Last Updated on December 16, 2024

Shifting into The Progress Paradigm

There is a way of doing things that is beyond shame and blame, discipline and punishment.

Most people don’t know this way exists, because it’s outside of their belief system.

It’s outside of their paradigm.

Instead, we try to force ourselves to do things.

Even our passion projects!

That time I got my dream job

In my 20s, my friends and I started a podcasting business.

We had big plans.

We were going to create a conscious media empire.

We even raised half a million dollars!

It was my absolute dream job at the time.

We easily secured interviews with big name authors and leaders in fields like personal development and alternative health.

And we were growing like crazy, getting thousands of listeners.

And then I burned out

But there was a problem.

Well really, two problems.

One was that we didn’t have an economic engine for the business.

So we ran out of money in under a year.

The other was that I was still running my inner world out of forcing.

I was still living in The Punishment Paradigm.

So while I was working on my passion project, I was also feeling completely burned out.

By the time the business went under, I had developed chronic fatigue.

A couple days a week, I could barely get out of bed even.

I did recover however, through learning how to restructure my inner world.

Instead of inner conflict, I welcomed all parts of myself with love.

I did hundreds of self-guided sessions of Core Transformation, a very gentle healing process from Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

That helped me to redesign my inner world based on love instead of fear.

Transformational media empire, part 2?

Recently, I’ve got the podcasting bug again.

I’m revisiting the idea of a transformational media company.

I’ve got several ideas for podcasts, and have started working on them.

And interestingly, I’ve also been working through layers of fatigue and other “Bodily Distress Syndrome.”

But something is very different now.

I’m living in a different paradigm, more and more.

In The Progress Paradigm, we don’t motivate ourselves through fear and pain like in The Punishment Paradigm.

Instead, we motivate ourselves through joy and desire and pleasure.

As a result, we don’t head towards burnout.

We head towards more and more aliveness!

Instead of forcing, we’re in the flow.

And that’s what I’ve been feeling more lately.

Getting unstuck and into the flow

Instead of spending many hours a day in a stress state, I’m spending most of the day feeling joyful and optimistic.

What’s been helping me get there is “meditating” every day for 2 hours a day.

Some of that meditation is sitting on the couch eyes closed, in deep trance.

And some of that meditation has been doing Pattern Interrupt Methods to clear out stuck states.

I’ll just speak my thoughts and feelings out loud for 2 minutes, without censoring myself.

And then I’ll stop and dance or tap do something else to interrupt the pattern.

My wife and I have even started doing this together, experimenting with ways to clear stuck states and get into ecstatic, creative expression.

We’re even using AI to create songs that remind us of the powerful insights we’ve been having (like this one).

Progress, not perfection

If there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s not about being perfect.

It’s not about never falling back into The Punishment Paradigm.

It’s about paradigm shifting over and over again, so we can see things from a better perspective.

And when we see things from a different paradigm, the world appears very differently.

If we’ve seen it once, then it’s simply a matter of practicing The Art of Remembering.

Often translated as “mindfulness,” the Pali word “sati” really means to remember.

When we remember there is a different paradigm, a different way of experiencing the world, everything can be joyful, healing, and enlivening.

Take care,

 

 

 

~Duff
(they/them)

P.S. If you want to practice The Art of Remembering, join my weekly coaching group The Joy of Doing. It’s only $7 for your first month if you use the coupon code 7.

Have questions about it? Get in touch.