The Semantics of i AM E-Book

Geoff Keall

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 394

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

2020 International Page Turner Book Awards Finalist for Visionary Non-Fiction, 'The Semantics of i AM' invites readers on a profound journey of self-discovery and personal transformation. In this enlightening narrative, the author explores the complexities of identity, purpose, and success, challenging conventional wisdom and encouraging a profound shift in perspective.

Through captivating storytelling and thought-provoking insights, 'The Semantics of i AM' delves into the significance of reclaiming the power of 'i AM' as a declaration of personal truth and empowerment. It illuminates the timeless truths of self-realization and highlights the interconnectedness of one's inner world with the fabric of the universe.

With a blend of wisdom and introspection, the book redefines success not merely as an external pursuit, but as an inherent aspect of one's being. It inspires readers to embrace the present moment and discover their innate capacity for joy, resilience, and fulfillment, challenging the notion of seeking happiness in the future.

At its core, 'The Semantics of i AM' is a transformative exploration of the human experience, offering profound insights into reshaping one's narrative, embracing change, and cultivating a deeper connection between the self and the world. In a world filled with self-help books, this narrative stands apart, guiding readers on an inner quest for meaning, purpose, and authenticity.

This illuminating work invites readers to reflect, explore, and ultimately find resonance with their own journey through life. Empowering, introspective, and transformative, 'The Semantics of i AM' is an interesting testament to the profound wisdom that lives within us all.

One beta reader wrote "The passages from the manuscript that had a profound impact on me were the ones that delved into the idea of reclaiming personal power and challenging conventional expectations. In particular, the passages that emphasized the importance of living in the present moment and finding inner peace amidst the challenges of modern life resonated deeply. Additionally, the passages that encouraged readers to approach life with grace and gratitude left a lasting impression, as they captured the essence of a transformative and holistic approach to living.

The author's insightful exploration of identity, purpose, and the interconnectedness of the universe also stood out, offering thought-provoking perspectives on self-realization and personal growth. These passages left a deep and lasting impact by inspiring introspection and promoting a shift in perspective toward the intrinsic value of the present moment."

An enlightening passage from Part 3 of "The Semantics of i AM" that conveys the individual's power to choose their own better view of what it is to be human can be found in the section titled "SELF HELP IS AN INSIDE JOB." This passage emphasizes the profound idea that success is inherent to who we are, not merely what we pursue. It invites readers to question the illusion of finding happiness in external pursuits and unveils the concept that genuine self-help and fulfillment come from within.

This passage serves as a thought-provoking reminder that the key to personal growth and fulfillment lies in an internal transformation and a shift in perspective, rather than in external accomplishments or acquisitions

Leseprobe

Reviewed in 2020 by Foluso Falaye for Readers’ Favorite:

Over the years, humanity has nurtured a camouflaged, ever-growing beast that keeps devouring the life forces of many through the world’s acceptance of destructive competitions, soul-sucking expectations, and a dubious promise of a perfect future at the cost of appreciation for the present. The result is a collective waste of years and an endless supply of pain and suffering. Coming from Geoff Keall who has persevered through Celiac’s disease, a family crisis arising from the actions of a pedophile, and a serious injury, The Semantics of I AM delivers a guide to ending suffering. Geoff Keall shares his insights about capitalism, moving from New Zealand to Australia, managing the long-term effects of multi-generational sexual abuse, living and working with forestry employees from different backgrounds, and arriving at a liberating realization.

Wow! What a book! With the magnitude of the revelations and the eloquence and artfulness of the delivery in his book, it is evident that Geoff Keall practices his preaching of creating beauty out of abundance as opposed to lack and desperation. The Semantics of I AM is so deep and packed with knowledge that I would love to read it over and over again. Geoff Keall’s book is for those who have tried different self-help books and several other things and still feel they are not where they need to be. It proposes a new way of thinking, which has challenged the foundations of my beliefs.

Approach The Semantics of I AM with an open mind, rapt attention, and a readiness to question your life values.

The Semanticsof iAM

LEAVING YOUR PAST—LOVING YOUR FUTURE

GEOFF KEALL

Copyright © 2021 Geoff Keall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 0283 107 086 ([phone] from outside Australia)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9006-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9007-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/16/2021

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART 1 I AM A CONSTRUCT

Chapter 1 In The Beginning

Chapter 2 Conception: Welcome To The Jungle

Chapter 3 What’s In A Name?

Chapter 4 Limited By Learning

Chapter 5 Our Subconscious Has Been Hi-Jacked

Chapter 6 ‘So i AM That, I AM.’ DEFINED

Chapter 7 So Who Am I?

Chapter 8 Our Hidden Treasure

Chapter 9 Is There Another Way?

Chapter 10 Have I Gone Completely Mad?

