The best happiness is conjured. It’s how I get things easily. Getting what I want should be easy. That’s the way life can be for everyone. For me it is.
It hasn’t always been easy. I had to learn how reality happens before getting what I want came easily. I appreciate what I learned. So I’m sharing it.
In the old days I didn’t know all this. By “old days” I mean a few years ago. 😀
Back then, I got a lot of what I wanted and some of what I didn’t. I got that the same way you likely do. Random!
I became pretty successful, but it was hard work, struggle, sacrifice.
Instead of talking about the old days, I want to talk about today’s days. But I guess I can’t without referring a little bit to the old days for context. 🤷🏽♂️
How Do Things Happen?
First, let me clarify something: Getting what I want means creating reality.
Many people scoff when “new agers” talk about “creating reality” and “manifesting”. Here’s the thing about that.
A lot of what I want is “real”. Physical events, physical things and, yes, some intangible things too. Like peace of mind. And understanding how life works.
But everything I want, including intangible stuff, must happen in the physical world. I call that “reality”. You probably call it that too.
So getting what I want means experiencing realities different from what I have. New realities that include in them what I want. Somehow, those realities must come about.
How do they come? Aren’t they being created? If so, who or what creates them?
I explored these questions some time ago. I’m glad I got super-clear answers.
· · ·
So when I talk about getting what I want, I’m talking about creating new realities. Realities that weren’t realities before. I’m at the center of “how”. And I’m getting better proving to myself how that “how” works.
Fig. 1 below shows how I used to create reality. I call it “The Haphazard Way”. Here’s how that process worked for me. Maybe it works for you this way.
Illustration by the author
Reality Needs A Perceiver And It Shapes That Which Perceives
Reality doesn’t exist if there is no perceiver. So reality needs a perceiver for it to “be”. Any consciousness capable of perception will do. In Fig. 1, I’m using me as the perceiver. But it could as well be a dog, bird, cockroach or single-celled organism.
In The Haphazard Way, as perceiver, I look at the world (Step 1 in Fig. 1) and see what’s happening. From that, I choose what I want.
For example, when I was young, I realized having money was a good thing. In high school, I looked at professions where my talents (love of writing, art, etc) would pay most. Then I planned my life to match that trajectory.
So far so good.
But while spending so much time looking at the world, I also couldn’t help see how other people got what I wanted. Sounds normal, right? You set a goal, then look at others’ success as a model for yours.
The problem is, I’m not here to copy what others did. I thought I was. And I succeeded at that for a while. It wasn’t fulfilling though.
I’m a creator. I’m here to do it my way. A fresh way. You are a creator too. You’re not here to copy others.
llustration by the author
Besides, the majority of humans (like 99.999 percent) create what they want haphazardly (Fig. 1). That works. But it’s not easy. That’s why so many people describe getting what they want as “working your ass off,” “sacrificing”, “paying your dues”, etc. Then they feel proud about that.
Why would I want to copy that? If they knew what I now know, I don’t think they’d feel proud.
But it’s what they know. So I don’t blame them. Instead I say “more power to you!” Because they’re going to need it.
In their reality (Fig. 1), working your ass off (or who you know, or having money, or paying your dues or whatever) is necessary. It’s necessary because they’ve looked at how others have done it. And they are copying that.
I was doing the same. Here’s why I don’t do that now.
Living Other People’s Experience By Default
When I copied another’s way, I also accepted their beliefs about reality. Everybody’s doing that. Which is why we have the world we have where pretty much everyone thinks the same way about reality. I thought that way too.
Illustration by the author
Back to fig. 1: Looking at the world (Step 1) formed beliefs within me consistent with what I was looking at (Step 2). Including other people’s beliefs. If I believed as everyone else, my actions would match everyone else (Step 3). Not my original, pure inspirations.
Beliefs dictate actions in The Haphazard Way
My actions reflected what I believed. Next I’d look at results my actions created (Step 4) to check (Step 5) if they matched my expectations. “Expectations” is another word for “beliefs about the future”. Based on beliefs I got from others, I formed beliefs about the future containing what my acts should produce.
Make sense so far?
Here’s the problem. My adopted beliefs included ways to get what I want. But they also included negative beliefs about the world. About me too.
A major negative belief about the world, which I adopted from others was “there’s only so much to go around”. Another: “I’m in competition for those limited things, whether it’s money, women, cars, etc.” Another: “money doesn’t grow on trees” meaning: it’s scarce.
These are beliefs new agers call “scarcity consciousness”. They make an unlimited thing limited.
My beliefs also included other people’s beliefs about people like me. For example, I had a lot of negative beliefs about being African American and queer. These negative beliefs shaped my self-worth, self-respect and, most important, what I thought was possible.
Maybe you have these too. Where do these come from? I got them looking at the world. I listened to what my parents’ said about the world and believed them. I watched their personal experiences, then formed beliefs from that. I got beliefs from my personal experience. I shaped beliefs listening to TV and radio. I got beliefs from reading stuff.
In other words, I got my beliefs from looking at the world around me (Step 1).
How about you? Where do your beliefs come from? Have you thought about that? Some people I talk with are open enough to say they get their beliefs the same way I did. “I was raised to believe…” is how it usually starts.
Maybe you were “raised to believe…” a certain way too…
Back to Fig. 1.
Illustration by the author
So when I checked my progress (or lack thereof), I would make up stories reflecting my messed up (inaccurate) beliefs. “This happened because I was black” or, “I can’t do that right” or, “I wish I could do it like that guy”, or “I need money to do that and I don’t have money so…”
The thing is, the world I saw matched beliefs I had. It’s tricky to sort out beliefs I hold from the world I see. They are so intertwined. In reality, they are one. They both reflect each to the other. I know that now.
Illustration by the author
So no matter what happened from my actions, I interpreted them according to my beliefs. I still do that. That can’t be helped. Life will always reflect my beliefs.
But today, I have a whole new set of beliefs. They come from a new way of creating reality.
What’s interesting is, I wouldn’t have my new way, were it not for the old way.
Life will not differ from how I believe. “Life” is the cycle illustrated in Fig. 1 and 2. Both cycles repeat themselves over and over. Beliefs become automatic. Acts born of beliefs recede into the background. What’s left are results and interpretations.
If I want any part of my reality different, I must change my beliefs. To change beliefs, I must know how they happen. Then use that process differently.
That’s where Fig. 2 comes in.
Illustration by the author
The World Turns From One Thing I See To The Next
I questioned early on why things happened the way they did. So The Haphazard Way helped me. It’s not wrong. I think it serves this exact purpose.
I’m not the only person who knows about this. More are learning it all the time. Here’s how it works:
First, I look at the world (Step 1). But I don’t accept that world as factual. Instead I look at what is and use it to decide not only what I want, but how I would like it to happen.
I don’t think about the specifics of how it could happen. I only think about how it would feel to have what I want (Step 1).
Once I figure that out, I choose beliefs (Step 2) consistent with what I want. I literally make up beliefs. The more original the better. The beliefs boost the feelings.
Next I hold the feelings the beliefs have boosted. I keep feeling the feelings. I pay as little attention as I can to current reality. Including the fact that it doesn’t contain what I want. I don’t think about what I want either. I only feel how it feels having what I want.
I’m not always successful. But you’d be surprised how little success is needed for this to work.
If/when I’m successful with Fig. 2 Step 2, the universe and the larger part that is me gives feedback, suggestions and impulses about acts to take (Step 3). I try never to act unless I get inspiration. This is important.
Sometimes it takes a long time before I get inspiration. Just ask my wife! 😜
Other times, inspiration comes immediately.
Sometimes I have to sort out where the inspiration is coming from. Old beliefs sometimes draw ideas to me. They sound like “you should be doing….”
The right inspiration doesn’t sound that way.
When right inspiration does come, I try to act immediately (Step 4). Next, I do my best to notlook for evidence my acts create. I don’t check. Instead, I use observing the world as fuel. Fuel for more made up beliefs. Beliefs consistent with the reality I am creating, rather than the one I’m looking at.
· · ·
My Inner Being has written in this blog about some results this process produced. It’s going to continue doing that. So many things are happening all the time.
Life has changed for me since using this process. Most important, I’m finding myself happier. Not because I’m getting more of what I want easier, which I am. But because when I’m spending most of my time focusing on positive beliefs, how can that not become a habit? And how can a positive focus turned habitual not produce a reality consistent with that? And how can that not create a happy life?
That’s conjured happiness.
In the end, I want what I want because I think I’ll be happier getting that. When I’m positively focused, I’m already happy. That’s the best place from which to have what I want show up. It takes out the yearning that happens when I seek happiness in getting things.
The best happiness is conjured happiness. I know that now. And thank goodness that I do because it makes getting things easy.
We shared a day in Perry’s life where small “pearls” prove he lives on cloud nine. The less effort you put into trying to get what you want, the easier life gets.
Other people are key. The Universe coordinates other people coming into your life. People showing up are pathways to what you want. The Universe puts them there according to your instruction. When you give it clear instruction, your desires come fast. That’s how life gets easy.
Drawing by the author
Today we’re sharing more examples from Perry’s life show how easy life can be. Give clear instruction, and the Universe gives you what you want.
· · ·
Last month Perry noticed how much is going right in the world. He trends positive about most things. But that day, amazement was near constant. The world is getting better and better. Even if you think it’s not.
Feeling super-positive that morning, Perry checked his email. Two notification emails mentioned the same long time friend. Let’s call him Leon. One notification came via Facebook. The other via Patreon.
Perry gets a notification that “Leon” has become a patron
Leon follows Perry’s work with Copiosis. Turns out last night he decided to support Perry’s work. The Patreon email said Leon became a $20 monthly Patron.
Perry spent a moment enjoying that news. Then he wondered why Leon changed his mind after so long. So he contacted him.
Leon said he now gets the value and power of Perry’s positive focus. So he decided to support spreading the message.
It was interesting timing. Perry feeling amazement. Then checking his inbox. Then talking to Leon. Good news everywhere.
Leon shared his new-found perspective and understanding. Meanwhile, Perry dashed off a graphic illustrating his perspective. Life gets better and better. Even what appears negative serves life’s positive long game.
Perry’s graphic showing life’s pendulum.
Perry’s friend agreed, then wrote this:
Perry thought that was a great idea. If someone could show tangibly, or “prove” what Perry knew is the case, it could help others “see the light” too.
Perry knows of course. For him, it’s not something he “thinks”. Nor is it something he “believes”. There’s a difference between “thinking”, “believing” and “knowing”.
When you “think” something, you’re supposing. It’s not knowing. You’re not sure.
When you “believe” something, you think you “know”. But there’s a difference between the two. Believe something long enough and you can know it. That’s because beliefs create reality (for the person who believes).
But knowing is distinct. It’s visceral awareness confirmed through personal life experience.
You’re Getting Everything You Want
Ever notice when you want something, yet don’t spend a lot of time or energy trying to make it happen, it happens faster?
You probably don’t notice. You’re not paying attention. So you miss how fast it comes.
It’s a lot like time. When you’re bored, you notice how slowly time passes. You watch the clock. Time seems like it runs backwards.
When you’re engaged and excited, time passes fast. You don’t notice it. When you notice time, like when you’re bored, it passes slow.
Now try this: look at your clock. Watch the clock until the minute changes. Notice how long it takes a minute to pass. Felt like a long time, yes? They say a watched pot never boils…
The same is true with what you want. The more you notice it’s not there, the longer it takes to come.
That’s because when you want something, you notice it’s missing. You think you focus on wanting that thing. But you can’t help notice the opposisite. What you want is not there.
Don’t pay much attention to the thing you want. It will come faster. That’s what happens now in your life. You don’t notice this though because it happens so quick. And because you aren’t noticing it.
In these cases, you notice something you want. Then forget about it. The larger part of you creates it instantly in your moment of becoming. Then it organizes events and people so you can have it in your “reality”.
Because you’re not paying too much attention you make room for the organizing. Then, voila! It shows up.
This happens a lot. So often you don’t notice.
For things you really want, though, it rarely happens this way. It can. But doesn’t.
The reason is obvious. You’re slowing things down. Now that you know what you know, you can fix it. It just takes practice.
· · ·
So here was Perry having this conversation. He agreed with Leon how cool it would be if someone objectively proved the world gets better. But Perry didn’t need this evidence. He knew already. So he didn’t care as much.
It would be nice though if someone did that work. Wrote a book perhaps…
That’s as far as Perry took it. Leon said he has a brother who has a Math PhD. He said he’d ask his brother if he’d look into it. Perry thought this was cool too, but didn’t think too much about that either.
After the conversation, Perry got ready for his dentist appointment. The conversation ended in time for him to get dressed, floss and brush his teeth and walk to the dentist about a mile away.
He arrived ten minutes before his appointment. It was a pleasant walk, in warm sunny weather. Everyone in the office was happy. At least everyone Perry talked with.
Usually, Perry gets his teeth cleaned by Sabrina, his hygienist. At the end of the appointment, the dentist does the exam. This time the dentist was busy with a difficult patient. Perry heard him talking with the patient in the other room. They were talking through an interpreter. The case sounded really difficult.
Sabrina the hygenist all up in Perry’s grill. (Photo by the author)
Next thing Perry knew, the dentist was there examining his teeth. The hygienist hadn’t finished. Perry asked the dentist what was up.
“I came in to see you now because I’ve got this difficult case over there,” the dentist said. “If I didn’t come do your exam now, it probably would be a while.”
This happens frequently. It’s like Perry’s the center of the universe. Little things remind him. Like a dentist’s Inner Being telling him to examine Perry’s teeth rather than making Perry wait.
Your life works this way too. The more you’re positively focused, the more evidence shows up that life is this way. Or rather, the more you can see that life happens this way. Because it is this way. You just can’t see it.
· · ·
After Perry’s appointment he walked home, teeth shiny and clean. At home an article caught his interest. It was about Andrew Yang, a democratic presidential candidate Perry follows. Two things happened at that point.
Several weeks ago, another friend introduced Perry to people belonging to this thing called the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). Several of these people’s stories didn’t make sense. They seemed to be progressives, but progressives hated them.
He didn’t understand this. But wanted to. He also didn’t want to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. So he didn’t.
On this day, though, he came across this article on Yang. It contained a link to another article. That article was about people in the IDW. The link answered all Perry’s questions. It even introduced Perry to a website created about these intellectual renegades.
Perry remembered a few weeks back thinking “I’d like to know more about what IDW is.” But didn’t pursue the answer. And an article about IDW fell into his lap.
Notice the pattern. Perry having a positively focused day. Then a friend becoming a $20/mo. patron. Then a great conversation with that guy. Then a flawless dental appointment, followed by a wonderful walk home. Then an answer to a question he asked a week before. We’re showing you how to give the Universe your instructions.
· · ·
The next day, Perry was talking with someone who responded to a story he published on Medium. There, Perry shared the same pendulum graphic he shared with his friend on Facebook. The commenter wrote back, suggesting a book from the author Steven Pinker.
Perry never heard of this book or the author. When he read it, it amazed him.
Remember Perry’s friend, Leon, said it would be a good idea if someone proved what Perry knows? That’s what Steven Pinker did in his book! It describes exactly what Leon wanted to know.
Of course, Perry told Leon.
Now it should be mentioned a LOT of people disagree with this book’s thesis. We do too. So does Perry. Reality is SUBJECTIVE. You make it what it is. That “what is” is “for your eyes only”, which is a really great James Bond film…
The point is, the planet and reality are both “big”. Big and sophisticated enough to hold all perspectives.
Which is why Perry needs no objective evidence for his knowing.
Still, were all these events, which happened in the course of a few days, coincidence?
We know the answer is “no”. So does Perry. Perry knows when you’re positively focused, life is this way. It’s this way for people who aren’t positively focused too. But they don’t see it.
They don’t see it because what they’re getting is consistent with their life-view. See the world as negative, the world is that way. If you think things can’t change, they don’t.
Life gets better for everyone. Even negative people. But not nearly as fast as it could.
There is rancor in America and elsewhere. No time more than today is communication proficiency, self control, presence of mind and command of intention needed.
Also needed: compassion, honesty, openness and vulnerability.
