Hello

I like to spend my stuck time in traffic in open-eyed meditation at the red-stop-light. This way I reduce my stress, time passes effortlessly, and I feel rejuvenated.  I notice this behavior seems to align me with the universe, and frequently as a result, I discover that something good comes out of it.

It’s all in going with the flow, rather than resisting it.

I have noticed that this is very effective with all types of obstacles.

Obstacles can be gifts if we can decode the lesson they are bringing to us.

This is tricky when the obstacle is standing in the way of something we Know we are supposed to create or something we really want.  It’s difficult to see them as gifts.  They look a lot like blockages from without.  And we want to respond to them in true five-year-old fashion:  stomping our foot and saying NO!

We can get confused by the blockage or obstacle. We get caught up in defining it; examining it; lamenting it; proving the obstruction.  This behavior keeps us stuck.  And it removes the necessary energy required to move through them.

If you take all that same intellectual energy to observe and identify the obstacle as a gift then you get the opportunity to move through it.  It opens us to the energy needed for its removal or transformation; to see the true nature of the problem.

When obstacles are observed and responded to as gifts they change form miraculously, it’s like magic.  Poof.

When I decided to begin writing it was in reaction to an obstacle.

I had written a beautiful description of a period of time that really changed my life, a Black Swan, a transformative event through which one must recover.  I had submitted it for publishing through a magazine contest.  I felt certain this was going to transport me into living the life of a writer, as I had hoped to create.

It was a powerful story and my writing was competent.  The day came when the winner was announced and it was not me.

I was devastated.  I felt the universe had let me down.  By not choosing me the magazine editors had put an obstacle onto my path.  I couldn’t become a writer if I wasn’t chosen.

Interesting perspective:  Not being chosen took away my chance at fulfilling my plan.

In reality the universe had given me an obstacle through which I needed to push to embrace my full self.  I had to choose to create my path.  It needed to come from within, not without.

In these kinds of circumstances, when we are faced with an obstacle, it is some aspect of ourselves that is being presented in some material form for us to resolve.

The question here isn’t who can you be, or who does the universe say you are but rather who are you and who do you want to be.

Obstacles, viewed as gifts, can present you with an internal dilemma that you may have hidden from yourself.  They may be external and material – but actually representative of a far greater, more intimate, spiritual issue which you need to resolve.

Right, bad traffic probably isn’t that kind of obstacle – but it is an opportunity to practice being in the flow with the universe so that when those other kinds of obstacles present themselves you can be practiced in the art of moving through them toward your true self.

This is one of the most powerful gifts we can teach our children. If they can perfect this behavior at a young age, of viewing an obstacle as a gift in some way, they can avoid all those negative social activities that interfere with their health and growth developmentally, intellectually, and spiritually.

Notice what gifts the obstacles in your life are bringing to you.  It may offer you opportunities to transform yourself into a better, more real you.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

Creating space is an interesting process; it incorporates intention and action.

Space is physical; but it’s also energetic, psychological, and metaphoric in nature.

Clutter can be physical – like too much stuff making it difficult to move, mental – like old belief patterns that don’t serve you and make it difficult to think through things, and it can also be energetic – like agreements and time related commitments, that lock you into rote ways of being.

Needing a space to focus on meditation and be open for divine inspiration is part of creating space but needing the space to think is something more intangible.

When creating space you may find you get ready for change (intention) and then you have to get rid of the old wood (action) to make space for the divine to appear.  Or you are inspired to do something (intention) and then you create the space for it to happen (action).  This happens on the material/physical level as well as energetic and psychological levels.

We had this thick, overgrown, but very healthy juniper under our front window.   It didn’t require much attention and was green so it seemed to work in our yard.  But over the last few months I began to visualize that area as a place where I could create some space for us to be together and utilize our yard more efficiently.

Last year we had created a fantastic medicine wheel in our lawn, just in front of that juniper, with benches to allow for a meditative sitting environment.  It was an energizing change.  However, over time, the juniper felt too heavy in the space with the medicine wheel.  Outside the wheel it felt stunted.  The space allowed for focused, walking meditation in the wheel but there wasn’t space to have a meditative sitting experience or to utilize the area for other indwelling activities.

Even the living-room space inside the house, on the other side of the window, felt dense.  It felt as if there wasn’t any breathing room.

