"Most traditional methods of working on oneself are mostly pain centered. People get to repeat over and over their painful emotions without knowing how to use the body's own inherently positive direction and force."  Eugene Gendlin

I am really enjoying psychologist Eugene Gendlin's work. He has book called Focusing which I ordered and started working with in the past few months. It is a very good way to work deeply in the body with feelings of stuckness. Stuckness is something I feel a lot these days!

I sat in my car today waiting for my dog to be groomed and worked with many layers of stuck feelings  using this process of working with the "unclear" sensations in the body and focusing on them until they reveal new information. What I am learning is mainly we try to work with our thoughts and feelings but sometimes these can stay the same for years and we just keep on reprocessing them!

I will share some of the intuitive process for you here on how to address those "stuck feelings" in our body:

1.) Clearing a Space

On any given day we are all likely to have half a dozen problems that keep us stuck inside. Ask yourself. "What is bugging me?" Why don't I feel wonderful right now?" "How is my life going?" "What is the main thing for me right now?"

Stay quiet and let what comes come. Do not try to list every problem you can think of but only what has you tense right now. Let all these problems come up and out. List them, stack them in front of you and survey them from a distance.

Stay cheerfully detached from them as much as you can. "Well, except for all of these, I am fine."

2.) Felt Sense of the Problem

Ask which problem feels worse right now. Ask which one hurts the most, feels the heaviest, the biggest, the sharpest, the most prickly or clammy or sticky - the one that feels bad in whatever way you and your body feel bad. Or just choose one problem.

Don't go inside the problem as you usually would. Stand back from it. Ask, "What does this whole problem feel like?" But don't answer in words. Feel the problem whole, the sense of all that.

At this stage you will likely begin to feel a lot of static from your mind: self-lectures, analytic theories, much squacking and jabbering.

It is a matter of getting yourself to be quiet, listen and feel. Try to feel the whole inner aura of the problem. Try to get down to the single feeling of "all that" about the problem. The feel of the problem comes to you whole without details, like listening to a piece music made up of many notes and having one whole sense of it. I also find the problem is located in a very specific part of my body.

The felt sense is the holistic, unclear sense of the whole thing. This is something most people would pass by. because it is murky, fuzzy and vague. You might think, "Oh that!" "But that is just an uncomfortable nothing!" This is how your body senses a problem, it is at first quite fuzzy.

3.) Finding a Handle for the Problem

Find a quality word for the felt sense. Find a quality like "sticky", "heavy", "jumpy", "helpless", "tight", "burdened" ect. Or find a short phrase such as, "like in a box", "have to perform". A combination of words might work best like "scared tight" or "jumpy restless". Or an image might work better.

Try out different qualities until you feel a bodily shift and then discard everything else. You will know which one is right.

4.) Resonating Handle and Felt Sense

This is a double checking of the word and the felt sense to see if they resonate. Make sure the word is just right with the feeling. Once you get the sense of rightness, your body will shift again.

5.) Asking

Listen to the word you have decided is right and tune into the unclear felt sense for one minute. Using your word if it is say "jumpy", ask "What is it about this whole problem that makes me so jumpy?"

If you hear a lot of fast answers from your head, just let them go. What comes swiftly is old information from your mind. The mind rushes in and gives you no time to contact the felt sense directly. Ask yourself the question and wait.

Words and images will flow out of the feeling and offer a freshly felt difference. Just repeat your open-ended questions until the felt sense stirs. Ask, "What is the worst of this?" What would it take for this to feel okay?" "What does this felt sense need?"

This is not meant to be work but it is a friendly time within your body, inquiring.

6.) Receiving

Whatever comes in focusing, welcome it. Take the attitude that you are glad your body spoke to you, whatever it said. This is only one bodily shift and is not the last word. You do not need to believe, agree with, or do what the felt sense says. You just need to receive it. With each shift, your body changes and your life direction will appear step by step. Be willing to receive just one step. Once you locate this one shift it is very much like a place, a spot in your inner landscape. Once you know where it is and how to find it, you can leave it and return to it later.

"A felt sense is a bodily awareness of a situation or person or event...an internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about a given subject at a given time. It encompasses it and communicates it to you all at once. Think of it as a taste, or a great musical chord that make you feel a powerful impact, a big, round, unclear feeling."  -Eugene Gendlin

Try this process and see if it works for you!

This week I have been feeling like I have been standing outside of the box of my own mind and looking at it with wonder. It is as though I have been a goldfish swimming in my bowl unable to see my own water. I have been reflecting on how tenuously I started my Expressive Art blog 5 years ago and how nervous I was about expressing myself honestly - to anybody - for fear that I would lose their love and approval. I remember reading and re-reading my posts for hours, censoring them, un-censoring them and then sitting in my own intense anxiety noticing how I felt about what I should and should not express.

As I walked on my lunch hour, I was contemplating the feeling of strength, empowerment - taking full responsibility for my own life and letting go of the last vestiges of victim consciousness. I marveled at how good it feels to express myself honestly and take responsibility for my own thoughts and values, without feeling the level of intense anxiety around pleasing others that I have had in the past.

As these thoughts were running through my mind, I was astounded to turn the corner and to see hundreds and hundreds of tiny birds literally just in front of my feet. As I walked, they swooped over to the next lawn and the next. As I looked up I saw the little birds lined up on telephone wires and roof peaks, crowded, side by side, twittering. Joyful multitudes in the trees. My whole body opened up and I started to laugh. It felt like an affirmation of freedom from the jail cell of my primal and unconscious thoughts around "I am bad and guilty for expressing myself honestly - I am bad for even having an authentic self that differs from others".

