G is for Gratitude

All right, Steve Barnes here with morning magic or the Diamond Hour morning ritual. This is just my attempt to connect with people. And this for the next 10 days, every one of these will be speaking to a section of the book that I'm working on on the magic formula I'm going to be using. I'm going to be talking my way through it and then dropping the recording, a dictation program, probably something online that will enable me to create a transcript and then I'll drop that transcript into the Google Doc that I'm working on and that will operate as my rough draft. As I move through this today, I'm actually moving through the five major steps. Mapper, model, action, gratitude, intention and conviction. Courage. Congruence C is a little complicated. So we've done mapper model and yesterday we did action. So today let's talk about G gratitude. Now, this is kind of interesting today because there were some things that were being talked about on Facebook that had to do with whether or not as an artist you were supported by your parents. And I said that things that people say to you in childhood go deep. Anyone who controls aspects of your survival, sexuality or social standing finance will trigger deep survival circuits in your heart. Parents, siblings, spouses, girlfriends, bullies, boyfriends, bosses, and those holding social power over you. Anyone who can withdraw needed approval, joy, resources, opportunities or tribal identification. Food, shelter, sex. You're going to be influenced by what they think about you, what they say to you, and what they say about your dreams. What they say can uplift you or destroy you. So that question of how many writers and artists out there were mocked by their families or spouses for not wanting a serious career? My mother, for instance, was terrified that my ambitions would destroy me. And all she could do, she did all she could to change my dreams, including tearing up my stories. So I needed very specific techniques and beliefs to counter that damage. This is where the notion of the daily emotional flood comes from. We've all got fears, we've all got resentments, we all have anger. So if you're going to live each day at your very best, remember the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service. So if built into, baked into the magic formula, specifically, how can I be happy now? Your emotions, according to some experts, are created by three things. What you focus on, the way you use your body and the language that you use so you can do this during your five minute miracle breaks. All you have to do is to focus on something you're grateful for. Now, there are people who will automatically Kind of say, I don't have anything to be grateful for. And all that they have done is they have disempowered themselves for the things they accomplished earlier in life. I know when someone says that that they delete a huge amount of information and they're not speaking the truth. They learned to walk and talk, ride a bicycle, make love. When they first learned those things, they were grateful. They were proud of themselves. But over time, you stop that. So you forget what it feels, feels like to be grateful that something good has happened to you. And the problem is that unless you're grateful for what you've already got, how are you supposed to believe that tomorrow could possibly bring good things? The people who think I've never had anything, they're going to think, and that's the way it's going to stay. People who think I have had many blessings in my life. It's much easier for them to believe that tomorrow might be another, might bring another blessing. So if you don't believe that tomorrow can be better than yesterday, why should you try? I mean, seriously, why should you even get out of bed? It's a struggle. If success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal, and the core goal is to be joyful, then very clearly what we're looking for every day is a way to move more away from pain, further away from pain, and closer to pleasure. And when our hearts fill with joy, we naturally evolve to want to give service to others. That's the model that I'm playing with. That's the model that I'm asking you to consider. We start by wanting to move away from pain. It's a wonderful goal to embrace joy, to be happy. And then when you do that, one of the ways that you know that your heart is full is that you want to help others. The only thing you have to be careful of there is don't open your heart to wanting to help others unless you are actually safe. So trigger your survival drive that's moving away from pain. Open your heart and then ask, how can I be of service? If every single day you are thinking back on the things you have to feel grateful for and you think, I don't have anything to be grateful for. Well, you've got Internet access or you wouldn't have this. You've got your lights on, you have electricity, you probably can read and write. You're not grateful for those things. If you lost the ability to do those things, wouldn't you miss them? If you would miss something if you lost it, doesn't it make sense to be grateful that you have it. I'm asking you to remember that if you have a 0 in the G category, if you feel you have nothing to be grateful for, the entire equation zeros out. You can't get there unless there is something that you. Some little bit of faith. Gratitude is the antidote for anger, fear, lack of faith. You can't be grateful and angry at the same time. It's difficult. I mean, sure, there's somebody out there who's saying, well, I can be grateful. I landed that punch and I'm still angry. You're fighting to not hear what it is that I'm saying, and that's okay. This message isn't for everyone, but I'm hoping that it's for you. I'm spending my time and energy creating this for you. If you will give me two months, six weeks where you play with these ideas, willing to look at whether or not they're true, and just be sure you have at least a one in each of these categories. A little bit of a map, taking action every day towards your goal, creating gratitude, clear goal. And you feel that these actions are in alignment with your heart. Okay, that's M A, G, I C, you know, congruence, conviction, character, that these actions are you. And