I am going to be traveling a lot in the next 6 weeks – to the Integral Theory Conference in Oakland, then a week with Mike Jay in Las Vegas (see below), and then Burning Man – and reporting on all these events – so I am leading off with a long piece on entrepreneurship, happiness and success, followed by an offer / invitation.  You can skip the narcissistic ramblings and head directly to the invitation below, if you want, which is a pretty good one. 

The ups and the downs of being an entrepreneur

I got a mixed response to the Entrepreneur test piece, with people asking me “is this really you”?  Well, in many respects, sadly, it has been.  I am actually not a natural entrepreneur, yet I have spent a large chunk of my life  looking for some way to support myself that would also feed my happiness and allow me to do the things that have been most important and vital to me (my adventures in relationship and community and “experiments in consciousness”).  I became an entrepreneur by default – I couldn’t think of any other career that would give me the freedom that I needed.  When I met Rebekah, after a lifetime of seeking in both the relational and business arenas, I became happy for perhaps the first time in my life, because I had found a path to sustained sexual intimacy with a person of the female persuasion (don’t laugh – it’s actually not an easy thing). 

With this triumph, and flush with excitement, I then created or participated in 4 different businesses over the next 6 years – all of which failed, and two of them spectacularly so (the first web business and Trellis).  My current business, WordPress Academy, is the first one that is successful.  Maybe because it’s more related to an area of desire (or intrinsic motivation), for me: WordPress Academy is a type of conversation for transformation, which is the thing for which I live. 

And yet I continue to struggle with this – either sacrificing happiness in the pursuit of success, or, as of lately, sacrificing success in the pursuit of happiness.  This, I have come to learn, is very common.

On this topic, I just recently re-read Gurdjieff’s Meetings with remarkable men, that relates extraordinary events in Gurdjieff’s life that happened 100 years ago but which are extremely relevant to my condition.  For the first half of his life, Gurdjieff conducted extensive travels and meetings throughout Asia with a group he called the “seekers of truth”.  He was also a very astute businessman and trader, and he supported himself throughout this period by a series of business ventures and schemes which included (in a moment of desperation) snaring live sparrows, clipping them and painting them, and selling them in the market as “American canaries”.  Laying aside the ethics of some of these activities, the story was extremely inspirational to me, first because it legitimized my own struggle to support myself financially as a “seeker of truth”, but also because it reminded me that it is possible to be a spiritual person and smart and resourceful too.  In other words, that the pursuit of enlightenment and the pursuit of business are not inherently contradictory.  Another great guru and teacher of mine, Swami Rudrananda, ran a very a successful art import business his whole life, and firmly believed that a spiritual teacher ought to have an independent means of support.  He would sit in his Manhattan storefront and teach his students in between visits from customers. 

Enter Mike Jay and Flawless Living Design System (FLDS)

The basic idea of FLDS is that happiness is natural – happiness comes from following our desires and intrinsic motivation, where we can exist in a state of flow while creating those things that we value – whereas success, for most people, is not.  I define “success” as the ability to provide what we need in life while following the path of our happiness.  Unlike happiness, success comes from executing the success requirements of our business or profession, which may or may not be inborn, and which may or may not be part of our intrinsic motivation.  This is why it’s so hard and why so many of us are under great tension around this.  The situation is actually made worse by all the self-help gurus (Tony Robbins, Steven Covey, etc.) because they teach systems that work well if you work them, but that only 1% to 5% of us will actually apply – thus funding a billion dollar training industry that does nothing, and leaving many of us struggling our whole lives trying to mold and adapt ourselves to some standard that just doesn’t fit with who we are, and then wonder what is wrong with us.

The fascinating thing (to me anyway) is that I have been discovering many of the ideas of FLDS on my own, through my own life and research; but Mike Jay has actually made an entire developmental system out of this, that he calls a “memetic operating system” (or values-based program), that is backed by a ton of psychological research and theory, along with his work with thousands of coaching clients over the last 20 years; and what’s more that there is a business community being created around this, a movement really, of people committed to exploring their happiness while expanding success – of people committed to living more inter-dependently and with greater passion and contribution.  Because the solution, of course, to our inability to do the things that are required for success, is first to accept our limitations, and then to ally with other people who can do those things naturally that we cannot. 

