Tag Archives: Esalen

We are All Connected! Literally!

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

Last weekend I spent a blissful 2.5 days at The Esalen Institute in Big Sur on the beautiful California coast with my ITP (Integral Transformative Practice) Mastery community.  As you can see from the picture above, we were literally glowing from the experience. If you’ve been to Esalen, you know what I’m talking about. If you have not, I highly recommend you go.

One of our objectives for the weekend was to activate and explore the “unified field of practice.” This is a basic concept of Gestalt theory, best described as a “web of interconnection between person and situation, self and others, organism and environment, the individual and the communal.[i]

There is more and more evidence being produced which indicates everything is connected – literally! And some of the experimental evidence indicates that these connections can be strengthened or weakened in various ways. We intuitively know and experience this; the more time you spend with someone the more connected you become. However, this is happening in a far more profound way than we might at first imagine.

There are far-reaching implications involved in really grasping the knowledge that we are literally connected to all things. All things are truly affecting one another. With a deep knowing and experience of this invisible truth, your life can be transformed in the most beautiful ways.

In this blog Major Good Mojo we’ll explore this unfolding reality and knowledge of our deep connection to all things. Coming to know and experience this connection for yourself is a major outcome of the Major Good Mojo System.

Read on and enjoy!

We are all connected! Literally!

“The most definitive experimental support so far for the idea of nonlocality in human brain-minds was performed by neurophysiologist Jacobo Grinbert-Zylberbaum and his collaborators. In this experiment two subjects are instructed to interact for a period of thirty or forty minutes until they start feeling a “direct communication.” They then enter separate Faraday cages (metallic enclosures that block all electromagnetic signals). Unbeknownst to his or her partner, one of the subjects is now shown a flickering light signal that produces an evoked potential (an electrophysiological response produced by a sensory stimulus and measured by an EEG) in the light-stimulated brain. But amazingly, as long as the partners in the experiment maintain their direct communication, the unstimulated brain also shows an electrophysiological activity, called a transfer potential, quite similar in shape and strength to the evoked potential of the stimulated brain. (In contrast, control subjects do not show any transfer potential). The straightforward explanation is quantum nonlocality: The two brain-minds act as a nonlocally correlated system – the correlation established and maintained through nonlocal consciousness – by virtue of the quantum nature of the brains.”
The Self Aware Universe ~ Amit Goswami

The Self Aware Universe was published in 1993. At that time this experimental evidence was ridiculed and dismissed by some as random chance and trivial. However, in the time since then, the study has been replicated by other research centers lending far more credibility to the results. This data indicates we truly are connected in a metaphysical reality beyond our normal senses and everyday awareness.

 As a Licensed HeartMath Provider I am well aware of the scientific data indicating our connections to one another via an electromagnetic field. This field has been measured up to 10 feet away from the body. And, when two people are together their heart and brain waves (measured by EKG and EEG) become synchronized; they become entrained. This alone is an amazing fact and it’s powerful to realize the power of your heart and its effect on your environment.

However, the data presented by Amit Goswami points to an even more stunning revelation of connection, a field of connection we have not measured, a field of connection where we see only effects indicating its existence. This is a field beyond our sense capacities, yet impacting our normal day-to-day lives. As a species, we are only just now beginning to comprehend this reality and grapple with its far-reaching implications.

In ITP, when community members are not together, we say they are in the “long body.” The long body is a concept indicating we are all connected through a larger entity of which we are all a part, a body if you will, a long body that covers any distance that may be between us. And, as connected practitioners, how we are (or are not) practicing, affects everyone in our community, through this long body. Others benefit from my strong practice, and I benefit from theirs. And this applies vice versa, with respect to not practicing.

To make this more vivid, consider the analogy of white-water rafting. Think of a raft with eight people in it, navigating frothy, fast-moving, white water. Everyone in the boat benefits from each person’s active paddling. Each person contributes. AND everyone suffers when even just one person stops paddling and “goes along for the ride.”

As George Leonard so eloquently wrote in his book, The Silent Pulse:  “A world of connectedness, potential, and evolution turns us toward a vivid sense of community along with the acceptance of personal responsibility; toward a de-emphasis on competing and winning along with reemphasis on participating and experiencing; from aggression toward gentleness and enjoyment; from dominance of nature to blending with nature; from exponential growth in production and consumption to a more moderate, more ecological standard of living along with a powerful intentionality toward social justice throughout the world.

Perhaps more than anything else, the new world offers us the thrill of novelty and surprise. Can we call it Transformation?”

To develop your knowing and felt sense of connectedness to all things, I invite you to engage The Major Good Mojo System.

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and sense into your connectedness with all things. If it’s true that you are connected, literally connected, to all things (and experimental evidence is demonstrating this is so), what does this mean for your life? How might you live differently? Jot down a few notes and continue to contemplate and live into this new reality for the next few days (or the rest of your life if you so choose J)

Congratulations, you are one step closer to Major Good Mojo!

