Day 230 - Holding Ourselves Back

 The 4-minute mile was broken in 1954 by Roger Bannister, since then it has been achieved by approx 1,500 athletes and has become the standard in middle-distance professional running.

What does that mean for all of us non-professional runners? It means that our limited beliefs are holding us back. If you don't believe you can do something, guess what? You can't. As with everything, it's much easier said than done, but there are numerous ways to go about dissolving old paradigms and creating new precedents. First, it takes a hard look at the darkness within and forgiving ourselves for not knowing - we know better now.

I used to write out the mental chatter and emotional baggage in journals and songs, but as soon as I lost all of those writings in a fire, I stopped writing. I started reading a lot more than I had before. I seek out everything around the vast expanse of mind and consciousness, space and belief systems... All religions and philosophies and ideas that resonate. I had always done that, yet now there is a new threshold being written about - things that I had always known without any sort of proof or words to convey it - that our physical reality is based upon the actions or active-non-actions connected to our inner worlds.

I first came across this notion in a book called The Dancing Wu Li Masters, written in 1979 by Gary Zukav, where understandings in new physics challenged the materialism dogma - that matter itself is affected, indeed generated by consciousness. To many of us, the relief of not being tied to a fate of physical restraint, birth-pain-joy-pain-death, was the answer to collective enlightenment, what some might call the dawning of Christ Consciousness or Awakening. Although there are still many who don't believe it, so guess what? We will start seeing breakthroughs by those who believe it and live it, fully, and it will eventually help others breakthrough too.

Other amazing works by Ram Dass, Pema Chodron, Louise Hay, Paulo Coelho, Caroline Myss, Eckhart Tolle... and many before them all they way back to the Greek philosophers, all point to the power of consciousness.

These words I write are for myself, a way of documenting and imprinting my thoughts in a way that cannot be burned or lost - They are also not just words, they are reminders to keep my mind open to possibilities, and not just open but clues for remembering to engage in the physical expression of those possibilities in as many ways as I can in my own life and surroundings. Part of this is understanding what my own limited beliefs are and where they came from.

Looking back over the years, I can see exactly how I've manifested everything I had, have, do and know. When I took off to 'find myself' in my early 20s, there were many deep awarenesses that I could not communicate to others and when I tried, the words came out weird, and so music was the only way. After that, the obstacles life handed me were directly involved in how I would apply what I learned, or not. It might be wonderful to know something but an entirely different beast to actually live what you know. It is why staying present and aware at all times is so important, because we get wrapped up in our finite opinions and talking points, which in turn can create unwelcome outcomes - Meditation in everything, not just in the morning or evening or when you have time in a quiet place with no distractions, but conscious awareness at every turn with every kind of distraction, always... 

I'm now at a point where these understandings are being divulged simply with the written word, by others too, and music is everywhere anyway, in everything, whether it's heard or not. My creative spirit is no longer limited to standard art forms, my life is the canvas now.

Currently, I am interested in the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza who was involved in a crippling accident during a triathlon. He got four different opinions on how he should treat his injuries, and all four surgeons recommended a complicated operation called Harrington rod surgery, which would have required him to have steel rods surgically implanted in his back to realign his spinal cord. But Dr. Joe didn’t want the surgery. He knew that having the surgery would mean committing to a life of being handicapped, and he just wasn’t ready to give up yet. So what did he do?

“I thought I might as well take a chance here. … I think that this voice kept coming up in my head, saying [that] the power that made the body heals the body. And I thought, ‘… This power is an intelligence. And intelligence is consciousness. Consciousness is awareness. Awareness is paying attention. It must be paying attention to me.’ … And I said, ‘I’m not going to let any thought slip by my awareness that I don’t want to experience.’ … And so … I just started reconstructing my spine in my mind, vertebrae by vertebrae.” – Dr. Joe Dispenza

Dr. Joe’s spine fully healed from his injuries, and just three months later, he was back on his feet and in training. All the doctors and surgeons he talked to told him he would be in a full-body cast for a year and disabled for life, but Dr. Joe used his mind to heal his body.

There are countless stories such as this. These stories and understandings are real, from teenagers to centenarians. I find that the more I live and speak about this knowledge, the more synchronicities are evidenced in my daily life, and the joy it conjures up breathes the magic of it all into physical existence. 

The only thing holding you back is you. But, I don't need you to believe me, it's way more important that you believe in yourself.