Posts Tagged ‘Best Good’

Observer Challenges

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

In my recent post titled The Creation Conundrum, I ended with one of the challenges of  Observer Mode, the difficulty of staying in neutral.  As with a car, when you shift out of gear you take away one of your means for control.  When the transmission’s disengaged, the car will easily follow the path of least resistance.

To stay in neutral emotionally, you must maintain equanimity.  You can use your breaks – refuse to let momentum pull you into Interpreter Mode.  You can use your gas pedal – consciously chose an emotion from Partner Mode.  Or you can use the transmission – hold steady with the emotions of Observer Mode.  Which one you choose depends on where you are parked, how hard it was to get there, how urgent you are to go somewhere else, and how full your gas tank is.

First Challenge – Stay in Neutral

To be in neutral emotionally is to have reached a relatively flat surface.  It doesn’t take much of a shove to start coasting back down the hill again.  However, your response to a shove will depend not on the steepness of the hill but the difficulty of the climb.  Very likely, in some areas of your life you can stride up a steep slope with ease, while in other areas you struggle to surmount a slight incline.  The energy required to go backward is inverse to the energy it took to go forward.  If you achieved the plateau of neutrality with little effort, it will probably take a huge effort to push you back down into judgment.  If it took a concerted effort to become neutral, a little tap might send you sliding down.

There’s an emotional position in Observer Mode I haven’t mentioned yet.  It’s the state of healthy discontent.  Often, discontent takes the form of judgment, much like consternation or discomfort or irritation.  It can also be the soul’s yearning for best good.  You possess a basic instinct to be the best person you can be, to serve the world and mankind to the best of your ability, and to gain mastery, empowerment and enlightenment.  In Victim or Interpreter Mode, it’s easy to loose touch with that instinct, but the spark will never die out completely.  When you reach Observer Mode, you essentially add energy to the spark, and it flames into life.  The resulting sense of healthy discontent will pull you toward Partner Mode.

Whether you can put yourself in gear and step on the gas will depend on your reserves.  Staying in neutral a while gives you a chance to refuel, to get to know yourself better, to enjoy the view, to study your road map, to take stock of your options.  In Observer Mode you have 100 times the personal power you had in Interpreter Mode, and it may take some time to discover the full range of your new capabilities.

When you are free of judgment, your possibilities include: child-like levels of enjoyment and delight, security as in a mother’s arms, clarity like rain-fresh air, the hope of a new day, and in-the-now acceptance.  It may take practice to fully make use of your expanded ability to marvel, to savor, to give thanks, to enjoy, to relax, to be.

Eventually, you will know your emotions are secure, you will know it would take more than a nudge (or a shove, or a blast) to knock you into a state of less power.  Refueled, your innate desire for growth, for maximizing yourself, will propel you up the next slope.

Second Challenge – Accept the Possibilities

Another new challenge of Observer Mode is that of dealing with infinite possibilities.

Interpreter Mode makes things difficult, while Observer makes things possible.

When you leave Interpreter Mode for Observer Mode, the sudden vista of what’s possible can be both overwhelming and confusing.  If you could see the spectrum of possibilities as a continuum, everything you don’t want would stretch off to the left and everything you do want would stretch off to the right.  You could easily pivot to the right and march straight in the direction of what you want.

In actuality, the landscape is not flat or even.  It spreads out in every direction, with hills and dales, broad avenues and dead-ends, successes and failures, comfort and discomfort, security and danger.

In Interpreter Mode your options seemed mostly “bad,” and you could count it a win if you made the best of a bad situation.  In Observer Mode the possibility certainly exists that you could make a mistake.  Except as soon as you fear choosing badly, you slide back into judgment.  And this presents another conundrum for the Observer:  How do you remain neutral in this landscape in which everything (good and bad) is possible?

The answer can be found within the personal power you access when you become the observer.

As with all modes, the power that becomes available to you exists in the emotions of that mode.  Mastering the power you’ve accessed is yet another challenge of Observer Mode.

Third Challenge – Master the Emotion

Each of the emotions of Observer Mode has its own power, its own energy.  When you experience one of these emotions, you tap into the energy and embody its power.  If you want to experiment with this a bit, try the following:  Sit quietly.  Get into the now by letting go of all judgments and becoming neutral.  Then pick an Observer emotion and think of something that will evoke that emotion within you.  Spend a moment or two observing the way your body responds to that emotion.  Then pick another and repeat the process.  Take note of the shifts of energy in your body.

As I tried the experiment myself, when I evoked compassion I felt my heart swell.  When I evoked curiosity, my face and forehead relaxed.  And when I evoked amusement, I chuckled.

No two people experience emotional energy in exactly the same way, so pay attention to how it feels to you.  And if you can’t sense the energy immediately, no worries.  You wouldn’t expect to play the piano the first time you sat at the keyboard.

Here’s something you can do – sort of like a first finger piano exercise:  Find a quiet place and seclude yourself for ten or fifteen minutes.  Choose any Observer emotion and let it fill your consciousness.  The following guide might help:

  • Think about what that emotion means to you.
  • Thing about times when you’ve experienced that emotion.
  • Remember what generated that emotion within you.
  • Identify any current aspect of your life that might benefit from receiving that emotion.

Take admiration for instance.  You could begin by mentally cataloguing things you admire (sunsets, great art, beautiful bodies, skyscrapers, thick hair, a good book, a job well done).  Then bring any one of these things to mind and recall your admiration.  Next let your body recall the sensations of admiration.  And when your thoughts and your body are connected to the emotion of admiration, recall something that’s going on in your life right now (frustration at work, an interest you want to pursue, tight money, the times you spend with your best friend).  Now send admiration toward that aspect of your life (something you admire in a co-worker, what you admire most about what interests you, the good things money will buy, the way your friend listens to you).  Enjoy the calm produced by the admiration you first evoke, then feel, then send out.

Consider the time spent engaged in this sort of practice as holding sacred space.  Let it become sacred by honoring it and giving it high priority.  Do not profane it with Interpreter or Victim emotions.  When you schedule the time and dedicate yourself to feeling the energy of Observer emotions, being the energy of Observer emotions, you will discover you can:

  • Neutralize your conflict.
  • Ease your pain.
  • Smooth your way.
  • Send others encouragement.
  • Open doors.

When you use the power of Observer Mode emotions for these purposes, you will look out over the landscape of possibilities more objectively.

When you review any downside, you will do so with patience and courage.  Just because you can observe the possibilities on the left side of the continuum doesn’t mean you’ll head in that direction.

When you explore the possibilities on the right side of the continuum, you will do so with curiosity and excitement.  You’ll see them as real options.

Fourth Challenge – Serve Through Neutrality

Have you ever noticed the calming effect of some rooms or buildings?  Researchers are studying the impact on mood and productivity of such things as color, ceiling height, the sharpness or roundness of corners and the placement of furnishings.  Sometimes the calm space you enter will have structural elements that contribute to that energy.  Other times the calm will be generated by the emotional energy of the person or group that uses the space.

When you are firmly in Observer Mode, your personal power includes the ability to calm others.  The calming energy of your neutrality will touch everything within your immediate vicinity.  It will also reach across time and space when you think of someone or something and focus your  emotions in that direction.

In my previous blog, I mentioned my client who said, in reference to moving out of Interpreter Mode, “But that wouldn’t be any fun!”  In reply, I said to him, “It’s a different kind of fun.”

Observer Mode presents many challenges, perhaps more than I’ve mentioned today.  Conflict is not one of them.  In addition to calm, I expect you will find meeting these challenges to be agreeable, confidence building, constructive, liberating, and healing.

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

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Posted in Mind Power, Observer Mode, personal power, service | 26 Comments »

Getting What You Want

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

To paraphrase Shakespeare:  What to choose and what not to choose, that is the question.

