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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 LIVING IN THE DARK
"There's a whole in my bucket..."
2 A WEIRD KIND OF FATE
In the hands of fate
A subtle hint of weirdness
Weaving a different world
3 THE SENSES TAKER
Choosing not to choose
Avoiding emotion
Beliefs, feelings, senses
A habit of choice
4 EVERYONE IS TO BLAME
"You can't get there from here"
Tyrant and victim
Who's to blame?
No-one is to blame
5 I AM WHAT I AM
Whose life is it, anyway?
The 'silliness barrier'
The 'tall poppy' syndrome
Strengths and weaknesses
6 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
The curse of belief
An affirmative habit
Into action
7 WANTS AND NEEDS
What do you want?
We all want more money
What do you need?
What do you want from me?
What do you need from you?
"I'm a substitute for another guy..."
Take aim...
8 CONTROL AND OTHER MYTHS
Fear is a four-letter word
I want to be powerful
A different kind of power
New Age, new illusions?
A time to trust
9 TIME TO LET GO
Non-attachment, non-detachment
"Nobody's perfect"
Let go of knowing
An end to suffering
10 ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR
Riding the roller-coaster
The hall of mirrors
Walking the tightrope
Bring on the clowns!
11 ONE STEP AT A TIME
A state of survival
Facing frustration
Panics and priorities
Re-accepting self
The process of change
12 WEAVING THE THREADS OF WYRD
A web of connections
The ordinariness of wyrd
Do what you will But be sure that you will it!
13 MY WORD IS MY BOND
Choosing your words
A question of commitment
Doubt and discipline
The role of religion
14 IT'S ALL IMAGINARY
Real or imaginary?
Invisible images
Watch the details
Real imagination
Inventing the real world
15 DIVINE COINCIDENCE
Cause and coincidence
Everyday weirdness
As above, so below
Prediction and paradox
16 DANCING WITH OUR SELVES
Stance and dance
A dramatic gesture
The flow of the dance
17 THE ART OF EMPOWERMENT
As the muse takes us
The art of listening
Drawing our visions
Words on the wind
18 WE'RE BUSY DOING NO-THING
Allowing ourselves to notice
When less is more
Time to slow down
Do it consciously
19 WHICH 'I' IS ME?
What or where is 'I'?
Caught in the web
A choice of boundaries
20 STRETCHING THE BOUNDARIES
Reclaiming the balance
The export of blame
Facing fear
A world without walls
21 SELF AND OTHERS
The sound of silence
Being selfish
Being self-reliant
A web of choices
22 RELATING
Soul-mates and cell-mates
Happy families?
Friends and other allies
23 WORKING IN A WEIRD WORLD
A world of connections
A world of confusions
A world at work
24 IT ISN'T EASY BEING GREEN?
A sense of value
A sense of place
A sense of healing
A sense of trust
25 A WYRD WAY OF LIFE
Wyrd
Self-exploration
Philosophical perspectives
Fiction
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This book is no longer available in print
Positively Wyrd
Harnessing the chaos in your life
Tom Graves
INTRODUCTION
Life is weird. It has a habit of presenting us with weird tasks, trials and tribulations no matter how much we'd rather not face them. So for many of us, we try to resolve the issues through 'personal growth', as something we undertake in the hope that things will get better, that we'll regain some kind of control over our lives. And things do get better: though rarely in a simple, linear sequence of improvements, and sometimes not even in a way that we would at first understand as 'better' the process is far more weird than that. There is indeed a deep joy and a deep sense of meaning to be found this way; but it would be unrealistic to say this without also saying that the path, always a personal one, can at times be intensely lonely and intensely disturbing. It's that confusion that makes the process hard: but it is part of a process that does lead us to enjoyment, to the full, of every aspect of our lives a joyous involvement in life as it is.
The reality is that the path we each take is weird, and often doesn't seem to make sense: we get launched into new experiences, or seemingly trapped in loops time after time. And the whole process can not only be tortuous, but at times torturous, a sense of being tested again and again almost yet never quite – beyond what we can bear. As to why it should be so, we can only answer 'Yes'. In some cases there probably is no 'why': it is – and that's all. If we're to work with what Reality Department cares to hand us, we first have to accept it for what it is: the 'why', if any, can come later.
We do always come out stronger, more able to enjoy life, and more able to face our personal issues after each of these apparent tests, as long as we face them and what they show us of ourselves: that seems to be the reason for it all, and is certainly what makes it all worthwhile. And although this process of growth at times is hard, is painful, is lonely, it's always based in our choices. We always have a choice; yet there's also always a twist. Those twists are where the weirdness lies: the effects of our choices ripple out into the world at large, and then echo back to us in a way that we can only describe as weird. A weaving and interweaving of life and lives: a sense of connection, a sense of choices, a sense of subtlety, of something we can never quite control. Within those weird twists of our lives are subtle, hidden choices: it's up to us to make use of them.
