Anxiety: Inside the Box

The more I work with people and listen, it is apparent that we as a nation (world?) are suffering from a chronic low grade to debilitating anxiety.  And the more I listen, the more I understand it is rarely the seeming cause of the anxiety that is the problem (although, the world's collective distress is plenty).  Crisis and even levels of trauma are part of the human experience through our continuums.  We are built and designed to heal ourselves.

What I am hearing and seeing is the lack of inner preparedness, the non-cultivation of more Wholeness and well being in ourselves.   The culture at large does not introduce and nurture in people from a young age the means to navigate this.  We're just not prepared for the speed of life having not known well and appreciated, the slowness.  Most of us are indoctrinated from an early age to be productive, have attainable goals, to note the sequences leading up to success and imitate that.  But most of all, it is the what not to do that westerners have been taught that I believe has the anxiety-meter going through the roof.

We are taught not to value emotional intelligence, the creative impulse and the mysterious.  Indigenous cultures, and peoples whose values are close to nature, close to knowing more subtle and hidden aspects of themselves have this sort of preparedness to deal with crisis.  They have a well developed emotional intelligence  (see Emotional Competence and Autoimmunity).  There is a vertical knowing, a respect and value for a layered emotional connection to self, intuition and a metaphysical relationship to nature, spirit and others.

This type of modus operandi is not the norm in western culture.  We are far from Ourselves.  We put        all our energy into developing our cognitive abilities.  Our systems, paradigms and cultural structures are reason oriented and hierarchical.  There is an external, extend-out-from-ourselves emphasis.  This leaves our core depth, our should-be-solid vertical unsupported, unprepared for stress.  We are living within a tight and often claustrophobic box.  The delight of the unusual, unexpected manifestations and truths that ground our core selves become atrophied.  We operate from a fear-based need to be in control.  Our metaphysical, intuitive, creative self is not used in a balanced relationship with our cognitive capacities.  There is a stunting of this other aspect of ourselves.  This creates a chronic inner state (unseen, unfelt) of being bereft, separated from our inner reality.  There is no wonder we have anxiety.

What can be done? An affirmation of this core strength and a gentle visiting to those places in ourselves is required.  As is seen in the following article, when a corporate (western) approach is taken to encourage people to learn meditation or yoga (Is Mindfulness Making Us Sick?), 

unexpected and un-desirous results ensue.  It's an attempt to go from the (totally unprepared) outside to the In.  As the article points out, the In resists.  It puts up all sorts of resistance because it's a violent attempt (from its perspective) at awakening parts of ourselves that have had little activity.   This would be akin to sprinting a mile when you've been on the couch for a month.  So all the ego-survival mechanisms pull out the stops and what we get is a lot of disturbing body memories buried in a vault in ourselves.  It is a violence of sorts and because of the often insistent approach, not rooted in kindness but force.  A gentle, curious interest needs to be cultivated first.  In this state, knocking on that door might yield a gradual opening (if there is no agenda).  Everything in its own time.

The western approach (cognitive, analytical, systematic, efficient, rational) in a basically eastern method is not possible.  We have to lend ourselves to our more innate eastern capacities.  The creative, the metaphysical, the sensory-based--- all inherent in the human organism.  This is an intelligence of a totally different order.  It is wise when transversing on foreign soil, to be attentive, curious and humble in one's approach.  Temperance. Rome wasn't built in a day, or in a weekend meditation workshop.

Know Thyself.  Know your (present) limitations.  Feel what is keen inside.  If the door is not opening, it has its (good) reasons.  Respect this.  It is just for the present.  Bring a humility and care to all of yourself and your endeavors.  Ask for help.  Be discerning in whom you trust with your Depth.  Is it a hierarchical arrangement? If the relationship is less a mutuality and more a "I know more than you, I will teach you about you/what you should know", be careful (run for the hills).  A healing is always a state of self-empowerment (as messy and non-sensical as it sometimes may be).  A healing and healer finds you when you're ready, you don't have to go looking for it/them; you just have to be available, in a state of receptivity.  Receptivity blossoms when there is a nonjudgmental interest and an authentic curiosity.  With self-empathy and joy, start to experience aspects of yourself outside the box.  Anxiety will be less overwhelming and more manageable.

Human Duality

We have this miraculous organism, a vessel from which we move and act from.  An aspect of this organism is purely autonomic and mechanical; another aspect of us has the possibility of conscious creativity.  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

The Autonomic/Automatic/Mechanical
This is the part which we most often abhor; we don't like the way it looks, resent its sometime mis-workings, and ignore/disregard its incredible capacity.  The eyes dilate and moisten according to circumstantial conditions or the light present.  The heart and all the related nerve and electric impulses, pumps away circulating life's blood and oxygen through our system.  The lungs working in concert with the heart expanding and contracting, filtering oxygen, releasing carbon dioxide just the amount required for optimal function.  Our many yards of gut move (again in gorgeous relationship with nerve impulses) through our torso, breaking down food in regular, specific steps, absorbing and distilling what's needed at each step and allowing the waste to move on and out.  Our sensitive, under the radar thermostats know when to subtly sweat to cool us down and do so beautifully.  Our hearing capacities modulate incoming sound through its interesting internal shape and form, allowing for further interpretation to the rest of us through facile and lightning fast neurotransmission.  

Our body's fascia, ligaments and musculature along with the nervous system responds most often accurately and with incredible swiftness to the subtlest of stimulations.  These are just some of the miracles of everyday functioning in our bodies, going on almost entirely without any thought or intention on our parts.  Purely mechanical. Purely automatic.  We almost always have no say in its workings, and even with directed thought, impact it marginally.  This autonomic functioning happens every second, every minute and hour of every day we live.  If it wasn't healthy, there would be no life, no being in this human form.  There would be no possibility of the other aspect of ourselves, the creative consciousness, to be.  This other part of us could not exist without this mechanical part working well.  Both aspects have to be related to know a full life, to pursue a purpose.


The conscious, spiritual, creative part:  the Part with the possibility of Choice.
This is the part we also can (and do) largely ignore.  Something in us aches when it's not in play, feels alone, even abandoned when not regularly engaged.  It's opaque, almost hidden or its invisible nature is easy to miss, not pay attention to, relinquish for long periods of time when we (or ego) are on autopilot. For those of us who invest considerable time and effort in revealing and nourishing this often mysterious aspect through contemplative practices, we tend to put this amazing part on a pedestal, believing it is the end all.  Whereas, the sometimes sublime experience of this in self and in community is compelling and can create a vertical experience in what usually is a linear life, unless one lives in a hermitage on top of a high mountain, trying to live from that place is not realistic and actually not desirable for the daily human experience.  It is the actualization through movement between these two parts that make life interesting and provide the large framework from which a meaningful life is possible.

