Category Archives: heart

Is anyone else doing the trauma releasing exercises?

Posted on by
2

Just checking. I’ve taught them to one person so far during this challenge and am curious to learn whether anyone else is doing them or has tried them at least once or intends to do them.

If so, would you please comment? I’d just like to know someone’s there.

Last night my releasing was mild compared to the previous wild session. A little shaking in my left hand, but not my left shoulder this time. Mostly my legs shook. I experienced some mild, gentle pelvic rocking. Lasted about 10 minutes.

~~~

This morning I went to Appamada Zen Center for the Sunday service. I got there just as the clappers signaled time to get seated before the service begins.

Had a nice practice inquiry session with Peg Syverson, my teacher. So much has changed since I saw her last, which was maybe in early January. We had a really good connection. She asked what stays the same while so much of my life is changing — selling my house, moving out, doing temporary work — and advised to notice it all.

During the sitting parts of the service, I noticed tight places in my body. I attribute it to the kettlebell swings I’ve been doing to strengthen my body. I’m working my way up from 10 swings with a 15 lb. kettlebell. Right now I’m at 20, and I feel it slightly afterwards.

Then I had tea afterwards with some sangha members, and we chatted about the revolution in Egypt, Islamic finance, the environment, and people’s difficulty in dealing with long-term incremental change like climate change, among other things. Some of my sangha read a lot.

I haven’t been to Appamada for weeks. I’ve been spending time with my granddaughter while my daughter works at her nursing job on Sundays. She had this weekend off, and I got to sit with my sangha.

I’m grateful to have my daughter and granddaughter in the same city as I and to be able to spend time with them.

I’m grateful for Appamada, Peg, the Buddha, Zen, the sangha, and my zafu.

I’m grateful to be exploring the trauma releasing exercises.

Doing the trauma releasing exercises for the first time

Posted on by
Reply

Monday night I taught the TRE exercises to someone who is interested and curious but who can’t afford to purchase the book or video at this time. I was happy to trade bodywork for a TRE teaching session. We did the exercises together.

I was reminded that the first time you do them, you really do not know what you’re getting into. You’ve heard or read about them, or seen them on a video, maybe even seen someone else do them in person, but you don’t know how your body is going to respond.

And frankly, seeing someone quivering on the floor looks … well, odd, and … awkward, and … hmm.

Is my body really going to do that?

Take my word for it. It will feel odd and awkward the first time. These exercises are like nothing you’ve ever done before — stressing your body to induce shaking and release tension? Huh? It seems counterintuitive.

You may or may not experience trembling the first time. You may have involuntary jerks. You may feel a very fine quiver. You may feel nothing at all.

The first time I did them, I had no quivering in Exercise 6, Step 1. In Exercise 6, Step 2, in the forward bend, I noticed that my pants legs were quivering ever so slightly.

I wouldn’t have known my legs were quivering if I hadn’t seen my pants moving!

I began to really release with bigger involuntary movements in Exercise 7, after raising my knees two inches the second time.

I want to reassure newbies to TRE that this releasing process is actually learnable. Even though it’s involuntary, you learn how to release control and surrender to the process by continuing to do the exercises.

This is where it’s really nice to do them in the company of others. You give each other permission to shake, rattle, and roll, quiver, tremble. The energy is contagious.

My opinion is that if you don’t tremble the first time, you are probably habitually holding tension in your muscles, and you really need to keep doing them!

If you’ve been chronically stressed, you may not remember what it’s like to release tension and really feel relaxed in your body. This will get you there, but it may take time.

Each person learns at his or her own pace. If you do these exercises and you don’t get full trembling or shaking, be patient. When you do each exercise, notice where in your body you feel it. Each exercise is designed to stress a particular set of muscles. Notice which muscles are feeling what. Usually at least one place on your body will call your attention to itself with each exercise. You will learn more body intelligence.

The other thing you can do, if you don’t tremble the first time, is to just play. Remember playing? Just lift your hand up and flap it around. Shake water off it. Wiggle your fingers. Circle from your wrist in each direction. Do the other hand. Now do both hands.

You can also push your heels into the floor to start your pelvis rocking. Push and release. You will feel this with your back and head.

While playing or rocking, you may feel an impulsive gush of “release energy” just take over, and before you know it, your legs are trembling on their own!

Whatever, do not worry that you’re not doing it right. It will happen when your mind and your body are ready.

The end of gratitude!!!

Posted on by
Reply

Not really. Made you look, didn’t I? Ha!

Today’s the last day of my 21-day gratitude challenge. Several others that I know of have participated in some way — thanks, Katie and Michael and Victoria, I appreciate your support — and I hope that others of you have been inspired to explore gratitude in your own lives.

Today I understand that gratitude is a powerful connecting force. It’s simply recognizing the interconnected nature of your life.

We truly are connected. We are interdependent. To not feel gratitude is to experience walls around your self. To feel gratitude is to let the walls down. We are one.

Remember, gratitude is a habitual bias that you can cultivate by consciously experiencing it. If you ever have a hard time feeling gratitude, think on this:

At this moment, the vast majority of human beings on this planet don’t have it nearly as good as you do.

Just recognize that you have comfort and freedom and connections beyond the imaginations of much of the world. You don’t have to feel guilty about that, either.

But you might want to do something, like at least have some compassion for the homeless, hungry, malnourished, ill, lonely, hurting, hating, suffering, dying people in this world. And these people aren’t necessarily in Third World countries, in case that image flashed into your mind. They are here among us. They are us.

And every single one of us, until we draw our last breath, has the capacity to grow up and wake up.

As Byron Katie said,

I’d say “bless your heart, sweetheart,” but I’m too late. You’re already blessed.

She also said,

Who would you be without your story?

What is the story that keeps you suffering? Can you consider just giving it up and opening to what actually is?

When I first posted about this challenge, I asked you to consider this, from Wikipedia:

A large body of recent work has suggested that people who are more grateful have higher levels of well-being.

Grateful people are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships.

Grateful people also have higher levels of control of their environments, personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance.

Grateful people have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life, being more likely to seek support from other people, reinterpret and grow from the experience, and spend more time planning how to deal with the problem.

Grateful people also have fewer negative coping strategies and are less likely to try to avoid the problem, deny there is a problem, blame themselves, or cope through substance use.

Grateful people sleep better, and this seems to be because they think less negative and more positive thoughts just before going to sleep.

I’m closing this challenge with one more quote from Byron Katie. Consider this radical, revolutionary thought:

It all happens for your awakening, enlightenment, and joy. There is nothing that is not for us.

Love you!

