FIREDANCE: What Can You Do To Help?

BREATHE!!!

When you are in fear, you see problems and danger.

When you are in gratitude, you see answers and opportunities.

If I was coaching you in person, I have full confidence that I could help: I have more data, the “proximity effect” and YOU would have greater commitment (you would have invested money!)

That’s not what we have here. Here, I have limited data, tons of different people at different stages of their lives, and different belief systems and MUCH less commitment.

So there has to be a filter, and the best one I can think of is:

1. Commit to win
2. Do the 5MM breathing
3. Create a morning ritual
4. Commit to Escaping suffering, embracing joy, and being of service

It is simply a waste of time to argue with people that they want to be happy. They are locked into a negative series of beliefs, and until they interrupt their own pattern you can’t communicate with them. People will say “help me!” and you make a suggestion, and they say “no! I already have my way.”

Well, if they aren’t happy with their results, why do they insist on continuing along the path that CREATED those results?

What are you doing with your fear?

There is a story about two monks walking in the forest, a master and a student, both committed to an ascetic path. They came to a river, and were preparing to wade across when they noticed a woman at the bank, unable to cross. The elder monks picked her up and carried her across, set her down, and continued on his way.

The younger monk walked with him, seething, for an hour, and then erupted. “How?” he said, “Could you pick up that woman! We are SWORN not to touch women!”

The elder monk smiled placidly. “I put her down on the bank, an hour ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

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My messages are for people who

1. Do the breathing.
2. Commit to escape suffering, embrace joy, and be of service. If I can help 1000 people, and each of THEM helps 100, and each of THOSE helps 10, I have that million people I’m sworn to assist.

So hopefully, I’m talking to you. Let’s dig in this a little. What does “escape suffering” mean?

Well, PAIN is inevitable. It exists in the moment. But SUFFERING would be fear of FUTURE pain, or dragging memories of PAST pain with you. There may be pain in the moment, but not SUFFERING.

What of JOY? For the sake of this conversation, JOY is happiness internally sourced. Independent of external circumstance. And it too exists in the moment.

There are literally people afraid of happiness. They fear that if they are happy, they will not be motivated to act. These are people who understand PAIN as a motivator, but not JOY. I can motivate myself to write out of fear of poverty. Many do. But I can also motivate myself with joy of creation. Two different paths. Same action. Which journey do YOU think will have the better results?

Your choice reveals your values, but also explains your results in life. If you work out of fear, you will end up spending money to help you forget how you earned it.

As I am speaking to people who are committed to helping 100 others (right?), the most important thing you can do is EXEMPLIFY THE STATE OF BEING YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

Remember: anger and violence are motivated by fear. Fear is a real response to the world, a survival need. A message to pay attention, absorb the information, make a decision and take action.

YOU CANNOT LEAD OTHERS ALONG A PATH YOU’VE NOT TAKEN. That means that YOU have to be out of suffering to help others.

But how? Well…

The MAGIC formula suggests that you have a Map or Mentor. Say you accept me, just for a couple of months, enough time to test my theories.

1. Commit to WINNING. To escape suffering, embrace joy, and be of service. One of the best basic statements on this is “Health, Love, Money, and time to enjoy them”. Aim at enough surplus to support two other people, and inspire 100.
2. Breathe. Sixty seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing, every hour on the hour at least five times a day. Do this for two weeks, without fail.
3. Create a Morning Ritual of thought, emotion, and motion.
4. Start digging your way toward a “diamond hour”, the first hour of the day, which belongs to YOU. Start with five minutes (which, combined with your breathing, would be a total of 10). You probably think yourself a smart person. Intelligence is problem solving. If you really committed to yourself, how long do you think it would take you to get an hour to yourself every day? A year? Two? How about a half hour? Fifteen minutes? Just who is in charge of your life, friend?

Fear is a message to pay attention and take action. USE the energy and you simply don’t feel the fear if you enter “flow state.” If you have entered “flow” in a useful way, you are BOTH escaping suffering and building a foundation for lasting joy. And those stuck in a loop of “Something must be done! But there’s nothing I can do!” grasp that you do NOT see the world as it is. You see the world as YOU are.