It's to this weirdness in the process of personal growth – accepting the weirdnesses of our lives, and working with them rather than trying to fight against them that this book is ad dressed. It's also addressed to the realities of the process and its often uncomfortable twists and turns: as such, it develops a rather different view of the sequence of the changes in the process of personal growth. In particular, there's an emphasis on some intermediate stages that are often missed out in existing descriptions: the stage of 'everyone is to blame' that must be moved through, for example, before the well-known concept of 'no-one is to blame' can be reached. And there are also some guidelines on how to work with the bad times and how not to get lost in some illusory 'good' ones.
You may find the writing style that I've used a little strange at first, but it's there for a reason: the way a book is written is a crucial part of its message. The impersonal third-person mode preferred by most psychology texts, typically referring to examples as 'case studies' or 'client experiences', may make intellectual under standing easier, but can actually block experiential understanding; while the second-person ("you should do this") mode popular in 'New Age' books often seems condescending and patronising. My choice here has thus been to use, where possible, a first-person or 'I/we' conversational mode, framing the text as if spoken by an imaginary narrator a composite (whom I've named 'Chris Kelley') drawn directly from many people's personal. and real-life experiences. So although this introduction is somewhat formal, the rest of the book is not. The stories the narrator tells are highly personal, and illustrate clearly the intensity of feeling of many of these states – so if you find yourself in the same kind of emotional spaces that this imaginary 'I' describes, you'll know you're not alone in that experience. We've all been there too: that fact alone can be a great deal of help in some of the darker times...
But since nothing changes without ourselves choosing to be involved in the change, there's also a strong emphasis on the practical: examples to put the concepts into practice will be found on almost every page. These typically consist of a personal experience that illustrates the point being made, followed by some suggestions, and questions about the resultant experience. (There are no set answers to these questions: in this field, the only valid answers for each person are their own.) All of the examples have been tested in practice, most of them independently by myself, friends and colleagues as well as many others, and often over long periods of time: they work. Whether they work for you in the same way is up to you to decide, and to experience: but you won't find out unless you try!
The four sections of the book develop a sequence of observations and changes, starting with the self, and moving outward to the world at large. Be warned, though, that the sequence is not always obvious in the usual sense: the apparent repetition that occurs throughout the book, for example, is intentional, and is not simply due to poor editing! And in particular, the early part of the book may seem to dwell on the darker emotions more than you might expect: the reason is that unless these are faced early on, they continue to block progress indefinitely. So the first two chapters 'set the stage', using a typical experience as a start-point, and comparing the sense of fatalistic gloom that often accompanies it, with the subtle freedom to be found from a better understanding of the original meaning of 'weird'.
The second section, consisting of roughly a third of the book, looks at the kind of pressures that get us to limit our choices – especially as we grow up – and builds some analogies and suggestions as to how to break free of our habits and conditionings. We learn to watch – and use – the way in which old issues keep looping back in one form or another until they are resolved; we gain a peculiar – yet very real – kind of freedom by working with the twists and paradoxes of life, in a way that moves past the fears that drive our need for control. And we recognise that we always have choice, we always have responsibility – although at times it's neither easy to see nor to accept.
The next eight chapters – also roughly a third of the book – discuss ways to work with and consolidate this new freedom in our own lives. We do this by watching, listening and, especially, acknowledging what we feel; accepting ourselves for who we are, from moment to moment, whilst still maintaining some kind of overall aim. A delicate balance: we learn to trust and to let go, yet without letting go; we learn the subtle – weird – difference between doing nothing, doing something and doing 'no-thing'; we watch the ways in which our own choices echo back to us from the world around.
In the final section we start to move out into that wider world – and recognise that in some weird way it is also always a reflection of ourselves and our choices. The sense of being separate from the world, and at the effect of its forces, is to some extent an illusion: our choices are part of the weaving that makes up the world we experience, 'inside' or 'outside', 'self' or 'not-self'. Our relation ships, our work and our interactions with the world at large all have the same weirdness in common: there's always a choice, there's always a twist. And the choice, and the responsibility for that choice, are always ours: it's up to us to build the world we need.
Chapter 6
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
It was as children that we learnt many of the habits we now have. And the way we learnt them, in most cases, was through repetition. That's how we learnt to walk, to talk, to read, to ride a bicycle: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again". But it's also how we learnt many of the habits that bind us: often in the form of derogatory statements repeated again and again by some authority-figure, like a form of brainwashing, until we eventually learn to believe them.