One part has delineated form.  The other is without form or measure.  Both are essential to an existence.   Depending on your indoctrinations, we spend a lifetime struggling with that which is weakest in us or succumbing to that which is well settled in us.  We do this repeatedly for decades, often way past the stage of it being static.  We spend a lifetime knowing and building up further our strengths, be it the creative life or the logical, way of reason.  Rarely do we stand between what we know and what we don't know, without prejudice or reaction, and have that experience.  Our incredible human duality.

Back to the questions:  How do we reconcile these aspects?  Give each aspect its due?  Find a relationship, understanding and acceptance between these two vital aspects of our human experience?

It would be so easy to be Cartesian and rely on old adages like, "if you don't have your health, you don't have anything."  Health is reliant on each aspect being functional and well.  A troubled spirit impacts the body and mind.  A troubled body and mind impacts the spirit.  We are designed to be in concert in our Whole. Finding one's own deep appreciation, even a love for both the automatic and the conscious creative may be required.  With appreciation and respect comes an interest and curiosity and perhaps eventually a tenacious unwillingness not to be in regard of the other.  Our life long, well fueled natural propensities may release their grip on us, the enamor not as strong as in earlier decades.  Vulnerability fears flatten, don't have the depth or width they used to have, leaving an opening for other more lively questions or findings.

Guilt's Pleasure and its Mayhem on Wellness

We are all susceptible to guilt. I remember, with astonishment, being a brand new mother and the feelings of guilt that panged me when my newborn threw up, or was gassy, or in any way unhappy.  I remember how shocking it was to feel this, not being used to that feeling, in that unfamiliar situation.  It was new and a somewhat ridiculous response, but there it was.

Depending on your cultural background, guilt can be a daily occurrence that riddles us with negativity, releasing stress hormones which significantly impact our health and wellness. Working with clients and my own self observations of guilt-visits indicates it is an indoctrination that has led to it becoming a fully ingrained habit.  A habit that is sapping our life force.  A habit established, probably, generations before us.

Something rings false when I feel that inclination to obliterate a feeling (usually negative) .  What is guilt good for?  Maybe it is the first bell rung asking for conscience to surface.  Maybe it is a precursor to remorse (I have my doubts on that one).  Mosquitoes serve a purpose (delectable food for birds and bats); so must guilt, I guess.

There is a difference between guilt and remorse.   Remorse is an actual feeling-meeting of "I can never do this again" and the sadness you did whatever you did to such an extent, your gut knows it can never happen again.  Remorse is a deep feeling that actually leads to behavior change.  Guilt is merely feeling bad, masks as having depth, with wringing of hands and "mea culpa", but the behavior associated to the action will usually be seen again and again.

There is some band-aid pleasure with guilt.  A superficial, "I feel bad-- that should do it, move on" kind of reaction.  We have guilt about accidents out of our control, tragedies somebody in us thinks we could have prevented even if they are an ocean and continent away, with people we often never met.  Guilt infiltrates what and how we eat, the way we spend money, our leisure time and relationships.  It undermines us, stresses us, brings bagfuls of negativity to our daily lives.  Yet, we minimize it, turn away and discount the hold it has on us.  There is some pleasure in the angst that is hard to let go of, some payback.

How to deal with guilt?  Guilt, like other mostly automatic negativity, doesn't appreciate the light.  Once an awareness and standing before it is possible, it atrophies quite naturally, slipping into the shadows whence it came.  So the work with guilt is bringing an awareness to it.  One might recognize it by the feeling in one's chest, the considerable tightening in a jaw or lower back.  One doesn't need to understand or analyze it.  But, we are required to be with it, breathe with it.  Find the silence in oneself while the manifestation of guilt begins to free fall.


Guilt and Worry.  Both so easy to discount, while being so wearing.  Is it because most of me hasn't been insistent enough on having a modicum of joy, hence allows for these large bouts of guilt/worry doses to transpire?  Or is it that most of me has confused a life worth living as having a lot of pain, sorrow, negativity; is it that introspection is mixed up with self-infliction?  Or maybe it truly is a life-long and generational indoctrination; a part of me, like a limb or an organ.  Yeah, it bothers me sometimes, but what are you going to do?

Guilt disables our sense of living without regret.  It ensures the cascade of stress hormones, taxing our bodies and our being.  A sense of well being and peace is the antidote to guilt.  But like what cutting oneself is for some people, the momentary pain of guilt is for others.  It feels sorta good.  Until that feeling is acknowledged, guilt will always be a distraction, a smoke screen we secretly (unconsciously?) cultivate, effectively keeping at bay the life worth living.

The Care of Aging Parents: Making the Last Laps Rich (Part I)

This post is Part I of a 2 part series.  It precludes the practical detail of the action of mindful caring for our elders.

We are all born.  We all die.  And almost all of us have elders to consider as we ourselves age.  Without exception, that complex relationship, has its ups and downs (as well as karmic complications) through the relationship's continuum, and inevitably impacts our intentions to our aging loved ones.

At a certain point in a person's life, decision-making is necessarily abdicated due to advanced age or infirmity.  The decisions regarding the circumstances as to how their life will run its course is left to others:  adult children/family or institutions.  As adult children of aging parents, how do we consider what our relationship will be to our loved one's last laps?

For some, its a "no-brainer"; their parents have put into motion through long care term insurance purchase, or moving into an elder community that sees to the layered needs of the aging, or specifically voiced to their family how they would like to live the last years or decades of their life.  For these adult children, it's about follow through, respectfully adhering to their parent's wishes.  Even this ideal scenario is complex.  Possibly the adult children are not in a position physically, geographically or financially to honor these wishes.  Perhaps the aging community chosen is not so ideal, needs to be monitored on a regular basis.  Whatever the arrangement planned, the adult child's committed engagement is required, therefore, altering many aspects of their own independence.  Becoming clear to one's boundaries, capacity and level of commitment is essential.  Setting an intention that corresponds to the relationship you seek to create or maintain with the elder in your life is also required.

