I love movies. Truly, I do. Movies are uplifting, comforting, instructive, thought-provoking, affirming and sometimes challenging. Movies teach me and encourage me, scare me and fill me with gratitude. Watching other people – real or not so real – live their lives onscreen makes my own life feel more vibrant and alive as well.

Did I mention I love movies?

But I am often not too good about seeing them when they first come out. Truthfully, often I am the one “discovering” last year’s Oscar winners while in line at the Redbox (or online at Netflix).

Speaking of which – recently I saw a movie called “Looper.” Judging from how confusing I found the plot initially, either my IQ is on a steady decline or perhaps it wasn’t in last year’s Oscar running. But as the film progressed, it got better. And by the end it got very good – and very simple – indeed.

I don’t want to spoil the storyline for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. But if I were pitching the plot to a big money bags producer and I had to sum it up in one line, it would be: “The bad things people do are to try to protect the good things in their lives.”

From this perspective, I found the film so interesting and also strangely reassuring. I say this because, when taken out of context, many people’s choices and actions can seem so evil, so bad, so grave. But then as the greater story emerges, so often there is some underlying motive stemming from love, loyalty, connection.

This seems like a very important point to make, especially in the world we live in today when so much of what we read about, see on the news and hear from others just makes no sense at all. Why do people do the things they do? Who are these others – these awful people out maiming, killing, stealing, lying, cheating, deceiving, taking from others what never has and never will belong to them?

I don’t know. But I do know that there is more to each of those stories than …

In my life, there is a never-ending stream of highly insecure visitors who are always eager to hang out with me.

For instance, fear. Or, I should say, fears. Plural. Very, very plural. Here is just one example. I am a speaker with a decade-long track record of delivering successful events. But every time I get on another plane to go speak I am afraid this is the time I will tank, that “that thing” that always happens when I get up in front of people (namely, not sucking) will not work and I will go down in flames in front of 1,000 college students who are all busily uploading my public display of suckiness straight to YouTube.

Another common visitor is anger. I feel angry and I judge myself harshly for it. Even if it is totally justified, even if the anger is so primal – like my limbic system takes over and spews out anger from the cave-woman me whose fight-or-flight is screaming “Saber tooth tiger! Strike now or die!” – I still judge myself for feeling angry. If I don’t remember to judge myself in the precise angry moment, there is always plenty of time later. Endless amounts of time.

Yet another common visitor is sadness. Maybe we could call it depression. Or loneliness. Or apathy. Or boredom. It takes on various shades and forms, but after more than two decades battling mental illness (eating disorder, depression, anxiety and the like) those grooves are still pristinely paved and waiting in my emotional psyche. While I feel like I am growing more positive and peaceful day by day, I can still count on daily hopeful visits from the sadness squad, who figure this might be the day they  get lucky and I finally decide to join back in.

All of these visitors can add up to mighty insecurity mighty quickly – if I let them. The key to not letting them, I have found, is repeating one simple phrase: “This is normal – you are a human being and all human beings feel these …

Yup. I said it. I’m afraid of love.

Specifically, I’m afraid of being loved. Loving others. And loving myself. If there is any form or exchange of love I have left out, just for the record I’m probably afraid of that too.

Over the years as I’ve studied different faith paths and philosophies, I have often been interested to hear saints and great beings speak of the intensity of the love experience. Jesus scared his disciples so bad when he let his inner love out (commonly called the “Transfiguration”) that their fear paralyzed them and they fell over.

I can only imagine I’d react the same way….or worse.

In another recent post I shared how much I enjoy the writings of don Miguel Ruiz, who, incidentally, is not afraid of love. Thank goodness.

While I don’t always understand what Ruiz is talking about in his books, I am always very receptive to understanding it. Recently I ordered Ruiz’ “The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship.” I was very excited when it arrived.

Unfortunately, I found it to be so profound that after having it in my possession for three days, I am still on page two of chapter one. On this page, Ruiz writes, “You have the power to create. Your power is so strong that whatever you believe comes true. You create yourself, whatever you believe you are.”

On the next page he goes on to write, “You have practiced all of your life to be what you are, and you do it so well that you master what you believe you are. You master your own personality, your own beliefs; you master every action, every reaction. You practice for years and years, and you achieve the level of mastery to be what you believe you are. Once we can see that all of us are masters, we can see what kind of mastery we have.”

Here I can see clearly that I have mastered the art of fearing love.

Oops.

But then on the next page …

Sometimes friends send me articles.

I always like getting them even if the content of the articles makes it clear that I am probably not doing something I probably should be doing in order to achieve something I have told them I want to achieve.

More rarely, articles arrive that appear to point out when I am already doing something I should be doing.

This of course is very cool.

Recently a friend sent me an article called “Secret Ingredient for Success.” Originally published by The New York Times, the article described two types of learning: “single loop” and “double loop.”

As defined by Harvard business professor Chris Argyris, “single loop” learning is “an insular mental process in which we consider possible external or technical reasons for obstacles.”

In other words, with this type of learning we don’t really learn anything, except how good we are getting at blaming other people and external circumstances for our failure.

Contrast this with “double loop” learning, where according to Argyris we “question every aspect of our approach, including our methodology, biases and deeply held assumptions.”

About “double loop” learning, article co-authors Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield write, “This more psychologically nuanced self-examination requires that we honestly challenge our beliefs and summon the courage to act on that information, which may lead to fresh ways of thinking about our lives and our goals.”

