Unmasking the Ego

by Gina Lake - 

The mind is useful in making distinctions between things, finding differences and evaluating them. The ego loves to use that mental capacity to compare things and people. 

It loves numbers because numbers seem to give it a clear way of knowing where it, others and other things stand—what or who is better. The ego loves the ten-scale for that reason and it’s always seeking to be a ten or have someone or something that is a ten. The ego is just as happy to bask in reflected glory.

The mind uses comparisons to make wise, practical decisions: 

It chooses an apple that isn’t bruised over a bruised one. However, the egoic mind compares people in the same way the mind compares things. 

Comparing an apple to another apple is one thing, but comparing a person to another person is like comparing an apple to an orange. Such comparisons aren’t useful. They are false. When we compare ourselves to others, we always suffer, whether we come out on top or not.

Making Comparisons

Making comparisons is one of the ego’s favorite ways of causing suffering. 

The ego looks for ways we fall short so that we feel we have a problem and then the ego offers a solution. In this way, the ego keeps us tied to thoughts about how to improve ourselves and our life. 

It keeps us very busy this way and involved with thoughts about ourselves. We are the ego’s project and it takes this self-improvement project very seriously.

Notice how often your egoic mind compares you with others. 

It does it immediately and automatically whenever it encounters someone. This is part of everyone’s programming. 

Once we realize that doing this is just our programming and that it only causes us suffering, we can more easily ignore this aspect of ourselves that loves to compare. 

It isn’t that difficult to ignore this programming. Comparing ourselves with others or comparing others with others is a habit that can be broken just by seeing how untrue and useless such comparisons are.

Nothing actually compares to something else because everything is unique. 

While there may be some usefulness in comparing an apple to another apple, there’s no usefulness in doing that with people. 

The ego pretends to be helpful by doing this with people but such comparisons only serve the ego, which is attempting to see itself as superior or find a way to get to the top. 

These attempts to be or just feel, superior leave us feeling bad. Feeling superior, especially by tearing others down is definitely not a route to happiness, although the ego believes it is.

Being In Essence

Feeling happy and good about ourselves comes from being in Essence, which is a state of unity with others and life not separation. 

We are happiest when we drop into the flow of life and respond naturally to it without the interference, judgments, confusion, comparisons, and complications of the egoic mind. 

The ego separates us from others and listening to it removes us from real life. The ego doesn’t know how to make us happy or even successful.

Giving power over to the ego is like giving the steering wheel to a child. 

The ego doesn’t know how to get us where we really want to go, even though it pretends to.

Comparing people is as ridiculous as the following conversation:

• “Apples are better than oranges because you don’t have to peel them.”
• “No, oranges are better than apples because they’re juicier.”
• “Apples are better than oranges because red is prettier than orange.”
• “Oranges are better than apples because they are already in sections for eating.”
• “Apples are better than oranges because they are crunchy.”
• “Oranges are better than apples because you don’t have to wash them.”

You get the picture. The trouble with comparing people, as with oranges and apples, is not only that comparisons are often subjective and reflect a personal preference (e.g. “Red is prettier than orange”), but also that concluding something or someone is better based on one feature is ridiculous. 

How can anyone take into account or even know all the qualities of another human being and who is to say one characteristic is better than another? 

The ego, of course, is what thinks this way, and it will look for something in others that will make us feel either less than or superior because that is its objective. That’s what its comparisons are really all about.

Gratitude

Once we have seen how faulty the ego’s thinking is and how false comparisons are, we can be done with that way of thinking and the suffering it causes ourselves and others. 

Oranges are wonderful, apples are wonderful, we are wonderful and so is everyone else. 

Let’s just leave it at that and enjoy whatever is in front of us. Why waste this precious moment on comparisons? What’s left is simply gratitude for the uniqueness of every little thing in life. What a miracle!

excerpt from Living in the Now,  audiobook 

radicalhappiness.com

Aligning with Essence

by Gina Lake -

When we are in our body and senses and not in our head, we experience a sense of aliveness that is felt as a subtle energetic vibration, or tingling, and a sense of being alive, illumined and aware.

These sensations are how who we really are is experienced by the body-mind. That aliveness is the felt-sense of who we really are and what we experience when we are in the Now.

When we are aligned with who we really are and not identified with the ego, we feel that aliveness, Presence, energetically and it's very pleasurable.

The fact that who we really are, Essence, can be felt energetically is very handy because it makes identifying when we are aligned with Essence and when we aren't easier.

That sense of aliveness can also help us realign with Essence when we are identified with the ego. If you find yourself contracted and suffering, you can search for the sense of aliveness, which is always present and focus on it.

No matter how faint the experience of aliveness is, it will increase as you pay attention to it. Focusing on aliveness is a way of accessing Essence in every moment.

The more you pay attention to the aliveness, the more obvious it becomes. 

It can become very strong and when it does, it acts like an anchor, grounding us in the Now and helping us stay there. The sense of aliveness can drown out the ego's mind-chatter, relegating it to the background.

