Acceptance

 What connotation do you have toward this word acceptance?

Does it invoke discomfort, passiveness, resignation?

Or does it make you feel at peace, having faith, embracing reality?

Meaning. Everything in life, in general, doesn't have any meaning. 

It's only human beings with their consciousness, give meanings to things, words, stuff, everything.

Without this amazing human brain of ours, there is absolutely no meaning to everything.

No meaning here is not with a negative undertone but just simply nothing. No-thing. Null. Neutral.

Thus whatever meaning you give to the word acceptance is just a personal perception.

Of course, one can logically argue that there is a fixed definition of the word in the dictionary.

But what it means to people, that is an independent experience.

I used to see acceptance as toughening up:

- no point crying over spill milk

- what doesn't kill me makes me stronger

I suppressed a ton of emotions down, buried them deep while trying to toughen up. All these cause a lot of conflict between my heart (soul) and my brain (mind). I struggled forward even when my wounds are not fully healed. When it reaches the tipping point, when I can't find a carpet big enough to hide the elephant in the room, I broke down and spiral into darkness.

Then came resignation. A feeling of total uselessness. Unable to control my life in the slightest. Existentialism crisis. What am I here for? What is the meaning of everything? What is the point? The elephant under the carpet literally came undone and ran amok within me breaking me up from within.

When you hit pit bottom, there is only one direction left. Up. I'm glad that my fall never did cause me any perpetual harm to my mental, emotional and physical health. The desire to be better came back after the elephant calm down. (Being an angry, depressed, crazy elephant all the time is tiring.) Healing can start when havoc was done wreaking.

I practice acceptance again. This time, accepting the elephant for what it is and embracing every part of it. The good the bad and the ugly. I accepted all with neither obligation nor judgement. There is no motive too for personal gain, no rush no pretense. The ironic part is, when the elephant is acknowledged, it usually walks away and disappeared. The struggle between the mind and soul ceased. Peace comes naturally.

Many times I aim to find peace to no avail. The mistake was I see peace as an end goal when it actually isn't a thing to be grasp at all the in first place. Peace is what comes naturally by having no desire. When you stop seeking, you realise that it is within you all along. All you need is acceptance.

The Abramović Method - Meaning of Life through seemingly Mundane Tasks

 How do we silence our minds and enter the peace that is within?

Today I chanced upon an artist, Marina  Abramović. 

She is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist using art to explore the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Recently she collab with Wetransfer on The Abramović Method.

Before I know it, I went into a meditative state just watching her doing her art.

Drinking water, walking slowly, counting rice, staring into the windows of our soul.

Meaningless, mindless things. So what is the purpose?

To be in the present moment.

She was on point when she was explaining the counting rice exercise.

You mix black lentils into white rice. Make a decision of how much rice you will count and whether you will count just the white/black / both.

For the first 5mins, you may be excited and enthusiastic. It's something new that you haven't done before. It's fun. After 15-20mins you start to feel pointless. Frustrated about the drudgery of it and start to feel angry and frustrated. This is the most important moment. You must get past that point and make the decision to stick to your promise to complete the whole exercise. If you give up in frustration now, you will have the same attitude when you face life. Once past, you shall find the tranquility where time stops and moment in the now just unfolds by itself. The destination no longer matters but the here and now.

In a way, counting rice, like many other mundane tasks we do daily, is life itself. What it means to live a full life? What does it mean to have a life? It can't be found through definition nor destination. You have to experience it and its true meaning shall unfold upon you.

 

Can we be 100% self-reliant?

Can we be 100% self-reliant when we have this innate need for validation, acknowledgment and recognition?

Where does this need comes from in the first place?

If we were born perfect, why do we feel that we are not enough and constantly have to strive for more?

I do believe that every one is born perfect. There is no good nor bad, no right or wrong, no sense of meaning and thus we don't suffer. Everything unfold moment by moment, naturally. Hunger, discomfort, we cry, brain produce endorphins, we self-soothes. 

