One person is enough

When working with people on helping them to handle conflicts in their lives, be it in their private or working environment, the first step, and a very tough one, is to shift perspective from the victim to the proactive one. Because every single training always begins with stories and explanations about THEM doing something to US. They are being aggressive. They do not cooperate. They do not know how to communicate. They do not open up. They keep attacking and being provocative. They have started it. They manipulate. They did this and they did that. They are wrong. My boss is terrible. My wife does not understand. My kids are irresponsible. My parents are neurotic. It is impossible to communicate with these terrible people and it is impossible to solve any sort of conflicts with them.

Isn’t this a nice perception of life? Enabling us to be all the time on the right side. With a feeling that our life is really hard. Unfair. No justice. Is God on a vacation or what?

Now, let’s face a few pieces of reality here. The fact number one is that there will always be difficult communicators around us, interacting with us in a way we will not like all that much. The fact number two is that we are often difficult communicators too (if you are never ever a difficult communicator, but always a perfect one, please stop reading because you are wasting your time here. You see, this is all about us, the imperfect ones.)

Fact number three: we have a fundamental choice here, to choose between the two possibilities.

The first possibility

is to happily agree that it is all their fault, go for a cup of coffee or a bear with all the like-minded people we can possibly gather and start whining over those terrible, immature, neurotic earthlings, throw some diagnosis’s at them and…, well and continue throwing our own lives out through the window.

Because this is precisely what we do in cases like that. We define as the essence of our lives something that is out there, something that has power over us, over our feelings, over our state of beingness. We sell out our life and our power of choice and then go into the lovely little impotent role of a helpless infants: ”They are doing this to us and there’s nothing we can do.” Rather than focusing on our lives, our feelings, our choices, our values, our needs, we focus on causes out there and this way we only feed this empty illusionary structures that do not get us anywhere. Frankly, I do not believe that whining can ever help a bit.

But, hey, it is a perfectly legitimate choice, to be an eternal victim of evil communicators. I mean, why not, if it meets our needs… Sounds like a fun way to spend a couple of incarnations.

The second possibility:

Instead of crying over the bad weather when the rain starts, we can put on a waterproof jacket and trousers, perhaps an umbrella, and go out, out, out, and start walking. And if we get a bit wet…, SO WHAT! As my blogging mate Razz says, let’s harden the fuck up.

Perhaps we can start with a bit of understanding of the situation: nobody is after us, really. These people do not wake in the morning and start making evil plans on how to drive us nuts (they actually believe it is us who are difficult and, well, I am sure they have a point or two here). They are just trying to figure out how to live their lives with as little pain as possible and as much fulfilment, happiness and meaning as they can. They are not trying to make our life miserable. Their behaviour is, as Marshall Rosenberg would say, just a tragically distorted expression of their own unmet needs.

And now the question is what are we going to do about it? Perhaps take some responsibility and initiative and try, do, act, persist, move. Because, from my perspective at least, although it takes at least two individuals to have an interpersonal conflict, one person is enough to solve it. Perhaps not entirely, but to start, to try and to persist. First attempts will, of course, not bring about any relief, but we will just keep trying, and at a certain point this other person may feel less threatened, endangered, may perhaps start to feel some hope and choose to respond, bit by bit. But if we wait for other people to do the job, I guess our visas for this planet may well expire before this happens.

So, let’s never, never, never ever be victims of this life. Never whine, never hide. Let’s take it all fully, engage, interact. Let’s live the life we want to live, be the persons we want to be.

And yes, it will take more than one attempt to become perfect. And a lot of failures.

So what!

What do you do with friends?

Something rather new is happening in my life and I am a bit confused, when I think of it. I used to move through my life with a handful of good friends around, about the same amount of them most of the time, not too many, not to few, just about right. And I am talking about friends as I have defined them in my Friendship on an island post. I would just add one additional attribute of a friend to the two in the mentioned post, and this would be a “soul mate” quality, an open flow of connectedness, or perhaps immediate recognition of that. A non-erotic variation of being in love, I would say.

Anyway, about a year or so ago this established number of friends in my life started to increase radically. Perhaps I opened up a bit more and started to see, respond, attract, resonate, connect… more than I did before, perhaps something else has changed, who knows, but what firstly started as a noticeable increase in the number of genuine connections, has slowly turned into a waterfall of true and good friends pouring in. I keep meeting new friends while travelling (the last one joined my collection just last week in Warshaw) or in my home town and there’s truly abundance of them nowadays. Plus there is, of course, this blogging tribe that is throwing all these beautiful people at me. I mean, Robin, Sanity, Razz, Jennifer, Hayden…, what else can I call you guys but friends.

And I am being the same sort of a rather introvert and anti-social guy as it has been the case in the last ten years or so.

Well, I hear you say, what is the problem? What is there to not know about that? You are getting loads of friends in your life; enjoy and quit complaining!

And you are so damn right.

