Touch in the Now, wow, no hurry, no worry, just "feel"

The book is once again, Love, Lust and Enlightenment
and it still wants you to have a marvelous relationship
and
a body brain teamwork that helps you feel younger and smarter and happy
each and every day.

Here's a chapter, day six.
It's going to be thirty day's worth of couple delight and anti-aging fun.

Day Six: Touch in the Now 

Life is now.

We know (as experience) that we are alive,  moment by moment—call that awake.

We are lost in our hurry or our inner chatter, and missing our experience in the moment --- call that asleep.

Someday we will die, and all these moments of having a chance to sense and know and feel ourselves as bodies and beings on this marvelous messy bright beautiful mysterious blue sky green lead infinite laughter flower and bird song planet Earth will be over.

Done.

Dead , finished, over.

One of the surest ways to know we are alive, and to be present is to follow our breathing.

Now. Try it. Notice your breathing and what does that do for you? Notice that difference. (Who notices that?)

Another constant of life on earth, is gravity. What do you feel now about your bottom pressing into the chair, or your feet into the floor?

What does noticing you are a real live body, in breathing and in gravity, what does that do for you?

(Who notices that?)

Breathing.

Gravity.

Always there. Always an immediate way to “wake up” to now.

BE IN AWARENESS OF NOW.

AWARENESS OF YOUR BREATHING.

AWARENESS OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO GRAVITY.

AWARENESS OF YOUR AWARENESS.

And from here, let’s touch today.

Try two turns of three minutes each of touching the other’s foot.

Go slowly.

And In the first turn, do what you did in prior touches. Take turns verbalizing what you are feeling as the toucher, and as the touchee.

So, go three minutes each each way with that.

Second turn:

Each time you verbalize what you are noticing, start with three verbalizations
One: about your breathing
Two: about what you notice about the other person’s breathing

Three: what you notice about your connection to gravity.

And then four and five:

What you notice either in your touching, or in being touched.

Take turns sharing these five statements.

Realize what a relief this can be, not to have to think. To simply be reporting on breath and gravity and touch.

Go back and forth this way several times.

At the end share for a couple of minutes, what it was like to be touched and to touch in the two different ways.

Even now, even in this sharing, you might want to walk of now as gravity, or now as breath, and then go back to sharing about your responses and inspirations and realizations in this “game.”

Past thoughts on "the book"

Hello, happy Wednesday

I am moving along on a book that has changed titles twice.

First is was Love, Lust and Relationship.

Second, is was Love, Lust and Enlightenment: Falling Back in love with your mate, and becoming “almost enlightened” to boot.

Both those versions started like this…

“This is a book about enlightenment.

No, wait, this is a book about great sex.

No, wait, this is a book about being a great friend to that person who is driving you crazy—your partner.

No, wait, this is a book about being a great friend to another person who is driving you crazy—yourself.”

It’s was an exciting title, and the book filled up with touch games and talk games and even some games to get people clear on how amazing and important it was to be in their bodies.

And then it need to be a bigger book. It need to include a big synthesis of all I have learned in all these years as a Movement Coach and a Relationship Coach.

And what everything had in common was what I realized could be called Radical Listening.

Thus the new title:

The Power of Radical Listening:

Creating the Magical Bedroom,

The Magical Boardroom, & the

Forever Young Body

Radical listening to each other’s talk for a magical bedroom and magical boardroom/ workplace. Radical listening in touch for that revitalized and magical bedroom. And radical listening to your own body, via present awareness of movement, for the forever young body.

And how did this “forever young body” come to the bedroom and the workplace?

Well, obviously, a body that works well, is better in the sack. And a body without neck, back and shoulder issues is much more happy at work.

And it’s deeper, it goes to the principles that make Radical Listening so powerful.

I lucked into all this when I was 55 and I took a weekend workshop, after which I felt as if I was 10 years old again, in movement, and acuity of thinking.

This led to 9 years of training in two systems, the Feldenkrais Method and the Anat Baniel Method, that created a platform for helping high performing musicians and people with back, neck and shoulder issues, and children with special needs.

How did it do this?

By bringing people into the present, deeply.

By creating situations of non habitual behavior and new options.

By connection of places that usual aren’t connected.

And these are how Radical Listening will work in talking and in touching and in movement.

For example in talking to a loved one, or an estranged one, or a person with whom things are kind of blah and you’d like to have REAL connection, here’s a major game in the book.

Listening back and forth for 18 minutes.

Take a timer, and commit to three turns of three minutes each.

In the turns one talks and the other listens.

We apply all three principles of Radical Listening.

Being present:

Both the talker and the listener attempt to be present to their bodies, to the melody of the words, to each other’s breathing.

Non-habitual:

The listener, says nothing and does not “think” about their response .

The talker does NOT talk about:

The other person ( if it’s a troubled issue, there are patterns of way too much talking about the other)

The relationship ( ditto)

What the person said in the prior turn

This last constraint brings about much better listening because we aren’t formulating what we are going to say in response, because that’s off the table.

It makes easier talking because the person speaking doesn’t have to worry about what the other person is going to “think” about what they said. ( Later, of course, this might want to be in the game)

To make things even juicer, a non-habitual recommendation for the speaker would be:

Talk about present noticing. ( I feel my hand on my pants. I feel my breath coming in. I see your brown eyes. I see your breathing--- noticing about the other person is a far cry from the usual commenting about their personality)

Talk about what they like. (This a far cry from the habit of much of talking to be about complaining)

And the third part:

Connecting: Look each other in the face or eye as you talk, and as you listen.