 

 

 

 



[i] http://www.gisc.org/gestaltreview/documents/TheUnifiedFieldinPractice.pdf

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Hell Is Other People – Or Is It?

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

Friends at Esalen

This picture was taken at The Esalen Institute during an ITP (Integral Transformative Practice) Mastery Program Retreat. I always have a smile on my face when I’m at Esalen. Beauty, peace, and joy are so easily experienced there. It’s like Heaven On Earth, especially when you’re there with kindred spirits.

This past weekend I was with Dr. John Gray at his Mars/Venus Soul Mate Seminar. What a great program – I highly recommend it. He offered many profound and helpful ideas, when it comes to finding your soul mate. Here is one of his ideas that struck me: He suggested that you ask yourself, “Do you like who you are when you’re in their presence?” If your answer is “yes, most of the time,” that’s a good sign. If “no,” then you might want to reconsider the relationship. You can apply this to any relationship, group, or community. Do you like who you are when you are with them?

Have you ever heard the statement “Hell is other people”? I really laughed when I first heard that because of course there is some truth to it. However, the opposite is just as true or even truer: “Heaven is other people.” The key is: WHAT people? And to a very large extent, this is up to you. Of the seven billion or so people now living on Planet Earth, you get to choose the ones you are going to spend time with. Isn’t that amazing?

In this issue of Major Good Mojo we take a closer look at this very important element for your personal power and fulfillment: finding kindred spirits on your path. This is Step 10 of the Major Good Mojo System: “Connect with a Loving, Supportive, Inspiring Community.”

Read on and enjoy!

Hell is Other People – Or is it?

Step 10 of The Major Good Mojo System is: Connect with a loving, supportive, inspiring community.  As the old saying goes, no man is an island. To live a truly fulfilling life we need others. This is especially true when beginning to step out into new ways of living for the first time. You need a group of supportive people who can love and support you.  Who see and believe in the best for you. Who know who you really are and what you are hoping to achieve. The reason we are not alone on this planet is because we need each other. The key is to find your tribe, to find YOUR people. This is not always an easy thing to do.

I remember I was working with a professional life coach in the late 90s and he kept repeating to me, “Roger, you gotta get out there and meet your people.” I was sharing all this stuff with him about consciousness and living a creative life, and pouring my passions out to him in our sessions. He kept prodding me to get out there, to find those places where I and my ideas would be welcomed. I finally took his advice and found several communities where this was true. It made all the difference in the world to be with people who could understand me, who would support and encourage me, and even challenge me to get better, clearer, or more committed.

You know you’ve found your community, your people, or your tribe when you are accepted for who you are, you naturally fit in, and it’s easy for you to be yourself, say what you are thinking and feeling, and grow in the relationship.

One very interesting element of community is that “who we are with others, is not who we are when alone.” Think about it. Who you are, the thoughts you are having, the things you say, the things you do, are different depending on who is with you. This is a very interesting characteristic of relationships. We’ve all been around people who make us feel good or who inspire us. And on the other hand, we’ve all been around people who depress us and suck the energy out of us. Clearly, we are affected by the people with whom we are interacting.

In the spring 1996 issue of “The Noetic Sciences Review,” Margaret Wheatley (Organizational Consultant and author of Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe) wrote an article about the hidden intelligence orchestrating and organizing all things in the Universe. In this article one of the things she pointed out was: who we are when we’re with others, or who we are in community, is different than who we are when we’re alone.

Margaret reveals the seldom realized and amazing fact that you cannot understand the power of an individual by assessing or understanding who they are when alone. You have to look at them when in community and in relationship with others! However, she pointed out, “none of the personality assessors or indicators (e.g. Myers-Briggs) let us know who or what we are capable of being when we are in community with one another.”

As your mission becomes clearer and your confidence in who you are becomes greater and greater, your ability to identify, attract, and engage people on your path gets stronger and stronger.On the flip side, your ability to know who and what is NOT on your path gets stronger and stronger as well. And eventually, what comes along with this knowledge is your ability to say NO to who and what is not on your path. The funny thing is, people and opportunities NOT on your path will likely keep showing up, especially in the early stages of engaging your mission. These become opportunities for you to continue embracing who and what you are, by saying NO to who and what is not on your path. (Side note:  these people actually ARE on your path, however they are there for you to say and strengthen your “no”).

Eventually you get to a point in life where it’s about living your mission and making your contribution to the world. This is what becomes most important. If someone does not support, or is not aligned with this highest purpose and vision for your life, then it serves no one (including them!) to spend your time and energy with them. Having this kind of capacity requires that you are very clear on your own authentic life path and mission (achieved through Steps 5 and 6 of The Major Good Mojo System: Get connected to your Purpose and Passions). When you have clarity on this, it becomes a lot easier to say YES and NO to best facilitate your service and gifts into the world.

Connecting with loving, inspiring, and supportive people, groups, and communities is an essential element for living a truly fulfilling life. To bring this alive in your life I invite you to engage the The Major Good Mojo Coaching System.

