Chasing Success

A business colleague of mine posted this meme on Facebook the other day: "Dreams x Goals x Learning x Plans x Actions = Success". At first glance, it seemed logical, but something snarky was welling up inside of me. I couldn't resist. I commented: "Seems so complicated. Instead, how about Dreams X Action = Success?"

This "formula" my business partner posted is part of what I call the "worker bee" syndrome. You dream something up, make it a goal, then educate yourself about how to get there, make a bunch of plans, and only THEN take Action = God laughs. Why not just go from what you'd like to see happen (dreams) to taking action to get there (success).

In some cases, having a "dream" is all that's needed. How many times have you wanted something to happen, and it just did without you doing anything? But we seem to want to jump immediately to planning, learning, goal-setting and "success formulas". You know what? Most of that stuff is the Universe's job! When we take it over, we end up working our asses off and "success" seems to wander further and further out into the future.

Much of this is cultural memes we've made our own: You gotta WORK HARD for what you want; or, nothing valuable in life is ever EASY; or, no pain, no gain; or even, God helps those who help themselves, etc., etc. These memes nullify personal power, and ignore the proven fact that the Universe really does have your back, and it constantly is working on your behalf--even when you try to do its job! The harder you work at something, the more personal power you invalidate. You think there's something you're not doing somehow, or don't know how to do, so you bash your head against the wall repeatedly trying to "come up with answers", when all along, the Universe has had all the answers, and is ready to give them to you, as well as the dream you seek, if you'll just shut up and receive.

There's a word I love: pronoia (coined by Grateful Dead songwriter, Perry Barlow). It means the awareness that the universe is working on your behalf.

Conjure up a dream (or vision, I prefer). Now, ask, "What is it going to take for this vision to become physical reality?" You'll start getting some information as a result of that question. Ignore it. Now ask what action can I take for this vision to actualize in my life? Watch what pops into your head over the next half hour or so. These are the things the Universe would like you to do in order to receive your dream.

You see, because you asked, it's already there. It's just our beliefs or judgments or conclusions that it is not there that keeps us from receiving it. We get what I call "time pollution". That's when you ask for something to show up, and then time transpires (sometimes it seems like forever), and it pollutes your self-esteem and personal power. You think you have to start working really hard. No. You just need to welcome what you asked for into your life.

It's supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be fun. If it's not, then you're asking the wrong questions, or have gotten trapped in seeking for answers. Or, you have an agreement with and attachment to those cultural memes that are running you, telling you to work harder for what you desire.

Put what desires you have "out there", then open your arms and heart to welcome these new things you desire into your life. Observe how things begin to change in that direction. Follow that energy, ask what actions, if any, you can take in the meantime. And, lo and behold, what it is you desire will begin to show up. Yes, it's magic! You're welcome.

Back to the Future, Forward to the Past

My brother is always coming up with interesting fringe ideas about reality which inevitably suck me in to a dialogue (I can't resist the fringe, you know). The last one was about The Past.

He said, "I would anticipate that once a certain percentage of correction is made in the past (by re-framing it), it would translate into future events, putting you in control of future outcomes. The body would recover from past damage because you changed the memory of the original incident in a way that removes the repeated memory, allowing the body to return to a state prior to the injury be it mental or physical because, as far as your body is concerned, it never happened the way you repeatedly created it."

I like that viewpoint. I commented back:

"I fully agree. We construct the past as well as the present and the future. Reconstruction of the past (as church and government historians will tell you) is a great way to soften mass traumas. The constant search for what "really" happened is a red herring. What happened back then happened to a different person than you are now, so there is no way to recreate the past "accurately" without physically going back there.

"Andy Basagio, NASA chrononaut, makes this point. When a person does physically go back in time, they become part of the events objectively and subjectively. There is no way to "correct" an "error", because if it weren't for that "error" you would not have gone back to "fix it" in the first place, therefore, you were always part of the event. So changing the "past" from right now is something done subjectively and emotionally. That is what the DNA is responding to--your reaction to the past--not the past events themselves. That reaction energy is always in play, or active, until the energy of the reaction is dissipated (using any number of modalities).

"A 'negative' (or positive) reaction is always caused by a judgement and conclusion about a past event. Remove the judgement and conclusion, and you've removed the energy from that event and the DNA will be unburdened."

In quantum reality, there is no past or future. These are constructs of the mind. What we use as the past is simply a way of categorizing perceptions of experiences in chronological order because it's become easy for the mind to operate that habitual way. Quantumly, however, everything is happening at once.

