Slowing down while moving ahead

happiness is two paintings 

made by yourself 

decorating your own wall

and with two "bites" out of one 

for self made cards to friends

This is what I'm interested in my life now:
being present and in the world.

Successfully in the world.
Even outrageously successful in the world.

All at no cost to the ongoing joy bliss and power of being present.

.....

I'm creating a program that combines Anat Baniel/ Feldenkrais work
with the work of Byron Katie
with Voice Dialogue work
with Gestalt
with straight ahead being present
with meditation
with Real Health
with Lavish and Ecological Abundance

I wish to move forward, have fun,
be successful, help a huge number of people
radically improve their connections to

each other
the present
themselves
their idea of God. spirit. oneness.

which means that along the way,
my joy and goal is to be connected to

others
the present
myself
God

this is ambitious and fun

And what of the slowing down in the title of this essay?

Slowing down any time I'm not feeling and sensing myself in a pleasant
and potent place

Why:
because without slow
I can't learn
and without learning I have to keep doing
what I've been programmed to do

This is fun:
Pain = slow down
slow down = chance to learn
learning = chance to change
change could be::::: pain away
and happy potent rich life instead

it's as if slowing and learning and awaring are food,
food for the deepest sweetest part of ourselves

Good.

Latest Special Needs Children blog posting, and good "work/love" for us all

I've covered this before,
but the more I think and talk about these
six
the more I find them applicable to almost any
process of transformation.

Where transformation
is deep change,
brain rewiring
behavior changing
life altering change,
so not just the coating outside,
but change from the inside out.

And these six are the ingredients that
Dr. Dan Siegal came up with for helping a bipolar lad
to come out of his stuckness without drugs.

Here I'm oing to use them as stepstones
to more of what I like to emphasize:
this change for our children
can be so much more kind to ourselves
and them
if we see and allow ourselves to be in
transformation
as well.

So, what would the steps be for parents?

1. Good sleep

Well, sorry, this could be the hardest with certain children
and you know as well as I that deals can be made with
our mates,
and perhaps caretakers
to at least every other night get a good sleep.

AND
there is naps.
20 minutes, once or twice a day.
(Even in the office.
If they catch you, tell them to judge your
productivity increase
and suggest a nap for everyone)

And lying down,
for 5 minutes
on your back, or side
on a rug, some grass, any firm and useful surface.

Lie down, and move very slowly
with awareness and self-learning
and self-love,
as if you are giving AND getting a lesson
from and for yourself.

2. Good food
including brain food

Brain food includes omega 3 from eggs of chickens on pasture (not the same as free range,
which just means chickens in dirt), and grass fed meat and buffalo, and wild caught fish, and
flax seed, and if you are lucky, the weed purslane.

Brain food also includes high quality fats: raw butter or at least spring pasture butter, organic olive oil (they use disgusting chemicals in non organic production to kill extra olives), soaked nuts and seeds

I'd even include green smoothies as brain food.
I could be wrong, but I suspect not.

On the good food line, and I tell people this when they think my lessons "cost too much,"
How much more iron does organic spinach have than non organic?
80 times.
Not 8. EIGHTY TIMES.

3. Relationship
The way you touch, talk to, and think and talk about your child is fundamental to your relationship to her or him.

The way you touch, talk to, and think and talk about each other is once
more,
big surprise,
fundamental to your relationship.

It's no surprise, but sometimes worrisome, to realize how
stressful being a parent of a special needs child,
and in Austin, TX as least, there are lawyers who specialize
in divorces among these parents. Creepy perhaps, but a pointer
to the troubles.

So, what do I recommend.

Call me for counselling if you wish.

