“It’s my reputation!”

This exclamation felt really weird when I heard it. A friend had been slandered and was preparing corrective action. Their cry didn’t sound like the real them, more like the words of someone else. Indeed it was probably another of society’s hand me downs.

But this particular statement stuck with me and felt really strange. What was this thing that had been wounded and required retribution?

I started asking myself questions.

I wonder what my reputation is?

Do I have a reputation?

Everybody has a reputation whether good or bad. What defines a reputation?

Well a reputation is a concept we have of ourselves. No wait! Our reputation is what other people think of us.

If this is true then we never own a reputation, we can never go on a holy crusade to reclaim it.

Our reputation is always subject to the whims and fancies of everyone else. In fact, because everyone has a different reputation of us (did you read that as representation…?) there is no coherent definition of our reputation that we can ever know.

If you choose to care about your reputation then you will forever be chasing the people who run off and try to burn the scarecrow you hide behind.

I understand the social/economical/etc. consequences of a bad reputation and as such you can take what action you see fit to make it fit reality.

But as long as any shred of your happiness relies upon a concept held in the minds of other people you will suffer and happiness will escape you.

So if I have your reputation allow me to put it on a piece of paper and give it to you. This way you will know that reputation was never yours to begin with and you are holding onto something outside of yourself.

Background on Awareness

In my last post I described awareness as the following process:

You observe the external world by letting all the sights, sounds, smells etc enter you on their own.

You observe the internal world by listening for the occurrence of any thoughts (in the mind) and feeling for any emotions (in the body, generally the chest).

You have to look both internally and externally at the same time. Whenever a thought or emotion appears you let it go and go back to observing.

So essentially you spend each moment paying attention to your physical senses, at the same time as listening and feeling inside yourself.

I try to apply this in every moment. The only time I have found it to not really be possible is when I am actively (concentrated, deliberate) thinking (using the mind). However I can be aware between these deliberate thoughts.

So in every moment throughout my day I try to push my attention to take more in from my physical senses and also be alert to internal thoughts and feelings. That is how you apply awareness throughout your day, in every moment just push yourself to use it.

Summary of Observations

I found out very quickly that there was no way I was going to be able to write down all the thoughts and feelings I saw (I already knew this offcourse). I have only listed about 200 thoughts/feelings and I stopped writing them down when I got off the train at about 4pm, so about 7 hours worth. The things noted down are generally abbreviations of a couple of thoughts. There are heaps(thousands) of thoughts I saw but could not write down because I was driving etc.. Consequently I forgot them before I could write them down. I found myself spending maybe 33% of my time writing down the thoughts I saw. Way too long!

Some observations:

• Less thoughts/feelings occur when you are concentrated on an activity
• Lots of thoughts occur about other thoughts you have seen when you try to watch them. This is the biggest trap that stops you from being aware
• A lot of thoughts repeat themselves at different times of the day
• Thoughts of ‘major’ events in the future or past often occur (such as when I was going to meet my friend I kept having imaginary conversations with him in my head)
• Bright ideas and constructive ramblings/daydreaming always take me from being in awareness where real peace and happiness is found. They are no good.

To Ari and Evelyn who asked for the journal: If this is not the style of journal (different focus) you were after please let me know in the comments and I will try to provide extra information. In each moment I always try to push to be aware no matter what task I’m doing, so all that is left is me doing a task and being aware or a thought/feeling being present.

I hope this is useful.

Awareness Log

Legend:

• Small headings indicate different major activities in the day

• Italic text represents a emotion or a thought (or what the thought was thinking
• Regular text represents a minor physical event, or a note on something

WAKING UP

• I wake up and close my eyes to try and remember my dreams clearer. I keep falling back to sleep.
  