Chapter 11 Duality

PART 2 I AM GEOFF

Chapter 12 Poor Ego Construct

Chapter 13 Just Go Away

Chapter 14 All Bags Get Unpacked

Chapter 15 The Final Meltdown

Chapter 16 New Start

Chapter 17 Tap, Tap, Tap

PART 3 I AM THAT, I AM

Chapter 18 The Worlds A Prison

Chapter 19 Success Is Who We Are Not What We Pursue

Chapter 20 Released From The Illusion

Chapter 21 Will This Work For You?

Chapter 22 I Will Be Happy When … Equals Never

Chapter 23 Self Help Is An Inside Job

Chapter 24 Pigs Don’t Know Pigs Stink

Chapter 25 The Love Force Singularity

Chapter 26 Our Ego Has Us In A Headlock

Chapter 27 Excuses - Victim By Any Other Name

Chapter 28 Accepting What Is

Chapter 29 Creating The ‘i AM’

Chapter 30 The Ego Illusion

Chapter 31 Right Here, Right Now

Chapter 32 The Key To Your Happiness

Chapter 33 Reinventing Yourself

Chapter 34 The Oak Tree Is In The Acorn

Chapter 35 Semantics Can Reveal The Real You

Chapter 36 A Few Examples Explaining ‘i AM’ SEMANTICS

Chapter 37 All Black Is A Compound Modifier And So Are You

Chapter 38 Living Consciously With ‘i AM’

‘I Am’ AFFIRMATIONS

I dedicate this book to Cheryl, who not only suffered all those years ago but also endured the journey with me while I searched for justice where none existed. To my daughter Sarah, who has grown steadily stronger since that fateful day when she was nine and told it was all a dream. I’m sorry you’re there in New Zealand, while we’re here; you’re so brave. And to our three sons, Jason, Brendon and Aaron, forgive me for changing your lives immeasurably fourteen years ago. Dragging you from your childhood in New Zealand to another land because I needed to escape what seemed an impossible situation. You don’t get to choose your parents or your childhood, but through it all you chose to build a solid foundation from which to grow. Thanks for the encouragement to write a book, I hope you all enjoy the snippets of your family history and discover insights useful to your own journeys through life. All that went before was necessary to bring me to this point of peace with my past. I hope this book helps you to find your own peace; after all, we are the thoughts we love. Without you along for the ride, it would’ve been a wasted journey. I am proud of you. With love always, Dad.

Like learning to walk, our ego is a habit learned unconsciously. In childhood, we choose our egos’ relative value by interpreting feedback. Easily achieve calm by consciously changing this value.

PREFACE

I wrote this story for anyone who has unsuccessfully tried to escape a maze of intolerable suffering and who feels he or she lacks what it takes to live in the modern world.

A search for meaning regarding repetitive, disruptive events in my life revealed that a change in perspective is the key to freeing us of the endless confusing pathways that all lead back to the same little house of horrors. Those pathways mercilessly mock us with memories of the moments in our life that confirm our deficiencies. The Semantics of i AM reveals an adaptive, holistic view of the world and our relationship with it, allowing us to approach life with effortless grace and gratitude.

I have broken the book in to three parts. Each part can be read in isolation, but the book flow is designed to be continuous. Part 1 is a subjective explanation of the constructed ego we know as our Christian name. Part 2 is the story of I Am Geoff, it covers the challenges during my life that led me to believe that to live is to be a victim, experiencing a never-ending struggle. I only include it to show that the approach discussed in part 3, has the power to lift you out of your own rut. I wrote part 3 first, in the summer of 2017/18. It is the central motivator for writing this book. It reveals the revelation that led to a new understanding, beginning a new and better view of what it is to be alive on this amazing planet we call Earth.

DEFINITIONS

Semantics: The study of meaning in language. (Language is a translation of sensory data into words.)

Semantics of i AM: Life experience arises from our use and understanding of language.

Servomechanism: an automatic device that uses error-sensing feedback to correct its actions.

JUST A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY

INTRODUCTION

My mother gave birth to me—the third of five boys—in 1958 in Pahiatua, a rural town in the North Island of New Zealand with a population of less than 3000 people. At the time Dad was a nurseryman and, unsurprisingly, Mum a full-time mother. Joyful times engaging in physical activities fill my early childhood memories. Like most boys growing up in NZ, I had a passion for sport, hero worshipping many rugby and cricket players like Chris Laidlaw and Glenn Turner, both prominent sportsmen during my childhood.

I signed up to play rugby, the national winter game, as soon as the rules allowed and played every winter until I suffered a serious knee injury when I was nineteen. Despite my enthusiasm for the game, being a thin and sickly child with chronic asthma, my only recognition was ‘tries hard’. As a teen I suffered from intense stomach pain that was blamed on the stitch, but which turns out was a symptom of celiac disease, an autoimmune disease explaining why I was a pathologically thin, slow developer.

My brothers and I regularly got into mischief, whether setting Dad’s garden shed alight, jumping off the rooftop water tank or shooting each other with spud guns, the technological wonder of the day. Occasionally, our wayward behaviour even led to a visit from the local police officer or other emergency service.

