The "Bear Neccessities" of Love

There’s a joke about two hunters who are chased by a bear.  Bears run faster than humans, so one turned to the other and, despairing, said “we can’t outrun that bear!”
We’ll return to the punch line in a moment.

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I recently saw a post that said that the only thing more of a turn-on than a bad boy is a “badass man that has his shit together.”   The post was followed by a series of posts from women saying they’ve been looking for such a man and cannot find one.

I was raised by a single mother, and as a child got to hang out and listen to the way mothers talked about their lives, as if I wasn’t in the room at all, and to watch what went on, and having been raised in a world of women saw male-ness as slightly mysterious and exotic, but never ever something superior.   Different, yes.  The way these women spoke of their lives and their husbands it was glaringly obvious that they didn’t feel inferior in the slightest—they saw that men and women had different roles in the world, if children were to be safe.  That has always been my attitude.

But…I also ran into guys who DID believe women were inferior, and were obligated to do the things that men said, or that men were entitled to privileges women did not have.

And rejected that idea.   Men who would look at women’s  lack of accomplishment in the arts and sciences and fields of discovery and invite me to speculate on just why women were less intelligent or creative or whatever…without grasping the fantastic amount of energy it takes to  raise a family, and that in every culture in the world, women had that primary responsibility. 

Blindness, I thought.   No, as far as I was concerned, men and women weren’t “equal” but complementary in a way that neither was superior or inferior to the other, save by very, very limited and prejudicial definitions, and self-serving filters.

 Oh, yeah, men were great at that.

But so are women.  Tananarive and I have discussed the pity parties on either side: women complaining that there are “no good men” and men complaining that there are “no good women.”  It’s certainly true that women outnumber men, but the complaints sound  to me like someone in a 95% employment economy complaining that “there are no jobs.”

What in the world do statistics have to do with whether YOU, personally, as an individual, have a job or relationship?  Let’s just say that if you’re the kind of person who looks at the bottom stats and attributes your life situation to those problems, your natural partner is a man or woman who does the exact same thing.   Good luck with that.

The man or woman who says that they can’t find the fabulous men or women they desire out there aren’t considering…or are afraid to consider…that they are attracting what they are.  They aren’t noticing the megafauna in the living room: you are attracted to people at your level of energy and integration…and above. And you attract people at your level of energy and integration…and below.
I’ve got good news and bad news, brothers and sisters, if you don’t like what you’re seeing out there, the answer is in the mirror.

That means that fabulous men and women find each other every day, and if you’re not in that company, the responsibility is in your hands.    Forget the statistics.

1932 was the worst year for unemployment in American history, with a 23.6% unemployment rate.   It is estimated that 28% of people will never marry.  That means that the worst case scenario is that you have to be in the top 70%.  You have to be in the top seven out of ten.

You don’t have to be #1.  Don’t have to be the best, the luckiest, the best looking, the richest, the healthiest…just not in the bottom 30%.   And I suggest that you can do that simply by being more honest than the next guy. By taking responsibility for your results on a level that is uncommon.   My brother in law Pat Young had a fabulous attitude toward work: “if there are two jobs out there, I’m getting one of them.”  He’s never been out of work his entire career.  People like that are hard to stop, and the energy they radiate is infectious.   And a man like that attracts a woman like that.
Back to the hunters.  They’re  running from the bear.  One turns to the other and says “we can’t outrun the bear”.  The other, naturally, says “I don’t have to outrun the bear.  I only have to  outrun you.”

The next time there’s a pity party, and your friends invite you to moan about the lack of acceptable partners in the world, if you MUST think of things in statistical terms, I suggest that you smile and nod and sympathize…

While remembering the bear.

Namaste,
Steve





Twelve Years A Slave (2013)

So…just saw 12 YEARS A SLAVE.  Let me begin by saying that a double bill of this and DJANGO would be the feel-good evening of the year.

Had to get that out of the way.  Humor keeps us sane.   Now what I really think: best movie on this hard, necessary subject I’ve ever seen.  And no, ROOTS wasn’t a movie, it was a 573 minute mini-series.   Magnificent, it is still television fare, with all the commercial breaks, tiny images and safe-in-your-living-room, “nothing over PG-13” fare. And it still emptied the streets and shook the nation.

I want you to consider that, prior to “Django”, there hadn’t been a major studio film with slaves qua slaves for something like 35 years.  And that I cannot clearly remember a serious dramatic theatrical film released by said major studio on the subject…ever.  

The closest I can think of was “Skin Game” with James Garner and Louis Gossett, Jr.   And as much as I love and respect that movie (and I do), they leavened the realities mightily with comedy.

As I’ve said, when people talk about “tired of slave movies” I have to think they are forgetting something critical: that not “Amistad” nor “Glory” nor “Lincoln” nor “Beloved” actually had any slaves in them.  Ex-slaves.  People on their way to being slaves.   White people discussing slaves.  But not slaves themselves, as actual characters, able to speak their hearts, bearing witness to what happened to the ancestors of almost every black person in this country. “Django” flirted with that brilliantly, making it endurable by placing the horrific images in the context of a Spaghetti Western revenge yarn.

Man oh Man, does “12 Years” fill THAT gap.  Beautifully (and, thank God, somewhat sterilely) directed by Steve McQueen, a black Brit, and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor in a performance of massive gravitas, “12 Years” tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York, who makes his living as a violin player and is shanghied into the titular 12 years of bondage.

I’ve never seen a story like this.   His education and obvious social standing make him the closest thing to a modern black man dropped into this nightmare imaginable.   Usually we see Africans, “others,” undergoing such ordeals.   No…this was different.  

I went in expecting a horror movie, with the slight emotional remove I generally have at times like that.    There’s a limit to how much empathy I want to extend.  Oh, if they do their job, though, that wall of reserve will crack, and there I’ll be with no defenses.

What did we see?  Well…let’s just say that not more than five days ago I heard someone talking about how white people would have recovered from slavery faster than blacks have.  Fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  I’ve heard that canard all my life (usually from people who have Southern ancestry), along with the “slaves were treated like family” line, and the “why don’t you just get over it?” line and even, God help me, the “in some ways, slaves were better off…” line.  Honest to God.  And yes, I’ve always resisted the urge to perform freelance lobotomies without anesthetic.  Somehow.

What people who say such things never ask is: how much would it take to turn ME into a slave?  How much pain?  Fear?  Isolation?  Hopelessness?  How much?  Because if you believe the millions of Africans reduced to slavery were like you, then the question of “how much would it take” to break you to that level is simply not something easy to consider.

On the other hand, if they weren’t like you, well, then…ahem…well, we don’t want to come right out and SAY this but…

You know.

The question is: what does it take to domesticate a human being?   Rip away his identity, his sense of self, impose a permanent neotenous  state where he will never dare rare up and demand to be treated like an adult human being?

Let’s just say that “12 Years” goes down that road farther than every other film on the subject I’ve seen, combined.  They finally nailed me with the scene where Northup, burying Old Uncle Jim, becomes aware that it is his fate to be worked to death. The slaves around him are singing a spiritual, and he resists.  As we have seen earlier in the film, the magnificent Ejiofor gives us a sense of dynamism behind those eyes, a trapped animal seeking a way out of the trap, out of the nightmare he has found himself in.  And finally, finally, in promises of Milk and Honey on The Other Side, he finds it, and begins to sing, louder than anyone.

THAT scene finally nailed me.  All my life, I’ve heard that escape from pain in black churches.   Heard them channeling pain, and despair, and fear into faith, lest it become despair, or even worse, the kind of violence that destroys everything and everyone you love.  And can’t remember a film that made the implicit explicit.

Blood and fire and death here…or milk and honey on the other side.  Pick one.

It is absurd that as a black American I can rattle off SOPHIE’S CHOICE, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, SCHINDLER’S LIST,  THE DIARY OF ANN FRANK, and EXODUS without really trying, but can’t remember a serious dramatic major film about slavery prior to this (or perhaps DJANGO, with the aforementioned reservations).    One is free to interpret this lack as one might.   I see it as something so painful, so huge, that it could barely be touched at all without screams of “Too much!  Too much!”  Out of twelve years of public school education, I have no memory of twelve minutes of discussion of this subject. Certainly, more time was spent on the mating habits of penguins.

I don’t consider it an accident that it took a British director and star to do this, either.  What that means is also up for interpretation, but it suggests to me that the subject, again, is so incredibly raw that many black Americans cannot look at it without feeling like they are staring into the sun.

I’ve heard a few people say it was too remote, too emotionally distant.  A lot more people say it was too much, too painful even to endure.  Something like this has to find a “sweet spot” between those extremes, and if you cut off the most extreme 10% at either side, and listen to critics and audiences, they may well have done it.

