Sunday Story...Step Right Up

Sunday Story…Step Right Up

Step right up…get your ____________(fill in the blank) here. The carnival barker entices and lures us into his sphere of influence in order to sell his wares. The same thing is happening to you every day. The barker may be a little more subtle, a little more sophisticated, a little more professional but a barker nonetheless. Google, ads on TV, ads on the internet tare all “barking” at you, trying to get you to pay attention to them.

In many ways they are like small children, constantly tugging on you asking for attention…”Mommy, Mommy, Mommy” Although you can ignore them, they generally won’t go away until you do something with them. Google may not be as obtrusive as that small child but they are certainly as persistent.

Most of us have done a pretty good job of shutting out those messages. If we didn’t we couldn’t function in the world very well. We are bombarded by barkers everywhere we go so we become immune to their messages. Which in some cases is bad…we miss the very things that could do us the most good. The messages the universe is sending us.

The universe is not a great barker. At least not at first. Most of the time the universe speaks in a whisper to start. Little things, subtle hints of directions open and paths to look down. Then it will get a little louder, not yelling, mind you, just a little louder. The sooner we start listening though, the sooner we can move in the direction we are meant to go. Just like a mother is in touch with her child’s various cries and noises we should be just as sensitive to the noises and movements in the universe.

Part of this universal language is the language your body uses to tell you when something is wrong. All those little aches and pains, the strained muscles and twisted limbs are all things you need to listen to. The question is…are you in touch enough to recognize the signals? Far too often our bodies have been ignored, misused, and abused to the point that we can no longer hear what it is saying.

You are meant to move…it is one of the reasons you have legs and feet. If you were supposed to sit on your butt all day your derriere would look much different than it does. Of course, many people have already morphed their rears into something that closely approximates a chair cushion. It really shouldn’t look like that. If you are moving and in touch with the way your body feels when it moves properly, your breath in balance with your movement, and your muscles warm and supple your body will tell you where and how it needs help.

This is a huge difference between discomfort and pain, between irritation and injury. Far too often we don’t recognize the difference until it is too late. I see way too many people who think irritation is injury. They let small irritations and discomfort stop them from moving and working. Folks, you are going to have stuff…little things that hurt and ache and bother you to varying degrees of irritation. And the older you get the more often you may encounter them. None of these things should ever stop you; they are part of the process. Sometimes pain is part of the process that lets you know you are alive.

Here is the dichotomy, the contradiction, the paradox, if you will; the less you move, the more you will hurt when you do move. If you sit on your butt all day, when you get up you will be stiff and sore from lack of movement. Your blood will be sluggish, your heart won’t be used to working and the longer you do it the worse this is going to get. We often say that a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. If you have been sitting around for 10 years that first step is going to be pretty hard to take. On the bright side though, the second step is easier! And every one after that begins to be easier still.

Once I get in touch, really in tune with my body as it moves, the signals and messages the universe sends me about what is really going on with me become easier to listen to. When my body says certain foods aren’t working it is hard to hear when I eat so many bad foods all day long. When I eat clean, natural food prepared simply my body will begin to recognize when I eat junk. When I exercise and train in a way that promotes healthy muscle tissue, clear skin, strong bones and hair my body can give me feedback as to what might really be wrong inside of it.

You are an amazing machine. Yes, I am talking to you. Throughout your life your body has served you in spite of all your efforts to derail it. Maybe you have been in car accidents, industrial mishaps, external conflicts yet you are, for the most part, still intact. You have adapted to poor diet. You have adapted to sedentary habits. You have shut off the information pipeline the universe is feeding you through your body. Yet here you are continuing to persist in this corporeal form.

Maybe, just maybe, you should start paying back this amazing machine for all the gifts it has given you over the years. You don’t run your gas powered car on bio-diesel do you? You don’t drive for 100,000 miles without an oil change do you? Maybe you should start feeding your body the fuel it was meant to be fed with instead of processed crap from a box. Maybe you should start respecting the way you were created and get off your rear end and start moving instead of parking it in front of a flat screen with moving images of people doing what you aren’t doing (moving)!

Once you open up the pathways the information will start to flow. And then you can start feeling better, looking better and being better. It’s a fun journey if you will just take that first step!

