I've spent the last two days in hospital at the bedside of a friend, while he recovered from his own death.

I was recovering from his death as well, as it happened in my dining room.  He was chewing gum and singing one minute. Barely breathing the next.

My neighbor and I did our best to keep him alive while the ambulance angels arrived, thronged into my living room and whisked the grey-faced body to hospital as quickly and calmly as only they can.  You've never seen people moving so fast take things so slowly!

Two days later in the Intensive Care, he was musing on being lucky to be alive. 
"Good thing there's no brain damage," he said, barely able to speak after the tubes and lines were removed that had kept him alive for a day.
"I'll be the judge of that," I quipped.
We laughed.
The recovery had begun.

His journey to recovery will be whatever that turns out to be: the body healing, the mind recovering full equilibrium, and who knows what else may come to him.

For me, I can already tell you two odd things have shifted. Both point to something bigger.

Everything I've eaten today tastes sweet. Water tastes sweet. Soup tastes sweet. My mouth tastes fresh.  Odd. Not unpleasant, but odd.

I also walked into my closet and realized I could be rid of half my clothes.  No problem.

Only days before I was on a mission to clear out anything I don't wear. As all girls will know, there is always a moment of truth to be had when you are deciding to "throw" or "not to throw."

I was having some trouble letting go of a few pieces that, although I hardly wear, cost me more than I'd like to admit. I was hesitating and stammering and frankly, attached. I think I felt a bit foolish getting rid of them.  I felt even more foolish standing there now looking at what only days before had seemed so important. The "I might need this one day!" attitude had left me.  I had no desire to see these things hanging on the rail for another year. 

The logic that keeps closets all over the world filled to bursting, is a curious one.  I've talked about it in my book in the chapter on Wants, Desires and Addictions and how "so much of our wanting is fused with our self-esteem and personal identities."  As happens so often, I come back to my own words.  "Once we know how long we have to live, our desire to experience life intensifies."

These things I have do not constitute Life.  Life can only be experienced. It cannot be owned.

As I returned from hospital today to my closet I couldn't imagine that only 48 hours before I felt so attached to pieces of clothing. I knew I would easily let go of this and more.  In my mind's eye, I saw my closet full of things I love to wear, not things I can't bear to throw out. 

It is very strange all the little ways I learn about myself. 

As I considered all the things that would now be leaving my home forever, I felt an intense desire to get back to my own life's work.

Ever notice how people say they are in charge of their lives, but they then act like they are not?  

I might hear someone say "I always attract addicts!" as if they could control all the aspects and choices of other people. 

On the other side, I hear people say things like or "Why am I not drawing more money into my life?" as if that where a question for the universe rather than a question that relates to the personal choices one makes during each day.

It's quite a muddle all this. And it is important to see as clearly as we can.

I don't see the point of taking on more and more responsibility for the random things that happen to us while simultaneously abdicating responsibility for our choices.  So I've been reflecting on an important question lately:

Who's in charge? 
... and in charge of what?

I see people acting crazy, torn apart, suffering, because they have not considered this question deeply enough. If they could see the ways they take over-responsibility for others and under-responsibility for themselves, their lives would change radically for the better.

For example, everyone knows they are not in charge of the boss, the spouse, the kids or the economy.  Of course we hear people complaining and arguing about how unfair all these things are all the time.

But look more closely. Look at how they are blaming their own actions on these things. I heard someone recently saying that because the boss is a b*tch, their own bad attitude at work was totally justified. That comment passed unchallenged by anyone. Who "makes" you angry?  Who "upsets" you?  How do they do that?  How do they get inside you and do that?

Every breath of blame holds some excuse for our own behavior.  

No matter what other people do they cannot get inside us and make us see or do anything. 

Viktor Frankl proved that. 

Do you disagree? 

Many do. 

In fact many people are in prison right now because it made sense to them to shoot someone who showed "disrespect."  Do you think they had to kill a person because of a comment?  Probably not. But they do.  And I assure you, you and I all have areas of life where we are believe something similar and because it makes sense within the confines of our own mind we go blind to it.

Science was blind to it too. Now the latest brain science research is not only discovering the previously "impossible" plasticity of the brain, but it is throwing out the whole theory that environment determines behavior in any way. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga said in his Gifford lectures that humans are responsible agents and responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains.

