My Subjective Reality Experiment

I’ve been reading the latest blogs by Steve Pavlina (www.stevepavlina.com), a very popular personal development blogger. He’s talking about his 30-day trial into Subjective Reality. You have objective reality, where the universe exists and your consciousness arises within it, and then you have subjective reality, where your consciousness exists and that’s all. You create everything around you: the coffee that you buy at Starbucks, the annoying co-worker, the traffic jam, and even the ants crawling on the sidewalk. They are all creations of your consciousness.

It’s a radical departure from the way most people see life and live life. We have a collective belief that the world is a fixed framework and we are beings born into this environment. We claw and fight our way through life because, in objective reality, you don’t really control anything. The ways and whims of the world are forces beyond your command, and you simply do your best to deal and keep up. In objective reality there are divisions of people, schools of different thought, and “the other side”. You are separate from the world, merely existing, sometimes observing, sometimes responding, but never becoming one with the environment around you. How could you? It was here before you, and will be here when you are gone.

In subjective reality, all this changes. There was no world before your consciousness illuminated since you are the creator of your world. There is no traffic jam or annoying co-worker – these are reflections of you. As Steve explains, seeing life as subjective reality is like having a dream. You are both the dreamer and the creator of the dream, and all the characters in the dream are creations of you.

Objective and subjective reality are two perspectives in which to see life. There’s no way to really ascertain if one is the truth and the other a falsity. But when you have a choice of perspectives, it’s key to be able to see and experience all of them, because it enriches your life in unexpected ways.

I’ve been inspired by Steve to do my own experiment into subjective reality and live my life for 30 days with the constant reminder that everything I encounter is a reflection of me. This includes people, circumstances, events large and small, and so on – everything. I’m going to report on my discoveries about once per week and share my revelations or frustrations with you. I’m not sure what to expect since I, like most people, have been living life as though I am not in full control of my world. So, here goes…

08/10/2010: COCONUT JUICE FOR RECYCLING MAN

I just heard the recycling truck pull up, and, instead of ignoring the man who’s working hard to pick up my junk every two weeks and save it from the landfill like I usually do, I decided to bring him a cold can of fresh coconut juice. I gave him the drink and thanked him for working so hard. Was it weird to applaud the recycling man? Maybe. But in the end, it was me that I sent gratitude to, since he’s just a creation of myself. And I do like a cold coconut juice on a hot day.

08/09/2010: VINDICTIVE NEIGHBORS SUCK

My wife and I started a weekly community yoga class at our neighborhood clubhouse a few weeks ago. We went to the homeowners meeting, proposed the project and got approval to post signs around the complex. After the second class, a horribly vindictive and crabby neighbor decided to tear down our signs. We got very upset over this.

I finally ran into the petty thief, a resident of the community who spouted claims that we were defacing the neighborhood and sullying its beauty with our adverts. I countered back that we intended only to bring a healthy weekly activity to the community. Outwardly I beamed diplomacy and good motives. Inwardly I wanted to wring her neck.

For the next few days I replayed various scenarios in my head of how I could scare her just enough to pack her bags and move out of the complex. Her vindictiveness became mine and the cycle of inner aggression began to play out its ugly dance.

I was living in the objective world where she, a dirt bag, was separate from me and doing something to hinder me, hurt me, put sticks in my spokes. But when I switched on the subjective reality filter, then I saw that she IS me and represents a part of me that is vindictive, disrespectful, and petty. I wish this filter was only rose colored, but as it is, it reveals the ugly truth very quickly.

Since she is me, I couldn’t remain angry at her or lay voodoo curses on her every time I walked passed her house. It would be like insulting myself or wishing harm done to myself so I stopped very quickly. Then my wife and I sent silent prayers to her by saying “I’m sorry, I love you.” Sorry for the pain and suffering in her (in me) that gives rise to vindictive aggression, and love to hasten the necessary healing that needs to take place in her (in me).

I haven’t seen her again, but I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of interaction we’ll have this time.

08/08/2010: ATTACK OF THE ANTS

I know it makes some sense to see reflections of you in other people (recall the various proverbs – the eyes are the mirrors of the soul?) but would you be able to see yourself in non-human life forms, like ants?

We’ve been having an ant infestation lately and I’ve been the crazy ant killer. I crush them with glee when they crawl on my kitchen sink and I stomp them with delight when they cross my front patio. It’s a killing party.

The other morning, when I woke up and saw them attacking a little chunk of watermelon in my kitchen, I nearly exploded into a fury of ant termination when I reminded myself of my experiment. I asked myself, what part of me do the ants represent? As ridiculous as that sounds, I discovered an answer.

My wife Jaime and I talked about how the ants came because we didn’t always do the dishes right away and left them in the sink overnight. I’m clean but not a tidiness freak, so I’ll let things get out of hand once in a while. I realized then that the ants represented parts of me that I let get out of hand.

I realized that I could pay my bills more promptly. I realized that I could update my finances more regularly. I realized that I could stay off my computer more and be more focused and productive when I’m on it. I realized that when I get in a rut and start doing things out of routine and not out of passion, I let things slide. I realized that I always need to focus on expressing my deepest passions and truest nature, so that things don’t start to slide.

Within an hour, we had come up for a game plan for the kitchen, and life. We decided to do a better job of cleaning the dishes, and to begin an active strategy to find someone or some organization to help us market and distribute our creative products – our instructional DVDs, music CDs, both of our books, and our fitness and developmental workshops. Yesterday Jaime called a few production agencies, and we’re starting to take steps towards aligning our passions and our finances.

All from a few ants. It’s only been 48 hours, but I haven’t seen them back yet. Coincidence – or just a remnant of my self that’s been heard and met with compassion and understanding?

