A Giant Step Forward For Jasonkind...

Jason took the Gold!

My six year old son Jason took a Gold Medal this last weekend, at his first “real” Judo tournament on Sunday. On Saturday he couldn’t get to sleep—too excited, too hyped…too scared.

“Were you ever scared?” He asked me, curled up in his blankets at bed time. “When you did tournaments, were you ever scared.”

“All the time,” I said. “Fear is just your body and mind getting ready for action. The problem is being afraid of your fear. Ashamed of your fear,” I said. “It’s like fire. Understand it, and you can use it to cook your food. Don’t understand it, and it can burn down your house.”

I snuggled up next to him, holding him in my arms. “Jason, this is why I have you in Judo. So that you can learn about your emotions. Fear is like an ocean of lava. You have to learn to surf on it. Let it power you. Carry you. It will make you stronger, more focused…but you need to be clear on what you fear, and what you love.” I paused. He was looking up at me, his eyes shining, and I prayed I could be strong and clear enough to convey what was in my heart.

“Jason, you said you wanted a black belt. Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, a black belt isn’t about being able to do throw and holds…although that is a part of it. It is about learning about dealing with fear, loss, pain, disappointment…and victory. It is about becoming a Man, Jason. I swore to God that I would help you become a man, and this is one of the tools I’m using.” I kissed the cool, smooth skin on his forehead. His little hands gripped at me for dear life.

“This is what I want. You think of a single technique. Your best technique. And you just try to get that. You can fake another technique to set him up, make him move, but just concentrate on one, all right?”

He nodded, mutely.

“And aside from that, I want you to pay attention. I want you to be a good sportsman. Win or lose, if you will do the best you can, then we’re going for ice cream. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a winner. That’s all I want: be focused, fight hard, fight fair, be a good sport. Can you do that?”

He nodded. And kissed me good night. “I love you, Daddy,” he said.

Meaning: I trust you, Daddy.

##

So Sunday morning, we got up and dressed. Jason said to me: “I’m going to be like a scorpion. I’ll be still until I pounce.”

Sounded good to me.

We arrived at the gymnasium at 9:25, five minutes before the tournament began. In a crowded lot, we found a parking space near the door, and walked in. The gym was packed wall-to-wall. We barely entered before his name was called, and he went to sit at Mat #1 with the other kids in his age group. I repeated to him: “good sportsmanship. Choose one technique. Do your best.”

He nodded. They called his name, and he walked to his side of the mat. His opponent faced him. The judge called “Hajime! (Begin)”

With his face perfectly calm, Jason walked across the mat, closed with his opponent, drove him back with a perfect Kuzushi (unbalancing) and took his leg with a perfect Osotogari. Boom. Full point. Match over.

Ten minutes later, he had his second match. He did EXACTLY the same thing. Boom. Match over. First place.

I’d never seen him with such focus. For the rest of the day, he was just a kid, running, playing with his buddies, whining…my Jason. But for those minutes, he had it. He got it. For just those moments, I saw the man he will one day be. I was beyond pride. It wasn’t about me.

Jason doesn’t belong to me. But it is my job to deliver him safely to his future. And on Sunday, he took one giant step.

Heartbeat Meditation

Over the last twenty years, my most consistent practice has been Sri Chinmoy’s “Heartbeat Meditation.” While I loved it and considered it central to my spiritual development, part of this was pure trust—Chinmoy was the first human being whose aura I could perceive (believe as much of that as you wish), so I simply put faith in him, as we often must in our gurus.

It was later that I began to understand why simply sitting and listening to my heartbeat was so powerful. I thought I’d touch on it just a bit.

1) Love and Fear compete for the same place in our hearts. Consider them to be different forms of the same primal energy. Survival. Evolution. But each has its strengths and weaknesses. So long as we believe in the false ego, love is a safer medium for growth.

2) Sitting quietly. Relaxing until you can feel your pulse, or taking your pulse if necessary. Listening to the rush of blood in your veins, knowing that the most essential part of our being is automatic and given to us before birth. We were loved and cared for before ever we entered the world. Connect with that peace and centeredness.

3) Anger is a mask over fear. Find the fear beneath the rage, and the rage dissipates. This is so incredibly useful I CANNOT recommend it highly enough.

4) The following are often symptoms of fear: writer’s block, obesity, unhealthy relationships, political rigidity, depression, rage, paranoia, racism, sexism. Belief that the universe is going out of its way to hold you back. That people are talking about you behind your back, or conspiring to control your behavior.

5) The bad news is that the world doesn’t care about whether or not you succeed. The good news is that the world doesn’t care about whether or not you succeed. On the material level, it is up to you.

Start with loving yourself, deeply and without limit. If you can do this, and it raises your love and respect for others…you are on the right road. Take another step.

When an elder Buddhist Master asked a group of meditators, "What survives when an enlightened being dies?" a man in the group replied, "When an enlightened being dies, nothing remains."
The master smiled and replied to the surprise of the assembled: "no. The truth remains."

Self love

Several times over the last month, the concept of Self Love has surfaced—on my blogs, on Twitter, on the entire social networking “thing” and I wanted to address it directly. And we’ll look at how it relates to writing, relationships, success, health, and fitness.

This is HUGE, and we have to address it to create a foundation for our other efforts. There are only two core emotional issues: Love and Fear. It is time to speak of love.

Let’s look at Self-Love from the perspective of relationships first. If you’re a writer, apply this to your characters, and your own life. For the rest of you, the applications should be obvious.

I was working with a client during the last month who wants to prepare himself to find love. This is a smart, attractive, good guy with addiction patterns around sex, alcohol, and food. He had a nightmare relationship with his mother, and currently has serious panic attacks and night terrors.

He has no foundation to stand on. When he thinks of a relationship, it is: “what kind of woman could love me?” Or “will they all turn into Mom?” Good Lord, can you see where this leads?

1) Self-fulfilling prophesies: seeking out doomed relationships to reinforce a pre-existing belief pattern.

2) Deliberately trashing good relationships—“testing” love partners to destruction. After all, if a relationship worked out, that would destroy the toxic self image…and your self image will fight for its life like you won’t believe.

3) Seeking out unavailable relationships. Only opening to intimacy if the person is unavailable: married, living in another town, emotionally distant, etc.

The answer to all of these is to find the love you seek WITHIN you first, to connect with your own heart space to the point that you overflow with affection for the entire world. People who genuinely love themselves are not egotistical. They do not place themselves above others. In learning to forgive their own failures and weaknesses, they gain great compassion for the rest of the world.

The core, the first step, is loving yourself. You will NEVER get the feeling of acceptance and healing you want from outside yourself until you have prepared the soil of your heart.

For all of you, I urge you to spend 15-20 minutes a day just listening to the miracle of your heartbeat. Journal about the emotions that arise. This path will take you all the way home, I promise you.

Do the Work!

Current training program

I haven’t spoken a lot about my physical training recently, but for the last eight months, I’ve been concentrating on Scott Sonnon’s “TacFit Commando” program. It is whole-body, six-directions and no-equipment. There are probably a dozen other specific good things about the program, and I was totally happy with it.

Then a few months back I had trouble pulling myself out of the water onto a three-foot platform after a short swim. True, the sides were rounded, and I couldn’t get a good grip, but it still suggested some serious weaknesses in my training, weaknesses that could have cost me dearly in the wrong situation.

Now, Scott had another program based on TacFit called “R.O.P.E.” (“Rapid Onset Pullup Employment) and I had looked at it but not tried it, wanting to go deeply into TacFit. But after this event, I decided that I needed more pulling strength, something that I’ve never really worked. I wonder why..?

Anyway, I pulled out ROPE and tried it, using a Jungle Gym portable pullup system. Worked pretty well (I have a little work to do to get it perfect). The upshot is that the system works great, but is a little less “perfectly” balanced than TacFit. In other words, one of the things I LOVE about TacFit is that you hardly need to stretch afterwords, it is so well designed. You DEFINITELY need to stretch after R.O.P.E. What I’m using is the seven-day rotation (Sunday: joint recovery. Monday: yoga. Tuesday: moderate TacFit or ROPE. Wednesday joint recovery. Thursday yoga. Friday moderate TacFit or ROPE. Saturday INTENSE TacFit or ROPE) alternating TacFit and Rope. This seems to work very well…and my task is to keep myself sufficiently recovered. I can use muscle soreness and sleeplessness as a measure of this.

The nice thing is that this covers every single aspect of fitness I choose to cover, with the possible exception of one-rep limit strength. I can add five minutes of jumping rope (twenty seconds work, ten seconds rest) and get a more intense aerobic effect, but don’t actually need it. This is a beautiful program, and I’ll keep you posted.

Our buddy Blair is "Mr. President" on the premiere episode of THE EVENT! 9, Eastern,
8 Central on NBC! WHAT- IS-THE-EVENT!!!

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Body, Mind, Spirit, and Writing

A student posted this:

Yesterday a friend shared with me his work through the "Feeling Good Handbook" by Dr. David Burns. First chapter starts with a list of "twisted thoughts" to watch out for. Ten types of Twisted Thinking 1 - All or Nothing "If I didn't get ALL I wanted, I've got nothing." "If it isn't perfect, it's worthless." 2 - Overgeneralization "This ALWAYS happens to me." "You NEVER do things right." "I just can't keep nice things." 3 - Mental Filter Why listen to what people are actually saying when you can just put your own thoughts into their mouths? 4 - Discounting the Positive The good part was a fluke, or easy, or unimportant-- like getting back a score of 99 out of a 100 and spending all day wondering, what did I miss? 5 - Jumping to Conclusions You didn't smile when I came home-- you've fallen out of love with and are going to leave me. 6 - Magnification My ice cream has hit the sidewalk and my life is ruined. 7 - Emotional Reasoning "I wouldn't hit you if you didn't make me mad." "I feel hurt-- you are abusing me." 8 - Should Statements Coulda, woulda, shoulda, must, ought, have to-- anything but what can be done now. (Also known as "musterbation". 9 - Labeling "She's a Total Loser." When past mistakes define present identity and eliminate future potential. 10 - Personalization/Blame "He wouldn't hit me if I didn't make him mad." "It's all my fault." This list had such an impact that I did it up as a restaurant take-out menu-- I can be heard murmuring, "and that's a number ten" as I catch myself or someone in my household twisting." Through the creative process of making the menu, I spotted the commonality-- that these are all different ways of re-playing favorite patterns instead of being present in reality and dealing with the discomfort of real-life, real-time constant reassessment.

If you would be attracted to yourself, it is easy to find someone to love. If you don't like what you see in the mirror...get to work.

Success requires:
1) Written goals, and plans expressed in continuous action.
2) The ability to take action despite the voices in your head.

A beautiful song/poem on aging...

Rust by Lynn Miles

Every line in your face is a road you've been down
It's a freight train you hopped
It's a night in a strange town
...It's a joke that you told, it's a tear that rolled on
a sad story you heard, or a lover who's gone.

It's the scars on your hands
the hard work that you've done
It's the skin that you touched
all the wars that you've won.
It's the baby you cradled, it's the letters you wrote.
It's the time you held on, it's the time you let go.

And the footprints you leave are perfect and deep
And your soul is a place that is tough but it's sweet
And the shadow you cast is straight and it's true
But the lines and the scars are what I love about you.

The rust in your voice, that's the dust and the rain
It's the choices defended again, and again, and again
It's the life that you've led
It's the friends come and gone
It's the highways and the truck stops
And the cold grey dawns

And the footprints you leave, they are perfect and deep.
And your soul is a place that is tough but it's sweet
And the shadow you cast is straight and it's true
But the lines and the scars and the rust are what I love about you.

Anyone who holds their political opposition to be all fools and/or knaves has proven themselves to be both.

Size Isn't Everything

Size Isn’t Everything!


Almost every day, I get email from a writer who wants advice on the writing of a novel…but has never sold a short story. Invariably, they:
1) Have conceptual and philosophical flaws in their game plan that would have been fixed had they written short stories until they had published at least ten.
2) Claim that they’re “just not short story writers”, that they “just think in novel length”

Here’s why:
1) The basic structures of fiction are consistent. Whether a 100,000 word novel or a 1000 word story, the same interactions of character and plot obtain.
2) In a year you might write a 100,000 word novel…or 50 two-thousand word short stories. You will learn VASTLY more by writing the short stories.
3) A novel is like running a marathon. Would you run a marathon if you’d never successfully run around the block? I doubt it seriously.
4) There is no such thing as an idea with an intrinsic length. Only the expression of an idea has an intrinsic length. You can write a library about a grain of sand, or a short-short about the history of the universe. It is up to you.
5) The ego gets deeply involved in the process of art. And if you’ve spent a year on a book, you are FAR more involved than if you spent a week on a story. This gives you much more emotional wiggle-room for experimentation.
6) You must practice sending your work out, and accepting rejection. The more often you hear “no” the sooner you will get to “yes.”
7) You learn more by writing a new piece than re-writing an old one. With less ego involvement, it is easier to “let a piece go” out into the world.

Honestly, the “I don’t write short fiction” line is the most consistent excuse I hear. Every amateur says that. If that’s what you’ve been saying, change your position…and stop being an amateur!

Finished recovery of DEVIL'S WAKE. Tomorrow I print, and start reading/correcting the printed copy.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering
his attitudes of mind.
William James

Writing is like an iceberg; for every foot that shows above water there are eight below. RAYMOND CHANDLER

“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself” - Miles Davis

If we become what we think about, today I am a barbecued cheeseburger.

Near Disaster, and Fear

Last Tuesday I narrowly averted disaster. It was my fault, the result was my lesson, and ultimately, it was a cheap price to pay. I’ve been working hard on the new zombie novel, DEVIL’S WAKE, and am within a few weeks of completion. This is a collaboration with Tananarive, although I’ve had to take lead on it because SHE is finishing up the fourth African Immortals novel, BLOOD PROPHESY. So I work on it on my desktop iMac, my laptop, my Ipad, and from time to time T can work on it on her Windows laptop. In order to backup the files, protect them and also make them available for use across multiple platforms, I use both Dropbox and Carbonite.

And I felt very, very safe. I mean, what could go wrong? I had multiple copies on multiple computers…but what I didn’t think about was that I was also opening and closing that file using multiple word processors, which were “compatible” but not exactly the same.

Well, the tiny errors committed by different word processors translating each others’ work back and forth finally caught up with me. I saved the file, closed the word processor, and went out in the living room to watch television and do a little light editing, kind of an evening ritual with Tananarive. It’s so romantic, editing side by side…

And I got the message that my laptop version of MS Work didn’t recognize the file. Hmmm. Annoyed, I tried to open it on my desktop…and got the same message. I tried opening it with Textedit, and…nothing. Oh, crap. I tried everything I could think of, and no result. Now, this file represented ½ of the entire book. Visions of trying to reconstruct forty thousand words of text danced through my head. I was tired, and it was getting late, but I knew that unless I could resolve this I’d have a terrible time trying to sleep.

So deep on the inside, I was fighting panic, but Tananarive told me that she saw nothing in my face, or manner. I was just working in my office quietly, and she never had a clue. I had T try to open the file, and then she realized what was going on. No, she wasn’t able to open it.

Arrgh. I began an internet search for programs to deal with corrupted Word files for Mac, and was coming up short. Finally found one, and then couldn’t install it on my computer. Bizarrely, it wouldn’t accept my administrative password. Everything was going wrong—my miscalculation was that my backup strategy was designed for LOST files. My CORRUPTED file had simply propogated across Dropbox and Carbonite, duplicating the errors. I was semi-screwed. I knew that come Wednesday I would be able to reach out for some of my computer-savvy friends, and get more help, but felt a kind of emotional tunnel-vision closing in. I HAD to do this, or I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Usually, I turn in at about 11pm. It was now 1am.

Finally, I found a Windows-based Word anti-corruption software, had T install it on her computer (yeah, she was still up) and try to open the file…and it worked.

I saved the text, but lost formatting and some punctuation. It takes me about 2 minutes to correct a page, but heck, I needed to work on the material anyway, and it was, as I said, a cheap lesson at the price. Things might have been far, far worse.

The most important lesson was one of maintaining emotional balance, not getting frustrated, and not letting those panic gremlins in. To be able to see the options I had rather than regretting those I didn’t. And seeing, clearly, how to prevent such damage in the future. I have to go back to saving multiple versions. Thought that wasn’t necessary any more.