At least one major film staring directly at this horror, with the hopeful title suggesting that, yes, the horror ends, had to be made.   Every one of the millions of men and women who endured this had a story.  Perhaps future tales of the 250 years of bondage will be…oh, I don’t know.  Spy stories, love stories, supernatural or psychological horror, musicals, dark or screwball comedies, suspense, mystery, science fiction…who knows.  Anything is possible in the hands of talented, committed artists.  But first the cinematic vocabulary has to be established.  First a tale has to be told of someone who never stopped believing, never stopped trying, never lost himself no matter how far into the bowels of hell he went…and survived.

And TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE is that story, a story I’ve never seen, and for that I have nothing but respect.

Easiest “A” I’ve given in a long time.

Now, pardon me while I wash out my brain with DJANGO.

The Value of Love

The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships--beginning with your connection to your own heart.    Shame-filled people project their guilt onto others.  Those who don’t treasure themselves treat their bodies like garbage bags.    Those who don’t think they are lovable have contempt and mistrust for anyone who loves them.  People who have lost contact with their childlike wonder cannot access their creativity, and those who have sacrificed their dreams for money or relationship security lose their capacity to believe in love and happiness.

I give human beings enough respect to believe that the painful, non-optimal, self-destructive patterns in their lives are, regardless of how it seems from the outside, still representative of the very best people can do with their current resources, their best attempt to avoid pain and find pleasure.  Understand their internal rules, their beliefs about the world, their self-image, their positive and negative emotional associations.

Milton Erickson, Abraham Maslow and  six-thousand years of yogic psychology all basically agree that what most people want is to grow to maturity, be self-supporting, have healthy bodies they themselves would find attractive, find healthy joyous sexual expression in alignment with their morality and values, find loving relationships, raise healthy families,  find self-expression, grow old with dignity and die at peace.  

It was said to me that there are two ways to approach the nurturing of a complete human spirit: from the physical “up” to the emotional, mental and spiritual.  Or from the emotions “outwards” to all of the other characteristics necessary to sustain a relationship with another healthy adult human being: physical, sexual, mental, emotional, etc.  Either works.    I have a preference for “emotions out” although “body up” works great too. The one thing that doesn’t work is “head down”--the creation of mental maps unconnected to actual experience, then attempting to shape the world and twist perceptions to match your concepts.  The consequences of this can be absolute nightmare.

So of all the ways to approach humanity, preparing yourself  to have a healthy, passionate, loving relationship with another adult human being has the advantages of being generative (leading to global change), maturing, a serious reality check (human adult partners are not children or pets.) Living with another human being to whom you are committed is probably the hardest, most worthwhile “ordinary” human experience.  And preparing yourself to have such a relationship, and be worthy of the kind of partner who makes your heart AND mind AND body sing is 100% worthwhile even if you live on a desert island.

Just something to think about...

Namaste,

Steve

www.diamondhour.com

Plot and Character and You

For decades, I’d looked at story primarily as the dance between character and plot (by the way, as the result of endless conversation with Tananarive, I’ve modified this to be character, plot and language—but that’s another discussion).

The old argument regarding which is primary (most writer programs at University level seem to believe it is character and thematics.   Aristotle seems to have believed plot was more primary) seems to me a trick question.

In this perspective, character IS plot, and plot IS character.  In other words, you have a situation: terrorists take over Nakatomi Plaza.  When you drop a specific character into that situation, with a specific set of needs, drives, and capacities, he shapes the situation, producing the plot of “Die Hard.”  Conversely, the situation forces John McClain through greater and greater pressures, stripping away his ego identity, forcing him to tap deeper resources, and removing all illusions, revealing him as a deadly warrior who is 100% willing to die to rescue his estranged wife.

Plot, in other words, is what a character does in a given situation.   Drop another character into Nakatomi Plaza, and you get another plot.   Drop the same character into a different situation, and different aspects of their psychology are revealed.

So again: plot equals character, character equals plot.    They only look different to someone stuck in one mode or the other.  The truth is that once you grasp this, you can start with any aspect of plot or story and end up with the whole shebang.  This is similar to what happens in geometry, where once you understand a circle, if I give you three points, or a single degree of arc, you can describe the rest of the circle.

If you have nothing but a line of dialogue: who said it?  Under what situation?   What was the subtext?
If you have nothing but a character action: who did it?  In what circumstance? To accomplish what?  What was her conscious intent?  Unconscious intent?  How did they align/misalign?  What were her wants?  Needs?   How do they align/misalign?

If you have a thought of a basic character: what situation will force this character to reveal themselves totally?  What will crush them?  What will strip them of all illusion?  What will force them to grow to the next level of their lives?

If you think of a basic   situation: what would be the perfect human perspective from which to view these events? Who has the knowledge to describe what is happening so that the reader will understand? Who has the resources to survive this?  For whom would such a situation be their worst nightmare?    How could it turn into the best thing that ever happened to them?

For whom would this situation be their fondest dream?  How could it turn into their worst nightmare?
Once you grasp the unity of these aspects, you can glimpse a 360-degree revolving dynamic sphere of “story” as the attempt to snatch a glimmer of meaning from the chaos of life.  This is one of the things that makes storytelling a sacred profession.   

The perspective also allows you to gain the perspective necessary to make sense of life itself.  It was incredibly valuable in my own journey: once I saw it in my novels, I began to see it in the PROCESS of writing novels and teleplays.  And then…I started seeing it in the living of life itself.  Everywhere.  Not “directly” through conscious thought or foveal vision, but more inferentially, unconsciously, and through “peripheral” emotional vision.   It is similar to the way that Shamans see the world, and allowed me a language to begin to communicate with people hella more experienced in formal meditative and philosophical disciplines.

It really was true: know one thing, know ten thousand things.  Study a grain of sand deeply enough, and you emerge at the Big Bang.  Master anything, and you know how to master anything else.
Go deeply enough into the things that fascinate you, and you end up looking at the back of your own head.

And if THAT doesn’t blow your mind, nothing will.

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

"It's not my problem..."

A lady friend, “Janet”, has been without a serious relationship for the twenty-plus years I’ve known her.  Never been married.   Janet recently began to date a gentleman in his 60’s (as she is) who she was concerned about—apparently his sex drive is quite low.

They are going away together for a weekend, and she again repeated a complaint that he was not…hmmm…well, “male” enough in terms of being aggressive, initiative, sexual.  They’re “working things out” she said, but it’s frustrating.

I suggested that they might want to go into counseling together.  Janet rejected the idea: “I’m not the one with the problem” she said.

Well…

There are at least two reasons why I think this statement is tone-deaf and dishonest.

1) If she is attempting to work out a relationship with him, then their sexual interactions involve both of them.  A coach or therapist can give specific “prescriptions” to two people for games, conversations, communications, environments and so forth that would be very difficult to give to a single person, who then has to go and negotiate the instructions with his/her partner.

2) She’s not with this guy by coincidence.  Or by someone else’s choice.   This is her choice, the best she can do with the resources and options she has.  In other words, he is a mirror.    She isn’t able to extend her femininity to attract a man with more masculine force than this one has (at least, not one without serious drawbacks in other arenas).  Relationships are a chance to see ourselves in a mirror, and if we accept that, we get to grow.

If Janet doesn’t see this, and use this as an opportunity to see herself…if she cannot see herself as energetic twin with the man who is trying to love her, I fear that this, like all her other relationships, will end in ashes, and she will go on.  And the tragedy is that I don’t believe she REALLY doesn’t think it has anything to do with her.

Rather, she is too afraid to look at who she really is.  Afraid that if she looks deeply she will find something so hideous and broken that she will lose hope.  Better to live in the illusion that “it’s someone else.”

She is not my client, she is my friend.  So there are things I don’t say.  I was not invited.
But if she did ask,  her answer is to love herself so deeply that it overflows, and then be generous with the overflow.  With the advantage of already being filled with love, she could afford to go to couples counseling whether or not she was serving him…or them…or herself. 

And from that position, I honestly believe, she has a chance.

As it is…all I can do is love her, and hope for the best. 

But frankly…that’s not a lot of hope.

Namaste,
Steve

Ten Secrets of Hatha Yoga

If I had to choose a single discipline to have the most positive effect in every arena of my life, it would be Yoga.  Now, the sneaky thing of course is that the term “yoga” covers a variety of linked disciplines, from the meditative to the physical to the social, so I’ve got most of what I need to be an awake, aware human being handled.  If I had to choose one major division, it would be Hatha yoga, the science of posture…because while you can enter here and tie all the other aspects together, if you enter at the more esoteric aspects, it is quite possible to remain ignorant of, and neglectful toward, your body. 