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

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Sunday Story...Where's the Beef

Sunday Story…Where’s the Beef?

Some of you may actually remember this phrase and the advertisement that sparked the saying. A small, diminutive grandmotherly type lady by the name of Clara Peller goes to several fast food restaurants and wants to know “Where’s the Beef?” Of course at Wendy’s, the ad producer, she doesn’t have to ask the question. The phrase, “Where’s the beef”, got ensconced in our popular language to the point of then Vice President Mondale asking his opponent Sen. Gary Hart during a debate in 1984, “When I listen to your new ideas, I am reminded of that ad…”Where’s the Beef?” The ad was funny and cute and got the point across. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOyQfd7OqIY&feature=related

So…Where’s your Beef? Where is your substance? Where do you weigh in and stand up? Do you know? What are you willing to stand up for? What are you willing to fight for? What are you not going to allow in your life or the lives of the people around you?

What we are talking about is your value system. What do you value? What is important to you? How important is it really? Would you die for it? Would you kill for it? Go to prison? This is the sort of thing you really should know. You should know what you hold as most important…the things you would do anything for.

Recently a friend of mine was faced with such a choice. He was confronted in front of his house by 4 men apparently bent on harming him, taking his property and possibly hurting his child. He made a choice in a split second that has changed his life, took the life of one of the attackers and protected his person, his child and his property. There was a line he wasn’t going to allow to be crossed. He knew where his beef was, where his stand was going to be made.

Throughout history we revere examples of this sort of courage, this sort of stand against overwhelming odds. The Spartans at Thermopylae, lauded in a number of poems and enshrined in the movie, The 300, comes to mind. The Charge of The Light Brigade, Schindler who saved so many from the Nazis, the Alamo and others all call forth the vision of standing for what’s right and true. These were people who had the courage of their convictions. They were not going to just roll over and let the other side have their way.

The question, Where’s your beef, isn’t about making a last desperate stand on some remote mountain somewhere, spilling your blood in a last ditch attempt to stave off the inevitable. No the question I am asking you is about your limits and boundaries. What will you stand for and what are you willing to do, lose, sacrifice for that principle? What is your drop dead no way line? What are your deal breakers? At what behavior will you call a halt to the relationship?

These are questions you better have answers to. We find people who know who and what they are standing for attractive. It is one of the things that we adore in our politicians. And often the more didactic and pedantic they are the more we love them. In other words we love people who are definite about what they believe in. We find this attractive even if we disagree with their positions. We want to know where people stand. It makes it clear to me whether you are someone I want to be in relationship with or not.

Think of politicians…when they flip flop we immediately dislike them. If they won’t state clearly and concisely what they believe and where they stand we run to those that will. Confidence and clarity are attractive both in our mates and our politicians. In a mate I need to know you have my back if stuff hits the fan. In a politician I need to know you are going to do what you said you are going to do and not waffle between trying to make all the people happy and doing what’s right.

A lot of this comes back to the integrity we talk about so often. Part of integrity means we are clear about who and what we are. There is no question about my values. I may shift my methods, I may need to change my clothes if you will but my underlying structure remains strong and secure.

So again I ask you…”Where’s your Beef?” What do you stand for? How are you going to find out?
Ask yourself a few questions…
What would you allow with no response?
--someone to kidnap your child
--someone to call you names
--someone to paint a cross on your neighbor’s lawn
And then…how would you respond, knowing full well you might die or go to prison if
--someone was to kidnap your child
--someone was to call you threatening names
--someone was to paint a cross on your neighbor’s lawn

On a more personal level what are your deal breakers in your current relationship? In other word what will cause you to walk out of the relationship? Do you know? Does your partner know? It might be good to have this discussion. It is important that these things are clear to both parties. What may be your deal breaker may be no big deal to me. It would be good information to have!

Your values should be yours, not mine, not your pastors, not your governments…yours. You should be the final arbiter of what is right for you and your life. Then you should gather people around you who have similar values. In there we build a community that is going to work toward a common goal in harmony, comfort and peace. There’s your beef.

