Even before I took up Busting Loose, I was becoming less and less interested in the things of this world. It started about a year ago when my partner and I decided to split up. The impending end of that phase of our long-term relationship scared me straight.
    Almost overnight, I lost interest in cable TV, politics -- then news in general. To put this in perspective, I was a newspaper reporter/editor for 25 years. it was the height of the presidential campaign and I was watching MSNBC political coverage and reading political blogs 6-8 hours a day. News junkie does not even begin to cover it. I wanted to know every twist in the campaign and lambaste everyone on websites who thought differently than me. Finally, last July, I decided who I was going to vote for, that nothing was going to change and I'd tune back in on Election Day. I did, said a prayer for Obama, and tuned back out.
    From a Phase 1 perspective, I had been in denial for a long time that TV, politics, sports, cruising the Internet were merely huge time sucks which took away from other things I might want to do. My judgment was that they were distractions for my unhappiness in my relationship and my life. They were a lot of things, except supportive. But I found justifications everywhere.
    After I moved out of the house, Expanded Self reinforced this by having me move in with a friend of mine who had a TV, but only got local channels.  There went the "House" re-runs, and although I could still watch "Seinfeld" every night -- something I had done for literally years -- I chose not to.  Besides, my buddy had to watch his "Stargate" DVDs about that time.
    But my lack of interest accelerated after I tuned in to Busting Loose. Then I understood that not only were these things Phase 1 time sucks, but that they fed into my illusion that the physical world was all real -- the economic crisis, global warming, hunger and Susan Boyle.
    Soon, I could not even stand to turn on NPR in the morning, because I just didn't want to listen about this crisis or that catastrophe. It grated. I tuned out radio talk shows forever. TV news -- verboten. I occasionally read the daily newspaper when I'm bored. But it's a quick read. Want me to join your cause on Facebook? That's pretty much not happening. Even sports became less and less of an interest and for the people who know me, that's almost inconceivable. (Go Bucks!) Except for an occasional online rant about the health care bill up for consideration, I mind my own business.
    It's sometimes difficult to finesse an explanation to one of my "aspects," (people who appear to be other individuals in the hologram, for those of you not into Busting Loose yet) especially those not in Phase 2, about why the "existence" of starving children in Africa doesn't move me. It sometimes reflects back to me as cold and self-absorbed. But to me, it means to me that I have a lot of beliefs to un-learn about "reality."
    Then again, I just have to smile at the futility of those aspects who are diligently trying to change the hologram from the outside, playing a game they can never win.
    Dropping out has been my path, and I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone. I can't say has been like a near-death experience, where I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, came back and began appreciating every butterfly alighting on the petal of every rose, then wrote a best-selling book about it.
    No, not quite that dramatic.
    But, it has given me the space and time to rediscover what would be really fun for me in Phase 2, to take responsibility for my fun, in a sense. For the last few months that has been writing screenplays, blogging, producing TV shows, promoting indie filmmakers and generally expressing my creativity. That's been expansive for me. I've created a bunch of new aspects who are caring, generous, fun and interesting. So something seems to be working.
    As Robert Scheinfeld always like to remind us, there's nothing "wrong" with caring about certain issues. There's nothing wrong with trying to be a healer, for example, and healing illusory bodies of illusory illnesses. It's just that you realize it's part of a fun creation in the hologram and has no meaning outside of that. If you're doing anything out of a sense of obligation, guilt, money, morals, gratification, well, I'm not going to tell you to stop. But I would suggest you do the Busting Loose process.
    I don't judge anyone who is caught up in these issues. That's part of their unique mission and purpose, and I hope they're having fun doing it. But I remain unswayed. Please don't get mad at me. I imagine over time, as I process this stuff, fewer and fewer people will be approaching me with "Save the Chinchillas" petitions as I walk through Nob Hill. I can only hope.

