Inner Success

Inner Success is the fifth stage of WorldView. It focuses us more within ourselves, so we accept our masculine and feminine completely. At this stage we begin to question our image, recognizing that it is a trap that keeps us in old ways of seeing ourselves. In the first half of this stage, we are releasing ourselves from old images that keep us from accepting who we really are as creative beings. This stage is an interactive process that focuses us on defining ourselves in our own terms. The capstone is personality detachment, which means letting go and disregarding our self-judgment and the judgments of others. The more we can release our survival and success programming, the less attached we are about “how we contribute” so we can focus on our inner experience of being a contribution. The area we seek to clarify is finding our life work, a contribution based on presence and creative flow, not fear or personality desire.

Inner Success lessons focus us on defining ourselves on our own terms. We learn to recognize our constituents (those individuals who we are here to serve and who “get” us). We explore creative ways of being that bring us joy. There are three ways to verify this WorldView: 1) We are seeking congruence between inner and outer realities, 2) We are attempting to balance life work with our primary relationship and with our community of family and friends, and 3) The way we structure our life work is how it works for us, not how others want us to perform. At this stage, we keep exploring our Creative Expressions until we find a response in the world that recognizes and supports our service. Many times, this requires us to shift from a career that pays the bills into a new possibility where we are more clearly seen, but where we fear that we will not be monetarily compensated.

The challenge is to follow our heart’s passion while keeping a “taxi” job (a job that allows us time to develop ourselves while paying the bills), until our transition is complete. When we are doing Inner Success, we begin to pay attention to the energetic integrity of a situation and address our imbalances about how we engage life. Another signal is that we do not differentiate or segment our friends into subgroups. Instead, we engage everyone and allow our various friends to engage one another in a unified way. This reflects our lesson to be more authentic and connected in the many areas of our life.

If we have been able to grow effectively throughout our life, we typically enter the Inner Success stage at the age of 28 and are fully embodied in our expression by the age of 49. Individuals in Inner Success prefer to let things arise in the moment, dealing with each thing as it occurs. What tends to irritate us is not being able to deal with things in the moment because of circumstances or the expectations of others. The gift of interacting with individuals at the Inner Success stage is that we tend to not take things personally. Inner Success individuals can typically separate who we are from what others project on us. It is also likely that we have developed who we are through some spiritual practice, so we enjoy finding time to be more present with ourselves.

Engaging our life work becomes the primary way we expand our creative power. This requires that we understand our Authentic Life Expression (who we are, and exactly what our primary contribution and constituency/individuals we serve through our creative contribution are) by finding a way to serve others while being served in return. The more we discover who we are creatively, the more we seek to define our reality on our own terms. The keynote of this level is greater introspection. This permits us to see how our inner reality mirrors our outer reality. One of the first breakthroughs is recognizing that everyone’s reality is essentially their own. We also realize that we hold within us the power to interpret our reality as we wish. As we actualize our creative power by experimenting with different ways of defining ourselves, we are able to develop the deeper powers of our minds.

Creativity equals power equals love, which equals sex at this level. We begin to clarify the difference between our wants and our needs. We begin to know immediately if we are in alignment with others around us. The power of our speech becomes paramount as our thoughts take on a new power. The more we unify our inner selves with our personalities, the more our intelligence manifests. Usually, it is our creative imagination and visualization abilities that begin to stimulate our higher intuitive development. We start to separate ourselves from being identified with the culture or the civilization, so our own unique voice and power can be heard. As a result we become more vital and expressive. When we are denying ourselves, we experience inertia and boredom.

It is at this stage that we start to reframe and release our beliefs, realizing that they are just a crutch. This precipitates a crisis of meaning, and the power we ascribe to knowledge vs. knowing. Lower WorldView individuals need to feel a part of the common reality. The value of their beliefs is primarily in their agreement with others, and common beliefs are the way that they feel connected to others. We, as conscious beings, determine and validate meaning for ourselves in all circumstances. We seek to determine if the meanings or beliefs of others match our internal experience, thus being aware of the meaning, for us, in the moment.

When we recognize that we have been at the effect of our parental lessons and the mythology we created in reaction to it, we start to consciously create our own mythology. The more we own our own creative nature, the easier it is to build our inner frameworks to explain our creative differences with others. If you are reading this book you have taken a huge step in discovering how to accomplish this. Our creative nature guides us to self-understanding that can also provide insights into the behavior of others. We are now able to share our inner perspectives and influence others in a way that serves everyone due to our increasing identification with our intuition and ability to see and explain the bigger picture going on around us. What is most important is that we are no longer submerged in the feelings of our peer group. We define our own path.

The more we know ourselves as a creative beings, the more responsibility we have for expressing who we are. We need to simplify our lives to the basic creative elements, and work with a sense of economy about where we want to go. This is also the stage where we need to release our imprinting. Otherwise, we burn out from the friction and resistance of trying to do our life work. The more open and tolerant we are of others, the easier it will be for us to move forward into Personality Integration. Happiness is the indication we are growing and integrating our truth, so we can express it congruently with others.