I was wrong.

"Until you make peace with who you are you will never be content with what you have." - Doris Mortman

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On gay marriage: anything that increases the net amount of love in the world is fine with me.

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Lifewriting Talk NOW! Body, mind, spirit, and writing. Today's topic; Fear and Loss. I almost lost 40K of the new novel... http://ow.ly/2zAoD

Do Not Think Dishonestly--Musashi Miyamoto

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Stephen Hawking, Science And God: Author Rodrigues dos Santos Asks Did Science Find God?

People have been trying to create "proofs" of God's existence for thousands of years. This would seem to be the logical mind trying to believe it can "understand" and deconstruct everything. The presence of a divine order isn't something to be logically "proven" although there are tantalizing suggestions of a currently inexplicable order to the universe. This is where the concept of "faith" is critical. The spiritual realm can be danced around with the conscious mind, but not approached directly. In this sense, our egos are Moses, and cannot enter the promised land. That's the bad news. The good news is that that conscious mind is the smallest, weakest, most fearful part of us.



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Ranch rule: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with love. Got to put yourself into it. It’s your signature. It’s what you do.

The honest struggle to balance career, fitness, and love will teach you everything you need to know about life.

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Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Mark Twain

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If you don't have clarity on your goals...then your first goal must be to find clarity.


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Lifewriting Talk: Fear and Loss.
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We acquire the strength we have overcome.

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Wifie just confessed that she doesn't outline books on index cards because it's too scary to see how much work remains!

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Love isn't two people looking at each other. It is two people looking in the same direction.


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Excess fat carried on American tummy hips & butt would sustain caloric needs of Afghanistan people for a year

I've published three million words--but almost losing 40K of 'em yesterday was grueling. Back up, people!

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DeepakChopra: Be kind to yourself and others. Come from love every moment you can.


http://ow.ly/2yMpj

A little of the fear (of losing half my book) is starting to creep out. I clamped down HARD last night...but a few minutes ago, I wanted to cry.
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If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?~ Erich Fromm

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Intermittent Fasting (eating every other day) comes as close to a "magic bullet" for health as anyone has ever found.

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Five times a day, stop for sixty seconds and breathe. Do this every three hours, and stress becomes energy.

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And in the end, The love you take is equal to the love you make - The Beatles

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If you can own just one hour out of every day, you can change your life...forever.
Or at least read a decent comic book.

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Make the choice to succeed. And then act as if you have no other choice.

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Doing Coach Sonnon's "R.O.P.E." program today. More pulling engagement. Feels quite well-rounded, and as smart as TacFit.

Steven Barnes Literary Orange 2009

Today I fight zombies again! It's back to my new novel with T., "Devil's Wake." Let's see...it's snowing in the Siskiyou pass...

I get tired of people blaming bad behavior on drugs or alcohol. That explanation might work...once. After that, if you EVER use those substances again, you have CHOSEN to behave badly.

The agony! I just discovered Justin Bieber and I share a birthday (March 1).

If I don't stretch my body every day, it gets terribly stiff. My mind is even worse!

"If the days of our old age are more numerous than those of our youth, of them must we think"
--Balzac

Fear is your body and mind preparing you for action. Take action, or succumb to paralysis, guilt and anger!

Who told you it was going to be easy?

On the day you were born, did they say “poor baby” or slap you on the butt?
When you learned to walk, did you do it on the third try, or did you fall down for weeks?
When you learned to ride your bike, how many times did you fall over?
When you first learned about love, how many times did your heart get broken?
If you look back over your life, how many things that you have accomplished followed oceans of sweat and blood?
Then why...why...do you continue to tell yourself the lie that life is supposed to be “easy”? That if you aren’t “talented” you can’t do it? That if you aren’t willing to spend 10,000 hours of practice, you’re just being “practical”? Everything in life that you want...EVERYTHING...is on the other side of fear, effort, and honesty.

Who told you it was going to be easy? Whoever it was...they lied.

Gmail - Inbox (3) - hipshot9@gmail.com

My Good Lady Wife Tananarive Due and I are guests of honor at KillerCon starting Friday in Las Vegas, joining Brian Lumley, Joe Lansdale, John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow. Come meet us, if you can! http://killercon.com/

Jason's First Day

Jason starts school today. Last year, he had behavior issues that landed him in “Red.” And, yep, they were real. The question is whether they were genuinely dysfunctional, or evidence that education systems are aimed at one set of emotional/behavioral traits, and Jason has another. Specifically, my opinion is that he is a hunter in a world increasingly filled with farmers. Well, I need to teach him to run and control his energy differently. Slacked off a little over the summer, but hit it again this morning, and happily...he seemed to pick it right back up. Here’s the program.

1) School starts at 8:15. We wake him up at about 7:00. At 7:30 his little butt is mine. We do a little yoga first. This morning this means a “Sun Salutation,” one of the finest start-from-cold multiple joint exercises in the world. I like it myself, just as a test of how well my body is processing exercise. If I’m stiff and sore in the morning...I’ve pushed a little too hard. Jason’s little body is so flexible in some ways, but a Sun

2) After the yoga, we sit cross-legged facing each other and chant “Om” for 5-10 breaths. I have him do the counting: it helps me keep track of his powers of concentration. It also helps him to learn to control the physiological symptoms of stress and anxiety.

3) Finally, he recites his little morning catechism. It is composed of five principles which, in combination, will produce his desired result: being on “green” at the end of the day:
a) Pay Attention
b) Keep your hands to yourself.
c) Do What you are told
d) Be Still
e) Exhale

(saying “exhale when stressed” is a lot better than saying “breathe” because a lot of people will inhale and then hold their breath. If you concentrate on exhalation, the inhalation part of the cycle is automatic. The reverse...not so much.)

Anyway, we’ll see what this year is like. Just got back from walking him to his first day of 1st grade. Sigh. They grow up so fast...

Applying "writer's block" principles to life

In the most recent radio show, we discussed writer’s block, and a request was made to relate the same basic patterns to the arenas of relationship and physical fitness/health. In order to do this, let’s first break down the pattern so it can be related across disciplines. And we’ll relate that to the flow of the Hero’s Journey.
1) Hero confronted with a challenge.
a: To be a published writer, supporting oneself primarily through the work.
b: to have a lean, healthy body that matches one’s own standards of attractiveness.
c: to find a healthy, supportive, passionate relationship.

2) Rejection of the challenge.
a: Fear that we aren’t talented enough. Or that the market is too restrictive. That we haven’t time, energy, or support.
b: Fear that losing weight will make us more vulnerable, or attract the wrong attention. Fear that if we have more energy, it will just be stolen from us. Fear that we are too old, lack the knowledge, that it will take too much time, or haven’t the genetic potential.
c: Fear that intimacy will just cause pain. That there aren’t enough men/women available. That we cannot trust our own judgement.

3) Acceptance of the challenge
a) Decision to become writer, despite the problems.
b) Decision to develop the healthiest, sexiest, most energetic body we are genetically capable of having with three hours exercise per week. (If you think you really can’t spend 1/60th of your time caring for your body, you’re lying to yourself)
c) Decision to find and/or nurture a healthy, juicy, heart-healing relationship. To become the kind of person who can attract such.

4) Road of trials.
a) writing two stories a month, sending them for publication, and reading 10X what you write.
b) adopting a simple, basic program of exercise AND dietary control (until people are ready to actually lose weight, they will do one OR the other) and measuring the results.
c) Defining your perfect partner, and what that partner’s perfect partner would be. Moving slowly and steadily in that direction. Performing meditations and exercises designed to increase self-love.

5) Allies and Powers
a) Find teachers, role models, writing groups, editors, critics and others to support your goals. Expand vocabulary, focus, clarity, poetics, knowledge of human nature.
b) Find teachers, role models, exercise and/or eating support groups, and friends who will support your goals. Learn more about what people have done to improve their physical health and fitness--and how they did it.
c) Find people who have found lasting love and partnership. They have different values and beliefs from those who do not. Take different actions. Learn what they are, and begin to change your life.

6) Confront Evil-fail
a) Learn techniques for dealing with writer’s block and rejection slips.
b) Learn to identify the patterns of promise-breaking and diet-busting. You will ABSOLUTELY “fail” as you try to lose weight. Everyone does. The trick is getting back in the groove as quickly as possible and learning swiftly.
c) See above.

