Yesterday evening, (after a day of transmitting the warmth of a smile – it’s a beautiful practice), such sad news arrived that I can hardly process it.
My beloved brother and sister in law received the saddest news about their precious unborn little one… My heart aches and breaks for them.
Astonishingly, this tragic news came three days after our sister and brother in law lost their tiny unborn little one.
And, my heavens, 8 days after our beloved father’s diagnosis.
Oh Source of all goodness and peace, turn to this family, and grant us solace, comfort, rest…!
What is happening?? And how can I rally myself to be a presence of support and assistance?
Softly, dear one. Softly. Let that sorrow in, to be received, felt, shared by us… Receive the message of your sorrows. Hear what it has to tell you.
Sorrow says: Life is so precious.
It is. I used to lament my life..! Remember that?!
What makes life so precious, dear Sorrow? Tell me that.
Sorrow says: In living we can have relationships with one another. That is what makes life so precious.
I hear you, but by my understanding, beyond the physical realm, we still have relationships. What makes life in the physical realm so particular?
Sorrow says: Embodiment is a choice the soul makes. Embodiment makes for ‘separation’ – or a sense of separation, from Source, and from ‘each other’. It is in the conscious bridging of that apparent separation of embodied ‘individuals’ that the experience of ‘joining‘ is to be had. And in joining, is joy.
Oof! Boom. Beautiful!
Sorrow says: The soul longs to experience, again and again, the knowing of Oneness – which is to say Love. This is why overcoming the veil of seeming ‘separation’ is the Heart’s true desire.
This is why I went into conflict resolution! There are elements I had forgotten… Thank you for reminding me.
Also, ‘joining’ was/is an important term for me in terms of my understanding of autism. (See SonRise: https://blog.autismtreatmentcenter.org/category/joining) This is a huge and complex topic, full of nuance, which I can’t fully explore here now. BUT I do want to say that I came deeply to realise that so-called ‘autism’ (aka, what, “self-ism”??) is actually the presentation of a soul, deeply wired for connection (at an empathic, telepathic level), landing in a world that is deeply set up for disconnection, individualism, heavyweight non-comms… Oh my heart… There is so much here…
It’s ok. We hear you. Gently does it. We hear you. What you are saying is that you know that Joining is the natural state. Your difficulty has been living in a world where non-Joining is the default mode.
Yes! But less so now. I see the next generations… Those crystal children and beyond… They know… But look at those currently ‘in charge’, dear God…!!
Slow down. Remember:
Ok. I get it… So JOINING. Let’s focus on what we can achieve…
How shall I incorporate today’s thoughts into my moving forward…?
Feel the sorrow, in present moment awareness, and let it do its work. It is seeking to help you JOIN more deeply with those you love. JOIN softly, peaceably, from your HEART-CENTRE. Observe those so-called no-nos when interacting with your dear loved ones! Yes, you! In other words, discover the worlds your beloveds are inhabiting… and meet them there. Let them show you round their worlds.
Just like the Brené Brown empathy talk.
Exactly. Get curious. Be respectful of their space and privacy. Really discover how to Join, mindfully holding good personal boundaries and psychic health protocols, for the benefit of all. Slow down. Get curious again. Be ready to listen, to learn, to understand. Drop all assumptions… Become emotionally available by which is meant, allow yourself to see and learn from their emotions today.
I hear you. May that be exactly what I am found capable of doing today. To be emotionally available you need to – or rather, it helps to – have your own house in order. (Hence the value of simplicity.) And so I shall do my SatuRRRday RRRoutine:
Rest (QT, lie-in)
Reboot (cleaning, laundry)
Roam (walk, and/or Retail)
And maybe then I’ll be ready to use my Social Sunday Funday to see some of my loved ones… (Albeit a day before Lockdown eases…) Let’s see.
Yes. And remember: get curious as you Join with others gently.
How comforting and settling is the gentle mantra of “Peace be with you” and “Peace be with me.” How releasing, how abundant and how generous of heart. How natural. How easily might we return to love if returning to peace was all we asked of ourselves.
