This weekend was without doubt the most powerful weekend I have ever done. It was challenging, confronting, rewarding and transformational. When I started on the weekend I was a bag of self-consciousness. I have emerged burning with the desire to listen to what people are dealing with and what matters to them and to reliably deliver that which will make a difference and in the process leave each person transformed with more power, freedom and self-expression and I can't think of a better purpose or game to have for the rest of my life. The training is no longer about me but about how I can deliver that which reliably makes a difference and yet it is all about me. It is about me because if there is any area in which my integrity is out the universe will not enable me to make this difference. Integrity is just as real a law as gravity and like gravity cannot be violated without consequence.
I also recognise that this training is about my life, it is not about training with an organisation, for an organisation but it is the training that is going to make me powerful, free and fully self-expressed in every situation to make a difference. In the past I separated this training from my life and what resulted was overwhelm as there is not enough space for both. This has shifted my entire context and from the weekend I re-committed to being a leader for children and young people. Many at the weekend were young people and their energy and commitment and love of life was just so infectious and I want to do my part in having more happy young people like were on this weekend. I think of how different my life might have been if I had the tools to be happy, free and self-expressed in every situation. There is a definite difference between those whose parents had them do this training at an early age and us adults who found it late in life. There is an ease, joy, confidence and fun because they have understood at an early age that life is essentially empty and meaningless and so they are having fun in life and creating and playing big games and this is so inspiring to me.
I have often written about the inner conflict that we all experience as human beings. There is a part of us that doesn't want to grow and expand and it will do everything in its power to ensure that this doesn't happen. I had a first hand experience of this which I want to write about here. At the weekend we had to put together a schedule of commitments. I took care with mine and handed it in. I got the confirmed one back and put all of the commitments in my diary and I didn't notice anything amiss. Returned home on Sunday night so happy with my choice for the next six months. On Monday morning I woke up and briefly looked at my schedule....noooo...it's not possible.....how could I have double-booked myself. Immediately my identity went 'see, you can't even put together a proper schedule, how are you going to do these six months that are going to demand more of you than anything ever has. you should leave'. I am so grateful to my Buddhist training which gave me the concept of 'the witness' so I could watch this rant with more amusement than panic. I had a direct experience of how that part of me that doesn't want me to grow and expand was out to sabotage it if I let it. I did experience frustration and a sense of 'not being able to do anything right'. But then I realised that it wasn't me, it was the identity that is hell bent on survival and not on expansion.
I acknowledged this inner rant and then made the choice to clean up this lack of integrity. To my surprise when I spoke to the person who had put in all the work to ensure that the schedules worked she was so great, laughed and said 'you have had your first breakdown, what will you put in place in the future to ensure it doesn't happen again'. I realised that if I had put in all of my appointments into my diary that wouldn't have happened so I committed to have everything in my diary and re-scheduled my botched up commitment and that was it. I didn't make myself bad or wrong which is where I usually go when I find that I have messed up. All there was to do was to re-commit and put in place something so it wouldn't happen again. This was such a useful lesson for me, I really saw what lengths the identity will go to to sabotage the whole process. I didn't see the error when I was in a position to do something about it. I saw it when there was nothing I could do immediately and the identity could get in there with all kinds of negative self-talk about me and my capacity to do this training. Hell bent to make me give it up. I would really like to acknowledge my Buddhist training that gave me the concept of the witness because from it I can see exactly the game that is being played out in human being.
I am not unique. I would assert that when we quit anything it is because the identity senses in whatever it is that there is the potential for growth and expansion and as it's main purpose is its own survival, it then puts into the mind all kinds of thoughts about quitting. Another weapon it has is that of finding fault about whatever it is which can become so strong that the person finds themselves leaving and using all kinds of reasons as a justification. I don't know this to be true and I'm not asserting that it is...just something to consider. This is how it occurs for me.
When I look back, I began this training with the aim of doing the training to work with children. The first weekend I helped out to see what went on before I committed myself, I had a vicious argument with a woman there (I don't have vicious arguments) and I ended up walking out. It was only the persistent contact of the organisation with me for no reason other than to keep in contact which slowly brought me back. What I see now is that my identity saw the threat here and I didn't have enough self-awareness at that time to see what was really going on and make the choice to stay. The identity won the battle round that time.....but its time is up now. Although, I can't say that because all that happens is that it gets exposed in one form, goes underground to recover, and then emerges as another form, far more subtle and this is the game....the game the ONE PLAYS WITH THE MANY.......
Tonight I have my kundalini yoga which I am looking forward to. I can really feel the effects of this energy in the sharpness of my intuitions and insights. What is strange given all that I intuit is why it's not my path to share any of this openly and not just through a blog. I didn't receive one phone call from anyone about the talk last Thursday night nor any interest in the meditation course. But as it happens, I'm so busy and am going to put some energy into putting together ideas for articles. I've come back from this weekend with so much energy and eagerness to put together ideas and send them to editors. I have a list of editors for magazines in mind, body, spirit and so will send off some ideas and then create a game for if any of them are successful. I've also made the choice not to speak on You Tube....at least...not for now.......
Today I met a guy who was on the journalism course with me. He was without doubt one of the most talented of us but he told me that he still doesn't have a job as a reporter. I couldn't believe it because he got a great NCTJ qualification result and 100% accuracy at a high speed in shorthand. The irony is that by the time he does get a job his shorthand is likely to be rusty. He is young and when I saw how fed up he was I suggested the training I am doing. Not that it's the only thing but I know that it shifts things which are stuck and not going anywhere. And as I said to him 'what do you have to lose, whatever you're doing at the moment, it ain't working'. I was amazed at how free and easy I was about it. Since I declared my stand for children I am so free and easy speaking about it to adults. I know that it makes a difference in what's important to people. And it's the quickest route I know to bring about major shifts in life....but it's not.....the only one
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