Welcoming New Canadians

Last night, when I got home from teaching class, I saw that Mariam Makhniashvili’s body had been identified and that the police believe that she was not murdered. It appears that she feel to her death from a hwy 401 overpass above Young street.

Mariam was a new Canadian who didn’t have a lot of friends and who loved to read. She was a quiet 17 year old who mostly kept to herself. She parted ways with her brother at their school on September 14th 2009 and wasn’t seen alive again.

I don’t know anything about her other than what is being reported, but some of the information seems to resonate with me. Our family moved to Canada when I was 9 and almost immediately I was an outsider. I did make friends fairly quickly but found that many of the would turn on me or simply just stop talking to me. As a young person you are ill-equipped to make the call that their behavior says more about their past than it did about my present so you internalize it. I was the immigrant freak, who spoke funny and was the brunt of the jokes when the class bully was feeling small from whatever living hell he was going through.

I thought about jumping, a lot.

I never did and instead felt anxious and sort of went into myself finding the evidence to validate that I wasn’t the same as everyone else. Again, a child will do these things when because their brain doesn’t process information as effectively or in the same way as an adult.

Children are important and they are worth being nice to. The waste of one life is too many.

Rest in peace Mariam.

Transactional Analysis – Part 1 – Laymans Introduction

Sean gave me another critical piece of the puzzle. I asked him if he has been pacing the information so as to not blow my mind up and he claimed no that it just hadn’t come-up. Transactional analysis is an object-oriented way to document interpersonal interactions. Each interaction is a transaction and the currency of TA are strokes. Depending upon the depth of the transaction, a stroke can have little worth “hi” or a lot of worth “I noticed that you pasted your exam, it’s great that all your hard work is paying off.” Hi is simply an acknowledgement of mutual existence. The lack of this type of stroke will be noticed MORE than it being there. The comment about passing the exam is more complicated and validating to the ego. Acknowledgement of mutual existence is there, the recognition that they exist to the other person when they aren’t in front of them (noticing that they past the exam), the recognition of historic labor efforts, and the social recognition that passing an exam is a payoff.

Ego states and Social states

An ego state is the psychological state from which ones’ comment comes. Child, Parent, Adult. The social state is the apparent state from which a comment comes. For example, it being important that we are on time is socially adult but if we direct a comment towards someone who is always late it is from a Parent psychological or ego state. These states are indicated with a capital letter.

We learn these states from our parents and other caregivers and while we may never be aware that they are there, they are, and while we may never be aware that we jump around from one to the other, we do. They are biologically hardwired through years of experience and validation and for these reasons certain behavioral tendencies are really sticky and may never go away. Your Child is going to be your Child for most of your life. Your Parent is going to be your Parent for most of your life.

The Parent automates the day-to-day stuff that makes life manageable – shopping, cooking, cleaning, going to work, looking after loved ones – because it is both controlling and nurturing. The Child allows for play because it has been cultivated with a sense of freedom. Creativity is the realm of the Child and this represents an essential piece of a human beings spirit. The Child can become overly adapted however with the wrong proportions of control and nurture:

If Parent nurturing Then Child free.

If Parent controlling Then Child adapted.

The Adult ego state is reflective and purposeful. It exists in harmony with the universe as it calls upon past experience for information and solutions but transacts with the others in a deliberate way. It has well-established boundaries and accepts that each person has the right and responsibility to manage their own life and affairs. Adults engage in coaching with enlightenment or independence as the goal.

The goal of TA therapy is to coach the client to transacted with social and psychological states being aligned as Adult. They are aware of and use when appropriate their Child and Parent states but these are tools to use vs. compulsions to serve.

Why would Sean tell me about this? Because I needed to hear it as I was lacking a visual framework from which to logically represent what I have been feeling and living through.

My last post of 2011 was about how I had to accept that I didn’t know what my motivations were in most situations and why I act the way I do. I needed to give-up my belief that I know myself in order to finally observe how I act. This is still the case, but it’s getting easier. What is remarkable about it, is that once it was understood to me it became very easy to see things happen and feel the shift in my psychological state.

