Steven Barnes's Blog, page 76

Reasons I'm glad I'm almost dead #3: Stuff Makes Sense. People make sense.

 (Well, really reasons I’m glad I’ve lived this long)

Stuff makes sense.  People make sense.

And that is HUGE.

My largest single conceptual breakthrough came after writing almost two million words of fiction.    For decades I’d taught and used the Hero’s Journey as a “plotting” structure that also mirrored the path of creating work, and the living of life in general. With minor tweaks, I could make it fit any story, movie, incident, project, or anything else, and have never encountered a situation that didn’t fit (sometimes I have to minimalize or abstract, but in general, if it doesn’t fit the pattern, human consciousness won’t recognize the input as “story”.)
The other piece of the puzzle was the yogic chakras, which at some point I began using for characterization.   Mapping over beautifully with Maslows Hierarchy of human needs, or Milton Erickson’s therapeutic model, the chakras represent six thousand years of yogic psychology: theoretical, observational,  experimental and experiential.

Good enough for me.  The breakthrough came from asking myself about the relationship between story and character.  It seemed pretty obvious that the argument about whether character or story was primary was a false choice.

Non-dualistically, character and story are the same thing.    In other words, a situation is not a story.  Story is created by dropping a person of certain needs and capacities into a given scenario and watching what they do.  What they do reveals who they are.  What they SAY about themselves reveals a secondary level, but the primary is action.  

I remember having fun in my novel “Firedance” with the little hermaphrodite assassin “Leslie”, the deadliest human being (pound for pound) who ever lived, who is performing courageous, self-sacrificing, hugely effective feats while running an internal monologue constantly trashing herself.  The conflict between these two things—action and thought—revealed personality, specifically the damage wrought by the interaction of conflicting value structures and belief patterns.

If Maslow was right, as we satisfy lower needs (and by “lower” I certainly don’t mean less essential or worthy) we automatically begin to evolve toward the higher.   Since I was using the “create a perfect human being, damage them, and then give them a route to wholeness that requires shedding illusions” general approach to characterization, it seemed reasonable that the HJ could be seen as the route from a lower to a higher “chakra.”

I saw this as a series of tight little spiral traveling up that vertical line, one spiral between each of ‘em: survival to sex to power to emotion to communication to intellect to spirit.

Again, it made sense to me.  Then I thought of the overall process, the journey from survival to spirit, as one huge spiral, and the whole thing began to resemble a sphere.  The dynamism of the interaction between the two created a 360-degree revolving sphere of the thing called “story”.   

And my grasp of the big picture congealed.  And has never changed.   Note that this is like a wire-frame model in my mind.   It isn’t infinitely predictive. But everything made sense in retrospect, and it was a hugely valuable tool in structuring and writing.

Build a character and test him to destruction—and growth.  Or, create a situation and ask what character would be perfect to explore this, resolve it, or wreck it.

All the thousands of books and films and stories I’d seen or read or heard collided in my mind, suddenly simplified hugely: they were always either stories of growth, decay, or simple expression, a human organism seeking to evade pain and gain pleasure, operating at various levels of “sleep” or “awakening”, trying to navigate his existence to the best of his ability at the time.

Because I also used the HJ to plan the actual work (for instance, there is ALWAYS a point in my writing of any project where it feels as if nothing is working and it’s all falling apart.  This is just emotional crap…get used to it), and the Chakras to look at my own progress and blockages, something odd happened.

After about three years of using this dynamic model for writing and executing writing, I started seeing it in other aspects of my life.  In fact, once I “tweaked” to that perspective, I found it impossible NOT to see it.  And then saw it in the lives of others. And then all around me, everywhere.

Again, and this is critical: it was not “predictive” in the sense of knowing what was going to happen before it happens. But explanatory?   Frankly, once I saw it, people stopped being puzzling.  And there just weren’t human beings of vastly different aspect.    On the most important core levels, we were all the same—with the same infinite variation found in snowflakes, of course, such that we were either as different, or as similar as you could want, depending on perspective.

