I am the one

 

I am the one

Who is neither

ease nor difficulty

Yet contains them both.

I am the one who is neither

ease nor difficulty

Yet can hold them both.

I am the one who is neither

ease nor difficulty

Yet can touch them both.

And be touched by them.

I am the one who is neither

ease nor difficulty,

Terror nor safety,

Pain nor joy,

Yet can allow them

To meet

to dance together,

And sometimes

to rest.

Waves

This experience just happened.  It was both remarkable and unremarkable.  It revealed things that I had discovered before...and had seemingly forgotten regarding pain and how convincing it is.  So the insights are both new and not new to me.  At one level obvious and at another level a revelation.

And this poem arose - perhaps not the very best or most polished poem, and yet written in the immediate aftermath of the experience as it revealed itself – so containing something of the fragrance of the revelation.  So I share it here as a reminder to myself and in case it touches anyone else.

~

Waves

Waves of intense emotional pain.

Arising from…

Who knows where?

For a moment,

the feelings of despair, desperation and anguish

Seem utterly convincing...

… until

by Grace

I find myself embracing 

and feeling the pain,

Pure and simple,

Intense and clean.

And then I see that the pain 

is just pain.

It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t signify anything.

Those feelings of 

desperation, despair and anguish 

are simply memories, 

from who knows where 

and who knows when.

I feel the pain again.

It surges and swells.

I let it flow through me.

It subsides.

There is releasing.

There is opening, 

to the world outside and its beauty. 

There is gentle strong joy. 

I am home. 

~

With surrender, joy and gratitude

Daniel x

Desperation, Despair and Gratitude

I’m beginning to realise just how desperate I often felt as a child.  It feels strange to look back and recognise that I was feeling things so scary to relate with that I couldn’t even admit to myself that I was feeling them at the time.  To acknowledge that I was feeling as desperate, despairing, alone, angry, scared and confused as I felt.  And hateful.  The deep fear that at my core that I wasn’t worthy of love and that if people knew how pathetic and awful I was they would despise me, and I would be friendless, isolated and alone for ever.

It wasn’t that I felt this way every moment of every day.  There were carefree times of simple playing, pleasure or happiness.  I’ve seen childhood pictures where I am genuinely smiling and I don’t have a care in the world.  I believe that in those moments I was simply happy.

 

But many times, especially in social situations these intense and difficult feelings were sitting in the background, like scary movie music that set the mood but I couldn’t quite consciously hear anymore, meaning I was often trying to have a conversation with these voices whispering in the background. 

 

And they often came with me into the spaces when I was alone – a gnawing sense of desperate isolation and confusion.  My mantra when alone would often be “I don’t know” (said over and over again in a voice of bewildered lost-ness).  I’ve recently seen some photos of me at school at age 12 or 13.  I don’t know what others could see at the time, but looking at them now, I can see a little boy who appears bewildered and lost.

 

And I’m realising that these feelings haven’t gone away as I’ve grown up.  This background of desperation and despair has accompanied me throughout my life.  Many of the things I’ve done, good and bad, have been done acting out of this sense that I have to do something to “save myself”, even though I don’t really know what it is, and even though I don’t know what I’m trying to save myself from.  My sense of driven-ness to achieve, which has fuelled much of my worldly success, has come out of from a desperation to escape from these voices or to prove them wrong.  Like many outwardly "successful" people the fuel for achievement comes from a deep sense of unworthiness, and there's a cost.  I often feel like I’m “trying too hard”, even though I am very competent to do what I’m doing, and it’s pretty exhausting. 

 

And these feelings are intense!  On a scale of 0-10 most of the feelings are at the 9 to 10 mark, when I get close to them and actually feel them.  They are only being felt by a small part of me, but that part is feeling them very very intensely.  It’s hard to say in the experience of them if they are present time or memory, and if the memories are from all from my lifetime or partly my ancestors’ experience.  The part that is feeling the feelings doesn’t seem able to distinguish what time they relate to, so it’s “as if” they are all happening now.  And to that extent they are.

 

The feelings are all interconnected like a ball of twine.  At times it seems that one is primary but in truth they all feel inter-linked.  The desperation is a sense that “everything is awful” and it’s a response to pain that feels overwhelming, and a fear or belief that the pain will continue forever.  The pain is a pain of loneliness, of feeling isolated and alone and is deeply linked to a belief that I’m not loveable.  A belief that I am fundamentally broken, “pathetic” and disgusting in some way.  A belief that I am fundamentally “bad”, without really knowing what that means.  There is a rage that all this is happening, coming out of this sense of powerlessness.  There is a desperate wishing for love and support, whilst at the same time believing that it won’t and can’t be forthcoming, followed by a sense of despair. There is a frozen terror of being all alone for eternity with this pain.  It sounds dramatic and to my mind "over dramatic", but this part of me really does believe these things and really fears them.

 

I have a sense that many of these feelings and attitudes were passed on to me by my parents and probably to them by their parents.  That I grew up in a background atmosphere of this (as presumably they did).  I certainly recognise many of these flavours being present in my mum and dad as I recall my childhood.  And from their stories of their childhoods, I can sense that they were probably there as they grew up too.  And so there is a sense that this is not just about my immediate history, but also an ancestral story too, of collected inter-generational pain and suffering.

