Argue No More -- Three Delightful Steps back to Love

Week Two, Day One:  LOVE

Concept #8 : WE DON’T NEED TO ARGUE—

Say Five Times as Many “Good” Things…

 A Three Step Alternative

We love to argue, because we have conditioned minds. What do conditioned minds want most of all?

To be right.

And they are stupid.

So if we feel bad, or shift into reactivity and start feeling bad, our stupid conditioned minds have a stupid conditioned program called: YOUR FAULT.

This always seems true.

This always fucks up our life.

And makes it less fun.

And can lead to feeling like we’re miserable.

And we so-called “KNOW” (ha! An opinion masking as a “fact”) why we are miserable.

Because we believe a ridiculous thought, which is: You are at the cause of my feeling bad.

Which always seems true.

And which is always a lie.

And always makes us weak, because it’s firmly saddled in the victim mode that says: YOU are the cause of my feelings.

Here’s the sad and wonderful truth: we are always always, we are the cause of our feelings.

WE ARE ALWAYS ALWAYS THE CAUSE OF HOW WE FEEL.

Later we’ll see that it’s almost entirely our THOUGHTS about whatever the other person did that are “causing” our bad feelings.

And enough theory. It’s up to you to discover how you make yourself unhappy, and then to stop that.

You may be pleasantly delighted to discover that once you stop making yourself unhappy, you are automatically happy. 

ONCE YOU STOP MAKING YOURSELF UNHAPPY, YOU ARE OFTEN AUTOMATICALLY HAPPY)

(There is more to it, because out of of bodies and in our heads it’s very hard to live a fun and full and creative life…. And for now. Let’s kick the arguing habit into a corner, and have this wonderful three step process to be more alive, and connected and loving.)

LOVE GAME #5: Write two lists of appreciation: for yourself and for “the other”

Five things you love or like or appreciate about yourself.

Five things you love or like or appreciate about the other.

Love Game #6: Write two short lists: ONE thing each, to improve

One thing that you could do “a little better”. I know, I know, you are perfect. And…. there might just be ONE thing you could do a little inny weenie bit better.

One thing (ONE) that your partner/ friend/ child/ friend/ ???/ could do “a little better”.

This is a secret to good relationship. Five nice things to every one not so nice thing.

The brain likes to latch on to the negative. So, we need to start with five times as many nice things.

ABOUT OURSELVES, TOO.

We need to get in the habit of writing lists of what we love about ourselves.

Love Game #7: Discover the “we goal” behind the two wishes to improve.

For example:  I am too critical, sometimes.

The we goal: We are creating an environment of support and listening and patience and being present and grateful.

Or, another example: You should not withdraw when things go south.

The we goal: We are staying connected no matter what.

This can be any we goal that you want. It need only be something that you are sure that both of you agree and thrive by.

So, this is fun.

And this is a way to look at the half of the problem that is us.

This is a way to look at the “we goals” that are about the love and connection and fun and life richness that is what we really want.

Amen.

take a pause, now

Day Five

You are Alive

Pause and know this….

You are a human BEING, not a human Doing

1. 

When I was just a wee junior in college, I’d transferred to Stanford. This was a step down for my family, and even then I was realizing, though not with the happiness and freedom I now have, that we all have to live the life We are meant to live.

Not the life our parents, or society, or so-called friends, or even our mate, imagines that we should live.

And in the fall of my junior year, a friend asked me to a study group on a book called, Gestalt Therapy. A bright orange book, with three authors, this book had theory and practices.

One of the practices changed my life.

I was a smart guy, and used to being in my head with plans and thoughts about the past and scheduling the next class and homework. I didn’t really know how to be present, except in sex or in sports.

And the book said to try this:  “For five minutes, just write down, or say…. 

‘Now I am aware….’

and fill in the blank.”

This is easy.

This is a delight.

This brings us to the present, because we are always aware of something.

And then later, once I’d moved to the country with my new wife, and we lived on land with apricot trees and pine trees up a hill, and we created a garden, I became very clear that getting out in nature was a path to peace, harmony and happiness.

Even later, in Sonoma in the late 1990’s, there was a group sharing event once on month. People sang, or recited poetry, or gave little speeches. The time limit was five minutes, so everyone go a turn.

I wrote pseudo poems and realized that I always wrote three and they were always about either

Now

Nature

Love

This, I realized, was my holy trinity.

And so, this is your exercise for today.

And for the rest of your life.

Enlightenment Game #1:

Take a pause.

Go outside if you can.

Sit, or stand or walk in nature.

Be present.

Don’t think about plans. Don’t think about what you’ve just done.

Just be present.

You might want to do the game of “Now I am aware…” and finishing it.

Or you might want to simply sit in as much stillness as comes to you.

Make sure you follow your breathing.

This is very calming.

This is great evidence that you are alive.

Feel your body in gravity.

This is very calming.

On Earth we are always in gravity on this planet Earth.

