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?

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?

At dinner the other night with a group of friends, my friend Ginny shared pictures and stories from a trip she took to Bali.  For me, what was striking about the conversation was how she kept coming back to the word “freedom.”  Ginny also touched on something that I’ve been thinking about for a very long time now, that our freedom is also our responsibility.  She illustrated this with a great story about an elephant driver, Mu.

Mu

It seems that Mu was pegged to enter banking as a career.  Then to the dismay and hopefully eventual acceptance of his family, he chose to become an elephant driver.  He was insistent that he couldn’t be happy as a banker.  He needed to be an elephant driver.  Mu took up the reins of his life and chose his path.  Freedom.  Mu embraced the responsibility for his happiness in life and chose the thing that would grant him the most happiness – elephants.

Our freedom is our responsibility.  For Mu, freedom was found in taking responsibility for his happiness and choosing that which filled his heart with joy.

Freedom.  It’s a word we toss about in political conversation.  It’s used as a way to explain our wars.  It’s also something that people use as a reason not to be in relationship.  For me, it’s a deeply held core value.   It has played out in my chosen career, in my choice of partner, and in my relentless search for a lasting experience of God, of true Freedom, not just the single experience, but the steadfast awareness that transcends the daily dramas of life.

In many spiritual traditions, true Freedom, freedom with a capital “F,” is considered to be freedom from suffering.  Moreover, suffering is thought to ultimately be caused by our being wrapped up in our attraction to this and our aversion to that – a play created by the tension between pairs of opposites.  On the other hand, Freedom lies in our ability to transcend, to end the trance of being caught up in this play.

I see this playing out in my own life and in the lives of my clients.  When you or I feel some sense of things not being okay, to me, that’s an indication that there is a tension of some pair of opposites in play and out of balance.  Bringing those opposites back into balance has the remarkable effect of restoring a sense of well-being.  This has become even more evident after having completed the training to become a trainer of spiritual technologies.

Some of you know that I’ve been studying this work of Zivorad Slavinski for quite some time.  What’s remarkable to me about this work is that it gives us processes by which we can transcend the play of polarities in life.  I was initially skeptical at the veracity of such a bold statement.  But now, four years later, I’ve seen the difference with my clients and I feel the difference in myself.  I fully believe that aphorism, “s^*t happens, suffering is optional.”  Therein lies our freedom.

Funny, I have freely moved through a variety of spiritual paths in search of Freedom.  Perhaps by the time it’s all said and done, I’ll be a little like Einstein and know a thousand ways you cannot attain self realization, freedom.  It only takes one.  In the meantime, I am delighting in the journey more than I have in years as I’m feeling more free day by day.

What about you?  What is freedom to you?  What do you think is the relationship between freedom and responsibility?

I’m a big believer in life long learning.  My mom was too.  One principle she had about learning was to occasionally be a beginner.  The way this took shape for me as a child was to take beginning dance classes.

I danced from age 5 to about 26.  Throughout those years, I occasionally took beginner dance classes.  In the early years, my sense of pride was wounded when she would insist that I take a beginner class.  I’d hang up my point shoes and wear out yet another pair of ballet flats.

However, when I hit college, I started to see the value of being a beginner.  There is something liberating about not knowing, not feeling like I have to know, about beginning.  Not knowing and not feeling the pressure of having to know something opens us up to a fresh new perspective on those things we think we know or think we should know.

It’s also humbling.  Being willing to not know, to be a beginner, is great for releasing our grip on the ego, if but for a moment.  And that, my friends, is a glorious feeling — loosening your grip on the ego.  For when that grip loosens even a little bit for a slight moment, the breath comes a little easier and the mind relaxes.  In this relaxation, it feels like my spirit can breathe a sigh of relief and shine a little more brightly.

I’m heading out tomorrow for some more training in Spiritual Technologies.  What are you learning?  When’s the last time you let yourself be a beginner at something?  What did you learn from beginning again?