~~~

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chronic Stress and Trauma Recovery Challenge! Accept the challenge, check in, contribute to the discussion, and support us by following!

A clear sign from the Universe. Flexibility. Freedom.

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve reached day 20. The gratitude challenge ends tomorrow. Today I’m reviewing.

Here’s my parade of gratitudes so far, day by day:

  1. My cat Mango. My house. The internet.
  2. My daughter. Women friends. Gifted intuitive healers.
  3. My health. A car wreck. The best novel ever.
  4. Water falling from the sky. Mexican food. Saying no.
  5. Generosity. Root vegetables. An offer on my house.
  6. Doing this challenge. Imperfection. A day with my granddaughter, Hannah.
  7. NLP. Challenges. Resources.
  8. Asking for what you need. Seeking work. Integrative Chakra Breathwork.
  9. Options are the antidote to anxiety. Offers on my house. Work possibilities.
  10. The 4-Hour Body. Teaching yoga. Yes.
  11. Signing a contract on my house. Relationship challenges. Housewife on LSD video.
  12. Father and infant daughter. New watch. Pigeon pose.
  13. Meta position. The Metta Sutra. A good night’s sleep.
  14. Being a mad scientist. Having a wise realtor. Leaving home.
  15. Inner bigness. Jedi warrior Keith Fail. Awareness.
  16. Job interview. Insights. Shared dreams.
  17. My car. My house. My friends.
  18. The Work. Cat-moving advice. T-Mobile.
  19. Byron Katie. Life as it is. 5,000 blog views.

