Your Relationship With Pleasure

Posted on 08/12/2020 by Boris Clair

What is your relationship with pleasure like?

Do you experience and enjoy pleasure when you’re in the mood for it?

Do you have an addictive relationship with it?

Do you have an on-again, off-again relationship with it?

Does your relationship with pleasure feel healthy, supportive, and fun?

Is your relationship with pleasure simple or complex?

Here’s one of more interesting questions to ask yourself:

Do you trust pleasure?

And here’s another meaningful question:

What kind of relationship would you like to have with pleasure?

Pleasure is just pleasure. In its simplest form, it is pure enjoyment. There is nothing else wrapped into it – no distraction, no addiction, no escapism, no guilt, no shame, no fear, no negative consequences.

This past summer I loved eating delicious peaches – so sweet, juicy, and flavorful. I’d often buy 2-3 boxes at a time because I would eat so many of them. Even when I ate five of them in a day, there were no negative consequences that I could discern. They were simply delicious, and I enjoyed the energy they gave me too. This is a a very uncomplicated form of pleasure, and it’s easy to have a healthy relationship with it.

Last month my wife and I did a 30-day challenge of kissing each other for at least one minute each day. It hardly took any time, it was among the easiest “challenges” ever, and it was pure pleasure for us both. It was a nice daily reminder to kiss just because we enjoy it. It feels good to share tender kisses, playful kisses, and passionate kisses alike. Just one minute of kissing is very emotionally satisfying.

But of course there are other forms of pleasure that can become problematic because they’re wrapped up with some negative qualities like addiction or abuse. Choosing a healthy and pleasurable experience isn’t the same as choosing an unhealthy one.

We can project a lot of neediness onto pleasure. We can want it to play a bigger role for us, such as saving us from our problems or providing a substitute for real human relationships. But projecting such neediness onto pleasure isn’t likely to lead to a healthy relationship with pleasure.

Some people wrap so much angst into various forms of pleasure that they try to fix this by swearing off pleasure altogether. They try to get control over it through abstinence. It isn’t necessary to go this far though, just as it isn’t necessary to swear off all human relationships just because you’ve endured some rough ones. It’s not the pleasure that’s the problem. It’s the neediness and projection you bring to it. Pleasure is fine. It’s your relationship with pleasure that needs some improvement.

Consider instead that you can change your relationship with pleasure by relating to it in a much purer and simpler way. Pleasure isn’t an escape. It isn’t a solution. It isn’t an achievement. It isn’t a source of fear, shame, or guilt.

Pleasure is simply a gift. You open it. You receive it. You enjoy it. You appreciate it. And that’s it.

Don’t make it complicated.

Pleasure is fearless, guiltless, and shameless. If you feel fear, shame, or guilt, it isn’t the pleasure itself that made you feel that way. Enjoyment is just enjoyment.

In 2016 when Rachelle and I spent 30 days in a row going to Disneyland, it was a monthlong deep dive into fun. I found the experience transformational in ways I didn’t expect. I like that Disneyland’s ethos gave us permission to engage with fun in such an immersive way for 10-16 hours per day. That experience was beneficial on multiple levels – good for our relationship, nice to spend so much time outdoors, great for incubating business ideas, 10-12 miles of daily walking, and it led to the launch of Conscious Growth Club about six months later. I was hesitant to do it, but it was one of the best deep dives ever.

You can healthfully engage with many simple forms of pleasure, such as by enjoying a juicy peach or a delightful kiss with a willing (and uninfected!) partner. You don’t have to descend into a complex and perilous relationship with pleasure.

When you engage with different forms of pleasure, pay attention to the relationship. Is it still clean, pure, and simple? Are you still engaging to experience pleasure? Or have made the relationship complicated? Do you feel addicted or compelled to engage? Are some negative consequences occurring such as guilt about wasting time, damage to your health, or feeling ashamed that you violated your values?

If you notice that your relationship with some form of pleasure has grown complicated in undesirable ways, you can transition out of that relationship and reinvest in other forms of pleasure that are simpler and purer.

If you clean up this relationship with pleasure, you can sustainably experience a wide variety of healthy forms of pleasure, which can enrich your life tremendously without dragging you down.

Here’s a good way to frame this from a spiritual perspective:

I invite and intend a lifelong relationship with pleasure that is pure, clean, and healthy – and free of any fear, shame, or guilt.

When you do feel fear, shame, or guilt, trace it back to its source. Figure out where those feelings are coming from. Notice that they aren’t coming from the pleasure itself. They’re coming from somewhere else, like the meaning you’re attaching to the experience or the negative side effects of the particular form of pleasure that you’ve chosen. So then you have an invitation to clean up this relationship. Cleanse it. Elevate it. Purify it.

Let your relationship with pleasure be a clean, pure, and healthy gift.

The Spiritual Purpose of a Relationship

Posted on 07/12/2020 by Boris Clair

Each relationship that you’ve had, whether short-term or long-term, can be interpreted through the lens of spiritual purpose.

Why are you and your partner in each other’s lives? What are you here to do for each other spiritually?

I’d learned of this concept during my 20s but just in a very limited way. The idea was that we’re all spiritual teachers for each other. A relationship is supposedly a spiritual growth experience.

I think that framing held me back because it doesn’t fully encompass what’s possible.

My first marriage to Erin did seem to have that purpose of being co-teachers to each other. In the early years of our 15-year relationship, Erin and I often noted that I was teaching her courage while she was teaching me compassion. We both learned a lot from each other, sometimes by example and something through direct help and advice.

That relationship was challenging at times, but it was also loving, supportive, and patient. We shared a long journey together, which eventually came to an end. When I look back upon that relationship, it feels like it fulfilled its purpose for us both. One friend said to me afterwards, “You completed your marriage.” That’s still how it feels today, now that more than 11 years have passed since we separated.

But is that the only possible purpose of a long-term relationship? Must we always be in a relationship where the main purpose is spiritual teaching?

Not at all. The spiritual purpose of a relationship can be a lot more flexible than that. It doesn’t have to go in a co-teaching direction.

My current (almost 11-year) relationship with Rachelle isn’t about co-teaching. While we can play those roles for each other if we want, this isn’t a big part of our relationship and never really was.

Last night we had a short discussion about the spiritual purpose of our relationship. Neither of us look upon each other as spiritual teachers. The way we actually see each other is more like spiritual gifts.

Rachelle said she feels like her role is to be my reward, and that’s how I see her as well. I enjoy and appreciate her so much that it feels very natural to just revel in that space of appreciation and enjoyment when we’re together.

She feels much the same about me – that I’m her reward. We aren’t co-teachers for each other. It’s more accurate to say that we’re co-playmates, co-lovers, life companions, and best friends.

Spending time with Rachelle is like watching my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. Even when it’s familiar, it’s still fun and enjoyable, and I always find something to appreciate in it.

I feel like the main role I play for Rachelle spiritually is to fully and deeply appreciate her as she is. I feel delighted to be in her presence each day, and I love that I see and appreciate so much beauty and wonder in her that other people might miss. I feel like she needs to be fully appreciated and that my role for her spiritually is basically to gush appreciation at her each day. I especially love to make her laugh and smile.

We fit together like puzzle pieces. What she offers in a relationship is what I naturally appreciate and enjoy, and vice versa.

Being spiritual teachers to each other doesn’t really describe us. But I can say that we do help each other to spiritually grow. This doesn’t have to do with challenging each other though. As much as we both love a good challenge, we’re both already very good at challenging ourselves in a variety of ways. So we don’t particularly need to push each other. When one of us suggests a new challenge, we’ll sometimes agree to do it together when it makes sense, and otherwise we won’t.

I’m doing a one-year blogging challenge this year. Rachelle just passed 440 days in a row of closing all of her Apple Watch rings, so she has 60 more days to reach her goal of 500. Last month we both did NaNoWriMo and successfully completed that challenge. This month she’s doing a 30-day decluttering challenge along with some other CGC members. I’m preparing for a one-year experience of eating all raw in 2021, so I’m spending some time each day re-familiarizing myself with raw meals and practicing various raw recipes. I’d also like an easier December since I’ll be working on a new deep dive course early next year, which can be an intense experience.

If we weren’t in a relationship together, Rachelle and I would still be working on our personal growth as individuals. So we don’t need the relationship to play that role for us. We share this part of our life together, but it doesn’t seem to connect with the purpose of our relationship.

