• We all do have our own version of this rhythm to some extent.
• I tend to get very focused at the engagement stage and tend to be vague before this.
• Some people go through one cycle of the rhythm quickly, others are more leisurely.

Social Pressures
Our Western culture seems quite averse to rest. Though it does promote leisure – even then it tells us to ‘play hard’. School children aren’t allowed to stop working in accord with their rhythm – they need to keep working because the schedule and/or the teacher says so. And they have to stop even if they aren’t ready to because the schedule and/or the teacher says so.

I’m not really sure what lies at the base of this obsession with keeping busy. My best guess is that it is some kind of anxiety. (If you have ideas please let me know in the comments to this post.)

Counter-Cultural
I’m suggesting that finding a way to live more in tune with your natural rhythm of rest to activity to rest, will be to some extent counter-cultural. So it may help to get encouragement from friends. And it may help to know how much better you feel as a result of doing it (because we quickly get used to feeling better we can forget how much we have changed; so find a way to keep track – something simple like keeping a notebook from the time you start changing to the time when a new way of living is established; it could be anything from a few days to a few months. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, it needs to be enough so you can recall how you felt so you can know how you feel differently as a result of making the change.).

The Next Thing Emerges
While we are resting from the last thing we are in a bit of a state of suspension. How long this is will depend on how was asked of us by the activity we were doing. When we have rested enough then the next thing will emerge.

I have just finished a series of posts on authenticity as ‘the killer app’ for a satisfying life. So I am resting and waiting for the next thing to emerge. It may be on what gets in the way of authenticity and so means we don’t find satisfaction, it is still becoming clear for me. It would effectively be trouble-shooting the app.

A Question About Linking to Blogs
I want to draw your attention to a post about psychopaths and having empathy for them by Joe Burgo. It is a very considered and important post I think. And the comments are excellent too – some well worth reading just on their own.

And I didn’t know whether to do this on the blog. I highlight the posts I like through twitter these days (if you want to follow me on twitter I’m @evanhadkins). This means that if you just read the blog you don’t get to hear about other posts that I like.

I used to do posts that linked to other posts but have pretty much stopped doing this since I have been using twitter. Let me know what you think. Would you like me to point to posts that I think are especially good by doing posts on this blog about them?

Hoping you can have some restful times and looking forward to hearing from you in the comments, Evan.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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We Are Social Beings
Human newborns are able to do little for themselves. Almost everything we do we have learned. Which means that we are very dependent on others – how they care for us, what we learn from them, what they teach us by example and instruction.

Your Relationships Matter
If you are like most people then how good you feel and how satisfying you find your life, is effected in a major way by your relationships. Our relationships with family members, friends, colleagues and collaborators all have a major impact on how we experience our lives.

Fake Isn’t Satisfying
False politeness and phoney closeness don’t make for long-lasting relationships. Or at least not long-lasting relationships that we want to spend much time in.

Authenticity
It is only a relationship where who is we are welcomed that can be satisfying in the long term.

How to Do Authenticity for a Satisfying Relationship
Here are the stages for the killer app for a satisfying life – authenticity.

1. Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
2. Look for options of what you can do about it.
3. Do it.
4. Ask yourself:Am I satisfied?
5. Rest

A note about our biggest need. Before I talk about how the app applies to our relationships I want to say a word about our biggest need: attachment. If we do not have a secure attachment to a parent early in our lives this has big consequences. If we do not have closeness with others our lives are much diminished.
Authenticity in relationships is not simply about ‘getting my needs met’. It is about the quality of the relationship. If we set out to use others to meet our needs we won’t end up with closeness, our biggest need won’t be met, we won’t have satisfying relationships. Our human relationships make it clear that authenticity isn’t just about ourself – it is about how we relate to our situation and those around us.

The Killer App Applied to Relationships

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

This can be large or small. It can involve big changes or smaller ones. It may be very specific (one word or action by one friend) or quite general (e.g. I can’t express myself clearly in conversation).

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

Because the way our society is organised is pretty hostile to relationships (too quick, too cerebral, little education about our emotions and how they work) there is lots of information around on how to deal with this. There are shelves full of books and many courses. There are people to help you deal with varying levels of problems for varying levels of fees whether offering secular counselling or religious guidance. There may be friends you can talk to.

• Do it

If the problem is general then general advice can be very helpful. Books or courses may be the way to go. If you find this doesn’t quite do it (even though you feel it should) you may need something more individually tailored by a person. The more specific it is to a particular person or situation the more you will need to talk it over with a person (whether a friend or a “professional”).

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

We can get very confused by and entangled in our relationships. Checking how satisfied we are can help us cut through the clutter and confusion. It will also prevent us pursuing what isn’t working.

• Rest

Those of us into self development, like me and perhaps you if you are reading this blog, can work relentlessly. Especially on our relationships. There is usually more we can do. But if we don’t rest we usually won’t have the energy to work well, we’ll get compulsive and trapped by unproductive habits and routines. Resting – whether this means just hanging out with a friend, or withdrawing for solitude – is hugely important.

Here are a couple of examples of how the process can work.
1. Something very specific

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

It is one little thing – the way a friend speaks about a particular topic.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

It is so particular there won’t be courses or books about it. I could talk to a counsellor or a friend or my friend directly. My friend can be touchy about this topic, maybe I’ll talk to a mutual friend.

• Do it.

I talk to the mutual friend and they tell me something about my friends background that helps me understand my friends approach to this topic.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

Yes, now I understand more of where my friend is coming from it doesn’t bother me much.

• Rest

I can relax around my friend and not be bothered by the way they speak about this particular topic.

2. A general frustration.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

How come I can always figure out what to say later? During the conversation I’m not sure what I think or want to say.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

There are various books and courses. It isn’t about assertiveness – I’m quite happy to say what I think and ask for what I want once I know what it is. It is something about thinking clearly and feeling that I have to hurry up and get it right. I decide to do a course that explains how my feelings work and how they can sometimes get in the way of thinking clearly.

