I Was Looking For More, Were You?

Human personality gets solidified in adolescence.

That’s when our minds have finished making up ways of dealing with our biggest existential questions since early childhood:

• Am I safe?

• Am I enough?

• Am I worthy?

• Am I likable/lovable?

• Do I belong?

Most of us adults are still either asking these questions - or compensating for our beliefs about them - daily.

I've know 4 middle-aged men in the last few years who've died due to alcoholism. They're extreme cases of this, yet they underscore that almost NONE of us have learned the most fundamental and important aspects about ourselves: who we really are, how we operate, and how to thrive in life no matter our circumstances.

Most of us never learned how to answer those questions ourselves, or even that we’re asking them!

We seek answers in the habits and beliefs of our peers. 

We seek answers in the habits and beliefs of characters in our tv shows.

We seek answers in the habits and beliefs of our parents and families and cultures.

When we can't find answers outside ourselves (and these aren't really questions that can be answered outside ourselves very well), we make up ways to compensate for what we think are the answers.

Adolescence.

These critical years in the development of our identity. 

These critical years in our deciding who we are and what we’re capable of.

These critical years in our opening up or closing off to possibility for ourselves, others, and the world.

Will substances become our go-to response to stress, frustration, and insecurity?

Will our college freshmen leave their values at the door?

Will our young adults know how to access their values and passions and live from them with integrity, compassion, and joy? Do we adults know how to do this?

This is the critical gap in K-12 schools. We’re leaving the most important education of our teens up to chance and hope. 

I call filling this gap in K-12 schools the transformation of education.

The Mind Mastery Experience, which I’ve designed based on two decades of my own transformational training and practice, is the most powerful and accessible transformational conversation for adolescents. 

The Mind Mastery Experience fills a critical gap in K-12 schools. It puts students into the driver's seat of their own lives: it removes hurdles of fear, doubt, insecurity, and stress, and replaces them with confidence, courage, and motivation in ALL areas of their lives. 

Through the Mind Mastery Experience, adolescents experience a more direct access to peace of mind, freedom, and enjoyment in navigating all of life's circumstances.

The first 18 years of my career in education is the story of mastering teaching academic content and mastering the art of honoring the sovereign self in each of our adolescents. 

The next 18 years of my career in education is the story of transforming how adolescents relate to themselves, others, and the world in a way that empowers and supports them and the well-being of all life.

My goal is to reach 2,000 adolescents through Mind Mastery training over the next 3 years.

With ease, grace, service, and love.

Our adolescents are looking for more. Let’s give it to them: The Mind Mastery Experience.

If you have educator friends or know leaders in education, please share this post with them or put them in touch with me. Together, we'll transform K-12 education.

Much Love. ❤️

Triggering the Revolution

If you’re human like me, you likely get “triggered” from time to time (perhaps a lot of the time?).

Getting triggered has two obvious parts to it:

1. The circumstance outside us that triggers us

2. The uncomfortable emotional reaction we experience inside when we get triggered

The outside circumstance that triggers us could be that someone speaks to us with a particular tone, or someone brings up that particular topic, or perhaps a particular song comes on the radio, etc.

The uncomfortable emotional reaction might be embarrassment, shock, fear, insecurity, frustration, or anger. Most of us don't like feeling this way! So we react from the emotion, we resist it, or we avoid it. (See The 4 Ways We Deal with Emotions.)

In our society, we mostly focus on these two parts of our triggering: the outside circumstance that triggers us and the emotional reaction within us. 

First we try to change our circumstances. We tell our spouse not to talk about that one thing. We avoid the coworker who “makes” us feel uncomfortable. 

If that doesn’t work, we deal with our uncomfortable emotions like they’re the problem. We drink alcohol, we smoke, we over-caffeinate, we numb ourselves with Netflix, we medicate ourselves.  

But neither of these two parts is the actual issue! In fact, the triggering circumstance and the emotional reaction are arrows pointing to where the real issue lies.  

The real issue is that there’s an unhealed, incomplete, or unresolved part of ourselves that sits raw inside and ready to be triggered. 

These circumstances and emotions are part of our spiritual curriculum! They’re literally pointing to the parts of ourselves that want healing, resolution, completion, and freedom.

