Ignite the Flame, Kill the Croc, Use a Sharp, Keen, Precision Instrument, Instead of the Blunt, Heavy, Ineffective Mallet… Got it? Good.

That is the work this week that blew up my mind – It exploded ma’ brain – Into two pieces. Actually, both pieces already existed separately, but the truth of that was welded into place. At this point in the week, I’ve received 4 hours of world-class coaching. I’ve given to clients 2.5. I want to share with you some notes. And make an Invitation…

See, one of the things that I’ve been doing for the last 2.5 years is immersing myself in a Master’s Course. Tons of Classes and Teachings and Real Life Science Experiments on myself. I’ve been a Lab Rat at New World View University, and I’m a Work in Progress…

Well, that’s just my name for it… The ‘New’ is new to me. The ‘Views’ are ideas and concepts of individuals from around the world, and right here at home, that I want to learn from. That I am guided and prompted and yearning to learn from. Over the last couple years I have downloaded TONS of new thought.

BUT, one reason that I’ve had little success sharing this dynamic and revolutionary work, is that I’ve chosen to operate the mechanics of my life, with a certain ‘tool’. That tool is the IMSTOOPIDTOOL, or the IMWORTHLESSTOOL or the IMNOTENOUGHTOOL… Oops.

It’s a Crutch. It’s a way to Love myself. It’s a way to keep me out of the game, cause in the game, we could get hurt. But, if we want to Win, as I have come to learn… We have to be in the game. Actually, it’s what we’re here for, to play. Whether we win or lose, we do want to play. And play full out. When we’re on the sidelines, or in the bleachers, we do things like comment and complain about what the ‘players’ of the world are doing, how they do it. We have time for this, because we’re not playing ourselves…

This awareness is good news. A LOT of us operate using this tool, this crutch. The IMNOTENOUGHTOOL, it’s blunt and dull, we can choose another one, we can fix this. Knowing there is another tool is the key… And if we fall into old habits… So What!

There is an IMEXCELLENTTOOL, and an IMENOUGHTOOL and a IMPERFECTLYSUITEDTOSERVESOMEOFTHEWORLDBETTERTHANANYONEELSE
TOOL. It is a razor sharp edge that can chop through life’s most difficult situations. But only if we show up holding it. We may have been guided as kids to pick the safe choice, to ‘Be Careful’ but that advice is crap, beyond childhood. Careful can’t cut. It can’t produce good work. We want to be Excellent and Effective and know our uniquely designed skills. With them, we can accomplish amazing things, for ourselves, for the human collective…

The two parts of our brain already are aware of all this. They are keenly aware. The IMSTOOPIDTOOL, that intends to protect us, is the weapon of choice of the crocodillian lizard portion of our brain. It is reactionary, built for survival, fight or flight. It is so dangerous, with it’s sharp teeth and armor plating. It seems too tough to beat sometimes. But watch cable TV, you’ll see the Gator Boyz. They know how to control it. They have the small consistently reproducible keys that beat the fear of the Croc. We can do that too.

Our Enlightened Mind, our Conscious Mind can win. When we feel that blunt force of the croc, we can notice and ignite the flame. The fire and electricity of our expansive conscious mind can wield the IMEXCELLENTTOOL with dexterity and patience. It calms us instantly, we can discern easily, time opens up and space shows us tons of possibilities instead of the tunnel vision of one. The beautiful thing is that, we only need to be aware of this, for it to start working…

We could even play this scenario out in real life, in our bodies. We could get together and put a ready-to-split log on the chopping block right in front of you. I could hand you a sledgehammer, the IMNOTENOUGHTOOL, and see how well it works on your problem. Then we could switch to a tool suited for the job. A keen edge on a purpose-built axe. With the IMEXCELLENT tool, YOU could make one swing and split that sucker clean… Then we would integrate this concept into your mind, body and maybe even soul, with lots of practice. God’s given us all the choice, both tools, for use as needed. Sometimes the Croc needs to keep us alive. This day in age though, we rarely face near death. Too often we let the Croc rule our day, when the Flame, our Light, our Inner Fire, is what will take us to a new future for ourselves and the world.

Here is the invitation. This coming Tuesday Night, the 29th at 5:30 CST, I am hosting a virtual workshop, a hangout, an online chance to discuss this stuff together. Only those that ‘get this’ will want to be a part of it. It begins a series, and possibly a new weekly event, that brings people together in discussion of Truths. I am a Coach. I will Lead this class. I will give us a starting point and a context, a space to play and I’ll hold it firm. This eddy and calm in the rushing river of our week, will be a chance for the flame to be fanned. I am going to openly invite my blog readers first. YOU are the ones I have in mind, to join me for 30 minutes of play. The structure will be divided among time to bring forth this week’s blog idea. Then I’ll present more detail and flesh out where the teachings came from. Then we’ll open up the chopping block, to your problems, to your needs, and we’ll watch together as your power splits it in half.

