Sparkle Schoolhouse

How to Be Super: Step Two — Believe It

Welcome back, O Superheroes of the World!

This tutorial continues with what I think is the bravest part of the process - actually believing in what you are doing. Your imagination has been set loose and the best way to stop the process is to criticize it and accuse it of being “made up.” That action is not only a downer, but it is also not true. Dismissing things as "made up" is basically dismissing everything. The world is constructed out of stories, so saying something is "made up" merely confirms that it is just as real as taxes and baby showers and lawn mowers and Valentine's Day. All made up. So, with that notion out of the way – let's continue…

After sitting and softening on a park bench in your downtown, something will catch your eye. It will grab you like a fruit bat. It may be something familiar to you. It may be something strange. It may be something incredible that happens – and it may be something impossible. Regardless, you now have the option of believing that it is real and relevant, or dismissing it. In order to fully enter the paradigm of the prime power protocol – in order to authentically engage in the process of acquiring (or remembering) special powers and using them to help those around you – you must “believe it.” It must be real to you.

This is different from faith, where one knows something to be true without any sensory evidence. “Believing it,” within the context of the Prime Power Protocol, is to know something is true with sensory evidence. You do see something. You do hear something. You can feel something and you can smell something. The work is to keep yourself from dismissing what you experienced as a hallucination or folly. When a person sees or hears something that doesn’t fit in his concept of reality, he tends to rationalize it out of existence. When someone sees a bird fly out of a cake, she will often decide that the bird was on the ground and flew up next to the cake – thus making it seem like it flew out of the cake. She will then forget the event and focus on something less challenging to her reality. But her rationalization may not correct. She is actually denying a possible reality that is more in keeping with our imagination. When we engage our imagination, the bird did fly out of the cake. But if you think this possibility away, you deny yourself something wonderful — and super.

First Step: Find the Affection

It is the mind that chases possibilities away. It is our rationalizations that shut the door on anything that challenges our small boundaries of what is possible. Thoughts often trump authentic feelings and reduce them to being the kind of feelings that support only more thinking. Anxiety, guilt, and frustration foster cyclical thinking – the same thing over and over and over. Thinking these same thoughts keeps the joy out, keeps the warmth our, keeps out the possibility. We need to think — this is obvious. We regularly need our thoughts to help us live the life we live. We need to make lunch. We need to drive to Des Moines. We need to remember the Italian word for bathroom. But our heads are not the best place to judge what is real or what is possible.

So regard the event – the thing you saw or heard or felt or smelled – with an affectionate heart rather than a critical mind. The moment you find your mind whirl into action and start picking things apart, stop yourself — and then let attention drop to your heart. Search your true feelings about what you saw and take inventory. There will likely be some sense of affection, like you would have for a puppy or for Christmas or a visit to see someone you love. Let the affection build and warm your heart. Let yourself feel a deep connection with the event and actually begin to bathe the event in your affection. If you witnessed an old man whisper to a statue and then you saw the statue move, don’t try to make sense of it. Instead, find the affection or even love for the man and his statue. Love the universe that holds such possibility. Love the impossible reality that surrounds you. Say to yourself – I am so glad I saw that.

Now – Make It Real.

This is the point where you can employ your mind. Now you can let the mind whir because there is nothing to refute anymore. Your heart has solidified the truth, so now you can get the mind on board and make sense of it. The mind is both a construction and demolition expert. For this step, it is important to employ the constructive impulse. When you begin to rationalize, try to make connections and make something bigger. Treat it like tinker toys and add on more sticks and hubs. Look again at the man and his statue. Your mind may make the connection that this man may have a special power: the power to animate stone. Or the man may know that the statue is actually a person who is disguised as a statue. Or the man himself may be a statue from somewhere that has come to life seeking this particular statue. Or perhaps he is only asking the statue a question and the trust that lives in the man that the statue would respond was enough impulse for the statue to follow through and come to life. All of these are possible options, but your amplified affection for one unique explanation will make it the correct one. You will feel a “rightness” for one of the reasons and you will feel yourself relax. Then the event will become real and there will be a viable explanation as to why it is real.

Nice work everyone. Now the rubber meets the road. We move on to step three: Do Something Brave.

• Read How to be Super: Step Three — Do Something Brave HERE.

• Read How to Be Super: Step One — Keep your Eyes Open HERE.

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