Do the work of Byron Katie, almost daily. (http://thework.com)

Talk to each other with a timer, taking turns,
3-3-3-3 4-4-4-4 or 5-5-5-5 minutes back and forth,
all listening, no interrupting when the other is talking

being present
looking the other in the eye
not nodding nor frowning, let them say it without your feedback,
even non verbal
send love when listening
send love when talking
look in the eye when talking
go slow
take a breath
take many breaths
say what you are "afraid to say"
be vulnerable
make all I statements (I am scared when you...., not You shouldn't)
and as much as possible talk about yourself and leave the other out of your side of the talk
BUT
if there is an "issue," make sure to give yourself at least a half an hour to deal with

it's a lot quicker in the long run
than a divorce and an unhappy child/ children

4. Novelty
Buy Anat's dvds and do them at least twice a week
Buy my book and do one of the games at least once a day
Go to the Feldy blog site and find "movement lessons" label and do one a day
Write in a journal each day with the left hand
do something different every day
be present, then novelty will spring up all around you

5. exercise
stand up, touch the ground (knees bending all you want,)
touch the sky
five minutes,
huge variety,
huge pleasure
lots of shifts of weight
pay attention fingertips to toes to spine to ribs to pelvis to heartbeat
to breathing
love yourself

take a walk each day

touch your partner, lovingly, each day

6. Mindfulness:
Do all the above while sensing your arms and legs
and following your breathing

if you can

do everything with a chunk of your awareness in the present

meditate a bit each day
(get my book,
or just sit and breathe and follow breathing
and count the breaths one to ten,
and sense spine and arms and legs as well)

five to twenty minutes

make a gratitude list:
be mindful as you think and feel about it

okay,
that's a pretty nice essay, isn't it.

Have a great week.

love
Chris

What is a Life for?

What are you doing right now?

That is what a life is for.

And if it isn't "good enough"
what do you want all the little nows
to add up to?

And how wonderful do you want this little
now
to be,
even on a computer,
which we go to...

to communicate?
listen?
learn?
avoid?
find?
amuse?
distract?

practice being present?

all sorts of possibilities
are there not.

????


and what is a life for?

well,
you decide,
what would you like your life to be for?

good

Signing off and on the way to Orcas for the week of July 25-July 3

Doog is backwards good

good

Chri

Some thoughts on Health

We most of us like to be "healthy"

Some of us more or less forget this
until we get unhealthy

Some of us have a base line feeling
of well being and vitality and vigor
and pleasure in our being
below which we don't like to go

Here are some thoughts on health, since my business purpose,
as of this month,
is to promote encourage and live in myself:
Enlightenment in Action
Lavish Abundance
and
Real Health
while promoting encouraging facilitating
and assisting in others
Enlightenment in Action
Lavish Abundance
and
Real Health.

These are a funny amazing over the top
combination of aims.

Oh well.

Lavish Abundance and Health, Real Health
meet in Moshe's second definition of Health:

Achieving our vowed and unavowed dreams.

This is life, rich life, full life, abundant life, lavish abundance.

What are your dreams.

I was talking to my sweetie and recalling someone who
met a famous shrink at dinner and they got onto talking about
the famous
Cancer.
The shrink said that in his experience,
everyone he'd known who got cancer
and then went out and did
whatever it was they'd been wanting to do
and not done,
married
divorced
gone to Tahiti,
build a cabin,
sky dived

whenever they'd done that,
their cancer went into remission

which means Moshe's second definition of health,
the achieving of dreams
enabled his first definition:

Bouncing back from trauma.

So the idea in this first definition is
not to never get sick
or never have a broken heart,
but to spring back from them into full and vital
life

Good so far?

Here are some foods, good food, nourishing food that I think are components
of Real Health:

good air
good light
happiness
touch
love
friendship
sex
nature
good food
gardens
walking
dancing
joy
laughter
good soil
good sky
good trees
good plants
happy animals
flowers
being present
contentment
excitement
rest
action



What foods feed your Real Health?

Living From, and Teaching to the What Is, not the What Isn't

In the Work of Byron Katie
we are given a pathway out of any and all emotional suffering.
Look it up if you want,
or work with me as part of my Enlightenment in Action
process.

The point,
for now is,
that the end result of Katie's work,
and the means whereby to get
to the happiness, peace, and joy, and inner contentment
we all want,
which is our birthright actually,
is Loving What Is.

A long or a short paragraph could follow
on how useful it would be to our parenting
or to all relations in the world to be more happy
and present,
and I'll just leave that to you
as obvious,
although perhaps not given the proper nourishing.

And the children:
Anat, who is now in the second segment of her new Basic Training,
is helping people with their observation
skills.

We will be doing a movement lesson
and someone will be having a hard time,
and she'll give that person some clues,
but first she'll ask for observations.

