Authentic Expression Spotlight Dreamer: Barry Dennis In this new incarnation of my newsletter (previously known as The Wishweaving Word), I welcome you to the first Authentic Expression Spotlight Dreamer! I asked to speak with Barry Dennis (www.BarryADennis.com) and share his message and work in the world because Barry brings his inner self as fully into the outer world as anyone I know. He has been a source of inspiration to me for years. I often attended the Celebration Church Barry founded in Wilsonville and have been enjoying his Coexist Celebrations for approximately nine months now. I devoured his wonderful book, The Chotchky Challenge, Hay House, 2012. I am also a member of the Coexist Visionaries group. Barry’s soul purpose revolves around what he calls the 3LP’s: Live your Passion, Love your People, Lift the Planet. Barry is an author, musician, and one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing. He has worked with many of the most well-known spiritual leaders on our planet today; please read more at www.BarryADennis.com. After discussing our mutual admiration for The Beatles, Barry and I sat down at my kitchen table, with cups of tea, for my first interview in several years. (I admit I was nervous and a little star-struck.) L: Let’s talk about Coexist Visionaries, since I am one, first. At the very first visionary meeting, you mentioned how some videos of you on stage had gone viral and touched people; this led you to question what would happen if you set out to intentionally create viral videos. The first one is now in progress. (Hopefully my bits won’t all end up on the virtual cutting room floor!!!) I know your intention is to help elevate consciousness and I will outline the 100th monkey concept* for those who aren’t familiar with it. But please explain in your own words what you hope to accomplish with the Coexist Visionaries and these intentionally created videos. B: There are different levels to the visionaries. We are the ground floor. We’re the beginning. We are creating together how this is going to become, how it will manifest in the world. The local group is us here in Portland. We’re the visionaries of the visionaries, the creators of that which will become. It’s an organic process that you’re a part of. Over the next couple of months I’ll bounce more ideas off you and the group, sort of finalize how it looks for us. The idea is three-fold – the visionaries support each other, in our personal vision, for our life. That is often classically called a mastermind group, supporting each other in living your dreams, which is wonderful. The next level is what we’re creating as the visionaries. So, we support each other in living that vision, the life our soul was meant to live, by coming together with other souls, brainstorming our expressions of light, of love, of energy, a voice in the world for sanity. L: I like it. B: Some people might use the word God. Whatever word—noun, adjective, verb—we’re all expressions of life. We’re gathering together to raise our vibration in that expression of life. L: Is that part of number one, or are we heading into number two? B: That was number one. Number two is more outreach, support of local expression of Coexist Celebration. What are we going to do locally so people have a place to come to connect with their personal vision, to awaken and remember that they are love? People want to reconnect with the truth of what they are – a being of spirit, divine intention, unlimited potential power. So, our second tier is to make sure there’s a dynamic place for people to come, to create events for the visionaries to support themselves and others in coming together to remember their soul. These events could include other outreach in the community, possibly Habitat for Humanity, reaching out to women who’ve been domestically abused, children who need assistance, the homeless. These are all things that are local which could become a Coexist event. This will all be decided by the visionaries, how we want to use our energy. L: I’ll be there! B: So, next is global. L: Where the videos come in. B: That’s where the videos come in. That is also local, of course, because global encompasses everything. That’s where I’m the most excited. What I’m personally about is empowering people to connect to, to awaken, their spirit, their soul, their heart. L: You just answered a question I was going to ask you later. B: That is the most important thing because then those individuals go out into their life and become a volunteer for life. They become a voice for good. In their own home, at their workplace, everywhere they go – they change the vibration. That is how I can make the biggest impact on the world – with my music, and my writing, and my speaking—that’s who I am, the gifts I have been given, so that’s what I’m here to do. Global of course encompasses everything on the planet, circles around, and also comes back to local. The idea is to raise consciousness with every click of the computer and every send. When someone watches and sends one of our videos, we know consciousness has been raised with every click. Looking for the 100th monkey is a metaphor that we are hoping, we are knowing, that as we do the work locally, globally, we are helping reach one more, one more, one more until we reach critical mass. Which brings us to the name