Well Within, Elese's Blog

The Inner Gong

1/17/2013

In April 2012, when I stopped broadcasting my live radio show, it happened in the strangest way. I had to choose to continue or not, and frankly, I just wasn't sure. Up until the last possible cliff-hanging moment, I didn't know whether to go on or stop.

All I can tell you is I waited and waited and waited and I got no Inner Gong.

The sound of that "Gong" is one way I refer to the feeling that I get inside when I know something is right for me. It can be a tingle or a feeling that my heart is bursting, or a simple internal whisper of Yes.

Which is great, except for that I had nothing. Nada. Zip.

Which meant I also wasn't getting an inner "No Way!" This was beginning to look like a bit of a problem. Then I thought, "Well, without a clear yes or a clear no, what shall I do?" I decided to simply let go of the show and wait.

Now if you know me, you'll know I'm a workhorse. I can be pretty tough to keep pace with. I walk fast. I eat fast. Normally I decide fast. I am not the kind of gal who just sits around and waits.

So maybe I should clarify what I mean by "let go and wait."

What happened really was, I tuned in. For once in my life, I slowed down just enough to not rush forward into the void, and began to turn my full attention inward. Not just my partial attention.

Over the last few years I've learned enough about how the mind works to know that you cannot solve problems by getting busier, speeding up, forcing things or taking on more. The only way to know yourself, to know your own mind, and therefore to really hear what you want, what you'd love and what you think would be wonderful -- you must listen.

I have not listened for most of my life. Case in point (FYI, Elese), there's a much better chance I might not have married a heroin addict in college if I had. (Amongst other things which would take me way off topic...)

This time I opted for listening before doing.

I mean, I needed to learn how to hear, but most importantly to what. So it has been an ongoing education for me, culminating in this very strange situation with the radio. With a quarter of million listeners behind me, I just simply didn't continue moving forward with something that was successful and growing, based on well, let's be fair, a guess.

I made a guess that if I waited, I would hear something eventually. Then it all went pretty quiet. Didn't expect that. So there I was, watching it end, with nothing new to go on and no direction to go instead. (Here's the blog I wrote at the time) To follow my gut this time round meant allowing myself to release what was working, not for something better, but for something unknown.

I'll admit during the following months it felt like I was being stretched on a rack! It seemed like I was in the unknown without a map and with a GPS system that refused to cooperate. I realized I couldn't make it talk but also, since most of my mistakes happen in the gap between not-knowing and not being comfortable with that, I knew I wasn't willing to try to force it.

Tough one. If you are me.

The longer this went on, the more challenged I was. I would get some notions, follow a few ideas, throw things out there -- but my inner gong still wouldn't play my way.

I had got myself by the "short and curlies," as they say.

For eight months things kind of fell apart and were replaced by one increasingly large question mark. I'd love to say I was comfortable with all of this. The truth is I went up and down a lot. And that is the nature of the mind. Luckily I also knew that and it helped me immensely. I was able to stay in the discomfort zone and even to relax there, and as I did, I started to get finer distinctions for myself about the different tones of the gong. Eventually I began to be moved by something within that I could hear clearly.

There is no real end to this story, but there are some interesting conclusions. Today I have more clarity about my reason for being on this planet than I ever have, and that's pretty amazing to me. (Read my newsletter of today for more on this). Had started this process with that in mind, I am not sure I'd have seen that result. Maybe. But that is certainly not what my clever mind thought I needed at the time.

Could I have learned all this without dropping everything?

Maybe.

At the same time I have to admit I feel so much more myself. Even though it
doesn't feel like I'm the one holding the mallet.

During eight months winding along a path of hairpin turns with no horizon in view, something else happened. One day I woke up and wrote down Ten Keys I use to recognize and tune in to my Inner Direction. I hadn't noticed these before.

In the autumn of 2012 I shared these Ten Keys with people in the form of an free ebook, which is still around on iBooks. I loved choosing the photographs for the book. They are amazing! You can check them out on a copy I have available here if you don't have a device with iBooks.