Mystics would call our childhood thought system the "conditioned mind". The counseling program that I am taking would call it "family systems thinking". Very rarely do we think there is any way of being outside of our habitual thought systems. We come into this world, open, unique, authentic beings. Quickly however, we learn how to belong and how to be taken care of by our family and by society. We learn how to fit in.

Children learn within their families what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do in order to keep down the anxiety in the family system. If for example, as children, we learn that expressing anger brings up anxiety in the family, we literally grow up feeling like a "bad" person for expressing ourselves authentically in this way.

As children we are often praised for being "good and nice". For so much of my life I have questioned this "mandate" to be nice. Merely being "nice" in the world cuts off a huge range of feelings that we need to be fully functioning human beings! This oppression of niceness plagues so many, especially my women friends - it is the fishbowl we swim in.

As children, we are taught to behave. To behave means to defer to others, to not make choices for ourselves, and to be externally referenced to the thoughts and feelings of other people. When we make another person's thoughts or feelings more important than our own, we "lose ourselves". This is how we stay victims and dependent children inside, often for our entire lives.

Differentiating out of our family systems rules around authentic self-expression takes such incredible courage and strength, many of us will not choose to make that journey. The mere thought of expressing ourselves authentically within our family and societal systems can bring up tremendous anxiety. It might feel easier to shut down our self-expression down in order to belong.

I received a most surprising and supportive gift in the mail this week. Someone very dear sent me her inner world - she mailed me her entire collage journal to read. Her gift moved me beyond belief.  What I read in her journal is what I see in myself. As women we often feel like we are "bad" when we speak our truth. We are taught to be nice at all costs, even to the point of not standing up for ourselves.

I learned a great deal about standing up for myself at my job this past year around a workplace bullying issue. I kept asking myself, "Why do I feel guilty when I stand up for myself?" It was so curious to me that I did not think speaking up for myself was a "nice" thing to do! What I learned is that we all in varying degrees, bully, seek revenge, and try to control others in proportion to how much victimization and dependence on other people's opinions that we feel inside ourselves. It has been a revelation to me that I had to stop believing in my own victimized thought system in order to stand up for my values. I have to know who I am and what I stand for so that I can make authentic choices for myself.

As we come to know ourselves outside of victimized and dependent thinking patterns, it becomes easier to stand up to life's challenges. The more we touch into our true being, the more we we need to learn how to choose how we want to live our own lives from inner values rather than outer family and societal rules. This is how we become real. This is how we become our "authentic selves".

Good Questions To Ask:

1) Where do you feel victimized in your life? Where do you feel life has "done" you wrong?

2) Can you see places where you choose to keep yourself small and avoid taking the next step in your life by hanging onto your feelings of victimization?

3) What would your life look like if your did not feel victimized? How would you move into your day? What steps would you take?

A friend in my counseling class asked me how I was doing...it really got me thinking. At first I thought...oh everything is peaceful in my life...I am so accepting...and trusting my life...coming to terms with embracing and trusting the ordinary day to day stuff....what I have created thus far...my pace....mmm...I am feeling bored...in a rut...mmm.

And then I thought...no...underneath it all I am feeling sort of helpless..this "embracing and trusting the ordinary" feels like a default to my conditioning...my habit patterns...it feels like a giving up...drowning in my own passivity and a taking of the path of least resistance. A familiar cellular feeling....like it is coming down the pike from my family system. I have this vague sense that life is passing me by and I am not fully stepping up to what I need to do. It is like an automatic ego switch of mine to become discouraged after any set-back...to disbelieve in my dreams and urges. The urge for me to "go big" feels huge to me right now.
 
I told a friend in class the other night that my highest voice is saying to me, "Trust the ordinary..." Then I was driving home after class I felt like as if this "higher thought" was draining me. Sometimes my ego induced "spirituality thoughts" feel passive...unactivated...celibate...and unexciting. Kind of nice...sweet...hardworking and dead.

Trust as my goal for the year is feeling kind of passive to me...it feels like when I am relaxing so much...that I am whitewashing my assertiveness.

I think my Trust Goal needs to be more assertively stated...from an essence point of view...because the ego can get a hold of any goal to further it's own ends don't you think?

In my conditioned...ego...family system self I can be rather passive...going along with life and that feels kind of wimpy and depressed...accepting what comes...sort of dependently feminine....it can even...by my ego...be called trust.

In my essence self and stepping out of my family system...Trust would be much more audacious and activated...3 S's come to mind:

Trust in embracing:

 Strength
 Sexuality

My partner Ondrea and I have a goal to build a business together as counselors, coaches, teachers. The focus will be on healing around sexuality, and how it connects to spirit, money and creativity...second chakra stuff.

The second chakra issues are definitely what I have been working with in my life. The issues and joys and pain I have felt around sexuality have been immense and confusing. When Ondrea and I got together 12 years ago I experienced a mystical sexual/creative opening that I cannot logically explain. It included a huge creative explosion and insight into the nature of true creativity and a temporary opening of my higher energy centers. Given to me by grace I am sure my temporary awakening was also precipitated by the immense crisis surrounding my life at the time. The death of 5 family members, the end of my marriage, new babe in arms and so on opened me past my conditioning in a way that showed me there is a divine life running under this human struggle at all times.

