To help people. I have a business that helps people thrive under stress and discover who they are. Martial arts, Yoga, meditation, and healing arts, as well as emotional mapping of the body. When Covid hit I was non-essential, thus I volunteered to help people in crisis. My life was overwhelmed with people in crisis. Word spread and 10-15 hours a day I was with a person that needed help. Depression, anxiety, suicide, illness, feeling trapped, guilt, or just a sore shoulder. I even had to help save us all from the bad unoriginal poems that y'all were writing. Get creative, find your damn voice! I used these exercises note for note each time. I became so overwhelmed with the flood of people, I ended up selling my car, building out a 4x4 and leaving into the woods for a month because no boundary could keep them away. Even therapists were knocking at my door. "Please" is all they would say. So I wrote down the exercises and would just email them. My good buddy/designer who makes a lot of Ted Talks for folks, said, "This needs to be a book." 

I agree. The first week I got the book, it saved 3 lives and has made a lot of people engage with their minds differently. I'm going back out into the woods. 

This is the practice of looking at how you think and expanding it. We can view the world through many lenses. What is yours, and can you see things from other points of view? I call it the journey, because transformation is a process, just as "knowing yourself" is often mistaken as a stopping place. To know yourself, is to point yourself in a direction, and to be aware that you are always allowed to grow. 

These exercises are to break us out of our routines. Many of us are on autopilot, or have a way that we do things. Some of the best work towards my growth has been using other people's tools to create and tune in. For example: I was working with a group of detectives and did the Rant & Rave work with them. It transformed a group of closed off people into a room full of open and empathetic humans within 5 minutes. 

The first sign we are in a state of fixation or routine is thinking we aren't in one, or that routine is good for us, which is justifying it. 

Anytime you show up for yourself and tune in and practice. You are helping yourself, but I call this Self Discovery. I am not a fan of the weekend workshop full of inspirational quotes and role playing games just trying to get you to the "AHA" moment or as Liu Ming would say, "Revalation Porn." That is why I stopped traveling and doing workshops all around the world and opened a place for people to come and connect.  Show up, keep it simple, and discover. It means more when you discover the wisdom that's already in you.