 

And this has all been so difficult for me to see up until now because it has been wrapped in a layer of shame.  I did not dare to admit to myself that this was happening for fear that it would confirm just how “broken” and “awful” I was, and therefore how unworthy of love, care or respect. 

 

Additionally, these feelings were also wrapped in layers of control and resistance.  Parts of me that were terrified that to feel these strong feelings, because they were scared that they would wipe me out and destroy me.  So the clamped down hard on those feelings so I shouldn't feel them.  Or there was a sudden urge to distract myself from something unpleasant...but I couldn't quite feel what.  Sometimes it just manifested as an urgent desire to check the newspaper, my email or facebook!

 

I now recognise that much of the time I am not (and have not been) feeling the pain of feelings themselves, but the pain of the fighting them.  The pain and suffering of the contraction around them - the aspect that is desperate that I should not feel them.  I often forget this, but when I remember there is the possibility of meeting the aspects that are resisting and fighting.  The possibility of including them and thanking them for trying to keep me safe.  And the possibility of some of that fight relaxing enough for me to feel and include what was hidden underneath.

 

In the revelation of this pain and suffering, there is a sense of relief.  As if something that has been hidden from me “out of the corner of my eye” has suddenly become visible.  “Ah…so that’s what it was!”.  It makes sense of much of my experience growing up and subsequently, and also of the behaviours I developed to deal with this experience that formed the background hum of my existence.

 

There now arises the possibility to be with these aspects of my embodied existence more directly.  To listen to them with kindness and compassion and to support them with love.

 

And although what has been revealed is intense and painful there is a sense of gratitude that I have been ready and willing to see it and feel it, or at least to start to see it and to feel it.  And the possibility of coming home and resting in myself and with myself.  To let go of the trying and to relax into a simple joyful being in connection with myself and the world.

 

And at the same time, it also often feels sobering, to see how intense things have been in the background, and how intense it continues to be there.  To see that the resistance and the fear to feel still continues, and how habitual that resistance and suffering has been and continues to be.  And to do my best to meet that too with kindness.

 

So here I sit in the midst of it all, seeing and not seeing, resisting and surrendering, tight and specious, including and acting out, daunted and grateful.  And right now, in this moment, mostly grateful.

Pain...and my relationship to it

At a retreat a couple of years ago in Devon my teacher suggested to me that I had a somewhat suspect relationship to pain.

And I realised that he was right.

I mean, hardly any of us like pain, but it is a necessary part of life and if we are denying it and doing everything we can to avoid feeling it, we're not living our lives as free, but as some level "on the run".  And that's where I was at.  At some level addicted to my identity as "suffering" but not willing to drop underneath that and simply feel the pain (along with the pleasure and the more neutral feelings).  I wasn't willing to feel everything, which is a pity, because life is everything from intense pleasure to intense pain and through every shade in between.

I feel like I've been reassessing and renegotiating my relationship with pain since then.

I wouldn't say that even now it's always healthy or functional, but it feels like it's more in that direction.

Here's a poem at arrived this morning which speaks a little to where I find myself on this now:

~

It’s not about 

whether we carry pain.

We all do. 

It’s about whether we are

Driven by it

Into tiny acts 

Of Desperation

Or whether we can find the space

To listen and meet that pain 

With love 

Whilst loving the space and the ease

That were always here too, alongside.

Whether we can find the joy of living

In the midst of the pain and the pleasure...

Ending our negotiation with life,

Instead submitting

To be free

In our little boat

Riding the waves. 

~

With love and (more inclusion)

Daniel

Self Concern...and true Inquiry

This is poem that wrote itself at about 5am on the last day of a stunning (and very challenging) 2 week retreat this February.

I feel very vulnerable sharing this because it feels like a very precious revelation and because my mind is fearful that I can't or won't live it.  And living this revelation is what my heart yearns for over and above anything else. So here it is...


Self concern 

Tonight at 4.30am I experienced 

True inquiry

Perhaps for the first time. 

It was touching. 

It was beautiful 

It was stunning. 

It was undeniable. 

Awareness noticed that the being was indentified

So it remembered itself

It entered life through the heart as Presence 

And simply recovered intimacy with itself

And wept as it remembered

The heart of intimacy. 

Tears of gratitude. Coming home. At last. 

Then it said:

“From here we can start”

Touched it cried gently again and said:

“Now we can start”

Awareness as love

Noticed an attitude of self concern arise 

Gosh! It said. 

Interesting!

What’s that?

So it started by asking “what’s it like?”

And by becoming in it and as it very soon 

From the inside it simply knew. 

But the inquiry didn’t stop

It continued dropping 

And unfolding

By itself 

Until something like a deep resting place was found 

And awareness was satisfied 

And touched. 

That it understood. 

Then inquiry went on inquiring into other things 

Such as appreciating the nature of inquiry!

Stunning. 

It wrote the above 

With the help of clear rested mind

At 5am

When being decided it had better things

To do than 

Sleep. 

~

The self concern:

“Am I ok?” is

Really “Am I fundamentally broken?”

Fundamentally useless and unloveable 

Will I be left alone and unloved?