Many, at first, are of the sort:
she's not doing this...
he's not.....

She pointed out that you can't really work
with the not.

What we can work with is what someone is doing.
From there little modifications,
variations, and most of all attention increasing,
can begin to expand
and expand
and expand the options.

But we can't expand a person's options,
by focusing our attention or their on what is missing.

This is why the now is so powerful.
We are here right now.
We can breathe with more awareness
or look away from the computer and find
some leaves or nice colors to view.

We can shift the position of our spine.

But all that comes from now,
being inside ourselves in this movement.

So, with the children,
no matter what they are doing,
this is the What Is
to love.
And from there we can expand out,
try options,
explore what discovering and learning can
bring.

And all the power comes from focusing on
the present sensation and present position
and present shape and form of the movement,
as we do it now.

This is a lot like getting to our goals,
not by striving away to reach a picture we have in
our mind
and beating ourselves up in inner dialogue for
"not being there yet,"

but instead, having the goal as our guiding intention,
and then along the way,
discovering over and over how we are going
about this,
and in that discovery making more
and more refined improvements,
each one of which feels good,
in the moment,
on its own.

This slowing down,
apparently,
on the way to the goal,
is actually the fastest way there.

Okay, I'm on the road,
and this has to be short,
and think about this,
in yourself, your clients, your children
your relationships.

How can we discover, enjoy, and love
the what is of now,
and then modify out to small and delicious
variations.

Good.

the big C: great news----Change or Die ---Feeling, Finding, F...ing, Feeding, Frolicking, Fun, Feldenkrais and Waking Up

If you have cancer you can keep doing
what you always did,
and
die

or you can change.

I am, in this essay going to offer a bunch of possibilities for
change,
and every single one of them would mean a more wonderful
life for you, and you, and you,
whoever and wherever you are,
with or without cancer.

The most important change is
Finding.
Finding your true self.

This means waking up, because if we aren't in the moment,
and aware of what we are doing, thinking, feeling and being in
that moment,
then we are being pulled pushed or mashed along by our
programming.

It's strangely obvious,
so obvious that it's like the fish unable to discover water,
but here it is:
if the real "I" isn't home,
then the programming has to be running the show.

And the real "I" isn't the thinker,
though real thinking is an attribute of the real "I,"
and real thinking has almost nothing to do with the chatter
in our heads we call thinking.

So,
Finding out
Feeling into
the real you.

Later I'll recommend buying my book.

For now,
see what "being present" feels like for you?
Look at the next couple of sentences, then get up from the computer
and walk around
and see if you can have as little of the "chatter" inside your
head
as possible,
and just look and listen and feel your feet touching the ground
or floor,
and follow your breathing.

See if the sweet and amazing Being inside of you
can be your central experience as you walk a bit.

Okay, up from the computer:
take a walking of Being in the Moment.

Now

.......

Okay, so I walked around. You walked around.
Sometimes we were present,
sometimes not.

When we were, that was the real us.
When we weren't, all sorts of wishes, worries, wants,
traditional thoughts, obsessions, hungers etc came up.

Oh, well.

Take lots of walks.

In as beautiful of places that you can find.
As close to where you live as possible, so that we can avoid
the car habit a bit.

Finding,
Feeling.

What do you feel throughout the day?

If you are happy, this is a sign you are close to or at who you really are?

Dis-ease has a hard time sticking around happiness,
so being happy is healthy as all get out.

And if you have unhappy moments,
like unhappy you have cancer,
feel those feelings.

Feel how that unhappiness is something you
have felt
with slightly or hugely different reasons,
many, many times.

Feel the "itness" of that unhappiness.
Feel the real sensations in chest and belly and breathing and eyes.
Wherever it takes place for you.

Then notice that the sensation of any unhappiness
is wordless.
It's just sensation.
Notice that the words almost always make you feel
bad
and aren't in the present,
they are auditory hallucinations in your head.

This is what people call "thoughts," but it's more like
unhappiness programming.

What do do about the unhappiness programming?

Do the Work of Byron Katie
(if you are away from this link,
just remember: TheWork.com )

Her website will show you how.
I have written many essays on here work, and clicking on the label at the bottom
will bring them up.

