Transformational Tools
Tools to Become the Hero Inside You
Copyright Rhett Bise 2010
© 2010 Hero Transformation System, All Rights Reserved. www.HeroTransformation.com
Smashwords Edition License Notes:
This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.
Disclaimer (Legal Stuff)
“The Phone Booth,” “Transformational Tools,” and www.herotransformation.com, and their contents are the property of Rhett Bise and Hero Transformation System. This information is not to be distributed, in part or in whole, reprinted or resold without the express permission of Rhett Bise and Hero Transformation System. This information is intended for the use of authorized recipient only and is subject to U.S. and international copyright laws.
The reader understands that the information in this book is advice intended for entertainment and personal development purposed. Nothing in this book is intended to replace therapy or health care from a medical professional. Information in this book is not to be treated as medical or professional psychological advice.
This material is intended only for readers over eighteen (18) years of age. In viewing this material, the reader stipulates to being over eighteen years of age.
The reader assumes any and all responsibility for any actions taken as a direct or indirect result of reading the material. Rhett Bise and Hero Transformation System assume no responsibility for the reader’s actions – the reader is solely responsible for the reader’s actions and any consequences that result from those actions. The reader must exercise sound judgment and common sense.
While the author has made every effort to ensure the information in this book, the website (www.herotransformation.com), and the blog (www.herotransformation.wordpress.com) is accurate, there will undoubtedly be some inaccuracies in the information provided. The author assumes no responsibility for such inaccuracies and the reader, in purchasing this book, or reading the website, or reading the blog, agrees to accept the information “as-is,” including any possible inaccuracies.
So, basically, be honest, take ownership for your own life, and use common sense. As a student of this work, I trust that you already adhere to these basic principles in your life and apologize for wasting your time with this legal nonsense. This is only intended for the few people who lack basic ethics and/or common sense, and I trust you are not one of those people.
Now… with that out of the way… let’s get to the real work at hand!
Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Chapter One: The Foundation 6
Chapter Two: Visualizing Your Hero 16
Chapter Three: Presence 20
Chapter Four: Inquiry 25
Chapter Five: Releasing the Negative 28
Chapter Six: Self-Acceptance 31
Chapter Seven: Continuing Your Transformation 36
Introduction: Taking That First Step
Congratulations! You have taken the first step in shedding that “old you,” the one who is covered with layer upon layer of BS put there by others, and transforming into the amazing, sexy, magnetic HERO that lies inside you, wanting to come out.
This mini-course will give you essential tools and concepts to help you through your transformational journey. You’ll find cutting-edge techniques to help you find your breakthroughs and dramatically change your life.
You deserve this change. You deserve to live a big life. No more trying to “get something,” it’s time for you to BE that something, to discover a greatness you only dreamed about before.
My Personal Journey
For YEARS I was one of those guys like you who tried EVERYTHING, and nothing seemed to “stick.” But something inside me kept driving me to keep trying, to keep going. The hero in me wanted to emerge, but I kept stumbling.
And I was super frustrated.
I mean, I’m reasonably good-looking, smart, good personality, doing a lot of great things in my life… yet I was feeling “tied down” to this small life, this low opinion of myself. And all the things I tried to get the success I thought I deserved in my life never seemed to click.
I kept thinking to myself “I SHOULD be better than this. WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME??”
Eventually my self-doubt and frustration led me to some bad places in life, and it was there, in the throes of frustration and insecurity, that I had my breakthrough. I found what it was that was keeping me from “getting it.”
And then I started “getting it!”
I went from being one of the “frustrated ninety percent” who try self-improvement systems and fail to the “phenomenal ten percent.” In fact, within a few months of my breakthrough, I became a “superstar student” to one of the world’s elite personal coaches – who was telling me I was inspiring HIM!
Now I’m at a point where I have the skills and the belief system to create the superstar identity I want for myself. The sky is the limit.
It’s Not About Getting, It’s About Being
I realized my whole matrix was messed up. It wasn’t about “finding the success” I wanted, it was about BEING GREAT. Whatever you think you want in life, whether it be relationships, money, friends, spiritual connection, is a byproduct of your being. When you step into your heroic self, the things you need for fulfillment will come into your life naturally, effortlessly.
The more you reach for “something,” whether it be a woman, money, approval, anything, the more it slips out of reach. The more you allow yourself to BECOME the amazing man you are, the more you are BEING that big, amazing, fulfilled man, the more you realize there is nothing “out there” to reach for. And then amazing things start finding you.
How To Use This Book
This is not a novel to read at bedtime. This is an interactive study that requires your full participation. And for the lessons to have their intended effect, you need to learn and embody them.
So first, take your time and carefully read the lessons. You may need to read them more than once, repetition is critical to learning.
Second, do the practices, actually do them. Keep doing the practices and make them a part of your being. Embody the practices. This is essential to any change.
And please let me know about your progress – successes, breakthroughs, resistance and questions. I want to help you succeed. Email me: Rhett@herotransformation.com
Finally, I invite you to see this mini-course a “first step” in your total life transformation.
After embodying the practices in here, I want you to find the inspiration to make a commitment to COMPLETE change – commit to the whole system by purchasing “The Phone Book” and making a commitment to total life transformation.
When you are ready, order it here: www.herotransformation.com/phonebooth
Chapter One: The Foundation
What Does It Mean To Be A Hero?
We begin our journey by discovering what a hero really is.
Being a hero doesn’t necessarily mean rescuing people from burning buildings or arresting bad guys. That could be your calling, but this world need all kinds of heroes, and your inner hero will look different than someone else’s. So what is a hero?
