Celibacy

The question of celibacy, or sexual abstinence, has come up several times in posts and e-mails recently, so I thought I'd address it. In general, I think that it can be an absolutely first-rate idea, a way of saving energy and investing it in healing and growth. Especially if there have been heart, body, or sexual wounds, the chances of investing yourself in inappropriate, demeaning, meaningless or just plain damaging sexual relationships is substantial. In such cases, it is better to sit out a few innings,take stock, heal, and re-connect with yourself.
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After all, our sexual relationships are mirrors of our inner relationships, the balance of male and female within. Sexual promiscuity (seems) to often be linked to inappropriately early sexual activity, or a betrayal in the home space. I've stopped being surprised at the women I've known who were super-hot items in the bedroom, and later revealed that they were molested or raped by family members. Ugh. It's almost as if a hole was torn in their hearts, and they are bleeding all over the bed sheets. With men, well, I know of some cases of abuse there, as well. It seems to manifest in a revulsion of their own body image, a bizarrely warped reality map of their own physical presence, such that they work out like crazy, and still look obese. Heart wounds can have the same effect.
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A little closer to home, my own wife, Tananarive, made a commitment that she would abstain from sex until she was in love with someone who would actually love her in return. The result was a happy marriage. There are few things more demoralizing than sharing your sexuality with someone who does not care a whit about your well-being, and few things more healing than healthy, lusty, sweaty, no-holds-barred, Hot-DAMN! Sex with someone who is, at the very least, a genuine friend, someone who cares about you, and genuinely treasures your time together. That should be the bottom line, folks. My own pattern? Throughout most of my life, I've tried to treat women as I would want someone to treat my my sister, daughter, or mother. If I wouldn't take a call at 3:00 in the morning from a past lover in emotional need, then she shouldn't be a past lover. What was I doing with her? Only once (well, maybe twice) did I ever end up in bed with someone where I regretted it, knew I'd made a real mistake. Ah, well, we learn as we go.
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At any rate, we're going to start delving into the Soulmate process, the path that brought me the love of my life, a process I have detected in dozens of other successful relationships. The right man or woman can be a superlative medicine for an ailing heart. See you then.

Posting to the Blog

We've gained a lot of new readers recently, and they've been delving into the older entries. Just wanted to say that if you have questions about any of that material, please post them on the 5MM/Lifewriting forum, not in the archives. I never go back and read the old posts, so I won't know that you asked a question!

Steve

Road Rage and the Five Minute Miracle

Had a conversation with Victoria, a friend and student, earlier today. She was driving down the freeway when an utterly insane driver slashed across multiple lanes and almost caused an accident. Vic felt the flash of adrenaline signaling an anger/fear response, but because she's been using the FIVE MINUTE MIRACLE, just went into her breathing pattern, and coasted right over it! Great going, Vic.
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The ability to deal with life's stress without allowing it to become strain is a CRITICAL component of excellence. Coach Sonnon's Flow State Performance Spiral says it flat out: your performance in life is largely determined by your ability to remain in flow state under stress. There are many, many techniques to help you do this, including some involving years of therapy and thousands of dollars of biofeedback. That's great. But you know what? For about six thousand years, techniques of doing this by modifying breathing have been systematized, and proven by millions of students to work just fine. The FIVE MINUTE MIRACLE takes one of the most powerful of those techniques, and teaches it to you in a form so absorbable that it literally takes only...(wait for it!) Five minutes a day. How good is it? We've sold thousands of the tapes and DVD's, and as of today, March 28th, have not had ONE SINGLE REQUEST for a refund. Now, that may change tomorrow, but understand the implications. We're not saying we have the most polished, Hollywood-ized product. In fact, it was shot in my home gym. What I AM saying is that it works. It really works. And that you can integrate it with ANY other sport, exercise, or spiritual discipline. This is a key, folks, and its dirt cheap, believe me. Do yourself a favor--if you haven't ordered a copy, do it now. If you've already got one, and agree with its value, get one for someone you love who is getting their butt whipped by stress. It's never too late to have a happy, healthy, passionate life. Never. Check it out NOW!

