I am on an adventure.
For the first time in years I got up at 06:00am to the sound of a distant rooster.
A perfect blues song maybe?
I know all about blues, and I am angry as foolish about my life.
I boarded the 07:07am train for Kings Cross London, in the dark and in thick fog.
As the day wakes up around me, my fellow travellers sleep or bicker and complain about their lives.
I can’t claim “not” to be programmed, it is a part of the human condition.
Except, I know I am programmed by my environment and choose (where possible) what I am influenced by.
People are talking about what was on TV last night.
I don’t have one!
People are buried wide eyed in their newspapers.
On their way to work.
I am on my way to a large group awareness training seminar.
My input for the day so far has been Pat O’Bryan’s blog.
I really like what Pat O’Bryan has to say about James A Ray.
The seminar I am attending was designed by Werner Erhard.
Werner is probably responsible for the
Werner’s work IS in everything and yet?
The man is still hounded and vilified for his brilliance.
Wish me luck in my philosophical enquiry into my anger!
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
mark ty wharton
I have had a very interesting shift in the way I perceive things today.
I have a friend who is blind, who is interested in recording very accurate soundscapes.
We had a long discussion about binaural microphones, headphones and so on and he made me aware of some interesting points.
Then he played me a recording he made in a clothes shop.
What is interesting about the recording is, it is an almost perfect test of the accuracy of his binaural microphones.
The clothes mask reverberation to an extent, while the hangers being moved on the rails provide a real sense of the physical space.
I closed my eyes to listen.
At the end I said “I am sure I felt someone walk across in front of me near the end”.
I also noticed he had achieved something I almost never do, which is, he kept his head absolutely still for the whole recording.
My ‘problem’ is, things in my visual field distract me and I turn my head to look at them and ruin my recordings.
What was eerie was, I could ‘feel’ the people around me.
Yet where in my body did I feel them?
I uncovered something.
When I say “I feel something” it usually means there is something I have heard.
And I started to realise where else I do this.
Audio is integral to my functioning on this planet and my heightened awareness of it in a way constitutes my apparent sixth sense.
But it goes way deeper with me.
I feel it.
I choose sounds and mix records based on how they make me feel.
An element of synaesthasia perhaps?
Cross wiring of the senses.
Unless I deliberately ‘put’ my awareness on kinaesthetic I am not sure it shows up for me.
It is transparent in its total abscence.
So ‘I feel’ my environment with my ears?
I will have to work on this further it seems…
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
mark ty-wharton
Somewhere in Biggleswade, not far from my house, is a tree.
Attached to the tree with a clothes peg is a five pound note.
It is an amount of money I am comfortable with giving away on a one off experiment to a random stranger.
I kind of wish it was a fifty pound note, but it is not.
So far it has been there about ten minutes.
I have mixed feelings.
I want to see who gets it.
I want to let it go.
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See you on the other side of the looking glass,
Mark Ty-Wharton.
[mark ty-wharton, creative thinker | innovator | visionary 
]
Having just joined a web site called Fuel My Blog, and having promised my blog is suitable for all ages, I have just posted a controversial entry with a swear word in it.
I am not entirely sure why I am pointing this out, they might not notice?
Parental Advisory is a strange thing.
I personally have taught my child to say bastard and bollocks, but there is NO WAY I would let him watch Power Rangers or consume Aspartame.
So I guess I should say hi to the nice folks over at Feed My Blog and kindly request you either overlook my recent indescretion, or flag me as inappropriate for consumption by minors.
I shall remain of course, in my own way, suitable for all.
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
Mark Ty-Wharton.
[mark ty-wharton, creative thinker | innovator | visionary ]
I have just taken an hour or so to carefully consider an email someone wrote me today.
And once read, considered and replied to, I realise yet again, the person who wrote it has got me to see my own true worth on the planet as a human being.
I got to see that I care. I really care for people. Which is unusual for someone with Aspergers.
I also got to see that I am not the kind of person who would send an email to a fan which said “I’m sure you mean well, but please stop writing, posting and twittering me. It’s annoying.”