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Reflect on the following questions:

-       Who in your life right now does NOT support the highest vision of yourself? Who do you NOT feel empowered and good in the presence of? List these people, groups, and communities. Decide right now to give less of your time, attention, and energy to these people on your path that are not serving you (nor is it serving them!).

-       Who in your life right now DOES support the highest vision of yourself? Who do you feel empowered and good in the presence of? List these people, groups, and communities. Decide right now to give MORE of your time, attention, and energy to these people on your path that ARE serving and supporting the highest vision of yourself.

Congratulations – you are one step closer to Major Good Mojo!

 

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The Two Most Abused Modern Miracles: Diet and Exercise

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

This picture was taken on a recent hike of mine on the mountain in my backyard, Mt. Diablo. I love exercise that takes me into the inspiring energy of the great outdoors. I gave up boring gym workouts long ago in favor of free, fun, and truly energizing outdoor exercises that require no special equipment.

Have you noticed the conversation about health and diet really ramping up these days? It’s been prevalent since the exercise revolution of the 70’s, but recently seems more and more people are getting sick. The side effects of living in our modern world are catching up with us. It seems people are either too busy (I don’t have enough time) or too depressed (I don’t care) to take care of themselves. Both of these conditions – too busy or too depressed – lead to sedentary lifestyles coupled with consumption of highly processed, convenience foods. You can get away with this for a while, but eventually it catches up with you.

The data and research are clearer today than ever before: proper diet and regular exercise are the keys to healthy living. Almost every disease in our modern world can be linked back to poor diet and lack of exercise (plus mental/emotional stress). These are factors in which YOU are in control, NOT your genes, destiny, or bad luck. I see it on PBS all the time: people reversing chronic health ailments like coronary artery disease, migraines, even cancer, through changes in diet and exercise. Not to mention just plain old feeling better with more optimism and energy!

In this issue of Major Good Mojo we look at one of the most important ingredients for creating your life’s dreams and desires: taking conscious, loving care of your physical body. This is Step 9 of the Major Good Mojo System: “Feel Good In Your Body – Look After It!”

Read on and enjoy!

The Two Most Abused Modern Miracles: Diet and Exercise

Step 9 of the 10 Step Major Good Mojo System is “Feel Good In Your Body – Look After It!” This step has multiple aspects to it, all of them about taking care of your physical self. Over the years I’ve learned just how important this is to a life of fulfillment. We have bodies for a reason, and that reason is to live and fulfill our destinies and to create and fully experience our lives. If our bodies are out of shape, worn down, or not given the proper fuel, sleep, or fresh air, just like any mechanical system, they will break down. They will not be able to serve their purpose.

Lots of people struggle with this in their lives. I think one of the reasons is because the body is for living, and if you don’t know what you are living for, then you’re not truly, or naturally, motivated to live. That makes taking care of your body, your key tool for living, an uphill battle and struggle. When you are connected to Spirit and your passions (accomplished through the first 8 steps of the Major Good Mojo System), taking care of your body becomes so much easier and more natural. You are excited about life, you are inspired by life, you have divine energy flowing through you and you want to live. It makes a lot more sense that you want to exercise and move your body, eat a healthy diet, drink plenty of refreshing water, breath lots of fresh air, let in the beautiful sunlight, connect with plants and animals, and get plenty of rest and sleep.

One of my original teachers and inspirations was Dan Millman, author of the best selling book “Way of the Peaceful Warrior.” He is often asked, “How can I become a Peaceful Warrior? What is the most important thing I should be doing?” His reply is, “Get plenty of sleep, eat a healthy diet, and exercise your body.” We’re so busy looking for the magical aspects of living a fulfilling life that we forget these basic things and the huge difference they make.

One of the most powerful practices I have discovered is called Integral Transformative Practice, or ITP for short. This is a long-term practice for transformation developed by human potential pioneers Michael Murphy and George Leonard. Michael Murphy is one of the founders of the Esalen Institute (the west coast center for the human potential movement, founded 50 years ago, located in beautiful Big Sur, California) and George Leonard was President of The Esalen Institute for a time. Over the years these two saw pretty much everything when it came to programs and processes for realizing our human potential.

On January 4, 1992 they embarked on a research study they called “Integral Transformative Practice” with 36 people that met every Saturday morning for 11 months. In 1993 a second group met for 10 consecutive months. They decided they would forgo the spectacular “gee-whiz” experiences they knew they could facilitate, feeling they only gave the illusion of significant change and could even interfere with lasting, long-term transformation. Rather, they held a strong belief in the “transformative power and sacredness of life’s quiet virtues, including intellectual curiosity and integrity, a sense of the spiritual, unconditional love, healthy exercise, and a devotion to practice.” They “were in it for the long run.” “The practice would be integral in that it would involve and seek to integrate body, mind, heart, and soul. It would be transformative in that it would aim toward positive, long-term personal change.”

