It's not me, its you

Being more myself can get me into "trouble" with Joe Kou's friends and co-workers.

Speaking more as myself and less as who I allowed myself to be within the limitations of being Joe Kou, i find myself less and less concerned with reactions or even repercussions from others around me.

Really... I could care less. I truly and self honestly do not give a fuck. That is... when I am speaking as who I really am. Sometimes the Joe Kou syndrome kicks in and I start to edit my words so that I don't "offend" anyone... but when I am myself speaking my Living Words as an expression of my self honest being... I speak me, fearlessly.

And it is always interesting the reactions. Oh boy... those twisted, furrowed eyebrows, the faces agape with disbelief, the blank "i'm going to pretend i understand" expressions, and those "I can't believe you think that! How could you think that?!"

Why do I enjoy these reactions from people? It's because they are seeing something inside themselves which they are not honest about, and are confronting it by confronting me. So really, it's not me, it's them. I was only a mirror reflecting aspects of themselves.

And so, when I have reactions to people, I see it as them being mirrors for me, showing me what parts of me as Joe Kou are still hanging around, what parts of my limited and mentally programmed self are still operating.

So the next time you hear me say "FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK!" don't get angry. It's not you, it's me.

Regrets? I've had a few

Regret is interesting... you know that there is nothing fun about having regrets... and you always know when you're going to regret something... and when you finally DO regret something you wonder why you ever allowed yourself to do or not do something which caused this regret.

Quite a fuck-up.

I regret a few things... but these things will have to be faced again. That's just how it works. Regrets NEVER dissipate or go away. Time does NOT heal this wound. It is with you because it becomes you, and you so completely manifest it's expression that you are no longer aware that it's still here, as you, in this very moment.

Everything... all of what you regret... is HERE, right NOW, as your very being. That being the case, your regrets are bound to loop back and hit you in the face... and you'll once again be standing before a moment where you can either confront the regret from your past and break the cycle... or you will wallow in your regret and do nothing... allowing the guilt to compound and hit you twice as hard next time.

What you have accepted and allowed in your past is NOT in your past. It's HERE. And until you deal with it, it will remain here with you no matter how far you think you've buried it.

I regret letting my fears get the best of me. I regret seeing things and knowing things that many people are not aware of and being too afraid to speak openly. I regret accepting limitations and fears within myself. I regret always giving up on myself and anything I care about because I have judged myself so harshly.

Till here, no further.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live in regret so much that it has become my very expression.

I forgive myself that I have not allowed myself to stand up and face myself in honesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to remain inactive while I know I must take action.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself as "regretful"

I forgive myself that I have defined myself as being LESS THAN my regrets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to to regret my failures.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeat my failures over and over because I believe that I am a failure and cannot succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live in dishonesty with myself.

I forgive myself that I have allowed dishonesty and regret to be the directive principle of my being instead of directing myself as myself in full honesty here in every moment of NOW.

I forgive myself that I have not allowed myself to release my past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to chain myself to my past, to my failures, and to my regrets so that I repeat them over and over, compounding my fear that this will always be "the way things are for me".

I forgive myself that I have not allowed myself to realize that regret is not about the past... because the past is HERE, because I am still living in that past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that "I cannot change things. I am not good enough to change things."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid of standing up and expressing my self HERE in full honesty regardless of what people may think of me.

I am the VOID! Mwhahahahaha

For a long time now, I as Joe Kou had been in a process to "discover" myself... and trying to fill a "void" within me.

I did not know what this void was, or where it came from... but I felt it. It was that feeling inside of me when I saw honestly what was going on in the world... that feeling that was showing me "this is NOT the way."

This nagging "void" was an emptiness... it was like a question mark hanging over me which nobody else seemed to see. It seemed to be my personal "burden".

I dug into the topics of metaphysics, parapsychology, occultism, spirituality, and ancient wisdom traditions... all in an effort to find a way to fill up this void.

