From Fear and Anxiety to Trust and Love

Those who have visited this blog before know somewhat of what this entry is about. My great pleasure and joy in life is having learned to not spend much time in the "Pit of Fear"; instead moving from there into "The Field of Trust and Love."

Today this is most important as the news is full of fear and anxiety about the devastating tragedy in Japan and the ensuing nuclear fall-out that is possibly becoming a real threat to so much of life on Earth and of real concern to so many of us. There is lots of over-reaction to he news. Sensationalism. News casting . . . and we are the fish.

Use fear to motivate change.

Use it also to effectively pray and visualize the outcomes that can possibly come from this tragedy.

Move the realm to probably with active prayer, visualization and positive thinking (The Law of Attraction The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham).

To this end I offer this prayer:

The Blessing/Curse Prayer for World Leaders

Great Father Above and Mother Below with great gratitude for all the blessings you bestow we ask for your further support and guidance.

We want and need your support in our helping to heal the wounds of Your Creations.

We appeal to the Four Winds and Seven Seas, to our Ancestors to guide us and strengthen us in our resolve to help to bring about healing.

May the eyes of our leaders be opened to the pain and suffering of the mothers, fathers and children of all of life on earth.

May their ears hear the wailing and curses of those who have suffered wounding and injustices at the hands of the unmerciful.

May their hearts be opened and filled with compassion for those wronged.

May their bellies be filled with such anxt that they cannot but own their part in the imbalances and wrong doings.

May their minds and thoughts become clear with resolve to right the wrongs.

May their words and deeds be of retribution and reparation.

May they escape the jaws of the abyss.

May their good fortunes be shared by all; and, may they come to be known in their own time as great men and women who brought about The Great Healing of the Fabric of The Universe. 


And that dear Gods and Goddesses will be truly delicious for All to feast upon.

Peace and Healing

Emotional Intimacy in Relationships

Creating Emotional Intimacy in Relationships
 
The relationships naturally changes over time. Emotional intimacy that was once passionate and exciting can diminish unless steps are taken to help maintain it. This entry may help understand why emotional intimacy in relationships often fades over time and what can be done to rekindle our passions.
 
Emotional intimacy in relationships tend to fade over time.
This happens for many reasons: After the initial romancing period the issues of our pasts begin to play more active roles in our relationships. Those issues are part of what attracts us to each other often on very deep unconscious levels. This phenomena is related to the repetition compulsion. We come to be together so that we will be “worked” to become more fully integrated. I think of this phenomena as The Relationship Cauldron (see my blog entry: SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 2010
The Relationship Cauldron: The gift of interpersonal conflicts!).

Without acknowledging this built in conflict and building a support system for doing our unique personal work in our relationship we will need to give each other more space: To move away from each other.
 
If we are attached to the “live happily ever-after model” of marriage then we compare our own stressed relationship with that model and find it wanting. However, thanking our partners for helping us access our profound sense of emptiness due to our wounded-ness can help us to build a more realistic and stable intimate basis. When couples see the going into an issue as “sacred” in the sense of visiting the temple of healing and not taking the others stuff personally then the marriage can be strengthened.
 
A common reason for this fading has to do with our having other affairs. “Affairs do not happen in a vacuum.” We become distracted from our own personal work by having children, becoming overly involved in our work, getting into drugs and/or alcohol, having extra-marital affairs, etc. When one person begins to move away the other will either push hard to reestablish the closeness or move away accordingly. Either tact can be damaging to the marriage. Ultimately, no matter what the affair, it is a distraction to keep us from feeling the discomfort or pain having to do with our personal and ancestral wounds.
 
We crave as a basic need emotional intimacy and will find it one way or another. As drifting apart happens other pursuits take precedence. We are all “Seeking Village” and will find the support we need to heal one way or another. Fairly often this happens in the late 30’s, 40’s or 50’s. It takes lots of living to get it that we need to make big movement towards doing our own personal growth work. None of us are immune from this.
 
Recognizing the drift away from the intimacy and talking about this is important. In my web-site (scottlsherman.com) under “Tools, Communication Basics” are some instructions on how to actively and reflectively listen to each other. Open, eye-leveling communications can rebuild intimacy.
 
Prescribing for self in my relationships and for my clients in theirs that sacred time be set aside for intimate relationship building: Dating one night a week, at least. Taking a weekend off once a month to get away from routine tasks and other possessive pursuits is critical. Getting away for a longer period of time at least once a year is also very beneficial.
 
