Are You Dreaming?

Waking Dreams are dreams in which the monsters of self-doubt, hesitation and uncertainty attack you at your most vulnerable spots.

We have Waking Dreams all the time.

They happen whenever we’re not aware of where we are (our psychological Location).

During sleep when you dream that a fierce monster is chasing you, you flee in dread and horror. Why? Because your dream View is that you’re in danger. You’re dreaming, but you’re not aware of it.

Once you wake up, your Location shifts to “awake” and your View and Reality shift accordingly. No need to look for the monsters under the bed.

You know they don’t really exist.

Similarly, you can fall into Waking Dreams during the day, dreams in which your fear, self-doubt and insecurity “monsters” chase you around—when you don’t realize “where you are”.

That is, when you don’t realize that your Location is a state of mind, one among others, with a fear and self-doubt View.

When you’re unaware that you’re in a Waking Dream, you mistake these dream monsters as real ones. That View then defines your Reality and what you experience is shaky uncertainty.

The MESICS Method™ will help you to avoid and awaken from your Waking Dreams; it will help you to live at another level, a level where you don’t have to spend so much time fleeing from monsters that are not really there.

This post is drawn from the 2nd edition of my book Unshakable Certainty: now available at Amazon in digital format: http://dld.bz/carRs or in printed format: http://dld.bz/carQ5

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS AND THE PEOPLE WHO SELL THEM: THE MIRAGE OF DOGMATIC POSITIONS AND IDEALIZED LEADERS

The rat race for wealth and success is not the only way people try to medicate the pain of pervasive fear, doubt and insecurity. There are other dead ends.

The fact is that most people who seek unwavering certainty and deep conviction without benefit of a good map and the right knowledge and tools often lose their way trying to find it.

Looking for conviction and certainty in dogmatic fixed beliefs, and the idealized leaders who promote them, is a good illustration of just how lost we can get. Pervasive doubt and shaky uncertainty can be so uncomfortable for us that it moves us to grab hold of narrow, fixed beliefs that appear firm and definite just so we can feel a sense of order and control in our lives.

In the extreme, we can become passionately attached to these fixed positions as a guiding light, a light that we fantasize will lead us to relief from chaos, worry and self-doubt.

Becoming “true believers”, many people pledge loyalty and commitment to dogmatic ideas for the chance to feel they are a part of something true, great and right, for the chance to be or know something that allows them to feel superior to others and so more certain in their lives.

Political and religious dogmas are magnets for all true believers, including the true believers that may live in us. Supporters and advocates of the political left or the right can be seen regularly on TV making self-righteous pronouncements and holier than thou statements with expressions of scorn and intolerance all over their faces.

History teaches us a harsh lesson: Among frightened and insecure people, dogmatic beliefs can spread like a viral infection, unconsciously infecting them with false and even delusional ideas that they experience as true and sane. If we get infected by such a virus, we can become devoted to a charismatic figure and to his or her dogmatic all-knowing ideas.

The cult of personality around figures such as Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Napoleon, as well as many lesser figures alive and in our midst today, illustrate how easy it is for people—many of them just like you or me—to become true believers and blindly follow idealized personalities in search of absolute conviction and certainty.

Charismatic figures can attract us if we’re looking for an all-powerful guide and role model to lead us out of the terribly uncomfortable desert of uncertainty.

The fact is that anyone troubled by self-doubt, fear and insecurity can become strongly drawn to the experience of certainty that comes with following a leader; followers feel better and they get energized by the borrowed dreams and the borrowed sense of purpose they get from an appealing and captivating leader.

Little do they realize that the larger than life charismatic leader is almost always concerned about himself or herself, not about them or even about the causes or ideas they champion and promote.

The fact is that unless a powerful leader has achieved authentic heart based knowledge and conviction, he or she will seek power over others as a means of keeping his or her own self-doubt and uncertainty monsters at bay.

Powerful leaders are usually after their own glory, power and certainty first and foremost.

As Napoleon noted, “If I lose my throne I will bury the world beneath my ruins.” And Hitler’s wicked madness shone through clearly in his statement: “I have to gain immortality, even if the whole German nation perishes.”

Lesser examples abound in everyday life. We need to be wide awake to our own tendencies to embrace narrow and inflexible positions, and the leaders that market them, to ease our fear and insecurity, especially in times of trouble and danger.

Seeking absolute conviction and simple solutions in dogmatic beliefs or in idealized leaders is a mirage—in the long term these ideas and leaders can never deliver what they promise.

Keys To Relationship Success

The success of a committed relationship depends a lot on how much self-knowledge both parties have. And, as well, how much they really know about each other. Self-knowledge is important, if we are to avoid the confusion and pain that often accompanies relationships. Most relationships start out great, but then run into trouble.

