Losing the Video Game, Winning Myself

This is my 300th post on this blog! 4 years and 10 months. More than 600 hours of writing.

Thank you for reading it. ❤️

Tonight, I could write post upon post about the depth of truth and wisdom heard in each conversation with a client, each intentional conversation with a friend or student, and each moment of conscious living in my life. I could write about the beauty and the grace and the miracle it is to be alive at all, let alone in an age of such luxury for more of humanity than has ever been true before.

And yet inspiration for tonight’s post actually comes from a video game about Harry Potter’s Wizarding World. Yes, I am in fact writing about a video game based on a fictional world, and I invite you to find the thing in your life that you can relate to this experience. Each of the 300 posts of this blog, after all, are written for you and your life. ❤️

I bought a video game about Hogwarts (Harry Potter’s school for magic) a couple months ago. I play the game for a half hour or so every few days, and for the last week and a half I’ve been stuck on one particular magical battle in the game.

Last week as I lost again and again for a half hour straight, I got very frustrated. It can’t be healthy to get that frustrated, and it’s over a video game at that! I didn't sleep well that night, and I totally blamed the game for it.

Afterward, I considered a couple options to avoid that frustration. I could stop playing the game, or I could cheat and skip that part. But I didn’t make any decisions about it. I just allowed my frustration and my thinking about it to dissipate.

Tonight I sat down again to play, and when I lost the first battle, that familiar frustration began to rise up within me…and it was as if I was struck by a lightning bolt of insight: the game wasn’t the source of my frustration. The frustration was arising from within me. 

At that moment the game became free - it was unlinked from my frustration. There was the game over there, and my frustration over here with me.

(Imagine the gift it is to the people in our lives when we unlink them from our frustration...)

I could so easily see right then many different moments just like it when I was a kid and stuck at a frustrating moment in other games. 

The age of that frustration is young - like 9 years old at the oldest. 

I kept playing the game after that insight, allowing myself to grow in mastery of the techniques of the game while relaxing and calming my inner feelings about it. There was the outer game of mastering Hogwarts, and then there was the inner game of mastering my emotional reactions to that outer game. 

And that’s how Hogwarts Legacy became a powerful life teacher for me tonight.

For 300 posts, isn’t this exactly how this blog has read? Something happens, we react to it, and then freedom is accessed in part by separating "what happened" from our inner reaction to it. 

The birthplace of frustration is still there within me, and it flares up and barks with my voice sometimes. And it’s the same frustration of that 9 year old playing video games, and the 10 year old who didn’t want to walk the dog when I was told to, and the 12 year old whose friends weren’t listening on the playground, and the 26 year old whose classroom of students wasn’t behaving as they should. 

And in each of those examples, true freedom wasn’t found in firing my frustration at others or my circumstances. It has only ever been found by owning what’s mine and letting others be as they are. 

There are many ways to do that, and it’s a miracle every single time.

Much Love. ❤️

Sympathy Is the Booby Prize

Booby Prize: “a prize given as a joke to the last-place finisher in a race or competition.”

What I’m writing here is not the truth - it’s a possibility. If it resonates, use it. If it doesn’t, ignore it.

Sympathy is a connector between humans. It can be powerful and healing. 

However, we often seek sympathy as an end in itself, and this usually doesn’t serve us or what we’re committed to.

When we’re being a victim to life, we’re seeking sympathy as a end. Many of us do this in conversations about: 

• politics

• the weather 

• our past experiences or decisions

• other people’s attitudes

• our boss

• our schedule

• our health

• our emotions

• our thinking, stories, and judgments

Being a victim to life might win us sympathy, but it doesn’t win us a great life.

Sympathy is the booby prize. 

I had a conversation with a student a few years back. He was sharing how he just can’t honor the diet and routine he set up for himself. 

I said to him, “I’m not saying that you should honor the diet and routine. I’m just asking you to tell yourself the truth about it: it’s not that you can’t do it, it’s that you won’t.”