In terms of spiritual growth, our relationship feels like the universe said to each of us, “You’re doing great. How about a nice reward that you’ll surely enjoy and appreciate? Here you go! Have fun!”

This is a very different framing to place upon a relationship instead of being co-teachers for each other. It’s especially different from the lens that says you should be in a relationship with someone who antagonizes you because it will help you grow.

Rachelle and I are already good at identifying and diving into new growth experiences. Neither of us really wants or needs to push each other to grow more than we’re already doing. We can simply trust that we’re both going to keep learning and growing no matter what, and there’s ample evidence to prove that to each other.

It feels to me that maybe these aspects are connected, like the reason I get to be in a relationship with a “reward” at this stage of life is that I’ve locked in a consistent and perpetual flow of growth experiences without feeling overwhelmed. I’ve figured out a flow that works for me, and Rachelle has found a flow that works for her.

We both spend a lot of time helping and serving others too, so that may be part of this as well.

I’m not sure about this aspect of the framing though. It could just be the ex-Catholic in me that feels that every reward must first be earned. It would be interesting to know if other people are in relationships that feel like spiritual rewards that they didn’t have to spiritually earn first.

What Rachelle and I love doing for each other is to be each others playmates and to share love, appreciation, affection, friendship, and encouragement.

We’re also co-adventurers. We love traveling together. We love having shared experiences. Our favorite type of “challenge” to do together would be to share in some new kind of adventure together. We’ve always had a good time exploring new cities together. We’ve been to dozens of different cities throughout our relationship, which began as a cross-border relationship where switching countries was necessary just to see each other.

Even under COVID conditions where we’re spending way more time at home than in a typical year, I never feel bored with her. As much time as we’ve already spent together, I still crave more. I love spending each day with her. Somehow this continues to feel fresh and new, even when the setting and circumstances are familiar. She’s a source of beauty that I enjoy each day without feeling like the enjoyment and appreciation could ever run out.

This relationship feels like it’s exactly what we both want and need. It’s wonderful to spend each day with a partner who feels like a gift and a reward. It’s fascinating to be in a relationship with a woman who sees me in the same light.

This kind of framing is relaxing and restorative. Neither of us feels like we must “work” on the relationship to fix problems or to improve it. We actually succeed in our relationship mainly by being, not by doing. Simply being present makes our relationship fulfill its purpose. Just cuddling each other on the couch feels very purposeful.

Remember that feeling you have when you buy a new piece of tech like the latest smart phone, and for a while you feel extra special because you have the latest and greatest? But then a year later, a new version comes out… and then another new version a year after that. And now you’re behind the times and wondering if you should upgrade. But what if you could have that new-tech feeling every day, so you felt that extra appreciation above the baseline, and it never went back down again? That’s similar to how my relationship with Rachelle feels each day.

Almost 11 years ago, a significant increase in appreciation, gratitude, and enjoyment came into my life, and it never went back down again. Those aspects of my life have remained elevated this whole time.

But what I find most interesting is that I never developed a tolerance for it. It’s like having coffee where every cup is as stimulating as the first one, and your body never adapts to higher caffeine levels and brings you back down again. So the same dosage remains very stimulating, and you don’t need to keep increasing the dosage to get the same effect.

Each day with Rachelle feels like it exists above my baseline. But somehow my old baseline hasn’t raised itself up to match my current day-to-day experiences. That seems very odd to me. Why hasn’t the baseline come up? Why doesn’t each day with her just feel okay and normal now? Why do I still experience delight and appreciation with her after all this time together? Why does she still seem like a gift?

I don’t know, but I do like it.

Before I experienced this relationship, I didn’t think it was possible for a real human relationship to have the spiritual purpose of being co-gifts, co-rewards, and co-playmates for each other. That seems too easy and too good to be true. I wondered if we must be in some realm of co-denial about all the real spiritual work and tough love we must surely engage in sooner or later. It took a while to get aligned with the co-reward idea.

Why share this? One reason is to let you know that a healthy and happy relationship doesn’t have to involve working on your partner or on the relationship to improve it. For some that may sound like heresy. While people can enter a relationship to directly help each other grow and improve, that doesn’t have to be the case. You could also be in a relationship with someone whose beingness you enjoy and appreciate.

I think the more challenging aspect is when you flip this around and ask: For which person could I be a gift that they’ll appreciate and enjoy each day, just by being myself as I am right now?

That’s another special aspect of my relationship with Rachelle that I don’t notice as often, but it is nice to acknowledge when I see it. I like looking at her and thinking, “I’m good for her. She’s lucky to have me in her life.” I can understand why she appreciates and enjoys me. I can see the value I add to her life. And this feeling is very much mutual. She can readily see how good she is for me too and how much value she adds to my life. It’s nice that neither of us have to wonder about that or question it. It’s plain as day to us both that we’re good for each other and that we enhance each other’s lives by being together.

You can attract a relationship that’s a lot of work, but you have other options too. What do you feel ready to experience spiritually at this time in your life? Do you want a co-working type of relationship? Do you want fun and adventure? Do you want grace, ease, and lightness? Do you want lust and passion?

If you’re in a current relationship now, is it still aligned with a spiritual purpose that feels aligned with who you are today? Is it what you want to experience at this stage of your life? Or do you feel called to explore and experience a new relationship with a different spiritual purpose?

Pay attention to that purpose alignment. If your relationship has lost its connection to such a purpose, consider that it’s also your purpose to fulfill a meaningful role for someone else – to be their teacher, their reward, and so on.

Is Manifesting a Physical Skill, a Mental Skill, or a Spiritual Skill?

Posted on 06/12/2020 by Boris Clair

People often frame their manifesting skills as something spiritual, mental, or a combination of the two. Manifesting is often treated as something akin to prayer. Ask the universe for what you desire, and hopefully you’ll receive it.

But what if manifesting is actually a physical skill in disguise?

Other mental skills, including reading, writing, speaking, and solving math problems, are actually physical skills too. Your physical brain implements these skills on your neural hardware. If your brain is damaged in certain ways, you could lose some of your mental skills.

We often overlook the connection between the mental and the physical except when it becomes really obvious, like after consuming alcohol or when feeling sleep deprived. But the connection is strong and clear. The mental and the physical are inseparably linked.

What about so-called spiritual skills, however, such as manifesting or prayer? If you focus on your desires to manifest what you want, clearly that’s a mental activity too. You have to think about it to do it. You’re engaging your mind in a mental activity, which means you’re also engaging your brain in a physical activity.

Are you following this so far? The mental and physical conneciton seems pretty straightforward up to this point, right? Now here’s where it gets a bit weird.

If manifesting is a spiritual skill and a mental skill, then it’s also a physical skill. This suggests that the health of your brain could affect the results of your manifesting experiments, just as the health of your brain can affect your other skills and the results you can generate with them.

Any mental skills you have can be degraded with drug and alcohol abuse, right? And any mental skills can be upgraded with better health habits, right?

Have you considered that this isn’t just true for skills like writing, solving business problems, and computer coding? Have you considered that it’s also true for any and all spiritual skills, including prayer and manifesting?

Yes, I’m actually suggesting that the health of your brain is inextricably linked to the results you’re able to achieve with any of your so-called spiritual skills. Sure you can still use your skills under suboptimal conditions, just as a drunken writer can still write well sometimes. But in general, a cleaner brain will yield better and more consistent results.

How can you tell? One way is to do health experiments that will significantly affect your brain health. When your brain gets physically healthier, do you notice a difference in your manifesting skills?

I absolutely do notice this when I do certain health experiments, as long as I’m making big enough changes. The improvement in “spiritual” results is very pronounced. Whenever I eat 100% raw for a while, my manifesting skills undergo a major upgrade. Positive synchronicities amp up tremendously, and my desires flow into my life with much less effort. It’s almost a magical experience. Every time I change my diet this way, I’m blown away by this change. I expect to experience physical and mental improvements, but it’s weird when spiritual improvements occur as well.

I also experience a huge increase in intuition. This part makes sense to me because I can say that intuition is a mental skill, so when my physical brain runs cleaner, of course my intuitive insights may improve as well. I can explain this by saying that intuition is a function of the subconscious mind, so when the underlying hardware runs better, the software runs better too, and this leads to more accurate neural computations.

