crap to compost to soil to roses

I have a friend, who is a therapist,
who took affront at me talking of his own
particular psychological issues as "crap"

As, in, yeah, yeah, take that crap to
your therapist and deal with it

He said I had a lot of anger in my tone

This may or may not have been true

I love therapy
and have studied and practiced many kinds,
as well as having been in a Gurdjieff group
that heavily used the work of Freud

so heavily that one of the other former members,
Hameed Ali, went on to combine psychology and spiritual work
to form the highly successful Diamond Way school

and,
so what....

the point is,
friendship was what mattered
and I didn't want to be good

I wanted to call that stuff crap

in the coaching sense:

it's all good and fine
and are you going to talk to one or two or ten people
today
about your work
or
what you love
or
what is intriguing about them

which is to say...

friendship
and/ or a good coaching relationship
isn't built on not having any rough edges

it's not built on staying safe
and refusing to ruffle each other's feathers
( mine were briefly ruffled when he told me of
my latent hostility....

and then,
hey yeah,
I do have some latent hostility,
let's have some fun making it more overt

so the next ten minutes were crap this and crap
that.)


This may or may not make sense....

the point is...

friends
and coaching:

it's about having fun
being honest
egging each other on to
the life they really want

being honest with our own crap
being playful and accepting of their crap

having a hell of a good time
not knowing especially what we are doing
but good naturedly moving things along:

either in play
in love
in getting things done

in opening each other up
in exploring new and more authentic ways of relating


which is to say:

this is good news

your lover doesn't have to be just like you
your friend doesn't have to see eye to eye
your coach or coaching client can rub you the wrong way

welcome to planet earth

a bunch of imperfect numbskulls
moving forward in the three areas that really count:

love,
mindfulness
and happiness

( and happiness can often mean making
more money


good)

Fear of change

Ah, us humans

we come across opportunities to change
we give ourselves the idea that it is time to stop being stuck
we know we can be so much more

and then..
the darn old change
doesn't come with the end result right away

there are setbacks
we lose our nerve
we have habits we don't want to give up

we have habits we don't want to see

we are afraid
when things start to get better
we are afraid, strangely enough,
and, again, ah so human,

of things getting far better than we are used to

we are uncomfortable without our
usual level of discomfort

things seem strange.



ah, they are

strange means grown up
means, not the way the family or the tribe
prepared us to box in
and constrain

strange means
new

new
means
now

even this now

what strange and wonderful..

feelings?
sensations?
even ideas (vs the same old same old thoughts)
can we come into connection with?

in this now?

if we sat down to write
about this,

sensing as we wrote
and loving each moment as
it came up and through us

what would we find?

I don't know,
but I'm going to go journal and find out.


what will you do?

I don't know.

eyes necks and backs

This is a snippet of a lesson

Come to table lessons
and this will be a reminder

This work is deep

Quick and amazing,
and you need depth to really come to the fullness that it can bring....




One: Lie on your back
Close your eyes

Feel the right leg
Feel the left leg
Feel your spine

Feel your pelvis and your ribs and your arms

Two:
Bring your feet to standing
and let your knees move to the right

as you do this push out your belly
and breathe out

then bring your knees back to the center

do this at least ten times,
enjoying each time

rest

Three:
Do all that while alternating turning your head to the left
and
your head to the right

Rest

Four:
Put your palms over your eyes and do all the above
with your eyes in the dark
and feeling your pelvis
and
your ankles
and
your neck
and the softness in your eyes as they are covered

rest

Five
Do all the above and let your eyes go in to opposite way that your head goes
Do this slowly
and
softly
at least ten times

enjoy each movement
and relax between each one

rest
lie out long and feel how your body and state of being have changed

rest longer

then
bring your feet to standing
and

imagine doing these steps with your knees come the other way

then do them

rest after each step

rest about ten minutes at the end

then
get
up

and take a walk
outside in the weather is nice
on
uneven ground if you can find any


good

Freedom and Love

Falling in love
is
a strange
and wonderful happening

and it involves a certain surrender
and a certain confidence
that life is good

and a hope that the other person can fall with us

and a blessed insecurity:

we don't know what is going to happen

and that's the blessing:

we get to keep discovering


and if you are lucky
you discover,
as Susanna and I have,
that "things" keep getting
better
and
better and
better


and what is helping?

Talking about what's hard to talk about.

Listening.

Letting the other take charge

Giving each other space

Getting very close for long periods of time

Lots of kissing
before talking
before anything

letting the unknown
be the unknown

there's more

and it's weird and wonderful
because security and passion are supposed
to be
some sort of mutually exclusive deal

they aren't
at least with us

safer
and more turned
on

how does that happen?

We'll keep discovering
and then
turn it into a book
and a workshop

it's too big for a blog

and meanwhile:

what present
delight
can you fall into?

into which present
can you
fall with delight?


hint:
being present is
always freefall

and if you identify with awareness
there it is:
security
and excitement

all at once

good