If you haven’t read the previous entry on compassion, please do so. I’m going to add to it, starting with the first comment as a basis question – on the subject of child abuse. It’s a very good question, and representative on most people’s initial response to thinking of compassion in terms of awareness and acceptance, rather than having a duty to do something to solve a problem. I realize this is a touchy subject, and that what is written here may be controversial because of the massive cultural pain that exists. However, bringing compassion to such a painful area brings a huge amount of clarity to how it is applied in the world.

Compassion applied to child abuse

Question: So in awareness of children being raped, tortured or mutilated I should be ‘simply accepting that state, however horrible it appears, as a state of perfection in that moment’? Through this accepting of the ‘moment’ I have extended compassion?

The choice isn’t black or white. There’s no saying that if you ‘simply accept’ a situation, you must retire to a virtual monastery and live a life of doing nothing about it. Accepting or not accepting a state as part of the perfection of the whole dictates nothing about any future actions. You can be completely allowing of What Is, yet still raise a voice that cries out for attention to pain that is being generated. You can offer nothing but a presence filled with a full and loving acceptance. So the real question is more : do you fully accept the person and the experience, which is to say ‘do you love them?’, or do you have reservations?

I have mentioned sexual abuse in my own past. It is very human to see such a traumatic event as child abuse and react with anger and a desire to punish. Yet such an action is rarely for the child, as much as justifications may say so. It’s for the performer of the action. The child rarely knows what’s happened. She knows is that an intense and painful experience has been etched upon her soul and that there is no way to undo this experience. There is no going back. In many ways, her life and her abuser is now intertwined; there is a bond that comes from the trauma.

The key here is that this experience is now a part of the child, including the link with the abuser. When there is no acceptance, the child feels there is no love for this part of her. There once was love for her, but now there is none, in her eyes. Therefore part of her is bad. This is the how the perception of a child works. When there is no love of the experience, resting in a complete allowing of What Is, then there is also no love of the people involved, which includes the child. It’s a reaction of the family which perpetuates the legacy of the abuse. In many ways, even unintentional denial of abuse is more painful in the long term than the actual abuse itself. It is a lack of compassion where a child expects it most.

The unfortunate aspect of abuse is that such a reaction is very normal. Parents may resist taking in the reality that a child has been abused. Their children are so dear to them and their identity that such damage is inconceivable. It may mean to them that they are ‘bad parents’, or that they have ‘failed’. Or they could simply refuse to see someone they love be part of something so awful. To their child, it simply feels like they’re now unlovable because their parents cannot accept them anymore.? When love that was once counted on disappears, a child makes inevitable conclusions about being unlovable.

In the future of the child, then, the part of them that is “unlovable” grows in such an atmosphere. If the abuse itself can’t be looked at, then all emotions stemming from that experience are also excluded. The child may be expected to “get over it” – the result is usually a conclusion that the pain is also unlovable, and therefore should be walled away. Sadness, reflexive body reactions, and boundaries may have the same conclusion. The part of the soul that is “unlovable” grows like a stain, because anything connected to the original experience of abuse cannot be given room without compassion. More and more filters, restrictions, and blocks appear to protect the world and the family from the “bad” parts of the Self. This is a natural outgrowth of not allowing the full nature of a child.

Compassion, based on a full allowing of all aspects of the abuse experience, communicates something much more simple : I see you completely, and I love you simply as you are. There is nothing needed more in healing than this.

We hope this helps you understand compassion more from looking at what happens where there is no acceptance.

Question: Why can’t parents accept such trauma? Why is so difficult to do so?

It is impossible to be accepting of trauma happening to others without accepting the possibility of it happening to you. This is empathy. Denying this possibility of pain and violence to yourself may temporarily create a sense of safety in your mind, but it also disconnects you from others who have this experience. You cut yourself off from the ability to give and receive support and warmth. This is why, for example, those who have been through sexual abuse and learned to love who they are, abuse included, offer the most empathy for others also with this experience. It doesn’t need to be this way; empathy comes from simply not resisting the experience and seeing its perfection.

Violence is part of humanity – it is part of the world we have collectively created. There is no escaping this. Denying the reality of suffering leads to an incredibly lack of resources to reacting appropriately to it.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk who lived in a monastery in India with no TV or news participated in an experiment. His brain waves were measured as he was shown videotapes of genocide and wartime rape. The scientists were amazed that his brain showed himself as deeply peaceful throughout. His response was that he was already fully aware of the possibility of this happening to others and himself, and that he felt incredible compassion to others because of this. Awareness creates compassion.

Awareness is not a theoretical thing. Knowing that extreme poverty occurs from an economic standpoint is very different from allowing the full experience of confinement and violence while not living in poverty. Awareness expands the spectrum of your experience – it does not limit it.

Of course action is a good thing in many cases. Mother Theresa and Gandhi lived lives of action based on compassion. It would not be loving to send a child back into an abusive situation, nor to avoid efforts to ensure such a traumatic event did not occur again. The question is, is this done out of compassion or as an attempt to push away the reality of the experience? Doing things out of obligation, assuaging guilt, or pushing away pain is not a place of deep compassion. Remember when you have felt others do things to ‘help’ you from this place.