But it’s harder to explain why manifesting skills are so much better when eating raw. Sure I can say that my mind works better because my brain works better. And I can see the surge in results that stays high as long as I keep eating raw. I can notice that those results decline again when I return to eating cooked food. But what’s the connection between my brain and the universe? Why does having a cleaner brain make a difference in reality’s responses to my intentions and desires?

That aspect does puzzle me. I don’t doubt that there’s a connection though because it’s so pronounced. To doubt it would be like having six shots of alcohol in a row and pretending that there’s no effect. You’ll notice the difference plain as day, especially when the shift happens so rapidly.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed similar effects. Other raw foodists have written about this too. It’s a common subject of conversation in person. Many explain it differently though – as something spiritual or soulful.

I find the spiritual explanation unsatisfying. I think there really is a link that runs through the physical. I think it’s probably similar to the application of communication skills.

For instance, if you eat a super clean raw vegan diet, your social life will change. People who’ve never eaten raw may assume one’s social life would get worse, but it actually gets better – usually a lot better. This could be explained by a physical chain of events. You’ll soon look healthier, and people will start to notice. People will find you more attractive. Your thinking will become clearer, calmer, and more focused, so you’ll communicate differently in your writing and speaking, and people may pick up on those differences too. Hence it makes sense that changes in your brain functioning will change what you’re communicating, and this will change the social response that you receive.

My experience is that when I eat raw, people are friendlier and more social around me. Interestingly this effect happens not just in person but also online. I wouldn’t have understood this effect if I hadn’t tested this lifestyle enough times, but it’s pretty pronounced and hard to overlook. I don’t have to try to be more social. It just happens.

I suspect that there’s a similar pathway for communicating with reality itself. Or maybe it’s a pathway of communicating with life, like a form of telepathic signals that we collectively broadcast and receive. Perhaps when we eat cleaner, our internal hardware and software for broadcasting and receiving these signals works better than before. And perhaps there’s an aspect of manifesting that uses these communication channels, and this in turn affects our manifesting results.

When I eat raw, I feel like reality is better at reading my mind. Instead of feeling like I’m pushing intentions out into the universe and hoping for some positive echos, it feels like reality reaches into my mind, pulls out my desires, smiles, and gives me a receipt. Then it brings me what I want rather quickly. I don’t really need to ask. It’s like I’m always automatically broadcasting what I want, and reality is hearing me loud and clear.

Opportunities and invitations flow into my life so synchronistically. My thinking and reality’s responses achieve a level of synchronization that I don’t experience when eating cooked food. I can still achieve an okay level of alignment on a cooked vegan diet, but it’s way, way better on 100% raw foods.

Have you ever considered the link between your manifesting skills and your diet? Have you considered that manifesting is a physical skill too, not just a mental and spiritual skill? Do you realize that your spiritual skills are still running on physical hardware? Have you wondered if cleaning up your diet could yield a significant increase in your ability to manifest your desires?

Have you also pondered that eating cooked food could be negatively affecting your communication pathways with reality? Is it possible that your mental transmissions are getting garbled and that reality isn’t actually receiving your intentions accurately and powerfully? Is it possible that most of the time, reality dismisses your requests as the misaligned ravings of some drunken human who eats a very strange and unnatural diet?

Cooked food affects the body and brain very differently than raw food. For instance, when you eat cooked food, your body generates an immune response with a surge in white blood cells. The body doesn’t response this way when you eat raw foods. If your body must expend extra energy on digestion and waste cleanup, maybe it won’t devote as much energy to transmitting your desires.

What if your life is much harder than it needs to be? What if your eating habits are preventing you from experiencing a level of flow that would make abundance easy and natural?

Are you trying to manifest abundance? What if this could be automatic, just by eating a cleaner diet? What if your natural state of being is to be outstanding at manifesting your desires, and you’ve degraded this flow at the physical level?

And what if your mental and spiritual framing of this skill set has been keeping you stuck? What if manifesting was mostly a natural physical ability all along, and you just had to let it out of its cage, so it could run at full speed?

All of this can be personally tested.

This is one of many factors that’s motivating me to test eating raw for all of 2021. This month I’m reloading those skills, practicing making different raw meals to get back into the flow of eating raw while still permitting cooked food when desired for the next few weeks. I want to do a deeper dive into this aspect of life, especially with respect to what I can glean about reality’s responses. I recently reviewed some of my old blog posts that I wrote during the time when I was eating fully or mostly raw (about 11-12 years ago), and I was struck by how easily I manifested various desires back then.

I think 2021 is going to be a very fun, flowing, and social year.

Goals of Being

Posted on 05/12/2020 by Boris Clair

Many years ago one of my goals for public speaking was to design and deliver my own three-day workshop on the Las Vegas Strip. I first achieved that goal in 2009. That was a goal of doing.

Another goal I had for public speaking was to develop such strong comfort with public speaking that I could feel fully present in front of an audience, so I could be spontaneous and in the moment and not feel anxiety or nervousness – just enjoyment, fun, playfulness, and connection. I achieved that goal somewhere along the way. I demonstrated it at the three-day 2015 Conscious Heart Workshop, delivered spontaneously with lots of fun, playfulness, and inspiration in the moment – and no nervousness or anxiety. There was no plan or content preparation for that workshop. I facilitated it from the flow of inspiration and audience suggestion moment by moment. That was a goal of being.

At another time I had a goal of writing a book and getting it published. That was achieved in 2008. More doing.

But I also had a goal of writing that book in a way that I could always feel really good about it, and I wouldn’t feel like I’d outgrown it a decade or two later. I wanted to have a timeless relationship with that book and its principles throughout my life. More being. I still feel such a connection to that book, now 12 years after it was published.

The culture that I find myself within gives a lot of weight to doing and not enough to being. Pursuing goals “at all costs” is lauded by many. But we pay a price for this focus – a loss of connection to being.

When you set goals for the New Year (or anytime really), give some attention to the beingness aspects, not just to your activities and results.

Beingness is surprisingly powerful. A lot of doingness takes care of itself if you invest in the right experience of beingness.

Results of Beingness

Here are some examples of goals that I’ve achieved that have enhanced my life greatly, which have more to do with being than doing.

I’m in a long-term relationship with a woman who makes me smile when I see her. We laugh together every day. Even after spending so much time together, especially this year, I still look forward to more time with her.
My vegan diet forever changed the way I relate to animals. I look upon them with a sense of fellowship and reverence, not as objects to be bought and consumed.
I have written millions of words of published content, but for me the more important goal was learning to write from inspiration. I never get writer’s block. That’s due to trust, not because of self-discipline. I don’t have to force anything. I’ve learned how to invite, tune into, and trust the flow. With the right beingness, the doingness is relatively easy. Most of the content I’ve written, including all of my blog articles and YouTube videos, are donated to the public domain, so anyone is free to republish, repurpose, or translate them.
I’m happy. I like my life. I look forward to each day. I often feel appreciative and grateful and lucky, not as some kind of deliberate practice but just as an automatic inner response. I’ve made it a priority to live my life in such a way that these feelings naturally arise. I say no to a lot of doing-based projects that would predictably reduce my happiness. I say yes to invitations and activities that will predictably increase my happiness. And I test that predictability now and then to see if my predictions are still accurate.
I get up at 5am each morning. This doesn’t require any force. I’m simply in love with the early morning hours. I seem to have a special relationship with that time of day. It’s that relationship that makes it easy to get out of bed – no force or discipline needed.
I feel that I have a healthy and positive relationship with money. I enjoy earning it and find it fairly easy to earn plenty of it when I want. I like spending it too. I like saving it. I invested a lot of thought and experimentation into improving my relationship with money – to drive out the fears and worries about it and to replace those fears and worries with play, trust, creativity, appreciation, inspiration, and other positive aspects of beingness. I used to struggle with money during my 20s, and that struggle didn’t occur during my 30s and 40s. This was solved not with more doing but with better being.
I have friends who inspire me to be a better person. I find that such people naturally flow into my life and stick around, not from working on my action-based social skills but from deepening my connection to the person I really want to be in each moment. When I express my beingness in the moment, people who are aligned with me seem naturally attracted to me. I also find it beautiful, remarkable, and empowering when someone else really expresses their beingness. It makes me feel in awe of that person. I tend to feel more awe from a person’s beingness rather than from their actions and accomplishments.