Followed, of course, by all manner of other questions:  What choices are actually within my power?  What if what I want is not within my power to obtain or achieve?  What if I make a mistake?  What if I don’t deserve it?  What if God has something else in mind for me?  How do I go about getting it?  What if I fail (stumble, look stupid, hurt someone else in the process, lose)?  What if I get it, and end up disappointed (again)?  Etc.

Choosing can be difficult for many reasons, starting with the need to know yourself pretty well and including the limits of the human imagination.  No matter how creative you are, it’s impossible to envision every outcome.  And it’s especially impossible to envision the best way for something to come about.

So here you sit, facing the questions of what to choose (or not choose), besieged by additional questions and limited by your imagination.  And held captive by your assessment of yourself.  Now what?

Well, you can wait for something to happen and hope it’s good.  You can fall back on old habits and old choices and make the best of it.  You can find ways to explain your immobility:  reality, the economy, your obligations, your fears, other people, ego, your lack of resources (money, education, talent, opportunity).  You can look for a sign.  You can experiment with the options you see.  You can go to work on becoming better acquainted with yourself.

You can learn to make miracles.

The Nature of the Miracle

Traditionally, miracles carry a religious connotation, occurring as a result of divine intervention.  You pray, and the gods respond in your favor – if they favor your request.  When I first began to explore the idea of miracles, I realized I held a core belief in the laws of the universe.  I believe natural laws govern all outcomes, and even the gods work within the laws.  I concluded if we can’t see how an outcome happens, we simply do not understand the laws.  (I’m even more convinced of that since I’ve been studying quantum physics.)

For most of my life, I’ve been observing patterns and then dissecting the patterns to discover the contributing factors.  One of the most powerful insights I’ve gained over the years is that any energy or entity “out there” wants our best good.  Completely.  In all things.  Without exception.  Cosmic Consciousness (or God, or The Source, or whatever you want to call it) wants us to be happy, healthy, wealthy, wise, successful, and abundant.

That entity wants us to know ourselves, to know love, to gain enlightenment, to access the full measure of our personal power, and to serve powerfully.  There are no trade-offs.  We don’t have to sacrifice something in order to receive something.  We don’t need to have abundance in order to be happy, or health in order to be wise, or love in order to serve, or service in order to know love.

Of course, if you believe in such trade-offs, they become true.  But what if they aren’t true?  What if you could believe in miracles without limitations?  What if you could believe in your own best good?  What if you could believe your best good was your birthright?  What if you could believe that just because you were born on this planet you were given the right to enjoy the full fruits of life?

I’m going to assume you do believe this, and you do want Your Best Good.

Who Knows What’s Best?

Let’s explore Best Good a bit more deeply.  First of all, recognize Your Best Good is best for you, and you are the only arbiter.  No one on this planet knows what’s best for you better than you do – although cosmic consciousness might.  Your parents don’t know, your teachers didn’t know, your boss doesn’t know, your neighbors don’t know, you minister doesn’t know, your therapist doesn’t know.  No one else knows.  Everyone else will see your best good through their own lenses, and their lenses will be tinted by such factors as their beliefs, their experiences, their values, their view of you, and what’s in it for them.

But, you may be saying, I don’t know what my best good is!  Yes, you do.  At least your soul knows.  Your mind has probably been listening to others for too many years to be able to sort what you know from what everyone else says.  However, your heart and your body have ways of communicating that knowledge to you, if you are willing to listen.

I envision the methodology for making miracles to have three parts.  Each part of the model is an action point and requires your full commitment .

First – Choose, and Choose Truly

First, the choice you make must a true for you – and you must be willing to be true to it.  If you make a choice that is not true for you, you will know it in one of two ways:  1) You won’t be able to hold the intention.  It will simply slip out of your mind and out of your life.  2)  You’ll start getting messages from your true self.  Those messages will begin with a nudge, a pinprick of discomfort, a slip-up somewhere:  you’ll come down with a cold, your car won’t start, you’ll lose a computer file, etc.  (This is not to say every slip-up is a message, but it pays to explore the possibility.)