• Do it.

The course is pretty good. The presenter explains things well and some of the exercises apply pretty well to my problem.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

With a little practise I learn to take time to think even in the middle of conversations. I realise I can use ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ to give myself time to think, or I can say I need a moment to think. After doing this a few times I can do it pretty easily. I’m satisfied with what I’ve learnt and how I can now say what I think in conversation.

• Rest

I can rely on my new ability and relax while having conversations.

Conclusion
It is hard for a relationship to be satisfying for both people when one person isn’t happy in it. Even with quite large groups, one person being unhappy can affect the whole group. If we can address our dissatisfaction with a relationship usually the other person(s) involved will benefit too.
What has helped you most have satisfying relationships? Let me know in the comments.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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On the one hand our public culture is dominated by the crass materialism of (neo-liberal) economics and a particular kind of science (at the moment associate with Richard Dawkins). (I don’t know if this is so true outside the English-speaking West, which is my culture.) On the other hand there is an explosion of private spirituality. Adherence to the ‘spirituality clubs’ (churches, temples, synagogues) are in decline but people still want the personal satisfaction that a spirituality brings.

This split of public and private is not new. It has been around at least since industrialisation – and I suspect probably since large cities (but that is just a wild guess on my part). The harsh world of real politik and the private world where softness and emotion are valued.

Previously it was the ‘spirituality clubs’ that bridged this split. These are declining and so individuals are now put in the situation of developing their own spirituality in quite an acute way. (They also tended to be the institutions that injected ethics into public debates. However much we disagreed with their ethics. Which would lead us to a different topic.)

This post will leave aside these bigger issues and focus on how to develop a personally satisfying spirituality.

What do I mean by spirituality?

I mean our sense of purpose and values.

For me our sense of values and purpose is a separate dimension to our lives to our thoughts or feelings. We can rationally implement procedures to achieve purposes we disagree with. We can be attracted to what conflicts with our values. This means that our values are not the same as our thoughts and feelings.

Our spirituality needs to be authentic. The decline in the ‘spirituality clubs’ I think is because they are not dealing with major parts of our experience. Thus new age and other newer spiritualities tend to include a focus on ecology, and the non-rational aspects of ourselves (both of which had disappeared from Western Christianity that had been the dominant ‘spirituality club’ in our culture).

The killer app for spiritual satisfaction
Authenticity is the killer app for a satisfying life. In brief the app is as follows:

Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
Look for options of what you can do about it.
Do it.
Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?
Rest

Applied to our values and purposes this would mean something like the following.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

I’m achieving my goals. My intimate relationships are good. My lifestyle would be the envy of most people on the planet. So what’s wrong? Maybe I have no right to feel dissatisfied – but I do! It is something about the why of my life. Somehow I need to find a why that has to do with me personally. A why that shapes what I do, how I live, the choices I make.
There are many possibilities for this dissatisfaction. It may have always been there. Or you may have moved on to a new area of your life that existing ways of doing things don’t deal with. (The evangelical christianity I grew up with didn’t have much to say about being an entrepreneur for instance.) Or a spiritual practise that has been working for you no longer does.
If you have a definite sense of what is wrong then it can be easier to know where to look for alternatives.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

There is no shortage of options. All the religions and some philosophies have guidance on what is correct behaviour and usually have spiritual practises they have devised over time.
The question becomes how to filter all these options. My advice is by a ruthless focus on what’s bugging you. If it is about your values and purpose you can find ways to respond to this. If it is dissatisfaction with a current practise where you look may be different.

• Do it

A couple of cautions.
1. It can be important to know what it is that the spirituality is asking of you. Within christianity a monastic spirituality is quite different to social justice oriented one. Some yogas emphasise breathing and posture, others emphasise sitting and watching the breath. Do the best you can to find out what the spirituality you want to do actually involves.
2. Checking out a new spiritual practise or tradition can take a long time. It may be a good idea to decide in advance how long you want to devote to doing the new thing. You can always decide to keep going at the end of the time period.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

This can be tricky with spirituality. What you do may open up new perspectives and experiences that you couldn’t have anticipated. So your perception about your original discontent may change. I think all you can do is acknowledge this. Then move on to an assessment of your current level of satisfaction. There may be parts of what was originally bugging you that still need to be addressed or the new experiences may bring their new satisfactions and discontents.

• Rest

Beware, being spiritually concerned can lead to workaholism and perfectionism. If a spirituality is authentic to you then you will be experience satisfaction and rest.

Here are a couple of examples about applying authenticity to spirituality. They are just to give you an idea of what it looks like.  They are both to do with my personal spirituality.  I didn’t think I could really presume to talk about anybody else’s.

1. Evangelical Christianity and Our Bodies

This process took me several years to work through. This example is just a fragment of the whole experience.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

I was working in an office and feeling antsy. I was finding that I was attracted to doco’s on TV about craftspeople. I realised I wanted to explore my physical experience more.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

I don’t know of many christian traditions that deal with this. I see an ad for a massage class that is local.

• Do it.

I do the massage class.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

I find that the massage does give a centred attention. It surprises me that it is a form of communication with the other person. I am not contented with my understanding of this process and how it would fit with evangelical christianity. (Back to what is bugging me.)

• Rest

I am glad for what I have experienced in the massage class. I have a sense of where to look next.

I went through this process several more times before I had processed this. I found Shintaido (a form of self development that evolved from Okinawan karate), zen shiatsu, Israel It’s Life and Culture by J Pedersen (vol.1 The Soul and It’s Powers), developed a workshop for a christian group called Options in Spirituality and formulated a set of processes suitable for evangelical christians.

2. How I Found Journalling

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

The standard christian disciplines don’t seem to work for me. Somehow they just don’t fit. They seem to work well enough for others, but they are not me!

