A Message To Tim

Hello Tim,

Yes, I know you found my blog. I make no apologies for its content, this has been a good way for me to blow off steam about the past. I want you to know that while I've cursed your name to damnation here, I am silently thankful for the lessons I've learned from you and I love you like a brother.

See, what you have to understand is that up in Hunters I was playing out my pattern of hero/victim. Time after time in my life I would take up the reins and be the lone ranger, so to speak, in the midst of a race. I felt I was always carrying the weight of a small business on my back and making it 90% to the finish line before I fell in exhaustion. Then once I fell, I would look around and notice that nobody was there to help. Before, I thought that my team, my loved ones, whoever, weren't there to support me. Now I realize that I was the one who jumped the gun all along and was too far out of reach for anyone to help before the race was over. You weren't the first I've done that with, nor was I the first you handed the reins to, just to watch them collapse before the finish.

I didn't get support, friendship, above-average compensation, advice nor companionship because I didn't ask for it. Simply put, I didn't take ownership of my life, and I blamed you. That's not to say you didn't do anything wrong, just that my life is mine, and to give you as much control over me as I did was my own doing. However, wether it was you or anyone else, the story would still be the same.

The point of all this is that you also have patterns. You have issues, same as me and pretty much everyone on this planet. Sexual issues, confidence issues, health issues, things most people call "demons of the past". Your patterns are wrapped around your issues, and I'm here to tell you that until you heal the issues, your patterns will constantly repeat. Your relationship with your family, wife and friends will constantly fail, your businesses will constantly fail, and you will constantly complain about the circumstances while you set them up to repeat.

How many companies have you gone through? How many of them failed in similar ways that DataPort failed? You played into my pattern just as I played into yours, and we co-created a disaster costing many people their jobs and financial stability. How many women have you gone through? How many of them genuinely cared about you? How many of them still genuinely care about you? Is that a failure on their part or yours? How many bad things have you done? How much shame do you carry because of that? How much do you, to this day, beat yourself up for the things you only thought were bad when you were a kid? What would life look like on the other side of that barrier?

As for me, I'm done. I still have my patterns, and still use them from time to time, but I notice them now, I avoid them, I work on them and practice situations where they would normally show up, so that they don't. I am free of the shame that those patterns and issues pressed upon me, I know who my true self is now and am safe to acknoledge how magnificent I really am. My mind, the thing that tells me I'm not good enough to do this or that, or that if I speak I won't be heard, if I ask for what I want I won't get it -- is nothing more then a computer that can be re-programmed. God is there forgiving me left and right, every time I ask, yet I wasn't forgiving myself, because my mental programming wouldn't allow it. My magnificent self has been sitting in the shadows, bored as hell that he doesn't get a turn to play in this realm, until one miraculous day the door opened and he was let out.

I know you Tim, you too are truly magnificent. You make huge messes, and that's somthing only a huge spirit can do. You have a gift when it comes to influence, you can pretty much get anyone to do anything you want, but you misuse this gift from time to time. You have high intelligence and a keen insight into situations, but you trust your intuition only 10% and make up the other 90% of the story causing huge catastrophes in all aspects of your life. You love your fellow man and honestly would do whatever you could do for others, but you keep letting non-important things interfere with your duty to service to humanity. You are conflicted, and when you get clear you will be an inspiration to the world.

Take Harvey's advice, go through The Awakening, get an outside perspective on your most private secrets, fears and shortcomings and really let yourself have a taste of true love and acceptance. Give yourself permission to do what you want, when you want, in a way that WORKS. Give yourself integrety, impeccability and support from other integrous, impeccable people. I garuntee your business, emotional and possibly marital problems will start to disolve as you begin to let yourself be the least bit vulnerable and open. Forget about the fears you have, the ones that make up reasons not to go... You remember when Elite was in its prime and the money started flowing from between 5 and 10 to between 70 and 80 grand a month? That was Harvey's awakening. Sure, some bad shit has happened since, but it needed to in order for Harvey to get what he always wanted. Think about it...

I also can testify to the power of the insights I got while there. For example, at the end of this month I'm getting married to an incredible, powerful, loving, inspiring, wonderful woman. Neither of us *have* to work a day in my life. I've inspired and improved the lives of hundreds of people since I arrived. I have saved the lives of a few, who without my gift would otherwise have commited suicide. Also, my family is healing all our old wounds. Mom is going through the awakening, my cousins to follow later this year, my father is showing an interest in it, and each one of them are spreading the messages of integrety and love they learned from me rather then perpetuating the pain most people get from one and give multiplied to another.