(By the way, as of this moment, this blog has gotten 5,019 views. Thank you again for reading, connecting energetically, commenting. I appreciate you.)

I see from this list a mix of specific gratitudes, for specific people, a video, a book, a company, a sutra, and more.

I also see broad areas of gratitude — insights, awareness, inner bigness, life as it is, no, yes.

Hmmm. I passed my own “chunk size” test! Yay! The object is not to be stuck in the details or in the big picture. It’s to have flexible perspective, to be able to see both the forest and the trees.

I am grateful to have the flexibility to zoom in and out on life with a measure of ease. I believe this skill is something I began developing since my very first day of NLP practitioner training several years ago. I hold the universe and an acorn in the palm of my hand. It helps tremendously with my equanimity — it helps me know I can be ready for anything. That confidence is priceless.

~~~

This 21-day challenge has coincided with selling my house. I had no offers on day 1, and now I have a contract and what looks like a pretty solid bet on closing February 18. Since I’ve often marked eras in my life by the home I was living in at the time, I am in transit, ending one era and beginning another.

It’s also coincided with a lot of attention to my work. On day 1, I was happily jobless, except for my joyous work as a yoga teacher and an NLP coach/change shaman offering free or low-priced sessions to get experience and build a reputation.

Meanwhile, my vision of my future work/identity keeps evolving. My plan had been to start as a full-time student at AOMA in July. I still love AOMA, and now I’m not so sure that becoming an acupuncturist is right for me. Nowadays it is hard to build a full-time practice in Austin, which has two acupuncture schools. I have time to get clear on this.

I believe I could become an exceptional acupuncturist, as long as I can practice “everything else” alongside it. But for me, maybe “everything else” is more to the point. I’m still working on this.

I’m considering getting other training, which may include classwork at AOMA. I have a couple of key words to guide me: blockages and beliefs. These words are about working with the body and the mind, i.e., touching and talking, and came to me during this challenge. That’s the big picture. Maybe massage school is where I need to start, to get a license to touch.

I can do Reiki now, without a license. Thank you, Jonathan, for attuning me.

I can do the verbal changework now under the banner of a coach or consultant, or, my favorite, well-being shaman.

It’s all energy work.

In the practical realm, due to the uncertainties of when I would actually close on my house, and desiring to keep my technical writing skills marketable until I have fully made the transit to self-employment, I updated my resume one day and spent the next day responding to job postings and sending it to recruiters for contract work. I heard from a recruiter that day, had an interview a few days later, and received and accepted an offer the day after that.

Honestly, I didn’t know it would be that easy, and that it was has touched my heart. Thank you, Universe, for showing my humble self that I’m on the right track. I hope to be doing contract work over the next couple of years to pay the bills as I get the training I need.

~~~

I’m incredibly grateful for the freedom I have. Especially when I compare myself to so many people in the world who can’t live where they want or do the work that they want, to people who feel trapped. (Actually, these are the people I want to work with.)

I can sell my house and buy a trailer!

I can quit a “permanent” job and do contract work to pay the bills and keep my skills marketable and have an adventure!

I can teach yoga and offer NLP/changework sessions and do The Work!

I can explore my desired life work and how best to learn and do that!

I can literally change my mind!

I am incredibly lucky and grateful that my life gives me these choices.

Byron Katie. Life as it is. 5,000 blog views.

Posted on by
Reply

On this 19th day of my 21-day gratitude challenge, I am very grateful that Friday and Saturday, I got to spend hours in an auditorium with Byron Katie and my friends Thomas and Val and a whole bunch of other people, watching Katie, as she’s called, working with several people who were troubled about something.

Katie’s technique is called The Work, and the way we worked was to fill out a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet (available online for free along with a lot of other resources) about a recurring stressful situation, something that reliably pushes our buttons. She encouraged us to be our meanest, pettiest selves when we filled out the worksheet.

