When I was old enough to realize that my family of origin was slightly more damaged than was functional I made a vow to myself. I swore that I would be the last person in our genetic line to deal with life the way my parents and the generations before them had. And I have spent the better part of the last 15 years (the vow came well before my ability to do anything about it) pursuing ways to heal.

At first, it was a lot of sit down and talk therapy. It was validating and for the longest time that may have been the only thing to which I could respond. But gradually, I got bored. This in itself was huge because I am one of those people who can spin a story in three seconds flat and I knew that to get bored with story meant that I was ready for the next level.

For the longest time, I thought that dealing with issues meant just that, dealing with the issue. Talking it over, thinking it out, wearing it (and myself) down like a stone in a current. I thought it took effort and pain and often reliving emotions. And while all of this can be cathartic, for me, it never really seemed to help me go beyond that issue. I would deal with my anger over something and then the next day or week I would be dealing with that same anger over that same issue.

So when Melanie told me that Spiritual Technology and PEAT work were nothing like that, I was skeptical and intrigued. Could I really be done with an issue in a session of this work and not be triggered by it again? As if I had packed it in a suitcase and left it by the side of my road?

My answer is yes. When I left her office after my first PEAT session, I noticed right away that colors seemed brighter and lines sharper. It seemed as though a film had been lifted away from my eyes. So I tested it.

The issue Melanie had been helping me integrate was one of letting go of an old relationship. It was an issue that still held a lot of my energy and I wanted to finally be done with it. So I thought of him. And I thought of him when we were happy and when we hated each other. And it was like watching a movie.
The good, the bad, and the in-between all simply were. I didn’t feel angry or bitter where I had before over certain memories; nor did I feel that sadness that came with feeling as though I had lost the good stuff.

It was not a process of years of talking and dealing. It was a thirty minute session where I closed my eyes and breathed. Melanie led me through a series of questions and answers until we reached the intention I had placed at the beginning: peace.

thanks to Ed Bolden for the photo

Goal setting is huge in our culture. We are a future and accomplishment oriented society and many of us live only to see the next day’s task completed. But what happens when something gets in the way?

How do you react when an obstacle is placed in your path to your goal? Do you throw up your hands? Wait? Study? Laugh? Give up completely?

Many of us want to give up because we have misread what an obstacle actually is. Maybe we believe it is trying to tell us that the goal is not worthwhile or that we are fundamentally lacking what we need to achieve our goals. But what if obstacles are merely unopened doors to stimulate rather than intimidate us?

Any goal, so long as it is a goal that is meaningful to you, is a worthwhile goal. Further, none of us lack anything we need to carry out our work. Let’s run past this one more time, none of us lack anything to carry our our work. What if we remembered that, especially when encountering some obstacles.

 These ideas may take getting used to. It is inevitable that when we set a goal some resistance is going to show up. That is part of the play of Consciousness. We have our ideas and our timelines for how our lives should go. Rarely do things go as planned.

The trick is to have a goal so valuable to you that you are willing to take another look at the obstacles thrown at you and use them as learning opportunities instead of some kind of cosmic message to leave the field. We could reframe obstacles, not as yes or no answers to questions we’ve posed, but as questions posed to us: What is your next best step now? What would help you here? Where can you go for support? Where can you look more deeply to discover what is most valuable about this experience?

Obstacles are purely opportunities to probe deeper into our own consciousness. Do we need to let go of some piece or our goal? Has another part become more important? What do I need to learn about myself? What qualities within myself do I need to cultivate in order to truly be fulfilled here?

We have all the tools we need but, like muscles, some of our qualities may need some strengthening before we are able to continue. We can break down our big dream into smaller chunks of a goal so that, instead of becoming overwhelmed by the vastness of it all, we can take the next best step. And the one after that, and the next one after that.

For me, in my own personal goal setting, I like to stay inspired and flexible. Find stories that inspire you to keep going. Though, know that sometimes the goal could change completely in a split second. For instance, instead of winning the race, the goal might, in an instant, transform into finishing the race. Because, sometimes, “giving up” becomes the goal. And there’s the real trick knowing when to give up and when to persist.