Because I could not hold the immense spiritual/creative/sexual energy 12 years ago, I experienced a massive closing down accompanied by some severe second chakra health ailments. I  knew on some level that my psychic container was not "fit" to experience this kind of energy in it's fullness full time. I could literally feel my energy centers closing down and I went clunk right back into my conditioning. Splat!

Ondrea and I have been doing the darkness cleansing for years now, and the healing for me feels near. The darkness feels like it is leaving...oh my I have done so much flailing and wailing and crying and dying. My body is feeling more conditioned and cleansed towards holding higher energies. I signed up for my second year of counseling training minute...not sure that I would need to have professional counseling designation but I had a vision earlier this summer of opening my heart up to many people.

I feel such tenderness for our human dilemma.

Some good questions to ask:

1.) Can you feel into your human struggle? What are you struggling with right now?

2.) Can you see the seeds of your greatness...the opposite qualities of your struggle within you? What are they? How can you incorporate these higher qualities in your life today?

A quote written in my 5 year old journal:

"When struggling with defiant, unconscious, self-destructive selves we must realize that these selves are activated when we fail to take action; when we fail to make necessary changes in our life. When we fail to give birth to a more mature self, to begin deeper unfoldment.

One's destructive aspects can serve to force change, breaking up ordinary lifestyles, routing one into chaos, suffering, new possibilities. The unconscious is extraordinary in it's capacity to orchestrate events in outer reality to achieve it's ends.

Equally destructive inner selves are those which represent the perfect models of what according to society one's life should be. What always lurks under such behavior is is the need to feel loved and accepted."

I have been reading an old journal and I have been looking at the advice I was giving to myself 5 years ago and is the same way I have been avoiding growing into now. I have been trying to change in the same way for 5 years.

I can see I need to shed light on my repeating emotional patterns. David Schnarch Phd. writes: "Many people assume we are our feelings. It sounds like a validating and accepting of feelings, but it creates other problems - that is if you get your identity from your feelings then you cannot afford to have them change. You'll feel like you won't know who you are. When you have a stable sense of self, your feelings can come and go like the weather. I've seen people who have an identity  a "hot head" start to get angry even though they are not really mad. Getting angry reinforces their identity and organizes whatever is unfamiliar into familiar patterns.

Rereading my old journal I can see that in my ego defended self - I continually maintain a baseline of anxiety that prefers the familiarity of busyness and that I feel my identity in feelings of overwhelm and being unbalanced. It is how I keep myself small and distracted from the bigger purposes of my life. How can I possibly take more on and be greater in my life if I feel overwhelmed?

Years ago I wrote that the qualities I am called to be are:

-Intensely alert, present, activated and organized.

-Balanced, rested, well paced.

-Fully surrendered to my life as it is - fully accepting of all of myself.

It is very interesting to me that I can now activate these unfamiliar, quiet, solid, measured qualities in myself for about 3 days and then I do not know myself anymore and I have to start spinning my own darkness hole of busyness and overwhelm (like the drawing above) to feel familiar and known to myself.

5 years ago I could not sustain a calm, activated presence for more than a day and only once in a while...now such an organized, accepting, calm presence is sustained weekly for about 3 days at a time. But I still fall "off the wagon" into old patterns of overwhelm each week as well. I can see that emotional patterns of staying small are like an addiction that we all universally turn to again and again to comfort ourselves with familiarity.

Good questions to ask yourself are:

1.) What emotional patterns do you use to keep your self small and preoccupied?

2.) What are the higher qualities that are opposite of your addictive emotional pattern?

3.) How long can you sustain them in your daily life?

When I walk down the street I sense into people's deeper sexual essences and I wonder...how much is that person being themselves? I often think about how as a young teenage girl I felt pressured to be "nice" at all costs.

In my daily life I still catch myself trying to fit in and I get angry about it. I think I love expressive art so much because it pushes me to be braver and braver in my expression....to be more daring in my dailiness...to take more risks with people.

I have this "librarian" sort of non-sexual spiritual self that I often express to the world. I also have a pleaser persona...a "Miss Congeniality" kind of self that I can pull out on a dime to try to win approval and get ahead in life. Recently I have been contemplating at risking more self-expression in my life. I have been feeling muffled by my own day to day, automatic personas.

For a long time I have been contemplating how sexuality relates to creativity. Consider how in Eastern philosophies both creativity, sexuality and abundance issues all arise from the second chakra. If I am blocked sexually, often turning on the music and painting will open me up. If I am blocked creativity, sex always gets the energy flowing again. Consider abundance in the equation...this I am exploring now...opening up to creativity and sexuality invites irresistibility and more money begins to flow.

To be really free and empowered we need to be open in our bodies...to breathe into them....to feel everything and listen to them. This translates to being sexually open and initiatory with our energies. When I don't express all of myself - I get ill, unbalanced and out of touch with myself. If I am burned out, and closed down or distracted away from my authentic sexual energy...my life stops working well.

Recently I sent my teen daughter to a Teen Empowerment Camp and they had a sexual education day. The boys were taught to breathe into their sexual "centers" and to be a "sexual warriors" and the girls were taught to breathe their hearts and be "feminine goddesses". Is this not just a new age spin on an old theme? I wonder about where the girls are being told to put their sexual energy....and their creative energy? Staying in our hearts make us great female caregivers but where is the empowerment in that?