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

I’ll read a Bible passage and write my response to it.

• Do it.

It goes far better than I expected. The writing flows easily. I find that if I pursue what comes up – however ‘unspiritual’ I judge it to be – I end up with a sense of spirit being present with me. (And if I don’t it doesn’t!)

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

Yes. Over time I have tried other things. Some of which have been great. I now use journalling in slightly different ways to assist my thinking and work through my feelings as well.

• Rest

I have found a way that works for me and which I keep practising for years to come.

Conclusion
I think spirituality is one dimension of our lives. If it was better looked after I think may people would live much richer and satisfying lives.

I think spirituality is one dimension of our lives. If you have a sense of purpose and your values you can still have problems if you eat crap and don’t look after your body. People with a real sense of connection to spirit can be shoddy in their thinking and poor at relating to others. (Reading biographies of those with a strong sense of spirituality can be very instructive).

In my experience an authentic spirituality brings a satisfaction that nothing else does.

I would like to hear about your sense of purpose and values. And if you have ways of connecting with this and maintaining it. I realise this is an area where there is much disagreement, all comments are most welcome – hostile critique is welcome too. Looking forward to hearing your experience.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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Anything sent to me for review is on the understanding that I write whatever I like about it. Rebecca had no problems with this condition.

Introduction
In this review I will first give my overall assessment, then some quibbles which you can skip, and finally a more detailed review.

Overall Assessment
This is a really good book. Not just for those who are success driven or whose marriage is having difficulties but for anyone who wants to enjoy their marriage more.

It is easy to read, uses the story of a typical couple (John and Mary) to ground the ideas in real life, has summaries at the end of the chapters for easy reference and exercises so you can use the ideas in your marriage.

I recommend it highly and without significant reservations.

Quibbles

• Success. By success these writers mean high paying prestige jobs such as the professions. The kind of jobs that demand long hours and co-operative spouses (usually a wife). I don’t really buy into these kinds of ideas.
• Its Social Limitations. The people this is written for are well off and secure. The book inhabits this world. It is a different universe to Occupy Wall Street, environmental activism or polyamory. You don’t go to books to improve your marriage for these kinds of things, and certainly not ones aimed at the success driven, but if you aren’t part of the class this book is aimed at you will probably have a few moments of dislike. This shouldn’t get in the way of you benefitting from the book. This is a quibble not a major problem.
• Lack of social critique. This book is about your marriage requiring work and being prioritised above work and acquiring prestige. They do describe the pressures that modern marriages are put under. However, there is no questioning of the existing forms of professionalism or work practises that create these pressures to put work and prestige before marriage or people in general. The responses asked for are individual. However, this kind of critique probably isn’t what people are looking for in books about improving their marriage.
• Cliches. The book is structured partly around the story of a couple who go to marriage counselling – there are two endings, one where they stay together and one where they separate. Occasionally the couple seems to be too cliched to be real.
• The view of counselling. The writers seem to have a view of counselling that is quite directive and professionalised. This is never questioned. The therapist dealing with the couple tells them what to do to save their marriage and expects them to comply. I don’t disagree with the advice given but aren’t entirely comfortable with this view of therapy. Most people are comfortable with this way of doing therapy and this is the way that most therapists work, my view is a minority one (which I think is correct).

Detailed Review
This book is aimed at those who have achieved conventional success in their careers. And who have done it in the conventional way – which means by maintaining and exerting control. Which has lead to failure in their marriage – spouses don’t like being managed and controlled.

So what does make for a good marriage? They list five essentials:

1. equality between the partners
2. making the marriage a priority
3. effective communication and conflict resolution
4. forgiveness
5. intimacy

They also list the six main relationship killers:

1. emotional unawareness
2. overly strong achievement drive
3. perfectionism
4. criticising
5. attempting to control your partner
6. allowing your partner to control you

Each of the essentials for a good marriage and the six killers are grounded with examples of what it means for couples and self assessment exercises. This material is never left abstract, the authors are good at explaining the material and giving assessments to see how it applies to your relationship.

There also have a good chapter (ch.6) on How You Got Your Personality Issues. Which fills in the background on why people want to achieve success – and why people fall in love with those who want to achieve success. This adds depth to the analysis.

The guts of the book – the part about rebuilding your marriage – are chapters 8 and 9. Chapter Eight explains what marriage therapy is like and chapter nine tells the story of the typical couple (John and Mary) going to marriage counselling.

In brief the process to rescue a marriage is to resolve conflict, forgiveness, build trust and rebuild intimacy. They give a seven stage process for conflict resolution (p.116) that is simple and straightforward and offers good guidance on how to do it. The authors also give lists of behaviours on how to do each of the essentials for a good marriage (pp.125-7). There is lots of good practical advice on what to do and how to do it.

In Conclusion
If your marriage is in strife because one of you is driven to achieve success this is probably the book for you. If you are having a few problems in your marriage there is much here that could be very helpful.

If you are pretty happy with your marriage and want some ways to strengthen it, then you will probably want to skip lots, but there is still stuff to benefit from on conflict resolution and the checklist of behaviours for the essentials of a good marriage.

If you have found other books that have benefitted your marriage please let me know in the comments to this post.  I’d like to know and others will benefit too, thanks, Evan.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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Our curiosity and intellect and ability to understand is wonderful and extraordinary.

This has been beautifully put by a physicist, Richard Feynman – when discussing the value of getting a Nobel Prize he said:

The prize is the pleasure of finding a thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it – those are the real things.
[http://home.primus.ca/~remedy3/THE%20PERENNIAL%20QUEST.htm]

Unfortunately for all our obsession with intellect we are rarely taught how to think. If we are it is usually a course in logic and won’t involve creativity or how to design a solution. I have written about this (especially creativity) many times on this blog. A good course in thinking that embraces all these is Edward de Bono’s CoRT Thinking Program. (http://www.cortthinking.com/) There are no doubt many others. [Please let me know of any you know of in the comments to this post.]