We say we have "memories", but what we are actually referring to is a state of being within which we perceived certain things. That state of being is then categorized as a "past" event because current perceptions don't match the perceptions in that state of being. We just say something "happened" that is not happening now. The quantum truth is that, yes, it is happening now--it's all happening now--it's your mind and brain automatically categorizing what perceptions go with what states of being across what we arbitrarily classify as the Past and the Future. We call that "time".

We set up all sorts of scenarios and mechanisms to make time "real" to us: aging, property ownership, relationships, consequences, calendars, holidays, maps, news, TV, Newtonian physics... anything on a schedule or in a certain chronological order, usually cause = effect, that builds creative consensus with the society in which we live.

In the quantum world, time has no "flow" from past to present to future. In fact, quantum time can run backwards, skip around and do a mobius strip--of course, all from the reference of our arbitrary viewpoint of what we classify as a past or future event.

Play with this quantum truth in order to free yourself from time-based frustrations and upsets. Consider a "past" event. Now, reassign it to the future. It hasn't happened yet, or it may or may not happen. Consider that event happening to another person, or consider it as having happened to everyone.

This can be a little disconcerting when you realize how fragile our house of time cards is. And, it allows for more possibilities to show up for you. You can consider something you would like to see in the future, and look back at it as it has already happened. You can step into completely other realities in this way, simply by untethering yourself from the consensual matrix of time.

I believe exercising the mind and brain in this way will open up new abilities and super-powers dormant within our DNA--activating new areas of perceptions and experiences; new areas of joy and well-being.

Make Life a Meditation

I somewhat cynically used to say in my youth that unconscious meditation--the kind we all do when we are obediently serving The Matrix--is the single most untenable problem in human history.

I'll agree with that now in my mature years with the exception that "obediently serving The Matrix" is not "untenable". Why? Because it's a matter of choice. It's one thing to point out how we are all victims of our own unconscious behaviors (which is a victim statement in and of itself), it's entirely another to transcend that victim mentality with the freedom of choice.

I call the obedience to The Matrix hypnotic compliance. And meditation is the "red pill" available to you anytime to wake up from the trance.

I go further down the rabbit hole by claiming that the whole conscious-subconscious model of human psychology is a myth. We say that a person is "driven by subconscious motivations" when they misbehave or fall victim to depression, criminal activity or insanity. No. Why? Because if it were truly subconscious we wouldn't be conscious of it, and once conscious of it, it is no longer subconscious. I know, I know...sounds like semantics, but is it really?

Isn't it more accurate to say that a person chooses to give up their own power or self-determinism and that's what we're calling "subconscious motivations"? We choose to shut off our awareness of some things and then classify it as the "subconscious", which has a definition that includes "beyond our control". This is a myth. At some point there was a choice. Of course, we can also forget what we chose, but that's forgetting something on purpose in order to dodge responsibility for our actions.

There's a type of hiding in forgetfulness of our choices that got somehow mixed up with victim advocacy. When a person is a victim, others with control issues advocate for them, saying, "This person is not in control of their actions. They need me to help them live." This is all a master-slave crock of shit.

I got into a debate with a Caucasian friend of mine on Facebook who was bemoaning the fact that she felt she was--somewhere down deep inside--a racist. Despite the fact that her grandmother was black and her mother was brown, she saw something in herself that she labeled as "racist"--a kind of resistence or unwillingness to empathize with another person of a different skin color.

I said that it was a matter of choice, whether or not to be racist. And if there were racist thoughts and feelings coming up for her, that she could practice mindfulness meditation--a type of meditation that allows undesirable thoughts and feelings to simply float on by like clouds in the sky, and from this, infinite options show up to choose something different.

Well, this got her dander up. "I love meditation, but I find it incomplete as a means to address issues of social justice. There's more to do. And ingrained subconscious beliefs are not so easy to release... I worry about hiding behind spiritual concepts." Then don't hide. These "spiritual concepts" you speak of are what make the world go 'round. The thoughts we create that lead to the feelings and actions we do out there in the "real world" are all driven by our own choices. Failure to choose is at the heart of complacency and victimhood.

This discussion illustrated for me, once again, what I refer to as the "Quantum Reality Gap", which I've written about before. It's the perceived difference between what we desire to see in the world and what we think we see in the world. I'm saying that there really is no difference. It's just that everything is happening just as you've chosen (or not chosen) it to be. There's just time in there to make you doubt yourself.