I invite you to come experience FLDS with me in Las Vegas on August 20-23

I invite you to experience the first (beta) Flawless Living seminar in Las Vegas from Friday August 20 at 6pm, to Monday August 23 at noon.  The first FLDS seminar – and probably all of them – is going to be free, except for an administrative fee for various assessments (that are key to the discovery process that happens during the seminar).  During the first two days, we will each create a blueprint for success, unique to us, using Mike’s inquiry methods.  On the third day, there will be an offer to buy-in to the business network, at guaranteed rates of return or money-back – it’s truly an unusual and extraordinary offer.

If you can’t come to Vegas in August, there is another in Philadelphia in late November.

Much love,

Marc

PS: here is the brochure I designed for this event – first-draft, but not bad IMHO, especially considering it’s my first brochure, what do you think?

1. I am willing to lose everything.
2. I embrace failure.
3. I am always willing to do tedious work.
4. I can handle watching my dreams fall apart.
5. Even if I am puking my guts out with the flu and my mother passed away last week, there is nothing that will keep me from being ready to work.
6. My relationship/marriage is so strong, nothing work related could ever damage it.
7. My family doesn’t need an income.
8. This is a connected world and I don’t need alone time. I want to be reachable 24/7 by my employees, customers, and business partners.
9. I like instability and I live for uncertainty.
10. I don’t need a vacation for years at a time.
11. I accept that not everyone likes my ideas and that it’s quite likely that many of my ideas are garbage.
12. If I go into business with friends or family, I am OK with losing that relationship forever if things end badly.
13. I don’t have existing anxiety issues and I handle stress with ease.
14. I am willing to fire or layoff anyone no matter what how good of a friend they are, if they are my own sibling, if they just had a baby, if they have worked with me for 20 years, if their spouse also just lost their job, if I know they might end up homeless, if they have cancer but no outside medical insurance, or any other horrible scenario millions of bosses and HR people have faced countless times.
15. I am OK with being socially cut-off and walking away from my friends when work beckons.
16. I love naysayers and I won’t explode or give-up when a family member, friend, customer, business associate, partner, or anyone for that matter tells me my idea, product, or service is a terrible idea, a waste of time, will never work, or that I must be a moron.
17. I accept the fact that I can do everything right, can work 70 hours a week for years, can hire all the right people, can arrange amazing business deals, and still lose everything in a flash because of something out of my control.
18. I accept that I may hire people that are much better at my job than I am and I will get out of their way.
19. I realize and accept that I am wrong ten times more than I am right.
20. I am willing to walk away if it doesn’t work out.

Courtesy of Seth Kravitz.

I am in part reluctant to write today, as I have so much to share, as my life has taken a definite turning point, a crystallization and falling-into-place and making-whole of all the experiences, triumphs and tragedies, joys and sorrows of my 3 years with Trellis, 6 years with Rebekah, and indeed the entire stream of my life to this day.  I am half-reluctant to share because although there are some very exciting external events, which I will share momentarily, and upcoming adventures (I live for adventures), the essence of this transformation is still internal and in-process, and may therefore be difficult to convey in writing.

I am encouraged to write by a beautiful book I am reading, My years with the Qutb by Sharon Marcus, about her time with the great Sufi saint Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who spent the last 16 years of his life in Philadelphia (!).  I must be a natural Sufi because every time I read anything on Sufism (previously Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s fascinating lectures Love is a fire and I am wood) something inside me responds with a powerful “Yes”; and Sharon Marcus’s book is no exception, I start to cry on every second page (tears of recognition and tears of relief).  Sufism is about the primacy of love, and the burning away of everything that is not-love, and the everyday ecstasy that can be had from the intimate meeting with God and all of God’s creatures, including oneself and one’s fellows.  This is the experience that was at the core of the design of Trellis (and the design of Morehouse as well, that is Trellis’s spiritual parent), it is the same as Jerry Jud’s Love is an intention and “more than anything else, we seek to love and be loved”, it is what happens most weekends (predictably) at Shalom Mountain Retreat Center. It is an experience that has always been with me and called me, that has expressed itself most potently for me in intimate relationships of all kinds, and sexual/romantic attractions; and it’s an experience that is growing deeper and stronger with me every year.