The following parable in the quotes page illustrates a deeper level of compassion.

Once a master and a disciple were walking through a city and passed by a leper who was obviously close to starvation. The leper cried out loudly, in a voice full of tremendous suffering. They gave what they could and moved on.

After a short time, the disciple was flustered and still thinking of the leper. He was suffering as he gave to the leper, and still suffered. Watching his master throughout the encounter, there was no sign of suffering, no pangs whatsoever. Instead there was a deep peace and an enjoyment of the sun. Finally he asked his master, ‘Why are you not being affected by that tremendous suffering? Do you not care?’

The response was: ‘Of course I care. The only difference between me and you is that you hear them when they cry out, whereas I hear them always’.

What could be more compassionate than that level of awareness?

If you prefer a more personal, day to day story about compassion and a personal reaction, you may wish to see the previous article, ‘An allowing space‘ .

Let us speak to you today on the topic of compassion. Understand that when we use this term, we would like to refer to it as ‘an expression of Love’. Compassion is, in our perception, a melding of one’s energy with another’s. A combining to create something new that didn’t exist before. This new creation of energy as a combination of yours and another’s unites you, creates a bond between you. Over time, this act of creation between two people takes on a life of its own in some ways. But regardless of the length of time of the melding of energies, there does exist to varying degrees an understanding, awareness, acknowledgment, and acceptance of the state the other is in at that present moment. This acceptance for the state of another, whatever state that may be, is what we see as compassion.

This implies, of course, that there is no need to do anything on either side. Neither party involved in an act of compassion – or an experience of compassion – need do anything other than exist in that present moment. In other words, all that either party need do is simply allow the moment to take place. This, then, is acceptance.

As you might imagine, compassion manifests in many different ways; mainly in ways which you are unaware of the time. One may have compassion for anther person, for a group, or a community, or for an entire state of being that affects many people. Keep in mind that compassion is not one-sided. It is not something one does, or does not do, or has, or does not have. It is simply a state of allowing acceptance for a state of being to unfold and take place.

The concept commonly known today as ‘compassion’ connotes a lack of acceptance. It is implies that change is needed. There may be love there, but with that love is a lack of complete acceptance for the state that exists in that present moment. When one feels what is termed ‘compassion’ for, for instance, a legless man on a street in a third world country, typically one wishes to do something to aid them in their suffering. What we see as compassion, however, is simply accepting that state, however horrible it appears, as a state of perfection in that moment. Again, this creates an energy entity, a new creation of life itself, that combining with all the other energy entities in all the myriad acts of compassion in any given moment. It creates a domino effect comprised of Love. This domino effect of course triggers further acts of compassion.

Driving down the street you see an apparently homeless person digging in a trashcan. It’s a mere glance as your car speeds through the darkness to the light of your own warm home. This mere glance doesn’t cause you to wonder about where the person will sleep tonight, what they are eating or not eating, what their past may have been light. No, you simply see a scene and continue moving on in your own path. That is compassion.

Children manifest compassion naturally. What is termed ‘a child’s innocent curiosity about others’ is really a manifestation of compassion. Children are naturally curious about those who have a different appearance from their own. There is no judgment in this curiosity. It is simply an acknowledgment of What Is. That is compassion. A cat stalks a bird out in the garden. The cat’s whiskers twitch with anticipations. The bird hops about, blithely hunting for seeds, unaware of its imminent doom. That is compassion. For each acknowledges the perfection of the state the other is in.

Question: There are those who will interpret the above as an excuse not to have to do anything when faced with real pain such as starvation, violence, or social injustice. What’s the difference between this and indifference, if it looks the same in the world?

Indifference is an intentional act of non-acceptance. It’s a turning away, a resistance to What Is. It’s true that on the face of it, indifference appears much like true compassion. But the energetic difference is felt on all sides. Indifference does not feed into the domino effect of Love, for instance. However, when faced with real problems such as poverty, violence, starvation, one can have compassion and act at the same time. The action does not deny the acknowledgment of the perfection of that state. The action simply helps create new pathways along which that state of perfection can move. Each of you is moved to act when faced with certain triggering dilemmas. Each of you has his own benchmark that moves you from indifference to caring. In the wider perspective, however, again we state that there is no obligation to act. There is no need to do anything when faced with these problems, but we do see the entirety of human experience as perfection. Joy and violence exist within the same sphere of human experience, and to us, all human experience is an expression of Love. We hold you with compassion for we see you as perfect in every moment. That is not to say that we do not acknowledge the transformation you undergo all the time, but there is no need for change, no need to do anything other than simply exist. And even that is a matter of choice as well.

Question: What happens when you try to help others out of guilt or obligation? How is this different?

When one performs a charitable act based on a sense of rightness, duty, obligation, energetically this creates a void becomes there is an expectation of change that comes along with the act. The recipient is bewildered by this, perhaps not consciously, but feels a sense of expectation, yet has no direction to move. All of you have experienced what this feels like. An act of true compassion, on the other hand rides on acceptance and the energy remains in balance. There is a letting go of all expectations in the allowing of What Is that is compassion.