And the people you love, who are roiling in despair, need to see SOMEONE they can identifying with exhibiting courage and purpose. Be a LEADER, dammit. Stop playing small.

So three things you can have control over, that will shift your mood. In that better mood, you believe change is possible, and will see opportunities you cannot see when in grief or despair. There are so many things you can do in just a few minutes.

BELLY BRAIN. Aim to double your energy. Become an EXPERT at this, as if you were going to teach a class. Exercise for this includes stretching, strengthening, and improving aerobic capacity. Learning to go into the Aerobic zone (where you can talk, but not sing) for 12–15 minutes (until you reach “second wind”) is one of the most powerful things you can do for body and mood.

HEART CENTER. GRATITUDE is a sovereign remedy for fear, anger, and guilt. The more gratitude, the better. And as an advanced exercise, ask what might happen if you found things ABOUT THE SITUATION to be grateful for? Trust me, this is about YOU, not the situation. There IS no human situation that someone has not found a way to be grateful for, even if its only what my brother in law Patrick says: “Thank you God, for giving me another opportunity to discover who I really am.” THAT is an empowering attitude. THAT person is on the path to WIN with an indominable spirit. That person can lead those who would recoil at the notion that our obstacles can become the offering we give the world.

HEAD CENTER. Money. Stop pretending you don’t want it, if you EVER complain about its lack. “I’d change jobs, but I need the money.” “I’d leave the country, but I can’t afford it.” “I’d X, but its too expensive.” “I wish I could help my cousin whose house got hit by a tornado, but I just can’t think of a way.” This is similar to all the people who lied to themselves saying “I don’t care about winning” but then were whiplashed by terror when “their team lost.” They cared about winning. They were just afraid to compete. “If you fight back, the bully will just hurt you worse” is the VICTIM’S refrain. The huge secret of the martial arts is flipping the body language/energetic switch from prey to predator. Really, that single change in the way you move through the world is MASSIVE. And if YOU can do it, you can then help people who feel you are “victim shaming” by suggesting we have the power to change.

Hell, what bullies and oppressors NEED you to believe is that you have no power, when actually you have SERIOUS capacity to control your internal states through action, focus, and controlling your language.

So…if you asked what you can do to increase your financial position by 1% per week, there are LOTS of models out there. If you were listening to me, I’d first be sure you were using the MAGIC formula, and then probably add THINK AND GROW RICH. That 13-step process kicks serious butt.

Too much for you? Then the simplest thing I’d add to MAGIC is:

1. Constantly improve your skills and capacity to COMMUNICATE their objective value
2. Constantly expand your network.

When you do MAGIC at a level above a “five” for each factor, you get lucky.

When you constantly improve your skills AND your associations (business, and personal), eventually you will discover a “tribe” of at least 1000 people who need your product or service. If you can communicate the value to them, and motivate them to action, they will consider an exchange of energy (money) to be a bargain. Both parties win. You are now in business.

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Do these things: improve health and fitness, positive energy, and material success through service…and you automatically attract people. I mean this seriously. Its SEXY AF. Try it and see: you’ll be shocked.

Commit to escaping suffering and embracing joy. Be successful enough in healthy ways to catch the attention of people looking for answers. Lead them with integrity, sharing ONLY what has actually WORKED for you: not your damned hypothesis. TEST THEM IN THE MATERIAL WORLD or stop complaining that no one will listen.

ALL creatures will move away from pain toward pleasure, if they can believe their efforts will decrease the former and increase the latter. You MAY need to wake them up, interrupt their patterns before you can convince them of this, but you can do that with a laugh, a hug, a shift in perspective or language.

Learn how to heal yourself, THEN you can lead others. Use helping others as your WHY. Use escaping suffering is your WHY. The WHAT is embracing joy and being of service.

The HOW is then a matter of simply finding the right person to model. If I’m that person, we’ll talk again tomorrow.

Commit to WIN.

Breath

Create a morning ritual

Help others escape suffering.

A damned good life can be based on nothing more than these.

Namaste

Steve

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We’ll talk about this more tomorrow on FIREDANCE at 12 noon Pacific, the zoom link being www.thefiredance.com

Steven Barnes is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Firedance Recurring

Time: Friday Nov 14, 12 Noon Pacific

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