I tend to value my gains in beingness more than my gains in doingness. That’s because the right beingness makes the doing part easier and more fun.

Setting Goals of Being

I encourage you to actually set some goals of being. They may look like doing-based goals on the surface, but how you experience them is at least as important as the doing part. So the goal is really about the presence you bring to the experience.

Here are some examples:

Deliver a one-hour presentation with zero nervousness or anxiety.
Learn to enjoy doing your taxes that you file them at least a few weeks ahead of the due date. Find a way to fully enjoy the process with little or no resistance.
Earn $10K in one day, in a playful and inspired way. Form the intention, and then act on the flow of inspiration moment by moment. This seems like it’s about the doing, but it’s really about working through self-limiting beliefs and creating a more playful and inspired relationship with reality. You have to stop the self-censoring and self-doubt and learn to “yes, and” the ideas that flow through. This goals is nearly impossible if your relationship with inspiration is weak. It can be fun do it if that relationship is strong. You might even set such a goal and then find that you’re getting redirected towards an even better or bigger goal.
Prepare and eat a meal that’s super healthy, super delicious, and feels delightful to prepare it, eat it, and digest it. This requires that you really listen to how you’re connecting with the food during each step. And then you must be present to how your body is experiencing the food after you’ve eaten it.
Become a hugger. Become a person who gives and receives willing hugs, maybe even every day. Create a life rich in consensual touch. Oh, this was an amazing one to achieve, given my starting point. It took years to get there, but it was so worth it.
If you start a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or something similar, define what kind of relationship you want to have with the many loops of creating and publishing new material that you’ll experience. What I’ve found helpful is that the process must be a growth experience for me; otherwise I’ll get bored and resist it. I also have to write for people I care about helping. This is more important than traffic or numbers. I need to love the process of creation. If I don’t love it, it means the beingness is wrong, and I need to approach it differently.
Make a really good, new friend. Good luck with turning this into a step-by-step action plan. With the right beingness though, this one is a lot easier. What makes you a good friend? Are you being that kind of person consistently?

So don’t just consider the what aspect of your goals. Pay great attention to the how and the why. Consider what kind of life you’re creating. Look at the inner experience of what it will be like to achieve your goals one way versus another way. There are so many ways to achieve results externally, but many approaches won’t feel very aligned or pleasant on the inside.

When you ignore the beingness aspect of a goal, you’ll likely sabotage the doingness part as well. It’s hard to take action when you’d rather procrastinate. If you’d rather play video games, how can you bring the beingness aspect that you enjoy while gaming into your other goals? What kind of player are you being in those game worlds? Are you being that player in other areas of life?

One sign that I have the beingness right is that I smile warmly when I think about my goals. It makes me happy to think about doing them. I look forward to working on them day by day. I’m not just motivated by the end result. I can savor the journey as well.

NaNoWriMo – Day 30

Posted on 30/11/2020 by Boris Clair

Today is the final day of NaNoWriMo. I added about 2000 more words to my novel-in-progress this morning. My final word count for the month came in at 55,051 words. The challenge of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is to write 50,000 words of a new novel in 30 days, so I exceeded this target by about 10%.

Here’s my daily progress log, showing my total word count (darker color) versus the daily pacing needed to hit 50K words (lighter color).

I surpassed the target pacing by a small amount on Day 1 and then padded my lead every day afterwards. It felt good to always be a little bit ahead throughout the challenge. I knew that if I just maintained this steady pacing, I’d never need to do any catch-up writing at the end.

Before starting this challenge, I learned that a major reason people fail at NaNoWriMo is that they fall behind in the first couple of weeks, and then they feel disheartened when facing the extra effort needed to catch up. Even skipping one day means you’ll have to write more in the remaining days. Most people who fall behind give up and don’t complete the challenge. This is an easily preventable point of failure.

My strategy was to approach this as a daily challenge, which plays to my strengths. I’ve done lots of 30-day challenges where I practice a specific behavior for 30 days in a row. In this case the desired behavior was to add at least 1667 words to my novel each day. If I just focused on that, the monthly goal would be accomplished too. It’s just typing after all.

Here’s what my daily word count looked like for all 30 days.

As you can see, I was pretty consistent throughout the month.

I averaged 1835 words per day, which works out to an extra 10% per day. Once I passed the 1667 words for the day, I kept writing till I felt like stopping, such as when I got to the end of a scene. If I felt like stopping but I wasn’t at 1667 words yet, I took a short break and then continued writing.

Final Reflections

This was a wonderful personal growth experience, and I’m glad I did it. The novel isn’t done and will need a lot of work to finish, but the daily writing got me well into the project.

I don’t have a completed book yet, and it would take a lot more work to drive this towards a version ready for publishing, but NaNoWriMo got me moving forward with meaningful progress. It helped me turn a mere idea into something a lot more tangible.

At this point I don’t have a completed story. I’ve written a first draft of many scenes. I have several well-developed characters. I have a well-structured three-act story with interesting plot twists. But there are still many more details to work out.

This is a very rough first draft. I’d say it’s not bad for a month’s work. I estimate that I averaged about 75 minutes per day of writing time (including thinking about what to write). I’m very pleased with how far I got for about 40 hours of effort. There was also some incubation time when I’d be thinking about characters or plot ideas while doing unrelated tasks.

The “words are cheap” mindset worked very well. It’s easy to throw words onto the screen, read them back the next day, and learn something useful. I’ll end up throwing away much of what I wrote this month, and I don’t lament that at all. Everything I wrote helped in some way. Each day I gained more clarity about the story, the characters, and the world. Even when what I wrote seemed like a chaotic mess, it still felt like forward progress.

Other writers have said that you write the first draft for yourself, not for anyone else. I adopted that mindset from Day 1, and I found it very helpful. I didn’t expect to show this early draft to anyone, not even Rachelle. So I just wrote whatever came to mind. It was my own personal exploration of the ideas and possibilities, nothing more. By framing it that way, I felt totally free to experiment and to make lots of mistakes. This helped me figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell. I let the words flow without any concern about who might read them.

One clear gain was that I understand my characters so much better than when I first started. Now I can write their words and actions much more easily, as if they tell me what they would say and do in every situation. So the writing got easier as I went along. The first few days were the most challenging; after that it was smooth sailing.

Another gain was that my “why” for writing this story improved as I kept writing. Around halfway through the month, I developed a stronger sense of purpose for why I wanted to write and share such a story. I had a more compelling answer to the questions: Why bother with this project? What’s the point? Who would want to read this? My purpose was more exploration-based in the beginning, but by the end I felt like I was creating something I really wanted to share with the world to see how it landed with people. I had a clearer sense of the story’s potential impact.

This was similar in some ways to designing a new video game from scratch, but the medium is very different. I liked how easy it was to explore the characters, story ideas, and world without having to deal with tech constraints. I could play around with any ideas I could imagine. I really enjoyed that type of experience – it was like pure play.

Most days I looked forward to my writing sessions. I didn’t experience much inner resistance after the first week, and that small resistance was just due to being too green at this type of writing. I think having lots of nonfiction writing experience – and a healthy willingness to make plenty of mistakes – was helpful. I never had writer’s block. I could connect with inspired ideas for fiction writing as easily as for nonfiction articles or courses.

Next Steps

I’m going to set aside the novel writing and coast into a more relaxed December since I want to focus on other aspects of life for the rest of the year. That includes finishing up my one-year daily blogging challenge, which has 31 days left to go.

Stephen King recommends setting aside a novel for at least 6 weeks after writing the first draft and then coming back it to fresh. He says it’s wise to get some distance from the story, so you can see it with fresh eyes before you start editing.

My first draft isn’t good enough that I can just edit it into a finished book. It’s way too messy for that, especially since there are a lot of scenes I’ll need to cut or rewrite differently. I’m still going to set this aside for 6+ weeks, probably until after our next deep dive is complete, but my next steps will different than Stephen King’s.

Sometime next year I’d like to revisit this novel project, re-read everything I wrote, and then begin working on a second draft. I’d like to do a round of more detailed plotting before I add more words to the book. I think the story would benefit a lot by clarifying the scene-by-scene layout.

The pantser approach was great for getting started since it helped me map out the possibility space for the story by writing a lot of scenes. Now I have enough understanding of the story and that characters that a good next step would be to map out the scenes for the story in the right order. I’d also like to fill out character and location sheets to fine-tune the characters and settings. Then I can write the second draft.

