The very next morning after I wrote the blog post for Week 52, while brushing my teeth and thinking about a series of blog posts I want to write at my new site, H3B, I felt a twinge of self-doubt. And thought to myself, “I’m still chipping away at the cement.”
Have you ever noticed in your journey of personal and spiritual soul growth, of self-mastery, the tendency to want to feel, “I’ve arrived.”?
I have.
For me, it often happens after a major breakthrough. The feeling of being liberated from the bits of stone and cement, the exhilaration of freedom, it’s a great cause for celebration within yourself.
You’re moving outside the box of your previous ideas about yourself. Yaaay!!!!!
Then a nagging feeing of doubt creeps in at the edges of your enthusiasm? Argh…
Have you ever started something that you feel very excited about, and then as you begin to work on it, … well, all the criticisms from your past pop up and your confidence sags, have you experienced this?
Subby Acting Up
In the *Master Key Experience, we call this “the old blueprint”. It’s your subby acting up. The Red Pencil Syndrome.
Don’t get discouraged after the exhilaration, when you discover more cement to chip away from your inner golden Buddha.
It’s been centuries in the building.
I have to remind myself, this is a good sign. It means I’m growing.
In the launch videos and again in the *MKMMA webinar for week 1, we watched the story of the Golden Buddha.
This story tells of a Temple of the Golden Buddha.
Many years ago in Thailand, an army from a neighboring country was about to invade a village. The villagers covered the statue of the Golden Buddha with cement so that it looked like a stone Buddha and the army would perceive no value in it.
It worked and the golden statue of Buddha was not plundered. However, over time, people forgot that the statue was actually gold, and not stone.
No one remembered that the Buddha was golden.
Years later, a piece of that cement chipped off of the Buddha, and they discovered, or remembered what they had forgotten, that the stone Buddha was in fact Gold.
He says, “The metaphor is that each of us were born golden by nature. Then, a casing of stone over our inner Buddha cracks. Our casing gets knocked off … piece of our armour.
And we start a journey of discovering our authentic self. The true “Hero’s Journey”.
Our Master Key Experience, in fact, any personal journey or adventure we embark upon, can be seen in the Hero’s Journey pattern.
This becomes the rhythm of our grow. Like the seasons for trees.
Nature’s Telepathy
We receive the call.
Embark on our journey.
Learn from the challenges.
And grow anew.
Share our growth.
And start again.
The circle of the journey from self-doubt to self-confidence comes from living it out.
We’re charting new inner pathways here. It’s normal for this to feel uncomfortable.
It’s helpful to me to remember this is a process, not a final destination.
This past week, I’ve been moving my blogs posts to what is called a hosted website, a website that I own. (I’ll share the link here when I have it fully set up.)
I’ve been rereading my blog posts as I copy, and reformat them to my new blog. It’s been a fun and enlightening process. (Well, to be honest, a few times it was frustrating, too. LOL)
In the process, I’ve been able to re-experience last year’s journey. What a ride that’s been!
When I started out, I had lots of questions in my mind.
I had questions about how masterminds worked. And especially about how “harmonious” masterminds happen. Those questions were answered.
I had a sense of my Definite Major Purpose (DMP), but I couldn’t put that sense into clear and concrete words. Now I can, and I listen to my DMP recorded in my own voice, everyday.
I’ve been interested in “human potential” and personal development for decades. And while I intellectually understood the processes, and in fact have been quite successful in using them, I now “GET” why and how they work the way they do. My understanding grows the more I learn and apply what I learn.
On My Own
I am going through the cycle of the *MKMMA again this year, on my own. I’ll continue to post that journey here, as well as at my new website, H3B. If you choose to continue to follow as I post about my journey, and you share kind and encouraging, harmonious thoughts and feelings about my journey, in a way, that makes you a part of my mastermind. Two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a single purpose.
I’ll share more about that later. And I encourage you to comment and let me know what’s important to you, what you feel passionate about, too.