• Thoughts(T) on how to write journal keep appearing
  
• T on checking blog statistics
  
• Emotion(E) Lazy towards getting started writing down thoughts
• T about how short time it has been since starting writing down thoughts and how impossible it is to write them all down
  
• T running commentary on what I’m doing
  
• T I’ll get nothing done if I keep writing these down
  
• T about how to present this data
  
• T that the same thoughts keep popping up
  
• T about not remembering thoughts
  
• E fear of other people reading this
  
• T need to read book for work

SHOWERING

• Notice the shower head is leaking
  
• E fear that telling mum will stress her
  
• T not going to remember all these thoughts
  
• I push extra hard to be in the present and a wave of peace appears
• I see the shower head again
• T about mums reaction
  
• T about meeting my friend today and they will think of this
  
• T daydreaming about meeting a blogger in randomly in the city
  
• E Annoyed at not being able to wear best clothes today as am saving them for the trip

ON COMPUTER CHECKING BLOGS AND EMAIL

• T concern about best way to respond to a comment
  
• I see someone linked to one of my blog articles in their post
  
• E fear in chest
  
• T what did they say about it
  
• I click the wrong button
  
• E annoyance flares
  
• E swaying with sound of the washing machine
  
• Trying on new pants, I see there is still a pin in the leg
  
• E relief that I saw it before putting leg in
  
• T to tell mum about pin
  
• T about telling mum after thinking of telling mum
  
• E Nervous when being shown some sewing tips
  
• Looking at nowdothis.com E confusion T no logging in E negativity towards it T Can I use it
  
• T I’m cold
  Push for awareness, feeling the wood of the seat. I feel a greater sense of peace
  
• T Interesting how when I focus on being more aware, I feel greater peace
  
• T Oh I have to buy deodorant
  
• E Nervous as I step over things on floor
  
• T Thought about seeing nervousness
  
• T Should I have water or juice?
  
• T Is that my glass from before?
  
• T Haven’t been many thoughts since I started reading and scouring the blogs
  
• T urging me to write plan for software idea
  
• T Should practice martial arts before grading
  
• E nervous about starting new job on monday
  
• E fear not finishing reading pre-reading book
  
• T I should read now, have I got time
  
• E urge to go for a walk to relax
  
• T See how crafty emotions are, the very stress is trying to tell me how to relax
  
• T I have less thoughts going on when I am busy
  
• T When should I eat lunch? How much time do I have
  
• T Your tripping out man
  
• T laughing at last thought
  
• E ‘happiness’ of laughing
  
• T Check train timetable
  
• T Don’t have to start work till 10 on monday
  
• E nervous about starting work
  
• T This takes up so much time writing down thoughts
  
• T Should be calling these automatic thoughts
  
• E Annoyance at always saving after I type
  
• T How many am I gonna have at end of the day
  
• T I should eat
  
• T Haven’t checked the train table yet
  
• T Ah going around in circles
  
• T That is the 3rd phone call in a minute
  
• T Say hello to brother when he walks in
  
• T Wonder how many blog views I have
  
• (without checking) E Sadness T I don’t have many
  
• T I wonder if my adds are earning anything
  
• T Oh yeah, train timetable
  
• E Very faint disgust at seeing a notice saying HTML loading
  
• T Tries to justify disgust
  
• T This is a better site for getting timetables from
  
• T Have to scroll so far down!
  
• T Doesn’t make sense
  
• T Oops I made a mistake
  
• T Mmm Salsa
  
• T I have to fill in my grading forms
  
• E Embarrassment showing mum a friend doing kenbu
  
• T http://www.arielbravy.com/enlightenment/defending-belief-systems/ makes a good point about not being able to exactly express experience
• T Blog views are steadily increasing

DRIVING TO TRAIN STATION

• T about different ways to write down thoughts
  
• I slow down as I see a potential problem with traffic up ahead, it clears.
• Further up the road, at the last minute a car swerves out in front of me and I have to break hard
  
• E Anger flares
  
• I push out of anger
  
• E Annoyance arrives watching the driver in my mirror
  
• T of anger towards him
  
• Breaking free of these thoughts and feelings I’m meeting with a wonderful feeling of peace
  
• T hope I make it through these lights
  
• Train is about to arrive at station, I’m still in the carpark
  
• T oh well I left enough time such that I can catch the next train
  
• I pay for my ticket with a whole bunch of spare change, somehow I manage to casually get on that train just before it leaves