I am blown away by this TPP passage I read this morning:
‘We fail in each attempt to obtain the unconditional attention we seek because unconditional love isn’t like money – isn’t something we earn. Love isn’t something achieved through merit. We don’t qualify for love. Love just is. Love is our birthright. Love is what we already are.
During childhood, the example of love set by our parents’ interaction with us, with each other, and with others becomes our primary definition of love. This is the automatic consequence of emotional imprinting. For this reason, whenever we seek to manifest an experience of love for ourselves as adults, we unconsciously manufacture a physical, mental, and emotional scenario designed to recreate the emotional resonance we experienced during our childhood interactions with our parents. This resonance doesn’t have to be comfortable or in any way pleasant, only similar and hence familiar.
For example, if as a child we received abuse when we required love, then the felt-resonance associated with abuse became part of our childhood definition of love. Consequently, whenever we feel a need for love as adults, we manifest an experience that unfolds in such a manner as to at some point include this abusive felt-resonance. This happens unconsciously, automatically. Why? Because this is the only way we know how to get what our imprinted condition leads us to assume love is. However, because of its conditions, the love we end up receiving hurts.
On a conscious level, we may then ask, “Why does this keep happening to me?” The reason we keep manifesting the same hurtful experiences is that we don’t know any better. This is the predicament emotional imprinting perpetuates. This is the open wound in the collective heart of humanity. This is why many of us assume love hurts. But hurting is a condition, whereas love isn’t – it’s a state.
Throughout The Presence Process, we are gradually taught how to perceive beyond the limitations of our imprint-driven interpretations. We are taught how to grow up emotionally. The consequence of this emotional development is that we begin lifting the conditions set in place by our childhood experience. As these conditions lift, we entertain a different perception of our experience. This different perception isn’t fueled by our unintegrated emotional charge, but is accessed through present moment awareness.
Confirmation we are awakening into present moment awareness comes in the insights we receive about the predicament of our shared human condition. One of these is that without exception, everyone we encounter, no matter what their behavior, is seeking the experience of unconditional love. Even if they are being hateful, what we are witnessing is a misguided cry for love.’ (The Presence Process 202-3)
Meanwhile, as I unpick my own inner child’s emotional imprinting, I am inspired, guided, mentored in LOVE by my children.
LV: showering me and the family with loving support and generosity of spirit. Handling her career like a boss, as she blends and shares her talents, creativity and genius, ever on her terms. Her current creative project is blowing me away!
ASV: yesterday, I attended an online panel discussion that she hosted for Disability History Month, on Disability and Academia. She has also produced a blog and a podcast which have blown me away, about her/others’ experience of being ‘Defined by Disability.’ She has INSPIRED me. The panel (of disabled professors and students) was a collective that harnessed and celebrated all I know to be true about disability and neurodiversity – that the gifts inherent are exceptional. How about a Neurodiverse Mediators’ network? To include mental health too. It would allow me to Be Myself…. and then all the other ideas and projects I have will feel they can flow out… not trying to hide behind a 2D neurotypical fitting in mask….
Your thoughts?
Preach it. Sing it. Sizzle it. Love it. The Dyslexic Professor said: ‘We’re trying to get the R number down in the pandemic. We need to get the R number of disabled people UP in academia – we need to go viral to make the contribution we are here to make!’ You can do the same with neurodiversity – welcoming people in and out into society, loud and proud, offering the new style of thinking and being this world so needs: empathetic, empathic, creative, focussed, heartfelt. Go, sister! <3
***nearlycrieswithlove*** I sometimes feel that the so-called neurodiverse ones are the … starseeds of which people speak. It’s like we’re not quite wired for here, but we are wired for somewhere… somewhere much more multidimensional, telepathic, sophisticated… ‘Here’ feels weighty, heavy, clunky, loaded, unnecessarily laborious. All those amazingly creative dyslexic children I taught. You take away the necessity to produce ‘good handwriting’ or ‘accurate spelling’ (earthly, 3D) and let them focus on channelling their creativity, and BOOM – the complexity and visionaryness of their work often far exceeds the NTs around them. So the act of WRITING is the problem. Not the child. Perhaps the child is wired for a world where… maybe the writing writes itself automatically… guided by the mind of the child… without clunky intermediary tools?
