Your boss walks in and starts blaming you for not finishing a particular report "on time", even though she had never made the deadline explicit. A simple misunderstanding? Maybe, but if it's part of a pattern of behavior, you've got a bigger problem.
Your organization has a big "townhall" event celebrating the "successes" of the past year. You sit quietly in the back, knowing from your insider information that many of these so-called successes were actually disasters that have been "respun" for political purposes. The crowd seems to eat it up, yet you - and no doubt many others - leave with a bad feeling in your gut.
Sound familiar?
Let's face it - in our public lives and sometimes even in our private ones, we're often surrounded by double-speak, by words that fundamentally don't match reality.
The upshot of all this is more stress for you. You may even question your own sanity - I certainly did when I got caught up in dealing with my Church's financial scandal and the lies of its senior leadership designed to cover it all up.
The real question here, though, is how can you protect yourself and maintain your personal resilience when that resilience is under silent but persistent attack by people who are foisting their personal agendas onto you?
The Most Powerful Question to Ask in Any Relationship:
Remember this: the neurotic person, the manipulative person, the dysfunctional organization, the narcissistic personality, all these will project their distorted view of reality onto you and will try to force you to comply.
They will not only have the audacity to call "white" "black" and "black" "white" right in front of your eyes; they'll also insist you do the same. And the one thing you can never do if you want to maintain your resilience is to compromise your personal integrity by participating in their fiction, whether that fiction is a delusion or a deliberate lie.
Often the distortion of reality these people create is so great that without even noticing it, you lose track of reality yourself and begin to buy into the fiction without noticing. And it's when you're in danger of losing your bearings that you want to ask yourself the single most powerful relationship question there is:
"What SHOULD this situation look like?"
To expand on that, you can ask, "If this situation were reflective of all that is good, true and beautiful, what WOULD it look like?"
Asking the question and answering it - at least in your own mind - will keep you sane. It will keep you focused on what's real. It will keep you resilient. And, it will expose what's going on around you and reveal the agenda behind it.
These mind-bending situations are a lot like living with an alcoholic. The alcoholic forces you to compensate for their behavior and turns you into an enabler. He forces you to replace THE truth with his or her truth, and with no regard for the effects that will have on you.
If you want to maintain your resilience - your emotional health and independence - don't go there. Ask the magic question.
It's true that asking the question won't necessarily change the external situation. And if you think for one moment it's going to change the person or people who are distorting reality, guess again! However, it will protect you from that situation on many levels.
In fact, whenever you're having problems with any relationship or whenever you have to make a decision about maintaining or breaking off any relationship, just use this question. It will clarify everything for you in minutes.
Don't take my word for it - try it!!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Showing posts with label warriorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warriorship. Show all posts
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Thursday, 15 April 2010
How to "Live Each Day as Your Last"
You'll remember from last time that we said the biggest advantages to living each day as your last are:
1. If you live each day as your last, you'll never succumb to petty emotional reactions
2. You'll do nothing carelessly ever again - your actions will be increasingly filled with power
3. And because you're increasingly conscious of the eternal consequences of your choices, you'll stop wasting this precious life and start making spiritual progress
You may have noticed there's a big difference between "remembering your death" and "living each day as if it were your last". It's easy to remember intellectually that your time in this world is limited. Everyone of us 6+ billion people is aware of that fact. But that's a far cry from the power that comes from living each day as your last.
To harvest the benefits of "living each day as your last", you have to commit to training yourself to do just that. There are no short-cuts here. This means focusing all your efforts on living deliberately, on disengaging the autopilot of habit and taking full responsibility for even the smallest decision you make.
Spiritual traditions, like Orthodox Christianity or Tibetan Buddhism teach this principle so that people will avoid self-destructive actions and use their limited time for spiritual advancement. Martial traditions, like the Samurai, promoted it because this practice gives you greatly heightened situational awareness, and in the Samurai's world, situational awareness was just about the only thing standing between you and your last day.
The bottom line, though, is this practice is central to developing your resilience. Back in 1982, a certain British soldier on the remote Falkland Islands watched in horror as a massive Argentinian force invaded. As he tells the story, his initial reaction was sheer terror. Then, for some reason, he experienced a sudden inner shift. He accepted the fact he was about to die, and from that moment on he was able to take positive action. Of course, he ended up surviving the war, but having learned a priceless lesson that no classroon could ever teach.
Some lessons in life can't be taught; they can only be learned. And living each day as your last is just such a lesson. For more information, go have a look at pages 247-8 of The 5 Pillars of Life. Great info? Yes. However it's nothing more than an interesting read unless you put it into practice.
So go try it out and have some fun. Fun?? Yes, fun! Make a game out of it. The same way you change your physical diet to see if your stomach feels better, you can change your mental diet to see how adopting a different focus, like "living each day as your last", makes you feel. At first it'll be hard to stay focused, of course, so don't beat yourself up. Just have fun with it and see what happens.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
1. If you live each day as your last, you'll never succumb to petty emotional reactions
2. You'll do nothing carelessly ever again - your actions will be increasingly filled with power
3. And because you're increasingly conscious of the eternal consequences of your choices, you'll stop wasting this precious life and start making spiritual progress
You may have noticed there's a big difference between "remembering your death" and "living each day as if it were your last". It's easy to remember intellectually that your time in this world is limited. Everyone of us 6+ billion people is aware of that fact. But that's a far cry from the power that comes from living each day as your last.
To harvest the benefits of "living each day as your last", you have to commit to training yourself to do just that. There are no short-cuts here. This means focusing all your efforts on living deliberately, on disengaging the autopilot of habit and taking full responsibility for even the smallest decision you make.
Spiritual traditions, like Orthodox Christianity or Tibetan Buddhism teach this principle so that people will avoid self-destructive actions and use their limited time for spiritual advancement. Martial traditions, like the Samurai, promoted it because this practice gives you greatly heightened situational awareness, and in the Samurai's world, situational awareness was just about the only thing standing between you and your last day.
The bottom line, though, is this practice is central to developing your resilience. Back in 1982, a certain British soldier on the remote Falkland Islands watched in horror as a massive Argentinian force invaded. As he tells the story, his initial reaction was sheer terror. Then, for some reason, he experienced a sudden inner shift. He accepted the fact he was about to die, and from that moment on he was able to take positive action. Of course, he ended up surviving the war, but having learned a priceless lesson that no classroon could ever teach.
Some lessons in life can't be taught; they can only be learned. And living each day as your last is just such a lesson. For more information, go have a look at pages 247-8 of The 5 Pillars of Life. Great info? Yes. However it's nothing more than an interesting read unless you put it into practice.
So go try it out and have some fun. Fun?? Yes, fun! Make a game out of it. The same way you change your physical diet to see if your stomach feels better, you can change your mental diet to see how adopting a different focus, like "living each day as your last", makes you feel. At first it'll be hard to stay focused, of course, so don't beat yourself up. Just have fun with it and see what happens.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Live Each Day as Your Last
They say only two things in life are absolute certainties - death and taxes. Despite the fact it's tax time, my mind was more on the other thing yesterday. You see...
...that Polish aircrash over the weekend, where dozens of people in the higher echelons of the Polish government lost their lives trying to land in western Russia, well... turns out a friend of mine was one of the fatalities.
He was a young bishop in the Polish Orthodox Church, Bishop Miron. Despite being Orthodox and not Roman Catholic, he was a top official in his country's military chaplaincy program and actually held the rank of Brigadier General. We met three years ago when he came to Canada for a military chaplains' conference. We celebrated a Sunday liturgy together at church and I had the honor of translating for him (from Russian, not Polish) in a Q & A session afterwards. He was a very kind, unpretentious man interested in everyone and a joy to be with. He will be missed.
As one of my kids always says, you can never say someone's middle aged because you don't know when they'll die. And the tragic and far too early departure of Bishop Miron is just one reminder that we don't know how much time we have.
Most people in our society would probably consider that a morbid thought and try to push it out of their minds. Big mistake! Authentic Ancient Traditions knew a huge advantage and tremendous RESILIENCE is hidden within this mysterious "remembrance of death". How so?
1. If you live each day as your last, you'll never succumb to petty emotional reactions
How seriously would you take your own emotional ups and downs if you suddenly found yourself in a life and death situation? Not at all. So when you start to live each day as your last, the emotional grip the world has on you begins to lose its power.
2. You'll do nothing carelessly ever again - your actions will be increasingly filled with power
You start to realize there are no unimportant decisions. Every decision you make is now made in the face of life and death, so everything is important. All your actions become deliberate actions and take on a powerful quality.
3. And because you're increasingly conscious of the eternal consequences of your choices, you'll stop wasting this precious life and start making spiritual progress
All Authentic Ancient Traditions tell us that our whole life is merely a preparation for what comes next. Once you live each day as your last, you begin to realize that you don't know when that "next" phase of your existence will begin.
As to exactly how you can leverage the awsome power of the "remembrance of death", we'll get to that next time ;-)
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
...that Polish aircrash over the weekend, where dozens of people in the higher echelons of the Polish government lost their lives trying to land in western Russia, well... turns out a friend of mine was one of the fatalities.
He was a young bishop in the Polish Orthodox Church, Bishop Miron. Despite being Orthodox and not Roman Catholic, he was a top official in his country's military chaplaincy program and actually held the rank of Brigadier General. We met three years ago when he came to Canada for a military chaplains' conference. We celebrated a Sunday liturgy together at church and I had the honor of translating for him (from Russian, not Polish) in a Q & A session afterwards. He was a very kind, unpretentious man interested in everyone and a joy to be with. He will be missed.
As one of my kids always says, you can never say someone's middle aged because you don't know when they'll die. And the tragic and far too early departure of Bishop Miron is just one reminder that we don't know how much time we have.
Most people in our society would probably consider that a morbid thought and try to push it out of their minds. Big mistake! Authentic Ancient Traditions knew a huge advantage and tremendous RESILIENCE is hidden within this mysterious "remembrance of death". How so?
1. If you live each day as your last, you'll never succumb to petty emotional reactions
How seriously would you take your own emotional ups and downs if you suddenly found yourself in a life and death situation? Not at all. So when you start to live each day as your last, the emotional grip the world has on you begins to lose its power.
2. You'll do nothing carelessly ever again - your actions will be increasingly filled with power
You start to realize there are no unimportant decisions. Every decision you make is now made in the face of life and death, so everything is important. All your actions become deliberate actions and take on a powerful quality.
3. And because you're increasingly conscious of the eternal consequences of your choices, you'll stop wasting this precious life and start making spiritual progress
All Authentic Ancient Traditions tell us that our whole life is merely a preparation for what comes next. Once you live each day as your last, you begin to realize that you don't know when that "next" phase of your existence will begin.
As to exactly how you can leverage the awsome power of the "remembrance of death", we'll get to that next time ;-)
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Honor - the Heart of Resilience
Continuing with our series on the three key virtues of the Warrior, the three that make for an exceptionally resilient life, we arrive at honor.
