At or after your original incident, you invented yourself first.

In fact, most people invented themselves many times... creating themselves as a layer cake.

I am not a baker. My mother didn't have a working oven until I was about 10... maybe that's why I never warmed to cookies and cakes.

But I am a brick mason... and bricks are laid much like the layers of a cake. If the previous layer was crooked, the wall will be crooked, and maybe it will even fall down.

The created self is crooked. Each layer tells a story that doesn't quite fit with the other layers.

The invented self is more like a persona: a Frankenstein like product...

...resulting in erratic, inconsistent behavior, and unexplainable bouts of sadness, guilt, and confusion.

This is due to the way those layers of identity were invented. Additive, instead of subtractive 'manufacturing'.

Luckily it is never too late to have a happy childhood.

It is never too late to create a new self. A self that is stable, clear, coherent and congruent. That has inner integrity.

So how do you do it?

With the subtractive method, aka inversion, aka the strait and narrow. We have called it previously the Michelangelo method, also the Anna Karenina Method...

Alas, although those poetic names sounded very good, no one, literally no one considered it a DOING job... everyone was waiting for miracles and magic.

The nature of reality is that miracles and magic are caused. Caused with restriction.

No one ever thinks of restriction... not even one of the eight billion...

...while the 1000 gained their power through restriction, subtraction. Restriction that they are performing day in and day out, joyfully.

You want their results, but you don't want the restriction?

If that is you, don't waste your precious time reading this article: it will bother you... so don't.

Removing your frame/filter

Here is one of my first restrictive, subtractive moves I'd like you to emulate. I did it back in 1996. It resulted in removing my frame of reference to everything: smart/stupid.

I declared that I was stupid. Not to make myself stupid, like in the additive method, but to remove both stupid and trying to fix stupid. The frame.

I did that to remove my previous frame through which I looked at everyone, including myself: smart/stupid. I tried to be smart, despised everything and everyone stupid. I was miserable AND widely hated.

After declared my intention to remove the smart/stupid frame,

I paid more attention to what I was doing, what I was saying, thus weeded out a lot of stupid things I would do or say previously.

And stopped judging people and things by the label: stupid, and

started to pay attention to other elements, like beauty, harmony, kindness, courage, dignity... that previously I'd never noticed.

Did the declaration remove the frame?

No. I still had to and still have to remove it every time I look through it. Nothing is automatic. If you thought declarations create miracles, you are probably wretched, because they don't. You do. With work. With restriction.

Restriction in the moment sounds like 'no. I am not going there. I am not doing that.'

That no is sober. No passion, no argument. No. It is a sober statement I obey. And occasionally I don't.

The second restrictive move came a few years after. I am sharing it because the language of it is so different.

I said: 'There is no way I am going to be anything less than magnificent!'

Did I mean I was magnificent? No. I was going to be guided by not doing anything less than magnificent.

So what is magnificent?

It is all the extraordinary ways of being.

Are you stingy with yourself? Do you say you don't deserve?

You may be. And you may be right.

One of the obvious signs of stinginess with yourself is that you don't give yourself enough time to do what there is to do, enough time so you could actually ENJOY what you are doing.

I call this 'homework attitude', where you are more interested in checking an activity off your todo list than actually doing it, enjoying it, savoring it.

And to no one's surprise, you can do everything with this homework stingy attitude. Sex. Conversations. Dinner. Reading. And, of course, the 67 steps.

The consequence of stinginess is that you end up with nothing, or mighty little for your effort.

Apropos, effort.

There is a misconception, a misunderstanding, a propagated untruth in language.

They imply that deserving's currency is somehow innate.

That you deserve because you are... whatever... deserving? This concept of 'deserving' has 70% overlap with entitled... entitled just because you are...

But Life is Life... and it has its rules. You deserve nothing for nothing... Just like you are not entitled to anything.

The currency Life has for deserving is effort.

But not any odd effort, but effort that EARNS you something. And it gives you what it earned.

Not more.

If your efforts go for something immaterial, irrelevant, not nurturing, not worth efforting for, you still get what your efforts went for. Immaterial, irrelevant,  not nurturing, not worth having.