If we focus on the aliveness often enough as we go about our day, it will become the foreground, and the mind-chatter will fall into the background.

When we are grounded in aliveness, we experience a deep calm and peacefulness, which allows us to move through our day with equanimity. 

That peacefulness is unflappable, unless our emotional body gets triggered by a belief or by someone else's belief we've identified with. When that happens, the aliveness is still present and can bring us back into the Now if we give our attention to it instead of to the thoughts and feelings that were triggered.

Not buying into our thoughts and feelings doesn't make us less human, as some might think. It's just a different way of being in the world, although not the most common one.

Being aligned with aliveness instead of our thoughts and feelings actually makes us more effective and functional—and also more kind—than being identified with our thoughts and feelings.

Being aligned with Essence instead of the egoic mind is the next step in humanity's evolution. 

Eventually we will all awaken out of the egoic mind and live from Essence. Emotions will still exist in potential but they won't run roughshod over the body-mind.

Equanimity, acceptance and love will be the most common state instead of discontentment, striving, contraction, and fear. Certain individuals are heralding this shift in consciousness and helping to bring it about.
The potential to live from Essence exists in everyone but only some people will make that a priority. The more people who do, the easier it will be for the rest of humanity to make that shift in consciousness.

You are probably motivated to make the shift to living from Essence. Paying attention to the feeling of aliveness is one of the most useful tools for awakening. Of course, the egoic self isn't the one who chooses to do that.

What chooses to give attention to the aliveness is Essence, as it awakens you. The ego will fight that choice all the way. Essence is the awareness of the whole drama between the ego and the you that is awakening.

radicalhappiness.com

Alignment with Your True Nature

by Gina Lake -

When we are identified with the ego, we feel lacking, life feels lacking and others feel lacking. The state of ego-identification is a state of never having enough, of discontentment, judgment, fear, doubt, and other negative emotions. 

When we are identified with the ego, the world revolves around "me," "my problems," and "my life." This state is a one of contraction and suffering.

The state of lack that is ego-identification is not only an uncomfortable state, but an unattractive one. When people are deeply identified with the ego, you can see the tension in their faces and bodies. 

You can hear the suffering in their voice and in what they talk about. Energetically, you can feel the negativity that accompanies this state. When you are around someone who is expressing and living out the ego's negativity, you feel either drained, bored, repulsed, or bad, since their energy is often contagious. 

Their negative inner state gets reflected outwardly and is felt energetically and it doesn't attract support or opportunities from others. 

Naturally, those in such a state want to manifest or attract love, support, opportunities, and other things, but the state of lack and negativity that such people are experiencing actually repels these things. Neediness is not attractive.

From this lack, many desires are born. The ego creates both the sense of lack and also the desire to manifest something to fill that lack. 

The Solution

The solution is not to get the things, experiences or circumstance that the ego wants to manifest, which it believes will end the lack and discontentment (but which are never enough), but rather to see that the sense of lack is a lie. 

That anything is lacking or necessary in order for you to be happy is the core lie that keeps the ego intact and going after one desire after another.

The antidote is to see that nothing in this moment is lacking, which is the truth. 

Lack is a story told by the ego, and it tells this story no matter what is happening or how much you have. 

Changing Your Internal State

When you begin to tell another story—the truth, instead of the ego's lies—your internal state changes and you feel happy, content, loving, grateful and generous. 

These feeling states not only feel good but are very attractive and attract to you support, love, and opportunities. 

Focusing on what is here—what you love about life, yourself, and others— rather than on what is "lacking" is the antidote to the sense of lack and the driving neediness of the ego.

This positive internal state is the state of alignment with Essence, your true nature. 

It brings you the true happiness and peace that you and every human being long for. The experience of your true nature is so full and complete that you won't feel the need to manifest something or make your life turn out a particular way, and yet, life naturally brings you all the good that it intends for you. 

What it brings you will be aligned with the Whole, and that is a much more satisfying and fulfilling experience than getting what the "me" wants.

Find the place within you that is already full, complete, happy and at peace with life. 

That fullness will draw to you and allow you to receive exactly what you need and you will no longer feel that you have to manifest something to be happy. 

That's freedom and that's what you really want. To be free of the need to manifest something in order to be happy is true happiness.

radicalhappiness.com

Experiencing Our True Nature

by Gina Lake -

Love Is a Way of Being:

Love isn't something that someone causes us to feel, but a state of being that we experience whenever we are fully present in the moment to whatever or whomever is showing up.

Love is our natural state, and we experience our natural state whenever the chattering mind is quiet or simply ignored.

This state of being is one of peace, acceptance, and love. 

The only thing that can interfere with experiencing the love of our true nature is absorption in our thoughts and any feelings generated by those thoughts.

When we are lost in our mental and emotional world, we miss out on reality, on the real experience of this moment. In our mental world, thoughts about life substitute for real life.

When we drop out of these thoughts about ourselves and how our life is going, life can be experienced more purely, and when it is, love naturally flows to whatever or whomever we are experiencing.

Love is a way of being with others.

