EVERY emotion you feel, INCLUDING love, judgment, happiness, anger is 100% about you and never about the other person.
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True freedom can only come from a deep realization of that truth.
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This truth can be difficult to face as it means taking full responsibility for our experience of life, others and ourselves.
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Therefore, with freedom comes responsibility.
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To experience love, joy, compassion, peace, it is not enough to simply *know* this truth.
It is an embodied state.
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When you felt most loving, most at peace, happiest, you may remember how light you felt.
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Oppositely, when you experience judgment, anger, sadness, righteousness, guilt, shame, overwhelm, etc. you probably feel heavy, as if burdened.
We feel it in our bodies when we are tuned in. It is not a pleasant feeling.
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Note that I do not say they ARE us. These emotions are not PART of us, they are not ours. They just FEEL like it. They can change in an instant, they come and go. Just like energy.
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The word implies its transient nature; E-motion literally means ‘energy in motion’.
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Just look at babies and young kids, they change their emotions easier than most adults.
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Simply because they are more present than any other human beings, and have not identified WITH the emotion…yet!
Children live in their bodies as opposed to living in their minds (living in the past or future).
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I personally believe we have massively lost our connection to our bodies and our body’s innate ability to heal.
We have done this through suppression, resistance, abuse and denial of our emotions.
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This stems from a resistance to the parts of ourselves that we have learnt not to like, which comes from a strong non-acceptance of who we believe we should not be.
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So what can we do to come back home to ourselves?
Ultimately it is through practicing presence that we can reconnect back to who we are.
To be present means we accept reality, – the world, the person, oneself as it is (not as we want it to be or how we believe it should be).
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When we are free from judgment, free from shoulds and musts, we can give empathy and compassion wholeheartedly.
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When we get stuck repeating cycles of negative emotions and feel recurring judgements, anger, sadness, etc., that is an indication that something deeper may need to be healed (addressed, expressed or resolved.
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I will be going much deeper into how we can get to a higher level of (self) acceptance and share more tools and perspectives on how to deal with the things that prevent us from feeling more fully in-love with self and life.
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Following up from this morning’s post on EVERY emotion we feel being a 100% inside job, and therefore 100% our responsibility…
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Despite understanding some of this truth, I had a massive blind spot.
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I used to say that my happiness was based on nobody but my self. And therefore nobody else can affect my happiness and that I was responsible for it by myself.
So far so good…
Seemingly very powerful. And it was/is to an extent.
But I would then rationalize to myself I needed xyz to be happy.
Not realizing that needing to do something outside of me to satisfy my desire was an external craving that kept me away from true freedom.
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True it was not at the mercy of another person, but it was still based on something external outside myself.
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This form of spiritual justification is rampant in many so-called spiritual communities where practitioners and even many teachers have remained blind to this truth and who use their teaching to justify doing whatever one wants to satisfy a superficial desire.
(I don’t mean superficial in a wrong judgmental way, but rather as a surface-layer desire that may be in misalignment with one’s true ‘desire’).
One such example are the many overly sexualized neo tantra circles we see today.
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Now searching externally for yourself may be necessary at times,
for you to gain an experience,
for you to learn a lesson or acquire some new tools,
for you to get help to get clarity,
or for you to heal some wound or trauma,
but when it becomes a repeated act,
one that is done without any conscious awareness of why/what one is doing it,
it becomes a form of spiritual bypassing, a blind spot – and if repeated continually, it can become an escape, an addiction.
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Ultimately, to find the truth, one has to return to within as that is where all the answers lie. It’s just a matter of connecting to them and if one doesn’t, it’s about taking the responsibility and also the courage, to learn how.
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On Triggers and Blind Spots ⠀
Continuing on from a few days ago where I shared an own personal example on blind spots… ⠀
If we fail to address our blind spots we can get stuck in repeated, often-time compulsive behaviour, and in worst cases leading to addictions that will affect your relationship, your business and everything else in your life.
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Recognizing blind spots takes awareness first and foremost, and secondly takes courage to change them. Sometimes this can become too confrontational which is why many times we do not WANT to believe the reality of what we are doing so we choose to remain blind to it.
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Instead we often project those same things we are blind towards to other people, we see them in others.