No one really taught you, or if someone did, you just didn't want to believe, that what makes life worth living is having health, wealth, love and fulfillment, the four pillars of Eudaimonia.

And you are NOT entitled to any of it. Not health, not wealth, not love, not fulfillment. And unless your efforts create it, you didn't deserve it.

I can hear you groaning... and while you are groaning you can't hear anything I say.

When you look at a person, you don't know what they are doing, or not really. So you don't know what they intend, you don't know in what direction their efforts go.

Reality is 90% hidden from your view. You can readily see the 10%, but deserving, the earning what somebody wants is in the 90%.

You intend to model after people's 10% visible, and you don't get the results they get. Because what is visible is not what earns the result: health, wealth, love and fulfillment. The 10% is the gross movements. The visible.

And the invisible, the how, the 'to what end', the who, the context, the backdrop, the motive power are all in the invisible...

It is easier to demonstrate this with reading. Or the getting up. Or cooking and eating.

Let's look through reading.

You want to read fast, because you heard somewhere that successful people read a lot. And they must read fast... right?

If you read slow, I want you to slow down even more.

I will specifically talk about reading fiction. Reading fiction will add colors to your colorless world. It will improve your reading ability. And it will earn you pleasure. It will improve your conversational skills.

But not what is on the other side of reading: having the knowledge in your brain. No. The process. The doing of it. The efforting.

Alas, getting the information, saying 'I've read it' gets you nothing.

And you are getting the feeling of anxiety and wheel-spinning. Not what you wanted? But that is what you earned! Darn.

We are talking about the desires to have read a book, vs to read a book.

Both earn you something, but one is not enjoyable, and the other is.

And if you live your life where doing the things you do is itself not enjoyment,

A house divided against itself cannot stand, said Abraham Lincoln, invoking a biblical truth.

Congruence = agreement or harmony; compatibility. Congruent = in agreement or harmony.

Pretense, lying, you and your actions not saying the same thing leads to no success.

An inner division, lack of integrity, lack of authenticity is the main reason you are not successful, because your energies are divided and fight against each other, instead of using that same energy to get things done. To accomplish. To produce.

Criminals are happier than you. Hitmen are happier than you.

You need to decide who you are... and stick with your decision. In words and in action.

After extensive interactions with three clients, I can now safely say: this inner division is what keeps people unfulfilled, unhappy, and unsuccessful in life.

And this division seems to be 'normal'. Normal in a sense that this division mirrors the division between reality and our concept of reality... i.e. our worldview.

And that is everyone, unless...

We have something happen. We decide what it is based on what we can see. What we can see depends on our culture, depends on our ability to see, depends on our level of courage.

Every one of those 1000s had a defining moment in their lives where they needed to decide if their inner view of what was happening was the truth, or what an outside view of what was happening was the truth.

And the 1000 all decided that the outside view was more likely the truth.

And their actions, and thus their lives went into that direction. This is why they became successful in all the ways that matter.

The eight billion, on the other hand, decided that their inner view was the truth...

...and followed that path. And they became unsuccessful in all the ways that matter.

My job has been to be the voice of the outside reality for my clients.

If and when a client could come to the side of reality and unite themselves... they had a chance, a second chance at life, at success in all the ways that matter.

I could share my story, but I won't do that now. But there is a certain moment, a frightening moment when the truth breaks through the haze and the illusion. The illusion that you have nothing to do with your failure in life.

It's an opportunity for the 'famous' awakening. Bad news. lol.

It is always about you. You awaken to having lived an illusion. And you awaken that you have a choice: to continue on the same path or toughen up and live like a Man. Truthfully, congruently. Where actions and thoughts, actions and what you say are in step.

We could say that the word congruence and integrity mean the exact same thing.

A house divided against itself cannot stand... because it has no integrity. It denies that the house has priority, the house has the right of veto... and therefore they can only lose.

And the house is always on the side of Life... with capital L.

One of those three people seems to have chosen to take the side of 'the house'.

Another one is still arguing, if my sense of who she is is accurate.

And the third one is trying to convince me that she could continue with no integrity, if she just found the right slogan that makes it OK.

So that is the 'moment' of the turning point, the potential turning point. A moment in time... that can take months of pondering, maybe hard evidence.

But what happens after that turning point?

