Emerging from the Dark

Have you ever had the feeling of being hungry, but you don’t know what you want? Maybe you open the cupboard or the refrigerator and look at what’s on the shelves, hoping to see something and say, “That’s it, I’ll have that!” But, you don’t find anything you really want to eat.

That’s how I have been about writing this blog post. I am hungry to communicate with you and let you know what’s been going on, yet I hardly know where to begin. Each time over the last several weeks that I have started something, I end up deleting it with the judgment that it’s just too trite or pedestrian for you to bother reading.

As unusual as this feeling is for me, I think I know where it comes from. I feel a sense of being inwardly pushed to be more revealing and vulnerable with you than I usually am in writing. Somehow, what I want to say would be easier to communicate in person, in a group, much like we used to do in our seminars and trainings. Then we could look into and through the eyes of love and my authentic vulnerability charged the room with a kind of grace. Telling the whole truth about fears and feelings joined us through  the heart in our common humanity.

To set a little context for what I am about to share, let me say this up front. This year has been perhaps the most difficult year of our lives. Actually, it’s been going on for a couple of years.

Have you noticed that it is rare to hear teachers of higher consciousness, supposedly enlightened
individuals or modern wisdom givers, talk much about their current or very recent hard times? They
may talk about hard times at some distance in the past, after they have learned and integrated the
lessons and they’re back to being enlightened again. But, you don’t hear or read much from a closer
perspective when things are not yet so clear or when things are still in a state of unsettled chaos.

And that’swhat I want to write about now because that’s where we are. And we have been here
for longer than any previous period like this. I think that’s why it has been so difficult to get to
writing about this, because it is still so close and fresh for us.

So, life has been about acceptance of what’s happening in the moment to what has seemed like
an onslaught of one catastrophe after another, and before we can even catch our breath we find
another anvil falling from the sky! It’s been about being as present as possible to the feelings our
situation has brought up and using all the tools at our disposal for dealing with the ongoing stress
of uncertainty and the accompanying doubt and fear.

Our last posts back in July, August and September have been about my emergency open heart
surgery and early recovery period (http://bit.ly/open-heart-surgery). Thankfully, according to my
surgeon, my physical recovery proceeded ahead of schedule. Having had nothing to compare it to,
it still seemed to be taking entirely too long to suit me!

I was having to listen to my body much more than I was accustomed, causing me to confront my
habitual impatience and push to be productive and get on to the next thing. In the process of
confronting things about myself that had been pretty invisible to me (but not to Layne, of course!),
what emerged was an unexpected level of healing.

As my physical healing progressed and I could tell I was getting better, e.g., being off oxygen and
going for long walks. My stamina and strength was returning. But then I entered an unexpectedly
deep level of depression that caused me to question everything about my life, including why I had
survived in the first place.

Depression and thoughts that death would be a welcome relief startled me into the reality of my
depression and plunged me into deep self-reflection.  Yet, there was no sense in denying the truth
with positive thinking or affirmations. If I did not confront and accept the reality of my depression,
I ran the risk of driving it underground and making it worse through denial.

I noticed how the feelings would come and go, rising and falling in intensity, like large swells on the
ocean.  I became reclusive and did not respond to messages from friends for weeks as I burrowed
deeper into my dark silence.

Another thing that was happening, and still is, was a heightened emotionality. Since I have been on
a path of emotional healing for the last 35 years I have learned to know, respect and express my
feelings. But, this has been something of a different order. I can hear a song, watch scenes of love
and tenderness or violence in a movie or TV show and find myself crying or even sobbing deeply,
way out of proportion to the triggering stimulus.

And over the course of the last few months both Layne and I are aware of deep, personal inner
changes that we are still trying to make sense of. Things have changed, continue to change and so
are we. We have a sense that our work will be changing as a result of our experiences the last couple
of years.

Of all the spiritual studies in which we have engaged, the teaching that has always sustained us
through challenging times of chaos and uncertainty is A Course in Miracles, in particular the lessons
in the Workbook. A Course in Miracles is all about making the shift from ego identification to
identifying yourself as your Soul.

The ego is grounded in fear and is subject to all the conditions and circumstances I have been
talking about here. If we believe that is our reality, our only reality, then we are stuck in those
conditions.

When we can identify with our Soul, however, then a vast space of peace and calm can open up
for us. We believe what we have been going through (and so many others are also going through,
perhaps even you) has much less to do with processing the effects of our negative, limited ego
mind than it does with a Soul transition. I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that my
heart failure and three near death experiences (all on the same day) had to do with my Soul’s
influence over my life.

A Course in Miracles is a radical teaching that can be, and usually is, ego shattering. But, it also
can put you in direct contact with your own Soul or Higher Self. So, being forewarned, below are
the first dozen lessons that have been particularly apropos for us. Perhaps you will find them
helpful, as well.

For example, Lesson 1 says, “Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window,
in this place) means anything.”

Lesson 2 – “I have given everything I see in this room (on this street, from this window,
in this place) all the meaning it has for me.”

Lesson 3 – “I do not understand anything I see in this room (on this street, from this
window, in this place).”

Lesson 4 – “These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this
room (on this street, from this window, in this place).”

Lesson 5 – “I am never upset for the reason I think.”

Lesson 6 – “I am upset because I see something that is not there.”

Lesson 7 – “I see only the past.”

Lesson 8 – “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

Lesson 9 – “I see nothing as it is now.”

Lesson 10 – “My thoughts do not mean anything.”

Lesson 11 – “My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

Lesson 12 – “I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

Lesson 13 – “A meaningless world engenders fear.”

Lesson 14 – “God did not make a meaningless world.”

A Course in Miracles also teaches that only Love is real and fear is an illusion. The one unchanging
constant through all of this has been and continues to be our love for each other. That is what has
always sustained us through any kind of trial or difficulty. That and the consciousness tools we
have learned and teach.

We will continue to share with you as these changes unfold. And, as always, we welcome your
comments and thoughts.

As this year draws to a close we are being presented with a wonderful opportunity. On January 1, 2012
we are catching a plane for Europe! We have been engaged by some clients to work with their entire
family of five in a six-day Private Intensive Retreat.
(http://paulandlayne.com/coaching-programs/exclusive-private-intensives)

We’ll be in Munich, Germany for about a week serving these courageous souls then we will fly to Turin,
Italy for a visit to the Federation of Damanhur, a conscious, eco-society and spiritual community that
has been in existence there for 30 years. (http://www.damanhur.org/)

In fact, Layne applied for and was accepted into a three month “temporary citizenship” program they
began last year. I will be with her for the first week or so to help her get settled, then I will return to
Santa Fe.

This is a HUGE change on many levels and portends wonderful new opportunities and
directions for our life. For one thing, we have never been apart for more than a week at a time
for the last 35 years! We don’t want to speculate too much right now about what those
opportunities and directions might be, but we will definitely keep you posted with more regular
blog posts, photos and possibly videos in the months ahead.

In the meantime, please know how much we appreciate you reading this and being a part of our
lives through this virtual connection. Your thoughts of love, healing and prayers are meaningful
to us beyond words.

We are wishing you and all those whom you love a most blessed holiday!

It has been five weeks today since my open heart surgery. I’m supposed to be walking 1.5 miles per day now to strengthen my heart and expand my lung capacity. We usually just walk around our neighborhood  in the cool of the early evening.  This morning Layne and I went up on the mountain for a walk in the woods, at about 8,000+ feet where I could definitely feel the increase in altitude from our normal 7,000 feet. My heart is healing and getting stronger.

One of the most remarkable and touching things about this experience has been the number of people from our past who have contacted us with their love and healing wishes. Many of them people who have been very important and instrumental in our lives that we have not been in touch with for more than 25 years. Yet, the felt presence of love in these communications was palpable and moving. What a gift!

The experience reminded us of the following anonymous piece of wisdom that we want to share with you.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

— Unknown

Three weeks ago today, on June 29, Paul underwent emergency open heart surgery.

