CENTER POINT
THE CENTER FOR SELF-CHANGE NEWSLETTER

Vol. 3, No. 3 - March, 2009

Something New to Think About                         
                
"Once people get mixed up in acquired consciousness, the false comes
in and the real departs; the mind is seduced by things, the nature is
deranged and life is destabilized. No obstruction is more of a hin-
drance than this, no trouble is more of a problem than this."

Liu I-ming *

STEP INTO CHANGE ONE DANCE AT A TIME

J. Kingston Cowart
"The Change Maker"

Gilles Marini is a new contestant on the upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars. In a recent television interview he said that the only way to win the championship is to concentrate on one dance at a time.

Each dance is connected to the next and all the dances taken together are connected to the championship which the contestants hope will change their lives.

Today scientists and philosophers, often at odds about such things in the past, generally agree that everything in existence is similarly connected in one way or another.

That law of connectivity is the reason why attending to the true reality of the present moment, with all its perils and potentials, enables us to see—and even to choose—the future more clearly. Once you understand where you are now, you can take the best next step into change—and then the next, and the next, again and again until you find yourself in a completely different situation than before.

To do so requires three important things:

• a focused attitude of selective attention to the present reality;

• a deliberate analysis of the various directions in which things might develop;

• an unsentimental decisiveness regarding the best choice for the next step.

But how to we do all that in a time of stress and uncertainty—not just for a TV show but in our own lives today?

Wyatt Earp had the right answer. He said that the secret of surviving a gunfight was to knowing how to "take your time in a hurry."

The contestants on Dancing with the Stars have only a few weeks, rehearsing six to eight hours a day, to learn the moves they must master well enough to win. They achieve that by not giving their minds over to anything else. They could worry. They could say, "I've never danced like this. How can I learn now?" Knowing that contestants have been injured trying to win, they could think "I might get hurt." They might feel guilty about taking so much time away from their loved ones.

But this is no time for them to be led around by acquired conditioning from the past.

By focusing instead on the dance steps themselves, they turn their minds from these concerns to the business at hand.

Getting fully involved in the dance leaves no room in the mind for anxious worry.

That is what practice of selective attention in the moment can do for us.

It is still important to set aside time to think about possibilities nonetheless. The contestants should not worry about getting injured, for instance, but they ought to realistically consider what to do if that happens. That is the practice of deliberation.

Should injury, elimination, a family emergency, or any other contingency arise, it would not be the end of the world. It would not even be the end of successful change. It would just mean a change of direction. In fact, many new directions would be possible—some of them based on the very fact that they were dancing on the show to begin with.

That's because all things really are connected and one thing always leads to another.

If we choose to apply those principles to our own lives today, in the midst of the current economic crisis, we quickly realize that Wyatt Earp was right.

In times like these you really do have to "take your time in a hurry." You must have good situational awareness—knowing for instance what steps to take to ensure that you do well right where you are; or whether your job is likely to be outsourced; or if you might be transferred to a different department or location with less pay; or whatever might confront you in the near term.

If you think there's trouble ahead then you might want to make your own move now to something that will be more secure later—without being held back by sentimental feelings about what you will be leaving behind. That is the practice of decisiveness.

You will want to keep faith with the job you have, still doing it as well as possible, while concentrating on looking for something else—and managing your expenses carefully.

That becomes your next dance. You still have some time to learn it.

What if you've already lost your job, your home, or your savings and retirement funds—or all of them?

Then the dance is different, but the principles are the same.

As long as you stay fully involved in the dance—and practice attention, deliberation, and decisiveness—you will win out one way or another in the end.

Each dance is different. Yet every dance is truly part of the whole dance of life—and everything is connected.

 What is most important is that we all ...

     Keep dancing longer than trouble can last ...

          Stepping into change one dance at a time.

* Liu I-ming [1737], The Taoist I Ching, trans. Thomas
Cleary, (Boston: Shambala, 1986), 1st. ed., 249.

J. Kingston Cowart

      

JOIN THE CENTER CIRCLE

It's easy. Every Wednesday
for a few minutes between
10:00 and Noon sit down and
turn inward - through prayer,
meditation, self-hypnosis or
any modality you choose -
and send out good thoughts
to everyone else in the circle.

I'll be there. How about you?

J. Kingston Cowart
619.561.9012
Post Office Box 19005
San Diego CA 92159
jkcowart@self-change.com

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