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I recorded this podcast while sitting on Mount Shasta in my car on Saturday afternoon. You’ll find it interesting how these insights dovetail with the experience I shared with Kathy watching Inception a few hours later.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the Subliminal Clearing Special Edition, the Advanced Inner Child Meditation.

Thanks, as always, for listening and your feedback.

You can see the kids and the dog, with the top of Mount Shasta in the picture here. As we were walking, my son said, “But I want to go ON THE MOUNTAIN.”

I said, “We ARE on the mountain. Remember how you could look down at the town back there?”

I had to laugh. How many times do we all think that we’re not on the mountain… because we can see “the mountain” up there. But in comparison to where we were, we’re definitely on the mountain. I guess it depends on where you think the mountain starts, or what you think the mountain is.

What is your mountain?
Compare that to your goals. You might think that “wealth” or “happiness” is that mountain you see up there. The measure of being on the mountain is dependent on looking only one direction. But if you look the other way, maybe it looks like you’re already there.

Another thing I asked my son to think about… where does the mountain begin versus the surrounding territory?

Where does “wealth” begin? Where does “happiness” begin?

The answer is the same – just like being “up on the mountain” is a relative and progressive thing, so are many other life experiences. It’s not an either/or, on/off, 0/1, type of measurement.

The Source of Your Discontent
The idea that either you’re wealthy or you’re not or that you’re happy or you’re not is something that has been programmed into us by marketers. They want you to look one way, to keep focusing on the fact that the mountain appears to be someplace that you are not. They don’t want you to look at the entire 360-degree panorama. They don’t want you to see the ground under your feet.

This limited vantage point keeps you focused on a feeling of lack, a feeling of not being or having enough. That void, that feeling of lack is where you are convinced and persuaded, maybe even brainwashed or hypnotized, into an emotion where you decided to trade something you have (money) in the hopes of having the illusion of being on top of the mountain (having wealth, health, thinness, or whatever you think you don’t have but need in order to be happy).

This is one of the reasons I developed the Subliminal Clearing: Z Plus Advanced Ho’oponopono product. In it, I talk about these types of limited worldviews and how it feeds into a belief system where we are not clear, not connected to the Divine.

When you’re clear and connected, you’re seeing through a wider lens, and inspiration comes from places you’d never be able to see otherwise. Subliminal Clearing gives you a greater depth of understanding your own mind, how belief systems work, and how you may be only seeing one vantage point.

Imagine how much freer you would feel if you could see yourself as already on top of the mountain, already wealthy, already happy. If you could turn around and look at where you were before as opposed to where are you haven’t been, and still look up at the beautiful mountain and appreciate it for what it is?

Do it Now
You don’t need the DVD program in order to do this with something today. You can relax and take a wider look around yourself. What do you think you want that seems like an either/or situation? Think about where you hear, “If only…” in your head, a situation where you might envy someone else’s possessions or life experiences.

Can you look around and see a situation where you might already be on the mountain?

We all have different summits. For some people, climbing to the summit of Mount Shasta is a goal. They want to reach the top for a variety of reasons. Some people want to reach it to say they got there, for the experience, in order to see the world from atop one of our highest peaks.

But no one STAYS at the summit of Mount Shasta. You can go there, you can experience it, you can take a picture to remind you. But we’re all on our way somewhere else.

Even if you have a goal of having $30 million dollars and that’s your own personal mountain summit, and you work hard and stay focused, and climb that mountain, you may achieve it. But you can’t stay there.

The journey never ends.

Remember that perspective when you set a new goal for yourself. You might think that reaching a particular summit will solve all of your problems, and that that’s the end-goal where you will finally allow yourself to be happy. What you might not realize is that reaching the summit may create other goals, other problems, other situations that you cannot fathom from where you are.

It doesn’t mean you give up the goal. It does mean, however, that if you find yourself idealizing a goal as solving all of your problems, you’re not seeing the full panorama of experience. You’re looking, perhaps under influence, at only one slice of the view.

Keep expanding your perspective and learning more about how you perceive your world. It will allow you to select experiences that will maximize your happiness, refine your goals, actualize your true goals. The bigger the goal, the higher the mountain, the greater the effort to achieve its summit. You’ll want to understand what makes you choose your goals and how to work towards them so you can maximize your effort and enjoy the journey.