Authenticity may not feel relevant to our intellectual life, but I think it is vital. We need to think about our own problems, devise our own solutions, formulate our own ideas – all this is part of a satisfying life. This doesn’t preclude learning from others, it means that we genuinely learn and make what we learn our own.

Put as briefly as I can here is the killer app – authenticity leading to satisfaction.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
• Look for options of what you can do about it.
• Do it.
• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?
• Rest

Applied to our intellectual experience this goes something like:

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

Something isn’t going right. I keep doing the same thing and it doesn’t work out. I don’t know what I am doing (or what I think I’m doing doesn’t lead to the result I expect).

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

I can look for holes in my knowledge and ways to learn more about the field where things aren’t working for me. I can ask friends with experiences similar to mine. I can perhaps hire a personal coach or teacher. I can check that I am implementing what I already understand. I can try and get more specific about where the problems arise more precisely.

• Do it.

I choose one of these options to address what is going wrong and pursue. If it is a major project this could take years. If it is a minor technical detail it may take a few minutes.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

Information can be fascinating, knowledge can be seductive. We need to check that what we have learned deals with what was bugging us. (This can involve us seeing our initial problem in a new way – or even finding out that the problem wasn’t what we thought it was.)

• Rest

Rushing and trying to understand everything will lead to exhaustion. Take time to rest.

Here is a small example.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

A venue for a group I belong too (sports club, church or whatever) is getting a bit untidy and dirty.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

If the group has the money we can employ cleaners. We can organise a working bee. I can ask others how come the place gets untidy and dirty. This time I decide to pay some people to do the cleaning.

• Do it.

I organise the cleaners and check the job they did.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

They did well, good job. However, we can’t afford to employ cleaners regularly.

• Rest

There is some time before we need to figure out what we are going to do to keep the place clean and tidy.

A Personal Example
When I was doing a youth work course we did a little on management. One exercise was to plan the moving of the furniture from the room we were in to the one next door: establishing what things would be done and in which order. If you need to be convinced of the need to use our intellect to think things through, do this exercise. You will be surprised at how useful it is to show the usefulness of our ability to plan and organise. Even if you don’t think you need convincing it is probably worth spending 15 minutes doing it.

The beauty and power of our intellect can be extraordinary. It is one essential part of living a satisfying life.

Do you take pleasure in finding things out? Do you think you tend to overestimate or underestimate the importance of your intellect? If so, what kind of consequences does this have for you? Let me know in the comments.

Coming Soon: The steps to a satisfying life. An online course that takes you from where you are and shows you a path to lasting satisfaction.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch. There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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My kind of blog tends to have two audiences. Those who follow me (that is get each new post sent to them in a reader or by email – there are buttons for this in the sidebar – or bookmark my site and look at it regularly) and those who find a particlar post through the search engines.

This post is about me and my recent thinkings and doings and the blog in general; it is mostly for my regular readers (‘followers’). So if you got here from a search on ‘update from evan’ and this isn’t what you expected, my apologies; the next post will be back to my normal topical posts on self development – satisfaction from authenticity.

How Things Are With Me
The first group of people are just about to finish the 40 Reminders course. This is a brief email each day for forty days reminding you to check in with your experience. It is my way of giving the easiest possible first step to living authentically and so experiencing more satisfaction. I am waiting a little nervously to see what feedback people have. The worst possible is no feedback at all but I hope it is mostly positive (although negative at least lets me know what to improve and how much improvement is needed).

I am starting to write my ‘signature program’ (this is a piece of jargon that means roughly, the program that sets out the core of what you are about). It will be [So Many] Steps to Authenticity. How many I’m not sure yet. Should starting at rest be a step of it’s own or is the first step our awareness of some disturbance? And then there is whether a general survery should be a separate step from the more narrow focus that follows it. My approach to these things is to keep writing and the right decision tends to become obvious.

Personally there are some renovations going on where I live and I’m feeling a bit in suspended animation. I’m waiting to see what happens with some stuff that friends are going through too. So I’m feeling a bit detached, not unpleasantly; the feeling is quite mellow. Perhaps in response to this I’m feeling that I want to go deeper into stillness (this sounds pretentious to me). When I’m more centred I’m also more in touch and responsive, which sounds contradictory I guess. It is a quite dynamic kind of stillness.

So that’s how things are going for me? How’s life with you?  Looking forward to hearing from you in the comments.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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I think our society lives to fast for us to know how we feel. I think this leads to physical distress and poor relationships.

I don’t mean that our lives are too fast for our feelings – these can be very quick, almost immediate. It takes little time to be overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunset, flower, or member of our preferred gender.

I mean that we live to fast to know our feelings. For us to realise what we are feeling and to let us influence our thinking and doing.

Our Emotions Provide Important Information
I think it is important to pay attention to our feelings because they are information. (Not absolutely reliable 100% right all the time kind of information – but information that is worth paying attention to. I don’t know of any way to get information that is always accurate.)

• If we are afraid we may be in danger
• If we are angry something we value may have been insulted or threatened.
• If we are happy something good for us may be occurring
• If we are sad we may be loosing something valuable.

Or not.

Instead of our emotional response being to what is going on it may be to something that happened long ago.

• Do I need to be scared of most big dogs? Probably not. I am wary of them because I was scared by one walking home from infants school (grades 1 and 2) one afternoon.
• I may feel angry because of the way I was treated in the past.
• I may be happy because something reminds of a happy time I once had.
• I may be sad because I’m reminded of a past loss.

And we can be mistaken.

• That animal I thought I swerved to avoid while driving turned out to be a piece of paper.
• I misheard what someone said and so didn’t need to feel angry
• I may not pay close enough attention and so be happy for no reason
• It may be that I am not actually losing something, I just thought I was.

