Elese Coit

Turn the mind inward and cease thinking of yourself as the body; thereby you will come to know that the self is ever happy. Neither grief nor misery is experienced in this state
 --Sri Ramana Maharshi

I hope you had a chance to catch the radio show, The Human Spirit Rises with testimonies of hope, transformation and recovery from addiction and difficult circumstances.

Circumstances seem to have us so very trapped don't they?  They come in the form our own habits and compulsions as well as in the ways other people seem to be able to step on our lives, interrupt our peace of mind and just generally create havoc in our world. 

Even though we can see that no thing can truly make us happy, it is much harder to see clearly that no thing, person or circumstance has the power to ruin us.  For me to have any sense that this is true in my life, I am often questioning the power of things.

How does a diagnosis have the power to make us fearful?
How is stress created in us?
How does someone disappearing from your life create sadness in you?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these feelings don't or shouldn't happen.  But I do spend time reflecting on how sadness, stress and fear arise within me.  What is the mechanism?  How does it work?

It may seem like thinking about such questions is pointless.  That pain is just pain and sadness just is. And that's it.  All I suggest is that for any of you reading who do work with others, this is a rich field for inquiry.  Those of us who coach and work powerfully with people who are suffering and in pain, must reflect deeply on the true sources of pain and the means by which humans experience their troubles. If we do not, we can't help people as much or as well.

The closer we look at human feelings and all human experience, the more we notice a simple truth: that all people simply feel whatever they are thinking in the moment.  Even the past and the future are experienced as thoughts in the moment. They cannot be experienced in either the past or the future, for obvious reasons.

So all life is made of thought. All thought comes to life within us.  The truth about everyone who has a human body is that the nature and depth of pain and suffering arises in the present moment through our present moment thinking. And through nothing else.

I consider the work I do to be the work of liberating people not only from the depressing cycle of having things on the outside make us miserable, but also to free souls to be happy regardless of all the things we try to acquire, resolve or make disappear so that we can experience being satisfied and fulfilled. It seems to me that I am teaching people how to live an uncontingent life.  (To the extent that I go first!)

I just cannot think of anything more important.

"Real?  What is Real? How Do You Define 'Real?'"  - Morpheus in The Matrix

Life never lets up does it? 
No matter how much you learn, progress, relax or move forward, something or someone can erupt and present you with a challenge to the quiet moment you are having, the focus you are concentrated in, or the peace of mind you're enjoying. 

Life is in your face and you can't ignore it or meditate it away.  Though, believe me, I have tried.  You too?  Didn't work did it?  So what about that? 

If I were working with you as a coach, the very next thing you might say to me is "Well then, what should I do?"  

Now, that would really seem like the right question, wouldn't it?  But let's look before that.  The question is not what to do so much as "Where will you look for the answer?"

I've talked about this in my book, but let's explore this more. 

The answer to the challenge of other people and circumstances is not in finding the right response to is happening in front of us; it's in reading ourselves. 

What you and I have both been trained to do is exactly the opposite.  We've been trained to try to correctly interpret a situation and then process a lightening-rapid search in the data base of our previous experiences, our opinions and beliefs, and information gleaned from others in order to locate the appropriate words or actions to rise to the occasion.    

Now, what you and I both know from experience is that not only do we rarely come up with the correct answer, but much of the time all logic, reason and temperance are completely aborted and we simply react.  I bet you've tried a million gazillion times NOT to do precisely that. Right? We all have. We try not to react, we promise ourselves we won't say this or that but (as is the case with all "trying") we fail. Suddenly we find ourselves embroiled, annoyed, and saying things we later regret.

How many times have you sworn to yourself you would get off this particular merry-go-round?  Hm?  I have.  For heaven's sake, I've been just recently swearing to myself that I won't get angry and then I find myself shouting at someone on the street.   

Want to know what I've done to fix that?  

Nothing.

I DO nothing.  Because all my doing and my trying not to do is part of my issue.

I dont' want to do anything because I can't.

First, that would be trying to go against a law of life, a principle which says that I feel everything that I think.

Second, instead of seeing that is what is happening is going on inside me, I interpret my own bad feelings as a call to action.   

The compulsion to act is not a signal to act!  Check out that feeling of a compulsion to do something; is there urgency in it?  Are your own feelings stirred up?  If they are,  that is telling you quite the opposite.  It is probably NOT the time to press SEND on that text message... 

But who can notice this when we are convinced our problem is outside of us and not inside of us?  Who can see that in the moment, when all any of us want to do is to try to resolve the bad feeling through action. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the feeling itself is a problem -- it is not. No feeling is ever a problem. The fact that you feel what is happening in you is not a problem at all.  What I'm saying is we constantly misread the signals of our feelings as calls to action. Instead of seeing them as the sign that we are off kilter inside of us. 

Common misinterpretations of our internal signals will have us leaving phone messages we regret, making angry hand gestures, using our cars as weapons, drinking too much, overeating -- a litany of reactive, even obsessive behaviors arise from not understanding the true source of our own feelings.   

Of course, this is not always self-evident.  For a very long time we've been taught to ascribe our feelings to the outside world.  "You make me so angry!" we'll say.  "His cheating made her start drinking heavily," we'll say.  

These are not words we just say. These are reflections of how we believe we are constructed.  I am not talking about a theory here. This is not a concept. This is the reality of how you and I and every human being on this planet is built to work. You feel whatever you think. I feel whatever I think.  That is a part of the definition of how a human system works.

We think we are responding to a world that bumps, blows and buffets us all over the place.  But we never are.  That world we each see and each person we see is truly a function of what is IN us at the time we are looking.  This is why you can go to a very beautiful place on vacation, and take all your worry with you and have an awful time.  The beauty will not affect you. You will affect you. This is why you can be in a terrible traffic jam and being having a perfectly good time. If traffic has causal power, why is it not affecting you today?  This is not a concept, it is a capacity we all have to experience the outside world as a function or literally, a result of the inside of us. 

