The Child Is the Path To Your Future
For about a year, I had Sifu (and walking Kung Fu library), Taoist priest and Phd in Psychology Carl Totton as my personal coach. Brilliant man, and I was unwise not to reach out to him years earlier. That…is on me, and I"ll always regret it, as a stroke ended our time together.
But during our time together he gave me some extremely valuable pieces of wisdom, and I was going over some of the chunks:
Chi Gong
Blessing Dance
Connecting with "Child" for longevity, rather than "elder."
One tweak that he gave me had to do with energy and aliveness. I visualize myself living life on a "time line" stretching from my past to my future. I'm walking that road, or that tightrope, if you can visualize that.
I had visualized a vibrant, healthy "elder" self, someone a decade or two older but still vital. And Carl suggested that instead I connect to my YOUNGER self for this energy, and I immediately felt the truth of that. That younger self had immediate connection to the energy of life: biologically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.
That for something as basic as HEALTH AND ALIVENESS…connect to your child rather than trying to fight the future.
That child self is INTENSELY in the moment if he is healthy, safe, and emotionally secure. NOW is the moment children live in when they are fully alive and happy. Past and future don't exist. (Needless to say, this has to be paired with the "executive function" of "future-pacing".)
Life is NOW. Keeping an eye on the future while gaining wisdom from the past implies part of you managing your "time line" exquisitely: the ADULT handing time, past and future, while the CHILD lives in the moment with all the passion imaginable. Asking what happens to relationships when you can live in the moment is useful. While yes, you have to be concerned with past and future, love and sex and communication are NOW. So this connection, a healthy adult-child duo, is essential.
And what about our minds, our "HEAD CENTER". That's career, education, strategy. Skill. We gain skill by leveraging emotion and networking, and combine it with unstinting physical discipline over time. People who have never experienced this focus on the tiny percentage of odd outliers who seem to have simply been "born with skill": "talent."
They ignore the 99% who say, over and over, that they got up earlier and stayed up later. Were considered monomaniacal by their peers. That they worked at their chosen skill with the obsession of a child immersed in building sand castles or catching insects or collecting comic books.
The child aliveness, opening emotional energy and focused through mentor-assisted practice over time.
Viewed this way, there is NOTHING you could do for yourself that is more powerful than creating a healthy connection with your "child." To be your own "parent." To handle "adult" responsibilities like goals, marketing, sales, finance, and evaluating potential partners.
Tananarive's mother provided endless different experiences for her daughters. Exposed them to every form of music, study, social experience, educational opportunity. What was she looking for?
THAT SPARK. What would they be interested in? What would be their natural groove? Find that, and then get behind it. In that sense, the ONLY "talent" is the capacity to focus on a valid path over time. This is so clear that the concept is frightening to those afraid to hope, who have lost faith.
Look into that fear, that lack of faith. You USED to have it. Was it burned out of you? What taught you that you couldn't? Can you remember the people, the places, the voices, the events?
You don’t have to. All you have to do is connect with that child in a young enough form to avoid the damage. Connect with him, and LOVE HIM WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE, in daily meditations and visualizations. Think of him, smiling and happy, during your five sixty-second breathing breaks. Do this, and by the end of this year, you'll be in a very different place in your life.
BREATHE for sixty seconds, diaphragmatically, every hour…a minimum of five times a day.
VISUALIZE your happy child self as you do.
IMPROVE 1% per week at this.
That is your commitment. Breathe. Visualize. Commit.
Its really up to you, but we'll be here to support you till the January 1, 2024.
Join us?
Namaste
Steve
