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Module 1

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go! — Maya Angelou

#1 Introduction

Thank you so much for inviting me into your world.

Here we will learn How-to rewire our brains so that we can have the life we want, where we want, with whom we want, and doing what we want.

One thing I know for sure…

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Living Life on one’s own

terms is the uLtimate success.

I believe as Zig Zigler said, “You were born to win, but you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”

I’m not offering information on how to blog, write, conduct seminars, get ten thousand followers, or build that gizmo you’ve dreamed of for so long.

I’m here to get a shovel and to help you dig away the debris that is standing in your way.

You may gag at the idea of having a positive conversation with yourself. The idea of looking into a mirror and telling yourself you are great, wonderful, have confidence, and that you can have all you want might turn your stomach.

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But listen to this:

“Somewhere deep inside, in a quiet, personal, and nonverbal place in our souls, we must believe that we’ve got something incredibly special and unique to offer. Our conscious minds may differ, our inner editors may object, our inner children may throw up, but beyond all of the voices to the contrary, you must believe in this fundamental truth, you are unique.”—Don Hahn

Book: Brain Storm, & producer of Disney’s The Lion King and Beauty and The Beast

Have you noticed that certain Success Principles, The Magic of Believing, The Art of Attraction, Getting Whatever You Want, New Age, Old age, The Secret, Awaken the Giant Within, Meet You at The Top, Think and Grow Rich, whew, and many others, all have a commonality?

They all believe in the power of the individual.

They all believe in the power of thought.

They all believe that action as a part of the process.

They all believe in believing in yourself.

They all believe that invisible forces come to your aid once you begin.

And they all believe that once you clear away the debris lying in your psychological path, that greatness lies ahead.

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I debated which should come first the Dream module or the Believe module. I know that before you can begin any task, that first you have the thought of it, the dream. Elizabeth Gilbert says that every journey begins with a question. Where am I going? What do I want? When shall I begin? Who shall I go with?

I decided that Believe ought to go first for if you don’t believe it’s possible, what’s the use of asking?

So, here we go. The modules will be #1 Introduction, #2 Believe, #3 Dream, #4 Ask, #5 Dare and #6 Do. All for the price of one latte each.

If one’s psychology is 80% of the battle in living the life we choose, then the place to begin is with clearing the path to our greatness.

Long ago a wise man said, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” Another said “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.”

And what did we do?

We became sniveling shadows of that glorious being that resides within. We believed we couldn’t ask for what we want and have it given to us. We thought that only the masters, could obtain that lofty goal. And so, we gave away our power to the others.

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You might notice that throughout this course I use quotes, most from esteemed people whom you know. We depend upon the rich, famous, and successful to tell us what to do. We hang on their every word because, we think that since they have reached a pinnacle of success, they have answers we do not.

Perhaps they do. Certainly, we are standing on the shoulders of the ones who have

gone before, but consider, instead of following the masters, ask the questions they asked.

We talk of a Higher Power, of the Universal Consciousness, the Force, the Great Spirit, and of knowing that within our human body lies a wellspring of truth and power. It is where the masters got their power. And it is there for you.

Is it any wonder we fell in love with the little nine-hundred-year-old green guru in Star Wars, named Yoda?

“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger to hate…hate leads to suffering.”

“Do, or do not. There is no try.”—Yoda

Hillel the Elder, a Jewish leader who lived in the first century said, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”

In A Course in Miracles Marianne Williamson writes:

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“Our Deepest Fear is not that we are inadequate. Our Deepest Fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”

Before we begin our journey--oh, I’m antsy to get started—for ahead are all those latte’s to be consumed, coffee to guzzle, or tea or water to sip, something to clear your head as you begin to pack your psychic bag.

(Or should I say unpack?)

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You have invested in yourself, and you have decided that this is your life to live, and your decisions to make. With that determination will come grace in living.

I use the word grace for it has a certain smoothness to it. It pours over you like a Plumeria scented ocean breeze. Grace is freely given: no work is required. It is the universe in action, and it will be the lubricant that will carry you over the gravel that will inevitably end up on your trail.

Know that forces have your back.

Have you been drawn, as I have, to posts by bloggers who make money blogging, and wonder, why not me? Have you seen couples or singles or families with children who travel and write about it while you salivate at the wonder of it?

Yep,

Living Life on one’s own terms is the uLtimate success.

The First Step:

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Yipes!

Long ago I said, “If Tony Robbins holds a seminar teaching people to walk on water, I'll take it, but walking on hot coals? No way.

