Master Your Mind... for a Change
I had no idea what I was going to say before I turned the camera on…
And you know, it actually turned out better than I could possibly imagine!
What came out of my mouth was some key thoughts about the ancient Toltec practice of “interrupting routines” and “eliminating self importance”. So I hope you’re ready to shake things up a little bit… Ready?
Here we go!
Hey Gang,
This FRESH video is just about the best video I’ve ever done, if I say so myself. (Man I got FIRED UP!)
I said some stuff that just needed to be said. So There.
If you are wanting to change something in your life and you are ready to change it, I think this video could change the way you go about changing your life so I highly recommend that you watch it.
Please be forewarned I swore a little bit because I got really fired up and passionate, so if that would offend you please don’t watch it… unless you LIKE to feel offended, in which case, by all means… watch it…
So are you ready to own it? What would that feel like?
– Mark
Photo Credit – Copyright: stanciuc / 123RF Stock Photo
Having Trouble Focusing? Feeling Scattered? Have Many Interests and Talents?Feel like a kid in the candy store of life? So many things you COULD do? So many possibilities? So many choices?
Do you have many talents and interests? So many that it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and frustrating?
I got a great email today from Transformation Nation member Ari. This guy is doing some really good, profound, deep work and I LOVE hearing from him as well as all of you budding Jedi Mind Masters out there.
He was responding to yesterday’s Post, Dealing With Change. His question and reflection on change and the challenge of being a “creative” with multiple interests and passions is sheer “GOLD”. I have a feeling a lot of you can relate to it.
Being a being with multiple interests myself, this used to drive me crazy! I could focus intensely for a while on something but invariably the level of interest and attention would eventually kind of run out…
And something new would grab my attention. Then I’d go deep with that.
Of course a lot of this has been going on at the same time in various ways. And when I set one thing down for a while and turned my attention and focus elsewhere, I noticed I would often return refreshed and even more creative. And all these areas of interest were often combining and re-combining in ways that when I kind of relaxed into it and “surfed” it, constantly surprise and delight me.
I also noticed that when I tried to “force” a focus because it would “make more money”. It pretty much always bit me in the butt.
So I’m a big advocate of following the natural “flow” of your interests and passions. And checking in frequently for “congruence”.
Here’s his letter:
Mark,
I wanted to explore a little more with you regarding the way I handle change. You and I had talked once about my frustration with having so many different interests (creative, exercise, etc.) that I did not feel that I could be good at any one of them.
In other words, I felt unfocused.
You said that the process of exploring all of them was, in and of itself, a valid reason to be alive, a valid purpose for a life.
I think at the core of my resistance to what you said (there is a part of me that still wants a specialized focus) is trouble coping with change on my part.
If I interpret all of my various interests (guitar, singing, running, photography, yoga, church, farming, etc.) in a positive light, I simply give myself options of what I can do when I happen to have some free time on my hands.
But as it is, I interpret it negatively, as though I have a poor ability to focus, a low work ethic, etc., and that is why I can’t go very far in any one thing. I feel out of control somehow.
Ari
Hey Ari, (Oh man of many talents and interests…)
In fact watch some surfers on youtube or wherever.
Always adjusting and often falling… each wave different from the last…
Each interest is a wave. Ride the one you’re on until it dissipates or you feel drawn to the next one…
Ultimately the waves flow out in circles and then bounce or reverberate back… so you can ride them again and again… in different directions…
The ancient Toltecs believed that when we die we return our bubble of awareness to the “Source of all things”, “God”, “All that Is”, whatever you want to call it, ENHANCED by our experiences and the memories of a lifetime.
This is our purpose for having the life force given to us… to expand God… To be God’s eyes, ears, sense receptors “on the ground” “in the field” so to speak… and to learn, grow, seek to understand, expand, deepen, discover…
So stop judging yourself for multiple interests. Your creativitiy and interest in many things is what The Universe/God wants you to be doing… Start enjoying the adventure knowing you will someday present it as a gift to your Creator…
Chunking up is going from specific to general. For example:
Toyota Corolla ==> Passenger Car ==>Motor Vehicle ==>TRANSPORTATION.
