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Anniversary of Truth and Healing

May 19, 1989

Tomorrow is May 19, which will be 19 years that my husband Tony, father of my three children, died at age 43 of undiagnosed coronary artery disease.  I found him dead on the couch in my living room, with my four-year old son and six-year old daughter standing beside me. 

In the midst of my brother and friend taking them away, followed by the EMT's working on him and ushering me into the dining room where I stood, shattered, alone, I heard a clear voice way beyond myself say the following:  "There is only an endless present, and that present is filled with love".  I think that allowed me to surrender to the healing power of grief.

Grief is a Tidal Wave to Which We Must Surrender

It is an irresistable tidal wave, actually.  It amazes me when I see others try to resist it, because it is so futile!  And yet, we have lived so many centuries in a world that runs from death, stupidly thinking that running will somehow sneak us in to live forever. 

That is not how we live forever.  We live forever by surrendering to the largest truths of life, which returns us to our indestructible spiritual essence, part of the All That Is.

The Challenge of Acceptance

How many times do we have to face the simple fact that we all die, and that coming to terms with that truth wherever it weaves itself  throughout our life will restore grace, peace and power to us in all corresponding right alignments? It is not worth a single moment of our time and focus to attempt to convince our ego or anyone else's, actually, of this truth.  We just have to somehow find the courage of let go enough within ourselves to yield to it, trusting it will find us, and well care for us in the bargain.

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who, in addition to being a physician, was a metaphysical counselor and wonderful spiritual writer in her lifetime, first defined the normal stages of grief while researching patients who were told they had a terminal illness.  She named five successive stages:  denial, bargaining, anger, hopelessness/helplessness and acceptance. 

The Loss of Resistance

These are organic, multidimensional stages, and as their own intractable "waves", come in their own time and realities, overlapping each other and determining their own course.  We have no power to manage or predetermine these stages.  We do have the capacity to be present with them and acknowledge their appearance.  They do, after all, explain a lot of what drives us to express each corresponding stage.

When we resist these waves, we interrupt the tremendous healing power of grief to lead us to higher resolution, which brings heightened awareness, personal power and spiritual guidance.  During subsequent losses whatever unfinished grief remains is added to the present crisis.

You can Enter the Multidimensional Wave for Healing

How much courage does it take to ask ourselves where we are in this particular moment in our lives with a particular stage of grief?  I invite you to do just that by settling back, closing your eyes, taking a couple of deep cleansing breaths, and entering a deeper meditative state.

Now imagine grief as its own high, healing wave, surprisingly like your breath.  Further imagine grief as having five smaller waves like dimensions that compose this larger wave, which are the five stages of grief.

You Can Receive Higher Guidance

Imagine how easily you can ask your breath to lead you to whatever particular  "subwaves" your consciousness is presently traveling in through the grief cycle.  Experience whatever happens, allowing it to bring you its own place of completion for now.  As this occurs, say "Thank you" to the wave, and easily, gradually return to full, waking consciousness, and open your eyes.

Take a few minutes and record your experience, which can include drawing if you wish.  Also record whatever insights naturally occur.  Now consider your inner sense of where these waves want you to go.  Can you call on your courage and higher guidance to honor your commitment to your own larger healing path of truth?   

The Amazing Path to Creation

Nineteen years later I still grieve for many reasons, including the fact that acceptance is never meant to cause us to erase what we have lost.  Acceptance is its own alchemy that sweeps in miraculous spiritual gifts of understanding the power of unconditional love and letting go.  Healing and evolution is won by the flaming spirit, who purifies and stretches beyond what was ever known and understood before. 

I suppose this is also the alchemy of creation, and our birthright.  In these troubled times filled with so many losses and shortsighted, infantile coping responses we are challenged to live up to the whispered promise of our infinite courage that never leaves us, and dare to seek what we know in our heart of hearts is the nature of our purpose on the earth plane. 

A Foundation of Wholism

We are meant to never separate ourselves from ourselves, both within and without the scope of our lives.  We deny at our peril, for when we have twisted ourselves into frauds we wander lost without our center. 

How our consciousness can stretch to accept the amazing, terrible paradox of love and loss, betrayal and recovery is beyond analyzing.  When we know we have found our way in experiencing this miraculous spiritual oddyssey that is the never-ending subject of great myths, we come of transformational age, inspiring all whom we touch to higher becoming.   

   

Top Ten Benefits of Hypnosis

A Definition

I define hypnosis as a self-directed meditative energetic healing practice that postiviely and pleasantly engages the imagination to achieve chosen goals.  Hypnosis works with inner-directed central focus and the willingness to allow the breath to deepen and regulate itself. 

One is then able to enter what in clinical terms is called a trance state, or what in lay terms might be called a "zone" or receptive state which opens a clear channel to deeper consciousness, enabling one to "plant seeds" to shift and clarify motivation at a core level to alter responses to well synchronize with deep desires.

Who Can Be Hypnotized?

Everyone, provided you are willing, which means open to the experience, and can centrally focus on the direction.  Research tells us we move into a light (sometimes a deep!) trance when we watch television or drive a car at night.  Then there's daydreaming . . .