Seen it many times.

The number of different aspects that can all link here include health, fitness, ethics, psychology, stress management, social theory, epistemology, and philosophy. Good stuff! 

But of course, it is possible to fall into traps with yoga, as with anything else. Injury, obsession, imbalance, rigidly dualistic thought, “dreaming that you are awake” and more area all possible negative side effects.  Here are some thoughts based on my own fifty years of experience.  (BTW—that experience was not all high quality.  I first practiced yoga from watching “Yoga For Health” with Richard Hittleman on television, at the age of about eight.   Other books and videos followed. I didn’t start taking actual classes until my twenties, became more serious in my 30’s, and  finally attended a yoga teacher’s training in my 40’s.)

So.  Ten thoughts on Hatha Yoga.

1) The quality of yoga is the quality of your attention, NOT the depth or amplitude of your postures, which are mere gymnastics. 

2) You must learn the difference between intensity and pain.  It is GOOD to take a yoga pose to the point of intensity, where you are challenged.  But never let pain go above a “3” on a scale of 1-10.

3) Don’t compare yourself to other people in the class.  That mega-flexible teenager next to you might be a cheerleader thinking about her boyfriend as she ties herself in a knot.   If your total focus and relaxation takes your head one inch closer to your knees…you’re doing fine.

4) Hatha yoga is a breathing exercise more than anything else.  Imagine the thread of your breath as a smooth and constant thing.  Now…tie that thread in a knot, but maintain the smooth breath.  If the breath gets “hitchy” or you start holding or forcing your breath, YOU ARE TOO DEEP.  I don’t care what the teacher says.  The teacher is not inside your body.  You are an adult, responsible for your own experience.  Never, ever, break the thread of a smooth (if intense) breath.  If you do that, you will never hurt yourself.

5) Stress is not the problem in life.   STRAIN is the problem.  And “strain” is basically the result of a stress load beyond the body/mind’s capacity for compensation and integration.  Luckily, before you slip into strain,  yourself, your breathing will get shallow, fast, and interrupted.  Which means that you can use it as the “canary in the coal mine”—learn to pay attention to your breathing, and you can always tell if you are losing your internal balance.    Learn to shift your breathing back to the low, slow, smooth breath taught in yoga, and you can take ANY life situation and “roll” with it.

6) There are three aspects to any physical performance: breath, motion, and structure (posture).    Each is created by the interaction of the other two.    Let your attention rotate between these three as you move within and between postures.

7) Hatha Yoga is a perfect way to compensate for athletic activity.  Unlike athletic activities, Yoga is primarily about focus and relaxation, not performance.  Performance is a secondary side effect, not the essential point.   On the other hand, the term “yoga” merely means “to unite”, so any activity done with body-mind awareness can be a “yoga”.  However…many activities, (say, running) require compensatory motion after you finish, or they will distort your body.   Yoga is self-compensatory.

8) If a student doesn’t have a physical practice, and doesn’t have access to a teacher, I suggest that they investigate the Five Tibetans, which is probably the best movement system that can be learned from a book.  It is not complete.  To make it more complete, I’d say add the “Joint Mobility” drills Scott Sonnon has on YouTube.  Together…not at all a bad substitute for a yoga practice.

9) If you focus, you will find that over time your body releases more power, grace, flexibility and so forth.  This means you’ll have to go “deeper” to find the same “edge”.  This is where progression originates.  Yoga is not “for flexible people.”   Flexibility…and strength, and balance, are side-effects of practicing yoga.  You’re mistaking the bending grass for the wind.

10)  Here’s the best part.  Combine the breathing you learn that produces relaxed focus and power with the “Five Minute Miracle” technique.  In other words, every 3-4 hours stop and practice sixty seconds of yoga breathing.   The greatest stress-buster in the world, and a major route to taking what you learn in yoga OUT of the classroom and into your life.

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Core Transformation

Friday I spoke of NLP, and why I backed away from it: it was pure power, and at that point in my life I didn’t trust myself with it.    A very specific technique allowed me to see the full humanistic capacity of the art, however, and that was a turning point.  My meditative life saved me from an existence defined by fear.   I HAVE to align spiritual and emotional values before I proceed, in any arena of life.  That is a cast-iron principle, and every damned time I've violated it, I screw up and suffer.

Dan Pinal, an old friend of mine, pointed out a book called “Core Transformations” by Connirae Andreas and NLP Comprehensive in Colorado.  He said it had helped him considerably, and I should look into it.  I did.

The basic theory of the book is that everything we do in life, everything, is an attempt to get closer to God.  I stripped out the religious overtones in that, and made the assumption that what they meant was a deep and abiding sense of peace, fulfillment, acceptance, love, and connection.  Arguably, the sensations experienced in the womb by an unborn child.  Certainly the emotions experienced by any baby that survives infancy—children who are never nurtured wither and die.  Period.

No matter how badly abused or neglected a child was later, even to the point that they have no positive conscious memories, so far as I know every study suggests this is true.  At some point we were all loved and cared for…or we die.

So it would seem that what Core Transformations was trying to do was hook us back into that feeling.   Did this make sense to me as a generative practice?

Heck, yeah.   Remember the “Secret Formula”?   GOALS X FAITH X ACTION X GRATITUDE = RESULTS.
As I’ve said, the significance of the multiplicative rather than additive function is critical: if you “zero” in any category, it cancels out everything else.  The idea is to have clear goals, believe you can and should achieve them, take massive action, and…begin with the emotion you think you’ll get at the end.   Begin with a sense of confidence, joy, gratitude.  Start your day with those emotions…and then instead of working to be happy down the road, be happy while you work.  The implication is that not only does this make your work better by taking your emotional brakes off, but it attracts assistance (easier to draw flies with honey, etc.). 

And most importantly…tomorrow is promised to no one.    Why put off the pleasure of living?
The bizarre thing about this “formula” is that if you set your plan so that you need no luck, no or little outside cooperation, take total responsibility for your results and then work your $%^^ off…with absolutely perverse precision, THAT is when “luck” avalanches on you.   It is stunning to watch…except that it happens while you’re not watching.  Life is tricky like that.

So with this in mind, would Core Transformations make sense in other ways?   I thought so.  Sri Chinmoy said that you can awaken the “kundalini” evolutionary process from the heart out, or body “up” but never from the head “down.” Meaning that a healed heart has a generative effect on every other aspect of your life.

Cool.  Seeing that I had a theoretical basis for proceeding, I looked deeper.  Obtained an audiotape of Andreas performing her technique on, I believe, an inmate in a prison.

Now, the hypnotic induction is important because it allows people to relax and drop some of their armor and defensive attack: remember that anger is a mask over fear.  So with the subject in a relaxed state, a series of questions began.

The man had (if I remember correctly—it’s been over twenty years) mugged and killed an old lady.  The questioning, roughly, went like this:

“Why did you kill that old lady?”
“She wouldn’t let go of her purse.”
“And why did you want her purse?”
“To get her money.”
“And if you had all the money you wanted, what then?”
(A pause, then…)
“I’d be able to get the shit I want.”
“And if you had all the things you want, what then?”
(A pause, then…)
“I’d rule, man.   No one would bug me, and everyone would respect me.”
“And if you had all the respect you wanted, what then?”
(A pause, then…)
“I’d have the women and the friends, and nothing could touch me.”
“And if you felt totally safe, and had all the friends and women you wanted, what then?”
(A longer pause.  The voice changed, slowed a bit.)
“I’d…be happy.”
“And if you felt totally happy, what then?”
(Another long pause.  Voice slows and softens.)
“I’d be able to drop my guard a little.  Stop pushing so hard all the time.”
“And if you were safe to let your guard down, and you didn’t have to push so hard…if you were safe and loved and respected just as you are, without doing anything…what then?”
(Long pause.  There was something in his voice almost like a muffled sob)
“I’d just be able to let people in.  I’m a good guy. People would like me if they knew me.”
“And if you could let people in.  If people knew you were a good guy, what then?”
(Long pause)
“I wouldn’t feel so lonely.”
(Now the voice has changed massively.  The inmate is deeply kinesthetic)
“And if you didn’t feel lonely.  If you felt connection as deeply as you’ve ever wanted or needed it, what then?”
(A deep, sighing breath.  An exhale, like someone venting something held in stasis for a long long time.”
“I could just…be, man.  Just be.”
“And if you could just be, what then?”
“I’d…I’d…just be.”

The voice is now soft. Childlike.  Tears in the voice.  A thread of joy.  It was stunning, in comparison to the hard, cold voice that began.

