We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

As the ocean “waves” the universe “peoples.”

Watts, A. The Book, p. 9.

We are defined by our relationships and co-exist in this interdependent union. We are not separate and disconnected. The experience of being separate is an illusion. We are connected, each to the other; we have always been and will always be.

Our personal and professional relationships may be the most productive context to glean a true sense of this oneness and to begin to appreciate and tangibly receive the benefits. That is to say, we can profit from the realization and appreciation of our deep and undeniable connections. To reach the outcomes we are after, to perform at the level we know we are capable of, and to achieve our dreams, we do so through our connections with other people and the support that they offer. And if, in fact, we already live in connection with one another, we do not have to create the bond that brings about the realization of our goals, we just have to be willing to remove the distortions that inhibit their manifestation.

We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

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In order to transform, one must bring conscious awareness to the capacity for or the willingness to change. How much change can one tolerate? As known reality slowly gives way to the new frontier, resistance will certainly be met. And, one will naturally try hard to hold tight to the familiar. One’s commitment for tolerating the fires of transformation could be a challenge. If it isn’t, than one might wonder if he or she is really taking the degree of risk necessary to open to the “life not yet lived.”

Living into a life that one has yet to occupy fully is akin to bringing shadow material into solid form. Integrating those latent aspects of self that reside just on the other side of conscious awareness will be where the transformative adventure begins. Are you prepared to become fully engaged in discovering who it is you are meant to be?

“There is a vast difference between the bark of a tree and the bark of a dog.”

Watts, A. The Book. P. 68

Tags: change

Posted in Rest Within a Sense of Wholeness | No Comments »

Joan lived a very simple life with little money. Quality of life was always more important to her than quantity. She drove an old car and shopped for clothing at the local thrift store. This way of life served her well until the day came when she needed my help. Head in hands, she arrived at my door distraught by her recent diagnosis and ashamed that she had no way to pay for my services. With no savings and very little discretionary income, Joan and I negotiated a reasonable fee of $10.00 an hour.

We met once a week for the years remaining of Joan’s life. One day, Joan arrived with a large, rusty Folgers coffee can tucked neatly under her left arm. Even though she was soon to leave this world, on this particular day, Joan was radiant. She had something to tell me, something to share.

Handing me the coffee can, Joan explained that this old can had been rolling around in her trunk since that crisp, October day when we first began our journey together. Poignantly, she recalled making a weekly ritual out of opening the plastic lid and dropping in a little cash after each of our sessions. Over the years, Joan held on to the growing savings in case she ever needed it. And now, alas, it was time to let it go. I wept with her graciousness. We cried together at this subtle but clear indication that our time together was drawing to a close.

Much later, upon opening the can, I found hundreds of rolled-up bills laced ever-so-slightly with the feint smell of Folgers.

Tags: RestWithin

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Take a moment to close your eyes and take three breaths. Simply get a sense of yourself as you breathe in and out. Gently let your eyelids fall and allow the sensation of breathing to prevail. Relax.

Imagine that you are sitting at the edge of a deep pool, feet in the water, pants or skirt hiked up. Feel the warmth or the coolness of the water on your bare skin. Wiggle your toes in the current. Notice your seat against the edging of the pool; feel the air against your skin. And, relax.

As you are now fully placed in this dream-state become aware that there are fish swimming below. Some are beautifully colored and move gracefully within their school. There are several large sharks slowly circling in the shadows, neither retreating nor moving forward. Manage any considerations you may have about having your feet share the same water as these creatures. Notice the sensations that are predominant in your body and relax into them.

Realize that you cannot know what will happen next. Shift your awareness by simply feeling what it is like to be here, seated betwixt and between and manage the impulses that may try to dislocate you from this position.

Open to this in-between space, and receive what is here waiting. Allow the images, memories, and feelings to find you and observe.

It is in the “betwixt and between” that our conscious mind gives way to the unconscious and our dreams give voice to our soul.

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Barbara (a client) was sitting on my front porch swing, and we were talking about the value of mindfulness and its role in determining how much we allow into consciousness at any given moment. As a building architect, Barbara has highly developed visionary skills. She is able to “see” the entirety of a design within minutes of meeting with a prospective client. Their fantasies, their hopes, and their dreams take form before her very eyes. This is what she does; and she does it very well. However, because she has a developed ability to concentrate and focus her attention so one-pointedly, she naturally and consistently energizes everything that she looks at. After all, she is a visionary. For design and creativity this is very useful, in fact, it is a gift. But, when there is too much unconscious material presenting itself, the amplification is often unsettling and actually counterproductive.

Gently rocking back and forth she asked, “What am I to do?”  Facing the corner of the house where the large, paned window exposed the library, she could catch a glimpse of her reflection in the glass. As she drew closer she could look through the glass to see the books on the shelves and the clock on the mantle, and as she swung back, there she was mirrored in the very same pane of glass. Somewhere in the middle of her motion, the pane of glass simply was a pane of glass; she could no longer see her reflection in the glass or the contents of the library through the window. A contemplative smile formed on Barbara’s lips and she spoke from a distant place, “I get it. I need to regulate how deeply I look into the situation. Like now, I could simply move my awareness away from the fireplace and books that are visible inside to the pane of glass that I am peering through.”