Anyone familiar with Star Trek's Klingon Empire will have heard that word thrown around a lot. Unfortunately, not all of Star Trek's writers knew anything about Warrior cultures and how they function, so the ideas of honor they sometimes wrote into scripts for their Klingon characters were terribly misleading. Fortunately, General Chang is one Klingon who hits the nail on the head:
As I said, the concept of honor has been perverted just as often as duty has, and not just in the Klingon Empire, but in real human cultures. The Samurai fell into the trap of equating defeat with dishonor and with an unbearable shame on an entire family. Some religious perversions talk about honor killing to avenge a perceived slight. And, most common of all, the totally false notion that honor, like duty, involves blindly following orders - the infamous defense of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Of course, we're not interested in those false ideas of honor.
Establishing Your Honor
Before you can guard your honor, you have to establish it. You can't protect what you don't have. Establishing your honor comes through a determination to do the right thing, even under the most difficult circumstances. That's why Chang calls it, "the absolute, unselfish dedication to all virtues; to truth, to courage, to forthrightness. It encompasses all these, and yet it is greater."
So, if you want to have honor, then:
1. Speak the truth... and demand that the whole truth be told, boldly and bluntly
2. Do your duty to the utmost of your ability
3. Do not allow yourself to be dragged into the disgraceful conduct of others
In our public life we're now living in a time when honor seems to be vanishing. Despite the many fine, unselfish people we have the good fortune of knowing in our personal lives, our public life is increasingly marked by lies, deceit and manipulation. It's a shadowy world of half-truths designed for the advantage of the unworthy and the unscrupulous. Yet without a commitment to honor as individuals and as a civilization, we cannot survive... nor would we deserve to.
So part of honor is to oppose the lies of public life, to speak the truth and demand that the whole truth be spoken. Not an easy task, and one that's sure to get you into trouble. Do you have the guts for that? Every Warrior must. Kapla!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Anyone familiar with Star Trek's Klingon Empire will have heard that word thrown around a lot. Unfortunately, not all of Star Trek's writers knew anything about Warrior cultures and how they function, so the ideas of honor they sometimes wrote into scripts for their Klingon characters were terribly misleading. Fortunately, General Chang is one Klingon who hits the nail on the head:
As I said, the concept of honor has been perverted just as often as duty has, and not just in the Klingon Empire, but in real human cultures. The Samurai fell into the trap of equating defeat with dishonor and with an unbearable shame on an entire family. Some religious perversions talk about honor killing to avenge a perceived slight. And, most common of all, the totally false notion that honor, like duty, involves blindly following orders - the infamous defense of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Of course, we're not interested in those false ideas of honor.
Establishing Your Honor
Before you can guard your honor, you have to establish it. You can't protect what you don't have. Establishing your honor comes through a determination to do the right thing, even under the most difficult circumstances. That's why Chang calls it, "the absolute, unselfish dedication to all virtues; to truth, to courage, to forthrightness. It encompasses all these, and yet it is greater."
So, if you want to have honor, then:
1. Speak the truth... and demand that the whole truth be told, boldly and bluntly
2. Do your duty to the utmost of your ability
3. Do not allow yourself to be dragged into the disgraceful conduct of others
In our public life we're now living in a time when honor seems to be vanishing. Despite the many fine, unselfish people we have the good fortune of knowing in our personal lives, our public life is increasingly marked by lies, deceit and manipulation. It's a shadowy world of half-truths designed for the advantage of the unworthy and the unscrupulous. Yet without a commitment to honor as individuals and as a civilization, we cannot survive... nor would we deserve to.
So part of honor is to oppose the lies of public life, to speak the truth and demand that the whole truth be spoken. Not an easy task, and one that's sure to get you into trouble. Do you have the guts for that? Every Warrior must. Kapla!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Monday, 29 March 2010
Want a Resilient Life? Start with Your Duty...
As you may remember from our last post, we had veteran Shakespearean actor Christopher Plummer reprising his role as Klingon General Chang, from Star Trek's 23rd century, and talking about the now famous symbol of the fictional Klingon Empire, the Heart of Virtue...
As Chang says, the person who doesn't practice the virtue of duty "falls into vainglory and reckless self-interest. No true Warrior could ever tolerate these vices, neither in his comrades, nor in himself." You can watch the short video here:
That's all very nice, but just what is "duty"?
Surely it's one of the most abused concepts in human history, used shamelessly by tyrants of all times to manipulate the masses and send millions to a useless death. Yes, no doubt about it, duty's been so perverted as a concept that it's hard to find people who put much stock in the whole idea, if they even think about it at all.
However, none of that diminishes the essential truth of true duty. If duty were not timeless and pure despite the best attempts of humans to pervert it, it would not be a virtue at all. So what is your duty?
Simple... you're surrounded by your duty every minute of every day. And because you've been failing to notice that, it's vital to ask yourself constantly, "what is my duty at this moment?"
Your first duty is to be true to yourself, to be who your really are and are meant to be. You have a fundamental duty as a human being to be honest, truthful and forthright, to help whomever you can, to be kind and respectful to all, to be loving and supportive to your spouse and your children, to do your job in an excellent fashion, to love your country and your world, and, finally, to give thanks!
Anyone who cares about their duty will become a deeply thankful person. Find me someone who's ungrateful and I'll show you someone who probably doesn't care about their duty.
At the end of every day you can ask yourself, "Have I done my duty today in an excellent fashion? How could I improve?" If you do this every day for just 30 days, you'll experience a renewed sense of purpose, a renewed sense of gratitude and a deep inner happiness welling up inside you. Why? Because you're becoming resilient. You're becoming a Warrior...
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
As Chang says, the person who doesn't practice the virtue of duty "falls into vainglory and reckless self-interest. No true Warrior could ever tolerate these vices, neither in his comrades, nor in himself." You can watch the short video here:
That's all very nice, but just what is "duty"?
Surely it's one of the most abused concepts in human history, used shamelessly by tyrants of all times to manipulate the masses and send millions to a useless death. Yes, no doubt about it, duty's been so perverted as a concept that it's hard to find people who put much stock in the whole idea, if they even think about it at all.
However, none of that diminishes the essential truth of true duty. If duty were not timeless and pure despite the best attempts of humans to pervert it, it would not be a virtue at all. So what is your duty?
Simple... you're surrounded by your duty every minute of every day. And because you've been failing to notice that, it's vital to ask yourself constantly, "what is my duty at this moment?"
Your first duty is to be true to yourself, to be who your really are and are meant to be. You have a fundamental duty as a human being to be honest, truthful and forthright, to help whomever you can, to be kind and respectful to all, to be loving and supportive to your spouse and your children, to do your job in an excellent fashion, to love your country and your world, and, finally, to give thanks!
Anyone who cares about their duty will become a deeply thankful person. Find me someone who's ungrateful and I'll show you someone who probably doesn't care about their duty.
At the end of every day you can ask yourself, "Have I done my duty today in an excellent fashion? How could I improve?" If you do this every day for just 30 days, you'll experience a renewed sense of purpose, a renewed sense of gratitude and a deep inner happiness welling up inside you. Why? Because you're becoming resilient. You're becoming a Warrior...
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Thursday, 25 March 2010
The Three Virtues of the Warrior
Last time, we heard from veteran shakespearean actor Christopher Plummer in his reprised role as General Chang, a key figure in one of fiction's greatest warrior cultures - Star Trek's Klingon Empire.
Today, General Chang outlines the three key virtues that can give you a rock solid and resilient life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uQOJzXHs30&feature=channel
(By the way, you can ignore the second half, where he's talking about a simulated conflict with the Federation - Star Trek's "good guys").
WHO CARES ABOUT VIRTUE?
You do, or you wouldn't even be here. Virtues are the foundation of character. What's character? It's the ability to do the right thing, even under the most adverse conditions. So, if you haven't trained yourself in virtue, the vicissitudes of life will blow you about like a leaf on the wind. You'll be constantly changing course, making poor decisions and focused mainly on protecting yourself.
The Warrior, on the other hand, has trained the three virtues General Chang speaks of, and that's why he or she is a much more effective, more resilient and happier person. You see,
the Warrior isn't focused on protecting his own reputation, position and EGO. No, the Warrior is a different species than the wind-blown mob of humanity. The Warrior cuts a straight course through life and is unaffected by the buffeting of circumstances.
Naturally, this allows her to focus on her inner life no matter what's going on externally. And that explains why others draw so much strength from her presence.
The first virtue you need is duty. As Chang says, the person who doesn't practice the virtue of duty "falls into vainglory and reckless self-interest. No true Warrior could ever tolerate these vices, neither in his comrades, nor in himself."
More on duty next time. For now, all I'll say about it is this: find me any dysfunctional corporate culture and I'll show you a self-interested senior leadership who's utterly unconcerned with doing its duty.
Sound like any workplace near you? Yeah, I kind of thought so!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International - transforming your mind, body and spirit into SOLID STEEL...
...wrapped in cotton ;-)
Today, General Chang outlines the three key virtues that can give you a rock solid and resilient life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uQOJzXHs30&feature=channel
(By the way, you can ignore the second half, where he's talking about a simulated conflict with the Federation - Star Trek's "good guys").
WHO CARES ABOUT VIRTUE?
You do, or you wouldn't even be here. Virtues are the foundation of character. What's character? It's the ability to do the right thing, even under the most adverse conditions. So, if you haven't trained yourself in virtue, the vicissitudes of life will blow you about like a leaf on the wind. You'll be constantly changing course, making poor decisions and focused mainly on protecting yourself.
The Warrior, on the other hand, has trained the three virtues General Chang speaks of, and that's why he or she is a much more effective, more resilient and happier person. You see,
the Warrior isn't focused on protecting his own reputation, position and EGO. No, the Warrior is a different species than the wind-blown mob of humanity. The Warrior cuts a straight course through life and is unaffected by the buffeting of circumstances.
Naturally, this allows her to focus on her inner life no matter what's going on externally. And that explains why others draw so much strength from her presence.
The first virtue you need is duty. As Chang says, the person who doesn't practice the virtue of duty "falls into vainglory and reckless self-interest. No true Warrior could ever tolerate these vices, neither in his comrades, nor in himself."
More on duty next time. For now, all I'll say about it is this: find me any dysfunctional corporate culture and I'll show you a self-interested senior leadership who's utterly unconcerned with doing its duty.
Sound like any workplace near you? Yeah, I kind of thought so!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International - transforming your mind, body and spirit into SOLID STEEL...
...wrapped in cotton ;-)
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Resilience Tip: Recognize and Eliminate "B" Thinking
There are two types of thinking, two approaches to life in the world. Let's call them "A" and "B" thinking. It's vital to recognize which predominates in yourself and when if you want to become resilient.
Resilience is characterized by A-thinking, whereas the masses of humanity are deeply invested in B-thinking. Let's look at the characteristics of each:
A Thinking B Thinking
- Seeks challenge - Seeks comfort
- Uses pain constructively - Flees from pain at all cost
- Indulges in pleasure sparingly - Lives for fleeting pleasures
- Committed to excellence - Content with mediocrity
- The leader (conquers new "territory") - The manager (of existing territory)
- The rebel - The conformist
- Goes beyond inherited culture - Blindly accepts own culture
- Hates and exposes lies - Accepts society's lies
- The mystic - The religious institutionalizer
- Reality at all cost - Content with pretending
- TRUTH - Political correctness
Where do you see yourself in these lists? More to the point, where do you see yourself in each area of your life? Be honest.
