Tag Archives: Creating Reality

Today’s Your Last Chance: Transform Your Life with Conscious Growth Club Year 7 🌟

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Today marks the final day to join Conscious Growth Club (CGC) for Year 7, and we want to ensure you don’t miss out on this life-changing opportunity. The enrollment period ends at midnight Pacific Time tonight, May 1st. If you’ve been on the fence about joining, now is the time to take action and become a part of our amazing, transformative community.

Throughout the years, our members have experienced significant personal growth, from starting new businesses to achieving their health goals, and even embarking on life-changing adventures. CGC has been instrumental in providing the support, resources, and connections needed to help our members create these powerful transformations in their lives.

As the enrollment deadline approaches, we’re excited to share that we’ve welcomed 30 members to CGC Year 7 so far. Our community is buzzing with anticipation for the growth, connections, and adventures we’ll share together in the upcoming year.

Joining CGC offers a unique opportunity to accelerate your personal growth journey. By becoming a member, you’ll gain access to a supportive and inspiring community, diverse learning opportunities, enhanced accountability, and so much more. We have exciting new call formats and improvements for CGC Year 7, which I’ve shared previously on my blog.

To help you better understand the CGC experience and the benefits of joining our vibrant community, I’ve created two informative videos:

A video highlighting 20 powerful benefits of joining CGC (13 minutes):

A video about the community aspects of CGC (12 minutes):

You may also want to peruse the CGC FAQ for even more info about the club. We’ve carefully crafted this resource to address a variety of topics, ensuring you have all the information you need to make an informed decision. There’s even a walkthrough video showing the CGC portal and private forums (see the second FAQ item).

One of the key benefits of joining CGC is the accountability it provides. Members are encouraged to share their goals, progress, and challenges with the community, fostering a strong sense of support and camaraderie. This level of accountability can be a game-changer, helping you to stay focused and committed to your personal growth journey.

Don’t miss this once-a-year opportunity to join Conscious Growth Club and embrace the growth, connection, and transformation it offers. We’re here to support you every step of the way in a warm and nurturing environment.

Are you ready to embark on your personal growth journey with CGC? Join now and secure your spot in CGC Year 7 before the enrollment window closes tonight!

Join CGC Year 7 Now

To your continued growth and success! 🌟

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20 Powerful Benefits of Joining Conscious Growth Club

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The deadline to join Conscious Growth Club is tomorrow, May 1st, and we always get a surge in sign-ups that day. To make your decision easier and give you even more clarity about CGC, I recorded a succinct new video, focusing specifically on the personal impact of being a part of this vibrant community. This is a follow-up to our previous video, which highlighted the community aspects of CGC. Now, let’s dive deeper into how CGC can help you flourish, transforming your life in meaningful ways.

Seize this once-a-year opportunity to join CGC during our annual enrollment period, which comes to a close at the end of May 1, 2023.

Discover more about the enriching personal benefits of joining Conscious Growth Club and how it can support you in developing focus, consistency, and accountability; enhancing your personal growth journey, and cultivating a life filled with abundance, joy, and authentic experiences. Visit our invitation page for more information:

Learn More About CGC

I’m genuinely excited to welcome you into our community and embark on this transformative journey together! Here’s to an awesome Year 7! ❤️

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Overcoming Mental Blocks

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Recently I’ve been pondering how our mind’s expectations often block us from experiencing more richness and possibility. Even when we set goals and invite new desires, we can easily stop ourselves from taking accessible actions to advance. This month I ran into my own personal example of this phenomenon.

One aspirational goal that I set months ago was to eventually do an hour-long group training session at my gym called UltraFit. That class looked intimidating from the online videos I’d seen of it. You can see the description on the UltraFit web page if you’re curious, with lines like “Our most intense workout yet. Get ready to challenge your mental and physical limits.”

Here’s a 2-minute video preview of UltraFit:

The video includes such inviting phrases as:

  • “We created UltraFit to serve our high-intensity fitness fanatics.”
  • “UltraFit is advanced. It is no joke.”
  • “helps our competitive athletes stay in peak physical condition”
  • “We help them get through the hard work, the type of training that people don’t want to do on their own.”

Am I competitive athlete? No. But I loved the idea of building up enough fitness to handle this class – eventually. 😅

I’ve been doing GTX group training sessions with a few different trainers at this gym since Summer 2022, with some breaks for injury, illness, and travel. GTX stands for Group Training eXperience. Doing a 6am workout with other early risers who are into fitness is such a beautiful way to get my day started. I love the social aspect of working out with trainers and trainees in small groups.

GTX can be challenging, especially the Zone 4 sessions (higher heart rate exercises). UltraFit seemed pretty next-level relative to the GTX sessions though.

After some remodeling that our gym did in December, the UltraFit class which used to be on the third floor was moved down to the second floor – the floor where I normally do GTX sessions and also train on my own. Now the GTX and UltraFit sessions both use the same training area in the center of the second floor, so it’s much easier to observe.

Last Thursday morning when I was starting a cardio session on my own, I noticed that an UltraFit session was going to begin soon. I hopped on a treadmill close enough to observe. It seemed like a great opportunity to at least watch part of it, so I could form a clearer vision of what I might eventually build towards.

I was captivated from the start and ended up staying on that treadmill for 92 minutes, so I could watch the whole hour-long session. There were around seven people doing the training together.

I was using my Beats Fit Pro headphones to listen to an audiobook, but instead of only using noise cancelling mode, I sometimes switched to transparency mode. Transparency mode acts like a hearing aid, so it amplifies nearby sounds. This let me hear the trainer’s words more clearly, which gave me more insights into the training session.

By the end of it, I was thinking, that actually looks doable. I could surely do the first 45 minutes at least. The last 15 minutes looked tough, but I felt I could handle that too, although it was sure to get my heart rate pretty high. It wasn’t as intimidating in-person as it looked from the video, and the people actually doing the training didn’t look like the super fit athletes in the video either. They were generally fit, but not THAT fit.

I recognized a few of my fellow GTX trainees in UltraFit too, and I thought that if they could do it, so could I.

So I boldly signed up for the following week’s class. After I described what I saw and encouraged her to join me, Rachelle opted to try it with me too. We normally do the GTX sessions together – often enough that if we don’t show up together, the trainer will invariably ask us where the other one is.

We went to our first UltraFit session this morning at 6am.

The format was similar to the session I observed in its overall structure but with different exercises. It was challenging but doable, just as I thought. I couldn’t do all the moves perfectly – far from it – but I did my best. My heart rate peaked at 185 bpm, which is about as high as I’m physically capable of, so it really did push me to my limit in that regard.

In terms of intensity, it’s probably comparable to a Zone 4 GTX workout, which we just did yesterday. But whereas GTX has a more even, wave-like distribution of intensity, UltraFit starts fairly out mild and gradually builds to a peak of intensity over the course of the hour.

Each time we’d get on the treadmill, we’d sprint faster than before but for shorter durations, with sprinting rounds being 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then 45 seconds, 30 seconds, and the last couple of rounds being 15 seconds all out.

The hardest part was returning to the floor to do more high intensity exercises while still trying to catch my breath after sprinting fast at the end. The class had this flow of building up fatigue with round after round of sprinting and core exercises, and then you have to do more physical challenges while you’re already tired, and near the end, also breathless.

I liked the experience, which gave me a delightful sense of accomplishment afterwards, and Rachelle and I chatted with the instructor for a while afterwards. I’m sure I’ll do it again, maybe even next week. I like how it challenges me in different ways than the GTX sessions.

I wasn’t thinking that I’d accomplish my stretch goal of successfully completing an UltraFit class this soon. I figured it was still many months away. I’m glad I got the chance to visually audit the class first, which helped me picture myself just going for it.

This was a good reminder that our limits tend to be more mental than physical or financial. It’s amazing how our expectations can block us from opportunities and experiences that are more accessible than we realize.

What got me around that block in this case was exercising my curiosity to watch a class without having to commit to it. I leaned in to probe the goal a bit more, and that helped to crack my self-limiting thoughts about it.

That said, I might be pretty sore tomorrow unless my mind can find a way around that expectation too. 😉

The invitation for you is to consider how you might be blocking a seemingly distant stretch goal or desire due to your expectations regarding how you think it’s likely to show up. Are you piling on unnecessary prerequisites? How could you lean in with some noncommittal curiosity?