Couples experience this “trouble” as ongoing conflict and disappointment.  Conflict that causes pain, anger and confusion.  Close and courageous inspection often reveals that our pain, anger and confusion feels strangely familiar.  It can seem as if our companion was sent to us by a central casting agent from Hollywood, sent to provoke our wounds and assault our sensibilities like no one else could do. And we often don’t see that we do the same for them.

The fact is that we’re all unconsciously starring in our family of origin based movie–until and unless we become aware of it. And so we cast our partner in our movie, and we star in theirs. Such is relationship life lived without awareness.

A committed relationship is only as good as its ability to accurately see and communicate with itself. Good intentions are not enough–we have to learn how to see ourselves and our partner accurately. To do this we need self-knowledge and the awareness it brings.

Think of it this way: Even when our parents and other significant figures from our past are not physically present, they exist in our mind as powerful psychological figures. And their existence can blur our vision so that we cannot see our partner accurately.

When we seem to be in a room alone with our companion, we’re often not. The room is often populated with psychologically important individuals from our past. This is especially so if we have unfinished business with members of our biological family (most of us do).

A committed relationship is the only other 24/7 compulsory relationship we’re in–other than the one we experienced in our family of origin  As a consequence, the unfinished business we had in our family tends to leak into our marriages, big time. When we’re in conflict, our mind can’t easily distinguish the past from the present.

We can even make marriage choices for the wrong reasons. We can, for example, be drawn to a relationship in order to finish the business in our family and/ or to stay in territory that is familiar to us. If we grew up in a family where we didn’t get love and respect, for example, we might find a spouse who is incapable or unwilling to give us love and respect.

In truth, we rarely see what is outside of us clearly. We see, rather, our mind’s version of what is “out there.” In truth, we often imagine our partner more than we perceive him or her. If our imaginal/perceptual capacity functions under the burden of unresolved problems and wounds from the past–then, quite simply–we don’t see very clearly. This is especially the case in heated conflict situations.

The image we have of our companion comes from two sources: 1) their actual characteristics and 2) our inner image of the “other.” We tend to add our inner image of the other to what we regard as our companion’s characteristics. We project onto them what and who we think that they are. And then we relate to our companion as if they are who we are “seeing.” And this all happens unconsciously. Sound confusing? It is. This psychological dilemma causes many problems and heartache follows.

No surprise that every other marriage ends in divorce or that so many marriages are miserable.

That is why self-knowledge is critical in our relationship. For example, if we know what our “inner image of the other” is, then we are in a better position to correct it or to recognize when we are “adding” it. And if our companion can do the same–then communication becomes much easier. With awareness based communication, a couple can pull the plug on conflict before it heats up into pain and frustration. Then the many compromises and collaborations that are required in successful relationship can become a real possibility.

Such “clear seeing” adds tremendously to the chances for a couple to keep love and friendship alive and to create a marriage that’s alive with adventure and meaning.

Here’s What Goes Wrong In Relationships

Couples very often star in one another’s unconscious family of origin movies, and my experience working with hundreds of couples is that this is the rule, not the exception.

No wonder so many marriages often end and end badly. And no wonder so many relationships that don’t end—wind up looking more like temporary ceasefires rather than successful relationships.

Moreover, if our family of origin movie is unfinished, it will show up in our marriage—no doubt. We need finish it on our own as does our partner.

Again, a good marriage is made, and you need more than a blood test and a marital license to make one. You need to be aware. And you need to be prepared to make marriage an adventure, and not a parking spot for your confused and uncertain life.

If your relationships are going to run deep, bring you happiness and be an adventure, you need to have a strong connection to who you are, one that gives you the self-assurance, security and awareness to give and receive love and friendship over the long haul.

If you lack these things, then your relationships will be strained and filled with tension, problems and disappointment.

We all hunger deep down for a successful loving connection to others, and many people suffer terribly because their relationships don’t work well. And they suffer further because they really don’t know why their relationships don’t work.

The billionaire J. Paul Getty captured this sentiment well when he noted,

“I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.”

ANXIETY, SELF KNOWLEDGE AND THE MIRAGE OF EXTERNAL SUCCESS

One inauthentic style of dealing with our emotional confusion and shaky psychology is to try to negate them through achievement. Those who do this flee from a lot of self-doubt and insecurity, but just barely.

They stay just a step ahead of it, like someone fleeing from an angry dog that’s right behind them. The angry dog of fear, anxiety, confusion and “shaky uncertainty”, that accompanies a life that lacks self-knowledge, can chase many people into a fierce struggle for power, position and wealth.

