"Stand Up"

“Stand Up!”

Swing your hips.

"Stand Up!"is #Joseph Mc Clendon III's battle cry.

Sit down.

Now, stand up.

Rotate your hips. It gets the blood racing, and as you know your lymph system does not have a pump, it relies on your body movement. Rotating your hips is one of the best ways. 

Should you go to an event such as I am writing about, (Tony Robbin’s “Unleash the Giant Within") you might ask: “Why am I here?"

Or here, you might ask: “Why am I reading this?’

Regarding the event: You chose it. You prepared for it. You agonized over it, you feared it, or you were excited about the possibilities. Did you get dragged to it? I hope not. You figured there would be riches to find, people to meet, truths to uncover. 

That registers as uncertainty. 

It might shove us over the edge or be a complete disaster.  It might test our belief system, or push our buttons.

On the other hand, it might be an absolute wonder.

We desire uncertainty in our lives—that’s where passion and adventure reside, however, we also value certainty.

Certainty such as where the next meal is coming from, security of home hearth, and friends. Our task is to find our tolerance for each.

I can’t think of too many things that guarantee certainty, death and taxes, right, okay, we’ve heard that for a long time, but I plan on the sun coming up tomorrow and for me to be here to enjoy it.

Regarding why are you reading this, I hope you find value here and will stick around, for I would like company on this trip.

I do have company. It’s our cat, Zoom Zoom. He tromps across my computer screen, then back. He must believe this is the jogging track. He is careful not to step on the keyboard, while the other cat, Obi, who also sees the jogging track ahead, either steps on the keyboard, turns off my WIFi, or lays on the keyboard every chance he gets—you wouldn’t believe the things he has written.

If I jump up to get something, water, coffee, iced tea, answer the phone, answer my grandson, Obi takes advantage of a hot keyboard to warm his butt.

Close the lid stupid.

I do…most of the time…

Perhaps you didn’t come here for a course on how to be successful or have the secret to being a billionaire, but I bet there is something in your life you would like to change, do, or have.

If you don’t you’re dead, and you wouldn’t be reading this.

  

What would your extraordinary life look like?

Is it to Live Life on your terms?

What prevents you from doing that?

How do you feel when someone says “You’re Wrong. Mistaken, Lying?” Those words cause a biochemical change in your body. (So does being in love.)

When I was a kid I would often hear this phrase when one kid teased another: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

That’s wrong. They do hurt.

They cause a biochemical change in the body. 

On the last blog I spoke about depressed people and how in our culture, we medicate them.

Guess we didn’t teach them that disappointment is a part of life, and to expect to be happy all the time is ludicrous.

If you want to achieve, however, focus on the future.

See “I CAN,” all over the place.

You know how it is when you are looking for a new car, or shoes, or outfit, or a couch—you begin to notice them, and they pop up in the most obscure places.  

Stand Up!

I got myself on that one.

That noticing of desired events comes from our #reticular activating system (RAS), the part of the brain that regulates sleep and wakefulness. The RAS also mediate transitions from relaxed wakefulness to periods of high attention.  

Stand Up!

(I suppose one reason Tony uses #Neuro-linguistic programming is that traumas, phobias, and limiting beliefs can be broken by a sudden change of state.  Of 100 suicidal persons he has helped he has not lost a single one.)

And remember, complexity is the enemy of completion.

So, what lesson is there in that?

MAKE IT SIMPLE.

Now, Stand Up!

We never knew when Joseph is going to yell that. 

Be Rocky, pump those arms in the air. Do the Hula.

I found that I sit entirely too much. I can go for four hours straight sitting in my chair--not good.

Okay, sit down.

Now, Tony Robbins' Two Skills of Life—

1). The Science of Mastery

This involves, besides having a hunger for what you want, a focus to achieve it, massive action on your part, but also a change in your physiology—that’s what makes change stick. Tony is a master on neuro-linguistic programming, that is breaking a pattern.

