A REAL Alternative- Part 1

Many self-help and wellness techniques and methods purport to offer an alternative way of living. Indeed, in London the biggest 'New Age' organisation that distributes such techniques and teachings calls itself Alternatives. But in what sense are the teachings that they offer real alternatives?

In my experience, what may look like an alternative at first often turns out to be not so alternative after all. A lot of self-help and wellness methods,techniques and strategies sound and look extremely convincing and seductive. But when it comes down to it, how many of them truly offer an alternative way of living and looking at what's going on in the world?

For many years, I was also looking for an alternative. I was certain that there was another way of living that did not conform to the traditional views of the world and how things happen. I searched and experimented. At one time in my 20's I even went to live with a group of travellers, hoping to discover an alternative lifestyle. What I found disappointed me. The only thing that was alternative about them was the fact that they lived in a bus instead of a house. Apart from that, they seemed much the same as everyone else.

Later I got involved with various 'New Age' type approaches, often based on ancient wisdom, and although I found the ideas and concepts quite exciting and engaging, I found that they did not offer up a lifestyle that was both practical and truly alternative. They might for example teach or suggest a technique or strategy that could be applied at times to supposedly get desired effects, but they did not offer what really felt like a truly alternative approach to living. At another stage I discovered some of the top professional coaches that teach people how to 'be the best' and perform at a high level. Again, they offered some exciting ideas but in the end they were for the most part suggesting that we simply do more, MUCH more in order to get results. For example, they might advise getting 'super fit', which is a great idea but extremely difficult to manage if you are not a full-time athlete or fanatical about exercise!

About 9 years ago I became interested in the teachings of the American self-help author Robert Scheinfeld. At the time he was offering a program called the Seven Power Centres of Life. In his pitch he mentioned that this was something very different from most 'alternative' teachings. It was also a new offering that he had put together that would later morph into what became the Busting Loose model and more recently, the Ultimate Key to Freedom.

At the time I heard his pitch I had reached a low point. It was soon after I had been divorced and I'd just got dumped by a girlfriend very unceremoniously. In short I was feeling that life was turning into a big disappointment! In the words of Morpheus in the film, The Matrix, I felt that "something was wrong with the world". I decided to give Robert Scheinfeld's course, for which he was making some dramatic claims, a try. What did I have to lose?

Robert Scheinfeld's course did turn out to be different from anything I had experienced before. It also turned into a life changing event that took me on an extraordinary journey of discovery and 'expansion'. From the outside one might be forgiven for thinking that Robert Scheinfeld is just another 'self-help guru' marketing his products in a way that is very slick and professional. Indeed at first sight, Robert's products may look similar to those of many others in the self-help field. However, what I learned from deep and profound personal experience was that the similarity ends there and that whatever you may be thinking these products are about, it does not come close to the truth of what this particular journey has looked and felt like for myself and many others.

In the next part of this blog I will go into more detail about Robert Scheinfeld's approach and teachings. In the meantime if you would like to know more you can go to the link below and access a free introduction from Robert Scheinfeld.

http://www.robertscheinfeld.com/spiritual-teaching-modern-times/

Alternatively I am offering personal coaching through my coaching website at

https://sites.google.com/site/pathwayyoucoaching/Our-coaching

Goal Setting- Beware!

If you plug into the personal and professional development world, as I have done for many years, you will immediately encounter the notion that setting goals is good. Many trusted professional advisers will actually tell you that if you do not set goals you will never arrive or achieve the things you 'want' in life.

Personally I have never been a goal setter by instinct. Yes I always had things that I 'wanted' but in terms of mapping out a path for achieving them, that was something I never felt motivated to do. However, a couple of years ago I reached a point where I started to listen to the authors and top coaches who insist that setting goals is the right path to travel if we ever want to be satisfied.
So I gave it a try. I even wrote down in detail the goals that I thought I wanted to achieve and how I would achieve them. 30 day goals, 90 day goals, 6 month goals et cetera.I was determined. This time I would work towards my goals, achieve them and get the things I 'wanted'.

But an interesting thing happened. Life happened. I found that some of the ways I had set to achieve my goals did not suit me. They felt 'wrong' and were simply not very interesting for me to be involved in.I found it exhausting and stressful to even think about some of them. Life was already busy, but these goals involved taking massive added action that I had neither the energy nor enthusiasm to go through with. Furthermore, when I went back to review my goals after a few weeks, I wasn't even sure that these were the things I really wanted!

Another thing that occurred to me was this: supposing I carry out all these actions over 6 months and then whatever number of years and I DON'T reach the goals that I'm not totally sure I want anyway? I would have wasted years of time and energy doing stuff that wasn't fun or particularly creative. Or, supposing I carried out all the actions over several years and I DID reach these goals and then found that I didn't really want them after all? Or, supposing I carried out my plans and became bored with the predictability of it all, ignoring the random stuff that comes up in life so that I can focus on these goals?

Yes I understand that for some people, goal-setting does appear to work. I understand that some people swear by it and seem to use it quite effectively. But to me, it seems like a very constraining way to live.

