The Vipassana meditation course is the practical application of the buddhist theory of happiness. Within Buddhism there’s no concept of an afterlife therefore its focus is on happiness in this life and that’s what is relevant here. If we believe there's an eternal Heaven, or Hell, awaiting us then the quality of this relatively short life we're currently experiencing isn't so important - eternity is a long time whereas the handful of decades we're on this planet isn't. Rationally, this life becomes something of a qualifying round with the focus on accessing the potential eternal bliss up ahead. Being good, as defined by the culture we happened to be born into, becomes more important than being happy.

Rightly, or wrongly, for better or worse, Buddhism is concerned with happiness in the here and now and they figured out the structure of happiness, or at least how to generate happiness, a long time ago. Nowadays, our science understands that structure in much more detail than could be known in the past, but happiness then is happiness now. How we improve our level of happiness also, not surprisingly, remains the same although the terminology, and the concepts, used to explain it are obviously different - no one was talking about bio chemicals a thousands years ago - they translate back to the same general model. In practice, we've got the more esoteric model, or the scientific model, to choose from but, regardless of which we prefer, they paint the same picture. Here we'll explain happiness from both perspectives - present both models - so the universal fundamentals are clear and from there explain how an emotional detox significantly improves our sense of well being/ level of happiness.

If I have an hour to solve a problem, I'll spend 55 minutes defining it and just 5 minutes solving it' Einstein

By defining we're returning to the underlying fundamentals which, if we clarify, tends to resolve the problem. Confusion begets confusion.

While we may not personally believe in an eternal after life we, if we're westerners, cannot escape our culture is heavily influenced by this binary - good/bad - judgemental mentality. To us it's normal, indeed it is normal in our societies, but it's not normal in Buddhist societies. Obviously, if we're just seeking to be happy -just seeking those relevant feelings - we're much more able to navigate directly to them without feeling the need to firstly tick the 'right' boxes. This direct orientation helps a lot and the flexibility in non binary operating systems allows them to readily escape ruts. At base, all pragmatic therapy seeks to introduce flexibility into the individuals system which then allows the individual to make the changes needed. If the taste is not as we want we, obviously, have to change our recipe, but doing so firstly requires enough flexibility. Emotional detoxes help immensely with this plus provide us an immediate, significant improvement in our sense of well -being. As most people understand their phones operating system better than they understand their own this probably makes little sense, but it will shortly.

‘When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness is the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life’. John Lennon

The delightful feelings we call happiness arise primarily from emotional well being and this is equally obvious scientifically today as it was thousands of years ago. If we're fill of love and joy, the rest is just logistics. While traditionally there could be no knowledge of bio chemicals - neurotransmitters, hormones etc - it was obvious we’re feeling something and that we could control those somethings. Clearly, if we can control what bio chemicals we’re generating within, and then consuming/experiencing, we’re controlling what we’re feeling and if we’re controlling what we’re feeling we’re controlling our level of happiness. That we can reverse engineer happiness - go directly to it instead of feeling the need to tick the ‘right’ boxes first - is obviously possible and an emotional detox proves this to us.

Emotional detoxes could, perhaps more accurately, be called motivational detoxes in that we’re deleting/ minimising motivations that have accumulated over time and now compete against our emotional motivations for our limited time, focus and energy. We have to prioritise, have to choose which motivations we nourish, and thus satisfy. When our overgrown branches of acquired motivations are pruned back we’re escaping those negative, or even just distracting, motivations. We're reclaiming time and energy, and allowing much more light/energy into our emotional core. Joy needs space to flow into.

Our emotions thrive on love and joy. While love and joy are very similar experiences -similar flavours/ bio chemicals - they’re not exactly the same and nor are their sources the same. Joy is like soft background music that is always there but we can’t connect to it, can’t hear and experience it, if there’s also loud music. Often, it's only when the loud music is turned off that we even know the other music was there all along. When we - if we - experience it we then get it, we understand that less is more and it’s this experience a VM course seeks to introduce us to.

Typically, people try to throw delightful seeds into their inner garden without first weeding their garden. Leaving aside they are defining ‘delightful’ as per their existing dominate motivations, how can those seeds grow when all the space in their garden is already taken up? Weed our garden first and then see what we’ve got. See how we feel. It’s highly likely we’ll discover the space itself has a quality all of its own as joy needs space to flow into.

Explained scientifically; we have two seperate motivational systems; We have our dopamine system and our serotonin/ oxytocin system but we can only access our serotonin system in the absence of the louder dopamine system. For example, those on the other side of the monastery walls are not seeking love - they’re in the wrong place for that - so they’re either all naive, and stupid, or they’re seeking something else. That we don’t get it, that we may not know what they’re experiencing doesn’t mean that experience doesn’t exist, it just means we’ve never experienced it ourselves.

A VM course introduces us to this other system, effectively other reality, so we can experience the massive difference and now have options we didn't previously. We can be in system 'A' or system 'B' or mix and match; we can get the best from both worlds. While it might seem a binary proposition, we're in either A or B, in practice there's a spectrum in the sense that the less we're in system A the more we're in system B. To understand this we need to understand our species hardwired motivations, typically called instincts, because if they're not happy, we're not happy. If our motivations are satisfied and purring - if we have what we want - we're feeling great and that's what happiness is obviously. As we can't escape our instincts - they're there and either purring, or clawing - they're what we need to connect to and get purring.

We're not out in the environment for no reason; we've got objectives we're trying to satisfy. As our objectives are downstream of motivations - we're not seeking what we don't want - it's our current motivations that are determining our objectives, then our decisions and then our actions. Our actions- our steps - add up and take us to this, or that, reality. If our motivations are all tangled up, confused and contradictory we struggle to act in our own actual interests. Indeed, we don't even know what our actual interests are. To know we return to our core innate motivations by detoxing away the accumulated junk motivations.

Our goal is not to find love, and joy, but to remove all barriers which are preventing us from receiving it.” Rumi

Now we're connected to our actual motivations and are nourishing them instead of feeding infections, instead of nourishing the cuckoos in our nest. Additionally, the space we've now got allows joy to flow in. Now we get why some people are on the other side of the monastery walls, know what it is they're experiencing. We know there's a spectrum with someone like Trump at the unhappy, cynical pole of that spectrum while the other end of the spectrum is symbolised by Buddha. 'By doing nothing, I do everything' he said. Indeed, what is there to do if we're 10/10 happy? Do what? If we're 10/10 happy we, by definition, have no unsatisfied motivations so of course he just sat, with that massive smile on his face, and watched the world go by.

At one end of the spectrum everything is nothing and at the other end nothing is everything. However, everyones sweet spot along that spectrum is different and it's not a competition. What some experience as an unsatisfactory rut is a cozy niche for others. We're all different with the objective being to find our sweet spot, our cozy niche but we can't do this if we're rigid and frozen in place. If we believe where we are on the spectrum is the reality and the current us is how we are then we will stay where we are as, to us, that's all there is.

Sure, we have to survive, that's our priority and beyond survival motivations our emotions need to battle our ego for nourishment - one motivations treasure can be, and often is, another motivations trash - but it is what it is. Though egos recoil from accepting it, we're social primates, we're motivationally complicated and our motivations are not inherently streamlined. They've got different jobs, they exist for different reasons and don't care, don't even know, about other motivations. They need to be managed and, fortunately, our turbo charged primate brains are capable of understanding and then managing them. We can seperate our motivational treasure from the motivational trash and get the relevant ones purring - be very happy. We do this, or we don't, it's up to us, but if we want to the first obvious step is an emotional/motivational detox to return to our innate motivations because they are us and they're not going anywhere.

We're just trying to survive
What if what we do to survive
Kills the things we love?
Fear's a powerful thing
It'll turn your heart black, you can trust
It'll take your God-filled soul
And fill it with just devils and dust

When someone says they want to ‘find themselves’, they’re saying find, and then connect to, their real motivations. They want to know what they really want from this life thing they’re experiencing. Know that and they know what path to select. They’re looking to sort their motivational wheat from the chuff and they typically set about doing so via introducing a wider variety of experiences into their life to see what resonates and refine their path accordingly. While this strategy makes sense, and sometimes works well, we’re still in the grip of our existing motivational current so what resonates is what resonates with the motivations within us at the moment. We're, in practice, better off stepping outside of that current for a short time, see what comes with us and see what washes away. Our innate motivations are hardwired in, they’re stepping out with us, and we quickly realise that current we were in was never ours to begin with. That current/river/reality is still there, but now it’s just another option amongst many. We can enter it, but we can also exit it, and we can enter it where we choose to enter it. We can mix and match: a bit from this, a bit from that.

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs/Motivations

We can't manage our motivations, and thus manage our happiness, without firstly accepting we have motivations and then discriminating between our innate motivations, typically referred to as instincts, and all the rest we've randomly accumulated over time. Primary and secondary motivations.