A broken thing

On the scrapheap 

Alone, lonely and suffering 

Forever.

From a place of self intimacy 

It can be seen that this was never true. 

I was never broken/wrong/

That this was just a painful untrue cherished belief 

At the core of who I thought I was

And who I have habitually taken myself to be

I didn’t discover the truth of this 

Love discovered the truth of this 

Through inquiry 

Because it wanted to find out 

What was at the heart of suffering

Because love is interested 

In everything 

Including pain. 

Inquiry did inquiry 

Being discovering itself 

Because it wants to find out

Because it cares. 

Awareness was doing inquiry 

Into “me”. 

~

Having been fully understood. 

From the inside

The attitude of self concern

Need not 

Ever be taken seriously 

Again

Instead it can be consumed

As the first course

Of the banquet

Of the remains of who I was.

Looking after the vulnerable and young parts...

Over the past 5 years I've had a series of increasingly touching set of meetings with the vulnerable "young" parts of my being, which psychologists or psychotherapists tend to call "the Inner Child".

My understanding of this framing is that the parts of us that get emotional (and especially scared) never really grow up and forever function as if they are a small child.  That's certainly how it feels to me when I meet these parts of me.

This "child" doesn't really engage via rational reasoning - it's too young for that.  The main language it speaks is feelings and the main things it needs are being listened to with love and reassurance that it is OK and loved just as it is, and that in the midst of the fear it is feeling, all is in fact well.

This is essentially the way we would relate with a young pre-verbal child - love, warmth, attention and hugs.  And it makes the most beautiful difference.

I had some very touching realisations about this following a recent retreat and two poems arose.

Here they are:

Running and Resting

I have spent 

the whole of my life

until now

running on empty

driven by the distress

of a child inside me

desperate to be held

and stroked 

and told “It’s ok, I’m here”

and told “you’re ok exactly as you are...

...I love you

just like this.

No need to move a muscle

No need to change a thing

You are safe

You are so very very loved

Just like this.”

Rest now honey.

No need to run

Ever again. 

I’m with you. 

We can rest

together. 

With love, gratitude and gentle resting. 

 ~

He

He

My little one

Is my first priority.

He had had some 

Pretty scary experiences

Coming into the world 

So he’s often not sure

If he can trust

Life. 

If left without reassurance 

He spends most of his time

On amber or red alert. 

With alarm bells ringing. 

Which is really understandable. 

In the circumstances. 

When doesn’t get the reassurance,

That he needs 

To feel safe enough,

he feels desperate.

And desperate measures are called for...

Something, anything will do

To switch off the alarm

Or distract from the pain.

Life for both of us,

He and me,

Becomes a scrabble 

For safety -

Doing deals

Trying to manipulate or control the world 

Trying to get reassurance “you’re ok”. 

Yet it is never enough. 

When I remember that he

Is only a part of me

When I remember myself

As the vast open space

When I fall in love with silence...

I can hold him 

so very gently

with no agenda 

other to be with him

and everything else 

that appears in me

exactly as they are. 

And everything can feel held

In love. 

And can feel safe enough to

Come out to play

And dance

With no motive 

Other than to be life 

Meeting life. 

Like waves waving 

And meeting

On a vast ocean. 

The ocean doesn’t mind

 a few choppy waves 

The ocean doesn’t mind being a huge tsunami 

The ocean doesn’t mind being as flat as a millpond. 

This is how god loves us. 

This is who we are. 

~

With love, tenderness, wonder and vast vast space 

Daniel

Tasting silence

I sit
Appreciating the silence
That forever
Underscores
Sound.

As the M1
Thunders and swooshes
Around me

As feelings
Thoughts
And sensations
Dance, sparkle
Fight and play
Within me.

I sit,

And luxuriate
In gratitude
For the silence
That has never left me.

That has always
Generously
Accompanied me.

The exquisite bridge
Between the world
And eternity.

A tear forms.

I know
I am home.

Rest now my brave warrior

Today I met another part of me.

A part dedicated to trying to control and suppress my feelings.

It was angry, violent, terrified, despairing and exhausted.
Because it had been given an impossible job
when I was only 3 or 4 years old.

And it had been trying to do this impossible job
without any success for all these years
creating an exhausting unending war inside me.

When I was small

It wasn’t OK to be angry.

It wasn’t OK to be sad.

It wasn’t OK to be scared.

It was made clear to me that these feelings
were not acceptable.

They needed to be controlled.

There was no other way.
I was shown no other way.
None of the adults around me knew any other way.
So for me there was no other way.

And so this part was born
At age 3 or 4
Whose job
Was to control these “bad” feelings
By any means necessary.

But feelings can’t be controlled
And he didn’t have the means
Although every day he tried
Even though it tired him out.

And he became angry with these feelings
That kept on coming
And that he could not control.

And he felt violent towards
These feelings
Over which he had no power
And he could not control.

And he wanted to push away
Hurt, kill or destroy
These feelings
That he could not control
And that he feared
Would overwhelm
And destroy him.

And so the war inside
began.

Now it turns out
That what these feelings needed
Was love.

All they needed was
love.

They needed nothing
but love.

But when I was small
There were no adults
Who could teach me that.