When we are attentive, curious, and interested in others, love naturally flows to them from inside us. This outward flow of love is the experience of love.

This flow of love is not dependent on who or what is in front of us, on what someone is doing, or on whether someone is being loving toward us, but on whether we are fully engaged with and accepting of that person and whatever is happening in the moment.

Love is a state of being that is activated by giving attention to something or someone.

Many of us experience an absence or lack of love because we are giving our attention to thoughts about life instead of real life.

When we give attention to our thoughts about life, we are loving our mental world, and that mental world isn't real, and it is very often a negative world, where nothing and no one is ever good enough.

When we are invested in this mental world, our conditioned beliefs, judgments, fears, desires, and expectations seem really important, and these are what cause problems in our relationships.

We think we need people to be a certain way for us to love them and be happy with them, but that just isn't true. It just seems true because we tend to choose to love (accept and give attention to) those who look and do things the way we want. Love doesn't have to be limited in this way. 

Choosing to Love

We can choose to love even when others aren't meeting our desires or fitting our fantasies and expectations.  Our conditioned ideas and desires are not more important than love, unless we allow them to be, which is a recipe for difficulty in relationship. 

When we can move beyond our desires, needs, expectations, fantasies and judgments, then love is possible with anyone at any time. 

That doesn't mean you would choose to be in a relationship with just anyone but it is possible to experience love in relating to anyone, since love comes from being interested in, attentive to and accepting of someone, which is possible when we are not judging them or finding reasons to close our hearts to them and withdraw our interest and attention.

Love is something we have the power to experience because we have the power to give love. 

When we give love, we experience it; when we withhold it, we don't. 

The more we can overcome the judgments and other conditioning that cause us to withhold our love (i.e., our acceptance and attention) from others, the more we will experience love. 

It is as simple as that, but not necessarily easy to put into practice.

We tend to really believe our judgments and other ideas that cause us to close our hearts to others, but we don't have to. We can say no to the judgments and other conditioning that interfere with love. When we do so, our experience of life is transformed. 

Love is readily available whenever we turn away from our judgments and negative conditioning and allow ourselves to be fully engaged with and interested in the real person in front of us.

radicalhappiness.com

Navigating Changes and Challenges

by Gina Lake -

Change feels like tossing a coin up in the air—you don't know which way it will land, good or bad for the ego?

The ego is deeply concerned it will turn out badly. The ego considers the worst case scenarios and fears the worst. It attaches a story to what's going on: "My life is going downhill."

Good and bad are concepts, not realities. 

In reality, everything that happens is a mixture of what we would consider good and bad. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages, its hidden blessings and hidden costs.

Even in every day, both what we like and don't like show up. Every moment has this same mixture of what we would consider good and bad.

If we stay in the moment in the midst of something that is changing that we don't like (e.g., a divorce, a move, unemployment, a health problem), we see that the actual experience of life in each moment is constantly shifting.

Even in the worst of times, our bad feelings come and go and we are capable of laughter, happiness, and certainly love.

The story we bring into this moment about our "problem" makes the moment seem more difficult and stressful than it actually is.

How challenging life is, is largely a matter of how much we are just in life without the story of our problem and how much we are not in real life but in our story. We carry our problems around with us mentally and bring them into the moment, spoiling it.

Our problems have no objective existence but exist only as an idea of a problem.

We define something as a problem and that creates the experience of having a problem.

No situation or circumstance is unmanageable but we make it so by thinking about our problem, complaining about it, trying to figure out what can't be figured out, feeling bad, being angry or afraid, worrying, rehashing the past and wishing things were different. 

These thoughts make whatever we're experiencing more challenging, much more than any particular situation actually is.

When a challenging time or situation is stripped of these thoughts, all that's left is what to do or not do in this moment about it or anything else.

Often what's required of us in a particular moment has nothing to do with our "problem." And yet, we may carry the idea of this problem into such ordinary and potentially pleasant moments.

I challenge you to stay depressed or unhappy constantly. It's impossible! Like a fist that is clenched too long, the contracted state must let go at a certain point. Eventually, we experience relief from it.

That relief usually comes as a result of putting our mind and attention on something other than our problem—getting lost in some experience we are having. Getting lost in what is real rather than what is unreal—our problem.

The trouble is our ego actually loves the idea of a problem and all the worries and plans that go with that problem. 

The ego is also what hates the problem, while at the same time it enjoys hating it! You can sense this when you notice the complete experience of your suffering. Within that suffering is enjoyment of suffering! That's the ego.

Suffering keeps the ego alive and gives it an identity: I am someone who is suffering. And I have a problem that needs a solution. A problem gives us not only an identity, but also something to do.

The ego defines something as a problem, generates unpleasant feelings around it, and seeks solutions. This problem-creation and seeking of solutions is how the ego is maintained. Without a "problem" and the suffering caused by that, there wouldn't be anything to think about.

Without thought, you would drop into Essence and be happy, and the ego would be out of a job. The ego has a racket going that keeps in power, and it doesn't want you to catch on to it.