Here is a poem my 14 year old daughter wrote for a recent poetry reading she was invited to. I think it expresses so beautifully how girls and females of all ages feel pressured to keep it neat and nice and feminine and goddess-like perfect.

I want to do justice

To the poems folded away

The ugly ones

With the words clumsy

The ones that are speckled with dirt and blood

That are too painful to share with strangers

Folded like little secrets

Tucked away in diaries

Until courage unfolds them.

Some good questions to ask:

1.)How have you expressed your sexuality today?

2.) What would open you up sexually today, either with or without a partner>

Many many thoughts about true success these past weeks. I have been feeling restless...knowing I am capable of learning more...giving more...and having more financial ease and forward movement in my life.

What is success? What blocks success? I am dedicated to developing a deeper relationship with my higher mind. Part of doing this is listening to the fractured parts of myself...and I am going to the bottom of my mind...and listening to the hard stuff. When I ask myself the question, "Why am I not more successful with money...or in my purpose...or in my health...or in my career...ect."...many voices and parts of mind come to the fore to illustrate why I am spinning my wheels in opposite directions.

My in-depth study of Chuck Spezzano is blowing my mind wide open. We can read all of the abundance books we like but the ego mind is a wily creature and to see the roots of why you are abundant...or not...you have to be willing to look at the underlying ego motivations that we all have for blocking success.

To be successful in any area we need to want it with all of our heart. If we are not successful...we do not want it with all of our heart!!

Here are is a question in Lesson 14 in Chuck Spezzano's e-book The deeper Dimensions of Success...to ask yourself many times over...give as many answers that you can...from the deepest part of your defensive ego-mind until you realize what is holding you back. Be prepared to accept that much of it will be negative. These represent the areas of your split mind that need to be seen with awareness and reintegrated.

The question is:

In my situation regarding...what I really want is.....

Here are the Negative Motivations:

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to struggle and sacrifice so that others feel guilty and do not ask to much of me...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to just make enough to pay my basic needs and expenses so that I will not have to give more than my share to my family and feel taken advantage of...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to feel trapped and feel sorry for myself and to blame my parents for not supporting me more in my life...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...is to be away from my family for most of the week and independent in my interests...and thus not face deeper family issues...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...never have enough to travel so that I cannot afford to connect with my family of origin and thus avoid consistently bonding and joining with them.

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...is to only barely get by so that my mother will feel bad for not supporting me as single mother when my daughter was little...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to not do well as a form of revenge towards my family of origin not supporting me....

Now Finally Here Are the Positive Motivations:

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to use my gifts to meet my own and my family's needs easily and joyfully.

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to have the freedom and time to gain more education, and to further my interests and gifts so that I can give more to life...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...is to have the time and energy for family fun, travel and joining and bonding....

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to have the energy and time to heal bonds with my family of origin...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...find a way to work, join and deepen my bond with my partner Ondrea

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to have the time and energy to support my daughter in her spirit, her success and her passionate interests...

In my situation regarding money...what I really want is...to have the room and ease to develop deeper relationships with my friends...

"Our lives show the accumulation of all of our varied wishes. Wanting something with all your heart will begin to slough away all of your untrue and idle wishes. Success comes from an undivided heart."

-Chuck Spezzano

The question is:

In my situation regarding...what I really want is.....

Try it!

I love to look at what I create and see what my inner symbology has to say. Everything we create in our lives, our paintings, drawings, collages, houses, families, jobs all relate to an inner feeling we hold. This painting indicates an opening to me towards a larger life, towards a more infinite mind that trusts that everything is unfolding as it should.

I have been reflecting on flow...going with the flow of life. Following one inner urge at a time, listening underneath the surface of things. Not resisting anything...moving into a mature consciousness and just sitting on the pulse...and listening.

How do I attend to this moment? How do I best respond? This is intuition. This is flow. This is clear seeing where we can see where we fit into the divine order of things.

I look at his painting and muse how much my life is my co-creation. Every feeling I have had is represented in solid form all around me. Life is a such a creative play!

There is always a right response to every situation. If we get quiet, we can sense it. Life is guiding us all of the time. When we respond with our instincts, with our inspiration, with our clear, quiet intuition, everything is in flow and we are in sync with events as they are meant to unfold.

A Few Things To Consider:

1.) What are you relisting in your life right now? What if you were to accept it? What would it be  teaching you?

2.) How is your current situation a reflection of your inner world of feelings?

I have been wanting to make many grand gestures in my life as of late, such as finding a new job, moving my house and changing my financial picture in one fell swoop. But intuitive guidance is gentle, it is always so gentle.

This weekend I went on a grand cleanse, understanding that I cannot change anything in my life until I love my life just as exactly as it is. So I loved my little car. I washed it with the hose, I vacuumed it. I loved my yard. I mowed my lawn and tenderly watered the flowers.

I swept my sun deck. I picked white daisies and the hearty ivy from the garden and put arrangements all over the house. I cleaned my studio and looked at all my earnest art journals, my writing journals, my hundreds of collages.

When my house was clean from top to bottom, I was suddenly in love with my life and wondered why I was in such a hurry to change it. After a period of quiet in the evening, a craving for stillness, that stopped me in my tracks, I sat on my bed and looked at the daisies and the ivy I had picked, and a simple message came into my heart:

"Let Love In."

