Author Archives: admin

I love me when I am kind to you.

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I had a big realization today.

I felt a joy inside of me today.  The joy came from me being kind to people I love.  I love how I talk to my nephews, how I encourage Jaden, how I let him know that he is the best violinist, that I am so proud of him, how I tell Danny what is happening when he is not around, hahaha…
I realized that it didn’t come from people being kind to me.  And I remembered times when people were “trying” to be kind to me, I didn’t even notice it, and when I did, I couldn’t even take it in.

The bottom line is:

I love me when I am kind to you.
I love me when I am kind to myself.

 

The greatest gift in this apparent loss

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“If you move into situations of loss in a spirit of surrender to what is, all you experience is a profound sweetness and an excitement about what can come out of the apparent loss. You see that the worst loss you’ve experienced is the greatest gift you can have. ” — Byron Katie

 

As I read about the mass shooting of adults and over 20 young children in an elementary school in Connecticut, I thought about what gifts that was to this world.  The amount of hearts that this event will break open.  I have a thought that if I speak this outloud, I may be scorned upon as cruel and emotionless.

I remembered a few years back, a participant in my Singapore workshop came to work on her massive sadness with the passing of her dog. “He shouldn’t die” and when turnaround to “He should die”, she was shocked and was angry with that turnaround and had judgements about The Work at that time.  And a few months back when we got to catch up over tea, she told me that what got her through the sadness was to see the gift of his death, of how this apparent loss was the greatest gift she has ever had.  The gratitude she felt just changed her life and all she is left with is gratitude for what is.

“I shouldn’t think about him”

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A dear friend was confused and angry with herself.  She told me that she was afraid of the truth, she didn’t want to see it.  When asked what is her truth that she was so afraid to see, she shared about her inquiry of “my daughter shouldn’t think about him (her father)”.  She felt frustrated when she discovered the turnaround, ” I shouldn’t think about him.”  She saw that she still thought about him sometimes and she couldn’t control that part of her.  “How could I still think about him when we are divorced and he already has someone else in his life.”  reasoned the mind.

As I saw this, it reminds me of a part of me that wants to control and get it right.  “Can you control who you think about?  Can you control who you are attracted to?”  I asked.  To think that we can do that is quite a painful place to be.

And with The Work, arriving at a turnaround like this, “I shouldn’t think about him” puts me in a state of humility, it allows me to see that I don’t have control, that many things in life is a happening.  And when we have the courage to go deeper, we find that it is not thinking about him that frustrates us.  It’s what we are putting onto the thought. For example:

If I still think about him, that means:
I am not over him.
I am weak.
I am still in love with him. (which I am not supposed to)

As we spend time inquiring this list above, we may enjoy the image of him appearing in our mind when the thought, “I shouldn’t think about him” comes.  You may come to find equal truth in the opposite of what your list says — If I still think about him, I am over him, I am strong and I am not in love with him.

Yes, you can wake yourself up from the nightmare.  😉

If God doesn’t give you what you want…

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Saw this posting on Facebook from my cousin this morning.  Write “Amen” if you belief this!
Without hesitation, I gave it a big “AMEN” at the bottom.
Then, I hear my mind saying, “how is it that what I get in life has to do with what God is (willing) to give me?”  It’s interesting to see that my mind add “willing” into this sentence even though I can’t know if it has to do with God’s willingness. And “who am I to give an “Amen” when I am not a declared “Christian”?  Hmmm… this mind way too inquisitive, busy discovering itself.

So, where do I come to meet this statement?  God to a Christian, is almighty and it is above men.  And to me, the reality and how things are, things that are no beyond my control, that is my “God”.

So, when I don’t have something that I want, obviously it is not something I need, or there will be war inside of me.  I will be going into God’s business, arguing and negotiating with him about my good deeds and how it is unfair that It is treating me this way.  All these effort into getting God to give it to me is a big tantrum, a waste of energy and time.  And honestly, I have spent many years of my life throwing these big tantrums.