Additionally, I am writing posts for the weeks of this past year’s journey that are not yet posted. Weeks 23 through 48. (Head’s up for any one who may be following me, I’ll back date the weeks I’ve not posted yet, to coincide with the material from those weeks as they came up in the Master Mind.)
The writing assignments posted by the week were an essential part of the process of the mastermind. I’ve been considering how I want to proceed with future posts and have decided to continue entitling the posts per week.
Over time, as I continue this process, there will be a Week 1 for each year. And anyone coming along later, can click the Week 1 tag and read all the Week 1 posts for the years I’ve been posting. The same throughout the rest of the year. It’s an experiment and a process. I’ll figure it all out as I go along. 🙂
In my new digs … I’ll cover a broad range of topics. I’m a constant learner, and writing is a great way to consolidate learning.
I promise to share what I learn as I learn. To keep the flow, flowing.
And it’s been exciting. I get a giddy feeling inside as I read the comments of the new members who are just getting started with *MKMMA.
Reminds me of how I felt, too, when I first joined. Bubbling over withENTHUSIASM.
There’s a lot to do in the getting started phase of the *MKMMA. Setting up an MKMMA Twitter account. Setting up a blog to write about your experiences. Purchasing supplies, such as index cards, colored pencils and two copies of “The Greatest Salesman” by Og Mandino.
In the beginning, it’s hard to imagine how these simple tools will have such a huge impact on your life. I still use these these simple tools in my own life. I’ll probably use them for the rest of my life. I see them as life skills, once learned they add value to my life, for the rest of my life. 🙂
And that transformation begins before the very first Session.
When people try to describe the *MKMMA to other people they often find it difficult. There’s so much happening, both inside of each person and also within the group. It’s challenging. You get to meet yourself, in ways you may not have ever thought of before.
When you hear the phrase repeated over and over, “Life Changing”, and “There’s Nothing Like It”, … understand this is literally how people feel after they’ve gone through this course.
*MKMMA has become more than a course, or a Master Mind, in the way that most people think of masterminds. It’s become a movement.
Every year, Mark J and Davene conduct surveys of members and from the survey responses they make changes to improve the process.
They do *Kaizen. Continuous improvement. And this year they’re introducing some fun new technology to offer awesome support to the *MKMMA members.
They’ve created an app that people can download on their phone, to help members and their Certified Guides track the daily tasks and exercises. The feedback from inside the membership is that this app is simply AWESOME!!!
Additionally, the Certified Guides are going to be using another app, called Marco Polo, to offer even more amazing support for *MKMMA members.
And they’ve setting up a blogging system within their training site, with lots of cool features. I’ll let you know more about that as I explore it more.
I’ll still blog here, as I continue to learn from the Master Key System.
I’m also building out another website, H3B, where I will post the Master Key blog posts, too.
The Scholarship Applications process closes down this week. (Saturday, 23 September 2017)
A fresh new experience begins for the new members this Sunday, 24 September 2017.
We’ve learned so much in the past year and I’ve seen many amazing slides in our lessons and webinars, but this is my favorite image of them all.
The Pay-It-Forward slide. It’s the Go-Giver concept in action. Give more. Get more.
What you give you receive and get. (Which is a line from a poem I wrote to myself when I was about 16 years old. 🙂 )
It’s the underlying principle of FLOW. Currency, in terms of how energy flows through clear channels.
It’s also one of the more difficult concepts for people new to the Master Key Master Mind Alliance to get. Or maybe, to trust.
Last year, I paid forward for 2 scholarships for people who would like to benefit from the Master Key Master Mind Alliance. I have no idea who those people will be. Maybe they will be someone reading this post?
We give from our abundance. And it’s been my honor to be able to give for another to benefit.
This coming Thursday, 14 September, a special Coffee Q & A webinar will be hosted for people to ask questions about MKMMA.
If you haven’t registered, and you have some questions you’d like to ask, sign up by clicking this link:
(This link will take you to the video’s page, just pop in your email. You’ll have instant access to the videos for a limited time. And you will receive an invitation for the Coffee Q & A via email.)
