Jake Eagle's Blog, page 9

Post Traumatic Thriving

Eight weeks ago I was hit by a truck while crossing a street. I was warned by the “experts” about the likelihood of suffering from post traumatic stress. Nightmares. Anxiety attacks. Heightened reactivity. But that’s not what happened to me. When we have the tools, which I am grateful I had, there is an alternative to post traumatic stress—it’s called post traumatic thriving.

Recently Hannah wrote a blog about ‘looking for the gift’ in every moment and paying particular attention to the meaning we make of challenging or difficult situations. What follows is how I made meaning of being hit by a truck in a way that produced post traumatic thriving.

Post Traumatic Thriving

I remember the accident clearly. Very soon after I was hit I found a quiet moment in which I escaped from the chaotic world above me (Firemen, EMT’s, witnesses, and police). I was lying on my left side, someone had put my backpack under my head, and I started to breathe very slowly. I took deep breaths in through my nose and exhaled slowly and completely out my mouth. I reminded myself that at that very moment I had a choice as to how I was going to respond to this life-altering event.

I consciously chose to be present and loving, open and filled with gratitude for the many helpful people that were standing above me on the street. At 1pm on a summer day in Toronto the pavement was blazing hot and the sun was beating down on me. I put my left hand on my chest and my right hand near my knee where my leg was very painful and I embraced the moment. I inhaled the smell of the pavement, I felt the sun on my face and I took in everything that was going on around me.

I told myself I was OK in the moment. I acknowledged my leg and I spoke sweetly and calmly to my body and my nervous system. I reminded myself that I am an adult. I am a resourceful, wise, capable, curious, and responsible adult. I kept breathing and I stayed connected with myself. And I made a decision that I too, like Hannah wrote about in her blog, would look for the gift, the grace of the moment. I would live through my recovery by focusing on the gift of each moment and each stage of my recovery.

I never victimized myself

I never plunged into outrage or anger or punitive thinking about the driver of the truck. I didn’t slip into powerlessness and self-pity. I intentionally explored and experienced my feelings twice a day. I would connect with myself by doing the breathing I spoke of earlier—often for 20-30 minutes twice a day. I also stayed connected with my community and I checked in with Jake and Hannah daily to help me focus and relax and mostly—this may surprise you—I enjoyed myself.

I had a pretty good time throughout most of my 25 days in hospital. From that moment on the pavement I made a point to look everyone in the eyes and I made a conscious effort to remember everyone’s names: Bryan and Morgan were my EMT’s, Joe was my favorite night nurse, Michelle was the investigating officer and my surgeon’s assistant was named Adam.

After the surgery I was transferred to a rehab hospital. A brand new 2 billion dollar facility that is state of the art—in some ways and in other ways it’s still just a hospital, but I had a pretty good time there. I was independent after my 2nd day so I was allowed to wheel myself anywhere, I showered myself and I could feed myself. And as I traveled all over the hospital, I talked to my fellow patients and nurses and other professionals, particularly those on my floor. I learned their names, I know about their families and their loved ones. I know why they are in hospital and we became almost friends.

How could I help others?

The point being that I spent most of my time thinking about other people and how I could be helpful. I didn’t neglect myself either, that too would have reflected an old pattern of mine. Instead, I established strong boundaries and I spoke up for myself. I paid attention to my fatigue and my pain and I spent a lot of time resting in bed and a lot of time in physiotherapy, but the remainder of the time I was being helpful.

I recognized immediately my huge advantage at being able to move myself around the hospital. My roommate’s mobility was highly limited, so I brought her coffees and treats from downstairs and I tidied up her part of the room because some of the nurses were really messy and inattentive. I brought her hot face cloths so she could wash her face and hands. I did our laundry.

Having the ability to decide how I want to respond in any given moment is something I have always wanted. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have made decisions and said things that I have regretted. What I have learned from studying and practicing the art of Reology, is to consciously choose how I respond to events. And I transform myself when I make conscious and healthy choices.

I came home on a Thursday. And even though the hospital experience over-all was good, there’s no place like home. My cat is with me all the time and we are both delighted I am home. I have an army of helpers, from professionals, like Occupational and Physiotherapists to hired assistants, to co-workers and friends. I am literally surrounded by help. And I soothe myself being here; I experience myself as living in a state of great gratitude and grace.

The next stage

Now the next stage of healing begins. Today I meet the new taxi company who will be transporting me to all my medical appointments, I’ll meet my new physio team and then later today my first attendant will arrive and we’ll have the experience of working together in my apartment, the plan is for her to vacuum and do my laundry. I had to learn how to ask for help many times during the day and I’ve had to learn how to accept love, presents, enemas, medications, being bathed, flowers, groceries, and all matters of assistance. This too was a process for me. I used to pride myself on my fierce independence and my ability to take care of myself without any help. But now I am the one who is asking for help and I am learning to accept presents, love, nurturing and assistance with grace and ease—something I didn’t know how to do very well.

I know that my ability to thrive during these past eight weeks is due to the tools I’ve learned in Reology. I can find that space between the stimulus and my response, and in that space I can choose how I want to respond. Right now I need help. When I am well and able to work I’m sure I will return to some type of activity where I work with people who need help. And I will remind them that they have a choice, and I will encourage them to look for the gift in whatever happens in their lives.

I want to publicly take a moment to thank all of you who emailed, texted, called and sent packages and flowers. I couldn’t have done myself so well without your steady and loving embrace. And in particular, I want to give special thanks to Jake and Hannah, Judy, Mel, and Janie for your frequent and most helpful calls, messages and cyber visits. I am in deep appreciation and gratitude for you all.

 

 

 

 

The post Post Traumatic Thriving appeared first on Reology.

Two Very Different Kinds of Romantic Love

What does it look like, feel like, sound like to have a healthy heart connection within your romantic love relationship?

This question arose recently when I was working with a client. The man I was working with is very healthy, extremely bright, and very committed to his own personal development. But the more we talked the more I realized he didn’t have a clear picture of what constitutes a healthy heart connection with a partner.

To answer this question I’ll share with you my own ideas that are based on my 23-year marriage to my wife, Hannah, as well as counseling hundreds of couples over the past two decades. Many of them didn’t have a healthy heart connection and they didn’t know what such a connection looked like. Often they had ideas that were taking them in the wrong direction.

