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Overcoming the ego’s resistance to the idea of second chances in life February 25, 2013

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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In trying to implement our personal growth plan towards the development of our individual potential, our ego (that voice in our heads) may try to convince us that second chances in life are not possible.

Instead of focusing on the positive possibilities of the present, the ego often tends to dwell in the troubles and shortcomings past and on fears and self-doubts about the future.  In this emotional environment, there would appear to be little room for the concept of second chances in life.

However, to help us, there is a lot of good material available in personal growth literature about techniques on how to create a positive future for ourselves, despite past “failures.” But, for these techniques to work we first must believe or have faith in the concept of second chances.

I recently watched a brief interview with the actor Frank Langella, which I will paraphrase because I was not able to write down all of his comments verbatim at the time.

Langella, who has had a lot of “ups” and “downs” in his career said that he never became discouraged with the difficult times in his acting career because he regarded these as growing experiences and made an effort to learn from each event in his career.

In the interview he said that he did not believe in the idea that we don’t have second chances in life. In fact there is chance #2, chance #22, chance #108 –there are always second and further chances “as long as you’re breathing,” Langella says.

Because of a lack of belief in second chances, Langella says, many people “decide to shut down and settle.” By not going for second chances these people shut themselves off from “everything that makes life worth living.” He concluded the interview by commenting that we all have two choices in life – we can either lie down or we can get up every day and keep going.

There is a brief Article on Frank Langella available at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Langella

 

 

Ego management: Eckhart Tolle on controlling psychological time January 9, 2013

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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Eckhart Tolle tells us that one of the main causes of emotional and mental distress is the tendency of the ego or mind to dwell in the past and the future, rather than focusing on the present.

Tolle considers this past/present thought process of the ego or mind to be psychological time, as opposed to “clock” time. Clock time might involve activities such as preparing a report for a meeting on Friday, or getting our kids ready to take them to a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Psychological time or mind-time, ego-time, by contrast would be worrying about possible outcomes of presenting your report on Friday, or fretting about what the doctor’s report will be this afternoon.

Tolle believes that there are serious emotional and mental consequences from our tendency to dwell frequently in psychological time. In The Power of Now, he writes, “All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry—all forms of fear – are caused by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence.”

For Tolle, one of the first steps we can take to get out of this endless mind/ego loop is to simply recognize this tendency, to be watchful, and observe when we are doing it. He does say, however, that this approach will take a lot of practice because the mind and ego are so fixed in this tendency that we are constantly dwelling in the past and future, and thereby coloring our thought process, that we do not usually recognize that it is happening.

Tolle recognizes that it is difficult to grasp that “time”, and more specifically psychological time, is the cause of our problems, and says that although everyone has problems in their “life situation” that need to be either dealt with or accepted, he says the biggest problem we have is ultimately the “time-bound mind itself.”

Tolle devotes close one-third of his 230-page book explaining this problem and working to convince us of the emotional and intellectual difficulties it causes. Then, for the most, part the remainder of The Power of Now is dedicated to presenting strategies and tactics to help remove ourselves from this conundrum.