For most people that potential turning point doesn't become a point where they turn. It becomes nothing. Like when you watch a horror movie, and then you go and continue your life as it was before.

No awakening. No unification of the house. Nothing.

Hi Sophie,

I'm still here in the thick of these holidays, holiday that I don't even like. Still visiting friends. Having house guests. Feeling myself become more and more discombobulated.

I started to feel myself beginning to panic the way I used to. Thinking 'I'm falling behind!'. 'I want to get back to my 67 steps!'. 'Sophie will wonder where I disappeared to!'. 'my vibration is sinking!'. 'I am out of my routine, the sky is falling!'

I had to stop myself and consider, 'what would Sophie do?'

I remember we actually talked about this around Thanksgiving, and said that if you were in that situation anyway, it wouldn't be very smart to be in it and not enjoy it. So you would at least enjoy it...

Of course, that makes sense!

Suddenly I see that there's no reason to be dramatic about it, it just makes me more self-absorbed.

I'm just in it, I didn't choose not to be.

So I decided, f**k it, I'm in it, just give it to me! all of it.

I looked at what things I could control, and take responsibility for...

Of course there was the obvious of not eating and drinking what I normally would. But I also wanted to look, as much as I could, coming from nothing as much as I could.

What I see now is one thing you mentioned several times, how I was protecting myself. You mentioned a number of times in calls where I was protecting myself. I needed to just forget about trying to look smart and throw it all out there and be willing to look ridiculous...

I never could see that I was doing that (trying to look smart), but I really see it now. And I don't want it.

So here I am, in the thick of the holidays, somewhat of a mess, and thoroughly looking ridiculous. And I'm noticing it because suddenly I'm not in a panic beating myself up about it.

I'm just looking... looking at various parts of my ‘celebrating'...

One thing I'm seeing is that my husband seems to be seeing me more like a mom than a wife. This, I know, is a realization that should be tragic. But as I look at it from the sidelines it's actually pretty funny. He's almost old enough to be my dad... somehow I've been able to laugh at it.

I'm seeing how much I used to eagerly dive into conversations and contribute even if I had nothing to contribute. Just to prove I'm smart... even interrupting people to do it.

Context is decisive

I am able to see that now because you gave me the tools to set my attitude going in, to be quiet, attentive and interested.

I'm seeing how many things I've always done around this time of year that I did hastily, and messed up in some way just by being hasty.

I'm trying to enjoy and notice the qualities in the people I'm interacting with. Using the opportunities that come up to be quiet, attentive, and interested. I'm finding it's actually more enjoyable to be open to learning things this way.

And I see now that before I wasn't interested in learning. I guess because I was more interested in how I come across to people.

I'm listening again to the last Bonnie call. Noticing how really coherent she sounds, noticing how enjoyable the call seemed to be for both of you, which is really beautiful to see.

I think previously I would have felt left behind, maybe even jealous about that. But it really seems to give me joy to hear it, to hear the change that can happen.

I'm trying to listen, really listen from nothing, without thinking in the background about whether I believe it, whether it's true, without judgment... There was another great article you wrote recently about that.

Start where you are

That really hit home for me... about how we're always thinking about what to say next or thinking about whether we agree, the whole time someone is talking.

All people are stingy but don't know it. (stingy: unwilling to give or spend; ungenerous)

Why? Because when you say stingy, you also need to specify what way. How. What they are not willing to give, reciprocate, provide, spend or invest in, because that is what they are stingy with.

And unless you know what lands as stingy in the world, for another, you cannot change it because, I think, you are justified.

You don't have enough. You don't see that it is necessary. Or it would render you below another... somehow.

Or maybe you are giving much, maybe too much in some area, so you are justified not to give in the other.

I used to have a friend. She was everyone's driver... the helper of older people...

That activity proved to her that she was a good person. A driver.

And anyone who wanted any other form of generosity was left high and dry. Like myself, who, occasionally, would have enjoyed being heard. Having my gifts appreciated. Being told 'Happy Birthday' on my birthday... even if it took some reminding that it WAS my birthday.

But no, none of that. Driving? Yes. Everything else: no.

It had to be all about her.

So one day, after my latest birthday unnoticed, I said good bye to her. It still hurts.