(of course hypnosis is quite literally “Trance Formation”. And Music causes us to transform our state as well and can cause a deep trance…)
So Today’s Mind Mastery Transformation Tip for ALL of you FABULOUS, creative, talented, passionate, curious, action taking “TRANSFORMING bubbles of awareness” out there who have many interests is “Chunk up!” and start surfing all of your many interests without having to “force” any one of them be the “One thing”. Go into what they all have in common. What is it about these interests that nourish an literally Interests you? Are they areas where you can command some mastery? Are they areas of interest because you happen to be good at them? Or are you good at them because you are interested in them?
Your “One Thing” will be something that INCLUDES all the best of what you are and do and are interested and passionate about.
So tawk to me Ari and all you other folks out there. I find your thoughts Fascinating… I love being a part of your TRANSFORMATION!
Be gentle with yourselves and have fun while you play with this idea today…
Mark
p.s. Oh BTW… the Surf’s UP ALL the time! :o)
p.p.s. A big Transformation Nation welcome to Joshua!
p.p.p.s. To Contact me click here
p.p.p.ps. BTW candy is BAD for you. Life is GOOD for you. Just sayin’
photo credit: Copyright: pavsie / 123RF Stock Photo
Here in the Northeast, we deal with change every three months or so… and in many ways it keeps things fresh. It keeps us on our toes. I reminds us that CHANGE is the one constant thing in this adventure we call “our lives”.
Speaking of change, I got a new camera yesterday and as I unpacked it and attempted to figure out how to use it (without looking at the manual)… I realized… well… this may be a bit embarrassing to admit….
BUT SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE DAMN MANUAL….
Oh but NO ONE GIVES US A “MANUAL” for LIVING OUR LIVES!
And I’m sure someone could say, “well, that’s what the Bible or the Bagadvad Gita or the Koran is.” And yes perhaps. However, we are dealing with change in our lives right now at an unprecedented rate in all of human history. Please understand I appreciate all of our ancient books of wisdom. This is not a criticsm, just a reflection on the fact that they were mostly written thousands of years ago. And we actually have a map of how our neurology responds to change and processes the information in our external world but because everybody is so overwhelmed with the daily task of just living in the midst of information overload, it seems like very few people actually have any conscious clue about how to deal with it.
That’s what I’m intending this website and my courses addressing. And what I love about all of this is that teaching people how to master their own minds for a change, gently forces ME to really learn it myself and practice it EVERY single day…
So here I was with this new camera, it took me 15 minutes just to figure out how to attach the little string that keeps the lens cap from disappearing!
Eventually I figured things out enough to make you a fresh “test drive” video this morning.
Here’s the short video I made with a helpful Mind Mastery Daily Tip for you…
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take a moment to learn something new on some gizmo like a phone or a camera or a remote control or whatever. That’s it. Take a deep breath and learn something new. LOL
or just learn something new about ANYTHING. Or heck, REMEMBER something new you learned yesterday or last week and practice doing it better.
Now on to other new things!
– Mark
P.S. A Long Distance Transformation Nation shout out to Ian from the UK! As well as all of you who I hear from regularly. BTW have I mentioned lately that I LOVE to hear from you? I don’t need approval or praise. I DO LOVE to hear how you are all using these ideas and sharing them with your loved ones, I LOVE answering your questions. AND… as a result of several of you asking me questions about various challenges I am focusing my new course development on what you actually need and want. THAT feels deeply congruent and on target for me. so THANK YOU!!!
photo credit: “Starsky” L.
By many accounts, Christopher Columbus was a real jerk. Worse than that actually.I am pretty happy to join with Native Americans in condemning him as a worse force for genocide than Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun or any of dozens of ancient and modern “bad guys”.
