For those of us who would suggest that our planet Earth is not a sacred place, I ask the following question: How do you cook a frog?

Answer: Very slowly. Because, if you throw a frog into boiling water, the frog's reflexes will automatically cause him to jump out of that steaming bath. However, if you place a frog into cold water and then turn up the heat, the frog will swim around happily until it's too late. Walla…cooked frog.

Humans are like this! We'll run screaming from a smoke filled room; yet over the years many will fill their lungs with enough cigarette smoke to kill a horse. Like the frog, we stay in the simmering pot, truly believing we can get out any time we want to.

One of my close friends was an alcoholic. She told me time and time again that she could stop drinking any time she wanted. She believed she was special and immortal. She believed that her mind could easily overcome her body. She used to proudly wave a banner that stated, "As a man thinketh, so is he." She died in the hospital; it was ugly. Like the frog, no matter how lofty her thoughts and ideals, she didn't recognize when the water began to boil.

Our social conditioning begins with our first breath of air. We have needs. However, those needs often conflict with the needs of those around us. We are told things like, good boys and girls don't scream at the top of their lungs. Tantrums are unacceptable. It's not okay to kill your bother or sister. Etc., etc. Then, when we finally get to public education, our aliveness is further squelched in the name of socialization. Good little boys and girls keep their mouths shut, study hard and get good grades, memorizing all the things of the past…true creativity is unacceptable and often times punished. Oh, yeah, lets not mention those awful teens when we were taught to keep our sexual aliveness subdued. Finally, by the time we're adults, what remains is only part human. Social ego has had its way with us. And, while it's extremely important for each of us to get along and be a productive member of society, our uniqueness, our creativity and aliveness has been decommissioned and stuffed into a large bulging bag that we drag behind us. This bag is called our shadow or our dark-side and we keep it hidden, especially from ourselves. Ultimately, we become like Mr. Hyde, hoping and praying that the suppressed self, the Dr. Jekyll part of our personality, never rears his ugly head.

The problem is not with our socialization, however, the problem is what happens to our awareness. Over the years of growing up, our social conditioning makes it necessary to contract and be more passive and subdued. For our survival and in order to be socially acceptable, we learn to both infocus and stifle our natural aliveness and creativity.

Infocussing is about looking only inward during problem solving, doing things the same old way as we’ve always done them, believing we have all the answers, tuning out the world. As a result, infocussing is about being mentally asleep and in denial, a contractive form of awareness. Infocussing is what the frog does when it swims around in gradually heating water.

However, if the frog were to open its mind, look around and outfocus, the frog could see what else is going on and, hopefully, jump out of the pot that threatens its life. Outfocussing is about looking outside ones little worldview and seeing things beyond our limited self. It's an expansive awareness. The result of outfocussing is wakefulness and the ability to be creative and present, "be-here-now," in the moment.

Doubt my words? Next time you're in traffic, look around you. The 99.9% of drivers are totally infocussed; you can see it in their glassed over eyes and expressions. Most drivers don’t look around at the world they’re passing through. As a result, when a critical hazard is encountered, the most likely outcome is a traffic accident. We all know this, yet most of us remain asleep and in our infocussed state.

Like the frog boiling its life away, most of us don't have the awareness that we're asleep in an infocussed state. Further, if something should attempt to wake us up, we respond with anger, fear, frustration and a myriad of emotions and denial, mind traps that keep us out of the present. This fact alone is a signpost telling us that something is drastically wrong.

Yet we all have the capacity for change. For example, next time you have an argument with your significant other, rather than infocus, try to outfocus. This means opening your psyche to the problem at hand, being present in your life, and then trying something different. What is your normal response to an argument? Don't go there. Do something entirely different and unexpected. In that little space of choice, one begins to awaken and witness their own personal power and creativity.

Here we are with a planet shouting at us, telling us that humans are an endangered species. Global warming, acid rain, dwindling resources, the water is starting to boil. And, like my alcoholic friend, as a culture, we truly believe that we can change this course of action anytime we so choose. We'll think the right thoughts, pray to the right God...all the while the water is getting hotter and hotter. The fact remains, the frog is loosing consciousness and going further to sleep, becoming more infocussed.

Today, most humans do not see our world as a sacred place. Instead, our culture teaches us to use our planet to our own selfish ends as if it will be here "for us" forever. Our cultural intent is to accumulate wealth and to that end we will do what ever it takes, destroy our planet, destroy the animals, destroy each other. We know this absolutely, because as a culture we believe that, at the end of the day, the person with the most money wins. What we dare not admit, wealth has no existence except in our own mind. Wealth is an illusion, as such, our intent is fearfully misdirected.

So, what is your intent? Is it to wake up or is it to remain asleep? Intention doesn't cut it. Intention might sound good, yet intention does not necessarily move us to action nor does it create an outcome. “Intent,” however, moves far beyond intention. “Intent” is a mother lion protecting her young. In her love, she will do what ever is necessary for their survival…even forfeit her life.

The only hope for any of us is to wakeup, outfocus, see what's really happening to us, then, to be creative in finding solutions. Because, if we continue to do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always gotten!

The pot’s boiling. Are you a cooking frog?

This newsletter is dedicated to those “Voices Crying in the Wilderness.” Because, it is only when we help each other that we all become winners!

For more, please visit:
http://www.ourvisionquest.com

Namasté, John…

Namasté is a Sanskrit word meaning:
I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light, and of peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.