After all it is so easy to be generous! To me.

But what prevented her, a 28 soul correction, to give generously of herself?

It was forced self-importance, and a good enough attitude. A need to talk, a need to be considered. A need to be right. To be the only person to be right. Either/or. Everywhere.

That is one 'flavor' of stinginess.

27 is stingy in a different way.

They live in scarcity, where their experience is that they don't have enough, so they don't have anything to spare, anything to give away, lest they will have nothing.

Interestingly, they don't do anything to have more. They maintain this being in limbo, on the verge of being bankrupt.

What is not given is trust, partnership, and acceptance. Gratitude is given, but not appreciation. Appreciation is considering the other valuable. Gratitude is considering what one got as valuable. Not the same thing.

Even though 27 wants abundance, this unwillingness to do for it gives the fact away that there are goodies in always being on the verge... because they think that if there were no immediate need, they would do nothing... laziness? There is no appreciable inner need to perform, to produce, to be the best they can be... so they turn to manufactured need.

So as soon as the deadly danger goes away, they stop generating.

32, 23, 33 are stingy yet again differently.

Why is it important to know how you are stingy? And even how different soul correction people are stingy?

Because when you know how someone is by their birth numbers, it is easier to accept. They are not bad, they just can't help it.

This doesn't mean I would enjoy being friends with a 28, or even a 27.

But it is important to know for yourself. Why?

Your stinginess, your specific stinginess is what keeps you from living a life you love, a life you live powerfully.

Our examples, 27 and 28 share one important element: the unwillingness to become a producer, to do something for their inner fulfillment. To consider it a need.

To have it as a need you need to prime the pump. You need to give yourself enough experience of fulfillment to experience real fulfillment.

Both 27 and 28 say 'good enough' and they say it after a little bit of effort invested in a little bit of time.

If fulfillment were a tree, they reached the lowest branch, but never continued climbing.

Snacking. Never eating a full meal. Never developing hunger.

My article teaching the strategy of getting out of a deep ditch hit the spot for some people.

Here is one answer I got:

I found your article very helpful with the steps to get out of a catastrophe.  I am also beginning to see the original incident and how its been playing out.

Since the original incident I've wanted to be liked so badly that I could not say no to the salesperson - I did not want to make her mad at me. I wanted all the things she promised to happen so that others would like me too. And for some reason, because she said others were successful with the [product], I took it as a challenge in a way. In the original incident I must have said that they - my parents -  don't like me. I am still looking. I don't think I hit the sentence quite right - but it seems close.

Thank you for helping me. When I read it was the undertow - I knew I wasn't crazy.

My assertion is that in the original incident she said: 'I am worthless, that's why my parents don't like me...'

And then she started to effort, do things, dream about becoming liked. Not be treated as worthless.

And from that it is clear that worthless was in the hands of other people to grant to her.

There is a distinction of an attitude that is largely misunderstood.

What you chase runs from you, what you run from chases you. It is not a principle, but it's close.

In the case of a person who says they are worthless and want to be liked, what they chase is being liked. But what is chasing them is worthlessness.

The result: nothing changes inside where it matters.

There is a solution... but...

They, the positive thinking, attraction people teach it in a bastardized way.

There, instead of it being a distinction, it is a move.

The distinction is 'coming from vs. going to'.

They are translated by 'those people' to attraction and pursuit.

It is bastardized because of the poor understanding of a Kabbalistic principle.

Kabbalah, the word, means Receiving.

There are two kinds of receiving. Only the intention is different.

receiving for yourself alone and

receiving for the sake of sharing.

THAT is this distinction

It is what made the famous JFK speech work... the one he said we'll put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

It is what makes billionaires billionaires.

And it is what Elon Musk has proven the he didn't know so he wasn't when it came to Twitter.

It is what Jeff Bezos knew but the new management of Amazon doesn't.

And that disappointing story repeats. You can look at Marvel. At Disney. At many many many suddenly failing enterprises.

How that distinction translates to real world experience?

Desire to receive for the sake of sharing is: your vision of riches includes your employees' experience, your customers' experience. When you come from desire to receive for the sake of sharing then you can have what your riches can give you, inner riches.

