A CHILD MAKES A DIFFERENCE

A friend sent this link: lessons often come in small packages http://www.sonnyradio.com/brendenfoster.html

WHEN BODY AND MIND GET SEPARATED

This is dedicated to all of you who run to the gym to get a great workout and multitask while you're exercising, to all of you who truly believe you're making, and getting, the most out of that 90mins in the gym.
This is dedicated to all of you who slap on headsets, watch the TV screen, have long conversations about the stock market crashing, politics, lovers, movies, interview prospective workers, hunt for the next Mr. or Ms. Goodbar, etc.

Why am I talking to you?
First, because you actually get to the gym, you actually consider exercise important to health and wellbeing, you want to get in shape, be in shape and stay in shape.
I applaud your intent!
Second, because you need to understand that you're kind of taking your body and dropping it off at the gym they way people drop their dirty clothes at the cleaner, and that isn't smart!
Third, because you're not getting maximum benefit multitasking at the gym.
Fourth, because there's not much joy in the gym, sometimes there's not even satisfaction when the session is over and that's just plain crazy!
Fifth, because there is another way that is so much exciting, more effective and more health inducing, yes, there is!

You may not care now, but stay with me and you will.

The human body is very smart. It is intelligent. Every cell in your body has a specific role to play and for its entire lifetime it plays that role 100% of the time...as long as you don't get in the way!
Now, the body will always behave as a body BUT it has the capacity to be at the peak of its game, or not, depending on how attuned YOU are to it.

You see, in the west, our minds have become the dominant players in the triune body, mind and spirit. We tend to train the body by telling it what we want it to do, by applying external rules to it in order to make it shape itself the way we want it to. We make it become the image we have in mind, or close, and to do this we impose on its natural intelligence the rules and regulations of the moment. This actually can be confusing for the body when what we want is not equal to the maximum that the body can give us naturally, IF WE TUNE IN.

Every body has an innate NATURAL BEAUTY and PHYSICAL PERFECTION. Unfortunately, we were educated away from developing an intelligent relationship with our body and so we've ended up taking it to a gym for a serious 'work-it-out' and 'make it better'.

Honestly, you can't make the body better than INNATE INTELLIGENCE can. Impossible. However you can HARNESS that innate intelligence, you can BEFRIEND it, learn its language and use it to get AMAZING RESULTS! Guaranteed.

Does a dolphin or a dog or a bird need extra-curricular training to maximize their physical competency? No, they actually improve their abilities by being 100% in sync with their INNATE INTELLIGENCE.

Now, you could say, "Wait, they don't know any better, they don't have a mind like us" and you would be HALF RIGHT. It isn't that they don't know any better, it's that they KNOW how to HARNESS their INNATE INTELLIGENCE, the CULTIVATE it, STRENGTHEN it, ENJOY it and REAP THE REWARDS!
Yes, they don't have a mind like we do because they are not humans but we have seen that they have spectacular intelligence and behavioral craft that we strive to understand and apply to our world. Birds to airplanes, Dolphins and sonar...Dogs and scent, yes, I'd love to say dogs and loyalty but that hasn't crossed our minds yet!

What if you could streamline your swim like a dolphin?
What if the longer you ran the easier it was and the more energy you had at the end?
What if you could realign and reshape your body effortlessly while your exercised it?

Words are important here.
If you 'work out' your body what are you doing?
If you 'exercise' your body, what are you doing?
What is the difference?
What is 'effort'?
What is 'effortless'?

There is a way for all of the above to be experienced.

THE INVITATION by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I had to incredible pleasure of hearing her read this poem as an introduction to an event in honor of Christopher Reeves. All of us were from the world of healing arts and consciousness, mindfulness, self awareness and Christopher Reeves was excited because it was the longest he'd ever spent on stage without being attached to his oxygen machine. He said he was certain it was because all of us held the space with a whole other awareness than the average individual would, or could.
Enjoy this powerful poem, let it wash over you and through you, let it speak to you throughout the day, and all it to affect you...answer back!

