We’ve all been teenagers. If your memory is anything like mine, you want to forget some of the goofy things you did during that period of your life. The list is too extensive to cite all the inane things, but suffice it to say it’s a long list.

My guess is you have outgrown a number of those behaviors. For example, that probably means you wouldn’t wear one of those crazy outfits today, even on Halloween.

Every time you truly outgrow something, you peel away a layer of conditioning. And with every peel, you reveal.

What gets revealed is you. There you are hiding under layers of conditioning.

Who you are is the light that’s attempting to shine through all the layers. The light never goes out; it just gets dimmed by each layer we adopt.

We had help covering our light through social, cultural and parental conditioning. It really wasn’t our fault. We got what we got, but the sadder news is we believe that’s who we are.

We confuse who we are with the conditioning we’ve received and it keeps our light from shining bright.

There comes a time in everyone’s life where something loses its meaning for you. Something that was so important, no longer is. That’s a layer of conditioning being peeled away. You are coming closer to the light.

This layer peeling, quite often, isn’t a happy event, just a necessary one. It can feel as though you accidentally found out that you’ve been adopted. That unsettling feeling of being deceived is quickly replaced as we bathe in the rejuvenating light of illumination.

Some peeling happens naturally and some is self induced. Either way, it’s beneficial.

Genuine peeling is never preceded by a “should” or an “ought to.” It’s more of an internal nudge to find our light.

You can defend your conditioning until the day you die but that’s just arguing for your limitations. A better plan is to discover your true brilliance.

Anybody got a paint scraper?

All the best,

John

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Did you ever notice that your attention is mainly focused on pain, pleasure or emotion?

It’s hard to focus on anything else while you are in pain. You may be able to dart away for a moment or two but it seems we are like automatic focusing cameras – we zoom right back in on the subject matter – pain.

Intense pleasure also gets us to narrowly focus.

Pain and pleasure seem to be the extremes and don’t last forever.

Emotion is a marathon runner. It can produce pain the whole 26 plus miles.

Emotion is kept alive by instant replay. We play it over and over again in our mind and rile ourselves up to the state of a rabid fan who’s witnessing a blown call on the JumboTron.

We cause our pain to continue when we feed our emotions. Emotions are always looking for a sympathetic friend, someone with whom we can share our pain. Just like no one can go to the bathroom for you, no one can share your pain. It’s yours. You own it.

The trick to turn an emotion into a sprinter is to rent.

How do you rent an emotion?

First, notice that past emotions had a shelf life. They had your focus of attention for a certain period of time and then they waned, making room for something else. This lets you know that it’s possible for them to go away.

Secondly, notice where the emotion registers in your body. There will be a specific feeling in a certain area of your body; you just have to focus to find it.

Finally, focus exclusively on that sensation. Don’t talk about it, feel it.

What you are doing is shortening the storm. I have no idea how it works, I only know that it does.

The amount of focus you can put on the sensation in your body that an emotion produces, the quicker that emotion will move on.

The temptation is to follow our conditioning and tell everyone and their mother, and ourselves, about how badly we are feeling, over and over again. That picture is way out of focus. It keeps a blurry emotion in place and hard to pinpoint.

In order to get tack sharp focus, we have to locate our area of emotional blur and fully feel what it has to offer. This is truly getting in touch with and focusing on your emotions. The purpose is to let them have their day rather than shooing them away.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, I’m not suggesting that you keep your emotions to yourself. Just keep your sentences short. Don’t expect another to metabolize your emotions. They can’t. They can validate your feelings but it’s up to you to focus on a solution.

The solution is to feel. We keep that feeling in place anytime we try and talk it away.

It’s OK to be emotional. It’s just a matter of focus.

All the best,

John

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Did your dog, cat or turtle do something you didn’t like? I suppose you could call that a pet peeve.

Here’s a Facebook type question for you: What are your top 5 pet peeves? Go ahead and quickly list them right now. Let’s do it together. Here are mine:

1. People complaining with no interest in a solution.
2. Someone stepping on the back of my flip-flop.
3. Not doing what you say you are going to do.
4. Not answering a direct question.
5. People looking for a pocketful of fairy dust.

Now let’s take a moment and look over our list. If you’re anything like me, many, if not all, of your pet peeves are with other people. Did you notice that hardly any, or none of them, are about you?

So I look at my first pet peeve and ask myself this question: “How likely is my peeve about someone else likely to change them?” “Highly unlikely” is my answer. OMG, I’m complaining without a solution. That puts me in with all the complainers at the top of my list.