The beauty is that change isn't like a coin that is tossed in the air; it just feels like that to the ego. Change isn't like a coin because a coin has only two sides—one considered good and one considered bad. From the standpoint of Essence, any change that is happening is just as it is meant to be. In other words, the flip of the coin always ends up in your favor.

That is actually the truth about life. It isn't like a coin for two reasons: It doesn't have two sides:

It is neither good nor bad but just what it is. 

It is always a mixture of what the ego would consider good and bad. Life is often like a coin tossed, however, in its unpredictability.

We just don't have to be afraid of how it will land.

Something very wise is behind every experience that feels like a coin toss. We may not be aware of it but we can trust that it will bring us the experience we need.

If we don't bring worries, fears, judgments, resistance, victimization, anger, confusion or other negativity to that experience, we will discover that it serves our growth and evolution toward becoming a more loving and wiser human being.

Life is wise and it is bringing us Home. 

Change and challenges are a natural and necessary part of life. When we trust and listen to the wisdom that we are instead of to the false self that we are not, we find that any change or challenge can be navigated gracefully and without too much suffering.

radicalhappiness.com

The Truth About Judgments

by Gina Lake -

Judgments undermine our relationships with others. 

They undermine our own happiness as well, since how happy are we when we are feeling judgmental? When we are judging or being judged, we feel contracted, tense, small, and petty.

If love and happiness are important to you, then eliminating judging is a good way to bring more love and happiness into your life and into your loved one's lives. It isn't as difficult as you might think to stop judging. The key is in seeing the truth about your judgments.

The biggest truth that needs to be seen is that judgments kill love, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly over time. 

They do not serve anyone. They serve only the ego, whose goal is to be right and get what it wants.

To free yourself from judging, one of the most important things to recognize is that your judgments are not yours. What I mean by this is that judging is an automatic response to others and to life on the part of our ego; judging is not part of our true nature or necessary for our survival, but belongs to the ego, which is an archaic, conditioned and negative aspect of ourselves.

The ego is the aspect of ourselves that we know as the voice in our head. 

It comments on life, tells us what to do, evaluates, judges, criticizes, strives, pushes, is never satisfied, and causes us to be fearful and experience other negative emotions.

We think of it as our own voice and who we are, since it is experienced as our own thoughts, but this voice is not our true voice nor a voice of wisdom.

 True wisdom is experienced as a knowing, an insight, an intuition, or a big yes, not as judgmental thoughts or opinions about ourselves and others.

The ego is a cruel and petty inner tyrant, and if we let it, it will make not only us unhappy, but also everyone around us.

When we are involved with it and giving voice to it, we feel contracted and tense, which is the opposite of how we feel when we are following our Heart, aligned with our true nature, and sharing with others from there.

Since this voice in your head is not really your voice, but your conditioning, your programming and since it isn't a wise voice after all or one that leads to more love and happiness, it can be ignored and your life will go much better because there is something much wiser here that is guiding us and capable of expressing love, acceptance, and kindness toward others.

We seem to have two sides to ourselves—the good or nice "me" and the bad or mean "me."

The good news is that the unkind "me" is not you at all, but the false self, and the loving you is the real you.

 Judgments belong to the ego and not the true self, which responds to life with acceptance, love, compassion, and wisdom.

You can express your true nature rather than the ego in every moment, but our true nature gets covered over by paying attention to the voice in our head and identifying ourselves as that rather than recognizing the beauty and love that is ever-present within us.

Judgments come from the ego and serve only the ego. 

We tend to feel that our judgments are true and valuable but that is an illusion. They don't make life better or protect us from life, and they don't do anything but harm our relationships.

Judgments have never changed anyone, which is one of the things we are attempting to do when we judge someone, but only alienate others and bring out their own egos in retaliation.

We try to get our way in our relationships by judging others. We assume a superior position through judgment as a way of trying to get others to comply with what we want.

This is not a winning strategy for relationships. It causes people to withdraw their love, not comply with us or love us.

The antidote to judgment is accepting people the way they are and not imposing our desires, demands and expectations on them. 

Our desires and how we would like someone else to behave are not more important than love, and if we make them more important than love, then we will lose love.

Our desires and expectations in regard to others are part of our conditioning.

When we try to impose our conditioning on others, we lose love. But when we accept others as they are, love flows and that can only be good for us and for our relationship.

We have the power to not let judgments, which are just thoughts, interfere with love by simply not giving voice to them. 

Notice judgments as they show up in your mind, and then choose to put your attention on what you love about that person or on anything else but your negative thoughts or judgments.

We have the power to choose love and relationship over judgments once we see how very damaging and counterproductive our judgments are.


radicalhappiness.com

Doorway into the Now

by Gina Lake -

The present moment, the Now is where we meet our true self. 

Who we really are is not who we think we are. Who we really are has nothing to do with thinking and everything to do with not thinking. When we are not involved with the egoic mind, we move into the Now and therefore the experience of who we really are.

The ego, the sense of me, disappears as soon as it encounters the Now, so it runs from the Now. It can’t survive in the Now. It is revived and survives through thought, particularly thoughts about the past and future, but also through thoughts about the present.