When a human being is scared, they do and say irrational things. Scared people try controlling environmental factors by any means necessary. If they’re scared enough, they’ll get violent.
These acts are typical for any human. Not only conservatives. Progressives verge on similar insecurity-fueled irrationality. The Anti-facists are a great example.
But progressives have no basis for their fear. They are winning.
Conservatives have a LOT of basis for theirfear. A biological basis, as we pointed out here. The future – our collective future – offers lots too. It threatens everything they hold dear.
We therefore offer this guide to progressives. Progressives are best positioned to make history. Not by changing conservative minds. But by changing how they approachconservatives.
This guide presents a path forward. Life-changing, gratifying conversations with conservatives are possible. Conversations that can change opinions are too. These are sorely needed, but they’re not happening today’s social discourse. Not enough anyway.
This opinion-changing must happen on an individual-by-individual basis. Influence on such an insignificant level can change nations.
It’s amazing what happens when a person feels heard. It’s also amazing we get so many positive responses from conservatives, such as this one:
Progressives don’t need to change the world. They need to change their approach.
So what follows describes practical, sure-fire approaches. They will work.
However, you must practice them. Becoming genuinely proficient with them will transform your experience. Not only with your conservative fellow Americans, but anyone you disagree with.
But….and it’s a big one: if you’re not genuine in your desire to form real human bonds with a fellow human being; a human being you right now may consider your existential enemy, you will not get far. Your desire to connect with this other human must be sincere. These are not debating tactics.
Your Ground Rules
Before offering the approaches let’s set your ground rules. Your rules of engagement. Not engagement with the prospective conservative. We’ll talk about that later.
These rules of engagement are for how you will engage your humanity and your brain in service of your cause. Which is to connect meaningfully with a human you may currently consider your enemy and, through that connection, have an inspiring positive experience via conversation.
So here are your ground rules:
You will not allow words to trigger your well-honed sensitivity to offense. Words are just that. Words. You are not under threat. Even if a threat is offered, they are words. A real threat is immanent behavior likely resulting in serious personal injury. Not someone’s lips moving. Maintain your calm no matter what is said. Better yet, replace your sensitivity to offense with a healthy sense humor.
Your goal is connection. Not winning. You are not trying to persuade a conservative to become progressive. Conservatives serve a beneficial purpose within humanity. Your goal is connection. So you can fulfill your primary and secondary intents and commitments, outlined below.
Your primary intent/commitment is: understanding. You must be clear and rigid in your desire to hear, understand and inquire further into what the conservative believes.
Your secondary (but no less important) intent: finding commonalities between you and your conservative conversation partner.
Follow these ground rules while applying approaches described here. You’ll be stunned as you discover how human conservatives are. Your mind will expand and you’ll understand where conservatives are coming from.
You may even become genuinely compassionate towards conservatives. Rather than claiming to be compassionate while hating conservatives. Hate, annoyance, extreme frustration are not compassion. That’s hypocrisy. If you’re progressive.
Distinguishing The Context
Now let’s talk about context. To do so we’ll distinguishing two labels which describe communication between two people. People often confuse one for the other. Doing so, they get in trouble.
You want a conversation with the conservative. The word “conversation” may mean to you the same thing as “discussion”, the other word we’re going to clarify. But these words are NOT the same. They describe two totally different intents, processes, outcomes, contexts and feelings.
One aligns with your intent (presuming you’re wanting connection). The other does not.
You want conversation
“Conversation” is a talk, usually an informal one, between two or more people exchanging ideas. You know this. But you may not know the word’s origin. Words’ origins carry their meaning so much better sometimes than their definition. So let’s look at the origin of “conversation”. Here it is:
Interesting, eh? A conversation then, is something that ends with you having a feeling of “living among, or having intimate familiarity,” with the person with whom you have conversed. This is what you want. You want a conversation. Not a discussion.
Not a discussion
Let’s contrast conversation now with “discussion”. A discussion is “the action or process of talking about something in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas.”
That sounds laudable. It’s not though.
Not in the context of making a connection with, and understanding another human being.
Discussions don’t breed familiarity. In discussions, you’re just throwing back and forth opinions. Discussions get you nowhere if you’re trying to connect.
But wait, there’s more.
People don’t generally understand what “discussion” connotes. Probably because, like “converstation”, they don’t understand the word’s origin. Here is the origin of the word “discussion”, the noun and verb so you get a clear picture.
So the intent of “discussions” is not to gain familiarity and a sense of living among the person you are speaking with. No. Its intent is “to examine by argument, to tear apart, shake or dash to pieces.”
Does that sound like the basis of connection?
We don’t think so either.
· · ·
Progressives and conservatives are not trying to connect. They are tearing each other apart. And the country along with them.
They are discussing. Not conversing.
If you want a groundbreaking interaction with a conservative, you’re going to have to move out of discussion mode and into conversation mode.
Ok?
The Right Way To Approach Conservatives
So here are the approaches. They only work if you stridently refuse to be baited. Strive instead for connection and understanding (your ground rules).
If you can’t stick to the ground rules, it’s best you first practice with someone who can role play a conservative until you get the hang of it.
The approach:
Ask more questions than sharing your opinion.
Express over and over your sincere desire to understand their point of view, not to exert yours, until they relent, i.e. realize you really do want to understand them.
Beseech your conservative to stick to answering your questions. If they avoid or refuse to answer your questions, keep (politely) redirecting the conversation back to your questions, or express vulnerability (we’ll offer an example in a moment) that may trigger them reciprocating.
When the conservative answers your question, offer sincere praise and appreciation. It is not standard practice for someone who is fearful and feeling defensive to answer a question, particularly one that demands they be vulnerable. Especially a question asked by someone the responder believes is the enemy of their values. So reward them for taking a risk.
When the person answers your question, and you have praised them, ask more questions. Offer limited information you may want to share. Instead, listen to the person’s answers.
When they answer, take in what they say. Chew on it, prepare a relevant response. Then offer the response in the form of a question or a polite rebuttal supported with examples.
If they ask a question, answer it. If you don’t have an answer, say so. Risk looking stupid. And if they call you stupid or a loser or whatever, remember ground rule number one.
Repeat these steps.
We’re not offering this in a vacuum. It has worked for Perry several times now to remarkable results. Not every time, but often enough to recommend them. We’re offering one complete example that happened on facebook. We’re offering this example because of the documented evidence. Anyone can look at it to see what happened.
Despite Perry misstepping in several moments, the conversation went quite well. Here’s an overview of it:
Perry offered the following Meme on his wall.
It’s inaccurate (which the conservative responders pointed out). But the purpose of sharing it was for conversation. Conversation did happen. It ended with the following statement. This from a conservative who at first expressed himself aggressively:
I enjoyed reading your post. We do have more in common it seems….I wish you much success in your endeavors!
This is where you want to end up. It won’t happen every time, but if you practice, you’ll get better at it. Perry screwed up in this facebook exchange a couple times. But he still ended with positive results in line with the above ground rules, objectives/intents.
So we know if you sincerely use these approaches, you’ll find yourself in a new reality. One where conservatives turn out to be human.
Just like you.
Don’t Get Triggered
A conservative defending her life-decisions, then name calling Perry in a tweet.
People who believe conservatively have been trained to be tough. They live in a brutish world where it’s dog eat dog, and survival of the fittest.
Their manner of interaction feels like discussion. Confrontational, gruff, belligerent. Not conversational. At first.
So be prepared for rebuffs, snide accusations, and direct insults. It will sound like you’re talking to Alex Jones, Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh instead of the person you’re talking with.
After all, for many conservatives, these people are their heroes. So of course they will pattern their discussion style on those peoples’ styles.
Intelligent conservatives, taking a cue from many conservative activist organizational playbooks, such as the college campus-focused Turning Point USA, will try to bait you into losing your control.
Don’t take the bait.
Compassion Wins. Always.
Self control is your best friend. Again, if you suck at self control, your best fallback is your leftie compassion.
But if “compassion” is just a word for you, or worse, something you believe you “can’t afford in these times”, which is actually something a progressive told Perry recently, then you’ve already lost.
There is always room for compassion. The best, most effective progressives – Jesus, Ghandi, MLK, Harvey Milk – have demonstrated this time and time again.
You must contain your disgust. You must respond with vulnerability. Even in the face of their disgust of you (and what they presume you believe).
For example, when Perry clarified errors a conservative made in interpreting Perry’s previous comment, the person offered the following:
I’d like to continue proving my points but you don’t seem too receptive to the logic I’m providing. Your idea of what a necessity is leaves me wondering how much of a privileged life you must have and probably still do live. Many people survive without an education and many walk to jobs or bike. Many live healthy lives without doctors and hospitals. It’s a shame that you don’t seem to have facts to support your assertions, or did I miss them somewhere in your previous posts? Again I appreciate your ‘opinion’ and respectfully disagree with most if not all of them. Assertions without facts to support them lead me to believe that all of your points are opinion based.
In response, Perry could have been triggered as a person of color, being accused of enjoying privilege. Instead, Perry offered vulnerability. How? By acknowledging his privilege:
So now let’s talk about my privilege, which is a funny thing to bring up IMO. But as I said, I’m more than happy to chat about whatever you bring up.
I am privileged. I live in a great country. It has ALWAYS been great. It also can be improved. I live in the west. I live in a democratic society. I get to live pretty much wherever my finances make it possible to live. I have a wife who loves me, pets who adore me. I enjoy the sunshine, the beautiful state of Oregon and all it has to offer. I enjoy clean air, a healthy body and mind. I enjoy clean delicious food my wife makes for me or I make. I enjoy an adventurous life, where I get to spend my time doing pretty much whatever floats my boat. My life is getting better and better as is my prosperity. I realize my eternal nature and from that I know anything is possible.
I’m also male. I’m a “black” male. I came into the world with the perfect timing such that I can enjoy both these in relative security and comfort (compared to other times). I’m also non-binary. I’m free of constraints of being “straight” (thank god!). I have the fluidity of thought to see the world from multiple perspectives, and not just human ones. I have the privilege to have time to think about life – ordinary day-to-day life, but also extraordinary aspects of life, such as what happens after death and how all that happens after death (and before birth) shapes what happens between birth and death. I have found those answers. From those answers, I know things a LOT of people don’t know. So yeah, I’m privileged. But no more than anyone can be. I can pretty much do right now, whatever floats my boats.
It just so happens, what floats my boats is creating a world where EVERYONE has the opportunity to do whatever THEY want to float THEIR boats….
You can’t be vulnerable if you’re triggered. You can’t offer cogent thoughtful replies either when you’re triggered. When you get triggered, you offer fodder confirming conservative beliefs about you and other progressives (liberals). Don’t be this guy:
Offer Food For Thought
Once you have earned their attention by thoughtfully, calmly and constructively listening to, and then expressing understanding, only then should you offer “food for thought”.
Food for thought is not telling them they are wrong. This isn’t about right and wrong. Your food for thought should be an attempt to surface their human connection to other humans…even ones they believe aren’t worthy of that connection.
So for example, when a conservative says people who don’t work are parasites and deserve to starve, you must figure out a way to show how a person can do whatever he wants (even not work, for example) but shouldn’t have to starve. Or worse, work a job but not afford healthcare.
If you can’t do that, you have no basis for making such a claim. And a conservative will tell you.
Some conservatives (many people actually) view people negatively. Conservatives particularly believe people are lazy good-for-nuthins. People must earn their living by doing productive work, they believe. These beliefs aren’t factual. They’re conditioned or taught, which is exactly what a conservative told Perry recently:
…Maybe it’s because i’ve been conditioned to believe a certain way or possibly my life experience has taught me to be cautious….
A good way to chart unknown territory with a conservative: appeal to their well-known territory (for the conservative). That is, talk about liberty. But not the way conservatives talk about it.
Liberty as you may know, is a major conservative talking point. But the kind of liberty (aka “freedom”) conservatives believe in is a kind of pseudo-freedom. It’s not really freedom as it is based on coercion: As far as conservatives believe, your freedom doesn’t extend to being a lazy parasite on society. Another way of putting that is: your freedom shouldn’t cost me or anyone else. So pull your own weight.
The response to this point is: “you’re right. And in the 21st Century no one’s freedom should cost anyone anything. This is the future. Everything is possible.”
· · ·
Perry likes offering this tasty morsel, which creates amazing moments that, at first, stupefies conservatives. But then leads to remarkable, real, conversations.
It begins with Perry’s definition of real freedom:
“A person who is really free can do nothing if that’s what they want to do. A person who wants to spend all their time learning to paint, play video games all day, or fish or whatever, can. And they can do those things (or anything else) without going hungry, living on the street, or getting care for their body (or mind) if necessary. If they’re free that is. They can also get all the education they need or want to learn or improve any skill while doing whatever they want without having to earn money to get those things. And…the person exercising their freedom can do so without anyone else having to do anything they don’t want to do to support that person.”
A definition like that will short circuit most people’s brains (conservative and progressive) namely because most people can’t figure out how this kind of freedom is possible. Perry explains how this is possible. Then shows how the world is careening towards exactly that outcome for everyone.
Your food for thought, therefore, must halt a conservative’s talking points in its tracks. It must get them genuinely thinking. Not spouting conservative boilerplate.
Another example: Perry was at a Starbucks recently. There he happened to sit in a nest of conservatives. That wasn’t his intent. It just happened.
One of the conservative’s asked “what do you do for a living?”
“I don’t do anything for a living,” Perry said. “I don’t believe my living requires me to do anything.”
This conservative’s friend, Mary, piped in.
“So you’re a socialist,” She said.
“No. I’m not,” Perry said.
“Then what are you?” Mary asked.
Knowing Mary was likely a conservative, and therefore Christian (which she was) Perry said “I am what Jesus is.”
That derailed Mary’s train of thought. Now Mary had to ask a question likely not included in her talking points:
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“I am that I am,” Perry said.
The conversation turned to Christianity. Perry is not Christian, but he is well-versed on fundamental accuracies upon which Christianity’s distortions are based.
So he was able to form a connection with Mary through her religious beliefs. Then he turned the conversation towards Christian compassion. He was about to ask Mary if her compassion extends to immigrants and if not why not.
But Mary ran out of time (she had to catch a plane).
Still, you can see, by not getting baited into a debate about “socialism” and name calling, and instead connecting with something Mary held dear (her Christian beliefs), Perry found room in between Mary’s boilerplate about people who she prejudges as “socialists”.
You can do this too.
And not only will the conversations you have stun you in their originality, you’ll learn that underneath all that lashing out, anger and conservative closed-mindedness is a human being wanting to be understood and connected with.
That is the short answer to this entire approach. Giving conservatives what they want, so their minds open.
· · ·
If progressives really want the world they want, they must find a way to give conservatives what they want.
Until you know what that is, you can’t give it to them. And you can’t know unless you understand them. And, you can’t understand them unless you’re willing to talk with them.
And finally, if your approach is based on not understanding justified conservative fear that they’re losing everything, and that’s why they are lashing out, you’re going to have a hard time having a conversation with them.
Rancor in America and elsewhere can be mended. But you can’t expect conservatives to make the first step.
Someone has to though. That someone can be you. And this guide can help.
Arnold thinks you need to work your ass off. He’s wrong. (Art credit: The author)
Modern life says, if you want something you should set a vision. Next, set goals and objectives, put them on a timeline and track your progress. If you work your ass off, struggle and get lucky, you succeed.
None of that is necessary.
Many mainstream leaders, motivational speakers and successful people encourage these steps. But you can have anything you want easier than that.
And, you don’t have lose any of your ass. 😜
The easiest way to getting anything you want is by being happy.
That sounds crazy, we know.
Most mainstream leaders, motivational speakers and successful people didn’t become successful by being happy.
They can only tell you how they did it. Theirs is the hard way.
Yet, nearly everyone tries finding success that way. Rather than trying a different, better way. Their way works. But it’s no fun. And success isn’t guaranteed.
Happiness brings success 100 percent of the time. You don’t need luck. You needn’t work hard.
You only need to know three things:
Why feeling happy works
How to use happiness and,
What the purpose of happiness is.
“There’s a purpose to happiness?”