When I did this drawing some time later I saw love pouring into all parts of my mind, healing me, relaxing me, joining with me.

Some questions to ask yourself:

1.) In what way have you let love into your life today?

2.) How does your body feel when you let love in? Can you feel where you are open and closed in various parts of your body? Ask the closed pars of your body what you can do to open up to more love.

Look at this figure grimly trying to push down all that feels untamed within. My bible these days in case you have not already guessed is Richard Moss's book The Mandala of Being. These days I am going through a considerable amount of "darkness cleansing" and this book is helping me meet feelings in myself that I have long recoiled from.

What I mean by this is, I know, and yet still, I always forget, that my outer circumstances are not the cause of my uncomfortable, darker, more repressed feelings. My outer circumstances can only trigger what I have already, long ago, repressed within. And life is exact and timely in this darkness cleansing process.

I like the look of this jester because try as he might to be "happy", "positive" and "nice" his face belies that he cannot push down his repressed feelings any longer. They want to come into the light.

Everything must be brought up to the light, as much as we would like to pretend and wish otherwise. This is a process we rarely learn how to do.

The process itself is intensely difficult, yet rewarding...cleansing...relieving. Usually when repressed feelings come up, there begins a black despair. Nothing feels right. Everything feels horribly wrong...tainted. Usually when I get to this point, I desperately want to change my circumstances, run away, quit my job, leave my partner, burn down my home!! Ahhhh!

We want to run but we cannot hide! We feel terrible, but the darkness is benevolent. This is where the present moment comes in. We have inner thoughts, stories, beliefs ect. within that suck us into tremendous emotional suffering and these are the very hardest to stay present for.

Richard Moss, so generously writes:

"We must learn that when we are powerfully contracted, we must turn our attention fully towards the sensations of angst and despair instead of the thoughts that such dark feelings always generate.

I have learned that I must stop thinking at the feelings, which means I must stop trying to interpret or explain them. I intentionally resist letting my mind race with thoughts that invariably begin to generate stories about why I am feeling this way and what I should do.

Instead I enter into a pure relationship, a profound intimacy with this suffering, and simultaneously sink into the Now of my body as though falling into infinite space.

 My attention never breaks with the bodily sensations. When my energy moves back to into my reactive mind, as it does for a while, I just renew the single pointed attention to the feeling. Suddenly whether it happens all at once or after many long hours, the darkest place becomes stillness, and even bliss.

It is as if I suddenly become transparent, so that both the terrible feeling and the self that hosted it disappear, and there is openness. I return to the beginning of myself, the Now."

So many presence teachings do not explain this process. This is what we have to present for...the hard stuff...so it can transform in the light of our attention.

I have been working with this process of attention to my darker feelings for over two years and it has tested everything in me. This kind of presence requires tremendous strength and willingness, and it must be built up gradually over time.

To give you an example, in the last while, I have been intensely struggling in myself, filled with overwhelming dark feelings, and have been feeling quite ill. Finally this past weekend, I began to turn my attention more fully to the intensity of darkness within.

It was hard not to go into my typical stories that arise, that tell me everything in my life must be changed NOW in order for me to feel better. Finally on Sunday, after mustering my fullest effort to be present within for days on end, I broke. I took our dogs for a slow walk and started to cry. I could not withstand my inner pain any longer. I have no idea why I was even crying, but as I started to sob more vociferously, I crawled up onto a flat rock and let it rip. My golden retriever climbed up next to me and kissed my face worriedly, and then she and the two other dogs sat in a semi-circle around me and held court as I moved through the feelings fully in my body.

As my tears began to subside, I slid down the rock and lay flat in the grass, in the hot sunshine. The dogs relaxed and gathered around and we reclined, present and at peace, my heart wide open....nothing needing to be different anymore.

A good thing to consider:

Consider that the minute you feel a contraction in your body, you are resisting the present moment as it is meant to be. Notice how often you fight the present moment in a day. See how often you say no to life because you cannot withstand the tension within you. See if you can turn towards it instead of away from it and touch it with your gentle, unwavering attention. Watch it as it dissipates in the light of your awareness.

This collage makes me laugh. That is a good thing! After several rousing fights in the latter part of last week with my partner Ondrea - all started by me - I realized....I am angry! I have been feeling a lot of anger lately....especially anger at my own anger!

I told Ondrea on Friday that I want to hold my anger without projecting it outwards and be present for it until it moved and shifted on its own. It is here in my my body - I might as well face it. I have a hard time being present for my anger. Anger is a hot and uncomfortable emotion - it seethes and boils - it is enough to drive you crazy. It is very easy to project it outwards..."Someone or something has done me wrong" stories abound, and they are so easy to dissipate anger towards.

Determined to withdraw my projections from my life, I immediately got sick with an raging infection and spent the next days sleeping away my weekend. When I awoke from my stupor today at noon, "I said to Ondrea, " I am still angry." She laughed and said, "Go for a run." Years ago when I went through my divorce, I ran everyday and it healed me. It gave me somewhere to put my anger. My attempts to change and manipulate my ex-husband into someone who would not upset, provoke and disturb me, went instead, into my running.

I like this collage above. There is a fierceness to it. It is a good kick in the butt reminding me to look at what I am not meeting in myself.

