life from this new place of a subjective world that includes purposeful constraints. It took me days just to figure out how to interpret my career, finances, relationships, health, and so on from this new perspective of subjective objectivity. And the further I went with it, the more excited I became. All the pieces were coming together holistically, and some elegant next steps to take were revealed.

I’m looking at my life from the perspective that it’s an unfolding story in a dream world. The dream world has various constraints, and I need those constraints to exist because working within them (and sometimes overcoming them) serves as a vehicle for interesting and meaningful storytelling and character development. The alternative is long-term boredom.

I can be passive and let the story unfold haphazardly and chaotically. But it’s more fun and fulfilling to actively participate as the primary writer. It’s like being a game designer and a gamer at the same time. What game would I like to write that I’d most enjoy playing? What story would I most like to experience?

Dropping Boring Story Elements

As a side effect of these realizations, I’ve also been dropping elements from my life that don’t contribute much to the unfolding story element.

For example, this week I canceled my cable TV and DVR service. Aside from watching Star Trek reruns, I didn’t use it much anyway. The cable TV/DVR was part of a bundle I got with my cable modem service, auto-billed to my checking account.

I realized that having my character watch TV was a boring story element, and paying for a service I barely used was lame too. I checked my bill and saw that with all the taxes and fees, I was paying $93 per month ($1115 per year) for basic cable for one TV and with no premium channels like HBO. Easy decision to cancel. There are more interesting uses for dream world time and money.

Even though I love many of the stories within Star Trek, I realized that (1) I already know those stories by memory, (2) they’re too short and simplistic to be interesting to me anymore, and (3) continually exposing myself to those fictional stories causes me to pay less attention to the story of my own life and the world at large.

What I find most fascinating is that by thinking of my life as a story, it’s pushing me to do a better job of aligning myself with all the best principles and practices I’ve written about previously. Now I see all of that as character development. Having a kick-ass character doesn’t necessarily make for an interesting story. It’s the character’s growth over time that helps create a cool story arc.

Writing a Kick-Ass Story

I acknowledge that my life has become too easy. I know that many people are still struggling with challenges like figuring out what kind of work they’d enjoy, moving from scarcity to abundance, and cultivating loving relationships. But for me this stuff has become dirt simple. I don’t have to think about it because I’ve already integrated the required mindsets and behaviors into my subconscious.

I’ve invested years of effort writing millions of words to help people make similar gains. Information-wise, I’ve said what I’ve wanted to say about most of the topics I’ve written about. I’m sure I could keep coming up with new ideas for years to come. I still love writing, and I expect it will always be a part of my life, but if I make it my primary career outlet for another six years, the story of my life will become dull and boring, and it won’t fulfill me anymore.

I need to face more ambitious challenges to craft a better story from this point on, particularly in the area of my career. It’s time to begin a new act.

I’ve already worked out a plan for what I want to do next. I have a lot to wrap up this year, so I probably won’t be too far along with it till 2011, but it’s so inspiring to me that I’ve already been working hard on it. It’s the most kick-ass vision I’ve ever come up with.

So it’s safe to say that I’m at the beginning of another major career transition right now. This is like nothing I’ve ever done before, and like nothing I’ve planned before either. It’s not a traditional career that can be named or labeled in conventional terms. It’s something that’s uniquely me. I’m still not sure how I’ll pull it off. I just know that I must do it. No matter what happens, it will make for an interesting story.

I’m not going to share the details in advance for a few reasons. First, it would be premature. I still have many details to work out, so the core concept is still evolving. I need to spend more time working through this on my own.

Second, I don’t want to get a bunch of feedback about the new direction. If I were to publicly post what my plan is, I know from experience that my inboxes will fill up, and most of the feedback won’t be useful or actionable because it will come from people who’ve never met me and who are projecting their issues onto me. I’ve been through enough rounds of that already, so I hope you can understand why I’m not going to go there this time.

I don’t expect that people will dislike the idea — quite the contrary. They’re more likely to find it too ambitious. I’d expect that the public reactions would be similar to what happened when I told people I was going to graduate college in three semesters. Nothing I’d done up to that point suggested that it was an attainable goal for me. I just knew I had to do it. People didn’t believe I could do it, so they tried to talk me out of it, which I found annoying because I was committed. Even years after I did it, people I’d never met would publicly call me a liar for writing about it. One person even called my old university and got some administrator to verify that I did it. I was surprised the school did that since I figured student academic records were confidential, but at least the caller was able to validate my story. I told that story because I wanted to share how I did it, and I thought it would inspire people, and it certainly did that in many cases. But to talk about such things in advance, at least for me, seems to do more harm than good.

And thirdly, it makes for a better story if I don’t serve up any spoilers. It will be more fun to simply do it and watch people try to make sense of it afterwards. Over the next year, many people will probably figure it out because there will be a shift in my actions that will invariably drop some clues, but for the immediate future, it will probably seem like little has changed for the rest of 2010 at least. I’m not going to suddenly stop blogging this month or anything like that.

I can at least say that unlike my 2004 transition from game development to personal development, this new transition is about building upon what I’ve already done. It’s definitely more of a forward step than a sidestep, and it has to do with expanding my contribution. I’ve never blogged about this before, so if you look to the blog for clues, I’m afraid you’ll come up empty handed.

In a way it feels like I’ve come full circle. You could say that my current mindset is more grounded, practical, and objective than ever. But it’s running on a subjective OS, and that unlocks new possibilities. I see that reality is a simulation, I see that it has a variety of constraints, and I see that those constraints are purposeful. I don’t feel limited by the constraints. I feel inspired by them. The constraints make it possible to create a kick-ass story.

I’m frakkin’ starving now, so I’m gonna go feed this avatar!

What’s your kick-ass story?

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Well… this 30-day trial of inspiration is absolutely amazing. I’m so far down the rabbit hole of subjective reality that I can perceive little else but rabbits now. And there sure are a LOT of rabbits down here!

Today is technically Day 12 of this experiment. That seems ridiculous to me. How could so much have changed in only 12 days? The pacing of life has become almost unfathomable compared to what it was like before. I feel like I’ve lived through the mental and emotional equivalent of about 3 months in less than 2 weeks. Each day is like a week in terms of the density of its intensity.

I know this is a long update (over 7400 words), but it still barely scratches the surface of what’s been happening. Fortunately you don’t actually have to read it. I’ll simply dream that I get to read and digest your reactions to this as if you’d read it. But they won’t even be your reactions because there’s no you. I’ll be hearing the echoing projections of my own inner reactions to what I’m sharing with myself. I can accept that. I still need to write all of this down for my own processing reasons. My mind needs some time to digest the events of the past week.

Fragile Tension

For some reason I now own an iPad. Why do I have an iPad? I’m not really sure. I wouldn’t have gotten one for objective reasons, but I had to get one in order to stick to the rules of this experiment.

l feel like Riker in the ST:TNG episode “Frame of Mind” saying, “I still have a phaser… why do I have a phaser?” (If you don’t get that reference, go download the Star Trek files to your character’s database.)

I went out Friday night to run some usual errands. At least I thought they were usual. It was the first time I went out since I dreamt that I flew back from Santa Fe last Monday. By Friday I was more immersed in my experiment than ever. I even felt inspired to do these errands at the time. I was also nearly out of dream food, so I was going to hit Costco and Whole Foods to do a typical food shop.

The errands may have been typical, but I wasn’t my usual self. I’d been holding the subjective reality perspective for days on end. As I went to my garage to get in my car, I reminded myself that this was a dream world. It’s funny that my dream car is a 2010 Hyundai Sonata. Perhaps I need to upgrade my imagination. Then again, I like the car, and it runs great, so as far as dream cars go, it’s not bad.

Something was very different. Driving my car wasn’t the same, nor was shopping. I’d normally find such experiences rather boring, but now I was filled with child-like wonder. Everything was fresh and new and exciting. In a dream world, anything can happen, so I was keeping myself energetically open and receptive, not knowing what to expect.

I bought mostly fresh produce, but then on impulse I randomly grabbed a few bottles of wine — three of them. That’s very odd behavior for me. In the past I’d typically drink wine once or twice a year. But now it was just dream wine, and it seemed like a fun thing to buy at the time, especially since I’d be paying with dream money. I didn’t even look at what I was buying. I just randomly grabbed some bottles and placed them into my cart. I barely noticed what kind or color. I just pulled whatever I felt drawn to.

The wine ranged in price from $7 to $13 per bottle. One was a 2005 Spanish red wine. I don’t think I’ve ever had Spanish wine before, and the type wasn’t something I’d ever heard of. When I had some later, it turned out it was really good, just the right blend of mild sweetness and tartness and not too acidic. Dream wine apparently tastes better than the real stuff. But given that my dream alcohol tolerance is so low, I felt tipsy even after one glass. Why? Because I believed it would affect me like that, and so it did. If you dream that a substance affects you, your mind creates the effect you expect.

When I checked out at Costco, the female dream clerk and her helper were extra friendly and flirtatious — and hot — so I flirted back. It got a bit silly. That’s unusual for Costco, but I shrugged it off and left the store. Hot people working at Costco? Hmmm… unusual but not unheard of. Even so, it got my attention.

After Costco, I had a strong urge to pop over to the dream Best Buy, which was nearby in the same shopping center. I felt I was supposed to go buy an iPad. Why? No idea. It seemed like a cool device, but logically I didn’t perceive a strong need for one, although I do feel it would be cool to travel with one, so I can leave my heavier Macbook Pro at home. I went to the Apple section of the store. It was around 9:00pm dream time, and no one was there. I said, “Ok, inspiration, which model should I get?” It said to get the best, so I presumed that meant the 64GB model with WiFi and 3G. There were no boxes sitting out, so I went to hunt for a dream character employee. The store was mostly deserted, so I went to the front of the store and found the guy by the exit. I asked if they had any iPads in stock. He grimaced and said, “Not sure… let me check.”

He uses a small microphone to ask someone else if they have any iPads in stock. Then he looks at me disappointed and says, “He says we only have the 64GB/3G model in stock,” as if no one would ever want that one. I said, “Great! That’s the one I want. Tell him to bring me one, and I’ll meet him at the register.”

I buy it, and I’m extra chatty with the male clerk. I know I’m looking at him strangely because I don’t think he’s a real person separate from me. He’s a character in this dream world. The interaction is so easy and smooth that afterwards I feel like I could have hit on him and gotten his phone number if I wanted to, and that he’d happily give it to me. I’m totally straight, but I think it would have been fun to try. Instead I settle for a $10 discount on the iPad keyboard and another discount on the total order. I didn’t ask for either discount — he just gave them to me. Apparently dream shopping is a little cheaper than regular shopping.

