Open-Secrets

Month: April 2009

  • Changers and Re-Arrangers

    Help is Everywhere and IT Wants YOU!

    self_help_personal_developmentLast week, I picked up a copy of Open Exchange – The Bay Area’s Premier Healthy Living Magazine.

    It’s been a while since I looked through this publication and I have never hooked up with a professional or service provider through the ads or articles. Flipping through Open Exchange, I soon found myself amused, delighted and intrigued by the ad/article topics, tag lines and teaser questions:

    • Personal growth… and professional success
    • Looking to change your life and build a more secure future?
    • It’s a soul thing
    • Changing lives …one bite at a time
    • Come Home to Your Self
    • Do you feel lonely in the world?
    • Do you want to look and feel better as you age?
    • Experience your highest consciousness
    • You don’t have to live with pain
    • Create your chosen future
    • Are you ready to transform your life?
    • Are you ready to go to your next level?
    • Are you bored, frustrated or insecure at work?
    • Allow your dreams to become your reality.
    • What goals dance on your horizon but never seem in reach?
    • Are you living with authenticity?
    • Coaching for tough times
    • The universe has an outrageous agenda for you.
    • Love, intimacy and sexuality. What is it?
    • Have you had a spiritual experience.

    Well, the list goes on and on. The publication seems to be 90% ad content where you can have an article published along with your ad. I found my friend, Kamila Harkavy, in this issue. Kamila is a money mastery coach. You can follow her blog – Thrivelocity.

    Kamila’s article in this issue of Open Exchange was titled – Why Get Coaching? In the article she points out 3 reasons why she continues to get coaching even after years of personal development work. I especially liked: 2. I am sure to produce a much more substantial return on investment than any stock, bond or other transactional investment.

    Investing time, energy and money into our growth & development is the best investment we can make – I believe that as much as Kamila does. A wise investment is exploring our belief system, attitudes and preferences that keep the same old cyclical dynamics running. What I see in many of the ads is an appeal to ego renovation. That’s where we slap a new coat of paint on the house, but the person living within remains unchanged.

    Real change is often upsetting because the old me (identity) is dissolved to some degree. Which challenges that ego refrain – I want to be me, I want to be me…

    What are you if not you?

    Links of Interest

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    Items of Interest

  • Evolution of Moral Judgment

    Moral Judgment – Emotion vs. Reason

    moral_judgment_emotionalDavid Brooks had a recent article in the New York Times titled The End of Philosophy. In the article, Brooks addresses the evolution of moral judgment. Moral judgment, he argues, is more a product of emotion than reason.

    Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

    Brooks says, “Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.”

    As Steven Quartz of the California Institute of Technology said during a recent discussion of ethics sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, “Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second.

    According to Brooks, “Moral judgments are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain.”

    Following his line of reasoning, Brooks says that emotions precede moral reasoning and he goes on to say that evolution is shaping our moral judgment from the action of cooperation, not competition.

    The piece that Brooks seems to miss, in my opinion, is conditioning. We may be making moral judgments instantaneously at a pre-conscious or unconscious level, but much of that emotional, mental and psychic process is more heavily influenced by childhood conditioning than evolution. We may choose cooperation, but the choice we make toward competition or cooperation is definitely more of an emotional decision, than mental because the emotional conditioning is deeper than our cognitive process. Deeper still are the tension patterns in the body and the self-images we hold that are in alignment with these fixated energetic patterns.

    Links of Interest

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    Items of Interest

  • Wanting vs. Needing

    What’s the Difference Between Want & Need?

    wants_needsA friend of mine asked me this question last night. My first response was that need seems to be more associated with survival and identity than want. Want can have a sense of expansion, but I don’t notice that with need.

    Of course, we are talking mostly about emotional and psychological issues around want and need. But, anytime we talk about deep psychological and emotional content, we have to bring in the body because there is a deep connection between the body and survival issues – even when they are figments of our imagination.