Richard Moss says it best:

"Demanding someone change (including ourselves) is fruitless; in fact it is a form of violence. We all have the potential to change, and it happens completely naturally the more we realize our essential selves. In the absence of this fundamental understanding, requiring someone to change is a weapon used against that person. It means attacking what is and an attempt to protect ourselves from feelings we are not meeting in ourselves. We must not attempt to manipulate other people to protect us from our core fears. Who they are, as they are, is the reality of them. To fight against this is to suffer."

Some good things to consider are:

1.) It is interesting to keep track of how much you resist your own life. When you consider that nothing can be other than what it is in this moment, it releases a good deal of inner pressure. Note how much you resist your life today.

2.) See how much you can withstand uncomfortable feelings inside yourself today as people say thngs you don't like, or events happen that go contrary to your plans. Welcome your anxious and uncomfortable feelings as you would any other feeling.

Know that as you welcome your disturbing feelings you are denying no part of yourself. This build a strength of presence and allowing that feels very rich.

The Force of Anger

Look at the force of this anger in this drawing. The figure is filled with cherished ideas about herself that dare not be challenged in any way. If this figure's cherished self ideas are challenged, some amount of force and control will be implemented to try to change the experiences and people that bring out these uncomfortable feelings.

The trick to meeting intensity in any form of conflict is to trust and remember that no matter how it appears, life is never against us. Life is always trying to show us some truth about ourselves and it serves us better to not try to withdraw and distance from the truths that are being constantly being revealed.

Usually our pain comes from not accepting the multi-dimensionality of our humanness. Most of choose to be blind to our own weaknesses and tend to see them more easily in others. Yet if we refuse to see the whole truth of ourselves we will continue to suffer endlessly. Life will always bring conflict to our door to wake us up to our part in things.

Pain and anger is usually about the loss of a cherished self-image. Perhaps for example, we prefer to see ourselves as all-kind and all-loving. When conflict arises it brings up all of our hidden pain and we realize how angry we actually are. How hard it is, and how unrealistic it is to be "nice" and "kind" all of the time.

I have felt unraveled by conflict in my workplace the last couple years and I am starting to see the Truth in it. What I am understanding that groups and families in crisis usually express extreme polarities. There is usually one or more who expresses the anger and the discontent for the whole group or system. This would typically be called the "Black Sheep" of the family or group. The angry ones seem "less than" and those who appear to have it all perfectly together seem "better than".  Both sides however are being called to the truth of balance and integration. Since if we are drawn to be in a group together, we all have an equal amount of anger within us and equal amounts of good....otherwise we would not even be there. We all have anger, but if we allow another to express it all for us, we can easily disown it in ourselves.

We can become unraveled in group or family dynamics because usually someone is expressing some dis-owned part of ourselves. It provides us something to argue with and fight against. In disowning our own feelings and the truth of our own lower human tendencies, we tend to want to disown the people who bring them out in us. Whenever we do not want to see a particular, less than savory truth about ourselves, division, separation and conflict is born. The nature of wholeness is to allow everything into it's expression. As I allow myself to own and integrate all of my parts - even the more wild and untamed parts of myself such as anger, I experience less conflict and judgment of others in my being.

As I experience and accept my own anger, instead of retaliating and trying to change a person or situation that "makes me" feel disturbed or uncomfortable, I can let it transform into personal power and creativity.

Consider this quote about anger and let it transform you:

"Anger is born out of the fear you feel when others won't conform to your point of view. Give up your anger towards others and yourself by seeing that the force of fear is not strength. Remember that for any and every action of force there is an equal and opposite one. This explains why the fighting never ends. Let it end."   -Guy Finley

Some good questions to ask yourself:

1.) Who or what are you angry about right now?

2.) Is there any way that you can see that the current situation or person is attacking a cherished self-image of yourself?

3.) What if what the person or event that is "attacking you" has some grain of truth in it. Can you allow yourself to relax your defenses and take a look deep inside at your own areas of weakness?

4.) When you see what you are disowning in yourself you will feel more compassionate and integrated. Could you explore your anger and allow yourself to see what you do not normally allow yourself to see in a collage or a journal session?

Family of Selves

It has been difficult to admit that every relationship I have is an accurate reflection to the relationship I am having with myself. If someone is attacking me, I must ask, "How am I attacking myself? What do I feel guilty about?" Whatever we feel angry and guilty about always points to something we are not giving. If someone is withdrawing from me, I must ask, "How do I withdraw from life? What do I not want to look at inside of myself?"

If relationships are my mirror, it is difficult to look at how I work with a group of women that shift and undulate emotionally each day in way I can never predict or control. Sometimes relationship feels like walking into a purifying fire. Anyone who ever said the spiritual path is full of peace has already walked through the fire of relationship or is avoiding it completely.

Life requires a tremendous amount of deeper vision. We can get hurt in daily small ways by the opinions of others and then choose to add another layer of defense over our coat of armor. When we protect ourselves in this way, we withdraw from life more and more. On the opposite end we can choose to take a step towards what is wounding us and look for the gift about what it is telling us. Anything that bothers us is pointing us towards something we are afraid to look at in ourselves. Usually it is something in our character that is not contributing to the whole of life and that we selfishly wanting to defend and not change.

Perhaps the greatest fire of purification in my past few years has been at my full-time job - working in an art studio with 10 headstrong artists/instructors. Group dynamics and all the complex relationships within them are my subject of fascination of late. My earlier opinions of groups have been that they do not allow me the " fullest expression of my unique personality" and I have avoided them all of my life.

