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

Awakened touch: Toward the Magical Bedroom

The Magical Bedroom

( A chapter from the forthcoming book: The Power of Listening, creating the Magical Bedroom, the Magical Boardroom and the Forever Young Body... call for pdf of first four chapters)

The magical bedroom starts in the hands.

No, not really.

The magical bedroom starts in attention. Paying attention to yourself. Paying attention to your partner.

Touch that is in awareness.

The magical bedroom also starts in honest talk. This is what you will be developing in the talk chapters.

Listen to what the other person’s heart has to say.

Truth is the best foreplay.

And touch is important, too.

And here is what is most important: Awakened Love.

Without awakened love you are a robot. A well functioning robot, or a poorly functioning one, but a robot non the less.

Not to be too derogatory but life is stark in a certain way: we can drift and be mindless. We can chose and be mindful.

Awakened love is central to a well lived life. Hopefully with a person with whom to share your bed and life.

If not that, a good friend, a grandchild, a nephew, a partner in the world of waking up.

And for the magical bedroom, we are looking for a partner with whom to wake up in talk, and in touch.

Truth is the most important foreplay, and awakened touch comes in a close second.

And this book will be all foreplay.

Kissing and touching the hands, the arms, the neck, the face. Touching the foot.

That’s it.

Two months of that.

You will be changed. If you want further, come enroll in one of my six month courses, either private or small group. Things get steamy on the third month, but only after a solid presence in touch orientation.

If you are awake in your touch, the world is a completely new and fresh place.

And this can be practiced on a park bench.

How nice.

So let’s start.

Today, the arm.

Take one, and only one of your partner’s arms. You will be exploring the whole arm and hand and those miraculous fingers.

For three minutes explore their arm as if you were a Martian and not really sure what arms and hand are.

And you are a baby, you aren’t even sure what your own arms and hands are

Three minutes.

Touch and explore their arm and hand: with your hand.

With your hands.

How is it different with one hand and two.

Explore with your finger tips. With all the fingers. With one of two at a time. With different combinations of fingers.

Explore with the back of your hand.

The palm.

Both sides.

Explore with your lower arm and elbow and upper arm.

Go slowly.

Find the thrill in the sensation, and the learning.

Find the pleasure in being very clear and present to the point of contact.

Mindfulness of the moving and sweet point of contact: that will come to be exquisitely useful later.

And it’s exquisitely delightful now.

Enjoy.

Do this for three minutes and then take turns sharing how that was for each other.

Now, for the next three minutes.

Take turns articulating three short sentences at a time each. Three here and now observations of either what you are feeling or what you are doing, or if you are the toucher/ explorer, both.

For example>

A: I feel your thumb rubbing the inside of my wrist. I feel my breathing coming in and out. I feel my bottom on the chair.

B: I feel my thumb rubbing your wrist. I feel the softness of your skin. I notice your chest going up and down as you breathe.

A: I feel you now stroking the back of my arm with the back of your arm. I can feel the bones under my skin as you do that. I can hear the bird singing outside.

B: I feel your arm with my arm. I feel my arm moving at the shoulder. I notice I am looking away from you.

And so on.

Three minutes.

Then share how that was.

Switch to do each kind of touching the other way.

And share after each kind of touching.

And you can do this more than once a day.

And do if for two or three days and then will kick in the next layer of touching.

Good.yes

Pain vs Suffering

From the forthcoming book: Love, Lust and Enlightenment:

Pain vs Suffering

 If someone dies, you are going to feel a physical pang, a real pain in your chest and your life. This is part of life. This is built in.

We had a person. They are gone. That emptiness is real and we can feel it. AS SENSATION.

Loving that sensation, loving that we are alive to feel that sensation, missing that person AS SENSATION is the breaking open of the heart that makes us bigger and better and more loving than ever.

And then there is the suffering: words in our head, aka “thinking,” and in reality, auditory hallucination, the words saying we needed to do this more, needed to do that more, they shouldn’t have died, this isn’t the right time, it’s not fair, the end wasn’t as good as it should have been, regrets about how thing should have been different.

And in a relationship, say something goes wrong, and someone gives you some grief.

Say yesterday your love gave you a hard time, and that’s that.

They said something a bit mean, and being human, it might have been one remark of five seconds out of six hours together. And you can feel bad.

Again, as SENSATION, you gave feel the pain of not connection.

We are designed to be close and to love and when that doesn’t happen there is real pain.

