In a few months, I’m starting a graduate program in psychology.  I’m thrilled that this is finally coming together, and that I’m going to build new skills that will help me do my work.

When I considered writing about this, I noticed both a desire to share my excitement with the world, and a bit of anxiety about announcing my plans.

This didn’t make sense at first.  Why would I feel reluctant to tell people about big news in my life?

After a little pondering, the reason became clear.  If I told you I’m going to grad school, wouldn’t I be admitting that I still have more to learn?  That I don’t “have all the answers”?  And if I don’t have all the answers, why should people want to read what I write about personal development?

Do You Like “Answers” or Authenticity?

But then, a question occurred to me:   what kind of writing do I like to read?  Do I like articles that give me a list of 100 things I should do to succeed, be happy, or something else?  Or do I prefer writers who are willing to let down their guard with me, and tell me what’s really going on with them?

It didn’t take a lot of reflection to answer this one.  When another human being lets me really see them, in all their perfect imperfection, that’s a greater gift to me than all the “tips and tricks” out there put together.

And doesn’t it stand to reason, I thought, that if I like honest, vulnerable writing, other people might appreciate that too?  I mean, I’m an unusual guy and all, but doesn’t it make sense that you and I might share some of the same tastes?

Giving Ourselves Permission To Be Human

At a deeper level, I’ve found that, when someone genuinely shares with me — particularly if what they share involves a “negative emotion,” an insecurity, or something like that — that actually helps me do my own “inner work.”

This is because, when they tell me about one of their foibles, quirks, or hangups, I feel a sense of permission to have my own hangups as well.  I feel my own worries about looking imperfect melting away, and more compassion for myself and others.

This is why, recently, I’ve tended toward exploring issues that feel embarrassing or difficult in my writing.  I’ve been doing this in the hope that, the more of my own truth I share, the more others will start feeling free to share their truth.  (Not that I find going to grad school embarrassing — I think it’s pretty cool.)

The View From The High Horse

In keeping with this theme of honesty, I’m going to mount my high horse for a moment, and say I’d like to see the self-development blogosphere move in this direction too.  I think we could all stand to give each other a little less advice, and offer a bit more of our personal experience.  Nobody’s really “got all the answers,” and it would be a relief, at least for me, if we could just admit that to ourselves and each other.

Anyway, this has been my long-winded way of breaking the news that I’m going to grad school.    I’m looking forward to more learning and growth, and to contributing to others’ growth in whatever ways I can.

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I usually don’t feel drawn to doing “list posts.”  Some of this is because of my unease about doing something “everyone else” seems to be doing.

So, as a personal growth exercise, I’m going to jump right in and do a list post!  I also think this is a pretty cool and valuable list of questions for building awareness about how we limit ourselves with our ways of thinking and being.

Without further ado, here are some questions I’ve gained a lot from asking myself.  Some of them may be uncomfortable to think about, but I think that kind of discomfort is usually a sign of growth:

1.  What quality in other people irritates you most? (For example, is it ambition, shyness, laziness, or something else?)  How do you have this quality in the way you live your own life?

2.  What quality in other people do you envy the most? How do you already have this quality in the way you live your own life?

3.  What emotion do you least want to feel? Is it fear, anger, sadness, or something else?  What do you do in your life to avoid feeling it?

4.  What do you most want people to think about you? What do you do in your life to make sure others think that?  What is that costing you?

5.  What do you least want people to think about you? What do you do in your life to make sure others don’t think that?  What is that costing you?

6.  What have you done that you least want people to know about? What do you do in your life to make sure no one finds out about what you did?

7.  What have you done that you most want people to know about? How do you go out of your way to make sure people know you did it?

8.  If you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the only reason you’re alive is to enjoy every moment, would you change the way you live?  How?

9.  If you knew that, no matter what you did or didn’t do, you would love and respect yourself, how would you live your life?

10.  What would you create if you knew no one would ever see it? In other words, if you were 100% certain that your work would never make you famous or rich, and the only thing you’d ever get out of it was personal satisfaction, what would you choose to do?

11.  Here’s another interesting way to put Question # 10:  How would you live if you knew that no one would ever approve of you? If you knew that nobody would ever be happy with the way you live, and that you might as well do whatever fulfills you, what would you do?

12.  How are you trying to please your parents with the way you live? What is that costing you?

13.  If you knew that you were 100% forgiven for everything you think you’ve done wrong, how would that change the way you live?

14.  If you cried in front of a stranger, how would they react? (Take the first answer that comes to mind.)

15.  If you got angry at a stranger, how would they react? (Same rule as Question # 14.)

16.  In what situations do you try to look happy when you really aren’t?

17.  In what situations do you hold back from speaking the truth to avoid hurting someone’s feelings?

18.  If you’re a man, how do you think a man is supposed to act? How do you make an effort to act that way?

19.  If you’re a woman, how do you think a woman is supposed to act? How do you make an effort to act that way?

20.  How is the “public you” different from the “private you”?

Whew!  And we’re done.  It was an intense experience for me writing and thinking about those questions — I’m curious what it was like for you to read them.  You don’t have to share your answers to the specific questions, but if you want to that’s great too.  Thanks!

In other news: I did an interview with Evita Ochel of EvolvingBeings.com on meditation, how to do it and the benefits it can bring.  I hope you enjoy it.

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Well, as advertisers are helpfully reminding us, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.  For me, as for many other people, this can be a time of irritation.

This isn’t because I’m what our culture calls a “single guy.”  I enjoy that, actually.  It’s because this is the time of year when I get to hear people lament how long it’s been since they’ve been “in a relationship,” or since they’ve done whatever other romantic thing they think they should be doing.