These expectation traps can be hard to spot within ourselves. One way to spot them is to ask where you wouldn’t feel that you belong. What experiences are other people having that you don’t feel ready for yet?

I had previously felt that I had to do a lot more training to earn the right to claim a spot in an UltraFit session. If I showed up before then, I’d surely be an impostor, right? I imagined a group of people like the ones in the video taking one look at me and saying, “Are you lost?” And that turned out to be pure fiction.

This morning I replaced the old frame with a new frame based on actual truth, including a fabulous UltraFit trainer named Gina encouraging Rachelle and me to come back for more. That feels like a lovely little graduation to have gone through – not physically as I had assumed would be necessary, but mentally and emotionally in terms of giving myself permission to access new experiences that were genuinely accessible.

I really think that LifeTime Athletic ought to consider replacing that video though. 🤣

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Frequencies of Experience

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I often think of life as a summation of different experiential frequencies, much like different musical instruments can combine to create a song. Some frequencies combine harmoniously while others would sound discordant if you tried to merge them.

What I find most interesting about this model is that it helps me discover when some frequencies are holding me back from having new experiences. I cannot always invite new frequencies into my life when pre-existing frequencies are anchoring me to a different range.

Usually I must detach myself – or at least loosen my grip – from some anchor frequencies, so I can float freely into the range of new experiences. Otherwise I’ll never have the opportunity to experience those new frequencies fully while I’m still shackled to the old ones.

If you try to stuff more and more tracks into a song without removing some old ones, you may end up with noise, not music. When the tracks play together, their frequencies interact, and the more tracks you add, the more complex the balancing act becomes.

In your own life, now and then you’ll need to do some frequency decluttering if you want to progress to new experiences.

Anchor Frequencies

When you want to flow into a new zone of experience, such as by pursuing and achieving an interesting goal, think about the old anchor frequencies that might interfere, and see if you can loosen your grip on them.

Do you have any anchor frequencies that would make you feel some resistance to your new path? Any worries about what other people would think? Any unwillingness to grow beyond your comfort zone? Any old habits you’d rather not release?

Whatever anchor issues you identify, it’s wise to start working on those now, mentally and emotionally. It’s important to start changing your relationship with the old frequencies, so you can create space to harmonize with new frequencies. Many people do a piss-poor job of this, which is why they remain stuck. They may be willing to embrace the new, but they’re not committed to relinquishing the old.

For example, if you’re contemplating a career change, start thinking about how you’ll say goodbye to the old career and how you’d like to frame those memories. Begin to align yourself with the goodbye experience before you leave.

When I moved on from game development and got into personal development in 2004, I framed my 10 years of professional game development as a nice phase of learning and growth but not one that I had to cling to for the rest of my life. I approached the transition like a graduation. This included declaring even unfinished projects over and done with. That wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to let go of the old, so I could fully embrace and explore the new.

This wasn’t a fast process, but before I could really focus on a career change, I had to spend months winding down my relationship with game development work.

Some of those old frequencies faded from my life. I stopped hosting a popular indie game developer forum and handed it off to some friends to keep it going. I stopped working on new games. I stopped doing any new marketing for my games. I let people know that I was closing up shop. I also had to mentally and emotionally let go of a lot of future plans and expectations along the old path.

Any anchor frequencies that might have kept me stuck in the old world had to be surrendered.

Crossover Frequencies

Some frequencies, however, were flexible enough to transition with me. I was able to bring some productivity habits along. I could still do some coding now and then. I brought my creativity, playfulness, community-building skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and explorer’s mindset into the new career.

Those compatible crossover frequencies served me well. They helped me retain some sense of stability while so much else in my life felt new and different. In the same year I started my blog, I also moved to a new city (from L.A. to Las Vegas) and joined Toastmasters to get into speaking. I had a new home, a new social circle, and a new business all in the same year – and a new child the year before.

One crossover frequency that I especially found helpful was growth. This is one of the ultimate crossover frequencies because we can always invest in learning and growth, regardless of how many transitions we go through. So you can also think about anchoring yourself to flexible frequencies – like growth – so you don’t feel so unhinged every time you go through an interesting transition.

Transitioning

When you’re facing a transition in life, see if you can identify some of your anchor frequencies and your crossover frequencies. Which aspects of your life will need to be released? Which can come along for the ride?

If you really look into this carefully, you may find some surprises. You’ll probably recognize some frequencies of experience that you didn’t realize were choices. You may spot areas where you’ve been clingy with anchor frequencies, but you didn’t recognize them as such. And you’ll see where you’ve gotten stuck when trying to transition.

When I wanted to transition from a scarcity experience with money to a more abundant relationship with money, I noticed that I was relating to money in a way that wouldn’t make sense on the abundance side. I had some habitual ways of interfacing with money that were serving as anchor frequencies and keeping me from progressing.

I might describe some of these anchor frequencies as stress and worry. Others involved making money such a high priority – giving so much thought to bills and rent each month. I thought about money pretty much every day. Another issue was focusing so much on my desire for more money. Would I be doing that if I were already in the abundance zone? Nope.

I realized that if I wanted to transition to a more abundant relationship with money, I wasn’t going to relate to it with frequencies like stress, worry, or intense desire. In fact, I realized that many days I wouldn’t even think about money. It would recede more into the background of my life, and it wouldn’t be such a foreground concern. Money would be like a reliable friend, and I’d also have a lot of fun with it – earning it and spending it. I’d have a chill, relaxed, and playful relationship with it. But worry about it, stress over it, or obsess over it? Nah… those were the old anchor frequencies that kept me in scarcity, so I had to let them go.

When I recognized that certain habits of thought and emotion were acting as anchors to scarcity, I realized that I had a choice to make. I had to put a stop to stressing, worrying, and over-thinking about money. I actually worked through the logic of that. Did those old frequencies help? Did they actually create more money? Were they effective? Reliable and consistent? Ha… nope.

These old frequencies sometimes got me to scramble to pull some extra resources together at the last minute, but that was an endless treadmill. There was no way that this way of thinking would lead to greater abundance. It was a foolish approach with no hope of success. Even if I did earn more money, I’d just have more to stress and obsess over, which seemed dreadful.

Once I understood the logic, I asked myself if I wanted to align with my best thinking or if I wanted to keep being illogical and foolish. I made a commitment to stop fretting and worrying about money, and I’ve done a solid job of honoring that commitment ever since. I do slip a little bit now and then, but barely. I’ve gotten really good at pulling my mind away from that old frequency zone and keeping it in the zone of abundance-aligned frequencies.

Abundance-Aligned Frequencies

What are some of the abundance-aligned frequencies then?

One of my favorites is service. Instead of fussing over my own sniveling problems, I think about what I can do that other people would appreciate. In my games business, I shifted my focus to creating experiences for people. That’s still a big part of how I think about my life and business today. I like crafting and delivering interesting experiences that people can appreciate – especially unique experiences they may not encounter elsewhere. I really resonate with the frequency range of investing in growth-oriented people. That connects to even more frequencies that I like, such as caring, mutual support, and co-creation. This range gets me taking a lot of action.

Can I share a simple observation with you? When I see people who are stuck in scarcity, they’re almost always expending way more thought and emotion in dealing with their own personal or family problems than they invest in thinking about serving other people in the world. They anchor their focus inward instead of outward. Is it any wonder that they’re anchoring themselves to scarcity frequencies? So don’t hide. Get out there and engage with the world.

Another favorite is creativity. I love, love, love the frequency zone of creative projects. This feels like a solid home base for me. I’ve created millions of words of published material, and I never get writer’s block. I know that I can always create, and many years of feedback tells me that there are always people who will appreciate these creations. I’ve been a professional creator of some form or another for about 30 years now, and I expect that to continue. Note that this is also a frequency range where lots of action happens.

Also note that actually creating is NOT the same frequency zone as thinking about creating, typing up to-do lists, or otherwise procrastinating on creating. I spend WAY more time writing and publishing than I spend thinking about writing or reading about writing. Some planning is good if it helps you get organized, but is your planning driving projects through to completion? How much of your creative work is getting into people’s hands? Appreciation and abundance are very compatible frequency zones, very often arising together.

Other favorites are exploration, playfulness, and fun. I’m one of the most fun-loving adults that I know, and so is Rachelle. Do you know any other couples who spent 30 days in a row going to Disneyland? We enjoyed every day of that experience. I love being married to a woman who makes me laugh so much, and I love to make her laugh as well. Living with her is immensely entertaining. Even when she’s not trying to be entertaining, she just is.