Whilst 'self actualisation' is a vague term, clearly it involves discriminating between self and non-self. The Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations shows our species hardwired instincts. Not surprisingly, survival is the priority as all the rest of our shopping list becomes redundant if we're dead. Beyond survival we seek security, some kind of buffer. We'd like to thrive materially and not be stuck in survival mode, or risk falling into survival mode. Then, and here's where things start to get awkward, we've got our emotional and ego motivations. Awkward, because what our ego seeks - status and approval - is not what our emotions seek - love and joy. The path our ego wants to be on is typically not the same path our emotions want to be on given one seeks fields where status is readily available whilst the other where abundant love and joy exist. At the same time we have to survive in the world as it is which, in practice, means our survival/ thrival motivations tends to be aligned with our ego motivations. A promotion, for example, satisfies both leading to our emotions been overpowered and dragged to emotionally barren fields.

Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland

Our dominant motivations give us our objectives - we’re not seeking what we don’t want. Given our objectives we’re bringing to the fore the relevant aspects of our environment thereby pushing all the rest into the, effectively non existent for us, background. Our motivations, and the relative power between them, is not only selecting the path we’re on, but what that path is. For example; 'Pete is in town wanting nicotine as he's run out of cigarettes. Given the withdrawal pains that's his priority so is scanning the environment for what's relevant given his objectives, in this case cigarettes. From all that's there he's bringing potential cigarette sources to the fore thereby making that reality into his subjective reality which, needless to say, isn't the reality. If his motivations change his reality also changes yet he's in the exact same spot.

People get so used to the reality they know they start to deem it the reality. As we can’t project ourselves into other peoples brains we tend to assume our reality is also their reality. That they’re bringing to the fore that same data that we are and then attaching the same meanings to that compilation we are. When we detox away the accumulated clusters of secondary motivations ‘the’ reality is suddenly very different as we’re now no longer pulling to the fore what we were.

This, jumping from one reality to another, can be a surreal experience, especially if it happens suddenly/ instantaneously. Some experience the ‘avalanche’ - one ‘boulder’/ motivation tumbles out causing many more to simultaneously come tumbling down. Regardless of whether it happens instantaneously, or more incrementally, the main point here is; when we leap along the spectrum we realise there is no the reality. While intellectually we may understand it’s all subjective, we don’t really get it unless we’ve experienced it. We typically don't realise what our external reality 'is' depends on what’s happening inside of us.

‘The first time in a limousine is a buzz, but after that it’s just another stupid car’ Springsteen. For him it’s just another car, just a tool, but he’s extremely humble and not motivated towards status. Someone dominated by their ego doesn’t lose that buzz as being in a limousine means, to them, they’re important and successful which has their ego purring - they keep feeling that buzz. Someone towards the cynical end of the spectrum is furiously high-fiving themselves for being the person in the limo looking down on all the riff-raff lining the streets. However, ego satisfaction is relatively insipid, compared to emotional satisfaction, and blocks our ability to nourish our emotions - we’re prioritising status over love and joy. Therefore status is effectively the consolation prize. It’s something, but it’s not much and we tend to pay a high price for being dominated by our ego.

For example, everyone can see Trump is hollowed out, his emotional tree long ago withered away from being in the shade of his ego tree for so long - little light is getting into his emotional core. Unable to feel much in the way of emotional satisfaction he, naturally enough, doesn’t value it. Wealth, power and status is all he values as that’s the only pleasant bio chemicals he can now access. Limited to that teat he, naturally enough, desperately milks it for all he can thus he’s the 'greatest', the 'bestest', etc etc. He's notourisously 'thin skinned' - protecting his ego/status - given that's all he's got. Threaten that structure of beliefs and values his status is dependant being the true set and of course he'll feel pain and then act to remove that pain.

Hence the tragic catch 22 nature of unhappiness; the more we’re emotionally malnourished the more we feed other motivations to feel better thus become even more emotionally malnourished. The more our ego dominates the more dependant on our ego - status, approval - we become as that’s now all we’ve got. The classic ego resistance to change that haunts therapy rooms all day, everyday reflects this dynamic. If the unhappy person knocking on the therapists door had the emotional buffer to withstand ego pain, thus allowing them to make the changes required, they wouldn’t be knocking on that door to begin with. Typically, but understandably, people leave it too late to seek help - the modicum of happiness they're experiencing is now too dependent on their, often hard won, status. Someone experiencing 6/10 happiness, with some of that being emotional satisfaction, can handle the temporary drop to, say, 5/10 as their ego is slapped around during therapy. But someone clinging on to just 4/10 lacks that buffer and naturally is extremely reluctant to let go of their status and thus drop even further. It's too painful. Of course they resist any significant changes, of course they protect their ego, of course they select a pill instead.

Which is one of the reasons upstream therapy is so much more effective than midstream therapy. The changes are happening upstream of ego thus avoiding ego resistance. We’re just doing a detox, how does that threaten our status? It doesn’t, so there’s no resistance. Then, once that overgrowth is pruned back, and our emotional tree now accessing that desperately needed light, we do now have the buffer we previously lacked. Our status is suddenly not so important and, as we've changed, many of those old beliefs and values no longer seem relevant. All egos are doing is slapping ‘right’, ‘good’ and ‘superior’ on what they see in our mirror anyway. We’re sneaky monkeys like this, therefore when the person in our mirror is different our ego is initially a bit confused but then simply recalibrates to our new hierarchy of beliefs and values.

Now our ego and emotions are aligned, pulling the same direction, more or less, and it’s our emotions that are leading. It's important to understand that we can't change what our emotions are nourished on, can't change we have an ego, but we can change the hierarchy our ego is climbing to obtain status. Thus, to align them - to stop that inner tug of war - we align our ego with our emotions as that's the only possible way to do it and be emotionally well nourished.

Our ego is like a pet dog. We like it, but it’s not what is actually important, so we want it following us and not dragging us to where it wants to go. Here’s the thing; a well trained ego/dog is just as content as an ill trained one is, but doesn’t do the damage an ill trained one typically does. We’re happy to throw it bones, happy to keep it happy, but that's easy; Every little niche has it's hierarchy, there's honour among thieves, for example, so it's foolish to remain welded to the hierarchy we just happened to be born into if that recipe is not delivering a satisfactory taste. We can still high five our own reflection and consume those easy delicious bio chemicals - why not? - but we’re not taking it seriously, we’re laughing at ourselves for doing so. We're just throwing bones to our dog.

When we bounce from 'the' reality to another reality it's obvious it's all subjective. It's obvious we're not who we thought we were, obvious we're not who we are now as it's obvious we're fluid, not something solid and rigid. We’re not shaking our fist at reality, demanding it align with the notions in our head because reality feels great as is. The problem was never reality - everything exists - but our inability to accept reality, including accepting ourselves. We were shaking our fist at reality - inviting in all those ugly flavours such as frustration and anger - as if the universe has some kind of duty to be as we want it to be. We’re not shaking our fist at ‘Pete’ because he's not doing as we want him to do. Why would he? Pete is Pete doing as Pete does. Why should he dance to our tune anymore than we're willing to dance to his? Who made us God? We become humble, flexible and pragmatic acting in our own actual interests instead of remaining a drone programmed up by others. Everything exists, beyond the set menu is a buffet, but we must firstly put the set menu down.

If we look at Trump we see a painfully ignorant person. This is also a symptom of a dominant ego. We must be humble to learn, must accept we don't know, but if we're the greatest we, by definition, already know what's important to know. It's painful for our ego to accept we're ignorant thus we remain ignorant to avoid that pain. We can learn knowledge that doesn't effect our status, we can learn about our phones operating system to get it purring, for example, but not about our own to get it purring because that will challenge our existing beliefs and values which our status is dependant on. We assume we, magically, already know about our own operating system. Typically we don't, but we can't acknowledge we don't because lifting that colourful veil will reveal much that will contradict our existing beliefs and values thus threaten our status. Again, if our beliefs and values are functional then they're completely fine and there's no reason to lift the veil. It's only if our society's mainstream path is not longer fit for service, only if that veil is now a matadors cape, that we need to zoom out, need to understand and select a more fruitful path.

This last section before practical stuff - it's enough. but Indian guy

We detox/ prune back our overgrown motivations by no longer feeding them. A VM 10 day course involves spending nearly all our non sleeping time meditating with meditating here meaning just focusing on and feeling what's happening inside us. We soon connect the dots, soon realise motivations motivate via the flavours of pleasure and pain. How else? For example, frustration is a similar flavour to anger, they're both ugly flavours, but they're not exactly the same bio chemicals. If we want to be good/ have status as we've been taught to define good, then that want is obviously a motivation and we're rewarded, via our ego, for satisfying that motivation. Being good makes us feel pleasant thus we're motivated to be good. If it didn't, or we were born into a very different culture with different definitions of good, obviously our motivations, thus actions would be different. We're also punished for losing face/status via ugly flavours, such as shame and guilt. Of course, if no one knows our good deeds, or our bad deeds, then we're not losing, or gaining/maintaining face/status so there's a lot less motivation present to do, or not do, this or that. Obviously, it's all subjective but we, or at least our ego, struggles to accept it's subjective as that means our status is also just subjective. Ouch. For the humble this is no problem as they don't care about status - of course it's all subjective - but for those dependant on ego satisfaction/status this is a problem as it generates pain. Naturally, they then recoil from the pain and tell themselves that yes, they did just happen to be born into the right set of beliefs and values. Yes, they are superior to most others as judged by their own set of beliefs and values because their set is the right set.