I got to see the kind of person who would write that line, would be hiding behind it because they would be unable to face their own insecurity and anger.
I got to see that my piece of the jigsaw is really special. That where I fit into the grand scheme of things matters. That I get to change lives, not make a living from the greedy.
And I am grateful for that.
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
My partner just pulled me up on something I wrote in yesterday’s blog.
The part I wrote about money.
We nearly always agree on everything and just discovered something which we totally disagree on.
Utterly fascinating.
She would LOVE to win the lottery.
I felt quite angry and said “I would rather commit suicide than win the lottery”.
She said “If I won twenty seven million on the lottery I would use it to start a business and make another twenty seven million”.
I replied “but what’s the fu*king point of that, I want to make my own money, it has to be an acknowledgement of who I am”.
Which is interesting, because I suddenly realise I have a belief system where I have money and self-worth collapsed.
I use money as a measure of my effectiveness in the world.
And perhaps my money reflects my self worth. Or at the least that I have done something worthwhile.
Yet bizarrely, I made the majority of my salary last year by doing bugger all.
A very good friend of mine once commented on the fact I was more anxious and depressed when I didn’t have money. He suggested if I got all my loans sorted out, I would be much happier.
I think he may have had it the wrong way around.
On the surface it looked that way, the reality was the anxiety and depression probably reflected my self-worth and my money situation simply ran parallel to it.
As I said in my blog the other night, I am learning about self-worth. I am learning I don’t need external validation.
Imagine a life where every criticism knocks you flat.
That’s been me up until now.
So maybe there are some other questions I should asking myself about money…
Maybe you could ask the same questions.
Of all the people I know who have money, who has done something worthwhile?
Do I know anyone (who doesn’t have this belief system) with a lot of money who is truly worthless as a human being?
If money isn’t a measure of value, what is it a measure of?
Is money simply a stand alone energy we can have as little or as much as we like of?
If I got given a twenty seven million dollar advance for my next book how would I feel about it? (considering I haven’t written it yet)
And finally…
If I would rather commit suicide than win the lottery, why do I enter every week?
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
First of all, profound thanks to all my recent blog guests – I will leave the links on the home page (click link above) for those of you who wish to review their posts.
All that remains to be said is… Normal service has resumed!
I don’t want to beat about the bush here, so I’ll get straight to the point.
I am a fu*king genius.
I was thinking about all of time, all that ever has been and all that ever will be. I was thinking about it being like a desert. A never ending expanse of sand going on forever.
Then I imagined myself as a tiny grain of sand. A speck.
Then I thought about the insignificance of it and I realise it’s brilliant.
I am merely a conversation people have been having since March 18, 1963.
And when I look at the people we attach massive significance to, Einstein for example. Before March 14, 1879 there wasn’t a whole lot said about him.
Right now the conversations people are having are relevant to now. Actually what my partner said to me three minutes ago might be more relevant to me than anything Einstein said in his entire life time.
And I really don’t need to know anything that anyone has previously said to have life experience.
Actually I can say everything Einstein thought was bollocks.
In the grand scale of things his life really is empty and meaningless.
The only conversation relevant to my life, is a conversation that helps me to define principles that enable me to have the life I choose to have.
Someone on Twitter asked today “Are Shadows Things?”
In the context of what I was reading this offered the dilemma of whether or not to analyse and dissect the concept “thing”.
However taking the question into consideration, a shadow only exists in our perception, which in turn drives our belief system.
And at the same time, the shadow will be different for every observer because they have a different perspective.
And even then every waking moment of our lives thus far will give interpretation to anything we see, hear, touch, taste, smell or intuit.
So the illustration applied to other areas is an interesting one, because there is a relationship between assertion and belief.
At which point Law Of Attraction falls foul of Moore’s paradox and needs to be unravelled.
So you can agree that thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dictate the reality of your life, or instead, you can say you do not believe in the Law Of Attraction. If you say both, you are contradicting yourself.
But, it is perfectly possible for belief to dictate the reality of your life, and for you not to believe it.
