My Fight
I’m laying here in Chiang Rai, Thailand. It’s nearly 1am and I’m looking for mixed martial arts fight videos online. I love the martial arts, I love competition, I love challenge… and I love the mixed martial arts bouts in which two individuals who have been training usually all of their lives and mastered a few different martial art forms step into a cage of their own free will to test themselves against each other.
I know something about that level of challenge. The closest thing I can relate it to, however are my iStands, which were originally called boot camps. Back in the early days starting in 2002, boot camps were incredibly confronting. Not just for participants, but for me, because it was generally me doing the confronting. I confronted people while grounded in my stand for them, just as I as an older brother have stood for my brothers and sisters over the years through conflict and crisis. There are a lot of stories to tell about my years of “training,” if you will, for being an iStand facilitator or “boot camp leader” in which I stand for people with all my heart. No matter what thoughts of feelings come up inside of me throughout the event, I stand for every single one of the people who are there. Not so different from a mixed martial arts bout.
What’s different of course is that two MMA fighters are trying to submit their opponent or knock them unconscious. Some people view this as violence and can’t understand my love for it considering the profound levels of compassion and honoring inherent in my work. But for me those two fighters are simply challenging themselves and each other, and the physical pain is but part of what there is to face. It’s a question of who can remain the most focused, who has prepared the hardest, who can stand the strongest, who can endure the longest, who can remain the humblest and most present, who has more heart, who has more at stake, who can stay the most relaxed and adaptable, who has a higher level of mastery? For me it all translates to my iStands. It’s my fight. I step onto the mat for five days facilitating what I think of as a martial art for the human mind and spirit. It’s not one person against another, it’s just accessing the full power of one’s heart in any situation. The room is full of people who’ve come to stand for their families, for their communities, for world peace–or whatever their heart is calling them to stand for. And I’ve got their back.
It was nearly eleven years ago that I facilitated my first iStand, which at the time I called a boot camp. I knew the body of work I’d been developing for so many years was effective for myself and those I’d shared it with. But would it translate to a group of people all at once? Could I effectively deliver it–me, the kid who grew up so shy during my teen years? Every morning I awoke in the months leading up to it knowing this would be the greatest challenge of my life.
It required every bit of focus and energy I had, and when I finished I was completely exhausted and completely exhilarated. It was the biggest test of my life, and people were so deeply affected that they were calling it the most powerful experience of their lives.
It’s been three and a half years since I’ve facilitated an iStand. I can’t believe it’s been that long. But I chose to go on a long sabbatical, to rest, to let go of the grand vision and to give myself incredible space to choose my next path in life. And I did. I let go emotionally of a lot of things, and stopped fighting for the things I’d been fighting for. I chose to learn about the magic of allowing, of receiving, of grace, of letting go, etc. And it’s been incredibly healing and revealing. I’ve let go of a lot of attachments and hidden drives to prove myself. It’s been incredibly freeing.
However, something hit me just the other day. And that is that if I don’t have people I’m standing for and giving everything to with all of my heart, then I’m like I fish out of water. Or a martial artist who’s trained all his life and then walks away. Not that it’s wrong, I just don’t get to feel myself fully tested, fully used up by life, fully in service. I don’t have a wife and children; if I did I’d be giving them everything I’ve got. My family over the last few decades has been my family of birth. I’ve been standing for them. And standing for the people who’ve come into my life and participated in my work.
I am a warrior. The energy, an essence, that’s deep in my body and soul. I grew up in a religion and family that told me I was one of God’s warriors saved for the last days of the world with a special mission to win the battle raging in the hearts of men. I grew up in the 1980’s watching Star Wars and Rocky. It was the Cold War. Everything was on the line–not just eternal life, but also human life on planet earth which was being threatened by the nuclear arms race–oh, and the fate of the Galactic Republic! Not to mention the battle of my parents’ divorce which lasted from the time I was 14 to 21.
I need to have a great fight coming up, a great challenge. I need people to be standing for, people to whom I can give all of my heart. I don’t need it to survive, I just need it like the stallion needs to run, like the eagle needs to fly.
What was insightful to me about this realization that I need this, is that in one way it’s impersonal. It doesn’t need to be for some specific cause or for some specific group of people. I’m just at my best when I’ve got a great challenge on the horizon that requires me to prepare myself with every bit of focus and energy that I can, and I know what inspires me right now is to stand for those who are also facing great challenge in standing for their families, their loved ones, their people–or whatever their heart is calling them to give all of themselves to.
And my iStands are a perfect forum for me to do this. I get to challenge myself to take access next-levels of strength, courage and mastery, and I get to pass on what I’ve learned and make a difference. I get to do what I’m here to do–not in the sense of a mission to fulfill necessarily, but simply like the bee is a bee, the mountain is a mountain, and I express fully through action and essence my nature in service of my people, my world. Without excuse, without apology, without bridle, without clipped wings.
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