“What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”  If the Universe asked you this question,  how would you answer?

Walking out of the movie theater after seeing “Eat, Pray Love” with Leslie on Friday night, I found myself thinking about the main characters unique journey of heartbreak and discovery as Eddie Vedder’s great song about awakening, ”Better Days” played in the background; a simple question came to me….”What would people do if they knew they could not fail?”

Honestly, the first and rather shallow idea that jumped into my head happened to be “arrange a tour with Eddie Vedder and Leonard Cohan  and call it the Soul-Spirit tour!” I laughed and blew it off.

Later on when I shared the idea with Leslie, while pointing out how far fetched it was;  her immediate response was that she could totally see it happening; or at least getting them both on a radio interview together and see where it goes from there.  Now this, I could imagine! Can’t you?  If I never asked the question AND never shared it with another, this idea would not be alive and have no possibility! I think the “secret” might be the one-two punch of  having a concrete answer and sharing it with someone who can see the possibility with you.

What if the evolution impulse of the Universe, which I call love, desires  you and I and others to ask this very question, share our answers with others and see what happens? What would be the harm? What could be the possibilities? Whether Leonard and Eddie go on tour together or not, the question and the sharing of its answer seems to be consistent with the evolutionary impulse of love in action!

So, What would happen if you asked yourself the question RIGHT NOW and shared your answer with at least one other?

“What is one thing that you would do if you knew you could not fail?”

So far…

• I’ll go first so you get the idea of the range from the global to the personal to the quirky idea:   “Teach the the whole world how to remove the blocks to WHOLENESS in my lifetime; Write and perform a relevant song that causes tears, laughter and passionate-compassionate action; Oh-yeah; Have Leonard Cohen and Eddie Vedder  go on tour and perform together.”
• Collin Tipping has said “A world of Radical Forgiveness by 2012.
• Leslie said;  ”A world of inner of inner peace and outer aliveness through body awareness.”
• Ellie Harold said; “My oil landscape paintings are showing and selling successfully in galleries in New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and San Juan by the end of 2012.  My book “Painting Outdoors” on every outdoor painter’s bookshelf inspiring a spiritual approach to landscape art.”
• Goran said; “I would be in my spiritual commune/poly family and we would do workshops and retreats and such.
• Bob said; “Solve all to the world’s problems.”
• Janice said; “Through dancing, dancing, dancing we would all experience heaven on this earth.

• Others have said;
• “Walk on water” ( why not if we could, right?)
• “Be a successful author.”
• “Have  my dying mother of 78 live to 108.”
• “To have the body of a god…,not Buddha
• Robert, an attorney and businessmen said  he’d compose great-non commercial music.

What is one thing that you would do if you knew you could not fail?

Please comment, forward, tweet, re-tweet or in some way pass your answer and THE QUESTION along?

Thanks!

To your Wholeness!

Michael

This blog post outlines a process for gaining emotional mastery, really!  I know this well because it has been the essence of my own path both personally and professionally. Learning to not resist contracting emotional states has been the most difficult AND most valuable thing I’ve learned on my path from whole-mess to wholeness.

Fill free to read it, use it, download it, copy it and send it along to everyone you know who would like to gain a little more emotional mastery.

Face it, Embrace it, Express it, Listen for the message

Our emotions are the source of our experience of the love, passion and aliveness! They cause us to feel  all of these wonderful expanded feelings that we live for. Yet , they also cause us to feel hurt, sadness, fear and anger. Emotions in their most basic state are energy - energy intended to be in motion. I use the term E-motion as a tool to remember this concept.  When you are feeling an E-motion, energy is moving through your body. Anytime you notice yourself feeling stuck or disconnected, you’ve stuffed an E-motion. Energy that is intended to be in motion has been stopped. In psychological terms, you’ve suppressed a feeling that needs to be felt.

E-motions are gifts that allow us to be fully alive and engaged with our lives. The healthy use of E-motions can give us valuable messages, keep us safe, help us connect to others and experience great joy. However, when we allow our ego to repress or suppress our emotional state, we separate from our essence and lose our connection to wholeness.