Have you ever been saying something and another person butts in and you forget what you were saying? You aren’t becoming senile, your pattern was broken. I can decide to go after something, turn around, and forget what it was I wanted.  It feels as though it falls out of my brain, and that drives me cuckoo. 

2.) The Art of Fulfillment:

I bet that sometime in your life you got something you wanted, and still felt empty. “Is that all there is?” you ask.

You have heard of movie stars who had fame, fortune, the esteem of their peers and love the world around, yet they killed themselves.

They missed the second phase.

If you have a goal and achieve it, but it gives you no pleasure, it was a hollow victory.

Let it in, dance, celebrate.

Oh my, I remember when I was twelve years old. One day my dad led my heart’s desire down the drive. It was a gift for me, a horse, the one thing I wanted most in my life.

I celebrated him for the next 9 years. He was perfect.

See why I like wishing on horses—and they don’t have to be white. Boots was a sorrel, a rather golden brown, and his mane and tail were flaxen, that is blond. And he had two white “boots” on his hind legs. He spoiled me, as I didn’t know that some horses can be cuckoo birds. (They suffer from the same trauma people do, and it takes a skilled person to gentle them for human interaction.)

There is much more I can tell about the Robbins' event, and there will be a little more, but not much. I am not going to repeat the course. That’s Tony’s. I’m not giving you a workbook version either. I will give something about the afternoon Tony spoke about nutrition--my seat companion asked if I would. 

Before I leave today I have to tell you Joseph’s story about his mother.

One night he came home around midnight after a seminar and was fiddling with his keys trying to get into the house when he heard his answering machine come on. (You remember the days when we had answering machines in the house, and when someone left a message we could listen to it in real time.)

It was his sister. Her hysterical voice came over the answering machine, “Momma’s in the hospital.”

He ran to the phone called her back, but she had already left, so he got in the car and drove the 180 miles to the hospital in L.A.

When he got there his sister was holding her baby and crying.

Mother was in surgery.

When the doctor came in, he was solemn. His mother had cancer. They took out part of a tumor, but left the other part in for to remove it would kill her. The doctor told Joseph she had, “Two months to live.”

Joseph remembered what #Deepak Chopra had said. “If a doctor tells a patient they have two months to live they will be dead within those two months."

Joseph told the doctor. “Don’t tell her.”

“But I have to.”

“No, you don’t. You can tell her she has cancer, but do not tell her she has two months to live.”

“I must.”

“No, you don’t.”

Back and forth they went with the sister and baby crying.

Joseph grabbed the doctor’s shirt and said, “Don’t tell her!”

“I’ll call security.”

Joseph knew about L.A. police pat down, and here he was a black man. He released his hold.

As he was leaving Joseph said, “If you tell her I’m breaking your back.”

Well, security did come, but they only said, “I know this is a difficult time, but do not threaten the doctor.”

So Joseph wondered what to do—get to momma before the doctor. And remembering what Norman Cousins did to heal himself he ran out, bought a VCR, and a pile of funny movies.

He ran to the room where momma was still unconscious and discovered she had a roommate. He asked his sister to leave, turned to the other woman and said, “Things are going to be happening around here, you can either stay or move to another room.”

Timidly, rather inquisitive, she said, “I’m staying.”

Joseph stayed in the hospital with his mother for two weeks. When the doctor came in he took up his stance--glaring with arms folded.

The doctor never told her.

Joseph and his mother laughed over the movies with her holding her incision and saying “Oh stop, stop,”... and laughing.

She lived for another 11 years.

“Your mind won’t let you enjoy---your heart will.”

“What better gift can you give your creator than to appreciate your gifts.”

“Life happens for you, not to you.”

Now go back and scan over this again, and Stand up when I yelled stand up, and you will find you feel a heck of a lot better.

How's Your State of Mind?

 We all smile in the same language

”If people are going nuts around you there is still a still place inside you.