And yet… we demonstrate conditional love to our children.
“We shall love you if…. you can spell our spellings / pass our tests / sit still on your chair / follow all the unwritten social rules. And if you cannot, we shall withhold our love, our approbation, our opportunities. And thus you shall either learn our ways, or know that you have condemned yourself to the suburbs of our affection by your own fecklessness and carelessness. Ha! Oh, and happy 6th birthday to you!”
Why do we continue to pass this cycle of abuse on to the next generation? I was moved by reading this passage (p205) of The Presence Process by Michael Brown :
‘The part of us that has difficulty accepting how others hurt us is the needy and unattended aspect of our child self – the emotional charge related to being loved conditionally as a child. We know we are regressing into this needy and unattended aspect of our child self when we hear ourselves say: “They are my parents. They should have known better.” Or, “They brought me into this world and it was their responsibility to keep me safe.” This is drama. This is the voice of a child who doesn’t yet comprehend the complexity of the human predicament that envelops us all. Integrating anger, the need to blame, and our insidious desire for revenge requires facing one of the greatest obstacles set before us on the path of emotional evolution: arrogance. Arrogance prevents us from being able to recognize our plight flowing through the experience of another. Once we experientially comprehend the mechanics and consequences of emotional imprinting, only arrogance stifles our capacity to forgive both ourselves and others. The consequence of arrogance is that we may easily be able to accept the fact we didn’t know any better, but we are still angered by how others behave.Unless we choose to integrate this anger, it will prevent us from accepting that others, especially our parents, did the best they could with the hand dealt them through their parents. Neutralizing arrogance and the anger it breeds requires the following simple insight: All behaviors we witness during our interactions with others that aren’t acts of unconditional love are unconscious pleas for unconditional love.‘
So… we haven’t managed to forgive those who hurt us. We haven’t managed to integrate the fear, anger and grief that arose from our being loved conditionally… and our arrogance causes us to lock in to blame (vs responsibility taking) and a kind of righteousness. And then we inflict conditional love on to the next person. Especially the next child.
I’m thinking of my really 4 complex cases this year: I’m seeing individuals reeling from not receiving unconditional love. They all think it’s something else, and can’t understand why the others won’t be ‘rational’ and accommodating. But they are all traumatised by a lack of unconditional love, now and in the past. And they are using demands or a hard ‘No’ to cry out for someone to say, “You are right! You are the most thoughtful, sensitive, kind and loving of us both/all. And I/we should follow your lead. Thank you for being right here. I/we apologise for our wrongs.”
Everyone wants the other to say: “You’re right. I’m wrong. Lead on.” This seems to be how people receive love…..?? By their rightness?
It is in the human’s best interests to be right. Rightness leads to acceptance. Doesn’t it? Think back to the spelling test. She who shows most rightness in spellings gets..?
Gets most love / acceptance / lauding!
So is it a wonder that wrongness or error is laden with shame and guilt. Now you take the SHAME of the current wrongness (say in the dispute) and you fuse it with the SHAME of the childhood wrongness (collected in a series of experiences of conditional love and emotional imprinting of fear, anger and grief) and you get…?
Emotional paralysis; heightened fight/flight; despair and distress.
Ok! So… in your work, you are indeed showing unconditional love in your impartiality. This is good. But you are also sometimes missing opportunities to hold a mirror up to a person to let them see themselves more clearly.
Tell me, in all honesty, how do I do that without making them feel more SHAME at their acting out behaviours?
YOU TEACH THEM SELF-COMPASSION. This is akin to self-forgiveness, which is a longer journey, but one that is kickstarted by the practice of self-compassion.
