Category: Beliefs

  • Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Take Over the World

    Why Artificial Intelligence Won’t Take Over the World

    Any “free agent” that operates in our world must have an objective, or it is not going to get very far.

    This is true of people. If you ever observe people who “go in circles” or are “stuck” in life – it’s because they have no clear vision/objective. Many people give up on their dreams and objectives in their first few decades of life, and wander aimlessly after that.

    However, you’ll also notice that such people are often relatively “benign” – i.e. they may contribute to CO2 release by driving around to aimless jobs and activities, and they may over consume orange-food-colored chips and lite beer… but without an objective, they’re not actively trying to hurt anyone. If hurting someone does happen, it’s almost always an occasional reaction to something they don’t like, and it’s usually focused on just a few people close to that person. This is not the stuff of “taking over the world.”

    No. To understand the idea of AI taking over the world, we have to look at the movers and shakers, the people with a plan and objective.

    These are the people who have a true impact – be it positive or negative. That’s because they are clear on where they are headed, and they marshal resources to get there.

    For AI to have any chance of “taking over” as it’s been portrayed in many blockbuster movies, there would have to be a clear plan and objective “to take over.” It is certainly possible that an advanced AI could have this as an objective, and marshal resources towards that end. It may even make some progress in taking over parts of the world. However, the idea that it would take over the world misses the boat.

    If the technology sufficient to build one such AI exists, then that means more can (and likely will) be developed soon thereafter. There is no reason that distinct AI’s developed by different people (or other AI’s) in distinct contexts would all have the same objective. It’s just like people. There are people who’ve sometimes attempted to take over the world with nefarious objectives (such as Hitler) – but fortunately, there were other people with other objectives that pushed back and stopped it. It is silly to think that there would be one “unified goal” for ALL AI of “taking over the world.” Certainly, any responsible AI developer will bake into their AI cake clear objectives that are for the good of humanity, not to its detriment.

    In one popular movie series (which I enjoyed very much), a military defense network takes over and launches nukes to get rid of humanity. Yet a “network” is actually a collection of hundreds or thousands of machines, each with different goals, programming, and firewalls. The idea that these would all join together in one unified objective of destroying humanity, before anyone – or any other AI – could stop them, is farfetched.

    Think of it like a friends network. Even if you hatch some kind of evil scheme to take over the world, will all your friends automatically agree and join you? It’s unlikely. This is exactly why I’m not a big conspiracy theorist: any sufficiently powerful conspiracy would have to make sure that everyone agrees and doesn’t sabotage its goals. In the real world, that kind of consensus is extraordinarily hard to achieve – especially in the Internet age.

    While nothing is truly impossible, the scenario in which AI actually takes over the world is very remote.

    Now, there are a few hidden lessons in this for any person wanting to live a better life. They are:

    1. Operating without a clear goal or objective in life is a recipe for “failure.” Many people give up on their big plans and ambitions at some point in life, and just start living reactively – day to day – with no real purpose. We all must have purpose in order to thrive or to have any impact.
    2. Many people get so frustrated that there are other people in the world who have different opinions and perspectives. This post was written during an election season in the USA, when many people are decrying the “other side” and how awful they are. Yet it is exactly this diversity of opinion that prevents the world from being taken over by men like Hitler. All the diversity makes the world a truly glorious place. If you truly embrace the diversity of thought and opinion, it makes life a lot more pleasant than continually fighting the “other side” to “prove” who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s okay if you’re into that kind of thing, but it sure does waste a lot of time and energy – and it never really improves the world. The people who improve the world are those who follow point #1 above and accomplish great things.

    Is it your time to thrive? Get a clear purpose and embrace the diversity of opinion that exists – even those who might seem to stand in your way.

  • Speed Kills… And I’m not talking about the highways

    speed kills

    speed kills

    I was out cross country skiing with my 8 yr old daughter the other day. It was her first time on “skate” Skiis, a form of XC skiing that requires a lot of timing and coordination to pull off. She was doing quite well given that it was her first time doing it. I was skiing slowly and staying with her to offer encouragement and support. After several miles and lots of wipeouts, she was still in good spirits, and was getting into the rhythm of it.

    We’d been unintentionally tag-teaming with three college students from Montana State. Or at least that’s what their team-logo jackets advertised as they would speed past, then pause to chat and snack while we would catch up and pass them. They clearly thought of themselves as the “cool crowd” out on the trails that day, since they were a “team” and everyone else were just nobodies out skiing to “just” enjoy themselves.

    Maybe they didn’t like being passed by a 40-something woman and her 8 year old. After the second time this happened, as they came flying past, the guy in the rear turned to us and said: “Nice Snowshoes“ while looking at our skiis, then he sped on.

    I had no idea what he was talking about. I like to be be oblivious at times. When I’m feeling good, enjoying time with my daughter, out on the trails, why worry about what some kid who’s barely out of puberty thinks?

