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iamthewallress
Jun 10, 2004, 7:56 PM
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vivalargo's bit about learning to live with chaos (aka fear in my world) rather than eliminate it has really been at the center of my efforts at mental growth through the Warrior's Way. Here are a few quotes (from a collection called "Positive Quotations" compiled by John Cook and given to me for xmas by my beloved Great Aunt Anna...) You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing that you think you can not do. --Eleanor Roosevelt I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him. --Eleanor Roosevelt Great things are accomplished by those who do not feel the impotence of man. This... is a precious gift. --Valery When we are not sure, we are alive. --Graham Greene Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve. -Tehyi Hsieh To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. -Eva Young Action makes more fortune than caution. -Vauvenargues Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man is by necessity uncertain --Erich Fromm When you first learn to love hell, you will be in heaven. --Thaddeus Golas. Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation. --Honore de Balzac Anxiety never yet successfully bridged any chasm. --Ruffini If your eyes are blinded with worries, you can not see the beauty of the sunset. -Krishnamurti Excessive fear is always powerless. --Aeschylus I'd heard the first part of this one before, but the whole thing is really great, IMO: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. --FDR This one is great for all of us who have ever wished that the challenge with which we were presented was different than the reality that we were forced to deal with: Common sense does not ask an impossible chessboard, but takes the one before it an plays the game. --Wendell Phillips And acceptance is the answer to *all* my problems. today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation---some fact of my life---unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. --AA "Big Book" Wishing does not make a poor man rich. --Arab Proverb This is a good "beginner's mind" quote. Loosing aspects of my beginners mind has really played into my need to control things. When I didn't know that there were things that I could control, things often flowed more easily (even if I was actually doing some sketchball things unintentionally): Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do. --Edgar Degas The work will teach you how to do it. --Estonian Proverb
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unabonger
Jun 11, 2004, 2:26 PM
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I enjoy quotations. It's forever interesting to examine what it means to you initially, and to wonder what the context may have been initially, and I like to apply it to various current life scenarios to see what I may be missing. UB
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vivalargo
Jun 29, 2004, 8:24 PM
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Hey, Let me add something to this "living with chaos without trying to make it go away" theme. One of the really rewarding studies I've done in the last few years is looking into personality types--Meyers Briggs, MBTI, Jungian, and the King of them all, the Enneagram. A key part of these studies to to discover the deepest fear of each type--and it is always the same thing: fear of death. Existentialists long ago realized this and coined the word, "death anxiety," which is a basic part of human life, though the anxiety is so buried that we rarely every encounter it neat. When you do, it can transform you for all the shenanagans we do to not feel it (compensaory, ego-driven behaviors) lose some of their hold. IMO, this is a topic worth looking into. JL
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dirtineye
Jun 30, 2004, 12:38 AM
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Well you are talking about somehting I have a little experience with, so I'll tell you what my oncologist told me when I asked her if I was going to die in six months. She said, "You might die. You might not. You can't control that. What you can do is live every day as well as you can and make the most of it. In six months you'll either be dead or not, but if you make the most of what you have, you'll be better off than if you worry about dieing and make yourself miserable for the next six months." So I listened to her. She changed my life with those words. And after I got better, I took up climbing, where that same philosophy applies very well.
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vivalargo
Jun 30, 2004, 1:41 AM
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In reply to: Well you are talking about somehting I have a little experience with, so I'll tell you what my oncologist told me when I asked her if I was going to die in six months. She said, "You might die. You might not. You can't control that. What you can do is live every day as well as you can and make the most of it. In six months you'll either be dead or not, but if you make the most of what you have, you'll be better off than if you worry about dieing and make yourself miserable for the next six months." So I listened to her. She changed my life with those words. And after I got better, I took up climbing, where that same philosophy applies very well. That's an inspired note if ever there was one. The crucial part of this, for me, is that you actually have to feel into that anxiety for it to burn off and transmute the trivial crap we so often concern ourselves with, since that anxiety actually drives it unconsciously. Wehen we find ourselves clinging, feling rejected, scared, it's the fear of death that fueling the flame sure as I'm writing this. Go to the source -- or get hurled there as happened to dirtineye -- and you either fold, or push on in a new way. JL
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lou_dale
Oct 9, 2004, 4:26 PM
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i value all the quotes and find them intriguing............but i think my chaos or fear (at least for me) is proving (surfacing - the more i move forward, the more is revealed to me, thankfully) is fear of failing and for me - this is a huge issue that i deal with constantly. i have had several occasions to be close to death so death in itself isn't as bad to me as not cutting it. that comes down to comparison to others, which i know i should not do and am always working on..........i've also had the fortune (?) of being where somebody came close to death and observed others. my chaos is failure and comparisons.........but had i NOT gone through arno's course, i probably never would have been as aware of these challenges as i am now. what arno did for me was more than enhance my climbing life..........he awakened my spiritual life and emotional life. sometimes - facing your fear is as easy as looking at yourself in a mirror - the trick is learning to accept what you see with love and see what's deep inside.
