Struggling Gracefully

We all struggle, every day is a struggle to pay the bills, fulfill our obligations and responsibilities and to just keep our heads above the water line of life. Struggling is how we grow and evolve. From the time we are born, we learn how to struggle with our very first breath. The struggle continues as we learn how to roll over and sit up in our cribs and then stand and look at the horizon beyond our immediate world.

Learning how to walk is a struggle. Watch a child as he or she stands, falls down, stands and wobbles then takes a step or two and falls down again. Day after day, until the legs develop enough strength to maintain balance and carry our body through space. Life goes on and so does the struggle.

Some people seem to struggle well and others do not. The ones that struggle well seem to realize that life IS struggle and embrace the task with a sense of joy and challenge. These people seem to succeed in the game of life and learn how to create the life they dream of. Then there is the person who shies away from the struggle and never learns how to assert themselves or develop the endurance it takes to transcend their known limits, or to take their creativity to the realm of making it reality.

I think of struggling as a form of exercise. I use it to develop strength, endurance and power. Over the span of my almost fifty years I have learned how to struggle well, to turn the awkward task into effortless art. In short, I have learned how to struggle gracefully. This has made a great difference in my life of constant struggle. Struggling gracefully has enabled and empowered me, where struggling awkwardly used to weaken and defeat me. I did not learn how to struggle gracefully overnight, although once I realized that I could, it seemed to happen immediately.

I first became aware of the possibility of living gracefully by watching one of my early martial art teachers, a man who was then in his early sixties. He was a high school art teacher and a third degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, and the most graceful man I had ever encountered. He moved effortlessly whether he was sparing in the dojo, walking down the hall of my high school or sitting still in meditation. He was an enigma to me, a young teenager filled with anxiety and tension. He seemed magical and ethereal, yet solid and grounded. The image and feeling of his presence has stayed with me for over thirty five years and I still see his silken gate as he glided through the halls. Zen Buddhists refer to this as teaching with ONES BACK. In tai chi it is called direct transmission, the transfer of knowing and experience from one being to another. It wasn’t until I started learning tai chi that I began to understand the concept of effortless being, and how to struggle gracefully.

Through the process of learning tai chi I learned how to see myself and my thought process. I became aware of my constant tension and my belief that I had to work hard at everything, all the time. I worked hard, played hard, struggled hard and would not let myself relax for fear of failure and vulnerability. Tai chi was difficult for me for some time. My teacher would constantly admonish me to open and receive, to allow tai chi to happen through me. This was an idea both foreign and frightening to me. How could I just let something happen?

It took some time and much repetition of the form to find a place of letting go, to gradually soften my effort and to allow. It started with observing my physical effort and using less. As I became more adapt at using less effort and doing less physically, I became aware of my concentration. I could feel when I was concentrating too hard, and would soften my focus with an inner smile. Soften, smile breathe and allow. My tai chi form and the experience of tai chi itself began to transform with this new awareness. I felt freer and less anxious, more fluid and oddly more connected and grounded. This was a paradox, the less I did the more I experienced. What I ultimately became aware of was the intention within my form and how the intention to be soft and effortless made it so. Tai chi became effortless and graceful and so did other parts of my life.

I started to live tai chi instead of just practicing it for an hour or two each day. I applied the principle and the intention to BE graceful in all things. I found that I was no longer trying to play a role or prove myself in my relationships, I was just being present. I was no longer putting so much energy and effort into worrying about things I had no power over, I was simply allowing and responding as needed. One day as I was walking down the street I became aware of how much effort I was using to simply walk, and I decided to let go of my guarded determination. I found my pace slowing and my tension receding and I suddenly saw myself moving gracefully through space like my old teacher from Tang Soo Do.

Anyone can struggle gracefully. It's a wonderful feeling to be effortless instead of effortful. It's a powerful sensation to open and receive as you work, to use just what is needed for the task at hand. This takes a degree of sensitivity and trust. To trust yourself enough to allow, and to not push quite so hard at everything. Play with this intention and see how it feels. Play with it constantly and watch your life change from heavy and hard to soft and fluid.

