I measure 30 things about a person when they ask for their Starting Point Measurements.
They are all very relevant, but when it comes to the quality of your life, to your life satisfaction, your experience of your life… one could almost say, the level of your happiness depends on one thing.
The level of your happiness depends on one thing
The culture claims that to be happy, you have to have possession, you have to have success, you have to have comfort, safety, fulfillment, companionship, whatever, and, to some degree it may matter but not as much as the number, the measure, just one number told me why 99.99% of the people I have ever measured had a low life satisfaction, even though some had money, success, love even talent… seemingly everything you’d ever wanted.
There is a guy (Steve Siebold) whose entire business is to teach people how to have that number higher. He calls that phenomenon mental toughness.
The weird thing is: his TLB is high with 10. My TLB is 70…
I don’t know how to teach you to raise that number…
What is the meaning of TLB?
this little girl’s TLB, is 7
this second little girl’s tlb is 1
What is the difference? the first girl, even though she perceives the seeming danger, stays put… the second runs away, returns, the fear is running her behavior. The beginnings of a future drama queen… I bet she fancies herself courageous…
To the degree that you can handle life, the ups and the downs, the unfulfilled expectations, the thwarted intentions, the “rejections”, the restrictions, being told what to do, the successes, the challenges, the hardships, the failures, the slights, the hurts, the pain, the obstacles, hunger, boredom, tediousness, worry, your own fear, your own bad habits… to the degree that you can handle it to the same degree you handle life.
The guy I am talking about teaches mental toughness… that is his expertise.
I don’t know how he teaches it, I just know the “slogans” he sends… I get them in my email. They are OK, but I don’t think they can ever change anything.
I train you through doing… facing what is not pleasant. But for you to be able to do it, you need to clean up your past. Your emotional short-circuits… misunderstandings, your drama-queen nature.
In my Playground program you have a year for you to learn to handle anything that life can throw at you.
You are starting at having no toughness. And your children will have even less. [note]You going to bat to “save” your child is a disfavor, a disservice to them. The mother who tries to protect the child from his father’s cruelty, the father who tries to protect the child from bullies, the parent who consoles the child, babies the child, who doesn’t let the child to toughen up is committing a selfish act that is against the child’s real interest… to be able to handle what life throws at him.
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Instead you need to be like a coach: encourage them to rise above the abuse, the injustice, the misfortune… above all.
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Of course, if you are a sissy yourself, you have no credibility with your child.
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Also if you are intolerant with your child, you teach them that intolerance is a good thing… ugh.[/note]
The ability to allow what is, what we call reality to be… without the urge to fix it, change it, fight it, or lie about it.
TLB is a moment to moment ability.
Anything and everything you can’t deal with, can’t be with, cannot be neutral about is something that is, until you learn to deal with it, will be like the bad weather… that always rains on your parade.
Your parade is what you have planned your life to be. Smooth sailing into the sunset, full of love, comfort, riches, success, validation… whatnot… where people always keep their word to you, where you only learn about other people’s failures, but you don’t know how it feels. Where you win, and win and win, everything, all the time. People are there only to make you look good… in fact better than them.
So, you can see, that everything and everyone will always rain on your parade, because your unrealistic expectations are in the way.
Life is the way life is.
I have spoken about going, bodily, down the rapids… a river, a lot of water, noisily going down the mountain. That is life. It is not smooth sailing, it is full of rocks, and turns, and opportunities to let the water take you.
The water’s nature is to go around the rocks… but your nature is controlling… and what controlling does to you is resisting being taken wherever the water goes… resisting will as surely slam you into the rocks, as anything you can be sure of.
There is the fantasy: your parade… and then there is reality… the fast running rapid with the rocks.
As long as, and to the degree as you resist going with the flow, you get bloodied… and that is how life works in reality. Fantasy is nice… but don’t mistake it with reality, don’t even mistake it with what is possible… it is not.
- In reality people only care about themselves, and so do you.
- In reality people want to dominate… and so do you
- In reality people are forceful, violent, selfish, judgmental, cowardly, unjust, and so are you.
- They will want to win every argument. They will want to have you do their bidding, feel bad about yourself, and so do you.
Anything that you allow to be will allow you to be. Everything you resist persists.
In the rapid, if you can allow the water to take you, not like a victim, but as a graceful dancer who allows the music, their partner to lead, have enormous power with very little effort.
And resisting the water, resisting the speed, resisting the direction… by lying, by sideways moves, by avoiding domination, by trying to win… will surely slam you into boulders.
The most resistant soul correction is the Silent Partner. They have moves to avoid domination every moment of every day. They are the losers of Life… never in it.
Every Silent Partner I have ever attempted to teach, resisted it. They had talent that they never took to mastery. They argued, they resisted, they hated, they were stingy.
In my writeup I talk about a power they refuse to avail themselves to. The power of the soul… the triangle that can start moving when embraced with ego… The Silent Partner refuses to move.
I have been using my interactions with Silent Partner people to increase my own TLB, to make myself not resist them, not force them, allow them to be how they are, who they are, not having the opinion and attitude that what they do, who they are being is wrong. It’s OK if I don’t like it… that is being responsible for my opinion and attitude. Saying they are wrong is putting the onus, the responsibility for my happiness on them.
Allowing something that you see as wrong is the hardest thing a human is asked to do. I am right there with you. Unless you can own that YOU say that it’s wrong, and you saying doesn’t make IT wrong, you are stuck with it. Until you own what you can own… that you said that.