As I ponder the questions folks have asked me lately about getting past their issues and blocks, how to manifest, how to get clear, even how to pay bills, I look for patterns, the patterns that keep people stuck in problems… and the patterns that help people get unstuck.

One thing that keeps coming up is how people represent themselves around problems and patterns that keep themselves stuck. I can tell you only what has seemed to work in my experience, both in my life and in helping others.

I always ask for feedback to know what work has done for people. It’s even better if I can observe their life patterns after working with them because often I can see the subtle changes they can’t report for themselves. This can be both good and bad, even though there really is no good and bad about it. “Good and bad” help us separate and make distinctions about what we do and think.

I ask for feedback and I expect to get it – both good and bad – to help improve my work.

Some folks can take criticism well. Others cannot. I tend to roll between the two. But I am always looking for what I can reveal to myself about myself for the purpose of learning and improvement.

I realized that, in the past, I often would resist criticism because I didn’t like how something was said to me by another, even though I might have known they were right. I didn’t want others to be the ones who might affect my life by making it better, or being “right” about my “wrong.” I also didn’t want to have to hear, “See, if you had only listened to me before…” or “I told you so…”

How many times did do something as a teenager just because your mom or dad said not to? Or maybe you just didn’t want to admit that a know-it-all neighbor really did know what he was talking about.

I was willing to risk the long shot that maybe something might happen or I would make something happen that would make them wrong and me right. Unfortunately, I was betting on the wrong information for the wrong motivations without knowing the consequences my stubbornness might bring to me.

It wasn’t about the information. It was more about what that information might mean in my interactions with other people. It might mean they were right. And I was wrong.

It might mean they were superior and I was inferior.

Can you believe that? I would behave against my better judgement and intentionally not grow in a positive direction so others couldn’t get the credit for it. (I’m sure you’ve never done this either. ) Oddly, I could hear the same information from someone else (someone that I liked and respected like an aunt, teacher, etc.) and I couldn’t get enough learning from them. And I was pleased, as they were, to integrate it. But these teachers were few and far between.

I was doing the whole process unconsciously, but a part of me knew what was right. I would also come up with the darndest reasons why I was doing these things. When I saw this process consciously in myself for the first time, I was able to bring in a newer, more effective belief system than the older one I had when I adopted this way of being. I could now separate the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, for ME, regardless of who said it or how they said it.

There was a part of me that absolutely knew I needed the learning because it was the right thing to do for me and my deepest spiritual values. But this other rebellious value of not letting someone else rule over me and determine my path seemed, in the past, win out.

I came to a point where I needed to acknowledge another person’s contribution to my life and make the decision my own. It boiled down to knowing that I had an issue with telling others that they were right. In the world of dichotomies, if i want to be right, then I better be able to dish out a good dose of what I want in return.

If I am stingy with it, it seems the good Universe can do the same to me. At least this has been my personal experience.

At the deepest spiritual level, I know the original source of love is started from even though it may have gotten twisted along the way. It is up to me to set it straight again, with love, understanding, and forgiveness.

I have been following this track and growing with it. Allowing others to tell me whatever they’d like, taking criticism, advice, etc., and telling people thank you for sharing their ideas and considering them, even thanking others for their advice because I did something their way and it worked out great.

With all of that, I still have some of the residual process with some folks still in my life, and others long gone. I wanted to clear it up. I had set an intention to confront what residual was left in me, and actively pursued its fulfillment.

And I got my answer.

I was listening to an old, rare Werner Erhard audio that a friend gave me. It was a fantastic audio, and there was one especially sweet bit that was one of those beautiful moments of transformation that set the final residual string of resistance completely free.

He said something to the effect that a person is trying to contribute to your life and you are not letting them.

My mind went off like a dog on a scent.

I pictured a person from my past who had contributed incredibly to my life, but in a sometimes pompous and superior way that I had resisted with my every fiber.

I imagined that person telling me one of those things I already knew how to do well. I am pretty sure they knew I already knew I knew it. In this incident, I even tried to stop them from saying it. But they had to say it. They just had to, they couldn’t resist. I could feel my resistance not only in my imagination, but also present in my body. And I am positive if i would have seen this happen to a friend, I might have laughed my you-know-what off because it wasn’t me getting the treatment! From that viewpoint, I most probably wouldnt have felt the sting, even though i would have felt sympathy.

