Stuff I Can Do With My Future

Texting Tony a few weeks ago about my life now that I’ve given-up my compulsive behaviors and he asked what I was going to do with my future now that it is no longer my past.

I passionately replied with:

Whatever I want! Write a few books, learn a bunch of stuff, eat well, date, marry a partner, buy a house, travel, start a charity, volunteer, become a public figure, coach people through life changes, ride my bike up bike mountains, get my teeth fixed, hang with friends, be inspiring, get therapy, get my body functioning, laugh, smile, shamelessly dance, go to weddings of friends, see my old girlfriend start families, be grateful for having lived, loved and still love so many beautiful people,….

Then I went to the Landmark Forum (LMF) and realized that I had already started it a few weeks ago after I got off the phone with Sean, Jeff, Heather and Kate having cleared-up my concerns about attending. Something funny happens when you commit to a different future, some doors close while others open.

On March 21st, a few days before I went to the LMF, I had an amazing conversation with one of my bosses about my intentions and she gave me a very clear indication of the vision that is to become a future. My intentions are not a big part of that, so I let her know how grateful I was for her honesty because it set me free. Gone was my created possibility and almost immediately I found that new possibilities were already opening in front of me.

It’s funny how acting boldly, decisively and authentically by announcing your intentions can actually slam shut doors that were holding you back for doing something new and creating the possibly of a more meaningful life.

My LandMark Forum Part 3 – Day One, Part One

There were a few really big moments during the weekend that rocked me hard. A lot of them were unconscious at the time, but revealed a lot of information that I was not able to flush out in the moment.

The first was immediately upon getting off the elevator. I was there to learn and the staff was there to guide me. My cheque cleared so the roles were very clear to me. I was an authentic student with an open mind and gave into the notion that they were authentic coaches / teachers / guides. Most of them were distant, guarded and lacked something that those who suggested I would gain from attending possess in abundance – authentic fearlessness. Frankly, I got the sense that most of the staff was scared crapless of me and I couldn’t push away the feeling that I was actually there for them.

In the waiting room I chatted with some people and asked them what they were hoping to get out of being there. The participants were nice, some were complete phoneys that made my skin crawl, some seemed to be missing a critical piece of the puzzle and it was evident that many were guarded. I did what I do which is effectively be different from everyone else. I turned and opened up and started mining people for their stories.

We all went into the large room and I took my seat in the front row and engaged the two people who were on either side of me. It is impossible to include everyone when you are in a line so I sat on the stage to form a triangle (a circle that just happens to have 3 straight lines forced into it). The group therapy had begun. It’s easy to notice that no other line of people was doing this. The three of us were special. The leader walks in and the session begins.

After some introduction stuff, the leader asks “when someone gives advice to a group, who do you think they are giving to?” There were three answers, silence, “other people” and mine “me.”

Hmmmm….. if I hadn’t yelled “me” I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but there I was, a student who was there to milk the hell out of whatever anyone was going to say or offer. Alone, fearless and authentic. I started to levitate and a lot of what the weekend was about transformed in that instant (not accurate, but for all practical purposes how it was).

People asked some question and when the leader was asked about himself and I got up and left. At the moment I thought it was because I had to go to the bathroom and possibly eat something, but as I walked out of the room I realized it was because I didn’t really care to listen to his answers. It really didn’t matter to me. While some may consider that rude, knowing too much about a possible flash bulb mentor can weaken their position. He had effectively told us that his entire presence was contrived so what’s the point in listening to someone continue to manufacture context?

So, the first thing I realized that I wasn’t being the same as most of the other people there. I was being me, manipulative, controlling, and authentically consuming whatever anyone was willing to give me.