Al Seibert--Master of resilience

Just finished driving four hours to spend 1 1/2 hours with one of my favorite people, the brilliant and wonderful Dr. Al Seibert. I met Al while living in the Northwest, and was instantly blown away by his insight into human beings, as well as his general love of life and infectious energy (something he shares with his lovely and vivacious wife, Molly). Al is a world-class expert in resilience, the human ability to survive adversity. Currently, he lectures across the country, imparting wisdom in the corporate sphere. I'm about ready for bed right now, but wanted to put down one of the things that Al said over dinner. He mentioned a popular lecturer and author who shall remain nameless, and how this person taught a workshop that was pretty much rubber-stamped: never took into account the personalities and needs of the specific participants. What he said next struck me as one of the secrets to this 71-year-old whirlwind's boundless energy and creativity. It also made me envious of the people about to spend two days with him. "It's not enough," he said, "for the participants to say `it was a great workshop' or even `that was the best workshop I've ever attended.' When the workshop is over, I want to feel, I want to KNOW, that what happened in that room was one of the greatest, most authentic events ever to happen in history, and that it will never be duplicated."
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I just flat LOVE that attitude. Al, you're one in a million, and the world is a better place for your being here.

Steve

More on Heart Wounds

Fourth Chakra wounds damage the health, cripple the sexuality, create obesity and anorexia, limit communication, and confuse the intellect. The expression "you can awaken the kundalini from the heart out or from the bottom up, but never from the top down" was making direct reference to the primacy of the heart. In Lifewriting, we use two major tools for connecting with the heartspace: Heartbeat meditation, and the Dream Diary. There are other meditations, and therapies, but in many ways the very best medicine for the ailing heart is a healthy romantic/sexual relationship. For many people, the quest for love is a long, lonely road. I wanted to provide a few perspectives, and then in a day or two we'll re-visit what I call the Soulmate technique, an approach to finding and keeping the love you want.
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In this first installment, I'd like you to consider an homilie: "In life, you don't get what you want. You get who you are." If you find that you aren't attracting people who you are attracted to, you may well have an unrealistic self image. Your lovers are mirrors for you, friend. You ARE your husband or wife or significant other, albeit flipped for gender and mirror-imaged. Searching to understand the ways that you and your partner are two halves of the same creature is one of the most fruitful things you can do--as well as one of the most educational. It can free you from anger and resentment. Folks, if you could have done better than your partner, you would have. If you misjudged them, whose fault is that? If you didn't have the awareness, the self-confidence, the clarity, whose fault is that? Every human being does the best they can with the resources they have. You traded your intelligence, your sensuality, your beauty, and your power and energy and mental health for the greatest good you could find in the arena of relationship. When you stop blaming and start grasping that we are all both victims and benificiaries of the human condition, you are on the road to healing.
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And what if you aren't currently in a relationship? Well, I've actually got good news...if you're willing to risk your ego a bit. And we'll talk about that tomorrow.

Steve

Mastery Workshop Change

Arrgh. I hate to type this, but we're having to postpone the Mastery Technique workshop, probably until December. This is a decision (and, sigh, probably a responsible one!) by RMAX productions, which is committed to providing the highest possible experience to their clientel. The June date was just too soon to have all the logistics and enrollments in place. Scott felt that, in all good conscience, it was best to move it. I probably would have said "let's go for it!" but the truth is, Scott's attitude is more logical. Ah, well. We'll have the new date nailed down within a couple of days. Those of you who signed up for the June workshop will have your money refunded, and be able to attend the new workshop for 1/2 price (what a deal!)

More soon, and sorry, guys...

Steve

Year-Long Program 3-27-05

Let's think some more about the heart, and how wounds to it manefest in other arenas. I've known heart chakra wounds to trigger suicide, and a loss of willingness to live. A dear friend was raped, and within a year contracted terminal cancer--It ate her alive within months. Fear, guilt, shame and anger cripple the sex drive, as well as resentments: I know several women who completely withold their sexuality from their husbands, and several men no longer sexually active due to a lifetime of stuffed emotions. And anyone who has read this blog knows I think that people stuff negative emotions into their bodies. Rape, child abuse, fear, disappointment--all can manefest as obesity. I've had women tell me they were afraid that if they were sexually attractive, they'd cheat on their husbands. Men who say that they feel non-existent unless they are huge. Others who hide behind a wall of flesh. And of course heart wounds kill relationships:marriages, friendships, and the most critical relationship, the one with yourself. Heart wounds cripple the chakras above, as well: the ability to communicate is based on belief in self,a nd a sense that it is safe to be honestly expressive. My mother, who grew up in the lynch-happy South during the 30's, warned me that "if you show white people how smart you are, they'll kill you." Can you imagine what this does to a young man's head?
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Probably the majority of fine writing is about wounds to the heart, and the ways we cope with them, try to heal them, how they poison our lives. Or about the glory of love. As much pain as love causes us all, the only thing that makes it worth while is the fact that, when it's workin', there is just nothing better. So next time (or, real soon now) we're going to address the question of relationships--how to find one, how to nurture one, how to keep one.

