motivation

Hi Dimples,

Bren: "I can see why you would wonder if coming to the realization that you are already loveable and worthy might lessen your drive for self improvement"

I often think about the nature of motivation in relation to Real Love.  I've always felt like I've been a person who does what he wants... but since I learned about the nature of Real Love, I've put all of my behaviors on notice in terms of questioning if I've ever really done anything because I truly wanted it in a Real Love kind of way.  I'm sure I have in certain cases... but I'm also sure I haven't as well.  The problem is knowing the difference... because I don't feel like I've ever really known what Real Love truly feels like, so it's impossible to know if I have the judgement necessary for self-assessment about it.  That seems like an easy statement to understand... but possibly not, and I'll explain why... and also why it is important to think about.

Dr. Baer himself describes many times how unloving behavior can "trump" loving behavior every time... demonstrating that loving behavior, by definition, must be absolute to be lastingly effective.  One such description is where he says that if he behaves lovingly to a person for five hours and then in the last five minutes he runs around with a knife screaming aggressively a them, the only really important thing that the person subjected to this will remember, emotionally speaking, is the five minutes of unloving behavior.

With this "trump" principle in mind, I suggest that the only way to know what Real Love truly feels like is to be immersed in it without any possibility of that being trumped.   While it is possible to find a wise person with whom I can have an "interaction" with where there will be no trumping... this is, by comparison, a very small impact on the severely unloving experiences I am surrounded by at all other times.

Overcoming the trump effect, in my mind, is the most difficult challenge anyone can face... particularly when the only real "guarantee" of a consistent wise person interaction is to hire one... and this becomes exponentially important when money is at issue, as may be the case with "Dimplestodiefor" if I have sensed their situation correctly ( in present day society, intellectual disabilities... even if they are only temporary... are a potential death sentence ).   I can relate to the feelings I hear "Dimplestodiefor" expressing in terms of it seeming like an insurmountable challenge and extremely slow road.  "RLL Stacey" says to work at it "one bit at a time".  For myself personally, it looks like this... I don't feel that I have the skills or education to consistently earn more than minimum wage at present.  As "Dimplestodiefor" is learning, seeking worthiness through self-improvement is a backwards game.  However, establishing a true belief in one's own worthiness still requires self-improvement... and that process has a cost... in both Real Love and "real" money.  If a person has no currency to work with, in either form, then they are literally trying to get make something out of nothing... which doesn't really feel like a "one bit at a time" approach... it feels more like trying to achieve a miracle.  Ironically, if I believed in miracles in the first place, I likely wouldn't have self-worthiness issues.

If I consider my Real Love "education" to be equivalent to the more common forms of intellectual education available through university and colleges and such, then I could say that I am akin to a student of one of those institutions who has no financial support behind me and must pay my own way by taking whatever jobs I must to simultaneously pay my living expenses AND my education expenses ( the cost of RL material and a coach ).  Since Real Love is not recognized as formal education, it is unlikely that I can get financial support that other students have access to ( ie. student loans, grants, etc )... meaning that it is necessary to entirely raise the necessary resources for it from scratch.  If a minimum wage job isn't enough consistent income to fund such an educational project in an ongoing way, then "RLL Stacey's" "one bit at a time" becomes a very literal thing... that it will have to move forward whenever I am able to save enough to allow that to happen.  This seems fine, except that the one serious Real Love educational resource, a coach, is contracted and paid in one month chunks at a minimum... and the cost of it is close to the cost of rent.  I'm not complaining about the necessity for coaching to be properly compensated... I'm observing a difficult "situation" that needs some brainstorming to figure out... that this one resource, coaching, which I believe is the MOST important, is also the least accessible to those that most need it... those with intellectual/financial deficits.  I'm interested in finding solutions to this.

In the traditional educational system, the way to address this would be through social support systems... such as labeling people as "disabled" ( ie. "low income" ) in some way which then enables them to display that "badge" and get discounts or financial support and such.  I don't particularly like that approach, but I can learn to put my feeling aside for something that works.

Coaching, in my mind, is an inseparable element of human learning.  I love the way the RL coaching service is structured and understand the justification for it.  I'm simply observing that coaching, in my mind, is the single most important resource above all the other materials because it is actual focused contact with another person in real time.  The indirect material ( books, videos, audios, teleconferences, this forum, etc ) are all valuable in their own way, but I believe those are "passive" resources meant to support an "active" resource... which is a live mentor.  As I said already... I believe live mentorship... a "coach"... is an inseparable element of truly effective human learning.  I believe that until a coach is a mandatory element accessible by everyone, the concept of Real Love remains in "critical condition" in terms of it's effectiveness.  I observe that these forums, at one point, were also a paid service and they are now free... so I recognize that there is progress towards what I'm talking about... and I know it's not an impossible goal, so I have hope.

For now, thanks for all the efforts that already achieved results towards this goal... I am able to write this because of them.  To those reading this who feel like they are victims of the situation, I empathize... but remember it's a "situation", not a malicious act intended to hurt us.

Love,
Cory

RL has made most everything available for little or no cost -- one can borrow RL books and DVDs from the library or purchase them for a very reasonable cost), one can watch hours of Greg Baer's excellent videos online for free, one can call into the conference calls most every day of the week and interact (live) with a coach. one can make daily RL calls to wise men and women for free.

*** Yes, I've been taking advantage of all of these since Oct 2011.  The vast amount of free archived media and services has been an amazing resource, and I'm astounded and grateful for the forethought it took to build it into what it is today.


