ARE YOU
STUCK 
WITH
A DUCK?

BIRGITTA 
GRANSTROMCopyright © 2021 Birgitta Granstrom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the publisher's written permission.

Birgitta Granstrom
Catheys Valley, California
www.lifespideracademy.com
"The Ugly Duckling" teaches us that it doesn’t matter if you were born in a duck pond if you come from a swan’s egg!

 

 

The Swedish Library Service About The Book

"Birgitta Granström works as a life coach, and in this book, she addresses those who want to achieve personal growth and change in any area of life and who, in some ways, are stuck in a "duck pond." Granström consistently uses the classic Hans Christian Andersen story of the ugly duckling, which gives the book's contents a good framework. Although freed from traditional theory, it's evident that Granström has extensive knowledge and experience in psychology and sociology. But rather than immersing herself in scientific theories, she describes the methods through experience-based stories and uses herself and her clients as examples. The book is a coach, and each chapter contains a series of questions to help the individual analyze their situation, make the right decisions, and achieve their life goals. Granström gives detailed instructions related to the issues. The book feels well thought out, despite its sometimes very personal nature."
 — Louise Sverud. Swedish Library Service

Prologue

The majority of us long for a peaceful life, yet we continue to divide our lives into different compartments—careers, family, friends, health, financial, personal, and spiritual development. This competition for time, money, and energy leads to dissatisfaction and frustration. For generations, we have built our ideas about right and wrong. We have learned that we need to abstain instead of getting everything we want.
”Are You Stuck With A Duck?” makes you uncomfortably aware of how old beliefs and negative emotional states prevent people from living their dreams. The narratives from life will awaken your own story and grant clarity on how to walk away from those conditions and step into a life of freedom.
This book takes you to a higher level of your being, where you comprehend the world more deeply. You will reach an awareness where you understand people's relationship to things and people, and ultimately you can make more meaning for yourself. Observations and narratives from other peoples’ lives will show you that your choices can be fulfilled. This book will help you discover what you can choose, how you can choose, and when you can reject things that limit you.
"The duck pond" is a place that feels wrong to you: a place where there's no room for your true potential, a place that limits you because you want something different. That doesn't mean one place is better than another. It means you need to find the space that's right for you. A duck pond for you can be a swan lake for another, and your swan lake can be a duck pond for someone else.
Foremost, it's about knowing that you always have the choice to change and grow. A specific swan lake is not limited to the same place for the rest of your life. A wonderful swan lake today can be a duck pond tomorrow.
The title of this book originates from my personal relationship with ducks and swans. An alliance started with my first toy, Daisy Duck, and my favorite story, "The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Andersen.
This book contains my observations and anecdotes from a perfect vantage point. My life experiences have unconsciously contributed to an amusing performance full of lessons to learn. The narratives show that none of us is exempt from the behaviors, attitudes, and reactions described here. But when we take on the role of the observer, realizations become comfortable. It's easier for us to decide what we want or no longer want to have in our lives.
By studying the duck pond, we can see what's preventing us from being the swan we were born to be. By being an observer, we can listen and perceive what we need and what we would like to improve. When you discover what's really going on in the duck pond, you can make a conscious decision to stay in the pond, move to a different pond, or fly away and spend your life in a swan lake.
You are so much more than you think you are. I’m confident we are all here to develop our gifts, influence, and make something of our lives.

 

"Are You Stuck with a Duck" is here to launch the supernatural phenomenon of freedom that allows you "To Be Free To Be You."

This is a book that you can use for many years. Feel free to read or listen to the book from cover to cover, but be prepared to meet reflections and questions that can take time to comprehend and answer. Specific chapters, sentences, and questions will give you instant insights, while others need mulling over. Leave what seems uninteresting for now and ponder over it later. Go back to what captured your interest and reread it.

ARE YOU STUCK WITH A DUCK?

PART I
ROUNDTRIP TO PHILADELPHIA

You work here!" The words permeated my whole system. I try to understand what they mean. A young man with a brush cut, which evenly covers the top of his head, stands in front of me. I try to guess his age and decide that he's just over 30. Behind his glasses are a pair of lifeless, light-colored eyes. His thin lips hardly move, reminding me of a ventriloquist who fascinated me as a child. The waist of his dark uniform is decorated with a weapon that looks disproportionately large for the young man's body. The baton on his left side creates an asymmetric imbalance. There are other black leather cases in his holster, and I wonder what they contain. On his left shoulder, there's a shiny emblem with yellow letters reading "Border Protector.”

My big grey suitcase lies open in front of me. The young man has removed the contents and is holding my business card. He opens my black carry-on bag, finds my well-used notepad, and tries to decipher my messy notes. The room is silent. Behind the counter, there's a short policewoman with orange hair. She's watching a heated discussion between a colleague and a South American woman. I can't hear what they say, but I understand that they disagree. There isn't much activity, and the room's bare white walls seem to creep closer. The space feels like a vacuum as if all living energy had been sucked out or perhaps was never there.

As a foreigner, you are filled with horror stories about deported people—innocent individuals who couldn't return to the USA because immigration suspected they were illegally working in the country. I look at the young man and notice his practiced look of authority and aggression. What do I say now? The shock from the words, "You work here," is still resonating in my body since my archive of horror stories continues to arrive in my mind.

I realize that some undesired consequences are brewing. I'm struggling to understand and to think of something intelligent to say. My attempt fails, and my autonomous nervous system kicks in and goes on the defensive.
I reply, "I definitely do not!" But it's too late. My defensiveness continues, and a wall in communication is established. It feeds the antagonist standing in front of me. He has picked up some papers and looks like he's won a victory when he bursts out, "Don't lie!" I hear myself unwisely answer with, "I'm not lying." I won't lie; I have nothing to hide.

My mind slips back to six months ago when I discovered my power place and my swans in Southern California. Now I was standing in the Philadelphia airport on route to San Diego. I was heading for another period of freedom in the Pacific Ocean to write. I was satisfied that my work finally had paid off. I could work for a few weeks in Sweden and spend the rest of the time wherever I wanted to be in the world, doing whatever I wanted to do. I had created the perfect life. My dream had come true. The biggest challenge these past few months had been channeling gratitude for waking up in the morning and following my intuition. I'm joyful every day—eating breakfast by the pool or jogging on Imperial Beach.
The imposing figure jarred me back to reality. Convinced that the truth is sufficient, I continue my defensive posture. The man looks self-satisfied. He is bursting with pride when presenting evidence. He's holding a printout from one of my websites in English. I freeze and realize our truths are in conflict. He tells me that he has the power to send me back.

I realize that it's impossible to convince the police officer that I just had practiced doing presentations and websites. He clarifies that the green declaration I submitted to the passport police meant my right to defense was forfeited. Accepting that the immigration authorities have all the rights, I convert my powerlessness to curiosity. There's nothing I can do now except observe the surreal situation.

It's time for paperwork, and he moves me to an interrogation room. My antagonist is the only one who has anything to do. His colleagues stand in a cluster behind the counter, staring straight at the passport control center. The hearing rooms' dirty white walls are covered with carelessly handwritten notes. The computer and printer are old. The dust around the cables and outlets creates a considerable fire hazard.
I turn on my autonomic nervous system and adopt a relatively passive attitude. I wonder what this situation is going to teach me. At the moment, I do not understand. I also have no motivation whatsoever to learn anything right now.

A man with a body mass of at least 300 pounds — concentrated in his lower torso — enters the room. He wants my interrogator to join him for lunch. I listen to them decide where to eat while reflecting on my horoscope from a couple of days ago. I had rejected the warning about Monday, May 26, 2008. My horoscope had predicted that Mercury's position on this particular day would cause disorder and chaos in communications. I was forewarned that if planning a trip, I should review everything and be prepared for chaos. I had dismissed the warning to re-book my flight for another day. At this moment, I questioned my nonchalance and blamed myself for not listening to my intuition.

Not even an echo could be heard in the empty room. I watch a police officer outside the room who looks happy when a weary long-haired young man wants to make a call on his cell phone. The officer threatens to confiscate the young man's phone. A smile spreads over his face when he turns to his colleagues for confirmation. I'm not allowed to place a call either until my interrogator decides to become more humane. He finally allowed me to call my friend about my involuntary change of plans. The humanity of the policeman ceases, and I cannot finish the conversation. The interrogation continues.

Seizing on the little remaining compassion, I ask for a glass of water. I receive a tiny, white plastic cup. My interrogator asks me if I want something to eat. I answer, "Yes, please." It was a few hours since dinner on the flight to Philadelphia. I follow him to the counter where his expressionless colleagues are standing. He opens the white cupboard doors behind the counter and takes out a few semi-manufactured meals — several different varieties of steak. I politely decline, explaining that I don't eat meat. It's okay to fast.

Once back in the interrogation room, I'm allowed to speak at the end of the hearing. Until then, I shall obediently answer questions that only leave space for a "yes" or "no." My free speech explaining that my trip to the US. is a vacation and that I'm in love with the Pacific Ocean has little effect on the man. He informs me that he's only following the rules and that there are three sentences in my presentation that are sufficient evidence. He found what he needed to complete his assignment. There's no reason for him to allow me to prove anything else. He has a case and has something interesting to talk about at lunch.

When the interrogation is over, the officer looks at the printout from my website again. He asks me what I actually do. I calmly explain that my job is about inspiring people. I tell him gently that I encourage people to shape their lives the way they want. I say to him that everyone can identify and realize their dreams. I light up inside when I convey that everyone can attain freedom. I reflect that I was living proof that everyone can do what they feel passionate about. For example, sit on Pacific Beach and write unless the immigration authority is of a different opinion. He gives me a quick look. He tries to hide his confusion with his desk work. His empty, unresponsive gaze returns.

While watching the policeman, I question my conviction that I have found my swan lake and my swans in California. I thought my childhood and teenage experiences were the sources of my belief that the duck pond society was a Swedish cultural phenomenon. I start reevaluating my perceptions of America.

I grew up in a culture where Jante and Murphy's Law had grown stronger and thicker than all the pine trees in an overgrown forest. From magnificent roots, the Lutheran crowns of the trees had grown, unwaveringly and continuously shouting, "You must work hard!" and "Life is not easy!" Early on, I learned to survive with the three fellows: Jante, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Luther. I invented a personal strategy to handle them effectively.

My earliest memory is of age 3. I remember sitting and staring up at the stars and wondering why adults didn't understand. While trying to comprehend adult human behavior, I became aware of the world around me. I not only observed the events themselves, but I also studied the consequences of different behaviors and situations. From the perspective of cause and effect, I started experimenting with influencing people and circumstances.

By age 10, I had learned how to protect myself from difficulties by turning inward. I had discovered a technique of turning off the external world at any time by focusing on my inner world. When challenged to do, feel, think, or be something that went against my desires, I redirected my thoughts and felt inner freedom. This strategy enabled me to tolerate any situation. I became a professional observer of my life. When I met the population of American ducks, this skill came in handy. Despairingly, I had to admit that ducks are everywhere. Duck ponds are international.

I wake up from my thoughts, observe the young, focused policeman, and feel sadness. His life is this cold room with a dusty computer. He spends four hours on me to write a report that distances me from my dream. He finishes his procedure and attempts to print out the information from the printer that doesn't work. Frustrated, the young officer gets up and asks a colleague for help. Two older border guards read through the report. They witness that I have signed all the papers. In the older man's eyes, I see that he feels that my deportation is too harsh, given the evidence. He looks away. Both officers are careful not to interfere with the young man's work. They try not to reveal that he's new at his job. The policewoman with orange hair avoids eye contact and makes an effort not to talk to me. I'm the young man's prey. It's undoubtedly a good day for my interrogator. He'll have something to talk about when he gets home. Something has happened at work today. He feels accomplished.

Flanked by border protectors, I am guided through the airport's terminals to Gate 10 to meet the plane that will take me back. The female officer holds a yellow envelope in her hand with my name written in big red letters. The colorful casing and I are handed over to the flight attendant, and the policewoman turns to me and says: "When you arrive in Sweden, you're free to go." With an amused smile, I thank her for the kind information and wonder if this is the end of my dream. Does this mean that I'm forever banished to my old duck pond? I step onto the plane and look into the future, pondering the universe's intention. To be continued…

 

chapter 1
DUCKS SUCK

 

Observations of life in a duck pond
– We must discover who we really are to be happy.

 

The ugly duckling was, in fact, something other than he thought himself to be. Things didn't go well when he tried to be something he wasn't. However, the ugly duckling did his best to live up to others’ demands and expectations of what was right.

How values and fears limit you

In the first chapter, we visit a Duck Pond that shows us how unconscious beliefs and behaviors control the Ducks' choices. We will understand how the Ducks maintain their assumptions and follow their rules without questioning whether they are advantageous or suitable.

We will gain an understanding of how our fears get us to act irrationally. It will become evident how people hide behind unseen rules to protect their vulnerability.

By observing the ducks' behavior, we become painfully aware of the continuous struggle to balance opposites. This struggle keeps us stuck in our belief that we can't change. We think we're destined to live a life that someone else has chosen for us.

 

1.1 VALUES

The Ugly Duckling

And he flew out into the water and swam toward the magnificent swans". I can hear my mother closing the storybook. I’m filled with joy because the ugly duckling has once again found his swans.

I am 3-4 years old and am perched on a dark-yellow chair; the color had worn off the seat and the backrest. I'm kneeling on the chair and resting my elbows on the table to get as close as possible to the story. I wear light, thick-knitted stockings and a blue dress with white sailboats. The unbuttoned, warming white sweater on my tiny shoulders protects me from the cold. I brush my hands over the light beige oilcloth. It has orange flowers with green stems and leaves that wind their way in a pattern around the flowers.
Behind me, the fire crackles in the black wood-burning stove and fills the kitchen with low heat. The sooty smoke spreads a homey, safe scent. In front of me, two windows are separated by a pantry. I don't like the pantry because it's cold and smells bad when you open the door. Outside the window, to the left, there's a food dish for the birds. A little bullfinch is sitting there. I like the bird because it's so beautiful with its red belly. 

I look at my mother's round face and cylindrical eyeballs shaped after her blue-green eyes. Her cheeks are light red, and her hair is dark, styled with short, big, uncombed curls. Her flowery blouse hangs down over her hips and her beige, pleated skirt. I perceive her as big, but she's probably just a little over 5.2 feet tall and relatively slender. Her hands are crumpled and red from work in cold weather and water. A smooth gold ring shines on her left hand.

This was a good day because I got to hear the story again. I actually only wanted to listen to the ending because it tortured me when the ugly duckling suffered at the hands of all those who had mistreated him. The mother duck's friends felt sorry for her because she had given birth to such a strange duckling. They encouraged her by saying, "Your duckling will be all right when he grows up!"
I tried to persuade my mother only to read the ending. But when I asked her, she explained, "you can't do that. If you're going to read a story, you must read it from the beginning!" I never understood how that could be when you could read yourself. It seemed like you could open a book to any page and read whatever was there. At that moment, I started long to be able to read by myself. When I grew up, I would read "The Ugly Duckling" every day—and just read the ending.
My mother gets up and takes the storybook, Treasure Island, and puts it back in the cupboard, which is always locked. "One must take good care of one's books." I had preferred to continue playing with the book. I liked the yellow and brown teddy bears, trains, cars, and animals inside the cover. But I had learned that I could ruin books because I couldn't turn the pages correctly.

The book disappears into the cupboard, and I see the swans flying away to the northeast. Quietly, I urge the ugly duckling never to return to all those people and animals that have hurt him. At the same time, I wished he would return as an adult and bite them all to death.Deficiency & Compromises

It took generations to build up our values about what is possible and impossible. These values have become established rules for living our lives, which makes it difficult to distance ourselves from ingrained habits. We are unconscious of our values and how they influence our interpretation of the world and how things work. We are convinced that we see things as they really are.

Our society's norms are often created to maintain the balance between opposites, such as good/evil, beautiful/ugly, happy/unhappy, and so on. This judgment occurs only in black and white. There is a web of visible and invisible rules for how we should be and act. Individual wishes that go against these rules are valued very little.

As children, we learn that we have to read the whole story to reach the wonderful ending we really want to hear. This has become an unwavering truth, which results in the unread book on the nightstand that gives us a bad conscience. The feeling of guilt prevents us from starting a new book before we've finished reading the old one. Another fundamental value in the duck pond is that there are limited resources to divide among the inhabitants. We lock books in cupboards to "save" them instead of reading them as long as they bring us joy. The duck pond’s society has lost its ability to see that there is overabundance. The ducks believe that their resources are limited instead of seeing all the books waiting to replace the one read to pieces.

We are conditioned to believe that joy comes from other people choosing to read for us. We learn that happiness depends on what others do and that we should be grateful when we "get to have a good day." We forget that we can take responsibility for our happiness and make as many happy days as we'd like.

Based on generations of created values, we judge people as good or bad. The ugly duckling was labeled weird because he didn't look like the other ducks. The mother duck's friends did what they could to encourage her. They wanted to make her happy by telling her that the duckling would grow up and be like the other ducks.
We're programmed to think that "mom" is right throughout life and that we don't have a choice. This is why the ducks in the duck pond—limited in circumference and depth—compromise their wishes. They undermine their truths and invent different ways to cope with situations instead of doing what they feel is right. They long for the freedom to make their own decisions, but the opposition is too strong. Therefore, they put their happiness off until sometime in the future: "When I grow up ..."

Our beliefs decide what we are capable of doing. We believe we can't do something because others say we can not. Judgment is manifested, and we don't even consider the possibility of investigating or demanding that we can learn to do the impossible. We accept that we can't "leaf through the book" and get stamped for life. Some never even become aware that these limitations exist.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Which values are the foundation for your choices in life?

What is standing in the way of making your wishes come true?

What wishes are you putting off until the future?

What limitations have you and others imposed on yourself?

What does your duck pond look like?

Tips!
Read through the questions without straining yourself to find an answer. Return to the questions when you have read the whole book.

1.2 NORMS

Potholders AND happy children

I'm standing on my oldest son's balcony. From his fifth-floor apartment, I'm looking at a typical November morning in Sweden. The sky is covered by low-lying rain-filled clouds. It's not raining, but the air is humid. There are two tall, green pine trees growing between the apartment buildings. The other trees are bare, and the ground is covered with the brown leaves that stubbornly survived the traditional fall clean-up. The silhouette of Stockholm's buildings and rooftops disappears transparently into the grey surroundings.

I'm swamped by my longing for sunshine and a clear blue sky. Three days ago, I roamed around Pacific Beach—dressed in shorts and a tank top—and enjoyed the Californian winter. I was looking forward to a few intensive weeks of inspiring work mixed in with more duty-filled meetings. I'm sending a glance at the street below. There aren't many people out, and those who pass by are hurry to get wherever they're going. I, too, am one of those people on the way to the subway station. I close the balcony door and walk into the hallway. I find my brown boots in the pile of shoes, put my coat on, zip it up, and pull up its fur collar. I'm ready to tackle the planned activities for the day.

When I get down to the subway station Gärdet I hear a loud voice over the speaker saying, "The train to Norsborg will be arriving in four minutes!". The few people on the platform are deeply lost in their cell phones or one of Stockholm's complimentary newspapers. I notice how quiet it is and realize we don't talk to one another. The silence is broken by echoing voices on their way down the escalator. A man and woman are in a heated discussion in the far left corner. I make a prejudiced bet with myself that they are not ethnic Swedes. I'm right. In my own silence, I pick up my cell phone. I call my meeting and maintain the statistics for the most ordinary cell phone use: telling someone where you are and when you will arrive. The blue subway train arrives. I get into the car, and the driver announces that the doors will close.
One station later, at Central Station, the car turns into a verbal inferno when a group of daycare children storms in. I'm standing and am brutally pushed into a corner. A man who looks like he's from Ethiopia is standing diagonally across from me in the same squished position. His eyes sparkle, and he smiles carefully when he looks at the children. The children's cacophony and excited body language radiate spontaneity and the joy of living. I feel how my empty gaze comes to life. The children are absorbed in the now. They are so utterly present and concentrated on the friend in front of them. Full of life and ingenuousness, they tell and show each other different things. Their exuberant energy is abruptly cut off by two hissings, "Shhhh, shhhh!". One of the two day-care workers turns to the group of children and says in a pedagogic, ironic voice: "Listen, how many people are talking here?". She gets a unanimous acknowledgment for her precise observation. No one is talking.

At Old Town, the children stumble out, and the car returns to its expected silence. I spend the rest of my trip to Gullmarsplan thinking about the ads that decorated the walls at the Gärdet station. The giant billboards consisted of a collage of crocheted potholders. In the left corner, I had read a message that made me think murderous thoughts about how we value each other's performances. The words said: "I've bought them myself, old and new. They all cost about $2. That's pretty cheap. A pot holder takes 3-5 hours to crochet."

My frustration breaks when I arrive at my station, ready to complete my first and somewhat duty-filled meeting. On my way out of the car, I fantasize about a universal awakening that money is a form of energy. A fact that existed long before the energy exchange was made out of paper. Duties & Limitations

The majority of ducks don't like their routines to be interrupted. They are programmed with reflexive reactions, such as distancing themselves from things that don't follow accepted norms. To the ducks, it's more important to maintain routines so that work, projects, and social status can continue without change. They have developed a technique for communication that delivers good advice with irony, sarcasm, and scornfulness. Also, they successfully avoid mentioning that talk and laughter in the subway station make us smile inside. Another effective method to ward off threats to the duck pond's homogeneity is to avoid appreciating and praising innate ambitions.

Adult ducks use a lot of energy to raise their children to be good ducks. The ducklings are given the tools they need early on to become a part of the society that controls the resources. Child-rearing is about ensuring that the ducklings incorporate themselves into the norms of society, so they don't end up in the sludgy parts of the pond or, even worse, entirely outside the pond.

