FAITH and success
BREATHE! (Especially if a five-letter word just tweaked you!)
I've noticed something heartening in the last couple of months. Normally if I discuss concepts like winning, leadership, "Think And Grow Rich" and the like, people will pop up and complain. They don't care about such things, they say. You're being too materialistic, too hierarchical and Patriarchal, too capitalistic "hustle culture" or what not.
What happened? I'd say there are a LOT of people who just rediscovered how it feels to LOSE when you think you have something important at stake. Hurts, doesn't it?
I see people screaming in panic that all is lost, America is broken, the world is over. Hurts, doesn't it? And if some of those people are close to you, and you feel there is nothing you can do to help them, that HURTS, doesn't it?
If you are normal and human, yes, if will.
There are three things I think important here:
Self-care. You have to get YOURSELF out of that state, to have any real understanding of what it takes.
Help another person out of that state. Hugs, a sort of energetic transferal, is one of the best things you can do. Two people in close contact will begin to "vibrate" at the "frequency" of the most powerful and centered person. People in crisis will want one of two things: 1). hugs and contact/communication. 2) strategy. You need both, so that you can offer whatever is needed.
Expand your resources. Time, energy, emotional enthusiasm, MONEY.
How many people have you seen in pain who needed one of these three things? Either knowing you are ok, thereby proving it is POSSIBLE to handle stress with grace and power…making CONTACT with you so that they don't feel alone, or specific strategies they can use (like…BREATHE, for instance?) Or frankly…a little monetary help.
I look out and see people who have awakened from a dream that the world just needs more love. While PARTIALLY true, what we lack is BALANCED people, who have their survival drives, hearts, and problem-solving machines ALL working at the same time.
If that is you…read on.
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I wanted to take one step of the Hero's Journey every day, but I reserved the right to change that. And because I can feel people are more open right now, have greater CLARITY that you cannot just plan to "break even", I also know something else: that clarity will fog up. The opening will close. Your ego will try to take you back to your old position. Every few years we get major "shocks" to our system…and temporarily accelerate…but then relapse until we actually shatter the old self, make REAL commitments, and move forward.
If you look at the Hero's Journey you'll see it has ten core principles, and I'll list them quickly, so we can move on:
Hero is confronted with a challenge. Something is needed or desired, and the Hero is becoming aware
Rejection of the challenge. If the challenge is to WIN, to SUCCEED, then everyone who claims to just want to "break even" who later cried when they lost, is either sleeping or LYING TO THEMSELVES. Critical to awaken to this.
Acceptance of the challenge. At some point, they either make a decision, or stay asleep in a smaller world. They are incapable of helping others out of THEIR malaise.
Road of trials. This is simply navigating the "gap" between where you are and where you need to be. "Eat the elephant a forkful at a time."
Allies and powers. The best way to compensate for a lack of ability or resources is the "Mastermind" partnership. The best way to learn how to do something is to MODEL someone who has already done it. Look forward to the ultimate intent, and ask yourself what sort of person, what version of yourself, could meet that challenge. Then commit to becoming that person. Your loved ones, your dreams, are worth it, aren't they?
Confront evil--defeated. And this is, of course, what people are afraid of: the INEVITABILITY of failure. "The only way you know how far you can go is by going too far." Man…we could talk about this for a year, the way the fear of failure blinds and weakens us.
Dark Night of the Soul. The moment when it feels all is lost. Sound familiar? Wake up. We've been here before, everyone has, countless times.
The Leap of FAITH. And this is what I wanted to address today. We'll come back to it. But if you can take it, while satisfying the earlier steps,
Confront Evil and Win. Yes, that dirty word. "Win." Wow. If there are winners, there are losers, and, why, its unfair! Yes, it is. But human life is more "fair" than nature. We can actually look after each other in profound ways. But that requires the resources created by the winners. Whether those resources are physical, emotional, or financial, the more you care about those who cannot care for themselves, the more you have to put on your big boy's pants and realize you are now an ADULT. You no longer get to hide behind Mommy and Daddy. YOU are fucking Santa Claus now, partner.
The Student Becomes The Teacher. If you have followed these steps and won, you can now lead others along the path. But look at all three arenas of your life: physical, emotional, and financial. If you haven't mastered these, your work is clear. And as soon as you genuinely engage with the work, at least you can help others to be HONEST about the fact that they want "health, love, money, and time to enjoy them."
Whew. I'd wanted to do that gradually, but realized that a MAJOR problem is lack of FAITH. Now, in the HJ, this is "believing in things that cannot be seen" or proven logically.
Faith in yourself. You are exhausted and afraid. Never dealt with a challenge quite like this. But you remember that you've mastered OTHER new challenges, and that each time, the voices in your head said you couldn't. Somehow, you get up and try.
Faith in your companions. You have friends, teachers, mentors, employees, employers, allies. And somehow, you believe they will come through, or that their opinions and teachings are more valid than the negative voices in your head. "Avengers Assemble!"