Of course, this information does not help us that much day to day.  It never will until we are willing to shine a light into our blind spots.  One of our big blind spots (and I know, because it's mine too) is in understanding ourselves and how the human machine works.

Internally every human on this planet is a powerful storyteller.  We are inventors of reasons and interpretations that we treat as facts and refer to as "reality."  This activity keeps our brains very busy and our mental lives very full. 

How much are you willing to see that the majority of the day is made up of moving in and out of the feeling states that are being created by your own thinking and not created by the outside world acting on you?

Most of the day we are entertained mentally. 

Have you ever caught yourself wandering off into a day-dream? 

You are not asleep; you are fully awake in your body, but your mind has literally meandered into a thought stream. Maybe you are thinking about the upcoming weekend hot date, plans to get to the airport on time, or the way you'll move your money around so you can pay for something you want.

If you really sit for a moment and consider this, it is quite amazing how you are your own 3-D special effects team.  Strings of random thoughts arrive flying by at such a speed as to make their arrival and shifting patterns completely unnoticeable and yet illuminated through you into full-sensory experiences.

A day-dream is a good example of how we can get completely lost in that experience.

What we forget is that all thoughts have this same effect.  We also forget the transitory nature of thought. There is no constant, permanent thought. 

If you know anyone who is consumed in worry, obsessed with the past, or has trouble listening to people or sitting still -- it is not that they must change their thought patterns, it is that they need to become aware that their internal cinema is entertaining them. And I guarantee you, they don't know that.  They will tell you it's because of something, someone or some event that either happened to them in the past or is happening now. They see themselves as Response.  So sometimes we recognize that we're in the inner-cinema and other times we don't. 

This is really where the idea of Who's In Charge? comes in. It's not that we need to control what we think. We can't change the inner-cinematic effect: this is how we work as humans. But we certainly can stop blaming others for what is happening in our own internal world.

In this sense, no one has the power to make you do anything and no one can have any kind of effect on you.  Only you do that.

This is radical, but freeing news.

I admit it, I thought that as I got more "developed" life would get easier.  

Yet I notice that despite my good intentions, life as a human is just tough sometimes. It seems no matter how much I learn from my mistakes, life simply continues to have its rough patches and I haven't managed to smooth the way for myself as I thought I'd be able to.  

However, in contrast, I have got easier about the fact that it can be hard.

So many of us go through life feeling ill-equipped to deal with our challenges. Thinking we are inadequate, we decide to remain on guard. With our guard up we actually become more rigid and less responsive, so we don't flow easily with challenges. We tend to do poorly, try even harder (from an even less responsive place) and then get even worst results. We don't always get better and better over time.  Instead we can face similar challenges over and over.

When we think we must have everything figured out -- all the before, during and after -- we are putting ourselves mentally at our worst. We become preoccupied with analyzing and assessing our problems.  Mentally we shrink, not expand, and creativity is replaced by stress.  In essence, we begin using our imagination against us, worrying about things instead of seeing the creative solution that is unique to the situation. We become less and less clear. We choke. We panic. We react. (See last week's post on reactivity!).

So, hands up if you ever have come at your parent, partner, child or boss utterly  promising yourself you won't get riled up and then, in heat of the moment, being unable to stop yourself spiraling downwards.

Is it possible that our best-laid planning and all our ideas about how to handle our problems, actually kept us from responding well in the moment? 

Just Plain Losing It
Let's say I plan and rehearse all those things I want to say to my boss about why I deserve a raise. Do I walk into the boss's office already struggling to remember my well-rehearsed speech? Am I so concerned about flubbing it that I'm tongue tied?  "Well, I went to that confidence class," I remind myself, "so it should be fine. I'll just breathe and do like they said" Wrong. I've slid so far down my own ladder internally and my state of mind is so degraded that that I can't remember anything I've learned. I'm a goner.

We go about trying to solve problems by processing them, even though the evidence shows that the more mental effort we apply the less flexible, responsive and creative we become.

Trying to go at life's issues in the typical ways that we do -- planning, strategizing, making resolutions, withholding, weighing options, practicing behaviors, trying to control ourselves -- just often don't work out the way we envision.  