Here are My Top 10 Benefits:

1.  Releasing mental, emotional and physical stress

2.  Centering yourself

3.  Eliminating addictions

4.  Achieving clarity

5.  Improving self-esteem

6.  Relieving pain

7.  Developing intuition

8.  Heightening motivation

9.  Healing the past

10.  Becoming your own best Self 

A Brief How-to

Intrigued?  Settle back into a comfortable position, close your eyes, and begin to imagine how easily you can direct your breath to deepen.  Then count to yourself 10 full, deep, easy breaths.  Following, for the next several breaths you take, when you inhale, say to yourself this phrase, "Let be", and when you exhale, say to yourself this phrase, "Let go".

Picture yourself floating in your rising and falling, endlessly flowing breath so easily and lightly, like a feather.  Then say to yourself as you inhale, this phrase,  "All is well ".  As you exhale, say to yourself, "I am well, always".

Gradually return to full, waking consciouseness, and when you're ready, open your eyes.  How do you feel?

All Hypnosis is Self-Hypnosis

Remember, nothing can override your innate Will.  We can choose how to direct that Will, and care for ourself to support a foundation which keeps us balanced and clear, which is the state in which optimal results occur through hypnosis. 

Einstein said "The imagination is everything".  Hypnosis is the key to unleashing your own unique infinite power to create within your core where you are free to be.

Related Questions - and Answers - from Centering

• Does hypnotherapy successfully treat phobias?
• Why is hypnotherapy not recommended for people with depression? What conditions can and cannot be treated by hynotherapy?
• Does hypnotherapy work for smoking cessation?

First bullet:

Hypnotherapy is a very successful way to treat phobias.  I combine it with related therapeutic practice, and work uniquely with each individual regarding their particular situation.

Second bullet:

I have successfully used hypnotherapy to relieve a lot of the related symptomatology associated with depression such as anxiety, confusion, irritability, sleep and appetite disturbance.  I use an integrated approach focusing on therapuetic process and problem-solving with behavioral interventions, which also respond well to hypnotherapy and which additionally are self-help and empowerment practices that dramatically improve self-esteem, which typically significantly erodes with depression.  In addition, the malaise associated with depression is relieved with hypnotherapy, which energizes and uplifts the recipient.  Lastly, where depression "roots" in earlier trauma and/or is directly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, hypnotherapy can effectively heal the core, and therefore the related symptomatology that fuels depression disappears.  All of the above conditions respond well within themselves, with or without depression as a clinical diagnosis, to hypnotherapy.

Third bullet:

Hypnotherapy works very, very well for smoking cessation, provided the individual within their own innate will wants to stop.  Whether there is ambiguity with this desire or not doesn't matter - what does matter is that hypnotherapy will not work when a person is only looking to stop smoking because someone else wants them to do it if they really don't want to quit at all, even if the reasons to quit are excellent.  I find, again, that what cements success is combining hypnotherapy for smoking cessation with behavioral counseling, health teaching, and related coaching.

There Are No Limits

Other than our choice and our level of consciousness.  So make your choice, create your experiment, and be open for any and all results! 

Healing Circles

Ending Cycles

It is amazing what can happen in the course of a seemingly ordinary day - like today.  I slept in after unwillingly being up late, choosing to forget again that when I have a cappacino at 7pm, as I did to top off my daughter's birthday dinner in an Italian restaurant we both love, I lose about half a night's sleep. 

Speaking of birthdays, I guess it's more than time to admit I'm not getting any younger despite the fact that I am more peaceful and happy - different than my younger years - than at any other time in my life these days.  I'm also hugely concerned about so many things in the world, as well as being "in the thick" of my own personal shifts.  The paradox for me, which I feel is quite synchronisitic with where we are nationally and globally, is that I know within the next couple of years a very long cycle for me is coming to an end, which I'm very glad about. 

The unfamiliar universe awaits, and that's more than okay with me.  My fantasy is that the world as well would do a lot better to approach this great shift with this heartfelt vision and clear attitude, and we would all be greatly eased because of it. 

One Unfolding Day

The rest of the day . . .  involved not one but two trips to the supermarket, which set me up to most synchronistically "run into" a woman I have known for a long time who is critically ill with cancer.  She has found her way to being completely, simply honest about all the implications she faces and the effect on those around her.  It is no surprise to me, given who she is and what her consciousness has become, that she has the most tremendous, longstanding support from staunch friends that I think I have ever seen.  I continue to energetically transmit to her on an ongoing basis.

I also went for a long walk with my daughter, who has spent essentially the weekend, with a little more to come, celebrating  her sixteenth birthday, roaming one of the most beautiful, oldest flowering parks in the nation.  We had some very serious, heartwrenching things to discuss regarding a most challenging situation that has fortunately greatly evolved and eased since last fall for us both. 

I became aware of such intense discussion as a great paradox against the backdrop of the most vibrant display of colors I have ever seen after countless visits to Highland Park, so named for the profusion of lilacs presented there.  Today they were not yet in bloom, but the daffodils, tulips, magnolias, and cherry blossoms were, so brilliant, so exquisitely beautiful that I felt greatly priviledged to be able to witness and receive their glowing energy as we wandered with so many smiling others.