An irate teacher at school: "You're stupid, Kelley, you shouldn't ask stupid questions: how many times do I have to tell you that? So – repeat after me – 'Chris Kelley is stupid'. Come on – say it! Louder, child, louder – I want the whole class to hear you!" I stand there, barely able to open my mouth, squirming in shame and embarrassment... she's the teacher, I don't have the right or the strength to fight back. And a thought runs through my mind: "If can I learn to be stupid, like she tells me I am, perhaps she won't make me do this again.
Do you recognise incidents like this in your own life? Can you see how easy – and how apparently necessary – it was to change your whole way of life, to avoid that kind of repeated pressure from others?
A statement like that may well tell us more about the person saying it than it does about us – a teacher abusing his authority in order to avoid answering awkward questions, for example – but once we've learnt to believe them, we believe them. The statement eventually becomes something that we believe at an unconscious level – a habit of thought, a habitual way of thinking about ourselves. From there, precisely because it is unconscious, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: "What I tell you three times is true", as Lewis Carroll's Bellman put it in 'The Hunting of the Snark'. And then we're stuck with the results, for life – or until we can learn how to unlearn the habit. It can take a long time to unlearn habits...
THE CURSE OF BELIEF
Belief is a peculiar kind of magic: a habit of thought, an idea that becomes real by filtering reality. With a different belief, we not only change our perception of the world, but our actual experience of it. I experience the world as I believe it to be: I find experiences that confirm the belief, and tend to ignore those that don't. It always seems easier to find 'proof' of destructive beliefs than of constructive ones, so a repeated statement like "You're stupid!" can soon create a downward spiral, a self-confirming curse – even though it was never actually true to begin with.
Once I've learnt to believe that I should be afraid, for example, I experience the world as if I'm afraid: I become afraid, and in return the world becomes a fearful place. And even though the fear is of something imaginary, of something that has never existed as more than an idea, the fear itself is real: the results are tangible, in terms of my ability – or inability – to work in the world. Through belief, the untrue becomes true; an illusion – a belief – somehow becomes reality.
One famous example was the 'toilet-paper shortage', a few years back. An American TV presenter suggested on his show that there was going to be a shortage of toilet-paper. People took his warning seriously; there was a surge of panic-buying, supermarket shelves were rapidly cleared as people built up reserve stocks. In a matter of days there wasn't a toilet-roll to be had. But in fact the whole thing had been an April Fool joke: at the time there'd been no real shortage at all, and now there really was one. The untrue becomes true; an illusion – a belief – somehow became reality.
Can you see the same kind of effect happening in your own life? What rumours – imagined beliefs – do you find yourself acting on? How do you know they really are true – or whether they're just self-confirming 'prophecies' that you've been caught by?
In that sense our world is an illusion. It's everyone's illusion: an interweaving web of beliefs, of filters on reality. If we want to change our world, to improve our world, we need at the very least to change how we see it, what we believe about it. But the only beliefs we can change directly are our own – and even then it's not easy. Those 'curses', those self-destructive beliefs that we were taught as children, will seem to block us at every step: at times they twist and turn against us, like a peculiarly evil and insidious form of magic.
Children believe in magic: the 'inner child' still does – with good reason, if you think of belief as magic.
That's the child's point of view – not childish, but childlike. So once again we let go... play with belief the child's way, and work with it as if it is magic. Yet magic is, well... weird. Wyrd... Yet knowing now something of the nature of wyrd – 'there's always a choice, there's always a twist' – we can use the magic of belief to overcome the tyranny of belief: we can choose to twist it into a new and more constructive tool. Repetition – this strange process of 'what I tell you three times is true' – is how we were taught the habits that now restrict us; so now, in its turn, we can use repetition to help us break free of them.
AN AFFIRMATIVE HABIT
One way to bring up these habits of thought, and rebuild them, is through 'affirmations' – repetitive statements of intent that tend to highlight our resistance to change. And there's a surprising amount of resistance...
An affirmation (or 'intention', 'postulate', 'manifestation', 'positive thought' – there are many different terms for much the same thing) is just another belief. The difference is that, unlike those destructive curse-beliefs, it's one that we choose – as a tool to help us – rather than imposed on us by someone else. An affirmation is an invented belief, repeated over and over again, just like the 'curses', and with the same intention of making the belief into another self-confirming prophecy. Once again, the untrue becomes true – but this time in a constructive rather than self-destructive sense.
