Sympathy Is the Booby Prize

Booby Prize: “a prize given as a joke to the last-place finisher in a race or competition.”

What I’m writing here is not the truth - it’s a possibility. If it resonates, use it. If it doesn’t, ignore it.

Sympathy is a connector between humans. It can be powerful and healing. 

However, we often seek sympathy as an end in itself, and this usually doesn’t serve us or what we’re committed to.

When we’re being a victim to life, we’re seeking sympathy as a end. Many of us do this in conversations about: 

• politics

• the weather 

• our past experiences or decisions

• other people’s attitudes

• our boss

• our schedule

• our health

• our emotions

• our thinking, stories, and judgments

Being a victim to life might win us sympathy, but it doesn’t win us a great life.

Sympathy is the booby prize. 

I had a conversation with a student a few years back. He was sharing how he just can’t honor the diet and routine he set up for himself. 

I said to him, “I’m not saying that you should honor the diet and routine. I’m just asking you to tell yourself the truth about it: it’s not that you can’t do it, it’s that you won’t.”

He got a bit annoyed with me. I wasn't giving him the sympathy that he was looking for. Instead, I was honoring his powerful possibility of being healthy.

The next day in school, however, he was in a completely different state of mind and being from our conversation. He got it - the distinction between:

“Communicating to get sympathy” vs. “Communicating to create meaningful impact”

“Being a victim of circumstance” vs. “Being an owner of the spirit”

“Being a spectator complaining from the stands” vs. “Being on the court making a difference”

“Being at the effect” vs. “Being at cause in the matter”

“Life is happening to me” vs. “Life is happening for me”

Throughout the Mind Mastery Experience, we keep a running list of “Victim Language” vs. “Owner Language.” It’s amazing how much of our thinking and speaking is from being a victim, and how empowering it is just to speak accurately as an owner.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with living from victim language! It’s simply selling ourselves short and giving up the possibility of living our best life for the booby prize of sympathy.

Much Love. ❤️

A Miracle Triggered by the News

I saw a headline in the news today that instantly brought up within me feelings of fear, then powerlessness, then frustration. 

And then a miracle happened: the feelings dissipated almost as quickly as they arose. 

Nothing in the outside world had changed in that 15 second time interval, but a whole lot changed inside me.

Here’s why those inner feelings dissipated so quickly for me: I didn’t confuse the outer situation in the news with my inner reaction to it. 

In other words, I saw my inner reaction as separate and distinct from the outer situation.

Then I was free.

Free to see clearly. Free to think clearly. Free to be clear. Free to take clear action in the best possible ways for me in that moment.

This is powerful! This is transformation, not mere information. This is awareness that sets us free.

We are not free when we are reacting. The purpose of all reactive behavior is blame, defense, and revenge, NOT freedom or intentionality. 

Blaming the outside circumstance. Defending ourselves against a perceived attack. Revenge against what we see as an enemy.

Reacting is not the way to create a better future.

Our reactions aren’t even a choice! They’re a default, defensive response from some unhealed and unintegrated part of ourselves. 

What happened in that moment that I saw the headline is that I had an inner reaction to the headline, and I recognized my inner reaction as MINE, not the circumstance’s. So I released my reaction with understanding, compassion, and gentleness, and then I saw the news for what it was: a report. Reports are inevitable - how I respond to reports is up to me.

Without fail, any time I’ve been lost, stuck, resigned, anxious, fearful, hopeless, or desperate, I’ve been under the illusion of some thought, some perspective, some perception that’s wormed its way unconsciously into my nervous system. And those emotions were my inner reaction.

And each of those emotions is a teacher pointing me to my next lesson of growth, integration, wholeness, and well-being.

Each moment of our lives offers us this choice: be a victim to circumstance or be an owner of the spirit. 

Each moment of our lives is precious. Each moment of our "ordinary daily life is the most perfect ashram you could ever be within.” - The Way of the Heart

I had a client soul coaching call about 20 minutes after that headline and the emotions that moved through me. My client brought up the exact situation for herself - seeing something in the news and getting frustrated about it. 

Here’s what happened:

I got triggered by a news headline, and I took the most effective action I possibly could to make the world a better place - I freed myself internally. In doing so, I showed up clear and free to be with my soul client, and we both reached a higher plane of insight, well-being, inspiration, and love for life together. 

So yes, there’s always something we can do when we’re upset by what’s happening in the world: 1) open ourselves to authentic awareness of what’s actually going on within us as well as outside us, 2) then align all levels of our being with what we actually want/intend. 3) Our agency flows most effectively from that place of quiet, clear, calm, and loving certainty.

Peace, Love, and Joy - they aren’t a destination or a place to get to. They are a place to come from. 

...in this moment, and this one, and this one, and this one, and...

What miracles have you caused lately by doing intentional, soul-level work that makes a difference in your life and the lives of others?

Much Love. ❤️

The Difference Between Freedom and Suffering

Early on in my transformational journey, I came across a phrase that perfectly described my access to the breakthroughs in freedom, love, self-expression, peace of mind, and enjoyment that I was experiencing:

“A profound relationship to reality.”

We seldom see things as they are. Instead, we see them as we are: our stories, beliefs, fears, and judgments.

What we see when we look at ourselves, others, and the world around us is a reflection of our inner world. We see reflected back to us the judgements, fears, stories, and beliefs that we’ve projected out there.

There’s a term I use in my coaching to moving towards a profound relationship to reality: accuracy.

Accuracy is looking closely at what’s happening. It’s slowing down, quieting down, and witnessing the inner dialogues, the inner feelings, and the inner desires at play in our lives. 

Accuracy is the difference between freedom and suffering. The more accurate we are in our seeing, thinking, speaking, and listening, the more power we can access to create and fulfill our intentions (or perhaps the Divine intentions wanting expression through us).

In a call earlier this evening with a client, I asked a couple simple questions that led us to a much deeper and more accurate understanding of her and what’s been at play for her. That kind of accuracy is immediately freeing. It’s a hit of awareness that creates a palpable space within us. 

That space within us is the space of infinite possibility - and new openings for being and acting arise, new opportunities for agency awaken, and the fundamental current of inspiration and wonder moves us through what moments before felt like an immovable barrier of stuckness. 

Accuracy is knowing where we’re really coming from. Accuracy is knowing what we really intend.

The information is all right there, it just usually feels much safer to deceive ourselves.

That’s one of the very refreshing things about working with adolescents. Many of them see (or at least feel) the inauthenticity of the adults around them. They’re much more open to accurate conversations. They’re much more able to tap into the space of infinite possibility. In fact, they crave it. 

And we’re training them to get better at deceiving themselves and others too. Why? Because most of us adults have never learned to dip back into that refreshing, beautiful river of infinite possibility from which our thoughts, beliefs, judgments, fears, hopes, inspirations, personalities, and ways of being all spring from. 

One of my daily practice to tap into my own agency in accessing that river is how I start off my self-creation process:

“I am the space of infinite possibility.”

It is from that space that I intend to live each moment of my life - and what an amateur at it I am!

It's also a space that I’m committed all our teens (and us adults too) learn to live from. My commitment to the transformation of education continues to pulse inside of me.

It’s a game of accuracy I’ll playing the rest of my life in one form or another.

Much Love. ❤️