ON TRAIN

• Man sits directly opposite me in a largely empty train
  
• E fear flares then anger
  
• T annoyed thoughts at the man
  
• E laughter at funny sign (the emotion is coupled with an attachment to ‘that is so true’
  
• T how can I investigate the nature of laughter or the desire to laugh
  
• See a car outside window
  
• T they are driving on the wrong side of the road, oh, no they aren’t
  
• T telling friend how much I’ve written and how little it is in comparison to all the thoughts seen
  
• T I feel more peaceful around nature
  
• T she is cute
  
• T It is wonderful to be around nature
  
• T Should I edit out any of these?
  
• Hear a beggar sounding voice from behind in the train
  
• E fear of voice
  
• T daydreaming about future conversation with friend
  
• T that car is gonna hit the other one (it misses)
  
• T how many lines are on a page?
  
• T I can’t write down every thought I see
  
• E laziness
  
• T about buying ticket for brother at next station
  
• T wonderful view of the city
  
• T Did they misspell that bit of graffiti?
  
• T that thought will get a laugh
  
• T see how many thoughts are to do with other writen down thoughts
  
• T will I ever be free?
  
• T Was that their thought or mine?
  
• T Will they think I’m crazy?
  
• T about employees (who I haven’t met) of my new job starting soon
  
• T thinking about future conversation with friend
  
• T are we almost at the station yet?
  
• T not really that many thoughts here on paper
  
• T thinking of introduction to this post
  
• T that sun is very bright and annoying
  
• T about future conversation with friend
  
• T not that many thoughts occuring at the moment
  
• T arriving at the station, must write faster
  
• T I can’t write down thoughts without my A4 book
  
• T hurry and pack away book, getting off
  
• I get out my pocket notepad so I can keep writing down thoughts
  
• T about being so cool being to switch easily to a small notepad

GETTING OFF TRAIN WALKING TO MEET FRIEND

• T Do I know her?
  
• E fear walking between busy crowd
  
• T should I buy tickets here?
  
• E disgust of person throwing up
  
• T + E Area is so busy
  
• T He looks familiar
  
• Some smokers walking in front of me
  
• T I hate the smell of smoke
  
• I have trouble finding the right street
  
• T lucky I caught the early train
  
• Walking along street noticing the architecture and other senses I’m filled with peace and joy appears, I smile
  
• T no starbucks here
  
• A pigeon flies low and towards me
  
• E fear of being hit by the pigeon
  
• E fear of talking about blog
  
• E fear of talking to boss

DURING CONVERSATION

• Friend brings up the topic of what else I’m doing apart from the new job
  
• E fear of what friend will think of blog
  
• Friend leaves and talking to boss for job finishing up
  
• E strong fear keeps occurring in chest while listening to boss praise me

WALKING BACK TO TRAIN STATION

• Walking back towards the train and pay more attention to my senses, a great sense of peace fills me and I can’t help but smile
  
• T Need to send my email to my friend
• E fear of guy walking, swaying in my direction with a bottle of something in his hand

ON TRAIN AGAIN

• I see a building under construction
  
• T about why certain elements of the structure are the way they are
  
• T about what I recently read in a software engineering book
  
• E desire to be loved
  
• T poor girl (in front of me) has a cold
  
• T thinking about hypothetical situations
  
• T about previous conversation with friend
  
• T daydreaming about hypothetical situations
  
• T daydreaming more
  
• T that is a cool shirt
  
• T my station is next

AFTER TRAIN

• T about software application ideas
  
• T daydream about potential logos
  
• T about new blog
  
• T about new blog designs

Afterthoughts

See how crazy our days are?

Filled with daydreams of the future and irrational fears. All of which take us away from peace and happiness.

This is why I stress the need to try to be aware, so we can break free of this.

Your thoughts and emotions are as important as anything you see outside of yourself. In fact they are more important because they can effectively stop you from perceiving the world. In order to gain control of your life and direct it to your will you must explore how thoughts and emotions effect your ability to perceive the world. You must explore your inner world.