Satisfied motivation 'purr', releasing pleasant bio chemicals into our 'cup' whilst dissatisfied ones 'claw' pouring a painful flavour into our cup. We're then consuming/ experiencing the resulting cocktail. Sit long enough and our secondary motivations start to die off leaving us with just our primary motivations which, being hardwired in, can't be deleted. Using an extreme example, think of a drug addict; He, or she, has acquired a powerful motivation/habit that is delivering significant pleasant flavours into their cup. Yum yum, but now they're only concerned with satisfying that motivation and all the rest of their motivations, including primary motivations, become relatively irrelevant. The person is no longer capable of acting in their actual interests and the quality of their lives swiftly deteriorates. How do they redress the situation? By detoxing. If they go 'cold turkey' and no longer feed that motivation/habit it soon dies off and they're now free from it's dubious embrace. Now they're reconnected with their other motivations and act to satisfy them. All secondary motivations, large and small, obvious or not obvious, can be deleted/managed by the same process. Sitting for 10 days is not much fun, but it works. We offer less harsh detoxes, we don't actually offer the VM course, for a number of reasons, but it's effective. The fundamentals are the same with all emotional detoxes with the variables being how harsh the detoxing process is and how tailored to the individual they are.

Jung.

What is meant by secondary motivations?

Our primary motivations - instincts - are, as the Maslow Hierarchy of needs/motivations shows; Survival, security, emotional and ego. Sexual/reproductive instincts should be in there too, but it could be argued they're in a category of their own. Secondary motivations, for the most part, serve, or at least were intended to serve, at least one of our primary motivations. If not, why are there? Who, or what, are they serving? For example; we need food, shelter etc and we live in a world which these obvious priorities require some kind of gainful employment. The motivation for a job is a secondary motivation that serves those primary survival, security, plus often status/ego, motivations. It’s a valid, if we don’t already have a lot of $$, secondary motivation, but a secondary motivation nevertheless. To get a pleasant, and fruitful, job we need qualifications, the right work ethic etc so now we’ve got more secondary motivations. Beyond a certain point, as our secondary motivations accumulate and get more and more remote from the primary 'parent' motivation/s, their actual relevance - their point in the first place - becomes confused. To get ‘A’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘H’ and ‘K’. To get ‘H’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘L’, F and J and to get ‘L’ we believe we firstly need to get ‘P and ’S’. Then do ‘K’ and it’s derivatives - complicated. That whole matrix, functional or not, is largely second-hand beliefs and values that are motivations. An objective is a motivation - we don't seek what we don't want - and so are the steps we believe we need to take to satisfy that objective. Motivations - objectives - sub objectives - decisions - more sub objectives then more decisions. Not only do our motivations determine our 'parent'/primary objective - get a job - but also all the sub objectives - get qualifications, get into good school etc etc. Our parents and culture, with good intentions no doubt, installed the bulk of those motivations/programs and if the resulting matrix works fine, if that recipe delivers a satisfactory taste, then all is good - happy days. If not, then perhaps we have some work to do, perhaps we need to step out of our own overgrown, second-hand, web and return to our core selves.

When we prune it all back, when we step out of our own overgrown web, we’re now connected with our underlying primary motivations that matrix was meant to serve. We then realise the overgrown matrix was itself the problem, we get that less is more and, once we’ve reorientated to our actual interests, can install a useful, relevant, simplified matrix/web of secondary motivations. There's not the one path, there's many, but if we're deep in a rut it seems like there's only one. We shake our fist at the rut, we blame 'reality', instead of just climbing out. What, at the end of the day, is holding us in there?

If no chains hold us

The cause is within.

This page is getting too long and clogged up. I'll try and summerise.

The bulk of our potential happiness is via emotional satisfaction. But our emotional motivations are competing for nourishment against accumulated secondary motivations and our survival and ego motivations. Our emotions are nourished on love and joy with joy available within our cultural bubbles but comes from beyond those bubbles. Those bubbles are porous, the walls in our brains separating our cultural reality from the reality beyond has windows in them that we want to draw the curtains back from. There’s also a door, and if we’ve getting enough light in from the windows, we can, if we want, find that door. However, accessing what’s available from both worlds - inside the cultural bubble but also plenty of light/ Joy getting in - is most peoples sweet spot.

I want to run

The objective behind an emotional detox is to prune back the secondary overgrowth as this significantly simplifies our lives, allows us to reconnect directly with our real motivations and allows more light into our emotions. We’ve still got to survive, still got our ego, but the light rejuvenates our emotions thereby reducing our egos dominance. Additionally, the bounce along the spectrum proves to us it’s all subjective further undermining our ego. Subjective status is something, it keeps our ego happy enough, but stops it dominating, stops it leading us. Subjective status not as satisfying as believing we have objective status, that we really are the bestest, that our beliefs and values are the right set, but our ego is happy enough and not being emotionally destructive.

We’ve still got to survive in the world as it is but the world ‘as it is’ isn’t as it seemed to be previously. The set menu has been put down and we can now see the buffet beyond. We can now order al la carte. Others still trying to satisfy their motivations via the set menu often do not like those who put the set menu down as non allegiance to their set of beliefs and values is denying them the status they believe they have via that set. ‘OMH, you’re selfish for not living your life as I want you to’ Um, ok. This doesn’t make them ‘bad’, they just deem the set menu -their cultural bubble - as the reality and that there’s nothing beyond it, or at least nothing worth accessing beyond it. Indeed, they can want what’s ‘best’ for us, but best is context dependant and depends on the state of the cultural mainstream path. Grandmas world has gone yet her beliefs and values linger on. If that set of beliefs and values works fine for us then that’s great, but if they’re no longer competitive what’s the point in remaining welded to them? The set menu she was choosing from isn’t the same one that we’re staring at.

Motivation - objectives - decisions -actions - reality. To access the buffet beyond the set menu we need to put the set menu down first. It’s still there, still an option and often a very useful option - we still have to survive - but it’s just another option now. There’s the many cultural, and sub cultural, bubbles to choose from - a variety of set menus - and there’s the reality beyond we can also experience. We can mix and match, can pour our own cocktail as now we’re focusing directly on what flavours we’re generating within us. When it’s all subjective, what matters the most is what we’re experiencing -the taste - and when we’re focusing on the taste we can readily change our recipe to match our tastes. Additionally, we can, to an extent, change our tastes to enjoy what is abundant.

Some folks born into the good life others get anyway anyhow. Me? Well I lost my money and I lost my wife but them things don’t seem to matter much to me now. Tonight I’m on this hill, I can’t stop, I’m on this hills where lives are on the line, where dreams are found and lost. I got here on time and I’ll pay the cost for having wanted things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town.

What matters traces back to our motivations, and the balance of power between them. We don’t seek what we don’t want. Something only matters if it matters to us. Feel we lack nothing, we feel we have everything we want. If we have everything we want we are, by definition, experiencing a very high level of happiness. Prune it all back, sort out the tangled overflowing mess in our basket of motivations - empty it out - and this equation becomes simple, or at least achievable. When we factor in that joy needs space to flow into we’re ‘killing two birds with one stone’ by detoxing.

Obviously, it all depends on how we’re experiencing a given path. Some, perhaps most, do just fine on the mainstream path so that’s the right path for them. Why complicate things? Some experience pain from that which generates pleasure in others - we all have the same instincts but their respective strengths differ, thus the balance of power between them is not all the same. All dogs are dogs but they’re not all the same. All homo sapiens are relatively intelligent Apes - don’t expect too much or your expectations/wants will cause you pain - but we’re not all exactly the same.

Born down in a dead mans town

Those lyrics would imply the author is not satisfied with the offerings available on his society's mainstream path, or at least what he believes is available. Therefore there exists within him a powerful motivation to escape what he believes will be a painful existence. But escape to where?

the highway is jammed with broken heroes

Such is the game of life. To navigate our way through the maze to a happy reality. I like to quote Springsteen because he’s a genuine, heart on his sleeve, type of guy and we've got a window into his struggle to define happiness, and then to access it, via his 300 plus songs. A billionaire ... happ family life he obviously finally figured it out.

'We carry within us the seeds of our own destruction ....