A hero is connected to his inner essence and fully embodies the divine in him.
A hero has let go of the negative BS of the world. He is energized from within and does not look to others for approval or permission.
A hero is powerfully present and connected to the moment. A hero lives in the moment, fully embodied. His presence fills the room. People notice his presence before they even see him.
A hero is courageously authentic. A hero is committed to his true self and asserts that true self in the face of disapproval from others.
A hero is open-hearted, loving and recognizes the divine in everyone around him. He is connected to the divine inside himself and the divine in everyone around him. This makes him both a humble servant and a bold leader.
A hero is committed to his purpose and makes his purpose his top priority.
And What Do You Get For Being A Hero?
There are a lot of benefits for going into that phone booth and becoming that hero.
A hero is damn sexy. A man who is on his purpose, who honors the divine in himself and everyone around him, who isn’t looking for approval or validation, who is courageously authentic, who is deeply present, is being his divine masculine self. There is nothing more attractive in a man. No techniques, no lines, no routines can make up for the “real deal,” and the hero IS the “real deal.”
A hero is fulfilled from within. A hero is living his purpose and being his true self. There is no little voice telling him to do something else, because he is living his truth.
This is a process of getting to know the hero inside you, letting go of the BS that’s keeping you from embodying your essence, and stepping into that heroic you. You’ll be donning a new mask, a new personality, like Clark Kent going into the phone booth and emerging Superman. You aren’t going to go back and “fix what’s wrong,” you’re going to create a whole new you, the man you’ve always dreamed of being, the man filled with purpose, fully authentic. Because the man you want to be is the man you truly are. And when you’re fully authentic and living as the man you want to be, connected to your divinity, you will be the hero you were meant to be.
Your hero is calling you. Are you ready?
How Badly Do You Want This?
Are you ready for REAL transformation? Are you ready to stop looking for half-measures? Are you ready to live your real dream, to be that fully evolved man you were meant to be? That’s why this book came into your life. Grab this opportunity, for you.
Find that part of you that’s SICK and TIRED of wanting more and falling short. Find that part of you that is SICK and TIRED of feeling inferior to other men, of being needy and intimidated around women. Find that part of you that is SICK and TIRED of living a second-best life.
There’s a lot involved in this transformation process. Whether you see it as “work” or “inspiration” depends on how ready you are to make that change. Your success in this process requires you to be willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen in your life.
So find that part of you that wants to BE that man. Make a promise to do whatever it takes to make that change. If you are fully committed, you WILL become that hero.
The Key Ingredient to Real Change
The key to real transformation comes down to MINDSET.
I want you to throw away whatever reason you originally had for coming to this place. You see, since most guys have to be pretty much dragged kicking and screaming to a place where they’re willing to work on themselves, they usually have a very good-sounding “external reason” for doing so. Not to over-generalize, but most of the time it’s “success with women.”
Guys come into this arena to GET more external success. And we think we’re going to go in, find the magic bullet, to get that thing we want and get the hell out.
And, years later… here we are, stuck in a quagmire, with no “success.”
So stop thinking in terms of getting an outcome. Change for the RIGHT reason: because it’s the best thing for YOU!
The KEY INGREDIENT to Real Change: Doing It For YOU!
If you are trying to change to get women to like you, or to get money or approval from others, you will not change. It will never happen.
However, if you are changing because it’s something you genuinely want in your life, ANY change is possible. And if you want it, you will have it.
DO THIS FOR YOU!
So you can try a bunch of systems that promise to “get” you things, like women, or money, or success, and maybe have some shallow success and wonder why you’re still unfulfilled…
…or you can BECOME the HERO. You can step into that powerful man, on his purpose, complete and fulfilled, living a big, amazing, meaningful life. And as that hero, you can and have those “things” you truly desire built into your life, without NEEDING them. You can be that man who loves himself, loves his life, loves the world and has the world loving him back, a man fully connected to his divinity and happiness.
So which do you really want?
That’s what I thought. Now make the commitment.
Your Heroic Commitment
Right now, take out a piece of paper. Write down today’s date. Write on that piece of paper your personal promise – you are committed to becoming the hero you were meant to be, and today is the first day of your new life. Then sign it. Keep this around as your personal contract to break through into a new life.
The Success Belief
Sitting quietly, with your spine erect, begin to notice your breath. Is your breath shallow or deep? Is your breath rapid or slow? With your next breath, make your breathing slower and deeper. Make the next breath even slower and deeper. Make each breath the slowest and deepest breath you have ever taken.
Close your eyes. Feel your feet on the ground, your butt and the back of your legs on the chair. Feel the muscles in your body relax, starting from the top of your head, down your face, down your neck, into your shoulders, down your arms into your hands, down your chest and back, down your abdomen, into your pelvis. Feel your cock and balls relax. Feel your thighs relax. Feel your shins and feet relax.
Imagine a line going to your right, going into your future. Imagine yourself leaving the body you’re in and travelling down that line. One day. One week. One month into your future. Feel yourself moving down that timeline to the right, further into the future. Two months. Feel yourself moving a little faster. Four months.
Feel yourself stopping at six months into the future. Maybe you’ve mastered this book, maybe you’re still going through the work, but you’ve made amazing strides. Now imagine a mirror in front of you. Notice how much you’ve changed. You’ve REALLY changed! It’s visible, it’s tangible.
