DIARY OF A @!st CENTURY MYSTIC, # 3.
Where: Esperance, Western Australia, Bayview Motel
“In the mind of the novice there are many possibilities. In the mind of the expert there is but one.” So said ancient Chinese mystic Lao Zi some 2600 years ago. He was commenting on the tendency of peoples’ perceptions and attitudes to harden as they gain more knowledge and experience in a particular domain. That knowledge and experience is invaluable, but it can also be a grave hindrance to opening to new possibilities, to being creative.
This is particularly true at times of renewal or rebirth in your life. These periods typically occur after you leave you job, career, or relationship. Perhaps it might correspond with the end of your life in a particular location. You move to a new city or country.
That’s where I find myself in my life currently, having recently left behind a career and life in Hong Kong to return to Australia to live. I am at a crossroads. The great thing is that there are many directions that I might travel. However the stressful thing lies in narrowing down my range of options. To making a commitment. It’s all about choices,
And that why I have begun this Diary of a 21st Century Mystic project – to explain in details how to apply intuitive processes and tools in making important choices in life.
A month ago I had basically no idea what I was going to do here in Australia. Then one morning I awoke and a song came into my head, with these words:
Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me
You might recognize the lines from the old Beatles song. Nowhere Man. This piece of spiritual guidance represented the second time that this song had come to me as a form of spiritual guidance. The previous occasion had been thirteen years earlier when I was living in Taiwan. At that time the ‘energy’ of my Taiwan experience was coming to an end, I was feeling depressed and stuck, and spirit was encouraging me to explore new avenues. That guidance prompted me to resume my PhD studies, and to leave Taiwan and move to Beijing.
I admit that a month ago when this song came through again, I was once more feeling stuck and depressed. I had been in Australia over a month, and was doing little more than sitting around in my brother’s house. Besides a little writing and blogging, I wasn’t doing much. The song made me realise I had to get moving again. I had to start making choices, and moving out in the world. The only thing was, I didn’t have any specific leads as to what I should do!
It is very important for people who have done a good deal of inner work that they stay true to their higher purpose. So I do know the bigger picture of my ‘soul purpose’, in a very general sense. My gifts are very much about utilising my intuitive abilities and knowledge of spirit to make a difference in the world. But that is very ‘purpose’ general indeed.
A significant problem is that I am now out of touch with current Australian society and culture. So there has definitely been doubt as to whether I can fit in here again, or whether I can find a way to be of service in this country.
When you embark on a new phase of life, it will push your buttons. You better believe that whatever self-limiting beliefs and fears you possess will surface. My main soul issues are about fear of rejection and failure, a belief that the world is not fair, and that I will be punished and excluded. “Trying is no use!” That is the cry of my wounded child. It’s the cry of the victim (a very common cry indeed, if you look around). Just look at social media and the internet in general, and you’ll see that call resounding across many an e-medium. In my case, all of these issues relate to my childhood and – I believe – past lives.
I have been working on these issues in various ways, but I won’t go into that here. I just want to emphasise that one key to dealing with “spiritual issues” is not to judge them as being wrong, or be ashamed of them. Trying to get rid of them doesn’t work, because that is a subtle rejection of the inner child. The wounded child will merely turn away from you, and create havoc in other ways (read, ‘create dramas’). I suggest that you merely learn to allow these parts of yourself to be freely honoured and expressed.
Another key is to just to make light fun of your “issues”. That’s what I was doing with this recent mini-video, which I put on FB and YouTube.
Just be careful not to believe in the story that the wounded child is selling you, or to try to seek attention for your issues. Nobody else needs to comfort you or support you (don’t confuse that with intimacy). You just need to develop the right relationship with your inner child. That will enable you to travel through your periods of transition with a light heart and a good sense of humour.
