Hero Living

As a kid I had no idea the effect it would have on my life’s journey to “want to be Bruce Lee when I grow up.”What I knew was I loved doing punches and kicks like my hero, and I just followed my bliss from there. I had never heard the words of Joseph Campbell as a kid, but I sure would’ve known what he meant when he said, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” And I just knew that was the kind of life for me. That was my bliss.

Of course, I didn’t grow up to be Bruce Lee, but along the way I learned a little something about heroes and a lot about myself. I learned that when I live as a hero of my true authentic self right here and now I am more filled with happiness and wonder for our world, and of my and your and our place in it. And I know that most everyone is just like me as a kid looking up to heroes like Bruce Lee and Spider-Man, because throughout history every culture and tradition has had its own pantheon of heroes.

I think that’s simply because we humans need heroes.

We need the stories and myths of heroes as an inspiration for our hopes and dreams. We need real life heroes to protect and defend and bring those dreams to life.

The beauty about the iconic mythological world of heroes is it shines a light on the path of how we, as ordinary human beings, can step into the footprints of heroes that have gone before us and live an extraordinary life.

We can see the heroes that walk beside us every day.

We can recognize the hero inside each one of us right here in the now.

And each one of us at any moment, this very moment, can step into the possibility of Hero Living now and now and now . . .

In his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell wrote, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

This sort of adventure can take place on the external and an inner level, as he continued to describe with first “a break away or departure from the local social order and context; next, a long deep retreat inward and backward, backward, as it were, in time, and inward, deep into the psyche; a chaotic series of encounters there . . . of a centering kind, fulfilling, harmonizing, giving new courage; and then finally, in such fortunate cases, a return journey of rebirth to life.”

And that’s what it can feel like turning inward to see who I am. There before you in the mirror are all the agreements with suffering, bars on your cage, quirks and foibles, successes and failures, love and compassion, all the myriad questions of “what’s important” and “what’s the meaning,” and those negative loops and positive signs, and people who care and more. It’s all there before you as “a chaotic series of encounters,” all intoning a summons as a loud quiet call. An invitation always extended simply because you are here. The hero’s invitation to accept and take hold and be who I am, and live joyfully in the flow of “know thyself.”

No matter what, at any moment, just like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you can let go of your past with abandon, wake up to your true self, and simply take your next step as your first square on the hero’s path. No matter your quirks and foibles, no matter where you are or where you’ve been, no matter what fabulous forces you encounter, even in spite of yourself, the loud quiet call and invitation into the hero adventure perpetually beckon you to dive in deep supernatural wonder to explore and know and live the treasure within, to accept the eternal gift of “know thyself” now and now . . . in acceptance and responsibility and love.

I’ve found this to be true whether in the quiet of solitude or the loud raucous sounds of a kung fu match or the bombs of war. But you don’t have to step into a fighter’s ring or join the rank and file of the military to be on the hero’s journey. “Man’s greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes—obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes.” These words by Victor Hugo so poignantly point out the truth of the world of heroes—that they are everywhere.

So take hold the boon and stoke the fire of the hero’s eternal flame to share with others—as physical deeds or the spiritual gifts of those lessons and knowledge you garner along the way. Starting with this . . .

Even if it doesn’t feel that way or you don’t believe, the seed is there if you but welcome it to bloom and grow.

I know. Because if I can do it, you can too.

My story is your story is our story.

So now that you have the strides through which the hero dynamically moves, plus the awareness of how your body, mind, and emotions can inform and direct Hero Living, consider these questions: Where are you in the hero journey right now? Are you fighting? Are you acquiring new tools? Are you paralyzed? And if you were to look deeper into the different facets and roles of your life—spouse, parent, moneymaker, homemaker, son, daughter, victim, survivor, and so forth—where does each of these facets fall in the hero’s journey?

I invite you to use the hero’s seven strides as framework and friend for contemplating your life and your various roles.You will find that in some facets you are farther along while, in others, you are farther back. Keep in mind, I use the word “farther” not as a quantifier, but as a qualifier. In other words, when you get a clearer view of where you are in any given facet and stride, you get a clearer view of where you want to go.

In each stride I included various Hero’s Whetstones for your use in moving along the path of your own hero’s journey.You can refer back to them individually or sequentially as needed or as feels right to you as you consider the different facets of your life. These Hero’s Whetstones are your whetstones to use to help your life along the hero’s path. I have listed the strides at the end of this chapter with a brief description, so you can easily find them now or in the future as needed.

This is not a fitness book, so I haven’t spent time on specifics for how to train and nourish your body, but as we conclude I do want to be clear about the importance of your physical health and fitness to the hero’s journey.

The author and mountaineer James Ramsey Ullman once wrote, “A man climbs the mountains because he needs to climb, because that is the way he is made. Rock and ice and snow and wind and the great blue canopy of the sky are not all that he finds upon the mountain-tops. He discovers things about his own body and mind that he had almost forgotten in the day-to-day, year-to-year routine of living. He learns what his legs are for, what his lungs are for, what the wise men of old meant by refreshment of the spirit.”

