On a random Saturday morning at Greenacres Shopping Centre in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the international award-winning Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir delights unsuspecting shoppers and passers-by with an impromptu practised routine which includes a number of popular songs. The flash mob is part of an awareness campaign to get students to apply to study at NMMU, one of South Africa’s leading tertiary education institutions.

Top Ten Practices of Enlightened Relationships

Relationships are in many ways like real, seagoing ships. Just like a sailing vessel needs regular, constant care and upkeep, your relationships need regular care and upkeep. The crew of a sailing ship is knowledgeable in the standard practices of seamanship, which is absolutely required to maintain a ship’s seaworthiness. Unfortunately, most people are not knowledgeable in the standard practices of maintaining their relation-ships.

Yet, most people in relationships of any kind are usually focused on the goals of the relationship, whether building a life or a business or a community center. There is very little attention paid to the relation-ship itself. And often, somewhere along the voyage of life, the relation-ship is unable to withstand the inevitable and predictable storms of life that can damage both the individuals in the relationship and the relation-ship itself. Maintaining a strong, stable, satisfying relation-ship requires knowledge and skill – neither of which is commonly taught in our culture.

Enlightened relationships are distinguished both by the shared vision that guides the relationship as well as the standard practices of its partners. Enlightened relationships are created and maintained through specific standard practices. Unfortunately, these practices are uncommon in a popular culture gripped by fear and ignorance. But, through the commitment to learn and use these practices, the individuals and the relationship are elevated to new heights that uplift and evolve the soul.

Below we offer for your consideration the Top Ten Practices of Enlightened Relationships to help you in building and maintaining strong, durable and enlightened relationships.

1. Write down the purpose and desired results for your relationship. A relationship without a stated purpose and intended results is like a ship setting sail without a chart or plotted course. The purpose should be stated in a way that lifts the spirit of all partners.
2. Make choices grounded in love rather than fear. Become aware of your automatic reactions that are based in fear and look for the love choice instead. Ask yourself, what would love do or say in this situation?
3. Mutually agree upon strategies for dealing with predictable break-downs, i.e., miscommunications, upsets or disagreements and use them when needed. It is important to have these strategies in place before the breakdowns occur. It is difficult, if not impossible, to create and implement them in the middle of a breakdown.
4. Commit to win/win outcomes; don’t settle for anyone being the loser. For the relationship to win, all participants in the relationship need to win. If anyone in the relationship loses, the entire relationship loses. Keep asking questions that lead you to the win/win outcome.
5. Practice “high performance” communication from the heart. People respond positively to the expression of heart-felt truth because it builds trust, even if they don’t agree with it. High performance communication involves four specific skills, plus the ability to listen without judgment for the concerns of the other person that may be hidden behind their words.
6. Assume personal responsibility for your emotional reality and refrain from blame. Blame and projection will pollute the emotional climate of a partnership faster than anything.
7. Take the initiative for the satisfaction of your own needs and wants and make clear requests of others that inspire their cooperation. Don’t wait for people to guess what will make you happy. Nobody likes to endure demands or covert manipulation.
8. Share power rather than struggle for it. Let go of the need to be right all the time. Value others ideas and perceptions as being as valid as your own. Heal your unresolved power/authority issues from the past.
9. See problems as opportunities. Every problem contains the gift of spiritual development within it. Learn to unwrap the package.
10. Nurture a conscious relationship with your Soul. The more spiritually attuned you are, the more enlightened you and your relationships will be.

Floral Fantasy

Here is about a two minute interlude of floral beauty to brighten your day! This video is a compilation of some of my flower images set to music. I hope you like it!

You might also like to see this website of some of my photographs that are available to order as framed archival prints, stretched canvas or note cards – Paul Cutright Photography. I am really happy to report that a dear friend just purchased a 22.50 x 30 inch framed canvas of Iris in Silver Pitcher for her master bedroom! You can see it on my photo site at the link above.

As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. Please share this with your friends and network by re-tweeting it or by whatever means you prefer.

