DO IT WITH THEM

When putting the Master Key Mastermind Alliance together we masterminded often about how to improve the experience.  I knew that the conversation….after platforms, workbooks configurations and looking at previous surverys from former members we examined would eventually come down to first hand experience.

“You know how you are,” quipped The Fabulous Davene, “you’ll keep adding ideas without having a real measure of what it really will take time-wise.”

I start “but…”  Interruption.   Appropriate interuption.

“You can’t add things in, all those things, that you’ve been doing for a while.”

“But….”

“STOP!” she yells.  “I know, I know.  ‘Yes they can‘ is what you are going to say and we both know you are right but I don’t think you remember what it’s like in the very beginning.”

“The content?” I ask sheepishly, hoping to distract her.  No luck.

“Yes my darling, [sarcastically].  Some exercises are great.  Tell you what.  You do it with them, everything, then ask them later if they feel they could have handled more right out of the starting gate.”

And, I do remember.  OK, I didn’t remember but a 10 minute sit reminded me, clearly, how I felt.   Like a juggler.  Check that, like someone learning to juggle.

I know that learning new ideas is one thing but learning new ideas, exercises, sits, index cards, Og… that turn around weekly, especially with result driven, measuring people…..everything we’ve been conditioned to believe…..is, well, a juggling act.

What I know is that practice makes perfect habits…..the trick is practicing the correct things.  And we’ve all been conditioned to practice, pretty much, the wrong things when it comes to thinking.

I thought it was really interesting that on most early calls the members struggle with letting go of both the ideas of results and plans.   The pied-piping architects, govenments, schools, etc.,  for decades have told us we must have a plan….not really a good or bad thing……but a plan for our life?  At 18?

And, of course, we’re kids who want to be grown-ups…..so we ‘buy in’……and spend years ‘practicing’ and ‘prefecting’ this habit of not thinking for ourselves…..believing, of course, if we follow this plan….work till 65, buy a house, have kids….we are ‘normal’……we never question is that ‘normal’ is good……or if we even want to be it….and we end up competing is a game that, be what it may be, is, at it’s very core…..encourages and reinforces NOT thinking for ourselves.

THE CARDS, DMPs, WEBCASTS & SOCIAL MEDIA

Then came, for me, as I was juggling the idea of hanging on to ‘some’ stuff my mind was loyal to while learning new stuff….. A blessed week 3 and Van Morrison.

Really, why was I hanging on to so hard….what thoughts, [you know, competing, results, action, goals, don’t quit etc.] was I defending so much despite knowing my life was not what I wanted…..not what I had hoped for…..and I’m not talking about money or stuff here…..I’m just talking about being happy.   Thoreau’s message that ‘most people live lives of quiet desperation‘ was truer by the day.  His idea had passed into a “now” reality for me.   I was living that quiet desperation.

Where was the adventure?

Where was the optomism?

Where was the swagger?

Where had the willingness to take a risk gone?

So I’m listening to Van Morrison’s “And It Stoned Me” …..and a line pops out…..’we saw the man from across the road with the sunshine in his eyes‘

On a cassette tape.

I rewind it.

Again.

Again.

Again.

I start speeding home…..something I never do.  Speed never appealed to me….at least with cars anyway.  Speed of thought?  BIG FAN.   Cars?  Nope.

I crack open the lesson I am on, Lesson 3 and … BAM!   There it is!

WEEPING

I weep.  I did a lot of weeping …..the discoveries just, well, “stoned me,”  as Morrison’s song beautifully and hauntingly resonates.   OK, I still do a lot of weeping…..feels good to be overwhelmed with awareness….a simple  ‘clue’ could drive me to my knees….anyway…..I crack open lesson 3…..and the Master Teacher’s words are piercing my soul is a glorius way…..”You are the light of the world.’

3:5 The Solar Plexus has been likened to the sun of the body, because it is a central point of distribution for the energy which the body is constantly generating. This energy is very real energy, and this sun is a very real sun, and the energy is being distributed by very real nerves to all parts of the body, and is thrown off in an atmosphere which envelopes the body.

3:13 It is evident, therefore, that all we have to do is let our light shine; the more energy we can radiate, the more rapidly shall we be enabled to transmute undesirable conditions into sources of pleasure and profit. The important question, then, is how to let this light shine; how to generate this energy?

Van Morrison jumps back into brain… “the man with the sunshine in his eyes”

BAM!  Weeping.   All the reading of the cards, the shapes…..the masterminding, trying to be sure about my PPNS…..finally pays off in one glorious moment…of truth.

I know.  I realize, for me, that day…..Van Morrison’s single line I kept listening to over and over was the “call to action” from within.  What if, I think, the sunshine was pouring out of my eyes!

More weeping and it all comes together is the second part of 3:22 –  What, then, is the most natural way of making the desired impression? Mentally concentrate on the object of your desire; when you are concentrating you are impressing the subconscious

And suddenly all the juggling I had created to try an impress my subconscious mind was not only “worth it” … it was kenetic!

Me?  The light of the world?  That would be the normal response of the guy I had been…..doubt, fear, ego….whatever…..

I know that the Master Teacher spoke of the world often in terms of those around us, the entire planet.

I decide, that day…..I want to be the man with the sunshine in his eyes, that all in my presence feel safe, valued and treasured.

I found my dharma…..it humbles me while simutaneously giving me confidence.

Instant change.  I began to hunger for the work, the work of learning more about this remarkable mechanism between our ears….and how to use it….for manifesting dharma…..and I find my passion in the process….and optomism, willingness to take risks again……

I am “back to the furture”…..like a 10 year old….vitalized and unconcerned about 4 years from now or 20 years from now.

Simply put, I am in the now….loving the exercises, disorganization vanishes, chores shift to service and I know, really know that I don’t know what is going to happen but that the purpose is pure and good and good things, better and bigger than I can imagine are there….

…..and suddenly, really, I no longer think about moving into the unknown but wake up, “with a vitality I have never known before”… I wake up with certainty that in the uncertainty of the day there will be discovery, adventure and if…..if I pay attention, a chance to serve.

It would be a disservice to you and a disservice by you to compare and measure timelines here.  It just happened to be Week Three for me.  It was about 20 weeks or so for the Fabulous Davene.  It’s not a race, it’s about letting go.  And we let go when our head finally yeilds to the heart and we become willing to give up the life we have for the one we desire.   The “moment” we become self-directed always happens; sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly but I can promise you that it always happens for those who are willing to do the work.  The key seems to be faithfulness to the behaviors asked for … instead of focusing on results.

The oddest thing for me, wonderfully odd I might add, was suddenly the deisre, the demand for instant gratification and convience vanished.   Replaced, astonishingly with patience, internal harmony and, best of all, moving forward in the dynamic of uncertainty.  In English?   Fear was gone.

mark januszewski

world’s laziest networker