If you start looking for these types of thinking in everyday life in the people and institutions around you, you'll make a startling discovery...
Our society is totally permeated, top to bottom, with B-thinking. It controls our political processes, our religious and educational institutions and the vast majority subscribe to it uncritically. You'll also notice that most of history's great leaders and role models were A-thinkers.
If you're an A-thinker working in a B-thinking institution of any kind, that situation IS going to drive you nuts. You'll need special tools to survive, the tools of a Warrior. Because every true A-thinker is a Warrior at heart. Check out the tools... survive and thrive in a mediocre world. 99% of people are B-thinkers and need not apply:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/warriorbeta/
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Resilience is characterized by A-thinking, whereas the masses of humanity are deeply invested in B-thinking. Let's look at the characteristics of each:
A Thinking B Thinking
- Seeks challenge - Seeks comfort
- Uses pain constructively - Flees from pain at all cost
- Indulges in pleasure sparingly - Lives for fleeting pleasures
- Committed to excellence - Content with mediocrity
- The leader (conquers new "territory") - The manager (of existing territory)
- The rebel - The conformist
- Goes beyond inherited culture - Blindly accepts own culture
- Hates and exposes lies - Accepts society's lies
- The mystic - The religious institutionalizer
- Reality at all cost - Content with pretending
- TRUTH - Political correctness
Where do you see yourself in these lists? More to the point, where do you see yourself in each area of your life? Be honest.
If you start looking for these types of thinking in everyday life in the people and institutions around you, you'll make a startling discovery...
Our society is totally permeated, top to bottom, with B-thinking. It controls our political processes, our religious and educational institutions and the vast majority subscribe to it uncritically. You'll also notice that most of history's great leaders and role models were A-thinkers.
If you're an A-thinker working in a B-thinking institution of any kind, that situation IS going to drive you nuts. You'll need special tools to survive, the tools of a Warrior. Because every true A-thinker is a Warrior at heart. Check out the tools... survive and thrive in a mediocre world. 99% of people are B-thinkers and need not apply:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/warriorbeta/
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Friday, 28 August 2009
Self-Image, Principles and Character: Forgotten Keys to Excellence
More than any other factor, how you see yourself will determine your success in every area of your life. Without a solid self-image and the self-respect that comes with it, several consequences will always ensue:
• It will be difficult to increase your income, whether in a job or a business
• You will make consistently poor life decisions, especially related to income and relationships
• You will find yourself mired in habits of thought and action that will take you in a downward spiral
If you’re like most people in the Western world today, your self-image has taken quite a beating over time. Just a couple of weeks ago I was coaching a forty year old engineer who’s dissatisfied with what he’s achieved in life. Not surprisingly, he related to me that his father frequently put him down, saying he wouldn’t amount to anything. As a result, the engineer thoroughly internalized this message and it has held him back for decades, despite his many and great talents.
In your formative years, those first two decades of life, your self-image is extremely vulnerable to all the input around you – from your parents, siblings, teachers and peers, many of whom may have attempted to cover up their own inadequacies by tearing you down.
These dents in your self-image impact your character, which is how you actualize yourself in the external world. And character is everything. As Theodore Roosevelt put it, “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of individuals and nations alike.”
The wonderful news about human life is that you can rebuild your self-image! You can determine from this moment on to become an excellent person, someone of impeccable character, openness, honesty and integrity. You can choose to see yourself not only as a success, but as a leader, an inspiration and a beacon. And as you see yourself, so shall you become.
To accomplish this, the most important step is to commit yourself to living by proven principles. Devoting your life to higher principles is not only the key to success; it’s also the key to happiness itself. In the words of the great educator, Horace Mann:
“In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdue an impulse in obedience to a principle. He who never sacrificed a present for a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color.”
The vital caveat here is this: you must commit to these principles NOT for the massive success they will bring you, but solely because it’s the right thing to do. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.
The Great Principles of Life and Success:
So what are the key principles that high-performing individuals commit to? People committed to personal and professional excellence:
1. Accept full and complete responsibility for everything that happens in their life, for all that they have and are. Consequently, they refuse to blame anyone else, whether their parents, spouse, God, karma, the government or any other external factor.
2. Forgive completely everyone who has ever wronged them and work as hard as necessary to expunge any bitterness they feel toward these people.
3. Treat everyone with equal courtesy and respect, regardless of their social status and without the least regard for personal gain.
4. Commit to excellence, to accomplishing their goals and living each day of their lives in an excellent fashion, and to becoming the very best they can possibly be in their chosen profession. In all humility, they dare to see themselves as the best and they strive to attain that.
5. Commit to living by the highest and noblest values: love, faith, honesty, integrity and forthrightness.
6. Dedicate their energies to serving others, to transcending their own small lives in pursuit of a greater good.
Success depends not only on leadership but, prior to that, on “self-leadership” – your ability to be the leader of your own life. And all leadership depends on a noble and inspiring vision. Needless to say, without committing yourself to timeless and proven principles that take you beyond the narrow prison of your short-term self-interest, there is ZERO possibility of an inspiring vision.
So the essential first step in reclaiming your life is to RETRAIN your habits of thought to cleanse your self-image of the damage you’ve accumulated over the years. You do this primarily by making an irrevocable decision right now to become an excellent person and to walk, talk and think like such a person until it becomes ingrained in every fiber of your being.
If you commit yourself to living by these ennobling principles, I can absolutely guarantee that both your life and your personal satisfaction will reach new heights. This will utterly transform your self-image, multiply your self-respect and attract higher quality people to you. Though not always easy (what is?), this new direction will turn you into a natural leader, an inspiration to those around you and an inevitable success in whatever you choose to pursue in life.
On September 10, I'll be unveiling an entirely new program that teaches you the simple steps for implementing this critical information in your own life immediately with 100% effectiveness. So stand by...
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Peak Performance Training: Step Two to Personal Power
Welcome to the second in our 5-part series on Peak Performance Training and building your Personal Power to take back control of your life.
Last time, you learned that Personal Power is just a new word for an age-old concept, a concept that the ancient world’s best schools of spiritual life, health maintenance and martial arts were well aware of. Personal Power is the measure of your ability to change your life and yourself at will. If you think about it, most people you know have never demonstrated this ability and my guess is that you’d like some help too.
This time, we’re continuing with your physical body, since your body is really the key to peak performance training and to control your mind you must work through your body. Last time, working through your body meant leaning proper diet and introducing periodic detoxification cleanses. This time, we take it to the next level.
1. Get that Wet Noodle of a Physique into Shape!
Why would you want to do this and what does getting in shape have to do with Personal Power? Just this:
You’ll feel better physically and have lots more energy
You’ll realize you can generate energy on demand
You’ll find yourself dealing with fewer negative thoughts
Your self-image will improve
You’ll start to dig your way out of the unseen spirals of disease creation that you don’t even recognize (see below)
How Should I Get in Shape?
You can use any exercise program or combination of programs that develops the following in equal proportions:
Strength (of muscles, tendons and ligaments)
Flexibility (of joints and soft tissue)
Endurance (cardio vascular)
Please note that developing Personal Power doesn’t require cultivating extremes of fitness. In fact, the extremes of the tri-athlete, the marathon runner or the body builder can actually cause long term damage and in themselves won’t help you on your quest for Personal Power.
2. Get Internal Exercise
What’s that? Well, internal exercises include such things as Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Yoga. These are systems designed to produce both health and fitness at the same time. And remember, you can get really fit without producing health. We want to build them in together in a balanced way.
The greatest advantage of internal exercise is that it does a much better job than our usual external exercise at overcoming the “7 Deadly Spirals of Disease” – these are downward spirals resulting from lack of proper maintenance that begin around age 30, accelerate after age 50 and produce serious medical challenges. Internal exercises will:
· Take all your joints through their total range of motion
· Cleanse your energy meridians
· Inject potent energy into your bodily tissues
· Cleanse and energize your internal organs, muscles, tendons, ligaments, bone marrow, skeletal structure, blood cells, central nervous system, fasciae, diaphragms and skin
Personally, I believe the top 5 Qi Gong systems are the fastest and easiest way to get these results.
The Personal Power Payoff
If you start working on your body with these internal and external methods, you’ll notice the payoff in terms of health, energy levels, self-confidence and sense of control over your life is one thousand percent.
There’s lots more that goes into peak performance training and accumulating true Personal Power. However, without a strong foundation in your physical body, the rest won’t help you much. So start now so that you can experience the overwhelming joy that comes from realizing you really can change your life!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International
Last time, you learned that Personal Power is just a new word for an age-old concept, a concept that the ancient world’s best schools of spiritual life, health maintenance and martial arts were well aware of. Personal Power is the measure of your ability to change your life and yourself at will. If you think about it, most people you know have never demonstrated this ability and my guess is that you’d like some help too.
This time, we’re continuing with your physical body, since your body is really the key to peak performance training and to control your mind you must work through your body. Last time, working through your body meant leaning proper diet and introducing periodic detoxification cleanses. This time, we take it to the next level.
1. Get that Wet Noodle of a Physique into Shape!
Why would you want to do this and what does getting in shape have to do with Personal Power? Just this:
You’ll feel better physically and have lots more energy
You’ll realize you can generate energy on demand
You’ll find yourself dealing with fewer negative thoughts
Your self-image will improve
You’ll start to dig your way out of the unseen spirals of disease creation that you don’t even recognize (see below)
How Should I Get in Shape?
You can use any exercise program or combination of programs that develops the following in equal proportions:
Strength (of muscles, tendons and ligaments)
Flexibility (of joints and soft tissue)
Endurance (cardio vascular)
Please note that developing Personal Power doesn’t require cultivating extremes of fitness. In fact, the extremes of the tri-athlete, the marathon runner or the body builder can actually cause long term damage and in themselves won’t help you on your quest for Personal Power.
2. Get Internal Exercise
What’s that? Well, internal exercises include such things as Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Yoga. These are systems designed to produce both health and fitness at the same time. And remember, you can get really fit without producing health. We want to build them in together in a balanced way.
The greatest advantage of internal exercise is that it does a much better job than our usual external exercise at overcoming the “7 Deadly Spirals of Disease” – these are downward spirals resulting from lack of proper maintenance that begin around age 30, accelerate after age 50 and produce serious medical challenges. Internal exercises will:
· Take all your joints through their total range of motion
· Cleanse your energy meridians
· Inject potent energy into your bodily tissues
· Cleanse and energize your internal organs, muscles, tendons, ligaments, bone marrow, skeletal structure, blood cells, central nervous system, fasciae, diaphragms and skin
Personally, I believe the top 5 Qi Gong systems are the fastest and easiest way to get these results.
The Personal Power Payoff
If you start working on your body with these internal and external methods, you’ll notice the payoff in terms of health, energy levels, self-confidence and sense of control over your life is one thousand percent.