Our emotions are not infallible, they are valuable and provide us with information. To live a satisfying life we need to be open to the information that they give us.

• Our fear alerts us to possible danger.
• Our anger alerts us to what is valuable to us.
• Our sadness alerts us to what is being lost that we value.
• Our happiness lets us know what suits us.

If we listen to our emotions we can become clearer on our needs and values. And these can become more deeply a part of our life. Which is essential for satisfaction.

Being Moved by Our Emotions
Knowing what we are feeling is not enough for a satisfying life. We also need to put our emotions into motion. More precisely we need to not stop ourselves putting our emotions into motion.

Because our emotions are partly muscular.

• Fear affects our breathing and stomach.
• Anger is a contraction of particular muscles, readying them for action.
• Sadness usually involves softening around our eyes.
• Happiness involves a kind of relaxation.

Sometimes we stop these muscular actions. Sometimes we get so good and quick at this that we really aren’t aware of feeling fearful or angry, happy or sad. We will say in all honesty that, “I don’t feel [whatever the emotion is]”. Usually this stopping of the feeling will mean holding our breath and tightening other muscles as well (perhaps anal sphincter or throat or jaw or back).

To live an emotionally satisfying life our emotions need to flow. Which brings us to authenticity.

We need to not only know our feeling, our feeling needs to relate to the world around us – and in two ways.

1. Our feeling needs to be a response to what is genuinely going on (not being mistaken or triggering something in the past), and,
2. Our feeling needs to be expressed in a way that relates to where we are and what is going on.

I talked about mistakes and responses to past events above. Expression is the other side of the story.  Which brings us to authenticity – knowing what is going on in ourselves and in our environment, and having these two fitting well.

Authenticity is The Killer App for Emotional Satisfaction
Here is the app in brief:

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
• Look for options of what you can do about it.
• Do it.
• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?
• Rest

I’ll apply this to a couple of small emotional moments. I hope that this will convey to you; that it is easy to have a slightly more satisfying emotional life, and, that it will give you an easy place to start if you want to begin to make bigger changes to the amount of satisfaction you feel in your emotional life.

 
Anger

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

I’ve stopped and clenched my jaw. Or I am feeling stunned. It happened when a remark was made. I feel like lashing out or making a cutting remark. I’m angry.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

I can keep my thoughts to myself. I can allow my jaw to loosen without hitting or demeaning anybody. I can tell this person I want to speak to them later. I can say what I think loudly and in no uncertain terms. I decide now is not the time but I tell them I want to speak to them later.

• Do it.

Later I tell the person what I got upset about. They apologise.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

That went well. Breathe out, feel the relief, and the pleasure of being clear and having a good relationship with the other person.

• Rest

Feel the relaxation, how easy it is to breathe and the muscular relaxation.

Happiness
Happiness is a state of ease and relaxation, so we tend not to look at it closely when we are experiencing it. Which is understandable, but knowing what makes us happy is valuable to live a more satisfying life.

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

[I suppose that isn't the best way of putting things for happiness. Maybe it would be better put as: What's going on?]
I’m feeling light and relaxed. My breathing is easy and my shoulders aren’t raised.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

I could go for a walk, ring a friend, lie down for a few minutes.

• Do it.

I ring my friend and we talk for a while about how we are feeling at the moment.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

Yes, that was a nice call. My friend was happy, there was no misunderstandings, neither of us are dealing with major dramas in our lives.

• Rest

I take a moment to enjoy the good feeling before moving on to the next thing.

 
Conclusion
Our culture really doesn’t encourage us to be in touch with our feelings. It doesn’t educate us to know what we are feeling and it doesn’t educate to know how to express our feelings well. I think a lot of the drugs (legal and illegal, substances and experiences) we use are due to this hostility to our emotions.
Do you find that you have trouble knowing that you are feeling some feelings? Have you found ways to express particular feelings that you had trouble with? I would love to hear your experience in the comments.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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• Politics is dominated by economics. As is the ‘political’ commentary in the mainstream media. There are entire industries devoted to how we look – whole shops devoted to our nails!
• Diets are promoted not for health so much as losing weight to look better (thinner. Perhaps the obsession with thinness is because screens make us look larger, and we spend an awful lot of time looking at screens; but that is just a wild speculation of mine.)
• The cults of youth and fitness are usually put in decidedly physical terms. When was the last time you read of the latest compassion or equality fad?

Which you would think would lead to;

• Buildings of great beauty,
• Suburbs that were a delight to live in,
• Furniture that felt exactly right and that was designed to accommodate us physically, and,
• Workplaces that we left feeling better than when we arrived.

And yet . . .

Our physical lives are full of stress and misery.

Perhaps it is not so quiet now but many still live lives of desperation.  Instead of being able to slow down so we aren’t stressed we are encouraged to tranquillise ourselves – with pills or cultural activities or sport or meditation or whatever (all of which can be very good things I think).

So I want to suggest that not only is our culture obsessed with pleasure it is also obsessed with punishing ourselves, especially our physical selves.
Those who push themselves to endure pain are admired, not regarded as foolish or in need of psychotherapy. An Australian Olympic Swimmer, Ian Thorpe, has described pushing himself in training to the point of needing to get out of the pool to vomit. (And yes, self development of which I am a part, is also guilty of this.)

Perhaps the worst normal example of this is the moralising and vicious judgements directed to those who are ‘overweight’ (on a scale devised from averages).

So I want to say something that may seem contradictory – I want people to be less concerned with the physical and to experience greater physical ease and pleasure.

My own view is that the obsession with the physical is to cover a lack. Perhaps most often a lack of nurturing and nourishing relationships; and perhaps also lack of a sense of meaning or spirituality. You can’t get enough of what doesn’t satisfy your need. Doing a PB (personal best) won’t help your relationship with your beloved or child. That taste sensation of a meal won’t help you relate any better to your colleague. I like good food and there is nothing wrong with achieving a PB, but when we use those to meet needs that we can’t meet then we get obsession.

