You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!

Posted on December 23, 2015 by kgoodman

You’ve come a long way, baby!

You’ve got a long way to go!

Sometimes this ride, we call life, feels like a roller coaster. It seems like you just got on and you suddenly realize the ride is coming back to the loading station and it’s time to get off.

Other times it seems like our ride in life is like Frodo trying to destroy the one true ring in the fires of mount doom. Long, Tedious and filled with interactions with people that remind you of Gollum.

No matter how you look at it. No matter what your experience. You can only rely on one thing, as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, it will change.

I keep working off this fantasy in my head that some day I will be perfect. Some day I will attain a point of enlightenment or wisdom where nothing I come across phases me and I’ll understand the nuances of how the world presents itself to me and how I respond to the world. At this point in life, I, at least, have enough wisdom, to say to myself compassionately, “You can keep dreaming Kevin, or you can decide to wake up. But fantasy is the right word for that line of thought.”

This morning, as I was making breakfast, my daughter was reading a book. She’s just getting the reading thing. She recognizes letters and is learning to sound them out. As I finished up some dishes I overheard her sounding out the word cat. “Cuh-Ah-aT. C-A-T. Cat”. I had a brief flash as I remembered the stages of development where I was starting to sound out words and how long it took for simple things like “See Dick Run. Run Dick Run.”

Even today, all these years later, I often judge myself as being a slow reader. I’ve met people that can sit down with a 300-page book and read it in a few hours. I’ve met people that can read a 300-page book in a few days. If I focus, and I’m loving it, I can get through a 300-page book in a few days. But it’s an act of attention. I can whiz through a harry potter book or ready player one. But sit an average novel in front of me and my mind will wander. I still have a book case full of books I can’t quite give up on, but know that I’m never going to read. They have bookmarks in them from 5-10 years ago gather dust and taunting me with their unread, yet non-engaging pages.

Regardless of my penchant for unread tomes. This is more about my judgment of my tome reading speed. I see my daughter reading and realize while I don’t measure up to my fantasy of how fast I should read, I have in fact established a rather phenomenal speed and capability that was not an inborn ability. I had to learn to read and practice a lot to get to where I am today. Although I’m slow when I’m not engaged, you give me a good book and a few hours to myself and ‘shazam!’, I rise to the challenge.

Today I am already more than I think I am. Today I am still not all that I can be.

Today you are more than you think you are. Today you are not all that you can be.

You’ve come a long way, baby!

You’ve got a long way to go!

Embrace the challenge of the future and appreciate your past.

Namaste,

Kevin

Struggling Gracefully

Posted on December 2, 2015 by kgoodman

I think part of the reason it’s fun to be a parent is that you get to watch your own experiences mirrored back to you from a different perspective.

Just the other day my 2 1/2 year old was trying to pull up the zipper on his coat. I heard gentle crying and I went to see what the problem was.

There he was with his zipper just connected at the bottom. He practically had tears in his eyes as he said, “This is hard.”

I’ve seen him successful zip up before, and he even gets kind of cranky when I intervene, so I became the observer without saying anything, just kindly watching.

The crying began to get louder as his frustration grew, but he kept trying.

“I can’t do it,” escaped his lips as he began to scream.

But he kept trying, and crying. Frustrated, but working the problem.

The zipper starts to stutteringly move up the coat.

Relief and joy replaces frustration and struggle.

“I can do it,” he states energetically.

Closing triumphantly with “I got it, this is easy.”

This whole interaction took a matter of a few seconds. But it had a big impact on me. My son moved on and has probably forgotten the whole affair, apart from some improved muscle memory from the action. But I keep thinking about observing that and what it means to me.

The compression of the incident was enlightening. When I have struggles in my life, as an adult, they take weeks, months or even years to go through all these phases.

This is hard. I can’t do it. I can do it. That was easy.

It’s easy to forget, during the length of the struggle that this will end. You will figure out the solution.

Seeing this daily reminder of struggle to success is a sweet way to encourage me to keep going. Yes, the zipper feels stuck right now, but in moments it will break free and I will experience success.

