Steven Barnes's Blog, page 74

Only one childhood, only one chance

Bonding to another human being, creating family, means taking on their history as yours.   Last year we traveled to the site of the notorious Dozier school in Florida, where a secret burial ground for abused boys was discovered, and unearthed by forensic archeologists.  The question of how and why this happened remains an academic one.For Tananarive, it was personal: her grand-uncle Robert Stevens was one of the dead.  It was a solemn occasion, and as is my wont, I protected my emotions by speaking with the forensic team of the various technologies employed to “speak” to the dead: gas chromatography, entomology, and so forth.  Hiding behind my intellect.T had her reporter’s eye, and concern for her father.  But Jason…for Jason…it is hard to grasp what this must have been for him.  The boys might have been his own age.  The world is both harsh and beautiful, and the love of a mother and father can be all that protect them.   On this day, nothing could remove the essential truth: you are standing in a place where children, much like you, were, if not murdered, discarded like garbage.He is a warrior cub.  A worker, a mover, one of those who interprets the world by interacting with it rather than thinking about it or studying it at a distance.   And the way he chose to cope was to pick up a shovel and help the forensic team dig.  To help them sort through the dirt.  To ask hard questions and listen to hard answers…with his fingers black with Florida soil.Somewhere in the simple coffins, the unmarked graves, the sarcophagus beetles and fragments of bone are the clues of what happened to his great-grand-uncle.  He cannot help but wonder how it all happened, and what stands between him and such a lonely, terrible fate.My love stands in the way.  His mother’s.  Our love for each other.  We stand against the night, or no one does.Please, my friends.  Be gentle with your children. Be careful with whom you make love, for our bodies don’t speak “birth control.”  To our hind-brains, such engagement is about forever. About the creation of life.   So much of the confusion we see in modern relationships is because we are designed through millions of years to bond, to breed, to protect and now we think we can just play games with this energy.Bring genuine caring to your search for pleasure and companionship.  Ask yourself if this man, that woman, would be someone you’d want to help you protect your son or daughter from the coldness of life, the reality of death.  If every time, you remembered you MIGHT be creating a Jason or a Jane, wouldn’t you hold your heart, your sexuality, your time and energy more sacred?   For the child Jason is now mirrors the boy I was, still within me. And the Elder Robert Stevens would have been is my own deathbed self, whispering to me of truth:Soon enough, this child will be a man.  Let him enjoy his childhood, but plant the seeds that will grow into wisdom, now.   Cultivate carefully, or weeds will grow.  And chose those who will hoe and water and fertilize and harvest at your side with great care.  They only have one childhood.Give him one better than yours was.  Certainly, than mine was.Oh, Jason.  I love you so.  I would protect you from everything in the world, as I tried to do for your wonderful sister Nicki.  I will fail so heart-breakingly often, I fear.But I will never, ever stop trying.  Thank God I have a woman like Tananarive at my side.  Thank God she chose me to stand at hers.We will shelter you.  Or die trying.

Steve

Join us tomorrow!

Diamond Hour January show. - Saturday, January 11, 2014 1:00 PM Pacific Standard time (4:00 PM Eastern) http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/77111 Connect via phone or VoIP (Skype, etc.) (724) 444-7444

Year's first Diamond Hour show!

Diamond Hour January show. - Saturday, January 11, 2014 1:00 PM Pacific Standard time (4:00 PM Eastern)

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/77111

Connect via phone or VoIP (Skype, etc.)

(724) 444-7444

Tananarive, Aristotle, and Me

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
- Aristotle  "De Anima"

The wonderful reproductive biologist Jack Cohen once told me that if modern translations of Aristotle had been available to Rene Descarte, the Cartesian “error” of the body/mind division would never have taken place.

That to Aristotle, the “soul” was the expression of function, as in “sight is the soul of the eye.”  To view “soul” as “natural or righteous function of an organ” is fascinating, and reveals an entirely new aspect to the concept of “Soulmate.”

What was “love” to this great thinker?   “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies,” he said.  (He may have been referring to more of what we call “friendship”, but the same idea applies.)  This then would be similar to the West African concept of “Num” which is “a single soul looking out through many eyes.”—The unity of mankind, or life itself.