“Just like with my thinking, I don’t have to focus on all the content that is so potentially disturbing to me. I can focus on my experience of thinking, move through it and sort for something that is pleasant and which does not disturb me.”

Had Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, simply seen the rabbit hole as a rabbit hole and not as a place to focus her attention, she could have lived her day happily in the sunshine on the banks of the river. By following the White Rabbit into the earth (unconscious), her dream forced her to live in an over-amplified world that was beyond time and rational.

(Carroll, L. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

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It was a cold, winter’s day and the wood stove creaked with the morning’s first fire, like an aged, long-distance runner beginning to warm to his morning jog. I heard a knock, and as I opened the door, there stood a gnarly woman in her sixties, weathered like a piece of hard tack and smelling of a three-pack habit of Lucky Strikes. My first thought was; “I cannot bear to be with this woman for the entire hour, let alone work with her.” Ashamed of this first response, I softened and greeted her as the guest that she was with a reluctant but opening heart.

Ruby reported that she had a very short time to live, maybe half a dozen weeks, several months at best. I sat silently with her for most of the hour as she wept. I was young, at the time, and honestly didn’t know what to say. As the hour drew to a close, I thought of a question; “Ruby,” I inquired, “are you here to live or here to die?” This seemed like a good question given the circumstances; I didn’t want to assume one way or the other. Standing slowly to leave, Ruby replied, “I would like to live.”

Ruby did not know how to proceed with her “living.” She wanted to heal; yet, she understood that her “healing” would move her more consciously into either life or death, and she recognized that, for her, either path was ultimately the same.

Ruby could only walk a short distance before becoming breathless and disoriented. Along the path to my office sat a bench, and I would often see Ruby, through the twelve-pane corner window, resting as she slowly made her way to our session. Ruby loved her grown children, the woman she was with, and a tree, one particular tree in a remote stand of wood.

Ruby and I would meet regularly, she might talk a little, and I would teach her brief and distilled meditation practices. We began slowly. She wanted a practice that she could attend to every day, and we settled on walking. Twice a day she would leave her cottage and walk a set number of steps in the direction of her favorite tree. She started with 25. That was all she could manage, 25 steps toward her tree, turning around and 25 steps back. The tree was past the bluff and down a dirt road two miles. The next day, she would walk in the same direction adding only a few more steps before she would return. Ruby’s journey included awareness of her breathing, the sounds around her, the sensations in her body, and the thoughts that streamed through her consciousness. Upon her return, she would jot a few notes in her journal. This, she would bring to our meetings, and we would talk about her experience. Simple observations became the stuff of a hero’s journey. This was her practice: Daily walking in the same direction, gradually increasing the effort as she mindfully acknowledged the bounty of life that greeted her with each step forward.

In her living, Ruby chose to heal into her death.

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Are you ready to admit that what you will and what you won’t are one and the same process? That as recognition of a figure requires a background, the sense of being “oneself” requires the apprehension that there is something other and external, and that the achievement of any kind of power, success or control cannot be experienced apart from a perpetual contrast of failure, surprise, and unpredictability. (Watts, A. Does It Matter?)

We, as humans, are survivors. At a very early age, we begin both consciously and unconsciously to hone the skills and behaviors necessary for our personal psychological and emotional sustainability. We hide the parts of ourselves that have previously been dismissed, abandoning them to the shadows. At times, we simply place other aspects of ourselves on hold, because there are more compelling parts in need of our attention. And, we do so incrementally. We make countless, small decisions that determine what lives in the light of day and what lurks in the twilight for future consideration.

Most high-functioning individuals have arrived at a sustained level of success by utilizing their gifted talents all-the-while keeping the hidden parts of themselves buried for safekeeping. However, sooner or later the time arrives to unearth and integrate this shadow material. Acknowledging these hidden sides of one’s self is not only a good idea, it is a requirement.

When these hidden sides of the self emerge without conscious intention, they can become problematic. These strangers will seek us if we do not directly seek them. Without a well-defined process, we will most likely seek that which we have yet to realize, as though it is something external, living separately from us.

So what does it mean in your life to open to something buried or left behind? How would you pursue a conscious unearthing of yourself?  Therapy is useful for so many. Others exercise or find relief and insight through meditation. Some just walk and do so regularly. Dreams speak to us of the hidden.

Where do you greet what is seeking to emerge in your life?

