World Champion August 20, 2013

Singles Final Start

Singles Final Start

I have recently returned from Europe where I competed in the World Masters Games in rowing and won the single sculls for my age group.  With a terrible start in the final in which I was down two boat lengths from the rest of the competition, I rowed to the front and had a decisive, 1 ½ boat length, win.

It was the culmination of a very focused and intense training program plus some good coaching from Olympic gold medalist Xeno Muller.  But what I want to share about is the wonderful support I had from Diane during all the hard days of training when I was tired and took naps and unavailable for hours of the day.  Diane always had a supportive comment when I was discouraged, made snacks and power drinks to make sure I was eating enough and generally took good care of me.

Also we were able to organize our European trip around my regatta in Henley on Thames, England, training at Lake Annecy, France and the championship regatta in Torino, Italy.  For almost three weeks during our trip Diane could practice her French making it a win/win for us both.

While it takes focus and dedication to my training regimen, I am convinced that Diane’s non-demanding support of me was a critical element in the formula for my athletic success.

Medals

Medals

Dealing with upsets

TRYING TO SOLVE UPSETS AT THE WRONG LEVEL
April 30, 2013

If you try to solve an upset by changing the circumstances or trying to change the other person (“Don’t ever do that to me again”) then you are actually solving the problem at the wrong level – at the level of the external environment, rather than where the upset resides – inside yourself.

So when you are upset, the first move is to stop, breathe, and start to observe the nature of the upset. “What am I feeling? When was an earlier time when I had similar feelings? Where does this upset originate?” These are the types of questions that will unlock the upset and create a whole new level of connection and relaxed intimacy with your partner and freedom to be your Self.

I always find that my first reaction when I am upset in Diane’s and my relationship is, “Diane should change”. And I don’t have to even be very upset, just a little annoyed, like when my blood sugar is low (and really I need to eat something) and something which normally wouldn’t bother me, now does.

A laughable recent example. When I cook and do dishes, I mostly wash things right away after I use them or if I need a fork, I will wash the dirty fork I just used and then reuse it. Diane just gets another fork out of the drawer and ends up with multiple forks to be washed, often by me when she does the cooking.

I resisted saying anything about it for a while as it was SOOOO petty! But then I finally broached the subject and we talked about it. We have plenty of forks and of course it turns out that it is more efficient to wash all the forks at once and it also saves water. So I am now changing my ways and using a few more forks!

However, I was actually annoyed and if I had suppressed it, I would have started to lose the authentic transparency, which is the foundation of our relationship. My annoyance stemmed from a misguided desire for efficiency and not wasting things as in “why don’t you use just one fork like me?” At least that is how my adult mind justified being “legitimately” upset.

As Diane tends to be tidier than I am, I could not complain about orderliness or cleanliness. I knew the upset linked to some programming of mine, some way it should be, and like a little child, I was internally throwing a mild tantrum because reality (what Diane did) didn’t fit my picture of how it should be. So I started looking into where the programming originated.

Once again the upset had the “This isn’t it or this isn’t how it should be” element and of course I felt a “victim” of all those forks in the sink! It went back to an early trauma where I felt out of control and helpless in the midst of life’s chaos and then later was punished for being messy. Later, I compensated by having everything in order and not wanting anyone to touch my stuff. These memories and feelings all surfaced, as I looked deeper.

Seeing where the annoyance came from and recognizing my own fallacious thinking, I was able to easily let it go. And now we joke that Diane’s major fault is that she uses too many forks!

I am happy to say that in our life, we mostly deal with these little encumbrances to being in present time. There are no lasting dramas, upsets or residual resentments because we keep talking until it is all unravelled. Yet, I find I must always be on guard for my ego/mind trying to hook me into “this isn’t it” and to prevent me from having a good time in life. I am committed to ending that pattern.

Otherwise my life and our relationship are wonderful and better than I ever imagined it could be. I think I am struggling with being able to hold or let in just how good it is – and that can be a topic for another blog.

All the very best in life.

Living the Awakened Life

THE AWAKENED RELATIONSHIP

I have resisted doing a blog until our book, “Falling in Love Backwards” was out in the world.  Now I am committing to writing once a week so that I can answer the questions that people have about Diane’s and my book or my earlier book “Living Awake.”

I will also describe some of the upsets Diane and I go through and how we have been able to resolve them.  One thing I am clear about is that the Awakened Life or Enlightened Life is not devoid of upsets.  Rather it is about resolving current issues so they do not continue to plague you and then being open to deeper, more fundamental issues arising.

An interesting observation is that each dysfunctional pattern, a product of some earlier conditioning or decision made by us when we were children or perhaps even in the DNA of being a man or woman, always first reveals itself in the form of an upset.  Even though I am now awake to myself, observing myself in action in the world, the first indication that I am off track from who I want to be is that I am upset.  This is the entry point for the process that follows.  So do not deny or ignore your upsets.  They are the door to freedom.  Freedom to be your Self, and to choose how you want to BE.