We human beings are dynamic creatures and our relationships are vibrant expressions of that dynamism. But problems can often arise, especially in long term relationships, when we fall into the habit of thinking we know – thinking we know what our partner thinks, will say, or will do in a given situation. We turn our mates and even ourselves into static, one-dimensional images instead of allowing the full range of our potential to be expressed in each moment.
It’s easy, in our current culture especially, to fall into this trap of substituting the part we think we know for the whole that is there. We are constantly inundated with information we often don’t need and barely have time to process. It can be comforting to feel we have one person we really know, even if that person is ourself.
However, we can also suffocate under that “knowing.” We can feel imprisoned by our own assessment of our personality and potential and we can make anyone with whom we are in relationship feel trapped by what they are “supposed” to be. Have you ever surprised yourself or someone else and heard the words “you don’t do that”?
Staying curious about the people in your life – yourself, your partner, your parents, your children and your friends – allows them to express every aspect of who and what they are as they change and grow. It gives them (and you!) the freedom to explore themselves and explore their relationship to you.
In general most of us want to keep an active curiosity. We’ve heard it’s good for our brains to learn something new every once in a while. But it can be a little frightening to dismantle the images and ideas we have of one another and it can produce anxiety in some people to have those images dismantled.
The best ways that I have found to keep a long term relationship alive and thriving is to wed active curiosity about myself and the other person with an active awareness – compassionate awareness that takes practices the wisdom from Vasistha’s Yoga in my conversations. This means remembering the Four Gatekeepers of Speech and asking myself before I speak: is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? And is this the right moment to say it?
But what happens when only one partner becomes interested in something? How do you respond? It can feel distancing to be “left out” of a piece of your partner’s life. My choice is to become interested because they are. This means paying attention and asking questions, staying curious rather than assuming that I know.
How do you stay curious in your relationships? How do you respond when it feels a partner or friend could be moving beyond what you share together? How do you keep your relationship to yourself open and dynamic?

The New Year brings with it expectations of resolutions; often in the form of breaking old habits and forming new ones. Most of us want to live better lives, whatever that may mean. For me, a couple of things come to mind.  One is my commitment to write again after a hiatus of a couple of months.  Part of this hiatus has been driven by my enthusiasm for a new project I’ve been on which I’ve been working.

If you’ve been reading a while, you might remember that I’ve been studying and practicing Spiritual Technology, the work of Zivorad Slavinski.  As one of a handful of ST trainers in the US, I have spent the last few months working on a plan to share the power of this work with more people. 

Specifically, I’ve been working on a program to train yoga teachers to be Off the Mat Yoga Coaches using Spiritual Technology.  This is very exciting for me as the more I work with his techniques and processes, the more impressed I am – the more convinced I am in their ability to help people free themselves from the entanglements of the ego and live from the Essence of who they are.

The crux of all of my work, whether it be with a client or within myself, is to find and use ways that help us all learn to live more closely aligned with our deepest Essence of being. I want to live as closely attuned to that source of Oneness as I can.  For me, it boils down to using ST as a spiritual practice alongside my longtime companions of yoga and meditation to help me align myself with my Essence.

Sometimes people busy themselves with distractions out of some kind of fear that if they truly listened to their deepest Essence, they would hear things that are too much or too hard. The grain of truth here is that sometimes letting yourself see and feel what’s really true for you can feel painful — yet on the other side of that pain is a sweet peace, calm or joy — it can’t be otherwise in a world of duality.

I believe that whatever challenges you and I face, those challenges are not bigger than us.  I believe that within each of us is strength and courage to face and transcend our limiting beliefs that shroud our very Essence. And if we can live more often and more fully from a place of peace and plenty in our own hearts then we can change the world.  Seriously, together, we can make this world an even better paradise.

Slavinski’s PEAT processes have proven to be an efficacious way of accessing that strength and courage.  Moreover, these techniques help us disengage the ego, detach from the reactivity that comes with identifying with the ego, and reattach ourselves to our own core being, the Essence of who we are. I have noticed profound changes in my ability to stay on an even keel. I’ve become less reactive to the ups and downs of life and have witnessed my clients becoming less and less bothered both personally and professionally by things that, in the past, would have caused no small amount of emotional upheaval.

I’m really thrilled to be sharing this work with others and will soon be offering my second and final “beta” training for yoga teachers.  Stay tuned for more info!  In the meantime, how can you live more closely to your Essence?

