Letting Go

"When a relationship ends, use the pain and difficult feelings to deepen your practice... to see vividly the infinite depth of being in the intensity of your broken heart". -- Ken McLeod

Welcoming Rejection.

"The gift in rejection is that it can become the new face of liberation".

I've been silently repeating this to myself for several days now, hoping it will stick.  Turns out, I'm weeks away from being 30 years old, and the possibility of rejection is still a big, scary thing for me.

Perhaps too early in my life I suffered from an incomplete initiation into this particularly devastating kind of pain, and have subsequently been trying to avoid it by learning to be "likable enough" in most situations, most of the time.  Today, I'm hoping that these nearly 30 years of life experience have finally allowed me to decided that the price one pays for that comfortable "likable" status is way too high.  Every effort to avoid this experience on the outside, the searing pain of rejection becomes internalized instead.

All too recently - despite years of therapy and other healing interventions - I have discovered that this inner ridicule is still wreaking havoc on select parts of my psyche and bodily systems.  Fortunately, I also know -- largely as a result of all those same years of therapy (etc.) - that many of my initiations into the bitterness of rejection have also carried with them an elixir of healing far beyond any kind of suffering I had feared before.

So, to expand on my original mantra: I'm thinking that the gift in a conscious approach to any experience of rejection is that it may become a powerful teacher on the path of liberation.  Exactly what that teaching will be teaching 'you' is unknown until it's endured, I suppose.

May we have the courage when we need it.

Namaste.

What Are You Running Away From?

Suppose what you fear
could be trapped
and held in Paris.

Then you would have the courage
to go everywhere in the world.
All the directions of the compass
open to you,
except the degrees east or west
of true north
that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare
to put your toes smack dab
on the city limit line.

And you’re not really willing to stand on a mountainside
miles away
and watch the Paris lights
come up at night.
And just to be on the safe side, you decide to stay completely
out of France.

But then danger
seems too close
even to those boundaries,
and you feel the timid part of you
covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend
who learns your secret and says,
“See Paris first.”

—M. Truman Cooper

The intelligence of 'Trance'.

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone. 

-- Emily Dickinson

There's an incredible book called The Inner World of Trauma by Donald Kalsched.  In the book, Kalsched explores the way self-destructive habits get created in response to early traumas we might experienced.  Essentially, he suggests that these self-destructive habits were ORIGINALLY intelligent because they allowed us to survive what was unbearable at the time.  As we begin find a way to start looking at these painful habits later in life - the gift and burden of consciousness then becomes learning how to forebear what we once could not in order to give up what no longer helps us thrive.

The intelligence of the psyche will not allow us to go there, however, until we feel authentically safe enough to survive this kind of regression into old psychic injuries.  In my work as a therapist, I often realize that the symptomatic 'acting out' that brings people into my office must then be intrinsically linked to an unresolved feeling of danger.  Figuring out how to help people get safe in their bodies, safe in their relationship with me, and safely connected to their own inner reality feels like the heart and soul of what I might hope to achieve with each new person I see.

Lately, I've become convinced that figuring out how to create this safe space for someone else requires a certain reverence for the 'symptoms' themselves.  When we approach our destructive habits with curiosity and compassion, I believe we afford ourselves a chance to learn how to follow their trail into an accurate understanding of their symbolic function.  Once we can see clearly how our own attempts to survive our lives may no longer be helping us to do so, we might be able to forgive ourselves for holding on to what hurts us and begin to let go.  It sounds like somewhat of a paradox, of course, but I truly believe that it's our capacity to honor the original intelligence that created these personal habits that imprison us the most, that then gives us the possibility to begin living beyond them.

Namaste.

Soul Dance

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced

WE HAVE COME.


by Jewel Mathieson

Choosing Love

I read this excerpt from Lawrence Edwards the other day:

If you take what the Buddha and Christ said,
and all the great yogis, saints, sages,
mystics, and lovers of God,
it can be reduced to two words:
Choose Love.
There is nothing higher than Love,
nothing purer,
nothing more selfless,
nothing more powerful,
and it is present in every moment.
Choose Love.
In all times, in all places -
Choose Love,
for Love has already chosen you.

I believe that Love is the engine of the Universe, and that it's sole function is to produce more Love.  I also believe that "surrendering into Love" a choice... up to a point.  And yet, sometimes I think I resist really yielding (see blog post about Movement Theory) fully into Love in so many different situations because I'm afraid of what that experience of love will do to me.  I wonder if this might be true for most of us.  If so, maybe that's because we know that real love always requires personal transformation.  The timid, lazy parts of me then resist this surrender - in either big or small ways - precisely because I know that personal transformation comes at a price.