There would be brief moments of apparent "clarity", as though I had found a key into unlocking the bubbling mystery inside me... but none of it has ever lasted more than a month or so. After such epiphanies I returned to that state of emptiness... and again the weight of that invisible question mark hung upon my shoulders.

What I now realize is that the void... the "emptiness"... the unanswerable question... is who and what I really AM, and truly was... through the entire time of me being Joe Kou.

I am the one that knows "this is not the way". I am the one that is living within and as that very question of how things got this way and what can be done to "get it back on track"?

I as Joe Kou did not realize at the time that Joe Kou was the illusion all along.

And so, some application here

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for meaning and reason OUTSIDE of myself instead of standing up within and AS the things I was seeking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge the experience of this inner voice as something "bad" which had to be gotten rid of.

To Meat or not to Meat, that is the question

Vegetarianism.

Ick.

I seem to have some issues with words that end in "ism". I'll have to do some self forgiveness on that... but at this moment I'm communicating about my take on eating meat vs. not eating meat.

My perspective is that we are all one... everything... and I mean EVERYTHING. The issue comes with the "mind" that "thinks" itself separate from everything, and in doing so is able to "define" itself by comparison.

That said... the same applies to the foods I eat. For the moment, I am required to sustain myself with food. Maybe one day human beings will discover a method of living that does not require us to consume anything... but at this moment I must eat.

If indeed I must eat, then I appreciate the food, which is ME, supporting me in this moment by providing nourishment to my body. I do this regardless of whether or not any meat is in the meal I am eating, because I am really just eating MYSELF... as my perspective is still that we are all one. And so I eat in gratefulness of myself supporting myself.

However... I now avoid eating meat whenever it is possible. I do not stop eating meat altogether because at the moment I still have to have some now and then just to balance things out in my body as it adjusts to the new diet.

I am NOT doing this for health reasons. I am NOT doing this because it shows what a "green" person I am.

I do this because the meat comes from an animal expression... and I consider that animal expression to be equal and one with me. To eat the meat, the animal must die... it's life must end and usually the animal goes through abuse, torture, and excruciating physical pain if the meat is "processed" in a plant, a slaugherhouse, or a facility (as most of it is).

And everytime I spend money on such meat, I am tacitly condoning the abuse of the animals from which the meat comes. And for THAT reason I avoid meat as much as possible without doing damage to my own health, until I am able to totally go without meat.

Now... to make good on my word...

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to judge words ending in "ism".

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to portray "ism" words as related to false paradigms.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to judge "ism" words as being related to stupid beliefs.

I forgive myself that I have not allowed myself to see that the words themselves are innocent and that it is the people who use them that give me the "bad" impression.

Sinking the Friend-SHIP so I can swim free.

LIES LIES LIES!

Friends, and what they currently represent to me... is the manifestation of people agreeing to lie about themselves to one another, in a sort of game where the rule seems to be "I will accept the person you project yourself to be if you accept the person I project myself to be, and when we are interacting with each other we can keep lying to ourselves and to each other because we have this agreement".

Be honest... you know it's true. The person that you conduct yourself as around certain friends or even certain members of your family is NOT the real you.

A friend-"ship" is doomed to sink into the ocean of expectations and false fronts upon which the vessel is borne, unless one decides to bear with the sinking ship because "that's what friends do". In which case, both have trapped themselves and each other to the murky fate below, resigning forever their true selves to remain submerged beneath this friend-"ship", never to breathe the free air again... all in the cause of keeping this friend-"ship" afloat.

So really, what's the point?

Perhaps the fear of being the "outcast" or the fear of being socially awkward or even the fear of being thought of as having something "wrong" with you for not having "friends".

However, something is to be said for agreements between people that are truly supportive for unconditional self expression as who and what you really are. In this context it is not a "friendship"... but a simple agreement without any boundaries or rules except that you ONLY accept the truth of who you are, and the truth of who the other person(s) may be, and nothing less.

