The First Concept

The other day, I was talking with a friend, who'd also previously been a coaching client of mine, and he was remarking on how I seemed like I had a lot of great things going on in my life -- great family life, work that I found meaningful, and a plethora of fun projects, etc. -- without seeming to ever "just lose it" with so much going on. He then asked me something to the effect of: "What's your secret?" And I quite literally found myself giving an answer I had never before given to such a question. I think at various points in my life, I would have said, "I don't know..." or "I'm very fortunate..." or perhaps launched into a description of the steps in my approach, and some appreciation of the amazing help I have at every turn. And to be sure, much of that is all very true. 

What I found myself saying to my friend, however, was simply: "Blind Faith!"

He leaned across the table toward me and repeated from under his raised eyebrows: "blind faith?". And I sat back a little, somewhat surprised to hear the words we were both saying, then nodded my head (as if simply in agreement with his assertion), and said: "Yep," laughed and then, "Some secret, hunh?"

He couldn't believe either the flippancy of my response (I'm sure he'd been expecting some sage answer, practiced to the point of dissertation), or the lack of any detailed elaboration. I told him, in a fairly vain attempt to console him with earnestly animated, if airy, discourse that I believed everyone proceeds based almost solely on the beliefs they have about life -- ergo we all live by virtue of the faith we have in those beliefs. And I think I made that point perhaps too clear (as it was my only follow-up at the time...) with all the remaining time that we spent on the subject. And truth be told, I feel fine with that, as I believe it was enough for both of us at the moment -- for me to get to simply claim the whimsical, magical truth of myself in the presence of someone I respect without presenting it in a more "traditionally acceptable" guise; and for him to hear this basic, easy gospel, without the philosophical elaborations or logical justifications that he would expect in such a situation or would wish to explore with his own stellar analytical skills.

It was a message delivered by means of the form of the message itself -- a form poem.

Nevertheless, I have realized in the days following that I have a personal philosophy. "Just now realizing he has a personal philosophy?!" you may be saying -- and yes, of course, I have had philosophics of my own before -- but they were almost always various versions of "the philosophy of juggling concepts". I remained open to everything. I borrowed from everything. I owned nothing. And now I have claimed something that I now realize is what I have always always in my heart of hearts been most about. I've graduated. From my own school.

I've also realized, I have a lot more to say about Blind Faith.

I partly-wish I'd had the faculty at the time to tell my friend: "This is just the bedrock, the basic bottom line, the most reduced answer I can give you (just so that we can fit it into the scope of a single conversation...)". I wish I'd left him with the understanding that my faith that everything will work out is just the beginning. So I've decided that I'll share a bit of what I'll tell him next time with you for the moment.

To begin with, let's get the main point straight -- I call it Blind Faith, not because I am a fool for it (though I gladly would be, I think), but sincerely because it is the kind of faith that can lead me even in the darkest of moments, the eyes-closed-leap-into-the-abyss kind of moments, the please-help-me-so-I-don't-go-down kind of moments. At it's most basic element, it is simply the following in which I have this particular level of belief: That no matter what -- no matter what comes, no matter what goes, no matter what befalls, no matter what is revealed -- every single thing that happens to any one of us is for our own and everyone else's highest possible good. Period. Whether it's war or famine or murder or job-loss or partnership-dissolving or failure or degradation or the opposite of all of these things in any one moment -- it is all working toward harmony, not entropy as poor Steven Hawking is mis-convinced. Things do fall, and they do break, and then they become something new -- Things do not simply Fall Apart.

So this first, most important piece, is simply to hold (with eyes shut if necessary) onto the firm rock of believing that I am absolutely taken care of -- both in life and when I pass through death. Nothing can ultimately hurt me, and nothing is out to cause me harm in this life. And as my friends at Abraham-Hicks say, "There is only a source of Well-Being, which you are allowing, or not." -- there is no source of suffering there is just either our allowance of disallowance of our own joy. And no matter what we are experiencing, there is joy to be had there too!

And this faith, this peace, is simple enough that I can reach for it at any moment. When I am upset, I sigh and remember -- everything is working out. When I am frustrated or angry, I huff and remember -- even this is is working out for me perfectly. When I am nervous, I remember. When I am utterly lost, I remember. And moment to moment, the remembering becomes belief, the belief slowly grows into knowing, and knowing into experiencing. And when I experience the fruition(s) of my belief -- I save and compost its essence to nurture my faith further with the proof and evidence of itself.

Over time, and somewhat without my perceiving it, I have grown a perspective on the world. And as the only point I made to my friend indicated, I know that what we believe about the world and of our lives written through it, is the truth of our experience. The truth is not that "seeing is believing", but rather that the believing constitutes the seeing. Everything we know about life defines the extent of what we will end up perceiving of it.

We are not discoverers of great truths -- we are the forgers of them. We can be, do, and have whatever we can imagine, so long as we know it to be our truth.

We don't need a system of levers and gears and highways and machinery to move mountains -- we don't even need a strategy or plan. As Jesus (you know the one) is reported to have said: "If you had but faith alone you could move mountains".  I would add further that if we have faith enough, then we will see clearly that the mountain was never in the way at all.

I think I'll leave that note to resound a bit before I continue. More to come on the effects of Blind Faith on action. Until then...

