Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Mysteries

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Solitude – Self-sufficiency –

      Dreaming of time alone? Fearing it, perhaps?  We are born into a cacophony of voices. It is vital that we carve out time to reflect on all that is happening to us and the part we play and want to play. Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – plus we need time to cultivate, curate and care for a daytime self. Sometimes we have other people to care for and relationships to manage. We need to learn how to be our own best friend.

      Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers,influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to develop that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.

      Challenge – We are determined to develop self-confidence. We need to trust, not fear, our ownreactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Open your Dream Journal and consider: Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself?“Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any otherhuman (or animal.) That changes today.

      Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were yourown best friend, you would protect, not exalt yourself. You would strategize towards health and sharing,not secrecy and isolation.

      Opportunity – find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. Strategize with Dream Buddies. Can you check with this person that you are on the right path? We all need a life coach or acheerleader in our corner. 

      Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishinghobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day today peaceful retreat inside your own head.

      Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton

      “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude”  – Voltaire

      “Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso

      “The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison

      Mantra: “I am enough”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Solitude – Self-Sufficiency

      Plaited rhyme of

      Past and future voices

      Advise, protect

      Entertain

    1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Recovery & Rebirth –

      The compulsion of recurring dreams torments us. These re-envisagings of past events re-enact Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for all to see, shaming and blaming at the same time.

      My recurring dreams all involve writing, my sister’s involve the car accident she was in at four years old.  Get out your Dream Journal. Consult your Dream Buddies. Do you have recurring dreams? What are they trying to tell you?

      Don’t be afraid – You’ve got this. We’re going to change your dreamscape. We’re going to begin dreaming about rebirth.

      You’re the Pilot – “The bad news is time flies – the good news is, you’re the pilot.”  What do memories in general – these memories in particular – symbolize for you? 

      “Recovery begins to happen we repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall” – could beaddiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture.   Were we hostage to another human being who didn’t have our best interests at heart?  This requires deep thought about our best interests. As our brains clear we get ideas. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places”; Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Healing provides peace as well as joy.  We give thanks that wehave begun the journey.

      Challenge: Expect to stumble.  Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we consider it lucky thatthey don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.)  It takes them time to figure out this new modality.  Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into others, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over.  In fact the toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner.

      Embrace the First step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.”  Of course we don’t WANT to –fingers crossed –  it’s dangerous and bruising.  We’d better arrange to have a friend around – just in case. But you don’t fail unless you refuse to rise again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”.  It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that,you’re a true winner.

      Danger – Life never goes the way we planned.  There’s the excitement of finding a plan,investigating goals, making them ours, and committing to the plan – and then there’s living the plan.Suddenly we don’t know how to get through the next ten minutes –worse, we make a “big mistakes”unconsciously. The rational self we’ve planned for fails to show up and instead we turn into someirrational monster who threatens to kill when momentarily frustrated. 

      This is like sport-learning. Allow each new behavior to penetrate every fiber of your whole body. Rehearse over and over. (10,000 times?)  It’s ALL mistakes at first. Our mental concepts of “perfection” and “purity” arecompletely misplaced here; this is more like forming calluses over tender new skin. It feels funny atfirst, sore. It might actually “hurt.” We’re on the early steps of a long journey to a wonderful place;and we won’t get there unless we forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep going.

      Opportunity –  We wish happiness was “automatic’ but it requires planning. Pledge to contrastplanned empowerment with benumbed abandon. Think about what this means. Who envies loss of consciousness?  Wouldn’t it be better to remove the source of the pain, the shame we are escaping from? Is this nostalgic fantasy really some faint memory of union, with an equally desperate hordestanding in for the lost, beloved Other? What would it mean to give up these blind yearnings, thiscultivated pain and these unbearable memories to lead a fresh, released and intentional life? It means accepting and becoming a new self in all our exquisitely uniqueness, exploring everything that implies. It doesn’t mean we’ll never have another recurring dream. Dreams become a conversation we are having with our deepest selves, by the light of the universe. Recovery is “self-forgiveness”;going forward with a clear-eyed, honest appraisal of ourselves, resources and desires. “I am free”

      Models & Mentors – “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life” – J.K. Rowling

      “The airplane takes off against the wind, not with it” – Henry Ford

      “Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt

      “The best way to predict your future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Recovery = Rebirth

      Mulligan –

      Rare gift;

      A “do-over”

      ‘Cause you DO know

      What you know now

    2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Rainbow – Serendipity – 

      Do You Dream of Pots of Gold?  Magic transferences? Breaks in the laws of physics benefiting only you?