Healthy romantic relationships is a large topic, and if you want a thorough overview, I suggest going through the Dating Relating Mating Course we have on our website. It is a substantial program that helps people learn how to find the right partner, relate in mature ways, and deepen your love over time. In this particular article I’m going to focus on one overarching question: what is healthy romantic love?

Two ways to love and be loved

I believe there are two fundamentally different ways to love and be loved in romantic relationships. One is based on connecting around our wounds. The other is based on connecting around our health.

When we connect around our wounds we view our partnership as a means for us to heal our wounds. We expect to push one another’s buttons, stimulate reactions, and then we will use our reactions as a means for us to grow. We will extensively share our feelings, repeatedly process ourselves, and continue to interpret our current behaviors in relationship to historical events—our upbringing, traumas, past relationships.

In essence, we view ourselves and our partner as people with wounds and we think the purpose of our relating is to help heal our wounds.

Vulnerability?

This way of relating is based, in part, on certain ideas about what it means to be vulnerable. The original meaning of which comes from Latin—”to wound.” In the thesaurus, under vulnerable, we find: helpless, defenseless, powerless, impotent, weak, susceptible. If I have this idea in my mind—even unconsciously—I may think that having a heart connection means I need to interact with my partner in such a way that I reveal my wounds and weaknesses.

But when I do this, what have I accomplished? I may reinforce the ideas I have about myself as being flawed or inadequate in some way. That’s my old narrative. Am I helping myself by revisiting it, or am I using it to justify my present day fears and insecurities?

When I share myself in this way I put my nervous system in the hands of my partner. How he or she responds becomes crucially important to me. If she accepts me with my flaws and inadequacies, I feel accepted and loved. If she rejects me I feel . . . hurt, angry, frustrated, and like I have to work harder to be okay.

In my opinion, focusing on my woundedness creates wounded relationships. It does not result in a healthy heart connection.

But it has a certain allure for some people. And there are times when it may be healing. My client recently described his experience of being vulnerable with his partner, he said, “We had a beautiful sharing.” When I asked what that meant he went on to explain that in this relatively new relationship, “we shared our pasts and our wounds and the ways we triggered ourselves with our previous partners.”

Self-indulgence?

Is this constructive? Does this create a healthy heart connection? Or, is this self-indulgent? We must each answer this question for ourselves.

Here is my caution—to indulge means to lose oneself, to give way, to yield, to abandon oneself. What is it that I am losing or abandoning when I focus on my past wounds? It is my health and sense of who I am today. If I engage in conversations in which I lose sight of who I am today, because I am so caught up in sharing who I used to be, I consider that unproductive and self-indulgent. If I need to do that, I think I should do it with my therapist, not my lover. And if my therapist allows me to do a whole lot of that then maybe I need a new therapist.

I am not advocating denial of my past. I am not advocating hiding my past from my partner. I am advocating that I stop recreating my past patterns by continuing to give them so much attention. I am advocating that I stop putting my nervous system in my partner’s hands. It is for me to learn to accept myself, to soothe myself, to create a new narrative that allows me to be comfortable and appreciative of my story (which, by the way, is made up).

When I present myself as wounded, I attract people who are interested in wounded people, either so they can heal me or commiserate with me.

Pause here . . .

It may help to stop for a minute and digest what you’re read and notice how you’re feeling. Have you chosen to be with partners as a way to heal your wounds? Has it worked for you?

In the remainder of this article I want to explore another way of being in romantic love relationships, which is to focus on our health, not our wounds.

This means that we see each other as fundamentally healthy individuals. When I look at her, it is her health—emotional, mental, spiritual—which I see and reflect back to her. When she looks at me, the same thing. This is the ground we stand on. This is the basis for everything we do. This is where our conversations begin and end. Because we see each other as being healthy—mature, curious, open-hearted, kind—we hold high expectations of each other.

That does not mean that we don’t share our fears and insecurities. We do, but we don’t talk about them as if they define us. And we don’t spend much time discussing past partners and mistakes we made because we are not who we were back then. And we don’t want to be. We don’t want to resurrect and re-stimulate our histories. If there is some way I am using my past to hold myself back from living as I want to live today, I take responsibility to ask for what I need today, from my partner and other people. This is very different than using my past to justify my current behaviors.

Sharing?

So then, how do I share myself, my angst and insecurities, without being self-indulgent?

I believe that this requires three things:

Being reasonably self-contained. This means that I learn how to manage my own nervous system—to soothe myself.
Focusing less on my past and more on how I am constructively using my past. It’s not what happened to me, but what am I doing with what happened to me.
Putting most of my focus on the present and having clear intentions about how I want to live now.

And during times of tension, conflict or when I feel overwhelmed, I help myself by remembering that we are separate people. To do this, it may be helpful to actually take a few minutes to be alone. After I acknowledge I am separate from my partner, and hopefully she holds the same awareness, then we turn toward each other to deeply listen and witness each other. This is almost impossible to do when we are enmeshed, that’s why the recognition that we are separate is so valuable. We must each take responsibility for our own nervous systems. You can’t run mine and I can’t run yours.

One of the most helpful things for me is accepting that I will not heal all my wounds. Some of my wounds or scars I will live with forever. Ironically, when I stop looking for my partner to heal my old wounds, and our heart connection is based on seeing each other as healthy, if we are together for a long enough period of time, indirectly some of my wounds will heal themselves.

The post Two Very Different Kinds of Romantic Love appeared first on Reology.

There is a gift in everything

I have come to believe that there is a gift in every event, every encounter, and every difficulty. Is this true? No, but it’s an example of how I choose to make meaning and it serves me really well.

Some times I have trouble seeing the gift, but if I’m willing to look for the gift each time I bump into a troublesome moment, I can change my experience radically. And this is the point of Reology—to shift my reality. So here’s an example of how I did so.

Years ago I was driving to see my therapist who lived 40 minutes north of me. I’d been seeing him periodically and felt my life had been remarkably and positively altered by his guidance.

I found the long drive useful, as it gave me time to reflect on my life and what I needed to work on. But this time I perceived nothing difficult happening in my life. Everything was going quite smoothly. I couldn’t think of one thing important enough to talk about.

Something “horrible” happened.

As I rounded a curve, I saw a car up ahead swerve rapidly. One of the doors opened and a little dog was shoved out, and the car kept driving.

The poor dog, completely disoriented, raced after the car as it sped off, and was immediately run over by an oncoming truck.