Many people claim there is a natural unfolding of this process, everyone involved takes their place.  Why make an intention if this is so?  Making an intention clarifies what you wish for in this relationship, shores-up the commitment with more of oneself.  The expected journey is long; challenges to the healing of a relationship, guaranteed.  An intention keeps us close to ourselves, and what we hope for, especially when the going gets rough and we question the endeavor.

Making an intention opens the field.  The field being one's perception, one's sixth sense.  It's possibly a growing up of the soul, an internal awareness of oneself and other.  It's a path of deepening oneself and one's possibility.  All the facts of the circumstance take a minor role and the relationship rises to the surface of prominent importance.  This is healing.  A possible healing of karma for those engaged and definitely a healing of what has been hard in the relationship.

With an intention, this is practically guaranteed.  How can I say this?  Because with an intention and a commitment to this journey comes a letting go of all that ultimately does not matter.  Whereas the details and circumstances are important, they are very secondary to what is shared. The cream rises to the top, a softening of oneself allows for perception to descend into parts of our self we didn't know we had.  This changes everything.  It also allows there to be this type of change in another.  If we only hold on to the details, the specifics, schedules and external needs-- and only allow that to run this lap, we miss the opportunity the  initial vow or intention created for us.

An intention might start with questions:  What percentage of my time do I want (not necessarily can) to spend with my parent?  With my parent's life affairs? What are aspects of our relationship that are  asking to be healed, would I like transformed? What are the grudges, resentments and hard parts we share?  How can I forgive?  How can I ask for forgiveness?  How much hands-on caretaking do I want to do (again, not necessarily can do)?  What is the necessary sacrifice on my part to do what I think I want to do?  Can I do this?  Can I get help with it?  All these questions are treated as an open inquiry.  Nothing is answered in a hard/fast, black/white way (at this point).  It's a beginning in fleshing out the feeling aspect of the proposed journey.  The decision-problem solving aspect of myself shouldn't jump in at this point, there will be plenty of time for that part to act.  In intention setting, its about allowing breath to enter the feeling center to create some room.

In this place of relationship a trust in something else besides the external occurs.  An adult child's anxiety and worry over the external details, the finances, the medical complications is background material.  It is almost always there, but for the most part doesn't take over our lives because the relationship's intention has helped us make it primary.  The connection, the vibration shared, the meeting and the healing is at the center.

Making the last laps rich, even under challenging and difficult circumstances is possible when this intention is in place.  Intention runs my actions.  I lose it, I return to it, I lose it again, but it is at the heart of what I want for my loved one and myself and steers me in the critical moments.  Our time, our financial resources, our individual direction; taking this on complicates our lives a little (or a lot) more.  Much like people making the lifelong decision to raise children.

In this journey we make, while there are hurdles, there is also a satisfying ride, a relaxing into the sublime elements of being connected to oneself and another more fully, an allowance of a natural unfolding.  Witnessing the external decline of another, whether mental or physical, isn't what you were afraid it would be.  The other's hallucinations, disorientation, good/bad pain days are experienced in a different way as this more subtle relationship is taken on.  The distinct impression of seeing our loved one with one foot in one world and the other foot in another more opaque world is touching and awe-inspiring. We see more of each other, a broader spectrum beyond personality and that is gratitude personified.  It is in this healing relationship one feels one's fortune; and it is reflected back from our loved one, having been shared.

I bring up intention in this first part, because it must precede the nuts/bolts and problem solving of the circumstantial details.  Otherwise, the external drives our actions, not the intention.

Turning Toward: An Approach to Addiction

One of the wonderful aspects of navigating a wellness coaching business is finding my strengths along the way and attracting those that would resonate.  I am surprised to be surprised finding out who I am.  And I am even more surprised at the people who find their way to me for support and assistance.  There, more often than not, is a shared vibration which makes even the stickiest, difficult work a joy for us both.

Whereas most nurses are very directive, that is not my favorite approach (although it has been fun to play the bossy role at times).  The bodyworker-artist in me finds my own and other's difficulties intriguing.  In relation to a healing or dealing with a habit, I can do all the linear list making a client could ever want, but what I really love and find most effective, is collaborating.  In regards to wellness, I don't personally like being told what to do, and I have found most autonomous, self-directed adults feel likewise.  I like figuring things out with the light guidance of others.  I like to be empowered in the process, not directed by an other's force (well meaning or not).  So, creating relationship with one whom helps and making relationship with that which needs attention is an adventure worth exploring.

One of the approaches I've used successfully as of late with addiction (in particular smoking) has been focusing compassion on the parts of oneself that needs smoking to survive.  Forget about the external addiction.  Who in this person needs, craves, longs for cigarettes?  Don't quit smoking out of inner/outer pressure from others or out of shame.  Quit smoking because you don't need it anymore.  Heal the original wound.

The parts of a client that need smoking are vulnerable.  The last thing they need is contempt, ridicule, disappointment  and rejection coming at them.  They hardly can admit their existence out of fear of being seen as weak, pathetic and pitiful.  Working with people to divulge these delicate areas in themselves, works best if  humor is in play.  Also, creatively using trance state, movement and play in venues that a client appreciates and relaxes in, is useful.  Buoyancy and play help in the suspension of fear and negativity.

What I have been finding in many people who depend upon smoking, is they do so because it takes the edge off of their loneliness, frustrations, sense of isolation, misery, grief, feeling of abandonment, or friendlessness.  People who smoke (maybe who struggle with any addiction or hard habit) have had a trauma around one of these mentioned areas that they could not then and have not since been able to navigate.  They started smoking when their girlfriend left them back in high school, or the kids went off to college or lost a job, etc.  Or they started smoking to quell a sense of self-inadequacy, disappointment, disillusionment.  Over time, smoking became inextricably linked to relief from these emotional states that are hard to admit to oneself or others.  Emotional states that are unbearable (without a cigarette).  This is the human condition.  In practice, this is what surfaces, the pictures that unfold, the stories that get told.  The feelings linked to the smoking are usually more shaming for the client than the actual smoking.

So, how does this compassion approach work?  What I do is set an intention with the client to not change anything overtly, but to watch, observe and even honor the need by caring for the needy-one.  This allows change to unfold organically, naturally, non-violently.  We watch the ritual of smoking; the reliable time around the urges, how a cigarette is actually handled from beginning to end, the thoughts and feelings in the inhale, the exhale, the smells and other sense involvement. I encourage practicing a suspension of judgement or self criticism during the study; it frees up that which is curious and interested.  Clients record heavy/light usage times, when is the best cigarette of the day, when is the time it is most negligible.  They record the sense of who in them requires a drag or two (the bored, defiant teenager, the lonely child?).   We also record the external and internal stressors, the hiding of it from certain places and people, when is it enjoyable and when is it repugnant.  In this process, they (and I) begin to become more familiar with what the habit of smoking is to this unique organism, what it means to all/most of themselves, the joy and sorrow around it, connected to it and the pleasure/displeasure present. And we are easy (even playful) about it.  Hell, brimstone and cancer threats are not required.