Next I go to Whole Foods. I buy almost all raw food there aside from two cans of organic veggie soup. Overall I buy the foods I believe are healthiest and that I’ll enjoy, knowing that my dream body will simulate the best reactions to those foods.

While I’m in the produce section bagging up some organic apples, an older guy comes up to me and asks me if I work there. When I tell him no, he apologizes and gives me a very strange look. I felt like he was asking me something other than the surface question though, more like, “Are you the guy in charge of this dream?” It did not feel like a normal human interaction the way it played out. I continue my shop with the suspicious feeling that he’s on to me.

As I’m about to leave Whole Foods, I get the impulse to see if they have any vegan pizza slices left in the food service section. I haven’t had dinner yet, and I figure a couple slices would go down nicely. But then I have the inspired thought that I’d love to get a whole pizza to take home with me, so I can have leftovers the next day as well, but I don’t want to wait 20-25 minutes for them to make one since I’m ready to check out and go home. I walk over to that area to take a look, and the guy had just put out a whole fresh vegan pizza with red onion, green and yellow peppers, mushrooms, and black olives. Too perfect — and very strange since the store seemed deserted, and it was only 30 minutes till closing. Did they expect to sell that many slices of vegan pizza in the final 30 minutes on a Friday night? I don’t see how they’d even come close.

I ask the guy if I can have the whole pizza, and he happily consents and boxes it up for me. Nice timing, I think to myself.

I go to the only register that’s still open. The female clerk is gorgeous, friendly, and flirty, and our interaction is fun and playful. Those kinds of interactions aren’t unusual for me, but this one was smoother and more flowing than usual. I felt like I was interacting with a dream character, a projection of my own subconscious, and that changed the nature of the interaction. It’s very hard to describe how it was different, but it just wasn’t the same as before. The interaction was completely frictionless. There was no sense of any expectation, judgment, or concern with what the other person was thinking. Communicating from a place of such emptiness is very simple and easy. It’s just like talking to a character in a lucid dream.

I went home with a feeling that something had shifted. But that was only the beginning.

The pizza was really good too. I made Rachelle envious by eating it while I video-Skyped with her later that night, occasionally offering her a virtual bite. She got me back big time though… by teasingly offering me virtual bites of her. And I know just how delicious she is.

Perfect

All across my reality, people seem different now. It’s as if the world has been injected with happiness. I notice more people laughing, smiling, having fun, and being flirtatious.

If you’re active in the forums, you may have perceived an energetic shift there within the past week or two. I’ve certainly noticed it. The place seems more fun and playful and optimistic than usual. And it’s overflowing with synchronicities too, at least for me.

In terms of online feedback, during this trial I’ve been getting significantly more than usual, but virtually none of it is negative. Where did all the harsh critics go? It’s like they suddenly vanished. The feedback I’m getting now is overwhelmingly loving and supportive and compassionate. Some of it also slides towards the seductive and sexy. Apparently something I’m doing is making certain women find me more attractive and reach out to me with a desire to connect. Can’t say I mind that.

I don’t recall getting any personal insults via email in more than a week. The closest thing to negative feedback was some emails urging caution with this experiment, but I can’t call any of them critical. The messages are more like, “Be careful. I’ve tried what you’re trying, and there are some risks to watch out for. So here are some suggestions…”

Easy Tiger

These social shifts were very rapid, practically overnight. It’s been taking me a while to mentally and emotionally catch up to them.

At first I was really excited about it. I was enthralled by all these positive changes. I was in a place of amazement and wonder. So I began to step on the accelerator, so to speak, trying to push things ahead faster and faster. But as I did that, I lost the flow of inspiration. I was trying to go too fast, being too impatient. I soon felt overwhelmed by the rapidly accumulating consequences of my actions. These consequences were overwhelmingly positive, but they were coming in too hard and fast for me to keep up. I ended up with a backlog of communication that I’m still trying to catch up with.

Then I began to almost panic. For a couple days earlier this week, I felt nervous, anxious, and insecure. Things were shifting so quickly that I was constantly out of my comfort zone. I needed to slow down, be patient, and get back in the flow of inspiration. This isn’t something I should be trying to force.

I slowed down and gradually synched back up again with the flow of inspiration. I took a break from blogging for a few days. I tried to write a new post now and then, but it felt forced and uninspired, so I stopped within minutes. I was getting the signal to slow down and relax and let my mind and emotions catch up.

For much of this week, I’ve been taking it easy. I played with the kids, learned to use my iPad and installed some apps, and tended to some errands like getting an oil change and a car wash. My dream car is nice and clean now.

I also did some tax forms for my business that were due on Monday. It was very easy to do this. I would even say it was inspired, but in a low intensity sort of way.

I found it interesting that the inspiration to get my tax forms done on time still arrived. Even though it’s a dream world, it makes sense to tend to the basics of living within the constraints of the dream storyline so as to avoid creating unwanted dream world consequences. I may be running a dream business, but it still matters to me. It’s part of the story.

Think of it like watching a movie or reading a novel — or better yet, playing an interactive video game. You may know in the back of your mind that it isn’t real, but you can still get sucked in by the plot and feel like you’re right there with the characters. That’s how my life feels. I can pull back and know that I’m dreaming, but I can also allow myself to get sucked into the story.

I took some time to meditate for an hour. That helped me release much of the stress associated with these shifts and to be more accepting of this new reality.

I’m feeling much better today, more peaceful and calm. But I’m still very excited about what’s happening. This is an absolutely amazing adventure. Pacing myself has been a challenge, but I’m getting better at surfing the waves of inspiration without overdoing it. I suspect it may take me a few more weeks to feel good about my calibration though. I’m gradually learning how to surf.

The Sweetest Condition

The biggest shifts by far have been in the area of personal relationships. Things have improved so rapidly in this area that my mind and emotions are still playing catch up. It’s like the kind of reaction you might have if your whole family suddenly died in an accident, a complete derailment of your previous expectations. The intensity of the experience is roughly at that level, but in this case, the changes are extremely positive.

For starters, my relationship with Rachelle has shifted enormously. We’ve gone a lot deeper into our connection with each other, and it’s safe to say that we’re more in love than ever. I’m overflowing with gratitude for her. Even though she’s in Saskatoon right now and still has 3 more weeks on her Canadian tour for her play, we keep in touch by video Skype nearly every day. We connect so deliciously in all four quadrants — body, mind, heart, and spirit. I swear she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I can attribute this shift directly to this experiment. It may seem counterintuitive as to why it works, so let me explain that.

I stopped seeing Rachelle as a separate individual, and I began to interact with her as a dream character, a projection of the dreamer’s subconscious. This had the effect of allowing me to release all judgments and expectations of her. I began to see her through different eyes, with a sense of child-like wonder, amazement, and curiosity.

When I communicate with her, I do my best to interpret what she says much like it’s a part of my own subconscious talking to me. It’s impossible for me to disagree with her about anything in that state, so I have to “yes, and” everything she says. After all, it’s coming from me.

When Rachelle raises a concern, I treat it as my own. I look within myself to see why I’m now expressing that concern through the character of Rachelle. By dialoging with her about it, I listen carefully to understand that aspect of myself. Then if I perceive a problem to be solved, I solve it within. And almost magically, Rachelle herself releases that concern and expresses a positive shift. I don’t even have to tell her how I worked it out. She just starts behaving differently.

I’ve done the same with many of my other relationships, and it’s been incredibly healing. I can’t possibly share all of it, as the details would require literally days of typing. But I can say it’s been absolutely magical.

In Sympathy

It starts when I feel the urge to contact someone with whom I feel there’s some unresolved or blocked energy. I notice I keep thinking about certain people, sometimes people with whom I haven’t directly communicated in months. I sense there’s still some kind of karmic connection between us that requires resolution.

I turn within and do my best to identify what that person means to me. This is basic dream interpretation 101. What does the dream character represent? What part of my subconscious is being expressed through him/her? Then I seek to heal my relationship with that part of myself. The primary vehicles for that are acceptance and forgiveness and unconditional love.

So this isn’t about transcending parts of myself. It’s about re-integrating parts of myself that I previously tried to deny, judge, or reject.

When I heal that part of myself, the relationship with the other person automatically improves.

Usually there is some direct contact with the other person as this plays out. As part of this healing process, I typically contact them. Sometimes things are resolved with a few emails; other times it’s a phone call. I could also do it face to face.

This weekend I had a phone call with a friend that lasted for 3 hours. We had previously disconnected on a bad note that turned out to be a misunderstanding. By the end of the call, I felt we had healed the rift, and I think she felt the same. Or to be more accurate, I projected those feelings onto her because I had healed this disconnect with a part of myself. I had to reintegrate what she meant to me.

Sometimes the other person senses me working on our relationship and contacts me, or so it seems. Synchronicities are off the scale right now, let’s just say.

I guess this is almost like going through a 12-step program, but I didn’t make a list of past transgressions to remedy. Instead I’m just noticing what’s arising in the present moment. If my thoughts keep going towards a certain person, I know there’s a karmic connection that needs to be looked at and healed. Then it feels like there’s a powerful release of trapped energy.

I know I’m not done with this process. I can feel more of this work flowing towards me. But it has been incredible and amazing and beautiful thus far. My relationship life has been magically transformed so quickly that it makes my head spin. I am still trying to catch up both mentally and emotionally. It’s hard to keep my own memory in sync with all the shifts.

I think the best way to describe it is that all the friction that got in the way of unconditional love is finally evaporating.

Even if I were to stop now, I’d be stunned at how wonderful this part of my life has become. But I know there’s more to come. It’s hard for me to even fathom where I’ll be in this area of my life at the end of this 30-day trial. I have no doubt that Day 30 will be radically different from Day 1, so much so that it’s going to seem like I’ve gone through some kind of dimensional portal into an alternate universe.

Comatose

But wait, there’s more — a lot more.

Rachelle and I have been, by default, monogamous with each other for the 6+ months we’ve been involved. Well, there was a fun threesome along the way, but other than that, we focused our energy primarily on each other. This actually required some blocking on our part. We both had other opportunities along the way, but we chose not to pursue them. It just seemed inappropriate. We were falling so much in love with each other that it wouldn’t have felt right to introduce other energies. Neither of us wanted to risk derailing what we were creating together. We recognized that something beautiful and magical was unfolding between us, and we wanted to go with the flow of it and soak up that experience as fully as possible.