****************
I’ll follow up with more observations into my 30-day experiment with subjective reality next week. If you’d rather receive my blogs (since I’ll be sending out the next few weekly) by RSS feed, sign up for a feed in the top right corner of this site. Then send me an email and let me know you’re set up with an RSS reader.

How to Overcome Fear

Fear grows like an insidious virus, first scratching the surface of the polished veneer of your confidence like an innocent itch, then nestling deeper and deeper into your well of courage, until finally, it violently throttles your entire being, restlessly taunting you with nightmares of trainwrecks, snakes, and ghosts.

Or not.

Stopping the spread of fear happens in minute, small increments. Occasionally, you might be able to crack the glass ceiling by hurdling yourself upwards through adversity in one Herculean leap of faith – but more commonly, you’ll take it one step at a time. The changes will be small, barely noticeable, but will create long-lasting results.

The trick to stopping the spread of fear is to recognize the subtle masks that fear wears. Fear in our daily lives does not usually manifest itself as hooded terrorists with machine guns, rapists wielding machetes, or killer viruses that annihilate entire cities in a day. Fear makes its stealthy appearance through the back door with comments disguised as cynicism, sarcasm, and anger.
Perhaps you’ve been told on your birthday that “you’re only a few years from being over the hill.” Or the day after you were married, you were warned that “the honeymoon is now over.” Maybe you have kids now and recall your friends predicting the demise of your romantic life. The tone of cynicism and sarcasm is thick and pervading, and you probably waived off their nauseous comments with a polite smile or even a forced laugh.

Don’t let their heedless jeers sink in though. The moment you are bombarded with petty cynicism and sarcasm, you have a choice: accept the profanity or reject it. Societal standards make it permissable to be victims of thoughtless jokes without realizing that the actual force behind this low-level commentary is fear. It could be fear about growing old, losing physical capabilities, or never being able to experience again the glory days of youth. It could be fear about not being able to sustain a long term relationship, ending in divorce, or defiling your commitment with your wanderlust ways of bachelorhood. Regardless of what the fear is about, recognize that others may attempt to project their unspoken shadows unto you, subtlely taking you down with their sinking ship. Misery likes company.

You can stop fear when you are able to recognize the mask. Cynicism and sarcasm almost always reflect a deeper, hidden anxiety that spews out in random, uncontrolled bursts, like a scalding geyser blowing out  of a narrow fissure. The dramatic eruptions on the surface distract us from the mounting friction below.

Your course of action is non-action. To not react, respond, or partake in the game of cynicism and saracasm is to effectively reject it and reinforce your ability to safeguard your beliefs, your intentions, and your dreams. You become stronger, more confident, and courageous. These qualities do not call forth massive effort, but require you to develop greater awareness so that you can be non-reactive. Where do you encounter cynicism and sarcasm? Perhaps your workplace has a self-appointed comedian whose mission is to slay his colleagues with senseless verbal jabs. The media is also inundated with false alarms, phony pundits, and bogus claims. Look around you with your radar set for cynicism and sarcasm, and you’ll see that this seemingly benign and normal behavior is everywhere.

Anger is a step up in intensity from sarcasm and cynicism but still functions most of the time to hide a deeper fear. This is not the kind of anger that spontaneously erupts in self-preservation – a car swerving toward you, a threatening gesture made against your children, or a stalking figure following you in dark, deserted alley. This is the brewing, simmering kind, the type of anger that maliciously oozes out to incinerate happiness, optimism, and well-being.

Anger begets anger, and the angered becomes the perpetrator. The vengeful cycle is closed and the flames of battle spark while both parties completely miss the point. What is the point? Neither one has realized that the fuel for their anger is fear.

When you recognize that your anger, or another’s anger draws its strength from fear, you diminish the intensity of your rage. Sometimes your anger even  completely disappears. The key to transforming anger is understanding the underlying source of its fiery façade. Beneath the tantrum lies a smaller, frightened, and humbled inner kid, one who might have been picked last in gym class to be on the team, or saw the agonizing collapse of her parents’ marriage. Maybe it was the time she was told that she would amount to nothing, or her first kiss that ended in stony rejection.
Anger is a mask that fear wears. The next time you are faced with a belligerent imbecile, indignant and lewd, stop to wonder what he might be afraid of, not what he’s angry about. Wonder if he was hurt in some way, if his partner left him, if he just lost his job. Wonder if he had alcoholic parents, if he was abused as a child, if he grew up in a tough neighborhood. It doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong in your hunches; what matters is that you wonder. The more you wonder, the more you develop compassion. The more you embody compassion, the easier it is to accept fear. As you begin to accept fear, it transmutes all by itself and becomes courage. The transmutation of fear begins with understanding, and finishes with courage.

When you are able to do this with someone else, try it on yourself. While it is easy to point fingers, the conclusive test is whether or not you can see your own fear through your anger.
So stopping the spread of fear is not really about stopping anything. It’s about developing awareness of the different masks that fear wears, and then choosing non-action or compassion. Either way both paths are more efficient, use less energy, and transmute fear.

Find Alignment, Not Balance

My wife and I own and operate a yoga-fitness studio called Barefoot Sanctuary that operates out of the largest Whole Foods Market in Las Vegas. We are very lucky to partner and create a community studio space with them because we also have the opportunity to introduce very unique courses into the schedule that we wouldn’t be able to do at other studios. One of those classes is my Handstand Class.

You wouldn’t think that spending an hour on your hands would be an enticing fitness offering, but it’s become quite popular. I’ve had people from all walks, none of them acrobats, come and learn the art of inversion and staying on your hands.

Perhaps the growing success of the class is due to the benefit of getting blood to your head, or the feeling of increasing strength in your shoulders and back but I think the real draw is because it teaches you the actual meaning of finding balance in your life.