The most unusual - seems incomprehensible to many - characteristic he displays is how humble he is. Yet, when we understand how corrosive, and limiting, our ego can be this relationship between humility and potency isn’t so confusing. He put the set menu down a long time ago.

Busted out of class, had to get away from those fool

Some battle to retain, or regain, their autonomy. They don’t care about the set menu as they see that as being a trap. Nice enough for some, but not what they’re wanting. Other give up and just go with their existing motivational flow, whatever that happens to be. They want to be happy but can’t put the set menu down to see, and then access, the buffet beyond. This passive mentality seems weird to those with autonomy.

Seen a man standing over a dead dog

Everyone wants to be happy but we've got to survive and the cheese on offer is better than nothing right? But by wanting the cheese they become caught in that rat trap. Which is fine if it’s good quality, satisfying cheese but what if it’s mouldy and bland?

'The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders their cicuits lines nad jammed with chromed

Wanting to make our dreams real and being able to make them happen are two different things. We can want whatever we want but if we’re in the rat trap we’ve got to exit that first.

What especially relevant here is that no one, unless they are born into a paradise and just have to steer between the lines, avoids going down some dead ends, avoids going down blind alleys. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way. The difference is whether the person backs up or not, whether they retreat back to solid ground or not. Whether they return to their core and reorinietate or not. Whether they take responsibilty or not as, after-all, they made the decisions they made. Why did they decide as they decided? What's upstream of our decisions? Sometime I'll do a seperate page on Springsteen but, for example, his first marriage wasn't successful but he doesn't blame anyone else as he made the decisions he made. His ex didn't put a gun to his head and make him get involved with her, let alone marry her. She is she, she does as she does and if he was confused about her whose fault is that? Maybe a bit less time strumming his guitar and a bit more learning about his own species and he wouldn't have been confused. We make our choices, including deciding what we learn.

The song 'Brillient disguise' nicely encapisaltes the above and is about his first marriage.

But he backed up, returned to core, reorientated and later reaped the rewards.

IN a world so hard and dirty, so foul and confused

I put my heart and soul I put 'em high upon a shelf
Right next to the faith, the faith that I'd lost in myself
I went down into the desert city
Just tryin' so hard to shed my skin
I crawled deep into some kind of darkness
Lookin' to burn out every trace of who I'd been
You do some sad sad things
When it's you you're tryin' to lose
You do some sad and hurtful things
I've seen living proof

You shot through my anger and rage
To show me my prison was just an open cage
There were no keys no guards
Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars

Well now all that's sure on the boulevard
Is that life is just a house of cards
As fragile as each and every breath
Of this boy sleepin' in our bed
Tonight let's lie beneath the eaves
Just a close band of happy thieves
And when that train comes we'll get on board
And steal what we can from the treasures of the Lord

It's been a long long drought
But tonight the rain's pouring down on our roof
Searching for a little bit of God's mercy
I found living proof

Again, survival is our priority meaning our happiness often needs to take a back seat. Sure, but that's not the point here, the point is whether we're in control of our own motivations, thus objectives, thus path, thus life, or not. Whether we have autonomy or not. When we understand we can gain control some people are motivated to do so. Necessarily, we're then taking responsibility for our own reality which, not surprisingly, is a core characteristic of those on the higher levels of happiness - it doesn't materialise by accident. When we're motivated to learn how to play the game of life well we do so and by doing so become more and more competent at it. If the rules of the game we've had installed are serving us well, then that's great. If they're not then of what use are they? It tends to be hard to win when others make the rules for us as they'll, naturally enough, make them to serve their interests. How many classes on happiness were you offered in school? Our happiness is not their job, it's our job. We have to make our own way through the maze, but firstly we need to know what our actual objectives are. What experience, or variety of experiences, do we want to feel during this life thing? Have clarity over what we want to be feeling and we have clarity, or at least a lot more clarity, regarding the path we choose. We can easily pay a high price for not seeking that clarity first.

the price we pay

this continues. It good and enough for first page.

We're social primates living, these days, in very large groups. A very different, much more sophisticated, social structure than what was required in the very small, largely just extended family, groups we lived in until just 100k, or so, years ago. All social animals, including ourselves, give structure to the collective via hierarchies. We have our Presidents, Prime ministers.... Our ego performs a very important function as it's nourished on status which it can only access via climbing the group hierarchy. If i want -motivation - your respect I can only satisfy that urge via your beliefs and values. As, at least in the past, your group was my group we're both subscribed to the same set of beliefs and values which, from our perspective, is the beliefs and values. Our religions also helped with group alignment by providing a powerful, uniform set of beliefs and values. You and I might argue over definitions of right and good, but we're unlikely to argue with our God. Our religions not only reminded us that the manmade cultural bubbles within the larger reality were not the reality therefore it was important to keep windows in our walls, keep some curtains drawn, to let the light/God in, but also provided a uniform behavoural template with enough oomph behind it. Large groups without a powerful enough common template quickly splinter into many groups, with their sub cultures, reducing the cohesiveness, and thus potency, of the larger group. This mattered because large groups dominate smaller groups thus only those capable of forming, and maintaining, ever larger groups survived. Those capabilities, including a powerful ego, were selected for and so it is today we live in super tribes of many millions and the super powers - the larger groups - dominate. Trump can credibly threaten Venezula, Cuba, Iran, Greenland etc because his group is larger, and more powerful, than they are. Nothings changed, and why would it given we're wired up as we are?

However, groups need ideals to be functional and their functionality is much more important than their scientific accuracy. Survival is our priority thus our in -group is right given our survival depends on our groups ability to be competitive against other groups. We may be American, and dislike Trump intensely, but life is going to be very uncomfortable, and probably very short, if our group is defeated by an invading group so we'll choose the lesser of the two evils. In other words, from a survival, evolutionary perspective, our powerful ego is a feature, not a bug. Rationally, beliefs and values are obviously subjective - what is right and good depends on who is asked, of course - but we're not wired up to accept this given our dependance on our group. In practice, right and good are defined by our group/ in group meaning, given we're judging ourselves, and others, by our beliefs and values, we're superior. If we're the goodies, they must be baddies and not really worthy so if we take their resources then the goodies have won and that's good right? Obviously, from their perspective, we're the baddies, and they're the goodies but accepting this would have, or at least would of had, dire consequences as it would of compromised group survival, thus our survival. In practice, for individuals, we struggle to accept beliefs and values are subjective because doing so requires us accepting our status is also just subjective. Ouch, that would melt the structure our status depends on, the structure our ego is perched atop of enabling us to look down upon most others. For the humble this presents no problem as there's not much of a structure there and they're not taking it seriously. Their ego is just their dog, not them.

Strength is fantasy, time is illusion

Everything exists, everything we want is out there in the environment. But we do not want the thing, we want the experience the thing provides us. We're hungry therefore feel hunger pains - unpleasant - and to remove that pain we seek to consume food. This increasingly strong pain pushes less powerful objectives aside and we increasingly focus on accessing food. Consume a good meal and that pain translates to pleasure - yum yum. Our hunger motivation is now purring, not clawing, it now drops down from being a priority - we stop thinking about food and we then focus on satisfying the next motivations/objectives in the queue. Motivations motivate via the flavours of pleasure and pain - how else? Sure, egos do not like the sound of that, but egos be egos of course they recoil from anything that challenges their sense of status. Somewhat ironically, people can't accept they're motivated by pleasure and pain because it's painful to do so. Rationally, scientifically, it's screamingly obvious, and what's the alternative? However, we're not particully rational creatures. Why would we be? Our brain serves our motivations - we do not want what we do not want. If we want to be good and noble, as we're currently defining good and noble, that want is obviously a motivation albeit via our ego. Relevant to our ego but emotionally irrelevant. Indeed, meanings only exist in our brain whereas our emotions exist in the pre brain world just as they have for many millions of years long, long before we evolved the intellectual capacity to generate much in the way of meanings.

Of course communities need ideals. They need shared beliefs and values that are, necessarily, scientifically dubious therefore they need to put a colourful veil over this stuff. Sure, but if that veil is now a matadors cape we're better off throwing it away. Better off zooming out and seeing our cultural reality as just another manmade cultural bubble that exists within the infinite reality, not the reality. Better to have options. Our ego lives in our brain, in that meaningful bubble fill of labels and meanings. Our emotions, on the other hand, don't live in that world, don't even know it exists - the love that can be explained, is not the love. The taste that is explained, is not the taste. The issue, for many, is they're not making the distinction between their emotional needs and their ego needs. They're trying to feed their emotions on the same fodder they're feeding their ego on. In other words; that cultural bubble is all there is for them. Our religions made the distinction between the two worlds, between our manmade reality and that which is beyond. Between the manmade well and the other well. Between system A and system B. Our religions reminded us to keep some windows in our walls, to keep some curtains drawn, to keep some some light coming in. Those on the other side of the monastery walls are connecting to, and experiencing, something that, to some extent, requires them to leave the mainstream cultural reality. How our brains understand that something is up to us and different brains understand it differently. If we could hear our smothered emotions this is what we'd hear;

I want to run, I want to hide.

the price we pay.

