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Your Survival Machine is not who you are. People are not their Machines. But we all have a Survival Machine.
Your Survival Machine is an accumulation of identifications you picked up along the way as part of yourself.
This part is designated for survival as a social and human being. It is different than your being that can make authentic, heart-centered, feeling-based, beyond-reason decisions.
Your Survival Machine is like a robotic mechanism that keeps things as you know them. It’s how you think about the world that makes sense, as your beliefs about the world, your opinions on things, but also the way your Machine is used to do things.
For example: You Always (notice the word "always" which hints at the Machine) do things this way.
You always put a lot of salt on your food, you always open the wine this way. Techno is what you like. Liking cars is who you are.
Your Machine
𝐓𝐡𝐞 Machine purpose
To create structure and repetitiveness that is expected so your physiological structure can drive through the chaos of the world, you slowly build the Survival Machine.
All your friends were playing capture the flag outside, and then someone from your team left you alone. You had an emotion of fear, and sadness, and anger, and you decided that you will "take care of yourself" from now on. You play as a lone wolf.
That old decision was forgotten, but that strategy became ingrained in who you are. (Part of your Machine) one of the edges. Today when you go abroad and stay at a hostel you keep your distance. You stay friendly and nice, but you never feel like part of the group. The old survival strategy that dictates your life ever since then, is still there. Your unknown limit, your glass ceiling.
With each survival necessity your Machine has different survival strategies. More about these different survival strategies here.
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𝐓𝐡𝐞 Machine Freaking out.
For most of us, when we do or need to do something that is too far outside our Machine, we react in a certain way. For some of us, walking barefoot in an airport is just "too much" "too crazy" "I will never do it" (Notice the word never which hints at the Machine too.)
For some of us it is to drive too fast, or too slow.
To wear something too sleazy, or slutty, or on the other hand, to be too proud.
I am saying "too" because the Machine can handle a bit of wandering to its edges. Going to a nature party with Goa trance and watching everyone might be something your Machine can handle, but going to the dance floor and jumping for 8 hours straight might be too far off.
After 1 or 2 parties, your Machine slowly stretches, and what seemed out of the question a month ago is now a new territory to explore. You are in the air having fun with the light-up people.
It is a wise playful move, if you're in the business of transformation, to notice when something is on the edge of your Machine and do it. It keeps you away from the numb areas of the Machine that put you to sleep. For example, doing just your routines for a whole year. It makes you feel alive. Which is more fun.
If you work with your clients, you might notice that offering to do things that are too far away will create resistance and trigger the Machine. Red alerts in the air, beeping horns, and the security team cavalry of opinions and beliefs "this is just who I am" (notice the word just) will come to the rescue.
When we are trying something too far for the Machine in the name of transformation it usually doesn't work and actually comes from the irresponsible part of us, and not in the purpose of transformation.
For some people, this looks like taking on the opposite strategy.
"I tried to succeed as a rock N roll star, it didn't work, being a good lawyer is the right thing to do"
"I tried to be a bad girl for years, now in my 30s I will be proud and tell people that wear tank tops that they're half naked."
"Believe me brother I've been in your place and now I found Jesus"
Your
Machine
Is a complex surviving mechanism
It might scare your Survival Machine to even consider its existence.
For most people, the Survival Machine is like a glass ceiling over an ant farm. Unnoticeable. Unconsciously limiting.
They will never see it, never think about it, never even notice the difference between their Machine and who they are.
This doesn’t mean you should see people as their Machines.
It means you can start distinguishing and connecting more with their Being than with their Machine. This is an experimental art that can yield very tasty fruits in the realms of connection.
You may have spent your whole life having conversations from inside your Machine:
I’m right, you’re wrong.
What’s your opinion about that?
No, I really need to know what you think about this.
What were you like as a child? Do you like Diet Coke or regular?
Do you prefer Hershey’s or gummy bears?
What’s your favorite place?