But as we grow, we receive tons of input: "This is wrong" "That is right". "Stop it." "No." "You are such a good boy.". People older than us are constantly approving or disapproving what we 'naturally' want to do. We can always ignore them and stick to our guns but biology made us in such a way that our brain develop way faster than our body. Thus, we are unable to convert our thoughts into action and become dependent. (e.g. can't reach the door handle, not enough strength to open the jar, can't walk / run steadily, cant express out our thoughts clearly) 

So we need people. Mainly to feed us and care for us. We want them to understand us. Such dependency inevitably lead us wanting people to like us so that they will give us what we want. "I'll be a good girl and THEN I can get that candy that I want". We are being 'controlled' in that sense due to our own lack of physical ability, to love, care and look after ourselves. It no surprise when we reach adolescent (a period where we began to master our spatial ability and critical thinking), we want independence so badly. We stop trying to 'please' as proof our sense of identity, our independence. Yet the truth of the matter is, we are already too used to pleasing people to get them to accept us. It is what we have been doing for the past 10 over years. We have become socially interdependent (my identity is tie yours and others around me and vice versa). It is not possible to just undo what has been programed in us so easily. So what do we do next?

We seek peers and society approval. This is the part of your life where you are trying out independence and wanting to do things by yourself and be successful by your own means. What does success means for an adolescent? Depending on what the environment had taught thus far, it can be academic or skills or something else like fame. That feeling of inadequacy still follow us around, making our decision and choices,  pushing us towards excellence to reach what we deem as success. Striving for perfection.

All this is well, normal. But back to the question: "Can we be 100% self-reliant?" We are so imbedded into the society and environment, seeking acknowledgement and achievements, using social definition and judgement to mark our own progress or even define us as successful or a failure. It seems almost impossible to be self-reliant unless we cut off the whole world (and all its social definition) and go be a hermit. But who would want to live that way. Without definition, life is meaningless. Also, do we really want accept all the consequences we face in our life as OUR OWN choice and decision and nothing to do with the 'situation'? That is a huge call. 

Well, here's a thought. What if we disregard all definitions of success and failures and create our own? What if we can see that we are all made perfect in the first place and throw away all judgements and perceptions that was programed onto us? What if we can unconditionally love, validate, acknowledge and accept ourselves without another soul's approval? What if we can support each other's definition instead of measuring and comparing each other's like there is only one answer? 

Then we will be able to see other as an equal, as a friend and most important of all : Be 100% self-reliant.

The Goal behind Emotion

 What if behind every emotion there is a goal?

I believe that emotions are an illusion. It's not real in the sense that it can come and go within a second.

So what is the purpose of emotion? Why do we create it in the firsts place? 

In a nutshell, the goal of all emotion (yes all) is to feel superior (or less inferior) in someway to actualize I am. To truly feel "I'm right, you're wrong." I'm better than you".

Example: I see someone doing something I deemed wrong and thus I judge them to be some one I dislike. I chose to dislike. The person perhaps didn't intentionally nor personally out to get me / piss me off  in the first place. Yet, with my new dislike, I will continue to seek out things that validate my point, finding evidence, coming up with story (when there is no evidence) to paint that person in a certain way that fitted  my diagnosis. (some times it even actualized and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy)

Even when they did nothing, it's wrong. The more I dislike, the more I seek of the person weakness. The more weakness I found, the more I justify my dislike, stance and position. It's a self-feeding cycle  to justify myself that I was right.  The more justification I get, the more I feel like I'm better and superior, that I'm right. So one can say the true goal of this dislike is to make my own self feel better. 

Another way to put it: I don't like and accept myself. To do so, I must be better, more right, climb up over others, improve. 

(Could be a coincidence that the word Improve is spelled like I'm + prove. Like the whole point of improve is to prove the existence of I am, the ego)

And what happens if  I can't improve? How else can I bring myself up quickly? Bring other people down. Show and point out to them that "Nah, you are wrong. I'm right". That's one cheap way of gaining self-confidence and self-recognition. 

But it's an illusion right from the start. Create by the ego to manifest it own self. And to keep it inflate, one have to consistently seek out stuff that validate it's viewpoint, its judgement, to prove "I'm right". (to prove I am).

