Lately, I’ve been teaching a monthlong mentoring program for the men entitled The Metamorphosis Program.

We keep a certain amount of material in the course secret for two reasons: it works better when it comes at you as a surprise; and mystery makes the course look cool.

Kidding aside, I do want to share with you one thing that I teach in the course.  Namely, the answer to the question, “Who are you really?”

One of the three answers I suggest is “You are a conduit for the abundance of the universe.”

If you’re sufficiently confused by that answer to be thinking, “Umm, English please, doc,” then you’re on the right track.

Allow me to illustrate by continuing the story.  If you’ve ever been to Trader Joe’s here in the US, one of their nifty features is that they always have a ‘freebie corner’ where they’re giving away free samples.

Most of the time it’s something that I don’t eat, but on this particular afternoon, they had samples of a chicken tikka masala.  And it smelled gooood.

So I stood in line, and right behind me was a mother with her toddler sitting right in the shopping cart.  The kid was getting a little antsy about the food, and mom was doing her best to calm him down.

My turn came, and the Trader Joe’s lady handed me my small plate with the free sample.  And, seeing how I was not in a hurry, I handed it to the mom: “Here you go.”

The mom totally lit up with a heartfelt ‘thank you’ that I felt in my bones, all out of proportion to the gesture . A few seconds later I had my plate (delicious, by the way) and we were both on our merry shopping way again.

Now it’s not like I donated a zillion bucks to cure malaria here and Pope Benedict is going to fast-track my application to sainthood (which would actually require that I die first, so really – no thanks).  I just passed on a free sample to someone who was behind me in line, who would have gotten it anyway in about 30 seconds.

But the reaction I got was all out of proportion to the deed – and it made *my* day.  And perhaps made her feel good, too.

Now this story is a perfect demonstration of your being a conduit for the abundance of the universe.  Let me explain.

The chicken sample was not really mine.  It was a free sample to begin with.  So I never really owned it.

By giving it away, I wasn’t losing anything, because I knew there was more of that where it came from.

And, lo and behold, when I gave it away, more did come my way, with interest: the mom & kid’s gratitude, and the little warming of my heart.

Well, guess what, boys and girls: that’s true of any kind of possession and giving in life.

You think you own stuff?  Think again.  You’re born naked and you leave the same way.  Can’t take it with you, chief. And if the economic crisis of the past year has taught us anything, it’s “easy come, easy go.”

You can’t own stuff.  But stuff can definitely own you.

Even if you had paid for the chicken, what makes it ‘yours’?

So the next time you’re thinking ‘my car’, ‘my house’, ‘my boyfriend’, ‘my girlfriend’, as if somehow there’s a stamp of ownership burning your name on that thing, you may wish to reconsider.

Because when abundance comes your way, you know that it’s just like that free sample – the bounty of the universe presenting itself to you through sheer luck.

Just as it would be silly to get too possessive of that morsel of free food once it lands in your hand – “this is my chicken now” – it would be equally silly to get hung up on any of your so-called possessions.

There is no fortune made on this earth, not one, that didn’t have to do with crazy, insane luck.  So there’s no point in getting too attached or proud about what came to you through near-miraculous accident.

By realizing that you are a perpetual conduit for this abundance — a pipeline for the bounty of the universe — you keep yourself from gumming up the works and getting in the way of your own access to abundance.

Because the abundance is infinite!  There’s far more stuff than you could consume in 10,000 lifetimes.

We’re not saying that you should make like Diogenes and give away all your earthly possessions and wear a barrel.  And by all means, protect your garden fruit from the varmints.

Just don’t get *hung up* on stuff so much that its loss can make you unhappier than its presence can make you happy.

I always find it funny when people on the road (including myself) won’t let somebody in who’s trying to merge.

What, like we’re going to run out of road or something?  Or you might get somewhere 4.3 seconds sooner?

There’s plenty of road to go around.

Now some of you who are reading this may be in tough spots right now.

And what I would say to you is act as if you really are a conduit for abundance.  Don’t let this temporary state get in the way of your generosity, your open-heartedness, your openmindedness.

Get the wheel of giving turning, in whatever small way you can, and the wheel will inevitably come back to you.  As my pastor likes to say, you can only have what you give away.

So start giving away more of that which you’d like to have! (‘Cause if you’re giving something away, it must mean you have lots of it, right?  Twisted logic, but kinda true.)

And those of you who are not experiencing privation but are still feeling constricted – let’s get you re-started here.

Start by smiling at passersby.  Then work up from there.

One of the most eloquent passages on giving comes from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:

“Then said a rich man, ‘Speak to us of Giving.’
And he answered:
‘You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes he smiles upon the earth.’”

And that’s everyday grace, my friends.  Resolve to give of yourself daily and practice being what you really are – a conduit for abundance.  The rest will take care of itself.

The power is within you
Dr Alex

PS: Want to practice some giving right now that ain’t gonna cost you anything?  Forward this message to someone whom you think would benefit from it.

Some of you, my astute readers, already noticed that the dating challenges enumerated in the last article – focusing on careers instead of relationships, expecting to be loved for the wrong reasons, not acting like a sexual being, self-sabotaging and ego identity – are not just specific to smart people.  They’re specific to people.  Smart, successful folks simply get a little extra wallop of them.

Well, that’s nice, you say. Now what are we going to do about it, doc?

So glad you asked.  Let’s take them one-by-one:

1) Make meaningful connection to other human beings a priority.

In Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a rich Russian judge finds himself on his deathbed at age 45.  He’s spent his whole life doing the ‘right’ things – the right education, job, marriage, neighborhood, social circles.  Yet, on the brink of death, he realizes that his life has been utterly devoid of meaning because of a lack of real human connection.

Sure, we’ve all got careers.  But realize that when you’re on your deathbed, you’re not going to wish that you spent more time at the office or on term papers.  Your memories will be composed of moments of meaning, and those moments are often created with people you care about.

Luckily, it’s fully within your power to create those meaningful memories now so as to forestall an unpleasant deathbed review.  Just like you schedule gym time, salon time, and aimlessly-noodle-on-Facebook time, you can schedule in connection time.  As Kahlil Gibran put it, seek your friends with time to live, not time to kill.

By virtue of being more achievement-oriented when growing up, some of us didn’t develop social skills for connecting meaningfully with people.  Now being a late bloomer is okay.  What’s less okay is staying stuck when there are so many resources out there for getting unstuck.  There are multitudes of online resources, and as a place to start, my books for women (www.taoofdating.com/women) and men (www.taoofdating.com/men) do not suck.

As for dating, work on getting to know people well.  As Kant would say, treat them as ends in themselves, not as means to satisfy your own needs.  This brings us to the next principle.

2) Make other people feel great around you.

More often than not, our achievements don’t make others feel good around us.  So we just may have to cultivate new skills that do make others feel good.

The simplest of those is charm – the ability to make someone else feel like a million bucks.  It’s remarkably accessible to all of us, and – good news in these times of recession –  it’s free.

One simple way to be charming is to be relentlessly complimentary.  Not a toady, mind you, but genuinely appreciative.  Notice people’s efforts, and praise them for it.

The paradigm shift that I want you to have is to go from the realm of ‘they should like me for who I am’ to the realm of ‘how am I bringing more joy to the lives of those around me’ – the realm of service.  Instead of ‘what have you done for me lately’, think ‘what can I do for you.’  Serve first instead of waiting to be served.

It’s scientifically proven that engaging in service makes you feel good.  And when you brighten other people’s days on a regular basis, you start to glow, and believe me, people will notice.  There are also service-oriented skills that specifically make you a better dating prospect, like cooking, massage, and being exceptionally good in the sack.

Which brings us to…

3) Embrace your sexuality.

Unappetizing but incontrovertible fact of the day: you came into being as a result of your mom and dad getting it on.  This is the union of yin and yang that the Taoists talk about, and by virtue of it, you’re a sexual being.

After you’ve made your peace with your own sexuality, here are two thing you can do to cultivate it.  First, get curious about it.  Read all the books you can about sexual technique – how that was less important to learn in college than organic chemistry I can’t fathom – and get good at it.

Sex is like driving: everyone thinks they’re great at it in spite of receiving zero training in it.  So set aside the ego and start from the top – Zen mind, beginner’s mind.

Once you’re better-informed sexually, it will permeate the rest of your life and naturally move you towards cultivation principle #2: to have more of a sexual presence.

This means more playful banter instead of being so damn serious.  It means looking people directly in the eye when they speak.  It’s conveying a hint of unpredictability and danger instead of playing it safe.  It’s going after what you want with playful enthusiasm instead of shying away from it in fear.

4) Get out of your own way.

Buddhists have this neat little idea called ‘no-self’, or anatta, which some scholars say contains the essence of all Buddhism.  It says that nothing in the universe has a fixed identity, especially you.

As you are sitting there, reading this article, you just took a breath.  Trillions of air molecules exchanged with your blood, millions of neurons fired as you read that last sentence, and you are in essence not the same person you were ten seconds ago.

Embracing no-self can be tremendously liberating.  You’re less likely to feel rejected, hurt or abandoned if there’s no self to be rejected, hurt or abandoned.  And you may be more likely to go ask that cutie for his or her phone number.

Practicing ‘no-self’ also removes a lot of imaginary barriers to real intimacy – titles, nationalities, creeds, prejudices.  If, as in the Hindu tradition, you were to recognize the divine in each person you meet, you would significantly expand the possibilities for experiencing love in this life.

Again, nobody’s asking you to marry the first hillbilly who turns the corner.  Rather, this is about practicing openness.  And when you embody openness regularly, you’re more likely to capture the attention of Mr or Ms Right when they come sauntering along.

5) Practice wealth-consciousness instead of poverty-consciousness.

Neediness is unattractive.  Self-sufficiency and wealth-consciousness are better bets.  So even if you haven’t had a date in decades, act as if the world is your giant dating supermarket and you’ve got unlimited cash in your pocket.

Why?  Because it’s true.  The days of 150-person tribes when your genes wouldn’t make it to the next generation unless you married your snaggletoothed cousin are over.  In today’s urban habitats, there are thousands if not millions of potential partners.

That’s the giant supermarket.  The money in your pocket is your attractiveness as a person – all the ways in which you can bring more joy and fulfillment to your companion.  And if you’re practicing no-self, healthy sexuality, an attitude of service and deep connection, who’s going to resist?

There is nothing in the five suggestions above that you can’t start doing right now.  As the old Persian proverb goes, “From you action; from the heavens, blessings.”  So go forth and create your own blessings already.  The power’s been yours all along.

The teleseminar I’m holding at 6pm PDT on Thursday 19 March 2009 will elaborate on these concepts. It’s free to join us on the call, although there’s only room for 200 listeners, so call in early:

Date: Thu 19 March 2009
Time: 6pm PDT/9pm EDT
Call-in #: 218 486 1300
Access code: 667202

It’s totally, completely and utterly free.  We’ll have some live Q&A time, so lob ‘em at me, baby.

AB