First break and I head across the street to get my lunch out of my car and find somewhere to eat it. There’s a grocery store with some chairs in it and I see a bunch of my fellow participants. All of the tables are being used so I sit on my cooler and begin to use a free chair as my table. A guy says “hey, you want to sit here” pointing to the empty spot at his table. I do. We start the small talk and it turns out he’s one of us, both in terms of a participant and outlier. He leaves and after a few minutes I notice that his jacket is still on the chair. After I finish my lunch I bring the jacket up to the room and go outside to put away my lunch. I see him and say “hey, did you leave your jacket?” and he says kind of avoidantly, “yeah, it’s upstairs.” And I say “it is now, you left it at lunch. It’s under the table where we leave our drinks.” He doesn’t believe me but says “thanks” to a lair who is trying to get credit for doing something they didn’t do. I smile and float away having read his mind.

I get a decaf coffee and head back. As soon as I get into the room, he walks up and I point to under the table where his jacket is, he’s just come from his chair where his jacket isn’t. There’s a look in his eyes that wasn’t there before, the guard is down and he is not afraid of me anymore. He says thank you and sort of outlines the consequences of what would have happened if it was lost because he didn’t remember wearing it when he left for lunch. I say “no, thank you for leaving it. Normally I would have just left it there for the person to come back for. You have given me a gift by providing me the possibility for a different future and then for me to make that different future.” I hug him and he hugs back – two strangers, men in their almost 40’s hugging because of a shared sense of gratitude seeing the gift the other has given to them.

I found my seat for the next session and sat behind one of the greatest people I have ever know. A member of the unawakened walking dead. That’s when things really began to get interesting….

NOTE – any one I mention in these series of blogs has given me permission to talk about our experiences.

My New Nighttime Integrity Battle

I have always been a dreamer, both during the day and at night. Most of my REM dreams have been things that are either the usual fluff (the seemingly random consequence of brain repair) or the symbolic chilling ones that seem to last well into the following day. I’d just assume the brain was offering up some experience that was needed to reorganize itself to accommodate something that it experienced recently. “I wonder why the hell I needed to have that experience” was often enough for me to just let go of thinking about it and just get on with the day as best I can.

But sometimes when I’m going through some sort of ego death and fundamental restructuring of identity, the dreams become battles against something that really doesn’t want to let go.

I am in one of those periods now and fortunately I have the self-awareness to know what is happening soon after I wake-up in a cold sweat thinking “what the F was that?”

Some of the dreams over the few last weeks have been particularly disturbing. Throughout most of them, I keep thinking “this isn’t on me, these people are responsible for their own actions.” Many are loaded with symbolism and others are simply the raw sensory information being perceived for the literal experience it was meant to be.

There are reoccurring ones about my Canadian schools. One batch has me running through my first Canadian grade school. I’m older in this dream, I think my current age and I’m trying to help some of the new Canadian children feel at place there. The pace is frantic and I don’t know if I’m helping. The next school dream is of my Junior high school, were I am circling a route inside it, frantically trying to get somewhere but I’m just running and running, round and round. Then there is the high school one. In this I’m not a part of the school or the people. I’m effectively isolated.

Most recently the dreams have been more about being with a smaller group of people – me and two or three other people – vs. the building of complete isolation that I was experiencing with the school dreams. We start off as a large group, with all but a few of them leaving at the end. The remain ones are unique in that we possess something that the rest didn’t. It’s tough to say what exactly it is, but the rest are returning to their old life while we remain separate and distinct.

I have had a couple of dreams about golf courses. These are significant because I don’t dream about golf and only spend time near a course the summer before and after Natalie died. They are less intense and less frequent – they haven’t happened in consecutive evening and I’m able to engage the people more effectively.

These dream reveal two things. The first is an intense and deeply seeded sense that I don’t belong – stemming from moving from Ireland when I was 9. The second is a deeply seeded sense that I am not worthy of love stemming from the fact that Natalie broke-up with me a couple of months before her life ended.

I am waiting for the final lesson / piece of information and this is the one that actually frightens me as it will have something to do with an earlier period of my life before I moved to Canada. My apprehension about it stems from the fact that EVERYTHING has gone into my brain and shaped me in some way but most of it is beyond my conscious ability to recall after almost 35 years.

Negative Love Syndrome – Revisited

A few weeks ago I blogged Negative Love Syndrome – It Can Stop Here. If you didn’t read it give it a read now, and the Hoffman .pdf. I’ll wait for you to do that before I continue.