An additional significant barrier to a high level of happiness is what happens if the mainstream path our beliefs and values propel us down is itself in poor condition? When a civilisation is past it's zenith, and in the dying stage of it's life cycle, it's mainstream path deteriorates. It becomes 'potholed' with the once low hanging fruit long gone yet we've sat in schools for years and are now programmed up to spend our lives travelling down it. Awkward.

Well, I think it's fine
Building jumbo planes
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train
Switch on summer from a slot machine
Yes, get what you want, if you want
'Cause you can get anything now

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Where do the children play? Good question, and if children don't get to play - do what they actually want to be doing - they can struggle to connect to what they actually want to be doing/ experiencing as adults. Early, intensive and prolonged schooling is constantly force feeding system 'A' - that tree grows large and bushy, but what about our other tree? What about the one that really matters? Of course, we need to survive; that's our first priority. We need to access food, shelter etc via the economic system that exists, but it's easy to go too far, to become lobsided. To be chained to the bracken well not realising there's a deeper, fresher, much more satisfying well right next to it.

That we can go upstream to source - motivations -and let gravity do the work for us down through objectives, decisions and then actions is well known. It's no mystery. For example, as I was writing this ( August 26) psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia was on the Huberman podcast explaining his approach to therapy/healing/more happiness and it's also upstream therapy as opposed to typical midstream therapy.

‘What I try and do is I help people get to their fundamentals. Everyone is focused on changing behaviour, everyone is focused on increasing willpower to overcome a tendency, and it’s ,like, why not just change the tendency?. For their natural thoughts to change, for the way they see the world to change, for their behaviours to change on its own doesn’t require willpower. Will power is necessary when you’re fighting against tendencies but it’s not required when those tendencies are no longer there.’

Exactly. Improving our level of happiness via typical midstream, incremental type therapy - one hour a week with a therapist, for example - requires willpower as it's motivations vs motivations but we don't at all if we just delete the problem 'tendencies'. Knots that exist require untangling, but don't if they're no longer there. That, instead of battling midstream, around objectives and decisions, it's a lot easier, and much more effective to simply go upstream to source and then let gravity do the rest of the work. Possibly due to his Indian heritage this is obvious to Dr Kanojia. After all, India is the birthplace of Buddhism and, incidentally, where I did my VM course more then 3 decades ago. It's not so much that upstream therapy isn't understood, it's more that modern therapy has adapted to the structure of our modern societies. People have jobs and are also juggling numerous other motivations, responsibilities etc making the one hour a week type of therapy the only realistically accessible option. Additionally, what matters to us is what we're experiencing - what we're feeling - not the reality itself. In other words; if we felt great with our current life we'd not want to change anything, it's only if we're not feeling great we seek change but, typically the only change we seek is in how we feel. Yet, as Dr Shedler points out, we can't change the taste without changing our recipe.

shedler

"Truth is, many patients do not come to therapy to change. Not really. They may say and think they want to change. It soon becomes evident that they want to continue being exactly the person they have been, and living life in the same self-limiting ways, but feel better doing it. Real psychotherapy begins with helping the person to not only understand but truly take to heart that what they want is impossible.

In other words, the real work of therapy may begin with crushing disappointment, as the patient struggles to reconcile with the painful truth that neither the therapist nor anyone else has the power to give them what they want. To feel different, they must become different—and there is no bypass around this. Paradoxically, it is this terrible disappointment that opens the door to realistic hope.Sadly, for every therapist who understands this and is prepared to join the patient in doing the difficult work, there are many more “therapists” happy to foster the patient’s illusion that they can feel different without becoming different, and therapy can work by magic. Choose wisely."

Also incidentally, the Huberman podcast is an excellent source for remaining updated with the latest scientific discoveries and conclusions regarding health and happiness. Very popular, it typically ranks no 1 in the world in its genre and is often in the top 10 podcasts overall. It's hosted by Stanford neurologist Professor Huberman who is a very pragmatic, evidence only, type of guy. Recently he pondered the 'meaning of life' and to him it was ' learning to enjoy the time we have and to prolong that time'. Exactly, what else? and if we believe it's something else where do those beliefs/motivations come from? It's hard to imagine we choose them ourselves as that would be self defeating. If we believe life is about hard work, so it will be but, like, why would we want that life? Isn't that the life of a slave? Work to live, not live to work.

This intro page getting too long so I'll continue it here. At the bottom of that page I'll link to pages that do more of a deep dive on what I've briefly outlined here. Midstream, incremental therapy vs upstream transformational therapy. Ego, it's purpose/ evolution etc. But no one needs to wade through all those pages. We're just laying out the theory behind it all because individuals must firstly have enough motivation to detox motivations but not everyone requires it to be reduced down to the granular level. Knowledge is power because if we know how to make something happen we have the power to do so. Relevant knowledge is relevant power and adults get to decide what is relevant for them. If a high level of happiness is relevant it's obviously useful to understand the structure of happiness but to what extent is up to individuals to decide.

We don't actually offer the VM course as we can achieve the same results via less harsh methods. While I highly recommend the VM course - it's very effective -sitting crosslegged meditating for 10 days tends to be too much for most of us westerners these days. Too much discomfort can be counterproductive long term as the objective is to be able to manage our motivations but we'll recoil from doing so in the future, if needed, if the method is too painful. It's not so much about doing nothing as it's about doing differently - accessing alternative sources of delicious flavours which requires a more tailored approach instead of the one size fits all approach. While there's always some discomfort involved - dying motivations claw/ cuckoos don't want to be expelled from our nest - much of that pain can be counterbalanced by generating pleasant feelings. Walking, swimming, massages at the beach for example. We're reconnecting to simple pleasures.

Basically, everyone does at least the standard 3 day body detox - might as well kill two birds with one stone - which is a mild emotional detox, it's starting the process. From there it depends on the person, their situation, the time they have available etc etc. I think of it like baseball - first base, second base etc. What's important initially is just getting to first base and then see from there. Again, it's not a competition and everyones sweet spot on the spectrum is different, plus our situations, responsibilities are all different. Some might want to go as far as they can straight away, even if just for the experience - for a trip to the other side - whilst others don't need, or want, a transformational experience, they just want to lift their level of happiness a notch or two.

this page not included - put in secondary and 'find themselves

Beyond survival mode we seek some security - a bit of a buffer - while simultaneously trying to satisfy emotional and ego motivations/instincts. On top of these primary hardwired motivations we accumulate clusters of secondary motivations acquired via our culture, schooling, family etc. By the time we’re adults the handful of primary motivations we were born with are now bundled up with a huge number of secondary motivations most of which were installed in us by others. This motivational clutter can short circuit our connection to our real motivations meaning we struggle to act in our own actual interests. Remove this clutter and we reconnect. When there's more light now getting into our core we experience the massive difference and get that less is more.

At the tip of our species motivational hierarchy we see 'self actualisation'. A vague term, but clearly it involves discriminating between self and non self. How do we do this? As mentioned, we do it by deleting much of our motivational overgrowth -secondary motivations - allowing us to reconnect with our primary real motivations which, given they're hardwired in, cannot be deleted. For example, a drug addict is dominated by that powerful acquired motivation for the drug which overpowers nearly all of their other motivations. The addict only cares about accessing the pleasure the drug provides and escaping the pain experienced without the drug. To free themselves from this habit/motivation they must starve it out. If they stop feeding that motivation it dies and they'll, in a week or two, be completely free of it allowing them to redirect their time, focus and energy towards satisfying other, hopefully more positive, motivations. All secondary motivations, large and small, can be deleted/ minimised/ managed via the same process. Programs installed can be uninstalled. If a program/motivation is not useful, or no longer useful, why keep it in us? We do because people come to identify with their existing motivations. Those motivations, and the existing balance of power between them, have been within them for so long they deem that status quo them.

“Repetition, over time, cements symptoms as identity”

Dr Mary Jo Peebles. Clinical Psychologist and Author

Just as the drug addict must suffer to remove the alien motivation - going cold turkey doesn't amuse that 'monkey on their back' - so we must suffer, typically to a much lesser extent, to remove our clusters of accumulated motivations. A 10 day VM course is not much fun, but it works. The course involves spending the bulk of the 10 days just sitting crosslegged meditating with 'meditating' here meaning just focusing on the feelings arising inside of us. We soon connect the dots, soon understand motivations motivate via feelings. How else? We want this, or that, because we feel we want it. But we feel we want many things - we've accumulated a long, and probably contradictory, shopping list - yet not all feelings are equal as not all motivations are relevant, useful, or ours to begin with. Not all that glitters is gold, so we have to distinguish between real gold and fools gold. By just sitting we're unable to satisfy/feed motivations so they starve and die off freeing us from those infections. It's not much fun, it's uncomfortable for a few days, but sometimes we've got to do what we've got to do.

