Play? I did. We did a 9 mile walk across rolling landscapes. Amazingly beautiful and joyous. What fortune to have the health in our limbs to do such an epic hike.
I’m back for today’s bucket from the well of wisdom. I’ll start with some reading.
***Reading The Presence Process by Michael Brown***
Sub-chapter of ‘Attuning to the Process’ chapter:
Movement Beyond Motion p29
Oh wow. It’s so good. Extract:
Though we can’t change ourselves, we can change the quality of our experience. As we enter The Presence Process, we are asked to adjust our perception of what we think of as “movement.” Generally, when we speak of movement, we are referring to a physical event, as in movement from one physical location to another. As far as the physical world is concerned, there’s no possibility of a journey without physical movement. The Presence Process involves a different kind of movement that doesn’t result from physical activity – movement that isn’t simply motion, but that results in a shift in the quality of our life experience, a shift that’s always in the direction of increased authenticity. To illustrate the difference, consider what we usually do if we are dissatisfied with the quality of our experience. We may change our circumstances by changing the person with whom we are partnered, changing our job, or moving to another town, city, or even country. These kinds of changes require a lot of physical motion. Running around and getting nowhere is the movement endorsed by the world as a means to rectify the dissatisfaction we feel with the quality of our day-to-day experience. The trouble is, once we are settled in our new location, we invariably discover that despite our altered physical circumstances, our dissatisfaction resurfaces. This is because, despite rearranging our situation, we haven’t initiated authentic movement within ourselves. As has been said, “Wherever we go, there we are.” We’ve all gone through this frustrating experience in one form or another. This type of rearranging of our day-to-day experience is nothing but pointless commotion – a better word for which is perhaps “drama,” the word used throughout this text to describe this type of pointless movement. Drama is physical, mental, and emotional activity that focuses on and fiddles with effects without impacting causality. The Presence Process leads us out of drama by activating authentic movement in our experience. Much of our unconscious approach to life arises from a Catch 22, which is that until we activate authentic movement in our experience, we reactively resort to drama. But as long as we reactively resort to drama, we don’t attempt to activate authentic movement. The Presence Process shows us how to release ourselves from this Catch 22 by instructing us how to integrate blocked emotions. Once these blocked emotions are liberated, the effect is reflected automatically in our physical, mental, and emotional experience. By raising our capacity for causal adjustment – also referred to as “alchemy” – we activate authentic movement throughout our experience without resorting to drama. Only when we realize the effectiveness of this alchemical approach are we prepared to drop drama. Through authentic alchemy, the pointlessness of all drama becomes self-evident. Once we realize this, the dharma of all drama is accessed. When we enter The Presence Process, we begin moving from “doing” to being, looking to seeing, hearing to listening, discomfort to balance, separation to being unified, reacting to responding, inauthenticity to authenticity, fragmentation to integration, seeking happiness to allowing joy, revenge and blame to forgiveness, incorrect perception to correct perception, complaint and competition to compassion, behaving unconsciously to behaving consciously, and “living in time” to experiencing present moment awareness. All the above movements are variations of the same shift—from pretence to Presence. This shift is achieved solely by using our attention and intent to adjust our felt-perception.
We are invited not to make ‘drastic’ or ‘impulsive’ changes in our lives before or during the process. This is ‘drama’ which may arise as a reaction to our resistance to the emotions arising for integration, and generally denotes self-sabotage, by ‘taking too much on’… If I’d known some of this stuff as a young adult, I’d have done things differently.
We’d beg to differ. When your children were young, you put aside a great deal (of drama) to focus on them. You sensed that they needed your Presence. And you knew how precious the time was with them.
Ok. I hear that. I have learnt about the impulsive/drastic bent in me. It arises strongly when I have PMDD too.
This time of your cycle is an invaluable opportunity for integrating some powerful emotions. You are ever more accomplished at achieving this. The PP will help you.
Ty. Good. Time for some meditation. Shall I set a question?
By all means.
Question: “What aspect of me would generate most drama? And why?”
***15minMed with Insight Timer***
Answer: ‘The young runaway’ – she who (aged 7?) decided to pack her little suitcase and go. It was clear, to her, that she should go. Yet she was teased by those who ‘offered to help her pack’… rather than listen to the pain behind the declaration to leave. She felt trapped and helpless to change her circumstances. It was an early experience of ‘powerlessness’ and ‘voicelessness’.
Looking back on that little girl and now knowing about her autism, does that help?
I can’t compute her autism… It doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m too engrained in the lived experience of that little girl. Maybe she was very sensitive and intuitive, like LV… (Maybe she was picking up on her parents’ pain??) And instead, she put it on herself, the blame that is… When she was trapped there, she guessed it was her fault? She was somehow lumped with this difficult circumstance because of some negative quality in her which meant that she didn’t have the power to extricate herself from a bad situation… whatever the situation was. I forget now.
‘she didn’t have the power to extricate herself from a bad situation’
What can your older you tell your younger you about the above line now?
I can tell young me that… bad situations are there to teach us our power. We don’t need to extricate ourselves (that is ‘drama’); instead we are invited to sit tight and find, within ourselves, our power to communicate, to negotiate, to set boundaries.
Bingo: ‘to sit tight and find, within ourselves, our power to communicate, to negotiate, to set boundaries’.
So the Drama Generator in me is the part which would avoid sitting tight and finding, within me, my power to communicate, to negotiate, to set boundaries. And she would avoid communicating well because…? Because when her impulse was to ‘pack her bags and go’, she MISLEARNT that this was a message to ‘put up and shut up’. In truth, the ‘pack her bags and go’ impulse was a message to use her voice.
Excellent work! You are right. The so-called (by you) Drama Generator in you is the part which says ‘put up and shut up’. Excellent! The Drama Liberator is the part which would ‘use her Voice’ to communicate, negotiate and set boundaries.
In this regard, my Voice is my greatest defender of my … sovereignty.
Absolutely. So today, just become aware of the ways you use your Voice. There is no judgement or explanation to be had. Just compare Voice and Sovereignty. Ask yourself: when do I use my Voice to uphold my sovereignty, and when do I use it to defend my sovereignty? And here, we are defining sovereignty as ‘reigning over life according to your own will.’
And to know my will is key…
Maybe it is, maybe it is not. We are not saying ‘don’t be flexible according to circumstances and suggestions’. We are saying, don’t betray yourself.
Man. Deep stuff. Ok. So with my Voice I can uphold, defend and betray my own sovereignty (self-determination). Depending on…?
Depending on your degree of self-love in any moment.
So my Voice should be a herald for the self-love I bear?
Self-love is the source point of clear Voice, which is the herald of Sovereignty.
So, if I ensure I am aligned with self-love whenever I use my Voice, I should be acting in Sovereignty?
Yes. Hold yourself in a state of self-love as you speak.
That’s quite an awesome discipline. I can work with that. Thank you for this deep and nuanced and helpful practice.
You are loved.
I am holding myself in a state of self-love as I speak
#SelfLoveSpeaks