One Person’s Romantic Comedy Is Another’s Horror Movie

The most frustrating part, when I listen to these people, is that they don’t seem to be paying attention to what they actually want.  Instead, they’re measuring themselves against what they see as the culture’s expectations, and blaming themselves for falling short.

“My friends are all married,” I hear (and I’m sure you’ve heard) people complain.  When I hear this from someone, I try to respond compassionately.  But I have to admit, sometimes I just want to caustically remark:  “that makes perfect sense — after all, the rule is that you have to do whatever your friends do!”

And, of course, there are people (mostly men, but not exclusively) who will be able to tell me, to the month, day and hour, how long it’s been since they “got laid.”  Hearing this, it’s all I can do to keep my inner Captain Sarcastic from spitting out:  “true, if you don’t ‘get some’ soon, you’ll lose your place at the ‘jock’ table in the high school cafeteria!”

The saddest part of this, in my experience, is that many people stay dissatisfied even if they do find what they say they’re looking for.  Trying to live into somebody else’s vision of how romance or intimacy should be, I think, is a recipe for suffering.

What Do You Really Want?

If someone is griping to me about their “singlehood” (at least, I think that’s the right word), and they’re really willing to explore the issue, what we’ll often discover is that they don’t even want to be married, “in a relationship,” or whatever else, right now.  They are hurting because they’re telling themselves it’s wrong not to want those things, and beating themselves up.

In my experience, when people become willing to admit that lack of desire, often it’s as if a weight lifts from their shoulders, and their bodies feel lighter.  What’s more, amazingly enough, sometimes acknowledging they don’t want intimacy actually opens the way for them to want it again.

Why?  I think it goes back to what I talked about in my post on “finding compassion through selfishness.”  We’re all made up of a bunch of different parts, or, as some put it, “selves” or “energies” — the aggressive part, the solitary part, the outgoing part, and so on.

Calling Out Our Doubts

As I put it earlier, the way I see it, each person is like a prism — something that breaks up a beam of light into the colors of the rainbow.  Sometimes, we don’t like one of the colors — the anger, the hurt, or something else — and so we cover up the prism.  The trouble is, when we do that, no light can get through.

We all, I think, have a part that wants connection with others.  But we also have parts that are cautious, hurt, untrusting, and so on.  When we tell ourselves it’s not okay to feel afraid or unready about intimacy, and we push the hesitant parts of ourselves down, we can cause ourselves a lot of pain.

I’ve found, both in myself and in talking to people, that it can be so liberating when we acknowledge the areas where we’re uncertain, and it can actually help create the connection with others that we’re looking for.

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In the past, when someone said something to me that I found insulting or disrespectful, I tried to avoid reacting angrily.  I told myself I was probably just being thin-skinned, and that the other person probably didn’t intend to hurt me.

Besides, I said to myself in “spiritual” jargon, the anger I feel comes from my ego — my identification with my body, my accomplishments, my possessions, and so on.  In reality, I am all that is, I am consciousness itself, I am Atman.  How could pure spirit take offense at anything?  By letting myself get upset, I dishonor my true nature.

On one level, I think some of this “spiritual talk” is valid.  There have been moments when, in meditation, I’ve ceased identifying with the body and history that people arbitrarily label “Chris,” and experienced myself as limitless consciousness.

And yet, I can’t deny that, from time to time, I get pissed off.  I feel a tension in my shoulders and a dull heat in my lower back.  In moments like these, I can remind myself of my spiritual nature until the proverbial cows come home, but that won’t change how I feel.

Is It “Spiritual” To Deny Our Anger?

A little while back, it occurred to me:  is it really “spiritual” to tell myself I shouldn’t feel angry, even though I do?  If I, in my true nature, am perfect and complete, why isn’t my anger perfect and complete too?  If I’m really a “spiritual being having a human experience,” why isn’t it okay for that experience to include getting mad sometimes?

What’s more, I used to tell myself that, in my true nature as spirit, I am infinitely loving.  Thus, when I tell someone I’m angry, I’m acting inconsistently with my deepest self.  But does this make sense?

In fact, I find my relationships with people most loving when I can tell them what’s really going on for me, and hear the same from them.  How can I really connect with, and love, another person if I’m not willing to reveal my anger to them?  Doesn’t that render our relationship kind of a farce, or at least superficial and businesslike?

Anger and Intimacy

Acknowledging all this was painful, as I think most growth is.  But these realizations have led me to start dealing with people in a way that’s a lot more satisfying for me — and, I think, for them as well.

Over the past year, when someone has talked to me in a way I’ve found disrespectful, I’ve taken to telling them “I don’t like what you just said to me.”  I don’t call them names or otherwise attack them — I just share, matter-of-factly, how I feel.

Instead of destroying my relationships, doing this has actually led to deeper intimacy.  I’ve found that, when I tell someone what’s really going on for me, they tend to feel freer to reveal their own emotions to me.  Even if what they share is their own anger, that gives me a better sense of who they are.

This doesn’t always happen, of course.  As I’m sure you know, there certainly are people out there who just want to say something hurtful and leave, feeling like they “won” or became superior as a result.  But by and large, letting people know when I’m upset has actually brought me closer to them, and fostered a more genuine connection.

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For a change of pace today, I want to share an excerpt from a story/novel I’ve been working on.  I don’t have a title yet, although I’ve jokingly been calling it “The Last Yuga.”

By the way, as the title of this post suggests, this is a work 0f fiction, so please don’t sue me if your name happens to be Dr. Joseph or Nameless Protagonist. 

*                          *                         *

It’s hard to believe, but it all started with eye contact.

“I notice you aren’t meeting my eyes,” Dr. Joseph said in almost a whisper.

I don’t know whether he intended it or not, but when he spoke I peeked out from under my brow and into his pink-tinged gaze.  Our eyes locked for several minutes of anxious silence.