As the two year mark passed at my full-time job I have shifted my view. Because I feel that the full-time work I do facilitating art and creativity for the elderly is purposeful and valuable, I have been willing to change my opinion on groups because I have to work in one! I now see groups as a refining and purifying force, that come kicking and screaming, are going to point out where we do not step up and contribute to the whole.

Group dynamics are an amazing experiment that we all must learn to flow in and co-operate with in order to be part of a larger interdependent expression of the whole. Within a group, our individual edges, preferences and strong likes and dislikes have to get rubbed down in the interest of a harmonious working group. This is a good thing, even though the comfortable, primary expression of our personality would like to convince us otherwise.

Working in groups is uncomfortable. In groups we have to stretch in directions that we would not normally choose to. Groups teach us not to be so self-centered and only focused on our own interests. It shows us where we hold back, where we withdraw and where we act victimized and attacking. It shows us where we feel better than others, where we seek our approval from, and it show us where we feel less than others. Group dynamics are an amazing mirror. If we truly give to the good of the group and set aside our selfish and isolated interests, there is less conflict and more cooperation. Groups teach us to step outside of our small selves and give to something larger than ourselves.

Here are some good question to ask yourself:

1.) Take a good look at a current group you are involved in. Who do you like and approve of in the group? Who do dislike or are irritated by? Can you name the characteristics in these people that you like and dislike? This will provide a map of what you allow and dis-allow inside of yourself.

2.) It is helpful to view every member of a group as a part of yourself. Can you find a name in your "Family of Selves" that represents every member of your group? This will help you feel less outwardly attacking towards others. You can say, "Hello victim!" to yourself when someone is feeling sorry for themselves and look for all the ways you have felt sorry for yourself today.

We are all made up of different selves and as I have noticed as I become more conscious, I see that each part of myself has it's own distinct reality that will sometimes take over my life completely. One part of myself that I do not like to look at fully is the underground voice of my inner critic.

Recently I have been paying close attention to the critical voice in my head. It is by no means all of me. I have been watching how the not good enough voice seeps under my days and without realizing it I begin to lose my motivation to move forward...and my vital creative energy and life force begins to slip away.

While this inner voice may seem ridiculously harsh to some it is important to know that each part of our personality acts like it's own separate personality with it's own thoughts, feelings and dreams. Psychologists Hal and Sidra Stone say that the inner critic makes absolute pronouncements as though it has the truth of heaven behind it. It is for this reason that it is initially difficult to separate from the critic's voice. We think it is all encompassing...it this voice is all of us...it is God or our parents speaking and condemning us.

It is helpful to see that underneath the critic's voice is a fear of shame and of not being good enough. Our entire society is based on perfectionism, of having the right things, of looking good. To give ourselves the permission to be human and to know we are doing our best given our current emotional circumstances and life situation is a relief.

Luckily all parts of life are simply energy with a dark and light side. I remember growing up and saying to my family that I wished we would all be more honest with each other. "Why would we want to criticize each other?" was the response. Although I did not want to be harshly criticized, I think I was looking to be reflected honestly. In my family we would only compliment each other and I felt a huge gap in learning how to relate to others in a constructive way. As I have grown older I find that even the the harshest criticism from the outside or the inside serves to raise my integrity and impeccability. If I am willing to look at it with courage there is always a step forward I can take.

The positive side of the critic is that it is extremely discerning and able to analyze everything. We could reassign it to be a firm but benevolent inner coach urging us forward. It keeps us on track and does not let us get off with the job half done. It has focus and discipline. We can see clearly where we need to grow. With the inner critic applied in balance we can pull up our socks and move forward in a focused way.

It is extremely helpful to keep a journal for a while and record your inner critic's voice. What is it telling you on an ongoing basis?

Ask yourself:

Is this inner criticism valid or just plain cruel?

Where did the criticism come from? My parents? Society?

Am I allowing myself to be human?

Is there a shred of truth to my inner criticism?

What part of the criticism is true? How could I take a gentle step forward?

This collage to me points to a higher way of thinking that sees beyond the unconsious demands of my regular, everyday mind. I can keep myself overly busy and full to the brim with creative projects that I believe will make me happy. It is interesting to watch how many demands we make upon life from a sense of dissatisfaction. In this way we create a life of inner poverty...of not ever arriving yet.

Our daily mind constantly demands that life make us happy in this way and that. It is the place from where all of our unecessary doing comes from. From this place of demands we create false ideas about what would make us happy and all the seemingly necessary tasks to go along with those false needs.

To see through "higher eyes" takes persistence and great dedication. When we see through our higher eyes we realize that there is not that much we have to do. We do not even have to have elaborate goals or dreams. Life is truly laying itself out at our feet. To take life in richly and simply is often the only task. "What is my life revealing to me?" is often the only question.

"Just the way you look at it...change the world." As you practice seeing the light and meaning in every moment you will start to see beauty where there seemed to be none before. We can never think or dream ourselves into happiness - we can only be present for life to come to us in each unfolding moment.

Some good questions to ask:

1) How much do you complain in a day? Can you see that your every complaint is an unreasonable demand that life should conform to your personal wishes?

2) Can you step back from your own thought and watch them with curiousity? What do you see when you view all of life as helping you?