There’s lots more that goes into peak performance training and accumulating true Personal Power. However, without a strong foundation in your physical body, the rest won’t help you much. So start now so that you can experience the overwhelming joy that comes from realizing you really can change your life!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International
Watch the video here!
For more information on mastering internal exercise, defeating disease and building true personal power, go to:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/RSHQG/index.php
Monday, 22 June 2009
Self-Improvement Books? They Won’t Change Your Life, But This Will…
Chances are you’ve already read a ton of self-improvement books and attended lots of seminars and workshops. And did any of them transform your life? Unless you’re part of the 5% who eventually report experiencing significant results at some point in their lives, your answer will probably be a somewhat embarrassed “Ah…no… not yet.”
After three decades researching and practicing the personal development systems of the ancient world and about half that long doing coaching, counseling and pastoral work, I’ve come to realize there are some fundamental reasons why our physical and emotional lives are such a mess and why our attempts to “fix” them seldom work. So if self-improvement books aren’t doing it for you, you’re not alone. There are good reasons why you’ve failed to transform your life so far…
Obstacle One: Your Culture
As someone brought up in a Western (or westernized) culture, you’ve been taught a specific way to relate to your physical body, to your mind and to you own thoughts – you see your body and mind as separate and you identify your Self with your thoughts. And you’ve been thoroughly but subtly indoctrinated into interpreting the world around you according to the defunct paradigm of Newtonian physics – meaning you see the world around you as solid and real, and you give your physical senses a monopoly on providing the information you build your interpretations on.
This particularly dangerous combination gives rise to the unprecedented rates of neurosis you see around you (and perhaps within you) every day.
Obstacle Two: The Mentality of Specialization
Your culture has taught you to assume that every “problem” needs its own solution. If you look at your own life and start to list these problems - the things that aren’t working the way you want - you could easily come up with a list of twenty or thirty such “problems”. Of course, taking the standard “self-improvement” approach is great for the industry because it means you’ll be buying twenty or thirty new titles in a vain attempt to fix your life!
We’ve all imbibed this mentality of “specialization”. In other words, if you want to develop your willpower, fill your wallet or reduce your waistline, you assume the person most qualified to help you is someone who thinks about and writes about nothing else. Unfortunately, this blinds you to the fact that each of those problems is just a symptom and that until the root cause is dealt with, those problems or similar ones will simply recur. Know anyone who’s tried to lose weight several times?
Obstacle Three: You’ve Been Educated!
You’ve come through an educational system that also sees your mind and body as very separate realities. This system is based on the faulty premise of classical liberalism that if you feed people all the facts, they’ll make good choices in life. Alas, if only it were that simple!
In contrast, the best educational systems of the ancient world, from North America to the Mediterranean to the Orient, all focused on the acquisition of character development, values and integrity rather than just facts. And they all understood that the only way to master your mind is through your body, so their educational systems were very physical. And, unlike people who went through these ancient educational systems, you’ve come out mentally and emotionally fragmented and probably predisposed to making dozens of choices per day that make you weaker instead of stronger.
The Solution
The ancient world’s top traditions of spiritual life, health maintenance and martial arts all knew something we’ve long since forgotten: until a person develops physical, mental and emotional resilience, he or she will live a fragmented life of “coping” and low personal effectiveness. This will inevitably translate into feelings of powerlessness and victimization, failed relationships, poor health, financial problems and non-stop stress, among other things.
Fortunately, these traditions – all of which still exist, by the way – had a solution. They taught an approach we would call “holistic” (and they would call “bloody obvious”), an approach that gives those who practice it a deliberate, powerful and stress-free life of continual inner and outer achievement.
All of this rests on their understanding of how your mind-body organism was designed to function and what it’s really capable of – which goes far beyond what you’ve been taught to believe. And, paradoxically, that’s an understanding that modern science, with its recent forays into the study of consciousness, sub-atomic physics and genetics is more and more likely to support.
Acquiring resilience is the basis of personal power, which in turn is the basis of transforming your life. Until you have resilience, you can read all the self-improvement books you want, go to workshops, go to church, go on a diet, go to the gym and more, and none of it will transform your life in any significant way.
You see, all those nifty self-help techniques you learn are like seeds – how well they do depends on the quality of the soil you plant them in. And in this case you are the soil. So if you want to become soil that produces phenomenal results, you’ll need to adopt an entirely different, holistic approach to your life and acquire resilience.
Next time, I’ll talk about what you can do to acquire this resilience for yourself, so that your many of your challenges in life will dissolve on their own.
If you want to get off to a running start, just pop over to this address and grab a copy of my Special Report on resilience for free:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/specialreport/index.php
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
After three decades researching and practicing the personal development systems of the ancient world and about half that long doing coaching, counseling and pastoral work, I’ve come to realize there are some fundamental reasons why our physical and emotional lives are such a mess and why our attempts to “fix” them seldom work. So if self-improvement books aren’t doing it for you, you’re not alone. There are good reasons why you’ve failed to transform your life so far…
Obstacle One: Your Culture
As someone brought up in a Western (or westernized) culture, you’ve been taught a specific way to relate to your physical body, to your mind and to you own thoughts – you see your body and mind as separate and you identify your Self with your thoughts. And you’ve been thoroughly but subtly indoctrinated into interpreting the world around you according to the defunct paradigm of Newtonian physics – meaning you see the world around you as solid and real, and you give your physical senses a monopoly on providing the information you build your interpretations on.
This particularly dangerous combination gives rise to the unprecedented rates of neurosis you see around you (and perhaps within you) every day.
Obstacle Two: The Mentality of Specialization
Your culture has taught you to assume that every “problem” needs its own solution. If you look at your own life and start to list these problems - the things that aren’t working the way you want - you could easily come up with a list of twenty or thirty such “problems”. Of course, taking the standard “self-improvement” approach is great for the industry because it means you’ll be buying twenty or thirty new titles in a vain attempt to fix your life!
We’ve all imbibed this mentality of “specialization”. In other words, if you want to develop your willpower, fill your wallet or reduce your waistline, you assume the person most qualified to help you is someone who thinks about and writes about nothing else. Unfortunately, this blinds you to the fact that each of those problems is just a symptom and that until the root cause is dealt with, those problems or similar ones will simply recur. Know anyone who’s tried to lose weight several times?
Obstacle Three: You’ve Been Educated!
You’ve come through an educational system that also sees your mind and body as very separate realities. This system is based on the faulty premise of classical liberalism that if you feed people all the facts, they’ll make good choices in life. Alas, if only it were that simple!
In contrast, the best educational systems of the ancient world, from North America to the Mediterranean to the Orient, all focused on the acquisition of character development, values and integrity rather than just facts. And they all understood that the only way to master your mind is through your body, so their educational systems were very physical. And, unlike people who went through these ancient educational systems, you’ve come out mentally and emotionally fragmented and probably predisposed to making dozens of choices per day that make you weaker instead of stronger.
The Solution
The ancient world’s top traditions of spiritual life, health maintenance and martial arts all knew something we’ve long since forgotten: until a person develops physical, mental and emotional resilience, he or she will live a fragmented life of “coping” and low personal effectiveness. This will inevitably translate into feelings of powerlessness and victimization, failed relationships, poor health, financial problems and non-stop stress, among other things.
Fortunately, these traditions – all of which still exist, by the way – had a solution. They taught an approach we would call “holistic” (and they would call “bloody obvious”), an approach that gives those who practice it a deliberate, powerful and stress-free life of continual inner and outer achievement.
All of this rests on their understanding of how your mind-body organism was designed to function and what it’s really capable of – which goes far beyond what you’ve been taught to believe. And, paradoxically, that’s an understanding that modern science, with its recent forays into the study of consciousness, sub-atomic physics and genetics is more and more likely to support.
Acquiring resilience is the basis of personal power, which in turn is the basis of transforming your life. Until you have resilience, you can read all the self-improvement books you want, go to workshops, go to church, go on a diet, go to the gym and more, and none of it will transform your life in any significant way.
You see, all those nifty self-help techniques you learn are like seeds – how well they do depends on the quality of the soil you plant them in. And in this case you are the soil. So if you want to become soil that produces phenomenal results, you’ll need to adopt an entirely different, holistic approach to your life and acquire resilience.
Next time, I’ll talk about what you can do to acquire this resilience for yourself, so that your many of your challenges in life will dissolve on their own.
If you want to get off to a running start, just pop over to this address and grab a copy of my Special Report on resilience for free:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/specialreport/index.php
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
Friday, 19 June 2009
Peak Performance: Did I Stick to My Plan? Find Out Here...
Earlier this week I shared with you the incredible benefits of focusing on just one activity in your life and training that activity really hard for a week. This is a key to achieving peak performance and to living a deliberate, powerful and stress-free life.
And my personal committment this week was to double my usual "maintenance" regime of physical training and do 1000 Oriental push-ups and 500 Squats over the space of 5 days. Have I followed through?
Well, it's like this. It's before noon on Friday and I've got just 50 more push-ups and 75 more squats to do! So yes, I'm right on schedule. Okay, I'm 25 squats behind, but that's easy to make up before I get to the finish line at midnight tonight ;-)
What did I get out of this? So far, I've experienced the following benefits:
And my personal committment this week was to double my usual "maintenance" regime of physical training and do 1000 Oriental push-ups and 500 Squats over the space of 5 days. Have I followed through?
Well, it's like this. It's before noon on Friday and I've got just 50 more push-ups and 75 more squats to do! So yes, I'm right on schedule. Okay, I'm 25 squats behind, but that's easy to make up before I get to the finish line at midnight tonight ;-)
What did I get out of this? So far, I've experienced the following benefits:
- I plan to make this into my new "maintenance" regime - that's how much I've loved the resulting increases in strength, endurance and even flexibility.
- A few weeks back I injured a knee - stretched some tendons - and it really bothered me for several days. Doubling my squats has really strengthened all the surrounding tissues and made the knee seem just about as good as new.
- Yes, it feels really good to have decided to accomplish something tough and actually done it. Whenever you do that, it's a deposit into the bank of your self-esteem ;-)
Your life will improve to the extent that you take massive and focused action - there's not other way to acquire Personal Power and self-mastery. So what have you decided to focus on for the next 5-7 days? Feel free to leave a comment and let me know!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International - "Transforming your mind, body and spirit into SOLID STEEL... wrapped in cotton" ;-)
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/specialreport/index.php
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Take a Week to Test Yourself and WIN
One of the best ways to get yourself to peak performance and stay there is simply this:
...every so often, train just one thing really hard for a week.
This week, for example, I'm focussing on something very physical - strength training. In concrete terms, that means I'm going to double my usual "maintenance" regime and do one thousand push-ups and five hundred squats this week.
Naturally, that may mean some other physical training items take the week off, and that's okay. The value of this type of focussed training far outweighs any potential downside.
I should emphasize that you can do this with ANY element of your usual training - your meditation, any aspect of your spiritual life, your interactions with others, etc. Your imagination's the limit!