Aside from this brief (rambling?) digression, I do have some news.  I have found my dream job, which is social media director and affiliate manager for a new program called Flawless Living, that is being developed by visionary coach, entrepreneur and internet marketer Mike Jay, which I wrote about in my previous article.  Flawless Living cannot be described in a paragraph, as it’s the result of Mike’s 20 years of research into business coaching, Western psychology and human development (with a smattering of the world’s wisdom literature thrown in), but I can say that it’s a seminar series, a school of consciousness, a community/movement, an integrally-inspired business network, and a training program in internet marketing and business development all at once.  The program is still in development but there is a beta launch in Las Vegas in August and an official launch in Philadelphia in November.  What it’s about for me is the unification of the two fundamental strands, or major impulses of my life, which are the drive for happiness and the drive for “success” (recognition and contribution).  These two major impulses, which I also describe as the masculine and feminine polarities of life, have been at war with each other for 40-odd years. What is so meaningful to me about this assignment, and so magical, is that it’s a recognition and validation of what I have been doing already for a couple of decades, for free—networking for transformation—and so this recognition has been profoundly calming and settling for me.  The fundamental idea of Flawless Living is similar to—but much more complex and layered—than “do what you love and the money will follow”, because many of us have tried doing what we love and the money has not followed, and this is at it should, because the idea is good but a bit naive, and Mike has helped me to understand why. 

Flawless Living is for now just a very part-time job for me, which is just as well, because of my next major piece of news: I am selling an interest in WordPress Academy, for a little cash and some help, to facilitate a big product development effort that will culminate in November with a product I am creating, which is a book/DVD on WordPress web design and internet marketing for small business.  This is my major project for the next 4-5 months, that is going to force me into a kind of focus and self-discipline that I resist and yet I know I need in order to become the person that I want to be (i.e., happy and successful .  The reason I am seeking partners is that I have realized that I don’t want to do this alone, I am not motivated, it’s a fundamental part of my design that I can’t bring myself to do something unless it’s fun, and it’s a fundamental principle of Flawless Living that just because we can do something (like, exercise or meditate every morning) it doesn’t mean that we will, and therefore we need to find workarounds (such as, in my case, finding a partner, even at the cost of giving up some equity). 

Because of all this, I have a very ambitious travel schedule over the next 4 months: in addition to a week-long retreat that Rebekah and I are doing at Shalom Mountain called Sexuality and Spirituality, I have four trips out West scheduled: I am attending the Integral Theory in Action Conference in Pleasant Hill CA (near Oakland) end of July, the Flawless Living immersion in Vegas mid-August, I am going to Burning Man 2010 with a group from Shalom Mountain that I put together, and then back to Vegas again in October for Blogworld where I will be promoting WordPress Academy.  I haven’t travelled much for the last 6 years, so this also is a big change.  The Flawless Living launch is in Philadelphia, thank God—I love traveling for the excitement and all, but I also find it physically challenging. 

So stay tuned for more interesting reports over the course of the summer and fall, hopefully less rambling (although I don’t promise anything

Much love,

Marc

PS: If you like this, please comment

Rebekah and the kids are away for most of the weekend, and so I am enjoying “that blissful solitude, that was so painful in my youth” [Einstein].  Truthfully, the events of the last 6 weeks (starting with the book I am writing and on to extremely exciting events at WordPress Academy, that I haven’t shared yet) have been so intoxicating that I had resolved to spend the entire weekend in bed reading paperback novels and listening to inspirational audios.  But I need to share with y’all what happened yesterday.

Mike Jay is a business coach and developmentalist that I have been connected with loosely for a number of years.  I had actually started his coach training program 5-6 years ago, before deciding that being a business coach probably wasn’t for me.  He’s been pretty quiet for the last few years but has recently surfaced with a coaching / business development program that is so compelling I joined right away.  I will be doing this program over the course of the summer, culminating in an intensive in Las Vegas in late August.  It turns that he has been traveling a lot for the last few years, coaching billionaires and major third-world banks.  I think he is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, and his ideas on development are both very practical and timely.  The intro call for this program occurred yesterday, and it blew my mind.  I will post the audio to this call when I get permission, but let me summarize some of the key ideas here, and their impact on me.