"Neurosis is the avoidance of legitimate suffering" Carl Jung

Being unwilling to accept some pain dooms us to much more pain. It's then impossible to free ourselves and if we can't free ourselves we'll stay trapped and call it 'bad luck'. Everyone is on a crusade to be happy. Some 'land on their feet' and there's nothing significant that they need to change, but others have some work to do.

The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders
Their circuits lined and jammed with chromed invaders

Clearly, to discriminate between self and non self, we just put all the motivations we’re juggling down, step away and see what we’ve now got. Those motivations that are us, that are hardwired in, are stepping away with us but now they’re no longer crowded, now they’re no longer smothered, now we're reconnected to what they want, what they’re nourished on. Now we're orientated towards our actual interests instead of being a drone controlled by motivations others installed and those that we've randomly accumulated over time.

House got too crowded clothes got too tight
And I don't know just where I'm heading tonight
But out where the sky's been cleared by a good hard rain
There's something calling my secret name

Had a coat of fine leather and snakeskin boots
But that coat always had a thread hanging loose
Well I pulled it one day and to my surprise
It led me right past that house and on over the rise

I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
The joke was coming up through the soles of my feet
I been a long time walking on fortune's cane
But now I'm stepping lightly and feeling no pain

Well here's to your good looks, here's to my health
Here's to the loaded places that we take ourselves
When it comes to luck, we make our own
Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home.

Us humans perceive reality via the mediocre array of senses we got. That slice of reality we're perceiving is not the reality though, given it's all we know, we can come to believe it is. Is the sky blue? It is to us given the rudimentary cones in our eyes, but it's not to some other species. Some birds, for example, have much more sophisticated eyes than we do so the sky is not blue to them. Who is right? It's all subjective, it depends on who you ask, of course. Even if all humans down on this little planet deem something the truth doesn't make it the objective truth, it just seems to be how things are given the limitations of our senses and brains. Who, or what, can stamp 'the truth' on our beliefs and how can we know they know? However, to have, and retain, our sense of status our ego cannot accept it's all subjective because if the beliefs and values we're subscribed to are subjective then our sense of delicious status that exists via those beliefs and values is also just subjective. Ouch, our ego doesn't like the sound of that thus our ego resists significant change as it's completely happy with the status quo. That we might be emotionally malnourished because we're orientated towards status and approval instead of love and joy, is not our egos concern. One motivations treasure is another motivations trash and this is why the classic ego resistance to change is such a hurdle to overcome.

Humility is the gateway to happiness while our ego closes that gate.

Ego resistance haunts therapy rooms all day everyday. Ego resistance to making the changes required to ones recipe in order to improve the taste is why most end up just selecting a pill. The humble can accept it's all subjective because they don't care much about status, or approval in the first place so are free to focus on emotional satisfaction. Instead of chasing status, and it's symbols, to experience the pleasant, but relatively insipid, ego satisfaction they're accessing the much more significant feelings we get via emotional satisfaction. We have an ego tree and an emotional tree which seek very different things thus are competing for our time, focus and energy. If our ego tree grows huge - like Trump - our emotional tree is shaded out and very little light is getting to it. It withers and now the only feelings we can really access is via our ego. For Trump status, wealth, power is all that matters because that's the only pleasant feelings he can access therefore all that exists for him. The only 'teat' he can milk for some pleasant flavours in his cup is the ego teat because that's all he can now access so, of course, he milks it for all he can; he's the 'greatest', the 'bestest' perhaps ever. It's something, but it's the consolation prize. To explain ego needs a few pages and I don't want to clog this intro page up but we want our emotions to be winning the inner tug of war against our ego. We want to be hunting the invisible relevant feelings.

Strenght is fantasy

Detox, and we're pruning back that ego tree but without meeting any ego resistance as it's happening upstream of ego. No longer cemented into the template of beliefs and values of the culture we happened to be born into we're now free change our recipe to suit our tastes. When we can do this how, beyond extremes, is it possible to be unhappy? When we're pouring our own cocktails why would we pour a distasteful one? Again, we must firstly empty out. If I have coffee in my cup but want to enjoy some wine, or whatever, I must first empty out the coffee and the dregs. I guess I don't have to but it'd be a bit silly, and counterproductive, not to.

It is what it is and we work with the equipment, and hardwired motivations, we've got to achieve our objectives. What, ultimately, is our actual objective? Happiness, and if we're not seeking happiness, what are we seeking? Unhappiness? No one seeks to be miserable though many get tangled up and can't make their way out of the desert to their oasis. They can pay a high price. Such is the game of life.

Price we pay.

To understand how emotional detoxes achieve what they achieve, we must first understand our own motivational system. The classic Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations illustrates our species innate motivations, or what we typically call instincts. Obviously, our priority is survival as everything else on our 'shopping list' is academic if we're dead.

Obviously, the first step is to empty out, to empty our cup. We must first throw away the stale ugly flavours to escape their taste and to make space for delightful flavours of our choice keeping in mind space within our cup has a quality all of it's own. Often people keep trying to pour in delightful flavours without firstly emptying out what's already in there. What's the point of that? The cup is already full, meaning little gets in and what does is quickly polluted by the stale stuff already there. If I have coffee in my cup and want to enjoy some wine, or whatever, I need to pour out the coffee, and the dregs, first. I guess I don't have to but it's just a bit silly, and self defeating, not to.

When we get that less is more, the hard becomes easy as we understand it's not, beyond extremes, reality making us feel as we feel but our relationship with reality. Motivations within us seek satisfaction and they purr - release pleasant bio chemicals - if they're satisfied and claw - release painful bio chemicals - if they're dissatisfied. Those motivations are in us; if they weren't we'd not seek what we seek, not feel any lack - pain - not having what we don't want. Prune back our motivations and having just satisfied motivations - thus being very happy - is obviously much easier than simultaneously juggling many, some of which contradict others.

Us Homo Sapiens ( wise Apes ) are social primates; we're motivationally complicated given our survival motivations, social motivations and emotional motivations. However, and to illustrate the struggle, dominant egos struggle to accept we're primates as doing so threatens their sense of status. Their structure of beliefs and values has solidified into something solid which their ego is perched atop of looking down upon most others thus providing delicious status. Trying to incorporate them being primates into that structure threatens the integrity of that structure so they recoil. Its not that they believe the evidence indicates we're fish, or birds, they're just recoiling from ego pain. They have no alternative, all they 'know' is they're something more glorious than a primate. The humble, or the other hand, have no problem accepting they're primates because status doesn't mean much to them anyway. What difference does it make? Presumably, we're something and we do look suspiciously like primates. Take our clothes off, seperate us from our sophisicated tools like cars and laptops and we're obviously looking at a primate, albeit a relatively intelligent one. A wise Ape - Homo Sapien. If we don't trust our eyes we can refer to the fossil, and genetic evidence. What does that say? Here we see another corrosive effect having a dominant ego inflicts; We can't learn anything that challenges our sense of status given the ego pain. Trump is a good example; he's painfully ignorant yet thinks he knows everything. To learn we must be humble, must firstly accept we don't know yet how can one be the 'greatest' yet not already know?

Knowledge is power because it we know how to make something happen we have the power to make it happen. Relevant knowledge is relevant power and as adults we get to decide what is relevant. Yet, if we believe we, magically, already know what is relevant then there's nothing for us to learn and our recipe is the recipe. We then superimpose our beliefs and values over others, we judge them by our beliefs and values as if our set is the set. Irrational, but it feels good as it automatically gives us high status. Exactly why other adults should care about our beliefs and values is an awkward question we prefer to not ponder too much. Who made us God? The humble, on the other hand, aren't demanding reality aligns with their notions and instead have the flexibility to learn about, and then align with reality. If we want to be happy in reality we're well advised to accept reality.

Two caveats here;

Groups do need ideals and do need their members to be aligned with the hierarchy, rational or not, to be functional. We can be upset with other people without the disapointment tracing back to ego. Communities need their standards maintained.

If our current recipe - set of beliefs and values - are functional then they're completely fine. No one has the truth, it's all subjective anyway.

All social animals, including ourselves, organise the collective via hierarchies. We have our Presidents, Prime ministers, CEOs, village leaders, team captains etc etc. Our egos motivation for status and approval aligns us with our group given we can only satisfy our hungry ego via our groups hierarchy; via it's particular set of beliefs and values. If I want your respect I can only satisfy that motivation via your values. As, at least in the past, we were part of the same group your values are the groups values. Indeed, until relatively recent times we wouldn't even know other beliefs and values were even possible given how insular groups of humans used to be. Ego, and the evolution of our ego, are useful to understand given how potentially destructive our ego can be, but that's for another page.