Also, my book, has a whole systematic build up and working through
of her method.
Book can be bought to the right,
and has 108 ways of being more happily thrilled to be alive.

It would be good for cancer or wanting to have a more full
and happy and awake life, or both.

And the Katie work leads to something crucial in
any
dis-ease.

Forgiveness.

We could, if we don't beat ourselves up about it,
look at "dis-ease" is a form of suicide.

And we could look at suicide is a form of anger turned against ourselves.

And then we can figure out whom out there we are angry at.
It can be petty, and have been held onto forever and ever,
or some major "hurt," that is festering away in us.



If we admit our angers toward all the people we were ever angry at,
and do the work
The Work of Byron Katie

to dissolve that anger,
then the dis-ease will be bathed in ease,
and again, dis-ease tends to dissolve in ease.

........

Feeding.
Ah, sigh, this is a big one.

Give up some things, at least for a while:

Give up: white carbohydrates: ie. sugar and flour, all pasta bread and so on

Give up: non food: anything with a list of ingredients, any chemicals, sugars, fructose, corn syrup, all that crap.
give it up.

Give up: All grains, even whole except millet, buckwheat, quinoa and amaranth.

Give up:  all meats and egg not raised on pasture. "Free range" in poultry can mean hanging out in a lot of dirt.

Give up: most eating out, unless you are willing to pay for good real organic grass fed food. Otherwise the restaurant has the incentive to get you cancer filled low cost corn and pesticide filled yuk.

Okay, give up those:

Add on: lots of high quality water

Green smoothies at least 2 quarts a day.


Raw food, at least one meal a day,
and all snacks.

Raw protein, from animals: raw meat and fish, and butter.

Some do well with raw dairy.
Some not.
Or some do well with raw dairy if it's fermented as in keffir and yogurt.

Food is big, and lots of people don't like to change.
And who knows: stopping bread etc seems preferable to chemo
but I'm not an expert
though I'm pretty healthy.

I'd recommend these three books to have some new ways to think
feel and act
about eating

Carol Alt Raw Fifty: lots of testimonials of people who undone cancer, as well as other stuff











Sally Fallon:  Nourishing Traditions, whether raw or not, get this book, amazing information from teh discoveries of Weston Price, a dentist who in the 1930's went looking for the healthiest people in the world









Victoria Boutenko, Green Smoothie Revolution: read it, and start green smoothies, actually start today, just add fruit, organic, and greens organic and make something that tastes good to you. Add soaked sunflower seeds, soaked almonds, soak pumpkin seeds for fat and protein

I showed this above, it's worth buying two,
and maybe add this:

Okay, there's more to curing cancer:
The Felkenkrais stuff
and the Anat Baniel stuff:
this is a long discussion and deserves its own
posting,
but these movements,
in group or private lessons will:
balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
produce calmness and helping breathing and sleep
lift depression and encourage enthusiasm for life
create more self love
create inner ease, both physical and mental
teaching slowing down
help people to be present
reinforce self loving
return to a youthful discovery and excitement about life
plenty more

find an Awareness Through Movement class with a Feldenkrais practitioner
or
a Transformational Movement class with an Anat Baniel method Practitioner,
and read
Anat's book
of nine essentials for lifelong vitality,
This will help undo many unhappy habits in movement, thought and relationship

Move into Life

And last and maybe this should be number one:
Make love
more.

Once a day.
But first talk.

get a timer
set a timer.
5 minutes you talk, your mate listens, no interrupting

look into each others' eyes

don't "think" of what you, as listener, are going to say

look into eyes and listen to the sound of the words

both listen: talker and listener

go slow

discover new things to say

don't complain

talk about loves and likes in life
and wishes and dreams
and what noticing in the present

go back and forth for 30 minutes

then make love

every
day

this will be immense

try it and see


Also:
if you want,
come to one of the places I live
and experience an intensive
in Enlightenment in Action

Which will include all the above and more

Okay, that's a good start.
email me questions, comments, discoveries

A movement for pleasure, undoing pain, and talking to both sides of our brain

We could do this lesson with pictures,
and it would be "easier" because it would all
be on one side of the brain.