The discovery for me is that we don’t have pet peeves for ourselves – a list of annoying things we do that we never go to work on.

So, here’s my solution: Make a list of pet peeves about yourself and begin to address them.

Here’s a little hint: Your list about other people may contain more than a few that are about you. It’s called “Projection.”

There is a very high probability that what you dislike about another mirrors a part of you that you highly dislike.

Notice how quickly and passionately you say, “I’m not like that!” You may not be, but you’ll never know until you explore the possibility that your complaint may reflect a part of you that you keep hidden, even from yourself.

It’s a worthwhile adventure to turn the spotlight on ourselves from time to time and see what others witness us deny.

You’re probably familiar with the mantra, “What you can conceive and believe you can achieve.” You may not know this one yet: “Whenever you don’t recognize your own pet peeve, you aggrieve and deceive.”

Anybody want to walk the dog?

All the best,

John

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Did you ever notice that the word “conscience” is made up of two syllables, “con” and “science”? Can that mean that it’s anti science or worse, a scheme against science?

Science, to me, is a pure, natural law waiting to be discovered.

To con-science would be a scheme to try and misrepresent the variables and pass the results off as the real thing.

Our main notion of conscience – something to warn us to do the “right” thing – has mainly come about through conditioning. True science isn’t conditioned; it’s always been there waiting to be discovered.

Our conscience contains an arbitrary version of right and wrong. With science, there is no debate.

How long would wars last if babies were the combatants? Babies have no conscience. They do what they do with no malice aforethought. They may have a minor skirmish about something and then be peaceful the next minute with no concept of the other person being right or wrong.

Look at the harm people do to each other in the name of right and wrong. It goes against science.

Evil only exists in the minds of man. Science is pure and only contains the evil that man puts in it. When you put evil into science, you are going against science. You are conning science so to speak.

This is pure word play on my part to underscore an overlooked behavior – that we justify the harm we do with the subjective science of right and wrong.

To me, “The Greater Good” is a con job that goes against science. It simply means that they have a better lobbyist than the person with the adjudged, “Lesser Good.”

As long as my version of good outweighs yours, we’re always going to be at odds.

There are no odds against natural law. It’s pure science, and anytime we try and fudge it to fit our needs, we cause friction.

I don’t believe the concepts of right and wrong are going away anytime soon, so this isn’t a crusade to eradicate them. It’s more of a nudge to notice if they’re working for you or not.

Remember this: If you’re right, someone else has to be wrong. If your only proof of your “rightness” is consensus, you are conning science.

All the best,

John

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Perfection exists. You just have to adjust your angle of view to see it, and then you’ll have a chance to live it.

The Grasshopper, a number of years ago, came out with an observation that “Reality is perfect.” Yesterday I was out walking and The Grasshopper chirped in and said, “Your life is perfect.”

I immediately had a response that cited all the things in my life that were askew and again heard the phrase, “Your life is perfect.” It was a long walk.

I finally got it.

We falsely define perfect as things being the way they aren’t. There is the rub. When we define things exactly as they are, we see reality, which can only be the way it is. That’s perfection.

Imperfection is seeing things the way they aren’t.

When we discard concepts like “potential,” could,” “should,” “would,” and “ought to,” we get a peek at true perfection – reality. When something can only be the way that it is, it’s perfect.

Whether you trip over a Dixie Cup lid or win the lottery, your life is perfect. It can only be the way it is at this moment.

That doesn’t mean you can’t plan for a different reality. You can. You just can’t discount that what you have now is perfect, because it’s the only way it can be right now.

That’s not resignation; that’s reality, which is perfection.

Most people have perfection defined as ideal. The imperfection in that description is that everyone has a different criterion for ideal. There is only one benchmark for perfection – reality – that which is happening now.

When you claim that your life isn’t perfect, you jump the tracks by railing against reality. That just keeps your attention on what isn’t, preventing you from seeing perfection.

When you come to the conclusion that your life at this moment can only be the way that it is, you have found perfection.

When you find the perfection of reality, it clears space in your mind by ending the debate that your life is not perfect. It’s into that space that new perfection will flow. The odds are better that these new ideas will come closer to your concept of ideal because they aren’t burdened with your old limiting idea of perfection.

When Buddha said, “Everything is as it should be,” he could have just as easily said, “Everything is perfect.”

Everything is reality. When we pretend that it isn’t, life becomes imperfect.