You bet.
Ask someone next to you what is the purpose of happiness. Likely they won’t have a good answer. They will say happiness is an emotion. They may say it doesn’t have a purpose. Or that happiness makes you feel good. Some will say they don’t know.
Some even steer you away from happiness.
Almost 135,000 claps. A lot of people don’t know what purpose happiness serves. (Photo: Medium.com)
Yet your emotional capacity is purposeful. Powerful too. Your emotional capacity is the most powerful tool you have.
Once you understand its purpose, if you make being happy your number one priority, everything you want comes quickly, easily, and in great numbers.
Some people poo-poo happiness because they don’t understand its power. We’ll explain how and why happiness is so powerful later. We’ll even show you how to use happiness to get anything you want.
But first, check out how Perry realized several dreams at once, just by being happy.
How Perry Gets What He Wants Without Goal Setting, Working Hard Or Losing His Ass
Perry fell in love with sailing three summers ago. It started with a class he took on an impulse. He loved his first time on a sail boat. The sails grabbed the wind. The wind pushed the boat over on its side as it increased speed. Invigorating!
That first experience begat a new dream. How cool would it be, he thought, exploring the world this way?
Perry had no sailing experience. Only one class. That didn’t matter though. He knew others sailing around the world today. Families, couples, even single people are doing it. Some didn’t have experience when they started either. Many taught themselves.
How hard could it be?
It’s sailing. How hard can it be? (Photo: By Bcebul – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Besides, Perry thought, he has his Inner Being. It has access to all knowledge. It knows where everything Perry wants is. And it knows how to lead him to it.
Another question people can’t answer is what’s Earth’s purpose? Does it have a purpose? Or is it a random result of chance?
Earth exists on purpose. It’s here so you can come, refine your interests from Earth’s massive variety. Then live those interests to the fullest extent imaginable. Aided by your Broader Perspective, the universe and All That Is, your time on Earth can include any experience.
Perry knows this. So when his first sailing class finished that summer, sailing around the world became something he wanted. But he set no goals or timelines. Instead, he knew being happy would bring him what he wanted.
· · ·
Perry joined the sailing club that hosted his class. That gave him a year to practice sailing using the club’s boats. But he couldn’t sail them alone. He didn’t have enough experience.
He needed a sailing partner. It so happened he met a guy in class who also fell in love with sailing. His name was Jarrett.
Jarrett aboard a training sailboat. (Photo by the author)
When you’re happy, not only do you not have to set intentions and goals, but all resources you need literally come to you. Including people.
These people’s Broader Perspectives put them on your path because your path lines up with theirs. Your Broader Perspective and their Broader Perspective coordinate events, matching people and resources. Such nonphysical communication happens all the time. That’s how events become events.
Including events comprising your life. So long as you don’t muck up the process, your life experience is a wonderful joyride. Being happy is how you keep from mucking up the process.
· · ·
Jarrett and Perry became friends. But Jarrett didn’t have money for a club membership.
No problem, Perry thought. Jarrett could be my guest. Here’s a video Perry took with Jarrett on a club boat cruising on the beautiful Columbia River.
For the next year, Perry and Jarrett’s friendship deepened. Turns out, Jarrett shares Perry’s life convictions. He too believes people create their reality and that life is meant to be fun. Jarrett works as a contract sound engineer. Like Perry, his time is his. He doesn’t have to be at a job every day. So he has a lot of free time.
Note the combination of people and events here: Jarrett’s time flexibility afforded by his occupation; Jarrett and Perry’s mutual beliefs; Both men taking the same class, at the same time. These illustrate how thoroughly your Broader Perspective organizes events on your behalf leaving out no detail.
How hard do you think it would have been for Perry organize this on his own? Finding someone who likes to sail, who has the time to spend sailing, who can pay for the class and believes the same thing he does? That would be no small feat.
But it’s a cinch for your Broader Perspective.
This is why people who don’t understand happiness believe they must struggle, work hard and set goals. That’s what you must do when you don’t know about your Broader Perspective. You’re on your own. On your own, you don’t have the resources nor the connections. That’s why you need luck and hard work.
Comparison Contains The Seeds Of Unhappiness.
One day, three months later, Jarrett arrived with news. Out of the blue, his uncle, a successful orthopedic surgeon, gave him a sailboat. A San Juan 7.7. Jarrett’s uncle bought the boat more than 20 years ago. He never sailed it. It sat in a barn all that time.
Jarrett was excited. He didn’t know his uncle had a boat. Let alone a sail boat. Knowing what he knows, Jarrett knew this was his Broader Perspective at work. With no effort, Jarrett, who had never sailed in his life, now owned his own sail boat!
Now, Perry could have been excited too. But he wasn’t.
Outwardly he was happy for Jarrett. But inside, he was jealous.
Jarrett went on and on about his boat. About how it was equipped. Modifications his uncle added. Modifications he wanted to do. He was so excited.
Perry wasn’t excited.
He was thinking about how it must be to be white. How it must be to have a successful family. He wanted to be happy for his friend. But the more Jarrett talked about this damn boat, the less fun Perry was having. Even though it was a perfect day for sailing.
Perry was mucking up the process! How? By comparing his life to Jarrett’s!
Comparing your life with another’s is never a good idea (Photo: Feliperizo-co-heart-made on Unsplash)
When you compare your life to someone you perceive has it better than you, unhappiness happens. Good news is, turning comparison’s unhappiness into happiness is easy. If you catch it early, that is.
So comparison can be beneficial. Feelings comparison conjures can serve as alerts. Like alerts, they can jolt you from habitual, indeliberate thinking.
Perry felt awful thinking about Jarrett’s “white privilege”. White privilege, while real, is not something you want to think about if you’re not white. Thinking about someone’s white privilege when you’re not white guarantees unhappiness.
Even if you are white, thinking about your white privilege can cause unhappiness. That’s why most white people don’t think about it!
Perry knew this of course. What he didn’t know was everything was working out perfectly for him, and for Jarrett. There were plenty pleasant surprises ahead.
But first, things were going to get “worse”.
Jarrett onboard Achilles I at dry dock. (Photo by the author)
The world around you is your subjective life experience. Your life experience comprises a stream of one accretion event after another.
These events look like random compositions of people, circumstances, objects and experiences strung together in a certain timing. Your string of accretion events over time is your life.
Events, circumstances, people and objects in your life aren’t random. These planned events seem random. But they’re not. Who is planning them? And how are they planned?
You plan them. You do so using two simultaneous processes. One is what you look at. The other is what you think about what you look at.
Look at happy things or think happy thoughts. You’ll feel happy. What you’re looking at and thinking about organizes future accretion events matching current ones. Your life will fill with more and more happy events, people and circumstances.
Look at unhappy things or think unhappy thoughts. You won’t feel happy. What you’re looking at and thinking about organizes future accretion events matching current ones. Your life will fill with more and more events, people and circumstances like what you observe.
So, you decide what events, people, situations and circumstances become your experience. You know which ones are coming by how you feel and what you predominately look at and think about.
That’s how you create your life. No one else is doing it. You’re here to create a joyful life, filled with experiences you want to have. But nearly everyone doesn’t live that way, do they?
Why? Because they don’t know what you now know.
Instead, they live life not knowing their feelings are important. They think feelings just come and go. They think they’re responses to what happens in the world. That’s not what they are. That’s not what they’re doing. They are part of processes that create what’s in the world.
· · ·
Emotions are navigational instruments. They help create your life. Like any instrument, they give you information. The information tells you what you’re creating.
Your emotions are navigational instruments. Like this aircraft instrument panel, emotions tell you where you are in relation to your desires: Towards them or away from them. (Photo: Kent Pilcher on Unsplash)
Sometimes your accretion event path includes what feels like negative events. Like feeling jealous because a white guy got a free boat, and you got nothin’. That may feel unpleasant. It may infuriate you. It may cause you to fight for justice.
But “unpleasant” is not encouraging you to fight for anything. It’s offering important navigational information.
Happiness works just like this altimeter. (Photo: FAA public domain)
Say you are flying an airplane one thousand feet in the air. The altimeter (pictured right), which tells you how high above the ground you are, indicates you are descending at a rate of 400 feet a minute.
That means in two minutes thirty seconds, you will crash into the ground.
That’s something you’d want to know, right? Knowing that, you’d probably do something about that. Right? Would you fight for lowering the ground or raising the sky? Of course not.
In the same way “unpleasant” is your instrument giving you actionable information. Perry knows this. He’s been practicing reading his “instrument panel”, the emotions he feels moment by moment. He understands what they mean.
Today, two and a half years after this story, he’s almost mastered acting instantly to his instruments. Experiences in this story helped Perry get where he is now.
The point is, experiences labeled “bad”, “negative”, “unfortunate”, “bad luck”, etc. are never that. They are always good. They are part of the adventure, practice opportunities.
These experiences teach how to read your instruments so you can “fly” through a life full of your best dreams, realized.
You can fly through your life with ease. No hard work or struggle. (Photo: Ayko Neil Kehl on Unsplash)
Back to Perry.
So Perry realized he was at a “you create your reality” cross roads.
On one hand, he felt opportunity. He knew he was the on the path of eventually sailing around the world. If he stayed positive, he’d have many adventures of a lifetime.
On the other hand, and at the exact same time, he felt jealous and bitter comparing his life with Jarrett’s.
But here’s the thing: this path would also culminate in many adventures of a lifetime.
Note that. Both paths leading to the same outcome. Both paths an adventure.
The only difference is the second path takes longer than the first.
Perry’s negative feelings were not because of Jarrett’s supposed White Privilege. At that moment, and many that followed, Perry “faced” both potential paths simultaneously. In that moment, the second path was more probable by the first. How could he tell? By how he felt.
In other words, Perry’s beliefs about disadvantage, “Institutional Racism”, and “White Privilege”, vied with beliefs that Perry can have anything he wants any time he is ready. He could choose any belief. At that moment, he wasn’t choosing the second.
Why? It’s simple. The first ones were more practiced, that’s all.
The more you think a thought or believe a belief, the more influence it has on future life events. The good news is, at any time a thinker or believer can change how they think or believe.
Perry’s anguish was saying: there’s a shorter path! A more fun path! It’s the happy path!
Believing you can have anything you want whenever you’re ready is empowering. Believing your life experiences are limited because of your skin color is not. Both create life experiences consistent with themselves!
Looking back Perry gets it. As we’re writing this through his fingers, he sees how beneficial that moment and the following ones were.
But like many people, most people actually, Perry didn’t make a bold, clear choice. Instead, he waffled between anguish and a measly happiness. Perry stayed in this conflicted space a long time. For months. What happened next illustrates everything you’ve read so far.
Jesus Is Right: You Reap What You Sow. But You’re Never Stuck With It.
Perry’s club membership expired. Jarrett and Perry couldn’t use the club’s boats anymore. But they weren’t worried. Jarrett told Perry once he got “Achilles I” prepped and had it in the water, they’d resume their adventure.
Imagine the mixed bag Perry felt about that!
On one hand, it was wonderful. Had Perry went with that, the next year would have been different. Instead he went with the other hand. 😜
On the other hand, Perry would get to sail, sure. But every time he set foot on “Achilles I”, he’d be reminded about….well…you know.
Then something interesting happened.
Jarrett disappeared.
He wasn’t abducted. He wasn’t murdered. Perry didn’t now what happened. For the next eight months, Perry tried to reach Jarrett. Summer came and went. So did prime sailing weather. He left Jarrett text messages, emails.
Nothing. Of course, Perry thought the worst.
He made Jarrett’s lack of communication about him and Jarrett. He thought Jarrett had used him and his membership to sharpen his sailing skills. Now that he had his own boat, he didn’t need Perry any more. 🙄 🤷🏽♂️
He imagined Jarrett sailing with his friends. His white friends. He imagined that boat being amazing and he being left out. And, as you can imagine, this thinking left him in emotional turmoil.
From Giphy
Here’s what was really going on: Perry’s negative thinking orchestrated accretion events matching the negative thinking. But only for Perry. Jarrett absent for who knows why. Perry in the dumps. No membership meant no boats. No Jarrett also meant no boat. No boat meant no sailing.
After many months, Perry finally did something about his thoughts and beliefs. Using this process he relieved himself of negative thoughts and beliefs about “White Privilege”. The more insignificant they became, the more clarity he gained.
He also gave up criticizing and feeling sorry for himself. He did journal work examining more thoughts and beliefs. In a little while he remembered everything is always working out for him. And he knew in time all this was going to turn out perfectly.
That’s exactly what happened.
One day Jarrett texted. Turns out his dad had a stroke and needed a lot of care. His family needed his help. His dad survived. But he wasn’t the same.
Jarrett and his dad sailing Achilles I. (Photo by the author)
Perry felt like a cad. Remember what we wrote about emotions! They are indicators, like an altimeter. “Feeling like a cad” is an indicator. That’s all. It was telling Perry he could feel differently about things. He only needed to think different.
· · ·
Your Broader Perspective has a bird’s eye view of your life. It knows everything you want and how to get it. It knows there are many paths to what you want.
You don’t have this perspective. You’re human. But you can access your Broader Perspective’s viewpoint. How do you know you’ve done that?
When you feel happy. Happy is the indicator.
Here’s what was great about Jarrett “disappearing”: It gave Perry time revise old disempowering beliefs. Beliefs that slow progress or lengthen the path.
Remember! You can’t live happily if you’re comparing, complaining or entertaining beliefs like “White Privilege” and “Institutional Racism”.
Yet, these things are real. But do they serve you thinking about them? Are you happy thinking about them? No one is. And if you’re not happy, you’re taking the long way. Like Perry was.
So Perry and Jarrett reconnected. Jarrett said Achilles I was at a boat yard. He invited Perry to see it. What happened next was perfect.
The Grass LOOKS Greener But It Never Really Is
Ye ol’ Achilles I on the trailer ready to move. (Photos of Achilles by Jarrett)
We did write that the boat was free, right?
Free and over 20 years old.
Achilles I wasn’t a ready-to-sail beauty. It needed a lot of work. When Perry saw it, he immediately felt better. He was also glad he was not in Jarrett’s shoes. Achilles I’s sails housed mice for 20 years. They were chewed through, pissed on and pooped on. There were holes and repairs needed in the fiberglass hull. The electronics were kaput. Even the engine needed work.
Look at all that dirt and debris! (Photo by Jarrett)
Looking from the bow of Achilles I in the barn. Note how dirty the sail is. (Photo by Jarrett)
From the cockpit looking forward. Note how much dust covered Achilles I decks. It was going to take a lot of work! (Photo by Jarrett)
Looking in the cockpit. The ropes were sitting for decades! (Photo by Jarrett)
Achilles I stern. More work than Perry would have wanted. (Photo by Jarrett)
Getting this boat for free seemed like an envy worthy event. Seeing it in person, Perry saw it much different. He had no responsibility, expense or worry about getting Achilles I ready to sail. But he still got to sail in it.
Jarrett tore apart the engine and overhauled a lot of it. (Photo by Jarrett)
Most of Achilles I’s wiring needed redoing. (Photo by Jarrett)
The front side of Achilles I’s engine taken apart for overhaul. (Photo by Jarrett)
Before…(Photo by Jarrett)
…After (Photo by Jarrett)
Revarnishing the “tiller” what the helmsman uses to steer. (Photo by Jarrett)
One day in the boat yard Perry confessed how he’d been thinking about all this. “It’s ok buddy,” Jarrett said. “I want you to sail with me. I can do the repair work. You’re the only one I know who knows how to sail!”
What a nice ending to the story. Only that wasn’t the end. It got so much better!
Your Broader Perspective Knows “How” Better Than You
Meanwhile his Broader Perspective orchestrated other events. Perry focused being positive about his sailing partner’s good fortune. He busied himself with sailing videos. He visited sailing stores, and read about yachts online. These activities inspired him. They also put him and his Broader Perspective in tune. That made what happened next.
Perry followed an impulse and called a yacht broker. Why not talk with someone who might sell him a boat one day, he thought. Upon hearing his story, the broker offered good advice.
“You might want to find someone willing to take you out on the open ocean,” He said. The broker recommended someone offering such services. But it cost over $4,000 a trip!