Also, if you have any questions about this scholarship, let me know. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. 🙂 Drop me a line below orcontact me.
NOTE ADDED: 24 SEPTEMBER 2017:
This years application time closed today. If you want to learn more and get yourself on the waiting list for the next year’s session, CLICK BELOW
And I am so much more clearer in my own sense of purpose and vision for my life.
I’m actively engaging every day on the day-to-day tasks that are creating the long-term vision for my life.
This week *MKMMA was opened up for the 2017 Session. And I’m so excited to be able to share with you how you, too, can join and benefit from this amazing learning journey.
Back in March I became a life-time member. Every person I’ve met through the *Master Mind Master Key Experience is beautiful in heart, soul and mind.
I’m revisiting the videos that help people learn more about what the *MKMMA is about and remember so much what I loved about them. Anchoring in the lessons I learned from them and then deepened over the six month course.
For a short time, until the next session begins, you can view these videos for yourself.
You’ll find them encouraging, heartwarming and highly educational. Even if you decide not to apply for the Pay-It-Forward Scholarship and join in the *Master Key Master Mind Alliance, you’ll find the videos linked here well worth your time.
These were the words I heard inwardly the moment I woke up on the first day of my SIT. I heard them again the second morning, too.
“Listen to the wind…” Then silence. Warm, golden silence.
I wondered at the significance of these words.
Why they would show up in my mind? This is not a typical morning first thought for me. And in fact, I’ve only heard this phrase twice, the first two mornings of my three day silence SIT retreat.
Last week, I talked about how excited I was to try out the SIT adventure of three of days of Silence. In the Master Key Master Mind Alliance we talk often of a practice called the SIT. It’s a practice taught and expanded upon in all the lessons of Charles Haanel’s Master Key. It’s an essential skill to learn when applying the lessons of the Master Key, a daily practice of 15 – 30 minutes. The Silence challenge essentially takes that practice and extends the amount of time. In my case, from 30 minutes to three days.
I’ve given myself some time to process this experience before I published this post. In the beginning, I found myself at a loss for words to give the experience justice. It was a rambling process which took me another 3 days to journal.
Surprisingly, a lot happened during three days of doing nothing. LOL
Here are seven key self discoveries from my three day Sit:
Discovery #1: Talking serves a purpose.
One of the first glitches I stumbled on was the logistics of making breakfast with my husband in the morning. There is a functional aspect to talking that we often take for granted. “Have you salted the eggs, yet?” Yes. No. “Where’s the paper I need for my appointment?” “Here it is.” I hadn’t realized how much of this we do in our daily routine. Daily, practical, taking-care-of-life, talk.
The next aspect of talking that jumped out to me was how we talk to convey affection. We have a tradition in our home where we say “Good Morning, Love” enthusiastically, every morning when we wake up. And we give each other a good long hug. I missed that when I started the silence. In fact, this is one thing I was ecstatic to speak as soon as the silence was ended. “Good Morning, Love!!!” It was awesome to be able to say that again. And gave me greater appreciation for that one small act of daily kindness.
Discovery #2: Around an hour and a half, the quality of the silence changes.
This was so consistent that I became curious about it. I discovered a bit of research into the affect of silence on our brain that I will blog about in a future post. It was fascinating to observe this. It’s as if the brain shifts into a different gear, and the silence deepens. The mind chatter completely disappears. And from some inner well, wisdom rises up. It was very still, and extraordinarily peaceful.
I started getting imagery that built up visualization for my goals and purposes. And fresh ideas related to my personal pivotal needs. At first, I just observed and thought to myself, I’ll remember this and journal on it at the end of my three days. But by the end of the first day, there were so many insights and images, I decided to jot down some highlights on a white board on my frig. It helped jog my memory when it came time to journal.
Discovery #3: The weight of anticipating the future.