In life, we would seem to begin with this essential “sameness” at birth, and perhaps to return to it in death.  But between those times, there is near-infinite variety of expression.  And relationships are much like keys and locks—people have to fit together to form a whole that can endure.
To this end, it is vital to “know yourself.”  To have either an instinctive or conscious knowledge of your values and emotions, goals and dreams, wants and needs.   From a world of billions, how else are you to determine who might fit your life?   Raw attraction fades.  Selecting solely for beauty or power leads to some of the most unsatisfying relationships imaginable.

What we want and need is someone who “gets us”—is similar enough to us to share those core values, but different enough to “fill in the gaps” in our own emotions and psychology.  Personally, I don’t want someone who is always “up” when I’m up or “down” when I’m down.    I’d rather have a slight mis-match there, so that if she is down, I am “up” and able to support and coax and nurture her back to emotional balance.  And vice versa.  Of course, if you’re NEVER in sync you don’t have much basis for relationship.  There is a balance.

The point here is that you must know yourself, must express yourself in words, actions, intonations, and so forth.  See the impact they are having in the world.  Adjust.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  To a huge degree, who we are is,  what we do, and the meaning of what we do is the effect it has on the world.   Every infant knows this: they act, they observe the effect their actions have, they adjust and act again.

If your “soul” is the function of your mind and organs and actions upon the world, and love is a single soul in two bodies, then a “soul mate” would be viewed as someone whose values, beliefs, emotions, and actions are in sufficient alignment that in their presence you become MORE of what you are rather than less. They take you move deeply into your own essence.

Tananarive does this for me.   She and I have similar commitments to teaching and writing, to health, to family.  But she approaches these things from a different direction.  I’m something of an ally cat, having pieced my psyche together from hundreds of different teachers and experienced, while she was nurtured by her family and community in a way I never dreamed of.

There are ways that I “lead” her, and others in which she “leads” me, forces me to think, to evaluate my approaches to life or writing or parenting or love itself.   She is different, but her life works, and in many ways works spectacularly well.   I cannot deny it when I see it in close-up on a daily basis.  I am watching, from Aristotle’s point of view, her “soul”—her expression of function.

I first saw her “soul” in her basic, honest expression of interest in my life and career when we first met.  Saw more in her interactions with fans and new friends.  More watching her dance, seeing her healthy animal expression—seeing that she had emotional permission to “tap into” that basic energy and allow it to express itself through her body.  And then when I heard her express her tactical path to getting Stephen King’s quote on “My Soul To Keep” I saw a vast number of separate steps aligning to create a specific effect.  I glimpsed the pattern: energy, talent, work, creativity, courage, artistic expression, physical grace and perception all combining to create an opportunity to operate in King’s circle, catch his attention and create an invitation to let him see her work. And if she hadn’t had the chops, hadn’t been ready, that created opportunity would have amounted to nothing.

In that moment, I saw her soul. Saw the creative little girl she had been, guided by a woman’s discipline and focus, creating opportunity.   Life doesn’t give you a single chance at the Gold Ring—there are many chances, perhaps endless chances, but you have to recognize them, be ready for them, and also be working your @#$$ off so that you don’t need them.

I saw her.    And recognized my own soul, in her body.  I was lost from that moment.

Know yourself.   Deeply.  Make no excuses for your failures, have no false modesty about your successes. Without this knowledge, you won’t recognize a kindred spirit, nor will you detect  predators or walking wounded wearing  masks.

How can you know your Soul Mate if you don’t know your Soul?