No therapist I saw before had noticed my lack of eye contact — at least, not in the first session — because they weren’t looking at me.  They were too busy filling their yellow pads with facts about my background, following rules they learned in school about what information to glean from a patient and how to take it down.  Within ten to twenty minutes, they mentally plugged those facts into tried-and-true diagnostic formulas.  After thirty or forty, they considered themselves able to tell me what was wrong with me — and, if they were psychiatrists, what drugs I ought to take.

But Dr. Joseph never took notes.  There was no paper on his lap, or anywhere else in the room.  In fact, Dr. Joseph kept almost nothing in his office — no books or diplomas to convince me of his credentials, no paintings to fill the blankness of the wall, no Buddha statues or other Eastern baubles to give his work a “spiritual” veneer.  Instead of lying on a couch, I sat in a nondescript office chair.  Nothing about the place suggested it belonged to a therapist.

Nor did Dr. Joseph act like a therapist.  Not a word of psychological jargon passed his lips — not even something as commonplace as depression or anxiety.  I don’t think he ever asked about my Mom and Dad, unless I brought them up.  And, at least in our first session, he didn’t go out of his way to sound kind or understanding.

“Why are you looking at me?” Dr. Joseph said.

I gave a nervous chuckle.  “I thought you wanted me to look at you.”

“You’re doing it because you think I want you to?”

“Yeah.”

“What, you’re just figuring out what I want and doing it?”

“Well, I thought it might be helpful to the therapy—”

“Shut up.”

“What?”  My heart was suddenly pounding.

“You said you’d do whatever I want, and now I want you to shut up.”

“O — okay.”

The pink in his eyes turned scarlet, and he stared me down for what seemed like an hour.  Finally, he said “this is what you do all the time, isn’t it?  Trying to read people’s minds and figure out how to please them.”

I smiled and shrunk a little more inside.  “Yeah, sometimes I guess I do.”

“Oh, and now you’ve got that cute little grin.  What is that supposed to do, calm me down?”

I now felt almost shrunken to the point of nonexistence.  I tried to speak, but my lungs were compressed to the size of a particle.  Somehow, I survived by drawing rapid, microscopic breaths.

He stared me down for another minute, and then his eyes and tone abruptly softened.  “Relax your body.”

With his gentle command, I noticed that my shoulders felt like two heavy rocks, and the rest of my body felt like soft gelatin.  But the force of gravity remained unchanged, and so it seemed as if my shoulders plummeted about three feet downward, until I became a face grotesquely staring out of a stomach.

“We’re done for today.  Get some sleep this week, and pay attention to your dreams.”

I silently shuffled out — or, more accurately, oozed out in my new amoeba-like form.  We never arranged a date for the next appointment, but there was no need — we both knew I’d be back.

*                          *                         *

What do you think? If you’re interested, I’d love to share more (in between more posts about productivity, mindfulness, and stuff of that nature, of course).

The story will follow Nameless Protagonist’s adventures in, among other things, both the waking and dream states, and take us deep into the crucible of his psychological and spiritual transformation.  It’ll be cool. 

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There’s a part of me that doesn’t care about you.  It’s not here to solve your problems, lend you an ear, or serve you in any other way.  It looks out for me and me alone.

Isn’t that a terrible thing?  Actually, I don’t think so.  In fact, I think acknowledging I have a “selfish” part — and, sometimes, doing what that part wants — is key to experiencing, and expressing, real compassion for people.

I Used To Be Such A Sweet, Sweet Thing

I used to act really nurturing and giving, all the time.  Whenever someone had a request or a problem, I was the first to volunteer my time and energy.  I can practically hear Alice Cooper now:  “I opened doors for little old ladies,” and so on.

But I eventually had a couple of disturbing realizations.  The first was that I expected praise for service I did, and felt upset when I didn’t get it.  Why would I care about receiving praise, I wondered, if I genuinely liked helping others?

Second, if someone — heaven forbid — criticized me in a way that suggested I was selfish, I got even angrier.  I couldn’t help but ask:  if I’m really such a 24-7 generous guy, why does it bother me when someone says I’m not?

Acting Caring Vs. Being Caring

Finally, it dawned on me that, at least sometimes, I wasn’t helping people because I enjoyed service.  Instead, I was doing it because I wanted to show people I wasn’t self-centered.  In other words, I did it because I didn’t want to experience the shame I felt when someone called me selfish.

I started wondering:  what if, on some level, I actually am selfish?  What would happen if I learned that there is, in fact, a part of me that thinks only of my wants?  Would I explode, implode, or be annihilated in some other messy way?  Probably not.

I noticed my body relaxed, and I sighed with relief, when I asked questions like these.  It was as if, to put on a benevolent mask for the world, I had to tighten some part of my body, and use up energy keeping that part tense.  Dropping the mask freed up that energy, and was a big relief.

I also saw that, the more relaxed I felt, the more I experienced real gratitude.  Life, I found, is more fun when I’m not trying to appease someone or protect myself from criticism.  From that genuinely grateful place, compassion for others comes more naturally.

In other words, interestingly enough, admitting there’s a part of me that doesn’t care actually releases and nourishes the part that does.

Everybody Is Everything

Why?  I think about it this way:  each person is like a prism – an object that breaks up a beam of light into the colors of the rainbow.  The colors represent every human character trait:  compassion, selfishness, love, anger, sadness, and so on.

Often, we decide we don’t like one of the colors — perhaps we’d rather not be blue (sad), red (angry), or something else.  So, we cover up the prism to keep others from seeing that color.  The trouble is that, when we block the prism, none of the colors can be seen — no part of us can be fully expressed in the world.