For example, I was recently compared to someone I didn’t like very much. There was a moment when I thought about what I had heard and what I wanted to say and then realized I didn’t really know what the comment meant. I replied with “yes, there are similarities between me and him.” It wasn’t the Child reply that initially popped into my head. Their reply was “well, actually, this is the one similarity” which was true. He and I both have a tendency to try and solve the problems of the people we care about; not necessarily a character flaw but it can be a Parent action. MOST people have this problem. The key thing with the interaction was that I didn’t let myself slip into an automatic Child-like reply of “yes, but…” The comment was accurate because the other person made it. The inverse comment would have been equally true – that he and I aren’t very similar. That’s the thing with conversations with people, almost everything is right under some circumstances so, well, what’s the point in arguing?

I know what I need to do, I know what I want to do and I haven’t been showing a lot of control over things. When I work and play, it’s purposeful and passionate. When I am a Parent, it’s about very few things in my own life and I do have a tendency to try and look out for the people I like. When I’m an Adult I’m okay and everyone else is okay.

Now High Risk For Cancer

Des let me know that he and I are now a high risk of developing cancer given that our dad and our grandmother on our moms side got it. I haven’t really thought about cancer in those terms before.

From a purely statistical point of view, up until December, my actions had a much bigger impact onto my future with the disease than anything else. For all intents and purposes my body was the same as any other low risk body in terms of fighting off mutations that become disease – if diet, exercise, stress and sleep needs were balanced the potential for life was not handicapped by anything.

That isn’t the same anymore. It is now evident that written into my DNA is a lower finite potential to correct cell replication errors. The fact that my grand mother smoked has nothing to do with how you interpret the statistics because she ended up getting cancer. And on its own, my dad’s brain tumor is random and has an much consequence on my mom’s chances for cancer as it does on Des or me. But when both sides of the family are paired together there is a significant statistical relationship worth considering.

Dealing with an increased risk for something means creating an environment that is NOT conducive to it being there. With cancer there are two things to do, the first is avoid things that cause cancer – keep away from chemicals and stuff that is burning. The second is to do things that promote a healthy immune system, the most effective cancer defense you have.

Below is a list of some of the things I can do to help my body stay sharp and stop disease:

  • Eat more leafy green vegetables and more plants in general. They help with reducing the acidity of the body which can help reduce inflammation and lower physiological stress. They also provide antioxidants which help clear the waste associated with metabolic functioning.
  • Consider supplementing with some plant based vitamins. The bio-availability of the nutrients may be higher than for those made from raw earth. The is a link however between increased vitamin supplementation and some cancers, so be cautions and consider eating whole food as the preferred source of nutrients.
  • Lower sugar consumption to reduce insulin secretion. Insulin is a critical and nontoxic hormone when present in the body for short periods of time. Insulin secretion is a sign that something has gone wrong (we’ve eaten too much). The less it is around, the better for over all health.
  • Stop inhaling things that aren’t good for me, be it smoke, the fumes from cutting wood or plastic, the pieces of insulation that break off when I’m making panels, the disinfectant spray at the gym.
  • Eat more diverse types of protein and as much from wild sources as possible.
  • Reduce stress in all areas of life. Create a budget and save a fixed amount of money each week.
  • Restore a normal social life that gives me a variety of opinions and personalities. Close off any open loops in terms of grudges or crap that isn’t going the way I need it to.
  • Stop judging myself for my past actions and present thoughts. There was no malice in them, and I’m as susceptible to the fundamental attribution error as anyone else.
  • Update my goals to reflect the needed changes in my life in order to live to as close to my life expectancy as possible. Change my behavior to move me towards these goals.
  • Treat myself with as much respect as I treat other people and this means approaching everything with win:win or no deal. This may mean less short term gain, but it will come with less long term pain. The sadness of a relationship ending before it gets off the ground is a small price to pay for avoiding the enormous heart ache that seems to come from ending all of my relationships that last longer than a few months.
  • Balance my training to make sure all areas of wellness are being addressed – cardiovascular functioning, strength, flexibility, join mobility, and spiritual health.
  • Surround myself with people who are able to love compassionately and unconditionally; this also means learning these skills myself. This is a big one, stress is a major contributor to disease and illness and social interaction is a great way to relieve stress and feel connected to others and therefore the universe. Social interaction serves not to transfer the stress, but to allow for the healthy emptying of whatever is on the mind.
  • EVERYTHING I do is a choice so when I say that I can’t change something I am lying to myself. I will be sad about loss, but I do not have to feel that loss non-stop. It is fine to table dealing with parts of it until I’m in an environment were it has less impact on others.
  • Start to see yourself as someone of worth and value who SHOULD live a long time. More over, start to do the things that PROVE to me that I have worth and pay more attention to the Adults who are engaging me about my talents. After Natalie died I wanted to be dead but wasn’t going to actively end my life. It’s a paradox in this world, but legal enough are the things that you can consume that will kill slowly – smoking, drinking, low quality food, raves in condemned warehouses, and a “woes me” attitude. I don’t want to die sooner than I have to, so taking the action to eliminate these types of things from my life will go a long way at helping me achieve my life potential.
  • Cheer-up, let go of the nonsense and go with the flow. I can steer myself along the river, but I can’t paddle upstream back into my past. What’s done is done. Be grateful for having had the chance to do your best with it.

