Page
5 Experience
is what you got by not having it when you needed it. ~Author
Unknown Life
can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.
~Soren Kierkegaard A
man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in
no other way. ~Mark Twain Life
is the art of drawing without an eraser. ~John Gardner You
couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right
again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not
given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing.
Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still
trying to rewrite their teens. ~Stephen King, The Stand Experience
is the name everyone gives to his mistakes. ~Oscar Wilde, Lady
Windemere's Fan, 1896 In
youth we learn; in age we understand. ~Marie Ebner-Eschenbach We
should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -
and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.
She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also
she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead
Wilson's New Calendar, Following the Equator, 1897 Life,
not the parson, teaches conduct. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Some
people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly. ~Jonathan
Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1711 Our
greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our
emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
~Eric Hoffer, Passionate State of Mind, 1955 A controversial British psychoanalyst,
W.R. Bion, famously declared that the psychoanalyst must be free from memory and
desire if he is to be of any use to his patients. To think about the end of a
session, to wonder what time it is, even to hope for a cure is to add an agenda
that becomes an interference because it is sensed as a demand. –Mark Epstein 8.
All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of four components: acting,
thinking, feeling and physiology Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. - Ludwig Borne (1786-1837) Journalist The belief that happiness has to be deserved has led to centuries of pain, guilt and deception. Happiness is free! - Robert Holden Happy the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying, once and for all. - Ovid "The only people to get even with are those who have helped you." – Anonymous
"If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price." - Author unknown All spiritual traditions honor the fruits that grow from conscious acceptance of great pain and disappointment—compassion for all suffering, patience for unskillful acts of your own or others, and, most of all, loving-kindness for the fragility and the mysteriousness of this which we call life. -Phillip Moffit (www.yogajournal.com As they say in the military, when great pressure arises you don't rise to the challenge, you fall to your level of training. If you have not practiced staying present and withstanding the emotional pull of small disappointments, you get swept away in the emotional waves of a big disappointment and lose perspective. –Phillip Moffit (www.yogajournal.com Some of my biggest disappointments never happened. – Mark Twain
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from
bad judgment. ~Rita Mae Brown
As we get older we think about everything much too much. It is not thinking… it is compulsive thinking. We over analyze, worry about everything and we call it thinking. Most people do not "think" they obsess over things. . –Lionel Ketchian
Insincerity, as an interior state of mind, is a psychological impossibility. I can't tell myself that I do and don't believe something at the same time. Choosing evil as evil is also a psychological impossibility, because the will can only choose the (apparent) good. Consequently, to deny the truth I cannot admit, and to do the deed I cannot approve, I must necessarily rationalize until the truth is no longer true and the evil becomes good.--- John Powell
Did you ever ask yourself the surprisingly difficult question: How does one choose evil? How do we commit sin? The will can choose, by its very nature, only that which is somehow good. I am personally convinced that the exercise or use of free will in a given situation of guilt is this: The will, desirous of some evil that has good aspects (if I steal your money, I will be rich), forces the intellect to concentrate on the good to be acquired in the evil act. The will impels the mind to turn away from the recognition of evil. And so the intellect must rationalize that which was originally recognized as evil. While I am doing something wrong (in the act of doing it), I cannot be squarely facing its evil aspect; I must somehow be thinking of it as good and right. Consequently, free will seems to be exercised in the act of coercing the intellect to rationalize rather than in the execution of the act itself. --- John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am Sortlifeout.co.uk - What is Ego - about me, me, me? http://www.meaningoflife.i12.com/ego.htm
"Fully human"people are "their own persons," that they do not bend to every wind which blows, that they are not at the mercy of all pettiness, the meanness, the impatience and anger of others. Atmospheres do not transform them as much as they transform atmospheres. ----- John Powell, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am
Dr Karl Stern Said, " In our primary state of union (at the beginning of our growth as persons) we are selfish, and I am of course, not using the word in its usual moral connotation. The infantile self is still id (Freud's term for our drives and ambitions) without differentiation of ego (that which, in the Freudian system, adapts and harmonizes personal drives with reality); the id of the infantile self is all-engulfing without proper awareness of its own borders. The acts of union of the mature personality are self-less" Institute of Man Symposium on Neurosis and Personal Growth, Duquesne University, Pitssburgh Pa., November 18, 1966
"Fully human people are in deep and meaningful contact with the world outside them. They listen not only to themselves but to voices of their world. The breadth of their own individual experience is infinitely multiplied through the sensitive empathy with others. They suffer with the suffering, rejoice with the joyful. They are born again in springtime, feel the impact of the great mysteries of life: birth, growth, love, suffering, death. Their hearts alone with the "young lovers," and they know something of the exhilaration that is in them. They also know the ghetto's philosophy of despair, the loneliness of suffering without relief. The bell never tolls without tolling in some strange way for them.” -- Dr Karl Stern
A belief is not merely an idea that the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. - Robert Bolton
All spiritual traditions honor the fruits that grow from conscious acceptance of great pain and disappointment—compassion for all suffering, patience for unskillful acts of your own or others, and, most of all, loving-kindness for the fragility and the mysteriousness of this which we call life. –Phillip Moffitt
Once we engage our compulsive thinking about the things that we don’t accept, we start the down hill spiral of unhappiness, hopelessness and helplessness. Lionel Ketchian
Selected Writings of Lionel Ketchian
If
you see everything as a problem you will look at life through your problems.