The people listed above in Edwards' example of those who "chose Love" lived radical lives.  Many of them gave up a comfortable, easy lifestyle because continuing to choose Love meant that they must. Love requires Love in exchange for Itself, and I suppose that none of us really know what our own Love for the world might look like for us personally if we were to fully choose It.  Choosing Love may actually be down-right world-destroying.... or, "the world as we know it"-destroying for each of us. Because Love begs this question of us:  What is your full potential?!  And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we'd all agree that that's a somewhat terrifying concept.  We risk becoming like seeds - each one of us having to allow our safe little shells to crack and tear themselves wide open so that the fertile of ground of Love might receive us, and change us into the fullest expression of our being.

The Buddha abandoned both extraordinary privilege and his own young family, Jesus knew he was going to die an excruciating and humiliating death, Mother Teresa gave up luxury for poverty, and others have sold Fortune-500 companies to sweep the floors of an Ashram.  Yet these same people have done remarkable things for humanity, and all of them have reported experiences of sublime ecstasy, unity, and peace.

I suppose there's only one thing we can expect:  To choose Love is both to risk and to gain everything.

I'm often reminded of something C.S. Lewis said about his character Aslan (the symbol of Divine Love in his fictional world of Narnia):  "Safe?  Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.  He's the King, I tell you".  I'd say the same is true of choosing Love.  It's GOOD. Just not safe.  And maybe I'm scared of that.

Be The Mystery.

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. And as you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, this intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world shall cease to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
And to the rushing water speak, I am.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Restor(y)ing the Body!

"You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the body. Somewhere there is a place where the two ends meet and become interlocked. And that is the place where one cannot say whether it is matter, or what one calls psyche."  -- Carl Jung

My good friend and collaborative partner, Dana, and I have been working together to create a mind + body integrative healing practice, which we have affectionately named 'Restor(y)ing the Body'. Essentially, we work together to explore the unique ways in which our clients carry their own personal stories in their physical bodies.  Much of the work we do reflects the above idea from Carl Jung, as we aim to help people discover the precise places where their ideas about themselves and their physical expressions have become interlocked in symptomatic ways.   In our practice and our workshops, we use a variety of methods to help people explore and transform these constricting patterns that exist in both the body and the mind.  These methods include (but are not limited to!) body work, shamanic techniques, energy and vibrational medicine interventions, guided meditation, and authentic movement exercises.

We also passionately agree with psychologist and spiritual teacher, Judith Blackstone, when she suggests that "our fixed grasp on ourselves and the world is not just mental but also somatic. There are rigid holding patterns throughout the whole body, limiting our capacity for cognition, emotional responsiveness and physical sensation.  Even our sensory perception is limited by the psychologically based constrictions throughout our whole body".  The real thrill for us has been watching people rediscover the magic of who they are, by reconnecting with the wisdom that can be found when the mind and body begin to dialogue at the same point of reference.

We LOVE this work, and are so excited to start sharing it with more individuals and groups of people.  If you or someone you know would be interested in beginning to learn how to re-write their own "story", whether through a private session or a workshop experience with us, please feel free to message us on our Facebook page: Restor(y)ing the Body, or email us at restoryingthebody@gmail.com!

Namaste,
Whitney & Dana

Breaking the shell.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses 
your understanding. 

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its 
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. 

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the 
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem 
less wondrous than your joy; 

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, 
even as you have always accepted the seasons that 
pass over your fields. 

And you would watch with serenity through the 
winters of your grief. 

Much of your pain is self-chosen. 

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within 
you heals your sick self. 

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy 
in silence and tranquillity: 

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by 
the tender hand of the Unseen, 

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has 
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has 
moistened with His own sacred tears. 

- Kahlil Gibran

The gift of pain.

I've been thinking a lot about hurt and pain, as I've experienced quite a bit of both (in many different manifestations) lately.  The most fascinating thing about all this recent physical and psychological suffering is that I'm genuinely grateful for it.  In fact, as I've been working towards finding out what messages this pain may have for me, I'm becoming able to let go of some old habits that are no longer serving me.  And within this new very hard-won freedom, I'm also discovering a creative new space in which I can become different in ways that serve me much better.

As I've been reflecting on this process, I'm reminded of two things from two different very wise spiritual teachers.  The first is something the Dalai Lama said at a conference I attended in Chicago this past spring.  He was talking about his time as a youth in school, and made a reference to this set of whips the monks would use to discipline their students.  He explained to the audience that the monks used both a brown whip and a yellow whip, and that the yellow whip was referred to as the 'holy whip'.  His point?  Holy pain does not hurt any less.

I think I often want the spiritual path to be a little less painful than the non-spiritual path.  And I suppose it is less painful in some ways because suffering can be worked with skillfully, and meaning can be made from it.  But to echo the Dalai Lama:  IT STILL HURTS LIKE HELL.  

Nonetheless, I'm aware today that I needed this recent round of painful blows in order to wake up to more of who I truly want to become.  The second spiritual teacher I alluded to above may have said it best:

There's courage involved if you want to become truth. 
There is a broken-open place in a lover. 
Where are those qualities of bravery and sharp compassion? 

What's the use of old and frozen thought? 

I want a howling hurt.
This is not a treasury where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change.    

Lukewarm won't do. 
Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? 

Not here.

-Rumi