This has been an amazing journey for us. When we talked last night, we acknowledged that this has been the best year of our lives — filled with adventure, excitement, passion, and wonderful growth experiences.

In the beginning, we were subjected to some judgment about our D/s explorations together, but if that judgment is still there, I no longer perceive it, perhaps because I made peace with that part of myself along the way. D/s play has been an amazing and wonderful part of our connection… and incredibly healing for us both. For me it has been a journey of learning how to receive love and letting go of all the guilt and shame I previously associated with it. I’ve had to work on myself a lot in this area, and I still do.

Imagine being able to command a woman to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and you know that she’ll lovingly obey you and that she’ll also enjoy it immensely. But then notice that you hesitate to do so because you feel guilty and ashamed about it. You can’t bring yourself to ask her for what you want. You don’t feel worthy of that kind of love. It’s too much — too intense — too selfish. So instead, you stay in your comfort zone and ask for less than what you really want. You compromise. What you ask for is lovingly given. But how can you bring yourself to ask for what you really want and feel good about receiving it?

That’s my situation, and healing this part of me is what I personally gain from exploring D/s. Maybe it sounds like a stupid problem to have, and I can understand why people would initially see it as a very shallow pursuit, but for me it has been a very deep and emotional part of my self-development.

I grew up in a home where the words “I love you” were never spoken (or at least I don’t recall hearing them). Hugs didn’t happen except on special occasions, and only with visiting relatives. My physical needs were abundantly satisfied, but as a child, I didn’t feel loved or cared for. The closest thing to love that I felt was when I was praised by my teachers for doing well on school assignments. That’s probably why I became such a good student and had such positive relationships with my teachers.

If I expressed any emotional neediness as a child, such needs were seldom fulfilled. I didn’t know how to get those needs met, so essentially I gave up. I have vague memories of being sensitive, loving, and compassionate as a young child, but by the time I was six years old, I had picked up too many emotional scars… and a physical scar as well from when I was stabbed. That scar on my right arm is still visible today, nearly 35 years later, a perpetual reminder of what remains to be healed within.

After that time, my heart was filled with mostly darkness – anger, hatred, despair, and a deep-seated distrust of others. I wondered why God had made me such a bad person. Why was I always screwing up? Why couldn’t I be good and follow the rules? I’d pray every night that I might somehow summon the strength to always be good, so that I might one day become worthy of love.

I would feel such intense hatred at times, mostly directed towards myself, that I began to grind my teeth, a habit that continued even while I slept. The unconscious nighttime habit stuck well into adulthood, and as a result my molars are nearly flat, with much of their enamel gone.

Years passed, and I eventually forgot that I had a heart at all. I retreated almost completely into my mind.

I learned computer programming at age 10, and the computer became my best friend and loyal companion. I had human friends along the way, but there was little emotional intimacy in those connections. For the most part, I was emotionally alone well into adulthood. I wouldn’t say that anyone really knew me. I didn’t feel I could trust anyone, least of all myself.

I met Erin when I was 22, and she somehow got inside. Perhaps it was her nature to do so. I tried to break up with her shortly after we connected, confessing that I didn’t know how to love. Yet that was the seed that became my own undoing since the reason I wanted to break up with her was that I began to care about her, and I didn’t want to see her hurt. My heart was beginning to break out of its crusty shell.

Through our 15-year relationship, a lot of healing took place. I learned how to express love. Or perhaps I remembered how. Along the way, my life path shifted towards giving and service. I came to genuinely care about people. I liked expressing that part of myself. And my life improved tremendously as a result.

I began to adopt the mindset of a lightworker. I focused on giving, giving, and more giving. I noticed that when I did that, good stuff would always flow back to me. But ultimately, that was only half of the healing process.

I Feel Loved

I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but I knew that it was time for Erin and me to separate. She had guided me far enough down the path of giving love that it was clear I’d never slip back. I could keep advancing down that path on my own. I understood how important it was.

Erin, however, wasn’t the right person to help me heal the other half of myself, the part that was unable to receive love. It wasn’t her role to perform. I needed a different teacher to help me with that.

As I learned to give more, a lot of good stuff would flow back to me. But it was very difficult for me to receive it. People would thank me and praise me for my help, but I felt uncomfortable with such expressions of appreciation. So I put up blocks and barriers to receiving, mostly unconsciously. I discouraged people from emailing me. I declined invites from people who wanted to meet with me in person. I hid behind a computer much of the time. I implemented a variety of strategies that made it possible for me to give a lot without allowing myself to receive much.

I couldn’t completely stop the flow of receiving though, so I redirected it in other ways, such as growing my business. I reached the point of allowing financial abundance to flow through me, but I couldn’t accept expressions of love and appreciation that were too emotional in nature, nor could I ask for such love. It would have disgusted me to act like I cared about such things — I couldn’t possibly be so emotionally needy.

But little by little, the emotional side began to get through. Sometimes I’d cry after receiving certain pieces of feedback, such as learning that I’d prevented a suicide.

Eventually some part of me triggered a major shift in this area, like a spiritual subroutine that suddenly became active. At first it hit me intuitively, then later on, logically. I began to realize that if I could become happier and more fulfilled, I could do a better job of serving others.

After Erin and I separated last year, I felt a strong intuitive urging to explore D/s with a female partner. Shortly thereafter, Rachelle came into my life. She has been a true gift in that regard, and I am intensely grateful for her.

When I think I’m pushing myself to ask for what I want, she gives of herself lovingly and then encourages me to ask for more. After months of this, I came to realize just how much I’m still holding back. I’ve made a lot of progress, but I know there are still some blocks to work through. I find it very difficult to ask for things that I would love… without feeling any shame or guilt for asking. And so I manifested a dream world in which selfishness is shunned and pleasure is regarded as sin. It’s okay to give to others, but we can’t give too much to ourselves; if we do that, we’re bad people.

Of course Rachelle and I have talked through all of this, but I still find it a challenge.

Rachelle has been the ideal partner for me in this regard. The ways I most want/need to receive love are symmetrically the ways in which she most enjoys expressing love. The more I’m able to open up and ask for what I want, the more she enjoys it too. When I hold back too much, I see my own hesitation reflected through her reactions.

If there are boundaries in our connection, they’re my own. To my best recollection, she has never found it necessary to decline anything I’ve asked her for, and she’s never used our safe word. Whatever I ask for, she lovingly grants.

I feel a bit foolish to have such a problem. After all, what kind of guy would hold back in a situation such as mine? And yet, it’s a huge challenge for me nonetheless. It’s hard enough for me to come to terms with all the love she’s poured onto me already, let alone to seek further expansion of it.

Freelove

But wait… there’s more. It gets better.

As I applied the subjective perspective to my relationship with Rachelle, and to myself as well, I finally began seeing the big picture. Up to this point, I didn’t identify my challenges with D/s as a problem with receiving love. I knew there were some internal shifts happening, but I didn’t quite understand them.

Now I can see what’s really been happening, so I can work with the process more consciously.

I can’t share all the details without typing for many more hours (and my wrists are beginning to get sore as it is), but the short version is that after much discussion, Rachelle and I decided to open our relationship and explore polyamory together.

We both knew we’d eventually turn this corner, and the time just seemed right. Energetically we’re still processing what this means to us, but we’ve already taken steps to move forward, and at this point, there’s sufficient momentum to carry us through to getting involved with other partners. That is already unfolding.

Yes, I’m being intentionally vague about it. It feels premature to share more details, especially since exploring polyamory by definition involves other people… or other dream projections, depending on your perspective.

I can say that something very interesting began to happen when we made this shift. A number of women began opening themselves to one or both of us, either suggestively hinting or outright stating they’d like to explore D/s with us… or try a threesome… or explore some kind of similar sharing of love and connection with us… or potentially get involved long-term. There was such a surge in a short period of time that we couldn’t help but notice.

But yet, we hadn’t gone public about it yet. Somehow those people must have picked up on the shift we were going through, and they felt safe enough to let us know of their interest. Of course that makes perfect sense in a dream world.

We’re entering into this part of our journey together very consciously and with a lot of communication. We check in with each other each day, often multiple times per day, and go deeper into our thoughts and feelings about it. At first we each had to work through some blocks and strong emotions, even though we knew it was what we wanted to experience. Now we seem to have reached a point of acceptance and also excitement about the idea. There’s such a strong bond of love and trust between us that we feel we can make this work. We want to be able to open up more and share the tremendous love we have between us with others.

This isn’t primarily about sex, although we each want that to be a part of our exploration together. The primary intentions are to increase our alignment with Oneness, to open our hearts even more, and to shed all negative associations to sharing love openly, including shame, guilt, fear, jealousy, envy, and attachment. Sex is a yummy icing on the cake, but in truth it’s one of many healing modalities, albeit a potent one.

I Am You

Previously my favorite analogy for explaining the principle of Oneness was the cells-in-the-body model. We’re all cells in the larger body of humanity. We have both an individual identity and a collective one. The health of the body and the health of the cells are one.

This was a powerful analogy, and it helped me make great strides forward in this part of my life. I was able to open up and connect socially with much greater ease and comfort when I recognized that other people were cells in the same body as me.

I’ve been sharing this analogy for years — in my blog, in my book, and at CGW.

But now I’m letting that analogy go because I’ve found a much more powerful replacement to help me align with Oneness.

That new analogy is that we’re all projections of the same dreamer in a dream world.

With this analogy there’s no longer a cell wall between us. There’s no separation at all. We aren’t just individual parts of the same whole — we’re different windows into the same being.

Now when I see another person, I don’t think that we’re two cells in the same body. I see us as different viewports into the same being. In fact, we are the same being. You are me, and I am you.

At one point instead of saying “I love you,” Rachelle and I said to each other, “I am you.” That had a whole different feel to it energetically. It felt like our connection suddenly went much deeper.

I realized that Rachelle and I aren’t two separate individual beings. We’re in fact the same singular being, the same consciousness. Separation is a complete illusion. We are two different images of the same thing.

And the same goes for everyone else.

I’ve been walking around for days in a daze, seeing myself in everyone and everything. It’s so obvious that I can scarcely believe I didn’t notice it before.

All love is self-love. All conflict is inner conflict.

The experience of Oneness within and harmonious relationships without are the same pursuit.