Twenty years ago this year, I moved from Salt Lake City, Utah to east Tennessee.  For me, it was a bit of a challenging move.  For all its conservativeness, the culture of Salt Lake was balanced by an open-minded contingency of people.  There were lots of yoga studios, drumming circles, alternative approaches to mental and spiritual well-being.  I fit in.

I had a thriving practice and active social life.  When I moved to east Tennessee (remember this was in the days before the internet) there was one yoga studio and I could not easily find like-minded people.  I was afraid of being professionally rejected.  Being rejected as a psychotherapist meant that I would not be able to practice.  Not being able to help people release emotional pain and fall in love with themselves and life would have broken my heart.

A part of me went into the closet a little bit.  I was not fully conscious of this then.  I just knew that my clinical training was not at all like most other practitioners and my way of viewing the world was quite different.  It was clear that I was “not from around here.”  That’s really not such a problem, not being from somewhere. My early and teen years were spent as an army brat.  So I was always “not from around” where ever I was.  What was a problem was my not knowing how fully stand in my skills and understanding about personal growth and spiritual evolution while simultaneously building a psychotherapy and later coaching practice in a community where meditation was perceived as evil.

So, I shut a part of me away in the closet.  I wasn’t even conscious of doing this.  Part of me was afraid, so I hid a bit.  Even now, writing this, it’s a little unnerving.  For, I am aware of feeling small hints of the lingering fear of rejection.  But the truth is I allow for a fuller expression of who I AM when I liberate myself from fear in all of its manifestations.  That’s true of all of us.  I’m no different.

Coming out of the closet professionally is one more step in dismantling fear.  Twenty years ago, rejection meant that I would not be able to build a psychotherapy practice.  So, I unconsciously chose to restrict myself out of fear. That’s ok. Now, I think that’s just how it unfolded and it was perfect.

The short story of all of this is that I am coming out of the closet, so watch for some changes on this site. A client recently pointed out to me that she couldn’t really see the fullness of what I do expressed on my website.  Though clients for whom I am a perfect fit have found their way to me and have trusted me with their hearts.  Yet, you wouldn’t fully be able to grasp the depth of what I offer if you just poked around on this site.  Time to change that.

For instance, though I mention retreats, I don’t think that there’s any way anyone could know the richness of spiritual transformation that happens on these retreats. So, I’m coming out of the closet and will be attempting to more clearly articulate what I offer.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, are there ways that you are hiding?  What parts of you are you keeping in the closet out of fear?  I think about the small ways that some of us hide and am reminded of the tremendous hiding that some of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters endure.  Their courage inspires me.  If you want to get inspired to come out of the closet a little, join me and let’s take a lesson from our courageous brothers and sisters.   Check out It Gets Better.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how much trouble we get into with our own hearts as we get all wrapped up with ideas about how our life should be rather than how it really is and who we should be rather than being who we really are.  Hanging on tight to all this fear seems to create a kind of holo-self rather than REAL self.  Much like the velveteen rabbit, perhaps by the time I’ve become fully REAL, my body will be well-worn, with a really lived in look – a look that conveys how deeply I want to really live as the fullest expression of who I am.  I don’t know if we can really do that without getting a little bumped and bruised in the process.

Part of what this means to me is learning to be with the truth of our experience, pains and all.  It also means releasing the pretending — pretending to be something or someone other than who we truly are.  It’s like how we get more attached to the experience of perception rather than the reality of our connection.  In committing to getting free of pretending, I think it is ultimately about getting free of fear.  Imagine, just for a tiny moment, what if you weren’t afraid or if you stopped pretending?

I think that this is at the heart of Self Acceptance Training, over and and again being really REAL – free from the fears of criticism, evaluation and judgment.  If you’ve been reading for a while, you understand that Self Acceptance is not a steady state — well, not until full SELF realization.  It’s something that we are in training for in this human life.  Over and again, we practice fully inhabiting ourselves as we really are without the inhibition of self judgment, self criticism or self evaluation.