When I wasn’t climbing roofs and setting fire to things, I loved to lose myself in the pages of a war comic or book—a popular genre of children’s literature back in the 1960s. I read for enjoyment and loved action and adventure, science fiction books and sports biographies. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Wooden Horse, Lord of the Rings and Dune were among my favourites.

But this carefree happiness didn’t last. By the time I started high school, my outlook on life had transformed. The failure of my parents’ marriage seemed to provide conclusive evidence that we live in a hostile world conspiring to trip us up, hell bent on making our life miserable. Now I was a fearful teenager, deciding that I was ill-equipped to survive—let alone thrive—on this unforgiving planet. Seeing myself as a victim through my own thoughts guaranteed that the negative in which I believed manifested in my life.

Years of schooling leaves no doubt in students’ minds that we assess self-worth by comparing ourselves to our peers. In my estimation—the only one that really counts—I fell short on this assessment. So I started searching for the information that would close the gap, the elusive key unlocking the door to success. In the process I lost my habit of recreational reading. Being was no longer good enough, success required doing and forcing until becoming.

In our modern society, learning to read isn’t about pleasure; our education is a social investment, provided in the hope that one day we’ll contribute to the economy as employees. I became a voracious devourer of self-help books, combing every page for the secret formula that would empower me in all situations—a formula that would make me untouchable and stifle my deep feelings of inferiority and shame. Seduced by the hype of the eleven-billion-dollar self-development industry promising to make me better, I became convinced that success depended on learning what they taught—techniques and methods on how to fake it until you make it, be more competitive, successful and rich. ‘More’ was the mind virus of my generation.

Then, after a succession of unwelcome experiences, ten years ago I realised that my belief that self-improvement is a prerequisite to success is an oxymoron. A change to my childhood-formed beliefs that shaped my unquestioned foundational view of the world was all that was needed. The idea that we are failing because we need fixing reveals that our earliest seeded core beliefs result from wrong thought. Unsurprisingly, adding new techniques on top of faulty beliefs rarely achieves lasting improvement—a skyscraper built atop a faulty foundation eventually fails. No amount of meditation, affirmation programming or acting as if to form new and better beliefs can help displace the deeply rooted beliefs about who we think we are. Those beliefs will continue to define us, because we are unaware of them.

We are living according to a limited system we designed in response to a child’s view of the world. These ingrained thoughts are the heart of us. Any new thoughts we form about ourselves are always subconsciously compared to the child I’s beliefs about who we are, and if they are incongruent with the views we formed in childhood, they are ruthlessly rejected. I didn’t believe I was worthy of success and happiness, and no self-help guru was going to convince me otherwise since as Samuel Butler said, ‘A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.’

PART 1

I AM A CONSTRUCT

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE BEGINNING

My late father was the firstborn in a fourth-generation family of six from Carterton, New Zealand. By the 1950s he’d moved to Pahiatua, where his own father had established a successful clothing store. After graduating from Wairarapa College in Masterton, he worked for a plant nursery, selling gardening supplies. Motivated by his Protestant religious ancestry, he soon became restless and left to train as a Methodist minister. His first posting was in Paeroa, a small town in the Coromandel where my second youngest brother was born, after which we moved to Northcote, a suburb of NZ’s largest city, Auckland, where my youngest brother was born.

In 1962 Dad held the inaugural service at the new Northcote Central Methodist Church, which is still in active service. But his sympathies lay with the controversial views of Lloyd Geering, now Sir Lloyd George Geering, (ONZ, GNZM, CBE) leading to his irreconcilable falling out with church elders and our return to Pahiatua. Geering faced charges of heresy in 1967 for his views denying the immortality of the soul and the physical resurrection of Jesus. After a televised hearing in front of the Presbyterian General Assembly, they withdrew all charges. He later became Professor Emeritus at Victoria University of Wellington, where he still lives. He was knighted in 2001. Now aged 102, he has some twenty books to his name.

I fondly recall travelling by steam train from Auckland to Palmerston North as Dad’s special companion (Mum and the rest of the family followed later.) Back then trains steamed down the middle of the main street, making for an impressive-but-sooty arrival. On his return to Pahiatua, Dad planned to open a gardening store, but Grandad initially employed him in his recently completed, purpose-built clothing store. He soon achieved his ambition; Sure-Gro Garden Supplies opened its doors in 1964. Mum and Dad operated this weather-dependent business throughout the 1960s, so after school my brothers and I called the shop home.

Opening another gardening supply store in town created some controversy with another operator. I overheard a conversation between Dad and his established opposition who threatened he’d eventually force Dad into bankruptcy.

Six years later, a major drought in the summer of ’69 forced Dad to close Sure-Gro permanently, beginning a chain of events that would forever change our family’s future. I recall being in the deserted store while Dad and Mr J, who’d made the threat several years before, negotiated a price for the saleable stock—stock once part of a dream he’d realised but now a symbol of a devastating failure from which he never recovered. Children aren’t immune to the sense of gloom that descends with the death of a parent’s dream. The accompanying feelings of grief are as real as those experienced with the passing of a loved one.