7) Dark Night of the Soul
a) Learn to identify the negative voices warning you, criticizing you, weakening you. ANY negative voice that weakens you is not your friend.
b) See above
c) See above

8) Leap of Faith
a) Have faith in something larger than yourself. Commit your actions to this cause. Believe that there is a deeper source of strength within you than you have ever known. Identify members of family or friends who can be trusted not only to support you, but hold you to your highest good.
b) See above
c) See above

9) Confront Evil--succeed
a) Celebrate!
b) Celebrate!
c) Celebrate!

10) The Student Becomes the Teacher
a) In your writing, help people understand the process of failure and success, as you understand it.
b) When you create a healthier body, show it off! Tell people your story. Tell the truth.
c) When you are in love, let it shine. Warm others with your light. Show them the path from loneliness to fulfillment.

Just a quick look at these three arenas. More soon!

Today's the Day!

Today is the day I’ve been waiting for for about two years. The MASTERING F.E.A.R. program was originally going to be an important segment of a much more expensive program. But after I surveyed you guys about what you wanted in a writing class, what surprised me was the fact that FEAR kept coming up, again and again. And I realized that if I wanted to help people the most, I’d have to create this program first, price it VERY reasonably (downloads make that possible!) and collect every email I’ve gotten over the last two years concerning fear, stress, anxiety, guilt, shame, and every other emotion connected with the “flight” side of the “fight or flight” drive. And create the very best set of tools possible for disentangling this critical aspect of our psyches, responsible for so much misery, failure, sickness, and violence. If you know anyone who is deviled by these demons, do them a favor and point them toward:

http://realherosjourney.com/nofear/

Two hours of audio. Over 300 pages of workbook. 1/2 the price. This one is 100% by request. Enjoy!

We're talking writer's block!

Sat., August 21, 2010, 1:00 PM Pacific Daylight time
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/77111
Connect via phone or VoIP (Skype, etc.)
(724) 444-7444
Call ID: 77111
Detailed connection directions are here: http://diamondhour.freeiz.com/index.htm

Dr. Laura's Rant

Here’s what it comes down to in terms of my reaction to Dr. Laura’s recent “N-word” rant:
1) I don’t think she is particularly racist. I do think she is a typical human being: thinks that her group, however she defines it (Jewish, white, Conservative) is superior, but is too polite to say it out loud.

2) Her position that because SOME black people use that word, and SOME black people enjoy hearing it (or don’t criticize) then NO black people have the right to complain when it is used...is asinine. Just asinine.

3) The fact that that word is used frequently on HBO has NOTHING to do with whether it is appropriate to use it on broadcast radio. Nothing. She needs a serious fine...if Janet Jackson triggers one for showing a nipple...

4) It is disingenuous to pretend not to understand that there are context and situational meanings to actions and words. Things said within a group, or between friends or family, have ALWAYS been different when said by outsiders. I doubt there is an adult or child who doesn’t understand this. She is lying if she says she doesn’t.

5) And if she really doesn’t understand this, she has NO business offering any social or psychological advice to anyone. I would be totally stunned by her ignorance.

6) Consent is the core issue here. If I have sex with a woman, with her permission, it is called “Making love.” If I don’t have her permission, it is called “rape.” Same act.

7) Words have both connotative and denotative meanings. To pretend not to understand this, is rather amazing.

8) I think what you have here is another evidence of a majority group which once had total, unequivocal power starting to feel psychological pressure as the demographics shift. Human beings want to believe that the entire world revolves around them, their families, people who worship, think, or look like them. It is fascinating to watch the dysfunction accelerate.

9) My take on this lady is that she doesn’t trust her own judgment, and leans on her particular version of Judaism rather rigidly. I enjoyed her show back when I listened to it some years ago. Thought that she did a LOT of good for the people who called in: never heard her give a piece of advice I found damaging. Basically, I thought she was pouring a quart of guts into some pretty spineless wimps. Then...something happened. Her rigidity about homosexuality rose up to bite her when gays targeted her right as she was about to make the move to television. They KICKED HER ASS. It was almost painful to watch. And she never really recovered--became more rigid, less flexible, less fun to listen to...but simultaneously less honest. Clearly kept her attitudes about gays, but wouldn’t talk about it any more. Not good.

10) Despite her family problems, everything she said seemed to default to the question “what is best for the children”? And while she took a rigid perspective (that seemed based in her particular religious convictions), I always thought her heart was in the right place. I still think she means well--but that she has become so ideological that her humanity and common sense is secondary to “Hey! This makes sense from my political perspective! How dare anyone insist their position is as valid!”

That’s a shame. She has become tone-deaf to human emotion. Political certainty is no substitute for an open heart.

The Seven Faces of Fear: Part Seven

The Seven Faces of F.E.A.R.

Part Seven: Spirit

And so we’ve reached the last level, one which has some fascinating connections to the very first. Whereas the first level of fear relates to core survival, literal physical extinction, the last level deals with the disposition of our non-physical being. Every culture in the world has an answer to the question: what becomes of us after death? And the flip side of that questions speaks to the first level: what were we before we were born?

Think of the countless millions of pages of print attempting to address this question, a question that cannot be ultimately answered. We simply don’t have the data. We may be the only species with conscious awareness that we are going to die. That our vital flesh will one day return to the base clay.

And what have we done? Created a vast spectrum of theories, beliefs, fables, songs, prayers, and practices around this question. Now, if you are devout, you may believe that your “way” is the correct answer. And of course, you may be right. But can you hold the possibility that more than one religion or philosophy may be “correct”?

This concept is difficult for most people. And because the cost of being “wrong” is so high, think of the vast amount of terminal, existential fear held in check by the belief that “their” answer is the right one. Fear. Raw, raging, fear. Terror that their immortal soul might be at risk if they get some tiny part of the ritual chain or belief system wrong. And how many wars have resulted from people desperate to belief that THEY, and they alone, have the ear of God..?

I remember speaking to a young man on Hollywood boulevard. A rough-looking gentleman who was selling copies of “Watchtower,” the Jehovah’s Witness magazine. I spoke with him, and he tried to convince me that his particular interpretation of Christianity was the only protection against Hellfire. I didn’t try to change any of his beliefs, but the very fact that I didn’t agree with him was causing him serious stress. He grew angry. Threatening. And I suddenly realized that I was dealing with a gentleman with...shall we say a familiarity with the ugly side of the legal system? And that he had locked his criminal tendencies, anger and violence behind a door of dogma? That when I failed to agree with him, it created the tiniest crack in that armor, the only thing keeping him on the straight and narrow?

That’s exactly what I think. And I extracted myself from the conversation as gently as possible, leaving him to cast a (rather sorrowful) “you’ll burn in Hell!” after me.

It would be impossible to estimate how many lives have been destroyed by the fear relating to our inevitable deaths, and the myriad religious and spiritual traditions that attempt to channel that fear so that we can live our lives with dignity and grace. Remember that fear competes with love for control of our hearts. All major world spiritual traditions say much the same at the core: do no evil. Love one another. Have faith. Do good works. Connecting with this core, without fear, frees us to experience life as a wonderful adventure.

This is your legacy, your birthright. Just being willing to examine the effects of fear in your life reduces its power. Be one of the few willing to stand in the light of truth.

Walk in the Light...
Steve

Fear Make You Stupid?

The Seven Faces of F.E.A.R.: Part Six--Intellect

The sixth arena of fear encompasses the world of the mind. Intellect. Logic. Reality maps. Epistomology and Cosmology. How does fear influence us here?

Well...stress can decrease functional intelligence. It makes us nervous about leaving “the herd,” striking out to explore new territory. Human beings are communal creatures, and if you are afraid to lose your “group” you may submerge your true opinions just to “get along” in the same way that “politics makes strange bedfellows”--in order to create a movement, the leaders search for what everyone can agree upon, and manage to ignore areas of disagreement.

Fear of criticism stops people from pursuing business ideas. Fear of being ostracized stops people from disagreeing with plans popular to the masses. Think that we might have used such a person during the lead-up to the Iraq war? Think that both sides, both Republicans and Democrats, Left and Right, found themselves swept up in a rush to judgement which lead to a misinterpretation of intelligence data?