I'm for open agreements to express and support true self expression without fear or reprisal. I am NOT for friendships... or for that matter any kind of relationship which implies that self dishonesty and deception can exist between the persons involved.

The Tools of the Process

Okay... here are the tools that I am currently using as part of my process.

Self Honesty- This is a MUST. You cannot imagine all the crap that I have built up over the years... and all the layers of self deception that I have walled myself in with. So, self honesty has to be brutally applied without exceptions. If I'm going to really stop Joe Kou and start living my OWN life, I have to face all the things I've buried and tried to hide from myself so that I don't repeat my old patterns anymore.

Self Forgiveness- This is where I forgive myself as Joe Kou for what has been accepted and allowed. This is not a hocus pocus magic trick that removes my issues for me. This is a tool to release myself from any attachments or emotional baggage that I may be entagled by. Whenever I have an emotional reaction to something or when I feel like something is pulling my attention and focus away from myself... I apply self forgiveness for allowing that to happen and then I stop participating in that.

Writing- This is extremely helpful. It's like looking at the source code for your personal programming and seeing in front of you what is going on inside. There doesn't need to be a format or style... just write. Write a story, a blog, a letter, a word. Just write.

Self Correction- Another MUST DO if I am serious about stopping my life as a Joe Kou and living my real unconditional self here. It is not enough to point out the faults in my mental self... I have to do something about it. When a point of transcendence comes up, I either transcend it or it will loop back again and I'll have to face it another time. But until I really correct myself and release myself from my programming and old patterns, I won't really be free. I'd just be a Joe Kou.

Breathing- Seems simplistic, but when I am focused on each breath I take... I am HERE, and I am aware of myself and I am expressing myself without the contextual baggage of having to be Joe Kou. I simply am. I breathe. Being in the breath assists you in being truly here at this moment.

So, those are the tools I'm using right now. It's a process.

Trigger Tags- What are they?

Trigger Tags are certain words, phrases, or subjects that I have noticed which seem to bring up emotions, specific thoughts, or specific reactions within me. And often, these words don't have to be directed at me personally. I can overhear them or notice them in passing, and the effect is the same.

Imagine that you are still and your mind is not running. You are aware, focused, and fully present as your real honest self, and you are experiencing and expressing yourself freely, WITHOUT your mind. Suddenly, you hear a certain phrase or combination of words, and they seem to race into your mind and say "TAG! YOU'RE IT!" And all of a sudden your mind roars into life having been "tagged" by the trigger (which can be a word, a phrase, a subject, even a picture). So now your mind is in this game of tag and it goes running around fetching out thoughts, emotions, ideas, all of which are associated with the trigger, as if to "tag" it back, and back and forth it goes.

This can be frustrating especially when I am HERE in the present moment expressing myself and experiencing myself and then the trigger word is heard or noticed, and BOOM my mind kicks in and I get lost in the sweep of emotions and thoughts associated with the trigger word(s) and all the programming kicks in as well.

Here's an example-

Last week on September 11th, I was at work with some colleagues and of course the subject of the 9-11 terror attacks came up. I shared my perspective openly regarding my position on whether or not the official explanation given to us by the government is accurate, and whether or not key information is being withheld and misinformation is being used as a smokescreen to obscure what really happened on that day.

So far so good. I was not trying to persuade anybody. I was just sharing my perspective. And I accepted the perspective of others on the topic.

But moments later a co-worker asked "What were you guys talking about? Did one of you say we weren't attacked?"

To which I responded "I never said we weren't attacked."

He responds incredulously "How could you believe that it wasn't terrorists?"

BOOM. Trigger Tag.

My mind goes racing at this point, though I did not press the topic further. I was too bogged down with thoughts like "How could you NOT believe that there were other agencies at work that day, some of which were criminal elements from our own governmental structure?"

Then came thoughts of "How could you be so trapped within the 'us versus terrorists' paradigm that you can no longer see anything between the spectrum of 'us good' and 'them bad'?"