∞

Be well.

*

Rediscovering... YOU

In the last post, I discussed the idea that we often are the ones holding us back from being our most magnificent selves. We do this in many different ways, depending largely on methods we were taught to use by our parents, caregivers, siblings, and early friends. We have loop reels of negative self-talk rolling in  our heads most of the time, we tend to doubt ourselves regularly, we self-deprecate to our friends, and underestimate our prowess to any audience who'll listen. But one of the more subtle techniques we frequently use to disempower ourselves or keep us stuck is our own self-awareness.

Now, I know – you're thinking, "Damn. I thought 'knowing myself' was supposed to be a good thing!" And generally speaking, I'd say you are more right than not right about that. Exploring yourself, and discovering the you that you carry with you (often too closely to sense) is a necessary project for almost all humans. Otherwise, we spend too much time bumbling around and being dissatisfied and blaming it all on forces outside us. 

However, there is a difference, between knowing yourself and canonizing yourself. To know yourself is to look within, and explore who you are, and how you work, and to be present in your own processes. To canonize yourself is to make a claim (based on "knowing" or not) for how you always already are. To know yourself is to take note of your movements in relationship to the events of your life. To canonize yourself is to write in stone how you will respond in every foreseeable situation, and to manipulate the events of your life to confirm and conform to a static version of yourself.

Knowing yourself has some real advantages, but almost all of them are lost if you only use that knowledge to limit yourself.

You might be holding yourself back with how well you "know" yourself if you're saying any of the following:

•  "I always... [get sick, get taken advantage of, etc.]"
•  "I never... [win, get to do what I want, etc.] "
•  "I'm just a... [neat freak, addictive personality, etc.]"
•  "I can't..."
•  "I don't..."
•  "I won't..."
•  Or any other "universal truth" about how you are and always will be, or about the way life works for you.

You in a nut shell...

But, lucky you – today you have brought yourself a brand new opportunity to reacquaint yourself with yourself. That's right folks, today, you can give yourself a get-out-of-self-free card any time you feel the desire to look at yourself from a fresh perspective. Today, you have been given full license to rediscover yourself – forget your biases, make no assumptions, and take nothing for granted. 

Pretend you have no habits and see how long you can get away with it. Act as if you have never met yourself but have always wanted to. Forget everything you ever knew about how you respond to life. Take yourself in for the first time. Experience being-ness from a place of wonder, and exploration. Be a novice to your own existence. Chances are you'll discover that there is more to you than you were previously allowing, and more to life than you had yet been willing to allow.

Try it for a day and you will change your thinking about yourself. Practice it everyday and you will change your life.

Ω

Be well.

*

Want to turn up your experience of ecstasy in life? Pretend you are an alien trying everything on Earth for the first time. Allow yourself the richness of every sensation in all of your experiences. Be open to everything as a sublime gift. 

Building the Super You: Recognizing Your Limitlessness

Ever thought of yourself as infinite before? How about all-knowing or all-powerful? Ever felt like you could make magic, heal sickness, or fly? What about when you were a kid?

Here's one of the many places where I think kids have got life figured out more than adults. They still have a grasp on the limitless power we humans have at our whim. Unfortunately, most children are raised by adults into "knowing better", and eventually forget just how incredibly capable they are. By the time they are adults, the concept of having anything more than average abilities has generally been coaxed or crushed out of them, like all the rest of us "grown-ups" – or more appropriately "ground-downs".

But we don't have to be worn out, mediocre yo-yos, lurched and jerked around helplessly by our circumstances. We don't have to be victims. And we don't have to be insignificant, either.

Coursing through each and every one of us is some of the most potent energy in the universe. If you could harness the human will, you could light every house on Earth. And if you could fill the sails of human potential, you could ride them to the other side of the cosmos (and back!).

What I mean to say is that we are powerful – each and every one of us. And so much so that we are even able to keep ourselves ignorant of our potency while simultaneously creating every aspect of our existence. We are even so powerful that we live whole lives here, manufacturing every moment we experience, and still die without knowing who or what we are. It takes a hell of a lot of magic to manifest a whole lifetime without ever letting on – even to yourself.

Still doubting that you're an all-powerful, all-knowing cosmic creator? Well check out some of these links to human "miracles" to remind yourself of just what we are all capable, and doing:

• 1994 study that concludes the "placebo effect" often accounts for more than 1/3 of all positive reactions to treatment of any kind in which both practitioner and patient believe
• Urban legend of Supermom lifting a car
• One of many spontaneous remission of cancer stories
• "When Fear makes us Superhuman"
• The Yogi who Lived without Food or Water
• And other People with Abilities Beyond Belief

After you've had enough of that, check out the documentary What If? the Movie for a full-on celebration of our human potential. You'll be amazed and inspired by what "ordinary" humans are doing.

The bottom line here is this: there is more to you than you have yet dared to believe. You are moving mountains everyday, you just haven't stopped long enough (yet) to notice what you're doing or able to do. So let me encourage you to look into what's possible, and then to dust off that beautiful imagination of yours and get serious about unleashing some of the potential you've been hoarding for so long.

Believe me, you aren't the only one who will benefit when you decide to own your power.

Ω

Be well.