Sunday Story...Let It Go

Sunday Story…Let it Go
ANGRY
At the world that changed without asking me
Let it go
At people who aren’t who they say they are
Let it go
At a financial system that asked us to buy into a lie and laid waste to average people’s lives
Let it go
At a health care system that cares not for health but money
Let it go
That we have billions for bombs and bailouts none for physical education, musical education, and education in general
Let it go
At the lip service paid to good nutrition
Let it go
At the false prophets and harm done in the name of a loving God
Let it go
At the bad advice governments give when in the pay of corporations whose sole purpose is to generate more profit
Let it go
At parents who expect someone else to raise their children
Let it go
At children who think they are entitled to things rather than love
Let it go

SAD
That the world is so hard and difficult for so many
Let it go
That making a difference and making a living are not the same thing
Let it go
That so many people live in a scarce world both literally and figuratively
Let it go
That difference is not appreciated but homogeneity is
Let it go

HAPPY
That I live in a time and place that is exciting and challenging
Let it go
That I have shelter, food, and friends
Let it go
That the world is more tolerant today than 50 years ago
Let it go
That the opportunity is there…to make a difference, to create art, to be the person I was sent here to be, to become something and someone greater than ever imagined.
Let it go

JOYFUL
For connection
For Love
For a precious Human Life
For each of you reading this
For the brain and body that moves through this world
Let it GO LET it go Let IT go LET IT GO

Present moment awareness is what allows us to let things go. Unfortunately most of us have a very difficult time staying in that moment. We get angry and stay angry. We get sad and stay sad. We get happy and stay happy. We get joyful and stay joyful.

Why not be happy all the time? Because sometimes you are better off feeling sad, or joyful or angry. Yet, how many times have I walked around all day angry? Not good. How many times have I brought old and ancient slings and arrows done me by someone else? How long am I going to carry those wounds around? And every time I see that person I re-visit all the wrongs done me.

This does not mean that we should not have discernment; that we should continue to be in relationships that hurt us. Relationships that do not meet our standards of behavior need to be modified. Maybe I spend a little less time with certain people (if possible). Or I take what some people say with a grain of salt. But what I really want to do is treat each interaction without the baggage of the past. I need to let all that stuff go and try to look at and deal with each person without the baggage of the past.

I can’t control what you do or say or think. I can only control my actions, thoughts and words. I can control what I think and feel about you and your behavior. I can control my anger about the world. I can let it go. I can control my sadness about the way some things are in the world. And I can let it go.

I remember Jake, one of my young students who was getting ready for his black belt test. One of the tasks in the test is to run 5 miles. The course we run is on a gravel road and is lined with rocks both big and small. My student, who had a pretty good natural running ability, was getting slower and slower towards the middle of our training run. When I asked him what was wrong (fearing an injury or something) he said he didn’t know, that his legs felt heavy. When I looked him over I noticed his pockets were bulging. When I asked him what he had in his pockets he started pulling out rock after rock after rock, big and small, that he had picked up over the course. And each one had a story to go with it, of course. Where he found it, why he liked it, and what he was going to do with it.

All the anger and stuff we carry around with us are like those rocks in Jake’s pockets. They keep us from running freely. They slow us down and prevent us from moving through the world as cleanly and clearly as we wish. We need to let those rocks go. Better yet is to never pick them up in the first place. Leave those rocks on the course. Recognize your feelings, acknowledge them, honor and respect them, just don’t carry them around with you for all eternity. In 100 years they aren’t going to matter. On your death bed are you really going to want to re-visit all the places you picked up those rocks? Just let them lie. Let those rocks stay in their places, when they are ready to move they will.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...No Pain No Gain

Sunday Story….No Pain No Gain

No Guts No Glory
Winners never quit Quitters never win
When the going gets tough The tough get going
And on and on and on.

Mental Toughness is the glue that keeps us on task, especially over a long period of time. Mental toughness is also defined as taking control of your emotions in performance situations especially under pressure. This particular definition comes from Steve Siebold who wrote a book called “177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class”.

