Let me start explaining this lesson with a story. One day, the ruler of a small jungle province cut his finger. His minister, who had a sickeningly positive attitude, said, that is wonderful, my Lord. Wonderful? The king scoffed, get out of my sight, and stay out. As he obediently walked out, again, the minister muttered, that is wonderful, my Lord. The king was furious and, to distract himself, decided to go for a hunt. Trailing a deer, all by himself, he suddenly found himself in the thick forest. A group of cannibals surrounded him and captured him for their human sacrifice. However, the chief cannibal quickly spotted the cut on the king's finger and stopped his men, and asked them to let him go since he was imperfect. Beating a hasty retreat, the king remembered the minister and how he had rightly said, that is wonderful, my Lord. He summoned the minister to his quarters and asked: I understand that, in a way, my cut finger saved my life. However, I had sacked you… how was that good for you? Well, the minister replied, had you not sacked me, and had I stayed, you would have taken me hunting with you… and not being injured, I would have been sacrificed!"
Can you recall how many times you've used the phrase 'blessing in disguise'? So often, that you cannot probably count, right? Well, that is the number of times you could have invoked gratitude. In fact, I would encourage you to remember G24 as your operating principle. The G in G24 stands for Gratitude. 2 is not the numeric two, but T-O to. And likewise, 4 would be F-O-R for, which I've compacted to G-2-4, to make it easy to burn into your habits.
What we learn from the minister's outlook is that one can always be grateful for whatever happens. And if one is to brood over what happens, one must direct one's thinking Things don't ever happen TO you. They happen FOR you. This is a fundamental universal truth, and the faster we get our heads around it, the better our lives become.
Now let me explain this. The whole deal of discovering that whatever happened, happened for the best, is something that comes to us in hindsight. That means that while the event occurred, we played the victim. It happened To us. Some days, months,, or even years later, the realization dawns that in reality, that was good For us.
Meanwhile, by playing the victim for all those years, we play out our lives at a lower potential, because we play with considerably lower vibrational consciousness. The victim seeks revenge. And that consumes him. It could directly be the cause of self-inflicted harm, like the king in our story, who sacked his able minister. If the story hadn't ended as soon as it did, in the future, the King could have lost his kingdom because he was deprived of his minister's counsel.
So, you see, we can cause self-damage, frame plots to avenge, intensify low vibrations… or we can live the 'forgive and forget' phrase by embracing the goodness in whatever could be the benefit 4 us.
Now you might be wondering, how do we start to do this? To answer that, I will borrow from nature. Do this banyan exercise with me.
Stand up firmly balanced on both feet and draw up both your hands to outline a well-formed banyan tree. Imagine you are a tree standing alone in an open field. Close your eyes and stand like a tree, feet flat, visualizing roots growing out of your soles and going into the center of the earth. Imagine the leaves on you swaying gently in the breeze. Imagine the wind slowly getting stronger, and shake your leaves by pleasantly jiggling every part of your body – muscles, skin, everything. These leaves are your emotions, incapacities, and beliefs, and you can let go of many, which will fly away. These are the ones that are not serving you, and you don't need to know which ones they are… simply release whatever feels like dropping off. With them, you will also clear out all contaminations that the circumstances have brought into your energy field. You will emerge feeling lighter, fresh, and new in about 30 seconds of doing so. And you will be ready to make the G24 switch - or any other habit switch. Smile and do it.
Another way to make our ego pliable and invoke switches easily is by lowering our benchmarks. What does this mean? It means we take nothing for granted. So we switch from zero to anything. You know, in the king's story, instead of feeling angst over the cut, could he have felt happy to have not lost the finger? That is lowering the benchmark. Why take having the finger for granted?
When I do my waking-up stretches and smile inside, I don't just perfunctorily greet these guys. I say thanks, buddy, for waking up with me. You see, it could have happened that my legs decided to go on sleeping. Or my back. I say thanks for being able to sit up. For being able to walk to the bathroom. For being able to move my hands to brush my teeth. For still having teeth!
When I choose the pause in PACE, I do the same thing. I imagine. What if I didn't have a tongue? My ego gets busy with that one. And the pause if effected.
Yet another method is to choose the carrot over the stick. This means we don't beat ourselves up, we treat ourselves instead. Do not select the low-vibration stick. Choose the high-vibration carrot.
Do this especially when you find yourself slipping. Like when you miss making your vibe notes. Or you forget to take your 2-hour break. Don't beat yourself up, for negligence. Welcome yourself back into the home of your awareness. At least now, you're aware!
You see, all habit formation happens at the subconscious level. Emotions, energies in motion, can have low vibes like guilt, blame, shame, anger… or they can have high vibes like openness, courage, trust, or acceptance. If we move, it is either away from fears or towards dreams. Otherwise, we stay inert.
Low vibes operate from fears. High vibes, from dreams. The G24 switch asks you to switch to the higher vibe. Since the fear of missing out, of being left out, is a big one for all of us, we usually join the herd even when that is not what we want. Whenever something like that happens, Say-do-be harmony is crushed. But G24 will help you identify the aspect that is For you, for your dreams. And yes, to shake off your emotions and switch to the higher vibe, you could do the banyan exercise in the privacy of a washroom.
Moving on, let's start exchanging energies not only with the universe, but with youngsters as well. Yes, you heard me right. Youngsters, is the energy source we'll expand on in the next lesson. Over to it!