So we decided to Zen-i-fy the area; enlightening and thinning out the thickness of the bushes, allowing the light and air to move through the branches.

We cut out all the inner thicket of juniper so that you could see through the branches and only the tips were green.  It made the juniper have a buoyant and flexible quality rather than a stiff thickness.   And the entire area behind it became available for a tranquil and renewing meditation space.

The process was hard work yet we seemed to feel more rejuvenated as we progressed.  We felt en-lightened ourselves – all of us working earnestly on the project as a family.

I added small, secret places for my daughter to explore, wind chimes, and focal points for meditation and relaxation.  The result is a lovely, inviting, yet private space for us to dwell inward, individually and together.  Our dear neighbor has already come by and shared fairy tea with my daughter – quite healing.

Did this happen as a result of a yearning to create a space, an inspiration?  Or was it just an overgrown area that we just noticed because of the earlier changes?

The concept of creating space incorporates both a letting go and a focusing in, action and intention.

This space has been percolating in my mind’s eye for many months now.  And as a result little images of what could be, and how I want it to look and feel, keep popping out in front of me, sort of guiding me through the process.

My inspiration is a combination of a fantastic meditation garden in San Diego that I used to visit each year while visiting a dear friend, my neighbor’s amazing secret garden that she has continued to shape over the years, and a couple of superb, giant castle and royal statues made of framed stucco.

The San Diego meditation garden has an amazing spiritual and Zen feel to it with flowers and shaped bushes, ponds, and the smell, sound and view of the ocean for meditative focus.  My neighbor’s garden is like a hidden fantasy with live wild creatures and artistic creatures and plants of adobe climbing her walls.

My desire is to mix these various features and provide many spaces for meditative contemplation, discovery, and play.  Creating space without, to allow for space creation within.

Each change allows for the space to create anew my inner and outer environment.  I find myself releasing inner thought and habit patterns along with the release of the physical components.  The space for inward focus and transformation internally seems to be dancing along with the physical changes.  What a treat to watch it all unfold.

Clearing out the old wood aptly applies to the thinning and pruning of the juniper but it is also applicable to releasing thought patterns, belief systems, and habits that no longer serve one’s inner sense of self or divine purpose.

Space creation is required for any kind of transformation or re-formation, both from within and without.

Notice what thought or belief patterns that seem to be driving your unwanted habits.  See if you can dis-entangle the aspect of these that are basic to your values – that drive you forward toward your divine inspiration – and the parts that are dead wood that keep you stuck.

Then let go, set an intention, and create space to allow an inner transformation – you may find that you too require some physical de-cluttering as well to create space for your future self to be here now.  Or perhaps you need to only utilize the physical space that you already have in your environment to create a time-space to allow your inner transformation through meditation.

Creating space is a perspective issue.  It is en-lightening and rejuvenating.  It allows for your inner landscape as well as your outer landscape to change form in a dynamic way.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

When I think of meditation I think of it as a form of connecting and listening to one’s inner being.  It allows for an inward focus.

Along with focused breathing and sitting meditation, there are various forms of meditation including repetitive physical activities, especially those that require focused or concentrated breathing, like yoga, hiking, walking, and running.

Whether sitting and meditating with focused breathing, or participating in physical activities, or doing household chores in a mindful way, the energy of breathing and focusing inward allows for the positive effects of meditation to occur.  These all feel similar to me, they each bring me inward while simultaneously connecting me to the whole of the universe.

They allow for mindfulness within my singular perspective as well as an inner clarity that we are all connected; it’s like a spiritual figure/ground experience.

Over the years I have discovered that inward focus is the most useful way to center and get a clear perspective on a situation.

It is healing; it is rejuvenating.

Meditation and yoga require focused breathwork.

Bringing the concept of focused breathwork to an activity can create a mindful, inward focused,  meditative form of activity.  For me many physical activities (hiking, gardening, painting, singing, running, fly fishing, ice skating) allow me to center, bring my attention within,  and focus my breath.

The act-ivity with mindfulness allows for me to breathe, center, connect, and let go simultaneously.  Being mindful activates the action, shifts the energy of it, so that it becomes a process whereby I can focus inward.

Breathing in and breathing out in a mindful way allows for a centering and connecting energy to focus one’s attention inward.  This in turn allows for our vision to change such that, what and how we see ourselves, or outside situations, has the opportunity to shift perspective and usually this shift is healing and rejuvenating.

