Don't Push The 'Pull' Door

By Trevor Hill

The secret to happiness and wellbeing is knowing where to look and this book guides you there. It takes you behind the scenes and invites you to see for yourself. The insights you gain will give you a new understanding of life which exposes many misleading assumptions about happiness and wellbeing. This enables you to avoid a great deal of waste

• Language: English
• Publisher: Room 24
• Release date: Mar 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739789015

Book preview

1: Introduction

When I first set out on the path of independent living, my aim was clear. I wanted to create a happy and successful life. Back then, it seemed obvious that success and happiness would come from getting the right combination of job, money, relationship, house and car. Desirable extras included holidays, hobbies and a sense of achievement.

So, adopting this shopping list, I set about making it happen. But it didn’t take long to discover that searching for and building my ideal combination of circumstances took more time and energy than I expected. While some things fell into place relatively easily, others were trickier. The goal posts kept moving. A new car would be a delight for a few weeks and then become a disappointment. My relationship might be going well, but my job would lose its appeal.

All this was a bit like spinning plates. It was frustrating too because, despite all my efforts, the hoped-for happiness and satisfaction were fleeting or absent altogether. I assumed that this was because I was making the wrong choices, so my search would go on, looking for new options. But more cracks began to appear in my strategy. Despite managing to accumulate some of the items on my list, it didn’t feel like I was any nearer to my goal. And on top of this, I couldn’t help noticing that some wealthy celebrities, who had everything I could ever wish for, were not happy or satisfied either.

If happiness and success did not come from simply acquiring the right circumstances, I came to the logical conclusion that there must be some other ingredient in the mix. I began to suspect that some people have a weakness or personality flaw that makes them unable to appreciate the good things they have acquired. This could explain the unhappy celebrities. It could also account for my own dissatisfaction. It looked like the fault lay in me. So, with the intention of fixing myself, I started on the path of self-improvement.

At the same time, I also had a professional incentive to find out how human beings improve themselves. My work as a trainer was focused on helping people learn, and I became intrigued by why we do what we do. How is it that some things seem hard and other things come naturally? So, with the twin objectives of self-improvement and understanding human behaviour, over the next twenty years or so I spent a lot of time and money studying methods and approaches that seemed to offer a promising way forward.

During this self-improvement phase I was, essentially, aiming to discover and then plug gaps in my capabilities. This included compensating for weaknesses, fixing faults, filling deficiencies and accumulating better strategies. All of this was based on adding new behaviours – primarily skills, tools and techniques. As I collected various qualifications and accreditations, I found all this study was helpful to a degree, but once again, the results were patchy and inconsistent.

Much of the time I was aware of an underlying restlessness. Sometimes life could feel like a hair shirt – something to bear as best I could. There seemed to be a never-ending sequence of problems for me to solve. Recurrent examples were where to live, what work to do, how best to raise the family, how to handle finances and how to live healthily. The mystery was that other people seemed to manage issues like these more easily than I did. I now see this was a nonsensical comparison, because I was contrasting their outer appearance with my inner experience. A more inspiring comparison became possible on those rare occasions when I met someone who was genuinely comfortable in their own skin. These people moved gracefully through life with an inner strength. They were happy not only in the joyful sense but also with notable peace of mind. The difference between their wellbeing and my own restlessness was unmissable. I began to revise my ideas of success. I wanted what they had.

When I decided to enrol on a distance learning degree course, I had the opportunity to take some modules in psychology which I found very interesting. This encouraged me to explore related topics such as neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), emotional intelligence and positive psychology.  Each new field of study was promising to begin with and I would work at it enthusiastically. In fact, I went as far to qualify as a master practitioner in NLP. But whatever the field, ultimately, I would become disappointed by the lack of lasting change. So, I would search for the next promising field, pursue that for a while and then again become disappointed. By repeating this cycle, I had become a continual seeker. Yet, despite my hard work and genuine desire to be happy and successful, I could not find the ideal combination of techniques and practices. There was no magic formula. And there was always more work to do.