It is not a simple feat… it has stages, elements, parts, effects, ripples that unless you can allow them one by one, you will not succeed.
I am sitting here feeling grief, and it is like a huge boulder sitting on my chest. Obviously I am not allowing it, because it’s been sitting there for about an hour now… It is hard to breathe deeply, the boulder is heavy… feels like it will crush me if I don’t resist it.
All the voodoo meditators, new agers, massage therapists teach you about releasing the tension don’t apply here… you cannot breathe you out of resistance… you cannot do it through relaxing the muscles.
It has to be on the cognitive level, the seeing level.
So how could I see something other than what i see, that it’s wrong, it is sad, it shouldn’t be that all my efforts fail with these Silent Partner people?
Hm, just saying this made the boulder lighter… What did I say? I said what is actually happening in reality: I effort, and the efforts produce nothing… i.e. fail to produce. Good, it seems that looking at reality, what is actually happening, makes the boulder less heavy…
Let’s go a little bit deeper: all I have been doing, all my efforts thus far, failed to produce the result I intended.
I am like Sisyphus: I am doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result… hm. I am right in what I want… and the darn Silent Partner people are wrong, wrong, wrong… lol. I am smiling now… not laughing yet, but getting there.
They have the audacity to do what they want to do… and enjoy watching me sweat bullets… and they are winning. I wanted to win for them… ok, that is probably a lie… I wanted to win.
The boulder is now replaced with a very recognizable ego-pain in the chest bone… hah… so it has been, maybe, a battle of egos?
From the disappearance of any pain in my chest, I think I got it. It is not funny, but I can be with it… I can take ownership of my ego-behavior… forcing them so I can win.
Not pretty. Not what I’d really want… is it? A little more grief… now this is with myself. Droopy face… trying to get the soul’s sympathy… getting some nice-nice… as the two wolves embrace. Weeping a little.
Big sigh… blowing out the breath like a horse…
Is it gone? For now, for sure…
Can you do it? I have no idea!
Was this instructional? I have no idea!
We shall see… lol.
Let me measure my TLB after this “work” I did with myself. It is 75… I just earned 5 points… with a few minutes of expert work.
Ultimately this is the work I ask you to do in the Playground. Going to see what in reality you cannot be with, refuse to be with, refuse to not call wrong.
I designed the Playground to take you through situations that, like the rapid river, slam you into boulders. Upsets.
One of the most important tools is the 20-day learning challenge… it is part of the Playground.
If you are not participating in the challenge: you know you are not doing the work, so you can stop expecting ANY results in the Playground.
The other important tool is the Partner Calls… If you are not willing to see the movie of the incident, from the side, with every detail, until you see that in reality there is nothing wrong, if you don’t call a spade a spade, if you don’t see the forest for the trees, your behavior, your attitude, other people’s behavior, then you won’t get the results of the Playground.
The Playground is at least one year long. Because it takes a lot of looking before you can see… and see clearly, distinctly, accurately, and with courage.
I am re-writing the script of the “looking”… hoping that it will make you, that it will force you to see what you are lying about.
The Playground is now open for new participants
And I am ready to take on some new participants… So if you think you are willing to put your big toe into the water, you can.
Get your Starting Point MeasurementsYou do have access to the recordings of previous and ongoing Playgrounds.
You pay for the two live sessions, the personal feedback, the privilege to email me questions, the partner calls and the learning challenges you undertake.
And just like Chinese water torture, you’ll either allow the course to make a difference, or you won’t…
Chinese Water Torture?
People call it torture, because unless you allow it it feels like torture.
Is it the dripping water that is torture? No, it is your resistance to it.
If you can allow the dripping water, it cleanses you, it gives you a sense of time, it puts you in a meditative state: beautiful.
I have been using a sound device for health reasons. It is loud, and it works whether I use it day and night… but it works best if I use it around the clock.
Depending on my attitude, it is obnoxious, irritating, a pain… like Chinese torture… and it hurts in my belly and around my waist. I feel my resistance as I am trying on the attitude of resistance.
In the beginning I was contemplating using ear plugs so I can sleep. But little by little, I allowed the sound to just be… it had nothing to do with me.
Even today, when I need to connect deeply to Source because I am doing a Starting Point Measurements muscle testing, I need to consciously allow the sound so I can connect. If and when I resist anything, I cannot connect.
I am getting really good at not resisting.
I am sleeping better with it than without it… fall asleep faster… not resisting is a lot like resisting: when you resist something you have to suppress everything… when you let go, you let go of all resistance.
I am starting to see results everywhere. I have more fun, I have more joy, I am more able to keep my diet rules I made to keep myself well and in top form. I am walking more. There is an overall improvement in my life… the sound device has been training me.
Chinese water torture… that is my selling point… I wonder how many people groan when they hear that… lol.
Most of humanity is on level 1% with regards to their TLB. TLB measures to what degree you are able to be with what is, to what degree you deal with what life throws at you.
Chinese water torture breaks the people who cannot deal with adversity, pain, the ugly… it wouldn’t break me… like it wouldn’t break Wesley in the movie Princess Bride…
Hey, unless your TLB goes higher, you’ll remain comfortable, and miserable. It’s OK with me. Is it OK with you?
In the Playground you can toughen up, so you can start living a life with more fun, more meaning, more results…
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