the way that I generate gratitude is. And then do this every morning. I could do it during my five minute miracle, but. But the larger version of that is the morning ritual where you take one of those five minute miracle breaks, expand it out to 10 to 20 minutes, and while you are moving, dancing. I use tai chi, yoga, five Tibetans, any number of different things. I don't recommend swimming. You are saying out loud, I am so grateful for. For me, I will say, I'm so grateful for the people. I'm so grateful to have a strong, healthy body. I'm so grateful for the people who love me and trust me. My son Jason, my daughter Nikki, my beautiful, brilliant wife Tananarive, my sister Joyce, who deserves all good things in life. I'm so grateful for my teachers and mentors, Steve Muhammad and Larry Niven. And I just go through this. People who I've known personally, people who I've studied, people whose work I have appreciated, who I believe brought joy into my life or provide role models of possibility. Octavia Butler and Prince and Danny Otosanto and William Shakespeare. Those people kind of live in my head. I have an internal community of voices and I will study those people's works so that if I run into a wall, I can go into a Meditative state. Imagine them and let them start talking about my problem. I will go to sleep at night saying, okay, I don't have any idea how I'm going to solve this problem. In my story, Octavia Butler and Larry Niven and Shakespeare, will you please get together and talk about this? And I'm grateful for them. You don't have to believe in the Akashic records or anything spooky. There's nothing woo woo about this. Obviously, you can look at this as nothing more than your own psychology. The models that you have created of possibility in these people. It works. It works. You are accessing the part of yourself that believes that it is possible to change, that it is possible to be happy, it is possible to be joyful. There is no downside to this as long as your survival drive is engaged. Remember the three centers. First, be sure that you have your survival drive engaged, that there is that part of you that can bare its teeth and protect you. Then open your heart to love, to hope, to possibility, to contribution. Those two steps, being sure that you have an absolute commitment to protecting yourself, that you know you have the right to protect yourself. If you have any problems with that, then be grateful. Then start looking into gratitude for having the right to protect yourself. I am so grateful that I know the part of me that would fight to the end to protect my bodily integrity or my honor or my family. I'm so grateful that I know that part of me. I'm so grateful for love in my life. And you say these things and you say it with power and you say it with conviction and you say it out loud while you are moving. This is critical. You're moving at the same time that you're speaking, at the same time that you're imagining the path that you're on and you're visualizing it and where you're going to go. And you know that today's actions are one more step towards the goal that you want. Towards learning, doing, improving the quality of the products or services that you create, improving your knowledge of how to market and sell it, whatever it is that you need to meet your goals. And your primary goal once again is to survive and then to be joyful. Survive and then to be loving. Okay, this path works and it'll work for you. But gratitude, you must not have a zero in gratitude on any, any day of your life or that day is wasted. Find something to be grateful for, something to be happy about. Focus on it. Somebody who was kind to you, someone your first kiss, somebody who held you and remember, there are people who say that no one ever loved them. If no one had ever loved you, you'd be dead. There is something called failure to thrive. Babies that are not held and cooed and cuddled die. You cannot just feed a baby milk and have it survive. You can't just feed it milk and change its diaper. There's something wired within us, every single one of us who is alive to hear this message was once loved and cherished. And if you need to use the ancient child technique to connect with the child part of you that still remembers what it was like to be in the mother's womb or to be cradled in her arms or protected in the bosom of her family. Yeah, maybe things went terribly wrong later. That happens. That honestly happens. But if you are alive today, there is somewhere deep inside you a memory. And you can fake it till you make it. If you will pretend to have that memory and start talking to that child self within you, you can begin to heal yourself. So I am so grateful to have a healthy child self. That's where all my energy, my creativity, my optimism comes from. When you see people who have run out of creativity or optimism, who no longer believe that tomorrow can be better than yesterday, you're talking about somebody who is separate from their child. That's something that we can talk about in a later chapter, perhaps. But just be sure that every single day you have a map or model of what your overall life path is. You know what action you can take today to take a step closer. You fill yourself with gratitude, the energy that creates faith. You have a clear view of what it is you're trying to accomplish and when you're trying to accomplish when it needs to be accomplished. And you believe that these actions are in alignment with your heart. You are in integrity with yourself to do these things. Gratitude. Be grateful. And if you've enjoyed this message, I hate to say this, but be grateful that you found this place. Be grateful that you found this message. Be grateful that you found somebody who is. You know, I can't swear that I'm right or right for you, but what I can swear is that I'm doing the absolute best I can to deliver the goods to you every single time. I'm grateful that I have a chance to talk to you. I'm grateful that I have a chance to share with you. And that is true. I'm grateful for my students because the path of mastery is a master is always learning, always doing, and always teaching. So in a very real sense, I cannot be a master without you. Thank you. You take care. I'll see you next time.