So many, many things in our lives begin with a single thought. Our thoughts affect our behaviours, our character – our very destiny. And to grow, to heal, to love – thoughts should be the first thing we examine.

Throughout the time I’ve been in personal development, I’ve examined many systems of working with our thoughts. One of these was the current force amongst psychologists – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a basic overview here). A large part of such work revolves around removing the distortions in our thoughts, and with them, our suffering. However, I felt there was something lacking – the undoing remained at an intellectual level, and in my experience, change was slow – effective, but measured in weeks and months.

Introducing The Work

It was then I re-discovered The Work of Byron Katie. I’ve played with it many times before, but it never really worked for me. A few months ago, I figured out why – I made the same basic mistakes many newcomers did. And when I finally started doing it “right”, the changes have been rapid. They occur at a far deeper level, and troubling beliefs and perspectives that have plagued me for years disappeared in a matter of hours and days.

And so I present a guide that will hopefully address these mistakes, as well as introduce this wonderful system to those who have never heard of it. I highly recommend you spend some time exploring it – it really does work magic, if done right.

This is not a replacement for her material and instructionals – which are all free at her website www.thework.com – but rather to be read in conjunction. If you are unfamiliar with this method of inquiry, and are interested, please head over and explore her website and resources. Good starting pages are How to do The Work and Resources (scroll down to “The Little Book”, a free PDF with a detailed introduction and instructions).

Why This Guide?

So why this guide? Firstly, I plan to write a series of posts that explore some deeper issues. In inner work, people tend to gravitate towards either working with thoughts, or working with emotions. Inquiry via The Work is the most powerful method of working with thoughts I have discovered; letting go is the emotional equivalent. I plan to write those posts and detail the process of uncovering issues, and simply refer back to these posts when it comes to undoing and healing them.

Secondly, beyond covering the mistakes newcomers make, there are some common and dangerous misunderstandings I’ve found when exploring the internet, and I want to address those as well. In doing so, I hope to help spread this system of finding inner freedom.

Please note that I am not a qualified facilitator of the Work. I write this only as someone who has dedicated months to studying and applying her material. There might be subtle misunderstandings of my own, but I hope not.

And finally (I know this is a long introduction, sorry): This is not a paid review or anything of the sort. I’m just a big fan. Even if I do link to Amazon for her books, there is no affiliate code inserted, it’s for reader convenience. So, let’s begin!

The Questions of The Work

After all that rambling, what exactly is the Work? Four basic questions and some turnarounds. How can it be that simple? How does it work?

Every time we are upset, there is a thought, or a deeper belief, that lies underneath. Curiously, these thoughts do not often represent reality – and therefore we find ourselves suffering because of a mere distortion, a misinterpretation. Other times, our thoughts are accurate, but they represent a form of resistance towards reality. And often, it is this resistance that causes our pain, not the person, not the situation. And when we realise this for ourselves, as Katie says, the thought lets go of us.

Let’s illustrate this guide with a small event that happened to me a few months ago. I was at a restaurant, when I got up to go outside. There was a woman sitting behind me, and I unknowingly bumped into her. When I got back from my phone call, her husband began telling me off. I apologised several times over the next few minutes, but he ignored me and kept shouting at me. Soon, I got angry, and told him to stop being so rude, before returning to my seat. He continued glaring at me and making comments throughout the rest of the night, and it made me feel quite angry, and strangely, gave me an overwhelming sense of despair.

So that’s the basic story – we’ll keep referring back to it throughout the guide.

Step One: Putting Your Thoughts on Paper

In the official website, you can find a worksheet called Judge Your Neighbour (look at the sidebar on this page). One is prompted to write down everything they feel about a person they are upset with. Although one can do the inquiry on any thought, it is recommended for beginners to do the process on others until they become familiar with the process.

Two important points for the first step:

1. Please don’t try to do this in your head. Resist the urge, for we end up censoring ourselves by being “civilised”, “spiritual”, or “mature”. To get the full benefits, we are invited to be childish, hurt, petty, and spiteful. Writing them down short-circuits our self-censoring tendencies.
2. A good variation is to relive the situation as best as you can, and pour your heart out on paper, without being confined to the prompts on the worksheet. Just whatever you were thinking of at the time. The worksheet uncovers many statements that one might not normally think of, but at the same time can be a restriction.