Everything children experience is fleeting. They are learning so fast. Each milestone is followed by another and another. Each success followed by another seemingly insurmountable struggle, then met with success. It is astounding when you consider the things that we learn in the first few years of life that are so hard and challenging and after all the time spent struggling to get it, all the effort put into it, you forget about it. Kind of ironic.

We don’t get a placard for our wall stating we have successfully learned to walk, or pull up a zipper, or tie our shoes. These major accomplishments are forgotten. If you had a trophy room, and the desire, you could print out a certificate of completion for so many major life skills. You could wallpaper the entire room with the skill certifications you have mastered.

It’s easy to forget all your accomplishments and just focus on what you haven’t done yet. Remember that you have done a lot.

You have succeeded in the past, odds are you will succeed in the future.

Namaste,

Kevin

Immortal

Posted on November 18, 2015 by kgoodman

There is a lot of fear going around today.

A lot of fear.

We are sad. We are scared. We are scarred.

But it’s not what you think.

I want to start with a disclaimer. I’m sad for what has happened recently in Paris, France. I mourn with the families that have lost people. I even empathically feel their pain and fear.

The amount of media coverage has blossomed the event in our minds to epic proportions. France is changing their military stance to the world based on this event. The US is trying to block refugees from coming into the US because of it. We are in full blown defensive mode.

But the world still needs our compassion. To shut down compassion as a result of this would be an epic failure on our part and a triumph for terror.

Thursday night, I was at a concert in San Francisco. One of the major attacks happened at a concert in France.

My mind went there. What if it had been my concert? What if attackers had come in during my event. What if I had been killed?

In a way, that was the point of the attacks. To take everyday situations and turn them in moments of terror. To remove people from normal behavior patterns and make them afraid.

The job of the terrorist is only half done with the attack. We empower the terrorist by telling the story over and over again.

It can be helpful to know. It can be beneficial to mourn.

That time is over. It is now time to move on. It is time to stay awake and be aware, but let go of fear. Don’t let yourself be dragged through the mud. Don’t consume what the terrorist and the media are feeding you. It’s not a healthy diet.

You will not die in a terrorist attack. I can say that with 99.999 percent certainty.

There are 7 billion people in the world. If we were to lose 1000 people to terrorism in the last year (which is an over-estimate), that would mean the odds of dying from a terrorist attack are 1/7,000,000. The odds of being struck by lightning in the US are 1/1,000,000. This means you are 7 times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to die in a terrorist attack.

I can say with 99.999 percent certainty that you’re not going to get struck by lightning.

You will live forever. Then one day you will die.

You are immortal. Until you are mortal.

This is not a threat.

This is not a warning.

This is a fact.

It is the best-kept secret on the planet. For some reason, nobody likes to talk about it. Everybody dies.

All life will end. Your body will cease functioning at some point. At that point, life will be over.

Until that point, don’t let anyone take the joy of being alive from you. Not the terrorists. Not ISIS. Not the media. Live your life, love your life, you are alive.

You don’t need to live preparing for that moment.

You don’t need to live fearing that moment.

At the end of the day today, I will go to bed. It doesn’t mean I need to spend all day in my pajamas in my bedroom prepping for that moment. It doesn’t mean I need to even think about going to bed all day. My focus will be a thousand other places today. When my day ends, then I will prepare and I will go to sleep. Not before.

My death is the same. My death may appear to come in the middle of the day or long after midnight. I may fall in my prime. I may pass in waning hours withered and forgotten.

But until that moment, I am alive. So are you.

I must not fear, fear is the mind killer.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t believe that everyone in the world is out to get you. Believe in love. Believe in peace.

Don’t believe in a sinister force that must be destroyed in order for you to have peace. Peace cannot be attained through warfare.

Today I send my love and joie de vivre to France. I send my love and joy of living to the world. What the world needs today is the same thing it needed last week, your love, your compassion, and your joy.

Namaste,

Kevin

What’s in a Name?

Posted on November 4, 2015 by kgoodman

What does your name mean to you?

How do you identify with your name?

The other day I heard someone call out for ‘Kevin’ and I immediately felt they were in good hands. I wasn’t even the Kevin they were asking for. I just associate my name with quality and efficiency. I know it will be done right.

In reality, the other Kevin could have been a complete loser, but this didn’t disturb my calm. It was a Kevin and that meant quality.

I remember back in high school we had a diving contest. We were supposed to do something weird diving off the platform into the pool. I was in the contest and did the weirdest move I could think of. I recall thinking it was pretty average but was pleasantly surprised when I got called up for round 2. They liked me, they really liked me! I stood in line waiting for my turn. I stepped up onto the diving board, ready to wow them. The judges looked at me, “Oh, sorry, we meant Kevin B.” Talk about the walk of shame. It’s enough to bring a high school sophomore to tears. Not being called up is one thing. I wasn’t too invested in it to begin with. But when I got called up for another round my pride jumped on board. I’d made the cut. But I hadn’t. I so hadn’t, that they didn’t even consider that there were two Kevins in the contest. I was so out of the contest in their minds that there was only one Kevin and I wasn’t it. Ouch!

I take pride in my name and associate my actions with it. I strongly identify with my name. It is a critical part of my identity. I often don’t even think about how deeply it’s wedged into my psyche, but there it is. It is a fundamental building block of my identity. I have been called Kevin since birth.

I don’t like disparaging remarks about Kevin’s in general. If I hear someone talking smack about a Kevin, my ego jumps in to defend.

I’m glad we don’t have a president named Kevin because I would have to separate my identity to allow for criticism of a Kevin that wasn’t me.

When you take a long step back. Given how deeply ingrained your name is to your identity, it has to be a really long step. It can be very difficult to step back this far. But when you do, it is interesting to see how much your name is just another label.

It’s a label that means something to others.

It’s a label that means tons to you.

It’s a label that you find being used to identify yourself and in turn locking yourself into a behavior. You may find when you label yourself with your name you are in fact setting your expectations based on that label instead of based on who you really are.

Who is that? Oh, that’s Kevin.

Don’t get hung up on labels.

Namaste,

Kevin

You are pretty fantastic!

Posted on October 21, 2015 by kgoodman

Hi All, Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I really enjoy writing my blog and sharing my ideas with you. I also really enjoy the feedback and affirmations provided from time to time. Life gets busy and I took a little breather. I’d like to say “I’m back, and better than ever!”, but since I’m already perfect, there is no where to go but toward further understanding, and I still feel a little confused. Life sends us in all sorts of directions. The important thing is to stay centered and breath. Thank you for sticking with me.

Have you ever stopped to consider how amazing your body is?

Have you ever watched yourself move in the mirror? I don’t mean in an egotistical way, this isn’t about narcissism. This is about wonder. Have you ever watched yourself move in a mirror?

Have you ever looked at your hands while you were typing on a keyboard? Really watched the movements of the fingers as they flawlessly find their way between keys while you work through writing a message. Have you ever stopped to think about how they find their spots on the keyboard? How does that work? How does your body do that?

Of course there is a simple answer, we’ve science’d that out. Your body has muscles and the muscles control motion. Each joint has muscles for extension and retraction. The bones are there to hold everything in place, as the muscles ripple around them. In turn, your brain sends signals to the muscles in a coordinated symphony to tell the muscles where to go. Then there is muscle memory. This accounts for how you’re not so good at typing the first time you sit down to a keyboard. Then after years and years of practice you’ve trained your muscles what to do. It’s a simple as programming a computer. Your body knows where to go from past experiences and it simply repeats the pattern. It’s all mechanics and chemistry in action.

Your logical brain reads through it and says, yeah, that makes sense. Then you move on with your day.

Whereas your 12 year old child brain (an unacknowledged part of the brain that most people ignore) is standing up with a huge ass grin on his face and jumping all around saying “WTF, that’s amazing!” “You really expect me to believe all the gibberish about muscle memory and extension/retraction!” “You don’t even know dude!” “You’re just making stuff up.”

Interestingly the 12 year old mind sounds a lot like the version of you with inhibitions and some reasoning skills dampened. We’ve learned to shut down that voice. It makes us sound rash and impulsive. It also makes us sound a little uneducated like we don’t know how things really are. Or more specifically like we don’t believe what we’ve been told about how things work.

We are ‘educated’ to believe we know how things work. Someone who thinks they understand something doesn’t ask how something works. A person that isn’t asking questions isn’t questioning answers. We believe we know what we know. We believe to ask if our answers are wrong, is a sign of failure on our part. We’ve believed it this long, we better keep believing it so we don’t look like idiots. The problem is, when you don’t ask questions, and you’re surrounded by idiots, it looks like everyone agrees on the truth. When in reality, you’re just surround by idiots.

I don’t say this to disparage. I say this for effect, to identify the reality, at some point we are all idiots. It’s okay, it’s just a label. What’s important is that you don’t learn to ignore the label so you don’t identify with it. Instead, you identify with it and recognize it as a reminder to ask questions.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.” – Confucius

Surround your life with wonder and questions. Remember that you are a miracle, never settle for a mundane explanation.

Namaste,

Kevin

Reaching Selectively

Posted on September 30, 2015 by kgoodman

You have been told to reach for the stars. It’s good advice. But remember to reach for one at a time.

I am attending a technical conference this week. I always get very “into my head” at these conferences. Sure there is a strong technical component for learning and connecting, so my brain gets into that and starts to build new models for how the universe works.

But the part where I really get into my head, involves people watching and comparison. Oh my goodness, the comparison engine goes into overdrive.

I know more than that person.

I know better than this person.

I wish I knew as much as her.

Wow he really comes across as put together.

Wish I could present like that.

Wish I knew that level of architecture.

etc…

The voice in my head is having a feast.

I am constantly ‘dialoging’ with myself that I should know more technical details. I should know more computer languages. I should know how to manage web servers better. I should be a better system administrator. The list of perceived deficiencies goes on and on. At the same time my head voice wants me to know more about architecture and how systems are put together. I should know more about security. I should know more about internet infrastructure deployments. I should be able to design large systems…

The truth is, I can do a lot of these these, but I can’t do all of these things. I know a lot of programming languages, but I don’t know all programming languages. All my brain needs to see is a single example, where I don’t know something, and the judgement starts.

Why did you never learn that?

Why don’t you know more about that?

He’s younger than you, how come he is better at that then you?

The truth is I know a lot. The truth is that I know enough.

The truth is that I am adequate and perfect. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.

The truth is, there are lots of days when I don’t believe the truth.

I often find myself judging my own experiences as inadequate. When in fact my own experiences are perfect. They are exactly what they need to be to make me the man that I am today. Adding a burden of perceived gap between what I know today and what I think I should know, doesn’t make me better. It actually degrades my value.

By seeing myself as inadequate or lacking I am simply feeding the voice of doubt in my head. This voice is in need of a diet, not a good hearty meal. There is no need for me to spend my precious time preparing food for the voices in my head.

This inadequacy leads to reaching. But reaching from a place of inadequacy is like looking for balance from a place of imbalance. If the foundation of your search is all wibbly wobbly, then no matter how strongly you build on top of it, you will always be wibbly wobbly. So the reaching becomes frantic and instead of reaching in one direction, or picking a few discrete goals, you reach in all directions, you pick all goals.

Instead of trying to reach a single star, you find yourself reaching for all stars.

You cannot do everything at once.

You cannot reach in all directions at one time.

You cannot boil the ocean, you must heat up one pot of water at a time.

Remember one of the most important skills for reaching the stars is focus, not having long arms.

Focus, breath.

You are adequate and perfect.

I am too.

Namaste,

Kevin

Taking Fear Out Of The Drivers Seat

Posted on September 16, 2015 by kgoodman

It’s been a long year. It seems like every time I turn around something tragic is happening somewhere. A story comes through about a young life drowning as a family flees tyranny. A story about a small town being wiped off the map overnight by fire. All around me there are stories of fear and terror. How could that happen to them? Could that happen to me? How can I protect myself and my family?

While processing the news, or even the events of our own daily lives, our emotional response often sends us to a place of fear. Our focus on the tragic will drive us to hand off the steering wheel, of our lives, over to fear. At some point we as a culture seem to have decided this was a reasonable framework to operate from.

From there it was just up to the clever media moguls to realize what it took to get our attention. Fear. Scare the heck out of them and you’ll have their attention. Sure the attention you get will be from a stressed overwrought and foggy headed crowd, but you’ll have their attention.

And so it goes on and on.

We hand over control to our fear and our fear becomes so strong that we can’t take the wheel back. We even begin to identify with the fear and without noticing we think that we’re in the driver seat. We’re making rational choices about our kids safety and how we should treat other people. We’re thinking through the way we treat strangers and who we elect for office. We do all this without realizing we are being driven by fear.

I have good news, and I have bad news.

The bad news.

We all die, sometimes tragically and sometimes in boring ways. Death is a natural part of life, usually the last part. Every story ends.

The good news.

We all die, sometimes tragically and sometimes in boring ways. Death is a natural part of life, usually the last part. Every story ends.

I do not wish to downplay or dismiss the tragedy that is occurring in the world this year. However we need to stay focused, or rather become focused once more. We need to take the steering wheel back and clear our heads.

So politely and affectionately I offer you this, A STRONG slap in the face. <SMACK>

Snap out of it! Wake up! Find your center.

You are here now. You are a miracle. The world is a wonderful place filled with puppy dogs and kittens. You came here for a reason. Without feeling like I am overstepping my bound, I am confident in telling you, the reason was NOT to live out of fear. The reason was not to worry about things that are out of your control.

I dare say the reason you came here was to live and to learn and to love.

The reason you are here is to experience life to it’s fullest and to help out where you can.

Take back the wheel. Think for yourself. Operate from a place of love. Compassionately tell your fear to take a hike.

Namaste,

Kevin

Living The Dream

Posted on September 2, 2015 by kgoodman

What if Money was no object? What would I do if I didn’t have to worry about paying bills, feeding my family, etc.

I always find myself in a duality when I think about this. Money is an object. Money is what pays for the food and the shelter. Money fuels the car. Money pays for the electricity.

How much house do you need? How much food do you need? Why do you need fuel? The answer to these are sometimes simple and sometimes convoluted. The deeper the story gets, you may need to unravel to get to the truth.

We unraveled a bit last year, we got rid of one of the cars. We are now a one car family. We are also a 6 – 8 bike family. We bike all over town, to Groceries, to chiropractor, to visit friends, etc. It’s increased our happiness and lowered a bills.

Need to lower the bills a bit more before I quit my day job… But finding passion and connection with the idea in the video below will remind you, money is not the object. Money is not the destination.

Let money be a tool for your life. Don’t let yourself be a tool for money.

Namaste,

Kevin

I’ve been editing a releasing old blog posts with new memes on facebook (ChakraChime) and instragram (ChakraCommunity).

If you haven’t already, liked us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/ChakraChime feel free to do so now.

Here are a few popular links to stories that have been well received on facebook.

Allowing for Chaos – Trapped in this duality between boredom and adrenal fatigue, I tend to oscillate back and forth between, alternately seeking out change and running away from change. As you can imagine, it is a rather frantic way to live and leads to a lot of energy spent for not much result. AKA, much ado about nothing… – http://wp.me/p2w7BK-8E

Breathing Through Transition – We love births! We love having a new life to wonder over and to see the world through fresh eyes. But for a parent, birth is merely a transition state. After the birth, your work isn’t over. Nurturing this newborn is a lifetime practice.
– http://wp.me/p2w7BK-6y

Spiritual Returns

Posted on August 19, 2015 by kgoodman

How much return do you expect for your spiritual effort?

How many people would you have to save in order to start a movement?

How many lives do you have to impact before you feel successful?

How do you measure your spiritual value?

When you look at investing money, with a financial advisor, it’s pretty common for them to try to establish your risk tolerance. From that information, they estimate what your return will be annually, based on your ability to handle risk. If you have a low tolerance for risk and just want your money to grow slowly over time you can probably get 5% returns, meaning if you put in $100 dollars, at the end of the year, you would have $105. If you have a very high risk tolerance, they may estimate your returns at 20%. This would mean that if you put in $100 dollars at the end of the year you could have $120. But of course there is a downside to risk. Putting your money at risk for 20% gains means that you could lose 20%. So now at the end of the year you may end up with only $80 dollars left.

Now let’s get back to you.

What is your spiritual risk tolerance?

How far out there are you willing to put yourself?

What kind of returns are you expecting?

How many lives do you need to touch to feel your effort is worth it?

How many people do you need to save to make it worth trying?

I often ask this question when I am writing my blog. How many people do I need on my subscription list to consider myself a success? How many likes on facebook? How many hearts on instagram? What are my metrics?

Why am I even talking about metrics? This is spirit. This is free. We aren’t given 100 units of spirit when we’re born. We don’t need to invest wisely with spirit. Spirit, by it’s nature, is uncaged and untamable. I can’t save up spirit to spend next week. It flows through me. We need to engage with spirit, when the spirit moves us.

Today I have a chance to share spirit.

Tomorrow I have a chance to share spirit.

Yesterday I was able to share spirit.

Our world is hung up on metrics and statistics. We want to see numbers and understand the impact. We seek efficiencies and insights. There is no need in the world of spirit. Additionally the world of spirit ripples out in ways we cannot possibly imagine. The story you tell today, the person you helped yesterday, the song you sang to yourself in the elevator; These are all energy waves rippling out, impacting the world in ways beyond you reckoning.

Today I send out my message as an offering. I am enough. You are enough. We are mighty.

If I reach 1000 people with this message I am blessed.

If I reach 0 people with this message I am blessed.

To simply be here today with you, I am blessed.

Namaste,

Kevin

The Middle Matters

Posted on August 12, 2015 by kgoodman

Have you ever seen an advertisement for a weight loss supplement with the before and after photos?

I won’t get into all the ways that marketing tries to deceive us. But I wanted to draw attention to the two falsehoods that seem to catch me up all the time, within this image.

1) The presentation only glamorizes success stories

2) The image clearly implies that the middle does not matter

I don’t believe these are the fault of the before and after photos. Rather I feel like they are the part of the human psyche that before and after photos feed on.

Why only glamorize your success stories? Or even more to the point, what is success? I had kids and I consider that a success in life. But if you were to judge by my before and after photos, you might question if I “Have it all.” My before and after photos are more the reverse of the standard marketing campaign.

Does this mean I’ve failed? Or does it mean I’m looking at the wrong metric?

Even the language I’m using here is really diving deep into a false perception of value. The idea that there are a set of metrics by which I should be measured. While our culture is very clear that there are a set of metrics to measure a man, this is a bold face lie. It’s a lie that’s so ingrained that even after identifying it’s falsehood over and over again I find myself standing in front of a mirror looking me over with a measuring stick in hand (figuratively).

This leads to the second major falsehood this image illustrates, that the middle doesn’t matter. Life is all about the middle. It’s all about the process and the stages in between, it is not about the end and the beginning. If it was, we would sum up peoples lives with a photo montage including only two images. One would be the egg and sperm meeting for the first time. The second image would be a picture of a coffin. Before and After, end of story, finished done.

No! Life is about the middle.

Life is about all those amazing and frustrating things that happen to us while we’re on the path. You can’t sum up success or failure with two images. You can’t judge a person by a selfie. An image trapped in a specific moment in time when you may, or may not, have been having a good hair day.

Remember in your life, things will get better.

Remember in your life, things will get worse.

You’re in a dance, not sitting through a presentation.

Polish up your dancing shoes and get out there, you’ve got a world to see.

Namaste,

Kevin

Chakra Community

Reminding you why you came to this life

You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!

Struggling Gracefully

Immortal

What’s in a Name?

You are pretty fantastic!

Reaching Selectively

Taking Fear Out Of The Drivers Seat

Living The Dream

Spiritual Returns

The Middle Matters