Facing Spiritual Reality

This has been a week of love and loss, beauty and caring, warmth and upset.  I returned home this week and fell all over myself playing "catch-up", an additional dimension in a number of ongoing layers. 

I think what today has taught me is that the simple circumstances of each unfolding day contain all the elements that compose healing circles.  One supports and clarifies and enhances the next, and because they are there, we must simply admit and declare and accept and allow ourselves to be fully present in them all, and share with ourselves and others easily, trusting in our own capacity to not survive - but continue to simply be present, for that is enough because it's real. 

Power is something else.  Power is offered to us through all the elements we experience through each and every day of our unfolding lives if we are able and willing to accept each dimension for what it is, and release our ego's demand to have a short answer that will be the current delusion to what guarantees survival - the real short answer is:  there isn't any.

Beauty, peace, happiness, camaderie, the full array of brilliant and present and accepted emotions, and all synchronistic surprises - yes.  I believe we live now in an intense time propelling us toward a great unknown.  We can only face this great challenge with our willingness to seek and speak the truth, and unconditionally love and respect ourselves and each others - for we are all equal.

Blessed be.    

 

Rhythms

Plugged and Unplugged

I think, untampered, days are designed to open up like flowers.  They each offer a universe of multidimensional feasts to the senses, teeming with rich, multifaceted life on this flowing earth plane. 

I have spent the past 9 days visiting my son and his partner, my daughter and son-in-law, and my 6 month-old grandson in New England.  I've seen great cities, forest-ringed ponds, and rock-strewn,wild ocean shores.  I've seen history greatly matched with the current HBO special, John Adams, about the founding of our country, and yet continued to be very much plugged in to the world with its equally poignant, peaking political struggles.

One short Day Far Beyond the City

Day-to-day life doesn't care about all this.  It just flows and grows within its own unfolding rhythms. 

A few short miles from the bottlenecked east-coast interstate I lay on great warmed rocks, casually placed as if strewn by a careless giant, alone except for the ever-pounding surf gently spraying its salty foam before me in small explosion after explosion.  The overgrown trail hasn't even sprouted  rose buds, only prickles that easily grab and entangle my hair as I hike, but the radiant sun high in a cloudless blue sky promises spring, and it seems to me the ocean laughs and rejoices.

Nearby my youngest daughter, soon to come of age, stands triumphant on the highest rock, arms outstretched to touch the bright blue sky, laughing at the crashing waves far below.  We just took a day, a great day to see what the newly-opened earth was up to, even far from the rest of our family who live so close to land's end. 

Unending Treasures

The next day I'm knee-deep in my grandson's lopsided smile as we sit in an old, slanted Adirondack chair in a tiny closed yard surrounded by peaked houses, in the midst of the vast metropolitan spread.  Birds don't care about all this - they just sing, and my grandson continues to turn his head seemingly by degrees as he listens intently to their trilling chorus.

If we let it be and partner and rejoice in it, life embraces us and sweetly leads us to its treasures.  But we have be able to survive first, and be given space and opportunity to surrender to what's naturally real - not to mention, of course, centrally be willing to be present. 

Meet the Challenge to Survive

It really doesn't take much, said Henry David Thoreau, who, over a century and a half ago, spent a year in a small hut overlooking the pond I walked earlier this week writing his memoirs, as a guide to restoring rhythms.  He reminded us that we otherwise "lead lives of quiet desperation", which I believe is the price we pay for being out of touch with who we are and what we are, minus our attachments and conditioning.

A year was his choice, and an amazing choice it was - such a guide to us all, who continue to so greatly profit by his sacred record, On Walden Pond, which reads like a flowing meditation.  A day was my choice, and when I return next week to my home so far away from here, and my work, it will be an hour or two as many times a week as I can grab. 

Perhaps I'm greedy, but I don't think so.  I'm just trying to survive, knowing long ago without my rhythms my Self is gone forever.

For You

The only way to know yourself is to know your rhythms.  How ironic that when we settle back in a comfortable, supported position, close our eyes, and tune in to our deepening breath, we enter our sacred center from which we can then radiate outward in corresponding essence partnership with the natural world.

So here, of course, are my recommendations - today's Top Ten:

1.  On as regular a basis as you can prioritize, get yourself out in nature for an hour or longer.

2.  Every day spend five minutes or longer simply being fully present and singularly focused on your regular, deep breaths.

3.  Spend fifteen minutes or longer each day observing the world you live in with all your sense fully "plugged in" - see, hear, taste, touch, smell.

4.  Let yourself be lovingly touched by life - animal, plant, human, earth, air, water, fire - beyond judgment.

5.  Be greatly honest with yourself and others.

6.  Listen unconditionally to your feelings, and watch them release themselves like waves beyond your ego-driven interference, miraculously offering their meaningful gifts to you.

7.  Spend five or more minutes every day sitting outside, empty - by that I mean, not thinking or doing anything.

8.  Sit by a body of water as regularly as possible.

9.  At least once a month, take a half-hour and record your worst fears, asking your restored rhythmical self to accept and, through its endless flow, release them as You Will.