For example, I wrote several worksheets on the angry husband event, and although I dropped a huge portion of the hurt, I couldn’t get to the core of the issue. When I simply allowed my thoughts to free-flow on paper, though, the main issues arised – the thoughts: I didn’t do anything! Stop hating me!

Without putting pen to paper I could not have found these thoughts. I just felt a general sense of anger, and when I admitted it, a sense of despair and rejection. Secondly, my pride got in the way. I wanted him to stop hating me; I wanted him to like me, accept my apology and see me as reasonable and magnanimous. But these thoughts – the ones that did the most damage – had been pushed down because I refused to admit to them. There was too much macho pride; I could admit to anger, but I refused to admit to being hurt and feeling sad and rejected.

So: write it down, worksheet or not. Let your mind run free and uncensored. This is a step that cannot be skipped, no matter how strong the urge is. If you’re worried about people seeing your writings, then simply tear them up once you’re done.

Step Two: Listening to the Heart

In the instructions, Katie mentions casually to make the process into a meditation. I think that was under-emphasised, as in my experience, the meditation component is the most important.

Try this exercise I learnt in a meditation class: Close your eyes, and ask yourself: I wonder what my next thought would be? And just be still and wait for an answer. Keep alert, and simply wait. This state of mind was what worked best for me.

The first time I tried the Work, I did everything in my head. I answered the questions through the mind, using logic and rationalisation. I debated with myself, I thought about things, I argued and analysed. And so the results I got remained intellectual – I didn’t feel much different. The realisations, the undoing of the distortions, had not truly sunk in.

With this state of mind, we bypass the logical, arguing mind – and wait for the answer to surface from the heart.

So, let’s move on to the actual process of inquiry.

Step Three: The First Two Questions

The first two questions of the actual process are simple:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?

When you ask yourself these questions (and the second is only if you reply “yes” to the first), spend at least thirty seconds waiting for the answer, while in the described state of mind. And whatever answer arises, sit with that and the feelings that come with it, for at least thirty seconds as well. This allows the realisations to sink in.

In fact, Katie has mentioned that one can sit with a question – both the waiting and the sinking-in – for hours or days. When we work with deeper core beliefs, this amount of time might be exactly what is required. Thirty seconds is an arbitrary minimum, you are encouraged to take as long as you need – but people have a tendency to rush the process, not getting the full benefits of inquiry. This is to circumvent that. I cannot emphasise this enough: the before and after periods are just as important as the answer itself.

A final point: the answer might not come in the form of a word. It can come as a feeling, an image, or a “knowingness”. As long as one is honest, the process is working. There is no right or wrong answer – even a genuine “I don’t know” is as good an answer as any.

What These Questions Do

But what do these questions do? They serve to see if we are attaching to a lie. Do we really know what the truth is? In my example, the major painful thought revolved around my perceived innocence: I didn’t do anything wrong.

But was that true? My pride said yes. My desire to cling to a magnanimous self-image said yes. But I did do something wrong. It was simple to see, but I refused to admit it. I am a big man, six foot four, and the woman I bumped into was petite. It is possible I caused her actual physical pain beyond a simple bump. All of a sudden her husband’s anger didn’t seem so unreasonable. My righteousness dropped drastically, understanding increased, and I was more open to forgiveness. If I did cause pain, was a simple verbal apology enough? Probably not.

Again, this is the value of getting into the “empty” state of mind. Without it, the mind will stick to what it knows – the false perceptions, and nothing will have shifted.

Righteousness

This removal of righteousness, positionalities, and stories is one of the biggest benefits of this system. I’ve been using emotional work and letting go on people I have not forgiven for a long time, and although I cleared most of my resentment, eventually I reached a point where nothing shifted. The reason for this was simple: I still clung to my story – I still believed that they had done me wrong. As long as I held these positions, I could not find total freedom. In my opinion, there is nothing that a mix of inquiry and releasing cannot heal.

A good supplementary question at this stage is: Do you absolutely know what is best for them / me in the long run? Many painful events carry a hidden life lesson, or served to make me stronger, or led to something that was ultimately beneficial. (There are too many examples of this – we discussed some of this in Gratitude for the Bad.)

However, a perfect example was the event that led me to re-discovering the Work. I had a major argument with my friend, which left me furious for weeks. It eventually led me to re-try the Work, and with it, I discovered a tool which dissolved far bigger and long-standing issues – some of which had haunted me for most of my life. In the long run, the argument and the ending of a close friendship carried with it one of the biggest gifts I have ever received. When I realised this, my resentment and righteousness at him began to melt away.

Have No Motive

Here, I need to discuss a common problem: inquiring with a motive. We’ve discussed righteousness – very often we carry this righteousness across to inquiry. We block off genuine answers because we are afraid of being wrong, or we are afraid of what we might discover, or we are afraid that the other person is right about us. (More on this in the future, but for now, one can inquire into the statement: I can’t be wrong, or If I forgive him, that means I lose or any variation that is holding you back.)

But a common dangerous motive is inquiring with the intention to drop the belief. We know that inquiry will allow a painful belief to dissolve, and so we do it with that goal in mind. This might lead us to force ourselves to give what we think is the right answer in order to drop the belief. Katie states to do inquiry for love of the truth – and nothing else.

For example, a core belief I worked on was: There is something fundamentally wrong with me. I did the Work simply to drop this belief, thinking it was just a matter of “doing my time”. But my motives blocked the process, for my heart was saying “yes – there is something wrong with me”. Maintain inquiry, until the moment comes when the answer is a genuine “no” – that is true freedom! (And if it doesn’t, that’s what the remaining questions are for.)

There are many other motives: trying to drop an addiction, or to improve a relationship, for example. Stay alert for your own.

A Variation

To close off Part One of the guide – a variation of the statements. What if the statements we are dealing with are really true and there is no room for distortions or misinterpretation?

I am angry because he kept telling me off after I apologised.

How can we question that? Yes, I am angry, and yes, he continued to tell me off. At this point, it is helpful to explore the underlying issues. Two of my favourite ways to deal with this:

1. What does that mean?
2. Turning it into a should.

The first question allows us to investigate our interpretation of the event. When he ignored my apologies and continued telling me off, he made me feel like I was invisible, that nothing I said mattered. This are some of the core shames and beliefs I have been struggling with for a long time – and I have interpreted his actions to fit in with this core belief (instead of a more rational perspective – he’s just really angry). So I worked with the re-written statement – I am invisible because he kept telling me off.

The second question is to look at the “shoulds” behind the thought. Many cognitive therapists talk of the “tyranny of the shoulds” – how a life lived to shoulds cause the most suffering. Therefore, some of the best inner work one can do is undoing these rules. In my case, the should was clear – people should always accept an apology. Was that true? Where was it written that a simple apology would clear things up? If I did cause his wife physical pain, was a mere word enough to remove her bruises?

What’s Next?

And this ends the first part of the guide. There are two more questions to the process, and the turnarounds, which will come in the rest of the series. Please subscribe to get updated as soon as they are posted!

“Yoga to me is still a gym class thing for chicks to lose weight, although I know it is so much more than that.” – Albert, Urban Monk

Oh Albert… all jokes aside, you are so right! Yoga IS so much more than that, and it is with great pleasure that I will do my best to open your eyes and your mind to what yoga is and what yoga could be.

Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to go and try a class or ten?

And if you’re inspired to open your eyes and your mind to yoga, perhaps many of your readers will be too.

Many thousands of years ago in India, a complete science of life was discovered. This science, called yoga, is the oldest personal development system in the world and encompasses the entire body, mind and spirit. Ultimately it leads to an awareness of the union between a person’s own consciousness and the universal consciousness. This is not an intellectual idea, but something that one will actually experience with regular yoga practice.

There are many ways to come to yoga, but the one path I wish to discuss today is the path of Asana. This is the entrance of most Westerners to the practice of yoga – postures.

So what is the Practice of Asana?

So what is the Practice of Asana?

It is the practice of bringing one’s awareness out of the mind and into the body. This is done via attention to the breath. The breath becomes the link, or the bridge that allows awareness to move from its usual location in the mind, to the body.

When one looks at a photo of someone practicing Asana, usually the first thought is something like “Wow! Look at what they can do with their body.” Yet what is being done to the body is irrelevant – a gymnast can do these things with ease, yet a gymnast is merely contorting the body, they are not practicing yoga. (Which is not to say that a gymnast may not practice yoga… perhaps some do.) No, the difference between a yogi and a gymnast is that the gymnast imposes the posture on her body from without, using her will to determine the position of her body. However a yogi is allowing their breath to take them into the posture, so that the posture is expressed from the inside out.

How Was Yoga Born?

After all – how was yoga born?