The future is coming, and I will pay for my past when it arrives. What damage was done, IS done and now get round to reducing it by restoring the loving relationship with myself. I have to care because I haven’t cared for a while, and that attitude shows in my actions, my thoughts and my essence.

Negative Love Syndrome – It Can Stop Here

A few weeks ago Sharyl sent me an article. It was a .pdf of The Negative Love Syndrome by Bob Hoffman. It is fascinating and I’ve read it a few times a week since I got it. It isn’t very long and it is another layer of explanation along the lines of how people observe, learn and practice things as a child that become their unconscious adult behaviors.

With Negative Love Syndrome (NLS), just like compassionate love, children normalize the early experiences of “love” they observe from their parents / caregivers interactions with them and each other. No matter WHAT happens, it will be regarded as normal and set the baseline for all love behavior moving forward; these early experiences shape the child’s future actions so they will work unconsciously and often against their own interests to ensure the baseline experience is restored. But with NLS, the children normalize seeking loving behaviors that do not add quality of live or are simply negative.

For example, when mommy withdraws and doesn’t tell dad what is bugging her, daddy yells and then she does. The boys learn that adult females are cold and conditionally open (when they get yelled at), the girls learn to bottle things it up until her partner gets verbally abusive. Provided the boy yells, both eventually get what they want so they remain in “love.” This is in contrast to compassionate love were the women may not talk openly, but her husband accepts that she will talk when ready and will not pressure her. Children viewing this will internalize appropriate boundaries, and both the need for and respect of another person’s privacy. While the boy will not learn how to make conditionally females open, he also doesn’t learn to attack an object. He learns that women are people, with feelings and that they will talk when they need to. The lesson a girl learns from watching her mother set-up and honor the boundaries can on serve to make her more empowered.

If left unresolved NLS will manifest itself as a series of games between the adult and their future partners although little if any of this is conscious. Seemingly healthy relationships will begin to suffer as the adult works to create the relationship of their parents; which is the reason why they suffer from NLS. If their partner doesn’t realize that this is happening and remains committed to having a healthy relationship, they begin to alter their actions and play the game as well. This is why NLS relationships create unusual experiences for those who normally engage others with compassionate love.

It makes perfect sense when you reflect on it. You need and want your parents to love and approve of you so you try to do what they did. Doing something different than what they did will be tough because it goes against most of what you learned; it will feel and likely be perceived as rebellion. The assumption people make when they choose to get into a relationship is to work towards the bond that their parents had. One does not necessarily realize that this is what they are doing because they engage most parts of their life without the impact of NLS such that they may pick suitable candidates for girl or boy friends, ones who offer compassionate love, but once their own feelings of love begin to develop the negative love tendencies start to come out and degrade things quickly.

The confusing thing is that often what they are receiving is EXACTLY what they need and know they want but since it doesn’t feel like negative love it is rejected. The consequence of compassionate love being rejected tends to be a withdrawal from the rejecter – a negative love trait. So by rejecting the thing they want and need in their life, they are able to experience the thing that makes them feel normal and shittie.

People are going to be nuanced when how they manufacture a negative love environment so the games that get played can be very complex, engrossing and red herrings in terms of what is actually happening. Think about it, you are engaging someone with a very fast brain, that has automated and normalized something to the point of it falling outside of their consciousness so they are not even aware of what they are actually doing, let alone why they may be doing it. They KNOW something isn’t right, but resist all coaching in an effort to win the game.