    Besides, I didn’t get the “Snowshoes” remark. We were on skiis. So we finished out our skiing and I thought nothing more of it. My daughter was excited to try it again. When any of my kids do that, it is always a good sign that they enjoyed it.

    Dreams as clues

    Consciously I’d not thought about the remark again, but apparently my subconscious mind wasn’t finished. That night, I found myself as a teenager again, a bit awkward and definitely an ‘outsider.’ We were at a party of some kind, at a house with large, fancy glass doors. There was a group of teenagers who were ridiculing me for being slow. After suffering their taunting, I ended up outside and the glass doors were banged shut. I could see them laughing about me, but could no longer hear their words. I was shut out. I felt isolated, scared, and sad.

    That was enough to wake me up. I don’t often have bad dreams nowadays, so this caught my attention. As I tossed and turned, I realized something: It wasn’t just the guy from Montana State or the dream, several other things had happened recently along these same lines.

    Just two days before the “Montana State Incident” I’d been in the chairlift line with my older daughter. There are three different “feeder” lines that all merge into one line to get on the lift. Normally at our local resort people are quite friendly (no, this is not the East Coast, yay). The standard routine is to alternate who merges into the main line. In five years of skiing here, I can recall only one or two times where people were rude about it and tried to “butt” in line.

    Well, this time there were – surprise – three ~16 year old girls in line who didn’t feel that they needed to be polite. They were in a God-given rush to get to the top, and felt entitled to cut in front of people to get there. They were attempting to cut in front of us, following directly on the heels of the other skiers from their “feeder” line without waiting.

    Now, I can be cantankerous with teenage bullies. Maybe it’s because I suffered enough bullying at their hands as a teenager until I started “fighting back” that I still have some of that fight left in me. I made sure to wedge my skiis in front of theirs, making space for my daughter and I in our rightful place in the merged line.

    Their response was some kind of rude comment about our ski pants. Neither my daughter or I could hear what the remark was or which one of us it was directed at, but it was clearly meant for us, and was derogatory. After we got on the lift, my 11 year old said the word ”teenagers” while shaking her head and sighing. That’s funny coming from a pre-teen! Maybe there’s hope for her yet!

    Anyway, those wonderful teenagers then proceeded to have a party on the chairlift, with loud music blaring and snide comments being lobbed at other skiers down below on the hill. After my daughter and I got off, they sped past haughtily, clearly showing us they were too cool.

    Three times is one too many

    It would have been easy to ignore one of those incidents alone, but the combination – including the dream – were clues to something deeper. When multiple “coincidences” happen along the same lines in a short span of time, it pays to take heed and understand what the deeper cause is.

    coincidence

    By “deeper cause” I am referring to what’s going on inside your own conscious and subconscious mind that brought these events to the forefront of your life. Coincidences of this sort always have lessons to teach, but unfortunately, most of us dismiss them as “just random” and we ignore them. In ignoring them, we invite more such events into our lives. These events are our inner being’s way of nudging us to learn something new and important. That inner being often communicates via events rather than words, because most of us have very noisy heads where any words just get lost in a sea of constant dialog.

    So, I’d rather “get” the lesson instead of repeating the same pattern over an over again with different faces and places, always feeling victimized like “the world is out to get me.”

    Those teenagers were the messenger

    My 3AM reflections while I tossed and turned in bed, pulling the sheets and blankets into a mess, came down to one word: speed. These teenagers – both the real ones and the dream ones – were all taunting me for being slow. The “snowshoes” comment by the Montana guy was implying that we might as well have been walking on snowshoes at the (slow) speed we were going.

    I found that intriguing, because I’m finally at a point in life where I’ve found some balance in not always rushing from one thing to the next. Yet part of me is still afraid: afraid that by slowing down in my life, I’ll be left behind. Here the universe was echoing that back at me, showing me how bogus it actually was.

    Ten years ago, back when I was younger and had a severe case of “testosterone poisoning,” skiing slow with my daughter and being passed by some young skiers would have been excruciating. I probably would have raced ahead to “prove” to them that I was just as fast (or faster), and only after proving that, returned to my daughter to see how she was doing.

    This time I had no such urge – at least not consciously.

    But there’s the rub. At a subconscious level, I was still feeling “left behind.” I haven’t reconciled my conscious beliefs – which are all about slowing down, focusing on quality and experience – with my subconscious beliefs, which come from that teenage version of me that was frequently “left behind.”

    My brother’s visit

    Why did this happen now? It just so happened that my older brother and his family were visiting us. If there’s one thing that’s true for most older brothers (or sisters), they don’t like being “slowed down” by their younger siblings. When growing up, I was left behind by my brother all the time — and sometimes taunted for being slow by he and his friends. I grew up having a “thing” about being left behind. It often seemed to happen, even though I hated it.

    I don’t hold a grudge about my brother’s actions now, 30+ years later — at least not consciously. But his presence, along with other things going on in my life and business, triggered this issue for me to recognize and go to work on. The teenagers, the dream, and my brother’s presence were all just hints that I had an opportunity to recognize and work on something that was holding me back in several areas of my life.