”However, don’t get to blissed out or someone will come and take your furniture.” –Tony Robbins

I have heard that 80% of our population is depressed.”

And what do we do for a depressed person?

Drug them.

Are they still depressed?

Most. Yes.

Stop using the word depressed. Say pissed off, frustrated, angry, etc. 

What is your flavor of suffering?

Humm…

There are two basic fears that all humans share:

1.    That they aren’t good enough.

2.    That they are not loved.

The idea of a workshop, seminar, whatever you want to call it, is to Play full out. If the presenter is the one doing all the work, he gets all the muscle.

The state in which you learn something is the state in which you will apply it. If you listen passively you will get maybe 10% retention. Notes are 50-55% retention, Listen and take notes 90%.

I don’t know how you take notes without listening, maybe borrow them like in college. Maybe just write and not listen. Oh well.  Here, with no sound or visuals you are stuck with reading.

You remember sitting at a lackluster lecture, fighting sleep, the chair gets hard, your legs go to sleep, your butt turns numb.

And you were paying for it!

Tony Robbins is like the Energizer Bunny on speed. He can go fifteen hours straight, dancing, jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs, and pushing his voice over its limit. (He has damaged it, and takes a day on, a day off.)

When I heard Tony wasn’t going to speak the second day, I thought, Hey, I thought we got Tony for 3 and 1/2 days.

However, Joseph McClendon III won me over. I love him.

His story is that he was homeless for a time sleeping in a box in Lancaster California. You can drive for miles around Lancaster and only see sand and telephone poles—that story comes later.

The reason he was sleeping in a box was that someone tried to kill him because of the color of his skin. He thought, “If someone would do that to me. There must be something wrong with me.”

One day a man gave him a book.

It was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

He read it and went back to the man who had given it to him with the understanding that when someone gives you a gift you ought to give them something in return.

The man said to pass it on, not the book specifically, but the principles and now McClendon is a neuro-psychologist in L.A. and a presenter at the Tony Robbins event. He says it isn’t the motivation, it’s the “Do.”

While McClendon was urging us to believe we rocked, he suggested that when we approach an automatic door where two doors part like a theater curtain, that we swing wide our arms as though we caused it, stand in the open doorway, blow kisses and bow.

He had been doing that. One day he walked with up to the automatic doors at a grocery store with his little 2- year-old son holding on to his finger. You know how toddlers hold your finger? As they approached the automatic doors he felt his son pull away.

The little boy stood before the doors, waved wide his arms like a magician, and stood there arms spread with a big smile on his face.

There was a Starbucks Coffee shop right inside the doors, and seeing the little boy standing like a composer who had just conducted the Philharmonic orchestra, they applauded.

Strange, isn’t it, how something that means so much to you can be received negatively by someone else?  I just tuned into a long tirade online from an attendee at a San Jose event who took a month to recover! That was in 2012. Holy cow, I was ready to go the next day, and I am twice her age.

I suppose having Tony say if you are a pessimist you are gutless, might shake some up a bit.

Tony says we use softeners in our language, and after reading the book Taboo Language, he uses Adult Language to jolt, to emphasize, to jar people out of their present state. That might bother some people too, although he states up front, that Adult language will be used.

One reason I went to the event was to learn how to change my state. Of late I had been grouchy, irritated and angry a lot of the time.

We practiced going form sad to happy, sad to happy, sad to happy in an instant.

Although there are a million beautiful states, to think you can be happy all the time is ludicrous.

We have a two-million-year-old-brain (evolutionarily speaking) that is wired to look for saber-toothed tigers. Finding no tigers, that beautiful brain of ours looks for something else to scare us.

 It “thinks’ it is looking out for us. Misguided thing that it is.

And so the mastery in life is to control our brain instead of letting it control us. The idea is to notice the fearful thought as it passes through and let it go on past. 

And think of this. We are stupid to fuss over what is predictable,

when we know someone will mess up.