Isn’t that funny? That person is thousands of miles away from me now, yet I am feeling them now because of my thoughts?

Instead of imagining that person trying to one-up me or being superior, I imagine them doing their best to contribute to me in their own way. That even though they don’t have the skills, or choose not to apply them with me to do it in a way I would find more acceptable, I gave them the benefit of the doubt in my mind and I presented it to myself so I felt as if they were doing it because deep down they wanted to see me excel.

No only that, but I imagined that they wanted to feel incredible in their body — and mind — knowing that they contributed to my life in a positive way.

The biggest shift of all was for me: I let them have that in my mind.

And when I gave that to them in my mind, in my imagination, in my heart, while I was in my bed at night, I got the biggest gift in my body.

Some weight in my body lifted that I had been carrying for years.

It was like throwing a switch and the dam opened without knowing that’s what would happen.

It was so powerfully emotional feeling all of that leave me. More importantly that switch had let something new come in. That new feeling was even more powerful and emotional: forgiveness and love.There was an now outward flow again towards this person that just seconds ago I had restricted.

That same image that caused me distress and angst was now making me feel incredible. And all I did was change how I see the activity by changing the lens that I see it through. Instead of seeing it as a threat, I could see it from the highest Spiritual point of view, and I could see it differently.

I now see this person as being a great contributor in my life, and I feel fantastic thinking about this person telling me they did all that they did in order to be a positive influence in my life. They wanted to see me in their best way in their mind, and it made them feel good to contribute to me.

Whatever their conscious reason was or is, I know the source. If I align with it, the middle usually takes care of itself.

I was now valuing their contribution to my life. In return, my slight perspective change about their motive was all that was needed to make them feel worth in their lives.

I think Werner Erhard’s point was that he was trying to do it all on his own for his own reward. He wanted all the credit, but the credit was meant to be shared, and so was the work.

You see …his motive was the same as those he was denying. He was really denying himself.

When Werner decided to let others contribute to him, Werner was able to contribute.

Now put my name in there in place of Werner Erhard.

Now put your name in place of Werner’s.

This is Freedom…This is Independence.

True freedom comes from being able to better control and guide your own responses and reaction in life.

Do this with one person this weekend, and I promise that this will be the best Independence day ever.

Happy Fourth of July, and happy independence day to you.

If you liked this and want to learn more about how to shift these positions and perspectives in your life for more personal freedom, I recommend you get the new Subliminal Clearing Z+ Advanced Ho’oponopono DVD. In it, I give you 6+ hours of video exploring the techniques on how to do this higher level spiritual clearing.

When Kathy was pregnant with Claire, I knew my life was going to change in a big way. Kathy said that she felt I wasn’t really on board with her during the pregnancy, and that did cause some stress for her. I tried to explain how my being on board was working hard and ensuring that we had finances to allow me to spend more time with the baby after she was born. I know a lot of fathers who probably understand what I was feeling – that shift in responsibility looming overhead.

But there was another thing looming, too, and it was something more critical. It was more than securing our future financially by working hard. And what I found out by pursuing this wealth secured my future in other ways.

I knew that being a father was going to give me a wealth of emotion. And when it gets right down to it, that’s what weath really is. Joy, love, peace, happiness, understanding – all that we consider wealth to be comes from an emotional viewpoint.

When you get a new car that you have been dreaming of for years and you sit in it for the first time, you experience an emotion.

But this little girl, my daughter Claire, was going to change my experience. I knew before she was born that if I wanted to experience the wealth of emotion she afforded me, I had to do something to open up, expand my emotional playing field. I knew I had to do this, and I wanted to. I wanted to give my child more than what I had, but in order to do so, I had to give myself more than I was allowing myself.

I started looking for places in my life where I had wealth to mine. One area was my voice. People had told me for years that I had a great voice. One of my primary areas of generating wealth and giving to others was with my voice. I loved to sing, but often wouldn’t do it. When I sang, I would become very emotional. It got to the point where I wouldn’t sing because the emotions that came through me were more than I could handle.

It was WEALTH that I couldn’t handle. When Kathy became pregnant, I started taking singing lessons. First, I wanted to improve my singing voice. But more importantly, I wanted to open myself up to allow myself to feel the emotions coming through me. I knew if I was blocking the emotions coming through my voice, I was blocking myself in other areas as well. And with Claire on the way, I couldn’t afford to live with those blocks any longer.

