Most people, to one degree or another, are ruled by fear. Most of that fear is fear of nothing-in-particular, just fear. And some of that fear is being afraid of getting hurt, of being laughed at, of looking foolish, of making a mistake, of losing face.
But fear is fear, and on the horizontal plane, for the horizontal self, there is nothing more important than to listen to the fear and avoid doing anything that awakens fear.
Result: your life is stagnant, your self-respect is disappearing, and you shrink, and shrink. It doesn’t feel good.
Fear is getting stronger, and you are getting weaker.
I could tell you: don’t listen to the fear… but it won’t work. What you will hear: fight the fear, ignore the fear, suppress the fear… and that makes it even more powerful.
So, what can you do to reverse this shrinking process, this you getting weaker in the face of fear that’s getting stronger?
The strategy that I recommend is the “tiny steps often” strategy. I call it the wing strengthening exercises
I learned it from Landmark Education. I am not sure they are conscious of it; I think they view it as ‘just what we do.’ Big mistake.
In Landmark Education ‘they’ ask you, the participant, to promise actions that are slightly beyond your capacity to perform: share what you got out of a program, invite someone to an introduction, promise to call someone on the phone.
The participant, 99% of them, hears: ‘do our work for us, bring us more meat…’ lol. Solicitation. Proselytizing. So they don’t do what they are asked to do, or they do it from the “wrong mindset” and they don’t increase their wing-power, their capacity for creating, their capacity to act in spite of fear.
I was a foreigner, and I heard something different. I heard: practice your wings.
Because most things you want in life come from other people, practicing going beyond where fear normally stops you, are the most frightening and most useful actions you can take. Approach, talk to, share, get intimate, ask questions, maybe offer your help, services, are some of the “wing-strengthening” actions you can contemplate to practice. You can increase the difficulty of the actions as your wings are getting stronger.
For other people, talking is easy… for them staying with what they chose to do… and pull themselves back when they are pulled out of it is a “wing-strengthening” exercise. Committing is near impossible for them… therefore they need to practice committing, small commitments, or committing for a short time… and your wings get stronger and stronger every time.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but you always strengthen your wings, regardless.
For some people learning something new is something they avoid. They can make their wing-strengthening steps by reading just one or two more lines per day, one or two more things they can learn every day… the point is not in remembering what you learned, the point is doing it regardless. Whether you remember or not, whether you even understand or not. Your wings don’t care… they get stronger either way.
For some people coming to a class with me is horrifying. They have been there, and they kept being afraid… for them the wing-strengthening exercise is to come and come and come… regardless of how they feel.
On yesterday’s Playground I asked people. I found previously practiced strengthening of the muscle of “I can do it” was the strongest and most frequent reason people demonstrated confidence in taking a new action in the direction of their dreams.
In another word: if you have taken steps, before, in spite of fear, the next step is easier. If you see yourself as someone who can take a step in spite of your fear, you are more likely to do it again.
I can do it
The cumulative effect of all the wing-strengthening exercises is that your world slowly turns from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can do it’… in fact, ‘I can do anything’.
That is where you are, someplace between ‘I can do it’ and ‘I can do anything’ when I can teach you, in earnest, the mastery and art of Being… the key to heaven, the real act of a creator.
Creating stuff won’t make you a creator, it is just doing, making stuff.
Creating Being is the act of Creator… only possible from the Vertical Self.
This is why some famous people don’t measure high on the vibrational scale. They did amazing things, but had no control over their being… they lived most of the time in their horizontal self with barely any access to the vertical
But, surprise, the seemingly insignificant tiny wing-strengthening exercises, slowly, imperceptibly, take you to your Vertical Self… and the high consciousness that comes with it, the power that comes with it, the amazing life that is possible with it.
You see what the strategy is? Amazing, ingenious, and it works.