*PEAT – Prime Energy Activation and Transcendence

The desire to know and recognize God, Truth, to experience that sweet space of Oneness is thought by some philosophers to be the root of all desire, the one desire.  It may be that the desire disguises itself, showing up as a wish for a new car, or a particular job.  Perhaps it shows up as some wanting for a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a relationship.  However it comes to us, there is desire. 

We, in our ignorance, sometimes think that desire itself will cease when we obtain the object of our wanting.  Yet, the moment we fulfill one desire, the moment we obtain the object of our wanting, there is another desire.  Often, even before we obtain the object of our wanting, there is still another desire.  Desire itself never goes away.  Whatever mundane satisfaction we experience in the fulfillment of one desire fades in a short while only to be replaced with a new desire.

In fact, Patanjali, in his yoga sutras, offers guidance as to how one transcends the desires of the ego and return to the purist desire of the soul, to know God.  He suggests that we be relentless in our determination to know and recognize God.  He advises spiritual aspirants to gain gradual control over the negative tendencies of the mind through vigilant self-inquiry.  He wrote that we should ask ourselves, “Why do I really desire that object?  What permanent advantage should I gain by possessing it?  In what way would its possession help greater freedom and knowledge?”  Even without going full boar into contemplating these questions, it’s easy to see how ephemeral our mundane desires are.

In all our restless wanting, we get lost and end up collecting all kinds of stuff that can clutter our lives even more .  Or, we feel that the goal of our wanting is beyond our reach.  This is especially evident in those who reach for the high goal of knowing Truth.  Clearly, as we work towards the achievement of a particular goal, we have all experienced the alluring pull to simply give up and quit.  How many students quit before they obtain their goal and graduate?  Either they fall prey to the mistaken belief that they will never reach their goal due to their own ignorance, the demands of family, or the whining and screaming of their own ego leads them down a different road.  How many times have you found yourself confronted by a particular job or goal that stretched beyond what you thought you were capable of, only to find that in your tenacious perseverance, you succeeded?

Your state of being is at the heart of how you experience yourself in life.  It informs your perspective and your choices.  It is your responsibility to protect and restore your state.  Yet, when your state is jangled by the challenges of life, you get thrown into a variety of very human reactions — anger, sad, frustrated, scared or even wild, over the moon joy.  These reactions can be like a filter for a camera lens that distorts the perspective a bit.  You cannot get a clear read on a situation through a distorted lens.  These distortions color your view and disrupt your state.

Real and lasting peace can be attained through the cultivation of a steady state.  Sound boring?  It’s not.  When you attune yourself to your state of being and find that place of balance inside, you will find a precious sweetness to living in a steady state.

However, most people experience a variety of reactions throughout daily life.  Someone cuts you off in traffic, your spouse fusses at you about this or that, you failed when you hoped to succeed.  We all have reactions, it is just a part of life.  Nonetheless, these reactions can be a gold mine, they can point you in the direction of real spiritual growth.  When you dive into these reactions and uncover and neutralize the polarities at the heart of the reaction, you essentially and gradually begin shifting identification away from your ego to the essence of your Self.  The most efficient way I know how to do this is through PEAT Processes from Spiritual Technology.  I have found these processes to be so profoundly valuable, I am now one of the handful of Spiritual Technology Trainers in the US.

PEAT stands for Prime Energy Activation and Transcendence.  PEAT processes aid in spiritual development and were developed by Zivorad Slavinski, a psychologist from Belgrade, Serbia.  PEAT helps you to accept and transcend the energetic tug that is at the heart of most reactions.  Moreover, as you move deeper and deeper into your personal and spiritual development work in this way, it begins to feel as though you are dismantling the scaffolding of the ego.  Some trick, eh?

Even without the support of PEAT Processes, you can begin discharging the energy associated with a reaction by practicing simply accepting your reaction. Yet, many people complicate their experience by resisting the reaction.  You might get defensive as your reaction doesn’t really match the ideal image you carry about yourself.  Or you might resist the reaction because don’t like the way it feels.