People who remain stuck in scarcity are so ridiculously tolerant of their old anchor frequencies. They remain clingy with frequencies that clearly aren’t compatible with abundance. Abundance-aligned people have decided not to be so tolerant of those incompatibilities.

Investment & Surrender

One of the most critical self-development concepts to grasp is that where you invest your energy is a choice. You don’t have to remain loyal to old anchor frequencies. You have the option of surrendering those old frequencies and moving into a new range.

To shift your frequencies often requires a real commitment. Don’t even think about trying to half-ass it.

I don’t see any way I could have flowed into such an abundant relationship with life if I was willing to tolerate a relationship with ongoing worry, stress, and obsessive thinking about money.

How do you really surrender the old frequencies that no longer serve you? You reframe them as something that you’ll never want to revisit.

I reframed my old frequencies as stupid, idiotic, dumb, pointless, moronic, foolish, and utterly ineffective. It was illogical through and through to align with those old frequencies. They don’t work. They never worked! Only a great fool would cling to them. Do I want to be a great fool? No, I don’t!

Whenever my mind catches itself backsliding, it generates a huge load of warning signals that prevents it from staying there. It’s like noticing a skull and crossbones on a bottle of poison that you’re about to drink. This makes the whole brain light up with a super strong, “HELL NO!” signal.

I recommend that you do something similar. Stop trying to have a cozy relationship with anchor frequencies that are keeping you stuck. Break up with them instead. And I mean really break up. Dump them for good. Kick them to the curb. Make a “never again” resolution not to engage with them.

Yes, you may slip now and then. Slipping is to be expected, but when you slip, don’t fall. Catch yourself. Remind yourself of your best reframes for the old frequencies. Tell yourself which frequencies you want to engage with instead. Work through the logic of how you’re going to relate to those old ranges henceforth. And then hold yourself to that logic. Remind yourself to honor your best thinking.

Your thoughts and feelings exist in certain frequency ranges. If you want to invite new experiences and results into your life, you almost certainly need to adjust your thoughts and feelings too. While it’s nice to imagine what you’re new reality will be like, it’s even more important to start boxing out your old reality by cordoning off the old anchor frequencies. Remove the old ropes that kept you docked, so you can set sail and float over to new destinations.

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Insights From a Plant Medicine Journey

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I had a fascinating weekend of plant medicine journeying that involved taking several different substances: kanna, white lily, psilocybin (mushrooms), and ayahuasca… mostly the latter two. I had only done ayahuasca before (3 years ago for 4 nights in a row in Costa Rica). I shared the insights from that previous experience here: Lessons From Ayahuasca. In this post I’ll share my experience of this recent journey while it’s still fresh in mind and heart. If you’re short on time and only want to skim the insights instead of reading the details about what it was like, feel free to scroll down to the section labeled “Insights.”

This was gentler than the aya experiences 3 years ago – smaller quantities but a very layered effect. It was hard to separate what effects were created by which substances. I recognized some of the familiar aya effects like the colorful, animating visuals when I closed my eyes, but the experience also had elements that were different, and it all sort of blended together. This was the first time I’ve done psilocybin, but I don’t know how to separate out its effects from everything else.

In Costa Rica it was very much an inward journey, and we didn’t interact much with each other during the 4 nights of aya ceremonies, although we processed our experiences in group sessions together each morning afterwards. For that experience we drank aya tea, but this time we had some chewable edibles of psilocybin and aya blended together.

The Costa Rica experience had about 40 people doing the ceremonies together, and I knew 12-15 of them of them beforehand. This time there were just 8 of us, 9 if you count the facilitator. I so much preferred the smaller group size, which made it feel way more intimate and aligned.

This journey was a lovely and very loving social experience with most of us all hanging out in the same room together, sharing intimate stories, and enjoying tons of cuddling. I felt completely at home with that kind of energy… so yummy. Cuddling with two women together is among my favorite things in life, so even without the substances, that would have put me in the bliss zone.

In Costa Rica, even though they advised us to try to stay inside with the group energy, that usually felt too intense and chaotic to me – and too stifling with all the smells. I preferred spending most of my time outside, walking barefoot on the grass or lying on a hammock looking up at the moon and stars. I needed the fresh air, and it was so soothing to just be around plants and not in the middle of so many people.

But for this experience, even though we were welcome to spend time going off on our own, I wanted just the opposite. I didn’t wander off to have any sort of solo experience, such as listening to music with headphones. I think most other people did a bit of solo processing at some point, perhaps for at least 20 minutes. I just wanted to revel in the presence of the people there, especially being in physical contact with them. Everyone was emanating such smooth and loving energy, and I just wanted to be immersed in that as much as possible. Even when we weren’t saying anything, it was so peaceful and present.

It was a very holographic experience too. I felt very sensitive to the energy of everyone in the room, like we all merged together spiritually, but it didn’t feel so far out that I was lost in intense visuals. Only two people had to do a bit of purging early on, and I felt noticeably better when they did. Everything people shared seemed to connect energetically on some level, often eerily so, as if we all had many parallel elements in our life stories.

It was also fun conversing with people during the experience. I remember asking these questions:

  • What do you wish people saw in you that they normally don’t see?
  • What is something you’ve never shared publicly before (that you’re willing to share here… and assuming a cone of silence outside of this space)?
  • What is it like being a woman (to some of the women in the group)?

It was fun listening to people’s answers because sometimes they kept getting distracted and mentally wandering off in all sorts of directions, but all of it was fascinating to me. It was amazing how deeply and easily we floated through a variety of meaningful topics, yet in a mostly chill and relaxed way. There were a lot of laughs along the way too.

Time seemed to pass very slowly too. When I saw that it was 11pm, I said, “Wow… it’s only 11?” And when it was 1am, I felt like it should have been at least 4am.

I remember looking at some people closest to me while we talked and cuddled and seeing animated colors and patterns overlayed upon their faces. There were some patches that looked like glowing colors that shifted over time, and there were animated trails of paisley-like patterns flowing around their faces too. It wasn’t super intense, but it was beautiful to look at. I wonder if that was just a hallucination effect or if it was some perception linked to perceiving people’s energy fields – maybe that’s just a matter of perspective.

We had the option to eat something at night to slow down the effects, and I think everyone else ate (maybe around midnight), but I wasn’t hungry, despite not having eaten anything since noon. I wanted to remain in a fasting state and allow the effects to stick around longer. So I didn’t eat anything till breakfast the next day.

As the effects slowly began to dissipate, I stayed up till 3:30am immersed in conversation with a couple of people. Then as we finally decided we ought to call it a night, and I still wasn’t sleepy, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the colorful animated visuals for about 30 minutes. I held different thoughts in mind and observed how they effected the patterns I saw. I remember testing thoughts like: I feel loved, I feel loving, and I am love. Each of them created different patterns, with the “I am love” pattern being the most colorful and animated.

I finally fell asleep around 4am, and I woke up at 6am and felt wide awake. I remained on my back for another hour, still enjoying some of the lingering effects and finally got up around 7:00.

I did some journaling about the experience, and then we had breakfast together and did a few hours of group processing.

I only knew one friend there initially (who invited me), but by the end it felt like everyone was a close friend. Most of us had mutual friends in common, so it was also like we were part of the same social web anyway.

This fit nicely with the intention to go beyond previous limits, which is our intention of the week for the Submersion Social Deep Dive that we’re currently doing. I wouldn’t say that the experience itself was massively transformational – I’ll have to see what the long-term effects are – but I really enjoyed journeying through a mind-expanding and heart-opening way of connecting with people. A bunch of us want to stay in touch, and I would love to have more journeys like this, especially with such open-minded, growth-oriented people.

One thing that was really weird was that shortly before heading over there, I learned that there’d be a cat in the house. I immediately thought, “Oh no,” since I’m allergic to cats. Sure enough, within an hour after arriving (and before we took anything), my eyes began feeling watery, itchy, and puffy, and I figured I’d just have to muddle through. I could handle the red and puffy eyes and runny nose for 24 hours – it would be uncomfortable, but I’d be okay.

However, to my surprise as the substances starting kicking in, the allergy symptoms disappeared completely. The cat came over to me a few times, and I could tell it was no longer going to be a problem. It was like the plant medicine said, “You don’t need that allergy right now.” And I said in response, “Sounds good to me!”