And when we have suffered enough arguing with God and reality, it may be time to start sitting with what we want for a moment and see how it is true that it is a good thing that we don’t get what we want.   Our eyes may start to open up to all the gifts that had, have and will come into our lives because we don’t have what we want.

And the openness to this gift comes only when we are ready to see it.  Everything has a timing of its own, doesn’t it?  If not, God must be crazy… 😉

Learning to be loved unconditionally or to love unconditionally?

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I recently posted a poll for people in my facebook group to choose between wanting to be  loved unconditionally and wanting to love unconditionally.  What sparked me to do this is I have come across many courses and books out in the business world and what I noticed is that almost all the methodology implemented were on wanting to be perceived a certain way.  And that is also true for self-help books.  It’s also about learning what to do to get what we want from others.

And if I have to choose between learning to be loved unconditionally or to love unconditionally, my choice would be to learn to love unconditionally.  I find that that is the only sane choice for me.  With learning to be loved unconditionally, it sounded like there is something I can learn to do or act to make someone love me.  It sounded hopeless and too much work.  Everyone is different in their ways of showing their love.  If I have 10 friends, I would have to learn 10 different ways.  And I would have to wait for them to show me if what I am doing works.  Too much work!!!!  But if I can love unconditionally, I am already getting the joy that I want and if it is true that the outside is my projections, the more unconditionally that I can love someone and myself, I  would have to see that they are loving me unconditionally also.

And the best part is I can’t really know how that would look on the outside.  How exciting!

Taker or Giver?

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A friend asked me the other day if a mutual friend is a giver or a taker.  I didn’t know how to answer that question, it wasn’t that I didn’t know her enough or something along that line.  The thing is, I know that I am a taker and that makes her a giver in our friendship.

I remembered many years ago when I attended a training where we had to look at every participant in the eyes and then shout out “taker” or “giver”.  When it was my turn, I was looking at each one of them and shouted, “giver”, “giver”, “giver”…”giver”.  The instructor was so mad as he thought I was playing a fool and he threatened to kick me out of the training.  “you mean this fellow, after what you see he is doing in this class, you actually think he is a giver??? You are not serious, I don’t want you in this class!  You are disrupting the class!!”  He didn’t leave me any space to say anything.

I realized after that incident that he wasn’t ready to hear what was going through my mind and I just left it as it was.

So, if you ask me now how was it possible that everyone is a giver to me.  My answer would be that I am very clear that I am always a TAKER.  I realized that everything I do is for my own happiness, I wanted something from others and in that I am a Taker.  And the reason I do everything is that I wanted to feel good about myself, I like me when I help you, And over the years, this Taker became more honest about her taking from others and more greedy as she is enjoying the joy and pleasure in taking honestly.

What a gift!

My experience with Vipassana meditation

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A friend asked me about Vipasana meditation a few weeks back.  She wanted to know what I thought about it.  And I said, “Great!  If it works for you and you see the value, go for it!”

What came to my mind was a time when I went for a Vipassana meditation retreat back in California closed to 9 years ago.  The morning bell rang at 3:30 am and we all got up, washed up and off to the morning chant.  After that, it was walking and sitting meditation alternating every hour for the rest of the day.  It was a sweet experience.  Besides the struggle to get out from my thick warm blanket during the winter time and the most yummy Burmese and Cambodia breakfast and lunch, my mind didn’t seem to register any memorable events during those long hours of mindfulness.

Would I do it again?  I don’t think so.  I don’t feel the need for it.  Meditation is no longer something that is separate from my life.  My life is no longer compartmentalized into conscious and unconscious time, that I have to set aside time for.  At one time in my life, I decided that it is either all or nothing.  I just couldn’t bear being conscious in part of my life and unconscious in another.  I just couldn’t fool myself any longer.  It’s just too painful to not want it all.  So now, I open up to what my life offers.  I am learning to love having no preferences.  And I love it when I could ask to have things the way I want it.  And it feels absolutely equal to me.  Strange but that’s how it looks on the outside.

