Hi Brooke,

Here’s my problem: I don’t think I have one!

In terms of emotional balance as described by your teaching, I feel like I’m closer to 80/20 than to 50/50. When I review every area of my life, it seems great. Physical fitness and health, love relationship, family relationships. I love my relationship with alcohol, and with pleasurable food. I’m not buffering.

I’d like to comment on my love relationship as illustrative. It’s only about 2 years old and has a significant level of natural and easy goodness. But the real icing comes from the perspective I’ve obtained from your teachings, that the real reason to be in a relationship is to have someone to love, and that my work is to choose to love her all the time regardless of what frictions and differences arise. This is wonderful work – pushing towards the 100% unconditional love – and the results are tremendous.

My career situation is unsettled, in a good way, as I’m allowing my small construction business to wind down of its own accord while I develop a coaching business. The development of the coaching business absolutely is a source of discomfort. The creative work is outside my comfort zone and challenges me. I have embraced a downturn in my current livelihood, a small residential remodeling business, in order to use the time to work on the coaching business. In fact I feel like my lack of intention towards the construction business is contributing to the downturn. I think this is perfect, and dealing with the reduced income via my thought work is yet another aspect of discomfort that I’m embracing.

But I worry that I’m missing something obvious. That accidentally or intentionally I’m not allowing awareness of dissatisfaction into my life. I look on my life in the past, especially for the past 10 years, and I think that at any point in time I would have expressed that I was mostly content and happy, that my emotional balance was way above 50/50. From today’s perspective, I can see however that I was doing some buffering with alcohol and hobbies. I was in no way as awake as I am today.

Even 3 months ago, after working with Brooke’s material especially in the area of feeling emotions, I would have said that my balance was 90/10. In the meantime my thought work and awareness continues to uncover new areas of negative emotion, and I embrace those and work through them.

I don’t in any way feel like I’m a finished product, that I’ve arrived. As much as I love where I am right now, I know that ‘where I am’ will continue to change as I evolve, through the challenges that I put to myself and that life puts to me.

My question is ‘Am I doing it right?’

I’ve been pondering this question for weeks, and only today finally wrote it down in this way. My impulse is to NOT post it, because I feel like that is asking for permission to feel good about what I’m doing, and I know that I don’t need anyone’s permission. That only I can give myself permission to feel good, and that asking permission is a copout. And that in fact I don’t even need to feel good. That whatever unease I’m feeling is happening for me.

Even though I think I’ve answered my own question, and that I don’t need to post this, I’m going to anyway, just because it makes me uncomfortable to do so.

Thank you so much for the work you do!
Greg