Dream On

I can no longer accept the premise of objective reality. I’ve gone too far down this rabbit hole and encountered too many amazing rabbits to expect that I’ll ever surface topside again. I’m now virtually certain that reality is in fact a dream world. If there’s a better analogy for the true nature of this existence, I haven’t come across one yet.

I say “virtually certain” because I still have some doubts and fears to work through. But one by one, they appear to be collapsing in a cascading fashion. I think their days are numbered and that it’s only a matter of time before I shed them all.

So many things that confused me before have now become clear.

Take quantum mechanics for instance. This is a real brain-pretzelizer from an objective standpoint. Why would consciousness affect physical matter? But if this is a dream world, then the existence of quantum mechanics is a rather obvious projection of the underlying nature of the dream. Quantum physical events don’t get resolved until they’re observed because the dreamer has to perceive them in order to resolve them, in order to give them form and substance. If the dreamer doesn’t perceive something, then the dream mind doesn’t bother to resolve it. This is precisely the behavior you’d expect from a dream.

This simulated reality only manifests what we can perceive. Until the dreamer perceives something, that something is stuck in non-created limbo. It would make no sense for the simulation to generate something that would never be perceived. Hence this dream reality, should you attempt to study it through an objective lens, must reflect something back to you that is for all intents and purposes what we’ve identified as quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is nothing but a fancy label for dream world physics. In fact, all of science is the study of the inner workings of the dream world.

What about the Law of Attraction? This too is a side effect of being in a dream world. When you hook yourself into dreamer-level consciousness, you gain some ability to alter the dream by planting suggestions within the subconscious of the dreamer. The dream world then shifts accordingly. And of course the dream world must be consistent with your beliefs. So thoughts and beliefs of financial scarcity will manifest scarcity, and thoughts of abundance will manifest abundance, just as you’d expect in accordance with the Law of Attraction.

Perhaps a more accurate name for the LoA would be the Law of Subconscious Suggestion. The dream world manifests the most powerful suggestions that you plant within the subconscious of the dreamer. By accessing the dream program, you can reprogram the dream. The more self-aware you are — i.e. the more lucid you become — the greater your ability to apply this ability. But the more asleep you are — i.e. the more you succumb to the false belief that you’re in an objective world — the more you must live out your days as an NPC, unable to reprogram the dream.

What about psychic abilities? That makes sense from a dream perspective too. It suggests, however, that there may be some inherent limits to psychic abilities. In a dream world, your psychic abilities are limited by your beliefs. If you don’t subconsciously believe you can do it, you probably can’t manifest it.

All psychic readings are actually self readings. Top psychics can pick up seemingly astounding info about people they’ve never met because the underlying truth is that they are in fact the same being they’re reading for, so the psychic is simply reading his/her own subconscious, and the client is nothing but a projection and doesn’t exist as a separate individual anyway. Consequently, a psychic should be able to create a powerful boost in their abilities by recognizing the fact that they’re always reading themselves and that there really is no client “out there.”

A psychic’s ability to predict the future of some aspect of the dream is limited to the psychic’s degree of lucidity. You aren’t really predicting anything because dreams are largely unpredictable. But you can implant suggestions into the dreamer’s subconscious. So psychic prediction is really subconscious creation, i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy.

In a dream world, everything is a projection of the subconscious of the dreamer. Consequently, the dream world is absolutely overflowing with clues that you’re dreaming right now. You just can’t see them until you look for them. Such is the nature of being asleep.

Try this. Look up the lyrics to any of your favorite songs, or go play a song or two, and listen to the words.

As you hear the words, imagine that you’re dreaming right now and that the song is a message from your own subconscious. You will see that the song’s lyrics are trying to reveal to you that you’re dreaming right now. Notice the real meaning behind the song’s metaphors.

Many songs are about reintegration. Love the different parts of yourself. Stop all violence and conflict. You’re only fighting with yourself.

Some songs point out that you’re asleep and in denial about it. Even a song with seemingly crazy lyrics will begin to make sense if you regard it as communication from your own dream world. What are the last echoing words of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” for instance? “A Denial!” And what’s the meaning of the line, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous”? It’s telling you that you’re afraid to wake up. What would it mean to turn on the lights?

Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself. Try it with any song that inspires you. The reason a song moves you emotionally is that it’s causing the dreamer within to resonate with a deeper level truth.

You can do the same thing with any TV show or movie that you find inspiring to watch. Did you like The Matrix just a little too much? Any idea why? Because you’re in one right now.

Shine

Being in a dream world has some powerful implications. I’ve found that my ability to create my reality has increased massively these past 12 days. My focus has largely been on healing and expanding the relationship part of my life, and that makes perfect sense to me. The most exciting element of such an immersive and persistent dream, at least for me, is the experience of interacting with the other dream characters. The more love and harmony I can create with those characters, the better the dream becomes.

I’m currently excited but also trepidatious about what this might mean. As I have some skill with nighttime lucid dreaming, I’m beginning to wonder if I can bring those abilities to bear in this dream world too. Part of me wants to dive into that, but another part of me knows I should learn to walk in this dream world before trying to fly.

Nevertheless, I did a small test this afternoon, trying to move a pen across the counter with my mind. I tried for about a minute. The pen didn’t budge. However, during those 60 seconds, I noticed all sorts of thoughts and feelings arising within me. There was fear and paranoia over what might happen if the pen actually moved. I felt a ripping sensation as a terrified part of myself began to surface. I sensed that if that pen actually moved, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would mean the end of my life as I know it.

It was obvious that I’m not ready to see that pen move. Part of me won’t allow us to go there yet. It would be too terrifying if it actually happened.

But another part of me knows that the pen is eventually going to move. However, I have a lot more growth ahead of me before I’m ready to see that.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to deal with the challenges and growth experiences that are right in front of me as I follow the flow of inspiration moment by moment. Those lessons have to do with relationships, giving and receiving unconditional love, and releasing some shame and guilt.

You can call me crazy for going this far down the rabbit hole, but it won’t stop me from moving forward. I’d simply interpret you as a projection of my own fear and doubt, which I acknowledge are still present within me. As you raise your voice in protest, I’ll accept your objections as if they’re my own, and I’ll forgive myself for those delusions and re-integrate those skeptical parts of myself, honoring them for their commitment to keeping me safe and protected.

You are beautiful and amazing, my favorite figment.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Is it scary? Most definitely. Why is it scary? Partly because I have no idea what’s going to happen next or where this will lead, and the logical part of my mind is freaking out a bit. It’s difficult to feel grounded and secure.

I have no idea where I left my comfort zone. I really can’t even see it from where I’m standing.

The pace of change I’m experiencing is extremely rapid. So much has already shifted in just the first week, including a lot I haven’t blogged about. Honestly I’d have to write for at least 5-6 hours per day just to explain all the stuff that’s happening, so I can really only blog about the highlights. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to identify what’s a highlight at this time.

Even the blogging aspect falls within the purview of the trial, so I’m only blogging when I feel inspired to do so, and only about the details that flow through me in that inspired state. That part can be frustrating. My logical mind often voices objections, pointing out that we should also share X, Y, and Z, since it would help tie things up in a neater, less disjointed bundle. Unfortunately the inspiration just takes off in some other direction, and in order to stick with this trial, I have to run with it. So whatever comes through when I’m blogging, I just have to trust that it will be enough.

My logical mind is constantly trying to play catch-up. Here’s how that’s playing out:

I get an inspired idea, and once I recognize it as such, I take action on it almost immediately. Those actions generate some results. And those results can cause ripples of change (i.e. consequences). My mind then attempts to make sense of those ripples and predict what effects they’re likely to have.

Suppose I feel inspired to suggest a certain idea to Rachelle that pertains to our relationship. I act immediately and discuss it with her as soon as possible. We both like the idea and come to some new decisions. My mind then tries to understand the consequences of those decisions, so it can begin envisioning a new future consistent with them.

This is how my mind would normally operate before this trial.

However, what’s happening now is that while my logical mind is doing its usual mental processing, trying to get a clearer grasp of what’s happening, I’m already off and running with the next inspired idea. That leads to more actions, more results, and more ripples.

While my mind is waiting for the ripples to settle, I just keep splashing around. More ripples are generated, and those ripples interact with each other. The consequences of different actions combine to create blended consequences that are very difficult to fathom.

Imagine you quit your job one day. Then a couple days later, you move to a new city. Then a few days after that, you buy a new car. And then after a few more days, your best friend passes away. That would be a very severe week of change, and your mind would have a hard time keeping up. Now imagine experiencing this pace of change for a whole month without a break. I’m exaggerating this of course, but I think you get the idea.

By stacking so many changes on top of each other, prediction becomes almost impossible. If there’s a pattern to these ripples, I can’t see it clearly yet.

This frustrates my logical mind’s attempts to predict where things are headed. Consequently, it’s beginning to throw in the towel on even trying. It’s not quite there yet though — it’s still cussing a lot.

The net effect is that doing this trial is like taking my future expectations and constantly erasing them. As soon as a new future expectation begins to form, I erase it again. Every day, often multiple times per day, I keep going back to a blank slate.

With no clear future expectations that I can comprehend, I can’t derive any sense of security from knowing where things are going. I have to keep coming back to the present moment, breathing through whatever is arising right now.

This is very difficult for me. But I’m so curious to know what it’s like to live this way for a while, and my curiosity is keeping me going.

I suspect that given enough time on this path, I’ll begin to get used to it, and it won’t feel so scary after a while. I’m hoping that happens sooner rather than later.

The good news is that the degree I can attempt to predict where things are headed, which may be nothing but a conceit at this point, it does appear that this is shaping up to be a very positive transition period. There’s some fear but also a lot of happy excitement.

Most of the inspirations that have come through during this first week seem to be concentrating on emotional healing (of myself and others) and a transformation of pretty much all of my relationships in some way or other. I expect that those parts of my life will be in a very different place by the end of this trial. Even if I were to stop now, some major shifts have already occurred. But I can’t predict what things will look like at the end of the 30 days because the pace of change is just too rapid. However, I do have reasonable cause to believe this trial will leave me much better off than when I started. If I were to stop now, I could easily make that claim.

I can’t believe it’s only been 7 days. That’s been more than enough time to conclude that this path is worthy of further exploration.

I wonder what would happen if a group of people did such a trial together as a team effort. That would just be explosive to watch.

I do appreciate all the love and support people have been sending my way this week. The extra social support really helps. Knowing that people are finding value in these updates gives me more motivation to keep going. So thank you for that!