Inward focus allows for the lens of our vision to change perspective.

This inward mindful focus allows for balance to infuse a situation.

I have used the activity of running as a meditative practice intermittently since my early twenties.  I prefer to run with my dog, and sometimes with music, to allow my unconscious to bubble up that which requires my attention.

The mindless repetitive action of moving through space at a comfortable breathing pace allows my mind to process whatever issue is bothering me, it allows a space for mindfulness. It makes the running the ground so that the issues that require my attention can move to the fore as the figure.  It allows for me to re-view situations, interactions, or problems that are unresolved.  Allowing for an inner space to see the issues from a new perspective.

I think it is the reason that I don’t run in races and have a bit of a recoiling response to the thought of doing so.

I have a very dear friend who is top of her game at every physical activity she undertakes.  She is awesome.  She began running recently and knowing that I run daily invited me to join her in training for a race.  I saw this as an opportunity to share in the running experience with a dear friend and so for a couple of weeks began to focus on training when I was running.  I found it to be de-stabilizing and frustrating – gone were my healing moments in my busy day where I felt connected to the universe – now there was speed work and pacing myself; rather than feeling calmer after my run, I felt a bit anxious and somewhat defeated.

I discovered that I run for meditation not for training.

My dear friend ran in her first race recently and took first place in her age group – it brought her a lot of satisfaction.  Me too for her.

My satisfaction for myself came outside the race, I had my daily meditative run and found my own inward focus to bring me the space to be at peace in my somewhat difficult world.

Knowing how to get to your center will help you to rejuvenate and deal effectively with stress.

And once you find those ways make sure you maintain your connection to them.  Finding space and creating space for inward focus and re-balancing goes far to diminish the negative effects of stress.

You may already have an activity that does this for you.  Something that you are drawn to do whenever you feel stressed.  Something that after you do you feel more balanced or rejuvenated.

It may be spiritual or physical in nature, it may involve a talent that you have but do not promote.  At any rate you will know it when you see/feel it.  Because it will have the tell-tale effects of lowering your blood pressure, bringing to you a sense of calmness and balance or simply result in you feeling a positive change in perspective on things following the activity.

Spend some time on inward focus and see if you can’t discover for yourself what meditative activities you already undertake and then build them in as part of your every day ritual.

It’s funny how the mundane is often a way into the divine.  Find your way in, and use it often.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

Building memories is a beautiful way to build a structure of who you are and what matters to you.  What you choose to focus on to build the memory is often the defining element of how that structure will be experienced.

When you build your sense of self on the joyful experiences in your life then your foundation has its basis in joy.  If you build your sense of self on the trauma or things you have survived then your foundation will be on struggle.

This is not a Pollyanna perspective it is basic engineering.  The form takes the shape of the foundation.

To be successful and flexible it’s best to allow a balanced set of memories to be the foundation of your sense of self.  To allow the picture of how you survived and the whole-ness of the gift of the struggle to be incorporated with the joy and successes in your life.

I like to talk about setting into memory a picture of what it feels, looks, smells, and sounds like when everything is perfect, and in place, in your life.  Then you have a marker to go to, to remind you of the success you can create or experience.

This is like setting an imprint into your cerebral cortex so that you can re-create it in the future regardless of your situation – aligning what it feels like with what it looks like and the outcome so that you can access the feeling senses that go with success.

When I was a child, nine to fifteen years old, I was a competitive ice skater.  I awoke at 4:30 to go skating before school and then went directly to the rink after school to practice more before dinner.  I loved being on the ice.  It was the most liberating experience.  To this day, gliding across the ice brings me a sense of connection to the universe that I don’t feel anywhere else.

I had a wonderful coach who was kind and firm.  Each time I learned a new jump or move I seemed to naturally get it right, landing gracefully and effortlessly.  Then my ego and mind would get involved trying to repeat the event – what a tragedy.

It took me the longest time to learn that my being knew the way and I just had to get my head out of the way.  The memory of how it felt right in my being and body was my best way to perfect my skill.

Memories serve a purpose in several ways.

First, to help us keep connections from past to future.

Second, to mark success and mistakes to allow for learning and integration of experiences; to remind us that we have the capacity to create joy and survive trauma and loss.

Third, to create a structure of who we are in the world and a pathway to success.