When I made this collage I could immediately see it was about the story that lived in my head. My fantasies about life from my ego place have me living in a perfection that would be impossible and unrealistic to achieve. I called this collage, "Unrolling the Story." Look at that pristine white outfit and the fabulous legs. Doesn't she look like she is going to a glamorous soiree? I am specially taken with the castle and the perfectly embellished dolls. It speaks to me of the fantasy of a life one day...the dome over the head speaks to me of a subjective certaintly not based in objective reality.

Sometimes it take a while for us to wake up to our life as it really is in this moment. When I wake up to my life in reality I am in my 40's and am slightly overweight. In this moment my rental home is is more crumbling bohemian artist - not at all an opulent castle. The icy trees behind the figure speak of an iciness and an isolation that my individual story brings. It keeps me apart from and in a fantasy state of "better than...and one day it will be better" with what is all around me. Feel yoour love for the unaccepted part of yourself and notice how as you do, you relax more into your life as it is.

Individual fantasies keep us separate and unaware of the objective reality around us. In this way we are not really listening to life. We live mostly in a subjective reality in our own head that really has little do with how our life is actually unfolding. We are usually so busy making impressions and setting personal goals and asserting our personalites onto life we actually do not pay much attention to what life is trying to teach us.

Here are some questions to consider:

Often we are unwilling to accept part of ourselves that feel inadequate and not perfect. If you were to get quiet for a moment, could you admit one thing you are not wanting to see right now in your life?

Can you accept this one thing about yourself today. Try a writing and collaging a page in your journal that is dedicated to this one thing you cannot accept about yourself. Spend the day loving this part of yourself. Feel the reality of this aspect of your life and surround it with love and acceptance. Ask this part of yourself what it is teaching you. As you embrace this part of you more and more, notice how you begin to relax into your life as it is.

After I did this spontaneous collage I reflected on how a good mother would love her children unconditionally. This kind of love is unending and it echos and resonates infinitely in our souls like the corridors upon corridors in the collage. This feeling of utter peace - self-embracing - I am perfect as I am - love is actually something most of us experience quite rarely.

It is helpful to reflect on how much you love yourself. By this I mean so you talk inwardly to yourself in an encouraging way at all times? Or are you hard on yourself? Rarely in our minds do we feel "good enough" yet. Do you feel utterly at peace and in full acceptance of who you are on a consistent basis?

It is interesting to contemplate that when we do not have the feeling tone of self-love within we are forever looking on the outside of ourselves - to our loved ones, our coworkers, our friends and even our own children to validate us.

Jack Lee Rosenberg, author of Body, Self and Soul speaks of all the various feeling tones that need to feel utter self-love. He calls them "Good Mother Messages". Read them over and see which ones you feel complete with and which messages you feel you are missing. If you meditate regularly on the unique feeling tone of each message you will likely notice a considerable decline in the often hidden but desperate search for outside approval.

Good Mother Messages

1.) I want you.
2.) I love you.
3.) I’ll take care of you.
4.) You can trust me.
5.) I’ll be there for you: I’ll be there for you even when you die.
6.) It’s not what you do but who you are that I love.
7.) You are special to me.
8.) I love you and I give you permission to be different from me.

9.) Sometimes I will tell you “no” and that is because I love you.
10.) My love will make you well.
11.) I see you and I hear you.
12.) You can trust your inner voice.
13.) You don’t have to be afraid anymore.

As we create our lives more honestly we are often called to round ourselves out in ways that feel unfamiliar. Sometimes disowned selves come up for acceptance and if they have been judged harshly by ourselves or others in the past there will be fear associated with their assertion into our consciousness. I for example have a strongly developed feminine side that is soft, easy and natural. My masculine side however begs for attention, development and focus. Often when I take steps towards rounding out my masculine energy, such as getting my work out it in the world I feel intense fear coming up.

Fear seems to intensify with our resistance of it. Sometimes I will just sit quietly with it and let it seethe and pulse through my body. Feeling into the tone and texture of fear diffuses the resistance and allow fear to form into a message or a question. Fear implies that there is something that a part of me is not quite ready for. Usually a more limited part of myself is trying to keep me safe. 

An exercise to explore your fears and believed limitations in your art journal is as follows:

1.)What am I afraid of?

2.)What is my fear protecting me from?

3.)What would happen if I were not afraid of that?

When you are in a fear state it is often helpful to collage your fear. It is almost like creating a visual nightmare. I was in a state of fear when I created the above collage but I felt very satisfied and my fear was diffused after the collage was finished. Be gentle with yourself. If you are feeling overwhelmed step back and do not push through your fears too intensely. Let yourself unfold in a relaxed manner. It is ok to stop and take a rest.

Another good way of dealing with fear is to watch and record your dreams. This will help you understand the interaction of the full cast of characters that live below in your unconscious mind. It may help you identify which part of you is begging to be integrated and accepted into your conscious life. Once you identify which part of you is begging for acceptance you can soothe your everyday mind that is feeling fearful by repeating to that unaccepted part, "I love you."

The part that begs for acceptance may not feel very desirable or attractive to your conscious mind hence it's relagation to the disowned dungeon of your unconscious. It is likely a very young and vulnerable part that needs to be accepted into your everyday life. Whenever I feel needy for example, in my fear, I get to work on further disowning my need by working harder and doing more. The exact opposite is needed. If I take the time to express and reclaim this needy part I can find the courage to ask others for help. This brings more wholeness and balance into my life.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

-Eleanor Roosevelt