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

FALLEN PREY TO GREAT MARKETING?

I’m reading the book “29% Solution” about networking. The author, Ivan Meisner, explains how the urban legend of six degrees of separation came to be and why it is totally untrue. However, it sounds so cool, so magical; maybe that’s why we continue to use it, I mean, only six people max between me and Destiny’s doorbell, WOW!

Okay, but it’s UNTRUE! Well, do we really care?

How about The Secret? The Laws of attraction? Change your mindset, get in the groove of Flow and watch your dreams come true, wasn’t that the hook? A deeply emotionally attractive package and a phenomenal marketing plan, The Secret catapulted its authors to ‘Luminary’ status. Wow! Enlightened? Really?

Today, the market is full of second and third tier follow-ups to The Secret and The Laws of Attraction. Since not everybody made millions and found joy following The Secret out came The Secret Behind The Secret- the Untold Story, just one of the many new e-booklets that shares everything The Secret left out… and yet, it leaves things out too!

Why? Maybe they believe you can’t handle it all at once. Maybe it’s a business venture and there have to be sequels, updates, new and better tools if it’s going to last. Certainly, The Secret made millions for its authors, the New Age Luminaries, thanks to a superb marketing strategy and not because it was making people millions!

The name, The Secret, is a brilliant emotional hook. Who doesn’t want to know the secret that will unlock prosperity? A brilliant catch phrase and magnet for LEADS, those who will follow each successive step, buy every new book, participate in seminars, buy into coaching series.

Well, what about the casualties of The Secret? How many didn’t succeed compared to the number that did? I’m guessing the statistics bend heavily towards those who failed to fulfill their dreams, investing heavily and losing their shirts in the end, or at least ending up empty handed.

That is one reason Bill Harris of Centerpointe is so candid about the real work that’s needed to change our mindset. It requires reframing ingrained and often unconscious patterns, focused internal reflection and specific restructuring of the linguistic patterns we use to define our experience. And, it’s sometimes pretty frustrating, embarrassing and challenging until you get the hang of it. Then it becomes pragmatic, effective, and fun!

It’s important to know that an emotional high, a new insight is exactly that, an emotional high and new insight, and nothing more. When trauma is healed a deep energetic pattern is broken and an internal system is redesigned. A part of us becomes objectively conscious and we see, think and behave differently.

Think of it this way. When you put your hand over a flame and leave it there it will burn you. When you feel the heat and pull away you don’t burn yourself. When your mind learns that pattern recognition your brain will not put you in harms way but until you learn that pattern recognition you will be at risk.

When you know what motivates you to act you have clarity of purpose and clarity of choice. When you don’t know what motivates you to act you respond to randomly associated, unqualified, unconscious stimuli that stem from mental, emotional, and even environmental triggers and you are like a puppet; you respond to the fingers of someone else moving you.

Ah, how much of our lives are we puppet? How often are we manipulated by the fingers of others?

Twenty years ago, I was on a train and overheard two orthopedic surgeons talk about knee operations they’d done that day. Hatchet jobs! One was totally unnecessary but the ‘stupid’ patient didn’t know and it was ‘free money’. These men were joking about it, and I wondered what mindset was needed to cut and sew bodies without conscience. The Nazi’s did it. Psychopaths and sociopaths often do it These men were licensed medics that ordinary people like you and me had entrusted their wellbeing to.

I’ve seen people on prescription drugs where the doses are way too high and the drugs are contraindicated between them, all of which were prescribed by a doctor. Despite the seriously compromised condition of their loved one as long as the doctor said it was necessary they kept it up.

Why do doctors take their Socratic oaths so glibly?
Why do people give mere mortals, with medical degrees so much power?
How do you expect anyone to get well if they are overdosing on prescribed pharmaceuticals?

Why do we give our power away so willingly, so easily?

A POEM FOR THIS SATURDAY

Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,
And speak in different tongues and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no heed.
And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death;
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end-
That one day out of darkness, they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

Susan Marr Spalding
Written in the 1870's

The turnaround concept: Cheated or Challenged?