Here’s what happened . . .

On Saturday, June 25, at about 9am Paul walked into the bedroom from outside and started to feel dizzy. Layne was lazily sleeping beneath the covers and raised her head to say “Good morning,” just as he suddenly fell to the floor. His body went into rigid convulsions in which he was unable to breathe as he turned blue.

Layne jumped out of bed and rushed to hold him and then quickly gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation. When he started taking faint breaths she reached for the phone and dialed 911. The woman’s voice at the end of the line coached Layne to keep Paul breathing until the ambulance arrived. Even though Paul’s eyes were open, it was clear he was not conscious of what was happening.

Within about fifteen minutes the paramedics arrived and revived Paul enough to speak. He was consciously aware for the first time since feeling dizzy and was surprised to find himself lying on the floor and at the paramedics hovering over him.

They quickly got Paul onto a gurney and into the ambulance on the way to St. Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Room.

Layne was beside herself with worry as she called a friend, Robin, to see if he could meet her at the hospital. Thankfully, he answered the phone and rushed to meet Layne and Paul at the emergency room where he remained with them all day.

After a full day of rigorous diagnostic testing, the cause of Paul’s collapse was clarified; he was diagnosed with a heart condition called severe aortic stenosis. This is a condition that can spontaneously close off the oxygen supply to the brain and body.  This is what happened to Paul in the bedroom.

They were told that Paul required open heart surgery to replace his aortal valve as soon as possible. Though both Paul and Layne were relieved to know what had caused the crisis of the morning, they were both reeling from the emotional aftermath of the day and the news of his impending surgery.

The closest hospital that could do the procedure was the New Mexico Heart Hospital in Albuquerque, fifty miles away. Paul’s condition was not sufficiently stable for the doctors to chance the trip that night, so they moved him to another area in the hospital to monitor him while he rested before the next day’s transfer.

As an aside, Paul was a little surprised to learn from Layne and Robin that he was talking and joking with the doctors, nurses and hospital personnel during all this. For the most part though, his memory of the day’s events are spotty and incomplete at best, probably due to traumatic amnesia.

Layne got him situated in his new room. He was hooked up to several IVs and looked exhausted, yet calm in his hospital bed. Layne stroked his brow tenderly and then gave him a teary kiss on his cheek before she went home to get some rest and prepare for the day ahead.

Then, close to midnight that evening Layne was awakened by a call from a doctor at St. Vincent’s hospital. The doctor explained Paul had had two more episodes and had been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit and asked her to return to the hospital as soon as she could.

She threw on some clothes then practically flew to the hospital to meet the doctor who had called. The doctor’s expression was solemn. He explained what had happened to Paul and that he was currently sedated and hooked up to a breathing machine because he couldn’t breathe on his own. He also added that Paul needed to be “stabilized” before he could be transferred to the other hospital that would do the surgery required. She asked if she could see Paul.

“Yes”, he answered.

“Is it possible he might die?”, she asked.

“Yes”, he responded.

“Will I see him awake before the surgery?”

“We don’t know that yet.”

Layne steeled herself for the moment ahead when she would see her beloved husband hooked up to an assortment of life support systems. The doctor guided her by several rooms of the ICU to be with Paul. Each room had a single patient in various levels of distress. There were lots of tubes and monitors and beeping sounds and nurses moving silently about.

She arrived at Paul’s bed and moved quickly to the head of it. His color was ashen and his face glistened with a thin film of perspiration. He was sedated and had no idea she was there. The intubation apparatus that held the tube down in his lungs was taped securely around his mouth. The breathing machine made a soft sound in the background.

Though this entire day was a blur, she stood there stunned, yet determined to stay calm. It seemed impossible to believe that she might never see his brilliant blue eyes smiling out at her again. She kept dozens of thoughts and fears at bay while she did her best to be as “awake and present” as she could manage.

This was time for “soul talk.” She remained silent as she reached out with her heart energy to touch his. Yes, she could feel him there. After awhile it was time to go. The doctor had been watching and simply nodded respectfully. He said he would call her if there was anything new to report.

*****

Layne called the hospital first thing in the morning. His condition had improved and he was off the breathing machine. He would be moved to the Heart Hospital on Monday to meet his surgeon and prepare for surgery.

In the meantime, Paul and Layne’s longtime friend, Pamela, had flown over from Honolulu to be with and support them during this time and remained with them through this ordeal until Paul was released from the hospital.

As it turns out, Paul’s condition was congenital because he was born with a bicuspid valve with two flaps instead of the normal three. Over time this condition produced a smaller opening for his aorta to provide the necessary oxygen for his body and brain.

The four hour operation was successful. The usual recovery time in the hospital is five to seven days, but Paul’s recovery was going so well, he was released only four days later, on Sunday July 3.

His full recovery will take three to five months for all the parts to heal from such an invasive procedure. He’s taking a ton of new and mysterious meds that have to be monitored weekly for their effect on his blood to avoid clotting.

Paul’s prognosis is great. The doctors say after his recovery he should be feeling fifteen years younger. The affects of his unknown heart condition have been taking its toll on him for several years.

*****

So, though this shocking and unexpected crisis scared the daylights out of both of us and there are yet many challenges ahead to navigate, we are optimistic about the future.

Some well-meaning folks have asked questions or made comments about the “meaning” of this event and the “lessons” to be learned from it.

Who knows? For us, this is not a time for idle or superficial metaphysical speculation. What we do know is that we are in a state of deep love and profound connection with each other in a state of wonder, curiosity and gratitude, perhaps best expressed in some of our early lessons from A Course in Miracles.

For example:

Lesson 2 - I have given everything I see . . . all the meaning that it has for me. Paying attention to our minds and any automatic fearful interpretations that arise and realizing it is safe to not know as we let them go.

Lesson 25 – I do not know what anything is for. Allowing this truth to sink in as we release any need to control or figure anything out.

Right now our time horizon is very close. Our focus is on getting through each day at hand with as much love and appreciation as we can muster. There are many new things to pay attention to; Paul’s new medications, various doctor’s appointments and new ways of being in the world as Paul recovers. Paul has been directed by his surgeon to not work for the next few months.

Some friends have graciously offered to “do anything they can” to help. Since Paul is not supposed to drive for four to six weeks, mostly this has been driving Paul to his appointments, cooking meals, shopping, picking up new prescriptions from the pharmacy and reminding him to take it easy and to allow himself to relax into occasional feelings of helplessness. The deep fatigue has passed and he is taking a little time to be off of his oxygen. Everyday there is improvement.

There are some people we would especially like to thank for their loving attention above and beyond anything expected:

• Robin Rider for being there from day one in the emergency room and throughout  this crisis.
• Ardyth Brock for fielding the many phone calls and e-mails from people all over the world expressing their concern and for keeping them posted on Paul’s condition and progress and letting us know about the flood of love pouring in.
• Pamela and William Noyes for flying in all the way from Hawaii to lovingly support Layne through the ordeal of Paul’s hospitalization and surgery.
• Jim Kinney and Jennifer Peters for showing up to share their love in the emergency room.
• Daniel Quat and Dawn Hamilton for generously and graciously driving all the way across town several times to pick up and deliver Paul to various appointments.
• Andrew Hogan for driving down from Denver to stay in our guest house for the next several weeks to help Layne take care of Paul, running errands, shopping and delivering Paul to appointments.

We are beyond blessed to have been the recipients of the love, blessings and healing intentions of many thousands of people around the world. We feel it deeply and for that we continue to be truly grateful.

Most of our plans for the future have been put on hold for now.

More to come . . .

The Learning Conversation – Taking the Path to Healing

Healing the past with family members is one of the most challenging relationship issues that exist, because there is so much at stake. In our book, Straight From The Heart, we say that truth is love’s doorway. In other words, when we are honest and open about our true thoughts and feelings, it creates a safe environment in which love and affinity can flourish.