Feel into your body – notice how much more embodied you feel. Feel into your emotions – you’re so much more present, grounded, confident. You’ve done it! You’ve changed!
There is no backsliding, only momentum to keep changing, to keep going. You’ve finally made it through all those old sticking points.
Now, imagine this new you taking on one of those old challenges and mastering it with ease. Now having success with women, or your career, or whatever it is you’re wanting, is just a byproduct of your new way of being. How does that feel?
How does it feel knowing all of this has ALREADY HAPPENED?
Slowly bring yourself back to the you seated there. Bring yourself into your body. Open your eyes. Know this WILL happen for you.
Find Your Purpose
When you were placed on this earth, you were given a purpose. It is your unique gift and your divine expression to the world. It is what motivates a man and connects him to his divinity. It is part of your unique, amazing, divine essence.
A man on his purpose is in alignment. He is powerful, focused and fulfilled. He may likely never achieve what he was set out on this earth to do, that is part of what a purpose is, a commitment to something greater than himself.
While a man will not fulfill his purpose, a man on his purpose will fulfill his unique and essential part, ensuring the world he leaves behind is better for his efforts. In this way, a man on his purpose is a hero.
A man on his purpose is not looking to others to tell him how to live, or looking for someone else to fulfill him. A man on his purpose is fulfilled from within. He is guided by something within that compels him to serve something greater than himself.
Most men today have lost their sense of purpose. They are either looking to others to figure out what to do, or simply living lives of stunted adolescence, living for temporary pleasure with no meaningful direction. These men act like children and do not command respect from others. Often these men have hidden away their purpose out of fear, that their purpose is not acceptable, or that they are unworthy of living such a purpose.
This doesn’t mean a man on his purpose doesn’t have fun. In fact, a man living his purpose experiences far deeper pleasure and connections because he is aligned, and thus fully able to experience the joys in life. Meanwhile the man in rudderless pursuit of pleasure is looking to experiences to distract him from the part of his life that seems unfulfilled. Therefore he can only experience pleasure in a limited way, and is constantly anxious for acquiring the next source of pleasure.
A man on his purpose is powerfully attractive to a woman, because he is fully being the man he was born to be. A man on his purpose will attract women and friends who are also drawn to his purpose. He becomes the sun around which others orbit.
And because he is living his purpose, driven by something more powerful than himself, his relationships take on a new meaning. He isn’t dependent on others, whether it’s a woman, friends or family, for his fulfillment. His greater purpose is his fulfillment. His energy is focused on his purpose, not on gaining the approval of others.
It’s time for you to find your purpose.
Begin exploring your purpose in life. Ask yourself what is your purpose. Can you picture one? Is there anything that you feel compels you at your core? This doesn’t have to be what you do, but what truly drives you.
It’s okay if nothing comes to mind, or if it’s very fuzzy right now. But begin to think about it. And picture being a man on his purpose, living in the way described above.
Realize You Are Not Who You Think You Are
Right now, you are living someone else’s life. The thoughts you are thinking, the beliefs you call “true” for you, your identity, the way you think, is programming that was put in there by someone else. You might tell yourself that you consciously chose to accept these things, or you have really good rational proof for what you believe and how you see yourself. But when you drill down to the core, most often you’ll find all of what you see as “you” is someone else’s thoughts, beliefs, fears, doubts and wishes.
You’re going to need to come to terms with this reality. You are not your thoughts. There is a real you witnessing those thoughts. You are not your identity, or the sum of your actions. There is a divine essence that transcends all thought, all ego, and all actions.
I don’t expect you to fully embody this right now, but I’m giving you this meditation practice, to begin differentiating your true self from the “you” that you have been telling yourself you are. Return to this from time to time as you continue your evolution, and the realization will become more and more clear.
Meditation Practice
Begin by grounding yourself as you did for the previous exercise. Spend five minutes in this calm state. Allow your thoughts to settle. Begin to notice the spaces between your thoughts, dive into those spaces. Allow those spaces to expand. Begin to notice how there is a “you” outside of your thoughts. Feel into that bigger “you.” Notice how you are not your thoughts, that your thoughts are like clouds in the sky and you are the sky.
Feel into this “you.” Who is that? Chances are, up to now, you’ve been basing your impression of yourself on your thoughts. Thoughts that aren’t you. Thoughts that, on closer inspection, aren’t really yours. The man you have been thinking you are up to now is not you.
Feel into that truth. There is a much deeper, simpler essence that is you. Feel into that essence.
That’s right. You are not your thoughts. All of your thoughts and beliefs are someone else’s, accepted by you with good intentions, or just accepted without you even having the chance to decide.
Now, focus your attention onto someone you know who decided they were going to tell the world who they are, and the world had to accommodate for them. Maybe an inspirational person whose making their mark in the world with a physical disability, or that ugly dude who pisses you off because he gets all the girls… or that hot chick who wasn’t “supposed to be” hot. Instead of seeing them as “special,” I want you to turn the whole thing around.
They’re “normal.” It’s the rest of us who are fucked up. That’s why at some level people like that both fascinate and annoy us. They are living proof that you can be the person you want to be, that nobody really is a “victim” of society.
Can you feel their essence shining through, bigger than the beliefs of others? Can you feel that sense?
Can you feel their essence shining through, bigger than the beliefs of others? Can you feel that sense of inspiration, that YOU could shine your essence like this person?
Be with this new reality. Allow it to settle in. Notice what comes up – anger? Fear? Frustration? What does the idea that your limitations, the things about yourself you thought were just things you had to live with, are in fact entirely optional bring up inside you?
