It’s Time to Thrive

by Arjuna Ardagh and Jonathan Robinson

This Thursday we launch our new tele-seminar series on how to thrive in the new economy.

Pretty much anywhere you go these days, you hear people talking about what a tough economy it is. Of course, unemployment is at alarmingly high levels, people are losing their houses, and many countries today have national debts skyrocketing out of proportion to their Gross Domestic Product. These are real problems that require real solutions.

At the same time, many people today are thriving in a way that they never thought possible. By thriving, we don’t mean simply making more money. We mean living a multidimensional life that is ultimately, deeply fulfilling: one that includes openhearted, loving relationships, a spirit of service and community, and the unwavering certainty that you have gotten in touch with the gift you were born to give, and you are giving it passionately to the world.

We’ve investigated why some people thrive beyond their wildest dreams in this “difficult economy,” and some people contract in a feeling of fear and dis-empowerment. We’ve managed to isolate 27 characteristics, which “thrivers” demonstrate.

Another way to look at these times is not so much  a “difficult economy,” but an economy of transition. When the agricultural age turned into the industrial age, or when we shifted from mechanical based industry to electronics based,  the old rules no longer applied. We are going through a shift today more dramatic than ever before. We are living through a shift  in collective consciousness, where we must evolve or perish.  People who are firmly committed to the old ways of doing things, who want to repeat what they’ve learned in school, may be in for a tough time. On the other hand, thrivers have learned how to ride the wave, and how to tune into what is coming next, instead of into what is crumbling.

Over the next 12 weeks, between now and December 8th, we are going to introduce you to the 12 most important qualities needed to thrive in the new economy. Our guests include people like Jack Canfield, Lynne Twist, Ivan Misner, Lynne Mctaggart and Hale Dwoskin. These people are not just financially successful (although most of them are), they are experiencing extraordinarily high levels of fulfillment in every area of their lives, and they know how to pass it on.

 

How to Release Core Tension and sink into child like innocence

A few weeks ago I was in Tucson AZ, for a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council.  Before the conference began, I gave a talk at the local Unity Church.  When he picked me up from the airport, my organizer told me an interesting story.  He had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy a few years before, and had all but given up on all hope for a normal life; until he met a man who had taught him something he called “tremoring.”  He didn’t say much about it except that it had healed him in only a few months. Since training in the method as well he had witnessed miracles with other as well.  He asked me if I would like to meet the teacher of this method, and I agreed

The next day I got a ride to a hotel outside of Tucson, where I met David Berceli.   David was a Catholic missionary for several decades, working in war-torn areas like Afghanistan, Iraq and Bosnia.  His role as a missionary was not so much to convert people to Catholicism, but to help alleviate the human suffering created in the aftermath of war.  He became very familiar with the symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and even began to suffer from it himself after spending so much time in areas where there was bombing.  He returned to the United States, got his Ph.D. in psychology, and investigated deeply the mechanisms by which trauma gets stored in the body.

He explained all this to me in a few minutes and then asked me if I would like to try his method.  “Sure,” I shrugged.  “Why not?” What happened in the next 20 minutes was nothing short of a miracle.  He asked me to put my body into different postures which put it into mild stress.  For example: raising my body up and down on one bent leg, or “sitting against the wall”.  After I went through his instructions, which were not painful, just mildly uncomfortable, a shaking began, first along the psoas muscles that run between the inner thigh and the belly.  Once the shaking became strong and involuntary, he asked me to lay down on my back, with my legs slightly open, and to breathe deeply.  The tremoring increased and moved up into my belly.  It would build up in a particular place in my body to a crescendo, and then completely dissipate.  A minute or two of nothing, and then it would build again, in another part of the body. This continued for about 15 minutes, until David suggested we had had enough for that day.

When I sat up, I felt relaxed in a way that I have probably not felt since I was a small baby.  I had let go of tension in my belly that I never knew I had.  Once I “got it” about the power of tremoring, David told me a little bit more about what he has been doing with his life.  For example, he just got back from Norway, where he was working with the education department, training them to conduct tremoring sessions with the teens who survived the shooting tragedy in July.  He worked directly with 35 survivors from the bombing in downtown Oslo.  This year, he’s already been to Japan to work with earthquake survivors, as well as regular visits to Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.  He’s worked with the U.S. military with PTSD soldiers, as well as the civilian victims of war.  David does almost all of his work for free, in huge groups of people.  In Africa, for example, he might work with 150 people at a time, in many groups throughout the day; thereby facilitating several thousands of people per day in trauma release.