Steve

The Five Minute Miracle--on DVD

The Five Minute Miracle is the cornerstone of the Mastery Technique, designed to raise your energy and attention, and increase your resistance to stress. Yes, the minimum level is really only five minutes a day--that's not a joke. It is also a dynamite abdominal exercise, and can be a launch pad to real athleticism by integrating the "Be Breathed" technique into martial arts, yoga, running, or weight training. Wonderful stuff. Please do yourself the favor of reading through the material. Thanks!

Back From San Francisco

Where I was researching spaces for the upcoming Mastery Workshop, June 10-12 (www.rmax.tv/mastery.html). Drove up Thursday, back Friday night. While I was there, I hung out with my dear friend Mushtaq and his honorable Sheik, Taner. While there I took a look at the Fort Mason center, and it looks just fine, so that's my vote. One of the things I did while there was to create a spine of the exercises, concepts, and techniques to be integrated over the two-day span. This blog is both a record of my thinking, and an opportunity for readers to decide if this is something for them.
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Let's say that there are nine different basic components at this point. They will each be taught twice, I think--all covered on the first day,deepened on the second. Lots of reinforcement.
1) The Hero's Journey. The basic template of human life as reported by storytellers the world over, from the beginning of time.
2) Performance Breathing. The cornerstone of much of Scott Sonnon's work. Breath, Movement, and structure create each other in an interdependant web. Can be used for health, stress management, or athleticism.
3) The Five Minute Miracle. Use to imprint the new pattern onto your nervous system. By practicing Performance Breathing five times a day, you start moving into the "Perpetual Exercise" zone, where you have re-wired your relationship with the physical universe
4) The Chakras, and meditation. Being able to understand, visualize and feel the different aspects of our energetic existence. Viewed purely as a mental construct, a profound insight into the evolutionary nature of human existence, based on six-thousand year old wisdom.
5) Motions of Mastery. I've tasked Scott with selecting or devising, from his vast and brilliant array of techniques and understandings, a simple daily practise that is:
a) a superset of the benifits of the Five Tibetans
b) available to anyone who can walk and sit.
c) takes only 5 minutes or less at base levels.
d) contains many of the benifits of Warrior Wellness.
e) Is progressive--that is, a more advanced or athletic expression is available as a direct progression.
f) Can be used for theFive Minute Miracle
g) Can be pushed longer and harder during the Golden Hour, and adjusted to produce serious, no-b.s. fitness.
h) can be used by a relative beginner for the Fear Removal exercise.
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Scott says that he has just the thing. He hasn't sent me the video clips yet--I can hardly wait. Coach Sonnon has never disappointed me. Never. I think that the Motions of Mastery are going to rock.
6) Flow State Performance Spiral. A clear and rational explanation of the evolutionary potential of sophisticated movement arts: Tai Chi, Yoga, whatever. Once you grasp this, and truly understand it, your practise will never be the same.
7) The Golden Hour. A goal of planning one optimal hour a day of input, exercise, meditation. Designing it so that you are getting optimal benifits. If it takes you five years to carve out that 60 minutes, its worth it.
8) Fear Removal. The theory and practise of managing anxiety through a combination of visualization and physical motion. Unbelievably powerful. My mind is literally blown by its potential.
9) Control-Pause Goal setting. Imprinting balanced goals on the subconscious. The culmination of all the other steps.
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These are the nine pieces. The task now is to create a structure in which to experience and share them. Wow. Lots of work in the next weeks. I can't wait.