The prognosis is good but only if the person is willing to change, so the outcome for most is poor. I have known a couple of people who have been able to find their way out of the darkness and would be confident that if someone is willing to work at it, they can get better. It takes time and a keen awareness of how you are thinking. But first it takes the person to realize that there is something wrong and a willingness to press pause, let things settle and see how the landscape looks.

“God” And Other Paths To Enlightenment

Was talking with religious friend yesterday about her being an artist. We were comparing notes about the similarities between the flow states she finds herself in when she’s painting to the flow state I find myself in when I’m mountain biking. While we’re doing completely different things when we find ourselves in the moment, the experience of being completely present is exactly the same for all people – time disappears because there is no past or future to give it a start or finish point, the mind is silent, your emotions are at baseline and you are one with the universe. It’s the same thing you get once you get good at meditating.

Human beings are effectively the same. Brilliant pattern storing and matching machines that go about their environment manipulating things trying to figure the best way to get rewards and learn from the things that created suffering. This is how the world actually is but our powerful brains produce an interactive and reflective consciousness that manufactures layers of meaning for what amount to a bunch of nerve impulses.

So we’re going to wonder what happens when we die, where the universe came from and is there a God? People are going to ask these questions because people are curious. If we’re allowed to ask them. It is a mortal sin in Christianity to question the existence of God, which is a shame because it is the very topic that human beings will find very interesting. I understand why some Christians don’t include certain aspects of the religion into their faith, but religion doesn’t work that way. If that is your God, ALL of the rules apply to you. Cherry picking the pleasing aspects of it is a mortal sin and mortal sin is a show stopper.

I’m an atheist so I’m free to consider God and religion and to really figure-out what they are good for. Well, they’re tools to control the way the brain functions. This isn’t evil, or good, it just is. Thoughts are implanted in the brain and they shape the spontaneous thoughts. If someone is always watching you for example, you’re more likely to behave; the psychological studies show this to be true. But the more interesting thing about religion and is the impact that the rituals have on brain functioning and what this reveals about humanity and our common thread.

Spirituality as a topic SHOULD come-up because people feel something when they mediate or pray, getting together with people to rejoice in a shared interest will create feelings of bonding, community and closeness. We are hunters and gatherers and we stabilize when we focus intensely on something, our brain waves adjust and we become different types of thinkers. Mystic experiences can be facilitated and the human brain is prone to them if the right conditions are met. What these natural experiences get attributed to is another story but they are simply just a different way of thinking that is a consequence of a different way of acting.

Given our genetic similarity to all other human beings there are going to be a finite number of paths through life – we have behavioral tendencies that manifest themselves as ways of being. You have one way of being and there are not that many of them. The specific things people do will be different, but the layer of choice that we think is there isn’t. What exists are a bunch of actions to take, most of which have been determined for you already – there are lots of places to work, but you don’t work at all of them; you work at very few of them. You have a lot of stores to shop at, but you don’t really have a lot of things to buy – you buy certain things, over and over and over again. An infinite world of choice disappears because you choose to live somewhere and do something. Doubt this? Go land helicopter or play professional net ball. You are NOT free to do everything and anything. In fact, there are not a lot of things that we are able to do when compared to the number of things that are possible. But the fact that so many people have almost exactly the same experiences in life does not mean anything other than the tendency for human beings to do and experience the same things because they are so similar.

We’re pack animal and as such we don’t do well with the random acts of others. These relatively few ways of being, the invisible grooves that people follow, are there because we need order. Our behavior shouldn’t deviate too much from the norm and outliers are quickly brought back into the pack if their actions are maladaptive and they find themselves leading the pack if their actions are progressive. As pack animals, there is no place for an invisible leader. We’re on the tail of the sheep in front of us, following the groove we’re in. These social conventions exist with all pack animals though, so humanity’s spontaneous creation of behavioral streams and ways of being are not a consequence of God or religion but a consequence to needing others to survive.

Being an atheist I know more about religions than most religious people. Most atheists do, we have to. Most of us have gotten an education, asked the questions of the people who claim to know, asked the questions of the people who claim to know nothing, watched the actions of religious people, watched the action of the non-religious people and watched the actions of the born again people. We’ve seen a lot of the world through clean eyes, pure and free from mind control and without the fear of considering things to be different. We’ve had to. To consciously commit a mortal sin and make the decision to go to hell for eternity is an admirable one. It takes a lot more character to reject an immoral God than it does to continue to allow their atrocities to be committed.

If you want to understand God, you need to understand people, and know the god of the dogs, cats and animals. Liberty from ignorance comes not from understanding religion and theology and not even from understanding WHY there is religion and theology but from realizing how and why it works so effectively on humans and how to fulfill these needs through perceivable, empirical and scientifically demonstrated ways. Most of us feel empty as is the human condition; a feeling needed to push us towards something. Some will cover this hole with God because it does a good job answering the why questions, some will cover it with a baby, a marriage or a relationship just so they do not feel alone. The atheists realize that this feeling is there to push us forward to do things that increase the chances we create children and send our genes into the future. Then we make the decision on whether or not this is what WE want or need, never asking what is written in the scriptures.

A Christian friend once told me that to be an atheist was to put my faith in something, and I suppose they were right. I have faith in my ability to sense and perceive the things that happen in the world, I have faith in my brains ability to assimilate and understand all of the information that it is presented with and I have faith the enough human beings will remain curious about the reasons for things that they will continue to search for tangible and reliable explanations.

Earth Rise – Dec 24, 1968

December 24th, 1968. Three Americans disappear behind the moon for the first time in history. They fire the service modules big engine to slow their speed, slipping into the orbit of the first non-earth celestial body. They wait, the sun soon lights up the inside of the command module, a sun rise. Nice, but nothing new. Suddenly, before radio communication with earth is restored the earth begins to rise from the horizon of the moon. This is the first earth rise witnessed by humanity.

It sure is pretty!

Antiquated Coping Strategies – Smoking

NOTE – I don’t know the person in the image above but her story is available here. I use this image because it is reminiscent of my dad’s last few days and because those last few days were like NOTHING I have ever experienced. Take a look at the Poo bear on the table and the pictures of her loved ones. Read her story and the final words from her husband. I could be her in a few years and the post below outlines what I need to do to stop that from being my future.

I started smoking again. I had the choice to not start but I convinced myself that I DIDN’T have a choice and set-out believing that it was a fine coping strategy.

It was embarrassing to lie to my father about it. “I’m going out to work on something in the workshop” was what I’d say, and I’d do something, but it was really a trip out there to smoke. The lie made him feel better, like I was finally taking ownership of my life and working hard to build the panel business and it allowed me to avoid disappointing him in his last weeks here. He was proud that I had turned my life around after Natalie’s death – stopped smoking, started eating correctly, got back to exercising, became a personal trainer, started teaching cycling classes and effectively stopped doing most of the things that were destructive. I was glad that my dad was happy and once I slipped, and it was evident that he was getting sick, the smoking habit took hold because I didn’t want to stop out of fear of what it might be like. I also didn’t want to rock the boat given his terminal diagnosis.

Now I have quit. I left everything as it was until I was able to deal only with the death of my dad and the impact it has had on my self-awareness. This was a request of my family to just try and keep things normal until you know what you are feeling and are ready to make the changes. Strangely, the thing that actually clued me into the fact that it would be fantastic idea to stop was a realization about my girl friend at the time. She’s an amazing women and I think we both knew that the relationship would be a 2 part thing if it was to last at all. There was not going to be continuity in it, a separation / break-up was going to be absolutely necessary because of WHO I am and where I am in my life. BUT, my time with her was good and I realized that I actually wanted to live for as long as I can. There was something about the relationship with her that helped me realize that you can feel connected to someone and this connection can help you see things about your behavior that aren’t working. I needed to stop for myself, not for her, my dad, for anyone. I tabled the stopping until after my dad died.

I don’t want to die. I want to live forever, floating through the universe with a smile and love in my heart. But I will not live forever, and if I don’t fix my bad habits, I won’t live for much longer.

Below is a list of the positive changes that occur when someone stops smoking. I like this list because there are benchmark to achieve and it tells a story about recovery. The body will heal itself from a lot of damage if you do the things to promote recover, but only if you stop the damage as well.