Finding balance is a common goal for anyone who is too stressed, too overworked, too tired, and too busy. There are many books and speakers who talk about how to find balance in your life and offer a multitude of tools to do so. Some work and some don’t, but the one commonality of all these tools is that they are all metaphors. They are ideas that you apply to your life by using analogies, symbols, and concepts.

When you learn to do a handstand, however, you don’t deal in concepts or metaphors. You either achieve a balanced state or you don’t. And when you don’t, you fall over. The feedback loop is instantaneous.

When I begin teaching handstands to someone who has never tried it before, I explain that learning to do handstands is not about finding balance, which kind of surprises most people. Learning to do handstands is actually about creating proper alignment.

Think of your body as being divided into three blocks. Imagine that the first block runs from your fingers to your shoulders, the second from your shoulders to your hips, and the last block from your hips to your toes. When you’re inverted in a handstand, your job is to align the blocks on top of each other.

Pretend you are five again and you are playing with a set of Lego blocks. If you put one block on top of the other but put it on the corner, then set the third block on top, again skewed on the corner, your structure might hold only if you secure it with rubber bands and nails. In other words, you’re able to build a tower but it requires additional energy and resources to make it stay.

Another note about balance – you can balance anything, regardless of its shape. Finding balance is really about finding the center of gravity of an object and manoeuvering it so that you place its center of gravity directly over its contact point on the ground. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, try to recall images of acrobats at a circus balancing spinning plates, chairs, or even other people. They are able to balance the object even if it is shaped unusually. (I’ve balanced an unfolded six-foot step ladder, a bicycle, chairs, and people on my chin.)

The lesson is that you can find balance in anything, but that doesn’t mean you want to. What you want to do, especially in proper handstand technique, is to align the body so that balance comes naturally and almost without effort. Then you are using your structure and alignment to maintain your position while using very little energy. You are strong and efficient.

In other words, learning to do a proper handstand is about aligning the three blocks by making sure that your legs are directly over your hips, your hips directly over your chest, your chest directly over your shoulders and your shoulders directly over your hands. It sounds simplistic and it is. It’s simple, but not easy.

It’s not easy at first because aligning all these body parts requires subtle contractions of muscles that you rarely use and stretching of other ligaments that you hardly ever stretch. Most people come into the class with enough strength to hold themselves upside down, but lack the subtle strength and flexibility to position their body in a straight vertical line.

When you finally achieve proper alignment, then finding balance is not really an issue. Since gravity works only in one direction, and if your body blocks are directly on top of each other, then your handstand will be balanced. It can’t and won’t go anywhere. For example, try to balance three wooden blocks when they’re stacked exactly on top of each other. There’s nothing to balance because the alignment makes it balanced.

So, back to the metaphor of life and the issue of finding balance. My suggestion is to stop finding balance in your life and to begin creating alignment instead. Just like the crazy circus acrobats, you can find balance even if your life is a whirlwind with areas that are well over-extended and others that are completely ignored. You can find balance in an out-of-balance lifestyle – it’s just that you’re going to have a work a lot harder to keep it there.

When you create alignment in your life, you begin by identifying your values. Once you know what your values are, you line up three things, just like your body: your thoughts, your actions, and your words.

Having a set of defined values is like gravity to the handstand – you have to know how to position your body relative to the force of gravity. Once you have identified your values, you now also know how to think, act, and speak to align with those values.

Again, the process is simple, but not easy. If you have a life that is chaotic and out of control, then evaluate your ability to follow through with what you say, do, or think. Maybe you don’t fulfill commitments, which breaks your alignment, and forces you to be out of balance. Maybe you smile outwardly at people and cuss inwardly at their incompetence.

Perhaps you do act with integrity but your life is still out of balance. Then consider if your values are yours truly, and if they are reflective of who you are now. Contemplate whether or not you are still living a life based on borrowed values from parents, social circles, or religion.
For example, one of my values is to help people. I remember writing this down on a piece of paper in grade four when we were asked what we wanted to do when we grew up. Since this is one of my core values, I make sure that my thoughts, actions, and words reflect this mission, which is why we have a yoga-fitness studio and I write on personal growth.
So you might not ever come to my handstand class or even try one on your own. I do recommend that you meditate on your values and evaluate your follow through. If you are aligned, then you end up being able to take on more and more work without exhausting yourself or working inefficiently. You experience abundant energy, daily passion for your life – and a sense of balance.

We Live In A World Of Trust

After 15 years of professional performing in the circus, I realize that we live in a world of trust. When I perform a high flying act, supported only by cables and carabiners, I trust that the equipment will work. When I tumble across the stage in a rapid succession of back handsprings, I trust that other artists on stage will move on time, and clear the space for me. Others trust me to catch them when I throw them into the air for a double back flip, or to correctly attach their safety lines to their harnesses 60 feet in the air. I trust myself when I light my poi on fire and spin it in rapid arcs around my body. Trust is as palpable and real as the show itself, the glue that holds together a thinly fabricated illusion of seamless choreography, characters, and story line. I am fascinated by how much we trust each other, how much we trust the machines and systems that run our lives, and how horribly denying it is to our spirit to not be able to see the bountiful sea of trust that surrounds us, bathes us, and carries us.

You don’t have to be an acrobat in a dangerous circus show to recognize that trust is everywhere. Consider, and be amazed by, the many and varied acts of trust you perform when you drive to work. First, you trust that your car will start the way it was designed – you expect that the technology inside your vehicle will work correctly, and not detonate in a massive fireball on your driveway. You calmly turn the key despite the fact that you are sitting only a few feet from a bathtub full of gasoline, and that this highly explosive fuel is forcefully funneled through a super heated engine block and deliberately ignited with an electric spark.

As you drive down the road, listening to the radio, observing the weather, reading billboards, checking voicemail, and sipping your morning coffee, be astonished it is not a regular occurrence that no one has yet jumped the yellow line, careening wildly into you in a head-on collision. Be joyful that your fellow comrades on their way to work also acknowledge that they each command a multi-ton weapon of encased metal and rubber, capable of snuffing out the life of any pedestrian nonchalantly meandering across the street – but most of the time, don’t.