Steve

Terri Schiavo

It is clear that the political dogs on both sides of the aisle have gotten their teeth into this tragic case, and are worrying it to death. There are questions of constitutionality, separation of powers and the balance of States as opposed to Federal rights that will resound for years, if not decades. This is a mess. In short, a woman suffering (probalby) irreversible braindamage has been on life support for fifteen years. Her husband, who has testified under oath that he is fulfilling her wishes, wants the support removed. Her parents want it preserved. The courts have sided with the husband, and congress is pulling heroic measures to overturn the courts.
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That is, as far as I can see, the essence of the situation, devoid of value-weighted commentary. It is easy to see the basic arguments of the far edges of left and right, and the waythey demonize each other.
Demonization:
1) The Religious Right wants to establish a Theocracy, to have their private morality intrude on our personal lives. To that end they will bend any law, commit any hypocracy,and drag this woman's private hell into the public arena.
2) The Godless Left wants us on a slippery slope to a purely mechanistic, godless world. They have no respect for life, no morality, and are using this case to strengthen the case for Euthanasia.
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And what are the positives? What are good people on both sides probably thinking?
1) On the Light. Life is sacred. The husband may be wrong about what his wife wanted, the doctors might be wrong about her chances for recovery. They are fighting for this woman's life.
2) On the Left. Individual choice is sacred. This woman wanted to die if she was ever in such a vegetative state. It is disrespectful in the ultimate not to respect those wishes, and is the intrusion of government into the most important choice many of us will ever make: when and how to die.
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You know? I think that you can pretty much remove politics from this one. This is, in essence, a purely spiritual debate disguised as politics. My guess is that you could predict which side of the argument a person would come down on by asking: Is it permissable for a person to commit suicide? Those who believe there is virtually no circumstance under which a person has the right to end his life will probably lean toward the right on this issue. Those who believe the end of life is a personal choice will probably come down on the left.
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Me? I think it's a personal choice. But I grasp the arguments and emotional sets and spiritual beliefs of those who think otherwise. They are not idiots, although there are idiots on both sides of this one. To me, the only real tragedy is the way this woman's image has been paraded across the news. I am quite, quite certain that Terri would be horrified at that. If she had any pride, any sense of grace and style and beauty, she would be mortified. And no matter what is right or wrong ultimately, we have dragged her family's private pain through the mud.

