Success templates and energy slavery
Un-hijacking sovereignty and authenticity
A couple months ago, I took a mini-course on online marketing, which was organized around targeting various neurotransmitters. It was a safe, strong, sexy container full of loving humans who want to do business for good, not only for gain. We learned ways to build trust, create intimacy, make things fun — all positive things to do when building relationship with potential customers or clients.
What was interesting to me was to see how much I struggled with the material on activating dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, and perhaps more importantly, a primary modulator of reward-based behavior.
I gravitated towards this as my focus in the course, because it was a challenge and obvious deficiency for me. I worked on it. I meditated on it. I tried it out a few times, awkwardly. I wondered whether it was my own limiting belief, judgment, resistance, or simply a lack of skillful capacity that kept me from executing this specific marketing strategy. There’s truth in all those things.
It got me thinking about how Regenerative Purpose is counterculture in many ways, in a world that is drowning in dopamine. I believe we are over-doped on dopamine.
We exist in an invisible matrix of complex cultural conditioning. From the time we’re born, we are bombarded with subconscious messages linking certain behaviors with certain rewards. We are told that if we buy this item, we will feel that way; and if we do these things, we will achieve that aim.
This programming is so embedded in default reality. We don’t really even notice how it runs our lives. Egos love it. It motivates us to make decisions and move on things without having to think or feel anything too deeply.
Dopamine itself is not a bad thing. We need extra motivation sometimes to overcome stagnation or doubt or worry. But if it’s the dominant frequency, we need balance. That means slowing down, engaging in deeper inquiry, and checking what is aligned.
If we want to connect consistently with right action and right time and right place, we need to unravel the cords of default conditioning, which are reinforced by triggering dopamine. By taking distance from the dopamine circuit in our brain, it allows us to see more clearly what we’re really up to, and who it’s serving.
This brings me to the concept of success templates: how our unconscious collective buy-in to “what success looks like” can be degrading to sovereignty and authenticity. How do success templates leave us susceptible to energy slavery?
Well, we have an image of success agreed-upon by society. We subscribe to the belief that pursuing success is a worthwhile activity. There are rules for how to play. The template comes with desired behaviors and expected rewards. The whole thing is held together by a matrix of dopamine-driven conditioning.
Not long ago, the success template told us to go to a good school, get a good job, buy a house and have a family. Be a “good worker.” Save your pennies. Earn a pension. Retire with a gold watch one day. Or something like that.
In that old model of success, there’s a clear pecking order and time-based dues to be paid. We climb the ladder of money, status and power. Power is usually connected with a role. There is a hierarchical structure where we reach higher and higher levels — as long as we play by the rules of these power games.
The modern success template looks different now than when our grandparents were working, but the mechanism is the same. It is a system that is cleverly set up to capture the energy of the masses for the benefit of the elite, one percent.
With new success models, we enroll in trying to generate money, status and influence. Influence is usually marked by Internet visibility. We make ourselves run on a hamster wheel of non-stop content creation. We package ourselves for public consumption. There is a formula for how to grow our audience and expand our sphere of influence — as long as we bow down to the game master, The Algorithm.
The Internet has dis-intermediated so much commerce. It has removed many of the traditional gatekeepers. It’s amazing. Now it’s easier than ever to be our own boss, call all the shots, and decide what we get paid. Because of this, we may feel freer than when we were working “for the man” and earning a salary.
The success template has shape-shifted into a new form. How sneaky! Even with this updated template, often we are still following someone else’s rules and serving someone else’s agenda, without realizing.
We invest our energy in shapes that have been pre-cut for us according to others’ agendas. It seems like we work for ourselves, but actually we are part of an enlisted force of content-creation monkeys. Our efforts — multiplied by many millions — are disproportionately padding the paychecks of a few executives.
There’s nothing wrong with having social influence and visibility online. In the same vein, there’s nothing wrong with getting promoted in the ranks of role-based authority. But if we don’t want to be captured in energy slavery, it might be a good to do a check on sovereignty and authenticity:
Sovereignty. Maybe we’re not as free as we like to think. Maybe there is no visible boss, but is there still a wizard behind the curtain pulling the strings? Who (else) is making money from our efforts? Are we stewarding our life force energy in a way that’s consistent with our values?
When we are following a success template, we are much more likely to give our power away to those who set up the rules of the game.
To check on sovereignty, I ask myself whether I am be-ing present in my expression, or if I’m working hard to have a presence. When online presence becomes an object — and the objective of a strategy — I usually suspect a program is running.Authenticity. Maybe we’re compromising our values or being enlisted energetically to do things that are not aligned. Are we moving in service to truth? Or are we replicating the messages of a hidden campaign?
When we are following a success template, we are much more likely to distort our personal truth in favor of presenting a winning face.
To check on authenticity, I ask myself whether I am sharing in a way that is pleasing or fawning to the collective gaze. Am I posturing or pretzel-ing my truest expression in an effort to elicit approval from someone outside of me?
However we define success, the path to that holy grail is typically well-worn and marked by those that have gone before us. It’s hard to discern whether we’re in aliveness and alignment, simply by looking at the physical activities that we engage in. Energy slavery happens on a subtle level that’s not easily observable.
Success templates usually idealize bigger as better when it comes to outcomes. And they often rest on the unseen expectation of perpetual growth. In other words, success templates are held together by the myth of “more.” We live in a world that pedestals scale. So if our authentically aligned offering skews towards small, local, or intimate settings, it can be particularly challenging to hone in on that truth.
Eventually, I discovered two things about my allergy to triggering dopamine. Yes, it was in part due to discomfort from being unfamiliar and unskilled at this game. And, it was also because there was something fundamentally misaligned. The dominance of the dopamine matrix that runs default reality is something I am actually looking to unravel in my work with Regenerative Purpose.
Seeing the shape of the matrix we’re in is critical to engaging it playfully — or exiting to create beyond its boundaries. To divest our limited time and attention from the shackles of energy slavery, we need to retrain our brains. We need to develop a habit of self-regulating and realigning from that place on a regular basis.
Less chasing the algorithm. More embracing the truth.
Less following the program. More moving from presence.
What is the right place? The right format? The right time? The right audience? Freedom from energy slavery is choosing how to move according to our unique structure and soul print, rather than copy-pasting a template.