      You Were Born Lucky – Consider: What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered apiece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

      How lucky do you NEED to be? Are you familiar with the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that wegive thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop them. Open up your Dream Journal.

      Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’thappen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s tryadopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

      Danger – The danger is always the same – giving control of our psyche over to some other entitythat may not (almost certainly doesn’t) have our best interests at heart. We’re usually not evenaware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes?Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead. Do we want to gothere? Do we really trust these people? Are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach theillusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

      Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique opportunity to takeadvantage of chance appearances and encounters – that’s serendipity. If we recognize them. Thenwe can compare our steps to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

      Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”

      – Erin McKean

      “Steer into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

      “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

      “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

      “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

      Happenstance –

      Fortuitous

      Chance; we’re

      Born lucky

      We just don’t know it.

    3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Inspiration – Intuition – Do you wake up from dreams filled with exciting ideas you long to writedown?  Do you feel a sense of philosophical, profound revelations in dream which you cannot recapture in your waking state?

        Your Subconscious is calling out to You – You are experiencing a split between your Rational self andyour Prophetic Self which is dangerous and completely unnecessary. Probably your education has demeaned this interactive channel to the Collective Unconscious, the Past and the Future and warned you to ignore it. Education is a good thing, so long as it teaches you to recognize, master and increase resources but it is certainly a bad thing if it countermands, neglects or destroys the yearning inside of you for connection to all of humanity.

        Challenge – We can re-open this channel, but we will have to think about its resource in a more positiveway. The great physicist said that all profound truths contain their opposite (i.e. are not dichotomous) and so require a new style of thinking about the Real and the Unreal. These ideas are not mutuallyexclusive. We must learn to flow with them, rather than resist their uncomfortable bubbling.

        Danger – “Either/Or” thinking is destructive because it requires we abandon vast fields andmethodologies of knowledge. “Reductionism” reduces the world to “things” on the presumption thatpeople are transient and “things” re more permanent. But if the magic of the universe encodes inrelationships rather than objects this reductionism kills thought.

        Opportunity – Open your Dream Journal and explore your inspirations. Accept them, and learn toseparate them from fears and wishes. Cultivate your intuition, that precious gut instinct that warns uswho and what to trust and who – and what – to back away from. Accept that – like all good things, thisis a process – thus endless (to be enjoyed for eternity.) Accept that it is a skill to be honed – thereby enjoyed For All Eternity.

        Models & Mentors – “Intuition is the whisper of the soul” – Krishnamurti

        “A good artist lets intuition lead him wherever it wants” – Lao Tzu

        “Follow your instincts – it’s where true wisdom manifests itself” – Oprah Winfrey

        “Intuition and observation are the sources for our knowledge” – Rudolf Steiner

        Meditation –

        #Haiku: Inspiration

        Without composing we

        Decompose;

        Broken fountain –

        Ruined garden

      1. #Dream Therapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

        Conflict – Do you dream of danger? Natural disasters like storms, volcanoes and flooding?  Do you dream of war, of robbery, home invasion? Or do you dream about your loved one’s face turning bitter and their words cutting sharply?  Conflict is inevitable.  It is necessary – birth pangs seem terrifying and sex can look like war. In dreams we rehearse our fears until some of us fear to dream.

          You are a Force Field.  You are a magnet for desire, change, for evolution itself. This comes byvirtue of being born, assuming your physical incarnational state. Others may tell you to standback, take your place in line or wait your turn but your appearance into this chaotic universetriggered no such guarantee. We are here to learn to use our power.

