Month: July 2019

Listening… Meditating…. Praying for your intervention…

It is the time in your life when veils can start to fall away. 

You know I want that more than anything.

Be mindful of your purpose on Earth. 

Unity.

Be curious about your practice of it. 

Avoid arms’ length unity?

Consider the degree to which you do indeed reach out and enjoy 1:1 communication with individuals, without agenda attached. 

It’s like I haven’t got time… Or, it’s only ‘worth my time’ if money will arise from it… It’s hustle, then zone out – and repeat.

This is it. You’ve got it. So, imagine a world in which you communed with one person at a time. 

The idea is so tender and sweet it makes me want to cry… and then, heavens, shrink away and retreat… “What about all the Things To Do?!” says the voice inside. It’s this sense of my moving so fast, and also sometimes of others moving too slowly for me to know if they’re onboard with me (for work for example), so the only answer is to spin the plates of lots of ‘other people projects’ at once. I guess, I’m seeing myself as rather over-accelerated…

What happens when we travel too fast? 

We miss the views. We arrive in a frazzle.

You are surrounded by potential teachers: your elderly neighbour, your sick relative, your newly returned to the UK friend, your frailing aunts and cousins. But life is travelling too fast for you to be able to be with them. 

And I’m missing the learning? I used to be able to spend time with people. What happened?

You selected a professional pattern which would dominate your days. 

And it was a choice wasn’t it? I didn’t feel the light-touch method of a 2 hour session a day would work… I didn’t feel it would pay the bills. Probably because nor did I feel I could charge what it was worth. And so now I am offering up all the hours people want, and not having enough time for daily self-care (though the Daily Dose of MEDSAN is a good start if I can keep it going) and generally running out of steam. I know, I think that super-busy is super-successful. It’s not, is it? Can I be more modest and just go for the daily 2-4pm 2h appointment (remote/local) slot? “I offer one 2h appointment slot a day, at 2pm, either remotely or locally.” One flavour of jam only. (This refers to G’s anecdote of the woman who couldn’t shift her 12 types of jams at fetes and sales, but when she took the advice to sell one flavour of jam only, saw them flying off her stall.)

What would it take for me to commit to laying down that (sustainable) 2 hours at 2pm pattern?

The realisation that simplifying your offer in this way could allow you to: 

• cover all your bills
• get a satisfying caseload on the go 
• allow you to put fitness and self-care first
• make your business sustainable
• leave you time and headspace for friends
• allow you to commune 1:1 or 1:2 successfully
• open the doors to ongoing remote working from anywhere in the world 
• still do the occasional training day

Yeah, ok, I’m in.

What about parents with children to collect at 3pm?

Let’s let everyone look after themselves for now. You look after yourself. With zeal. 

Ok. I am shifting to selling one jam only. I am making the shift now, so that in 2020, this “2@2” (2h at 2pm ‘clinic’) protocol will be my main source of income. I will be able to say, I only work 2-4pm, knowing that the rest of my day is well-used in covering case prep, admin, marketing, invoicing and self-care. I know I will have time and headspace to spend 1:1 time with friends and family I care about. Others will know my normal flow of the day. This is my strategy for a sustainable, self-caring business. Anything else I need to know?

Glamour. This is not the most glamorous way of working, because it’s largely unseen, and you are not working with a crowd (as with teaching). It’s casework. Are you ready for that?  

I am! And also, some days, I can use 2-4pm for running training workshops, can’t I?

We want you to focus on working with people. Not at people. Can you hear them? Can you work with their needs? Can you be receptive to their stories? 

Yes. I hear you. Thank you.

I am committed to a sustainable work pattern (2@2)

 

 

The wonderful restorative weekend away, and my proclaiming internally, the recognition of my healed state, was powerful. I started hearing a different type of internal monologue altogether: light, observant, curious, encouraging, reflective, chatty even! All things started to feel possible, even, and especially somehow, if there was discomfort on the way. What I’m trying to share here is that ‘hurting’ shifted to something different… The hurting receded as I rested and as I settled into the wonder of considering myself ‘healed’… and then instead when ‘discomfort’ arose in aiming to execute some action, I could throw myself into it and burn through it. An example: we went wild swimming in a mountain river. The discomfort was the doorway to a greater feeling state. I wasn’t shrinking from discomfort as if it might exhaust or finish me off.

I was left thinking of the possibilities at hand if I could really embrace discomfort. Imagine… I could even get physically fit again. I could reorientate my business. I could say no when needed. I could get stuff done.

Your thoughts, dear voice of my wisdom?

Sometimes it can be hard to discern what is discomfort and what is the egg cracking. The ‘egg cracking’ is the cocoon analogy, or any analogy which points to breakdown as a route to breakthrough. 

Or the seed opening in the soil so the shoot can poke through.

Exactly. Our advice to you is to note the breakdown as having occurred. See the egg shells behind you, the cocoon on the ground, the shoot as having broken through the soil. 

Aha, I get stuck on this notion of being on a cusp, don’t I?

Exactly. The more you can identify with having left the cusp, or the breakdown/breakthrough moment, behind you, the sooner you can embrace the idea that all is moving smoothly forward. And as thought makes thing, this is an affirming idea. 

