FIREDANCE tomorrow
I was a little "down" last night. Knew I'd get through it: always do. Also know that there is not necessarily a relationship between anything happening at the moment, and my feelings. Why? Because I don't necessarily react fully emotionally at a given moment. More likely, I'll cram unpleasant emotions away, take whatever actions are possible to resolve the situation, and process the feels later.
So those feelings were assumed to relate to my life, but not NECESSARILY anything to do with something specific happening TODAY.
But I asked myself: what do I have to feel unhappy about? Life is wonderful. And this morning, waking up feeling terrific, I had a thought. A general feeling I have, position I have, is that accomplishing ANY goal teaches you unique things. Shapes you into being a unique version of yourself.
Leading me to say: "if you had what it took to do that goal, you'd already have it."
This is a version of the "I don't know how to do this…but I can learn."
To the degree that this is true, you have to KILL your current ego-self to become the new you. You have to give up resentments, scars, attachments, negative associations, false self-image…you have to burn your NEGATIVE past to create your future. Of course, you also have to connect to the past in POSITIVE ways. Its tricky. And frightening. And painful.
My ego shell is disassembling. It was created to get me to this point in my life. All the bravado, "positive thinking", cocky attitude…all of that, was to protect me against vast swaths of negative conditioning.
I knew no one, met no one in childhood, certainly had no one in my family who had my specific level of ambition. SAW no one out in the world who had done it, starting from my level of resource. So I created what you might call a "Stevie Simulacrum", a little homonculus representing my hopes and dreams, the person I needed to be to survive long enough to fail often enough to learn enough to know what resources I REALLY needed to evolve.
That "self" was a part of me, but also a construct. I used it in many contexts, including public events. Nichelle Nicoles once told me that you had to do this for public appearances. "People don't want to know who you really are. What you really feel. You have to create a simplified version of yourself--not a lie, just presenting your best angles. This isn't just for you: its for them, too."
And that seemed so smart, so rational, and it also dove-tailed with that sense of "throwing your hat over the fence then climbing after it" that Tananarive uses. Or the "fake it til you make it" so familiar with champions: Ali saying "I'm the greatest" makes total sense…if that image of being "the greatest" translates into resistance to pain and boredom in his training. "Why do I suffer? The couch awaits" is something EVERY athlete hears in their head. The answer is: "Because I said I was the Greatest. And this is the way the Greatest trains."
Get that? You create a goal. Define the person who could walk the path to that goal in X time (say, 1000 days). Then declare to yourself and the world that that is the person you are, AND LIVE IN SUCH A WAY TO ACTUALLY BE THAT PERSON.
I have so much wreckage, scar tissue, self-doubt, trash and detritus from previous stages of my life. It can be depressing. Until I connect with that little boy I was and see him jumping up and down with excitement: I did it! I literally accomplished EVERYTHING I set out to do as a kid! But…those were a child's dreams, and he created an image that could create those things, not realizing that he was building a machine, raising a lion that would want to know "what's next?"
And the "what's next" is larger than the image that got me here. What I didn't realize was that I was collaborating in my own destruction, in a sense. It is TERRIFYING. And the only game in town.
So…from time to time, when things are going really well, I am relaxed enough to release another "packet" of past wreckage. Not a totally destructive process as discussed in spiritual literature, because I've been doing this a long time, and have had excellent mentors. It’s a lot like overhauling and rebuilding a car while still driving in the fast lane. ALMOST impossible. Not quite.
I can stop for sixty seconds every time I breathe. My unconscious can rebuild then.
I can stop when I'm sleeping. Dreaming is my rebuilding time.
I can stop thinking when I'm exercising. And stop exercising when I'm writing. And stop both when I play with my family.
We grow, we disassemble, we rebuild when resting. The work, the exercise, just sort of alerts yoru hind-brain to the NATURE of the rebuilding desired.
It makes sense that I'd feel "down" at times. I'm processing the times when any sane person would have quit, or run into an emotional wall, but I kept going, just because that is who I said I was.
A Warrior is one who says "I'm ready to die, and I'm ready to take you with me."
But he doesn't just say that to the opponent…he says it to his ego.
Tomorrow, on FIREDANCE, I'm going to give you a piece of real magic. No nonsense. It was one of the total breakthroughs, and involves a body-mind integration that totally blew me away. It was taught by Swiftdeer…not to me, but to my brother in law Patric Young. I watched it happen. Wrote about it in Karate Illustrated decades ago, but we're going to relate it to Firedance in a way that will change your entire life if you are ready to integrate this. If you've been doing your homework…or are willing to, starting NOW.
Steven Barnes is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Firedance LIVE!
Time: Apr 22, 2023 12:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87410831917?pwd=UkF3SHNmV25FaktxSHZnOUJyVjVjZz09
Meeting ID: 874 1083 1917
Passcode: 056462
