Heart Friends: Grief and Joy

Grief touches the heart.  Joy touches the heart too, but one might miss the central portal in a frenzy of celebrating. 

Perhaps, grief's power lies in stripping away illusions: things that seemed important or real, weren't.  Grief shows the truth.  Then, joy and grief reside near one another in the heart, tenderly, poignantly affirming life's beauty together.

The Danger of Pseudo-Unconditional Love

Learning to face what love is not is one of the most difficult and valuable lessons I have ever learned. 

Confusion about what love is and what it’s not seems to be a widespread issue.  Just last week I overheard someone referring to child sexual abuse say it was difficult to recognize the abuse since the situation was complex and love was also present.  My perspective is abuse is distinct from love, and abuse is not complex.  According to the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine the definition of abuse is the following, “Abuse is defined as any action that intentionally harms or injures another person.” The distinctions between abuse and love only seems complex when we are unclear about what abuse is and how love behaves.  Only within the blurry (mis)understanding of love, do we enable violence or abuse to continue.  

It's no wonder that people are confused.  We live in a time where pain and trauma are rampant and seem to be normal.  Since so many are suffering, perhaps trauma is normal, but it’s not natural.  It's a by-product of violence, abuse and domination on a global, cultural, and personal scale.   

But, I am getting ahead of myself...  Back to my experience:  

Part of my difficulty in learning to face what love is not, is that I have experienced moments when the saying, “love is all there is” seemed true, moments when I experienced love permeating me and everything around me.  Another difficulty in recognizing what love is not, is that I've seen unconditional acceptance and love can dissolve inner conflict and sometimes even conflict with others. After cultivating unconditional love in this way, it can be confusing to discern what love is not, or even to wonder why this is necessary.

While cultivating unconditional love is indeed powerful and needed, there is a shadow side:  we can fantasize that we are loving unconditionally (pseudo-unconditional love) when we are actually avoiding facing and responding to difficult, painful truths.  The most dangerous thing I have found about pseudo-unconditional love is it can enable harmful, violent, and abusive behaviors to continue and escalate.  

I experienced a relationship where the threat of physical violence escalated into actual physical violence.  I did not even register the threat in the beginning: I was confused and had an inner block which prevented me facing what was happening.  Instead, I focused on being loving.  With others in my work, I have seen similar situations —  when violence was happening and even being talked about openly while people didn't respond to it continuing.     

There is a reasonable explanation why I and others may not recognize or respond to violence even when it is right in front of us, or literally happening to us.  Not facing is a trauma-response which protects us when we don't have another coping mechanism that we can resource in the moment, which can be exacerbated by our past (personal, relational, or generational), or even something in our culture.  Unconsciously shutting down part of our nervous system results in our shutting down our capacity to see, feel, hear, and respond in the present moment.

One of the things that helped me to clearly face and respond to my situation was studying loving behavior, from the work of Steven Stosny, PhD of Compassion Power.  

Love connects.  Love appreciates.  Love improves.  Love protects.

- Love connects us with our beloved.  Connection involves cultivating our capacity to hold and value two (or more) perspectives simultaneously, ours and our beloved's, even when the perspectives conflict with each other.  Love does not coerce or attempt to overpower.

- Love appreciates and bestows sensitive awareness toward the beloved.  The nutrients of attention and appreciation contribute to the well-being for the giver of appreciation, the receiver of appreciation and the connection between them.  Love does not withhold attention as punishment, or stonewall.

- Love improves the situation for whomever is involved in the connection, contributing to making things even a little bit better which the receiver benefits from.    Love is not criticism or contempt, based on thinking someone is fundamentally flawed, disguised as improvement.

- Love protects who or what is loved and valued.  Protection can take many forms, depending on the context.  Love does not harm, or especially repeatedly harm the beloved.  If love accidentally harms, love acknowledges the harmful impact and moves toward reparation and restoration.

I found learning these four behaviors of love was uncomfortable and downright painful, as I had to sort out my experiences and face what was not included in loving behavior.  Physical assaults where I feared for my life was not protection.  Improvement masking criticism of who I am was not a true attempt at improving the situation.  Attempting to prove my perspective was wrong was not connection.  Withholding attention and connection was not appreciation.  In writing, it sounds very simple, but learning to discern the truth was not easy.    