Feeling that, AS SENSATION, not only honors your real grief that connection and love were missed, but honors the present of your sensations right now.

Suffering on the other hand is all the words on how they should have been different, how they “always” are this, how they “never” are that.

As we have examined before: our choice of making ourselves unhappy by arguing with what is.

Notice the deal;

AS SENSATION, something real and present is happening in us.

As words in our head/ thinking/ auditory hallucination we are creating suffering for ourselves.

And let’s take real pain.

Physical pain, which is a pain.

Let’s take a headache.

AS SENSATION, we can feel the exact shape of the pain, is it round, oblong, how big. It’s usually grape size, but no matter how much, it isn’t infinite, which is how we often imagine it when we don’t go for the sensation in reality.

And in reality, the headache is only so big and we can sense were the pain eases off, and then the whole rest of our body and notice how much bigger than the headache is our whole body.

As we can notice that the awareness that can notice this is who we really are.

And, if we want to suffer?

Have a bunch of words in our head about:  it should go away, I should have done this different so this won’t happen, poor me, I have to take this and this and this to get rid of this, life sucks until this pain goes away, when is it going to go away.

And so on.

Reality, as sensation.

Suffering as words in our head arguing with reality.

A huge and super crucial choice we all have at any moment when pain does what pain is supposed to do: wake us up.

So, with your mate

Talk:

As yesterday.

Sit near. Look in the eye. Breathe together. Have two chairs each.

Have the suffering chair. Sit there and complain in gibberish about how something should have been different yesterday or in some past.

Move to the reality chair. Be vulnerable. Talk of the closeness and connection you are missing and what you’d like to do as a couple to remedy this.

The other partner listen and feedback as you’ve learned throughout this book.

Go back and forth several times.

As always. Pause and take 3-10 breaths together between rounds, and when things shift.

Touch:

Explore the other person’s arm, in reality two ways:

One with no moment to moment comments about your now.

Two : with moment to moment comments about your now.

Take turns.

Share how it was.

The Secret of Happiness

The Secret of Happiness

The secret of happiness is to stop DOING unhappiness.

We do unhappiness when we forget this:  When we argue with Reality we lose, but only 100% of the time.

Like this: look at a nearby chair.

Demand that it be an elephant.

Any luck.

Now pout, get angry, feel hurt that it’s not an elephant.

Any shift?

Okay. The chair is a chair. So be it.

Here’s four arguments with reality we always lose:

That we be different (in the past, or exactly this moment) than we are. Arguing with ourselves. Painful.

That others be different. They should instantly or in the past have been different.

That the world be different. We know how it should be.

That God be different. Arguing with the inevitable.

Examples:

Argument with myself: “I should be happy right now.”(If I’m not) I can shift in two seconds. But right now, I am what I am.

“I should have been happy yesterday.” Never going to happen.

Argument with Others: “You should be nicer.” You are the chair, exactly as nice or not nice as you are.

Again, in two seconds it can change, but “You should have been nicer yesterday.” Never going to happen.

Argument with the world. “There should be no poverty.” Not in this instant, at least.

Argument with God. “So and so shouldn’t have died.”

Who says.

“So and so should have lived longer.”

Is it true?

What Is has the sweet finality of being exactly what it is.

If we can love it, we can change a lot in the next two seconds or two days or two weeks.

If we fight it right now, pain.

If we fight what was yesterday, which is the source of almost all couple’s fights, pain, pain, pain.

Ready to be happy?

People think they are complaining because they are in hell.

Whoops, the other way around. People are in hell because they are complaining/ arguing with reality.

Okay, cool.

Do with this what you may.

Talk.

Take turns.

In gibberish, tell your partner some way they should change.

Switch to another chair. In English, say what you see right now. Only present based observation.

Go back and forth with this for awhile.

Share at the end how this was for you.

Touch:

Explore and rub the other person’s foot.

Switch between telling yourself you aren’t doing it right or that there is some “better” way to do this

And

Simply exploring exactly as you are. As if it’s brand new moment every moment.

Take four minute turns.

Share at the end how this was for you.

Be Lazy

Three Secrets to Cheating Unhappiness, Reversing Aging, Better Sex, and More Money
One: Be Lazy

Here’s the first secret: be lazy.

I know, I know, everyone wants you nose to the grindstone, and they have their nose there to distract from their unhappiness, and to hell with that. Less is more.