The egoic mind tells a story about whatever is happening, and paying attention to these stories takes us out of the Now and into the mind’s made-up reality.

When we are identified with the egoic mind, we live in the ego’s interpretation of reality, not in reality.

We live in its explanations about what is, what was, and what will be. These stories take us away from the living reality of the Now.

To experience the Now, we merely have to notice what is happening in the present moment without our interpretations, opinions, judgments, beliefs or concepts. 

This may sound difficult, but all it takes is a shift from being absorbed in our thoughts to noticing our thoughts.

Noticing whatever else is present in addition to our thoughts without interpreting it, judging it, or telling a story about it will bring us into the Now and can keep us there as long as we continue to notice without interpreting or telling stories about what we’re noticing.

However, once any judgment, opinion, or belief is considered instead of just noticed, we are back in the mind and identified with the ego again instead of with Essence.

Essence 

Whenever we notice and become fully involved in what is without becoming involved in any mental activity, Essence becomes apparent. Noticing is a doorway to experiencing Essence because noticing is a quality of who we really are.

Essence is often referred to as Awareness because who we are is the Awaring Presence that is conscious and aware of everything. Essence is joyously participating in its creation by being aware of what it has created, including itself manifesting as an individual.

When we stop and ask, “Who am I?” what we find is nothing.

We find only Presence, Awareness, Consciousness, which is aware of the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and experiences of the individual that we assume we are. This Awareness, this noticing of everything, is who we really are!

Once we realize we are Awareness, the Noticer, it makes sense that noticing is a way back to Essence.

Allowing

When we have realized Essence through noticing, allowing is necessary to stay in contact with Essence. Our noticing must be infused with allowing and without any mental activity. Or if there is mental activity, then that is noticed. The ego, on the other hand, does the opposite of allowing.

When it notices something, it labels it, judges it, and relates it back to how it will affect me.

As soon as we become engaged with the mind, allowing stops and resistance takes its place. We become identified, once again, with the me, the false self that opposes life, rather than with who we really are.

The Awareness that is our true nature is aware of everything that may be part of any moment: thoughts, feelings, desires, sensations, energy, sights, sounds, inner experiences, intuitions, urges, inspirations, and much more.

When we are noticing and allowing, we are also aware of these things. As a result of being aware, a knowing might arise about an action to take. Activity naturally arises from being aware of what is in each moment.

The ego has its own experience of each moment and attends to only a small portion of what is possible to experience in any moment. It acts in keeping with its limited perceptions and sense of separateness. These actions are likely to be very different from the actions Essence would take.

Essence allows us to follow the ideas and feelings generated by the ego if doing so doesn’t interfere with Essence’s intentions, because part of what Essence intends is that we explore the world and create according to our ideas and feelings.

Essence is interested in seeing what we will create, but it also has intentions of its own and many ways of guiding us toward those intentions. It also participates in creation by inspiring spontaneous action, action that arises without prior thought.

So you could say there are two types of activity: 

• Activity instigated by the ego 
• Activity inspired by Essence. 

Both are often going on simultaneously. As we evolve, Essence begins to live through us more, and ego-driven activity structures our life less.

Noticing is an important spiritual practice for getting in touch with Essence and with how it is moving us. Essence is very active in our lives and can be more active the more we acknowledge it as a motivating force.

The less attention we give the egoic mind and its suggestions for how to live, and the more attention (notice) we give to Essence and its drives and inspiration, the more smoothly and happily we will move through life. Noticing and allowing are key spiritual practices that align us with our true nature and support Essence’s intentions for us.

excerpt from 'Embracing the Now: Finding Peace and Happiness in What Is'

radicalhappiness.com

Experiencing the Extraordinary

by Gina Lake -

Some things matter too much to the ego, and this is a source of unhappiness, things like performing perfectly, looking a certain way, having certain things and so on.

The flip side of this is that many of the little things that actually turn out to matter, especially to true happiness, are overlooked and underrated by the ego.

Most of the turning points in our life came about as a result of something that didn't seem to matter at the time:

• a phone call from a friend who happened to tell us about a spiritual teacher coming to town; 
• an invitation to a party where we met our true love; 
• a summer job that got us started in our career direction; 
• a friend inviting us on a trip, which changed us in some way; 
• reading a book that put us on a particular path.

Life-changing experiences come out of what seem to be small and insignificant occurrences.

Most of the things that bring us the greatest satisfaction happen as a result of something small: a phone call, a meeting, finding out about something, seeing something. Life happens—it comes out of the flow—and the seemingly insignificant and ordinary moments are part of that.

If we aren't paying attention to these small things and following our intuition about them—going to that party, pursuing that interest that was sparked, finding out more about something—we might miss out on experiences that we would consider important and meaningful.

Small things matter for another reason. 

Often the only thing that is going on is something "small," and if we take our mind's word for it and see the ordinary moments of life as unimportant, extraneous, boring, or even wrong, we'll miss out on the opportunity for joy that they offer.