Namaste,
Steve

Art and Truth

“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”
― Warren W. Wiersbe

“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.”
― William Faulkner

It is probably safe to say that there are probably as many definitions of “art” as there are artists.  One answer that makes intense sense of the arguments and perspectives is that “Art is Self expression.”  Note the capital “S” there, meaning “true Self” or to put it another way, “Art is expression of truth.”
“Craft” is another thing, of course, chiefly skill in communication, related to style, technique, structure, and so forth.  Deep subject, complementary to but separate from the first.
There was recently a Facebook discussion that suggested that the purpose of art is to confront, upset, destroy the status quo, and so forth. Consider the possibility that these things are NOT the purpose—they are the effect.  Human beings slide into a “dreaming” state rather rapidly, a place rife with mythologies and justifications.  Any real truth—about relationships, politics, spirituality, actions, or whatever, will conflict with much of these illusions, and be uncomfortable to those comforted thereby.
An artist, from this perspective, has the obligation to have not only craft (to express) but a point of view (something worth expressing—a perspective on “truth” the artist is willing to defend or express during his career.)
Because it will require fantastic energy and focus to dig deep enough to find a truth worth sharing, it is valuable to focus on something that is deeply meaningful to you: a pain, hope, dream, fear, love…something that engages the passions so strongly that you won’t stop with the easy answers, but keep digging, and digging, throwing away the “easy” answers your mind and ego will frantically throw at you to distract you from reality, drag you back down into the dream.
Another trap the Seeker encounters is external reward.  Ooooh!  Shiny!   When you’ve spent your life trying to get people to look at something (whether it is something about us, or something about the world) when you start getting fame, money, sex, or adulation because of some perception you’ve offered to the world, it is tempting to offer some version of that same perception again…and again…and again…until you’ve forgotten the process that led you to that awareness in the first place, and have lost your way.
In the arts, this might be writing book after book about the same situation, or set in the same universe, or exploring the superficial aspects of some theme.  Hell, you have to pay the bills, right?
And of course it’s true, you do, especially if you have a family.    It might be wise to question the values of any artist who places his ego need to create or seek “truth” above the legitimate need of a child for food and shelter and security.
Navigating these waters is difficult, but necessary because we are ALL artists in one way or another, and our primary work of art is the lives we live. The artistic works, careers, physical bodies, and relationships are just external expressions of the lives we live from day to day, our day to day actions are the result of our beliefs, values, and emotional charges, and these things are the result of our relationship to Truth—whatever actually “is” and the degree to which we are in alignment with it.
Milton Erickson achieved miracles with his clients because he believed that, no matter what people said, what they really wanted were simple things in alignment with basic human nature: safety, security, sensual comfort, maturity, love, connection, success, health, a thriving family, self-possession, and graceful aging.    It is reasonable to suspect that he regarded any denial of these things as lies the client told him, until proven otherwise.
“I don’t want a relationship.”
“I’m satisfied with my body as it is.”
“I don’t want money”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
It is reasonable to look at Erickson’s pattern, or the Chakras, or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as normal, healthy, and typical, and divergences from them as extraordinary and potentially maladaptive.
That that is truth, and that the stories people tell about not wanting those things are mostly interesting lies.
And as we explore the lies we tell ourselves, the lies others tell become more obvious, and an entirely new level of human understanding opens.
But by the way…confronting people with what you see is the FASTEST way to destroy relationships, unless you have permission.  There is nothing harder than finding companions genuinely committed to the truth.  Trust me.
This search, the quest to learn “what is True” or “who am I” are universals.  All human knowledge can be subsumed under one or the other category.  And the further you get from the core questions, the more trivial the answers become, the more likely that these are mere  entertainments, side-lines, distractions for children.  Cotton candy.  Nothing wrong with cotton candy, as long as you don’t mistake it for genuine nutrients.
Nothing wrong with lies, as long as you don’t mistake it for truth.
If you want to deepen your art, your life, your search for love or protection of the relationships you currently have with others or Self, simply ask “what is true” and “who am I?” and continue to ask until you run out of language and arrive at answers of deep elegance and calm simplicity.  And then go deeper.  
Dreams are sweet, but they burden us, and morph into nightmares without warning.
The Truth will set you free.



Namaste,
Steve

Intermittent Fasting

If I had to lose weight with maximum speed and I had minimum time (either daily or time to weight loss target…say, a wedding) I would do four things:
1) Intermittent Fasting2) Tabata whole-body sprints: Kettlebells, Club-bells, or Bodyweight (say, Burpees) four times a week, 20 seconds work/10 seconds rest, for 20 minutes.3) Drink a gallon of water a day.4) Journal my dreams, thoughts, emotions, and actions.