Life can be a living meditation every moment by simply paying attention to your thoughts and words, allowing them to flow, and choosing something different when you want to change things. There is no powerful "subconscious" that is causing all the ills in your life--that's victim behavior. Choice is more powerful. Choose to be happy. Choose to be healthy. Choose to be the very best of who you are.

Pain is not Suffering

I posted this as a meme on Facebook from Teal Swan: "The circumstances you are experiencing are not the cause of your suffering. The cause of your suffering is the thought that what is happening should not be happening, or is not supposed to be happening."

It's an expansion on the old Buddhist saying I heard in yoga class frequently: "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."

The Facebook post got several comments mainly about physical pain. One friend wrote, "Well, then, whoever wrote that was never severely burned in a car accident." Another wrote, "I really resent those who say you can control everything with your thoughts. You can control some things, but we live in a physical world." Still another commented, "They're talking about emotional pain, not physical pain, right?"

In all cases, the people completely missed the message of the meme. It was not saying that your thoughts caused the pain. It says that your thoughts about the pain and/or its causation is causing the suffering.

In my own case, in the past, for several years, I had debilitating lower lumbar disc inflammations that would put me in bed sometimes because I could not move without extreme pain in my back and down both legs. I suffered greatly because I kept judging how unfair it was, and why me, an active, professional musician who ate right, exercised, took good care of himself should be burdened with this disability. Sometimes I cried. Not so much because of the pain, but because of the circumstances of it--and the situation I was in because of it.

I finally just decided to stop suffering and do something about my condition. I began yoga classes, and within a year, my back was completely healed. Yes, it was very difficult to do the yoga, and there was a lot of pain along the way, but I was convinced that it would work, and I had the drive and determination to get out of pain. This is the remedy for suffering: change the circumstances. Do something different. Get out ahead of the situation. Allow the pain, allow all the inconvenience, all the gripey thoughts and emotions, and just soldier on.

Anyone who has a serious disability, for example, Stephen Hawking, absolutely could not be in suffering and do the things he's done. Sure, he's probably in a lot of pain, but his vision, will, and determination to live his life cancels out what could be certainly the best of reasons to suffer.

What Hawking has done, and anyone overcoming any sort of painful disability, is to focus on what is working; the things in life to be grateful for, because that's where the energy is. That's where the inspiration lies, and that's where LIFE is. Life is not in the suffering, because suffering is a mental construct of victim behavior. It defeats hope, it neutralizes motivation, and rips the color right out of life and living.

So above all, my friends, gratitude trumps suffering, and will certainly lead to ease, joy and a zest for life.

Want Change? Notice Something Different

In the world (or many worlds) of quantum physics, the mechanism of belief goes far beyond the conventional understanding of the word. Belief, as a part of quantum living, is really an allowance of everything that shows up, combined with the intention that something show up.

I've had this discussion many times with clients who say, "I took the E-1, and I didn't notice any difference." My standard reply is, "You may not have noticed anything change, but something is changing whether you can feel it or not."

This is true because of two factors: 1) The client had decided to take an action to relieve a symptom, or problem. There was an intent to change an unwanted condition and the atoms and molecules in the body are responding to the intent. This is at the crux of healing. The healing starts at the intention to heal.; and 2) Subtle energy formulas such as E-1 are acting on and changing the subatomic structure of the body that amplifies the healing intent. This is the very nature of quantum entanglements and actualization.

When someone says they don't "notice anything different," they are in effect saying, "My awareness is limited to this very tiny box of possibilities." And because they are using quantum medicine-based formulas that they have never used before, how would they know that "nothing is happening"?

I encourage these boxed-in clients to take their awareness out of those four, two-dimensional constricting walls and place it in the field of infinite possibilities where anything is possible, and anything where can be perceived. Lo and behold, they suddenly realize that every time they take the E-1, the tightness in their chest goes away, or they actually feel less stressed, or they have better balance when they walk. Now, all they did was consider the idea of infinite possibilities, and immediately their awareness of their changes increased.

This is profound. It means that if you want or intend something to happen, it begins to happen immediately in the atoms and molecules of your life. That initial change will continue to grow into everything you are asking for--provided you don't stop it prematurely by declaring, "Well, nothing's happening, so I guess I can't have that." And the Universe is just as happy to respond to that as well.