And I’ll start right off practicing what I preach, because you might think, Oh My God, 3 secrets times four categories: that’s 12 secrets. Who wants that much?

Not I.

Not you.

It’s three secrets, and they are, being lazy, and being present in your body, and “doing it wrong” or doing it non-habitually.

And further in keeping with being lazy. I’ll just write one a day. ( I do a chapter a day. One is enough. One is a lot. This whole book has been written, to this point by April 25, 2015. It started March 21, 2015. Less is more.)

There was a time awhile back when my son and I, on the phone, got in a tiff about something.

Who knows what?

The usual human bullshit which boils down to “I’m right and you’re wrong,”  “No, No, you have it backwards: I’m right and you’re wrong.”

And on and on.

So we got off the phone in mutually bad moods.

I got lazy about winning the argument. I called back, and said I didn’t care who was right. That our connection was what mattered, and to hell with whatever we were arguing about.

And so laziness in winning arguments with others, especially your mate or your kids, can make a big dent in cheating unhappiness.

Another place laziness is actually reality, when you think you have “too much to do.”

You probably do.

And a lot of unhappiness comes from trying to think about doing it all at once, or within a time frame.

Sometimes it’s good to write down the time frame so you don’t have to think about it.

But the lazy and sane thing to do, no matter what: do one small thing at a time, and figure out how to enjoy it.

Lazy means enjoying the roses along the way. Happiness means enjoying the roses along the way.

And reversing aging and laziness: Take a nap every two hours. Even two minutes in your chair, ten minutes on the floor, eight minutes on the lawn, twenty minutes on your bed.

Combine it with visualizing sweet clouds, or deepening your breath (secret 2: get into your body in the present). Combine it with sensing any part of yourself that needs relaxing.

You’ll live longer.

You’ll be nicer at the end of the day.

Lazy and sex.

Let’s make this short.

Don’t rush to the climax.

Savor.

Enjoy the pleasure exactly as it is.

Look at your partner.

Talk to your partner.

Keep communication and humor going.

Be happy.

Lazy and money.

Oh, my.

Here we are at the grindstone again, and , like jogging and bikhram yoga, ( and drinking) overwork is a well known way to stuff your unhappiness by numbing out to it.

And, you aren’t reading a book on Love, Lust and Enlightenment if you want to stuff your unhappiness on the way to making as wonderful an amount of money as you wish to make.

So, rather than go into it in any depth at all, I’ll be true again to my laziness and say what you already know: there is an easier and more enjoyable path to whatever you need or want to do it your work.

Find it.

Ah, ha.

Talk today:

2 minute turns:

Look at your partner.

Have a complaint in your head.

Feel how awful that feels in your body.

Look at their face and eyes and breathing.

Get too lazy to hold on to that thought.

Then talk only what you sense and notice in the present, or your appreciations of them.

At two minutes, pause. Breathe a bunch of times together and do this the other way around.

Go back and forth at least three times each way.

Touch:

Same theme:

2 foot massages of 2 minutes:

One, trying to “do it right.”

Two, being lazy, and having fun for you as well as them.

Go both ways.

Compare the difference in giving and getting.

Waking Up

Waking Up, again ( and again)

Have you ever caught yourself, just about you were about so say some jerky and reactive thing to your loved one, and stopped?

Stopped and taken a breath.

Stopped and looked at the other person.

Stopped and came back to the present of yourself in the moment in your body in this now.

And realized:

One: I’ve done this before, and it’s always turned to shit

Two: This is a person I love and what I’m about to say is not loving

Three: I was asleep when I wanted to say that.

Four: Now that I’m present, I have a choice.

Three is the trick, the life saver, the game changer, the path from a life of slavery to a life of freedom.

We can blather about unconditional love, and if we can’t shut our traps when the reactive stuff is about to come, we will forever be lost to this world of real love.

Conditional love is not love.

Awake, we can move toward unconditional love. And only awake.

Mindful.

Mindless.

Them’s the choices. Mindful we can stop, sense ourselves in the moment, see our partner and say something true: “I’m afraid.” “I’m lonely.” “I wish we could really connect”

Mindless we have to say something that is “wrong” with them.

Or chatter about ourselves and ignore them.

Either way: no real connection.

No real connection means no real love.

Mindful.

Mindless.

Mindless means no one is home to run our show and so it’s back to the programmed self, which is usually Ma and Pa and the decisions we made to protect ourselves when we were young.

Oh, well.

