Paul McKenna can make you thin. Can you make yourself succeed?
What are you here for? To enjoy life and educate your soul? Or just enjoy life?
Most people [I don’t know this for sure, but my experience suggests this] over a certain age are interested in their life purpose. Do we discover it, or decide?
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”
Anytime I have made the above statement it has resonated with someone, or a group of people. Yes, I do spend most of my time amongst awakened or partially awakened souls.
Does it resonate because most of our plans never come to fruition? So, it lets us feel OK because life can be hugely disappointing at times? And our ‘internal saboteur’ who tells us we are undeserving can be weirdly reassuring?
Supposing we defuse our saboteur, and achieve [it can be done, trust me]. Then after basking in the glow of success, along comes a ‘challenge’ and kicks us hard. Has the saboteur been resurrected, or is it down to someone or something else?
There is a wonderful model from Transactional Analysis [TA] called time structuring.
[TA was quite revolutionary when it first appeared in the late 1950’s. Read on if you are unfamiliar with it, then decide if you want to know more and do your research].
We can [deliberately] spend time:
- Withdrawing. Entering into our own private world. Or
- Engaging in Rituals: “Hi there” “How are you”. [This maybe keeping people at arm’s length, but getting ‘strokes’ or units of recognition for who we are or what we do]. All these ways of structuring time involve strokes. Or
- Pastimes: What interests us, often in conversation. We tend to act out pastimes with friends. Or
- Activities or work: Group activity such as playing football, other leisure activities or working. Or
- Playing Games: Transactions with others which have ulterior motives. At best these can be enjoyable, developmental and fun. At worst they can manipulate and seriously damage people. They are often deployed to avoid the next level, which is:
- Intimacy: Intimate moments can come in many forms, e.g. a shared activity [dancing], a shared interest, a shared experience, or sexual intimacy.
I used to teach this stuff in the 1980’s. Still has validity.
Few, if any people in my circle of friends, ‘waste’ their days in withdrawal, excessive rituals and pastimes. If you like playing manipulative games, please avoid me. I love the intimacy that comes from helping people discover themselves, heal themselves or educate their soul. And I’m beginning also to re-discover the intimacy from enjoying life’s simple pleasures…
If you follow your passion, dedicate each day to your life purpose, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Is it enough to trade off a boring or unfulfilling job with pastimes, work and intimacy?
What is important to you? Isn’t that the best guide to what your life is or could be?
You can let go of ‘blocks’ to the kind of life you want. It really isn’t that difficult.
But what about these catastrophes? ‘Accidents’, betrayals, unrequited love, wasted years in dead-end jobs, marriages or partnerships? Loss of youth, wealth, looks, family and friends. Ill-health, depression, frustration…
Is God in danger of a rupture through laughing? Does s/he know something we don’t?
If we are immortal, spiritual beings having a human experience, how much is this life is real? How many trials of ‘three score years and ten’ do we need before we get it? Do we have ways in which we can make sense of all this without clever theories which help us understand why we do what we do, but only partially ‘move us on’?
There is clearly a consensus that to understand or know ourselves [more] is crucial to our well-being.
But who are we?
To be continued.
Jack, October 19th, 2015.