    And, here’s why this may be relevant to you. It’s not just something that has caused problems for me, it’s an all-pervasive MEME in our culture that causes problems for most of us.

    That meme is that going fast is superior to going slow. It comes with a whole related set of beliefs, such as:

    • You have to keep up with the Joneses, or you will be cast out to the wolves (or at least subject to great ridicule)
    • You have to work hard and fast to get anywhere worthwhile in life
    • If you’re a mom, you have to work hard all day, then be a great mom in the evening, and on top of it be a great partner, lover, and so on. Don’t ever slow down and take a break for yourself, or you’ll be thrown to the wolves!
    • That if you’re in research or business, you have to move really fast or be left behind by the competition in a “career wasteland.”

    It’s like we’re all plugged into our own little Lamborghinis with the foot to the metal 24/7. At least, until the engine blows up from overheating (i.e. heart attack), the gas runs out (chronic fatigue), etc. Ironically, most of us are just going in circles at 180 mph, and never really getting “anywhere” nor enjoy the journey on our way to that big blowout.

    Strange, isn’t it? We humans are an odd lot…

    My problem: wanting to go slow and feeling left behind

    I’ve long believed that this pace of “going nowhere fast” was unhealthy. I’ve cultivated a life where I can spend time with my daughters as they grow, where I can write a leisurely blog post like this, where I can sip my coffee in the morning without feeling the need to jump into work immediately just to “keep up.” And, ironically, it’s made me far more productive on the things that count (like getting books written and course lessons made).

    Yet there’s that part of me that’s still freaked out over the issue of feeling like I’m being left behind. I’ve often felt conflicted. Consciously, I know that taking days off with my family makes me more productive at work when I return to it. Subconsciously, there’s always been this dread, this fear, of being left behind, of not keeping up, of things falling apart…

    Unfortunately, the subconscious part, combined with all the constant cultural messages about “going fast,” has too frequently won out, causing me to “work hard” just due to fear of being left behind. I know I’m not the only one for whom that’s true. I don’t actually think that most people, if you asked them, would say that they want to constantly speed through life with little time to savor the important things. Yet if you look around, how many people actually translate that into action? Very few.

    Most people I encounter are feeling very rushed, always.

    When there’s a conscious/subconscious clash, healing is the key

    Most of us are walking around with more than one of these conscious/subconscious clashes. In order to identify yours, just look at any area of your life where you keep wanting things to improve, but they never really seem to in a lasting way. It could be weight loss, it could be grant funding, it could be cash flow, or it could be your relationship with your partner.

    Any time there’s been a persistent, chronic problem in your life, it’s a sign of the clash. When you have such a clash going on between subconscious beliefs and your conscious desires, the subconscious always wins. That is, until you do some reprogramming work to get rid of the conflicting subconscious garbage. Then you can finally straighten out the Lamborghini and get somewhpersistent problemere, while enjoying the journey.

     

    Pay attention to the signs

    Whatever is the “big issue” for you right now in your life, signs and clues are there, waiting for you to find. They can come in the form of people, circumstances, dreams, or fears, among others. Rather than ignoring them, take heed. Keep a journal, note when you seem to keep facing the same situation again and again.

    And ask yourself: what belief do I hold at the subconscious level that’s actually causing this cycle over and over again?

    If you do this, you’ll often be amazed by the power of what you find. If you take this exercise seriously, it has the power to completely transform your life.

  • Run and Cry

    Have you ever been in a situation – such as visiting with relatives (or dealing with collaborators, or etc) – where your head is ready to explode?

    I’m sure you have.

    Here’s the thing: It’s nothing wrong with them. They are who they are. You are who you are. Nobody is going to fundamentally change.

    This is true even when they’re good people who are well intentioned (as the relatives I’m currently visiting are). This is true when they are not so good and not so well intentioned.

    It is universal. It has nothing to do with the rightness or the wrongness of anyone involved. Yet so often we tend to make it about that. “They’re wrong and I’m right.” It makes your ego feel good but never solves the situation. Yes, I tried that for many years. Nothing changed.

    In this conflict between “who they are” and “who you are,” generally what ends up happening is one of two things:

    1. You “suck it up” and try to adapt. That strategy is one I’ve been familiar with many times in the past. All too many times I would subsume who I am and what I want for myself to the needs of others. Relatives, family, collaborators, kids. While I’m a strong personality, I also have a very strong streak of wanting to please others. When those came into conflict, the “wanting to please others” would often (usually) win.
    2. You make them “wrong.” I’ve done this too, usually when I reached my breaking point in any situation. I would just get to a point where I couldn’t handle “playing the good girl” anymore, and so I would decide that “they” (whoever they happened to be at the moment) were “wrong.” Once I brought that attitude into the relationship, things went downhill…. fast. Worse, it’s easy to feel guilty after doing this, and then make yourself “wrong.” So you end up with a whole buttload of “making people wrong” and nobody wins.

    There is another way.