It’s possible that a little more independent thinking, a little less herd behavior, might have saved America a trillion dollars. And Iraq tens of thousands of lives. Where have you been afraid to speak your truth, promote your ideas, write that original work, propose a new theorem, or file a breakthrough patent?

How many times have you had a thought, quashed it, and then a year later watch someone else get rich with that very idea? Creativity flows from a wellspring of confidence, otherwise we would strangle all our ideas in their infancy. Writer’s block is simply lack of confidence in the first draft. Fear makes us doubt that there are answers to our questions. We lose faith in our ability to problem solve, and the world looks like it is staggering toward disaster.

When we fear, we forget that there are resources beyond our knowledge and capacity, that we can reach out to others to create “mastermind” groups to brainstorm our problems. Fear separates us from our genius, our special voice.

But fear hides in the darkness. Admit that fear is your Achilles heel, and set yourself free!

The Seven Faces of Fear: Part Five

In this fifth part of our series exploring
the entanglement of our fight-or-flight
response, we’ve reached the level called
Vishuddhi in Sanskrit. This is the throat
chakra, and involves communication. And
I’ve got a lot to say about the snarl of
love, fear, and communication.

1) Yesterday, a student emailed me about
his urge to self-publish. He realizes
that it originates from a fear of being
rejected. If you publish your own material
--voila! Book! He wondered if he was
cheating himself of an opportunity for growth
and maturation. My answer: yes.

2) Today, a student communicated that a
new relationship has overlapped with an
old one. The new guy is jealous of a trip
she is taking to see a beau in another
city. Should she have been honest? Should
she cancel the other date? Should she tell
the new guy to back off, he has no right
to her? None of the above. She should be
honest about the fact that she is a vital,
sensual woman who has had a life before she
met the new guy. That the unexpected
deepening of their relationship has nothing
directly to do with her long-standing
relationship with the other gentleman. I
suggested that she offer him the following:
when she returns, they can begin their
relationship over again from the beginning.
If they want to try exclusivity, they
can. But HE must accept that she was a
grown woman before they met, just as she
must accept that he has narrower definitions
of intimacy and sexuality than she may feel
comfortable with. But he was honest about
his emotions, and she must be honest about
hers. Only honesty provides a breeding
ground for a real relationship.

Writer’s Block. Public speaking.
Communication in relationships. Being
honest about your wants and needs. Keeping
a dream diary. Submitting or pitching your
work. Asking for a raise. Telling someone
you love that you love them. Expressing
your sensuality and creativity with every
step you take...

We must feel free to speak our mind, risk
rejection, tell the truth, to KNOW the truth
about ourselves. Nothing stops us but
fear: of disapproval, of revelation of our
true, ugly natures. Of being alone. Of
being attacked. It’s all fear. Fear and
love compete for the same place in your
heart. If you have a dream you are not
expressing or approaching, this is where
the brake and the gas can be found. Learn
to operate them properly, and you’re on
cruise control!

Speak your Truth!
Steve

Do Parents Matter?

I recently bought food for a homeless woman and her dog. Talking to her while we waited, it was clear that her thinking was a bit disorganized (couldn’t keep time lines straight). And it came out that her father had been sexually abusive. Yes, people say things like that to me on first meeting. I thought back three weeks to another homeless woman I met, who has two kids by two different fathers, and her attitude was that she could raise them fine by herself (she had temporary housing at this time.) She said “kids today don’t need fathers, right? I didn’t have one.”

This ties in with a recent conversation over on Facebook regarding the question “can good parents have bad kids?” My position was that I will define “parenting” in terms of results, not intentions. That if you think you have a bad kid, you can’t simultaneous consider yourself a “good” parent (unless you have multiple kids, and the others are “good.”) The idea was pretty simple to me, but it caused a lot of controversy. What if your kid is mentally ill? (Does that make them “bad”? I certainly didn’t suggest that) and then all sorts of other conversations about the choices kids make, and the environment, and so forth.

None of which was relevant to me. If you had a nightmare kid, then, quite simply, you never had the chance to be a “good” parent, regardless of your potential or intentions. It was simply a definition of the term “parent”, not a judgement of the worth of the person, get it? Maybe “good” or “bad” can’t be quantified when it comes to this. But IF you can decide what a good or bad kid is...then you can do the same for parents.

Now, then...my point would be that the set of people with good children has a subset called “good parents.” In other words, some people turn out fine even though their parents are assholes. So I’m not saying that “everyone with good children is a good parent. Everyone with bad children is a bad parent.” In fact, I never said anything about “if you have a bad kid, you’re a bad parent.” But boy, that was the way people reacted.

One of the themes that returned repeatedly was the idea that kids would just be what they were, and you couldn’t do much about it. That’s one attitude. Not mine, but that’s all right, as long as you and your kids are happy with the results (and here’s another thought: by my way of thinking, in general, your kids will agree if you’ve been a good parent. Maybe not until they’ve had kids of their own, but they will. Communication is a part of the package.)

How much do parents contribute to the health and well-being and success of their kids? How valuable is a two-parent family? Do kids need fathers?

Welll...I’m certainly not going to convince people who have a political position on this. Won’t try. I’ll only say this: if you go to prisons, the number of violent prisoners who came from stable two-parent families is almost nil. When I talk to homeless people, the percentage of them who had fathers in their homes who were even minimally engaged...almost zero. Talk to women who have had multiple children by multiple men without being married to any of them...absent fathers.

People making bad choices because they have no idea what a good choice is. Had no support. Don’t even know where “health” can be found. Have never seen a good marriage, or had the deep support of someone who loves them and will place a child’s happiness higher than their own.

While it proves NOTHING, I have seen so much of this over the years that I performed a thought experiment:
1) If at the moment of death, I saw with absolute clarity that I could have made my children’s lives better, healthier, happier had I assumed that they needed me there, needed both a mother and a father to be the best they can be...it would be excruciatingly painful if I had not done my best.
2) If, at the moment of death, I saw with absolute clarity that my kids would have been the same regardless of my efforts, that any extreme efforts or guilt were misplaced...you know something? Big deal. I can handle that just fine.

Vastly, hugely, with no comparison, I would rather err on the side of doing too much. By a huge margin, the kids I know who grew up “bad” had too little, rather than too much, engagement. Their parents were erratic, alcoholic, abusive, self-serving. While some parents who “hovered” had kid problems, there was simply no comparison. And that’s looking back over more than forty years of observation.

We cannot ultimately determine what is caused by nature, and what by nurture. I choose to take the harder path--I’m going to act as if my presence and actions make a huge difference. It is the harder decision, and it’s been my experience that, in relationships, the harder path turns out to be the right thing to do in an irritatingly high percentage of cases.

My kids deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Seven Faces of F.E.A.R...part four

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
1 John 4:18

We’re doing another Talkshoe.com talk tomorrow, at 2pm PST
Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
Call ID: 77111
The Seven Faces of F.E.A.R.

Stage Four: Love is the Gas, Fear is the Brakes

We’re using the yogic chakras to examine the seven basic levels of human existence, especially where it relates to love and fear. And this makes the fourth chakra--Anahata (the heart center) Ground Zero in the fight for our souls.

And this makes today’s note a goldmine. All you have to do is look at the synonyms (and masks) for love: affection, admiration, attraction, fondness, lust, etc...

And then those for fear: hatred, anger, antipathy, grief, guilt, shame, aversion, repulsion, etc...

And then ask yourself: which is dominant? There are only two basic ways to create the life you want: either increase your love or decrease your fear. Either “step on the gas” by clarifying your goals and the benefits you will obtain by pursuing them, or “take off your brakes” by neutralizing or reducing the amount of fear you experience.

101 Day students: what is today’s goal? What emotions have interfered in your capacity to reach it?

Lifewriting students: What is your character’s major goal? How can you increase her motivation or help her deal with her negative emotions? What stops YOU from finishing your current project, marketing it, or getting on to the next?

Diamond Hour students: In a single hour, you can clarify your goals, clarify the steps to their accomplishments, or identify the true roots of your resistance. Fear loves the darkness--turn on the lights!