The sweetness of a memory can shift our perspective, provide us with strength and purpose, and remind us of the whole of who we are.

Take the time to consciously set into memory your successes, your joyful experiences, your remembrances of sweet interactions, and your capacity to move through transitions with transformation and learning.  It will enrich your life and build a stable and flexible structure for your growth and well-being.

If it is difficult to keep these in your mind start out by writing them down in a special journal that you remove and peruse when you find your energy waning.

You will find that you are the best author of the beauty of your life if you give yourself a chance to write down these moments of perfection, these perfect moments of joy and experience.

They can be the best antidotes to anxiety and depression because they are perfectly aligned with your being, your needs and capacities,  as they come from within your being.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

I always think of caterpillars to butterflies as transformation and tadpoles to frogs as transmutation.

Each are changing forms from one to another, transubstantiation, but the processes are very different.

With the butterfly the caterpillar goes into a suspended animation state wherein the change takes place within the cocoon.  The consciousness of the caterpillar shifts within that time from crawling, leaf eating caterpillar to winged, flying, nectar eating butterfly – transforming focus, mode of transportation,  and shifting paradigm of self.

The tadpole changes as it develops so the tadpole consciousness must also be letting go of the old paradigm while shifting into the new one from swimmer to jumper.  Truly fascinating.

I think our process of development is more similar to that of the tadpole we shift over time and develop into an  in-between state before we settle on our final form.

I think this is true of us from a spiritual, psychological, and cognitive perspective too.  We transition out of a way of being and then into a neutral state and then into a new perspective.  We can have immediate, aha, shifts like the one’s we experience with figure/ground recognition but usually for our self-perception there is a changing-space in-time before we embrace fully our new self.

Snakes that shed their skins to shift into their new bodies incorporate aspects of both of these forms.

Transitions are opportunities for transforming and transmutation we can change in response to and with our environment and our experiences.

The new year, the new moon, anniversaries and birthdays are all transition times when one can consciously transition and make an intention about transformation and transmutation.  Because they are opportunities to observe what has gone before and what we want to bring into or create in the future, these times offer a space-in-between to review and assess our form.

Are we acting in ways that are congruent with what we say matters to us?

Do we allow for space for growth and honestly work toward our own well-being and happiness?

Are we holding onto an old structure or unforgiveness that we need to shed?

Do we repair the world, our emotional and physical environment, and our relationships in a dynamic and ongoing way?

These are important questions at these space-time shifts to help with our dynamic, ever-changing transformation and transmutation, our personal evolution.

So whether you are faced with an unexpected transition or one that you are consciously creating, embrace the transformation process through observation, acceptance, allowing, and letting go to smoothly flow into your transformed self.

You may discover that you are not an ugly duckling but a beautiful swan gliding through your environment…  and how cool is that?

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

Transitions and character building.  The I Ching identifies hexagram 3 as Difficulty at the Beginning – this is what I think of when I think of children who are struggling with separation anxiety – to my mind all transitions have this feeling at their core.

The name of the hexagram denotes a blade of grass pushing against an obstacle as it sprouts out of the earth….K’an the abysmal, water above and Chen the arousing, thunder below …it is representative of thunderstorm, and the calm and cleansing that returns after the storm clears.

The judgement:  Difficulty at the beginning works supreme success.  Furthering through perseverance.  Nothing should be undertaken.   It furthers one to appoint helpers.  Times of growth are beset with difficulties.  …everything is in motion therefore if one perseveres then there is a prospect of great success, in spite of the existing danger.  The image:  Clouds and Thunder the image of difficulty at the beginning thus the superior man brings order out of chaos.  pg 16 the I CHING (my bold emphasis)

Transitions are difficult no matter your age.

Transitioning requires being firm and flexible, ready to act, while patient, acting while observing and adjusting.  Transitions have to do with letting go of what isn’t needed while attaining that which is needed, and doing so in a flowing, smooth manner.

We all have a little bit of the 2-year-old response to transitions – “NO I don’t want to make the change”. As we age we are better at keeping that response under wraps but it’s there, because there is a natural resistance to change within our being.

So I say it’s good to work with what you have.

If you are feeling no to the change, that’s a good time to discover what you like about where you are.  Maybe it will allow you to embrace the shift into something new.  What is it that you feel you will miss out on with the change?