Every place on Earth has specific circumstances that develop the necessary skills for survival. Culture and environment provide us with suitable rules for living. In the Swedish duck pond, the norms are characterized by moderation. The cold and grey climate urges us to close our coats and fold our collars to keep the cold out. The lack of sunlight further contributes to Swedish ducks retaining their energy. Restraint is a made-up custom with origins in a forest and agricultural society where resources in trees and arable land were limited. When you knew that it took years for a pine tree to grow to be a majestic fellable tree, it was essential to be careful with the resources. The problem emerges when we follow guidelines without considering changing conditions.

It is norms with irrelevant circumstances that make us proud to only pay $2 for a potholder that took about three to five hours to manufacture. A craft that also, for months, delivered a pleasurable experience to Stockholm travelers.

In a culture where the town of Jante and Mr. Murphy and Luther are the role models, we learn to work hard to survive and that work cannot be united with joy. We invent a command that effectively limits expressions of pleasure and lively spontaneity — a command that provides us with the notion that no one wants to listen. Therefore our voices are silenced. We abdicate and adapt to the assumption that spontaneity is "unsightly and wrong." The adult truth becomes a conviction that people want quietness so they can read the newspaper in peace.

We create an illusion that people are incapable of joy and bury ourselves in a magazine or a cell phone conversation. Spontaneous reactions and actions are replaced by constructed driving forces in the form of regulations and unseen norms. We get used to being informed about "the train arriving in four minutes" and get upset over deviations.

While teaching our children something new under the command "Shhh!", we do our duty as good parent who follows the child-rearing manual. Responsibilities maintain rules and have a preferential right of interpretation over truth. The moral compulsion distracts and protects the ducks from reacting and acting on their feelings. Duty prevents dangerous spontaneity, and traditions are passed on to the next generation. The ducklings are trained until they are convinced of the previous generation's truths, and their voices have been silenced.

When we fulfill our duties, we are seen as competent and gain an important social status. This is a vital factor for success in the duck pond, regardless of if you're a day-care worker in Stockholm or a border guard in Philadelphia.

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What experiences from your childhood influence you today?

Which everyday duties limit your spontaneity?

Which commands have silenced your voice?

How can you show your appreciation for others more?

Which unseen norms control you?

Tips!
Choose a question that you have the desire to answer. Take the time right NOW to reflect on the question before you do something else. Write down whatever thoughts come to your mind, whether they answer your question or are about something completely different.

1.3 FEARS

IBOGA

In the summer of 2006, I watched a fascinating BBC production on Discovery Channel. It was a documentary with Bruce Parry, an English former marine instructor who presented a TV show where he lived together with indigenous tribes around the globe. I was especially fascinated by an episode where Bruce went to see Babongo, a tribe in Gabon in western Africa. This program made me get on my computer and take notes while watching. I had a feeling that what I was watching was so crucial that I wanted to save it. And now—two years later—writing about fears, my memory archives opened and delivered the message about Bruce and his documentary.

One of the episodes, the third day of Bruce's initiation into the Babongo tribe, had intensely captured my attention. This part of the ceremony focused on spiritual and personal development. I followed Bruce when he got initiated into the Babonga tribe's religion by eating Iboga—a powerful hallucinogenic drug. The Babonga tribe uses this remedy to look into the future, heal the sick, and talk to the dead. Iboga helps them free their soul from the body and take it on a journey to speak with the souls of plants and animals. With the support of the drug, Bruce would meet his worst fears and be considered a real man.

Before the initiation and in front of the camera, Bruce talked about how he felt about his upcoming initiation. He repeated several times that his worst fear was"being afraid of opening doors that could reveal something that showed someone else than he thought he was." Like most people, he saw himself as a decent and humble guy who did good things for others. However, the closer the ceremony, the clearer it became to him that it might not be the entire truth. Bruce began to suspect that he had suppressed some parts of himself in buried them in his subconsciousness.

At the beginning of the initiation process, Bruce describes how he can feel the panic approach. He recounts how he believes he'll die and feels completely alone, far away from home. Bruce's inner experiences are mirrored physically as well. His body wants to rid itself of the pain, and he vomits violently. When it's time for Bruce to meet his fears and see the light, he asks the TV crew to stop filming concerning the secrets of the initiation.

Directly after the initiation, Bruce is back in front of the camera. He's obviously shaken by whatever emerged during the painful process. He was able to re-live events that had been suppressed in his subconscious. Bruce describes that most experiences were memories from childhood and situations in which he had hurt others. He explained how he saw his mistakes from the victims' point of view and experienced the pain he had caused. These experiences illuminate his face when he says, "every action has an effect."

Bruce made it quite clear with his words and actions that this experience had awakened a forgotten humility and that he felt "reborn." He told the audience that he could no longer turn a blind eye and go on when his "dark sides" had arrived at the surface. He was ready to ask for forgiveness and reconcile his past actions to continue his life.

Bruce's devotion to his mission made a solid and grateful impression on me. At the top of my reading list is now Perry's book Adventure in a Changing World, so I can find out how his experiences changed his life. I am also intensely keen to enjoy his provocative questions, such as "Who are we to impose our own culture on others and judge what is right or wrong?”

The book will strengthen my conviction that our lives are interconnected and that the earth is a giant organism of which we are only a part. A tiny component that we have a responsibility to manage for the good of all. Bruce Perry's book will never be unread on my nightstand.Danger & Dread

One of the greatest fears that people have is to face the truth about themselves. There's an internal fear of being revealed as having less favorable and destructive qualities in one's personality. Like Bruce, we see ourselves as decent people who do our best to appear as being good. Therefore the duck pond has an ongoing battle to withhold the truth and maintain the arbitrarily created illusion about their identity. The ducks are always worried that someone will see through them. They panic at the opinions of others if they fail to fulfill their designed image.

Not only are they afraid of themselves, but they're also terrified of what is classified as dangerous, like tragedies, illnesses, catastrophes, and success. Success is threatening because it may come to an end. The possible happiness in enjoying success and elation overshadows the uncertainty of how long it will remain.

Some ducks avoid being successful because they are unconsciously worried about the responsibility that comes with success. This worry reinforces an already well-developed skill to bring up one's worst fears. The duck strives to hold on to what is well known, and their fear helps them construct logical arguments to say no to change. With fantastic ingenuity, they call forth and execute their concerns.

Life in the duck pond is also characterized by anxiety over being alone. A horror that results in wanting to control and make their relationships fit into their self-manufactured illusion. Clueless actions harm their close relationship and build new relationships that charge their unconscious guilt account.

Ducks have trouble acknowledging their fears, and to avoid facing them, they have developed a defense system that reflexively appears when a confrontation approaches. When they criticize a quality or an action in someone else, they often find fault within themselves. The reluctance to accept criticism and suggestions for changes that challenge the self-image results in total denial.
There are residents in the duck pond who trigger fears of what is different and unusual. These "weird" inhabitants are classed as "non-ducks" and end up in the category of "danger." A "non-duck" is risky since it is charismatic and attracts others to abandon the existing value system and jeopardize established concepts.

The desire to have everything last forever reduces the interest in facing suppressed fears. The average duck doesn't dare to face the pain and nausea because they think it is persistent. They assume the torment is timeless and do not perceive the impending liberation from being "born again.” Logic may say that pain disappears, but the resistance to being affected is more vital, and they choose to refrain from potential risks.

Ducks have anxiety about the past; they worry about the future and are frustrated in the present because they never know if they're going in the right direction. Their worry has its origins in the belief that there are limited resources. They believe that there is only one way, that ideas run out, and that they can't find other, better relationships. The notion that the created illusion is the only way to achieve happiness makes them rather maintain an unpleasant situation than try something new.

Often the ducks need unnecessarily challenging circumstances to gain insights and question what they find essential. The consequence for those who refuse to face their fear is that they will be forced into their highest "personal Iboga process." Iboga comes camouflaged as tragedies, repeated accidents, losses, conflicts, unwanted break-ups, grief, illnesses, or unsuccessful projects. The ducks that have gone through a "personal Iboga process" are admired for their ability to make it through tragic situations.

In the duck pond, there is an accepted link between tragedy and liberation that allows change. This link is a constructed connection that prevents the ducks from seeing their innate power to initiate their unique cleansing process. A force they can use to face their fears and "be a man" who can live life to the fullest.

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What is your greatest fear?

What does your designed identity look like?

What are you afraid that others will discover about you?

What actions would you like to ask forgiveness for?

How successful do you dare to be?

Tips!
Choose a question you feel most resistant to answer, and then ask yourself what that resistance is all about. When you think you have identified resistance or uncomfortableness, you can choose to find an answer. You can also decide to "sweep the problem under the rug" for now with a good, clear conscience. 

1.4 CONTROL

The Magic Wand

Toopsyyy, Toopsyyyy!" It's starting to get dark, and it's time for the dog to eat. I wonder why my mother sounds so angry. Topsy is just out on an adventure and has forgotten that it's getting dark. I hear the dog's claws when she runs up the wooden stair and eagerly runs into the hall. "Stand still!" I think my mother is shouting. Topsy is a mixture of Swedish foxhounds and shepherd's dogs. Her ears are flat and hang down to her jaws. Her golden brown, short-haired coat is broken by a white streak along with her breast and white socks on three of her legs. Her nose is softly pointed. Topsy has dark brown, kind eyes. She has a long, hard, wagging tail. "Oh, look at you!" My mother rips out a towel and wipes off Topsy's paws. "Have you been out digging in the dirt again?". I feel how the joy from the recently finished story about the ugly duckling disappears. I feel sorry for Topsy. Of course, she has been digging. Dogs love to dig in the dirt. While she's being cleaned up, Topsy's tail goes far between her legs. She looks guilty and ashamed.

When Topsy has been wiped off, she runs into the kitchen, jumps up on me, and I fall flat on my back. "Take it easy!" shouts my mother. "It's ok," I say to myself, "Topsy is just happy." I laugh out loud when Topsy licks me all over my face with her rough tongue. "Ugh, don't let her do that!" "You don't know where she's been!" I don't understand. She's been outside. I thought my mother knew that, given that she knows so much. I take hold of Topsy's withers and use them as support when I pull myself up. I don't protest and stop laughing. Mother is already upset about the muddy paws, and I don't want to risk her getting out the magic wand. It usually doesn't show itself when I'm quiet, calm, and bored.

My mother was powerful and could perform magic. She had a magic wand with super-magical powers that could transform people. My mother had seriously explained that she could decide if I were to be a goat. If she waved her magic wand in a certain way, I would be transformed. I didn't want to be changed. I wanted to continue being me. Topsy wouldn't like playing with a goat; I don't think. And if I were transformed into a cat, she would chase me up a tree. Topsy didn't like cats.

The wand was a cane with different colors—red, yellow, blue, and green stripes - that wound their way around the rod in a spiral. At the top of the cane was a magic red knob. The wand was always behind the door by the stairs down to the dark and cold basement. The rod usually appeared when Topsy and I had snuck away far from the house and into the forest. It was impossible to avoid the wand. My mother had told me it might perform magic if I ran. I thought it was kind of my mother to tell me that. To avoid being transformed, I promised to "never do that again." So far, I had gotten away with warnings like, "We'll let it go this time, but next time ...". That sounded good, but I never understood what "next time" meant.

Topsy and I were a perfect discovery couple. We loved to search for tiny elves and kind trolls living under the big, mossy rocks in the forest. Today mother had banned me from going outside because it was raining. I thought that was strange because it was perfect to sail bark boats and build sandcastles in the sandbox when it was raining. 

Topsy finish her meal, and I follow her to the big cardboard box with the handmade rag. Now she'll tell me about all the treasures she found in the ground. Perhaps she can show me them tomorrow.
Power & Threats

Control is essential in the duck pond. The ducks use control to protect themselves, their property, and their friends and family from danger. A duck without control is perceived as weak and without willpower. Control is associated with power and the satisfaction that comes from making decisions. Skills that are often rewarded with financial gains. Money is an effective "magic wand" in the duck pond since it is the dominating unit for the measure of success. Possession of money and tangible assets automatically receives high status and respect, regardless of how they are used.

To a duck, "wrong" means that the result deviates from their arbitrarily stated plans. The ducks with decision-making power often condition other ducks' wishes and choices: "Wipe off your paws before coming into the house!" They're afraid that everything will go wrong if they let go of their control. They only trust those who follow their instructions. Therefore, they keep a better eye on others than they do on themselves. The consequence of this behavior is that they deprive ducks close to them of the opportunity to make their own decisions and be proud of managing themselves.

Ducks love to control others' wills and strive to transfer their desires onto others. Ducks make arbitrary decisions because they are convinced that they know best: "If it's raining, you should stay inside!" In their autocracy, they draw conclusions from insufficient information and are indifferent to others' perspectives, truths, and wishes.

A qualified way to exercise control is to get others to make promises that they haven't set up themselves. A subtle form of persuading someone to make promises is to issue direct threats of danger. Forced promises carry a low implementation rate because their magnetism tends to disappear with the distance of the threat: "Next time ...!". However, a broken promise is labeled as betrayal and legitimizes redress. It authorizes physical and verbal actions that give deceitful ducks a bad conscience. Anxious and guilty ducks are weakened and easier to manipulate. Broken commitments establish perceptions of inadequacy and failure to live up to requirements and expectations. Ducks master most things except themselves and their power. Some ducks have so much authority that they can persuade themselves and others about anything. They believe they can perform magic, and the other ducks around them abstain voluntarily from provoking the threatening possibility.

Ducks with control are often nervous solely because they fear losing it. To maintain dominance, each duck has its private spheres, and each pond has its collective boundaries. These territories are monitored, and physical obstacles are built to mark and prevent them from being violated. Moving between ponds is possible, but approval and consent are often necessary. Preferably ducks stay in their own region and refrain from ending up far from home to avoid inconveniences.

There are also mental and invisible borders for how close one can come to another duck since "you never know where they've been!". The mental censorship adds a favorable side-effect that prevents the ducks from being hurt and vulnerable.
Written rules are revoked to exercise supervision and maintain balance. An imbalance is perceived as an injustice in the duck pond, and justice means that everything must be equal. The ducks' assumption that "One man's meat is another man's poison" drives them to establish officially impeccable rules. Those rules justify each territory's individual’s happiness and release them from guilt or responsibility for the results.

A duck that upholds its views on a prescribed paragraph is "right." They are significant if they also master the art of gathering information that supports current regulations and manage to conceal information that jeopardizes the application. In the absence of mandated regulations, they refer to hidden magic wands and authority. Ducks don't accept individualists because these ducks choose to follow others'—and perhaps even their own—rules for living. Freedom endangers the structure of the duck pond. It is confusing when a duck doesn't fit into the forms.
Implementation of sophisticated control instruments increases as the wand loses its historically super-magical power. 5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What would go wrong if you let go of your control? 

In which situations do you force others to make promises?

Which "magic wands" influence your personal choices?

What rules do you use to defend your opinions?

In what way does your environment control your will?

Tips!
Choose one or two questions. Write them down and bring them with you without reading them. After a few days, take out your questions and see what answers pop up. Also, reflect on what answers have already been shown in the form of concrete solutions or subtle experiences.

ARE YOU STUCK WITH A DUCK?

PART II

GUNNARSON'S CAFÈ

 

Gunnarsson's Café." I look at the white sign with the rose-colored winding letters before entering Götagatan's classic café in southern Stockholm. This is a café that has always been there. The place hasn't changed. The orangish-brown wooden chairs with blue cushions are still there. They're placed around the tables with the worn and chipped marble tops held by the now black metal legs. The picture with the bumblebee and the two poppies is still hanging in the same spot. The pendulum in the old wooden clock moves, and the old face shows the time as accurately as it's always done. The clock is probably ticking, but its sound is drowned out by the sounds of people leafing through newspapers and placing orders at the cash register. It doesn't look like anything has changed, and yet it's all entirely different.
Twenty years ago, I came here two evenings a week after dropping my son off at wrestling training a few blocks away. At that time, I was a law student. I bunkered up with my law books and cases and experienced an unpleasant nervousness about my upcoming exams. I sat here five years ago and reflected in despair over an involuntary end to a relationship. It was here that I realized how I had lived my life in an illusion where I had tried to control and hold onto things that no longer belonged to me. It was here that I used to meet my friends and laugh hysterically at everything and nothing. Now I was sitting here again in a new situation to ponder.

Twenty days had passed since I mercifully—after a gin and tonic, fell asleep on the flight from Philadelphia. I didn't wake up until the plane touched down at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. Three days have passed since I was denied a visa at the embassy in Stockholm for the second time. I was made painfully aware that this was a self-created outcome.

The sun is shining today. I move from the worn sofa, full of memories, and step outside. I bump into the white unstable café table when I sit down, and my coffee runs all over the free surface. I move my computer to another table, not interested in cleaning up after myself. I am soon joined by a crow that sits down on my right. It acts like a typical crow and turns its head to examine me in its "squinty-eyed" way.

When the crow looks straight into my eyes, I get reminded of a strange experience I had a few years ago. It was early on a Saturday morning in May. The sun shone, and the birds entertained me with their lively chirping. I left a friend's house and was on my way home. I was walking towards the subway station when two cawing crows started circling uncomfortably close to my head. One of the crows flew up into a spruce tree to my left.

The other one landed on the street, just a few meters from me. I stopped. I felt that it wanted to tell me something. I had never been able to communicate with animals, so my first assumption was that this was a crow couple guarding its nest, and they saw me as an intruder. But I became uncertain when I realized that mating season should be over by now. Oh well, this was entertaining, and I felt compelled to say something. I looked at the crow in a friendly manner and asked: "What can I do for you?". I worked hard to be polite and continued with the conversation. "It's nice to have you here!" I strongly felt that the crow had a message I couldn't decipher, so I continued on my path. I didn't want to be caught standing in the middle of a residential area talking to a crow.

I had just taken a few steps when the crow took off from the ground with a very clear "Caw, caw, caw!" It flew in a circle over my head, so close that I could feel the wind from its beating wings in my hair. The crow felt uncomfortably hostile, so I stopped a second time. The crow did too. As if in slow motion, it flew down and landed about 20 inches from me. It was still on my left. Its determined eyes and open beak kept me in my place. I stared back at it and made an effort to understand what all this was about. "What are you trying to tell me?" I still didn't seem to get an answer from the grey-winged being. I assured myself that no drowsy house owner was watching this scene and said, "Thanks." After my false utterance, I wanted to liberate myself from the angry bird's attention and started to walk towards the subway station again.
My movement caused another level of aggression in my involuntary companion. Angrily croaking, the bird took off again and began flying in circles above my head. This time one of its wings hit me on the head. It forced me to stop again, and my heartbeat increased to an unhealthy level.

When the crow convinced me to stand still for the third time, it appeared satisfied. It flew over to a traffic sign and observed my steps. I backed away and said, "Goodbye." With an open beak and staring eyes, it guarded me. I sensed the crow's irritation over my inability to understand its message. It felt like I had insulted the crow by not understanding.

When I was convinced the crow had given up its attempts at being a messenger, I called a friend who could communicate with animals. In desperation, I told her about my traumatic experience in hopes of finding an answer to whatever it was that happened. Between my quick surface breaths, I get a question: "What were you thinking about when the crows showed up?" My answer came quickly. I had a problem with one of my employees, and I thought about what to do with the relationship. When I brought together the appearance of the crows with my thoughts, I got the message. What a perfect question! I took the crow's information as a warning, and two days later, I had ended both relationships. Afterward, I was grateful. The crow's insistent aggression had prevented me from making two big mistakes.

I wake up from my memory and wonder what this black-grey city bird in front of me has to say. I sit down by the crow, who intensively meets my gaze. First, with its right eye, then it turns its head and continues to glare with its left. I get inspired to imitate the crow's skill to turn my situation around and see it from another perspective.

I'm searching for a reason why I got involuntarily separated from California. I recognize the process and know which steps it entails. I have experience in getting out of undesirable situations. I have learned to handle worry and practiced letting go an awful lot, but I'm still frustrated because I don't understand. Each process is similar, yet so surprisingly different when it appears in a new form. I sense the meaning of my deportation, but there are several additional alternatives, and the questions are currently alone without answers.

I close my eyes and move back in time to get some help finding the answers. A year and a half ago, I decided to search for my place. Like the ugly duckling, I had felt that there must be a place for me. I had closed the door to my apartment, dropped the keys in the mailbox, and walked out with two suitcases and a plane ticket. I had minimized my physical possessions during the last year, and now I had given away or thrown out almost everything. The few things I had left were packed in a small number of boxes. They had all passed the test: "Do I really want to unpack these things again?" The items that passed the test with an unconditional "Yes!" got packed very carefully.

What drove me to get rid of my material possessions was that I wanted to be completely free, once and for all. I had learned that logical arguments were insufficient to keep me in a place when my task or time at a location was done. Now, I wanted to make room to follow my whims without compromising and making excuses for why I couldn't. I wanted to give myself the possibility to go where my energy wanted me to, without delay. I was simply curious about what life had to offer if nothing of superficial character ruled my choices. What does it really mean to live in ultimate freedom? My uncompromising goal was to fly with my swans, regardless of where they were in the world. I get up and take my computer under my arm as I fill my cup with more black, newly brewed, aromatic coffee. Once back in the sun, I continue with my reflections to obtain some insights.

I woke up today feeling that I live in a bizarre world. California was where I felt free to enjoy the sunshine and allow the ocean to inspire my creativity. How could anyone imagine that they owned the sun, sky, and sea? Who had the right to decide where another person should be? How could a system arbitrarily dispose of someone else's will and deprive someone of the right to enter Mother Earth in a particular place? My spontaneous disappointment and indignation tended to look for fault in the outside world. To avoid the insidious projection, I again adopted the crow's strategy to analyze the situation further.