As I lied down on the couch at the end of the night, the cat climbed on top of me, licked my face, and then she camped out on my legs for a while. The allergic reaction only started to mildly come back the next morning as everything was wearing off, but it was still way less than before.

I applied one key lesson I learned from Costa Rica, which was to ask the substances to go easy on me physically. Practicing good intentionality and trust is so important. As the layers began kicking in, I felt flushed, got sweaty palms, and felt some mild nausea and dizziness. My heart rate went from 70 to 90 bpm. I remembered to tell the plant medicine: gentle, gentle, gentle. I welcomed some mental, emotional, and spiritual intensity, but I wanted the physical side to be mild and not feel like my body was resisting it or scared. And that seemed to help. Even as I went to bed, my heart rate was still 85 while lying down, so it definitely got the blood pumping a bit faster. The main physical issue throughout the night though was feeling very thirsty. I kept feeling parched with a dry mouth even as I drank lots and lots of water. That seemed to be a common aspect of the experience.

One time when I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror, I looked very different to myself. I thought… wow I look a lot older, maybe by 10 years. Is that really what I look like? I noticed my gray hair around my sideburns and the crow’s feet on the sides of my eyes. And I saw dark circles under my eyes, even though I didn’t feel sleepy. But then I realized that I was seeing myself more through my heart than my mind. I saw someone who was very happy, fulfilled, and wise – someone who was very pleased with his life journey and had integrated so many lessons and experiences. The “me” in the mirror just kept staring into my eyes and reflecting back so much love, but it didn’t entirely feel like he was the “me” that I’m used to. It was like he was an older me or maybe a deeper part of me or perhaps another me from a different dimension. I looked back at him and held up my hands to him in a heart-shape, and of course he did the same. Then I saw him smile even bigger as if to say, “Keep living the way you’re living and doing what you’re doing because it’s perfect for you.” I haven’t felt that self-love has been an issue for me, and this experience only took about a minute, but it felt very powerful and moving, like I was receiving love from my higher self or spiritual self or something like that.

I feel like all the Subjective Reality practice makes these altered states easier to invite, experience, and flow with. It’s just so wonderful to relate to people – especially people I just met for the first time – on the basis of co-creating beautiful and harmonious experiences. And of course abundant cuddles. :grinning:

I feel like my love meter is filled up to 200% now. :heart:

Insights

After the experience, I did some journaling about it the next morning and wanted to see if I could come up with a list of 10 insights from it. Here’s what I wrote:

  1. Our energy patterns pool and combine. What one person in a room experiences is a parallel experience – energetically – for everyone present. Only the details differ. So relief for one creates relief for all. If you help to create ease for others, you create it for yourself too, and vice versa.
  2. Cuddle space is so easy to enter when focusing on the joy and peacefulness of it. It’s very easy to offer and accept genuine invites to touch. It’s really beautiful to care for each other through touch.
  3. It’s a real honor to get to know people behind the scenes when honesty is more important than image. Presenting a false or skewed image to people prevents you from seeing them clearly as well.
  4. Allergies are just energy patterns, and energy can change.
  5. Limits and constraints help to sculpt our human experiences, giving some structure and railing to our stories. Even as we encounter limits in one area of life, other areas remain open. Limits can help us feel grounded to some certainty while we explore.
  6. The baggage we carry may seem silly to others, and it can be helpful for us to see it as silly too sometimes. Silly behaviors are lighter and more flexible than ones we take so seriously.
  7. A beautiful pathway to connection and intimacy is to be gentle with people. Gentleness invites openness and energy flow. Slow dancing can be easier, yet more intimate, than fast dancing.
  8. A desire that isn’t manifesting is probably too thin – too mono-dimensional. Add more layers to it. Look at it from the 4D body-mind-heart-spirit angles, and see if you’re really asking for the total package of goodies.
  9. The more shamelessly you can explore life, the easier it is for life to bring you harmoniously aligned experiences. You have life’s permission to explore and experience.
  10. Evolving as a human being has more to do with _____ than with _____.
  • harmony, victory
  • co-creation, success
  • experiences, outcomes
  • movement, position
  • invitation, validation
  • curiosity, conclusions

I’m really glad I said yes to this experience because now I get to cherish the memory of it for a long time. I’m grateful that I started getting these kinds of invitations when I was ready for them. I feel very open to more experiences like this.

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Exploring AI Art Co-Creation

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As I’ve been playing around with AI art tools, I decided to update the associated images for our courses. I wanted to come up with a more unique and personal expression than using the old stock images as we’ve been doing for the past few years.

This was a relatively small project, and it gave me a nice reason to delve into some interesting AI tools to better assess their capabilities. I definitely learned a lot and very much enjoyed the experience.

With most of the images I iterated dozens of times, feeding incremental images back to the AI tools and prompting them to keep evolving those images in directions of my choosing.

I also did some classic image editing to get the images the way I wanted them to look. Often I’d do some edits along the way to nudge the AI to explore in a different direction.

I began by feeding the AI different words that I associated with a given course, including the name of the course, my name, and lots of topical keywords that relate to the course. Then I set the AI to generate at least 100 images to begin with, sometimes a few hundred, so I could see a nice divergent set of conceptual ideas. From there I could pick my favorites and evolve some of them further.

I went through many rounds of diverging to generate more ideas and then converging by creating more subtle variations of concepts I like. Finally I did some fine-tuning.

The experience was like having a team of artists to keep creating more art, and I could keep guiding them and giving them feedback till they created something that satisfied me.

I don’t expect or need other people to like my creations. My goal was to replace the stock photo images with creations that are meaningful to me, full of symbolism and imagery that genuinely connects with each course. I wanted to raise my standard for authentic and personal expression. I’m not seeking to impress anyone, and I’m sure some people will not like the images. I’m totally okay with that. I really like how these turned out though.

I smile now when I look at the Courses page since I have a personal connection to each image. I no longer think, “I should really replace that stock image with something more expressive.”

Submersion

The first one I made was the Submersion image.

Submersion

Submersion is about exploring Subjective Reality, which can be like stepping through a portal, so I like that this looks portal-like. SR is also a lens that can be used, so the lens-like look works nicely too.

With this image I did very little editing and largely used what the AI created, although I did generate many hundreds of other images before finding this one. I like how it conveys so many aspects of the Submersion experience in a compact visual form, especially how you can’t really grasp the world of SR until you finally dive in and explore it. It looks like some kind of deep aquatic world inside, but you’ll never know what it’s like to be in that reality till you go inside and experience it for yourself. I love how this image invites us to explore what’s in there.

I especially like the intricate look of the border around the portal. I deliberately prompted the AI to create something intricate and detailed.

Rachelle also noted that this image reminds her of an old diver’s helmet, which is another good association to the course.

I find this image very beautiful too. I love the rich complexity of it.

Octo Intensive

The next image I created was for the Octo Intensive workshop that we did online in October 2021.

Octo Intensive

This was a one-time workshop, so I’m only using this image for the recorded version that Conscious Growth Club members can access as part of their membership.

The Octo Intensive was about 8 principles of motivation, hence the Octo theme. At first the AI was generating a lot of weird octopus images that were too literal, so I had to tone down the octopus prompting and nudge it to do more with the other concepts. Eventually we started converging in an interesting direction.

I like how to ribbon represents a prize, award, or gift, and there are embedded diamonds as well, representing the many rewards of maintaining strong motivation. The octopus owns its place in the midst of those rewards, like of course that’s where it belongs. Its eyes look a bit like gemstones too – a reminder to practice intentionality by focusing on our desires.

Deep Abundance Integration

For Deep Abundance Integration, I started with a tree in a circle and then evolved it a lot from there, eventually coming up with this.

Deep Abundance Integration

I put a lot of thought into the symbolism that I included in this one. There’s a tree and leaves for growth. The leaves are textured for nuance and subtleties in the growth journey. The tree has branches for the many form of abundance. There are leaves below (inner journey) and leaves above (external rewards).

The heart jewel is to remind people to follow their path with a heart and for a symbol of wealth and luxury. The water has ripples for the many ripples that we can create with an abundance mindset. Sunrise is happening in the background (sunny days ahead).

The copper color was Rachelle’s idea. I like it as a symbol of groundedness and depth since it’s mined from the earth. She also came up with the heart idea.

The sky represents unlimited expansion (i.e. the sky’s the limit).

I like images that look like they could be real physical objects instead of just making flat 2D images. I like it when images convey depth and texture, like I could reach out and touch them. This reminds me that the growth ideas in these courses are accessible. They aren’t merely ideas – we can integrate them into our lives and make them real.