About five years ago, I started Intermittent fasting, after accidentally encountering the topic while researching caloric restriction.  It is the easiest, simplest, most effective means of weight control I’ve ever heard of.  It has the advantage of being a life-time regime with the effectiveness of a temporary crash diet, of requiring infinitely less thought that eating “six times a day” and instantly giving you up to ten extra hours a week.
It turns out that many of the health, longevity, and weight management effects are reaped not only by people who restrict calories overall but for those who “wave” the number of calories they take in on a daily basis.  Here are some thoughts on the subject.
1)   The list of positive effects for Intermittent Fasting is so wide that I must suggest that you do your own reading, and then discuss them with your doctor. Some are controversial, but they include positive effects on insulin sensitivity, cancer, obesity, sleep disorders, cognitive function,  growth hormone release, and more.
2) There are numerous ways to approach it: eating only after 6pm, eating only between 7-9pm, eating only fresh fruits and vegetables every other day, eating every other day, taking three days a week off (I generally do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Saturday), etc.
3) It is not a religious observance, but does have a fabulous reputation in spiritual circles, referred to as “The Fast of David” in Biblical times, and thought to be one of the very highest practices.  
4) You will DEFINITELY make contact with the “voices in your head” that try to tell you who you are and what is true.    They will lie like you won’t believe.
5) Hunger is an odd duck.  If you eat NOTHING it is a low-level growl.  But the instant you eat something, it seems to “wake up” fully and start to devil you.  This is referred to as “limbic hunger.”
6) You will save both money and time.  It will also sharpen your taste on the days you DO eat.  Food tastes amazing.
7)Here are a couple of links to get you started researching: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermit...
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/what...
Please take a look, discuss with your health professional, and ask anything you want.  This is real, and it works.

Namaste,Steve

Soulmate's Commandments #10: Thou Shalt Take Daily Action

10. Thou Shalt Take Daily Action To Become Thy Best and Truest Self.

And now we’ve come to the final dictate, the 10th statement in the Soulmate’s Ten Commandments.  Let’s take a look back at what we’ve done: clarified who we are and what we desire, committed to paying the price to be our true selves, demand that we settle for nothing less than a true expression of Self, and decide upon indirect action.  Now what there is is to find the flow within our lives, to spend our days being who and what we were born to be.    Finding a partner?   First find yourself.

Years ago, Tananarive went to a fortune teller on a lark.    She was told that she would find the love of her life AFTER she had evolved to the next level of excellence.  Specifically, after she had become a writer.  And so it happened.

One doesn’t need to be a fortune teller to know why this was excellent advice:

1) Even if she never met her future partner, she is engaging with life and fulfilling her dreams.

2) Being happy and engaged radiates positive “vibes”.   It makes us more attractive.

3) Writing exposes your name to the public.  People meet you, read you, and talk about you.  The name “Tananarive Due” was in the public consciousness, and a mutual fan eventually asked me if I’d heard of her.  In the same way, she watched one of my “Outer Limits” episodes and wanted to know who had written such a wierd, twisted, sick story.  Ahem.

4) Writers associate with other writers.  Eventually, our circles overlapped and we had the opportunity to meet, at a black SF conference in Atlanta.  The rest is pretty much history.

But if she had moped around waiting to meet someone…

If she hadn’t operated her life so that her actions and presentation revealed her values…

If she hadn’t been unwilling to “settle” in relationships with men who did not love her, cherish her and see her genius…

Both our lives would have been very different.  It takes courage and faith to walk alone in the world, while maintaining an open heart.  To keep faith that love is not only possible, but a natural consequence of living in a particular dynamic way.  To keep your eyes on the couples who commit for a lifetime, rather than the pity parties of men and women convinced that the opposite sex is worthless.

To see that, to a remarkable degree,  we create the world we experience.  What you do on a daily basis, and the way you do it, will determine who you are, and how the world sees you…and who you attract into your life.  Your emotions will determine what you are willing to accept. Your clarity will decide whether you can recognize what and who you are dealing with.

There you have it, in most basic form: The Soulmate Process.  It says that YOU are responsible for your relationship history, and that only you can change it.

The choice is yours.

Namaste…
Steve

Commandment #9: Thou Shalt Soberly Examine the "Gap"...

9. Thou Shalt Soberly Examine The “Gap” Between Where Thou Art, And Where Thou Needst To Be.


Now…this is the tricky part.  You’ve performed #8—writing out your precise desires in the realm of relationship.   Body, Mind, and Relationships, relating these things to real, measureable results.    For the first time in your life, you aren’t compromising AT ALL.

Take a deep breath…and look around at your circle of friends and associates and neighbors.   FIND THE PERSON WHO COMES THE CLOSEST TO WHAT YOU HAVE DESCRIBED, WHETHER THEY ARE MARRIED OR NOT.   Sit them down for the most important conversation of your life.  You are going to ask them to describe what THEY are looking for in a “perfect partner.”    You have to have the courage to hear what they are about to say, to face the terror that what your ideal describes will be something you might never be able to be.  