*****
I'd be interested to hear what you're losing interest in. Please post in the comments section.


    

     I'm sitting here on a beautiful Sunday morning thinking about war and violence. Goes well with the oatmeal. Actually, I saw the movie "The Hurt Locker" last night and it took a good night's sleep to come down from the adrenaline rush.
    As a movie, it's quite a creation -- a hellaciously intense and harrowing immersion into the war in Iraq, punctuated with moments of levity and pure heartbreak. But as you've probably figured out by now, I'm not here for a movie review.
    The movie focuses on three men who comprise a bomb defusion squad in Baghdad. After the group's lead bomb expert is killed when an IED he is trying to disarm is detonated, into the void steps Staff Sgt. William James.
    In military terms, and Busting Loose terms, James knows his unique mission and purpose. He is here to defuse bombs. We find out after one particularly nerve-wracking sequence that he has, in fact, defused 873 bombs during his time in Iraq.
    There is not a lot of psychological exploration about why someone would find enjoyment in such an obviously dangerous job. The filmmaker portrays him as sort of a maverick, a "wild man" as one superior puts it, who loves the thrill. In fact, he is so absorbed he puts his fellow soldiers, like Sgt. J.T. Sanborne, at risk along with himself, a point that Sanborne makes with a quick punch to James' face.
    But "The Hurt Locker" is not about a devil-may-care macho soldier. Been there, blown that one up. There is no doubt James accepts the fact that a single mistake is fatal. He chooses to embrace that, not avoid it, to ride the edge.  And as Roger Ebert noted, "(1) bombs need to be defused; (2) nobody does it better than James; (3) he knows exactly how good he is, and (4) when he’s at work, an intensity of focus and exhilaration consumes him, and he’s in that heedless zone when an artist loses track of self and time."
    In Busting Loose terms, that last part sounds a lot like joy. Go figure.
    Still, it's a movie and would anyone of us ever really choose that vocation? Which brings me to my point. The movie brought me back to one of the delicious paradoxes that Robert touches on, about each of us living in our own holograms, yet seemingly interacting with others in their holograms.
    Without going into an explanation of that conundrum, because I have none, it becomes more obvious to me every day that we can never fully understand why someone else in our hologram does whatever they are going to do. There are lots of things "we" wouldn't do, but others choose to do.
    It doesn't take a character as off-the-wall as James to understand that point. We come across it every day. Why did my husband leave me? Why does my teenager behave this way? Why is my boss such an a-hole? At some point, after we've wrung the drama out of the situation and done the process, we can only suspend judgment, derive our lessons from it and realize as my friend Jane like to say, "all paths are sacred."
    Jane knows. She has had a life that should be made into a book or movie some day. But it was her experience with her middle daughter that brought the point home to her. Her daughter had what most of us would call a tough time as a teenager. She was raped. By age 14, she was living on the street, drug and alcohol-addicted. She became a single mother at age 17.
    Jane simply had to let go after it became apparent no amount of mothering, intervention, scolding or attention was going to derail her daughter from her path. Jane said she accepted the reality that her daughter might die at a young age.
    I'm happy to say that in this "movie," Jane's daughter emerged from this phase of her journey. She's earned a college degree, teaches middle school, raises her two children with a partner, and has been sober for 19 months.
    At the end of "The Hurt Locker," Sanborne finally accepts James for who he is. James ends his deployment, goes home to his wife and baby and does his best to be a good father and husband. But the lure of his mission and purpose is too much. He returns to Iraq for another tour of defusing bombs. He is at peace.
    We can't judge Sgt. William James and we can't judge Jane's daughter. We can only marvel at the amazing stories they created, the unique missions and purposes they were on. And love them.


    
    


 