When I try to hide my “self-centered” part, it’s like I’m covering up my prism — “hiding my light under a bushel,” as the saying goes.  The result is that I can’t really bring my generous part into the world either.  If I want my compassion to fully show up, I need to let my selfishness make an appearance too.

With That, Some Gratitude

I want to thank two generous and, undoubtedly, totally unselfish souls for the gifts they gave me.    Evita Ochel and Patricia Hamilton recently wrote warm and wonderful reviews of my audio course.  I hope you’ll check out their sites and enjoy what they bring to the world.

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I sometimes notice this in myself when I’m writing fiction, which I’ve been trying my hand at lately.  For some time, I had trouble making progress on writing a scene where one character is darkly, primally angry — because, of course, writing it brought up the part of me that can feel that way. 

But as I wrote the scene, I got this interesting sense that I was making peace with that part, and integrating it more deeply into who I am, instead of treating it as a weird, dangerous outsider. 

Anyway, enjoy the piece!

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Ready to get off the “time management treadmill”?

You’ve tried all the usual productivity advice:  make to-do lists, reorganize your e-mail, color-code your folders, and so on.  You’ve probably bought more than enough books, CDs, planners, special notebooks, and “apps” as well.

So why do you still find yourself procrastinating, getting distracted, feeling anxious, and not making the kind of progress you want in your work?  Why does getting through your daily routine still seem like such a frustrating chore?

The answer goes deeper than planners and iPhone apps . . .

Although there’s a lot of sound advice out there, it usually doesn’t deal with the biggest obstacle we tend to face in getting our work done:  our own minds.  As I think you know from experience, arranging your e-mail subfolders in some fancy way won’t be enough to keep you on task if:

• You keep getting to the end of the day, and feeling like you didn’t accomplish enough
• You’re working from home, and it’s hard to stay on task when no one’s keeping tabs on you
• You feel overwhelmed when you see a lot of items on your to-do list
• Your mind keeps jumping around to all kinds of different ideas when you’re trying to focus on something
• You struggle with a sense that you’ve got to do everything perfectly, or not do it at all
• You have trouble starting a project you want to do, because you worry that it’s not going to be good enough
• You have difficulty saying “no” to requests, and protecting your time, when you’re trying to do a task
• You’re tired of beating yourself up and forcing yourself to work
• You get bogged down in resentment, because it seems like people don’t appreciate what you do

Most of us are in the habit of running from uncomfortable feelings and sensations like these when they come up as we’re working.  To distract ourselves from them, we check e-mail, play Minesweeper, get up and pace around, or do something else.  Unfortunately — and this is key — when we distract ourselves from our discomfort, we also take our attention off our work.

What if, instead of running away from difficult emotions and sensations, you could learn to accept and allow them? What if you could choose to move forward in your work, even when discomfort is coming up?

That’s what the Work Consciously Audio Course is all about.

For thousands of years, mindfulness practices like meditation, yoga and qi gong have helped people learn to be with silence and discomfort, concentrate on one thing for a long time, and even find peace and joy doing it.  This program is about using practices like these “in real time” — while you’re at your desk doing a task — to stay focused and motivated as you work.

To get a sense of what this is about, next time you find yourself wanting to turn away from your work, pause instead, and notice what you’re feeling.  What kind of discomfort is there — tension, heat, itching, or something else?  Where is it in your body?

Now, see if you can keep breathing, relax your body, and just allow that discomfort to pass away on its own, without trying to fight it or flee from it.  Notice how, the more you welcome the uncomfortable feeling or sensation, without resistance, the easier it is to be with.

This is just a taste of the practices offered in the Work Consciously Audio Course.  In this program, you’ll learn how to:

• Let go of anxiety that used to paralyze you in your work
• Develop a longer attention span and feel less distractible
• Stay focused even when you’re feeling the urge to procrastinate
• Motivate yourself by getting in touch with your desire to contribute to the world
• Return your attention to the present when it’s drifting off
• Become aware of the unconscious ways you sabotage yourself in what you do
• Set boundaries with others and protect the time you spend on your projects
• Move through writer’s block, and even use it as a source of inspiration
• Bring the “real you” into your work by letting go of the “work persona” you put on in what you do

What others have said

“I found Chris’s material in the course amazing!  And what I mean by that is the value that he provides, the wisdom he shares and the practical applications he leaves us with can literally transform our life and work.  And he does it all, with the most loving and authentic approach.”

- Evita Ochel, author of EvolvingBeings.com

“We all need some nudges along the way to keep our thinking, writing and designs fresh and refreshing.   The [Work Consciously Audio Course] is a good work out.”

- Patricia Hamilton, author of PatriciasWisdom.com

And here’s some of the wonderful feedback I received about Inner Productivity:

“Chris Edgar has taken an exploratory dive into the procrastination pit and come up with a cogent explanation of this phenomenon as well as an elegant set of techniques to transcend it.  It’s a great read and a useful guidebook for turning the daily grind into something much more interesting and engaging.”

– David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

“Inner Productivity will show you how to clear your inner clutter and create a pathway to success!”

– Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

“Real productivity doesn’t come from forced behaviors.  Inner Productivity can help you connect with the inner state of being that can empower you to act in new ways, choose new perspectives and have a different experience.  There is no greater productivity than connecting with your true self.”

– Tama J. Kieves, bestselling author of This Time I Dance!: Creating the Work You Love (How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All)

“Inner Productivity is packed with practical examples of how to achieve greater results and peace of mind at work.”

– Laura Stack, bestselling author of Leave the Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time . . . and Feel Great About It

“A wonderful guide for organizing both your physical and your head space.”

– Peter Walsh, bestselling author of Enough Already!: Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You

Download the introduction

To get a sense of what the course is all about, you can listen to the introduction here free of charge.  If you’d prefer to read it, you can view a text version here.  Whether you buy the program or not, I’m confident that just listening to this section will fundamentally shift the way you think about your work and what’s possible for you in it.

