The Green Platform Chapter One

DECLAN COYLE
THE GREEN
PLATFORM
SIMPLY LIFE-CHANGING

CHAPTER ONE
The Green And
Red Platforms
EVERY morning and indeed many times throughout each day, you
and I, often totally unaware, make a decision to use either the Green
or Red Platforms.
You might well ask – what is the Green Platform? Or what is
the Red Platform? They are terms that can on one hand show how
imprisoned we are to our own limiting thoughts; on the other hand
they can show you how to change and utterly transform your life
for the better.
How do they work? First let’s look at the Red Platform, the
negative, self-sabotaging platform.
Every day over 50,000 thoughts go through your head. Most of
these – 40,000 or 80 per cent – are negative. It means that for every
one time we have a positive Green Platform thought, there are four
occasions when we land on the Red Platform in negative mode.
So why do we see Red and why do we get on the Red Platform?
Every time we decide to blame or complain or start telling a
victim story such as: “It always happens to me” – we are on the
Red Platform. That means most people spend 80 per cent of their
time on the Red Platform, thinking negative thoughts day after day.
Normally 95 per cent of the thoughts we have today are the same
as the thoughts we had yesterday.
The ABCs of the Red Platform
The ABCs of the Red Platform are Anger, Blame and Complain.
When we are in this state, we use words like “you” or “they” or “he”
or “she” to blame outside forces for our life circumstances.
Underneath this platform, there is a tank of fuel called fear. When
we are born we land on the Green Platform and all we have in our
Green Platform tank is love. As we grow up we gradually learn all
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about fear and fill our Red Platform tank with it. If we look for a
personality or a figure emerging out of this tank of fear and living
on the Red Platform, we find the Ego.
The Ego
We’ve all heard of him (or her). We say people have big Egos as if
they are proud of themselves. But in reality the Ego is a sham. It
is a false self who works night and day – if you let him or her – to
undermine your state of happiness. The Ego’s main weapons are
fear, anxiety and doubt.
The Ego works his or her socks off to keep us away from joy
and happiness in the present moment – the now. Like Dracula’s
inability to live in the light, the Ego cannot live in the present. It
stalks your mind by reminding you of how stupid, clumsy,
inappropriate you were in the past and fuels your thoughts with
fear anxiety and worries about what is down the line waiting for
you in the future.
So as a shadow cannot live in sunshine and darkness cannot
live in a room when I turn on the light, the Ego cannot live in the
present moment. Once we become aware of that and bring
awareness to the present moment, we have a great weapon to
undermine the power of the Ego, reclaim our lives and get back
on the Green Platform.
That key word – awareness – dismantles the power of the Ego
and gets us on the Green Platform. The real you lives on this
powerful positive platform while the Ego lives on the Red Platform
feeding on fear, anxiety and doubt.
The key is to become awake, aware and alert.
We become aware by activating our “Inner Observer”, our
“Alert Watcher”, our “Witnessing Consciousness”. In a word you
must become your own “Noticer.” If you manage that, it means you
will be able to notice the shenanigans and manipulations of the Ego
as it strives to keep you from your joy and happiness in this
present moment.
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THE GREEN AND RED PLATFORMS
The Ego allows us to think that we can be happy – but only
somewhere way down the line. It never, ever will help or enable
you to be happy in the here and now.
The Ego is a very important player in all our lives. And if we
don’t wake up and realise the damage it is doing to us on an hourly,
daily and weekly basis, he (we’ll call him “he” for handiness sake)
will continue to be the orchestrator of our worries, fears, sadness
and real suffering.
Like all forces of darkness, the Ego is manipulative, clever and
persuasive, particularly if you don’t stand up to him by the simple
act of bringing awareness to recognise his underhand activities.
The Ego invites you to step onto the Red Platform by reminding
you of the mess you made in work yesterday or the way your
boyfriend or girlfriend is fed up with your behaviour. Once the Ego
gets you on the Red Platform, he has you snared.
Expertly, he will then go to work by filling your past with
shame, anger or guilt. He is equally happy to project you into the
future where he will highlight your areas of worry, fear and
anxiety about financial problems or personal relationships or
whatever area he perceives to be a weakness in your attitude.
Imagine you are driving to work or on the train or on the bus
or maybe you are just in the kitchen and this invisible hand of
unhappiness is prompting you to bring resistance and nonacceptance
to your life as it is now.
Before you know it, the Ego has you making up imaginary fights
with your boss, your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or
partner. Once you’re on that Red Platform, he is winning and knows
his job will be easy for the rest of the day. The Ego is one of the few
who is happy when he sees Red. He is at his happiest when you are
at your unhappiest.
He will prompt you with whispers of: “My boss is always
picking on me,” or: “I do everything around here,” and without your
knowing it, you are winding yourself up at a rate of knots. Tense,
unhappy, wearing a scowl on your face. He is a grievance looking
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for a cause and too often we unwittingly help him find that cause.
The Ego is your deadliest foe in life – the enemy within. If you
can understand that and then become aware of the Ego’s negative
influence on your life, this is the first serious breakthrough.
There is an old African proverb that says: “If there is no
enemy on the inside, the enemy on the outside doesn’t matter.”
I found it groundbreaking the first time, many years ago,
when I was made aware of what prompts so many of my thoughts
and negative attitude in the course of any given day.
In the intervening period, I have had the need every day to stop
and realise that the Ego is still there, trying to coax and cajole me
onto his home base – The Red Platform.
