Stressed? Hold on, and let go

BREATHE!




“Breathe in the good stuff, exhale the bullshit.” – Unknown


If you would be a hero to your family and community, you have to take care of yourself FIRST. The Firedance approach says to aim at spending the first hour of the day inputting positive emotion, energy, and strategy. Those who wake up and doomscroll, then complain about depression…

Are poisoning themselves. It isn't the world. There are always horrible things happening. ALWAYS. But also always beautiful things. Yesterday's sunset was as beautiful as it was a year ago.

The stressed, fearful mind creates tunnel vision. In tunnel vision you cannot see opportunities even if they are dangling right in front of you. So that quote about exhaling bullshit?

Right there. Every day, aim at weaking your negative beliefs by 1%. Replacing them with positive beliefs, to heal your emotions, help you see opportunities, and take proper, appropriate, sustained action. The most important elements then are:

1) Meditation on first awakening. Listen to your heartbeat or feel your breathing. Focus on centering, and gratitude. Create and enter your vision of the perfect life. Then on the person you would need to be to live it, what I call the "Golden Man." This is the part of me that is aligned with the path ahead.
2) Movement. The "Five Minute Miracle" is a movement discipline, yes. But you want more. You want to go dousing for energy in your body every day, find it and live within it. I am now using YOGA for this. It is a re-organization of my mind and heart at a VERY deep level. These are uncharted waters.
3) During movement, chant affirmations, visualize mentors, and wash yourself in gratitude. If you need more power, simply dial it up: make the movement more intense, or chant your affirmations more loudly.
4) Now, spend a minimum of 15 minutes on positive input. Youtube is full of instruction on doing almost anything you can imagine. It is perfectly reasonable to listen to a video in the background while working on your journal.
5) The Goal-Action-Results triad. This is the support for "executive function." If you have a problem here (and frankly, I've never met anyone who was perfect here. Not if you look at all three arenas) then admit it and look for the tools that compensate. Humans are tool users.
a. MORNING: Look at your list of goals/outcomes for the day. Remembering your long-term goal, can you see the actions that will take you in that direction? Make 1% progress? Find the three most important ones, and commit to finishing it by 1pm. Visualize the day ahead, and see yourself mastering your challenges.
b. DAY: Live your day. Be sure to use your "Five Minute Miracle" even if you stack it with your Pomodoro sequences: working sold for 45 minutes, then taking a 15 minute break. OR 25 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break, all day long.
c. EVENING: At the end of the day, check your goal list. Did you get it done? Why or why not? Do you need to take smaller "bites" of your goal to raise your chances of success? Are there goals that really didn't need to be completed? Strike them off. If they simply needed to be delayed, push them to the next day.
d. When you go to sleep, think back over your day with gratitude. Think about your challenges for tomorrow. What is the largest challenge to keep you going at 1% acceleration? Ask your unconscious mind to produce an answer for you by the time you awaken. Smile and slip into sleep.




The MAGIC formula isn't the last word on success. It is an observation about five aspects you MUST handle to start getting "lucky." Map or model, massive action, flooding yourself with Gratitude and positive emotion, Clarifying (perhaps re-writing) your goals daily, and constantly seeking to align your actions and intentions with the deepest, truest aspect of who you are, and what the world it.


NO SUCCESS PATTERN can guarantee external success. But fortunately, real success starts with the internal: escape suffering, and embrace joy. THAT we have control over. And when we take that control, and use the energy created by fear and anger to drive effective action…we transform our lives.

And that gives us the tools and resources to be of benefit to our tribe.

Namaste
Steve
www.steven-barnes.com