10. Every day, say to yourself 10 things you love about life, and take a moment when you've finished to settle back, close your eyes, deepen your breath, and say,  "Blessed Be".

(Picture downloaded from Wikipedia Commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg)

Your Recent Positive Feedback

Well I went ahead and decided to share your feedback.  It means a lot to me and your encouragement is an integral part of the process to bring Centering online.  So here are a couple of comments people made after receiving the last email newsletter.  I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.

The Power of Letting Go Times 10

Let Go

I call it the most essential recovery piece, given our cultural woundedness, for integrative healing.  Here are, in no particular order, my top 10 results of being willing to let go:

1.   You disentangle

2.   You transcend power struggles

3.   You evolve

4.   You have proof that you can - and do - survive

5.   You separate from your wounded ego

6.   You free your intuition and tremendous authentic spirit to well advise you

7.   You take a breather

8.   You experience a different universe

9.   You experience reality beyond agenda

10.  You are fully present in mindfulness

The How-to

B-R-E-A-T-H-E.  Settle back now, open your body's position so your body is free from tension, relaxed and supported, and begin counting ten (today's magic number) full, deep, easy breaths.

Now say . . . each and every time you inhale . . . this phrase . . . let be . . . each and every time you exhale . . . let go.

Experience . . . detachment.  Float, in the endless, opening space of your free consciousness, en-joy . . .

To Shift

Slowly, easily return to full, waking consciousness, and open your eyes.  Now, continuing to enjoy this space you've created of being detached, write in your own journal the above "top ten" list, changing all the "you's" to "I's" - and then go back and complete each sentence through your present experience of letting go.

Then choose, as you are moved, in any and all aspects of your present life with whatever corresponding challenges are occurring.  See what happens, and resolve to once a day - or more! - let go.    

Sin's Root

It's All Rot

I almost titled this, "Sin's Rot".  Even typos engage in synchronicity, I guess.  We do tend to think of sin as involving "rotting" behaviors, do we not?  It's interesting, though, to note that the root of the word "sin" from the original Hebrew means "missing the mark".

Nothing more than a mistake, is the real bottom line here.  No one burns in hell (I dare you to find any greater example of hell than the many possibilities that exist here on earth), no one is reduced to being lesser than anyone else.  Like babies learning to walk, we fall down, we make a mistake, we "miss the mark", we sin.  So what's the big deal?

Infinite Stones

It does take a lot of chutzpah, to reveal my particular ethnic/religious roots, to accuse someone of sinning in the usually-understood sense of the word.  Of course, as Jesus said, "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone." 

We would be hard put to find that person, and yet the world hotly behaves, and eagerly participates, in casting more "stones" than one could ever count, if we include more modern-day versions like, well, even all the way up to nuclear warheads . . . It's a "he said/she said" times populations, that make up nations' endless cycles of blame which compose all of recorded history, to be really specific.  And when - where - will it end?

Sanctioned Violence

The center is sanctioned violence that is virtually infinite, endlessly harmful.  The Dalai Lama advises us to seek to be harmless as the highest virtue we are capable of.  Mistakes really aren't the point here.  Forgiveness - next step up, speaking of evolution - requires acknowledging wrongdoing, or making mistakes, and simply accepting that this has occurred. 

Of ocurse this is a paradox, so we know we're really in a spiritual ballpark here, because everything in the spiritual ballpark is a paradox.  Can we stretch our consciousness enough beyond blame to state yes, there has been wrongdoing - mistakes - and I fully acknowledge that?

The Position to Create Miracles

Now we're in the realm of responsibility, and when we know we're able to respond, we are powerfully and fully present in the world.  In this position we can create miracles, inspire ourselves and others, and authentically support the greater whole, which is always the greater good. 

I noted another typo just now with the word inspire.  I started to type it as sinpire,  so I'm going to play with it a bit more.  Fire can extinguish wrongdoing - it burns it away - so I think we'ere getting warm here (can't resist the pun) speaking of tracking down  the roots of blame (I believe the full term is "hellfire and damnation").  I guess we're back  - have we ever left it? - to burning in hell.  The problem is, per the way this story goes, it goes on and on, forever and ever.

The Roots of Development

Here's the real truth.  When we are able to take responsibility through being fully present, which is to respond from heightened awareness, we can see and freely admit to making a mistake, understanding as well that we then can learn to correct it.  We do know how to correct, remembering my example of how we learn to walk. 

We crawl - this is development - we manage to stand up - we fall - we pick ourselves up and repeat, as long as it takes for us to learn to balance ourselves and take a step.  Then there are two steps, and eventually there are many more.

Dare to Inspire

This hasn't happened yet, according to recorded history, in spiritual terms.  We stopped at blame and burning in everlasting fires with no development to follow.  And note - the world is in terrible shape.  We are not infants, even though we continue to act like it. 

We live in critical times, times that loudly call for us to grow up, to dare to inspire ourselves to learn to live harmlessly with ourselves and one another, daring as well to admit our mistakes and determine how to do better, and better, and better, until we no longer miss the mark and can behave like compassionate, accepting human beings who acknowledge living in sacred, creating space fully dependant on each others' best graces as the fullest expression of the divine. 