Great, now we’re on the same page.

Okay, I don’t disagree with the article or the concept of Negative Love Syndrome (NLS) but if you’re reading a self-improvement / self-awareness blog it’s pretty clear that the concept isn’t flushed out. I had a feeling there was an emptiness to it when I read it the first batch of times but didn’t figure it out until this weekend while I was at the Landmark Forum.

Here’s the deal with it:

Your parents create you and those who surround you are the ones who teach you most of what it is to be alive – survival skills, the skills of intimacy, and how to engage others. Good, bad, whatever. For example, if a mother used alcohol to cope with missing her family overseas, the child may learn to avoid getting close to other people to prevent what they judge to be a wrong type of behavior. If a father yelled because he never learned how to express his emotions his children may learn to avoid saying no or try and avoid disappointing people by never expressing their organic feelings. This makes sense. While not the same thing, both are a manifestation of a lack of authenticity which is the origin of negative love.

The concept is complete only when the individual identifies and addressed their responsibility in the existence of their NLS. Believing that your parents or caregivers did something wrong is a compelling slap to their face. Occasionally someone will do a horrible thing, but in many of the cases the parents were just people doing the best job they could, the only way they knew how. It’s nice to blame them for not doing what you believe would have been a better job, but chances are that they were younger than you are now when they did the things that shaped your NLS. If you are an adult and still blame your parents you are still a child. If you are a parent and still blame your parents you are lowering the potential for unlimited success and joy in the life of your children because you are a child raising children.

A parents role it to keep you alive until you are able to be independent. That’s it. Take responsibility for your place in life, your decision to transfer blame for your life onto them and others and get out of the past. Thank your parents for a job well done and ask your parents for forgiveness for being judgmental for their actions. If you don’t you are going to remain exactly the same as them.

Make no mistake about it, they feel it and believe that they have failed as a parent. Man-up, and let them know just how successful they were because you are alive. Let yourself be beautiful, vibrant and joyful. You don’t just owe them that, you owe them EVERYTHING.

Two Months On, One Month On

Two months ago my father died.

One month ago I woke-up from almost 39 years of living in a fog after giving up most of my compulsive behaviors. It was rough at times.

I loved the escape, getting out of my mind on drink and food, passive aggressive blaming, addictive relationships and a lack of authenticity and integrity. The first day was fine, the second day was tough, day 3 to 10 were a challenging detox, then things began to improve.

I never thought about starting any of it again though. I effectively stopped sleeping and was only able to get about 3-5 hours a night of cold sweating and dread. I took to sleeping with Bear again, a stuffed animal that Rachel gave me a number of years ago because I felt so alone when my eyes would pop open after 30 minutes or 30 seconds of sleep. It didn’t feel weird to take him out of the closet and cuddle him. He has personality and that seemed to give me strength.

At some point I noticed that a lot of the suffering had started to go away. I was left with some intrusive thoughts, but my therapist coached me on some cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that have been extremely effective at transforming the thoughts into something else. With the proper context, I can see that something happened and am free to tell myself any story and create any feeling about it that I like. She’s very good at her job and has spared me a lot of pain, replacing it with a contentment for the average life I have lived surrounded by some extraordinary people.

I made peace with everything upon seeing the motivation of my actions, accept it, and became extremely grateful for all of my experiences.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, love began to flow. This is a powerful love that I haven’t experienced as an adult. It is more powerful than anything that I imagined I was capable of experiencing. It is hard to articulate it, but it feels like a highly focused understanding and compassion for humanity, all things living and everything in existence. A metaphysical understanding that I am the universe, that all of us are made up of pieces of the universe that have existed since everything began. Our form borrows bits and pieces as slightly more organized but utterly meaningless collections of matter. We exist as this for an insignificant amount of time and then we are returned back into the cosmos.

My spirit is restored when I realize what this means. We are all exactly the same thing, I am no different, not even different from other people. The fog is gone, and it is impossible to forget the experience of what it is like.