The next two weeks happen to be a fasting period in the Orthodox Church, and fasting periods have been used since ancient times for more demanding spiritual training. What most people don't notice these days is that this "spiritual" training usually involved more physical work too. So it's a nice coincidence for me.
Using a week to focus on a single aspect of training yourself (and PLEASE remember, every single thing you do IS training you for better or worse!) has some huge benefits:
...every so often, train just one thing really hard for a week.
This week, for example, I'm focussing on something very physical - strength training. In concrete terms, that means I'm going to double my usual "maintenance" regime and do one thousand push-ups and five hundred squats this week.
Naturally, that may mean some other physical training items take the week off, and that's okay. The value of this type of focussed training far outweighs any potential downside.
I should emphasize that you can do this with ANY element of your usual training - your meditation, any aspect of your spiritual life, your interactions with others, etc. Your imagination's the limit!
The next two weeks happen to be a fasting period in the Orthodox Church, and fasting periods have been used since ancient times for more demanding spiritual training. What most people don't notice these days is that this "spiritual" training usually involved more physical work too. So it's a nice coincidence for me.
Using a week to focus on a single aspect of training yourself (and PLEASE remember, every single thing you do IS training you for better or worse!) has some huge benefits:
- You improve dramatically in one area in a very short time (yeah, you may be a bit sore, but you'll still be light years ahead at the end)
- You'll often find it hard to go back to your usual regime once you discover what you're really capable of
- You'll feel dramatically better about yourself and what you can do when you put your mind to it.
- You'll have lots more energy to burn and less stress to deal with
This kind of training gives you a victory over yourself and I can't say often enough that in the world of self-transformation, you have to experience frequent victories. They're vital to your progress and to your morale.
So why not pick something over the next few days and just do more of it than you're doing now? Give yourself that victory you deserve. Take a week to test yourself and enjoy the benefits!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
Friday, 5 June 2009
Want Inner Equilibrium? Go Outside!!
I don't know about you, but the first thing I do every morning is head downstairs, throw open the patio door, go outside and BREATHE.
If you want energy for the first half of your day, just head outside first thing in the morning - the earlier the better - and take some deep breaths. I'll tell you how in a moment.
Deep levels of inner peace and harmony are not just emotional states unrelated to your physical body and your place in the cosmos. They're not just the result of attitudes and they can't be produced simply by mind games, as some people are telling you.
This deep inner peace and harmony is the direct result of you inserting yourself in the currents of harmony that blow through all creation all around you at every moment. You want to feel these currents? Good. Then go outside first thing in the morning and to this:
1. Put your hands on your hips, bend forward keeping your back straight and exhale through your mouth, totally emptying all the stale air out of your lungs.
2. Return to an upright posture, inhaling through your nose. You'll find you really don't have to inhale - your lungs will fill up again automatically. Repeat steps 1 and 2 three times - don't hyperventilate.
3. If the sun is up, feel its warmth on your skin and gently "breathe in" its warmth.
4. Do some light stretching, enjoying the crisp, clean air.
The early morning air is first of all the cleanest air of the day, if you live in a city as most of us do. It's also thoroughly charged with Qi, according to Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist research. And that explains why parks throughout China and in Chinese communities abroad are often packed with people doing Tai Chi, Qi Gong or related exercises at dawn.
Of course, you can and should get outside anytime you can, especially to places where you can be in a more natural environment. I realize that can be tough if you work downtown in the concrete jungle. I'm very fortunate in that there are two sets of woods within walking distance of my house, woods thick enough that when you're in them you can't even see the rest of the city! It's a great place to do Qi Gong.
Whenever you can go for walks through a park or even through your neighborhood, do it. Just follow your breath with your mind and bathe yourself in the harmony you feel. This will calm your mind, calm your nerves and, from a physical point of view, give you some natural vitamin D and fresh (non-recirculated) air.
As you pursue inner peace and harmony as goals in your life, you'll find yourself spending more and more time outdoors. This is one addiction you don't want to put off!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
If you want energy for the first half of your day, just head outside first thing in the morning - the earlier the better - and take some deep breaths. I'll tell you how in a moment.
Deep levels of inner peace and harmony are not just emotional states unrelated to your physical body and your place in the cosmos. They're not just the result of attitudes and they can't be produced simply by mind games, as some people are telling you.
This deep inner peace and harmony is the direct result of you inserting yourself in the currents of harmony that blow through all creation all around you at every moment. You want to feel these currents? Good. Then go outside first thing in the morning and to this:
1. Put your hands on your hips, bend forward keeping your back straight and exhale through your mouth, totally emptying all the stale air out of your lungs.
2. Return to an upright posture, inhaling through your nose. You'll find you really don't have to inhale - your lungs will fill up again automatically. Repeat steps 1 and 2 three times - don't hyperventilate.
3. If the sun is up, feel its warmth on your skin and gently "breathe in" its warmth.
4. Do some light stretching, enjoying the crisp, clean air.
The early morning air is first of all the cleanest air of the day, if you live in a city as most of us do. It's also thoroughly charged with Qi, according to Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist research. And that explains why parks throughout China and in Chinese communities abroad are often packed with people doing Tai Chi, Qi Gong or related exercises at dawn.
Of course, you can and should get outside anytime you can, especially to places where you can be in a more natural environment. I realize that can be tough if you work downtown in the concrete jungle. I'm very fortunate in that there are two sets of woods within walking distance of my house, woods thick enough that when you're in them you can't even see the rest of the city! It's a great place to do Qi Gong.
Whenever you can go for walks through a park or even through your neighborhood, do it. Just follow your breath with your mind and bathe yourself in the harmony you feel. This will calm your mind, calm your nerves and, from a physical point of view, give you some natural vitamin D and fresh (non-recirculated) air.
As you pursue inner peace and harmony as goals in your life, you'll find yourself spending more and more time outdoors. This is one addiction you don't want to put off!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Putting "Strength in Your Belly"
"If there is no strength in your dantien, vices such as jealously, envy, anger, greed and distrust appear."
~ Okado Torajiro
We could also add "stress", "anxiety" and "fear" to the list.
Everything I've shared with you over the past week has been to prepare you for today.
If you've been practicing this stuff daily you can't help but feel a whole lot better. That would be impossible. Our problem these days is that nobody will practice anything consistently and diligently. Instead, they just dabble, and dabblers don't get results in any area of life.
Okay, so we've already talked about your breathing and how you need to learn Normal Abdominal Breathing in order to stop creating stress accidentally.
When you're practicing this kind of breathing during meditation, you want to bring your breath down into your "lower dantien". Dantien means "elixir field" and it's your body's main energy storage area just below your navel. This will help you to put strength into your dantien, as Torajiro says above.
It's easy to feel the breath filling the dantien because your abdomen is actually expanding as you inhale.
We've also talked about how you can learn to integrate your mind, breath and physical movements into one. The next part of that equation is to learn to move from the dantien. In other words, you should feel every movement you make coming from the dantien, as if it moves a nano second before the rest of your body.
That kind of movement may seems strange to you, but keep in mind that all of Tai Chi (and other internal martial arts) and most of Qi Gong are performed just this way.
Go "play" with these approaches and you'll soon experience a world of difference!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
==============================================================
Disclaimer: This material is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition, nor toreplace the advice of qualified medical practitioners. You should not engage in any of the exercises suggested here without consulting your physician, particularly if you have anychronic medical issues or have reason to suspect these exercises could cause injury to you. If you are pregnant or think you might be, do not attempt any of these breathing or movement exercises without the express permission of your medical doctor and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
===============================================================
~ Okado Torajiro
We could also add "stress", "anxiety" and "fear" to the list.
Everything I've shared with you over the past week has been to prepare you for today.
If you've been practicing this stuff daily you can't help but feel a whole lot better. That would be impossible. Our problem these days is that nobody will practice anything consistently and diligently. Instead, they just dabble, and dabblers don't get results in any area of life.
Okay, so we've already talked about your breathing and how you need to learn Normal Abdominal Breathing in order to stop creating stress accidentally.
When you're practicing this kind of breathing during meditation, you want to bring your breath down into your "lower dantien". Dantien means "elixir field" and it's your body's main energy storage area just below your navel. This will help you to put strength into your dantien, as Torajiro says above.
It's easy to feel the breath filling the dantien because your abdomen is actually expanding as you inhale.
We've also talked about how you can learn to integrate your mind, breath and physical movements into one. The next part of that equation is to learn to move from the dantien. In other words, you should feel every movement you make coming from the dantien, as if it moves a nano second before the rest of your body.
That kind of movement may seems strange to you, but keep in mind that all of Tai Chi (and other internal martial arts) and most of Qi Gong are performed just this way.
Go "play" with these approaches and you'll soon experience a world of difference!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
==============================================================
Disclaimer: This material is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition, nor toreplace the advice of qualified medical practitioners. You should not engage in any of the exercises suggested here without consulting your physician, particularly if you have anychronic medical issues or have reason to suspect these exercises could cause injury to you. If you are pregnant or think you might be, do not attempt any of these breathing or movement exercises without the express permission of your medical doctor and a licensed practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
===============================================================
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Could the World Stop and Let Me Off?
Have you ever had one of those days... or several in a row... where everything seemed to come crashing down around you?
Well, that pretty much describes last week for me. Here's a brief synopsis for you. Hopefully, you'll feel blessed by comparison ;-)
1. Wednesday: major plumbing disaster in downstairs bathroom, coming from leak in shower pipe above it. Real cause was hidden faulty workmanship under previous owner.
2. Thursday: Plumber comes and diagnoses problem. Whole shower fixture has to be replaced for about $500.
3. Friday: Plumber comes and does the job
4. Friday night: old family friend, age 90 +, suddenly shows up in town, totally unannounced, and wants to see the whole family. We arrange to have supper on Sunday.
5. Saturday: family member who was dogsitting for friends out of town gets sudden symptoms of vertigo and is taken to hospital. I spend Saturday driving all over the place because of this.
6. Sunday: New plumbing disaster, unrelated to the first one - the laundry tub overflows during a wash cycle.
7. Sunday night: Old family friend is totally unreachable from Saturday night on. We all arrive at the hotel to have supper with him on Sunday evening, only to discover he's already left town in the early afternoon. I'm thoroughly confused and still trying to figure this one out.
So when stuff like this happens - and it will from time to time - what do you do? Here are some
suggestions that work really well:
Well, that pretty much describes last week for me. Here's a brief synopsis for you. Hopefully, you'll feel blessed by comparison ;-)
1. Wednesday: major plumbing disaster in downstairs bathroom, coming from leak in shower pipe above it. Real cause was hidden faulty workmanship under previous owner.
2. Thursday: Plumber comes and diagnoses problem. Whole shower fixture has to be replaced for about $500.
3. Friday: Plumber comes and does the job
4. Friday night: old family friend, age 90 +, suddenly shows up in town, totally unannounced, and wants to see the whole family. We arrange to have supper on Sunday.
5. Saturday: family member who was dogsitting for friends out of town gets sudden symptoms of vertigo and is taken to hospital. I spend Saturday driving all over the place because of this.