Last smoke plus …
  • 20 minutes
    		•  Your blood pressure, pulse rate, and the temperature of your hands and feet will all return to normal.
  • 8 hours
    		•  Remaining nicotine in your bloodstream will have fallen to 6.25% of normal peak daily levels, a 93.25% reduction.
  • 12 hours
    		•  Your blood oxygen level will have increased to normal and carbon monoxide levels will have dropped to normal.
  • 24 hours
    		•  Anxieties peak in intensity and within two weeks should return to near pre-cessation levels.
  • 48 hours
    		•  Damaged nerve endings have started to regrow and your sense of smell and taste are beginning to return to normal. Cessation anger and irritability peaks.
  • 72 hours
    		•  Your entire body will test 100% nicotine-free and over 90% of all nicotine metabolites (the chemicals it breaks down into) will now have passed from your body via your urine.  Symptoms of chemical withdrawal have peaked in intensity, including restlessness. The number of cue induced crave episodes experienced during any quitting day will peak for the “average” ex-user. Lung bronchial tubes leading to air sacs (alveoli) are beginning to relax in recovering smokers. Breathing is becoming easier and the lungs functional abilities are starting to increase.
  • 5 – 8 days
    		•  The “average” ex-smoker will encounter an “average” of three cue induced crave episodes per day. Although we may not be “average” and although serious cessation time distortion can make minutes feel like hours, it is unlikely that any single episode will last longer than 3 minutes. Keep a clock handy and time them.
  • 10 days
    		•  10 days – The “average ex-user is down to encountering less than two crave episodes per day, each less than 3 minutes.
  • 10 days to 2 weeks
    		•  Recovery has likely progressed to the point where your addiction is no longer doing the talking. Blood circulation in our gums and teeth are now similar to that of a non-user.
  • 2 to 4 weeks
    		•  Cessation related anger, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, impatience, insomnia, restlessness and depression have ended. If still experiencing any of these symptoms get seen and evaluated by your physician.
  • 21 days
    		•  Brain acetylcholine receptor counts up-regulated in response to nicotine’s presence have now down-regulated and receptor binding has returned to levels seen in the brains of non-smokers.
  • 2 weeks to 3 months
    		•  Your heart attack risk has started to drop. Your lung function is beginning to improve.
  • 3 weeks to 3 months
    		•  Your circulation has substantially improved. Walking has become easier. Your chronic cough, if any, has likely disappeared.
  • 1 to 9 months
    		•  Any smoking related sinus congestion, fatigue or shortness of breath have decreased. Cilia have regrown in your lungs thereby increasing their ability to handle mucus, keep your lungs clean, and reduce infections. Your body’s overall energy has increased.
  • 1 year
    		•  Your excess risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke has dropped to less than half that of a smoker.
  • 5 to 15 years
    		•  Your risk of stroke has declined to that of a non-smoker.
  • 10 years
    		•  Your risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer is between 30% and 50% of that for a continuing smoker (2005 study). Risk of death from lung cancer has declined by almost half if you were an average smoker (one pack per day).  Your risk of pancreatic cancer has declined to that of a never-smoker (2011 study), while risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and esophagus has also declined.
  • 13 years
    		•  Your risk of smoking induced tooth loss has declined to that of a never-smoker (2006 study).
  • 15 years
    		•  Your risk of coronary heart disease is now that of a person who has never smoked.
  • 20 years
    		•  Female excess risk of death from all smoking related causes, including lung disease and cancer, has now reduced to that of a never-smoker (2008 study). Risk of pancreatic cancer reduced to that of a never-smoker (2011 study).

    Establishing My Baseline

    I’ve been making a lot of decisions over the last 2 year that I wouldn’t have made any time before. I needed to, my boat was floating in still water and there wasn’t a wind. Life wasn’t going anywhere I wanted it to take me because I was sitting on my hands waiting for someone to shepherd me towards the experiences I would judge and blame them for exposing me to. Yeah, I knew it wasn’t working so I had the change things up.

