Don Juan Matus taught us that a warrior holds all possibilities in her mind and then chooses to believe and acts on that belief. We are doing that all the time whether we are conscious of it or not. Fortunately there are ways to become more aware of our core limiting beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves. This is what don Juan called “stalking yourself,” or “hunting power.” You become like a jaguar on the trail of a river rat. The “river rat” is the core limiting belief.
As an example of this, I said prior to meeting someone for a date, “I hope that regardless of the outcome, we’ll at least become friends.” My intention was to express my interest while also releasing attachment to a specific outcome. His interpretation was something like this: “If she’s settling for friendship already, she must have low self-esteem.”
When I heard that, I felt a chuckle inside me. I am always in awe of the way two human beings can experience very different realities when the observations are the same.
As a warrior, my initial response is to take that in as information. There is no need to defend a view point. It offers an opportunity to see myself more clearly and to see myself through someone else’s eyes more clearly, and to see another person more clearly. I don’t need to decide what’s true. I can hold all possibilities in my mind at once. In this way, it allows me to “stalk myself,” to see if there is truth in what this person said. After all, if he is reflecting to me some truth that he sees, wouldn’t I rather know that? Or would I prefer to live in a deluded state?
Ultimately it’s not about choosing to believe his interpretation or mine; it’s simply about holding all possibilities at once and letting them do their alchemical work. If I “choose to believe” anything, it will likely be, “I can always open my heart to giving myself more unconditional love.” There is no right or wrong. There is nothing to defend. But we can choose to be open or choose to be closed.
In another situation, I observed my mother reacting to a request to attend my new online workshop, “Unleash Your Creativity!” which is a blending of NVC and The Artist’s Way. I want her to understand the work I do, but after 8 days and 8 short You Tube videos, she said, “I think I’m lost. I seem to be missing a lot of your daily videos. I’m trying to sort them and watch them in order and can’t.”
In the same email, she talked about how she has trouble communicating in two of her most important relationships. I suspect the reason she can’t “sort them and watch them,” and is considering dropping out of the workshop, is because it’s leading her into an Initiation, a Transformation, and that scares the crap out of her.
She’s a a trained mathematician, philosopher, and computer scientist who worked for Martin Marietta for 10 years, raised two small children on her own, overcame alcoholism, did two stints in the Peace Corp, hiked the Continental Divide trail, wrote and published two hiking guides, which are still used to this day, hikes the Colorado Trail every summer, and I could list many other significant accomplishments, yet she’s telling me she can’t sort 8 videos and watch them in order.
When she wants to through-hike a trail, she is phenomenally capable and competent. It’s simply a choice.
Without rejecting anything off-hand, we can look deeply at what we choose to tell ourselves. We can look deeply at what we choose to do.
That is how we stalk ourselves, stalk our river rats, and hunt power.