Perry wasn’t interested in that.
Meanwhile, Jarrett readied Achilles I. He planned to tow it to a boat ramp, get it in the water, then motor it the last mile into its new home at the local marina.
He needed crew. He called Perry.
What an adventure (in not a good way)! The boat did float. That’s about all. It had no navigation lights. No radio. Not even any sails!
Jarrett arrived at the ramp by 1 p.m. By five, Achilles I still wasn’t in the water. The problem? Hoisting the mast. Once they did that, they put Achilles I in.
Jarrett, the author and his family working on Achilles I at the boat ramp. (Photo by Jarrett’s mom)
But the battery couldn’t start the engine. Jarrett’s parents helped McGuyver the motor running just as it was getting dark. Legally, they should have had navigation lights. Jarrett figured with the motor running, they’d cover the mile before sun down.
Two thirds of the way, the motor quit. Darkness fell a long time ago. No navigation lights. No radio. No motor. No problem. They remembered a tow service emergency number stored in their phones.
Ninety minutes later, they were in the marina. The towboat captain said they were lucky they called. Even with the motor working, had they headed into the marina on their own, odds were they would have run aground.
Jarrett and Achilles I in the marina days after the night time arrival. (Photo by the author)
Did we say everything is always working out?
· · ·
A week later, Perry remembered a website talked about at class. There, people who have sail boats but no crew, and people without boats but wanting to sail could meet online. If the chemistry worked out, the yacht owner could invite the other person to sail on his yacht as crew. Perry found the site and signed up. Three weeks later, he got a call.
The guy introduced himself as Mike. He didn’t own a yacht. He did have an offer Perry couldn’t refuse. Mike told Perry he’s been on the open ocean for more than 50 years. He’s been all over the world. He told Perry he has captained nearly every kind of pleasure boat, and many commercial boats.
Captain Mike (Photo by the author)
Mike said he owned a business moving boats around the world. He was looking for people wanting open ocean experience. You don’t need any experience, he said. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Mike said his teams moved boats owners either didn’t have time or expertise to do it themselves.
Perry asked Mike how much it would cost him.
“Nothing,” Mike said. “I pay all your expense. You just help me move the boat.”
Captain Mike looking at instruments at the helm while Curt, a crew member steers the boat. (Photo by the author)
Consider this: Perry didn’t know Mike. He didn’t know people do what Mike does. Perry didn’t know a guy like Mike lived not 20 miles from Perry. Perry didn’t know Mike was looking for crew.
When your Broader Perspective organizes events in your life, it works with other people’s Broader Perspectives. Your Broader Perspective has your best interests in mind. Other people’s Broader Perspectives have your interests in mind too. And vice versa.
So when a person shows up in your life, they agreed, through their Broader Perspective, to be there. In being there, they get what they are wanting. Even as you get what you want. Everyone in any situation gets the same thing: what they want. There are no exceptions to this.
That’s how we know everything is always working out. Life is a massive collective orchestration. It’s happening between billions of Broader Perspectives. Together they coordinate innumerable events, which become life on earth.
Mike was looking for unusual people. People interested in being on the open ocean. People who had time for that. People willing to do it for no pay. People who were passionate about it and willing to not just endure but enjoy it.
In return, Mike promised adventure. He promised his crew would learn all there is to know about the open ocean. Navigation, anchoring, safety, hazards…the works.
In other words, exactly what Perry wanted.
It was a perfect fit.
Perry’s first trip was amazing. Mike, and Perry, Jay and Curt two other volunteers, gathered at the Port of Ilwaco, Washington. Their voyage: take the “Mabel J”, a 44-foot TolleyCraft, north over 300 miles to Olympia, Washington.
“Mabel J” being inspected by the crew. (All “ Mabel J” photos by the author)
Engine oil leaks cause a plume of white smoke on startup.
This being his first trip, Perry mostly watched and took pictures. It was a pleasure cruise on a calm sea, which put an ear-to-ear grin on Perry’s face.
Every fulfilled desire contains seeds of new desires. No matter how fulfilling something is, amidst fulfillment exists desire for more. People ask “how does eternity work? Where does it come from?”
The answer is, through desire-fulfillment. New desires are born out of every fulfilled one. Life, eternal life, gets created from new desires born from within fulfilled ones.
Case in point: Perry’s first trip. It got him on the open ocean. The weather was perfect. The trip was easy, leaving lots of time for relaxation. Not more than he could handle. Just enough.
But “Mabel J” was a motor boat. Not a sail boat. The boat was old too. Engine exhaust wafted through cabins, sinking into everyone’s clothes. Everyone breathed diesel fumes the whole trip.
Straight out of the 70s baby! Mabel J’s main salon (Photo by the author)
Mabel J’s galley. (Photo by the author)
The dining area aboard Mabel J. (Photo by the author)
The double berth aboard Mabel J
The author’s ample “owner’s cabin”. It was right above the two CAT engines, so Perry got all the fumes he could handle. And then some! (Photo by the author)
Perry’s poop place. (Photo by the author)
And his hand washing station. ((Photo by the author)
As far as captains go, Mike was stoic but fair. In stressful times, though he was harsh. Everyone aboard respected Mike. After all, he alone was responsible for the owner’s boat. Boats typically costing tens if not many hundreds of thousands of dollars. As captain, his crew is his responsibility too.
So he made sure everyone knew where they stood relative to his authority.
The Captain is always right. That is, if you want to get home. (Photo by the author)
Perry didn’t like this. He prefers being his own ship’s captain. Literally and figuratively.
So here he was, getting to test himself on the open ocean. That fulfilled desire birthed more desire: Sailing his own yacht. Moving by wind, not motor. Sailing in greater luxury. Sailing on his own.
Perry’s Broader Perspective immediately realized all these desires. They would soon become Perry’s reality too. So long as Perry stayed positively focused.
So he ignored what was complaint-worthy. Instead, he put his thoughts on the voyage’s positive aspects. There were many.
For example, cruising into the Puget Sound early one morning, they had over twenty Orca sightings. That night at dinner, Perry learned people come from all over the US to see Orcas in Puget Sound. They pay hundreds to do so. But most see nothing. Not a single whale.
Perry also saw seals, sea lions and dolphin. Minke and Humpback whales too.
One of more than a dozen Orcas seen on the author’s voyage (Photo by the author)
Sea lions basking off the Washington coast. (Photo by the author)
Seattle’s skyline takes on a whole different look from the water. (Photo by the author)
Another Orca spotted in the Puget Sound. (Photo by the author)
Beautiful lighting showed up everywhere. (Photo by the author)
Top that voyage!
Broader Perspective: “Hold my beer!”
Remember, your Broader Perspective has access to infinite possibilities. Perry’s was only getting started!
Days after that trip, Mike called again. He had another assignment. Move a boat from Oxnard, California up to Puget Sound. Mike explained this was a 44-foot Mason sail boat from the mid 80s. Named “Eclipse” it’s fully equipped, ready for ocean voyages, he said. Mason 44s are well-respected and regarded open ocean sail boats. Many sailors covet them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZvBLsN1Wp4
Mike thought it would take at least a week or two, to move her. A lot depended on the weather, which was getting worse by the day. Assignments usually diminish in winter. But the owner hoped “Eclipse” could make it north before winter storm season hit.
Mike explained the risks. He was optimistic they’d at least make it halfway. Perry was in. He was excited! In less than a month, he went from no opportunity, to nearly every opportunity.
The Perfect Ocean Adventure Opens Perry’s Eyes
The crew took Amtrak south to Oxnard.
Mike first reserved business class for himself, coach class for his crew. Perry asked if he could pay the extra $50 for business class. Business class is more comfortable. Mike said it wasn’t. Prior to departure, Mike changed his mind. To the crew’s surprise and pleasure everyone had business-class tickets. The business car was quieter and more comfortable.
Rail travel was an adventure in itself. Perry was born in California. Traveling by rail afforded many stops in towns reminiscent of home, including Davis, San Jose, San Luis Obispo and Van Nuys. They served surprisingly good food in the dining car, which Perry enjoyed. He also met and talked with many people who had great stories. There was plenty time too to relax and read and watch California’s desert scenery.
It was a literal vacation. And another desire fulfilled: Perry always wanted to travel through California by rail.
Three days later they arrived at the Marina in Oxnard late that night. They put their gear aboard “Eclipse”, then slept the first night on the boat.
The next morning, Perry explored “Eclipse” in daylight. Its blue hull shined in the California sun. Her hull contrasted nicely with its white and grey decks and golden varnished wood accents. As advertised, “Eclipse” had all kinds of equipped, including an autopilot. Autopilot meant the boat could hold its own course, making hand-steering infrequent. A nice luxury.
Eclipse from the bow. Note the beautiful hull paint, etched stripe and golden varnished wood. (Photo by the author)
Eclipse from the stern as crew member Jay fills the tanks. (Photo by the author)
Decks of Eclipse starboard side. Plenty of equipment for ocean passages. (Photo by the author)
Decks of Eclipse port side. She had more than enough equipment for the journey. (Photo by the author)
View of Eclipse’s cockpit and stern. (Photo by the author)
“How fun it’s going be!” Perry thought. Then he thought about “Mabel J”. Would this trip be better? He counted on it.
And it was.
Mike, a master weather navigator, threaded needles between storm fronts. When that wasn’t possible, they waited out storms in safe anchorages.
As we said before, every fulfilled dream contains seeds of more desire. Living aboard “Eclipse” was not the dream experience Perry imagined. Modern sail boats look like Manhattan Apartments on the inside. They’re beautiful, with their light colors, lots of windows and amenities like microwaves, TVs, washing machines and more.
Interior of a modern ocean cruiser, the CNB 66. (Photo from CNB 66 Promotional brochure. Fair use assessment on file – educational purposes)
This boat’s traditional mariner interior was no doubt beautiful…to some people. To Perry’s champagne tastes, it was worn, cramped, dark. The bathroom was filthy. It reeked of old piss. At anchor, the boat rocked constantly. Its water and fuel tanks sloshed so loud, it was hard to sleep. Sleeping aboard was uncomfortable. Far more uncomfortable than sleeping aboard “Mabel J”. Especially with four other people on a boat really built to accommodate three max. Had Perry not been exhausted each night, sleeping would have been impossible.
The dark, nearly window-less, dank interior of a mid-1980s blue ocean sailboat. (Photo by the author)
Worse, still, Perry got seasick. A lot. The sea was rough most the way. While admiring the view, or standing at the helm, he was fine. The moment he focused on a task – raising a sail, coiling a rope, even taking off his rain gear below – he got sea sick.
Then one night, mid way through, Mike made a calculation error. Winds were stronger than expected. Ocean swells were higher than expected too. Then it got dark. Twenty-five knot winds blew “Eclipse” in circles despite the crew’s best efforts to keep her on course.
A sail jammed. Motoring now, all hands kept watch. Making matters more hairy, crab season started the same week. Commercial fishermen laid hundreds of crab pots along their course. Darkness made seeing their floating buoys near-impossible. Running over one put the pot’s line inline with the boat’s propeller. If the prop got jammed with rope…
Perry didn’t want to think about that.
Usually, Mike stayed below, monitoring charts and catching shut-eye in case an emergency commanded his attention. Not tonight. Over the next three hours, Mike, who is probably near 80, stood at the front of the cockpit, peering through a tiny night vision scope yelling commands to Perry at the helm.
“Turn right!”
“Hard right now! now! now!”
“Left, left, left, now!!!”
“ Nooooo…RIGHT!”
As we’re writing this through Perry’s fingers, he’s smiling. It was something to smile about…after it was over. That night though, no one was laughing. Especially Mike.
Finally, Mike had enough of Perry’s novice steering skills. He called Oneonta to replace him. After a few moments though she was relieved. Jay, the senior crew member, took over. But even he had trouble. Mike was beyond stressed. But Jay, having three trips with Mike under his belt, took it in stride.
It was a harrowing experience right until they pulled into safe harbor around 2 a.m. The physical and psychological strain took its toll on everyone. Especially Mike. Once tied to the dock, he collapsed against the cabin, clearly wiped out.
So was everyone else. Next morning, Mike decreed there’d be no more sailing through the night.
· · ·
The weather picture up north cut the trip short. They left “Eclipse” in Crescent City, California. Perry was glad to be on land again after five days at sea and 10 days away from home. He was exhausted. He never wanted to see “Eclipse” again.
On their six-hour drive back to Portland, he remembered what Jay suggested that dangerous night.
“I think you might want to rethink being on the open ocean,” Jay said.
Sound advice, Perry thought.
Perry got what he wanted. He also learned something. Maybe, he thought, he isn’t fit for the open ocean. That lesson cost him nothing. He had a (mostly) great time.
More important, he saved a lot of money. He prepared to spend millions on his dream yacht.
Did this mean the end of his sailing adventure?
Nope. Every fulfilled desire sows seeds of more desires.
Before leaving “Eclipse” Perry talked with Mike about his seasickness. Mike said most people get over seasickness. Mike said doctors don’t really know very much about why seasickness happens. In his 50 years on the world’s oceans, with dozens of different people, Mike thinks it’s caused by stress. Not ocean conditions.
On Perry’s first open ocean trip, he didn’t get seasick. The second where there was far more stress and danger. Seasick a-plenty.
Who knows? Maybe Mike is right.
· · ·
Months later, Perry thought about that conversation. He thought about how stressful it was crewing for Mike. He thought about how uncomfortable it felt being out of his element. On the open ocean for the second time, first time on a sail boat. He wondered how much being on a boat owned by someone else made it more stressful. He thought how serving under an authority added more stress. He thought about that harrowing night. That alone was stressful!
The more he thought about this, the more he realized this adventure might not be over. He needed more experience. Under different, less stressful conditions. Like Hawaii maybe. 😀🏝
You never reach the end of anything. Life is eternal. Its eternity springs from your desires. Everyone has endless desires. Today Perry attends to his companies, following impulses from his Broader Perspective. His main goal in life is being happy. He knows what happiness means. Being happy lets him know his path will consistently yield happy experiences.
Everything you do in the end is about being happy. People usually do things they think will “make them happy”. Perry figured out life works best the other way around. Being happy first IS being happy. From there you can’t help having experiences matched to that.
We wrote a great piece about how to use happiness the way it’s intended. It’s easy. It results come in seconds. (HT – Abraham-Hicks)
You now know what modern life, motivational speakers and “successful people” don’t. You don’t have to set an intention, make goals and objectives, put them on a timeline, track your progress, and then work your ass off.
You can keep your ass and be successful. Just be happy first. Then watch what happens.
Everyone is born with unique talents. That includes you.
You also come with tendencies. Tendencies leaning toward expressing those talents. Feeling those tendencies then following them will change your life.
It is not possible to come to earth with no passions, skills, strengths or direction. Are you feeling like you have none of these? Are you bored about life? Feel stuck in a rut? The problem isn’t what you’re doing. It’s how you’re thinking.
You brought everything with you needed to live your greatest life ever. Living your greatest life ever includes consistent happiness.
Happiness is an emotion you conjure deliberately. When you don’t, it comes and goes.
Here’s the secret to living your greatest life ever: Be happy first. Then everything you want comes easily.
There’s a reason you feel bored or tired or sad or unfulfilled. It’s saying “How you are thinking right now needs to change if you want what you want.”
· · ·
Ask someone “what is the purpose of emotions?” You won’t get the answer you just got. Yet it is the key to everything you want.
Not many people know you can become happy in a few seconds no matter what is happening. Not knowing this, happiness is fleeting.
But happiness can be permanent. Learning to conjure happiness is all it takes.
“How do you conjure it?” you ask.
We’ll get to that. But first, let’s spend some time exploring why being happy first gets you all you want.
Happiness is the key to everything. It’s more than just an emotion. (photo: Artem Bali)
Happy matters…a lot
What if you had two options:
Option A:
Work your ass off. Struggle. Scramble to network and contact. Try to find people you need on your side. Then, some time later….through all kinds of trials and struggles…you make it. Whatever “it” is for you.