Look at your problems as just a small part of your life, not all of it. And
don't go wishing you had no problems, you would be bored very quickly. Pay attention
to being able to deal with your problems.
Keep focused in this moment. If you stay tuned to the present moment you
are giving yourself the greatest gift life can offer. The gift is this present
moment. Many people do not have the gift of life, and you do. Your ability to
cope with your problem is very much about staying in the present. If you
constantly regret the past, you will be unhappy. If you fear the future you will
not only be unhappy but you will be unable to cope with it.
Good Olympic athletes are absorbed in the present. In fact they are not
happy because they win. Their being happy is the power that makes them win. They
have to love what they are doing to be really great. If they take care of each
moment as it happens they guarantee their success in the future. The future is
just a string of present moments waiting to happen. How you deal with this
moment sets up the cause / effect of the future moments. When the game is
over... it's over! Letting your thinking take you into the past will only become
disturbing to you. You're not putting your power where it can do you the most
good by living in the past. Then is then, and now is now! Remember that, and the
past will no longer affect you in a negative way….
…Once you have made a choice about how to deal with the problem you can manage
your problem. You're in control, not your problem. You have control over
yourself. You may not have complete control of the problem, but you do not let
the problem control you. You don't have to face your problem if you face your
choices, and make the best one for now. That will make all the difference in the
world.
The most important aspect of thinking is to arrive at a decision. Use
your thinking for that purpose. Decisions are also emotional, so being happy
accesses your best thinking state and gives you the benefit of your inner wisdom
and common sense.
This is a favorite quote of mine from Goethe: "A whole stream of
events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of
unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could
have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
When people feel that they are not in control, they feel unhappy. Take
control of the things you can, and don't worry about the rest. If you don't like
something and you can't change it...FUGGETABOUTIT! Learn to live with it...for
now. If you don't you will be unhappy. It will be a result of your choice to be
unhappy, not because of having the problem.
You never have to face another problem again as long as you face your
choices and then make the best one for now. Unhappy people do not make choices;
they react to everything and choose nothing. By reacting they usually make
things worse. This happens as a result of seeing life through their unhappiness.
When you react, you are allowing your unhappiness to choose for you. Instead you
can use happiness to respond to your problems or whatever life may throw at you.
– Lionel Ketchian (happinessclub.com)
You must make the decision to be happy now. The
moment you make a decision you create power with it. Your life is too important
to be left to mere chance. By making this decision you change from passive to
powerful, and this really gives you the power to carry out your decision
Believe it or not, if you are not happy to begin with then even a
positive occurrence could not possibly make you happy for long. For example the
fear of loosing something you just received would make you unhappy, because you
were not happy to begin with it would not sustain you.
With the decision [to be happy], the obstacles you encounter will only
make you more determined. Happiness is power because of the control you have
over yourself, by making the best choice for every obstacle you encounter.
–Lionel Ketchian
All you have to do is remember the one step:
Choose happiness every moment in your life over anything that can take your
happiness away! Now that you have made the happiness decision you realize that
happiness is where you're headed. Choose happiness instead of allowing anything
to upset you. Once you have make the happiness decision it becomes easier and
easier being happy from moment to moment.