The relationship between happiness and success, and effective tools to achieve these two goals,  has been the dominant inquiry of my life.  It has always seemed to me that a person could be one or the other – entirely dedicated to work and achievement at the cost of one’s personal life and relationships, or else living a life dedicated to pleasure, connection and authenticity, but at the cost of success and/or financial stability.  I have had very happy times in my life, and quite successful times in my life, but they rarely coincided.  In one way or the other, I have been obsessed with this theme my whole life, which I see as being connected to the “right-relationship” of masculine and feminine forces within oneself [Shirley Luthman, Waking Down in Mutuality], and in the outside world as “sexual polarity” [Lafayette Morehouse, David Deida].  For the last 6 years I have been engaged in a deep exploration of  these teachings, all of which have a lot to say about happiness, and perhaps even about “awakening” – surely, “awakening” needs to include some deep acceptance of self and unconditional enjoyment of life, and so the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of awakening need be very closely related.  But I have not yet found a philosophy or developmental school in which there is a practical analysis and action plan for simultaneously achieving these two goals, happiness and success.

Mike Jay’s fundamental idea – and this of course is just the tip of the iceberg – is that happiness comes from being oneself, whereas success comes from meeting the success criteria of one’s chosen profession, that will vary (an athlete has different success criteria from an executive).  And the problem is this: that success comes from predictably (repeatedly) doing the actions that will cause one to meet the success criteria for one’s profession;  however, unless one has enjoyment (happiness) in these activities, it’s virtually impossible to do anything with any kind of consistency.  The majority of people struggle their whole lives trying to improve their character or motivation in order to do all the things that they know are necessary for their success, and they fail miserably, simply because human nature and our individuality (skills, likes and dislikes) cannot be easily changed, if at all.  Mike Jay talks about a trillion dollar industry built around training people to do this (change their motivation), which, of course, doesn’t work.  The real solution is to:

1. Understand oneself sufficiently to know one’s limitations, and not even attempt the things that one is not suited for.  It’s much better to not even begin than to spend one’s lifetime in a battle with oneself, in which the speed and efficacy of one’s entire system gets degraded.  This of course is no different than the prime Socratic directive to “know yourself”, brought into the 21st century and expanded to account for all the layers of complexity that must be handled within our modern lives.  (I am reminded here of something I heard the Dalai Lama say: “If you are not going to meditate, don’t even pretend to be a spiritual person.  You will have so much more freedom”).
2. The way to meet the success criteria for which one is not suited, is to partner with someone else.  This however is not an easy thing because in addition to “knowing oneself” it requires the ability to ask for what one needs, and distinguish in the answer whether it’s a good fit.   According to Mike Jay, introverts have a particular difficulty with this, both because going outside themselves is difficult, and because they don’t know how to ask the question (present clearly and enrollingly) and distinguish the answer.  But it’s hard for everyone – this of course is the fine art of leadership, or management.

So there you have it – in a nutshell – the cause of the overwhelm that I have been experiencing lately. I am an introvert which compounds the problem.

It’s difficult for me to fully convey the importance of this insight for me – along with the fact that I seem to have found at least the beginnings of an answer to the problem that has been tormenting me my entire life.  I have studied Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen (other major integral philosophers / developmentalists), and I am becoming increasingly connected to the “integral evolutionary” community which I see now as my “spiritual home” – but I haven’t yet found anything actionable in these teachings – anything that helps to either alleviate human suffering, inject more love in the world, or put money in my pocket and in the pockets of my clients / business associates.  Even before Mike Jay, I had already started to partner with people more in my business, and will also be getting into social media in a big way in the coming months, but it’s really wonderful to be a part of a coaching and inquiry group around these important issues.  It feels wonderful not to be alone any more, and I am ecstatic.

I will be writing more on this in the coming weeks on the Integral evolutionary blog – you may subscribe there if interested in hearing more.  This list (“Marc’s life and travels”) is a less-frequent personal snapshot of the turning moments in my life, such as this one, and so I won’t be posting a blow-by-blow account of my engagement with these teachings.

