The Foundational and Not-So-Obvious Question

When caught in worried thinking…

When stuck in fear…

When circling in a loop of judgment or frustration or anger…

When struggling to articulate yourself...

What do you want?

It’s a simple, foundational question that occurs as obvious only after it’s been asked.

In your job…

In your relationship…

In your routines…

What do you want want?

Many (most? all?) of our behaviors and reactions are unconscious, default behaviors and reactions. This question - What do you want? - brings the Self a bit more present, and it invites us to think and make a choice.

Do you even know what you really want? 

Many of us don’t, and that’s okay. But this question is foundational. If we live life not asking it of ourselves (or not being asked by someone who’s really interested in the answer), we may find we’ve lived a life we didn’t really want but never felt like we had a choice. 

So here’s your opportunity: what do you really want?

What do you want for yourself as a consistent and reliable feeling in your life?

What do you want for the people you care about?

Sometimes when I ask this question, “What do you really want?”, people will tell me what they don’t want. That’s a great place to start, but it doesn’t answer the question!

Answer that question! What do you really want? Don’t worry about the why or the how yet. Just hang with the what of it.

I was just walking the dog and processing some anxiety that subtly arose within me like a nighttime fog. The default for me is to figure out how NOT to feel that way.

What I want, though, is something else entirely: it’s to unconditionally love this miraculous gift of experiencing life - including fear and anxiety. So instead of resisting the anxiety/fear, I welcomed it in as an opportunity to practice unconditional love. That’s what I really wanted, and it turned my resistance into curiosity and wonder. 

I’ve begun a practice of asking myself each morning, “What do I truly want?” For me, it’s a practice in allowing authentic, inspired desire to grow within me. As I’ve become more willing to sit with the question and allow my mind to go where it wants in answering the question, I’ve awakened to some powerful insights. 

You there, reader! Ask yourself this question: “What do you want?”

Then go a little deeper and ask yourself this one: “What do you really want?”

Much Love. ❤️

Create Before It Exists

In the Bible, there’s a story near the end of the life of Jesus that has been inspiring me lately.

Jesus was nailed to the cross and was hanging. He looked at the soldiers who put him there, and he looked at the gathered crowd, and he said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I imagine the cross was previously lying on the ground with Jesus upon it, while a soldier hammered nails into his hands/wrists. And I imagine that Jesus, an enlightened being, looked upon the soldier not with hate, but with forgiveness, compassion, and love.

Somewhere inside each of us, we know that living a life of blame, resentment, frustration, anger, hostility, and cynicism in any way lacks integrity. Some part of us, perhaps well-hidden for many of us, sees that it’s inauthentic and a resignation to live at the effect of our circumstances to the extent that most of us do.

“You are not a victim of the world you see."

- A Course in Miracles and The Way of Mastery

Blame. Resentment. Frustration. Anger. Hostility. Cynicism.

These emotions come from being a victim of the world we see. They’re a defensive reaction to a circumstance (and world) that looks dangerous.

Our inclination to be a victim isn’t wrong. It’s natural, and it’s a habit. And being a habit, we can break it.

Living life in reaction to our circumstances = living life as a victim to our circumstances.

When we are being a victim of the world we see, it’s “the world” that seems to cause these emotions in us - other people, the weather, politics, the body, the past, the psyche. 

That includes our internal circumstances…

Guilt. Shame. Resignation. Insecurity. Fear.

Yes, those are the emotions of a victim of the world too. They’re the emotions of a victim of the inner world.

Being a victim of the world is being a victim of our own judgments. 

This is powerful and subtle! I’ve felt and seen the impact this truth can have on our lives.

What do you see when you look at your life? 

What do you see when you look at your family? 

What do you see when you look at your friends?

What do you see when you look at politics?

What do you see when you look at the state of the world?

It’s NOT what we look at that matters! What matters is what we see when we look at it. And we have much more agency over what we see than we might think.

What we see is determined by who we're being.

Being a victim of the world we see comes from being judgmental. When we’re judgmental, we’re being hostile, and we condemn and attack what we look at - whether we’re looking at others or ourselves.

From a judgmental way of being, I see problems. I see things I like and things I don’t like. I see nice people and mean people. I see comfort and discomfort. I see success and failure. I see waste and excess. I see abundance and lack. 

When I am intentionally being that this moment is beautiful and perfect, everything shows up as beautiful and perfect.

What we see is a reflection of our own being. We are not seeing the world as it is.

So what can we do about this? 

First, we can get responsible for how we’ve been (unintentionally and unconsciously) being and seeing.

Second, we can begin to intentionally create how we are being and how we are committed to seeing the world.

Daily my mind gets blown by the experience of these truths. The path to mastery is a mountain without a top.

Create before it exists.

Lead before it goes astray.

A tree too big to embrace is born from a slender shoot.

A nine-story tower rises from a pile of earth.

A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step.

- The Tao Te Ching

Much Love. ❤️

Feeding Our Hungry Ghosts

My client shared that she had an argument with family over a game. It was a quick statement she made while checking in, yet we spent nearly an hour exploring it.

"You see," I said to her, "this conversation isn't about the game argument at all. It's about the forces within you deciding how you're showing up in life."

Me: “How were you being in that argument with your family?”

Her: “Aggressive. Stubborn.”

Those are hungry ghosts of insecurity and fear, showing up with a voracious energy to win, avoid looking bad, be right, and feel victorious.

Our hungry ghosts devour our well-being, ignore our integrity and authenticity, and eat away at our relationships (leaving wounded souls in our wake).

"What good is winning," she said, "if I don't have people there to enjoy it with me because I've pushed them away with my aggression?"

Here are two myths about 95% of the emotional reactions we experience in our day-to-day life:

1. We think the source of the reaction is out there with our circumstances.

2. We think that our reaction will get us closer to what we want.

There’s a very simple exercise to prove that those beliefs are myths. 

First, think of a time when you’ve been happy, now feel that happiness. (Really, do this right now.) Then, think of a time when you’ve been sad, now feel that sadness. Those feelings right now aren't coming from the circumstance - they're coming from within you.

The energy of our emotions is ALWAYS coming from within us. We’re not plugged into our circumstances with an energetic wire like a wall that might give us a voltage surge. Our emotional reactions are always sourced within us. (Yes, our environments certainly have an impact, but that conversation isn't very helpful until we grasp our own responsibility in the matter.)

Second, think back to any number of your previous emotional reactions. Did reacting get you what you really want? Sure, it sometimes got you what you think you wanted, but the angry outburst, the contempt, the frustration - did it work?

When we get upset, we think the source of the upset is the circumstance out there. It’s not. In fact, our emotional reactions point to hungry ghosts within us looking to be satisfied by blaming our circumstances. 

Hungry ghosts - emotional remnants of childhood, living incomplete within us, reaching up through us to devour those we see as unfair, wrong, and scary. 

These hungry ghosts will continue to haunt our hearts with a life of reactivity until we give them what they're really looking for and put them gently to rest. 

They're looking for peace, safety, security, and love - yes from others, but mostly from us ourselves, and that is deep, magical, and spiritual work.

"I often refer to Mick as my 'love myself' coach. Working with him, I've found this to be the most powerful ingredient in achieving anything that I am truly wanting."

- Client ❤️ from Erin S.

Much love. ❤️