I am feeling compelled to take the gloves off today to take a moment to address something that we all must be aware of. Now more than ever as the potent energies of change, shift and upheaval are rising all around us … the luxury of denial or being naive is no longer available.
Now I know that each and every one of my readers are smart, determined and intelligent people, who want to create great lives of joy, purpose and significance – who would like in some small way (or maybe large way) for their lives to have meaning and to have their efforts in life stand for something … and to maybe, just maybe … leave the world a bit better place than it was before they got here.
That commitment in and of itself is a noble and heroic undertaking – and it is a journey that is rife with opportunities to gain great success as well as to face challenges, overcome obstacles and discover what it is we are truly ‘made of’.
But there is a single truth that EVERY Evolutionary human being MUST understand if they are going to navigate these ever turbulent rapids that are surrounding us all, so as to emerge on the other side of the white water stronger, more potent and more conscious than ever before. That single truth is this …
We MUST be willing to claim the position of being the singular HERO of our own lives, and be willing to embrace ALL of the challenges, obstacles and victories that any heroic journey contains … AND be willing to realize that there is no external source, no outside force (government, romantic relationship, legal or military guard, or financial windfall) that is going to do it for us. Not, one. And while we may be surrounded by people, friends and loved ones who assist, support and encourage us along our journey – it is we and we alone who must take the steps to see it all to completion.
THERE ARE NO VICTIMS IN THIS ‘CLASSROOM’
If you truly wish to succeed on the path you have chosen in life, you must be willing – with 1000% commitment to let go of any idea of being a victim of the circumstances that you have experienced along the way, or to blame any of those above mentioned external forces as being the source of your inability to thrive. That is a cop out that most of us have clung to at one time or another and it is an unconscious choice that keeps us small, impotent and tied to the past.
The reality is – you will not be able to claim your Hero status, and create the potent life you have dreamed of and that you are capable of … until you have grown tired of playing the victim.
Evolutionary Intelligence understands that CONSCIOUSNESS creates REALITY – that reality takes form as our health, our relationships, our finances, our business dealings, our children … even our perception of luck and whether it is deemed ‘good or bad’. Realizing that OUR consciousness determines OUR reality makes it impossible for us to continue to blame any external source for our trials and tribulations – OR for our successes and victories. Consciousness – our individual consciousness is the source of all of it.
There are many people out there who will take responsibility for the ‘good outcomes’ in life, but will project ‘negative results’ outward … these people will continue to be victimized by the system, or the people, or the circumstance to which they have completely given their power to. (Which ultimately as an Evolutionary understands are simply mirrored reflections of our own un-illumined consciousness.)
Where have YOU given your power away to a victim based mindset and whom or what do you continue to rail against in an effort to get ‘them’ (whoever ‘they’ are) to say, do, or behave differently? Where do you minimize your own past successes or diminish your own greatest assets? How often do you catch yourself hanging out in the past or thinking that things ‘SHOULD’ have …. or ‘COULD’ have been different? These are all victimized mindsets that obliterate our ability to take true and mindful responsibility for our lives and set us up to spin our wheels in a sense of frustration and lack.
WHERE YOU STUMBLE, LIES YOUR TREASURE
Those times when we have crashed and burned, lost it all, had our heart broken, or faced our own mortality are genuine gifts that must be used in order to raise our consciousness, question our own perceptions and decide whether or not we are truly embracing all of our potential. Those are the times that our Hero is called into action – and the decisions he makes in those moments determine every outcome and every situation to follow – and how they all turn out in the end.
Author and philosopher Joseph Campbell says of those times “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”
We all stumble, we all face personal and intimate difficulty. This is truer now for more of us than ever before. The only way we become victorious over these challenges, is to banish our need to project external blame or seek outward solutions – and instead reflect inwardly to where our Hero possesses all of the tools and intelligence needed to bring us out of the abyss and back into the light of our highest joy and potential.
So when you look out into the world, or into the corners of your own life and see things that do not please you or that you wish to change – do not pump your fists in the air and raise a war cry to ‘the people in power’ to change their game … change your game instead … and tie on your cape and your superhero mask and get to work yourself!
Live your dreams! Feel free to comment/share and post below!
In the new movie “Limitless”, a somewhat talented yet lazy writer Eddie Mora played by (Bradley Cooper) discovers a performance enhancing drug called NZT, that allows him to activate and access 100% of his brain – 80% more brain than the majority of us ‘regular’ human beings use. With the ingestion of the small ‘clear pill’ Eddie is catapulted into a world of unfathomable wealth, success, and sex as he conquers Wall Street, learns new languages and becomes an instant genius.