Also paying attention to five critical times in a family’s day-to-day living is critical. The times most important to "see" each other; to hug, tell you love, and are there for them. These times are: 1. when we get up, 2. when we eat, 3. when we leave the home, 4. when we return; and, 5. when we go to bed.
 
The most significant time is coming home. We live in a toxic world and taking time to “get home” spiritually and to feel ourselves in our own home, in a grounded sense, allows for us to be open to re-connect with our loved ones. Going out into the world and returning is a mild form of jet-lag. Yet, it can be very taxing and include such common sensations as “road-rage”, boredom and frustration with work, financial stressors, job stressors, other frustrating relationships, etc. It is all too easy to not get home even when we are home. We tend to continue to process the day “out there” even though it is the past and we are “here.” Making a point of “being home” helps us to reconnect with our loved ones. This has to do with the concept of “quality time” versus “quantity time.”
 
A major task for all couples is to sort out whose stuff is whose. As it is estimated that 80 to 85 % of our relationship issues has to do with communications it is also estimated that only about 20% of our issues is with our partners or family members. The larger remaining portion has to do with our personal histories. This gets back to how by honoring the awareness that we are all striving in one way or another, intentionally or accidentally, to become fully integrated: To become highly spiritual beings. We are striving to come to grips with our own repetition compulsions and woundings.
 
Making time to sit down and actively hear each others understanding of the reality of the relationship is very important. What do they perceive, how does that affect their emotional well being, what sense do they make of that in terms of emotions and personal history; and, what do they want and need to help them move along on their path. The one not talking is to only register what has been said; and not in their mind arguing, reasoning, fixing, etc. Only remembering so that they can tell the one sharing what they heard. If they got it right (really right and not just 50% or so) then they can move on to the listener telling their side.
 
It is amazing to me, still, how this simple to do (although hard to learn without practice) can reduce tensions and re-establish intimacy. We all want and need to be honored or “seen.”
 
Thanks for viewing this entry and let me know how it works for you.

Corruption and Redemption

Believing that very few humans, less than one percent can be classified "without conscience;" what leads humans to repeatedly behave in ways to cheat, lie, steal, etc. 


Thinking on this, I remember two works from my early studies in Sociology and Criminology. The first by Edwin Sutherland's on white collar crimes White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version . As I remember the study it was reported that such crimes started out relatively innocently. Stealing a pencil from work or pocketing someone's loose change or the likes. Then an elaborate process of inner dialogue and repeated and progressively growing in seriousness moral lapses led to eventually getting caught. We read about such incidents in our daily news.


Sometimes the motivation is simply to get some food to eat. With white collar crime what goes on has been described by Sykes and Matza, 1957, as "techniques of neutralization," which leads to the second work I write about. http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/matza.htm. The techniques are rationalizations and justifications, internal arguments that often lead one into further mis-deeds and can eventually lead to more serious crimes. 


My interest in bringing this information to this blog has to do with another interest, fascination even, of mine  that of the "repetition compulsion" phenomena I write and speak about. 


Those who have visited my blog have no doubt read about the phenomena of people repeating traumatic events often over and over again and again. My belief is that it is a soul issue and has to do with "so they will remember" to heal.


Perhaps, along these lines, the corruption we are so aware of in this culture and in general, in mass society, has to do with people starting out simple enough, stealing, lying or cheating and then escalating in this behavior with an underlying compulsion to get caught! To get caught so that they will be compelled to working on deeper wounding issues.


What I know from my work is that when becoming aware of the phenomena one dips back into personal history and remembers where the original traumatic act or event occurred, deals with that loss with gratitude and forgiveness of self and/or other, then the wounded soul part can return and healing begins.


The wonderful Alcoholic Anonymous movement has as a basic tenant, one of the 12 Steps, the Fifth, I believe "To make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves" and then to make things right where one may.


When I consider the great amount of grief that our world experiences because of corruption and some of the above considerations it occurs to me that those perpetrating the crimes are also caught up in the repetition compulsion and haven't a clue as to how to move out of that pattern.


Perhaps with radical forgiveness and a more grateful approach to life the dynamics can be reversed. This has been successfully practiced repeatedly. Most importantly by Nobel Peace recipient Desmond Tutu of South Africa. No Future Without Forgiveness


We have also seen in our world how "Radical Forgiveness" www.radicalforgiveness.com has brought peace between warring tribes or nations.