You can email me, with nothing more than your email address, to get the personal invitation. You will need a free Google account. The workshop is starting out as a free session to learn and to be coached. As we progress, we’ll want everyone involved to have invested something, to prove to themselves that they want progress and shifts in their life. Test me on this one: When I pay, I’m ready to play. When it’s free, I don’t even bring me…

So, Croc’s be warned. You’re about to be hauled off to the gator farm where you can be kept away from our true desires, things we want to accomplish. We are all a Work in Progess, (Especially Me!) let’s embrace our Excellence as the useful tool for that Work.

To the very few of you, who will embrace this offer, I’ll see you online, Tuesday at 5:30!

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

A high-speed head-on collision 4 years ago killed me. I’m just now starting to regain consciousness…

The wreck was horrific. Parts of me were scattered everywhere. After the impact, there was the twitching and kicking of nerves and brain impulses as life drained away.

Lying broken and severed, and gone, instead of moving on to another world, it was just a new one, right here, where I already was, but worse… Around a campfire, laughing dulled. At a job, feeling pointless. Travelling the West… a drone buzzing through thousands of miles alone. New venture, help people, lose friends, dive inward, family too. That’s death.

All the while, no one noticed I was gone, not even me. I called it life, sometimes believed it. Pushing without strength. Failing when already bottomed-out. Anger, frustration, loss, and deeply pulling out my own roots, cause that was all I had left…

Oh there were moments of smiles. On a black mountain in Oregon. Loud waves and ocean, Roxy playing; California. A new nephew’s bright eyes. A kind word at Sunday School. A pretty girl with long dark hair and kisses. Typing words on the screen, an outlet, release. Yet so small, a molehill next to the mountain.

The mountain was called, it’s all gone. Everything you believed and knew, it’s gone. You see irony now in the frantic action, the pumping of legs, of lives, exasperated on this hollow futile treadmill. The irony of truths. We’ve been deceived. The ‘good life’ the ‘American Dream’ is crap. The TV is wrong. We were raised wrong. What we think we want, doesn’t bring happiness. We get there, we get it, and still we yearn, desperately. Why?

Lucky Me.

What a blessing.

Dying before death comes. Ultimate and painful release.

Being given eyes to see. Ears to hear. It is a new world. It isn’t worse or better, but it’s closer to Real. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Even when very young. I wanted what was Real. I wanted to see behind the curtain. Something tugs at me, and tells me there’s more. I may laugh or go along, or pretend to care, but something is saying inside; ‘there’s more to life than this Stuff.’ There is a larger dynamic at work here. The treadmill isn’t reality. Who built this thing? Who keeps it in motion? Is it me? What is me? What the hell am I on it for? Why here? Why now? Why at all? And why does it hurt so damn bad, to lose my Megan?

So locked in the coroner’s refrigerated tomb, in the cold and darkness, I had a chance to process. I used the little energy I had left, to soak in new information. To allow new teachings. To open up to anything that was warm and brought me life. I used the time to just show up. Nothing more. New places, hard places. Feeling an outsider to all of life, yet showing up. Being was enough. Being brought more warmth than not, but no answers, no solutions, no return back to the olden times, those good times.

Through weeks and months, now years gone by, it’s been minute by tiny minute the energy increases. The actions and relationships, the learning and growing, the exploring and adventure brings cup after cup of living water. The increase is so minute in the moment, it feels nonexistent. Yet truth is, I can look back now, I just now have energy to turn and look back and notice…

Phase 1, of life after death, has produced some amazing fruit.

I have a basketful. When I look at it, I see proof. I need to make a special place, and put this basket where I can see and enjoy. These hard-earned fruits. Damned hard-earned.

Here’s what I Can do. As I return to the living. I now step forward and Own Me.

I am a man who thirsts for God. That means I’m dry and parched and broken ground. That doesn’t mean I’m vibrant and full and healthy. I need the true Spirit, to replenish me. I’m living into that now. I have let go. I have dropped and released so much of the stuff of my former life. In this simplified version I have room. I am not busy. I take lots and lots and lots of time for me. I don’t fill every minute. I am healing through it. A clear mind, a sober mind, can develop. It amazes me now. It can reach deeper, it can focus sharper, it can live braver, than when the answers lived at the bottom of a bottle. And for me, they did.