It’s going to be a long process, and I’m not in a rush to race through this. I do want to see this through to publishing. It’s an original story with some fun characters that I think people would enjoy reading. I might approach this project as a series of 30-day challenges to push it forward through different stages of development.

I’m especially happen that I framed NaNoWriMo in a way that made the experience enjoyable, especially by always being ahead of schedule. This makes me eager to re-engage with the novel when I’m ready. There are other priorities I want to engage with next, so I’m happy to put this aside for now, but I do look forward to getting back into it with fresh eyes.

Our Next Deep Dive

My first big priority for 2021 is to launch and develop our new creative productivity deep dive, which is tentatively called Amplify. This is for people who do creative work and want to increase their productive output. It’s also for people who’d like to get into a better creative flow. You could think of it as a course in how to be a prolific creator who publishes frequently. How can you express yourself creatively year after year without burning out?

I have tons to share about this topic that I believe would be unique and different from anything else out there. I’ve gone through many books and courses on creativity and on productivity, but I still haven’t seen really good coverage regarding connecting the dots between creativity and productivity. It’s like creativity is play, and productivity is work. There’s a lot of conflicting advice that treats creativity as inherently unproductive and productivity as inherently uncreative.

What if you want to excel at both together? What if you want to be a fountain of creative expression?

How can you be super creative and highly productive without sacrificing too much on either side? How can you get into the flow of creating and publishing – and stay there consistently without burning out?

There’s a lot to unpack here, and I’m convinced that this is an area where I can add some real value to people’s lives. I’ve created and published across many different media: articles, videos, podcasts, a book, video games, music, live events, and more. This year I’ve published something new every single day, adding hundreds of thousands of words to my collective work, which is already well into the millions of words, not counting translations into other languages.

I love to keep exploring new media too, such as I just did with NaNoWriMo. Partly I did NaNoWriMo as an experiment to test some of the ideas for this upcoming deep dive.

I’d love to do this new deep dive co-creatively too, like we did with our previous ones, so the lessons will be created as we go, designed for the specific needs of the people who enroll.

I haven’t decided on the exact the format yet. My intuition says it will likely be something different from our previous courses, perhaps a combination of live interactive parts along with structured audio lessons. People loved the audio format of Submersion and Stature, and there was also something special about the live sessions that we did for Deep Abundance Integration. So I’m thinking of merging those for the new deep dive. Would that appeal to you?

I’ll share more info on this new deep dive next year as we get closer to launching it. We’ll be launching it during the first quarter of 2021. I tend to get an intuitive ping when the timing is right for launching. In the meantime, I’d like to clear my plate of some other projects first, mostly on the personal side.

Set an Incompatible Goal

Posted on 25/11/2020 by Boris Clair

One way to shift your character – and your life – in a new direction is to set a goal that’s incompatible with the limitations of your current character.

In other words, set a goal that you would would never set. Then work diligently to pursue and achieve that goal.

Thinking you can’t do something because it’s out of character for you is still just a thought. You can change your thoughts, but sometimes it’s easier to change your actions and behaviors and let you thoughts play catch-up. Sometimes thoughts of who you are just get in your way and slow you down.

When you try to change yourself at the level of thought first, sometimes that works, but other times it will just lead you into a circular trap of thinking, thinking, and more thinking – and never actually doing, exploring, and experiencing.

Pay special attention to where you have desires that you tend to quickly suppress, especially with respect to ambitious goals and lifestyle experiences.

What experiences are other people having that you secretly envy?

What do you secretly daydream about doing or experiencing, but you could never tell anyone?

Have you ever thought about pulling one of those crazy ideas out of the dream space and setting it as a real goal to accomplish? Other people have already done that.

There’s something transformational about writing down a goal that doesn’t feel like you.

I encourage you to try this: Write down some goals that you would never set as goals. If you have a system for tracking your goals and projects, add those new goals to that systems. Create stub projects for them. Slot them right alongside your other goals. Notice how this feels. Does it seem unreal? A bit edgy perhaps? Realize that you could actually achieve those goals. You could make them real. They don’t have to just haunt you in the idea space.

One example is starting a business. Some people grow up believing that they aren’t cut out to run a business. Having been an entrepreneur myself since 1994 and having met hundreds of other entrepreneurs, I can tell you that a lot of people feel that way. Many still feel that way even after they’ve been entrepreneurs for years. Lots of people don’t think they’re cut out for it, even after doing entrepreneurial activities for 10 or 20 years. So if you have doubts about whether or not you can do this, join the club – you’re way more compatible with this goal than you think.

It’s odd that even after years of doing something regularly, it can still take a while for a person’s self-image to catch up. People think they need to meet some arbitrary standard of achievement before they can claim certain labels. But the labels don’t matter that much anyway. The actions and the results matter a lot more.

Another example would be to have sexual experiences that you feel are beyond you. For some it’s losing their virginity. For others it’s having a threesome or participating in an orgy. For still others it’s having a regular sex partner with whom there’s a strong mutual attraction.

If you’d like to have a lifestyle or sexual experience that you haven’t had yet, it should be on your goals list, written down plain as day. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see yourself as “that kind of person.” Add it to your goals anyway. Take action and use your problem-solving skills to move the goal forward, just like any other.

The notion that anything is beyond you is just a thought pattern. It’s not the actual truth. There are plenty of people who are less intelligent, competent, and attractive than you are who regularly experience what you rule out. You’re probably putting some of them on a pedestal; if you met them in person, you might be far less impressed.

That’s what nudged me to set a lot of stretch goals. I met people who achieved some of my stretch experiences, and I realized that a lot of them aren’t the amazing people I assumed they were. They’re just people.

When I started ruling in those kinds of experiences at least at the level of goals that I could freely set, that made all the difference. That made my mind do a double-take: Wait… we’re actually setting these as goals? Ummm… okay, why the hell not? This could get interesting!

When you set an incompatible goal as a real goal, it pushes your brain to start asking some really good questions that you should be asking, like these:

Is this goal really impossible for me?
Is this goal really incompatible with who I am? Does it have to be?
Why can’t I pursue this now?
Could I become the kind of person who could have this experience?
If so-and-so can have this experience, why not me?
Do I want this? Can I admit that to myself?
Why am I so afraid of this goal?
Are there people who would regard my resistance and hesitation as silly, unnecessary, or cowardly?
Are there people who’d encourage me to go for it if they knew the whole truth about my thoughts and feelings on this?
If I could be sure that this reality is a simulation, would I let myself have this experience?

That last one is a nice way to weave in the subjective perspective.

The goals you’ve ruled out will often be the most fun, the most growth-oriented, the most motivating, and the sexiest. They’ll also be the scariest because you’ll have to stretch who you think you are to get there. That’s good. An empowering goal ought to stretch your self-image. It ought to challenge you. It ought to push your buttons.

Take a possibility you’ve been dismissing, and just try setting it as a real goal. Put it on your goals list. Then let yourself feel the resistance and self-doubt. Call it ludicrous if you must. And then say: Yeah, okay, there’s some resistance, hesitation, self-doubt, shame, fear, and so on. But I still kinda want it. It would still be an awesome experience to have. Then let the goal remain on your list. Just keep looking at it when you see your other goals and projects. Just keep leaning into the realization that you could actually do it.

Pleasure Is Not Addictive

Posted on 18/11/2020 by Boris Clair

Here’s an interesting frame for thinking about the connection between pleasure and addiction. It’s not the only frame you can use, but I think it’s a useful perspective to avoid some confusion.

The Experience of Pleasure

Pleasure is a frequency of experience. By itself it is not harmful or addictive, just as water isn’t addictive per se. Pleasure can be a worthy pursuit when approached with some degree of respect, sacredness, or reverence. You can enjoy the deliciousness of pleasure without getting into trouble.

Please do not see pleasure as anything naughty or perverse. It is absolutely fine to explore pleasure. There is beauty in it.

There are risky attachments to pleasure, like drug or sex addiction, where the person is no longer in control, and subconscious drives are controlling the person’s behavior.

There is no inherent need for pleasure though. It is a drive but not a need. When someone loses control in an addictive way, it is not because of a need for pleasure. There is another way of looking at this that reveals deeper truths.