Stature

This new Stature image took took the longest, but I love how it turned out.

Stature

There’s a bronze person with outstretched arms, and there’s an animal-like face in the glass behind. The eyes of the face also function as a Superman-like cape for the figure.

There’s more symbolism embedded in this… such as putting metal (strong) in front of glass (fragile).

Stature is a course on character sculpting, which is like transforming the wild, beast-like parts of ourselves into the strong selves that we wish to become. Yet we don’t abandon the beast side because it supports us in our human journey.

Amplify

The Amplify image merges a microphone, speaker, and light bulb all in one. I love the simple elegance of this one.

Amplify

This was the fastest and easiest course image to create, and I felt like I was really in the flow of working with the AI to develop it. It still took many iterations, but we made interesting progress at each step and converged pretty quickly.

Amplify is a course on creative flow and creative productivity. The mic represents finding our voice. The light bulb is for creative ideas, and since the light bulb is the same object as the mic, it’s a reminder to act on inspired ideas immediately. The speaker in the background is there to amplify the message, and it also looks a bit rippled to represent the ripples we can create.

This image also has a structure similar to a trophy, representing the fulfillment side of creative achievement.

And the image is compact and simple, reminding us that we can just create without overcomplicating the experience.

Tech-wise though, that configuration would send a ton of audio feedback from the speaker right into the mic, so that’s symbolic of hearing the call of one’s audience so loudly you can no longer ignore it. It’s like the speaker is advertising that it’s time to step up to the mic and start expressing yourself.

Guild

Guild is a course on social alignment, so I wanted to convey many different aspects of a good social circle in a single image.

Guild

In the different faces, you’ll see diversity and playfulness. But there’s also a lot of uniformity, which represents creating alignment in your social circle.

The characters are in sync, but the pieces aren’t all perfectly square since we’ll surely invest more in some people than in others. There’s a gold cord around the outside since good friends are like gold.

We all wear masks at times, so the challenge of intimacy is to look beyond the surface and get to know the characters behind the masks. Not everyone is masked to the same degree.

There’s a mix of warm and cool colors since people can be warm or cold too – and sometimes both.

Self-Expression

Does working with AI tools circumvent the creative process, such that the AI does all the heavy lifting?

I don’t see it that way at all. Using such rich tools allows me to focus more attention at a different level. Instead of thinking about brush strokes and colors, I can focus on meaning and symbolism and the overall structure of an image. I can pay attention to lower level details too, but I don’t have to get bogged down in creative skills that don’t interest me, like learning to draw, paint, or sculpt.

That might bother some people who invested years in some of their creative skills, which I can understand as a former game developer. I could just as easily say that to be a true artist, you should make your own canvases, paints, pencils, brushes, etc. I could say that it’s cheating if you play a musical instrument that someone else built and that a real artist would build their own. But of course that’s rubbish. We all lean on the work of the past, and to me this experience is no different in that regard. There’s just more past to lean on now.

I will say that I didn’t try to copy or emulate any known artist’s style with these images, living or dead. I never fed in the name of an artist or person (other than myself) for any of the prompts I used. That wouldn’t have felt good to me, and it would have run contrary to my purpose for this exploration.

These images may violate people’s expectations. Right now I don’t know of any friends in this field making these kinds of images to associate with their products. I’m sure some people would discourage me from going this route as well, just as people tried to discourage me from getting into blogging back in 2004.

To me these images are all meaningful. They represent much of what I put into the courses. I actually prefer images that make people do a double-take. If people see these as odd or unusual, I consider that a good thing.

Even though people often invite me to converge on their expectations, Reality has been rewarding me for divergent behavior for decades, and I trust my instincts. Presently my instincts tell me that this is a fascinating toolset to continue to exploring with.

I don’t have negative associations to co-creating with AI. I leveraged AI ideation tools for the Octo Intensive and for the Guild course, and I felt this added value to those experiences. Other participants appreciated the AI’s contributions as well, which helped us to explore some interesting directions.

Moreover, I’ve gained some useful personal growth insights from co-creating with AI tools. As I worked with prompting images to evolve in a certain direction, it reminded me of the importance of iterative upgrades in my life as well. In the short term, progress may appear to be minimal, but the compounding effects can be profound in the end.

I’m reminded of a time that my first wife Erin and I put up a sign in our living room that said, “$5000 per month,” back when we were struggling financially. That simple sign did the trick, and we soon got to that income level and well beyond. It was like prompting ourselves to create what we wanted, causing our mindsets to shift a bit more each day. Those micro-shifts can really add up over time.

I was also reminded of the importance of combining intentionality with flexibility. When I tried to over-control the AI, I would often hit a plateau because I wasn’t playing to the AI’s strengths. In those situations it was better to give the AI more creative flexibility, so it could evolve images even in violation of my prompting. But it wasn’t wise to let the AI be too divergently creative for too long since we could get lost in the vastness of the possibility space and never converge on an idea. I found other ways to leverage the AI to refine a messy or flawed concept into a more refined one.

At its best this was a transcendent experience. I love the synergy of combining my strengths with the AI’s strengths and working in the zone where we can each contribute our best creativity for interesting results. Sometimes I would see a new image and smile, marveling at the AI’s cleverness or brilliance. Its ideas often inspired me to go down different paths than I’d previously had in mind. Where we ended up with each image was usually very different from where we started.

This is good reminder to bring a similar mindset to our goals. Be intentional but also flexible because you’re not 100% in control. You’re co-creating this journey with Reality, and you need to play to its strengths to invite the best flow of cooperation.

I remain very optimistic about the future of co-creating with AI. It seems like such a rewarding path to keep exploring. It elevates the creative experience away from the mundane and towards the divine. I love how such tools are extending the range of what I can create and express and with whom.

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A Message From Your Simulator

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Here’s a video version of the invitation to explore Subjective Reality with us in the Submersion Social Deep Dive. So far 317 people are signed up – with more still enrolling in the final hours before the deadline.

Enroll in Submersion by November 3, 2022 since we begin the live calls at 10 AM Pacific time on Friday, November 4.

I’ll see you inside!

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How I Think About My Life and Work

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I often think about my life as a flow of experiential explorations.

I’ve found it overwhelming to consider the vast array of possibilities that life presents objectively. Traversing just a fraction of this space could occupy endless lifetimes, so that framing doesn’t bring much clarity and leaves me adrift.

Instead I create clarity by thinking of experiences as a summation of different vibes. A vibe is the inner, subjective flavor of an experience, similar to qualia. It’s what I experience internally when living through an outer experience. This includes my emotions and the thoughts I have along the way.

I typically find it much easier to create clarity regarding the inner experience I want. Even when I don’t have clarity about the outer experience, I can collapse the inner experience into something relatively crisp.

My inner desires are often reactive. If I’m over-stressed, I automatically want to feel more relaxed and at ease. If I’m bored, I want to experience more excitement and stimulation. If I feel happy and engaged with life or if I’m in a nice productive flow, I usually want more of the same – until my inner mood tells me I want to shift. When I take stock of any inner experience, I naturally think about what I’d like to experience next, like I’m laying out some kind of story progression.

Most of the time this is an unconscious process. The conscious part is simply paying attention to what’s arising. I notice whatever vibes I’m experiencing in the moment, especially the pervasive ones that have been with me for days. Once I clarify where I am, I tend sense a pulling sensation to move in a new direction.

Sometimes I feel pulled in multiple directions, but if I consciously list out the vibes that are pulling at me, it’s not hard to clarify my preferences. In those cases usually all of those vibes are correct, and I really want to experience a combo of them, such as a peaceful adventure or a cozy connection.

Guided by Inner Experience

So generally I like to think about life based on the inner quality of my experience. I like to make decisions about my human life as if it’s the same as my spiritual (or inner) life. I find that my life works better when I do that. By contrast when I make decisions that only seem reasonable on the physical plane but feel misaligned at the level of energy, emotions, and inner experiences, the results are usually poor. Not only do I not enjoy those experiences, but I usually fail to get the physical reality results I was aiming for.

However, when I flip this around and focus primarily on the inner experience – meaning that this inner world is where I set my true priorities – my outer world seems to flow along pretty well too. Where the outer world isn’t working so well for me, I normally sense that it’s because I haven’t assumed enough responsibility for the vibes I want to explore and express into that part of life. Or I’m still dealing with internally conflicted vibes in those areas, and I need to resolve those objections.