I am used to events. I’ve attended channelers, consciousness raising groups that was something akin to EST, if you remember that. Taboo language doesn’t bother me. I love it when someone goes full out. To me it like Barbra Streisand singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”

Hit number two: Why affirmations and presentations such as The Secret that everybody went cuckoo over don’t bring the desired results.

It takes more that positive thinking or wishing—although having a positive attitude is definitely better than the opposite.

The trick is that is whatever you put out, affirm for, focus on, or pray for must be done in a peak state. (Perhaps desperation works too, for that is highly emotional.) I’ve heard that focus and affirmations must be done with emotion, many guru’s tell us that, but few pump you up like Tony Robbins.

So do whatever it takes to put yourself the in a peak state before you ask for your heart’s desire. Music, walks in nature, whatever floats your boat.

And remember to give thanks, to live in an aura of Gratitude.

One question was: “What amount of uncertainty can you take?

We need a certain amount of certainty in our lives to function well—food, money, love, those sorts of things.

Yet we need uncertainty. The call to adventure. The urge that pulls us toward a goal, those sorts of things. We just need to know where in the spectrum we fit. Remember all passion is in the realm of uncertainty, and remember this: You are more powerful than your dopey moments.  

Watch this orangutan watch a magic trick, it’ll make you fall out of your chair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLrYzY3jVPY

From Firewalker to Streetwalker all in One Day

 View from my seat

As I looked out over the arena I thought, here are 10,500 people all collected together, wanting more out of life, wanting to heal their hurts, wanting to be happy.

Happy people do not kill others for the fun of it. Happy people do not shoot up schools, or cause war. Happy people want to serve, they want to pass on what they have discovered, they want to uplift.

And because of all us attendees at the Tony Robbins “Unleash the Power Within” event, paying our entrance fee, collecting together on a grand scale, the people of the San Jose area received one million free meals.

This contribution probably comes from Tony’s background of growing up without things like FOOD. One year someone gave the family a Thanksgiving, or some holiday, meal. While his father saw it as evidence that he was not adequately supporting his family, Tony saw it as food. That father was one of three to come--most confusing to a young child.

As I sat down at the railing overlooking the main floor, my seat companion said he was from Grant’s Pass Oregon—another Oregonian, what are the chances? He works for the corporation of #Dutch Brothers—the coffee people. 

Paul was a live-wire, a young man, not one who looked corporate. When they asked him if he wanted to be corporate said, “Do you know who I am?

It must have been his enthusiasm.

The Dutch Brothers company uses many of Robbins’s principals in their business, he said, and he was there because the company sent him and 29 others to this event. They sent them on the company plane and put them up at the Hilton.  My kind of company!

I said that the servers at Dutch Brothers are always so nice and asked if they train them.

No, he said, “You can teach a monkey to make coffee, but you can’t teach him to be nice.”

“Don’t sit together, the manager had told their people. “Spread out. Have your own experience.”

I’m going out of the house in a little while, think I’ll have a Dutch Brother’s coffee. We  have a Keogh within a mile of where we live. I am supporting them royally from now on.  Great coffee too.

I looked online and found this picture "#Dutch love that goes viral."

Thank God for Angels:

Earlier that first morning I took the train from my motel into where I thought I was going, The San Jose Convention Center. There were three fellows on the train also going to the Robbins event, and one, who had registered the night before, knew what he was doing. “Follow me,” he said. “It isn’t the convention Center. It is the SAP, the Hockey Arena.”

The train didn’t go to the Hockey center. Our stop was at the convention Center.

Out came the cell phones as the three fellows searched for directions. “It is about a 20-minute walk to SAP,’ my first angel said. “Are you up for walking? “

“Sure, “ I said, backpack on my back, an easy carry. We were warned to bring jackets as the arena would be cold, and bring snacks and water as well, necessary to keep our energy up. Some days there would be no lunch break.  

And then at the end of the day—hey, I bet you thought I was going to give you the low-down on the event. Uh, uh, uh, first you must throw rocks at the hero.