Next, Andreas amplified that joyous feeling, and walked him through his life carrying it with him.  Now, I don’t actually know for sure what happened to this man afterward. In fact, because prisoners are so good at giving authority figures what they want, I couldn’t be sure the whole thing wasn’t a con game.
But I could try it myself, on myself.   I did, in an hour-long session, and found the heart-space connection remarkable, no matter what negative behavior I began with.

Then I started working with friends and test subjects, and every time, I got the same result.  Now, I didn’t know how to anchor the emotion in, and future-pace.  Nor did I know how to help the clients set up rituals for daily conditioning of the state.  But even without that, the transformations were remarkable.  I mean, an hour of work changed them for at least a week.

When I began to add the other aspects, I got even more powerful results.  I began to integrate Core Transformation into the other conscious and unconscious work, as a foundational model, a belief pattern I operate from when working with clients, friends, or whatever: whatever we do, we do to try to move away from pain and toward pleasure. And whatever pleasures we seek are substitutes for the genuine, deep connection we once felt in childhood.  Infancy.  The womb.

I’ve walked that path of personal drill-down.  And also meditated deeply and spiritually, for decades. And in terms of the “connect” there is no qualitative or quantitative difference I can detect.  We are what we are, beings created from and nurtured by love, stretching back to the beginning of life.  We spend our entire lives seeking that peace, joy, and acceptance we once received just for being here.

And if we can find a way to take action with joy, rather than take action seeking joy, it transforms our existence.

“Well begun is half done.”   “Begin with the end in mind.”

Give yourself the gift of the emotions most people believe they can only experience after accomplishing, or with the approval of others. 

Pleasure is in the body.   Love is in the heart.  Joy is in the spirit.   “Pleasure” is a poor substitute for what you truly seek.

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Why I stopped NLP-ing

I use NLP in my coaching, but have mentioned that it scared me back in the day, and that I voluntarily decided to stop its use until I matured a bit more.   That comment raised some eyebrows, and I decided to explain.

Neuro Linguistic Programming is a VERY powerful set of tools.   It can be used for self-improvement, therapy, sales, sports performance, or seduction.  I studied it back in the 80’s, and got really, really good.  Then something happened that suggested I was so good at it that I could affect people on basic levels that scared me.  Now, I’m not saying I should have been scared, or that someone else should have been.  Just reporting honestly.   I then “backed away” from NLP because I saw that it was power without a moral center, an investigation of how human beings communicate with themselves and others, mostly on an unconscious level.  Later, I found a little corner of the NLP world that DID have a moral core, and was able to approach it again.  Again, this is about my perceptions, MY values, and not whether anyone else could or should practice this stuff.

I first knew that there was an issue when I attended a self-improvement seminar by a major NLP guru, and watched him drop whole sections of the audience into trance and give them embedded hypnotic commands to buy his products.   Scary. 

But my personal epiphany came when I used it to talk a guy out of committing suicide without him ever knowing what I’d done.  That was power.  And as Uncle Ben (he of Spiderman, not Converted Rice) said: “with great power comes great responsibility” and I wasn’t feeling hugely responsible back then.

##

The incident happened thirty years ago,  when the wife of a friend called me in a tizzy.  Call her Maude, and the husband “Mark”.  She was crying. “Steve, my marriage to Mark is in trouble.  He’s in trouble.”   I asked her to explain.  Mark had grown increasingly distant.  Hadn’t touched her sexually in a year (and for the record, she was GORGEOUS) and just watched porn on his computer.

And now he’d begun talking about suicide.  She was legitimately terrified.   Now, these were “social” friends, in that I worked with the guy.  HAD worked with him.  We’d been to their house for dinner, but it wasn’t like we were close.  This was one of the moments in my life when I realized that people told me stuff that was just unreal.  I mean: why me?  What did she expect me to do?

But…something inside me liked the idea that I might be able to help.   She said he wouldn’t go to a therapist, and was a powder-keg.   For whatever reason, I accepted the challenge.

I spent an hour thinking about it, and realized that no frontal assault was gonna work. In fact, I’d been forbidden even to mention to Mark that Maude had talked to me!   Hmmm.

I got sneaky.   Called Mark and, with a heavy voice, said I had some problems, and no one to talk to about them.  Because of some life experience he’d had, I thought he might be perfect.  He was flattered, and agreed to meet me for dinner.

At the restaurant the next day, I played someone on the edge of depression.  Hinted at suicide.   Now, before I did that, I “gained rapport”—matched his speech patterns, body language, breathing rate and depth.  Crossed my arms the same way he did, without being obvious about it.

Then…I slowly began to lead him into trance, using language, rhythmic speech patterns, and deepening my breathing.  When two people have rapport, the one with the deepest congruence and greatest flexibility will start controlling the engagement.

One secret to hypnosis is that it is a projection of an internal state within the hypnotist.  So all I had to do was enter the state of focused calm I wished “Mark” to enter, and the rapport communicated it to him.  Because he was unaware of what was happening, he went heavy, and hard, and it was all I could do not to laugh as I made him sway side to side or cross and uncross his arms.    Powerful stuff!

Now the game really started.  I convinced him I was deeply depressed, and got him to advise me on how to get out of it. (I hope I don’t have to explain how appropriate it is to have a client tell YOU what their recipe for an internal state or change).  He suggested I think of the good things in my life (if you want to change your mood, either change what you focus on, or how you use your body.  He was suggesting a change in focus.  Great.)

So…I began to weave the trance a little deeper.  “Are you telling me,” I asked, and when I said “you” I pointed to myself.  And when I said “me” I pointed to him, very subtly.    “Am feeling depressed, I should think about all the great things in my life?”

He kind of blinked and nodded.  

“And maybe the next time I’m driving down the street” (and remember, every time I used a pronoun, I pointed to the opposite person!) “and I see a red light, it means to STOP thinking negatively.  And when I see a green light, it means to GO FOR IT, enjoy life, embrace the journey?”

He was swaying, blinking, doing everything but falling face-down into his soup bowl.  I mean he was GONE, and didn’t even realize it.

Now, I don’t and never did know the precise issues that had deviled “Mark.” But I do know that if you have a positive attitude and can take a long view, that it is easiest to devise generative solutions.
Anyway, I future tested the implanted ideas (got him to visualize these changes in his future),  and then closed the trance, tested to be sure he was completely “back” and thanked him deeply for the advice (!).
And drove home, wondering what the hell I thought I’d been doing.

Well…the next day I got a call from his wife.  “Steve!” she shrieked.  “What in the world did you do?”

“Ummm…what’s wrong?”  I held my breath, anticipating disaster. Oh, God…

“Wrong?” she said.  “Nothing!   Mark came home last night more filled with energy and enthusiasm than I’ve seen in a year!   He grabbed me, threw me on the bed and made love to me like a madman!”  She went on, raving about how he had changed…like magic.

And a month later she said the change had held.  That he was still optimistic, and horny as a teenager.  
Well, DAMN.  I thought about this, and realized that I was more than good at this. I was friggin’ wizard.  And that scared me.  To be honest, I haven’t been the most responsible, caring person my whole life.  And the power to do what I had done frightened me, because I saw the potential for abuse.    This is, again, NOT a condemnation of NLP.  It is only a comment about my own fear of myself.  Period.

So…I stepped away from Neuro Linguistic Programming, thinking that I had to grow up a bit.  Center myself more.  And would return to it later.

Which, in time,  I have.  

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Health versus Fitness...and you

A major part of my awakening process happened when I learned techniques for mental or emotional growth…and recognized a parallel to something I’d learned in martial arts, Tai Chi, or yoga.  The cross-reference between emotional and physiological experiences was mind-blowing, and helped me find a “center” that cannot be taught from a book or lecture…you have to actually experience it.

There are faster ways to “get” this than the decades of training I went through, and one of them is the Five Tibetans, which I’ve discussed many times.  While not a complete exercise system (they don’t really touch aerobic capacity, nor do they take you through all six “degrees of freedom”) they are seriously excellent, scalable (at the beginning you do no more than three reps), require little time, no equipment, can be learned from a book (in fact, ALL there really is as “authority” is a book, the “Eye of Revelation” written by a mystery man named Peter Kelder and published in 1939) and provide a pretty darned solid base for fitness/health.  Seek it out—we’ll discuss it more later.  Here’s an article on them, and you can find plenty of free resources on the Web.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Tibetan_Rites
But one thing I wanted to discuss is the place that the “family” of exercises like the Tibetans, yoga, chi gong, joint recovery and so forth occupies.    Basically, they are “health” activities, not strictly “fitness” activities. 

Just recently a friend and advanced martial artist passed away.   In conversation with one of his students, I was dismayed that they were confused about how this could have happened.  He was so strong and skilled!  How could he die like that..?