Sometimes there really is something that you feel has sustained you like a great relationship with a partner or teacher, but often it’s just the unknown aspect of the change that one is resisting.

If it is something that you have created that you are fearful you will lose then think about how to bring that experience forward with you.  For example, if it is a great relationship with a teacher, co-worker or boss – discover what made it work and recognize that you may be able to create a similar positive situation or just hold onto the good feelings of that relationship knowing that you can develop something like that in your next endeavor.

If it’s something that is about fear of the unknown, think about when you have transitioned before and what the positive outcomes have been.  Most of the time children (and adults) can identify successes they have had with transitions or in the other experience and this can bolster their self-confidence.

My daughter and I have written a group of short stories about how to move through transitions in a graceful and flowing manner.  Like a princess, fairy, or hero who knows she has to move forward and act gracefully even though she feels like stomping her foot and standing still.

These strategies are ways to use transitions to build self-esteem, character, and flexibility; they’re like helpers that assist in bringing order out of chaos.

First off it’s always good to have a warning that a transition is coming – and most transitions do allow for a built-in warning system.  We just have to be forward thinking, pay attention, and communicate.

Changes from play to work; sleep to wakefulness or visa versa; changes in which house you are staying at, or caregivers; movement from class grade to the next with new teachers, systems, and structures; work environment changes with changes in teams and focus points, most of these are set in-time such that one can be forewarned that change or transition is coming.

The elements that are problematic can be avoided by developing an increased transition time with a transitional object and a structure that the child (or adult) is able to set himself so that it is meaningful.

Transitional objects are traditionally stuffed animals but I have found this can be too obvious, and not allow sufficient privacy for the person to feel supported while feeling like it is not obvious to her peers.

Hats, shoes, socks, t-shirts, sweaters, notebooks, just about anything can be imbued with meaning to allow the person to use the item as a transitional object without necessarily telegraphing to everyone they are having difficulty.

It can be a note that someone has written to you, or a gift from the person whom you are leaving or transitioning from.  The item needs to be chosen by the transitioning person.

Setting space for the transition includes arriving earlier or spending some time developing what you may want to do or have with you during the transition time.  When transition is required to happen quickly it increases the degree of anxiety and decreases the sense of flow.  Stay calm and neutral, supportive, loving, and firm with yourself or the person transitioning; this helps to maintain smoothness and decrease a sense of fear about the change.

Setting a structure or ritual is generally very helpful for human beings.

For moms helping children with transition from grades or to a new teacher/school, creating and following a set of ritualized actions chosen by the child or developed together can be helpful – like a note, hug, walk to the class, or assistance in putting on his desk his items for the day with an identified action that means it’s time to make the transition.

For those of us dealing with more adult transitions making sure there is a structure for bringing forward the things most loved from the previous experience, or keeping a physical connection that reminds you of what worked in the previous experience, allows for an easier flow from one team to another.

Transitions have the capacity to build character, self-confidence, and flexibility which results in an increased sense of strength and joy.  It’s all in how you focus the lens, work with figure/ground and shift the paradigm.

I like the concept of that blade of grass pushing through the earth.  Transitions are required for growth.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

I like to think about mindful meditation as a way to center and get connected to both yourself and source, simultaneously.

It’s a way of centering yourself.  A way of creating space in your life so that you can slow down the processing of stimuli and allow for natural and easy connections to happen.  It’s like getting into the flow.

The process of mindful meditation allows for development of a stream of thought that connects source energy or God and self, so that you can see a thread, pattern, or sense of wholeness in the world.

This process could be described as cognitive behavioral modification that you exert onto yourself.  This is a description of conscious paradigm shifting.

It’s a process whereby you can guide your beliefs and actions.

Think of it as a way to re-set where neutral is.

For example, if I am angry and I am thinking about how someone has hurt me, I am using my cognitive abilities to continue to bring up more and more information about how this feeling is justified.

I may use various examples of how this person, or another person, has hurt me before to provide supporting evidence that I am right to be angry and they deserve my anger.  This brings me out of the flow of energy of non-anger or lovingkindness.

If my belief is that lovingkindness and compassion are the best qualities to focus my behavior, then I will feel out of sorts with this anger-promoting behavior.