Tim: GO THROUGH THE AWAKENING. That's my plea to you. If you do go through it, I will be there to support you and complete with you. I will talk frankly with you, give you honest feedback, all in an attempt to help you reach your full potential with the gifts you posess. I will welcome you to a world of love, that you can leave your world of shame and fear behind. I will once again be your friend.

However, if you don't, won't you be suprised when you start thinking about what kind of life you might be missing out on. When that happens, just realize that it's never too late. Either way, good luck and good-bye.

PS: Please do not try to contact me. Our business is done, and the only condition to which I'll allow you to be in my life again is stated above. No, I will not do any more sites or any sort of business with you again, and neither will Harvey, until such time as you demonstrate that you live a life of integrety (I know you think you do now, trust me there's a LOT more to it). I really hope I will see you again, but as I mentioned, that will happen only through one course of events.

Game Over, play again?

3 months. Wow.

Alot can, and indeed has, happen in 3 months. Nikki found out she was preagnant with twins, had to have an abortion to save her own life, and has kind of spiraled down into despair ever since. We had a great conversation over coffee a couple weeks back about the possibility of a relationship, and found it might be possible if I didn't remind her so damn much of her soon-to-be ex husband, both in good and bad ways. I resolve to continue meeting her for coffee and supporting her as a friend to get through her shit... If things don't work out otherwise it may turn into one of those "When Harry Met Sally" type of things, we'll see.

So, a while back (before last blog entry, but I don't think I blogged about it for fear of embarrasment), I did some trade work for a "medical intuitive". I designed a web site for her in exchange for an "angel reading". This was very entertaining to say the least, and a bit inspiring and enlightening at best. She told me that I have aliens, time travelers from the future, and past and future lineage as guardian angles. Not quite my cup of tea but whatever.

She also told me I have a special 'gift' to tap into a universal source of knowledge, and "just know" things I would otherwise have no knowledge about. She also told me that I should work on developing this talent more, and gave me some pointers on ways to do this.

Alright, this is already getting pretty "woo", but I don't care. I've always felt that I had a connection to some sort of information source, that's how I've learned code and design so quickly. That's how I write code so quickly, most of the time I'm not writing it, it's writing itself in the back of my mind until my mind can dump it out through my fingers on the keyboard. Call it a talent for code or whatever you want, but I think it's more... Will calls this "god code", when you get so in the zone that the code you write would make the guy who wrote Doom say "damn, wish I thought of that". This kind of code is not an accident, it is not just latent talent within you, it is external to you and to make a connection to that external source is a rare and special gift.

So what else can I do with this gift besides write good code? One of the pointers she gave me was to get really grounded and centered, and just start typing questions on a keyboard, and let the answers pour through my fingers without even thinking about them. I tried this, and it worked. I asked whoever or whatever I was channeling when, how and if my love life was going to progress, and some of the answers I got were astounding.

1) I will meet the right woman "soon"
2) I will see a picture of her, or hear about her, before I finally meet her
3) Once initial contact is made, I will go back into my old ways of hiding for a short time, but finally work up the courage to maintain contact and persue a relationship
4) No preparation necessary, no conditions on finding her, no messes to clean up first. It will happen, and I just have to wait patiently until it does.
5) She will be as attracted to me and as intense emotionally about me as I am to her.
6) We can already feel each other in our hearts, even if we don't know the exact source of that feeling yet

Ok I admit, pretty generic stuff, but not bad for my first attempt at this fortune telling nonsense. Except, in a suprising twist of fate, #'s 1 through 4 seem to have just happened in the last 24 hours.

A week ago yesterday, I got a response to my profile on plentyoffish.com from someone who said she felt immediately drawn to me upon reading what I wrote on my profile. This took my by suprise as I hadn't gotten any hits on there since I opened my account last March. It scared me a bit too, I didn't honestly expect anything to come from it, I honestly thought that I would probably meet someone in these workshops I'm doing (like Nikki) and I wouldn't have to deal with the internet dating thing I so despised. I looked at her profile (see #2), and was immediately captivated by the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. That scared me even more, that someone I actually found attractive would be drawn to me so intensely, so I didn't write her back before I left (see #3).

In New Orleans I talked to Harvey about it a little, mostly just to acknoledge the feelings of inadequacy I was feeling and the shame I felt at leaving someone hanging like that. I resolved that as soon as I got back I'd e-mail her a response, and that's exactly what I did, only I used being in New Orleans as an excuse for not having written her (though we were pretty busy out there -- busy partying), and told her I would call her soon. I got a reply from her that I really wasn't expecting, a reply from the heart basically saying "oh good, I was worried about you". How could someone I never even met, and sent a single e-mail to be worried, or even care, about me?

