Habits can be changed by force, but it is not an effective approach. There is a lot of friction, and therefore a lot of wasted energy. It is easier to change behaviors through a fundamental shift in the nature of being, which shifts the perspective, which shifts the reality.
Managing and directing the flow of Creative and Sexual Energy
The process of life comes down to the management and direction of energy. After all, our lifetimes are determined by the finitude of our energy supplies. What we accomplish is determined, in part, by where we direct our energy.
I've talked about increasing the flow of energy, by releasing blockages, and by preserving energy by stopping energy draining activities, thought loops, and taking power back from vampires.
I want to talk a little now about the directing of energy.
Discerning Between The Real and the Illusion
Don't let people (or corporations) manufacture your visions of what is possible, or of what is real. You are the architect of self. You are the curator of your reality. You can choose who you follow. Even this decision pulls attention in the wrong direction. We are given a faulty choice. Don't follow anyone. Blaze your own path; march to the beat of your own drum. And fall in love with the depth of the person, an art, an experience, a place.
Everything is finite. Change is the one constant. Beauty wanes. Trends change. The essence never dies. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of it in a photograph, but mostly there's just the sheen off of skin and hair.
Pretend your legacy matters. Stand at the center of the universe and grin. Soon, someone else will be standing where you are. You'll be replaced. Everything else is wishful thinking. Your legacy will be washed away like footprints on the beach, as will the rest of them, no matter how earth-shattering they seem.
It's an illusion; a beautiful illusion. Dance with it, if you dare, but don't for a second believe it. Life is rushing at you. The flowers are in full bloom. The grass twists in the gentle breeze. It's time, again, to fall in love with life.
How the Budden Process Works (Somatic Breakthrough Delivery); With Esoteric Anatomy of the Skull
While the benefits the Budden Process work are often very clear, the mechanics can be mysterious.
They are a mystery in part because we are working with consciousness, and consciousness is, almost by definition, a mystery. Many spiritual traditions that are based in mindfulness practices are studies of consciousness. We don't study it much in our culture. Scientists call it 'the hard problem.' For one thing, how does one observe oneself objectively, when even the most minute particles of matter seem influenced by the observer?
Certain principles show up again and again in Budden Process sessions. So we can use these to deepen our understanding.
Awakening Belongs to the People (coopting realities)
Organizations immediately move to co-opt everything real, profound, and quintessential to the human experience. As an example, direct experiences of awakening and oneness have been coopted by religions. These experiences of the purest freedom are then used to control. This is the supreme irony.
Here are a few guidelines for resistance.
Transformational Anatomy - The Abdomen
The body is a conduit for life force. This FLOW is hampered by tightening the abdomen. We learn, in our culture, to tighten our abdomen to fit into some programmed, artificial concepts of beauty. We also learn it through the unnatural postures we engage in regularly (sitting, for instance, and standing in certain footwear). We also may tighten the abdomen so as not to feel our deepest fears; our core wounds.
Honoring the entire spectrum of sensations, Flow and Non-Flow and the Transformational Anatomy of the Psoas)
Sensations are always arising and passing away... arising and passing away. We put a lot of energy into labeling these sensations.
Sensations don't create our reality; the labels do. The same sensation never shows up twice.
Included are the tools for making the most of this fluid state.
The Psoas: Esoteric Anatomy
The psoas runs from the lower 5 lumbar to the top of the femur or thigh bone. When it is congested, it can affect posture, digestion, circulation, sexuality, and the urinary system, to name a few.
Here are a few critical distinctions and tools for opening.
Gaps in Awareness (and how to fill them)
In day to day living, we are largely unconscious. We often behave mechanically, going from pattern to pattern automatically, moving through our days and lives. We live in the liminal spaces, looking forward to life events, or back with nostalgia on the past.
Here are some practical tips for bringing awareness back, using the body as a springboard. (Hint: this has nothing to do with meditation).
Transformational Anatomy Lesson - Knees; Gateway to the Unknown
Holistic Postural Analysis
'We are all different. Still, standing in the way that the body was designed to stand becomes effortless. Living around our discomfort, (as our adapted posture is usually a way to avoid pain), is taxing to the entire system. Muscles suffer; bones suffer; organs suffer; we suffer. We drain our energy into a black hole, rather than pour it into creative expression, leadership, love... the building of dreams.
Standing in flow is a way to stand with whatever is, and to face it head on. I say we meet life with our whole body; nothing tucked away; nothing twisting to deflect; nothing collapsing so as not to feel.