And if your vision doesn't include their experience, when you desire to receive for the self alone, then you can get the outer riches, but not the inner.

Desire to receive for the self alone is coming from a need, coming from a gaping hole within, and you are in pursuit... desperately. So you are, with regards to what you want, in GOING TO mode...

When you desire for the self alone, you are coming from the emptiness and you get more of it. You are in essence 'going to'.

When we filter this through Hillel's ditty..

If I am not for me, who is for me?

If I am only for myself, who am I?

And... If not now, when?

Or the 'Golden Rule' of Jones of Toledo: 'What I want for myself,

Is your vibration a good measure to ask for? What one number could be better?

Hundreds of people ask for their vibration, or their frequency... and none of them is too happy about the number they get.

Why? Because they don't know what to do with that number.

This article will explore a more useful number, a number that, if you are so inclined, can grow... and your vibration and life satisfaction will grow with it.

My training/coaching program focuses on another measure...

I had an insight today: instead of looking at the 67 steps as a collection of guidance, or even principles, it is a lot more useful to look at it as a dictionary of sorts.

Another way to look at your daily steps, insight this different view, is mini vacations in foreign lands, without having to buy the flight, hotel, and have a passport... These mini visits are like mini immersions into a culture with its own language, that gives you both a break from your regular same-old/same-old life and an education that you cannot get in any other way.

Your homework attitude to reading and stuff is your undoing...

ASCENDING TO THE HIGH SEAT, DOGEN ZENJI SAID: "ZEN MASTER HOGEN STUDIED WITH KEISHIN ZENJI.

ONCE KEISHIN ZENJI ASKED HIM, JOZA, WHERE DO YOU GO?'

HOGEN SAID. 'I AM MAKING PILGRIMAGE AIMLESSLY.'

KEISHIN SAID, 'WHAT IS THE MATTER OF YOUR PILGRIMAGE?'

HOGEN SAID, 'I DON'T KNOW.'

KEISHIN SAID, 'NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.'

HOGEN SUDDENLY ATTAINED GREAT ENLIGHTENMENT."

What are distinctions?

Distinctions are words in a dictionary. They reveal reality deeper than it's expected. And they round out our cursory knowledge we base on the foggy ideas people teach us, people so popular with the half-educated or uneducated.

Distinctions are mostly a type of dictionary terms: the type where the words talk of underwater parts of the iceberg, the invisible part wherein lies all the power.

The popular knowledge, New Age, and even main stream psychology, deal with the visible, and makes up stuff that is supposedly below the visible, but it's made up stuff; reality doesn't prove its veracity, its existence. Like most spiritual laws, mind power and the kind.

Popular knowledge is intentionally foggy...

When you fish in muddy waters you occasionally find stuff, but mostly you see the waters swirling... And that mesmerizes the uninitiated, the naive, the uneducated, and unsophisticated.

In a country where they shove education down your throat by mediocre to low level teachers. Teachers who teach forced curriculum that gives no freedom and no room for inspiration, every person is uneducated or half-educated.

Fundamental adherence to wisdom and knowledge principles is missing.

A client's acquaintance says: "I mean what I say". But most people, when you ask them what they mean, they actually don't know. They cannot really say what they mean, so they cannot mean what they say... A foggy statement means nothing. Clarity is rare. Recognizing that one is not clear is rare too. Recognizing that the combination unclear messages with your lack of vocabulary is the rarest.

There is a quote I hate. They attribute it to Mark Twain. The quote is about spelling. But a word is not its spelling... and Mark Twain was near-masterful to the meanings, even if he didn't know how to spell a word like others spell it.  Mark Twain's accurate vocabulary was 30%.

But spelled correctly or incorrectly, words are the building blocks of our knowledge, and they are accurate or inaccurate.

What makes language useful is being able to tell words apart... When you only approximately know most words, when you have neither clarity nor distinction, you are called foggy... and your world, your eyes, your sense of direction,

If you find yourself behind the eight ball... or way behind...

I am surprised this is just surfacing now.

Someone being behind their rent, behind other payments, or behind taking care of their health and the numbers are going crazy.

Getting to what seems to be unmanageable.

What do you do?

Your/my inability to be with what doesn't work will take you there. Just give it time.