Wednesday night, to distract myself from focusing on what I should be doing but wasn't, I opened up word and started typing out a list of intentions I had for my future mate. The end result ended up being about 2 pages of every quality I want and don't want. I got really worked up on that list, almost like I had gone through a powerful meditation, and went to bed quite content and happy. Yet, I still hadn't called her. Damn.

I spent almost 2 hours last night trying to dial her phone number, never quite hitting that last digit. I finally quit trying, and sat down and tried to calm my nerves a little bit. I felt somthing big coming up on the horizon, sort of like that feeling of suddenly finding yourself perpendicular to your lane on an icy road, mixed with a type of elation I've never felt before. I talked to Harvey some more on IM, and that wasn't quite working. I tried to do a visualization, and that didn't work. I read over the intention list I made up the night before, hoping that would spark the same intense feelings and put me in the right attitude to call her, not even that worked. Finally, I looked at my wrist and knew exactly what I had to do.

For those who aren't around me every day, on my wrist is a bracelet, and that bracelet signifies an important event in my life which I actually blogged about a few posts down. This bracelet I got from the Spirit of the Awakened Warrior workshop, and to me signifies that not only can I face my fear and end up victorious, but that I made a commitment to myself to do so at all costs for the sake of my future family. I walked on fire, literally, to get this bracelet, and to chicken out of dialing 7 digits on a phone instead of just 6 would dishonor that whole expirience for me. That expirience was literally magic, and is one of the moments in my life I can look back on proudly and proclaim: "I did that!". I'll be damned if I let anything, especially myself, cloud or dishonor the memory of what I went through there.

I dialed the 7th digit.

She was in the middle of a piano lesson and would call me back shortly.

Damnit. I hate awkward beginnings like that. While I was waiting, Nikki popped on Yahoo and talked to me a bit about the latest problems she's having in her life. We talked for 2 hours, and still no call back. I was hurt, upset, almost pissed... then I remembered that I did the same thing to her and I probably deserved it. Soon as I realized that, the phone rang.

Rarely in the course of our lives do we ever meet someone who is so connected, so spot-on with our own thoughts, feelings and fears that we can just think what we want to say and the other person hears it. Friends, I was fortunate enough to have that expirience last night. Natalie and I talked from 11:30 pm to 6:30 am this morning, covering all the bases most people cover over the course of 3 months of dating. We covered dreams, aspirations, fears, personal quirks, boundaries and limits, sexuality, fantasy, and, well, other private stuff. By 6:30 am I was more emotionally and physically satisfied then I've been in years, and reluctantly we parted for need of sleep and work.

I know, you've heard this story before, even from me some posts down. But not exactly, not like this. Last night was different, special, unique. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I think I have a girlfriend, whom may very well be my soul mate, and we haven't even met face to face yet. I bet, no, I INTEND that once we do meet face to face, what I've expirienced so far will be a drop of water in the ocean of expirience waiting for me.

Now I just have to ask myself; how good can I stand it?

Back in the Game

Tuesday I acted like a dumbass and invited Nikki out, even though she and her husband aren't resolved. She politely turned me down, but she gave me her number and agreed to be my phone partner for dream makers. After we were done talking, she joked that I was jealous of her husband... Heh, I tried to deny it but she saw right through that and still joked about it. I was a tad embarrassed, but she's right, I'm a little jealous... (from what I hear from her) he treats her like shit and I'm willing and able to respect and love someone like her, and she deserve it. Either way, I just want her to be happy and do what's true for her. No matter what she decides we'll always be good friends.

So today we had a guest event that she brought a friend to. Her friend seemed really freaked out by the whole thing, which coming from a place of my own past to a place like the awakening (flickr photos coming soon, promise!) freaked me out too, at the time, but not quite as bad as that. Nikki got up and did a great share (aka testimonial) about her expiriences there, but her friend wanted no part of the koom-by-ya and kool-aid we seem to have had too much of. Heh, oh well, time heals all wounds right?

Her friend wanted to leave early, but I managed to talk her in to seeing a seperate slideshow from the one the rest of the group watched, since the one the group watched was from the 60's and 70's and the one Chris (Nikki's brother) wanted to see was from the awakening we all attended. She reluctantly agreed, but it didn't help, Chris finally came back and told me to kill it so we could go smoke.

No hour long chats this time, a quick smoke and Nikki had to take off, so I gave her a hug, and she said:

"I was going to call you, but realized I don't have your number. Call me sometime damnit!"

