Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 26th May 2006
On Sunday I’m off the annual Rat Race, a high-level paragliding competition in southern Oregon. I did it last year and had a good time flying with friends, looking forward to it this year. The photo is from Bo Criss from last year. Paragliding competitions bring out the best and worst in flying; the best when the flying is good, and the worst when we end up sitting on the hill all day waiting for good conditions… I’m fired up to fly, but if the flying is no good I’ll be able to climb at the Rogue Rock Gym in Medford, which wasn’t open last year. I’m actually maintaining a pretty good climbing fitness so far this year, I do not want to go through last year’s hell of getting strong again after sitting in my paragliding LaZboy chair all summer…
Everest:
Made the news yet again as a double amputee and about 40 other people choose to summit rather than try to help a dying climber down the mountain. Who knows what actually happened, but it’s clear that Everest is a circus that continue to amuse the public, and justifiably so. The summit is now more highly coveted by the public than by climbers, it would be a funny situation if it weren’t so deadly. Climbers get incensed when every accountant or car dealer who summits (or doesn’t?) makes the local newspapers, while far more “epic” ascents on other mountains receive no mention. I have to laugh at this a bit as what climbers are really saying is, “Hey, pay attention to MY climbs!” I also have to agree that climbing Everest by a standard route with good Sherpa support isn’t all that much of an accomplishment, perhaps more of a financial accomplishment in gathering the money than a sporting event. Sharon Wood and the other Canadians who climbed a difficult new route on the way to the summit of Everest 20 years ago deserve their press and respect for sure, but reporting every summit climb is starting to get ridiculous, like reporting who won the local golf tournament as front-page news. Today in the Calgary Herald there’s a story about a local woman who is attempting to climb what she defines as all seven summits. This is not news, it’s not a sporting accomplishment, but there it is, front page. In one sense I’m happy to see climbing get any press at all, but surely the new route Raphael and Scott climbed last week on Andromeda is more worthy of front-page news? Maybe if Raph or Scott was brain-dead and blind then it would have been more newsworthy? As someone who plays the media game and has also worked at various magazines I feel I’m qualified to say that the media, even the climbing media, doesn’t really understand climbing, climbers don’t understand the media or the public, and the public will never understand climbing as its portrayed in the media (I sure don’t). No wonder everyone is confused, and the resulting mix is so very strange, as it is today in my Calgary Herald.
Training:
It’s an odd time of year, where I’m trying to climb and also trying to fly and do all the business stuff I ignore in the winter months while climbing. I’ve been slipping in high-quality if short workouts at the end of the day. A couple of days ago David and I had a great workout after I ran some errands in Calgary, we went to the University of Calgary and spent a couple of hours bouldering on the outside wall of the PE building. Back in the early nineties I spent days on this long wall of flagstone bricks, it was a serious physical flashback. We finished the workout by going into the dungeon at the U of C and climbing on Murray’s old inset brick wall, and on the even earlier plywood and two by four wall. I spent literally hundreds of hours in that basement hallway years ago, it was actually super fun to try some of the old problems. I even got low blood sugar just like the old days when my diet resembled that of a rabbit (we used to think any bodyfat over about three percent was a serious hindrance, how times change…). Anyhow, a great “Nostalgia” workout as dD called it.
I’ve been mountain biking some this spring, including a great ride with “buzzsaw” Joe in K-Country. We rode around Barrier mountain, an epic ride, it really fired me up to do more riding in K-Country. Yesterday I rode with Mark for about an hour, then went for a short run with Chili dog, followed by a good yoga session. I’m slowly gaining more flexibility, although public reaction to my attempts at Yoga generally involves laughter. So what, I figure I’m not getting any stiffer at least, plus Yoga is good for the head.
Posted in: Blog
Your blog is very very good. I would love you to vist self hypnosis and let me know what you think. Thanks
What are your 50,000 thoughts a day creating?
Our thoughts create our reality. This is a simple truth known by all people involved on the spiritual path. It is one of the most taught universal principles in the personal development field. Yet it is one of the most misunderstood!
People practice visualisation, affirmations, they use hypnosis, subliminal programming or countless other tools to transform their lives. However they fail to recognise one key area in their lives that hinder these wonderful techniques from being effective.
They sit day after day visualising their perfect scene and yet nothing happens. Why? They have followed all the instructions to the letter! They have chanted and imagined! They have formed a colourful, vibrant scene in their minds and affirmed that this is their reality. Then all of a sudden things get worse! What is going on?
Would you like to know the secret? Would you like to know why these people get no results? Would you like to hear one powerful statement that explains everything?
Yes?
Good. I will tell you why these people get no results or even opposite results to those they are aiming for -simply because of the following truth. Consciously controlled thoughts such as visualisations do not materialise – ALL thoughts materialise!!!
Most people believe that if they visualise for 10 minutes a day their lives will magically transform. This is not the case. You must change your core thinking. You think approx. 50,000 thoughts a day. How many of those thoughts are working against your ten minute visualisation?
You can control the thoughts that enter your mind by changing the way you view the world. You can decide which thoughts you give energy to and which thoughts you discard.
The thoughts that you follow and give energy to become more dominant than the thoughts you discard. Your subconscious mind records these as your dominant picture on the issue at hand. You then move towards this picture because your subconscious mind starts making your outside world reflect the picture that you have stored internally.
Your mind should be on whatever you want. The picture you need to have is a positive vision of you already having achieved your goal. To realise this vision you need to focus and concentrate. Remember thoughts are real, they create your reality.
Let’s say you have been visualising a new house. You spend your ten minutes in meditation picturing yourself living in your dream home. You finish your session and get up feeling positive that you will achieve your goal. Then during the day you get a heating bill through the post and exclaim “Oh no look how expensive this is I cannot afford to heat this house”. Where is your focus in the present moment? What are you affirming? You are telling your subconscious mind that you cannot deal with what you have. You are affirming that your life is not how you want it to be. If you knew without doubt that within a week you would be moving to your new home would you honestly be worried about a heating bill? Perhaps other doubts creep in like “I should be happy with what I have”, or “I will never get this house looking the way I want it” and so on and so on.
These thoughts that are not aligned with your goal. You are not giving complete attention to what you want. Whilst you are dealing with these other lines of thought your attention is not on your goal.
If you are aware of your thoughts you will suddenly realise that you have spent much more energy on counter productive thoughts than on creating a dominant picture of the goal you want.
Point your focus in the direction of you’re the life you want. Think about what you want NOT what you don’t want. It’s that simple.
Your focus determines your reality. Change your focus and you change your life. personal development
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