Pain and Pleasure

Mr Pain and Mr Pleasure are two sides of the same coin. They are both jolly good fellows living together side by side in perfect harmony. They know each other’s boundaries. That is what I call their rules of engagement or their code of conduct. As long as Mr Pleasure maintains its own role and does not interfere with the role of Mr Pain, they can both live together in peace.

Trouble starts when Mr Pleasure crosses its own territory and begins to encroach on Mr Pain’s land. Think of the pleasure you get when you are eating the food you enjoy most. Alternatively, think of the delight that comes from doing the thing that gives you the greatest joy. You feel it should never end.  

 So long as you know when enough is enough, you are keeping to the rule of engagement. You break the rule the moment you exceed your boundary and go on eating more than what your body can take or doing more of the thing than your physical and mental ability can sustain.  That is when Mr Pain steps in to restrain Mr Pleasure from going beyond his territory.  

The two play Checks and Balance roles for each other. One cannot exist without the other. Therefore, the next time you have a box of your favourite chocolate on the table, or a bottle of your favourite wine, (mine is red) know when enough is enough before Mr Pain steps in. Think wise.

Law of Attraction

The more you think about a problem the more you generate new problems. The more you think about a solution the more you generate new solutions. Whatever you think about all time multiplies and attracts itself to you. There is no secret of living other than knowing that you are what you attract into or distract out of your life.

As a father or mother, if you keep thinking that your son is good for nothing. You get a son that is good for nothing. As a woman, if you keep thinking that all men are deceitful, only deceitful men will keep coming your way. As a young adult, if you live your life thinking that all girls should not be trusted; you will live your entire batchelor life meeting girls that are untrustworthy. That is the Law of Attraction. Think about what you think about all the time. It might make a huge difference in your life and in the life of the people around you.

The power of forgiveness

Forgiveness is about letting go of the past. It is about moving forward. It is about leaving the past behind you. You think about forgiveness either when someone has offended you or when you have offended someone. When you know you have offended someone, you ask the person to forgive you. The courage to do so is uncommon. It means letting go of your ego. It means accepting personal responsibility for the action that had caused the offence. It means off loading and lightening yourself of the burden of guilt. By walking to the person you have offended and saying the magic word “sorry”, you have successfully passed on the onus of forgiving you to that person. It is not in your power to enforce the forgiveness. It is left to the person you have offended to accept or reject your apology, pardon the offence and forgive you.

The oneness of humanity has made it almost impossible to live together without stepping on each other’s toes. We have more things that keep us working together for our common good than things that keep us apart from each other. We need each other. But we must learn to respect the uniqueness inherent in each other. We do not have to agree with each other on every issue every time.

Someone asked me the other day if I thought forgiving is the same thing as forgetting. I said ‘no’ and ‘yes’. I said “no” because forgiving should automatically set in the process of forgetting. I said “yes” because forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting. After forgiveness, the process of forgettingness (pardon my use of word) can be long. It can also be short. It depends on a number of factors including the magnitude of the damage already done as a result of the offence committed. It also depends on your ability to find a new and positive way of thinking about the person you are seeking to forgive.

Have you ever thought about the reason for the phrase “forgive and forget?”  Why not “forget and forgive” instead? It is because forgiveness comes before forgettingness. You cannot forget if you cannot forgive. You forgive first, and then forget process follows. You find it hard to forget when the wound is still fresh. Only time will heal it.

Forgetting has both spiritual and physical dimensions. You can work hard and strive to put the past behind you, but the process of forgetting the past takes an act of grace. It is not in your control. That is a spiritual thing. The physical bit is to make a determined effort to spend less time thinking about the offence and about the person that has offended you. The less time you spend thinking about the offence and or the person in a negative way, the more the power that heals all wounds will work with you and help you to put the offence and its consequences behind you, helping you to forget the past.

The time you spend thinking negatively about the offence and or the person makes you becomes bitterer, more hateful and angrier both with yourself and with the offender. This increases your spirit of heaviness which had set in at the time of the offence and had weighed you down unable to step out of your rut. When you remain unforgiving, you make no progress. You stagnate. When the person that offended you has long forgotten and moved on with his own life, you are still enclosed in your own little world of misery. So long as you let yourself remain in that enclosure, you keep open the door that brings in all sorts of dis-eases into your life.   

What makes it easy for some people to harbour malice and remain unforgiving? Why do some people find it so difficult to forgive a perceived enemy long after they have asked for forgiveness? What makes it so hard for some people to get out of their negativity and stagnation even long after the perceived offender has come in a contrite spirit asking to be forgiven? Is it their ego? Is it hatred? Is it self-centredness? Is it inferiority complex? It is lack of progress in their life? What is it that can make someone to be unforgiving? It is lack of love? Or, it is just about their emotional feelings? There is nothing wrong in feeling angry when offended. It is natural. But once the offender has come back to his or her senses and has asked to be forgiven, the process of forgiveness should set in. This does not mean that the negative feelings you had as a result of the offence will disappear immediately. It will take a while to go. It is spiritual.

