Are You All In?

Commitment is a complicated and funny concept. On the one hand it represents strict, unbending discipline. On the other it represents a giving up, or letting go--a turning of one's soul totally over to a belief.

The first definition makes me feel tired. Don't we all feel a commitment to working as hard as we can to make our lives happy? We grit our teeth and grimly set forth on the laborious path to what we believe will create happiness and fulfillment. This brings out the rebel in me. Why not work smart, not hard? Or, maybe it's not a matter of "work" at all?

The second definition of commitment is scary to me. It's the commitment it takes to jump into the abyss; take that leap of faith, or give up all your preconceived notions, plans and schemes for success, and let the Universe just provide.

Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is where most of us dwell for the short years we have on this planet. We beat ourselves up for not "sticking with it"; but then beat ourselves up because we realize we just can't let go and have a little faith in life. All the while, happiness, contentment and fulfillment seem like bubbles in the wind.

I must say, after 60-plus years of wearing myself out working my ass off, instead of achieving a modicum of happiness for my trouble, I instead have realized the utter futility of it. Over my lifetime I've often glanced over at the Second Way longingly wondering if that would be the fruitful path not taken. I even dabbled in it sometimes when the stakes weren't very high, with mixed results.

Now I'm wondering, what if the Universe is just waiting for me to get out of my own way? What if I'm unconsciously blocking the Universe by making all these plans, cooking up all these schemes, and worrying my pretty little head about outcomes. There's a nagging knowing that this is the true reality of my life, that the ego must demonstrate how powerful it is in creating a life for me. But what if that is all just bullshit? What if the doorway to fulfillment and the actualizing of all my grandest wishes and dreams was as simple as just asking for it?

The Universe sometimes has a way of pointing directly at your self-esteem issues when you ask for something. We jump over into planning and working hard to prove to ourselves we're worthy of what we ask for. "Work hard enough, and you can have everything you want." I think this is mostly a lie. Sure, hard work and slavish commitment to an objective is how most of us get stuff we want, but what if that is the "long way 'round"?

Instead, what if it's more a matter of asking for something and then being completely, and committedly willing to do, be or not do and not be whatever comes up in the actualizing of it, and what if doing and being only those ways of joy and ease was the fastest track to bringing your dreams to fruition?

In other words, you want the joy and ease in your life that your objective would bring. What if the path to that objective was doing and being that joy and ease right now? All the Universe seems to want to know is, Are you committed to the joy and ease your dreams would bring? Can you truly receive that, or are you awash in doubts and self-defeatism? The Universe is all too willing to let you thrash around in those doubts, otherwise how would you become aware of the alternative?

Say it with me: I hereby COMMIT to the joy and ease the actualization of my dreams would bring, vow to become joy and ease in my life right now, becoming a powerful, shining beacon the Universe cannot miss in bringing me everything grand and wonderful I can imagine, and beyond. Are you ALL IN?

Reverse Engineer Your Pain

After being on the spiritual discovery path for most of my 63 years, I've come to see that there are just about as many approaches to how to go about this journey as there are people. In other words, spiritual journeys are a deeply individual experience, and ultimately, only the journeyer can decide which way to go, or what approach to take.

Ironically, there are also some very tried and true techniques to use to speed you on your way that seem to apply to practically everyone--results vary. My own style of research and discovery into who and more vitally, what I am, includes trying out practically every mode and modality I run across. I've often thought, If I just stayed with one damn technique I'd probably be a lot further along by now. But then, this would be only if I didn't change as a result of applying these various tools. I change--need a new tool. And although that seems like a bit of an excuse, it seems to work for me as I am now.

That said, one observation I keep running across, and then processing on, is how the emotions are intertwined with the physical body. There are hundreds of modalities that address the emotional component of physical disease and discomforts, yet basically, they are all saying the same thing.

My favorite spiritual teacher and savant, Teal Swan, summed up this whole approach with one question: "How does your pain make you feel?" Sit with that for a moment. "How does your pain make you feel?" What emotions are triggered by your pain?

The reason this is such a significant approach is because the structure of pain and dis-ease in the body is underpinned, anchored and given form by the emotions or feelings from which they arose. By re-experiencing these emotions, we're able to effectively "reverse-engineer" and de-construct our pain.

It goes like this: Say, you experience knee pain. Now sit with that pain for a moment--not resisting it, not judging it, or fleeing from it. Instead, observe how that pain makes you feel. Pick out some emotions--there will be several.

For example, I felt my knee pain and it had a feeling of helplessness about it. I followed that back into my past, asking for the earliest time where I felt helplessness like that. I ran straight into a time when I was about 8 years old and had badly sprained my ankle. I couldn't walk on it, and was limping around. My friends wanted me to come out and play, but I had to say I couldn't. This tied into feelings of abandonment and rejection--not to mention frustration. I realized my knee pain had dozens, if not hundreds, of "anchors" or connecting points with past incidents.