Oh my. Of course. Imagine if I’d started off each of those cases by teaching self-compassion, instead of saying “Tell me what the other party did to/at/against you?”
(Similarly, I could have done some of the work Debbie Ford taught so well in ‘Spiritual Divorce’ about accepting it takes two to ruin a marriage. Now THAT was a hard lesson for me, but a liberating and empowering one.)
It’s up to each person to find their own inner child and nurture him/her through a conflict. Without the inner child work, you are really rearranging deck chairs.
Obviously, I’m not a psychologist qualified to introduce people to their inner child…
That’s why we use the protocols of self-compassion. And remember that the wonderful Kristin Neff speaks to many, and Paul Gilbert speaks to others.
Oh yes… Let me read.
Ok so this set of slides is an amazing reminder of Gilbert’s Compassion Focussed Therapy work:
So we’re looking both SELF-COMPASSION and COMPASSION for OTHERS.
How did I think I could do conflict resolution work without introducing compassion and forgiveness?
Did I ever ask my clients “What needs to be forgiven for you to reach a resolution?” As long as I am letting my clients think I buy into the idea of ‘unforgivable actions’, I am not meeting them authentically, and I am not serving them well.
These concepts are so complex.
This is why you are going to teach people How to Dialogue, rather than jump into try to ‘fix’ their disputes without any supposed need for behavioural change, emotional recompense, or true reconciliation.
I made mistakes in NOT telling people how I work. If I tell people that I work with concepts like compassion, forgiveness, responsibility, change and unconditional love, people could more easily self-select themselves out of my client list, or at least start a process knowing that I was going to ask something of them internally, personally.
You’ll find your way with the SoD. Peacefully. Self-compassionately. Compassionately. Unconditionally.
And also: look at the behaviours I see today (now Mon) and spot ‘pleas for unconditional love’. We don’t need to respond to them codependently, as they are still responsible for their own happiness, but we can remove the sting from some of the less comfy behaviours.
You might also look out for your own pleas for unconditional love.
Uh-huh?
Awareness encompasses the observer too.
What best step could I take today to explore this theme of our search for unconditional love.
Spot everytime you withhold UL. Ask yourself why you withheld your UL. What is the judgement, and from what fear, anger or grief does it spring? How much more peace could you bring to the world if you met more people with ULove instead of fear, anger or grief?
Man, you set a high standard!
Thank you! ?
You see I like to think I’m loving.
Exactly. You’ve just revealed another layer of work to do. Goodie!
Ok. Today (7th) I’m going to spot whenever I withhold my unconditional love.
So this ‘Envisioning Outcomes’ technique of yours is genius. I tracked it across three segments yesterday – and it really transformed my day. Here are the outcomes:
SEGMENT 1 (9:10am)
Getting dressed and ready for work
Heart Lock-In Memory Bank
‘Acting celebratory’ the day I did two great webinars
Outcomes Envisioned
Butterfly spiralling out of a cocoon
Results
‘Heart Hunches’, flow, spontaneity, no constipation!
SEGMENT 2 (12 noon)
Early afternoon – starting work
Heart Lock-In Memory Bank
La Sagrada Familia (w Dad) – building never finished!
Outcomes Envisioned
Clear the decks to reveal simplicity
Results
Cleared old 19/20 papers & set up Asana for 20/21!
SEGMENT 3 (11pm)
Going to sleep and sleeping
Heart Lock-In Memory Bank
India: scales fell experience – miracles of sleep
Outcomes Envisioned
I unwind and unwind (opp of butterfly spiralling)
Results
Deep sleep – and woke feeling like I’d relaxed… <3
The drawn pictures were very important:
Study Time
HeartMath Experience: Chapter 9 – Global Coherence
From the video, my notes and quotes:Heart-based livinggives us flow, creativity in the world. Mind and emotions in alignment affect our personal, social and global coherence..Compassionate latitude.. Connect to your heart’s guidance and intelligence – even for just a few minutes a day – to make better decisions and have better days. It’s like filling up a gas tank or a battery – and it carries over to the next days too. Do your HeartMath while in conversation with someone – to be present with them. The heart is an access point to increased wisdom and intuition on another dimension – it’s not a metaphor, science shows the heart intelligence is real. We want to connect at the heart level globally now. We want to tune in to our heart to navigate this wild adventure called life, with more harmony, kindness and compassion.
