Human by Choice I: The Natural Force of Thought

A car’s engine is ignited by a spark, combusting fuel, pushing the pistons into motion, rotating the crankshaft, and eventually setting the car’s wheels into motion. Like that spark, every thought we initiate catalyzes a force: directing life, molding matter, and catalyzing a countless number of consequences of its own. 

Whatever it is we cast our attention to, we energize. Whatever we consistently energize will eventually materialize. Whatever intentions we imbue into the process, determines the style of life that is expressed and the personality of life that lives thereon.

This understanding is the basis for much of my martial arts practice in Taekwondo. Inherited and expressed from my main instructors Lindsay Osborne and Maria De Rota: I am a student of a direct line to Grandmasters Lee Chung Won and Park Hae Man. 

In all components of the artform, we are taught that the philosophy we hold in thought, determines the style of life expressed in bodily form. From modelling the fluidity and force of water, to expressing the blazing flames of fire, we are taught to express these different natural elements of life in: Poomse (Artistic forms), Kyorugi (Combat), Kyukpa (Breaking), and Hoshinseul (Self-defense). 

By way of integrating movement, breath, and conscious attention; we notice the direct effects our conscious attention has on our life and surroundings. We calibrate how our emotional states affect our flexibility, speed, and power. We also take log of how our conscious attention amplifies, diminishes, or even dilates the flow of energy throughout our body. And we notice the affect our intentions can have on self, others, and on the collective spirit of learning in the Dojang (School). 

Mind, body, Soul, and All That Is, cannot be divorced. Though they can be de-harmonized and made to conflict, all components are an integrated whole. Keep this in mind as you read any material I share, because casting our attentions is a skillset we are all empowered with, and is foundational skill for generating pretty much any experience you would like in life. And one that you have already been exercising to generate your experiences up till now, whether you were consciously aware of having done so or not. 

My body of work builds upon this understanding for exercising the creational authority that you already have. Rather than doing so by default, we will exercise your gift of being human by choice. 

So, there you are, breathing as you are reading the information on this page. In the ways you know how, cast your attention to the dominant palm of your hand. At first, for a few seconds. Then perhaps, for ten. And even longer. 

Notice the sensations of tingles that begin to tickle the palm of your hands. With time, your hand will feel as though it is glowing with life and projecting with light, that’s right. This is the power of our attention. 

Now, continue as you have already. This time, set the intention that this attention on your palm, has a quality of curiosity. Whatever that energy of curiosity is for you. Now, notice what movements the energies take on your palm. Do they circulate, bubble, bounce, spiral? Whatever you notice is what you notice. There is no wrong. There is no right. There is simply whatever you notice. 

Now, notice what movements the tissue surrounding your palm wants to take. Does a certain muscle want to twitch? Does a finger want to move? Perhaps you wiggle your thumb. Perhaps you wiggle all fingers. Does it seem that your hand wants to wave, engaging other aspects of your physical being? Perhaps your hand now has the tendency to want to get its hand on a paintbrush or pen.

Whatever it is, just notice the personality of life that arises when we imbue a certain set of intentions to that which we are consciously casting our attention to. This is the power of your intention. 

Noticing the same palm of your hand, start to cast your attention to your breath. Noticing the pace at which you are breathing. Noticing the depth at which the air enters your lungs and eventually leaves. As you do, start to sense the way your blood flows through your body. At first, starting with your heart. Then following the many veins through which it passes before coming back to the same point. Then take a log of the rhtymn of your heart beat. 

We can extend this form of attention and intention on your palm to notice how every aspect of you, mind, body, and Soul, is directed in service of your conscious command. If we were to expand the context of the influence of your attention and intention, we would notice also:

• Electrical currents flowing along different neural networks of your brain. 

• Changes in emotional state. 

• Changes in facial expressions.

• Unique sets of muscle tension and compression in your body. 

• Changes to your metabolic rate. 

• The impulse to consume certain foods and liquids. 

We can even extend the impacts of these changes to the environment around you including the atmosphere you create in your physical space, and the impact you have upon others occupying the same space. When we shift our attention and intention, we generate ripples of energy within ourselves and we project them upon life itself; from the microscopic level to the macroscopic level. 

Every thought we think, every form of attention we cast, is a seed for a certain style of creational directive. It directs life to take on a certain quality of life in movement and matter. Now, I’m not here to tell you to mind your thoughts as if to warn you of the consequences of not minding it. My doing so would simply communicate a warning that presupposes that Life itself is some threat to be guarded against. Which is not my intention nor my attention. Though it is available for you to take it as such, if that is what you would like.