What happens in this approach is the person inside who has this habit is less shrouded in shame, becomes more self-accepted.  A curiosity is cultivated. It doesn't become about "breaking" the habit, it's more about the interesting self who participates in the habit and all the accompanying circumstances and history that support it.  It becomes an awakening of sorts that is freed from the previous inevitable guilt.  When clients start to emerge out of their shame and guilt over the addiction, I've witnessed a soaring sense of creativity and intuition from them, which then becomes like a beacon toward a movement of change.  Seemingly all of a sudden, they decide their living situation needs tweaking to abate their loneliness.  Or they acquire a pet, join a church, or take up an art class.  Experiencing this vivid creativity, they begin to feel what it is like to be more themselves.  This phenomenon by itself is enormously comforting.  And then, quite anticlimactically one day (in their own time) it is decided, "You know, I don't think I want to have smoking in my life anymore.  I don't need it." Like giving up old clothes that don't feel right anymore. And every time this happens for a client, there is a new Wow for me.  It's incredible how natural and non violent the action is.  The stopping wasn't based on withholding, denying, shame or judgement. It's based on a healing seated in a global sense of self love.

Post smoking cravings and urges are there, but taken in perspective, because they've been studied with compassion.  One senses one's dimension; no longer held in these mean, contemptuous pigeonholes of "weak", "addict", "hopeless, never to change",  "disgusting", etc.  The secret corners have been exposed to benevolence.  Someone loving, kind and occasionally funny has partnered up with them--- themSelf.  They truly are no longer alone or friendless or isolated.  They've evolved caring witnesses within in the process of courageously facing their history, undisclosed feelings and their truth.

This approach is really a larger commitment to know oneself, and yet also does happen to be effective in habit cessation.  People who appreciate this inside-out work,  are the types of clients I am interested in and whom seem to be attracted to my wellness work.  I can and have done the directed, linear approach. But, it is not that interesting to me.  It requires but a perfunctory formation of a relationship to self, other or the issue. If it is at all successful, it's almost always partially so.   Compassion work is a commitment but it lasts a lifetime; once you get a taste, a gist of it, it's pretty easy to access and keep as a consistent constant in one's life.  It actually becomes almost impossible not to actively know it.  It is Love in action, something one begins to find, they can't live without.

Creativity and Wellness

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”  – Albert Einstein

Creativity is an aspect of the spirit, the free flow of (divine?) energy through the Self/self.  Creative impulse is dependent upon the senses to manifest.
Our visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory 'receptors' or senses, are the conduit from which creativity flows through and from.  Our sixth sense, proprioception (the general sensation of our bodies, including intuition), is also a receptor to creative expression.

“If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you, or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned.”-- Joy Harjo, Crazy Brave

Wellness is deeply related to the contact we have or don't have to our innate creativity.  In a way, our relationship to our creativity-- the essential 'juice' in our life, is how we know ourselves.  It's our Home.  Satisfaction, Pleasure, Wonder, deep Feeling all live there; the place where meaning resides and where we long to be. If we are cut off from this, we are cut off from ourselves and our health will be negatively and profoundly impacted.

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” ― Eric Fromm

Being related to one's creative spirit is to be engaged in some measure to joy, curiosity or wonder.  Hence, in this relationship, many of the body's relaxation markers are usually in full effect, countering normal stress.  It is most often fun, enjoyable and deeply pleasing to one's being to be in the creative.  Even when problem solving, or weighing creative responses to a 'call' of the imagination, the sifting and dissemination of one's creative impressions are both interesting and relaxing, even though there might be considerable stimulation.

There is no downside to exploring and participating in one's creativity.  And, there are a myriad of reasons why it is damaging not to do so.  Mostly, one cannot really know oneself, one's purpose without opening to the wild-woolly, quietly-sublime spirit that lies within.  And not fully knowing, or frequently experiencing that in one's unique journey in a lifetime-- well, it's just not good for you.


“We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.”
 -- Steve Jobs

Creativity takes many forms through life's continuum.  Watching small children exploring their creativity is like experiencing the force of an open fire hydrant.  They gush forth energetically; their stream of imagination, powerfully raw. There is no holds barred, no clamping down or editing themselves, no self-consciousness.  They ride the tumultuous rapids known as their flow, ecstatic in the wild ride.  As we age, creativity becomes more nuanced and sublime.  With maturity comes an ability to listen more deeply and globally.  We have a more seasoned willingness to step back and watch the force unfold, rather than ride the rapids of the creative known in an earlier period.  It tends to be a slower, measured and richer experience after 40 as opposed to the intense, tumultuous experience of a younger person.  We trust the process.  As Jobs says above, a [mature] person has the patience and experience to keep peeling the layers away, staying with the question, problem, participating in crafting the experience in the process.  It's a different type of transformation.

Transformation is the by-product of being in the creative state.  Whether it be breathing through the development of a mathematical equation for those so inclined, or following the body's impulses in a movement exploration be it sport or art, the creative spirit strikes Home differently in all types, indeed all human beings.    

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” ― Martha Graham

What makes for a state of wellness is complex.  But inextricably linked to it is the health of the spirit.  The health of the spirit is founded in the creative.  The first few words of Graham's statement above are also familiar words used to describe wellness:  vitality, life force, energy.  If you possess these qualities, you are considered robustly healthy.  Spirit illnesses, like addiction, chronic anxiety or misery, grief or depression are serious states of dis-ease that leave our creative reservoirs and health coffers empty.  It is as if a firm lid is on the wealth of our interior riches, our vitality and life force, as Graham puts it.  Those who suffer this, suffer illness; a loss of essential capacity, a compromised refuge to the Self.

Creativity and Wellness are essential operating elements to being a Whole person.  They are inextricably linked and pay service to the other.  As a culture, we must start seeing and nourishing this relationship, instead of denying its importance.  This relationship is not negligible; our health and wellness depend upon it.