To further my fear, my teacher in San Diego did a fire walk--not with Tony—and I watched as she agonized over blisters.

Fast forward 20 years. I did a fire walk with Tony Robbins and decided if I could walk on fire, I could do anything.

Well, maybe not anything, but you get the idea. It’s facing one's fears and doing it anyway. However, don't be stupid. Don’t go running around doing dangerous things to prove you can do it--like dying in a sweat lodge. FEAR has been built into us to protect us. The point is that sometimes FEAR is misplaced, and we hold ourselves back rather than push through.

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The point of the firewalk is to take that first step. Imagine planting your delicate tootsies on a mass of red-hot coals. I don't care if it's a sweat layer on the bottom of your feet that protects you, the physics of it, or if it is smoke

and mirrors (it isn't--you can feel the heat), it's scary. And it demands on a certain mindset.

Once I decided I was going to walk on that fire even if it meant burning my feet off, I gave my chest a thump for power, aimed for the far distant shore, and walked across hot coals as easily as walking on popcorn.

It was midnight in San Jose California when some 13,000 people walked on fire with me. There were many paths filled with hot coals, and a fire team with wheelbarrows bringing in more red-hot cinders, so the coals glowed red the entire time, and the group moved along quickly. You focus your mind on that green grass on the other end, and walk, but don‘t fall down.

On that distance shore—about 12 feet away—friendly helpers pour cold water over your feet, and other jubilant participants, having just completed their fire walk, hug you.

Everyone was proud of their accomplishment, and even a couple of kids did it. (With parents.)

Remember, it isn’t about walking on hot coals, it’s taking that first step. Well, the hot coals are there blocking your passage, but once your foot lands on glowing embers, you can bet your bottom dollar you will take a second step, and so on until you reach the other side. I am here to encourage you to take the first step, and lead

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you to the second, third, and so on until you reach your desired goal. Then I will hug you. Maybe send a kiss over a wire.

We will be jubilant.

See, I even mustered the courage to write this course.

Perhaps you haven’t walked on hot coals, but I bet you have walked through the fire of human experience. And few make it through unscathed.

And don’t compare yourself to those supposedly fabulous souls that appear on social media. They get up in the mornings grumpy and haggard sometimes, their sex life isn’t as fabulous as they would make us believe, and they get diarrhea sometimes while traveling to all those fabulous places and eating exotic foods. Planes can be late, connections sometimes missed, and the kids whine.

There are upsides, of course, I just wanted to put it into perspective. Life won’t always be glamorous, but it can be damn good.

If you want to live the life you have always imagined, we are here to assist that process, light a fire under you, recharge your batteries, whatever—you decide.

I thought I knew what I wanted when I began Dominika and Cedric’s course Trailblazer. I still do. I want to blog, and write books, and make a living doing that. I would love the freedom to live wherever I choose, doing the work I love.

Isn’t that what most of us want?

Well, we want to live with Sympatico people too, have the love we desire and live a happy life.

A tall order, huh?

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I believe it’s possible.

I found in my search, that another area lit a fire under me. I found that I wanted to write this course, not to copy Trailblazer or the many others that have come before, but something akin to the words of Henry David Thoreau:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Our woods, our wilderness, is here on these pages. It is plowing through the debris that is standing in our way.

You know, those limiting beliefs, that negative self-talk that rings in our ears 8 hours every day?

“What makes you think you can do, be and have your heart’s desire? You don’t know the right people. You aren’t talented enough, or skilled enough. And what in the heck do you want to do anyway, you have no direction, no focus? You aren’t smart enough, young enough, old enough, or live in the right place. Don’t we have to pay our dues?”

I have taken more seminars, workshops, courses, and training programs than you can shake a stick at. (Words of my mother. Although I still don’t know what that means.)

Those courses have been treasures for me, some good, some trying, some downright annoying, but after soaking up their information, (take what you want, leave what you want), I decided it was time to stop sucking up information and pour some out.

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And when we find something beautiful, we don’t hold it secretive, silent, tight against our chest, no, we run out and tell or show somebody.

Jacque-Yves Cousteau said, “If a man for whatever reason had an opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.” If something is standing in your way, do what your kids do with their video games, blast it out of the way.

Let’s live the life we have dreamed. A long ago I read in Clyde Bristol’s book, The Magic of Believing, “When we begin weaving, the gods will provide the skein.” And it became a mantra for me. It appears that the universe likes action, and when you decide what it is you want, it will conspire to help you.