If I decide to meditate mindfully, my breathwork – breathing in and breathing out – just focusing on my breath – can then allow me to become neutral and apply my cognitive abilities to support a lovingkindness perspective; one where I am taking into account all the different threads of information that may go into the event of the other person hurting me and my feeling anger about what they did/said.

It allows for conscious paradigm shifting, as I am able to view the situation from a 360 degree perspective including figure and ground perspectives.

This is useful when desiring to maintain congruency in beliefs and actions.

If my belief is that anger is a feeling that can increase my awareness of a problem or a breach, but not useful beyond this alarm-system-concept then I would want to have a resource to turn off the anger, to instruct myself on what action is necessary now that I know there is a breach, allowing a congruency between belief and action.

Mindful meditation is just that resource.

It slows the processing of information and straightens out the curves of emotional stimuli so that one can view the experience, feelings, and the actions/words of others, from a more neutral or unattached perspective.

It unlinks the feelings and the behavior, so that one can allow all the threads of the event to help evaluate what action is most beneficial to effect change toward congruent actions and beliefs.

Mindful meditation is a fantastic tool to increase one’s personal awareness about oneself.

It increases neurotransmitters that allow for an increase in connection about social situations and social behavior as well as those that promote a sense of well-being and self-confidence.

It increases a person’s sense of empowerment.  Slowing down the process of stimuli, it  increases the effectiveness of the chosen action to promote the desired outcome.

Practice mindful meditation over the next few days and apply it the next time you feel anger toward another person’s actions, words.

See if you can transform your perception of the situation and the other so that you may act in a way that is more neutral and compassionate.

You may find that you will increase your self-confidence and the positiveness of your personal relationships.  It can be very rewarding.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

The Celestine Prophecy is a book written by James Redfield that came out in the 90s.  It identified a story describing the concept of upleveling consciousness through what I consider to be mindfulness and conscious paradigm shifting.

One theme had to do with energy communication in relationship.  Or the energy exchange in/of communication.  It identified styles of interacting or communicating that had to do with the energy of power as it was dealt with in interaction and communication.  Many people are familiar with this without necessarily knowing it.

The styles were broken down into a passive poor me and  aggressive intimidator pair, and less aggressive interrogator and a less passive aloof pair.  These came in aggressive energy and passive energy pairs and created each other – (figure /ground).

They were described on a continuum from aggressive to passive energy and focused on a style of being in the world to gain power or control over another, or avoidance of the other gaining power/control over you.

The intimidator is a person who uses overt intimidation to gain power over another.  He does so through word choice, inflection, positioning, physical space and tone level of the voice.  The individual in direct relationship with this style of being in the world acts in a poor me passive style of being in the world. Again this would come across through tone, inflection, eye contact, physical space, and level of voice.

An interrogator creates an aloof style of being in the world.  And these go in both directions, creating each other.  The aloof is avoiding the interrogation, feeling it is intrusive, withholding information, avoiding, and not responding.  The interrogator is attempting to gather information or make a connection with an individual who is avoiding, feeling the aloof is distancing and retreating and hiding something.

When you look at them in pairs, as they are described, you can see the energy exchange and how they create the opposite styles of communicating.  You can see/feel the power exchange or dance.

Once the style is set within a person then it seems they continue to create it throughout their relationships.  And the paired groups find each other so as to continue the odd resolution to the identified power struggle.

You can observe this when someone interacts with you in a way that is inconsistent with your intent in the communication interaction.  When they hear what you are attempting to communicate inaccurately but forcefully, or attributes certain inferences to you that are not present from your perspective.

The book describes this concept of developing a style of communicating as based on, or in reaction to, the communication style you witnessed /experienced in childhood.

I have found this to be somewhat accurate anecdotally, that how we relate with others is representative of what happened to us and what we observed.  Furthermore I have discovered that, similar to the temperament types of the Kiersey-Bates, or Myers-Briggs, this can change over time or be different in various social situations, relating to the issue of power in relationship.

Mindfulness and conscious paradigm shifting can assist us in discerning if what we think the other person is saying/inferring/doing is part of our habit reaction pattern of communicating as described  above or something that is part present moment interaction.

Key things that may help you assess that you are caught in a habit reaction pattern style of interacting/communication are the following thoughts, feelings, experiences:

If you feel this is just like a significant other childhood relationship

If you immediately feel anger, fear or frustration or you need space or can’t breathe.