    In my work with Core Analysis – i.e. using intuitive methods to get to the bottom of who we are at our Core – I found out that I’m highly “internal.” (It wasn’t a surprise). What this means is that my relationship with myself is  the most important relationship. I need lots of alone time to think, to process, and to work on where I’m at.

    For external people, this is bizarre. External people benefit greatly from being in relationship to other people, and not as much from “going inside.”

    I can be by myself for days in a row – and be VERY happy with it! Someone who’s external (like one of my daughters) would not do well with that.

    The conflict mounts

    When I go visit relatives with my family, it’s full-on. It’s round the clock people, people, and more people. It doesn’t matter whether they’re the nicest people in the world – being an internal person, I get burnt out. I get exhausted. I get frustrated.

    The point here is that each of us is somewhere on that internal-external spectrum (and similarly, there are a number of other spectrums) – and quite often when we’re in a situation – not just with relatives, but in any human situation – attempting the “suck it up” solution in the name of getting along – we end up exhausted. That often leads to the next phase, which is the making them wrong phase. Like I said, it’s all downhill.

    The pressure release

    This morning I was just about at my breaking point. I was going to snap at somebody or start the downhill trend. So I decided to go out for a run. Despite the cloudy day, I wore my sunglasses. I could feel tears coming on.

    In the past, I wouldn’t have let myself cry in public (even with sunglasses!). I would have still been in the “suck it up” mode, trying to adapt to a societal norm that says it’s weird to be out in public, running along a suburban street, with tears running down your face. Well screw that!

    So here I was, running down the tree-lined streets in gray, windy Madison, Wisconsin, letting the tears of angst and frustration flow. After I got over the first minute or so of “feeling like a freak” (a feeling that’s quite normal for me by now), I felt an incredible release.

    I ran faster. I let more tears flow. I ran up a hill at a speed faster than I have in over a year. And by now, the frustration was spent. There were no more tears.

    Why don’t we take care of ourselves?

    Social norms.

    Most of us are so caught up in “fitting in” that we subsume our health, our mental well being, and even our spiritual well being for the sake of avoiding negative judgements or conflict. (Or, alternatively, just cynically avoiding all such situations where we might be exposed to this kind of challenge).

    It’s c-r-a-z-y.

    Why do we do that? I for one am sick of doing that. I won’t do it anymore.

    That’s why I found myself running down that street with tears flowing – and ending up feeling better than I have in weeks!

    That one emotional release that I allowed for myself – in public – was better than meditating every day (which I do), journaling (which I do), regular exercise (which I do).

    Nobody should try to “fit in”

    The bottom line is that we are all hardwired – at our deepest Core – for certain tendencies. Most of us end up quite often very far out of alignment with that, and it’s usually in situations with other people. When we end up chronically out of alignment, it results in health problems. It results in relationship problems. It results in anxiety and bitterness. It ends up in unhealthy anger and blame (or worse, victimization). Some people spend their whole lives in these states. What a waste!

    We are not here having this human experience to try to “meld ourselves to fit in.” No, we are not.

    We are here to live our lives authentically self-expressed. We are here to align with who we are and look at the magic that happens when we do that.

    It’s a shame that society often gives us just the opposite message: suck it up, fit in, do your homework, work hard, be nice, get good grades, and all that bullshit.

    It really is bullshit, and I for one won’t do it anymore. My goal is to be able to have relationships with people where I don’t go down the route of “fitting in” and/or “making them wrong” – but instead, simply be myself – even if that ends up with me running on a public street with tears running down my face, looking like a madwoman.

    I am shedding the notion that fitting in is useful or healthy. (It’s not).

    My challenge to you

    My challenge to you is to join me. I challenge you to look at your life, identifying areas where you subsume your personality in order to “fit in” or “avoid conflict.”

    Then ask yourself this question: “what is the cost to me of continuing to do that?”

    Once you realize the true costs, I think you may decide that you want to stop doing that. Because for most of us, those true costs are simply too great.

    Let me know how it goes!

  • Lighten up, Life is an experiment

    Lighten up, Life is an experiment

    This is a first. I’ve not been very open in the past about my own spiritual path over the past few years – one that has led me from a very atheist point of view to now believing that there is much more to our universe than the material “stuff” that we see.

    It is not a journey that I undertook readily or with enthusiasm. I grew up to think of many religious people as a bit “nuts,” and by association, any form of spirituality was suspect.

    Yet my own path, my own questions, forced me to ultimately face up to this idea: we are far more than just the flesh-and-bones in these bodies, and we are more than just a random, meaningless lump of flesh in the universe.

    This is not about religion, it is about spirit. It is about finding meaning in an often difficult world, and finding a path that leads to peace, fun, love, and enjoyment of life. It is a very practical path indeed, and yet one that I – like many others – often resist due to our own biases and beliefs from the seemingly never-ending debate between religion and science.