Millions of native Arawak and Caribe indians died as a result of his establishing his headquarters on the Island of Espaniola, now home to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
But one thing you HAVE to give him credit for.
He BELIEVED in himself. He SOLD his idea to Queen Isabella. In an age when your place of birth usually condemned you to a life at the same social and economic level as your parents, Columbus totally “boot-strapped” himself and DECIDED he was the ADMIRAL of the New World.
He was a tough guy in a tough world and he was a survivor.
Today, because of his willingness to push the boundaries of conventional beliefs about the world, we live in a very different LOCATION.
Of course some other bad guy probably would have come along and done exactly the same thing. There was a tremendous imbalance of power and technology at play.
Soon after the Spanish basically wiped out the native americans in the Caribbean, they looked around for someone to do the hard labor of destroying the pristine environment, so they really cranked up the African slave trade…
So if you want, you can hate Columbus for that as well.
But instead of hating shitty people who did what we think of as shitty things in the past (that we now benefit from), what can we learn?
What can you and I discover of meaning and usefulness on this beautiful, pristine, October day that just happens to be Columbus Day?
First, Columbus was a product of his times. He would NEVER in a million years see himself as a bad guy. He was operating according to the beliefs and “pre-sets” of his culture. Like a fish doesn’t perceive the body of water it is immersed in, Columbus wasn’t CONSCIOUS of how his thoughts and actions were constantly being directed by the overriding cultural beliefs and ideas…
Secondly, you HAVE to give him credit for being a BOLD and ACTION TAKING person. He faced the fear of the unknown and pushed himself and his crew into new uncharted territory.
Thirdly, he was an ego driven, fortune seeker who attempted to negotiate 10% of ALL money made in the New World. Queen Isabella was a better bargainer and offered him POSITION and TITLE. Columbus SETTLED for the TITLE.
If he had gotten his 10%, He could have RULED the world. The world would be run by HIS descendants…
OH, wait… we have CORPORATIONS and GOVERNMENTS getting their 10% of EVERYTHING today… hmmmm.
And what do we know about Governments and Corporations? Well they are a lot better at hiding the fact that they are exactly and ruthless and power hungry as any old Columbus types.
They are just better at manipulating the media…
So before we condemn a single man for generations of genocide and horror, Let’s just take a moment and notice the many ways in which we Americans (and Europeans) benefit from the culture we fail to notice all around us…
And the biggest lesson of all…
#4? Columbus BELIEVED in himself. He BELIEVED in his DESTINY of “GREATNESS” AND he took ACTION.
Today. Believe in yourself. Take action. Push back the boundaries of what you think is impossible.
I’m not saying to cut Columbus any slack. Just to realize we are not better than him. We are all proceding through life according to our cultural and familial belief systems.
Change the BELIEF and you change REALITY.
Your assignment today is to play with that idea… at least a little… while you get outside and have some fun.
I’m going canoeing… right now. I’m Outa here.
peace.
– Mark
photo credit – Copyright: muhor / 123RF Stock Photo
My dad has an old saying that he loves to repeat. I think he heard his grandfather say it…
“Always keep your promises, but be damn careful what you promise!”
Pretty good advice. And definitely better than making a bunch of promises to people that you fail to honor.
The challenge arises though, when we make promises to ourselves that we don’t keep. There’s no one but US to know that we didn’t honor our promise. Ultimately though it’s the commitments we make to ourselves that we KEEP that propel us forward towards our dreams.
BTW Maybe you prefer to call them “resolutions”. But it’s not the new year yet. And no one keeps “New Year’s Resolutions” anyway. This is just for today. So no pressure. This can be easy. Simple. Kaizen baby!
Here’s the video:
Your assignment today (should you choose to accept it) is to make a small and VERY KEEPABLE promise to yourself. And then keep that promise. Fulfill that promise.
I like that phrase: Fulfill your promise. Perhaps you can start asking yourself a Why question…
“Why do I keep my promises to myself?”
Thoughts?