Client example: to describe an inner journey

In the spirit of this holiday season, I wanted to post this wonderful poem
by another member of my monthly memoir writing group, completed in response
to my recommendation from the previous class to write a poem describing an
inner journey to one's heart.  Happy Equinox, spring (where is it?), Easter,
Passover . . . and beyond . . .

in-joy - Marjorie
------------------------------------------------------
Taped to our refrigerator, is a poem, very yellow and aged but one that has followed me thru many moves. It‘s title is “Not in Vain” by Emily Dickinson.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again
I shall not live in vain

As our Sunday sermon on Stewardship was delivered a few weeks back, my mind began to compose some thoughts in church.  I decided to put these thoughts into verse when I returned home.

HELP WANTED
I took a walk thru life one day
And this is what I saw
The many faces of a crowd
Following me, calling to me, begging me
To remember them with kindness

I took a walk thru life one day
Imagining what might happen
Would good fortune come to those who also walk
Or only just a few?

Who decides where each blessing falls?
Who pray tell is in charge of it all?
Anyone can say “get moving”
But who determines our will and spirit?

Trouble surfaces on many corners
Homes are not always a safe place to be
Children do not feel secure or wanted
Violence visits way too many too frequently

My walk is of no value, if action is not taken
My steps become an echo if I do not heed the call
My walk needs a direction, a purpose
I need God’s hand and help to make it work at all.                   

March 2008
------------------------------------
I welcome client submissions.  Your story, your thoughts, your feelings are
not only powerful testimonials to your own healing and development journeys,
but wonderful related offerings to others'.  Keep 'em coming to
marjorie@centeringtools.com, with many thanks.

One Chapter At a Time

I'm happy to share with you all one of the pieces a client wrote in my senior memoir writing class.  I anticipate you'll all enjoy this as much as I did. 

-----------------------------------------------------------

One Chapter At A Time

Life is like a book.  You live it one chapter at a time.  At present, I am living chapter seventy in my book.  I have a zest for life.  I take the good with the bad and try to make the best of it always wondering what comes next.  How a person lives their life will determine how good the book will turn out.

When I was a little girl, I often wondered what my future life would be like.  My parents were divorced and my sister and I lived in foster homes.  We moved every couple of years or so.  My father wanted us to remain together.  This started with chapter three and continued until chapter eighteen.  I always lived with an eye on, “what comes next?”  My sister was only fifteen months older than I.  We were treated almost like twins wherever we were living.  We were in the same grade from second on as my sister was kept back a year.  I had almost finished chapter eleven when my father died.  It was only six days before the start of chapter twelve.  Chapter seventeen of my life was saddened by the fact that my sister moved out after graduation and we were physically separated for the first time.  Even though my sister moved miles away for most of her adult life, we were never farther than a phone call away.  My sister passed on in chapter sixty-nine and left a void that cannot be replaced.

My life has many chapters that contain mysteries.  I’m getting better at solving them as time goes on.  There are adventures in all the chapters, some good and others not so good.  There are happy times and sad times.  I pity people that get stuck on a chapter in their life and can’t get past the insignificant details to continue on.  They keep reliving the same things over and over, holding grudges and staying angry as if that will change the chapter.  Once it is written, it is best to move on. 

I know someone who keeps repeating what her life was like when she was young and living at home.  She didn’t have it easy but if I say so myself, it wasn’t as difficult as most people had it at that time.  Besides, all the people that hurt her are gone now.  She holds the resentment and anger and it is keeping her from enjoying what little she might have left in her life.  She has so many blessings and can’t acknowledge them because she is caught in the past.  Her book has almost seventy chapters, all the same.  It would be a boring read. 

My philosophy is to record the facts and move on to the future with hope that all will be much better.  Live your life one chapter at a time and make each one an adventure. 

Compassionate Touch Therapy

The Key Word is Compassion

This year I have put together a series of continuing education staff development programs for several Rochester area nursing homes and their staff caregivers, on an integrative approach I've synthesized for energetic healing called Compassionate Touch Therapy.  What is it, and how can it better help us support and center ourselves and others whom we care for and about?

The word compassion, according to the Tibetan definition, means detached loving.  The Tibetans also say compassion represents the highest emotion we're capable of experiencing.  To be loving without agenda, expectation, and judgment requires a space of inner detachment, which is not uncaring - it is openness - like the openness of a sacred channel.

The Foundation of Energetic Healing

When we can energetically open ourselves as a channel for universal life force energy, the Source which enlivens and sustains us endlessly, we can, in a hands-on way, transmit this energy fully to wherever we centrally focus our meditative intent.  The synthesis of Compassionate Touch Therapy integratively and holistically combines basic elements of Reiki and Therapeutic Touch with a foundation of energetic healing that I have created within my Centering practice.

The steps involved that I've created are both simple and, within the challenges of typical day-to-day life, difficult.  These are centering, building, transmitting, separating, and returning to center.

Five Steps to Completion

Centering is an inner-directed, meditative approach that involves entering your own sacred stillness through allowing your breath to unfold to its deepest, fullest extent in order to let go and let be.  This is how we come to center.