One of the things we have found in our work over the years is that very often the things that people cannot or will not talk about end up destroying the affinity and capacity for emotional depth in a relationship. People go through the motions of relating but without any authentic deep connection. They love each other in concept more than in real experience.

It is important not only to be honest in your relationships, but also to be the kind of person with whom it is safe to be honest. If you get angry and upset whenever someone tells you something you don’t like to hear, pretty soon people get the message that it is not safe to be honest with you.

Speaking your truth and listening to the truth of others is not always an easy thing to do. It is not always easy to know how to deal with an unpleasant truth you might hear, or to deal with another’s reaction to a differing truth of yours. For this reason, among others, that so many people decide it is better to hold back and tell people what they think they want to hear. The only problem with that is that it doesn’t allow wither of you to get vital information that could foster trust, intimacy, creativity or healing in the relationship.

Creating a Learning Conversation – In our book, You’re Never Upset for the Reason You Think, we offer this conversation wheel to guide the learning conversation.

As relationship coaches for thirty-five years we have seen that most upsets occur because of misperceptions and miscommunications. Upsets happen because people are using different and conflicting information on which to base their opinions and interpretations.

People usually do the best they can with the knowledge they have. But both people probably have different perceptions, feelings, identity concerns, beliefs, attitudes, and histories that have contributed to the interpretations that generate upsets.

Unless you share this information with one another, you will rarely be able to get on the same page with each other. It will always feel “off” in some way when you try to relate. And over time you simply settle for less closeness than you used to share with them.

In the learning conversation, you sort through the differences and use the information to learn about one another, exploring how you have both participated in a way that produced the upset. You use this information to avoid a similar upset in the future and to build a deeper level of understanding and trust in your relationship. It is crucial for you to be as interested in hearing from them as you are in telling your side of things.

It is always helpful to voice your intention for the dialogue, because your intention greatly determines the quality of your exchange. If your intention is to make them wrong or punish them for what you feel they “did to you,” they are going to feel that, no matter what else you might say. Make sure you truly intend to generate a learning conversation; don’t just pay it lip service.

If you can transform blame into personal responsibility you have a chance to realize the higher purpose in all your relationships, which is to learn, heal the past and evolve into the best version of yourself possible. To do this you need to generate mutual learning conversations rather than just getting stuff off your own chest.

In our view, the four most important pieces in a learning conversation are personal responsibility, individual perceptions, feelings and identity concerns.

The Personal Responsibility Conversation is extremely important in transmuting the fear of being blamed into safety and understanding. Until people truly see how they are responsible for a part of the upset, the best they can hope for is just paying lip service to a misguided concept of personal responsibility.

Too often people preface a blaming conversation with the words, “I know I have responsibility in this but…” and then they insert all the blame they still feel they have a right to. Most of the time they don’t even realize they are blaming the other. They think they are just telling the truth about their feelings. Personal responsibility is more than a concept it is a skill set. A set of skills most people haven’t learned.

The Perception Conversation has to do with sorting through one another’s different views on the same issue. It is important to avoid arguing about whose truth is more valid than the other. Let it be okay that you remember things differently. Simply be curious about how they see it without playing a right/wrong game. Try being a loving witness to their experience rather than comparing their truth to your own. Allow theirs to be different from yours. And don’t argue about the different versions. Endeavor to understand that there are different versions that lead to different interpretations of the same event.

The Feelings Conversation is delicate and potentially volatile. If someone’s deep feelings haven’t been dealt with internally, they tend to leak out into the learning conversation in a variety of ways, sarcasm, guilt tripping, defensiveness, judgments, shutting down, withdrawing and misperceptions and even an escalation into argument. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of dealing with feelings openly in safe and appropriate ways, where everyone has some competence in the skill of personal responsibility.

Creating a safe climate for all parties to engage in the feelings conversation is an art well worth learning. There are specific dos and don’ts that make this emotional minefield much easier to navigate.

The Identity Conversation highlights how the issue and the way it is being dealt with impacts the self concept of each participant. The question, “What does this mean about me?” is lurking just below the conscious level of awareness, and both your minds are tending to leap to all kinds of conclusions. Often, both parties are concerned that their sense of self will be painfully impacted. Try to be sensitive to how the upset may be affecting others sense of self in ways they may be unaware of.

During the healing dialogue, both your interpretations will probably change as your understanding of the other deepens. It is ideal if you can both interpret the upset as an opportunity to grow, seeing that now you understand each other better and will probably have a better relationship because of it.

Romeo 2007 - 2010

Romeo truly lived up to his name. He loved everyone who came to our home and made them feel welcome and special. He is missed by all who knew him.

Breaking Up, Separation, and Divorce Can Be Devastating – But May Also Provide the Opportunity for Self-Examination and a New Beginning

There is nothing easy about ending a love relationship. Breaking up is seldom the ideal resolution to problems within relationships, but all too often is the outcome, despite our best efforts to prevent it. Over the past two or three decades, about half of all marriages have ended in divorce, and the statistics for cohabitation (or living together) are higher than this.

The person who was once your best friend and your companion for life, the one who knew you better than anyone else, has now in some ways become your enemy. You cannot believe that this has happened. How could that love have been destroyed? The breakup of a relationship is one of life’s most emotionally painful experiences. The depth of pain depends on many factors – how sensitive you are to the meaning of your life experiences, how much you have idealized the relationship, and how much you depended on your partner to make your life worthwhile.

A broken relationship shatters much that we have known and dreamed about. Our relationships, especially intimate relationships, help us define who we are. Our values, our views of the world, and how we define our most intimate feelings are all embodied within our love relationships. When our relationship comes to an end, our lives enter a chaotic period for which we may be unprepared. We suddenly find ourselves dealing with a host of emotions and thoughts – grieving, despair, anger, revenge and retaliation, hoping for a miracle, negotiating, feeling out of control, hoping for happiness again and not knowing how to get there, fear, and loneliness – and little of it seems to make sense. (And where is your partner when you need him or her the most?)

Most of us have never acquired the tools to deal with a loss of this magnitude. When we entered the relationship, we put our energies into building a life with our partner. We put little effort into learning to be alone again. A breakup forces us to jump into an overwhelming, and often dreaded, world of new experiences.

It is comforting to learn that this time of craziness will come to a close. The sun will shine again. The pain of a breakup, if it is approached constructively, can propel people to confront personal issues and to discover who they are at this stage of life. Many people look back on the time following their breakup as the best time in their lives. It may be painful, but it is also a time when a person can feel fully alive and impelled to look within to determine their strengths, abilities, and challenges.

The ending of a love relationship follows a predictable set of experiences. It is helpful to recognize the feelings associated with each stage of a breakup and to know that these feelings are normal and expected. If you have difficulty in handling the negative feelings that accompany the phases of the process, it will probably be a challenge to cope effectively as you move toward the completion of the breakup. If you accept your painful feelings and explore why things are difficult, you become better able, as a more integrated person, to see your way to a happier resolution.

Let’s look at a few of the predictable stages commonly experienced by those in the process of a breakup.

Denial

Denying the truth of the breakup actually helps us to postpone the pain, so denial certainly has a place in the process, at least initially. A problem occurs when we experience so much denial that we are unable to come to terms with the reality of the task before us. There comes a day when “this is not happening to me” is no longer an effective way of coping. Ending the denial stage involves a major shift in our thinking about ourselves, what our partner means to us, and where we must go from here.

Fear

Most people experiencing a breakup are forced to come to terms with a number of fears. What will people say? Whom can I trust to talk to? How can I handle my partner’s anger toward me? How do I deal with my own anger? Am I a complete failure? How can I be a single parent? What about money? Can I do the banking and buy groceries and pay bills and fix the car? Can I handle my loneliness? Am I completely unlovable? Will I ever love anyone else again? Do I have the energy for this much change? When we are dominated by our fears and feel unable to do anything about them, we increase the likelihood that these will be the very areas where we experience trouble. The best way to handle fear is to confront it head on, with awareness, planning, and support – and this takes courage.