My inclination is to imagine that it was born of men (and women?) simply settling into the silence within and following the path of breath around the body when it was allowed to do it’s work. For when you practice yoga, all you are doing is stopping in the moment and connecting with your breath, allowing it to guide you. When we are in class, we are told which posture to apply this technique to. When we practice at home, we usually have an idea of which posture we wish to do and we send the breath there.

But when you stop in the moment, intending to practice yoga, and connect with your breath… yet are not told which posture to do, and have no idea of which posture to do… then something magic happens.

A posture is revealed to you.

It comes from within.

This is the grace of the Divine revealing itself through your body,

It’s a far cry from weight-lose gym classes.

Yet understanding all of this is not important. Knowing all of this is not important. In fact, better that one forgets all of this and approach yoga with an empty mind.

No expectations.

No projections.

In this way, you will experience what yoga is for yourself.

Yet it is our nature to seek to know what an experience will be like before we commit ourselves to it. We ask those who have done it, those who have gone before.

A scientist with access to the internal energies and responses of someone practicing yoga might observe this:

“The lower back is cramped. The breath is being sent into the lumbar region, causing the tailbone to tuck under and lengthen on the exhale, finding space and opening the spine. The inhale is now moving back up the spine, lifting and broadening the front of the chest.

Oh – the front foot is rolling on to the outside edge. Grounding is required. An exhale is sent down through each four corners of the foot, pressing it firmly onto the ground and an equal force is now pressing back up and through the front thigh, opening the front of the hips.”

And on it goes.

In this way, a posture is quite literally a living, breathing thing. Of course, it takes practice to be able to tune into the breath, practice to be able to feel the flow of energy within in the body. But as one does, an internal world opens up. It’s a world of sensation, and a world of space. It is not a world of words or thoughts.

Until the practice of yoga begins, many people don’t understand that they live completely in their heads. They are unable to direct either their attention or their breath to selected locations of the body. They can’t feel the soles of the feet. They don’t know when their fingers are spread wide and their palms are flat against the ground. Nor can they hold their arms straight or their quadriceps engaged for more than a few seconds at a time.

But over time, practice and the constant direction of attention via the breath changes all of this. Practice of asana increases one’s mastery of both mind and body. Just the simple practice of breathing consciously for 60 minutes at a time infuses one’s biology with prana, or life force. It’s energizing, it’s uplifting and transforms one’s body on a cellular level.

While many think the practice of Asana is all about getting flexible, it’s not just the muscles, or the ligaments, or the tendons that are affected by the practice of postures. Yoga is a whole body, inside out, system of transformation. Everything is positively changed – the glandular system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the respiratory system, the skeletal system, and the nervous system. Practice of asana affects the body, the mind and the emotions. It brings clarity, and promotes both flexibility of body and flexibility of mind - strength of body, and strength of will.

All of this from just doing a couple of different poses with the body…

Well, yes.

But as with anything, persistence and practice is rewarded. Those who practice asana five times a week for an hour or more experience faster transformation than those who fit in a class every week or so. As with any change, there are challenges to be meet. Regular practice of asana will cause one to confront issues in the body, issues in the mind, issues in the emotional life. At any moment, one can stop, walk away, give up, or find an excuse not to practice.

The mind is wily and will throw up all sorts of obstacles.
“This isn’t my thing.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“I don’t feel like going anymore.”
“This is silly – it’s a chick thing!”

But if one is serious about personal development, then yoga is the perfect practice. It is not something to be debated, or understood by the intellect. It is experiential. You don’t have to know how it is going to change you, or even what it is doing. You just need to turn up to class with an open mind and be curious about what you are experiencing throughout the practice.

As Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois says;

“Yoga is 99% practice and 1% knowledge. Do your practice and all is coming”

So Albert – forget all you think you know about yoga. Forget even this article. All you need to do is turn up to class.

There has never been a better time.

About the Author

Kara-Leah Grant is passionate about the ability of yoga to transform one’s life mentally, physically and emotionally. She lives and teaches in Wellington, New Zealand and has recently launched her new website, Prana Flow NZ. This site is dedicated to providing inspiration for practicing, living and sharing yoga.

During a recent meditation I received a beautiful message from my Higher Self that was the inspiration for writing this post that I had been playing with putting together for some time. I had been standing with her by the ocean, which is spiritually very sacred to me. We gazed out over the water together, breathing in the energy, sitting silently listening to the voice of the waves and the wind.

