Lars: Well, Bianca can help you. She's got nurse's training. Gus: No she doesn't. That's because she's a plastic...thing. Lars: That's amazing. Did you hear that? Bianca said God made her to help people.
Aaron Frater, a reader of the site, sent me these words spoken by Martin Luther King today:
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
I thought you might like them. He apparently got them as a subscriber to the newsletter of a woman named Linda Graham.
If ever the King archetype was more obvious in a man, please tell us about him below.
On January 4, I sent out a newsletter about setting our intention for 2011. I ended that newsletter with these words: “In a few days, I will provide an essential tool that I use every day to facilitate progress in my life to help you maximize the likelihood of manifesting your intention.”
It’s been more than a few days, but here we are. The tool? A list. Yes, simple – and oh so potent. Here is a video testimonial I just recorded for “The List” which I did with the Authentic Man Program at the end of 2010, which only strengthened my belief in the value of lists.
There are many ways to think of a list. You could think of it as a way of getting things done. Though that isn’t so potent in my opinion. A better way to think of a list is as a way of maximizing your energy. Time-management is a misnomer. I don’t remember what dude on the New Man Podcast who said this, but he said that the truly successful and happy are into energy management. That fits. We don’t want to work until we drop and then drag our depressed, lethargic asses through life. No, we want a list to be generative – to nurture and serve us. So that’s why the list should also include action items consciously chosen to rejuvenate us. Relaxation done consciously is much better than just collapsing on the couch and unconsciously picking up the remote.
To that end, I recommend you approach list-building in a truly Integral fashion. That means you should include several areas of your life in it. A minimum is physical, intellectual and emotional, as Eben Pagan pointed out in his Wake Up Productive course that I did a long while back. I go farther than Eben though – I include spiritual as well. I couldn’t go through a day without addressing my spiritual dimension.
Checking your list becomes a nice little daily ritual. You get to tick off the things you did and you get to say “you did well” to yourself. I think you will find that completing an action item consciously and then ticking it off your list gives you more energy than just flowing from job to job randomly. Every little tick mark actually feeds a little energy into your system. Maybe this is only true for us masculine people. Or maybe it’s only true for me. Try it out though. We humans love the carrot on the stick as well as that little reward when we deliver. We also experience guilt when we don’t follow through so you may want to install some rituals for restoring rightness with yourself when you fail to live up to your aspiration. What I did with AMP was two-minute ice cold showers. Don’t think of this ritual as punishment, think of it as giving the gift of a clear conscience to yourself.
I include below the list I just wrote for the next phase of my life. This list, as you will see, isn’t really a goal-achievement list (I will probably make one of those too). The purpose of this list is to install habits into my life that facilitate happiness and vitality as a means for the realization of my goals. So with this type of list, I focus on the current, not the future. You may choose to include more concrete goals. That is also an important function of a list.
Bottom line is – you do whatever you want. Just try a list and see if it works for you. You may come to love it.
On Rob Brinded’s advice, I sought out the Alexander Technique for the first time today. I have decided that 2011 will be the year when I reclaim my body, when I learn to fully inhabit it. I don’t want to be tense and out of balance anymore. I’m tired of it. It started with lots of childhood tensions and bad posture while sitting into the wee hours of the morning playing computer games, and it exploded at a ten-day vipassana retreat I did some five years ago. After that, I have had chronic tensions in my body.
I sought out an Englishman by the name of Nigel Hornby who teaches here in Oslo. Nigel was the first ever Alexander teacher here in Norway. It turned out to be an enlightening and very moving experience. I really liked Nigel, a gentle man in his early sixties with natural curiosity about life. His bookshelf made me feel right at home – it had Iron John on it among other fine pieces of world literature.
I explained him my problems and he was absolutely fascinated, especially by the story of how something that was supposed to help me (meditation) actually hurt my body. I quite like talking about myself (not always my best trait) and it was good to be listened to so attentively and genuinely.
As he started working on me with his hands, I noticed how I just didn’t know how to be with the movements. He would move my arms and legs around and I got hit by sensory confusion. Should I control or relax? I imagined that I should try to surrender into the movement, to let go completely, and then he asked “what are you trying to do with your left arm here?”. “I don’t know, I responded,” before I admitted “no, I do. I’m trying to relax into your movements.”
“You don’t know how to relax,” he said. “You don’t have a clue”. Before he a little later said, “you don’t know how to be with yourself.” He was real gentle and we had a wonderful dialogue. He talked about how nobody knows how to be with themselves anymore, how nine out of ten people have back problems. He talked about why the way we talk about relaxation in the West is a huge problem, because most people’s idea of relaxation is actually collapse. That is not healthy at all. So stop trying to relax, he told me. Whoa!
On one occasion, he stopped me when I started talking about what I do on this website (“sorry that I stopped you, but you have so many habits, you started tensing up again”). I was amazed by that. In fact, so much so that I felt immediately how profound that information was for me. In fact, I noticed I tense up pretty much every time I open my mouth. Because I don’t know how to be with myself. Being with myself was an art that was extracted out of me by Western civilization. We shared our sentiments of grief over this.
My goodness. I really don’t know how to be with myself, even after so much spiritual practice. My body shows it clear as day. I was incredibly moved by the insights I got in this lesson and am so grateful to have discovered the Alexander Technique. My arms felt completely different afterwards. I don’t generally feel that awkward about my arms, but they just seemed so much better. In fact, I felt I had been given new arms.
Next week, I’m going back. I’m looking forward to seeing Nigel again, to get to know my body more – and to reclaim it fully in 2011. By the gods, I have missed it.
This is the first part of a two-part interview that’s been published over on Integral Life. I feel that this speaks volumes of why I like AMP‘s work so much. I hope you enjoy it.
I will be promoting the product they are speaking about (videotaping people in authentic interactions) on my newsletter very soon. It’s always a joy to help these guys out.
PS! I just finished the Braveheart review (now I just need to write a summary and a few minor details)
Leaving Neverland (and the awesome collection of poetry I also received today)
Just got a new book delivery from my good friend Ann Kristin out in Australia (she’s who connected me with Uncle Bob). It’s called Finding Neverland – Why little boys shouldn’t run big corporations and is written by a bloke by the name of Daniel Prokop.
Check this out (from the back of the book):
In the Western world, it seems that most adults don’t want to grow up but have lost the joy and freedom of being childlike and in a desperate attempt to stay young forever have achieved eternal childishness, rather than eternal youth.
Phew!
When little boys in designer suits convinced authorities that they should be put in charge of the banking cookie jar, we shouldn’t be surprised when they help themselves to the cookies
And when little boys playing in the Gulf of Mexico break one of their shiny toys and make a catastrophic mess, sure it is obvious that it is time for us to leave Neverland.
In this fascinating, humorous and provocative book, Daniel Prokop argues that contemporary Rites of Passage offer us all a timely way to finally grow up.