This can all sound heavy handed and yet, there is an easy way out.

The same simple stuff we started with in the first game. With the addition of sensing yourself specifically in your arms and legs and connection to gravity and breathing.

Looking your partner in the eye. Feeling your own breathing. Feeling your own ten fingers, ten toes, belly, eyes, ears & nose.  Saying simple truth.

Seems stupid maybe.

Seems boring.

And, great practice is staying value free in talking to our love.

“I feel my feet on the ground.” “I see your eyes blinking.” “I see your chest rising and falling as you breathe.” “I sense my chest rising and falling as I breathe.”

Simple. Stupid.

Real.

I am alive.

You are alive.

That’s the central plum of our existence. Realized with a love one, life becomes one of “love making” every time you sit down and say real things together.

And it’s practice, practice reigning talk in from it’s usual function which is the relief of excess.

Excess food, out as poop.

Excess air, out as outbreath.

Excess thinking , out as talking.

How to be present while talking.

Hard.

Fun.

Amazing.

And this is for the brave ones, willing to sit down each day and connect in talk and touch.

Let’s try in the simple way once more.

Talking:

Set the timer for 3 minutes as you sit near and look each other in the eye.

Partner A: talks for those 3 minutes.

Either about what they notice in themselves, or what they notice in the other.

Be informed by

Ten fingers ( and hands and arms)

Ten toes ( and feet and legs)

Belly ( and breath and pelvis)

Eyes,

Ears,

Nose ( breathing and reminder: top of the spine).

Smile.

Pause.

Enjoy silent as well as present-talk connection.

Do this twice each way.

Pause for 6 breaths between each turn.

Take a little walk before the touching part.

Touch

2 two minute turns each way.

One : stroke the partner’s hand and arm, reporting in the present on what you notice

Two: as you stroke your partner’s hand and arm, they report in the present on what they notice

Share at the end how that was for each of you, both ways.

Passion, Purpose, Play, Presence.

Passion, Purpose, Play, Presence

Many relationships start in passion. Hallelujah!

This is fun, exhilarating, exciting, gives hope, floods the system with ocytocin, gets each person to realize they aren’t alone in the universe.

And more.

Presence happens. At least in the bed. They get our of their head. The moment feels good enough to be present.

Play happens. Silliness sneaks in, and games are played.

This is good.

And, then, sad face…. Passion fades.

There is not a purpose agreed to be present, and in the talking part of the relationship an inevitable shift takes place, from loving the other to ego function kicking back in.

In the love part, this other person is different and that’s fascinating. Like children, excited with the new and the unknown, when we are new lovers we are thrilled at the differences.

And then the ego function ( there being no such thing as “ego,” it’s just the pattern of conditioning wrapped around self-image and the me-me-me principle) kicks in and the different is wrong.

Ego function wants others to think, feel, act, smell, be like them. Eat like them. Be unhappy like them. Complain like them. Hate the same people they hate.

And so on.

 A boring way to live, to be sure, and it’s the lot of 99% of humanity.

Presence fades even from sex. Or maybe not, but sex becomes a relief valve, not a playground.

And purpose that never was there goes a couple of ways:

Arguing.

Creating harmony within boredom.

Creating some business together.

Having kids.

Kids gives a purpose and is the one area in life where many people can actually live more in love than in ego function.

So now the couple, though the passion is slipping and presence is there only in some of the slipping passion, at least has play time with the kids.

And they have a purpose. Kids are almost impossible, even the best ones, so the couple has to talk things through, listen to each other, discover solutions.

Many couples fight over how to raise children.

They don’t have a purpose of listening to another point of view.

Ah, here comes the divorce. ( Mine was that. Many years ago. Alas. We make mistakes. We learn)

And what would an awakened relationship be doing so that passion, purpose, play and presence could be there in the beginning, middle and end?

One, start from purpose and presence.

Notice all the exercises/ games in this book are about being present as you talk and present as you touch.

Start the sex in touch.

Start the foreplay in honest and present talk..

Two, have these purposes.

To be present. Always.

To be kind. Always.

To see any button being pushed as an opportunity to work on oneself.

Because, this is an overriding purpose: to learn unconditional love.

Which is a subset of enlightenment, and mutual enlightenment is a purpose of the awakened relationship.

And from that, awakened passion is an eyes open, slow, communicative, requesting and listening and not in a rush thing.

And it’s great.

And it gets better and better.