From the first threat of violence, about a year passed before I left the relationship to protect my life.  In leaving, I lost not only the relationship, but also our blended family, the country I was living in, the work I had built, the home I had invested in with my partner, and the apartment I had gotten a loan to install myself in after we split up.  I lost nearly all my possessions and accumulated significant debt in the year after leaving.  At times in the months that followed, I could not see my way forward.  I experienced the lowest lows of my life, and at times I wondered if my life was over.

But I came through this experience.  I stopped enabling abuse in my life, and began a long journey of emotional, mental and financial recovery.  My life now is better because I learned to recognize what was not love, to disallow ongoing violence in my life, and to ground my life in loving behaviors.

One of the results of my experience is greater compassion for how difficult it is to face the truth when violence, abuse or domination is present.  Numbing ourselves is a protective mechanism in moments when we simply do not have the resources to cope and respond.  In order to move toward facing and responding to abuses in our world, we need each other.  As I write this, I am reflecting on the many “others” – friends and family without whose loving support and generosity I literally cannot imagine being here.  I am blessed that when the life I had created collapsed, people were there and I was able to open and be loved, accepted, supported, and protected.  I mourn that not everyone is so lucky and blessed in these troubled times. 

Culturally, as violence and abuse that was previously in the shadows becomes more apparent, each of us needs to face and respond to what is around us, discerning what love is not and moving toward loving behaviors.  The call to wake up, face the truth, and align with love exists at home, at work, in the media, entertainment, politics, and in the environment.  We may not be able to face everything at once, but I believe can face the one thing that is in front of each of us.  And together, we can face and respond to more than we can alone.  **

Contemplation:

I invite you to consider and wonder about connection, appreciation, improving things (even just a little), and protecting what you love.  This contemplation can apply to your treatment of yourself, your loved ones, and the world and our environment.   I'd love to hear what you discover!

** If in your exploration of love / not love you discover domestic violence, sexual violence, or child abuse, please prioritize the protection and safety of the person being victimized.  Professional therapy or counseling is often a necessity in these types of situations.

Because Life is a Dance

Years ago in 1998, a friend turned me on to Joseph Campbell, specifically the series of interviews of Mr. Campbell by Bill Moyers.  I was captivated!  So much so, that I changed my life direction:  from  dance performance, choreography and teaching to body-mind transformation, which eventually led me to study and teach yoga, become a life-coach, study nonviolent communication, and create Transformation Playground Dance.  I offered my first free-dance and journaling classes in 2001, and called it Transformation Dance.  Years later I taught under the name of Dance Journey, offering regular classes in St. Louis, as well as movement classes at a treatment center for people with eating disorders.  Today I call it Transformation Playground Dance.

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.  I don't think that's what we're really seeking.  I think that what we're seeking is an experience being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..." * 

That's the kind of dancing, the kind of moving, and the kind of living that interests me.  When I listened to Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell and their explorations of meaning, stories, cultures, and myths, something in me was touched.  I remembered my fascination with learning and various dance and even martial arts techniques throughout my dance career.  I had noticed that moving in different ways, with a different focus and intent, changed how I experienced myself in my body.  This was unexpected.  I wondered - Just how many facets of me are there!?

Later, I went on to study with Kathlyn Hendricks, a psychotherapist, movement therapist, and teacher/trainer for individuals, couples, and coaches interested in conscious relationships, embodiment, and creativity.  From her, I learned that bodifying -- trying on movement in a way that matched my inner state -- was a way to move through stuck experiences in my body, relationships, and work-life.   This only reinforced my calling to facilitate people to put our bodies into motion.

◯ "The whole world is a circle.  All of these circular images reflect the psyche." * 

I also am fascinated with cycles.  Whether it's the cycle of the an inhalation and exhalation, the cycle of a traditional prayer, seed to plant, the moon, I discovered something interesting in dancing specific aspects which are part of a greater whole.  So often we get stuck in duality:  focusing on something being right, and something else being wrong, less than, bad, or forbidden.  So inherently it seems to me that dancing something is a way to experience it fully to unlock the gifts of it, and intending to include a full cycle of movement is a gateway to wholeness.  It turns out that this is a key tenant of Tantra, and non-dual embodied spiritual awakening.  Who knew?

