I mention this every so often and had a good chat about someone with it the other day. It’s the main Philosophy in the book Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert Pirsig. If you haven’t read it I’d recommend giving it a go sometime it’s quite a classic.

Pirsig is a school teacher who goes mad in his attempt to rationalise the world. He calls this ‘the ghost of rationality’. He realises in his breakdown and ultimately breakthrough how quality is the guiding force for life. When we care about life and our surroundings it is that feeling of quality (enthusiasm) which guides who we are to who we are becoming and is not rational as humans and life is not rational. We are driven by emotion.

It’s this quality which is rooted in Buddhism and other religions as an essence and guiding force for life. I have heard people say how reading this book really altered their lives for the better. It’s fair to say a lot of the ideas have been repeated over the years as this book was written in 1974.

It’s a great one though to be able to feel into the sense of where your quality is and it is with this connection that guides who you are to who you are becoming, the heroes journey.

I listened to a Coaching session yesterday where a person who said they were feeling suicidal and had ‘tried to’ commit suicide were ultimately supported well. Suicide is a massive issue particularly here in New Zealand. Unfortunately when someone does actually commit suicide that is the actual end. I have come across people who have actually genuinely tried to kill themselves and in fact been disappointed that they have failed. I feel there is another group though here we can help by giving some reframe though.

The dialogue gave a really supportive reframe to the client who said that they had ‘attempted suicide’. The highly skilled Coach was able to reflect back to them the empowerment in what they had actually done. The person had not actually fully wanted to die since if they really had then the actual attempt would have involved taking numerous more bottles of pills and they would not have been vomitting and thrashing around as they described if on the deepest level they had not wanted to be here. On a deeper level an occurrence was taking place showing that life was wanted.

The reframe was given that what had actually taken place was an action out of deperation to be able to get empathy and connection which is such a deep rooted human need. The person on the whole level while feeling in a very low state did not actually fully want to be dead but in fact really wanted to live and following the action had in fact now successfully created a situation where they were being listened to and were therefore getting empathy. So the question then turned to … so where to from here ?

I think that anyone in such a low state to actually take this type of action has to be taken incredibly seriously. What I think too though is that often we can get very caught up in looking at a potential problem and potentially making it larger rather than maybe looking at what is actually occuring and giving the most accurate framing back as a reflection.

In the case of issues like this I feel it’s important to really look at what has actually occurred. If we think that any success is 20% strategy and 80 % psychology we could say in the case of taking ones life the actual strategy is pretty straightforward so it’s important in my view while treating very senstively that we draw attention to a big part of the psychology that is actually taking place which actually really wants to live in these actions.

Someone like Robin Williams no doubt truly wanted to be dead. If in these cases though if it isn’t reflected on as a disappointing failure then what part of the person really wants to live ? What are they looking for on the deepest level ? They’ve now got the attention and empathy so how can we help to make things better than they were before ?

I feel this is something we can do well to bring out more in any one who is operating at this level in order to be supportive and give them what they need to grow.

I’ve found Jen Sincero books ‘You are a badass at making money’ and all Robert Kiyosaki books really helpful for working on our relationship with money. Remember where you are at is okay as long as you see it honestly and also have a vision which is better than where you are at now. It’s never too late.

Money is such a strange thing… or well we are lead to believe that atleast. Something with a kind of supposed quasi religious energy to it but when we really look at it it’s just nothing. It’s the same as a desk (to give the example right in front of me). It’s a thing we have a relationship with our whole lives and we get weird things attached to it which don’t actually make any sense.

Money is the root of all evil is the main big destructive one but there’s a load of others along these lines.

Whether we like it or not money impacts all of our lives. I really like the Rich Dad teaching : ‘Money is never the most important thing… but it impacts everything which is important.’ I also really like the point Jen Sincero made in her books of the either or analogy of ‘I dont care about money I value time with great people and sunsets.’ Well yes great people and sunsets are certainly a priority over a load of paper but if you had a tonne of this paper could you not spend more time with cool people and even bring the beer more often and enjoy a few more nice sunsets ?

I’m really enjoying playing the Cashflow board game every few weeks and actually have my own sheet I keep with me to work with my finances. It’s important to remember that we are always playing the game of money and since this is the case then it makes sense to make sure we are a conscious player rather than unconscious.

The journey of therapy is often making the unconscious conscious so its a good idea to really examine your relationship with money and without judgement to see if it’s one you want to improve. Remember wherever you are at you can get better. Jen Sincero is a great example of someone who was totally at the other end of the scale before totally changing her life.

The resources I’ve given here will all help plus there is a great one which is free online called ‘The science of getting rich’ 🙂

I am loving right now providing a mixture of Counselling and Coaching to my clients (and also to myself). I feel it’s the synthesis I always wanted when I got into Counselling originally. I recently heard a very high level Coach say how when he first got into Coaching through having his own he realised it was a path to having all he wanted and giving other people what they wanted. I had that exact same experience.

I studied Counselling as I felt it gave self mastery while helping others the same in an amazing cycle. I’ve come to realise through some very jolting experiences how this isn’t quite the case. I’ve become interested in how whereas the skills of Counselling are wonderful and I will always be one that it does not actually create a space where people really blast through to their highest level in their highest empowerment (which is what life is ultimately about ! 🙂 )

It’s interesting how the work of original therapists like Jung , Maslow, and Rogers talk about the actualising person or the individuating person which is all correct while I now strongly hold that the frameworks atleast Rogers gave and I ‘think’ atleast Maslow gave do not get there. I feel Jung is often more hidden so could infact be the exception.

After years of being a Counsellor I build up so much on an information level. I did feel like an expert Counsellor in ways but my own life felt like it was always in fits and starts and wasn’t really getting traction.

Since getting into Coaching I got intrigued with the idea of the ‘state break’ where the diempowered state is broken and replaced with an empowered one.

It’s here I feel we need to be careful but is where all the energy lies. Counselling brings awareness to a weed and it’s totally fine to feel in that space with empathy. To be with someone in that space and then give support so they can climb out. There is a beautiful elegance about this. With this too we can get information and awareness about what happened and how we got in there.

I feel this is the point of contact though with Counselling and Coaching. It’s one thing to do that but what about the real blast off to something new. A counselling modality here continuing can just go round and round while staying in a state of greater awareness but still not in the highest possible empowerment.

It’s here that a real system of mentor-ship, role modelling, priming new emotions, getting a vision of the future are really key to not just heal this but make all this just a distant memory, a past life, as we get on with creating the new canvas which can be totally different to the last one.