The cat just tested me. I failed.

Building a conference from scratch is fun but also demanding especially as it is activating full speed right now. I am getting more emails that I can respond to and I have tasks in Asana for a full week non-stop if I did only those. Everything is going fantastic though, much better than I expected. Tickets are selling fast (get yours here still at discount), I got a new partner for the event today, another one organized for tomorrow, Jason Silva just announced as speaker, everything is in the green.

I have had trouble meditating these days more than micro meditations of 5 to 10 minutes about ten times a day. In the forest I was meditating two hours a day. I remember the saying “meditate as if your life depended on it” or “if you’re busy, you need it even more”. Yet, I can’t do my long meditations, always focusing on the next zoom call.

So I decide at 22:00 to meditate for 30 minutes. I start the timer of my phone seated on my meditation pillow, the window is wide open and I am seated in front of the night and the many stars I can see. I close my eyes and I like to have an intention for each meditation before I close my eyes. I miss writing on this daily newsletter where I feel more free to share personal stories (my weekly newsletter has 14k subscribers so it’s more “intimidating”).

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So I close my eyes thinking my intention is to find an interesting topic to write about.

I will write about something spiritual and not business.

The paintings I received in the forest on my face and my body sounds great. It’s a newsletter I never dared to write because most of them are really scary. They often painted me as a snake and it’s scary to people, I understand. It was tough but I was really happy there. I never dared to write that post with all the photos I have because I want to avoid appearing scary or too crazy. Too late? Probably :-)

It’s not so crazy, it’s just their tradition. Is it more crazy than dressing up on TV like this or posting a tweet like that (I’m a big fan of Marc)? So I started meditating to see if I would write it or find something else “safer” to write about.

I was getting really deep after about 15 minutes, clearing my mind from the tasks and stress of the day. It’s been a hard day as the world lost a wonderful man I spent part of my life really close to and learning from. I thought about him a lot.

Another hurricane named “Fiona” hit the Caribbean these last days and devastated some islands already poor such as Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Reza Bundy is coming to speak at PAWA to remind us of the disasters the planet is going through going stronger daily. I am very concerned about the future of the planet, our home. It’s constantly on my mind. When I went to the Amazon forest the first time 6 years ago I was seeing lots of forest and few deforested areas. Now I see lots of land ravaged by farmers so people can eat their beef (I don’t anymore but used to) and little forest.

Anyway what I want to say is there is a lot on my mind.

I am still in my one year dieta. 6 months to go. The main difference I see in me among many others is that I got very sensitive to everything. It feels I am more sensitive every day of my dieta.

While I was meditating I heard a loud noise of things falling around me.

I open my eyes. I see my brand new Apple Studio screen almost falling-off the desk (I wonder how it did not) and breaking the painting glass it fell on. I almost buy nothing these days. In the forest I could not buy anything and I kept that habit of living a simpler, lighter life. I bought that expensive screen because my eyes get really tired 10-12 hours a day in front of my Mac and I love it. I just got it.

I failed.

I did not control my thoughts and emotions and immediately screamed (swore in fact) really loud at the cat. I broke rule 17. of my discipline post. I broke what I want to be, a modern warrior controlling his thoughts, emotions, words and actions. I broke all these 4 guidelines I wrote for myself.

My heart accelerated. The questions to myself arrived. Why did I swear at the cat? The cat jumped on the screen and made it fall. He disturbed my meditation and scared me which is why I reacted this way. The screen isn’t broken. Nothing is broken, why did I even get upset? How could I not control myself this way?

I just chatted with my friend Tony Fadell before the meditation. I invited him to speak at PAWA. Tony just wrote the book “BUILD”. The book one liner is “An unorthodox guide to making things worth making”. Why am I thinking about this?

Well, 6 years ago I decided to focus on a product “worth making” - myself.

After having built products and startups myself I decided the most important startup was… my own improvement as a human being. It’s worth looking at myself to fix it or entirely reprogram it from scratch. I have a very clear vision of the human being I want to be in the second part of my life (I’m 50).

I failed the “Cat test”

The elders keep repeating “everything happens for a reason”. They also say “forgive yourself”. What happened is always perfect. There are no mistakes only opportunities to learn. Le but est dans le chemin (the goal is in the path) as we say in French.

It could have been much worse. The screen could actually have broken. Someone could have been hurt. The cat will probably forgive me for shouting at him and he does not understand my insults but he probably understood better than a human how upset I was. He’s still a baby cat so it’s probably perfect for him too so he understands he can’t jump on anything he finds in the house. I could have screamed at a human being instead (I never did since I left the forest even though some triggered me pretty hard).

Most important it's been a teaching for me. I wrote about discipline thinking about how I learned to hold myself with indigenous and in ceremonies, but life is a permanent ceremony so I should always hold myself at any time, period.

I came back meditating, felt my heart and breathing come down and laughed when the 30 mins timer took me out of the space I was in.

My intention became a reality in 30 minutes.

I had the topic of the newsletter. Failing the cat test and what I learned from the experience. It’s also an example for me of the power of intention (that many spiritual leaders call “manifestation”). I manifested the idea of the newsletter by the way of a cat test lesson. Notice the palo santo at the bottom of the screen in the first photo? I am going to burn one. It’s in critical danger of extinction, I know.

You can also listen to these thoughts with more emotions on this episode of my podcast also on Apple Podcasts, Amazon and Spotify

Oh, before I forget my friend Rudy de Waele has a really cool upcoming retreat in Ibiza to co-create systems of peace and regenerate yourself, you might check it out.

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