How about the reality that the life you’ve been living to this point was someone else’s life? How does it feel to accept that reality? Are you finding yourself resisting the reality, fighting it?
Allow yourself to accept the reality that you are not the “you” who you thought you were, then open your eyes. The world is a little different now, isn’t it?
Be with this new reality. Allow it to settle in. Notice what comes up – anger? Fear? Frustration? What does the idea that your limitations, the things about yourself you thought were just things you had to live with, are in fact entirely optional bring up inside you?
Transforming Yourself Through Deliberate Practice: Change One Thing
Right now PICK ONE THING you want to change. Make it something simple, to get the hang of this, like the way you make eye contact, or maybe an awkward grin, or eliminating one nervous gesture.
After you’ve come up with that one thing you want to change, figure out what you want to do instead. If you picked changing your smile, maybe you want to change from a toothy grin to a closed-lip, sly grin.
Go through the steps:
Embodiment. Feel how it is to do the new thing, or feel the new belief, versus how it feels in your body to do the old thing. Bring awareness to moving toward the “new thing.”
Inquiry. Notice where your thoughts and beliefs are moving you to either stop doing the new thing or continue the old. Are things coming up like “this is not me,” “this feels stupid,” or “I can’t do this?” Stop and ask those parts of you what they want. Listen to their feedback.
Release. Practice letting go of negative beliefs and resistance getting in the way. (There are lots of techniques coming up.) For now, use this technique:
Ask yourself what is holding you back from changing.
Ask yourself if you can let that go.
Ask yourself if you can let it go now.
Breathe in deeply and as you exhale, imagine this resistance or negative belief exhaling out your mouth. Continue doing b, c, and d until the it’s released.
Acceptance. Accept yourself as you are, even as you go through this process of change. Accept the process of change, allow it space to work. Accept this is a process and that you are perfect and amazing as you are, even as you are undertaking this change.
You’ve been introduced to the process of change, and we will be going into much more detail later. But we want to start changing NOW.
So Notice the feedback on how the change is going, go back to Embodiment.
REMEMBER THIS RECIPE. IT IS YOUR RECIPE FOR CHANGE.
Doing Everything With Intention/ Doing Everything Different
A lot of this transformation practice is getting you out of “auto pilot” and getting you to practice breaking old habits. So this is an ALL DAY practice. Remember, it’s PRACTICE, so keep going even if it’s not going right. This is going to be a LOT tougher than it sounds, so BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF.
Throughout your day, bring attention to everything you’re doing. Ask yourself if this is how you want to do it. Notice every routine. How are you brushing your teeth? How are you getting out of bed? How are you picking out and putting on your clothes? How are you eating your breakfast?
How are you showering? Studies show people have a set routine for how they shower.
How are you breathing? How are you moving, even how are you blinking and swallowing?
How are you interacting with people? How are you going about your workday? If you go to the gym, how are you doing the exercises? How do you decide what to eat, when to eat, how to eat? How are you driving your car? How are you walking? How are you talking?
Notice everything and ask yourself if this is what you want to do. If the answer is “no,” IMMEDIATELY substitute something different, even if it feels weird.
And change things you’re indifferent to changing. Change the way you eat and shower. Change the way you do five things that are just “things you do,” and journal them. Journal how you’ve been doing it, what you did different and how it felt to do it different.
The Hero’s Breath
This is the single most critical aspect to the growth process. Breath is the access to presence and to all of the exercises in this book. It isn’t something you bring up only when you’re working through the practices, breathing needs to become a daily focus, so make this a practice. Keep reminding yourself to breathe properly until it becomes natural.
Breath work is critical for being embodied and cultivating presence. It relaxes the body, slows down the “chattering monkeys” in your mind and cultivates a sexy confidence that will grow the more attention you put on your breath.
The Belly Breath
Train yourself to make the belly breath your normal way of breathing. A man who breathes into his belly is more grounded, more relaxed, more embodied, and more sexy. It’s the way we were meant to breathe – slow, deep, powerful breaths, expanding the belly with each inhale, bringing the belly in with each exhale.
With this breath, you breathe in through your nose, drawing the breath into your belly as deep as possible. Your belly will expand and contract. To practice, place one of your hands on your belly, about at your navel. Place the other on your chest. As you inhale through your nose, feel the hand over your belly rise while the other hand remains steady until the end of your breath when your chest expands to complete the breath. As you exhale, the hand over your chest drops first, then the hand over your belly as you push the air completely out your mouth. With practice, this becomes a fluid motion.
Throughout the day as you do this exercise, you’ll mostly just breathe in and out through your nose, but take a couple minutes every hour to do deep, conscious breathing, in through your nose, out through your mouth.
When practicing, imagine taking the deepest, slowest, fullest breath possible. Imagine this breath going as low into your abdomen as possible. “Breathe into your balls.” Then make the next breath deeper and slower. And the one after that deeper and slower still. Practice holding your breath a moment at the top and bottom.
At first, training yourself to belly breathe will be a conscious effort. While we began life breathing in this way, most of us switched to chest-breathing, which is tight, shallow and constrained. So make a conscious effort to breathe into your belly. Notice when you are not belly breathing and bring awareness to it. Eventually, your neurology will shift and you will naturally belly breathe without conscious effort.
Even at this point, continue to bring conscious awareness to your breath, making it as deep, as full and as slow as possible.
Grounding Meditation
This is a critical practice for being grounded and centered, for the purposes of our transformational practices, and to find your center throughout your day. Practice this regularly and it’ll go a LONG way toward creating the deep presence you need.
