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I have heard that your dark side is your deepest source of joy, fulfillment, yada yada yada, I have even taught that… but alas, I forgot what I said, I forgot why it’s so.
So in this article I’ll try to remember 🙁 … in my usual meandering way.
OK, first step: I google it:
Your dark side means that you have shadow aspects of yourself that you don’t want to look at and even less you want consciously work with them. Instead of facing your dark side from the place of presence, you ignore and suppress the parts of yourself that you dislike.
I call that ‘Face the Tiger‘… and teach it in the course of the same name.
Second step: find someone who teaches this:
Yesterday I decided to attend the Mindvalley masterclass (masterclass is a nice name for a sales video) on how to love yourself. It was both ok and weird. Vishen, the big cheese of MV was introducing his ex wife, mother of his two children… and was rigid and forceful during the whole thing.
Not charming any of us, including his ex wife… lol.
That rigid forcefulness is Vishen’s dark side… and it built a multimillion dollar empire… go figure. Some people must like it… Overeager I would re-christen it… not letting any opportunity to pass without selling something. To me irritating but then unfortunately I am an empath.
During a supposedly relaxing and pleasant meditation session, part of the dramatic presentation to show how well the workshop works, all I could feel was tension, fear, and anxiety. Hellish, if you ask me.
Is it worth 196 dollars? I think so. Not for me, but for someone who has a lot of internal dark side attacks. Will it help you be great and successful in your life? Muscletest says: it can get 30% of the work done. Is it enough? I don’t think so.
Step 3:
I also watched, fascinated, an interview with Seth Godin. It was about his new book, The Practice. He teaches the methodology I teach… with the one exception: some people will heed his teaching… and thus far, I don’t know anyone who has been heeding mine…
The teaching is simple, and entirely anti current-culture.
Practice for practice’s sake. Practice to get better.
Creativity, mastery, comes from doing something for its own sake…
…or if you must answer the question: to what end? say: for mastery.
So you can’t consider what you do for a living as practice… What?!
People doing work settle into boring, and humdrum when they do what they do for a living. Yes, you.
The way to reach excellence, the way to reach mastery, you need to
- 1. aim at excellence, aim at mastery,
- 2. practice when it is only for practice. Both are difficult… and require taking your attention off what you want, what you need, what you like, and the instant gratification.
I have students who are unwilling to do anything much, unless there is an instant reward, or instant feedback.
Unwilling to do anything for its own sake, for love’s sake, for mastery’s sake.
And unless they change they will be mediocre at best. Nothing to write home about in the middle. And poor, miserable, unfulfilled at worst.
Obviously the dark side here is the wanting instant gratification.
And taming that BEAST can become the biggest gift… The harder is to tame that ugly life-eating tiger the brighter the sun becomes.
That is what I teach…
I myself have had to tame many things, among them two major things:
- 1. my ‘need’ to be on top and everyone below me… (my soul correction ‘Forget Thyself’)
- 2. my tendency of giving up at the slightest suggestion of difficulty. (Gentian, my Bach Profile)
My ‘dark side conquering’ journey began when I discovered that I lacked kindness. That I was hard-hearted, with no compassion, no sensitivity of how my actions and my words landed.
I haven’t completely conquered that… When I look what is my biggest gift to my clients, I can see that an amalgamation of love and ruthless compassion can make me a more effective coach than either the ‘just hammer’ and ‘just lovey-dovey’ ‘love your imperfections’ type.
This is from Rob Brezsny’s post from today… the love your imperfections type. It talks to the people who just want to feel good about themselves, forgive themselves, but not go through growing, or what it takes to become a human being. Mush cookies… I say. Most people.
LOVE YOUR IMPERFECTIONS
I propose that we set aside a time every now and then when we celebrate our gaffes, our flaws, and our bloopers.
During this crooked holiday, we are not embarrassed about the false moves we have made. We don’t decry our bad judgment or criticize our delusional behavior. Instead, we forgive ourselves of our sins. We work to understand and feel compassion for the ignorance that led us astray.
Maybe we even find redemptive value in our apparent lapses; we come to see that they saved us from some painful experience or helped us avoid getting a supposed treasure that would have turned out to be a booby prize.
We could call it the Love Your Imperfections Celebration.
My methodology is deeper and requires more work from you. More courage. Integrity. Responsibility.
But because it is deeper, it gets to the heart of the matter.
It gets to what shackles you, what reduces you to a thing, to what dehumanize you… and when it gets to that… it gently removes it.
If you are willing. If you have the courage. If you are willing to be a cause, instead of a hapless effect.
Don’t be mistaken.
The human ‘machine’ the egomind is more interested in the goodies, we call payoffs, than in eliminating the costs… the misery, the poverty, the unhappiness, the ineffectiveness, the poor health. Much more interested.
So we start with the machine… It gets revealed in short order who is suitable for this work and who isn’t.
I remember how hard it was to choose to not be a recovering victim… and take on my own power. I was scared. It was like committing sacred suicide for the ‘olam haba’ the next world, for an atheist… or maybe even a believer.
I gave up having something for the hope of having everything. I did… though I was very scared.
This is how I climbed to the dizzying height of the Tree of Life…
Can you do it? Most of you can. A certain percentage of the population can’t… about 10%. Not because they are not smart enough, but because they don’t trust themselves.
Chances are 30% that you are one of them. 30% of the readers of this blog won’t do it… Can’t do it.
But if you are in the 70%, you can… But will you?
Lots of branches on the tree of life on the way to the top. And you cannot get higher than where you are without giving something up.
The first thing to give up is the allure of immediate gratification… what prevents anyone from mastering anything.
The work we’ll do in The Freedom Courses… the whole climb, from beginning to end.
We may start with 100 people and end up with one on the top. That’s OK…
Is it worth taking just one step? Yes, I say so.
I have students who wouldn’t be able to get to the second branch of the Tree of Life… and if and when you ask them, they say: it is still worth it.
I like to ask my most unsuccessful students and clients for feedback. Other coaches and teachers ask the happy ones… but the happy ones, most likely, will talk about the experience, and the flash in the pan results.
How do I know?
In my 26 years of intense participation in Landmark Education courses and trainings, the most vocal people, the ones that shared the most successes, amounted to next to nothing.
Here is an example… I am still somewhat rattled by it.
I know a couple who live in my town, walking distance from me.
They had been participating even longer than I had.
We took rides to the town where the seminars were given. We sat together, and were like a little group inside the seminar.
They were older than me. One evening I imagined being married to an older man like him, cooking for him, talking to him every night, comforting him, sleeping with him, and it wasn’t a nice fantasy.
Next time at the webinar i shared that I imagined being married to this dude… I didn’t share my distaste for the imagined life.
The wife decided that what I said is that I wanted to seduce his then 70 years old husband, and left me hanging in Ithaca… It was winter, I was dressed for a car ride… It cost me a fortune to get home… 60 miles, at night… ugh.
Yeah… not the behavior of someone who has successfully climbed the Tree of Life in their 30 year of participation in transformation.
OK… the Freedom Courses are not ready… but I want to give you a stocking stuffer… on the cheap.
I have the audio of the Seth Godin book… and you can listen to it in my mobile app for a song.
Unless you have a standing agreement with me to give you stuff I only provide in my mobile app, please don’t buy.
Get the audio book on your phone