The breakthrough came in 2011 when I noticed that two prominent figures I respected from the world of NLP had made a significant shift in what they were teaching. What first caught my attention was the suggestion that there was nothing I needed to do to fix myself because nothing was broken. Apparently, my life could improve without having to improve myself. This was a very appealing message, especially as I had tried so many avenues to self-improvement. That said, it did seem a rather incredible claim, especially in the face of the familiar axiom No pain, no gain. But what beckoned to me to explore further was a hint of familiarity. It was if I was being reminded of something I had long forgotten.

As I explored this fresh perspective further, I began to see that it came from a new understanding of how human beings function. I was relieved and delighted to find that there was no methodology to follow, no beliefs to adopt and no techniques to practice. It was simply enough to be open to the possibility that this understanding might be true. The implication was – and is – that there are no personal weaknesses to fix, just misunderstandings to resolve. The key is not in self-improvement but in self-realisation.

On the face of it, it can seem outlandish to suggest that a simple understanding can be life changing. Fortunately, we don’t have to accept this on the authority of anyone else. We can test the truth of it in our own lives. For me, the proof has been in seeing all kinds of benefits arising by themselves, like those I share in these pages.

It has become clear to me that happiness and true success arise through a new understanding. There’s no need to keep searching. We can learn to live in harmony with our nature rather than against it. We can rediscover the wellbeing we were born with. Life becomes simpler. We become free.

2: An Open Invitation

Each and every one of us has an open invitation to look behind the scenes of life. And what we can see when we do that has the power to transform our lives for the better. There are no pre-conditions to this invitation; it is a come-as-you-are party. You don’t need any specialist knowledge or qualifications. If you are a human being, you qualify!

When I first came across this invitation, I soon found that I was being encouraged to look in a direction where I had never looked before. It seems to be a new direction for most people. Our education and upbringing never point us there. It’s as if we have a collective blind spot. Perhaps this is not surprising, because what goes on behind the scenes is invisible much of the time; those moments when it is visible are easily overlooked or dismissed as anomalies. But when we deliberately look, more comes into view.

The invitation is open in another sense too. When you look in this new direction, it’s open to you to see whatever you see. There are no predetermined right answers, no grades of attainment, no expectations to fulfil. There are no beliefs to accept, no creed to sign up to, no prescription to follow. The invitation is open to you to simply look and see for yourself. The pace is yours. There is no rush.

I found this openness very refreshing. After years of adopting other people’s ideas and trying to apply their methods and practices in my own life, I was free to explore on my own terms. To me, this feels much more natural and takes a lot less effort. Most importantly, what I have seen so far has been enormously helpful.

In case you’re wondering whether this invitation is relevant to your own individual circumstances, it’s worth clarifying that what is open for you to see is universal to all human beings. So, no matter what your situation, history and challenges, there are powerful benefits to be discovered. This has certainly been my experience, and my aim in sharing this with you is to show you how this happens and to illustrate some of the possibilities. Let me be clear, though: the invitation is not for you to try and imitate my experience. Rather, it’s to encourage you to see for yourself and be open to the benefits that unfold in your own life.

You might be wondering what see for yourself really means. To illustrate, let’s suppose you were to come across a travel article about a place you've never been. As you read, you would be relying on the writer’s point of view, their opinions and their experience. But it would be entirely different if the article was written about the place where you live. Then you would have your own knowledge to draw on. You would be able to assess the writer's accuracy against your own experience. You would not have to believe the writer’s words because you can see what is there for yourself.

It's just like this with the exploration of being human. You live in this place already. You have plenty of experience to draw on. So, when you come across what someone else has found about the experience of being human, you can validate what they say against your own experience.

Seeing for yourself also acknowledges that no one else can see on your behalf. Suppose a mountain guide were to take you to a high peak. They could point your gaze in a particular direction. They could describe details that they themselves can see, features that they find interesting. But ultimately, when you look out over the landscape you can only see what you see for yourself.

Maybe this open invitation appeals to you already;