Origins of the Mastery Workshop

www.rmax.tv/mastery.html
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I have made a commitment to absolute honesty on this blog, to the limits of my ability. I try to give away everything for free, but there are some products and services that require an exchange of resources, otherwise I am hurting my family, and this I cannot do. But it behoves me to give you the clearest possible idea of what EXACTLY it is that has been created, and why it is worth your time and money.
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Fifteen years ago, while teaching a general fiction class at UCLA, I stumbled across the fact that Campbell's model of the Hero's Journey could be used to help people plan their lives in advance. This lead to the "Lifewriting" workshops that I taught for about five years, having great fun,and helping thousands of people with lectures, seminars, and tape sets. I promoted an ideal of balance in body, mind and spirit. When my own marriage broke up, I realized I was out of balance, and that something was terribly wrong. I stopped teaching the workshop until I could determine where I had been blind. Years of soul-searching and research later, I found the blind spot (I hadn't seen the degree to which our relationships are our mirrors. My first wife, Toni, and I had complementary strengths and weaknesses. Because of my own selfishness, I hadn't realized the degree to which our marriage was not serving her, and that pressure built up until it exploded. Never again.)
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I became convinced that the difficulty is that most "transformational" workshops are more context than content. In other words, things like est (Erhardt Seminar Training) actually can produce breakthroughs in perception, but you have to keep coming back to them, because they are much better at creating a "space" in which change takes place than they are at laying out a private path for your personal exploration. I wanted something else, and thousands of hours of meditation and study later, came to the conclusion that the change had to be anchored in the physical body. We store pain and fear in the physical body--this is why I push at the weight issue so much:it is so easy to hallucinate personal change. People create warped reality maps and consider themselves wonderfully evolved. But unless you can see those changes in the quality of your relationships, in your finances and in your physical body, you risk falling into illusion. The saying is that you can awaken your Kundalini from the heart out, or from the body up, but never from the top down.
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I saw a beautiful example of this recently when I gave a talk on the Mastery technique, and one of the participants, priding himself on his intellect, asked questions in an endless, snarled cascade. Seven, eight, twelve questions all tangled together, roaming around complex body-mind issues, and he thought he was making sense. This gentleman was horrifically confused about what he wanted from our interaction, and couldn't see it. He thought he was being brilliant because I had to hunt for the frayed ends of one question at a time so that I could answer them. And he had surrounded himself with people who were impressed by his interrogatory technique. It was sad. He is obviously a very, very bright man who thinks that he can use that fine intellect to grasp the essence of his life. In fact, he could not even grasp the essence of his own questions. To such a person, the world can be a terrifying place, devoid of wonder. I felt sorry for him. THE WORLD IS BEYOND OUR CONCEPTS OF IT.
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What I believe I have grasped is the outline of a Path, a way through the woods. It is not the only path, but it is a safe and relatively sure one. It conflicts with no world religions or major beliefs I am aware of. It uses the breath to open the doorway between the conscious and unconscious minds, and the body to remove fear from the psyche. This is, in potential, the most powerful technique I have ever heard of, and to my knowledge, nothing quite like it exists on the planet. I don't think any one person could have created it. And I think that, in the future, others will devise similar approaches. But Scott and I might be as much as five years ahead of the curve. What we will do in San Francisco will be ground-breaking and life-changing. We will send the participants home with a simple mental/physical technique, performed for only five minutes a day (at minimum) to actually change their lives for the better. I so hope that many of you will ask questions, push me about this, learn what you need to learn to make an informed decision. And then, meet us there. Make us prove what we're saying. If I'm right, this is one of those small bursts of light that, throughout history, have helped hold back the darkness. The combined wisdom of the human race--through all times and nations, is coming together. It would be an incredibly exciting time regardless, but the possibility that I am on the cutting edge of one aspect of that change is humbling and exhilarating. Please, journey to www.rmax.tv/mastery.html. Ask us questions. Make up your own mind. And hopefully, join us!

Steve

Yearlong Writing Program 3-20-05

We're talking about the heart chakra still, and will be for a while. Wounds to this area probably are responsible for more human damage than anything else, but the healing of the wounded heart is the source of our popular love stories (from "Casablanca" to "Hitch") as well as the linchpin that holds together any decent character portrayal. Even in something as superficial as a James Bond movie, the fact that Bond is incapable of forming genuine human relationships has been subtextual in the entire series. Those who don't understand this mistake the glamorized sexuality and gambling for a desirable lifestyle, and miss entirely what Ian Fleming, or fine actors like Connery and Brosnan were doing with the character. YOu must understand the heart, and how it interacts with the other levels of our lives, to be able to write a character convincingly...or to be a writer of any substance at all.
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What ARE our core emotional needs? Security and affection rank high, friends, very highindeed. "Everyone feels alone and afraid: is a core tenant of Lifewriting. "The only question is: what do you do with your lonliness and your fear?" For me, a lifetime of martial arts practise helped me to cope with childhood trauma. Some of it still remains. Oh, well. Loneliness? I surround myself with family, and they are the gem of my existence. I am so incredibly grateful to those who have loved and supported me over the years--I have no words. That's me, and the wounds in those arenas have played out over the course of my life in many, many ways.
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What are your favorite films? Ifwe measure by box office, GONE WITH THE WIND is an eternal winner, a story of love set against hte backdrop of a nations near-death throes. It is a tragic love, because it symbolizes a dying dream_-the dream of an American aristocracy. That the dream required the subjugation of an entire race of people is never really looked at--we are busy being hypnotised by the trials of Rhett and Scarlett, and so we should be. It is a classic,wonderful story, and I stronly recommend it to either of the two folks left in the world who haven't seen it. What about Titanic, described by James Cameron as "Romeo and Juliett meet an iceberg"? You know, I barely know a writer who doesn't think he could have imporved that script, andthey are probably right. But I also don't know a single one who could have created that film. That Cameron placed a beating human heart athte core of all that spectacle is an astounding and humbling feat. The love between Jack and Rose spans class and time, enables us to see every level of that ship, gives us reason to care, makes us flinchaway from teh inevitable disaster, made millins of viewers feel the pain of Jack's sacrifice. Yet, as with GWTW, there are major problems--Rose drives me crazy. Her self-centered, slutty, arrogant, thoughtless behavior costs Jack his life. All she had to do was sneak off with him after the boat docked. Butno, she had to rub her fiancee's nose in her panty-dropping. When he responded with violence, people all over the world thought him a monster. Really? If her fiancee had done the same to her, and she had slapped or struck him, or even shot at him, audiences would have cheered. There was a massive double-standard going on there, but despite everything, we cared. She was a childish, spoiled little tramp-butwe cared. Her behavior was believable for a woman of her age and inexperience. And as the Titanic went down, because Cameron had us by the heart, we cared.
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The heart hooks us. It is a simple as that. Find the heart at the core of your story, and you will hook us too. More later!