If you pay attention to the first message and correct your course, you’ll soon be on your way to Your Best Good.  If you ignore the first message, the second will be stronger:  the flu, perhaps, or a rear-ender, or a crashed hard-drive.

If the second message slides past without acknowledgment, and you continue to pursue a choice that isn’t true for you, each successive message will be stronger still.  Pay attention to your pain, whatever form it takes.  It could be serving as a wake-up call, as a seer stone, as a magnifying glass, as a window to your soul, as a reflection of a past un-true choice, etc.

Choices in favor of Your Best Good will always result in less pain, less suffering, less struggle, fewer obstacles, a faster pace, and greater peace.

Second – Align With Your Choice

This section is tricky because it’s absolutely impossible to see the unification – the alignment – take place.  The only way you can know whether or not you’re aligned is to look at the result.  If what you have chosen isn’t happening, you’re not aligned with it.  You’re aligned with whatever is happening.

The mis-alignment can be in your thoughts, in your emotions, or in your actions.  Since actions are the most observable, it’s fairly easy to assess whether they’re in unity with your choice.  If you’ve chosen to be healthy, are you living healthily?  If you’ve chosen to write a book, are you actually writing?  If you’ve chosen to build a business, are you focused on service?

Conscious thought is also fairly easy to monitor, just tune into your mind and listen.  Are you critical or creative?  Are you distracted or determined?  Are you candid or calculating?

Sub-conscious thoughts, beliefs and emotions are more subtle, but they are not invisible.  They show up in such non-subtle ways as trials, tribulations, and pain.

During three recent coaching sessions I worked with people in physical pain.  One client had pain in her shoulder and numbness in her forearm, one had sciatica, and one had irritable bowel syndrome.  In each case, we looked for emotional conflicts by probing for the metaphorical message in the pain.  Once the client found the message, listened to it, and made a different choice, the pain eased up.  My client with shoulder and arm issues, found a belief that it was her responsibility to be the “good right arm” of others, and in accordance with that belief she was investing an excessive amount of energy in other people’s goals.  She decided to refocus her attention on her wholeness and best good.  My client with sciatica realized the pain began when she let herself be drawn into a situation she didn’t like and became angry with herself.  We revisited the incident and she chose calm instead of anger.  My client with the irritated bowel found he was taking responsibility for the emotions of others.  As soon as he identified this burden and acknowledged he had chosen to take it on, he was able to release it.

In each case, when my client recognized the inner conflict and released the part that wasn’t in alignment with Best Good, the pain subsided or disappeared.

Third, Receive the Miracle

Receiving may seem like a no-brainer.  If you choose truly, and if you unify your thoughts, actions and emotions, of course you’re willing to receive!

However, since the miracle will be Your Best Good, it might not look exactly like you envisioned when you first made your choice.  You’ve heard the old story of the guy sitting on his roof during a flood, praying for deliverance and turning away rescuers because he expected God to magically transport him away from danger.  You can’t know in advance what the miracle will look like, what form it will take, or how it will show up in your life.  Be willing to open your arms and embrace the miracle that comes.  Sometimes the miracle is the end result, and the only thing left for you is to celebrate.  Sometimes the miracle is an opportunity, and it’s up to you to stride through the door and proceed eagerly up the path.

Wanting Your Best Good is not a substitute for more specific choices.  If you want to write a best-selling novel, decide what that would feel like to you, and choose it.  Unify your thoughts, actions and emotions with that choice.  Then let go of any expectation, any concept of what that must look like.  Go to work; keep your emotions in partner or creator mode, and willingly receive Your Best Good.

The universe will then deliver the miracle.

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

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Posted in Making Miracles, intentions, manifestation, personal power | Comments Off

Becoming Congruent

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

As sentient beings, we approach everything from three directions at once.  We view them through our emotions, we think about them, and we act – not necessarily in that order.