For the first few hours on the first day of my SIT, I noticed that I was thinking a lot about writing this blog post. I was aware that I would be writing about my experience and I was observing my experience in anticipation of what I would write about. Eventually I realized that this anticipation of the future was interfering with my experience of the present silence. The result was that I was blocking what wanted to show up, making the experience less than authentic.
I started the process of stopping the thoughts about a potential future blog post. Then a phrase bubbled to the surface of my mind, “I am feeling the weight of anticipating the future.” This was an interesting way to phrase this, to consider how thoughts that anticipate the future carry weight, or feel like a weight to my mind. As I observed this more, I could see how this habit of trying to anticipate the future was like a ball and chain on my mind. I could feel the heaviness of this habit on my mind and in my life. I made a decision to notice more when I do this and to let go of the anticipation. And immediately practised this during the rest of the SIT. I felt that weight lift. I felt lighter.
Discovery #4: The weight of NOT doing.
One of the first thoughts I had when I started the SIT on the first day was a single word, indolent. It was a curious word to me and I made note of it to look up later for more consideration.
On the second day of the SIT, mid-afternoon. I faced an inner crises. I was feeling frustrated with NOT doing. I felt an inner pressure to want to stop the SIT and start doing, to start acting on all the ideas and insights surfacing from the SIT. The silence was not so much a challenge for me, it was the NOT doing.
I was feeling the weight of NOT doing. What surprised me was how emotional I felt when that phrase came to my mind. There was something deeper to this…?
I brought this into the SIT; the emotion connected to the statement. What ensued was an extended period of time where memories from my past surfaced and I could clearly see the thread of a pattern that extended all the way back to my pre-school years. As I stayed with this process, I gained greater and greater clarity into this pattern to the point that I could say the statement, “I feel the weight of NOT doing,” without feeling any emotional energy.
One insight indicated an inner pressure to perform, to do, to act. This related to that first word, indolent, that I got the first morning. To SIT for three days triggered an inner thought that to do nothing for three days was indolent.
The second insight came as I began to see how I have habitually chosen to hold myself back from acting on my potential because I felt I ought to do so to protect other people’s feelings. I could see when I first became aware of making that choice, and how that pattern has led me to where I am today. I released that pattern with understanding and compassion. And felt the weight of this habit lift.
I felt FREEDOM!!! Visceral Freedom!!!! Liberation …
This was a HUGE breakthrough for me. Releasing a major block preventing me from doing my one thing.
Breakthroughs allow a massive release of blocked, or pent up, energy which explains my next discovery.
Discovery #5: Feeling antsy precedes a breakthrough insight.
I almost didn’t make discovery #4. Just prior to that discovery I became so physically agitated that I nearly quit the SIT. I got up and paced. Several times.
Even my husband felt the antsy energy, and broke silence with me, slipped and started talking to me.
This was an energetically and physically uncomfortable time for me. It lasted for about an hour and a half, in the afternoon. At first I thought it was related to pent up physical energy. I skipped my morning walk with the dogs on the second day of the SIT. As the sensation of wanting to bolt, as if I was cornered, intensified, I recognized this as the inner state of oscillation.
(I’ll write a future blog post further explaining oscillation. I feel it’s important and helpful for people to understand what’s happening and why they are feeling what they are feeling, just before a breakthrough. This understanding will help you stay with the process at it’s most challenging and uncomfortable point. What follows is well worth staying with the discomfort.)
The ants-in-my-pants churning sensation of energy came from decades worth of blocked energy pressing against an inner dam (block, or double bind, thought pattern) about to be released.
Discovery #6: Sometime on Day 3, I noticed that I finally felt rested. Genuinely and deeply rested.
Within two hours of the highly intense antsy energy feelings, and the subsequent breakthrough in a SIT, I felt magnificent calmness and inner stillness.
This continued through the third day. At one point I noticed that I felt rested in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. I didn’t even realise that I had not felt rested before. An inner restlessness is often our inner self calling us to our true self. In silence, you become present to your authentic self. I’m a very peaceful person, so I was surprised to experience this deepen to the degree that it did.
