Thoughts After a Week in the Wilderness (And a Flat Tire)

Another day post-vacation and integrating everything, clearing out my work inbox, getting things set straight, now relaxing at the tire shop.

Yes, after a treacherous drive up and down the mountain I popped a tire picking up pizza three blocks from home.  That’s neither good nor bad luck, it just is.  It’s an opportunity for greater presence.

This has been an amazing integration.  I feel all the old BS stripping away.  But man, my ego was holding onto that crap tightly.  And still is.

The value of being highly opinionated, which I have clearly held, appears to be a reflection of a distortion of low self-esteem in some aspect.  Perhaps the value of opinions is a defense against being gullible.  If I hold onto preset opinions that are mine, then I can’t be fooled.  Obviously this is a losing strategy.

And really my opinions serve me little. Opinions and preferences have caused me tremendous stress as well as conflict and social disconnection.

As I integrate my powers and clear out the internal distortions, a new truth emerges that is higher than my opinions and ego.  I can move through many opinions and feel strong and solid in who I am and what I’m doing.

Ego-based “rightness,” however logically and factually sound, is still ultimately a limiting belief.  It is a need for the ego to receive recognition and validation from others. And that validation is fleeting.  Once the ego feels validated, the disconnection returns and the cycle of needing validation resumes.

This isn’t to say “don’t hold opinions and preferences,” as that’s not possible and leads to other ego-based issues (“look at me I’m so unattached to preferences, so fucking indifferent”).  It is about placing value on higher truth.  In this case, my higher truth means consciously letting go of the value I’ve placed on opinions and preferences that are not serving my higher truth. 

This may seem like a faint distinction or a half-measure.  But it’s very clear and strong when it’s embodied.  I’m returning from my vacation and looking at all the opinions that brought up emotional reaction.  Instead of acting on the opinion, this is an opportunity to inquire about the emotional reaction and engage in deeper healing.

Now, this is not a simple process.  I’m aware that my brain is addicted to the emotional chemicals.  My worrying is very disruptive but also creates chemicals my brain likes and wants more of.  Anger is addictive.  The “gambling hormones” are addictive.

But here’s the thing – a lot of my patterns are compensating.  This is the great thing about looking at everything in my life from this “new me,” I’m looking at every pattern in the moment and looking at it against my “true self.” I’ve done this throughout my journey, so for the past 6-7 years since I began in earnest.

What’s different now?  There isn’t a conflict between “what I want” and “what’s my higher truth.”  Instead there’s an awareness and an INSTANT shift.  I notice the emotional pattern, notice the disconnect with the truth, and I lose all interest in that pattern I used to hold onto with everything I had. That’s how I know I’ve changed. 

Even things like – “I popped my tire – this is bad luck.  No wait, it’s good luck.  No wait, that’s me assigning meaning to an event.  It just is.  Now what am I going to do about it?”  Poof, emotional pattern – GONE. 

I used to make meanings and then integrate them into my work – this happened, that means something about my work.  That’s gone too.  I can separate energetic events from confirmation bias.

I had written this before, but I keep coming back to it because it’s going to color the way I set up my “Thailand spiritual retreat.”  On this trip, I was doing something I love with the people I care about, free from other distractions and radiating with the energetic activation.  This formula created the complete shift. 

This is the experience I want to give people who visit my sanctuary, when I am able to bring that into the world.  I want them to have that energetic and physical experience that leaves them truly observing their ego and able to make the real changes in their lives going forward.  To activate and embrace their energetic power, releasing the ego blocks in the way. 

I want to create an experience where people are free from the lives they had before they arrived, yet enjoy a level of comfort and pleasure that makes the Thailand spiritual retreat enjoyable, instead of feeling like a painful sacrifice.

I want to bring this element into my coaching as well – find a way to strip out the life that’s going on to discover what is truly important.

There is a small circle of people that truly matter to me.  And there is a small circle of things that are truly important.  The rest is either a means to that end (making money, for example) or unnecessary distraction, attachment or distortion.

And literally everything I’m worrying about, that’s been keeping me up at night, falls into the “not important” column.  So it’s a matter of shifting my focus to what is important and moving my attention back there whenever I feel myself pulling away into worry.  And it’s often worry about what people think of me – people whom at my heart I don’t care about in the slightest.  And now I can stop worrying and let go.

Not that this will automatically happen, but the training process is in place, moving my attention to what it important and away from what isn’t.  And it comes at the time when I’ve massively expanded my energy.  And it’s at a time when I’m ready to create a new me and let go of the old unhelpful energies and thought patterns, so this is good.

And again, it comes down to the simple question – is this thing important and relevant to me?  And if not, what is that would be a better use of my attention and energy?  Which brings me back to the tire shop, and this – reflecting and integrating the lessons instead of trying to find meaning in a flat tire or getting worked up over cost, inconvenience, or the people yelling at each other on the news channel on the waiting room TV.