It’s important that you avoid this seductive struggle because it’s a false path; it doesn’t deliver what it promises.

As a consultant to many hundreds of high achievers, I’ve worked with a lot of people who fall into this category. They reason that great financial success and recognition will conquer their doubt and uncertainty.

They place huge bets that achieving wealth and power will free them from anxiety and uncertainty and that the payoff will be a life of relaxed ease and satisfaction.

Many folks work hard to achieve great success and huge wealth because they are driven to do so.

But very often it’s a half-hearted, external success only, not an inside-out success, not a success flowing from real self-knowledge and a deeply felt certainty about who they are and what their lives are uniquely about. Unlike the successes of someone who has found their core or essential identity, theirs are driven from behind by the attacking dog of their insecurities, not pulled up ahead by their dreams and visions for tomorrow.

Our culture tends to reward this kind of effort to medicate fear and self-doubt by seeking certainty outside of oneself. It doesn’t matter how you get to rich and powerful, as long as you get to rich and powerful.

But as Lily Tomlin told us—even if we win the rat race—we’re still a rat. Big time outside success always markets and promotes itself as a great antidote for our self-doubt and insecurity—but it never turns out to be that. It’s not a good remedy for shaky uncertainty at all.

It may be better to be rich, powerful and poisoned than to be just poisoned, but surely not that much better.

And people who are stuck at the mere surface of life, who achieve external success, have the added burden of having to face that they have been misled, that they have spent long and often tortuous hours marching in the heat of many a noonday sun—toward a mirage.

After they get their sought after success, they often discover that there’s no deep relief or satisfaction in it. They’re still under attack by the same old feelings, but now with a different agenda of concerns. “Was I just lucky? Will I be found out? Can I do it again? Will I lose my position, my wealth…and so on and on and on.”

The stress, anxiety and uncertainty monsters don’t go away if we get rich and powerful; they just drive in more expensive cars and live in more expensive homes.

Living Authentically With Self- Assurance

To live authentically with self-assurance, we must dive deep into who we are and connect to our core identity.

Then we have to stabilize and strengthen our connection to this deep and true identity, if we are to learn how to live from it.

One inauthentic style of dealing with the shaky uncertainty that comes with living at the surface of life is to try to negate it through achievement. Those who do this flee from a lot of self-doubt and insecurity, but just barely.

They stay just a step ahead of it, like someone fleeing from an angry dog that’s right behind them. The angry dog of shaky uncertainty can chase many people into a fierce struggle for power, position and wealth.

It’s important that you avoid this seductive struggle because it’s a false path; it doesn’t deliver what it promises.

As a consultant and mentor to many high achievers, I’ve worked with a lot of people who fall into this category. They reason that great financial success and recognition will conquer their doubt and uncertainty.

They place huge bets that achieving wealth and power will free them from uncertainty and that the payoff will be a life of relaxed ease and satisfaction.

Many folks work hard to achieve great success and huge wealth because they are driven to do so.

But very often it’s a half-hearted, external success only, not an inside-out success, not a success flowing from a deeply felt certainty about who they are and what their lives are uniquely about.

Unlike the successes of someone who has found the self-assurance that comes with finding and living from one’s “core identity”, those living from their surface identity are driven from behind by the attacking dog of their insecurities, not pulled up ahead by their dreams and visions for tomorrow.

Our culture tends to reward this kind of effort to medicate fear and self-doubt by seeking certainty outside of oneself.

It doesn’t matter how you get to rich and powerful, as long as you get to rich and powerful. But as Lily Tomlin told us—even if we win the rat race—we’re still a rat.

Big time outside success always markets and promotes itself as a great antidote for our self-doubt and insecurity—but it never turns out to be that. It’s not a good remedy for a life filled with self-doubt, confusion and shaky uncertainty at all.

It may be better to be rich, powerful and poisoned than to be just poisoned, but surely not that much better.

And people who lack a connection to their core identity who achieve external success have the added burden of having to face that they have been misled, that they have spent long and often tortuous hours marching in the heat of many a noonday sun—toward a mirage.

After they get their sought after success, they often discover that there’s no deep relief or satisfaction in it.

They’re still under attack by the same old feelings, but now with a different agenda of concerns. “Was I just lucky? Will I be found out? Can I do it again? Will I lose my position, my wealth…and so on and on and on.”

The uncertainty monsters don’t go away if we get rich and powerful; they just drive in more expensive cars and live in more expensive homes.

To learn more about how to live from the confidence and conviction that comes with “Unshakable Certainty”, check out my book here.

Here’s Why Your Self-Image Can Hold You Back

We develop our Self-Image in our family. We come to see ourselves as we were seen by our parents and siblings during critical periods in our formative years.