This work is powerful and effective.  Once you learn it (which you can do from a DVD), you can duplicate the effects any time you like.  It releases core stress from the body, reaching places that even the most skilled massage therapist would have trouble in helping you let go.

I find this approach particularly interesting because I am primarily a teacher of awakening.  It’s relatively easy these days to have a glimpse of limitless consciousness; the challenge is how to live it in day-to-day life.  And why are we challenged?  Simple.  You know the answer as well as I do.  Because of stress.  Because we are overwhelmed with decisions and responsibilities, and we lose connection with ourselves.  This method is one of the simplest and most powerful ways that I’ve found in a long time to relieve stress and come back to a state of innocence in your body.

It’s rare these days to find someone as devoid of self-interest as David Bercelli.  He lives in a small apartment in Tucson, and travels the world.  He’s on the road almost 300 days out of the year, and does almost all of his work for free.  The only thing he gets paid for is to train other people to be facilitators of his work, and the course is relatively inexpensive.

I want you to join me for a free tele-seminar with David Bercelli this Thursday, September 8th, at 6 pm.  I am going to talk to him about the extraordinary work he’s been doing around the world, as well as how easy it is to learn this method for yourself.  You will be able to pick up his book and DVD in the security of knowing that the money you spend will help him to support people much more traumatized, and much less fortunate, than you and me.

Please make sure you join me to meet this extraordinary and life-changing man.

REGISTER FOR THE TELE-SEMINAR WITH DAVID BERCELI HERE

 

Becoming Translucent

Webster’s dictionary defines translucent as “letting light pass through, but not transparent.” A transparent object, like a clean sheet of glass, is almost invisible. You see everything through a transparent object as if it were not there at all. An opaque object, on the other hand, blocks light completely. A translucent object allows light to pass through, but diffusely, while maintaining its form and texture. Objects on the other side cannot be clearly distinguished. A crystal is translucent. So is a sculpture of frosted glass — if the sun were to shine on it from behind, you would see the light passing through the sculpture, and it would appear to be glowing from the inside.

Translucent people also appear to glow from the inside. They have access to their deepest nature as peaceful, limitless, free, unchanging, and at the same time they remain fully involved in the events of their personal lives. Thoughts, fears, and desires still come and go; life is still characterized by temporary trials, misfortunes, and stress. But the personal story is no longer opaque: it is now capable of reflecting something deeper, more luminous and abiding, that can shine through it.

 

A Life of Paradox

Here is a passage from my book Leap Before You Look.

When we are willing to exchange our life of preoccupation with “me” and “my needs” for a life given in the service of love itself, of that presence itself, we are faced with an interesting paradox.

On one side of the paradox, we recognize that everything is perfect just as it is. When the chatter of the mind recedes just a little bit, when the smells, colors, and textures of the world become more immediately felt, we recognize the grace running through it all. Even in conflict, or in the midst of what we call suffering, if we are really in touch with the pulse of life itself, we can feel the beauty of it all.

On the other side of the paradox, we realize that everything is continuously evolving. Our human condition, as it is now, is flawed with unconscious habits, addictions, and compulsions. In seeing the gap between who we are today and who we could be, seeing the trickle of gifting that’s coming through us relative to the latent torrent that we intuit, we bow in humility. When we look down from our resting point on the mountain, we may marvel at how far we have come from the valley below, but when we look up, the peaks are still lofty and daunting, and we know there is still much more to discover.

 

Tap, tap, tapping

I remember many years ago I went for a coaching session with an extraordinary man names Stan Russell. This was before the word “coaching” was used for anything other than football, tennis, and soccer. So he was a coach before we even called such people coaches.

We discovered some unconscious beliefs I was holding about different things in my life, and instead of talking about the content, or the story or the history or anything, he had me do something very strange. He had me tap on different points of my body while doing other unusual activities like counting from 20 backwards in multiples of three, or singing Yankee Doodle.

The amazing and unexpected consequence was that a lot of aspects of my life got clear on their own without having to deal with them directly.

Twenty years later, I got re-introduced to this method of “tapping” by my friend Nick Ortner.

 

Spontaneous Forgiveness

Here’s a passage from my book The Translucent Revolution.

With the willingness to be less defined comes a loosening of our grip on the past. The past is of little use when you have no case to defend. If the trial is dismissed as boring and irrelevant, you can send the witnesses home to get on with their lives and dump the bulging dossier of carefully crafted case notes into the trash. Translucents have a natural interest in forgiving and moving on. Forgiveness is no longer a moral virtue, or something we need to practice, but the effortless by-product of no longer needing to protect anidentity with a story attached to it. The past is not healed; it simply ceases to be useful.

