Environment
Transforming Fear Into Action
CJ Liu interviews John Perkins about his book “Touching the Jaguar: Transforming Fear Into Action to Change Your Life and the World.”
Part 1: 4 Steps for Transforming Fear to Change Your Life
John shares his near-death experience from food illness during his career with the Peace Corp. It was a Shaur Shaman that saved his life by leading him through a Shamanic journey to meet a jaguar. In the journey, John was asked to cross a perceptual bridge where he encountered a jaguar. The Shaman asked him to touch the jaguar. When he did he experienced a perceptual shift. Jon explains that there are 3 things he realized from this journey:
1) Identify your fears. Instead of ignoring them, touch them and gain the courage.
2) Your fears are based on your perceptions of reality. Get clear with your perceptions of reality and be open to new ways of perceiving reality.
3) If you change your perceptions, you can change your reality.
4) All of our actions are based on these perceptions. Change your perceptions, change your actions, and change the world.
Part 2: Overcoming Fear of Change
After John’s life was saved by a Shaur Shaman who took him on a Shamanic journey to meet a jaguar, he was asked to become an apprentice for the Shaman. The Shaman had foreseen in a dream that in order to create environmental change that he needed to reach out to someone like John. John shares his own insights about our recent chaotic times and his lessons learned from a wise woman on what’s really happening with our planet right now. The earth will be fine, it’s really the life on earth that will be impacted.
4 Learnings about COVID and Racism
1) Our main fear in today’s world is the FEAR OF CHANGE.
2) Once we can shift our perception of this change, we can shift our reality.
3) Even though John protested and was part of the civil rights movement that created The Civil Rights Act and the The Fair Housing Act, he now sees that the efficacy of this legislation was only part of the solution. What we still need to do is shift our perceptions of race, right and equity.
4) We want things to go back the way they were. Jon describes this as supporting the “death” economy versus a “life” economy. A life economy is one that benefits people and nature.
Part 3: Agents of Change Revolutionaries
“There’s a revolution that’s pushing back. Status quo does not like change. It’s trying to convince the rest of us we don’t want change. It will do everything it can to convince us the status quo. The people that are making most of the money and have most of the power – they’re trying to convince us that we don’t want change. But, we take strength from that. Agents of change revolutionaries are like good martial artists. If someone is bigger and stronger than you, you don’t try to fight them with your strength. You use their strength against them. We take energy from this and that’s how we turn things around.”
Death vs Life Economy
During these crazy times, many people are feeling a fear of the unknown with no clarity on where to go. They is a sense of feeling helpless and hopeless. John suggests that the core fear is the fear of change. John suggests that it’s about shifting our perceptions. In many cultures, there is a prophecy of this period of upheaval. It may be the eagle in the condor in Latin, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, or the Mayan Prophecy of 2012. Each of us has an opportunity to rise into a new level of consciousness during this period. From an economic perspective it is about moving from a death economy to a life economy, where we move our focus from only focusing on the short-term.
Positive Action Into Change
On a personal level, we have an opportunity to transform this fear into positive action to change our lives. During COVID times, John had to cancel his book signing tours and is now doing these all virtually. He has viewed the positives of these changes, as it provides each of us the gift of time to pursue things that we never made time for. It’s also unveiled the shadow side of our society and many other parts of the world. The trick is having faith that change is here to serve a good purpose and to not fight or resist it. John’s greatest fear is that return back to normal (to a death economy), and that if we don’t listen this time that hurricanes and fires will continue. Climate is a symptom of a bigger problem of a death economy that is consuming itself into extinction. The opportunity is to take a long-term focus and to raise our consciousness and create a life economy. Rethinking how we make evolutionary change. In the interview, John shares a story with his visit with the Dalai Lama and his ability to re-frame Tibet.
Part 4: Meditation: Raise Collective Consciousness
During these crazy times, many people are feeling a fear of the unknown with no clarity on where to go and a sense of feeling helpless and hopeless. John suggests that the core fear is the fear of change. This 10 minute meditation is something we can do every day or once a week to move us to positive action.
10 Minute Meditation
The meditation is based on first getting into a relaxed state and then asking 5 simple but powerful questions:
1. What do I most want to do for the rest of my life? What will bring me the greatest satisfaction, the greatest bliss. If I’m lying on the proverbial deathbed looking back what do I feel most grateful for what I did do. What do I wish I had done?
2. How can i do this in a way to serve others? We’re all happy when we serve others and that could be one other person or even better a whole community or the world.
3. What’s stopping you? what’s the blockage
4. When you touch that jaguar, how does it change your perception?
5. What actions do I take every day?
More on John Perkins
John Perkins is an author and activist whose 10 books on global intrigue. shamanism, and transformation including Touching the Jaguar, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and Shapeshifting and have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks, sold over 2 million copies and are published in 35 languages. As chief economist at a major consulting firm, he advised the World Bank, United Nations, Fortune 500 corporations, US and other governments. He has spoken at universities, economic forums, and shamanic gatherings around the world and is a founder and board member of the nonprofits, the Pachamama Alliance and Dream Change. You can find his books here.
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