Look Mom! No HANDS!

FIRST! This Quick reminder:
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• I will be performing at Gary Goldberg’s “Harvest Love” Festival Tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 17 at 2:30 pm At the Stable Gate Winery in East Schodack, NY. I hope to see you there!!! Come on up to the stage and say hi!.
• Tickets for my LAST Concert 11/19/16 go on sale Monday! More about that soon!

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And Now! Another exciting, action packed episode of Master YOUR Mind For A Change!

While I was never one of those trick bike riders who did front wheel stands over fire hydrants or walls, I was at one point quite good at riding my bike with no hands.

And then after not riding for something like 20 years, my body still remembered perfectly how to ride a bike.

Which is AMAZING because it took me FOREVER to learn to ride the damn thing in the first place.

I mean when you fall off a bike or fall over on a bike…

IT HURTS! SERIOUSLY!

I did’t like pain. I did’t like people seeing me fail. So I just kept giving up. Even though kids made fun of me, I couldn’t let go of the “training wheels”. So I told myself that riding a bike was “stupid” and I didn’t even want to do it. So I quit.

But I was lying. Yup. Lying to myself.
I wanted it TOO badly.
I was pressing. Pushing. DEMANDING that I do it perfectly.

I was just learning. But I was making it hard for myself to learn because I was bringing too many expectations to it. It looked so easy when other people did it that I THOUGHT it SHOULD be easy to learn.

The truth was, my body needed time to install the new habits of balancing and steering. And I wasn’t willing to fail. My CONSCIOUS mind was sabotaging my UNCONSCIOUS (where all learning actually takes hold and gets stored for easy access)

My mom tried to teach me. That didn’t work. I DECIDED that meant it would NEVER work.
My dad tried to teach me. THAT didn’t work. I added some more EVIDENCE that it would NEVER work.

Finally, my grandfather brought me an old bike that he “found” (To this day I’m pretty sure he stole it!)
And somehow HE was able to get me to ride.

There was something about his attitude that made me stop trying to do it perfectly and just do it as best I could… Maybe because I knew he just adored me like all grandparents adore their grand kids… He just seemed to enjoy being with me and he didn’t really care if I succeeded or not. For some reason, I always felt like I could do no wrong in HIS eyes.

And that allowed and empowered me to relax and just be open to learning. And in a single lesson with him, I was up and balancing, steering, braking just fine…

You could say that “he was just a better teacher”. But the truth is, I had struggled and failed enough times so that unbeknownst to me, I actually HAD been learning things… I just didn’t notice I’d been learning.

And that’s the point I want to make today.

We are ALL just LEARNING!

We don’t come into this life knowing how to actually live the best life for us!
We have to learn as we go.
As a self employed singer/songwriter, guitarist, percussionist, storyteller, hypnotherapist, NLP practitioner, trainer, author, speaker, coach… It seems sometimes like there’s just no one who I can model who is already doing all the stuff I’m doing in a way that is working…

So I’m often learning more than I thought I would actually have to learn in order to do this “thing” that I was put here to do… and I feel like I fall down a lot.

There are days when I imagine how much easier it would be if I could just find a job somewhere…

But then I remember: I’M UNEMPLOYABLE! :o)

So what I’ve been working on is being my own grandpa!

I know that sounds weird. But when I’m gentle and loving and accepting of myself (yet still insistent that I can learn what I need to learn), kind of like a Grand Parent, I make much better progress.

“Find your edges and lean in to them…
Even if you fall down
Seek your ledges and climb up to them
Start right now!”

That’s one song lyric I freaking WALK every day.

Your Mind Mastery Message and Assignment today (should you choose to accept it) is to 
a. Notice where you are still learning and what judgments you may have about how long it’s taking you…
b. Notice where you are stuck.
c. Notice where the “edge” is for you.
d. Pour some Grand Parent style self love into it. Lean into it. (In a relaxed, trusting yet firm and insistent kind of way).

And ask yourself any or all these questions:
“Why is this perfect?”
“How can I learn from this?”
“What can I learn from this?”
“How can I use this?”
“How is this perfect?”

You don’t necessarily have to consciously answer them. But if answers come, write them down and use them to guide and inform your next actions…

And at the risk of being somewhat repetitive, Play this song again… It’s designed to support this on a deep unconscious level. Play it enough so that it gets stuck in your head and is on auto-repeat in your brain.

That’s it for today!

Peace. Groovyness. Gentleness. Be your own Grandparent today. I know you can do it! I believe in you.

– (Grandpa) Mark

p.s.
“Brush your self off and get up again…
You have work to do.
Love yourself until your love is true.
TRUE for YOU!

Rain, rain, rain….
Lean into the rain..
Lean into the rain…
lean into the rain….”