of our production company: Tipping Point Productions. L: Anything else on that? B: There are three basic zones in which people tend to live. The first is a small inner circle called Atrophy which encompasses the body, mind, relationships, soul, all parts of life. That’s what happens when we’re not moving, expressing, enthusiastic; those parts begin to die…muscles, brains, curiosity, soul. There are many influences in the world which support atrophy – my book, without ever mentioning these three zones – is about trying to help people get out of this. The next circle, much bigger than this, is thriving. Not falling in atrophy, but stretching and moving and interested, connected, we are excited to be alive. You have to stretch; we can’t be in thriving without stretching. It takes effort, but that effort pays itself back ten- fold. When you use your body and your muscles stretch and have a bit of a breakdown, they repair themselves and are stronger than before. Then you’re in thriving zone. It’s the same with the mind, muscle, heart, soul. Our intention it to keep everyone… L: What do you mean by everyone? B: The visionaries group specifically – and then others in the world. L: That’s what I thought. B: Keep in the thriving zone. The next zone is breaking, when we go too far, in any area of life. There is a lot of influence to be in breaking in our culture, atrophy and breaking. What happens in breaking is we get obsessed or overly involved in one or two or more areas of our life and it creates a breakdown. If you exercise too much, your muscles can’t repair themselves. If you don’t relax enough, your body will break down. And so it is with anything in life, if you work too hard on a project you’re excited about and don’t give your mind and body time to process. The mind processes one’s study, one’s thinking—take moments to breathe, meditate, relax, go for a walk. Your mind works on it for you in your subconscious while you are resting…and things start to move, process and click more quickly. Thriving: Balance, Growth, Stretching. That is our goal in Coexist Visionaries – to be in that space. Then, thriving gets bigger and the circle grows. What used to be breaking…becomes thriving. L: This is so true. It’s true in yoga, in how you feel powerful and supported in the choices you make in everyday life. I need to put this in bold print because it is so important. B: Yes, you know, I can do things now in shorter periods of time. I can do things easier and with more efficiency because I have spent so much time living on the edge of thriving, my whole life, and sometimes to the point of breaking. It’s expanded to where I can dance in a much different circle without breaking where, like, every minute is worth five minutes. L: Yes! B: All of a sudden I can write a song so much faster, I can write my books faster, come up with ideas faster. And I learned this by being in the thriving zone. L: Totally! Through my experience and Barbara Stanny’s work, I’ve learned you’re not going to progress unless you do something you fear. If you spend your whole life running from things you’re afraid of, you’re just not going to grow. (Hereafter came a discussion about Twitter, fear, and how even Ghandi probably experienced it, and if we are still on this planet, it means we still have something to learn.) B: Through the fear is always the expansion. To be in thriving we have to face fears. L: I have wanted to repeat something else you said at the first visionary meeting, which I incorporated into my two day workshop, crediting you. This is the survey of people about to leave this world. Remind me of the three things people said on their “death bed.” B: They wish they would have: --Reflected more --Acted more and taken risks despite the fear --Done something to leave a legacy behind. L: I want to talk some about your childhood, as I have met your delightful parents through Coexist. Where were you born? Where did you grow up? You mentioned at a recent visionary meeting how your father taught you to write down your goals and believe in yourself. At the same meeting, I was part of a conversation with your father in which he shared selling a house you all had lived in, in Illinois I believe it was, that had elevators and was quite an exquisite home. Did you grow up a “rich kid?” What did your parents “do for a living”? How would you describe your childhood in three or four sentences? B: When I was born, we were financially lower middle income in Detroit. I went to a pretty rough school there, Edison school. It was so rough that they got me out of there. My mother and father and some other people created a private school. L: Wow. Who were the other people? B: I don’t know the other people; it was called Sunset. The other school wasn’t the best influence on me. I don’t remember it that clearly, but I do have memories because I have dyslexia and have it pretty severely. I remember feeling very, very inferior. School wasn’t designed for someone like me. I got a lot of feedback that I was really stupid. My father grew more successful with time. Our first home was tiny – less than 1,000 square feet – we drove by it once when I was adult. My father worked for Dale Carnegie – he was an employee in Detroit for a franchisee and worked his way up to his own franchise. My father taught me all about goal setting, positive