          CHALLENGE – Force stirs up resistance.  Actions create re-action as we swing back and forth inour determination and direction. We clash and crash.  Sometimes we regret it bitterly, “why did Ido that?”  Sometimes we fear loss or harm so much we are immobilized.  The challenge is toassume your stride, elucidate your goals and plan a direction. Get out your dream Journal. Consult your dream buddies.

          DANGER – It’s all too easy to make others fear you. The one with the biggest weapon THINKShe wins every fight. But what looks like compliance to you could be revolution – you will betoppled and lose your heart’s desire.

          OPPORTUNITY – Learning to use conflict constructively and creatively is a Superpower.  Otherpeople are force fields, too. If there is any way to blend these powers and head in the samedirection, we will be invincible. 

          Models & Mentors –  “I used to tell myself, boy, if you can survive this, you can survive anything” – Tom Lichtenberg

          “Laughter is the proof that our tragedies don’t define us. Laughter is the survivor’s language” – Josh James

          “Cancer didn’t bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet”

          – Michael Douglas

          “If you want to awaken humanity, awaken yourself. If you want to eliminate suffering, eliminate what is negative in yourself. Your gift to the world is our self-transformation.” – Lao Tzu

          MEDITATION –

          #Haiku: The Storm

          Battle mode:

          Sludge

          Rears up

          Eyes bug

          Mouth gapes

          Shrieks

          “No!”

          Anticipates

          “Yes”

        1. Dream Group Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          Loss & Suffering – Sometimes dreams are an escape from the unbelievable horror of existence. In that case, they are our art form, and we must curate them to prepare a bearable future.

          Ugly World – every religion and philosophical system has to account for the misery we see around us -storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration an animal predation. Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear everyone CAN’T be happy at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma? Let’s get out our Dream Journals.

          What’s the happiest dream you’ve ever had? Why? – How could it even more satisfyingly responsive to your present crisis?

          Lucid Dreaming –  Is dreaming when you’re aware of it. it’s trying to guide the dream and use it to replenish your spirit. Your psyche is accessible in dreams to those you choose to include. What spirits do you invite?

          Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding breath on the edge of discovery.

          Challenge – What would become of us if we allowed ourselves to feel it all? Poets feel they must indulge – artist of all kinds explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Possible philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion” “Practice taming the wild mind” or religious –  “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet. Cultivate Dream Partners. Share your dreams with them.

          Danger – Too much suffering breeds helplessness. Our angel needs to recover from her burns and acquire some new feathers. If we stop even trying to better our human situation we attract predators to such easy prey.  Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

          Opportunity – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. There must be further epiphanies awaiting. How does this apply to you? Ask your dreams. Open and relax your mind.  Keep track of your dreams in your journal – not just actual dreams, but your thought possibilities in reflection. What if you could not fail? Turn to your dream partners for ideas. Who are we really? Who could we become?

          Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”

          – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

          “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”

          – A.A. Milne

          “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”

          – Leo Tolstoy

          “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

          “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”  – Norman Cousins

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Acceptance without Exception

          Join us!

          Compassion

          Greets

          Suffering;

          Blends;

          Evaporates

          Tears

          Gently.

        2. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          CREATIVITY – If your dreams are particularly imaginative and enjoyable, you are probably an artist. You have launched yourself already on the absorbing quest of reinventing the confusing realities that buffet us.

          We keep trapping ourselves in the maze but there is always a way out. Close your eyes. Breathe. Don’t we all possess inherently the goddess’ power of making Something out of Nothing? Think. Feel. Give yourself permission to explore. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out yourhands. You are the pilot of your own life. Create your own dream.

          Artists are immortalized by their own thought and effort. If their productions are intriguingly beautifulthe rest of us are drawn in and our critical senses – our rejection and our fear – are tranquillized whilewe allow the artist to work their magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

          CHALLENGE  –      If you create something unforgettable you will never be forgotten. You have thepower to open hearts, minds and brains as yours were first opened, when you looked upon this amazingworld for the first time  and tried to understand what you saw.