It was wonderful.  If the use of this juxtaposing was a “wire frame” with writing, it was the ghost of a wire frame dealing with real human beings: perceptable to intuition and emotional “flash” but dissolving if I looked at it directly: subliminal, not conscious.   Peripheral, not foveal.

But there.  And as three points gives you a circle, and four points gives you a sphere, the rest was just filling in the “dots,” and there just weren’t any dots that didn’t fit.  There are experimental stories that depend upon an educated and sophisticated audience that brings their own deep knowledge of story with them and can react to implication, minimalization and deconstruction of story and personality. And there are human beings with scrambled wiring, people with basic psychological urges out of balance or addicted to hungers and perspectives that were healthy in one context or degree, but loathsome and damaging in another.


Fascinating, and the beginning of a realization that I’d reached a different point in my life and career.  It was a great feeling: life wasn’t a cheat.  If you paid attention it really did make sense.


More on these things later…


Namaste,
Steve   

FREE Soulmate Teleconference December 16th!

Registration is open for the FREE December
16th Soulmate teleconference!  We have
NINETY-SIX slots, and expect them to fill
rapidly.  Please join me, Tananarive, and
Mushtaq Ali Al Ansari as we explain exactly
how to heal your heart and prepare for
the love of your life.  Please go to
www.soulmateconference.com to register!


namaste,
Steve

Entrance Into The Human Soul

I thought I'd mention a wonderful application of the "Secret Formula", one having to do with the way odd happenstance comes into your life if you are fully occupied in your conscious path.    One major milestone in my coaching career came during a financial down-turn almost a decade ago.    Due to an odd set of circumstances I found myself lecturing a roomful of MDs at a Neuralfeedback Conference in Palm Springs about eight years ago.    I was actually teaching at  a story conference being held in the same hotel, and the sponsor was holding the other event as well.

At lunch, I got into a conversation with the sponsor and one of the Neuralfeedback attendees, and mentioned the research and study I’d done for one of my novels, in the arena of releasing fear through a specialized somatic technique rooted in Russian research (I’d learned it originally from Scott Sonnon).   They were fascinated and asked if I would be interested in making a presentation at the medical conference.

To say I was nervous was an understatement.  I mean, I’d dropped out of college, and there I was explaining to a crowded room the technique and theory of using an obscure aspect of neuroplasticity to reduce fear even in neurotic or deeply phobic patients.

They were polite and mildly skeptical as I explained and offered examples of what we refer to as “The Spider Technique” because my first application was with a client with arachnophobia.  I was a wreck.  Probably looked confident on the surface, but underneath was all of the “Impostor Syndrome” stuff you can possibly imagine:

1) What was I doing there?
2) What are they thinking!
3) Am I a fraud?
4) I don’t have double-blind experimentation!  I don’t have a degree! What right do I have to speak about these things!

And on and on.  All that kept me going was the practical knowledge that I’d used it in my own life and with at least ten clients, and that in every case it had decreased their fear by about 20% per application.  I can promise you that I wish I’d had the time to apply it myself before the talk!
After I finished there was silence.   Then one of the doctors said: “damn.  That would work.  Why haven’t I heard about this before?”

I was congratulated after the talk, business cards were exchanged, and my heart sank down out of my mouth. One of the attendees introduced himself as  clinical director of psychology at an exclusive Counseling/Stress relief clinic in Santa Monica, and he wondered if I’d be willing to come out and give a presentation to his staff.

I said yes.   A week later, I found myself at one of the most prestigious, exclusive clinics in the United States—(certainly one of the most expensive!), catering to what satirist Tom Lehrer once referred to as “Diseases of the rich.”  It was an amazingly beautiful site, every decoration and furnishing seemingly chosen to sooth and comfort.   The people I spoke to were experts in a dozen different disciplines, PhDs, MDs, licensed therapists of many kinds.

And now they weren’t out in an audience somewhere.  They were touching distance, and if I made a single misstep, I was toast.