You know we are the heroes of our own story…

Walking on hot coals is nothing compared with trying to find ground transportation in San Jose California at 2:30 A.M.

We got out of the event at around 2 in the morning, as the firewalk occurred around midnight. I wondered how I would be getting home, for I was not walking downtown to the train stop, besides the train had stopped running.

I figured taxis might be standing in line outside the arena, as they do at the airport.

Nope.

I had a UBER app. “No cars available.” it said.

Okay, I called a taxi.

At this time all 10,497 people of the 10,500 event participants had mysteriously blown away like Mary Poppins ‘competitors for the job as a nanny.

Three girls were sitting on the curb.

I was one.

A cab came. We three shared it.

“Take us to the closest stop first," we said. I do believe it was me, but the other girl said it was her, so I said ok. This was after the endless debate by the two girls on where they were going. One had two options, the other fussed with the driver telling him where to go, where to turn, although he had a GPS right before his eyes. The other girl hinted about staying with me, but I only had a queen bed, and I wanted to flop on it---alone.

“Is it closer to Milpitas, or Campbell?” the girl asked. “Give me an address, “said the driver.

After the first girl was dropped off, the driver said, “Now we are closer to Campbell.”

“I am not going to ride to Campbell and back,  said the dragon that reared up inside me. “Take me to my hotel.”

He did…but that’s not the end of the story.

It turned out that there were two motels by the same name, and I was dropped off at the wrong one. 

When I walked to what I thought was my room, the taxi was still sitting in the driveway while the girl debated. Nope, I thought. You are not staying with me.

Something didn’t feel right, so I went into the lobby. There was the same man who had checked me in the night before.

However, I was not registered there.

 “You checked me in last night,” I said.

“It was at the other motel. I work at both.”

 “Where’s the other one?’

“Right down the road.”

I knew I was on the right road, just a wrong street number.

“How far?”

“Right down the road.”

That guy wasn’t much help.

“I’m walking,” I said, and took off.

So I walked the five blocks down 1^st street at 2:30 in the morning.

From Firewalker to Streetwalker all in one day.

But I made it home to a hot bath.

To be continued.

Come on Baby Light My Fire

No matter what you think of firewalking or how you explain it. This is the view before you. Now, baby, place your delicate white footsie on that.

The firewalking was easy, although it gets the most attention. It’s the drama.  It isn’t about the firewalking. It’s about taking the first step.

Years ago when I first heard that Tony Robbins’ participants walked on fire, I said, “When someone teaches a seminar on how to walk on water, I’ll take it.” But after listening to Tony Robbins tapes some 20 years ago, after reading Robbin’s book Awaken the Giant Within—that was long ago too. After recently watching  Joe Berlinger’s documentary on Tony, titled, “I am Not Your Guru,” I decided. “I’m going.” A twitter user posted the link, and although I don’t know who it was, I thank them.

I was, of course, concerned about walking on hot coals, no matter how many explanations are put on it. I had a teacher in San Diego who burnt her feet walking on hot coals, so I had that image pecking against my brain.

I didn’t know if I would do it, but thought, this is my opportunity to teach myself to overcome fear, and to think that if I could walk on fire I could do anything.

There were 35 fire strips for 10,500 people, I don’t know how many people walked, the majority did.

Tony prepared us for about 2 hours before the walk while videos of flames burnt around the room, on the monitors, on the digital strip around the San Jose SAP Hockey arena.

When images of flames came up, I thought, Hey wait a minute, you said hot coals, not flames. The images were of the burning wood before they settled into coals.

When the time came, the helper said, “Step on the grass,” (There is a strip before the coals.) I gave my chest a pound, shot my fist in the air, focused on the other side and walked.

Hey, that sounds like going for your dream.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Trip to San Jose November 9, 2016

It was a beautiful day, clear sky, green fields. I arrived at the airport at 8 p.m. for a 9:20 flight.

Pretty easy huh?