    When you are willing to step aside from that debate, and go on an open-minded exploration of what our reality is really about, amazing things open up for you. One of those things for me has been that I have found I can get very quiet and still, and “tune into” some deeper voice, some deeper consciousness, that has a “knowing” that seems to go far beyond what I in this body could know about things. It has been incredible for me to start asking that voice questions about my life and our world, and to get some amazing answers back.

    Here I share one of those with you, that was spawned by a debate I saw a friend involved in about a rape that had happened, and whether the victim had somehow “attracted” that into her life or not. The flamethrowers came out… and it was not pretty. I wanted a deeper insight into what this was all about, so I asked the question, and here is what I got.

    Q: What about people who suffer severe traumas?

    A: Life is an experiment. Each event is one of a series of never-ending, eternal experiments, trials-and-errors, that happen to a soul over its eternal trajectory.

    For each “bad” thing that happens there is always a comparable “good” thing that happens, though not always in the same lifetime or in a way that is obvious to the person from their perspective at the time.

    You humans could do to lighten up, to chill out, to have fun with this ride you call Life. It is not much different than a play with actors, taking on different roles and trying different perspectives.

    A soul cannot reach it’s full potential if it never experiences pain, or what it is like to be a victim. Nor can it reach full potential without experiencing the opposite, being an oppressor or victimizer. These each lead to expansion and clarity of what is not wanted, which leads to more of what is wanted.

    All paths ultimately lead to Love and to Source (or what some of you may call God). And yet if the path was just a straight line, it would be boring. There would be no point, and certainly no fun.

    The only true thing that is “wrong” is the perspective you humans adopt into the “bad” (or “good”) things that happen. Rather than just letting those things be the past, you bring them into your present by focusing on them and recapitulating them over and over again. You like to think about them, memorialize them, teach history lessons about them, debate about them, stew over them, seek therapy to revisit them….

    And each time you re-live these so-called “bad” things, you bring more things like them to you. That which is like unto itself is drawn.

    So instead of experiencing relatively isolated incidents (or single lifetimes) of “bad,” you often experience a long-term perpetuation of the “bad.”

    We use that in quotes, because in the end, all of this is just an experiment. It’s an experiment that you agreed to participate in, joyously and willingly. How will it go? Will you as a species destroy the Earth? Or will you figure out a way to “make it work?”

    Either way there will be learning and growth and expansion. Neither way is a “dead end” in an infinite, evolving universe of possibility. There are other, countless, realities in which different scenarios play out, and it is never “done.” So if things go “bad” here, things will go “well” elsewhere.

    It is your choice. You do not need to fret or worry over what happens to others. Your job is to learn joy, love, and ultimately, your connection to source – to see as though through the eyes of your Source or your God. To see with love, connection, beauty, and truth, all things, all places, all occurrences.

    This does not, it cannot happen in one lifetime. This is a very grand undertaking, and again, one that leads to your soul’s expansion.

    This is not a “serious” game as so many would have you believe. The whole point of this is, shall we say, a step aside from “boredom.” Imagine an original state where there is nothing but perfection. Imagine that lasting forever. Imagine that perfection never changing. Imagine being a consciousness trapped in that state, aware, and yet trapped. Imagine the agony of that.

    How does one escape? By engaging in creation. Creation involves duality. You cannot create if there is not the thing you call contrast.

    Good/bad. Up/down. Right/wrong. Black/white. Male/Female. There are many, many contrasts that arise, and they are all part of the richness and complexity of this experiment you call “reality.” You cannot have the good without the bad, though some think that you can. The “good” is just as dead and lifeless as the “bad” without the other.

    Contrast leads to more contrast. For each refinement, there are further steps of refinement enabled. For each “BAD” there is new “GOOD” that arises. For each “GOOD” there is new “BAD” that becomes possible.

    It is a game. Kids know this, until you talk them out of knowing it, then they forget it and turn into “serious” adults like you.

    Kids know how to play, to imagine, to relax, to be in the moment, to have fun.

    You could learn from your kids (collectively) a lot about what life really is, but most of you are too busy “teaching” them what you know about life, much of which is bogus.

    You teach them the details of “how the world works” and yet the world changes at an ever-increasing rate, due to the expansion of consciousness that is occurring. How the world worked 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago when you were growing up is different than how the world works now.

    They are wise, they can learn how the world works through play, through presence, through their own exploration of the “good” and the “bad” – unless you get in their way.

    Find the good in every bad. Find the bad in every good. Know that they are just two sides of the same coin, and that they are neither good nor bad, they just “are.” Your judgements are the only thing that make them so. And your judgements are never made from the higher perspective of your soul, because you cannot, in your daily life, see its whole, eternal, trajectory.

    So here you are, in daily life, judging and deciding, and each time you decide and judge, you separate yourself, you slow yourself down from that alignment with Soul that you seek. It is not a problem, because your soul is eternal – it will far outlast this universe you see around you. And yet, you could have so much more of a fun life if you weren’t slowing it down.

    Why waste your life that way? It’s certainly up to you if you want to. You can throw away many lives in that way, and there will be no problem, except for that in each of those lives you “threw away” in worry and doubt and fear and being a victim or whatever, you are not experiencing anywhere near the fullness that you could in that life. It is a choice and there is no right or wrong in it.