Practicing "Gratitude for All" (as no less than Elizabeth Kubler Ross suggests we adopt in even our most  grievious losses On Death and Dying (Scribner Classics)) can lead to the lessening of the need to rationalize and neutralize the extent of our internal dialogues about our illegal or immoral actions. It can open the doors to learn to stay present in the awesome eternal "Now" so that we can forgive ourselves and others and lead the way to Redemption.


It seems to me to be a need. Our anger and condemnation drives others to continue to be stuck in cycles of abuse. Our forgiveness at least offers an opportunity for healing.


What do you think?

Celebrating the New Year with Intention

Recently I was asked for a Chakra clearing exercise. Over the years I have experienced a number of such and believe that this time of the year, to end one and begin another, is an opportune time to perform this clearing with ritual. I recommend that some time be spent meditating and talking over with friends and loved ones what the intentions for the coming cycle would be. Remembering to address these intentions with "The Law of Attraction." Believe and move into Trust and Love and it shall be.

I offer in this entry two exercises that can be found on my web-site at the following URL. http://scottlsherman.com/frameset.html

The first piece has to do with our "Energy Anatomy"ADVANCED ENERGY ANATOMY as Carolyn Myss elucidates in her book by that name. My piece is named in my URL as "Know your Energy Centers." Our Chakra's or energy centers, our bio-computers can be cleared, empowered and linked to each other in such a way that our human magnificence can truly be realized.

The second in my web-site is labeled "The Healing Visualization." It has to do with both "intention" and our Chakras.

The ritual I intend to perform sometime on this day, 12/31/2010 is as follows:

• Spend some time reviewing the past year and talking about intentions for the future with friends and loved ones.
• Form the intentions with positive and probable affirmations. The Healing Visualization paper helps with this piece.
• Find a place and setting to meditate.
• Take several nice and easy breaths after exhaling all of the old stale air.
• Attend to being fully in the moment by focusing on being fully present with sensations.
• Focus intention on Crown Chakra, initially, and visualize clear light entering your anatomy via the far reaches of the Universe. As it enters your Crown Chakra (pineal gland) imagine the energy of the Universe energizing the center and moving the energy into a vortex. The vortex of flowing energy transforms old, stuck and blocked energy into beautiful color and form. The color is primarily heliotrope and it helps to visualize this color.
• Move through each Chakra in a descending fashion using web-site entry on Energy Centers for inspiration on color, location, etc.
• Then visualize the energy flowing through your whole body, a white light connecting the ends of the Universe through each of your Chakras and into the Earth.
• Next, connect through the Earth to the opposite ends of the Universe.
• The imagine and experience a flowing, washing exchange of energy from Heaven to Earth, into and through the Earth, to the opposite ends of the Universe and back again. As the wave sent with intention and visualization from you goes through the Earth (taking old stuff out of you) it gives love and life to the Earth and connects all of creation. Then as that energy bounces or flows returning through the Earth and back through your body and Chakras it also brings healing, beauty, magic, transformative realization, etc.
• Then, feeling this divine interconnectedness and at one with all of creation remember your clear and probable affirmation and remembering it visualize sending it throughout the Universe. 

Know then that each Energy Center has been tuned to your own individual prayer for healing, transformation for the New Year and that you have contributed greatly to "The Healing Story."

Thanks for visiting my blog and may each and every one of you and your loved ones find greater health, peace and interconnectedness with all of Creation. May you walk in Trust and Love and forever remember that the single most revolutionary act any of us can ever commit is to refuse to spend any unnecessary time in fear and anxiety.

Submitted with Great Gratitude,

Scott

The Mother Wound

The Mother Wound

The abandonment and betrayals of “fathers” has the corollary of “mothers” not protecting us or providing our nurturance. It is the mother not stepping in like a grizzly bear,  subduing the predator wanting to harm the cub. It is the mother who denies that her child has been abused by the father or father figure (betrayers). 

This wound is felt within one as a profound sense of unworthiness. “I must not be loved; how could something like that happen if I were truly loved?” 

“The trail of tears” has brought whole civilizations to this point. The Father-land abusing, the Great Mother, not protecting. Father go off to work or war and come home abused, corrupted, and toxically shamed. Our collective ignorance and our natural innate healing process (repetition compulsion) allowing no choice but to pass the wounding on . . . even to our own loved ones. Wives, lovers and children.

The story is told of the father who on leaving work in the morning is hugged and encouraged to have good luck when he asks for a raise at work. Times are hard!