And speaking of pedestrians, rejoice in the knowledge that you can cross the street because we all made an implicit agreement that red means stop, and green means go. After all, they are just random colors of the rainbow and don’t have any real meaning, except for the ones we give them.

So your successful arrival at work, or wherever you are going, depends on two things: first, that we give meaning to meaningless things, and second, that we agree to continuously agree to the meaning. What greater daily demonstration of trust is there than to see millions of people consciously stopping their vehicles of mass destruction when they see the color red? Think of the millions of lives that are saved every year by this collective nod.

And this is only the drive to work. Now look inwards and consider what happens within your body on a second-to-second basis. The miracle of life is the miracle of total, complete, and binding trust. Your lungs are expanding and contracting, your heart is beating and pumping, and your eyes are absorbing light patterns while your brain is expeditiously processing trillions of bytes of information. These occurrences happen thousands, if not millions of times a day under the veil of the autonomic nervous system, completely unconscious to your waking thoughts, dutifully performing their life supporting functions without so much of a complaint or gripe. You trust that when you wake in the morning, your blood will still be flowing through your arteries, and your intestinal tract will have processed enough of the late night cheesecake to provide energy for the start of your day. It’s a miracle to think that, at any point, this intricate fabric of interdependent systems can be so easily interrupted, and life as we know it will end.

Living is trusting and is the greatest testament that the values of trust are alive and well. The next time you hear someone, or perhaps yourself say, “I can’t trust…”, contemplate the millions of examples that occur every moment that are life supporting and not life taking. Then contemplate how simple it is to cut the thinly attached chords of trust with a benign act, like driving down the wrong side of the road, or throwing bags of trash out the window of your 10th story apartment. And why wouldn’t you? It’s faster than bringing garbage down the stairs, but you don’t because we’ve all agreed to the value of life, which is the value of trust.

You might be silently screaming that mistrust does exist and that horrible trespasses against our collective agreements do occur. People do get run over by cars, murders and wars happen, and hearts cease their vital beating. There is no doubt that the execution of the trust act is not total and all-pervading. Not everyone, or every system functions perfectly.

You may have been lied to, manipulated by, or transgressed upon somehow in the past. The sensation of boundaries crossed and opportunities stolen is weighty and sobering. It is not helpful to simply say that the past is the past because your thoughts happen in the present.

What is helpful then is to remark that your present moment is replete with miraculous illustrations of trust. The question, how to trust again, is also the question of how to live again. And living by being, not thinking, strategizing, doing, or analyzing, is the answer to living again.

Living by being is a daily practice of conscious observation. What are you observing? You are rediscovering that ordinary events that normally occur without so much of a thought are in fact stupendous examples of trust. Begin observing simple, routine acts with an open and curious mind.

When I am on stage and a fellow artist is quick enough to catch me from an accidental fall, or remembers to correctly attach my safety line to my harness, I know that we live in a world of trust. When I drive through an intersection and see all the cars stopped at their red light, or get to work without trying to dodge an oncoming truck, I know that we live in a world of trust. And when I wake in the morning and open my eyes to the sunrise or take a deep breath in, I know that we live in a world of trust.

I Went Homeless So You Don’t Have To

Every now and then I will do strange experiments to push my  boundaries of comfort further. Being an acrobat in the circus means that I attempt flips, handstands, and high falls to challenge my physical skills and grow as an athlete. Being an acrobat of the soul means that I challenge my values, belief systems, and automatic behaviors so that I grow as a human being.

(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

Last December, on a chilly winter day, I decided to challenge a deeply rooted fear I had by spending 24 hours on the street homeless. I carried no credit cards, cash, I.D., cell phone, house keys, extra jackets, tissue papers, chapstick, iPod (what else do you usually leave the house with?)

I set off in the direction of downtown, carried by my own two feet, dressed in a tattered sweats, to challenge a fear (read: belief) that my failure as a businessman would lead to me being homeless.

I believed the equation: financial failure = homelessness. Do you believe this too?

I did and I needed to confront it. I chose to experience homelessness for 24 hours. Here are the highlights:
•    you can’t thumb a ride in Las Vegas if you look like a bum
•    panhandling is one of the most difficult things to do
•    I’m not a good panhandler; I made $2 in 24 hours
•    nothing costs less than a dollar, except for bananas at 7-11
•    it gets cold at night, even in Las Vegas
•    misery likes company – I never realized how many homeless people there are
•    people look at you with hate in their eyes when you beg
I literally walked for 12 of the 24 hours because no one would pick me up and I had no money for the bus. I also got kicked out of a public library, so sitting down in a quiet, warm place was not an option.

I ended up walking to the worst part of Las Vegas, the hidden, swept-under-the-rug part called “Tent Village” because of all the bums living in tents on the side of the road.

(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

There I encountered hundreds of homeless men milling about, exchanging words about where to get the next meal, who’s handing out free socks, how many nights the local shelter lets you stay, and the best places to bum for money.

When I bumped into another group of men, the conversation was the same. Another group, same conversation.

That’s when it struck me.

I can never be homeless.

I don’t say that with an arrogant or pretentious intention. I say it because I simply don’t talk like a homeless person which is to say I don’t think like a homeless person.

And that was the kernel of wisdom of my exploration into my fear of financial failure. I realized that though I could fail in business, I could never become homeless. I just don’t have the belief that I would end up on the streets.

I do speak like a professional acrobat. While others are scared about heights, rapidly moving vehicles, and fire, I get enthused and excited.

I do speak like a professional marketer. While others are lamenting about the economy, I talk about new online marketing techniques, social networking, blogging, and computer technology.