The price to pay for this level of ‘Enlightenment’ … and it seems there always is one … is that his new brilliance is highlighted by a twitchy dark arrogance and an adrenaline fixation; and even more worrisome … the side effects include paranoia, psychosis, brain damage and … well, um … death.
Call me crazy, but death sounds pretty limiting.
I am always intrigued by movies like this (which is by the way, the first release by Sir Richard Branson’s – Virgin Produced) – that open the door ever so slightly to allow us a sneak peek at what might be possible for human potential, only to slam it shut by painting that potential with the grimy ooze of ‘the dark side’ … as if to say … ‘Yes, this level of intelligence is possible … but once you achieve it … all hell will break loose and you will long for your old days of mundane ordinariness.’ Sort of like the ‘red pill/ blue pill’ conundrum of The Matrix. Or the ‘brain tumor’ explanation for John Travolta’s brilliance in the movie Phenomenon. It tells us … if you are going to be this gifted, this advanced, this Enlightened … well, you gotta die at the end.
I don’t buy it.
It is my belief that elevating and evolving human potential to an advanced level IS possible and to some degree is happening already. And like it or not – it is going to take an elevation of human potential to lift us all out of the rather rampant mess that we have gotten ourselves into. It is going to take a grand leap of the ‘development of Human Intelligence’ to change the status quo and turn our global, local and personal situations around.
Regardless of the intentions of Government, Education and Health Care (these intentions may be good or bad, depending on what side of the aisle you sit on) relying on these OLD systems is not going to help us, so we need to STOP looking there for the answers. Why? Because every one of these systems is committed to the ‘OLD’ intelligence, the OLD patterns and the OLD outdated ideas that clearly do not work. The Intelligence, Innovation and Imaginings that are required to turn things around will come from the individual, from the entrepreneur, from the visionary who is not tied to old ideas … it will come from you and me. But we will need to be willing to drop all of our fears about embracing our brilliance and be willing to adopt a new, grander idea of ourselves first.
If a new and limitless idea of human potential is to come to fruition, then maybe Hollywood is right … something WILL need to pass away … but it isn’t us as human beings or individuals. It is the old ‘imaginings or ideas’ that need to be sacrificed. As in all Evolutionary practices, in order for the new dream to be born, the old dream has to go.
So perhaps the deeper message of ‘Limitless’ is that the possibilities of advanced human potential DO exist, but we cannot expect them to come in an easily digestible tablet. In order for humanity as a species to be capable of that type of advanced intelligence, a whole lot of ground work would need to be done first.
It may be that operating on that level of heightened potential is like driving a Ferrari when you have only just gotten your learners permit … perhaps it is a bit too much muscle for a beginner, but with the right amount of practice – mastery of that type of power IS possible. But we need to be brave enough to be willing to truly let go of all of the things that so obviously don’t work in our lives any more, or more bravely question if they ever worked for us in the first place.
I like the idea of being Limitless and I believe that we all have our ideas of how that would look to each one of us. I also have a certainty that it is possible, we don’t need to take a pill to achieve it though … and we don’t need to self destruct in the process. We need only to get out of our own way and allow the Intelligence that is waiting to be revealed … to have its way with us.
“The most successful businesses in the world today, thrive on one thing … INNOVATION!” ~ Simone Wright
It doesn’t matter if you are the CEO of a multi-national company, an entrepreneur running a one man operation, or a recent college graduate just tumbling into your first ‘real job’ – the fact of the matter is … if INNOVATION is not your number one priority, you will be left in the dust.
One of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, Richard Branson, said of the innovative spirit, “I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again.” So the secret, at least according to Sir Richard is simply to turn everything upside down.
Okay. So how do we do that? And what exactly IS IT that will be getting the old upsy-daisy?
Suffice it to say, if something is standing on it’s head – the perspective will certainly be different. So if we are to heed Branson’s advice, in order to turn an industry upside down, WE are going to need to ‘alter our perception’ first. The greatest innovators have the ability to ‘see things differently’ which gives them the ability to perceive solutions or ideas that no one else does. So in order to innovate, we need to be able to do the same thing … And yes … I guarantee it is 100% legal.
Perception is a function of our Intelligence system, and is uniquely formed in each individual by the repeated patterns of both internal and external influences from our environment. To put it more succinctly, our perceptions are formed by what we see, think, hear, feel or experience physically, mentally, emotionally and even chemically. All of these influences hard wire our nervous system and our nervous system becomes our mechanism of perception.
The simple way to begin to alter our perception is to begin to change our informational influences so we can activate new ways of thinking. To put it simply, in order to activate innovation we need to begin to ask different questions – questions that will push our nervous system and creative thought processes into new and more dynamic directions.
