We had a wonderful telecall tonight, for ‘Mutual Evolution-Waking Up Together’
I am writing down some notes, based on the dialogue we had on the call.
If we could really listen, there would be so much less suffering in this world. Listen to our bodies, our hearts, our minds, and to each other. LIsten from a space of wide openness, where we recognize that every single point of view, every human being on earth, could be right. Knowing this, I want to be open to all of it.
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When we really open to our natural desire to be at home, at ease, and fully alive, we discover that this is, in fact, our natural state, our true nature.
An effortless presence that shines in the middle of everything, even deep sorrow, rage and despair.
Coming together with this willingness to be present as we are, we discover the intimacy we have been longing for, with ourselves and with each other. We find that we can communicate in ways we never knew, with tenderness, with clarity and no separation.
One of the main questions or inquiries we will be engaging in during this retreat is, “How do I move beyond self-preoccupation?””How do I open to a vaster, more expanded, and more authentic self?”
To engage in this kind of evolution can be quite challenging, because most of us have been trained to think that we should focus on ourselves, our needs, and our own happiness. We might hear about someone like Nelson Mandela, or the Dalai Lama, who seem to have very different values and motivations. But we don’t believe that we could really live like that.
We have not learned how to stop and really listen to the deepest place in us, to what we really want, to what we care about, more than anything. When we connect with this part of us, we realize what freedom is, what love is, what clarity is.
We are no longer willing to live in service to our survival brain, the part of us that is only interested in safety, control and approval.
I was speaking with a woman the other day about our fundamental nature-the openness of presence. This aliveness, where I am here without defences- simply, effortlessly, present. Without holding on to any fixed idea of who I am, because all such ideas come from the past.
“I feel so vulnerable,” she said, “when I allow this openness. There are feelings, which I don’t want people to see. I’m so used to another way of being.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes, we are so used to hiding, pretending to be much more together than we really are. We have so many ideas of how we like to appear, even to ourselves.”
To simply be ourselves,without any effort or agenda, is strangely unfamiliar. We slip into these moments sometimes, and this natural ease feels like grace, like a radical lightness, like slipping a heavy pack off our back. To be comfortable with who we are, to be unafraid of our feelings and our thoughts, gives us such freedom and deep confidence.
When I am anxious, troubled, when my thoughts keep me up at night, it can seem like a situation outside myself is the problem-- another person, something lacking, something wrong with me. Something that should be very different from the way it is.
“What will I say to my boss in our meeting?” I wonder. “How will I deal with this friend, and what she says to me ?” “How will I pay my rent this month?” “How do I manage the intensity of my sexual desire?” or “What will I do if something happens to my child?”
If I look deeper, if I get some clarity, I find that it’s only ever myself that I’m afraid of: my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs and perceptions. If I’m okay with what is going on in the field of my own being, I’ll be able to deal with anything. Okay doesn’t mean that my conditioned mind likes what is happening. It means I have the capacity to meet this moment without the judgements, the labels, and the reactions of my mind. To step out of what I know and into this startling freshness, this newness that is always arising.
This is what I am hearing, more and more clearly, from people in all walks of life. It’s time for something new. A way of being with ourselves and with each other that is transparent, authentic and natural. Where I am no longer at war with myself, no longer trying to jump out of the moment, into a better place.
A beautiful woman on a call today said, “When this anxiety comes, it’s so hard to be with it. I move away, I try to get rid of it, I want a band-aid, something to fix it with.” This is our training, this is how we have all been conditioned. We are all in the same boat.Trying to avoid, to control, to manage, instead of allowing everything to be as it is, in the openness of presence.
The nature of this presence, this aliveness, is unbounded, and unconditioned. We can call this our spiritual nature. But this word ‘spiritual’ is just a label, an idea, that points to something we cannot wrap our arms around. As soon as I hear the word ‘spiritual,’ it’s so easy to abandon my human nature, to move away from myself. As soon as I want to reach a ‘higher state’ I have rejected where I am and who I am right now.