Heartbeat Meditation

I am bringing this back up because many of the new readers don't go deeply into the archives, and because I want to emphasize the importance of a meditation practice. If you are stirring up old emotional garbage, it is just like going on a fast and dumping fat-soluable toxins into your bloodstream. Your kidneys take a beating. In the same way, if you don't meditate, the emotional pain you are stirring up will cause you to stop your forward progress. You'll just run into a wall, believe me.
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The most powerful safe form of Meditation I know (not all safe meditations are effective, not all effective ones are safe) is called "Heartbeat Meditation." It is simplicity itself: you sit and feel your heartbeat in your body. The more you relax, the easier it is to feel. After you've mastered this, you can feel your heartbeat in your yoga, your Tai chi, walking down the street, going to sleep, or any other time. Powerful. Try it for a minimum of 15 minutes a day. It is a darned fine beginning to a personal practice.

Steve

Perfectionism...

"Perfectionism is Procrastination Masquerading as Quality Control."--Steven Barnes
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Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly at first. One of the worst mistakes you can make is trying to be perfect. I know people who routinely deprive themselves of valuable experiences and resources because nothing is ever good enough. People who won't finish projects because they're not "quite right." Now, this is fine for a while, but if you aren't completing the minimum amount of work to make progress, you need to see this for the pathology it is, and resolve to rid yourself of a potentially poisonous habit. You need to get to the root of it, anddecide what level of polish is necessary and desirable for the work or task at hand. If you reject people who aren't perfect, you may be resisting the hard cold look at yourself.

Failure is an absolutely inevitable part of the search for excellence. Trying to avoid failure, trying to look good, has killed more careers than lack of talent ever did. Want excellence? FAIL. Fail a lot.
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Many, many times I have embraced teachers who were imperfect. Know why? Because there aren't any perfect teachers. There are no perfect people. All you need is people with different resources than you possess, and the knowledge of how to acquire those resources.
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This does, however, raise another question: how do you filter out a teacher's negative characteristics? I had a martial arts instructor who chain-smoked. How in the hell do you absorb the value without picking up some of the negative? The answer is to find your emotional center, and learn to stay balanced there. Meditation is valuable for this. Self-hypnosis can also create a "guardian" personality whose job it is to keep you psychologically and spiritually safe. I would definitely suggest investigating this approach as well. Modeling is one of the most powerful NLP techniques, and Lifewriting embraces it wholeheartedly.

The Ring2 (2005)

Well, it had to happen. This sequel to 2003's effective Americanization of the Japanese original is intermittantly scary, but definitely studio work. They're trying to make it into "The Omen," where a cast of characters gets killed off in various creative ways over the course of 90 minutes. In other words, the art is gone, commerse has arrived. That doesn't mean it's a waste--I enjoyed aspects of it, and thought the basic idea--a killer videotape--was still effective. But something about it just seemed a little too by-the-numbers (including one of the most blatant "Leaps of Faith" I've ever seen. Someone should tell these people not to be so literal!) to be able to absorb its story of a woman struggling to save the life of her son. An entertaining waste of time, one that you'll forget by the time you reach the parking lot. Call it a "C"

Five Minute Miracle DVD!!