The first time I did this technique, it was right after my first marriage had gone belly-up, and I was shattered emotionally, more insecure than I’d ever been.  I didn’t know who I was.   

But I knew what I was attracted to.   I created a list of everything I wanted in a woman, and then had an amazing idea.    A life-changing idea. 

I would find the person who came closest to what I had, and ask them what they were looking for in a partner.   Get them to be as specific as I’d been, in all three arenas.

And I would take a close look at what she said. Why?  Because, if I’d chosen carefully, what I described was what my heart most yearned for. And if that person could be trusted to speak her truth, what SHE     described was what I most yearned to be—the kind of man who could have a woman like THAT for a partner.

Grasp something carefully—it wasn’t about changing yourself for some particular person.   It is about understanding who and what you really wanted to be before life stole some of your juice.  Before you lost that confidence that you can have or be anything, and fulfill your dreams.   In other words, before you copped out on yourself.

Because once you’ve got that description, in all likelihood what is described is a more congruent, refined, powerful, confident, emotionally healed and focused version of you.   All you have to do is subtract where you are from what is described, and you have the goals that would set you on the path to being a fuller, happier, more self-realized version of yourself.

Even better—ask three different people, and look at what they all say in common.  If you look at them, and in your heart know that these goals are in alignment with your values, but perhaps scare you, just a bit…perfect.

In my own case, the lady in question could indeed tell me what she was looking for.  And to my shock, it wasn’t terribly different from who and what I was.  There were two major things.

1) She wanted someone with more of a spiritual base than I had.  To my surprise, I realized I’d been in so much pain that I’d forgotten to meditate.

2) She wanted someone with less body fat than I had at the time.  And…I realized I’d been so depressed I’d stopped running!

I put these two pieces into place, began meditating and running, (and managing my eating a bit more) and began to shift emotionally.   I didn’t have to be the “perfect Steve.”  I had to be moving in the direction of positive growth.  When you do, you are happy.  Your energy increases.  You feel grateful, and it is easier to have faith.  It is easier to take additional actions.

And you believe in yourself enough to set new goals.    I had found the missing piece.   Everything else: my healing, what I discovered about ethical seduction, and finding my Soul Mate…everything came out of this initial piece.  It was frightening (what if she’d said something I could never be?) but I realized that the fear was just another of the emotions I had to learn to control to reach my fullest potential.

1) Make a list
2) Find the person/people who come the closest, and ask them what THEY want in a partner, collecting data in all three arenas
3) Subtract where you are from what they say.
4) Divide up this “gap” into pieces you can begin to acquire at the rate of about 1% per week.
5) Walk the thousand-mile road.   It is while you are totally inmeshed in being you, deepening your skills and passions, and learning how to give greater service to the world that you will fulfill your destiny.    

Was I prepared to hear something harsh?  That my goals and dreams and actions were mis-aligned?   Yes.  Because NOTHING is worth losing yourself.  And life, in a thousand different ways, distracts us from our heart path. And it is while following our heart paths that we find our souls…

And our Soul Mates.

Namaste,
Steve

Soulmate Commandment #7: Indirect action

7. As Love Is A Shy Creature, Thou Shalt Commit To Indirect Action.

I’m not saying that the people use dating services, matchmakers, singles bars and so forth specifically seeking partnership are wrong.   I’m saying that you need to concentrate on the things that you can control, and you cannot control the actions and reactions of others.

What you CAN do is become the person you were intended to be, or be firmly upon that path, with your heart happy and accepting of where you are, right here, right now.  And that combination of dynamism and centeredness is addictively attractive.

Another thing: the “Secret Formula” is a luck magnet.   I’m telling you, when you have clear goals, believe you can and should do it, are taking constant action (and of course noticing your results and making micro-adjustments, while committing to constant improvement) and living every day with an “attitude of gratitude” you attract allies like crazy.  And most strangely, “luck” multiplies.  Opportunities come to you with the predictability of American Express and Visa offers arriving in the mail if you raise your credit score.  When you don’t need money, people offer you credit.  When you don’t have a job, you can’t get a job, but as soon as you have one other people offer employment.  When you don’t have a relationship you can’t get one, but as soon as you have one people mysteriously start showing interest.