Here are a few guidelines...
Soften the Belly; Meet the Moment, the Lover, the Ocean with your Whole Self
Soften the belly in interactions with the lover. Soften the belly in interactions with the ‘enemy’. Soften the belly in interactions with the crushing ocean or the dark forest. Something interesting happens… they soften too, as if on cue.
Your softening impacts the ocean, not because the ocean compromises her fierceness, (that would be to give up her nature), but because her fierceness was a projection of yours; and now the two of you are free meet in an entirely new world. Now her vastness and serenity can surface (projections of yours).
Deepening your Healing Practice
Faith is critical during this process, because healing happens outside of linear time. We weave in and out of childhood as though time didn't exist, welcoming back old abandoned pieces. Most of the tools we learn for measuring and quantifying in life do not apply here.
How do you measure the healing of the heart and soul?
How do you compare one moment to another, in a constellation where 'change is the one constant?'
The flowing forward calls upon an inner knowing; on following an inner compass that is uniquely your own.
Overarching Principles for healing and evolution
The Paradoxes of Healing and Awakening
I think a well-lived life is a balance between the external happening and the internal reflection. When we spend too much time moving through happenings, without reflection, it can be difficult to discover meaning. There may be one or two experiences that require a lifetime of reflection to make sense. They inform and are informed by our life path.
The process of embodiment, coming back into the body, includes discovering where those experiences have fit into our lives, so they can fall into place; so that our life purpose continues to clarify.
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard
Using the body to convert theories into truth
Radically Enhancing Aliveness
A radical enhancement of aliveness occurs in the realm of being itself. It means we move through a blockage foundational enough to shift the entire system. In this context, present moment awareness increases; vulnerability increases; vitality increases; joy increases; access to emotion increases; courage increases; leadership increases. In this matrix, life improves exponentially, because all pieces of life are transformed via the new way of being that is brought into the equation. More present moment awareness increases focus and effectiveness, so productivity increases, and quantifiable success increases; the increases in vulnerability and emotional intelligence means that relationships improve... usually, by leaps and bounds.
Investing in personal evolution or enhanced consciousness
Consciousness is eroded not by experiences, but by the reaction to experiences. Have you seen a really luminous child devolve after a series of traumas or setbacks to become a bitter, angry, depressed adult?
We become masterful at seeding our devolution: through the over-use of pharmaceuticals; by ingesting non-foods over decades; by indulging in destructive practices of all kinds; by indulging disempowering thought patterns over a lifetime. The list goes on.
What happened to the child, so full of light?
The 3 Levels of Communication (Sharing from the personality versus sharing from the essence)
To understand the levels of sharing, it is important to understand the difference between the personality and the essence. A human being is a constellation of stories, from the micro to the macro; each story dependent upon countless others. The whole of this constellation makes up the 'personality.' Most attempts at transformation occur at the level of the personality. Shifting any story moves the whole. Living from the ground of personality has limitations, regardless of how it has been redesigned, retrofitted, orchestrated.
The essence, on the other hand, existed before the adoption of any of the stories. We generally touch upon it only in fleeting moments, during transcendental experiences.
Enlightenment is simply the act of moving from living from the ground of personality, to living from the ground of essence.
Before enlightenment, we can rehearse this shift in any and every interaction. The superficial levels of sharing occur from the ground of the personality. The personality is acutely aware of itself, and what it is putting forward. It is a show, designed to keep pace with some notion of what we think we 'should' be.
How do you move forward without backsliding? Give the body the opportunity to catch up with the mind.
The body becomes the tangible expression of the unconscious. Once you can hone into and locate where in the body these beliefs are manifesting, and how, they can be revealed, adjusted, shifted, and moved. Sometimes they are revelation and the adjustment occur at the same time; sometimes they are staggered.
There are certain practices you can engage in that ensure that the unconscious beliefs shift with the body, even if you don't know what these beliefs are. Vipassana is one example, as are certain therapies with a somatic component. Most of them only skim the surface, unfortunately, though they plant the seed of eventual deepening.
Archetypal Experiences (explaining 'past life memories' that arise during the work)
People are tempted to label these experiences 'past life memories,' and move on. I call them 'archetypal experiences' because it is broader. The point is, they become as real as any visceral experience, and they remain unexplained. And this is a beautiful space to work from. Beliefs can limit experience, because you can only see what fits into your belief structure.