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What do you learn from the Landmark Forum?

Always/Already Listening: Something is always going on in our head. Here is a list of the many thoughts/opinions/judgements that are always going on.
Strong Suits: Three things happen and we base our lives off these stories to survive.
Nothing/Everything: Life is meaningless and there is nothing.
Imagine a bird looking for worms. If the bird does not catch a worm, it doesn’t mean it is going to be depressed and go cry in its nest. No, it will keep looking. By adding the racket to our lives we diminish the possibilities and therefore the actions and the results. For example, the word “God” has meanings based on stories of many religions, but no one can define “God” because if you did define “God” then it would diminish it to a story in YOUR mind. If we define ourselves as “nice”, we diminish our possibilities.
Future/Present/Past: Be Possibility, Do Actions, Have Results –> Start Over. Letting the already/always listening get in the way of the possibilities, the actions and results are simply stories and racket. Chill out. Enjoy.
Fear: Imagine you are afraid of everyone next to you, then everyone in the room, then everyone in the building, then the City you are in, then the Country you are in, then the World. Do the opposite and imagine people are afraid of you. Do the same with other things (e.g., smarts).
Choice/Decision: Choices are without the Already/Always Listening or Thoughts. Decisions are with the Already/Always Listening. For example, I choose vanilla because I did (Choice) vs. I choose vanilla because I like it (Decision).
Integrity: What Happened + Reasons DOES NOT EQUAL = Integrity. We either do or do not, there is no in between. We either have integrity or we don’t. And remember it is not good or bad — it just is.
Racket: A fixed way of BEING + a persistent complaint (reaction to reality or imagined threat). Every racket has a payoff and cost:
Payoff:
– Right/Wrong
– Dominate/Avoid Domination
– Self-Justify/Invalidate others
– Win/Lose
Cost
– Love/Affinity
– Self-expression
– Vitality
– Well-being
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Living Without Fear

Notes from a recent course I took at the Sivananda Yoga Center on “Living Without Fear” (May 2009):

What is the root of fear?
+ Instinctual fear or natural fear (e.g., see a snake, get scared)
+ Unnatural fear or imagination based (i.e., imagination plays and wreaks havoc)
3 types of Energy
+ Tamas: quality that keeps this together; lens of darkness and depression (e.g., when you are having trouble getting out of bed); Inventing fear based strategies — e.g., avoiding someone
+ Rajas: quality of energy with motion; Imagination focused on being right — I am right; you are wrong;  very rigid all or nothing
+ Sattva: quality of purity; enlightened consciousness; cooperative imagination — finding a way to work with others
What lens are we seeing things through?
+ Every action creates your character
+ The predominating actions creates the lens of tamas, rajas, or sattva
+ Brick-by-brick of action we create our character
+ Look at your patterns of fear to begin to understand fear in your life (e.g., predominant reactions to work situations or in relationships)
What determines our lifestyle?
+ There are values that mold our lifestyle — parents/primary caregiver/culture/etc. can mold our values and lifestyle
+ As we get older, we have a chance to ask whether we accept X values — we can choose what value to espouse
What determines values?
+ Desire can take the place of values
+ What do you desire versus what do you need? For example, in relationships how much love and attention do you desire versus what you need.
+ We cannot solve the problems out of the same mind that created the problem ~ sivananda
+ If you are not comfortable or have fear in a certain situation, how can you retrain your reaction
What is the importance of relaxation?
+ Body contracts when in fear
+ Fear immobilizes body, but mind is completely active — the poles of physical versus mental mobility
+ The temperature of fear is cold; the temperature of anxiety is hot
+ Paranoia is rigidity with an idea without checking the assumptions
+ Work with your assumptions
+ What assumptions have I made today? We always assume there is time to clear things up –> clear things right way
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The Tao of Do, Do, Do

“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but paddling like all hell underneath.” ~ Anon

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore