HJ Second Step
BREATHE!
"Happiness breathes when you do."
-Terri Guillemets.
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"Your last four weeks is your life right now. What does it day about you"--Brendon Burchard
What actions did you take? What friends, mentors and mentees did you connect with? Did you monitor your thoughts to see how often "stinkin' thinkin'" creeps in? How much time did you INVEST in yourself, as opposed to how much time you wasted doomscrolling or numbing yourself on social media?
How many times a day did you ask WHO AM I? And considered that your actions define you?
Did you live? Did you love? Did you matter?
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The second step of the Hero's Journey is the Hero Rejects the challenge. There is a good reason that this reticence often exists in stories…or life.
A story is about the moment when something changed. The best stories often have an external change (something happens in the world) that triggers an internal change in the character (they must solve a problem, and if they do, they grow). Growth and change are frightening, so we will often experience fear when facing the very events and perspectives that will change us deeply, revealing our true selves.
That's really all we do, you know. We don't "change" as much as "change expression". Find something deeper and truer within ourselves that makes us equal to the task.
Martial arts doesn't make warriors, it REVEALS the warrior aspect of our being.
Relationships don't make us loving, they give us a place to EXPRESS the love that was already within us, safely.
Power doesn't corrupt, it REVEALS the corruption that was already there…or allows us to be better, more highly contributing people as we finally have an avenue to express who we always were.
And art isn't about learning, its mostly about Unlearning, removing the blocks that separate our conscious and dreaming selves. CRAFT is certainly learned, but in this sense, "craft" is the language of a specific artistic discipline. It allows the audience to understand the emotional impulse that drove you.
And a beautiful thing here is that if you are immersed in your art, you don't really notice what other people are doing. Your eyes are on the Path. The time you spend comparing yourself to others (favorably or unfavorably) is specifically the time you lost not focusing on your next step.
This is why focus correlates so strongly to performance, especially if you empty your cup and accept proper mentoring.
Change is hard
Abandoning ego is hard
Stepping out of the known is hard.
The more fear you feel, the more likely it is that a given task, mastered, will change you forever. Learning to distinguish which such changes will take you toward your destiny (The Student becoming the Teacher, the movement to the higher level) is one of the most important challenges. Then, once determined, once you know yourself, and the world, enough to gamble a chunk of your time and energy, body and heart, GO FOR IT.
But understand two things: the first is that fear is natural and normal.
The second is that we will continue this tomorrow.
Life is Art!
Steve