When people talk about how an extended Silence feels like a mental vacation, I can relate. This how Day 3 felt, all day long.
Discovery #7: Silence retreats are a great way to regain focus if you’re spinning your wheels.
This is one of the most down-to-earth practical reasons for doing an extended SIT, taking a Silence Retreat. There isn’t a better way to reboot your focus than to step back from the noise of your daily life and do a deep listen within.
I continue to learn from the experience of this extended Sit and highly encourage anyone who feels stuck in their lives to give it a try. This three day Sit is a turning point for me, much cheaper than a fancy vacation and far more beneficial. I came out of it with a plan of action I had not considered before, and at least two major blocks to my forward momentum cleared up and gone!
It’s easy to do. Anyone can do it. You’ll gain gems of self-discovery, wisdom and insight for yourself.
Next week, I’ll give you some tips on how to set yourself up for success for your Silence Retreat.
A few days after the Silence retreat a quote showed up in my life that shows how connected we are at a deeper level and that the universe listens to us as we listen to it. Universal Wisdom.
Listening to your wind …. to your soul … to your Spirit Within. I didn’t hear this inward counsel on the third day, because by that time, I was listening …
In last Sunday’s webinar we were encouraged to SIT in Silence at some point over the next two weeks, for at least a day, or more.
I love the SIT’s and as I listened to Mark J and Davene talk about the value of an extended SIT or period of Silence, I got excited. I love the challenge of this, the opportunity to try this for myself and discover what happens.
I got a little bit of clarity about how it works and talked with my husband about it. I live in a great space that is conducive for this. But he needed to be on-board to cooperate with me, during this time.
He agreed and we scheduled three days of Silence for this upcoming week, Monday through Wednesday.
Last night, it hit him, this was for real.
He started asking questions like, “Can you listen to music?” “No,” I answered, “that’s not silence, that’s listening to music.” He asked, “Can you go for long walks.” I said, “Yes.”
I walk the dogs every day, and this time may be a challenge for me, since I often talk to the dogs on a walk. I may need to adapt and not take them on walks.
Then he said, “But you can’t take a long walk after dark.” I could, but we live way out in the country, away from people and lights, and it’s not a good idea to walk alone after dark.
I say to my husband, “We talked about this extensively. You agreed to work with me on this. What’s up?”
He tells me, he’s got an evening meeting scheduled with a national coordinator for a group he’s involved in that he can’t reschedule.
Ahhh…. Now this all makes sense. ( LOL )
He has a booming voice, often times I will put music on when he’s in a meeting, so I can hear my own thoughts and to tune out the meeting.
Our solution, I’ll wear noise canceling headphones and I will SIT upstairs during his meeting time.
A curious “pre-effect” to my decision to SIT in Silence for three days this week, is that I’ve been spontaneously going into longer silences this past week.
It’s like my mind is gearing up for the experience, sort of like preparing for a mental vacation.
Another curious thing I observed this week, that I feel is related to what I’ve been doing in this course, is that on Friday morning, I lost my entire journal for 2017. That’s over 259 pages of journal notes. That’s a huge loss of time, effort, energy, work, information.
I accidentally overwrote the journal with the quote above. (Which I chose to pay attention to, as well.)
I tried several ways to try to recover the previous version of the document. None worked. It’s due in part because of how I keep it on a thumb drive rather than on my main computer.
I had thought many times over the past few months to back it up, but always ignored that little impulse to do so. It’s gone. All gone.
In the past, I would have become emotional about such a loss.
This time my reaction was different. I didn’t hardly have any reaction, at all. I felt a slight twinge of sadness. But it passed almost as soon as it arose.
I think this may be related to what we’ve been reading in Scroll V.
“I waste not a moment mourning yesterday’s misfortunes, yesterday’s defeats, yesterday’s aches of the heart, for why throw good after bad.”
And so on. Letting go of yesterday, I liberate tomorrow.
