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COURSE

The Hero's Journey: Finding Your Power

With Marc Lesser

We are all searching to find our true power – in our families, our relationships, our work, our identities, all parts of our lives. Our true power lies in stepping into our full authentic selves and having a positive influence on those we touch. In this 10 session course we will explore how to find your true power. We’ll do this by taking a journey together. This is a course in transformation, where you will unlock your true potential by exploring, searching and finding, and having the courage to to be curious and vulnerable. You will learn how to approach challenges and difficulties with greater clarity and ease, and ultimately, integrate your true power in all parts of your ordinary extraordinary life.

Embark on the Hero’s Journey and learn to unlock your true power, transform your approach to challenges, and live with greater curiosity.

10 Days

6.5k students

4.5 stars

14 min / day

English

About this course

Mindful Awareness

Letting Go Meditation

Self-Inquiry Practice

Meet your Teacher

Marc Lesser

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Mill Valley, CA, USA

Marc Lesser is a speaker, facilitator, workshop leader, and executive coach. He is known for his engaging, experiential presentations that integrate mindfulness and emotional intelligence practices and training. Marc helped develop the world-renowned Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program within Google – a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence training for leaders which teaches the art of integrating mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and business savvy for creating great corporate cultures and a better world. Marc founded and was CEO of 3 companies, has an MBA degree from New York University, and is the author of 4 books, including Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons from Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen, and CEO of ZBA Associates, an executive development and leadership consulting company. Marc was a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for 10 years, and director of Tassajara, Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery in the western world. He leads Mill Valley Zen, a weekly meditation group.

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10 Days

6.5k students

4.5 stars

14 min / day

English

Lesson 1

Exploring The Ordinary World

You are a hero on an extraordinary journey. Today, we will begin by turning toward our life as it is right now, our ordinary world. We will explore the practices of cultivating safety, satisfaction, and connection. Entering the ordinary world means studying the self as a way of going beyond the self. Today's suggested activity is to do an audit of your life for the following week – how are you doing with exercise, diet, sleep, meaningful connections, work, spiritual practice, and mood – checking in to see how your ordinary world is going.

Lesson 2

Answering The Call

Let’s explore what calls to you, what beckons you, and how you transform your life. The call can begin with an accident, a blunder, or a wrong turn. Or it can be an aha moment, an inspiration, a thud or tingling of your heart. What is the request your life asks of you? You may be called to begin or end a project, a job, a relationship. We are called to go deeper, to leave what is known and comfortable to find our own truth. Asking powerful questions is a useful practice to better understand and work with what calls you: Why are you here on the planet?: How’s it going?” What actions might you take in response to these questions?

Lesson 3

Recognizing Resistance

Resistance, fear, and caution are natural responses to change, to the idea of leaving what is known and comfortable. Recognizing and becoming intimate with your resistance, the nature of it, the patterns, how it feels in the body is an important step toward finding your true power.

Lesson 4

Finding Allies & Mentors

Finding allies and mentors is more than an idea or aspiration. It is a practice. Start by noticing who are your allies and mentors. How might you cultivate and deepen these relationships? Then, who are possible allies and mentors? How open are are you to being helped and supported? Notice your patterns and possibilities around being helped, mentored, and supported. Today, you will be encouraged to take on finding and allowing allies and mentors as a practice.

Lesson 5

Tests, Challenges, & Failures

In today's lesson we will focus on learning to not avoid the challenges that comes with being human. Managing change can be an ongoing test and learning experience and it's important to bring attention to the process of transforming difficulty into learning and opportunity, satisfaction, and joy. In this lesson we will be working with the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism: The truth of discomfort and suffering; the truth of noticing the cause of suffering; the possibility of finding freedom: creating a path and practices leading to greater satisfaction and greater power.

Lesson 6

Finding Freedom

Today we will discuss how to finding freedom through cultivating a set of practices to see more clearly. Paying attention to your habits and patterns that limit you, clarifying your intention, bringing greater attention to your speech, your livelihood, and your effort, and deepening your mindfulness practices are all ways to find your freedom and true power.

Lesson 7

Finding Your Power

Experience the experience you are experiencing. Your power is embedded in accepting and not resisting or pushing away you full experience. In today's lesson we will be asked to notice the three levels of reality: the ordinary world, the aspirational or compassionate world, and the absolute world. Noticing what vows or promises you live by and cultivating healthy vows. Learning to live by vow instead of by habit.

Lesson 8

Letting Go & Surrendering

Life is short. We know that we will die and none of us knows when. Don’t wait. Live your life fully right now. Practice radical acceptance. Embrace a beginner’s mind. Find stillness in the middle of change and stress.

Lesson 9

Returning To The Ordinary World

In today's lesson we will explore the four foundations of mindfulness: mindfulness of the body, your feelings, your mind, and patterns. As we return to the ordinary world we re-visit questions of meaning, values, and alignment. We’ll explore the practice of noticing our heart’s desire. We will cultivate greater resilience and find new ways to work with success and failure.

Lesson 10

Integration And Continual Practice

This is the end of the course and it is also the beginning. The journey of growth, of life, of being human is a cycle – of noticing, discovery, of entering the unknown, and being transformed – again and again. The importance of wholeheartedness and sincerity. Embracing the world of the absolute, and yet, the need for continuous practice. In today's lesson we will wrap up with a discussion on four key superpowers: selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness. This is the journey of searching and finding – for your true power.