MIT OpenCourseWarehttp://ocw.mit.edu PE.550 Designing Your Life January (IAP) 2009 - Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.Designing Your Life (IAP-Spring 2009) Lauren Zander and Gabriella Jordan Lecture/Discussion 8: Connecting Hauntings, Traits, and Theories Principle: The Big Picture. The Connection between Hauntings, Traits, and Theories. You have traits. The traits generate theories. Hauntings are evidence of your bad theories. So your hauntings all highlight your traits. And our bad theories are our lessons in life that we need to evolve. Past every bad theory is the lesson that you are meant to learn. Think about it. What is the lesson? For example, Lauren’s lesson is that she needs to believe. This is also why it’s hard to make new theories. Existing theories feel good for a reason. We have so much evidence. We need to clear up the evidence by seeing the truth in our hauntings. How we distort it. Furthermore, it’s not enough to just realize your role and your trait in each haunting. You need to clean up your hauntings. This is where therapy fails. All unresolved hauntings will keep you in a purgatory. It is amazing how much energy you get back when you clean up even one. Every haunting incident has a piece of your soul locked up. It is crazy how all of the feelings are still there. It’s so wild. Class Participation Participant 1: I was supposed to confess to my dad that I was angry that he cheated on my mom. I didn’t, because I was afraid that it was too volatile (chicken). But I did ask my mom, and she laughed and said that my dad wouldn’t even claim to remember. I should have asked her how it made her feel to be asked about it. Lauren: That’s a good step. Participant 1: I also was really upset that week because a friend of mine was diagnosed with Lou Gherig’s disease. I don’t know how to help him, and I’m scared. Lauren: Tell him that. It’s amazing how just saying the simple truth of how you’re feeling will shift everything. Like a man who was avoiding telling his mother he loved her. He had the conversation, and then everything shifted. He could talk to his kids about love. Participant 2: I took on three confessions. And for each one, I learned this lesson: that it seems scary, some confessions more than others, but that once you do it, it is way better than you have imagined. Lauren: There are two main results of telling a confession. 1) You feel better in the world. At peace, in love. 2) How you feel about you. Confidence, maturity, wisdom. Something in you that is different. You feel more like you in your own body. Connection. Most of us are not on the court, but we are up in the stands, analyzing, spinning, plotting. When you confess, it puts you on the court. In the game. You can see clearly that there are really only two voices in your head: what you want in your life, and the fear that tries to talk you out of it. Everything is so much clearer.Participant 3: I confessed to my girlfriend that I want to be open to seeing other people. She thought about it, and said no, and so we broke up. And I don’t miss her that much. I am so glad that I opened this up. Participant 3: I don’t like my brother’s wife. I am really close to my brother. So I confessed to my brother that I don’t like her. But I haven’t told her yet. Lauren: Here is an assignment for you: a purge. Make a list of everything that is bothering you about her. It is not the truth. But every time you have something on someone, you need to get it out. Otherwise, you will prove it. We are theorists like that. But why would you want to prove that about her? Once your purge sees the light of day, we will start to know who you really are. Who knows what is really going on there. Is it her accent? Are you attracted to her? Once you have the purge, go in and find theories in there. Parent traits? See what is really going on for her. In fact, this is a good practice for everything: career decisions, family, relationships, whatever. Get to know what is really going on there. Dare yourself to get the unedited version down. Participant 3: This is scary. I have said “No” to things. Now I don’t have a girlfriend, I have half a job. But I don’t know where I’m going. It’s taking a leap, not having a structure for what’s next. Lauren: That is the best place to be. I could wish nothing more for anyone. Participant 4: I am working on my complaints about my husband. I made a list of things that I was holding against him. He knows about all of the items on the list, but in the past I have approached it from a stance of “here is why you are wrong” as opposed to “let’s explore it together.” Lauren: You need to be forgiving. Forgiveness means that you forget why you were even angry in the first place. It’s very human to hate someone so strongly so that you can remember 20 years ago as if it were yesterday. Grace, communication. Participant 4: I am also having difficulties with my neighbor. She is condescending about my parenting style. Lauren: You need to learn how not to care. She’s not a family member, she’s not your best friend. You need to not care. This is not saying hate them. But just let her be… at a distance. Write up the purge. What is really going on? She reminds you of your mother. After the purge, figure out the lesson that you are supposed to learn. And then create how you are now going to be. She is a nice woman who can be mean. You don’t like her energy, so you keep your distance, and peacefully coexist. Participant 5: I am all about balance these days. My research is going well, I am strengthening relationships with high school friends, my students, my husband. I really can do it all, it just takes structure and scheduling. Lauren: Go you! Participant 6: I want to clean up things with a friend, but she doesn’t want to talk to me. What do I do? Designing Your Life (IAP-Summer 2009) Lecture/Discussion 8 Lauren Zander and Gabriella Jordan Page 2 of 6Lauren: When I want to get a letter from someone, I write up what it would say. I even write it to me. And I believe it came from them. I then feel settled. I trust that they will write me the letter some day. It is like manifesting. Creating a premonition. It’s already done. Participant 7: I am working on a haunting where I got my parents to pull me out of summer camp. It was because the guys in my bunk were into