The Five Minute Miracle DVD, available now, is an incredible stress-buster! If you don't let life's stress cripple you, stress is the evolutionary catalyst that triggers change, growth, energy! The 5MM can be performed by anyone, at any time (even right in the middle of a stressful meeting!) but can also be integrated into intense exercise for more powerful effect.
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The DVD contains:
1) The incredible "Be Breathed" technique
2) The Five Tibetans
3) The Hero's Journey
4) The Chakras
5) The I.D.E.A. technique for developing intuition

And much more! Included is also an exclusive lecture on the "Lifewriting" interpretation of the Hero's Journey, making this a perfect gift for writers, movie lovers, readers, actors, or couch potatoes.
Hey! Here's a great "Non-Drinking" game: while watching television, every time you see a distinct step of the Hero's Journey in a movie, perform one rep of Be Breathed and visualize your Goal Triangle. This is the first self-improvement technique you can use while sitting on your can watching reruns! It doesn't get much better than that.
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More seriously, this DVD is the cornerstone of the Mastery Technique, a stripped-down, turbo-charged method of organizing your body, mind, and spirit to accomplish your dreams. It integrates wth any sport, martial art, religion, and most philosophies--we aim to be uniters, not dividers (oops! Where have I heard that?) At any rate, check it out, and also the new MASTERY WORKSHOP--WWW.RMAX.TV/MASTERY.HTML

Healing the Wounded Heart(4th Chakra!)

In getting up to the heart chakra we've come to the half-way point, and have laid down a foundation that we can work for a while. If you have the first four chakras anchored, and understand the stresses of the Hero's Journey, you can write like a fiend, and also control your own life to a fascinating degree. Not that challenges don't still lash you (I've got some terrific challenges right now as I re-organize my writing life to work in Hollywood!) but you understand that it's nothing personal, and understand the path of growth.
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The Heartbeat Meditation (sitting quietly, listening to your heartbeat for 15-20 minutes) is central to the Lifewriting technique because you NEED a way to move the emotional gunk out of your mind. It settles in your body--which is one of the reasons that so many badly wounded people have a difficult time with body image--it's their emotional garbage dump. Survival wounds (poverty in childhood), sexual wounds (rape, abuse, betrayal), power wounds (race, gender, fear) all tear our hearts to pieces, leave us bleeding and unable to understand why life is so gray. You have to grasp that your emotions are legitimate, but also that no one else is responsible for them. Not if you're an adult! Your wounds are likely the result of choices you made, and the inability to deal with this honestly is one of the most devastating problems--its warps the reality map.
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Instead of saying "I did this" and taking response-ability (note the meaning: the ability to respond!) we blame others, hold them response-able, and cripple ourselves. We beat ourselves up, thinking that we are punishing the husband,the wife, the lover. What sadness.All of the joy drains from our lives, because we aren't willing to start where we are, with the resources we have, and begin moving forward.
This must cease, if we are to have happy, meaningful lives. Start today:
1) Write yourself a letter, addressed to the younger you, the child you. Promise to take responsibility for your own emotions. Write it as if a letter to your own child. It must be strong,and loving and honest.
2) Commit to forgiving those who have wronged you. This doesn't mean letting them hurt you again. It means not carrying that pain around with you. COMMITING DOESN'T MEAN AN INSTANT CHANGE. It means beginning the process.
3) Begin a daily meditation and/or journaling practise. This is vital as the emotional sewage begins to surface.
4) Move your body daily. Find a physical practise, even if it's just a good, healthy walk. Work up a sweat 4-6 times a week.
5) Find healthy ways to love yourself. Pamper yourself, get hugs,read good books, go to the zoo...dance, sing, pray, write, love life!
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We're going to go over more of this.I'm going to tell stories on myself, and censored stories of people I've known over the years. You must heal your heart and body and sexuality if you would move powerfully toward the future. Otherwise, you are losingsome of the most powerful energies in the human system.

Steve

MASTERY WORKSHOP NOW AVAILABLE

Finally, the "Mastery Technique" workshop I've been hinting about is actually available. Scott Sonnon and I have been planning this for almost a year, and it's going to be phenomenal. We're keeping the price down on this first one so that it's more available to you guys, but as soon as we go "public" the sky's the limit. Please check it out at:
www.rmax.tv/mastery.html
I promise it's going to be incredible!