No one who could show me
the way of internal love.

So the birth of my brave internal warrior
was indeed my best shot back then.
Although his mission
was always doomed
to failure and frustration.

Today I really met him
for the first time
Though he has travelled
with me
through the decades

And I found out from him
what he believed his job to be.
And I was sad.
And it all made sense.

And I told him
For the first time
You don’t need to do that job
It’s not your job to try to control the feelings.

It was never your job honey.
It was never your job.

And he wept.
Because it had been so hard
And so painful
And so exhausting
And so frustrating
And so desperate
And so futile
And so impossible.

He wept
In sorrow
And in deep deep relief.

And for perhaps
One of the first times
In 42 years
He really allowed himself
To rest.

And I felt the start
Of the possibility
Of exchanging war
For peace
Inside.

What the mind really wants

Sitting in a satsang this evening with Pamela Wilson I found myself writing this and I felt to share...

~

The minds deepest wish is to relax open.

Repetitive circular thinking is the minds attempt to self soothe.

It is mainly trying to soothe itself from the agitation from the terrified places in the body,

Which doesn't work...

In fact, it's about as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic

But it's the mind's best shot.

The mind has simply mis-understood its function and the range of its capabilities.

The agitation in the body can only be soothed by the heart.

The agitation can rest in the heart.

The mind can rest in the heart.

Then the mind can return to its job of creative thinking...

And for the remainder of the the time when it isn't required to think creatively,

To relax open and hang out in openness.

The mind is scared that if it relaxes open it won't be able to protect the terrified places, and all will be lost.

But in fact it never could.

This is just a simple innocent mis-understanding of the mind.

There aren't many big misunderstandings the mind has...but their effects can be significant, frustrating and painful.

No need for that any more.

~

On the wolves and trying

I've been revisiting my relationship with trying recently.

I realise that I last wrote about this 6 years ago!

I'm now recognising that trying is completely tangled up in everything, and that it's a great route into seeing where I'm coming from.

When I'm coming from my personality, there's trying happening.  When I'm coming from space, curiosity and love, on the whole it isn't.

And it's not black and white - the more I'm rooted in personality, the more trying and vice versa.

So, when I notice myself trying, this gives me a choice.  To continue doing what I was doing and carry on trying, or to drop it and enjoy the space that arises.

Here are 2 poems that arrived yesterday out of this inquiry:

~

An old man tells a young boy a story
Of the two wolves fighting inside every person
One is black, unkind and mean
One is white and noble
They are engaged in an eternal struggle
Upon its outcome rests the fate of the world.
"But which one wins?" asks the young boy?
"Whichever one you feed." replies the old man, "Whichever one you feed".

True Inquiry is the opposite of doing
It is allowing.

It doesn't know where it's going.

There is no destination
Just a constant unfolding.

There is no trying
Because trying is trying to achieve something
And that presumes a known goal
And a person who will achieve it.

The truth is we don't know our destination
Or what is, in fact, for the best.

The one who thinks they know
Is not the one we really are.

When trying falls away
Space remains.

Not knowing becomes apparent,
Curiosity arises
Love arises.

Things unfold
Gently
Unpredictably
Beautifully.

Including pain and difficulty
With love
In the midst of vast space
Including ease, grace and joy
With love
In kind space.

Being as interested in the space
As what arises.
No destination
Just an open heart.

If you find yourself trying,
You are not wrong.
You're just feeding the other wolf.


~

Where you're coming from
Determines where you're going.

If you're trying
You're not ready.

Relax.

~

With love and letting go

Daniel

Wintry afternoon poem

Trees sway
Ever so slightly
Against a wintry
Sun-setting sky
Outside my window.

Naked branches
Tickling the blue and orangey-pink.

A gentle warm sadness
Touches my mouth and heart
For no discernible reason.

An ineffable sense of wellbeing
Suffuses my core
And seems to fill the space
Where I sit writing.

Soft, kind, mother-like.

"It's all OK, you know"
she says.

Notes from the wide open space

I've just come back from a beautiful and challenging retreat in Portugal.

Beautiful because it contained many experiences of remembering who I really am, and challenging because there were many times when I forgot, and even more painfully times when knew that I had forgotten but was not able to let go and return to knowing my true self.

I offer 3 short poems that speak to the remembering.

~

I am the space
And everything that arises
in the space.

But first, I am the space.

~

To cherish myself
is to cherish
the wide open space
and the tender appearance
that is just now
arising out of it.

~

So there is nothing to do
Any doing
takes me away
from resting in
who I am.

Surrender.  Bow down.  Love.

~

It's the not feeling the feelings

It's the not feeling the feelings
that is intolerable.
(Or at least seems to be).

Sitting in my place on the sofa
staring out the window
I'm somewhat aware of what feels like
fear in the background,
and vaguely aware of pushing it away.

The thought arises:
"This is horrible, I am unhappy,
I can't live like this".
And with it the imagination that this
low-level torture
will continue forever.

Then...
I actually feel the feelings...

...and there is soft sweet sadness
and I can see the wintery trees swaying gently
and I'm touched by both.

And it's really okay.
It's better than okay - it's really touching.

And it's completely bearable
to feel the feelings.