I know that when I feel that opening in my chest that is more love, it is extraordinarily beautiful. Something flows through there. From this vantage point, I can’t believe I blocked that for myself for so long. But from here, I am grateful I took the risk to do something uncomfortable because I now have more love to give my daughter.

And I have more love to give my wife.

And myself.

Now, when I sit and play with my daughter, I often sing to her. She loves it. She lights up and even sings along with me.

Now that I have opened that part of myself and allowed what was there to flow, I can share it without having to sing to connect with that wealth within me.

Could you put a price tag on that? Could you sell it?

You can’t.

But that’s what wealth is.

What area of your life do you block wealth? Where is your biggest gift, the place where you feel emotion? Is there something you can do today to begin the sometimes uncomfortable task of allowing that wealth to come forward?

How will your life change by taking that step?

There has been a lot of talk in the self help arena lately about critics and criticism and “negativity.” Some of the criticism has been harsh and inappropriate, some of it quite appropriate, and some of it entertaining.

I myself have been criticized by others in ways that have been hurtful and frustrating. On Amazon not too long ago, Joe Vitale and I were called the “Hitlers of the internet.” The comment was so absurdly ridiculous, I was surprised when Amazon decided not to remove it.

From going through that experience and many others, I have learned how to handle criticism from a number of vantage points. I thought that perhaps I would share some methods of handling criticism that are productive and not damaging.

Your reaction is not about the criticism you’re facing. First, we have to realize that the emotional reaction to criticism is not a reaction to the criticism itself. Instead, the reaction is more about what we feel about ourselves and what feelings and data are coming up. Obviously, I am nowhere near the Hitler of the internet, but having someone say this about me brings up old data where the criticism was much more dangerous. Perhaps it was a schoolteacher saying my work wasn’t up to standard, or maybe a family member criticizing something I said.

The strength of the emotion I might feel from criticism has nothing to do with what is happening now. The critic only gains power over me when I give that power to him.

Separate your emotions from the event that is currently occurring. You can definitely address the criticism that is happening, but you simply cannot do so from that emotional state. You can’t be effective if you’re acting from a defensive emotion that has been supercharged by data from your past. It is as if you are trying to meet a challenge to road race in a rocket ship… you’re not meeting the current challenge with the appropriate method, channel, or vehicle. While acting from that emotional state may FEEL good and cathartic, it is generally not appropriate and it will likely backfire on us.

Look for the intention. What is the intention of the criticism? Is it meant to hurt someone emotionally? Address a failing in our work? If the intention of the critic is helpful, generally there may be some validity to their statements. At the very least, it is valid to their subjective opinion, and it is generally helpful for us to communicate our thanks for their sharing of their opinion. This establishes good will with our critics, and there are many reasons why this is important.

Decide if the criticism is valid. If the criticism is nothing more than a personal attack, it is likely not valid. I’ve seen some people who have received criticism turn around and try to attack the critic personally. This then becomes a battle of wills and ends up being nothing more than one bully fighting another bully. This is highly unproductive, and these are the types of situations I recommend staying away from. Personal attacks do except put us in that highly charged emotional state where we end up just churning out energy that does nothing productive for anyone.

Take your power back. Even if criticism is hurtful, we have to take our power back by logically and objectively looking at the critic’s words and determine if anything that they’ve said is helpful in any way. This is the only clear way that we can take our power back. When we take criticism objectively and determine it’s place in our work and our world, we strengthen our position, strengthen our work, and hone our skills for the future. Just like a tree strengthened by the wind, critical analysis of our work strengthens our position.

For example, I do a lot of video editing. Sometimes I work on projects for friends and colleagues. Most of the time, I receive direction from these people, and sometimes it is critical of the work I do. I have to first look at what they’re saying and determine if it will be helpful for the project in the long run. If it is, then I incorporate it. If it is not, then I talk to the critic and explain why I feel that their criticism won’t be good for the project. And sometimes I will incorporate the results of critical comments even when I don’t agree with or understand them because it is important to one of my partners, customers, or colleagues. I separate my own worth and my self from the project’s success… and often times, some of those critical statements I didn’t agree with ended up making a bigger impact than I imagined.

My work becomes better because I am open to criticism. Not only does it meet the needs of the project beyond what I can see for myself, I learn something new that will help my other projects become even better.