Most "movement" classes, not only are watch and copy,
but also don't really require a use of mental attention that
actually increases our intelligence.

This lesson,
giving you words to translate into actions,
and giving your brain/self some challenge and non-habitual chances
for your attention,
can do a lot for your ability to move think and be
with more ease grace and pleasure
in the world.

Take advantage.

Go slow, slower, slowest.
Do the movements many times,
as if each time were new.
Look for pleasure and connections you might not
have known before.
Look for ways to make this easier and more alive for you.

So, here goes.

Get on your hands and knees.

There is a yoga thing called cat and cow.
That's our start.

A.
Begin with the regular cat and cow,
where for the cat,
you lift your back and belly towards the sky,
let your head drop,
pull your belly in,
and rotate your pelvis so your sex and nose are
going toward each other.

You might even like to breathe out in the cat phase.

Do this slowly, and stay "relaxed."

Then undo this and come to the "cow,"
which is belly down and forward toward the floor,
back arched,
head with nose up to the sky,
pelvis rotated as if the bottom of your rear end
is coming toward the back of your head.

Go back and forth between cat and cow
and then rest.

Kneel, or lie down, and put your head down,
or get up and walk around. You decide how to rest.

Now the first variation:

B.
Let your head hang down toward the Earth
the whole time.
So in cat it's like it would be anyway,
but then as you arch your back and rotate your pelvis
for cow,
keep your head loose and hanging down.

Rest after doing this ten or twenty or thirty times.
Do it "many," and so slowly it is pleasure,
and so much in awareness that is as if each time
is new.

C.
Second variation:
Your head will go the opposite of the way
it did in A, the "normal" cat and cow.

Which means:
in the cow part, when you arch your back
and tilt your pelvis so the rear end is toward your neck,
your head will travel down toward the floor,
even as if you were to look at your belly.

And in the cat part, when you round your back,
and tuck your pelvis under, you bring your head "up"
as if to look at the ceiling.

This can be confusing.
Realize that the back and head are here
going up and down in sych: head toward the ceiling when belly lifts,
head towards the floor when belly drops.

Rest.

D. Now do the "normal" cat and cow,
or A,
and in the first way:
D.1. notice what your eyes want to do,
and deliberately look up when your head is going up,
and look down when your head is going down.

Rest a bit.

D.2. Now,
continuing to do the "normal" cat and cow,
bring your eyes the opposite of your head

so in cat, head down, belly up, and eyes up

in cow, head up, belly down, and eyes down

go slowly, very slowly,
be gentle
follow your breathing
take it easy
rest if confused
go slowly and gently,
did I say that?

Rest.

E. for extra credit,
do C, where the head goes down when the belly goes down,
and up when the belly goes up,
and have your eyes go opposite your head.

Rest.

F. Do, just a few times do the "normal" cat and cow, but with almost delirious pleasure
at how sweet and easy the "normal" way has become.

Rest on your back.
Notice feelings of upgrade and feelings of relaxation.

Roll slowly to sitting and then easily come to standing
and walk around.

Again notice feels of ease (relaxation) and potency ( increased connection inside of yourself)

Good.

Parents of Special Needs Children: keep the learning alive in YOU

Anat Baniel has a wonderful article, available as pdf,
on the Revolutionary Possibilities for Special Needs
Children
with three of her nine essentials:
slow,
subtle,
variation

These are great principles for parents to remember when
touching their children,
and when "looking for change,"
and just in general when we are being impatient with
ourselves and our mates.

Slow is crucial.
The brain can have awareness only of what is
slow enough for our attention to track it.
Once we slip on the banana peel, ancient layers of the brain
quickly send us into action.
But if we want to learn to raise our foot up onto a chair,
and want to discover three or four different ways to do this,
just 'cranking it out,' won't do it.

And anyway, we like to soothe our children,
the lullaby effect,
so slow and gentle movement,
this is something we do anyway.

And how can we FEEL this movement in our children?
Again, if we are going slow, and really paying attention, we could be slowly
rotating the ribs and could feel what is happening in the spine.
And/or the pelvis
legs,
neck
shoulders,
feet and hands even.

Slow enough
and all will be revealed.

And from love,
everything we discover is good,
fine and wonderful.