It’s a great story to tell. “War wounds” galore. Maybe your marriage failed along the way. Or you have a substance abuse problem. Or you developed an anxiety disorder in the process.
Sure you might be rich. But you might not be. And if you are, you might lose it. A lot of successful people fear losing their success.
That’s not being happy.
Option B:
Be happy first. Tap into your Broader Perspective so you can feel your tendencies. Then learn to follow them.
This way, happiness comes in two or three minutes instead of after you make it. At that point, you have what you want: you’re happy.
But it doesn’t end there.
The right people, the right timing, the right resources, the right events all happen with little effort on your part. Day after day, what you want starts happening.
You’re getting what you’re wanting. Struggle, stress and anxiety free.
Along the way, your connection to Broader Perspective grows. You lose fears, including the fear of death. Anxiety goes away. Worry does too. You realize you’re eternal. Life becomes fun. And happiness becomes permanent.
To us, the choice is clear. Option B happens exactly like this. Here’s why that is, and why happiness matters.
Photo: Hans Vivek
Happiness more than an emotion. It serves a critical purpose. It tells you when your life condition matches your Broader Perspective’s condition.
Your Broader Perspective is the you you are projecting yourself from, into this physical reality. You’re “here” on earth. But you’re also “there” in the timeless, spacious present we call the “moment of becoming“.
The moment you decide you want something, you have it in the spacious present. But you don’t get what you want in physical reality as quickly. Why? Because things happen slower here. That’s a good thing.
How many times have you said, for example, something like “I wish my boss would die, that bastard!” or “I wish I never married my husband!” or “I wish you were never born”?
It’s a good thing you don’t immediately get what you want.
Things don’t have to happen as slow as they do either. They can happen faster. What’s slowing them up? We’re going to tell you.
Photo: Frederik de Wit
You have Broader Perspective. It knows all potential outcomes. It knows All That Is. It knows everything you want. It has everything you want. It knows how you can have all you want.
What would that part of you feel? Wouldn’t it be happy, excited, free, joyful and fulfilled?
Your Broader Perspective is you. So is the you here on Earth. When you’re feeling happy, excited, free, joyful and fulfilled, you see the world the same way your Broader Perspective sees it. Seeing the world that way tunes you to your Broader Perspective.
When you’re in tune, you’re able to hear messages it’s sending you. Messages leading you to what you want.
That you can feel happiness (or not happy) is how you tell if you’re tuned to your Broader Perspective. When you’re happy, you’re in tune. When you’re not, you’re not in tune.
The less in tune you are, the less you can hear your messages. Life is harder when you can’t hear your messages. That’s why being happy first is so important. It tells you when the communication channel between you and you is open.
So happiness must be something you can conjure at will. Otherwise you couldn’t hear what you’re sending. It’s important because it tells you you and the broader you are in synch. When you’re in synch, you can hear the messages. Follow them and you get what you want.
Back to the question: “how do you conjure happiness”?
The answer is: by learning to think deliberately.
· · ·
How you think is important.
Yet hardly anyone teaches “how to think” in school or anywhere else.
You can learn how to think critically. Or how to think like an engineer. Or a lawyer. That instruction teaches how to be productive in a given field.
But hardly anyone is teaching how to think so you can be happyin life.
Here are practical steps on how to think.
Think your way to happiness
Photo: Aaron Huber
Usually people think happiness happens when something they want happens.
I get a new car. I’m happy!
I get a raise. I’m happy!
I had a great time last night. I was happy!
When I meet the guy of my dreams, I’ll be happy!
Happiness does happen that way. But only when people don’t know what you’re reading.
As we wrote above, happiness can be a permanent condition. It’s actually supposed to be that way. Meaning, it can happen in sucky situations too. It all depends on how you think. Not what is happening.
Let’s say you’re at work. You’re bored to death. Or maybe you didn’t get that promotion. Maybe you discovered you make less than your equally-skilled peers. Maybe you’re losing your job.
Your boredom, disappointment, anger or fear is not happiness. That means you’re not tuned into your Broader Perspective. You’re not deliberately thinking.
But you can be tuned in. And you can be happy now. How?
Think of something positive long enough until happiness shows up. It’s that simple.
So you’re in your office. Something’s happening. You feel negative.
Turn your attention to something that pleases you. The clothes you’re wearing, for example. Perhaps they are some of your favorite clothes. Think about how much you like those clothes. How well they fit, how good you look in them. Think about the compliment you got on the bus on the way to work.
It would go like this:
I really like how I look in this
I like how I feel in this
These clothes make me look (hot, professional, skinny, etc)
I look (hot, professional, skinny, etc)
I like looking (hot, professional, skinny, etc)
I like feeling (hot, professional, skinny, etc)
You could do this about a coworker or a person in your office you might have special feelings for. Think about how much you like that person. Think about how much you like talking with them, how they make you laugh maybe. Think specific thoughts about them like the ones above:
I’m so glad so-and-so is in my life
I’m eager to see how this might turn out
It was cool so-and-so said hi to me
I feel like I’m back in high school
It’s fun to have a crush!
Maybe you really like the way you have your office organized. Think about how much you like organization. Think about how good that feels to you. Think about how good it feels to you to turn a messy desk into an organized one. Think specific thoughts about it like the ones above:
I really like being organized
I like having everything in their place
It feels good to be organized
I feel best when my space is ordered
It’s nice to see clutter turn to order
Your thinking doesn’t have to be monumental. It only needs to trigger positive feelings. How and why this happens is too detailed for this piece. We’ll describe the mechanics another time.
Photo: Oleg Ivanov
While thinking these thoughts, pay attention to your feelings. First you feel boredom, disappointment, anger or fear. But as you think on purpose, you’ll feel different. It might be pleasure or mirth. It might be satisfaction. It might be relief. It might be self admiration. It may be pride. Or humor. Or love.
All these emotions tell you you’ve moved from boredom, disappointment, anger or fear, which is not happiness, to something closer to happiness.
These things you’re thinking about are in your current situation. If they weren’t, you couldn’t think about them. When thinking about them, you’re experiencing them. Even though they aren’t in your physical experience.
So turn your attention to them. Not whatever you’re experiencing. You mood will improve.
The moment you notice your mood improve, turn your thinking to that. Acknowledge what you just did. You changed how you’re feeling without changing your situation. Note how much better you’re feeling now. It feels better than you felt just a few moments ago. Congratulate yourself. Say, “Wow, in just a few seconds, I changed my experience from X (negative emotion) to Y (better feelings). That’s pretty neat!” Come up with five or six other thoughts:
This is new and exciting.
Hmm, I like how this feels
I like that I can do this.
I feel a whole lot better
Wow, now I’m feeling even better!
In a few thoughts, you’ll find yourself thinking different, but related, thoughts:
I wonder how far this can go?
Could it be this easy?
This is actually kind of fun!
As you stay on that track, you might feel or hear your thoughts change. Notice them change to other pleasing things. For example, you might find yourself thinking about the sex you had last night. Focus on that and you’ll find yourself feeling other….er…sensations :-).
Keep it up and your feelings will get increasingly positive. And yet, your conditions haven’t changed.
Practice with obvious things until you’re good at it. Then move to less obvious thought topics:
Think about how cool it is that you woke up today.
Or that your body functions mostly without your attention.
Or that you really like the color of your house.
Or that the sun comes up every day
Or that there is plenty of air to breathe
So now you changed your reality. You were feeling negative. Now you’re happy. You’ve also created a new physicalreality. Your positive emotions come with physical experiences. A smile on your face, a lighter disposition. You may even see the difference.
But there are changes happening you can’t see. Not at first. Your entire life experience is changing. It is tuning into experiences leading to what you’re wanting. Not just one of those things either. All of them.
In other words, you’re not doing this to feel good. You’re doing this to feel messages your broader perspective constantly sends you. This is where your impulses come in.
Photo: Tim Foster
As you gain more thinking skill something else happens: You get an impulse to do something. It will be subtle. It will be more feeling than words. It might feel like “go to the bathroom”, for example.
Let’s say that’s it. You get the sense to go to the bathroom. You may not have the biological urge to go. So it may make no logical sense. But when you get it, go.
When you do, you might bump into the person you were thinking about. Or you might get a text from your partner. Or a call from someone you’ve been wanting to hear from. You might run into a co-worker who says, “I was just thinking about you.” and offer you something unexpected and surprising.
When that happens, you’ve gotten exactly what we described in the beginning of this post: Things happening with little effort on your part. The only action you took was following your impulse to go to the bathroom.
This is Option B brought to life.
· · ·
You want to practice this until you do it automatically. In the same way you think now. Look at your thoughts. They probably come and go on their own. That’s practiced. You’re not thinking on purpose.
That can change.
The more you practice, the more you’ll get “hunches” or “impulses”. Of course, as you practice, you’ll get what look like false impulses. You’ll take action and it will seem nothing beneficial happened. These are actually true. Something beneficial did happen.
For example, say you went to the bathroom and nothing happened. But something did happen. Feel, then act. Notice how you’re feeling and thinking. You might be thinking “this was dumb”, or “I look like an idiot”.
Those thoughts are telling you something. They are saying “you think what people think about you is more important than getting what you want”. Why else would you care about how you look? Embarrassment is an emotion triggered by this belief. If you’re feeling embarrassment or stupid, you’ve cut off communication between you and you.
Now hear this: You wouldn’t have known this thought is keeping you from hearing your messages if “nothing happened”, right? So somethinghappened:you got clear about something you needed to know to get what you want.
When you feel an impulse after tuning into Broader Perspective, either:
A. Take action immediately. Go talk to that person, go to the bathroom, take a nap or whatever. Then see what happens. If something happens that feels like nothing, refer to this post about “false” results.
B. Wait. Take no action until the feeling to act is so persistent you must follow it. THEN act as in point A above.
At first, you might have a hard time feeling impulses. Getting used to telling the difference between an impulse and a random thought takes practice.
Mindfulness, i.e. paying attention will allow permanent happiness. (Photo: Lesly Juarez)
Can you see how this practice turns your life into an amazing adventure? At first, you’ll get a lot of “false” results. But those “false” results aren’t false. Again we describe that paradox here.
Keep going and life fills in with subjects and interests and people matching your passions, skills, strengths and desires. You’re now following your tendencies and they are leading you to all you’re wanting.
But…
Doing this process once or twice it’s not enough. You’ll feel good for a moment. But your old habit (automatic thinking) will return. This is why people who try these things end up failing. They don’t apply themselves enough.
Want to get everything you want and live happily ever after? Repeat these steps over and over. For how long? Until thinking this way is as natural as the way you think now.
Then you’ll become your Broader Perspective. Then you have it all, including lasting happiness.
Trusting your intuition promises an extraordinary life.
That’s because your intuition knows how to lead you effortlessly to everything you’re wanting. When your intuition delivers what you’re wanting, everyone else gets what they’re wanting too.
In this post, we’re going to describe how to develop trust in your intuition, so you too can get everything you want. And be extraordinarily happy in the process. We’ll do that by telling the true story of how Perry got an open relationship in his marriage. Even though his wife didn’t want one. At first.
Perry got this (and a happy marriage) by trusting his intuition. Not by sneaking around, or trying to have a direct conversation with his wife about what he wanted.
Everything you’re wanting, everyone else wants too. Because when you get what you want, so does everyone else. That is, if you let your intuition give it to you, instead of trying to do it yourself.
Trust: It’s Built On Proof Of Trustworthiness
Someone we respected at the time had smart words about whether a person is worthy of your trust.
“Trust is consistent performance over time,” they said. Meaning, a person’s behavior over time demonstrates their trustworthiness. Not their say-so or their promises.
Same is true with your intuition. If you let it, your intuition will prove its trustworthiness over time. As your trust increases, your intuition’s demonstrations grow more dependable and noteworthy.
Before long, you’re living an extraordinary life.
Having trust is crucial. Trust comes from proof your intuition is trustworthy.
Having trust is crucial. Whether you trust it or not, your intuition is accurate 100 percent of the time. That means whatever you’re wanting, your intuition knows how you can have it. And it can lead you to it.
Making your dreams happen without your intuition’s help is hard. And no fun. It takes longer and you sacrifice more. When making dreams happen you miss out on wonderful synchronicities. Synchronicities allowing you to get what you want while allowing others what they want.
That’s the delightful path. The other path makes you bitter, frustrated and defensive about any success you’ve eeked out.
Learning to trust is a never-ending, always evolving and a “getting better all the time” process. The more you trust your intuition, the more consistent evidence you receive. Before long, results you produce are obvious and consistent. It becomes difficult to remember a time when you didn’t trust it.
When you are wishy-washy about how your intuition works, you get wishy-washy results. Let’s say you think or believe intuition is at best random and or at worst some kind of force acting against you. In that case, you’re going to get results consistent with those beliefs.
Science and other well-meaning perspectives at best caution following intuiton. Harvard Business Review, for example, puts it plain: Don’t Trust Your Gut. “Intuition is a fickle and undependable guide—it is as likely to lead to disaster as to success.” the article cautions. On the other hand, the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests it’s more complicated than that. WEF says intuition can be trusted, but works better when balanced with understanding how it works.
The problem is, both organizations, and science in general, say intuition is a brain mechanism. In defining it that way, they have missed the mark. Intuition comes from beyond the brain. By calming brain activity, through meditation for example, one discovers a deeper source of knowledge and awareness, one that can be trusted: One’s broader perspective.
Broader perspective is intuition. It is reliable, but you have to learn how to hear it. And, it functions in a particular way. Through it you create reality. If you believe your intuition is a random voice in your head, it will give you guidance consistent with that.
Intuition fulfills what you believe.
(Photo: Rohan Makhecha)
So how do you develop trust in your intuition? Become sensitive enough to tell the difference between it and not it. Then follow its guidance. Generally, you become sensitive by testing.
But here’s the thing: you can’t test and be invested in the outcome. Especially if your investment is contrary to what you’re wanting.
· · ·
Let’s say you want a million dollars, but you don’t believe you can get a million dollars. Your intuition is going to lead you to what you believe: not getting the money.
So start with things you don’t have an investment in. Start with something simple. Something you believe you can have. A choice parking spot or meeting a friend “coincidentally” for example. These are light, fun outcomes to start with.
Unless you think those things are “just coincidence”. If that’s you, you have to start with a different test. Something not tainted by your I-already-know-this awareness.
Your intuition delivers. Every time. But it only delivers what you believe. (Photo: Nick Karvounis)
No matter what you use to test your intuition, early on, some outcomes will always be “false”. But even “false” outcomes are teaching moments. So they’re actually “true”. It’s important you understand this.
For example, you might treat the process too seriously. Making it a serious process creates too much resistance. Your intuition is sending you spot-on guidance. But you can’t receive it because, in your seriousness, you’re blocking the receiving. How that works is explainable but would make this already long piece longer. Just know one reason for a “false” outcome could be you’re being too serious about the results.
Being too serious leads to confusing results. Especially if you aren’t aware of what’s happening. You’ll get results. But they will be “false”. So you’ll think the process isn’t working. But these results show the process working. They’re trying tell you: you’re doing something that’s blocking getting what you want.
“False” results also allow you to see old beliefs that are contrary to what you want. “Intuition is BS” or “Is this coincidence?”, or “I can’t do this” are examples of such beliefs. Recognizing these thoughts and beliefs are part of the trust-development path. How can you do something about them, if you’re unaware of them?
So every result you get is “positive”. It leads you to the result you’re wanting, or, it’s highlights something preventing results you want. Can you see how “false” results would then be “true” even though they are “false”?
Recapping: trusting intuition requires knowing what you want. It requires knowing what you want is possible and being light about its arrival. Knowing “false” results are actually, not “false” is also crucial.
Letting Intuition Do The Work
Perry’s life stories show how he gets what he wants by following his intuition. We’ve recently shared stories of his wife doing the same.
We’ll continue sharing these stories because we know real life stories are better than theory. But your real life experience is an even better teacher. It’s easy to dismiss Perry’s experiences as coincidence. Or as a cool thing that happened to him. It’s another thing when it happens to you.
Photo: The Roaming Platypus
Even so, here’s how Perry’s trust in his intuition got him what he wanted. With little effort on his part.