Why is this important? I mean really what difference does it make it your emotions are out of control when you need to, oh I don’t know, jump into a lake to save a drowning child, or your boss is yelling at you wondering where the report he wanted yesterday went off to, or maybe as simple as cooking dinner for your spouse on a special occasion; why would having control of your emotions be important? If you are going crazy you won’t jump into the lake to save the person, you will just run around like a chicken with your head cut off. If your boss heaps too much on you might lose your composure and start crying…which is never a good recipe for long term career advancement. And if you spend all your time worrying about the meal you are preparing you will infuse the food with negative emotions and it will be very hard for it to turn out right.

Pressure makes us stupid. The more pressure we have the stupider we get. This is true of everyone. Another way to put this is that stress makes us dumb and we will do dumb things when we are stressed out. Even another way to look at it is that when we worry about things we can’t do anything about we will create negative outcomes for ourselves.

So how can some people handle pressure or stress better than others? How can Michael Jordan take game winning shot after game winning shot? By the way he was trusted to make that shot dozens of times and actually failed dozens of times. Does Michael Jordan’s genetic makeup allow him to handle stress better? Did he receive some double top secret training that allowed him to stay cooler under pressure than any of us could? Is there a book we all missed along the way? Is there s special college course that is only taught occasionally?

So, really, how is it that some people handle these things so well and others don’t? And even more importantly how can you and I reach that level of confidence and sheer chutzpah that would allow us to manage even a fraction of the stress we see a Jordan handling with so much calm and balance?

Here is the good news: There is no special double top secret ninja training, no secret book, and no course you missed out on. The fact is that people who handle these situations with ease are the same as you and I. With one very important distinction…their attitude toward pressure is one of welcome and gratitude rather than fear and trepidation. The want to take the game winning shot. They want to put their good name on the line. They do not run from the burning building, rather they run into the building grateful for the chance to put the skill, training, and hours of practice into play.

So how are you going to get that level of control over your emotions? What can you do today to start making your way into the ranks of the mentally tough?

Change your mind! Decide you can do this. Decide you are capable. Decide you are (insert noun here) enough to be that person. Until you change your mind and decide you want to be mentally tough you have little hope of really getting there.
Recognize your emotions. This starts with recognizing that they are there. We all have anger, joy, love, sadness, fear and all the rest of the emotional palette inside of us. These are the things that make life interesting and without them out lives would be far less interesting and far less fun.
Practice, practice, practice. Whatever it is you are actually doing you have to practice doing it. If you want to write a novel you have to start writing. Start with something simple, work your way into it. Get good at whatever it is you want to be good at. Michael Jordan practiced. Tiger Woods practices. Boxers and fighters train every day. Eventually you will be pushing your boundaries. You will get tired and exhausted and then you will keep going. You will know that you have something left in reserve to call on in time of real pressure. But only if you train hard enough.

Test your self under performance conditions. Preferably in conditions where there is less at stake. Don’t throw yourself into situations that you can’t control right away, rather, work yourself up in increments. Are you scared to speak in public? Don’t book yourself to do an assembly of 500 middle schoolers first thing. Better to arrange a small gathering of friends to practice on. Work into the bigger things. Don’t try to be a world champion your first time out. Settle for town or block or regionals to get your feet wet. Then shoot for the stars.

Pressure is pressure. How we look at it and how we let it affect us tells the world whether we are mentally tough enough, mentally ready to handle it. Will you crumble at the next stress situation coming your way? Because it is coming you know. Just like the 7:30AM train it is on its way already. The mentally tough are ready to handle the situation using their practice skills, their resilience and elasticity of mind and their attitude of welcome.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...Good Enough

Sunday Story…Good Enough

“The enemy of great is good” …Someone once said. I would agree. When we settle for good great will always be out of reach.

