iMindShift with Steve Chandler: GO OUT OF YOUR MIND

GO OUT OF YOUR MIND

Bette300 "Attempt the impossible ...
in order to improve your work."

~BETTE DAVIS

I have been getting a lot of emails from that last blog wherein I assert that it's possible to find peace, freedom and bliss from Byron Katie's meditative practice called The Work, and still commit to something big in this world.

I believe this question is the key question of our time. Can you be in this world, and commit to making a big difference in this world, and still not be of this world, but rather of a more spiritual calling, simultaneously?

Here's a note I sent to my master mind group whose last session was
occupied with the same question:

I have been hearing from some of you about the aftershocks from our last meeting and whether you are GETTING IT that commitment is different than wishing and hoping and goal-setting and having high expectations for yourself. I am writing this because of some great conversations and emails I have had with you.......

* * * *

"Questioning the mind does not leave us passive and disempowered. In fact, the opposite. Without believing the painful beliefs we have held about mother, father, sister, brother, children, friend, co-workers, life, we experience our own true selves, and that is the ultimate power unleashed."
~BYRON KATIE

* * * *

Most people try to improve who they are. They even call it self- improvement or personal growth. But that's the whole problem. That heavy sack of self you carry around is nothing but grievances from the past and victim thoughts. And it's those victim stories that give birth to new anxious expectations for the future.

You can't commit from that position. You can't make a clear, pure-as-water commitment while being dragged down by that sad sack of personal history. You have to step out from under that heavy mindset completely. Drop all grievances and expectations. The samurai warriors called it "no mind."

Jason Lezak agrees. He is the oldest man on the U.S. swimming team, and he pulled off one of the great comebacks in Olympic history, hitting the wall just ahead of France's Bernard in the 400 freestyle relay, a race so fast it actually erased two world records. Few sporting events live up to the hype -- this one exceeded it. The 32-year-old Lezak was nearly a body length behind Bernard as they made the final turn, but the American hugged the lane rope and stunningly overtook him on the very last stroke.

"I knew I was going to have to swim out of my mind," Lezak said. "Still right now, I'm in disbelief."

Or as Jim Manton says in his book, The Secret of Transitions:

"To transition we must enter a state in which we are no longer what we once were, and yet we are not who we must become. We have to be willing to stand in the open gap and momentarily risk being nothing."

Secret of Transitions
by Jim Manton

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