While the practice certainly has its physical/body-based components, including proper diet and regular exercise, it goes beyond this and recognizes the INTEGRAL nature of ALL OUR COMPONENTS. This means focus and development in one area affect all the others. So, for TRUE physical health and vitality, we must also develop our other parts: mind, heart, and soul. And vice-versa for all the other areas of our being.

The standard affirmation that every ITP Practitioner makes is “My entire being is balanced, vital and healthy.” It’s important to affirm your preferred state of balance, vitality, and health, and ingrain this into yourself through repetition as a conscious and unconscious truth.

So, Step 9, taking care of our physical body, is in the Major Good Mojo System as a very important part of our daily practice for fulfillment and experiencing Major Good Mojo in our lives. To experience the power this can provide in your life, I invite you to engage the The Major Good Mojo Coaching System.

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Take a look in your kitchen cupboards and pantry and see what you see. Are they filled with processed foods, crackers, cookies, pasta, chips, cereal, white rice, tortillas, bread, candy, etc.? Modern dietary research is indicating the average American diet is too high in these starchy, sugary, processed carbs. Just decreasing your intake of these things will make a big difference in your health. Replace them with things like fresh vegetables, fruits, and nuts.

Take a look at your exercise habits. Is your habit NOT to exercise? Just notice. Modern research is showing that even a small amount of non-strenuous exercise (a short walk for example) can make a huge difference in health and well-being. It’s the consistency that matters most, not the intensity. See if there is an opportunity for you to increase the exercise you are getting in your life and notice the big difference it will make.

Congratulations – you are one step closer to Major Good Mojo!

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How to be a Star in the School of Life: Give Up the Blame Game

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

This picture was taken on the starting tee of the ITPI Kingdom of Golf Marathon Fund Raiser in San Rafael California. ITPI stands for Integral Transformative Practice International, a very powerful practice for integration of body, mind, heart, and soul, created by George Leonard and Michael Murphy. In the picture, Michael is in the middle wearing the Giants hat. Besides creating ITP, he is co-founder of Esalen, the west coast center for human potential, and author of the book and now movie “Golf in the Kingdom.” (Click here to see the amazing movie trailer).

Being one of the top fund-raisers, I was blessed with the opportunity to play in the foursome with Bobby Clampett, PGA Champions Tour Player, pro golf instructor, and NBC announcer. Can you guess which one he is? That’s right, the one in black and red who most looks like the pro golfer. He is actually wearing knickers and he also won the prize for best dressed.

As we played each hole, Bobby had lots of interesting things to say when it came to playing great golf. One of the most memorable for me was, “The best students and players never complain about why their ball didn’t go where they wanted it to. They never blame it on the wind, the grass being too wet, the sun in their eyes, or any of those things. Rather, they take full responsibility for each shot, knowing it didn’t go where they wanted it to go because they didn’t hit it there! The best students know it’s all up to them, and they LEARN from each shot so each one gets better and better.”

Today is 11-11-11 representing a powerful doorway to new levels of consciousness. Perhaps today is the day you embrace new levels of response-ability in your life. Perhaps today is the day you move into a new level of consciousness and power and truly own your life, your experiences, and all aspects of it. Today, 11-11-11, just may be that day.

In this blog we’ll explore more deeply how to be a star in the school of life. The answer, simple, elegant, and powerful, is one of the three Power Principles in my Major Good Mojo System, and one of the very first things my clients engage when embarking on their journey.

Read on and enjoy!

How to be a Star in the School of Life: Give Up the Blame Game

For the duration of the Major Good Mojo Program, my clients agree to follow, live by, and live into three important Power Principles. These are principles of living discovered through years of trial and error I’ve found essential to creating a life of Major Good Mojo. The third Power Principle, and the key to becoming a star in the school of life, is to take full responsibility for your results and experience in life. This is so important that I wrote a whole chapter about it in my book, NexGen Human, Chapter 4, “The Great Transformation.”

The blame game and playing victim is so common and prevalent in our society today; everyone wants to blame someone or something else for their apparent woes and problems. It’s so easy to do and we’ve all done it. The problem with this approach is that it never leads to solutions or resolutions of the issue. What it does is make powerless the person doing the blaming and playing the victim. By definition, blaming others and playing the victim absolves you of any responsibility, and thereby also removes your “response-ability.” You cannot respond, you can only blame and be a victim and perpetuate that vicious cycle of perpetrator and victim. The key is to wake-up and take back your response-ability and instead choose to move your life in directions you really desire.

Frankly, part of the awakening here is simply growing up and becoming an adult in those areas of our lives where we are still children. You see, when we were children we actually WERE victims, so it’s not that this story we believed was never true. The way we experienced the world was the way we experienced the world. It was true at one point in our life and we got very pissed-off about that. However, I’m sure you can see it was from a very limited view of the world.

When you are 6, 7, or 8 years old, you haven’t seen much of the world, nor have you interacted with very many of the people in it. You only knew what you were exposed to and that was it. However, over the years, as we develop adult competencies, distinctions, and capacities, we become far more able to take responsibility for our lives. We develop a far larger context inside of which our life is happening. And eventually the opportunity arrives when we can actually choose to be responsible about how we are reacting to our hurts, our trials and tribulations as a child. We can choose in this moment, as an adult, how we are going to relate to and perceive those incidences in our lives that hurt us.