Recall last week's article:
our ideas and intentions may hugely matter.



Slow, though, or we're just taking the kid for a ride.
Gentle, though, or we're getting them insensitive to their
own bodies and nervous system.

And what is the best way for a parent to learn this
slow and subtle/ gentle movement?

Having lessons.

And all good parents want 'it all' to go for their
children, but think of the airlines, and the oxygen masks,
first save yourself, then you can save your children.

The more a parent feels deeply and almost instinctively
the power of this slow and gentle, 
the more they sense in their own body
how slow and gentle in THEIR ribs
can connect to pelvis and neck and feet and hands and legs,
the more
likely they are to go home between lessons
and touch the child in a way that keeps the child's lessons alive.

.......
And the third essential in the article:
variation.
Well, go to my Life Potency blog,
and click on the Movement lesson label,
or here, I'll do it for you:
Movement lessons in Life Potency,
and start playing around with them,
slowly and gently with yourself.

Feel how this activates your brain
and
calms your nervous system,
all at the same time.

Good.

When the impossible seems impossible; difficult case fellow

Here's a question I received from a friend:

What are your thoughts on working with a 40 year old man who's been felled by a reaction to a bee sting 5 or 6 years ago. He is in a long term care facility. His eyes are open but he does not see. I think he hears well and understands some/most of what is said around him, but he does not respond in any meaningful way. He can vocalize and uses a few word (I'd say in an automatic way - pat phrases). He can swallow food, but not liquids. He can move his arms and legs and head, and roll to his side(foetal position) but cannot sit or stand. He has to be moved with a winch-like hammock system from bed to chair. He loves music.

I've seen him a few times, but am at a loss of how to go beyond making him feel more relaxed and more comfortable.

My thoughts are that a lesson
is a lesson is a lesson.

comfort and a feeling a reassurance go a long
way to opening a person to being alive

but certainly can't really move
the person forward
(unless they can learn to make themselves more
and then less comfortable as
a volitional thing0

So what's a lesson to be
for this poor fellow

same old same old:
INTELLIGENCE IS THE ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH DIFFERENCES

Can he understand yes and no?

Can he follow someone with his eyes?

Can he open and close eyes on command/

open and close mouth

turn head this way and that

Can he distinguish which music he likes more

Can he tell when the music stops

can he tap this hand, that hand,
this finger, that finger in time to the music

can he watch a hand move up
and down in time to the music

can he tap on his body
or feel taps in time to the music

can he distinguish fast and slow tapping

can he feel the difference between more foetal position and less
can he turn head eyes tongue ? while in fetal position

can pressure through feet or sit bones in fetal position
give information about sitting and standing

and so on

what do we have to lose
trying anything
and everything

that's a start anyway

in a way,
this is like autism:
what can the brain latch onto
and learn from?

anything
anything is
a step in the moving back
into life
direction

ciao
Chris

Another chapter (21) from the book: wonderful wake up to gravity while on your back

On your back, arching and twisting (and learning).

Lie on a comfortable surface, a floor with a nice rug, a lawn with a comfortable towel, some firm surface. Preferably not a bed, unless getting to the floor is not a do for you, or you are lucky enough to have a very firm bed.

Bring your left foot up to “standing,” which means your left foot is sole against the floor/ ground, and the left knee is pointed toward the sky/ ceiling.

With left foot standing, and keeping the left knee pointing toward the sky/ceiling, rotate your left hip forward/ toward the sky/ceiling. Do this in a way that combines:
pushing your left foot into the ground/ lawn/ bed/ floor,
rotating your left hip to the right,
keeping your right hip not lifted
and pushing out your belly and arching your back.

Then come back down, “easily” at least twelve times. More times is great, fine wonderful, as long as each time is “now and new” for you. Don’t crank out the movements.

DON’T CRANK OUT THE MOVEMENTS.

THIS IS ABOUT DEVELOPING YOUR HUMAN BIRTHRIGHT TO BE PRESENT AND TO LEARN, not to be a better donkey/ exercise machine.

Each time you do these feel as many individual vertebrae as you can. Feel the lower vertebrae twisting more than those higher up. Feel the arching in your vertebrae.