Dispassionate Empathy

This oxymoronic term resonates curiously with what is (possibly) true.  And the seeming truth of dispassionate empathy is that it is momentary, usually fleeting and almost always misunderstood.  Why is this?  Dispassionate empathy is a delicate (yet powerful) experience that can never be static, contrived or a destiny to be reached.  Like presence or wisdom, it's a movable feast, something we travel in and out of on a momentary basis.  Our human propensity is to make and understand things hard and fast, to have things known, to be static; black and white.  Dispassionate Empathy can not be a given known.  It's an experience in an often 'gray' moment, not be harnessed.

dis·pas·sion·ate  not influenced by strong feeling; especially : not affected by personal or emotional involvement*

Dispassion is a place a lot of caretakers find themselves after having their compassion take one too many trips on the heart-pull roller coaster.  It's a survival place, a space to operate from where one can feel accomplished in their skill efficacy without taking the risk of entering the healing relationship.  It keeps them emotionally safe, fairly free of confusion and armored to the hilt.  Being habitually armored is a slow, numbing soul death, not to be wished on anyone. All caretakers are required to be compassionate, yet struggle to maintain a professional distance to avoid over-involvement.  This is between a rock and a hard-place.  Burnout is a given when sitting between these two stools, or hanging open or closed hearted; it is to be expected when a study and a practice of a therapeutic (double sided) empathy has not been seriously undertaken.

em·pa·thy: 1. the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it;  2. the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner*

I almost did not include the first definition of empathy above, as it seems to be counter to the second definition.  But I am curious and appreciate the other side of the coin, as it completes the entirety and ultimately the whole rings more true.  The imagination (being an integral part of the human makeup) is open to coincide with being available to impressions.  In that act, one's knowledge/experience base is recognized and tweaked; one feels a twinge of familiarity.  Having experienced well a feeling scenario one can:  project it onto another (if a healing hasn't been had and self asks to go there again to be healed) or if a healing has been had, one usually feels compelled to merely be with it while witnessing another find their way, somewhat separated and internally active while being externally passive (another intriguing oxymoron!).

This is a practice.  It's also a spiritual quest.  The spirit is infused in the back-and-forth of the dual action/effort of separating and resonating.  Listening, staying close to the response (not the reaction), witnessing the pull and resistance that moves from inside to out and back again.  The practice of dispassionate empathy is allowing light to filter into the quiet of an observation, remembering one's place, applying restraint when necessary and affirmation otherwise.  Mostly, dispassionate empathy is about maintaining one's inner and outer vertical, losing it and reclaiming it again, repeatedly.  It is a practice.  Some moments we are better at it than others.  When it arrives, we hope to celebrate its manifestation.  When our personal tension keeps it at bay, we hope to forgive ourselves.


* m-w.com

Modern Love

It is not my habit to write about the latest sensational news.But lately, from widely different sources, essays, articles and impressions have been finding there way to me and I feel compelled to comment. The recent tragedy in Connecticut (close to my original home for decades) and its most probable link to unrecognized mental illness belay the lack of support for those suffering with mental illness (and their families) and also puts a perspective on the struggles and turning away our culture (government, insurance companies, "systems") does to ignore or deny these very real issues (which inevitably impact the general population as we saw in the Newtown, Connecticut horror). Essays such as the one on unusual Bronx nurses in public health battling with keeping teen mothers and their baby's heads above financial water and conditions absolutely stacked against any sense of wellness; psychiatrically tender college freshmen far from home requiring all sorts of professional support when overwhelm sets in.
The often tenuous mental/spirit challenged live in rough seas; those with financial resources and savvy know-how usually are able to navigate their needs successfully, while still bearing the difficulty of "otherness" which autism spectrum, development delays, mentally challenged and psych disorders reliably guarantee even under the best circumstances.  For those in any type of marginal economic situation, it is a catastrophe, as well as for those who love and take responsibility for them.  Perhaps, now we are a nation that is becoming more comfortable with otherness (legal gay marriage, persons of color in major public office, legalized recreational drug use); perhaps it is time we take on the pink elephant in the room, mental health and it's inclusion into general society, it's recognition, compassionate acceptance and a commitment toward an economic support for those struggling with it.
It is a good example what many households go through.  Terror, shame, confusion--- and mostly suffered in total isolation and invisibility. Our cultural system constructs can't acknowledge or begin to effectively deal with the Pandora's Box which is this area of healthcare. Tara Ebrahimi, wrote a recent article in the NY Times Sunday Please read this.  It's incredibly touching, a story I've seen a facsimile of time and time again working with people facing medical and mental hurdles.  A loved-one begins to decline, help is sought (over months and years) from all the right avenues and agencies (repeatedly), is not obtained despite jumping through an incredible amount of bureaucratic hoops and a family is left emotionally and financially depleted without the inner or outer resources to deal with an often impossible situation related to physical/mental/psych challenges. This courageous, loyal and loving woman finally with no other recourse, took matters into her own hands without knowing what to do, decided to Be with her brother.  She made relationship because it was the only thing to do, her only resource left. As was apparent, relationship was the thing lacking in all these other constant efforts with un-relatable In this world where it seems these challenges are exponentially increasing in incidence (ie: autism has increased to 1 in 88 births, a 1,148% growth rate), we are seeing three things: more basic life challenges for many more people, a culture and system that continues to deny not only the problem but the impact on the culture at large and we are seeing people (family members and loved ones) forced into a sensitization of self and other (such as Ebrahimi). These are people who have gone into the fire's crucible and survived with more patience, compassion, and a finely tuned depth of perception and awareness. I hesitate to call them saints; maybe invisible neighborhood prophets. They've got a world view worth proselytizing. They should be our future leaders.  They have lived the terrifying fringe, rarely have bitterness and only gratitude for the cauterizing hell they and their loved ones have been through. In them, a wisdom, understanding, moxy/chutzpah/grit has been crystallized. There is an authentic absence of greed, avarice and narcissism we are woefully needing in our public leaders today. At least in tandem with the gun control issue, if not before, the concept of Oneness needs to be addressed in this country. Relationship. Being. Being with and for, within and without. We should be looking at these courageous, loving relatives that take the monolithic Goliath systems on out of fierce devotion. We should be looking at those who have these illnesses and "otherness-es", who struggle day in and day out, who are feared for their otherness, disrespected and made invisible.  They are part of the oneness we all are living. They are our sons and mothers. They are an unrecognized brilliant facet of our whole.  We are a collective, we need to care, to include them, not shut them out. They, like we, are here for a reason, they have their part. As long as we look to blame guns (or on the other side's belief system, lack of personally held firearms), we need to look at the failure of us as a culture not taking responsibility for each other, the (community) illnesses suffered, the isolation and marginalization of our neighbors.