I have a partner now. Lindsay. My refuge, my light, my storms and my breeze. A thing I would have never believed I deserved, in a million years. It isn’t about deserving her now. It’s about what amazing things can we accomplish together. What a gift. A gift of Life. Before my death, relationships didn’t have a chance. I believed a load of crap. I saw it all wrong. I didn’t have the wisdom of what a wife was designed to be. I am now blessed.

I could go on and on, about details now. About moments that I’ve lived. About a gas station stop in Northern California, where hardly anyone goes. About a loving family of Church. About stepping beyond my comfort zone time after time. About kids and smiling and sillyness. About writing and sharing. About civic and ‘official’ stuff. About meeting mentors and heroes, spending time with them, marveling, learning. About having friends around the country, who I talk to, and who coach me, and see my talent and care that I share it with the world. About private moments with clients, when walls fall down, when they open up to their own truth. When they call and show me what they’ve done, their impossible.

My basket is overflowing. There is too much to list. Death has fertilized me. I have been given a chance to grow beyond. Thank You. All it took was everything. When I think of Megan, I understand a couple things. I will never ever know why. I will always hurt and die inside when I’m missing her. It will kill me forever. So then. I have a choice, to decide life. I know there is no reason, but just that she would want that. She would want my life to be lived. She would want to see how much I could squeeze out of the rest of mine, since hers is gone. She wouldn’t want my dinky fears to stop me. Or my old circles and ruts to keep me bound. Or that self-imposed limitations block me, when they are made of vapor.

She wants me to begin Phase 2.

An astonishing epoch. A new period marked by radical changes and new developments.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

That’s what I can do now. In this life after death. Thank You Megan. You gave me that, and I am forever grateful.

Your Loving Cousin.

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

Love You Girl… Always 🙂

Everytime I think of you, I always catch my breath
And I’m still standing here, and you’re miles away
And I’m wonderin’ why you left
And there’s a storm that’s raging through my frozen heart tonight

I hear your name in certain circles, and it always makes me smile
I spend my time thinkin’ about you, and it’s almost driving me wild
And there’s a heart that’s breaking down this long distance line tonight

I ain’t missing you at all since you’ve been gone away
I ain’t missing you, no matter what I might say

There’s a message in the wire, and I’m sending you this signal tonight
You don’t know how desperate I’ve become
And it looks like I’m losing this fight
In your world I have no meaning, though I’m trying hard to understand
And it’s my heart that’s breaking down this long distance line tonight

Chorus:
I ain’t missing you at all since you’ve been gone away
I ain’t missing you, no matter what my friends say

And there’s a message that I’m sending out, like a telegraph to your soul
And if I can’t bridge this distance, stop this heartbreak overload

(chorus)

I ain’t missing you, I ain’t missing you, I can lie to myself

And there’s a storm that’s raging through my frozen heart tonight

(chorus)

Ain’t missing you, I ain’t missing you
I ain’t missing you, I can lie to myself
Ain’t missing you, I ain’t missing you
I ain’t missing you, I ain’t missing you
I ain’t missing you, I ain’t missing you, ain’t missing you, oh no
No matter what my friends might say, I ain’t missing you…

It’s either a practiced response that is like a muscle getting stronger with exercise, attention and time, or it’s INSANITY.

That’s the only way I can describe my calm, peace of mind and even happiness lately.

And here’s a great follow-up question…

Does it matter?

Isn’t what we’re really wanting, is feeling real good, to own confidence and steadiness? Don’t we do almost all things in an attempt to inch closer to peace and harmony, delight and fun? We are force-fed like foie gras geese, all the ways we can buy happiness, and then all the reasons we ‘should’ be stressed out and worried about things beyond our control… Oops… Actually, I think I may have stumbled upon an insight here…

We aren’t foie gras geese. No one grabs us by the neck and forces this sickening information down our throats. No one bolts us to the floor in front of the evening news which is designed to inflame your most sensitive emotions night after night. It isn’t a law punishable by death that we’re required to read every junky post on facebook about someone’s stressed out day, or their rage at a stupid driver on the way to work, or how they could run a professional sports franchise better than those who’re actually getting paid to do it. And even, dare I say it, there isn’t an electric bolt of lightning coming, to fry those who don’t immediately ‘check’ your phone or computer when it ‘dings’ at you!!

We choose to invest, and to literally ‘pay’ attention to these things. They cost us, they drain our ‘time-accounts’. They’re life suckers. I have made some decisions about the way I view this stuff for myself. Ask me about current events… I don’t know them. Ask me about the weather coming up… I haven’t got a clue. Ask me if I’ve heard about any recent new Hollywood movies or celebrity gossip?? Yeah, Right.