She turned to me suddenly at the height of this experience and said, “Do you know what it is about the ocean that you are connecting with?” I began to go inside and reflect when she directed my gaze by saying, “Look out onto the horizon and bring it all inside of you.” She paused for a moment and said softly, “It is not the water you love, it is the vastness…what would the water be without the horizon? What would this grandeur and beauty be without the space through which you can behold it? Understand that it is the space that you love and bring spaciousness into everything you do.”

The moment it was said, it rang true. The ocean which runs as far as the eye can see is vast, any object on it’s surface is clearly visible. Visually, it is a clean and clear landscape to behold and just by watching it, it begins to create similar properties within me. I organize myself internally to reflect its natural state…my thinking clears, my mind empties, oneness and spaciousness enter and I feel the separation melt away. I am consciousness, flowing, breathing, contracting and releasing without attachment.

Creating Spaciousness in Your Life

Creating space in life is a necessity. Especially when you consider that we can only successfully track 5-7 things, in our conscious awareness at a time. When we hold on to more than that the rest of the stuff gets pushed into our unconscious mind and this is how many of our unconscious patterns are born.

If you are on the path of personal development, you want to consciously control what is added to your unconscious mind. To do that you have to be mindful of your thoughts and maintain a level of spaciousness within your thinking. Here are some quick and easy ways of doing this that you can use throughout your day:

Focus on only one thing at a time.

Many of us run laundry lists of all the things we have to do on a continual loop within our minds. This takes up an enormous amount of space and energy to maintain! Write it down if you think you might forget and then allow you mind to only focus on the step that you can do right now. When that passes, move on to the next in the same order.

Breathe.

Pause every 15 minutes to half an hour and perform patterned breathing. The count can be anything you’d like, just make sure it follows an inhale, pause, exhale execution. Put your full concentration on what each part of the breath feels like. Perform the breathing patterns 3-5 times, and then continue on to the next thing.

Listen.

Stop and listen to your surroundings. Breathe deeply, while closing your eyes and listening with your full attention for about 2 minutes. Allow no censorship or thoughts about what you hear to come into your mind. Simply be with the sensations, texture and nuances of the sounds. Notice the vibrational quality to them and where in your body you can feel reverberations.

Practice putting your mind down.

This is one of my favorite little exercises in which I visualize giving my mind to something in my immediate environment (the airport is a great place for this). For some of you this may seem like a strange concept, but trust me. This is great fun once you get over the initial strange feeling and it’s a wonderful way to unload from the burden of non-stop thought for awhile!

Coaching and Space

In coaching, space is the foundation upon which all effective coaching techniques are built and when coaching isn’t working, it almost always comes down to the coaches mastery of this core skill. It works because it is one of the purest ways that we can interact with anyone or thing.

When I hold space for a client, I create a sacred field of connectedness and acceptance for them to work in. This is done by literally taking off my own views and filters of the world and entering a pure state of consciousness, where I am fully present and able to respond, where I am listening to what is said, and hearing what has not yet been uttered. From this place I can see very clearly what the client is attending to as well as what lies in the background outside of their vision. It is the quality of this attention, that provides insight and safety and makes coaching such an effective tool.

Holding space however, is not limited to coaching in it’s usefulness. It’s a way of being that can greatly enhance any aspect of life that it is applied to, since nearly all of life, is some form of relating

Generating the Coaching State (Holding Space)

• Breathe. Start by breathing deeply and purposefully.
• Visualize. See yourself and your environment bathed in white or golden light.
• Feel. Place your attention in your body. Notice how the light fills you up, how each breath feels as it enters and exits your lungs and how your energy is revitalized and you are filled with peace.
• Be. Now begin the get curious about the world around you, stretching your feeling senses into the world around you. Notice how the air feels against your skin, enjoying an experience completely devoid of thought.
• Explore. Like an explorer in new territory, interact with your surroundings in a way that lets you examine. Get curious about the paths and places before you and where they might lead. An adventure has found you and like a good story, you won’t know what it means until it is over…so simply allow yourself to get curious about and perhaps a little lost in, the experience!

How do I know when I’m holding space?

You are holding space when there are no distractions and the mind is quiet while the senses are awake. You’ll know you are there because you can be with a person or place without any planning about what you will do or say, or any trying to “figure things out”. There is a trust present as well as an observing curiosity. It is a safe, peaceful place…where anything can be looked at and transformed!