Emotionally, I very quickly accepted the situation. Let it go, and then restarted my journal from the point it happened. 3.3.2017.
As I remember key points I make note of them in the new journal document. And I back it up every night now. 🙂
On an entirely different note, more from the digital connections aspect of this course. Yesterday, I finally learned how to use Inoreader. I’ve gotten all the *MKMMA blogs I follow moved into it.
It’s a wonderful organizational tool. It’s going to help me simplify catching up on reading all the *MKMMA blogs I follow.
After my three days of silence, I’ll write a blog, and then start reading everyone else’s. I’ve gotten a bit behind on the reading, because it was an organizational mess for me. Looking forward to learning how everyone has been doing these past couple of weeks.
When you can see the invisible, you can do the impossible. Mark J.
Humans create from the workshops of our imagination.
I’ve been thinking about this all day. And as I thought about it, my Dad’s workshop kept coming to mind.
The house I grew up in had a separate garage. It sat away from the house closer to the alley. And it was unfinished inside. The floor was dirt. There were no lights. No power outlets. I don’t even know if the power was hooked up to it. I remember piles of junk laying all around. It was always dark in there except for the space where the sunlight shone through the door, during morning hours.
I don’t remember anything usable in that garage. Except for a time when my little brother secretly captured and raised pigeons in the attic. (I discovered them and he was outed, LOL)
I remember thinking of how it was such an underutilized space. And often imagined ways to turn it into a small apartment.
As a kid, I didn’t know how to do anything with what I imagined. And, it was supposed to be my Dad’s space. His garage. He wanted to finish it out and make it a workshop.
My imagination regarding that garage, growing up, was idle imagination. It lacked power.
Years later …
I grew up. Joined the Air Force. Moved away. Traveled and lived in other states and countries.
Years later, I came back home and my Dad had completed the conversion of that dreadful, dark, space into an amazing shop.
My Dad was a diesel mechanic. His Dad had been a carpenter, and an inventor.
My Dad proudly showed me his father’s tools and equipment and said, “There was nothing your Grandfather couldn’t do. He had even invented a type of steam engine in his day. “
Some of what looked like piles of junk laying all around when I was a kid, were the tools and equipment that once belonged to my grandfather.
I sat in that shop while my Dad worked on my car and learned so much about my father that I never even imagined when I was a kid. It was always there. But, my father was a quiet man, I didn’t hear any of his stories growing up.
It seemed there wasn’t anything my Dad couldn’t do. And I never knew that about him.
I have never seen a workshop before, or since, that was as well equipped and organized as my Dad’s workshop.
He had specialized tools for landscaping equipment, cars, diesels, motorcycles, bicycles, and surprisingly carpentry. Everything someone would need to repair essentially anything around a home, and vehicles, my Dad had in that workshop.
He had poured concrete for the floor. He installed power outlets for small equipment and even big heavy duty equipment. Everything was neatly organized, on built-in shelves and could be found right away. He had bright shop lights, and even a pull down ladder to the attic, which was also meticulously designed, lit, and well organized.
My Dad had built a vision for this workshop in his mind and heart for twenty years or so, before he was able to create it.
Looking around his workshop, I was stunned at the details of his vision. I could not have imagined what he imagined. It all came out of his mind, his vision, his dreams, his thoughts.
Thinking is the true business of life, power is the result. You are at all times dealing with the magical power of thought and consciousness. What results can you expect so long as you remain oblivious to the power which has been placed within your control? (Haanel 20.4)
Until I started writing this blog post, I had not thought of my Dad’s shop in terms of imagination and creating. Today, as I remember this, I’m seeing my father in an entirely new light. I have a whole new appreciation for him.
Since that first time in my Dad’s workshop, I’ve moved out to the property where I now live. When it came time to start building our home, my Dad surprised me by giving us Granddad’s old lathe.
My grandfather had hand built this lathe so he could build the house my Dad grew up in.
While we were building this house, I would come in and run my hand along that lathe and feel the poignancy of the connection with my Grandfather, that something he built was helping to build our home. Even now, my eyes tear up as I think about this.