Then of course came the flood of thoughts regarding the many unanswered questions around 9-11 and the inconsistencies of the official and mainstream theories, which then led me to frustration and agitation, which led to more thoughts. It was indeed a vicious game of tag within my mind, which let me slip back into my head of remaining in the present with and as the stillness of self.

And so... when Trigger Tags happen, do not allow it to continue. STOP it. And also see it as an opportunity to see where you have unresolved issues or self definitions that you are holding onto and are not allowing yourself to transcend.

About ME and about Joe Kou

Joe Kou is a person. He is a young Chinese American man alive in the world today. His physical body lives and breathes. He has had experiences such as happiness, sadness, triumph, and suffering. He has had family, friends, enemies, and strangers in his experience of life.

Joe Kou has a job, a place to live, roomates, a dog, has interests and hobbies, and has desires and wishes.

Joe Kou has needs and wants and feelings and emotions. He has thoughts and ideas and beliefs and fears. He has knowledge and opinions. He has relationships and self definitions. He has prejudices and preferences. He has a life and a story, just like everyone else.

And that's the problem. Because like everyone else, Joe Kou is not really alive. And though Joe Kou's body is typing these very words... it is not Joe Kou who is expressing them.

I am not Joe Kou. I am what has always been, and will always remain, long after Joe Kou has died. Joe Kou exists only within the mind. And the mind in and of itself is not truly alive. Nor can the mind survive physical death. Who I am is not of the mind. Who I am is.

Let me repeat that.

WHO I AM, IS. Period.

For a very long time now I had thought that I was Joe Kou. I lived his life. I experienced everything he experienced. And I never doubted that Joe Kou was who I really was... until I discovered that this is simply not the case. Who I am is life. And as life, I have been powering and driving the experience of Joe Kou in this physical body... yet never truly aware of the fact that Joe Kou is nothing more than a program... an autopilot unaware of it's autonomy and believing itself to be alive.

Yeah, hard understand. Harder still to explain.

Here is the perspective I have- There comes a point when a person must die. And when this happens the mind does not survive. It cannot. Because it was never alive to begin with. Everything that was of that mind will be gone, and will only exist in the form of memories in the minds of others. But not everything goes. What remains... what ALWAYS remains... is who you really are. What remains is YOU, as life, undefined and unlimited. And you suddenly realize "Wow... I was never really this person, was I? Nope. Because this person died and yet I'm still HERE."

And yet that's when it hits you like a train... slamming into you unexpectedly and yet with a dreadful familiarity. As if you have been through this before. Not just once. Not just a couple of times. But over the course of aeons of time. Over and over again... living out these "lives" in which you are so engrossed that you believe yourself to be wholly within those once living "persons" and seeing no separation between them and yourself, only to come HERE again, remembering that you had never really been who you are NOW while you were THERE.

Frustrating. What's it all for? What is the point then, if you can't be who you really are while you are in that physical body? What's the point of having to end up here, without your "mind" and without your body, knowing who you are, but unable to experience yourself physically?

Ah... that's where I come in.

I am not Joe Kou. And I am here within and AS this physical body that Joe Kou inhabits. I am HERE, NOW, physically experiencing who and what I really am when Joe Kou is dead. Only... Joe Kou is not dead. Joe Kou, as he exists within the mind, is still alive, and still uses this body. And I am not constantly here... I am here in brief moments of clarity... when I as Joe Kou "shut down" the mind. Not the brain... just the "mind". Gets complicated.

Joe Kou's life is still being lived by this body... he has a job, has his obligations to fulfill, has his relationships and definitions and thoughts and fears... and everytime I let myself as Joe Kou participate in thoughts, feelings, emotions, dramas, and anything else to do with this "mind", I am not HERE as myself... I am HERE as Joe Kou.

Confused? Well, imagine what I'M going through.

This is my process of birthing myself as who I really am here in the physical... and this is my process of STOPPING Joe Kou.