This, of course, has everything to do with receiving. If you are not willing to receive the change you are asking for, then it's going to be "on pause" until you are. One way to make sure you are open to receiving the change you want, jump into the field of infinite possibilities where anything can happen above, below, to starboard, to port; 360 spherical degrees of universal response to your desire. Then, watch it all unfold in gratitude.

Why Acceptance is Toxic

We're all familiar with the old saw from Alcoholics Anonymous: "Grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change"... The trouble is, it has a built in trap that most of us are not aware of.

When we accept something, we take it into our space and become it. We become what it is we accept. Somehow, someone got it into their furry little head that if we ACCEPT those things that cause us pain and discomfort, it magically leads to freedom from those sources of pain and discomfort. News flash... Nah. Been there, done that, doesn't work...

I've come to the awareness that what we really mean is ALLOW. Allowance and acceptance are two very different things. When we allow something, it means it is flowing past us and around us, like water flowing around a rock in a river. To accept something, we take it in, like a sponge.

To confuse these two concepts I believe is a serious error, especially when it comes to quantum living. To accept something means to entangle with it. Our photons, atoms and molecules are literally mixing in with that unwanted condition we've chosen not to experience. Like some sort of penance where we believe if we endure and suffer long enough, it will eventually lead to some form of divine grace and relieve us of our burden. So unnecessary...and inefficient!

Replace ACCEPT with ALLOW for those things you want to change: "Grant me the serenity to ALLOW those things I cannot change" puts you in a much more empowered position. Those "things you cannot change" simply flow around you and float on off and out of your universe.

Try this out on those things in your life causing you pain; those things causing you grief, suffering, disillusionment, disempowerment: Replace ACCEPT with ALLOW. Allow those things to float on by--wave at them as they saunter off into the distance. Then get busy choosing something different!

The Trouble With Answers

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the devotion to answers has prevented discovery, greatly hindered innovation, and basically kept the human race planetbound when for the last 300 years we could have been exploring the stars...

I know. Kind of a sweeping statement. Let me explain this point of view.

We've all been educated and socialized in the belief that to understand something, you "search for the answer". You look it up in the dictionary, you research the encyclopedia, you explore the Interwebs until you find the answer to your question, which usually turns out to be a conclusion or a judgment about a particular unwanted condition or personal conundrum.

You have to agree with the answer before you can "accept" it as "true". My question is, how can you agree with something you previously declared you needed an answer for? What are you agreeing with? Something you already knew, obviously.

That's the whole point. It's not about knowledge. It's about awareness. What causes awareness? A question. Awareness then leads to choice, and making a choice creates more awareness. When you are attempting to get an answer to a question, aren't you really asking for more awareness in a particular area?

There's a huge difference between awareness and an answer. With an answer, inquiry stops. The question has been answered, it's all settled, no need to look further. This effectively stops awareness. With awareness, you are always aware that there is more, that there is a greater, larger picture to gain awareness of. Awareness stops or freezes with an answer.

Consider how much further along science would be today if scientists would have made questions more important than answers? Research stops once an answer is obtained. And when answers become codified as "laws" and "theories" it effectively squelches further questioning.

We are in the habit of "coming to conclusions", as if that is the end all and be all of our inquiries. As if that's a good thing. Well, it's not wrong, it's just limited. What if you never came to any conclusions about anything? What if you stopped searching for answers, and just kept asking questions? What would your daily life be like?

For one thing, you would stop judging, because judgments and awarenesses cancel each other out. You can't get a new awareness with a judgment held in place. Conclusions are really just judgments with a justifying story. So you wouldn't have a story that leads to any sort of "conclusion"--you may have a story that demonstrates how you got to more awareness, but you wouldn't have a story that concluded: "therefore, I'm not suited for this job", or "that's why I don't like dogs". It would all just be an interesting point of view that could change at any moment with a new awareness.

This "changeableness" is actually quite threatening to many people because you then become "unpredictable" or "undependable". We have set up a social stigma against changing. This is part of being in judgment and coming to conclusions about others, in an attempt at predicting behavior, which is really just a control story. You would need to give all that up.

What if you woke up in the morning with the question, "What wonderful and amazing things could happen today?" or "What are the things I can do to make my day amazing?" And as your day progresses, you just keep asking these questions, and once something does happen that's amazing, you don't conclude that it was because you asked for it. You instead say, "How does it get any better than that?" or "What else is possible?" And a new awareness comes to you.

If we all could live in the question, it seems to me it would be only a short time before we have solved the world's problems and are vacationing across the Milky Way...