To make an affirmation, we simply write out this new constructed belief: for example, "I, Chris, now have total confidence in my ability to do anything I want". We then stop for a moment; listen for a moment; then write down the objections that are likely to come flooding in!
The first of the objections that we're likely to hit is the silliness barrier – and hard. Immediately, the whole thing seems ridiculous, childish, pointless – silly. Let alone those bitter memories of 'writing lines' as a punishment at school: "Kelley, write out one hundred times, 'I must not ask stupid questions in class"... So we acknowledge the barrier – work with it, work round it: yes, it does seem childish – it's meant to be, so as to be childlike. Yes, the statement isn't true: I don't have confidence in my ability to do anything I want – but the whole idea is to learn how to believe it to be true, so that it has a chance to become true. Yes, it does sound ridiculously optimistic: but that's only because we're so used to being forced to be pessimistic. And so on; and so
on.
Let go... let play... let the magic of belief break the tyranny of belief...
There are so many beliefs that cripple us, it's difficult to know where to begin! But try taking a repeated experience that the world seems to confirm as 'true' – for example, "I never get any credit for what I do" – and view it as if it was the result of a self-destructive belief that you hold at an unconscious level: "I don't deserve credit for what I do". Imagine that it's a belief you've learnt, or been taught, through constant repetition or constant example – which you may even know to have been the case. To counteract it, turn this belief around – "I do deserve credit for what I do" – and repeat it to yourself. Often! After all, the destructive belief was repeated to you often enough.
To make this an affirmation, put yourself into this new belief: "I, __, deserve credit for what I do". (And sometimes in the second- and third-person forms – "You, __, deserve credit for what you do" and "__ deserves credit for what he/she does" – because that's how the old belief was given to you.) Write out this statement on a piece of paper; as you write it, affirm it to yourself as being true – say it aloud, perhaps, put some emotion into it. Then wait for a moment. See what objections come up – "People don't like me, that's why I don't deserve credit" – and write those down under the affirmation, slightly to one side. Then write the affirmation again; then the objections. Repeat this sequence at least a dozen times.
Listen carefully to the objections – can you sometimes hear someone else's voice saying them – the person whose belief it was in the first place? And can you see how bizarre and unreal some of the objections turn out to be?
Let go..... let play.
It is important to regard this as play – which, to the child, is its real work. It's a good idea to treat the whole process like a piece of magic, as a piece of ritual – buy a new book to write these affirmations in, use your best pen, write in a quiet space, perhaps light a candle first... It's the 'inner child' we're working with here, so we appeal to the childlike nature of the child within us!
The usual recommendation is to do this with only one affirmation at a time, twice a day, for at least two or three weeks. (If that seems a lengthy process, remember that it's quick by comparison with the months and years of repetition through which we first learned each 'curse' that restricts us now.) It does work – though, as is typical with wyrd, not often in the way that we expect.
What we can expect, at the very least, is change: if nothing else, affirmations can be a good way of breaking 'stuckness' in our lives. It seems to be important to write these phrases and responses: speaking them, even aloud, does not seem to be enough. Perhaps writing is a way of driving the new beliefs into memory, driving them back into our deepest self, in much the same way as it's usually easier to remember a lecture from written notes even than from a tape-recording. I don't know: all we know is that it is so. Part of the magic, I presume.
Watch how the resistance arises – our own resistance to our actually living our life your own way. "It can't work", for example; "I don't deserve that, that would be too good", perhaps; or "It doesn't happen anyway, and I can't see how it could be possible, so it can't be possible". Again and again we'll find it breaks down to a simple statement, a simple belief: "It's not allowed for me to be me". But if that's so, how come other people are allowed to do what they want in life? That's worth looking at for a while.
Take one of your resistances that comes up regularly – "I don't deserve to be happy", for example – and apply the same process as for affirmations, but in reverse. Write out that statement in the same way as an affirmation – and then note the (more conscious) objections that come up to the statement. Wear down the resistance by showing, slowly, that it's absurd. "If I don't deserve happiness and affection, how come other people do deserve it?". "In which case, what is there that's so specially different about me that means I alone don't deserve to be happy?". And so on.
Can you see that the resistance is, in essence, a belief? One that is actively harmful to you? And one which, in all probability, you've been taught – for someone else's benefit, not your own?
Work at it for a while. You may even begin to see where you learnt the habit, and why: "I mustn't be happy because my big sister hits me if I show I'm happy", for example. Habits learnt very early, beliefs that are usually no longer relevant, but which we all still act on now...