And if this sadness, this touchedness
continued this way forever
that would be fine by me.

Reunion.

Life and I locked eyes today for the first time,
In a place I recognised as here.
She smiled and said:
"I've been waiting for you.
Come closer,
Kiss me,
Stay."

This moment is the revelation

Start from the assumption that this moment is the revelation.

That paradise is here and now,

Although you are not yet experiencing it,

And it might feel quite the opposite.

Get curious with your heart

As to what gifts are being presented.

The delight is in the unwrapping.

First Intimacy

First Intimacy

Cherishing myself,

Cherishing myself,

Cherishing

myself.

And only then,

only then

only

then

Reaching out

from where I am

to meet

you.

Bad boy

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

[Mary Oliver - Wild Geese]

I've realised recently that as a child I was made to feel ashamed for wanting what I wanted.

And I've realised that this shame has been at the core of a lot of my adult behaviour.  And it may be about time to let it go.

I've written a poem which talks about this and I'd like to share it with you.

~


Bad boy

No-one will love me if I ask for what I want.

That's what my mum told me, so it must be true.

And she loves me. 

She's only telling me because she loves me.

That's what my mum told me, 

So it must be true.

Because I ask for what I want, when it's not what she wants

I'm a “selfish boy”.

And no-one will love me if I'm a selfish boy.

A boy who wants what he wants.

My mum told me,

So it must be true.

So all I need to do

For mum to love me

And you to love me

Is for me not to want what I want.

And instead to want what she wants,

And to want what you want.

This is being a “good boy”.

That's what my mum told me,

So it must be true.

But the truth is,

The truth is,

I don't want what you want

I want what I want.

That means she won't love me.

That means you won't love me.

This means that no-one can love me.

I'm a bad boy.

That's what my mum told me,

So it must be true.

~

But to survive, I'll pretend

To want what she wants me to want

To want what you want me to want

I'll try to figure out who you want me to be.

In order for you to love me.

How do you want me to be in order for you to love me?

Like this?

Or maybe this?

No...that's not working

How about this?

If I try really hard to figure out who I need to be

Then I can be that good boy

And perhaps you'll love me.

You'll love me until you discover my deep dark secret.

That I do want want I want.

And not what you want.

That deep down, I'm a selfish,

Bad boy.

That if you knew what I was really like

You wouldn't love me

Couldn't love me.

That's what my mum said, 

So it must be true.

~

And what do I want?

I've almost forgotten.

And it's not worth remembering

Because I shouldn't want it.

And I'm not going to get it anyway.

That's what my mum said,

So it must be true.

~

But perhaps...

Just perhaps

What mummy said wasn't true after all.

Perhaps it's OK for me to want what I want

And it's OK for you to want what you want.

And I can love you in your wanting

And you can love me in mine.

And I'm not a bad boy, or a good boy.

I'm simply a boy who grew up to be a man.

A man who simply wants what he wants.

A man who sometimes gets it right and sometimes gets it wrong.

And who is loveable,

Regardless.

~

love

Daniel

Lay down your weapons

I'd like to talk about sex.  This isn't a cheap ploy to get your attention (though if it's had that effect, I'm quite happy to have it.)  It's more a way of saying that what follows is a little exploration of my relationship to some quite intense areas of human experience and I didn't want you to be taken completely by surprise...

Good. Hopefully we both feel ready now.  More accurately, I want to share with you about my relationship with attraction.

It's been dawning on me recently that I often find being attracted to someone quite difficult. I don't mean that it's hard for me to get turned on. That happens very regularly and quite easily. I mean that I then usually find myself in a state of confusion as to what happens next.

I know I'm in good company. Enough songs, books, plays, films and poems have been written on the madness that often happens when two humans like each other in that way to convince me I'm not alone. But it was only recently that I started to get an insight as to what's going on inside me, and the light that this sheds on my wider relationship with the world. And it's this that I'd like to share with you.

It was on the dancefloor last week that I finally realised that I often experience feeling attracted to someone as an attack.

I don't mean that I actually believe that the person I'm attracted to is attacking me, but my body often responds as if I do. There is contraction in the muscles along the front line of my chest, diaphragm and solar-plexus, a shot of adrenalin goes through my body, and an immediate sense of urgency arises within me.

I'm guessing that this has quite a bit to do with biology. The sympathetic nervous system, which governs this sort of activation is often referred to by teachers of anatomy as covering “the 3Fs”. (The first two Fs being “fight” and “flight” – the third F being one of the most usual conclusions of mutual attraction between adult humans).

Now you may think that all of this extra adrenalin and excitement is a Good Thing. And in many ways it is. But for me it often hasn't felt that way, and I'm now starting to realise why.

As a craniosacral therapist I've known for some time that too much of a good thing, is too much. If there is more input going into the body that it feels that it can take, the body treats this as a problem. In ordinary language we in the West have a word for it, it's called getting overwhelmed.

And when we get overwhelmed by strong feelings, the body usually does something like what your home electricity circuits do when there is too much current. The circuit breaker gets activated – and then the lights go out.