Loneliness

The loneliness a person experiences at the time of a breakup may feel overwhelming. The finality of ending the relationship, uncertainty about the future, as well as the knowledge that your partner will no longer be there to comfort you or to spend time with you, all contribute to an empty feeling that seems as if it will not go away. While you were in the relationship, you defined yourself as being partnered and you felt that you always had someone there to share your experiences. And now you don’t. The clue to dealing with this is to change loneliness to aloneness. Loneliness suggests a longing to be with another person. Aloneness can be a time to see who you are – you have the opportunity to explore your independence and challenge yourself to do things on your own. It can be a valuable time of self-exploration and self-enhancement. Aloneness might not last long, or at least not long enough, so it can be seen as a valuable opportunity.

Friendship

The breakup is a true test of just who your real friends are. It is important to draw on the emotional support of friends during this time. Unfortunately, many of your friends were those who knew you as a couple and they may have to choose between you. Those who try to stay neutral may find it difficult. Some may feel that your breakup somehow threatens their own relationships, and some friends may now find it difficult to relate to you as a single person. Not only that, but you may find it difficult to trust others during a breakup. Getting out, feeling free, trusting wisely, and opening up to others becomes a major goal of healthy adjustment.

Grieving

It is normal, and indeed necessary, to experience a period of grieving over the end of the relationship. You may feel depressed for some time and experience changes in your energy levels, as well as your sleeping and appetite patterns. You may dwell on negative thoughts for a period of time and find it difficult to find pleasure in everyday events. If your negative thinking turns into self-destructive thoughts, you should find a professional therapist who can help you. As unpleasant as this period of grieving may feel, comfort yourself with the knowledge that this is most likely a temporary phase and it is how you are saying goodbye so that you can move on to a healthier and happier future.

Anger

People ending their relationships usually say that they never knew they could have so much anger. The rage seems overwhelming at times. Think about it – you have just lost one of the most important things in your life and your partner may seem like your enemy. You have a lot to be angry about. Use this opportunity to look within – explore your anger and find out how it helps and hurts you. One rule: don’t engage in any behavior you will feel sorry about later on! Because it may be difficult to contain your anger at this time, your partner is not the appropriate target for your anger. Instead, process your anger by talking about it with a trusted friend or therapist. Anger is helpful in the sense that it helps us end the loyalty and trust we used to feel for our partner, and this allows us to move on.

Think of the ending of your relationship as a journey, which you take one step at a time. Some of these steps are challenging. Not only do we have to confront all of the stages listed above, but we must also deal with making the final break emotionally, understand what really went wrong, learn to feel comfortable with ourselves again, see ourselves as single people, make new friends, forge new purposes and goals, and learn again about trust and love. As painful as this journey may seem at first, it can lead to a life which is better – and it can be much better.

 
How Long Do I Wait Until I Get Into Another Relationship?

Expect that it will take at least a year before things begin to feel at all normal again. For most of us, depending on the length and the nature of our previous relationship, it will take two or three years. This may seem like an eternity, but in reality this is a wonderful and precious opportunity to find out who you are as an unattached individual. A word of warning is in order – don’t expect to involve yourself with someone else immediately! You are on the rebound. To attach yourself prematurely in a love relationship is unfair to you and to the other person. You must deal with important personal issues when your previous love relationship comes to an end. Living through the transition and exploring these issues can be painful – and falling in love again may seem like the perfect way to end the pain. But if you attach yourself again too quickly, before you have a chance to explore the issues which led to your breakup and to start to feel comfortable again as a single and independent individual, the other person becomes a replacement object, and that is not what a healthy relationship is about. You will probably carry into this replacement relationship the same issues that helped to lead to the demise of your former relationship – and similar events may very well happen again.

Your real goal is to discover who you are and to explore what happened. When you are at the point of being able to have a happy and fulfilled life as a single person, then you can choose when, or even if, you should involve yourself in another love relationship. When you know that you have that choice, you may be ready.

The Other Partner Colludes

OK, what happens when one person is projecting onto their partner and their partner buys into it, even though it isn’t their “stuff”? Well, that’s part of the dance of projection and is just as automatic and unconscious as projecting.

For example, Mary’s father deserted her and her mother when she was eight years old and Mary still has unresolved hurt and anger about being abandoned. She decided at a very deep level that men are not trustworthy.

She is in a relationship with Jerry who has unresolved guilty feelings about hurting the women he loves because his mother used to blame him and his father for her unhappiness.

When Jerry wants to spend a weekend away from Mary with some of his friends, her abandonment feelings get triggered. Unconsciously, she projects them onto Jerry, accusing him of being untrustworthy because he wants to do something without her. Her interpretation, from her unresolved pain, is that Jerry doesn’t love her and is about to leave her.

Jerry’s collusion with her projection occurs when his guilt gets triggered. He doubts himself and believes he is responsible for Mary’s pain. He is unable to see that she is projecting and that he is colluding by “dancing” with her to this tune.

The important thing to understand here is that this is all going on unconsciously. Neither Mary nor Jerry knows what is really going on. To them, all these feelings appear to be occurring in present time, when in fact, what they are feeling are old feelings grounded in decisions they made a very long time ago. They are just being played out again in new circumstances in which they seem new.

The Tendency of Denial

The unresolved issues within you that you cannot confront tend to rob you of the ability to see yourself clearly. If Jerry did not feel guilty and believe that he was responsible for Mary’s (his mother’s or any woman’s) happiness, he would be able to confidently and lovingly reassure Mary that his spending the weekend with his friends did not mean he did not love her or that he was about to leave her. He could act guiltlessly and lovingly, rather than react out of his own unresolved guilt and pain.

Everyone projects to a greater or lesser degree. You will interpret other peoples’ behavior to be that to which you are accustomed, whether it is or not. Your beliefs and expectations determine your perception. You will think others are judging you for what you judge yourself for. You believe it, then you see it – not the other way around.

In order to have successful, enlightened partnerships it is very important to recognize when you are projecting. The easiest way to know if you are projecting is if you are judging! Judgment is thinking that someone is “bad” or undeserving of love or caring. Judgment is perception without compassion. The thing about judging others is that it protects you from your judgments about yourself. So, you will think others are unloving if you feel unlovable – or – you will think others are untrustworthy if you don’t trust yourself.

The more your past is unresolved the more you tend to project. Your unresolved past will cause you to act in defensive ways. And defense is perceived as attack by others! If you are judging another you are only trying to protect yourself from you own guilt or limiting thoughts. Judgment is a form of attack. Whenever you judge or attack another, the result will be a feeling of guilt whether you are aware of it or not.

Judgment reinforces personal guilt, which calls for more projection in the form of judgment, which calls for more guilt – and round and round you go!

The Power of Forgiveness

There are three ways to release yourself from this vicious cycle of guilt, projection, judgment and attack. 1. Forgive yourself 2. Forgive others 3. Neutralize your judgments.

Forgiveness is the fastest and most effective way of experiencing your “essential self” and that of others. Forgiveness is the natural result of healing unresolved hurts. When the hurt is healed, forgiveness happens spontaneously, revealing the unconditional love of your “essential self”. Forgiveness is giving up the claim to punishment.

Another important and usually overlooked step in forgiveness is to neutralize your judgments. So, what does that mean and how do you do it? You neutralize your judgments by realizing they don’t mean anything! Acknowledging that your judgments don’t mean anything helps to release you from the vicious circle of judgment. Rather than judge yourself for having judgments, you simply notice – “Oh, there goes another meaningless judgment!” Watch the judgment pass across the horizon of your awareness and let it go.