But we don’t like feeling uncomfortable. We resist those feelings, pushing them away. Or we react from those feelings, lashing out or trying to do something to change them or make them stop. Or we avoid them with a glass or two of wine, a marijuana edible, ice cream, pornography, sex, or Netflix.

Last week, a client of mine said that “this work, learning to be with what comes up, it’s revolutionary.”

Yes, it is revolutionary! This is not the way we were taught to deal with triggering circumstances or uncomfortable emotions.

And we were taught to deal with them this way - we were taught in how our older siblings and our parents reacted to us and their own lives. We were taught through the hours of sitcoms and news and movies we watched on TV. We were taught through how our teachers dealt with their own adolescent impatience, judgments, punitive discipline, and righteousness.

It’s revolutionary to take 100% responsibility for getting triggered. 

It’s revolutionary to simply sit and be with uncomfortable emotions. 

It’s revolutionary to speak to those scared, insecure, and young parts of our inner selves.

It’s revolutionary to cultivate compassion, love, and understanding for ALL parts of ourselves AND others.

This message and this work is revolutionary, and if we want the world to heal, we’ve got to start with ourselves. 

“You hypocrite, first cast the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast the dust out of your brother's eye.” - Matthew 7:5.

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change." - Mahatma Gandhi

When we (and our young ones) learn the way of Mind Mastery, getting triggered becomes a useful and powerful access to our own healing and growth, our own leveling up, our own freedom and well-being.

Don’t let society continue to have you believe that there’s something wrong with getting triggered. It’s one of the most important teachers in your spiritual curriculum.

If you're ready to take your own freedom, healing, and growth to the next level, contact me and let's get you on the path to mastery.

Much Love. ❤️

There's WHAT in the Soup?!?

I have a list of blog ideas on my phone. I add to it when I think of something or hear something insightful. 

Well, the idea that stood out to me this evening, I don’t know where I heard it...and though I wrote about doo-doo last month, I promise I’m not usually so scatological in my thinking.

But really, how many drops of pee does it take to ruin a pot of soup?

Does one drop ruin it? Two? Twenty? Does it depend on who’s eating the soup?

Here are some related questions:

• How many eye rolls does it take to demean your partner?

• How many lost tempers does it take to disrespect your kid?

• How many complaints to your colleagues does it take to undermine leadership effectiveness at work?

• How much gossip does it take to ruin the way others think about someone you know?

• How many lies does it take to be known as untrustworthy?

• How many broken commitments to yourself does it take to undermine faith in yourself?

Consider that the right answer to all those questions is ONE. 

If that’s the case, and it very well can be, then we’ve got some cleaning up to do.

Messes happen! We make mistakes! Maturity is when we clean up our messes and deal with our mistakes responsibly.

Go clean up your messes!

Here’s how: 

“I’m sorry I lost my temper on you. You don’t deserve that. Those emotions are mine, not yours, and they say much more about me than they say about you. Yes, I want your behavior to improve, and I want you to know that my behavior needs to improve even more. Losing my temper on you disrespects you, and because I love you and respect you deeply, I never want to lose my temper on you again. I’m committed to doing whatever I can to transform this behavior.”

When we commit to cleaning up all our messes, our messes actually become something else entirely - they become beautiful opportunities for growth.

It's been so freaking clear in my life, and I see it reflected over and over in my clients, that making a mess in our lives becomes a golden opportunity for healing at an even deeper level.

The Japanese art of kintsugi (see picture below) embodies this philosophy beautifully - broken pottery is mended with a gold adhesive that makes this cracked pottery more valuable than it was originally.

Having made messes, we can get a sense of their impact. So once we clean up our messes, let's aim to live life more cleanly.

Here’s a cleaner way of looking at those questions above:

• How much eye contact and clean listening does it take to love your partner?

• How many calm and loving conversations does it take to respect your kid?

• How many compassionate, straight, and understanding conversations does it take to support leadership at work?

• How much standing up for others does it take to cultivate respect in your communities?

• How many honest conversations does it take to be known as someone with integrity?

• How many honored commitments to yourself does it take to build faith in yourself?

You know what you want. Now stop peeing in the soup.

And if/when you do pee in the soup, clean it up with some gold dust.

Much love. ❤️