Good morning,

Cheated or Challenged? What a great TURNAROUND question.
Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, who wants to live their life feeling cheated, who wants to spend their lifetime complaining?
No one, really.
And yet, how many of us feel we’ve been cheated in some way? Maybe the teacher had it in for you, or the coach kept you on the bench because he was given incentives to play someone else. Maybe you’ve been punished for things you never did, or you didn’t get the ‘good’ looks, height, right body shape, intelligence, or personality someone else in your family did. Maybe you were born female, or redheaded, too black or not black enough. Maybe you were the designated black sheep of the family or you didn’t get into the school of choice because you came from the wrong side of the tracks. If there’s something that nags somewhere within…read on!
K and I met for lunch in Los Feliz shortly after my arrival in Los Angeles. Both of us in entertainment, both of us interested in the effects of race on America, we had a lot to talk about, beginning with personal stories. K is black, I am white, we come from very different backgrounds and yet we share very similar experiences. He is young, bright, full of vitality, humor, truthfulness and integrity. As our personal stories unfolded over lunch I shared my experiences as a single, white mother of a mixed race child, unending gratuitous manifestations and acts of ignorance, envy, hate and racism that bombarded us from the day he was born.
This isn’t just my story; it’s the story of thousands of women and single mothers raising mixed race children across the country and around the world. K listened intently as I recounted the incidents in New York City, Boston, California and Europe.
He had a wry smile glimmering within and when I’d finished he said quietly, gently, “I’ve never heard anything like that from a white person before and it’s compelling, really it is but that’s a sliver of what I’ve experienced since the day I was born. You see, for me, there never was a before and after, a ‘then and now’, for me there was only and always division, profiling, violence, terror, 24/7. from my first breath to right now, sitting here with you.”
His story was riveting. Growing up in East Chicago, bused to a white public school, no ‘milk’ money, he created comic strips to sell in the neighborhood to earn the 25cents to eat. Taunted, mocked, beaten up, considered dumb, incompetent, and useless K began to see himself that way and became a bully, joined a gang, did some pretty serious damage around town. Then, one day, for zoning purposes K was sent to an all black school for a week.
And that week changed his life. Instantly, he became a hero, the most intelligent, praised by teachers for his curiosity and his mind, and K found himself looked up to by everyone. He stepped into the role of leader and when it was time to return to the other school, he refused, stayed where he was, graduated with honors and won a full Physics scholarship to a prestigious university.
“I’m not happy,” he said, “that you had to experience those things but I’m glad you had the chance to experience a slice of the world millions of others live every day, and much worse.” His brown eyes found mine. “Why you? Why this? Why now?”
“I’m searching for that understanding,” I responded.
“Are you,” he said gently, “are you really searching for the answer or simply reciting the victims tale?”
I was silent.
“You see,’ he continued, “I’m hearing that you were cheated of the world you imagined for you and your son. It’s true, you were, now what? Feel cheated or be challenged to take that experience and find the challenge it has offered you, what lesson, what greater blessing?”
He paused for a minute, his eyes lit up as if he’d just had an insight.
“Cheated or challenged,” he said, “the choice is yours.”
Maybe it was his smile at that moment, maybe it was simply that what he said made total sense. A light went on inside my heart. A weight lifted. I actually burst into tears. My body trembled. I laughed.
“Wow,” I said, “cheated or challenged, talk about instantaneous turnaround! I’m not sure exactly what happened and it doesn’t really matter but something profound just shifted inside me. The facts remain the same but the information sits with me differently.”
He smiled. “I’ve never said those words before, they just popped into my head now. I guess they came special delivery for you.”
I beamed and my body shuddered a couple more times as the old victim whine dissolved into nothingness.
Cheated or Challenged? Your choice!

When you least expect it... BAM!