Back to my current situation. Just a week or so after the “Nowhere man” incident, I received an email from a friend. He told me about a talk being given in Melbourne by a man named Peter Cook. Peter is part of a dynamic team of “Thought Leaders”, the other notables being Matt Church and Scott Stein. After checking these guys out online, I found that there was something about the whole venture which excited me. But should I follow it up? I used the Quick Check (one of the INI Tools), and I got that I should go to the talk. So a few days later I took the two hour train trip into Melbourne to hear Peter.
As an intuitive, the first thing I do when assessing someone I’m about to deal with is to check “the intention” of that person, especially if it is someone I might be investing time and/or money with in the future. I like to think that I can tell a fake, liar or fool pretty easily, and Peter struck me as none of these things. So I listened. And I liked what he said.
Peter spoke of his “Million Dollar Expert” programme, a short intensive course which claims to teach smart people with good ideas how to develop them into a successful business. It impressed me. After the talk I bought his book Sell Your Thoughts (with Matt Church and Scott Stein), which provided me with more detail about Peter and his philosophy (I am not going to detail the processes here, but may write a little more about it in a later post).
There are two main questions to be considered here, and they are both important for my immediate future in Australia.
1) What is the energy on utilising the Thought Leaders ideas and tools in developing my work in Australia?
2) What is the energy on attending Peter’s Million Dollar Expert workshop (in December)?
The overall feeling sense I get is good for both questions. So for me there is no doubt that there is merit in following through with both questions with affirmative actions. But the truth is that I have to weigh that “vibe” up against financial considerations. The first option is no problem, as there is merely the cost of a book or involved. But the second question involves an investment of $3300. That’s how much it costs for the two day workshop.
Using the INI Tool the Quick Check, I get an 80% resonance on the first question. Yet the second option creates anxiety for me. It raises “money issues”. What if I do the programme and it is a waste of money? What if that money is better spent on other things? Like saving for a home, self-publishing a book, hiring a helper or attending a more useful programme? There is thus a possibility that fear can “contaminate” any energy reading I do on the question. So to do this reading accurately I have to put myself in a state of perfect presence, where my desires and fears don’t get in the way. The result? It still resonates quite highly – around 75%
So will I do Peter Cook’s Million Dollar Expert programme? With the reading, I am leaning heavily towards that direction, but I have not decided yet. I will do a Light Trance meditation on it in the coming days, then make a final decision. I will let you know about that.
Many important life decisions involve risk. We may invest much time and money into them, with no guarantee of success. What the INI Tools do is allow us to sense the energy of the decision and its most likely outcome. They can cut much of the guesswork out of decision making. But the whole process of activating Integrated Intelligence requires a reorientation of the mind/brain. It requires – to quote management guru Stephen Covey – to “lead from the right, manage from the left”. Covey is referring to the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Although it is simplistic in terms of its actual representation of neuro-physiology, the left/right brain dichotomy is a useful model we can use when trying to develop a better relationship between the “rational” and “non-rational” domains of mind. To “lead from the right” requires letting go, and trust in the intangible feelings of intuition.
I have always said that you should listen to your intuition, and follow your bliss. But it is also true that action itself creates an excitement and energy of its own. So it is very important to move from a position of possibilities, to one where you are taking committed action towards a goal. If you keep your heart open to spirit, it will guide you in the right direction. But it won’t do the work for you. You have to get off your butt and do stuff yourself. You have to make concrete decisions. Otherwise the guidance, the energy, cannot translate into the real world of people, places and markets.
There is something which I call “aligning with the path of least resistance”, where actions become relatively effortless and often joyful. Finding that alignment comes from listening to spirit and taking actions within the domain of highest good. That is what I will be seeking to do as I make these important decisions in the coming weeks.
But what next? Just a few days after the Nowhere Man guidance, I had another vision during the night. I saw myself on a bus, and was getting off – in Melbourne. I knew I was being guided to move to that city. So that will be my next step – after I get back to Morwell, on the other side of this vast county, next week.
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