I stretch and feel like changing places and thoughts. I pack my computer in my backpack and walk down the steps to Götgatan. There's a clear blue sky. It is one of those beautiful summer days when the Swedes look and act like happy people. I stroll down Götgatan, turn to the left on Ringvägen, and walk towards Blecktornsparken. I'm reminded of an encounter I had the morning after my visa was denied.

I had found a place in the park where I could write for a few hours before the city came to life. The birds were singing happily, and even there, a crow had passed by with a sharp caw. The chestnut tree was almost done blooming, but it had made a white contribution amongst the blazing greenery. I had brought my breakfast and sat down on the grass, curiously wondering what the day would have in store for me.

A blonde woman had passed by. Except for a tired dog owner in grey sweatpants, it was just her and me in the park. I had observed her and noted that there was something that spoke of a tragedy. Her energy had radiated despair and confusion. I had disappeared into my work, but when the young woman was to pass by me again, something had made her stop. She had looked at me with sad eyes and said: "How can everything just go to hell?". With my look, I had invited her to continue. She sat down and told me how she had moved to Thailand with her children in a moment of passion and how she had come back to Sweden. She had got tangled up in a relationship. She had lost her apartment. She had lost her children, who were living with her mother. I couldn't grasp the entire story, but it didn't matter. I didn't say very much.

The woman was young, attractive, and verbal. A great humbleness shone through when she talked. After a short while, the desperation in her eyes had turned into a warrior's gaze. Filled with determination, she had got up, picked up her few things, and said: "Now it's time for me to think about myself. I've always been there for others. I've always managed to get out of my problems and can do it this time too. I've lost everything I own, but I haven't lost myself!"

When I saw her walk off, I had felt that the power from her aggression would lead her to the place she was looking for here in life. I knew her story had opened the door to something new that she still couldn't see. The most fantastic thing was that she knew it too.

Simultaneously as my flashback fades away, I enter the park, sit down on the grass, and send thankful thoughts to the woman and my own life. The impression of self-pity thoughts at the café wipes out, and I can return to the crow strategy and analyze the situation and my inner peptide war.

Painfully I realize that while I was at the embassy, I had fulfilled the old saying, "What we are most afraid of is what we are going to experience." I had been terrified of getting a "no" that would prevent me from returning to my dream. My subconscious mind had gallantly created a case that wouldn't have existed without my unprepared chaotic behavior.

In my soul, I feel that the universe has put me here to complete a task, even if I still don't understand what it is. Is it to finish this book that I've worked on for so many years and talked about finishing? Is it to help other people catalyze their dreams? Is there something else I need to wrap up before I can return to California? I don't have any answers, but I know it must be something significant because it feels like I've paid a pretty heavy price.

At this moment, I wonder if I have been given a luxurious preview of my dream or if dreams always are something you wake up from. If so, is it possible to live your dream?chapter 2
LUCK FOR A DUCK

Reflections over the Ducks' driving forces.
– We shall excuse the people around us who have difficulty understanding because of a lack of knowledge.

The cat tried its best to teach the ugly duckling essential survival skills. The cat was proud of its ability to arch its back and purr. The cat didn't like water. The duckling could neither purr nor arch its back, but it did like water. That's why the cat thought that the duckling was strange.

 

HOW EMOTIONAL ADDICTIONS CONTROL US

In the second chapter, we reflect on what drives and makes the inhabitants of the duck pond happy. We discover that ducks' lives are about satisfying their unconscious needs and emotional addictions. We are surprised that they are so obsessed with achievements that they forget to enjoy life.

This chapter will lead you to insights into how we focus on changing others instead of controlling our patterns and driving forces. It will become clear that the unusual is scary and that it is vital to be in a certain way to be accepted by those around you. We are curious to find our self-sabotaging behaviors and make a stand as to what we need to do to change and achieve the quality of life we're longing for.

2.1 PATTERN

THE COYOTE

He is the master deceiver who lures himself. No one is more surprised than he is over the results of his own tricks. He falls into his own traps, and still, he somehow survives." I feel how fear takes over my body. I continue reading Medicine Cards about how the yellowish-grey fur-covered coyote is an unbeatable master in self-sabotage. The discomfort grows, and I do my best to summon my defense of denial but am unsuccessful. Anxiously I continue to read:
While the coyote moves from one disaster to another, he refines the noble art of self-sabotage to perfection. No one can hurt himself or others with more elegance and ease than this holy deceiver. The coyote sometimes takes himself so seriously that he cannot see what is obvious—for example, the steamroller that is about to run him over. That is why, when it finally runs him over, he can't believe that it's true. "Was that really a steam roller? It's best that I look again", he says—and gets run over one more time.

This animal is starting to be an irritating description of myself. With merciless resistance, I realize I've been run over by several steamrollers simply because I have overlooked the obvious. I have repeatedly "gone back to check if it really was a steam roller and have been run over again."

This happened in 2004, an intense period in which I focused on my spiritual development. I was a newly certified reiki master, and my teacher had shared her shamanistic knowledge. One part of the complicated natural religion is obtaining energy and information from animals. Your totem animals help you see your potential and tell you what you should be careful about in your behavior. During my training, two of my totem animals had revealed themselves: the crow in the northwest direction, which is an omen of change. It can travel between different dimensions and stretch the physical laws. In the northeast is the swan, which can see into the future and accept transformation, qualities I gladly identified myself with.
One night I was woken up by a clear telepathic picture of an animal that resembles a cross between a dog and a fox. I called my reiki master, who told me I had seen a coyote.

While reading about the qualities of the desert dog, I tried to tell myself that totem animals were just new-age rubbish. I stopped reading when I came to: "...if they follow the coyote or have strong coyote medicine. Such a person can have the ability to convince others that a skunk smells like roses." This predatory animal was a perfect description of me. The coyote gave a devastating indication of its constant presence in my life as an entrepreneur.

In the early 1990s, I started my life as an entrepreneur. Independence and freedom were the forces that drove me. Before the coyote came into my life, I never understood why I had never reached my goals despite my prerequisites and hard work. My first company was in telemarketing, a branch that demanded a lot of personnel and organization. The company expanded at the same rate as the insight that I was a lousy boss. Independence and freedom were far away. I had grand visions and found myself more in the future than in the now. I was always frustrated over my workforce, who couldn't keep up with my unspoken plans. My financial and organizational skills were limited. Despite the expansion and my passion, there was no success. I made myself a holy promise that I would never again have a business with personnel.

The blue stamp from the district court had hardly dried before I started my second company. It was an education company that would get by without "so many" employees. A new battle had begun. I didn't notice that I soon had several employees again. However, I recognized what was happening, so I gave up when one of the staff ran with my customers, and another filed a lawsuit for alleged non-commission. Now I was determined (again) to only work for myself. To avoid falling into the same trap, I decided to leave my old branch by writing down my teaching concept in a book. I freed up time, wrote the book, and founded a publishing company. While writing the book, I initiated my new individual career as a professional coach. My creative insanity to see combinations of possibilities delivered a passionate idea: coach new authors. Within six months, the publishing company for "unwritten books" had published seven new titles and negotiated with a printer house to finance the printing.

The entire process was a fantastic flow of passion, synchronicity, and joy until the morning I woke up with an involuntary insight: I had done it again. The employees had come back camouflaged as authors and entrepreneurs.
Patterns & Self-sabotage

Destructive patterns are repeated actions that keep the ducks in situations they would like to avoid. The ducks have dreams and visions, but they stumble somewhere along the way. There is no rational explanation for why the ducks don’t get what they desire. They always manage to sabotage their efforts and continue to push their goals further and further away. Self-sabotaging structures can be found in all ages, professions, income brackets, and geographic locations. They pop up at different levels in various forms. The ducks want to lose weight and go home and eat everything except what they had planned. They gain weight and find excuses as to why their bodies don’t want to be slender. They want to be in good shape and put their training off until next week. They long for freedom and start working more simultaneously as they start with a new hobby. They dream about financial stability and buy blue shoes or a new car. They long for a loving relationship and start fighting with their partner.

The symptoms of the ducks’ self-sabotaging patterns are dissatisfaction with life, career, and relationships. They’re depressed and can’t control their anger. They put things off and start projects without finishing them. They worry and are tired of not having enough money. They constantly avoid finishing essential stuff on their "to-do" list. They argue and fight with the people they love.

Ducks are goal-orientated and determined to make it through visible barriers to make their projected visions come true. Their survival instinct drives them to clear away the symptoms, but they fail to identify the underlying reason for their repeated behavior. With the help of “qualities they gladly identify themselves with,” they are capable of getting rid of the visible resistance so that the physical circumstances change. However, the same chemical process continues inside, and their self-sabotaging "coyote qualities" continue to control them. Typical of this pattern is that it gets more challenging to discover and pinpoint it each time it’s repeated. Its consequences are more intricate and intensive. The perfection of the creative camouflage is challenging to see through. "The employees come camouflaged as entrepreneurs and authors.”

The ducks often blame the results of their repetitions on people and realities in the world around them. They are sure that their defeat comes from outside factors and unfortunate circumstances. With their logical and verbal abilities, the ducks think out acceptable excuses and find great arguments for their setbacks. The ducks are often overly optimistic in their reasoning and invent elegant lies. Their truth isn’t spoken until they end up in a life-threatening situation.

Self-sabotage arises when there is a conflict between the duck’s inner and outer convictions about the possibilities of attaining its future plans. Self-sabotage shows up when the doubtful part is more vital than the part that approves of the aim. The ducks often lack emotional acceptance of their visions. They try to minimize their dejection over never reaching their goals by turning unwanted structures into development.

Their qualified persuasive ability doesn’t always work to their advantage. A successful transformation secures that the pattern will come back in new unexplored forms.

The ducks are continuously frustrated with their naive behavior. They feel caught in a trap and start to doubt themselves. Uncertainty destroys their self-confidence, which drains their self-esteem until they’re incapable of being happy. They begin to worry about what others think about them and do things that ruin their relationships. Their powerlessness makes them do foolish things that jeopardize their career and financial stability. They cheat and remain in their destructive situations. They feel misunderstood and criticized.

The ducks know that they have the potential to make more of their lives. They wish that they could put fewer things off and complete more. They convince themselves that this year will be their year to succeed, but despite their promise, they live far away from the reality they would like to live in. A strong desire and positive thinking are not enough to terminate self-sabotaging actions.

Destructive patterns are closely connected to emotional dependencies and must be worked through at many different levels. The transformation from the negative can allow the ducks to distance themselves from themselves so they can laugh at how ingeniously they lure themselves. The coyote is, after all, the universe’s clown and always treats us all to unexpected, humorous, and hilarious shows.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What does your coyote look like?

In what ways do you sabotage your potential successes?

In which circumstances do you feel frustrated?

Which of your qualities will get more room in your life?

Which of your behaviors make comical contributions to your life?

Tips!
Stay with the question that captures your interest the most. Repeat the same question and write down whatever answers come to you. Ask the question three more times and keep writing down the answers that show up. 

 

2.2 ADDICTION

ACCOUNT BALANCING & DEBT SETTLEMENT

My right ear is still warm. I received a spontaneous phone call from a young, successful, and charismatic client. Today our conversation was about something other than how to be more successful. Today his entire being was full of despair, frustration, and desperation. "I've done something foolish" was the way he started our conversation. Uncamouflaged, he told me about how his nightlife last night had ended in a way too intimate situation with a creature of the female character. His girlfriend had gone home the day before. My client was full of regret and guilt. "Why do I always do these things? How could I do this to my wonderful girlfriend? Just when I thought I had found the right woman, and she does everything for me."

I ask my client to stop dwelling on his self-blame and anxiety-filled expressions of guilt. When my client falls silent, I ask him what's most important to him: to work out the situation or be free from his guilt? I heard a new determination as he expressed his desire. He had had enough and wanted a complete change once and for all.

He recognized the situation. When I ask him to tell me how he recognizes himself, another anxiety-filled event hits the surface. This one is about a debt to a credit company, a scenario that runs the risk of causing undesirable reprisals. His recent successes had increased his income, and for a short period, he had reached a financial goal: a bank account in surplus. Within two months, he had balanced out the to minus again. Together we find that my client is a master at getting into debt in several areas of his life. Debts are guaranteed to prevent him from achieving his goals. 

My client starts to dwell on yesterday's guilt and its possible consequences again. I stop his discharging self-pity and ask what life would be like if this behavior never returned. "Wonderful, fantastic," groans my client. I ask him to sit down and describe how his life will be when he's free from his addiction to self-sabotage. An hour later, he calls me up again. He reads a fantastically formulated text, a flow of words written from a pure heart and a happy soul. I ask him to ignore all his feelings of guilt and loudly repeat the text to himself. I recommend that he keeps tabs on how repetitions he does. 'After fifty minutes, we're in contact again. The work was long, but he had read it eight times with focus and emphasis. He feels better. The mood of the mind is, for the moment, neutralized, and we can begin to look at the situation that has arisen with a hormone-reduced brain and objective eyes.

We begin by analyzing the exact financial predicament. My client's traditional solutions were to borrow himself out of dilemmas to pay off old wrongdoings. He makes a painful deal with himself: no more borrowed money to cover old debts. The next day he will abandon pride, call the credit card company, and request an installment plan. We decide it’s time to balance the guilt account with repayments from his available capital.

The guilt account in money became significantly unquestionable for my client. He executes a micro-investigation of his history and realizes how initiative-rich loans have always come to the rescue. We apply the same overview to his relationships. In all his relationships, including happy ones, the conclusion is that he had created a generally assumed reason for ending them. His girlfriends forgive and add a minus to the trust and self-esteem account. He escapes with a guilt account charged to the max and brings it back into balance with a new partner. After the breakups, he has borrowed support from his friends to pay off his anxiety debt to himself.

My client sighs, exhilarated over his new insight that yesterday's consequences from the party were a mission to meet a long-time guilt dependency. A dependency that would guarantee the failure of mental and material success. I hear the charismatic man's exhausted smile when he discovers the connection between his always empty bank account and his eagerness to mortgage all his incoming means. His skills at making money and attracting women had enabled him to feed his addiction with an abundance of opportunities to feed his addiction.

This was the start of an epoch to repay his emotional debts with his own resources. His craving had been satisfied for a period. He had gotten his emotional kick that would keep his addiction in control for a while, and he would respectfully use that time to guard himself against the next withdrawal attack. His Debt restructuring was to be done by concrete activity amortization. A temporary settlement through conversations, analyses, understanding, and confession to guilt was of no interest. My client deferred the deeper investigation to the future. When the acute addiction was gone, he would be able to choose for himself how he wanted to refine his emancipation.

Besides the creepy talk to the creditor, the confrontation with his girlfriend remained. My client decided to let the truth be unadjusted. He mobilized energy to talk about the incident without blaming himself or requesting forgiveness. His purpose with the conversation was higher than saving the relationship. This was about protecting himself from a life-long poisoning addiction.

When he could identify where the regularly reoccurring anxiety was coming from, he could neutralize his addiction. Now he "once and for all" was going to liberate himself from his addiction—an addiction that had affected his life and blocked his success.
Addiction & Abstinence

Ducks are addicted to everything from chemicals to emotional cravings. Technically, addiction is a state in which the body depends on a substance to operate normally. When the substance is absent, abstinence sets in. Abstinence is the driving force that enables the ducks to prioritize activities that satisfy their addictions. These addictions are often outside of the ducks' logical control. Their dopamine-based reward system creates a hunt for emotional kicks, leading to compulsive behaviors. They lose their power of choice and become incapable of choosing which feelings and behaviors they want to have in their lives.

The general understanding in the duck pond is that manic habits induced by artificial means are dangerous. There are qualified self-help programs and activities to liberate the ducks from their addictions. The self-help program for emotional and mental addictions like negative feelings, people, self-pity, generosity, and material things have lower priority. This category of addiction is challenging to identify, even for the most enlightened ducks. All these addictions work because they enrich the lives of the ducks, even if they are just a substitute for something the ducks lack. The ducks rarely perceive their affected condition. They seek help only when medicinal or other physical and material complications occur. An empty bank account and persistent creditors are a more precise signal of a problem than broken relationships.

They mix up adrenaline kicks with passion. Adrenaline-dependent ducks run at full speed and often attract more problems than they deserve. They become high on romance and strive to be in love. Their emotional addiction leads to their belief that life is meaningless if they don't have a partner, and therefore, they remain in destructive relationships. Some ducks are addicted to failure, and just like my client, they make sure that they restore a situation to its initial state. Self-pity and dwelling on problems are other common types of addictions. These ducks are happy to associate with like-minded, and they are so preoccupied with nurturing each other's addiction that it occupies all their spare time.

Ducks addicted to feeling sorry for themselves are masters at creating stories about disasters. They seek out situations that allow them to get involved as victims. Victim ducks love to take on guilt and blame themselves. This passion makes them masters of taking responsibility for other ducks' misery, and they create stories that make them the main character in others’ misfortunes.

There is no distinct category or character that is an addict. Almost all inhabitants of the duck pond have an individually characteristic addiction. The duck's actions often have a hidden intent to seize advantages for itself. Behind its immediate behavior, there is often a hidden agenda that drives it into action. The duck that often shares with others only satisfies its need to be perceived as generous. Their compromises to meet their underlying addiction give a bitter after-taste. 

An unsatisfied addiction often creates withdrawal-like symptoms such as mood swings, restlessness, worry, feelings of guilt, and frustration. The duck will unwillingly get out of its habit, and its greatest fear can be to be free of the addiction itself. When a duck tries to come to the rescue and notices that the addiction is in danger, it gets irritated and angry. They become inventive and establish lies for their friends and relatives. When ducks experience setbacks or fear, they flee into their addictions, which have consequences for their commitments to themselves and others. In escalated form, addictions ultimately lead to anxiety and depression.

Ducks are "doers" and do everything they can to eliminate individual symptoms. They think that the sign is something separate and belongs to other sources because it pops up in different physical shapes and forms. Therefore, they rarely become liberated from their addictions. They lack the power to put their brains back in balance.

They avert themselves from practical actions by believing in the impossibility of change. They deny that they can self-deceiving the brain with something perceived as a greater pleasure than the addiction itself. Instead, they continue to "dwell guilt," and the obsession escalates.

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

How does your guilt account look?

What can you do to balance your accounts?

Which emotional addictions control your actions?

What withdrawal symptoms do you show?

In what ways do you feed your addictions?

Tips!
Choose the question you are least curious about or interested in answering. Then ask yourself why you chose that particular question as the least interesting. 

2.3 DO

ADRENALINE OR PASSION

What are you looking for?" It's 4:45 pm on a Thursday on a busy street in Stockholm. I have left my office, am stuck in a traffic jam, and am late. I have to catch up with my last client for the day before tonight's customer pub that starts at 6. It's been a long day.

I'm talking to a friend on my cell phone. She can hear how I'm rummaging around in my purse and wonders what I'm looking for. I've just returned from a small town in northern Sweden. I had spent the night before at a hotel at Arlanda Airport after a quick visit to the company's subsidiary in southern Sweden. Spending the night at the airport was an efficient alternative to catching the morning plane to my meeting with the municipality in northern Sweden about the possible establishment of a call center. When I got off the plane, my voice mail on my cell phone told me that "you have nine new messages.”

My plan now was to make one of the last calls in the car, and I needed my phone. I heard my father's accusing voice saying there was no more room for temporary phone numbers in his phone book. Stressed, I answered my friend's question: "I can't find my phone." I hear my friend ask yet another question. "What are you talking in right now?" Relieved, I burst into a hysterical guffaw and asked her if I could call her back after finishing my other call.

I dial the number to one of my calls as I wearily stare at the crooked side mirror on the passenger side. The driveway from the garage seemed too narrow for the white Honda Accord, or maybe it was me still in meditation. I was a newly initiated transcendental meditator, and the parking garage was the safest place to perform my two daily meditations. I thought transcendental meditation was an incredible "invention" that made me only need to sleep three hours a night. It suited me and my schedule perfectly. In addition, I had discovered that I could bring problems into my meditations and wake up with a solution. Meditation was a comfortable tool for efficiency. The traffic moves slowly, and I call my client to say I'm stuck in traffic. I'm forgiven.

I return to my office only half an hour late. I'm satisfied with the day's schedule and activities. My "must-list" was almost all checked off, and the "should-do list" had been reduced. The "to-do list" was full of fun things to move to one of the other lists. A task I would accomplish early in the morning when I woke up on the office couch before employees came rushing in to work. I would also find the time to pack all my equipment for Saturday's diving trip tomorrow. Laundry, booking a ski vacation, and time with the family could wait until next week. The only miscalculation that required an extra creative effort today was picking up my youngest son from daycare. The service-minded courier company solved the problem. They picked him up at the kindergarten and delivered him to my office, where he had to wait until his dad's meeting was over.

I meet the first guest at the door of the party-transformed call center area. He's a sociable client who always was the last to leave our pub nights. The collar on his beige coat is folded under his jacket. He moves a seemingly pregnant briefcase to his left hand and wipes the sweat off his forehead. As he puts out his hand to greet me, he pants, "A lot is going on now!" I ask the stressed-out customer to provide himself with something to drink, and he stumbles through the doorway. The next face I see is that of one of my favorite suppliers. We greet each other with a warm embrace. I notice that she has a big, red, oval mark on her right cheek. Empathically, I realize the apparent causal link. The colleague beside me isn't automatically encumbered with the same insight and asks what has happened. A little amused, the female supplier tells of how she had rushed home from work and was doing the ironing when the telephone rang.