“There are multiple studies indicating that when we’re in a group and form emotional relationships, there’s an energetic field resonance among that group, and information can be shared between the group members on an unseen or subconscious level.” Rollin McCraty HeartMath Institute Director of Research
Apply what you have learned from the HeartMath Course:
Use the Quick Coherence® technique to prep before a potentially stressful meeting to maintain your composure and connect with your heart’s guidance. Use it after a stressful situation to reset and reconnect with your heart to better manage the effects of stress and build resilience.
Use Attitude Breathing™ to help shift your Inner Weather—your emotional state at any time. Practice Attitude Breathing to shift to more positive emotional states during the day.
Use the Freeze-Frame® technique to gain more intuitive clarity for making decisions, both big and small, or to access more creativity and insight at any time.
Create a daily practice with the Heart Lock-In technique. Do this daily for 5 minutes or more. Choose a time that’s convenient for you, such as first thing in the morning, which can help to set a more coherent tone for the day.
Also..
End of Study Time…
*****
This heart-based living…. I want this. I want this in my life… Show me how, please.
As you are learning, it’s very physiological, this heart-based living. It is good that, when you can, you are taking care of your body with qigong, walking, sunshine, good diet, early nights, a full routine and limited work hours.
The next step is to eliminate stress completely. And this is not about managing your surrounding conditions. Far from it. It’s about training your mind and body to work in ‘coherence’ with you.
Like Wim Hof in his ice baths. Today I purchased the HeartMath Inner Balance device and (hopefully – it’s a crowdfunder) ordered a Sensate device. I’m going to work with my vagus nerve, my ANS (autonomic nervous system) and my heart rate variability. It’s science, btw:
LAY SUMMARY: ASD is commonly associated with a range of physical and mental health comorbidities. Autonomic disruptions underlying reductions in heart rate variability (HRV) have been linked to a range of mental and physical health conditions. We assessed resting-state HRV in adults diagnosed with ASD in comparison to healthy individuals. Our results showed reduced heart rate variability in people diagnosed with ASD compared to adults without ASD. These findings implicate a role for autonomic activity as a potentially modifiable risk factor for ASD.
Depression is often associated with dysfunction in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system (ANS). Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience physiological dysregulation and psychological comorbidities; however, the extent to which the interactions between these systems predict internalizing symptoms in ASD has not been investigated. The study examined interactions with the HPA axis and ANS in 10-13-year-old children with ASD (n = 41) and typical development (TD; n = 46). The interrelated systems uniquely contributed to depressive symptoms in ASD above and beyond any system in isolation. A reciprocal, parasympathetic-dominant ANS was related to fewer affective symptoms in ASD. Findings highlight the importance of examining arousal across multiple systems to more precisely identify profiles associated with maladaptive psychiatric outcomes in ASD.
Excellent research. As you master your ANS and your HRV, you will be able to bring coherence to any situation, leaning in with the delicacy of your autism, with ‘inner balance’ added at the physiological level. This will give you two important gifts:
Easier access to your Heart’s intelligence – 100 times wiser than your head
Increased ability to support others in to their coherence too – great for your work
This is such beautiful work. Thank you. I loved the Envisioning Outcomes segment intending as a way of getting guidance from my Heart and acting from there… Can I do this for bigger segments too?
Naturally, however today we would say this… Go smaller instead of bigger. At each decision and shift, check in with Heart. See what happens.
Ok… Will do. Thank you. Starting now. Heart?
<3: Get out and do qigong. Follow the routine. 🙂
Ok. See ya!