    The dictionary says that want is to need, to feel need, to desire or wish. Etymology of Want:  Middle English, from Old Norse vanta; akin to Old English wan deficient

    The same dictionary says need is a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful –  a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism. Etymology of Need: Middle English ned, from Old English n?ed, n?d; akin to Old High German n?t distress, need.

    The energetic dynamics in the body/mind seem different to me around want and need. Want seems to have more of a reaching or grasping quality to me than need. Need feels more connected with necessary or required than want.

    I can want a new pair of shoes even if I have 5 pairs, but if I only have one pair with holes in the soles – I need a new pair of shoes. If I just bought a new outfit and don’t have shoes to match – I need a new pair of shoes to match the outfit, but I don’t necessarily need them to survive. Of course, if my identity is deeply tied to the image of me in the new outfit and a projected outcome of wearing it, my survival needs might be very high around that pair of shoes that I absolutely need.

    I may want love or approval, but if I see the lack of it a temporary, it doesn’t necessarily threaten my identity or existence – if it does, then I may feel a desperate need, a deficient emptiness around it at the core of my being that feels like a survival need.

    What say you about want versus need? Am I splitting hairs?

    Links of Interest

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    Items of Interest

  • Trapped in EgoSyntonic Life

    Leaving Wonderland and Egosyntonic Life

    Egosyntonism and egosyntonic refer to living in accordance with what is acceptable to the ego. The ego syntonic life is an imprisoned life, though this is the life most of us think of as normal existence. We are imprisoned within our preferences, positions, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, worldview, self-image, ego ideal and the limited range of our nervous system and emotional depth.

    road_less_traveled_egosyntonicM. Scott Peck wrote a popular book a while back – The Road Less Traveled. The road less traveled is the path we must take to free our consciousness from ego structure and ego identity which set the parameters for egosyntonic living.

    Human vulnerability is a key ingredient for leaving the egosyntonic life behind. Human vulnerability is challenging for everyone. It can be tricky for egos with a bent toward victim identification or emotional sentimentality as we may mistakenly take these states which contain feelings of vulnerability to be the transformative human vulnerability we are referring to which they are not.

    Anti-egosyntonic (egodystonic) vulnerability will challenge our self-image and range of comfort. We will feel anxious. Our minds and bodies may go into hyper-drive until we return to familiar ground or ego structure and identity begin to dissolve.

    Those of us that drive can very easily highlight our comfort range by simply driving slower than we usually do or faster. For many simply obeying the speed limit would be enough to send them through the roof. Political beliefs are another fun way to discover just how conditioned we are.

    The ego life involves a lot of fantasizing about our version of the “Wonderful Life” – based on our ego or spiritual ideal. Leaving wonderland and the ego syntonic life for reality is the road less traveled.

    Links of Interest

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    Items of Interest

  • Death of Poverty

    What to do When Money Starts Pouring In

    death_of_povertyAs beings in the world, money and finances are aspects of our life that need some exploration and clarification. Our relationship to money is anything but simple – psychologically it’s moe loaded than a super duper Las Vegas slot machine.

    I’ve purchased a few lotto tickets over the years and spent more than a few hours in mental la la land spinning “what if?” dreams. Over the years, I’ve also involved myself in a few get rich quicker than others schemes. As I think about, I might be rich if I had invested all that time, energy and money into something other than other people’s pockets or a Bernie Madoff ponzi scam.

    I have no regrets. In fact, I’ve enjoyed most of it – in retrospect. Like most people on the planet, I’ve had my tough times and challenges, but overall, life has been good. Recently I notice that life is beyond good, it is very, very sweet.

    Somewhere along the line, something/s seem to have shifted. As 59 approaches, I find myself more engaged and more enthralled with everyday life – it’s all so wild, wonderful and sublime.

    Strange that at this time I find myself on the brink of the death of poverty. It’s interesting to note, that my worries and concerns around money and financial security seemed to have been subsummed into a recognition of the richness, wealth and generosity of life.

    Links of Interest

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    Items of Interest

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