If you feel nausea or panic in your belly.

If you can’t seem to grasp, understand what the other person is saying (not because they are being obtuse)

If you feel that how you are feeling they are acting is inconsistent with who they are – ie:   they seem to be acting very mean but you know they really care about you.

The best thing to do is to try to gather more information as well as identify what you are feeling so that you can begin to get a handle on the paradigm and engage your mindfulness.

Understanding what you learned and why or from whom, regarding power in relationship really helps to develop better present moment relationships where you feel seen and loved for who you are, and can really see and love the other person for who they are.

Take some time to see if you can ascertain what you witnessed between your parents regarding these two pairs and what you may have developed as your operating system in communication style.

Then you can start to apply mindfulness to that and see if you find that you both feel more heard in your interactions and have a sense of connection that is deeper in those interactions.

See you tomorrow.

Beth

Hello

Early in my practice I discovered James Hillman”s book called Re-visioning psychology.  I thought it was visionary.

In Re-Visioning Psychology, Hillman focused on the realm of images rather than cognitions.  He focused on psyche and soul, and how we create meaning, rather than what the meaning was.  Within this is the idea that by re-working images, giving them attention and shaping and forming them, the soul seeks to set out meaning and being.

Meaning is part and parcel to the image and soul or psyche is directing the force of one’s life – to the degree one allows that process to take place.  Indeed the act of being drawn to and looking deeper at the images presented creates meaning.

This was similar to Gestalt figure/ground but it incorporated a decidedly spiritual component that I was drawn to and it provided me with deep meaning. His archetypal psychology really spoke to me and my psyche, and it pulled me forward to develop an integration of these two theories in my own personal and professional work.

In Dream and the Underworld, Hillman suggests that dreams show us as we are; diverse, dynamic, taking very different roles, experiencing fragments of meaning that are present on the tip of consciousness.

He saw dreams as placing us inside images, rather than images inside us. This shifted the perspective of figure and ground. The similarities and touch points between this and Gestalt therapy moved me forward toward a spiritual enlightenment and peacefulness that allowed me to fully accept and develop what I saw as a missing element in therapeutic work.

From my perspective, Hillman was re-visioning the structure and paradigm, the lens through which psychology was seen.  So powerful.  Shifting the focus of how and under what conditions various aspects of psychology develops shifts how these outcomes and we ourselves are viewed.

His work brought the psyche and the soul back to the center of the field.  And this re-visioning brings us back into the center of our actions, our knowing – for me connecting the psyche and responsibility.

His later work brought the soul into the center in such a way as to infer that it is the soul that guides us – not an interplay of nature and nurture that had long been discussed – this placed the work squarely in the field of the divine.

For me, work in the therapeutic realm is as much the divine as it is divination; and watching how things unfold in the therapeutic realm does bring out the idea that there is a path that each person follows – something internal guiding one forward.

I believe that early in development one covers over and denies aspects of one self/soul in order to align with the expectations of those important to her.  If after living and developing, she is able to re-align with herself than she is able to allow the blossoming and guidance of the soul or psyche.

I am again in the process of re-visioning my own life – my goals, beliefs, and foci.

Recent loss and change have shown me images and elucidated meaning that is separate, intricate, and diverse.

It is extraordinary to me what elements of who I am that I thought and felt were an integral part of me are actually fabrics that are not integral to who I truly am at all but rather weavings that I have woven around me in an attempt to feel more accepted, less ostracized, safe, in some way cocooned.

As I allow the re-visioning process to proceed, I find I am removing these weavings and viewing them from a shifted paradigm figure/ground perspective.  I notice that although they are lovely and woven quite beautifully they are aspects of myself that need to be gently removed and placed into a loving chest to be held in memory but no longer worn.

The casing needs to be removed so that I may transform more fully into my true self.

There is a sweet melancholy to this task.  I notice that I am not rushing to let go, but am steadily allowing each layer to be removed and set aside to view the fullness of who I am at my core.

Sounds like the divine at work.

Re-visioning is a way of shifting the lens and thus allowing the light to perceptively change that which is seen.

Reminds me of that great saying what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly by Richard Bach in his book Illusions.

See what changing the light shifts in you and allows for a re-visioning of your internal or external structure.  Shedding old habits, old skins and showing off your new form is quite en-lighten-ing.

See you tomorrow.

Beth