But I’d had time to use the technique myself in the intervening days, and was dead calm.  I simply told them the truth: I was a life-long martial artist, and science fiction writer.  Where other writers specialize in history or physics or biology, I’d just specialized in the technologies of human mental, emotional, and physical improvement, and if anything I’d encountered or studied was of use to them and their clientele I was humbly grateful.

I explained the method, gave it historical and psychological context, related it to other spiritual practices, and gave specific instances of its application, as well as suggestions for integration with their own practices, ways they could test, and possible other supporting techniques.

They were…agog.   There was silence for a moment, and I wondered if they were about to call the guys with white coats and straight jackets.  Then I thought: “oh, wait.  These ARE the guys with white coats and straight jackets..!”

One gentleman cleared his throat, and was the first to speak.     “Excuse me,” he began, “but when you are applying what I can only refer to as The Barnes Technique, are you…”

I was laughing so hard inside I could hardly answer his heartfelt, respectful question.    I was offered a chance to work with their clients as a movement counselor (years before I’d been a recreational therapist at Whitney Young Jr. Memorial hospital, so I guess there was precedent) and this became an income stream at a time when we SERIOUSLY needed it. 

And I had an opportunity to test my chops, work with a variety of very, very stressed people with extreme demands on their minds and bodies: athletes, heirs, entrepreneurs, mega-stars, even a Saudi prince.  

I was operating as part of a wellness team at the highest level, and just loved it.  And I most remember a plaque in one of the alcoves, a wood sculpture and fountain that seemed derived from a Balinese art form. The plaque read: “The entrance into the human soul is the highest privilege and most sacred obligation.”

I always believed that to be true.  Always used that to guide my work and practice at every level.   It was a beautiful statement of my personal truth.

 My three years working at The Clinic, while simultaneously working to rebuild my Hollywood career, were some of the most rewarding of my life.  There, in an actual clinical environment, surrounded by actual medical and psychological professionals, I had the opportunity to hone my skills, and see how the knowledge I’d gained over the years purely for research or my own health fit in with a high-level wellness team.  I learned my strengths and limitations, and had an opportunity to get pain to grow.

That was wonderful, something I’ll never ever forget.   Oh…and the receptionist, who booked clients, told me very privately that the clients asked for me more often than requests for anyone else on staff.

If that is true...it can only be because I knew I was nothing special, but have been blessed with the very best and kindest teachers...and never wanted to do anything but help people heal.  If I've succeeded in that, I am grateful beyond measure.

Namaste,
Steve

The Soulmate Process is here!

December 17, 6pm PST, the game changes.
Almost seventeen years ago, I met my soulmate, Tananarive Due.  We recognized each other within thirty-six hours, and were married within a year.   The most remarkable thing was that after countless hours of conversation (much of it of the “wow.  How did this happen?” category) we discovered we’d taken very similar paths to finding each other.   After fifteen years of study and teaching, research and experimentation with my roster of 2400 students, in concert with my dear friend Mushtaq Ali Al Ansari, who brought the Sufi perspective on love and partnership into the mix as well as unique tools never made public before this course, THE SOULMATE PROCESS is finally ready to go!
Details are still being worked out, but the plan is to launch it with a teleseminar on MONDAY DECEMBER 17TH, 6PM PST.  Totally free.  No “catch.” We’ll spend an hour breaking it all down, and then take questions.  Please stay posted for the URL and call-in information, which will be posted soon.
It’s been a long, long road, but we had to get it right.
Pssst…how about a new life for Christmas?

Namaste,Steve

#2: I finally under...

        #2: I finally understand “Magic”  (No, I’m not saying I live there.  But I visit more and more often)
       
        I was teaching a writing workshop at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and hapel Hill, and a lady asked me about fear and writer’s block. I gave her a slightly flip answer… and then looked at her eyes.

She had said she’d traveled hundreds of miles to speak to me, and suddenly my ego-shit went out the window (I love when that happens!) and I was in that “Real” space I get thrown into more and more often these days. So I told her I was going to take her seriously, and give her some magic. Taught her the Fear Removal exercise.