The body's equivalent of this is that we find ways of distancing ourselves from these strong feelings. For most people this involves some combination of clamping down their muscles in some way, freezing, or “spinning out” (going into a day-dreamy state in their head where they are not really able to feel their body and all the strong feelings happening there). An alternative is to go into thinking and analysing what's going on and getting really involved with these thoughts, which again is the body's way of metaphorically sticking it's fingers in its ears and saying to the strong feelings “la la la, I can't hear you!”.

The key realisation that I had the other evening standing in front of a beautiful woman at my dance class is that I usually experience attraction as a very strong feeling. So strong it goes past the “this is rather nice and rather exciting stage” and well into my body's red-zone of “Iceberg ahead! – Man the lifeboats, abandon ship!”

It was fairly obvious to me that this is not the ideal response to standing in front of someone I fancy, but it dawned on me that this is usually, in one form or another what I do. I've noticed that when this happens I find it difficult to look them in the eye, I get convinced that they will see how attracted I'm feeling and they won't be OK with this – so I try not to show it, or to hide it, or to at least tone it down. Or I end up saying something daft. And then I wonder why they have started to look at me funny!

What has occurred is that I've felt a very strong feeling, my system has gone into overwhelm, and one way or another I've left my body and left being in relationship with the person I'm standing in front of. Which, all in all, is pretty rubbish really.

But it wasn't all sobering reality - the second part of the realisation that came on the dancefloor the other night was that it doesn't have to be this way.

I'd received some pretty good preparation for this realisation. I'd just spent a week doing some amazing workshops with Joanna Watters, Colin Harrison and Paul Wolflight exploring what it is to live as a human being in a body and I'd picked up some pretty powerful insights along the way.

Something really unlocked for me during a workshop with Colin and Paul on anger, called Passion for Change. The revelation is around what we all usually do with strong feelings (anger being a good example). Most of us when we have a strong feeling – take anger, either express it “You bloody idiot! Look where you're going!” or repress it (which involves finding some way of squishing it down and pretending it's not happening).

Expressing it feels good, at least in the short term. We've thrown away this strong energy and it is no longer troubling us. The problem is that we've usually thrown it at someone and they are now feeling the consequences. And assuming that they are not happy about this, we'll soon feel the consequences. We've also probably turned that person into an object, made judgments about them, and this usually ends quite badly one way or another.

Repressing the feeling is even worse. We lose contact with our body and with what is really happening, we leave relationship with our environment or whoever we're with, and we squish down this uncomfortable energy, where it gets stored in our body like toxic waste, ready to leak out or explode at inopportune moments.

As you've probably guessed by now, there's a third way. And it doesn't involve anyone getting blasted or squished. It's called conducting.

Here comes the hard part for me. I'm going to do my best to describe something that is fairly new to me, and which can't easily be put into words. A bit like a person who has tasted 1 or 2 strawberries trying to describe the taste to someone who has never tasted one before. (Although I may be about to describe something that you know very well and that you do all the time. In which case, well done to you – I only wish you'd told me about it. A long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of heartache!)

Conducting is having the feeling. (Imagine an east-end London accent at this point) – really “ 'avin it!” - 'avin it large. It's really inhabiting the feeling, breathing the energy of it around your body. Perhaps even moving your body a little to allow the energy to circulate. Letting the feeling be what it really is, which is a felt sense of a particular flavour of energy in your body and enjoying and celebrating that energy (rather than getting bothered about where it came from or where it's going).

This is the opposite of catharsis, which is trying to throw away the energy. It's inhabiting the energy, letting your body hum with it, and then using it creatively or letting it simply pass through.

On the workshops I experienced consciously doing this with the strong energies of attraction, anger and hostility. It was really empowering to realise that I could feel these things – really feel them, without feeling that I needed to do anything about them. I didn't need to express or repress – I could conduct. And the great thing about conducting is that I was able to stay in my body and stay in relationship with myself, with my environment and with anyone I was with.

And standing in front of this very lovely dancer last Tuesday night this is just what I did. I felt the strong feelings running through my body and breathed into them – not being scared of them as I often am, but really allowed myself to have the feelings as mine. “This is my attraction, in response to you”. I felt amazingly energised and excited. I felt completely in my body and I felt comfortable with the feelings. I felt no need to hide them or make excuses for them. I felt no compulsion to act awkward or weird. I felt lit up like a torch – a beacon of attraction and I was beaming myself right at my dancing partner – loving being me, loving being me with her. It was beautiful. And it didn't mean anything anymore than an flower, a lion or a waterfall means anything. It was just what was happening, and I was loving it.

The dancer in question confided in me afterwards that this dance had been a particularly beautiful experience for her too and had really opened her to dropping into her body and her sexuality, which was amazingly touching for me to hear.

I realised that I had from time to time stumbled on this way of being in relationship with strong feelings by accident on quite a number of occasions in the past, but without being aware what I was doing. The difference is that this time I was able to make a conscious choice to feel what was happening and to love it. It tasted like freedom.

I recognised that I now have the possibility of doing this whenever I'm feeling strong feelings, whatever those strong feelings may be and to taste the freedom that comes with embracing my life.

