“We are Lemmings
We are crazies
We will feed our flower habit
Pushing Daisies”
— “Lemmings” the National Lampoon off-broadway show
I remember driving up to Vancouver B.C. many years back to watch an episode of STARGATE SG-1 I wrote being filmed. And on the set was Jason Mamoa. He was hanging out with the other actors, an imposing hulk of a man, perfectly muscled. I asked him how much time he spent in the gym, and he sort of smiled and said that he didn’t really work out much. I felt my stomach drop out. WHAT? He just NATURALLY looked like…
After he wandered away, one of the other actors leaned over and confided “he just says that. He’s in the gym all the time.”
Thank you, Jesus. I could feel my mind throwing up every hissing voice: there are just perfect people in the world. Some folks are born that way. Its no use even trying…
All mind games of course. People who secretly work their asses off, experience every negative emotion and struggle imaginable but want YOU to believe that it is either easy…or you can’t do it at all.
The Myth that someone somewhere is having it easier than you.
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I remember working out at my karate school, struggling to learn every technique, to manage my fear in sparring, and stay focused. A guy named Reggie walked in one day. He was athletic, but had no real skill. He was fast and aggressive, but I could handle him, because he had no skill. He was fearless and didn’t seem to feel pain, but he had no…
Oh, shit, I thought to myself. This guy, first day coming in, is a born black belt. Over the next weeks, he developed so fast it was frightening. And I felt so discouraged. I had struggled, and fought, and torn myself into pieces learning the skills Reggie was learning so fast it was obvious he’d be better than me in another month. Why even bother trying when there are “naturals” like Reggie…
And later I learned some things. Reggie owned a security company. He had grown up HARD, streetfighting every day of his youth. Grown up in a home with a father who hit him, so that he learned how to dodge and absorb pain and bare his teeth and fight back…from the cradle. In other words: he had, at great cost, learned literally every single attribute of a fighter other than the specific skills we were learning in class. He wasn’t a “natural.” He was a survivor.
You NEVER know the price other people have paid to be who they are. If you compare yourself to the supposed “naturals” you take your eyes off the only standard that matters: are you better than you were yesterday? If the answer is “no”, ask why, because you can ALWAYS improve something. If the answer is “yes” simply rinse and repeat.
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I asked people to make comments, questions, or requests of us as we head into the last SOULMATE PROCESS. The entire class is NOT about learning “techniques”, it is more about removing the blocks that stop you from functioning as a natural human animal. Mating is EASY on this level…but we add so many twists and turns, our egos warp us into conceptual boxes, our fears stop us from accessing our love and energy, and we have so many false concepts.
Mike Ralls wondered if part of the problem is that Incels and their ilk have unrealistic expectations of relationships based on film, television, and magazine stories. Well, duh. We definitely get the wrong notion of how men and women are supposed to be in life…but it isn’t confined to relationships.
We get time-lapse training montages in “Rocky” movies that make it look easy to whip yourself into world-class shape
Time-lapse images of inventers and business people having “Eureka” moments or building empires.
Beautiful images of gorgeous movies stars stricken with that Hollywood disease that kills you while leaving your hair and makeup perfect, so that your family can gather around your hospital bed politely sniffling.
Blue-collar people with million-dollar apartments in Manhattan.
Writers who dash off a few pages a day (only when their muse arrives, of course) and are immediately rewarded with best-seller status.
And it isn’t “Hollywood”. Look at the cinema of any other country, and you’ll see exaggerations just as extreme, flights of fantasy just as damaging if you never grow up.
This is damaging. We believe the mythologies. Worse still, to protect our egos we join “pity parties” of other wannabes who develop mythologies to protect them from the fact that they aren’t on an effective path, or haven’t stayed on that path long enough to get the result.
“Incels” literally don’t understand the mating game, and blame women for sticking them in the “friend zone” instead of working on healing until they would be attracted to themselves.
People who can’t change the habits that lead to weight loss will literally blame their bodies for not obeying the laws of physics. Do NOT think I am exaggerating: I’ve actually heard those words.