When I was growing up, the story, or narrative I was living was of the unfinished, dark, junk-filled garage.
However now, in writing this blog post, I’ve realized I need to integrate the rest of the story, the well-lit, organized, finished workshop.
And the legacy of my father and grandfather demonstrating the power of their imaginations by their actions.
I consider reality to be fluid, like a lake.
Much of how we experience our lives comes from the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our lives. The fluid, neuron-plasticity of our brains allows us to learn new things, to reinvent ourselves, and to frame our experiences in new ways that support living our purposes.
Today’s blog post, uncannily answers a question, “What am I pretending not to know?”
I have tons of projects around this house and property. And it’s very much tied to my definite major purpose.
Sometimes, I feel stuck, or like I’m spinning my wheels.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all that needs to be done, like I did when I was a kid, thinking about the garage.
I’ve noticed that thinking doubtful or discouraging thoughts drains my energy. These thoughts literally dissipate my focus. They deplete my power.
It changes my story
Remembering my Dad’s workshop and connecting to how our imagination is our workshop, along with integrating the rest of the story, that I’ve pretended not to know, supercharges my energy. It changes my story. I can see how the old unexamined story was shaping some of my present experiences.
I imagine this will change now. (Breakthrough. Better quality fuel for my imagination.) 🙂
I know how to do this. Both my Dad, and Granddad are wonderful models for this!
Power is the fuel which fires the imagination. (20.8)
This week and next we’ve been asked to consider how we may use fear, hurt feelings, anger, guilt, and/or unworthiness to expand our comfort zone.
Emotions, whether we consider them positive are negative, are neutral. We make them “good” or “bad” by the Law of Dual Thought. We attach an idea to a feeling, and the attachment of that label shapes how we experience what we feel, or think.
Feelings, like thoughts, carry important information.
Often times our feelings bring information from a part of ourself outside our conscious awareness. Going into observer mode helps us draw out, or educe, what we are trying to bring to our awareness.
What wants to be known next?
On Sunday, when I first considered how these emotions or feelings help expand our comfort zone, I thought in terms of turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones. When we don’t look, or avoid, or deny a feeling that we think feels uncomfortable, it becomes a stumbling block. We trip over it, it blocks our path, or energy. We contract, rather than expand.
However, if we look at these blocks, observe them and learn from them, they become instead stepping stones.
I thought of how mistakes show me the next thing I need to learn. Fear, hurt feelings, anger, guilt, and/or unworthiness can do the same.
Stone Gate Threshold
On Monday, I started thinking about this in terms of the Hero’s Journey. I thought of how the threshold guardians test the hero and when the test has been met, the guardians may then become allies to the hero in her journey.
Then Tuesday, I remembered a time when my daughter was about 3 years old. She developed a fear of snakes. I’m not sure why, or how, but it had become palatable to her. It was quickly becoming an almost irrational phobia. I didn’t want this to take hold of her so I did some thinking about what I could do to help her with this fear.
I thought of how often what we fear is what we don’t know, or understand.
I bought some books about snakes. We visited places where she could observe snakes in aquariums. We looked for snakes while out on walks in nature. Very quickly her fear turned into understanding, fascination and appreciation for snakes. For years, she would come home with shed snake skins, and skeletons that she found while out playing in a field close by. She had become attuned to the beauty of a snake. I figured this is why she seemed to find so many snakes in nature.
I’ve seen other people do this with Native American arrowheads. Or rocks of a particular type. We do this in MKMMA with colors and shapes, and virtues.
Law of Growth. What we focus on grows.
There’s a statement that Davene made in Sunday’s webinar, and I really love this. She talked about how instead of bracing our selves for these feelings and emotions we can embrace them.
I remember making a decision to do that when I was a teenager. I was what is called, “ultra-sensitive”. I feel way too deeply and intensely for my own good. I have what one doctor called a highly-sensitive nervous system. Lots of people like me, will often turn to self-medicating to deal with this. I decided to do something different. I can’t say why I made that decision. I just did.