Practice holding space every day and you will be able to produce this state whenever you want to disconnect from looping thought patterns, limitation, dis-ease, resistance or anything else that is troubling you and tap into a new way of being with your problems and therefore discovering what is actually possible for you or anyone else

About Paula

I’m an adventurous spiritual seeker/healer devoted to my personal relationship with Source the Archangels, my Ascended Masters and Guides - they are my most personal and honest friends - they are precious beings of Light that keep me growing and unraveling illusion while becoming ever more aware of and aligned with the Divine energies that awaken us and take up residence within our hearts. This relationship with myself and my spiritual guidance has blossomed into a website in which I write articles to share my learnings as well as perform readings and healings for others on the path. I absolutely LOVE WHAT I DO! I LOVE the AHA’s…I LOVE this human experience and I really get just how LOVED we are by Source. So come join me in the adventure - I’ll be here - shouting out to Source from the mountaintops, inviting my spirit to co-create this life experience and adding just for punch - Bring it on!!!

Paula’s website can be found at: Journey Inwards Productions

A Note From the Editor

Thank you Paula for that post. I’d like to give some background on this post - Paula kindly gave me a coaching session once, and she was magical. The phone session we did really took me right into the core of some issues I had been struggling with. When we discussed it afterwards, she told me about “holding space” - one of the things she did that allowed me to really go deep during the phone session. And she agreed to let out how she did it in this guest post. So I would highly recommend that you try this, either for yourself, or even better if you are a practitioner of the healing arts.

I think it is possible to have a positive approach to disappointment. I don’t mean that it is a pleasant experience, but that disappointment can provide us with valuable information that we can learn from. That by learning what disappointment has to teach we can become more compassionate people.

The best expression of this positive approach that I know is by Joanna Macy, a Buddhist social activist. Her approach is that disappointment is valuable because, “When you are disappointed you are not pretending” (my paraphrase). This is true (though it applies to any other experience or emotion that we don’t withdraw from).

[If you would like to know more about Joanna Macy she has written a book called World as Lover, World as Self that is very worth reading. I think Joanna Macy is an extraordinary individual and activist.]

We can respond to disappointment positively because disappointment lets us know what is important to us. This is especially valuable when we are surprised by how disappointed we are. The surprise lets us know that there is more to us than our conscious thoughts and desires. So I think that disappointment is an experience worth embracing and learning from.

This is opposite to what I think of (a little unkindly) as the ‘spirituality is complacency‘ line of argument. This argument is that if we aren’t attached to anything then we won’t be disturbed by anything. This is true - and has valuable aspects, which I’ll go in to a bit later. However, it too often is an excuse for callous indifference. It has no room for compassion. At its worst this line of argument goes: “If you are appalled by the suffering of those dying of hunger, well, there is a way for you not to be bothered”. This is indeed true; I can’t see it as admirable though. For me, a spirituality that doesn’t have a central place for compassion isn’t worthy of the name.

If we are disappointed it is certainly correct that we were attached to some outcome. But I’m not sure that not being attached is the desired response. Or, put perhaps better, the way to non-attachment is one of encounter not avoidance. We could perhaps avoid all our emotions, hopes and dreams; we then would not be attached to anything. This would I think be the portrait of a psychopath.

If, instead of avoiding our experiences, we embrace them we find that we keep living and develop a resilience and sense of who we are. This gives us the sense that we are not any of our particular experiences - a sense of detachment from them. This path of encountering our experience also leads to non-attachment but does not have the psychopathic coldness that comes from avoiding parts of our experience.

If we can welcome, or at least acknowledge, our disappointment we gain a softness, a sense of our vulnerability (which is a good antidote to any ideas that we are ‘above’ suffering, or any grandiose thoughts that we may have). By welcoming our disappointment we can expand our compassion.

Here are some ideas I have that may help in times of disappointment, so that you can move to making disappointment a part of your experience and not something that overwhelms who you are - to gain some sense of detachment from it. I hope you find them useful.