When choosing work and personal projects, I like to think about the vibes I want to explore. I think deeply about what the inner experience will be like from start to finish. I want to create interesting, varied, and meaningful inner explorations. Overall that approach keeps me feeling satisfied and fulfilled with life.

When I complete a major project, I like to do a postmortem on it. I’ve included a couple of those as bonuses with the Amplify course. I think about what went right and what could be improved for next time. I also journal a lot about the project, taking note of what I enjoyed and what I wish I’d done differently. I use those insights to make choices for future projects.

I think many people choose projects based on the external results they seek to gain. Or they get projects assigned to them by others. I like to choose projects mainly based on what the inner adventure will be like. I make those choices differently each time, which naturally infuses my projects with plenty of variety.

Beyond Happiness

Choosing to be happy is too vague for me. Happiness doesn’t have enough resolution. There are many different vibes that I enjoy and appreciate when I experience them, and they’re more specific than happiness.

Here’s how I think about my life purpose these days. I recently updated it to this:

Consistently invest my precious freedom to create, invite, attract, and enjoy the exploration of different vibrational combos, such as: abundance, wealth, intensity, coziness, lightness, relaxation, oneness, presence, optimism, fun, playfulness, vibrancy, sexiness, ease, comfort, power, order, love, warmth, nurturing, inspiration, wonder, beauty, awe, gracefulness, appreciation, caring, compassion, generosity, adventure, trust, honesty, stability, openness, curiosity, courage, wildness, boldness, pleasure, silliness, mischief, indulgence, excitement, naughtiness, freedom, immersion, imagination, connection, self-expression, creativity, cooperation, co-creation, service, simplifying, accessibility, accomplishment, achievement, speed, efficiency, intelligence, patience, reflection, and celebration. Expand my experiential range and abundantly serve the expansion of life’s range.

I think of my life as an exploration of different vibes. When I was younger, I often focused on vibes I could express with single words, such as abundance or courage. At this time in my life, I prefer mash-ups of different combos. I especially like exploring vibes that may seem a bit contradictory.

For instance, I enjoy caring about people while also challenging them. I love being honest and mischievous. Mixing coziness with wildness is a fun combo too.

You could say that I love being a vibrational mixologist. I love exploring the rich complexity of which vibes combine well, like complementary flavors in a drink.

It’s easy to use my inner purpose to as a basis for the purpose of my business and work as well:

Invite our community members (and other growth-oriented people) to explore different vibrational combos to expand their experiential range, such as: abundance, wealth, intensity, coziness, lightness, relaxation, oneness, presence, optimism, fun, playfulness, vibrancy, sexiness, ease, comfort, power, order, love, warmth, nurturing, inspiration, wonder, beauty, awe, gracefulness, appreciation, caring, compassion, generosity, adventure, trust, honesty, stability, openness, curiosity, courage, wildness, boldness, pleasure, silliness, mischief, indulgence, excitement, naughtiness, freedom, immersion, imagination, connection, self-expression, creativity, cooperation, co-creation, service, simplifying, accessibility, accomplishment, achievement, speed, efficiency, intelligence, patience, reflection, and celebration. Help them invest in growth explorations and meaningful upgrades they’ll treasure!

It takes time to get used to different vibes and to integrate them into our lives. Initially we may want to practice certain vibes individually, and then we can build upon that with endless combos.

Serving the Flow of Life

I feel that this kind of exploration is what life wants from me – and from all of us. When I look at life, I see the ongoing exploration of possibilities. I find that when I support this expansion by doing my part to contribute some interesting explorations, life seems to give me plenty of support as well. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t had a job in more than 30 years.

I consider freedom to be a precious gift because with sufficient freedom, I can access more of the possibility space. I can explore some aspect of life deeply for many weeks in a row. I can go on fun travel adventures. I can connect with a variety of different people. And I have lots of space for reflecting on experiences and considering next steps, especially through journaling.

A nice way to create value for people is to invite them into vibrational explorations together. This can be done in so many ways. Writing blog posts can have that effect by invite people to consider fresh possibilities. I also love doing this through speaking, workshops, coaching, courses, and Conscious Growth Club.

What surprised me was that just sharing more of my inner and outer journey also created a lot of value for people. As long as I keep having new growth experiences, I can share what I learn from them. People have expressed lots of appreciation for this type of sharing over the years. And these explorations have helped me clarify more vibrational combos that I love. For instance, I think of this writing session as inspired cozy reflection time.

Fresh Vibrational Combos Create Fresh Solutions

A key benefit of this type of exploration is that I discover solutions where I didn’t expect to find them. I think we have a tendency to mono-focus on some vibes to the point of stuckness.

For instance, I often see people trying to create more success, achievement, or efficiency in their lives, but they get stuck pretty easily with those vibes. I get more success by not focusing on success. Instead I like to move towards vibes like curiosity and playfulness and learning.

When I focused intensely on success and achievement, I went bankrupt. That made me feel humble enough to start looking at different vibrational directions, and I found that other vibes were much better for me. I eventually became a millionaire with that approach, and it happened with a nice easy flow and wasn’t a struggle to get there. Financial abundance showed up without trying to force it so directly. I got there by exploring other vibes like fun, curiosity, adventure, compassion, wonder, service, etc. I rekindled an adventurous spirit, which has served me well.

That makes sense to me because when I think of abundance, I think of spaciousness and freedom, and those vibes seem more proximate to playfulness and curiosity than they do to a hard-ass focus on success. If I’m vibing with abundance, how much do I really care about traditional business success? That kind of success usually seems boring, stressful, or shallow to me. It lacks nuance.

I think the reason that kind of success doesn’t appeal to me is because it’s too rooted in this physical reality and doesn’t translate well to the spiritual side. When I think of spiritual success, I imagine being able to float freely across a wide range of interesting vibes and having the ability to explore them adeptly in many diverse combinations. So it’s a much broader framing of success. It’s also more resilient because I can develop these skills with or without money. Money often seems to enjoy participating in these explorations, but money doesn’t fuel them. The vibes summon the experiences, including the experience of financial flow.

Vibrational Practice

A key skill is to deliberately practice experiencing vibes that seem interesting. I still like to do this by relaxing on a couch and just imagining scenes that encapsulate certain vibes. I try to go beyond overly simplistic vibes like happiness, and I like to imagine more sophisticated combos playing out. It’s the difference between visualizing a very on-the-nose scene from a straightforward action movie versus visualizing a multi-layered dialogue from a movie like Casablanca, where characters communicate a great deal through subtext and body language.

I realize now that my inner visualization skill was pretty weak when I was younger. I imagined my goals coming through very directly, like an action movie explosion or car chase. But I eventually realized that reality appreciates vibrational richness and complexity. People like this too. I think that most of us don’t want overly simplistic and routine lives. We want to explore many different subtleties with lots of variety.

I love to think about life and business in terms of vibrational range. When I see a part of the vibrational space that I haven’t explored yet, I feel drawn to go explore it sooner or later. This gradually expands my vibrational range.

It’s like training to be a chef and learning to work with a greater variety of ingredients, so many more delicious meals can be created, not just for oneself but for the benefit of others as well.

When I think about serving others, I figure that a good way to help people is to encourage and invite them to expand their vibrational range. Help them to explore areas of the possibility space where they haven’t explored very much yet. Show them where the open waters are. Play the role of tour guide for the areas that are familiar to me, and also encourage people to keep exploring beyond that, so they can serve the expansion of life as well.

Confidence Doesn’t Matter

In addition to the success vibe, another vibe that I consider to be overstretched is confidence. Many people seem to think they need more confidence to get what they want. I find this vibe overly blunt and shallow though. What’s actually interesting about it? Not much. I generally see confidence as a pretty lame and uninteresting vibe.

When I’m really engaged with life in ways that resonate with me, I’m not really vibing with confidence. If you told me I seemed confident when speaking, for instance, I might give you a confused look. I really don’t care about feeling confident or being seen as confident. For whatever reason that vibe just looks and feels really dorky to me.

Instead of confidence, I’d rather explore more interesting combos like curiosity, playfulness, and honesty. Confidence is a confusing vibe because when a person looks confident, that may not actually be what they’re experiencing on the inside. In situations where I might appear confident, like while coaching someone, I’m actually experiencing something quite different internally, such as curiosity or compassion. Or I’m tuning in to a flow of inspired ideas. Or I’m focused on co-creating solutions together. There’s no need for confidence there – that isn’t part of my framing.