I smile at all the guests who are arriving. It will be fun to relax with happy customers and creative suppliers at the pub tonight.Lists & Productivity

It's more stimulating for a duck to swim around in the duck pond than to stand outside the pond and watch, so they keep on swimming and are happy with their existence. They take on a new hobby and, just in case, a tiny bit of physical exercise. A healthy and recommended activity but also another stressor. Where is one going to find the time? Ducks realize that they must prioritize.

Ducks use a lot of their energy to nurture their productivity. They are busy holding everything together and forget the original aim of their activities. They find creative solutions to stay preoccupied and let the "courier company pick up the children." They create stress and evoke "nine new messages" because they think nothing can be adequately done without them.

Ducks pride themselves on setting goals and being structured. It's part of their passion. Activities with goals make ducks happy. They have difficulty exercising without a schedule with detailed information about measurement, weight, and time. They always have too much to do, and the timing for their projects is rarely on their side. They move assignments and wishes between their "lists." They always feel incomplete, and the never-ending "to-do list" weighs them down and takes their energy. It's a constant battle to keep their calendar free from gaps to fill with things they actually would like to do.

Ducks make an effort to look busy, and a full agenda is a sign that they're significant. They lack the courage to do something unimportant and are always looking to participate in leisure activities. "A lot is going on now!" is a commonly occurring phrase that other ducks admire. They prioritize "customers" before friends and ask to "call back later." Being significant is closely related to "must." A "must" is prioritized as very important. Inner joy rarely receives the same status.

A weaker version of "must" is "should." The "should" provide more stress than the important "must" because they are never completed. Most ducks are surrounded by insatiable projects, and they are rarely satisfied. When they perform an action, they think about what they should do. While at work, they think they should spend more time with their family, and when with their family and friends, they are on edge because they think they should complete an assignment.

They are nervous about delegating tasks because they assume things must be done their way. At work, they're so busy chasing success that they miss out on enjoying the rewards that come their way. Sometimes they rush past the pay-offs or even perceive them as distracting from their activities. Meditating becomes a "tool for efficiency" instead of relaxation.

The ducks' "doing existence" brings them undesirable side effects. Unexpected expenses for "lost cell phones and damaged mirrors" chew on their limited resources. They tolerate that gratifications and rewards for their achievements rarely compensate for their work in time because "it's so much fun!" The more they work, the more energy they get. They have difficulty discerning between healthy passion and an addictive adrenaline rush.

The ducks' busyness restricts their communication because they're the ones who talk the most. Their listening is limited to hearing what they are saying. They are less interested in the answers, especially statements contrary to their opinions. If the recipient doesn't understand is of less importance.

The ducks' hectic existence creates frustration at the lack of time for happiness and what's essential. When they want to be free from their powerlessness, they try to liberate themselves through physical changes. They move, change jobs, find a new partner, or start a new project.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Are you driven by passion or adrenaline?

What fills your calendar?

How do you prioritize your activities? 

What unwanted side effects do your "doings" produce?

What would happen if you eliminated your "shoulds"?

Tips!
Take the time to ponder each question and try to find at least one answer to each.

2.4 BELIEVE

ENLIGHTENED DUCKS

If you're not sure, don't say anything." I'm in second grade and am sitting at my desk with a green lid. Under the top are my school books, pens, and an eraser. My eyes are fixed on my teacher. She has short dark hair and wears a moss-green long-sleeved jumper. I'm dressed in my favorite red sweater, a ribbed polo that clashes with the ostentatious blue stretchy ski pants. I think my teacher is the wisest person on the planet. She truly knows everything important. She looks serious when she admonishes us never to describe a situation unless we're sure of what has happened. I hear what she says but have little understanding of her message.

A minute later, I fall into her trap. The teacher hands out a question to the class about what the fight in the schoolyard was about. Without putting up my hand first, I blurt out, "I think it was Conny who started it." I don't manage to finish my sentence. The teacher gives me a warning look, and I realize I should have refrained from my statement.

I started to think about the difference between "believing" and "knowing." Excluding "I believe" seemed impossible in my young world of thought. There was so much I didn't know. I wondered what I would do with all my "believe" that sometimes even were right. On Sunday that week, I was incomprehensibly confused. I couldn't figure out how my wise teacher's pronouncements could be reconciled with the words of wisdom from my Sunday School teachers, where it was all about believing.

The "belief phenomenon" continued to manifest itself and left no room for me to let go of my thoughts. A life memory was given to me as a ten-year-old horse girl. Like most girls who loved horses, I devoured all the books that so much as breathed the word "horse." My all-time favorite books were Walter Farley's The Black Stallion. It's about a boy named Alec and a beautiful black stallion, a four-legged runner with all the divine qualities we like to see in our heroes. The Black Stallion was constantly fighting to win horse races against the antagonists in the books. A competitor who, of course, had an obnoxious, deceitful and greedy owner. One episode in this book has haunted me for years in frustration. A scene where Alec was the only witness to an unplanned race between The Black Stallion and his opponent.

The boy had fought to compete in a race against his greatest opponent. This race would prove that "The Black" was the fastest once and for all. Of course, the boy and his horse encountered setbacks and sabotage along the way. One day, right before a crucial race, both horses had broken loose, and Alec was trying desperately to find The Black Stallion. He found the two horses in a big open field in their own horse race. The race confirmed what the boy had always believed. Alec was overjoyed when he returned to the ranch because he knew that The Black Stallion had won. As a reader, I was also happy, but I thought the boy was more or less dumb who never told anyone what he had witnessed. I couldn't get over that the evil superior ones were never told that The Black Stallion had won.

As an adult, I found my oasis from my "believe-knowing-pondering" in law. I enjoyed identifying situations by referring to existing legal conditions and leaving moral aspects out. My student years gave me a certain satisfaction even if Paragraph 33 in the property code was more accessible to learn than stopping judging things in advance.

The third level of outrage reached me when the tsunami hit Southeast Asia. In my secure home in Sweden, this event became a spectacle of the consequences of what people's beliefs could accomplish. A result of the effects is when people draw conclusions and make decisions from insufficient information. What upset me most was that an hour before the tsunami, it was known that there had been an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. This information never reached the people living there. The initiated didn't believe it was that dangerous and didn't want to worry the natives and the tourists. Despite reflections and self-education about how people's "believe" distorts the truth, I still fall victim to unexpected delusions of "believing."

A few months ago, I visited my oldest son, who had moved to Norway. He had found a place to live in central Oslo's beautiful culturally-listed post office building. He took me to his new home and showed me how to get there. Afterward, I followed him to work and got the key to his apartment to settle in on my own. I returned to the building, found the right gate, got into the elevator, and made my way to the fifth floor. There were two possible routes: a door to the right and a door to the left. I chose the one to the right and strolled uncertainly with limited recognition down the hallway. I came to a dead end. I returned to my starting position and chose the door on the left. The hallway was identical to the previous one. I returned to the right corridor, picked up the key, and tried it on all the doors. None of them fits.

I slunk back to my son in the store and asked him for help. Unsurprised, he came back with me up to the fifth floor. I recognized where I was. When we stepped out of the elevator, he went to the right. Now I was inquisitive as to which of the doors he'd be able to open. We walked down the hallway to the corner where the hallway ended. My son continued and walked around the corner.
Knowledge & Illusions

Ducks have great respect for knowledge. They know that it's the code to the realization of their society. At the same time, their primitive reactions to fears lead them to guard themselves against the unknown. They liberate themselves from the unexplored through denial and develop beliefs that conform to their recognized world order.

The ducks often go in the wrong direction because they believe they're on the right path. They know where they're going but spend minimal time finding out how to get there as efficiently as possible. They often avoid asking for help and are obstinately determined to make it independently. Their inability to ask for help moves the ducks in the wrong direction. Their belief system becomes a box of rivaling theories that drive the ducks to submit to a system that opposes their inner desires. They run into obstacles and believe that they've reached a "dead end." They discover that "none of the keys fit" and are forced to ask for help or continue in the same direction, stubbornly convinced that the path is the way they want to go.
Belief includes power, and some ducks in the pond are more powerful than others. These ducks possess information that the duck collective doesn't have a clue about. The information consolidates the "power ducks" authority to make decisions for others, creating unintended consequences for the pond's inhabitants. The ducks believe that they know best, not only for themselves but also for everyone else. They refrain from announcing other ducks with the argument that they don't want to disturb the activities in the duck pond. This attitude amplifies and reinforces the consequences of catastrophes.

Based on their beliefs, they make assumptions that it's better "not to worry." This belief ignores uncomfortable causal links, and distant events become "not so dangerous." The paradox is that they often renounce the truth, convinced they do good for others. This phenomenon is also reflected in the daily lives of the ducks. For example, many visits on important holidays are made because the ducks believe they have to make them. They think someone’s feelings will be hurt if visits and recurring traditions are not kept. It rarely occurs to them to express how they feel or to give those who are the subject of the visit an opportunity to make alternative plans.

The classified "normal duck" often undervalues its own knowledge and values other ducks' hypotheses higher, especially theories from the pond's teachers and spiritual consultants. The pond's "enlightened ducks" create fabulous models for how others can achieve happiness, balance, inner peace, abundance, and perfect life.

Contradictory doctrines from dissident authorities confuse the inhabitants of the duck pond. The bewildered ducks trust spiritual experts to know who they should be, so they do their best to meet and adopt doctrines. The ducks read books, listen to professionals and attend the "Sunday School" designed to teach valuable techniques to live a better life. They subscribe to developed belief systems, philosophies, and "isms" to confirm their beliefs.

Ducks work hard at convincing others to join their particular group. Their argumentation techniques are well developed to effectively present and convey opinions. Ducks go to attack with full-fledged skills in verbal and bodily manipulation. There are designated schools and forums that aim to change the opponent's point of view. Uniformity is sought, and the strategy is that a different duck needs to be converted. In their preoccupation with delivering powerful arguments, they overlook the possibility of undesirably feeding their opponent's opinion.

The ducks live based on their programmed beliefs, where there are selective systems that generate opinions. Opinions make ducks happy, and the expression "I think" is widely used. Ignorant of the bigger picture, they think that ducks who act differently from themselves are "more or less dumb." Ducks help each other with concessions of their mistakes to protect their designed life structure. The most qualified way to find excuses is to blame a belief system that differs from theirs. There is an inviolable self-evident in identifying "antagonists and competitors.”

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

How do you protect yourself from the "unknown"?

What do your "dead ends" look like?

In what ways do you make decisions for others?

Which "enlightened ducks" influence your choices?

How much do you use the phrase "I think"?

Tips!
Take the question or questions you find most interesting, and start observing yourself for a few days. Allow these questions to be the basis for your observations. Keep a notebook to write down your experiences, thoughts, and insights.  

ARE YOU STUCK WITH A DUCK?

PART III

DO YOU WANT TO COME TO INDIA?

 

August has arrived, and the blossoms on my father's apple trees have transformed into green edible apples. I'm sitting under the sky's cloud cover in varying shades of grey and continue to ponder if it's possible to live a dream or if it's a universal impossibility. A reflection I wrote down that's dated 2003 expands my thinking state. A year that started with an unexpected and bewildering trip to India. The text shakes up my memory archive and turns the worn-out cliché "life is a journey" upside down. I read my notes and wonder if the expression deserves a more precise identity that is more practical than just being a cliché.

"Do you want to come along to India?" I'm standing in the kitchen of my newfound friend, Kevin, who lives in one of Stockholm's suburbs. It is November 2002. The darkness hangs heavily outside the curtainless window. Sweden is bitingly cold at this time of year, and a freshly brewed cup of tea helps me regain a human body temperature. I look up at Kevin to try to grasp and understand his question. Kevin is a drug-liberal documentary producer who likes to provoke and cause chaos to change the world into a more peaceful place. He sees my confused look and repeats the question: "Do you want to come along to India?" I have never felt the urge to travel to India and am surprised when my questionable thought on the way out results in a cheering "YES!" Kevin's intensely blue-green eyes and lively body language express his delight in my response. The purpose of the trip is to gather material for his newly started peace project, Reality.

Two months later, we landed at the airport in New Delhi. My luggage has a camera, a video camera, a Dolce Gabbana suit, and a minidisc that I grabbed at the airport in Frankfurt. An anxiety-filled purchase. I wondered why I had spent a fortune on a gadget I didn't know how to operate. I have a bluish-purple airplane blanket in my hand that we nicely begged for, and the flight crew smiling, let us keep it. Kevin, with his newly invested haircut, is standing next to me. His shaved head is topped by an ambitious neon green rooster comb.

Our final destination is Bodh Gaya in the state of Bihar, about 20 miles from Patna in northwestern India. It is one of Buddhism's most sacred places. This is where Buddha sat under a pipal tree and reached enlightenment. We were on our way to one of the largest gatherings for world peace ever within Tibetan Buddhism. A Kallichakra—teaching with the Dalai Lama and seven other high-ranking Tibetan lamas—will begin in four days. Our friends from the project team were already there.

As we enter Indian soil in the country's capital, it's one-thirty at night. A green-haired youth and a white, blonde woman soon fall victim to native helpfulness. Our luggage is taken to a taxi. As inexperienced first-time visitors to India, we hesitantly follow along and wonder where we're going. The only certainty we feel is that our rupees are in danger. The upside is that overpricing in India is obscenely cheap.

We are driven to our hotel, located in a less fashionable district, and check-in. The room and its cold walls go well together with the spartan furnishing. The bed shows clear signs of past guests. Kevin and I realize that we have misjudged the climate at this latitude and the availability of balancing facilities. It is bitingly cold. We move our belongings from our backpacks and let them occupy our physical anatomy. We thank the empathetic flight attendant and lie down on the thin blankets in our layers of sweaters, sweatpants, and white tube socks. The cold keeps us involuntarily awake. As I long for the morning, I think about the joy of sleeping somewhere warm. I make myself a promise that in the future, I will always appreciate a warm place to sleep and feel grateful for not having to freeze.

A new day was dawning; as Europeans, we wanted to start it with a warm shower. I pass. The thing for the purpose delivers a few slow and brutal ice-cold drops of water. When we check out from the hotel, we're told we've been given a "special price." We notify the hotel receptionist that we're going to Bodh Gaya and wonder how to get to the train station. Once again, we become objects for India's efficient service, and our backpacks take place in a taxi. Two Indians with big dark eyes and long white dresses stare at us and say, "Rupees!" We pay and step into the black cab with its yellow roof.

We are worn out from our flight and the ice-cold night, but Delhi's honking streets and spicy scents keep us fascinated awake. The car stops at a house, and the quiet chauffeur points at a door. We're obviously far away from any trains. We grab our luggage, step inside and walk down the stairs behind the entrance. The yellow-brown shade of the walls originates from years without scouring and sunlight. We patter into the overly cluttered office that tries to look like a travel agency. An unusually tall and broad Indian in a suit greets us. A big smile lifts his thick mustache and exposes a glittering row of teeth. He refers us to sit in the chairs in front of his desk.

We tell him that we're on our way to Bodh Gaya. The well-dressed man looks at us with friendly eyes. "No problem," he says in his Indian accent. We breathe easier—finally, someone who can help us. The man adjusts his tie and picks up the phone. He ends his Hindi-gesticulating conversation and looks at us with dramatically sorrowful eyes. The incipient discomfort in my solar plexus grows with the definite message from the travel director: all trains are fully booked. There are no available seats to Bodh Gaya for another three days. It seems unreasonable, but it doesn't feel clever to allege that this large Hindi-speaking man lies. Instead, we clench our teeth and ask what our options are. His mustache moves upwards again. Three minutes later, our travel fund has been dramatically reduced, and our luggage has disappeared. We have been given a private chauffeur and a minibus.

Our driver is a small, slim, and modest man from Nepal. He looks down at the ground when he greets us. He speaks English. He has learned English from his years as a chauffeur for tourists. We get into the white minibus that will take us to the Indian countryside around Agra. But first, we have to make a stop at our driver's home. He has an errand to run before we can start our three-day-long journey. The friendly man's apartment is small and without windows. He invites us into his ascetic kitchen. The worn white chalk walls are covered with a few grey tin pots. Our chauffeur asks us if we would like some tea. We accept. His job as a chauffeur in India makes him wealthy. Proud of the high standard in his kitchen—it has running water—he puts the dented aluminum kettle on the gas stove. We talk about our countries and our lives. When his invisible errand has been run, we return to the minibus encircled by happy, dirty, and scantily dressed children.

We travel through a landscape lined with people, mile after mile. The population shares the land with monkeys, elephants, cows, goats, dogs, and cats. After three days of conflicting feelings of misery and the life-affirming experience of a marvelous Taj Mahal, we are back in New Delhi. Happy and relieved, we find that the train station exists. Tickets are available, and we only have to wait four hours for the train to take us to our first stop. A happy shoe-shining boy ambushes us with his equipment, and he thinks our sneakers need to be tidied up. Or at least one of them.

With newly-shined shoes, we complete several hours of travel, and it's time to change trains. Our hunches about delays are confirmed, and we get another five hours to experience life on an Indian train platform. We're starting to get used to being surrounded by curious native men. Some want to share cultural differences; others are curious whether Kevin was born with green hair. The rest of the crowd only stare at us with their innocent wide-open eyes. The Indian military police are less enthusiastic. With determined steps and gigantic weapons, they scatter the public without verbal commands. We challenge ourselves and ask if the beige-brown-dressed authority would do an interview. The mass of people no longer seemed to be a threat. We end our hearing with the standard question about what they think is best about India. And just like everyone else we've asked, we get the answer: "the people."

The delay has come to an end, and the light-blue, worn train comes squeaking into the station. I'm freezing despite the blanket over my warm, black hooded jacket. When I see a naked boy about seven years old running on the platform, I suddenly feel very warm and rich.

We get on the train. With Indian families and their creative luggage, we force our way to our narrow bunks. We're mentally prepared for cramped quarters that have been promised to last for about ten hours. After three hours on the train, a tea supplier shows up. An event Kevin refrain from sharing. I sympathize with my travel companion's physical state and am glad I passed on the street vendor's delicacies in Jaipur. The train creeps forward, and after ten hours, it stops completely. The thick fog or a privileged cow has caused the train to take a break in the middle of nowhere.

After seventeen hours with stiff joints and a slightly irritated mind, we approach our destination. We take a taxi to a rickshaw that brings us to a bicycle taxi that peddles away to Bodh Gaya and puts an end to our journey. We're only five days late. We seek out our friends, and soon we're standing in front of the fabulous Maha Bodhi temple—a pyramid-like tower whose magnificent architecture rises more than 150 feet into the sky.

Over the centuries, the temple had been subject to vandalism by antagonists of Buddhism. It was now restored and labeled as a historical world heritage site. After hugging our friends and telling them about our trip, we fall into bed. Tiredness overcomes the cold, and my unskilled mind slumbers in, unaware of the greatness of being in this place.

The next morning's walk to the training site presents a spectacle that brings all our senses to attention. We breathe in the humid fog, spice scents, and the stench of poisons. Everywhere we see pilgrims in their burgundy and orange "monk clothes." The marketplace along the road is decorated with thousands of beggars in colorful clothes and grey aluminum bowls. This is an important event, even for professional beggars. I see people with amputated limbs caused by leprosy or voluntary mutilation to become successful beggars. I am frustratedly incapable of understanding.

At the teaching site, we are welcomed, and a red band is placed around our heads. We're to wear this headband throughout the week. I sit down cross-legged. Although I have a speaker above my head, and the Dalai Lama speaks English, my absorption of information is limited. After three hours, I get tired of this and sneak away to spend the rest of the day on my own. I rejoin my friends at 8 pm to attend the evening's traditional ceremony.

The monks in the area have worked hard all day, placing tens of thousands of tea candles around the Maha Bodhi temple. The place has transformed into a fairy-tale land. With thousands of silent pilgrims and chanting monks, I walk around the enormous stupa thrice at a slow pace. Deep in unreality, I run into our team's most experienced Indian lover, Ztefan. He's a professional photographer and a passionate Buddhist. We meet outside the meditation room called "The Green Tara Room." He asks me if I would like to go in. We crawl through a small opening. The surface area is only around 10 square feet and perhaps 5 feet high. At the front, a tiny fire is burning. To my right, two monks are sitting and reading in chorus, loudly whispering texts in Sanskrit. Another monk, also in his dark burgundy cloak, sits just to my left. He is deeply immersed in vibrating clear chanting. The minidisc! Ztefan helps me to silently press the right buttons. We join the meditation. I let my thoughts fade, and my unreal state gets worse.

Ringing prayers, chanting, and scents from incense move me into an unknown dimension. I perceive the feeling that "this is where I'd like to stay. Why should I be outside of this room? Everything I need is right here and right now!"

I wake up when Ztephan taps my elbow. It's time to make room for others. Reluctantly, I crawl out through the narrow and shallow opening. Outside we cheer quietly in unison. We walk towards the evening's feeding place. Our consciousness returns, and to manifest our experience, we bring out the minidisc. We share the earphones and relive our experience. When we reach our friends, they listen with us to "The Green Tara Room."

After ten days of teaching and bewildering encounters in wonderland, it's time for the second part of my journey. I leave my friends and exchange the airplane blanket for my Dolce & Gabbana suit. I'm prepared for my next destination, a conference and a field trip to the Indian call center in Mumbai.

My dad's apples are juicy. I remain in my feelings from my experiences in India. I think about what a "dream" really is. Is it a dream not to get sick to one's stomach on a train in India? Is it a dream to be able to take a warm shower every morning? What exactly is a wonderland? I look up at the grey cloudy sky and wonder if the universal impossibility of living in a dream is the ultimate driving force. The driving force that encourages us to experience every possibility of life's diversity, the driving force that takes us from one wonderland to another. The driving force that reveals evolution's mighty secret about the transience of all things.

 

chapter 3

DUCK HUNT

Identify patterns and behaviors
– It takes patience to succeed. It takes a little time, and we can be severely tested before reaching our goal.