This video is a beautiful and touching example of how precious our relationship is with the natural world. It can be especially moving when animals, especially wild creatures, place their trust in humans.

We hope you find joy, hope and inspiration in this video.

The movie below was created as an assignment for a digital storytelling program in which participants were to create a short movie about a personal spiritual experience. In fact, it is about an experience I had following one of my early Rebirthing experiences in a hot tub at Theta House.

I had to write the script, select the images and music and record the voice over. It was curiously easy and all consuming for me. You could know me for 50 years and never hear me tell this story. It is so deeply personal, repeating it over and over again would have ruined it for me.

I’m glad I found an artistic way of sharing it that brought new life to the memory of the first time I heard my Soul speak to me. I hope you enjoy it.

Who I Am Becoming

by Layne Cutright
(c) 2003 All Rights Reserved

I would love to know how watching this makes you feel. What kind of thoughts does it bring up for you? Please feel free to share your comments by clicking on the Add Comments link at the top right of this post.

Down below to the right there is a link to “retweet” this post if you have a Twitter account. If you like this (or any previous posts), please consider sharing it by retweeting it. The share button will open a table of lots of other ways to share this, like Facebook and many others.

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?!

If you are anything like we are, you may have the feeling that the world is moving faster and faster. It may feel like more is being required of you than you than ever before. Perhaps you feel challenged in your capacity to pay attention to what is going on in front of you.

In this kind of dynamic, patience and simple kindness are often in short supply as we find ourselves speaking to and treating others, especially those we love most, in ways we don’t really intend.

We share with you here a short, profound little film (5:31) that touched us deeply. We believe, we hope, it will touch your heart, as well. It is entitled What Is That? by Constantin Pilavios. It reminded us of one of the most poetic passages in the Bible from which we took the title for this post. We have included the entire verse below the film.

See what kinds of thoughts and feelings it elicits in you. We would love to read your comments.

What Is That? by Constantin Pilavios

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails. . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-8 and 13

We want to share a thought provoking piece by our friend and colleague, author and teacher Raphael Cushnir.

This article was originally published in the Detroit Free Press, as well as Psychology Today and the Huffington Post.

Please enjoy . . .

Our Economic Crisis Is an Emotional Problem

A provocative documentary made in 2003 asked the question, if a corporation were an actual person, not just accorded the legal rights of one, what kind of person would it be? The answer, based on the maniacal corporate pursuit of quarterly profits at the expense of all other values, was a sociopath.

At such a crucial time in our nation’s history, it seems relevant to ask a similar question. If America were a person, with its recent cycles of destructive boom and bust, and its almost slavish dependence upon consumption, what kind of person would the country be? The answer, inescapably, is an addict.

The key feature of an addict is emotional denial. An addict enlists substances and activities to help mask and suppress emotions festering within. When no such emotions are festering within, people don’t become, or remain, addicted.

While it’s tempting to argue about what we’re nationally addicted to – money, oil, perhaps entertainment – the more important pursuit is identifying which resisted emotions are at the source of our disease. Not only will this help us understand how we got into our current mess, but it’s also essential if we’re ever going to get out of it.

The first obvious culprit is envy. Americans have a hard time watching others prosper while life seems to pass them by. When everyone else was trading up for a bigger house, or flipping second and third homes, many people found it impossible to refuse the too-good-to-be-true mortgages that were dangled before them. Only if one’s envy isn’t intolerable is it possible to say, “No, thank you, I like the house I’m living in just fine.”

The second culprit, related to the first, is entitlement. Most Americans don’t merely believe in the dream of prosperity for all, they also consider themselves entitled to it. It doesn’t much matter than most of the world lives on less than five dollars a day. It also doesn’t matter that most of us are only Americans by luck of birth. We want what we want, when we want it, and we’re firm in the conviction that we’ve each got it coming to us.