     Back in my journalism days I wrote a weekly relationship column for the local newspaper called Fun City. It wasn't really billed as a relationship column at that point. The editors just thought it was a fun way to highlight entertainment and dining choices for the weekend, basically, a here's-what-to-do-on-a-date column
    Little did they know it was a way for me to disseminate my spiritual take on various aspects of dating and relationships, from Mother Teresa to Lorena Bobbitt. They probably didn't notice because I couched it in self-deprecating humor. Or more likely because they never read it.
    But I developed a small cult following among the locals and my immediate editor once told me that a psychiatrist she met at a party desperately wanted to get the anonymous writer (me) on his  couch to analyze me. I think he really meant analyze, for those of my creations with dirty minds.
    Those were fun times, and the writing was a marvelous outlet for me, then living my post-divorce life with nary a clue as to what I was doing in the relationship game.
    I continued playing the relationship game at full tilt through the 90s and into the 00s, getting involved with many wonderful women, experiencing short but sweet romances, then usually being dumped. I took something important from each experience, but mostly, I repeated a lot of self-defeating patterns and wore the victim role like a cheap suit. I spent a lot of time obsessing about relationships. I wrote volumes in my journal. I could not figure out what I was doing "wrong."
    It was uncomfortable sometimes, but it was a role I knew how to play. Then I met a woman, who my friends know, but shall remain anonymous for the purposes of this column. We'll call her Liz.
    Liz and I met in church, the last time either of us has been. We fell in love, slowly, but steadily. We connected immediately on a spiritual level in a way that I had never done, at least with a romantic partner. A year later, she asked me to move in to her house. I did, after we agreed on some ground rules that we thought would help it work, based on our myriad experiences.
    The details of the arc of our relationship are not important. About a year ago things had gone stale, but it was Liz who first realized it was time to shake up our lives, and she who had the courage to suggest we take a break and I move out of the house.
    Oh, the horror.
    The stories, the guilt, the terrible visions of relationships past flooded my mind.
    Fast forward to the new year. Liz calls and says she has a belated Christmas gift to give me. I'm not so hot on this idea, but I meet her for coffee. It's Robert Scheinfeld's "Busting Loose From the Money Game." You can read about this experience on the home page.
    Now, I understand the break up was all about me and my unique journey through life. Liz was just the actress chosen to play this out with me and give me the lines I was supposed to hear. She has played the role to the hilt. I've played it for her in her hologram.
    Once, when someone asked what our relationship was, I responded by saying that Liz was in my hologram to cause me discomfort, thus allowing me the chance to reclaim my power. I was only half joking, but she got it. We still have no definition of what our relationship is, but it's different, that I can assure you. Something like friends, but different.
    It has been a challenging, but rewarding experience reclaiming my power with Liz. Instead of just feeling sorry for myself, holing up for a few months, then venturing wildly back into the dating game, I have worked the Busting Loose process with her for the last several months, and while there is still plenty to reclaim, I feel as if I've come light years in my understanding of what relationships are not. What they are is the key question I'm asking.
    So starting from the premise that "relationships" are yet another Phase 1 game we can't win, what does "romantic" relationship look like when we are fully playing in Phase 2?
    What is relationship when all the beliefs, obligations and b.s. we have created around relationship disappear? What is relationship if we are living in reactive mode and being supported in our joyfulness? What happens when we remove the limitations of "future" and form from our relationships? I'm pretty sure the only thing we know is that when we are expanded in Phase 2, we are happy whether we are in a "relationship" or not. We do it only for the enjoyment.  We can choose to play the relationship game, but it's not necessary, like everything else in Phase 2.
    I'll be writing more, but I'd like to hear what you have to say. Is anybody out there living a true Phase 2 relationship?

     For 23 years, I worked in corporate America at a local newspaper. It was a great experience, and even greater as I look back through the lens of Busting Loose. Even the bad times were good lessons. If only I'd been reclaiming power all that time -- and putting more money into my 401k.
    I was there for the fun of journalism, the challenge of researching and writing good stories, meeting interesting people and celebrities (and some times they were one and the same) covering "important" stories on "important" issues, discovering some talented new artist or doing my civic duty by regaling folks with the latest from the City Council. I was there because, frankly, I got to see my name in the paper several times a week. Regardless, those were my stories within my stories rationalizing why I stayed for 23 years, and they were darned good ones, obviously, because that's what I do for a living.
    But I was also there for the security, a regular paycheck, the health coverage, the pension plan, seeing the same faces every day and the knowledge that I was with a rock solid company that had been around for a while and would always be.
    Jan. 1, 2004, I retired from the newspaper to venture into the hologram of self-unemployment. After 23 years at the paper, 25 total in journalism, finally, it was time to move on. I left with a vague plan about how this new life was going to work out.
    What I realized is that metaphorically I was leaving Phase 1 at the newspaper to enter Phase 2 as a freelancer. For all the challenge and excitement, the newspaper was a game of limitations with the illusion of security and control.  Phase 2 has turned out to be a lively clusterf**k, with surprises always around the corner.
    Within the hologram, my life as a freelancer has followed the arc of most freelancers. We begin in the prostitution phase, where we'll do anything for a money.
    Then we establish some clients, get a contract here and there, some regular work, and relax a little bit. Then the economy goes to hell and we realize what a great job we had back at the newspaper/widget factory/Dairy Queen. Then we suck it up and move on.
     I've made more money in a year than I ever made at the newspaper and I've made a lot less. In fact, a "lot less" would be the operative phrase for the last couple years. To put it in Busting Loose terminology,  I am still reclaiming my power from illusions of poverty, which translated means I'm dead ass broke in the hologram.
    But it's only been in the last couple years, when I talk to my unhappy colleagues at the newspaper, that I appreciate what I left. They don't know what they would do outside of journalism. I've created them to be miserable, but still clinging to the job. Just like I did.
    I see them as these amazing people with a tremendous set of skills that would be of benefit to any company, or to themselves. They see themselves as PR hacks -- period -- a fate worse than death for most ex-journos. Which is to say, I still get glimpses of my other aspects.
    Which gets me back to Busting Loose. Busting Loose, for me, is like becoming a freelancer. I left the security of my old belief systems, my old patterns, my own limitations to take a chance on a whole new life. It's a wild ride, it's exhilarating, it's scary and you never know where the next payday is coming from. It's hard work, but it's work for you, and that's different than working for some entity outside you (in the hologram) who doles out the bread crumbs of illusory security.    
    The first day I woke up and realized I didn't have to get dressed, put on a tie and drive to work was liberating. The chance to reinvent my career and my life, was the biggest gift I could have ever given myself. I always joke with people that like the Chris Farley character, I would rather be living in a van down by the river, than be living well and working in an office. The fact that I'm sitting here naked drinking a cup of coffee (just kidding, it's hot tea) writing this in my home office -- not in a cubicle -- makes it all worthwhile.
    In retrospect, the timing of my leaving was perfect. The paper is suffering financial difficulties like newspapers everywhere. The monolithic press that we thought would be around forever is in its death throes.  
    That goes to the bigger point. I, and many of my creations, see this whole imagined economic cataclysm as a necessary progression. We now see that banks are not what we thought they were; presidential candidates are not who we thought they were; the car industry is not what we thought it was; the real estate market is not what we thought it was. This collective collapse of "reality" is stunning.
    The stripping away of everything we thought we knew, on a global scale, is a gift in that respect. My only question is, if the illusory "economy" recovers one of these days, will we we sink back into the warmth of our security blanket, or we will be so far into Phase 2 we won't notice?

Physicist Amit Goswami of "What the Bleep Do We Know" fame and author of a dozen books will be appearing at this year's Language of Spirit conference next month. He stars in a new documentary, The Quantum Activist, which will precede him here on a double bill with a little 'ol doc I made called "The Language of Spirituality."
The screening will be held Saturday, Aug. 1, 7 p,m; at 800 Bradbury SE, on the University of New Mexico's south campus.  Tickets are $10, available at the door, or by contacting SEED Graduate Institute at 792-2900. Check out our Articles page for an interview with Dr. Goswami.

    It seems like I've spent a lot of time in the last few months explaining what Busting Loose and Robert Scheinfeld are all about to folks who are not yet Phase 2 players. I realize I'm just talking to aspects of myself disguised as other people, but I find it keeps me focused to have to consciously remember what it is I'm doing. The joyful part of this is that I seem to be much more successful these days at encouraging my aspects to take up the challenge of Busting Loose, which to me means that my persona is becoming much more comfortable with the process. The early resistance, if there was any, came at the beginning when I was just feeling things out myself.
    (If you're not into Busting Loose yet, don't worry, that last paragraph made perfect sense to some people.:)
    For most people, this is a pretty radical take on the nature of existence and reality, and I try to not make it sound like brain surgery, or that I'm part of some weird cult. In fact, once you start to absorb the principles, it's pretty straightforward. But there is some 'splaining to do for the uninitiated.
    So here's a brief primer, what I like to call, Busting Loose in Five Easy Tenets.  Or nine. We'll see when I'm finished. Otherwise, this could be known as "How to preach when you're not preaching to the choir."

    -- We are divine beings who have chosen to come "here" to play in the physical world as part of the ultimate game. We have convinced ourselves that we are not who we are -- infinitely abundant, joyful, and powerful beings (and in my case, infinitely witty.) The game is to remember who we are and begin to return to our state of infinite-ness. In the meantime, you should have a really good time on this plane of existence.
    -- What we conceive of as reality or the physical world is a hologram of our own creation. Nothing and no one in it is "real," and that includes our physical body. It is all a manifestation of our consciousness, our Expanded Self, as Robert calls it. That doesn't lessen the grandeur of the people or places or things in our hologram. It is awe-inspiring to see and experience what we have created. Take a look outside your bedroom window already. It's just that now, you're responsible for the whole damn thing.
    -- You can't fix or change your hologram. Repeat after me: "it's not friggin' real." As you grow into Phase 2, it appears things change, for "better," but the illusion of the million bucks in your bank account is just as much an illusion as that used Pinto you were driving. You can only begin to realize the Truth of who you are.
    -- We create the illusion of "suffering" when we give power to the hologram -- power to shape and influence our experience of the world and hinder our path back to wholeness. A key part of Busting Loose is to continually reclaim power that we've given to the hologram. We get those opportunities every day, whether it's around money, people, relationships, sex, emotions, family, or politics (which thank God, doesn't really exist.) We have no say where that power goes, or how it manifests. It is just our responsibility to reclaim it.
    -- Living a Busting Loose life is simple. You live in what Robert calls the "reactive," mode, doing or not doing what you're moved to do. You're either engaging in fun, joyful, expansive activities, or you're not. If you're not, then there is a simple process to reclaim your power when you realize you are in discomfort. In the meantime, you get to relax and stop pinning your hopes of happiness on intellect, logic, planning, conniving, manipulating the stock market or trying to figure out life like it's a math problem. Now isn't that a relief?
    -- You can't do anything "wrong." You are being guided by your Expanded Self.
    -- WARNING: (You may want to come back to this one later, like in two or three months.) If it's all an illusion, then nothing is really meaningful, except to the degree it supports your journey in Phase 2. (Phase 1 simply being the state of existence before you figure out there is a Phase 2.) Morals, ethics, rules of relationship, causes, all of the stuff that mankind has created don't mean squat when it all comes down to it. They are part of the game that keeps us from knowing who we are.
    I will end it here as I'm sure a lot of people will be coughing up their falafel on this one.  See you soon.

   
   

      Just finished watching the documentary "Leap." I found it quite inspiring, and it's good to know that there are a growing number of people out there that are being exposed to this meme. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, it poses the question, what if our "reality" was really just an illusion, as philosophers and metaphysicians -- and now some quantum physicists -- have propounded? What if everything we sense, think or experience in this "real" world is simply a manifestation of "our" consciousness and no more real than a hologram? In other words, "There is no out there out there." (Sorry for all the quotation marks, but when you question reality this much, you pretty much are living in a state of perpetual quotation marks.)
      For some, me included, this may not seem all that radical a concept. At least not after having been exposed to folks like Robert Scheinfeld (who's in the movie), A Course in Miracles, Adyashanti, Zen and a bit of HIndu philosophy from my friend Pravin. Yet, the movie satisfies because filmmakers Chad Cameron and Isaac Allen don't just stop with the basic premise. They take it to its logical conclusion and really challenge the interviewees ("guides," as the filmmakers call them) to explain what's in front of our lyin'  eyes if it ain't "reality."
      What is perhaps most uplifting is the general sentiment among the guides, that whether our reality is an illusion or not, life is always worth living. In fact, understanding the miracle of this existence can make our lives that much richer, our experiences that much more profound and enjoyable.
      To paraphrase the filmmakers, by the time you finish watching this, you're gonna think the premise is sheer lunacy, somewhat intriguing or absolutely right on. As is true with about everything, your reaction will tell more about you than it does about the movie, and I'm sure the usual army of naysayers will come out to attack it on scientific grounds. Whatever. Tell them to go study the writings of David Bohm and get back to you. That'll shut 'em up for a while.
      For more information, visit their website.
      To order a copy of "Leap," click here.
          

     The Language of Spirit conference returns next month. I had my first experience with the conference, which brings together quantum physicists, Native Americans and language experts to explore commonalities, back in 1999, at the invitation of the late Dan "Moonhawk" Alford. It was such a great experience, I ended up making a movie about it, "The Language of Spirituality, which premiered in Santa Fe in 2005. I'll have a link up soon on the Media page for those interested in watching. The event is always a fascinating exploration into the worlds of consciousness, reality and worldview, among other things.This year's event focuses on the topic of "Space and Place."
     Included in the star-studded line-up of participants this year are F. David Peat and Amit Goswami. See the complete list of participants by clicking here.