We all have 'wants' and 'desires'. These are things we say that we want. But how often do we question WHY it is that we want these things? Where do these desires actually come from? More importantly, how do we really know that they will improve our lives and bring us satisfaction? Short answer, we don't. The world is littered with individual examples of people that achieved their goals but were far from happy or satisfied. They got the stuff that almost everyone on the planet would say that they want, but it didn't really do them any good in the long run.

More money, a beautiful body, a new relationship,fame, success, a 'better' job, a new car, whatever. These type of things are VERY seductive from the outside but setting our goals on such 'outer world' items at the expense of our inner world, can lead to misery rather than happiness.

I am not saying here that setting goals is bad or wrong. I am saying BE CAREFUL. Where are those things that we so desperately seem to want coming from? What's behind all of it? Maybe these are questions that we could spend our time investigating, and maybe the answers would transform the way we see our whole lives, especially the things we say we 'want'.

New feminists and Taoism

Recently we have seen several high-profile individuals such as Emma Watson ‘come out’ and declare themselves as ‘feminists’. Presumably this is a gesture designed to improve the public image of feminism, and somehow make it more acceptable. However, it is by no means clear what they actually mean when they say they are ‘feminists’.One can’t help but wonder if these individuals themselves really know what they mean when they say they are feminists. Emma Watson has mentioned something about standing up for women’s rights in Africa, or elsewhere and of course this is commendable. But this not really a feminist issue, rather it is about basic human rights. Believing that men and women have equal rights is no longer a feminist issue. It is taken as read that it concerns everyone and that any other type of view is unacceptable. So what really IS a feminist? Who can be a feminist? Nobody seems to have an answer to this question but here are a few ideas:

1     A feminist is someone that believes that our world needs to move in a ‘feminine’ direction by becoming more caring, and more nurturing of the values that we associate with people that call themselves ‘women’.
2.       A feminist is someone that believes that women should have more rights and more power in society.
3.       A feminist is someone that rejects traditional stereotypes associated with male and female genders.

These definitions of feminism are quite different in various ways.  The first one is about feminine values and the type of society we want to create.  If we look at Geerd Hofstede’s index of cross-cultural distinctions we see that some societies value Femininity more than others. Examples of this typically are Scandinavian societies that appear to be more ‘caring’ in the way they are structured. On the other hand, according to Hofstede Japan scores very low on the index for feminine values. Anyone that has actual experience of Japan however would probably dispute such a result and we soon find ourselves in difficulties here: What really ARE feminine values and how do they manifest in a society? Speaking personally as someone that has lived in Japan for example, I would say that overall and with all things considered, Japan is a more’ caring’ society than the UK, which apparently contradicts Hofstede’s findings.

The other two definitions above are more similar to each other and imply a more political stance for a feminist. The second really amounts to an interest group for 50% of the population and is not really about values. It’s more about women saying “Here we are and we mean business”, which is, after all not a very feminine thing to be saying. It leads us to saying things such as: Do feminists actually want to be women or not? This implies an existential crisis behind feminist outbursts, a kind of search for an identity or re-definition of women’s role in society. Again, nobody seems to have clarity on what this means and how it can actually support the interests of women or society.

The third definition above again suggests a re-ordering of roles and relationships with regard to gender. But what this really means or what it would look like is not clear. It is also not clear whether or not it would contribute to the quality of life that people, including women experience now.

One possible solution to this confusing situation is to turn to Eastern philosophy for insight. In the Taoist principles of Yin and Yang we get a different frame on the whole issue, that moves us away from intellectualism and political posturing towards a more profound connection with what makes us who we are in this world. The genius of Eastern thought lies in its’ simplicity. Taoism takes us into the energies that govern our existence, giving us insight that resonates with quantum science at a very deep level. The principles of Yin and Yang deal with optimum balance and well-being. There is a simple clarity in the principles that go beyond the confusion that politically-oriented ‘intellectual’ western-style discourse gets us into. We are after all, essentially fields of energy moving through a universe of energies that are interacting in various ways. Taoism says that nothing is wrong. We already possess everything we need to be in balance, whole and complete on this earth. The problems begin when we confuse ourselves and get out of balance. This happens when we disconnect from our centre and identify with a false identity. Unfortunately, western civilisation is based on and continually encourages us to engage with this whole confusion rather than re-connect with the whole. Osho has pointed this out in a detailed way in his speeches as a critic of the West.

When individuals are out of balance and sick, then naturally the society will also be so. Clarity is needed to bring people towards a healthful existence so that they can truly move ahead and contribute their gifts to society. The problem is that there are too many voices giving out confusing and unhelpful messages. When people start to identify with political principles and base their life around intellectual ideas they soon get lost or mired in conflicts that in general do not bring us closer to healthy solutions.  The term ‘feminist’ has a cache of conflict and division that does not really serve the cause of unity and wholeness. Seeing and feeling beyond gender politics to a more underlying and fundamental pattern of harmony or disharmony, firstly within ourselves and then as a society, is more likely to bring people closer together in reconciliation.