Sometimes we want to hold onto our judgments because the “conditioned mind” or “local self” or negative ego thinks it is only through judgment that you can be safe. After all, you have to be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys, right? Be sure not to confuse discernment with judgment. The truth is that some people are not trustworthy; they do lie and can be generally unpleasant to deal with. Judgment happens when you are in denial of a part of you that causes your perception to be distorted.

How to Tell If You Are in Denial

1. You will interpret other’s behavior to be that to which you are accustomed, whether it is or not.
2. Having a superior attitude.
3. Having judgments of others.
4. Seeing a need for punishment – feeling justified and even righteous in inflicting harm (psychologically, emotionally, verbally, physically) against another.
5. Defensiveness when someone reflects that you may be in denial (reaction rather than curiosity).
6. Your unresolved fears from the past appear to be happening again, even when they aren’t. Others can usually see this better than you can.
7. You never experience being willing to look at parts of yourself that are difficult to look at.

Enlightened partnerships recognize that projection is a part of human psychology at this point in our evolution. We all do it and we are likely to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. So, being in an enlightened partnership is not about never projecting. It is about being mindful and self-reflective enough to recognizing when you are doing it.

The more you can observe yourself and accept yourself without judgment, the more you are able to relate from your “essential self” and with the “essential self” of others. Enlightened partners recognize that judgment of others is an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth.

Enlightened partners recognize that whenever they remove judgment from their perception of themselves they lift and expand their consciousness. They know that to see themselves impeccably is to observe, without judgment, the thoughts and feelings that inspired their actions – and they know in their heart that they have always done the best they could with the resources available to them.

Enlightened partners know that a compassionate perception of self determines a compassionate perception of others.

An enlightened partnership is an intentional creative relationship that fosters the development and evolution of each partner and is dedicated to a soulful wisdom, compassion and trust. Enlightened partners are motivated by an inner vision and passion for a high level of cooperation and creativity.

Committing to enlightened partnerships is not for everyone. There is a difference between simply having great relationships and having enlightened partnerships. The crux of that difference lies in intention and aspiration. The intention of an enlightened partnership is to use the relationship consciously for spiritual growth, to heal unresolved issues from the past and to become fully awake. That is, after all, the meaning of enlightenment — to be fully awake to reality, free of the illusions that invisibly bind us to unhealthy ways of relating.

Enlightened partners aspire to a clear minded, open-hearted state of creative, passionate engagement. And if you can do that in your most important relationships — you know, the ones that tend to trigger you the most — you’ll be evolving very quickly!

Relationships are seldom as simple as we would like. They bring out our needs, anxieties and conflicts with people from our past — our parents, friends and former partners.

Our relationships with our partners are colored by our own personal legacies. We often react to our partners as if they were someone else — and most of the time this causes conflict in the relationship. After all, when we entered into a primary relationship we expected love, nurturance and validation just for being who we are. A relationship, we usually imagine, should provide a safe zone where our partners cherish us for expressing our unique qualities. This is a simple expectation. Why, then, does it seem so hard to achieve?

How we perceive our partners is influenced by how we learned to deal with other people in the past. This process can go back into early childhood, even to infancy. Indeed, our earliest primary attachment to a caretaker — a mother, a father, or another adult — can have an effect on how we deal with other people for the rest of our lives. For example, if our earliest experiences taught us to trust in the world, then we are likely, barring any other event that leads to distrust, to take a trusting attitude toward people throughout our lives. Conversely, if a child is never shown love during the earliest stages of life, it may be a challenge during adulthood to learn how to experience love. Early experiences from childhood can have a powerful effect later on. (This is a strong argument for treating children well.)

Children experience both good and bad in the world. Plenty of good experiences, like love and trust, feel comfortable and produce a positive self-image in children — a positive way of defining themselves. The bad experiences, though, create feelings of conflict and frustration. These negative experiences also go into the self-definition that the child is developing. But they don’t feel compatible with the more positive feelings, so, according to one theory, the child projects them onto somebody else. (Projection means finding in someone else the qualities that you don’t want to accept within yourself — like blaming your partner for being controlling when you are the one who has the tendency to want to control.)

Projections

It is not only early childhood experiences that cause us to project our unacceptable feelings onto someone else. Friends can have the same effect, as can partners from our previous relationships. This is a process that happens throughout our lives. How many times have we heard someone say, “Treat me for who I am — I am not your former partner”?

The major point to keep in mind is that we project our own problematic feelings onto another person. For example, if we have an issue with the feeling of jealousy, we will project our own jealousy onto someone else, and perceive them as being the jealous one! This is because we can’t tolerate seeing ourselves as having a problem with jealousy — and it’s easier to attribute it to someone else. In other words, we feel unable to correct the problem in ourselves, so we focus on this issue in the other person. The way out of this, of course, is to become aware of this projection and understand how it affects us.

When couples experience conflict in their relationship, projections are often at the root of the problem. If we are living with our own conflicts and are unable to make any headway in understanding them, it’s as if we look for the problem in the other person. In fact, at a certain level, we may actually seek out partners who have the qualities that we find problematic within ourselves. If we have difficulty in asserting ourselves, for example, and we get frustrated and angry with other people for running over us, we may see out partners who do just that — people who dominate us. Just as often, though, our partners may not see themselves as domineering, but because we need to work out our own problems with the issues of dominance and submission, we will search for these qualities in the other person. We take any cue we can from our partner and magnify it. Then we’re able to project our own problem onto the other person, saying it is their fault. By blaming the other person, we protect ourselves from having to come to terms with our own issues. We can safely continue our submissive pattern and blame the other person for having the problem.

In an enlightened partnership, when projections are causing relationship conflicts, it is preferable to increase our awareness of our own internal conflicts and how we project these conflicts onto our partners. We can look for examples of our projections in other life situations until we see a pattern. When we have awareness of the problem, we can understand the many ways it influences our behavior — and this can give us some control over the problem. We can then try out new ways of dealing with people. For example, when a person experiences frustration time and again from feeling dominated by others, learning some assertiveness techniques can help them alleviate the problem.

Most of the time we don’t recognize our own projections unless we have an intention to discover them or someone points them out to us. The process of “sorting them all out” almost always involves communication; sometimes with the person we are projecting on and sometimes with a trusted advisor or close friend. There is a process of getting a “reality check” because our projections always “feel” true to us.

This communication can only occur in a safe emotional climate where honesty about thoughts, feelings and impressions is brought forth. Whenever we discover our projections we reclaim a piece of our personal power and we are that much closer to the enlightenment that comes from deep self-awareness.

NOTE: It is important to understand that projections are not at the root of every problem that couples experience. Sometimes the other person does indeed have a real problem that can lead to an abusive situation. In this case, it is not advisable to try to understand it as projection, but to see it for what it truly is and to take appropriate measures to change the situation.

Next month in Turning Great Relationships Into Enlightened Partnerships – Part Two, we will talk about what happens when the other partner colludes in the projections. We’ll also have an example of a couple involved in projection so you can see more clearly what we are talking about here. Plus, we’ll offer you some important questions so you can assess your own relationships.

Last week we learned about the five different kinds of beliefs (Basic, Personal, Authority, Derived and Inconsequential) and which ones can be changed (Personal, Authority, Derived). We were also introduced to Terri, who has just been let down by a man, one more time. And we saw the beliefs Terri has that were triggered by this most recent betrayal.

Now, let’s get down to it and see how to change those undesirable beliefs!

In Terri’s situation, in which she felt betrayed and was lied to by her fiancé, we asked this question: “What kind of beliefs would Terri have to have to create the experience of betrayal and being lied to?” We mentioned two possibilities; I can’t find a man who will love me the way I want and men are untrustworthy liars. It’s also possible that Terri has a belief that she is not lovable and/or does not deserve a lasting, loving relationship. Or that love doesn’t last. Or the men she loves don’t love her.

Terri can begin to change these beliefs in two ways. One is with the use of affirmations and the other is with “choice statements”.