The Reward of Pleasure

Pleasure is simply a reward. It’s an algorithm. It’s an energy. When certain conditions are met, pleasure is activated. You understand how to meet some of those conditions and activate some pleasure whenever you want. Other activations may be within reach too, but you may not have explored them yet.

Pleasure is like a carrot dangling in front of certain experiences. You feel it in sexual experiences but also during a shopping experience that you liked or upon reading an engaging book. You feel it when you get on a plane to go somewhere interesting.

You may have been conditioned to believe that pleasure is something naughty, dark, or sinful. It’s indulgent. It’s a side excursion. It’s a form of procrastination. It’s unnecessary. It’s addictive.

But such assumptions are inaccurate and will only create extra stuckness. Pleasure isn’t addictive.

Pleasure and Addiction

If pleasure itself isn’t addictive, then what is addictive?

The way you frame pleasure can be addictive. It’s addictive to see it as naughty, dark, or sinful. It’s the shame that’s addictive.

How so?

What is addiction? An addiction is a repetitive behavioral pattern that seems outside of one’s control. Such a pattern is typically activated subconsciously, right? What are those activators? They’re also algorithms. They’re energy forms too, but let’s think of them as algorithms for now.

What would those algorithms look like? What is their internal code? They are not complex.

Here’s the basic algorithm of addiction, reduced to one line of code:

If there’s something I don’t want to deal with, pursue pleasure instead.

You could frame this in a variety of other ways too, like pursuing lesser pain instead of pleasure, but this is a pretty straightforward way to understand addiction.

It’s the avoidance pattern that’s addictive. The person doesn’t feel free to go against pleasure because that means going into the unpleasant.

Engaging with the Unpleasant

So the solution to addiction is more courage? Or more tolerance for the unpleasant?

The solution is more willingness to engage with the unpleasant. More desire to deal with the ugliness of life. More desire to go into the muck.

The irony is that the person may see their addiction as dark and shameful, so they feel they’re going into the darkness when they’re in the thick of it. But really what they have is a cheap substitute. What they’re doing isn’t particularly shameful, but it helps them hide from the bigger shame – like the shame of wasting one’s life, the shame of being a virgin longer than expected, the shame of being afraid of social interactions, the shame of facing awkward and difficult personal growth challenges, the shame of not making “enough” money, the shame of feeling like a failure, the shame of falling behind one’s peers, the shame of being physically unhealthy or out of shape, the shame of past traumas, and so on.

It’s easier to feel ashamed of a simple addiction, and this kind of small shame is also a convenient distraction. By hiding in the darkness of an addiction, the bigger darkness is avoided.

Can Rock Bottom Be Avoided?

What does it mean to hit rock bottom? It means that the delusion of the addiction cracks, and real life seeps in. The bigger shames must finally be dealt with and can no longer be suppressed.

How can a person crack an addiction instead of having to hit rock bottom?

One must turn and face the bigger shames. Process those feelings. Engage with goals and actions in the direction of greater shame. And that in turn requires transforming one’s relationship with these areas of shame or resistance.

This doesn’t mean these other shames will necessarily be massive. They may be just a little bigger than the addictive shame. But they still represent neglected areas where progress is weak. Decide to kickstart progress in those areas by transforming how you relate to them, and the shame of the addiction will naturally fade because the bigger shame is finally being dealt with.

The bigger reframe here is to walk towards shame, not to run from it. Shame is a delusion waiting to be cracked. What cracks the delusion is to flow energy into it. Face it and confront it, not to do battle but by seeking the beautiful invitation hiding in what you were previously avoiding.

Must You Confess Your Addiction?

People often step into this confrontation by socially acknowledging and admitting their addiction. They confess the dark secret to other people. That is a good step for some, but it can also be a distraction. That addiction isn’t really the core issue, so over-focusing on it as something to be overcome can just create more rounds of avoidance of larger issues.

Just as the phase of addict is a distraction, so is the phase of recovering addict. Note that many people permanently overcome addictions without ever labeling themselves as recovering addicts.

The risk here is getting caught up in further cycles of overcoming the addiction instead of pressing forward in other areas. Trying to overcome the addiction can be just as much of a trap as hiding the addiction. The addiction stems from a larger problem, and focusing so much energy on the addiction itself, including debating whether or not to admit it publicly or fussing over how to overcome it, is for the most part a distraction that keeps your mind focused on the addiction. But the addiction (and recovering from it) is still a petty problem relative to the bigger challenges that life is inviting you to face.

Another trap is that you won’t really solve this problem by focusing on your relationship with pleasure, such as by trying to distance yourself from the pursuit of pleasure. You can have a lovely relationship with pleasure and not get addicted to it. Pleasure can be a fun part of your life, and it needn’t control you. Pleasure isn’t the problem.

Instead of trying to resolve your relationship with pleasure, as if it’s something demonic that keeps ensnaring you, focus on improving your relationship with pain instead – with areas of shame, trauma, sorrow, fear, anxiety, etc. Develop a healthier and stronger relationship with the bigger darkness that you’re hiding from. See that it’s not actually so dark as you imagined. And your relationship with pleasure will be much transformed.

The Circular Trap of Resisting Addiction

Even when seemingly addictive physical substances are involved, it’s the darkness, naughtiness, and demonization of those substances that creates the bigger trap. This framing encourages you to devote more energy into overcoming a pleasure-based addiction again and again, all the while doing circular activities that keep you from attending to the bigger, scarier, and juicier challenges of life.

Addiction is a solution to a problem: How can I avoid dealing with life’s greatest challenges?

Answer: I can repeatedly lose myself in a recurring loop of succumbing to, resisting, and then overcoming an addiction. I can turn that endless cycle into my demon, so all scarier demons can be ignored indefinitely.

Life’s big demons may tempt you into retreat. Often that may be a retreat into pleasure, but it can also be a retreat into a lesser pain. Not all addictions are pleasure-based.

Haven’t you ever indulged in some seemingly addictive pleasures without getting addicted to them? You can enjoy pleasure by choice, and it needn’t become addictive.

Note that addictions are most seductive when there’s something much bigger and scarier to be avoided.

You can enrich your life with plenty of pleasure. But don’t treat it like a private shame to escape into. See it as a healthy, positive, and enjoyable experience to have.

Your Relationship with the Unresolved

You do not need immediate solutions to life’s biggest challenges. What’s needed is an improvement in your relationships with those challenges. Instead of seeing them as curses or demons to be avoided, try framing them as invitations to learn, grow, and improve.

Even if you don’t overcome all of those challenges, that’s okay. You can still maintain a healthy and engaging relationship with them. You needn’t allow the unresolved to beat you down.

How do you overcome an addiction?

Identify and face the bigger shame, and the addiction will crack. Be willing to face, reframe, and deal with whatever you’re avoiding. Then you won’t need to hide out in the cozy corner of addiction and recovery.

When the urge to engage with an addiction arises, ask: What am I avoiding? Why must I avoid it? What’s so scary about it? How can I face it now? How is this an invitation to growth and beauty?

That will help. Face the difficult and the frightening, and addictions will no longer serve as escapes. Look for the beauty behind your fear and shame.

The Gifts of Pleasure and Pain

Transforming your relationship with the shame and pain of life will also upgrade your relationship with pleasure. Pleasure is a gift to be enjoyed, but if you try to treat it as an escape from pain, the pain will soon find its way inside of that pleasure.

Notice how delightful a pleasure can be when you approach it with purity of intent – just for the sake of enjoyment, not as an escape from pain or difficulty.

Face the pain of life. Accept the invitation and the challenge of it. And also embrace the pleasure of life. Accept the invitation to feel good. Just don’t pursue a relationship with one at the expense of the other.

Inspiration Doesn’t Run Out

Posted on 14/11/2020 by Boris Clair

Recently I saw a NaNoWriMo participant complaining of running out of inspiration. Their writing had hit a wall, and the lack of inspiration was to blame.

That strikes me as an odd and hugely misleading way to think about inspiration, like it’s a resource that can run dry. Truthfully it never runs dry.

Saying you’ve run out of inspiration is like saying you’ve run out of sights or sounds. You could become blind or deaf, but the sights and sounds are still present. There are visuals to look at and sounds to be heard, and they don’t run out – or at least they won’t run out during your lifetime.

Inspiration is much the same. It’s always present. It’s a collection of signals that are always broadcasting – all the time and on multiple channels. Inspiration never switches off. This resource is always available to you. For all practical purposes, it is infinite.