At each decision and shift, check in with the Heart (#HeartCheckin)
As my sweetheart and I continue to play online Scrabble each day, an insight has dawned upon me. When we began, a couple of months ago, we both were clearly focussed on the letter tiles we were dealt. Our aim was to arrange them deftly and create the longest words possible, and chuck them up on the board. However, over time, we have both subtly changed our focus to the board. The board is where the good stuff is at, with its special squares for extra points, and with all the letters placed by the other player that one can take advantage of. Now, we nudge letters in tightly to other letters, one or two at a time, scooping up the Double Letter squares, the Triple Word squares, and getting as much value per letter tile as we can.
Old style – long words:
New style – more compact use of the board and each other’s letters:
Why is this significant? I’m going to be quite open and tender (and self-compassionate) about my ‘innocence’, and the ‘naivety’ that has accompanied me through life, and is a beautiful part of my autism. So….
Perhaps because of my Asperger’s perspective, for much of my life, I misunderstood how to ‘gain points’ in the world. In terms of career, and getting by in the world, I thought it was all about arranging and presenting my Letters (qualifications, experience, skills talents) carefully and ‘impressively’ to the world. I thought that doing so would eventually gain me the Points (aka: promotions, opportunities, income, networks, tributes, security!). I thought that by presenting myself as a ‘7 Letter Word’ to the world, surely ‘people’ would recognise my value and invite my participation in their gig. (Given our education system’s emphasis on exams, qualifications and CVs, anyone could be forgiven for this assumption.)
But in reality, one can take very few letters, and play the board very successfully! A letter ‘s’ strategically placed to pluralise another person’s word, and hit a Triple Word square, is all you need to gain more Points than you would by placing multiple tiles down… A focus on the Board (the playing field, the professional arena, the industry, your networks) encourages you to take the opportunities available as they arise out of the movements and advances of others around you.
Now hold fire. I am the first one to say, doesn’t this sound like competition, taking advantage of others’ moves, gross exploitation….? But in reality… for an Aspie, this is really important learning. There are so many autistic people with brilliant talents and skills, and who are under- or unemployed. We can’t understand why, after we’ve crushed ourselves to get degrees and qualifications, we find ourselves at the end of the queue, or watch ourselves rapidly overtaken by people who haven’t got the qualifications we were told we needed in order to advance. We autistic people can be very literal. If we’re told we need a degree to enter into the world, we go off and get one…. The truth is actually different. It’s about watching the world, and leaping on to the stepping stones that present themselves. It’s like jumping on a fast-moving escalator. No one is going to stop it for you to get on.
For me, there is nuance available to consider. While Scrabble is a game of competition, the practice of building the board-play up with a fellow player is actually very co-operative and collaborative. For me, my autism may make me introspective and even self-focussed, but it doesn’t give me the competitive edge to shove myself forward. I love collaboration, cooperation and team success. I yearn to play a part in the achievement of good. Reflecting on the Scrabble metaphor, I am wondering if dropping my ‘belief’ in Letters and learning to trust in a focus on ‘responding to the Board’ as it evolves around me, and co-designing the playing field with my fellow players… will open the doors to the deep collaboration I yearn for.
Opportunities arise around you as invitationsall the time. You are truly welcome to accept them. The belief that you need to be perfectly arranged and presented before you accept the invitations is one you can gently decommission, with a grateful farewell. The addiction to the belief in ‘hard work’ is one you can softly relinquish. The Board is offering you Triple Word score opportunities all the time. Relax your gaze. Cease to focus on yourself – you are absolutely fine as you are; no need to tinker the tile arrangement any further. Lift your eyes up. See the teeming opportunities on the Board of life, waving at you for your attention.
Smile. Approach. Receive.
Today I am spotting the opportunities arising around me.
********************
Meditation:
5min Med
Just a brief one today – I wanted to find a short meditation to share later in the day for my mindfulness seminar I was giving.
Exercise:
Hm… None.
Question to self: How am I going to ensure I do my exercise on days when I have work bookings?
Diet:
Coffee with cream.
Brunch: Salmon, greens, tea
Evening: Spontaneous evening out -> Pie, chips and a glass of red wine (?!)