Affirmations are positive thoughts that you intentionally insert into your consciousness (especially your subconscious mind) to produce a desired state or experience in your personal reality. Affirmations can be very effective and powerful when applied properly. So, what is the proper application of affirmations?

The way the old beliefs became implanted in your consciousness was through repetition, i.e., hearing your family and cultural beliefs repeated over and over again, sinking into your subconscious mind until they became a part of you. That’s why these beliefs take on the appearance of “that’s just the way it is”, without questioning. Until, like Terri, you begin to wake up to the subconscious programming that is determining your experience in life and relationships and decide to do something about it.

There is an art to inventing affirmations. Basically, you want to craft a statement that is roughly the opposite of the undesirable experience and reflects the desired experience.

Let’s take Terri’s beliefs, “I can’t find a man who will love me the way I want” and “Men are untrustworthy liars” as an example. If Terri wants to have an experience of being loved the way she wants by a man who is honest and trustworthy, it might sound something like this. “I, Terri, am now attracting into my life an honest, trustworthy man who loves and appreciates me just the way I am.”

Now, this will seem like a lie to the part of her mind that is convinced that not only are there no men in existence like that, but if there were, she couldn’t find them! The project of working with affirmations is to convince your subconscious mind of the truth of your affirmation until it is accepted. The way you know your affirmations are effective is that you begin to see evidence in your experience.

There are two powerful ways of applying affirmations to transform your beliefs at the deepest level. One is with writing and the other is verbally with a partner. Here’s how they work.

When writing affirmations, you want to be sure to work in all three persons, like this:

1. “I, Terri, am now attracting into my life an honest, trustworthy man who loves and appreciates me just the way I am.”
2. “You, Terri, are now attracting into your life an honest, trustworthy man who loves and appreciates you just the way you are.”
3. “Terri is now attracting into her life an honest, trustworthy man who loves and appreciates her just the way she is.”

Number one is the first person, number two is the second person and number three is the third person. Second person affirmations are very powerful because that is how we received much of our programming when we were young. The third person is as if you are overhearing others talk about you.

It is recommended that you write your affirmations three to five times in each person at least once a day.

Working verbally with a partner is very powerful and is a great way to encourage and support one another in your goals and dreams. It works like this. Select an affirmation and say it with feeling to your partner. Your partner will enthusiastically agree with you, then repeat.

After a few rounds in which your partner agrees with you, your partner will then repeat your affirmation back to you, and you agree with them, then repeat your affirmation to them. This process is described in our book, Straight From the Heart, and includes lots of examples of affirmations for relationships.

Now, sometimes the difference between your current reality and the state of being you are affirming is just too great and seems impossible to achieve. When this is the case, you may feel inner resistance to the affirmation, which is counterproductive. That’s when you want to use the “Choices Method”. (The Choices Method was developed by our friend and colleague, Dr. Patricia Carrington, as an advanced form of Emotional Freedom Techniques – EFT. You may learn more about EFT in our online multimedia EFT Training Program – http://www.efttrainingonline.com/)

Here’s the difference between traditional affirmations and Choice Statements. Notice how it feels to say each one aloud.

• “I am wise and discerning.”
• “I choose to be wise and discerning.”
• “I am attractive.
• “I choose to acknowledge my attractive qualities.”
• “I feel peaceful.”
• “I choose to feel peaceful.”
• “I am wealthy and prosperous.”
• “I chose to take steps to become wealthy and prosperous. I am determined.”

For Terri’s affirmation, the Choices Method might sound like this, “I, Terri, now choose to attract into my life an honest, trustworthy man who loves and appreciates me just the way I am.”

You can work with Choice Statements exactly the same way you work with traditional affirmations. You may find working with Choice Statements to be more convincing and more readily accepted by both your conscious and subconscious mind.

Affirmations and Choice Statements are like a grappling hook thrown into the future you desire. You use them to pull what you want to you and you to it.

Working with your beliefs to transform your experience is working at the causal level. Trying to improve your life and relationships any other way is like trying to reach into the mirror to adjust your clothing.

“Men!”, Terri exclaimed, her eyes red and swollen from crying. “I’m so tired of having my heart broken. Why can’t I just find a man who’ll love me the way I want him to?”, she asked no one in particular. “What’s wrong with me?”, she cried.

She just learned that her fiancé was still seeing his former girlfriend and had been lying to her. And this was just one more in a long string of betrayals for Terri. She just didn’t know if she could take another one, but here it was. This could mean the end of her engagement if they didn’t get this sorted out. But, she felt so hopeless – and wasn’t even sure she wanted to sort it out.

Reading this, it is easy to feel that Terri has been “done to” one more time. Yet, sympathizing with her about how bad men are does not empower her to see her part in creating her circumstances. And, more importantly, changing them.

The best way for Terri to reclaim her power and dignity in this situation – and that is to look at the beliefs within her that helped to create this painful event. Your rerlationships reflect your beliefs about relationships and about yourself. Until she can discover the beliefs within her that have contributed to her string of betrayals, she will never know lasting peace of mind in her relationships with men.

Your beliefs are fundamental to your sense of self and the world. You are oriented to the world through the medium of your beliefs. Many of your beliefs are so close to you that you can’t even see them. You are essentially embedded within them and experience them as who you are and how the world is.

For Terri, at least one of the beliefs she has is that she cannot find a man who “will love her the way she wants him to.” She probably also has beliefs about men being untrustworthy liars. The problem is that these troubling beliefs lie deep within her subconscious mind, well below her everyday awareness.

An important part of becoming enlightened is simply learning to observe your beliefs, without judgment. “But, if my beliefs are hidden in my subconscious mind, how can I observe them?”, you might well ask. One of the best ways to do that is by looking at your experience and asking yourself, “What beliefs would a person have to have to create an experience like this?”

In Terri’s case, what beliefs could create her experience of betrayal and being lied to? We mentioned two possibilities; I can’t find a man who will love me the way I want and men are untrustworthy liars. It’s also possible that Terri has a belief that she is not lovable and/or does not deserve a lasting, loving relationship. Or that love doesn’t last. Or the men she loves don’t love her.

Your experiences in life are born in your consciousness, from the seeds of belief. If you plant tomato seeds in a garden, do you expect to get corn? Of course not! The problem with the beliefs planted in your consciousness is that, for the most part, you don’t remember planting them because they were planted long ago in your childhood. So, by the time they appear in the garden of your experience, they appear to come out of nowhere. Unless you can identify the seeds of belief that have been planted in your mind and begin to uproot them and plant new ones, they will continue to produce their predictable results.

Dr. Milton Rokeach, a renowned psychologist, distinguished five different kinds of beliefs.

1. Basic beliefs that are socially shared, e.g., “We all need to eat in order to live.” These kinds of beliefs tend to be facts about our universal experience as human beings.
2. Personal beliefs that are not socially shared, e.g., “I can never do anything right.” or “I am God’s gift to women.” These beliefs are concerned with self-identity and one’s view of the world and are completely subjective. These kinds of beliefs are assessments and may or may not have anything to do with reality.
3. Authority beliefs are those that are outside our direct experience. They result from others whose authority we assess as credible, e.g., “CNN is the most accurate news network.”
4. Derived beliefs are a variation of authority beliefs in that they rely on identification with the authority. This is how we acquire beliefs from our culture, religion, and our family, e.g., “Suicide attacks on our enemies is justified because martyrdom is good and we have no other means of defense.”
5. Inconsequential beliefs are simply a matter of preference and personal taste, e.g., “Steve Martin is a funnier comedian than Billy Crystal.” They are opinions.

The negative beliefs that are worthy of changing are in numbers 2, 3 and 4 – personal beliefs that determine self-identity and world view, authority beliefs that we accept from others we see as more informed, and derived beliefs from authorities with whom we are identified.

Now that we have identified the kinds of beliefs and which ones are subject to change, in next month’s edition we will talk about the process of belief change. We will work with Terri’s beliefs and show you how you can use the same tools to identify and change your undesirable beliefs.