Our best results come when these three tactics work in harmony with each other, when we’re congruent.  In fact, you can recognize the areas of your life where you are congruent by looking at your results.  If you’re getting what you want, you’re in alignment.  If you’re not getting what you want, one of these forces doesn’t mesh with the other two.

Alignment begins by making sure what you want is true for you and that you can be true to it.  Your congruence with what you want is the first step of alignment, but sometimes being true to what you want can be challenging.  Even when it feels true and you know it comes from your heart, you’re beset by doubts or objections or experiences that deny the possibility of attainment.  Then it’s time to search out your impediments and remove them from your path.

Identify the Impurities

For a good way to I way to identify your obstacles and objections here’s something I call The “But” Exercise.

Write your intention at the top of a piece of paper.  For instance,

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Then turn your statement into a compound sentence with the word but, and finish with whatever fear, belief, or doubt comes up.  Since you probably have more than one fear or doubt, repeat this exercise at least 10 different ways.

If you’ve been working with an intention statement on a daily basis, it’s very likely some objections have been intruding.  This is your chance to commit them to paper:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance,

  • But I’m stuck in a job that barely pays the bills.
  • But every time I try to feel abundance my stomach tightens up.
  • But the economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from.
  • But I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before.
  • But money is the root of all evil.
  • But the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.
  • But I have to make sure everyone else is okay first.

If you discover more than ten obstacles, keep going.  Perhaps you know your strongest doubt already, so it comes up first.  Continue anyway just to probe for anything else.  If you’re not sure what’s stopping you, this is a good way to release your subconscious.  Maybe you’ve got such an array of doubts you could find twenty without batting an eye.  However it is for you, this is the first step toward dissolving your objections and becoming completely congruent with your intention.

This exercise may take some time.  You may need to come back to it a couple of times.  Stay open and receptive.  You may discover some old beliefs embedded in your subconscious.  You may be able to articulate a persistent fear.  You may be confronted by an attitude or opinion that surprises you.  Write them all down.  If you resist your resistance, you give your obstacles permission to block you.

Now, with your list in hand, read through the buts and select the one you perceive to be the strongest.  Which one do you believe hinders you the most?

Dissolve the Obstacles

And now, dissolve the obstruction.  For clarity’s sake, I’m going to number the “steps,” although in practice they often overlap.

1.  Write your complete, compound statement on a fresh piece of paper (your original intention and the but you’ve decided to dissolve).

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, but the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.

2.  Examine your statement for implications and connotations and take note of what you find.  There’s quite a lot embedded in this example, including disdain for the rich (and a reluctance to become one of them), fear of becoming manipulative and exploitive, and identification with the poor.  Your own statement may be equally loaded.

3.      Consider what you would like to believe instead.  Perhaps you already consciously accept something else, even while your subconscious holds onto an attitude or belief that clearly doesn’t serve you.  You might find it helpful to think of neutralizing the old belief.

  • I can be rich and loving at the same time.
  • Some of the richest people in the world are also the most generous.
  • Money is merely a form of energy, and all energy can be used for either good or bad.
  • Creative endeavors produce as much wealth (perhaps more) than exploitive endeavors.
  • While exploitation exaggerates the difference between rich and poor, cooperation benefits everyone.

4.      Work with your list to come up with a statement of belief that strongly replaces the old one:

I cooperate with and empower others in every way, and we all prosper.

5.      Envision this as true.  Feel it as true.  Let it expand within you until you can observe your supportive and prosperous relationships with everyone.  What emotions come up for you?  What emotions do you think would most actively create this?  Love?  Delight?  Enjoyment?  Gratitude?  Serenity?  Generosity?

Remember, all emotions are creative.  You create according to the emotions you experience and generate.  Whereas Victim emotions create pain and suffering and Interpreter emotions create struggle, Observer emotions create calm, Partner emotions create opportunity and Creator emotions connect with your best good.