Command vs Control
You may have noticed I use the term "command" instead of control. What is the difference? Control is based on fear, the fear of not being in control or the fear of being out of control. Command is based on conscious response, command is the intention to take charge and lead the action in a direction of your choosing. I like the analogy of the captain of a ship. The captain is in command of the ship, he/she directs the action of the crew in a fashion that supports the efficient operation of the whole. A good captain is a good leader who inspires the crew to work like dogs and to take pride in working like a dog. That is true power. How does the captain do this? By making clear specific choices and committing to those choices even in the face of uncertainty. That my friends is very different from control. If the captain is obsessed with controlling the crew at all costs, the crew will lose faith and mutiny.

Control for controls sake is an obsession that leads to disaster for the simple reason that no one can truly control anything without creating some imbalance. Control is stasis, it is an attempt to stop some thing from happening or changing. Lets take the example of an actor on the stage, (something I have personal experience with). If an actor tries to control an audience they will reject him. No one likes to be manipulated. An audience does however enjoy being lead on a journey by someone who is making clear specific choices and committing to those choices with passion. We will follow a good actor down the rabbit hole if he/she is not trying to MAKE us go there even if it makes us uncomfortable. As I often tell my theater students, "you do not go on stage to NOT do something, you go on stage to DO something" and that thing is to take command of the space and lead the attention of the audience in the direction you choose.

So how does this apply to self? First you must discern the difference between the two and recognize when you are attempting to control. How do you know when you are in control mode? By the level of fear you feel. If you are feeling fear and anxiety about the thing you are trying to control, your in control mode. The hallmark of command is clarity and courage. If I am clear about what I need to do and commit to that course of action I feel courage. This level of commitment is not about being "right" or "wrong" it is about making a clear choice and following through with it. At some point in your life you must take charge if you are to succeed. Taking charge and taking command are both leading with strength and courage even when you're not sure of the outcome.


First Response
Your first response to any situation, issue or event is to breathe.  Before you react, before your judge, before you even think, breathe. Take a deep breath is not just a catch phrase we tell others when they are upset, it is the master key to connection and command. When you take a deep breath you make a connection to your center, your emotional body and your nervous system all in one fluid move.  When you take a conscious deep breath and give that breath your full attention, you integrate your mind, body and awareness. You make whole what was fragmented. Being whole is essential to being powerful.

First response is a mantra I repeat to my self all the time. As I say the words “first response” I take a deep breath and focus my full attention on what my breath feels like as well as what I am feeling physically and emotionally.  Every time I do this I realign my energies and strengthen my integrity. Every time I do this I take conscious command of my energy and my actions. Every time I do this I exercise my power of conscious choice instead of unconscious reaction.

Taking the deep breath is your preparation before you launch your energy and intention into action. It is also the first of  the "Four connections", breath, center, ground and space.  Taking the deep breath gives you a moment to pause and check in with your command center before you attack. It gives you a moment to asses your feelings and your needs (the need to center yourself) before you respond to the issue at hand. That little pause is a huge shift in focus and energy. In the time it takes you to take one deep breath you can detach and let go of your fear of control, and shift your focus to connection and command. This is a paradigm shift from feeling powerless to being powerful, this is a shift from conditioned reaction to conscious command. In the space of one breath you can enter the neutral space of infinite possibility. From neutral you are free to see reality as it is, you are also free to choose from a limitless number of potential paths. The path you choose determines your future, all in one breath.

The Root of All Dis-ease
I know you have heard this before, but I feel it needs repeating. The root of all dis-ease is fear. Fear is the source of stagnation, paralysis and decay.  When fear takes hold in the body and mind, dis-ease begins to grow. It starts as a mild anxiety that affects the breathing pattern, the diaphragm tightens and the ability to breathe deeply and freely decreases. As the breath shortens the awareness of oxygen deprivation sets in and anxiety increases. Anxiety creates tension and resistance and weakens the immune system which opens the gate to illness and dis-ease. Prolonged fear and anxiety break down the body-mind integrity. Without integrity of body-mind-spirit one can- not maintain ones balance, or ones health for very long. Fear is the source of ten thousand ills and misfortunes.