Authentic Movement: a Larger Listening Intelligence

One of the occurrences I have come to trust implicitly over the years, is the event of the arrival of the Unexpected; the event that is so surprising, yet usually so True in the moment (even when unpleasant).  This may be why Authentic Movement (AM) is such a compelling practice.

Entering the Authentic Movement "space" in oneself is like walking through a door or gate of a temple/church, a garden, a dream.  The ordinary is not exactly left behind, it just becomes secondary, not the loudest voice in the room of oneself.  What we enter is a fuller intelligence that is elicited through a stronger connection to our breath, a quieter more sensitized energy field, a listening that isn't with the ears alone, a watching that isn't with the eyes at all. "Seeing", "Listening", "Being" "effort"  take on an entirely different dimension. We become more embodied in a larger intelligence.

In this space, we in a way, emulate a Pentecost of sorts.  The energy of a reconciling force descends (ascends?) upon our chaotic, fragmented self (inner disciples) and unifies the estranged others whom live (oddly enough as one) in us. As in the Bible's Pentecost story (The Story of Pentecost), all tongues (languages) are understood, welcomed and accepted. The subtle daily alienations, misunderstanding, separations--- they some how are transformed (by this third force, reconciliation). Or not.  The former is what might be expected as in the Leviticus XXV story.  The unexpected would be a unification of another sort.  Where the chaos might ensue (as usual) but walks almost in partnership with what is still, quiet, observational.  That experience of equally weighted, very different energies co-existing is unexpected, perhaps even miraculous.

In Authentic Movement, through an intentional open wonder and inquiry, the body becomes more relaxed and the sub-conscious enters from left field, which surprises she who entered the space in the first place.  Through a modicum of relaxation, something internally opens allowing an energy with all its material concreteness to enter (sort of like what happens in the REM state when we are sleeping) and play out in images and relationship to body parts, and others.  However you lean, however you define the experience, material arrives, often unexpectedly.  Not what we were anticipating. Even when we (in our ordinary self) think we aren't in expectation, the surprise often proves otherwise.

I think what keeps calling me back to this amazing, generous form is the wish to experience this fuller listening intelligence and the opportunity to experience what is my ordinary self at the same time.  My daily experiences of myself and the world around me are so fractured; this spacious intelligence in conjunction with the routine householder, unavailable.  Entering this church or garden gate and the reinforcement of spending more time there, gives me the taste of living a bigger life, a more intelligent life.  One that is not devoid of one quality or another, but inclusive.  It's not just a type of  listening done with one sense-- a more spacious and energetic capacity unveils itself.  The idea of an effort that doesn't exist in "trying" makes itself known.  Life becomes apparently bigger than that.  Anticipation and expectation become uninteresting and pointless.  The unexpected vibrates with another type of knowing; it's fresh, clean, mysterious and enlivening.
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The Arts and Health

For many people, accepting the undeniable relationship between a non-toxic environment to good health is pretty easy.  Without clean air and water, nutritious food, the possibility of good health is questionable.  People are unlikely to argue there is no relationship between these two factors  But to make a parallel between robust Arts engagement in a culture and good health is a bigger leap.  Why is this?  Primarily, the Arts in schools and in a culture are considered a "frill" or negligible.  In a world straining to make greater in-roads on science and math (an admitted well-paved bridge to health), the Arts are considered a superficial entertainment or past time.  I want to challenge this.

I recently attended a dinner party where the subject of government forgiveness of student loans came up.  One person suggested young people who had acquired science and math degrees should have their loans forgiven, as their skill sets would be necessary for the competitive economic future of the country.  The inevitable, "What about the kids with photography degrees?" point was played and the answer was, "We don't need more photographers, they're a dime a dozen.  Liberal/fine arts majors should have thought to have gotten a more useful, sensible degree."

"Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms."--Roy Lichtenstein

For those of us who have explored our creativity through our lifetime, survived high school and young adulthood because of the open art classroom, patiently learned the beguiling centering process on a potter's wheel,  or experimented with fascination the technological edges of photography as a  medium because we were so entirely bored with rote learning-- words like that diner's, well they are an ignorant, demeaning and dangerous insinuation, a dagger to the heart (if I may be allowed some dramatic license) to what makes people human.  For those who have sacrificed financial gain in a greed-centric culture, committing to be an artist, often at a great cost, or for those who have played with music or poetry-making on weekends to maintain their mental health, the arts are an imperative need for the feeding of Spirit, part of the process of an entire culture's evolution and yes, our health.

A physiotherapist I know has made the possibly edgy statement that all people no matter what condition their bodies are in, are athletes.  So it is also, all people are artists.  Some might not be able to draw realistically, or have a great spatial sense, nonetheless they/we are all  artists because we all are beings of spirit.  All human beings have this major aspect of Spirit embedded in themselves.  We come pre-loaded.  If this is not explored in one way or other, if our creativity is not employed in our lives, we become less, and what animates us is at risk.  This is health.  It is a sublime and often invisible reality each of us lives. It should never be discounted or marginalized, as that diner (and probably so many other 'practical' others) would have us do.  Creativity is a commodity. The arts ultimately determine the success of a culture (the beauty, peace and questioning manifested).

The creative in oneself gives the subtle aspects of ourselves room.  Seeing a play, going to a concert, watching exquisitely trained dancers on a stage provides us with a spacious experience, broadens an often shut-down, or at the very least, limited perspective.  The vitality of expression resonates with one's spirit vitality.  Energetically, vibration is transferred, exchanged; we are renewed, replenished.  Is this not health?  Is there not a direct correlation to one's health and creative exploration?

"I do not want ART for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few."  
William Morris 

Which brings us to the Right brain/Left brain aspect of ourselves.  For most of us, one hemisphere of our brains is dominant over the other. "Left-brained" is often said to be more logical, analytical and objective, while a person who is "right-brained" is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful and subjective. Science has shown, when both halves of the brain work together math skills are actually strongest.  We have this entire physiology to use, appreciate and honor.

