CoachBri’s Blog

In our last session we discussed how thought plays such a large roll in creating and maintaining our problems.   You were very clear about this regarding fear of death. I can’t seem to remember what it was you said but it did scare the crap out of me! Now things keep coming back to me that we discussed.

Thinking is always on the move, looking to keep itself alive through activity. Thinking about something is thought’s occupation. It is always moving and when one watches or pays attention to thought it slows down. When one gives one’s whole attention to thought it ceases. It is like when you are in a car crash and things seem to happen in slow motion. Most of us only know the release from thought through some activity, competition, or adrenaline rush. If one uses concentration to quiet thought, it is freedom from and therefore a process of exclusion. Thought doesn’t want to end, and its primary directive is to find in some religious, political, or personal belief a place where it is permanent and secure. Thought creates all kinds of beliefs and material processes because it is itself a material process.

The chemical nature of thought is moving in an irrational pattern when it is used beyond the technical boundaries of its intended function. Where human relationship is concerned thinking is a mess. It creates groups of people and the illusion that we are separate beings in separate lands. Thought has created all the psychological problems of disconnection, fear, jealousy, hatred, greed, loneliness etc. Thought also creates the external psychology that most people practice to deal with there disconnected state only inflicting more damage and disconnection.  Thought creates the problem of disconnection and then tries to be the remedy to change it. You can’t use cancer to kill a cancer without creating the same result.

Our greatest challenge as human beings is to question everything that thought creates to make us better people, more loving etc. Thought is a movement that is caught in time.  Fear, jealousy, greed, and hatred are products of time because they are things we learn. Love and compassion are not the rooted in thought. They are another movement that is truly internal. Self is fear, jealousy, greed, hatred and is put into you by others. Where these are, love and compassion are not. To love another and reject someone else is not love.
Death is the ending of self and self is terrified of it own ending.  In the ending of thought one is no longer seeing through the eyes of time and one’s own limits. Then one is free and what is free is not held in the confines of death.

Coach bri

It was a gentle rain that grew more intense in the strong breeze. It was like seeing the wind as it moved. It came in waves and would crash against the large stone house and cars in its driveway. The birds would all be very quiet and would start up again as the wind subsided. It all seemed like a symphony – the wind, the rain beating down on the metal cars, the birds chattering, and noise of water rushing off the roof into the large puddles that formed around the house. The trees seem to delight in the shower of rain that washed all the dust of the past days, allowing them to breathe fresh again. The bounty of the earth’s lessons speaks to us if we listen to her. But few are interested! Like the rain that washes away the dirt I wonder what will allow man to wash away his self-interest. It is our self-interest that seems to destroy everything.

There were lot of people; the energy of excitement was there. This energy of excitement comes when we as human beings identify our self with the things of thinking. It is not the energy of human beings connecting or people coming together for a noble cause. In the Bell Center there was a full gamut of energy. The energy was of people that were happy about their son being chosen and the energy of nerves and worry about not being chosen. It seemed for most of the young men it was a series of tense moments collapsing into themselves in a feeling of rejection and hurt. Then, when their names were called, elation and congratulations of hugs and kisses. As the day went on people grew impatient and small conflicts arose that soured the event. The crowd attached to their sport team often booed and cat-called other teams, making it almost impossible to hear what was being said over the PA system. We are so well trained to be competitive to allow people from the outside to judge us and we compare our self to another. It this self-centered process that reinforces the images we have of our self and the other. All comparison leads to disconnection and conflict. To compare human beings is to set self-centered criteria in place and fulfill it demands to meet ones own idea or ideal.

Coach bri

These four premises or conditions are embedded deep in our personal psychology and are the root cause of conflict and misery within all our relationships.

Premise One
Most people think that when we feel something the source of that feeling is outside ourselves. In our belief system we have been conditioned to think that a stimulus from outside forces us to think, feel or do something. In our language we use phrases like: “You make me so mad!”, “You hurt my feelings!”, “You pushed my buttons!” or “You make me angry!”. This first premise gets practiced the most when we take information personally. We seem to do this more when we are under pressure.

Premise Two
This premise is practiced when we don’t feel good and we blame that feeling on someone or something outside of ourselves. So people will say something like this: “I don’t feel good and it’s your fault”. These people are blamers.

Premise Three
In the third premise people often use language like, “Not only do I not feel good but I know how you should change”. This behavior is about taking one’s unhappiness and trying to change other people or other situations rather than change.

Premise Four
Premise four is practiced when, as we mature in our lives, we gather a sense of what we know is best for us. Then we get this tremendous insight that begins to be practiced in our relationships which is this: “Not only do I know what’s best for me, I also know what’s best for you”. Or, simply put, I know what’s best for everyone else. When this happens this is one of the greatest sources of human misery within a relationship. Knowing what one is best for people immediately creates disconnection. especially with teenagers.

I believe that anyone can take any relationship in their life that they are having problems in and see one or more of these premises being practiced. These premises are practiced in many sophisticated ways in our behaviors. Here are some of the ways that they are practiced:

Habit One
The most damaging habit of all is the habit of criticism. If you want to make your relationship better with anyone, stop criticizing.

Habit Two
The next habit that destroys relationship is humiliating people to control them. I think this speaks for itself.

Habit Three
The third habit is blaming other people for one’s mood. Often people that practice this habit are faultfinders.

Habit Four
The fourth habit is the habit of complaining. People love to complain to avoid self-evaluation.

Habit Five
The fifth habit is nagging. No one ever likes to be nagged about anything. Do it and it destroys connection.

Habit Six
The sixth habit is the silent treatment, which is not to be mistaken for planned ignoring. The silent treatment is the behavior that someone does in order to gain control of the situation and punish.

Habit Seven
Habit number seven is a combination of punishing and rewarding behavior. People often like the rewards but hate the rewarder. If punishments worked in deterring people’s behaviors our criminal institutions would be empty.

Habit eight
The eighth habit is the habit of guilting people. Guilting people into doing what you want them to do is manipulation. No one likes to be manipulated.

I’m stopping here although there are many more of these external control habits that we practice in our relationships. You only have to examine what you’re doing under pressure to reveal more ineffective behavioral choices you make. Good luck with that!

Coach bri