I pulled over to the side of the road, shocked by what I had just witnessed and gathered my wits. After checking the road for any oncoming traffic I stepped out of my car to tend to the dog who was lying in the middle of the road howling in agony. As I got closer I could see he was paralyzed, unable to move from the waist down.

I gently picked him up and carried him to the side of the road. I sat down with him in my lap and wrapped my arms around him, holding his head in my hand. I broke my heart with his howls and cries and I knew his injuries were so serious there was nothing I could do to save him.

What I did do was sing him a song. I sang “Amazing Grace.” And within a moment, he stopped crying and looked up at me, seemingly soothed by the song. Within a few more minutes he closed his eyes and I began to feel an intense vibration traveling up his spine and out into my hand that was holding his head.

I sang and wept and stayed with him while cars sped swiftly past us, the drivers unaware of our intimate moment. When I was certain he had died, I laid him gently in a safe place by the side of the road, planning to return to him later after my therapy appointment. I walked to my car, shaken and deeply touched by this intimate moment with this sweet, likely abused, little creature.

As it turns out, I had plenty to work on that day. I arrived for my therapy appointment in tears, still trembling physically from the encounter. My heart was ripped wide open. While I sobbed, my therapist helped me recognize the gifts to be found in this experience.

What were the gifts?

I learned about my own willingness to embrace another being in violent pain.
I learned I could be helpful even in a hopeless situation.
I learned that our energy travels somewhere else when we leave our bodies.

The biggest gift I gave myself that day was being able to choose the meaning I made of the situation. And when I say, “choose the meaning,” I don’t mean simply sugar coating a difficult situation. I didn’t deny my feelings. I felt myself and my raw emotions more intensely than ever. I raged toward people who could be so cruel and I saddened myself realizing that some people live with such ignorance.

I could have carried away nothing but my rage and sadness. I could have victimized myself with my helplessness. I could have focused on the unfairness.

But I didn’t. I made meaning of what happened by appreciating myself and my capacity to be present and loving while in the midst of great suffering. I learned I could be helpful even in a hopeless situation.

Consciously choosing how we make meaning of each event in life is one of the tools we get from living in a Reology orientation.  We also learn how to be in the moment—even a painful one, like being present and connecting with a dying dog on the side of a road; on a day I had nothing important to work on.  That was truly a gift.

 

The post There is a gift in everything appeared first on Reology.

Learn To Work With Your 3 Emotional States

Would you like to live in alignment with yourself so that no matter what’s going on around you . . . you stay connected to yourself and honor yourself? If so, read on, because there is a way to live without all of the emotional ups and downs.

These up and down cycles, two-steps forward and one step back occur because we don’t understand that there are three distinctly different emotional energy states. These emotional states need to be acknowledged and worked with in different ways.

In Reology we call these three emotional states the Pond, River and Ocean—PRO is our acronym for this model.

The Pond

Think of being in a pond and notice how you feel. The water is relatively stagnant—no movement. The pond is isolated so when you are in the pond you are alone and disconnected from others.

The Pond is an emotional energy state of feeling stuck and helpless while suffering. When I’m in this state I avoid the depths of my feelings because I imagine that I will suffer more if I pay attention to myself. To avoid my feelings I disconnect from certain aspects of myself. I distract myself from my pain and my suffering.

The River

Now, think of being in a river and notice how you feel. The water is constantly flowing.

The River is an emotional energy state of feeling energized, taking action, and moving toward a destination. When I’m in this state I energize myself, I connect to my values—the things I care about. I’m proactive and I associate with other people who share my passions.

The Ocean

And now think of being in the ocean. The water is boundless, almost incomprehensible. The rhythm of the waves is continuous. The source of energy contained in the ocean is endless.

The Ocean is an emotional energy state of expansiveness. When I’m in this state I expand beyond personal concerns, needs, or desires. I shift myself from an orientation of “doing” to one of “being.”

We are all familiar with these energy states, we enter and exit these three different emotional energy states all the time, sometimes moving in and out of them several times in one day. Some people are comfortable in the Pond but not so comfortable in the River or Ocean. Other people prefer to be in the River, some prefer the Ocean.

Which is your preferred state?

We each develop strategies to remain in the emotional energy state that is most familiar to us. This means I will frame events and ask questions in ways that will help me maintain my preferred state. For example, let’s say I prefer being in the River. The way I will frame events is by seeing them as opportunities instead of problems.

I will ask questions such as:

How can I resolve this situation?

How do I make the best of this relationship?

What meaning do I choose to make of what’s happening around me?

These questions are appropriate and helpful if I’m actually in the emotional energy state of the River, but if I’m in the Pond, asking these questions will frustrate and hinder me.

When I’m in the Pond my frame is one of crisis—feeling helpless, overwhelmed and at a loss. Asking questions like the ones above will cause me to feel more overwhelmed and make me feel worse. The worse I feel the more I’ll want to disconnect from myself to avoid my feelings. In the Pond I feel dis-empowered so I tend to project my negative feelings onto other people, blaming them for my woes. In the Pond I’m preoccupied with my past and concerned that the pain, failure, or losses I’ve experienced will reoccur.

What’s helpful when I’m in the Pond is to alter my perspective to that of the witness. Until I am present with my pain, until I stop trying to avoid discomfort, I will remain at odds with myself. Only by acknowledging my discomfort—being with myself instead of doing something—will I be able to satisfy the needs that arise when I’m in the Pond. I am in pain and I need to be present with myself.

This is best done by connecting with my discomfort and saying things like:

Sometimes I feel miserable.

Sometimes I am so disconnected.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do.

The change can be instantaneous

When I acknowledge my discomfort, without trying to fix or avoid my feelings, I change my relationship with my discomfort. And the change can be instantaneous when I acknowledge myself in a deeply honest way—and sometimes that results in some form of emotional discharge. Emotional discharge may take the form of crying, laughing, shivering, or the need to move my body in other ways.

And soon after the discharge occurs I will find myself out of the pond and back into the River where I can be more proactive and engaged in my life.

Many people jump out of the Pond and into the River by falling in love, being temporarily inspired by gurus or teachers, using drugs, meditation and many other means. The problem is that none of these are sustainable

Sustainable change comes about, in part, by learning to spend time in the River. And this is where ReSpeak is so helpful because it’s a way of speaking that does three things:

ReSpeak helps us realize and remember that we are making up meaning of all that we experience.
ReSpeak helps us take responsibility for our feelings and behaviors.
ReSpeak brings us into the present instead of focusing on the past.