thinking. At a very young age I was reading books by Dale Carnegie, Og Mandino, Richard Bach. I’ve kept a notebook next to my bed my whole life with my goals, my visions, my dreams. The main thing is to get it into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind doesn’t have an opinion. L: (Laughing.) B: Because we are basically told by our culture that we are not good enough until we become something. L: Or buy something. B: The Chotchky Challenge is ultimately about learning to love yourself so much that you are immune to the false information of the world and in touch with yourself. We have to make sure we are inputting information that will override what our culture is giving us…not always, but a lot of the time. And most of that information is not on purpose. L: Right. B: We’re so asleep we don’t even know we’re telling our children they’re not good enough, so we can make money. But we are. We’re telling them you’re not good enough, popular enough, unless you wear or do this. It’s really sick. L: It is. B: It is. It’s a dis-ease. We have to wake up from it. I believe with all my heart that at heart people are good people and if we understood what we are doing for money, and woke up from that nightmare, we would be appalled with ourselves. L: I agree with you. B: We are so engrossed in our own culture’s insanity that we buy it…and then we “buy” it! You have to constantly remind yourself of what you really want to experience. Otherwise we’re being told that we have to go to this store and buy this thing, which leads to another thing…like a rat on a treadmill trying to keep up with someone else’s idea of what matters. My father taught me to remind myself of what’s important by writing down my vision, so the subconscious mind would incorporate the vision; this is what we will be doing in the visionaries; writing down our visions so the subconscious mind will incorporate what we want to be there. My father became more and more successful with Dale Carnegie, and by the time I was in junior high, high school, we were in upper middle class. Then he sold the business and jumped off a cliff to follow his soul. He lost his commissions from the sale of the business, because he was told he was competing with Carnegie. He felt it was something quite different, but was told he needed to either cease or let go of the money coming from the company. It was a big decision, but he and my mother decided to let go of all that money and he started writing books and working on management improvement ideas. So, then we were poor (laughing) for a while! L: Was this after the house in Illinois? B: Yes, this was here in Portland. We lived in nice home, I remember it, but were scraping by with enough money to pay bills, buy gasoline and get groceries. But it was a decision my mother and father made, to allow my father to follow his dreams. L: Somebody should write a movie. And maybe someday someone will when you’re more famous than you are now. B: Maybe. I’m writing a book right now that’s autobiographical, one aspect of it, if I ever finish it. Another is like historical fiction. Richard Bach, for example, writes about his own life, but you don’t know where the line is drawn between his life and fiction. Anyway, then my dad got his own business off the ground, with one paying client in particular. It’s been up and down, but we’re off topic now. You asked if I was raised a “rich” kid. I was raised first lower middle, then upper middle, then experienced a weird paradox in high school of not having money. And then I went to college and was kind of in my own world then. My dad did pay for my education. L: Mine did, too. B: I worked all through college. I didn’t make a lot of money, but I worked hard as a musician, which gave me spending money. L: I suspect if every parent taught their children what your father taught you (perhaps how to “manifest your destiny”, as Esther and Jerry Hicks or Wayne Dyer might say) our world would be quite a different place. As a father yourself, what words of wisdom do you have to share with parents who may read this? B: As a father, the world is changing so fast, it’s difficult as a parent to keep up with the curve and even know what to do. Kids in college now know they are being trained to do something which will be outdated in five years. They know this is a fact. What kids need to know is how to think, how to be creative, and how to adjust. The number one thing a kid, a child, a student needs to know…is how to adapt. Adapt, adjust, grow, and manifest their own destiny. L: And know their own mind and heart. B: Absolutely. And, of course, the number one thing, and this is ancient knowledge, always the number one thing is for your kids to know how much you love them. And the difficult part of that is knowing that loving often means creating boundaries and saying ‘no.’ L: Oh, do I know that from my prior marriage. That’s a big part of the reason I got divorced! But tell me about getting a book contract with Hay House. I am a writer and expect to publish more books myself. Hay House has published some of my favorite writers, including you! What was the process like, and how did the book deal change your life, if it did? I will also take any advice you have for people who want to publish an inspirational, spiritual or self-help type book. B: That’s an interesting story. I won a contest. L: Really? B: Yeah, Hay House was having a contest for best new spiritual, inspirational author. L: That is so exciting. Were you already writing the book when you heard about the contest? You said it took about five years to get the book written, edited, and all the re-writes completed. B: Yes, I had what I felt was a done manuscript when I heard about the contest. There were times in two weeks I would write hundreds of pages, and then it would take a year to go back and edit them, because I was so busy with life! And then there were the re-writes and re-rewrites, and re-writes! But at the time I heard about this contest, I felt it was pretty much finished. And somehow I knew in my soul I would win. This is not something I usually say, but I said it to several people. L: I have had experiences like that. I get it. B: It did change my life. I went on tour. L: For how long? B: I still am – I just got a text from Detroit: they want me to go speak! I started that life, which is a life of touring, speaking, doing interviews on radio and television; I’ve been interviewed by the New York Times, Huffington Post multiple times, I can’t remember all the newspapers and articles. My advice for writers is: 1) What is your story to tell? Find it. For me it’s different, I am a spiritual teacher for a living, so there are unlimited books. But generally speaking, what is your thing? Get really clear on that. 2) And then, write it because you love writing it and not because you think it will be the next necessarily… L: Claim to fame? B: Yeah, and not necessarily the thing that becomes their financial abundance. It could, but I suggest they write it because they love writing it. Put the horse in front of the cart, rather than the cart in front of the horse. L: I can’t tell you how many successful authors I’ve heard say: Don’t expect your book to make you any money! (Laughing.) Most authors, like Kate Northrup, also published by Hay House, whose blog I just read, have multiple income streams. She doesn’t rely on that to pay her bills. B: No. This is how it is for me, for most every author on the planet. I don’t make enough money to live off my book. I make money when I do an event based on my book, when I speak based on my book, so your book becomes a calling card. That’s something I want authors to understand. Books don’t sell themselves. L: No, they certainly do not! B: The publisher won’t sell your book either! L: I know! B: That was really frustrating for me, and an eye-opener! They do some, and point you in the right direction. L: Well, it does look really, really good to say you are published by Hay House on your resume. B: Yes, it looks really good! L: So, you already answered my question, which was: I didn’t put my mission in writing for the world to see until I was 50 years old. I help people stop being afraid of being themselves. Some might call this the “grave stone” exercise. How do you want to be remembered in a tag line like that? The word inspire comes to me right away. What words come to you about yourself and your legacy, Barry Dennis? You said: B: What I’m personally about is empowering people to connect to, to awaken, their spirit, their soul, their heart. L: What do you see as your next step? Where is Barry Dennis going from here, perhaps more figuratively than physically? B: You tell me (laughing); I wish I knew! I need the visionaries as much as anyone in my life – to become clear myself. I’m excited about the visionaries and my new books I am writing. I would like to grow the visionaries – locally and globally. I am also creating a Web-based program – for a whole year, once a week with me for 20 minutes, with life-coaching, journaling, working on clearing out what doesn’t serve—focusing only on what supports our soul. It’s shot on location around the world – Africa, Belize, all over the US, Mexico, Polynesian Islands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria... It’s a journey around the world and into the soul. There’s also a challenge for the week, and writing down the vision/goal, which I call your masterpiece. It’s entertaining and has the potential to be one of the most impactful things I have ever done. L: Oprah closes each issue of O Magazine with a column called “What I Know For Sure” and she often asks people she interviews the same question. How would you answer that question today? B: Everyone on this planet has a unique gift to give to the world. The challenge is we’re distracted from what our soul is here to do. Our purpose is to realign with our soul and to give that gift. L: Thank you, Barry Dennis. *’The hundredth monkey effect’ refers to a group of Japanese Macaques who lived on a small island and lived mainly on sweet potatoes. According to several published accounts, one particularly brilliant macaque figured out how to wash her potatoes by dropping them into shallow water. This monkey taught her immediate family the trick and soon it was common practice among all the animals in that particular troupe. At that point observation (or was it urban-myth rumor?) revealed that all the Japanese macaques, even those on separate islands, began washing sweet potatoes in this particular way.–Martha Beck, Steering By Starlight, Rodale Press, 2008 Authentically Yours, Laura
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