Pronounced Share-Shay Lopportooneetay.
Created March 22, 2024
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.
Seize the opportunities.
Whenever things go wrong, it’s natural for you to think about damage control. And you should. More about the nuances of damage control later on below. But it’s not natural to think “Where in this mess are there any opportunities?” That is the real focus of my column here today.
Yesterday I was recording a Zoom conversation with my partner in crime Natalie Johnston for our TikTok shortform (typically ~2 minutes) series “Ask Bill” which we’re now also posting in YouTube as a longform (typically ~45 minutes). Natalie who has her own international coaching business, said “people think of things happening TO them, when they should actually be thinking of things happening FOR them.”
Natalie and I agree on our view of the nature of reality, which is that unseen forces are actually trying to help us, a principle I call Noia, as the opposite of paranoia, the suspicion that someone is out to get us. In the Noiac view of life, everything that happens, including stuff that seems very bad, has a positive purpose. It’s like an Easter egg hunt, finding the good that is cosmically intended by what on the face of it is some sort of defeat.
First let me clarify what I mean by unseen forces. My best guess about the nature of reality is that there is just One Consciousness that is living through each item in the Universe (the part of the One Consciousness that we apprehend). So naturally It would be trying to help us because It IS us.
We live in a part of the Universe where fallibility is enabled. We traditionally think that there is another part of the Universe where everything is always perfect all the time. This latter part (traditionally called Heaven in English) might, over the course of eternity, become boring. Which explains the motivation for having this other part, where “God” (the One Consciousness that is all that exists) can play and learn from mistakes, and drama and humor are vibrantly alive.
In my picture of reality, you are God, temporarily stripped of memories from before this life, playing a learning game to (often painfully) reconstruct everything you knew back when you were cognizant of being God. At which point (perhaps after many reincarnations) when you have rediscovered your real identity in every way, you win the game, and are back in your full Self again, adding another layer of experience driven wisdom to enhance what You were before.
The One Self and other friendlies pull strings behind the scenes to supplement the free will you have been given. Hence Noia, and Natalie’s exhortation to think of things happening FOR you. And my exhortation to look for clues as to what the positive opportunities are in every pratfall you take.
For example, you lose your job. Might this be clearing a space for an even better use of your time? Is there some other type of work that you’ve been dreaming about but considered it too risky a move to give up the security? This pink slip might be what you need more than anything in the world to bring out your gifts to the world in constant Flow state and happiness.
For example, you have a new boss who makes your life a living hell. Is this the Universe prodding you to take the risk, give up the security, and quit? Or is it an opportunity to learn how to deal with such situations and become master of them? For sure it is some kind of opportunity, and inner contemplation is the way to discern your optimal action. Seize the opportunities.
For example, you dream of a certain vacation, perhaps that villa on the sand that you love and which has become wildly expensive, and you finally get to go, and it rains continuously. Instead of being brought down by the situation, what could the Universe be trying to tell you? Is it time to start that new novel you’ve been threatening to write? The rain you notice is falling straight down, so that you can sit at one of those tables on the beach with the thatched roofs, sipping a piña colada while you peck away at the keys? No sun in your eyes making the screen hard to see.
For example, you make a thoughtless remark and are publicly humiliated. What is the opportunity? I used to call it the Humiliation Evolution Opportunity. Humiliation is one of the worst possible experiences, and yet it is always telling us something about ourselves which needed improvement, so it is a powerful learning opportunity. In Noiac thinking, you might in subsequent contemplation look back from that moment of mortification and notice that there were light warning taps happening in your life that you missed seeing, which were earlier attempts by the Universe to get you to learn something, and after trying the velvet glove, the Universe ultimately had to hit you with the iron fist to get your attention.
Could it be that you had become too used to being praised and treated deferentially, and this was allowing your ego to sneak back into your control chamber, and you needed to be taught humility just a little bit? Or had you forgotten to consider other people’s feelings enough? Whatever it is that caused the humiliation will benefit you more when you unpack the lesson, than the humiliation will harm you. In Noiac thinking, one trusts God to only give us pain as a way of preventing us from far greater pain.
You can see that Noiac thinking installs a longer term view of things. This in itself is a benefit because the present Acceleritis culture imposes short-termitis.
Going back to damage control, there are better and worse ways to implement it. Let’s say you experience humiliation. The first thing to do is to neutralize the bodily and emotive reaction and keep it invisibly inside, your outside façade the same as it was before the bad moment. Your internal chemical-electrical reactions depend upon cognitive and affective attachment that you have formed to always being right, always winning, always being looked up to – all of these things are mere ego vanities, and they have no positive value, they are part of your robot, not part of the real you.
The second thing to do is to take responsibility for having said or done something wrong, and authentically apologize, without making too much of it, and move on.
Later when you are alone, contemplate what you should have said or done in place of the thing that caused your humiliation. Install a mnemonic device that will let you know when you are coming up toward a moment like the one that you mis-played resulting in your embarrassment.
Natalie and I in our conversation yesterday created a podcast as well as TikTok and YouTube videos, it’s called “What Is Reality?” and I’ll send you a link when it’s ready.
If you’d like any advice, or to debate any of my suggestions above, please visit my Soopra AI which is always available to you to bounce things off a really amazing simulation of me. My schedule is never too full for any of you who want to talk to the real me. Natalie Johnston can also be reached if you’ve been thinking about a life coach, and Jenny Baltazar is a life coach specializing in grief. They are both amazing coaches and people.
Love to all,
