Steven Barnes's Blog, page 93

Cleaning the internal archetecture

I'm working hard at work formalizing the complex "inner work" methodology that covers the majority of what seems to actually work for cleaning the psychological architecture. Three primary pieces: Heartbeat meditation (self-love, forgiveness), Inner Child work (embracing life, creativity, healing abuse, energy, survival), and Inner Elder (acceptance of death, spirituality, ego extinction).

Having to try to create (or suggest) a syntax for addressing the work (basically in the above order: start in the "middle", drop to the "base", express "upward" from there) and spoke of a piece of the puzzle, the "Child Story" exercise. The following letter triggered a response:
  
Hi Steve,

I enjoy your stories and your
knowledge base about life in general.

Boy did I hit an emotional wall with
 the Child story exercise; as my
father was emotionally unavailable,
no doubt from a personality disorder,
and mom completely old school
co-dependent, and my only older
brother molested me for several
years beginning at age 8 or 9.

However, was not really "aware" of the
 implications until a traumatic incident
 prompted my father, upon questioning,
 to make some very bizarre statements
about my childhood obedience--and
 like that the flood gates opened and
 reality came rushing in, my "lost
 child" still around, everywhere, after
all these years.

Anyway, one of the things I'm now
trying to figure out is what part of
 my family was real and what part is
my mythical family--a true search
 for the "father," and big brother.

I read some years ago that many
important writers had sustained
 trauma at some point prior to
developing their "voice." I find
myself redeveloping that voice,
for better or worse, with a new
understanding of my daemons.

And so, a humble thank you, for
being one of life's teachers---you
 have truly helped me along my path.

Best wishes, and keep up the "good" work.

B. 
 ########



B.


Couldn't wait a minute to respond.
There is a process that will help you:

1) Make a careful guess about the "oldest"
you who was undamaged by your
environment. Perhaps six?

2) In your meditations, see light within your body.
This may take a few sessions. Imagine that you
are looking at yourself in a mirror. See the light.
Note and measure the QUANTITY of light.
(This will represent your perceived degree of health)

3) concentrate that light into a human figure.
The amount of light will determine the size
 of the image. If there is only a tiny bit of
it, you might make something as tiny as
 an embryo. Even a single fertilized cell.

4) If you concentrate on the light, it will
 begin to grow, but DON'T let it grow
 beyond the point that you believe the
damage occurred. You might maintain
this practice for weeks, months, or years.

5) When you have an internal sense
of being "ready" then let the "energy self"
speak to you. Quiet yourself and listen
 deeply. I promise you will be transformed
 if you will take his advice.

Blessings to you, my friend, and I am
 honored to be a guidepost on the path.

Namaste,
Steve

Stretch and Cut...or be yourself!

“Procrustes was a son of Poseidon with a stronghold on Mount Korydallos at Erineus, on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis.[1] There he had an iron bed, in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; nobody ever fit the bed exactly, because secretly Procrustes had two beds.”—Wikipedia

###

One of my first memories was something a little difficult to explain. At the age of about four, I had the ability to look at people and "see" their intent. If one mixes sensory metaphors, I "felt" about people the way Star Trek's 3D chess "looks." In Trek, it is an expansion of two dimensions of movement into three. In my case...God, I don't know.

What I do know is that it was stupid for me to actually tell people what I saw. That the fear and anger projected back at me was stunning for a young child, and I taught myself pretty damned fast to keep my insights to myself. It took decades for me to reclaim this ability, first through what I called "Mind Reading"-- a way of looking at the imbalance/balance ratio of body, mind and spirit and "looking into the cracks" or perceiving the negative space, the meaning of the "holes" in their manifestation. It's difficult to talk about if you don't have a feel for this.

It was years later, taking an Aura Perception workshop   in Phoenix (the gentleman known as "Gunnie Reagan" on Facebook conducted the workshop) that I finally came to understand what I'd been doing, and realized that, in a natural tribal setting, I would have been a shaman/healer. That the warrior arts had attracted me because I had no tribe to protect me. No warriors. So in order to feel safe enough to be "myself" I had to learn to hurt people enough to stand up to the bullies and destroyers.  In other words, I had to complete my "inner archetype wheel" because my external one was badly flawed.