6. Sunday: New plumbing disaster, unrelated to the first one - the laundry tub overflows during a wash cycle.
7. Sunday night: Old family friend is totally unreachable from Saturday night on. We all arrive at the hotel to have supper with him on Sunday evening, only to discover he's already left town in the early afternoon. I'm thoroughly confused and still trying to figure this one out.
So when stuff like this happens - and it will from time to time - what do you do? Here are some
suggestions that work really well:
- Build your ark before the flood (Noah was a smart guy...). In other words, make sure you personally are in great shape physically, emotionally and spiritually. Nothing at all can substitute for personal resilience when the sky falls in and lots of extra demands are suddenly placed on your stamina.
- Focus on your inner world: cultivate inner peace and harmony even though the walls are falling down around you. This sounds counter-intuitive but, then again, most winning strategies do. This keeps you from focussing too much on what you don't want, which improves your spirits a whole lot.
- Relax and go with the flow of events. That doesn't mean you don't try to control what you can; only that you recognize what you can't control and learn to surrender to it with faith. After all, stressing about what you can't control is simply wasted energy.
- Remember Winston Churchill's famous maxim: "If you're going through hell.... keep going!"
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go home and meet with the next plumber ;-)
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
On Pandemic Paranoia...
Hi all,
The idea that the Swine Flu epidemic in Mexico will turn into a worldwide pandemic is not totally unfounded. The fear that it will is unfounded and unhelpful.
Now, why should you listen to my take on the current pandemic threat? Well, for one thing, I'm up to my neck involved in preparing for it. You see, part of Warriorship - for me personally, at any rate - is knowing all about and planning for contingencies.
Actually, I'm rather well trained in the whole field of emergency management, including pandemic planning, and I spend part of my time teaching this stuff and building emergency response plans for organizations. As a matter of fact, I've been hired to produce a pandemic plan for an organization later this year (though something tells me they may want a draft a little sooner ;-)
Your worst enemy in any emergency is fear. Fear is a funny thing. The more you deny it, suppress it and refuse to face it, the more it controls you. And fear is an uncomfortable feeling, so we always tend to suppress it. The Warrior approach is to acknowledge your fear, stay present to it and discover that it's not really such a big monster after all. It's a bit of a cosmic joke, really.
Will the current epidemic turn into a catastrophic pandemic? I don't know the answer to that. What I do know (and what you probably don't) is this: we're FAR better prepared to meet a threat like this than at any time in history.
How so? Whenever there's a big emergency now, including pandemics, there's a whole apparatus throughout all levels of government and including many NGOs that swings into action behind the scenes. Numerous "emergency operations centers" have been activated, pandemic plans pulled off the shelf and supplies readied. The public perception that their government is just bumbling through could not be more mistaken.
Does this mean the politicians and bureaucrats will make the right decisions? Not always. Someone once said the history of the Western world is politicians and bureaucrats doing too little, too late. And there's lots of truth there, of course.
To be fair, these folks are going to have to make some tough calls in the days and weeks ahead. And, in hindsight, some of these decisions won't come out smelling like roses. That's inevitable.
When the SARS outbreak hit Toronto (from Hong Kong) a few years ago, we did a lot of things wrong in our efforts to contain it. And despite the screw-ups, we wrestled SARS to the ground in a matter of weeks.
The fact is, today we have much better early warning, diagnosis, containment measures, command and control, emergency stockpiles, decision-making processes, etc, than we've ever had before. Keep in mind that if this current Swine Flu outbreak were happening 100-150 years ago, you still wouldn't know about it and there wouldn't be any coordinated international response to it that meant anything. It would be free to spread like wild fire. Not so today.
So what should you do? Get informed. There are a zillion good websites to give you the facts and tell you how to prepare yourself, your family and your workplace. Use those resources.
And beware of the mainstream media. The media are not the unbiased purveyors of facts they fancy themselves to be. The media are collectively an interest group. And they love to sell you a product called "fear" because fear sells. Please don't fall for it.
Best wishes,
Dr. Symeon Rodger :-)
The idea that the Swine Flu epidemic in Mexico will turn into a worldwide pandemic is not totally unfounded. The fear that it will is unfounded and unhelpful.
Now, why should you listen to my take on the current pandemic threat? Well, for one thing, I'm up to my neck involved in preparing for it. You see, part of Warriorship - for me personally, at any rate - is knowing all about and planning for contingencies.
Actually, I'm rather well trained in the whole field of emergency management, including pandemic planning, and I spend part of my time teaching this stuff and building emergency response plans for organizations. As a matter of fact, I've been hired to produce a pandemic plan for an organization later this year (though something tells me they may want a draft a little sooner ;-)
Your worst enemy in any emergency is fear. Fear is a funny thing. The more you deny it, suppress it and refuse to face it, the more it controls you. And fear is an uncomfortable feeling, so we always tend to suppress it. The Warrior approach is to acknowledge your fear, stay present to it and discover that it's not really such a big monster after all. It's a bit of a cosmic joke, really.
Will the current epidemic turn into a catastrophic pandemic? I don't know the answer to that. What I do know (and what you probably don't) is this: we're FAR better prepared to meet a threat like this than at any time in history.
How so? Whenever there's a big emergency now, including pandemics, there's a whole apparatus throughout all levels of government and including many NGOs that swings into action behind the scenes. Numerous "emergency operations centers" have been activated, pandemic plans pulled off the shelf and supplies readied. The public perception that their government is just bumbling through could not be more mistaken.
Does this mean the politicians and bureaucrats will make the right decisions? Not always. Someone once said the history of the Western world is politicians and bureaucrats doing too little, too late. And there's lots of truth there, of course.
To be fair, these folks are going to have to make some tough calls in the days and weeks ahead. And, in hindsight, some of these decisions won't come out smelling like roses. That's inevitable.
When the SARS outbreak hit Toronto (from Hong Kong) a few years ago, we did a lot of things wrong in our efforts to contain it. And despite the screw-ups, we wrestled SARS to the ground in a matter of weeks.
The fact is, today we have much better early warning, diagnosis, containment measures, command and control, emergency stockpiles, decision-making processes, etc, than we've ever had before. Keep in mind that if this current Swine Flu outbreak were happening 100-150 years ago, you still wouldn't know about it and there wouldn't be any coordinated international response to it that meant anything. It would be free to spread like wild fire. Not so today.
So what should you do? Get informed. There are a zillion good websites to give you the facts and tell you how to prepare yourself, your family and your workplace. Use those resources.
And beware of the mainstream media. The media are not the unbiased purveyors of facts they fancy themselves to be. The media are collectively an interest group. And they love to sell you a product called "fear" because fear sells. Please don't fall for it.
Best wishes,
Dr. Symeon Rodger :-)
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Why the Spartan Beat the Ninja...
So there I was last night flipping channels (a bad habit) when I got "trapped" by this fascinating show on Spike TV about who's the "deadliest warrior", the Spartan or the Ninja.
They were out to establish with ruthless scientific rigor who would have won in a 1-on-1 battle to the death between a single Ninja and a single Spartan soldier.
And scientific it was: they had living practitioners of both fighting systems, all the authentic weapons and equipment, 2 kinds of test dummies, equipment for measuring weapon speed and penetration, and two medical experts to assess the effects of individual blows.
Artificial, Of Course...
Yeah, the premise was a bit artificial in that the Spartan of c. 500 BC and the Ninja of c. 1500 AD were obviously never going to run into each other. Still, each in his own time had the reputation as the most feared adversary alive.
The other part of the artificiality was they would never likely face off anyway, since the Spartan was a soldier who fought conventional battles in large formations, whereas the Ninja was much more akin to a modern Special Forces guy who operates alone or in small groups. And tossing your Special Forces folks onto a conventional battlefield is a giant no-no ;-)
The Tests
These guys tested all manner of weapons and protective equipment from both sides for over 3 long days! They concluded the Ninja's sword - the "ninjato" (basically a straight version of the Samurai's "katana", itself the most lethal sword every devised) was FAR superior to the Spartan's shorter, bronze age sword.
The Ninja's weaponry was generally more robust and inventive. It included a lethal and accurate poison blow gun, the deadly "shuriken" throwing stars, and even the ability to attack the opponent's eyes with crushed glass or primitive pepper spray. He also wielded a ball and chain device that could deliver a killing blow right through the Spartan's bronze helmet.
So you'd think after all that the Ninja would win, right?
Guess again. After all the data was in, they fed it into a computer and then ran the 1-on-1 combat simulation 1000 times. And the Spartan won 65% of the time!
How???
Simple, really: he was better protected than the Ninja. Yes, the Ninja had great weapons, but his bladed weapons couldn't penetrate the Spartan's bronze body armor and he could never get to the soft, unarmored spots because of the Spartan's expertise with his massive 4-foot diameter shield.
In other words, the reason the Spartan won comes down to one single principle; the same principle I've been trying to get you to pay attention to for a long time now...
RESILIENCE
So despite all the sophisticated weapons and strategies employed by both sides (and especially the Ninja), it all came down to resilience. And that principle says, "if your opponent can't hurt you, but you can hurt him, you win."
If you're saying, "that's all very nice, but I can't remember the last time I was attacked on the street by a Ninja," then consider the following:
Whatever goal you wish to achieve and, by extension, whatever fate you wish to avoid, there are typically only 1-3 key skills that you need to master in order to do so.
That means that if you want to get in great shape, you have to consider only 3 things - strength, flexibility and endurance. And you can get in better shape than 95% of the population by concentrating on only 3 exercises.
If you want to avoid cancer, then you need to boost your immune system to its optimal state. And you can do this by mastering 3 skills - diet, superfoods and undoing the 7 deadly spirals of disease (which is what Rock Solid Health Qi Gong does).
If you want to achieve wealth in your business, then there is only one skill you need to master. That's marketing. Everything else in business is just a postscript to that.
So now here's my challenge to you personally... Think about any one goal you want to achieve and figure out scientifically what are the 1-3 skills you must master to get there.
And that's the lesson from the Spartan warrior. Keep it simple and focus your energy on the essentials.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
They were out to establish with ruthless scientific rigor who would have won in a 1-on-1 battle to the death between a single Ninja and a single Spartan soldier.
And scientific it was: they had living practitioners of both fighting systems, all the authentic weapons and equipment, 2 kinds of test dummies, equipment for measuring weapon speed and penetration, and two medical experts to assess the effects of individual blows.
Artificial, Of Course...
Yeah, the premise was a bit artificial in that the Spartan of c. 500 BC and the Ninja of c. 1500 AD were obviously never going to run into each other. Still, each in his own time had the reputation as the most feared adversary alive.
The other part of the artificiality was they would never likely face off anyway, since the Spartan was a soldier who fought conventional battles in large formations, whereas the Ninja was much more akin to a modern Special Forces guy who operates alone or in small groups. And tossing your Special Forces folks onto a conventional battlefield is a giant no-no ;-)
The Tests
These guys tested all manner of weapons and protective equipment from both sides for over 3 long days! They concluded the Ninja's sword - the "ninjato" (basically a straight version of the Samurai's "katana", itself the most lethal sword every devised) was FAR superior to the Spartan's shorter, bronze age sword.