So, I woke up yesterday and went to check emails. I was feeling pretty good, lots of insights during my workouts in the gym, new, fantastically exciting images for my future treadmill - yes, you'll love it, your workouts will never be the same! - and there was an invite to a seminar on the 'codes of Genius'. I blinked. That wasn't possible, nobody except me knew about the inner secret codes of genius that harness the bodymind, optimize performance on any level, and catapult happiness levels way beyond the imagined! NO, there was the email and it was all about accessing the amazing capabilities within to manifest the amazing dreams of the future...
Okay, it's been twenty years, twenty-three to be exact, that I've been exploring this amazing inner realm of genius, using it in my healing work, my consulting work, and even teaching it to the rare few, pioneers I called them back in the 90's who risked being mocked by everyone because they believed in what I was talking about. Ah, the explorations we had, the discoveries, fear mixed with excitement, curiosity, even, yes even resistance but willingness to push through.
Great work, great moments shared...
...and the pebbles dropped delicately in the water created ripples that travelled twenty-three years across the planet to manifest in Milwaukee.
Truth, I felt betrayed, and cheated and I was desolate to see those words being used by another in such a bold way, across the globe via internet. Can you imagine, the whole world heard it from him? I couldn't get over it, there it was, attached to his name, and here I was receiving the invite. Oh, the sting, burning like a jellyfish attack, which in case you've never experienced it is very painful and lasts quite a while.
Now, let's be fair, the guy certainly didn't know that I'd spent half my life studying this phenomenon and he only knows I exist because I bought a CD series from him. The guy is innocent, and I'm sure he's good at what he does. Ultimately, this isn't about him, or about the fact my heart feels he 'stole' my golden egg, no, it's about who I am, what I do, where I'm coming from and why I'm not delighted that someone else had the wherewithall to finally bring the recognition of the inner genius to light!
Paul Scheele, I thank you. You are shining the limelight on an incredibly important theme, that benefits everyone. It's okay that you orient it to enterprise and success while I orient it to knowing theyself, healing, and empowering the greatest toolbox on earth, your own genius, but more of that in the future. The time is now. You have the stage to do this. I have always enjoyed the freedom of the smaller stage. If there's a way to work together, great, if not, may you find your way to this blog and be thrilled by the new information, and amazing 'other ways' the codes of genius can be applied! Anyway, my hands are clapping! Can you hear them 10 thousand miles away? I do hope so.
Okay, let's backtrack a sec and get in the 'cheated' frame of mind just to learn how easy it is to get out of it with the help of trusted friends and advisors. Yes, I had to open up first, and share my miserable state, indulging myself in a bit of dramatic whining well whipped with truthful tears, but that's okay, that's human...and then it needs to go to the next level and shift in some way, right? Right. No one wants to stay miserable after the first indulging moments of gravy pleasure, at least not if they want to thrive, and I so love that swinging free, open to new levels of vitality and engagement.
That's where my friend comes in. I rant. He gets it. Yep, what else can he do? I'm bluthering my way through upset, betrayal, and feeling cheated until the faucet is empty. Then what? Help opens the door with a gentle voice and a few suggestions, one of which is 'blogging', this, right here, and I softened to the idea the more he spoke of it, the more he showed me blogs, and suddenly I moved into discovery of a whole new world that certainly would have taken longer if all this disturbance hadn't shown up... and then I thought of what another friend once said, "You can see yourself cheated or you can choose to see your circumstance as a challenge".
That's BIG.
Yep, and I like BIG, expansive challenges. Once I let go of the whine I saw a lot more clearly. Well, duh, first of all, Paul's never stole my ideas, the collective consciousness brought him the new vocab, I mean the reality has been around since long before I was born, and sooner or later, just like it came to me, it would come to others. And, he brought it to the stage! Now, Paul's concept and use of the term is different than mine so he didn't steal anything either! He arrived by another route/path/journey and yet we both arrived at a shared vocabulary.
How cool is that? Pretty cool...
Anything like that happened in your life?
Well, that's it for now. I'll tell you the 'cheated or challenged story' next time!
Until then, just notice all those inklings that come to you in fractions of seconds, that seem whimsical, that you often brush off as silly... listen to them and then imagine all the ways they can be of use to you in your life..

Rosh