But…

I don’t speak like a millionaire entrepreneur. While millionaires are busy talking about their next deal, strategizing on new partnerships, and planning an investment, I talk about covering my mortgage, putting gas in my car, and the 3 for 1 special on avocados at the store. I spend too much time talking like an average income producer.

What do you talk about?

Here are the 3 things you can do to benefit from my experience on the streets:

1. Write down everything you say in 1 day.
2. Listen to the conversations or language of someone you want to emulate (a business person, a great athlete, a professional speaker)
3. Have a conversation with a homeless person and listen to his dialogue.

If you notice, all these activities are simply about building awareness, since awareness is the main catalyst for change.
(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

***
I would love to hear from you. I always respond to every email I receive personally, so this is what I want to learn from you:

What is one fear you’ve overcome and HOW did you do it?

2 Ways to Face the Fear of Dying

A little more than 2 years ago, I had a brush with death. As an acrobat, you get accustomed to the idea of danger – breaking your arm, tearing a ligament, knocking a tooth out – but you never get used to the idea of dying. This brush was by far the closest I ever got to being seriously injured or dead.

I’m not trying to be dramatic or sensational. I am emphasizing the fact that we all think about death probably more than we like to admit. Perhaps on the car ride home, going rock climbing, crossing the street, as we grow older, as we fight illness.

There’s an awful lot of false bravado in our culture that also limits our expression on death. The “brave ones” seem fearless and beyond the silly concerns of mortal life. We are bombarded with images of heroics in media and entertainment that show shirtless men racing into walls of fire and enemy bullets. There is the image – and then there is reality.

Two years ago, I felt nothing less than sheer terror as I realized I was falling to my potential death. It was as pure as fear could get. It also stuck with me until recently. What happened and how did I get over it?

I was performing in a very large, mechanically technical show. One of the pieces of equipment was a giant 90 ton moving stage that tilted, rotated, lifted, expanded, spun, and generally made for a heart-stopping, audience-thrilling acrobatic number. I was part of that act.

As we performed complex choreography on this massive apparatus, the artists would, on cue, dive off the stage into giant airbags below, disappearing from the audience’s view. It was breathtaking.

On this fateful day, I missed a handhold, and slid off the stage unexpected, falling over 20 feet into a crack between the airbags. My fall was absorbed partially by a net but my head squarely hit the concrete.

I didn’t hear a cracking noise so much as I felt a powerful, resounding thump echo through my skull. It’s the kind of moment that makes you realize that everything in your life will change forever.

I didn’t lose consciousness. Instead the moment of total helplessness and fear was replaced by a raging anger. What happened? Why hadn’t the airbags function as they were supposed to? Why am I being strapped to a body board and carried off?

In the months of recovery that followed, I remained resolutely angry. There were the politics of the accident to deal with, the rehabilitation, the drop in income, the stigma of being the injured one. All of these issues were plenty to keep me focused on being angry and forgetting the true source of unease underneath.

I’ve come to discover that beneath all anger lies a deeper fear. My fear happened to now be free falling from any height into a mat or airbag.

You might say that it is a reasonable fear to have – absolutely. If I never jumped off another ledge in my life, the world would not stop. The difference was that MY world was slowly stopping, as I unconsciously succumbed to the fear of heights. Like an insidious virus, it planted a seed of doubt within and began to grow over the months like a black cancer. Fear begets fear and I faintly became aware that my confidence as an acrobat – and as a person – was ebbing.

Truthfully I didn’t have a fear of heights or of falling. I had a fear of hitting the ground, which is to say I had a fear of hitting the ground AND dying. Which is to say, I now had a fear of dying.

Here is the first way to face the fear of dying: feel the fear. Fear of dying is such an intense emotion that it is quickly replaced by another state – rage, depression, denial, false joy. Learn to hone into your fear gently, like a bird gliding in circles, first sailing in wide arcs, then turning your awareness inward, ever tighter and more focused.

Which is exactly what happened to me. Many months after the accident, I was treated by my good friend Karen, an osteopath. Through her subtle cranial manipulations, I re-entered a state of deep relaxation that allowed me to “get in touch” with the hellish last 10-feet before I hit the concrete. I finally had a good cry.

You probably don’t need to have your skull re-adjusted to know fear. Just sit with it and ask yourself in what ways do you bypass this emotion? Is it working late, being angry, zoning out on TV? When you finally experience uninterrupted fear, you don’t do or say anything. It’s simply so awe-some that you sit in reverence of its potency. That’s a good place to be in.

Once you feel it, completely and utterly, then you can move on to step two, reclaiming your power. Usually that means doing something that scares the poop out of you.

Have you ever had an “oh shit” moment? This is the time to have it. Your barometer for doing something that will adequately reclaim your power is measured by how many times you feel like doing it and balking.

If you do it without any hesitation and get it on the first try, it probably wasn’t deep enough. Keep digging.

If, on the other hand, you have to work up your courage to even think about attempting it, you probably found it.

Considering I had a fear of falling, hitting the ground, splitting my brain open AND dying, suddenly anything to do with heights pushed my inner panic button like no tomorrow.

So when my friend and colleague Ted encouraged me to come up with a big trick to close the Kid’s Faculty Show at circus camp this July, I knew I had been handed an opportunity.

That opportunity was to create the biggest “oh shit” moment I could and reclaim my power.

For the grand finale, I committed myself to doing a back tuck off a 15-foot high wall. It’s not so high that it’s ludicrous. But it’s not so low that I couldn’t get hurt. It was definitely my moment to cringe – there was a forceful wave of doubt that nearly caused me to back out of that flip ten times that day.

I didn’t, and with the encouragement of Ted and my wife Jaime, I did my flip, which is to say, I DIDN’T hit the ground, split my brain open, and of course, die. Which is to say, I faced my fear, reclaimed my power, and stopped dead (pun intended) in its tracks the cancerous fear that had begun to spread.

