Day Twenty-Six – Undoing

A year ago today I sat down to start a new adventure. It all began in print, starting with this daily blog, based on the advice of my mentor and business coach Paul Lemberg. After hearing my story he remarked "Jeremy, if you have woken up crying every morning for a year, it's time for you to change something." He was talking about Japan, and my need to situate my life in an English-speaking environment. "It's simple" he coached "Open more studios overseas." However, for that you need partners. Alexander Technique teachers who have the wherewithal to navigate the treacherous waters of small business building - where the statistics unanimously report that 80%+ of all ventures will fail – are a small and exclusive club of people. How would I find these people? How would they find me? I started this blog. A year later I have a small, online business for coaching Alexander Technique teachers, a new studio in Los Angeles, and a number of projects in various stages of gestation and readiness. There's a quote from Lama Yeshe, one of my teachers that comes to mind:

Our problem is that inside us there's a mind going, "Impossible, impossible, impossible. I can't, I can't, I can't." We have to banish that mind from this solar system. Anything is possible; everything is possible. Sometimes you feel that your dreams are impossible, but they're not. Human beings have great potential; they can do anything. The power of the mind is incredible, limitless.

Your Task – To Dream the Impossible Dream

Where do you want to be in three years, and how will you get there? You first want to understand the difference between a vision and grandiosity, dreams and fantasies, hope and hysteria. It's possible to project your Self into the future, providing you understand that eventually it may become something entirely different. A vision is generated by a deeply held passion, and based on impacting the world for good. Grandiosity is all about your ego and personal gratification. Dreams are real possibilities, fantasies are hopeless impossibilities. Hope contains an element of truth, hysteria is fueled by delusions. Once you can tell the difference, it's liberating to imagine your Self in ways that seem beyond your ability in this moment. It's an undoing process like all else you do in the work. I think of it as pointing in a direction: visualizing my Self in a certain place of ease and accomplishment. Starting from those simple points – what immediately pops up? What do you see? I have to admit that this comes naturally to me, and I do hear that others often find it puzzling. However, I also believe that the ability to project is an important human quality. Ironically, this ability is both a source of suffering and an instrument for it's own undoing. You can see the other side of a situation by projecting a different POV, which in turn helps you undo the steadfast way you are clinging to the Point Of View you have. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to loosen the string a little, kick off your shoes, lie back and dream: tell us where you want to be in three years time?