The Blessing and the Curse

I am not a guru, and I don’t want to be.

I am a teacher, and I am a healer.

It’s funny, many people will try to put me into the position of a guru, or even something else. When they do it, I am humbly thankful. Then I ask them to rearrange their thinking. Whenever I am in the position of guru, I shatter that image pretty quickly. I like being an iconoclast, for others, and for myself.

Over the years, I have had a bittersweet discovery. Most folks who believe too strongly in one thing are likely to swing back the other way when you least expect it.

The Blow Back of Change
I have had an experience recently when someone opened up to a new experience of the world, an experience full of love, hope, possibilities and miracles. The ho’oponopono experience can be pretty powerful when people begin to forgive others, and even more powerful when they start to forgive themselves.

Because I introduce people to that world, I experience a lot of their blow-back when the pendulum swings the other way. One day I will be the greatest person in their life, and then when the blow-back happens, which it inevitably will, I will be the target of their wrath. This is what Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len calls “the Sh*t hitting the fan!”

In the field of persuasion, it is called oscillation. During oscillation, a person experiences wild swings back and forth, sometimes not so wild, and sometimes the swing takes a day, while other times it takes a year. But oscillation happens, trust me.

I think of myself as a pretty great teacher. I have a lot of fun watching my students and coaching clients understand concepts, and it is a privilege to sit with someone while they experience an opening. It moves me. It gives me hope in mankind. And it encourages me to learn and experience more about change and opening.

As far as a teacher, I consider myself quite adept. I will put myself at the top of the list of people in the world figuring out what blocks folks from moving forward. And I think I am just as good at helping them move forward and getting past those blocks. I have worked hard at learning this, and I have incredible passion every time I work with a client.

But that still doesn’t make me a guru.

Hypocrisy in Self Help
In the self help field, I have encountered an incredible amount of hypocrisy regarding this. Astounding amounts of hypocrisy. Staggering amounts, really.

The hypocrisy is not just in the leaders of the field. The hypocrisy exists also in their followers.

There are a lot of people who put on a beautiful, loving, kind face in public. They say just the right things to “trick” people into believing they are the guru. The secret to the trick is not that they persuade people, but they allow people to believe this and feed the belief. It’s rather hypnotic how it is done.

It is a fallibility of the ego, the old brain, not the new.

The possibility of being exposed as being merely human and not a magical guru after accepting the label is a fear worse than death in these gurus, or maybe a fear just worse than public speaking. People will protect that “good” label to the death.

And the funny thing is, that is the deception, right there. The only thing you will ever really need to really propel you in self-help. Don’t put it on, take it off right away if you have.

I know it feels good to be recognized, even revered. We wait for this experience all of our lives. Things we never heard from mom or dad, or from our bosses or friends, now there is this person who sees good in us.

The trap is in how you take it on. The release from the trap is true humility. Not the type of humility where you feel humiliated. No, I mean the type of humility where we surrender to something larger than ourselves. 🙂

The type where the woman who I helped open last month tells me that I should be different as a teacher of ho’oponopono. She stands superior and protected, telling me how I need to exist in her world and interpretation. Who put me there? Did I ask to be there? And what does her judgement say about her? Perhaps more than it says about me. I’m pretty happy with who I am. 🙂

And yes, I am an awesome teacher of ho’oponopono amongst many other things. I can help you understand it, use it, and become more open and receptive to it, especially the deeper elements.

But because I am often source of that experience, don’t then cancel it out because I said something that challenges your belief about what a person in my position should say or do.

Lynn Robinson from Vancouver was my coach when I was taking NLP Trainers Training back over a decade ago. She could see my conflict: I was a great teacher but didn’t think myself worthy of that title. She said I was combining the idea that I had to live up to a standard or ideal as a guru before I could teach.

This really resonated. She said, “Mark you are a wonderful teacher when you ‘share’ but not so great when you try to be perfect.” That was all I needed to hear. And it still works today.

It will work for you as well. I have seen it work for so many.

I am a human being doing the best I can to learn and teach these wonderful gifts God has given me. I also know that my ability to be a vessel to “SHARE” what I know with the tools I have learned with you is a Divine gift as well.

I am reminded often of the need for humility. 🙂

The greatest heart surgeon in the world cannot operate on his or her own heart. But if someone in my family needs a heart surgeon, I want him!

And I don’t care if he is fat. I don’t care what kind of food he ate for breakfast. I don’t care if he smokes a cigar once in a while. I don’t care if he has a drink after work. And I don’t care if he says some hurtful things, or even if I catch her swearing. And I don’t care what my neighbors or Facebook friends say about him.

If I need to, I will beg on my knees for his help if I need him.

You are the heart surgeon. And you are the one gossiping about them. And you are the one on your knees because you need his services.

What role are you playing? What are you willing to do to get over your judgements?

This is the real work…this is what it all comes down to in my work.

if you haven’t yet got the 6+ hours of teaching/sharing of the Z+ DVD’s you might want to check them out.

They are not just Ho’oponopono…and a matter of fact most of what is in there is what I have learned that works outside of Ho’oponopono. A lot of folks asked me if there was other things they could do with Ho’oponopono and I said yes, lots of things.

So I had a couple of friends film me, and I went to town sharing the best of what I know on these DVDs about what REALLY works. I have gained a lot of experiential knowledge from teaching thousands on stage and hundreds of clients throughout the years.

The woman I coached last month called me crying. She was 63 and has written many new age books and helped others write books that landed them on Oprah. She said nothing had come close to opening her up like the Subliminal Clearing DVDs did for her. She said they changed her life. She admitted that she had made it her secret goal to never be wrong, and to certainly never admit it, and to never say she was sorry. She said she didn’t know how I did it, but she decided to give it a try to play. And when she did, everything changed.

She said she had been praying to God for something…and when she got it, she knew this was her answer.

She – and I – also experienced blow back of the sh*it hitting the fan.

I am humbled by her story and experience. I feel like I was sharing…using the tools I have been given to be available to God for his will.

Why don’t you give it a try and see what happens?

And remember: I am here to share. I am not a Guru. I am human, and I promise I will disappoint you if you let me. 🙂