***
I would love to hear from you. I always respond to every email I receive personally, so this is what I want to learn from you:

How do YOU deal with the fear of dying?

No Shoes For A Stranger

This is once of my favorite excerpts from my book, The Art of Impossible. It’s a lesson on staying humble, changing perceptions, and being open to miracles in the most unexpected places. Enjoy!

No Shoes For A Stranger

1996. I am in beautiful Brazil. 40 degrees Celsius. I am sweating my entire body weight. 20 kids. I am teaching circus to a group of underprivileged youth under a makeshift big top. I thought I was there to share my enlightened wisdom of a North American professional performer. Actually I was there to have one of the most humbling learning experiences of my life.

Round-off, back handspring, back tuck. Again. And again. This is the routine that the kids are practicing. There is a dilapidated stretch of foam, 15 feet long, 3 feet wide, that separates the thudding impact of the kids’ bare feet from the packed concrete floor. It is hardly worth calling a tumbling mat, but the kids don’t seem to mind. The environment is enthusiastic. They are laughing, joking with each other, challenging one another to flip a little higher, a little faster, with a little more style.

I am teaching with my whole heart. There is nothing more inspiring than watching youth absorb themselves in the passion of creating a world of athletic artistry, with nothing more than a round concrete slab for the circus ring and pieces of wood and tape for juggling clubs. Here, under the tarnished blue and white chapiteau, dreams gather momentum, hardships forgotten, and kinships tightened. We are the circus of no time, no place, with no cares in the world except to let our hearts sing with the challenge of pushing ourselves joyfully to the edge.

I am fully absorbed in spotting a teenager execute a back flip when the head coach tells us that he needs the space for a new class and that we have to vacate the big top. Where to, I ask? We had the choice between hard concrete (at least it was shaded) and the dusty, gravel-filled grounds of the surrounding park (not shaded). The head coach shrugs. I’m on my own.

We file out from the cool protection of the chapiteau into the blazing Brazilian sun. The ground is littered with tiny rocks, broken glass, and pointy acorns that have fallen from surrounding trees. This is no runway for acrobats, let alone kids without shoes.

No sooner do I complete a hopeless evaluation of the new training grounds when I see the kids catapulting themselves into flips and handsprings. Not glass, rocks, or dust could stop them. There was no lack of enthusiasm either. It was as if any place could be their kingdom, their empire.
One of the kids calls to me. He asks me to show them that flip I do, the one that everyone wants to learn. It’s my favorite move, maybe because it’s the one I learned without almost trying, and the one that I’ve done in every show. I do a cartwheel and spring up sideways, rotate grabbing my knees and land like a cat. They want me to show them. I say yes.

That’s when I realize that I am the only one with shoes on. Not just any kind of sneaker – I am wearing the specialized athletic shoe that you get in North America at elite training stores for eighty bucks a pop. They’re worn-in and dusty, but light as a feather with that cool, flighty bounce that fires me skyward. I look down at my sleek Asics. I look over at their bare feet. A wave of embarrassment washes over me.

I am lucky to be born in North America. I have had the best in every respect – never been homeless, never been without clothes on my back, never been faced with begging for my next meal. It is a precious reality that is fabricated like a delicate veil that covers our daily perceptions of life. It is also a veil that can be easily pierced to reveal the deep, wounded scars of humanity. And at that moment, the full pain of countless suppressed societies floods my senses and moves me in inexplicable ways. At that moment, I realize that my good fortune in life is not a treasure to be stowed away, but to be shared and given away at every opportunity.

The kids are calling on me still. They are relentless, the way teenagers are. I look down again at my comfortable trainers, then over to their hardened, bare soles. In a robotic, dreamy way, I reach down and remove my shoes. I don’t know how the rocks are going to feel against my tender, fleshy under-pads, spoiled by years of cushioned air shocks and lycra-enhanced athletic socks. All I can do is to save my dignity and hope that I land on my feet without showing too much pain.

I ready myself for the flip. I don’t think that even the pressure of performing in a show has ever made me this nervous for a routine. I take a breath. I look for patches without rocks, glass, or acorns. There aren’t any. It doesn’t matter – I am this far, naked without my classy Asics. I throw myself into my tumbling sequence.

Five seconds later it is over. The kids cheer, happy to see the cool side-flip. I look down a last time, wondering if I will need tetanus shots to counter the gaping wounds on the bottom of my feet. But there is no blood, no trail of red along the dirt. Only a few scratches grace my skin, with the sting of landing just a little too hard on the packed gravel. I am okay, but my concept of reality has taken a beating.

I learn that day that I am not there to teach them. That day I am there to learn from them. I learn that their passion is boundless and not restricted by a few rocks or broken beer bottles. Their love for life is not held back by the symbols of poverty – being shoeless and shirtless – but exists without consideration for what they have or what they do. They simply exude generosity, even when we might think they have nothing to be grateful for. That day I learn that gratitude has nothing to do with what you have, and everything to do with what you give.

Personal Development and Law of Attraction Carnival 2nd Edition

Thank you to all the bloggers for your amazing submissions. I’ve learned so much from reading about your stories, absorbing your wisdom, and connecting with the blogging community on inspiring others to better and more fulfilling lifestyles. For my regular readers, you’ll find a wealth of information to catapult you to your next step.

-Alvin

Luciano Easley presents 7 Essential Free Web Apps for Student Athletes posted at sports management colleges.

MoneyNing presents How to Succeed by Failing Fast posted at Money Ning.

Tod presents Strive for More or Be Satisfied Where You Are? posted at A Blog by Tod.

Wally Bock presents The Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend Job posted at Momentor.

Steven Handel presents How To Think Less And Do More: Turning Life Into Flow posted at The Emotion Machine.

Wendy Blue presents Open.edu: Top 50 University Open Courseware Collections posted at online university rankings 2010.

