It’s 3:34 am. I am supposed to play doubles tennis at 8am this morning and here I am on the computer. The last thing I watched before going to bed at 11 pm was a video of DJ Spooky explaining his thoughts on dematerialization in today’s rapidly changing world using soundscapes of ice and sound accompanied by a violinist and celloist. This is a bad explanation of what he is actually doing. He is brilliant. But frankly it was too complicated for me to understand. I will try watching the 45 minute video one more time to see if there is anything else I can glean. It reminds me that You don’t always have to travel to go somewhere. And what it helped me understand is that the language and reference points of tomorrow’s connected world may be slipping away from me. Things are moving rapidly.
The other thing that happened is I saw “The Hunger Games.” I think I understand the basic story line. If I had a daughter I probably would have read the book and felt a different kind of connection to this teen story about a future society without enough to eat who are selected annually to hunt and kill each other. Again, I felt disconnected from this movie. My imagination doesn’t flow that way mostly because I find those scenarios terrifying and without pleasure. This movie has been tops for the past 2 weeks and the theater was filled on a Tuesday at 5pm.
My sweet spot was spending time at the taping of two Oprah Life Classes: Deepak Chopra in the afternoon talking about the power of “NOW.” It’s funny how the audience was caught up in sharing that experience. Deepak’s message was capsulized in a prayer: “The past is gone, the future is not here, now I am free of both.” So the question to ask oneself is what am I choosing right now?
In the first Lifeclass with Iyanla, she talked of shifting one’s story. Her message was to “state the facts and tell the truth.” In other words stop telling the same story over and over. Deepak described the same act differently by saying, “reshape your story. Believe the diagnosis but never the prognosis.”He did this yet another way by expressing the same idea in this way: “I use memories but I will not allow memories to use me.”
Tony Robbins led the second Life Class in the evening geared to unleashing the power within. What a tall ball of fire he is! The room was on fire with him bouncing around. I am actually on camera a few times when he comes into the audience to work with a woman/mother whose issue I shall describe in a much too simplistic way as her life was filled with too much masculine energy. She’d been a daddy’s girl, over-achiever eldest daughter, successful entrepreneur, and now a wife whose husband liked her being large and in charge. And although happy with the parts of her life, she was feeling unfilled and unhappy when you put it all together. It was both a public and private experience to watch her come to terms wiith what was eating her up. She was not crying. And what was happening was between her and Tony even though we were on camera. Oprah could not contain Tony who ran over live television taping times. If you watch the show you will see how it cuts in and out. That was the other interesting thing.
The television classroom was one aspect of the production. But Facebook and Twitter were also live and we were interacting with identified people in Mumbai, Russia, Melbourne, Toronto, Chicago and one other city that escapes me now. Then there was Oprah. She is actually hysterical. She took off her shoes which she said were killing her and gave them to someone in the first couple of rows. Size 10 1/2. They were lovely. I was in the 10th row so no possibility with that. You’d have to say the experience was multi-sensory and multidimensional. Gayle was 3 rows in front of me.
I shared this journey with my friend Erin and she took all the pics and video. I will get this and share with you other Life Class lovers. Let me know who you are in the comments. I won’t bore the rest of you. Between tapings Erin and I went to Saks, had turkey sliders, a chopped salad, goat cheese on foccacio, and cabernet sauvignon. So consider this part one of the Life Class post.
I think I will have an easier time coping with disappointment for example. I am all over the ‘Tell yourself a different story’ directive. It is so where I am. I have developed an online practice to help others who are stuck in their stories. It will launch with my new website.
So to distill the messages of Life Class teachers Iyanla, Deepak and Tony, relative to the stories we tell ourselves, here it is. Tony says, “Divorce the Story.” Iyanla says, “Cut the excuses, state the facts and tell the truth.” Deepak in all of his coolness says, “Reshape your story.”
What do you think about this tell yourself a different story idea. Any thoughts
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