Relevant at the moment is that, as the Maslow hierarchy of innate needs/motivations below shows, our ego and emotional motivations are completely seperate systems within us. What is a good time for our ego is not emotionally, and vis versa. Given our dependance on our group we needed, and have, a motivation powerful enough to align us with our group. The urge for status via our groups particular set of beliefs and values does this critical job. A group that is not aligned is not a functioning group and if our group is not cohesive and functioning we're unlikely to be competitive against groups that are. It's never a very pleasant affair if our group gets defeated meaning our group is always right, always the 'good guys'. Rationally, beliefs and values are obviously subjective - what is right depends on who is asked, of course. The 'baddies' see themselves as the 'goodies' and the competition as the 'baddies', but that's not at all how our ego sees things. Subjective status is not real status so we're highly incentivised to pretend our set - the one we just happened to be born into - is the right set. This, from an evolutionary, survival point of view is not a bug, it's a feature given survival is our priority and we couldn't survive in the precarious past without our functional, cohesive group. It only becomes a bug if we need to change our recipe, in order to change the taste. We struggle to make signinficant change because, whilst we might not be so happy, at least we're succesful, good as defined by the set of values we're subsctrinbed to. Our ego is perfectly content with the status quo and will naturally resist any significant change. This is the classic ego resistance to change that haunts therapy rooms all day, everyday. This is why most just select a pill instead of changing their recipe. Dr Shedler explains this well

Dr Shedler explains this well;

The catch 22 is; if the person suffering had an emotional buffer they could handle some ego pain thus make some changes. But, if they had that buffer they couldn't be knocking on the therpasits door in the first place. Often people leave interventions until it's too late, until they're now totally depdanant on ego satsifaction for the modicom of happiness they are expereincing.

KISS; 'Keep It Simple Stupid' as we (not just me) were repeatably told in the army.

Though, given there’s two independent systems within us it might seem a binary proposition - we’re in this one, or that one - in practice there’s a spectrum as both systems are experiencing simultaneously. It’s rare we’re only feeling one thing. Rare there’s only one motivation/objective propelling us through the environment. A given motivation doesn’t exist in a vacuum, rather it’s jumbled up with many motivations each demanding satisfaction. We decide what option we take according to our objectives which are downstream from our motivations. We do not seek what we don’t want. The balance of power within our ‘basket of motivations’ determines our objectives and our objectives determine our decisions and thus our actions. Our actions add up, we step in this direction, or that direction, taking us to this reality, or that reality.

Additionally, there’s no the reality as the exact same location is both perceived differently and experienced differently depending on our motivations/objectives. Our species only has a handful of mediocre senses to perceive reality via in the first place - most of what is there isn’t for us given we’re limited to that slice we can perceive. That slice is itself too much data for our turbo charged primate brains to process so it’s unconsciously filtered for relevance given our objectives. For example; ‘Pete’ is walking through town wanting nicotine - he’s run out of cigarettes- so he’s scanning the environment for cigarette outlets. He’s bringing that information/data to the fore thus pushing everything else into the vague background. Thus, the exact same location is different to us depending on our motivations and the balance of power between them. The path we’re on is not the same path someone next to us is on and nor are they experiencing the ‘same’; things the same way. It’s all subjective and if we can accept this then we can readily change our recipe to change what we’re tasting. However, dominate egos can’t accept it’s all subjective because that would mean their status is also just subjective.

If we want to act in our own interests we must firstly connect to our own motivations. Sort the wheat from the chuff and our objectives are now our actual objectives and not just what others programmed into us via our culture and schooling etc.

The distinction between self and non self has been made and once that’s done self actualisation/ a high level of happiness is possible. How else?

If we could delete all dissatisfied motivations/ satisfy all our existing motivations we’re, by definition, on a very high level of happiness. If there’s no dissatisfaction/ no pain/ no unpleasant flavours what is left? Just satisfaction, just pleasant flavours and space for joy to flow into.

Sure, we have to survive, have to combat our innate ego which seeks very different things than what our emotions do - status and approval vs love and joy - but such is the game of life. We’re social primates, we’re motivationally complicated but it’s well within the capabilities of our brains to understand, and thus manage, our motivations. Manage our motivations and we’re managing our level of happiness. Motivations - objectives - decisions - actions - reality we take ourselves to.

Emotional detoxes are upstream therapy as opposed to typical midstream therapy that intervenes around decisions. Midstream therapy has such a poor success rate because we’re fighting our motivational current - motivations vs motivations. What the point of that? Just step out of that stream and our innate motivations are stepping out with us - they’re hardwired in - and the rest can just wash away as they’re mostly just trash anyway.

Make the changes upstream at source and gravity does the rest for us. Different motivations, and different balance of power between motivations, equals different objectives. With different objectives in hand we’re hunting/gathering different things from the environment - taking ourselves to different realities, choosing different paths to those new realities we seek. Our orientation is different; we’re seeking emotionally nourishing fields, not status nourishing fields/ pats on the head.

that we can make the changes upstream is known

That we can simply go upstream and make the changes there is known, it's no mystery. Indeed, as I'm writing this ( August 26) the Huberman podcast discussed this very topic with

You got a job downtown, man it leaves your head cold
And everywhere you look, life ain't got no soul
That apartment you live in feels like it's just a place to hide
When you're walking down the streets, you won't meet no one eye to eye
Now the cops reported you as just another homicide
But I could tell that you were just frustrated

Those on the higher levels of happiness have gained clarity regarding they want and they don't want that life.

Now some may want to die young
Young and gloriously
Get it straight now mister
That ain't me
'Cause I got something on my mind
That sets me straight and walkin' proud
I want all the time
And all that heaven will allow

Which, not surprisingly, is the exact same 'meaning of life' that Dr Huberman subscribes to. While 'proud' and 'humble' may not seem to go together they do if our definition of success is happiness. Then, we're proud we've made our way through the maze, through the desert to our oasis. As all egos are doing is just slapping 'right' and 'good' on what they see in our mirror -we're sneaky monkeys like this -if the person in our mirror values happiness, if they define success as happiness, then our ego and emotions are aligned. There's conflict anymore and those on a high level of happiness resolved this conflict a long time ago. We can't escape having an ego, and nor would we want to, but we can choose the hierarchy our ego climbs. Those on a high level of happiness still high five their own reflection; why not as it's easy dollop of delicious bio chemicals and keeps their pruned back ego purring, but they're not taking it seriously, they're laughing at themselves for doing so.

Fill up with love and joy and the rest is just logistics. However, system ‘A’ has been programmed up to be motivated very differently. If we want to be ‘good’ as defined by the beliefs and values we’ve been subscribed to that want is, obviously, a motivation. If we’re good we get a pat, a cookie. We get a nice dollop of pleasant enough bio chemicals. Nice, but that’s the consolation prize; ego satisfaction is relatively insipid and has a low ceiling. It’s something, but it’s not much which is why it’s those dominated by their egos that knock on therapists doors. The humble don’t care much about status thus they’re flexible and easily able to orientate towards their actual interests. They’re flexible and pragmatic and if we’re not flexible and pragmatic, why aren’t we? Typically the answer is because status is so important to us we can’t accept beliefs and values are subjective, can’t accept they’re just recipes that we can , and should, change if need be. Because, if beliefs and values are accepted as being subjective - as they obviously are - then our status is also just subjective. Ouch, our ego doesn’t like the sound of that and so our finger recoils from the ‘refresh’ button and we ask for a pill instead.

Boiled down; When we love someone we love the love. It's the experience we're valuing and attracted to. Presumably, if we didn't meet, and fall in love with that person, we'd meet and fall in love with someone else. The relevant bio chemicals that generate this feeling, or that feeling, are being generated within us and we can control them. What we grow in our inner garden is up to us, but whatever it is we want, or think we want, the first step is to remove the weeds. Do that and we see what long smothered seeds suddenly sprout. We see how we now feel. Typically, but not surprisingly, we'll find the weeds were the problem.

this page is getting too long and is probably enough - too much - info for most anyway. I continue here.

Actually, as I'm writing this - Sept 26 - Stanford research has just shown we don't, as it had been assumed, have one brain with different branches, we have two distinct seperate brains/ nervous systems. Until now, the model has been one 'tree', albeit with distinct branches, but it's actually two 'trees' intertwined that just looks a lot like one tree. While it's been well known for thousands of years that we can be in system 'A' or system 'B', or a combination of both, that they are indeed completely seperate from each other is interesting. In practice, we have our intellectual system which is the cultural reality that our ego resides in and experiences; our ego is consuming the meanings our brain/that brain is giving to what our senses perceive. Whereas the other system, our emotional system, is in a different world as it's experiencing directly and organically. Typically, we'd refer to the post brain meaningful cultural world of our ego and the pre brain meaningless world of our emotions, but it now seems more accurate to consider them completely independent systems. The meaningful is meaningless - irrelevant - to our emotions whilst the organic meaningless experiences that our emotions are nourished on are meaningless/ irrelevant to our ego. One motivations treasure can be, and often is, another motivations trash.