Heh, life just keeps getting better.

--- BEGIN DISCLAIMER ---

Now let me explain somthing here for all you readers who might be getting the wrong idea. This isn't (just) about Nikki. Any girl (or minor derivitive thereof, at this point) could have said these same things to me and I'd be in this same zone. But, nobody else said it, Nikki did, so I'm focusing on her.

Unfortunately, she gets to be the (unwitting) target of more of my healing than she'd probably ever want or even put up with, so I beseech all my readers to let me keep my healing to myself for the time being. This isn't about Nikki, this is about me, but I thank God for her because she seems to know just what to say and just when to say it to make my heart sing.

Heh, I know, I sound like I'm in love. No, but the dam has burst and there's a rush of feeling coming out I'm not used to, know, nor even suspected were in me. Soon as the waterline smooths out I should be fine and able to proceed like a normal person. Until then, anytime you see Nikki's name in my blog substitute her name with anyone else's and you'd still get the same result.

--- END DISCLAIMER ---

Another cool thing happened today... I've been doing alot of volunteer work for Gary, running music for courses and guest events and such. Today's guest event was for a course called "Magical realms of the Sacred Self" (I know, sounds a little out there), and Linda comes up and asks me if I ever took the course. I tell her no, so she starts telling me how great it is and how awesome it'd be for me to go. Before I know it, she's arranged to let me go through it as trade for my volunteer work. Awesome! I'm going next weekend, and from what I hear I'll be on a high to top that of last weekend.

From what I gather so far this course is all done with a partner, and you go through a series of four things you share with that partner back and forth. As this takes place, you open up so much with the other person that your core truths start coming out, and your "higher self" (aka "sacred self") starts showing through, giving you a taste of who you really are without all our conditioning in the way, how far you still have to go, and how fast you're getting there.

Think about it this way, someone has an issue they're going to therapy for, and they know someday they'll be "fixed" because of said therapy if everything goes right. Imagine that person taken through a process by the therapist where they can actually imagine themselves on the other end of that therapy, and even further to the happiest life they could ever possibly imagine. That's what seeing your higher self would be like, except multiplied by a billion. Just imagine cracking apart all the things that get in your way: all the expiriences that trigger your fight or flight reflex, all the stories you made up about yourself to explain your current circumstances, all the negativity you attract to compensate for your lack of feeling you deserve better... Cracking that apart to see down to the core of yourself and rejoicing in your purpose and magnificence. I've gotten tastes of this through different processes, all of them sharing excersizes just like this one focuses on, and I'll tell you -- there's more to me then even I suspected.

Looking forward to it. Hope there's kool-aid.

Spirit of the Awakened Warrior

I've been in Salt Lake City for over two months now. I've developed several deep friendships, kept open the avenues of old friendships (very difficult and uncommon thing for me, more about that later maybe), and managed to keep all friendships I developed and already had through some very challenging highs and lows. I rock.

Somthing very important happened to me this weekend. This Saturday, I volunteered at a workshop called "Spirit of the Awakened Warrior", run by the same guy that does the Awakening retreats. In this seminar is a rebirthing process (some call it "Connected Breath", I call it deep breathing followed by temporary oxygen psycosis, but whatever works for you), then a ropes course and fire walk, then a very powerful visualization letting you expirience firsthand the "creation of the physical universe". Pretty cool.

In the connected breath, I went around to each of the participants and made sure their inhales directly followed their exhales, that it was coming from the gut and not the throat, and passed out tissue to those deep in their hallucinations. One gal really stuck out in my mind as having a really moving spiritual expirience, lets call her Nikki, and it was a pleasure to watch her go through this expirience until finally she figured out the "cosmic joke" and busted up laughing. She didn't quit for a few days.

The next day, at the lecture portion of the workshop, she and I hung out alot with the other smokers. She claimed to have a knack for guessing men's penis sizes, so naturally enough the teenage smoker in our group asked her to guess his. She did, and he claimed she was accurate, but nobody was about to check. Curious, I asked her to guess mine. In that instant I saw a bit of a spark in her eye and the hint of a grin roll up the hint of a smile line on her cheek. She guessed, and wasn't far off at all.

The next day was the ropes course and fire walk. Being the music volunteer didn't quite prepare me for volunteering at an event where no music is required, so I improvised by blowing the time horn and generally offering words of encouragement to the participants, most of whom I knew well from my awakening. Nikki especially, since she was the cutest (and only single) gal in the group I was supporting.