When we give our attention fully to the ordinary things in life—drying our hair, walking the dog, going to the store, driving somewhere—we discover the extraordinary in them.

We discover that ordinary moments have the same potential for happiness as extraordinary moments.

The extraordinary moments—when our child is born, when we land our dream job, when we fall in love, our wedding day—are rare and quickly fade. The elation of those moments can't be sustained.

If we are waiting for life to feel like that all the time, we'll be waiting a very long time. But right here and now in this moment, it's possible to be content with whatever is happening simply by giving it your full attention.

When you become lost in whatever you are doing, you feel content, at peace and whatever you are doing becomes a source of beauty and gratitude.

The real miracle of life is that every moment is just as precious and has just as much potential for happiness as every other moment. 

Experiencing this happiness is largely a matter of recognizing this great truth. The mind discounts most moments, and that discounting prevents us from discovering the potential happiness in some small act or experience.

The belief that something doesn't matter and can't make us happy is a self-fulfilling prophecy: when we believe that only some moments are good and valuable, then that becomes our experience.

If we know the truth, however, that ordinary moments are equally valuable, then the preciousness of life and gratitude become our experience.

The truth is that life—every moment—is precious, sacred and when we are aligned with that truth, we are happy and at peace with life. 

When we are not, we are at war with life, which is the state of ego-identification, identification with voice in our head. The difference between being happy and at peace with life and not being happy and not at peace is often just a matter of how we view this moment.

Does this moment seem unimportant and like something you're just getting through to get to some other moment? Or is this moment something to savor, like the most wonderful chocolate, like a sunny Sunday morning, like sitting by a sparkling seaside?

What if you brought that same attention to the more ordinary moments of life and were willing to experience those moments as you do the more extraordinary ones?

The difference between being happy and not being happy is not in what you are experiencing but in the amount of attention and the attitude of preciousness you bring to any moment.

It only seems like what you are experiencing is the cause of happiness. Happiness is our natural state and not caused by anything; it is only obscured by the belief that something isn't worthy of our attention or gratitude. When we give anything our attention and gratitude, we experience happiness in that moment.

Try this out yourself: 

The next time you are feeding your dog, watering your plants, putting the clothes in the washing machine, going to the mailbox, or doing any of the many things we do regularly, get really involved in it, consider it a sacred act, notice anything of beauty about it, recognize the miracle of life that is capable of doing these things and acknowledge your gratitude for being able to have the experience you are having.


radicalhappiness.com

The Experience of Essence

by Gina Lake -

Whatever you are doing, enjoy it! 

You have another option, of course, which is to not enjoy it. Notice what keeps you from enjoying whatever you are doing. It’s thoughts, isn’t it? Even if you’re experiencing pain, for instance or something unpleasant, like going to the dentist, if you don’t listen to any negative thoughts, fears, complaints and desires related to that, you won’t suffer. You’ll just have the experience.

Your thoughts about whatever you’re doing interfere with enjoying it, in part, because they are often negative, judgmental or resistant to the experience but also because thoughts—whether positive or negative—remove you from the experience, to a greater or lesser degree.

Some thoughts don’t interfere a great deal with being present and enjoying what you’re doing. They are just floating in and out of your mind, without you paying much attention to them.

Others, however, grab you and pull you into the mental world, where you lose touch with what you’re doing and with the experience you’re having. When that happens, it feels like you are just “going through the motions” or doing something just to get it done.

You can go through life this way but you miss out on the potential joy and pleasure in an experience when you’re not fully in contact with it. 

Any experience can be interesting, since you’ve never had it before, and it can be enjoyed because when you immerse yourself in an experience, you lose the false self (the sense of “I” or “me”) and discover the true Self, which is always enjoying life.

Essence Is Always in Joy!

From its standpoint every moment is an opportunity to serve life and to love, which is another source of joy.

What if you approached each moment as an opportunity to experience, serve or love?

The secret to enjoying what you are doing is to get lost in it—to get involved in it. 

That means to get all your senses involved in it or more accurately, to notice how all your senses are involved in it.

This noticing of sensate experience will take you out of your egoic mind (your functional mind is still available) and into the experience you are having. When you are present to the experience you’re having, you are in the moment and that’s when you experience Presence or essence.

The experience of essence is highly pleasurable, so no matter what you are doing, if you’re present to it, it will be enjoyable.

What’s so hard about that?

It takes some practice to be in your body and aware of your sensate experience because the habit of paying attention to thought is so deeply ingrained. You have to practice being present again and again to neutralize the old habit of identifying with the egoic mind.

This takes a certain amount of dedication and commitment. Meditation is another way of practicing this, and it will really help you be more present in your life. Meditation teaches you to detach from the egoic mind, to watch it, and see it for what it is.

This objectivity towards the mind is essential in breaking the programming that causes you to identify with it. You can even learn to enjoy meditation if you don’t listen to the mind’s resistance to meditate!

radicalhappiness.com

Noticing Thoughts and Feelings

by Gina Lake -

Noticing and giving attention to something are very different. 