Then she asks, or has us ask ourselves, four questions:

  1. Is it true? (yes or no)
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (yes or no)
  3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then you turn the thought around three ways and find three specific examples of how each turnaround is true for you in that situation. For example, if my thought is “I hate him,” the turnarounds would work like this:

  1. The first turnaround is to the self. “I hate me.” How do I treat myself hatefully?
  2. The second turnaround is to the other. “He hates me.” List ways he hates me.
  3. The third turnaround is the opposite. “I love him.” How do I love him?

So from an NLP perspective, she’s working at the belief level, and she’s helping people reframe their experiences and emotions and beliefs and even identities. She refers a lot to people’s internal images (but not voices). On an energy level, she’s helping people move from contraction to expansion.

On Saturday, her first guest onstage was an attractive, polished woman who had flown here from San Francisco. Her husband of 30 years cheated on her with “a 27-year-old Brazilian whore” while she (the wronged wife) was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Katie took this woman through the process. She realized that she had stopped loving her husband but was willing to live a charade, she knew he was lying to her, et cetera. It took her out of her victim story. She also got huge applause for getting here with her frequent flyer miles since her husband had denied her access to all of their bank accounts. This woman is resourceful!

In the turnaround, Katie asked the woman to say, “I’m a whore,” and the woman couldn’t get the word “whore” out.

The unflappable Katie said, “What the heck. I’m enlightened. I can say it for you. ‘I’m a whore.’ There.” Big laughs and applause.

Later she worked with a woman who was so distraught because her husband, a diabetic, wouldn’t take his meds that she herself was on medication.

Once again, I’m grateful I got to see Byron Katie do The Work in person. If anyone wants to play with me, ping me.

~~~

In this moment, I’m grateful for life as it is. That’s what enlightenment is. That’s what Zen teaches. That’s what we practice when sitting in meditation.

~~~

I’m grateful to those who read my blog. Today it looks like I will cross the threshold of 5,000 views! Thank you for reading my posts. Thanks for connecting. Thanks for commenting.

New findings on how meditation changes the brain

Posted on by
Reply

Peg Syverson, Zen priest and my meditation coach at the Appamada zendo, sent out an email with a link to a New York Times article on meditation, saying “We told you!”

The article, How Meditation May Change the Brain, is by a writer whose husband went on a 10-day vipassana meditation retreat. He came back so energized and enthusiastic that he vowed to meditate for two hours a day through the end of March.

She wrote:

He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

Sound familiar, those of you who followed this blog last year???

The writer admits she’s a skeptic — and then cites studies and researchers on how meditation changes the brain. The latest research shows measurable changes in gray matter that affect memory, learning, anxiety, and stress in a group that meditated for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks, compared to a control group not meditating that had no such changes.

Other studies have shown meditation increasing empathy and compassion.

What the writer believes is that through meditation, her husband became empathetic enough that he now takes out the trash and puts gas in the car because he knows she doesn’t like to do those chores.

She can go with that.

Oh, and here’s a link to the abstract of the findings about gray matter.

Day 18: The Work, moving with Mango, T-Mobile

Posted on by
Reply

Last night I saw a demonstration of Byron Katie doing The Work, which is basically a set of four questions designed to help people move away from the suffering of  the ego and toward openness of life as it is.

I am grateful for the opportunity to witness a master at work, in person.

She worked with two people last night. The first was a man who had driven 12 hours with his younger son because he believed his older son was no good and was destroying the family. He blamed his high blood pressure and other health issues on all the trouble this son had caused.

Yet from the inquiry process, we learn that although this son moved out right before high school graduation, he graduated with honors. We hear that he tells people with no idea it would get back to his dad how great his upbringing was. He kisses his father on the head when his father extends his hand for a shake. This young man is responsible — he works and takes care of his bride.

So this father underwent a transformation, understanding that his thinking distorted reality. He had a fine son. It was him who needed to respect himself and respect his son. That’s the turnaround.

The other demo subject was a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). She felt afraid and panicky sometimes. Byron Katie just laughed and said, “Haven’t we all? Isn’t life a terminal illness?” She proceeded to illustrate that even being paralyzed and unable to move a muscle, it’s still thoughts that make one unhappy.