Notice the distinction between how I speak when I’m in the Pond versus the River. In the Pond I’m not taking responsibility for creating my feelings, I’m simply acknowledging them. I might say, “Sometimes I feel scared,” and this is different than using ReSpeak and saying, “Sometimes I scare myself.” In the Pond I don’t need to make myself feel responsible for my feelings; I need to witness my feelings.

In the River, which is a higher energetic emotional state, I take responsibility for creating my feelings. I recognize that I am the one who is making up the meaning of my stories. I no longer focus on what happened in the past—the meaning of which is made up anyway—instead I focus on what outcome I want to create and what actions I need to take in this moment to make that happen.

No resistance

An interesting thing is happening for me as I learn to more fully embody both the Pond and the River. By allowing myself to fully experience and honor myself when I’m in the Pond, I spend less time in the Pond. I no longer resist my discomfort and therefore I feel less defended. This frees up some of my energy, and with more energy I’m able to spend more time in the River—a higher energy state.

In addition, as I spend more time in the River, I don’t try so hard to hold onto that experience. I’m not afraid of visiting the Pond. So I relax. I stop working so hard to create stability and comfort. I become more open to uncertainty and instability . . . and Poof!, before I know it I find myself in the Ocean.

In the Ocean I go beyond the frame of personal responsibility that characterizes being in the River. I’m interested in making a contribution that is about more than “what’s in it for me.”

Some people describe being in the ocean as feeling like they are “one with the universe,” or that “we are all connected.” I have a different experience. My feeling, when I’m in the Ocean is actually one of separateness. I feel separate from my mental chatter and separate from ideas with which I have limited myself. I experience a great sense of ease along with my passion to make a positive difference in the world.

Better than a GoPro

I help myself greatly with this PRO model. The key is being able to recognize what emotional energy state I’m in and then honor that state by acting accordingly. In the Pond I allow myself to feel my discomfort and I witness myself. In the River I take complete responsibility for the meaning I make and my subsequent behaviors and feelings. In the Ocean I look beyond myself to find how I can make the greatest contribution given the gifts I have.

I don’t believe the question is, “How useful is this model?” I believe the question is, “Will you use this model?” If you do, you can create a new level—a sustainable level—of emotional wellbeing in your life. There are a few reasons why this model is so effective.

First, it helps us be more conscious because we step-back and think about what emotional energetic state we’re in.

Second, it provides us with a distinct strategy to help ourselves after we identify what state we’re in.

And, finally, this process eliminates the self-criticism that often accompanies our emotional lapses. Instead of being critical, we realize that this movement in and out of different emotional states is part of life, and it is something that we can learn to work with.

So, now, with this model, instead of resisting your emotional experiences, you can dance with your emotions—sometimes in the Pond rhythm, other times in the River or Ocean rhythms.

I encourage you to take some time and work with this model. Next time you’re in a “bad mood,” instead of judging yourself or being impatient with others, give yourself a break, find a quiet place and allow yourself to witness your crankiness. What happens?

Please write to me with any questions, or better yet, post them below so that we can all learn from one another.

 

The post Learn To Work With Your 3 Emotional States appeared first on Reology.

What’s Your Story?

We can free ourselves from all forms of emotional suffering, even many forms of physical suffering, when we learn how to change the way we make meaning.

But here’s the problem, talking to people about how they make meaning is like to talking to fish about water. The fish say, “What water?” They are not conscious of the water. We are not conscious of the ways that we are making meaning.

If you want to understand more about how you, or someone else makes meaning, listen to the stories they tell. We all tell many stories, and when you listen for the themes you will hear stories about:

Achievement — what have I accomplished?
Community — concern with the wellbeing of others.
Duty — focus on responsibility and obligation to a cause.
Freedom — the importance of being unrestricted.
Intimacy — placing great value on the quality of connection.
Justice — concern that people are treated equitably.
Redemption — making up for past failures and mistakes.
Security — avoidance of pain and loss.
Truth — emphasis is placed on there being an objective truth.

What category best describes your stories?

How does this serve you well? And, how does this limit you?

I worked with a couple and the man mostly told stories having to do with achievement and redemption, while his partner told stories having to do with security. He makes meaning of their relationship by measuring how much he has improved over the years. She makes meaning by remembering experiences of pain and loss in the past, and by figuring out how to avoid pain and loss in the future.

Because they make meaning in very different ways they don’t experience a great deal of satisfaction when talking about how they relate. Even when people make meaning in similar ways that doesn’t guarantee they will relate well, but it tends to make it easier to communicate because they have a similar focus.

When you alter the structure of your stories—change from one category to another—you will wake up your brain. Our brains respond to novelty, but most of the stories we tell ourselves are familiar and repetitive.

A fun exercise is to determine what kind of stories you use most often, and then pick a different category from the list above, and try using that as a way to explain things. For example, notice how different the world appears when you stop making meaning by focusing on achievement and instead start focusing on community.

The point of this exercise is to become more conscious of the ways in which you make meaning by experiencing the contrast.

Play around and see what happens

I have noticed that my stories take on a life of their own and it’s not necessarily the life I want to live. This is because my stories are based on many outdated ideas. One thing I can do is update my stories by creating new ones. For example, my stories have tended to be achievement oriented, but I can change the achievements I focus on.

Or, as in the exercise above, I can start telling different kinds of stories, shifting from one category of stories to another. But recently I’ve found something that I find to be more powerful.

Here it is.

What if you let go of your stories . . ?

Don’t even try to replace them with healthier stories. Just let them go . . .

Pause for a minute . . . think about this. No stories. Allow your stories to drop away. Feel yourself emptying.

Don’t rush ahead to read the rest of this article. Don’t look for the answer, or the point.

Just let go of all your stories and breathe. Look around, see what you notice, what grabs your attention. But make no story about whatever that is. Just notice. I’m sitting on my portal, hearing the water running in the little acequia behind our house right now. I’m noticing the breeze, seeing the branches of the trees moving. No stories.

In this state, without stories, what matters?

There is a sensation I notice. The sensation is one of taking a full breath and simultaneously feeling completely relaxed. No effort. Being fully present. And what matters to me is feeling this way as I go through my day.

