Laszlo POPOVICS

Last week I had a great workshop. As I promised this week, I will talk about how we can find a clear way forward. For every human, it is challenging to see a clear target and focus on priorities. 

Pascal Strauss and Katrijn Tack held the workshop. The title was: How to Turn Fear into power.

At the beginning of the workshop, they talked about firewalking. How you turn Fear into empowerment. It is an exciting topic. However, I have no motivation to try it out. Physically I’m not interested, but the psychology behind the practice is fabulous.

To be honest, the presentation until this point was interesting, but it did not touch my deepest inner self. 

But what comes after this section was lifechanging. The presenter started talking about life goals and how you focus and set priorities. 

It is a topic that is really hard to touch. Everyone thinking about it, but most of us don’t know how to start. To have a powerful practice, Pascal showed first a symbol. Tree of life. I never have seen this before, so it was quite a new experience!

He started to talk about animal symbols. I think this comes from Indian culture. 

The Snake, the Puma, and the Kondor. They representing three things, the underworld, the past, the world where you would live as the presence, and the future as the sky. It’s describing the same things.

The Snake. Who takes off their skin. It’s your decision what you left off from the past. And what’s serves you in the present.

The Puma. The strong mountain lion. What’s gives you strength! What’s your focus on! Not weaknesses! Strength! What nature gives you to be here on this planet! 

And finally, what do you want in the future?

The Kondor. Fly very high. It has perfect eyes! You see the big picture with every detail! Envision your future like this! Do you see what in front of you? Because what you can see, you can do!

In the Inca tradition, they symbolized this concept with the tree of life.

There is a good picture of this topic from Ray Troll: Tree of Life

You can use this symbol to have clarity in your life!

The same steps, but you can make a beautiful picture at home, to have clarity in your life!

Take your time, and try it! Give it time because it is advantageous!

It helps to end staff, and take things away, and find the right focus in your everyday.

Tree of life greatly symbolize how humans have grown up!

A seed first starts to create its roots. From these roots, we got energy for further growth. We need everything around us, the sun, the water for growth. As we grow bigger, we start growing leaves and goes in the direction of the sky, towards our dreams.

In this practice, we first start with the roots.

This is where we get our energy from. Where you get power? Where you find it! For instance, you go to visit your friends or a place. Or there is a place where you go one or two times a year to regain your energy. 

We go to the second part. The trunk!

It is a very strong thing! In a storm, it gives the tree the possibility to stand! So as for the tree! What is your strength? What helps you to be strong in every storm? 

If we go furthermore to the leaves! We go into the sky! What are your dreams? Where do you want to go into? What are your goals which you want to achieve in your life? 

With this tree parts, you can create clarity for your self. This clarity gives massive empowerment! 

And now the exercise:

Take a paper and draw a tree on this paper. It must have the thee parts and have enough space to take your notes on this paper.

Draw roots, trunk, and leaves.

Start to think over where you get your power? What gives you energy? How you refill your energy? Write it down to the roots. Not in general as my wife or my children! Name it! Jessica gives me power! Focus on clarity! What are your first thoughts! Write it down!

Next, go to the trunk! What helps you in the most dangerous storms! What helps you in the hardest times? What are your strengths which help you to survive these times? Take your time and write it down. Here again, be concrete! Name them exactly!

And finally the leaves! What are your goals? Where you want to be in five years? Name them! Be concrete! Word it exactly!

After you finish, your work think it over! What’s on the paper is your focus! What is not relevant to you try to release it! 

This tree can change over time as we grow. Regularly draw the tree again. This helps you to identify how your focus and goals change.

I hope this exercise helps you to have a better focus!