I decided to embrace the pain, to move into the uncomfortable feelings.
Rather than try to avoid them, or push them away. I decided to feel what I felt. Maybe this is how I discovered how much information lies in these feelings. And by embracing them and moving into them, especially with a neutral observer eye, I discovered how much I can learn about myself, and what is happening within me, my inner life.
I used what I learned about myself to learn new skills in managing my emotions, my thoughts, my feelings. In this way feelings, comfortable and uncomfortable, were transmuted from stumbling blocks into stepping stones on my journey of self-discovery and learning.
This has certainly expanded my comfort zone with the world within.
This week my Franklin Makover virtue is self-control. I feel this particular virtue has been a big bugaboo for me, ever since my Mom introduced “virtues” to me when I was a kid.
Over the years, as I would examine myself regarding the virtues, self-control is the one I felt I lacked the most. I have always admired people who are self-controlled. I watch them, almost in awe, hoping to learn just how they do that, be self-controlled.
I have almost unbridled enthusiasm. Untamed exuberance. And insatiable curiosity. High energy out the yin-yang. I wonder to myself, How do people pull off this self-control virtue, so well. I’ve explored this topic lots over the years.
The area that seems to get in me the most trouble with self-control is my curiosity.
I love exploring, discovering, learning. I was blessed as a child in that I was allowed free reign to explore. And it’s one of my favorite things to do.
Now, the curious thing is that curiosity is a strength. It’s a wonderful quality to have, and has served me well over the years. However, sometimes it’s like my curiosity leads me, rather than me leading it.
And when I start down a trail of discovery, I can lose all sense of time and space, getting into that awesome experience of FLOW. And completely forget everything else I had planned to do that day.
It seems I have curiosity in abundance. If you could bottle it and sell it, you’d never have a bored person on the planet.
But it can and often does derail my focus.
Embedded in our strengths are hidden weaknesses which indicate our hidden strengths. Usually they are aspects of one quality. And in this case, my strength and weakness appear to be aspects of my natural curiosity (strength) run amok (weakness).
Self-control is often equated with will power. An interesting discovery in terms of will power is that it works like a muscle. And like muscles, your will power energy becomes depleted as you use it. You sort of have to refuel your will power tank up as you go along. And also like muscle training, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
So, I’m rocking along, noticing the weakness in the strength of my curiosity and how it derails my self-control. I’m also reviewing and reading Haanel. Hannel mentions the difference between purposeful imagination and idle imagination. One builds a constructive use of our imagination and the other dissipates it.
This is also mentioned in the Bible in terms of activities that build the Spirit and those that dissipate it. Follow the energy, so to speak. What increases your energy, Spirit, will power, imagination, and so on.
Hmmm… me thinks. (lol)
Is there such a thing as “idle” curiosity? … I think so.
Then in Scroll V, Og talks about idleness, too. Yep… Dinny wheels turning.
In my journey for learning self-control I discovered the value of serenity. Serenity became a balancing energy to my often very hot, intense, exuberant enthusiasm. Yes, enthusiasm is a positive thing, but early in my life it caused me some problems, until I learned to temper it with serenity. (Well… it sometimes still causes me some problems with some people, but, nothing like it once did. 🙂 )
In terms of learning some self-control with my wonderful sense of curiosity, I’ve decided to play with adding a card in the Herald Deck.
I don’t know about anyone else but I really love the Herald Cards. They are such a great tool for self-development. I’m thinking with myself, experimenting with the insight I learned about balancing enthusiasm with serenity. Is there a way I can apply this to bring the virtue of self-control to my strength of curiosity?
So here goes: taking the idea of calm curiosity into a SIT.
Today, I am grateful for and celebrate my abundant capacity for curiosity, while also focusing and aligning my curiosity toward the expression of my Definite Major Purpose (DMP).
It’s a work in progress. And so am I. Enjoying the journey.
Edina - Master Key 