What I’m suggesting is that when I let go of all my stories–most of which I tell for the purpose of justifying how I feel—I find myself anew. When I pay close attention to myself as I am now, without any stories, I know what matters. I know what I value.

And for me, this knowing is simple. It isn’t based on fancy words like, “congruent” or “authentic,” because along with those words I have stories. No, this simple knowing is a visceral knowing. And if I pay attention to this knowing and use it as my compass, I will guide myself well and make healthy decisions.

As I interact with people through my day, when I can maintain this particular posture of being completely relaxed and breathing deeply and fully without effort, I’m confident that all will be well.

Can you find yourself without your stories?

By the way, there is nothing wrong with having stories—except that we often take them too seriously and forget that they are made up. And stories take us into the past or the future. Is that where you want to be?

We already know how to live inside of our stories. And we know the results. What I’m inviting you to do today is to experience what it would be like—what you would be like—without your stories.

I start my day without any story and then proceed as long as I can without cloaking myself in a story. I go further each day. Then, tomorrow, I start again.

Who are you without your stories?

The post What’s Your Story? appeared first on Reology.

Grow Your Brain

Would you like to grow your brain—learn how to use more of your brain? What if you could go from using 15% to 20%? Imagine the changes that would occur. The 2014 movie “Lucy,” explores this subject by dramatizing what happens when the main character gains access to 100% of her brain. Essentially, she expands into a state of universal consciousness.

But that’s science fiction and it’s a myth that we only use 10-15% of our brainpower. The myth is attributed to a comment made by William James in the late 19th century. But he never said that we only use 10% of our brains, he said, “the average person rarely achieves but a small portion of his or her potential.”

Most of us use the vast majority of our brains; we just don’t use them well. As I have written about in previous articles, no one ever taught us how to make meaning, they just told us what things mean. The same holds true for how we use our brains; most of us weren’t taught how to think, we were told what facts and figures to remember, the processes to add, subtract and multiply, and what labels to use for categorizing events in our lives.

In this article I explore how to better use our brains.

The Mental Planes

There is an esoteric idea that we operate on various planes. Two of these are mental planes—lower mental and upper mental. The word “plane” is meant to indicate a range of consciousness. Lower mental involves less consciousness than upper mental.

When I function in the lower mental state I am seeking to create security and safety. I rely on rules and routines. I assess things as being right or wrong, good or bad. I compare one thing to another based on what I already know. I evaluate something so that I can define, label and categorize it. Many of my definitions were formed when I was young so many of my ideas are now outdated—even my ideas about who I am.

In the lower mental plane my Identity is fixed and anything that challenges it, I perceive as threatening.

Much of psychotherapy involves listening to people share their lower mental states. Sometimes, in these situations therapists challenge the client’s self-imposed rules. Other times, therapists validate the client’s experience to such a degree that they unintentionally reinforce the client’s unhelpful rules and definitions.

I recently worked with a client who said, “I know I can ’t love my partner because I haven’t learned how to love myself.” I asked, “Where did you get that idea?” He said, “My therapist and my psychiatrist both told me this is at the crux of my problem.”

I knew this man was passionate about animals and I asked him, “Have you ever loved a dog or a cat?” He immediately responded with a congruent, “Yes.”

I suggested this as proof that he can love another whether or not he loves himself. I then went on to say, “If you love your partner really well do you think you will be more likely to end up loving yourself?”

By challenging his faulty assumption that he can’t love another until he loves himself, I was challenging one of his rules—handed to him by his therapist. I was also inviting him to an upper mental state when I asked him, “If you love your partner really well do you think you will be more likely to end up loving yourself?” Let’s explore why this question is an invitation to the upper mental state.

Upper Mental

When I’m in the upper mental state my consciousness expands and I am more relaxed. I don’t just think in an instinctual or habitual way, I can also think about how I think. I am able to ask questions about why I think the way I do and how might I think in a different way.

I observe the person I refer to as “me,”—I become witness—and in so doing I create more space between any stimulus and my response. I begin to notice my habitual patterns of response. When I recognize that my responses are unconscious, they are no longer unconscious.

From a different perspective I can decide if my rules make sense, do they serve me or do they limit me? I can create new rules.

Instead of losing myself in my stories, which I often create at the lower mental level, I can see myself as the storyteller. The result is that I become less attached to my own stories and I can create new stories that allow more room for uncertainty and paradox, both of which are expressions of the upper mental state.

When I recognize myself as the storyteller, instead of the story, I become aware that language is one of the primary tools of the storyteller and by changing my language I can alter my experiences.

Language can open the upper mental state

Lower mental and upper mental states can easily be detected by listening to how people speak. Lower mental is reflected in speech characterized by the rigidity of “right/wrong” and “either/or” structures. Upper mental is characterized by flexibility, respect for diversity, and “both/and” structures.

Say to yourself, “I can love you or I can take care of myself.” Notice how you feel. Now say, “I can love you and I can take of myself.” Notice the difference. This shift is the structure of our language creates a completely new possibility.

ReSpeak stimulates upper mental states better than ordinary language because it embraces uncertainty and minimizes simplistic judgments in which we reduce things or people to being good or bad, right or wrong.

ReSpeak focuses on what is happening now, in the present moment. When we focus on what’s happening in this moment we become aware of the temporary nature of everything—because we notice that each moment is short lived. This further allows our consciousness to expand—when we don’t resist—as we shift from needing certainty, to being present as a means to relax.

When I am present and living according to my values, I need not be overly concerned about tomorrow. Thich Nhat Hanh said, “If the present moment has peace and joy and happiness . . . then the future will have (this) also.” The way I would say this is, “If I learn how to be in the moment, in joy, as long as I am conscious I will be able to recreate this state.

We suffer from problems that don’t exist

When I am in the lower mental plane and I think about my challenges, I will perceive there to be problems all the time, and I will limit my solutions. As soon as I shift to the upper mental I will notice that many of my problems are not actually problems, and for the ones that remain I will recognize new solutions.

I cannot live solely in the upper mental plane. I need to live in both the upper and lower mental planes. The key is to be able to shift fluidly from lower mental to upper mental. It’s like a dance and I help myself when I can answer two questions:

Which state am I in at the moment?
How do I shift from the lower to the upper?

One of the ways to become aware of what state I am operating from is to notice how I frame things. Am I using “either/or” frames or am I using “both/and” frames?