One unique part of this course is that, if you download the program, you’ll also receive a 100-page document with the entire text of the course.  If you prefer reading to listening, or you’d like to review the exercises you’ve done in written form, this will be an ideal resource.

Buy the course

The audio course is available for $24.95.  I’ve tried to keep it affordable because I want everyone, including people who want help getting through the job application process — and who benefit a lot, I’ve found, from my book Inner Productivity — to have access to this program.

You can buy the course using this PayPal button:

If you’re done with buying fancy gadgets and notebooks, and you want to really get to the source of what’s holding you back in your work, this is the program for you.  I think you’ll find this course will help you bring your creative gifts into the world, find the efficiency you want in your work, and even have some fun in what you do.

Wishing you the best in your work and elsewhere,

Chris Edgar

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3. Work Consciously Audio Course: What Do You Want? I can’t believe it was nearly a year ago that,...

“The strife is o’er,” as the hymn goes — I’m all done recording the Work Consciously Audio Course.  I’m writing up the “liner notes” right now — that’s what I like to call them, anyway, because it has me feel like I’m releasing a rock and roll album.

In the meantime, I’d like to share with you the introduction to the audio course, and hear any feedback you might have on it.  If you’ve read Inner Productivity, you’ll be familiar with some of the ideas I present here, but there’s plenty of new content that I’ve developed over the year I’ve spent speaking and leading workshops on the book.

The course will feature both exercises you can do “in real time,” as you’re sitting at your desk, to restore your focus and motivation in what you’re doing, and guided meditations I’ll lead you through for developing awareness around what’s holding you back in your projects.

Whether or not you pick up a copy of the audio course when it comes out, I think you’ll get some useful insights out of just listening to this portion of the program.

I’ve linked to the mp3 file of the introduction in this post, and I’ve copied the text below in case reading works better for you.  It’s long, so you have my blessing if you want to read the first couple of paragraphs, or listen to the first few minutes, and leave a comment. 

Download the Introduction (28 mb MP3 file; right-click and select “Save As” to download)

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the Work Consciously Audio Course.  I’m looking forward to working with you.  I think you’ll find that this course takes getting work done and enjoying what you do to a deeper level than what you’ve probably experienced before.

When most of us think about productivity, a pretty predictable group of images comes to mind.  We tend to think of all the usual organization and time management tools people recommend — creative ways to organize your e-mail inbox, color-code your folders, find the right iPhone apps, and so on.

What you’re going to hear about in this course will be very different from all that.  Don’t get me wrong — there are many great productivity techniques out there.  But one thing I’ve noticed about these tips and tricks is that they tend to be almost exclusively focused on our outer circumstances — the ways we have our to-do list or our desktop organized, and so on.

What the usual techniques don’t tend to focus on, though, is what I think is the biggest obstacle we usually face in getting our work done — and that, we might say, is ourselves.  It’s our own minds and bodies.

Why There’s No “App For That”

Here, I’m talking about those moments when we find our attention getting scattered all over the place — maybe replaying some piece of music in our heads, or replaying memories of that bad relationship from twenty years ago, or something else.

I mean those times when we find ourselves feeling sluggish or unmotivated, like we have to drag ourselves through the mud to accomplish the task we’re trying to do, and it’s all we can do to keep our heads off the desk.

Maybe we feel paralyzed with anxiety, worrying “what’s the boss going to think of this presentation I’m doing,” and second-guessing every word we write.

As I’ll bet you know firsthand, if you’re having one of these experiences, having a really well-organized e-mail inbox probably isn’t going to cut it.  That is, it isn’t going to be enough to keep you on track in what you’re doing, no matter how great the tips for time management and organization you’re following may be.

If you’re paralyzed with fear about what the boss is going to think of this presentation you’re doing, that paralysis isn’t going to go away because you’ve achieved a zero e-mail inbox, or because you’ve made a multicolored to-do list.

Getting Off The “Time Management (Product) Treadmill”

Unfortunately, because — like I said — productivity literature tends to be focused solely on our external circumstances — on how our workspace is arranged — people tend to assume the only way to get more done is to find the right method of organizing their work environment.

So, people often get locked in a cycle of buying a book or taking a seminar, finding what they learned isn’t working for them, going out and buying another one, and repeating this process until they get tired of the whole productivity thing and give up.

Also, to be totally upfront, I think one of the reasons the usual organization strategies are so popular, even though so many people have trouble actually putting them into practice, is that people feel kind of virtuous and responsible when they learn new material on getting organized, or overcoming procrastination, or something along those lines.

They get a temporary high when they buy that new planner, or e-mail application — that frustration they’re feeling, and all the self-flagellation they’ve been doing because they feel like they’re not doing enough, temporarily fall away.  But very soon, those feelings come back, and the procrastination and inefficiency come back too.

If you can relate, one of my goals in this program is to break you out of that cycle of frustration.  I want you to be able to actually benefit from these organization strategies you’ve been learning, rather than just trying them for a day or for an hour and giving up, which unfortunately is what I think many people do.

So how do we start dealing with the ways our own minds and bodies tend to disrupt our focus as we’re trying to get something done?  I’ll begin to illustrate this by telling you a little story about my friend and the frustrations he’s been experiencing around e-mail.

The Core Experience:  An Illustration

My friend is really into these tips and tricks for organization and time management — he’s probably what a lot of these productivity websites would call a “productivity ninja.”  His most recent goal has been to curb his habit of compulsively checking his e-mail.  I imagine you’ve struggled with this at times yourself — or maybe you just, you know, know someone who has.

What my friend has committed to himself to do is to check his e-mail only twice a day while he’s at work — at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.  In theory, this sounds like it would help my friend save a lot of time.  But in practice, he’s never actually been able to keep this commitment to himself.