Feel as many ribs as you can. Notice your breathing pattern. Sometimes breathe out on the push/ arch/ twist. Sometimes breathe in. ,Always push your belly forward with your lower back, or allow it to expand forward.

Belly forward and your hip rotates and your spine rotates and arches.

FEEL THIS, SENSE THIS, GROK THIS, LOVE THIS.

Feel the connection with the foot and the hip and the pelvis and the spine. Feel as much of you as you can, with as much ease, clarity and pleasure as possible.

After twelve, or twenty or thirty times of this (each one new to the now), let your leg go long, and feel the difference in your right and left side.

Rest and integrate.
Rest and love yourself.
Rest and let yourself learn / sense and feel more about how you are as an embodied and present being on this planet Earth.

Then maybe bring your left foot back to “standing” and do the movement again, even slower this time, for another ten or twenty or thirty times, and find more pleasure and awakening and learning. ( Yes, yes, we are still on the left side; we are after maximizing learning, not “balance”. This is about the “brain” aka you, much more than the “mere” body.)

Then rest and feel sense and aware yourself pleasurably some more.

When you come to sitting, please roll through a side and keep your neck and back as soft and supple as you can.

Feel the differences side to side as you sit.

Learn forward until the weight of yourself is over your feet before you gently rise to standing.

Notice the differences side to side. Enjoy and be curious about these differences.

Enjoy and learn from and be amused by any “lopsidedness” you feel, for at least a couple of hours. Then “do” this game / learning activity/ meditation on the other side, if you wish..

( Book for sale, links to the right for 4 prices, above for contents)

Being in Action: Chapter 14 from the Book: Happy vs Unhappy

Happiness and unhappiness.

This book is about moving toward and living in a state of “Almost Enlightenment” we could call the Tao of Now. Living there for our own bliss, yes, and also to increase our effectiveness in being useful to ourselves, others and the Earth.

Enlightenment plus acting in the world. Acting in the world to increase enlightenment. Being in our being to improve our action.

When we discover ourselves, present moment by present moment, we get our lives and our freedom back. Writing can help us focus our self-witnessing. So let’s start this game today: writing about times we are happy vs. times we are unhappy.

Especially useful is to begin to find times we are unhappy that we “blame” on other people. “If so and so would just respect/ like/ listen to/ love me more/ be nice to me more, THEN I could be happy.”

Writing down is slowing down and can really help wake us up to how we give away to others the power to make us unhappy.

Much “aha” can come from noticing when we fall into the “sleep” of “carping” about others, of “blaming” them for our unhappiness.

This can be a beginning to enlightenment: seeing how often we fall for the sad old, same old story – “If only so and so would shape up, then I could be happy.” (Which means: as long as so and so stays the same/ unshaped up, I have an excuse to be unhappy).

(Which means “so and so” is in charge of my happiness/ unhappiness, a weak place for action; a failed spot for enlightenment)

Noticing this giving away of power can be bracing or amusing or dreadful or a relief. Whatever it is, our waking is on the way.

For, whose job is our happiness?

Whose life is it, eh?

Which moment is not a grand one in which to wake up?


Write two lists. Times you are happy. And times you aren’t, with special emphasis on sentences, short sentences, like: “When so and so does such and such, I feel unhappy.”

Try to have a rough balance between happy and unhappy sentences.


Don’t use this as an excuse to feel bad. Instead “get into” the difference between when we feel “unhappy” and when we feel “happy.”

Notice the big differences, and then more and more differentiation: inner voice tone, breathing, sensation patterns, where we put attention (unhappy usually doesn’t
leave room to look out at, or listen out to, the world), how we structure our posture, and so on.

REAL INTELLIGENCE IS NOTICING DIFFERENCES THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Experience deeply your emotional power, your ability to set up your own happiness and unhappiness.

Keep connecting to the results of where you put your attention: this is me happy, this is me unhappy.

Real intelligence is increased skill in noticing differences. Increase your intelligence.

Enlightenment is to be present with whatever is. Increase your enlightenment.

Good.

See Links at top of the page for buying the book.
Four prices, same book: $13, $27, $54, $108
108 meditations/ games/ learnings.
What is the value to you?
What is your value to yourself.

Good