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What you do not like most in somebody else *may* be what you don’t like most inside of you.
Or at least it’s connected to something inside of you that is triggering you so much.
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This is something that almost nobody wants to admit or believe, including myself at times!
Of course not.
We would rather feel that our judgements are correct, and not about us.
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Note what I am not saying here is to turn a blind eye to what you see in front of you and look at everything in rosy pictures and think positively.
Absolutely not.
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Discernment has to be made between the actions, our judgements of the actions and our judgement of the person (and ourself!).
(And judgement as to what appropriate action may need to be undertaken against the actions and person in the moment.)
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In the bigger picture, for our own BE-ing and responsibility (response ability!), we want to bring everything back to us.
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How do WE respond,
how do WE feel,
how ARE WE (BEing).
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Learning to pay attention to what triggers us is one of the steps that can be taken to figure out where it is that we may need to do some work.
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“You Complete Me” ⠀
It sounds very sweet and romantic, on the surface, but is it really?
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This idea that two partners become whole together.
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What are we really saying?
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You complete me.
Aka, “you make me whole”
Aka, “you make me happy (without you I feel sad)”
Aka, “I feel empty without you but you fill up my emptiness”
Aka, “I feel lacking, so I need you”
Aka, “deep down I am missing something, I hope that you fill me up”
Aka, “deep down I am insecure and unworthy”
Aka, “deep down I feel guilty and ashamed”
Aka, “deep down I am scared and lonely, and because you are scared, lonely too, let’s complete each other”
Aka, “deep down I am blind to my trauma, wounds, my BS stories, my masks, but I will bypass all that because your mask complements my own”
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The relationships you are in are a reflection of where you are on your own journey.
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The highest form of relationships is two whole people consciously choosing to be together (two-gether – two full beings; not two halves).
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Somebody recently asked me what is the #1 factor that attracts me in a relationship for the long-term and it is this:
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The willingness, the love and the courage to continually make the commitment to consciously grow. ⠀ (which is also the highest level of commitment I make to myself)
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Love is a prerequisite as is a high degree of self-awareness. You do this first and foremost out of love for yourself, and secondly/simultaneously for the love of your partner.
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A beautiful relationship only comes from the conscious sharing of what YOU have, what you are.
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Same with every type of bonding, whether through sex, conversation or any other form of intimate authentic connection.
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It comes from inspiring what is already inside the other.
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From being FULLY who YOU ARE.
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There is no completing the other. This is a delusion to keep us in bondage.
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It has to come from you.
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Nothing can make you whole outside of you.
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If that is where you put your attention, you are literally creating a ‘hole’ in your energy field and that is where your energy will go.
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Looking for the “Fix” Externally to Satisfy a Craving or Desire is Like a Wild-Goose Chase  
Looking externally to fix or complete a personal craving or a desire is like a wild-goose chase, hopeless, because it is unattainable.
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What we (unconsciously) choose to remain blind to in ourselves, we unconsciously try to fix elsewhere.
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If we believe the ‘problem’ is outside of us, we also think it can be fixed outside of us;
the world needs to change
(for me),
the other person needs to change
(for me).
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I need to feel this from the other (for me to feel <insert whatever>)
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Wanting to change the other comes from a lack of wholeness in where we are right now.
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The signal to ourselves of not feeling whole, or feeling empty – is the feeling of wanting to change.
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The mistake is thinking this change is outside of us.
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Realize there is NO changing that you can do in anybody or anything else (directly).
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No matter how much you would like it you can NOT feel or experience what somebody else is experiencing. You can not change them.
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The above also creates an attachment to the external thing in the form of resistance, leading to separation between you and them, you and the world.
The moment you are free from all attachments and are one with the universe, where there is no more duality, no more them/us, no more good/bad, is the moment you attain true liberation – but that is for another time!
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If you want to change THEM,
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YOU have to BE the change.
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YOU are the one to start, to take initiative.
⠀ However, it is easier to remain stuck in our blind spots as facing them is often too uncomfortable.
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And fill up this feeling of lack inside of us with something from outside or somebody else; to complete us, or to feel whatever it is we want to be feeling.