This is what happens for him.  He gets into work at about 8 or 8:30 in the morning, and he’s able to get about half an hour of fully focused work in, even if he’s got a nagging curiosity in the back of his mind about whether there’s anything interesting or important in his e-mail inbox.

But when that half-hour mark rolls around, my friend’s curiosity actually starts to intensify into physical discomfort.  He starts to feel a tension in his shoulders and a tightness in his chest.

If he leaves that curiosity for long enough without doing anything about it, it almost starts to feel like a shortness of breath, and he starts wondering “oh my goodness, am I going to die if I don’t check my e-mail?”  So, it seems like a pretty serious situation to him in the moment.

So, of course, to relieve this tension that’s coming up for him, my friend goes off and checks his e-mail.  When he does this, he takes his mind off the tension he’s feeling, and so he gets a break from it.

Unfortunately, while he’s checking his e-mail, he’s also taking his attention off the work he’s trying to do.  And because this keeps happening throughout the day, he keeps arriving at the end of the work day having accomplished less than he wanted.

The Core Experience:  What It Means

The moral of the story here, of course, is not that my friend doesn’t know enough organization and time management techniques.  He knows plenty of those.  He’s got a super-organized e-mail inbox with about 100 different sub-directories.  But no matter how he tweaks his e-mail organization, that burning curiosity still seems to come up.

The point of the story is that, when my friend tries to sit and concentrate on his work, these sensations come up in his body that he finds uncomfortable or even disturbing.  And to relieve those sensations — to take the edge off, as people often say — he checks his e-mail.

In other words, my friend is caught up in what I call the Procrastination Cycle.  He sits down to work and is able to chug along in what he’s doing for a short period of time.  And then, that pesky sensation, which I call the Core Experience, comes up for him.

I call it the Core Experience because, no matter what type of project you’re having difficulty moving forward in — whether it’s starting your dream business or cleaning out the garage — you’re going to find this particular nagging experience lurking in the background.

In order to get away from the Core Experience, my friend uses what I call an Escape Route — that is, he checks his e-mail to distract himself from what’s going on inside.

Then, after a little while, he returns to work, but within a short time the Core Experience arises again, and he repeats the cycle over and over again throughout the working day.

Everyone’s Experience Is Unique

I imagine you can relate to this story — that you can relate to trying to get your work done, but being confronted with thoughts, emotions and sensations — or, what I call inner experiences — that you’d rather not be having.

Now, of course, not everyone has a problem with a burning curiosity about their e-mail.  Everyone’s mind and body is different, so everyone has their own variety of inner experience that tends to come up and make their life difficult when they’re trying to get something done.

For example, maybe, for you, it’s a painful memory that keeps nagging at you while you’re trying to accomplish something.  For instance, maybe you keep replaying an old argument you had with someone in your mind as you’re sitting trying to code your computer program.  And, to make matters worse, this only seems to arise when you’re trying to do a project that’s particularly important to you.

For other people it’s just an unpleasant physical sensation that arises when they’re trying to get something done.  Maybe they feel this jumpy, anxious energy in their body.  Maybe they find their shoulders tensing up.  Maybe it’s a sinking feeling in their stomach.

Whatever it is, it seems to come up most often, or perhaps most loudly, when you’re trying to get something done.

An Awareness-Building Exercise

What kind of experience tends to come up for you?  Maybe the thought or sensation that you keep experiencing is easy to bring to mind.  But for some people it isn’t immediately clear — when I ask what inner experience is giving them trouble, they’ll say “I don’t know — I just keep finding myself putting things off.”

If you find yourself unsure about what the particular feeling or thought is for you, I think you can start to get an idea of what kind of experience it is by doing a brief exercise.

Right now, think about some project you’ve been wanting to work on recently, but you’ve been putting off.  As you recall this project and the frustrations you’ve been having around it, notice what you’re feeling in your body.

Notice the places where it’s tensing up — where it feels uncomfortably hot or cold — where you feel a heaviness or nausea — or whatever it is you’re feeling.  Do you get how unpleasant that experience is for you?

Now, what I’d like you to do is consider the possibility that, when you sit down to work on the project you’re thinking about, this is the experience you’re having — these are the sensations that are coming up in your body.  Whenever you put off working on this project, it’s because you don’t want to be feeling these sensations.

And I think you can see, as you experience the sensations right now, firsthand, why you might be doing that.  Of course you’ve been fleeing from them, given how unpleasant they are.

The Core Experience: Fighting and Fleeing

So, I think we all have some troublesome inner experience that comes up as we’re trying to complete our projects.  But importantly, I want to suggest to you that this experience alone isn’t enough to create procrastination.

The mere fact that we’re feeling some kind of discomfort doesn’t force us to put off our work.  Instead, procrastination happens when we do what I call fighting or fleeing from the experience — basically, when we choose to try to avoid having it.

What do I mean by fighting or fleeing?  I’ll start with fighting.  By fighting the experience, I mean trying to punish or shame yourself into working when that experience is coming up.

For instance, suppose that, like my friend, you tend to experience a burning curiosity about what’s in your e-mail inbox when you’re trying to work on a project.

If you try to shame yourself into working despite that experience, maybe you’ll tell yourself something like “oh, I can’t believe you’re so lazy and distractible — I can’t believe you’re thinking about your e-mail again — what’s wrong with you,” and so on.

Or maybe you’ll threaten yourself with punishment, as I know some people do.  Maybe you’ll say to yourself “you know, if you check e-mail again, you don’t get to play any XBox 360 tonight — no video games for you tonight if you check it again.”

Some productivity writers actually recommend doing this — making threats, or using what’s sometimes called “negative reinforcement,” to force yourself to work — but I don’t.