Much love,

Marc

I have been quiet on this list for some time.  As public a person as I am, and as much as I enjoy baring my soul all over the internet and to anyone who will listen, there are many aspects of my recent experience that are not useful to share – and some others that involve other people as well, whose story is not mine to tell.  But it is time for me to speak out again.  If you are looking for my usual “blood and guts” storyline you probably won’t be disappointed, but this story does have a happy ending .

If you have been following me on this newsletter, you know that I have been struggling with bipolarity for some time.  I have, essentially, been on an 18 month-long hypomanic trip, powered by coffee.  It was very fun while it lasted (although less so in the last 6 months) but as my latest business venture collapsed (what I believed to be my life-work, the Trellis commune), my coffee addiction got out of control, and my marriage was on the rocks, I had to do some serious soul-searching.  I ended up at the Shivananda yoga ranch in the Catskills, first for two long weekends in December, and then for 9 consecutive days, that are just ending.  I came here for residential detox from coffee addiction – they don’t serve caffeine here (and I am not the only one here for this purpose, either!).  As a kind of self-directed personal retreat venue, this place is as close to paradise as I can imagine (and all of the other guests here are having the same experience, incidentally, so this is not just “hypomanic talk” ).  In addition to the benefits of 4 hours a day of yoga and long walks in the beautiful winter countryside, there is world-class vegetarian food, very comfortable and reasonably-priced rooms, cell-phone reception, and internet in my room (that does it – I am moving in).  The only (arguably) negative, is the lack of animal protein in the diet, which according to my research is very important for recovery from mood disorders (see below).

A few comments on bipolarity – all this from a recent “deep dive” into the topic, my “bible” being Ronald Fieve’s Bipolar Breakthrough.  My self-diagnosis is Bipolar IIb, which is a low-grade variation on classic manic-depression.  The highs are not so out-of-touch with reality as in classic Bipolar I (manic-depression) but there definitely can be some loss of judgment, anger/impatience/irritability, high risk of sexual and financial indiscretions, huge correlation to addictive behavior (especially alcohol and marijuana) and of course the recurring depressions.  I am very fortunate not to have hit any major depressions (knock-on-wood) – at least longer than a day or two – but the thing about bipolars, is that no-one wants to live with us.  Rebekah, bless her heart, was doing her best, but pretty well at the end of her rope (which reminds me of a line from the AA Big Book (Dr. Bob’s story): “for some reason I cannot comprehend, we alcoholics attract the finest kind of women”.  I am not alcoholic, but… you get the idea).

The “b” in “Bipolar IIb”, incidentally, stands for “beneficial”, and highlights the doubled-edged sword of this condition.  It means that when properly understood and treated, Bipolar II can be an advantage in life.  Many famous historical figures are estimated to have had to deal with it (including Winston Churchill, Napoleon, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln of course, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, William James and Martin Luther) and there are a great many highly regarded modern artists, business leaders, scientists and authors who carry it.  In my case… well I am certainly not at the level of a William James or Martin Luther — and certainly not an Andrew Carnegie — but I think that Rebekah and I did some good work with Trellis.  The people who lived here were very happy, and the community we built is still strong.  And so while in many ways Trellis was a kind of great hypomanic trip for me (a “variety of religious experience” – William James is also opening my eyes) it wasn’t entirely delusional either.  And who is to define what is “real” or not in human consciousness anyway (or even, really, who is “bipolar”)?  I follow the dictum “the true test of your spiritual success is the happiness of the people around you” (Rudi), which is the same as “by their works ye shall know them”.  I was certainly very happy here.  If I had to do it all over again, I would.

