Category Archives: introspection

introspection, life lessons, mentor, self improvement, subconscious

A Mentor For The Hopelessly Introverted

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You are only moments away from discovering the most intuitive teacher you will ever have access to…

A mentor can be a valuable resource for when you need to adjust your attitude, view your life from a different perspective or reflect on surprising new insights. Turning to a person that you respect and that has the wisdom to help you grow is a vital component to your continued success. If you are an introvert like me, however, you may have found that it’s quite difficult to find valuable mentors in your life, if only because you don’t meet many people.

Fortunately, your most effective mentor may not even be a person!

A number of years ago, I picked up an intriguing technique from Peter McWilliams’s book, “Life 101.” The only prerequisite is that you need to be comfortable with meditation. Once you have reached a state of relaxed concentration, then the fun begins!

Every student needs a school, so your first task is to visualize a place where you can go to relax and to learn. One of the best techniques is to imagine you are walking down a long hallway, and you come to a door. As you put your hand to the doorknob, you realize that you will soon open the door to your perfect place for mental relaxation and refreshment — a personal sanctuary. Then, open the door and let your mental sanctuary appear.

This is a matter of discovery rather than construction, so it shouldn’t feel forced. What you find should come as no surprise, for it is such a natural and obvious reflection of yourself. It is not an “aha” moment so much as it is an “oh…of course” moment.

Your classroom/sanctuary need not be indoors. While some people might imagine a cozy study in an old Victorian home, others might imagine an isolated spot on the beach. Some people might imagine a combination of interior and exterior locations. My perfect place is a clearing in a birch forest with a babbling brook trickling through it. There is a simple wooden bridge over the brook that leads to a modest cabin. The cabin itself is a single room, barren of all furniture and decoration. It is bright, clean, and quiet. Ah, I feel relaxed just thinking about it.

Now that you’ve found your classroom, you need a teacher. That is an easy process, for you find your teacher the same way you found your classroom. When you are ready to meet your new mentor, imagine a doorway across the room from you. If your classroom is an exterior location, you can still imagine a door a few feet in front of you…after all, we’re working in the realm of imagination. You see the doorknob turn, and are struck by the realization that your perfect mentor is about to come into the room. Then, watch the door open and allow your mentor to appear.

As with your classroom, this is a discovery instead of a creation. It will again be anti-climatic because it suits you so perfectly and obviously. But, even though you may not be surprised by your mentor, your mentor may very well be surprising. Your mentor may be somebody you know, or your mentor might not even be a person at all! It’s quite possible for an owl to fly through the door, if that’s what represents your perfect mentor.

And now, with your mentor at hand, you can begin your learning. What should you ask your mentor? He (or she, or it) is open to any question you have, but is such an amazing resource that you’ll find you don’t want to waste petty questions on him. You will find that, in a state of relaxed awareness, the right questions come easily. As always, it is best not to “sweat the small stuff.” How you work with your mentor will grow and adjust just as you will.

Your greatest challenge may be adjusting to your mentor’s style of responses. Mine rarely gives me direct answers, but instead asks thought-provoking questions that get to the heart of the matter. Or, in especially obscure moments, my mentor directs me somewhere else for answers. In response to the question how can I become more successful, my mentor replied, consider the leaves of the trees, or the water in the stream. Upon considering the water, I realized that if a river stops moving, it becomes stagnant and putrefied. I was getting lazy when a healthy, vibrant life is one of action. Considering the leaves reminded me that actions alone are insignificant. A leaf by itself withers and blows away, but it is full of life when connected to the tree. Any action is more effective when it is part of something larger. Having active goals, then, helps maximize the value of all of your actions.

Earth-shaking? Hardly. These insights are not special. Obviously, success is the result of action. Of course goals help you to achieve more. But the value of this exercise is that it reminds you of the exact things you need to be reminded of right when you need to be reminded of them.

In retrospect, my mentor has always provided the best possible responses to all of my questions. After all, great mentors don’t teach you new things. Great mentors challenge you to apply what you already know.

introspection, questions, wisdom

Fools Have Answers, Intellectuals Have The Questions

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Young children are the masters of questions. And for good reason – they have had very little experience in the world, and are doing the best they can to catch up. They realize that they don’t know it all, and they ask questions in order to learn more about the world around them.

And now, here’s a question for you to consider: at what point did you stop questioning like a child?

Sadly, many of us no longer have the capacity to ask questions like children. The causes are many. Some of us may feel self conscious about asking questions because we don’t want people to know that we don’t know something. Some of us may have grown weary of questioning because we have found that answers only lead to more questions. Others of us have given up on questioning for its apparent futility – not everything can be known. And others among us, albeit subconsciously, actually feel that we know all there is to know.

When looking back on the great creative geniuses of history, however, we find that they all share a common love of questioning. The status-quo is never good enough and their curiosity, like that of a child, was unquenchable.