The first event was the ring jump, where you put on those special effects kung-fu harnesses and climb up to the top of a tree branch, about 20 to 30 feet in the air, and jump for a ring hung on a rope tied between the tree you're on and another not far away from it. The goal is to touch the ring with your fingertips then fall to the ground and let the wires catch you similar to a bungie jump. We had a great time watching everyone go, but too many people took too long and Nikki didn't get to take her turn.

After some analysis by the facilitator and the group, we found the paralel to her life in that. She lets everyone go first because she feels she's not good enough to butt in and take her turn in life. We agreed, with her consent, to let her go first on the next high jump event.

When that finally came around she revealed she's also deathly afraid of heights. We harnassed her up and sent her on her way anyway, giving her all the encouragement we possibly could. She got up to the top of the "pucker perch", and sat because the branch was shaking too hard for her to really stand up without falling.

I have to say, I'm proud of myself. I like to think I had somthing to do with supporting her to trust the wires and slide off the platform to dive face-first to hard ground. She did it, and as the cable went taught and she hovered a few feet in the air, the same laugh she had at the connected breath showed up again, and it was contagious. She was shaking, hard, but laughing hard too. She faced her fear, and became the master of it, and I'm proud to have been a part of that.

Lunchtime came around, and we sat together and talked. She told me about her husband, and the challenges she's having with him at the moment. Challenges so extreme she may not be married to him much longer. She seemed close to tears a few times, and it broke my heart, if she would have broken down crying I probably would have too, there was that much of a connection there. She told me a few men asked her out on dates, but they were internet dates and they were just after sex, but it made her boyfriend jealous even though she turned them down. It was an interesting segway, before I knew it I was looking deep into her eyes and soul, taking a deep breath, and asking "if things don't work out with your husband, would you go out with me?"

"Yeah, in fact I was going to ask you anyway."

That was the instant my life forever changed.

Things were a little awkward immediately after that, where do you go from there? But we quickly resumed our connection with just talking. A few more events went by, and just as it started getting dark we were told it was time to build the bonfire. We each took a log of cedarwood over to the fire, and stacked them until the stack of wood was about the size of a small VW bug. We were asked to partner up, Nikki and I looked at each other and smiled, then the facilitator said that there was an odd number of people so the other assistant would team up with someone leaving me completely out of the process. We were both kind of disapointed, so I went and sat down on a log by the fire and watched.

Nikki teamed up with Scott, and they sat near me. After the facilitator explained what we needed to do, Scott invited me to join as a 3-way group, and both Nikki and I were thrilled.
In that process, I brought out everything from my past, present and future, laid it out on the line, and it didn't scare her. She laid out everything from her past, present and future, and it didn't scare me. Scott laid out everything from his past, present and future, and I was happy to see just as much (if not more!) compassion from her towards him as I had. It was a good process.

Next we wrote down our biggest secret and fear on a 3x5 card, then the promise we were willing to make to ourselves if we could move our fear out of the way, then put those cards on the fire, giving tribute to the fire and somthing about the native american medicine of "moose" in order to acheive our dream. I walked up to the fire, stood right next to it, put the cards in and backed away slowly. That wasn't enough though, I went back and stood in front of the fire again and let the heat consume me like a baptism until my clothes were steaming and the polyester of my sweat pants was in danger of melting onto my skin. I sat back down again and shared a smoke with Nikki. I'm sure by now you could figure out what was on my dream card.

Next we raked the coals into a 9 foot by 6 foot rectangle, and the facilitator invited anyone who was ready and whose truth it was to cross the coals barefoot to do so. I jumped up, walked to the west side, and was beat by the other volunteer who crossed first. Oh well, I crossed second, and was amazed at how easy it was. I went back to my log and cheered Nikki on when she went accross, then she came up to me and invited Scott and I to go arm in arm with her across together. Scott actually went faster then either of us pulling us along faster then we wanted to. I found that a little funny since he's a Dream Maker's graduate and has even done the firewalk before. I went back once more and crossed alone before the coals ran out, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke and was just ending up in cold spots... I actually purposely stepped on the glowing red parts of the coals to see what would happen, but it didn't make a difference. I walked on fire!

When the coals went out and the day was done, Nikki and I (and the other smokers, who at that point had all run out of smokes and were begging me for some) all went out to my truck and sat on the tailgate. We smoked, talked, laughed, then the others left and Nikki and I stayed and talked. The evening ended at 11pm, I don't think I started on my way home till 12:47!