There is power in forgiving. It is the power that can heal wounds. It is the power that can mend broken homes. It is the power that can sustain relationships. It is the power that can restore peace to the family, to the neighbourhood, to the community, to the nation and to the world. It is the power that can re-establish trust to employees of an organisation. It is the power that can bridge bridges enabling old enemies to become friends again and competitors to become co-operators. It is the power that can create enabling environments for progress and development.

As Alexandra Pope once succinctly put it “to err is human to forgive is divine”. To this I would humbly add “if you allow”. If you allow divine into your life you will develop the heart that is capable of forgiving. What do you to “allow” divine into your life? You allow by becoming aware that every person that crosses your path at one stage or another has a role to play in your journey in life. The role can be positive, negative or neutral depending on your response. It can have huge or small impact. It must fill a purpose in your life. It is part of the flow.

When some people try to resist their role, the divine has a way of enforcing it. The divine can bypass you and give the role to another person; it does not matter whether the role is good or bad. If you had successfully played your role and it turns out to make positive difference in the life of another person, you would have had the privilege of sharing the success story with that person. This is my passion.

 Learning to become acutely aware of the role a person has come to play at a particular point in your life is essential to understanding yourself, the person and the purpose for which he or she has come to cross your path at that point in time and space. Once the person has played his or her assigned role, it is time to let go of the past, move on with the rest of your life and step into the next level. Yesterday is gone. Today is your present, your gift. Tomorrow will look after itself. Hakuna Matata.

Understanding your belief system

The other day a friend asked me what I belief. I told him I belief everything. He said he could not belief I said that. I told him that I belief he did not belief I said that. He asked why. I said even not believing is a belief. It means believing in no-thing. He asked if I belief in heaven and hell. I said it does not matter whether I belief or not. It is still a belief.  I explained that not believing in heaven or hell is a belief. It is a view I cannot proof or disproof with facts, figure or through personal experience. Its all by faith. On earth, I know there is eveil and I know there is good. But as for heaven or hell, I know by faith. But But he said supposing I knew for certainty that there is heaven and hell, would it change the way I live my life? I said not necessarily. He asked why. I said because I live my life the way I do not for fear of going to hell or expectation of going to heaven when I die, but beause of my love for living. He asked me again what I belief. I told him again, I belief everything and nothing. I mean I belief in the oneness and the duality of everything and nothing that have labels including negative or positive, right or wrong, black or white, day or night, good or evil, rain or sunshine, male or female, large or small, tall or short, beautiful or ugly, fast or slow, educated or illiterate, up or down, open or close, soft or hard, visible or invisible, etc.

My friend just looked at me in disbelieve and said I must be getting mad. I asked why he thought I was getting mad. He said because he thought I was talking rubbish. Rubbish? I asked. He said I was talking absolute rubbish. I asked him if he really believed I was talking rubbish. He said yes. I asked him to proof it. He said he just knew that I was talking rubbish. I told him that it is the paradox of belief. It is a word that means something at one time and place but means nothing at another time and place. It is a word that has no static interpretation. It is a word that means different things to different people. It is like where one man’s meat becomes another man’s poison. It is like describing one event as a failure in one culture but a huge success in another. Nothing is absolute. It all depends on time and space. It is the law of relativity in motion. It provides you with your own unique lens through which you view the world around you. 

My friend believed what I was saying was rubbish not because he was sure I was actually talking rubbish but because what he was hearing from me did not align with what he believed he already knew about me as a close friend and about heaven and hell as handed down to him from when he was a child. He just knew I was talking rubbish without any proof. He had no facts to back up his statement that there is heaven or hell. Between the two of us, who then was talking rubbish? We may probably never know. But we both learnt our lessons in contradictions. It does not matter what we belief, we were either probably right or probably wrong.

We live in a world of illusions. I recently attended a seminar on creative thinking. One of the discussants wanted a definition of humanity. Views were expressed by virtually everyone. After several people had shared their views, the seminar leader noticed that I had not made any contribution and turned to me to say something. I was not sure what to say and how to start. I decided to take the active verb root and said that to be human is to “being, doing and having” on a daily basis. A middle aged man to my left said on the basis of my definition, would I consider the table in front of us as human. I become confused. He said if humanity can be defined on the basis of my three active verbs, then the table should qualify as human. I become even more confused so were almost every other discussants.  I said, but the table is not even a living thing. He disagreed.  He said what evidence have I got to support my statement that the table is not a living thing. I said it does not breath, it cannot talk, it has no organs, etc. He said it’s all a belief, the way some people have chosen to interpret the world around them, a way of making sense of the world. He kept me thinking.  Well, I concurred. A table, after all, was once a tree, a living organism. Once was cut down, the ‘dead’ wood was turned into a table. He concluded that dead is dead, whether it is human or tree.