And on that cliff hanger,
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
Buy my book now: http://logicofattraction.com
I am going to use my blog as a sounding board for an idea. I gladly welcome comments on what I write over the next few posts and with permission would like to use relevant stories. If you post a comment please bear in mind it may end up published elsewhere.
I have decided to write an e-book about panic disorder.
While this book is a ‘left field’ look at what I have figured out about me, it may just work for you to. I invite you to listen to my story and take what’s useful and leave what’s not behind.
This blog entry will form the basis of chapter two.
So what is anxiety, and what is an anxiety disorder?
Anxiety is a fairly normal coping strategy, which can help a person to deal with stress.
Extreme levels of anxiety are a physical reaction to adrenalin with a negative mental outlook. It is a mood state that encompasses the unpleasant emotions of fear yet can be distinguished from fear in that it is generally experienced without the presence of any real threat. The threat is often merely perceived.
Typically, someone experiencing anxiety may have the feeling they need to lash out, or run away. Bottling up these emotions can lead to further problems such as panic disorder. Focusing on the anxiety itself creates a vicious circle of thoughts, which can trigger more anxiety.
Doctors measure anxiety on a clinical scale and excessive or repeated episodes may fall under the classification of an anxiety disorder.
My medical notes describe me as an anxious child from age two. I remember feeling frightened from time to time, particularly if I was ill with childhood bronchitis but it wasn’t until my teenage years that anxiety became a significant problem.
I recall it starting with me avoiding certain situations, or at least making sure someone I knew was with me at those times.
In my later teens, I had heart palpitations, chest pains, tingling hands and tunnel vision, followed closely by brain smashing headaches. I ended up on an ECG machine to eliminate the possibility that I was having a heart attack. The list of things I avoided grew. Public toilets being one of them and I used to throw tantrums to get away from people so that I could go home and use a familiar toilet.
I started to experience panic attacks. Initially, they would come at night when I was trying to get to sleep. I had an irrational fear of dying.
What I didn’t know was that I have Aspergers. I become sensitive when over exposed to loud noise and bright lights. I was working in a factory, with a lot of heavy machinery then socialising in a noisy pub afterwards. Chances are it was a normal reaction but at the time perception of danger felt very real.
If you are experiencing this kind of panic attack, you may feel like you are about to die or pass out. The symptoms of this kind of panic attack are very similar to a heart attack.
The reason for this is that your blood pressure and heart rate increase, you may also sweat more, tremble and experience a sense of dread.
In a sense, I ran away from myself. I coped by drinking enormous amounts of beer, which in turn gave me hangovers, which made me anxious during the day instead.
I ended up very distracted and starting having a lot of time off work with migraines. I was unable to sustain a normal working life and eventually lost my job and moved to London to become a musician.
In spite of anxiety, I am a very self-confident man and I have taken a lot of risks with my life.
I believe I can do anything, until I actually start doing it, then reality has a habit of smacking me in the face. I say reality, when I mean non-reality, feelings of non-reality being another symptom of anxiety.
I started looking in Melody Maker and NME for a band to join and auditioned for a few. I even auditioned for The Clash, after Mick Jones left. I found I could stand on stage quite easily and play a guitar, I accepted that a level of stage fright was normal, however before and after I stepped onto the stage I was experiencing the same feelings that I had on stage. I was afraid of life.
The physiology was that for whatever reason, my body was preparing to deal with a threat.
I have yet to find the root cause of my anxiety and it may be that there isn’t one, it may just be my physiology, the way I am wired. I now understand I have Asperger Syndrome and I may have to deal with this for a lifetime.
I now understand I was experiencing a fight or flight response and it is typical of people with anxiety.
During a panic attack, blood flow is increased to major muscle groups while digestive systems are put on standby until the perceived threat passes. Think of it like an animal in danger. Perception changes too because this animal needs to find a way out. Someone to attack or somewhere to run to. The eyes become focused and vision becomes narrower. Stand still for long enough and you’ll find yourself trembling like an athlete poised in the starting blocks, ready to spring forward. Focus goes inward and whatever you are thinking about becomes hard to let go of.