When it does come, we have no problem feeling entitled. But when it doesn’t, the disparity between what we want and what we have makes our entitlement feel like a slap in the face. The sting of that slap takes the form of the third culprit – deprivation. Feeling deprived fuels the motivation to reach beyond our means, and to ignore all the possible consequences of doing so.

What about plain old greed? It could go on the list, but the urge for more, more, more seems universal rather than specifically American. While greed may have been a big factor in the creation of shiny new financial instruments like mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps, it doesn’t appear to be the driving force behind most of those Americans now saddled with “underwater” houses and mountains of credit card debt. Of course envy, entitlement and deprivation are also universal, yet together they form a trident that’s as American as a home makeover.

So what if we hadn’t been engaged in our collective denial of these three emotions? What might’ve been different? For starters, we would have been able to feel their actual sensations in our physical bodies, which is where all emotions arise. Next, since felt emotions dissipate quickly, we would have been cleansed of their pain and left with a greater sense of well being, along with a brain re-set for peak performance. Finally, with the insight and vision that are natural by-products of a high functioning brain, we would have easily seen right through the housing bubble early on, and popped it intentionally, rather than engorging it for years until it inevitably collapsed all over us.

The latest neuro-scientific research confirms that feeling our emotions directly, rather than repressing them with addictions or compulsions, is precisely what leads to optimal thinking. And we need to do that feeling first, before trying to solve our problems with reason, despite an entrenched cultural bias that pits the supreme virtue of rationality against all those messy, primitive, infantile emotional urges.

In other words, a little “touchy feely” goes a long way.

Which naturally leads us to wonder what emotions we need to be feeling right now, in order to end the financial nightmare that’s terrorizing millions. Tops on that list, not surprisingly, is terror. When F.D.R said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he didn’t mean not to feel it. He meant that we should refrain from acting it out in the form of rash decisions, a rare form of wisdom that is only possible after fear has been fully felt.

Another emotion just waiting for our attention and receptivity is despair. Many of us beat ourselves up for experiencing despair, even though like most emotions it arises unbidden, completely on its own. We’re often admonished that we can’t afford to despair, and instead must cling to hope at all costs.

This advice is terrible. It presumes that one emotion is the enemy of another, when all emotions want the same thing – simply to be felt. In fact, the fastest road to hope runs right through despair, or any other emotion we’re currently feeling. Hope, just like insight and vision, is the natural outcome of a body with no emotional backlog.

Finally, there’s grief. For all we’ve lost and may yet still lose. Unfelt grief turns to bitterness, rage, and most of all depression. In the process it saps the very energy we need to surmount our daunting obstacles.

To heal our national addiction in time, before the American dream becomes quaint nostalgia, we’ll need to welcome fear, despair and grief with the same vehemence we brought to our previous denial of envy, entitlement, and deprivation.

Those emotions won’t feel good, but they won’t last long either. In their wake, along with hope, will reemerge the can-do spirit that marks our country at its healthiest. So join with me, my fellow Americans, or tarry at your peril. If you truly want to stave off foreclosure, get your emotional house in order.

(c) Raphael Cushnir 2009 – LivingtheQuestions.org

Raphael’s latest book is entitled, The One Thing Holding You Back – Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection

This short video of author, scientist and consciousness researcher Gregg Braden sheds light on how we can apply ancient teachings to rise above and move beyond fear and anxiety and take control of our own future and destiny.

The Union of Thought and Emotion with Gregg Braden

San Francisco Dawn

San Francisco Rain and Fog

San Francisco Dusk

Paul’s Photos

We were in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago for a conference at the Stanford Court Hotel, where we stayed. The Stanford Court has a long history and is just down the hill on California St. from the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont Hotels on Nob Hill.

Our room, a corner room facing northeast on California and Mason Streets, had a fabulous view of the city and the bay with cable cars clanging up and down California and Mason. The three photos above were taken from our east facing window of the financial district at dawn, dusk and rain and fog.