But the thing is that I have noticed how my mind has been utterly spoiled by this action-oriented type of modern mentality. The urge to do something about it, to create something out of it, to move and to evolve it, is growing. You know, I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It is true that I do not have any burning need for helping hands nowadays, nor do I enjoy just hanging around with people, talking nonsense in order for the time to pass. But, but, but, I cannot just sit here and have all these friends scattered around the globe, there must be something to do!

And there goes my mind: “Let’s organize something. Perhaps a gathering. Every month in a different city. Or let’s do a facilitated mind-blowing retreat together. Workshops. Re-unions. Perhaps just simple parties. Hm, maybe not just parties since they tend to turn meaningless, let’s do a facilitated thing. At least a karaoke night. Or, let’s do a Skype conference. Or perhaps I should just invite everybody here… Or, perhaps we can write a book together. Or…”

This mind of mine is really a funny creature: it wants to move and to change things. Even friendships. I mean, how eternally far away am I already from the scene we so often saw on our journey to the East in places like Eastern Turkey. Friends just sitting together.

Now, I do have some doubts whether their wives had the same appreciation of the ways their husbands used to enjoy the company of friends every day from mornings till sunsets, but let us stay focused here.

The thing is that it seems to me I need to re-learn to just be with people, not having to do anything. Even when I am all excited about them for them being so beautiful and for feeling such a fulfilling connection between us. It is OK just to be. When I think back of Zen seshins or dialogue processes and remember the beauty of the moments, when there is interconnectedness between everybody in the room, yet there is no need to do anything. Presence and silence are enough.

But still, it is kind of funny; at 42 learning how to just be with people. How to just be with friends, without having to do anything.

To do what you’ve got to do

This is what I call fast: a couple of weeks back I have met him at the Warrior of the Heart training in Belgium, and a week later Steve, on his tour around Europe, already visited me in our home. Having him here for a few days and taking him around the country was really great, but what was the most meaningful thing for me was, as usual, the simple and sincere sharing of where we are at with our lives.

And the thing that touched me the most was when he was sharing with me his experiences and feelings of working voluntarily in the Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe. Now, everything he shared with me was so damn inspiring that I immediately felt like joining in and contributing what I can to that beautiful project.

On the other hand, I have sensed the typical humanitarian sadness and frustration in his words. A general feeling of fighting an omnipotent and invincible dragon there. For every head that is cut off, hundred new fire-spitting heads pop up. For every problem solved, a thousand of new problems incarnate. For every child saved, there will be hundreds of children dying tomorrow.

We are not saving anything really. And it can be very depressing to face that.

I guess we are down to the question of ethics, the question on which basis do we choose, in our lives, what to do and how to do it. There are, generally speaking, three basic approaches, as far as I know.

The first one would be to just follow the rules and duties, imposed by the culture or authorities, the so-called deontological approach. They say I should be honest and not lie, therefore this must be the right thing to do and so I will stick to that. It is said that I should go out and help people and therefore this is the right thing for me to do and so I will do it.

The second one would be to think about the consequences of actions and go for the actions that will ensure me the consequences I want. If I lie, I might get caught and then I will be punished. This consequence I do not like and so I will not lie. If I will be honest people will like me, which I prefer much more than people not liking me, and so I will be honest. And if I will help people, than not only will people help me back, but the planet will be a better place and we will all be so happy, like in Hollywood happy-ending movies. Now, this is a very nice consequence, isn’t it?

But perhaps, if I choose to be honest and to not lie, people will, in some cases, be hurt and consequentially angry with me. Perhaps they will not like me anymore. So should I lie anyway? Just a little bit? Is there a good lie, the one that makes people happier than the bad truth? Hm, I am getting lost. And, why should I go saving the world if I know that I can not save it. If I know that everything is going downhill. If I know that the child I save today will die next week. Why should I do it and not somebody else (a classical excuse in consequentialist way of thinking)?

Frankly, the more I think of it the more I believe that the good old Aristotle was damn right in saying that thinking about consequences will not get us anywhere and with his suggestion that it is best to live by the ethics of virtues. When we are not concerned with the results of our actions, but rather with the question of how we want to proceed in our lives, what kind of people do we want to be. In this case I am choosing to be honest simply because this is what I want to be: a honest person. This is how I want to live my life. I do not even want to lie on a burning stake, for that matter. And I do want to be nonviolent and respectful towards others; not because some god was reported to have said so or because I believe I would get some sort of a reward for that, but just because this is how I want to live my life, even if it gets me in more troubles and even if this means I will not make all that shiny money.

So, back to humanitarian work and helping people: I believe the only thing that will get a humanitarian worker through all the ups and downs is this very approach of virtue ethics. Helping because this is you, this is what you want to do and what kind of person you want to be. Helping because this is how you want to spend and experience your own existence.

Now, the question for myself, of course, is: Do I dare to climb that horse or am I just trying to be smart here?

And I am back to the question of courage again.

A community?