Why choose happiness? Because that's what you want. When something makes
you unhappy, the reason you feel that way is because you think the person or
situation took your happiness away. You have let yourself become a victim.
Victimhood just does not work. When you are unhappy you become a victim who has
no choices.
You're unhappy because you have a problem, and you have cut yourself off
from the choices available to you. The problem becomes bigger than life; it
consumes you and overwhelms you. You feel there is nothing you can do about it
because your state of unhappiness directs you to see life that way. Once you
think unhappily, once you think in terms of the problem and not the solution,
you disempower yourself from dealing with the problem.
The way to empower yourself is to decide to be happy no matter what.
Choose happiness over anything else. This gives you the power to deal with life
and deal with yourself. Happiness is power for those who practice it. When
you're happy it gives you the awareness to realize what choices you have and
what options are right for you. What real power do you have in doing this? You
have power over yourself. That is the only real power you have, and this is very
important, my friend; this is authentic power.
Have you noticed how hard it is for you to control anyone or anything?
Well, you can control yourself by lightening up, relaxing, laughing about
things, having fun, and enjoying life. What you are learning is that you can
only control yourself, not anyone or anything else. Learn to let go of the
things you can't change. This way they don't change you. Live with happiness and
allow it to work for you.
Do you know the reasons people do not live with happiness? Many people
are not even aware of happiness as being a choice they can make….
…Problems have solutions. Take a look at death, for example. Death is not a
"problem." Do you have a choice about death? What choice do you have
over death? Nothing, it's a fact of life! So, why choose to make it a problem.
If you don't accept it you are going to be unhappy. Death is just a part of
life. You will suffer as a result of your reaction to your own negative
thinking. This is your choice, but you have another choice: to live and enjoy
your life. Just be happy! –Lionel
Ketchian
Have you ever realized how powerful your
ability to make a choice can be? Making a choice creates your reality. Reality
can be looked at as a chain of events, a cause-effect progression of events.
What you do in this moment causes the action that takes place in the next
moment. Another way of saying the same thing is that the next moment is the
effect of the moment before it.
We
live in a cause-effect universe. An important dynamic to become aware of is that
we hold the power, through choice, to create more favorable effects. If you
don't like what you're getting in life -- change something. If you do not change
something or act differently, you will end up with the same results. You must
change something in order to change the outcome. That is because it is a
cause-effect link. It has been said the definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. That would
be like seeing the same movie over and over again because you did not like the
ending and you were hoping it would be different this time around.
I
have mentioned we live in a cause-effect universe. This is true. It is also true
that some of us are living at the effect of everything and are reacting to
everything. By making the right choices we can get closer to being the cause of
what we want in our world, rather than be at the effects. The key is to come to
the realization that we have the choice to decide what to do in every situation.
When we exercise our choice to decide what to do in every situation we are
acting from our POWER OF CHOICE….
…When you come up against a situation that you cannot change, for example
finding out you have cancer, do not let the situation change you. If you let it
change you, then you will lose your power to deal with it or change it. The way
to deal with an unchangeable or unbearable situation is in totally accepting it,
after you have done everything to change it or get rid of it. The trick is
accepting it only for the moment. What this gives you is the tremendous power
and control of not being at the effect of something you do not like.
The
next moment will come, of that you have no choice. Your choice is what you will
create with that moment.
When
you stop being at the effect of your circumstances, you begin to be at the cause
of them. Without any effort you slowly dissolve the barrier that stopped you
before. You're choice not to let this situation change you, works to change the
situation. It is one of the laws of cause and effect. When life deals you an
effect -- deal with the cause, and you become a master of the situation….
…Some
situations have no choice. Take death for instance, you have no choice regarding
the fact that someday you will die. If you have no choice -- then you have no
problem. Not liking it makes it a problem for you. Remember that, and you will
get rid of many of the problems that you think you may have.
Reality is the way it is! The power of choice allows us to create reality. God
has given us the power to CO-create when we use the POWER OF CHOICE.
–Lionel Ketchian
Click Picture
to
View Vault Articles, My Files and
(Pages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
