The Integrity of the Heart
Where our inner and outer lives meet
An 8 week training
Mon. Feb. 22--April 19: 7-9pm
ManiStone Centre, Nelson BC
In the beginning of this training you learn to recognize your natural state—the openness and ease of your own being. Once this state is recognized, you learn to rest in it, to spend more and more time here. And then you begin to rely on this awareness. When you need clarity, strength and inspiration, you rely on this awareness, instead of your conditioned mind.
The more we relax and let go of struggle, the more we can rest in awareness without needing to figure everything out, the more the power of this awareness reveals itself to us. We discover capacities and gifts we never knew we had: radical acceptance, natural clarity, and unconditioned gratitude.
Awakening to this awareness allows us to become fully ourselves, free and uncompromising in living our own uniqueness. At the same time, we experience directly that we are not separate from anyone.
As human beings, we have all kinds of desires, but to be completely comfortable being ourselves, and to know we are connected to everything, is all we really need and want.
A question of timing, and our willingness to engage:
There are moments in our lives when new possibilities arise. We don’t know what to do, or where to go, but we are open to a new way of being, a basic sanity that we have touched before, but never fully opened to.
This is a training in learning to live from the Integrity of the Heart, this presence that is radiant, awake and completely undivided. We will be working together, learning how to see clearly and vividly what is and what is not working in our lives, and how we can truly participate in our own evolution.
In the first part of the course you learn to receive the nourishment that comes when you rest in the unbounded space of the heart. A deep intimacy with yourself begins to develop, when you simply rest as you are, where you are.
From this place of true acceptance, a natural capacity to transform and evolve appears in our lives. When we are no longer trying to defend and protect a fixed and solid identity, our whole being begins to align itself with the integrity of the heart. In the light of this awareness, we discover a radically different way of relating to our body, our mind, and our afflictive emotions.
Without pushing ourselves forward, without holding ourselves back, the stream of our life begins to flow in ways we could not have imagined. We no longer believe that anyone else is responsible for our happiness, or that we can change the way anyone is.
A deep sense of community unfolds as we engage with each other in this training. We work with ourselves, with partners and in small groups. Sessions will include different forms of contemplation, study, inquiry, and dialogue.
These are ancient ways of awakening and healing, adapted to who we are and how we live in the world now.
The training includes a personal coaching session with Shayla and 2 follow-up group telecalls, after the training is over.
The Integrity of the Heart will happen in 8 modules:
1)Resting in Awareness: Introduction and Core Principles
2)Levels of Development—Awareness of conditioning
3)Inquiry
4)Unconditional Self-Acceptance
5)Radical Responsibility
6)The Nature of Intimacy
7)World as Mirror
8)Evolution and Embodiment
The Natural Power of Inquiry
An email from a participant:
“Re the inquiry…
Wow. Yeah, it was profound. Standing on top of the parking garage to get a better view of the town and truly feeling (in my body) how love radiates, and feeling how as we collectively learn to receive and share love - it will continue to grow and expand. “Love is infinite”. I realized that even though I had spoken those words before - my understanding of love was quite finite. My understanding of love grew on Sunday, as I stood on the roof of the parking garage. Thank you for the simple instruction - to go for a walk and ask “what is love?”. This is my new hobby.”
Sonja Podstawskyj Feb. 11. 2010
Tuition: sliding scale: $300-- $350
For more information, call 250.352.7908 or toll free 1.866.795.4968
The Power of Really Showing Up
I wrote this recently to a potential participant in ‘The Integrity of the Heart’ :
“I’m happy that you are ready to do this training. I want to find a way to support this long--term interest and longing that I experience in you. That’s one reason I am offering this training--I want to bring it up a whole notch in terms of engagement and levels of available support--so that you all receive the benefits of this training in a very practical and immediate way. So I’m inviting all of the participants to commit to being there for every session, and some of them are realizing, all by themselves, that this is how they want to show up.”
love Shayla