I’m looking forward to more today — from 10 to 5.

~~~

I’m grateful to Val at dinner last night for giving me some advice about moving Mango, my cat. He’s accustomed to this neighborhood and the cats on my block. The move will take him from what he knows, except for me and some of my stuff. His world is small and personal. He doesn’t have the internet or a cell phone to stay in touch with his friend Stinky next door (even though they fight).

I’ll need to keep him inside for a while after I move, so he’ll be safe and secure, and I can start now getting him used to being in and sleeping in the cat carrier.

~~~

I am grateful to T-Mobile for letting me change my cell phone plan and apply it retroactively. Because of all the calls from realtors and calls about work and in general an increase in call volume since I have not been working, I had gone way over my allotment of minutes. Snapped to when I saw how much had been drafted from my checking account to auto-pay the bill…

I found it very kind and flexible of them to allow me to switch to a plan with more minutes and to make the change retroactive for this billing period. I was facing a bill of over $400! Now it will be more like $60.

Thank you, T-Mobile.

Ordinary gratitudes: car, house, friends

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s three gratitudes are pretty ordinary. My car, my house, my friends.

I’m grateful to have my car back. It’s been disabled or out of my possession since December 22 and has been at three different mechanic shops.

I took it back once because the dashboard warning light for the electric battery (it’s a Honda Civic Hybrid) was on. It  wasn’t on before the accident.

I did not get that issue resolved satisfactorily. The light is still on. However, the electric battery appears to be working just fine.

All Honda has said is that because of the age and mileage, I need to replace the battery. I get that State Farm really wants it to be my problem, not theirs, because those batteries are expensive.

I feel frustrated because I don’t believe that any of these mechanics actually laid eyes on the wiring and cabling from the engine compartment, which overheated, to the electric battery behind the back seat. All repairs are based on electronic testing and what’s in the database. If it’s not in the database, they’re not going out of their way.

Anyway, I am grateful to have my car back, to have the collision damage fixed, and to (so far) have it running well.

I’m grateful to have learned something about the way insurance companies work, when a car is a hybrid and they don’t have a ton of information in their database about what can go wrong and how to fix it.

This is the dark side of owning a hybrid.

~~~

The option period on my house contract expires today.

Yesterday the buyer tried to get me to come down $10 grand because of a ridiculously high overestimate on foundation work. My realtor told his realtor that I refused.

I’ve had two people express interest in being backup buyers, but they never put it in writing. If this deal had fallen through, I feel certain I could have gotten my asking price.

Today I agreed to come down $2600. That’s reasonable. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush — sometimes. In this process, several people have advised me to take low offers and to cave.

My realtor says we’re about eighty percent of the way to closing. Next, an appraiser has to state that the buyer is not paying more than the house is worth. Once that’s done, we’ll be ninety-five percent ready to close on Feb. 18.

Although I had no idea there would be so much drama involved in selling my house, today I’m grateful for the progress.

~~~

I had lunch today with my friend Katie, and my friend Thomas called and wants to go a weekend workshop that Byron Katie is doing in Austin tonight and tomorrow. I bought a ticket from someone who had an extra one, and it’s even more of a pleasure to be sharing this workshop experience with Thomas.

I’m very grateful for my friends.

Job interview. Insights. Shared dreams.

Posted on by
Reply

Today I am feeling grateful for the job interview I had yesterday. I interviewed for a three-month contract job at a big technology company yesterday.

The feedback I got from the placement agency connection afterward was that (1) I was the last person they talked to (always a good thing when interviewing because you’re fresh in their memory when they are making the hiring decision) and (2) they really liked me and my writing sample, concluding that I was capable of doing the work and would be a pleasure to work with. Apparently others they interviewed had the skills but not the attitude.

I hope to be offered this job.

My strategy during the interview was to understand their point of view and how I can do what they need to have done. I grasped it well: a custom software provider didn’t provide them with a user manual, and they needed this manual three months ago. This happens more often than it should, but that creates nice lucrative short-term job opportunities for technical writers like me.

So I step in, document what they’ve been able to figure out so far, and working with this big company’s IT department and the software developers in California, figure out and write procedures for how to do everything else.