A gentleman who had done me the honor of challenging everything I say (I love that, too) had been hovering around, and asked if I had any fear.

I said hell, yes. Ah hah! He said. Then the technique doesn’t work? Sure, it does. But I only use it on fears that are irrational, and that inhibit my ability to accomplish the things that are in alignment with my core values. Why not on everything? He asked.

Because it’s not fun, son. It hurts a bit. It’s worth it if you are removing the block to love, or health, or success. But do it on my fear of… I don’t know, say asking strange women to dance. I still have a bit of shyness left over from my geeky childhood, and have no interest in removing it. It’s kinda cute, reminds me of where I came from.



He kept grinding in at me (good for him!) and I mentioned that the technique often has to be repeated, if the fear creeps back: it isn’t permanent. Ah-hah! He said. Then it’s not Magic, is it..?
##
And here I realized that I’m living in a completely different world than this gentleman. He got his concept of magic from novels and movies: wave a wand, and presto! An elephant disappears from the living room, in denial of all rules of physics. The universe doesn’t ripple at all, and Mandrake does it again.
Wow. Cool.

Having been around shamans who played very seriously with these things, I am of the opinion that the approach to magic in life has steps that go something like this.


1) First, Clarke’s law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Magic is not a violation of the laws of nature, any more than airplanes violate the law of gravity. It may seem so to the ignorant, but it ain’t so.


2) Second, one must have a genuinely profound map of reality, integrated at the level of unconscious competence.


3) Set goals and then take actions. Note the gap between the results and your intentions. Learn all you can about the reasons for the failures and successes, keeping both conscious and unconscious channels open.


4) Begin to differentiate between your needs and desires. “You can’t always get what you want,” the song goes. But we generally get what we need. We’re evolved to get our NEEDS from the environment. Otherwise, we wouldn’t survive, and our ancestors wouldn't have, either. Peeling away the inessential, until we are in alignment with life. Needless to say, doing this in a consumer culture requires both strength and clarity. Most will prefer to remain asleep, trust me.


5) Once your survival needs are in alignment with nature (you have these things at the level of unconscious competence), use prayer, ceremony, meditation, etc. to make your goals, actions, and values all in alignment: you do what you say you’ll do, and you aren’t fighting yourself in the process. In the beginning, it can be hell to achieve this. It is worth the fight.


6) When your inner and outer realities are in alignment, and your reality map is accurate, a bizarre thing happens: you stop wanting anything you cannot have. You don’t set goals that are out of reach. You understand your abilities, and the context of life, so well that your desires never materialize fully unless you have the tools and resources to bring them into existence. You are, in essence, playing with a loaded deck. You say you want to do something, and it happens. To the uninitiated, it looks like magic, while to you, well…it's just the way the universe works. Nothing special about it at all.


###


But do you see the hard, brutally honest work it takes to get there? You have to genuinely calibrate your perceptions, and most people would rather do ANYTHING than expose themselves to truth. It is really sad to watch, when the way to truth is fairly clearly marked: just overlay all major world religions, extract the core teachings, and do THAT stuff with all your heart. Read between the lines. Ignore the teachings of people whose actions are out of alignment with their words. Keep your word to yourself, until truth becomes easier than lying. Somewhere along that path, you’ll notice that you are living a non-ordinary life.


Namaste,
Steve

Reason #1 I'm happy I'm almost dead

(well, really Reason #1 I’m happy to be more than half-way through my life…)

I no longer feel like I have to put up with cultural b.s. I smiled through when I was younger.    A Hollywood friend recently asked me to look at a piece of his work.   It was very enjoyable except for one little thing, a peeve that I was willing to grimace through in earlier days.  Not any more though.  This is the note I sent him…

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. Part of the good news is that you may not care about the bad news. The best news is the your movie works fine. strong story, good characters, good world, fun action. The bad news is that I didn't give a shit about them for one simple reason--you committed a sin that I really don't forgive any more: you killed the only black character in the film.    Any time that happens, I automatically withdrawn all empathy from the white ones, and frankly enjoy watching them die. I would suggest either taking the black people out, or changing the race of another character. aside from that little issue, though, well done!”

