The start of a new movement

Lately I've been working on a completely new and innovative project. It's called Tientjes, or in English "Ten Bucks".

We've noticed that coaching and counselling, psychological help, help in starting up your own business or creating your own website is are services that are expensive. Prohibitively so.

Personally this has meant that it's been difficult for me to find clients for my online coaching business. Not because there aren't many people out there who suffer from the long term effects and affects of Childhood Sexual Abuse, but because they can't afford to hire a counsellor to help them through the healing.

That all is about to change. Ten Bucks aims to be a movement towards making these types of services (and many others) available to the average Joe. Shooting for a market of lower to middle incomes, we aim to provide services and challenge people to provide their own. Get a lawyer for Ten bucks, an artist to design your logo, build your website for Ten bucks an hour (or per page, up to the provider to make that decision).

The best part is that people who are now working menial jobs, barely getting by, working their tail off for a boss can use the services of Ten bucks to break out of their poverty and to follow their dream.

Far from being a rekindling of the American Dream, which appears to be geared towards rampant consumerism, this is all about producing your own dream, living your own passion on the scale you want. Do you want to be as big as Disney? We'll help you get started. Do you want to be a professional service provider, good at what you do and proud to be independent? We'll help you get started. Do you just want to put your skills to work on a small scale? We'll help you get started. It's what your dream is all about that counts.

Everything at Ten bucks, as you might have guessed by now, costs Ten bucks. The three initiators are accomplished professional coaches and trainers. Instead of going for the big bucks we go for Ten bucks. We feel that even if our services costs only Ten bucks we can make a decent living and have a lot of fun for our money.

We're in the process of writing our business plan and already we're dreaming about the possibility of going international. Big dreams, not of making big money, but of making the Ten bucks movement big enough to have a coach on every streetcorner, teaching people how to make the most of their dream.

There is no "us" and "them"

I newly discovered this great site called TED. It has video podcasts on various topics from all sorts of innovative speakers. One that really touched my heart was the following talk by Diane Benscoter. As a former Moonie she's made a study of what kind of processes go into making someone go to the extremes for their particular set of beliefs.




She makes a valid point near the end: if a problem is of human origin we can tackle it ourselves. Instead of relying on God, the government or whatever higher power you may find yourself believing in. Because that would be making the same mistake again.

Think your own thoughts
Be aware though: Believing you're on the right side of the conflict is not the way out. As long as you're willing to make the other person into an enemy, dehumanize them or perceive them as essentially different from you, you're falling victim to the oldfashioned "us and them" paradigm.

The way out of this whole mess is through critical thinking. Asking yourself and each other the kinds of questions that open our minds, rather than close it. It's being open to different solutions, new modes of thinking, rather than settling for a new solidified "truth". It takes being aware, awake to all possibilities, aware of your own needs and wants and curious about someone elses.

Jonestown, Abu Grahib, Nazi Germany, terrorism and anti-terrorism all use the same logic. Any kind of thinking that points to a possible villain is part of the old modes of thinking. It's time to do away with such blanket judgements and start thinking of ourselves as one human family and figure out a way to avoid killing each other.

What if there was a war and nobody went?
Fortunately these are also the times when great movements are happening. More perhaps than ever before we are working together to solve problems, learning to use non-violent communication, finding new ways of resolving conflicts. The world is becoming a less violent place. We're learning, albeit slowly, to cherish and love one another.

Enlightenment

In Ode Magazine this month there was an article by Tijn Touber. After all his meditation exercises, guru's and mindfulness experiences he's finally arrived at the inevitable conclusion: "I am already enlightened." All the spiritual practises and training is actually keeping us from knowing this. At the heart of the matter, there's nothing other than: we are already enlightened.

When I was about 16 I was a prolific reader. People at the library got to know me, even to the extend that they offered me my first job ever: putting books back on those shelves. A bit of a bookworm I was in those days. I still enjoy reading a lot but it's never been like those days because I figured something out pretty soon. All the psychology books, all the self-help and sociology books, even the romance novels I read were about one thing only: Being human.

Being catapulted into enlightenment like Tijn talks about in Ode reminded me of something my good friend and mentor Tom Crum used to say. "We are already connected"
We don't end where our skin ends. Recent discoveries in quantum mechanics show that something of who you are gets absorbed into your surroundings, a measurable quantity of you remains in a room even if you only spend an hour there. And I assume something of your surroundings gets absorbed into you. That means that at least a little bit of who I am becomes part of who you are. Hurting you is tantamount to hurting myself. We are already connected. Enlightenment, indeed being human is about accepting that connectedness.

Enlightenment, in my opinion, is the recognition that we're all part of this great quantum soup, each of us a drop in the ocean. Each of us with our own individual beauty and part of a greater truth at the same time. When those two beliefs are united within us, that's when you are enlightened.

I believe I'm enlightened, although I'd say I'm a part-timer at it :-). It's all too easy to get caught up in our littleness, our separateness and loose sight of the fact that we're also the great ocean of abundance. It's like I know that I am the light, or at least part of the light, but I get caught up making sure my lampshade is good enough. Oh well, I'm only human...