Let me show you the best way to perceive the world.

Effects of Perception

When something happens in the outside world, information is sent to you through your senses. Once it reaches you two things can happen in your mind.

1. It can pass through leaving no trace
2. It can create a ripple

For most people, the world causes a wave of ripples on them. Each thing they see causes thoughts and emotions to shoot off at such a rapid pace that most of the time they can’t keep track of it.

During your day you have thousands of unintended thoughts occur and thousands of emotions erupt both large and small.

Thought and Emotion Ripples Domino

When you see something often a thought occurs. When that thought occurs it generally causes another thought to occur or an emotion to appear. Which in turn leads to another thought or emotion. The first thought sets off a whole chain of thoughts and emotions. Often snowballing into bigger thoughts and emotions. An example:

You see a fruit stand on the street as you are walking.

‘That apple looks nice and ripe’

‘I’m rather hungry’

‘Should I buy it? Do I have any change on me?’

‘No. I have to remember to pay my insurance this week’

‘It is so expensive’

(Anger)

‘Takes out a large chunk of my paycheck’

‘I wish I earned more money’

(Sadness)

‘Why does my boss get more than me, I’m smarter than him’

(Envy, Jealousy)

If you watch yourself carefully during the day you will probably notice that this is not much of an exaggeration.

What happens is that we go through most of our lives with thoughts and emotions taking our attention. Consequently we often spend our time in useless thoughts and lower emotions, missing out on living our life.

There is another way of perceiving which allows perception to occur without thoughts being triggered. You don’t have to think about what you see in order to receive it. Your mind processes everything without you needing to think. It is a much healthier way to live in the world.

A Better Way of Handling Perception

Earlier on I mentioned that it is possible to let perception pass through our minds without leaving a trace. By this I mean that no thoughts or emotions are triggered.

When we see things, they are understood and put into memory without any thought required. Whenever we pay attention to something we understand it on a certain level and memorise what we see. In order for this to happen we must be open and paying attention to the world. If we are instead involved with a chain of thoughts and emotions we will stop effectively processing the outside world.

Have you ever been driving, got caught up in thoughts and then realise that you have missed your turn off and cannot for the life of you remember what happened to get where you are. I think it has happened to most of us at some stage. This is what all of life is like when we let our internal world run wild with our attention.

In order to perceive the world we need to be actively observing the external and internal world.

Active Observation

By active I mean paying attention.

I say observing because you are not required to think thoughts about what you see.

You observe the external world by letting all the sights, sounds, smells etc enter you on their own.

You observe the internal world by listening for the occurrence of any thoughts (in the mind) and feeling for any emotions (in the body, generally the chest). You can see them because they are like something new flashing onto the scene, disrupting the natural state of clarity.

You have to look both internally and externally at the same time. You look externally to see the world. You look internally to keep a track of your thoughts and emotions. Whenever a thought or emotion appears you let it go and go back to observing.

This takes a lot of practice. You have to change the way you live.

Bring some attention inside yourself, it is well worth the effort.

The Benefits of Handling Perception this Way

By observing your internal and external world you steadily develop:

• Objectivity – Ability to see the world without judging it
• Peace – Developed by the separation from thoughts and emotions
• Conscious Living – A chance to live your life consciously, without it being automatically run by thoughts and emotions
• Happiness – A new type of happiness, which comes from peace

There is a lot more to the internal world than what I have outlined.

Before you can explore the rest you must start by being able to live in the external world at the same time as observing your own internal world. It is the foundation for everything else.

Tina Su wrote about 20 Ways to Attack Shyness and covered a bunch of methods quite elegantly. However the methods listed mix together the techniques of the warrior, the tactics of the captain and the strategies of the general. Presented with these methods people can get confused with which level to apply them in their lives. Higher level methods are much less effective without the solid foundations of fine grained methods.

Following I will explain some of the essential techniques that a warrior (you) should use to battle shyness. With these understood you can go on and make full use of the aforementioned article.