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iamthewallress
Oct 11, 2004, 8:52 PM
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In reply to: sometimes - facing your fear is as easy as looking at yourself in a mirror - the trick is learning to accept what you see with love and see what's deep inside. Welcome back Lou! For me the trick once I accept what I see is not becoming so content with my present image that I get lazy or complacent and don't expect more from myself! I guess part of the challenge of keeping chaos alive is to work on teasing out the good aspects of dissatisfaction without getting lost in the bad bits.
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lou_dale
Oct 11, 2004, 11:22 PM
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that makes such sense - getting lost in bad habits or maybe reverting back to old habits. nothing is more rewarding than realizing - hey, i'm moving forward - STILL and realizing and understanding that the comfort is the old ways or old habits. and when i think about that, doesn't make a lot of sense now does it? old habits or bad habits = comfort? i'm out there but to me - the sound of chaos calling has a much sweeter note to it than comfort. i'm just glad to be learning, growing, and moving forward because to me it's like your lungs being able to breathe in more air each time and the place i came from was being a very shallow breather........the rewards aren't always about sending the route even though that does feel pretty darned good.....but realizing you could trust in yourself - now my challenge is just to keep it up. i love this thing we do.............i absolutely love it. i just wish sometimes i could have been introduced into climbing a long time ago - but i'll just have to live a really, really long time so i can enjoy it for many years. i can't think of anything that isn't like facing ourselves in a mirror more than climbing -
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lou_dale
Oct 12, 2004, 11:14 PM
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let me explain to a degree............something........ i was sexually and physically abused. enough said BUT really bit BUT..........climbing has freed a part of me that was more than hidden, it was iron clad locked up. folks.........talk to arno. GO and do his course! please, i beg you because???????????? it opened up my life...........it took the veil off my eyes AND my partner''s eyes............and made us SEE reality. it works. the course the book the principle it works i promise
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knucklebusted
Sep 30, 2005, 9:34 PM
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In reply to: Hey, Let me add something to this "living with chaos without trying to make it go away" theme. One of the really rewarding studies I've done in the last few years is looking into personality types--Meyers Briggs, MBTI, Jungian, and the King of them all, the Enneagram. A key part of these studies to to discover the deepest fear of each type--and it is always the same thing: fear of death. Existentialists long ago realized this and coined the word, "death anxiety," which is a basic part of human life, though the anxiety is so buried that we rarely every encounter it neat. When you do, it can transform you for all the shenanagans we do to not feel it (compensaory, ego-driven behaviors) lose some of their hold. IMO, this is a topic worth looking into. JL My girlfrind did a very similar study that was published in the american journal of phsycology. It was interesting to see how easlily you can pull fear out of someones subconcious with minimal effort. She used a form of free association.