First, find yourself a place that is quiet and free from distraction. Sit so that your spine is erect.
Close your eyes and begin breathing the belly breath. Feel the air going in and out of your lungs. Notice the feeling of the air massaging your lungs as you inhale, giving you life energy, and feel the impurities leaving your body through your exhale.
Make each breath slower and deeper than the last. Feel your feet being supported by the floor, which is supported by the ground. Feel your legs and butt supported by the chair, which is supported by the floor, which is supported by the ground. Feel your connection to the ground, to the earth.
Feel into your body, noticing any places of tension or numbness. Bring awareness to those places until they open up. Notice your thoughts becoming more and more distant as you bring more awareness to your breath, your body, and your connection to the ground.
Feel into your heart. Feel it open, loving and accepting yourself, loving and accepting this moment and everything in it. Feel a sense of peace and tranquility spreading throughout your body.
This is time just for you. Feel into to spaces between your thoughts until your thoughts are like clouds in the sky and you are the sky. Feel into that sense of wholeness and completeness in this place.
Imagine it Until You Feel It
This is a concept I learned from Barbara Carrellas in “Urban Tantra.” I cover this deeply in “The Phone Booth,” because it is a super-powerful concept for creating authentic transformation. In the eBook I deeply explore the concept and give you powerful exercises. I want to give you an idea of the power behind this concept by introducing you to “subtle energy.”
Step One: Use the grounding and centering meditative exercise to bring yourself into a relaxed, peaceful state.
Step Two: Focus your attention on the area around your heart (your heart chakra). Imagine there’s a ball of energy six inches outside your chest that’s emitting warmth Picture the ball in your mind in whatever way works best for you. Imagine that ball growing warmer and stronger in energy. Imagine its light growing stronger. Allow this energy to grow for about five minutes.
Step Three: Imagine this ball of light entering your chest, bringing that warmth into the area of your heart. Feel the area of your heart becoming warmer. Now feel that warmth slowly radiate throughout your body. Notice whatever emotions accompany this.
Step Four: Open your eyes and notice what you feel in your chest. Is it different? Is it a little warmer? Is it relaxed? What do you feel in the rest of your body?
If you felt something, even if it’s just a twinge, congratulations! You just experienced the concept of subtle energy and “Imagine It Until You Feel It.” If not, you took the step of imagining it. Continue this exercise daily until you experience the tangible feeling of energy awareness in your heart.
By using imagination to create your reality, you are practicing the concept of “Imagine it Until You Feel It.”
Chapter Two: Visualizing Your Hero
There’s an amazing, sexy, powerful hero inside you, ready to come out. You’ve dreamed about being him from time to time, but probably told yourself you couldn’t really be that man. Maybe it felt good to imagine yourself as that fully evolved, carefree, amazing man, on his purpose, making the world a better place But you told yourself it was a fantasy, that you were just “stuck” with the you that you were being, and to just get used to it.
I believe the key to changing yourself is not to go back into your past and “fix” everything you think is broken in you, because you’re not really broken, just viewing yourself with a distorted lens. The key to true, fully-aligned, authentic change is to listen to your heart, find the man you truly want to be, and become that man. Stop looking for things to “fix,” just be the hero. Unlike the man you are being today, which is a collection of other people’s beliefs and thoughts, the man you want to be is in fact your real self.
The real you, the fully aligned, authentic you, is not “broken.” There is nothing he needs to go back and fix. Whatever shortcomings he has, he’s accepted and owned them, because he’s authentic. He is living his purpose, being who he is without apologies. The world resonates with a man like this, because he is real.
It is this man, the hero you’ve been telling yourself you’re not, that you will become. And when you do, you will feel that sense of wholeness and completeness. You will be aligned and authentic. You will be… you.
It’s time to start the journey toward your inner hero, free from the constraints of the past or the concerns about what others believe is ideal. This is about you, finally seeing yourself as the man you truly want to be. And that man you want to be, that ideal self, is your true self. It is the manifestation of your heart’s desire, your authenticity showing up in the world. It is you – free and fully expressed.
Free Write
For the next day or two, free write, either with pen and paper or computer, on the man you truly want to be, the hero inside you. Imagine there’s no limit, and nobody to answer to.
What would you do? How would you act? How would you dress? How would you carry yourself? What would you be feeling on the inside?
Put everything on the list, until you feel great about it, then put it aside. The next day, pick it up, read it and make any changes.
Try to picture yourself and your life being this man. Notice where you’re feeling doubts or anxiety. It might feel a little “edgy,” that’s good. Being your ideal self isn’t about being comfortable, it’s about doing what is true for you.
Seeing Yourself as the Hero In Your Future
Begin by grounding and centering as described earlier. (Even in this mini-course, lessons are stacked on each other for powerful effects. You are just getting a sample of what is covered in “The Phone Booth.”) Next, visualize yourself as the hero of your dreams… allow yourself to dream big.
Now imagine yourself moving forward in time, through your timeline…
Picture yourself as this hero a week from now. It still feels strange, maybe challenging, but you’re starting to feel some positive benefit from it. It’s still work, but there’s some success coming. Now go out three weeks, twenty one days of dedicating yourself to a new way of being. Notice how things that felt awkward and difficult now seem to be becoming habit. Notice how your new way of being is beginning to make positive changes in your life as it “kicks in.”
