New best friends

My new best friends are snakes, being uncomfortable, letting go, dancing blindfolded, dreaming, questioning, paying attention rather than paying in pain, and all those magicians at Modern Magick in CA last week. First, can I say if you have not had a James Arthur Ray experience, what are you waiting for?

I have spent a life of working hard at something that drained me. With James I learned how to experience more in 5 days than I feel I have in a lifetime. Here are some highlights:

breathwork to tribal drumming and psychedelic lights flashing for over 2 hours
silence for 12 hours
5 Stations exercise (too complicated to go into here, but well worth the experience)
dancing to tribal drumming with a blindfold on for over an hour
drinking kava and chanting in Hawaiian for over two hours
and last but certainly not least -- sticking my hand in a tank full of snakes to get a key -- I thought that was so well worth it I did it twice

This was 5 days of such an altered state that by the last day sticking my hand in a tank of snakes was a piece of cake. Not everyone felt that way, but luckily I did. It made the fishing for the key just another trip with James. Holy cow, what will we do in June?

Coming back home has been a totally different experience however. I've started working a new business and it's been difficult wrapping my head around some of the concepts. It's done on the internet and being not so computer savvy has not helped much either. Sitting at my laptop today with someone explaining concepts to me was like listening to a radio station that only verbalized in Latin. I never took that language in school.

I wear my keys I got from the snake pit around my neck. I fondle them every now and then. It reminds me of how amazing my experience was. The keys are my warrior symbol. Every challenge James put before us, I did. Sometimes there was hesitation and apprehension, but I did them all anyway. What I learned was that the most painful part of any of it was the moments when I resisted doing any of his challenges, and as soon as I just let go of everything -- every thought, every fear, just everything, the pain disappeared and the challenge became fluid and soft. I danced blindfolded with the beat of the drum. I listened with my heart and felt my way through the crowd. I took my mind out of it and flowed. Once I discovered the fluidity, I let go of the rigidity. It was easy once I let go. Ah, but it was getting to the letting go part that was my biggest stumbling block. James put us through the paces so that we got to experience that fear over and over and over.

There is nothing -- no thing -- that's worth any drama. Nothing is worth expending that kind of energy on something as trivial as ANYTHING. When you know, I mean truly know beyond a shadow of doubt that you are always taken care of, that you have everything you need at all times, what exactly is there to be hyped up about? What?

When you know who you really are, then nothing is worth anything less than pure joy. Because you know what? It's all good. Always.