Just as you will never run out of sights to see or sounds to hear, you can never run out of inspiration. There is more inspiration available than you can possibly channel, even if you write, speak, or create 24/7.

When people can’t access inspiration, it’s like this scene from The Three Stooges:

Larry: I can’t see! I can’t see!

Moe: What’s the matter?

Larry: I got my eyes closed!

Moe pokes Larry in the eyes.

If you can’t access inspiration, the inspiration itself isn’t the problem. Those signals are broadcasting loud and clear all the time. The problem is with your equipment.

Inspiration and Brain Health

Almost always the problem is physical in nature. It’s a health issue.

You use your eyes and your brain to see light. If you can’t see anything when there is light hitting your eyes, that suggests a problem with your eyes or brain.

You use your ears and your brain to hear sounds. If you can’t hear anything when sounds are entering your ears, that suggests a problem with your ears or brain.

You use other parts of your brain to tune in to the flow of inspired thoughts and ideas. If you cannot perceive anything when you attempt to tune in, that suggests a problem with your brain. Something is preventing you from properly accessing this natural ability.

If you have a problem with your eyes or ears, you can go to a doctor to get diagnosed and treated. If the doctor is competent and the condition treatable, you may be in luck. Unfortunately doctors cannot cure all cases of blindness or hearing loss, and in some cases they cannot even agree on a diagnosis of the cause. Nevertheless, they still typically consider the problem to be physical in nature. Even if the problem is labeled psychological, it’s still a physical problem with the brain instead of the eyes or ears. Some part of the brain is preventing the signals from being interpreted correctly.

Many writers love coffee, tea, and other stimulants. Why? These substances temporarily change the brain’s normal functioning, which can make it easier to tune in to the flow of inspired ideas. It’s like an eye poke to force your eyelids to open. Of course if you rely on this method too much, it can be like getting too many eye pokes, which probably isn’t good for your long-term eye health.

Just as modern society can strain our eyesight and hearing, it can strain our inspiration circuitry even more. That flow of inspiration tends to be more sensitive to degradation when the brain is stressed, especially by poor diet, lack of exercise, and environmental toxins.

We don’t commonly hear laments about lacking inspiration from people who eat super clean diets, such as raw foodists. Hang out with such people for a while, and you’ll generally witness the opposite – an abundant flow of inspired ideas, available at all times.

Treat the Causes

When there’s a lack of inspirational flow, don’t think of it as a psychological or motivational failing. Don’t think of it as a self-discipline problem. See it as a health warning that you should take seriously.

Losing one’s ability to tune in to the flow of inspiration is the canary in the coal mine. It suggests that you’re heading down the wrong path health-wise. Your brain’s loss of ability signals danger. Treat this as seriously as if your eyesight or hearing starts to go. Your lifestyle is degrading your brain’s capabilities.

If I want to reduce my sensitivity to the flow of inspired ideas, that’s relatively easy. I can just eat more processed food , fewer whole foods, and fewer fruits and veggies. If I want to increase my sensitivity, I can stick with whole foods and eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies.

For a short-term boost, one or two green smoothies a day is great. A 45-minute cardio workout is also great because it rebalances hormones and neurotransmitters.

One of the most powerful habits for a high-functioning brain, especially when it comes to tuning in to inspiration reliably, is daily cardio exercise. A good minimum is 45 minutes.

If you ever run into writer’s block, try doing a one-hour cardio workout. Then drink a green smoothie (or sip on one while you write). Can’t do an hour-long cardio workout? That’s probably why you have writer’s block. If your body is that out of shape, so is your brain. Cardio doesn’t just exercise the body – it exercises and strengthens the brain too.

Our brains simply do not function well without regular exercise.

You may notice a difference in inspirational flow just from taking a day or two off from exercise. Take a week or more off from exercise, and the degradation of this natural ability will likely be significant.

For a really powerful long-term boost, eat 100% raw for a month or longer. The difference is undeniable. The cleaner your brain, the better it functions.

Maintain Your Inspiration Interface

Your brain is your interface for tuning in to the flow of inspiration. If you don’t maintain that interface, it’s predictable that you’ll run into problems with degraded performance. And if you’re already running into problems, there’s your invitation to permanently upgrade your health habits.

If your lifestyle involves feeding your body low-quality ingredients or disregarding your body’s need for regular exercise, creative blocks will serve to remind you that there’s a price to be paid.

Brain degradation is often cumulative. The longer you maintain habits that degrade your mental functioning, the more trapped you may become. You still have to use that same brain to work your way out of that trap, so don’t bury yourself so deeply that you can’t climb back up again.

Inspiration is a valuable personal resource. It’s a source of opportunity. It’s a way to connect with people. It’s readily convertible into other forms of abundance, including plenty of money if you so desire. But you need a properly functioning brain to intelligently leverage this resource.

One of the best decisions you can make is to permanently raise your health standards, and decide to never go back to a degraded level of functioning. Going vegan was a key turning point for me. Committing to regular exercise was another. I made both of those lifestyle improvements back in the 1990s. Those prior commitments are why my one-year blogging challenge for 2020 has been pretty easy. It’s straightforward to access the flow of inspiration every day – much like seeing and hearing – so I’m really just doing a typing challenge. 🙂

Struggling with creative blocks is like straining to see or hear. Step back and fix the underlying health issues. More strain isn’t a wise solution.

If your brain is healthy enough, you need never deal with writer’s block or other creative blocks. Or at least if they do arise, you know how to fix them. Imagine if you could just create, create, create as much as you want, whenever you want. Instead of trying to come up with ideas, you can enjoy the endless flow and dance with it as you please.

How to Overcome Your Feelings of Neediness

Posted on 28/10/2020 by Boris Clair

Why do you feel needy sometimes?

You feel needy because your own brain doesn’t believe you.

Your brain sees what you want. It also sees what you don’t want. And it genuinely expects that you’re going to keep getting what you don’t want. It doesn’t believe that you’re going to get what you want.

Your brain believes that your efforts to get what you want will ultimately provide inadequate. It believes that you’re going to fail.

So you feel needy when this happens. That’s actually a good signal, but you have to interpret – and act on it – correctly.

You can solve the problem of neediness today. You absolutely don’t have to wallow there.

Your brain is just being honest with you. That isn’t a problem per se. It’s just honest feedback, so take it as such. When you feel needy, accept that your brain is telling you that your current plans, behaviors, and actions aren’t going to work. They’re too weak or too misguided to succeed.

Despite this feedback coming from your own brain, don’t take it personally. This doesn’t mean that you’re weak. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t good enough as a human being. But it does mean that your current approach sucks and that you’re going to have to change it.

From Neediness to Abundance

In any area of life where you feel needy, ask yourself this key question:

What would it take to objectively create measurable and observable abundance in this particular area, so it would be really difficult to feel any further neediness?

Also ask:

What would it take to solve the neediness problem for life, permanently?

If you need sales in business, and customers are flooding you with purchases, it’s pretty hard to feel needy for more sales. So one priority in business is to get really good at generating sales consistently, so there’s no longer any neediness in that area.

If you need toilet paper and buy some at Costco, you’re likely to feel pretty secure about having more than enough for a while. When that sort of neediness is no longer present, you can focus on other parts of life.

Show your brain a true solution, and it will very likely stop generating feelings of neediness – if it also believes that you’re really going to implement that solution.

So to overcome neediness, you must show your brain the following:

A practical solution that looks solid and workable, even if it may take a long time
True evidence that you’re seriously committed to actually solving the neediness problem, even if your initial plan doesn’t work

If you could only pick one, the second item is more important than the first. While a plan can be good and convincing, what matters more for overcoming neediness is the personal commitment to create and experience abundance in that area of life. You have to convince your own brain that you’re absolutely going for the gold and that you’ll never give up.

If you convince your brain that you’re going to give up at some point, you can expect to feel pretty damned needy.

Recognize that replacing neediness with abundance is a long-term problem that deserves a thoughtful, long-term solution. Otherwise it will probably still be in your life decade after decade. Whatever neediness you’re dealing with in your 20s will still be haunting you in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. Problems of neediness usually don’t just go away. You will drag them forward year after year. Your brain knows this, and it’s trying to warn you NOT to do this.