All upsets have as their nature, being out of present time.  In an upset you are reliving or rerunning an earlier incident from your past.  You are unconsciously putting your life energy through some programmed pattern. Also upsets (your mind) are telling you, “I don’t like the way it is right now.  It should be different if he/she loves me. I don’t like what he or she is doing or what he or she did.  If they change I will be happier.  I want something different.”  So the very nature of upsets is “This isn’t it.”

Now if you are not upset and want something to change then you take some action, from a neutral position, to change the circumstances.   But in an upset, we find ourselves a victim to our own programming and it almost always looks like we are victims of the circumstance or the other person’s actions.  So there has to be both the “This isn’t it” and “I feel like a victim” for it to be an upset. Of course as evolved beings we don’t want to admit even to ourselves that we are victims, but it is the starting point as I mentioned.  And it is “the way it is” right now, so don’t resist it, work with your upsets and they will become a welcomed doorway to your becoming a more refined and evolved human Being.

By way of example, a recent incident.  Diane and I were shopping for a couch in IKEA.  I entered the store without paying much attention to the store layout on the information board as you enter, as the couch section was fairly near the entrance.  After not seeing what we wanted and wandering for a while from display room to display room along this programmed path through their giant store, I was ready to leave.  I mostly dislike shopping anyway.  My motto is “get in and get out.”  I started looking for the exit but couldn’t find any, then we seemed to circle back past the same displays we had seen and still there was not an obvious way out and to top it off, the signs seemed confusing.

About this time I started to feel angry and trapped, a tension in my chest and a kind of panic.  I was definitely not in control, a victim in their planned maze, and I hated it.  As there was no store personnel around to help, I started to raise my voice, “How the f…. do I get out of here?”  Diane who is my angel, and did not make me wrong for being so angry, said “Take a deep breath Landon, this does not seem like you.”  I did and started to calm down and then we found a store person and finally got out.  My immediate comment was, “I am never going to go to IKEA again.”

Later as we were debriefing the incident in the car, I realized that the feeling of being trapped, in a maze, out of control, all seemed to harken back to being born into a world of chaos and confusion.  I also saw that I could have taken more responsibility for knowing the store layout, and of course taken a breath and asked someone how to get out quickly – all without being upset.  But at the time, the as yet unhealed part of my birth experience got triggered which allowed me to look at it and see it for what it was – a baby’s confusion and anger and helplessness at being born into a world which “couldn’t be it.”  The original “This isn’t it.”

I also saw that IKEA had done a masterful job of marketing, as I was forced to see so many things that I wasn’t looking for, but now when I think, “Where will we get the sinks for the new studio, I think IKEA.”  So I am sure I will be going back!!

May our lives continue to deepen through the learning that comes from our upsets.

All the best,
Landon

Diane’s groundhog birthday

We were vacationing on Kauai and it was Diane’s birthday and it was not going well.  I was out of sorts and grumpy, hadn’t gotten a card or bought flowers and we were not scheduled to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner.  Diane was disappointed because her birthday wasn’t meeting her expectations and her unhappiness further exacerbated my feelings of not being good enough.  I was feeling depressed and Diane was upset. So we started talking. 

It turned out that at about the same moment that I had judged Diane’s body unfavorably when she was running on the beach, Diane was feeling insecure about her body.  I think these mutual upsets arise simultaneously as it is difficult to determine if I had the thought first and Diane picked it up and reacted to it or whether Diane was feeling insecure and I picked that up and had the judgment.  Anyway I hadn’t said anything because I was ashamed about having the thought and Diane didn’t mention it until we started to explore what was going on.   That was one thing.

Then we talked about my lack of doing something special for her birthday other than the vacation itself.  I tend to discount birthdays, while Diane makes a big deal out of them, so we were at odds there.  Because Diane was upset (feeling ignored), I was feeling guilty and not good enough and somewhat hopeless as to how to rectify the situation.

What we decided to do was declare the following day as her birthday and do it more consciously.  We had a marvelous day that next day, I got a card and a flower, we swam and had fun at the beach, we made love in the afternoon and had a great dinner at a local restaurant.  By being able to talk about what was going on for each of us without blaming the other, and then to let that past go without resentment, we were able to declare a “groundhog birthday” and have a wonderful time – the kind of time we both wanted.

For me this ability to turn a bad situation around has made all the difference as it gives us permission to make a mistake that unintentionally upsets our partner, without it being an irreconcilable event.  And it allows us to learn from our mistakes so as to have our future more conscious and enjoyable.  You can bet that I will do Diane’s birthday differently next year!