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Whenever I write about certain topics, especially those that seem contrary to mainstream conditioning, some people voice very strong opinions. They communicate their thoughts with a high degree of certainty, as if adopting the posture of an expert.

However, upon further inspection it becomes readily apparent that most of these people have little or no direct experience upon which to base their opinions. Their knowledge of such subjects can hardly be classified as knowledge at all, since it’s derived largely from non-primary sources like media conditioning, third-party rumors, and supposition.

Erroneous Knowledge

Of course the problem with acquiring “knowledge” in such an indirect manner is that it’s often riddled with errors. People claim certainty about things that “just ain’t so.”

For example, when I wrote some blog posts about polyamory, much of the feedback I received was nonsensical, whether it was supportive or critical. Out of sheer ignorance, some people would start with a false assumption such as polyamory = polygamy (polygamy is illegal in the USA) and then base their opinions on that assumption. Other assumptions were not quite so ludicrous, but they were just as inaccurate.

People made such errors in judgment because they have no relevant experience upon which to base an informed opinion. So they filled in their lack of knowledge with guesses, and many of those guesses turned out to be completely erroneous. From their perspective their opinions seemed to make sense, but to any reasonable person with experience in those areas, such opinions seemed utterly naive at best and sometimes borderline insane.

Such problems aren’t limited to polyamory of course. They can come up with any topic, but they tend to happen more frequently in areas where people lack direct experience. Other topics which generated a lot of ignorant feedback based on false assumptions include polyphasic sleep, raw food diets, divorce, and even self-employment.

The Smoothing Function

One reason this problem occurs is that our brains have a tendency to apply a “smoothing function” when we lack information about certain subjects. Our minds are always searching for new levels of certainty and patterns of predictability, so when we lack direct experience in a certain area, our brain does the best it can to pull in connections from seemingly related areas.

Unfortunately sometimes those related areas just aren’t related enough, so the connections that are formed introduce a great deal of error, and this corrupts any conclusions we might draw based on those connections.

Think of it like an image or a video that’s overly compressed to the point where you can’t even make out any distinct elements. It’s just a blur of colors. That missing data is important. If the compression is turned up too high, the images don’t convey accurate and useful information.

For example, when I wrote about polyphasic sleep, the topic was outside of most people’s direct experience. Nevertheless, that fact didn’t prevent such people from voicing strong opinions about it. But since they hadn’t experienced polyphasic sleep and knew virtually nothing about it, their opinions were based on the closest mental connections they could form. So people would share opinions with false suppositions like polyphasic sleep = long-term sleep deprivation.

Similarly when I wrote about the raw food diet, many people who hadn’t read so much as a single book about raw foods would share ignorant (yet often strongly worded) opinions based on silly assumptions like raw foods = eating only salads all day.

And then there were false associations like polyamory = promiscuity, domination and submission = abuse, and divorce = conflict.

Some false associations are of a more personal nature, the result of overgeneralization. These include beliefs such as, “I can’t make money online,” or “If I get divorced, it will screw up my kids,” or “If I lose my job, I won’t be able to cope.”

Suspending Judgment

False beliefs and associations are growth killers. When your mind is cluttered with false information, and you base your beliefs on such falsehoods, you can’t move forward in those particular areas. Your progress remains stunted until you clean up the mental mess.

Now the obvious solution here is to suspend judgment when your knowledge in a particular area is lacking. You can actually do this consciously. Your brain may still apply its smoothing function at inappropriate times, but with sufficient self-awareness, you can discipline yourself to mentally override those biases.

The first step is awareness. You must become aware of the areas where you’re likely to harbor false beliefs.

When you catch yourself voicing a strong opinion on some subject, pause for a moment and check in with yourself. What specific knowledge are you basing your opinion on? Is this knowledge based on a wide range of direct experience? Are you an expert on this topic? How do you know what you claim to know?

Do you catch yourself arguing with someone who has more direct experience than you? Are you voicing an opinion just to be opinionated, or are you sharing information of value?

Is your ego getting too involved? Are you wrapping your ideas into your identity, such that when your ideas are criticized, you feel a need to personally defend yourself.

What comes up if you ask yourself, What else might be true?

Based on your self-diagnostic, you may come to realize that your opinion, even though it may be strongly held, has little or no basis in fact.

At this time you can choose to take a step back, release your attachment to your opinion, and allow your mind to unclench and open itself to new ideas. After all, your opinions are not even yours to claim. They are just perspectives. There’s no need to take ownership of any perspective and wrap it into your identity.

You Are Perspective-Independent

It can be tremendously helpful at times to adopt a particular perspective and make the best case you can for it. Then sit back and observe how other people react to it. Allow their feedback to poke holes in your arguments if possible. Use the strength of that initial perspective to draw out other potential perspectives, and explore them as well. But don’t get your ego so wrapped up in your perspective that you close your mind to new ideas.

I do this quite often when I write new articles. Before I begin writing, I adopt a certain perspective that I want to explore in more depth. Then I write some observations based on how reality appears through that lens. After I post the article, I step back and observe the feedback. I see what other lenses people suggest. I see what new pros and cons they identify. In the follow-up discussions, I may push harder to make a case for the original lens, but sometimes I’ll switch sides and offer up other perspectives, so we can explore those as well.

I realize this can confuse people at times because we’re so conditioned to wrap perspectives/lenses into our identities, but I find that more growth opportunities are possible with an open mind. Open-mindedness, however, makes for very dull writing and cannot stimulate much growth. A truly open mind can only receive; it has nothing to give. However, when the mind fixates for a while on a specific perspective, it can express many interesting insights.

If you assume that my blog posts represent my personal opinions on all subjects I write about, you’ll have a completely inaccurate image of me, and you’ll probably be confused in the end because many of my articles share perspectives that appear to be in conflict with each other. That’s because the perspectives I share aren’t mine per se. They’re perspectives that I temporarily adopt to stimulate people to grow. It doesn’t matter whether people agree or disagree with the perspectives that are shared. They derive new growth lessons through the process of thinking about and discussing what’s true for them.

For example, when I write a very opinionated article like 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job, it stimulates a tremendous amount of thought and discussion. For some people, the ideas in the article help motivate them to start their own businesses. I’m aware of dozens of new businesses that have been spawned as a direct result of people reading that article. But some people react in just the opposite way. That article makes them think more deeply about their role as an employee and warns of traps to avoid, so they’re able to make more conscious choices if they choose to follow the path of long-term employment. Either way, that article helps stimulate growth precisely because it appears so strongly opinionated, and therefore people are inclined to think about and react to the ideas being shared.

So the irony here is that it can be a very powerful growth experience to adopt a specific perspective and explore it deeply, but you don’t want to get so attached to any particular perspective that you miss out on powerful growth opportunities. You want to use strong perspectives as a tool for stimulating growth as opposed to a method of blocking growth.

Blocking

Quite often people succumb to false beliefs and erroneous judgments in order to block themselves from facing their fears.

For example, if people can make harsh judgments about divorce, even if such judgments are based on false or inaccurate information, it allows them to rule out the possibility of divorce. Consequently, they may remain stuck in an unfulfilling marriage. Staying stuck enables them to block themselves from facing fears such as: If we break up, will I be able to cope? Will I be able to support myself financially? How will my friends and family react? Will a divorce screw up the kids? Am I good enough to attract a new partner? Can I handle seeing my partner withs someone else? What if s/he finds someone who’s a better match than me, and I’m still alone?

Facing such challenges consciously can be too much for some people, so in the short run, it may seem easier to block the whole thing by clinging to a false belief like marriage is permanent.

A telltale sign of such blocking is closed-mindedness and the unwillingness to consider contradictory information. Especially common is the unwillingness to embrace learning through direct experience.

When people are in blocking mode, they’ll often propose and defend the most ridiculous arguments that make more experienced people cringe.

I see this sort of blocking happen quite often in relationship related discussions in our forums. When people are desperately clinging to an unfulfilling relationship situation, out of fear they may not be able to find anything better, they’ll frequently attack any perspectives that would potentially present them with major growth opportunities. Their unwillingness to face their fears prevents them from seriously considering new perspectives.

The upside is that blocking is often a prelude to a breakthrough. People who are in a blocking phase aren’t necessarily stuck long-term. Usually they’re working through their fears. The whole reason they dive into such discussions instead of remaining silent is that subconsciously they know that other more experienced people will rip their baseless arguments to shreds, thereby pushing them to face their fears. This can help create cracks in the person’s resistance as their block begins to crumble.

Some people eventually come to realize that they’re blocking, and this helps them open their minds and take a deeper look at themselves. This is a difficult thing to do, and I have tremendous respect for people who can recognize their own blocks and look for ways around them. On the other hand, I also have a lot of compassion for people whose resistance is much stronger; they’re deeply afraid of what they may find on the other side.

Beyond Blocking

Based on my experience seeing many people go through this process, and having done it myself many times, I can at least turn the page and let you know what to expect when you begin to see your own blocks.

Initially it’s a humbling experience for most, and afterwards it opens the door to tremendous growth. But how that growth plays out is a bit different for everyone.

Some people experience a major breakdown as their old beliefs succumb to new truths. For a while nothing seems real anymore. It’s as if their whole reality is broken. They have to live one day at a time for a while to process what’s happening to them. If you find yourself in this place, rest assured it’s temporary. Just keep breathing, and you’ll work your way through it.

Other people go through this process much more gradually, spreading it out over years instead of weeks. Little by little, bits and pieces of their false beliefs are chipped away, and they begin to perceive reality more accurately than before.

In the end, the general attitude I see most often is one of gratitude. People look back and say things like, “It was hard, but it was surely worth it.”

Do you have blocks? Yes, we all do. If you’re aware of one or more of your blocks, then you have a chance to chip away at them. If you aren’t aware of any blocks, it simply means you aren’t ready to work on them yet. When you feel ready, simply say aloud to the universe, “Show me where I’m blocked.” Say it like you mean it. If your desire is genuine, you won’t have to wait long for one of your blocks to reveal itself.

One suggestion I have for overcoming such blocks is to educate yourself. Turn towards your fears in a gentle way by getting a book on the subject and reading about it. Education is a powerful antidote to fear.

Another option is to talk to people who’ve already gone through what you fear you might have to endure. They can share a more empowering perspective with you that you may not think is possible.

I was much less resistant to divorce, for example, after reading some books about it and talking to people who’d already gone through a divorce. Similarly, I felt a lot more comfortable running my own business after reading books by successful entrepreneurs.