Major tangible and intangible change accompanied the business failure. Our family home, lovingly planned and built seven years earlier, was sold to cover debts, and so we became renters again. Rental accommodation for families in NZ is not a stable, long-term living solution, so shifting homes at least once a year became our new normal. Considering these events occurred in a modern, capitalist economy, unsurprisingly we joined the ranks of the poor. Dad immediately left for Auckland to find work and urgently needed income—and maybe to escape the shame he felt. Because of his menswear experience, he tried his luck at Hugh Wright Ltd, a popular menswear store founded in 1904. Wrights had no vacancies, but he persisted, and although Hugh Jr was a tough nut to crack, he somehow secured full-time employment.

In April 1970, during my second-to-last year of primary school, Mum, Dad, three of my four brothers and I travelled the 600km by overnight train to Auckland. By now the steam train had given way to diesel and the track moved from the town centre to its outskirts, signalling an end to the heydays of rail. My eldest brother (sixteen) had finished college and chose to stay behind, boarding with friends. We rented a house at 10 Seine Road, Forrest Hill—a growing suburb, northeast of Northcote—though our new life was anything but sane. I attended the recently opened Takapuna Intermediate School, where classes were collegiate style with an unfamiliar system of rotating classes and teachers. I was used to one room, one teacher for an entire year. After school I was in for another surprise. I knew I’d have to catch a bus home, but which one? It seemed as if there were more buses to choose from than children! Inevitably, panicked in the confusion, I got on the wrong one. After travelling for what seemed like forever, I finally realised this wasn’t the way home and decided I’d better get off. Having no idea where I was and becoming more and more distressed, I retraced the route as well as I could. Then, when I’d all but given up on finding my way back home, I saw my elder brother’s welcome face walking toward me. I’d never been so happy to see him!

The Milford rental house was small, having only two bedrooms, so my brothers and I slept in the same room. Every night while falling asleep, we heard Mum and Dad squabbling, dredging up past issues and making accusations, leaving us feeling sad and anxious. Six months later, Dad convinced Hugh Wright to open a branch store in Palmerston North, making him manager. It thrilled us to hear that we’d be moving south again, back to more familiar surroundings, hoping it would make our parents happy again. In August 1970, rather than catching the train again for the long ride back to Palmy, Dad hired a new Holden Kingswood car—so exciting. We drove for the first time on State Highway One, New Zealand’s main road, which traversed some of the most remarkable landscapes in the world. The winding nine-hour trip from Auckland took us past the majestic snow-capped Mt Ruapehu (2797m) to Palmerston North (or Palmy; Maori, Te Papa-i-Oea), where we would start the third and last term at our third school of the year.

Palmy is cold, wet, but fortunately flat. We didn’t own a car or have access to an urban school-bus service, so every day I’d ride three kilometres to and from school in one of the world’s windiest climates. Most days I wore a cheap, grey, thin plastic windbreaker that doubled as a raincoat; it was all we could afford. One especially cold, wet day, while walking my bike to the school gate, a senior pupil tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me aside in a random uniform blitz. Apparently my lousy, barely effective grey coat broke the school uniform code—black coats only. He forced me to join a several-deep line up of other miscreants in front of the administration block. Though under-developed and slight of build in my first year at the boy’s high school, I still defiantly defended my parents against this ridiculous, discriminatory rule. They were sacrificing to afford even this cheap protection against the elements, yet these administrative bullies were arbitrarily discarding perfectly good clothing, and worse, parading us, soaking wet, for being poor. However, rules are rules. They rubbished our coats, leaving us to ride home looking like wet rats. I didn’t bother with a coat again, thinking that Mum didn’t need additional financial stress.

My parents’ relationship continued to deteriorate, and we saw less and less of Dad. Sometime later, he explained this was his way of getting us used to his absence. In April 1974, four years after his business failure, he left home for good, negatively affecting my view of the world and future expectations. When I hear Dad’s favourite album, Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night (Live at the Greek Theatre), I’m instantly transported back to that summer of 1974 when happiness and hope turned to grief, illustrating the power of subconscious memory to bring past feelings into the present, given the right cue.

I always tried my best in school; it was a way of giving back to my parents, to acknowledge the hardships they were enduring on my behalf. Every school lunch break I ate all the soggy sandwiches in my lunchbox, regardless of whether I was hungry. I knew the love, effort and financial sacrifice Mum put into making them. That changed with Dad’s departure; my motivation to achieve left with him—after all, nothing breaks like a heart! I’d managed above-average results in high school, now, though, because of my anger at what the world was doing to me and the shame of losing one of the two people I most loved, my results tumbled.

Their separation occurred at a critical point in my education. In the 1970s, third-year secondary school students had to sit a national exam to achieve the School Certificate, which gave employers a nationally consistent, relative measure of the next batch of school leavers or prospective employees. Students were examined under strict supervision on five core subjects considered crucial to the country’s continued economic growth. For the average student with no aspirations to attend university, these examinations were advertised as the culmination of their education. Exam performance would determine future employability and success. The pressure to perform was unrelenting. Until Dad’s departure, I graded in the upper quartile in all school subjects; afterwards, I lost interest and barely passed three of the five core subjects. Not the best finish to my educational climax!