I also help myself when I notice my physiology. Am I feeling defended, tense and reactive? Because that’s a sign that I’m in the lower mental plane. When I am more relaxed, open and non-reactive I’m in an upper mental plane.

The shift from lower mental to upper mental can be done in several ways. The simplest is to ask the question, “Am I in lower mental or upper mental right now?” This is a question about how I am thinking, so it comes from the upper mental.

But sometimes the most effective way to shift from lower mental to upper mental is not to be mental. In other words, the answer is to get out of my mind—my mental chatter and recursive loops. In Reology we use Sensory Awareness for this very purpose and more recently we are introducing participants in our retreats to breathing techniques. A previous article provides a brief description. (To learn more about this I encourage you to look into Somato Respiratory Integration, developed by Donald Epstein, the founder of Network Spinal Analysis).

Finally, if you practice ReSpeak, you will naturally stimulate your upper mental planes. It’s a practice that’s available to you all the time and requires you to think about how you are thinking, how you are making meaning. The very act of doing this will allow you to use your brain more effectively—to grow your brain. Who knows, do this enough and you may expand into a state of universal consciousness, like Lucy.

 

 

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Remake Ourselves

 “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world  . . . as in being able to remake ourselves.”   Gandhi

Have you ever wanted to change your name—even for a day? It’s a really interesting thing to do. When people attend our retreats, this is part of the experience. We all choose pseudonyms to use during the retreat, and many people will change their names—their pseudonyms—several times during the week. We use our “chosen” names as a focusing device, in order to focus our consciousness on some issue, desire or state of being that we want to embody.

At our recent retreat I named myself “Power”

I did this to explore the ways in which I hold myself back from being powerful. One example is when I do not say what I need to say.

In my teens, I wasn’t allowed to freely speak my mind. My father and I had radically different political ideas. I learned early on not to “sass back”. But, in my mind, that really meant, “Don’t say anything unless you are agreeing with me. And don’t speak unless spoken to.”

So, later, in my adult life, my “story” about not being allowed to speak freely became an excuse for not speaking my mind. At times I wasn’t even willing to share something I cared deeply about, especially if I thought it was controversial, and definitely not if it involved speaking up in a public forum. I had a knee- jerk unconscious fear that I would be criticized and “in trouble”.

Yes, I experienced my father as a bully when I was in my teens. It wasn’t fair and I created a story, a belief, that it wasn’t safe to speak my mind. That’s how I made meaning of the message from my father. And as I matured, I carried the story and believed it wasn’t safe to speak up even as an adult. This wasn’t true, but this was my story. And I stuck with it for too long.

Then, many years later, I had a big aha!

I began to wonder, “Who would I be without this story?” Did I really want to believe that my past predetermines how I do myself? Did I want to continue to live out that story?

Was I going to be a victim of my past as a way to excuse my current behaviors? No. Could I choose to ‘remake myself’ as Gandhi suggested and be something other than my old story? Yes.

To challenge my old belief and remake myself, I began to decide how I wanted to behave and chose new behaviors that made me feel better about myself. I started sharing what I felt with others, even if I thought they might disagree. I decided that since I was no longer thirteen and the world was not my father, I had permission to consciously speak my mind. And since learning Reology, I learned to “redo” myself if I wasn’t pleased with how I said something the first time.

I love taking my power back in this way. I love speaking up and just being me. I realize I don’t know everything nor do I have to be “right.” Other people often have different views but that doesn’t make me wrong, and if I remember to be kind to others when I do speak up, there is nothing to fear.

As I take my power back, I notice many of the things that I used to believe were true, are just stories I made up. Now I ask myself “Is this really true or is this just a story I’m telling myself?” And I begin to see there is no “truth,” everything is a projection of my mind.

I’ve adopted a “don’t know mind,”—a state of mind without so many preconceived ideas about everything.

I now realize that I am simply making meaning of everything. All that I believe—all my beliefs and assumptions—come from my mind. My past doesn’t dictate my present or future. I can make meaning that allows me to live powerfully in the moment. And my name can be changed, too—even if only for a day or two.

Try it and see what you discover.

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Life Consists of Three Kinds of Moments

There is a different way to live—a better way—for those of us seeking to be lovers of life. What does that mean? It means to love life—your life—without resistance. When we learn to live this way we spend most of our time in the present moment of possibilities.

These are extraordinary moments in our everyday lives if we recognize them. The idea is not to hold onto them, but to go from one to another. They happen all the time:

The first thing when I wake in the morning—I notice something beautiful.
When I say, “good morning” to Hannah I take extra time to look into her eyes.
As I write my first email of the day I hold the intention to make a positive contribution.
Asking the customer service agent on the phone, “How’s your day going?”
Taking one minute to stop working, walking outside and listening to the wind.
Taking four minutes to stop working so I can do the four-minute meditation.
While working, doing so with passion and purpose.
Taking a moment before I go to bed to look at the stars.

If I don’t recognize these moment they pass by as ordinary moments, lost moments, moments of angst, aches, or absence.

Life consists of three kinds of moments:

Present moments in which I am fully awake and choosing how to live.
Painful moments riddled with tension, second guessing myself, and wishing things were different.
Passive moments in which I am distracted or tempted by trivialities.

I believe that we mostly live in passive moments. And passive moments, in and of themselves, are not bad. I imagine that they may exist as a way to provide a respite from the painful moments. After too many painful moments I need a respite. And the painful moments are common, even in the world of personal growth and psychotherapy, because so often we frame our issues in ways that create pain.

For example, we spend too much time talking about how other people hurt us or disappoint us or exclude us. And in many therapy sessions this perspective is encouraged as a form of self-expression, which then gets validated as the therapist responds with empathy and understanding.

But, when issues are framed in this manner—how he or she makes me feel—the result is disempowering and often painful.

Reologically, we don’t frame issues in this way. We take full responsibility for our feelings. Other people don’t hurt me or disappoint me or exclude me. They do whatever they do—usually somewhat unconsciously. And then I make meaning of what they do in such a way that I may hurt, disappoint or exclude myself.

When I do this the key is to recognize that I’m doing these things to myself. When I pain myself the solution is seldom to blame another person. Once in a while that’s appropriate, but mostly the solution is to be with and learn from my discomfort. My discomfort informs me and will guide me—if I listen—to living my life in such a way that I stop causing myself pain. It may require me to renegotiate agreements with other people, or to learn to let go—either of the other person or maybe of past associations I’m projecting onto the other person. Whatever the solution, the process begins by learning to be present with my pain.