All the best,

John

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Many years ago I heard my teacher, Dr. Dave Dobson say, “We live our life by reference.” What he meant by that was the action had already taken place by the time it registered in our conscious mind as a thought. His phrase, “Words are the caboose on the choo-choo of life” capsulizes his observation.

His further point was that you aren’t consciously living in the present moment, but a half a step behind it.

What he didn’t say, but is easy to imply, is that our feeling sense always lives in the present moment. We reference off our feelings.

As a left-brain society, we pride ourselves on making sound, intellectual choices. Which word do you like better, “Hogwash” or “Bulldinkie?”

Our feeling sense always decides before the message makes it to the front lines.

We are sensate creatures who deny that our feelings rule our decisions, whether we are a street sweeper in a one horse town or a Supreme Court Justice.

The illusion that we consciously choose can be witnessed any day of the week when you hear yourself or someone say, “All things happen for a reason.” When you apply a little logic to that phrase, it wilts in the light of day. The way we are wired proves the opposite – All things happen and then we apply a reason.

We live our conscious life by reference.

So how do we get closer to the moment rather than being a step slow? – Become aware of your feelings.

We have been conditioned to chase our feelings away by talking over top of them. We figure if we talk long and loud enough, we can drown our feelings out, especially the ones we don’t like. No amount of logic will make a feeling go away.

Since your feelings are deciding your life, it makes sense to get to know them much better, so we can truly know why we do what we do or what we decide.

Feelings of inadequacy often spawn spendthrifts. Just listen to the “Fun House Mirror” logic of someone living way past their means and you’ll have a finer appreciation of how they feel about themselves.

The person who constantly cites circumstance as the roadblock in their life is divorced from their feelings. The reason they can’t move forward is because of reasoning. Never have they made an effort to get closer to “Decision Central” (their feelings) and feel that sensation which is the underlying cause that blocks any progress.

Feelings are meant to be felt at the time you are feeling them, which is always now, not a half a minute from now when you rationalize them away.

When you make time for your feelings and let them express themselves, you’ll find that the ones that are standing in your way seem to melt and fade away without any conscious coaxing.

When your life is filled with excuses, you are living your life by reference. The remedy is to step into the current moment and feel your feelings. Not only is it cathartic, it also allows you to feel life as it happens, not through the prism of illusion.

The interesting thing is that you won’t find this important discovery in a reference book, only in your body.

All the best,

John

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The strategy of the everyday convincer is like the opening line of a Beatles song, “Try and see it my way.”

That rarely works but is the most often used strategy.

The person who has the best chance of convincing is the person with the most flexibility. Using this gift, which is available to everyone, they have the foresight to step into your shoes and view the situation from your angle.

They give themselves the benefit of a panoramic view which offers many entry points, rather than one.

We all have positions that we take on something and we know how immobile we can be. Someone who takes us on directly engages our polarity and gets our fur up. We do the same to them when our only position is: “Try and see it my way.”

About 25 years ago, I learned a technique from Tony Robbins called The Agreement Frame. He asks you and another to debate a hot topic and to take one position. You go back and forth for a few minutes and then you switch sides. That means you argue the other side of the debate. You have to do this without the aid of the word “But” or any of its second cousins like, “However.”

It’s a pretty powerful exercise. Not only does it teach you flexibility, but the secret benefit is that you gain appreciation for the other side of the issue, simply because you adopted it as your own for just a few minutes.

One of life’s hardest truths to swallow is that there is another way besides yours. Like any major undertaking, it is best to break it down into bite sized chunks because, as I’m fond of saying, “You can’t eat a whole cow at once.”

Start with something that you are mildly married to. (Think of it as an arranged wedding). Now explore the counter position and create a narrative for it. Convince yourself that this is the only way it can be. Then go back to your regular position and convince yourself that it’s the only way to go. Keep going back and forth until you can boil down each argument into a trigger word or picture.

This is an exercise that Jerry Stocking offers to help people make decisions without having to consciously make them. After doing the back and forth to the point where you can switch sides in the blink of an eye, you find the magic of the exercise – the decision makes you. It may happen a day, week or month later, but your decision is totally congruent with no afterthoughts. You have convinced yourself.

So before you can convince anyone of anything, you have to convince yourself. That means that you have to employ flexibility and discover different arcs on the 360 degree circle of controversy and adopt them as your own.

Doing so gives you a fuller appreciation of the topic and, even more rewarding, more appreciation for another and their point of view.

Make it a point to convince yourself because the person with the most flexibility garners the most rewards.