There’s an aphorism that underlies both Spiritual Technology and Self Acceptance Training — what you resist persists.  Better to let yourself feel what you feel rather than resisting.  That is not to say that when you get cut off in traffic and you feel angry that you go about exhibiting that anger to everyone about you.  More to the point, you can feel what you feel, but it’s not necessary to share those feelings or dump them on those around you.  Instead, learn a few tools to release the charge of the reaction and restore your state.

For instance, we’ve all heard “Count to 10.”  There is some wisdom in that message to count to 10.  However, it doesn’t fully release the charge.  You can use any number of tools to release charge.  Of course my favorites are the processes of Spiritual Technology, such as PEAT Process, for these tools release the charge at it’s root, de-potentiating the charge between two opposites, powerful stuff in this dualistic world.  I also find ZPoint Process to be a helpful tool.

Nonetheless, if you are not working with me or someone else using such tools, it might be time for you to assess your toolbox.  What tools do you use to release the charge associated with your emotional reactions?  How do you restore your state?

(Many thanks to Jennifer Bishop of Phoenix Tree Productions for the use of the flower image!  My sincere apologies for not figuring out how to properly crop the image.)

Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to make a decision and if you try to make that decision based solely on what you think someone else thinks you kind of throw yourself off?  That’s not to say that considering other points of view is a bad thing.  In fact, I think it would serve us all to be able to slide into another point of view, and allow other points of view to impact us.  Nonetheless, each of us has a point of view.

Reflecting on “what is my point of view?” can open up a world of creativity and confidence.  Instead, many of us get stuck in a bit of mechanical or habitual thinking when it comes to point of view.  We get stuck in unconscious impressions about what our point of view should be or even aligning with what it used to be, rather than opening to the current moment by moment experience of the preciousness of who we are now.

Lately I’ve been noticing how some of my artist clients get thrown off course when they lose their point of view.  When an artist loses his or her point of view, something magical about their art is lost.  In that case, we all lose.  For artists help us all see things from a different perspective and in that seeing, there’s an expansion of Awareness.

Not just artists, but each of us has a unique point of view.  Moreover, if we consider each being to be a manifestation of Divine Consciousness, our unique point of view a precious perspective.  When we deny or compare points of view, from my perspective, we are denying some bit of Spirit peeking out through our eyes.  When we compare our points of view with judgment— one is bad, the other is good, we are only becoming more entrenched in the illusory world of duality and missing out on glimpsing something more Divine.

Imagine the possibilities of fully standing in your point of view while respecting another person’s point of view though it might be different than yours.  What if, instead of having to convince someone else that our point of view was the right one, we approached different points of view as yet another mysterious way that Consciousness reveals itself – no right, no wrong, just a different perspective?  How might that change our relationships with ourselves and each other?

I was on the phone with a client.  I heard her gasp and say, “they’re telling me a plane just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.”  I remember we both carried on for another minute or so, a little in shock.  How do you actually take in information like that?  After a minute or so, she said they were evacuating her building and she had to go.  At the time she worked in a multistory government building in Detroit and I was in my cozy east Tennessee home.  Ever so gradually, it dawned on me that our country might be under a major attack.

After we got off the phone, I went to the TV.  In a dazed horror, I watched.  The rest of the day is a bit of a blur.  I know I moved between my office and the TV.   I remember the feeling of sadness and loss.  At the time, I didn’t even know what we’d lost.

I was also afraid.  The week before we had taken our oldest daughter to school in the northeast.  When we finally got through to her, I could hear how shaken she was.  I called my aunt who also lives in the northeast and she was able to get to Kait.  I remember how comforting it was to me that someone  who loved my daughter to could be there for her.  Two weeks later, when the planes were back in the air, I was on one of them heading to Boston.  I needed to see my daughter as much as she needed to see me. 

Now ten years later, I’m feeling the grief of remembrance.  Softening into this grief, my quiet tears feel like a balm to my heart and soul.  Softening into what is is so much easier on the heart and spirit than resisting it.  Softening into our pain can bring solace.  Yet, our very natural human tendency is to resist pain.  In fact, I’ve had several clients this week tell me how they don’t want to revisit 9/11 and yet they know they’ll not be able to escape it for the news is infused with remembrance.  And in this remembrance, there’s sorrow.  Sorrow won’t destroy us.  Seriously, sorrow won’t destroy us.  I suggest turning towards the pain of remembrance rather than away from it.  In this turning towards the pain, there’s the potential for release and healing.