Dear God. I remember coming back from one of the workshops, where I'd triggered a series of visions (and no, I don't know if auras are "real" separate from perceptions, or "merely" what is called a "complex equivalent"--the mind creating a simple symbol to represent a vast range of impressions, in this case modifying the visual field with an hallucination. I don't know. I can tell you it was unusually stable for an hallucination) and breaking down in tears for the boy I'd been, so confused, so alone.

But when I dug inside and connected with him, he wanted no pity. Instead, he was proud of me, the man I became, and hugged me for remaining on the path of creating a career and becoming a warrior despite the massive disconnect between my basic nature (healing) and the external intent of the arts (destroying). This of course necessitated an embrace of a non-dualistic view of the process, something NONE of my instructors were able to convey to me. Frankly, the schools sufficiently philosophical to embrace the mental aspects I needed were deficient in the self-defense I needed. And those powerful enough in the self-defense aspects were hardly masters of esoteric philosophy. But man, could they kick butt!

We all change ourselves to survive in the world. That is an adult reality.  One of the keys to thriving is to keep track of who and what you were as a child, and to justify your current behaviors and situations in terms that younger self understands. 
###



Numerous times I've heard women say that they were warned not to express their intelligence, for fear men would not be attracted to them. And that this had a negative influence on their academics or career. Questions:
1) I would be interested in hearing any women who felt this was true in their lives, and how it affected them.
2) Men: were any of you ever warned not to express your intelligence? Why? What was the impact?
3) Men and women: were there any other basic qualities or capacities you were warned, or learned, not to express? What, and why?

The "Child's Story"

One of my favorite "Lifewriting" exercises is what I call the "Child's story." This is a short “fairy tale”, about 100 words, about how you grew up to be the adult you are today. “Once upon a time there was a little girl/boy who…”

Phrase it in terms that a five year old would understand. The point is to create an emotional link between your current self, and the youngest part of your personality--this is where the passion, emotion, and creativity bubble up.

the result of this exercise is to give you a strong foundation from which to combine "adult" concerns and core motivations. Very powerful stuff.

Are you tired..?

“I’m so tired of people needing a reason for doing everything in their lives. Do it because you want to. Because it’s fun. Because it makes you happy.”

This quote is interesting at least partially because it is in denial of the fact that our positive emotions have practical value. Remember the equation? (Goals) X (Faith) X (Action) X (Attitude)= results. In other words, you should ideally START the process of any goal with the attitude or emotions you hope to have at the end. Being happy now, satisfied now, grateful NOW is as much as 1/4 of the entire game.

1) What were your favorite activities as a child? Which of them still appeal to you?
2) What was the last time you gifted yourself with pure joy?
3) Can you think of ways you can increase your joy NOW, today?
4) Can you think of ways you can bring joy to someone you love or work with or know today? (Remember: expansion in life comes from increasing the joy for EVERYONE)

Practice, Practice, Practice

Last weekend, Jason's soccer team The Knights played their first game of the season, on a new and larger field, against a group of older kids...and still beat them.

There was a fabulous moment in the first five minutes of the game where Jason ALMOST scored the first goal of the game. He blocked another player's drive, his teammate stole the ball, passed it to Jason, and without thought Jason kicked with perfect timing and angle, slamming the ball into the net...

Or it WOULD have gone into the net, except that the goalie ALSO responded instantly and blocked the shot. The other team was rattled by our rhythm and speed, and never recovered. We won 2-0 and Jason was singled out by the coaches for excellence in play.

But both HIS action and the opposing goalie's response were a matter of instant, automatic engagement. There was no time for thought or planning, only response. And on both parts it was beautiful.

Only...a little more beautiful on our side. Ahem.

Any life skill demanding mastery must first be expressed in flow. And no skill can be expressed in flow unless the most basic building blocks are first reduced to unconscious competence. For those unfamiliar with this process, let's look at riding a bicycle expertly:

UNCONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE: You don’t even know the skill exists. Bicycle? What’s that?

CONSCIOUS INCOMPENTENCE. You know that a bicycle exists, and that people ride them. You’d like to learn!