If reading a whole book is too much of a commitment, then make an appointment to go to your local bookstore and read just one chapter of one book. Or read for just 20 minutes total. See if you can pick up one or two ideas that will help fill in some gaps in your knowledge.

Once you’ve educated yourself, it’s much easier to muster the courage to begin taking small action steps, and from there you can build momentum towards a greater transition.

Yet another option is to use the Lefkoe Method to identify and eliminate limiting beliefs, which takes about 20 minutes per belief. I’ve been recommending this method since 2009, and the feedback I’ve received on it since then has been wonderful. I know many people who’ve benefitted greatly from this technique.

Intelligent Judgments

Judgment isn’t a bad thing per se. Judgments are necessary for making good decisions. Your brain is wired to make judgments automatically because your survival depends on it. Whenever you decide what to eat or not eat, you’re making a judgment call.

In terms of personal growth, it’s important to strike the right balance between flexibility and rigidity in your judgments. If you’re too flexible, you become wishy-washy and can’t make strong decisions. Such people don’t function very well. They get tossed around by the currents of life. Other people run roughshod over them. They can’t build or sustain any serious momentum. They bounce around from one thing to another without any rhyme or reason, and their weak results reflect their lack of self-control.

On the other hand, too much rigidity can be just as problematic. Such people have a hard time seeing the big picture. False beliefs cripple them from growing in certain areas, so they remain perpetually stuck.

How can you tell the difference between good judgments and bad ones?

This is perhaps the simplest way to understand the difference. Good judgments yield accurate predictions. Bad judgments yield inaccurate predictions.

For example, if I post about something I’m going to do, and you make some predictions about what’s going to happen, how accurate are your predictions? Do my reported results fall within the range of your expectations, or do they violate your expectations? If your expectations are violated, it means you’ve based your predictions on one or more bad judgments.

One of my favorite ways to challenge people who are clearly succumbing to false beliefs is to push them to share some specific predictions based on their judgments. I simply ask them to share what they expect will happen next, preferably in public, such as by posting in our forums. For those who do it, it puts them on record, and it allows them to see if they were right in the long run. Some of these people make ridiculously erroneous predictions that any experienced person would find laughable, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from voicing their opinions with great certainty.

For example, when I was doing my 30-day trial of raw foods, I seem to recall that one person predicted something like, ”If you eat 100% raw vegan for 30 days, you will suffer protein deficiency symptoms. You’ll never make it to 30 days because otherwise you’d get sick and die.”

This person’s ignorance about basic nutrition led them to make a completely inaccurate prediction. Such is the nature of false knowledge — it leads to erroneous predictions.

What’s even more ridiculous is when people make erroneous back-predictions of events that have already turned out contrary to their false assumptions. For example, I’ve seen some people predict that if I try to eat vegan for 30 days, I’ll die from nutritional deficiencies… even though I’ve already been vegan since 1997.

Obviously these cases are extreme to the point of being ludicrous, but I share them because we all do this sort of thing to varying degrees. If we would put ourselves on record more often by sharing our best predictions and expectations, it would help expose more of our false beliefs, thereby giving us the opportunity to uproot and replace them with more accurate perspectives. If we can’t share any specific predictions, then a posture of open-mindedness makes more sense than one of closed-mindedness and rigidity. If we can’t make good predictions, we can’t claim any degree of certainty.

If you want to know if your judgments are accurate, make some predictions based on those judgments, and see if they come to pass as you expect. The more accurate your judgments, the more accurate your predictions will be. If your predictions turn out to be grossly inaccurate, take a deeper look at your judgments to see where you’ve gone wrong.

As you gradually fine-tune your judgments, you’ll consequently make more accurate predictions. And since you naturally rely on your predictions and expectations when making decisions, you’ll get better at making decisions that generate the results you desire. This has very practical consequences. It means more money in your wallet, better health and energy, and happier and more fulfilling relationships to enjoy.

It will take time and patience to calibrate your judgments effectively, such that your flexibility or firmness is appropriate to your level of knowledge and the circumstances you’re dealing with. Fortunately, your interactions with those who challenge you will automatically help you get there, if you hold the intention to keep growing and learning.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

The Idea-Implementation Gap

During the 1980s, my younger brother and I saw a TV ad for a device called The Clapper. You could hook up The Clapper to an electrical outlet, and it would allow you to turn the power on or off by clapping loudly a couple times. Perhaps the most common use for the device was to turn the lights on and off. So you could be lying in bed reading, and when you were ready to go to sleep, just clap your hands to turn the lights off. Clap again to turn the lights back on.

This seemed like a cool gadget at the time, so my brother and I got one. We shared a bedroom with bunk beds, so we thought The Clapper would be especially convenient for turning the lights on or off when we were on the top bunk, far from the light switch.

Initially The Clapper worked just as expected. We got used to it within a couple days. It was very nice to turn the lights off just by clapping. Such a cool gadget, we thought.

In the following weeks, however, we began to notice some strange side effects from The Clapper.

Some nights one of us would roll over in bed and notice that the lights were on. The Clapper must have turned them on by mistake. Sometimes when the lights turned on at night, it would be enough to wake one or both of us up. But other times we’d just be sleeping for a while with the lights shining on our faces. Occasionally our alarm clock would go off in the morning, and we’d notice that the lights were already on.

Other times we’d be sitting down doing our homework in the evening, and the lights would suddenly turn off. We’d have to clap again to turn them back on.

Eventually we figured out what was causing this screwy behavior.

Our next door neighbors had a dog, and our bedroom window was pretty close to their backyard. The dog could get within 10-15 feet of The Clapper, and if the dog barked loudly enough, it would turn our lights on and off.

If the dog ever barked in the middle of the night, it usually wasn’t enough to wake us up, but it was enough to turn our lights on.

If I recall correctly, the device had a sensitivity adjustment slider, but that didn’t help. If we made it sensitive enough for us to activate it, it was also sensitive enough for the dog to do so.

Oddly, once we realized The Clapper could be activated by barking, my brother and I also started barking. Instead of clapping, we would yelp, “Arf! Arf!” to turn the lights on or off. That became our preferred method because then we didn’t even have to move our arms — the ultimate in laziness.

Our barking had the side effect of making our parents and siblings think we were going a bit nuts, especially when we’d bark in the middle of the night to counteract the dog’s actions.

One night the dog was barking a lot, and our bedroom lights kept turning on. After the dog would bark, one of us would bark to turn the lights off again. Unfortunately my brother and I didn’t always coordinate well, so sometimes we’d both bark at the same time, and our actions would cancel each other. We’d end up turning the lights off and then on again. And when we’d bark, the dog could hear us too, and it would bark back at us, turning our lights back on once again.

Another problem was that usually one of us would wake up before the other, and that first person would bark to turn the lights off. This would often startle the person who was still sleeping.

“Arf! Arf!”

“What was that???”

“Just turning the lights off. Dog turned them on again.”

“Oh, okay…”

Suffice it to say that The Clapper didn’t last much longer in our home after that.

Although The Clapper seemed like a cool idea, it failed to perform well under these real-world conditions. In the end the problems it created were worse than the one it solved. My brother and I inadvertently entered into a barking contest with the neighbor’s dog.

Ludicrous Results

Despite the problems we encountered, it took my brother and me a while to admit defeat and dump The Clapper.

Why?

Partly it was because we’d gotten used to it. Even though our constant barking sounds silly in retrospect, the problems surfaced gradually enough that we developed a tolerance for them.

We also got into the habit of using The Clapper to turn the lights on and off. We barely used the light switch anymore. Upon entering the bedroom at night, we’d automatically bark to turn the lights on. And as we left the room, it was easy enough to yelp another “Arf! Arf!” to turn them off. After doing this for several weeks, the habit was ingrained, and we didn’t even question it anymore — although the rest of our family certainly did.

And lastly, our egos got involved. We didn’t want to admit defeat. Getting The Clapper was our decision, and we took pride in making good decisions. We didn’t want to admit that it was a waste of money. We wanted so much to believe, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

So even though the results were ludicrous, we still kept using The Clapper for several more weeks.

Checking in with Yourself

Do you currently find yourself in a similar situation? Are you getting results in any areas of your life that an intelligent person would label as completely ludicrous? Are you in denial of the obvious?

What would an intelligent person say about your career path? How’s your relationships with your boss and co-workers? Anything ludicrous to report there?

How about your finances? Are those going smoothly, or are you heading for a ludicrous reckoning?

Same goes for your health habits… Is it smooth sailing there, or would an intelligent person predict a rude awakening somewhere down the road?

What about your relationships and social life? Would an intelligent person appreciate your choices, or would they roll their eyes in disgust?

How about your daily routine and habits? Are those generating good results for you, or are you addicted to patterns that yield completely ludicrous results?

Admitting Defeat

When you notice that your results in some part of your life are completely ludicrous, it’s time to admit defeat and cut your losses.

It was hard for my brother and me to ditch The Clapper, but eventually we saw the “light” of reason. We had to admit that using the light switch was better than turning into dogs.

Just as The Clapper became a trigger for our ludicrous behavior, you may have some ludicrous triggers in your own life. All my brother and I had to do was dump The Clapper, and the ludicrous behavior went away.

What are your triggers? How can you remove those triggers from your life?

If you keep certain foods in your kitchen that trigger you to overeat, perhaps you should stop buying those foods altogether. Tell your friends and family that if they ever find such items in your house, you’ll pay them $100.

If your boss is a trigger for unreasonable behavior, fire your boss. You deserve better than to work under ludicrous conditions.

If a certain friend or family member triggers ludicrous reactions in you, dump ‘em. Shift your attention to more reasonable people.

If you catch yourself wasting hours and hours watching TV or playing video games, dump the TV, games, and game systems. If the Internet is your problem, you can install blocking software to prevent you from accessing sites that trigger your addiction. Or simply offer a $100 reward to anyone who catches you on certain online hangouts.

Do your best not to let your ego get too wrapped up in the problem. Just admit defeat, drop what’s causing the ludicrous results, and move on. It’s pointless to cling to something that isn’t working for you. It’s also pointless to beat yourself up with thoughts like I should be able to handle this better. Those “solutions” will only make you look silly.

Being Intelligent

Use the word intelligence as your guide. When you have doubts about some part of your life, ask yourself, “Is this an intelligent approach?”

Some people suggest that the external world is never the problem. They claim we can simply shift our inner perspective to solve any problem.