It doesn’t mean I have to be open to personal attack. It doesn’t mean I have to be open to unfounded statements that are said with the intent to hurt. It doesn’t mean I become a punching bag. It only means I take the criticism at face value and separate myself from the emotions that may (or may not) come up when I receive that criticism.

Don’t hide from the critics. Remember, if criticism makes you FEEL bad, it is not because the critic is powerful over you. Those who hide from criticism, those who bury their heads in the sand and turn away from anything “negative” because it makes them FEEL bad are the people who end up creating lousy products. They put that emotional state as a higher priority in their world than the service that they provide. And if their emotional state is more important to them than creating a high quality product, then they’re putting an illusion before their desire to serve others with their work.

And those who are afraid to create anything at all because they’re afraid someone might say something “negative” end up hiding their light from the world. We all have something to give. Hiding from criticism only means those gifts to the world will end up coming out of someone who isn’t afraid of being criticized.

Of course, all of us like to hear that our work is wonderful, that we’re wonderful people, that what we do is helpful, good, or even amazing. But when we find ourselves in situations where that is ALL we hear, we end up living in a place where we become bored, lazy, or even arrogant… and our work and our lives suffer for it.

The key is to welcome and incorporate criticism from a place of personal power, a place where YOU decide where the criticism belongs, where it’s helpful, and how to best incorporate it. In that way, you separate the emotional reaction based on erroneous data from the gifts that the Divine wants to give to you — and through you — to the world.

The quotation at the top of this post is from my friend, Oscar. Remember Oscar the next time someone criticizes you… and thank the Divine for the blessings it wishes to give you.

I got up out of bed and started to walk to one of the high windows in my second story bedroom. The cathedral ceiling is about 15 feet high. Near the top is a semicircle window about 6 foot wide and three feet high. It is big and beautiful and it needs to be to be able to see above the towering 100 foot evergreens surrounding the house.

On this night, the moon was full or close to it and as I walked towards this moon glow coming in from the window I could finally see the moon sitting just above the tops of these tall trees. The glow was coming from it barely shining through a dense fog surrounding the trees and house.

It was stunning and beautiful. I knew I wasn’t in Austin anymore. It was as if the hidden beauty of the area had gently awakened me at this perfect time to welcome me with this enchanted magical beauty.
It was a personal hello.

Since being here, I have had some awakenings about being where you are supposed to be and where you are not.

As much as we loved the idea of Austin, we could never really connect there. Not just with people, but with the land, the environment. Some said we should get out there, do more, find things to do in Austin to make ourselves happy there. We needed to change in order to adapt to our surroundings.

I guess this could be done, but at what cost? For those of you who have lived in many places like I have, I am sure this will be something you recognize. For those who have been in one place most of your lives, I hope this can be something to stimulate your thinking a bit.

Since I have landed in Northern California — a place not unfamiliar to me — I have felt home from the very first day. My family and I had searched for this feeling of home for over 2 years in Austin, but we never found. Our 8 year old boy right away said how much he liked it here and felt at home. He’s focusing better and interacting without the fog of allergies affecting him. Our allergies are gone and we can breathe and think better. The water here is some of the purest in the world and our skin feels different, we are even sleeping better.

But I knew this. Every time I came to visit this place for the last 20 years, whether for a few days or a few weeks, I have been welcomed with open arms by both the people and the environment. I have traveled all over the United States and a lot of the world. Only two places that give me this feeling. Both are in California, and I now call one of them my home.

I delved deeper into the experience of what is happening for me here. I realized that when I am here, I don’t desire much of anything at all. I seem to have a general contentment with just being. The environment and this place supports most of my spiritual, mental, and physical needs. I have pure, clean water, I have a beautiful home, but there was something deeper within my soul that is supported in this place.

I don’t have the worries I had in Austin, or even the worries I had in New York before that. There is a general peace and trust in the knowing that I am supported here even though I have no other evidence for this than the feeling of being nourished in a profound and deep way.

This realization that I feel so different here makes me ask myself, “What things did I crave to make up for that loss when I wasn’t feeling that?”