Our pain is mostly a result of two things:

The ways we make meaning.
Resisting the call to grace.

The ways we make meaning are largely unconscious. They are simply adopted based on what we see other people do—especially when we were young children. It is common for all of us to make meaning by framing things as being right or wrong, good or bad, and acting as if we have the right to tell other people about them. We think all of these are “normal.” We also make meaning by blaming other people for our feelings and our failings.

The question I find helpful is, “Does the way I’m making meaning create the life I want to live?” If so, I just keep going. If not, it is possible for me to learn a new way to make meaning. That’s what Reology offers—a method for realizing and remembering that we each make up meaning moment to moment.

And as far as resisting the call to grace, this occurs as a result of being either lazy or tenacious. Lazy, in that I don’t do what I know I need to do, practice what I know will be helpful, or behave in intentional ways. Tenacious, in that I fiercely hold onto ideas about who I am as if I have a fixed and permanent identity. Have you ever said, “That’s just the way I am.”? When I say that I am resisting the call to grace. I am resisting the possibilities of the present moment, tenaciously holding onto ways I’ve been—even if they don’t serve me.

There is a better way—choosing the possibilities of the present moment.

We just came back from conducting our summer retreat, which we call a “lab.” We call it a lab—for the word laboratory—because it’s a place to experiment . . . try new behaviors . . . relate to people in new ways . . . and learn an astoundingly unique way to communicate. During the lab we live in a different world, one in which we make meaning according to a few consciously chosen principles. These principles include:

Removing praise and blame
Bringing ourselves into the present moment
Taking responsibility for our own feelings
Respecting that other people are different (not wrong)
Eliminating telling other people about them
Reminding ourselves that everything is temporary

The quality of our lives is the result of how we make meaning

I wish you could have been there with us, but I know that is not possible for everyone. So I’m writing this article for those who couldn’t be with us, as well as a reminder for those who were, as a way to encourage all of us to consider that the quality of our lives is the result of the way we make meaning. If we’re not happy, if we don’t like the way we relate with our partners and other people in the world—we can try on some new ways of making meaning and relinquish the firm convictions we have about who we are.

If you’ve been to one of our labs the key is to practice. If you haven’t been to one of our labs, I encourage you to start by reading my book, ReRight Your Life. If you want something a bit more dynamic, go through our Dating Relating Mating course. It includes many ways to get started on this journey—even if you’re not in relationship at this time.

By the way, our DRM course can be streamed directly from our website ($135) or you will find it on sale at Amazon for $39.99 in a DVD format.

Or, if you can make it happen, come join us at the next lab, which will be starting January 30th, 2016, in Mexico. However, spaces are limited, so contact us soon if you would like to come. If the program is full we can place your name on our wait list.

There is a different way to live—a better way—for those of us seeking to be lovers of life. Living in this other way allows us to connect with and express our gifts and our wisdom. Don’t wait, because to do so is a waste. The present moment of possibilities is here right now, it’s a matter of stepping up and being your full self.

 

 

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Live Wisely, Think Deeply, Love Generously

A meaningful life guaranteed

If we live wisely, think deeply, and love generously we can guarantee ourselves a wonderfully meaningful life.

Why wouldn’t we do this? Is it, as Pope Francis says, that we no longer hear the wisdom of the great sages of the past because they are drowned out by too much noise and information overload?

This is from Pope Francis’ recent encyclical:

Furthermore, when media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information overload. Efforts need to be made to help these media become sources of new cultural progress for humanity and not a threat to our deepest riches. True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution.

When Pope Francis suggests “a mere accumulation of data . . . leads to overload”—I imagine the “data” being in the form of too many Facebook friends, emails and apps, as well as too many serial relationships, or even too many self-help techniques.

When I only scratch the surface of life, which is all I can do when I live in a state of perpetual busyness, I get no satisfaction.

Whereas, when I focus on a few things and become good at them—I experience much deeper satisfaction. And when I say, “become good at them,” I mean become good at whatever I’m doing—partnering, fathering, befriending, counseling, or witnessing another person. As I narrow my focus and go deeper in a few areas of my life—and with a few people—I develop true wisdom in those areas.

The Pope suggests “true wisdom” is the result of “self-examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons.” But the dialogue needs to be constructive. Otherwise we waste time and energy arguing about subjective matters, yet trying to prove ourselves right and others wrong.

What is my intention?

So when I enter a dialogue I ask, “What is my intention? Am I seeking to connect and have a generous encounter?”

When I want to connect and have a generous encounter with another person, I have found nothing more helpful than using ReSpeak—it makes all dialogue constructive, even the conversations that I have with myself inside my own head.

More from Pope Francis:

Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature. Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise.

When I shield myself from direct contact with the pain of life, the fears and joys of others and all the complexity that entails—I suffer. But I have learned that it is not the pain or the complexity that causes me to suffer, but my resistance to the pain or the complexity.

If I allow myself to fully feel whatever emotions arise, the natural life of those emotions is between ninety seconds and three minutes. But when I resist, the energy of my emotions gets stored in my body as tension. This tension can manifest as physical symptoms—headaches, muscles spasms, fatigue—or as emotional patterns of depression, anxiety or irritability.

If I fully embrace life, including the direct contact with pain, and I learn how to stay awake even in the midst of discomfort, I can live wisely, think deeply, and love generously. But to do so requires me to go deeply into the experience of life—into the marrow.

When I go into the marrow of life

I am completely present, speaking my truth, which clarifies and simplifies all my relationships.
I make time to listen to my body, honoring myself and then making congruent decisions.
I open my heart and focus more on giving than receiving, which is why I stop worrying about being hurt.

Or, if I remain on the surface of life, spreading myself thin:

I can ignore the lessons that pain offers me but I’ll never live wisely.
I can browse the Internet daily and rapidly reply to all of my “friends,” but I’ll never have time to think deeply.
I can hold back for fear of being hurt but I’ll never experience love generously.

I invite you to really think about what you want from your life. If you want to live wisely, think deeply, and love generously . . . listen to the wisdom of your body, gift yourself with time to think, and open your heart.