It’s wise to see just how nasty long-term neediness can be, so you’ll frame the stakes as worthy of a long-term commitment to create a real solution, even if it requires a five-year investment or longer.

Solve the Problem for Life

Just reaching the point of making a real decision regarding your level of commitment to REALLY solve the problem for life is transformational. That alone is usually enough to significantly reduce or eliminate the neediness.

Consider this: What really makes you feel needy is that you aren’t committed to doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to create abundance in that particular area.

Your brain knows when you aren’t committed. And it can predict long-term failure and lack when there’s no clear evidence that you’re actually going to do what’s necessary to solve the problem once and for all. So it’s going to generate some negative feelings to communicate that you don’t have a real solution yet.

Your brain is doing you a great service here. It’s trying to grab your attention, so you’ll prioritize solving this problem and prevent a lifetime of regret.

As soon as you truly make a firm and solid commitment to a new course of action that has a decent chance of long-term success, your brain can finally be satisfied that you’ll eventually get there. It can start predicting success, and so it will very likely start generating some positive emotions. You won’t feel neediness anymore. Instead you’ll feel confident, motivated, excited, curious, and other empowering emotions.

Stop disappointing your own brain with your egregious lack of commitment. Your brain isn’t fooled by your half-assed efforts. It can see plain as day that you’re going to fall short.

What About Intentions?

Are mere intentions enough? Ask your brain. It will tell you when it believes that you’re doing enough and when you’re just practicing wishful thinking and deluding yourself.

If your goal is basic enough that just holding some positive intentions will create abundance, you’ll feel great just holding those intentions. Maybe your brain has seen enough evidence that this approach works for you, and it can predict success when you apply it under certain conditions.

But if your brain isn’t convinced, you can hold those cutesy intentions all you want, and much of the time you’ll still feel anxious, worried, and needy because your brain doesn’t believe that the power of intention alone will be enough.

How will you convince the universe to give you what you want if you can’t even convince your own brain?

When your own brain demands more from you, give it more.

Remember that when you feel needy, your brain is saying: I don’t believe you.

Whatever It Takes

So what can you do today, right now, to overcome feelings of neediness and replace them with certainty and confidence?

Do WHATEVER IT TAKES to create the EVIDENCE that you are 100% committed to solving this particular problem for life. Convince your own brain that you’re serious.

One of the greatest transformations I see in my readers who change their lives for the better is when they finally decide to get SERIOUS about solving a problem that’s been plaguing them for a long time.

Some frame it as: no more playing small. It’s like graduating to a new level of maturity.

Instead of resisting the bigger effort required for success, you can accept the invitation.

Say to yourself something like this:

Okay, so my previous efforts have been wholly inadequate. If I keep doing what I’m doing, maybe I’ll get some incremental gains here and there. Maybe I’ll get lucky. But I’ll never get to experience anything close to the level of success I’d really like in this area of life. And if I don’t do something about this right now to change course, I’ll be dealing with this same crap year after year for the rest of my life. It’s just not going to get much better than it already is, and it may even get worse. The only way to succeed is to up my game. I can’t keep playing this the way I’ve been playing it – that is just never going to work.

You can even dialogue with your brain through journaling. Converse with it to see what it actually needs to see from you in order to stop generating feelings of neediness. Listen for the truth, not for the feel-good answer you’re hoping for.

Through practice and observation, you’ll learn what it takes to convince your brain that you’re going to succeed, and you’ll recognize when it doesn’t believe you.

I can tell by how I feel that I’ve convinced my brain that I’m going to write a novel in November (or at least the first 50K words of it). I feel certain and confident that I’ll actually do it. That’s because I’m all-in committed. Other people can see evidence of this too, like my blog posts about this commitment, my NaNoWriMo profile with the book project already created, social media updates about it, recent books I’ve been reading about writing, research I’ve done on story structure, etc. The external evidence may help to convince other people that I’m serious about this, but what really matters internally is that I’ve convinced my own brain that I’m all-in and that I will actually do this. I’ve done enough for my brain to signal loud and clear that it believes me.

Where in your life do you want certainty, confidence, and abundance? Start by convincing your brain that you’re 100% all-in committed to reaching a certain level of abundance and moving beyond scarcity. You can do this in any area of life: money, relationships, professional achievement, creative self-expression, lifestyle, and more.

What will it take for your brain to believe that you’re absolutely going to do enough to succeed?

If you don’t know, then ask your brain what it needs to see in order to be fully convinced. The answers may be simpler than you expect, like: join NaNoWriMo, join the local NaNoWriMo group, buy a half dozen audiobooks on writing and start listening to them, share the commitment publicly, invite others to join in, research story structure, create a novel project in Scrivener, start brainstorming story ideas, etc. Even before doing all of those items, my brain grew convinced when it saw sufficient evidence that I was going to do them and not stop – and that’s before I’ve written a single word of the actual novel.

Beyond Your Comfort Zone

You can’t fool your own brain. It sees right through you. If you feel needy, that’s your brain telling you LOUD and CLEAR that it doesn’t believe you and that it doubts your sincerity. It’s predicting that you’re going to fail because it’s not seeing enough evidence of any real and true commitment. So it’s calling your plans and intentions out as B.S. that won’t work.

That is a call to change – to immediately and powerfully alter course. That can be done in a day. It’s a decision – not a needy one but a strong one that proves to your brain that you’re making a commitment and that you absolutely won’t quit till the job is done.

Convince your brain that you’ll do whatever it takes to succeed. If you haven’t done that yet, then your “whatever it takes” is going to require that you stretch beyond your comfort zone. Don’t confuse “whatever it takes” with “whatever feels comfortable.”

Be willing to do what feels awkward, uncomfortable, and scary. That’s all part of doing whatever it takes.

If awkwardness is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If discomfort is enough to stop you, you’ve lost. If fear is enough to stop you, you’ve lost.

Your path to abundance may very well take you through awkward, uncomfortable, and scary experiences. Be willing to experience all of that. Surrender to that possibility. Make it clear to your brain that you won’t use those as excuses to quit. Then create some real evidence by deliberately doing something awkward, uncomfortable, or scary. Prove that you’re serious.

Alternatively, you can continue to wallow in neediness – month after month, year after year, decade after decade – until you don’t even cling to false hope anymore, and your neediness is replaced by permanent regret.

Note finally that neediness is actually a positive sign. If you feel needy, it means that your brain still believes you can succeed, but only if you change your approach, raise your commitment, and finally get serious.

Neediness is an invitation; don’t leave it unanswered.

For the Experience

Posted on 26/10/2020 by Boris Clair

One framing that I find empowering is to do something for the experience.

If you choose not to do something, you don’t get the experience, which means you miss out on a lot of potential benefits.

When you lean into new experiences, you’re likely to gain some or all the following:

New lessons
More character growth
Perspective shifts and reframes
Insights
New friends
Maybe a whole new social circle
New income-generating ideas
New invitations
New opportunities
New memories
More knowledge
New skills
More emotional depth
More emotional resilience
A more optimistic attitude
More excitement and passion
Less boredom
A sharper, fitter, less fragile brain

New experiences make you smarter and enrich your life in so many ways. Even a relatively short one-time experience like going to a lecture or a concert can change the direction of your life or give you a strong memory you’ll cherish for decades.

Sometimes you’re choosing between one interesting experience and another, but more often it’s a choice between something new and something familiar.

New experiences are uncertain though. They can seem scary, even when they aren’t truly threatening. It’s actually good and healthy for you to be knocked off balance now and then – it makes you stronger.

When you don’t lean into new experiences, you miss out on the wonderful romance that awaits you.

How fragile do you want to be as a human being? How crusty and set in your ways do you wish to become as you age? Do you want each day to be the same – safe and cocooned till death finally comes for you?

Are you living with that feeling of pep in your step? Do you feel excited for what you get to learn and experience each day? Or has your life become an endless barrage of sameness?

Don’t blame the virus for the sameness. There’s still plenty to explore right now without risking your health or the health of others. You can access a treasure chest of new experiences from your home.

Beware the trap of courting the same old familiar experiences. Stretch your ambition in the direction of some bigger ones now and then. Reach further into the possibility space.

This time is a gift. You could remake your identity during this time. You could develop new skills that you’ll cherish for the rest of your life. You could undertake the biggest creative project of your life – something that stretches beyond your current abilities.

Do it for the experience.

WellnessMaster

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