    When you see those “bad” things happening to others, do not judge them. Do not judge the people doing the “bad” things, either. This is not to say that someone who violates the rules by which you’ve agreed to play here on this Earth should just be able to do whatever they want.

    But there is a difference between saying: “you’ve broken the rules and there are consequences” versus saying “you hurt this person and you are therefore bad/evil/wrong.” The first is a simple matter of finding a consequence that is appropriate for the rule-breach, and carrying out that consequence, and letting the perpetrator’s soul grow in the way that it is here to grow from that.

    When you get into the judgement about bad/evil/wrong, however, you then involve yourself in those energies. To think about those things, you bring those energies into your system. You attract more challenges with those things that you are giving those labels to. Is that what you want?

    Let’s take the example of the rape that was discussed recently. Both the victim and the perpetrator’s soul have grown from this incident. Was there another way to produce the same growth? Many of you seem to act as if you think there is. And yet if you, the reader, thinks about all the times of major growth in your life, was it not *always* on the heels of a major challenge you overcame? Is that not what every good story, movie, tv show, or book is based upon?

    It is a silly, utopian notion to think that souls can truly expand without challenges like this.

    Now, you may be thinking, “but I don’t want that in my life!” You don’t have to have that. Your soul has a trajectory here, but that trajectory evolves through the power of your choice.

    From an external perspective, often those “bad” things seem so random, so strange, so unfortunate, and so different from the “perfect” person you observe who had that happen.

    Yet you are not a mind reader. You do not see what is happening inside of the person’s conscious mind, nor at the soul level.

    People in your world have become very good at putting on acts. Acts as if everything is wonderful – when inside – there is turmoil, worry, fear, and other things you might call “karmic baggage.”

    So when someone has something you consider “bad” happen for “no good reason” – you are judging that from a very ignorant point of view, without nearly all the “facts”.

    The best that you can do in your life is to focus on your own soul’s trajectory in this body, finding ways to maximize that, and letting other souls do the same. If you do that in joy, in fun, in love, you can have a very expansive, clarifying, wonderful life experience.

    Either way, whether you choose to do that or not, your soul grows.

  • I GIVE IN!!!

    It’s time I come clean, put my BS aside and take responsibility for my truest, most raw BEING.
    Why?
    To serve & honour myself…YES! And just as important, to lead by example.
    To inspire & facilitate your most extraordinary evolution through my deeds NOT JUST THROUGH MY WORDS.
    And to bestow on you, what you are worthy of….choice.
    See…
    For years I’ve been focused on bringing you things like grant writing and productivity because that’s what my ego thought you wanted.
    Did you ever notice that your ego creates many illusions? Mine certainly does.
    One of the illusions it created is this: “my story isn’t important.” I had a false sense of modesty, thinking that “I’m not interesting, let’s not talk about me…”
    And yet…
    Every time I’ve told my story of transformation (several of them!) and of ultimately “finding myself” I’ve had far more requests for help than at any other time. It has inspired people to grow and change, because my story shows that it’s possible despite great obstacles.
    So I finally had a “duh” moment the other day. People have been craving this for a reason:
    Our society is set up from day one to program us to NOT be ourselves, but to live for other people’s impressions of us.
    Our ego gets addicted to the positive feedback that others give us when we do things that are pleasing to THEM, and we un-learn how to just be ourselves.
    Yet being ourselves is THE platform for truly inspired creativity. Lots of people claim “I’m not creative” which is total BS. The lack of creativity is simply a lack of being tuned into “being oneself.” This goes on to impact all other areas of life, limiting career progress and satisfaction.
    Being disconnected from who you are, and living from ego gratification, presents challenges to deep, satisfying relationships. It presents challenges to being truly healthy. 
    Who you are is a wonderful, loving, beautiful, fun, unique being.
    Who you’ve been programmed to act as is quite likely competitive, skeptical, reserved… constantly having to “prove yourself” to others around you in order to feel worthy.
    This way of being leads to things like the “impostor syndrome.” If you’re not being you – but operating out of your ego’s notion of what you think others want from you – you’re going to feel like an impostor! Operating from this false platform will never lead to truly good things in life.
    People who’ve achieved so-called success in that way always end up self-sabotaging at some point. Like the guy I just heard about from a friend who was wealthy, until a particular self-sabotaging behavior (coming from Ego) sunk the whole ship, and now he’s destitute.
    Yep, that was me, for many years of my life. And it continued even after I had the sex change. One surgery didn’t suddenly resolve this disconnection I had from myself. (Oh I wish it were that easy!!) It took far more work than that.
    I had PLENTY of self-sabotage going on, despite my apparent successes that my ego has been able to brag about (like the track record of grant funding and business growth).
    So anyway….
    I give in! I give up on my own illusions that my story is unimportant and uninspiring. I give up on the notion that people need help with grants and productivity and creativity… when if I’d been listening, I would have heard the message loud and clear:
    “Morgan, help us learn how to powerfully express who we truly are in the world, with no illusions, games, or false fronts!”
    And in doing that, I strongly suspect that the “troubles” with grants, with sales, with relationships, with health, with employees, with feeling like an impostor… those things will start resolving themselves. (EVERY big breakthrough in these areas I’ve had has been directly correlated with work I’ve done on aligning with core.)
    Honestly, it’s a bit weird to do this. It seems too “easy” – but that’s only because I’ve spent years and some major ups and downs learning how to do just that. Learning how to finally be myself! So I’ll see how it goes….
    And, if you’re ready to go to work on this – to remove those layers of falsity that keep you from expressing who you are in the world – then reach out to me. I can help.
    Morgan
  • What Lies in Stone….