On the other hand it seems we are surrounded by mediocrity. It‘s as if good enough is, well, good enough. It’s OK. It’s acceptable. Granted maybe we can’t have perfect but shouldn’t we be trying for best. Or at least better?

And shouldn’t I be just a little bit embarrassed when I can only come up with good enough. Granted sometimes good enough is good enough to run with for a little bit but can’t we continue to improve good enough?

Do you want a brain surgeon to be good enough or do you want that surgeon to be at the top of the game?

Do you want your computer virus scan to be good enough or do you want it to be tip top and right on target?

What if Thomas Edison had decided his 500th attempt at the light bulb was good enough?

What if Einstein’s theory of relativity was only sort of correct?

There is an old saying that “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”. Anymore it appears that close is as good as it is going to get.

This world is filled with mediocrity. Terminal normality shows up everywhere I look. I fear we are even getting to the point where really good has been “dumbed” down so far as to be yesterday’s average. We now have something better than a perfect 4.0 GPA because so many people have achieved the perfect 4.0 GPA. It used to be that an A was only given for outstanding and superior performance. A “10” mark in gymnastics would represent absolute perfection and thus would be impossible.

I once heard it said that to achieve a “10“would be like God incarnate on earth. And a 9.9 would be a human imitating God. But that would not stop you from attempting the feat. For anything less than an attempt would be shameful.

And in making the attempt we would be better for it. Because in order to attempt great we have to effort greatly. We must set our sights on perfection, we must set great as our bench mark.

It is too easy to quit short of excellence and accept good enough. To stop efforting because the path looks too long. Because we get tired and lose sight of the goal. Because the world around us seems to be Ok with OK.

So why do we pay athletes 10s of millions of dollars? Because they are OK? Of course not. It is because out of the 6 or 7 billion people on the planet they have become one of the best at what they do. Why do the top Hollywood stars get bazillions of dollars to pretend to be someone else? Are they just kind of convincing when they play their role? Why do those people who are on top of their games get the adulation, adoration and worship when we are so willing to accept average from ourselves?

Why aren’t you and I striving, working, driving for excellence in our selves, in our character, in our endeavors, in our relationships and our lives?

Why would I stop working on my health before I experience optimum, perfect fitness and health? Does that make any sense at all? Oh well, I got close I guess I will just be average now?

Why would I settle for mediocre in the pursuit of the perfection of character? Oh well, I have these character flaws and I fixed 70% of them and that is just going to be good enough for this life time? Are you kidding me? I have done many bad things in my life. I have made poor choices. My character is flawed. Should I give up? Should I quit working on it and accept the fact that I am my choices?

No. In a word NO. I am not the choices I made last year, last century, or even yesterday. I am more than an animal. I have the reasoning capacity to learn from my choices both good and bad. I can make choices that will improve my character tomorrow. This is the pursuit of excellence…to learn from my mistakes and improve on my character.

The enemy of great is the willingness to accept average as acceptable.

The enemy of great is indulgence in self –pity. That great is too hard, too difficult to achieve, too lofty of a goal.

The enemy of great is comparing me to the people around me instead of the lofty ideal of perfection. We are made in the image of God. Doesn’t that make you god-like? Is God mediocre? Is god Average? Does God suffer from terminal normality?

So why should I be average? Why should I settle for mediocre? Why should I settle for good enough?

Enough average, enough mediocre, it is time we began the pursuit of perfection…in ourselves, in our character, in our health, in our fitness and in our souls. Anything less than the attempt is an insult to your maker. An injury to the world that needs you to take on excellence as normal, perfection as the expected and great as good enough.

Maybe when great is good enough humans will walk as gods again and we will experience heaven on earth. Maybe when we stop settling for good enough and settling for okay we can finally see how far our souls can soar.