The next day, I was dead tired, but had an amazing expirience on my way to the final event. I woke up about 6:00 (yeah, less then 5 hours sleep), got out to the car by 6:45, and as I was driving eastbound down 126th when I saw the sun rising over the Wasatch mountain range just as a native american peyote song came on the local public radio station. I had to pull over, and expirience it, just as I did the final day of the awakening. That expirience, on top of the expirience of the day before, overwhelmed me. I broke down in tears of joy and gave thanks to my creator for the life I've been blessed with here.

Once the song finished, I pulled into McDonalds for some breakfast, then drove to Starbucks for a coffee, and as I got on my way again down 126th I had gotten at just the right angle that I witnessed the sunrise over the mountains AGAIN! And ANOTHER peyote song came on even though they were playing some reggae crap just before it. That did it, for you awakening grads I call that "awe level 8", for everyone else I call it indescribable happiness and thankfulness. I had a hard time driving to the Ramada that morning with my eyes so full of tears.

For the visualization, I did music flawlessly, and though dead tired and overly emotional I put my heart and soul into the expirience. When it was over I got a very nice compliment from Dixie about how great the music was, and how well it worked with the process, how good the timing was between tracks, etc., and I must say I let it in instead of my usual "awe shucks, twern't nuthin" type of response. Thank you Dixie! After the visualization I pulled Gary aside and told him the above story, his grin was the grin I would expect to see on the face of God welcoming me to heaven when I die, and I think I will love that man for eternity just for the grin he gave me that day.

When the day was over, I called JJ and checked into what he was up to, told him the above story too. His reaction was that of a big brother both congratulatory and watching my back. He had to run a few errands and promised to hook up with me later that night, so I sauntered back towards my bit of the city and parked at a spot with a nice view of the valley and pondered for a bit. It occured to me that since the day before, I hadn't really talked to Nikki that much (not even at lunch! damn!) and that I might be letting this wonderful opportunity slip through my fingers after catching it so amazingly well. So, I did a little gestalt therapy on myself, and figured out that, ironically enough, I am afraid of sex, so I avoid any situation that could ever possibly bring me anywhere near it, such as dating and starting a relationship with anyone. My whole upbringing regarding sex was very oppressed and my only expirience with sex up to that point was very odd to begin with, and very traumatic to end with, so it didn't suprise me in the least. I realized that my urges for sex overwhelm me, and my fear of it give me the self doubts that when combined make me absolutely freeze when presented with an opportunity for love. I learned to cope with it by ignoring the beauty or attention of any woman, and because of that I learned the source of the lonliness surrounding my life. Now I don't need to freeze up, I need to recognize my fear and go for it anyway. If I can walk on fire, I think I can probably do that too.

JJ invited me to dinner at Olive Garden that night, Rob bought me a glass of wine, and between the two of them my nickname is now "firewalker". That's a nickname I actually like, and earned the hard way. Thanks guys.

Joe's Blog

What is all this inner work stuff I keep rambling on about, and does it work? It's the placebo effect, and it only works as long as you let it. I notice lately that I've been going back to what's comfortable, to what I think I want instead of ignoring my goals and needs. My excersize slipped twice last week, I didn't quit smoking like I was going to, and I even bought three little bottles of Yukon Jack yesterday and drank them.

I didn't get drunk though. Thank god for that. I got a little buzz which wore off by the time I was ready to do my call with JJ, if anything they helped me purge a little more energy than usual and sleep a little better. I won't be repeating that expirience though, I can already feel my mind working differently with the remnants of that alcohal coursing through it.

So the placebo effect, most of us know what that is, but for those that don't: The placebo effect, aka the subject-expectancy effect, is the effect which is manifest during scientific trials usually of a pharmocological nature. This effect is observed when a subject is told they will get the real drug and that drug is supposed to treat a specific symptom they exhibit, but in reality are given an inert pill, such as a simple vitamin or drugless calcium carbonate pill. What happens to some of the subjects in the 'placebo group' (the ones who get the inert pill), is incredible: in roughly 30 percent of the placebo test group, the subjects report the 'drug' working perfectly, and with no side effects or only side effects they were warned of beforehand. By expecting the real drug and expecting that drug to work a certain way, that inert pill is just as or more powerful then the real deal. This is as close as I can come to scientifically describing "intent", but it's a sneaky way of getting someone to 'set their intention'.

The opposite works as well, if a doctor gives you a real drug to combat a real symptom, but tells you it's nothing more then a placebo, it's effects don't work on you unless it has some sort of psychoactive properties (like an opiate or narcotic). This opposite effect is called a "nocebo". Scientists admit the nature of this effect remains a mystery, yet not much testing goes into it. An inconvenient truth perhaps? Does this effect prove the wacko new-age hippies right? Hardly, but it's definately worth more study.