And I recognise that the old patterns are still running. That my reflex reaction to feeling a strong feeling will often be to slip into “identification” (thinking that the feeling is part of me, and therefore not something that I can choose to feel). Once I'm in identification the strong feeling becomes a “problem”, the person or object that caused it becomes my oppressor and I become the victim. I become fixated on what's happening out there, instead of feeling what's happening in here. I then feel that I need to “do something” about the perceived problem. I feel unsafe. And I start trying.

And there is another way.

To conduct my feelings is to leave the victim identity behind, to stand in my power and to love my life, in relationship with the world.

My prayer is that I do that more. Lots more.

~

Lay down your weapons

You're not under attack,

Though it often seems that way.

Yes, there are big waves coming in.

Big feelings, huge sensations, gigantic emotions.

So massive they threaten to engulf you.

Big BIG waves.

And they are coming this way.

You know what to do with big waves.

Grab your board, jump on,

turn it around and start paddling.

Feel the Ocean under you as it grabs your board,

Stand up in your glory and ride,

Celebrate the turbulence and the froth,

The curves in the swell.

Revel in the conversation between you and the sea.

Ride the waves,

all the way back to the shore.

You can't fight the waves.

But you can surf them.

Lay down your weapons.

You're not under attack.

It's just the Ocean being the Ocean.

You and the Ocean are two parts

of the same whole.

Of the same love.

~

love

Daniel

Waking up

~



The most precious

The most precious,

is

The Union
between

what is happening
in my experience
right now

and

my capacity to
love it
completely -

to cherish it,

to prize it beyond

Anything else.

To value
my life.



~

No need to be lonely

“You are either free, up against it or hiding.”

is something one of my teachers said recently that really hit home.


My understanding of what he meant was something like: in any given moment in life we are either (a) touched by our experience, not feeling separate from it and flowing easily and naturally with it, (b)  fighting with life and suffering and often realising that we are doing this, or (c) so detatched from our experience that we don’t even realise that we are distant from it, alternatively knowingly putting our heads in the sand and trying to pretend it isn't happening.


I had a profound experience of the first two very clearly recently within a very short space of time, which I’d like to share with you.  The third is very familiar to me too, but this experience was mainly about the freedom and fighting.


I had recently given notice from a job that I’d held for 15 years, which I had fallen out of love with.  I’d decided to follow my heart and devote all of my time to building work based around heartfulness and presence.  To say that I felt excited and energised was a bit of an understatement.  I was stoked.


And then I went dancing.  I went to 5 Rhythms, which is a dance practice somewhere between clubbing and meditation.  We dance for the joy of dancing and we dance to come home to ourselves and to connect to others, to connect to life.


As well as being great fun and really joyous, it can also be a challenging place to be.  It certainly is for me, and others have told me the same.  In addition to the easy, openhearted bits, I often see myself playing out all of my life patterns on the dancefloor - feeling self-conscious, comparing myself to others, judging them, sometimes even fixating on them.  It’s not pretty.  But because it is a dancing meditation, we are encourged to notice what’s going on.   We see that we are suffering, and quite often we have haven’t got a clue what do to about it.  I often haven’t got a clue about what to do about it, if in fact there is anything that actually needs to be done.


And on this particular evening for the first 30 minutes that just wasn’t happening.  My habitual patterns weren’t running.  I was simply in my experience and loving it.  I was free.


I was able to have a very conscious experience of what free felt like.  I loved my dance (though there was no ego attachment to it) there was just loving my dance.  I loved everyone else’s dances without exception.  I wasn’t judging them, I was loving them.  If I felt attraction for someone it felt simple and easy - I was able to celebrate it as my feeling of attraction and to share it with them without wanting or expecting anything back - and I could see from their response that they enjoyed receiving the simple gift of my appreciation without any of the usual strings attached.  Everything, but everything felt simple and easy.  I was flowing with life. 


It gave me a glimpse.  A glimpse of what’s possible, when I’m not run by my patterns and when I’m simply living as part of life.  As life.  Separate, but not separate.


And then, as predicted it happened.  After about 30 minutes of freedom, my patterns started to re-emerge.  I found myself feeling slightly dissatisfied with my dance, and judging and comparing others.  When I felt attraction for someone I could sometimes notice my attention becoming fixated on them, which didn’t feel nice.  (I’m guesing it didn’t feel nice for them either, but even inside me it didn’t feel too good).  Things no longer felt completely easy.  There was in fact a quiet but persistent sense that somewhere, just out of direct line of sight there was an (as yet undefined) problem.  I knew that this was something that I was doing to reality - but I didn’t know how to set myself free.  Damn! I was “up against it”.


And it was a wonderful contrast.  To be able to experience both so clearly and so fully within a 1 hour period was a great gift and allowed me to see certain things much more clearly.


After about half an hour of this general grumpiness, I was reminded of my recent insights and I started to get curious.  Were there feelings in my body that wanted to be felt and that I wasn’t feeling?  I checked.  Yup.  There they were.  I couldn’t fully feel them but I could just about see where they were hanging out.  Why couldn’t I feel them?  Most of my attention was outside on the others, liking them, disliking them, making up stories about them, obsessing over them and generally fixating on them.  Very little of my attention was on my own body.  I’d left home.  I’d abandoned myself - at least temporarily.  It felt painful and a little lonely.