At more advanced levels of this competency (being responsible for everything you experience in your life), deeper and more subtle stories of playing victim come to light. For example, people love to blame the government, the economy, the weather, their spouse, their kids, their finances, their health, and on, and on, and on! In all of these circumstances there is choice. Choice to be responsible for your life and the events in it, or the choice to be a victim and not responsible for the events in your life.

Again, this doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen, or that people and things aren’t out there making your life challenging. What it does mean is you don’t blame them and play victim to them. Instead, you acknowledge the challenges you have, recognize they are part of YOUR experience in YOUR life, and choose instead to take some creative, proactive actions that will move you and your life forward.

Taking full responsibility for your results and experience in life is a key piece of the Major Good Mojo System. To take this skill to new levels and become a star in the school of life, I invite you to engage the The Major Good Mojo Coaching Program.

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Consider carefully the following questions. Your answers may grant you immense power and freedom:

-          Are there areas in your life where you can stop being a victim and become more response-able? What and where might these areas be?

-          Are there people in your life you can benefit from forgiving? Who might they be?

-          How much pain and suffering have you created from being a victim or holding a grudge in your life? Think how great it would feel FOR YOU to let that go.

If you were to focus on one of the areas above and become less of a victim and more like a responsible creator, what might that look like? What would be your first step or action? Take it, and take your life into new levels of freedom, power, consciousness, and Major Good Mojo!

 

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The Truth About Lying, Cheating, and Stealing

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

I recently joined a local Business Networking International (BNI) group.  This is a group of independent professionals who gather early in the morning one day each week to network and support each other’s business success.   It’s a referral group – we learn about each other’s businesses and then we refer clients to each other.

There are currently 32 members in the group I am joining, each from a different profession.  So there is no competition for referrals, there is only one of each profession allowed in a group.  If I come across someone needing a particular service, I don’t have to pick who in my group to give the referral to – there will be only one person who offers that service.  So there is one attorney, one accountant, one real estate agent, one chiropractor, one interior designer, one dentist, one insurance agent, one massage therapist, etc.  I am the one Spiritual Life Coach.  

As you can imagine, one of the key elements for this referral group to work, is Trust.   As one of my mentors, Fabienne Fredrickson says, “Before people will buy from you, they must first KNOW you, then they must LIKE you, and then they must TRUST you.”  Trust is the foundation of ANY rewarding relationship – business or otherwise.  Think about it, as soon as you can no longer trust someone,  whether friend, lover, or business, that relationship is doomed.  As the old saying goes “Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.”  Most people are willing to give people a chance to prove their trust-worthiness. But once that trust has been lost, it’s usually lost for good.

So where does trust come from?  Trust is something that is built up over time by keeping your word.  By doing what you say you will do.  In this manner, you become predictable and reliable in the eyes of others.  We like predictability and reliability, and we tend to avoid that which is unpredictable or unreliable.  

In this blog we take a closer look at trust and the things that destroy not only trust, but something even more important!  Yes, lying, cheating, and stealing destroy trust and our relationship with others.  However, they destroy something even more important than that (Hint:  this “something even more important” is one of the main things the Major Good Mojo System can build and create for you.  And once you have it, you have no need for lying, cheating, or stealing)

Let’s take a closer look at these “bad” things that tend to destroy trust and relationships: Lying, Cheating, and Stealing.  Why do we think these things are bad?  Common answers would probably include things like: because they hurt others, or because we would not want people to do them to us, or because they cause more problems than they solve.  I would agree with all those answers, however, there is a far more important and powerful reason to not engage these behaviors.  Can you guess what that is?

Let’s first establish that people lie, cheat and steal because they think they will personally gain from doing so, right?  People will have perfectly good reasons (to them) why they need to lie, cheat, or steal.  From an evolutionary survival standpoint, it looks to them as if the benefits are greater than the costs.  And for many people who engage in these things, that is probably true – in the SHORT term.  What they are not seeing (at least initially) is the long term, DEVASTATING effects, of these behaviors.   

Let’s start with lying.  What’s the real reason someone would tell a lie?  They tell a lie because they are afraid of the truth, whatever that truth may be.  So, when you tell a lie, you affirm, whether consciously or subconsciously, “I am afraid of the truth, I cannot handle the truth, I am afraid and not big enough or strong enough to handle the truth, I don’t trust myself, others, or the Universe.”  To sum this up, when you tell a lie you affirm “I am afraid and weak.”  Ouch.

OK, how about cheating.  What’s the real reason someone would cheat?  Once again, they cheat (on their taxes, on bills, on their spouse, in games, on services provided, on whatever) because they are afraid of losing something, whether money, pride, time, love, whatever (once again, notice fear at work here).  So, when you cheat, you affirm, whether consciously or subconsciously “I cannot win with integrity, I am not good enough to win fair and square, I am weak and must make up for that weakness somehow, I cannot win on my own and need special help and advantage.”  To sum this up, when you cheat you affirm “I am a loser.”  Ouch.

