Nick was fuming. He’d been turned down again for a role he wanted and given what he called “some lame excuse as to why.” Our session started with him launching into how hard he worked preparing for auditions, complaining that “half the actors in this town don’t even know what they’re doing.” In other words, Nick was the victim here.
Victims live very limited lives. Not only are they inherently unhappy, but they make others around them unhappy too. Their fear of emotional injury becomes so great, they close off their heart to life. But there is a way to open it again, a Tool that teaches you to move through this fear.
It starts by becoming comfortable with death. Not literal death. Death of the ego. Unconsciously, we associate fear and failure with death. But when you can feel there’s something after death – rebirth – you stop being afraid of your fear since the only thing that dies is your ego.
The Tower takes you from death to rebirth.
Start by thinking of something frightening for you or that causes a lot of anxiety.
Death: Call up the hurt feelings that you just identified. Make them much worse and feel them attacking you right in your heart. They become so intense that your heart breaks and you die. You’re left lying motionless on the ground.
Illumination: You hear a voice that says with great authority, “Only the dead survive.” The moment it speaks, your heart fills with light, illuminating your surroundings. You realize you’re lying at the bottom of a hollow tower, which is open at the top. The light from your heart spreads throughout the rest of your body.
Transcendence: Buoyed by the light, you effortlessly float up the tower and out the top, continuing your ascent into a pure blue sky. Your body, purified of all pain, feels completely new.