The inner approach has merit at times, but I’ve seen some people go nuts with it — to the point of becoming ridiculous. They push themselves to tolerate all sorts of ludicrous hardships when a simpler, more practical solution is staring them in the face. Their solutions are akin to suggesting that my brother and I make peace with being dogs. “Release your resistance to the barking. Allow the barking to be. Love and accept yourself as canines.” Sure that might solve the problem on some level if we went with it. But that solution is just plain stupid.

If you’re really attached to the inner solution method, give yourself a couple weeks (max 30 days) to take your best stab at it. If you’re still not seeing signs of progress after that, consider a more grounded solution.

Some problems are easy to solve with an inner perspective shift. Others are much easier to solve via an external approach. And some problems benefit from a blended approach. Don’t be so attached to a single tool that you force every problem into the same mold just so you can use your favorite tool. Use intelligence as your watchword, and select the right tool for the job.

Also consider that even a practical external solution requires an inner shift as well. Many people cling to the inner work of building tolerance and acceptance, when the real inner work they need for growth is in the realm of courage and the proper exercise of power. It often takes more inner work to quit a negative situation than it does to tolerate it. So don’t assume that inner development is solely about love and peace and harmony. Inner development also includes the courage to stand up for yourself and claim the life you deserve.

Often the best solution when you’re getting ludicrous results is to simply up and leave. Physically remove and disconnect yourself from the people, places, and circumstances that bring ludicrous interactions into your life, just as my brother and I opted to physically unplug and discard The Clapper.

Now perhaps the designers of The Clapper might be emotionally hurt by our decision, but from our perspective, the problem was solved, and it never returned. We gradually stopped barking and regained our humanity.

Similarly, some people might throw a hissy fit because you’ve decided not to accept ludicrous results. Don’t let their reactions get you down.

In the long run, it’s better to stop barking.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Now take a nice big bite of a habanero pepper and begin chewing it. Again, notice that a clear intention forms within seconds.

When you are sick, notice that you gain clarity in your health intentions. When you lose your job, notice that your financial intentions become clearer.

If you want to bring more clarity to your intentions, get off the sidelines of life, and get onto the field. The field is scarier. The sidelines are safer.

Go immerse yourself in something you fear. A new intention will quickly form.

A low-contrast life has very little power to form intentions. Such lives maintain that safety is a higher priority than growth. However, those who subscribe to such a philosophy eventually find themselves locked within their safes.

The quickest way out of that safe is to follow the path of courage. Fear is its signpost.

Turn toward your fears, and powerful intentions will form automatically.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

For example, suppose you make major progress in improving your diet. Maybe you go vegetarian or vegan or raw. Or perhaps you find another path that generates positive results for you. And suppose most of your family and friends still eat something close to the Standard American Diet (SAD), with lots of animal products and processed foods. Your way of eating falls out of sync with theirs, and everyone can’t help but notice. Now you’re in the minority — you no longer quite fit in.

Or suppose you decide to give up alcohol, and most of your friends are still social drinkers. Maybe they invite you to go out and drink with them, but this is a lifestyle element you’ve shed. Perhaps you’ve outgrown the desire to consume toxic substances because you’ve learned that being super healthy allows you to access much more vibrant states of being, but your social circle hasn’t yet made the journey you have.

Or maybe you’ve worked a lot on your attitude, and you’ve fallen in love with talking about your dreams, goals, opportunities, and positive ideas. Meanwhile other people in your life still insist on complaining about what they don’t like, and they want you to participate in their pity parties.

Or possibly you’ve had some kind of spiritual awakening. Maybe you’ve gained a new level of clarity about your life purpose, but no one around you can grasp what you’re going through. Often it seems like they don’t care to hear about it, and you lose interest in wanting to explain it to them, yet you still wish they could understand — and share — in the new joys you’re experiencing.

Or maybe you’ve had a relationship breakthrough. You’ve discovered a whole new way of relating to people — with love — and it creates very positive results for you. You see your friends and family suffering in disempowered relationships (more like shells of relationships), and it breaks your heart to watch them suffer needlessly in apathy and confusion. You very much want to help them achieve greater happiness, but if you reach out to them, they resist your help and defend their decisions.

Disconnection

In such situations you’re going to experience a disconnect — a disconnect between your new self and your preexisting life situation. You’ll notice that you’re no longer vibing with certain people, places, and circumstances anymore. Maybe at one point you got along great, but now something feels off. At first it may be this nagging sense of discomfort, but over time it can grow into a massive chasm of disconnection. You feel like you’ve drifted away from your old life, and you don’t know how to recreate the feelings of belongingness you once took for granted.

Initially there’s a certain sadness when this happens — a feeling of loss. In a way, it’s sad to see yourself drifting away from people you care about, especially if you’ve enjoyed a lot of closeness and camaraderie with them over the years. But you can’t deny the disconnect. It’s there, and it’s real. If you try to pretend that everything is “normal,” it just makes you feel empty inside.

In your mind you may try to rekindle the old feelings of closeness. You may dwell on remembering the good times — when you felt really connected and close — and try to recreate them. But your attempts meet with failure, and you always end up disappointed in the end. You might even feel a bit disgusted with yourself afterwards.

You may also try to distract yourself from the mounting feelings of emptiness. You may find yourself more prone to procrastination. Perhaps you’ll catch yourself spending inordinate amounts of time web surfing, checking email, watching TV, or playing video games. The pattern will be that you’re desperately trying to recreate a feeling of connection in your life. You’re trying to re-ground yourself. Even answering emails can give you that feeling, but it’s only temporary. When you aren’t obsessively checking back in, the emptiness returns. You may find it difficult to feel grounded while alone without this clawing feeling that you need to reconnect with someone or something… just to feel that sense of belongingness again.

Partly you may be disappointed in the other people in your life. You may feel disappointed that you’re on this incredible path of growth, but they’re declining to join you. You want so much for them to come along and share in this wonderful journey with the same level of enthusiasm that you have, but it just isn’t happening. The more you talk about how great things are, the more they resist you, and the more disconnected you feel.

Futility

At this point most people go through a period of clinginess. They try to keep one foot in both worlds. On one side they pursue their own amazing path of conscious growth. And on the other side, they cling to their old family and friends. So they try to keep one foot on the accelerator and the other foot on the brake.

Unfortunately this pattern ultimately leads to stagnation and a feeling of pervasive inner emptiness. This is where people feel like they should be happy — because they are indeed learning and growing — but when they take a good look inside, they have to admit they aren’t really, truly happy. Something is missing. The desired feelings of joy, bliss, and centeredness simply aren’t there consistently. In their place are feelings like dread, boredom, disenchantment, and quite often… addiction.

This is the period where someone who’s a vegan clings to sharing meals with meat-eating family members who neither respect nor understand the vegan diet. It’s a time when positive, goal-oriented people still hang out with stagnant, low awareness friends simply because it’s what they’ve always done. It’s a time when a person clings to a dying relationship, hoping against hope that his/her partner will eventually grow into someone else.

The problem of trying to keep one foot in both worlds is that it inevitably degrades one’s self esteem. It leaves you feeling empty, alone, and misunderstood. The people you cling to don’t really know you anymore. They may have known you quite well in the past, but they don’t understand the person you’ve become on the inside. You’ve changed, and they can’t keep up. And consequently, the way they relate to you is at odds with the new self image you’re struggling to step into. The more you connect with them, the more their communication makes you feel diminished. You feel less than whole in their presence.

Asking for Help

This Dark Night of the Soul period may continue for years. In fact, people rarely get through it on their own. Without outside help most of the time they’ll continue to remain stuck, repeating the same patterns over and over and feeling increasingly disconnected. For some people this feeling of disconnection becomes so great that they contemplate — perhaps even commit — suicide.

If you find yourself in such a situation, let me tell you that it’s not your fault. It’s not a matter of self-discipline or courage to push through it… not really. Those factors play a role, but it isn’t a question of willpower. As an individual you most likely aren’t strong enough to complete this transition process on your own. You need help to get through it. Fortunately such help is available.

One of the best intentions you can hold during this time is to request help. Simply hold that intention in your heart. Instead of dwelling on the relationships that aren’t working, focus on the person you’re becoming — the person you most want to be. Then hold yourself in the place of requesting guidance to take the next step. Remain open to that guidance appearing in your life.

When you’re ready, guidance will come to you, but the form may not be what you expect. It may show up as a new mentor or friend. You may happen upon an article or blog post that’s just what you needed to read at the exact time you needed to read it. Maybe you get multiple synchronicities about a certain book. Whatever shows up in your life at this time, follow it. You will know it by how you feel. Your feelings will tend towards curiosity and enthusiasm and wonder. If you wonder if you should follow a particular new lead, that sense of wonder is reason enough to do so.

When I go through this process, guidance often comes to me in the form of a person. Someone shows up in my life, and in that moment, I recognize that they have something to teach me. I feel drawn to spend more time with this person and to learn from them. I may have thoughts like, This person is amazing. I need to spend more time with him/her. And when we’re together, the time just flies on by.

It’s good to have some humility during this time. Openness is key. Be open to receiving new information. You do not have all the answers yet, but if you remain open, the answers you seek will soon come to you.

Know that help is coming. The guidance you seek is on its way. Know that you deserve help and that you’re worthy of it. The transition you’re making is a good one. You don’t have to go it alone, but you must say yes to it. Guidance cannot come into your life until you issue that internal yes. Life cannot override your free will. You must decide that you’re ready to complete the transition.

Welcoming Your New Vibration

Once the guidance begins to flow, and you follow it, eventually a whole new world opens up to you. It really does feel like that. It is a wondrous experience when this happens. Within a matter of days, your eyes are opened to wonders you never knew existed. Elements from your dreams begin to manifest in your real life. The experience may leave you breathless for a time. You may exclaim, “How is this even possible?” Life takes on a magical quality. Synchronicities are everywhere. The universe practically blasts you with clues that scream, Yes, you’re on the right path. Keep going!

This is the period where you undergo a quantum leap from one vibrational state to the next state in your evolution as a spiritual human being. You may go through quite a bit of emotional upheaval during this time. It may feel like your world is coming apart at the seams.

You’re finally letting go and allowing the disconnect with your old vibration to complete. Once you finally let go of the old, the gravity of your new vibration pulls you in. You don’t really have to do much. The process largely happens automatically. However, depending on your freakout factor during this time, you can still apply the brakes and slow the process down, such that it plays out at a pacing you can handle.