In addition, many people wrote me and shared their stories of following Inner Direction. I have not compiled these in the book -- yet. Why? No reason, really. They are all really great and wonderful. One day I might. Or not.

Isn't it nice to know that nothing has to be wrong -- or even right -- for you to steer in any direction you want? And for no reason at all except you.

Sounds like freedom to me.

In the last two months I've added exercises to Inner Direction (based on many of the questions I asked myself going through this process of change and inner attunement) and expanded the book content, plus I've included pages you can take notes on. More Here.

Who's Driving Your Car?

2/24/2012

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.

On Living With (and Without) The News

9/10/2011

For more than 4 years I have not had a television. When I left London to move back to the USA, I simply didn't buy one. Then I found I didn't miss it. And so the years have passed with me remaining unconnected from the grid.

What is interesting is that, despite not having a television, I have not missed a single major event in the world. Three of those events are on my mind today -- the riots in London, the tragedy in Norway, and the blackout in my house last night. (Yes, the one that took out huge tracts of Arizona, Mexico and Southern California).

I think they all raise the same question for us as human beings. How do we be with the fact that bad things happen in life?

An inescapable fact of human-ness is that stuff happens that is out of our control.

September 8th our power went down in Southern California and many people were stranded and in difficulty. In London people were horrified to watch their city spiral into chaos. Shocked Norwegians and a rising death toll left a wake of mourning families and resuscitated our own memories of 9/11.

Life simply refuses to stop challenging us. I don't believe that the answer is to resort to rage or numbness. I also don't think we can escape by avoidance. And that is certainly not what I'm trying to do by not having a TV! I want to be fully, intimately engaged in all of life, especially my own.

There is a terrible effect on our individual lives if we don't come to terms with what we don't control.

I notice that very often we end up limiting our responsiveness and dampening our humanity because we assume that trying to understand something is the same thing as condoning it. But that leaves us even less able to deal with our own lives and be happy.

On the radio show on this topic ("Bad News and Unwanted Events") I explored this more and talked about how to make sense of life and how to be with life in all it's aspects while still getting up in the morning and going on with having a good day.

As outside events happen you'll notice that individual responses to those events seems to vary considerably from one person to the next. This is true no matter how catastrophic the event. Some people recover quickly, some slowly, some are consumed with grief, some move on, some experience stress and immobilization while others experience a compulsion to help.

The fact that there is never any universal response to anything, tells us not only that people are different, but that the individual feeling of one's own life is specific and unique to them -- no matter what events have been a part of it. When I began to see more clearly that the game of life was being played inside me first and foremost, I began to feel less buffeted by the news of the world and much clearer about how I wanted to help.

As a result I am also more compassionate with everyone else in their own individual experiences and choices. It doesn't mean I like everything that happens, but it does mean I have a better understanding of how we all work as humans and how it is that tragic things can happen. That keeps me calm enough to be of use to others in tough times.

If you work supporting others through addictions, crisis and difficulty, and want to have real impact without burning out yourself -- it's possible to raise your own level of functioning so you can be of more use to everyone in your world -- my circle for difference makers.

The Qualities That Will Save Your Life

1/15/2010

When I got Lynne Klippel's book, Overcomers Inc., in the post, I have to say my initial reaction was I liked the book, hated the word. Overcomers. I don't want to be an overcomer. I want to sail effortlessly through life and have everything be easy. Overcoming is such a dull, pedestrian task. Maybe, "Go Climb That Mountain!" just make you tingle with inspiration, but it makes me want to climb back into bed.

I read the book and the true life stories in it, and although I still don't like to think of myself as an overcomer, I have to admit that I am. We all are. If you got through asking someone on a first date, or wearing really high heels for the first time, you are one too.

And that's not a dull thing at all.

In fact, there are some pretty hefty qualities that we need to be able to call on when the going gets tough. Here's what I think those are:

Taking responsibility
Surrendering
Trust
Willingness

In every real life experience in that book, as well as in my own life and the lives of people I coach, these are the core of creating a new life - whether you are creating on the rubble of an old life, or you are just ready to move to the next square on the board.