Why not?  As I’ll bet you’ve experienced, when you try to beat yourself into submission and make yourself work, that only creates more resistance inside — it only tends to intensify, in other words, that unpleasant experience you’re having.

In fact, I know that, for myself and others I’ve talked to, doing this can actually be physically tiring — by beating ourselves up, we can drain ourselves of the energy we could have been using to accomplish something.  This is a good example of what I think Carl Jung meant when he said “what we resist persists.”

What Fleeing Means

The other thing we tend to do, as I said, is that we flee from this painful experience.  Whenever that unpleasant memory, or that worry about the future, or that pain in our lower back, or whatever it is, comes up, we do something to distract ourselves from it.  Maybe we’ll play Minesweeper, or call a friend on the phone, or surf the Internet, or something else.

When we take our minds off the sensations we’re feeling, the benefit is that we don’t have to experience those sensations.  Unfortunately, there’s an obvious cost as well, which is that we don’t accomplish anything when we’re in this self-distraction mode.  While we’re messing around on Facebook, playing video games, or whatever, we aren’t getting anything done.

Now, one recommendation you’ll often hear from people who write about productivity is that you should just take away all the “toys” you could possibly “play with” when you sit down to do a task for a long stretch.

In other words, take away all the tools you might use to distract yourself — leave your cell phone in your car, disconnect your internet, and so on.  When you’ve got nothing to divert your attention with, you’ll be forced to work on your project.

Unfortunately, if you’ve ever tried this strategy, I’ll bet you’ve seen the flaw in it.  No matter how many “outer distractions” you switch off, you’ll always be stuck with what we might call your “inner distractions.”

You can always use your own mind and body to escape from that pesky inner experience, even if there’s nothing else at hand.  Maybe you can start thinking about a pop song you like, or drumming your fingers on the table, or getting up and pacing around.  The last problem I guess you could solve by tying your legs to your chair, but how far do we really want to take this?

All Right, Then What?

So, merely rearranging your workspace isn’t going to be enough to break you out of the habit of fleeing — of distracting yourself from — these unpleasant thoughts and sensations that you’ve been going through.

Now, imagine if, instead of fighting or fleeing from the experience, you could just calmly accept that the experience is coming up, and choose to move forward in your work.  Suppose that you could stay relaxed, keep breathing, maybe notice for a moment “oh, there’s that experience again,” and stay focused on what you’re doing.

Imagine the sense of freedom and ease that this could give you in your work, and how much more this would allow you to accomplish.  Learning how to do that is the heart of what this course is about.

Awareness of the Core Experience

I see dealing with this inner experience as basically a two-step process, and I call these two steps Awareness and Allowing.

I’ll start explaining this by talking about what Awareness means.  By Awareness, I mean that we become aware of the Core Experience that we’ve been running away from, and the Escape Route we’ve been using to run away from it — that is, calling friends on the phone, messing around on social media, playing Solitaire, and so on.

Remember I talked about my friend, who came to me and complained that he couldn’t concentrate on his work, because this burning curiosity about his e-mail would keep coming up that was almost painful.

In a sense, my friend’s situation is unique — perhaps you could even say he’s lucky — because my sense is that most people don’t have that level of awareness of what the Core Experience and Escape Route are for them.

Let me put it this way — have you ever gotten to the end of the workday, and wondered to yourself “where did the whole day go?  Why didn’t I get anything done?  What could I have been doing with all that time?”  And you feel frustrated and confused.  I think most of us have had that experience from time to time.

My sense is that, when we have a day like this, this Procrastination Cycle I’m talking about is happening outside our awareness.  It’s happening unconsciously.

Throughout the entire day, this is what’s happening:  we work for a few minutes, then that Core Experience — that jitteriness or resentment or whatever it is — comes up, and then we turn our attention away from our work — we follow our Escape Route.  The cycle repeats again and again, and we’re not even aware that it’s happening.

How could this be?  What I’m going to suggest is that you’re doing unconscious behaviors like this all the time.  For instance, have you ever gotten into the car, and just watched your hand shoot out and turn that car radio on, as if you didn’t even have to participate in the process?

Breathing, of course, is another good example — most of the time it’s happening even though we’re not doing it consciously.  This Procrastination Cycle, if we’re not aware of it, becomes just another one of these unconscious behaviors going on in the background for us.

Awareness by Itself Can Be Curative

The good news is that, when we become aware that this Procrastination Cycle is happening, we start to gain some control over the way we move through our workday.

Sometimes, just being conscious of the Core Experience we’re avoiding, and the Escape Route we’re using to get away from it, can free us from this Procrastination Cycle, without us having to develop a lot of self-discipline and constantly monitor ourselves to see whether we’re back in our usual habits.

Fritz Perls, the inventor of Gestalt psychotherapy, said that “awareness by itself can be curative.”  In other words, awareness by itself can create transformation.  I think this is true, and I’ve certainly seen evidence of it in my own life.

For example, I used to be in the habit of clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth.  I wasn’t consciously aware that I was doing it — the only thing I knew was that my jaw would be strangely sore a lot of the time.  Eventually, someone close to me pointed out that my jaw seemed really tense, and I had an amazing experience — my jaw just spontaneously relaxed.

In other words, I didn’t have to do any work to accomplish this — I didn’t have to get a jaw massage, or acupuncture on my jaw, or something like that — thankfully, no needles needed to be involved.  All I had to do was become aware of the tension, and it naturally fell away.

I’ll bet you’ve had an experience like this — you were doing some habit, like tapping your fingers on the table, or tensing up your shoulders, or something like that, and when someone pointed out to you that you were doing it, you effortlessly let go of the habit.