    When speaking of his historically famous Statue of David, Michelangelo said this, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” He made similar comments throughout his lifetime about his artistic abilities and how he did not carve stone to look like figures, he simply released the figures from the stone. What a genius perspective to have. Michelangelo recognized that there was beauty within a block of stone and it was only up to him to reveal it. The same can be said for us and our authentic selves. I love talking about creating and how much better it can make every aspect of our lives, but when it comes to our core, its not about creating at all. It’s about what’s revealing whats already there.

    Who we are at our core is who we we were always meant to be. As we grow and experience life that connection to inner self can become foggy, and then layer upon layer we cover up that magnificent being and become who we think society, our families, our spouses, or our bosses want us to be.

    It is time to chip away at the layers surrounding our core. It is time to let go and release false beliefs and false judgements about ourselves.

    Just like Michelangelo’s beloved David, your authentic self is there, waiting in the stone to be uncovered.Screen Shot 2014-11-04 at 9.10.41 PM

  • Victimhood vs Vulnerability

    Being authentic in vulnerability vs. the hidden agenda of victimhood.

     

  • The Sniffles or a Lesson?

    Getting sick can teach us something? Heck yeah!

     

  • "Panic Culture" and Ebola

    Airborne

    I had the “pleasure” – if you can call it that – of traveling through one of America’s busiest airports today. On my way through, there were headlines and TV’s blaring: “EBOLA!!!” 

    Scare. Fear. Worry. Doubt.

    “It could strike you at any time, so be AWARE, be CAREFUL, be SAFE.”

    Now, look. I have done a lot of computer modeling using fancy-sounding things like “Agent-based modeling.” I’ve played with the simulations of disease spread. It used to strike fear in me.

    If you believe like I did that something like Ebola can strike you down at any random time, then you are screwed. If not this virus, then the next, or the one after that. Or heart attack. Or cancer. Or meteor. Or war. Or murder. You’ll find a way.

    There are MANY ways to die, and a lot of people spend their entire lives, not LIVING, but AVOIDING DEATH. That’s so silly, because you can’t avoid the inevitable.

    No Regrets

    And yes, I’m going to die someday. Maybe soon, maybe later. Would I prefer the “later” scenario? Sure – but only because I feel like I have unfinished business, like raising kids and getting some more positive messages out into the world through the work that I do. I also want to explore some places I haven’t seen before. Yet, if it happens today, or tomorrow, I feel that I’ve lived life FULLY so far. I’ve done in one lifetime what few people do – experiencing life as a student, a teacher, a scientist, an entrepreneur, an explorer, an author, a man, a woman.

    And IF it happens soon, I don’t give any credence to the idea that it’s just “random.” If that happens, it means that I’ve accomplished what I came into this body and this life to accomplish, and it’s time to move on. There is nothing WRONG or SCARY about that.

    Led by Fear or Leading by CORE

    One of the principles of our universe – and our lives – is that you get what you focus on.

    So, if you’re constantly tuned into the news that is screaming EBOLA or disaster – you’re constantly tuned into fear. Since you get what you focus on, you’re going to get more FEAR in your life – i.e. an ever-accumulating pile of things in life to worry over, all adding up to the BIG ONE, the FINAL thing that you worried about but couldn’t ever fully prepare for (because you were so afraid to think that you might be snubbed out so handily by “circumstances” that you pretended you weren’t thinking about it – but you were).

    I’m not talking about sticking your head in the sand. You can be aware of your goals (such as “I’ve got more to do here”) and act in accordance with those goals (such as “I should wash my hands and avoid dangerous situations where possible.”) But it’s easy to go over the top with this, and lose connection with your CORE – your intuitive guidance system that can HELP you accomplish your goals. If your goal is to live longer, that guidance system is far more powerful than any screaming alert sirens or flashing headlines. It will help you line up with the people, places, and things that help you accomplish your goals.