In the last post I suggested that authenticity was the killer app for a satisfying life. In this post I want to apply the app to our physical lives.

In brief the app goes like this:

1. Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
2. Look for options of what you can do about it.
3. Do it.
4. Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?
5. Rest

We have various physical needs to meet if we are to thrive. These are healthy air, food, drink, movement, rest and touch.

These needs vary slightly from person to person; which brings us to authenticity. We need to know our own needs to thrive physically, and we need to be able to understand and relate to our environment effectively in order to meet them.

I will give a couple of simple examples of how to use this app – not because it doesn’t apply to big things but because it is easiest to start with small and easy things. I’ll do food first and then movement.

[Philosophical Disclaimer: focusing on the physical doesn't mean that our physical life isn't affected by our thoughts, feelings, relationships or spirituality. It just means that for this post I am focusing on one aspect of who we are.]

Food

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

An empty feeling in my stomach that I recognise as hunger.

• Look for options of what you can do about it.

Looking in the cupboards and fridge, perhaps considering going out to get something. Decide to heat leftovers.

• Do it.

Heat and eat the leftovers.

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?

Check in with your stomach. You may feel like something else, perhaps a hot drink or something else to eat. Or you may feel satisfied.

• Rest

Take a moment or a few minutes to allow digestion.

Movement

• Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?

Feeling a bit antsy and stiff sitting in this chair in front of the computer.

• Look for options of what you can do about it

Shoulder rolls; stretch; get up and walk around the room; go for a quick, brisk walk. Decide I don’t have time for a walk so I will get up and take a few steps in the room.

• Do it.

I get up and walk around the room

• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied

Check whether you are feeling lighter and more relaxed or still a bit antsy and stiff.

• Rest

Take a few seconds to rest before getting back to work on the computer.

Conclusion
For most of us reading this (relatively wealthy – in world terms – people) there are things we can do to look after ourselves better physically. There are things we can do to increase the amount of physical ease and pleasure that we experience.

I would like to hear any experiences you have of when you have found what suited you physically. Let me know in the comments.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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There has always been more to know than we can understand (the world has always been bigger than our mind) but we now have access to this information more easily than we ever did before.

The problem

• Data is not information
• Information is not knowledge
• Knowledge is not wisdom

The sheer volume of information available can become a problem. We google a term (say information or happiness, or, cats playing pianos) and can get millions of hits. You could spend the rest of your life reading the pages returned on one simple google search.

The killer app
Which leads to the development of the killer app. That thing which does exactly what we want it to do incredibly well.

Because we aren’t really most interested in information. I think Edward de Bono was right when he said that information is now a commodity, like wheat or water. Important certainly, but not what we are ultimately most interested in (which for these examples would be having enough to eat and drink).

So from all this information we want to distill wisdom. We want the killer app for a particular job we want to get done.

Probably the most widespread killer app on the web is the google search engine. You type something in to the search box and you get results related to your word sorted by relevance.

A killer app can be the result of incredibly sophisticated understanding and design (like the google search engine) or hacking. (“Hacking” is computer-geek-speak for finding the direct way to do something well enough to be useful. It may not be pretty but it gets the job done. It can be going around a problem rather than dealing with it. Cutting the Gordian Knot is hacking.)

Satisfaction
I think it is better to live in a satisfying way. In the self development blogosphere there is lots of information about how to do this. You could easily spend your life reading self development blogs. So what we need is the killer app. I call it living authentically.

Authenticity
By authenticity I don’t mean just self-knowledge (knowing who we are, our strengths and weaknesses, values, and abilities) or even integrity (being true to our values and commitments). Authenticity also means dealing with our situation. Kidding ourselves about how good or bad our situation is does not lead to authenticity. Authenticity means not being deluded about who we are or where we are.

Living authentically is the killer app to live a satisfying life
Authenticity is the meeting of me and my situation. When we get good at responding to our situation satisfaction is the result.

As briefly as I can put it, here is living authentically – the killer app for a satisfying life, in five points.

1. Ask yourself: What’s bugging me?
Spend a while to make sure you get at the real problem. Eg. Having failed my exam might be the first thing that comes to mind but wanting to feel good about myself or to get into a profession might be the real answer.

2. Look for options of what you can do about it.
The first thing that comes to mind may be the best. However there are usually six options. The more important what is bugging you is the more you will want to consider various options.

3. Do it.
This may be simple or it may involve learning. The more involved the learning the more important it is to measure your progress.

4. Ask yourself: Am I satisfied?
This is important. Take time to assess whether you are satisfied. Perhaps you are satisfied in some ways and not in others. The more you can learn from your experience the more likely you are to have a satisfying life.

5. Rest
If things went well; celebrate. If things went badly; you will want to think about this in detail and perhaps do something different. If you have a problem there is no solution to (your loved one has died, the relationship is ended, there is no way to do what you wanted to) you will need to mourn.

And then you will be able to rest. Rest is essential, without it we are stressed and dissatisfied.

And then your rest will be disturbed by something. Something will start bugging you. So that the process of finding satisfaction begins again.

In more detail.
This is the briefest way I can devise to guide you to a life of satisfaction.

• If you would like to know more detail about living authentically I have a series of eight posts you can read, starting with this one.
• For a more extended explanation of the process and some exercises to do you can download my manifesto.  There is a link at the bottom of this post and a graphic you can click on by clicking on in the sidebar to the right of this post.
• You can get a brief email series that takes you through the process by subscribing to my newsletter.  There is a box where you can sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this post.  There is also a link in the sidebar to the right of this post.  The newsletters are different content to the posts on this blog.  They are usually about one easy thing to do for you to have a more satisfying life.  I send them out weekly.  (Usually on a Sunday, Sydney, Australia time.)
• The simplest way I could think of to give you a sense of your own authenticity is to send you a daily reminder. You can get a reminder each day for forty days by buying this email course of 40 Reminders.
• If you want the process laid out in detail and lots of exercises then you can buy the Living Authentically book.

