Universal Life Lessons?

I've long had a talent for seeing the patterns in my life, and learning from them, and being able to shape them into stories that teach others those life lessons too. What I'm newly understanding is how prevalent (or not) some of those lessons really are.

For example, during a meditation retreat many years ago I noticed that my emotions were fluctuating wildly and that the changes had nothing to do with anything. Not only was nothing changing around me to cause the emotions, but there weren't even any thoughts causing the emotions. The emotions arose and dispersed on their own, with no cause.

This gave me the insight that we humans have a habit of assigning causation to our emotions to justify them. We even can get very upset when we think something is causing emotions we don't enjoy. Even more so if we think someone is causing undesired emotions. But really that's just our confusion leading to this cycle of blame, anger, and increased reactivity.

What I've newly learned through study of Human Design is that this is true for about 51% of the population. For the other 49% emotions do in fact follow thoughts, and don't constantly shift in waves on their own.

Now 51-49 is pretty close, so let's let that slide. It is more likely to be true than not, so worth sharing with people to help them be less yanked around by emotions that it turns out are random.

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Here's one that's a bit more serious...

Let it Come or Make it Happen?

If you read my first book, Being Bliss, you'll know that I lived in Bali for a year. During the decade before it I'd tried really hard to make a lot of things happen, and none really materialized. I left the US exhausted and moved to Bali to just sit in the rice fields, staring up at the sky, letting it all wash away.

After about 4 months sitting on my Teras/deck, I started feeling like I wanted to go out more. As I did, people offered me incredible opportunities, one after another. I wound up doing everything I'd tried to do in the US the decade before, only at a much higher level, and with no effort to make it happen. Everything came though an invitation from others who made it happen for me.

I've often used that example and many others like it from other times in my life to make the point that we have to be still and let things come to us sometimes. That after we've built the skills and abilities needed, the key to success is allowing, not generating accomplishment.

Turns out I'm like only 20% of the population in being like that!

I'm what's called a Projector type, and yes, that's how it works for Projectors. But we are only 20% of the population.

Most people therefore will see success come from their efforts to create opportunities for themselves if it will come at all.

So in this case, it has really done a disservice to 80% of the people I've shared this suggestion with, assuming they are a random cross section of the population. In reality, when I was a business consultant I probably had a tendency to attract Projectors, simply because they're the ones who resonated with what I was sharing. The ones that stuck with me were the ones benefiting from trying what I was guiding them to try.

Still, it's important to clarify just how diverse we humans are. It's easy to say we see and value diversity, but usually we think of more superficial differences in practice. We know people have different cultures, customs, likes and dislikes.

But ways of perceiving the world?
Ways of having life work for you even if you do the exact same thing as someone else, and results having nothing to do with what you look like, what you have, or what family/place you come from as you do it?

We aren't accustomed to expecting that kind of diversity out of the people around us. There's a tendency to think our life lessons are universal, especially if learning them created an epoch sea change in our own success in life. But no. Depending on what it is, it could be that it does apply to most people, or that it only applies to few others like you.

I offer this for your consideration:

What have you learned over the years that has made a huge difference for you that you wish everyone knew so they could benefit too?

Now consider that whatever that is, maybe or maybe not for any given person!

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(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)

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