Dawneright presents A New Kind of Strong – Discipline posted at Bashing Perfect.

Gordon Rosado presents What Exactly Is a BSN and Why pick it As a Degree Choice? posted at RN To BSN Program.

Jennifer Meyer presents Top 50 Biblical History Blogs posted at Accredited Online Bible

Eadwine Walter presents How to: Get a Massage for Cheap (or Even Free) posted at Masters in Physical Therapy.

Faizal Nisar presents What is Positive Thinking? posted at Be Truly Happy.

RagsToRich presents Becoming intensely driven – 3 traps to avoid when fuelling your goals posted at The Real Mind.

Wallet Blogger presents 5 Free Online Calendars and Personal Planners To Organize Your Life posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Basil Hager presents 7 Web Apps to Find a Better Hotel Deal posted at Hospitality Management Colleges.

Richard Shelmerdine presents 7 Tips To Deal With Someones Ego posted at Richard Shelmerdine.

Digerati Life presents Stop Worrying About How You Got Into Debt and Start Focusing On How To Get Out posted at The Digerati Life.

Alan Crosby presents 7 Essential Free Web Apps for Career Management posted at Online Career Schools.

Dan Stelter presents Creating a Purpose Driven Life posted at Anxiety Support Network.

Vincent presents Do You Make This Mistake? – Learn The Art Of Eliminating Negative Self Talk posted at HealthMoneySuccess.com.

Frank Goley presents BUSINESS SUCCESS STRATEGIES » Blog Archive » Why a Business Plan is so Important to your Business Success posted at BUSINESS SUCCESS STRATEGIES.

Aparna presents Kapalabhati Pranayam posted at Beauty and Personal Grooming.

Aparna presents Kapalabhati Pranayam posted at Beauty and Personal Grooming.

Baily Hayden presents 10 Tips to Help You Choose the Right Forensic Science Career posted at Masters in Forensic Science.

Mike presents Is Law School Worth The Cost? posted at The Frugal Law Student.

Lisa Taylor presents 101 Blog Posts Every New Nurse Should Read posted at Nurse Practitioner Schools.

Kurama Chick presents The Secret To Reaping More Rewards From Life | Kurama Magazine posted at Kurama Magazine.

Chris presents Online Masters Classes posted at Distance Learning Education Degree.

Sonia Gallagher presents Work Life Balance Results in a Fulfilled Life | Time for Life, LLC posted at Time for Life, LLC.

Danea Horn presents Affirmations That Work posted at Affirmation Blog.

Neil Uttamsingh presents Robert Kiyosaki — Friend or Foe? posted at We provide knowledge and confidence to those individuals looking to buy their first rental property.

nissim ziv presents Career Transitions: What Are Your Mental Resources? posted at Job Interview & Career Guide.

Mike King presents 100 Ways to Serve Others posted at Learn This.

Covert Hypnotist presents What Hypnosis is NOT! posted at Conversational and Covert Hypnosis Blog.

amdin presents How to Shape your Life by Habit Creation posted at Personal Development for Serious Achievers.

michaelweaver4 presents What is Your Art? The Real You. posted at Find Inspiration Today l� Find Inspiration & Personal Development Today.

Maureen Fitzsimmons presents Top 50 Ecumenical Blogs posted at bible college.

Myles presents The friend who doesn’t want to try new things. posted at Abunai means Dangerous..

Steven presents Review: 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life posted at The Emotion Machine.

Richard Shelmerdine presents Lessons From a Month of Meditation posted at

Dan Stelter presents What Are Boundaries? posted at Anxiety Support Network.

Frank Goley presents Small Business Finance: Equity, Debt, Cash Flow and IPO posted at Business Success Strategies by ABC Business Consulting.

Faizal Nisar presents 10 Benefits of Positive Thinking posted at Be Truly Happy – Self Improvement.

MoneyNing presents No One Became Wealthy Worrying for Others posted at Money Ning.

Anya presents Cold Calling Blues? posted at Gavin Ingham.

Jackie Powell presents Honest Fear posted at eskyoo.

Anmol Mehta presents Best Yoga for Weight Loss – Complete with Illustrated Yoga Poses and Exercises posted at Free Online Yoga and Meditation Center.

Katie Freeman presents 25 Free iPhone Applications to Help You Stay Healthy posted at Masters in Health Care.

Vincent presents 5 Personal Finance Lessons I Had Picked Up From Warren Buffett That Can Help You Grow Your Wealth and Be Rich posted at HealthMoneySuccess.com.

Joy Sears presents 10 Famous Managers Who Changed the World posted at Master in Management.

Thailand Breeze presents Learning To Trust posted at axel g.

Stephen Martile presents Feeling Overwhelmed? Try This! | Learn the Power of Your Subconscious Mind posted at FreedomEducation.ca by Stephen Martile.

Bert Meert presents The Past Inside Your Present posted at Life, Blogging and The Pursuit of Personal Growth.

Frank Goley presents Strategic Planning for Business Success posted at Business Success Strategies.

Kristie Lewis presents Beyond CliffsNotes: 100 Free & Useful Tools for When Time’s Running Out posted at Online Colleges.org.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents A Valiant Guy’s Guide To Valentine’s Day posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Kenrick Chatman presents How to Identify Your Targeted Companies’ Challenges posted at Career Catalyst.

terrence jackson presents HGH supplements posted at HGH supplements.

Byteful Travel presents Create with Passion or DIE posted at Byteful Travel.

Alan H. Wayler, PhD presents Can We Force People to Be Healthy? posted at A WeightLifted.

Beth Bargis presents Creating a Check In Jar posted at My Simpler Life – Simple Living.

Marnie Doyle presents How to Find Your Life’s Passion posted at S.O.S. Your Life–Simplify. Organize. Streamline..