This isn’t a process to get what you’re wanting at the expense of another person. No one on the planet is being “used” by another. It doesn’t work that way.
How it does work is, while you get what you’re wanting, others get what they’re wanting too. The world (and the All That Is) is large enough to give everyone what they’re wanting at the same time. Even if what you’re wanting is something another doesn’t.
Perry and Bridget have been together for five years now. Perry didn’t marry Bridget for the reasons most people do. He knew his path lies in being free to explore all relationships which come his way. We know, this doesn’t sit well for many people in today’s society. Especially in the US. Old erroneous beliefs about human life still shape many cultures. Questions of “ethics” “morality” and “propriety” dictate people’s perspective.
Perry knows one relationship can’t meet everything a person is wanting. Society’s encouragement of “death do us part” isn’t about a wholesome vow of love and commitment. It’s about insecure people trying to control other people’s behavior. So they feel less insecure. But that’s another story.
So we understand if you disagree with the “open marriage” part of this story. Think about it as “something someone wants, but is afraid to get it. If they did, someone dear to them would be angry if they got it”, ok?
Perry married his wife because he knew it was the best thing for his wife at the time. He knew giving that to his wife required putting some things on hold. He also knew exploring relationship alongside Bridget would bring “more” to him. Bridget would benefit too.
But when they tied the knot, they agreed their vows would not be “until death do us part”. Instead, their vows ended with “for now”. Meaning “let’s see how this goes day by day, with no real long-term commitment about anything.”
At first, Bridget wasn’t too excited about that.
Throughout these five years, many people have come into Perry’s life experience. Not all those potential relationships had to do with sex or intimacy. Many did though.
Perry didn’t act on these opportunities. He was too focused on his relationship, his projects and spiritual growth.
Bridget too was learning a lot too. She had a lot of disempowering beliefs. Beliefs that were operating under her conscious awareness. They were shaping her behavior and dictating her life experiences. Many of these beliefs did not make Bridget an ideal partner. A lot of them she inherited from her relatives and past relationships.
These realizations weren’t always eye-opening, positive and wonderful experiences. Many surfaced in ugly, angry fights. Fights over small things. Which became big things when these little things triggered her old beliefs.
Photo: Jason Wong
One day a new guy friend asked Perry about his marriage. He couldn’t understand how Perry could be transamorous and yet married to a woman who isn’t transgender. A lot of people don’t understand this.
Perry described his marriage, including the “for now” clause. He also shared his desire for an “open” kind of relationship. For now, he said, he was working with Bridget in a mutually beneficial relationship. One where Bridget’s desire for monogamy, born out of her personal insecurities, took priority.
His friend said “you should introduce Bridget to someone she might want to be with. That would allow her to open up to you doing the same.”
It was logical advice. But it felt like manipulation to Perry. And he was right. It’s what anyone who doesn’t trust their intuition would do: try to control circumstances to get what they want. Including living a double-life behind their partner’s back.
Perry is not like that. Instead, he let his intuition do the work. Not was it better than being sneaky or conniving, it was more fun. What happened over the next two years proved that.
· · ·
For reasons too many to go into, Bridget has been an insecure person most of her life. She learned to manage that insecurity by controlling other people and circumstances. Control to an extreme degree. Knowing this, Perry couldn’t have a rational, productive conversation about an open marriage. He brought it up a couple of times. But even in counseling it sparked a firestorm.
So, instead of talking about it, Perry acted as if he already had one.
Now hold up. It’s not what you think.
He thought about what it would be like having an open relationship. He even explained to others that he was in one. But he never behaved in a way contrary to his commitment to his wife.
He would, for example, tell people how free it was to be in an open relationship. He would add, that neither he nor Bridget actually acted on the freedom. They didn’t need to, he said. Just knowing that was available freed both of them from the pressure of monogamy. In being free, he said, they didn’t have to act.
Being free was the key.
In other words, Perry thought and related to others as if he already had what he wanted. He didn’t act on it. Even when he had opportunity to. Why? He was too busy with his life, his projects, his spiritual path. So there was no inconsistency between his behavior and his marriage in terms of intimate behavior. Just in his words and thoughts (beliefs).
That’s when interesting things started happening.
Providence aka Intuition, All That Is and the Universe Step In
Bridget already had at least one friend who was in a polyamorous relationship. But more people started showing up in her life in them too. Her new friend Claire was in a relationship with a guy who was unwilling to be monogamous. Claire struggled with the idea. And with insecurities she felt around her partner being with other women. She talked a lot about it with Bridget. In time, Claire started seeing other guys, as she became more comfortable with it. She actually started enjoying it!
Of course, all this she shared with Bridget as girlfriends are wont to do.
Then Bridget’s best friend started talking about being in an open relationship. We’ll call her Nancy.
Perry and Nancy had a private conversation about all this one day. Nancy knew Perry was producing remarkable results in his life. Including changes in his relationship with Bridget. Changes that were causing Bridget to change too, which Nancy noticed and appreciated.
So she wanted some advice.
Nancy is married. Like a lot of marriages, Nancy’s marriage is touch and go. Sometimes when one of the two wants to touch, the other wants to go! Neither Nancy or her husband thought they were getting what they wanted. Like Bridget, both were insecure. Their marriage reflected all that insecurity. It was not satisfying for either party.
After talking with Perry, Nancy began her own positively focused lifestyle. This changed her. With the changes, her husband became more insecure. Long story short, Nancy and her husband eventually opened their marriage. Turned out her husband already was seeing someone else.
Today, they’re still sorting out the details. Both are dating other people. Nancy dates a few men, finding great satisfaction and empowerment in that.
Witnessing her friends’ experiences effected Bridget’s insecurities and fears. As friends shared their enjoyment, her fears and insecurities started going away.
Meanwhile, Perry reconnected with an old flame, who is transgender. This person agreed to do a photo shoot with Perry. There was nothing inappropriate going on between Perry and this person. But the energy between them was obvious.
Perry told Bridget about this person, including showing Bridget a picture of her. Bridget said she was beautiful. There was not an ounce of insecurity in her voice or demeanor.
Perry noticed this. But said nothing about it.
In the past, Bridget would have given Perry the third degree about the photo shoot meeting. She’d joke (not so jokingly) about his “date”. Or she would tease him (with a tinge of sarcasm) about his “new girlfriend” he would be “spending the day with.” But this time, she was easy about his plans.
No sarcasm. No jokes.
Was Perry surprised by these changes? Nope. He knew his broader perspective was orchestrating events not only in Bridget’s life. But also the lives of her friends’ and their relationships. Everyone was getting what they want. Including Perry.
Life will surprise and delight you. If you let it. (Photo: Andre Guerra)
Four months later, Perry scheduled a meeting with this transgender person about another photo shoot. Bridget knew about the meeting.
The day of the meeting, as Perry was getting ready to go, Bridget walked up to him.
“Have a great time,” she said. She meant it too. “Feel free to do whatever pleases you dear. I love you.”
What she meant was, Perry was free to have an intimate experience with his friend, if that’s what he wanted to do. In other words, Perry and Bridget had just walked into an open relationship.
Of course, Perry felt this coming. He saw the signs leading up to it. Bridget’s friend, her neighbor, her best friend’s experiences eased Bridget’s concerns. So Perry didn’t have to have some tense, uncomfortable conversation. Instead, he found himself one day in exactly what he wanted with a loving and supportive partner to boot.
Since then, Bridget has made extraordinary progress in her own positively focused lifestyle. She’s turning into a different person than who Perry first met. Perry has too. So has Nancy. Bridget has even explored with her own dalliance. With Perry’s blessings.
When you learn to trust and follow your intuition, not only does your life benefit. So do the lives of those around you. You get what you want, with little effort on your part. All this is available when you are positively focused.
How To Let Your Intuition Convince You
Perry has been doing this positively focused lifestyle for a while. Starting to learn to trust your intuition? Don’t start with opening your relationship.
Start with small things.
Before Perry’s story we were talking about “false” outcomes being as important as “true” results. Both offer valuable insights. What insights do “true” results offer? Clues showing you how intuition works so you can trust it.
Let’s say you’re using your intuition to guide you to a parking spot. You lightly set your intention. When you get where you’re going, you envision an open parking spot near your destination will be waiting.
Then you get ready to go. You’re positively focused, paying attention to all the great things about your life. Maybe you’ve practiced this process for several weeks. So you’re in a really good mood, and have been for a while.
So when you arrive, not only is there a parking spot. You have “rock star” parking: the parking space right in front of the store. Elation!
It works!
What proof! You recognize the co-incidence of your intent and the realization of it.
Or…
You arrive and you don’t get a space. It’s crowded and it takes you a while to park.
Either way, what happens next is important.
You want to note what happened. You also want to note how you felt through the process. Get your journal ready and answer these questions:
How was I feeling right before I acted? Positive? Ornery? Frustrated? Calm?
Did I feel anything about my intention? Optimistic? Eager? Positive? Or doubtful, worried, silly, embarrassed or disbelieving?
Did I get any kind of confirmation that I would fulfill this intention? Was there a shiver in the spine or goosebumps at any point along the way?
How was the “intensity” of the confirmation (if one was received)? Was it light and passing? Or was it a feeling that wouldn’t end? Did it (the intensity) remain steady? Or did it increase over time?
If I did receive confirmation, was there a difference in how it felt? For example, was it more a feeling and less of “words in my head” or vice versa?
Where was the feeling? Was it “high” in my head? Or was it “deep” in my head? Or was it in my stomach? Or was it all over?
With these questions, you can start pinpointing what the process feels like along the way. With practice, you learn the language your intuition speaks.
What if you’re experiencing negative emotion like frustration?
Frustration, disbelief, or any other negative emotions are positive. They tell you there are beliefs you hold working against you. If you didn’t feel them, how would you know you had such beliefs?
So negative emotions aren’t what people think they are. In every case, they are helpful. They tell you whether you’re 100 percent on track with your intention. Or not.
So when you feel a negative emotion, you want to examine your beliefs. There will be a thought in your head expressing the belief. “This is all bullshit” is a thought telling you you have a belief that goes “this doesn’t work” or “I don’t believe this”. It sometimes is accompanied by anger, indignation, feeling critical, impatient, belligerent, or judgmental.
Embarrassment or shame is something a person might feel when trying something for the first time. Embarrassment shows you believe other people’s opinions about what you’re doing are more important than getting what you want.
When you identify the belief, write it down.
Then use this process to soothe that belief over time. Your beliefs determine what you get. So negative emotion is a gift: it points to beliefs preventing you from getting what you want. Remember, intuition leads you to what you believe. Not what you want.
Let’s say you didn’t get the parking spot, and you don’t have a negative feeling. The “false” result offers insight to other potential sticking points. One may be something you’re doing (or not doing) that the “false” outcome is pointing to.
As we said before, you might be too invested in the outcome. You might be putting forth too much effort (action). Or, you might not have refined your intuitional listening.
For example, in a particular exercise Perry is doing these days, he gets four choices. Only one of them is “true”. The exercise helps refine his intuitional listening. Here’s a picture of the exercise platform with one of his test outcomes.
Sometimes, during this game, he will feel two communications offering two different choices simultaneously. Sometimes both are “true”. One being “true” now…the next being “true” in the next trial. Here intuition is sending answers to two different trials.* It feels like mixed messages. But it’s actually two messages delivered at the same time.
Your intuition operates outside of time and space. It’s sending you information all the time. Your job is learn to cull what you’re wanting from the constant information stream.
Humans are used to linear time. Learning to trust intuition means unlearning one’s familiarity with that. And the idea that everything happens in a single file, one-moment-after-another process.
“False” outcomes also help ease your focuse on results, causing you to enjoy the journey more. The outcome is not the goal: the connection to your inner knowing is. That’s the goal. Not the outcome.
(We needed to repeat that because it’s really, really important).
Relaxing into the journey is the goal. Not the outcome.
The cool thing is, when you’re focused on the real goal, the happy side effects (“true” results) come easily. And delightfully.
Like Perry’s open relationship.
Get good at hearing your intuition. Master focusing on the connection between you and you, which is the “true” result you’re wanting. Then more and more evidence, i.e. “true” outcomes, will pile up.
One day you’ll realize you are trusting your intuition. Because evidence in your life experience is so plentiful you can’t help but trust. Then you’re on your way.
*You can download and play this game yourself here.
Bonus content:
This is Perry. I’ve received A ton of amazing insight since my Inner Being and I wrote this post, over a year ago. Continue this journey with me. Read my newest post, published yesterday,which offers a great follow up.
Leverage that comes from your broader perspective makes living sweet.
When someone discovers how invincible they are, it’s impossible to live any other way. And, there’s no ceiling limiting how great life can get.
By leverage we mean having life do things for you, instead of you having to do it all yourself.
That doesn’t mean sitting in bed thinking positive thoughts will bring everything to you. You’re in a physical reality.
You have to do things.
It does mean lightly indicating what you’re wanting. Then watching as life puts the pieces together. At the right time along the way, you get an impulse to act. Following that impulse is your “doing”. Your doing doesn’t make anything happen. It’s all happened already.
Your “doing” puts you in the perfect place, in time and space to receive what you’re wanting.
Summarizing: figure out what you want. Life will coordinate circumstances. When they’re ready, life will tell you to act. Your acting doesn’t make it happen. The impulse to act is an invitation. It’s saying: “do this now”. Your action puts you in the right place at the right time. There, you receive what you want.
Life always works this way for everyone. So why doesn’t it look that way for everyone? Why doen’t it occur that way for everyone?
Three reasons:
Hardly anyone realizes they have broader perspective.
Hardly anyone does what they need to to see life through that.
Too many people try to make what they want happen, instead of letting life do it.
Photo: Cristian Newman
So what is this “broader perspective”?
“Human” is a projection. It’s an experience you are projecting into yourself. The experience is the best way to know what and who you are. That’s why you’re experiencing this experience.
Everything in your experience is also your projection. You perceive into existence other people, circumstances, even your body. Existence looks like an “objective reality”. So much so, you think it’s separate from you. That’s because you organize your physical senses too. That way they experience the projection as objective, separate reality.
Your senses can’t see the projection any other way.
Your senses are part of the projection.
“Behind” your physical senses, you have another set of “senses”. These are not constrained like your physical senses. Yet, they correspond with them. You see, hear, smell, taste, touch through these “nonphysical” senses. The same way you do with physical ones.
Seeing life through these senses, is “broader perspective”.
The more you see life through them, the more curious you get. You start understanding how much creative control you have.
Ever had a dream feel real as f*ck? How could it have “felt” real, if you didn’t have senses capable of perceiving in that nonphysical place? Dreams are not hallucinations. They’re as real as you and us.
Science claims dreams are “all in the head”. Science is a big stumbling block. It prevents people from having real leverage.
Science is real though. It has validity and purpose. But science is in no way the final arbiter of what is “real” and “not real”. And, nonphysical reality informs science like it does with everything else in physical reality.
If it weren’t for nonphysical reality, there would be no physical reality. And no science.
A person deciding for themselves what is real and not real finds they are the final arbiter. And of course they are. They are the ones doing the projecting.
· · ·
A projector has to have a place to stand and also something on which to project. It has to have something to project too.
You “stand” in the spacious now. The spacious now is outside time and space. It is not bound by what science calls “the laws of physics”.
Neither are you, by the way. Your body is. You’re not.
Your body is part of the projection. You are broader perspective.
We also call the spacious present “nonphysical” reality. Nonphysical reality is “where” you, the projector stands.
You are also the projector screen. So all that you experience is “inside you”. That’s why you can perceive it. There is a lot “outside” you too, out there in nonphysical reality. But it is irrelevant to you, until you expand yourself enough so that it becomes you. And thus relevant.
So you’re the projector and you’re also the projector screen. What is it you are projecting? Everything that you are. Primarily you are projecting a consistent stream of values comprising your essence. You fulfilled some. Others are in the process. Many more your birth nearly every moment.
Everything that is you is being projected by you out into your real life. It is being projected into you and perceived through physical senses you organized. That way it looks separate from you. That way you can observe it “objectively”.
Until you’re done doing that.
All this is happening so you can become more self-aware.