Ultimately this may well mean that there really is no reality. But that is far beyond what I understand for now. All I know is that if I can appreciate knowing how it really works, 

• I can read the signs more accurately and not be confused about the source of my feelings
• I can use my feelings as a guide to know when I'm off center 
• I can stop trying to control my feelings - including needing to "quiet my mind" 
• I can go right ahead and live my life WITH all my feelings happening, because I know they are just signals 
• I can allow my internal world to right itself; as it inevitably does

Now, I want to apologize that I did trick you with the title. This is not the cure for any of us to never, ever be reactive again, but does it help to know that when you are reacting, that it's coming from you and that's just the way the system works?

It has helped me a great deal.

_Understanding is so misunderstood!

When I first decided to write on the importance of "understanding" I wondered if you'd would think I was talking about some kind of passive attitude toward life, or advocating some form of forgiveness called "understanding how it wasn't their fault."  But I'm talking about neither.  

I'm reaching as deep as I can into the meaning of what it is to understand. Because actually, if your life is chaotic, understanding how that happens truly helps. 

_The Myths of Understanding 

We think understanding means analyzing. What do when you try to understand your partner, for example?  You dissect. You pick apart. You scrutinize. You observe with the intent of figuring out why it is they are so messed up.

We also confuse understanding with ruminating and obsessing. When we try to understand ourselves, we start to dig up the past in order to find the root of our behaviors. We replay what's happened to us, how people have wronged us. Have you noticed these activities do not lead to the kind of understanding that fosters lasting change or loving connection?

Humanity has lots of history. We've had lots of past and lost of time to look back on the past and we still have very little understanding. We've also been using our logic for a while now, but haven't got much better at locating the sources of our internal human misery. We have only to look around to see that is true. 

_The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 and we still don't really understand how to create peace amongst nations. We just don't. We have some theories. We have some notions.  But we have yet to truly understand why charters, structures, treaties and organizations are so ineffective. If we had this understanding within each person, we'd have world peace by now.   

It is not so surprising there's no peace amongst nations, when you realize that we barely understand how to love people in our own households. Relationships are minefields of unsigned bargains, silent expectations and keenly tuned transgression antennae.  I know. That's been me.  

Our outer world mirrors our deep misunderstanding of ourselves as human beings.  How could that happen? 

I remember being very shocked the day my life completely broke down and realized I actually knew nothing, I had no clue whatsoever, how to create a truly loving relationship. The facts where obvious to me: I had a string of broken relationships behind me.  Clearly I did not understand.

Then I asked myself, having spent time in therapy, and lots of time analyzing myself and others, what exactly was I failing to understand? Was I failing to understand others, or was I failing to understand myself?

_Add Understanding and Let Rise

If I could write the recipe for a happier life, I'd put in a big dose of the one most important ingredient there is; the one thing that is actually the most helpful thing you can ever have: understanding the human.

I want to suggest that if, in your life you are not operating to your fullest capacities, it can be very helpful to know where good ideas live.  

• If your career, relationships, or projects tend to get derailed easily, it's helpful to understand where human resiliency is found. 
• If the misbehavior of those around you gets under your skin and disturbs your peace of mind don't you agree it would be helpful to understand why it is you come unglued?

This is the kind of understanding I'm talking about: understanding the inside mechanisms and what they have to do with how you feel in your life. 

_The Case For Misunderstanding Is Everywhere

The other day I was reading an article that was making the strong argument that workplaces ARE, by nature, inherently stressful. The article was saying that offices have challenging things happening and stressed people in them (which is true) but then it asserted that although people have some internal control over stress, "the workplace itself is at the root of most employee stress."

Your own common sense will show you, if you seek to understand the roots of stress, that there is no stress living in "offices." There are chairs and desks and people.  Other people exhibit stress, for sure, but it's not a virus. You can't catch it when they stress-sneeze on you.  

In fact, you've had plenty of days when despite a hornet's nest of worried co-workers buzzing all around you, you maintained your equilibrium and were fine.  

If you are going to deal with stress, tension and the often disturbed behaviors of others on a permanent basis aren't you curious to understand how you managed  that day of resiliency -- when what we read indicates you shouldn't be able to? If outside things are causing inside reactions why are there exceptions? Understanding that seems to me like the answer to everything. The universal panacea. 
 
Or would you rather keep trying to take the stress out of the office ...? Because, like world peace, we haven't really got a handle on that one yet either!

_I sometimes wonder how many team meetings, improved processes, morale building, stress-reducing initiatives have taken place over the course of the years in just the companies I worked in. Over the life of those companies alone I reckon probably thousands! Now what about around the world?   Oh my goodness. That's lots of training for very little understanding.

I only know of a handful of initiatives that have had true and lasting impact. And they all had one thing in common: They offered a greater understanding of how our own internal human systems work. 

The Proof In The Pudding

This week I had the good fortune of spending some time with Don Donovan, one of the people working in the Three Principles Global Community and a former executive at a large military systems manufacturing corporation.  Don brought Pransky and Associates into his division of the company to offer exactly this understanding to the people who worked there -- with tremendous results.  In fact, every critical success factor the company measured to track the health of the business, elevated in direct correlation with the dissemination of this understanding. 

As the understanding of the how human beings actually function became more common, not only did it change the workplace and business results, it also changed the families and communities in which employees lived. 

As we were talking he said, "You know, George Pransky and I used to sometimes say that it's as if human potential were freeze-dried and this understanding works like pouring water onto it."

What do you say to that kind of understanding?

I talked about this in the radio show on January 27th, to listen, click here