Same goes for anger. Did someone did something that made you angry? Or could the truth be that you felt inferior, were already unhappy and thus you are seeking for things to be angry about and jump up into a rage the  first moment you find a chance to do so. To assert, to raise your voice, to go into "I'm Right, You are Wrong!" mode to feel superior? People can do the shittiest things. We can choose to respond and not react. We can choose to have a conversation instead of jumping straight into anger.

The feeling of victimized and limited is tricky. What is the goal behind: Nah, I cant because …You don't understand.. (and the cycle repeats and one stays a victim) What could be the goal behind this? Here is where it gets dark. Like above example of people seeking other's weakness constantly to reinforce the emotion of dislike, feelings of victimized can be seek out too, thus the term self-sabotaging. "I can suffer and take more shit that normal people, I'm superior" " I am as good as others but I have this thing that I can't do it" " I let other win and I lose because I'm nicer than other people". All these justification to reinforce a toxic version of "I'm right, I'm better than you".

 As within, So without. How you see reflects how you feel deep inside. You don't see a satisfied person dissing about others shit or self sabotaging or trying to prove to the world that they are happy. They have the courage to respect and love themselves unconditionally (even when the whole world felt that you fail and disappointed them). There is no need to struggle and improve: no I am and thus nothing to prove.

When you can do that too, you will be truly satisfied and shall have no use for illusionary emotion.

Just be, just accept and just love.

The Right Path

How do I know that I am on the right path?

My whole life so far is a series of subscription.

Subscribing to whatever that is in front of me. One can call it swaying with the wind.

From parents to friends to books.

Every time I read / learn something new I dive right in.

Meditation wise I went for silent retreat, attended MBSR courses and do Yoga.

Lived by so many books : 7 Habits, Loving What Is, Soulful Simplicity, Kon Mari, Curated Closet, Project 333.

I truly enjoyed Psychology + Philosophy mixture. This is clearly shown in my likings for books and channels like School of Life, The Art of Thinking Clearly, Thinking Fast and Slow. Psychology is everywhere. After all, at the end of Psychology is the working of the human brain.

What about Philosophy? Its the art of living. Living a good and happy life. 

Many books and wisdom is a merge of both. It is after knowing how one things work, that heightens one's awareness via understanding, that one can use the tool (apply ourselves) better.

While I do believe in Universe (which can neither be classify under psychology or philosophy. More like a religion as its faith base) I still find it overlapping in both school of thoughts.

Like in 7 Habits. there is mention of building horizontal relationship, of focusing on one's own circle of influence. Same in Adlerian Psychology, focusing on one's task. Your tasks is to contribute, accept yourself and others as they are (in being) and leave the rest to them. 

Basically, leave it to the Universe. Haha

Passive? Nope. Liberating.

Easy? Nope. Ego is so damn hard to remove.

In Aldlerian Psychology, one have to accept one self fully, in the being.

Next to separate tasks and focus on one's own. 

Third, to treat all relationship (with everything in this Universe, even inanimate objects) as equal.

Will all these, you shall find love, joy and peace. 

The steps are clear, the path requires courage though. The courage to challenge and kill off your ego.

So back to the topic, How do I know I'm on the Right Path?

Well, I know when I feel congruent. My body, mind and soul have no conflict and I feel a inner sense of security. Stillness and clarity.

Do I have that now? In glimpses, yes. Requires a lot of introspection and ruminating over stuff. All these need silence. Silence of the mind. I have been practicing "Leave it all to the Universe, Be Present" recently. This helps with the incessant flow of thoughts and allow me to Just Be. 

It's hard when one is in social setting though. We act differently, think differently, so fast so unnoticeable. We seek conformity, acceptance and validation. Which is why I said understanding allow us to identify it and be aware of it. With awareness, accepting and untangling will be easier. 

I guess I haven't fully internalize being One with the Universe. If I do, I would not have issue treating all things and being as equal (since they are me and I am them). This, according to Adlerian Psychology is the main cause of unhappiness. All problems are Interpersonal. Hope that by reading "The Courage to be Dislike" will make the path clearer ahead.

Everyone is searching for the answer to the big question : What is Happiness and how to get it?

The answer is that it is always there within your reach, in a distance of a breath. But it's not a destination that one can reach and stay there. Not a place in time and space, not to be grasps. There is a path though and one just have to flow with it.