Play comes, kids or no, because life without being driven by the ego function can continually be fascinated by this very different being with whom intimacy is growing and growing and growing.

Fun.

If you’ve read the book this far and done the games, you are well on the way.

Keep it up.

Yes

Waking Up has many flavors, and they all equal... you

Waking Up

Waking up is fun.

Waking up is a pain in the ass.

Waking up is hard.

Waking up is the only way to be sane.

Waking up makes you a freak.

Waking up makes you free.

No one will understand you.

You will understand everyone.

You could be lonely.

You could be blissfully at one with everyone.

You could be in free fall.

You could be totally grounded.

Waking up’s fun.

Waking up’s your chance.

Waking up’s life.

And this book is about sex every day and talking every day and enlightenment.

And we haven’t talked about the famous genitals.

And we aren’t going to.

It’s all kissing and touching.

And sensing yourself.

And listening to your own body.

And listening to their response as you kiss and touch.

And feeling the point of contact.

And giving requests.

And getting requests.

See how this could come in handy when you get under the covers and get into the hurly burly?

Life in the sexual arena is usually a rush to the finish, and asleep and fraught with the peril of making sure this and that happens.

No one slows down.

No one makes requests.

No one says: now I feel this, now I’m doing that.

It’s all the animal thrashing.

Fun in a way. And definitely a good way to blow off extra steam and create the next generation, and create some oxytocin.

And ultimately: a waste.

Sex without being awake is a waste.

Talk without being awake is a waste.

Keep kissing.

Keep touching.

Keep talking.

It’s your life. Do you want it with the lights on, or the lights off? With the heart open? Or the heart closed?

Your choice.

listening deeper, from the forthcoming book: Love, Lust and Enlightenment

Listening Deeper

We hear the words. If we are lucky, we hear them fully in the ONLY LISTENING mode, where we are not busy having auditory hallucinations (aka “thinking”) about what we are going to say in response.

We hear the words on a good day.

And what else is being said?

What are they feeling?

What are we feeling about what they are saying and about what they are feeling?

What are their body sensations?

What are our body sensations about what we are hearing and what we are feeling and what they are feeling and what they are sensing in their bodies?

Don’t try to untangle that all.

It’s simple:

Head.

Heart.

Body.

All three are listening and one level all the time.

All three are communicating at one level all the time.

Most of us have a ways to go in getting these subtle messages inside ourselves and inside our partner.

Oh well.

What a great new thing to learn.

Partner A:

Talk for two minutes.

Partner B:

I heard you say this in words. Did I miss anything?

Go back and forth until it’s a yes.

Partner B, continuing:

This is my guess about what you were feeling when you were talking

Partner A, shares how close or far that was

Partner B, continuing.

This is how I am feeling in my body right now….

This is my guess about how you are feeling in your body right now…

Go back and forth and see what you can learn from each other about this. Remember COAL

Curious

Open

Aware

Loving

See what happens.

Take lots of three breath pauses.

Do this both ways.

Several times, if you have time.

Touch today

Kiss the hand and arm:

2 minutes: just do it

2 minutes: pay attention to your guess of their feelings and sensations

2 minutes: all the above plus your feelings and sensations

Do both ways

Compare the 3 modes in both giving and getting

Cheers

Chris

Death and Taxes.. vs, what you can REALLY count on

From the book: Love, Lust and Enlightenment: Falling deeply in love, coming off a "verge of divorce," and becoming "almost enlightened" to boot.
Call for a free pdf of the first four chapters.

Death and Taxes
(And… What you can REALLY count on)

I am alive. You are alive.

Someday I’m going to die.

Someday you are going to die.

So be it. Ho hum.

What’s new?

And yes! What good news!

And why, pray tell, is this “good news?”

Because there is only one thing that we can REALLY count on (two really), and that is this moment.

And good news about the now is that this moment is right here, right now, even this now.

No, wait, especially, this now.

This now.

This now.

This now.

No waiting.

Not planning.

No needing the right uniform, age, health, mood, thoughts, feelings.

The now doesn’t demand you be happy, nor smart, nor at your best form.

It is only what it is: your experience in this moment.

Your awareness that allows you to experiencd your experience.

No, not allows, as if it is separate. How about this: you are this awareness, and you can wake up to being awareness, to the experience of being awareness.

Can wake up only one time.

Now

Good.

And the other “thing” (quality, delight, aspect of life) that we can count on is LOVE.

Really?

Yes.