The Ninja's weaponry was generally more robust and inventive. It included a lethal and accurate poison blow gun, the deadly "shuriken" throwing stars, and even the ability to attack the opponent's eyes with crushed glass or primitive pepper spray. He also wielded a ball and chain device that could deliver a killing blow right through the Spartan's bronze helmet.
So you'd think after all that the Ninja would win, right?
Guess again. After all the data was in, they fed it into a computer and then ran the 1-on-1 combat simulation 1000 times. And the Spartan won 65% of the time!
How???
Simple, really: he was better protected than the Ninja. Yes, the Ninja had great weapons, but his bladed weapons couldn't penetrate the Spartan's bronze body armor and he could never get to the soft, unarmored spots because of the Spartan's expertise with his massive 4-foot diameter shield.
In other words, the reason the Spartan won comes down to one single principle; the same principle I've been trying to get you to pay attention to for a long time now...
RESILIENCE
So despite all the sophisticated weapons and strategies employed by both sides (and especially the Ninja), it all came down to resilience. And that principle says, "if your opponent can't hurt you, but you can hurt him, you win."
If you're saying, "that's all very nice, but I can't remember the last time I was attacked on the street by a Ninja," then consider the following:
Whatever goal you wish to achieve and, by extension, whatever fate you wish to avoid, there are typically only 1-3 key skills that you need to master in order to do so.
That means that if you want to get in great shape, you have to consider only 3 things - strength, flexibility and endurance. And you can get in better shape than 95% of the population by concentrating on only 3 exercises.
If you want to avoid cancer, then you need to boost your immune system to its optimal state. And you can do this by mastering 3 skills - diet, superfoods and undoing the 7 deadly spirals of disease (which is what Rock Solid Health Qi Gong does).
If you want to achieve wealth in your business, then there is only one skill you need to master. That's marketing. Everything else in business is just a postscript to that.
So now here's my challenge to you personally... Think about any one goal you want to achieve and figure out scientifically what are the 1-3 skills you must master to get there.
And that's the lesson from the Spartan warrior. Keep it simple and focus your energy on the essentials.
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Saturday, 18 April 2009
When EVERYTHING Seems to Go Wrong...at Once!
Hi there,
As I just described to you in today's email, this year's Holy Week has more than lived up to its reputation as a time of trials and temptations. And it's a fact of human life, no matter what your spiritual perspective, that there WILL be times when you're overwhelmed by one crisis after another.
Fortunately, the world's Authentic Ancient Traditions have some wisdom to share with you that will help you prepare, survive and even thrive in the midst of it all...
First, though, I need to address the obvious problem... most people are under the partly mistaken impression that spiritual life is all about finding PEACE.
Well, yes it is... but...
Keep in mind that for most people around you, their ideas of inner peace don't go much beyond the kind of "peace" you feel when you're sunning yourself on a tropical beach with a good book in one hand and a pina colada in the other.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to point out that that kind of "peace" is superficial. It's really just a temporary absence of trouble.
I think you'll agree, though, that true inner peace would have to be something so strong you couldn't lose it because of changes in your circumstances. Otherwise it wouldn't be true inner peace at all, just an imitation. So let's dig a little deeper.
The next level of inner peace is the deep calming of your central nervous system. This is already a great thing in our culture because so few people ever experience it. Hara is one of the most effective ways to pursue this kind of peace.
Peace in the sense of deep calm in your central nervous system is usually a prerequisite for spiritual progress, but it's not the deepest level of inner peace. And that makes sense, of course, because, no matter how profoundly calm your nerves are, you can still lose that peace.
So the ultimate level of inner peace has to be so strong that it renders you invulnerable. It has to be a peace that "passes all understanding", as Christ said; otherwise it's bogus. This kind of peace only comes as the fruit of consistency in the practice of meditation and/or noetic prayer.
The catch is this: meditation and noetic prayer are tools for bringing the ultimate experience of inner peace. However, they do this by acting as "drills" that dredge up a lot of supressed emotional garbage so that this very garbage can be processed, integrated and transformed.
And that's partly why people in deep spiritual practice feel so "set upon", especially in the early stages. They're dealing with the darkness within. This tends to leave you with the feeling that the universe itself is conspiring against you! Actually, in a certain sense, the universe is conspiring FOR you; it just doesn't feel that way ;-)
You see, all these trials have a huge benefit that you don't sense when you're in the middle of them. Slowly but surely they're detaching you from your attachment to results, your attachment to your own addictions, from your attachment to this short and transitory life itself. This is part of getting you "unstuck" from the world of time and space and focusing your gaze on the transcendent reality.
In other words, you're being pulled towards enlightenment. You're being made spiritually strong, invulnerable to your environment and turned into a tested and proven warrior, capable of leading others.
Here are some tips from Ancient Traditions about how to make the journey easier:
1. Practice your spiritual discipline at every opportunity, whether you "feel like it" or not.
2. Expect challenges more than peace and learn to enjoy and thrive on challenge. This will give you courage.
3. Set challenges for yourself, especially physical ones, and use them to hone your Warrior's spirit.
4. Remember that every challenge conceals benefit for you within it. This will give you fortitude.
5. Keep yourself in good physical shape - without this you automatically begin to feel weak and powerless.
6. Stick to your program of regular exercise, regular spiritual practice and a good diet - this above all functions as a WALL around you.
7. Remember, that in a spiritual battle you can be lose over and over again without being defeated. The only defeat is giving up. Stand your ground no matter what. This will teach you faith, because if you stand your ground - meaning you maintain your meditation / prayer - you'll see yourself miraculously rescued time and time again.
Momentarily I have to leave for our main Easter service. It lasts 4 hours or so, starting just before midnight. Usually a joyful time, this year it comes on the heels of several nasty conflicts in the parish and so for me this service is likely to be a major spiritual trial.
I could choose to cower in my bed and not go. Or I can make the Warrior's choice and "dive in". In the words of a great spiritual guide of recent times, unless a person enters into the sea of trials armed with nothing but faith, he will not advance spiritually so much as an inch.
Diving in...
Dr. Symeon Rodger
As I just described to you in today's email, this year's Holy Week has more than lived up to its reputation as a time of trials and temptations. And it's a fact of human life, no matter what your spiritual perspective, that there WILL be times when you're overwhelmed by one crisis after another.
Fortunately, the world's Authentic Ancient Traditions have some wisdom to share with you that will help you prepare, survive and even thrive in the midst of it all...
First, though, I need to address the obvious problem... most people are under the partly mistaken impression that spiritual life is all about finding PEACE.
Well, yes it is... but...
Keep in mind that for most people around you, their ideas of inner peace don't go much beyond the kind of "peace" you feel when you're sunning yourself on a tropical beach with a good book in one hand and a pina colada in the other.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to point out that that kind of "peace" is superficial. It's really just a temporary absence of trouble.
I think you'll agree, though, that true inner peace would have to be something so strong you couldn't lose it because of changes in your circumstances. Otherwise it wouldn't be true inner peace at all, just an imitation. So let's dig a little deeper.
The next level of inner peace is the deep calming of your central nervous system. This is already a great thing in our culture because so few people ever experience it. Hara is one of the most effective ways to pursue this kind of peace.
Peace in the sense of deep calm in your central nervous system is usually a prerequisite for spiritual progress, but it's not the deepest level of inner peace. And that makes sense, of course, because, no matter how profoundly calm your nerves are, you can still lose that peace.
So the ultimate level of inner peace has to be so strong that it renders you invulnerable. It has to be a peace that "passes all understanding", as Christ said; otherwise it's bogus. This kind of peace only comes as the fruit of consistency in the practice of meditation and/or noetic prayer.
The catch is this: meditation and noetic prayer are tools for bringing the ultimate experience of inner peace. However, they do this by acting as "drills" that dredge up a lot of supressed emotional garbage so that this very garbage can be processed, integrated and transformed.
And that's partly why people in deep spiritual practice feel so "set upon", especially in the early stages. They're dealing with the darkness within. This tends to leave you with the feeling that the universe itself is conspiring against you! Actually, in a certain sense, the universe is conspiring FOR you; it just doesn't feel that way ;-)
You see, all these trials have a huge benefit that you don't sense when you're in the middle of them. Slowly but surely they're detaching you from your attachment to results, your attachment to your own addictions, from your attachment to this short and transitory life itself. This is part of getting you "unstuck" from the world of time and space and focusing your gaze on the transcendent reality.
In other words, you're being pulled towards enlightenment. You're being made spiritually strong, invulnerable to your environment and turned into a tested and proven warrior, capable of leading others.
Here are some tips from Ancient Traditions about how to make the journey easier:
1. Practice your spiritual discipline at every opportunity, whether you "feel like it" or not.
2. Expect challenges more than peace and learn to enjoy and thrive on challenge. This will give you courage.
3. Set challenges for yourself, especially physical ones, and use them to hone your Warrior's spirit.
4. Remember that every challenge conceals benefit for you within it. This will give you fortitude.
5. Keep yourself in good physical shape - without this you automatically begin to feel weak and powerless.
6. Stick to your program of regular exercise, regular spiritual practice and a good diet - this above all functions as a WALL around you.
7. Remember, that in a spiritual battle you can be lose over and over again without being defeated. The only defeat is giving up. Stand your ground no matter what. This will teach you faith, because if you stand your ground - meaning you maintain your meditation / prayer - you'll see yourself miraculously rescued time and time again.
Momentarily I have to leave for our main Easter service. It lasts 4 hours or so, starting just before midnight. Usually a joyful time, this year it comes on the heels of several nasty conflicts in the parish and so for me this service is likely to be a major spiritual trial.
I could choose to cower in my bed and not go. Or I can make the Warrior's choice and "dive in". In the words of a great spiritual guide of recent times, unless a person enters into the sea of trials armed with nothing but faith, he will not advance spiritually so much as an inch.
Diving in...
Dr. Symeon Rodger
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Recovering Childlike Wonder
In the story I shared with you in today's email - about the child who boarded a plane for Jamaica one night and thought he was moving through outer space because all he could see out the aircraft's window were stars - we have a vivid reminder of how WE ourselves used to see the world around us... as a wonderous and magical place...
...before we grew up and got "educated".
The question is, can we recover that sense of childlike wonder and innocence or will we spend the rest of our days in the "adult" world of boredom, the world devoid of magic, mystery and finally meaning.
This is a question I've thought about for decades. I guess the first really startling insight for me came from running into people from other cultures who just don't see the world in the same way Westerners do. Whether they're native peoples of North America, the descendents of the Pharoahs (the Egyptian Copts) or people from various places in the Far East, there seemed to be a common thread - this world is not nearly as solid and "real" as our eyes would suggest.
It's really astonishing to hang out with people who think this way. And it's very refreshing!
The fact is, we live in a civilization that, for all its achievements, has some bizarre ideas. For that last few centuries it's been telling us that the world as we see it is indeed very solid and real, and that it's the only thing that is real!