Fear is paralysis. The antidote to paralysis is movement. The core of all movement is the breath. By taking a full conscious breath you initiate an internal movement that weakens the grip of fear and sets the energy of fear into motion. This is the essence of courage. I define courage as fear in motion or E-motion. Courage is moving and acting even though you are afraid. It is the understanding that you cannot allow fear to paralyze you into non-action, it is not an option even if it is a possibility.

Fear is pandemic, it is the staple of humanity in this time of uncertainty and as such it is always present to some degree in someone close to you. Because the energy of fear is so prevalent it is almost impossible to avoid or escape, so stop trying. Instead, learn how to deal with fear and use fear as an opportunity to exercise and strengthen your power of command.

The real issue is not fear, but rather your response to fear, your response is always the issue. Your response is your opportunity to exercise and practice, it is your life practice that leads to self-mastery. Lets face it, if you're going to master anything in this life, this is THE thing to master. I have been wrestling with fear my whole life (like everyone else on the planet). Fear motivated me to study martial arts in the hopes of defeating fear with strength. I soon realized that physical strength is no match for fear, for once I tired, fear crept in like the tide at night and washed over me. I tried to bargain with fear by rationalizing with it and failed. Fear does not respond to rational dialogue, it flows around it and finds a loop hole in your logic. I fought fear with anger until anger made me sick and tired. I tried drugs, but when the drugs wore off I was still afraid. It wasn’t until my son was born that I found the clue that led me to a new understanding of what fear was and how it functioned.

I was playing with my son at the playground one day when he was about two years old. He was standing on a platform about four feet off the ground, I was standing in front of him with my arms out stretched trying to motivate him to jump into my arms. The thought of jumping into space was scary to him and he hesitated and backed away from the edge. I found my self mouthing the words I had heard all through my childhood, “Don't be afraid, just jump”.  As I heard the words I realized how absurd they were. I was telling my son to ignore a survival instinct, to pretend that he was not feeling what he was feeling and then judging him for it as well. I pleaded and he became frustrated and angry. This was the wrong path to travel, so I stopped and took a deep breath. As I looked at my son frozen with fear, I realized something fundamental about fear.  Fear was a feeling, and an energy, a specific energy whose attribute was paralysis. I saw my son locked in the grip of an energy that was not moving. I realized what was needed and I changed my approach. I acknowledged the energy and said, “it’s o.k. to be afraid, just take a deep breath, bend your knees and fly”. It took a few deep breaths to set the energy into motion and then he jumped, well sort of fell forward really, but he set his energy into motion and acted. Well, once the first jump was over he climbed right back up on that platform and jumped again and again and again, each time with more joy and excitement and a little fear. I learned from my son that day how to respond to fear. Acknowledge fear but don’t make fear the issue. Respond with courage by setting fear into motion with your breath and fly.

If you focus on fear directly it will paralyze you like the eyes of a hungry tiger. Soften your focus and observe fear with indirect awareness as if looking at it with your peripheral vision and breathe deeply and rhythmically. Send the energy of fear through your body and into the ground as you breathe. This is the secret of taking command of your mind and your energy. Practice this and master this until it becomes your first response to fear, your only response to fear.  With practice you will learn to recognize fear in its infancy and take action when the energy of fear is small and weak and easy to neutralize. Fear is a signal to take action, to respond. The problem is when we wait too long to respond and the energy of fear grows too strong. The stronger the energy the more effort is required to move it. That’s why most people use anger to overcome fear. Anger is a powerful force and is often used to set ones energy into motion in the face of fear. It works, no doubt about it, but it is also a destructive force when used as the only response to fear. I know a lot of people who use anger as their primary fuel on a daily basis. After a while anger takes its toll on ones health and mental outlook. Its like using acid to fuel an automobile, after a while it eats through the body and renders the car useless.

The energy of fear can be used to your advantage. It can warn you of danger and of the need to act in a timely fashion. Listen to it without indulging in it. Soften, smile and breathe!