Psychologists say that children benefit when unhappy couples separate. Apparently, separation removes their major source of stress—constant anxiety generated by the disruption to their core beliefs surrounding their family identity. I disagree; the effects of my parents’ separation were significant. Children in their early to mid-teens suffer lasting damage that a younger child, having more time to reconstruct a happy family history, may not feel. Teenagers are naturally self-conscious and strive to fit in with their peer group. I had a lot of perceived shame that came with poverty magnified by being part of a broken home. I believed these events were personally significant, and they haunted my life for decades. Through the ignorant application of thought, without conscious intervention, past decisions continue to influence our quality of life in the present.

To pay the bills, Mum got a job at a nearby nursery, a business she’d learned in the happier days of Sure-Gro back in Pahiatua. Mum remained in the nursery business until she retired, and even now at eighty-six, we pick her brain for gardening tips. With help from my nearby brothers, she still maintains a manicured, colourful summer garden. Out of necessity, she took on additional work Saturday evenings, catering at a renowned wedding venue, and every Sunday Mum treated us to the renowned leftovers. Despite her pioneering-family work ethic, Mum didn’t earn enough to meet the rental payments on our house, forcing us to move for the fifth time in five years.

We shifted into a government or ‘state’ house, which for me confirmed our total fall from grace. In my teens we’d always rented, but this was different. Private rentals looked like any other house in the street; there was no stigma attached to them. Living in a state house was, to me, like wearing a scarlet letter that made me the equivalent to the children’s home ‘maggot’. Now a senior at high school, I saw this as the ultimate shame. As it was, I had few friends and definitely no girlfriend. This move meant that wasn’t about to change. I wouldn’t be bringing anyone home to this place! I should’ve been thankful to have a roof over my head, but when I learned where we’d be living, I turned red with rage, lashing out at the wall in frustration, leaving a hole, and worse, upsetting Mum. Life descended to a new low; my ego was well and truly ground to a dust.

Fortunately, I scraped through with enough marks to qualify me for my penultimate year of high school when I would hopefully redeem myself. I lifted my game for fear of having to leave school to join the adult world of work, deciding university was an easier option. At least living the hermit lifestyle at home gave me plenty of time for revision, and I managed accreditation in all five core subjects, which meant that my internal exam results excused me from having to sit national University Entrance exams. I passed again in my last year, achieving a nationally recognised ‘B Bursary’, a financial award to assist with tertiary education costs. Finally, I was shot of secondary school.

CHAPTER TWO

CONCEPTION: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

We are born into a collective, allegedly evidence-based, objective belief system that has as its central premise the concept of Darwinian evolution where only the fittest among us survive and thrive, ensuring the continuation of our species. Except for our DNA and RNA transferred to us from our parents, we begin with an essentially blank canvas. From our first day, unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, Homo sapiens must learn everything from scratch to ensure their survival, developing skills enabling them to achieve independence in this new and foreign environment. At first, interpersonal communication skills are clumsy and limited. When upset by something, we immediately seek a remedy. For example, hunger drives us to seek attention by crying—a non-specific macro attention-seeking approach. These cries are met with a swift and mostly successful response that improves over time as our inexperienced caregivers become more efficient at interpreting our cries.

As new-borns we experiment with these cause-and-effect responses, experiencing hit and miss results in an iterative improvement process. We progressively achieve better and better outcomes and add our own interpreted meaning to each response until we’re maintaining emotional stability and minimising personal inconvenience. Being totally dependent, though our needs are immediately satisfied, sets us up for a future emotional fall. New parents, experiencing the feeling of unconditional love for the first time, will do anything to keep us safe and sound. From a practical perspective, they search for a return to stability through their own trial-and-error process. Speak to a few parents accustomed to this new normal and they’ll tell you stories of sleep deprivation while learning how to keep their baby satisfied.

Before long we learn to crawl and start eagerly exploring our surroundings. At this stage we’re bought back to earth with a thud with well-meaning disciplinary feedback that teaches us acceptable behavioural boundaries. Parents likely subconsciously use their own upbringing as their disciplinary guide, complicating the situation because each parent was raised with a different set of behavioural rules. This introduces an additional source of potential conflict and confusion within the relationship, which can be difficult to resolve. Not to mention third-party childcare and its disciplinary practices. With experience and experimentation, we realise that different behaviour elicits a particular response, some positive, some not. These responses may be physical, verbal or visual.

Exploration of our environment helps us learn new skills; we form boundaries around what makes us feel good compared to what makes us feel bad. Naturally, to avoid pain we attempt to maximise behaviour that receives good reactions. However, this assumption is only valid if we receive consistent, objective feedback—an unrealistic expectation. Parenting doesn’t come with a prescriptive manual. Behavioural parameters are subjective; today we’re scolded for our actions, and tomorrow we aren’t. Parenting feedback is confusing for children unable to logically link consistent behavioural cause and effect. In the beginning children are unable to question their caregivers, so inconsistent discipline seems to them to be personalised to their shortcomings, rather than specific to a particular behavioural cause.