1. Talk to your friends or family about your disappointment. If you don’t have supportive friends or family consider talking to a counsellor - there are usually free services available if you can’t afford to pay.
2. Find what the disappointment means to you. Why the even matters to you. Not so much, “The bastard left me” but what it means to you (eg. that I’m unlovable, that I was so naive to believe what they said - and naive is bad).
3. Find the healthy desire. For example, perhaps being too naive is a problem, but is it such a bad thing to want to be able to relax and trust others? From realising that you do want to be able to trust others but not believe everything anyone says it may be possible to move on and develop a trust that includes discernment.
4. Express your disappointment with all of you. You’re allowed to make up speeches or imagine telling people off or assaulting them - as long as it helps you do the disappointment with all of you. (Doing this stuff physically to them is probably not a good idea.) This may take more than once, if the disappointment is about something at the core of who you are. It is important enough to set aside time for doing it. When you have done this enough you feel able to let the disappointment be in the past (you may be different because of it but it will not dominate your life).
5. With a big disappointment, moving on means living differently. I have had a small disappointment with my blog stats this last week or so. This has meant a re-evaluation of what is important in terms of blogging (my thoughts about the importance of content vs marketing. My hope was that marketing doesn’t matter much at all, my experience is that it certainly does. This has meant me re-allocating my priorities and time somewhat - a slightly different way of living.) While this hardly rates in comparison with the disappointment of a major relationship break up I hope it is enough to show the point.

How have you dealt with disappointment in your life? Have you found ways of moving on from your disappointments? If so I would like to hear about them in the comments.

About the Author

I have a health course, “Designing a Long and Healthy Life”. It is twelve email delivered over a six week period. It covers all aspects of health and is designed to help you find what is right for you in your physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social life. You can sign up for it in the comments on this post, for the details of what’s in it, you can find them on my Newsletter page.

A Note From the Editor

Thanks to Evan for that great post. As regular readers know, I am studying part time and it is exam period, so I’ll be away for a couple of weeks. Don’t worry, though, we’ve got great stuff lined up for your reading pleasure!

Though it may seem obvious, and therefore deceptively simple, one of the most challenging things about the idea of illusion vs. reality is just that—the difficulty of deciphering illusion as opposed to reality. Again, it seems obvious and simple, but that is sort of the point here. For an illusion to be an illusion it must look/feel/seem like something that it is not. And so most people will see most illusions not as “illusions,” not as forms or representations of something they are not, but will literally mistake them for that they seem to be.

Take the example of a mirage. The reason a mirage is a mirage (the reason the illusion is an illusion) is that a person does not look at a mirage and say “Look, a mirage!” No, the reason it is a mirage is because a person sees it and says “Look, water!” While most people would like to posit themselves on the enlightened side of illusion, this is rarely the case in reality. Most of us have enough experience with mirages to be able to spot one when we see one, but that’s also my point here. It takes experience (practice, work, and effort) to no longer mistake illusion for reality.

Most people do not see illusions as illusions. And if one does not realize that he is seeing an illusion, he will believe that what he sees is reality. A mirage is one thing. It’s another when we’re talking about concepts, such as Freedom, Love, Trust, Desire, Family, Responsibility, etc. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why belief is so dangerous, for it gets in the way of people being able to question their vision, to discern reality from illusion.

So, how can one see, or recognize, an illusion? Well, the trick is that you can’t. The only way to know an illusion is in retrospect. Only when we see the reality of an illusion—only when the illusion no longer exists—can we know (”see”) that it was really an illusion. In this way, the only way to see an illusion as an illusion is to see its absence. And while we might stumble upon some illusions, like stumbling upon a mirage, if we want to make real progress and mature, the way to find illusions is to seek them out in our own beliefs, assumptions, and certainties.

One of the things we must accept if we are to benefit from the idea of illusion vs. reality is that there is a difference between what something is and what it is to us. Again, this seems simple, but it is actually quite complex and far-reaching in its implications. Take, for example, the old philosophical stalwart: a table. My question to you is: What is it? Is that thing a table, or is a table what you call that thing? Think about it. If you think about it hard enough, you will see that there is a difference between what that thing is, and what you call it. Even if you try to break the thing down into its constituent parts—wood, nails, atoms, quarks, strings, etc.—the question remains: are those things wood, nails, atoms, quarks, strings, etc., or are wood, nails, atoms, quarks, and strings what you call those things? If you allow the distinction to sink in, it’s a mind-blower. This is at the heart of illusion vs. reality.

What we see is that illusions do not exist in the world “out there.” What exists out there in the world is reality, or said another way, what is. But we do not see what is, we see what we see the way we see it. This is one of the great philosophical dilemmas. And so what we realize (and this is key) is that illusions do not exist out in the world, but rather within (or, said another way, from) ourselves.