          DANGER – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche aboveCreation in importance.   If you seek worship your own soul will be hardened unto death.

          OPPORTUNITY – You will join the gods in creating something really new that the world cannotlive without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of beingunderstood, will be yours.

          Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

          “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

          “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

          “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

          “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

          MEDITATION –

          #Haiku: Creativity

          You: Immortalized;

          Fireborne

          Force majeure

          Create

          Become –

          Exalt

          You.

        3. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          REGRET – Many anxiety dreams are about regret.  When we try to impartially study our dream content, the moods flood in, rocking our precarious stability.  Why are people so afraid of lookinginside? Because of Regret, that’s why. The things we’ve already done that we can never change. Seemingly hopeless sorrow builds – now we are helpless, we hate ourselves and we can’t fix anything. We are in for a bad, cold, frigid winter of discontent.

            YOU CAN LIGHTEN YOUR OWN LOAD – No one can do it but you. When you serve as prosecutorin your own life – guess what? – that’s not fair. Fundamental Attribution Error is people blamingindividuals for actions that were the result of systems; mass decisions or circumstances over which theyhad no actual control. Look into it, if you want to. (Sometimes we need to.) Or you can just forgive yourself and move on. After all, we’ve got the future to think of.

            CHALLENGE – Let’s get out our Dream Journal. What would you change NOW? How doyou WANT to change? Forgive yourself. You were held hostage by fortune (we all were)and you went full-on Stockholm Syndrome and identified with your attackers and tried toplease them. (We all did. It’s called Society.) Now you’re madder at yourself than you areat them. Forgive yourself. We’re starting a new life. One where it’s US who’s in charge.

            DANGER – You’re in another part of the forest. Surprise! This wasn’t the plan but here you are. TheDanger is always that you’ll give up. Surrender. Don’t. You can easily see from every fairy tale andhero’s journey you’ve ever studied that now we’re getting to the Good Part. By testing your muscle, youGROW your muscle. If your muscle is never tested, it withers. So let’s go!

            OPPORTUNITY – We don’t know everything. Even Jesus demonstrated surprise about the way thingsturned out. Be gentle as a dove, he advised, but wily as a serpent. Serpents can get out of anything. (Aska herpetologist.) And so can you. It’s just a bigger world than we knew – both inner and outer – so getmapping. I guarantee you – IT GETS BETTER.

            Models & Mentors –  “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”

            – Lucille Ball

            “There are no regrets in life, only lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston

            “We have only one life, and the second life begins the moment we realize that fact” – Confucius

            “I was designed by my Creator to not only feel pain and love but to become whole inside it. I am a Warrior” –Glennon Doyle

            “Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile” – William Cullen Bryant

            MEDITATION –

            #Haiku: Regret

            Coulda

            Woulda

            Shoulda

            Didn’t. Now you

            Wish

            Things

            Different.

            Clean slate.

            Write.

          1. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

            DREAM CONTENT – RELAX – Take a deep breath as you face the content of your dreams.  

              YOU HAVE INNER RESOURCES – FOCUS your power by closing your eyes and – relaxing. Are youafraid you might fall asleep? So much the better – we need these dreams to be our map and guide.Dreaming of hot summers, beach, umbrellas, ocean, sand? You are longing for a “getaway” and the verybest and most refreshing vacation is to disappear inside yourself. Let’s learn to “see” with that Third Eye– the Wisdom Eye. Like every effort, it takes not just concentration but practice.

              DREAMS OF REAL EVENTS –  Is your brain flipping through its memories, disguising them, trying to make sense of them or imagining horrific detours? These are anxiety dreams. You fear that the causality of existence is basically nonsensical and cruel. The cure? Develop a “human flourishing” worldview. Use your models and mentors to investigate the requirements of life enhancement. What about love? When your dreams fear it doesn’t exist, you need to develop loving relationships in your daytime life.