Realizing this is also “broader perspective”. It is one of many insights that come with seeing your life extraordinarily. When you realize your broader perspective, insights like this come naturally. These insights aren’t available when you don’t have broader perspective.
The broader perspective you have, the more clearly you perceive your projection. The more of your projection you perceive, the greater understanding you have.
Understanding of what? Everything.
Put differently: the less you know about what you’re doing in this thing called life, the more “ordinary” life looks.
Joy, ecstasy, wonder, freedom, invincibility result from living from broader perspective.
Life is extraordinary.
It feels that way when you “see” differently.
“Broader perspective” lets you see “all” that you are. But it’s limited by what you’re capable of realizing. The more you live your life from this perspective though, the more capable you become.
This has immense practical benefit.
So much so, it’s a wonder so few live this way. Broader perspective’s leverage is so great, it looks magical.
But it’s not. We call this leverage.
It’s how life is for one who gets it.
Take Perry’s recent experience.
· · ·
Now, Perry has been at this for many years. He is getting better and better seeing life through his broader perspective. So he sees more examples of extraordinary happening, nearly every moment.
Everything is possible in and through your broader perspective.
Perry’s ambitions reflect that statement.
One of Perry’s ambitions is evolving capitalism out of existence. He has realized better system for resource management and distribution. He knows it’s possible because he’s seen it.
So he focuses his energies in this direction.
One way this energy focus shows up is hiring talent through the “gig economy”. Perry met a wonderful animation team on an online gig economy match-making service. This team already created two animated videos describing Perry’s economic idea. He has plans for ten more videos. Perry wants this same team to create the other eight.
Like many online services, this gig economy match-making service takes a part of the sales that happen on its website. They also discourage members from offering and accepting payments “off community.”
Paying someone else for brokering an initial transaction is great. But when you’re planning to buy a lot more, that transaction fee can add up. Especially at $1500 a video on average.
So one day this Spring, while contemplating his animated video library, Perry got an idea.
“It would be great,” It said. “If I could work with this team directly rather than through this community. I’d save all those fees on the next 10 videos.”
“And,” The thought continued. “Since I’m wanting to do so many, maybe the team would give me a volume discount!”
Perry loved this idea. It came and went in a flash. Three minutes tops. He felt good thinking it. He didn’t think it was impossible. But he knew the community discouraged this. So, instead of taking action, he sat with it.
Fast forward to October. Perry’s ramping up the next videos, preparing the scripts. One day he gets the impulse to send a message to this team via the community. Here’s the conversation that happened:
Perry had no idea what the guy was going to send via email. But Perry sent his email address. The next day the following conversation happened via email:
Of course this was a great turn out. But notice what happened here. Perry didn’t have to do anything to get what he wanted. Life coordinated it all for him. Then sent an impulse when it was all ready.
This is leverage.
It is available to everyone.
· · ·
If you dismiss this as “coincidence” you’re doing yourself a disservice. Dismissing it as coincidence denies (for you) your broader perspective. In denying your broader perspective, you obscure your perception. You relegate yourself to having to make it all happen.
That sucks.
We want to write “you cut yourself off from your broader perspective”, but that can’t happen. Your broader perspective is you. You can’t cut “you” off.
But you can create a reality wherein you do not perceive your broader perspective as real. That’s what you do when you dismiss such events as “coincidence” or “random chance”, or “confirmation bias”. When you do dismiss them, you get a life experience reflecting your dismissals. In other words, life looks comprised of events that seem random or chance or coincidence. Not within your control.
But it’s all in your control. The moment you adopt your broader perspective.
Like Perry.
And remember: there is no upper limit on anything about this.
Life can be, a continual, moment-by-moment experience of getting everything you want.
Perry is getting there. He has done this work for a long time. Today he is seeing events like this happening all over. But he’s wanting to get to the point where he’s seeing them continuously.
He’s close.
Photo: Gaetan-Meyer
Anything you can think of wanting you can have. You are creating your life experience. That’s the purpose of it. To realize how much say you have.
There is only one relationship giving you everything you want. The relationship between your ordinary conscious experience and your broader perspective. Attend to that. Everything else is attended to for you.
Gradually realizing that you are invincible is intoxicating. Realizing you can have anything you want is intoxicating. Realizing you can be anything, or do anything frees you from limitation.
But when you do do whatever you want, when you do get what you want, and when you become what you want….that just can’t be described in words.
It’s easy sometimes to get frustrated in a marriage or partnership.
Relationships can also be a perfect blend of constant wonder and delight.
Which one you get –– frustration or wonder and delight –– depends on your perception.
Often, disagreements and frustration, for both parties, happen when one person tries to control the other’s behavior. In most cases “trying to control” is not an intentional, malicious act. The person doesn’t want to control the other. They just want to be happy.
Controlling behavior happens when a person feels insecure. They tries to soothe the insecurity through controlling their partner’s actions. Inadequacy, feeling out of control, insecure, shame, embarrassment, or righteous indignation can all trigger “controlling” behavior.
The person tries to control conditions they think are causing the feeling. “Conditions” usually mean their partner.
The problem is conditions aren’t triggering the emotions. Their beliefs about the conditions are.
You’ll notice when a controlling person succeeds, they aren’t happy for long. The controlled person isn’t either. So controlling spawns future dissatisfaction leading to…you guessed it: more need to control.
It’s a vicious cycle. A cycle that leaves people feeling alone. Even in relationship.
A negative vicious cycle spirals out of control in some relationships. Leaving people feeling alone. Even though they’re not. (photo: Thought Catalog)
Trying to control another person’s behavior so you feel better backfires sooner or later. Sometimes a lot sooner.
People aren’t stupid. They can tell when a person is trying to control them.
Put more accurately, every human knows they came to express inherent freedoms. No one wants someone telling them what to do.
Including children.
Including very young children.
But especially grown mature, aware people.
· · ·
The easiest way to get what you want in relationship is to let your spouse do whatever they are wanting. Observing that, be happy with the fact that they’re doing that instead of what you want.
Even better: want to get what you’re wanting from your spouse? Then change what you’re wanting to what your spouse is already doing.
Voila! You’re now getting what you’re wanting.
We can hear the eye-rolls….
But there is wisdom here.
Change what you want from your partner to wanting what your partner is already doing. You will find peace. You’ll stop controlling. Your partner gets to do what they want. Everyone gets happy.
Can you say you feel good when you’re controlling your partner against their will?
We thought not.
Photo: Obayda
The problem is your perception, not the conditions. A long-term practice learning to seeing your partner’s positive aspects can transform them. It can recreate your partner without your partner changing.
An example from Perry’s marriage is apt:
One day, Perry’s wife, Bridget, began practicing meditation. She meditated before, but it was sporadic and thus not very effective. After witnessing Perry’s results, Bridget began meditating in earnest.
She supplemented her practice with other approaches. The combination revealed how easy it is to get what she wants. Especially doesn’t try to get anything.
Getting what she wanted required letting go of controlling her husband. Six months passed with the task undone. Yet Bridget had to experience conditions she wanted to control as perfect. With no regard for changing him or the situation.
Some days later, after consistent practice, Bridget found herself more relaxed. Then, one day, she got an intuition that the task she’s wanting Perry to do was about to resolve in a delightful way. Her intuition encouraged her to prepare to be surprised…
Around the same time, Perry, received his own impulse: it said “now is about the time to do (the task)”.
Perry knows that, before taking any action on an impulse, it’s best to let it grow to where it is impossible to ignore. So he allowed this impulse to sit in his awareness with nothing more than a casual acknowledgement of it.
Days passed. Then a week.
During that time Bridget received more impulses. They excited her. Later she told Perry she wanted to tell him what was happening, but knew if she did, she’d muck up the process. So she kept it all to herself.
Meanwhile, Perry kept receiving more and more impulses.
Until one day, Perry felt overcome with wanting to do this task.
He told Bridget he was going to do it the next day.
Bridget, as you can imagine, delighted to hear this. What made that it extra sweet was she knew it was going to happen and her excitement was building the whole time.
· · ·
These days, such things happen often in Perry and Bridget’s relationship. It’s no surprise the two of them continue to practice the work. The evidence for them is overwhelming.
The work works.
Now there’s nothing wrong with getting excited about outcomes like this. Realize this kind of thing happens all the time and the excitement gives way to expectation. Expectation is the sweet spot. It prepares perception to perceive and appreciate more such events.
For Bridget, it was a profound demonstration. It showed she can create any reality. Including one in which she can influence her partner’s behavior!
life will surprise and delight you. If you let it. (Photo: Andre Guerra)
Everyone has this ability.
It is as natural as breathing. Everyone brings it with them when they come into physical reality.
Exercising this natural ability requires gradually releasing beliefs obscuring this ability. There’s great freedom in exercising it. You can let everyone else in your life off the hook for what happens in your life.
Instead, you can watch everything you’re wanting come into your experience. Not from action. But from your subtle attention to what you’re wanting. A positive outlook and expecting that everything is always working out for you helps too.
So here are the steps to getting what you want out of your spouse (or anyone):
Photo: Sharon Mccutcheon
First discover your own autonomy.
Learn to identify then soothe beliefs that spawn controlling behavior.
You do that by examining your belief constellations. Or by creating new, more empowering ones that will replace your old ones.
Meditation, therapy, bibliotherapy and journaling are all effective was of examining beliefs. Another way: Pay attention to your negative feelings. They always lead you back to a flawed premise or belief.
Family dinners for many are less about food and more about sharing love. But other people just don’t get it. And they don’t have to. (Photo: Pablo Merchan Montes)
Let’s say your family always dined together at the dinner table. You gained a lot from that experience. Now as an adult, your partner prefers eating while watching tv. Or he or she prefers a quick bite over formal dinner.
Let’s say your family always dined together at the dinner table. You gained a lot from that experience. Now as an adult, your partner prefers eating while watching tv. Or he or she prefers a quick bite over formal dinner.
It annoys you when he or she declines your offer to a formal dinner every night. As a result you feel negative emotion –– insecurity, frustration, sadness, wistful. So you get angry. Where’s that coming from? A well-practiced belief. Some possible examples:
“My partner doesn’t love me”
“I married a selfish person”
“I can never get what I want”
“There’s no love here”
But you aren’t aware of the belief. You just know you’re mad. Then you say something you usually wouldn’t, hoping your partner will give you what you’re wanting.
Notice the beliefs don’t describe your partner or your relationship. They describe what you’re thinking about your partner or your relationship.
Rather than reacting from your anger. Look at the feeling.
Ask yourself: “Why it is important for me to repeat that experience as an adult?”
Then ask, “Why am I trying to cajole that experience out of someone who doesn’t share my past experience?”
Have a journal handy to help you probe the answer.
Your partner isn’t there to recreate your past family dynamics. Your partner is there to enjoy his life. Like you. Berating or shaming your partner to do something they don’t want to never works. You’ll be resentful you had to force them. And you’re going to lose in the long run.
You’ll be amazed how a consistent positive focus can change your life.
Next: Practice increasing your focus on your partner’s positive aspects.
This is easy.
After all, you married (or partnered) with this person. At one point these were front and center. Again, meditation, book reading, therapy and journaling can assist here.
We do not suggest talking to a friend. Friends sympathize with what you’re going through. They don’t have your best interest at heart. Friends often like to commiserate.
Commiserating is not helpful.
A hyper-focus on your partner’s “weak points” or “areas of development” makes them shine bright.
Focus on those and before long that’s all you see. Then your love turns to resentment. While your partner becomes a scoundrel …when viewed from your negative belief constellations.
Any focus practiced becomes habitual.
So practicing focusing on another’s positive aspects can become habitual too.
Start by keeping a list of everything positive you already know about them. Then begin noticing things beyond what you already know. Write them down in a journal. Acknowledge their existence. Notice, as you practice this, how your mood about the person changes. The more positive aspects pile up, the less negative you begin feeling about the person.
When you’re comfortable, start acknowledging things they do that are positive. No matter how insignificant, share your appreciation to the person. Do it face to face or in a text or handwritten note.
Tip: You’re not manipulating. You’re not trying to change your partner. You’re not even trying to change you. You’re changing how you feel about them.
You got into a relationship with this person for good reasons. Remember? (photo: Toa Heftiba)
Next: Develop a practice which re-acquaints you with the massively beneficial and wonderful things about your relationship.
It’s easy to get caught up complaining and lose sight not only of gifts your partner brings, but also gifts you two together create.
The same process above can help you develop a chronic habit of relationship appreciation.
Note the positive aspects being with this person creates. Write them down. In time, share them with your partner. Don’t worry if they don’t feel the same way you’re beginning to. Remember, this is not about them.
Then, after at least 60 days, pick something light and easy, that you would prefer your partner to do. (Don’t try this too early, you’ll re-energize your old habits and beliefs.)
Say to yourself, very lightly, with hardly any focus on it, what that is. Say it in a positive, almost nonchalant tone. Like: “wouldn’t it be nice if Alphonso took out the garbage this week?”.
Then, after thinking this statement once, drop it. Drop it completely from your consciousness. Try to obliterate it from your mind, as if it never came up.
If you’ve done everything up to this point each day, then one day, not next week, Alphonso will take out the garbage. You might even receive an pre-intuitive impulse that something is up. Like Bridget did.
Resist the temptation to say anything to Alphonso. Keep it all to yourself.
You’ll be surprised and delighted, but don’t show it. Instead savor the experience.
But do make note of this in your journal!
· · ·
This is a practice. It may or may not happen over night.
It may not happen in the first year. But there is no rush because you are eternal. And, nothing is wrong with Alphonso not taking out the garbage anyway!
Practice this. You’ll be astonished. Become clear about what’s in your belief constellation. Shift your focus to positive aspects of your relationship, and your partner/spouse. In time you will discover you’re in a pretty awesome relationship. And your partner/spouse is awesome too.
Keep it up and pretty soon you’ll want to explore other ways your beliefs create your reality.
The most convincing proof is personal life experience. When what you’re reading here, happens in your life, things “get real”. You can’t help feeling impervious to misfortune and negative situations.
You’ll come to believe your invincibility.
That will radically change your partnership or marriage. It will leave you living more and more in constant wonder and delight.
Like many before him, he is giving the mainstream world a thing or two to think about. And making it better in the process.
In case you don’t know, Kaepernick is the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who in 2016 began kneeling during the national anthem in protest of racism, social inequality and police brutality.
He left the 49ers to become a free agent. But the NFL believed him a pariah because, like many big institutions, they can’t handle the truth. Or more simply, they can’t handle losing money in the short term because the peanut gallery can’t handle the truth. And big institutions get rich by catering to the peanut gallery.
Nike was in a similar situation. According to anonymous sources quoted by this New York Times Article, Nike was considering ending their relationship with the controversial, non-playing football player.
Now, as you probably know, all that reversed.
The company is now charting record “brand engagement” as a result of getting behind Kaepernick’s cause, according to their CEO. Particularly among the urban demographic, a coveted target for the athletic brand.
But this story is about Kaepernick as an example to would-be iconoclasts.
There is no value in you playing small and going along with the crowd.
There is every value in being your authentic self, no matter how much ire that authenticity will draw in the short term.
If you stick to your guns, you will prevail. And the world will be forever changed for the better as a result. You came to change the world in your own way great or small.
Going with the crowd is not world-changing.
For two years, Kaepernick withstood criticism from many institutions. Including the nation’s highest political office. Now his rise as a national civil rights icon with a massive brand backing him, is testament to what any human being willing to stand in their authenticity can do.
Individuals change the world. Not groups.
At this point, there is barely a limit on what is possible for the former quarterback. His platform has expanded dramatically. It is reported he now has a book deal, speaking tour and is developing a comedy series.
Kaepernick’s example isn’t the only one.
https://youtu.be/7CwY5atbYnE
Shepard Fairey’s name should be no surprise. If it is, his artwork isn’t.
As a young skateboarder and graffiti artist, he roamed the country posting stickers, posters and flyers on virtually anything and everything, before creating a poster for the Obama presidential campaign.
That poster made him famous.