In order for me to live in Austin, without this sense of nourishment I receive here, I had big needs. I needed a big house with an incredible view. I need to eat out at the best restaurants to feel good from the food, or at least a #7 with Coke from Wendy’s ( I am smiling). I needed a nice BMW 7 series to make me feel good while dealing with Austin traffic, and surely hanging out with my Buddy Joe Vitale in his Rolls Royce drinking 18-year old Macallan Scotch, smoking the finest Cuban Cigars, looking at the newest handmade guitar he just purchased. While these things were fun, and they did distract me from this deeper loss, when the night was over and I was driving the 30 minutes from Joe’s house to mine, this loss would begin to percolate through. It was as if I had a sense of something missing, a sense of being on the wrong track… a sense of needing certain things to keep me distracted.

It was like I was selling my soul in pieces. It was like I was negotiating for what I would need in the present moment to not feel what was missing. What shiny dangly thing would I sell my present attention for?
The question always seemed to be, “What would I need to have in order to stay where I am not supposed to be?”

And I was always up for the game. From the time I was a child, I have known this dynamic in me.
When I would go to Las Vegas, I would get stimulated by the lights and the new buildings, the glamour, the people smiling, the beautiful people all dressed nicely at their best. I was always hesitant to let go and enjoy this type of stimulation because a part of me knew that it was only sustainable for a short period of time. And even though I didn’t get into the scene completely, I would still come home and feel my body and mind get a little depressed after having the access to the constant top-of-the-line stimulation Las Vegas offers taken away.

I was aware of this. What was it like for those not aware of this? As soon as they got home and felt a biological depression of their central nervous system (similar to coming down off a drug like cocaine), they would be looking for their next fix, their next trip to Vegas.

Are you are doing what you don’t necessarily want to be doing? Are you living in a place that is not right for you? Are you with a person you shouldn’t be with? In a job you don’t like?

What are you giving up?

When I decided to go into the military years ago, I was promised all kinds of things to do it. Why?
Because there was risk involved. I might lose my life in the process and I was committed to peeling as many potatoes or cleaning as many bathrooms as they wanted me to during this contract. But if they gave me this shiny, dangly thing I could look forward to in the future, I guess I would give up my present life for their food and cot and the ability to do with me what they would.

How many contracts are you in like that? What do you tell yourself to make it okay?

As I continue fleshing this idea out, please write to me and let me know what you discover about where you are stuck and where you know you should be.

If you have any questions let me know. I will do my best to respond on the blog.

All in all, what I would like to explore with you is some territory I am pretty good at helping others navigate.
Let’s explore the depths of who you really are, what you should be doing, and where you might be living. Let’s discover how to get you pointed to your own true north, how to find your own personal home where you begin to feel supported naturally.

People asked me what I meant by teaching a different ho’oponopono than Joe teaches. Well it is not really that different. It is different in the approach and understanding.

I am going to be teaching how these spiritual practices can nourish you at a place beyond the temporary.
You go after a new car to get a certain feeling. However, that feeling is temporary. It wanes. It is only a fix: an agreement to put a band-aid on the real issue.

I say we explore and see about getting you nourished with flowing waters that don’t stop giving.

Are we supposed to trade the temporary for this? Are we supposed to settle for less? Should we negotiate in order to have it?

Should we suffer or be a martyr for lack of it? Should others tell us this and direct our lives for what they think it is? Should government control this, or even churches?

Or should you? My goal is not to tell you what it is that nourishes you or even who or where. My goal is to help you find the tools in you to discover it yourself.

This teacher not only wants to see you soar, but they place no limits on your growth and achievement. Your achievement becomes a joy to them, the same way a parent feels joy when their child learns a new skill. It doesn’t matter if you’re achieving past them or just learning how to walk.

Why is this type of teacher okay with your growth when others are not? First, he is comfortable with who he is. He doesn’t need or want to be better than you. Teaching is about your growth, not about competition. His goal is to be the best he can be for himself, and part of that self image and self esteem is helping others do the best that THEY can be, regardless of what happens to him personally.

He knows a secret. This secret is a by-product of his work with others to this degree. Remember, he knows it is a by-product, not a direct result. The by-product is that HE GETS FED. He gets fed first by the feeling that true giving can make someone feel. Second, from this magical place, he gets his cup filled. He not only feels good for others, he gets a wonderful feeling about how his contributions towards your growth. And then, he gets fed: he gets knew knowledge from this place of being a true teacher.

