My students, like popcorn, are starting to pop at the same time. It is hard to say what made each pop… especially if your vocabulary (distinction) is not keeping up with the richness of the invisible reality.

What do I mean?

I have been intrigued with the idea of helping people to be intrinsically motivated, ever since I read and re-read Deci’s book: Why we do what we do.

Without words one can be the best at something, but will never be able to teach it…

Without words one can achieve something, like a level of vibration, a level of growth, but if the process wasn’t distinguished, it will probably disappear without a chance of ever coming back.

I have one talent that I am proud of, that makes me a maven of sorts, and that is distinguishing. And obviously that means that I am somewhere in the middle of the art… not at the bottom, not at the top, so I can do more and more of what I like, what I am good at, and never run out of fun.

Distinguishing starts with noticing a missing. Noticing that there is a jump… a discontinuity where there should be none of that. In reality there are distinct points, like where the water turns into ice, or where the water turns into vapor (gas), but even those are not as jumpy…

Now, noticing a missing is the starting point. And the willingness to dig for it, without knowing what it is you are looking for… The faith that you’ll know when you see it.

In some way it is wordless… like the color in the color exercise… except you only know where it’s missing, you only know what gap it will, hopefully, fill in.

The “Why we do what we do” isn’t a good book, but it was a start. I needed to get the missing distinctions, because most of my students were extrinsically motivated, and were, therefore, seriously under-achieving in life, not mentioning the fact that they were not fulfilled by their activities, or even their results.

Something was missing, and by god I’ll find it for them, so they can be happy, joyful, self-loving like me.

One of my tools, the Juice Exercise, had great promise… but it only shows what activity has the greatest promise, but unfortunately it doesn’t produce the result, fulfillment, without some thing or some things… but what?

So I was on a quest to find what those things are… and it seems that we have found some stuff… potent stuff.

The hunt began with the Deci book, had a huge turning point with the video where the dude supposedly learned to play the ukulele in 20 days, and performed 20 or so songs with the four chords he learned in a TED talk. Impressive, seductive, and it gave me an idea:

I created a 20-day skill learning challenge…

…and started to research a way to teach learning… My students were all weak at that… And it lead me to the Learning how to learn Coursera course.

That course had distinctions I had no idea about… focused mode, diffuse mode, process mode, project mode… wowzie…

These were all obvious to me, and what is obvious in unconscious competence cannot be taught… it is unconscious. I never had to learn it… But my students did.

So I referred my students to that course. In fact, I made it mandatory for my students in the Playground to do that course… and to participate in the Learning challenge.

Some did, others didn’t… I haven’t had the energy to follow up, to MAKE THEM want to do it.

The results are extraordinarily telling. The ones that did what I asked for: they are moving up both on the vibrational scale and on the ability to see the distinctions of the Playground course…

Depending on the dedication they put to the coursera course and the skill learning… more energy on the skill learning… better results in life and in the Playground.

What the heck is the reason? what is correlation here and what is causation? ((Here is another question that I am now thinking to ask: What measure in my Starting Point Measurement shows clearest that someone is going to pop, will be willing to pop? After writing this whole article, and pondering a few more hours even before i push the “publish” button, I have come to the conclusion that it is the “inspirable/inspired” measure.

When you are not inspirable, your whole life is about you, and nothing else. Your “about-me” score is sky high, and you are limping through life. Other common characteristics: you have a tendency to try to prove your superiority, which exists only in your imagination.

You also, probably, have a sky high desire number. Inspiration is the last thing on your mind.))

This is where scientists and economists are very shaky… wobbly… and more often than not mistaken… around correlation or causation.

So more data is needed… but “when you are committed, providence moves too… ((Full quote:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!”~ William Hutchison Murray)) so one of the students had an opportunity to “play” with adults… to sing with a group of professional musicians, with no stakes… for fun. And play with his voice, take risks, and enjoy the process. And the result was a shift, like water turning into vapor. A 100 point jump in vibration, and a sudden “finding one’s self” experience: “I am good for something… I am not totally worthless” experience.

Now, I hadn’t known that this “I am worthless” experience is there… he had never articulated it. But, as I learned from him, who went through this experience with his eyes open, when you are in project mode, i.e. getting something done is the goal, instead of doing it, you always feel, 99% of the time, that you are worthless, that you are not there, that you are not enough… because the only moment that counts, in project mode, is the finished mode and the prize that comes with it.

Wretched…

Imagine reading a novel in that mode… Children who, on a road trip ask every minute, Are we there yet? are in project mode. I never asked it, I still don’t.

I consider every minute of every day my life… in project mode you consider your life only the peak experiences… the rest: not your life, you are on the way to get to your life. Get to wherever you should be getting, and everything else shows up as a “not there yet” and an obstacle, the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Looking at the learning challenges people took on, the more process oriented the project was, and the more they were willing to surrender to the process, the higher their vibration grew.

These projects didn’t work in a vacuum… all these students were in partner calls: their results depended, a lot, on the partner’s attitude regarding their project and how willing they were share it, how much they made it part of their lives.

OK, if by now you are lost… let me summarize what we have seen so far:

Switching from project mode to process mode, i.e. put all power in all action, right now, without a concern to the end result, is a huge part of, if not all of the secret of going from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation… the kind of life where you can be joyful, engaged, and fulfilled. The results come on their own accord, you can take your eyes off the prize, breathe, relax, and do what you do… Did you start feeling that pain in your shoulders? That was the tension project mode creates. Blocking creativity, blocking your access to the divine, blocking Life.

Students that haven’t distinguished their mode, project or process, haven’t been able to change their vibration, their results, their life experience, even if they are in the Playground, and seemingly do the assignments.

The other distinction that can be found with the students that turned the corner is also from the Learning the learn course: focused or diffuse brain state…

Now, I am not going to argue with their terminology… I am going to, instead, add what my empath sees: the difference between those two is in fact in the eyes… wide cone of vision or narrow cone of vision. Including or excluding.

You cannot be present if and when you have a narrow cone of vision. If you tried right now focusing narrowly on what you are reading, including the letters… you’ll be, as long as your cone of vision is narrow, taken out of the present moment… and if you wanted, for example, check if your cone of vision is narrow or not, you would have to take your focus off the reading…

While, if you manage to read with a wide cone of vision, you are not “stolen away” from the present moment: you can see the weather, you can feel your feelings, you can maybe even ponder, somewhat, what you are reading… without having to move your focus.

Most people resist being taken out of life… it is a natural resistance: if you are not present, you can get killed… not mentioning the fact that most of the things we do, are boring if you do them with a narrow cone of vision… while the few that aren’t boring are highly addictive, like computer games.

If anything shows up for you, in your experience, as boring, think widening your cone of vision… It is a mechanical movement. The wider your cone of vision the more diffuse brain state you are in: the only brain state where you can connect the dots, see previously undiscovered connections, answers pop up, it is joyful.

It is much like the difference between driving on the highways, fixated on the road, while all kinds of beautiful, interesting things are happening around the road. I remember when I first discovered the trees and the sky back in 1987… They were always there, but I never saw them. I was fixated narrowly on whatever… often on my own misery, or what I didn’t have, what was wrong with me or the world…

One of the ways interrogators know that the subject is making up stories, lying, is they look to the left (if I remember it correctly) and look right when they want to remember facts. But if they had a wide cone of vision, they would be able to hide the source of the answer… Not that you will be interrogated any time soon… I hope.

So this is where we are right now.

One more thing, what triggered this article, is the word “autonomy”… which most people don’t know exactly what it really is, and I was one of those people, just a few hours ago. ((autonomy:
1. the right or condition of self-government.
freedom from external control or influence; independence.
synonyms: self-government, independence, self-rule, home rule, sovereignty, self-determination, freedom, autarchy; More
self-sufficiency, individualism

2. (in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires.))

But while I am writing this article, making breakfast, doing other things as well… I realized that when it is greed, have-to, ego-need is directing you, you do not experience autonomy: you are not your own master… something outside of the Self is telling you what to do by setting out a path you can’t see, you don’t trust… and yet.

I have had clients fail for this very reason. Their actions didn’t come from the inside… they either obeyed me, or they obeyed their greed/ego needs… and at some point they had to quit.

Was it my fault? Muscle test says no… I have a hunch that that is only partially so. There must be some way to calm down the raging ego, so the gentle tug of the Self can be felt…

I don’t know how to do that yet. Certain soul corrections, certain ethnicities have more forceful egos than others. The more an ethnicity considers THEMSELVES as inferior, the stronger the ego pulls. It’s not personal… I know, it is confusing.

Did anybody say life is going to be simple?

PS: I just unwittingly tested this autonomy issue: I am sitting at my computer doing whatever I am doing. And then I want to get a glass of water… but I am tethered to the electrical stuff I am using to heal myself (vitafon)… I instantly experience thwarted intention… I am not free to do what I want to do… my autonomy has been attacked.

It takes me thinking this through to calm myself down, and not go towards “my life isn’t working” direction… lol. It takes next to nothing to go that way. But this time I am aware, I am conscious, and I am watching. So as soon as I finish this paragraph, I’ll disconnect the darn Vitafon, promise my self to get back to it, and will go get some water, or whatever will give me back to an experience of autonomy.

Autonomy is very important… Respect it, honor it, like a treasure. Oh… and grant it to others… be the one in a million.

It’s not natural for a human to live well under the thumb, under the domination of another, but some soul correction can’t live there at all… If that is you, start moving yourself out from that predicament.

More in the Dank Pink TED talk based animated video: really good

Read the original article: The secret of happy producers… NOT what time they get up in the morning, or how many books they read…