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During a period of research in mind-body systems, I traveled to India to further my study of Buddhist meditation. I landed in Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India, and spent my days wandering the banks of the holy Ganges. Day after day, I noticed a fellow traveler and Hindu Brahmin practicing pre-dawn yoga and meditation on the sun as it peaked over the horizon moving from red, to orange, to yellow and finally resting as white in the haze-laden sky. As the heat of the day dissipated, I would again see the two having lengthy, evening discussions over meals that lingered long into the night. I often watched transfixed from a distance; using only the index finger or the entire right hand, their conversations were held in an abbreviated sign language. I later learned that the Holy Man had lost his hearing to Small Pox at an early age and that the traveler had only just recently arrived in town. Observing the depth and intensity of their conversation and the dynamic nature of their early morning teachings, I determined that their communication could not possibly have been conveyed through the lexicon of this mutual sign. What occurred and re-occurred was a subtle and direct transmission of knowledge somewhere beyond the standard reality of daily discourse. The sign seemed only to hold their attention while meaning was transferred and received through less-dominate senses, like the warmth of the morning sun heating the muscles of a chilled body. Trust, mutual regard, strong concentration, and a willingness to suspend disbelief held their shared, phenomenal world together.

The master’s gone alone

Herb-picking, somewhere on the mount,

Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

Chia Tao

image: http://www.enuui.org/tag/varanasi

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She died in a swimming pool; she was only 23, Irish, and she never saw the ocean until she came to Florida to be a nanny. The children were playing; the father was watching them when his phone rang. He was waiting to find out about his new car, and it was now ready for delivery. He left Martha in charge only days after her arrival. He left abruptly, with little instruction, and when he returned, he found her floating in the pool. His son and his two daughters were fine; they weren’t really drowning, but Martha didn’t know this. Hearing their screams, she jumped into the water to “save” them. She did not know they were playing. She could not save herself. She had never learned to swim.

When Bill was around, the children lived in an environment that had so much less to do with them and everything to do with their father. I have reflected on the tragic death of Martha. The children were just being children, I imagine. Playing in the pool, enacting in play what they knew to be true, that dying had everything to do with living. Martha could not have known this. She, new to this type of work, new to this country, and wanting to please, assumed she was dealing with “reality.” The children were playing, mind you, calling for help and sinking to the bottom. Instinctually, she did what she was supposed to do; she went to their rescue. Bill blamed Martha for her own death. After all, he was on an important telephone call.

Ending is permanent and often avoided by certain personality types. The father, Bill, was one of those types. To spend any time with Bill was like suffering “the death of a thousand cuts.” He didn’t really do anything that was wrong; he simply made every conversation and situation about himself. To be with him, one had to simply “die.” If you had a thought and wanted to express it, Bill found a way to drift away and abandon you to your tome. Or, he would dynamically and intelligently explain to you, in better language and more richly informed connections, exactly why he knew more about your thought and your understanding than you did.

Bill had difficulty letting go, being in the wrong, or even feeling the least bit vulnerable. He was afraid of dying to the moment, any moment for fear of what it would mean to be reborn.

“As long as you do not know how to die

and come to life again,

you are but a sorry traveler on this dark earth.”

Goethe

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What does it mean to be authentic? Does the word have any meaning these days?

See NYT Sunday Styles, September 11, 2011.

The etymology of “authentic” is “original authority;”  “one who does a thing himself, a principal, a master.” (OED). Being authentic does not mean that you should not fear what people think of you. It does not mean that you have to figure out how to be in closer proximity to who you think you are and always be there. It does not mean that you have to image yourself so that you fulfill the expectations of others. It does not mean that there is a better, truer you that, if only you could quell the internal dialogue, you could listen to so that you could express yourself “authentically.” “Authentic” means to be true to each moment and hold it with as much consciousness as one is capable while speaking and acting from this position.

How do we know ourselves well enough in any moment to act and speak without adding an extra layer, a construct, to manufacture who we are?

We have to actually “find” ourselves in the moment and allow for our personal thoughts and feelings to inform our words, behaviors, and actions, recognizing that as we communicate, we are doing so from a clear understanding of what we are thinking and feeling, right now.

To stand in presence, requires a willingness to experience and manage our thoughts, physical feelings, behaviors, and emotions side-by-side a continual stream of consciousness that informs us of the other. As we process this information and make the adjustments necessary to remain genuinely connected, we also must be vigilantly aligned with ourselves. This flow of information, “data,” is a dynamic exchange between our inner and outer world, cultivated by an ever expanding conscious container that allows for all life that is seeking our attention to be present in any given moment.

So what does this mean?

This means that we accept each moment into consciousness by paying attention and allowing ourselves to listen: to ourselves and to others. We adjust our tempo and intensity within which we act and react to the life surrounding us. When something “false” is operating, we “authentically” recognize and manage it, even disclose it if necessary.

Example: “You know, as I am trying to respond to your questions, I realize that I am moving away from what I really think. I would rather reframe the conversation and tell you exactly how I feel about the situation.”

Do people genuinely care to know who we are, or do they prefer that we manufacture who we are to meet their expectations?

By manufacturing “who” we are, we are basing our perceptions, in any given moment, on how we think people want to perceive us. And, when we meet again in the future, we have to reconstruct from memory “who” we were at that time. This is often difficult to duplicate, requiring us to continually look backwards to reconstruct who we were at the expense of who we should have been.

People will come to rest in relationship if we can consistently find that place of rest within ourselves. We must return to our origin, our original authority, and find a means of communication and behavior that allows for us to rest within a sense of personal wholeness.

Tags: RestWithin

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