Look out at trees, or leaves, or the sky, or clouds.

See nature.

Let it in.

Do nothing.

Just BE.

This is wonderful. This is a gift.

Pause.

Sit or walk outside if you can.

Sit or walk very slowly inside.

Be present to your body, and your breathing and to gravity.

Take this as a chance to be a human BEING.

This is your right.

Take this pause, take this break often.

You deserve it.

And it will refresh you.

And even if it didn’t, you deserve it.

Enjoy being yourself.

Right now.

The Present. Loving Life/ Others/ Yourself

The Present:
Our Only Route to Freedom and Love

Here’s the deal:

One: If you had perfect parents AND

Your partner had perfect parents , THEN

You can have a grand relationship and be mindless

Two: We are either mindful or mindless

Three: If we did NOT both have perfect parents, things are always going to get awful unless we are mindful.

This isn’t to say they will always be awful.

In mindlessness, we can coast through good times, or stay busy enough to be out of each other’s hair, but there will be times when one or the other (or both, as often happens) have stressful/ bad/ shitty days.

When that happens, and we are mindless, guess what?

Not being mindful, we don’t get to chose what our reactions are going to be?

Who does?

Our programming.

Where does most of our heavy duty programming come from: our parents.

So, that’s the formula: stress, plus mindlessness equals we fall back on the rather funky examples and programming of our parents and act them out on our poor mate.

And our poor selves, because we aren’t really home when we are acting out the mindless game.

We are a pawn of our programming.

This would be bad, bad awful news, if we didn’t have an alternative to being mindless.

But we do.

To be mindful.

Remember number two at the start of this chapter: we can be mindful, or we can be mindless..

Mindful, we can notice:

Oh, darn, my buttons are being pushed. Better say something about that.

Or, wow, look at the way my words have caused my loved one to tense their breathing and look hurt in their face.

Maybe those weren’t the words I really wanted to say.

So, that’s that deal: Mindful we have choices. We can notice our own reactiveness.

We can notice the effects of our words and actions.

We aren’t lost in our own little world, but are paying attention to reality.

We notice the birds and our breathing and our skeletons holding us up in gravity and the look on our loved one’s face and the tone of our voice and the feelings that are coming up in us.

The world is new and fresh when we are mindful and if things aren’t “going right,” we can notice this, and say something about it and get curious.

And make suggestions.

Or requests.

All that, the making requests, the diffusing our own reactivity will come later in the book.

For now, we are going to practice pointing our attention to what we like in life.

What we are aware of in the present and what we like in life.

In couples, so much conversation is either planning out the business of what to next or later. And a lot is complaining about what happened in the past.

And the lovely blaming the other for when we feel bad.

So, let’s get our attention on what we like muscles build up and spend three days talking about what turns us on in life, what we like in life, what we are aware of in the present.

Like this…

The Liking Game

In some religions they lay it out like this: Two biggie commandments, Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Check that out closely and it’s three rules for the good life:

Love God

Love others.

Love yourself.

And now, gentle reader, we’re going to take a short cut, a short cut to happiness, contentment and bliss.

A way out of a bunch of conceptual tangling and fussing that has waylaid humanity for way too long.

Instead of God, we are going to say Life.

Capital L Life.

The miracle of the flowers and the creeks and the salmon and smiling children and tuba’s and kissing and square dancing and redwood trees.

Life.

So the Big Three rules become:

Love Life.

Love other people.

Love yourself.

And guess what?

You are your partner are going to practice that for twenty minutes a day for at least three days.

And you are going to start by noticing the big three: yourself, another person, and Life.

Here’s the game, sit as before in two chairs close to each other and look each other in the eyes as one speaks and the other listen.

Be present to your voice as you speak.

Both be present to the voice and the breathing and the body, both your own and the other’s.

And talk in two turns of talking and two turns of listening like this.

For five minutes cycle through these six sentence stems, finishing them as the words come to you.

1.    I notice in the present this about myself…

2.    I notice in the present, this about you…

3.    I notice, in the present, this about Life around us…

4.    I like this about myself…

5.    I like this about you…

6.    I like this about Life…

Pause for a couple of sweet breaths as you look each other in the eye, and then go back through the six sentence stems again.

And again.

And again.

Until the five minutes are up.

Notice the delight in just talking about what you like.

Notice the delight is just listening to your love talk about what they like.

Do this two turns each.

See if it changes how you talk in the rest of your life!!

What to do when your Lover isn't Perfect?

(This is a reposting of a mini essay from
my new blog:
Relationship Enlightenment,
which is at http://relationshipenlightenment.blogspot.com/

This is the first posting, in a blog that will be entirely devoted to upgrading and making relationship a vehicle toward enlightenment, and a sweet place to hang out in the present.

Sometimes there are trick questions, and this is one:
What to do when your Lover isn't Perfect?

Because the answer is contained in the question.
Take our the r from Lover and you have what to do?
Love.
Love them.