My points above about art are not so much about differences in "brain-ness", but about fulfilling spirit in our lives, an important part of our physiology that is under the radar, but which impacts our actions, our mental well being, our health. It is my sense that the diner who failed to appreciate arts expression (or education) isn't so much left brained, but weak in a more spacious thinking capacity, someone who hasn't had the good fortune of a broad(minded) education (something a good liberal arts education would have given him).  I recall once watching a completely alive three year old for over 45 minutes as she explored with a limitless, nimble imagination, her world.  Talking to herself, she being the main character in a story she was deeply evolving, jumping up participating in a hand sewing endeavor for awhile, rolling out of that to put marker to page, drawing connections.  What a learning!  What a way to discover the world and herself!  Of course, creative play is more acceptable for children, than it is for adults.  But that is a culture more; exploring creativity is essential in every part of one's life continuum.  Seeing "brain-ness" as a complete package rather than a positive or negative (depending on propensity) is an inclusive, non-violent acceptance of the whole of me.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -- Albert Einstein

Prodigal Return: Community of Self

We are all Prodigal Sons (and Daughters).  We get lost, we run away, we dismiss and disappear.  We separate from our (internal) beloveds, waste our resources and stray from goodness.  Goodness we have inhabited and goodness being extended to us.  We turn away. And we turn away again.  The letting go is cloaked, the truth of it masked. Until the day we come back "home"; stripped, beaten and humbled.  And we are faced with open arms by those internal parts of ourselves that have missed us, longed to be all together, wishing to be whole again.

Homecoming begins when we start paying attention to the tug of "home".  The collective beloved's voice is heard, calling for us to return, a momentary distraction from the familiar turning away.  It's not the voice of guilt or shame or outer authority that hounds and interjects repeatedly on the sojourn, but the "real-deal" voice.  The real-deal voice of the collective beloved having qualities that aren't etched in despair and judgement.  The voice is usually small, quiet and direct; it's heartfelt, not critical  Most of all the voice is patient; its had to be, it's been drowned out and silenced for lengthy periods of time, repeatedly.

photo: Elliott Erwitt

How does that part stay within, stay alive with all the frequent internal abandonment that goes on?  Possibly, that part is of a larger community.  As Lee van Laer (Zen, Yoga, Gurdjieff- perspectives on inner work)  aptly says: "Everything actually begins in/ends in community. The perception of isolation is essentially egoistic. God/Dharma are all-inclusive; we simply don't sense it. Born together, we die together... there isn't any separation except the separation we impose on ourselves."

It would seem we don't have a sense of this community in ourselves because we don't often have a modicum of relaxation present in our collective parts; body, mind and spirit.  We are desensitized by stress and overstimulation.  That voice of home calling us to return requires a sensitization, a regular state of relaxation for us to hear it and for us to return to it.  The community of self needs awareness and some attention to be activated.

van Laer indicates the community of Oneness, the Collective is itself singular. The Community's "parts simply sense themselves as individuals because the individuality that births the community is at a higher level... unknowable. Essential."  This statement resonates with the idea we are a rippling microcosmos of the great macrocosmos.  Our physiologies reflect this.  Our varied self-ecosystems also reflect this.  It would seem the separation our humanness insists upon, whether it be in the prodigal state or condition of prejudice, fails to recognize or experience the relationship.  Oneness, Self Community is both singular and not, much like the universe is single and also comprised of star/planet systems.  This "likeness" (another ring in the ripple of the Eternal, of the Oneness) is in, on and within all layers of everything.  With all this relatedness everywhere, the Community of the Self and otherwise so manifested, it's kind of astounding there is ever a sense of being prodigal at all.  Which brings us to the notion of illusion in what I call (my) reality.  If there is all this relatedness present, how is it one could ever think or act differently from that truth?  What is the illusion in my reality that fails to recognize the relatedness to myself, others and the world at large?  that fails to know the community of self?

(Hu)Man & Beast: Soul Relationship

The human relationship with domestic animals has changed somewhat in the last 50 years.  In a family’s hierarchy (hierarchy in a family being imperative through the 1970s), family pets were loved but not always respected or revered.  They were a comfort-convenience for everyone on a higher rung of the family ladder-- for solace, play-pleasure and lesson learning.  In these intervening years, life has changed for the family pet.  Vegetarian-veganism is no longer a fad but a common lifestyle choice, often related to the raised auspices of animals.  There are more single people and more frequent divorce than fifty years ago.  Pets have become Family, sometimes the only family many people turn toward for companionship and love.  These phenomenon are reflected in the recession-proof pet market.  Climbing every year markedly, the US pet industry currently makes over $50 billion per annum ($17 billion in 1994) on not only essentials like food, but accessories, clothing, play things all meant for their owners to buy as a means to express their love and appreciation.


“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”  ― Mark Twain

Whereas, it appears people in relation to other people are becoming more and more clueless about what constitutes relationship, intimacy, human-understanding, as well as an ever decreasing impulse control (technology related?), animals for the most part remain an unconditional constant in their human’s existence.  Many animal lovers have given up on their human counterparts (or themselves), the repeated pain of disappointment too alienating.  Animals have become the elusive partner, the soul mate many people miss in their relationships with others in their lifetime.

“If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.” 
― Woodrow Wilson

Animals like humans are pure energy. Animal’s energy capacity is more simple; their totality, unlike humans doesn’t stray into complex cerebral function. What they miss in reasoning skills they make up in sensory superiority. Auditory function in dogs is two to three times more powerful than humans.  They hear 40-60 kHz; the very best humans are able to hear is up to 20 kHz (possibly why active listening is a challenge for many of us?).  Marine mammals have an impressive 75-150,000  kHz capacity.  Animals are able to sense the world in a way that humans cannot, with some species able to sense electrical and magnetic fields, detect water pressure and currents, electroreception and detection of polarized light. Their sensory mechanisms could be said to be awesome, something we humans are becoming more and more dependent (upon them) as we suffer today’s daily desensitizing sensory overload.  It is little wonder these beings provide so much comfort and satisfaction to us in our lack.  In them, we often return to ourselves.

“I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”   ― Abraham Lincoln

Our pets have become our personal in-house energy seers; responsive, aware beings to our human need.  It's incredible to think Descartes believed animals feel no pain because of their cognitive/conscious deficits (but then again, he was so wrong about so many things that still hang on as truth today after hundreds of years).  It is a credit to modern man that the birds and beasts of today have more basic rights than yesteryear and especially an acknowledgement of their importance of place within the culture.  In our spotty global consciousness we have at least started to become willing to protect their basic interests, which in turn protects our basic mental/spirit health.