I am sure his belief was not in any way meant to compare a human being and a tree. The metaphor helps some of us to understand the root of his belief or disbelief.  After all, the seminar was about learning to think and to think differently. His own way of thinking however took my breath away. I however went away from the seminar more aware of some of the things that could have been making my own beliefs self-limiting.

Eight steps to be ahead of your boss

1.   Make a list of the outcomes your boss expect from you today;

2.   Affirm that today, you intend to deliver those outcomes to the standards required of you;  

3.   Make one of the outcomes stand out clear enough to add value to the goal of the organisation;

4.   Think of what you will learn today that should help you to perform even better tomorrow;

5.   Become creatively aware of the resources you will need today to perform to the standards required of you;

6.   Never postpone until tomorrow what they expect you to deliver today;

7.   Everything you do today must be driven by the objectives of your organisation;

8.   Do anything you possibly can to sustain both your emotional and physical energy throughout the day.

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Becoming an observer of events in your life

Life is made up of chains of events. Some are small and some are big. The end of one event marks the beginning of another. Some are good, some not so good.  You want some to go on forever, some you wish they were over as soon as they started. Some take you downwards, some take you upwards and some simply leave you where you are. Some, you bring to yourself and other people bring some to you. Every event, no matter the form or shape, brings you a new experience.  The experience, whether bad or good, should teach you something about yourself or about others. Each event forms part of one continuous flow of your journey on earth. One event leads to another.   

Think of a past event. What was the size? Was it a small or big event? How long did it last? One second? One minute? One hour? One day? One week? One month? Or even one year? For example an event could be that you had an argument with someone at a bus one Monday morning and the person slapped you in the face and this caused you severe pain.

The moment the person slapped you cannot be reversed back. It was an event you will live with for the rest of your life. Once the event took place, you have no control over it. What you could control was the way you reacted to the slap. Perhaps you slapped the person back. Perhaps you ignored the person and walked away. If you retaliated, perhaps, it could lead you to other events the end of you could predict. If you ignored it and walked away, you could put yourself in a strong position to control any subsequent events. One of the events that could follow would be the feeling pain. This is both physical and emotional. The duration of the pain would depend on a number of factors. The most important being your ability to isolate your ego from the incident, put it into context and establish a meaning for what had happened.   

The longer the time you spend thinking about the incident, the longer the time you will spend feeling the pain. Sometime, even when the physical pain has long gone, but the emotional pain you get from thinking about the incident remains for as long you keep thinking about it. The way some people deal with such situation is not to pretend that the incident did not happen. They accept what had happened. Each time they think about it, they allow the thinking to flow. When they are feeling bad about it, they allow the moments of bad feelings to flow and pass over them. They do not resist it as they know it just a flow. They see it just like the flow of a river. If they try to stop it, it will find another route to flow on. Sometimes, the period of its flow may be very short. At another time it may be long. The most important thing is that they do not fight it. They just live with it as part of living their lives by the moments. They experience the feeling of pain in the same calmness as they experience the feeling of joy.

The secret of having a sustainable happy and self-fulfilling life is learning to understand the relationships between times and events and their fluidity. When you know and understand that nothing is permanent, you will develop the ability to manage each event in your life over the period it takes to flow into and away from you. Take the case of the pain as an example. You might say you knew what caused it. The slap of course, you will say.  Others would say that was the immediate cause. This implies that there is a remote cause. Perhaps, you would not have met the person who slapped you at the time and place if you had left your bed at your usual time in the morning. What made you to leave home that morning ten minutes earlier than usual? Perhaps you could not sleep because of an unresolved issue with your partner.  The thoughts of the issue occupied your mind throughout the night. Therefore you woke up earlier than usual and decided to head to your office. What is this unresolved issue? What caused it? If you look further and further backward, you will begin to notice the interconnectedness of all the small and big events that have led to the event at the bus stop. They are all linked like chains. Each chain represents an event. One chain can connect the other chain in three ways; upwards, downwards or straight-ward. In order words, it can be connected positively, negatively or neutrally. The choice of what you want the connection to be is largely in your control.