Self Mastery
“Self mastery is the act of aligning mind-body-spirit a thousand times a day.”
Ron NaVarre
Many of my students have this idealized image of me being calm, centered and grounded all day long 24/7. What they do not realize is I lose my center a thousand times a day, and a thousand times a day I realign my center. That is what gives me the appearance of being constantly grounded and centered. When I first began my journey toward self-mastery I mistakenly thought I was supposed to center myself once in the morning and then maintain that state all day long. No wonder I was so frustrated for so many years! Every time I would create center and ground myself something would either distract me or throw me off balance almost immediately. I felt like a constant failure and would compound my anxiety by telling myself I was weak or somehow deficient for not being able to sustain my calm state of being for more than a minute. This went on for a very long time and almost proved to be the end of me.  Now understand that this whole cycle of self-defeating frustration was based on a misconception and a fantasy of what I thought self mastery was; a constant state.  It only took me several years (more like a dozen) to realize the flaw in my fantasy logic. The only constant state is change itself. Life is a fluid state and so is self-mastery. The idea is to adapt to change constantly, a thousand times a day! Seems like a lot of work and it is, but the more you practice the easier and more effortless it becomes.


To master something is to become effortless in its action. To use just what you need to do the task, no more and no less. This is what is called “right effort” in Buddhism. I like that expression “right effort” because it’s not about being morally right, its about being efficient and effective. Right effort is economical, there is no waste, no excess and no deficiency. It’s just right! So how does one achieve self-mastery? Practice, practice, practice of course. If you want to be efficient and effective at anything you have to practice, every great athlete/artist knows that and so do you. What does practice mean? Some people would describe practice as hard work, I however think of practice as living in the moment. There is a difference. The common Idea of practice as hard work is what keeps people from practicing. Practice does not have to be hard or work it can actually be pleasurable and fun. Practice is process, it is the journey on your way to a destination of deeper meaning, experience and freedom.


When I hear people describe practice as hard  as in “hard work” what I hear them really saying is judgement and resistance. Hard=judgment of self and resistance to being judged by self or anyone else for that matter. No one likes the JUDGEMENT THING! We are brought up on judgment as a way to control and coerce our children into behaving properly (according to the societal norm otherwise known as mediocrity).  Judgement is an effective tool to use if you want to prevent yourself or someone else from taking a risk or venturing into new territory. As long as judgement exists within the heart there can be no self-mastery, it will not allow it. How then do we stop judging our selves during our practice? One, by acknowledging the judgement  as something we borrow from someone else and two, by giving our full undivided attention to the task at hand. We are not born with self criticism we inherit it from others. Once you realize this you can then choose to either let it go or give it back to the one who bestowed it upon you.  I have learned it is more effective to observe my action without judgement than it is to judge my action without observing it. Observation in this sense is pure acknowledgement. I see what I am doing, how I am doing it and how effective my action is in fulfilling the task. If my action/technique is not effective then I am free to modify my effort/process until it is effective. I recommend you read the book Zen in the Art of Archery to better understand what I mean by this.
The path to self-mastery is a simple one. Practice until your action becomes fluid, effortless and second nature. That is the process of integration. To integrate is to become ONE with all things, becoming one with all things is to know all things first hand through experience. To experience FULLY is the task. To experience fully you must experience without judgement or expectation. When I practice grounding and centering, I simply DO THE WORK, and nothing more. When I realize the need to re-align because I have shifted out of center, I simply align and center without making a big deal about it. Soften, smile, breathe, observe and integrate, again and again and again. That is the path to self-mastery.

Fluid State of Change
Feb 10/10
If it feels like things are changing faster than ever, your right. The rate of change is accelerating on a global scale. Technology and consciousness are evolving at an unprecedented rate and will soon merge to form a very powerful shift in what we commonly refer to as reality. Reality as we know it and experience it is always changing, this is the nature of life. We all know this on an intellectual level as” things change”. What we  don’t often  acknowledge is how change affects us personally and how to respond to change when and as it happens. First, I want you to imagine life as a fluid state, a constant state of movement. We see this in the cycles of nature and the in the daily rhythms of night and day. The entire universe is constantly moving as are we as individuals. Breathing is movement, thinking and feeling are forms of movement, the beating of your heart is movement. Without movement there is no life as we know it. Motion equals change.  As things move they change, some things move slowly and some quickly. Slow change is easier to adapt to than sudden change. When things change slowly we have an opportunity to respond to them more consciously, we have time to think about what is happening and to form opinions and responses based on our values and on how we feel about it. Responding to slow change is like eating a fine meal, we take the time to really taste the food, to savor and experience it. We also give ourselves time to digest and assimilate the food into our body/reality. Sudden change is more challenging to deal with. Sudden change often demands an immediate response with less time to think and feel before acting. More importantly sudden change means a sudden shift in our sense of self and reality.