If you haven't listened-in on a conference call, I would highly recommend it. There are so many repeat callers that it's like its own little RL community. The coach allows everyone to check in and for those that request it, they are given the floor later to tell their truths and get feedback from the coach or any other on the call that might have something to add.  What I've learned from being on conference calls is hearing other people stories that are very similar to mine. That made me feel less alone and I could also learn from their experiences.

*** Conference calls have been less useful for me personally.  I'm just not at a place yet where it has been able to work for me.  I made two attempts... the first ended up being an empty line that I waited on for about 15 minutes (no one else logged into the conversation, not even a coach... strange)... the second time I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in the conversation.  I need more focused one-to-one time and don't yet know how to get that without committing to the minimum monthly price of a coach, which I'm procrastinating about (interesting... I just wrote another message responding to someone else about THEIR procrastination and found some use for myself in doing so... we'll see how that percolates in me ;-).


Yes, if one has the resources an intervention with Greg Baer and/or a private coach can certainly speed one's RL journey along. At the same time, I'm thrilled and amazed that RL has made such a wealth of resources available for free (or very close to it).

*** Agreed.


Time spent interacting with the coaches on conference calls and daily calls to wise men and women is what you term "active", in real time, and also very effective. ....a highly recommended means of learning RL.

*** I have a feeling this may tie into my desire to see drama used with RL.  Bear with me... this next paragraph is completely indulgent in an intuitive kind of way... I'll call it "wordflow".  I don't expect a reply to it or expect anyone to read or absorb it... I share it as-is.

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This spring, I had visions and various thoughts about the number 3 and triangles.  Whenever I exposed myself to Real Love material and the element of "3" happened to come up at the same time, it seemed very "right".  Three is the natural genetic number that constitutes a family (two parents and a child).  In geometry, the strongest known physical arrangement of matter is a triangle... a structure consisting of three points arranged in such a way that every point shares an equal and unique relationship with every other point.  When a triangle is extended from two dimensions to three, it becomes a three sided pyramid... which, again, has the same characteristic that all the points share equal and unique connecting relationships with all other points (of which there are now four... a significance that has yet to become clear in relation to the number 3 theme, other than that it is in "3" dimensions).

While these thoughts, at first, seem very "magical" and esoteric, they are founded on basic solid and provable physics... and so they simply reveal a potentially usable "recipe" already in "hidden" existence for foundational strength with anything in the universe... including human relationships since they have a physical component to them.  I'd like to explore the concept of a three person Real Love mini-group.  Two of the three need to be coaches... like a parental triangle.  This would guarantee that the third person... the "child"... is immersed in RL... a situation that appears to be a basic and critical building block that has been missing in society as we know it for longer than we seem able to comprehend.  All of our known relationships and everything those relationships have manifested is based on a weakened triangle at the core... a weakened "relational DNA" strand.

So how do these thoughts relate to the use of drama with RL?  Well... Apprenticeship is already a well established systematic method of practical learning... learning through real practice of a skill within the guidance of an established Mentor.  My thinking is that combining Real Love Coaching with Drama can potentially turn Real Love Coaching into something that can be practiced in an Apprentice-able fashion that can guarantee more effective results without creating any permanently damaging trauma in the process.  Drama is a tool for understanding and empathizing with human emotions.  If the tool is used properly, it allows a person to experience an emotion without being permanently affected in an undesired way by it. 

So, here's an example of the vision I've had about this.  A Real Love Coaching mini-group could look like this...  Three people in total... the first is an established and proven Professional Real Love Coach (The Mentor), the second is a Coach in Training (The Apprentice), and the third is a person seeking Real Love help (The Seeker).  The Mentor's participation is paid in the same manner and amount that Real Love Coaching is structured with currently, except for where that payment comes from.  The Apprentice pays the cost of having the guidance of the Mentor as part of their Real Love Coaching education.  Since the Mentor's fee is covered by the Apprentice, Seekers get subsidized access to an RL coaching service... and their participation in such a "triangle" also contributes to the creation of more Mentors.

The specific role that Drama plays in this is the application of it as a focused tool for helping a Professional Mentor more effectively assist an Apprentice and a Seeker "feel" things, thereby making the time spent in such a triangulated relationship more productive.  Part of the reason this is important is because the number TWO has been such an affecting concept for society for so long.  "Couples" and "Coupling" has been viewed, both economically and emotionally, as a critical element of survival... and so it is embedded deeply within our collective and individual psyche as a necessity, so that we end up instinctively craving the exclusive attention and collaboration of only ONE other human being in our lives.  While it is useful to look inward to the self... the "one"... as a way to change this, it is also useful to simultaneously go in the opposite direction... to start relating in "three's" instead of "two's" as a baby step towards learning how to effectively participate in relationships that contain more than two people.  I relate to this element very strongly... I am, by nature it seems, a "one-to-one" person (due, in part, I believe, by being raised primarily by one parent).  If I don't get focused one-to-one attention from another human being, I have trouble empathizing, relating and collaborating with others.  I know I am not alone with this characteristic... in fact, I suggest that it is becoming (or has already become) an increasingly dominant characteristic in society.  My experience with my second Real Love Conference Call (referred to earlier in this message) is an example.  I felt easily lost and left out even when the coach facilitating the call did their job and let everyone check in.  I realize I won't necessarily always feels this way, but if it is different in the short term, it would likely be due only to my own desperate perseverance or the extra ability and/or generosity of someone else... in other words... it would happen by chance, not because of good planning.  A suggestion like the Real Love Mini-Group may make this kind of thing possible now... as well as consistently repeatable.

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Occasionally, but infrequently, I've also gotten the 'empty line, no one else there' when I've called into a conference call. I've just hung up and redialed and managed to connect with the folks on the call.

*** Thanks.  Good to know ;-)