I know so many people who tell me they’re out of shape or feel out of touch with their body, so what I love about this passage is the nudge to awaken to the elemental experience of being.To shift into a living breathing awareness of self—Mind, Body, and Spirit—through movement and doing, to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, because that’s what we’re designed to do. Excepting any physical handicaps, injuries, or other limitations, your body is designed to move and jump and climb and play and work. And if you’re not regularly training your body so you can use it for productivity and fun, you are missing a critical component of your life experience.

You’ll notice that every whetstone begins with a simple movement of three breaths in and out. This is intentional, to engage the whole of you in you, because your body, mind, and emotions are the integrated vehicle of your experience. It is this holistic awareness with an attitude of exploration and adventure in the mountains and valleys of our lives that brings life to life.

What you do—think, move, sense, feel, eat, drink, breathe, smoke, and more—all conspire as your creation of your experience. What you put in your body affects your thought, affects your mood, affects your body, affects your thought, affects your . . . all in the infinite flow of creation. The choices you make, the attitude you take, all the doing that you do—even in doing “nothing”—you are the cocreator of your experience.You are actively creating your life in relationship with all that is.

You are a Human Doing in your creation of being.

For instance, I am an elite-level athlete. I am because that’s what I create every day. I could choose to be sedentary and eat foods that don’t nourish, but that does not serve the purpose of my true authentic self. My motivation for fitness training is not to merely have big muscles. In moving my body and pushing limits I am in the bliss of creating the best vehicle I can for my adventures and way of being, and the body that you see is the result.

The shape and condition of my body is never static. It changes all the time, every day. Through different stages of my life I have been stronger in some ways than in others—for instance, my legs were much bigger when I was running and swimming with heavy gear for miles and miles in Recon than they are now. But I don’t care about the inches and pounds; I care that my body can do what I need it to do for my mission, so that’s what I focus on and do!

Think for a moment about the condition of your own body. Not how attractive you think you are, but your physical condition and health. Or better yet, if there’s a mirror close by, look at your reflection. What thoughts do you have about yourself because of the condition or health of your body? How do you feel about yourself? No matter what your answers, this is great as information about your current Mind, Body, and Spirit connection. It also reveals how closely linked your thoughts and feelings are to your body.

If you happen to feel any guilt, shame, embarrassment, or other negativity about it like so many people do, ask yourself if these feelings in turn also keep you from moving and using your body. If so, perhaps you are in a downward cycle. If that’s the case, resist any urge to push yourself farther down with more negative thoughts, and instead consider that you are now at a moment of choice to simply shift onto an upward track and move your body in spite of your thoughts and emotions.

Think of children running, laughing, and playing and be one for yourself inside. Give yourself a break and freedom to learn about proper nutrition and getting your body in shape for the life you want, and breathe and move and laugh and do!

Even if your body resists moving from lack of use, or you sense some aches and pains, I promise if you make a practice of moving your body, your body condition will improve and your mind and emotions will follow. That’s simply the way it works. This is simple internal circuitry that you have the ability and power to learn and manage.

I have personally experienced this and seen it in others. I read the story once of Vinu Malik, the founder and CEO of Fuel Belt, whose products for staying hydrated during endurance sports are used by top triathlon athletes around the world. By looking at his pictures today, you’d never know that in college he was bedridden with chronic fatigue syndrome. He lacked the energy to lead a normal life, but Malik would see triathletes on TV and in magazines and he became inspired to spend his free time exercising.

“You’d think exercise would make you more tired,” he says. “But it helped stimulate my system, and taught me to focus on my nutrition.” Before long he was training for an Ironman competition and along the way invented a hydration belt to help keep him hydrated during training and races. And years later he’s now completed twenty-seven Ironman races and runs a successful business around his bliss of triathlons. Wow! That inspires me!

Perhaps you’re in great physical condition, but your mind and emotions somehow aren’t firing as you’d like or in full support of your hero’s journey. Maybe your thought patterns hold you back, or you feel overwhelmed by your emotions and out of control. Whatever aspect of your Mind, Body, and Spirit connection may not be optimal or as you’d like it to be for your journey, it’s okay, because all of that can change in a moment, no problem.

Getting your mind out of the habit of reasons and excuses for why not and shifting onto the track of “I can” will immediately move you into the flow of possibility. And there you will experience the flow of your dreams, where if you take a step toward them, your dreams will take a step toward you. The flow of choosing every moment as a practice of your solid and steady happiness.

If I can do it, you can too. Because my story is your story is our story. A hero’s story of “I can.”

The Story of Us

We, the human family, have taken many twists and turns in the story of who we are as individuals, communities, and cultures. History has played out endless versions of people in need of acceptance, honor, pride, shelter, food, and safety. People experience the gamut of experience from the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, fighting and wars, disease and heartache, to searching for truth and curing ills, and love and caring for one another.

As I write this book from a place of relative luxury and convenience, the negative effects of global-scale prospecting on the environment and each other may seem to appear far off. But it’s immediately apparent when you’re in those places where others are suffering because of it, where some people are working for bare sustenance while providing the comfort and luxury of others. Where the planet is groaning warm with pollutions and toxins, rapacious mining and burning, and people and animals are unable to lead a natural, healthy life. And there is much less than six degrees of separation between all.