CONSCIOUS COMPETENCE. With practice, you get to the point where you can ride a bicycle as long as you concentrate all your attention on the task of moving your feet, keeping the bars steady, maintaining balance, avoiding obstacles…

UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE. All the basic skills have been absorbed. This is the “look Ma, no hands!” point where you can start having fun, just playing with the skills. ALL SKILLS MUST BE TAKEN TO THIS LEVEL BEFORE “ART” BECOMES POSSIBLE. It is here where you can enter the flow state, and it will just “happen.” Yeah, right…if you’ve done your homework. And you are, aren’t you?

In all four basic arenas of life, it is critical to identify the most basic components, and practice them until you can "do them in your sleep."

Here's how I use these principles:

WRITING (mind): I write every day. EVERY day. "The Way Is In Training", Musashi's second principle. What did you THINK he was talking about?

MARTIAL ARTS: Daily practice of either martial skills or the elementary motor components which compose them. Every. Single. Day.

FAMILY: Daily interaction with my friends and family, seeking always to understand how their issues and challenges are reflections of my own. Learning to see yourself in others then challenges you to understand yourself more deeply. Hint: any time you hear people saying "what's wrong with those ____?" you are dealing with someone who lacks either empathy or self-knowledge.

FINANCES: Daily re-writing of goals. Daily strategizing and financial meetings with my core partner, Tananarive.

##

If it's important, you must be expert. To be expert, you must be able to relax under performance pressure. To do this, you must reduce the component skills to unconscious competence. And to do this with greatest efficiency and effectiveness...you must perform every day.

Period.

Steve

(do you have your FREE copy of THE MORNING RITUAL for ADD children? Get yours at: www.diamondhour.com!)

The Roach Motel of Life

Put down a couple of roach motels, and after a week, caught the big bastard I'd seen running around our bathroom. Pardon me: big bitch. As I've seen numerous times before, the roach, caught in the sticky stuff, expelled an egg case. The glue was dotted with baby roaches, also caught in the mire. Some core instinct: I am caught. I have gone as far as I can. Have and/or free my children so that they will have a chance to take my plasm a bit further.

And perversely, I thought of people I've known in ghettos and trailer parks having unprotected sex. Spewing out babies who are also caught in a cycle of poverty. And remembered the countless, reasonable criticism: "why is she sleeping with all those men?" "Why won't he use a condom?" "What the hell is wrong with these people?"

From the outside, it is easy to see how self-destructive this is. But no one who has not mastered ALL of their hungers has the right to criticize. Better to ask what we need to do to control our own diet, exercise regularly, heal our emotions, stop smoking, have a healthy and loving relationship, and balance our finances.

And what of those who HAVE mastered all those arenas? I have found them to be humble, kind, understanding of human frailty and too focused on their own growth, and attempting to lift up those around them to spew hatred and judgement at those who see so few options for their own lives that their reproductive urges overwhelm their intellect. They don't feel superior to anyone, or anything.

Look at the election season. I've stopped posting political comments (although I will comment on other people's posts: it's fun!) because it is simply too difficult to say anything that is not polarized, or polarizing, and I feel a little sick with myself when I do. But look at the distortion, the anger, the hatred, the pure VENOM spewing out and I see it all...ALL of it, as raw fear. Shutting down the intellectual circuits, compressing reality, reducing the world to two dimensions, draining the color of nuance into a black and white puppet show.

There are real issues in life to be discussed, addressed, labored and agonized over. But the sheer panic triggered by the survival drive shuts down...everything. Everything except the most basic hungers. Survive. Reproduce. Feed.

Heaven help me, I have too much work to do myself, growing and changing, and helping those who wish to be helped. Marking a path to growth as clearly and honestly as possible. Who am I to mock the frightened, sleeping children? I would not exchange my dreams for their nightmares for a world of gold.

We are all caught in our web of habits and history, our resentments and frailties. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of our full potential.

Life takes everything from everyone. Checking "In" to our own private hells is as easy as rolling downhill. Checking "out" is a muddy, uphill slog with those who want to distract themselves from their own labors hurling feces from the sidelines.

Is the most flawed and fearful who spend the most energy throwing stones from within their glass houses.

Steve

www.diamondhour.com

Attention Deficit: The Morning Ritual

After many requests, I've finally made the MORNING RITUAL that I use to help Jason with his ADD. I'm charging a special VERY low price, and there is a FREE offer for the genuinely needy. This is not about profit, it is about helping children. Please, please...if you know anyone who has a child who could use more focus or better emotional control please pass THIS link on!
http://www.therapysites.com/sites/dia...