Altering perception begins when you start asking yourself or your team a new set of questions. Empowered questions. Evolved questions. When an empowered question is asked, an Integrated Intelligence will go to work immediately to find the most effective and efficient solution to answer it.
Often times developing an empowered question will offer you 90% of the solution.
Instead of asking ‘unempowered questions’ that begin with WHY … like WHY won’t my boss give me that promotion? or WHY is our product not selling? or WHY can’t I save any money? Consider asking questions that begin with HOW or WHAT.
Questions like … HOW can my company, product, brand be different in the marketplace? Or WHAT details can we add/remove from our product that would make it more user friendly? HOW can this project be completed on time? WHAT does my boss need to help make his job easier? HOW can I bring more value to my job? WHAT resources are we overlooking that can make us more profitable? … you get the picture.
WHY questions do not activate the creative processes in the brain to find SOLUTIONS. WHY questions are often times subjective with no solid answer. So stop asking them.
HOW or WHAT questions beg the brain for ACTION steps, and ignite the innovation connections that offer new ideas. When these new connections are stimulated, the brain begins to alter its wiring, so new PERCEPTIONS become activated. It is when these systems are switched on that the solutions appear before us as though they were sitting there the whole time. Which of course they were … we just weren’t setting ourselves up to recognize them.
Okay, this really is a no brainer and it might seem like common sense … but I am going to go ahead with it anyway, because sometimes we forget to do the things that are in our best interest. Most times it is because we don’t know WHY we should do them … so here are a couple of GREAT reasons why getting off the sofa and getting into some exercise could help you be a more dynamic and creative thinker.
The goal with Integrated Intelligenceis to fine tune the ‘Intelligence muscles’ of the brain and body to balance and improve function so we can be more Creative, Innovative and Intuitive … and I.I offers lots of ways to do that, but did you know that exercising our BODY is also a crucial way to improve brain function?
We all know (or at least have a vague memory) of how good it feels when we participate in regular and consistent exercise, the increased flow of oxygen and release of beneficial hormones and chemicals not only improves how we look in the long run, but also improves how we think, process information and handle stress. With as little as 20 minutes of daily exercise, which includes cardiovascular and /or high paced muscle training, our brains gain just as many benefits as our body does. And when our brains and hearts … are working at optimal levels … every aspect of our lives gains benefit.
Here’s why…
When we exercise at a moderate or high level, our bodies break what is known as the ‘blood-brain barrier’. It doesn’t matter what type of exercise it is … anything that requires our heart rate to increase and breathing to escalate, will do the trick. It can be jogging, yoga, hiking, cycling or even love making… (got your attention on that one didn’t I?)
The increase in oxygen begins to saturate the blood which makes it’s way eventually into the temporal lobe of the brain, which houses a structure called the hippocampus; (Which is NOT a University for large African animals) and a smaller lobe called the denate gyrus. As we exercise, oxygen floods the area and a chemical/protein known as IGF-1 is released ~ this activates a second neuro~chemical called BDNF. This team of natural ‘feel good’ boosters act like a stimulant and power booster for the brain and ultimately has a ‘trickle down’ effect on every other function of the body as well.
Any type of high paced workout will not only activate these awesome ‘brain boosting’ chemicals, but will also help release a torrent of other feel good chemicals like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. (Which is the chemical our body produces when we fall in love!) And who doesn’t want a bit more of THAT?
All of these chemicals help balance the brain by giving it more energy to function efficiently which helps in focus, clarity and productivity. And when a brain is integrated and balanced, it is more healthy and as a result can also relax and rest when it needs to as well. Regular exercise opens the door to a natural pharmacy in our body – giving us energy and focus when we need to be on our toes, and allows us to recuperate and regenerate when the day is done.
20 minutes a day improves memory, elevates mood, balances emotions and increases the ability to innovate and solve problems. People who exercise regularly also greatly reduce incidents of depression, anxiety and other stress related disorders.
When we stop exercising, not only do our muscles get weaker and smaller, but so too do parts of our brain; which can lead to neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. When our brain is flooded with all of the beneficial nutrients produced by exercise, it actually begins to create new cells, replacing old, damaged or worn out brain matter with new ‘age resistant’ ones.
So if you are wanting to stay young, to keep your life, your body and even your career on the ‘cutting edge’ of everything new, Innovative and potentially earth changing … just start moving. 20 minutes a day … not only will your body start feeling and looking better, but you may find that your brain has lots of new things to be excited about as well.
I am feeling compelled to take the gloves off today to take a moment to address something that we all must be aware of. Now more than ever as the potent energies of change, shift and upheaval are rising all around us … the luxury of denial or being naive is no longer available.