Know Yourself

Before a warrior can fight they need to obtain their weapon.

1. Discover your power – Your power is what some might call your consciousness. There is an element inside all of us that is always present. Thoughts and emotions come and go and yet in between these you will find there is something that always exists. This element is what you must get to know and hold onto. It is your power.
2. Discover your weapon – In finding your power you will have had to wade between thoughts and emotions. Holding onto your power you will discover the ability to watch thoughts and emotions. This ability to watch your thoughts and emotions is your weapon and you must use it to guard your connection to your power.

Know your Enemy

Fear fights using thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Most of the time it tries to sneak under your guard and disconnect you from your power. Once you lose your power it is easy for fear to take away your weapon. Then it simply overwhelms you as you sit their defenseless (which I know most of us have felt).

Taking away the imagery this is what happens. A fearful thought or emotion appears, so minor in fact that you will probably not think it is fear. Often it is a small doubt. Your attention gets taken by this thought or emotion and you start to attach to it. This opens the floodgates and more thoughts and emotions appear, leveraging the elements before it until there is so much fear in you that it appears huge.

This is why you must focus the battle on the smallest elements. Don’t let yourself be disarmed.

People often say they were overcome by fear out of nowhere. While sometimes big fears do appear inside us, more often it starts with lots of tiny little ones, rapidly building inside. Feeding the larger fear.

I talked about some of the thoughts, emotions and sensations that are common indications of fear in Why you Should Know Fear so you can read that if you want more examples. The key is to focus on these elements when battling.

Fight

Now that you are equipped with your weapon and your knowledge of the enemy you must know how to fight.

The battle with fear is like battling ninjas or assassins. They will try to take you out before you know they are there or disable you so the brute force elements can storm the gates. Here is what you must do:

1. Always be equipped – Always be aware of your power. Know what your core is and know what it feels like to be connected to it.
2. Always have your weapon ready – You must always be on guard. Watch your thoughts and emotions very carefully. You must watch your mind like the horizon for thoughts and your heart like the plains for emotions.

Think of yourself like a guard on a watchtower. When you spot the enemy it is your job to raise the alarm. With the alarm raised you can use all of your power and awareness to remain separate from the enemy and not let it capture you. If you persist you not only deprive the enemy of its energy but you will also gain knowledge of how it attacks, which is useful for future encounters and vital for ultimate victory.

Extending the Basics

The basic method of fighting is fundamentally defensive. It does weaken fear steadily over time providing you have more victories than defeats.

This is why you must always fight fear in every moment to make the most progress.

There is an offensive technique that can be used to reduce fear but without the solid basics of defense that I have described here it is almost useless. It is not much use to be able to defeat one enemy when you lose to hundreds of others who in their victories will just gain more strength.

Consequently I recommended you practice the above basics for atleast 3 months before getting offensive.

The offensive technique is essentially to ask for the elimination of the enemy.

Think of it as the guard calling out to the greatest offensive force that you have spotted the enemy. You have to trust that this force can do the job.

Whenever you spot the enemy (thoughts and emotions) you ask for their elimination to this force. You can ask into the unknown, ask the universe or if you are religiously inclined you can ask a particular element. What is important is that trust that what you ask will be able to get the job done. Done with persistence and consistency you will notice the change in your internals.

Put the above information into practice to discover how it works. It is the core element of practices that I have used to change my life. I hope with constant effort it can change yours too.

Inspiration and some Light Entertainment

Now enjoy a story of a timid being who was transformed and overcame its shyness. Or skip down below to leave a comment, I always like to hear and discuss understanding with other people.

Tale: Shy One Discovers their Power

Fear is the blinds you cover your windows with.

Fear is the friends you put between yourself and others.

Fear is the glass prison holding everything you want to say but cant.

Fear is what stops you from living the life you want to live.

Fear not only hides you from others but also hides you from yourself. Fear is the ultimate obstacle to discovering who you are and what you are all about. Really it is the obstacle that stops you from achieving the constant happiness that is possible when you come to embrace yourself.