Building is how we position our hands, understood to be transmitters for healing, with our inner-directed spiritual intent from our center, to open as a channel, and allow universal life force energy to fully flow and build.  We are then in full position to transmit.

Transmitting flows from whatever particular position the hands are placed in, with ongoing intent to promote maximum healing responses from a place of letting go and letting be.  This occurs through a light touch, holding the hands in each particular position for as long as one is intuitively moved to do so - generally anywhere from thirty seconds to several minutes.

Separating is what I call "the clean break" which occurs when the healer comes to know, from an inner place of heightened awareness, that the treatment is complete, and simply withdraws their hands and focused intent from connected positions, with a sense of blessing and release.  Separating is always fueled by a sense of trust and acceptance of higher outcome.

Returning to center is the final inner-directed act to return, after separating, to one's own sacred inner center, continuing to experience on the inner planes of consciousness, letting go and letting be.  All healing occurs within a sacred spiritual circle that allows us to fully experience the divine universe of integrative, endless, multidimensional body-mind healing.

A New Definition of Healing

Healing continues, and can be easily reactivated for greater and greater sustaining results with each determined cycle of Compassionate Touch Therapy.  Energy, said Einstein, can be neither created nor destroyed, and, being subtle and in a constant state of motion, can "get through" anything. 

So Compassionate Touch Therapy reaches - touches - beyond - and is without limits in its potential scope.  This is our capability and our highest function as spiritual beings of enlightened consciousness adventuring on the earth plane, transcending even fear and woundedness.  Perhaps that is the real definition of healing.   

Freedom From Stress

We have known for nearly two generations that stress is a physiological response to change, that we perceive on multifaceted levels - by that I mean emotional, physical, psychological - as a threat to our survival.  In receiving this threat within our internal systems, we are called upon to respond in only two ways: to “fight or flight.”   

Our body quickly mobilizes to give us added strength and speed, which expresses as rapid heart rate and shallow, rapid breathing.  This changes the oxygen and carbon dioxide balance in our systems, which causes our veins and arteries to constrict, making it more difficult for the circulation of blood, oxygen, and elimination.  Accompanied with these basic responses can be sensations of both physical and psychological pain which serve as further warnings and directives to separate one from what is perceived to be the source of the stress, or threat.

Physiological symptoms associated with the stress response include headache, stomachache, constipation, diarrhea, chest pain, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, chills, palpitations, blurred vision, and impaired hearing.  Psychological symptoms include depression, confusion, anxiety, denial, avoidance, inability to make decisions, panic, paranoia, projection, violent/aggressive behavior, fear, hyperactive behavior, inability to perform tasks, procrastination, impaired judgment, narcissistic behavior, sleep disturbance, nightmares, and convoluted thinking. 

Like Pandora opening the box and meeting all the ills of the world, the stress response, only initiated by our basic need and right to insure our survival, carries us into terrible “stuck points”.  That is why so many books, courses and approaches have been offered to free the Self from this response, which is what this chapter is about: clearing a space within yourself and disconnecting these systems, or turning off the “red alert”. On an electromagnetic level the stress response ties up our energies, forcing us to communicate along rigid signal lines that are fear-based. We must evolve those “fight or flight” patterns in order to create a significant shift into a safe space.

Exercise I

Write the word “STRESS” at the top of a clean sheet of paper.  Write whatever words or phrases come into your mind, one word or phrase to a line, in response to this word, until you have run out of ideas.  Now look over what you have written.  This is a picture you have painted of the part stress continues to play in your life, as well as your response to these stresses, and how you have identified the source of the threat to your survival.  What do you think about this map?  Write down your responses. 

Exercise II

Your response is your beginning dialogue with your inner self about your stress response.  This is designed by your inner self, the center of your being, which is free from stress, to direct you through this gridwork “up and out”.  Just stay with your feelings for a few moments. Now imagine that somehow your feelings carry you to a safe place of beingness.  What happens inside you through this experience?  Record your insights.

10 Top Tips for Assertive Success!

Free Yourself from Being A Grown-up "Good Little Girl"

Assertiveness is a well-worn word in our culture, but still a goal that many people struggle with.  I do a lot of assertiveness training in my practice, which continues to involve a lot of women clients. 

It is also well-known, and for a very long time, that women were not, until fairly recently, given training or permission to be assertive.  Instead, women have, for many millenia actually, been hugely conditioned to be "good little girls" . . . for life.

Be Good to Yourself

So here is my crash course on assertiveness, especially dedicated to all you grown-up good little girls out there who now need to be good to yourself, and free yourself and your powerful voice to Speak Up.

10 Ways to ASSERT YOURSELF

1.  Give direct eye contact

2.  Use the word "I" or "me" when you speak - "I think", I feel", "for me it's this way", etc.

3.  Let go of expectation

4.  Let go of looking to fix anyone else on any level

5.  Let go of looking for anyone else to fix you on any level

6.  Take at least 5 full, deep breaths before you open your mouth

7.  Don't speak out of obligation

8.  Don't justify how you feel

9.  Speak from a central awareness of being true to yourself

10. Tell yourself before you speak you'll survive the exchange and life will go on

Our Inalienable Right to Speak

We are entitled to our thoughts and feelings.  It is our inalienable right to freely express ourselves and to be heard, and listened to attentively. 