I cannot open this way. What’s the good of being spiritual if I’ve thrown parts of myself away? It doesn’t make any sense at all. I know this because I tried all of this myself, for a very long time. I struggled, I tried so hard, I wanted to be who I thought I should be. I did all of the practices, until I was exhausted. I ended up in a very unhappy place. None of this is wrong- it’s just what we do as long as we do it, until we are ready for something else. Something so simple, so real, something that actually works.
As a teacher and a coach, I hear people saying, with great conviction, “I just can’t go on like this.” And we do. We do go on, living, thinking and behaving in ways that are familiar and often extremely limiting.
Isn’t it clear by now, that there are powerful forces holding us in place, forces inside us, forces that are part of our conditioned mind, that do not want us to change?
Click here to register for the next free telecall, on Tues. June 28, at 9am pacific, 12 noon eastern: ‘Living Inquiry, Endless Surrender’
What this requires, in my own experience, is learning first of all, how to let go of the conditioned mind. Just for a few moments. To recognize the natural state of presence that is here, when we simply relax and let go.
It does not take a lot of effort to simply rest in presence, to discover that you are still alive, still conscious, when you allow your entire mind to just relax, for a few seconds. And then for longer. We really can discover, for ourselves, in an immediate way, an existence that is not limited by the mind. Until we have this direct experience, we will be struggling endlessly within the same beliefs, perceptions and thoughts that are what created our dilemmas in the first place.
This is not about throwing the mind away. We need our discriminating intelligence, we need to draw distinctions. This faculty is critical, for our evolution, for being a fully functioning human being.
A great deal of the time, our traditional approaches to spirituality do not have much to offer us in the field of relationship. Have you noticed this? How easy it is to feel calm and expansive, on the cushion, or out on the lake? But when your partner leaves something on the stairs and you trip over it, or when your neighbours have the music turned up full blast when you want to rest-well, that’s a different story.
We often look to psychology, to therapy for help with this kind of ‘primal reactivity.’ And yet, the foundation of presence, the open space of awareness is essential, if we are going to work with this level of conditioning, with the suffering and the entanglement that happens in relationship.
As we learn to rest in presence, in simply being, without trying to change anything, a clarity emerges from this place of radical acceptance. We see things we have not seen before, we feel things we have not been able to feel. We begin to respond to ‘what is’ instead of what ‘should be’ or what ‘should not be.’ A new kind of intelligence reveals itself: the intelligence of the heart.
The Free Introductory Telecall happens June 22, 5:30pm pacific
You are invited to 5 days & 5 nights of Mutual Evolution.
This retreat happens July 29-Aug.3, at Johnson’s Landing Retreat Centre, on beautiful Kootenay Lake, BC
The Free Introductory Telecall for Mutual Evolution is on July 12, at 5:30pm pacific, 8:30pm eastern.
To register, or find about more about Mutual Evolution, click here: Mutual Evolution Free Intro Call
What is Mutual Evolution?
I see it happening everywhere, and here is an example, taken from my coaching work with people all over the world:
A client will ask me to write down something that has emerged or clarified during a session. For the last while, I have been sending out some of these notes to all of the clients who are currently engaged in coaching with me. Many of them have shared with me how much they have benefited from these writings. And what they have expressed to me has inspired me to look again, and go more deeply into each inquiry or contemplation. And then to write and speak about it.
So the field we create together keeps expanding, deepening and becoming more and more alive.
This is how it happens in the field of Mutual Evolution.
Here is a writing, requested by one of my clients, following a coaching session.
To register or find out more about this call on Tues. June 7 at 7pm, look here:
‘Living Inquiry, Endless Surrender,’ Free Intro Telecall
One of my clients said a beautiful thing to me a while ago. “I’m tired of trying to love myself,” he said. “I’m just going to allow everything in my mind to be as it is, and notice that these thoughts and feelings don’t really belong to anyone.”
I noticed a wave of relief pass through me, as he realized he didn’t have to try to love himself in that way. Any kind of spiritual work we engage in can so easily become a burden, another project we are trying to succeed at, and often failing. Even self love!
What is the real nature of self love? It’s the simplest most innocent thing in the world. Awareness, or presence, is not separate from love at all. And the nature of awareness is that it allows everything to be as it is. As we rest in effortless presence, we can actually discover, again and again, that love is already here, and that we don’t have to fix or change any part of ourselves.
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