Take off your Brakes!
Steve

7 Fears That Hide in 'Falling Out Of Love'

Having just celebrated my twelveth anniversary with my soulmate, it is amusing to watch the daily fluctuations of surface feelings: stress, fatigue, excitement, success, failure...all these external things affect the external experience. But diving deeper, the commitment we share to raise a child, the memory of the initial explosion of recognition, the certain knowledge that any "excitement" I felt with someone else would surely fade, leaving me with ashes instead of fire...they help me understand that there is a part of my head that will always look. And other parts of me that will always want to play. And still other parts that catalog every supposed imperfection...as if mine weren't as glaring. It is all so silly, and so wonderful. And yes, fear kills love faster than anything else--but most of that fear lives within us, and our perceptual filters, not in the world around us, or the Beloved.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Learning to 'Forget Yourself' Is Important for Psychological Health Today

Mikhaly Csíkszentmihályi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."



And flow is the doorway to higher-level mind functions: we MUST move beyond ego to access them. We must develop the ability to focus on process, not results, which means that the "I" must dissolve. For reasons both profound and mundane, it is vital to expand beyond the ordinary concept of self. Ironically from the perspective of ordinary mind, to be all we can be, we must be nothing at all.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Seven Faces of F.E.A.R. part Two

Part Two: Sexuality


As we look at the different ways fear
hides in our lives, I want to restate
the masks in phase #1. Survival fear,
primal fear, would include words such
as fear, stress, terror, anxiety, etc.
--concerns for continued life. Such
stressors affect health, joy in life,
life expenctency, energy, sleep, and more.

The second level is fear associated with
sexuality.

“Sex pleasure...is a kind of
magic spell; it demands complete abandon;
if words or movements oppose the magic of
caresses, the spell is broken.”
Simone de Beauvoir

Words, or movements, or emotions. The
causes of sexual dysfunction are many:
rape or abuse, power issues, body image
issues, estrangement, guilt, shame.
Fear that a sex drive is too strong or
too weak, that we lack bedroom skills,
or that our tastes and preferences are
somehow out of line with society or
our partners.

There are more, of course, but the ways
they manifest are simpler to list: anything
that prevents a deep, full experience
of sex with our partners (and/or alone!)
with full excitation to an earth-shattering
orgasm might well be considered a
dysfunction. IN THE PAST MONTH ALONE my
clients and students have expressed the
following problems:
1) A woman who lost her ability to orgasm
following a pair of armed robberies.
2) A man who lost his sex drive when his
career fell apart.
3) A couple that has not had sex in years,
due to financial and life stress.
4) A woman who resents her husband’s lack
of compassion, and with holds her passion
--will not orgasm with him.
5) A woman who has gained over a hundred
pounds due to a rape.
6) A man who, although a fine martial
artist, is dealing with rape trauma and
cannot lose the last fifty pounds
“protecting” him.
7) A woman consumed with guilt due to
childhood sexual experimentation that
has left her making inappropriate choices
for thirty years.
8) A man who is so insecure that he
interprets the slightest reluctance on
the part of his wife as rejection.

These are just a sample. It is so easy
to fall into the “sex is evil, bad, wrong,
risky” crevasse. After all--it IS risky.
Choosing the wrong partner can lead to
violence or disease. Combine that with
using the wrong birth control method can
lead to pregnancy, abortion, or a lifetime
of being bonded to someone you don’t love
or respect. Think of how vulnerable both
men and women must make themselves to
their partners in order to experience
pleasure. Think of the guilt many parents
and institutions grind into their children
to prevent sexual exploration. That is
NOT easily remedied. Guilt, shame, anxiety,
the inability to “turn off” the conscious
mind and simply flow with the moment...
actual emotional pain, feelings of
worthlessness and insecurity...how many
other emotions have you associated with
sex, or seen others associate with it?

Identifying the problem emotions, and the
masks they hide behind, is critical to
the healing process. Sex, expressed
healthfully in the life of a mature
adult (or in a mature relationship of
whatever duration) can be one of the most
healing, joyful, positive and wonderful
things in the world. Anything that
stands between you and an ethically valid
sexual expression is NOT your friend.

Questions:
1) What were the earliest rules you learned about sex?
2) Is sex “dirty” or “nasty”? Why, or why not?
3) When is it appropriate for a person to first have sex? Why?
4) Under what circumstances is sex healthy
and natural? Under what circumstances is
it wrong, sinful or dangerous?
5) Is your sex life satisfying? Can you
fully enjoy it...or are there doors you
fear to open?

WRITERS can apply the above thoughts to
their characters. Better still, take one
of your own attitudes and experiences,
and exaggerate it into a character’s
foibles or challenges, devising a story
that expresses, reveals or challenges
the sexual status quo.

EVERYONE ELSE: Grasp that our sexual
energy is directly related with creative
energy, second only to survival. Unknot
this one, and your ability to embrace
life can soar.

Embrace Your Life!
Steve

Seven Faces of F.E.A.R.

The Seven Faces of F.E.A.R.

I’m going to be taking a little time to lay out a pattern for you, and over the next seven posts you’ll get a preview of some very important thinking.
1) Interested in increasing time efficiency?
2) Breaking Writer’s Block?
3) Finding love and success?
4) Dealing with fear?

Look...there is a limit to what can be expressed in language, but what we can do is approach the mountain from multiple directions, describe the journey from multiple routes. You will recognize some of them...some of them will appeal to you...you may have experienced some yourself.

We’re going to take a look at the ways Fear crops up in our lives. The ways it hides, and what it costs us. Seven pieces that you need if you are going to master your life.

1) Level One. Core Survival Fear. This, at least, is honest and direct: we don’t want to die. Not much lack of clarity on this one. The trouble is that in the modern world, few of our existential crisis actually have to do with life and death. The Fight or Flight response is designed to keep us alive in a world of lions, poisonous insects, and constant threat of starvation.

As a result of the human capacity for memory, projection, abstraction, extrapolation and fear of our own future death, this core drive, so simple in most animals, disguises itself in a variety of guises, and attacks us in multiple ways. If there is no sabre-tooth tiger then we cannot run, and we cannot fight. We put our brakes on emotionally, and the stench of psychic smoke chokes our lives. F.E.A.R.--a Fountain of Energy for Active Response--is about dismantling the illogical fears so that we can function at a higher level. To free ourselves from fear is the beginning of what might be called “advanced adulthood.”

What are Fear’s masks? How does it hide? Grief. Guilt. Anger. Anxiety. Blame. Shame. The core fear of death hides on every level of our existence: sex, health, weight, relationships, self-expression, intellectual creativity, and even spiritual awareness. We’re going to strip away some of these masks. This is why you need this, why you should print out the next six days of notes and bind them into a book:

Understanding the Faces of F.E.A.R.

1) creates energy in you own life.
2) lets you help those you love create energy and health
3) allows you to understand the actual emotions driving negative behaviors (great for disarming the anger of adversaries, spouses, even muggers!)
4) allows writers to create multi-level characters, and design stories to strip away their false identities and illusions
5) Is the path to finding and embracing lasting love and success.

This is the first step. Survival fear, mutating into other negative emotions, and stealing our lives. In the next days you’re going to get the perfect tool to fight back: truth.

“In large part, it is our psychological interpretation of arousal feelings that determines whether we will feel fear, anger, or a combination of both.In large part, it is our psychological interpretation of arousal feelings that determines whether we will feel fear, anger, or a combination of both.”--Harry Mills, Phd

Do We Need Spiritual Teachers or Can We Learn On Our Own?†

No. We do not need spiritual teachers, in the main. But we can want them healthfully, and we can find useful things in their statements. So long as we remember that it is the work, not the words, that frees us from illusion, teachers can be valuable. But for too many people, the search for teachers is actually a distraction from doing the work of dismantling illusion--it is far less frightening to follow another than to delve deep within our own hearts, and confront the mythology of the "I."



Teachers have been wonderful along my path. But the first who asked: "who are you? What is true?" pointed the way. The rest have just been entertainment.



www.realherosjourney.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Who is Responsible for the BP Oil Spill?

Who is responsible for the BP Oil Spill?

We are. Every person who was willing to spend 4.00 a gallon for gas was responsible. Every one of us has to wake up and realize that giant corporations are just acting out our unconscious drives to expand, eat, work as little as possible. They are vast, dispersed, protozoic quasi-organisms suffering the macro-version of America’s obesity epidemic. They are no better, and no worse, than the human beings that compose them. And the only answer to their growing power is that we, as the component cells of these “organisms” had better wake up and make conscious choices.