Is there an easier path? 

You may have noticed that we humans already possess an ability to have a new thought in any given moment.  When we are not all tied up in mental knots we have awareness of what's happening around us and we have the ability to tune in. What's more

• Everyone has intelligence to use and with which to reflect. 
• Everyone has a "heart" to feel emotional life as it happens. 
• Everyone has an ability recognize and express love. 
• Everyone has a sense that allows them to recognize what is good for them (gut, intuition or wisdom, whatever you want to call that). 
  

All these and more are examples of the kinds of capacities we are all are built with and can use to navigate our day-to-day lives.  We all have them. No exceptions.

And yet how little we understand that this is true.    

It's funny to me that everything I did to try to avoid difficulty or pave the way for myself in my best-laid plans never carved out the life I expected, never made people behave the way I'd hoped, and never controlled a single life event no matter how hard I applied the hammer and tongs.   

Very often I found creative ways out of situations that I would have described at the time as impossible to resolve.  Yet here I am. This has happened to all of us. How is that?

The moment someone says to me "I can't handle this!"  I often see that, in fact, they are handling it perfectly well.  Even if you have a mindset that is paralyzing you right now, it won't last. It's going to change.  Something different is going to occur.

But we don't seem to trust that will happen. Instead we go petal to the metal on our mental accelerator.  Our brains are full and then we send them into overdrive.

Many people find that this whole scenario shifts when they take a moment to write things down, or they let their internal world settle, before opening their mouth.  What actually happens in this moment is not that the writing does the trick, but that they begin to access the fact that they have possibility.  A brand new idea can pop up. And it often does.

It just like finding your purse when you stop looking for it.  Or coming over the top of the hill and finally seeing the view.

I am constantly witness to the incredible resources we all have available in any moment.  I wish I had a dollar for every person who has said to me "I don't know what to do!" who after a short few moments in conversation actually then revealed that, in fact, they know exactly what to do.   

No one need do anything to create this capacity for fresh thoughts. No books can teach you. No other person can give you directions.  You already have this. We are all essentially "Plug-and-Go" -- born equipped to deal with life and solve our problems when they arise through absolute reliance on this beautiful fact of life:

Random, unpredictable and completely unlimited numbers of ideas are circulating in you, right now, waiting to take shape. 

You will never rid life of problems. You will never shed all your personal problems. But really, is that a problem? 

Here comes the New Year.  Ready to clear out?

Think of your internal clear-out as if you had been holding something in your hand all year long.  Open your hand and let it drop.

All that stuff that you've accomplished or failed to is really no more than ideas about you should be, and notions about what would make you happy.

You may notice that you are actually changing and dropping these ideas all the time.  Throughout the year you may have picked up a few items you no longer need ...

_As anyone knows who has moved house, it's truly amazing how quickly we fill the space around us!  Isn't it incredible how, after a major clear-out, within a few years we seem to have filled the bucket back up to the brim?  Isn't it mind-boggling how much you discover you own when you start getting rid of stuff?    

It's almost as if we are not quite fully aware of what we are doing.   

I'm not saying you don't need every single item that you have.  But I do remember what Jacob Glass used to say -- there's no vortex quite like an empty apartment!

Our internal world is a bit like this too, isn't it?  We go along picking up all kinds of ideas from the world around us, like lint. Then suddenly we find we are saying things we don't even believe or mean to say!   

The we sit up in surprise and think, "That's not me!  I'm not like that." And it's a bit of a shock, really.   

Many of the things we pick up are painful to us -- fears about what other people might do to us, harsh judgements, tendencies to worry about the state of the world.   Even the temptation to gossip or bland conversations about the weather; these are just habits we all share as accepted ways of relating to one another.  They are not the real you.

Of course, not all these ideas we pick up are harmful or burdensome.  Only the unquestioned ones!

How about our ideas of what success looks like for an example?  Many children are being pushed into performance testing and evaluation as early as 4 and 5, in order to be accepted into kindergarten. Kindergarten! This is a notion of success that we could do without. It is full of fear about the future, and it's already beginning to velcro itself to tiny minds -- leaving them little room to stretch and grow naturally.  What chance will kids have to be their creative selves if the playing field is already shrinking around them?  