Until now...
As I explained in some detail in the "Gong-Fu" Special Report, science is now doing a "180" and saying basically, "Sorry. About that 'sold and real' stuff... we sort of screwed up. Turns out that everything you see as solid is just energy and your consciousness plays a role in how it manifests itself."
Okay, so far so good. It just means that every habit of perception we've learned since we were pre-schoolers turns out to be dead wrong. A minor adjustment (!) to our daily habits is in order.
But what's this mean in the end? Well, for one thing, it means that recovering childlike wonder isn't about building some escapist fantasy. Instead, it's about learning to see things the way the REALLY are. It's about seeing past what our senses tell us.
The question is how to do that. Fortunately, Authentic Ancient Traditions come to our rescue again, this time with an approach that's found everywhere from ancient Christianity to Taoism, Buddhism and elsewhere.
In the Far East it's usually referred to as "emptiness". It's the process of detaching yourself from the idea the world is solid and real. And there are lots of different methods used worldwide to achieve this, including meditations on emptiness, continuously reminding yourself of the "unreality" of the world of appearances and much more.
You can read more about this in my book, The 5 Pillars of Life, pages 167-170.
What are the advantages? Well, if you see everything that happens to you as "solid and real", then of course life's challenges will rip you apart emotionally because you are giving them the power to do that. On the other hand, as one Tibetan lama describes the perceptions of people who have had a direct experience of emptiness:
"...good and bad external conditions no longer have the power to disturb their mind, because they realize them to be like a magician's illusion, with no existence separate from the mind. Instead of being pulled apart like a puppet on a string, their minds remain free and tranquil in the knowlege of the equal and unchanging ultimate nature of all things. In this way, the person who directly realizes the true nature of phenomena experiences peace day and night." (1)
The catch for Westerners is that until we learn to quiet our mind and thoughts and arrive at the ability to enter into inner silence, at least for short periods, there's no way we're going to detach from appearances and reduce our vulnerability to our circumstances.
Without a doubt, the easiest way to enter into stillness is the ancient Taoist method the Japanese named Hara or Hara-gei. Why's it the best? Because it reintroduces you to the genuine wonder of the universe within you. It allows you to experience the childlike awe of tapping into the rhythms in your own body-mind organism, to feel and sense things you've been totally oblivious to since early childhood.
That takes you directly into stillness, which in turn is the surest foundation for the practice of emptiness, which in turn is the "adult's" recipe for returning to the experience of childlike wonder at and appreciation of the true magic of life.
To learn more about Hara, jump on over to:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html
You see, once your mind starts to pay attention to the wonders within you, your endless inner dialogue and your unruly emotions will quiet down without much effort on your part. And from there you just as effortlessly enter into emptiness.
However - and I won't delude you here - it takes a good deal of consistent application to get there. This is no magic pill. It's a wonderous and joyful process, but it's not an instant fix intended that will give you bliss even if the rest of your lifestyle sucks. There is no such thing.
In plain language, Hara is for Warriors, not wimps. Use it with care!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
(1) From Mahamudra Tantra: The Supreme Heart Jewel Nectar, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. New York: Tharpa Publications, 2005, pp. 137-8.
...before we grew up and got "educated".
The question is, can we recover that sense of childlike wonder and innocence or will we spend the rest of our days in the "adult" world of boredom, the world devoid of magic, mystery and finally meaning.
This is a question I've thought about for decades. I guess the first really startling insight for me came from running into people from other cultures who just don't see the world in the same way Westerners do. Whether they're native peoples of North America, the descendents of the Pharoahs (the Egyptian Copts) or people from various places in the Far East, there seemed to be a common thread - this world is not nearly as solid and "real" as our eyes would suggest.
It's really astonishing to hang out with people who think this way. And it's very refreshing!
The fact is, we live in a civilization that, for all its achievements, has some bizarre ideas. For that last few centuries it's been telling us that the world as we see it is indeed very solid and real, and that it's the only thing that is real!
Until now...
As I explained in some detail in the "Gong-Fu" Special Report, science is now doing a "180" and saying basically, "Sorry. About that 'sold and real' stuff... we sort of screwed up. Turns out that everything you see as solid is just energy and your consciousness plays a role in how it manifests itself."
Okay, so far so good. It just means that every habit of perception we've learned since we were pre-schoolers turns out to be dead wrong. A minor adjustment (!) to our daily habits is in order.
But what's this mean in the end? Well, for one thing, it means that recovering childlike wonder isn't about building some escapist fantasy. Instead, it's about learning to see things the way the REALLY are. It's about seeing past what our senses tell us.
The question is how to do that. Fortunately, Authentic Ancient Traditions come to our rescue again, this time with an approach that's found everywhere from ancient Christianity to Taoism, Buddhism and elsewhere.
In the Far East it's usually referred to as "emptiness". It's the process of detaching yourself from the idea the world is solid and real. And there are lots of different methods used worldwide to achieve this, including meditations on emptiness, continuously reminding yourself of the "unreality" of the world of appearances and much more.
You can read more about this in my book, The 5 Pillars of Life, pages 167-170.
What are the advantages? Well, if you see everything that happens to you as "solid and real", then of course life's challenges will rip you apart emotionally because you are giving them the power to do that. On the other hand, as one Tibetan lama describes the perceptions of people who have had a direct experience of emptiness:
"...good and bad external conditions no longer have the power to disturb their mind, because they realize them to be like a magician's illusion, with no existence separate from the mind. Instead of being pulled apart like a puppet on a string, their minds remain free and tranquil in the knowlege of the equal and unchanging ultimate nature of all things. In this way, the person who directly realizes the true nature of phenomena experiences peace day and night." (1)
The catch for Westerners is that until we learn to quiet our mind and thoughts and arrive at the ability to enter into inner silence, at least for short periods, there's no way we're going to detach from appearances and reduce our vulnerability to our circumstances.
Without a doubt, the easiest way to enter into stillness is the ancient Taoist method the Japanese named Hara or Hara-gei. Why's it the best? Because it reintroduces you to the genuine wonder of the universe within you. It allows you to experience the childlike awe of tapping into the rhythms in your own body-mind organism, to feel and sense things you've been totally oblivious to since early childhood.
That takes you directly into stillness, which in turn is the surest foundation for the practice of emptiness, which in turn is the "adult's" recipe for returning to the experience of childlike wonder at and appreciation of the true magic of life.
To learn more about Hara, jump on over to:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/hara.html
You see, once your mind starts to pay attention to the wonders within you, your endless inner dialogue and your unruly emotions will quiet down without much effort on your part. And from there you just as effortlessly enter into emptiness.
However - and I won't delude you here - it takes a good deal of consistent application to get there. This is no magic pill. It's a wonderous and joyful process, but it's not an instant fix intended that will give you bliss even if the rest of your lifestyle sucks. There is no such thing.
In plain language, Hara is for Warriors, not wimps. Use it with care!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
(1) From Mahamudra Tantra: The Supreme Heart Jewel Nectar, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. New York: Tharpa Publications, 2005, pp. 137-8.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Who Determines Your Reality?
Well, it had to happen...
After we've enjoyed a few days of warm and sunny weather here in Ottawa (the second coldest national capital on earth, by the way) - even to the extent of sitting outside in T-shirts - we've suddenly been hit with another cold snap.
And worse than cold and worse than overcast, it's actually snowing!
Truth be told, this happens pretty much every year at some point in April. You get a taste of near summer-like weather and then BAM!
The most interesting thing, though, is the reactions of the people. From the several dozen people I've talked to today, I can only describe their moods as depressed. And it's all because of the weather. Since it's gray, dull, cold and snowing outside, they seem to assume that their inner worlds have to be gray, dull, cold and snowing too.
If you're near a window, have a look outside right now. Is it overcast? If so, I'd invite you to close your eyes and visualize the weather at 40,000 feet (10,000 meters). What's it like?
Well, as you probably know, it's always bright and sunny at that altitude. So you can tell yourself in all seriousness that just a few miles / kilometers away from where you're standing right now, it's a beautiful and sunny day.
What's the point of all this? Simple - you have a choice. You can choose to let your outer circumstances get the better of your inner world by getting depressed and down when the weather takes a turn for the worse, when your internet connection fails or when people around you are in foul moods for whatever reason.
OR, you can choose to be the one who consciously decides the quality of your inner world at all times. You can choose to live in any "world" you wish, no matter what's going on around you.
You may remember that in The 5 Pillars of Life, I mentioned that all Authentic Ancient Traditions are about freeing you from the domination of your environment. That's the essence of Warriorship - deciding to take responsibility for your inner world from now on.
To return to the example of people who allow themselves to get depressed because of a gray and snowy (or rainy) day... Are you able to see the day as beautiful and sunny? Can you focus on this so strongly that you don't even notice the weather?
A form of self-delusion, you say? Nonsense. Achieving the "diamond like concentration" that enables you to control your inner world and free yourself from the negative influences around you is one of the greatest of human spiritual achievments.
Try it out for yourself and you'll see. Of course, it takes practice ;-)
To your freedom,
Dr. Symeon Rodger
After we've enjoyed a few days of warm and sunny weather here in Ottawa (the second coldest national capital on earth, by the way) - even to the extent of sitting outside in T-shirts - we've suddenly been hit with another cold snap.
And worse than cold and worse than overcast, it's actually snowing!
Truth be told, this happens pretty much every year at some point in April. You get a taste of near summer-like weather and then BAM!
The most interesting thing, though, is the reactions of the people. From the several dozen people I've talked to today, I can only describe their moods as depressed. And it's all because of the weather. Since it's gray, dull, cold and snowing outside, they seem to assume that their inner worlds have to be gray, dull, cold and snowing too.
If you're near a window, have a look outside right now. Is it overcast? If so, I'd invite you to close your eyes and visualize the weather at 40,000 feet (10,000 meters). What's it like?
Well, as you probably know, it's always bright and sunny at that altitude. So you can tell yourself in all seriousness that just a few miles / kilometers away from where you're standing right now, it's a beautiful and sunny day.
What's the point of all this? Simple - you have a choice. You can choose to let your outer circumstances get the better of your inner world by getting depressed and down when the weather takes a turn for the worse, when your internet connection fails or when people around you are in foul moods for whatever reason.
OR, you can choose to be the one who consciously decides the quality of your inner world at all times. You can choose to live in any "world" you wish, no matter what's going on around you.
You may remember that in The 5 Pillars of Life, I mentioned that all Authentic Ancient Traditions are about freeing you from the domination of your environment. That's the essence of Warriorship - deciding to take responsibility for your inner world from now on.
To return to the example of people who allow themselves to get depressed because of a gray and snowy (or rainy) day... Are you able to see the day as beautiful and sunny? Can you focus on this so strongly that you don't even notice the weather?
A form of self-delusion, you say? Nonsense. Achieving the "diamond like concentration" that enables you to control your inner world and free yourself from the negative influences around you is one of the greatest of human spiritual achievments.
Try it out for yourself and you'll see. Of course, it takes practice ;-)
To your freedom,
Dr. Symeon Rodger
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