Taking Responsibility
OK, swallow hard now, this is the painful part. Yes. We all have to take on the fact that we live in our bodies, and that what we chose is what makes our life a heaven or a hell-hole. Until we do, even if it's just saying, "I'm really the only one who can get me out of this mess", no change can begin. As Debbie Ford used to say in our training, over and over again, "No one is coming to save you." Ouch.

Surrender
This is a bit sucky too. When you are very used to being the project manager of the universe, or at the very least queen in your own teacup, surrendering to the idea that you just don't know how to fix it is, well, let's just say, not fun. Surrendering doesn't mean giving up, it just means giving way. You have to get your own ideas out of the way in order for new ones to come in. In my life, this often mean surrendering some idea of who I am, in order to get a glimpse of a bigger me.

Trust
We place our trust in many things, including the universe, our pets, our friends, and our lovers. Maybe you trust that things will 'all work out for good' or some other spiritual principle. Whatever you chose to trust is up to you, the one thing I know you can trust, always? Your own inner guidance. When that channel is clear it is never leading you astray. It might take you in a direction you don't like, but that's another matter!

Willingness
Oh, you have to be willing to change, to move, to be different, to let go of what you thought would be. Willingness is the oil that greases all the wheels. Willingness to try the new, to step when you can't see forward very far, and willingness to fail - help you take it all less personally. And that's a good thing.

For more on this topic listen to the radio show from January 15th with Lynne Klippel

Faith, Leaps and Half-lives

11/12/2009

These months have been jammed with growth and leaps of faith. No sooner did I toot my radio show's first year anniversary whistle, then I found myself saying Yes to starting a second show. An act of fearlessness, for sure, since on Friday's show I speak with guests and it's all very fireside chat ... whereas Wednesday, the new show is just me.

Gulp. It's an interesting thing, a leap of faith.

Interesting, because of the both the 'faith' part, and the 'leap' part. When you really, really decide to no longer consent to a life half lived, full of compromises, and stuff you don't want to do, then there is an immediate recognition that wherever that that leads, the one thing it won't be is - familiar! Yet, still there's the shock of the leap. Must be like when you drop out of a plane on a skydive. (Minus the G-force that makes your face look all funny). You know you decided to be there, and you want to be, but there's that split second of total terror.

Thinking about jumping out of a plane seems a lot tougher than opening my mouth live on air, but it's my leap and I jumped.... That in itself has given me a new perspective on the 'faith' part too. I have to say, I've not so much 'faith' as a better attitude. I realize that I simply accept that it could simply not work out, not be fun, or good, or interesting to others. For some reason, that doesn't bother or worry me. (though I'm aware of the idea that I could make all of those things devastating potential outcomes - ergo - reasons to shrink back from the ledge). What most fascinates me is that I see all those scenarios as potentials and I am OK with them all. I mean what can I do? All I can do is, as Anthony de Mello says, "show up and dance my dance".

The thing about a leap, is you do end up in the unknown... and that could be a place of massive failure, but it could also be the most satisfying pit stop of my life.

I just can't know unless I leap.

*

Oh, the last newsy bit is that I wanted to try to find a way to display radio archives so they are searchable by keyword. Just felt people might want to look up what's important to them by topic and find resources...please bear with me as I am still getting all the shows archived but again... Fingers crossed. x

Free Audios - Courtesy of Club Fearless

11/1/2009

Club Fearless is a great place to find resources that will help you pack your bags and move out of that down in the dumps-victim mentality once and for all!

Here are some free audios from Steve Chandler, founder of the Club.

To learn more about Club Fearless go to www.clubfearless.net. You can use my friend's discount (type in 'Elese' as the code) and try out the club for free for 30 days. And by the way, I don't get paid for this, I just think it's really, really good.

The Inner Gong

Who's Driving Your Car?

On Living With (and Without) The News

The Qualities That Will Save Your Life

Faith, Leaps and Half-lives

Free Audios - Courtesy of Club Fearless

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