All the best,

John

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Fall in New England is a spectacular sight. I’m reminded of the Froot Loops
cereal ads when I was a kid – “Cherry red, lemon yellow and orange orange.”

While walking through this color fest, I was also reminded of an old joke. “Have you heard of the Autumn Leaves Cocktail? Drink two of these and you change colors and fall down.”

It was the falling down part that struck me as I walked the dog yesterday. The phrase “One leaf, one life” popped into my head.

Like all living things, a leaf has a lifespan – birth, stages of life and death. It’s probably no coincidence that Halloween is filled with reminders of death, such as skeleton costumes and the like. It falls on a date when the leaves are just about done falling.

“One leaf, one life,” the phrase stuck with me.

There is nothing like death to get you focused on life. Perhaps it’s why many people call Fall their favorite season – falling reminders to live life to the fullest.

“One leaf, one life,” is a focusing phrase. It reminds us that we can only live one life. Even if you’re a believer in reincarnation, you can only live one life at any one time.

Nature is very instructive. It mirrors our lifespan to us – our “leaf-span” so to speak.

Somewhere we bought into the illusionary idea that life is a dress rehearsal and we don’t give life its proper respect. “One leaf, one life” brings reality back into focus.

Our life’s mission is to allow as much life into our one life as is possible. This is not the pseudo-life that is reflected in the beer ad that stated, “You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can get.” That suggests that you have to go get life. You don’t. Many people spend their whole life chasing life instead of stopping to live it.

“One leaf, one life” is a reminder to start living life no matter what stage of it you are in.

There is only one life and it flows through every leaf.

It is hoped that you’ll find it before you fall down and they rake your leaf away.

All the best,

John

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I watched the message on my laptop screen and it read: “Windows is resuming.” A light bulb went off.

It dawned on me that a word I have used almost my entire life, “Resuming” had a richer, deeper meaning.

The way I interpreted “Resuming” was as the act of continuing. It’s so much more.

Before I get into another meaning for the word, let me discuss one of its opposites – “Pause.”

Have you put your life on pause? That means that you are waiting for something to happen before you allow yourself to live again. Some have called it “Limbo.”

It’s a place of inactivity where all you can do is wait, and wait. This is more than the patience of Job I’m referring to here; it’s the state of utter inactivity where nothing seems to add up. It’s very similar to the feeling of a teenager who wants to grow up, and is waiting for that day to come. Some wait a lifetime.

So if the opposite of pausing is resuming, what does that really mean?

If you break the rules of spelling for a moment, you can get another meaning for “Resuming.”

When you sum something, you add it with something else and get a result. When you don’t sum things up, you remain answerless.

So to get things off pause, you have to re-sum your life. That means that you re-sum the variables and set the stage to put action back into your life, because perpetual pause can do nothing to move you forward. Any perceived action associated with pause is the same action you expend treading water.

Re-summing, if you will, is the act of putting action back in your life that allows it to come off pause and resume.

How do you do that?

1. Recognize that you are on pause.
2. Make a movement in any direction, but move.

This is not the typical advice to “reinvent yourself.”

This is more geared towards taking stock of what you have and doing something with it. Re-sum your personal assets and do something with them.

An attic or basement filled with stuff you no longer use is begging for a yard sale or a visit to good will. Both require action.

To resume your life requires action. To grow up requires action. The first action is to notice that you’ve paused your own life and that you are the cause of your own Limbo. The second action is to re-sum what you have and take some sustained action.

Waiting has its place, but if that place is Limbo, you’ll be bending over backwards trying to get under the pearly gates.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper asked an interesting question this morning: “If you had no audience, what song would you sing for yourself?”

Which one would you choose for you?

This may not be the one you’d pick for Karaoke, but one that reveals your soul.

What’s the message in your song?

The more interesting thing about The Grasshopper’s question is that your song may not even be written yet.

Maybe it’s time for you to write a song especially for you – one that is so personally revealing that it unleashes your depth and reveals your unique character.

Your song may not reveal itself in song form; it may come out in different ways. What you can trust about “this way” is that it’s an original – something that needs to be expressed.

What song are you keeping hidden? What song do you need to sing?

Once you discover your song, singing becomes a way of life. The song sings you.

What were you put on this earth to sing?

The biggest mistake we can make is to believe we don’t have a song to sing.

If your only objective is to make the Top 10, you may never find your song. That entirely misses the point of singing, which is pure expression.

Your song wants to be heard.

If I can offer you one suggestion that will change your life, it would be this:

Sing your song!

All the best,

John

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