OK, how about stealing. What’s the real reason someone would steal? (You’re probably starting to see a pattern here).  Once again, they steal because they are afraid, afraid they cannot provide for themselves (again, notice the fear at work here).  So, when you steal, you affirm, whether consciously or subconsciously “I am poor, I cannot afford what I want and need, I cannot provide for myself, the Universe is not abundant, there is not enough for everyone, especially me.”  To sum this up, when you steal you affirm “I am poor.”  Ouch.

Through all these examples there is FEAR underlying the motives for the actions, and when you do not face and embrace your fears, you affirm your weakness.  You affirm that you do not TRUST YOURSELF OR THE UNIVERSE (to be strong enough, big enough, and to provide for you).  This is the real reason you do not want to engage in lying, cheating, and stealing.  You are undermining the most fundamental aspect for true power, freedom, and fulfillment in life:  The fact that relationships are ruined is only a symptom, it’s only a mirror reflecting back to you that you’ve destroyed your most important relationship – the one with yourself and the Universe. So, Trust in yourself and the Universe.  

The more you avoid your fears, the more you affirm your weakness.  The more you face and embrace your fears, the more you affirm your power and strength.  It’s that simple, folks.  And this is true not only with lying, cheating and stealing, but with all our choices in life.  Are fear, worry, and concern running your life?  Or are love, trust, and power running your life?  If you’re like most people, it’s probably a blend, and depends on the area of life we are talking about.  Just know that moment by moment, in ALL areas of your life, you get to choose. And with each choice, you affirm something about yourself, about others, and about the Universe.

God, Great Spirit, Universal Intelligence, Source wants us to live from love, trust, and power.  That’s why when we choose, act and affirm from there we get stronger (and when we choose, act, and affirm from fear, we get weaker).  And, the beauty is, the more you practice choosing from love, trust, and power, the easier it becomes. 

Affirming that you are strong enough, big enough, and provided for is a major aspect of the Major Good Mojo coaching program.  If you want to establish trust in yourself and in the Universe, I invite you to engage the The Major Good Mojo Coaching Program.

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Bring awareness to your everyday choices and actions, especially those where you are inclined to cheat a little, tell a white lie, or even take or keep something that is not yours.  Ask yourself, “What is the source of my actions?  Am I coming from fear or love?”  If you are coming from love, awesome!  Embrace that choice and action and move forward. However, if you are coming from a fear of some kind, see if you can identify what that fear is, e.g. there is not enough to go around, I’ll get hurt, I’ll hurt others, others will take advantage of me, etc.  Choose instead to come from love and trust, choose instead to hold yourself (and others) higher and more capable.  Choose to affirm “I am strong enough, I and everyone else CAN handle the truth, and there is enough for everyone, including me.”

Congratulations, you are one step closer to Major Good Mojo!  

 

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Soul Filled Living – The True Source of Satisfaction and Fulfillment

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| Leave a comment

As part of my ongoing exploration and development, a couple weeks ago I was at a cmonference where the featured speaker was Esalen Co-founder Michael Murphy. This picture is me with Michael at the conference.  Michael is a modern day pioneer in the exploration of human potential and this Universe we live in.  A real inspiration!  The  conference was “Integral Transformative Practice and the Evolution of the Soul.”  Michael led the group on an exploration of how the soul may be evolving through lifetimes and is an essential element in the evolution of the Universe itself.  The inquiry and question we were exploring was “How can we partner with our soul and become ACTIVE participants in both our individual and collective evolution?”

I am keenly interested in this aspect of “the evolution of the soul” and specifically how it relates to OUR evolution as a human being (as a body, mind, heart, AND soul) right here, right now. From the Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of evolution is:  an unfolding; a process of development or change; a movement that is part of a series.  Yes, this makes sense.  An unfolding, a process of development or change, a movement that is part of a series.  One could say that evolution is the process of the unfolding of the soul into and through the world.  So how is the unfolding of your soul going?  I think that’s a pretty important question.

I’m plugged into a lot of “transformational” work, processes, and people. It’s MY passion, so I engage and follow these things.  Typically, marketing messages are  targeted at one of a few things; weight loss, more money, or better relationships.  At business training seminars we’re told these are the top things people are looking for and that if you want to sell your stuff, we must target our messages at one or more of these things.  That may be true, but for me, these things are not the end in themselves and doing that (selling those results) only adds to the problem.  It further feeds the false belief that “if I just had XYZ THEN I would be happy” (more money, less weight, better relationships).  Well, maybe for a moment, but not for long.

In my experience, lasting happiness (joy) and true fulfillment can only come from your soul. This is living from the inside-out.  You START with what your soul wants – this is your personal inside guide to your ideal life – your compass for navigating the terrain of YOUR life and living the life that is most fulfilling for YOU. Trying to lose weight, get more money, or have better relationships – as great as those things are – is living from “the outside in.”  This means trying to fill an emptiness inside with something in the “outside” world.  It will feel good for a moment, then you’ll be on to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next… never experiencing the satisfaction you really desire.