I’ve seen this trope literally countless times.  And never, not a single time in an American film, seen the opposite.  It may exist, but despite frequent mentions and lotsa suggestions from people, have been unable to identify a single American film in which all white characters (people with at least one line of dialogue) die, leaving non-white characters alive (so, “On The Beach” doesn’t count).    Seen in in foreign films, for instance “The Chinese Connection”, where the “Russian” character is killed by Bruce Lee, a clear expression of hostility for the Russian occupation.  In other words—it is hostility, not well veiled at all.  Or, at the very least, a lack of extension of humanityt—if there is no example of an American film in which all the white characters die, then clearly the filmmakers know that it would be painful to sit through an experience like that, and simply don’t do it.

Similar, but not as extreme a reaction with films in which all the black characters are villains.  “Captain Phillips” did this.  As a result, I felt my mind slide into a place where I kind of enjoyed watching Tom Hanks get the shit beat out of him.  Hey, I never said I was perfect.   I find that I will always attempt to treat people 1% better than they treat me.  But 2% and above is optional.

Have a Delicious Day!

As I’ve said many times, I consider “The Secret” to be an unfortunate kind of magic thinking.  But oddly, it was extracted, or largely based upon another work, “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace D. Wattles, which is actually worthy of respect.  The difference?  “The Secret” suggests that if you visualize and think about and want something badly enough, it will come to you.

Well, that is true if you add one caveat:  “You will be able to tell that you have produced a sufficient amount of `want’ for your desired goal when you start leaping out of bed in the morning to work your butt off to get it, all day long, with monomaniacal fervor.”

Get that?  If you haven’t produced enough desire to movitate YOURSELF to act, what in the world makes you think the external universe is gonna respond?   Please.
##
But, curiously enough that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.  Today is Thanksgiving.  While some holidays are pure fun, I think that most serve a social function—shared purpose, rest, acknowledgement of sacrifice and honor, and so forth.  Thanksgiving happens to be one of those times when we stop and remember our gratitude for what we have, something not only important psychologically, but practically.

Back to the “Secret.”  What I extracted from Wattles’ work I call the “Secret Formula” for the sake of association and comparison.  It is comprised of four specific pieces: Goals, Faith, Action, and Gratitude.  Without any one of them, your chances of achieving positive results are minimal.
Goals because you need to know what you want and why you want it and what it will take to achieve it.  If you don’t know where land is, you’ll just swim in a circle, or dog-paddle, until you drown.
Faith because if you don’t believe you can and should do it, why bother?  Plenty of people “know what they should do” but don’t do it.  They don’t believe their efforts will ultimately bring them more pleasure than pain, and this process—avoiding pain and gaining pleasure—is at the core of all animal behavior.  People don’t do what is in their best interest.  They do what they BELIEVE is in their best interest.   And when they see no way to create pleasure or grow, they will simply squat in paralysis, or numb themselves with food, sex, drugs, or…television.  Horrors.
Action.   That’s where we started, right?  You have to take massive action toward your goals, whatever they are.    And to take note of the results you are getting, and maintain the behavioral flexibility to change behaviors again and again and again until you get the results you want.  Those behaviors should be designed to produce results WITHOUT luck of any kind.   A “patience my ass, I’m going to kill something” attitude works like gangbusters.
GRATITUDE.  And here we are at Thanksgiving.  People often struggle with discipline, deny themselves pleasure, and think that pure focus through the pain will get them where they want to go.  Well…yes, but unless you are very careful, the first time you are under stress, the old behaviors will pop right back up.  Also…tomorrow is promised to no one.  Why suffer for something you may not realize for years, when you might not live to get it?  Also…the allies you need to attract to move to another level of life are not attracted by unpleasant, negative attitudes.   But if every day, and I mean EVERY day you find something positive to concentrate upon, and give thanks for it, you not only change your attitude, but you increase your belief that there will be future things to give thanks for as well.