Imagine how you would feel if every day your identity changed, if every morning you woke up and you were not the same person you were yesterday. Would you feel confused, unsure of yourself, frightened, angry? Sure you would, that kind of change is very disruptive and would create a real sense of instability and insecurity. How would you respond to that constant change? Would you resist and try to stop the world from changing so you could feel more stable? Would you feel out of control? The answer I hear most often is YES. Most people feel this way on a daily basis because this is what happens to each and every one of us every day. Every day you are different, every day you have to deal with change in the form of new rules and circumstances. Every day you have to realign your sense of self and acknowledge a new identity because the world around you has changed. The fact is the world is changing quickly and so are we. The question we must ask our selves is how do I as an individual living in a fluid state of change deal with it?  In my opinion this is the most important question to ask of ones self at this time. The answer to this question is directly related to the quality of your daily life and to your future as well. There is no right answer to this question just as there is no perfect way to live. How you respond to change depends on how you have been trained to respond and how you utilize your resources.

Life Training
Is there a difference between life training and education? I think so. In our advanced western society a great deal of emphasis is placed on the accumulation of knowledge. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and the retention of knowledge as a measure of self worth. We are encouraged to work hard, to study hard, to get an A so that we can “get ahead” of the next guy/girl. But something is missing. Upon graduating from college too many of us are not prepared for what comes next, the task of living creatively in the world. I have been teaching college freshmen for ten years now and every year I am surprised to discover how little life training most of my students posses. They are intelligent, smart and highly motivated to succeed (capable of getting an A). They are also stressed, overwhelmed and unaware of how to access or utilize much of their potential and inner resources.  From an energetic perspective  they appear to suffer from arrested development. I suppose that is what happens when too much emphasis is placed on intellectual development at the expense of emotional and physical experience. Too much “head” and not enough grounding or center my old tai chi teacher would say. I would agree.  Now let me clarify my view on this. I am not anti-intellectual, not at all. What I am is pro-active in regard to a balanced development of mind (intellect), body (centered awareness) and spirit ( expanded awareness which includes; feeling, sensation, intuition and creativity).

I have a high school education, I never attended college and yet I have taught for three highly acclaimed universities. I have a very successful private practice as an energetic healer/counselor and have taught seminars for some of the biggest fortune 500 companies. I also had an 18 year career working on Broadway, film and television as an actor, dancer, singer, director and choreographer. How was I able to do all of this? By integrating mind-body-spirit. This integrity has enabled me to activate all of my resources and develop  every gift and talent I could identify within myself.


Intergrity
Many an ailment can be healed through integrity, stress, anxiety, headaches, backaches, fears, and phobias to name a few. Living with integrity makes your life easier and far more productive. Imagine accomplishing all of your tasks and fulfilling all of your responsibilities using half the energy and effort you use now. Effortlessness is one of the hallmarks of integrity, abundance of energy is another. Before I learned the value of integrity I worked far too hard at everything. I was always tired and frequently sick and injured. I suffered from constant anxiety and lower backaches. I wasted seventy percent of my energy through anxiety, tension and scattered focus. It wasn’t an issue of not being organized I was very organized and still worked too hard. I worked too hard at everything all the time because I was taught that hard work was the only road to success and failure in life was the result of laziness. This was how I was educated, to work hard at all things all the time. I never questioned the puritan work ethic until I found myself partially paralyzed with a herniated disk at the age of twenty-six. Unable to work let alone work hard, I found myself with the time and space to examine my life. I was exhausted, dehydrated and in excruciating pain. How did I get to this point at such a young age? This was a crucial turning point for me. Up until this point I had suffered a host of injuries and illnesses without questioning myself. I just went to rehab, got better and worked until I fell apart again. This time was different though, this time I was really scared. I realized something had to change or I was going to end up in a wheel chair or walking with crutches for the rest of my life.  I realized I needed to change my life. I needed to make a choice about how I was living and how to live differently. What I saw in my self, was a fear that motivated me to push too hard and kept me in a state of fragmentation and anxiety. I felt like I was broken into several pieces and each piece had its own agenda. What I needed most was to heal these pieces by bringing them together as one, to first become sound and whole before I could really change and heal myself, and so my life training began.


