How do you structure your philosophy in a way everyone can understand?
I’m a fan of metaphors, particularly physical metaphors (involving spatial relationships, motion, visual distinctions, etc.)So for example, when I talk about the nature of authentic being — which is a very abstract and challenging thing to discuss — I sometimes use the metaphor of a cauldron with a heater core. The heater core is the source of power… in this admittedly physics-challenged idea, the heater core is capable of supplying its own energy. If it’s functioning correctly, it is its own power source, and that’s a metaphor for what I call “being self-grounding” (i.e. an individual who provides their own basis of truth for the meaning of ‘self’.)Then that heater core generates warmth, the warmth melts the things that are rigid and “stuck” in the cauldron — the rest of their life, which has become a kind of prison of rules and concepts and stuck relationships and unresolved past, etc. The ability to trust the core of one’s being allows one to relate differently to the rest of themselves and their life, and start to work out a more authentic and grounded way to understand the whole.So that’s all a very physical metaphor, with a distinct spatial dimension to it — the notion of a physical core and the frozen contents of a larger space, etc.My understanding is that our knowledge is built on physical metaphors, because those are our first distinctions — as children learn to relate to the world and understand their own existence as distinct entities, they’re building up a schema of physical distinctions which are then used as the foundation for more advanced ideas. So the more you can get your ideas framed in terms of physical metaphors, the easier it is to get them connected up to the listener’s foundation of understanding anything. That’s the principle, anyway. It seems to work fairly well for me.
I have lived with the feeling most my life that people will turn me down what does this mean?
Very, very common. Its just another way of saying you are insecure, you are scared of rejection, and you are risk averse.These are normal survival tendencies that are generally overcome by learning and practicing behaviors that build our confidence and resiliency, give us courage to take risks, and self esteem that is not easily injured by failures or rejection.There is NOTHING wrong with you. The fears are very ancient within our brain, and they don't go completely away, ever. Great athletes, performers, doctors - anyone that has a stressful job that has risk and demands a high level of performance will tell you that they still get very nervous before they perform. In fact, they say that without the stress, they would stop doing it. The stress is what they live for, to face, dance with and overcome to achieve the high levels of performance and be rewarded with the deep sense of accomplishment and fulfillment they live for. BUT, what they also have developed is the courage to face these fears, as well as the competency to feel confident that they will be successful, and even if not, they will learn from it and not be disheartened or let it slow them down. Call it Grit, resiliency, tenacity.Your feelings are normal. How you deal with them and understand them can turn them from something that seems like a huge barrier and burden to something that you face and overcome regularly and defines the way in which you face challenges and risks with courage and determination. Sometimes I like to say, "Get hungry and stay hungry," as a way of reminding myself that the hunger to eat, the hunger to experience good things in life, the hunger to create, serve, discover, master - to be fully engaged in life doing something way bigger than myself, well beyond the comfort zone, is where I want to be, and its usually not fun or easy there. Its scary and difficult and even lonely, but it is also where I feel the most alive, the most excited, and the most motivated to do the hard work that keeps me moving forward.