I wanted to shake her.  The teacher  chain-smoked, ate for pleasure rather than health, kept bizarre night-owl hours, and practiced his martial art at an intensity that would cripple a teen-ager, let alone a man in his later years.   It was only a matter of time.

Fit?  Sure.  Healthy?  Not at all, and if you don’t understand the difference, you are in trouble.
“Fit” means the ability to perform.  Usually to throw something of X weight Y distance. Or to repeat a movement Y times with Z weight.  Or jump so high.  Or run so fast for so long.   It is the external “yang”world of quantifiable activity.  And BECAUSE it is quantifiable, people flock to it.

“Health” is far subtler.  While there are certainly medical markers, most of it is far more subjective.   How do you feel when you wake up in the morning?  How do your joints feel?  Your back?  Is your mood high and positive and balanced?   Do you face life with a sense of optimism?  To get a touch “woo-woo”, does your “chi flow” smoothly through your body and life?  Sleep well and deeply? Have a joyous, spontaneous and powerful sexual expression?  Experience orgasm deeply and fully?  How’s your posture?   Skin tone? 

Most of these are subjective.    Fitness and health are different things that overlap.  But it is possible to be very “fit” or even a champion athlete but suffer degenerative disks, deteriorated joints, liver damage from performance drug use, chronic pain or headaches, a bad back, sleep disruption, violent mood swings, frequent colds and flus, and more.

But MAN!  They can fight, or run, or lift, or tie their bodies into knots like nobody’s business. 
I’ll never forget “Jimmy” the young black belt who asked me: “when will I stop being afraid?  When will I stop feeling like a fraud?”

God knows I wish I had known then what I know now.   When, about six months later I heard he’d shot himself, I realized the depths of his pain and anguish, and cursed that I hadn’t listened more deeply.  Wished I’d had greater wisdom, and pledged to find the answer I WOULD have given him, had I been a wiser person.

The problem with “Jimmy” was that he had put martial skills AROUND his pain and fear, like armor, like a shell.    But although people might “oohh!” and “ahh!” as he performed martial ballet, inside he was unchanged.   If he hadn’t been so wounded, then over time the “shell” would be absorbed into his “bones” shifting his core identity by anchoring performance to honest perception, allowing him to express more powerfully the more authentically he behaved and the more calmly he thought and felt.  That feedback loop is incredibly powerful, and has worked for thousands of years: first the outer world changes, and then the inner.

“Jimmy” didn’t have time for that.   Athletes who seek approval, or riches, or scholarships, or community, or self-expression by tearing their bodies apart in their teens have time to learn and grow and evolve.  But if you work out in the same way in your 30’s or 40’s, you may be asking for trouble.
Coach Scott Sonnon’s “Performance Pyramid” is a beautiful model: you start with health, then atop that put “fitness”, THEN skill, and then competition.   I like to add another foundational aspect: mental/emotional health.

So: mental/emotional health is your foundation.   Exercises like heartbeat meditation, the “Ancient Child”, the “glitter in water” technique, dream journaling and so forth.

Then: physical health.    This is stretching, joint recovery, daily motion (like walking) and enough weight-bearing exercise to stimulate basic muscle tone.

If you choose a discipline like yoga, the Tibetans, or Tai Chi, it is possible for this to shade into the realm of “fitness” in an elegant way, and nothing more is “necessary.”

But if you want to perform in a sport it may be a good idea to add “fitness” activities: how far, how fast, how many, how long, how heavy, etc.  If you don’t add fitness, and create a foundation of health, you “weekend athletes” will tear your bodies to pieces, and call it “age.”  No, it’s ignorance.

Once emotional health, physical health, and fitness are in place, you should acquire skill—efficiency and effectiveness in motion.  This is very important in any activity, but especially those where you must perform under stress or resistance (grappling), encounter random variables (hiking, rock climbing) or attempt to generate force against an obstacle (racquet sports).    All of these things create wear and tear, and the only solution is committing to higher and higher levels of flow and efficiency.  Sports where you translate rotary to linear momentum create sheering forces on the joints that lead to surgery down the road. Be careful!

Now then…if you have all of these pieces: psychological health, physical health, fitness, and skill…THEN you enter the realm of performance and competition.

This may sound like a lot, but if you choose your activities with care, and really think it through.   Health and basic fitness can be acquired in about an hour a week if you are very sly about it (say…by combining Five Tibetans and a basic breathing meditation, plus dream journaling).    More advanced fitness can be gained in another hour a week (say by integrating/adding three TacFit sessions)

The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the most honest you are about the fact that you aren’t a teenager any more, and the more disciplined and focused you are…the less time it takes and the more “bang” you get for your buck.

So…there you are, a critical piece of the body-mind question.   “Jimmy” was missing the first piece: psychological/emotional health.    If I’d known then what I know now, I could have zeroed in and given him specific recommendations. True, he might still have been unable to cope…he might still have ended up destroying himself…

But I believe he would have had a fighting chance.

Namaste,
Steve
www.diamondhour.com

The Genius of Milton Erickson

I want to go through every basic pattern I’ve used or taught in connection with my own life, creating characters and situations in fiction, or coaching clients.  It’s all connected.  The very first breakthrough, and something I’ve spoken of often enough that I don’t think I need to go back through it right now (although if there are requests, I will) is the structure created by cross-referencing the Hero’s Journey (generally in the way I use it: a ten-step perspective on the deep structure of world myth, which simply relates to the process of dealing with any challenge in life) and the yogic Chakras, which is generally (there are other interpretations) a seven-step model of human growth or consciousness, on either an individual or cultural level.  
Those were the X and Y axis, and I could sense the presence of a “Z” that made a dynamic sphere of interaction.  Couldn’t quite label it, but could feel it.    But I could see that if I looked at the Hero’s Journey as a spiral, it became the route between the different “levels” of the Chakras, and the Chakras mapped over beautifully with Maslow hierarchy of human needs.  
They pop up elsewhere.    The hypnotic skills of Milton Erickson are legendary.   I’ve seen and done things using his patterns that were so powerful they were almost frightening.  Stories of this phenomenal man, his ability to create therapeutic interventions that were shatteringly powerful, gloriously subtle, and subversively generative (a client would come to him to stop biting his fingernails, and months later his entire family would be transformed.  Spooky) are so far-out that if I hadn’t had them verified from a dozen different sources, and seen the power first hand, I wouldn’t believe them.   Skepticism is absolutely justified when dealing with images and claims at this level.
I had occasion to speak to the man who originally taught me Ericksonian hypnosis a few months ago, and asked a question I’d not thought of before: why, exactly, was Erickson so efficient and effective at creating healthy change?
And the answer brought me right back to the Chakras.  Paraphrased, the answer was that Milton had a simple belief he applied consistently: that 90% of human beings wanted about 90% of the following things:
1) to mature to become a self supporting adult human being. 
2) To find joy in the “hunting and gathering” of daily occupation.  To satisfy sexual needs with ethics and without guilt. 
3) To have a healthy, vibrant physicality.
4) To find love, marry, and have children. 
5) To live a life of joy, growth, health, and contribution. 
6)To age gracefully
6) To die at peace.
Most people, he believed, wanted most of that.  He simply assumed that if people were not functioning along that path, they had a “knot” in the natural flow of their lives, and helped them un-knot it, freeing up the energy they needed to continue their evolutionary process.  That expanded health would then affect their entire family or social structure. 
One reason that this was so successful, of course, is that no one who had their act totally together would show up asking for help in the first place. Was he generally correct?    I don’t know, but so long as you keep an open mind to the probability that not everyone will fit into this pattern, it seems fairly safe to assume that the majority of people want the majority of these things, and let an orange flag raise when multiple arenas are non-optimal.
(By the way, one of my greatest teachers suggested that you can begin this healing/growth process from the “core survival” level up, or the “love” level “out.”  But NOT from the head level down.  In other words, don’t create a map of reality and then try to fit reality into that box.   Begin either with your actual interactions with the world on a pain-pleasure basis, or with the emotional heart-space connections with family and friends.  Either of those leads to growth, whereas being head-heavy can lead to a disastrous overly-intellectual attempt to mould the world into a form consistent with your presuppositions and prejudices.   Your ego will invalidate anything that doesn’t support your beliefs.    It gets ugly)
 If you look at the Chakras as a path of evolution (survival, sex, power, emotion, communication, intellect, spirit) we can see six thousand years of yogic psychology agreeing with Erickson.    And Maslow’s hierarchy (physiological, safety, love/belonging/self-esteem/self-actualization) would seem to be a different window in on the same process.
This suggests that, for instance, in writing a story you can simply wound a character on one of these levels, and then confront them with the challenges they need to grow and heal.
In personal life, you can look at the “weak link” in this chain and by strengthening it, begin to positively affect everything above it.
And in coaching, raising children, or teaching you can simply look at this basic pattern and assume they want CHOICE on each of these levels, and give them the resources to have it.  They may well choose not to have children (for instance)…but I can think of no reason a person wouldn’t want to be emotionally healthy and financially secure enough to raise and protect them if he wanted to.   At the least, a person genuinely secure in their decision not to have a relationship, or to accept poverty, or weigh 300 pounds will simply smile gently at any suggestion that they secretly wish to change.  What they WON’T do is react with  anger, or resentment—those can be safely assumed to be evidence that the person is acting out of fear rather than love or self-actualization.
So I would suggest looking at that chain.    If you function beautifully on all those levels, fantastic.   If not, and you hear yourself saying: “Nah, I don’t want that” then fine.  But if you feel a flash of emotion, especially anger, you may want to look more closely.

Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com

Nurturing the "Ancient Child"

As I sort out the next phase of my life, one of the things I’m going to is review all the component pieces of the puzzle, relating them to the three major aspects of my life: relationships, career, physical health.  Because of the way I taught myself to write and live, each of these tools has been tested in my personal life, in coaching and teaching, and as means of constructing characters in novels and screenplays.

The “Ancient Child” is a metaphor, a way of looking at the relationship between different aspects of our personality.  While the result of decades of practice, teaching and research, the structure is very simple: visualize the “chakras” arrayed along the spine.   The “child” self is down at the 1st chakra (survival) the adult is in your heart, the “elder” is above the crown.   These positions are flexible: when I want the “child” in my heart I just change my perspective so that I’m looking down from above the heart, straight down to the root, and there the little rascal is, waving at me.

Science fiction giant Harlan Ellison defined success as “to bring into existence, in adult terms, your childhood dreams.”  That’s fabulous.   Combine that with the fact that countless hospice workers have reported that the things people aspire to upon their deathbeds are deep, clear values.  The life-views or values most often embraced include: Love, forgiveness contribution, self-expression, spiritual growth connection, adventure, and regret for not living fearlessly.  

By the way: making this connection does NOT lead to “childish” behavior.   The child may be self-centered, emotional, grasping, and inexperienced, but the “adult” aspect of your personality is now there for guidance.   Connecting heart, body, and mind gives you complete control of the system, perhaps for the first time in your life.  Love someone?  Fine, but don’t form a relationship unless they can also be a business partner and support your values.  Love that fattening food?  Great, but the “adult”part of you has to know where that road will lead in five years: have a “cheat day” once a week, but if you give in to the tantrums every day, you are in serious trouble.

Work at a job that deadens your soul?  Either find a way to love what you do, or begin NOW to plan your escape to a job where you can do what you love.  It is your “adult” self’s job to protect your heart, protect your dreams, “parent” that kid inside you with what I call “ruthless compassion.”   Be a dragon, a gorgon, an amazon, an absolute rabid tiger in protection of your most precious essence.  But…when you have “vetted” a person or situation as healthy for you…that protective icon can just melt and play with spontaneous joy.  There’s nothing like playing in the sandbox with other “kids” who have “parents” strong enough to keep watch.   
So the simple, simple version is that if we live our adult lives in alignment with BOTH our childhood dreams and our ultimate “deathbed” values, we will act with power and authority, move toward love and away from fear, seek connection without codependence, nurture and love ourselves deeply enough to have love to offer others, express ourselves, and hold every moment as precious and irreplaceable.   

We seek creativity, select health over mere performance, seek “flow” (those moments when ego dissolves and we submerge ourselves in an ecstatic or immersive experience or relationship), choose relationships that challenge and nurture us…it goes on and on.  Tolerate fools less gladly, while having compassion for human weakness.   Insist on honesty from the people around us, and offer it…with love and ruthless compassion.

To treat ourselves as we would our most beloved child.  That’s a core, central principle.   Would you want your own beloved child to take this job?   Associate with this person?  Eat this meal? Cling to this emotion?  Accept or deny this experience?

On your deathbed, will this grudge seem worth holding?  Did this phobia really protect you?   Was this experience really worth spending precious hours/days/years that can never be recovered?

Here are three exercises that can help you zero in, make this connection:

1) Sit quietly, listening to/feeling your heartbeat.

2) Visualize yourself looking at yourself in the mirror.   See the light within the image.  Even if only a spark, condense it into a human form: even as little as a single fertilized cell.  An embryo.   A fetus.   A one year old.   A six year old.  WHATEVER YOU CAN MANAGE.  This represents your sense of the undamaged portion of your Self.

3) With your non-dominant hand, write a letter from your “child” self TO your “adult” self.  Let it flow.  That child is looking at who you are now.   Be prepared to hear what she has to say.

4) With your dominant hand, write a letter from your adult to your “child” self.  What do you wish you could reach back and say?  What teachings, lessons, encouragements, resources would you offer to that younger self?  What apologies?   Commitments?   That “younger” self needs to be connected to your heart, or you will seek approval from others, in inappropriate ways (have a rotten relationship history?  I GUARANTEE you that you have a disconnect on this level!  Fix it, and you will automatically cease seeking love, sex, pleasure, “happiness” with inappropriate partners.)

There is more…much more.  Contact me if you need more personalized guidance.  But in all honesty, THIS WILL GET YOU STARTED!   These are the steps that will “root” you in your life and heart, give you control over your energies, and set you on the path to generative healing and Awakened Adulthood.  Without this connection, you can earn a fortune, win marathons, and be loved by millions and still feel suicidally empty.  WITH this connection, you are free to accomplish simply as an expression of who and what you really are—to begin and live your days with joy and gratitude.

A fast measure of this is: can you look in the mirror, and without a hint of irony smile, see the child you were and say with warmth and joy: “I love you.  You’ve done absolutely the best you could with the resources you have, and I am so proud.”

And…perhaps even hear the answering voice of love and approval.  We play all manner of ugly fantasy games with ourselves.  Any hesitation to play a positive game is a disconnect from that simple “what if?” capacity all children have, the ability to shift roles, the dynamic perceptual flexibility that once allowed us to dream of being astronauts, or cowboys, or actresses, or singers, or…

We still have those abilities.  We DO NOT NEED TO “GAIN” THEM.  All we need is to learn to take the brakes off.  To “chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.”  To disassociate with past failures and disappointments.  To extract the lessons from our experiences, but cast off the pain and fear.

To commit to bringing into existence, in an adult fashion, our childhood dreams.  Love yourselves, deeply and without reservation.  Then…send the overflow out into the world, to nurture and support and heal.  The world needs so much healing, and the healing must begin with you.   You do not know the world.  You know your view of the world.  To change what you see, change yourself first. 

Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com

Thoughts on Mastery

In a few hours I climb into the truck and start driving back to Cali.  Tonight, I’ll sleep in a little town called Monroe, Louisiana.  Tomorrow, Maybe Abilene Texas (as long as they have AMC.  I’m not missing Breaking Bad!).

I’ll be listening to Sherlock Holmes short stories, and the multidisciplinary Big History audios (my favorite Teaching Company lessons, covering the history of the entire universe.  Yow!) and thinking. A lot.

Who am I now?  What do I want to do with my life?   What do I want to teach?  Write?   If I was emptying myself out, the most important 20% first, what would that be?  What is the most important gift I can give the world, as a way of saying “thank you” for giving me everything I ever wanted as a child?
So strange.   As a boy I wanted to master martial arts and writing, and the art of loving and living with another human being.

To do that, I had to define what “mastery” was.  Tricky subject, because of the media images we accept in such arenas.    But having been around people considered in the top .1% of various fields, people totally committed to their crafts, people who other experts consider “masters” I began to compare what they were saying about it, this sacred thing, this holy grail of human performance.

Because that was what I wanted.  And a few things kept cropping up in common between all arenas of human life, things said by these “masters” and more importantly…by the people who were clear and powerful enough to lift others up to this almost mythical level.

1) Mastery isn’t a noun.  It is a verb.  It is a path, and those who are committed to that path, wherever they are upon it, may be masters.

2) Mastery isn’t about complicated skills.  It is about simple skills, drilled to the point of unconscious competence, such that they can be re-combined into complex patterns even under stress.
3) Mastery isn’t a mask, not something you “put on”.  It is a natural expression of who and what you are.   You write the way you talk.  You fight the way you live.   You love others as you love yourself.  It isn’t a big deal.  It’s just what you are.

