server room isn't really a matrix
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You Cannot Go Back

The movie The Matrix captivated so many people, including me. There are so many archetypes of our patterns as humans interwoven into a story of awakening that we so deeply identify with.

Recently I had a coaching client who was gripped by fear after losing her job. She knew she had to move forward with her life, but she also had many fears about what was going to happen going forward. She thought back to the “good times” she had before, when she had started her career and had so much success. She had attempted a few times to back to repeating that experience again, and nothing was working for her.

I asked her if she had seen The Matrix. She had, and loved the movie, too. I asked her if she remembered this scene, when Cypher asks Agent Smith to be put back into the matrix, to forget everything, and to become “someone important, like an actor.”

Of course, she remembered the scene.

“Does this seem familiar to you now?” I asked.

“Sort of,” she replied hesitantly. After a pause, she said, “Well, yes. I suppose I’d like to go back into my old belief systems, into my old way of being, where everything seemed to click. Nothing seems to click for me right now.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked. The answer to her question unveiled some of the patterns that were causing her so much grief.

Struggling to Find What Works

As we worked through many of these patterns, it became apparent that she was doing what many of us do to ourselves. We get stressed. We experience a set back of some sort. We become fearful. We try to figure out how to fix things by doing what worked before. When it doesn’t work anymore, we get even more panicked. We become like a rat in a maze, frantically trying to work out our dilemma.

My coaching client knew exactly where the cheese was last time. But the maze had changed, and she couldn’t find it anymore.

It’s a familiar scene, and with the turmoil in the world right now, you may be like my coaching client. You may be looking for the cheese, and you’re realizing that someone has moved it. It’s apparent that the landscape has completely changed, and you’re not entirely sure how to navigate.

When we are panicked, we automatically go back to what feels safe. We try our trusty old patterns to see which one works.

Unfortunately, all too often, we find out what does not work anymore.

Certainty and Security are Not Certain and Secure

Our world isn’t the same world it was a few years ago. And we are not the same people we were even last month. The landscape has completely changed, and so have we. Every time we step up to the starting line to run a new race, we’re running a new course. Even if it is a race we’ve run many times, many variables have changed. Perhaps it’s the weather, or other runners, or even our shoes.

Our absolute certainty and desire for security are the things that create absolute uncertainty and insecurity. We think we’ve got it figured out. We think we know the answers. And we play things safe when we’re scared, don’t we. That fear and desire for security drives us into the very thing that causes us more fear and anxiety.

Every single moment is a new world, with new opportunities, new ways of being, and when it gets right down to it, an entirely new you. Right now, everything and everyone is as new and refreshed as you will allow yourself to perceive. And two seconds from now, it will be completely new and different, full of possibilities and potential.

In the present moment, you create the entirety of your reality. You can’t go back and relive the past, because now is the moment of your power, your potential and possibility.

When you are absolutely certain that you know what will work — and what will not — you start to shut down that potential and possibility. You start to lose out on the miracle of creation, and you start shutting down possibilities.

So how do you get it back?

Wonder and Awe

We’ve forgotten so much, haven’t we. We come into this world as unaware and uncertain, insecure and unknowing, and yet somehow we learn everything from how to feed ourselves, how to walk, how to tie our shoes, write in cursive, and navigate social interaction. We started out full of so much potential and possibility, so much awe, wonder, and success.

You’ve heard of beginner’s luck, I’m sure. It’s when we start a new activity and have amazing success without any training whatsoever. I had that experience once when I first learned to bowl. Somehow, without trying very hard at all, I was able to bowl three strikes in a row. I could never replicate that experience as a bowler, but I’ve had it elsewhere. Maybe you have, too?

What is the commonality there? It’s that we’re uncertain. We’re insecure. We’re trying something new for the first time. We’re not thinking quite so much on how to do things “right.” We’re in a state of surrender, of unknowing and uncertainty. And when we let go into that experience, somehow another part of our being-ness takes over and starts ensuring everything goes just the way it should.

What if that’s the way it always works?

Cultivating Uncertainty

My coaching client, the one who felt like Cypher in The Matrix, did not realize the powerful experience she was having. You see, fear and excitement are very similar experiences. It is very easy to move from fear into excitement and vice versa. She was in an uncertain place trying very hard to analyze the best way to go, flipping into fear instead of excitement. She was out of her flow of creativity and surrender, trying very hard to control a situation that felt very much out of control.

Many of us are in this situation, and it’s a very good thing. As we let go and surrender our trust to that part of us that already knows what to do, as we let go of our need to control outcomes, we end up flowing with our creative power in a very powerful ever-present moment of now.

If you’re feeling fearful, uncertain, overwhelmed, and lost, I recommend working with my two products designed to help you manage and overcome primal, fear-based patterns. The first, The Success Switch, calms this primal brain so that you can make rational decisions. And The Law of Flow helps you get into the creative, flow-based state from which all creative possibility in the now starts.

And if you need immediate help unraveling your patterns so that you can move more freely in your life, I’m available for one-on-one coaching. I’m currently offering a coaching special of $100 off a 1-hour coaching call. This offer won’t last long.

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5 Comments

  1. Mark – I’ve been following your work for a while. I found you because of ho’oponopono. I stick around because of posts like these. You are amazing. Thank you. Namaste.

  2. Thanks for sharing this Mark. Makes perfect sense in this moment. We think we are the big cheeses when all along there is something much more amazing flowing through us all. Be well, Phil

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