In the now, with no words in our head to tell us the we or the other or the world is not “good enough,” all that’s left is love.

Don’t take my word for it.

Don’t “try” to love the world, the other, yourself.

Experience what’s left in the now without the opinion about the now.

See/ feel/ know for yourself.

So, that’s it, plus a little super important note after the talking exercise.

Talk today:

Take 5 minute turns.

Talk about one third about your sensations in the Now.

Talk about one third about your feelings (as emotions) in the now. With no “because.”

“I am angry.” “I am sad.” “I am curious.” “I am happy.”

All those, and many many more with no “because” afterwards.

Talk about one third about what is important to you in life.

Pause three to ten breaths after the timer goes off and the other person talks for five minutes.

If you have timer, do this twice each way.

This is more important that food or exercise.

Touch today

Kiss the partners arm for 2 3 minute turns

One: without requests

Two : with requests.

Both ways.

Pause to breathe in between.

Share the difference, both giving and getting

The “because” thing.

Skip it

Today, now, the rest of your life. ( Except when you want to go inside and reclaim your demons… that’s another day)

If you say, “I am angry.”  It’s true. It’s about you, or your closest take on this “emotion” inside you.

“I am angry because you don’t appreciate me enough” is the old slavery:

Complaint/ demand/ victim/ blame/ avoidance of responsibility.

Call it what you may, it’s a lie: You are the one making you angry = freedom to love.

The other person is the one making you angry= slavery.

Easy as that.

Anger is fine. Do push ups. Chop wood. Clean the kitchen. Even make love (slowly, with now-ing, which will get you into reality). Make money. Take a walk. (Don’t run. Running in emotional states is almost always running away from yourself)

Anger is fine.

Anger because of…. Is bullshit.

We always have choice.

All we need is to be present enough to realize that there is a real you inside who can make that choice.

Good.

Love as Choice

Part of a chapter of a forthcoming book: Love, Lust & Enlightenment: A beginners guide to waking up in this lifetime in the arms of your lover

Love as Choice

Put your attention, please, in your right hand. Sense the flesh, the bones, all the fingertips.

Enjoy this miracle, your right hand.

Now, please, shift your attention to the other miracle on the other side: your left hand. Sense its fingertips and bones and blood and sinews and flesh.

Ah, enjoy that miracle too.

Now shift your attention, please, back to the right hand. And now, please, to the left hand.

And here’s one of life’s central questions: Who is doing that?

Who is shifting the attention from one hand to the other?

Who is awaring the hands one at a time and then shifting the attention from one to the other?

Is it your name doing that? Your age? Your job? Your childhood history? Your school career? Your place of birth or residence? Is it you gender moving the attention and being aware of what each hand is like in the moment?

No, no, and lots of no.

So: Who is awaring the hands when your attention is there.

You are.

You are.

Not your thinking, not your feelings, not even your brain.

You.

You are moving your attention.

This is the central human freedom. You can be concentrating on the deep indignity of your partner burning your eggs, and shift your attention to the awaring of your breath, and their breath, and your connection to gravity, and that they are alive and your are alive, and where does the indignity go?

Gone.

Out of our heads and into our experience, and we can always get back to love.

ALWAYS.

We are the one who can chose to move our attention.

And much as has been written about affirmations, I think they suck, because they are fighting fire with fire, more thinking trying to fight thinking

When in trouble, stop thinking. Come to the present. Get in your experience.

Shift your attention around.

You do not have to be good

You Do Not Have to Be Good

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.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to be good.

You only have to allow the soft warm animal of your heart and body and mind and soul love what they love.

What do they love?

Being alive.

What do they love?

Discovering the mysteries of field and meadow and leaf and stream and sunshine and smile and love ( and money, ha).

You only have to fly, harsh and exciting of wing flap and heart soar, into the clear blue skis, over the bright golden meadows, the white snowy peaks, the churning turquoise oceans, the dark gleaming pebbles the sparkling ecstatic streams.

Soar, fly, take it all in.

It’s all yours.

Life.

You are part of the family of things and the family means a loved one and some friends. You don’t have to have children, but you do need to give birth of something wild and soaring and mysterious.

Like a baby

Like a poem.

Like a crazy ass book, a paintng, a song, your own dance of that day, your own amazing communication, a symphony, a new thought. A quietness of the mind and soul.

Give birth to yourself, the emptiness dancing that is who you really are.

