Relationship Savvy Dialogues

From the humble beginnings teaching a relationships course in our little tract home in San Diego grew what was to become the fourth era in our career together. This next phase as transformational teachers and relationship educators lasted about twelve years, from 1987 to 1999.

Once again, we found community growing up around us, much as it had in Hawaii ten years earlier. This time, however, it was also about refining and documenting a systems based relationship curriculum to help people in their relationships at home, work and in community.

The eight week course we started in our living room became a 72 hour, three weekend workshop called Secrets for Successful Relationships. It was taught one weekend a month for three months.

From this course there were students who wanted to go deeper and asked if there were other programs available.

We wanted a way to accelerate our students’ progress with less stress, both on us and on our students. Emotional, psychic and physical stress is a predictable side affect of deep transformational work. The powerful shifts that occur in a person’s core sense of self, while also clearing deep emotional patterns, can be unsettling and periodically stressful, to say the least.

We were able to achieve this with the new and improved six-month program called the Accelerated Personal Evolution Program or APEP. This time, rather than meeting 20 hours a week we were able to accomplish the same and often superior results, in about 20 hours a month.

The accelerated nature of our work was due largely to implementing many of the tools and techniques we learned from the field of Energy Psychology.

We facilitated ten APEPs, a Teachers Training and we maintained a full time private practice while we were in San Diego. In practical terms, that looked like leading some kind of weekend workshop every weekend and seeing clients Tuesday through Thursday with Mondays and Fridays off, sometimes!

Oh, and we started writing books during this time, too

Again, the community that gathered around our work proved to be a vital part of our students’ integration. Having people to practice new relationship skills with is essential to developing the skills.

Book knowledge alone doesn’t transform people’s relationships, new practices, new skills, new knowledge and deep self awareness does.

Community can provide the caring feedback that kindles a deeper awareness of self and how ones words and behavior affects others.

In so many ways, learning to relate better with others is like learning a new kind of dance. First you become aware that there are new moves that look different and feel good, and then you find others who want to dance the same kind of dance with you.

If you’re learning the samba and all the people you know only want to dance the waltz, it’s not going to be very fulfilling. It’s pretty much a formula for frustration.

But, when everybody knows the same moves and they keep getting better at them together, it brings a whole new meaning to the word THRILL!!

Over time we coined the term “evolutionary relationships” to clarify how what we were teaching was different from the usual relationship support out there. Evolutionary relationships are about more than simply getting your needs met and getting along better with others.

Evolutionary relationships are committed to personal and spiritual evolution, for both the individual, the community in which they live and our species as a whole. We are talking about conscious evolution for people and the societies they create.

People who create evolutionary relationships are focused on purposeful action rooted in love and growing wisdom. These are people who want to bring forth the best in themselves and others. They are also people who value beauty as an important spiritual quality for living well.

Evolutionary relationships require a commitment to an awareness that comes from deep self-reflection and transformational experiences. When you put that together with the body of knowledge we now offer through our online curriculum, there is a profound level of insight that opens new possibilities for your life and relationships.

There are specific practices required to grow beyond the common understanding of relationships. In our view, these practices involve authentic, heart-centered communication, enlightened conflict resolution and problem solving, emotional clearing and well-being techniques and belief change tools, just to name a few.

Evolutionary relationships represent another octave of personal development that is fundamentally grounded in specific values, spiritual attunement and pragmatic application of embodied skills and behaviors.

Simply put, evolutionary relationships lead to relational and spiritual maturity and a life that is deeply fulfilling and filled with magic.

Now, that may all sound wonderful and high minded, and in fact, it is. But, remember the part above where we talked about the number of days we worked every week? Well, you can’t work that much for several years on end without something having to give.

Even though we were passionate about our work, a demanding schedule of 60 to 80 hours a week, month after month, year after year began to have some undesirable side effects.

Our relationship had slowly and imperceptibly become more about our work than our marriage. We had been so deeply absorbed that neither of us noticed.

If you’re familiar with the Roadrunner cartoons, you will recall that Wile E. Coyote was always trying to catch the speedy and faster roadrunner.

Sometimes in the exaggeration that makes for good comedy, Wile E. Coyote would find himself having run far beyond the edge of a desert cliff and hanging for a brief and terrifying moment in open space before plummeting to the canyon floor far below.

Well, we woke up one day only to realize that we were like Wile E. Coyote. Without realizing it, we were beyond the edge of the cliff and about to fall.

 

 

 

We were burned out, crispy critters and we knew we couldn’t continue working the way we had been. Something had to be done right away.

It was time to press the pause button and get a new perspective on our personal life and how to balance it with our fervent passion to help people transform their lives and relationships

And so the metaphorical curtains closed, we took our bows and quietly left the stage . . .

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Of course, we welcome your comments. And, if you are someone who happened to be in one of those trainings or knew us way back then, we would especially like to hear from you.

Please click the  ‘Add Comments’ link just to the right above this post to leave your comments here on the blog. Also, if you have a Twitter account please consider “retweeting” this by clicking the retweet button below or the “share” button next to it for posting on Facebook or other sites.

written by Paul and Layne \\ tags: Accelerated Personal Evolution Program, APEP, conscious community, evolutionary relationships, Heart to Heart, Paul and Layne, San Diego

 

This is Thanksgiving Week here in the United States, always the last Thursday of November. It’s a time when families and loved ones gather to enjoy one of the biggest meals of the year; turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, peas and corn and salad.

For dessert there could be pumpkin pie or pecan pie or, preferably, both  with whipped cream!