Your job (to the extent that you must exert any form of effort here) is to allow yourself to welcome the new frequencies of being that are coming into your life with as little resistance as possible. When these new frequencies show up, say yes to them. And by extension, begin actively saying no to the old frequencies, such as by declining invites from people you no longer resonate with.

Finding Your Tribe

As part of this process, you will soon find your tribe. Empowering new relationships will come into your life, possibly at such a rapid pace that it will stun you. One week your social life may become black-and-white completely different than the week before. This will be a very positive change.

As you find your tribe and begin to enjoy an unimaginable new circle of social support, your self esteem will rise a great deal. Instead of being surrounded by people who bring you down, you’ll come into contact with people who uplift and inspire you. You may even feel a little intimidated by some of the new people coming into your life because they may seem very advanced to you. You might even feel inclined to ask, Where have you wonderful people been all my life? The truth is that such people couldn’t come into your life until you were ready for them.

For example, if you’ve been improving your diet, then finding your tribe may take the form of meeting new people who are on a similar path, including some that are much further along than you and from whom you can potentially learn a great deal. You’ll meet people that feel perfectly grounded in such a lifestyle, even as you’re still getting used to it.

As your self esteem rises, it will be much harder for people to drag you down to the old frequencies you’ve left behind. You may look back and wonder how you ever could have stomached being there. You’ll cease to tolerate connections in your life that disempower you. The new, more empowering connections will feel too good by comparison, and the contrast will be undeniable.

This is one of the reasons our Conscious Growth Workshops have been so empowering for attendees. Several people have posted feedback stating that being able to hang out with so many growth-oriented people is the best part of the experience. In fact, we have a group of people planning to come to Las Vegas overlapping the dates of the May 14-16 workshop just so they can be around that energy again. It can indeed be a very powerful experience for people who are ready for it. Whether your personal experience of finding your tribe manifests through a workshop or through some other means, you will eventually get there when you’re ready for it. But you do at some point need to say yes to this kind of experience; otherwise you’ll repel it and stay stuck.

Life takes on a very different quality once you find your tribe. Your self esteem goes up, and there’s a pervasive feeling of optimism. It’s like being in love all the time. Life is beautiful. The flowers are blooming, and the birds are singing. You still have problems and challenges, but you feel more than capable of handling them. Exciting new opportunities surround you. You’re bathed in support and encouragement from people who care about you.

After the Shift

Once you reach this new place of being, the tone of your life undergoes a major shift.

Some of the same events from your past may still recur, but they won’t have the same effect on you as before, and you’ll respond to them differently.

For example, suppose that as part of your path of growth, you made dietary improvements that led to a disconnect with the diets of your old friends and family members. (I keep going back to the diet example because it’s fairly simple and easy to grasp — and also quite common.)

During the time when you still kept one foot in both worlds, you may encounter social situations where you’re the odd person out. Maybe you have a holiday meal with your family, and you’re the only vegan there. Or maybe your friends invite you out for drinks, and you’re the only non-drinker. Maybe you’ll feel a bit pressured or uncomfortable in such situations. You give the situation your power, so you feel weak. Other people can push your buttons by teasing you about your health changes. And even though you may not show it, sometimes they get to you. You may even dread such situations in advance because you know it’s going to be awkward. You may go into such situations feeling guarded in advance.

However, after you complete this shift, your experience will be very different. Similar circumstances may still occur, but now you’re locked in to your new vibration, and you’re radiating strength and certainty. First off, other people will subconsciously pick up on your new vibration, and they’ll be less likely to tease you. They may even feel intimidated by you. More often than not, they’ll be curious about your diet and will ask you questions about it. They’ll sense your power and vitality and will be inclined to think, I want what s/he has. Even if they tease you, such remarks will just bounce off of you, and their teasing is more likely to backfire and make them look foolish. You’ve become far too strong for them to bring you down. On the contrary you begin to elevate them instead.

It’s like you’re the Captain of the Enterprise, and in the first situation, you’re trying to sneak though through hostile Borg-controlled space, where virtually any encounter could send you running for the escape pods. The mere sight of a Borg ship makes you shout, “Red alert! Shields up!” and you go into fight-or-flight mode. You have one eye on the sensors and another on the weapons console. You maintain a defensive posture because you anticipate a possible attack at any moment.

Do you know anyone who’s still in this phase?

Now in the second scenario, it’s like you’re taking your ship through friendly territory, and you’re in command of the flagship. You have no need of shields or defensive posturing because you know you’re safe. No one would dare attack you on your home turf, and even if they did, you’d phaser and photon torpedo their asses into the Q continuum. Your posture is neither aggressive nor defensive. You’re an explorer, happy to meet and share ideas with other explorers. Sometimes people are intimidated by you, and you have to reassure them that you aren’t going to take out their freighter for spite. You have the ability to defend yourself with great force if necessary, but you don’t make a habit of picking fights. You’re too busy exploring and learning.

Those of us who are on a path of lifelong conscious growth will undergo many shifts like this.

I’ve gone through this process multiple times, and there’s usually a striking difference between the before and after phases. If you look back through some of my old blog posts on certain topics, you might even see the shift gradually taking place, reflected through my writing style. Initially when I’m embarking on a new transition, I typically don’t know what I’m doing, my competence isn’t that high, and if it’s something controversial, I’ll often assume an aggressive or defensive posture to stave off any criticism. I anticipate attacks and declare “Red alert! Shields up!” before anyone can even fire a shot.

But then once I’ve completed the shift, I become much more centered. The new place of being feels normal and natural to me because I’ve locked in the new vibration. The sense of defensiveness fades, and I’m more likely to be playful and joking in the face of criticism. I have more fun with what I’m doing. All the social support and encouragement is there. I also attract less criticism because people sense it would be futile anyway. I attract a lot more questions as well as people who are on a similar path of growth and learning. It’s a wonderful place to be.

One of the reasons I’m willing to go through this process publicly is that it keeps me from getting stuck. It’s a lot harder to stagnate when so many people are keeping tabs on you because you’ve publicly committed yourself. I also like that by sharing my own experiences along the way, many people can relate to what I’m going through and apply it to situations in their own lives, and it helps them to keep progressing too.

Leadership

Ultimately this process takes us to a place of leadership.

Like it or not, if you’re committed to a path of conscious growth, you’re a leader.

There’s a reason you often find yourself as seemingly the only person you know with certain qualities. There’s a reason you seem to always be the one who goes first (or one of the first), as compared to your family and friends.

Your role is to lead.

I know that going first can feel scary. It can leave you feeling isolated, alone, and disconnected at times. That is part of the process though. Those phases are necessary to help you build your strength. You need to become resilient enough to maintain your power and certainty even in the face of adversity. You need to learn how to stick to your guns when you know you’re right, even when it seems the rest of the world disagrees with you. On behalf of the universe, I wish I could apologize to you for all the hardships you’ll endure through these transition phases, but please understand that the challenges you face are necessary to sculpt your character.

In order to live consciously, you must make your own choices, independent of social pressure. You must summon the greatest inner wisdom you can muster and learn to trust it. You must lead.

If you’re the one in your social circle who declines alcohol… if you’re the one who leaves a disempowering relationship… if you’re the one who shuns frankenfoods… then you’re the leader. As one of the first to hold that new vibration, you must give the rest of humanity a chance to catch up… without backsliding yourself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re outnumbered 10-to-1, 100-to-1, or even 1000-to-1. Being centered in your role as leader is a force multiplier. One strong, committed leader can outthink the masses any day of the week.

In your role as leader, you cannot lead by force. You must lead by true power. This is the power not to command others; it’s the power to lead by example.

You don’t have to try to convince others to be on a path of conscious growth. Don’t obsess over what others are doing. Instead, turn your gaze within, and focus on being the best example of conscious living you can be.

I’ve never convinced anyone to make serious changes by trying to convince them to do so. However, I’ve helped thousands of people make improvements simply by sharing where I’m at. For example, each time I post photos of my raw vegan meals on Facebook, I get comments from people who are inspired to make healthier choices as a result. My goal isn’t to get people to eat as I do; rather I want people to make more conscious choices that work for them — and to stand up to social pressure.

Leadership is about sharing. Think like an explorer. Report back on what you discover. Let people know about the wonders that await them. The ones who are ready to embark on a similar journey will do so.

If I’m sitting down to dinner with a dozen SAD eaters, I assume that I’m the leader. It’s not my place to convince them to eat differently. All I need to do is hold the vibration of where I am. And inevitably what happens is that someone notices I’m eating much differently than anyone else at the table, and they get curious and ask me about it. Then we have a cool discussion about the benefits. I may be just one of many influences on them that day, but much of the time the experience will plant a seed in their mind, a seed that will eventually sprout. A year later I get an email from such a person telling me they’ve lost 50 pounds after making some dietary changes.

As a leader your job is to inspire. You can do that by keeping yourself inspired. If you keep learning and growing, you’ll automatically inspire others to do the same. And when you do that, it benefits all of us. Inspired people are walking gift-givers.

Strength

When you resist your leadership role, you disconnect from your core self, and you broadcast weakness instead of strength. That weakness will attract criticism. Some people will pounce on you because you’re weak. They’ll tease you and berate you for your choices. They may rip you to shreds at times, leaving you feeling beat up.

You’re stronger than this, however. You succumb to weakness when you resist who you’re becoming, when you cling to the past, and when you try to salvage relationships that are destined for transformation.

You cannot transform your old relationships unless you complete the process of transforming yourself. You have the option of keeping your old friends and family in your life, but when this process begins to unfold, it’s better if you disconnect from those old relationships for a while. Go into your cocoon, so to speak, and allow yourself to emerge as a butterfly. Then you can return to those old relationships, and you’ll be strong enough to transform them one by one. In that case your role will be to demonstrate how beautiful it is to be a butterfly, so you can inspire the other caterpillars in your life to begin their own process of transformation.

Recognize that even though it may feel lonely at times, you’re never truly alone. There are lots of people who understand what you’re going through. We can relate to it. We know it’s hard at times. We know how it feels to be stuck with one foot in both worlds, still clinging to those old relationships while deep down knowing that you must eventually let go… yet harboring some fear and trepidation about what may exist on the other side.

Let me tell you that the other side is golden. It is wondrous and beautiful every single time. The grass is vibrantly greener.

Allow yourself to be strong. Release that from your life which weakens you. You may get yelled at for doing so, but realize that this is just your own fear and hesitation being reflected back to you. Once you reach the other side and rebuild your energy and self esteem, you’ll wonder why you ever hesitated.

Lead.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina