Dance With The Elephant

Who Will Leave A Legacy In This World? : Dance With The Elephant

DANCE WITH THE ELEPHANT

To answer the question as to who will leave a legacy, the fact is all people leave a legacy.  From the President of the United States in Washington D.C., to the drunken homeless person who hangs out down on main street in the town you grew up in, all people leave a legacy. So the question becomes, what kind of legacy will you leave behind for the world to follow?

 

Duane tells a story about an uncle of his, Uncle Ronny, who was married to his godmother, Aunt Mary.  This man, since the day Duane was born, had been a alcoholic and as the result had mistreated Aunt Mary in more ways than you could ever imagine.  Periodically,after getting caught again for drunk driving, Uncle Ronny would be forced into treatment at the Vets Hospital. But time after time, he'd get out of treatment and fall right back into his drunken ways.  It was very early in life that Duane came to hate his Uncle for the way he constantly mistreated his wife Aunt Mary and for the many trials and tribulations he created throughout the extended family as well.

 

It wasn't until Duane was in his mid 30's that one day while he was driving down the freeway, he was visited by a voice.  The voice said that he should immediately go to the Vets Hospital where Uncle Ronnie was doing another round of rehab.  He should find Uncle Ronnie and tell him that this time he was going to do it.  This time he would break the alcoholic spell of his past and live the rest of his life sober.  As mystical as this situation may seem, its the gospel truth, and I followed the direction of the voice and immediately turned the car heading for the hospital.  

 

Having never been to the facility before, finding Uncle Ronnie on the square mile campus with dozens of buildings was a major task unto itself.  But he found him and convinced his group therapist that he needed to talk to Ronnie immediately.  Uncle Ronnie couldn't believe his eyes.  What in the hell was this nephew doing here and what on earth was so important to interrupt his rehab session?  Had somebody died?  Duane will never forget the ghost like look on his face. They both went outside and Ronnie immediatly reached in his pocket to light up a cigarette and sat down on a picnic bench. Duane looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Uncle Ronnie, you probably aren't going to believe this but a voice told me to come here today and give you a message.  I'm supposed to tell you that this time you're going to do it.  This time you're actually going to sober up and change your life."  

 

As far as anyone knows, from that day forward and for the last 10 years of his life, Uncle Ronnie never took another drink and remained sober for the rest of his days.  Through this life experience, Uncle Ronnie taught Duane the lesson to never give up on a person and their potential at any time to turn their life around.  Even after 65 years filled with drunken despair, a person can change their ways in the final moment and redirect their cosmic legacy.  Today Uncle Ronnie's legacy for Duane has a positive meaning and one he values greatly.  If we could go back in time and interview Uncle Ronnie, its very likely that he would reflect on Duane and the impact he had on his own final legacy.  Here is an example of two people who touched one another and as the result changed the course of their cosmic legacies.  

 

 You will leave a legacy.  Your legacy will be based on your ability to discover, dream and explore the world around you using life's cosmic equation.  It will be designed by the person you become and the people you touch.   Effective this moment, you now have the opportunity and responsibility to apply the equation to your life.  You now have the knowledge and the technology.  Create your dreams and risk to explore them.  You have a destiny to fulfill and a purpose to champion.  

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EXCERPT: The Universal Paradox of Life : Dance With The Elephant

DANCE WITH THE ELEPHANT 

A paradox is defined as a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.  In the journey of life, we all yearn for human connection.  We strive to connect with our loved ones, our friends and our neighbors. Our relationship bonds to people bring warmth, love and joy to our lives.

The first universal paradox in human relationships is the fact we all share a cosmic connection to one another that goes back to the beginning of time.  The paradox lies in the fact most of us don't recognize or realize the inherent connection we have to each other and go about spending most of our energy and time in life actually sabotaging these connections.  Just take a moment and think about the emotional elements of shame, blame and guilt in your life.  What role have they played in your life to challenge and sever the connections with the people in your life?

Take the example of the loss of a loved one and the process that follows.  Early on, everyone surrounds you with love and concern.  Yet, one month later, how many of those same people would try to avoid you at the super market, not knowing what to say given the time that has passed.  In reality all you needed was your friend to be present and willing to listen.  Instead you find them running for the aisles.  To Dance With The Elephant, we need to face these uncomfortable moments and reach out to one another in loving kindness and presence.   Be present with presents. 

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Understanding the Drama and Trauma of Life : Dance With The Elephant

DANCE WITH THE ELEPHANT

 

 

Call it the drama and trauma of life, the yin and yang or the pain and pleasure.  The bipolar extremes of daily life are an integral part of our world and our universe as a whole.  Many times the trauma, pain and negative experiences of life become the elephant or the secrets we tend to bury and disassociate from ourselves.  As Don commonly says, "We stuff them in a bottle and we cork the end as tight as we can."

Unfortunately the elephant in the room and the secrets we try to bury in a bottle have a tendency to have a hidden control over our lives.  Our goal in dancing with the elephant is to uncork the bottle and to bring these secrets out into the open where they can be dealt with and recognized for what the really are.  This process can unleash some of the greatest potential for growth in life and will allow us to redirect our lives toward our true destiny.

Duane shares his experience of personal loss when after being married to his wife for 12 years and having had two children together, she comes out of the closet and informs Duane that she had a new partner she wants to live the rest of her life with.  Duane was totally devastated and couldn't even admit the truth of his situation to other people for over a year into the separation and divorce process.  It took a total of 3 years, a lengthy rebuilding process of counseling, support groups and personal development, before Duane finally had his feet back on the ground and was on his way to living life again.

As a part of Duane's healing process, he created a list of 20 goals he wanted to accomplish.  These included everything from meeting another woman that he could fall in love with, to taking a trip to Europe with someone special to him.  During the next 3 years after Duane's traumatic divorce, he accomplished all 20 goals he had made, he remarried and had started a new family.  In looking back, the trauma of his first marriage became the launch pad to the drama of his new life, marriage and family.

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Understanding The Power of Receptive Choice : Dance With The Elephant

 

Receptive Choice is the second part of Life's Cosmic Equation that empowers you to discover the path in life that matches your creative power.  It frees you from the shackles of family and social norms which allows you to break free into the horizon of your unique and personal destiny in life. 

To apply Receptive Choice into your daily life requires a four step process.  Stop, Look, Choose and Act.  You first have to STOP what you're doing long enough to step back from the patterns of your past.  Take some time to LOOK in the mirror and see yourself for who you truly are at this moment in time.  How does what you see identify, support and further develop your Creative Power in life?  CHOOSE if what you see and where you are is where you want to be in the future.  Finally, ACT upon the choices you make to better match a path that will guide you to life's destiny and your chosen cosmic legacy.

Receptive Choice is really the golden ticket, the precious key, to understanding how to take total control and responsibility of your life. Receptive Choice means you’re going to be open and available to your creative energy. You will consciously work to understand, nurture and develop yourself, so you can maximize your unique journey in the universe. You will learn to accept responsibility for your choices and purpose in life. Receptive Choice is understanding that you control the steering wheel, brakes, and gas pedal of your life.

Since life began as we know it, all living organisms have been a part of the cosmic law of unity. Everything exists in unity with something else. Nothing lives in total isolation or independence. All living things are constantly evolving in a continuous dance with similar species, toward greater complexity and higher forms of interaction. This activity has been studied and documented by the science community that even simple cells have social and cosmic interaction. We know organic living cells, birds, fish, mammals all show signs of interaction, repelling, and attraction. We may not think they are given Receptive Choice, but they fully demonstrate through their capacity of survival, the ability to adapt and evolve through space and time. 

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Who is Right - Science or Religion? : Dance With The Elephant

So who is right, science or religion?  The question centers around the third component of Life's Cosmic Equation (CP + RC + F (Faith) * T = CL ), the topic of Faith.  Faith is normally a word associated with religious beliefs.  Most of the time we don't think of faith being a part of the secular scientific approach to solving the mysteries of the universe.  

 

When we Dance With The Elephant, faith is the common link that bridges both communities.  A scientist places belief in a theory or a hypothesis on the basis of limited evidence and as a starting point for further investigation.  It is faith that motivates the cosmologist to venture into the unknown trusting and confident that new discoveries will be made.  That same faith is present in the religious belief system based on spiritual apprehension rather than scientific proof or validation.  God and the doctrines of the specific religion become the unknown requiring the believer to have faith.

 

Both science and religion are witnessing what Ray Kurzweil calls the law of accelerating returns.  We live in a world where the advances made in human-created technology are expanding at an exponential rate.  Not just one plus one, but two times two times two.  Think of walking 30 steps in a linear world and you just walked the distance of each step times 30.  Walk 30 steps in the exponential world and you just covered the distance of a single step times 1 billion.  Science and religion are both facing an immediate future involving exponential rates of change and only through faith will civilization have the capacity to dance with it.

 

In a world of exponential accelerating change, both science and religion are pitted against the same great unknown.  Hopefully, through our common star dust origins, there is a story that can bridge and unite the divide that existed in the past between these two faith based groups.  Each of us must apply the entire Life's Cosmic Equation to our lives and dig deeper into the question of what will bring purpose and meaning to our lives in this new exponential evolving world we're now entering into.

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TIME - How do you spend it? : Dance With The Elephant

Time is the fourth and final part of Life’s Cosmic Equation. It is the great multiplier that gives action, motion and movement to the cosmic trinity (Creative Power, Receptive Choice, Faith). Time is the horse your cosmic trinity rides on in pursuit of your cosmic destiny in the universe. It is the one variable in the equation that you have absolutely no control over. Use it wisely and your greatest dreams can be realized. Take it for granted and lose all direction and purpose in life.

Time is the dimension by which historical events are given order, past through the present, and on into the future. It gives the measure of duration that takes place in a single event and the description of the intervals between multiple events. In Western culture, we have a tendency to take time for granted and always look to the future, a future that is rarely reached. We’re often surprised when the cradle of life, called death, gets in the way of our goals and dreams. Time has purpose and meaning, as it relates to the past and the action that takes place in the here and now.

Time, as it relates to the human condition, is what you have between birth and death. The only certainty you can rely on is the fact the end of life will come, by accident or by body failure. Your time is what it is, you have very little control over it. Accepting death as a part of the package is critical to understanding time's role in Life's Cosmic Equation. If your time is limited, you have a greater motivation to unify your cosmic trinity and develop a greater sense of direction in your life. Life is about taking action and not waiting for it to happen. 

 

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Having and Finding Faith : Dance With The Elephant

 

 

 

Faith is the third part of Life’s Cosmic Equation. When added to Creative Power and Receptive Choice it makes up what is called the cosmic trinity. The cosmic trinity makes up the unifying creative force that joins together all things in the universe. Faith allows you to cope with the constant unknown part of daily life. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, yet through faith, we can survive and even thrive in the uncertainty. You can be fully connected to your passionate creative purpose and your reason for existing, but it is faith that bridges the who you are today, with the uncertain destiny of what you will become tomorrow. 

 

Your capacity for personal faith (Me) has its origin in both in your genetics and cultural upbringing. Modern day science estimates that 50% of who you are is based on your genetics. The DNA passed on to you by your parents and the 400,000 years of human generations before them, make up half of the composition of your personality. It's what you've got to work with and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

Now it's the other 50% that is a bit more interesting in the fact that it is totally predicated by the environment we grow up in and the choices we personally make within those surroundings. Since birth most of us have lived with parents, siblings and relatives who had certain traditions, values and norms. This group of people you live with are located in a geographical location that has a dominant culture, religion and societal framework. All these pieces of the puzzle play a role in forming your personality, character and temperament. To exist with in a social system, one must conform to the norms and values of that system. The level of faith you have in yourself today was determined by the genetics of your birth and the human interactions that followed ever since. 

 

Faith is a place of mystery, where we nd the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty... Get Deliberate; Get Inspired; Get Going! 

 

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Discovering Your CREATIVE POWER

On a personal level, Creative Power is the AWESOME energy source within you. When it is completely understood, utilized and acted upon, it will provide infinite capacity to fully realize your dreams and reach your destiny!

So what is the source of this Creative Power and from where did it come?

To find the answer to this question, all you have to do is look into the sky on a clear night. Did you know that on any given night, a star is being born at that very moment? Since the beginning of time, there has been a creative force in the universe that changes simple things into more complex. This force is demonstrated on the cosmic level when clouds of hydrogen and helium gas fuse together to form stars. 

The birth, life and death of a star can provide great insights into better understanding the role of Creative Power in the universe. From the moment of birth, a star has a cosmic creative energy and purpose manifested within it. Every star and its solar system is exclusive and totally unique unto itself. It was born with a given size, a certain brightness, a given life span and most importantly, a relationship with the other objects that orbit it. 

These objects include: asteroids, comets, planets and sometimes even other stars. No two stellar systems are alike.

A star lives to shine bright providing energy and gravity to its solar system. During its life-time, important creative work is going on in the nuclear belly of the star. The simple elements of hydrogen and helium are being converted into more complex elements like nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. It is during the nal moments that precede the death of a star that most of the simple to complex element conversion takes place. In the grand finale, a star leaves its own cosmic legacy when it explodes in a Supernova and hurls its heavier elements and precious metals back into the galaxy providing the seeds for new stars to be born and the opportunity for the entire cycle to begin again. 

Do you know what your Creative Power is?

Unfortunately, most people have never thought of even asking the question. Look around you. How many people do you know that have allowed the social and cultural influences of family, friends and society to control their beliefs and direction in life. They are blind to the inborn Creative Power of the universe and the joyful purpose it can bring to life. Most people have turned away from the Creative Power they felt sometime during their youth or maybe never really got acquainted with it to begin with. 

 

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Iron Man and Captain America are Super Heroes - What About Cosmic Heroes?

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Everybody wants and loves a hero. The creation of héros has been a part of human culture since we roamed the desserts of Africa thousands of years ago. Who we choose as our heroes is a part of how and what we define ourselves to be. They can inspire us to be better people and they can lead us down the path of evil and destruction. 

"People say they're looking for the meaning of life... but I think what they're really looking for an experience of being alive. So that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Joseph Campbell


Don Calhoun and Duane Kuss combine to write the ground breaking book "How To Dance With The Elephant", filled with life-changing stories and exercises. View 20 videos that feature major book topics.

The cosmic hero is a part of your Receptive Choice power in life. (Creative Power + Receptive Choice + Faith) * Time = Your Cosmic Legacy .

Don's greatest hero in life was his mother. Don loved his mother and she gave him what he believes are all the good traits he carries with him today. His mother was faced with a myriad of life challenges but through it all never complained or felt sorry for herself. She was dealt a horrible set of 
life cards but never chose the path of hanging her head or verbally bitching about her situation. Some of these included loosing her parents and her brother when she was still a teenager. She contacted brain cancer and became legally blind while her own kids were still in elementary school. She died before her youngest child finished college. 

Because of this, Don has very little tolerance for people who complain or yap their gums about other people or how bad things are in their life. Although Don admits his mother wasn't a saint, she still played the cosmic hero role in his life that has strongly controlled how he looks at life and the path he follows on a daily basis.

Joseph Campbell was a renowned scholar who studied the concept of cultural heroes throughout the world. Heros are a part of every human culture whether it's the Buddhist monks in the mountains of Tibet or the eskimos on the tundra in northern Canada. Many of us want to be recognized as heroes and all of us naturally identify with heroes. 

The challenge and potential negative in life comes when your hero identification involves something called transference. When your hero, be it an individual, group or country, is given control over who you are and your destiny in life, it has the potential of being destructive to your true life legacy and purpose. Each of us has the capacity to step back and reflect on our receptive choices in life. Who are your heroes and who are we a hero to? 


"If there is any science man really needs it is the one I teach, of how to occupy properly that place in creation that is assigned to man, ad how to learn from it what one must be in order to be a man."
Immanuel Kant

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