The sound of scrambling is everywhere.

So without making you wrong for what you have done wrong...

Let's see how we would suggest that you dig yourself out from under the rubble.

Step 1: tell the truth about how it is. To yourself and maybe to one other person.

I have been there. Once. Twice.

Life is going to give you the same lesson again and again until you learn what you need to learn.

For me the lesson was: no one is coming to rescue me.

And as long as I had resentment about it I didn't learn the lesson.

The lesson to learn really is this:

You don't need rescuing. You never did.

Your original incident

In your original incident there was nothing wrong, therefore you didn't need rescuing. Whatever you said was wrong is now giving you this lesson to learn.

Whatever is happening is because of what you said in your original incident. And as long as it seems to you as something wrong is happening TO YOU... you'll have it on repeat, but in an ever stronger, ever bigger way.

So you need to buckle down, and look at what happened, and see that whatever you said never happened. You weren't worthless, you weren't left out in the cold, you weren't abandoned. Or whatever the f... you have been saying.

You caused the drama by what you said. Otherwise there was no drama.

And if you managed to enroll other people in your victimhood: un-enroll them... asap.

You'll know you are done because you'll feel lighter... I think.

Check in with me if you are not sure... I'll muscletest it for you. The question I'll ask: did you learn the lesson?

So what is the lesson?

The lesson is that you are creating life one sentence, one action at a time. You are and always have.

What you have is what you've created. YOU. Created. Unconsciously, but created nevertheless.

And if you created it, you can un-create it... But if it took 40 years, it will take time to undo it.

So what do you need to uncreate it?

The unmanageable finances, the almost hopeless health, the life that doesn't work.

Your first action needs to be ownership.

Own the fact that you did it. You created it. You did thousands of small actions, said thousands of things to create it.

So own it, or you'll remain a victim of it forever. And victims have no power...

God was invented for victims.

Positive thinking was invented for victims.

Attraction was invented for victims.

Victims who are too weak, too fragile, and too much in love with lying and pretense to take on their own power.

You either choose victim, or you choose power. I recommend power.

Power doesn't mean easy. It also doesn't mean fast. And it doesn't mean you'll know suddenly what to do. You probably won't.

But when it is all up to you, then you'll either find a way or you'll ask for help. And this time you'll USE the help you get, instead of being arrogant about it.

You can't see it, probably, but whatever you said in your original incident was said with arrogance. And you haven't stopped being arrogant ever since.

So it is time to get humble...

I call the next phase simplification.

Sit down and look at everything that seems to be on your todo list...

I am watching The Incredible Hulk (2008 With Edward Norton).

I have jumped up and paused the movie every five minutes so far... And I have been pondering why.

I can read two-three-four hours without jumping up...

And suddenly I realized: a movie forces itself, forces its speed, forces its 'don't think just take what I want you to think' attitude on you, so you don't have any time to digest, to ponder, to have a say. None.

And maybe that is the reason humans never think. Information overload

They are being force fed...

Force fed like the famous geese in Hungary. Famous for their soft down feathers, and famous for their enlarged liver (Foie Gras) that ounce for ounce cost about as much as gold.

The color of the liver is gold too.

This is not necessarily true when you read. When you read you can pause, and ponder. You don't... but you can.

You are lucky if you can grasp one thing and retain it by the end of the data that is coming at you like an avalanche, hellbent to bury you.

Because the brain doesn't just want to accept what is incoming... But you have never trained your brain to just store and later regurgitate...

When it comes to action movies, like The Incredible Hulk, I haven't trained my brain enough either.

Most people talk too slow... so I listen to them, on youtube for example, faster. But some people talk too fast... I wonder if it's intentional.

I listen to Alex Hormozi's videos at 75% speed...

...and it sounds to me normal speed... not slow. My brain isn't fast enough to store and regurgitate his original fast video...

And I don't think about anything while I am watching. But if I did, if I tried to think about what I am hearing, if I tried to translate it to something that I can attach it to, I would miss 90-99% of what he says... Like you do...

And, unfortunately, how you do anything is how you do everything: 1. you consider what you think you know take priority over what you hear 2. you are left with what you think, not what was said.

And then, to your utter surprise, you never change.