That’s what I want for you when we do the awareness-building exercises I’m going to talk about in this program — to spontaneously let go of ways you may have been hindering your progress in what you do.

Allowing the Core Experience

Unfortunately, just becoming aware of this procrastination cycle I’m talking about isn’t enough to help some people break out of it.  Some people are acutely aware of the Core Experience — of that troublesome thought, feeling or sensation — that keeps coming up when they try to focus on their project.  But that doesn’t stop them from habitually running away from this experience.

I think one reason is that, for many people, this Core Experience is actually kind of disturbing and scary.  When that anxiety, or anger, or distraction, or whatever that sensation is comes up, it can seem like a really serious or dangerous situation.

Some people get the sense that, if they just let that feeling be there without trying to do anything about it, it might stay there forever, or they might somehow be hurt or destroyed.

It’s almost as if your body is a steel pipe, and there’s pressure building up inside when this Core Experience is arising, and if you don’t open the valve and let some of that pressure off, maybe you’ll explode or implode or disintegrate or be destroyed in some other horrible way.

What Allowing Means

This is where what I call Allowing comes into play.  Allowing a sensation means to keep breathing, relax your body, and let that sensation pass away on its own — to just let that feeling flow through you and dissipate, without resisting it.

For example, suppose you’re sitting there chugging along in a project at your computer, and suddenly, like my friend I described earlier, you start to have this burning curiosity about what’s in your e-mail inbox.

Before, you may have been in the habit of beating yourself up for feeling that curiosity, like “oh, I can’t believe you’re so lazy and distractable,” and so on; or, perhaps, you may have been in the habit of giving into the urge by checking e-mail.

But this time, I invite you to try something different.  Instead of fighting or fleeing from that sensation, just sit there, and breathe, and relax your body, and allow that burning curiosity to pass away on its own.  Just let that tension or discomfort, wherever it may be coming up in your body, just drain out of you by itself.

The Core Experience Is Fleeting

What I think you’ll discover, when you practice Allowing in the way I’ve described, is that this Core Experience — this sensation you haven’t wanted to be with — is actually fleeting.  That is, it’s temporary, and it passes away quickly when you don’t resist it.  In that sense, it’s like any other thought or emotion we experience as human beings.

Take anger and sadness, for example.  If you feel angry or sad, as I’m sure you have at some point in your life, usually those emotions don’t stick around forever.  Normally, they pass away, and they’re replaced by some other thought or feeling.  That’s just the human experience.

What you’ll find when you take on this practice of letting the difficult experience pass away is that, in fact, the Core Experience is exactly the same as other thoughts and emotions in this sense.

Just letting it be there, without trying to force it away, isn’t going to make you spontaneously combust or disappear or be harmed in some other way.  Instead, it will simply fade away on its own.

Once you experience, firsthand, the fact that this Core Experience is fleeting and temporary, I think you’ll start to observe something remarkable, which is that you’ll actually begin to get more comfortable and more familiar with that Core Experience.  It will start to seem more manageable, and less disturbing and scary.

Moving Through The Core Experience

And ultimately, when you get comfortable enough with this Core Experience, this experience that used to be difficult for you to tolerate, you become able to keep moving forward in your work, even when that Core Experience is coming up.  In other words, you become able to make progress in the project you’re working on, even when that sensation is arising.

It’s as if, when that anxiety, sadness, tightness, or whatever it is comes up, you become able to say “yes, I’m feeling this sensation — and, I’m going to keep drafting this presentation, or coding this computer program, or sculpting this sculpture,” or whatever activity you happen to be doing.  And when you develop that ability, that’s when you really start to get the sense of ease and flow you want in your work.

This attitude of Allowing is similar to the practice of yoga.  If you’ve done yoga, you’ve probably had the experience of getting into a pose that involved a really deep stretch — and choosing to hold that pose, despite the intensity you were experiencing, and just allowing the sensations you were feeling to be there, without trying to do anything about them.

You may have had the urge to get up and run out of the yoga studio, or take a break and fold your socks, but you consciously chose to stay with that feeling.

I imagine you noticed that, as you stayed in that challenging pose, the intensity you were feeling in your body started to seem more comfortable.  You started to understand that you could be with that feeling, and that it wasn’t going to envelop you or destroy you if you just allowed it to be.

In the same way, when we allow the difficult sensations that come up as we’re working to just be, rather than distracting ourselves from them, we start to see that we can actually handle that intensity, and that nothing awful is going to happen to us if we continue working when that intensity is coming up.

How To Use This Course

So, like I said, the method of finding focus and motivation in your work I’m talking about in this program has two basic steps:  first, becoming Aware of the Core Experience you’re avoiding, and the Escape Route, the way you’re habitually escaping from that Core Experience; and second, learning to just Allow that Core Experience to pass away on its own, without resisting.

The exercises we’re going to talk about in this program are all about bringing this two-step process of Awareness and Allowing into your everyday working routine.

One last note:  as you’ll notice when you listen to this course, the course consists mostly of exercises.  It’s important to actually do those exercises if you want to get the benefits out of this program — this isn’t about just passively soaking up information.  The good news is that, for all of the exercises, you don’t need any special props — you just need your own mind and body.

With all that said, let’s dive right into the perspectives and exercises I’m going to talk about in this program.

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In this first video, I talk about how to develop a longer attention span, and thus get more done in a single sitting in your work, by practicing holding your attention on your breathing or an object:

In the next video, I talk about how being able to say “no” to requests is an important part of staying focused and motivated in our projects.  Often, this is a matter of getting comfortable with the intense sensations that can come up when we refuse a request:

Here, I answer a question about dealing with job interview-related anxiety, discussing how useful it can be to find the place in your body where you’re feeling the nervousness or tension, and breathe into that place.  This can be helpful for anxiety in other situations as well:

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