One reason why it's useful to look at the resistances in this backwards way is that most of us look at the negative side, the weaknesses, first – and believe them. There's often a strong cultural pressure to do so: being positive or optimistic is considered egotistical, or naive, or both. It's not acceptable, not done, to accept ourselves as we are: we're soon made to feel pretty uncomfortable if we don't put ourselves down – as we saw earlier with the example of the bullying teacher.
But just remember: 'Whose life is it, anyway?'. It's your life: it's your right to reclaim power with your life. And this is one way to do it – to put new changes, new beliefs, into action.
INTO ACTION
Think of this as affirmative action – but there also needs to be an emphasis on action. If we only write the new beliefs out as affirmations, and then just sit on our backsides, waiting for things to happen by themselves, we're believing in the wrong kind of magic... What we're doing with the affirmation, in effect, is lifting a thread of wyrd to the surface, to look at it and see how we've usually pushed it away from our lives. But that, on its own, changes nothing. We also have to find a way to connect with that new thread: having written "I now have confidence in my ability", for example, I have to go out into the weirdness of the world and find that new confidence, find our connection with it. Let our selves find it – or perhaps let it find us.
So go looking – but without looking. Try to find it but without trying. It does take a bit of practice...
An affirmation itself is no more than a game with beliefs, a 'head-trip': to be useful, it needs to be grounded, brought into connection with the version of reality we share with everyone else. So having written out a series of affirmations, do something to 'earth' it, to honour and affirm the change in your intention. Almost anything will do: but do something. Put yourself in a different place or different situation for a change. Don't bother trying to think through what the best response would be – just follow a whim, an impulse. The wyrd thrives on difference, not sameness... thinking, on its own, will only give us 'more of the same'.
And then watch what happens: see what Reality Department gives you back. Watch the feelings, the emotions, the uncertainties that arise as you do these 'active affirmations': think of these as resistances, just like those that came up on paper as you wrote. What do these tell you?
Sometimes deciding what to do to act on an affirmation is a bit like looking for a dim star at night – it's not as simple as it seems. For a start, we sometimes have to put ourselves in a different environment: in the glare of the street lights of the city, it's hard to see anything of the sky at night, let alone a barely-visible star. If we don't do anything, if we don't try – don't even bother to stick your head out of the door – we'll never see the star: the chance will simply pass us by. Yet if we do look in the obvious way, straight at it, it disappears – and the harder we look for it, the more it disappears. The trick to seeing it is to look away slightly, to look not at it, but near it – look at it without looking at it – and let it come to us. It's much the same putting these affirmations into action: we have to do something, but somehow let the results come to us.
One way in which the results may come to us is not at all what we'd expect: namely in the form of some incident that acts like a test, a challenge. For example, if your affirmation was "I now have confidence in my ability", you might hope for people turning round and telling you how wonderful you are: but don't be surprised if, instead, some stranger comes up with exactly the same kind of derogatory remark that put you down in the first place. It's a test, a challenge: and you'll notice, by your reactions, just how much you've allowed your beliefs to change...
It's weird – but that's how it works, that's how it is. That, after all, is the nature of wyrd!
After a while working with affirmations, we can begin to see some changes – some of the old, evidently self-destructive patterns begin to weaken, until they're nothing like as compulsive as they were. For example, I recognised that I'd always viewed being on my own as a punishment – "Go to your room!", my parents would say – which had led me to cling on to others, especially parent-figures, to prove that I wasn't considered 'bad'... and kept doing this compulsively well into adulthood. Recognising this as an old fear, I turned it round and made it into an affirmation, "The more I, Chris, enjoy being on my own, the more I can enjoy being with others", and worked with it each evening for a while. It wasn't until about a month later that I noticed I wasn't going out much in the old compulsive "Got to see someone or I'll go crazy!" mode any more; instead, without my particularly doing anything to make it happen, people were coming to see me. In fact I was getting annoyed that I didn't seem to have enough time on my own...
The point was that I'd always needed time on my own – but I wasn't allowing myself to get it, because I was afraid of it, of what aloneness symbolised. But the wyrd knew what I needed, so to speak... so it's given me enforced periods of loneliness many times in my life! One way or another we always get what we need: but it may not be in the form that we want... With the weirdness of wyrd, there's always a choice, but there's also always a twist.
More accurately, the wyrd seems to give us always what we say we want – which may not be what we think we want. As long as we're stuck in habit, and in unawareness of our needs and of what we're asking for, we can hardly complain about what the wyrd ends up giving us – if I outwardly say I want company, but am inwardly screaming for time on my own, it's hardly surprising that the results in my life are a mess!
So to give those affirmations something on which to work, and to help the web of wyrd to give us a more worthwhile way of living, we need next to gain more clarity about our wants and needs, desires and intentions – and the subtle distinctions between them.
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