Questions wanted
The point of a killer app is that it is obvious what to do and directly meets the need. I hope these simple steps are the killer app for living a satisfying life.

If you have any questions I’d love to hear them. Please leave them in the comments.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

 If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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WHAT IS IT?

1. Transactional Analysis

Transactional Analysis (TA) was developed by Eric Berne and his collaborators in the 50′s and 60′s. It is based on the transactions people engage in. The unit of these transactions (words, signs, touch) is called a stroke. A transaction is any exchange of strokes.

These strokes can be given and received by a person in three modes – parent (internalised from the environment when young), adult (responding the here and now), and child (as if we were younger – probably younger than age 12).

As the result of the strokes we received as children we developed particular ‘favourite feelings’ – called ‘stamps’ in TA because we tend to collect them as people collected trading stamps in the US in the 50′s and 60′s.

2. Scripting

TA talks about us having a ‘life script’ – a now unconscious story that we tend to live out. It is now unconscious but is the result of our learning and decisions while we were young (probably under eight years old, definitely under 12).

We are born with few instincts and not knowing much. The result is that we need to learn, and we can only learn from those around us.

And so we gradually learn about ourselves and those around us and how to get the goodies (or avoid being punished) – how our interaction with those around us can lead to security and pleasure (or not). Our life script is a story with the answers to these three questions:

• Who am I?
• Who are these others?
• What do I need to do to thrive/survive?

Gradually this learning becomes part of us – becomes attitudes and strategies that are unconscious. Often these attitudes and strategies remain throughout our lives.

Possible Problems

There are two possible problems with our life script:

1. The attitudes and strategies we usually rely on were developed by a child. Which leads to slogans like, “Don’t let a four year old make your decisions for you”. A four year old deserves, care, nurture and respect; but they don’t know enough to make decisions about your life.

Usually our self development is getting better at these strategies. Which leads to the judgemental and cynical saying that, “People don’t want to change – they want to be better neurotics”. I think there is truth in this. Put more positively, It doesn’t make sense to do unnecessary work. Or, perhaps therapists need to communicate more clearly to their client what the change is they think their client needs to make and the kind of work that might be involved.

2. Our attitudes and strategies were developed in a limited environment.

This was essential. If we were exposed to the whole world we wouldn’t be able to survive. However, it means that we will likely be unprepared for some aspects of the world we move into.

This becomes a problem especially for those who grew up in a stable and homogenous environment. If you grew up in a religious family, went to a school run by those of the same religion and largely socialised with those from this religion then it can be a shock when you get to uni. All of a sudden there are people who don’t do things as you do, and don’t see the slightest reason why they should. And they can quite forcefully tell you that what you do is both wrong and foolish. It is possible that you will be ill equipped to thrive in this new environment.

Which Means . . .

that the answers we developed to,

• Who am I?
• Who are these others?, and,
• What do I need to do to thrive or survive?

will likely be at least partly wrong.

Which is easy to say and understand intellectually. To modify and update these early answers can be tough going. These things really feel like they are part of us or that it is simply who we are. To change these things can feel like dying (I am not exaggerating).

I think there is much we can do to make the changing easier but it is quite possible you will be surprised by how strong your feelings can be in response to a suggestion that you change.

You Are More Than You Knew

When we were young we didn’t know all that we were capable of. And we didn’t know that there were lots of places where people did things differently.

So if we stick with our script (our answers to those three questions) we will limit ourselves (in my experience hugely). We will have a limited understanding of who we are, a poor perception of who others are, and a quite limited series of strategies for living well.

In other words

• You are more than you knew
• Others are more than you knew
• There are more ways of thriving/surviving than you knew.

Which Doesn’t Mean That What You Know Is Wrong or Not Useful

Even if you had a very abusive or misleading upbringing there is still probably lots of normal stuff you learned that is helpful to you.

• How to speak your first language.
• Physical co-ordination like walking, running, jumping.
• Organising to get things done.
• The social codes of your group.
• Probably at least some stuff about what you are interested in (hobbies, sports and so on).

And if you did need to adapt to an abusive environment you learned how to survive this. Thankfully, most people don’t need to do this – but it is valuable to know what you learned as a result.

I want to be careful and clear what I say here. I am not for a moment suggesting that any abuse you suffered was good to have suffered because of the strengths and abilities you developed as a result. The best way to learn is with loving and intelligent guidance. An abusive and stressful situation is the worst way to learn anything. What I am saying is that you deserve the credit for being able to learn and grow in an awful situation. That you were strong, resourceful and intelligent enough to learn and grow despite all the impediments put in your way.

FINDING WHAT YOUR SCRIPT IS

Our past learning is both a treasure house to draw from and a set of limitations. If we can recognise the limitations then we will be able to draw more readily on what we have and develop more of what we need. We will be able to live a life that is deeply satisfying.

TA’s scripting is the single best way I know to get a good sense of how we use our past to limit our present perceptions and actions. So here we go.

Making Sense

Your script may not make sense to you now. It may even puzzle you why you do things a certain way or why you react very strongly to particular things.

• Why is it I have trouble with that person (or that sort of person)?
• Why do I keep doing that (when it goes badly every time)?
• Why can’t I be like [whoever] who doesn’t have this trouble and handles [whatever it is] easily?

Your script did make sense at the time you developed it. And it will make it easier to understand and change it if you understand how it did make sense.

If you can recall your childhood, try these things.

1. Remember as vividly as you can the big events that had an impact on you. The places, the people, the events (sights, sounds, touch, taste, smells). If there are lots go through them one at a time, you don’t have to do this all in one go.