When I think of this I know there are many heroes out there working toward solutions, advocating for change on the one planet we all share. They are out there—beautiful living-color heroes.

At the same time it seems some must believe we have all the time in the world to address our most pressing needs, or think they are powerless to make a difference. Or perhaps there are some of us who, as individuals or as a part of institutional entities, are caught in the mesmerizing myth of “more” and the illusion of “the top.” The mirage that if we simply have more revenue, profit, dividends, market share, territory, turnover, expansion, control, power, and more—or higher pay, positions, stock prices, buildings, prestige, wealth, and on and on—that we will somehow have success and bring about true happiness.

However, what can actually happen in this scenario, when “more” and “the top” come at the expense of others, the individual and the institution inculcated with an appetite for more can take on the role of villain as oppressor or even dictator or totalitarian in a voracious search for more and more and more. As if there’s no limit to how many “more” things we can buy and sell, no limit to the resources we deplete to make or dispose of those things, or no limit to the amount of toxins we can take in and dish out, and remain alive and healthy as a people and a planet. As if it doesn’t matter how we treat each other as long as the means gets us “more” in the end.

When we care more for “more” than we care for each other, all of each other, we are caught in samsara—a loop of suffering in our relationship. In such moments that we realize we are in samsara, that is the loud quiet call to take stock of who I am, who we are, and rally to the sound of the hero’s call.

That is the moment to creatively step into Hero Living.

In this moment, as in every moment, we are all at the brink of possibility for choosing the nature of who we are and the direction of our step. Will we step together? Trip each other up? Find a way to dance?

It is up to each one of us, me and you, to decide how we participate in the reciprocity and cocreation of our relationships. We are all in relationship every moment of our lives—in connected relationship with ourselves, other people, animals and plants, the environment of the planet, all together moving in the constant dynamic motion of being.

The hero is mindful of his or her responsibility to work in harmonious sustainable relationship with all in the system and environment. The hero understands that he or she is in relationship with the whole. The hero acts to defend and protect and breathe life into the life of the whole.

So here in every moment of now and now, the choice is yours.

I believe the world is fighting and telling many of our present stories in a circuit of war and fear because the hero is not showing up in a real, completely passionate and courageous way in all the places we need. The hero is hidden in the shadows of agendas and double-speak and political correctness, and greed and power and command and control, and ratings and shock value and habituated numbing.

I mean to say that as more of us wake up to our personal power to make change in ourselves, we will create a sea change in the world around us unlike anything that has been recorded before. That we—you, me, and everyone—can make this journey the most special, empowering, and compassionate message that will continue to help, hold, and lift humanity to the next level.

To quote Campbell a last time, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces, “We have not even to face the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time, have gone before us: the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god, and where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence, and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the World.”

We are not alone or without guidance.We have the hero’s map and the compass, mirror, and lantern to lead the way. We have the wisdom of sages and gurus who have counseled essential keys to individual and communal happiness to include respect for one another and getting along.

We have the words of Socrates who said, “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be.” Simply show up and be the hero you wish to see.

Let go the trappings that keep you caged, stagnant and paralyzed, and move. Consider your life with hope and hold onto your dreams regardless of where you are. Wherever you are, that is the perfect place from which to take the next step toward your dreams as a hero. As the thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi once wrote:

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

As you ruminate, consider this truism: You don’t have to pay penance. You don’t have to earn. You don’t have to deserve. The choice to move into a different experience is in and of itself redemptive. The choice to move is enough because you are enough; always have been. This is a heroic act of such epic, healing courage, new possibilities have no choice but to show up and meet you.

Simply continue to gift yourself the hero’s path, and I promise your life will transform to “something bigger than oneself.” Every moment in this big bad beautiful world is precious now and now and now . . . Every moment. Every experience is valuable. All is a gift. Unwrap every moment with wonder and delight and the unfettered pleasure of a child. To see the world with fresh eyes now and now will grant you rich treasures in every moment.

Simply start with taking a breath, checking in and opening up to the moment, to who I am as pure possibility.Tuck your chin a bit. Keep your hands up, ready for anything. And now move. With grace, bravery, and power . . . move!

It starts right here right now and now . . .

Hero Living starts inside and radiates out now and now . . . Every certainty of the story of us lies behind, every possibility now lies ahead. And it is up to us.

We can all be the heroes we wish to see.

I invite you to show up for yourself this moment. This now. To awaken the hero inside, to engage the seven strides, to practice the tools you learn, and to move your life into possibility, authenticity, and reciprocity. Claim yourself. Gift yourself. And that will be enough. That will be the difference.

Life will quite literally come to life now and now . . .

The story of your life, my life, our life . . .

The living breathing hero’s life of Hero Living.

With friends Dan and Sal Alvarez while filming HBO’s Generation Kill in Africa. Much appreciation and love to “Big Dan” Mosta, who is no longer with us.