Sometimes, telling your story can help you lean into the pain of remembrance.  Again, as we lean into that pain, we have the potential to heal that pain, collectively.  Since that brilliant horrible morning, I think that we’ve succumbed to fear and much of our current politic is driven by fear.  Perhaps holding the collective intention to heal, we can shift away from the polarized point of fear and find our way back to peace.  Or at least bring peace and fear into better balance.

Beyond our fear, we have a shared sorrow and a shared love.  Despite our differences, we share the sorrow of loss and the love of country.  In the same way, many our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world are still feeling the terrors of war.  They too, are feeling sorrow of loss and love of country.  In this time of remembrance and sorrow, may we also feel love.  May we wish each other well.  May we look past and through the illusion of our differences to the shared experience that pulses through our hearts.  There, we are One. 

I salute the bravery of our armed services.  I salute the courage and selflessness of firefighters.  I humbly salute every man and woman who offered themselves with such generosity of spirit on that horribly beautiful morning and on the days that followed.

Would you like to share what you remember?  What’s your story?

I am a big believer in mentors.  Mentors have enriched my life throughout my life.  My first mentor was Dick Olney, the father of Self Acceptance Training.  More recently, I’ve been studying with Zivorad Slavinski, the founder of Spiritual Technology.  Both Dick and Zivorad have deeply influenced me both personally and professionally.  More recently, I’ve found business mentors – two incredible women who are teaching me how to share what I have to share.  As a social worker, I’ve been challenged to find teachers who come at business from a heart-centered/service oriented place – enter Tory Johnson and Michelle Pippin.

When I’ve asked Tory about some project I’m working on, her first question is something along the lines of “what outcome are you going for?”  I love that question.  It refocuses me back to my intention.  It brings me back to beginning with the end in mind.

Well here’s where it gets interesting for me.  A few months back I did a piece of Spiritual Technology work with a friend of mine, Judith Daniel, that Zivorad calls the “Unification of Time.”  One of the many benefits of this piece of work has been that I’ve come more fully into the present with more clarity about the past and future.   At least that’s how I’ve experienced it and what my clients describe. 

This means that though I’ve had a daily meditation practice for the last almost 30 years and have long experienced the benefits of mindfulness meditation, after this work I’ve found myself effortlessly experiencing myself in the present.  For those of you who have read Eckhart Tolle or practice mindfulness meditation, I trust that you can understand what I’m talking about here.  Another of the benefits of this piece of work has been that I’ve found myself being much clearer about my goals in just about every area of life.  Further, this clarity has not come from sitting down and fretting over goals, it’s been more like I’ve become aware of goals from a purer place within, goals that are aligned with me at the deepest level.  Very cool.

Anyway, back to the beginning with the end in mind.  After this work with Judith, I found myself thinking more and more about my death.  If you’ve never contemplated your death, it’s a worthwhile contemplation.  In thinking about my death, I found myself remembering Tory’s question and asked myself, “What kind of death do I want?  And if I want that kind of death, what do I need to do NOW to set the stage for that?”  I’m beginning with the end in mind — with the awareness of my eventual death.   I’m quite certain that when Tory asks me this question, she is not intending that I think about my death, but about what I’m offering in my business.  What’s a contemplative girl to do?

This contemplation has inspired me in numerous ways.  I’m walking more, I’m coming out of the closet with offering more workshops in spiritual technology, even the way I interact seems to be changing — effortlessly.  This contemplation is putting my life in perspective in a different way.  Of course, I’ve always known that I will one day die.  But somehow holding that contemplation has opened up life for me in a new way.  It feels like I’m living more fully, more freely.

It’s like Steve Jobs said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

How do you stay on track with living more fully and following your heart?

It’s that time of year again.  If you are one of those people who tends to experience the “winter blues,” now is the time to get out your light therapy lamps and start using them.  That’s right, now’s the time.  I know that it might seem like the dark months of winter are so very far away.  However, research shows us that if we start using light therapy at the end of August, beginning of September, your experience of winter blues will “lighter” than if you don’t use light.

So, if you think you might have a bit of the winter blues – check it out here and learn a little more about how to take steps now that will help you later.

In the meantime, here’s a little video I did on the topic.