But back to Shivananda.  As the stress of the last 3 months began to fall away, and the “coffee DT’s” subsided, it became apparent to me that I have been dealing all my life with a treatment-resistant mood-disorder.  In my late 20’s and early 30s, I went through a very long and painful depression.  Years of psychotherapy helped only slightly, and dozens of trials of anti-depressants either did nothing or made matters worse.  At one point, seriously, I had decided that if I was still depressed by age 40 I could kill myself in good conscience – it was simply unbearable.  However, I can be very persistent and also quite resilient (this is part of the “hypomanic edge” by the way – us bipolars tend to shrug off the pains and difficulties of life better than most since we always have some new plan or adventure brewing).  Eventually I got out, primarily through lifestyle changes, relationships and community-building, and today I attribute most of any depth,  compassion or insight into human nature that I may have acquired over the years, to this very painful experience of my twenties and early thirties.  As of now, I haven’t had a major depression in over 10 years.  But… and this is an important “but”… what has become apparent to me over the last week, was that although the “fires of hell” were under control (arguably), tending them was still a 24 hour job.  I don’t think I have ever actually had the experience of being happy without being manic (or in-love, which is a kind of mania also in my humble opinion).  There is some part of me that doesn’t even believe this is possible. There is some part of me (and this is a confession) that feels sorry for all the poor unfortunates out there who have never experienced hypomania.  Particularly since in the last 18 months, hypomania has been close to a 24 hour experience for me.  I thought I was uniquely blessed, by genes or fate, to be happy all the time.  Seriously, this is how delusional I could be.

And so – on to the next chapter.  Not to be be too hard on myself – after all, “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment” — Sufi sage/fool Mulla Nasrudin.

In the midst of this “deep dive” into bipolarity, soul-searching, and newly-acquired coffee sobriety, a copy of a most fascinating book falls into my hands, Julia Ross’s Mood Cure.  However, this is one of these things that it is yet too early for me to speak about – and also will require an entire article in itself.

Stay tuned for the next edition.

Well, I have lived a couple of lifetimes since Trellis House was shut-down by the Norristown zoning department 5 weeks ago.  Quite a few miracles have occurred, and many angels have showed-up, but the scene is still a bit too “raw” for full-disclosure.  Maybe I will write the full story one day.  However there are a few things I can say about it now.

First of all: in retrospect, it seems clear that this was one of those cases where the Universe gave a kick-in-the-pants in a direction that was initially unwelcome, but that in the end served everyone.  The bottom-line, I think, is that we were all ready to end this particular experiment.  Some more than others, of course.  It’s not up to me to share other people’s story, but for myself I will say this: running a commune is just about the most fulfilling thing that I have ever done in my life; and yet, it was time for me to take back some attention from my “hobbies” (i.e. running a commune) and put more energy into business.  Which business, my new Website development and internet marketing training company, is one of the great miracles of this debacle.  I sold 13 seats in my first webinar through my personal network alone, and teaching it has been just about the most fun I have ever had in a business context (“the most fun to be had while vertical”, a friend of mine used to say).  Everyone I talk to thinks it’s a winner, there is a book possibility, I have an appointment at Drexel’s Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship to talk about teaching it there, etc. etc.

The second thing I realized is this: there is no shame in a spectacular business failure.  And especially so, when this was an attempt to serve a beautiful dream: that “all would live as lovers do” (Peggy Seeger in her beautiful song Thoughts of time).  I believe that Jesus had a similar idea as well.

So much for that.  What will happen next with the house etc., is anybody’s guess.  We haven’t given up the fight yet.  Also the non-residential community is continuing.

In an attempt to get some clarity on all this, I did spend a long weekend at the Shivananda Yoga Ashram in the Catskill very recently.  I am very familiar with Shivananda yoga from my previous life in the early 90s. I used to go on personal retreats in their Val Morin center (north of Montreal) and I had discovered that no matter what a mess I was going in, within two days of doing their program, I was good-as-rain.  Miraculous really. I wanted to see if it still worked. 

It did.  Imagine this: 4 hours a day of yoga, 2-3 hours of meditation and chanting, long walks in the country, eating delicious vegetarian food, and sleeping the rest of the time.  The yoga is much more meditative than other forms of yoga I have tried – there are many rest periods and lots of breathing exercises – without losing any of the intensity.  It’s also a longer workout, about 2 hours.  I totally dig it, and aside from feeling pretty sore, it was something blissful.  In many ways I feel like I am starting a new life now, and very eager to see how much I can do at home.  But I am pretty psyched about the idea of going back-and-forth between here and Shivananda until I get it right.  They have wireless internet there too, so I can work.  A major benefit of having an internet-based business, of course.