None of us are a completed work. We’re all a work in progress, all on our way someplace other than here. Nothing is static, we are all change. A teacher that is open to new knowledge from his students continues to grow. Contrast with the previous two teacher types that have at their core a need for constancy and superiority. They’re also on their way someplace else… but it isn’t growth oriented.

I have two teachers that I continue to work with that are in the 3rd category. I have one I think is in the middle or second category, and one who recently slipped into the first category.

Yes, they move about. And so do I, seeking knowledge wherever it is appropriate.

Why is the teacher who is in the second category still my teacher? Because I can separate out what we talked about in the last post. I can still find and appreciate knowledge and understand from his teachings, and I can subtract out what I know when I perceive his faults or find parts of him that I don’t want to integrate into who I am.

I think that once you separate out your teacher from his ethics or morals and look at the patterns that are useful to you, you can keep a great friendship. None of us are perfect. The category 3 teachers are rare.

The problem with the level 1 type of teacher. I find that the information and knowledge they have to share does not balance with the pull of the black hole of negative behavior. I think that the effort required to be involved, even as a friend, with the type of person who acts out in those ways far outweighs any type of benefit you might gain from the information. I have made a commitment to pull away from people who act out in those ways right away and spend time in contemplative prayer for some kind of revelation to come to them about how their actions affect other people.

My recent teacher who went that way in my experience still has a chance, but it won’t be easy. I was told by many people and had direct inspiration as I tried to reveal this to him. He quickly went in the opposite direction. It was difficult to watch someone I loved go this route.

At this point, I chose to pull myself away for 2 reasons. First, I cannot afford the negative pull in my life. Second, I want to keep distance as my presence and message seems to give him more of a reason to go farther into the dark side. And I chose not to have my brother fall any further.

I would love to see him excel again, even though he sought to keep me down.

So, let’s expand this a little more for next time.

Teachers… this can mean a friend, boss, mother, father, sister, brother. It can mean YOU. It can also mean your concept of spirit, the universe or God as you understand and experience it.

Go back and read all of these entries again while putting different folks from your life into the different roles. I promise that if you do this work, you will transform how you think about yourself, your community, and even spirituality.

Expanding upon yesterday’s post, the second type of teacher is the teacher that wants you to excel, but not past them.

This teacher will help you in varying degrees, until you get close to knowledge of how they work or their secrets.

I think most teachers — and for the most part, most people — fall into this category.

Personally, I think this is due to competition or fairness.

In regard to competition, we don’t like others beating us, being more right, better, or perceived as more “good.” We use others outside of ourselves to compete with instead of comparing ourselves to the internal standards we have set for ourselves. It is tough to note that even at our best, there is someone better. We don’t like to see it or experience it. This competition can happen in both men and women, but seems to be much more dominant in males.

Fairness seems to be a favorite in the fairer sex, but is well known in males too. If there is competition, it is always about who is more fair.

If someone excels too far away from the flock, then the flock can do all kinds of amazing things – little and big – to see to level the bifurcation of the one.

When you get to this level, it is sometimes good to seek another teacher. Retain a friendship with the previous teacher, but work on your growth with someone who does not feel competitive with where you are now.

Recently, I saw a peer of mine from a long time ago and saw him working on stage with 150 people. He was doing incredibly well, and I felt my competition revving inside of me, thinking of what I would have to do to outpace him. Part of this is healthy, but I also had to ask myself to feel positively, to feel pride for my friend and his growth. It didn’t take long, because I genuinely like and care about this man.

When we talked after his presentation, I told him about a seminar I had done in front of only 600 people in Moscow for 2 days. In my mind, I was disappointed, because we had expected 1,000 people. He jumped up and said “only? 600 people? Mate, this is fantastic! Congratulations.” He was excited and wanted to know more about what I spoke about.

He showed me that I needed to upgrade my thinking, beliefs and values about myself as well, since last September. I realized at that point I personally had not given myself credit for the work I had done both in Moscow and Novosibirsk.

I also saw that I needed to practice more gratitude and excitement for others if I am going to be the kind of teacher I respect.

I think of one spiritual teacher I know who is in this area, and it is funny, because it is his inability to push his students to the next level that keeps him from being a teacher who could be one of the greatest in history. His pride, his competitiveness, his insistence of being superior to all in his environment hidden within creative cracks in his psyche that keeps him from exactly what he seeks.