              DREAMS OF FICTIONAL EVENTS – Are you trying to process fiction read about and seen (often dystopian). Your shy heart is shocked to its core and your inexperienced brain is trying to make sense of it. But we know much online fiction is a race to the bottom, trying again and again to go over the top.

              PRACTICE SELF-CARE – Prioritize your well-being. If you spend four hours a day watching or playing nonsensical vitriolic junk, you should spend equal time on your improvement and self-soothing regimens. Think of it. EQUAL TIME. Obviously you need to start developing self-care regimens that are way more pleasurable than passive viewing.

              CHALLENGE – Check your immortal soul. Don’t think you have one? No wonder you’re scared, if you reduce yourself to chaff like yesterday’s lawn clippings!  You are certainly aware that all of human history has been devoted to exploring whether we have souls, where they come from and what happens to them. Probably you like – everyone –  is turned off by the idea that in order to have a soul you need to follow some religion’s requirements, laid down for you by its boss.

              But seriously, think about it. If part of yourself is immortal, with supernatural capabilities, doesn’t it, by definition, exist OUTSIDE all that stuff? Who put them in charge? If your immortal soul is the freest part of you, set it free indeed.  Use your imagination to imagine THOSE possibilities, instead of scaring yourself almost to death. And then – relax. 

              Inside yourself is you find everyone you have ever known, everyone you have ever loved, is there. Ifthat’s a tough one – and I know it’s making you gulp – here’s one tougher – everyone you ever WILLknow is in there too. You can learn to reach forwards as well as back. No, it doesn’t come immediately. But the exciting news is – you have all the time in the world.

              DANGER – You fear you will lose yourself. The worst fear is that you have no self to lose. You areyoung at this, and fresh, naïve and simple. A beginner. Accept that power. It is a wonderful thing whenthe baby begins to see. But what about Evil?  Isn’t that a thing? If I have Everything inside, then don’t Ihave Evil, too. And the mystic answer is Yes. But it can’t hurt you if you don the armor. The armor isLove, and I recommend you begin to study the subject. It isn’t strong enough yet, but you can strengthenit by Will. You must educate your will.

              OPPORTUNITY – You realize now that our dreams are forcing a choice – it really comes down to thatone thing – you must choose between Evil or Love. Evil promises it will “get the job done”, it will offer“special” unique opportunities, single you out for goodies, bring you hostages and slaves. But here’s theFact about Evil – it breaks all its promises because IT BREAKS YOU. Love promises Eternity and Joy,and it takes effort. It takes discernment, knowledge, commitment and growth. Love asks you to enter aprocess. Evil says you can just “take”, or even lie inert and be showered with benefits. One choice makes you beautiful, an athlete of the Soul, the other makes you hideously ugly, a blot that sucks in lightand depresses all who look at it.  Will you make mistakes? Inevitably. But we have been assured by the greatest minds of all time that we cannot lose. So, relax. 

              Models & Mentors: “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” – Jack Canfield

              “What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you become” – Buddha

              “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn how to surf” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

              “It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a world where exhaustion is a status symbol” – Brene Brown

              ‘You are the silent watcher of your thoughts. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the joy beneath the love and pain” – Eckhart Tolle

            1. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              Danger – Risk –

              Do You Fear Sleep? Afraid of nightmares? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

              Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

              Challenge – Study risk intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

              Evaluatng Risk :

              1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
              2. Dangers provably Real
              3. Dangers Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
              4. Assemble Risk avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
              5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
              6. Know who your friends are
              7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

              Opportunity – You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

              Surrender is The Worst Alternative – Be alert to the danger of trauma bonding in which we try to pacify attackers by taking their side. Doesn’t work.

              Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”
              – William Shakespeare

              “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear”

              – Mark Twain

              “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

              “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

              Meditation –

              Haiku: Risk

              Regret
              Fear of
              Fearlessness: Launch
              Wise adventures