Telling yourself to be confident is like eating bread for every meal. You can surely concoct more interesting vibrational meals. Even if you sense that some form of confidence is present, it’s probably the least interesting part of the experience.

Vibes can be funny that way. Some vibes that seem popular in the outer world just don’t align with my actual inner experiences. Paying too much attention to popular vibes tripped me up a lot. It took years to unload enough of that social conditioning, so I could figure out what actually worked for me and which vibrational combos I enjoy and appreciate.

Once I know which vibes I want to move towards, it becomes much easier to choose external experiences then. In those cases it’s mainly a matter of identifying accessible actions to shift my outer reality into alignment with those vibes. To do this I get into resonance with the vibes I want, and then I let them guide my actions. I pay attention to what I feel naturally inspired to do when I’m connecting with those vibes. This leads me to take a lot of action, and my reality gradually shifts.

Personalizing Vibes

I like the exploration process of personalizing vibes and figuring out how they best resonate with me. Consider a vibe like wealth. Do you want to feel wealthy? What does that vibe mean to you? I had mixed associations to that vibe for a while. I associated it with greed, unfairness, and injustice. So of course I couldn’t get into resonance with it. But I also liked some things about it, like how it could connect with freedom, abundance, and more possibilities. So I pulled this vibe away from the negative associations, and I framed my version of wealth as being about gaining more access to possibilities. So it’s not material wealth per se. It’s experiential wealth. My version of wealth isn’t about acquiring. It’s about living and experiencing.

I also like to pull my version of wealth further into the service side. I think about wealth as enriching people’s lives, sharing a wealth of ideas, and inviting people into worthwhile experiences together. This helps my mind explore this type of vibe within an appealing range, so it doesn’t conflict with other vibes I like.

Otherwise if I don’t personalize a vibe to strip out the unwanted bits, those mixed associations can block me from exploring it altogether. Then I have to take a deeper look at my objections to a vibe and resolve those objections. I see this as part of the personalization process, so I take my objections seriously and treat them as problems that need to be solved. I don’t try to ram a vibe into my life when I don’t feel aligned with it. I prefer to sculpt a misshapen vibe into one that looks beautiful to me, so it naturally harmonizes with other vibes that I like.

Productivity is another interesting vibe. My objections are that it can be boring, stressful, or overly routine. I might even associate it with being caged and losing freedom. So I have to pull this vibe to better align with fun, freedom, and exploration. That’s why I like to work in waves that align with motivation and inspiration as opposed to following a rigid routine. This approach works well for me. When I want to be lazy, I give myself full permission to be intensely lazy. When I crave adventure, I go out and explore. And when I’m inspired by fascinating creative ideas, I love to intensely focus on the creative process and see it all the way across the finish line.

Exploring Harmonious Co-Creation

One experience I really want to have next is to do this kind of exploration socially with other people who resonate with it. That’s why I’m hosting a fresh deep dive into the Submersion course soon. We’ll be starting on November 1st and running through December 30th, with weekly Zoom calls along the way. On those calls we can practice together, pooling our collective intentions to summon interesting vibrational combos to invite into our lives. If you’re signed up for my email newsletter or if you already bought the Submersion course, I’ll email you an invite for this between now and November 1st. It’s free for everyone who bought the course already, and for everyone else, all you need to do is get the course between now and November 1st, and you can participate in the social exploration for no extra cost. This is one of our most popular courses, so I imagine that a lot of people will want to explore it as a social experience.

I’m especially curious to see what effect it has if we focus our intentional energy for our good and for the highest good of all. Imagine lots of people holding the intention to help uplift each other. Imagine people sending you love and healing energy from all around the world. And let’s also send vibes of peace, healing, forgiveness, freedom, and positive transformation to the people on earth who most appear to need it right now. Let’s send more energy into the vision of a world we want to create and experience together. I’m really craving this kind of collective exploration right now.

On the inside I want immerse myself in the feeling of all of us stepping into our collective power and intentionality together. I want to mash-up the vibes of oneness, power, love, connection, abundance, and creativity. I want us to harmonize beautifully together. This is a really nice fit for going through the Submersion course together because the course is about upgrading your relationship with reality. I’d love to go through this upgrade process with a very aligned group who resonates with doing this together.

I want to have the experience of co-creating a renewed sense of hope and positive energy flow. I want to invite people to release misaligned vibes and to shift back into alignment with lightness, creativity, and optimism. Remember that we’re all powerful creators here.

So that’s how I’ve been thinking about my life and work lately. I see life as a flow of vibrational explorations. Reality offers a vast field of possibilities to navigate. When I create vibrational clarity – by understanding what kind of inner experience I want next – that level of clarity trickles down to all the low-level decisions and gets me into a lovely and sustainable flow of action.

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How to Choose Commitment-Worthy Creative Projects

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When considering which new projects to implement, I look at a number of factors, especially if it’s a creative project like a new course or workshop:

Heart

Is this a path with a heart?

Is it likely to be fun, interesting, and growth-oriented?

Does this idea have enough energy to generate sustainable motivation all the way through to completion? Or could this bog down into a demotivating slog that leaves me feeling drained and depleted?

Opportunity

Is this a genuine opportunity?

Is there meaningful demand for it?

If it’s an idea for serving others in some way, is there clear enough evidence that people would appreciate having it implemented?

Personal Fit

Does this idea play to my strengths?

Is this a match for my skills or for a path of skill development that appeals to me?

Do I think I can do a uniquely good job with this?

Does this feel like a personal invitation or assignment from life or the universe? Or could lots of other people do this just as well or even better?

Ripples

What kind of ripples might this idea generate?

Is it limited and localized or potentially expansive?

Is it time-limited or timeless?

How constrained is the potential upside?

Future Self

How will my future self likely feel about this project?

Is this a gift for him that he’ll cherish and appreciate having done?

Do I want the lifetime memory of having done this?

How will this project help me grow, and what will it do for my ongoing character development?

Do I care about becoming the person who has this completed project in his past?

Harmony

Which parts of me object to this project? What do they have to say about it? What specific aspects do they object to?

Can I dialogue with them and intelligently resolve their objections to their satisfaction, potentially modifying the approach, so they can feel aligned with it?

Can I flow into this project with strong inner harmony and commitment, or will some parts of me resist and sabotage or derail it?

Problems

What types of problems am I likely to encounter along the way?

Do I find these problems interesting and compelling?

Do these problems light up my mind and make me feel deeply engaged?

Do I look forward to solving them?

Am I fascinated by these problems enough to care about solving them?

Do these feel like worthy problems to solve?

Can I summon the patience to solve them intelligently?

Evidence of Support

Am I seeing evidence of support for this idea from life or reality?

Any hints, signs, or synchronicities of potentially greater alignment?

Will I have to self-power this project, or is reality making it clear that it will back me up with abundant support and resources if I do this?

Stimulation

Would the inter-dimensional aliens find this idea entertaining?

Or would they find it drab, boring, or tedious?

Will they be enthralled if I go for it, or will they throw popcorn at the screen in disgust?

This last part is a reference to a frame that I shared in the Deep Abundance Integration course, which many people found useful for thinking about their goals.

Yes, I really do ask these sorts of questions regarding the alien perspective too because it helps me make better decisions. If I think a project would bore any aliens, that’s a hint that it may not be sustainably motivating for me either. It means I need to explore how to make it edgier and more stimulating, so I feel very awake and alive while implementing it.

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My Intentions for CGC Year 6

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Yesterday was the last day of our 5th year in Conscious Growth Club. Today we’re beginning our 6th year together. You still have about 2.5 more days if you want to join us since the deadline for opting in is May 3rd.

I thought I’d take a moment to share some thoughts and intentions for Year 6. Some of these are personal. Some are club-related. And some are a mix of both.

One thing I love about CGC is that it’s so supportive on the personal side, so even though I facilitate the group, I also engage with it much like any other member.

Fitness

One intention for this new CGC year is to refine my fitness routine. That’s been going pretty well for many years, but with all the possible ways to balance it – running, weight training, HIIT, gym workouts, group fitness classes, etc. – I’d like to give it more structure. The tricky part is that my body adapts to predictable routines very easily, and then it doesn’t feel like I’m improving as much. On the flip side, I also like the simplicity of predictable routines like running. I’d love to figure out how to merge structure with enough variety while doing this sustainably too. This may take some experimentation.