It took a long time to accept that something as simple as anxiety could be causing the behaviours I was experiencing.
I started to feel as if I was going mad.
My symptoms when left to their own devices are:
I will start to see people as a threat to me. This is the feeling of dread I mentioned earlier.
I will usually have a huge adrenal rush and immediately wonder if I have said or done something to cause it. This is usually just adrenalin and quite often in response to taking on too many things in too short a space of time.
It can feel like I have been literally knocked off my feet by adrenalin. It changes my perception to a ‘what if?’ mentality. What if I just told that person to “fu*k off” and it can trigger intrusive thoughts along these lines.
My response is to go quiet. I become less outgoing and more inwardly focused and feel self-conscious. I start worrying about what I have done and can experience mild paranoia.
I start to worry about losing control and can worry about harming people. This is the adrenalin prompting me to attack rather than run.
I now have a choice.
Talk myself up or talk myself down.
I can easily have a conversation that perpetuates adrenalin and can make a panic attack peak for about two hours.
I was faced with a choice, become an alcoholic to cope or withdraw. I fluctuated between the two for many years. After going back and forth to doctors and doing a lot of soul searching I found something of an answer.
I have Asperger Syndrome and in the last couple of years I have discovered this gives me another choice.
All will be revealed in the next chapter.
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
I understand systems.
I am the guy on all the self-development courses who sits and figures everything out way before everyone else.
I used to be the guy who listened to other people, thought I had missed the point, got it wrong, then over thought it, because I couldn’t believe I was that clever.
I generally score in the top 2% in IQ tests.
Basically I can either accept or not, my intelligence level puts me in the genius category.
Whether that actually makes me a genius is another matter only others can decide.
One of my limiting beliefs is being self-conscious about being too clever and in the past I tried to hide my intelligence to fit in.
Of course people saw right through this and I end up looking like I was faking something. And people don’t like a fake.
I wasn’t living up to my potential as a human being and everyone around me knew it.
The light that burns half as bright, Roy? Is no-one?
So right now, I could switch on my light and let it shine.
The switch is a little rusty but I’ll give it a go.
CLUNK…
Hello, today I am over here – the bright shining thing – telling you the blindingly obvious.
Today my blog is about money…
You greedy bastards!
Don’t worry I can say totally inappropriate stuff and get away with it, I have Aspergers.
I have been learning a system called http://giveawayadollaraday.com
I say it is a system, because the game is a microcosm of a bigger system, the system we call money.
It sounds blissfully simple and the “doing” part of it is, anyone with more that ninety nine cents can take part.
If you don’t have more than ninety nine cents; then you can even take part in give away a dime a day and you still get the promise of the program.
What’s this promise I hear you ask?
Forget about pay it forward, there is a bigger prize at the end of this practice.
Put simply, GAADAD is a game that will help clear your limiting beliefs around money. The far reaching consequences of which involve your entire life, as the same limiting beliefs invariably show up in other areas.
Don’t want to do it?
Fed up of hearing me talk about it and want me to just jump straight to the answers?
Okay…
I’ll pretend to be an apostle or a prophet or something and you pretend to be a disciple.
Then I’ll tell you a parable.
Many, many years ago, before the time of Adam and Eve there was a market place where people went to share their wares.
There was every kind of stall, every manner of things to behold, all told an abundance of everything, more than any man could ever wish for.
There was no regulation, people would show the light of what they had created and could simply take whatever they needed and leave.
However as time went on, people took much more than they needed leaving nothing for others and causing considerable hardship.
Something needed to be done to control this greed.
A system was devised to measure goods.
The paradoxical law of three fold return/righteousness regulated the system and bartering began.
This system overflows into today’s society and what was true then remains now.
A measure of a man’s greed can be found in that which he does not have.
To celebrate my new found understanding of this principle, in addition to giving away a pound a day, I have decided to give away a book every week.
I am not sure how I go about not having a strategic influence on the process, I’ll maybe walk up to a random stranger and hand it to them?
See you on the other side of the looking glass,