We call it selfing, neither selfish nor selfless, but the perfect balance between the two. Selfing is the skill of being true to yourself and being in balance with your commitments to others. It can be a special challenge if your world is filled with many wonderful opportunities to say “yes” to and it feels difficult to choose between them. Or, it can be difficult if you have a hard time saying “no” to people. It can be helpful to remember that every time you say “yes” to something, you are also saying “no” to something or someone else, maybe without being aware of it. Many people are over-committed and they haven’t recognized it yet. They are simply feeling the symptoms. The symptoms are recurrently feeling conflicted in what you “should” do as compared to what you “want” to do. Feeling exhausted. Feeling guilty because you are afraid you are letting others down. Not having enough time. Feeling resentful. Feeling like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders.

If you have any of these feelings, it’s time to take your life back. It’s time to collect your personal energy and redistribute it according to your priorities. Take your power back from the invisible tyrannies of a material culture that says – “more, more, faster faster is a better way of life.” Needing others’ approval more than your own is it’s own kind of tyranny. Needing to accommodate others desires at your own expense can be another, or living your life according to other peoples’ terms of success. Take your life back and recommit it to the people and activities that bring you the most peace, happiness and long-term satisfaction.

1. Take some time and write down the relationships and activities that bring you the most peace, satisfaction and a sense of deep meaning in your life. Be sure to include time for regenerating and inspiring yourself.
2. Then write down how much time you spend in those activities or honoring and nurturing those relationships? Does it seem like you aren’t giving enough to these areas?
3. Create the time to honor your priorities. Perhaps you may have to start declining some invitations or scheduling your time better and then sticking to it. Perhaps you may have to set some new boundaries with friends or co-workers.
4. Write down the obstacles to re-ordering your life to your true priorities.
5. Create a strategy to overcome the obstacles. Get help from a friend or coach if you need it.
6. Refuse the efforts of others to manipulate, control or produce guilt in you. Be willing to upset the status quo for a while till things find a new and healthier balance.
7. Commit to loving yourself enough to stay on track with this new resolve.

In the end, your life belongs to you. If you don’t take care of it, you will suffer and everyone who really cares about you will suffer. The high art of self-love and self-care cannot be delegated.

Here is a story that seems fitting to this theme:

Take Time To Notice

I had a very special teacher in high school many years ago whose husband unexpectedly died suddenly of a heart attack. About a week after his death, she shared some of her insight with a classroom of students.

As the late afternoon sunlight came streaming in through the classroom windows and the class was nearly over, she moved a few things aside on the edge of her desk and sat down there. With a gentle look of reflection on her face, she paused and said, “Before class is over, I would like to share with all of you a thought that is unrelated to class, but which I feel is very important. Each of us is put here on earth to learn, share, love, appreciate and give of ourselves. None of us knows when this fantastic experience will end. It can be taken away at any moment. Perhaps this is God’s way of telling us that we must make the most out of every single day.”

Her eyes beginning to water, she went on, “So I would like you all to make me a promise. From now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice. It doesn’t have to be something you see — it could be a scent — perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone’s house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches one autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground. Please look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the ‘stuff’ of life. The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy. The things we often take for granted. We must make it important to notice them, for at any time… it can all be taken away.”

The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently.

That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester. Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we all overlook. Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot. Or walk on the beach at sunset. Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double-dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn’t do.

(Author Unknown)

Are you noticing a dwindling affinity in your professional and community partnerships? Has the love drained right out of your romantic relationship? Do you feel less connected than you used to? Do you “know” that you love each other, but you just don’t “feel” it in quite the same way any more? Or, are you afraid of involvement because you fear “losing yourself” in a relationship? Do you often feel resentful of family members or friends?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may have a the emotional equivalent of a “cancer” in your relationships – the cancer of resentment. Resentment seethes silently in relationships, slowly destroying intimacy and trust and finally, love. You hardly notice as it quietly eats away at the vitality of your relationships, partly because it is so subtle in the beginning. Yet behind the veil of your conscious mind it mushrooms out of control, fed by unconscious habits.

And what is the typical source of this resentment? In a word, sacrifice. That’s right, sacrifice. It is a law of relationships that sacrifice leads to resentment and guilt in your relationships. The tendency of sacrifice is giving to get, which is always a breeding ground for resentment and guilt.

What do we mean by sacrifice? Our definition of sacrifice is simply doing something for someone else that you don’t really want to do. Sacrifice is motivated out of the fear of what will happen if you don’t give. You see, your guilty thoughts make you think that you should sacrifice for the well being of others. Sacrifice is based upon the idea that you are supposed to love others more than you love yourself. So, people confuse love with sacrifice. And, if your parents (or whoever raised you) taught you that sacrifice is love (as our culture certainly teaches all of us) you will get upset or feel unloved if others won’t sacrifice for you.

There is a wheel of sacrifice that crushes everyone who gets on it. It goes like this:

1. When you sacrifice (do something you don’t really want to do for fear of what will happen if you don’t) you have
2. An unspoken expectation (e.g., that they will sacrifice for you later or regard you in a particular way or love you more) that creates hidden agendas, but, you get
3. Disappointed because they fail to fulfill their end of the bargain (e.g., love you the way you want them to or do what you want them to) so, you become
4. Resentful, perhaps angry (after all I’ve done for you!) which leads inevitably to
5. Guilt (because resentment is an attack on the other and attack always boomerangs on us at some level) so, the best way to atone for your guilt is to
6. Sacrifice some more to prove what a good and loving person you really are. And ’round and ’round you go on the wheel of sacrifice.

How do you get off this vicious circle? Three ways:

1. Use forgiveness to heal your guilty thoughts and feelings (the root of your impulse to sacrifice.)
2. Stop sacrificing, create a new understanding in your relationships that sacrifice is toxic and agree not to do it anymore or expect others to do it for you which means you have the freedom to say no without losing love.
3. Make clear requests and have your expectations be explicit.

Now, clearly there is a fine line between sacrifice and service. Real service, or giving, has no strings attached and expects nothing in return later. The reward is in the experience of the giving itself.

Sacrifice can be a difficult pattern to break because our entire culture is geared toward sacrificial love. Just reading about this idea may make you very uncomfortable because it goes to the very heart of the Judeao-Christian ethic, as we have learned it. But, when you look at it closely and dispassionately it is easy to see that sacrifice is not love at all, but in fact diminishes the experience of real, authentic love over time in a relationship.

Can you imagine what your relationships might be like if no one sacrificed, but only did what they wanted to do? It might be hard to imagine if that is all you have ever known. Think of it like this – the people you love and who love you would be in your life because they really chose to be there, not because they felt obligated to be there. Obligation is sacrifices twin sister. Obligation makes us think we need each other (in psychologically unhealthy ways) rather than choosing freely to relate with each other.

When we first created our relationship we were aware of this pattern and made some choices and agreements to help us overcome it, because we knew that if we perpetuated sacrifice and obligation in our relationship, it would kill our love with resentment. Our own relationship would succumb to the cultural cancer of resentment. So, we agreed to always tell each other the truth and that we would only do in our relationship what we really wanted to do. We also agreed not to get angry and withhold our love if one of us said no to the other. And it was not always easy, but we were very diligent, which is one of the reasons we are still together today. We really choose to be together and our love is very much alive.

The idea we are presenting here is a big idea. It is huge. It goes against our cultural upbringing that says you know someone loves you to the degree that they are willing to do things for you that they don’t really want to do. And if they decline to do them, it means they don’t love you. This has probably been used by all of us at one time or another as emotional blackmail. You know, “If your really loved me, you would . . .”

Sacrifice masquerades as a virtue in our culture. Because of how deeply this is ingrained, you may experience enormous resistance to getting this. And you may not. Even if you don’t, it is important to be aware that many people do.