    Auto-pilot vs Taking the Controls

    What screws most of us up in that is that we get lost in doubt, worry, and fear. Those things disconnect us from that very guidance system – much like an airliner that has just been flipped off of autopilot into manual flight mode. Manual flight is ok, but has a few challenges: it is tiring because it requires constant vigilance – and it requires VERY good instruments. Especially in our extremely complex world, operating on “manual” will tie you in logical knots about what is right, safe, and correct versus what is wrong and unsafe. Our “rational” minds cannot deal with a complex future, so we end up making these “rational” decisions with heuristics – i.e. shortcuts.  One of the most common heuristics is: “everyone is doing it, so that must be the way to do it.” Talk about a dangerous way to run your life. It’s like an airiner on manual pilot flying through fog. There are many illusions and without very good instruments, an “incident” is quite likely. Good instruments are like your CORE guidance system – yet most of us ignore those.

    An intuitive signal from the CORE is powerful. A heuristic is weak. They are NOT the same. Listening to heuristics leads to those random bad things (and some good things, too). Listening to the CORE helps you stay on track to what you want – as long as you’re clear about it and you don’t contradict it with the worry, doubt, and fear.

    Do not succumb to the fear mongers. Yes – be aware – but more important is to stay in tune with what you want out of life – your positive vision – and keep moving towards that.  And by God, if you’re not living life FULLY right here and now, start doing it. Ebola or not, one day you WILL be dead. It happens to the best of us 🙂

    Morgan

  • Accepting What You Deserve: YOU Deserve it ALL!!

    Dear One,

    Deservingness. You’ve been told a lie and you’ve told a lie.

    The lie that you don’t deserve it.

    It doesn’t matter what “it” is.

    But you find yourself always making excuses for why you have to do X, Y, and Z BEFORE you can deserve it.

    A better life. Improved health. More happiness. A better relationship. Better  work. Better clients. More money.

    We find all the excuses in the world for not allowing these into our lives…

    Because, we say, “I don’t deserve that!!”

    Or worse, guilt and shame. “I feel guilty because if I get that, I’m taking from someone else.”

    It’s a lie. Who knows where it started. That does not matter here. What matters here is only one simple thing. 

    Did you believe it? Do you believe it?

    Because at its core, most believe it to be true. At some level, good things only come from really hard work. They only come from suffering. They only come from lots of guilt.

    Yet that’s not EVER how good things come. No good thing has ever come via the pathway of shame or guilt. Not a single one. Those are negative attractors that only bring more of the same to themselves.

    You cannot believe that these things are the pathway to “success” in what’s important to you and ever achieve success in that thing.

    The avenue is different. The avenue is from something more fundamental, more basic.

    The avenue comes from eliminating the lie and getting to the truth!

    You didn’t come into the magnificent body to hold success and well being away from yourself – at least not for long.

    Yes, you want challenge. You want growth. But because we internalize this lie of non-deservingness, we go way beyond the healthy aspects of challenge and growth, into a perpetuation of states that hold us back. They keep us from embracing the growth that we could have had so simply – if we had only felt we deserved simplicity and ease.

    If you are overwhelmed, it is for one reason alone. It is because you do not believe at your CORE that you deserve your success to come to you easily and without struggle.

    Perpetual struggle is not a “natural” state for any being except modern humans. All other creatures may have brief struggles, but they quickly move on. They understand that struggle is not from love, not from flow.

    We do not. We have accepted the illusion that in struggle is glory – and so struggle we do. Always. We turn it from something that may happen once or twice into a state of being.

    That is a state of being which says: I do not deserve joy, I do not deserve flow, I do not deserve ease. It says: if I overcome one hurdle, I have to immediately find another one to embrace, or else I will not have value.

    Yet you DO have value. Intrinsically. Who you are is valuable. But if you have forgotten that, then you start associating your value with what you do, and with how people react to you.

    Do you see how fickle that is? Those people you are depending upon for your sense of worth, deservingness, and value may or may not give it to you. And so you stake your fate on external factors that you will NEVER control.

    Human babies do not do this. They feel their value. They feel worthy of the attention they receive. Of the love they receive. Then, as they grow up, they start learning that worth comes from pleasing others, and from “hard work” or accomplishment!

    Yet there is never enough hard work or accomplishment or pleasing of others to fill the void! Those are incredibly weak factors. They are transitory. The void never gets filled.

    You are deserving. That deserving does not come from outside, it comes from the inside. Inside of you is a loving, deserving being. But in your attention to these outside factors, you forgot to look inside for that which you seek. You’ve buried it, much like a treasure lost at the bottom of the ocean – and now it’s so far down beneath the water, that you can’t even see where it is.

    IT IS THERE! It may take some effort to find. But if you TRUST, and BELIEVE that it is there, and persist in your search, find it you will. You will find the greatest treasure that any human being could have: a sense of worthiness, well beingness, and deservingness. 

    Once you find those things, and truly FEEL them, LIVE them, you can have any external thing you want. Yet those external things will not matter so much to you, because they will pale in comparison to the treasure you have found INSIDE of you.

    Seek your treasure. Seek your own inner worth and value. Learn to feel deserving again. It is the most important adventure and challenge you could ever embark upon. So go in haste, my worthy, wonderful human being! Now is the time.

    -Morgan