4) Mastery isn’t a matter of learning something new.   It is more a matter of cutting away the inessential.  In that sense, in life there is a point of gathering together, and another point of throwing away.   And while masters continue to learn their entire lives, it isn’t that they are learning “more stuff”.  They are seeing deeper and deeper connections within and between the things they already know.

5) Masters see the path, not themselves.   They know that the concept of “mastery” is a joke if it is supposed to mean you are complete.  Hell, in martial arts, most beginning students think a black belt is the end of a process.  Yeah, the process of being a beginner.  It is analogous to “touch typing”—you know where your fingers and thumbs go on the keyboard, but that doesn’t make you a writer.

6) Masters don’t compare themselves with other people.  Not often.    When they do, they are slipping out of that state, and into ego.  Mastery comes from the real you, the hidden you, the unconscious you.  Oh, you can certainly piss a master off and get that ego going, but they often are somewhat embarrassed afterward.  They know that no matter how far or how fast you go, everyone is the same distance from the horizon.

7) Masters are somewhat embarrassed by the term “master.”    They know what it meant to them when they began the process.  And now that they have surpassed their original dreams, all they see is how much more they don’t know.

I remember years back, after a morning martial arts class, I went to breakfast with my classmates, and was grousing about my performance. One of the other students, a black belt in another system who thought highly of my skills, stopped me.   “Steve, don’t say that,” she said. “If someone as good as you are still feels insecure, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

And I got it.  While the process of growth is endless, and the labels without ultimate meaning, the concept that someone can spend forty years practicing a discipline with all the heart and energy you have, and still feel like a beginner can be depressing to someone who is not learning the inner game.  Who is building a wall around their insecurity.

About thirteen years ago I was teaching a martial arts workshop with a fine young black belt.   Afterwards, we were talking, and he got very quiet.   “When will I stop feeling like a fraud?” He asked.  “When will I believe in myself?”

I had no answer.   About seven months later, he blew his brains out.  When I heard, I realized the depths of his misery, of the “impostor syndrome” that was crippling him, of the fact that he had armor-plated his fear rather than actually draining the swamp.  And the demons had simply bred in the dark until they destroyed him.

And grasped that so many of us seek a way out of that darkness. We seek masters, the golden few who have achieved some standard of skill, or strength, or happiness.  We don’t want to know about their insecurities.  Don’t want to know about their sadness.  We want to know how they got there, and that it is worth the journey.

So…the term “master” isn’t about the master.  It is about the student.   About the need to believe in something worth fighting for in life.

And I know that despite all of the struggle, the sense of incompletion, the failures and heart-crushing setbacks…that my life is wonderful.  I have my soul-mate, even if she drives me crazy sometimes.   I have my writing career, all of the fans and money and awards and acclaim…even if there are ups and downs and side-ways ripples.  I have my martial arts, even if I surround myself with people so much better than I am that it feels like I know nothing. But they accept me as a brother on the path of mastery.  If I accept the gifts they have given me, I don't have the right to luxuriate in insecurity.

Wow.   I will never walk away from my family.   Never stop writing and teaching.  Never stop practicing the martial arts I love.

I guess that makes me a master, whether I laugh myself silly thinking about it or not.  And all I want to say to others is that you really can achieve your dreams, but grasp that the doubting voices will never shut the @#$$ up completely.   It’s their job to natter.   It is yours to walk the Path.

In other words: sharks and icebergs and undertow and all…come on in.  The water’s fine.

Namaste,
Steve
Www.diamondhour.com
(P.s.—remember the special “moving sale” on MASTERING F.E.A.R, THE LIFEWRITING YEAR LONG and THE ULTIMATE WRITING BUNDLE”.  Good until I reach L.A. Next week!)

Leaving Atlanta

Atlanta was a necessary journey for Tananarive, and I adore her and Jason, so this is where I had to be, regardless of the cost.   Now I have to go back home, and see what my life is like.   There is, in all honesty, a huge question mark around much of it, but I can live with that.  It is what it is.   I suspect that teaching will be a larger part of my life than it has been in the past for multiple reasons. The largest is that so many of my teachers have died over the last few years, and that puts the burden of passing on the wonderful gifts they gave me.  Just have to figure out what form that will take, so that my family doesn't suffer in the process.  Thats...just logistics.    I’ll be doing more courses, more private coaching, more lecturing.  

But let me just offer to you a central truth: love yourselves, and each other.   Begin by asking what stops you from having a totally open heart.  Need to feel safer?   Made some mistakes in the past?
Then protect your heart by aligning it with your mind.  Clarify your values.  Know yourself.  Never enter a relationship with anyone who conflicts with your core values, or would diminish your self-respect.  Never enter intimate space with anyone who does not honor and support you.

Need more?  Connect with your child self.  Many of us cannot feel protective of ourselves, but CAN feel protective of our children, nieces, nephews.  It’s instinct.   So ask yourself: “what advice would I give my own most beloved child? Would I want them to behave this way?  Associate with this person?  Hold this belief?”

If you align your adult actions with your child’s heart and the values you hold most deeply, life becomes simple.  Not “easy”, but simple and clear.  And every step you take is taking you closer to your true self, and opens the door to your destiny.

There is nothing, nothing in all the world that is superior to the sense of growth, expansion, contribution…and owning your own life.

This is the core of everything I teach and do, everything I was ever given.  And it is my gift to you.
 ###

As I said yesterday, I feel like having fun as I drive across the country, but that means going outside the budget for the move.    The one area of flexibility I have is money generated on the Diamond Hour site, so I'm having a "moving sale" for the next few days,   The "MASTERING F.E.A.R.", "LIFEWRITING YEAR LONG", and   "ULTIMATE WRITER'S BUNDLE" courses will all be 1/2 off.  Several other courses are now part of the "pay whatever you can afford" program, and the rest are very reasonably priced.

If you've ever wanted to score one of these, please use this opportunity.  You'll save a ton, and I'll giggle my way across the country.


Steve
www.diamondhour.com

Don't tell my wife, but...I want some fun!

On Saturday, I climb into the cab
of a honking big moving van,
 and start driving from Atlanta
to California.    I wanted to do
it as a ritual of passage from one
stage of my life to another, but
Tananarive   put me on a strict
budget for the five days the trip
 will take.   But I'm tricky, and
the Diamondhour "special sale"
 money is in a different account...
and I really, really want more
"fun money" to blow on food,
hotels and entertainment as I
travel.    So...I've decided to have
 a "moving sale" over on
www.diamondhour.com.   The
"MASTERING F.E.A.R.",
"LIFEWRITING YEAR LONG",
and   "ULTIMATE WRITER'S
BUNDLE" courses will all be
1/2 OFF for the next five days...

I'd call that a "win-win".  You get
 some of my best work at a deep
discount, and I get to have fun
while I move my family!

But...SHHHH!  Don't tell Tananarive!


Steve
www.diamondhour.com

First feedback on DANGER WORD

We had our first screening of “DANGER WORD” Saturday night, and are over the moon.  We primarily had cheers, and a couple of very sober, excellent critiques.  And spoke to Reggie Hudlin last night and HE also had input to make.   A few things arise from the current situation clearly:

1) We have a winner.  People love it, and a few sharp-eyed folks see ways for us to make it even better.

2) The primary critique is that IF there is a way to make it shorter while preserving the emotional “punch” we should do it.

3) Award-winning Filmmaker Ayoka Chinzira suggested a very specific way to tighten, and explained why.   Part of her suggestion had to do with the “visual poetry” of film, which is slightly different from the primarily linear approach to story that my conscious mind prefers.  There is a “dream logic” to it, and I realized that I needed to SHUT UP that part of my mind, and listen to what she was saying.

There is a time for the conscious mind to work.  And then there is a time to just let yourself “feel” your way through the process.

This ability to move back and forth between your conscious, direct goals and the “texture” or interstitial emotional material that your audience actually consumes.  To look at it another way, plot is the “bones.”  But…we don’t eat bones.  We eat meat.   The meat is the emotions, and they are non-linear, associative, illogical, and constantly blind-side you.

Plot is important, but the emotions are what they must deliver.  A seriously advanced writer can write simply following images and feelings, and deliver something that is exquisitely structured.  We mere humans need the bones.  Goals are critical for the same reason, unless you are one of those advanced, intuitive souls who just awaken in the morning, follow your bliss, and find yourself fulfilling all obligations and constantly improving and expressing yourself.  I’ve met a few of these people, and usually they were folks who DID plan and set goals at an earlier time in their lives…but have integrated goals, values, and dreams to the point where it is automatic.

The conscious in the service to the unconscious. The logical in service to the emotional.   Total attention to the nuts and bolts of learning to ride a bicycle in service to the inevitable “look Maw!  No hands!” moment we all seek.

