COACHING THE COACHES,
PART 22
by Jon Rappoport
Copyright © 2011 by Jon Rappoport
We’ve all experienced wrestling with a problem.
We attack it from many sides and it doesn’t go away.
We begin to think it can’t be solved, that we just can’t get past the obstacles. Other people are born to transcend the problem, but we aren’t. We’re fated to live with the stone around our necks.
But the problem has its own spaces and energies and boundaries and limitations—a complex architecture. In order for the problem to be resolved or defeated, we have to EXCEED that architecture. If we don’t, we just (literally) go from pillar to post and increase our level of frustration.
Think of it this way. A major problem is like a few square city blocks wrapped in fog. We can see the outlines of certain buildings, we can see a certain amount of space, we can view a certain number of pedestrians and drivers. This is not entirely unfamiliar territory. In fact, some places in those blocks are very familiar. We’ve walked the ground many times before.
We try to re-navigate the whole area again, one more time, to see if we can pick up clues we’ve missed. We try to arm ourselves with new approaches. Maybe if we walk over THERE first and look from that vantage point, maybe if we take an elevator inside THAT building, we can rise to a new height and see the area with a different perspective. Maybe if we sit in a parked car and watch the street…
It doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work because, in a sense, we’re playing a role that is built to have the problem and keep having the problem. This role has its own spaces and energies and structures and ideas.
So we need to…play other roles. We need to loosen up the prevailing architecture.
Which is exactly what happens in the Magic Theater.
There is no rote formula that instructs what roles to play. But the direction is clear.
“Okay, you play your problem. You speak AS the problem. I’ll play a person who has transcended the problem. We’ll talk. Then we’ll switch roles.”
“Okay, you play a magician who can dissolve the problem with a wave of his hand. I’ll play a person who doesn’t believe magic exists.”
“You play a miser. I’ll play a playboy millionaire jet-setter.”
“You play a government official whose job it is to pay me for having the problem. I’ll play the person with the problem.”
“You play someone who solved the problem by committing a crime. I’ll play the prosecutor who is trying you for the crime.”
“You play a victim who makes a career out of having the problem. I’ll play the actual solution to the problem.”
“You play Unlimited Energy. I’ll play A Deficit of Energy.”
“You play The Money That Could Solve The Problem. I’ll play a thief.”
“You play a relative who doesn’t want you to solve the problem. I’ll play you.”
And so forth and so on.
Attacking it from many sides.
Walls crumble and go down. New light comes in. Energies flow and become available.
We all live to some degree embedded in problem-consciousness. Which means we see problems all over the place and we try to solve them by taking straight-line actions. Sometimes we succeed, but a few big problems remain, and as we increase our efforts to deal with these big ones, we become locked in tighter in our roles and, therefore, less able to bring about resolutions. Stress accumulates, the physical consequences of which multiply, distracting us. We try harder, but when the big problems just sit there, we can summon less energy. We become more passive.
The Magic Theater is an innovation that can take us beyond this pattern.
We’re no longer the actor who is playing the same role every night in a long-running drama that has the same ending. We’re trying on many new roles, and this becomes a revelation.
The problem no longer looks and feels the way it did. The fog lifts.
Jon Rappoport
A former candidate for a US Congressional seat in California, Jon has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years. He has written articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. The author of The Ownership of All Life, Jon has maintained a consulting practice for the past 15 years. He has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, and creativity to audiences around the world.