WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t binge watched the new Dracula series on Netflix, this is a spoiler on the ending.
So, I focus on helping people live the life the want to live instead of living the life they were taught to live. Not an easy thing to do especially when your internal chatter keeps telling you negative stories about who you are.
I think I was lucky to find Classical Chinese Medicine. Or maybe I was suppose to find it. I remember way back in the ‘70’s wanting to be a Classical Chinese practitioner. So, maybe it was my destiny. It was through Chinese Medicine, I was finally able to find a way to set down the demons of your internal chatter. Not just teach you tools to try and manage your response, but to allow you to stop having that response all together. To forget it ever happened. To enable you to cross the river of Lethe one more time.
For some, searching for a better life is not a choice. There is an underlying drive forcing you to search for a different way of living. Yet, you find yourself trapped in your current way of living like a mouse in a maze.
In Chinese Medicine, you establish yourself in this world during your first cycle. For girls that is seven years and for boys it is eight years. Your immune system becomes fully developed in the first cycle. Your immune system is what protects you from the world. In Chinese Medicine, the immune system is more than just your white blood cells. You learn the mental and emotional skills to protect you from the world. Then you spend the rest of your life practicing your skills until they become body memory.
That also means you may have surrounded yourself with other people whose actions and behavior fit nicely into your beliefs and behaviors. As much as you want change, it will take more than desire.
All personal change has one critical lesson you must be willing to face. If someone is not ready for change, they will use everything at their disposal to avoid change. They will push back and sometimes aggressively.
That is the nature of change. When you are changing, everyone around you is impacted by your change. And your change will force those around you to look at themselves. Many people don’t like doing that. So, they may try to pressure you to stay inside the lines. Lastly, as you change, you will naturally attract different people to you and the old ones will leave.
How do you maintain your path to a better life when so many people are pushing you to stay in your box? That is the power of Chinese Medicine and the concept of buddha.
HERE IS THE SPOILER PART!
I really liked the new Dracula series on Netflix. The story was the same story I’ve seen in every Dracula movie with a twist. There was a 20th century human side given to Dracula. Today, with the speed of the internet human interaction and human separation is evolving at dizzying speeds. The sheer volume of information becomes suffocating. That is the 20th century human side to life – being overwhelmed, unbalanced and confused due to the sheer volume of issues, change, and the speed of time.
In the end, this Dracula turned into a sort of Grimm Fairy tale highlighting key lessons from Daoism….
I hear ya! Really! I obviously have too much time on my hands.
But when you talk about the “deve” who are a superior race with these superhuman gifts and these transcendence abilities, Count Dracula can be an amazing story of a deve who experiences self-actualization. Lost in a free fall of despair, Count Dracula finally faces himself and is able to rise again.
I especially like Episode 3 where Count Dracula has made it into the 20th century and has taken hostage a 20th-century host in her house. The house is a mess of discarded consumerism and the homeowner reflects the house is a dump.
But, Count Dracula says, “I’m assuming you have staff. You are clearly very wealthy…look at all this stuff. All this food. The moving picture box. And that thing outside, Bob calls it, um , a car. Is that yours? And this, this treasure trove is your house…never have I stood in greater luxury than surrounds me now.”
Wow, huh? What a realistic impression a person from a different century would have. I forget how very comfortable existence is today. That one scene brought it back. For Dracula, not only the house, but the whole 20th century world was a treasure trove of insatiable desires. And like Count Dracula, many today are on an endless search for insatiable comforts.
The endless search is a distraction. and we use distractions every day to avoid facing ourselves and our interaction with the world. Food is the most common choice for distraction. How many people do you know who search for the ice cream in the middle of the night and can eat a whole quart? In Chinese Medicine, you can stuff your emotions by eating things like ice cream which is damp producing. Damp, like a muffler, muffles the emotions.
Now, the other part that I really loved about the series was the last scene. Count Dracula has had an abnormal infatuation with a nun and her family bloodline. And why does he have this abnormal infatuation with this nun? Because she reflects what he wants. In fact, what is really amazing is how brutal he is to this nun as he covets and torments what he desires.
Very similar to what happens today when someone sees in another what they covet. They become very aggressive, covetous, and tormenting towards this other person.
Dr. Zoe Helsing confronts Count Dracula with a mirror that reflects back to him his deepest fear. The weird thing about deep fears, in Chinese Medicine, everything has two sides. Your deepest fear is opposite your greatest desire.
I could almost feel the clock ticking. Would he accept his deepest, darkest demon or would he deny himself and continue on the karmic wheel. Every Dracula movie I’ve watched, Count Dracula refuses to acknowledge his deepest, darkest demon and is killed by the universe with a stake through the heart.
What I found amazing in this series, is faced with the truth, Count Dracula accepts the answer and is finally able to do what he has feared the most. Well, in the language of the deve, he was one of the few that was able to face himself and gain compassion…self-compassion.
And it’s only through self-compassion that we can have compassion for others. What is the test of your self-compassion meter? Listen to what you say to yourself. How many times do you criticize yourself? How many times do you reward yourself?
Every journey starts with one step. I challenge you to start practicing a rule of 5 positives to 1 negative. Practice on others and then practice on yourself. I say this because if you strongly critize yourself, it will be very difficult for you to find your own self beauty. Yet, you can really push yourself and see these things in others.
Find something positive even if it is how they brushed their hair today or how they helped clear dishes after dinner. Whatever it is, acknowledge it. When you get some skills at this, then start practicing on yourself.
All the information here and on my Youtube channel is here to help you get tips and techniques to start changing your internal world into the life you want to live instead of the life you were taught to live. I use these tools in clinic when working with others to help them transcend their past and the world they were taught to live.
You have something important to offer this world. It’s a whole lot easier to find when you are on your side.