Fixing the school system

Heard a political ad this morning, saying that California's Governator has stolen two billion dollars from the school system ehre, and complaining that this will hurt our children. Nodoubt there is some truth there, and I don't know the specifics, but I thought I'd comment on my own thoughts on how to fix the schools.
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1) Clarify goals. I believe that the intent is to produce students who can become productive, voting citizens capable of re-paying society for the gift of their education. Certainly we want more than that, but this must be the bottom line.
2) Find Role Models. Begin to study those schools and teachers who have, consistently, performed above average in accomplishing the above goal. They are doing something different. What is it?
3) Reward good teachers, punish bad ones. And do it financially. Now understand, I am aware that Teacher's Unions hate the idea of pinning salary to performance. They would rather have it pinned to time in grade. Now, any teacher who believes that grades are useless and tests test nothing can take this position with honor. A teacher who is such a free-thinker can be believed when they say that, in their opinion, a teacher's ability cannot be measured with any set of tests or standards, however carefully designed. I might disagree, but I can respect them and consider them honorable. But a teacher who believes in tests and grades for students, who then turns around and says that a teacher's ability cannot be measured, evaluated, and differentially rewarded is, in my opinion, a liar and a coward. THEY ARE AFRAID TO COMPETE, and in my mind, should be driven from the profession--our children deserve better.
4) The top 10% of teachers should be modeled with great care, and programs evolved to allow less capable teachers to utilize the sophisticated models of the better ones. No insult intended here, but in any profession or art or science, some peopple are just better than others, whether due to innate differences, or environment. Allow the leaders, as proven by performance, to show the way. How do you find the best? A telling thing here is that the teachers I'vespoken to about this immediately leap to the "well,teachers in better neighborhoods would be rewarded because their students are better--" this is cowardly stupidity, their minds literally not working. Are they really so uncreative, so ignorant that they don't know that one can create measurements that take socioeconomics into account? That hold a teacher responsible only for relative change of students, so that slow students brought to an "average" standing is seen quite clearly as a greater accomplishment than exceptional students merely getting another A+? Are they really that dim? I think not. I think what we see here is raving fear that they are mediocre, that they cannot compete. I think they are wrong, that there is greater genius within our teachers than they know how to tap, and that if they can't have confidence in themselves, how inthe hell will they instil that confidence in their students? Can't they see that their fear to stand naked and be judged for their ability is the only thing that they really have to convey to their students? If they don't grasp this, we are in deep, deep trouble.
5) We must teach on more than the visual-digital level. This is the dominant representational system of Europe, and it is a damned fine one. But some students(and cultures!) are more kinesthetic, or more auditory. To craft lessons that allow these students to enter into the world of learning through their natural mode is not just a kindness, but a necessity.
6) Keep English as the dominant language system in schools. When non-English speaking students come in, their first job must be to learn the language. To give them special classes in their native tongue may seem to be a kindness, but it is actually setting them on the path to long-term disadvantage in life, and triggering a cultural war that distracts us all from what we are attempting to do--build a society that works for all of us. It takes maybe a year of focused study to become sufficiently fluent in a new language. It's worth the time.
7) Recruit teachers on the basis of passion and excellence. I remember hearing a teacher complaining about the differential between teacher's salaries and those of professional athletes. I hope to God this teacher isn't teaching economics--his self-serving ignorance was staggering. There are maybe 1000 well-paid professional athletes in the entire country. There are MILLIONS of teachers. What we spend on education, as a whole, completely dwarfs what is spent on sports entertainment--but that money is divided among a much smaller pool of people with short careers and no guarantees. If they went into teaching to get rich, and aren't willing to compete for the top dollars, they are nuts. Teachers could get rich if the very best teachers made hundreds of times as much as the worst--the exact same situation that exists in sports. Are they willing? Hell no. Then shut the hell up!

Anyway, that's my two cents. I LOVE teaching. I owe so much to the great teachers I have had--about six of them, over the entirecourse of my public education. And if those six had been rewarded and held up as exemplars, the entiresystem would benifit, and so would the students. The only ones to suffer would be mediocre teachers just putting in their time, afraid to be evaluated for their worth. Andfrankly? I care about the students, not the teachers. Remember the students? THEY'RE the ones the system was created for. Let's take it back.

Steve

Five Minute Miracle DVD!!

It's now available, people--more on this later, but please take a look. I'm proud as heck of the transfer (done by my dear friend Mushtaqu Ali Shah) and the first printing is going to sell out fast. Enjoy!

Steve