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The truth is there is NO LACK. In reality what we need is to get RID of the layers that are disconnecting you from the deeper layer of you (the one that is already whole and needs nothing to complete, but that is difficult to access). The crap, layers, BS, stories, wounds, personas, misaligned ego identities.
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Awakening is about removing, not adding. At its essence zero extra doing is necessary (though it may be a temporary stepping stone period as described yesterday). There is no DO to BE. You simply ARE. Period.
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But because we lack self-awareness in realizing this truth we try to mask that feeling of emptiness by filling it up with something else, something that we believe is missing in our life.
(And it is missing, but ONLY in our self, stemming from disconnection to our Self/Truth)
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“We are missing happiness/love…. so we need a partner”
“We are missing excitement … so we need a cool tv show, a sports game”
“We miss the sexual spark we used to have with our partner…so we seek it another partner”
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Some people need more Gucci bags, some people need more likes, some people need more lambos, some people need more <insert whatever>
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We need more, more, more…
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Before we know it we can get stuck and lost in the endless chasing forgetting why we wanted the first thing in the first place.
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Not that some of these things are bad, but meaning can become lost when we get lost in the chase.
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Going at something relentlessly to achieve a goal can work very well.
⠀E.g. a physique or health goal, then going to the gym to get strong and lean, then giving up every other aspect of our life to do one competition after the next.
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We *may* get lost on that path and continue indefinitely…for what reason?
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Ultimately we have to ask ourselves the real reason WHY we are doing something.
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What is it that we REALLY want to experience that we believe we can not have now?
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And if we don’t like our answer, that is where change needs to happen ????
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Energy flows where attention goes
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When energy is focused externally;
On areas outside of our control,
On other people,
We LOSE it, we WASTE it.
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Complete disempowerment.
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And it can take many subtle forms but they are mostly a variation of letting something or somebody else run around rent-free in your head. Energy loss can also come from a perpetual desire/craving to wanting to changing something inside of ourselves and non-acceptance of reality, but I will focus on the first in this article.
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Some of the unconscious mental chatter forms it may take in relation to others could be :
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“what will they think of me when I do xyz…”
“Oh I need this for my status, for attention, for validation”
“how can I manipulate xyz so that I can get …”
“does he/she love me”
“how else can I impress xyz”
“why is xyz not calling me back”
“If I don’t do xyz I will appear to be <insert whatever negative judgement you have> and I don’t want people to see me like that”
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You are living based of of your GUESS of what somebody else MAY be thinking of you. And you are HOPING it is something good!
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Realize that no matter what you do people will judge you regardless!
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But pretending to be somebody you are not will only attract the people who the real You does not want!
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Appeasing others and this need for external validation stems from wanting inclusion, from wanting to be validated by others, wanting to feel important and worthy.
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But these stem from insecurity, ruminating in some of these questions can increase things like self-doubt, overwhelm,..
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Ultimately it’s about a complete lack of direction and clarity in one’s own life and disconnection to who one really is beneath all the acts we want to keep up.
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Here’s an anecdote about an old friend of mine, let’s call him Adam.
Very successful by all societal measures; serial entrepreneur with many successful businesses, a tonne of beautiful women and always THE star of the show due to his amazing charisma, charm and social intelligence.
Yet he recently came to a seeming existential crisis where he half realized he was putting on a show, and he did not really feel ANY deep meaningful connection to anything in his life – none of his 1000s of friends, none of what he had accumulated, and least of all to himself.
But he preferred to ignore that and continue drinking, continue the party, the game that he was orchestrating.
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Unsurprising. It can be very confrontational and can be extremely uncomfortable as it would imply an immediate renouncing of all that we are not – which for some people could mean changing EVERYTHING in their life their ENTIRE life, their relationship, everything!
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Why is it so scary? People are afraid that if they get rid of the masks they will be found out,
and what will there be left?
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Deep down they believe they are not worthy, there is a strong sense of self-judgement, there is a lack of self-love, they are fearful, there is a lack of connection and knowing who they really are.
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(Btw, I still LOVE this guy – whether he exists or not doesn’t matter)
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It is EASIER to continue to putting an act of success rather than facing the TRUTH. You WILL fool most people, and most people even FOOL themselves.
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i.e. this happens completely under the radar, most are literally blind to it.