I’ve dealt with clients who could literally not remember a single positive thing in their entire lives.  No love, no faith, no affection, no victories.    Now, this is b.s.—EVERYONE has moments of positivity in their past, or they wouldn’t have survived.  But they interpret their past so negatively, tell themselves such a story of suffering and betrayal and abuse that they have no access to their creativity, intelligence, and courage.

But in the darkest sky, a single star can show the way.    There is a parable of a zen monk who is walking through the forest.  Suddenly, a tiger appears and began to chase him.  Fleeing, he reached a cliff and climbed down.  He stopped, because immediately below him was a cobra, ready to strike.  He started to climb back up, and the tiger swatted at him.  The vine he was holding onto started to fray.  Below the cobra was a thousand feet of rocks.   The monk looked to his right, and there was a strawberry plant, growing out of the side of the cliff.  He plucked a strawberry, ate it and said:  “delicious.”

You cannot defeat a man like this.  He can die, as we all do, but he will die happy.    But if there is a fraction of possibility, any way at all to win, it is someone like this who will find it: someone who has a goal, believes it is possible to succeed, takes every possible action…and has gratitude for this delicious moment of life.

I wish you and your family a delicious day.  One so joyous that you can remember it for the rest of the year, no matter what strife you might face.

A single day…a single star…can light the way.

Delicious.


Namaste,
Steve

A healthy female animal

There are a tiny number of core ideas or techniques most germane to the concepts of growth and balance.  Three of them are:
1) “Love and Fear compete for the same place in your heart.”
2) The “Chakra” model that suggests that a healthy human being without fear barriers will automatically evolve toward higher expression.
3) The “Ancient Child”  model is a “sigil”—a “symbol of power” constructed of overlapping symbols.   A sort of conceptual mandala.   While there are probably about ten different powerful concepts overlayed one with another in an elegant fashion (and no, I won’t talk about all of them.  Your conscious mind just gets in the way) there is one core aspect that I find most fascinating:

a) Human beings are genetically programmed to feel protective toward children.  Not an absolute, of course, but those big eyes and round faces just kill us.
b) All human beings experienced love and protection at some point in their lives.   Whether you can consciously remember it or not, is irrelevant.  Humans who are not nurtured in infancy wither and die.   “Failure to thrive.” Period.
c) Most of us will accept conditions and associations we would NEVER want for our own children, or people we love

Combine these three artfully, and you can create magic.

Therefore, if you can imagine reaching out to the “child” part of yourself, and make that emotional/conceptual connection, you begin to feel self-protective on a level most don’t experience.

WE WILL DO THINGS FOR THOSE WE LOVE THAT WE WON’T DO FOR OURSELVES.

Both men and women fall into this pattern, despite the perspective held by some of each group that “they have it worse” or are more deeply programmed for denial and sacrifice.  That just reflects their own partial understandings.

I remember one example of this that came to me starkly while teaching a women’s self defense workshop twenty-five years ago.    (Please NOTE: the following only worked because I had established rapport with the members of the workshop.   They knew I cared about them, and loved them.  I would NEVER have tried this without that connection.)

I was holding a kicking pad for a woman who had been abused terribly. Came to the workshop in drab colorless clothes, no makeup, hair cut asexually, shoulders hunched. Could barely meet our eyes.   She just couldn’t hit the shield.     Was afraid to “hurt” me (afraid to anger me, thereby triggering retaliation.)   Was crying and shaking and just barely tapping it.   Blubbering that she couldn’t.

I had an inspiration.    “Do you have a daughter?”  I asked.  “No,” she sobbed.
“Do you have a kid sister?” I asked
“Yes.” She said, and her eyes brightened, just a bit.  GOOD.  That told me she had heart-space association with her sister.  
“And you love her dearly?”
“Yes,” she said.
“All right,” I said. “Listen to me.    If I get past you, I’m going to rape her with a broken coke bottle.”