Returning his family expectantly greet him at the door only to be met with a scowl and angry retort. The smell of beer for-warned that all did not go well. When asked how it went he angrily retorts that he not only didn’t get the raise; he was fired. Brushing her aside their son pulls on her skirt and she shooes him aside. The boy hits the girl who kicks the dog who chases the cat who knocks over the lamp: Bedlam!

Had the father not “nursed” his wounds with alcohol; instead coming straight home to the warmth and comfort of the hearth where the couple could have figured out their next move: Had the mother stopped him at the door and expected decorum and love the bedlam could have been avoided.

A tall order.

In the indigenous world there are transition stages for when one leaves and enters the village, for the world outside the village is problematically toxic. Our homes can have the same. And, to a strong degree they need to be even more intentional, lacking the extended family and social network. No sweat lodge or men’s or women’s lodge to detoxify.

The mother wound has its roots in the deeper sense of the “Wounds of the ancestors.” Our female ancestors had witnessed and experienced their own wounding. No structure or means for processing, the wounds went under-ground; soul parts splitting off. Enabling, paralysis, denial of one sort or another then creates the repetition compulsion process.

This leads to our setting each other up to once again experience a wounding. Most often this wounding is felt in the same area of our bodies and the scenes and actors are mirroring past wounds. Our over-soul hoping if not expecting that we will wake up! That we will do our own internal work and heal!

Perhaps the very world itself is actively setting us up to “remember.” Remember, ”We are all one.” Remember, “What goes around, comes around.” Remember, “To repeat the cycle is to perpetuate the cycle.” Until we wake up and take a different path.

HBO's special on War Torn from 1860-2010 is an incredibly painful awakening for us. It is estimated that 100 % of soldiers return with PTSD. And yet, we continue to pour most of our fortunes into war games, weapons and create awful damages and destruction. THE PAIN GOES ON.

Radical Forgiveness works and has worked. It can start with each one of us. Think of one who has wronged you. Feel the pain or discomfort in your body. Breathe into it with gratitude for it's positive intent to get you to do something different. Thank that feeling and the resulting loosening of the tightness. Release that pain into prayer for healing for all involved. Visualize the outcome that is collectively healing.

Beyond this there is a need to strengthen the social bonds and protections such that one can heal. Support groups, mens, women's and gender groups that intentionally indulge in deep grieving and release work. Where is the support for finding strength to not wound and to protect children and the helpless (animals, trees, fish, insects, the waters, the very soil, on-and-on) from being wounded again and again and again. 

Straying from the theme of mother wound, or have I? The succorance and nurturing of the home and hearth allow for our hearts to be open. And, the mother is not just in women, it is the Divine Feminine. 


A mature male is one who is clear, firm, and nurturing.

The Father Wound

It has long been my generalized belief that men are more wounded then women.

I believe this has to do with the absence of dad's as healthy role models. One kind of addictive disorder or another tends to get in the way. Work, war. alcohol, sex, affairs, sports, depression or some other kind of escapism takes dads away from their sons.

At the same time most men I have known and worked with have "lost" their childhood at a very early age. Most men stopped crying at about 4 years of age.

How much of this is genetic and how much conditioning is hard to know.

Also, in this country or in all of Modernity, men tend to be raised by women. Moms and teachers teach us how to be a man. Men are too busy or detained from be present for their sons.

It seems this has been the pattern for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Joseph Weir Perry has written extensively ( Lord of the Four Quarters: The Mythology of Kingship (Jung and Spirituality Series) ) and how this has effected our very mythologies. His argument is that Feminine Goddess mythologies began to take a back seat to Storm God mythologies from 5 to 10 thousand years ago.

This was also the time of the rapid growth of City-States and expansion of territories. Kings formed armies to gain more land and slaves to increase the productivity of the State to provide for the people.
Rape, pillage and plunder abounded.

The Trail of Tears truly began thousands of years ago.

No wonder boys and men have their tears dried up. What toxic shame we are saddled with.

You may say, "Not me!" and to some degree I agree with you. However we can't not all be affected by this historical process.

This happening is "of our ancestors" and effects the very fabric of our lives, culture, recreational activities, stories, where our resources go, etc.

OUCH!

What can and does change all of this is for men to learn to process our wounded-ness, to be responsible for our own interactions. To do so means to find support for our troubled relationships and to not take on more than is our due.