I know a woman named Sarah who had memories of abuse as a child. She was never quite sure which of the events she remembered actually happened, but they certainly all seemed real. She saw a number of therapists over many years. She visited her family from time to time; she tried to sit down with her father to find out what had really happened. She joined a support group. This identity, as a survivor of abuse, was one of the first things she would tell you about herself. Some years ago, Sarah came to a gathering I offered. She had an awakening; she discovered reality without the filters of her mind.

 

Breathe Totally

Here’s a passage from my book Leap Before You Look.

Notice how you are already breathing in this moment.
Is the breath coming more into the upper part of the body?
Is it reaching the diaphragm?
Or is the breath reaching all the way down to the lower belly?
After just watching the way you are breathing for a couple of minutes,
Begin to bring some intention to your breathing.
With the in-breath,
Let the lower belly soften and expand.
When the lower belly feels full,
Feel the diaphragm expand with the breath.
Finally, let the chest and lungs fill completely with breath.
Hold the in-breath for a few moments,
Only as long as is comfortable,
Then let the air be expelled fully from the lungs:
First from the chest, then the diaphragm, and then the lower belly.
Just when you think you’re done,
Give an extra little push,
And you will find there is even more air to be expelled.
Hold on the out-breath for a few moments, before you inhale again.
Continue to breathe totally in this way for several minutes.

 

When your kids are your teachers

I’ve had many great teachers in my life. You could say that has been my greatest good fortunate. Mr. Coleman, my English teacher when I was fourteen, saw the writer in me, and his confidence bore fruit as seven published books. H.W.L. Poonja, a retired army officer I met in India, pointed me back to my essence with a ferocity that could not be denied. It shaped the rest of my life. My wife, Chameli, trusts deeply in my capacity to love, and so she brings that forth.

But my greatest teacher in the last months has been Shuba  ( his nickname) my fifteen year old son, whose wisdom far outshines anything I’ve been able to give him. He’s just finished his first year at high school.

Everything seemed to be going fairly well for the first few months. Whenever I asked, he reassured me he was up on homework, so I gave him a fairly loose rein. Until I discovered that he was getting close to failing a couple of classes, and had started consuming things that I’d say he’s not ready for. He started to bring friends home who struck me as prime examples of “not the right influence.” He had an accident, caused more by foolishness than bad luck,  and ended up in the hospital with a broken bone.  I know I know.  I should’aa, could’a, ought to’a…  I know.

 

Celebrate Dependency

Here’s a passage from my book Leap Before You Look.

When you start to feel needy or insecure,
Celebrate it completely.
Ask your partner to sit in a chair or on the sofa, A
nd sit at your partner’s feet for a few minutes.
Enter into your fear of abandonment,
The need to be loved completely.
Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I beg you.
I need you so much.
I can’t live without you. Please stay with me.
Look at me. Look at me. I want you. I need you.
Please don’t leave me.
As you enter more fully into this practice,
It will overflow from this exploration into deeper feeling.
You may find yourself crying.
It may evoke long-forgotten memories in you,
Or even the call of the heart to the divine.

 

The Mysteries of Distance Healing

Perhaps you already read the story of what Chameli and I went through back in April. The doctors diagnosed her with terminal cancer, and we lived with that diagnosis for several weeks, until she went in for surgery and we discovered that the tumor was benign. You can read about our medical roller-coaster ride here.

During the time that we passed through this visit to the valley of the shadow of death, we worked with two very powerful healers, and I’m going to introduce you to both of them over the next weeks. One is a man called Chunyi Lin, the author of the book You Were Born a Healer. He’s a third-generation qigong master that now lives in Minnesota. We know Chunyi from our membership in the Transformational Leadership Council. We worked with another healer at the same time, Deirdre Hade, and we will be introducing her to you in a couple of weeks.

As soon as the young doctor told Chameli he thought she had cancer, we called Chunyi right away. From his office in Minnesota, over the telephone, he was able to “tune in” to Chameli’s body. He didn’t ask for the results of any of the medical tests, or even for her symptoms. He just closed his eyes and connected.

Healers like Chunyi don’t talk in terms of “cancer” and “not cancer.” They read energy. He could sense some of what he calls “darker” energy around where the tumor was located. So, over several days, he worked on cleaning it up.