I recently tweeted a quote by Robert Collier “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” The key is to focus your efforts toward the success that you REALLY wish to create and experience – your SOUL’S desires.  Until you tap into THAT place of desire, you’re like a hamster on a treadmill going from one thing to the next, never satisfied.  Until you are tapped into your soul’s desires, you’ll be grasping at straws like losing weight, getting more money, or having better relationships. If you’re ready to discover your soul’s desires and live a truly fulfilling life from that deep place, I recommend engaging The Major Good Mojo System.

So how do we know what our soul wants for us?  How can we live that  deeply satisfying Soul Filled Life? Well, there are many aspects to it, but in this short article I’ll share one of the most important:  follow your bliss.  This is the guidance we have often heard from author and teacher Joseph Campbell. Unfortunately, it is rarely appreciated or truly lived.

One of the keys to knowing what your soul wants for you in this lifetime is to pay attention to and engage things that you enjoy! This may not be easy at first, as many of us have gotten very good at “working hard and suffering to survive and feel deserving.” However, we can begin choosing activities that provide the greatest likelihood or probability that the experience it offers (the people, the places, the conversations and words you use, the ideas, the actions, the impact and results in the world, the overall environment you are in, and as well as both the present and possible monetary rewards, etc.) will have at least SOME enjoyable aspect(s). As you do this, if you practice this time and time again, the fullness of your bliss will unfold over your lifetime like a beautiful flower coming into its own.

I want to further emphasize and support this notion of “following your bliss” and engaging activities where you experience the most joy. Joy is life-force filled. And what people want most on this planet (including yourself) is life-force. The more you embody and become a channel for life-force energy, the more you become of SERVICE to others – you are giving them what they most want and need.

This is the key to success. Becoming a channel for, and access to, what people want most:  life-force energy. The most powerful way to do that is to follow your very own bliss. Isn’t that divine?! And here’s another reason to follow your bliss – when you do, you become more and more unstoppable. Another word for Joy, and for Bliss, is Inspiration. When you are inspired you are connected to the divine flow and intelligence of the Universe. Your personal energy is optimized, solutions and ideas come to you “from beyond” and your overall experience is amazing. When you are inspired, you have “spirit inside” – and when you have spirit inside you bring spirit and life-force energy to others.

This is operating from your soul – this is Soul-Filled Living. The person who operates from the soul and allows their truth to flow through them is inspired in the deepest sense. Such a man or woman is a rare and treasured gift for all of us. When an artist is touched by Spirit and creates something from that authentic place, we are all touched. It’s like looking at something here in the physical world that came from and represents the beauty, mystery, and magic of the metaphysical world.

Wherever there is success AND joy, there is inspiration. You can have success with no joy or inspiration, but you cannot have joy without success because joy in and of itself is success! So are you going for the success “hoping for the joy” or are you going for the joy hoping for the success? If success in a material sense is important to you, I suggest doing both. Follow your bliss with a plan for manifesting material success.

Manifesting your soul’s desire is a long term partnership with Spirit that unfolds over time. You are the instrument that Universal Life Force Intelligence is playing. Mother Theresa said it this way:  “We are all pencils in the hand of God writing love letters to the Universe.” What is your love letter to the Universe? What does God want to write with you and your life? Only YOU know the answer.

PS:  The Passion Test ™ is one of the best ways to get clear on your passions, your bliss, and what it is you love. As a Certified Passion Test Facilitator I’ve included The Passion Test in The Major Good Mojo System, click here to find out more!

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Look back over all the experiences in your life and see if you can identify your “Theme of Joy” – the common thread through all those experiences that attracted you to them in the first place. What is the common “Thread of Joy” that you loved about each of those roles and experiences in your life?  These are HUGE clues to your soul’s purpose and desires for you in this lifetime.

Congratulations!  You’re one step closer to tapping into your soul’s desires, following your bliss, and experiencing the true joy and satisfaction you desire. Now that is Major Good Mojo!

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Who You Are Changes With Who You’re With

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Roger Kenneth Marsh| 1 Comment

This past weekend I was at Esalen Institute on the California Big Sur Coastline co-facilitating an ITP Mastery program (Integral Transformative Practice). The picture is me with my awesome co-facilitator Georgie Weston in the garden on the grounds with the Pacific Ocean stretched out behind us.

It was an AMAZING weekend of transformation, community, magic, and fun.   The cool thing about a program like this is it has “a life of it’s own” when you gather the participants and begin engaging the materials.  You can do all the planning and organizing you want, but real transformation and magical moments usually happen organically.  You just can’t plan when you’ll have those super juicy, rich, ripe, authentic, potent moments – the best you can do is create the context and the container in which they can happen.

