FOCUS ON WHAT? 

Looking at a photograph for 10 minutes then covering it up and seeing it in my mind.

Simple.

So excited that the exercises are more engaging.

Haanel tells me thinking of a “purpose” for 10 minutes is hard. My mind will wander.

Tells me I can’t do it.

I like to compete but I notice I’m a little pissed… I can do this.

He was right, all sorts of stuff popped in

Yeah, even Moe, Larry and Curley, The 3 Stooges

So I start thinking about my Definite Major Purpose.

And the Red Sox. Then the Cubs. The Patriots…

Back to DMP. Shake it off… just warming up.

A girl I dated in high school, Rita, pops in. Back to DMP.

Debbie… The 3 Stooges?

I clear my mind.

OK… here we go.

S#@T!

Shake it off, come on… you’ve been reading this thing, with excitement, for weeks…

And so it goes.

OK… I am not willing to surrender but I am willing to get better… sounds great.  Got myself convinced now.

The first day with the picture is even worse than the DMP… I admit it.  I’m pissed.

I know under anger is fear.

Is everyone else getting this?   Damn, it’s just a picture… it’s not like trying to hit a golf ball or juggle.

I flash back to the science that most people can’t hold a thought for 6 seconds.

I know I’ve improved… and a thought flashes in as I sit there, bewildered… and I weep.

CELEBRATE

The word celebrate keeps getting louder.

This is Hero’s Journey stuff… one of the archetypes is “discoverer.”

I celebrate… in my heart… I blare some Billy Joel, limp-sync-ing with a headset on… like I’m at Madison Square Garden.

I look at some baseball cards that bring back warm fuzzy feelings… Billy’s still blaring.

Celebrate!! It opens the pathway to ideas.. anger closes the same pathways

I know feeling good about this discovery will lead to ideas, actions, thoughts I can take to improve… to 7 seconds… to 10 seconds… I know.

Metaphors start rolling in… as soon as I let go of ego and re-read 6.

6-20 The power of attention can be more readily understood by comparing it with a magnifying glass in which the rays of sunlight are focused; they possess no particular strength as long as the glass is moved about and the rays directed from one place to another; but let the glass be held perfectly still and let the rays be focused on one spot for any length of time, the effect will become immediately apparent

BAM!

My heart begins to race… really race.   The mastermind principle pops into my head… and I call some peeps I know who are educators.

Ask them to meet with me.

Set a demand up in my mind… almost instantly it takes hold.   I’m reading Emerson’s Law of Compensation and it occurs to me that if I can find ways to quicken the length of time we can concentrate that will help others it will help me… it will return.  While uncertainty swirls around me, of this, that the giving will return, I am absolutely certain.

I think in pictures, making not being able to see the snapshot clearly more puzzling… but, I press on.

Word pictures… metaphors.

Compass – BAM!

Shapes – BAM!

They fly fast and furious… tons of them.

THE MEETING

I meet with the educators… spell it out for them.   They laugh… it’s a problem they have themselves, with their students… and, well… it leads to lots of meetings with individuals and it becomes clear… I gotta be the guinea pig.   I know it will work…

With some help we define things… then I begin, over a period of years to refine it… but that’s not really important.

My concentration improves without me noticing… because I had, unconsciously, broken from the pack.

Have you “Keyed” something already?

In an attempt to make it easier for others, it got easier for me.  Give more, get more.  More weeping.  Good tears, really good ones; gratitude tears.

I’m driving home from a meeting… thinking about concentration and looking for colors and shapes… when my body, on Route 1 in Rowley, MA begins to tremble.

I pull over… now I’m shaking.

Deciding to live by the compass, my DMP, and without realizing it, it had happened.  I actually had “Master Keyed” something.

It was late that night, maybe 11:00 when I pulled over.

I sit there, elated and baffled.  Next time I look at the dashboard it’s almost 2:oo AM.  Had I really sat there for over two and half hours?

I make a mental note of that moment, the one I am sharing with your right now.   This is big because subby doesn’t know ‘size’ and that I ‘keyed’ something matters… not the size of it.  Dazzling.  The world will never look or be the same to me… I am free!  It is glorious, an incredible lightness of being.

And, over the next month, I slip a little bit… then… I slip a little more… not reading every day… missing a “sit” here and there.

And now, with each session we run… I wonder how many members “miss’ the idea that they’ve already got the Master Key and have used it yet begin to slip in the face of progress.  Just like I did.

The next month was terrible… rationalizing… finding fault with the material… doubting…

What the hell was going on?

Resentful.

Prideful.

Life in general begins to return to what I knew.

I make resolutions. I don’t keep them, not for long anyway…

Then, I hit bottom.

And it is often in despair that we finally come clean and so I suck it up I do come clean with a friend.

My pal Doug from NH likes to say, “stop looking for answers, get different questions.”

We talked a lot over the years about that…

“So,” I ask, “what’s the question?”

“What are you in fear of?”

RESISTING?

All resistance is fear.  Both the death of the life of mini-dramas and the responsibility of what to do with this power will show up in different forms of resistance.

Looking for science to prove this won’t work online.

Looking for scientific proof affirmations don’t work [puh-leeze]

Skipping readings

Not throwing our hearts into the index cards

Ditching the metaphors, as if it were too below us…

Cheating on or eliminating the sit…

Knit-picking over a phrase here and there…

The God thing… and pretending somehow our “religious belief’s” are being threatened, [big PUH-LEEZE there, good grief, like God needs defending LOL]

All of it is fear based.  Deal with it; you are powerful beyond measure… you’ve probably ‘keyed’ something already, [those ‘inexplicable things?] and the adventure is there.

Pick the compass in your heart and stick with it because your soul is rooting for you.  It always has been rooting for you, it will always be rooting for you.

believe

mark januszewski

Give more, get more

Follow Your Bliss