And, yes, yes, you can create your own business, but a business for the soaring of it, and the love for life and your partner and your colleagues, and employees, and mainly for the world who is going to delight in your helping them soaring over the golden green blue sparkling earth.

The world is ours to love.

You do not have to be good because you are really good, you are made that way, before you eat the apple of “this is good, and this is bad.”

Adam and Eve. You do not have to be good Eve. Be yourself and you are the whole of the universe. You don’t have to worry about what the serpent thinks is right, You don’t have to worry about what God thinks is right.

Hug that man, Eve, and dance in the garden.

And so today: let’s hug.

And talk.

At the same time.

You do not have to be good at being present. You do not have to be good at hugging.

And naturally, you will do fine. Just fine. Wonderfully.

It’s all easy, this life and loving thing, if we don’t worry about what other people think (which is usually what “good” is, something like the lowest common denominator of repressed behavior to not scare the most unhappy person in the room with our happiness).

What other people about you think is almost always a reliable indicator of their pathology, and only rarely has anything much to do with you.

You trigger them. They tell you to be good, which, as said above means: don’t scare me by showing me how happy I could be if I stopped worshipping my chains.

And finally, it’s easy, this life and loving thing, if we don’t worry about what our opinion of how we “should be” thinks about us.

If we just live.

And this isn’t hedonism.

Though with your mate, sensual pleasure is one of the best ways in the world to create mutual warmth and nourishing.

Not hedonism, no. This is soft easy pleasant touch, yes.

And talk.

Let the soft warm you in your heart and hands and legs and lips and bellies and all over, and the soft warm you in your mind without words and the soft warm you of your soul merging with another be your guide.

At least some of the day.

Like Now.

Hug your partner, standing.

Hug for awhile, at least two minutes without saying anything.

Then take turns of a minute to two minutes ( don’t time it, just guess) of saying exactly what you are feeling.

In your touch: I feel my fingers stroking your hair. In your reception: I feel your fingers caressing my hair.

Go slowly. Do things. Slow things.

Notice them.

Include gravity.

Include breath.

Include everything.

Share back and forth your present experience.

What comes next?

You discover.

The Turn Around

From the Forthcoming Book:
Love, Lust and Enlightenment: Loving Your Mate more Deeply and becoming "Almost Enlightened" to boot

The Turn Around

“You should appreciate me more?”

Is that true? Is that absolutely true? How do I feel when I believe that story? Who or what would I be without that thought or believing that story?

And the TURN AROUND.

“You should appreciate me more.”

How about….” I should appreciate you more.”

And, how about… “I should appreciate myself more.”

“You should listen to me more.”

“I should listen to you more.”

“I should listen to myself more.”

“You shouldn’t criticize me.”

“I shouldn’t criticize you. (Even to the extent of not criticizing you for criticizing me)

“I shouldn’t criticize me.”

And on and on and on.

Today is Easter. The story is of death and rebirth.

And that’s the game today. To die to the old way, which is: The Other Person MUST change.

The resurrection: I am the one who can change.

I can take my own medicine.

If I want others to treat me better, I have to treat myself and others better.

So, this is the newness of resurrection.

We can do it brand new, any day, every day, any moment.

And that’s the important of death and rebirth.

It’s not the big deal, which can happen from all the little moments.

It’s the moment by moment letting the story die, and being reborn with this delightful curiosity: what can I do with this energy of discontent.

And so, play that way today:

Play with the four questions and  the turn around.

Do this with one “issue,” and go through all the questions and the turn around.

Get so “into” the turn around and be happy to discover what it is in yourself, that you can take back as something that is in you that you can admit and that can serve as admission for a whole new world.

Both people write down a “you should..” each other.

Read it to each other. Take it in and say thank you.

Partner A now be the “I am going to work on my button” person.

Partner A reads their belief…. “You should blah blah.”

Partner B asks:

One: Is that true that “I should blah blah”

Partner A answers.

Pause for three breaths.

Partner B asks:

Two: Is that absolutely true that, “ I should blah blah?”

Partner A answers.

Pause for three breaths.

Partner B asks,

Three: Please sit in another chair and answer: “How do you react, feel and live when you believe that, “ I should blah blah?”

Partner A answers.

Pause for three breaths.

Partner B asks:

Four: Please come back to the “real you” chair:  “Who or what would you be if you didn’t have that thought that, “ I should blah blah?”

Partner A answers.

Pause for three breaths.