The challenge we face is to do it on our own terms, and not terms others may choose. We need to take more risks in being ourselves, in ways others may reject. Owning the consequences of our choices is the first step to acknowledging our own creative path. Breaking free of our fears frees us to discover our creative flow. This inner development process, of seeking to contribute with presence and creative flow, opens us to assessing others in terms of their motives, so we can anticipate where conflict may arise. We also become better at attracting those who are creatively aligned with us. This reinforces our primary creative expression, and allows us to see that we are perfect the way we are. The more we experience the power of our creative energy, the more we love ourselves. This opens us to seeing where others are coming from. Attractions, therefore, become more conscious and we move into creative projects that previously may have seemed impossible.

We are supported in this stage by being around people who have our primary creative energy. It is important for us to recognize how amazing our energy is in being of service to others. When we see how it works to uplift people, we begin to accept our own natural abundance and let go of our fears that we won’t be seen. The more we are able to love ourselves by being a contribution that serves others, the less we “have to be” any particular thing. The more we begin to see and understand the differences of others, particularly pacing, process and approach, the more naturally fulfilling our life becomes.

Our introspection also begins the process of reorientation within ourselves. Our attachments to external goals loosen their grip on us. As a result, we begin to reevaluate the meaning of our lives, recognizing that our previous goals were based on meanings derived from others. This process usually results in our attracting new friends and associates more aligned to the new direction arising within us. We stop defining our objectives in terms of results, instead deriving our satisfaction from being present in the process. Usually, we begin to initiate various spiritual or physical processes that help ground us in this new awareness, so we can bring it into all aspects of our lives. If we have not already integrated our work and primary relationship into the whole, we do so now.

The keywords become “I Am That,” helping us let go of our past Defenses and Pretenses, and pointing the way to self-ownership of our creative being. The Law of Attraction helps us further develop our consciousness and awareness about differences and similarities, so we can be present in all circumstances allowing us to move into the world of the Law of Synthesis. Our inner knowing and psychic facilities expand as we purify our motivations and intent creating a foundation for the further expansion and expression that we do in World Service.

What becomes obvious to us is how fragmented and non-united we are within our own awareness. As we become aware of these discontinuities, we start realizing how much of ourselves has been defined by our past. We also wake up to ways our attachments and positions have consumed our lives by trying to guarantee survival and success. The more we question these old patterns, the more we see how we owned very little of our power to make choices independent of our past and to take greater risks than we previously imagined. We become aware that it was our own beliefs about the impracticality of our dreams that kept us from realizing them. As a result, we endeavor to follow our inner knowing despite any obstacles that may seem to be barriers to our full expression. Completing this stage empowers more conscious teammates who are able to implement big projects and bring them into existence easily.

CHECKLIST FOR INNER SUCCESS LEVEL

•    Operational status:Partner Oriented. Learns personal detachment, expands spirituality, begins teaching—formally or informally—focuses on building a sense of connectedness to others and the planet, and developing self-esteem allowing unconditional love of others. Prefers self-employment to corporate life because the politics are seen as boring and energy-draining. Takes many different types of classes and courses where they are exposed to different beliefs, and uses these different experiences to generate and validate their own truth. Balance is the key word to describe their aspirations. Typically they want to spread time and energy evenly between work, personal relationships and community (either local or topical) based on interests. Becomes sensitive to natural energies (flowers, etc.).
•    Learning method: Taking on issues by choosing enthusiastic, passionate opportunities of expression before serving un-chosen opportunities based on terror and excitement. The strategy in terms of the sea is to be a seal who becomes conscious of choices and takes care of his family.
•    Dimensions of experience: Three. You and I are We (adding context). Emotions and intellect are brought together to reveal patterns that are not working. Intuition is activated, leading in new directions.
•    Focus: You do your thing and I do mine.
•    Responsive characteristics: Individualistic, easy-going, growth-oriented, personal style; most perceptive while seeking the truth; flexible, multi-skilled, mellow, kind, loving.
•    Reactive characteristics: May appear eccentric, without self-esteem, not necessarily motivated, difficult personalities, impoverished, struggling, not clearly self-directed, floating.

Percent of adult population falling into Inner Success group: 12%.

Examples: Jerry Garcia, Stephen Hawking, Paul Hogan, Richard Dreyfus, Dustin Hoffman, Bobby McFerrin, Michael Douglas, Steven Spielberg, Bill Murray, Gary Larson, Robert Redford, Sting, James Taylor, Alice Walker, Christopher Reeves, John Lennon, Ken Keynes, Tom Hanks, James Baldwin, Arthur C. Clarke, Phil Donahue, George Burns, Albert Einstein, Eric Clapton, Judy Collins, Clint Eastwood, Dian Fosse, Elton John, Joan Baez, William Blake, James Joyce, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Carl Jung, John Muir, Kevin Costner, Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, Colin Powell, Richard Gere, Patrick Stewart, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Inner Success countries: Iceland, Holland, Sweden Norway and parts of Switzerland.