“A watched pot never boils” is another way of looking at this.  Or the line from Broadcast News I love so much: “wouldn’t it be great if needy were a turn-on?”  Well, it isn’t, except for the wounded, and predators.  What IS a turn on to healthy people is other healthy people.   “Who are you, and where are you going?”  are questions lurking just under the surface of  the social chit-chat that we engage in for the first hours of a new relationship.

You have to know who you are, and where you are going.  That creates an “energy signature”, a “vibe” that you are putting out to the world: this is who I am.  These are my values.  This is where I’m going.  If this looks interesting to you, let’s talk.

Not very complicated, really.  

1) Seek to be balanced in your physical, emotional, and career aspects.  This maximizes your attractiveness (we should do all we can to be attractive BY OUR OWN STANDARDS), opens our hearts to the beauty of life (an amazing aphrodesiac, seriously), and improves our “nest building” (finances.)

2) Start your day by re-writing your goals, or preferably a “daily ritual” of thought, motion, and focused emotion.  Know what your most important three-five actions of the day are, and do them before you do anything less important.    We must prioritize according to our values. This will place you on the “radar” of others with similar values, saving you a gigantic amount of wasted time.

3) Here’s a fantasy way of looking at this: when you chase after relationships you lose energy and “mass.”   As you focus on becoming, you increase energy and “mass.”  Gravity can be seen as a bend in space-time, and the greater the mass the more powerful the attraction. 

4) Concentrating on all three aspects of self demands deeper engagement with the world.   Every dollar you ever earn will come from another human being, so you have to understand human needs and drives, build short and long-term alliances, and build “master mind” groups to fill the gaps in your own knowledge and capacity.  As you learn new skills you will need coaches, teachers, and come in contact with students at your own level.  As you express a hobby or interest, you will come in contact with others with similar enthusiasms. 

5) You are probably no more than three degrees of separation from a Soulmate.   Quite possibly only two.   Let your light shine, purely and energetically, broadcast to the world who you are, be the equivalent of the man or woman you would be attracted to, and someone in your circle will be struck by how much you remind them of, or would be a good match for, someone in their circle.  Countless relationships have begun at work, church, the gym, because friends introduced…you just don’t know.   

6) Be happy who you are, where you are.   Don’t go looking for love, instead be loving and share that sense of abundance with the world.  A man or woman who walks into the room with purpose, energy, enthusiasm, sensitivity to others, genuine interest in life, and deep self-love that bubbles over to others will hit the room like a BOMB.   Everyone wants to know who that is.

7) Be honest about who you are and what you want.   Courteous and empathetic to all, draw boundaries.  Don’t give yourself away just because someone asks.    Have standards, hold yourself to them, and make it clear through action (more than words) that you will not be dragged down or away from your path and destiny. 

8) If you are doing the things that increase self-knowledge, self-love, healing and open-hearted compassion, while increasing energy and engaging in daily action you are sending out a clear message to the universe.  In a forest of a thousand trees and a million birds, the bird who sings a clear, bright, loud song can be heard miles away, and will attract a mate who is looking for THAT.

9) Every day, every thought, every action should be some version of one of the two major questions: “who am I?”  and “what is true?”  Everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING, connects with one or the others. And as you can probably guess, they are actually different versions of the same question, a question that can’t quite be put into words.  When you resolve the duality, you enter another realm of thought and experience.

10)  Your goals, beliefs, values, actions and emotions should be aligned.  You should be genuinely willing to spend your life following your bliss and sharing joy with the world, even if you walk alone.   Alone isn’t “lonely.”    When you are content being alone, committed to your healing, have high standards THAT YOU MEET and give yourself the love wounded people seek from others…you are operating on another level.   And the “tribe” you have just entered is welcoming and warm almost beyond belief, filled with others who are tired of the games, and prepared to welcome you.  And it is here, while you are too busy to watch the pot, that that sucker will boil over.

And heat like that is something absolutely not to be missed.

Namaste,
Steve

Soulmate Commandment #6: Thou shalt demand the very best from thyself...