If some latent Victim emotion continues to reside within you, no matter how illogical or convoluted, that emotion retains the power to block what you want.  However, it’s impossible for any Victim emotion to reside in the same space as any Creator emotion.  You can neutralize fear, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. with love, kindness, peace, joy, etc.  Always.

To eradicate Victim or Interpreter obstacles, identify an emotion one step up the chart and choose to feel it instead.  Then identify an emotions one step up from that and adopt that one.  Keep going until you can access one of the Partner or Creator emotions.  Then incorporate one or more of those emotions into this new statement.

I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.


6.    Now replace your original but with and to form a new compound statement.

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, and I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.

Align

Your new compound sentence may sound a bit cumbersome.  When you recognize the parts of your statement and their importance, you can abridge the statement while retaining the power of it.  Your statement encompasses the following:

1.    What you want. In the example I’m using, this is abundance.  Yours might be an improved relationship, greater health, a successful business, wholeness, making a living with your talent.

2.    Why you want it or the service you’ll provide. The example circumvents the belief that when some win others lose and focuses on win-win.  Your motives can be personal or broad.  If your own peace of mind is more important to you than world peace, focus on your own peace of mind.

3.    The emotion(s) you’ll use to create what you want.  In the example, the emotions are delight, gratitude and love.  Yours might be peace, enthusiasm, vigor, or anything from Partner or Creator mode.

By understanding these parts, you can sit with your intention without using any words at all:  imagine what you want, evoke the creative emotions, feel it as a done deal.   It’s impossible to know when or in what manner your intention will manifest, so relax and observe.

I provide one-on-one coaching in Personal Power and Manifestation.  Please write to me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Congruence, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, The Law of Attraction, Victim Mode, intentions, manifestation | 7 Comments »

(N)Ever Surrender

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

I first encountered the concept of surrender in a manifestation class many years ago, and it made no sense to me.  Even though I understood the idea, (intellectually, at least) of surrendering one’s struggles to God, this was a manifestation class.  We were talking about choosing and creating and attracting, and I didn’t see what I was supposed to surrender.  I could see quite clearly various aspects and behaviors I could adopt – but surrender?

Well, during the years since then, I’ve come to realize surrendering is relative.  There are things to ever surrender, and there are things to never surrender.  Today I’m going to put some of them into context with each other.

Personal Power and Guarantee

In life, there can be no guarantees, and yet our culture seems to demand them.  Wherever we see danger, we look for protection.  Everywhere we look we see rules, regulations, safety features, alarm systems, guard rails, insurance policies, fences and armies, all devised to save us from harm.  But if you demand security from others – from the government, from parents, from the legal system, from social custom, from an employer – you are basically saying, “My well-being is your responsibility, not mine.”

Of course, it can be very comforting to place that responsibility in someone else’s lap.  Then, if anything goes wrong, you have someone else to blame, maybe someone to turn to for compensation.  However, when you cede responsibility, you also cede personal power.

To avoid surrendering your personal power, surrender your need for a guarantee.  Or, conversely, when you retain and strengthen your personal power, you release your need for a guarantee.

Every human being has within them the potential for unlimited personal power, the potential to become the creators of their own lives.  (Although, we’re not all born into equally conducive environments.  You, for instance, have more freedom to access your power than a starving mother in the Sudan.)   You have within you the powers of peace, love, joy, awe, delight, optimism and authenticity.  When you cultivate these aspects of your personal power, when you trust them and use them to create your life, you create your own well-being and your own security.  Never surrender your personal power; always surrender the need for a guarantee.

Discernment and Judgment

In our lexicon, judgment has two meanings.  In one sense, it has an objective meaning with clear distinctions – something is right or wrong, legal or illegal, pure or sinful.  In another sense, it’s subjective and relies on perception, encompassing the full range of from bad to good.  Perception, of course, is relative to present circumstances, past experiences, embedded beliefs, future expectations, etc.  For instance, snowy weather might be “terrible” to a commuter and “terrific” to a skier.  A beautiful chocolate torte might be “fabulous” to a connoisseur and “obscene” to an ascetic.