Not long ago I was whining over a lack of a community, yet just this morning I realized that this interaction with beautiful people through blogging actualy does seems like a small community forming out. Over past months I have met and connected with wonderful and inspiring people that I otherwise would never know even existed. And if this process continues, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t, perhaps I will meet some of you sometime, in flesh, and, well, this is really great. And yes, it is a community.

I am packing my van again and will be off, this time with my daughter Lucija, to Paris and afterwards to Belgium for an Aikido training that we will take together. And though I am really looking forward to this special trip with my daughter, I am already missing you guys. Really.

So, be well and see you (khm!) in about two weeks.

Is life really all that beautiful?

Sometimes I get rather irritated with numerous vehement statements pouring out of blogs, web-pages, new-age books, about how incredibly beautiful life is, magical, great… All we ever need to do is to open up to the beauty of it, do something with our mindset, not much really, and the rainbows will rise, the angels will sing, money will start pouring and there will be no end to our happiness. Yes, life is really easy and beautiful, isn’t it?

But, are we talking about life in general or our lives, lives of the privileged ones, who were lucky enough to be born on the right side of this planet? And so we can, with our stomachs full of all the grand organic food, in our cosy little rooms, talk about the beauty of life and perhaps comment a bit about the injustice over there, on the other side of the world. And deny and suppress these images and thoughts, when they become to uncomfortable.

So, is life really all that beautiful in general, for everybody? Because if it is so, than we can just simply go down to Ethiopia and other places and tell them they need not worry, they just need to believe their inner power and open up to the beauty and things like that. Because it is really so easy and simple, isn’t it?

I once read somewhere that Buddha said: “No matter how enlightened you are, as long as there are people suffering, you still have plenty of work to do.”

The older I get, the more I understand that.

No world out there

I find it very natural to just sit and observe people, at airports, in restaurants, cafes. Yet the other day I realized that I do not know what do I observe really: other people or myself. Let me explain.

When I am centred, at peace with myself and my life, all I see is beautiful, wonderful people, carrying wounds and pain in their hearts, being soft and fragile within, full of love… I see their sincere attempts to do good, to be fulfilled, to make sense of their lives. My heart melts in warmth, my eyes get filled with tears and I am all empathy.

On the other hand, when I am feeling nervous, under pressure, frustrated, in inner conflicts and stress, I do not see that scene at all. All I can see than is egotistic, pushy, aggressive, ugly and terrible people, being nasty to each other, torturing their children and spouses. And my mind goes cynical. No empathy. Nothing.

It is obvious that my perception is utterly shaped by the state of my emotional being.

So what am I seeing really?

Nothing out there.

All I can ever see are merely my projections, my own emotional colouring, my subconscious patterns, cultural discourse, mental patterns and expectations… I do never communicate and interact and live with such and such people, with individuals and their objective attributes. No, I live among people that I am creating inside my head, shaping them this way or that way, arbitrarily.

That’s why my wife is sometimes divine Goddess, and sometimes…, well, something rather different. It is me who keeps changing her, inside my head, not her. In other words, if I want to see you ugly, there’s nothing you can do about it. And in case I choose to see you beautiful, you are trapped again… The same applies for everything; I am the creator of the world I live in and I keep re-creating it moment by moment.

So, you and me, we do not live in the same world. Pretty scary, isn’t it?

Last men (and women) standing?

This week of Crete was a pure bliss. Yes, not having to work (now, when do I really ever have to work?) and being alone with Marjeta was great, of course, but the Crete itself did the magic. We rented a 4×4 and headed off to the West and the South of it, as far as possible from the tourist places. And I fell in love with the real Balkan spirit again.

It seems to me that places like Crete are the last posts of rebellion against the commercial monster that is eating up the planet. People here still have not surrendered completely and have not yet became humble slaves to the almighty master – the profit. The simple juices of life still matter more. Much more.

My heart was smiling over and over again when looking at those beautiful people, not giving a damn about the shiny spectrum of the modern infatuations. Playing their own game, retaining aliveness and their own, slow pace of living.

And the dignity, oh their magical dignity. Just looking at the simple people nurtures my soul, to see how they shine in their pure beauty and without any of the attributes of Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan etc. Just their pure dignity and beauty. Being the ancient centres of the universe, softly proud, peaceful, stabile. And among them us from the north-west, nervous, rachitic, pale and pink, hysterical, neurotic, worried just about everything, running here and there, seeking something, trying to reach someplace… We are trying to catch the life while they are letting the life to slowly pass through them.

And the last but not the least: what almost shocks me every single time in Greece, particularly in Crete, is their sincere endeavour to help you build upon and retain your own dignity. They cooperate with you to help you feel OK too. Even police officers will try to help you not feel stupid, but on an equal ground.

Now, this is a true dignity. When you are so sovereign that not only you do not have any sort of a need to put other people down, but when you want to lift them up. Just so that you can sit with them together, drink a coffee, smile, enjoy life and observe the sunset.

OH, there’s so much to grieve over when thinking about the true spirit of the Balkans.