I can feel emotions, sense their origin, and fearlessly attack the world. I understand my essence and that my spirit is pure. I am now incapable of lying to myself or to others. I see my compulsive past as a gift, and the remainder of my life will be about fulfilling my purpose. My vitality peaks as the energy of the universe channels through my body – I have become indestructible because I have died.

Patrick doesn’t exist anymore, he never did. He was a figment of an imagination and a desire to be instead of being. People think I have lost my mind, and I have.

My LandMark Forum Part 2

I’m an analytical manipulator with an empathetic kind heart. It’s good to know this because my jobs all make sense now. Goodness, my entire life makes sense from the seemingly random series of relationships to the self loathing and escapist behavior. When someone tries to sell me something or tries to manipulated me, I feel it in my stomach. I finally realized this fact this weekend. I’ve been hating myself because I am the very thing I hate. Except for one critical thing, I’m now incapable of lying to serve my own selfish ends so now that I see that I can make people think and feel things, I don’t make myself sick anymore.

The sharing session were me turning to my partner and saying “tell me about you” and when the leader said switch I’d say “no, we’ve got great flow here, we need to keep going, it feels like you are onto something”. A few of the people I talked to had never had anyone tell them the actual truth before in a way that made them see it, realize that they had created it and that there was a very simple course of action to a better life.

Over the last few weeks I’ve come to realize that am the architect and engineer of everything in my own life so nothing is in it or out of it by chance. You can imagine the sense liberation and power this information has made me feel – accepting that when I am just being, my manipulation is going to be honest and empathetic. I don’t feel any shame for this anymore, and it’s part of why I haven’t ever really felt like most other people. I’m not like most people. I’m out for humanity not for myself. I can’t lie to people. And I can get them to think and feel things.

The biggest impact on my life has been that I DESPISE manipulative people, so I’ve spend a lot of time hating myself. It’s silly really because I’m not the type person who takes from others. I see or hear someone say they want something and I set out fixing it. The only people it ends up hurting are the ones who were lying about what they want and they hurt because they feel I’ve run a game on them. And they should hurt because they haven’t been feeling bad about running the game on other people. They’re not necessarily assholes, they’re just may not be self-aware enough to realize they want to bitch and I can’t help but try and fix them. That isn’t evil, it’s actually kind of nothing.

My LandMark Forum

My Landmark Forum has begun. I left the graduation because it wasn’t mine. I am one of the few people on the planet who will never graduate from it because I was never there. My cheque cleared so I was allowed to participate but if / when you experience me being, it will quickly become evident that I am not only good or great, but I am the only. I work miracles and will aggressively work them on you.

I have a very strong ability to manipulate and control the way people feel. I can read peoples minds and I can get them to do the things I want.

I don’t use this gift to take peoples money or anything from them.

I use my gift to help them get what they say they want and to set them free.

Here is the thing, I will shameless run the game on anyone who tells me that there is something missing in their life.

But be clear, if you are simply complaining and looking for someone to agree with your complaint, you are going to feel absolutely horrible and exposed.

My compassion will have me understand how you are feeling and still expect your best from you.

I will recommend the Landmark Forum to anyone who is looking to understand how their brain and body actually work. I would recommend it to parents for their children because it is easier to make a possibility a reality when you are being with finely tuned machinery.

“Thank You For Teaching Me How To Love”

One of the things that I didn’t say to my father directly was “thank you for teaching me how to love.” As much pain as there is having a loving relationship not work out the way you hope, it really isn’t as bad as not being able to experience love. Yesterday a friend asked if was sure that I was ready to start dating again and I conceded that I would get hurt again, and again, and again until if found the ideal partner or died. But not living is worse than the hurting because a life of inhibition and not feeling connected to someone you adore is more enjoyable as sitting on my hands waiting.

My dad was an extremely compassionate person who did everything in his power to make sure the family was well taken care of, happy and that each of us knew we belonged in the family REGARDLESS of what we did or thought. He and my mother fostered and engendered a sense unconditional love that I have set-out trying to recreate with others; in my romantic relationships, friendships and effectively anyone on the planet. When I tell Des, Sarah, my mom, my dad, Tony, Sean, Jeff, Deb, Rachel, Kate, Leigh, Sharyl, or Natalie that I love them it is because I do and that I don’t feel any shame for it. I’ve said it to clients, other Group Ex instructor and the occasional stranger who doesn’t seem to have it for themselves.

