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About Jim
Contents
There Is Another Way Of Living And Being
We live in ways that reduce our happiness and well-being. This ordinary way of life is so automatic, we seldom pause to ask if it can be changed. The Woo Way cultivates awareness, choice, and change. It creates the possibility of living and being in a new way.
1: You Have The Power To Change
We think we are free, but live automatically like machines. Even though we often think and behave like robots, we have the capacity for awareness, choice, and change. This makes remodeling of the self possible, so we have more control over what we think, say, and do.
2: Ideals Have Teeth
Our ideals can make us suffer. We are constantly measuring ourselves and others against our standards and society's expectations. When those ideals learn toward perfectionism, they develop sharp teeth that can bite into us.
3: I Want To Look Good And Be Accepted
We try to look good and be accepted by others. When we succeed, we feel great. When we fail, we feel terrible. Awareness of this automatic pattern gives us the choice to embrace looking bad and rejection so we can care less about proving our worth to others.
4: I Want Independence And Control
Independence and control are prized in our society. When we achieve them, confidence gives rise to good feelings and success. When we fail, we may feel trapped, dominated, and unhappy. Through awareness, a new way to deal with these issues is discovered.
5: I Want To Be Right
Imagine someone saying to you, "You're wrong." How do you automatically react? Probably with resistance, because we love being right and dislike being wrong about our beliefs. Being right gives us a feeling of control and certainty. Knowing this, we get to make a change.
6: I Need To Feel Safe
Human beings have many fears. Some are obvious and others dominate us from the shadows. We are constantly managing our safety so we can survive and succeed. When we know what controls us in the realm of security, new choices appear.
7: Restoring A Shrinking Ego
Our egos are like balloons that constantly expand and deflate. We love the inflations, but suffer from the deflations. There is a way to restore the size of a shrinking ego by making a "recovery claim." When we do, we develop more control over our reactions to what others say and do.
8: Weaving Stories Of Deception
Two deceptive practices we employ in our storytelling are omission of the truth and giving false information, also known as blatant lying. These forms of deception can damage our relationships because they undermine trust. Honesty has the opposite effect.
9: The Power Of Your Word
Watch what people do, not just what they say. How many people say one thing and do another? Do we trust their word? When we honestly communicate what we intend to do, then do it, we begin to live with greater integrity. Others trust what we say, so our relationships work better.
10: Just The Facts
Since our minds want certainty, we make up stories about people and situations where we have little or no information. We can suffer from the stories we make up. When we quit telling the stories and just state the facts, we put a stop to the suffering and move into greater effectiveness.
11: Stories Can Become Thought Prisons
Do we blame something in the past for our lives not working? How many of us create stories about the present that limit us and make us unhappy? How many of us paint a bleak picture of the future? Understanding what we get from those stories, a new choice appears.
12: Quiet And Talkative People
Learning about the type of human animal we are is important for understanding how we relate to other people. Realizing that we are a quiet or talkative person is liberating. Personal growth expands by accepting our type or by developing our neglected abilities.
13: Families Are Like Zoos
Cooperation and conflict between people often emerge from differences of psychological type. Human animals with different natures try to change each other, but these reform efforts rarely succeed. Learning to accept differences of type improves relationships and expands love.
14: Attraction Does Not Insure Satisfaction
What is the magic of personal attraction and how can it get us into trouble? We are sometimes attracted to potential mates or friends who later become "nightmares." When we understand our needs, more conscious choices about our relationships become possible.
15: High Ideals Can Ruin Relationships
Some of us enter relationships hoping that they will be perfect. Since relationships cannot possibly meet such high expectations, we become disappointed. When we accept all relationships as flawed, we are able to consciously cultivate mutual satisfaction.
16: Listening Deeply
We seldom listen carefully to others, so our relationships suffer. Deep listening can improve relationships overnight. By learning to listen at four levels, we achieve depth in the way we listen, so greater mutual understanding develops. From that understanding, relationships deepen.
17: Speaking To Be Fully Understood
Once we know how to listen deeply, we can communicate deeply. Deep listening and speaking move us from blaming to co-creating solutions to problems. By listening and speaking at depth, relationships improve and everyone benefits.
18: Fixing And Improving Relationships
Most of us have no clear procedures for solving our relationships problems or improving them when things are going well. A strategy for co-creating ideas to solve problems and improve relationships is introduced and practiced.
19: Cleaning Up Relationships
Knowing how to clean up relationships is important. When we fail to do the clean up work, the past can become a heavy weight on our minds. Forgiveness, acceptance, and completion are ways of cleaning up our relationships, so the present and future become our focus.
20: Life Out Of Balance
We suffer from living in a one-sided way, because we are of two minds. We have a dual nature, so contradiction is not something to avoid but embrace. When we integrate the opposites within us, we become more balanced, which is a goal of "individuation."
21: Shadow Projection
Wanting to look good, we project our neglected shadow side onto others, and then dislike or hate them for it. Awareness of this pattern gives us the opportunity to take back our projections and reclaim the two sides of our nature.
22: Cultivating Wisdom
Instead of looking to others for wisdom, we seek wisdom from within ourselves. To cultivate it, we consult with our inner wise person and then discover that we already carry wisdom in our pocket. When we use it, our lives work better.
23: Thoughts Can Torture You
Many of us construct mental torture chambers where we suffer "on the rack" of our own negative thinking. Becoming aware of this pattern, we get into the "director's chair" and learn to stop the thoughts that make us suffer.
24: Fears Are Often Exaggerations
Worriers suffer from exaggerated estimates of bad things happening. By understanding fear as a thought that magnifies misfortune, we claim more freedom of choice about it. By using the "1% rule," the size of our fear is reduced so it no longer stops us automatically.
25: No Resistance
We expect and desire things to be a certain way and when they appear otherwise, we become frustrated or angry. By putting up resistance to the way life occurs, we cultivate stress and lives of discontent. By stopping the resistance, living becomes easier.
26: Reducing The Size Of Your Problems
Some of us are experts at making little problems into big ones, then we suffer from the added weight. When we learn to see with the eyes of the mouse and the buffalo, we reduce the size of our problems. With less weighty problems, we have less weighty lives.
27: Creating Your LifeOur lives are our own creations. Using our creativity, we invent a new identity, life purposes, and ethical principles as if our life were starting now. We make up the reasons why we were born in order to make our lives count.
Purchase
To buy the book, go to Green Dragon Books.