In our next installment, we will talk about some solutions if you find yourself sacrificing and resentful in your relationships. We will also offer some alternative ways to “be” in your relationships to help you create relationships free from sacrifice and resentment, so your relationships can be “sacrifice free zones”! That way you learn the fine art of being true to yourself and the partnerships you create.

Fiery Fall Flowers

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.

A little something to get your week off to a really nice start . . .

Here is heart opening beauty and profound wisdom in this simple, touching and inspired message by Wendy Francisco. Bet you can’t watch it without tearing up.

Something more . . .

We have been working on a major project for a long time now, something that will benefit many thousands of people. Including you! In order to help us with the final stages of preparation, we respectfully request a moment of your valuable time to complete a brief survey. 

For your time and trouble we have a couple of gifts for you that you can pick up when you finish the survey. You will receive the recording and handout for our Prosperity PLUS! Teleseminar we did last Spring — AND — an as yet unreleased audio program (2 audios) for accelerated, deep stress release and deep spiritual connection. It’s called The Healing Breath and is a set of powerful affirmations with Super Learning Music that will expand your breathing, your heart, your mind and your connection with Spirit. And who couldn’t use a little of that?!

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Daniel J. Boorstin, PhD – Author, Historian, Attorney

Unlike learning to drive a car, which you were not born knowing how to do, relationship success seems like it should just come naturally. After all, you were born into relationship and were raised in relationships. You’ve been in relationships of one kind or another your entire life. What could be more natural?

Unfortunately, what comes naturally to many people is not always the wisest choice. For most of us our relationships school was watching how the grownups did it. We modeled our parents for good or ill and our childhood modeling is a force to be reckoned with if we choose to learn to consciously create our own version of happily ever after.

Some of you may not know we still have a private practice. We’ve had a private practice for 30 years and it’s still one of the most satisfying parts of our professional life together. We work with young couples just starting out in life who want to learn what it takes to create a fulfilling relationship. And we work with couples in trouble who have tried everything, and yet the same old problems keep recycling themselves with slight variations.

John and Alice got married right out of college almost twenty years ago. When they came to us Alice was in her early forties and John a few years older. They had three children, two still at home and the oldest was leaving for college.

When they contacted us for help they complained that the romance and feeling connected had long since gone out of their marriage. They had been to a couple of therapists which hadn’t worked out as well as they had hoped. “All we did was keep talking about the same stuff over and over again. And it never really went anywhere.” They had gotten just enough insight to move from the “ignorance is bliss stage” to the “Yikes! I’m not very good at this stage.”

The four stages of learning apply to creating relationships, just as they do to learning to be consistently good at just about anything.

John and Alice were stuck between stages one and two, Unconscious Incompetence and Conscious Incompetence. They would get a burst of enthusiasm to “improve their relationship” and then after they started practicing some new things they would feel frustrated and lose interest, or so it seemed.

What was actually causing the frustration was an unacknowledged judgment that they “shouldn’t” have to be learning at all – they should already know how to do it “right.” They loved each other – why was there any problem?

It’s a mindset they had absorbed from their culture without noticing, and it was getting in the way of being deeply honest with themselves and declaring themselves “beginners” at relationships.

Once they moved beyond that prideful place and allowed themselves to become learners with a beginner’s mind, they felt freer to make mistakes in their practice and then learn from those mistakes. That’s what happens in stage two; you make mistakes because you are growing beyond your comfort zone. You are supposed to make mistakes in stage two. If you aren’t making mistakes you aren’t doing it right.

They developed a new patience with one another and stopped judging themselves for not being as far along as they thought they “should” be. It was a tender moment that day they stopped judging their relationship and decided to love it AND help one another learn.

They decided to make it an adventure rather then something to get through. They had a new determination to practice their new skills regularly and find some new ways of solving old problems.

Pretty soon after that, the silent resignation they had been living with disappeared and they were “lit up from the inside,” as they put it. Of course, it was deeply gratifying for us to watch them let their love for one another take them down a new path of invigorating discovery.

They were actually having a good time with it. Their sessions with us were filled with a new and refreshing good natured humor, the kind that comes from not taking things too seriously. We all laughed a lot and they grew to stage three – Conscious Competence.

The spark of romance was back. The energy of discovery and fun was doing its magic and a renewed vitality was becoming the norm.

And so, they all lived happily ever after, right? You bet, as a matter of fact! Even while the ink was still drying as they kept applying their new skills to rewriting the old script.

There aren’t enough stories of what happily ever after really looks like. We all grew up thinking our love was supposed to be enough. But truly great relationships in these busy and demanding times require extraordinary means.

Essentially, what we really helped John and Alice to do was to create a new future on a path different from the one they had been on their entire lives. They hadn’t known they could do that . . . and then they learned.

Questions to ponder for comment: 

1. What was new for you in this post?
2. What was validated for you in this post?
3. How can you use what you learned in this post?
4. Do you have any questions about this post?

Dr. Richard Bartlett is a wild man!

Of course, I mean that in a good way. Meeting Richard and being introduced to Matrix Energetics was one of those experiences after which life has no longer been the same!

In over 30 years of attending and leading personal development and transformational trainings and events, I have NEVER experienced anything quite like Richard’s teaching style. Nor have I experienced anything remotely like Matrix Energetics, which Richard brought into the world a few years ago. On stage Richard expresses what I recognized immediately as "crazy wisdom", as it’s called in the Sufi tradition. In the shamanic tradition he is coyote medicine personified. And it works.

The only thing that is remotely in the same ball park with Matrix Energetics is when I learned and later taught firewalking and other breakthrough, experiential events at the Firewalk Institute for Research and Education (F.I.R.E.) in the high Sierras with Tolly Burkan over ten years ago.

I was first exposed to Matrix when our friend Jim Running Wolf returned from a Matrix workshop in April and began "working" on me and Layne. I had recently injured my back and the pain was not going away. Jim did some Matrix with me and the pain disappeared in less than five minutes, never to return.

Then Jim asked if I would like for him to show me what he learned. He didn’t need to ask twice!

I had the same immediate impression with Matrix that I had over thirty years ago when I had my first Rebirthing Breathwork experience with Sondra Ray at Leonard Orr’s Theta Seminars in San Francisco. And that impression was a profound sense that I already know this work, I know how to do this, I just need someone to show me and remind me. Following my Breathwork training I enjoyed a long and amazing career practicing and teaching Breathwork with many thousands of people.

Anyway, I began practicing the Matrix that Jim was showing me with him and Layne, then eventually others, including willing clients. It came as naturally and easily as breathing.

I went to my first Matrix Levels 1 & 2 workshop in L.A. in June, which is where I met Richard. It was life changing in much the same way as Breathwork and Firewalking, only different. When I returned home I began working with clients long distance, over the phone, and they were experiencing positive results.

In the late ’80′s Layne and I learned a variety of "energy psychology" procedures and techniques that we have been using ever since, along with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). And while all of these tools have been extremely effective and transformed our work at the time, Matrix Energetics is something of an entirely different order – yet is easily integrated with those modalities.

Layne and I returned a week ago from the Matrix Energetics Levels 1, 2 & 3 workshops in Denver. I deepened my experience with Matrix during this review of Levels 1 & 2 and went even deeper in Level 3. Now, Layne and I are seeing all the ways we can incorporate Matrix Energetics with our relationship work to make it even easier and more effective.

For awhile now we have been asking for an even easier, faster and more elegant way of working with our clients and students that would produce miraculous results. Enter Matrix Energetics!

We will be using Matrix Energetics in our Relationship Savvy Group Coaching Programs starting in September. We are already using it with clients on the phone and in person. If you are interested to know more about Relationship Savvy, there are two programs, Relationship Savvy 1 starts September 9 and Relationship Savvy 2 starts September 3. Each one is limited to only 12 participants.

Here is a six minute video introduction to Dr. Bartlett and Matrix Energetics that you might enjoy. You should be sitting down when you watch this!

Please leave us a comment and let us know what you think or any questions you may have.