What about this discomfort though?

The discomfort is gold dust! Yes! Discomfort is the feeling of growth, expansion, development. 

I recoiled from discomfort, as a protective / coping mechanism, because of old fears. I can work with it though, can’t I?

Indeed! Why not equate your feelings of discomfort with notions of attaining mastery?

Well, yes. I like that. If I’m feeling discomfort it’s because I am mastering something. Like a ninja in training. Or a yogi on the mat. Or an athlete on the track.

Can I merge two concepts: embracing discomfort and attaining mastery?

Of course! 

Ok. Ty. Blessed be my endeavours. Blessed be all our endeavours on this planet at this time of acute challenge and immense possibility. May we all embrace discomfort and attain mastery – of ourselves, of our free wills, of our kindness, of our selflessness, of our purposes, of our missions, of our care for each other.

Amen. 

I am embracing discomfort and attaining mastery

That last session was beautiful. And, heavens, when I powered up on love emanation as I sat down to write difficult emails, it transformed the nature of my emailing: lighter, faster, more poised… because the role of the email was to convey love, nothing else!

Now I am away in Wales on a truly beautiful few days away with my Beloved. It’s idyllic here. We’ve hired a tiny cottage, and found it to be sited on the grounds of a ruined 12th century abbey with a glacial lake reaching out behind it. Yesterday, we sat next to the lake under the shade of some trees, and read the first act of the 1951 play Hellas by Rodney Collin Smith. Themes included: awakening, remembering, mastering ‘I’… and the human discomfort associated with those processes. At one point Hellas says of her awakening, ‘It hurts’. Just this week, I gave myself some solace by inviting myself to note ‘hurting’ when my mind, brain, spirit, nervous system or psychology give me messages of discomfort. That ‘hurting’ note helps and brings relief, because it doesn’t even bother to try to ‘fix’ the source of the hurting – and therefore, additional resistance is not applied. We just observe what is happening. The play gave me comfort: if (essential/inner/psychological/spiritual) hurting is associating with awakening or remembering, that I can better welcome it. What else might I understand about this hurting factor? 

You are expecting to hear that hurting is a factor of opening, breaking bonds, and taking flight, like a butterfly breaking out of a cocoon. In a sense you are accurate and right here. Breaking old ties is part of the process you are exploring. But there is something more at play. Something deeper that only your soul can fully understand. You have said that you feel like this awakening is akin to ‘pulling off a plaster’ – and you are right. We pull of the plaster when the wound is healed. To acknowledge ourselves as healed is a brave, bold and bashfulness-inducing step. The human holds to ‘broken’, because ‘broken’ is associated with receiving care, deference, sympathy, lower expectations. ‘Healed’ on the other hand is associated with: becoming carer not ‘caree’, becoming leader, becoming author of your own self. 

Are you saying I am resisting declaring myself healed?

Indeed. 

That is radical… I feel… exhausted, and like I’m climbing uphill. I also feel, in honesty, like my brokenness is my calling card, like my brokenness keeps me curious, humble, open-hearted.

That hits the nail on the head. You are concerned that if you ‘heal’ you will fall asleep again. 

Yes, to be honest, that is true. And I pay the price of… not necessarily flying in the world. Your advice?

Heal and fly. Proclaim yourself healed, and fly. 

That actually sounds really complex to me.

Let us clarify for you, the nature of the term ‘healed’. You are confusing ‘medically healed’ with ‘spiritually complete’.

Contemplate this: the person on their hospice bed may be entirely healed. 

Aha… I see. Beautiful… So ‘healing’ as you put it is not necessarily of the body, or even of the mind… but of the… spirit??

Like, someone living with schizophrenia, and actively hearing voices, could actually be healed, or spiritually complete. We don’t know. Instead we tend to see ‘signs and symptoms’ of illness (mental/physical) and see the person as ‘broken’ or in need of healing, mending, adjusting…

You are getting closer to an understanding. This is a very complex theme, and not to be used in any way to deny suffering or medical treatment. 

Yes, absolutely. You spoke of pulling off the plaster when the wound is healed. And that this is associated with hurting. Please tell me more. Is it something to do with using ‘protective/safety strategies’ (as per Compassion Focussed Therapy) and creating unintended limiting – hurt-inducing – consequences for myself?

Yes! The hurting you feel is associated with the ‘protecting’ plaster not the wound. Identify which is the wound and which is the plaster in your life. 

It’s like you want me to see that the hurting comes from the fact I am healed and cannot see it yet.

Therefore…

It’s time to recognise that I am healed?

Beautiful. Happy Post 44. [My favourite number]

I am recognising that I am healed.

Yep, I can acknowledge I spent a great amount of time and energy laying down the case for my purported weakness – and it brought me the security of medical, financial, debt-related, work-related help and forbearance. ‘Proving’ my frailty gave me a protective armour in many respects.

Time now to UNDO that armour and own the healed state, whatever I think my body and mind are indicating.

I am healed. I am healed. I am healed…. say that 1 million times and see how your reality rises to meet you there.

I am recognising that I am healed.