To begin the clearing process, let’s answer this one question (posed by Tony Robbins.):

Whose Love Did You Crave the Most, Your Mother’s or Your Father’s? The love you craved the most will greatly form the structure of your being, for you will contort yourself to please that person.

My father left when I was three-years-old to join the military. He figured that he would soon be drafted, so he decided to get a jump-start for he wanted to be in the Navy. He found, though, to his surprise, that he was color blind, and thus was not suitable for the Navy. Strange, for he was an artist. No wonder he did a lot of pencil drawings.

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He ended up in the Army.

After the war, he came to me for a brief visit where he took me to the circus, bribed the hawker to let me win a golden horse statue, bought a little Tweetie bird on a string that he dissected when we got home—to find its tweeter—then disappeared from my life.

My parents divorced, we moved from Illinois to Oregon, my mother remarried, and I didn’t see my father for 38 years.

One might assume that, with an absent biological father, I would crave the love of

my father, but I don’t think so. I think it was my mother’s love I craved. My life depended on her.

In asking yourself that question, you discover how you contorted yourself to get the love you needed.

We still do that. Throughout our lives, we try to please others. What if, instead, we decide how we want to be. We decide what we want.

It’s our life after all. I wanted to please my mother. I was a good kid. I didn’t give her any flack. I protected her, I thought. She was a good mom, but embarrassed her entire life that she had me at 16, and hid from me that she “had “ to get married.

Kids know.

There was an awkwardness between us. Strange how you accept what is when you are a child. However, you aren’t a child anymore, and now you can look back on it with adult eyes.

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I didn’t realize how much I wanted my mother to love me. I didn’t understand why we didn’t make a big deal out of my birthday the way other parents did.

Now I know.

I wonder though, did I gravitate to art because my father was an artist, or is it in my genes? No matter, I saw him as intriguing, curious, dabbling in taxidermy, drawing portraits for the soldiers during the war, writing beautiful letters home to me with bunny rabbits drawn across the bottom of the page.

I wonder if his dissecting the Tweety bird, and stuffing animals—small animals, birds found dead, or squirrels, led me into biology. (I have a half-sister who majored in biology as well. Was that coincidence or what?)

I guess three years with him and the rest of my life without him shaped me. I desired to be like him, inquisitive, curious, inventive, an artist. He loved animals and was interested in what makes them tick. Again nature or nurture?

Thirty-eight years after he left, I called him in Chicago, “Hi, this is Joyce, I used to call you Daddy a long time ago.”

God, I was nervous.

He welcomed me with open arms as did his wife Vi. My husband and I visited them every day for the next three days, carrying in fish and chips, or some such, and I took him

to an Optics Conference so he could see the instrument my husband was showing. That was our reason for the trip.

This may sound nostalgic, but I learned a lot by writing this. I wondered for years if my father ever thought of me—then when I met him he had pictures of me, and one of my mother. I was shocked when he showed me a picture of my young mother and said, “Wasn’t she beautiful?”

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I’m saying all this because FIRST, before the trip, and with no inkling that a trip was in my immediate future, I completed an exercise clearing out negativity regarding my dad. I wrote it out. I wrote what I thought about him, how I felt he had abandoned me, how I wish he loved me, and how I wished he wanted me. A short time later that Optics Conference came galloping in like a white charger.

Do you have an issue, a hurt, or injury that could be written out, the pros, cons, good aspects, and horrible ones? Write until you have exhausted the subject. Writing puts a period at the end of the sentence instead of the cycling it as the mind is want to do.

I decided to join my husband on his trip. “Well, I always said if I were ever in Chicago, I would call my dad.” So I did.

Old Bristol knew it, “When we begin weaving the gods will provide the skein.” The universe conspires to help us.

I found that the clearing process opened up possibilities and allowed me, after 38 years, to visit my dad.

This is called Inner Work.

It is playing with the universe.

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So, Let’s answer question number one:

Whose love did you crave the most, your mother’s or your father’s? (Thanks Tony) This might possibly lead you into that one issue that has been pecking at you. You know the one, The one that if it no longer troubled you your life would fall into place.

You know it’s never that simple, but one must begin someplace. But then, maybe it is that simple.

Use your downloadable workbook, add pages if you have a long story. You will find, that after this process magical things will begin to happen.

First Assignment.

Answer the question. Whose love did I crave the most, my mother’s or my father’s?

Do it!

The notebook will give you the space, and it’s easily printable___________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

I just felt a disturbance in the force.

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i bet you are exhausted.

have a cup of coffee,

prop your feet up, and see

that whatever happened

in the past

you can take or Leave.

it’s your choice.

When you have recovered, go to Module 2.