Partner B ask A to go back and forth between the chair that believes it and the one that doesn’t and share how they feel in each.

Pause between each chair and before the turn around.

Partner B ask for two turn arounds.

The You should do this for me, to the I should do this for you form.

And, the You should do this for me, to the I should do this for myself form.

Hold hands for ten breaths.

Do the 4 questions and the turn around the other way.

Hold hands for ten breaths.

Touch:

Kiss each other’s arm for 6 minutes.

2 minutes: kissing as fun.

2 minutes: kissing as they request.

2 minutes: kissing and each sharing the now/ now on what is happening.

Share for one or two minutes on how that was different for each of you.

Then, do it the other way around.

Enjoy.

Be of Good Cheer

BE OF GOOD CHEER
Chapter 4 in the forthcoming book: Love, Lust & Enlightenment: Falling deeper in love with your mate, and becoming "almost enlightened" to boot

Be of Good Cheer

There is a force that grows the green grass, thrusting up even in the most vile parking lot. There is a tinkle, as of Tibetan bells, in the laughter of children.

There is the moan of lovers, coming together slowly and sweetly after the trials of the day, and perhaps even the troubles that their conditioned behaviors have caused each other.

There is the play of otters in the mud, dolphins in the blue ocean, there are those wild geese, flying freely throughout the chapters of this book and the bright blue skies of the world, there are the blue bonnets and the California Poppies and the orange/ apricot/ pear/ cherry/ redbud/ honey locust blossoms bursting in spring, full of bees making honey. Birds singing. The birds and the bees and the bright green leaves flickering golden in the trees, in the breeze, in the sun, in the sky, in our hearts.

Always there for us. And we can miss it, deny it, forget it. Chose the other, darker, sadder path.

Like this:

Life can be a bummer. Or Life can be a joy.

You can drink through one of two straws: one is sweet and one is bitter.

Happiness is an inside job.

Unhappiness is an inside job.

One way to be in the joy/ sweet/ happiness current is to be of good cheer.

All the time.

Things gong your way: be of good cheer.

Things going crappy: be of good cheer. (This isn’t Pollyanna. It’s good cheer.)

Feeling great: be of good cheer.

Feeling tired/ sick/ weak/ pain and so on: be of good cheer.

Why?

Because it feels better to you.

Because it feels better to those around you.

Because choosing to drink from the sweet not the bitter straw is one of the prime human abilities.

Because it is what Life wants of us.

(Is that true?

Find out for yourself.)

I have a group of friends who call this “Being in the energy.” There’s a whole way of accessing this, that you can find out about in the first appendix, but for now let’s look at “being in the energy” like this.

Accessing the happy child in you, always game for friendship, for play, for learning, for silliness, for delight, for discovery.

For the new.

That lives in the now.

Okay:

Go couples, be of good cheer, try this and see what happens.

Partner A:

I am alive. You are alive.

I am going to die. You are going to die.

I notice these two things about you in the present…

I notice these two things about myself in the present..

I like this about you…Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart.

I like this about myself… Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart.

I like this about us as a couple… Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart.

Now take three breaths. And go through the whole sequence again. Set the timer for at least three minutes of this.

Now two minutes of “feedback” of the “only listening” sort. So you aren’t going to be giving any opinions or interpretations.

Partner B’s “feedback.”

I am alive. You are alive.

I am going to die. You are going to die.

I notice these two things about myself in the present..

I notice these two things about you in the present..

I heard you say you liked this about yourself… Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart. Say only one thing each turn that you heard them say.

I heard you say you like this about me… Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart. Say only one thing each turn that you heard them say.

I heard you say you like this about us as a couple… Pause. Breathe. Look at your partner. Then say it from the heart. Say only one thing each turn that you heard them say.

Then the timer goes off after two minutes, and do it the other way around. Partner B shares their self and other and couple “LIKE-ING” for three minutes (or more, you pick) and then partner A gives “only listening feedback” for two minutes.

Ah. Three breaths together. Ten breaths together. Live it up.

Now.

Touch.

Let’s massage a foot today.

4 minutes in two 2 minute turns.

1^st turn: “just” massaging.

2^nd turn: thinking of “being of good cheer”/ the happy and exploratory child, as you massage their foot.

Then the other way around.

Then a couple minutes of sharing: how was it different both giving and getting as “straight ahead” massage, vs. “being of good cheer” massage.

Have a great day.

You could even be of good cheer all day, if you wished…

Cheers

Chris