Fear Stops You from Expanding Yourself

At any moment we have a certain set of things that we are capable of doing. The only restriction on what you are capable of doing is fear.

It is like the ball and chain strapped to your ankle only allowing you to move a certain amount.

Someone free of fear is essentially free to fly wherever and however they want. Imagine you had no fear, imagine all the things you would do. Does it feel like you can fly through life?

To change your life you have to take into account your fears. Without recognising your fears you will keep running into the glass walls of your prison.

Know what Fear Feels Like

Fear is most recognisable in how it effects your body, emotions and thoughts.

When fear is present your body feels like it wants to close up. Your posture deteriorates and your voice trembles as you want to hide away. Your heart (emotions) quivers in your chest and your mind either races or freezes. Watch yourself next time you start to get afraid and take note of what happens to your body, emotions and thoughts. It is important to develop the ability to recognise fear occurring.

So let me show you some examples of fear.

Fear of Mistakes

• ‘What if I muck up?’
• ‘I’m not a professional, I shouldn’t try’
• ‘I haven’t practiced enough to do it yet’
• ‘What if I’m just wasting my time choosing to work on this’
• ‘I’m not talented’

A definition of mistake is:

1. An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.
2. A misconception or misunderstanding.

A mistake is not a negative thing, it is simply an indication of areas in which you can increase your ability.

No one has perfect knowledge or ability, masters of any quality will be the first to admit this. The only way to increase your knowledge and ability is to first find the areas in which you are deficient and work on them. This is the exact purpose that mistakes serve.

Remember this whenever you are afraid of making a mistake.

Fear of Embarrassment

• ‘I feel ashamed’
• ‘I don’t want them to know’
• ‘I have to hide them so people won’t see them’

Being embarrassed and consequently hiding is caused by not accepting yourself for everything you are and want to be.

Everything you have done in the past (including the mistakes you have made) are just actions that are used to propel you along the path of life. Every action is simply a step you use to either grow as a person or shrink (if you let fear come about from it).

You are you and everything you have done is done. These are facts and it is unnecessary to deny them. Accept that they exist and that there is nothing wrong with that. Then move on not worrying about your past. It can only haunt the old fearful you. Not the new one that has grown beyond it.

Fear of Failure

• ‘It is unacceptable to fail’
• ‘I always succeed, I can’t take a risk’
• ‘It could be a scar on my great trail’

Failing at something is like making a mistake. If you fail then you have failed, no big deal. What is important is to learn and grow from it. It’s all the failures along the way that build up to make the big success.

If you never attempt something because you are afraid to fail then you can look at it two ways. One is that you will never succeed at that, two is that you have failed by default because you wouldn’t even attempt to go for what you wanted.

Failure is a part of life and there is no avoiding it. You will fail at something somewhere along the way and that is all right. Just because you failed this time doesn’t mean you will fail next time. In fact the more times you have failed at something the likelihood of the next attempt succeeding is greater because you can learn from your failures.

So don’t let the prospect of failures stop you from succeeding.

Fear of Disappointing Others

• ‘That’s not how my friends think I am’
• ‘My parents wouldn’t want me doing that’
• ‘If I did that they wouldn’t think I was very cool’
• ‘That’s not what they would do’
• ‘They would think I don’t match up with the groups standards’

In our mind we have a massive list of standards that define how we should act and what we should do. If we fail on a standard we feel we have let others down. This is because these aren’t your own standards.

They way we think other people think we should act is generally not what the other people actually think. But that doesn’t matter because you shouldn’t base what you do on what others might think. Often we don’t do what we think is right because we think others might disagree. We are paralysed by what others might think.

No matter what you do you will disappoint someone, simply because humans are very bad at being objective. Being disappointed is their problem not yours.

Real friends and parents want you to be yourself.

How to Eliminate Fear

This article is about realising how big a role fear plays in the life of a human and consequently understanding that you have to face fear.

The practical useful advice you want about overcoming fear I will write about it in the future.