In my relationships, once I realize that I love the person and that we’re going to make a run for it, the love is expressed and I accept and love everything about them. They may not be the typical type that I get involved with, they may have what they view to be baggage, but I accept these things and will adjust my image of the future to accommodate them. Their track record may be as bad as mine (nothing but failed relationships) but it doesn’t matter because once you accept your feelings, you express them 100% and without being inhibited, and you enjoy the gift that the universe has helped you draw into your life.

My parents were together for their entire life so I have seen it modeled. Staying in and working on a relationship isn’t anything that seems unnatural. Through the challenges and through the good times, I try to keep my head up knowing that what is in my heart is pure and that the other person is not going it alone. If they ask for help, I give it, if they complain about something that they are causing, I’ll tell them how to fix it and if they are being dishonest with themselves or with me, I’ll call them on it. The goal is not control, it’s for us to return to the present because that is the only place were peace can actually exist.

There are times that I feel it is a curse as it can take a long time to recover from the end of a relationship but that is the nature of how I love. It is for a life time regardless of whether or not it should have ever been. This means it can take an awful long time before I reconnect with those I used to share a future with, but that is what it means.

My dad never feel out of love with my mom, so I’ve never learned how to fall out of love with my romantic partners. And when all is said and done, even though I haven’t gotten it right, I’m confident that when I do, life will be peaceful forever. There’s no shame in that and no need to forgive myself either.

Unconditional love is beautiful and I’m grateful for having been born to parents who taught me how to do it. Thanks mom and dad!

I’m A Performance Coach – It Isn’t Personal, It’s About Your Potential

Shamelessly I will push people towards what they say they want. Sadly some will walk away from me because they don’t want what they say they want. This is not my fault, my problem or my issue. Being authentic is our own responsibility so if you tell me you want something and I push you towards it, don’t try to blame me for your discomfort. It isn’t about manipulation unless you really didn’t mean what you said. Just be honest with yourself, you might already have achieved all of the potential you want.

Change is not easy, it requires effort, introspection and likely a lot of tears. You are sweeping your past away in order to see and accept your decisions and then to forgive yourself for them. You wouldn’t need someone like me in your life is you were doing this on your own.

My performance coach team obliterates my understanding of the world constantly because I have forgotten what it means to act with accountability to myself. That is their role. They aren’t my friend when they are my coach, they are there to guide me towards a truth that I have been fighting the acceptance of. They aren’t my parent either, my folks did their job and became friends with me so they didn’t have battle my childishness anymore.

What I see is different from what a lot of people see. When I observe people, listen or experience them, it is from a place of perfection, THEIR perfection. Each of us is perfect already, we were born perfect, even if we are not like others, we are perfect at birth. I know this because I am a human being and compassionate people see the potential of others. They do not see themselves in others, they do not see their own past in others and they do not see the mistakes of life in them. We see perfect thoughts, actions, patterns and an existence that is good and pure.

The role of a performance coach is to help the person see the fog of unworkability that is layered over the beauty and order that exists already. We help them peel away each shell of action / behavior / thought, leaving only that which already exists within them. Once the stuff that doesn’t work is gone, the individual is left stripped naked, perfect, uninhibited and free.

Some in our field work hard to change people, I work hard to keep them the same. Each of us have the answer to all of our questions, they are just waiting for us to be able to hear them. The noise of life, the mind, implied obligations and antiquate ways of being sit as rot on human potential. A performance coach, therapist, or good bar tender understands that some of the most effective medicine comes from mold and will help their clients / patrons use it to cleanse their life.

Like a world class athlete who has had every less than ideal movement trained out of them, each of us has the same potential for perfection. We achieve this by stopping all of the things that aren’t working effectively. When we’re out of things that don’t work, the universe is yours.