I knew I need to change but I did not know how to go about it. Initially I approached the task the same way I approached every task, I worked too hard at it. I used too much effort and tried to overpower my circumstances with force of will. This only made things worse. Then I made an ancient discovery, I discovered the power of softness. I shifted my focus from hard to soft and allowed myself to receive inner guidance through meditation and listening. What I found in this approach was nuance and clarity. Every time I sat still and focused on breathing and listening I felt better, I could feel all those fragments coming together like drops of water joining into one big lens of clear focus. In time I realized what I was doing, creating integrity of mind-body-spirit.


Integrity equals power and the ability to respond to change gracefully
I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before mind-body-spirit. We see it on cereal boxes, cosmetics and even ads for automobiles. The term has been bandied about so often and so much it has become a cliche and has almost lost its true meaning, and yet……. every time we see or hear this catch phrase something deep down in our psyche and in our gut rings true. There is apart of us that resonates with this idea as if the phrase itself could evoke something more, some power within. And thats exactly what it is, dormant power waiting to be activated and claimed. This power is your birthright, it is inherent in each and every one of us. Its like a pot of gold buried just beneath the surface of your awareness, you sense it but you can’t see it or reach it YET.

I have had the privilege of watching many of my students discover their inner pot of gold through training and practice. It doesn’t take long to set energy in motion. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to activate your inner resources. What it does take is clarity of focus and intention. Its as simple as breathing and listening. Soften, smile, breathe and listen. Try doing that for five minutes, just five minutes and I guarantee you will not only feel different you will BE different. Five minutes of this simple practice will calm and center you. It is a simple and effective way to create a state of personal integrity, a state of wholeness. With personal integrity comes power in the form of connection and energy. Energy is always available in the space around you  (the universe) and in the ground beneath your feet, an abundant and inexhaustible supply. It is merely a matter of connection. If you connect to this source of energy you can use it for anything you wish. The quality of your connection will determine the quality of energy you can receive, the quality of connection is determined by the quality of your personal integrity.  If you are aligned, centered and grounded you will be able to plug in to source energy easily and effortlessly. If you are fragmented and out of balance your connection will be very weak and you will have to struggle and strain in order to receive.

If you want to heal you will need energy. If you want to create, you will need energy. If you want the power to respond to change gracefully you will need energy and the integrity to sustain it.  If your integrity falters your ability to connect and receive will collapse. That is my definition of  failure. My life experience has taught me that effort without integrity will result in failure. You may enjoy a brief moment of effective action that we associate with success, but without personal integrity and the ability to maintain integrity that moment will collapse and fade. That is the difference between trying and doing. Trying is connecting for moment and then disconnecting/collapsing. Doing is connecting for as long as it takes to complete and fulfill your task and intention. Those who succeed have the ability to sustain their connection with integrity and see the job through to its completion. Those who succeed wildly can complete the job easily and effortlessly.
By this time you might have a sense of how to deal with change from an energetic perspective.  Every time you experience a big change like losing a job or ending a relationship your identity shifts (sense/image of self) and fragmentation follows.  Fragmentation makes you feel ungrounded, tense and frequently overwhelmed, in other words stressed. Prolonged stress of this nature will lead to energy loss, fatigue and illness.  The response to this cycle of change-shift-fragmentation-stress is to heal the fragmentation with integrity of mind-body-spirit energy. Bring all the pieces together and realign your sense of self in the present. This is a constant process and needs to be practiced every day, many times a day. That is the purpose of training, technique and practice.