He got a bit annoyed with me. I wasn't giving him the sympathy that he was looking for. Instead, I was honoring his powerful possibility of being healthy.

The next day in school, however, he was in a completely different state of mind and being from our conversation. He got it - the distinction between:

“Communicating to get sympathy” vs. “Communicating to create meaningful impact”

“Being a victim of circumstance” vs. “Being an owner of the spirit”

“Being a spectator complaining from the stands” vs. “Being on the court making a difference”

“Being at the effect” vs. “Being at cause in the matter”

“Life is happening to me” vs. “Life is happening for me”

Throughout the Mind Mastery Experience, we keep a running list of “Victim Language” vs. “Owner Language.” It’s amazing how much of our thinking and speaking is from being a victim, and how empowering it is just to speak accurately as an owner.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with living from victim language! It’s simply selling ourselves short and giving up the possibility of living our best life for the booby prize of sympathy.

Much Love. ❤️

A Miracle Triggered by the News

I saw a headline in the news today that instantly brought up within me feelings of fear, then powerlessness, then frustration. 

And then a miracle happened: the feelings dissipated almost as quickly as they arose. 

Nothing in the outside world had changed in that 15 second time interval, but a whole lot changed inside me.

Here’s why those inner feelings dissipated so quickly for me: I didn’t confuse the outer situation in the news with my inner reaction to it. 

In other words, I saw my inner reaction as separate and distinct from the outer situation.

Then I was free.

Free to see clearly. Free to think clearly. Free to be clear. Free to take clear action in the best possible ways for me in that moment.

This is powerful! This is transformation, not mere information. This is awareness that sets us free.

We are not free when we are reacting. The purpose of all reactive behavior is blame, defense, and revenge, NOT freedom or intentionality. 

Blaming the outside circumstance. Defending ourselves against a perceived attack. Revenge against what we see as an enemy.

Reacting is not the way to create a better future.

Our reactions aren’t even a choice! They’re a default, defensive response from some unhealed and unintegrated part of ourselves. 

What happened in that moment that I saw the headline is that I had an inner reaction to the headline, and I recognized my inner reaction as MINE, not the circumstance’s. So I released my reaction with understanding, compassion, and gentleness, and then I saw the news for what it was: a report. Reports are inevitable - how I respond to reports is up to me.

Without fail, any time I’ve been lost, stuck, resigned, anxious, fearful, hopeless, or desperate, I’ve been under the illusion of some thought, some perspective, some perception that’s wormed its way unconsciously into my nervous system. And those emotions were my inner reaction.

And each of those emotions is a teacher pointing me to my next lesson of growth, integration, wholeness, and well-being.

Each moment of our lives offers us this choice: be a victim to circumstance or be an owner of the spirit. 

Each moment of our lives is precious. Each moment of our "ordinary daily life is the most perfect ashram you could ever be within.” - The Way of the Heart

I had a client soul coaching call about 20 minutes after that headline and the emotions that moved through me. My client brought up the exact situation for herself - seeing something in the news and getting frustrated about it. 

Here’s what happened:

I got triggered by a news headline, and I took the most effective action I possibly could to make the world a better place - I freed myself internally. In doing so, I showed up clear and free to be with my soul client, and we both reached a higher plane of insight, well-being, inspiration, and love for life together. 

So yes, there’s always something we can do when we’re upset by what’s happening in the world: 1) open ourselves to authentic awareness of what’s actually going on within us as well as outside us, 2) then align all levels of our being with what we actually want/intend. 3) Our agency flows most effectively from that place of quiet, clear, calm, and loving certainty.

Peace, Love, and Joy - they aren’t a destination or a place to get to. They are a place to come from. 

...in this moment, and this one, and this one, and this one, and...

What miracles have you caused lately by doing intentional, soul-level work that makes a difference in your life and the lives of others?

Much Love. ❤️