Nine hours later I arrived at my motel in San Jose at 6 o’clock in the evening.

Could I have driven the distance in that time? Maybe. Except I couldn’t have read a novel or napped on the plane.

I felt that I had been dropped into a 3^rd world country.

The plane in Eugene was delayed for about 45 minutes. I had brought my laptop that weighs a ton and placed it atop my roll-on suitcase. The weight of it made that luggage sluggish and hard to pull. No problem, just walk down the jetway and board your plane. Right?

Wrong.

There was no jetway.

The plane was a little puddle jumper to Portland, and I guess it didn’t deserve a jetway. It was parked outside.

Okay. No problem. No rain. Except to my surprise once out of the airport gate,  we entered a long outside corridor that was blocks long. (I’m not exaggerating this time.) We could leave our suitcase at the bottom of the stairs but needed to take electronic devices aboard. I lugged my heavy computer case up the stairs, and all was well.

We were off.

Except that we arrived in Portland 45 minutes late, and by the time I dragged that suitcase with the computer down a ten-mile long corridor and arrived at the gate it was closed. Bye, plane. I watched as it pulled pull away from its jetway.

They reassigned me. The next plane would leave in two hours. They told me to go to gate C 9. And where was gate C 9? Back down that ten-mile long corridor, with me schlepping that suitcase while my back swore at me.

And where was the plane?

Parked outside.

To conserve space they offered to check my bag for free, so I did, and we flew to San Jose while I read and napped and told my back all was well.  It could relax.

We arrived around 4:30.

I decided since time was not a problem this evening, to try out my UBER app, and through it arranged for a car. (Only $5,16 they said.) I had planned on registering for the Tony Robbins event at the convention center this evening, but due to the late hour and my exhaustion, changed my mind.  In the morning I would join the great throng of other contestants also registering. (My consultant warned me.)

The UBER site said a car would arrive around 5 p.m., then they said 5:30. I waited and waited, and the phone kept saying they would arrive in 2 minutes, then 3, then 4, then 2. And the phone was down to a 5% charge.

Finally, I gave up and took a shuttle ($25.00) to my motel—not a hotel, a MOTEL.

Usually one has a car when arriving at a “MOTOR lodge.” I had switched from a hotel to save money.  That meant I had to walk to my room, number 183, down a pathway, over a bridge, through the woods, no, but it felt like a mile with me feeling I was pulling a cement truck.

I arrived at my room and decided not to leave it until morning. Among the many food items, packed in my suitcase is power-shake makings, so that will have to do for dinner.  They warned us to bring snacks for there will be no lunch break tomorrow.

At the Motel I had to pay for WiFi, and yes I did need to sign a document from back home, which was one reason I bought the computer.

I’m on the computer now, figuring I should use it since I paid for it.

I’m not complaining, just the facts, and I got in a day of reading, and up there in the sky, I marveled again how exquisite it is to fly. Can you believe people can fly? They can pour themselves into a big heavy bird and sail away. It is incredible, even if ground duty makes it take all day.

And speaking of birds, this morning on the way to the airport husband dear and I saw a flotilla of geese, floating down like eiderdown feathers, and landing in a tight puddle of brown the size of a football field in an immense field of green. And behind them, another group ebbed and flowed in slow motion until they gradually joined the dark sea of Canadian geese sitting down for a feed or a rest.

Tomorrow the event.

To be continued.

The Tigers are Circling

"Writing is like hugging a tiger you don't know if he will hug you back or eat you."

The Tigers circled again last night. I thought they were worries or concerns of the mind or plagues of the psyche. Daughter dear said those are “Tigers that turn our dreams into remorse.”

So I let the tigers have their way for a little while, just so they could air their grievances, and then I turned to #Joseph Campbell’s admonition: “Follow You Bliss,” did an about face, decided that everything would work out, and went to sleep.

Tomorrow I'm off to see the wizard.

#Tony Robbins

"Wherever you go you meet part of your story."