What I suggest you entertain is this: whether we are aware or not, your being here is an act of creating as much as it is a product of creation. We can’t not create. Because even “not creating” has a certain quality of creation to it. Just as your attention and intention is always in operation, scattered or focused, so is creation. 

Creating is redundant. The question then becomes: What specifically would we love our creational authority to tend to? That is, if you had a choice to choose again, where, when, and with whom would you like to cast your attention and intention to? Or, as I commonly ask clients in session:

What Would You Like?

This is the Rome of all our inquiry when it comes to exploring personal and lasting change in all aspects of our lives, relationally, professionally, commercially, physically, financially, and spiritually.

Question: is it as simple as just focusing all our energy and intention to what we would like? Partially. But not quite. Especially since much of our attentions and intentions are directed to stabilizing other experiences in life, both undesired and desired. Both consciously, and other-than-consciously. 

Metaphorically speaking, this is like keeping your hands full, so your hands cannot tend to something new. For human beings, these experiences manifest in their lives as experiences with people, places, things, and activities we no longer want. 

You might be wondering, “Why would I keep generating these unpleasant experiences? That’s preposterous!” That is the question. My body of work will help you recover the version of you who set forth those instructions, and more importantly, the context and circumstance upon which those instructions arose, and the creative genius you exercised in generating those instructions. 

So, is it a romance you are struggling to establish or sustain? Is it a career you are struggling to progress? Is it consistent losses in business no matter how talented you are, or how promising opportunities seem to be? Are you struggling to feel good about the way you look? 

Whatever they are, unwanted experiences often seem redundant, persisting, and we often do whatever we can to no longer have them. Yet no matter how much people try to have things be different, somehow and in many ways, we are drawn to repeatedly relive these unwanted experiences. 

How? Firstly, the human instinct is to turn against that which we perceive as flaw or not-good in our life, to abolish, extinguish, or overcome them. All in the spirit of hoping that we may triumph against aspects of ourselves. However, “If you are in an arm-wrestle with yourself, who is it who wins when one part manages to defeat the other?” This is a question that Carl Buchheit first put to me more than ten years ago. One that I bring to your attention now. 

While the approach of overcoming self can work to help someone materialize their specified external objectives (e.g. material gain, recognition, and other forms of reward etc.), it often doesn’t feel good in the long-run. We have all heard of people who seem to have it all, but feel desolate and empty inside. 

After all, if you manage to suppress and crush parts of yourself to get what you want, who succeeds? It’s like cutting off your limb to celebrate your skill with the knife. You can cheer and celebrate, but eventually, the tremor of removing a precious part of Self, catches up to you. 

If you ever wonder what the curse of that style of forceful success is, it would have to be the grief of achieving at the expense of the unified Self. The style of defeating Self to achieve success is entropic by design. This unworkable operation can be summarized by the following statement:

How can I make enough of my Self lose so that I can win?

What we would prefer to focus on, is ways to feel good about the success we have. The style of transformational work I present helps us get the change we would like without the need to make ourselves, others, or life wrong for the ways they have been, are, and may continue to be. Rather, the work helps us redirect the conditioned human instinct to turn against ourselves to have things better, towards the ever-enriching path of coming into alliance with Self, other Selves, and All That Is. 

Secondly, as you now know, what we cast our attention to, we stabilize with great creative force. When we attend to what we don’t want, we get more of what we don’t want. And unfortunately, when we try to ignore an unwanted experience, try to bypass it and just focus on what we would like, the act of ignoring them still feeds those experiences with attention. It still provides the energetic force of a “push away.” 

So, denying, suppressing, or resisting what we are experiencing, is no different to admiring and wanting it. Both provide sufficient attention and energies to stabilize their existence in our current experience of life. 

Whatever we run away from, we continue the run with. 

The question is, what can be done about all this? Firstly, we must tend to what we had been attending to in our lives in a different manner. Whether that means feeling lonely, overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, heart-broken, bored—whatever it is you no longer want. 

To do this, we must gradually free up the attention and energies we have directed to sustain it. This does not mean we push away from them. Because when we push away, we still provide attention. To redivert our attention, means experiencing and seeing what we had created as simply as possible. With no judgement, but with a deep appreciation for the ways it has provided us an experience to date. Doing so diffuses materialized charge. 

To illustrate, let’s use a Point A (starting point) to Point B (destination) analogy. The natural way of relating to Point A is to recognize it in its entirety, and then to choose where else to go from here. That is, selecting a Point B. This is no different to saying ok to what is, then asking yourself “What would I like?” This is equivalent to stabilizing a Point B.  