The ugly duckling was put through many tests, and he always did his best to adapt to each situation. He didn't give up, and when he least expected it, he found the right place. He thought what he had suffered through wasn't that bad because he was now so happy.

HOW TO LET GO AND PREPARE FOR CHANGE

Chapter Three shows us how we can identify destructive patterns and behaviors that have followed us through our lives by observation and reflection. We get the courage to take responsibility for our development instead of trying to change our environment.

In this chapter, we start a hunt for the reasons for our recurring problems instead of curing symptoms. Once we know what's limiting us, we can let go of people, things, situations, activities, and environments that no longer support our development.

This chapter provides information about how we can replace old ways of thinking with attitudes that take us in a positive direction in a pleasurable way. When we remove our energy leakage, we discover room for planning activities to help us change.

 

3.1 OBSERVE

APATHETIC ÅSA

Why do I always do this? I never know where I'm going, when it starts, or how I'm supposed to get there." Åsa's voice wakes me up. I lift my head off my pillow on the green couch at my new friend's place. Her small, slanted, beautiful, green eyes peer at me. A ruffled hairstyle frames her round, well-formed face. We met yesterday when I needed emotional support after being denied my visa, and she wanted help putting the spark back into her life. Åsa was at a stage in her life where she lacked goals and visions. With her couch as an energy exchange, I would help her bring back her spark of life.

I observe my drowsy friend and understand she's on her way to a seminar. In what she just despairingly announced, she described how she lives her life. She generously shares her recorded observations, and we can follow her development, which starts exactly here.

In her first notes, we can read:
One can wonder why I chose a notebook with the title "Garden Journal." Probably because this period is about finding my roots and my growth. It is June 2, 2008. My friend Mia and I met yesterday because she would coach me out of my empty life. The phone rings and Mia says that Birgitta would like to meet me for a beer. She needs mental and emotional support and arrives at Medborgarplatsen in southern Stockholm. Birgitta tells us that she has taken a Philadelphia roundtrip and, in addition, was denied her visa today. When Birgitta had finished her story Mia and I burst out laughing. Not because of her story but because she, with an honestly surprised but insightful look, says: "I think this is my fault." We know that Birgitta preaches about how we all create our own reality. We found it amusing that the "expert" had created this scenario completely unsuspectingly and unconsciously. Enough about Birgitta. This is supposed to be about me. But the thing is, she's the key figure in the rest of this story.

For some time, Åsa has been stuck in not having any goals, meaning, or direction in her life. And as she expresses it herself, "no interests, no desire to live, and a large portion of apathy." Åsa saw a possible solution from this perspective when she heard my story. Without thinking, she offered me to occupy her couch. Meanwhile, I can think about finding a place to live if the wait to return "home" gets too long. In exchange, I'm to help Åsa find her goal in life. We both think this idea is brilliant, so I pick up my stuff and move in.

From Åsa's notes, she tells her version of our first morning:
I woke up the day after we met and am on my way to a seminar. As usual, I have no idea where I'm going. I turn on my computer to find out where the conference is located. The mail server is down. I groan out loud: "Why do I always do this? I never know where I'm going, when it starts, or how to get there."

I sit apathetically on the edge of my bed, and my square face transforms into an oval when I hear Birgitta exclaim, "Just like your life!" I start laughing hysterically—a painful inner knowing surfaces. Birgitta had just put her finger on what was going on in my life. It became clear how I contributed to my directionless existence by not planning and not being prepared. When this insight had landed, the mail server came up, and I found the information about where I was going.

When Åsa returns from work, it's time to figure out her life goals, but first, she is forced to go to the gym. I'm going with her. When Åsa starts to work out in her usual way, she realizes that she has gotten not only a personal coach but also a personal trainer.

In her story, Åsa conveys:
Given that I want to be good, I do as my coach tells me to and double my warm-up time from 10 to 20 minutes. My lazy body needs this. When I stand there panting, she asks me what I'm thinking. "The bridal shower I'm planning," I reply. Apparently, the wrong thought because Birgitta says, "You're the one who's training, so focus on yourself and leave all other thoughts where they belong." I'm told to feel what "my body thinks" from my head to my toes. When I get down to my heart, I see myself as a child. I meet an overjoyed girl who skips rope, twists, plays soccer, and runs. I feel the exact same joy I did when I was running around as a child. That 20-minute warm-up went quickly, and the workout became fun.
See & Feel

Observing to bring about changes and development is an old and proven method. Almost all inventions have started with observations of the simple and mundane. Experienced observers like Leonardo Da Vinci based their most spectacular innovations on observations of themselves and their surroundings. An observer makes observations by gathering information without changing, evaluating, or judging what emerges.

Ever since birth, you've accumulated perceptions and experiences stored in feelings and behaviors. All the information you process, everything you experience, influences you. Past experiences are mixed up with new ones, and events are distorted to become something they might not be. You even carry the experiences of previous generations in your DNA. Information and impressions form a chemical process between your thoughts and feelings. Observing yourself makes you aware that everything is connected to your brain, and you grasp how certain connections generate self-sabotage.

Being your own observer means that you actively begin to pay attention to how you react and experience the world around you. You notice what happens in your mental world since your thoughts and feelings control your actions. You are often so busy with daily activities that you are unaware of what you are doing, thinking, or saying. The purpose of observing is to find out what is affecting you.

The aim of observation is to find out what influences you. The goal is to discover unknown factors your conscious mind doesn't know about or understand. Your observations reveal new connections between thoughts, actions, and feelings. Your observations are a foundation for re-programming behavioral and thoughts patterns that don't support you and your goals. When Åsa listened to her body and exchanged her thoughts with childhood memories, the training became a pleasure instead of a torment.

Observations develop your ability to see what's around you and what's happening inside you. You increase your awareness of yourself, your limitations, and your possibilities.

This ability is essential to break reflexively undesired feelings and reactions. As an observer, you open up to possibilities to change your behavior, attitude, and way of thinking about your life. Having the right conditions makes it easier to choose what and how you want to develop. Increased consciousness ignites insights that strengthen your self-esteem, and you can be proud of yourself as you are. Åsa discovered repetitive behavior in her everyday life that mirrored how she handled her entire life. She gained the insight she needed to bring planning into her life and chart a direction to move forward.

The observation task may seem simple because it's "merely" about observing and not "doing" anything. Don't be fooled! When you don't have a coach on your couch, you have to do the work yourself. It takes a continuous effort to remind yourself several times daily that you're supposed to observe your thoughts, actions, and reactions.

You can choose a particular area in your life for observation, such as a person in your environment who affects you. You can focus on what objects you notice, what words you hear, or what memories come to your mind. You can also observe yourself generally without any particular focus. What's important is that you start to observe yourself in a new and different way. Even if you see yourself as an experienced observer, there are always new areas to examine.

If you say to yourself, "I already know myself quite well," take it as a sign that something is holding you back that your conscious mind is reluctant to be enlightened about. Overcome your fear and use your creativity to find new and exciting territory to examine yourself.

Observations are stepping stones to knowing where you're going, how to get there, and when you've arrived.5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What do your goals and visions look like?

In what way do you contribute to a "directionless existence"?

What can you do to be able to see what's going on?

What is your body trying to tell you?

How do you know that you're going in the right direction?

Tips!
Use one of the previous tips to answer these questions. Choose the questioning method that works best for you. Avoid negotiating or compromising with the answers that occur. 

 

3.2 REFLECTION

ÅSA’S ZEST FOR LIFE

It's the fifth day on the green fabric sofa that matches the room's green walls and the dark brown straight well-placed furniture. I'm a happy coach because Åsa is transforming. Her apathy has been replaced with charisma and a zest for life. She walks to work with easy steps and inspiration to pursue her task as a programmer and system engineer. Already day one, she had found the source and start button for finding her goal in life. Åsa was a trusting client and had done the job of carefully noting all her experiences, which she uncensored shares with us.

Exhausted and unable to hide her pride over her workout, Åsa is prepared for the evening exercise of finding her goal in life. I start by asking Åsa to describe her strengths and weaknesses. "I feel dumb," she replied. I ask her to explain why. Åsa tells me about how she always gets so many questions from others about everything. "If I've been to Hawaii, I get questions about its population and the location of its islands. When I can't answer the questions, I become speechless and feel dumb." I nod and ask what the opposite of dumb is. Åsa is at a loss for words and says, after thinking for a while, "uuuhhh… smart, verbal, and fast." I continue my hearing and ask her to describe something positive or negative that someone has said about her. Åsa's spontaneous reply is: "I remember how my ex-boyfriend always annoyingly pointed out that I never waited until the person had finished speaking before I presented my solutions." Åsa also says she's usually the one who takes the initiative to solve problems. Further, she emphasizes that she likes to teach when people wake up and understand what she says.

In her reflective notes, Åsa has written:
I feel like I'm in the background regarding job-related tasks. The truth that emerges is that I see myself as quiet and withdrawn simultaneously, as I want everything to move quickly and get things done.

Birgitta summarizes my judgment about myself by saying that I've called myself dumb, slow, problem-solver and that I exist in the background. Encouragingly, she says that it's no wonder if no one understands me when I present a solution before they've even understood there is a problem. In a few minutes, I realize that I am smart, quick, and efficient. Then Birgitta drew a picture with different combinations of my three newly identified qualities. When we go deeper into it, I get recognized as a "forward thinker, innovator, and doer," that is to say, someone who is quick in thought has new ideas, and gets things done. Birgitta asks, "What do you get when combining these three qualities?" "An investigative scientist," I answer without thinking. I wipe my tears from laughter and crying. I realize that I have tried to live opposite of who I am, to fit in. A lovely insight, a lovely day.

On the third day, as I'm heading out the door to go to work, Birgitta urges me to step into the role of the "investigative scientist." On the way to work, I repeat those words as a mantra: "I am a research scientist." When I get to work, I step into my new role. I question my clients’ wishes and tell them they need entirely different solutions. As an "investigative scientist," I don't feel dumb, slow, or quiet. And my customers listen and respect my proposal.

On the fourth day, we take a break, and Åsa spends time with family and friends at Skansen. On Day 5, we go out for dinner to celebrate the efficient workouts of the first week. While eating, I wonder why Åsa was so upset that morning over all the apartments being turned into condos. Åsa goes off again and starts to preach: "You define yourself by your housing, and all housing should have a mix of all types of people from all income brackets to avoid segregation." Without making any comments, I wonder what she would say to the world if given three minutes to talk. Åsa rambles incoherently: "What you think isn't what's important. It's what you do that matters. Do something meaningful for the person standing next to you. Let that person see you as you really are. See yourself in others. Then you'll love that person. Share what you have. That's what makes changes happen." I sit quietly. Then I ask how she perceives the word distribution. This question gives Åsa a whole new insight that results in the following notes:
I'm struck by an insight that blows my mind. The first of my six goals in life has been manifested. The system I'm building is about allocating income/costs, and in my newly designed "dating profile," I've written: 'I would like to program the ultimate program needed by the whole world.

As a conclusion to the day's reflections, Åsa writes:
In five days, I have gone from complete apathy to capturing the zest for life and the passion in my life. It's an incredible feeling, and I experience what's happening as a gift from the universe. Organize & Questioning

Reflection means taking time to sort experiences, thoughts, feelings, and events. You awaken your consciousness to make room for your strengths and your potential. Questioning your actions and opinions increases your ability to see things from an objective perspective. When Åsa examined her outrage over making apartments into condos, she discovered that "distribution" was central to her life. In her agitation was a hidden passion that she channeled into one of her life goals. A goal that she would manifest into her life project; is “The ultimate distribution program."

Analyses of current situations show that everything that unfolds is a learning process for you to evolve. The reflections help you discover imposed perceptions that no longer belong to you. When you question existing self-perception, new connections appear in your obstacles, abilities, and possibilities. New knowledge of your personality traits makes your tasks more natural to perform and your life easier to live. Understanding yourself also increases your tolerance and acceptance of the differences of others. It was a significant breakthrough for Åsa to go to work as an "investigative scientist" instead of being stuck in her old role as a quiet and withdrawn person. Her insights about herself enabled her to face life from a whole new perspective.

Reflections help you eliminate "boyfriends" who focus on how you didn't listen instead of seeing you as a resource that delivers solutions. You erase old ideas and start living from your individuality when you know what others have told you about what you can and cannot do. Reflections bring hidden truths about yourself to light, so you don't have to create illusions about your conditions. Defective conditions lead to activities that take you astray from your goals. Once you have found your individuality, it's not difficult to make room for what needs more space in your life.

Reflection means you actively set aside time and question what you do or think. You delve deeper into your observations and analyze your findings. It doesn't have to take long, and you don't need a personal coach to integrate your reflections into your everyday life. What's important is that you take the time through conscious action. It's wise to write down your thoughts since your experiences become more distinct and valuable when they're written down. Your noted reflections provide you with indisputable evidence of your progress. A confirmation that allows you to be impressed by your personal history.

A vital ingredient in your work with reflections is to have distance from yourself. If you refrain from seeing the disadvantageous sides of your behavior with humor, the performance of your life will be dull and joyless.

If you observe human behavior with spirituality, you will be offered lots to laugh at and have many stories to share. When Åsa stopped feeling uncomfortable with all the random and unpredictable questions, she could amusingly wait for questions about Hawaii's demography. From her new perspective, she focused on learning new things and got an outlet for her joy of serving others. As you start reflecting, you face unique challenges that further your development. You get a distance from routines and can transform possibilities into reality. With reflections, you expand your limited view of yourself and your possibilities.
Let go of your old opinions to understand the present, and be objectively receptive and grateful for others’ observations. Invite the people around you to report what they see and hear. It's painless and self-evident to manifest authentic life goals when your self-perception aligns with your unique qualities.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Which of your personality traits do you perceive as being negative?

What would the difference be if you interpreted them as your strengths?

What would your "3-minute speech" contain?

What relationships do you need to eliminate from your life?

Who can report what they see in you?

Tips!
Take a break from your reading or put aside these questions until a later time. Allow these questions to take time together with your notebook

 

.3.3 LETTING GO

UNDER THE SURFACE

The dark blue Chevy van is packed. The diving equipment and six expectant divers are in place. Our destination is a tiny fishing village in southwest Norway. We leave Östgötagatan in Stockholm, arrive at our destination eleven hours later, and park the vehicle close to the pier. Tired, we look for our diving bags, bottles, and weights and drag them to the old fishing boat that will store us and give us experiences for the next four days. Its owner, who is also the captain of the ship, welcomes us on board. In his Norwegian lice jacket and wildly grown grey beard, he verifies the archetype of a worthy fisherman.

His wife is in the galley, preparing our welcome meal. The blended scents of newly cooked shrimp, tar, and old fish transform us into fanatical divers, and the outside world ceases to exist. After dinner, we crawl into our cabins at the far back of the stern. We fall asleep to the sound of lapping water and creaking boat squeaks. We are woken up in the middle of the night when two more diving pals join us. Their voices and their failed attempts to sneak on board reveal that the last drink probably had been superfluous.

We wake up early in the morning. Through the small, round window and our tired eyes, we perceive heavy rain and violent wind. We ignore the bad weather; nothing will prevent us from experiencing the renowned brushy underwater vegetation of kelp forest, an ecosystem of brown algae. The owner and his son debate if it's a good idea or not to go diving on such a stormy day as this. They take on the challenge in consultation with us, and we chug out into open waters. The boat stops. We help each other and manage to clumsily parry the boat's heavy rolling, and we are finally wrapped in our dry suits. We jump down in the rubber boat that will take us to our diving site. The waves soon fill the dinghy with so much water that we have to jump into the sea before reaching our site. We signal that we're ready, "thumbs down," and disappear under the surface.

What a joy. I become childishly enchanted by swimming through the jungle-like kelp forest. After 45 minutes, we end our dive, inflate the orange buoy, and get picked up. The captain cancels our second dive and looks for the nearest bay to park the boat until the storm subsides. While waiting for the weather to change, we enjoy life on the ship and each other's company.

The theatrically told diving stories at the lunch table fade and are replaced by diving withdrawal. I, the divemaster, and the other woman in the group want to breathe air from our regulators again. We turn a deaf ear when our friends think we're crazy when we wish to scuba dive in the bay where there are only rocks to look at. We sit on the high railing in our full gear, make a backflip, and splash into the fjord. We swim away and glide silently and freely in the empty clear water. After a few minutes, it gets more challenging, and I understand that we are in a counter-current.

I feel my pulse rate rise, and my breathing gets heavier. Suddenly the resistance explodes and turns into a ranging water tornado. I manage to comprehend that my dive pals have disappeared before I am shot off like a rocket. For a few long seconds, I have no idea what's happening but put my hand reflexively over my regulator to hold it in place. I want to stop myself by grabbing onto a seaweed or a stone.
After several failed attempts, I got a hold of a rock. I have stopped. The well-trained survival strategy for a diver, "stop, breathe, think," comes in handy. I feel that the effort has led to my body producing excess carbon dioxide, and my stress level has increased. I focus on my breathing, and after a minute or so, my pulse rate has calmed down, and I start to think. "Where did my friends go? What do I do now?" The enormous cliffs with the white, aggressively foaming waves around the bay flash before my eyes in my mind. I check my air and depth gauge and figure out that I have about 40 minutes left to breathe. What should I do? Stay here about 4 feet underwater until my air runs out, or make my way up to the surface and risk being smashed to death against the giant cliffs? With an unplanned calmness, I take three deep breaths, close my eyes, and let go of the rock.

One foot up, I notice that the current has disappeared, and a short while later, I break the water surface, which is completely still. The monstrous cliffs are far away. I see my friends about three hundred feet away, raise my hands above my head, and form a circle, which signals that I'm OK. We swim towards each other, and through our masks, our eyes convey a magnified smile—verbal expressions for what we feel are needless. We lie on our backs and swim towards the boat. In the evening, we euphorically update the others' archives of dramatic diving stories. The previously invisible diving mates creak into the galley. They listen to our story and seem doubtful that yesterday's local ladies and the morning's headache could replace the value of the day's diving experience. Accept & Leave

Sometimes you get stuck in a situation where the only way out is to let go. You find yourself in a position where there's no point in trying to find a solution. There is none. Trying to figure out the possible consequences, the experience becomes unnecessarily drawn-out and painful. If you start thinking about whether you "should" or "should not," you get drained of your energy and don't have the strength to move on. If you decide to stay where you are, you can continue to struggle until you run out of air. The only way to be free of such a situation is to dare to float to the surface to find the answer, despite the risk of hitting the monstrous rocks.

Life is full of provocations, and Bruce Parry described life's challenges as "a forest of problems represented by what I will experience as an adult." You can meet "the kelp forest" as an adventure instead of being annoyed by how it obscures your view and gets in the way. When you try to control untenable situations, your body signals that something serious is going on, and your senses get overloaded. You become confused, ambivalent, stressed, and emotionally exhausted. You avoid irrational behaviors by "stop, breathe, and think" and then letting go.

It's onerous trying to hold onto something that has already left us. When your life, project, activities, or relationships feel like a battle, it's time to say "Goodbye" and create space for change. You have the right to say goodbye to the old, regardless of whether it's old habits, people, relationships, work, or material possessions. A farewell can be about erasing beliefs about yourself to find your individuality. You can cleanse your surroundings with respect and love without blaming yourself or anyone else. It's OK to allow yourself to grieve when you let go of something you've believed in, which brought you success and joy for a long time. Pain isn't there to punish you; it has an enormous potential to provide you with new and untried experiences in your life.

When you're stuck in something, you have to get through the situation on your own. Under the surface, no one can save you. You're alone with your skills, courage, and trust—abilities you can practice, so you're prepared with reflexes to handle hopeless situations. As soon as a thought arises that you should leave something, you can be sure that you will one day be forced to make a decision and reform your condition. By reflecting on circumstances you already have released, you facilitate future development processes. Your reflections help you understand the signs of unsustainable situations so that you can make the transit to the new faster and less painful. When we have removed ourselves from unfavorable circumstances, we experience liberation and often ask ourselves, "Why did it take so long?"

We are all different in how and what we want to leave to history. You can start where you are and only deal with what you feel you have the strength to handle. You are privileged and can refrain from "Iboga." It's enough to let go to reach insights and liberation. There's no right or wrong, good or bad way to take action. What's essential is that you base your choices on what you want and not what someone else thinks you should do or not.

When you have let go of something, you experience the calm on the surface, and the monstrous cliffs are usually much further away than you thought. You feel relief in the body, your eyes are smiling, and you meet joy in others. When you let go, your friends show up and share happiness and experience with you. The worst that can happen is you get a story that others enviously listen to. A story that can fascinate and inspire those around the dinner table. 5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Are you trying to hold onto something that has already left you?

What can you do to make room for change?

What knowledge and qualities can you apply now? 

What does the calm look like on the water's surface?

Which story are you going to tell?

Tips!
Take "baby steps"! Answer the questions, but start by focusing on what feels comfortable. Put off significant decisions until the questions feel obvious to answer and focus on fixing what's fun and easy things for you.

 

3.4 INFORM

SQUARES AND FRACTALS

I'm a fascinated coach. Åsa's development and transformation are accelerating. The cause of the shift in gears is Åsa's conscious decision to do whatever it takes to regain her zest for life. Her "strong" conscious decision to change, along with the courage to acknowledge all the desired and undesired quirks to gain emotional acceptance for the change, is the foundation of her personal success. In her pondering about the way to her progress, she writes:
It's day 6, and I'm still living near my crazy coach. After my workout, I go shopping, including getting clothes hangers and a measuring tape. I've been invited to a party this evening, but before I get ready to leave, I ask Birgitta to look at my dating profile. She thinks the text is good, but she wonders why I've posted a picture of myself with my ex-boyfriend. I couldn't answer, but I sadly realized it was an unconscious way to avoid letting go of him.
I let my makeup change my thoughts. I put my jeans on and a sweater that my coach has inspired me to wear. I feel sexy as hell. Suspiciously, I understand the point behind my assignment to buy hangers and measuring tape. The life coach and personal trainer now made an entrance as a stylist. I realize that I'm going to go through a complete transformation.