##

Another lesson to learn is that we need the input of other minds.  One of the most precious things about life is constantly surrounding yourself with the best, most challenging and perceptive people you can find.  AND THEY MUST BE COURAGEOUS.   I watched Ayo’s face, and she was reluctant to speak.  Why?  Because the rest of the room was raving about what they’d seen.  But probably more importantly, because SHE DIDN’T KNOW HOW WE WOULD REACT.

Many artists SAY they want brutal feedback, but they can’t actually handle it.  They don’t have enough genuine confidence in themselves to be able to hear that something isn’t perfect.

A mature human being doesn’t want to “think” they are good. They want to actually BE good.  The best they can be.  And that means they must accept criticism without expanding it to a global condemnation.   (Can’t leap to: “it all sucks!”  This is childish and indicative of binary thinking.   I see this in political arguments: criticize anything about America, and you are saying “America is the worst country in the world.”  Oh, please.)

I know I have blind spots in every area of performance.  If I don’t get feedback from people who love me ruthlessly, I will never be the artist I can be.   I cannot solicit critique and simultaneously protect my ego.   I have to associate with the dream of being my best, not the illusion that I already am.

It is a delicate balance, indeed.  

Namaste,
Steve

Forgivenes

Forgiveness.   There was recently a discussion of the concept of forgiveness.   Words are all we have, but they are partial.   Require additional explanation so that referents are as clear as possible.   I wanted to examine this controversy from my perspective.  I encountered multiple definitions, INCLUDING the concept of abandoning calls for punishment or restitution.

This last is problematic. To forgive a predator once one has determined that said predator can and probably will repeat the behavior is not in my lexicon.  This is not what I spoke of.
The definition: “to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.” Is closer to what I meant. 

The first allows whatever danger the person poses to the community to continue.   The second simply suggests that you give up YOUR negative emotions toward them.

The reason to do this is that carrying the negative emotions are damaging to YOU.   So Dan Moran, who suggested that forgiveness requires a transaction, was responding to the implications of the first definition: that without contrition, without being 99.999% convinced that this person will not repeat the behavior, no wish to punish them…or remove them from the community…is possible.  And from that position, I agree.

However, a person who is genuinely sorry for what they have done will not, I believe, ask not to be punished. They would understand that it is possible to pretend remorse.  If I hurt someone, I would want that person to be SAFE in the future.  If punishing me sent an example, I would want that punishment.  Would not ask for mercy.  It would be part of my restitution.

This is complicated—as I said, we have nothing but words, and it is often necessary to go deeper: what sense of a word?  In what context? In all instances?  And so forth.

So: Forgiveness means releasing the negative.  If the person is still a risk, you can enforce separation or punishment without negative emotions, as dispassionately as swatting a fly or wiping down a counter with anti-bacterial spray.  Nothing personal.  If they “got away with it”, if you’re going to use that negative emotion to accomplish something, and no other emotion will suffice, then go ahead and hold onto it…but release it as soon as possible.

BUT—if the person is incarcerated?  Or dead?   Or out of your life?  Or you are no longer in relationship with them or they no longer have power over you?  And you still hold onto the emotions even though you have no intent or opportunity of “punishing” or “communicating” with them, and those emotions are damaging your life?  Then for your own sake, you should seek a way of releasing those emotions, or they will poison your life, and those who hurt you continue to do so.

Forgive…but take whatever steps you need to be safe, and keep your community safe.  We hold onto negative emotions because we fear that without them, we will not be safe.  But if you learn the lesson, you can release the emotion.  If you can take action from an emotionally neutral position (admittedly more difficult, a higher level of action) you can act from duty, free of karma. 

You deserve a happy life, with love, and warmth, and healing.   The more we hang onto the damage of our pasts, the less we can have these things.  If you are not experiencing dynamic loving partnership, a healthy body, and a joyous contributory career that expresses your essence, unless there is a PHYSICAL issue, the problem may well be in the emotions you carry from your past.

We all have damage.   But I refuse to let my enemies win.   I won’t let them continue beating me, even after they are dead.

Namaste
Steve
(And thanks to Dan Moran and David Gerrold for their comments)

Love isn't enough

 Some people say that if you love someone, you must forgive them…and they mean “forgive” in the sense of allowing them to maintain relationship with you, even in a context where they can harm you.
I suggest that it might be useful to look more carefully at their definition, and see if it serves them. “Love” is that sense of emotional connection. But it is separate from “trust”, which is an evaluation of their values as expressed in action.  I can love Jason, but I wouldn’t “trust” him to drive me on the freeway.  A person who is emotionally or ethically crippled can be worthy of the one, but not the other.    A marriage, for instance, is not just about love.  In fact, in human history marriages have been more primarily about trust, shared values and commitments, and willingness to protect each others’ lives, property, and genetic investments.  Love was often a luxury. 

There are too many cases where I coach someone trapped in a loveless, damaging, abusive relationship that damages the children, and when asked about the genesis of the relationship, what comes out is the sense that they knew the husband or wife was damaged, or emotionally unstable, but that they had no right to judge. 

Unless they are saying that this was the best they could do (closer to the truth) they are deluding themselves. Their obligation was not to the potential partner.  Their obligation was to any children they might bring into the world.  Anyone who doesn’t find the healthiest, most stable and sanest partner that their heart can hold is a fool.  And in being a fool, they are getting what they deserve—until they wake up from the nightmare.

What makes a marriage or relationship?  My choices would be friendship, love, passion, physical attraction, trust, shared values and interests, similar communication styles, shared goals, matching or complementary energy levels.    Any of these things by themselves might be great for a friendship, but when you blend lives, EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT CHILDREN you would be smart to ask if you would WANT this person to raise your children.  Because if not, you need to ask yourself why you are trusting them with your heart, and your life.  And exactly why you deserve less than those children might.   In “Ancient Child” language, what advice would you give yourself if you were your own most beloved child?

And if that advice is different than you currently give yourself…you have work to do.

Namaste,
Steve

Mandela and Mickey Mouse

At the ceremony for Tananarive’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts, I had the great pleasure of meeting Antoine Fuqua, director of “Training Day” and “Olympus Has Fallen” among other terrific films.  And I had the great pleasure of speaking with him at some length about his work.  A phrase he used caught my interest: that successful artists in Hollywood must be “smugglers of meaning.”

“Smugglers of meaning.”    An evocative phrase, yes?  What he meant by that is that the studios want entertainment.  But once you have pitched the story, and made the deal, you have to find a way to make the story personally relevant to you.  It has to MEAN something to you in some way, find an emotional entry point, or it is just hack work.

“Training Day” was a battle between good and evil for the soul of Ethan Hawke, Denzel as Mephistopheles.   “Olympus Has Fallen” is “merely” a Hero’s Journey riff, a character who needs redemption descending into the belly of the beast and emerging with a healed heart.    The question of whether such “mere entertainments” are substantive is a valid one.  Isn’t this just self-deception and justification on the part of a commercial artist?
I say no. 

1)  There are researches suggesting that people sitting in emergency rooms waiting to hear life-and-death news concerning their loved ones cope better if reading fiction than non-fiction.  I believe that the patterns of fiction allow us to take perspective on our lives.  That any valid dramatic structure has to reflect some perspective we have on life itself.  And that in watching others struggle and either win or lose we see ourselves, and can learn without actually suffering the trials.

2) The classic movie “Sullivan’s Travels” deals with a comedy director who wants to write something “of substance.”  His agent and studio tell him he doesn’t have any damned substance to write about, so he gets into a lavish motor home   and sets off on a motor-trip across America to “connect with the people.”  Hilarity ensues…until he loses his memory and identification and ends up on a chain-gang, where he is hip-deep in “substance” and “the people.”   While there, the only respite is a Friday night movie, a Micky Mouse film, and these tormented lost men roar with laughter at the animated hijinx, Sullivan along with them, for just a moment forgetting his problems.

A Hollywood justification?  Not according to comedian Chris Tucker.  While in South Africa, he had the honor of meeting Nelson Mandela.  Humbled by this great man, he mourned aloud that he had done so little in his own life and career.   Mandela would have none of it.  While imprisoned on Robben Island for 27 years, he said, one of the only rays of light sustaining them was…American comedies, especially those with black performers.  Seeing people like Chris Tucker being successful and free, thriving and making people laugh, gave them hope that their own world might change.
“Mere” entertainment lightens stress, gives hope, allows the “heavy lifters” we admire find the strength to keep going.   Don’t ever criticize the work you create, if you are doing your best.  Give it all the heart you have, and you are helping to heal a heart, give hope.  Perhaps free a soul…or a nation.

Namaste,
Steven Barnes