Monday, February 8, 2010

Alchemy 3

This is a continuation of the previous posts on Alchemy. Please see the earlier posts to get the most from this work.

A key step in the alchemy of transforming your struggles into flow is to reprogram your triggers. First we’ll identify the triggers, then reprogram them using all Seven Transformational Strategies:
o Visioning and Intentionality.
o Both/and Thinking.
o Readiness and Always at Choice.
o Mindfulness and Awareness.
o Full Acceptance.
o Emptiness

Please take out a clean piece of 8x11 paper. Divide the page into three equal parts, by drawing two horizontal lines completely across the page. You’re going to write in the top third first. Ready? You’ve got 60 seconds to write down the major sources of struggle stress and pain in your life right now. It might be bills or traffic. Write what’s specific to you. The more specific you are, the better. Go! OK. These are your external triggers.

Get ready to write again. Move down the page to the second part. Ready? Sixty seconds to write down the places in your body where you feel this stress, pain and struggle first, and most. Go! These are your internal physical triggers.

Get ready to write again. Move down the page to the last part. You’ve got 60 seconds to write down the thoughts and feelings that come up when you feel stress. Go. These are your internal inner triggers.

Before we can reprogram these triggers, we’ve got to get anchored in flow. What is flow? How does it feel? Is it worth working towards? Where does it come from (inside, out)?(What is “flow” to you? Give me some other words for “flow”: grace, ease, effortlessness. . . . What is flow like: spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically?) Close your eyes and feel it, let yourself be filled with flow. Pause.

When do you do your best work? When you’re struggling, or in flow? When are you likely to be most effective and successful? When you’re in emotional or physical pain and stressed out?

Would you believe, just in setting an anchor in flow, you used, or enabled, six of the Seven Transformational Strategies? Let’s take a look. Anchoring in flow gives you a clear vision of what you want and sets an intention to get it. Both/and thinking shows that movement along the continuum towards flow, is possible. Readiness suggests that you’re always at choice, because flow is always an option. Being anchored makes you aware and mindful of where you are on the continuum, and able to fully accept that place within the context of Vision. While emptiness lets you release where you are and create a vacuum, so you can attract your good.

Anchoring in flow teaches that if you change, everything changes. That, if you’re clear and easy, what you need to do becomes clear and easy. So Alchemists use the Seven Transformational Strategies to change themselves, not the situation, knowing that once they are transformed, they will experience the situation differently, and thus will have transformed the situation, too.

You can experience that now, as you reprogram your triggers. From what you’ve written in part one, select a situation you’re struggling with that’s causing you stress. Got it? OK. Get in touch with the thoughts and feelings that go with that situation, the ones you wrote in part two. Got ‘em?

Now put your hand (or hands) on the place (or places) on your body where you feel that stress. Done? Now, connect with your flow. Breathe deeply. Lean back. Feel your muscles relax. Breathe deeply. The flow fills you. With each breath, feel yourself melt into your chair. Now you’re fully connected with your flow.

Gently press the trigger point your hand is on. Now, gently tap the trigger point. Breathe deeply. The pressure and tapping are anchoring flow into this trigger point, reprogramming it. The deep breathing, gentle pressure and tapping transform this place in your body from a trigger for stress to a trigger for success.

The next time you experience stress and struggle, you remember to press and tap this place in your body. This trigger is now an invitation to think like an Alchemist and transform struggle into flow using all Seven of the Transformational Strategies. Remember, just start where you are in the System, then cycle through the rest:
o Visioning and Intentionality.
o Both/and Thinking.
o Readiness and Always at Choice.
o Mindfulness and Awareness.
o Full Acceptance.
o Emptiness
o And Reprogramming your Triggers

The magic, the Alchemy, is not that difficult situations are gone from your life, but that you experience them differently; that you transform struggle and pain and stress into opportunities for flow and success. The goal is to experience the relationship between success, struggle and flow differently, to experience it as an Alchemist experiences it, in both/and terms on a continuum, as a cue to use all Seven of the Transformational Strategies to turn the lead of your struggle and stress, into the gold of your flow and success.

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