Day 2: Hacking the Dream
The Principle:
"Right now, embrace the awareness that your life is a game, which you have been pushed into playing. While you are mentally engrossed in the game, you can't objectively evaluate a situation or influence the course of events in any significant way. So first, come down into the audience hall, take a good, calm look at everything around you and say to yourself, 'In this moment, I am fully awake...'"
The Director's Interpretation:
The stage is a trap for your attention. When you are on it, you are a puppet. The drama, the conflict, the joy, the despair—it is all designed to keep you engrossed, to keep you feeding the pendulums with your energy.
The "audience hall" is not a place of passivity. It is the director's booth. It is the only position from which you can see the whole stage, the lighting, the other actors, and the script they are all following. To step down from the stage, even for a moment, is to reclaim your perspective. It is to move from being the frantic actor to the calm witness.
You cannot control a game while you are lost in playing it. You must first remember that it is a game.
The Director's Command (Your Task):
At one point today, during a situation that would normally cause you stress, irritation, or anxiety—a difficult conversation, a frustrating task, a moment of worry—you will physically stop.
Take a breath. Look at the scene around you as if you are watching a movie.
Then, say to yourself, either silently or aloud:
"I see the game. I am not the character; I am the observer."
Feel the shift. Feel your emotional involvement drop. Feel the return of your power as you watch the play unfold, knowing it is not the only reality.
The view from the audience hall is different. Get used to it.
The Director