I’m sad to announce that Dar­bella and I lost a dear friend a few days ago.

Joann Peter­son was one of the key fig­ures at The Haven. She’d had heart issues for decades, and was in for heart surgery last year in August, at the same time as Dar and I were out there teach­ing. Her recov­ery was slow, and she did make it back in Novem­ber, to teach Anger Bound­aries, and Safety. In Jan­u­ary, she started to weaken, and died Jan­u­ary 9^th.

Joann was the leader for both my and Dar’s Phase 1, and we con­sid­ered her a friend of the heart. We are not alone in this — if you knew Joann, have a look at the trib­ute page at The Haven.

The two things I’ve taken from her death are this:
1)
who we are and how we act in the world does make a dif­fer­ence. Being clear, open and hon­est, and get­ting on with the work we are called to do, is the mark of a life well lived.
2)
The other thing is to remem­ber to let peo­ple who have made a mark on our lives know that we love them, so we are “clear†with the impor­tant peo­ple in our lives.

In that vein, I am glad you are here, and reading!

Remem­ber that your real­ity is just that — yours

I have to get across to you the impor­tance of this con­cept. Every­thing from inter­per­sonal dif­fi­cul­ties to war­fare arises from the idea that real­ity is both real, and objec­tively ‘out there.’ Every dif­fi­culty you can describe comes from the idea that “My real­ity is right and yours is wrong,†as opposed to “I hold this belief and you hold another belief. Each are equally valid.“

Now, as you think about this, you’ll see why I think that every­thing (the world we per­ceive) is based upon our indi­vid­ual belief system.

I live my life from within the para­me­ters
of what I already believe to be so.

This doesn’t mean that I can’t add to my beliefs, and thereby learn to approach the way I am dif­fer­ently. That’s cer­tainly why you’re read­ing this. What it does mean is that the way I behave and what I believe is always and only about me.

Now, most peo­ple hate hear­ing this, as they have been trained from birth to blame oth­ers for dif­fi­cul­ties, based upon “I’m right, you’re wrong.†We were brought up to think this way by par­ents who taught us “right from wrong†by demand­ing our accep­tance of their beliefs. We moved from

And then they cut us loose and said we’re adults and know enough to func­tion in the world.

In actu­al­ity, we only know enough to repeat the same dumb stuff that got our par­ents into trou­ble – the same dumb stuff that’s being fought about all around the world. And then, to add insult to injury, we run around all indig­nant, try­ing to force those who dis­agree with us to see it our way. If per­sua­sion won’t work, there are always guns and bombs.

One of my prin­ci­pal goals is to help peo­ple to get over try­ing to sell their beliefs to oth­ers. So, you might be ask­ing, why are you writ­ing this? I am not writ­ing this to get you to adopt my way of think­ing. I am writ­ing this to ask you to con­sider one ques­tion: how well is your belief sys­tem actu­ally work­ing – in terms of your voca­tion, your rela­tion­ships, your self-esteem?

If you are con­tent, you have likely adopted a form of what I am writ­ing about. If you are not con­tent, I can assure you that your belief sys­tem is non-functional. So, try­ing to sell it to another is kind of stu­pid, right?

I don’t care what that belief sys­tem is. I only care whether it works.

The first step in this process is to let go of the con­cept of right and wrong. Shift your think­ing to “is how I think and how I act get­ting me the results I want?â€

Life can be sim­ple, if I mea­sure myself against myself.

Ah, but this flies in the face of our… wait for it… beliefs.

Or all of the above.

Now, whip your head around. Where are mom or dad right now? (If you are still liv­ing with them, heaven help us all…) Mom and dad are gone, and the mom and dad in your head is you, talk­ing to your­self. There is noth­ing going on from your past. In fact, you don’t even have a past. It’s all just a story you’re telling your­self, and not a very inter­est­ing one, to boot.

All there is, is now.

At some point, you have to let go of all of that stuff, and stand on your own two feet. And you begin that process by let­ting go of every­thing that is not work­ing. Start to shift your think­ing and your behav­iour. The bat­tles of life are unnec­es­sary, as there is no way you’ll ever have con­sen­sus, even with your near­est and dearest.

And why, really, do we think we need peo­ple to agree with us? To declare us right? To put us first when, of course, we would never put the other per­son first in exchange…?

I espe­cially love that one – it’s like that scene in “Annie Hall.†Split screen, Woody on one side, Diane Keaton on the other. Woody: “We never have sex. Only 3 times a week.†Diane: “We always have sex. Three times a week!â€

So, you may be ask­ing, how does any­thing get resolved? Res­o­lu­tion (not com­pro­mise!) comes through dia­log that is com­pletely devoid of demands and pres­sure. My desires are not more impor­tant than Darbella’s and hers aren’t more impor­tant than mine. So, there’s no “I win / You lose.†Our goal, and we’ve man­aged to do this every time for 24 years, is agree­ment with­out compromise.

Now, some of our issues have taken years to resolve, and even seem to evolve (the present one is the date of our move to Costa Rica – that one has shifted a few times…) but no deci­sion is worth fight­ing over. Plain and simple.

Great patience is required, because what is obvi­ous to me will not nec­es­sar­ily be obvi­ous, or even impor­tant, to another. I, and I alone, am privy to the con­tents of my mind, where I put together the pieces of my life, and the sto­ries I tell myself, and most crit­i­cally, the way I inter­pret reality.

The inte­rior the­atre of each per­son on the planet is rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent from mine, as each person’s inter­nal the­atre is based upon their eval­u­a­tive processes, cul­tural norms, and life expe­ri­ences. Even when we think we agree, we do not agree 100%.

Once I under­stand this – the impos­si­bil­ity of see­ing things the same way – I can let go of desir­ing this impos­si­ble thing. I can stop think­ing that, just because some­one sees life dif­fer­ently (of course they do) they don’t like me or are dis­re­spect­ing or dis­em­pow­er­ing me. We sim­ply see things differently.

Notice how you frame your real­ity, and how often you expect oth­ers to give in to your inter­pre­ta­tions. See what hap­pens when you stop mak­ing that demand of oth­ers, and instead engage in dia­log designed to seek com­mon­al­i­ties and ways to pro­ceed with­out drama or manipulation.