What stops us from awareness, awakeness, from taking adult responsibility for our lives and the world is fear. Face our fears of scarcity, of “the other”, of death, of loneliness, and virtually all the selling propositions of Madison Avenue, Washington, and Hollywood evaporate like vapor.

We can point the finger, or we can re-examine our priorities, and heal our hearts. Hypediaphobia (hy·peg·i·a·pho·bi·a) is the fear of responsibility. And responsibility is the door to adulthood. Trying to seek enlightenment? Fuggetaboudit unless you have first taken responsibility for your existence here and now.

And as long as you blame “them” for larger versions of what we, as individuals, do every day…this nightmare will continue, unabated, growing larger and stronger as we squabble. Wake up, people.

Our grandchildren are watching.

The <i>Real</i> Reason Couples Divorce

Fear kills love. A beautiful article detailing another way of understanding how "fear and love compete for the same place in our hearts." A couple that wants to survive will DELIBERATELY create bonding moments (sex, play, planning, meditation, exercise, prayer, family time) understanding that under stress, ego will do all it can to blame the "other." And that other people start looking mighty good--until you're in a relationship with 'em. Remember: no matter where you go, there you are. The only thing in common in your past relationships is that YOU were there. Take responsibility. Start with loving yourself and acknowledging that you are afraid and lonely. That honesty, once embraced, can guide you for the rest of your life.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Psychiatric Issues Behind Cyberbullying

Fear is your body preparing you for action. Cyberbullying removes the capacity for direct response, and that hormone cascade can turn against the victim, becoming chronic anxiety, feelings of worthlessness and helplessness, and a kind of destructive deep anger that can explode against self and others. We must help our children, and ourselves, find healthy ways of dealing with these feelings. Once the pure emotional energy strikes the prism of perceptual experience, it splits into love and fear, which compete for room in our hearts. The value of introspection, meditation, self-expression and self-acceptance cannot be overrated. We must find these values and skills in our own lives--only then can we pass them to our children.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Faith Fights Fear

I just got this note from a student and
wanted to share it:
##

Dear Steve,

I'm not sure if you read replies to these or
not, but I wanted to share an epiphany I
had while meditating. (I get a lot of
epiphanies while meditating, since it's,
you know, easier than actually meditating!)
Anyway, I re-read your "A Meteor Will Hit
Your Dog" post often, because it seems
like every time I try to get back into
meditation, or finish a short story,
the universe whomps me upside the head
like Mike Tyson. I don't mind so much
when it's just me, but when my friends
and family start hitting the skids, I
take it kinda personal.
So this time around, I've been bullheaded,
and just pushed my way through it, and
lately I've found the universe is also
throwing lots of GOOD stuff my way,
completely at random. And I remember
you mentioning this was a trick, too.
And (here's the epiphany, for what shiny
pennies it's worth) it reminded me a
little of the Book of Job (ok, so I'm
melodramatic) - but if you hold tight
to God, first your life gets flushed
down the toilet, and then you get it
back again even better, but in the
end, it's really just you and God,
and all the rest if fluff. I've
heard you can't really understand Job
unless you approach it from that
kind of esoteric slant, and that seems
like a good lesson to take from it.
So I just wanted to share that, and
thank you for the advice. Hopefully
soon I'll have more than 1 poem
published, but it's a start.

-- D.
##
This is spot-on. If you hold tight
to your goals, your dreams, your
values, and find sufficient faith
to make it through the “dark night,”
what you find on the other side is
that the Universe can collaborate
in your advancement as easily as
your destruction.

Remember: "Faith" is belief in one of three things
1) A higher power
2) The integrity of your allies
3) A deeper strength within yourself.

Faith fights fear

Steve

The "A-Team" (2010)

O.k...
So I went to see the "A-Team" last weekend. Eh. It was pretty much what I expected, so I can't complain. Anyone who needs a plot summary isn't the audience for this thing. It's amiable enough, and won't annoy your higher brain functions. Give it a "C", I'd reckon.
##
“Briefly speaking, ‘fear’ kidnaps the ability to think clearly, increasing the possibility of being lead into error, and decreasing the chance of opening the positive exit doors that may be available. Depending upon the context, ‘fear’ can lead to complications, losses, and tragedies, both big and small.”--Jagdish N Srivastava

One of the best approaches to characterization is to design a perfect human being, and then deliberately build in flaws. Damage them. Choose one or more of the seven key arenas of human life and create fear where they need courage.
Then, you need only design a plot that gives them an opportunity to gain the lessons or allies they need to overcome, to grow, to evolve or heal.
And how do I suggest writers gain the insight to accomplish this? Simple, really. Look within yourself. Ask yourself--where has fear stopped you in the past? Where does it stop you now? Too often, people won’t even admit that they want love, happines, health, because they would then have to confront their demons.
There are two basic ways of dealing with fear: increase the motivation to accomplish the goal, or decrease the actual pull of the negative emotion. Once you admit that you crave change in your life, you become responsible for that effect.
You can actually have your dreams--but the first step is admitting you desire them. Don’t cheat yourself: life is entirely too short. Use your “Diamond Hour” today to write your goals in all three basic arenas: health/fitness, relationship, and finance.
And tomorrow? Start bringing those dreams to life!

Walk with courage!
Steve

Back Home...

Been on the road for a week, researching the new books. Drove about a thousand miles over the last couple of days, and I'm deep-fried. But happy to be home!
##
Don't remember if I said this here, but INCEPTION is a remarkable piece of popular entertainment. Basically, a 150-million dollar art film Or: "Mission: Impossible" meets "The Matrix." Truly, a great time at the movies. See it!
##

We did a survey recently, asking for feedback
on a writing course, and I was shocked at the fact that
better than 70% of the responses, one way or
another, related to issues of fear:
writer's block, creativity, maintaining a
schedule...then I got dozens of private emails
asking about FEAR stopping people from
keeping commitments, finding a single hour
a day for themselves...fear that
manifests as guilt, blame, shame, freezing, anger,
grief...and far more. So my original intent was to
discuss CREATIVITY tomorrow, but we're going to
combine this with what is more of a core issue
than I realized, for more good people than I knew.
Please join us!

Sat., July 24, 2010, 1:00 PM Pacific Daylight time
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/77111
Connect via phone or VoIP
(724) 444-7444
Call ID: 77111

###
Your question today:
Every human being feels alone and afraid.
Where do you hide YOUR loneliness and fear?

Me? I seek to communicate with an audience that
gives a damn about the things I care about. I tell
the people I love that I love them. I practice
martial arts. Meditate. Teach. Yoga.

These are the ways I deal with my negative emotions--
turning them into positive emotions. How about you?

New 'Anti-Rape' Condom Invented in South Africa

Would he kill her? Possibly. But the pain and shock would also give her a moment to retaliate. A slender nail (or thick pin) inserted into the proper part of the anatomy can kill at short range. I would think that, if she can keep her cool, it might give her a tactical advantage. When it comes down to it, freedom is only available to those who demand it, and are willing to risk death to have it. As horrendous as the situation is, anything that enables women to take power back from those who would diminish them...even at the risk of life...is a worthwhile thing. Making them victims? Hardly. It makes them potential heroines.



www.realherosjourne.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Thoughts and Actions

The following conversation took place on Facebook, regarding hate speech:

Me:

Actually, language doesn't make you a bigot. Actions make you a bigot. I am unaware of any specific actions (from Mel Gibson). That said, his language suggests a certain disordered thinking that may include actions...or might not. Don't know. I do know that I don't appreciate the language, and the assumption that either blacks are more likely to rape, or that ... it is a deeper shame to have it done by them. Either is...distasteful at the least. I will feel free to vote with my dollars. Such words give aid and comfort to the worst in our society. but I can't say for certain whether the man is a bigot. Evil language doesn't make you evil any more than positive language makes you good.