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

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Sunday Story...Emotional Rescue

Sunday Story…Emotional Rescue

A bomb goes off in a crowded plaza, killing and injuring dozens of people. An airliner is shot out of the sky resulting in all on board perishing. Innocent people, going about their daily lives, are hurt or killed with no apparent reason. They were just taking their laundry to the cleaners or meeting a friend for lunch when violence erupted and their entire lives were altered.

This is terrorism as we understand it today. Terrorism is often defined as the systematic use of violence or coercion to achieve your goals (usually political). Terrorism is generally thought of as bad. Although it is often said that one group’s terrorist is another group’s freedom fighter. I think the difference may be the use of violence against indiscriminate targets as opposed to waging a fight against participants who signed up for the fray.

Most of us (luckily and hopefully) will never experience this kind of random violence in our lives. Although it is possible, at this point in most of our lives we are not a in place where that is going to happen (as opposed to living in Jerusalem or Afghanistan).

It is much more likely that you and I will be victims of something almost as terrible…Emotional Terrorism. This is a much more personal and private form of terrorism. The aim is really the same…to get what you want through violent or coercive means. Rather than blowing up a shopping square the emotional terrorist blows up relationships. When they don’t get what they want the easy way they resort to any means possible to achieve their end.

If I ask for what I want from you and you say yes, no or maybe, I should be able to hear your answer and move on. But if my request really wasn’t a request but rather a demand then I cannot hear anything but a yes. If you deny my demand and I resort to other tactics to get what I want I am engaging in a form of emotional terrorism. Maybe I decide to with hold my love until you acquiesce to my demand. Maybe I will engage in some behavior explicitly designed to create a negative reaction in you (cheating, flirting etc.). Maybe I will deny you some previously agreed upon favor or activity. These are all forms of the sort of terrorism I am talking about.
When you look at this sort of behavior it certainly looks bad. It does not look like the kind of thing any of us really want to be doing does it? A couple questions pop up in my mind when I start looking at this kind of behavior. Where did you learn it? Why would you do it and think it was OK. Is what you want really so important that you are willing to risk our relatedness to get it?

Often this behavior is learned as we grow up. And sometimes our parent inadvertently trained us into it. Maybe it was modeled by our parents. And often we see it in popular TV shows…the dad has to sleep on the couch because he didn’t do this or that. Maybe when we threw a tantrum we got what we wanted in spite of parental insistence that we would never get it. After all, this emotional terrorism is the adult version of the temper tantrum we see in 2 and 3 year olds. The stakes are higher, the behavior maybe more subtle and manipulative but it is still a tantrum.

We do it because we haven’t grown up in confidence enough yet. We do it because our maturity level is still that of an adolescent. In other words I want what I want because what I want is more important than anything else anyone else wants. In other words it is very ego-centric. We don’t have the confidence to hear a no. Our self confidence and our self image are tied up in what we want, not in what the other person wants. This is not a grown up way of being.

And again what you want is more important than anything else including our relatedness. Maybe your experience is that people stick around for more of your bad behavior. Maybe you have been trained to do this by people who allow you to get away with it and still continue the relationship.

Guess what…I am an emotional terrorist. So are you. Well maybe not you. You might never have engaged in nefarious, manipulative, underhanded or mean things to get what you want. Ever. Honestly though, let’s get a little consciousness going here shall we? I know I have done these things. I try not to do them now. I am willing to hear your no. I am willing to hold my limits and boundaries and respect yours as well. What I want is not more important than being related to you. But I will also not tolerate bad behavior from you either because the relatedness I have with myself will not allow for your bad behavior.

I suggest you start looking around your life and start rooting out the emotional terrorists. I think the best place to start is with you. Take a really good look at how you are interacting with the significant people in your life. Are you making clear requests (not demands)? Are you being clear about the behaviors you will not tolerate? Are you clear what your limits and boundaries are? It is not going to work to eliminate the emotional terrorists in your life if you are the biggest one. Clean your own house first.

Emotional terrorism…it’s just not OK.

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

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Sunday Story...I Can See Clearly Now

Sunday Story…I Can See Clearly Now

Clarity.
How clear are you on where you are going? How clear are you on how you are going to get there? Are you clear everywhere in your life or just one or two places? Maybe you just threw a dart on a map and you ended up here. Maybe you know you want to go to New York but you have never bothered to figure out how you are going to get there. Too often too many of us are operating out a default position. We do what we think is the next thing to do. Get married, have children, retire and on and on until we hit the last stop. We did what the world and our families and our friends expected us to do.

Maybe you have discovered your purpose. Maybe you are clear and what it is and how you are going to get there. Good on you. For me, not so much.

I am pretty clear on my purpose…to teach focus, and inspire transformation. But that is pretty broad stroke wouldn’t you say? That really doesn’t say much about the rest of my life…or really about any part of my life. What does any of that purpose have to do with say…personal intimate relationships? Or about financial needs and gains…or about ???

What that purpose speaks to is how I live my teaching and my physical life. I hope to inspire you to transform your physical being…if I can do it so can you. I used education, trial and error, a dogged determination and yes, focus to achieve the optimum health and fitness I currently enjoy. You can do the same thing. It won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy but it will be worth it. I want you to enjoy every moment of your life, even the uncomfortable ones. This morning I was running (don’t tell my Docs please) some 400 meter sprints (or what passes for a sprint these days) and it hurt. But it felt so good at the same time. To be able to move and put my feet on the ground and connect with that part of my human being that is the running man. When I use martial arts as the crucible for young people to understand the function of focus in their lives I am at one with my purpose. When I talk about all the facets of self defense (diet, education, bullying, habits, goal setting, and more) with my students I am fulfilling that purpose. Pretty simple and straightforward, yes?

What about some clarity on the other fronts in life? Because life isn’t just about our physical being or what we do for a living. I am very lucky, what I do for a living coincides neatly with my purpose. I know many of you are not so fortunate.

How can I have some clarity around, say, my spiritual life? What is my purpose there? I know many of you will have this handled. I have received your comments about your commitment to your God, your savior and I get it. And I love that clarity for you. But what is the purpose? What is the mission of your commitment? What is the vision of how you will bring your spiritual self into alignment with the rest of your life? How are you integrating that purpose into both your daily life and your long term spiritual goals?

And then there is the purpose as it involves my personal intimate relationships. Would you be inspired by those? Would you want to emulate, to model your own after mine? I think not because frankly they are a bit of a mess at this point. And a great part of the mess stems from not knowing what I really want in that kind of relationship. It also stems from this “Lone Ranger” sort of mentality I seem to be so comfortable with. If I don’t let you get too close I won’t have to let you all the inside the door so you can really and truly see who I am…because you might not like that. So I keep you at arm’s length…it feels so much safer that way.

Do we need a different mission statement for all the areas of our lives…spiritual, personal, financial, career, and community? Or is there one overarching mission and vision and then we should branch off of that? Honestly it looks really hard to have a separate mission for each area. I suspect this is the stop. It was hard enough to find the one purpose so the work required finding 3 or 4 more looks very daunting. Maybe once I have identified the main purpose, then I need to simply figure out how to live in those other areas that will make that purpose a true statement.

I must admit the truth of that last statement. It just felt right and felt organic and really simple and comfortable. Go back to your mission statement, your vision. Then start living into all the areas of your life from that statement.

For example…my financial life is transparent, authentic and is purposefully designed to teach focus and inspire transformation. My personal, intimate relationships are transparent and authentic, designed to inspire transformation and teach focus. Hmmm…I have to say that feels pretty comfortable and easeful.

I feel like a load has been taken off my shoulders. I feel like there is some clarity in this area.

Now the next thing is to design the actual real things that need to get done to fulfill the mission/vision. All of a sudden this does not look quite so difficult. The process you just watched unfold is really very simple. Identify where the stop is, where the fear and insurmountable point lies. For me it was going through a whole process to identify 4 or 5 more purposes or mission. I just couldn’t get past that one. So I did nothing. So I backed up and found a goal, a point where I could see my way through. Again, in this case, it was linking the current mission to what I am doing in the easy areas and seeing it apply to others. Now it feels like I can move forward identifying and doing the things, one at a time that will need to be done to achieve both the long term mission and the short terms goals.

I Can See Clearly Now.

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

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