She froze.  Her entire body language shifted. She narrowed her eyes.  Her face tilted forward into “predator” mode.  She was no longer worried about what anyone thought, or what I might do to her.  Her entire focus was on hurting me.

Her next kick slammed into me and damned near knocked me through the wall!  She hit again and again, in “controlled maniac” mode, letting out the pain and fear and rage and anger she had bottled up inside herself from childhood.   Knocked me off my feet.  Stomped me on the ground.  Then, shocked, looked at what she was doing as if standing outside herself, witnessing a miracle.

“THAT!” I screamed, leaping up.  “That!  That moment, that feeling, THAT switch in your head!”  I squeezed her hand, “anchoring” that state that feeling.  “Make a fist”  she did.  “Close your eyes”. She did.

“Go to that place.”  She breathed like a dragon, tapping into some place inside her head and heart she had never known.    “THAT is your guardian.  THAT is who and what you really are, and you need to know that.  Out of your pattern.  Mask OFF, dammit.  No one.  NO ONE has the right to touch you, or step into your space ever again without your permission.  Do you understand me?”

Sobbing, tears streaming down her face, she nodded. 
Opened her eyes transformed.

“I love you,” she said.  And hugged me tightly.  The entire workshop had stopped, stunned, watching, and burst out into applause for this little woman who had discovered who and what she really was, for the first time in her life.

My ribs ached, but the sheer joy of that moment, of helping one of my sisters find her strength, has lasted for decades.

She knew how to master her skill.   How to protect herself.  Which gave her permission to love.  Which opened the door to growth and evolution.  

She showed up at the workshop the next day with color in her clothing.  Her hair somehow softer around her face.  A touch of makeup.   Shoulders squared.  Smiling.  Eyes bright.  Radiating more of her aliveness…dammit, she was suddenly “sexier.”

She took me aside, and quietly said: “you changed my life.”

No.  She changed her life.  I just got out of the way, and let nature work through me.  She was now a female human animal, with her hands on the controls of her life.

I love my work.


Namaste,
Steve

The gift of destruction

The last ten days have been spectacular.   Moving to L.A. Seems to have been exactly what I hoped for, a breakthrough to a clearer place in my life where I can leverage my intelligence, energy, and emotion more effectively.  There is only one thing I see that would cause problems: the attempt to be the person I was when I left.

I have to, MUST, accept the gift of destruction.  The natural tendency would be to try to re-assemble my old life.  Old friends.  Old business associations.  Old habit patterns.  So comforting and  familiar.
But that is an illusion.  “You can’t step in the same piece of water twice.”   I simply can’t be concerned with who I thought I was, or what other people thought I was, or what I’d hoped to be and do.

That would be fatal.   I’d be a walking dead man, trying to wear the rotting flesh of my ancient dreams.
No.  What I have to do is continue to ask the Core Questions:

“Who Am I?”  and “What Is True?”

Nothing that is ultimately true about me can be destroyed.   “Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form.”

There is another truth: depression and disorientation are created by a life reality that doesn’t match our internal maps.

I got hit with this BIG TIME by the move to Atlanta.  My life map had been blown up.  All that remained was my commitment to my family: my son needs me.  My wife needs me.   Whatever is true will endure.
All else was pain.   

Now I’m back in L.A., and have a new life plan, which involves greater, deeper engagement with the wonderful teachings I’ve received over the course of my life, the things that allowed me to find my center, since the ordinary reflection from the external society was so hopelessly distorted—I could not trust that world to tell me who I was.   Sending me back to the Core Questions:

Who Am I? What is true?

And the lovely thing is that if you ask that question long enough, you get the answer.   There are a finite number of false answers, and when you run through them, well…

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

You can get there.    The joke is that what you find cannot QUITE be put into language.  The analogy  is that you can’t describe “it” in words, any more than you can describe a salad fully enough to nourish your body.  I can, however, point in the direction of the salad bar, and if you choose, you can eat for yourself.