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knucklebusted
Sep 30, 2005, 10:05 PM
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In reply to: Hey, Let me add something to this "living with chaos without trying to make it go away" theme. One of the really rewarding studies I've done in the last few years is looking into personality types--Meyers Briggs, MBTI, Jungian, and the King of them all, the Enneagram. A key part of these studies to to discover the deepest fear of each type--and it is always the same thing: fear of death. Existentialists long ago realized this and coined the word, "death anxiety," which is a basic part of human life, though the anxiety is so buried that we rarely every encounter it neat. When you do, it can transform you for all the shenanagans we do to not feel it (compensaory, ego-driven behaviors) lose some of their hold. IMO, this is a topic worth looking into. JL My girlfriend did a very similar study, which was published in the American journal of psychology, were she used an object in the middle of the room, and people would study the object, which seemed to be a jumbled mass of random smaller objects. With this form of, I guess you would call it a form of free association, the subjects would identify anything within object that would invoke the smallest shred of fear, which would then be translated into what they imagine the fear may stem from onto a sketch pad. This was followed by a personality type test. This test was, for all intensive purpose, dead on. Now for my point. Through the experience of this experiment, she is often very sensitive to her own fears and can easily turn the fear around and continue without loosing a step. The fear of the unknown or worst situation imaginable can b every crippling
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toejam
Oct 1, 2005, 1:09 AM
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In reply to: Meyers Briggs, MBTI, Jungian, and the King of them all, the Enneagram. A key part of these studies to to discover the deepest fear of each type--and it is always the same thing: fear of death. I suspect I am none of those types, as I can find in myself little to no fear of death. Perhaps that would change if it were presented to me as more than the abstract concept it is now. What does scare me witless is the threat of serious, disabling injury that would sap much of the spice of life. I suppose that's because I'm essentially a narcissist. A close second would be serious embarrassment. I'd be mortified to die in what I consider a foolish manner, such as overestimating my abilities climbing, or one of those guys that get found surprisingly often, having taken asphyxiation mixed with auto-eroticism a step too far. But back on topic here's a couple of my favourites: "Courage is grace under pressure." - Ernest Hemingway "Although danger ought never be needlessly incurred, it is yet true that the keenest zest in sport comes from its presence, and from the consequent exercise of the qualities necessary to overcome it. ... coolness, intelligence, physical bravery, perseverence, watchfulness, hardiness, good judgement, and a little dash of energy at the proper time helps immensely." - Teddy Roosevelt. Bruce Lee wrote about viewing fear as an inner strength to be drawn upon, rather than a weakness. Its an attitude that has always helped me in competition, and translates to climbing as well. When toproping something I feel is beyond my ability to lead safely, I often visualize myself on lead, to try and feel the fear and get information from it. The Gift of Fear by Gavin Becker is an interesting book that talks about fear as a tool for harnessing intuition to perceive overlooked danger. It's mostly about violence and stalkers but is a gripping as well as insightful read. I believe Arno quoted it in TRWW.
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arnoilgner
Oct 3, 2005, 3:23 PM
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Here are a few quotes that inspire me: “If you're not willing to die for your actions, then you're not willing to live for them.” —Ken Eagle Feather [Talk about fear of death? How fully do we live our lives? Knowing that will give us a clue into how much we fear death.] “The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse.” —don Juan, Tales of Power [See situations for what they are, not as you label them based on how you've been socialized.] “I wish it [the ring: challenging situations] need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” [We only have one choice: What will we do in this moment? Respond with fear or with courage?] “We have work to do!” —Saruman [Value work! Work grows us.] “Honor your petty tyrants.” —don Juan [If we truly value learning we would see difficult people or difficult situations as opportunities for learning. As difficult as this may seem, it is the reality of our world. Accept it.]
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arnoilgner
Oct 3, 2005, 3:32 PM
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Here are a few quotes that inspire me: “The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or as a curse.” —don Juan, Tales of Power [See the world as it is instead of how you label it based on your socialization.] “I wish it [the ring: challenging situations] need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” [The only choice we have is how to use this moment. Choose to use this moment with courage instead of fear.] “Whatsoever you are doing…be double-arrowed.” —Osho, Awareness [Awareness is everything. Be aware of what you do outwardly but also what drives you inwardly.] “Honor your petty tyrants.” —don Juan [Difficult people, difficult situations, which don Juan calls petty tyrants are only difficult because we haven’t learned how to deal with them. They won’t be so difficult if we value learning.] “We have work to do!” —Saruman [Value work. It grows us.] “If you're not willing to die for your actions, then you're not willing to live for them.” —Ken Eagle Feather [Talk about fear of death? How fully do we live our life? That’s a clue to how much we fear death.]
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