The next day I'm full of energy, and Birgitta's question from yesterday sinks in: "Why do you still keep his things?" I pick out two boxes and clear out the last of my ex-boyfriend's personal belongings. It felt empty but light. I send a text message to him in Japan to arrange the pick-up. He asks if I want to keep the painting with the Japanese character. Yesterday, when I looked through the remaining material traces, Birgitta told me she thought the image belonged to me. I now found out that the character means "smart." I keep the painting. Almost too many unexpected coincidences are beginning to emerge. At first, it felt surreal that I had cleaned out my old ex, but now I'm ready to fill this empty space with new life goals.

When Åsa feels ready to go on and find new life goals, I deliver a big open question: "What do you want to have in your life?" "Tell me everything that comes to your mind!" I have no idea, Åsa replies. After a while, her brain starts to cook, and like an erupting volcano, she spits out words that spontaneously appear. "Do, teach, program, house in the forest, educate, be whole!" Without giving her any feedback, I continued my terror: What did you want to be when you were a kid? "Archaeologist, do puzzles, actress, like my dad, gymnast, detective, solve mysteries, and I liked to paint," replied Åsa. My next follow-up question is, "What did you want to be when you were 13?" Thoughtfully, my client replies:
"I probably mainly dreamed about boys and wanted to be beautiful. I longed for attention and love. I got a lot of physics, chemistry, and maths tests right.”

I don't give Åsa that much feedback on her answers. Instead, I ask her to describe her childhood. Åsa finds this question tricky to answer, and in her notes, which I'm allowed to read afterward, she describes her experience:

Since I hardly remember anything, Birgitta continues: "Describe your daycare house." I have an answer and tell her exactly where all the rooms were. I describe the shape of things, their direction, and their placement. Still, without commenting, my coach continues with her questions: "What is unique about you?" I can't think of anything unique about me except for my square face and slanted eyes. I describe their shape again, and we joke about me being a "square." We laugh for a long time when I conclude that I am a square that can't be loved.

Birgitta then wonders: "What's good about squares?" That answer comes easily. Euphorically I inform her that squares are the ultimate shape. They're accessible to calculate, and their form is beautiful. They fit to furnish a room. To me, number four is gorgeous. It's the perfect family with mom, dad, and two kids. I continue unimpededly to describe all the advantages of squares. They stand for balance: four tires on a car and four legs on a piece of furniture. Then I fall silent before I say, with desperation in my voice, "I don't want to be square!"

Of course, I'm then asked why I deny the square in me. That question is also easy to answer. A square is labeled as boring. It stands for fact-based solutions. It encapsulates problems and plugs up all the holes. I don't want to live my life in a box. At the same time, I feel like an outsider because I don't fit into society's square. "What's good about squares?" I reply that making a right and wrong list can give a greater understanding of good and bad qualities. It's perfect for making mathematical distributions. Birgitta asks: "What is the most beautiful square?" I wonder if it's a painting, but that doesn't feel right. Then the word "fractal" comes out of nowhere. It's beautiful. We interrupt our conversation. I turn on my computer and search for information to learn what a fractal is. "Fractal" means "with the property that the constituents are uniform with the whole."

I'm exhausted after all of today's escapades, and I can't really enjoy the insight that I'm a square. I fall asleep, somewhat disappointed. My soul hurts. I'm not sure if it's because I let go of my ex-boyfriend or if it's because of the fact that I'm a "square." Maybe it's a combination of the two. Euphoria & Vacuum

After gaining new insights, it's easy to feel a painful and frustrating emptiness. You've let go of something you believed in. You've let go of the personality you worked hard to acquire, and like Åsa, you go to bed disappointed, confused, and feeling alone. At the beginning of your personal development career, you look forward to the change. You prioritize your doings, so you will have more time just to be. In the early stages of your development, it's exciting to discover new things about yourself. You get euphoric from unexpected connections and synchronicities. You're fascinated by finding a painting with the word "smart," which supports your discoveries about yourself. You feel that you're growing and moving in the right direction. You experience that everything is fantastic and are therefore abruptly interrupted and surprised when the feeling of loneliness, emptiness, and confusion appears.

You wake up from a high and wonder what you're doing. The energy is low, and you begin to question whether your 'new self' is that amazing. You don't recognize yourself and don't want to be a square. You stand in the middle of an empty black space without doors or lights trying to tell you where to go. You start to desperately search for something that can compensate for the emptiness or attempt to return to the old you, only to find that the door is closed. No future is visible to you.

What's happening is that you've ended up in a vacuum. This is a state that always occurs with change. A vacuum is a place you visit when the old is gone and the new is not yet in place. When you arrive in a vacuum, it's time to take a break from life and have faith that the "new" is on its way. This is a time to direct your compassion towards yourself and accept that everything is in constant motion. Nothing will ever be the same as it was. This does not mean that you are at the mercy of fate and should adopt an attitude of "whatever happens happens."

The vacuum is a period of opportunity that requires its very own unique strategy so that you can grow strong in the face of your impending successes. The primary method for handling a vacuum is to add new information and impressions. What that information or experience contains is irrelevant. You bring new variables into your life by providing your brain and soul with new working material. You can try reading something you haven't read before, learning something new, taking a new route to work, meeting people you haven't seen in a while, changing your workout routine, or using different seasonings in your cooking. Another parallel strategy is to continue cleaning up your surroundings. A third way to provide yourself with new information is to go inside yourself by relaxing or meditating to let things be without mixing in logic.

What is non-negotiable in the vacuum phase is the decision ban. You should never make decisions in a vacuum and prevent yourself from wanting anything. Do everything without wanting things and live entirely free from ambitions and goals. In a vacuum, you'll make a decision based on incomplete information and irrelevant circumstances. A decision made in a vacuum runs the risk of transforming the future into a new battle.

If you stay in the vacuum with patience and trust, you'll allow your soul to make decisions, use your brain as the executor, and your body is the storage of information. This perfect team will deliver the building blocks you need to create your life goals passionately.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What material things can you let go of?

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

What "squares" do you deny in yourself? 

How do you plan on handling your vacuum?

What are the components you need to create your life goals?

Tips!
Answer the question for which you feel the answer is within short reach. Write down the answer in your notebook. Choose another question that you "forbid" yourself to answer today. Pick out a third question that you write down on a piece of paper and put it next to your bed (or couch). Leave it there until the answer spontaneously appears.

 

ARE YOU STUCK WITH A DUCK?

PART IV

From the duck pond to 
the swan lake

 

September brings no surprises. The sky's grey decorations look stable. The rain hangs heavily in the air and provides space for reflective activities. Flashbacks bring exciting connections to light. With surprising coyote eyes, I wonder, "How did this happen?" "What happened?" The questions moved the nerve impulses in my brain to the year that began with two suitcases and a plane ticket. A time and a journey took me to a place that coincidences chose for me. After doing inventory in old folders, I find notes that also provide me with curiosities for my newly started, highly personal "project patience." My notes take me back to the memory of clarity when the first sentences of this book appear.

The tall trees and the high sun create small patches of shade. This is a warm place on the Earth, and it's summer. The air is dry. The wind camouflages the actual heat, and the sun feels pleasant. I find a place in a short shade and sit down on the lawn. I want to enjoy the warmth before entering the restaurant, that will be my workplace for the day. The diner is located on a pontoon, and wooden pillars hold its sizeable white ceiling. The beams, wooden details, and the fence around the float are blue. Only a few shades separate the dull light blue from the clear blue sky. I'm fascinated by the quiet surroundings.

The cars that pass by behind me are few. I hear a car door close and turn around. I see a man getting out of the vehicle. He opens the backdoor, and a little girl of about 3 jumps out, and it seems like they're about to do something exciting. The blonde-curly young lady expresses her anticipation with loud noises. I'm reminded of myself as a child. A smiling girl who was always full of hope and smiles. A girl who played adventure and who was always on the go.

After my morning walk across the miles-long park, it's time for a new intake of calories. It feels like it's early in the day because it's so quiet, but it gets close to lunchtime. I get up and brush off the leaves stuck around the back pockets of my cut-off jeans that now carry out their final mission as shorts. An autumn-colored leaf is stuck between the top of my foot and the brown flip-flops. Clear from leaves, I stretch and head towards the restaurant. 

I reach the pier at the foot of the restaurant. Yachts are gently rocking, and the ropes on the sailboats clang as they hit the mast. Grinding sounds are heard from the fenders when the boats move with the wind. The entrance to the restaurant faces the water. There are no tables or chairs outside. Sitting outside at this time of year is unthinkable for the locals. I stand in the doorway, and my backpack containing my invaluable possession hangs on my left shoulder. I study carefully which table invites me to today's work. The table that speaks to me is located at one of the restaurant's eight corners. 

I sit down and look out through the window. The window goes from the floor to the ceiling and evokes the feeling of sitting in a boat. I have shimmering blue water in front of me. I see the city center buildings rising on the other side of the water. Two skyscrapers stand taller than the rest—the buildings in Downtown sparkle from the reflection of the sun. The lightly hazy sky and the glass-covered skyscrapers run the same grey-blue tones. Looking out over the water, I'm overwhelmed by gratitude for all the wonders of the world. Magical things happen, and the most magical thing is that these events are real. 

Today's intention is to reflect on how everything is interconnected in a beautiful flow of chain reactions. A sequence of events in which everything happens for a reason to make life a masterpiece. I pick out my computer and think about that cliché-like metaphor about how life continually creates its own puzzle. A puzzle that ultimately forms a beautiful picture of total and complete beauty. I realize how each piece of the puzzle is perfect. 

My thoughts are interrupted by the waitress who has sneaked up at my table. She has heavily made-up eyes, and her jet-black hair is done up in a sloppy bun on her neck. Under her short black apron hides a skirt of the same color. I place my order. The waitress disappears and returns with a cup of thick white crockery filled with fragrant cooked coffee beans.
The metaphor of the puzzle returns. I remember how difficult it had been to see each piece as something beautiful. I think back to the painstaking job of turning each puzzle piece right and getting them to fit together. Now that they're together, they make an incredible and vivid scene. With all the pieces in the right place, they form a unity as if they had never been separated. In its wholeness, every puzzle piece's individuality is emphasized. Those previously similar blue pieces are no longer just blue; they show their highly unique character.

The handle on the coffee cup is totally useless, so I take the cup in my two hands. After a while, I place my fingers on my keyboard and let my thoughts decide what to type. I look over the water and am dazzled by the still-high sun. The haze has disappeared, and the skyscrapers sparkle and merge with the sharp dark-blue reflections on the water. A large, black bird is taking a lunch break on a pole in the middle of the river. The restaurant had filled up with guests, and I became aware of the murmuring from all the people. To the left of me is an elderly couple who spread a feeling of calmness and togetherness. They appear to have been married for so long that their outer bodies have melted together. They pick up their glasses of dark red wine, look at each other and make a toast. They radiate a secure unity. Gone is the battle between right and wrong. What remains is a humble acceptance of each other's presence.

I wonder how exactly I ended up here. I'm amazed at how the ugly duckling had guided me to this place. It amuses me to think of how I had misunderstood and misinterpreted the detours. They have taken me exactly where I needed to go. The complexity of all events had previously obscured my vision so that I would see what was what. I wondered if this was the place I was searching for or if it was the destination for something else.

The lunch guests seem to be into desserts, and I realize I still haven't eaten lunch. I get in touch with my waitress and discern a "finally look" when I ask to see the menu. I order shrimp in garlic sauce and close up my computer to be present and enjoy my lunch. I look out the window and notice a few sailboats docked at the pier are on their way north. I like this place. It absorbs peace, and the moving silence drowns the invisible yet shrieking parrots. The people in this town have surprised me with their kindness and helpfulness. Even the customs agents had helped me pack my bag after they had looked through everything. But above all, I was surprised by their different way of trusting people. 

As I sit on the shores of the Swan River, I understand why I ended up here. Several random events had taken me to southwestern Australia, known as "The Spirit of the Swan." I'm now at the Bell House Café in Perth, enjoying a wonderfully beautiful view of Swan River. It's a magical place for writing about ducks and swans.

I wake up from my memories of Perth in January 2007, the day I put my fingers on the keyboard and started to write, "Are you Stuck With a Duck?" I become aware of the Swedish September grey sky, and my mind continues to wander in the memory lane of how this book came about. The title of the book had fallen over me three years earlier when I was at a coaching conference in Quebec, Canada. After taking an aura photo, I was told I would find my swans. At the same time, I was encouraged to stop allowing ducks to interfere and control my life. I had become euphoric over the analysis that I was meant to fly with the swans. The energies had rushed through my body when the title trickled down. I became even more exalted when I grasped the idea of "From the Duck Pond to the Swan Lake." I thought the idea was brilliant, and to me, the book was already written.

The idea for the book belonged to me, maybe because I, as a child, could identify myself with the ugly duckling. I was perhaps drawn to the story since I spent my first year in an orphanage before moving to my new home and adoptive parents. Throughout my childhood, I thought I was the luckiest person in the world, with so much to experience and explore. As the blonde girl in Perth, I was always full of anticipation. I was so happy that I forgot about the ugly duckling until I started working as a life coach.

One day at the beginning of the new millennium and my new career, I had the unexpected impulse to reread the story. It was different to read the fairy tale from an adult's perspective. I realized that the narrative confirmed that everyone was meant to be what we were born to be without trying to be someone else. The story was also a perfect description of the aim of personal coaching and validated that I was on the right path with my new career.

From that day, the long-necked duck bird began to appear in different situations and always guided me forward. The swan showed up as one of my power animals from the northwest, in the same direction I had seen the swans fly away when I was a child. The swan became one of my prominent teachers of transformation. I studied the symbolism of shamanism, in which the swan gives the power to be one with all levels of consciousness. The anecdote tells how the "ugly duckling" rested in the pond, creating a vortex that broke down the pond's illusions and took the duckling to dreamland. The condition for the trip was that "the duckling" would accept the future as it was without trying to change "the plans of the great spirit." The story continues by talking about how the duckling had been in its dreamland and had seen the future. When it returned, it was transformed into a beautiful white swan. The graceful white bird continued to confirm my choices in life. 
A year later, when I was being initiated as a Reiki master, I received an initiation gift from the swans. The ceremony occurred in a beautiful and powerful place called Ale's Stones in southern Sweden. When I entered the area, a young dead swan was on the ground. I took two of its feathers, which are still amongst my most valuable possessions. The power of the swans guided me through many things over the next few years. I had several remarkable encounters with them. I learned more about myself and how to use their gifts when I needed strength and energy.

One magic swan experience happened when I lived on a tiny island in Stockholm's archipelago. It was late fall, and the island had been connected to the mainland to make commuting easier during the winter. One day, when I crossed the narrow bridge, I saw a couple of swans and stopped to make contact with them. I wanted to try my newly acquired healing abilities on everything and everyone. One of the swans approached me and gave me a friendly nip on my left shoe. I stretched my hands over him and gave him energy. The bridge was full of islanders who were out for their Sunday stroll, and I felt exhilarated by the mystique swan that was following me across the bridge. When I approached the beach and said goodbye to the swan, it picked up a small white object with its beak. The swan spits something that looks like the cap from a tube of toothpaste. The swan looked at me, picked it up a second time, and spit it out again. I didn't understand its message, but I thanked the swan, turned, and walked away.

Vibrating with positive energy, I called my Reiki master and told her how I had given the swan healing. As usual, she asked me a wise question: "Who do you think gave whom energy?" “Oh, oh ..." I smiled at myself for being so self-centered and reinterpreted the swan's behavior. Every time after that, I brought food if the swan showed up. It met me several times, and it felt satisfying to pay for its services.

Several months later, I got evidence that this energy exchange had paid off. I was sitting in my car on the way to Snaefellsnes, a gorgeous power place in Iceland, to give a course in healing. I looked out the car window and was greeted by over twenty swans who had parked in a field in a southeasterly direction.
Despite the insight in 2007, I put the book aside and was forced to endure further trauma before finishing it. Or was it me who was not done?

Because of the current unforeseen and involuntary situation, I found myself stranded in Sweden with a blank slate in front of me. There were no plans or inklings of what would happen. An annoying circumstance for a person with extremely limited patience who wants everything to happen now.

chapter 4
DISMISS DUCKS

Break and reprogram
– We shall dare to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.

The duckling took the risk that the swans could bite him to death if he approached them, but he wanted it so badly that he took the chance—which meant that he got a "new life."

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE

In Chapter 4, we realize that it is possible to take control of our lives and create the reality we want to live in. We are filled with power when we admit that our life experiences have equipped us with what we need to change.

This chapter makes us aware of how our personal power attracts positive energy and courage. It confirms that life is about making ourselves happy and shows how to use creativity and trust to expand.

We find out how we achieve a higher level of perfection in life if we prioritize what feels joyful. We are inspired to take on new challenges and activities to convert wishes into reality. The chapter's content teaches us to make decisions from intuition and allows the brain to systematize and focus on details.

 

4.1 PERSPECTIVE

THE ROLE-MODEL MOM

It's an ordinary Tuesday at Central Station in Stockholm. In 20 minutes I'll meet my client. The Swedish summer weather treats us to a downpour, and the planned walk has been changed to a meeting indoors. My waiting ends when I see my client coming toward me. I have time to quickly reflect on yesterday's conversation before we meet with a welcoming hug. Today's coaching meeting was already initiated at 9:30 yesterday evening. My client called to clear herself of some confusion and prevent herself from committing more emotionally rash actions toward her partner. After a few minutes into the conversation, the acute danger had passed. She realized she had been falling victim to an old pattern where her need for control had gotten its claws into her. My client knows that a change is imminent.

The theme for today's session is her relationship. After eight years, my client wants to deepen her relationship, and she's fighting a battle to get her partner to want to buy a house together. Today she wants to sort out, understand, and let go of her efforts to provoke a promise from her partner. Her provocations have always had the opposite effect on him. I'm glad she mastered her fear and made it to our meeting.

I ask my client what surroundings she needs to be able to handle today's subject. "A peaceful place," she answers. She has two homework assignments with her from our previous meeting. The first was to analyze the undesirable patterns from past relationships she has brought into her current relationship. Her second assignment was to define the qualities she wanted people around her to have. We make our way up the escalators to our designated café. The coffee shop, the departure for the country's busses, is crowded, and construction work is in progress. We look at each other and agree that our coffeehouse could be more peaceful. I asked her if we should go someplace else, but she was ok with staying. We're standing in line for our coffee when the fire alarm activates. Its howling and painful noise make several people cover their ears.

We sit down at our chosen table and manage to eat our warm cinnamon buns before the torturous sirens are silenced. I study my client and notice she is perfectly calm. The noise and chaos around us seem to have the opposite effect than what I expected. I wonder how she could handle the situation so calmly and controlled when she had preferred a peaceful place. "I don't know," she says and looks confused by the question. I ask her to think about it. After a moment's silence, she says thoughtfully: I guess I accepted the situation. I calmed down and thought about the possibilities. I believe that what's happening is actually something good." In the same breath, she describes how her boss often compliments her for meeting new situations and ideas with a calm and positive attitude. My next question is: "How can you use this ability in your relationship?" The question is extensive, so we leave it unanswered.

Instead, my client takes out her homework. In a lined notebook, she has made four columns with her relationships in chronological order. It starts with her mother and is followed by three long-term relationships. On the first line under Mom, it says, "strict with me." We move through the columns and notice how "controlled and directed" have been repeated in her relationships. My client has identified that she has allowed her partners to exercise extreme control and surveillance in her relationships.

In the column for her current relationship, there's just a question mark. The question mark in the queue and the freedom in the relationship confuse my client. It goes against her core values. For my client, control is associated with love and security. My client sits there, speechless. She realizes that she has unconsciously tried to drive her current relationship back to the square of control and surveillance. A world she recognizes and knows how to handle.

Without letting the realization sink in, I ask my client to look at "strict with me" again and ask, "What quality have you developed because your mom was strict with you?" She thinks about this for a while and says, "I can adapt to different environments, and I have become flexible." Within seconds she sees a new connection. An experience that she has bitterly accused her mother of is the root of her strongest personality trait. Her mother's way of checking on her, deciding over her, and detailed-oriented control during her childhood, made my client feel like she was never good enough. No matter how hard she tried to adapt, she rarely satisfied her mother's demands and expectations.

It had been difficult, but now my client realized it was a perfect education. She had developed skills like flexibility, self-control, and responsibility. These skills meant that she could effortlessly adapt to new situations and circumstances. They also contribute to her success. I ask her to describe more about the qualities she developed because of the "negative" experiences she had in her childhood. She explains how others feel accepted, respected for their opinions and dare to be themselves around her. And since she wanted to avoid becoming like her mother, she likes to make other people feel good. She also said that she's happy to give others encouragement and praise.

We go through her negative experiences in life and transform them into lessons and positive qualities. At the end of our conversation, my client hands me her second homework assignment: the list of the qualities she likes the people in her life to have. I take the list, and at the top of the page, I read: "respectful, positive, encouraging, thoughtful, and responsible." Impressed, I hand it back to her and ask what she sees. Unexpectedly, she bursts out laughing. Her description matches the exact qualities she had found in herself just a minute ago.