Resiliency

Etching by CJ McGannon

Our beings, on the long life trek we make in this existence, are models of a tremendous resiliency.  The ability to sustain and survive the small and large nicks and breaks to our hearts, bodies, psychs, souls and minds endured over a lifetime is just short of miraculous.  A broken heart, a catastrophic accident, traumatic events, repeated loss, soul numbing extended misery circumstances-- how is it we don't die a million times over with the suffering and pain this life provides us on almost a continual basis?

Resiliency.  The body alone is a wonderful example of responsive rebound.  The body's design, from its replicating cells to its innate protection properties irrepressibly urges:  "Live!"  Vital organs are protected by bony prominences.  The ever mobile joints are useful and guarded by their artistically layered ligaments, tendons and fascia and well oiled by the buoyant, slippery synovial fluid.  Who could imagine twenty eight feet of intestine would be useful crammed into half of the torso's relatively small cavity?  And yet it is useful; brilliantly.  Incredible. And the tremendous cooperative symphony this complex organism creates between the parts, harmonizing the whole, whether it be useful bacteria in the mouth/saliva jump-starting the digestion process (actually initiated in the use of the eyes, nose and brain) or the pumping action of the heart in concert with respiration.  When something goes awry in one aspect of the body's function, there is a usually graceful accepting of the workload by another aspect. The spleen, liver, pancreas and kidneys all function in some capacity to filter toxins from the blood.  If the spleen is removed the pancreas and liver pick up on the function of the missing spleen's work.  Sometimes it is seamless, sometimes it is a dysfunctional undertaking.  But the body is a community and in relationship to its parts.  And most of all, because of this relationship, it is tremendously resilient.

The Three Shades, Rodin*

Similarly, the psych has a host of coping mechanisms to buffer the suffering experienced through our timeline.  It's actually quite remarkable, even elegant.  The strain of the brain and ego to return to a semblance of  "normalcy" in a crisis, has useful initial functions like denial, projection, isolation or rebound reactions to put into play when necessary, when the pain is too great, in order to survive.  This is how we carry on.  This is irrepressible life force trying to find a way to survive.

Even though we are programmed from the get go to move toward death, dying can be a difficult business; the collective body doesn't want to do it, even when it is unbearably tired of the struggle.  We have this incredible resiliency, life force that streams through us resisting capitulation with a universal energy. Our being is made to struggle, overcome, or at least to die trying.  And even in the process of the inevitable surrender of the body to the dying process, quite often resiliency is seen as the Spirit takes over this urge to live and adapts.  Again, one area in the community of the self fails, lets go; another part picks up the "life" action and becomes resilient, and rebounds.  Amazing.  This sophisticated organism we inhabit is a finely tuned orchestra; layered, complex and multifaceted, even when it is at its most dilapidated. From this point of view, it's hard to imagine that the spirit doesn't transcend the body post mortem.

Honoring this meta collective aspect of the divine in us seems mandatory. 

* " These identical male figures--known as shades, or ghosts from the underworld--are closely related to Rodin's figure of Adam.  However, rather than awakening to life as Adam does, the Shades embody death, sleep, and a loss of consciousness."  (description of statuary at Rodin Museum, Philadelphia)

Healing in the Unknown

We are human.  We have our ideas and our expectations about everything.  However, sometimes a project, a healing, an effort of one kind or another takes on a life of its own.  It indicates to us how it should go, a direction sometimes quite counter to our expectations and even what we know we "know".  A totally unexpected understanding of how energy moves becomes apparent.

This is a huge opportunity. It is a huge opportunity to Be with what Is, to follow the course of energy that is present, that is guiding me in the moment.  Do I free myself from my rigid expectation, acknowledging what is, trust in the unfolding?  What is required of me to allow this shift of attitude, to change an approach?

Experientially, this opening and awareness has transpired because a modicum of relaxation has entered.  There is less tension around the original expectation. I see there is a slight difference in the apparent energy; before it was so dense, the layers endless, no relief in sight.  I sense a shift has happened, there is an open space available, some breath has been here.  When/how did that happen?  What was present before was a lot of chaotic and static resistance, a blockage. I want to discount this aspect of a healing.  I don't even want to admit it is part of it.  But it is.  It's the messy, ugly, tense part.  The part that doesn't work, has no flow, seemingly little hope is present there.  And that is how it should be; that stuck, uncomfortable no-way-out sense is necessary.  Without that piece, that fever pitch polarity, that excruciating rock bottom reached doesn't give relaxation the loosened door hinge to sneak past.

Especially when working with others, it is very easy to be automatic.  A type of judgement comes in where you've sized up their capacities, their weaknesses, you think you know how to approach them and how to approach the project or healing.  What happens is, quietly the other's efforts (which are unlike your own) have transformed the energy of the project. What you thought was going to have to be the first step, the first hurdle is not.  It is something else. Perhaps, another type of order due to that person's sensibility and type has altered the healing, the coming to a semblance of its own order in the healing.  In my normal way (usually when I've done all that sensible executive assessing), I've misjudged them and their approach.  My unrecognized prejudices have dismissed or denigrated their capacities and misinterpreted what I characterized as weaknesses.  That's human me pretending to be alpha. But the fact of the matter is something is different. The energy has changed.  The layers have fallen away, and I had very little if anything to do with that.  It's unlikely in my world view, but there you have it.  It's surprising.  It's mysterious.  It's welcomed.  It's the Unknown at work.


When this phenomenon occurs it is possible to be grateful.  Grateful that you apparently aren't in charge and don't carry the responsibility for the resolution.  This isn't abdication.  It is inclusion.  It is recognizing something greater than me is at work, something which is unknown.  The awareness of the unknown becomes more transparent when I let go of my personal point of view, my expectations.  It includes others and their seemingly impossible perspective. It allows for the unexpected.  This is what is interesting about healing work.  This is what is interesting about anything; a totally unimaginable, unexpected process and/or outcome.

Gabriel said: "None of us there is, but has a known station."  Koran, chapter 37, verse 164

Because of our chronically reliable attachments (ie: ideas, identity, beliefs, knowledge, feelings), it's a miracle the unknown ever comes for a visit making itself visible, or that we could experience a deep enough sense of relaxation to attract it or have an awareness of it.  In human indoctrination, it is mandatory to know.  It's a different matter entirely to be moving toward a "known station" as the Koran says above, while all the while not knowing what that is.  The known station is not in my power or understanding, but I travel the unknown to get there.  So goes the healing process.

"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations.  What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?  The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?"  --Stephen W. Hawking