Here’s the huge lesson: It is within what we won’t or can’t GIVE that keeps us from attaining our own greatness. It is about power, how much we are willing to give, or how much we hoard and try to keep.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about teacher #3… the type of teacher that loves to see you soar to heights even you cannot imagine.

We’ll build a little on my previous post. Here are the three types as I see them:

1. A teacher who doesn’t want you to excel
2. One who accepts your excelling, but not past them
3. One who has a deep longing for you to soar, just as a loving parent wishes for their child

Who are teachers? They can be pretty much anyone… your friend, father, mother, sister, brother, a person you work with as a coach, a workshop leader, an author, a preacher, or your boss. Maybe even your neighbor. A teacher can be anyone we work with on our personal growth.

The Teacher That Doesn’t Want You to Excel
Here, we find that there is a difference between what you are told and the actions and behavior coming from that teacher.

You can tell quite easily by looking at how they reward you for your growth. A teacher who is afraid of you and your growth will do his best to minimize your accomplishments while maximizing your failures. They know that doubt and discouragement will keep you down, keep you in a submissive position. They’ve probably learned this technique very well because it was done to them at one time.

This teacher will also focus on you being less than, but more importantly, they will always bring the focus back to how big, how accomplished, how revered, how special THEY are. They enjoy keeping you, and others, in that “less than” position in order to have that ego rush of comparison readily available to them. These are the teachers that brag about what they have, what they’ve done, what others say about them. They will often weave the derogatory comments about you into passive aggressive statements sandwiched between positive statements about themselves as a comparison. Their intent is to elevate their status while keeping you submissive and subservient.

You will especially notice the threat expanding if you begin to excel in HIS area of expertise. God help you if you begin to surpass his expertise.

This type of teacher is an expert at keeping others in a feeling of doubt and discouragement. Even if he is a high school drop out and you are a PhD, this person can keep you from rising to your own greatness. And if he is a particularly nasty type, this type of teacher will take your own knowledge, your own insight, and your own greatness and claim it as his own. How many times do you hear of people taking credit for others’ ideas as their own?

This creates even further discouragement and doubt. And then, he’s got you exactly where he wants you.

If this type of teacher has a group of people around him that he has already done this to, they will expect you to act as they have. The additional peer pressure will come in many forms. Additionally, they will take delight in acting out towards you for the unconscious resentment they still feel from when it was done to them.

This is exactly how CULTS are created. And just because someone has not identified your group as a cult or its leader as a sociopath, it doesn’t mean that you’re not living in one, or experiencing the same type of emotional subterfuge.

Part of the trip here is that, because of competition, we seek to win even though we’ve lost. We want to find a way to win next time or sometime in the future.

However, in order for you to do that, you must become better than the teacher at what he does worst. In other words, you have to act as he does and try to win at that game. You find yourself in a loop, but this loop is a downward loop.

This is why you must get out of situations like this and learn to avoid them. It’s a dangerous game, and you have to escape the gravity. The only way to do so is to first forgiving yourself and accept the loss.

The group might say that your loss is your self destruction. However, if you look deeper and get help, it is a huge, momentous giant victory of self respect. You’ve escaped a situation that was holding you in a downward spiral game. It is counter-intuitive thinking and can be difficult, and often people don’t find a way to escape. This is why I really recommend getting help to see the situation you’re in from an external viewpoint. Those within the group will not be able to see it.

You see, they’re stuck in an echo chamber where the only beliefs they allow into their world are ones that they agree with. This often happens in politics, and individuals who do this in political situations often find themselves stuck in other areas as well.

I know of one person who goes around blocking people on social networking sites who have opposing viewpoints so he doesn’t get angered by them. This is also an individual who finds himself working with a teacher who won’t let him grow.

I will begin to dissect this nasty bugger with some clear examples. And if you’re wondering if you’re caught up in a similar situation, please write me and ask.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss the second type of teacher… the one who will let you rise, but not above them.

For an example, here is an excellent blog post describing an experience like what I describe. Remember, it doesn’t have to be this blatant, it can be very insidious and subtle and still be cult-like activity.

Note: I posted this as part of a 3 part series. Some people took this the wrong way and thought I was talking about them. I decided to post part 2 and 3 now instead of waiting so that you can see all three types contextually. Please take this knowledge for whatever it is worth. If it helps you, great. If it bothers you, I apologize. My intent is to help people extract themselves from difficult situations and prevent others from getting involved in them.