My client is energized and empowered by the proof that her findings were accurate. She had found her strengths and had written her scorecard in advance. After 2 hours, our meeting comes to an end. My client is exhausted and radiates dizzying happiness. Nothing has really changed, but she has just changed her perspective of what has already happened. Possibilities & Change

Changing perspective entails evaluating what you observe from different points of view. You discover how your immediate conceptions modify character depending on your point of observation. Your experience of what's happening depends on your values and subjective opinions. Your perspective is your personal guide and teacher. A change of perspective means allowing change where you assume you have the "scorecard" of your life. With the results in hand, you can choose how to relate to your past, present, and future. When you change your perspective, you face new challenges moving you forward. It is possible to avoid dramatic feelings and transform uncomfortable experiences into enjoyable ones depending on how you frame them. By shifting your position of observation, you can convert bitterness into gratitude. People around you deserve your appreciation since they've been your teachers and contributed to developing your abilities and accomplishments.

"Widening your horizons" means that everything in your external environment remains the same, but you decide how you will experience your life. When you change your panorama, you acquire new habits that continually search for new opportunities. You need a sense of foresight to help you refine your desires. In changing the scenery, you master your surroundings and fully devote yourself to accomplishing your life goals.

When you distance yourself from your story, your self-image changes, and you expand your limited view of yourself and your possibilities. You act outside your limitations, regardless of what others encourage you to do. The doors to higher levels of consciousness open up when you assume every experience is meant to help you develop.

Your ability to see a situation from different points of view provides you with new dimensions that take you closer to your authentic self. Knowing your thinking patterns and being willing to change them leads you to discover opportunities more quickly and become more creative. Restructuring your view of the future helps you attract what you need and reject what stands in your way. With distance from your existence, you can live according to your most personal needs without feeling constrained or trying to change your surroundings.

As you allow your senses to awaken, you see the light transforming every difficulty into new creations. When you have learned the art of twisting old inherited perceptions, your interest in pretending or proving that you're good enough in others’ eyes ceases. With your life experiences transformed into joyful ones, you know that you are enough as you are. Your new outlook affects those around you as well.

One week after my meeting with my client, I received the following e-mail:
Oh, I've felt so good after our meeting on Tuesday!! I've actually been together with him for three whole days since then!!! That's a lot, I can tell you. It's probably like you said; he’s a little taken aback or perhaps surprised because he calls me all the time and wonders what I'm doing. It feels great!

To change your mind, you need to stop trying to change the environment and accept that it's how you react that matters. See everything that happens as a new adventure that contains the lessons you need to learn to grow. When you feel unable to change from your established point of view, drive out old voices and get a new opinion. Like my client, you can apply your current strengths and skills to new situations. Darkness and light can be perceived as a beautiful combination of new possibilities when viewed from different perspectives. Shift your mindset from minor details to the most comprehensive strategies. Find out which perspective acts as your guide or complicates your situation.

To uncover more dimensions, formulate predictions for your actions. When you analyze a situation more closely, you find that you do not need to give anything up to fulfill your desire. When you look at what is happening from several angles, you understand what is being asked of you. If you zoom in on your visions and look at everyday tasks from multi-perspectives, new ideas will emerge to move the process forward.
5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Which ways of looking at things guide you or complicate things for you?

Which new perspectives can you bring to your story? 

How can you stop trying to change things around you?

What does your answer key look like?

Which people in your life deserve your appreciation?

Tips!
Read all questions and note which thoughts, feelings, images, people, or memories appear first. Pause for a moment in those reflections before choosing which question(s) you want to spend more time answering 

 

4.2 CREATIVITY

PIANO-PATHOS

I lift my head from the couch and stare at my suitcases. I take out my cell phone and squint at the clock. "Noooooo! 6:50!" My plane leaves in 30 minutes. I'm home at Linnégatan in Östermalm in Stockholm. I realize the impossible equation. I stuff the last small things in my carry-on baggage and dash out the door. While sitting in the taxi, I accept that the plane to India leaves Arlanda in 15 minutes without me. I forgive my physical body, which failed to stay awake until it was time for me to get up.

Last night I had been hysterically absorbed in producing. When my eyes and ears had become immune to new impressions, I sat down on the couch and let the monitors fill the room with my newborn creations. I had been exaggeratingly proud of my performance. Despite my anxiety-filled fear of technology, I outwitted CubaseSX3, and the effect-processors had converted my internal sound waves into actual musical ideas. Audio sources and samples made me realize what I had been trying to accomplish throughout my piano-playing life.

I got my first piano when I was five and have played ever since without producing any impressive compositions. It was always with disappointment that I abandoned my monotonous improvisations with the musical alphabet and played others' creations. I doubted my talent as early as I was twelve when my piano teacher asked me to continue playing part two of Beethoven's well-composed "The Symphony of fate." The conviction of my lack of talent was reinforced by the passionate Italian keyboard guru from high school. His ambition was to develop my interest in jazz and blues improvisations. I fought an unelastic battle with the jazz musician Count Basie's refined arrangement before giving up my vision of being a composer. Despite this, my teenage investment in a Nordic Classica piano made my relatives and the movers sigh through the years. I'm interrupted in my brooding when the taxi parks at Terminal 5.

While I picked up the luggage cart, the February cold had managed to creep under my thin leather jacket. I parried through the revolving doors and headed to the information desk. The alert hostess came to the not-very-surprising conclusion that I had missed my plane. I paid for a re-booking the next day and chose to stay overnight at the airport. This would have been my third trip to India. My trip aimed to re-establish my contacts from 2003 and explore the possibilities of exporting training programs to Indian call centers.

Once in my hotel room, my weak conscience opens my computer to produce compensation for the company's extra expense. I'm satisfied with the day's work and reward myself by plugging yesterday's creation into my ears and staring at the ceiling. I reflect on how the reconciliation process with my suppressed passion had happened.

Three days ago, a complete studio had moved into my kitchen. My music pathos had gently stepped in and called for my attention already last summer. I had moved to an idyllic tiny island ten minutes from the city center. My piano remained in my apartment on borrowed time. I lacked the ambition to obtain movers' annoyance and invoice for transporting the furniture to a car-free island.

The thought of a life without a piano ached the soul, which ingeniously conjured a solution. One day I went into a music store on Karlavägen. The assignment had been to fulfill a promise to my youngest son and procure strings for the aging acoustic guitar. I had perceived a telephone-like voice from the other end of the store: "It's hard to get a hold of used pianos." "I have one!" I shouted. Four hours later, the piano movers had picked up my heavy string instrument in exchange for an easy-to-move Casio synthesizer. The keyboard and the instruction manual had remained untouched until I moved back to the city a year later.

On January 6, 2005, I was attacked by a peculiar determination to trust an instruction manual. The next four days were a life in total symbiosis with the synth. My creative madness spun visions of musical productions á la Vangelis. Sleep, food, telephone, family, and other mundane matters got minimal attention. On the fifth day, my oldest son and his best friend, Kalle Windefalk, came for a visit. Kalle was a songwriter and sound designer and studied to be a music producer. His first counterpoint-like trance production had accompanied me on a flight to Montreal a few years earlier. I had put the CD player on repeat, and for six hours non-stop, I had listened to Impression and Emotions in Motion. On a side note, at my kitchen table, Kalle conveyed that he had canceled the studio and did not know where to put the equipment. I knew.

Now in my hotel room, I wonder why I had allowed the buttons on the synth and the instruction manual to scare me into creative silence for so long. I fall into a peaceful sleep, grateful for the synchronicity and that I have ordered a wake-up call.

The plane departs in the afternoon, and I'm first in line at the check-in desk. My brain goes into overdrive when I'm asked about my visa. It was Sunday. Somewhat dejected, I return home and plan to visit the Indian Embassy on Monday. After all, there would still be seven days left of my trip.

On Monday morning, I woke up with a massive fever. The fever renders the brain resistant, and the auditory memory activates. I capitulate. "I want to stay home and make music instead." That was what I said to Kalle when I handed over the keys to the studio's new venue. In my feverish state, I ascertained that the universe's result-oriented order reception had prioritized my utterance over the Indian call center and registered the order with express delivery. Intuition & Existence

Creativity is an intuitive ability that leads to innovation or unexpected combinations of what already exists. Creativity is the place from where you control your energy and transform possibilities into reality. Creative energy has no particular shape or structure; it just is. Technology and knowledge are tools that transform and implement what is already within you.

Creativity is to think unconventionally. It involves doing things outside the traditional and immediately visible. It is also an expression of an ultimate state of being. Creative people often have many feelings, and they are efficient. Edison is an excellent example of creative people being productive and making many attempts before succeeding. Einstein was a person who often experienced his solutions instead of thinking about them.

All people are born creative but tend to forget or ignore their creative ability. The creative force is pushed aside as they grow up, but the talent is still there. Creativity involves bringing into existence something that leads to something new and valuable for yourself or others. When something grows inside you and helps you develop, that's creativity. You can be full of ideas in everything you do, from housecleaning, waiting, taking care of the kids, working with your hobby, the garden, or fixing your car. You create because it helps you to survive. It makes you feel good, and it brings you joy. Creativity brings forth new combinations and ways of expressing your exclusive talents, skills, and experiences. Without creativity, there's a significant risk of becoming bored and losing your zest for life. The goal of creativity is to obtain pleasure and wholeness both physically and mentally.

Creativity starts inside you and what you create affects the world outside you. The act of creation blows open the portals to the improbable. You will unexpectedly get what you need to improve your talents, and "the studio shows up and moves into your kitchen." When you're in touch with your creativity, all your senses live in symbiosis with your surroundings. You become absorbed in the now, where the past and the future are of no interest. Mundane things become less important, and adversity is easily defeated.
Life is a lengthy performance of creativity in which you create every individual activity—sometimes through unconscious utterances and wishes. Invite new experiences into your life and be alert for things that want to be channeled through you. Resume old or forgotten interests again and see how they unknowingly have matured. When you decide to overcome your fear of "instruction manuals and technology," the chances of your creations becoming incarnated will increase. You are your own composer and can choose to abstain from playing someone else's work.

Release yourself from all your demands and strivings to be a new Beethoven to produce commercial progenies. An unpretentious passionate creation automatically generates equivalent success packages. On the other hand, you can plagiarize the techniques of other creative-labeled people. What composers, designers, authors, artists, and so on have in common is that they all exercise creativity. They do that by exploring, learning new things, and breaking barriers. They generate ideas, solve problems, and identify possibilities. These people are also open to receiving help and support to complement their Achilles' heels.

With more extensive senses, you perceive voices that need what you have at your disposal. You can trade resources and exchange "your piano for a synth," which better catalyzes your passion. Your creative training includes experimenting and making mistakes. Fire the Jante jury and be "exaggeratingly proud" of your work. Your unique creations deserve inspiring self-righteousness.

Dare to defy your old piano teacher's desires and listen to what your intuition is trying to tell you. Capitulate for apparent resistance and prepare to receive "the express deliveries of the universe."

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What is your creativity about?

What outlets do you have for your creativity?

What has scared you into creative silence?

When will you fire the "Jante jury?"

Which of your creations are you proud of?

Tips!
Choose the question/s that move or frustrate you. Decide what you will do to formulate an answer that will compel you into active action. If you find an answer, decide which activity you will carry out and set a time limit for when it is to be completed.

4.3 COMMUNICATION

EMBASSY-APHASIA

It is June 5, 2008, a few days after my application for a U.S. visa was denied. I spent the morning in Bläcktorns Park on the other side of the street. I am sitting on my friend's green couch and observe an irresistible monumental flat screen on the wall in front of me. I'm inspired to replace yesterday's unpleasant image of the American-born consul from the embassy who was unwilling to negotiate with me. I bravely pick up the scornfully glaring couple of remote controls lying on the table. I choose among the wide variety of buttons, pressing the green one, and hope for the best. It clicks, and I hear a voice that I've heard before. The voice that zooms in as the image fades out belongs to my early teenage favorite of the 70s, Cat Stevens. I hear the word "Philadelphia," and my body takes on a posture that would give a stick insect an inferiority complex to its race. I see the image of a stationary airplane and listen as Cat Stevens recounts how he was deported from the United States because he was labeled an inappropriate visitor as a Muslim.

Cat Stevens had been one of my favorite musicians. I had used my whole weekly allowance to buy his single "I can't keep it in." I wore out the single record on my rattly grey record player with the cleverly installed speaker in the lid. Now he was back in a documentary and told about how his situation had worked out and that he was free to "come and go as he wished." This was an encouraging delivery from the universe. I had been given the glimmer of hope I needed at the moment. I drowsily watch the rest of the documentary while surfing to find more information on Cat's experience. I also find my favorite song. 

 Oh, I can't keep it in, I can't keep it in
I've gotta let it out
I've gotta show the world, world's gotta see
See all the love, love that's in me

I said, "why walk alone, why worry when it's warm over here?"
You've got so much to say, say what you mean
Mean what you're thinkin', and think anything
Back in the '70s, these lyrics and the music had injected fuel into my romantic teenage dreams. Today the libretto presented a fresh perspective. This perspective makes me wonder why evolution equipped humans with language as the medium to convey messages. With its structural complexity, it’s an information-transmission channel that puts humanity in a communicative coma. 

Yesterday's visit to the embassy had been a strange performance. The visit had triggered the linguistic interpretation mechanism of the cerebrum, and my intentions had been translated into masterly verbal nonsense. I had reconciled myself with my exportation from Philadelphia and stepped into the diplomatic inspection to leave with a permit. While waiting for my interview, an unexpected nervousness emerged from my stomach. I became aware of how my pulse increased and how fear spread incredibly fast through my veins. When it was my turn to be interviewed, my central nervous system clicked into an anonymous sidetrack. 

Completely without interest in the consul's questions, I produced an abundantly oral rambling as I trowed a pile of documents on the counter. I had over-delivered an abundance of arbitrarily interpreted information. In my nearly criminal naiveté, I assumed that the man in front of me understood my interpretation. There had been a total confusion of terms. 

A mountain of misunderstandings had detonated into a massive verbal hailstorm. The interviewer had caught the fragments that landed closest to him. I had completely misinterpreted the consul's confusion, which had just increased the antagonism between us. I realized that my communication these past few years had passed through a mystical portal. My acquired language disorder had transformed my vocabulary into a pile of perfect neologisms of newly-created words and expressions. My personal truth was that "home" was no longer linked to a specific physical place. I" worked" when I walked along the beach. I took "time off" when I got stuck on a task that no longer amused me. "Rest" aroused when I created. The specially planned time for a "vacation" is something I experienced as a synthetic intermezzo. With some reflection, I would have understood that my concept would unconditionally confound the system's definitions and hardly fit into its forms. Moreover, I painfully realized that, with a dose of communicative and mental preparation, I would have been capable of manipulating my expressive aphasia. 

I long for a linguistic renaissance. I look forward to a new universal encyclopedia that removes all linguistic side-effects and enables my teenage idol's statement: "You've got so much to say, say what you mean, mean what you're thinking, and think anything."
Response & Transport

In all communication, something is transported to a recipient, who brings back some kind of response. Communication is a tool to express our feelings, desires, thoughts, and consciousness. We convey abstract concepts, concrete objects, actions, and ideas in our messages. Everything we think about that is not expressed verbally or in writing is transmitted through our other senses. The spoken language is only one medium in our structural communications system.

All our feelings, whether conscious or not, influence the outcome of our communication. What we perceive as intuition is information that has been conveyed to our senses. Intuition can be explained as information waiting for a response from our consciousness, which is the receiver.

Blockages in our organs of communication are often ego-related and originate from fears and negative experiences. The result of these blockages is that what we express is filtered, and the real message is distorted. You can learn techniques to facilitate transportation, but transparent communication arises from value-checking and a partnership with the ego.

Communication is the link to solutions for people on earth, and as evolution continues, we also need to change how we communicate. When you transform and change perspective, your interpretation of words and concepts also changes. If you speak without a traditional ego filter, the receiver can misunderstand you. We don't think common words such as " work" and "home" can have a totally different meanings for the receiver.

Everyone has the ability to reach a state of transparent communication. You can technically develop communication skills to avoid hurting and confusing others. Through self-control, you can practice and refrain from restraining your expressions. However, habitual communication techniques are insufficient for stable and safe conversations. How well you transport information through your physical communication organs depends on how connected you are to your consciousness. Transport and response depend on your connection speed the same way you send and receive information from the internet. High-speed internet facilitates and streamlines your communication.

Transparent communication means that you let your ego rest. You achieve friction-free communication by creating collaboration between your intuition, your brain, and your channels of verbal expression. Once you have learned to use your intuition, you will be more effective and deliver more information to your brain for processing.

We often focus on delivering our words without thinking about what the receiver actually grasps. The difficulty of understanding arises because an utterance can contain a long and complex message. When I was at the embassy and answered their questions about "work, home, and "vacation," I felt like I was telling lies and radiating a perfect definition of a liar.

The verbal communication was overridden by all the other senses of communication. This imbalance could have easily been prevented by preparations based on who the receiver was. With help from my logical brain, I could have prepared for my visit by programming in words and explanations that "the consul" had understood.

To be capable of receiving information, you need to stop listening to yourself. It's first, then you grasp the meaning of what is being conveyed. You often pretend to be listening by nodding, answering, and saying "yes" or "no." Listening is the art of being totally passive with others and yourself.

Another inevitable development stage that adjusts your communication is expanding your consciousness. This means listening and informing without having your own agenda or expecting a particular response. Without expectations, you can communicate on the receiver's terms. The trick is to put your values aside.

You develop this ability by being conscious of and controlling what triggers your ego to present your opinions. When your consciousness increases, you will be able to understand the underlying meaning of words. You will grasp the reason behind the visible expression and avoid intruding on other people's integrity.

Successful communication originates from respecting people's different frames of reference, experiences, and aims. It's about keeping the consultant in check rather than wanting to be everyone's teacher. Not all people are prepared to make their shortcomings visible, and they want to avoid confrontations. They are simply not ready to receive your loving advice. 5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

In which situations does your ego limit your communication?

How much do you allow your intuition to contribute?

In what way do you listen?

What is it that triggers your ego to convey your opinions?

How can you increase "the bandwidth" in your communication?

Tips!
Read the questions twice. Rephrase the questions so you can answer "yes" or "no." For example: "Does my ego trigger me to convey my opinions? Look at your answers and decide which "yes" you would like to turn into a "no" and which "no" you would like to change to a "yes." Once you're done, ask yourself: "What do I need to do to accomplish this?"

 

4.4 PATIENCE

CROCODILE AND RATTLESNAKES

SSee. Take. Pull." The mantra I had learned kept running through my thoughts. The white propeller-driven airplane buzzes like a tired, fat bumblebee. I sit on the floor, look out through the window and notice that we have left the ground. This is the fourteenth time I have questioned myself if the challenge is worth the price and made the severe promise, "I'll jump this time too, but then I'll never do it again." It will take 20 minutes before the aircraft has fought its way up to an altitude of 13 000 feet to free its cargo. The professional skydivers laugh and talk. I don't. I bitterly regret having once again fallen victim to my "just one more time."

It all started with an innocent jump where I hung securely from a tandem instructor's belly, entirely without responsibility for my survival. After the jump, my body had produced so many endorphins that I was "high" long enough to enroll in the "Accelerated Free Fall" intensive course. I wanted to get my certificate immediately.

Despite the warnings for Sweden's autumnal clouds, rain, and strong winds, I started my course at the jump site 100 miles north of Stockholm. Most of the time was spent on the ground with constant updates on windspeed wind and scouting for threatening clouds. The wait oscillated between the extremes of terror and euphoria that the wind would allow the students to jump. We passed the time by studying theory and practicing the program executed in a 60-second free-fall. There were weekends when I disappointedly had to go back home without a single jump. After two months, five jumps, and approaching winter, my impatience drove me to Florida.

I now sat with my unidentifiable fear and saw the jump site in Zephyr Hills disappear beneath me. My helmet sat firmly on my head, and my walkie-talkie was mounted over my ear. A precaution in case confused students landed outside the jump site—a zone encircled by swamps with crocodiles and forests with rattlesnakes. The wildlife didn't worry me. I trusted that the professional skydivers would drop me off at the right place, and I felt confident in my learned landing skills. After many attempts, I demonstrated that I could do backflips and 360 ° turns and would for the first jump without an instructor.

I was unable to find any logical explanation for my horror emotions. I had packed my parachute, which had been checked by a professional. A parachute that wouldn't unfold was on my shortlist of potential impossibilities. I wasn't worried about a parachute malfunction, and my reflex was etched into the reserve. Additionally, there was absolutely nothing to hurt yourself on in the air. Skydiving was safe. I could only trace my fear to a primitive inherited survival instinct with the message, "if you jump from high altitudes, you will kill yourself." My logic didn't make my fear any less accurate.

Diesel, the noise of the propeller, and the wind gust. The door is open. "Ready, steady, go!" I see the veteran and crazy jumpers gallantly swishing out, and I get ready. I stand at the door opening and face the back part of the plane. I hear the jumping command and take the step out. I am soon balancing on the air mat, and my happiness has now reached the same level as my previous fear. Every ten seconds, I look at my altimeter and rejoice inwardly at how I control my feelings, turns, and movements. When I am at 3600 feet, I give the sign that I'm about to pull my parachute.

"See. Take. Pull." The parachute unfolds, and I look up at the sky and assure myself that the lines aren't tangled. The last 3000 feet are transportation in total silence with a magnificent view. My euphoria is interrupted by the crackling in my walkie-talkie, and I hear the command: "Pull to the left until I tell you not to!" I'm disappointed that I don't get to do my jump without instructions, but the tone lets me know it's not a time to argue. "Pull to the right!" "Keep going straight!" "Put on the breaks!" "Turn left!" I'm approaching 600 feet and realize that the voice is trying to guide me to a soft landing in a forested area. I'm calm and jittery with curiosity about what it's like to land in a tree. My instructor says, "flare!" I pull the lines as hard as possible and hear branches breaking as I notice I made a perfect soft landing.