The iconic Obama Poster
But what some don’t know is in the midst of all that election fame, Shepard was in the toughest year of his life. He was being sued by municipalities for his history as a graffiti artist. But what was even more scary was the Associated Press filed a massive lawsuit against the artist. A lawsuit that could bankrupt the artist, his family and end his career.
Just like Kaepernick however, Fairey stuck to his path, lived his authentic life creating beautiful and compelling critiques of political figures disguised as art. Even though, as he describes it, he weathered some of the greatest challenges during that entire time.
· · ·
You must not underestimate the value of your authentic expression.
The more radical the better. But you also must not underestimate the value negative attention brings to your cause.
If you allow your fears of rejection or “crucifixion” by the “mob” that is mainstream society or a subsection thereof to intimidate you, you are bound to give up your authentic voice in favor of….what?
Social acceptance? Money? Reputation? Is social acceptance, money and reputation really on par with the potential to change the world?
Besides, when you’ve done what you came to do, you will have all the acceptance, money and reputation you can handle. And then some.
You have an authentic voice. You came into the world equipped to make it a better place. That better place doesn’t happen when you’re going along with the mainstream.
It only happens when you speak your authenticity. The more radical the better.
If Shepard Fairey can do it….By Fuzheado – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
Now we know a lot of people talk about “living authentically”. Rarely if ever do these people explain how to do that. We’re going to.
How to live your authentic life:
First, realize this process will not happen over night. But know that, no matter how old you are, or how little time in life you think you have, you have plenty of time to accomplish this. Perry is 54 years old and just getting started, for example.
No one is too old.
So you start by releasing the idea that time is a factor. Or age. Or any current situation. None of that has any relevance.
Second, you must screw on knowing that your voice is valid. We use the phrase “screw on” purposefully. Threads on a screw have great holding power. They will hold under great stress. Your knowing your voice is valid comes from within. It comes from your connection with the source of the “sound” of your voice.
The stronger your connection with that source, the more invincible you will feel. Silence, meditation, long walks in nature are great processes reconnecting you with your source. Do that regularly. We recommend this process for getting in tune with your source.
Third, reorganize your priorities. Your voice’s strength must be nurtured. That takes time. What gets you through the time it takes for your voice to be ready is how freaking great it feels being in touch with your authenticity. Again, this process is golden.
Perry quit his job at Intel to pursue his value-based priorities. We don’t recommend this. He has a supportive wife. You don’t have to quit your day job. But at least put it in perspective.
For example, in some places around the world, up to 50 percent of people work bullshit jobs. That means you’re probably doing something for money that represents a compromise, or perhaps many compromises, on your values. It’s time your values retake the priority high ground.
That’s because your voice lurks within your values.
Fourth, start doing some serious introspection. The best place Perry has found to reconnect with his voice is his childhood. He asked some time ago “what did I really want to be when I grew up?”
Look at what you liked to do as a child. What inspired you? What did you dream about? How did you see the world? The fantasy world of your childhood often holds within it your voice’s small timbre, waiting for you to crank the volume.
Another place to look: your reaction to the world around you. This is tricky though. If you’ve lived, even a little while, on the planet, you likely have taken on stories which cause knee-jerk emotional reactions that fill you will injustice, a sense of unfairness and moral outrage.
Those areas can be where your voice is lurking. But they could also be ingrained knee-jerk reactions you’ve taken on from society. These kinds of reactions tend to cut you off from your voice. So you have to be discerning as you observe how you react to the world around you.
Once you’ve found your voice, you need to practice delivering it. So get started expressing your voice to yourself at first. Not to others. We offer this for several reasons.
First, you’re not ready for the potential onslaught from the peanut gallery trying to kill your originality before it’s mature enough to survive such attacks. Second, you need time to figure out how best to express yourself. Is it with film? Poetry? Writing? News commentary? Podcasting? Walking across the United States? Interviewing homeless people?
There are endless numbers of ways to express yourself. Somewhere in there is your niche. You’ll find it if you dedicate time to discovering it.
Meanwhile, in the self-discovery, you’ll have fun. And, when you’re ready to tell the world, you’ll have an impressive amount of content ready-made to share. Not all of it will be brilliant, but it doesn’t have to be.
Photo by Francesco Mazzoli
Next: Practice, practice practice.
Follow your impulses. Do things you think are crazy. Sure, quit your job if you really know that’s what you want to do. Just realize quitting your job isn’t required to find your voice, or express it. At least not at first.
Refine your voice, explore things. You’re on a wild goose chase for the co-inciding events and circumstances which delight you and thus indicate you’re on your path. Take all this as the greatest adventure of your life and it will be that.
And if you keep at it, you will come to the same sense of steadiness, of invincibility we’re sure are embodied by two words, which actually are a name: Colin Kaepernick.
Maybe self-improvement, self-analysis, or therapy impels your reading.
We read for different reasons. The most powerful reading is that which inspires you to more. The new. The not known before.
Same goes for watching and listening too.
Nothing beats the feeling of a well-orchestrated new bit of information. Particularly information which draws from you delight, surprise and –– most important –– new awareness. The experience can pack a wonderfully fulfilling punch.
There’s no value in regurgitation.
Abraham of the Abraham-Hicks celebrity duo asserts with accuracy that there is no value in a person putting attention on something that has been. Looking at “what is” –– aka daily reality –– is even worse if the “what is” you’re looking at is something you’d rather not see as part of your “what is.”
Don’t like that there is so much division in the US? Don’t like the ever-present cis–het-white-male-hegemony? Abraham’s suggestion: stop paying so much attention to those subjects in your life. Regurgitation, they say, is reading or watching something that makes you feel anger, frustration, rage, for example, then talking, blogging, complaining, or sharing on social media about it. They say humans are chronic in their regurgitation habit.
Because of it, they perpetuate and prolong situations and experiences that otherwise would disappear.
Humans are socially conditioned regurgitators. It’s upon which television makes most of its money. The internet too.
Your regurgitation is making people rich, while making you miserable.
While they are socially conditioned to, humans are not, by nature, regurgitators. By nature you are innovators. All life is. Humans take what is and expand upon it, thereby making something new. Sex is a wonderful example. That intimate creative act, produces something heretofore unknown in the universe –– a unique individual –– from the known –– two extant individuals.
I’ve arrived!!! I am unique, I come through the extant! (Photo: Alex Hockett)
It’s the same with all life’s endeavors. Everything is derivative of everything else weaving a tapestry of artistic expression physically made real.
The best of everything else though, is that which hasn’t come before, yet spawns from the is-ness of what is.
The greatest frontier awaits your discovery
A fantastically vast undiscovered frontier exists in the act of turning off your devices. Instead of surfing social media, or the news, consider the deeply inspirational, awe-inspiring act of surfing your inner reality.
There is no better time than today to explore this world. Because the topsy-turvy world you live in owes itself to this inner reality.
Despite what science has to say about it, there is far more of interest “in there” behind your eyeballs than anything available in front of them. Including on the Internet.
Vast opportunity exists in this realm, where your eyes are useless and yet you’re able to see. In this no-place you find the origin of every place. Remain in the inquiry long enough and you might discover the extraordinary.
You.
Because at the bottom of it all, the ruckus of the phenomenal world springs from your perception. An “I get it” born of directly experiencing the accuracy of the previous statement uncovers answers to all life’s problems.
That should come as no surprise because you are the common denominator of every single problem you face.
You can’t know this just from reading words. You know it when your life experience demonstrates it to you.
Perry’s* life experience demonstrates this near-constantly. For when you tap into this inner frontier, your life experience will verify the new perspectives you discover. Perry’s many demonstrations include disappearing a bully in elementary school, effortlessly achieving his childhood dreams of living in Japan and receiving his black belt in the Bujinkan, realizing his dream job at a major high-tech company, causing large sums of money to effortlessly show up in his life experience, and transforming his marriage into the perfection that it is. Perry’s life reflects for him (and his wife) tectonic shifts breaking into his physical reality to verify inner frontier explorations he began many years ago. But intensified over the last five or six.
And Perry is just getting started.
The penchant to ravenously consume digital information is your surrogate for what your you really wants you to do to your inner space. There are no limits to rewards realized from time invested exploring you, from the inside.
Your you already knows this.
And that’s why you and everyone else consumes so much digital information. It’s a mass-nail biting reflex to a latent awareness eager to be born within you. People bite their nails as an habitual reflex to something happening just below their conscious awareness. There are many habits among humans just like this.
Oh! The diversity!
There is great diversity on your planet and more being born every moment. (Photo: Jorge Saavedra)
Physical life always reflects inner life, what we call non-physical life experience. All humans want to realize consistency between what they experience in the physical world, and what they are experiencing in the non-physical one. The consistency already exists. There is no deviation between what his happening in the physical world and what is happening in non-physical.
But to realize the consistency is another matter. Nearly all 7-plus billion humans are oblivious to this consistency, says Seth, Abraham and many other nonphysical “guides” focused here with you. This obliviousness is wholly responsible for human insecurity. Which is why so much insecurity exists. From the office of your president, all the way down to the houseless on the street.
Yes, every human who has resolved their obliviousness has found invincibility. Freedom from insecurity. Freedom from fear of death. And more.
No exceptions.
It only takes a moment to get the resolution underway
Within thirty days of the proper activity, you can receive a clear, no-bullshit indication that your non-physical life experience is where all the action is, and where all the action in front of your eyeballs comes from. From there, there’s no going back. Meaning: once you breach this frontier, you are bound to discover more and more revealing to you the limitless nature of your non-physical, perceptual awareness.
When that happens, life takes on a different timbre.
Life becomes what it has always been underneath the anxiety, stress and “hurry up” nature of what Seth calls the “assembly line time” of ordinary consciousness.
In this new awareness, life becomes the delightful, easy, pleasurable romp through time and space that you knew it would be before you chose to come into physical life as human.
And while this can happen in a flash of insight, it’s far more fun for it to happen gradually. That way you can savor every blink of the eye-opening that is awakening.
There is a vast perspective you miss out on when you’re exclusively focused on ordinary consciousness, using that to look out on ordinary life experience and regurgitating what is.
Broaden your perspective to include that life area you may currently believe to be pseudoscientific, or “woo”, and you’ll find yourself blown away by what life –– your life –– will show you.
The self-discovery alone is worth it.
But more than that is realizing your life experience is 100 percent your creation.
If that last statement is accurate –– and there is no evidence disputing that –– who wouldn’t want to find that out?
We think everyone would.
How to begin
It’s simple. But because you’ve practiced (through habit) not doing this, it will feel uncomfortable at first. Humans tend to call things hard, when what’s really happening is the thing they’re calling hard is uncomfortable or something they’re unfamiliar with.
Discovery is in the uncomfortable.
So here’s how to get started.
· · ·
Contrary to what some might say, quitting your devices cold turkey is not the way to go. Neither is coming at this from the perspective that digital absorption is something one must “detox” from.
It’s far better to think of this approach as a pleasurable vacation. An adventure. Or an exciting exploration you’re about to begin. One key (to all of life) is to start gradually and in a spirit of play.
Now that your attitude is in the right place, you can take physical action. Here are some wonderful steps.
It’s not a life long commitment. And the benefits exceed a marital one. (Photo: Mark Duffel)
The commitment
Start by making a commitment that you’re going to do this for at least 30 days. In these thirty days, you’re going to immerse yourself, for a non-consecutive hour or two a day, in an activity series that has nothing to do with the digital world.
The process
Every day you’re going to do the following:
A. Each morning when you awake, you’re going to consciously take inventory of your surroundings, giving appreciation for the conditions in which you find yourself. You’re going to say out loud statements reflecting what you observe in this condition of appreciation.
The monologue will go thusly:
“I love how wonderful the day is. I love how good I feel. I really like this weather. I really love the feel of my clothes. I appreciate my bed. I appreciate my blankets. I appreciate my pillows…”
When you’ve just about had your fill of that experience, stop. If you get to the point where you’re struggling to figure out what to say, stop. This is not work. And you’re not applying effort. Nor are you being evaluated. It should be effortless and playful.
B. Rise from your bed. Take care of your personal (morning) business. Then, grab a notebook and writing gear. You’re then to write down a list of all the positive aspects of your life at the moment of your writing.
The objective of both A and B is to evoke from you an emotional response. A feeling of satisfaction or positive disposition about your life experience is what you’re reaching for.
Continue with your morning. Then…
C. Take a lunch. We mean actually take a real lunch. Outside the office, in the open air, alone. While you’re out there, set aside at least half of your lunch period and take a walk in nature. Say to yourself aloud or to yourself statements reflecting the wonderful things you are seeing in the world around you. You are focusing on positive aspects of your surroundings. Alternatively, take a more powerful approach to this step: while walking, acknowledge how your Inner Being (the you inside you) is constantly attending to you, loving you, appreciating you, rooting for you, supporting you and guiding you. Run a loop of these statements throughout your walk.
It is important that every time you are expressing yourself through these steps, that you mean what you are saying. Don’t just say the statements. You have to believe what you are saying.
When lunch is over, go about your afternoon.
D. Prior to bed, but not so close that you’re too tired, do the following: Reflect upon the day, think about all the great things that happened and that you enjoyed. Think about the positive aspects of the day. Be creative. Think of more than the obvious. For example, the sun rising is a positive aspect. So is bird song. So is plenty of air to breathe. So are the people who contribute to your life, such as those generations of human who came before you, who invented things you enjoy today. Get it?
When you have reached the point where you’re working at thinking of something, stop.
Follow these instructions to the letter and before day 30 an unmistakable event will happen which will demonstrate to you, in no uncertain terms, that you are progressing.
Here’s an example from a client’s experience:
He was doing part-time work at an expo, manning a table for a friend. He had a goal to achieve a certain amount of income each day. This table-manning gig was getting him part-way there, but he needed a bit more work. While at the expo, another friend called with an urgent task. If he could complete it, he’d be paid far more than his daily quota.
The task was to find a woman this other guy needed to talk with urgently. The conversation would save a business deal. But the guy needing to have the conversation couldn’t find the woman anywhere.
But our client, let’s call him Josh, was hesitant. He didn’t want to lose the income from the table-manning gig. And he had no idea who this woman was or where she was. So at first he said no.
Josh had been doing a more detailed version of the above instructions. So when he had the impulse to call the guy back and tell him yes, he followed it. The guy gave Josh the woman’s name. That’s all the guy had. Josh had a friend replace him at the table and got to work.
He found the woman’s address. That’s when he received another impulse: that if he left for that address right now, the woman would be there.
So he left.
He arrived and knocked on the door. Nothing.
Knocked again. Nothing.
Knocked again. Hard.
Nothing.
Hmm, he thought. He started walking away. When he got halfway back to his car, he got another impulse: turn around.
When he did, there was the woman standing on the porch.
Josh walked up to the woman while dialing the number of the guy who desperately needed to speak with her.
“Are you XYZ?” Josh asked.
“Yes,” She said.
He handed her his phone. “This call is for you.”
The rest of the story is history. Josh was a skeptic at first. He didn’t trust that Perry could show him how to eliminate nearly all his life challenges. Now he knows what we know. And his life is gradually becoming a delightful romp.
Josh doesn’t have a problem requiring a respite from digital content consumption. You don’t either. What Josh wanted was a way to feel invincible in his life experience. It is what every human craves.
· · ·
We don’t think a “detox” from a digital indulgence is necessary. Nothing is going wrong on your planet. But we do believe one can use such an experience to benefit from far more than more balance between real life and digital life.
Digital device balance will naturally be restored when you’ve discovered your inner world’s majesty. For then you’ve soothed that which has been nagging you.
The digital world pales in comparison to what awaits behind your eyeballs. When you realize that, your seeming habitual fascination with internet information –– like nail biting –– will fall away.
You can have it all. We’re offering this bit of information for that purpose.
The most powerful reading is that which inspires you to more. The new. The not known before. It’s one of the reasons you’re so drawn to social media via your devices. The inner world holds so much of that, not having direct access to it is a life barely lived.
*We are Perry’s nonphysical Inner Being expressing ourselves through the experiences and examples of Perry’s life.
Perry got what he wanted. He also learned something. Maybe, he thought, he isn’t fit for the open ocean. That lesson cost him nothing. He had a (mostly) great time.