I really appreciate everyone’s support during this difficult transition.  I am feeling very loved right now.

To be continued…

Marc

The news is official: The Trellis residential program has been shut down by the Norristown zoning department effective this Friday.  While one may argue about the application of the judgment (we have 3 days to move all tenants and housemates out!), I feel it to be a righteous decision.  And also inevitable – I lead a very public life, for better or for worse (the Trellis website has been up for some time, I may even ask the code inspector for feedback on my narcissistic ramblings, haha).  So from Friday, Rebekah and I and the children will be returning to the lifestyle of your average happy, healthy, normal American family .

The outpouring of love and support from our community has been overwhelming.  Our feelings in this situation are, of course, complex.

First and foremost: we want our response to be indicative of the values by which we live: finding people right wherever they are; the importance of friendship and community; and the ability to enjoy ourselves in every situation.  We have no animosity toward the zoning department, or even to the unidentified neighbor who called in the complaint; and we are having a major moving party over the next two days, and have asked for help from the community.

Secondly: it is easy to go into fear (even terror – how are Rebekah and I going to support ourselves?), anger, sadness (is this the end of our dream?), etc, and it is important to feel these feelings.  At the same time, the situation does have a “silver lining” – several, actually.  This is not mere positive thinking, this is the truth: this is an opportunity for us to gather as a community, and as a family, and think through what we’re doing here, and make sure that everyone is in agreement before we attempt this again (including the city planning department).  Life here has been stressful lately, it’s been a struggle, and I’ve been trying to push things through too long and too hard, trying to get everyone “on the program” as it were.  I am done with that, and it’s a rather freeing realization.  This community does represent my life’s work, in many ways, but it needs more agreement if it’s going to work (and I need to slow down and take other people’s opinion into account).

Thirdly… this may seem strange to say, but I will say it.  If you ask if I am upset, I will say YES, of course I am upset, at a certain level.  And yet, at another level, I am not.  There is the aforementioned “silver lining” for one.  There is also the fact that we are all Ok today – one day at a time, and I feel that this is a great testimonial to the resilience of the human spirit.  If we can survive this, we can survive anything.  But at a deeper level – a level of ultimate spiritual reality – there is a dimension of who I am, for better or for worse, that to me this is all the “play of consciousness” (this is the title of Muktananda’s autobiography).  All of this is for my growth, and serving me in more ways than I can even be aware of.  As I get older, I feel more and more surrendered to “what is so”, and grateful for the opportunity of learning more about myself and other people, and creating deeper connections, in the conversation that has ensued.  To me, this is what life is about – connections between people – everything else is just “fluff”.  “Love bears all things” [Corinthians 13:7]

I wanted to share these two resources that have really rocked my world this week.  Please note that in general, going forward I will only be publishing my developmental ideas and similar resources to my new Integral Evolutionary blog (http://integralevolutionary.com).  This newsletter will return to its original purpose as “Marc’s life and travels” and will come out every 2-8 weeks.  If you really like “Marc’s life”, and want even more, please subscribe to the Integral Evolutionary blog.

I learn from the best
I take what I learn and apply it in a way that resonates
I simplify the lessons that work most effectively
I teach the lessons to others
I focus on my strengths
I never apologize for the truth
I believe everyone deserves heaps of joy in this lifetime
I know the past has no power over me
I live a life knowing that everything I want is within me now
I realize that intelligence is not just in the mind
I believe it is possible to be spiritually aligned and wealthy
I strive for the impossible so I can call on a strength greater than myself
I believe I was put on the planet to coach, teach, and Be
I believe my happiness is the best gift I have to give my children
I know my husband is the best thing that ever happened to me as a human
I am intense and focused
I love my clients and feel it is a privilege to work with them-not the other way around
I am not better than you and I am not worse than you
Reading is as important to me as showering (sometimes more so)

– Brooke Castillo

Check out Brooke’s site above for her free audio and handouts.

All for now.  Stay tuned for my next post, entitled “Journey to the dark side – and how I came back”.

Much love,

Marc