When we suppress our E-motions, they become lodged in the cells of our body causing tension and stress reactions.  If the E-motion is not released and forced to remain trapped in our body, physical pain and illness result as well as emotional pain. The unconscious mind will continue to create self sabotaging circumstances that reinforce our emotional pain. It is as if the stuck energy has a gravitational pull that attracts people and circumstances into our lives for the purpose of the hurt being experienced and finally released.

So, why do people suppress their E-motions? Why be afraid to experience these contracted states?

1. The mistaken belief that the pain connected to the E-motion will be greater than is actually so.

2. Fear that the E-motion will overtake them and they may not be able to recover, remaining stuck in the discomfort.

3. Fear of being or appearing week, causing damage to their self image.

What’s to do?

No worries, help has arrived!

I created the Just FEEL It process for the healthy release of E-motions.  Whatever we resist persists. Whatever we have the courage to fully face, feel and embrace heals and becomes grace.  The healthy way to move the E-motions through your body is to allow yourself to be fully present with them, experience them, hear the messages they are sending you, and then releasing the energy.  What remains is your Essence.

Step One- Face It

Notice what is actually happening with you, in your physical body right now.

When you are either feeling stuck or experiencing an uncomfortable emotion the first step is to Face the the E-motion with compassionate awareness. The best way to do this is to stop the internal dialogue about what is happening and why it’s happening and see if you can discover where you are most experiencing the sensation of this E-motion in your body. Then, bring awareness to that area without judging, analyzing, blaming or trying to fix the cause.

Here’s how? Ask yourself this the question: What is actually happening with me in this moment? You may or may not know what to name what you are feeling and this is okay. Bring your attention to the actual physical sensations of the E-motion in your body. For example, If you are feeling sad, notice the physical expression of this sadness. Notice where in the body this E-motion seems to be most present.

Step Two- Embrace It

Embrace this feeling as fully as you are able with compassionate attention.

Breathe into the E-motion and visualize your breath going to that area of your body. Imagine becoming the most loving and nurturing parent that you can imagine to this innocent E-motion. Continue to provide compassionate attention by sensing as much as you can about this feeling.

* If this E-motion had a shape, sense what it might be.

* If it had a size, sense what it might be.

* If it had a color, sense what it might be.

* If it had texture, sense what it might be.

* If it had another mood, sense what might it be.

* If I recall an earlier time that this feeling was around,  about how old was I?

*  imagine this younger version of you either in your heat or in front of you. Now, ask: What did you most need in this situation?

*  Become aware of all of those that you know and don’t know who have this desire.

Step Three- Express It

*Sense for a moment, If what you’re feeling right now could make a sound, what might the sound be?

* Be honest, curious and playful.

* Now,  make the sound that you have discovered, with no attention on getting it right, on your next three exhales; either out load or silently.

Step Four -Listen

*  Take at least one full minute to witness and deeply listen to what you are most needing and wanting  now. Do this by asking the following , silently or out loud:

” What is my body most needing/wanting right now…..”  “What  need or want was not met around around this upset?”

” What are some creative ways that I can  get these needs/wants met if I choose to?”

” How could I contribute this universal need/want to another, if I choose to?”

Return to wholeness.

Take a moment to honor yourself for being a good steward of the energy that’s nature was to be in motion and simply required your attention . You Faced, Embraced, Expressed and Listened. Notice that you have returned to the expanded state of wholeness.

So, to summarize the process, here are the steps:

1. FACE it by noticing what is actually going on in your body.
2. EMBRACE it by holding the E-motion in your awareness with compassionate attention.
3. EXPRESS it with a sound
   
4. LISTEN for the unmet needs that were the source of the upset. See the energy associated with the upset as a basic form of pure energy, returning to wholeness

Whatever we resist persists. Yet whatever we have the courage to fully face, feel and embrace heals and becomes grace.