    Looking back on the last 24 months it is with a mixed sense of satisfaction and complete disappointment. I’m satisfied because I understand who I am, what I need to be happy, what I do that doesn’t make me happy and I’m closing in on the reason WHY my life is exactly as it is. I’m completely disappointed because the ride has been a lot rougher since I started to get my life moving again. It’s hard to change things, even when you know you have to, it still sucks to go without the things you have grown accustomed to. You’ve normalize them, and while they my not be ideal, things are as they are and we suffer when they change.

    This is life though. It’s always in flux. One is born, one dies, two fall in love, two end their relationship, There is a patterns of beginnings and endings and when you get it right there is a middle. And maybe if you get it really right there isn’t really an ending.

    But with all the beginnings and endings that I’m going through, it should be getting easier at this point and it doesn’t really seem to be. The reason for this is that I don’t really have much of a stable identify to return to or hold on to. As a consequence I tend to view myself as not being okay and look to others for signs that things are good. I’ve said this before though, a bunch of times. The difference now is that I’m actually saying it to people who only engage me as an Adult – they don’t parent anyone other than themselves. And it feels ridiculous to say out loud to them.

    My baseline is something that I haven’t seen in a long time – a little over a year ago was the last time I actually felt like I wasn’t working against the universe and the people in it. I know exactly why the switch flipped and it was because I made a mistake a number of months before that I ignored when I made it. The outcome was an assumption that led me down a number of unusual roads all of which were unworkable because they weren’t the roads that I travel best.

    Now with my dad gone and having the freedom to just collapse, I’m taking the time to disappear for a while and come back when I’m me again. I am okay, other people are okay. I do see this now. I just need to take some time to establish my baseline so I have a point of reference to know if I’m off course. I’m actually really excited about it. There are challenges in the experience as I have been off for a while now. I think it’s time that I got to know the ME other people see and like.

    Goal Oriented Action – A Great Proxy For Confidence

    “You are being so insecure” was what Leesa said when she finally said anything. The timing was conversationally accurate yet a situational non sequitur. What I had been saying was revealing a huge hole in my confidence but what I had just been doing didn’t embody the complete lack of skill that said confidence would help manifest.

    “It doesn’t make any sense to me when I say it out loud. Feels kind of stupid actually.” That was true. I’ve known Leesa for a couple of years and we go climbing a few times a year. She navigated her way through her recent divorce in the same way that most people don’t handle a parking ticket. There are few random movements in my life so I was suddenly getting the feeling that there was something going on under the surface.

    There were a few moments spent listing the things I do well, this interested neither one of us. I KNOW what I do well. This was a game and I was feeling it.

    When someone presents themselves with insecurities we can engage them in three distinct ways – like a parent and try to solve their problem or demand a change, like a child and play with them or hurt them with it, or like an adult and coach them through the issue or establish a boundary so as to not get impacted by the other (ANY interaction between 2 people will be engaged from these POV with each member shifting roles; self talk will also take on these roles).

    Whatever I had said created an Adult observation with a Parent response of “you are being so insecure” for her. My reply was Adult, and in this case it was Adult, but there have been times in the past when I responded to this exact mixed reply with a Child or Parent response. It can be useful in meeting girls because everyone has something that they don’t feel 100% about and, having codependent tendencies the only way I can get someone to do something for me when they don’t want to do it is to have them approach the task as though they were a parent. In this case, I was seeking coaching so we were able to dispense with the Parent / Child roles very quickly.

    Once the interaction became Adult : Adult the information started flowing from her and the conversation took flight. You have to do stuff, everyday, for weeks and months and years. The things you do need to either cultivate your intellect, your emotional intelligence or your physical being. This will begin to manifest itself as a shift in ease at which life seems to flow. This is your spirit healing and growing; the invisible piece of you that others pick-up on as they observe your interactions with the world.

    The truth is, we don’t gain confidence when we are involved in goal oriented action, we lose insecurity. Focusing on the action shifts our consciousness onto the present, which is reflexive but not usually consciously regressive. Going up the wall, I’m not thinking about every fall I ever took, I’m not really thinking about the foot or handhold I just moved from and I’m not thinking about the sales goal for the week. I’m mapping out a route from where I am and where I want to be and I’m determined to close in on my target. When I come off the wall, the focus widens and life begins again.

    Confidence is the knowledge that you will try something and being in the habit of trying.