Now picture yourself three months from now, three months of not just trying out being a hero, but living it. Look at yourself in the mirror, carrying all those successes, feeling the difference, excited in a whole new way about life. Feel how that old weight is getting lighter, things seem a little easier. Notice how, maybe this has inspired you to make more changes.
Now picture yourself six months from now, six months of living the life of a hero, on your purpose, connected to your essence, of all the successes, of the inspiration for even more change and growth. Six months. Feel all the breakthroughs in your life, how you feel like a new man. Look at yourself in the mirror, the power, the energy, the way that old weight is off your shoulders and just a memory and now you’re on this awesome new path.
Go a whole year into the future, a year of the snowballing of successes and positive change. A year of making changes and seeing them through, of writing the script of your life, of inspiring yourself to new levels of greatness. Look back on that year, how you accomplished more than you ever could have imagined. Now you’re inspiring others, people are looking to you to help guide them along their path.
Go five years into the future, five years of the accumulation of amazing experiences, personal transformations, phenomenal successes. Five years of inspiring yourself and others. Imagine the new people in your life, the new relationships, the new levels of happiness and bliss, whole new pathways opening up, a whole life of possibilities that seemed like an impossible pipe dream five years ago, now you’re living the dream!
Now go ten years into the future, ten years of living in this powerful way. Look at yourself in the mirror. Ten years of the culmination of changes and successes building on each other, ten years of this momentum, ten years of living this amazing life. Picturing yourself there, think back to now, how all this began with one change, and how you couldn’t even recognize that guy from ten years ago now, and how grateful you are for making that change.
Go twenty years. Twenty years of leading other men, of being a powerful force in the world. You are one of the truly elite men who have made impossible changes in their lives, and just keep growing, faster and faster, day by day. Sure, you’re older, and infinitely more attractive, sexy, powerful, inspirational, successful and blissful than the younger version of yourself. You’re at the pinnacle of your life, living a life few men can even dream of. And it’s yours, and your best days are still ahead of you.
Go thirty, forty, fifty years, feeling the effects of this massive change and how it’s making the world better. And how it all started with one step, with one commitment. Now go to the end, the point where you’re about to cross over, and look back. Look back at this phenomenal life! Look at how you not only lived life to the fullest, you lived a life you couldn’t even imagine possible at earlier points in your life! You’ve transformed other lives, created a movement in the world. And it all started with one decision to change, to commit to authentic change in your life, to make that change for you.
Bringing that energy back, come back to this moment. Come back here and feel that energy in you now, that inspiration for change, that truth that this new belief is your belief, it’s your destiny. This is your first step into greatness.
Allow that to sink in. Breathe it in deeply. Allow it to integrate into your being. Allow it to inspire you as you take that first step toward that incredible new future.
Revisiting Your Purpose
It’s time to revisit your sense of purpose, now that you’ve begun to visualize your inner hero.
So right now, articulate your new purpose, write it down. Start with that free write exercise, and brainstorm on your purpose until you find what makes you cry. Keep at it. At this point, it may not take that long. You may already know your purpose, or have a good idea what direction it is in.
Next, make that purpose as detailed as possible. What is your mission in this world? It’s something big that can manifest itself in every part of your being. It’s something that inspires you and is your passion. It is the purpose of your inner hero.
Close your eyes, do the grounding exercise, and ask yourself what is your purpose. Listen for the response, and note it. Ask for details until you have a clear picture, or as clear as you can get at the moment.
Switching Your Mindset from Critic to Fan
You are the hero of your life. So it’s time you stopped spending your energy figuring out ways you’re doing it wrong, and start treating yourself like the hero you are.
This is part of an ongoing effort, but bring conscious attention to seeing yourself as the celebrity of your life. You are the hero, and you’re also you’re biggest fan. When you find yourself being critical, consciously switch gears and idolize yourself.
You might have to really go over the top with this at first. The world out there is a very negative place and there is strong resistance to people who genuinely think the world of themselves. There are billions of people out there who will be more than happy to point out the ways you screwed up. Don’t be one of them anymore.
From now on, it’s okay to “screw up.” In fact, there really is no such thing as “screwing up,” only doing things in alignment and out of alignment. If you’re on your path and being authentic, then whatever you’re doing is part of your world. You love your world, you love who you are, you are the celebrity of your life, so go ahead and be the star.
If you have to imagine yourself as your biggest fan, start there. Just keep redirecting your energy and awareness to being the star, no matter what’s going on outside. You’re the hero on your path, really dig being that light in the world.
Chapter Three: Presence
Presence is both the foundation for all growth work, and a goal unto itself. It isn’t something that you can “do,” but it is something that can be accessed, strengthened and expanded through conscious practice. It is about being in the here and now, being within yourself at all levels, and experiencing life in the moment.
Presence is something that is felt by others. A man who is present is magnetic. He commands attention. People are drawn to him. Presence is also something that can be felt within. With presence, there is a solidness, a feeling of depth, a feeling of being in this moment. It is a place where thought goes away and there is harmony between you, your body, and your experience.
It is a place where every moment becomes a work of art, a place of endless possibilities, a place from which enormous change can occur.
Presence is sexy. A man who is present is felt, because he is bringing all of himself into the moment. A man who is present can be a naturally great lover. No amount of skills or experience can compensate for a lack of presence, and presence has the potential to enhance a sexual experience beyond anything found in any manual.
Presence is a place where the mind is silent, so you are being in the moment. It is a place where you are embodied, feeling all the places in your body, feeling the sensations in your body, and feeling your emotions and experiences as physical sensations in your body. It is a place where you fill your space and bring awareness to the world around you. It’s a place where you allow yourself to take in your experience and the experiences of people in your experience without thought.