And again I say, that recently, I’ve been blessed to be in action enough, to be in work enough, to be in love enough, to be in study enough, to be in exercise enough, to be in playtime enough, to be in-cahoots enough with special people… to deeply, calmly smile 🙂

Oh, did I forget to mention, that this same week my bank accounts are the lowest of anyone you know? Near zero is low, right? Oh yeah, did I mention that we had some tough conversations right here in our house, with my lovely wife, that we’re feeling worn out by all the hard work with little payoff? Oh yeah, and then there’s the future, which has no guarantee around here. From many viewpoints, I can’t prove myself much closer to my own goals, meaning, real results, real tangible dollars and cents results, than ever. I am a husband who flat isn’t producing my own fair share, and I would LOVE TO… Dang!

So, back to the beginning… It’s either a practiced response that is like a muscle getting stronger with exercise, attention and time, or it’s insanity… that I feel as good as I do. This morning I am just in awe and gratitude that this crazy thing called life is still happening, moment after improbably unlikely moment. I get a real thrill, from seeing it that way 🙂

I guess this means our happiness isn’t about those outside things. It must just be a choice, based on nothing but a decision I get to make at any time. I can say that this week has been movement, motion, step after briskly taken step, and the reptile-mind finds less opportunity for worry, less time to dwell on the ‘why-nots’, less time for this imaginary thing we call stress.

You know there is one more possibility, about this peace and calm… Maybe it’s Jesus 🙂

Thanks be to God!

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

“I’m not sure I’ve emotionally let go of it yet.” was a powerful statement that my Sister, Jessica, blessed me with last night.

Sure, she may have been talking about her house, and how she and her husband, Brett, have plans to sell it and upgrade, but her message was much bigger than that.

It struck me, that if she’s still attached, and knows it; that the whole process of selling it may match her true desire, to stay attached to this house she loves, until she doesn’t.

Wow, what have I not “emotionally let go of yet?”

This week of the New Year, has been full of contemplation and conversation. Goals and dreams and a fresh start. An evening to talk with my Wife about what we want our life in 2013 to look like. A session with my Coach to discuss my core desires, the stuff on my insides, that will shape my outside world, in 2013 and beyond. Because, that’s how it works, from the inside-out 🙂

So, what am I enamored with, and yet want to move out of, move beyond and upgrade?

Truth is, when I apply Jessica’s question to myself, I see this lifestyle of the last 2.5 years. What an adventure! What a transformation! What a scary-ass ride! Day by day, living on the edge, sometimes feeling the burn and sting of failure. Sometimes the black depth of depression. Sometimes a lostness and solitude, apart from an ‘old life’ that I knew so well.

It’s had amazing triumphs too! Becoming a new person through Christ has brought experiences beyond words. Proving to myself that I can survive circumstances previously unimaginable. Sobriety. Travel. Marriage 🙂 All on my last dime. Living and giving and saving nothing. Putting it all out there, turning away from my demons. Creating.

I do ‘want’ my life to look different than it does today. I do want to have a thriving coaching practice that serves people in amazing ways. I do want to bring to our family a more stable and much higher income too. I do want to move out and beyond the first risky and bumpy baby steps of this process… But Dang, ‘I’m not sure I’ve emotionally let go of it yet.”

It’s gotta be subconscious, but I love the underdog! I love the struggling, starving artist. I love the brand-new pathway that must be cut through the jungle. Machete in hand, and step by grueling step. I do dig that, and I do LIVE that! In the thick and foreboding jungle of Princeton, Kansas!

So, I see the issue, right here, right in my face. Thanks Sis. If I really want to move on, to move out, to expand myself to the places that I’m claiming I want to go. Then maybe I’ll have to take a moment or two, to appreciate, love and release the place I’m in today. If I do let go of it, and emotionally understand that I can be just as adventurous, just as out-of-the-box and ‘weird’ in my next phase of this career and life-path, then, then I can truly see it happening and unfolding right now. I can even feel good about forward progress, knowing that I’ve made peace with where I’ve been. Knowing that I have given thanks, shown gratitude and truly appreciated the path I’ve been on ’till now.

Time for a new adventure to begin. Time is now for another new fresh start. It’s unfolding with each choice we make, each step we take. Our steps don’t take us, we take them. I am ready, and moving. If I’ve been walking in circles, it will only take a tiny adjustment to find I’ve broken out of my rut, and have new territory to cover.

See you out there, on the journey, where adventure lives, always!

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols