What did you do as a child that required no effort to do?
Perhaps a game you played for hours and hours.
Most mornings I woke up early, closed my door so as not to disturb my three sisters down the hall, and I would tip this huge white plastic box upside down and a myriad, yes a myriad of Lego pieces would spill over the floor like a saggy Egyptian Pyramid.
I could play Lego for hours and never get bored.
During the day, I would play in the sandpit in the backyard. Again, for hours and hour.
What was it for you?
Write that down.
Think about when you were around the age of 11.
What memory stands out as a moment of true awe about something you saw.
For me, it was when a musician came to my elementary school and showed my class a keyboard synthesiser.
It made voices, sound FXs and I even got to have a turn.
I distinctly recall making some pressings on a single key in front of the whole class.
The keyboard had been set to play quite a phat little square tooth sound actually.
The musician told me to press it in time with an in-built drum beat, also causing me to lose my shit too.
The way an 11 year old does.
Eyes popping, month dropping.
That was the day I fell in love with sythns, drum loop machines and making far out sounds.
It was a true moment of awe for me.
Remember one for yourself yet?
That feeling of awe has motivated me through my whole life.
It inspired me to give over seven years of beatboxing and vocal sound FXs workshops and performances to children in schools, family fairs and public new years eve shows.
It’s been a lot of fun.
Such a long time, and never tiring of the endeavour that causes me to feel awe.
Awe as in awesome.
So many people, especially teenagers and children say awesome.
Us adults are known to say it too.
The thing that brings you awe is a signal that you’re close to the source of your infinite motivational power.
Now say ‘infinite motivational power’ as if shouted out into a great canyon.
Now do the whispering version and make it seem to go on forever.
I’ve been reading, Pathways to Bliss by Joseph Campbell.
Simply brilliant.
I skipped to the chapter on Personal Myth and, while riding to the Chamber of Commerce in Beverly Hills in an uber yesterday, this book said it in a way that I had been looking for.
‘You might ask yourself this question: if I was confronted with a situation of total disaster, if everything I loved and thought I lived for were devastated, what would I live for?’ p.88
‘What would lead me to know that I could go on living and not crack up?’
He says, put aside Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Wants and think outside of that model.
Imagine some new part to the hierarchy, perhaps a simple circle around the triangle?
Here’s the first one I got when google imagin’ it?
orobourous
Is it possible that you have a need and a want outside of food, air, water, shelter, friends, sex, recreation and transcendental meditation?
Something that is capable of motivating you to action at anytime, not just if you were faced with total disaster?
At 35 years of age, Carl Jung realised that his work had been primarily focused on people with psychosis, however he had never thought to apply his understanding of the unconscious mind for well-balanced adults too.
Imagine knowing what it was for you.
The thing that gave you awe.
What would and could you do differently?
It may be like the movie Limitless, with those motivational drugs the main character starting taking?
I have first-hand experience of it, the inner awe not the limitless bit, and I believe everyone can too, so how do you do it?
‘How do we find that thing that truly moves us?’ p.92
Carl Jung started seeking for his myth, the story and the symbol that motivated him from a deep level.
Apparently we all have some picture, a symbol and it’s story in our unconscious mind that drives us to do incredible things, whether we are aware of it or not, it’s in there pulling a lot of the strings.
If you want to tap into this awesome power, do as Carl Jung did and think about what you did as a child and adapt it to your adult life.
For example, Jung recalls liking to play with rocks, so he started building a house.
Then your dreams at night will start up again, so draw an image from your dream, and write a couple of things about it.
Dreams are a result of activating the imagination during the day.
The thing you did as a child, activated your imagination.
Remember those dreams you had as a child?
Vivid some of them.
As a side, around 12 years old, I had hallucinatory fever dreams.
Freaked the family out.
It freaked me out at the time too.
These dreams would begin in a half awake, half sleep feeling.
My body would feel light and heavy, big and small at the same time.
I recall feeling as if my body was pressed up against the walls of my room.
Then the pictures came.
To be continued…
Samuel Osborne is an Australian Professional Speaker living in the San Fernando Valley, California. He speaks about motivating people to do amazing things. He speaks to service clubs, industry associations, corporations and schools. http://samuelosborne.com.au
The wound hides the wisdom / blog 