When you notice your thoughts, you have stepped away from them and are no longer so identified with them. Noticing creates a space between your thoughts and you. When you notice something, you become aligned with the Noticer, or the real you. And that provides an opportunity to choose whether you’ll give those thoughts further attention or not.

When you simply notice something, you are aligned with your real Self, or Essence. This Self is sometimes called Awareness. You are the awareness that is aware of or notices, everything, including thoughts. You are not your thoughts or the thinker; your thoughts and the sense that you are the thinker is the egoic or false, self.

Unlike noticing, attention is more like a spotlight that focuses on something to the exclusion of everything else and gets lost in it.

When we give our attention to a thought, we become identified with it if our attention lands there long enough. Whatever we give our attention to becomes magnified in our awareness. Noticing, on the other hand, is more like a moving spotlight that doesn’t land in one spot.

When we are aligned with Essence and noticing what we are experiencing, we are noticing lots of things: Our awareness moves from a thought, to a sensation, to an object, to a sound, to an intuition, to another sound, to a feeling, to a knowing, to another object and so on. Our awareness jumps around so quickly from one thing to the next that we barely realize all the things it’s taking in.

Noticing is what the real you or Essence, does as it experiences life. 

It gives attention to what needs attention in order to function and then it moves on. The state of ego-identification, however, is a state of giving attention to thoughts or feelings more than the other aspects of experience—and believing them. This ends up coloring our experience of life and interfering with experiencing it purely.

Because nearly every thought comes from the ego, when we give our attention to thoughts, we become identified with the ego and its desires, beliefs, attitudes, judgments, and perceptions and we see life through the ego’s eyes.

Instead, if we spend less time giving attention to thoughts and more time noticing other aspects of experience, our experience of life will change; life will seem simpler, easier, more peaceful, and less stressful.

Learning to notice thought without identifying with it is the key to moving out of ego-identification and experiencing who you really are. 

Instead of being absorbed in your thoughts, take one little step back and notice what you are thinking. What you are thinking is really what your ego is thinking, not the real you.

Practice noticing your thoughts, and you can become free from the ego.

Meditation is valuable because meditation is the practice of noticing thoughts without getting involved in them. You already know how to do this; there are lots of thoughts you have that you don’t get involved in. When you meditate, focus on something, such as a sound or a candle flame or a mantra or your breath.

Then, when you notice yourself thinking, gently bring yourself back to whatever you are meditating on. Meditation trains you to bring yourself back to sensory experience (the real experience in the moment) and away from absorption in thoughts. We can’t ever get rid of thoughts because they are beyond our control but we can learn to just notice them and then go back to the sensory experience we are having in the moment.

Be careful that noticing thoughts doesn’t turn into giving your attention to them because that can quickly turn into absorption in thoughts and consequently, ego-identification.

Just notice any thoughts and feelings (which are also products of the ego) that show up and then turn your attention away from them and onto anything else that is going on and you will land in the Now and you will experience the peace, contentment, guidance, and wisdom of your real Self.

radicalhappiness.com

Experiencing Radical Enjoyment

by Gina Lake - 

Whatever you are doing, enjoy it! 

You have another option of course, which is to not enjoy it. Notice what keeps you from enjoying whatever you are doing. It’s thoughts, isn’t it?

Even if you’re experiencing pain, for instance or something unpleasant, like going to the dentist, if you don’t listen to any negative thoughts, fears, complaints and desires related to that, you won’t suffer. You’ll just have the experience.

Your thoughts about whatever you’re doing interfere with enjoying it, in part because they are often negative, judgmental or resistant to the experience but also because thoughts—whether positive or negative—remove you from the experience, to a greater or lesser degree. 

Some thoughts don’t interfere a great deal with being present and enjoying what you’re doing. They are just floating in and out of your mind, without you paying much attention to them.

Others, however, grab you and pull you into the mental world, where you lose touch with what you’re doing and with the experience you’re having.

When that happens, it feels like you are just “going through the motions” or doing something just to get it done.

You can go through life this way but you miss out on the potential joy and pleasure in an experience when you’re not fully in contact with it. 

Any experience can be interesting, since you’ve never had it before and it can be enjoyed because when you immerse yourself in an experience, you lose the false self (the sense of “I” or “me”) and discover the true Self, which is always enjoying life.

Essence is always in-joy. 

And from its standpoint, every moment is an opportunity to serve life and to love, which is another source of joy.

What if you approached each moment as an opportunity to experience, serve, or love?

The secret to enjoying what you are doing is to get lost in it—to get involved in it. 

That means to get all your senses involved in it, or more accurately, to notice how all your senses are involved in it.

This noticing of sensate experience will take you out of your egoic mind (your functional mind is still available) and into the experience you are having.

When you are present to the experience you’re having, you are in the moment, and that’s when you experience Presence, or essence. 

The experience of essence is highly pleasurable so no matter what you are doing, if you’re present to it, it will be enjoyable.

What’s so hard about that? 