And so on…
The Survival Machine is a system of past impressions, everything you collected in order to survive. Unlike other ego states that feel alive and can evolve, heal, and shift, the Machine is rigid, already formed, and carried around like dead weight.
And yet, your Survival Machine is a very complex mechanism, one that has been studied for decades across many disciplines. In fact, much of what we know in the West as “Buddhism,” Zen, and other “no-mind” paths are essentially different approaches to handling the Machine.
If you are reading this in your first few years of researching your Machine, congratulations. You still have a few more years ahead to explore its major aspects. Only to realize, eventually, that it’s not all that interesting. It can be amusing to notice it in yourself and others, and helpful in not getting hooked. But at some point, relating from your Machine feels like petting someone’s hand with a remote control. It misses all the touch.
At some point, you may want to experiment with the Connect practice of “sitting your Machine.” Let it sit on the bench, like a backup player on your team, and only call it in during extreme cases of needing to actually survive.
Other than that, the Survival Machine is a point of research, a reference, but definitely not the one you want in your opening team. For that, you have your Being.
Working with you Machine to grow
Your Survival Machine can be an obstacle to your growth or a stepping stone to sit on.
When you are weary from a demanding adventure, your Machine knows exactly what you need to return to your comfort zone and rest.
When you look at your Machine enough times, it becomes expected and obvious. You can then see other people’s Machines and learn how to work with their Machines in the service of your bright principles. Especially to navigate with your clients’ Machines.
01
Notice you Machine
Your Survival Machine has many corners, edges, buttons, and mechanisms. Take a look at the picture on top and see how much is included in it.
Just be with these different facets of your Machine, and see how they determine your world, your life, and your survival.
You can find a fun game, for example, catching each other with a teammate every time you say "Always," "I never," "I am used to," "I like," "I dislike," "for me," "I," and ask who is speaking.
Or which "I" is speaking.
Then you can practice catching yourself when your Machine is speaking.
Noticing it without judgment, without beating yourself up, as an explorer, can be a highly fun and growth-oriented experiment.
02
Shrink your Mind Machine
Now that you have a sense of your Machine, when it is speaking, and how it sounds,
you can start practicing shrinking your Machine and speaking not from it.
From your Being, from your heart.
You can experiment by yourself, or grab a trainer to take you through this experiment for the first time.
When your Machine shrinks, everything outside of it becomes possible. Different dimensions of perception, possibilities, and adventures your Machine couldn’t let you approach before.
03
Talk from you Machine
Now that you're an expert talking without your Machine, practice going back again and talking from it.
This might serve you in creating "Culture to Culture" conversations.
Maybe to establish connection with someone, not speaking from your Machine would freak their Machine too much. If your Machine doesn't mind and you're here for connection, that skill might serve you.
As long as you don't believe your Machine speaking. And remember:
You are NOT your Machine.
Where does the Machine -work lead you?
An adulthood initiation path includes Machine work. To help you detach from the old belief systems the Machine possesses and move through a liquid state where you can be reborn as the phoenix, bird of sand,
and rise from the ashes renewed.
Transformation is a path that takes many distinctions about Machines. It doesn’t exclude Machines but navigates with them, takes care of their expansion, and helps them go liquid and transform.
If your Machine limited you in taking action in a certain direction that was in your heart, for example, talking to the next person you need to talk to while your Machine freaked out about it,
or going to a country with sanitation levels that challenge your Machine, or working with a team member that hooks your buttons.
An expanded and flexible Machine keeps you more agile and able. Also a more fun human being to be around. I guess your Machine probably likes people with more fluid Machines, doesn’t it?
Do you sometimes take drugs or find friends that will force some Machine relaxing?
Expanding your Machine with experiments becomes almost like a hygiene practice. There is no gold, and no one can reward you for it.
But your team will definitely appreciate you.
Also, you can probably get to know more of your Shadow Guide, whose job is to guard your Machine.
More on that here.
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