Think about it: when does someone need love most?
When they are tip top full of vim and vigor and their most charming lovable selves?

Or when they are a bit pissy or selfish, or even mean?

I mean, we all have the mean moments. And never from sitting down and deciding:
damn, I'm bored, I'm going to be a real rat for awhile.

Nope.
We are feeling down about ourselves,
or stuck in our work,
or feeling wounded by someone else,
or some memory from the past,
and suddenly, an innocent (or maybe not so innocent, that doesn't matter)
comes along,
and zap:
we send them a little mean juice.
Say a mean thing.
Give them a look.
Ignore.
Use the tone of voice.

You know the stuff we pull when we aren't tip top.

And that's when we need our Lover, our Friend, our Mate,
to step back
and wonder… ˙Hey, what's eating you? Is something wrong?
Do you need something? Some time? A hug? Some praise? Some listening?

And so,
that's what to do when your Lover isn't perfect:
Love them.

And ask some slow, gentle, curious, caring questions.

That's all.

(And that's a lot).

falling into the glory of being, BEing, BEING alive

Some place are getting cold
and maybe they had beautiful days
somewhere between June and October

in Austin we had about
zero
and now it's
beautiful
so maybe that's "fair"

or maybe it's the way the globally
warming Earth is playing
its game this year

for whatever reason
I commend you
all
to take some time
out
doors

today

not rushing to the car

not "getting a lot done"
in your garden

not even doing your "power walk"
or walk and talk walk

and what's left:
just go out
and see where your feet
lead you

is that fair

on a Friday?

when there is
"too much to do"?

yes

why?

someday you will take
your last breath
on this planet Earth

what happens next is belief
superstition, possibility,
who knows

but the last breath comes
and as it approaches

you get to be present
to the immense glory
of being alive
and having been alive

fall
does that to people
somehow

gives the preview to the
looking back
and feeling the immense
glory and wonder of
it all

so fall out of your routine
and into the fresh air

and feel experience see hear
notice enjoy
whatever happens

good

Lovely quote

Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative ( and creation),
there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favour all manner of
unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now".

- J. W. von Goethe

What is a Life for?

What are you doing right now?

That is what a life is for.

And if it isn't "good enough"
what do you want all the little nows
to add up to?

And how wonderful do you want this little
now
to be,
even on a computer,
which we go to...

to communicate?
listen?
learn?
avoid?
find?
amuse?
distract?

practice being present?

all sorts of possibilities
are there not.

????


and what is a life for?

well,
you decide,
what would you like your life to be for?

good

Signing off and on the way to Orcas for the week of July 25-July 3

Doog is backwards good

good

Chri

Don't be good, be warm wet alive in the body that is you when you are present

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

balancing the latest Feldyforum tempest in a teapot

What if "balance" were to be seen
as what it is,
somewhat of a non-existent
approximation of
not falling over.

Then, would not Judo,
or physics,
or the study of infants learning to sit up,
or even raise their heads,
perhaps be useful to this
action of
not falling over.

Hmm.
We seem to have lucked into a "system"
developed be a man
who excelled in Judo,
was a physicist/ engineer,
and had a profound interest in how
babies move bodies into new
phases of learning.

What a pleasant state of affairs.

And then there is "learning,"
as in gifting another person
with a one sided lesson,
so they are "out of balance"
and get to rise to higher level
of organization.

In their somewhere,
the brain,
what Moshe called the most precious
material in the universe.

Good.
Good.
Good.

gravity, learning, dance, life, fun, yes

in the feldie
work
the better we understand
our relationship
to gravity

the better we can function

this cat
has mastered
a four legged way
of relating to gravity:

fun

and here's someone who learned
it as art
not necessity,

note the differences

new life: go slow, learn, heal

this world is an amazing place:

if we lie down
out of gravity

and very slowly
move one part of ourselves
and keep moving that part easily
and awaring all the while
and follow that movement back
somehow to our spine

then
rest

then move another
part
slowly
slowly
with awaring
and following:
back to the spine
back to the spine

and usually
moving in a way
that keeps the belly soft
and the chest
and head free

doing all that
and connecting up
in various combinations,
the two sets
of moving
and awaring
and connecting

what's going to
happen?

learning

waking up
to now

pleasure

falling
into
the newness
of what
we could be


is all this true?
try it
and
see for yourself.

A year of sweetness and year of..

sun almost gone, "year" almost gone

the learning goes like this:
in this moment
i can do this
i can't do that

how can i learn
to know more
about what i "can" do

how can i learn ways
to sneak up
near
what i "can't" do

how can i learn
to be
fascinated
not frustrated
when the learning
doesn't come
"fast" enough

which means
i've forgotten learning
and fallen into the old habit
of wanting "things fixed,"
means me changed
like a broken car

instead of what i really am
a miracle of
brain
body
nerves
blood
bone
learning
and abilities
to learn
to be present
to explore
to discover
to expand
all that i ever
thought
was possible

yes