I've been thinking of a way to harness this effect. In most cases, knowing you're in the placebo group nullifies any effects (and in most cases, retroactively if you were told about the placebo after exhibiting effects of a working drug). What if you were told you were taking a placebo beforehand, could you set enough intention on it working and counteracting a specific symptom? Now we're getting into the realm of simple will-power, and you would say "but you don't need the pill to do that". True, but I think the action of taking the pill, or else coming up with some other symbolic gesture would merely help you commit to a certain action and believe that it works. In the awakening, we wrote down our goals and then went through a routine where we put the rose in a vase as a gesture of keeping our commitment to those goals, and I'll be damned if to this day, a month and a half later, I'm still on the right track with them.

I would like some volunteers, if anyone actually reads this blog, to try this with me, call it a pseudo-scientific expiriment. We each come up with a common symptom in our lives (and it doesn't have to be medical), then we each get the exact same brand of inert pill (like a multivitamin or somthing), and each morning attach our intent to accomplish that goal to taking that pill, and report our findings back here.

There's degrees to this idea I'm barely touching on, for example, what if all drugs work simply on the placebo effect? Research shows a simple chemical compound will heal or kill a specific organism or other chemical in your body, but your immune system is powerful enough that it can destroy any compound or chemical within minute of it entering your system. Is our intent on taking that drug telling our immune system to leave it alone? Is the placebo effect just our bodies way of accepting help? That would explain those people who die of somewhat minor diseases, they didn't believe it would work (or didn't want it to) and were resigned to their fate.

Also think for a minute about the whole of psychology. That's definately the placebo effect, in both directions. Your mind thinks that there's somthing wrong with it or with the outside world as a whole, and your time with a counselor or psychologist (note, not psychiatrist, as they deal mostly with psychoactive pharmacology) is spent trying to find the words you need to hear to belive you'll be healed. Sometimes you need to hear it more then once, which is why therapy lasts years, the therapist tells you the words and gives you excersizes to perform to encourage others to tell you the same thing until you can finally believe it. When you believe, you set your intent, and the moment you set your intent you begin to change yourself and the world around you to your design.

So, who's up to this expiriment?

I'm a slacker

So yeah, I made it a resolution to keep this blog going on at least a twice-a-week basis and I've not been keeping up, so I figured now would be a great time to try to get back in the habit.

Did my visualization (at work) today. Been having a hard time doing it at home because JR has been up about the same time I get up and wants to come in and talk until I get ready for work. That's hard, part of me resents the missing "me" time, but I know that's important to him. So I talk to him, but I think I'm letting some of that resentment out in my body language, and I can't help but think he picks up on it. Oh poor me, how the hell do I feel comfortable talking to my own cousin? What is it about him that makes me withdraw? Sure I've let him down a few times, that doesn't mean I should continue doing so even if in a different way!

Doing visualizations at work is a challenge too, I hear Vicki walking around out in the other room and I keep coming out of it thinking she's going to walk back here, see me in the legs-straight-lotus-position and call the padded wall patrol... Or at the very least start telling people who won't get it that I'm going into a trance at work and summoning demons or somthing. I just need to let myself go, and let whatever happens happen; so what if they think I'm evil incarnate, maybe that could work to my advantage? Maybe Tim will stop telling me I need to go to church instead of attending awakenings...

So I did my visualization today "Meagan-style", where I didn't so much go through a process of dealing with inner relationship problems as I did just focus on giving myself some energy. It helped too, I feel rejuvinated, present, here and ready. And it's OK to be here! For once in my life, it's ok to be me in a place where other people expect the me-persona I've put out in the past. This is good, because in the past I've been burnt out on code which lead to a stifling of innovation on my part -- with the ability to just be me again, in this place, I feel the stirrings of good ideas and motivation to make them happen.

Also in doing my visualization today I think I realized I have the power to consciously speed up my own metabolism and control my sugar/insulin levels. It's amazing what a little self-awareness can do! I need to explore this more, maybe do part of my visualization before my walk so I can make my system burn more calories, and also do one at lunch so I don't go into a sugar pseudo-coma around 3.

Work has been going better lately, things with my former employer have smoothed out and he and Harvey seem to have made up and moved on. There's still resentment lurking there I think, on both parts, and between the former employer and me, but that's inconsequential right now as I'm done with everyone whose initials are T.J. I've gotten a great start on the new phone system, will probably record greetings today or Tuesday, then do a live test wednesday. If the test works out well, I'll get Harv to order some hardphones and we'll be in business. Then we'll order some more phone lines in Spokane or Utah, move the telephony server to one of those two places, notify all customers of our phone number change (or talk the telco into forwarding calls for us) and we're ready to leave this office completely.

