Rock-balancing guru teaches you how to trust yourself again

Rock-balancing guru teaches you how to trust yourself againRock-balancing guru teaches you how to trust yourself againOn the Airbnb experiences page of things you can do in San Francisco, youll come across a man promising to push you past your limiting beliefs through the art of jupe balancing.This is another way of saying that Travis Ruskus, 27, is going to take you ona beautiful hike on the Lands End Trail to a beach and then hes going to get you to do something youve likely never done before arrange a pile of rocks into a structure that stays upright, like you wish you would.Hearing this, you may feel apprehensive or skeptical. What can putting rocks on top of each other teach me? But Ruskus says doing it flips your I cant into I can.Theres a joy toseeing something that should ding stand instead. The rocks have lessons in them. Its saved him and he wants it to help save you.Ruskussays hes taught rock balancing to 5-year-olds and 95-year-olds, to any race, religion, gender, and wha t hes noticed is that everyone gets the exact same look when the rocksbalancedIts like pure elation. Ruskus says he can teachanyone in a minute.Ladders talked to Ruskus about how to convert rock balancing non-believers, his career, andhow workers can apply the theory behind rock balancing to their own lives.From a cook to a stonebalancing artistThis is what Ruskus will tell you in his conversion speech. A few years ago, Ruskus was in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, standing halfway in a creekfull of rocks looking at his life, which had hit rock bottom. He had just been fired from his previous job as a line cook and hadgone through a painfulbreakup. He needed something to believe in and he found it through holding a rock.Standing there shin-deep in water, he began to connect to the abundant energy that surrounds us all. He began to notice the nature surrounding him, the gravity andweight of the rock in his hand, and less about the own weight of his problems.The less I thought, the more I was able to feel the now and the present, Ruskus said. He decided to challenge himself. I wanted to balance a rock in the most difficult way possible, just to prove to God or whatever spirit that I had a voicethat I can do whatever I want.And after about 45 minutes of frustration, he had exhausted his mind and balanced rocks into art.People began to notice Ruskus at the parkand takephotos of his structure. Ruskus wanted to take his deep spiritual experience in the river and share it.Fast-forward to Ruskus moving to San Francisco and monetizing his passion.Airbnb is helping Ruskus legitimize his passion and get people to pay for rock balancing. But Ruskus is aware that he needs to walk a tightrope of not attaching myself too much to a brand, because that dilutes you as an artist.Ruskus, like many artists, does other side jobswith websites and digital marketing, but he says rock balancing is the one that gets me to wake up in the morning.Rock balancing teaches you how to say I can do thisHe cites one agoraphobic womans experience as particularly memorable. She was a client who had chosen to attend his Airbnb experience, but was hitting a wall. For Ruskus, he described it as noticing someone who had been beating themselves up for so many years. and then to have something you need to do, and youre telling yourself, I cant do this.The woman began to panic, but through breathing exercises, she worked through it and by the end, had built a rock structure that was as big as her legs. It becameanexternal validation for the strength she had inside.We all carryself-defeating myths about ourselves that can become reality if we listen to them. Thats what rock balancing wants to shake people out of.You cant do a rock balancing halfway. You have to put everything into it, Ruskus says about how his artgets people out of their heads.Breathing exercises to balance rocks and balancing emailsFor people that dont have rocks readily available, Ruskus still says you should g o find some rocks. But theres a breathing exercise he says you can use for balancing rocks and balancing the stress of emails.Drawing upon Chade-Meng Tans three breath principle, Ruskus believes anyone can create joy on demand. In the first breath, Ruskus teaches his clientstobreathe in andbring awareness of the oxygen in your body. On the second breath, you breathe in and just relax. Pretend theres a CAT scan going from your head to your shoulders to your legs. On the third breath, you breathe in and experience joy. Remember things that make you happy. For people on a sunny San Francisco beach, thats easy. But Ruskus says workers can find it too. The joy could be you just got paid, or your husband or wife had a good day, or you just had a good day.Ruskus eventual goal is to get his work shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and transition to rock balancing full-time. Like with his clients, Ruskus has had to teach himself to eliminate self-defeating thoughts because this g allery owner didnt get back to me or yadda yadda yadda, but ultimately I know that theyre just excuses.But whether or not he makes it to the SFMOMA, Ruskus is happy to know that hes found his passion. For me, I could be rock balancing the rest of my life, and Ill be completely happy with that.