Newbie writers will ignore the advice of writers and editors who have been down the road before them, claiming that things have changed so drastically that “the old rules don’t work” in spite of the fact that every day, a new writer gets published following those old rules.
People will be frequent posters on Facebook, but lie to themselves and insist they don’t have ten minutes a day to exercise, write, meditate, whatever.
If you are driven by fear, your ego will grab onto an unrealistic image of the process, and when you can’t live up to that unrealistic expectation tell you see? You can’t do it!
Why? Because ANY result that demands you let go of one image of yourself and grow into a new one will trigger fear. A comfortable illusion is prefered to a fearful transformation, EVEN IF EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER WANTED IN YOUR LIFE IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT TRANSFORMATION.
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One of the very best statements anyone has made about the Soulmate Process has to do with a question she has begun to ask herself: “Who do I want to grow old with?”
Wow. Just…wow. Do you understand how courageous, how honest, how CLEAR that question is?
Not “How can I pick someone up tonight?” or
“Who can I trick into marrying me..?”
Or “who would make my friends jealous?”
Or “who is the best I can do without changing..?
Or any other such short-term, shallow question. It is the question of an adult, aware human being.
This is the path of life. I wish to mature, have a family, work hard and be a part of my community, live with joy, experience passion and commitment, and grow old with dignity.
Who do I want to share this journey with me? Someone who has their own sense of destiny and is heading in the same direction. Someone who shares my values so that my habits and goals are in alignment with theirs.
Someone who has a similar relationship with their sexuality, so that we can rock each other’s socks off. Someone who can be my friend, and business partner, co-parent, lover, help mate.
Someone I can laugh and cry and work and play with. Who I can drop my mask with and BE MYSELF, DAMMIT.
And to do that…you have to know who YOU are, so that you will know what you really want. To love yourself enough to want the very best for yourself. To be honest enough to crave only an equal trade with another adult human being whose eyes are wide open. To have enough faith in yourself to be willing to walk the world alone, if necessary, and be joyous enough to radiate “here I am!” to the world, like a bird singing its song in the forest, knowing that somewhere among the trees is another bird listening for THAT song. Your song.
The person you want to grow old with, who also gladdens your heart and boils your blood. THAT is the right question.
Want a plaything for a weekend? Well…frankly, while you are working on yourself ,and projecting yourself to the world, you’ll certainly meet some interesting people. And have some very interesting times. Ahem. And that’s all fun, BUT ITS NOT THE POINT.
This notion works for everything. What path of physical development do you want? Ultimately what kind of career? What kind of financial future?
Find the people who come the closest to having that life. What is the price they pay? Get close enough to observe them. Read about them, study them…and remember that in life, there is a price for everything you want…and the price is always paid in advance.
Don’t believe in the stories of the “naturals”. Don’t believe in “talent”…trust in hard work, effective modeling, honest evaluation, passion and the magic of time compounded weekly, monthly, yearly. Of small improvements multiplied against each other. Of finding a path that warms your heart, and staying with it even if the rest of the world tells you you are wrong.
I have found that the people who have actually accomplished what you seek, once they know you are really on the same path, will encourage you and tell you the truth: its all work. Its all staying on the path. Its all loving the work you do for its own sake, and not paying too much attention to how the outside world rewards you. Don’t chase the glitter, just keep mining the gold.
Its hard, because there are so many lost souls trying to justify the maps they drew without ever knowing the territory. It isn’t them. It isn’t the map. Its these damned woods!
Sigh. Be careful. Its so easy to get lost. But the way out is clear enough: begin with the end in mind.
All it takes to get everything you need is everything you’ve got. The price of life’s ride is the same for everyone: one death at the end of it.
Keep your eye on the ball, and stop listening to the people who have never made it out of the woods. They may love you. They may be sincere. But they just don’t know, and when the blind lead the blind, it is easy to fall off a cliff.
Namaste
Steve