In both the objective and the subjective sense, judgment generates struggle.  Once you judge something “good” or “bad”, you impose limitations, and limitations induce conflict.  Let’s look at some every-day situations to see how this unfolds.

  • You have a co-worker who dominates meetings with rambling monologs.  You judge this associate to be annoying, or stupid, or a pain-in-the-neck.  As soon as she starts talking, your resentment kicks in and you tune out.  When you stop caring about what she has to say, you also stop seeing than anything good can come out of the meeting.
  • You and your brother are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  You’re “right” and he’s wr—oops, “left.”   You wish he’d open his eyes to the facts, and he acts like you’re the one who’s stupid.  You can’t even talk to each other any more without calling each other names.
  • You’ve been a procrastinator all your life.  At various times you’ve judged this as “lazy,” “free-spirited,” “rebellious,” or “insecure.”  By now, you’ve given up trying to understand it, you just know it’s an insufficiency.  You hate it in yourself, it causes you stress, but you’ve pretty much concluded there’s nothing you can do about it.

Judgment increases stress and decreases possibilities.  So, what if you surrendered judgment?  What if you simply let go of any need to see things as right/wrong, good/bad/ full/empty, in/out?  What would you have left?  Discernment.

When you surrender judgment, you surrender limitation and conflict.  When you lay claim to discernment, you open yourself to possibilities and cooperation.  Let’s look at the above situations and see the difference.

  • Where judgment translates into annoyance at the rambling co-worker, discernment stays focused on the purpose of the meeting.  Discernment can separate contribution from distraction and look for the win-win.  Discernment can tease out what’s going on beneath the surface and bring benefit into the open.
  • Where judgment erects fences, discernment finds common ground.  Discernment asks questions instead of labeling and dividing.
  • A personal strength is often the other end of a continuum of a trait that’s been labeled a flaw or weakness.  “Procrastinators” may be at their most creative while they’re delaying.  A “bad memory” may be the gateway to greater depths of understanding.  Being “too cautious” may be an assessment process, the weighing of options to find a wiser approach.

Never surrender your discernment; always surrender the need to impose judgment.

Choice and Victim-ness

Victims don’t have options.  Or at least they believe they don’t.  If you believe you have no choice in some area of your life, in that area you have surrendered your free will.  The moment you surrender free will, you become a victim.

Choice exists in every situation, in every realm, under every circumstance.  Sometimes the circumstances may seem impossible, such as a genetic condition, or the situation of your birth, or the state of the economy, or an earlier choice than now feels binding and irredeemable.  Every day, either consciously or subconsciously, you say “yes” or “no” to that situation.  If you say “yes,” you agree to be a victim and surrender the pursuit of other possibilities.  If you say, “no,” you start looking for further options, hidden opportunities, unrecognized solutions.

Never surrender your freedom of choice; always relinquish the ties that bind you to victim-ness.

Enjoyment and Attachment

Attachment is a binding.  You become bound up with something, glued to it, and now you carry it around with you wherever you go.  You might be attached to another person, a principle, a belief, a goal, your houses, an animals, a cause, your friends, your enemies, a car, a habit, a perception, an outcome, etc.  Any separation from the object (or effort to separate) causes you anxiety and/or pain.

Enjoyment, by comparison, has no strings.  With enjoyment, you’re free to stay or leave – and so is whatever you’ve become attached to.

Emotions are key components of both attachment and enjoyment.  The difference is in the kind of emotion you’re applying, and what you expect as a result.  The emotions of attachment always include an element of desperation – as if without the object of your attachment you will be less in some way.  Such emotions include fear, desire, hatred, anxiety, concern, insecurity, rigidity, guilt, grief, certainty, etc.  The emotions of enjoyment are always expansive:  affection, openness, contentment, delight, trust, fun, confidence, etc.

