Tag: problems

Who’s driving your bus?

Posted on by philipdodson

If we want to see changes in our life, then we have to take different actions, right?

If we keep doing the same things, then, of course, we always end up with the same results.

However, is it as simple as just changing what we do? Why if it was this simple, do we still struggle to change what we do?

As always, we have to go back to the roots of everything. It all starts at the core, not on the surface.

This is how it works…what we do or don’t do, is a direct result of our state of being. So if our state of being is one of fear or anxiety or worry etc, then the actions we take/don’t take will reflect that. Then the actions will lead to outcomes and those outcomes then feed back into our state of being. Thus we go round and round the same circle. We will never be able to change what we do unless we change our state of being.

Wow!! simple, right? Well…erm, no.

We have to work out what creates our state of being in order to be able to change it.

What creates our state of being?

Imagine yourself as a bus. The bus is our body, inside the bus is our soul, the only you, the true essence. In order to be in the state of being that will allow us to manifest truly who we are, we have to be the driver. We are the only one who is qualified to drive our bus. The true ‘you’ needs to be in the driving seat always. Then the bus goes on the path and journey that our soul/true essence (you) wants to take and experience. We will be able to do what we really want to do as we are consciously driving our bus.

However, what happens is there is someone else on the bus…shit! That’s right, there is a passenger, and that is our mind/ego/thoughts. The ego creates its own story and then wants to drive the bus and the real you ends up in the passenger seat suffering as the ego is a bad driver.

The other bad news, the ego stops and lets on other passengers either passengers that it has created or ones that others have created for us. These passengers then become our beliefs. The passengers, once created by us or the ones we let on the bus, never leave. They become our beliefs.

The ego, lets them drive too, so the suffering increases and our life, the bus journey, becomes hijacked and the journey doesn’t go as we intended or want. Beliefs create thoughts which lead to our actions, which in turn, create the outcomes in the exterior world.

So if we want to change our state of being, we have to identify the passengers, put them back into their seats and then take our position in the driving seat. Then the actions we take will be the ones that we want to take and the journey will unfold as we want it to. Once you have shone a torch on the passengers you know how they are, even the ones that hide right under the seats!

This means being at peace with all that is, accepting our beliefs are there, accept the journey to now. We have to accept that once we go into the psychological time dimension of the future, looking at the map, then the passengers get back into the driving seat.

Similarly, if we go back to the past, as in start looking in the rearview mirror, then we end up allowing the passengers to direct us, we are looking back and not staying focused on driving the bus. We are no longer focused on the road right in front of us and then we take wrong turns or crash.

The only moment we can drive the bus is now, it is the ONLY time. Now is our life and when we fall in love with this moment and stop denying it or seeing it as a means to an end, then we drive and not the passengers.

A good way to stay focused on the driving is to see each action we do as equal, do not place greater value on one thing versus another, then we are not always seeking the next ‘big’ thing and that stops us from reading the map all the time and worrying and thinking, it keeps the passengers from sneaking back into the driving seat as we are conscious and paying attention.

The other thing to note is when the passengers, directed by our ego, drive the bus, they do not pay any attention to the maintenance of the bus (our physical body). In fact, they damage the bus with their bad driving.

They also crash into other buses driven by their passengers and that creates bad relationships with other buses.

Drive your bus…it’s the only way to get to the destination you want in life.

Advice?

Posted on by philipdodson

If we come to someone and ask advice, and then do not take it because we don’t like the answer, it’s often because we wanted approval and not advice.

We can, of course, gain from advice, books, podcasts, coaching, courses if we are stuck, but most often we are looking for approval or validation rather than advice or a way of putting off taking the action we already know will solve the problem.

However, if we only consume them and never actually try them or act upon them faithfully then we won’t advance, we will stay stuck in our perceived problem.

Every challenge in life has a solution and we need to be responsible for being a path finder and not being a person who only wants instructions that we don’t follow because we either don’t really have a challenge, other than what the mind has invented, or we actually are too fearful to find a solution to it.

We have the answer, but we seek approval from others for our proposed solution under the smokescreen of advice.

So many people seek advice and then never act on it.

Unsolicited advice is never well received or useful, it is actually the advisors ego and their own stories that causes them to vent under the disguise of advising.

We never like being told when all we wanted was to be listened too. We didn’t ask for the opinion but the other person’s ego and autobiographical perspective caused them to offer ‘advice’ which really translates to ‘look at me I know’ behaviour. It’s not genuine heartfelt care, it’s actually about them and not you.

If we seek advice and don’t use it that’s ok too, we do not have to agree with the adviser. But when we seek advice and don’t like the answer, that’s not the fault of the adviser.

We all need help at times and we all need advice and as long as that is what you are seeking and not looking for approval, then advice is a good option when we are stuck on our path-finding mission.

Advice works when we are truthful with ourselves as that is what we really want.