It takes some practice to be in your body and aware of your sensate experience because the habit of paying attention to thought is so deeply ingrained.

You have to practice being present again and again to neutralize the old habit of identifying with the egoic mind. This takes a certain amount of dedication and commitment. 

Meditation is another way of practicing this, and it will really help you be more present in your life. Meditation teaches you to detach from the egoic mind, to watch it and see it for what it is.

This objectivity towards the mind is essential in breaking the programming that causes you to identify with it. You can even learn to enjoy meditation if you don’t listen to the mind’s resistance to meditate!

radicalhappiness.com

Healing Relationships

by Gina Lake - 
UNDERSTANDING OUR CONDITIONING:

Your preferences, opinions, judgments, beliefs and reactions to others are all part of your conditioning.

As such, you are responsible for them in the sense that no one else caused them, although others do trigger them. However, you didn’t ask for that conditioning. For the most part, it was just given to you.

You could say you inherited it—from your family, experiences, culture, previous lifetimes and astrology chart. It’s your particular programming for this lifetime, and it is no better or worse than anyone else’s conditioning, which they also inherited.

The problem is we assume that our conditioning is right and other people’s (when it is different) is wrong.

This unconscious assumption is what causes problems in relationships, not the conditioning itself. If we can allow others to be different from us, then conditioning doesn’t have to be a problem.

We tend to judge others who do and see things differently than we do and try to change them.

Our conditioning is bound to be different from someone else’s—we’re designed that way. So having different conditioning (i.e. beliefs, preferences, opinions, styles, ways of being) doesn’t have to be a problem unless we make it one.

We tend to hold our conditioning as inviolate: We want what we want, we like what we like, we don’t like what we don’t like and we believe what we believe.

Our conditioning feels important, meaningful and worth fighting for. That’s where we get into trouble.

Conditioning is just beliefs, preferences, and desires (which are just the thought “I want” with feelings attached to it). 

Conditioning belongs to the ego, not to the divine Self. 

While the ego will fight with others over what it believes, likes, and wants, the Self chooses love over beliefs, preferences, and desires. If you want relationships to work, that’s what you have to do as well. 

If even just one person in a relationship is willing to choose love over what he or she believes, prefers or desires, a loving relationship is possible. If not, then the relationship will be a battleground over conditioning.

When your conditioning gets triggered in relationship, it’s an opportunity to discover more about it.

Feelings are a sign that your conditioning has been triggered: 

You feel angry or sad or some other negative emotion in relation to the other person. When that happens, the tendency is to say “You make me angry when…” or “You make me sad when….”

We think this is good mental hygiene to let others know how they are affecting us. We were taught to do this but this isn’t actually helpful. It puts the burden of change on the other person, when it really lies with us.

If you feel angry or sad over something someone said or did, then that’s a sign that you have conditioning that is interfering with love. 

When this happens, there is a choice to be made between your conditioning or love: Is your conditioning more important than love or is love more important than your conditioning? 

Most people fight for their conditioning because it feels like their conditioning is who they are: “I am someone who believes…” or “I am someone who likes….”

Their identity is tied to their conditioning, and without it, it feels like they wouldn’t be who they are. And they wouldn’t: They wouldn’t be who they think they are; they would be who they really are—the divine Self.

Most people also deeply believe they can change others and that it’s their duty to do so because they believe their conditioning is superior. 

They choose fixing others (according to their ideas) over loving them. This choice leads to misery in relationships. No one wins the battle of conditioning. Everyone loses love. 

Even if you get the other person to change, at what expense is this accomplished? And at what point do you finally give up trying to mold the other person to your conditioning?

The ego is never satisfied, and it always finds more improvements to push for in relationship, as in every other aspect of life.

Relationships are meant to be a safe haven in the storm of life. 

They are our best chance for finding love and acceptance. 

They also serve as a laboratory for love. They are where we learn about love. 

What we learn is that only the Self knows how to love, not the ego. To create that safe haven, you have to set aside the ego and drop into alignment with the divine Self, where love is possible. 

Our desire for love and relationship motivates us to overcome our conditioning and move into alignment with the Self because that is the only way it is possible to feel love and maintain it.

We learn this by first trying to get our way in relationships and then finally surrendering to love.

This is the secret of many couples who stay together for decades: They accept each other and allow them to be the way they are.

You might argue that acceptance enables your partner to continue his or her bad habits, when who could help him or her better than you?

What is true in the realm of personal healing is also true in interpersonal healing: 

Acceptance is what heals. 

That is the Higher Self’s way. It is not the ego’s, but the ego isn’t trying to help others as much as it is trying to get its way.

If you really want to help someone, then accept that person and just see what miracles love and acceptance can perform.

Your job in relationships is not to change others but to release any ideas that keep you from being loving and accepting. 

To do this, notice when feelings are triggered and then give curiosity, acceptance and attention to those feelings until you discover what beliefs are behind them.

Then, examine how true each of those beliefs are. You will find that none of your beliefs are true, at least not true enough to warrant withholding love from another. All of your beliefs are just conditioning.

ginalake.com