Kristin Conroy presents It’s Affirmative…Affirmations Are Powerful! posted at Words Are Food.

Best Way to Keep Commitments (the Jackie Chan Story)

If you lose focus easily or are not able to fulfill your commitments, there is no shortage of products or systems you can buy to help you stay on track. There are fancy organizers, elaborate goal setting worksheets, and complex computer software. I think they’re mostly junk. Here is what I consider the cheapest, most effective way to stay on track, or in other words, to stay accountable.

3 Motivators

When I am performing on stage, I am motivated by three things: one, to deliver my best performance as an artist, two, to avoid getting injured both physically and emotionally, and three, to impress and wow the audience.

Of the three, the most powerful motivator is to impress the audience. Why?

If I deliver a great performance and no one is there to see it, the performance is self-defeating. No one gets a chance to enjoy it.

If I execute a move and get injured, but no one is there to witness it – the injury is just another injury. There’s less motivation in avoiding injury when no one’s around. That’s why you trip on the sidewalk walking by yourself and fumble on the stairs alone at home.

However, when there’s an audience watching your every step, you want to give a great show, and avoid injuries. Injuries also hurt emotionally when there’s a crowd because of the feeling of humiliation.

Jackie Chan Was Here (Sort Of)

There’s one other factor that influences your ability to be accountable, or to deliver on your commitments. It’s how much the audience means to you. My level of commitment wavers (even though you think it shouldn’t) depending on who’s in the seats. If it’s a crowd of free-loaders who got cheap tickets at the discount kiosque, I perform at a slightly reduced level. If it’s somebody famous or meaningful to me, I’ll put on my best.

One evening, when I was performing in Cirque du Soleil’s KA, a cast member backstage said that Jackie Chan was in the house. If you know Jackie Chan from his movies, you’ll also know that he is one of the biggest stunt-martial artists in history, with films spanning three decades. His name is off the charts.

When I heard he was said to be in the audience, I went crazy with my performance, as did half the cast. We added extra twists, jumped a little higher, and played our characters just a little meaner. We were on fire.

Then we found out it was just a rumor and Jackie Chan was never actually there. The powerful realization is that just the mere thought of Jackie Chan in the audience solicited one of my best performances ever. If only he were in the house…

How to Keep Any Commitment

Here are the 3 best rules to keep your commitments:

1. Choose only the people you would never want to admit your failure or laziness to.
2. Choose at least 10 people to be your Accountability Masters – I’ve never felt terribly motivated to perform for groups of less than 10. You can run from one, two, or even five people, but you can’t hide from ten.
3. Choose the people who will be as strict and as demanding as a paying audience would. Don’t choose a soft friend who will forgive you at every turn.

My Real Life Application

Although I learned the value of accountability from my performing career, I discovered the power of selecting Accountability Masters from my mentor, Raymond Aaron. Raymond is my mentor and my metaphoric “audience” in business and finance. He keeps me on my goals. He’s also someone I highly admire, respect, and honor in his wisdom and lessons. Not only does he teach well, but he walks his talk.

When I finished performing in KA several years ago, my life switched very quickly from being a full time (and paid bi-weekly) circus artist to being an entrepreneur. I was faced with the question of how to pay my bills, pay my rent, and then also pay for an upcoming wedding.

As a new entrepreneur, I made many mistakes, such as investing in useless Internet gimmicks, so-called expert resources, and spent too much money on frivolous things like eating at restaurants and signing up for monthly services which I never used. (How many of those do you have?)

I quickly found myself in debt. After getting married and stumbling through my first year as an entrepreneur, I was $16,000 in debt.

To some it may be nothing. To others it may be the end of the world. For me, it was somewhere in between. I was drained by the idea of debt, deflated that my first year as a businessman didn’t produce pots of gold, and clueless as to how to eradicate the debt and move on.

Raymond Aaron’s (My Mentor) Advice

It was then that I followed Raymond’s advice and applied the power of accountability to pay off my debt.

The first step was to choose my Accountability Masters, who I called “Debt Masters”. You can call them anything you want that is appropriate for your goals. I have a new set of masters who I now call “Wealth Masters”.

The second step was to make sure I found 10 masters.

And the third step was to make sure they had the power over me to keep me accountable, so I chose people I would never have wanted to admit my debt to.

Like my in-laws.

And my parents.

And my best friends.

And… my mentor. Ouch, this was hard. I knew Raymond was going to keep me in line.

These people were all difficult choices. I squirmed in humiliation and embarrassment when I called each one of them to ask them to perform this duty for me. I expected rebuttals, stern consternation, and an “I-told-you-so” response.

In fact what I discovered is that every single one of my Debt Masters was receptive and encouraging of my goals. No one belittled me, tried to embarrass me, or thought less of me. It was a liberating act to tell the ones I love the most that I was in trouble financially, and it was ever so empowering to discover that the courage of being vulnerable was rewarded with love.

As soon as I followed Raymond’s program called “The Debt Crusher”, my debt began to decrease monthly. Not a month went by after I started that my debt increased, and most months it dropped significantly. Now, I live absolutely debt free. The most significant part is that I developed the skills to 1) make money when I need to and 2) reduce and eliminate debt quickly.

None of these results would have happened without my Accountability Masters. I followed Raymond’s Debt Crusher to the letter, and the results were solid.

What Next?

I followed a very specific protocol of steps with Raymond’s Debt Crusher, which I will see if I am at liberty to pass on to you in the next blog. Stay tuned.

-Alvin.

Latest Post On Personal Development and Law of Attraction Site

If you enjoyed my last post, you can now find it at a resource rich personal development site at: http://richgrad.com/personal-development-and-law-of-attraction-carnival-1st-edition/

My next post will be part two of “How to Make Lasting 2010 Resolutions” and will detail how to use accountability to make you stick to your goals.

Next Page »