Whether someone else has an opinion about what we say does not change our right to speak, nor does anyone else have the right to presume how we think and feel.  Assertiveness is an integrated way to accept and love yourself unconditionally, empower yourself, and put yourself on an equal footing with all other human beings.

So . . . . whaddya got to lose?  Speak up . . . . and keep breathin'!

Healing the Wound of Discard

A Client's Story

Yesterday I received an email from a longstanding client who has done some amazing healing  and empowering work that continues to transform her life.  She generously gave me permission to include her wonderful story in this blog article, which I feel "touches, teaches and passes on " a central healing challenge.  Here is her story, with my comments following (she asks to remain anonymous):

Today I met a man at the library.  We were both looking through the reference section for old fashioned illustrations and woodcuts.  He was looking for drawings of children and I was looking for drawings of tools.  I had gathered five large books and had them spread out before me. 

He had an ivy cap on, and a scarf and coat.  He had pale skin, bright blue eyes and large ears, and appeared to be in his 80's.  He was walking past me and then he stopped and said "Are you an artist?"

I said, "Yes".  He had a thick Russian accent.  It took my brain a couple seconds to distinguish some of his words because of the way he pronounced certain things.  So I found myself really looking into his eyes and paying attention to his gestures to help me discern what he was saying.

"Did you go to school for the art?"  "Yes", I said.  "You have a degree?", he queried.  "What is this for?", I asked.  "I am looking for a picture to scan in.  Of an anvil.  For my father."

"Oh. And you have a degree? Four years?"

"Yes," I answered.  He explained how he had taken a drawing class, and began to pull out his drawing pad, which was nestled inside a slim plastic case with other things.  It was well-used.  He opened it up and showed me a couple of the drawings.  They were of children's faces, all portraits.

He stopped at one, of a young African-American girl.  He said it took him fifteen minutes to draw.  The line work was light and soft and yet there was dimension to the face.  There was no outline, just slight feathery marks.  The eyes were captured in delicate marks and implied, not forced.  The strokes to indicate shadow were so soft and delicate, but at the same time intentional.   There was not a single mark on that piece of paper that wasn't necessary.

He said, "These are supposed to be the golden years.  But I feel ... discarded."

He mentioned that he comes to the library on Saturdays and Sundays and that if I would like, "Nothing planned, not important...just...if you would like, I could draw you.  Here. I might be here at 1 on Sundays, or Saturdays too.  I sit in the far corner where the light is good.  I like that area near the windows.  Not important but if you are here....who knows?"

He stuck out his hand, I asked his name and he said "________" in his thick accent, and I told him my name was _______ and we shook.  Then he disappeared.

I thought about the word DISCARDED afterwards.  I felt very sorry for him when he said that.

And I thought about the fact that I feel a lot of things in my daily life, and in my struggles, the one thing I have NEVER felt was discarded. 

He didn't seem sad about feeling discarded.  He merely stated it as fact.  And moved on.

His drawings, his eyes, his slow way of talking, and observations about art, all moved me.  He was able to distill his life into simple terms, and yet ... his life, to me, seems more meaningful and true than so much of the clutter and waste that I see around me.

A Central Wound

A fate worse than death, truly, to be discarded.  That is what the Nazis did with Holocaust victims.  In our culture we do, in many extensive ways, discard the elderly.  Within our own self as our ego's attempt to hide our central wound of not being enough, we discard ourselves.  We discard whoever we want to distance ourselves from to shield ourselves from conditioned or anticipated pain.

The antidote, of course, is to face - to accept fully and unconditionally what is real. 

A Meditative Journaling Exercise

Settle back comfortably in a relaxed position, eyes closed, and take several full, deep breaths.  Now imagine how easily you can ask your higher self to appear before you.  As you have a sense that this is happening, ask your higher self to show you any parts of you, your life, your present, your hopes, and what you truly care about that has been discarded.

As your higher self responds, take note within your own attentive imagination.  When you feel complete with this exercise, open your eyes and record your experience.

The Healing Challenge

. . . is to take back what you have sacrificed - discarded.  You can do this so easily by simply reviewing the list you have made, and choosing again what your heart asks you to keep.  It is a call to wholeness, to recovery.

Remember - you're so much, much more than you ever think you are.  And as we think, so, as James Allen says in his classic book As A Man Thinketh, shall we be.     

Top 10 Reasons to Meditate Every Day

Ten Ways to Connect to the Divine

Here are my top 10 reasons to meditate every day:

1.   Clear your head

2.   Take a "power nap"

3.   Be in touch with your amazing spirit and the Source

4.   Unleash your creative potential

5.   Hear amazing insights from your intuition

6.   "Zone"

7.   Release physical, mental, emotional and spiritual stress

8.    Get away from it all

9.   Allow your breathing rhythms to fully regulate themselves

10. Give your body and mind a complete oxygen bath

And there are so many more . . .