With touch.

These three are great:

Present.

Non habitual

Connection

With movement

Present

Non habitual

Connection

All to be revealed in the book. Call for a sample of each type of exercise in the first four chapters. 360-317-4773

Shut up and Listen

Listening

I once had this marvelous girlfriend. We met when I went to her yoga class. We bonded in a garden and in nature. We had a sweet connection. Our first night together was in a futon bed that was in a garden, under the stars. She was frisky. I was frisky.

Life was good.

Our talk was good, I thought, and yet: I was the oldest child, and we like to hear ourselves be the teacher. (Love to hear ourselves teach, actually. Alas.)  She was the youngest and had been married 18 years to a semi-famous artist who took up all the air in the room.

I didn’t know how much better things could get in talking until I tried this one night, this game that will be your first gift from the world of radical listening.

We used a timer.

She talked for five minutes. I didn’t interrupt. I was present as I listened. I followed my breathing. I didn’t say a peep. I looked at her and took her in.  If she didn’t know what to say instantly, I didn’t “help.” I waited. I listened.

I took a turn.

She took another turn, and in this turn began to cry.

No one had ever really listened to her for five minutes without completing her thought or interrupting her to tell her what she was “really” trying to say. Or the usual human thing: interrupting to say their ever so important thing.

Ever notice how your interruptions always have the assumption that what you have to say is MUCH more important than letting them finish?

Well, with Marlie, this had been endemic enough for her never to be heard.

So she cried.

This was profound for her.

And profound for me.

Let’s see how it will be for you.

Sit across from a friend, a business colleague, or your love partner. (With the love partner, this listening in the now can deeply improve the sex connection. Don’t believe me. Discover it for yourselves.)

You are going to take 3 minute turns talking and listening. Three turns makes it 18 minutes. You can do four minute turns (24 minutes). Or 5 minute turns (30 minutes).

And you might get hooked and want to keep going and going.

After Marlie and I got into it, we’d go for hours sometimes. It’s so nice to discover what you have to say when the pressure of interruption is off.

 In the beginning levels of this game, you don’t say anything about what the other person talked about.

This has two advantages: One, you don’t have to worry about what another person thinks about what you say when you talk, because they don’t get to say their ever so important opinion.

Two, as the listener, you aren’t going inside and rehearsing your response instead of listening, which is what we do most of the time. This helps create a condition of ONLY LISTENING.

ONLY LISTENING

Not interrupting. Even a squeak.

ONLY LISTENING

Not “thinking” of our response to what they are saying.

ONLY LISTENING

Not rehearsing over and over our response to what they are saying.

ONLY LISTENING

Not having any commentary in our head about what they are saying.

ONLY LISTENING

Not even “remembering” what they said awhile back.

ONLY LISTENING

One word at a time, one sentence at a time, one breath of this life, this now, this miracle of being alive and…

ONLY LISTENING

This creates a delicious savoring of our partner as they speak and we are ONLY LISTENING.  This creates a great ease and possibility for inner discovery in the one talking.

This is good.

This is very good.

Here’s the game

Set up two chairs facing each other and sit in them

Grant yourselves at least 20 minutes

Turn off cell phones, though let one be on airplane mode to be used for a timer

Set the timer for 3 minutes

Pick who starts first today. We’ll call this person, Partner A, or A.

Start the timer

Partner A talks, while being present

Partner B listens, in only listening

3 minutes

Partner A talks of anything except…

1. No talking about “the relationship”

2. No talking about the other person

It can be ramble.

It can be exploration.

It can be memory.

If “nothing comes,” these four always work:

The present

What you like/ love/ enjoy about life.

What is important to you in life

Saying nothing

It’s fine to say nothing.

You get attention, ONLY LISTENING, whether you have words or not..

The timer goes off.

PAUSE FOR THREE BREATHS. TAKE THE THREE BREATHS TOGETHER.

Then switch to partner B talking for 3 minutes and partner A, ONLY LISTENING.

Partner B ( and partner A in all subsequent turns) has three restrictions now. One more.

1. No talking about the other person,

2. No talking about the relationship,

3. No talking about what the other person just said. No commentary, feedback, reactions, “improvements ” (aka “one upping”),  opinions.

As said before, this helps ONLY LISTENING immensely. Knowing that you won’t have a chance to yak about your important reaction to what you just heard helps calm down the mind for ONLY LISTENING.

Knowing that your partner won’t get to yak their important response gives an ease and a safety to the one speaking.

At the end of the three minutes, PAUSE again, and again take three deep and sweet breaths together.

Back to A. Who has the same three restrictions.

Do this at least 3 turns of talking  and ONLY LISTENING for each person.

You might want to take a quiet walk after, holding hands if you are a couple, simply being quiet and present to each other no matter what. And NOT talking, as you walk.

Enjoy deeply this gift of presence and ONLY LISTENING you have given yourself and your partner.

This is a delicious daily practice, a nourishment to your ability to listen and your need to/ wish to be heard.

Connection to another in the present. One of the best presents in the world.

yes yes