Guys like you are simply too focused on agreeing, disagreeing, understanding, or being outraged and offended over some little detail or opinion, without having any ability to grasp the context of whatever they are outraged by... and therefore completely miss the obvious.

I stole and paraphrased that sentence from an email I got this morning from my teacher.

But it describes the inner dynamic better than I can...

When you don't allow what is said to get into intermediate storage (short term memory) then you'll never be able to see the context. And without the context whatever you actually heard is either useless or harmful for your life.

Mind you, it does take some practice to expand the holding capacity of your temporary storage. And it also takes trust that most people are short on: you can filter out what you don't want when you do the review. That is why it's called in England revising.

So how do you practice to expand that holding capacity?

If I watched more movies, fast action movies, I would probably be able to expand my storage capacity from five minutes to even 15 minutes by consciously remaining The Observer, no emotions, no running commentary, no like/dislike, etc. Just GETTING it in.

Does anyone have more than 15 minutes? I don't think so.

Your failing is that you consider what you have to say, while listening, more important than what you are listening to.

That is an attitude. Arrogant. Superior.

The higher your IQ the less arrogant you are. And the less inner chatter you'll have while listening to anything.

Unless you manage to assume humility while you listen...

It takes energy to go to the next level. It takes energy to be happy.

Where are you leaking energy? Reclaim your energy

I am reading a book by one of my absolute favorite writers, Colin Wilson.

This is the first non-fiction book I read in a month. I have put myself on a Tree-of-Knowledge withdrawal fast. I am breaking the fast with his book. The title is 'Super Consciousness: In Quest for the Peak Experience'

It's a horrible title, and if I didn't know who Colin Wilson was, I would have never bought this book.

But truth be told, some of the most important steps that have lead me to connecting to Source I learned from him.

What were they? Maybe the most important, said in my sloppy words:

My will is the boss, and I am the boss of my will. The soul, the ego, my attention, are eager servants to my will.

And what I am re-learning from this book (although I am only at page 43, lol) is what makes people depressed, listless, droopy, and ineffective in life, and what could take them out.

This is what this article is about. What could take you out of depression, listlessness, tiredness... no energy.

You'll probably hate it... but there will be a tiny number of you who may get it, and will be, as a result, able to enter the same consciousness I have, at will.

But if you are one of the 99% that will hate it, you will still get something: you will know what it is that you do that keeps you miserable, which is still a good deal, wouldn't you say? You will have a choice.

Simply put: concentrating your attention for longer and longer periods of time, will take you to the place where your power lies, where happiness, and satisfaction waits for you.

Now, I am well aware that this statement wasn't very useful.

Why? You have no idea what is attention. You have no idea where your attention is. You need distinctions, and these distinctions do not come from the 'culture' of the 21st Century: au contraire, the opposite is true.

I had a huge increase in energy when I moved out of New Jersey in 2000. Because I am the Queen of Distinguishing, I knew that the reason was because living in New Jersey, just living there, used up all my attention, all my energy, and I had little left, and even that I had available only in short bursts, so sustained attention was impossible. It's like: 'what can you do with two inches?'

The busier your life, the more time you spend in traffic, with other people, the less energy you have left for what is worth putting your attention on.

Let me contrast two of my students, A and C. Both intelligent professionals. But A has several jobs, lives with his mother, is exposed to many people, many opinions each day. His energies are dispersed, and he is, at the end of the day, spent, for what? the daily living. Fragmented, weak, and doesn't feel good about himself and his life.

C, on the other hand, is a self-declared hermit. If she didn't check her email every few seconds!! she would have enough energy to make it big in her chosen profession. But still, compared to A, she is an energy giant. Why? because she protects herself from the energy-suck of daily living.

Let's see another example that is unfortunately more frequent than you would think: the 'cheap closure now' person.

He has the habit of administering himself little doses of dopamine through touching himself. Sensual pleasure. It could be any method, truthfully, video games, eating, daydreaming, texting, emailing, anything with instant satisfaction. Even judging gives you an instant dopamine boost.

I used to be like him. My drug of choice was phone conversations. I was the person who was always answering my phone, but never got anything done. I was also chronically depressed.

When I had a little pain, I would look for the fix.