Living on autopilot

On his way to work, a social worker in New York drops off his children, twins of one and a half, at the nursery every day. Until one fateful day he forgets to do so. Which he only realizes when, after work is done, he sets out to pick them up. But the city is weighed down by a heat wave that day. Left in the back seat of the car, the children overheated and died.

First reaction: this can't be right! How can you forget something like this? But yes, this is possible. In fact: it happens more often. It has already happened to hundreds of parents. And the pattern is always the same: one goes shopping or to work and forgets, having arrived at the destination, to have forgotten the children.

Forgot to have forgotten. Double that. This is how the brain can work. Not only do we make a mistake, but also that we make that mistake is erased from our consciousness. Until something or someone wakes us up.

The psychological explanation: when we perform familiar actions, such as driving the same route, we turn on autopilot. This allows us to do several things at once. Like driving a car and having a conversation at the same time. But for this we pay a price. The part of our consciousness that reminds us that we had planned to do something else, too, locks up. We forget that we still have children in the car for the same reasons we may forget to run errands on the way home. Even though we had resolved to do so. Stress and fatigue also play a role in this, by the way.

A father who forgets to have forgotten his children. It is deeply tragic. But if possible, it becomes even more tragic when we realize that we are experiencing here in a small way what is commonplace in a large way. Because in a similar way, we all too often function on autopilot. And even then there are casualties to report. Albeit less tangible and visible. Because in the backseat of our own existence, our unique meaning is thereby lost. Who and what we really are. Our individual "I," but especially our mystery "I": that and what makes us human. The question mark within us.

In our zeal to do the right thing, to do things right, we stifle what makes us capable of doing. Eager to think the right thing, we kill our consciousness more than to be "thought right.

Climate devastation? Let's talk about self-destruction....

'The great Tao fell into oblivion. Humaneness and righteousness made their appearance. Sagacity came into prominence - the great hiccup took hold'. Words of Lao Zi, from the sixth century BC. Freely translated: forget to make time and space for the unknown that underpins your existence, and you place yourself outside of it. Become a "fake" version of yourself.

It is a central element in Liber coaching methodology. Learning to activate the "not-knowing," the question mark in yourself. Which is as much as daring to start respecting it as such. Not filling it in. Not with anything. And then to give it an active role in your actions.

'So strange, like I'm just starting to live now' is how someone who had practiced Liber for a few weeks described what happens as a result. But it is not that strange. For nowhere do we experience our core meaning better than in precisely the question mark. In the emptiness of our not-knowing. Open heart, open hands, no idea.

Your most precious possession? Who you deeply are. What you, right now on this earth, are walking around for. Your unique, distinctive gift and meaning. How do you awaken it, how do you keep it alive? See, live and experience how your automatic pilot makes it die every day. It scares you to death. And the living "I" can rise up within you.

*

Try the Liber exercises for yourself. You can find them here.