By contrast, many famously bad predictions were delivered very matter-of-factly. They were spoken with the force of one who had ultimate knowledge, but in the course of time would be proved extraordinarily false.

Allow me to propose a notion that could rekindle your child-like need to question.

Consider the possibility that questions are not merely a search for answers. Questions do not exist only to increase our understanding, but to open a much larger door to the future. Questions, when used effectively, activate the ability for possibility thinking. This function of questioning has led to every great technological and sociological advancement in the world’s history.

Possibility thinking begins with replacing the classic fact-finding children’s question of why with the more powerful question, what if:

  • What if nations were ruled by their citizens?

  • What if people could fly?

  • What if people all over the world could communicate with each other easily?

  • What if we could mimic the sun’s power to provide electricity?

  • What if we could build an elevator into space?

“What if” lies at the heart of all progress. If you look around you, you will find that the people with the most influence and the most success are the ones that ask the best questions.

introspection, prioritization, relaxation, stress relief

The Next Big Challenge

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Ok, so you’ve mastered time management. You can pack more accomplishment into one day than most people can put into a week. Now you are ready for a real challenge: do nothing.

If you’ve never tried meditation before, you are missing one of the biggest challenges you will ever face. Now, I’m not talking about meditation as a mystical or spiritual practice. This article is about meditation as a relaxation technique and a method for training the mind for which there is no equal.

The goal is deceptively simple: All you need to do is sit still and try to focus solely on one thing or to avoid focusing on any one thing. No problem, right? Wrong! In my experience, nobody ever meditates well the first time.

To try your first meditation, sit comfortably and close your eyes. Sit down as though you never intend to get back up. Some people may insist that you cross your legs or hold your hands in very specific ways, but the only thing that I’ve found matters is keeping good posture — it helps you to breathe more deeply. Your only task in this first exercise is to count your breaths from 1 to 9, and repeat counting from 1 to 9 until your time is up. Set a timer for 10 minutes (one with a gentle alarm if you can…after all, this is about relaxation) for your first attempt.

The biggest surprise for people new to meditation is just how easily distracted an untrained mind can be. Here is an example of a typical first try: breathe in…breathe out…1…hmm, I wonder if I turned the coffee pot off — BZZT! You just lost your focus. Trying again, breathe in…breathe out…1…breathe in…breathe out…2…wow, I got to “2” without losing my focus — BZZT! You did it again.

Yes, it’s frustrating. And over the course of 10 minutes, it is extremely unlikely that you can get to “9” without getting distracted. Eventually, however, you find that those random thoughts diminish until finally your mind does what you direct it to, and only what you direct it to. This is a territory unlike any other you may have experienced, and an extraordinary paradox — you will be at once both fully relaxed and yet completely focused! And once you’ve been there, you will want to return!

Like any skill, meditation becomes easier with practice. In a first attempt, you may not even reach that point of relaxed concentration. Over time, however, you become able to access it at will.

So, how do you “use” meditation? On the surface, it can look like meditation does nothing. But, do not forget that the seeds of all action are rooted in the mind. It is in this sense that meditation helps you be even more effective when you are not meditating. By creating focused, clear thinking, you set the foundation for focused, clear action. Relaxed concentration is also the optimal mental state for problem solving. If you are having trouble accomplishing a goal, get into a state of relaxed concentration and then direct your thinking toward finding a solution. You will find that those solutions are more elegant than any attempts you may have made in the past!

As a final thought, consider this: if you feel like you are too busy to attempt meditation, you may need to try it now more than ever!

accomplishment, introspection, self improvement, self worth, wisdom

Define Yourself, Liberate Yourself

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Few people realize just how much power is contained in the two simple words, “Know Thyself”.

Life is complicated. There are many things to do, many people to meet, many things to fear and many things to be happy about. It can be overwhelming. And all people eventually reach a point where they ask the Big Question: “WHO AM I?”

The Most Important Question

So, take a moment to answer the question: Who are you?

How did you answer? You may have been tempted to define yourself by your career (salesman, electrician, manager, etc.). You might have defined yourself by your physical characteristics (tall, brown eyes, long hair, etc.). Perhaps you defined yourself by your personality (lover, giver, thinker, etc.). But in the end, it is a trick question.

The Ultimate Liberation

You see, any attempt you make to define who you are inherently limits you. In the end, the only proper response that fully captures who you are is “I am.” This is the only answer that strips away all of the self-imposed limitations that all other responses create.

This realization is peculiarly liberating. By recognizing that we are not defined by our personality, our actions or our ideas, we finally have permission to simply be. Our self-worth is no longer tied to our actions or our appearance — we derive our value simply by living. Things that are rare are the most valuable of all. And you are the only person like you that will ever live! That rarity certainly has value.