2. Remember how you and those around you responded when things got tough.

• Was the situation analysed?
• Was it a call to focus and act?
• Was there resignation in the face of ‘what can’t be helped’.
• Was there confidence that ‘we’ll get through this’?
• Was there anxiety and uncertainty?

Recall as many specific words and actions as you can.

3. The next part is harder. Try to remember normal life. Not the big things but the little things.

• What a normal day was like (if there were normal days).
• Family rituals – cleaning your teeth, bathing, family meals, recreation.
• Did you spend time reading or daydreaming?
• What you did withfriends
• Did you enjoy being inside or outside more?
• Were there family relatives or friends that you like and disliked (if so what was it you liked or disliked about them?)

If you can’t remember your childhood, try these things.

1. Take note of how you respond in stressful situations. You will probably find that you handle them differently to how you handle situations that you find easy to deal with. Note your feelings and responses.

• Do you freeze? (my usual first reaction).
• Perhaps aggression is your preference or
• leaving or distancing yourself whether by leaving or detaching internally may be your preferred response.

2. Take note of how you respond when you get sick. What are your emotions and actions?

• Ignore it?
• Use discipline to not give in to it?
• Nurture yourself?
• Take time out?
• Do everything you can to maintain as much of your normal activity as possible?
• Take the opportunity to do things you don’t normally do?

3. Pay attention to what gives you sensory pleasure (even if it is something that you judge as bad. We are just observing for now, judging comes after you have found out what is actually going on.). The more intense the better.

4. Recall any times where you have felt elated, or freed. Specify in detail how these times and places were different to your usual life.

In each of these situations it is likely that you feel younger than your chronological age and how old you usually feel. You will probably feel similarly to the way you felt as a child and you may find yourself thinking in ways that you thought as a child and acted as a child.

If you aren’t good at remembering your childhood or paying attention to the details of your experience, you can try using imagination and creativity.

1. Set a short time period. Say 3 or 5 minutes. In it you are going to write a fairy tale.

• You start with, “Once upon a time”, and write so fast you don’t have time to stop and think.
• When the time is up or nearly up write the ending in a sentence or two.
• If the ending is unhappy take a minute to write a happy one.

2. Imagine your perfect home and family. (Unless being a hermit is what feels best for you. In which case imagine your perfect hermitage and how it relates to the outside world and other people – if you would like it too.)

3. Imagine someone is going to impersonate you. You have to give them instructions on how to play you. Not just what to do, but how to feel and think; so that they really know what it is like to be you.

All of these exercises are to give you a good sense of what your script is. From doing these exercises you should get a good sense of your answers to the questions:

• Who am I?
• Who are these others?
• What do I need to do to thrive (or survive)?

GETTING FREE OF YOUR SCRIPTING

While doing these exercises you may have thought of things you want to do, new ways that you want to think or feel. These are important and valuable, the provide crucial and vital information – and may be wrong (don’t let a four year old run your life. Your life should honour the importance of your inner four year old but there needs to be space for the older parts of you too – adult abuse is not a good substitute for child abuse).

If you don’t have a good sense of what you want beyond the limitations of your script here are some things to try.

1. What are the things that would feel great but that you judge to be unrealistic?

Perhaps they are genuinely impossible – if so they probably contain a longing that is real and worth paying attention to. I remember being in a therapy group when a therapist challenged us with this sort of thing and I thought, It is impossible to walk to Saturn – and immediately had a flash of me walking around on Saturn’s bright rainbow coloured rings. It was intensely beautiful.

But perhaps they aren’t. Are there people that have or do these things or live in the way that you judge to be unrealistic? Could you become like these people or do or have these things with some work? Perhaps it would be too much work but that is different to it not being possible. If you don’t know how to attain these things it may be possible to find out. (Google is your friend, there are innumerable books and courses out there, friends and other people to ask and employ. It should be possible to get some sense of where to find out how to do something and how much work it may take.)

2. Set a brief time period, a few seconds or a few minutes, in which you can do whatever you like. It could be:

• daydreaming
• going for a walk
• dancing freely
• resting
• talking to a friend
• meditation
• writing in your journal
• eating delicious food
• planning a project
• expressing a little of a long suppressed feeling
• reading a book
• playing a game
• . . .

After this time period is over contemplate how you could have more periods in your life like this. Times where you get to try out things, see what you want to do, get to do just whatever is right for you.

3. Get clearer on your values.  Here are some thought starters.

• What is the most important way that the world needs to change?
• If you were to give instructions to an adolescent about to start making their way in the world what would you tell them?
• What do you feel that Life/God/The Universe is asking of you?
• What do you feel better after doing?
• What is it that you just don’t like compromising on?
• Tell a friend about what you think is most important in life (or imagine doing so).

SMALL STEPS AND CELEBRATIONS

Once you have a sense of where you want to head then it is time to take the first step in this direction.

This will be new – so you won’t be able to know in advance how it will turn out. There is no reason to scare yourself or push yourself. You don’t want to set yourself up for a fall. Do something you are pretty confident about. Then celebrate. It is the first step on a path taking you to a free-er and more satisfying life. It may not be a big distance but it is in a quite different direction. So it is worth celebrating.

Reward yourself at every step on your journey of a free-er and more satisfying life. You don’t need to let anyone else know if you don’t want to – you may just want to have a sit down and a cup of tea or coffee, or just acknowledge to yourself what you have done. If you want to you can ask everyone you know to celebrate with you. But you don’t need to.

Further Reading. Still the most accessible introduction to TA is James’ and Jongeward’s Born to Win (many cheap copies available on Amazon). It is easily the most accessible self therapy book I know. Clear explanations and lots of exercises that clearly relate to the text and can lead to significant change. It’s a gem.

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To find out how to live authentically you can download my manifesto.

It has exercises that will help you experience what authenticity means for you and so experience a more satisfying life.

If you would like me to write about some aspect of living an authentic life please don’t hesitate to get in touch.  There is a box in the sidebar where you can leave this anonymously if you wish.

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