What is a conscious-loving relationship?  Simply put, a relationship that recognizes  and acts upon the awareness that  you came together for a sacred purpose and that purpose is to help each other become more whole. Yet so often the opposite seems more true.  Why is this?  The answer lies in the unconscious ego based  reactive patterns rooted in our unmet needs from the past.  The  opportunity is  in allowing the love that is present within the relationship to heal the wounds that are the source of the patterns.

Do we actually  hide from the very thing that we most seek, intimacy?     In-To-Me-See.

During early childhood, you learned to bond with your caregivers in ways that felt good to you. This is where you learned many of the bonding patterns that continue in your adult life as the foundation for all of your relationships. No matter how satisfying those early relationships may have been, you also had certain perceived unmet needs. These are the same needs that you seek to get met today particularly in your romantic relationship. Cosmic Joke is, we try to get these needs met from the same energetic match of the people that couldn’t meet them in the first place.  And, unless the relationship becomes conscious of this, they wont be met in your present romantic relationship.  When you can give your partner what s/he most emotionally needs,  s/he heals and becomes more whole and you grow to become more flexible and whole yourself in the process. Not a bad deal!  We all get to choose; conscious essence based love or unconscious ego based false love.

Whatever is not healed in your relationship now will repeat, in your current relationship and/ or a future one. The time for healing is now.

A conscious relationship can take many forms, ranging from  monogamy inside a life long relationship with another to a creating  conscious community with others.  Yet a relationship with our most intimate partner can be one of the most profound spiritual paths available to us. Romantic relationships are dramatic teachers of wholeness, showing us where we need to heal. Problems with our intimate partner can be an opportunity to grow in to greater wholeness, both personally and as a couple.

Our soul seeks real love. Our ego often creates false love. False love is ego based and concerned with protecting our vulnerability and getting what we think we want.

Real love…, Essence based Love desires to fully see the soul of their beloved and takes the risk of being fully seen by this beloved, in all its vulnerable glory.

In Wholeness!

The past is only the past when we become present to it.

Happy Independence Day!

During this time of celebration of our country’s freedom from the tyranny of dictatorship, let us begin to cultivate an inner state of independence by freeing ourselves from the tyranny of the pain body and celebrating the aliveness within the miracle and mystery of each precious present moment.

A new client arrived for her Core Wound Release session last week. She’d recently heard how powerfully healing and liberating the process was. I recall how excited and eager she was to schedule her session just a few weeks earlier. Yet, from the time that she arrived, I felt her reluctance. When I asked her about the reluctance I was sensing, she confessed that she had been listening to Eckhart Tolle in the car on the way to over and was getting tired of dealing with the past and just wanted to learn to be present.

This sounded very familiar. I’ve heard it before as an objection to the core wound release work that I do, which is really a direct approach to releasing stuck energy in the pain body by bringing full presence to it, as Eckhart teaches. My hope here is to bring clarity to subject of the pain body, my core wound release work and how it compliments Eckhart Tolle’s teachings.

“All Emotional pain that is not fully faced, felt and accepted becomes part of the pain body.” -Eckhart Tolle

The term pain body has been around for a while and  recently been made famous by Eckhart Tolle’s work. A pain body is formed when the ego experiences something it cannot process, something so horrific or over-whelming happens that it can’t be faced.  The negative energy of the experience becomes stuck somewhere in the body. I call these experiences core wounds. Most of us can relate to having painful circumstances in our childhoods that often affect our response to life as adults today, particularly in our closest relationships. The adult ego will usually try to hide these early hurts through either avoidance or overcompensation. Yet they remain unresolved in the mind and energetically stuck the body. Until healed and released, the unconscious will continue to create self sabotaging circumstances that hijack us from the present moment and reinforce our emotional pain. It is as if the stuck energy has a gravitational pull that attracts people and circumstances into the persons life for the purpose of the hurt being experienced and finally released, yet the protective ego wont allow this to happen.