In the indigenous world there were universally men's and women's lodges. In those cultures individuals could go for support and release of pent up emotions.

Increasingly individuals are finding and creating such supports in this time.

Without such support we turn to our escapes which take us from staying present with our loved ones.

The wounding carries on. The wounding is "An Accident of History." The corruption necessary for us to survive has generated a compounding of errors.

True we have gained incredible knowledge in our left-brained dominance of reality. Now, in this Age of Aquarius our feminine and masculine selves can unite, merge and women can learn to "fix" things and men to "process." This merging is, indeed the process of "The Healing Story."

Our Green Movements are all indicative that we can heal and bring about healing on a larger scale.

And, what about The Mother Wound. Tune in.

Dreaming/Envisioning

Few of us make the best use of our dreaming realities; not to mention our "envisioning." Yet, these are profoundly powerful and wonderful arenas for us to process our worldly and other-worldly experiences. To increasingly spend intentional time in our dream world is to move more freely in our corporal world.

In Carlos Casteneda's book (The Art of Dreaming) he describes an experience where he went to sleep and woke up from that dream into another dream. In that second dream he fell asleep and woke up again, into a third dream. In that third dream he experienced a corporal reality. His book Separate Reality describes in some detail moving in and out of different realities.

My own dreaming experiences, while not so "powerful" have non-the-less served as guides for personal growth, for changing my course of direction in life,  for entertaining and for relationship building.

For example, from the dream world instructions were given for me to cultivate more receptivity from others. To be open to "receiving" as well as giving. This came about through a lucid dreaming experience. (A classic book in this realm is Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Laberge.)

While I do not practice lucid dreaming with much intentionality my dreams often are spontaneously lucid. Several have been "big dreams": Dreams that are emotionally powerful and portend change in ones life course. Good to pay attention to such dreams! The following words describe one such big dream.

My right hand moved up and on it a white angel was dancing. I was astonished and delighted. Then my left hand rose up and out of the ether appeared a second angel. It began dancing in my left palm. In my growing astonishment and delight I explained "Look, I have Angels dancing on my palms." An audience then appeared in my dream. Angels were dancing on their palms.

I woke up from that dream into a second dream and explained, again, "Look, Angels are dancing on my palms." The audience in that dream also then experienced Angels dancing.

I woke up again into my own bed and shared that dream with my wife, Joanne. She said, "How wonderful. Your left hand is the hand of receiving. You give generously with your right hand but don't often allow yourself to receive."

Impact!

Since that time, maybe as much as a year ago, I have been more mindful of openly receiving the gifts of the Universe, from complements to agates on the beach. From that experience I received a deeper awareness of the Feng Shui of giving and receiving. The awareness that too easily and readily receive is to have even more energy and potency in giving! Reiki The Original Reiki Handbook of Dr. Mikao Usui!

This dream was cultivated by me as I had been working on open, active and intentionally receptive listening; both in my life and in my practice. The dream emphasized to me the physiological state of my left hand and right brain being more open and less blocked to being fully present in the moment. I have been paying more attention to the awareness of moving energy from the Universe through my being with my left palm (chakra) being a major receptive channel.

This awareness leads me to express the importance of intentionality in dreaming. In Laberge's book he describes (in my words) the mantra, "Tonight I am going to sleep, and when I sleep I am going to dream. When I dream I can be aware of my dream and learn to enter into it." One may need to practice this for weeks before being able to "enter" into dreams. In the mean time the act of intentionality encourages more dreaming. Also, taking any piece, image, vingette from the dream and entering it into art, writing, speaking, poetry or whatever, will prime one for bigger and bigger pieces of future dreams. Eventually, whole stories can be remembered, with characters, emotion, color and plot. These can become "life course" guidances.

Holding intentionality to remembering dreams and to entering into them as one falls asleep guarantees more exchanges between waking and dreaming.

In the mean time there are guides as to how to use dreams. One of the most celebrated dream workers and teachers is Jeremy Taylor (The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life). His book is full of excellent guidance. One of his beliefs which I subscribe to is that dreams always serve health and wholeness.

In my dream sharing I have learned to pay special attention to the feeling state upon waking. This can guide one into dream interpretation.

Also, there are no "bad" dreams. Being chased by a dragon or beast or mad person is suggesting one look at what is pursuing. Learning to turn around and face the "beast" with the open question of "What do you have to teach me" transforms the energy from terror and fear to lightness and love.

And, as with all of life, remember that "gratitude" is the elixir.