Then again maybe I am just plain crazy. Who knows…

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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Sunday Story...My Fault

Sunday Story…My Fault

I have been blessed with extraordinary health for most of my life. Do you ever wonder why some people get really sick when a “bug” goes around? And some people hardly get it at all? Why does one person get cancer and the next one doesn’t? Especially the non-lifestyle cancers? How is it that the person sitting across from me will get some strange cancer or disease no one has ever heard of and I won’t? Hand of God? Just plain unlucky? Wrong life at the wrong time? I mean how does that happen and it happens every day. Maybe it has always been happening and we just didn’t know it? Maybe some sort of Natural Selection or Mother Nature thinning the herd?

I am pondering this sort of question a lot lately. I recently sat in a room and heard amazing healing stories and wondered why those people got sick in the first place. I mean if I eat wrong I can eat myself into disease. If I abuse my body I can drink or smoke myself into disease. If I don’t handle stress in the right way I can make myself sick as well. I am not talking about that sort of thing. I am talking about the odd and weird, out of the blue, struck down sort of thing.

There is no protection from the “hand of fate” dealing you in for some major pain and suffering. Some things are just yours to have I suppose. And we can spout all the platitudes….”it isn’t about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you” or “there is always a silver lining in every cloud”, or “there is always someone worse off than you”. None of those things really help do they? So what should we do when life drops a bowl of putrid sewage on our heads?

And many of you know what I am talking about because this isn’t just about disease and sickness. This is about your house being underwater, your, job gone, and your life turned upside down through no fault of your own. Disease and sickness is easy to point at as some immoveable force in the universe squashing us. Economic forces also seem to be out of our hands. Cultural forces as well. These things appear to be out of our hands, out of our sphere of influence.

I am pretty sure I cannot, single handedly, pull the home prices in my neighborhood, or town or state up the 40 or 50 % they have dropped in the last 18 months. And I am pretty sure I didn’t do anything to make them fall.

HEY WAIT A SECOND…are you reading that right…I, your intrepid author, is declaiming personal responsibility for life and giving up agency to some unseen and benevolent or malevolent forces like banks and mother nature and the hand of fate? That those diseases and those economic crises cannot be laid on my doorstep?

I am not going down that rabbit hole, I am afraid. I can’t give up my personal responsibility for the way my life looks. I can’t give up the fact that my life looks the way it looks because I have created it to look like that. And yes that includes the pain, disease, and suffering whether from poor health, poor economics or poor decisions.

Am I saying that we choose to get some rare and unknown medical condition? Or that somehow we chose to lose our house to foreclosure or that we did something to cause our company to go out of business?

In a word, Yes. We are each the architect of our lives. I own my thoughts. I create the meaning of my life. I get to define what suffering looks like. I get to define what wealth and riches look like. Me. My life. Is there some objective measure that says I am rich or happy or wise? A million dollars may be a lot of money to me but I suspect Bill Gates or Warren Buffet would scoff at such an amount.

So let’s go back to sickness and disease…why on earth would I want to be visited by some rare malady? I mean that is just plain dumb. I can’t think of a single reason to wish that upon myself. So why? There is only one reason I can think of…because there is something I need to learn or do or be around that particular thing. I create these situations so that I can grow and become something new, something other than what I am now. And maybe collectively, in light of the current economic stuff, there is something we are supposed to learn, or be or do around that. Maybe there is some new way of being that is possible now that was not possible before. Maybe you and I and all the rest of us were going down a particular path that was not going to serve us anymore and this is our way of creating a shift for ourselves.

So are we going to try to put humpty dumpty back together again…just like he was before? Or are we going to find a new and better egg that might serve us better in the future? I refuse to think that we can just do this or that and it will all be better. We need to look at how to do things differently, in a way that will serve us and the rest of the people in the world for the next 7 generations or more.

Maybe this is about getting connected again with each other. Maybe this is about coming out of our comfortable suburban shells and looking at our neighbors and finding who they are. Maybe we should start caring about real people instead of reality TV. Maybe I should look out for my neighbors kid instead of ducking them. Maybe I should decide to stand for something instead of standing for anything.

What do you think??

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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