This is how a Maximizer thinks:

  • I suggested that the user manual I write could be desirable to the software provider, and that they use that in future negotiations with the software provider.
  • This software provider might consider hiring me to work remotely and produce user manuals for their custom software solutions.
  • I might get a gig at this big technology company teaching lunchtime or after-work yoga. It’s a lot more fun than technical writing!

Will let you know what I hear!

~~~

I am grateful for insights, those little snippets of emerging knowledge that help me evolve. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my future work, refining my ideas about what I’ll do and the training I need.

Last night two alliterative words came to mind about the work I want to do with people. Blockages and beliefs.

You know the beautiful energy that infants, toddlers, and young children have, so open-hearted, present, playful, engaged, and full of life? We lose that — in essence, life teaches us that it’s not okay to be like that. We make painful trade-offs and then suppress the memories. These unconscious beliefs and blockages keep us in bondage, keep us from REALizing that our true nature is full of light, just like those beaming babies

I would like to help people recover that beautiful life-affirming energy in two ways: by learning the bodywork skills to help people release their blockages (because blockages are in the bodymind and often more accessible via the body) and working with people at the belief level to let go of beliefs that keep them in darkness and help them open up to life itself.

These two words, blockages and beliefs, are helping me identify the training I need to do the bodymindheartspirit work I want to do.

I’m thanking my bodymindheartspirit for letting those two words bubble up into my conscious mind.

~~~

I’m grateful for shared dreams. Yesterday I was introduced by a mutual friend to someone on Facebook who shares my interest in vintage trailers. I have ogled them online for months now. My new friend goes to the same websites I do and ogles the same trailers, plus ones I hadn’t considered!

A couple of days ago, I did an NLP session with a new friend, again someone I met on Facebook and looked forward to meeting in person. We had a nice long session over tea, with my cat curling up with each of us in turn.

From my perspective, we hit it off well. The rapport was good. I like this person and am learning a lot from working with him. I believe that I am helping him refine his thinking and hone his positive energy for moving in a whole new direction career-wise.

Here’s to two new friendships! Salud!

Finding your inner bigness. Jedi master Keith Fail. Awareness.

Posted on by
Reply

Today I’m grateful for finding inner bigness — hope, recovery, resiliency, growth — for those energies that move a contraction into expansion, that move a loss into new possibilities.

If you have experienced a recent contraction — a disappointment or loss, say — know that if you give it some space, some energy within you will find a way to expand. To give it some space means to accept that what you planned has been replaced by the unknown. To allow the unknown to come into awareness — and not fight it or run from it with distractions or denial — is to open to possibility.

That moment may be uncomfortable, though. Breathe into it.

Expansion may come in the form of you learning a new and needed skill that gives you more confidence about managing your life.

Or it may come in the form of a new recognition about who you really are and what your life’s purpose is.

Today I recognize this pattern in my life, and I share it with those who need it.

~~~

Today I’m grateful for people who inspire, and I want to call one out in particular. Keith Fail presented last night at the Austin NLP meetup on the topic Living a Meaningful Life in 2011. Keith has studied NLP for 25 years with some of the best masters available. He coaches, teaches, and trains people with NLP. He is the most widely read person in the field that I’ve met, with a very inclusive yet discerning mindset. NLP is his life’s work.

Plus, he’s secretly a Jedi master. I’m convinced! Meet him and see for yourself.

Basing his presentation on the assumption that people want to be happy, and using current research on what makes people happy, Keith asked key questions to elicit in each attendee more clarity about what gives meaning to their lives and therefore brings happiness.

I recognize that I am undergoing a sea change in my life purpose and values, and my conscious mind is the last to know! These changes start deep within the unconscious, and are really just starting to take shape consciously about living my life’s purpose. I’ll be writing more as it becomes clear to me.

Thank you, Keith, for the value you’ve added to my life, and for being a friend and Jedi master.

~~~

I’m grateful for awareness. The faculty of awareness, and specific instances of awareness. Awareness allows me to recognize gratitude.

After I meditate, I get up and then bow to my empty zafu. It serves as a symbol and location for my experience of awareness.

Thank you.