Never surrender your enjoyment (of life, of others, of today, or the hidden treasures in challenging situations); always surrender your attachment to the things and circumstances of your life that are not yours to control.

Self and Ego

By definition, ego is simply another name for self.  By connotation, however, it carries all kinds of burden.  It’s used as a stand-in for pride, self-importance, conceit, vanity, arrogance, etc.  In that guise, it becomes the enemy of the self, almost the anti-self.

The best description of ego in this sense came from a little book on Hindu philosophy I read a decade or so ago.  Ego is when you believe something about yourself and it becomes important to you that others see you the same way.  Any trait or feature of yourself applies here – beauty, intelligence, extroversion, spirituality, productivity; irresponsibility, brashness, rebellion, superiority.

To surrender ego without surrendering yourself, recognize all the true and precious aspects of you.  Let go of any need for others to see you in any certain way.

Strength and Guilt

Guilt drains away strength.  Guilt appears when you perceive you acted wrongly.  Perhaps you said the wrong thing, or lost an opportunity, or hurt someone, or make a bad choice, or over-reacted, or committed a sin, or didn’t exercise, or broke your diet, or spent too much money, etc., etc., etc.  You believe yourself in error (or worse).  In a case against yourself, you decide the verdict first and then you act as the prosecutor, the judge and the jury.  You refuse to call any witnesses in your own behalf.  And then you sentence yourself, and you surrender to some self-imposed punishment.  You abandon any good feelings toward yourself, such as kindness, or compassion, or trust, or gentleness, or joy, or any other indicator of inner strength – because you don’t deserve them.

And when you surrender your strength, you also relinquish any power you have to make amends, to change, to learn, to improve, to recoup, to compensate, to rebuild.

Never surrender your strength.  See it as the way to identify your contribution to the events and circumstances of your life.  See it as a form of divine guidance, steering you through the shoals of challenge.  Instead, surrender  all pangs of guilt that eat at you from the inside, gnawing at both your mind and your heart.

Neutrality and Defensiveness

I’m not sure whether the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense,” was first applied to football or to war.  Not being a fan of either, I’m also not sure how well it works in either case.  I do know it’s often applied in interpersonal relationships, and in those situations it’s never effective.

In relationships, defensiveness is deadly.  It will eventually destroy all companionship, respect, love, trust, ease, enjoyment, and peace.  All the attitudes I’ve suggested in this article for surrender (and many others) usually result in defensiveness.  You will become defensive if you expect a guarantee, if you judge yourself or the other person, if you’re prone to victim-ness, if you’re attached to something that matters more than the relationship, if you have an ego need, if you feel guilty.

The best cure for defensiveness is to surrender it.  To become neutral.

When you are neutral, you can see the other person’s point of view, you can look for more options, more possibilities become visible, you plug up the holes from which you leak personal power, and you can discover your strengths.

One thing that is true:  when you stop being defensive, you also stop being offensive.

The What and The How

A true statement of surrender is, “Let go, and let God.”  Stop trying to control all the little details, and trust The Infinite.

But what is God’s job, and what is your job?  Choice is always your job.  God cannot choose for you.  Free will is more than a right, it’s an obligation.  A responsibility.  When you surrender choice, you surrender will, and without will all that remains is chaos.

What you want is up to you.  Never surrender your intention, your ability to choose.  Never surrender your ability to see options, to imagine the possible.  Never surrender your confidence that you can create the life you want.

Always surrender the how. You don’t have to be able to see every step of the way between where you are now and where you want to go.  How is not up to you.  Trying to control how, constricts possible solutions and limits potential miracles.

Good personal life coaching helps you explore possibilities and gain more effective tools.  For a free introductory coaching session, write me at:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Beliefs, Calmness, Free will, Making Miracles, Possibilities, The Law of Attraction, manifestation | 1 Comment »