Continuous streams of subjective feedback from caregivers, along with exposure to a rapidly expanding range of experiences, leads to us developing increasingly refined complex responses. Information input from our senses is unquestioningly added to our tiny, but continually expanding, database of memories in a self-adjusting loop. This feedback process establishes lifelong subconscious habits, becoming the foundational core beliefs forming our ego or sense of identity.

Transitioning from the insulated, protective home environment to preschool, our first brush with Darwin’s theory in action is traumatic for all involved. We need to develop increasingly sophisticated communication skills, because the techniques that worked with immediate family aren’t as effective in our expanding community. Forced out of our comfort zone, we must compete and negotiate with relative strangers. This places us in a vulnerable position, activating various forms of fear response—fear of ridicule, failure, abandonment—and all number of emotional traps, which test our ability to stay engaged with the present moment. In this new environment, our natural feedback learning process can work against us. Some find the transition to be an ongoing challenge, constantly battling overwhelming negative feelings, including anxiety, unhappiness, self-consciousness and anger. Naturally, we try to escape these feelings, but we have to attend school, so our only option is avoiding the situations causing our anxiety.

We focus on closing down the experience of life, rather than letting it happen without judgement. If only we focussed on the abundance that is available to us, a state exceeding our awareness, rather than on perceived shortcomings. For example, continually perceiving feedback as negative, painting ourselves as victims with little or no control over outcomes and at the mercy of others who we rate as more able, results in an avoidant behaviour habit. Flawed thinking casts us in the role of victim, mentally checking out of the system. For example, in the fourth grade, I was afraid to ask questions in case my peers ridiculed me. My teacher raised this at the parent-teacher meetings, so my parents told me to speak up. It was important to express my views because they added to class discussions. Their encouragement fell on deaf ears because I never accepted praise unless it fit with my assessment. This avoidant mind-set focuses our attention on the wrong goal; we’re using our amazing self-correcting, learning servomechanism to resist the lessons life continually sends us designed to free us from limiting thought. Spiritual growth depends on us being open to experiencing the emotional pain we fear. This makes us resilient to the inevitable storms we’re destined to encounter.

We are raised on an education model that leaves students with the impression that life revolves around learning facts and objective skills. The level of mastery achieved ultimately decides our value to society. From our first day, we bear the cross of comparison in everything we do, soon realising that our relative value is derived from standardised tests, grading us from best to worst. Our concept of life is limited within a tightly regulated programme, dependent on the beliefs valued within the current social and economic system. Future prosperity is inextricably linked to our ability to progressively master prescribed competencies across twelve or thirteen years. Students are moved through this cookie-cutter system regardless of whether they achieve benchmarks within the allotted time. We come to believe that success and happiness live out there in a future ‘you’ who is dependent on the assimilation of a continuous stream of expert knowledge, a sure-fire recipe for anxiety—what will be my fate if I miss out on key information? Being future focused to achieve prescribed ‘important’ benchmarks places boundaries on creativity, dumbing us down, moulded into little people all the same. Instead of exploring our unique capacity to create a satisfying life from our creative thoughts, we’re herded toward a common goal. Many students are left floundering, reducing their future earning potential because the system isn’t designed to wait for them. This is our introduction to the idea that we are born incomplete, our completion being dependent on others, the oracles or gurus of our time.

The education system is set up to maximise economic production, which is expedient from a financial-system standpoint. However, it fails when it comes to enlightening every child of their innate power of free will to create a personally resonating reality. Rather, it trains us robotically, raising us to enrich the establishment. While we need to teach and motivate our children pragmatically so they can eventually provide for themselves, we also need to introduce them to their capacity for free will and critical thinking. This will enhance well-being and help repair the deterioration in our collective mental health.

An education system emphasising lack produces adults with little faith in their innate ability. They believe that the answer to success lies out there in the ever-expanding knowledge base. We try to find the magic ‘self-improvement’ pill that will make us invincible in every situation, so we never have to experience the pain of failure again. Eventually, because life continually delivers lemons, we become lost and confused. There is no pill. Trying to master or control events before they happen through learned techniques is both futile and energy sapping. Achieving life mastery by simply accumulating knowledge is a flawed concept, an ideology biased learning habit, popularised by the public education system, that promotes the belief that knowledge is all that stands between success and failure. This belief leaves us with the impression that mastering government-sanctioned curricula is the path to adult validation. It teaches us a habit of ‘expert’ dependency, rather than self-reliance and independent thought, and creates a society of outward-focused victims searching for the secret to quiet our anxious, searching minds. Being needy becomes our unconscious response to life; we blame everything but ourselves if we don’t get what we want. Sadly, what we want so badly is often just an uncritical rehash of the popular view of the society in which we were raised. If we belligerently struggle with an uncooperative world and refuse to comply with our self-created model of ‘this is how it must be for me to be happy’, we set ourselves up for failure. The ‘out there’ is how it is despite us, not because of us; it is always perfect; it cannot be any other way.