I resolved just for that moment to bring all of my attention in.  To ignore everyone else and to carry on dancing but to feel the feelings.  Could I do it?  Yes.  Was it difficult?  No, not really, once I’d noticed that I needed to do it and made a firm decision that that’s what I was going to do for a bit.  


And so I did.  I carried on dancing and felt the feelings.  I let the feelings become part of my physical expression and danced the feelings.  All of them.  I danced my sadness and frustration, my anger and my joy, my grief and my delight.


In the mix there were some strong so-called “negative” feelings - sadness, anger, grief.  But there was nothing happening in my life that I felt these things about.  Where did these strong “negative” feelings come from?  My sense is/was that they are old stuff - old “stories” stored in my body, from days gone by when strong experiences happened that I wasn’t able to process, and so my body has buried them.  (A bit like the way that we currently bury radioactive waste, becuase we don’t know how to process it and make it safe).  And by not paying attention to these strong buried feelings they were leaking out all over the place, making my life and that of those around me a less pleasant place to be.


So, I just felt them these feelings.  I gave myself to it and them 100% for a little while.  And the effect was amazing.  The feelings didn’t go away, but I came home.


There I was, in my body, dancing and feeling, just dancing and feeling, eyes half closed, having my experience, no separation - once again, free.


But this was a slightly different free from earlier that evening.  Earlier it had been free with no painful feelings.  Now it was free with painful feelings.  The first one didn’t seem to take any practice to do.  The second was a little bit more challenging, because my usual pattern when there are painful feelings to be felt is not to feel them.  


And yet in some ways I noticed that it was the same free.  All I needed to do was to feel what I was feeling, to embrace my experience and life became easy again, the sense of dissatisfaction and problem disappeared and I was able to celebrate - everything.  Even though I was not in contact with others, I noticed I didn’t feel lonely, not a bit.  I felt...loved.


I noticed that along with feeling the pain, I was suddenly able to feel joy too.  Gradually I was able to open my eyes and see the others and include them.  I wasn’t judging them anymore, I was able to see them, just see them and appreciate them for who they were, as they were.  Gradually, being careful to “stay at home” with myself and my feelings I was able to make eye contact.  It was a bit vulnerable at first, because I was allowing them to see my how I was, with all of my feelings, but also felt simple and easy.  Nothing to hide.  Hello you, this is me.  I’m like this right now.  Ah, you’re like that.  Nice to meet you.


I had some exquisite dances from that place, of meeting people including all the feelings that were happening in me and by doing that being able to include them too.  I was so touched to be sharing myself with them and to be able to appreciate them as they appreciated me and I appreciated myself.  I felt such gratitude.  Gratitude to myself, gratitude to my partners, gratitude to life.  


And this was a deeper glimpse.  A glimpse of how I could be free in the world when things inside didn’t feel easy.  How I didn’t need to zone out or withdraw, but how I could completely include myself and from there relate with the world.  I didn’t need to wait for the moment that all of my “stuff” would be resolved.  I could do this in any moment.  In any moment when I was able to notice that I’d left home and when I was willing to come home, face the music and feel the feelings.


And the simple insight that I gained from this experience was I can now see the suffering and fixation as a reminder - a reminder that I’ve “left home”.


Whenever I notice my attention is out - that I’m judging others or myself - that I’m wondering whether they like me or what they are thinking, when there feels like there is a problem with life - its a sure sign that there’s something closer to home that is crying out to be felt.


All I need to do is to come in, and just for a little while give in all my attention, before being able to open out my attention and include the rest of the world.


How do I know if I’m actually feeling the feeling?  It’s not as obvious as I originally thought.


I had a craniosacral session the other day and told my craniosacral therapist that I was feeling tired.  I thought that’s what I was feeling.  And to some extent it was true.  But then she said “can you sink into the tiredness and feel what’s there?”.  I realised that I had been hovering above the tiredness, not really feeling it, somehow resisting it (and yes, that background sense of “problem” was there too).  When I sank into the tiredness and let myself feel it I contacted something else, a sense of deep sadness/grief.  And with it came a sense of relief, a sense of coming home.  It was touching.


I found myself writing the following words this morning:


*If I am getting externally fixated it’s because there’s a feeling that want’s to be felt and I’m not at home to feel it.


* If there is a sense of tiredness/contraction/resistance - I’m probably floating just above the feeling...almost feeling it but not quite.


Can I melt into the tiredness/resistance?  What is there that I’m not yet fully feeling?


* Feeling the feelings doesn’t have a scratchy resistant quality to it (that quality indicates to that I’m not quite in the place of my experience).


That resistance is probably the “self contraction” that keeps me seperate from life/oneness/unity.


Feeling the feelings has a relieving - coming home quality.


Even if it is accompanied by sadness/anger/grief.


It is touching.


(Because it is touching experience).


If there feels like there is a problem ask:


Am I touched by my experience right now?


Can I melt into my experience and let it have me, let it touch me.


If the answer is no, then can I be touched by that?


By my feeling of separation from life and the loneliness that accompanies it.


Keep gently enquiring.


Stay with yourself - not trying, but not abandoning yourself either.


You’re just up against it, that’s all.


Until you are touched by your experience.


Until you are home.
Free.


Home.


~


love


Daniel