The last time we were in San Francisco was 2000 for our 20th anniversary. We met and fell in love and began our relationship and our careers in San Francisco. Layne grew up in Marin County just across the Golden Gate and Paul lived in the city for many years and went to art school there. So, this was a wonderfully nostalgic visit for us and we promised not to let another nine years go by before we return!

The event we were there for was Brenden Burchard’s Corporate Sponsorship Seminar which delivered as promised. There were about 400 people in attendance and we met people we have only known through our online connections. It’s great to meet in person people you have had a relationship with for years!

It was like Spring in Marin with daffodils and tulip trees blooming all over the place! We stayed a couple of days in Mill Valley, where we also used to live, and thoroughly enjoyed being back in our old stomping ground.

One of the things that Brendan talked about was “reinventing the possible”, which is a great phrase for opening new possibilities. The very brief video below is not exactly about reinventing the possible, but it is certainly about “reimagining” what’s possible.

Speaking of “reimagining the possible” we invite you to consider joining us for our Beyond Fear EFT Group Coaching Program starting Tuesday March 10 for four sessions of breakthroughs to new possibilities in your own life and relationships.

Check it out here – Beyond Fear EFT Group Coaching Program

We met the characters featured in this video a summer or two ago when they were in Santa Fe. We hope you enjoy what you are about to see and that it opens new possibilities for you and your relationships!

A Quiet Moment

We recently received this e-mail from Esther Wright commenting on the Relationship Savvy Pledge, so we thought we would share it with you here for Valentine’s Day.

“This is possibly the most powerful and beneficial info on relationships that I have come across in my 35+ years of personal and spiritual development. Thank you so much for sharing it.” ~ Esther Wright – Portland, OR

• I joyfully accept responsibility for the quality of my relationships.

• I will create a life that I love, knowing it is the healthiest foundation from which to build a truly great romantic relationship.

• I will use every encounter to learn about myself, so that I may use this knowledge to become more of the person I want to be and live the life I want.

• I will seek to know myself so that I can be true to myself in all ways. I will be self reflective and take care to observe my self-talk and the beliefs that foster it.

• I will do my inner work so I may consciously create the relationships I want.

• I will create a network of support that nurtures and encourages me.

• I will refine my communication so that I may be authentic. I will endeavor to be open-minded and open hearted. I will treat others with caring and respect.

• I will seek to leave people feeling better about themselves than before they met me.

• I will open myself to love and intimacy.

• I will resolve emotional issues from the past. I will transform disappointments and setbacks into growth opportunities that propel me toward my desired future.

• I will be discerning about others’ character and choose to relate with people who are both good to me and good for me.

• I will make a rigorous assessment of my strengths so I may appreciate what I have to bring to relationships with others.

• I will determine compatibility before I open myself to sexual intimacy.

• I will participate in life as fully as I can – strengthening my self esteem and refusing to hold myself back. I will reach out for what I want.

• I am committed to life long learning and I will enthusiastically learn how to create and maintain the kind of relationships I truly want.

• I will let go of what doesn’t work in my life.

Please feel free to download a PDF of the Relationship Savvy Pledge as our Valentine’s Day gift for you. Click Here to download as a PDF.

Life can be confusing and difficult at times. Finding peace during challenging times is a choice, not always easy, but a choice none the less. Let us all choose peace today.

In commemoration of this seventh anniversary of 9/11 we offer this movie entitled Peace Today by Faith Rivera

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.

The video below is taken from a presentation we gave that included this piece on the Five Stages of Relationships. Many people have told us that learning these distinctions has been a transformational revelation for them and their relationships.

We hope you enjoy it. Let us know what you think . . .

This talk by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor is amazing, inspiring and enlightening. If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s well worth the 20 minutes to watch. She describes in the most passionate, beautiful and poetic terms the process of observing herself have a stroke from which it took her eight years to recover.

Also, this is from a site called TED which is filled with videos of presentations given by thought leaders from many different fields. And it’s all free! This is a site well worth bookmarking and visiting frequently.

Enjoy and let us know what you think . . .