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It is often easier to see something about you through the other than it is directly in yourself (but that is for another article).
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What happens though when you feel all these doubts, fears etc is that you start leaking energy.
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When our attention, and therefore our energy are focused externally, we are in a perpetual state of energy loss. You literally feel angry, sad, exhausted, burned out, tired, lethargic, disconnected.
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Our energy drains.
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All of this stems from our incapability of truly being alone with ourselves and loving ourselves for who we are, but we can break this co-dependent cycle of needing this validation externally. The first step is awareness, eventually going towards acceptance and loving towards who we truly are.
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Repeated (Mis)Use of our Attention, Focus, and Therefore Our Energy Leads to Addiction
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Continuing in the earlier theme…
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When our energy continually goes where we put our repeated focus and attention, we start feeling depleted, and we start needing more of what we used to need to feel ‘whole’, but it has to be more intense. We keep on needing more and more…
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You can compare it a little to the build-up of caffeine tolerance, but it can be in any area.
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e.g. after a period of fat loss, for some the original goal, a strong, healthy, fit body (which was a higher level of confidence due to perhaps not feeling accepted) may not be enough anymore, we want to become shredded and stand on stage…we then want to do multiple shows for decades on end and everything else is sacrificed
e.g. in terms of dating… a few men/women isn’t enough anymore when one is lacking depth in their relationships (because of the fear of going all in with a fully open heart due to previous wounds)
e.g. pornography becomes more extreme (as we become desensitized due to getting used to the same thing over and over)
Etc. etc.
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I am not saying any of these things on their own are bad, it’s only when they start affecting every other aspect in our lives and start to take a life on their own.
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Repeated compulsive unconscious behaviour is how addictions start though.
I believe all addictive when drilled down deep enough has pain at its origin.
Whilst in an addiction one may have already disconnected from understanding what the source of the pain is.
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Sooner or later we rewire our bodies to chase the thing that blocks connection to the underlying pain.
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We literally affect our physical chemistry, through reinforcing negative patterns, neurological connections, due to the continued repetition of the bypassing behaviour.
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I believe this is how people always do more extreme things.
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We start resetting our baseline levels of things like dopamine to always need not only more of the behaviour but a more intense or extreme version of it. (listen to Huberman’s podcast).
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Instant gratification and pleasure seeking seems fun in the moment (can be spiritually bypassed by justifying it as ‘living in the now’), but when it starts taking over what has true meaning in our life, something needs to be healed.
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Porn is a great example and in some cases takes over any meaningful real-life physical connection with someone. One can become completely obsessed by it, or by sex/dating.
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Not only does the compulsive act disconnect is from what truly matters, it also saps us away from our life energy.
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Compulsive sex, frequent masturbation/ejaculation can lead to a very strong amount of energy depletion and is why some people feel quite lethargic after sex/porn.
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Almost equally as harmful though is when that energy builds up inside of you with no outlet (whether physically external) or whether through sublimation or transmutation.
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That is why the old adage of gym, exercise being therapy has so much truth to it. Any physical movement really.
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It is an energy outlet.
An emotional outlet too (remember, that emotion is energy in motion).
Lifting weights is a form of controlled aggression, aggression that has been used to create (a stronger/fitter body for example).
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There is also an internal flow of energy possible.
You may have heard how sexual energy or our root energy can be used as creative energy (through sublimation or transmutation).
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Most grand work/most art is created that way by the way.
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Energy manipulation, the conscious direction of energy, has become a massive area of interest for me.
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I know I myself can achieve massive flow state when I am in this energy. There is tremendous power in that.
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The past few months I literally wrote 10,000s of words in that state.
[ My personal challenge (and what is literally 10x more time consuming) is stitching it all together in a coherent structured format! ???? However, even that I am improving in]
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Going back to energy direction though.
If there is an unconsciously created energy leak, it means something needs addressing – sometimes this can be something that goes very very deep (an old wound/trauma), sometimes it can simply be the change of 1 belief.
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So my invitation is to:
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Be mindful what you put your attention on.
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Try break the addictive cycle (of energy loss), break the pattern.
Yet allow yourself to feel whatever you feel fully.
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Being mindful is ultimately about directing attention (and energy) consciously.
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Big Love,
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Alex
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