A reader responded:

That's a very interesting argument-- actions, not language, make one a bigot-- and I'll have to think on that for a while. I tend to think it is beliefs that make one a bigot or racist. Believing, for example, that one race is superior to others and/or that another race is inherently inferior qualifies as racist thinking, in my opinion. I think ... S merely seeing a well dressed black man in a new luxury vehicle and thinking privately that he must be a drug dealer or some sort of criminal is racism whether or not any action or spoken word accompanies the thought. The well dressed man is unaffected by the other's thoughts, of course, but that is precisely the kind of thinking that still poisons our justice system and our children's minds.

AND I RESPONDED:

I can understand that perspective, but we can't read minds. I have thoughts about lots of things that I never act out. Thinking something brave doesn't make you brave. Thinking about murder doesn't make you a murderer. I think that if we become thought police, every human being is guilty, because our thoughts are never 100% under our control. ... See MoreOur actions, on the other hand, are far more directable. Speech is action, but it is easy to say things in total opposition to our behavior. "I love you, baby," the wife beater says. Which is true? the word or the action?
I think we have to cut ourselves a little more slack than that...or we would all be so consumed with guilt we couldn't move. Or worse...if words and actions are in any way equivalent, why not just do whatever we think? After all, we're damned anyway...

What do YOU think?

Fear as a gift

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."--Eleanor Roosevelt.

This has been true in my life, and in the lives of my students. Fear is often a warning that real growth lies on the far side of an action or change. To gain clarity on this is to gain wisdom.

My Next Book?

Nolan's "Inception" is getting stellar reviews across the board. Can't wait. Cracks me up when people say "Hollywood" has lost creativity. "Hollywood" is nothing but thousands of separate artists and business people trying to shake hands. The human race has been here a long, long time. How egotistical for some to think WE just happen to be living in the first generation without ideas. Everything goes in cycles.
##
Sleep Yoga
I’ve been getting odd pains in muscles and tendons in the sides of my legs. Yoga or certain kinds of exercise eases it, but it ticks me off and subtracts from the joy of waking up in the morning. So I experimented this morning with actually sleeping (or really, resting) in bed in a Pigeon Pose. Drowsed a while like that. It’s tricky to describe, but if you Google it, you’ll see what I was doing. And it seems to have had a great effect. Hmmm. I wonder if there are other poses I could actually sleep in to positive effect?
##
There was some controversy over on Facebook about Wonder Woman and how she no longer wears a flag. Some one called this “America Hate.” Jeeze, that’s a cheapening of the term “hate.” “Hate,” it seems, now means anything other than thinking the world revolves around the object of attention. Why in the world would an Amazon attach specifically to America? There is no real logical sense to it...and it makes sense only in the terms of a comic book iconography. She isn’t Captain America, after all.
##
Hey, a question. I forget if I’ve asked this before: Who out there thinks Bin Laden is still alive? I think he’s been dead for about eight years. His “images” don’t seem to have aged a day, and this is a guy on dialysis who is sneaking from cave to cave. He should look like hammered shit. And hasn’t given a single interview to Al Jazeera, which strains credulity. I think he’s dead, we know it but couldn’t produce the body, but everyone likes a boogyman. What do you think?
##
The recent discussion of relaxing strictures with Cuba prompted some Senator to complain that this was bad timing, “we have the Castro regime on the ropes.” What? Now...this shouldn’t be a Democrat-Republican or Liberal-Conservative issue, because every administration in fifty years has kept this crap going. And Castro is the longest-running strong man dictator in the world, to my knowledge (I guess he’s semi-retired now.) I mean, if we HADN’T isolated him, how much more successful could he have been? I find it likely that our very isolation of Cuba helped him stay in power, allowed him to blame the “Norte Americanos” for anything in their culture his people disliked. And the fact that we openly do business with China and Russia kinda makes our attitude toward Cuba seem...well, like there’s something else going on there. My favorite conspiracy theory? Castro had something to do with the JFK assassination. We couldn’t make it public without triggering an outcry to invade. And invading Cuba would have triggered a nuclear exchange. That puts us between a rock and a hard place. The available option was to isolate Cuba to “punish” her for whatever role she played, a policy that could never be discussed publicly, but has been maintained by administration after administration...
Hey, don’t tell me someone couldn’t write that book!

A little scared...

I'm working on a book with one of the few people who intimidate me, National Book Award winner ("Middle Passage") Charles Johnson. He's a buddy, and the nicest guy in the world, but God, he's brilliant, and accomplished and (gulp!) an academic icon. The project we've planned out is just great... if/when I pull it off it could be the best thing I've ever done. But wow, the butterflies. I think that's a good sign. Shows I'm still alive, and still have room to grow. I don't even think I want the fear to fade...might keep me on my toes!

I need your help!

I Need Your Help!

It’s been almost twenty years since I created the original, bestselling Lifewriting course, and I’ve been working furiously on an update incorporating everything I’ve learned over the last decade. The new course will be called THE SEVEN SECRETS OF PROFESSIONAL WRITING.
But I need your help narrowing down the material, deciding what to include and exclude. If you would take five minutes and go to:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GNMP677
and answer just ten multiple-choice questions, it will help me create the most valuable and dynamic course possible!

Thanks in advance!

Steve

"The Last Airbender" (2010)

No, I haven't seen it, and almost certainly will not. If ever there was a movie that deserved to fail, it is "Last Airbender," with its disgraceful whitewashing of an Asian motif. If ever an artist sold himself out, it is M. Night Shyamalan. What white director has never made a film with Caucasians? Female director who has never made one about women? He has cut himself off at the root, and I doubt he will ever find his way home again. Reports say it is an incomprehensible mess. How could it be otherwise? Films and novels are too complicated to hold purely in the conscious mind. And on some deep level, Shyamalan has to KNOW what he has done. Ang Lee or John Woo can dabble in Hollywood...but can go home and work with the mythologies of their own people, or look back on a body of work that reflects their own culture and genetics. What director, ever, has been in such denial? There are damned few writers who have never labored in their own vineyards, culturally speaking. And speaking from my own personal experience, there would only be a few reasons to do this:

1) A genuine and deep fascination with the "other." There are a few white writers who are so fascinated with, say, Asian culture that they have created characters set in ancient China, and to my knowledge have written nothing or little else. This is really remarkable, and rare
2) Money. The knowledge that if they write about "their own" they risk rejection and/or poor sales. This is the road to hell, because that artist has to deal with a few ugly things, for instance the belief (valid or invalid) that the group he creates for has contempt and/or disinterest/ disconnection from people who look like him.
3) Fear/Protective coloration. This is the "self-hating Jew" path: changing the name, bobbing the nose, and pretending to be Protestant. Or the self-loathing Gay conservative who votes against gay marriage while cruising the bars at night, courting self-destruction. It is the "see? I'm just like you! Don't hurt me! I actually agree with you about "those" people. I'm not one of them!" This is a horror. I would say that maybe 2% of such artists are case #1. I don't think Shyamalan is one of them. I think that if you go deep enough, he would want, at the least, to create multiethnic stories . At best, nurture and create stars of his own "kind" to tell stories that reflect his culture and genetics. To CHOOSE to do otherwise is one thing. To be FORCED to in order to have a career, to sell out your heart for money and fame, is something else all together.

When we do that, we are raping the creative child within us. I think he is a brilliant man. I also think he is lost, and can no longer recognize the sound of the human voice. He has nothing but intellect now, no heart to guide the way. And was he right to believe he couldn't reflect his own reality and appeal to America? I would say absolutely. I would reiterate that Hollywood is LESS racist than America as a whole, and America more open to those "others" than the world as a whole. The problem is human perception itself, tribalism, deep survival patterns that kept our ancestors alive in ages past. It is not "America," "Hollywood" or "white people." It is us. The way Liberals and Conservatives each use language suggesting they are more human, wiser, smarter, more ethical than their political opposition. The way most religions quietly assume their own superiority, and that everyone else is going to hell. The way nationalism assumes that everyone's country is "exceptional." Or that most people think they are above-average drivers or lovers.

This is what we are. We are all victims of it, and we all oppress. The only difference I see is that some people are aware, and try to swim against this tide, and others believe if we all just stop acknowledging differences and "special interests" it will all work out. All that is necessary for bigotry to triumph is for people of good will to believe we are "Post Racial."

I think the trainwreck that is M. Night Shyamalan's career is a classic example of self-denial devolving to self destruction. If I was an Asian actor, I would want to strangle him. On some deep level, M. Night would probably want to help.