Kategoriarkiv: #English

Fear is not real

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”Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity, Katai. But do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real, but fear is a choice. We are all telling ourselves a story.”
– Will Smith, After Earth, 2013


Your view of reality is created by your thoughts. So beware what story you are telling yourself.

The choice is yours – what do you chose?

Hybrid

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Svara

Tweeking my website a bit, and the realization that it’s a dreadful hybrid of Swedish and English hits me hard. The blog started out purely in Swedish, except for the name herothecoach, but now, I publish more and more posts in English. The mix bothers me though, because it doesn’t look good. And appearance and stringency matters. So I figured I’d ask you to help me out.

20131012-100120.jpgI’d like to ask you for feedback on what works, what doesn’t work and what’s missing. What steps would you take, if this was your blog? What do you think I should do?

Acceptance

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How good are you at acceptance? I have, historically, not been good at it at all, but I’m getting there. I got this EnneaThought yesterday though, and it sparked some thoughts:

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I have gotten really good at accepting myself as I am. But also at loving myself, a step up from acceptance in my view. The same goes for other people. But the world. Hm. That’s a trickier issue I must say.

And I guess it really is the same process in work here. You see, when it comes to myself, I no longer believe I have to ”better myself”. I don’t see me as a self-improvement project, the Do-It-Yourself variety. Rather, all the changes that I go through, are me becoming more me. It’s be allowing myself to be me, fully. It’s me, shedding the layers of stuff, issues, constraints, patterns that I have put on myself, or had put on me by society because I thought that was ”the way it’s supposed to be”.

The same goes for the world I just realized. I accept the world as it is, but want to assist in letting the world shed all the stuff, issues, constraints and patterns that we – society – place upon the world, letting the world be more itself. Because I believe those patterns aren’t serving us or the world. And they are not natural laws or musts. They are mostly made up of beliefs and systems.

Interesting this. When I first read that statement, I felt a huge resistance to it. How to accept the world as it is, when I don’t think it is perfect and at the peak of what we can achieve, as mankind.

But during the time it’s taken me to write this blog post, I have let go of the resistance, the acceptance has grown, and I see that the world is perfect – it’s just that there’s a lot of stuff in the way of that perfectness shining through.

Far out? Yeah, likely. I’m ok with that. Are you? Do you accept yourself, others and the world just as they are?

Embracing otherness

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I remember watching this as I sat alone in a lunch room of a big industrial company. I remeber not being able to stop my tears from falling. It’s such a powerful story told by Thandie Newton on TED, and that’s why I would like to show it to you:

Thandie says:

The self that I attempted to take out into the world was rejected over and over again and my panic at not having a self that fit…

Can you feel it? Can you feel her panic, pain and confusion? How many children don’t go through this in some form? How many adults still experience anxiety because they feel they don’t fit in?

We come into being when we start to see otherness as something separate from ourselves – and yet, the most important take on this isn’t that I define myself in comparison to you.

Rather it’s the fact that what I perceive to be reality isn’t reality but rather my image of reality. My thoughts and feelings create the world as I perceive it. What happens to otherness and self, when you anchor yourself in this insight?

My way or the highway

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Svara

Do it my way – or take the highway. Have you heard this expression? I meet a lot of this sentiment, and I must say it makes me very confounded.

I get confounded because I have a hard time to understand why anyone would want me to stop doing what I find value in, just because someone else doesn’t see the value in it.

What that someone else is telling me is that they are right – that their way is the only way – and that I am just wasting my time with nonsense and should stop immediately, and start doing ‘the right thing’.

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Who are you to tell me what is right for me? I don’t say what is right for you and I can’t see any reason why I would do that.

(This is the grown up me speaking – those who knew me as a youngster, knows this is precisely what I did then. But not anymore since I’ve come to realize this is an attitude that doesn’t serve me at all. Given that what we are talking about lies within the confines of common law and human rights of course.)

I will gladly have a conversation about what I do, and what you do, and figure out how we can complement each other. But I won’t tell you to stop because I don’t see the value in what you do. I might tell you that I can’t see the value in it – but if you want to keep up with whatever it is you are doing, by all means, keep it up!

If I don’t see the value in what you do – why does that mean that there is no value? What that tells me is more that perhaps I haven’t dug deep enough to understand it fully. Or that I am simply not ready to understand what you do. It does not mean that I am right and you are wrong to do what you do. So why are you telling me that I am wrong and should stop what I do?

Embrace the shake!

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Thank you Alan Seale for this great TED:

What an amazing story, providing profound insights into life. The ability to learn to embrace the shake (watch and you’ll find out exactly what this means!) is in a sense, an example of taking control of your own life. Phil Hansen truly embraces his limitation as an artist, and in doing so, realized the world is limitless.

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He continues to state:

What I thought would be the ultimate limitation actually turned out to be the ultimate liberation.

Have you embraced your limitations?

Me and Buddha

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Svara

Tired after a round trip to Stockholm I almost forgot to blog. Luckily Buddha reminded me!

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He sent me these words to bring with me to bed / as I am tired, I am listening to my body and mind and are heading for bed! Clever huh?

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. – Buddha

Have you lit any candles today?

Still water

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Had a great coach session with my coach today, and he sent me this wonderful quote by William Butler Yeats afterwards:

”We can make our lives so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”
– William Butler Yeats
(Earth, Fire and Water – The Celtic Twilight, 1893)

It came about, since we talked about the feedback I’ve gotten from people, saying that I have this calm about me. And the interesting thing is, for most of my life (up until the last few years), calm would not even by a longshot be the word people would use to describe me with. Far from it. I would never have come up with it myself either. 20130925-110355.jpg

But now, I feel it. It’s there. Deep down, I am calm. Something has shifted within! Now, that doesn’t mean I am calm all the time. Not with all people. Not in all situations, and so on. I can get really worked up and passionate, but that’s something else. Within there is a stillness, that I wouldn’t trade for the world. That stillness within comes from me being Me. Fully. It’s not something I’ve added. On the contrary, it’s me finding myself again, and letting my light shine.

What lies within you?

Just being a person

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Svara

Just watched this clip:

Am horrified there are so many who do nothing at all, silently they watch, keeping their eyes downcast, not saying anything. Am relieved there are people speaking up once in a while, and elated at the ending:

That was not heroic, that was just being a person.

Ain’t that the truth, and we all have a choice what kind of person we want to be. Martin Luther King Jr said it beautifully:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Watch this clip, and imagine it’s your best friend behind the counter. Would person would you chose to be then?