When it comes to our mirage, either there is water, or there is not. Or said another way, either there is a mirage, or there is not. Whether or not there is water is wholly and utterly independent of us, the subject. But whether or not there is a “mirage” is wholly and utterly dependent upon us, the subject, for its very existence.

I will say it loud and clear: Human beings do not determine what is, only how we see (things).

Now, those who have studied such matters will probably (as they should) point out that recent discoveries in quantum physics have shown that it is possible that we do affect “what is” by seeing it. But, in reality, this is compatible with, and not a negation of, what I am talking about. Of course we (humans) affect things in the real world, for we are just as real as the reality of which I speak (I’m not saying we’re ghosts). What I am talking about in this discussion of illusion is, to be more accurate, that slippery and nebulous thing we might call “attitude,” or the process of “mind.” To reiterate, then, and to be even more clear, our belief about reality does not determine what it is.

And so what we realize is that what we believe is utterly inconsequential to what is. When it comes to belief, your belief either corresponds to what is true or it does not. And what we see, as well, is that belief itself is in the realm of illusion, not reality. Go back to the mirage example. Say there is no water there. It doesn’t matter at all (to reality) whether you believe that there is water, or you believe that there is no water. There is no water. Either you see the truth of the matter or not. You don’t need to believe that there is no water there; you see it, you realize it, you are aware of it, but you don’t believe it. Belief, by definition, is an opinion of something that may or may not be as you think it is. Belief is all about you, awareness is all about what is. This is a very important difference of focus.

And so, in the realm of reality, what we see is that belief has no place, no purpose, other than distraction and delusion. What we see is that beliefs themselves are (and when you think about it, can be nothing but) illusions. Just as the way you see something is an illusion of what it is, your belief about something is an illusion of what is. What you believe may be true; but if it is true, then why the need to believe it? Belief simply has no place in such a situation. You simply do not need to believe what is true. What is true is true. What is is. Either you see it or not. If you see it, there is simply no need to believe in it. The idea of “believing in” the truth is nonsensical.

Direct understanding (or awareness) of reality precludes the very existence of belief, of illusion, by its very nature. This point is of utter importance. Again, it takes the focus away from you and puts it on reality, on what is.

You simply cannot see the way things really are, cannot be aware of reality, with your ego as mediator.

What we see from all this is that beliefs are illusions. And on the path to enlightenment, illusions are training wheels. While training wheels do serve a purpose, eventually they will only slow you down and get in the way.

From my personal notes, 10/12/00.

About the Author:

Robert Walker is an author and musician currently living in New Mexico. Between the years of 1999 and 2003, he accumulated over one and half million words of personal notes. He is posting excerpts from those notes on his website/blog: Robert Walker Online.

I thought I’d try something new this post – I’m stealing an idea from Leo of Zen Habits.

This post is plain and simple – ask me whatever you want in the comments: from the personal, to the silly, to the philosophical, to whatever. In fact, the sillier and fun-ner the better

The only thing I request – please do not ask anything related to serious mental disorders. I tend to get quite a lot of such questions, and my answer is always the same – stuff like this cannot be fixed on the internet in general. There is no shame in finding professional help.

A quick disclaimer: I’m just a normal guy. I’m not the Truth, I’m not an expert, enlightened, or whatever – and everything that I say is just the opinion of a guy with a blog (Which anybody can start, by the way. Just because someone runs a blog doesn’t always mean he or she is suddenly an authority of any kind.) This might defeat the purpose of having a “ask me” post, but hey who cares And if I don’t know, I will simply say I don’t know.

Also, I’m anticipating some questions will be too big to be answered in the comments, and so I’ll note them and make them into proper blog posts in the future. This will give me some good feedback on what readers want to see in the future.

Link Love and Reading

For those who want to do some reading this week, there are two great PDFs that I found recently. In random order:

For those interested in spirituality, the Bhagavad Gita has a reputation as one of the most profound spiritual texts ever written. I remember browsing a copy once and I couldn’t understand a lot of it, so this find is a true gift – a free PDF which is a commentary on this classic text. You can download it at: The Atma Jyoti Blog.

The next is a PDF provided by my friend Evan Hadkins over at Well Being and Health. It is a personal guide to living a life of lasting satisfaction, and combines practical exercises with theory. Thought-provoking material, for sure – you can download it at It’s Not About Success.