But that’s another subject.  What IS true is that the “Secret Formula” is in deep play right now:
GOAL X FAITH X ACTION X GRATITUDE = RESULTS.

Well, my goals are clear, and quantifiable, and I repeat them to myself daily, in my Morning Ritual.   I have Faith that what will be will be, and that my essence and my intentions are in alignment.    It is similar to the trick of attracting any woman you want: simply don’t want any woman you can’t attract.  It’s funny and scary effective once you get the joke.  The rest is just recognizing who is or is not of your “Tribe.”

I take massive action, daily.   Nothing that I’m doing as my core behavior relies upon luck.   I’m not expecting any help from the universe.  On the other hand, I expect that the universe won’t go out of its way to screw with me, either.

And you know what happens?

““Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

—This quote, attributed to Goethe, (which might actually be the words of William Hutchison Murray in response to Goethe’s couplet:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
   Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”)

Is brilliant, and I believe, the truth.   That when you take responsibility, and stop waiting for help, and take massive action…you start getting “lucky.”

And…Gratitude.    I have to thank God (or the universe, or whatever you choose) for what I have right here, right now.    Don’t work so that one day you can be happy.  Be happy that you can work.

###

Now…this is where the trick comes in.  Read the above carefully, and you’ll see my take on what “magic” really is.  But if you look into the Yogic approach to the creation of “magical powers” (Siddhis) it is thought that effects in the world of consensus reality (“Maya”) are by-products of pure intent in the mental/emotional/spiritual realm.

This is why pure art cannot be concerned with commerce.  Pure love cannot be concerned with what you get in return. The pure martial technique must not be concerned with survival. Action must be for its own sake to reach it’s ultimate efficiency.

The human reality, of course, is that nobody’s really THAT pure—we do care about results.  This just points in the direction of ultimate efficiency.   “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or heaven’s a lie.”
Now…What this means is that if your intents and actions are pure enough, you’ll start getting results that have nothing DIRECTLY to do with your actions.

Ever notice that when you don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend you can’t get one, but as soon as you have one, other people are interested?  When you don’t have a job you can’t get one, but as soon as you have one other people call with offers?

It’s like that.

The “Siddhis” include things like power, sexual attractiveness, and mental abilities like precognition and mind-reading (believe as much of that as you wish: I’m speaking of traditional teachings, not debating the existence of ESP.)

The thing that is most germane to this discussion is that these things are considered BY-PRODUCTS of being “on the path”, not primary intents or effects.  That you can notice them, even enjoy them, but if you chase after them, you instantly step off the path and they will dissolve like mirages.

Poof. 

Notice the “split attention” that is required here?  To act in alignment with your deepest values, but simultaneously notice the effects your actions have in the external world, without letting those effects corrupt your process?

Doing a Wallenda over a pool of sharks  is, in comparison, childishly simple.  It drives artists crazy all the time.

So…back to the beginning.  Without being too specific, let’s just say a LOT of writing career things are happening.  In fact, they are trying to pull me away from my coaching and teaching.

No can do.   I’m not the same person I was.  My path now is one of emptying myself out, teaching what I learned that helped me reach my current level of awareness.    Writing is now my hobby.  A profitable one, one pursued with vigor, but no more than that.   I could care less about convincing people of the validity of what I see—I will speak of it, only so that those who agree and seek the same thing know where to find me. 

The rest of ya’ll?  

Hey, have a great life. 

This is who I am.  This is the world I see.  It is increasingly entertaining to hear the Sirens singing at me, saying “step off the path…come to me, come to me…”

Like hell.   The fun thing is that I’ve been to this rodeo before.   As they said in Jerry McGuire, “I’ve been to the puppet show, I’ve seen the strings.”  Its the nice thing about getting older.    Wisdom is the ability to see patterns.  That’s a gift of time.  The gift of destruction.

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Diamond Hour November show

Saturday, November 16, 2013 1:00 PM Pacific Standard time (4:00 PM Eastern)
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Our subject: Healing our hearts: why and how
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