My parachute falls rustlingly quiet onto the crown of the tree above me. I'm only about 10 feet above the ground, so I gather up my parachute and climb down. I run towards the open field and am met by the jumpers' jeep. When my two instructors ask me if I'm okay, they face a voluminous, radiant smile.

Once back at the area, I pack my parachute and reflect on my jump. I exuberantly shared my emotional experience at the evening gathering and discovered that my instructors had picked me up with a loaded gun. I praised my naivety and ignorance of landing amongst rattlesnakes, and I yearned for the 15th challenge. "Just one more time!" Waiting & Trust

Patience is not an innate talent but a skill you need to learn. Patience involves waiting and can only be practiced when it includes a desire for something you want to have or experience. The essence of patience is the ability to control impulsive actions in anticipation of a better situation. It takes determination to wait without complaining and accepting annoying conditions like "high winds and heavy clouds." Patience is not about being apathetic, lazy, or doing nothing but an ingredient that helps you achieve productive results. It is an active action in self-control.

Untrained patience requires constant supervision to avoid triggering desperate actions. A glance at "the altimeter every ten seconds" tells you where you are so that you can pull your parachute at the right altitude. You develop your character when you choose to refrain from immediate rewards to harvest magnificently in the future. You spend hours "on the board" to make a controlled and enjoyable jump once you're in the air. When your desire is strong enough, you produce so much patience that you can wait for months to experience 60 seconds in free-fall.

Nothing grows strong if you're in such a hurry that your goals and plans never manage to grow strong. Your projects and your career remain modest without patience. Synchronicities fail to appear, and life continues to be a battle of doing things. With trust, patience helps you distinguish real resistance from temporary setbacks.

When patience is a natural ingredient, you achieve more perfection than you could ever dream possible, and life becomes extraordinary. With growing patience, you also develop more patience for others and what's happening around you. Your true treasure is trust, which takes care of the fear you feel before each new jump. With trust, you realize that logic can give you incorrect and confusing messages. The power of trust takes you to unknown and unexpected experiences. You are rewarded when you have waited in trust, and happiness will reach the same heights as the previous fear and frustration.

One way to practice patience is to be prepared for delays and see them as possibilities to organize upcoming tasks. Lie down "on the skateboard" and practice the program you will perform when you're up in the air and fly. By bringing joy when you wait, you automatically produce patience. There are possibilities to practice every day by adding patience to your everyday chores. Every difficult situation that arises is an opportunity to practice patience. Trust your ability that you are trained "to land." As a student, you should rely on qualified professionals to help you "check that your parachute is packed." Sometimes you also need to jump even if you're afraid, but with trust, you can do it anyway.

Program in a command so that you react reflexively under challenging situations. Look before you act, and then take a firm grip on the circumstances before you "pull your parachute" and allow yourself to fly. Once you've initiated activities that bring you towards your goal, lift your eyes and check for possible malfunctions. Despite your patience and meticulous preparations, you may encounter the unexpected and get entangled. A malfunction can be devastating if you're inattentive and don't rectify the situation in time. Once you're in the air, you can only practice trust and enjoy the adventure.

Sometimes the situation drops you off at the wrong place, but you will land softly, even in a tree, thanks to your patient preparations. If you have trust, it doesn't matter if rattlesnakes are on the ground. You just walk away happy. Regardless of how hard you think the waiting was and no matter how many promises you made to yourself, the feeling of "just once more time" will be your motivation.

 

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

How do you take control of your compulsive behavior?

What can you do to see delays as possibilities?

How would your life change if you were more patient?

How can you add patience to your daily chores?

In what ways can you refrain from immediate rewards?

Tips!
Choose the question you think would have the most desirable impact on your life. Create a "project" based on that question. Establish concrete goals, activities, and a timetable for how you will reach your goal.

4.5 ACTION

UNCLE SVEN IS DEAD

I pick up an archived experience that is dated January 2, 2008. An old, unfinished article popped up in my memory that day. I thought about the article but wanted nothing to do with it. It was one of those painful, unfinished things. I recall that I had been pleased with the first few lines. But I also remember the frustrating displeasure of not continuing the topic and finishing the article. Afraid of letting my annoyance get a hold of me, I still sought out the article and read it: 

A few years ago, I visited my old duck pond when an elderly relative passed away. I am sitting in my mother's kitchen, and the obituary is lying on the kitchen table with the green tablecloth. I'm surprised by the absurd fact of my thought processes on the upcoming inheritance. Looking at the obituary, I realize that the only time most people write an ad about themselves is to tell people that they don't exist anymore. The death announcement becomes the first, last, and only marketing they spend on themselves. Even if the deceased's relatives take care of the copy and original, it is nonetheless from the dead's bank account that the bill is paid. Another strange phenomenon is that relatives and friends show appreciation for the deceased by talking about how sad they are that Uncle Sven is gone. I, too, am part of the group in the ad labeled"Nephews and Nieces.

Who was Uncle Sven? I'd forgotten. He was born, grew up, and lived in the same house where he died. The image of Sven that comes to my mind is from my early childhood. Uncle Sven is standing in the doorway on his way out. He is dressed in his green-blue barn wear and rubber boots with dried manure on the toes and soles. Sven is laughing. He has probably just delivered one of his jokes that I never understood but always laughed at. That made Sven happy. I liked to make people happy. Grandma is standing at the kitchen sink. She is short, has a crooked spine, and her black hair is done in a bun. It remained a secret to me how long her hair was. Grandpa sits at the kitchen table, staring out the window as always. No one talks very much at Uncle Sven's place. 
What struck me when I read "the unfinished article" was that it was complete. There was nothing more to add. I felt my stress over my unorganized folders with ideas, half-written books, and musical pieces dissolved and were replaced with a curious question. How much of the unfinished is completed and just waiting to be manifested? I longed to credit my "should account" and move the records to an asset account. My hubris over the cushy "should account" normalized when the real messages of the article arrived. At the end of the text, I had inserted the following questions: 

- If you decide to advertise something, what do you choose to advertise? 
- What do you have to share with others? 
- What do others want from you? 
- What would you like to receive from others? 
- Where and how would you like to live? 
Decisions & Completions

Action is about finding your inner nature and expressing your creativity through what you do. It is your actions that determine what your story will look like. You decide if you want to "stare out the window" or be an active part of the outside world. A strong desire is insufficient to create what you want. It's through performance that ideas and dreams become a reality. You take responsibility for your importance when materializing your intentions and making them take shape in the physical world. Among those responsibilities is carrying out deeds you are prepared for and trained to perform. Therefore, many actions require a systemizing of your knowledge and experiences.

All development processes have different phases, from a deep, inner desire to an active completion. Completion often includes confrontations with phenomena you have avoided. A reconciliation can result in "Grandma releasing her hair and showing what is hidden behind the well-made knot." It's all about knowing when it's time to get out of mental silence and return to practical work.
Accepting unselfish and generous ownership of your creations is a universal challenge. Generosity includes managing what belongs to you and demanding that you reap the reward of your labor. Your action also means that you focus on details and are loyal to the projects you've started. These dividends provide you with abundance, so you have the resources to exercise generosity.

When you put an idea into action, it's time to see if it corresponds with your assumptions. If the idea is right, your internal energy explodes, and your passion drives you to weightlessly pursue your plans. Your determination to complete things prevents your brain from creating emotional demons of failure and abandoning activities before starting. Your productions establish variation and enjoyable frames of reference in your life.

When you take responsibility in a balanced way, you get access to your power. Your decisions make you proud of your individuality and strengthen your integrity. Your intensity equips you with charisma, which attracts what you want. Self-respect removes barriers, drives away undesirable circumstances, and creates the courage to turn creative ideas into actions. Your self-esteem allows you to make mistakes and forgive.

With a forgiving attitude, you welcome adversity because you know that's how breakthroughs are made. When mistakes stop haunting you, a false sense of security has taken place in your life. Bloopers that have failed to appear signify that you have started building a new duck pond. At such times it's your job to call for further mistakes.

You gain control and avoid undermining forces by enriching your actions with structure. Organized symmetry guarantees effectiveness and maximizes dividends on your efforts. Also, it allows you to take one step at a time and distribute your energy wisely.

Review your projects and be aware of what needs your immediate attention. Make a list of unfinished business and take care of them immediately. If you need to change a situation, ruthlessly replace the word "if" with "when" and execute. Activities that are placed in an indefinite order cause stress and discomfort.
Write off your already dead projects and liquidate the ones you consider to lack the potential to survive. Give away ideas that have greater possibilities for development in someone else's care. For the rest of your creations, make a time-locked box. There is where you place projects labeled with activity ban at a well-defined time in the future. Some projects can sit for years and mature before it's time to convert them into a physical format. These plans can be ready to launch but only waiting for the right environment to emerge. Using this "time-lock box" strategy, you ease your conscience and don't have to decide whether to go ahead or abandon your plans. What is left are the projects that will get your complete attention. You can handle all your projects in the same way, regardless of what they're about: dieting, changing careers, writing a book, cleaning, raising kids, or starting a business.

Another category of actions is the expression of emotions. Be quick to formulate your state of mind and take the consequences of your actions. Use all the methods and knowledge you have when you end up in a crisis or when you know what you want. Create and build things with alternative exits. Limitations interrupt productivity. Use aggressiveness when you need to get to the root of a problem or find the key to a solution. Be prepared to fight for what's important to you.

Make quick decisions and take action to get things done. Through immediate action, your timing will always be right. Be proud of your successes and what you have accomplished. Make decisions so that the universe can instantly deliver your new future. Your actions determine if you or your nephew will write and design the ad for your life.

5 POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Do you need more mistakes in your life?

What projects need your attention right now?

What projects will you write off or liquidate?

What projects can you put in a time-lock box?

What does your future look like?

Tips!
Choose the question that seems most challenging to answer. Do what's necessary to find the answer.

ARE YOU STUCK WITH A DUCK?

PART V
Enter-anxiety and 
Winnie-the-Pooh-syndrome



 

It is November 27, 2008. I am stunned. I have just read through the table of contents for this book and discovered that there is just one more chapter left to write—the last. I stare at the previous chapter about decisions and completion. Shocked, I realize I have reached a point where I will complete something. There are no legitimate excuses to put this off, and I have no more "important" things that need to be done. Moreover, I have made it to a place on Earth that has intoxicated me with new energy and motivation. Still, I'm filled with fear. I have no idea how it will end.

The crows' vigorous flapping of their wings makes the coconut-filled palms rustle. In the distance, I hear a trumpeting elephant, and by the neighbor's table, there is a wailing, thin, Siamese-looking white cat that wants a piece of her breakfast. The sun is high in the sky, and the tropical heat forces me into the shade.

A week ago, I sat with a Kingfisher beer and gazed out over the Indian Ocean. The local waiter gave me a lecture about the vision that this beer would become an international favorite. Both the chair and the beer were longed for. The balance exercise of saying "no" with a smile to the local vendors was a test of mental strength. My calves were on their way to numb after hours of walking in my new surroundings. Baga Beach filled my limited energy reserves with curative fuel.

Seven days have passed, and I have been disciplined and devoted myself to the purpose of my trip. To complete. Everything worked well until the moment arose for the inevitable final chapter. I realized then that I had been afflicted by "enter-anxiety." This is an unconditioned hit-and-run reflex that attacks me when everything is almost done, and all I have to do is press the "enter button" to complete. Just when my hand is in the air, something dreadfully significant usually appears. When I return to my project to complete it, the unfinished task has fermented into a monstrous, fire-breathing dragon.

For seven days, I have managed to keep my enter-anxiety alive by all sorts of inconsequential doings. The mechanisms of repression have cleverly placed the last chapter in my oblivion archive. The code to my memory loss is in the Table of Contents and in the heading marked with three big X. I dig in my heels, but it's too late. I have already seen what the previously sealed portal had obscured. There is no end. I have no explosive epilogue.

My enter-anxiety worsens as my mind tries to get a hold of a good or preferably a perfect ending. In my upset state, I question if there are any ideal endings. I start to speculate about what an ending is. When do you know that something's finished? Is there really something that can end?

It flashes, and a brilliant idea emerges. I will go out and search for the ending tomorrow. I will take my flip-flops with the thick soles and stroll around on unvisited grounds. I will be an observer and look for the story that will formulate the perfect ending. It's a reliable method that I know works, especially for finding new inspiration and information. The technique has been an excellent procedure for me to discover, for example, new books. It has always been exciting to step into a bookstore and wait for which book to "shout at" me.

I've come out with books that have turned my thinking upside-down, books that I would never have deliberately chosen but scornfully rejected. Books have fallen on me that have perfectly fit a particular present context. One such episode occurred when I stumbled into Borders in New York—the overly well-stocked range bookstore on Broadway 100 years ago. I went upstairs, walked up to the shelf, and grabbed a copy of the book "Science and Akashic Field by Ervin Laszlo," to me, an unknown author. On the first flip, I found a sentence that added a motivating detail for me. The Hungarian philosopher and scientist said that there are two ways to reach a conclusion:
One way is to start with the flow of one's conscious experiences and see what kind of world one can logically obtain from this experience. The second way is to gather all the information one can about the world at large and then see if one can explain one's own experience in that world.

The statement challenged me to use the accumulated research, observations, experiences, dreams, challenges, and philosophized connections to do something more than occupy megabits on my computer.

I hear a suffering meowing at my feet. Breakfast has been served: a mushroom and cheese omelet, toast with strawberry jam, coffee, orange juice, and a big bottle of water. In the middle of my first bite, the blue infinity sign on an old Swedish supermarket bag flashes by my eyes. I forget to crush the toast and put down my fork with its egg-filled mushroom piece. "If it is the case that there is only infinity, then it should be fruitless to search for an end!" In less than a millisecond, I understand that my enter-anxiety is about to be joined by the Winnie-the-Pooh syndrome. I adopted this syndrome from one of my clients and have passed it on to hundreds of students. Now I had to pass it on to myself.

Christopher Robin meets Pooh one day. Pooh looks sad. Christopher Robin asks, "Why are you so sad, Pooh?" 
 "I can't find anything," says Pooh. 
 "No?" says Christopher Robin. "And what are you looking for?"
Pooh turns around, looks surprisingly at Christopher Robin, and exclaims, "well, I don't know!"

My desperate idea to go out and get the ending transforms into something less genial. There's a massive difference between searching for something without knowing what it is and being open to what wants to be delivered.

Desperate greediness has probably never existed in the universe's warehouse. The paradoxes wondrous crusade comes knocking. I knew what I was looking for all of a sudden. Unconsciously I had found it. The endorphins come to life and fill the system with unquenchable happiness. The ending was finished, and it had been completed all along.

The word "finish" brings my thoughts to apathetic Åsa. With her passion for finishing, she had lovingly tortured me and my weakness to complete things. I met her a few weeks ago and got a short version of what "happened afterward." The last reflections in her evolutionary journey had been pulverized into activity atoms. She told me that she had resigned from her job and started her own business. As part of her new life, she had gone to Arizona to study shamanic teachings. Åsa also told me she was overjoyed to come home to the Nordic grey climate with its fresh, oxygen-full air. She expressed her happiness over being born in her physical power spot. A new thread of thoughts started to vibrate.

I look up and squint at the sun. In contrast to the staring, cawing crows, the big birds have taken the stage in the sky. Every day I'm just as exhilarated over being able to study these four eagle-like creatures soaring in circles over the area. They make both a powerful and humble impression simultaneously. These magnificent winged beings are followed by other smaller birds that seem to use them as guides to their food. It's mighty to study birds of prey when they hunt—to observe how they, from 300 feet altitude, discover their target on the ground and, with a few beats of their mighty wings, find the wind that takes them back up again. With their outstretched wings completed with decorative black finger feathers, they give the impression of owning the sky.

My computer needs a power refill, so I'm packing up. I walk past the bar to pay for my breakfast. While waiting for the unoccupied waiter, I glanced at the TV. "Breaking News." I recognize the pictures of the Hotel Taj Mahal in Mumbai. The text loop in English says something about terrorism and several people's deaths. I realize that there has been an attack. I ask the bartender to change to an English-speaking channel. No problem. The female Indian reporter is soon drowned out by a male chanting Hindu priest behind me. For a few moments, the current attack in Mumbai transmuted my problem with enter-anxiety and Winnie-the-Pooh syndrome to micro-sized. The moving image on the TV evokes a feeling of being a meaningless micro-effect on a macro-market.

Out of the blue, I get a picture of Siddhartha Gautama in my head. He's my idol because of his masterful qualities. I'm fascinated by the wealthy prince's determination to find out why he, who had everything, was still unhappy. Buddha's way of practicing patience to find the answer makes me a little jealous. I'm also full of admiration over how focused he was after his enlightenment to find one person who understood what he had experienced. One person who could help him pass on his insights. My thoughts about Gautama's work take me back to my conviction that every being can have a macro effect. It is life-affirming to realize that a single individual can make a difference in the world for thousands of years.

I put 200 Indian rupees on the bar counter and experienced a more true fear of the black, slender snake slithering by my feet than of the unreal scenario in Mumbai.

Back home on my balcony, I look out over the guitar-shaped pool and return to my peaceful micro-world and my thoughts about power places. Power places are areas where we naturally are the best we can be. Some physical sites and elements nurture our potential. There is also a mental place that is more powerful and would win in a contest between power places. Both of these can coexist in harmony without competition—a phenomenon that I got reminded of when I opened my apartment door in Imperial Beach, California, one morning.

I heard an intense splashing in the pool and was curious to see what was causing the ruckus. When I looked out, I noticed that Mr. and Mrs. Duck had landed in the water. Amused, I watched Mrs. Duck swim around in the pool and observed Mr. Duck flapping as he was about to jump into the pool.

A little uptight after my "There's-a-duck- in-the-pool-experience," I wondered what the duck couple was trying to tell me. The answer came quickly: There are ducks everywhere. I was immediately transferred to the swan that had lived on the same island as me. That swan had always swum graciously alongside the ducks without appearing to be troubled by their presence. Occasionally, when the ducks had become too numerous or come too close, the swan had just calmly swum away in a different direction.

My motivation to return to my power place, California, remains, but the "duck experience" resulted in my ability to enjoy "everywhere" as a beautiful place with possibilities. However, my frustration over waiting, together with the Swedish fall darkness, had evoked a scenario of a total not-doing. The symptoms had awakened movement withdrawal which took control and took me to a place that felt natural to return to. There had been a spontaneous passion for traveling to this mystical, beautiful, chaotic country in the East. The purpose of the trip was to complete and find the ending to my book, but I was surprised.

There never was a "final chapter" to discover. Endings don't exist. An ending is just presented causal connections that have shaped the moment. Endings are a collection of reflections summarizing several events and experiences that have created the present. An ending is a short pause in existence that brings to consciousness what is available for the future—a future that functions as a magnet and driving force for life itself. An ending is only a stop that allows conscious choices about the next step.

I look up at the sky. One of the enormous birds is on its way north and approaches my balcony. I manage to get out my camera and take a picture. When he passes me, he's so close and at an altitude that I can see right into his eye. "Free birds fly!" Through the large black pupil, the bird of prey conveys that it's time to leave the ducks and swans behind. A new beginning just flew by.

Four chapters, four years, and four continents. The project is complete, and I send my happy thoughts to a young, ambitious man in Philadelphia. What completed projects have in common is that they seem so obvious. It's as if they have always existed, and we wonder why they took so long and cost so much. At the same time, we feel unconditionally that they were worth every effort.

In front of the guitar-shaped pool in northern Goa, that's exactly how I feel: it was worth everything. Tomorrow I'll put on my flip-flops with the thick soles on, and I won't search for anything. The now is perfect—once you've found it.

PS
Convinced that I was ready with and protected against enter-anxiety, my temptation and curiosity became too great. Given how other winged creatures have helped me, maybe the eagle-like bird had something more to say. I snuck away to the Internet Café and found a message to us:

"The Eagle teaches you to look higher and to touch Grandfather Sun with your heart—to love the shadows as well as the light. See the beauty in both and you will fly like the eagle." — From Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carlson.

 

 

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE

As you have learned from this book, it's possible to get free from limitations, be in charge and go for your dreams. Furthermore, old collective conceptions will be replaced because the crowd—people like you—who want to move the human race forward is growing. A "new normal" is closer than ever before, so let's catch this wave and move into a beautiful future together. 

"Are You Stuck With A Duck?" is happy to be released from its Swedish undercover name, "Free Birds Fly." And since there are no endings, the book is ready for a sequel and has delivered its next title; "F... Ducks. At least it's the working title. The next book is for those ready to evolve and eager to contribute to making this planet a beautiful place.

I sincerely hope you will ask big questions that will empower you to follow your calling./Birgitta.

 
What is your piece in the bigger picture? 
What's the meaning of your life?
What are you supposed to do?
What's your importance in the world?
What universal impact do you have to offer to the world?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Birgitta Granstrom is a trailblazer, Coach Trainer, Self-Coaching Expert, and the Founder of LifeSpider System™. This new life philosophy challenges old psychology, philosophies, religion, and new-age theories and provokes established social structures.

In Sweden, Birgitta is a pioneer in the coaching industry and was the founder of the first ICF Accredited Coach training and the president of the ICF Nordic in Stockholm. 

LifeSpider System™ is built upon  25+ years of experience teaching and coaching ten thousand clients and 30.000 hours of research in philosophy, religion, quantum physics, and metaphysics phenomena. 

Birgitta was a digital nomad for several years to free the time to finalize LifeSpider System™, which became an Academy with four Certifying Coaching Programs. Today she aims to unite “The Weird Ones” to ensure they expand their universal impact and begin to co-create for a nonconforming future.

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