Peace of mind is achieved when we realise we can only affect meaningful change in our lives by dealing with what we’re encountering right NOW. Living a thriving, joyful life requires us to be mindful of the feedback we get from our physical senses, mixed with faith in our universal power. Deprecating self-talk sentences many of us to go through life thinking the world doesn’t understand us, that we just don’t fit in. The truth is we’re perfect; it’s our life model that’s wrong. Adjusting the model through which we’re interpreting our world transforms our life. Our mental servomechanism is a miracle under our command, always at the ready to develop a new model, effectively allowing us to change our spots to whatever we choose. In contrast, children have no choice but to absorb everything told to them in good faith, unquestioningly, no room for critical thought, like sponges, passively absorbing the lessons received from their immediate environment. Only in this sense are we victims of our upbringing. After all, the quality of our nurturing and education isn’t perfect because our teachers are human (for now).

The ideas presented here show how self-doubt and excuses, which leave us feeling comparatively powerless, are learned, and how, armed with new understanding, we can unlearn them and give ourselves a second chance to consciously control the process of building our personalised life model. Even with this information, we can still choose to remain a victim or, more accurately, a martyr, but at least it’s with our conscious permission, under our terms. (Collins English Dictionary: A victim is oblivious to their condition while the martyr is aware but continues to revel in their suffering.) A victim is anyone who uses excuses to justify and explain their current situation, however absurd and irrelevant their explanation

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Unlike others within the animal kingdom, at birth our vacuous yet pliant brain has limited instinctive capability, compromising our immediate survival. To comprehend our relationship to all we encounter in this foreign environment, we must learn to translate every stimulus and piece of feedback until, through trial and error, we achieve independence. This real-time ability to adapt by building our own unique, environmentally specific survival model, gives us a significant long-term advantage over other animals. We know this model or ego by our Christian name.

Months before our birth, expectant parents pour over culturally appropriate names in search of the ‘one’ that will distinguish us from the tribe. Once given, it’s the constant anchor in our relationships. When spoken, it’s a hot button, our call to attention, bringing us instantly into the present. Our parents hope their chosen name thrives, eventually growing into a robust and congruent identity. In time, our name becomes a unique, tangible avatar of our learned beliefs, formed from interpretation of emotionally significant events—a self-constructed model that gives the world unique meaning. Because we build it with blind faith in our primary influencers, model accuracy is limited. It can only be as accurate a representation of reality as the models it has access to through luck of birth. Prefaced by our persistent name, we are fashioned by our immature interpretation of what others do to us and what reaction we get when we do stuff to others. The meaning we attach to these events becomes our enduring truth, although it’s unlikely the literal truth.

At first, we lack the critical evaluation skills to accurately make sense of what’s happening around us. Oblivious to its objective accuracy, we accept sensual information like a sponge, passing it directly into the database of ‘me’. This is how we build our reference of enduring core beliefs, which form the model of who we think we are and against which we compare all future feedback. We become adept at translating simple actions, like physical gestures and voice tones and touch, in a way that confirms approval or disapproval of the unique model embodied in our name. This model is the ‘who’ that turns up when we respond to our name. Both the model and our name, being one and the same (integral), form the objectified i AM; in my case i AM Geoff. Geoff begins as the central core belief to which we attach additional beliefs, building our multidimensional self-image. It’s a preface, loaded with interpretations of how we see the world and how we think it sees us. This is the source of our limitation and neurosis.

This assisted self-design process is the beginning of the end for many of us. The moment our ‘I’ is labelled with our parent’s handpicked Christian name, we become separated from the concept of ‘i AM That’. What started as pure potential is now limited to our evolving view of the label, attributed to the reflection we see in the mirror each morning. The moment we are named, we become I am Joe, or I am Mary—where Joe and Mary substitute for ‘That’ in ‘i AM That’. Our self-view, determined by the comprehension of our childhood upbringing and the inter and intra-cultural models we experienced, becomes our cognitive bias, making us unique regarding our values and emotional triggers. This is our schema (c.f. schema therapy), a construct of parents, grandparents, wider society and, not least, government influence that manifests in adult life as subconscious reactions to identifiable stimulus. When I say, ‘Hi Joe,’ or, ‘Hi Mary’, my opinion of them is limited to the finite concept I have formed and memorised from our previous encounters. This is my mental token or avatar of what I think and feel when acknowledging their name, which, because of interpretive bias, is likely different to another.