What's Simplest, Fastest, and Still Gives All These Benefits

You can meditate in less than a minute.  Try this Centering exercise:

Settle back in a comfortable position with arms and legs uncrossed, close your eyes, and count three full, deep, easy breaths to yourself.  Now for these next several breaths as you inhale, say the phrase Let Be to yourself; and as you exhale, say the phrase Let Go to yourself.  Be as fully present with all that happens as possible, and when you feel complete for now in this experience, gradually return to full, waking consciousness and open your eyes.

How Do You Feel?

See what comes up inside you in response to this question, noticing all your sensations.  Fifteen minutes of meditating has been said by Dr. Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response, to provide the equivalent of a full night's restful sleep. 

I remember years ago a client telling me that he had no time to meditate when I told him about Dr. Benson's recommendation to receive the full benefit of this miraculous relaxing and recharging self-help and healing practice.  I asked him if he had 5 minutes a day.  He smiled and said "Yes", and has told me that since then he loves to tell everyone he meets this story.

Are You Worth 5 Minutes A Day?

This is the question I most often ask clients when I recommend this simple yet transformational guided meditation.  I also add there are no side effects, it is FREE (and what in the world other than breathing these days is?), and there is no required certification, higher level degree, or additional equipment necessary than your own amazing mind and central will.

I rest my case, and your well-being, on your willingness to set your breath - and yourself free.  Happy experimenting!

   

What is "Atonement"?

The Much-Publicized Movie

I love English period pieces, especially about class relationships, as well as the history of Europe between the world wars.  Last weekend my daughter agreed to accompany me to see "Atonement", a much-publicized movie about the tragedy and prejudice of class struggle in pre-World War II England through a never-consumated romance. 

I thought the acting was superb, the scenes powerfully shot, and yet I felt hollow after seeing it - and strangely fulfilled and affirmed.  Signals enough for me to, per usual, check-in with my deeper reflective space as to what was going on.

Our Most Terrible Tragedy

I didn't have to wait long for a response.  How much I identified with the central themes of this movie, which went far beyond its shattering title!

What hit me first is how we all experience the unfair, terrible tragedy of only getting a glimpse at best of what we want with all our heart and soul, and what seems available to us, only to have it shut down, snatched away, disappear or be ruthlessly destroyed by some uncaring at best - malevolent at worst - outside force.

Not to Be Set Right

Next was the typical acting-out, narcissistic behaviors of adolescence that carelessly, dramatically and ignorantly fuel tremendously cruel consequences to those the adolescent is closest to, who are absolutely innocent.  Even one impulsive act, though, can so centrally ruin lives and be then regretted by this adolescent helplessly forever.

Now we come to the film's title - a not so often discussed aspect of coming of age, which is to have the horrible realization upon maturing that an impulsive, childish, histrionic, vengeful, self-centered act can produce evil results to beloved others - and that nothing can make it right.  Everyone is stuck with the results, as if they were transported from a caring, ethical world into a living nightmare.

The Only Question to Ask Yourself

The truth of the matter is - who hasn't done this and lived to regret it?  This is part of the normal developmental crisis of adolescence, which in this context plays out as follows:  waste no time rushing to dish out the full thrust of your most intense emotional pain to those you're closest to - and don't waste a moment thinking about the real ramifications, otherwise known as consequences - so long as you feel, in just a brief moment, vindicated and unconsciously relieved. 

Think before you speak . . . ask yourself just one question, To What End?  Emotional pain doesn't go away if we feel driven beyond recognition to peel it off and attempt to stick it on someone else with some nonsensical rationalization as to exactly why we end up doing this, to ourselves and to the world.

The Shadow of the Wounded Ego

Shadows expressing a wounded ego may be sticky, alright, but there's nothing we can do to get it to stick to anyone else but us.  Maybe it's really the end of the line of our conscience, no matter where, in a freaked-out, cowardly moment of transference fueled by fear, we stuff it.

Do we all as human beings go through a coming of age rite of passage way beyond adolescence, where we are meant to grow up enough to incorporate atonement in our lives as a central driving creative force?  What would this unleashed force do to transform the world?

Set A Tone

I love the break-up of syllables of the core word, "At-one", or "A-tone".  Unconditionally attentive listening as an objective observer allows us, in stepping back and paying full attention, to wholeheartedly and fully embrace our Great Spirit and the universal flow of the then free to be equally aligned humanity, which is a most compelling vibrational frequency to operate under. 

It is a frequency which inspires, transcends, and extends our capacity to embrace opportunities to give and be fully present in loving, with ourselves and each other.  We are here to support and trust, and together, move forward to a better future.

Self Develops, the World Can Breathe Again

The movie ends with that outcome, but makes sure to note that it is only imaginative, albeit reflecting the heartfelt wishes of She Who Lives to Regret and Atone Through the Rest of Her  Permanently Marred Life that supports her becoming an acclaimed writer. 

Consequences are consequences, and evolution does not, we understand as we come of age, guarantee us happily ever after endings.  Suffering, though, as all great spiritual tranditions tell us, fuels greater conciousness and awe-inspiring creativity, not to mention a new honesty born of accepting responsibility as the cost of exercising personal power.

Perhaps that is the real secret to saving the world and ourselves "at-one" fell creative swoop.  What an act of personal and global daring that would be!