Faith in a higher power. Boy, does THIS ever tweak some people. Just the NOTION that this might mean an anthropomorphic deity, or a religious reference, shuts off their frontal lobes and they feel fear. Man…if this also relates to the patterns of nature (Shamanism), the workings out of fate, the action-reaction that feeds the notion that when you plant seeds you eventually get a harvest, if you understand wind and water you can surf and sail…if you blow ALL of that up because decades ago someone dragged you to church, or there are people who seek to control the behavior of others and rather than doing this for political, racial, philosophical, financial or military justifications they use religion you're really going to ignore the other 90% of possibility and throw the baby out with the bath water…?
I think you are mistaking aversion for wisdom. FEAR. And if it is true that Faith is necessary for ultimate growth, your ego will snatch at any emotional aversion like a drowning sailor grabbing a piece of driftwood. If you can't simply turn the word "faith" into "confidence" or "courage" or whatever you need to isolate and encyst whatever that anger and fear are…you have work to do.
If its dog-shit, just walk around it, man. Stop smearing your nose in it and pretending it covers the entire sidewalk. That's on YOU.
Let it go. You WILL need to believe in something bigger than your ego to succeed in new arenas, especially when tired and frightened. The beauty of the Hero's Journey is that you can identify the resources you need BEFORE you need them, and get to work.
Why am I not panicked? Because when I was a kid I dealt with segregation, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of MLK and JFK. And I saw people screaming all is lost, and decided THEN that, yes, that might be true, but people have been saying the world is ending since the world began. And that if it was true, I might as well enjoy every minute. And if it was false, I wanted to be one of the problem-solvers…which meant I COULDN'T run around like the fabled beheaded chicken.
That way of being, that ability to separate my feelings from my actions and perceptions, is found in the warrior arts as well as advanced Zen and other disciplines. That may be why I sought them, and the discovery that when you move beyond fear of death you have astonishing power, well THAT was a revelation.
The MAGIC formula is the best statement I can make about the minimum necessary for real awakening and success. And it demands that you go beyond it, that any "brown" or "black belt" in the system HAS to study and use another as well. And the pattern of THINK AND GROW RICH might be the most important, as you can apply it to anything measurable.
The first step is a BURNING DESIRE. You have to want it. Badly. Enough to knock you out of complacency. Pain does this. You may have noticed that.
The Second step is FAITH. Catch that? The second step is developing "riches" whether measured in physical, emotional, mental, or financial arenas is FAITH. Belief that you CAN and SHOULD take these actions, that they will bring you more pleasure than pain.
You can always tell when people lack this clarity, because if they have it, they HAVE TO ACT. This is simply basic psychological reality. An incredibly powerful realization, because it teaches you EXACTLY how to motivate yourself, and if you understand others enough to understand how pain and pleasure factored into THEIR actions, you also have the key to influencing others. Marketing and sales, anyone? How about leadership?
Were you unwise enough to think there was a difference?
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You HAVE to find something you believe in more than your own ego, or when you are tired, discouraged, depressed, angry, you will make the terrible error of believing the limits of your capacity are the same as the limits of your current understanding. You will NOT be able to embrace an ego-shattering challenge…but you will also lie to yourself that you have "enough" when you still have not escaped suffering, let alone embraced joy or been of service. And that is the order of operation: escape suffering THEN embrace joy THEN be of service.
This is so similar to the "order of operation" of awakening: FIRST the belly brain, your survival drives. Every baby, every animal, has them. But along the way our connection with them can be damaged. We lose FAITH in our ability to defend ourselves or fight for our dreams. So we stay in our HEARTS or in our HEADS. We can hurt ourselves so many ways here, but the only healthy approaches I know are either BELLY to HEART to HEAD or HEART to BELLY and then to HEAD.
Belly to head with no heart? Nope.
Heart to head with no Belly? Nope.
Heart and belly with no head? Well, actually you can work with that.
The absolute worst? HEAD to HEART to BELLY. I think you can create monsters like that, I really do. It is known as "awakening the Kundalini backwards", where someone has a CONCEPT about the world, tells their HEART to block anything that disagrees with this totally synthetic position, and then awakens the SURVIVAL drives to create the world they have imagined.
Some of the greatest horrors in human history have resulted from this.
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So…if you want to be a leader, even just leading your family, even just being a hero of your own heart, the HJ and TAGR say that FAITH will be essential. If you twitch at the concept, you need to look at that. Why can't you just walk around it? I can PROMISE you that there are a hundred other ways that your conceptual inflexibility is hurting you.
Commit to fixing this. Use the MAGIC formula to specifically model a form of it you can accept, and create a plan to strengthen it. This is the way THIS path works, people.. There are other paths. I really hope you find one.
But if you want this one…find faith.
Namaste
Steve