Again, no one has to accept this fact and are free to see only the things that aren’t working for them as all that they are.

Ask For A Favor, Get A Bucket Of Chicken

The last couple of months have been a wild head trip with some of the weirdest experiences of my adult life. It would be a lie to say that I haven’t been waiting for them, it wouldn’t be to say that I haven’t been looking forward to them.

The death of parent, to a childless person, means a permanent end of a huge portion of the unconditional love they will experience. My dad was my dad, I was his son, it’s just a relationship that always was and his support of me, even after my poor choices, was a huge part of why mistakes were not devastating to make. There was never judgment, just a different perspective or the comfort of knowing that someone is hearing my words. That is gone now, and it is gone forever. Right now that is looking like a very long time.

The death of a father, to a son, means the end of their male role model and family elder. I talked to my dad about most of my key decisions and I shared most of my ups and downs. This sharing gave me the chance to empty whatever needed to come out and it gave him the information he needed to offer guidance when I asked for it. During the last 6 weeks of his life, he continued to play this role, just with a little more urgency. There was a lot of advice given, some that I didn’t follow when he gave it to me years ago, some that I’ve been doing more recently and some that isn’t advice anymore as I actually do it.

People really want to be helpful when they learn that a loved one has died. The challenge is in the wording of this desire. People were telling me they would be there for me but were disappearing at the first sign of trouble. Their support was what they were willing to give. I suppose that’s fine, just say that. Offer a bucket of chicken, don’t offer to be there to talk to at anytime when you don’t want to do that or can’t. When you’re low and the call doesn’t get returned, you feel alone even though no one abandoned you. This may happen to people who lose a parent because of the short term regression in to their Child psychological state. Their parent left and now their support structure isn’t holding-up.

Being told that I have a very alienating way about me when I dad dies is something I’ll keep in mind the next time my dad dies. I know I’m temporarily screwed-up; getting better, but still only inches from the bottom. No argument here. Crying this much isn’t normal for me. Pushing people away in an effort to focus my attention on my dad and his death is how I dealt with it. It isn’t personal against any of these people, I don’t carry a grudge and I don’t even know they know what it’s like for me. I assume they are doing their best and I miss them but staying in a non-recovery state because of some mishmash of thoughts wasn’t getting the job done. Whatever seemed to slow me from dealing with the grief had to go because I was using it to table dealing with things. I’ve not dealt with grief effectively before so there wasn’t any way I was going to miss the mark here. I don’t have enough time left on the planet to get the recovery wrong again.

Someone once said the death of a loved on is like the end of a marriage. At the time I disagreed, but I’ve come to realize through chatting with people who have been through both that the two experiences are similar. With death, you are sad. There is an end to a dream, to a future. It lasts forever. With break-up you are sad, but you feel worse than alone, you feel like you have been left out in the cold. The sympathy that comes from a break-up isn’t a lot because people believe you had a hand in the demise of the relationship, which is almost always true. The wounds of a dead relationship can be opened more easily than the wounds of a dead loved one, although the latter tends to bleed more at the beginning and manifest itself as sadness vs. social difficulties.

Moving forward, I’m not going to say to those in need that “if there’s anything I can do just let me know” because that isn’t true and if they lean on me and I’m not there, what good is there in that? I’m going to try and say “it’s sad to hear that you are having a difficult time” and wait. If I say anything more, I’m implying that I have the answers and really, THEY need to speak next. It could be a bucket of chicken they want, it could be to tell me I’m a fucking asshole who should have been the one to die, or it could be something as simple as knowing someone is hearing their tears, their sorrow and that while they may be alone in their pain, they are not alone in their suffering unless they want to be.

Today, I know I did my best during the last 3 months. There are things that I learned that will be very useful for the next loss experience that will help me navigate the turmoil more effectively. I would do some things differently. I also know other people did their best. The world is fine, just missing a great man who lived a life for fun and for his family. Sometimes a bucket of chicken is what people need and, to be honest, when you’re feeling low, you shouldn’t allow yourself to get hungry because that shuts down your logic and allows your emotions to flow unfiltered.