And, of course, sometimes he still wins. But at this stage I’m
catching him more quickly now. The one thing we know for sure
is that awareness is power. Often when I find myself slipping into
victim mode about something, the simple thought clicks into my
mind: “This is the Ego trying to fool me.”
I can then jump from Red Platform to Green Platform literally
by thinking that one thought. Bringing the light of awareness to
the darkness of the Ego’s behaviour.
A little miracle occurs in your life every time you realise that.
Once we decide to put up our hand and say: “Enough. I will
decide how I will live my life today,” we get a power into our life that
is simply amazing.
Like all miracles, it is just a simple change in attitude that brings
a massive change in how we can enjoy our lives. Each one of us must
reclaim our own lives by being aware of what makes us unhappy
(the Ego’s agenda) and learn how to be happy and in control of our
own destiny.
Here is another little sentence that packs a real punch if we are
to truly reclaim our lives.
The best way to understand life is to accept it.
To be one with life. Once you see the value of acceptance then
you apply what I call the PAN formula … acceptance plus Positive
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Action Now. Acceptance without positive action could easily
degenerate into indifference or apathy. So in a time of adversity,
step one is acceptance.
It is as it is.
You cannot argue with reality or you will lose – 100 per cent of
the time. We love to use the words “should” or “shouldn’t” in a way
that challenges reality.
“I should be getting that job,” or “This shouldn’t be happening
to me.”
But it is as it is.
Step two is a powerful question that implies action: “Of a list
of 100 items, what is the one thing I can do now to make this
situation better? What is the one thing I can do to improve it?”
Then do it.
If it is a fine day, smile and enjoy the sunshine. If it is a rainy
morning when you look out, it should not mean that you believe
everything that happens you will be gloomy for the rest of the day.
We are like that. We say: “What a dreadful day. And I feel terrible
as well.”
What’s dreadful is the toxic little story we are telling ourselves
in our heads about the day. Now, tell me, if you write that headline
for your day ahead, do you think you have any chance of having a
fun-loving and happy time?
Highly unlikely.
That’s the Ego at work. You open the curtains or pull the blinds
and instantly it makes up a story about the day.
“That’s a dreadful day.”
This is a toxic influence that we must eradicate from our
systems. If we don’t, we can’t find the bliss of living on the Green
Platform on a day-in, day-out basis.
The three shadows of the Ego are then, next, and more.
“When I lose weight, then I’ll be happy.”
But not now. Never now. Losing weight is not the key to
happiness – happiness is the key to losing weight.
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When I get this or that, then I’ll be happy.
Then … next week.
Next June.
Next year.
But never now.
Or “more.” When I get more time off, more pay, more holidays…
then I’ll be happy.
But not now.
The Ego is quite literally that fearful thought that happiness
is not and never will be in the present moment. If today you
could just bring the power of awareness to your life, the Ego will
disappear like a shadow in sunshine.
The only place we will ever live is in the present moment. We
live in a continual present and if you are enlightened enough to
realise that and say: “Right now I have no problem,” then you are
going to have much more joy in your life than someone who looks
around corners.
You are becoming an empowered person. You are breaking free
from that reactive prison of the Red Platform and landing on the
proactive Green Platform with 10 of the most powerful words in
the English language, no word more than two letters: “If it is to be,
it is up to me.”
You have discovered responsibility. The ability to choose
your response. You’ll discover on the Green Platform that the
happiest people do not have the best of everything; they just make
the best of everything. On the Green Platform you realise that
life is not about getting what you want but rather wanting what
you get. This is the major difference between success and
happiness. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is
wanting what you get.
Then taking positive action that will transform your life
situation. The ultimate gift of the Green Platform is to be able to
live life as if we didn’t have an Ego.
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The ABCs of the Green Platform
That brings us to the ABCs of the Green Platform: Awareness.
Belief. And Commitment.
We have now come to understand that awareness is activating
your “Inner Observer” where you become the “Noticer” in your life.
You observe what’s going on in your mind without judgement. With
judgement your Ego is back in control. Your “Noticer” should
never be the “Judgemental Noticer”, but the “Compassionate
Noticer”. Compassion that does not include you is not compassion.
Belief and the power to break limiting beliefs. Whether you
believe you can or you can’t, either way you are usually right as
Henry Ford reminded us years ago.
Commitment is to do what I say I’ll do long after the mood that
I said it in is past. It’s about a steely discipline. It’s about keeping
your word to yourself. As Thomas Huxley said many years ago:
“Do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel
like it or not.”
Underneath the Green Platform is the field of all possibilities.
That’s where we find a new and a great and a wonderful world. It
is a joyful place of creativity and inspiration where you contribute
and make a difference in the lives of people.
The ‘Real You’ on the Green Platform says: “How can I serve
others and add value to their lives?” The ‘False You,’ the Ego on
the Red Platform says: “What’s in it for me?”
On the Green Platform you contribute to relationships and the
other person leaves you happier and more energised. You see each
relationship as an assignment. You are an energy transformer.
People on the Red Platform contaminate relationships. They
suck your vital energy with their complaining, whining and
blaming. They are energy vampires.
When you make a choice you change the future. Decisions shape
destiny. The choices you make, make you. It all comes down to a
choice. One of your greatest hidden gifts is your power to choose
which platform you want to land on and live on, no matter what
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happens in your life. How come we spend so much time on the Red
Platform? Part of the reason is that we spend a huge amount of our
time on automatic, reacting to events, but not really consciously
choosing our response.
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