Relevant here is that ego satisfaction is relatively insipid, and has a low ceiling, compared to emotional satisfaction. If our ego 'tree' is too well nourished it shades out our emotional tree; the light that our emotions require is not getting in. Effectively, we locked into system 'A', and can easily deem it the system as that's all we know. The cultural realities, that exist like bubbles within the larger reality, become the realities. Taken further, our cultural bubble becomes the reality; our beliefs and values become the right and true set of beliefs and values. Obviously, now we're trapped as we're limited to seeking happiness along the tramlines of our particular cultures mainstream path that we're deeming the reality, or at least the right, and good, path. Wanting to be 'good'/ have status is a motivation. A want is a motivation obviously so we, naturally enough, seek to satisfy both systems simultaneously which, in practice, means seeking to satisfy our emotions via the path that will also deliver us status/respect/approval. If we're successful enough in this quest, if we're happy enough on our societys mainstream path then that's great. Happy days, and we enjoy this life thing. If that reality is not satisfactory because we're different and/or because our mainstream path is itself subpar then we have a problem. If our civilisation is past it's zenith, and is now in the dying stage of it's lifecycle, if it's now potholed with the once low hanging fruit long gone, yet we're still motivationally programmed up to sprint down that path we're going to struggle to be happy. Of what use are beliefs and values/motivations if the path they put us on isn't fruitful?

Well, I think it's fine
Building jumbo planes
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train
Switch on summer from a slot machine
Yes, get what you want, if you want
'Cause you can get anything now

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Where do the children play? Good question, and if children don't get to play - do what they actually want to be doing - they can struggle to connect to what they actually want to be doing/ experiencing as adults. Early, intensive and prolonged schooling is constantly force feeding system 'A' - that tree grows large and bushy, but what about our other tree? What about the one that really matters? Of course, we need to survive; that's our first priority. We need to access food, shelter etc via the economic system that exists, but it's easy to go too far, to become lobsided. To be chained to the bracken well not realising there's a deeper, fresher, much more satisfying well right next to it.

You're just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black, you can trust
It'll take your God-filled soul
And fill it with just devils and dust

That, to experience the higher levels of happiness, we need both systems nourished and purring is obvious. Indeed, satisfied motivations, with few dissatisfied motivations, is the definition of happiness. Delicious bio chemicals in our cup with few distasteful stale ones means we're consuming, experiencing, feeling, tasting a delightful cocktail; in other words we're feeling great/we're happy. However, our two systems don't experience the same things, don't value the same things. Our ego is solely concerned with status/approval etc with the state of our emotions irrelevant aside from where, or if, it effects status. Trump is an obvious example of someone completely dominated by ego/system 'A'. He's hollowed out, his emotional tree has withered away from being trapped in the shade for so long. For him, only wealth, power and status matter because that's how he's experiencing it to be. The only satisfaction he can access is via ego/ system 'A' thus, naturally enough, that's all he values. Notoriously thin skinned because status is all he has; that's the only pleasant bio chemicals dripping into his cup so of course he'll feel pain, and react harshly, if someone threatens that drip. Of course, he'll milk his 'greatness' furiously because that faucet/teat is all there is for him. It's not much, status is inherently insipid, but at least it's something. There, at the cynical end of the spectrum, love and joy 'don't' exist , or if they theoretically do, they're not valued as the person has lost the capacity to connect to them. They're in a cave away from the light. They're disorientated, facing the wrong way. They adapt as best they can to the darkness and, in time, forget light exists and perhaps even deny it exists.

No one looks at trump and sees a happy person; At one pole of the spectrum everything can be nothing worth having whilst at the other pole, where Buddha was, 'nothing' can be everything. Buddha said 'By doing nothing, I do everything'. Indeed, what is there to do if we're 10/10 happy? Do what? By definition there are no unsatisfied motivations to be satisfied if we're 10/10 happy so of course he just sat, with that massive smile on his face, and watched the world go by. If we feel we lack nothing, we feel we have everything we want and if we feel we have everything we want we're, obviously, very very happy. Less is more for this reason but also because joy needs space to flow into. Presumably, Buddha wasn't out in the forest sitting under a tree seeking interpersonal love. He'd taken himself to the wrong place if that was his dominant motivation so either he was confused, and unhappy/dissatisfied, or he was accessing, and nourished by, something else. Our brain can label that something however it wants to, can understand it however it wants to, but it's got nothing to do with our brain, nothing to do with system 'A'.

The Tao that can be explained, is not the Tao.

The taste that can be explained, is not the taste. The love that our brain explains, is not the love.

Those on the higher levels of happiness focus on the relevant experiences. As they're humble they're not chasing status, and it's symbols, so are free are instead to hunting the invisible, and unexplainable, feelings they desire. By keeping their ego 'tree' pruned back the light is getting into their emotional tree, it's well nourished and they feel great.

Strength is vanity and time is illusion
I feel you breathing, the rest is confusion
Your skin touches mine, what else to explain
I'm the hunter of invisible game There's a kingdom of love waiting to be reclaimed

Our emotions are nourished by love and/or joy. But what is love without joy in the mix? Thus, those that understand orientate towards joy . To fill up, we must first empty out as joy needs space to flow into.

This is where much of the confusion regarding happiness, and how to generate it, comes from; Different people, different books are pointing at different things and contradicting each other. It's not that they're necessarily wrong, it's they're not all at the same place on the spectrum. There's this side of the monastery walls, and there's that side; what type of happiness are they deeming the happiness? The Trump type? Wealth, power, status? Or are they commentating from towards the other end of spectrum referring to a very different type of happiness? Or, are they pointing out there’s two wells/ two systems and we should drink from/nourish both? If so, are they factoring in that system A tends to short circuit our ability to access system B? Are they deeming their set of beliefs and values as the right and noble set which, not coincidently, makes them superior to nearly all others, or are they accepting it’s all subjective and that their perspective is just their perspective and not the perspective? Beyond a certain point on the spectrum reality is swirling shades of grey, not the black and white our brain typically cataorises it into given we have to make decisions to satisfy objectives. We need solid ground, so our brain provides us with that but what if we don't want anything? Then what is just is. Our brain doesn't bother to spend energy catagosing because it makes no difference either way. Some have gone past that point on the spectrum, others haven't and thus that possibility doesn't exist for them. That's 'mumbo jumbo' and they point to what they believe exists, to what they believe is 'best'.

Our brain/s serve our motivations. That's it's job. It's our interface between the information our senses receive regarding the environment we have to navigate to satisfy our motivations. Neither the data we receive, nor the beliefs our brain has accumulated about reality is the reality but it's something, it's better than nothing and we do the best we can with the equipment we have. Given our reality is not the reality we're humble - our right is obviously not the right - and we're necessarily working with probabilities. Sometimes things go to plan, sometimes not - ho hum- nothing to get upset about but the more relevant information we learn the more things do unfold as anticipated. Thus we're now motivated to learn relevant knowledge and taking responsibility for our reality. Humble, flexible, pragmatic, proactive and taking ownership. How is it possible to blame others? for what? for them being them? If our expectations of them cause us pain is it them causing that pain or our expectations?

A given recipe is not inherently wrong; that one works well for some. It’s all just perspectives, just recipes with one recipe tasting great to some yet doesn’t to others.

Ideally, we learn to mix and match, to make our own recipe and easily change it if we need to, or feel like a change. Believe we’ve magically stumbled into the right set/ recipe and we can’t mix and match as doing so will undermine our existing structure of beliefs and values that our status is happily perched atop of.

Via emotional detoxes, of one form or another, we do experience it and then get that less is more. While we don’t have to understand it to experience it, we’ll typically lack enough motivation to detox in the first place unless we have at least a basic understanding of the benefits and how those benefits manifest.

I should add that what I'm labelling 'joy' can be labelled/ understood differently. God, Tao, Light, Energy, Soul or just a different type of love are among the many different ways brains can understand it. Buddhism doesn't preclude the possibility that others can better perceive, thus better understand, the nature of this something than they can. Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of any God, they just personally lack the capacity to colour in what others, presumably, can. As, from their perspective, it's the connection to it/the experience that matters, the exact nature of that something isn't so important. Though different cultures have different beliefs regarding the nature of God they, as far as I understand, all agree that the kingdom of God is within. The connection, the experience is happening within us. Indeed, where else can it happen? Buddhists just seek that experience - that emotional well being/ high level of happiness - in the here and now as, from their perspective, that’s what is relevant now.

Whether that is relevant to us ,or not, is up to us to decide. If it is a VM detox allows us to connect to that something by removing that which is blocking that connection.

Our goal is not to find love, and joy, but to remove all barriers which are preventing us from receiving it.” Rumi