Who have we all become as a result of carrying around some of these burdensome ideas?  Who do we long to be?  Can you feel that longing?

We have added some junk to our beautiful selves that doesn't need to be there: self-condemnation, self-harm, self-chastisement, you name it.  You know what it is. You should hear the things people say to themselves. Tuned in lately? What if you knew that all your internal thoughts were being broadcast on a loudspeaker for everyone to hear? 

These accepted concepts about how we should look, how much we should weigh, whether we make enough money, whether we are on a path to success, are weighing us down. 

Is it really any wonder that we find it hard to connect with others, to love fully and to feel free?

Will we get to the point where we no longer recognize ourselves?  

And if we recognize ourselves, what are we identifying with anyway -- it's all just a bunch of notions about how things should be.

How about, let's not. 

It's almost the end of the year, let's leave them behind in 2011.    

Here' to YOU.

Every morning when we wake up and look out from our two eyes into the world something happens.  We become aware that we have a body, we seem to step into that body like the crab scrambling for a shell, and then out of that body we gaze, blink, step forward, and spend our day.

We don't give this routine much consideration, so it is very easy to just assume that we are limited, confined, fragile and our sphere of influence is reduced to those we meet or talk with in any given moment.   

I think we often start our day inside a feeling of smallness. We forget that our influence is not limited to our task list, our meeting calendar or today's projects.  In truth, we are not aware of how wide we reach, how many people we touch, and most importantly, how we are transmitting beyond our shells.

In part I'm simply talking about just lifting our eyes for a moment to take in a wider view of life.  A greater awareness of the largeness of ourselves. When you do that, just briefly, right now, do you really think that you are this dinky body and nothing more?  How can you be certain that people don't remember you, think of you, care for you and are impacted by you -- in ways that you have no idea of.  In fact people right now who have never met you may have some kind of opinion of you.

Each of us has a reach that is far greater than it might seem.   

Even people, like myself, who have decided that to reach out deliberately to touch others and to be a part of moving this world forward in a loving direction, may or may not be fully aware of this all the time.

But everyone makes a difference to someone.

Everyone matters.

Everyone.

You don't have to decide to change the world and help thousands of people to be making a difference in your world right now. In fact, you couldn't NOT make a difference if you tried.

The question is, what difference are you making?  You don't have to sign up for any cause if you don't want to. But would you like that to be conscious of how impact works?

Anyone who is working for change certainly needs to. Without that awareness people try to influence in all the wrong ways, through bullying, guilt-making, pushing, forcing, and many other angry forms of activism.  Every time you've been repulsed by someone's approach to donate to their cause, you were reacting to their impact on you.  You were not reacting to the cause itself.

So, difference-makers (in other words, all of us), who are you?

Are you acting from the discomfort of your own badly-fitting shell?  Your limited perspective?  Your anger?  Your frustration?  Your blaming others for the state of the world?

I don't think any of us humans will ever be perfect, so forget being squeaky clean.  But do pay attention to who are you being.  Who you are being is not an action, it is an attitude.  Here are some ways we can see you as you transmit who you are:

-  are you opinionated or open?
-  are you a listener or are you only interested in confirming what you think?
-  are you hard with yourself, so you cannot allow yourself to forgive others?
-  are you rushing so much that you find it tough to give someone your full attention? 
-  are you reflective in a conversation, or reactive?
-  are you often thinking how other people need to change their ways and habits?
-  are you blaming the person you love for not giving you what you need?

Of course we all show up all these way sometimes.  No one is immune from being human.

Gage your true impact on others, not from your actions, but from the deeper ways in which you hold fixed opinions and views of other people.  Notice the feeling in you when you talk to someone.  What's your internal opinion?  What do you think you are really transmitting to them?  We are never transmitting words, we are transmitting US.

The smaller and more limited you feel inside you, the greater your negative impact on others -- no matter how noble your cause may be. 

You cannot replace inner shrinkage with outer expansion.  You must expand inwardly first before you can do anything effectively in the world, with your partner, children or your colleagues at work.

May you see something bigger about yourself today.   In other words, may you see something true.  Because the truth is that your shell is nothing more than the collection of all the smallest ideas you have about yourself.  Who you are could never fit into any shell. 

And knowing that makes a difference.