Todays goals:
Set up elite so it can easily be scanned by search engines, so that our entries are first in any result set with the word "elite" in the query and push those anti-elite/anti-gifting propoganda sites to the end of the list.

Come up with some ideas for WaveOne, give Harvey some meat to share with Pacesetter. He sounds like a pretty neat guy, would like to establish a permenant relationship with him.

Do co-counseling with JJ tonight, share with him the details of my breakthrough as some of that may be useful to his situation.

Play Galactic Civ tonight until I can barely keep my eyes open, and sleep in till noon tomorrow.

Updated Beliefs

1 Fallacy encountered: If the soul remembers perfectly the pre-existence, then it retains that knoledge in the afterlife and progression isn't necessary. The soul must not remember it's true magnifisence after death, as apres-vie progression is an important part of my beliefs. Progression in the afterlife is probably much harder to accomplish than the initial placement, but it makes sense, sure we'll find our perfect place after death but there are many with true ambition that will want more for their eternity.

Also, the concept of hell has really been blown out of proportion by modern chrstianity. In the hebrew texts, Hell (She'al or somthing like that) meant the same thing that 'Afterlife' means for us now. It was actually later in King James canonical texts that a particular form of afterlife was described and likened unto a valley outside the walls of Jerusalem where garbage and dead animals were dumped and burned, and near which a sub-sect of jews lived that practiced child human sacrifice. I don't doubt someone's perfect placement will be that, because that's what they feel they deserve, but they can also move beyond that once they forgive themselves for their errors and can feel they deserve better.

A good example of this is the movie "What dreams may come". The wife commited suicide, and because of her depression she went to her own little hell that she created for herself. Depression doesn't end at death, the soul feels what the body feels and carries every feeling with it to eternity. If you are depressed when you die, you will probably be even more depressed when you get to the afterlife because now you know you can't fix the circumstances of your depression. All you can do is wait for everyone from your circle to die and try to work things out. Of course, if you were depressed because you wronged someone in the physical world, and you can't fix it, the person you wronged may not forgive you right away when they come into the spiritual realm because that act of negativity you imposed on them was passed out by him to others, and he's in the same position you're in. This is why it's hard to progress after placement, everyone needs forgiveness from those they hurt the most, then from themselves, before they can get to the next level.

Sound familiar? The same thing happens here in the physical realm all the time too. Did you hurt someone badly in your past? If so, did you work it out where the two of you forgave each other? If not, how is that effecting your life today?

The concept of hell is a dangerous one, those people who have been told they're going to hell for nothing more than a brief romp with their girlfriend as a teenager will really tune out any form of spirituality after that, because they won't feel they deserve hell, but will still feel guilty for offending their parents. This confusion will ultimately lead to them denying god or organized religion or even their dignity because of the carelessness of the parents, causing the teenager to continue the action or move on to more destructive things to prove their independance of belief and intent. If parents could just leave religion out of dealing with children's mistakes, instead focusing on the reprecussions in the physical and emotional realms, society would be a lot less screwed up and spirituality would not be somthing to be avoided in polite conversation.

So, Dante wrote a nice poem, and I'm sure his seven levels of hell will be populated by those who really believe in it and in their place there, but an eternity it is not, nor would God (or whoever your spiritual source) wish it to be. If God loves us so much, why forever banish us when we make mistakes, especially if someday we want to make up for it?

Not only that, but hell is used in vain way too much. To a devout white southern baptist slash Klan member, Martin Luther King Jr. is going to hell. To Martin Luther King Jr, all Klansmen are going to hell. Fundamentalist Christians believe I'm going to hell strictly for telling you this and making you think "it's ok to be you". To them it's not, every waking moment must be spent cherishing and resenting God. I say resenting because that's what it is, some of those folks think God made us to pour unto him, without filling our own cups. An engine can run on fumes, but only for so long, eventually you need to fill the tank back up. The act of living our lives expiriencing pain and joy, and remembering that's what God wants us to do is worship in and of itself.

A good documentary is on TV about the concept of Heaven and Hell, and how it's been so transformed through a 'telephone game' of translation and re-translation over the years. It's on the History channel, called 'Decoding the Past: Heaven and Hell', it's a new one (this year) in the Decoding the Past series. Check it out.

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Today's Goals: Finish the LBD mock-up, start on Phone System.