With presence, there is nothing to get, nothing lacking. Instead, it’s a peaceful, solid feeling of connection and being. It’s being within yourself and feeling your being around others. It’s bringing yourself fully into the moment.
Presence feels like a solidness in yourself, stillness and quiet in your mind, a connection with your body, your experience, and others. It’s the feeling when the mind turns off and you’re just there in the moment. When you’ve experienced a moment of natural beauty that “took your breath away” and for a moment you had no thoughts, just feeling the beauty of the moment, that was presence.
The elements of presence are stillness, embodiment, awareness and wholeness.
Element One: Stillness
To get into a state where your mind is still requires continual practice. First and foremost is your breath. Practice the belly breath and make your breath a conscious focus throughout your day. Remind yourself at every opportunity to take the biggest, fullest, longest breath possible. Remind yourself to breathe with your belly until it becomes a habit (and it will, just give it time).
Another element of stillness is meditation. Practice the grounding meditation four times a day . Use the meditation exercises to find deeper stillness.
A third element of stillness is creating stillness in all aspects of your daily life. Notice all the places you’re consciously or unconsciously creating chaos and unnecessary disruption. What things could you ADD to your living arrangement that would bring you peace? Make a conscious effort to “clean out” the discord and stress in your life and consciously build a loving, still environment.
Presence is a practice and a lifestyle. You don’t have to change religions or turn your place into a shrine, just bring conscious awareness to your environment and how you’re treating yourself. Bring your space into alignment with who you want to be, bring your space into presence, and that will help bring your being into presence.
Element Two: Embodiment
Presence is about being in your body, not in your head. It is actually possible to go through your day not thinking, actually experiencing your world and your emotions in the moment and in your body.
A lot of guys are not used to feeling anything in their body. Their bodies are tight and often numb. We need to open up your body and get you used to feeling sensation. In “The Phone Booth,” I provide physical exercises for basic stretching and awareness.
I highly recommend you find some kind of regular physical exercise regimen that gets you “in your body.” Some options include yoga, martial arts and boxing. If the gym is more your thing (as it is for me), focus more attention on exercises that “expand” your muscles and include “full body” movements. Two excellent programs are “Code of the Natural” (www.codeofthenatural.com) and “15 Minute Hell” (www.15minutehell.com). What I love about these programs is they are both very affordable, very easy to start using, and very adaptable to other workout programs (like free weights). They are both also very “chakra friendly,” the exercises open up energy channels. (And, I will add, I’m not getting a dime for mentioning them, which is probably my stupid, but I offer these because I believe in them and use them myself.)
The other part of embodiment is learning to notice your emotions in your body as they come up. It’s critical to begin disassociating your emotions from the thoughts, which are often nothing more than a rationalization for the emotions. Learn to feel what is going on in your body as you experience emotions. Where do they show up in your body? What is the feeling like?
When we’re talking about emotions, it’s important to get past the thought. When someone says “I feel you are mistreating me,” that’s not an emotion. That’s a judgment. It’s coming from the mind, and it’s disembodied. Get past the rationalizations and judgments to the actual feeling. It’ll be something like: sadness, joy, anger, fear, warmth, compassion, empathy, tension, resistance, emptiness. Those are actual feelings, and will have an association in some part of your body. Begin noticing when they come up and how those feelings manifest in your body.
Element Three: Awareness
Awareness is about bringing your full attention to your being, the moment you’re in and the world you’re experiencing in that moment. When you are fully aware, there is no place for judgment, either of yourself or others. You’re accepting everything as it is, and bringing your whole self into every moment.
Awareness includes awareness of the world around you and your space in the world. Realize that your “space” extends beyond your body. Practice “expanding and contracting” your spatial presence with this thirty-second exercise:
From a place of grounding, imagine your awareness expanding like ripples in a pond around you. Imagine the space coming into your awareness in your domain. Any people in this domain are your guests, and you are the host of the party. Any things in this space are a part of your domain. Feel into this space and expand it as far as you can. At the farthest point, breathe in this presence, embody it for about twenty seconds.
From this place, begin contracting your presence, feel yourself withdraw. Pull your awareness in until it is just outside your skin. Feel this non-presence for a few seconds, then allow it to expand, slowly and naturally, to its comfortable space.
You’ll find, over time, that your “natural space” will expand. As you play with presence, you’ll find you naturally gravitate toward presence. The effort of “pushing out” and “pulling in” conditions your mind to feel what presence is. Your mind likes presence, and will direct your way of being naturally toward presence.
This practice of awareness is critical to cultivating presence. Here’s one you can do throughout your day:
Practice Noticing When You’re not Present
Throughout your day, notice the times when you’re not being present.
Notice when you’re saying things you don’t mean, especially the little things you’re saying in your conversations that you’re saying to “fill space.”
Notice when your behaviors are on “auto pilot” and you’re just doing what you always do instead of what you really want to do. Become aware of the ways you’ve been allowing yourself to be driven by habit, instead of conscious choice.
Notice when you “check out” to avoid experiencing something. When do you drift into daydream and fantasy? When do you go “into your head” and start thinking of things, instead of experiencing your reality? When do you withdraw into your own world?
Notice the things you are doing that are drawing you away from your experience. This could include having the TV or radio on to “fill space” when you aren’t even watching or listening, pointless Internet surfing, or any other activity you’re “just doing” without any real awareness, and often without any real enjoyment.