We dynamically adjust to our physical environment by translating the input received through our senses via our nervous system, a complex electrochemical servomechanism. Reliable, objective feedback allows us to refine our approach, so that with persistence we eventually learn how to confidently and successfully repeat a task so that we consistently achieve the same result. Trial and error are essential to attaining proficiency and, if desired, mastery over physical tasks. This iterative approach to physical skill training isn’t as effective when applied to ego-mind development, where sensory input is a confusing mix of both subjective and objective information received from other sentient beings. A child’s nervous system can’t differentiate between subjective and objective feedback; everything is accepted as objective truth. Our nervous system does its best to find patterns within this contradictory, interpersonal feedback. However, the trial-and-error process that works well in helping us master the physical environment ends in frustration, rather than habitual proficiency.

Ego construction happens in this environment of mixed messages where our self-developed and rapidly growing comprehension system filters imperfect information that leads us to believe that individual survival and success depends on others’ failure. We’re continuously comparing our past and present experience, aiming for progressively better results. Like the learning outcome of putting our hand on a hot stove, the lesson is unambiguous, swift and permanent. In contrast, interpersonal feedback is often ambiguous, its intended meaning lost in translation because of conflicting belief systems.

Well-meaning feedback, rather than being interpreted as helpful, corrective advice, is seen as a personal attack on our ability or potential. For example, take email or SMS when a message to an associate or friend receives an unexpectedly blunt response. Based on their personal experience, the recipient places their interpretation on our words and grammar, interpreting a meaning we neither intended nor considered. They’re reading our words but superimposing their voice, emphasis and ego, activating their own cognitive bias, which leads to misunderstanding. While adults may quickly resolve such disagreements, children haven’t learned to clarify meaning by asking questions. They naturally and naively accept things at face value. As adults, it’s irrelevant whether the intent is malicious; it’s always our choice how we interpret it. We can influence our emotions consciously rather than unconsciously. It’s the difference between being fragile or resilient to seeming hardship. Our learned beliefs determine the meaning we attribute to all sensual input. Until we realise this, we remain victims to those beliefs.

Our adult subconscious life responses arise from the comprehension database system developed by our infant/child mind. This database, our library of operating schemas, comprises interpretations of experiences and teachings passed on by our parents and other significant influencers, whether these be religious, political, media or corporate, and they manifest as authoritative, inner-voice instructions. The subconscious spontaneously and seamlessly accesses this database, retrieving what it considers is the appropriate response to any external stimulus. Even as adults, our response is identical to our parents in terms of voice intonation and mannerisms—scary! While many of these subconscious schemas benefit us, others are glass ceilings limiting our potential. Continued dependency on these lack-focused, archaic, habitual-response patterns, hinders development of faith in our ability to overcome obstacles. Collectively these schemas form our constructed ego, which I call the ‘little i (lie)’. Failure to perceive this construct condemns us to live our life in a dream-like state, while it acts for us, pulling our levers as if it were the Wizard of Oz.

An anonymous quote states, ‘The definition of insanity is continually repeating the same thing and expecting a different result.’ Yet while we remain clueless to the ego construct, this is our inevitable destiny, our karma. Through repetition of instruction across the years, our reaction (the same thing) is hard-wired into the subconscious. In this state, when faced with similar stimuli, our life experience becomes no more than a series of predictable, spontaneous conditioned responses. These stimuli are virtually buttons others can press, giving them control, able to lead us without our conscious awareness or permission. Our children have this down to a fine art; we know from experience how skilled they are at achieving a specific response by pushing certain emotional buttons. Adding insult to injury, we condemn ourselves for being persistently triggered, a flaw we’re evidently powerless to change. Truth is, our triggered response is the real flaw; it is merely the impersonal expression of obsolete, habitual behaviour relics, controlling our response. While under their spell, we remain resistant to change, set in our ways.

Meanwhile, despite what we think, our dynamic world moves on. Eventually, after years of being buffeted, bullied and worn down like rocks in a stream, we encounter a world out there that bears no resemblance to the model we accidently formed all those years ago as a child. Failing to transcend our ego destines us to become grumpy, unengaged or worse. Yet hidden in plain sight is a universal gift that allows us to remain soft like water, rather than resistant like stone:

‘Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.’

– Lao Tzu

CHAPTER FOUR

LIMITED BY LEARNING

In his book think and grow rich, concerning the attainment of personal success, Napoleon Hill predicts that ‘somewhere, as you read, the secret to which I refer will jump from the page and stand boldly before you, IF YOU ARE READY FOR IT! When it appears, you will recognize it. Whether you receive the sign in the first or the last chapter, stop for a moment when it presents itself, and turn down a glass, for that occasion will mark the most important turning-point of your life.’

For most of my life, the secret escaped me. It frustrated me that Hill didn’t openly reveal this secret that’s ‘in plain sight of us all’, after all, isn’t his book’s purpose to give us the ‘master key to riches’? Twenty-five years passed before I could metaphorically ‘turn down a glass’. An archaic phrase meaning ‘in memory of a deceased drinking companion’, it’s customary to turn down (turn upside down) a glass on the table the next time you go drinking and pause a moment to remember him/her. Thus, ‘turn down a glass’ means to stop for a moment of remembrance and acknowledge the moment of life-changing revelation. I’ll try not to be so cruel by, hopefully, shining a bright light on the secret in plain sight!