As I sit across from him, I notice the familiar story has hijacked his mind and body, and there is nothing I could do. As I doodle with my son’s toys (thankfully he’s asleep), I listen to the relentless insistence of the suffering, showing up as righteous outrage and indignation, caused and sustained by an old and insistent pain of not having been chosen. The pain is deeply rooted and the betrayal feels unshakably real, but only to him.

Blinded by rage is a state of being deeply familiar to those who spend their lives trying to belong, to prove themselves as worthy, to know themselves as cherished and loved. But uncertain to all of it, they spend a lifetime with self-fulfilling prophecies that create their reality, no matter the objective experience of the moment. After all, individual reality is nothing but a holographic projection of mind.

For me, that sense of rage-full righteousness and unwavering entitlement over a perceived betrayal is all too familiar. If I didn’t know what I know today, if I didn’t live how I live today, I would have withered away in that exact familiar state of outrage, both creating it and sustaining it through the tape player simply playing out the predictable and familiar story.

But I didn’t. And for that, I am eternally grateful to my deep desire to live differently. And then choosing it.

The familiar strategy is a construct, not an identity.

You see, cultural conditioning (I think I will create a mini course around this because I’m mindful I use this a lot and it warrants explanation) is relentless in its power to shape our identity. When we don’t know how to be present in the moment and pattern interrupt the cultural conditioning (or when we simply don’t want to pattern interrupt it) it dictates who we become. In our modern world, we call that “personality” or “character” or “DNA”. But I’m not so sure about that…

What I have come to discover through my own personal experience is that when I know how my mind works, I am much more likely to own my mind (rather than the other way around). For me, owning my mind is a non negotiable because when I know how the structure of my mind works, I become unmanipulatable.

Now, when I say the word manipulation maybe immediately you think of the media or neoliberal capitalism or the “narcissist” boyfriend. But that's not what I'm talking about – I'm talking about allowing your own familiar and habituated undercurrents to manipulate you into the same-old.

These undercurrents I speak of boil down to four fundamental ones we pick up on growing up (see if you can spot which is your dominant one that drives you):

Shame
Sadness
Rage
Fear

They are not all separate from each other, of course, and we all run all of them at different times, but there is always one that is deeply rooted underneath all the rest.

For myself, I grew up modeling that power looks like rage, outrage and righteous indignation. So I spent my youth fighting. I spent my youth seeking to awaken people to “reality”. I spent my youth fighting (myself) for justice. Oh, how blinded by rage I was!

But deep down I knew I was terrified and wounded, but I couldn’t stop because if I did then I’d have to face myself. So I distracted myself with an abusive relationship for seven years, instead. Then I numbed my pain with drugs.

Living differently, ultimately, is a matter of choice.

(and not everyone wants to!)

Today, I live my life differently and from a vast and wide perspective that is afforded to us only when we live from the power of process over content.

When you focus on content, you will always find justifications to prove how ‘right’ you are. Your life will be shitty, but at least you’ll be right.

When you focus on the process, you will always find the undercurrents that are running the show of your life, out of your awareness. This is why understanding how the Predictable Structure of Thought works is pure power.

And when you focus on the process through the perceptual filters of the godForce that you are, well then … the whole game changes entirely. I get it, not everyone knows what I’m even talking about here – I didn’t either, until I dared to delve deep into the essence of what I am and play in the dark until I discovered the light that I AM. And today, I am unapologetic about that.

Even in the toughest moments of my life, I do not question what I know, nor the inner cues of my body. I do not question the definitive boundaries that often present after the fact. And I do not question my version of reality.

A decade ago, I would have. I would have allowed the cultural stories to dictate how I should feel – I would allow the stories to gaslight me into compliance while raging on the inside.

But I feel no rage, no outrage, not even pity anymore. I simply look at the beast of what is in the eye and I create my boundaries around it. I can neither unleash or leash the beast that belongs to another – all I can do is create boundaries around how I invite and allow that beast to impact the quality of my life.

To be honest, I am profoundly uninterested in, and bored with, mind games of any kind. I just don’t give a fuck.

Here’s what I care deeply about: my connection to the Sacred I AM. And from that, everything flows …

A few days ago I wrote about the importance of embracing authenticity as a way of life. The alternative to that? Illusion fed merely by the familiar story. I cannot imagine staying a victim to a story for life… yet most people live their whole lives attached to a version of themselves that was formed by the time they were seven. Yikes.

How much pain does your familiar story cause you?

Maybe you’re reading this question and you’re uncertain about what I’m talking about. Maybe you’re reading it and something resonates, despite the uncertainty. Maybe you’re reading it and you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Either way, perhaps you will give yourself permission to trust that you too have a familiar undercurrent running the show. And that undercurrent, although it is NOT who you are, sure feels like it. And when that undercurrent is left unchecked, “lights on nobody home”, it will continue to replicate, out of your conscious awareness, like a pest on steroids with no predators around.

I hadn’t intended to use that word, predator, yet here it is. So let’s use it constructively – perhaps the time has come for us all to intentionally predate and devour the outdated cultural conditioning that is solely responsible for causing us suffering. That is, of course, if you’re interested in no longer suffering… and not everyone is! But if you are, then the process of Decloaking is imperative. Explore where the journey takes you. As always, you don’t have to be on this journey alone …