In reality, your Self-Image is a surface affair, conditioned by your family and your culture.

It’s made up from borrowed and downloaded ideas about who you are, about your physical and psychological characteristics, about your intelligence and abilities and about your value and worthiness as a human being.

Although your Self-Image is largely formed and conditioned by others’ Views of you, you still come to think of it as who you really are, as your “I” or “me”.

In fact your Self-Image becomes your “Wrong Psychological Address” , a place where you reside much of the time, but one which isn’t your true home.

It’s not where you belong, but you probably don’t realize that—yet.

It’s probable that a good deal of your recurrent anxiety, depression and frustration expresses a deep desire within your soul to connect to your “True or Right Address”.

Expert therapy combined with authentic spiritual practice (not New Age woo woo or the “Secret” and “Law of Attraction” stuff) can make you conscious of your soul’s longing and put you in a position to satisfy it.

A LITTLE STORY ABOUT JACK, AMY AND GOD

Complete self-assurance depends on Awareness and the self-knowledge it grants. There’s no other gateway to a life that’s well lived, loved and understood.

To be connected to we most deeply are while fully awake is to be unshakably certain.

With other words, Aware Presence and Unshakable Certainty are two sides of the same coin. Here’s a little story taken from my book Unshakable Certainty.

A story about Jack, Amy and God.

One day God couldn’t take Amy and Jack praying to Him any longer. They prayed everyday for so many things that it took God many hours just to listen to them.

They wanted to sell their little grocery store in a small town and be able to move into the big city and be free from the constraints of their family, a family that lived in the same small town for five generations.

God came down and met with Jack and Amy. He told them, “I will grant you three wishes and three wishes only. After that, don’t bother me anymore. I’m busy.” They were thrilled but they were uncertain about exactly what to ask God for.

Finally, they decided. For their first wish, they wanted to be so rich that they could leave and start a huge business in New York City while they lived at Trump Towers.

God granted them their wish.

However, after a few months they grew homesick. And they were having a lot of complicated business problems; much of their money was at risk.

Jack and Amy missed the simple life of their grocery store and the daily connection with their family.

They were ready to call God for their second wish, but they were so shaky and uncertain about exactly what to ask for that they were beside themselves.

Amy woke up one morning with a brilliant idea.

She told Jack and they called God:

“Dearly beloved God”, they began, “we are so unsure, confused and frightened about what to ask you for that we’ve decided that for our second wish we want you to tell us what to ask for—for our third wish.”

God laughed out loud. He said,

“That’s easy. Ask for Unshakable Certainty, then you’ll be happy, fulfilled and satisfied no matter what.”

Meditation Is Not Just Sitting Cross Legged

Most western meditators and meditation instructors wrongly think that meditation is sitting cross-legged and quieting the mind to experience the calm state or “emptiness”.

But the real core purpose of meditation and all authentic contemplative practice is to discover who we truly are.

St Francis of Assissi put it this way: “What you are looking for is WHO is looking.”

When we try to find who is looking there is no one there. Other than awareness, not awareness OF anything, but awareness in and of itself.

So the goal is not to reach the calm state or emptiness and stop there. But to go further and discover WHO experiences these states.

Calm and emptiness are just experiences. And the movement of thought and energy are also just experiences.

If we don’t get distracted by and identified with the movement of our thought, then it too provides the opportunity to discover WHO experiences this movement.

This can happen anytime, anywhere, not just on a meditation cushion.

Carry Death On Your Shoulder

Steve Jobs thanked death for teaching him so much. Death taught him to live with passion and conviction.

We should carry death on our shoulders to keep us awake and vital.

If we’re in the right state of mind, death won’t frighten us–it will inspire us instead. The evidence tells us that if we expect to die when we die–we’ll be very surprised indeed.

In western culture death has lost its sacred dimension because most everything else has. The cult of science says too often that “if you can’t see it, it ain’t there.” To leave death to funeral home directors is like leaving it to a Jiffy Lube franchise.

Pioneering science research is now confirming what authentic spiritual traditions have said all along. The death of the body is not the end of life. It seems that we live on. Check out Dr. Jeff Long’s book Evidence For The Afterlife.

And we live on more deeply because our consciousness isn’t tied to the density of mass and so we can connect to who we deeply are. We are no one’s child from that place and our family and cultural conditioning fade to the background.

Our destiny on the other side of this life is governed by our love and inspiration while in this life.

If we connect to and live from who we deeply are while we’re in our body, then our experience after death will certainly be a lot better than if we spent our time here watching TV in confusion, working in jobs we hate and stuck in relationships we don’t belong in .

With death on our shoulder–we have a better chance to live with intensity and conviction.

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