Well I am back in the "real" world ... New Jersey, of course ... having just returned from the other side of the world in Hong Kong. Going to the Far East always means a "big" trip to another world for me, especially Southeast Asia ... which most typically means either Hong Kong or Singapore to me ... although it's also been know to include Bangkok and Shen Zhen as well.
What makes these trips so significant ... beyond the eighteen or so hours of altered consciousness that being in an airplane for an international flight always prompts in me ... has to do with the shift required upon landing. First off the twelve hour time difference ... flipping the day upside down so to speak ... requires a letting go ... or at least that has been how I've always dealt with it myself ... letting go of where I've been and being where I am. I make this adjustment when I board the plane. I set my watch to the local time where I am going and begin operating in that time zone for the whole flight to the extent that I can. This means eating, working and sleeping on the schedule of the local time where I'm going to land. I do this regardless of the direction I am traveling. Although I know it primarily requires a shifting in my mind - it makes the shift required by my body much easier for me as well. I've always found that the mind follows wherever the body goes ... in other words, wherever I am that has been where I find myself.
Anyway while I was in Hong Kong I had a chance to do two presentations to groups arranged by Daisy Yeung Wenoe and her husband Henrik Wenoe of Acuity World with their group in Hong Kong called "Success Eternity." It was a "trip" within my trip. I arrived at the venue for the first of the presentations expecting between forty and sixty folks to show up ... there were a little over sixty that did ... and upon my arrival I was barraged with "paparazzi" swarming the building or so it seemed. About fifteen or twenty people asked me to take a photo with them ... one at a time ... two or three together ... and in various combinations of people ... like I was a freakin' celebrity or something ... like Tony Soprano for G-d's sake. This pretty much continued up until the program began ... and then again afterwards ... while it was interesting in a way ... I can better understand Sean Penn now.
Then the program began I went on a typical rant for about an hour or so ... beginning with how I began learning this NLP stuff ... back to the dog days ... and then forward to how most people live with dogs that are happy then they are most of the time. Then I did a little demonstration illustrating the ease and elegance that can be used to access a little of this kind of simple, primal happiness for one's self. The access wound up being highly somatic and really beautiful ... a little swirling of the hand scooping up bits of ... love, peace and joy ... and resulting in a profound calm and peacefulness ... enjoyed it seemed by one and all ... at least they were kind enough to applaud. We may be making some or all of this presentation available on VCD, DVD or even on the Internet on one or more of our websites.
One of the things that made this evening so interesting to me was the sequential translation into Cantonese. The translator, Michael did a superb job - I got lots of feedback from folks there who spoke both English and Cantonese that he'd done a great job with the translation, and he also did a great job with the nonverbals. We had a good time about it and it was a pleasure to have someone to play off of to create a bit of entertainment within the presentation. What doesn't surprise me was how well this stuff translated across the cultural boundary. These folks instantly "got" it.
Then I took a group of fourteen people on Friday evening for a ride a bit further in ... deeper than the group I'd presented to on Tuesday evening ... first of all as most of the fourteen had been there on Tuesday ... second because I had a smaller more intimate group to work with ... thirdly, because I had more time to work with them and finally, because I wanted to take them somewhere else completely. This was an interesting evening, which we taped as well ... I've seen the Tuesday night tape and I think it was quite good ... I haven't yet seen the Friday night tape, but I am looking forward to it. I really decided to open up with them ... to take them deep into the model ... and to role it around from beginning from where we were ... there in Hong Kong ... paying homage to the Taoists, remembering Confucius, including the Buddhists, and then leaping off to include the Sufis, the Catholic Mystics ... and all the way up to and through the Gnostics and Pagans as well. I think I left out a significant portion of the Greek, Roman and Indian gods however. And, I know I didn't hardly touch on the American Indian traditions or go anywhere near the African rituals ... so by no means I have exhausted the material. Yet all in all I'd say we went on quite a journey.
The result of all this preaching in Asia seemed to me to be a remarkable interest in the same things that peak the interest of my audiences here in the States and in Europe as well. These are the eternal truths ... the unfolding of the Experience. I had a Catholic Priest in the audience both Tuesday and Friday evenings ... I found out he holds the role of the Godfather of NLP in Hong Kong. His response on Tuesday was polite and mildly interested, while on Friday evening his interest peaked. I also found out from him that his Catholicism has evolved into something much closer to a "Creation Spirituality" ala Matthew Fox ... which so fit with his interest in what I was presenting.
The essence of these evenings was as always the access to a profound state of INTENT ... and oscillation of the G.D.S. and the G.T.S. ... swirling together a highly charged positive state ... and the sense of being swaddled in relationship to that which is much greater than self. What captured the attention of my audience on Tuesday was significantly different from what captured them on Friday. On Tuesday the emphasis was on how the movement towards the excitatory state of the G.D.S. ... marries itself to the simultaneous moving away from the inhibitory state where the problems reside. On Friday however I took them well beyond the frame and reference where the problem could even be considered. This was the domain of the Muse ... the house of Mystery. I related all of this to relationship, Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" and of course the way the work resides within the MythoSelf model ... and they were either panting or off to sleep from the exertion and exhilaration of it all just after.
Anyway ... good to be back home for a few days before departing for California and the first ever MythoSelf Advanced Program ... looking forward to seeing some of you there ... and if not this time ... surely the next ...
That’s all for now ... until the next time,
Joseph Riggio
For Blognostra
(AppliedNLP
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