I immediately began to feel my knee loosening up a bit, and inflammation and pain levels going down. I kept re-addressing the feelings my knee pain was putting me through, with it becoming increasingly clear that although physically the knee was swollen, stiff, sore and hard to walk on--all of that was being held in place by a previous emotional state. The "holding in place" of those emotions, over time, created physical changes and mutations resulting in knee pain.

Another one of my favorite teachers, Christopher Hills, always emphasized that emotion is "E, energy, in - MOTION". When the motion stops or is obstructed in some way, either by denial or lack of interest, or misunderstanding, it eventually creates physical disease and discomfort.

Thus, pain becomes a virtual key to emotional freedom. Emotions are locked up in the pain. By simply looking at them, the energy is reset into motion and pain dissipates.

This is such a simple mechanism it's easy to forget about it--not to mention pain has a way of distracting attention away from its cause. Use your pain as your deep existential treasure--your strident path to ease and joy in the body and freedom of choice in life.

The Ultimate Approach to Pain

I was listening to body expert and Access Consciousness facilitator, Donnielle Carter, today on her internet radio show, "The Right Body for You", and had a couple of a-ha's.

There is a very common and almost guaranteed trap with pain, and that is to make it significant and part of who you are. This can be very sneaky, but let me tell you some ways to break the syndrome.

Donnielle reminded me that pain is my body yelling at me. Why does it yell? Not so much because there is something that wrong with it, which is the first conclusion most of us come to. It is more deeply the body attempting to get into communication with its occupant. It needs the healing power of attention to repair and rejuvenate in the areas of pain.

Let me repeat that. The body's way of telling you that it needs your attention is the experience of pain. It already knows what it needs to heal and transform, and a major part of that is the attention of the owner.

Now, what the body doesn't need is for you to focus on the pain itself, because we all know what happens when we focus on something: it gets bigger. This is like objecting to the fact you are being yelled at, instead of listening to what is actually being said. What the body is needing you to do is simply and only acknowledge the communication that is in the form of pain.

Here's a process to run: When there is a particular pain, respond to it by saying "Thank you." The body now knows that you got the message and it can stop yelling. The "thank you" phrase has the dual use of being a declaration of gratitude. So you are effectively telling the body, "I hear you and am grateful for your gift of communication to me." The combination of acknowledgement and gratitude is just the healing mojo the body is looking for from its owner.

What usually happens--and this has been my downfall--is we focus on the pain as if that is what we must "get rid of." That's like yelling back at the body, "Shut up! I don't want to hear anything more from you!" This does nothing to create a healing two-way communication line with the body, and will only make things worse for both you and your body.

How do you NOT focus on the pain? By acknowledging it. It is the practice of allowance. You are not resisting or avoiding it, you are simply allowing its presence--simply allowing it to be a communication from your body. This creates space between you and the pain, because it has succeeded in getting your attention, which is the purpose of it.

Now, your next job is to thank it (gratitude) and then cast your attention where there is ease and joy in the body. No matter how bad pain gets, there is always a place somewhere that doesn't hurt, or even feels really good. Yes, your knees ache, but your back feels great. That's the kind of grateful attention the body is craving, because, again, what you put your attention on gets bigger.

By allowing and thanking a painful area on the body, you can then start asking questions, such as: What is it about this I'm not getting? What is it going to take to have ease and joy in all of my body forever? What does the body need that I can provide that I'm not aware of?

Imagine that a painful area of your body is a voice talking to you. What is it saying? How does it feel? What is it asking for? Continue asking these questions and the overall questions above. Soon, you'll begin to receive awarenesses about things to do or ways to be to assist in creating joy and ease in that painful area. Maybe you'll get a sudden urge to stretch, take a walk, breathe, massage, have some sex, drink some water; or you may get a mental picture of sunshine, or standing barefoot in some grass; or maybe even eat some ice cream or go to a movie, or listen to music. These are all responses to the questions you have been asking, and these are the things for your to-do list as a considerate and responsible body owner.

Embrace Pronoia!

I'm sure you've noticed this in your life: You buy a car and suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere. I used to think because I made this particular brand of car my own, my mind started making associations with similar car brands that I was not aware of before, even though they were there the whole time. I'm now coming to believe something deeper about this interesting phenomenon. What if when I bought that Jeep, I became part of the "Jeep Matrix", and other Jeeps started showing up for me because I'm in that matrix, not because I just wasn't aware of them before.

This type of manifestation has been called "Pronoia"--the awareness that the universe is conspiring in your favor--a term coined by consciousness pioneer John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead. Simply put, you ask for something with the conviction that the Universe has got your back, and it (sometimes miraculously) shows up.

It's also interesting to apply this awareness to what is snarkily referred to as the "Placebo Effect". You believe that a substance you ingest will heal or regress some malady or condition, and sure enough, after a little time, it does, even though that substance was a simple sugar pill. The opposite can also be true: You believe a medical treatment will harm you, and it does, but not because the treatment is actually harmful. It's because of your belief. This has been coined the "Nocebo Effect".

In fact, the Placebo Effect is so well-documented, scientists try to short-circuit it by conducting "double-blind" trials for new drugs in an attempt to isolate the actual effects of the drug from a person's beliefs about what it is doing to their body. I would ask, which is more powerful? The person's beliefs, or the drug? Isn't this just another form of pronoia? The universe is re-arranging to your beliefs causing the body to be harmed or healed.

When applied to the universe of nutritional supplements and herbology, it's easy to see a huge complication here. If your beliefs are just as strong or stronger than any supplement you can take: 1. Why take a supplement (or medicine), and, 2. What do you actually believe? Are you a believer at first, but then lose that belief so the supplements start to do nothing? Or, are you convinced nothing will work and you take the supplements (or medicine) to prove yourself right?

So much confusion and frustration is caused by this, and it is in no small part helped by marketing and the physical sciences. For example, a certain supplement is known to contain a certain property, say, ginsenosides. ginsenosides are shown by science to positively affect overall vitality and immunity. Because you believe in the science and you also observe a lack of vitality in your body, you use the supplements with ginsenosides in them to heal or resolve the lack of vitality.

As long as it's as simple as that, your chances of improvement are probably pretty good. But, what if one morning you wake up and you feel worse. You start to believe that perhaps these ginsenosides don't actually work, and soon, because of no result, you stop taking the supplement. You then start searching out other alternatives, and find something else that science says relieves your lack of vitality. This time, you feel better. Ah, now THIS is the answer! And from now on, when you have a lack of vitality, you medicate with this substance.

What if healing and health have really nothing to do with what supplements you take or even what diet you consume? What if the MOST IMPORTANT thing is what you BELIEVE about your health and healing?

I've been experimenting with this lately. I was taking a lot of different Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs, and various vitamins and minerals to address some joint and muscle pain I was having. The herbs seemed to help, as well as the vitamins, yet there was no real resolution (after a year)--some relief at times, but no resolution. In fact, I was bouncing so much between relief and exacerbation, I just got thoroughly confused and discouraged.

I then woke up one morning and had the strong awareness to just STOP taking everything, and fast for a day. Then, re-introduce herbs and supplements ONLY after carefully asking my body and using kinesiology (muscle-testing for strong or weak signals) to determine what I actually consumed. I committed to muscle test everything, including different foods and forms of water. I discovered that my body was struggling with long-term dehydration, and was expending more energy responding to all the herbs and supplements I was shoving down its throat than doing any actual healing.

After about three days, I was feeling much better, and as days went by, I felt better and better. This was confusing to me until I realized that my core belief was that the body heals itself naturally, given proper hydration, oxygenation and my personal conviction in its healing abilities.

So rather than making a judgment call about what I "needed to take" to bring health to the body, I started asking the body what it really needed: how much water, what foods when, what exercise when, how much sleep when, and any vitamins, minerals, enzymes, or herbs. It showed me it just mainly needed the basics: plentiful water, clean food, fresh air, some daily exercise, some minerals, given in gratitude and with my core belief in its healing super-powers. Start asking the universe with sincere curiosity, "What will it take to get rid of _____?", and "What needs to happen in my life to have vibrant health in my body?" This will stimulate pronoia, and awarenesses and answers will start flooding in.

Start asking for your core beliefs about your body. What are your convictions about your body and health? By discovering and validating these (or changing them) you can escape from the placebo/nocebo rabbit hole, and allow the universe to simply work in your body's favor. Embrace pronoia!

The Choice Trap

Our most powerful tool, choice, is also our most abused and unused. This basic mechanism of consciousness is the direct demonstration to ourselves of our power and powerlessness. Are we choosing the best life? Are we choosing to destroy it? Are we not making choices because we're afraid? Are we afraid of any choices at all?

These are really deeply existential questions that get at the core of what we are: creators. We create our life only by using choice. In fact, making choices is something so natural, so automatic, we oftentimes don't realize that we are choosing the pain, discomforts and unwanted conditions we "live with" on the day-to-day. We tell ourselves, "We have no choice" about this, that and the other.

I like to call this the Choice Trap. We pretend we're not choosing and things get bad or worse, and then we suddenly realize we "have no choice" but to...(fill in the blank). My spiritual teacher once told me, "Choosing is an exercise in paying attention. Be aware of what you choose, because it's the only way you're going to get what you want." At the time I laughed at this seemingly obvious statement, but later I realized it was quite profound. There are so many "choices" we make in the form of choosing to "go along" with others, or choosing to procrastinate, or choosing to not do what you know needs to be done, or choosing not to think about your life. These are, often times, unconscious choices that become a sort of operating manual for life.

We can too easily choose to be a victim, or choose to look outside ourself for causes, or choose to be "right" as opposed to "correct". In fact, most of our psychology is constructed on the choices we've made to embrace or deny our values. What's the more important choice? Being right or being compassionate? Being truthful or secretive? All of these types of questions point out what we are choosing any given day.

A friend of mine visited last week on vacation, and said, "It's been so nice to be on vacation. I don't have to make any decisions--I just go wherever I want and do whatever I want." To him, making a decision was a big deal, and yet he was making choices the entire time of his vacation as to where to go and what to do. He didn't think of these kinds of choices as being significant. And yet, these are the kinds of decisions that get us from Point A to Point B every day, and are the key to living the highest and best life we can imagine.

There are a couple of "choosing hacks" I like to use to keep me mindful of the choices I'm making moment to moment. One is, "light or heavy". Say you've narrowed your choices down to two. Ask the question, "is this light or heavy"? One of the choices will seem lighter than the other one, or if they both seem heavy, there is another unacknowledged possibility you aren't considering. If they are both feeling light, well, then, have fun! Always favor lightness. It will serve as your North Star for navigating through your day.

The second choosing hack is "follow the energy". This is similar to favoring lightness, but it's much more specific. Get the idea of something you want to have. Feel the energy of that as though you have it. Now, start choosing the things to do in your day or week that make you feel that same energy. Before too long, you will have that thing you originally wanted, and usually more. It's the "act as if" drill applied to energies.

So, carefully observe every time you make a decision, no matter how small or inconsequential. You'll begin to see where you've actually decided to have the life you have. And once that awareness dawns, you can change it by using your most powerful tool: Choice.

Two Tools

There are two tools in Access Consciousness that I have found are absolutely great as what I call "anti-funkifizers". You know, when you feel yourself falling down in life, and beating your own head against a wall you are painfully aware you put there yourself. That kind of "funkify".

TOOL NUMBER ONE: Staying in the Question. Humans are not particularly good about handling answers. We tend to "find THE answer" and then stick with that sucker come hell or high water (even if we caused the hell and high water). I guess there is a sort of comfort in "knowing you have THE answer". And yet (and I speak from experience), when you think you've found The Answer, after some time and life goes by, you pretty much become convinced that it really wasn't THE answer. So you start off again down that road to the Holy Grail. It's in human DNA, I believe, and it's not very useful.

What IS useful, is to continually ask the open-ended questions and sticking with those no matter what happens. Questions such as, "What energy do I need to be to experience my life with ease and joy?" Or, "What else could happen here that is far beyond what I ever could imagine?" Or, "What would it take for me to be happy, creative and inspired?" In other words, you don't want questions you already know the answers to, or that have obvious answers. You're shooting for the moon with the questions, with no idea what the answers could be. In fact, you don't want to have answers, just better questions.

What's weird is when you ask questions like these, you begin to get certain awarenesses that look like answers. It's the "ask and you shall receive" mechanism in this reality. And it's nice, but you want something even greater. "What else is possible?" is a great question when you start getting "answers" or awarenesses as a result of an open-ended question.

What's also weird is that apparent answers or changes relating to the question start coming at you from the Universe at large. Someone will say something that relates to your question, or an event or scene will suddenly strike you as particularly relevant to your question. It's fun, really, and really helps restore your curiosity. Much less frustrating than burdening yourself with the search for answers. The Universe is much better at those. Let it do it's job.

TOOL NUMBER TWO: Interesting point of view. This is a very useful way to snap out of negativity of any kind, or to "reset" yourself when you realize you're being judgmental or making a bunch of conclusions not supported by evidence. Just say, "Interesting point of view I have that point of view." The self-observation that your behavior was the result of a specific point of view allows you to shift outside of it, and in so doing neutralizing the energy with that point of view. For example, I have late bedtime and late rising hours, and this morning someone was hammering on something next door. After waking up three or four times all grumpy about it, I remembered Interesting P.O.V. I made the statement a few times and lo and behold, I wasn't grumpy anymore, and was able to go back to sleep and not be awakened again by the noise. This is a good one for driving in traffic, too, or in any social gatherings or events. It keeps you light and in present-time awareness. Much more fun!

Experiment with the two tools, and who knows where you could go and who you could be?

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.