My Encounter with Katie

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Received an email from a dear friend in China telling me that he is coming to understand how a praise from someone is just as stressful as a complaint.  And sometimes when he was stuck doing The Work, he would see me saying things to him in my strong Malaysian accent, that moved him through his stuckness.

What a delight to be that for someone.  It came to me that Katie had been like that for me all these years.  I remembered the first time I met her back in 2002 in a weekend workshop in Northern California, at the end of the workshop, I went up to her and told her, “Thank you for triggering and bringing out the Katie in me.”  And she just held me in her arms and said, “Oh, sweetheart, bring This Work back to your people.”  It just brought tears to my eyes when I recalled and had this image in my mind.

So many times when I was in pain holding on to “my wanting to be right”, I see Katie’s image speaking gently to me, “Is that really true, sweetheart?”  And it softened the hard righteous self like waves that smoothen the hard surface of the rocks on the shore.  I am washed with tears in humility of my ignorance and innocence.

The one thing that interest me about life is to live out what is true for me.  I am not interested in teaching it, there are too many teachers in the world.

To live out what I really feel inside of me is my only interest and allowing that to be anchored to my daily life is my life purpose.  What else would be more fulfilling to me than that?  I haven’t found one and am definitely open to it…

Working with Limiting Beliefs Pt 3

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Let’s say you are aware that you have a belief about money, “I need to work hard for money“.  In fact, there is nothing wrong with this belief if it is not stressful for you.  It’s working when we know we want money and we work hard to get it.  We only investigate and inquire this thought/belief if it is stressful.

So, let’s inquire into this thought using The Work:

“I need to work hard for money“
Is it true?
Yes, it feels true.

Can you absolutely know that this is true?
No

How do you react when you think the thought?
When I am not working hard, I blame myself.  I feel pressured.  I feel lousy, I think about people who has money and I get upset with them for not sharing their money with me.

Who would you be without the thought?
I would go with what feels right for me.  I won’t push myself so hard. I would be more open to be around my friends who have money.

Turn the thought around.  I need to work hard for money.
I don’t need to work hard for money.

Is this thought true or truer?  Three genuine examples in your life?
My parents paid for my accommodation and food when I was young.
What I am doing is not very hard to do. I actually am having fun.
I had good returns from investment.

So now, the mind comes to realize for itself that there have times in my life when I didn’t work hard for money and still had money.  It also comes to witness the suffering that it brings upon itself when it believes the thought.  Either way, the amount of money I have hasn’t changed.

We can go on telling ourselves that I don’t need to work hard for money over and over again.  But, without realizing this truth inside ourselves, we will still go on living life with the stress and fear of not working hard enough for money.

We have to live out what we believe, not much choice in that.  This is the power of thoughts!

Working with Limiting Beliefs Pt 2

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So,the next question you may ask is, “how do we get rid of the limiting beliefs?”  Before we do that, let’s understand how our mind work.
“As man thinketh, so is he”.  Yes, beliefs are the beginning of all creation; manifestation in all forms start from a thought, that when left unquestioned, will form a belief and over time, becomes our religion, and who we are.  And these beliefs are programs that have been installed in us at our early days.

So as an adult, we really don’t have a choice, we just live out beliefs that have been filed away in our mind and whenever the files of belief are triggered in life, we will act accordingly to these underlying beliefs.  Our minds are like tape player or mp3 player, it only has rewind, fast forward and play functions.

In my experience, limiting beliefs were adopted in the past, that used to work for us for whatever reasons, and may not be working for us now.  So, they are really not our enemies, not something that we have to get rid of!  What we can do is to take time to understand it, then it will let go of us.  And using The Work of Byron Katie (4 questions and turnarounds)  to investigate the validity of this belief has helped me to undo many beliefs that are not serving me in my life now.

So, here are the 4 questions from The Work:

1. Is this thought/belief true?
2. Can I really/absolutely know that this thought/belief is true?
3. How do I react when I believe this thought?
3a.When do I first believe this thought/belief? (sub question)
3b.What do I get for holding on to this belief? (sub question)
4. Who would I be without this thought?