Notice when you’re distracting yourself from your experience through nervous habits or gestures, or allowing thoughts to interrupt you. Are you in the moment and then suddenly get this urge to check your phone or your email when you really don’t need to?
As you notice the ways you are not being present, give yourself credit for your awareness. The path to presence is through awareness of not being present. So don’t beat yourself up and think “Damn, I’m not being present!” Just note what it feels like to not be present and how your mind got you out of presence, and remember it’s a practice.
Throughout your day, ask yourself “How am I feeling now? How am I breathing now? How much space am I holding now? Where is my attention now?” Keeping awareness on your being, especially when you’re not being present, is the key to cultivating presence. As you train your mind to notice presence and non-presence, your mind will do the work of moving you to presence.
Element Four: Wholeness and Fulfillment
Presence requires wholeness and fulfillment. A mind filled with self-doubt will have difficulty finding presence. Practice affirming daily that you love and accept yourself as you are. Affirm daily that you are awesome the way you are and things are perfect the way they are. In your meditations, imagine yourself being filled with wholeness, peace and fulfillment.
And the good news is you don’t need anyone or anything, you were born with everything you need to be fulfilled. It may take you a while to “remember” what it’s like, but you can teach yourself.
It’s possible to find complete fulfillment while sitting in a dark, empty cave. People do. I personally haven’t, and don’t have much desire to. I have found a lot of fulfillment just “doing nothing” at home, or just sitting under a tree.
So give yourself wholeness and fulfillment now. Picture a time when you felt fully content. If you have to, imagine yourself in a place of complete contentment. And imagine giving yourself that feeling until you begin feeling it. Keep reminding yourself this is your birthright, you don’t have to EARN it, just take it, take every bit you can handle, and take it now.
Gaining Awareness of Your Bad Habits and Other Resistance
Throughout your day, bring attention to your bad habits and quirks.
Physical – Holding tension, especially in your face, distracting movements or pace of movements
Conversational – Interrupting people, saying what you don’t mean, words like “um” and “ah,” or “diminishing” what you mean to say with words like “kind of” or “maybe”
Emotional – inability to hold eye contact, self-sabotaging thoughts, self-doubt, needy/ clingy behaviors.
Notice how these are all resistance to feeling your true self. Bring awareness to this resistance and ask yourself what you are feeling in that moment that’s bringing up this resistance.
Welcome more of that feeling you’ve been unconsciously resisting.
There is SO much more to talk about with presence, but it requires deep, fully-integrated practice. What I’ve given you may seem like a lot, but it is only the surface. When you are ready for the “Jedi-level” work, order “The Phone Book,” and get ready to have your world rocked.
Chapter Four: Inquiry
Inquiry is a process of self-reflection, of gently and lovingly digging deeper to find the source of things that appear “bad” or “wrong.” Inquiry isn’t about judging yourself, thinking you’re a failure, or convincing yourself something about you is wrong. It is about objectively and courageously exploring and discovering more and more about yourself. It is about finding those places where you haven’t been fully loving yourself, to bring love, not blame, to those places.
Inquiry leads to discovery, release, acceptance and wholeness. There is no shame or judgment here, because there is nothing to judge. This is you. This is about you living a life in alignment with your true self. There’s no “good” or “bad.” There’s “in alignment” and “out of alignment.” Things in your life that are “in alignment” feel solid and empowering. They feel like a natural and positive part of you, who you are, and who you want to be.
Beginning the Inquiry
I want you to take out three pieces of paper. On the first one, I want you to write down all the things you dislike about how you are – habits, perceived shortcomings, your living situation, everything about you and your life that you dislike. On the second page, write down all the things you think other people don’t like about you. They can be things you like about yourself, or things you don’t like about yourself, but they’re things you think others dislike about you. On the third page, write down all the things you dislike in other people, every little (or not so little) pet peeve you can think of.
If you’re like me when I started this journey, those three lists are going to be quite long. Most of us start off this journey by handicapping ourselves pretty good. We’re very good at being very harsh toward ourselves and we also do a good job of projecting that lack of self-love onto others, who we believe also dislike us, and whom we in turn dislike (or proactively dislike, to avoid the pain of having our negative beliefs about ourselves confirmed).
For that third list, I want you to go through it objectively and cross out the “truly evil acts” you might have included. I believe it’s natural, healthy and perfectly evolved to have a strong, committed intolerance to true manifestations of evil. In fact, I encourage you to do your part, in your way, to keep that evil out of your world as you keep it out of your heart. What you’ll find, however, is even after culling out “truly evil acts,” you’re left with a very long list of things people are doing in this world that you don’t like that are neither good nor bad, just things people are doing that annoy you.
And guess what? All three of these lists represent things you dislike about yourself. Either you are doing some of these things, and don’t like that you’re doing them, or you’re ashamed of things you like to do, or you’re afraid you might do some things, and you’re keeping yourself in line through the judgment of yourself and others.
Let’s create an example, so you can see where I’m going with this. Let’s say you don’t like to eat strawberry ice cream. Fine, no problem so far. But let’s say, for whatever reason, it really bothers you when you see someone eating strawberry ice cream. And before you laugh at my example, I’ll tell you there are people who get REALLY upset with others for eating dairy and/or refined sugar products. Hey, I’m all for healthy living and encouraging positive change, but if you’re feeling angry at someone eating strawberry ice cream, EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT REALLY COMPELLING REASONS TO BE ANGRY… that’s an opportunity for an inquiry.
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