MOYERS:  "Then heroes are not all men?

CAMPBELL:  "Oh no.  The male usually has the more conspicuous role, just because of the conditions of life."  * 

Originally to me it was just play.  And it still is!  Although now I have a greater cognitive understanding of why this type of play is so liberating, powerful, and often life-changing for people.

* Quotes are from The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

- Read more about Transformation Playground Dance here.
- Join me next Tuesday evening January 22, at 7:15pm at Yoga Source in St. Louis to dance.

Writing to Bridge the Gap: Lifting, Lifting

Writing to Bridge the Gap

Lifting, Lifting

There are many ways which we can close off inhabiting our bodies in a protective maneuver to try to reduce pain and suffering.  Thomas Huebl refers to these coping mechanisms as childhood heros, because of the protective function served by these originally intelligent movements.  Over time, what was once actively creative recycles itself, no longer within conscious awareness.  

Since rising above our difficulties is often equated with spiritual maturity, Lifting, Lifting makes a distinction between rising above in a way which is resourced in wholeness vs. avoidance and closing as a traumatic, survival mechanism.  We can't fully respond when we have closed off a part of ourselves, since the very process of shutting down and disowning our experience creates inner fragmentation, and negates the possibility of a response that is grounded in wholeness.

The good news and the bad news is that what is disowned will find a way to express, through our own behaviors or in relationships.  What is disowned lives through us individually, through the generations and through our culture.  Life wants to move!  

Waking up in our bodies is a process of discovering these unconscious loops of once-creative protective processes, appreciating their once-necessary protective function, and releasing the habit in favor of newly emerging creative movements.  

Lifting, lifting,

I don’t want to drop…

It’s scary down here!

And unpredictable.

Can’t I just hide?

If I hold myself up,I will be ok.  

Positive, inspired.  Loving.  Lovable.

All the good things people taught me to be.

When I drop, I become real.

And, what will happen then?

Appreciating what has been; Welcoming what is Emerging -- Happy 2019!

In 2018, I increased my capacity to receive and moved deeper into an experience of interconnection. I learned that I can endure losses and be ok; that I can fall, and be held. My trust multiplied exponentially. 

I appreciate the many loved ones who generously shared your presence and love with me this year. 

I appreciate conscious, loving community in Ottawa -- who acted like their presence and support was no big deal, and which to me was miraculous. 

I appreciate my family in Oklahoma, beautiful loving, supportive people who are always present in my roots and in my heart. 

I appreciate the online courses I took this year: three from Thomas Huebl, two from Jeff Brown, one from Seth Godin, and one from Judith Blackstone which all made a significant impact.

I appreciate Kathlyn Hendricks’ example of turning everything into creative expression.

I appreciate loving friends scattered all around the world. 

I appreciate the beauty of this life I have been given, the presence of the divine, and the opportunity to continue to experience, grow, contribute, and collaborate. 

I am excited about 2019! 

Here’s to restoration and re-weaving what needs to change within us and in our world, and grounding in love, joy and abundance all along the way <3 p="">

Facing, Accepting, Choosing & Taking Action!

Learn more about the process, at:
https://www.transformationplayground.com/factandcoaching.html

Embodied Transformation Is...

Noticing and savoring your body, your breath, your own well-being.  

Tuning into your breath to journey ever more deeply inward, and welcoming whatever is arising in your experience within your body.

Connecting with your true inner wisdom, which reveals the wholeness and beauty and unique essence of who you are at source,

Discovering and disentangling from the wrong beliefs that you are flawed, or wrong, or bad, which cause you to suffer, and attuning to deeper intelligence and creative possibility.  A key is to make this shift in your whole body-mind system; not just in your mind.   

Grounding and strengthening your connection with your source so that your connection is stable and reliable.   

Feeling more and more at home within your body. 

Expanding and expressing your source and essence so that all of  your life is infused with essence.

Taking regular, easeful and effective actions to create and step into the life of your dreams.

Learning from your interactions and life experiences so that you can continue to evolve, connect, discover, create and grow!