So what is it about the context and the container that encourages magical moments? Well, there are many factors, however one that I’d like to focus on in this blog is THE COMMUNITY – the people that are gathered.   Every person is their own unique vibrating energy field – some vibrating at higher frequencies, some vibrating at lower frequencies.  When you gather a group of people vibrating at higher frequencies, the GROUP energy is palpable – this was the case with our gathering this past weekend.  We were all there, fully present, open, and ready to go.

Science is finding who we are is different when we’re in a “community energy field” than when we are alone! Although this is an amazing fact, we’ve all experienced people and groups that inspire us, and people and groups that depress us. It’s obvious we are affected by others.  These are energetic fields that are affecting our own energetic field, the thoughts and feelings we are having, AND the actions we are taking. With this in mind, you can see why carefully choosing who you hang out with is a very important choice!

There’s an old saying “Where two or more are gathered, I am there among them.” To me, this is pointing toward the “group energy field” or even “The MasterMind,” and it only takes two to create it.  This is an active field of intelligence that we both contribute to and receive from as a member of a group.

This is one of the most powerful aspects of 1-on-1 coaching - you participate in a field of energy that brings new insights, inspirations, and ideas that you would never get while alone. See the “Raving Fan” testimonial in this issue for an example of a client experiencing exactly that within the “Major Good Mojo Program.”

While walking the path of transformation there are good days and bad days, and all kinds of days in between. However, I have found that walking with others not only makes it a whole lot more enjoyable, it also makes possible things that just aren’t possible when you are walking alone. We are on this planet with other people for a reason! If life was meant to be lived alone, you would BE alone. But alas, at last count, there are some 6 billion of us walking around!  For Major Good Mojo, finding your friends, the folks on your team, is essential.

One very interesting element of being with others is that who we are with others, is not who we are when alone. Think about it, who you are, the thoughts you are having, the things you say, the things you do, are different depending on who you are in the presence of. This is a very interesting characteristic of relationships. We’ve all been around people who make us feel good or who inspire us. And on the other hand, we’ve all been around people who depress us and suck the energy out of us. Clearly, we are affected by the people we are interacting with.

In the Spring 1996 issue of The Noetic Sciences Review, Margaret Wheatley (Organizational Consultant and author of Leadership and the New Science:  Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe) wrote an article about the hidden intelligence orchestrating and organizing all things in the Universe.  In this article one of the things she points out is that who we are with others, or who we are in community, is different than who we are when alone. She stated, “You cannot understand the power of the individual by assessing or understanding who they are when alone.”  In our individualistic, lone-ranger society, this is a revolutionary concept!

To understand who someone is and the powers they possess, you have to look at them when in community and in relationship with others! Our gifts are designed for, and come foward, in the presence of others!  Margaret further pointed out that “none of the personality assessors or indicators (e.g. Myers-Briggs) let us know who or what we are capable of being when we are in community with one another.”  We are mistaken if we think we can understand what an individual is capable of by looking at them only when alone.

I almost always experience this phenomenon when presenting to or leading groups. Things I say and do are often emergent, in the moment, and something I’ve never said or done exactly that way before.  Often someone will ask “Can you say that again?” and I’ll be at a loss for saying it exactly the same way I just said it BECAUSE it was a channeled moment of non-thinking coming forth in the presence of others – not something I consciously and intentionally assembled in advance.  Another interesting aspect of this emergent capacity when in groups is that people will come up to me and say “What you said was so perfect for me – it was spot on for what I am dealing with in my life right now.”  This happens when I am in THEIR presence.  I could never have planned that in advance by myself.

Margaret provides a great example of 20-foot tall termite towers on the Australian savanna. When entomologists study the individual termite what they find is they are only capable of digging dirt piles. However, these 20 foot towers are amazingly complex feats of engineering, built on a north-south axis, with tunnels and arches inside designed to move air into a darkened interior where it is cooler. “The nests are also designed to move moisture in so the termites can farm a form of fungi they require for digestion. These are very sophisticated structures.”

Entomologists looked for years for the leader, for the engineer, for the “brains” behind the operation. But they never found one. What they found when they looked closer was an emergent capacity in the termites that was only present when in community. If you looked just at an individual termite, all you saw was that they could dig. But when they got together, new capacities for building began to emerge. “Isolated, they barely have any significance. But as a coordinated group they perform like a hive-mind. Like neurons, they emit chemicals for communication… they’re very tuned in… and they respond.”

The main take-away for accessing Major Good Mojo, is to realize that your capacities are different when you’re alone vs. when you’re with others. Choose wisely the company you keep!

 

Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:

Ask yourself:  Who and what in my life right now does not support my highest vision of myself? List out these people, groups, activities, and things. Decide right now to give less of your time, attention, and energy to these things on your path that are not serving you (nor is it serving them!).

Then ask yourself:  Who and what in my life right now does support my highest vision of myself? List out these people, groups, activities, and things. Decide right now to give more of your time, attention, and energy to these things on your path that are serving and supporting the highest vision of yourself.

Congratulations!  You’re one step closer to surrounding yourself with inspiring energy fields and accessing Major Good Mojo!

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