More recently, I’ve been playing with extending this to noticing and releasing my fears about how others perceive me along with my fears of the judgment, criticism and evaluation of others.  It’s likely that folks will continue with these very human tendencies and I will undoubtedly be the recipient of their judgments, evaluations and criticisms.  But this does not have to influence my state or my choices any more than the various waves really influence the ocean.

Who would you be if you stopped pretending to be someone who is influenced by the very human tendency to judge, evaluate and criticism?

P.S.  I’ll be leading a day of Self Acceptance Training here in Maryville, TN  on May 7, 2011.  If you are interested, give me a call (865-384-4104) and lets chat about whether this will serve you on your journey.

P.S.  Check out my new favorite song:

These last couple of weeks, I’ve been hearing a theme in my work with people – “How do I disagree with my partner in a respectful way?”  A young couple I’m seeing in my practice have been going around with this one for a while.  I certainly remember being in the first years of my relationship with husband, David (going on thirty years now).  We sure have bumped up against the challenge of respectfully disagreeing.

It’s not uncommon when we disagree with someone to feel disrespected or not heard.  We can all easily make the mistaken assumption that our loved one’s disagreeing, their having another point of view, means that they either don’t hear us — after all, if they really heard what we were saying, how on earth could they disagree!? — or that they are simply being disrespectful.

Disagreeing is neither.  Disagreeing simply means that the other person has a different perspective.  Sometimes, the only way David and I could find our way through an argument was to take a deep breath and say, “You know, you and I just aren’t the same.”  That can feel like a hard fall from the sweet space of falling in love.  Others say, “the honeymoon’s over.”  Yes, and . . .

Learning to disagree and equally important, learning to accept that our sweet one doesn’t see life the same way we do is essential to fully respecting each other.  Cultivating the hard won appreciation that our beloved sees the world through their own eyes and not ours ultimately grants a kind of serenity you might feel after practicing a balance pose over and over and finally standing on one foot with complete equipoise.

Here are few tips to help you hold your balance when you are thrown off by disagreements:

1.  Listen, really listen.  Make sure you really hear what the other person is saying.  Listen for the content and the feelings beneath the content.  What are they feeling?  What need are they trying to express?  Reflect back what you hear to make sure you fully understand.  As much as possible, reflect your understanding with kind words and a kind open expression.  Sometimes, if you are still feeling charged up because you are not being heard, this kind of listening might be very very difficult.  If that’s the case, practice self control and/or take some time and clear the charge you are feeling so  you can listen more carefully.

2.  Practice being courteous.  One of the qualities that gets lost in many relationships is simple courteousness.  Everyday, aim to treat “your people” with kind courtesy.  This might mean treating each other like guests in your home, it might mean doing tiny kindnesses for them.  In disagreements, this means sharing your point of view politely in a calm voice.  Again, if you are feeling too charged up, learning to clear the emotional energetic charge can really help you listen to your beloved and express your point of view with heartfelt respect.

3.  Ask if your disagreeing partner is ready and willing to hear your point of view.  Be ready to wait as they really and truly may not be in a place that they are ready to listen to you.  If they are ready and willing, share yourself.  Share your thoughts and the rationale behind what you think.  As best you can, share your needs and your feelings.  Don’t make them guess.  Remember, you do not need to abandon or sacrifice self respect to respect someone else.  Share from a position of truly sharing, not to try to convince or persuade, just to share.  Part of your sharing might include how hearing your partner has influenced your perspective.  Or perhaps has you listened, you could hear some truth in what your partner shared.  You might even have clarity about what need of yours is in play. What need is being met or not met by your perspective.

4.  Finally, remember that coming to agreement does not necessarily mean that you will 100% agree with each other and it doesn’t always mean compromising.  There are gradients of agreement.  And from my perspective, the value of learning to disagree with each other respectfully is coming back to the sweet spot of truly seeing and being seen by the one you love.  That’s the true aim of disagreeing respectfully.

I wonder how our world might look if we all learned to disagree respectfully and honored gradients of agreement.  What are your tips for disagreeing respectfully?