All of that is simply tradition and it’s great, as far as it goes.

The essence of Thanksgiving, though, is to express our sincere feelings of gratitude for all the good that is in our lives. This is especially important during hard times when it may be more difficult to find the good.

Yet, the good is always there, even if we have to look a little more diligently to find it.

Once found, however, there is a very simple and powerful exercise we have used and taught for years that will help you multiply the good you have found, and multiply the feelings of blessing and being blessed that must always accompany true gratitude.

We have done this exercise more times than we can count and it has gotten us through some pretty hard times in the past.

Here it is:

** Gratitude Blessing Exercise **

First, sit quietly for a few minutes and put your attention on your heart center, or heart chakra, in the center of your chest. Breathe deeply and slowly in and out of your heart center until you feel your body and your mind relax a little.

Then, rub your palms together until they get nice and warm and place them over your heart center. Let yourself feel the energy exchange between your hands and your heart.

Now comes the really cool part!

In silence walk around your home and place your hands on the objects in your home; your sofa and chairs, tables, lamps, kitchen counters, walls, doors and windows. Anything you can see that you can touch, lay your hands on them one after the other. Go slow and allow the words of gratitude, blessing and love to arise spontaneously in your mind.

Avoid  trying too hard (or trying at all). This isn’t a race or a contest and there is no hurry to get it done. Let the present moment consume you and the words will come, or not. If no words come, that’s ok, the feeling of it is the most important thing.

As you do so, in your mind’s eye, imagine you can see the energy of love, flowing from your activated heart center, up your chest, across your shoulders, down your arms and out the palms of your hands into whatever you lay your hands upon.

You may also imagine sparkling particles of light flowing out of your hands. It’s okay to pretend it’s happening even if it’s hard for you to  imagine.

Confer your conscious blessing of love and gratitude on them and give thanks for the function they perform in your life. The chairs and sofa for providing a comfortable place to sit and be with friends and family. The walls forholding up the roof and providing shelter from the elements. The lamps for filling your home with light. The kitchen counters and appliances for providing the means for preparing nurturing food.

If you have pets, you can do this with them, too  – they really like it. It also works really well on humans! If it seems a little weird to do with humans you can always do it secretly in the privacy of your own mind when no one is watching — or even if they are!

You always have the power to express your love and gratitude in this way. And when you do, you ignite a highly refined vibration that fills your physical, emotional and mental bodies. This high, refined energy also fills the physical space of your home and is projected into the very matter of whatever you put your attention on and lay your hands on and elevates the very atmosphere you breathe.

When doing this consider the scientific truth that everything you touch is ultimately made of photons, particles of light. All matter is in a quantum state of light and information at its deepest level. It is more than the material we see with our eyes and by engaging in this blessing and gratitude exercise you make yourself available to BE TOUCHED at the deepest, quantum level, as well.

If you can do this in a slow, meditative, patient manner and truly enjoy the experience we predict you will feel differently afterwards.

And you just may set up a powerful vibration that will cause all that you have blessed and given thanks for to expand not only in the quantum realm, but in your own personal world of time and space and relationships, as well.

It’s never too late to give thanks or forgive and there’s no time like the present . . .

No matter where you live, we wish you the blessings of love and gratitude now and always.

If you choose to try this, please leave us a comment below and let us know what your experience was like.

written by Paul Cutright \\ tags: blessing, family, gratitude, love, Paul and Layne, Thanksgiving, tradition, turkey

(The following is an excerpt from our most recent paper entitled, Building BIG Dreams Together – The Seven C’s of Conscious Co-Creation)

“The path of the co-creator is to be awakened spiritually within, which then turns into your own deeper life purpose, which then makes you want to reach out and touch others in a way that expresses self and really evolves our communities and our world.”
~ Barbara Marx Hubbard

Whether we realize it or not, we all play a vital part in helping the world to be a better place. Bringing out the best in others is a learning curve for some of us. And being supported by others to bring out the best in ourselves can be challenging for many, as well.

We believe that each person has a unique contribution to bring into this world and discovering our own part is an important aspect of that adventure. We usually find our part in the human jigsaw puzzle through asking powerful sincere questions, reaching beyond what we already know by exploring new ideas and by allowing ourselves to be supported by competent coaches or mentors.

We hope that using the 7 C’s will help you build your dreams more harmoniously with others so you can succeed with greater ease, joy and fulfillment.

COMMITMENT . . . . . . . . Clarify your common intention.

COMMUNICATION . . . .  Foster an environment that supports creativity and respect.

COOPERATION . . . . . . . .  The necessary attitude. Share power for the common interest.

COLLABORATION . . . . . Synergize ideas. Honor unique competencies.

COORDINATION . . . . . . . Synchronize action. Make sure everyone is headed in the same direction.

COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . Create and nurture a Network of Support.

COACHING . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seek expert help where and when needed. Don’t try to do it all on your own. Great  achievers in any field have always had coaches and mentors.

                                                                                                                                                                          

We welcome your comments and questions. Click on the comment link to the upper right of this post.

This paper is available in its entirety only to those people who have joined the Relationship Savvy Circle of Support Membership Program. COMING SOON!

written by Paul and Layne \\ tags: Barbara Marx Hubbard, co-creation, collaboration, commitment, community, conscious co-creation, cooperation, Paul and Layne Cutright

 

The wide open spaces of the high desert in New Mexico. The air is perfectly still and there is a slight chill. Time to go in for dinner.

written by Paul Cutright \\ tags: crescent moon, Paul Cutright, photo, twilight