6.   Thou Shalt Demand The Very Best From Thyself–And Refuse To Settle For Less Than That From Others.

I have to say this again and again: you have the right, and the responsibility to bond only to the very healthiest and most appropriate person your heart can attract and hold.   Almost every day,   someone posts about their crazy husband or wife or ex-husband or ex-wife, who they made children with, and now hold those children hostage in a savage divorce or custody battle.  The kids are whiplashed, impoverished, abused or neglected.  When questioned, it is clear that there were obvious clues that SOMETHING WAS WRONG from the beginning, or at the very least that the man or woman in question allowed simple attraction to overrule common sense.    What is pitiful is when they say something along the line of “well, I thought that they deserved love too…”

Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean it has to be YOURS, for goodness sakes.   What other comments: “he told me he wouldn’t treat me the way he treated the others…”   “I didn’t know anyone who knew him…”  “she promised she would change…”  “she got pregnant…” “I was lonely…”    “I was just coming out of another relationship…”

And so forth and so on. Recipes for disaster.    Here are some things to consider:

1) The best predictor of the future is the past.  Try to meet people who your intended dated or married prior to you.  If you can’t, consider that an orange flag.

2) People who mistreat other people will eventually mistreat you.  If they gossip about others, they’ll gossip about you. Watch the way they treat their pets, too.

3) Everyone feels alone and afraid. There are only two  questions: a) what do they do with their loneliness and their fear?   b) What story do they try to sell you about it?  If a) and b) do not match, another orange flag.

4) Any potentially reproductive activity triggers bonding responses.  Don’t kid yourself.  Your hind-brain doesn’t speak “birth control.”   The crazy behavior we often see in supposedly “casual” relationships is competing value structures crashing and burning.

5) Be scathingly honest about why your body, career, and relationship history.   In the depths  of your own heart, accept no lies or blame on others.  Musashi’s first principle: DO NOT THINK DISHONESTLY. The more honest you are, the more you take responsibility for who and what you are in the world, the easier it is to see through the lies, excuses, distortions and manipulations used by others. The more of a liar someone is, the less congruence there will be between words and actions.  Humans are exquisitely tuned to detect such clues, unless we are blocking out the information.   “I’m not perfect, what right do I have to expect others to be?”  None.  But you can demand honesty and growth from yourself—and from anyone who wants to enter your intimate space.  For the sake of children unborn—and your own heart—you must be prepared to demand nothing less.

6)  “Ruthless Compassion” is a principle I hold dear.  When you force your children to do their homework, or deny them ice cream for breakfast, it doesn’t matter that they scream and beg. That’s their job.  Your job is to be the @#$$ adult.   Period.  The same is true for your non-optimal hungers.    If you let the nattering voices in your head control you, you are pretty much screwed.

7) Pay attention to actions more than words.  If the actions and words do not match, assume that you are being lied to.   Only then pay attention to those words—what is the story the intended is trying to sell?   TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS.  Unfortunately, you will only calibrate them by making mistakes, so start with small judgements and slowly work your way up as you refine your sensitivity. 

8) You’ll never get to 100% predictive capacity.  You will, however, be able to understand everything that people have done, in retrospect. When you see how love and fear mold you and the people closest to you, you have a basis for understanding others.   

9) Test your judgement, beginning with asking why you  did the things you did in your own life, without excuses.  Everything you’ve ever done, you did because you considered it your best bet for increasing pleasure and reducing pain.  Every discipline you’ve accepted was in the belief that pain now means pleasure later.  You’ve done the best you could with the resources you have.  Love yourself enough to forgive yourself, and you can look at the worst behavior without blinking.  This will open the door to understanding and appreciating others.

10) Forgive your past relationships.  Remember that YOU chose them.   They weren’t forced upon you.  Remember also that, like you, they did the best they could with what they had to work with.    If you can’t let go of the anger, it is because you are afraid that, without anger, you will make the same mistakes again. Be hurt again.  LEARN THE LESSONS AND YOU CAN RELEASE THE PAIN.  You can avoid pain, resist predation, even kill an enemy…without fear or anger.    You will know whether you have evolved to the next level, and learned the lesson, if you can see what happened in those earlier relationships without blame, guilt, or shame.

11) You can trust other people to the exact degree that you can trust your ability to evaluate them.  What are their values, beliefs, goals, and capacities?  And you will gain clarity there if you don’t need other people to ignore your flaws.   Most relationships are based on “don’t call me on my b.s. And I won’t call you on yours.”

No.  As you would for your own child, you should aspire to being all you have the capacity to be.  And the only way to do that is to surround yourself with people who see and beleive in the very best from you.  You support them, and let them support you.  Love yourselves and accept yourselves for where you are…but remember that when you’re green, you grow.  When you’re ripe, you rot.

Stay green.  Keep growing.

Namaste,
Steve