But first, we must acknowledge what is. Resisting an experience, forcing or wanting it to be different, is like standing on Point A and forcing it to be otherwise by cussing at the ground, digging at it, spitting at it, and having a tantrum. 

You can even pretend that Point A is not there, deny that it is, and close your senses to what is. And doing so, as you move away from Point A, you can continually cuss at the memory of what it was, while looking behind your back to make sure we are getting away from it. 

But notice how much attention and energy is drawn away from the experience you want, and imbued into the experience you don’t want. You end up taking point A with you everywhere you go. The more natural movement in life is to respect where we are (Point A), collect the learnings it has provided us along the way, take it as feedback, and then part ways with great gratitude to the journey to date. This frees the present state of our lives to be a Point of Choice (POC). Only then can we proceed to re-direct our attention to what we would like (Point B). 

So, in the same way that Point A was once Point B for some other stage of learning in life, Point B will become a Point A for another stage of choosing in life. The focus is to take what we were given, and re-choose about it all. This material reality we live in is all about learning and choice. Both of which are coupled forces. What we complete in the way of learning become choice variables. What we select in the way of choosing become learning variables. The main point is to take what you have and choose again. We will never run out of experience to be had. 

To withdraw attention from what we have stabilized
We must complete the experience by experiencing it fully.

In this case, the experience to be completed is synonymous with the word “learning.” For example, perhaps you have an accomplished career. You got the university degree you wanted, the graduate job, and over the years, you got promoted through the ranks. Along the way, you learned and experience great things such as:

• Traveling around the world to learn about different cultures.

• The power of teamwork in comparison to independent talent.

• Matters of accumulating financial security. 

These learnings all occur in the context of Self. It is presupposed and inseparable to experience. 

Now, in the example I have provided, perhaps the career fulfilment and achievement came with the highly unpleasant experiences of: exhausting late working nights, high stress and anxiety, and the mind-numbing use of alcohol to unwind on a day-to-day basis. 

Yet what you long for now, is a sense of being seen intimately by another person. And the time and energetic freedom to cast your attention to establishing and growing a life-long partnership. You might start asking yourself questions such as:

• How can I reduce my work hours?

• How can I meet that partner of my dreams again?

• How can I find the energy and space to re-think my life? 

In this case, you are confronted with allowing the ways you have been to change, and to embrace new ways that are more congruent with your life’s aspirations. Doing so is much easier than done. Especially when the unwanted Point A is usually a perfect strategy or cover to manage or avoid a seriously painful underlying experience such as the real and imagined experience of terror, abandonment, heart-break, and death. 

In the example we have been discussing, the person I am talking about might be working hard to strive for achievement by trading his well-being to avoid:

• Being shamed by people whose approval he desperately respects and wants. 

• Having his heart severely broken again by a lady he loves. 

• Being cast out and forgotten about by his existing peers. 

So just notice how important the current Point A is when it is a Point B to these previous painful experiences. These previous experiences are so painful that they are locked away from our conscious attention. And when they are so beyond our conscious attention and intention, our unwanted experiences become unavailable for revising. 

The current Point A becomes immune to any revision or change because it is so much better than what it replaced. And we eventually lock it out of our conscious awareness, making that unpleasant experience unavailable for further revision. In our lives, this becomes manifest as how life just is, and how life has always been. You don’t have to fully understand this yet as we will explore this in greater detail in the coming chapters. 

Now, you might think: “No way! I grew up in a well-to-do family! I don’t feel any threat of terror, abandonment, heart-break, or death!” That’s my point. These experiences are quarantined. These experiences inform so much of what we do, out of sight and out of mind, that we don’t even notice we have them. And yet these experiences govern all the experiences we currently have, including those we no longer want.

Because of these quarantined experiences, it is very hard to fully recognize Point A yet alone relate to Point A as a platform from which great choosing can occur again, and great learning can be completed. When our present experiences have been so well rehearsed, practiced, and executed; making a change can feel like you are approaching an intersection and making a U-turn with your car without the use of a brake. 

Our current experience has momentum. So, when most of us even think of making a significant change in life, we freeze at the thought of having to turn the wheel while moving with such great speed. The conclusion our systems draw: We have no choice about what is going on in our lives. 

My body of work will help you explore ways the quarantine experience can be made available for revision. Then, by simply seeing it, experiencing it as simply as we can, we can arrive at a POC (Point of Choice), where we are then empowered to re-choose what and how we would like to experience life anew. 

We will also use a specific style communication that allows us to “update” the code behind our life’s experiences, and in a way that the code becomes more congruent with what we would like, who we are now, and how we would love to continue becoming. And we will do so without having to exclude, deny, or defeat the ways we have been to date.