Clearly, this second type of learning comes highly recommended.

More importantly, however, I was excited to realize while reading that I am already a “double loop learner” (if such a term exists). I was also excited to realize there was terminology to describe the sometimes brutal process of self-inquiry I put myself through with the help of mentors, coaches and trusted friends, and that I am not the only one who does this, and that doing this is actually a good thing.

Most of all, I was excited to read that double loop learning works – for celebrities including tennis star Martina Navratilova, Brit pop band OK Go, restauranteur David Chang and (I would assume) Harvard business professor Chris Argyris and article …

Not so many years ago (2006 to be exact) Will Smith and his son Jaden co-starred in a film called “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The film was autobiographical. The story revolved around a man who turns his rather substantial run of bad luck around, in the process building the foundation to start his own successful firm. The film was quite successful.

More recently, my issue of Time magazine faithfully appeared and I as faithfully flipped to the back to read (in this order) Joel Stein‘s column, The Culture section and 10 Questions with the celebrity of the month. As usual, the celebrity of the month was a person I had never heard of. Her name? Jamaica Kincaid.

I learned right away that Jamaica Kincaid is an author – an award-winning novelist as it turns out. After googling her name, a BBC article also revealed that she is a self-made woman – a person who literally refused to let circumstances, family relationships or other painful, complicated things define her worth as a person or her potential in life.

In other words, she is my kind of people.

I’ve never read any of her novels that I am aware of, but I read Ms. Kincaid’s thoughts on pursuing happiness and unhappiness with great interest. She says she doesn’t know what “the pursuit of happiness” means. On the subject of pursuing unhappiness, she states, “One doesn’t have to pursue unhappiness. It comes to you. You come into the world screaming. You cry when you’re born because your lungs expand. You breathe. I think that’s really kind of significant. You come into the world crying, and it’s a sign that you’re alive.”

I too think this is significant. I will admit I can’t recall now whether my rather too vivid memories of my own c-section birth were induced by later “rebirthing” seminars (one of the many out-of-my-comfort-zone approaches I tried to escape my eating disorder) or represent actual I-was-born-and-I-was-there memories. At any rate, I remember being born, and then …

I am an avid don Miguel Ruiz fan. Having said that, I will confess I never know when my favorite authors are releasing new books, and Ruiz is no exception. Recently I was researching his classic book “The Four Agreements” when I stumbled across a reference to an interesting book titled “The Fifth Agreement.”

My first thought was, “There’s a fifth one?” My second thought was, “But I still haven’t mastered any of the other four Agreements yet.”

This is a mere technicality in Ruiz’ world, it would seem, since he barreled on through and wrote the fifth one anyway (with the help of his son and fellow shaman, don Jose Ruiz). The way I see it, either this means he isn’t intimidated by my failure to master any of his other teachings to date, or it means there are other people in this world who are actually keeping up.

Either way, it’s pretty exciting.

As I started reading “The Fifth Agreement” I felt quite seasoned and confident, breezing through the first four Agreements while nodding sagely in recognition. But then I got to the Fifth Agreement: “Be skeptical, but learn to listen.” My first thought – literally – was, “Huh?”

This is still my thought in case you are wondering.

But after that chapter, Ruiz said something I didn’t struggle with at all. He started to talk about presence, and how when we are little we have it long before we have language, and we communicate with those around us just fine. Our proof of this is that we survive our infancy and early childhood, getting fed and clothed and changed and burped and bathed and taken to the doctor and all the rest without being able to say one word to express what we need.

Ruiz says it all starts to go south after we get language. When we learn to talk is when our presence is forced to take a back seat to our brain. Our brain, in cahoots with our mind, churns out thought after thought and sends us, unarmed and uninformed, into …

Trust is a tough one.

Trying to trust, I have discovered, is like trying to breathe. Until “trying” turns to “breathing” you’re basically out of luck.

In the same way, trying to trust has become a useless exercise for me. I might as well take all that “trying” energy and spend it on something that is amenable to trying (whatever that might be) because trust clearly is not.

(On that note, I can’t help but notice that Yoda – that old classic – still says it best, “Do or do not. There is no try.” No kidding.)

If I want to actually trust, I have to find a way past my oh-so-industrious mind that keeps kicking up perfectly valid reasons why I shouldn’t trust, why trust is a bad idea, why trust is untrustworthy, blah, blah, blah…and sink into an experience of trust itself.

I have never been in a zero gravity atmosphere, but if I had to make an analogy about what “trusting” feels like to me, it feels like floating. It feels like letting go and – amazingly – watching myself rise instead of fall.

Trusting feels like, well, trust. It feels like relief. Honestly, it feels like being able to take a whole in-breath without having to stop several times to encourage myself to push past the part of me that is still holding my breath. It feels like that point in a movie when the hero(ine) is about to get clobbered but then just at the perfect moment the backup squad arrives and all works out for the good.

I really, really want to trust all the time. Mostly I can only manage it when I am covered head to toe by pillows and blankets and more pillows and the room is dark and I am absolutely sure I set the alarm and that only me and Pearl are inside (ie, all the bad guys are most definitely outside).

But my goal is to trust all the time. Or, put another way, to stop trying to trust. To do. Just do. Because there is no “try.”

Today’s Takeaway: What is …