I’m not sure if it’s even possible to come up with a “one fitness routine to rule them all” or if the key is really to keep mixing it up with a lot of randomness. I love the variety and the social aspect of group classes. What I don’t like as much is the time investment, including travel time. I also don’t find group classes particularly good for strength training – I tend to improve in that area much more efficiently on my own. However, group classes can be great for cardio, yoga, and some other dimensions of fitness.

Starting today in CGC, many members are kicking off the new CGC year with a 30-day fitness challenge. Rachelle and I are doing that too. In fact Rachelle recently passed 950 consecutive days of closing her Apple Watch rings, so she’ll hit 1000 sometime in June.

Fasting Integration

I may do some dietary experiments as well, but I also feel drawn to testing some additional forms of intermittent fasting. I tried the 16-8 version previously (only eating in an 8-hour window each day, then not eating for 16 hours) and found it worthless – it didn’t make any difference as far as I could tell. But I might try 18-6 or 20-4 to see if those patterns are any better. I’ve decided to lean into this today by not eating anything till after 2pm.

YouTubing

Creatively I intend to get into YouTubing this year. I have about 55 videos on my YouTube channel so far, most of them recorded when doing a 40-day water fast in 2017. In CGC we formed a new YouTubers group a few months ago for members with similar goals, including streaming, TikTok videos, and really any kind of video expression.

I love engaging in this pursuit collaboratively. It’s great to share tips, insights, and encouragement with other members.

I would love it if more people who want to get into making videos (or who are already into it) would join CGC this year. It would be fabulous to support each other on this path. I intend to host more Zoom calls this year where we can mastermind together.

My YouTube channel is fairly modest in size compared to some. It currently has 8253 subscribers. I think it would be fun to build that up to 100K+, however long it takes.

I feel very comfortable on camera, but I have way more experience being recorded live on Zoom with only minimal editing. In April I did about 100 hours of live video calls (all recorded). I don’t think that’s a great format for YouTube though. Tighter, shorter videos would likely be better received there.

This year and beyond, I want to explore how to leverage the skills I have while also building new video skills. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun experimenting with different ways to share personal growth ideas and insights through video. It’s going to take a lot of patience as well, but I’m not in a rush. I like the long-term trajectory of this – the outlook seems pretty rosy to me.

Video Production Skills

Coming up with interesting content for videos is easy for me, but what always held me back was a lack of know-how on the production side. So I’ve been educating myself on this quite a bit this year. I can see myself doing a lot of divergent experimentation this year. I’m not going to focus on trying to create hit videos per se. Rather I want to explore the skill set on the production side, and I also want to see what kinds of videos I most enjoy making. I sense that if I raise up my production skills a lot more, I’ll likely discover more enjoyment in the process.

For some reason I love learning about video lighting. I bought a bunch of new lights this year, all from Aputure, including a Lightstorm 60X (bicolor), an Amaran 200X (bicolor), two Amaran P60C panel lights (RGBWW), and a 4-pack of MC lights (RGBWW). I love that these lights are all controllable via an app, so I can sit in one spot and change all of the lights (brightness, color, etc) from my phone. Working with LED lights is so nice because they’re energy efficient and don’t get very hot. I think I’m becoming a fanboy of Aputure since they keep coming up with new lights with great features at great prices. I could easily see myself investing in more lights from them over time. But for now I have plenty to get started with.

I also bought 4 C-stands and some other rigging pieces, and I watched a ton of gaffer videos, so now I know many different ways to rig lights. What I lack, however, is experience. It’s one thing to watch a video to learn what’s possible. It’s different when you have to actually apply the skills yourself.

I’m not sure why I like this so much. You’d think that being color blind, learning about lighting and especially investing in RGB ones wouldn’t be the best fit for me. But for some reason I’m really curious about it. There’s something undeniably enticing about playing around with lighting to see what I can do with it. I just have to accept that how the colors look to me won’t be the same as how other people see them. So maybe some of my videos may have unusual color choices. I can also lean on Rachelle for help since she’s experienced with lighting, given her background in theater, and she can see all the colors too. Amazing!

Learning about lighting adds more appreciation when I watch movies and shows now. I notice the lighting, especially on people’s faces, way more than I ever did before. I sometimes ponder why the cinematographer (or whoever else made those choices) lit a scene they way they did. I often watch cinematography videos while making lunch or while relaxing in the evening.

As I build better video skills, I may also want to explore how to apply them in other ways. It could be really interesting to create a structured video course that’s pre-recorded and nicely edited instead of always delivering it live like I’ve done in the past. I could do such a course that today, but it would take an inordinate amount of time since I’d be so slow at it. I’d like to build up a lot more practice and experience first, one micro-skill at a time, so I can get faster too.

This sort of thing can be outsourced, but I’m really enjoying exploring it as a personal growth adventure. I’m not 100% sure why, but I can tell that this is a path with a heart for me. It also seems like a very aligned opportunity and a delightful way to build upon my existing skills.

I would do this on my own anyway, but doing this as a social journey with other CGCers just makes it even sweeter. I feel more motivated to upgrade these skills because then I can immediately share what I’m learning with other members. I think it will be especially helpful to learn gear tips from each other (lighting, mics, cameras, etc). And there’s tons we can share with each other on the editing side as well.

Balancing Rhythms of Work and Personal Time

In the last CGC year, I was really good at focusing deeply on one project or another. Sometimes I put my all into a creative project. At other times of the year, I invested obsessively in personal projects. I definitely got a lot done, which was very satisfying. But I think that for the months ahead, I’d like to explore a more relaxed and balanced rhythm instead of spending so much time in deep focus mode for weeks at a stretch.

It’s been interesting to create new courses with an all-in strategy. For the recent Guild course, I probably averaged about 10-12 hours a day for 30 days straight, usually starting at 6am and going till around 6pm. I had short meal and rest breaks, but it was still a very obsessive experience, like going through a tunnel. Sometimes I didn’t finish till around 10pm if there was a CGC coaching call on a given day too. Plus there was a lot of advance prep for the course before it began. This intense strategy really does get the job done, but it requires putting so many other parts of life on pause.

I feel like my obsessive creative mode is really well developed now. The inspiration to create just never seems to run dry. I like taking breaks from it now and then, but I always know that it’s there for me when I want to engage with it.

This year I’d like to explore a different relationship with creativity. I think video creation will be part of that. But I also sense there’s more to it, something having to do with rhythm and balance. If my creative output across the span of a year is like a song, you could say that I want to explore different style of music this year, so I can learn how to align with different creative rhythms.

In terms of my working and personal rhythms, I’d like this upcoming CGC year to sound like a combo of Oh Yeah by Yello, She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby, One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head, and Down Under by Men at Work – playful, simple, and fun and without major spikes of intensity. Definitely 80s all the way. Maybe a splash of The B-52’s Loveshack here and there. 😁

I know that I can always fall back on the tried and true, but I’d like to see what other creative rhythms might emerge this year if I gently coax them to the surface. I can’t articulate what that’s going to look like, but my intention is to do a lot more divergent exploration this year.

Divergent Creative Exploration

For previous years in CGC, I would pre-announce the topic of a major course to be delivered during the year. This year I feel inclined to allow for more flexibility and adaptability. I intend to create and publish at least one new course this year. But I might create multiple smaller works instead of one giant new course each year like I’ve done for the past few years.

Whatever interesting forms I create this year, such as new courses or workshops, CGC members will have them included as part of their membership at no extra cost. I just say in advance what it will be.

I also want to see what emerges in CGC (and in my wider audience) this year in terms of what people want to upgrade in their lives. I love connecting the dots between people’s desires and my own explorations. That could lead to something like a course or workshop on life balance, for instance, if there seems to be some demand for it.

For now I feel it would be premature to lock onto a particular form or topic right now. I want to roll into the new CGC year first, engage with our members, and get a sense of where CGC’s energy wants to flow. I also want to explore video production and YouTubing with others in the group. I don’t know how the dots will connect up ahead. I just know that they will.

Join Us for CGC Year 6

I love how rewarding it is to engage with CGC each day, especially its playful side. It’s immensely gratifying to share this human journey with other growth-oriented people in such an intimate way. It’s wonderful to explore so much depth together while also having so much fun and sharing so many laughs. 😁

I hope you’ll join us for some part of this journey in Conscious Growth Club, if not this year then in some future year. The door is open. If it’s to be this year, you have till May 3rd to enroll.

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