Make self-examination, constructive dialogue and generous encounters requirements in your closest relationships. And add one more: maturity. It is maturity that allows us to encounter our pains, fears and joys, and the complexities of knowing one another—without drama.

If you accept this invitation, but are missing some of the tools, consider making Reology one of the few things you delve deeply into. We provide the means for you live wisely, think deeply, and love generously. And living this way will ensure that you can avoid the melancholic dissatisfaction or harmful sense of isolation that Pope Francis cautions us about.

To read more of Pope Francis’ encyclical, click this link: Pope-Francis-Encyclical-2015

To see President Obama singing Amazing Grace as part of Clementa Pinckney’s eulogy click here

 

 

 

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Breaking Out Of Your Box

We all live inside of self-constructed boxes. I’m not talking about boxes built out of wood, concrete and sheetrock. I’m talking about boxes that we build out of our memories, beliefs and the words we use to talk about ourselves.

The primary purpose of our boxes is to make us feel safe and secure. Some of us like the boxes we have built, some of us don’t, but even so, we find safety in them. Even if my box includes childhood abuse or an unhappy marriage, it still offers me safety because it helps me define myself. My box offers me certainty, which allows me to feel safer while living in a world full of uncertainty.

Feeling safe is essential

Without a foundation of safety in our lives we wouldn’t be able to grow emotionally and spiritually. If an infant doesn’t experience safety they develop what’s known as an insecure attachment. This makes life more difficult, relationships more complicated, and satisfaction elusive.

So creating safety is valuable and necessary, but we also limit ourselves if we always try to stay safe—if we stay inside of our boxes.

How do you know if you’ve locked yourself inside your box? Here are some signs I pay attention to. When I’m trying hard to be in control, avoid certain feelings, and intellectualize my emotions—I’m stuck in my box. When I experience too much stress, am overly reactive to other people, and treat poorly those I love—I’m stuck in my box. When I’m exhausted, depressed, getting sick too often—I’m stuck in my box.

During some of these hard times I may need to batten down the hatches of my box, lock the doors, close the windows, turn down all the lights and play some soft music to make myself feel safe. I’m withdrawing further into my box. I may need to do this until my frustration builds to the point when I finally say, “No more!”

Enough is enough!

That’s when I open the doors, dismantle some of the walls I’ve built, and blow the roof off my box. This is what I’ve done recently and I’ve absolutely woken myself up and reinvigorated myself. I’ll share with you some of the keys to breaking out of your box.

To begin with I shift my focus away from safety and start focusing on my desire to grow. This means that I stop doing the things I’ve been doing to avoid discomfort. Stop doing the things I’ve been doing to numb myself or distract myself. I can numb or distract myself with so called negative behaviors, like drinking too much alcohol or eating too much food, but I can also numb or distract myself with so called positive behaviors, like exercising or using affirmations.

After I stop numbing or distracting myself, I pay attention to what comes up within me. Invariably what comes up when I step outside of my box is some form of discomfort. You see, I designed my box so that I could avoid discomfort as much as possible. When I say “discomfort,” I’m talking about something that is very personal. Whatever I find unbearable, that’s what I’ve built my box to avoid.

Some people find intimacy unbearable. For others it’s conflict. Some people find loneliness unbearable. Some people can endure physical abuse, but not emotional vulnerability. When we were young we began constructing our boxes to protect ourselves from experiences and feelings that were uncomfortable. We built rooms inside of our boxes that we could hide in, and we built fences around our boxes to keep certain experiences from ever getting close. Doing this allowed us to travel as far as we have in our lives, but it won’t take us much farther.

To go farther I need to stop resisting my discomfort. Discomfort isn’t bad; it’s part of life. And discomfort isn’t nearly as bad as the suffering that I experience by trying to avoid my discomfort.

So instead of avoiding my discomfort, I go into it and then I connect more deeply with myself. To do this requires two things. First, I proceed with absolutely no judgment whatsoever. Second, I proceed with no agenda to fix or resolve what I find. My purpose is solely to witness my own discomfort, to listen to myself more deeply and lovingly than ever before.

When I deeply listen to myself I will hear things that I previously ignored, because I built my box to keep these things out. When I hear what is true for me, transformation occurs. This is something, as yet, I cannot fully explain, but “truth” resonates deeply inside of us, and brings about a realignment. It is a form of healing.

J. Krishnamurti, the India philosopher said,

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

And, truth spoken with love always heals.

You may be wondering what kind of things you will hear if you create the space in which to listen to yourself. This will vary from person to person. But I have noticed three patterns.

People recognize things that they need to say, but haven’t said.
People recognize things that they want to ask for, but haven’t asked for.
People hear things from the younger parts of themselves that they previously ignored.

To break free of the ways I’ve boxed myself in I need to say the things I haven’t said, ask for things I haven’t asked for, and listen to the younger parts of myself. Numbers 1 and 2—saying what I haven’t said and asking for what I haven’t asked for—happen in real time. For example, I see that my partner is upset with something I said, I recognize what I need to say, but I discomfort myself. This is the moment in which I fall back into the safety of my box or I step fully into my discomfort and maturely express myself.

Another time I may recognize what I need or want from my partner, but I find some reason to justify not asking her—falling back into my box. Instead, I can step into my discomfort and ask for what I want in as simple a way as possible. Long explanations and justifications are often just another way to hide. Don’t bother with those old ways of creating safety. Simply state what you want.

And if you want to listen to the younger parts of yourself, I recommend that you create a space/time specifically for this purpose—maybe early in the morning or before going to bed. Lay down, eyes open or shut, place your hands on your chest or your belly, one on top of the other, and breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. As you do so, really pay attention to the energy under your hands. Ask the simple question, “What do I need to hear?” Or, “What do you need to say?” Then, see what comes up and no matter what it is, witness, listen, and keep listening. Remember, no judgment, no agenda to fix or do anything other than listen.

If you don’t hear anything when you are listening, you might try saying things like, “Sometimes I feel alone, or sometimes I feel confused, or sometimes I feel scared, or sometimes I feel powerful, etc.” The key is to notice if any of these expressions resonate. If so, stick with them and just keep listening and paying attention to yourself. You are not saying these expressions as affirmations, but as ways to check in and see if they feel true to you. If so, honor them. Honor yourself.

And for those of you who want more guidance so that you can experience this process in depth—while being held in a safe container—consider coming to one of our upcoming Reology retreats. It’s a sure way to get out of your box.

 

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