We can never totally remain in the present moment when we have old wounds that are the source of our ego-reactions today. These wounds when triggered call us out of the present moment and into the past. We may think that we are upset about something in the present, but it is actually a ghost from the past. Before we can move forward, emotional wounds must be healed and the energy that surrounds them in the pain body released. To do anything else is to further suppress our emotions and take us further from the present moment kind of living that we seek.

“Whatever is not conscious will be experienced as fate”
-Carl Jung

Here’s a typical example of someone like you might know: A young boy grows up in a strict home of high achievers. There is constant pressure for him to be the best; make all A’s, be a star on the ball field and be as good at math as his father. His father’s attitude is, “average is unacceptable in this family.”  Well, although he tries, he’s not as gifted in math or baseball as his father. His pain body becomes filled with shame and the mind adopts the story, “I’ll never measure up.”  As an adult he overcompensates by needing to appear successful, impressive, winning at all cost, preoccupied with acquisitions, drawing attention to and even exaggerating his accomplishments. All extrinsic motivations. Or, he goes in the opposite direction of avoidance, having given up, he hides behind drugs, alcohol or some other form of escape. He may shift back and forth between the two. Until he is ready to wake up, the last thing he will do is become present to the emotional pain of his pain body by conscious choice. In one way or another the happiness and wholeness that he really seeks will allude him. Know anyone like this? When he finally has the courage to fully face, feel and accept his actual experience of hurt and shame with compassionate presence, it dissolves and he is free.

Why are people so afraid to experience their hurt feelings of fear, shame, anger and sadness?
1. The mistaken belief that the pain will be greater than is actually so.
2. Fear that the feelings will overtake them and they may not be able to recover, remaining stuck in the discomfort.
3. Fear of being or appearing week.

One of my greatest discoveries, both personally and professionally, is that any emotional pain or limiting belief that is experienced fully, for just one moment, is healed and released, often permanently. I believe that each of comes into adulthood with core wound crying to be healed and a core purpose calling to be fulfilled.

“Whatever we resist persists. Yet, whatever we have the courage to fully face, feel and embrace becomes grace.”
-Yours Truly

The Enneagram is one of the most profound transformational tools available to assist us in uncovering our
deepest motivations and fears that lie at the core of our ego personality or “false self” and transcend to Essence or the “true self”. It’s a psycho-spiritual tool that provides much more than personality profile.

What is it exactly? The Enneagram is a geometric symbol that maps the nine fundamental personality types of human nature as well as the very complex interrelationships between the various types. Every one is a mix of these fundamental types, although one type, in particular, is your “home base” or the best description of your personality as a whole. Knowing your Enneagram type is extremely valuable in bringing instant awareness of your ego’s core fears and desires and a direct path towards Essence.

Here’s how it works: Each Enneagram type has a core fear, core desire, favorite strategy or vice, as well as a principle virtue. The more your ego engages in vice to avoid fear and gain its desire, although providing temporary relief, ultimately brings a person closer to their core fear. The more you determine to be present with your fear and engage your virtue, the closer you come to your core desire. Your ego tends to choose a quick fix resulting in a protecting or grasping strategy. This is either inflating or deflating and always causes separation. The virtue is always grounded in love and wholeness and therefore, brings an individual closer to their Essence.

Within the nine types, three are more body-centered (8, 9 &1), three are more heart-centered (2, 3 & 4) and three are more mind-centered (5, 6 & 7). What does this mean? Both your greatest strengths as well as your favorite defense strategies originate from your particular center.

Here is a personal example from my life: My ego’s personality type is Seven, the Enthusiast, Epicure or Adventurer. My personality center is the mind. Through the mind, when I’m at my best (integrated), I’m able to think quickly, provide insight and ingenuity and offer creative and practical solutions to solve problems. Through this same mind, when at my worst (un-integrated) I can allow charm to replace substance, allow ideas to distract me from the real work that needs to be done and let my spontaneity, playfulness and head-in-the-clouds interfere with keeping commitments. It is hard to admit these things. Yet, I’ve learned that either we  own our “shadow” or our shadow owns us. I most humbly choose the former.

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