Sometimes, simply saying “I’m sorry”, to your partner is all you probably need to break the chain of events and move the next event towards another direction. Some people see apology as a sign of weakness. To some people, receiving apology is a sign that the other person has surrendered and accepted guilt. This is a win/lose mentality. This mindset does not lead to sustainable change of attitude. To other people giving apology is a sign of strength. This is a win/win mentality which can lead to making a sustainable attitude change.

Think of what your life would feel like if only you could determine how you want to react to every event that flows into your life over time. Think of what difference you could make in the life of others if you could decide how to respond to events flowing all around you over time. Think of how you will react to the next even in your flow of life. Will you react positively, negatively or neutrally? Just think proactively how you will be reacting to the next event in your life. You will become a keen observer of every event that flow into your life. You will learn to watch them as they pass through you and move away from you as part of the continuous flow of your life over time and space.

Finally let me leave you with the following quote by the Greek philosopher, Epictetus: “Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life”.

Value Life 2011 monthly Seminars

Still living with self-limiting beliefs? Enough is enough.

This is the first of seven Value Life Balance modules which we have designed specifically to help you challenge any of your existing limiting beliefs.

This module title is Belief.

The topic is "How to keep your self-limiting beliefs in check".

This month’s seminar is for people who are feeling stocked in life and therefore lack meaningful progress in some areas of their life due to limiting beliefs.

We expect each participant to leave the seminar with a list of positive affirmative words and phrases that keep their limiting beliefs in control. We also expect them go away from the seminar an empowering action plan that helps them to think more productively.

Date: 29 January 2011

Time: 2pm to 3pm

Venue: Forest Hill Library, Dartmouth Road London SE23

Admission is £10 per participant.

If you book and pay for all the seven seminars in advance, you only pay £60, a saving of £10 on overall package. 

For information on how to book your place and about our Balance modular seminars, please e-mail mam@valuelifebalance.com or visit www.valuelifebalance.com

Is it luck or miracle?

I do not belief there is anything like luck or ill-luck. It is all about recognising or not recognising opportunities when they come our ways. It is all about being in the right place at the right moment and in the right attitude to notice what is happening around you and acting appropriately. Beneath what some people call luck is enormous sacrifices. People see a relationship from the outside and they conclude that the people in that relationship are lucky not knowing what sacrifices each party is making to make the relationship work. When your children are doing well in school and they grow up to become highly successful in life, some of your neighbours would say you are lucky. They would take no cognisance of the sacrifices you, the parents, had made for them so that they could grow up to be responsible citizens. At work, you go the extra mile to make things happen for your employee, at the end of the year, you are rewarded with promotion, some of your lazy colleagues would turn round to tell you how lucky you are.

They say some people are born lucky. Well, in that case, I would say everyone is born lucky. Some will however realise their luck in their lifetime. Others will not. The difference between those who realise their luck and those who do not is in the ability, of those who do, to cultivate their own lucky environments. Cultivating lucky environments include having the right attitude to life. Having the right attitudes to life means being receptive to all ideas and all people no matter how repugnant they may appear to you at first.

We were all born with varying amount of potentials in us. The pursuit of life is for the individual to achieve his or her own potential in their own individual ways. This has to do with taking actions everyday to move towards reaching that potential. You cannot guarantee that the actions you take each day would definitely take you to that potential. The most important thing is that you take an action every day. It is in taking those actions every day that nature works in your favour.

When you take an action that enables nature to work in your favour and people see the outcome of the favour, they say that you are lucky. What has luck got to do with it? For example, as part of your daily actions, suppose you decided to play a lottery and won 1 million pounds. Would you say you are lucky? Well, I would say, it is your miracle. Playing the lottery is part of your daily actions. You would not have won it if you did not play. Playing the lottery is an act that demonstrates your own personal commitment. No one could have guaranteed that you would win. It is your act of faith that led you to play the lottery. You won because you fulfilled your own part.

So, what some people call luck, I call miracle. This is a much more spiritual thing than luck, which is the world’s misrepresentation of divine intervention. The distinction between the two is important. One suggests you are alone in the universe. The other suggests you are not. One gives self congratulation for their luck. The other gives thanks to the ultimate power that has made the miracle happen. Everyone can create their own miracles.      

Helping to promote Value Life Balance

 

Through this forum, we seek to understand humanity from beneath the surface. We try to go far beyond the unspoken words to see what they are feeling what makes them feel they way the feel. We use intensive focusing to delve into the innermost past of human minds to gain knowing that no words can express. This simply means we try to know people more from what they are not saying than what they are saying. We believe that life should be lived moment by moment and that everything we do each day adds up to our end goal. Simply put, we use this forum to express our appreciation of the beauty of humanity and our capacity to create anything we can think about in minds. The essence of humanity is creation. We must therefore continue to create and recreate for the good of humanly. This is what Value Life Balance seeks to promote and we ask you to join us.