Do you have general questions you’d like to ask that you’d like to see channeling on? You’re welcome to use the Contact Form!

Thanks to Albert the Urban Monk,Wade of The Middle Way, and Kenton of Zen-Inspired Self Development for initiating this group writing project on the topic of compassion. I also recommend The Empowered Soul blog for their writing on this topic.

There is another post on this subject!

For further reading, please see Part 2 on Compassion!? Thank you!

Then why the pervasive feeling of separateness, of disconnection from where and how we began? Why can’t we feel connected to our source, connected to others and to the Universe, at all times?

The answer is both simple and complex: we chose the separation, each one of us, yet we can have that reconnection if we so desire.

Separation is a way of allowing us to become caught up in the illusions of the life experience so as to present ourselves and one another with growth opportunities. Simply put, we learn from interaction from one another, and if there was no interaction, we would not evolve. It is impossible to learn all there is about being human simply from interacting with the self.

We learn a great deal through conflict. Conflict arises from a feeling of disconnectedness, and without conflict there is often little impetus to interact and grow from that interaction. While it is certainly possible and often preferable to learn from places of joy, it is difficult for us to remain in that state long enough to allow the growth to permeate us; when in Joy we often are simply caught up in the wonder and beauty of it and neglect to utilize that time as well to grow and learn. It is a very human trait, then, to require conflict in order to grow.

That is not to say that conflict is desirable, simply that from it springs much to build a lifetime of evolution and growth.

While separation is part of the design of human evolution and growth, it certainly is not the natural state from whence we came, and often we feel a longing to return to that state of utter connectedness yet fee we have lost the way to get there.

It is one thing to say and acknowledge, “I am One with you, we are all One,” and it is quite another thing to hold that belief inside us, in our hearts and even down to a cellular level. How, then, to get there? How can we hold that knowingness inside us, so that it may be present to comfort us, to guide us, to allow us to remain connected with all that we are?

It is really quite simple.

All you need to do is to allow the connection.

“Allow the connection”? What does that mean, in real terms?

It means stepping into that place rather than forcing your way in. It means holding the idea of being connected to source at all times, holding it within you as a real possibility. It means, also, letting yourself deserve that reconnection.

Let’s talk for a moment about what we deserve. We all are here on this planet on a level playing field, meaning that we all, since we are of course connected and part of the One, deserving of the same experiences, the same opportunities. You likely believe this on various levels pertaining to human rights, civil rights, and the like. We are One. But going to you, yourself, thinking about only yourself, do you give yourself the same opportunities for joy and happiness that you allow for others? Or do you see yourself as perhaps having to work a little harder, a little longer, for the same growth that you fully believe others are deserving of?

Do you really believe that you deserve to be connected to your inner source?

If you are human, then you are deserving of the human experience. Period. And allowing a reconnection to our source is certainly and most positively part of the human experience.

Again, then, allowing the connection to Source means letting go of who you think you are and letting in all the myriad magical possibilities of who you could be. For all those possibilities are also You. You are far larger than you perceive. In fact, you are not only who you think you are and the millions of imagined possibilities of who you are, but you are also all the yous that ever have been, all the yous who ever existed in your imagination or otherwise, throughout your entire life. All those possibilities, whether real or imagined, are all a part of the larger You that is. And when you acknowledge all those possibilities, acknowledge your Self in all its grand bigness and perfection, you allow connection to Source, for it is through the You that is that your connection exists.

It is through the You That Is that your connection to your Source exists.

And it is by allowing and acknowledging all your myriad possibilities, tens of thousands upon millions of them, that you regain your connection to the One that is you.

I personally love emotions. I love them for the huge gift of perceptions they bring, being a measure of dynamics happening externally. I love them for the self-knowledge they bring. But most of all I love them because inviting them in, fully, in their totality, brings such a vivid sense of aliveness that is not possible without them.

Simply put, there are no â??˜problems’ with any emotions. The only problem is our own judgment, the perception of separation that divides parts of ourselves into â??˜good’ and â??˜bad’. This categorization has a strong influence in every experience of emotion.

I’ve written before about related topics, so for further reference you can look at The Allowing of Pain and Negativity and a table of emotions.

To look in detail at something, let’s look on a basic personal characteristic that is treated with suspicion and often repressed: the quality of aggression. It is recognized, truthfully so, that aggression can cause conflicts, crossing of boundaries, and a fundamental lack of listening. And yet this is only one aspect of aggression, an aspect fundamentally based in the perception of differences and separation. Someone mired in this state views others as unconnected to themselves, and therefore an enemy. This is always accompanied by a deep division in the self, where there is some denial of huge swaths of one’s being. Although this is all too common, it is actually not a natural state. Looking into nature and its purity, it is easy to find examples which are not based at all in separateness, but rather of following the natural way each creature is meant to be. Spending time watching tigers or black panthers in the wild gives a wonderful example of this. Their aggression is a thing of beauty, and harmonious.

Within people, when aggression is allowed to its full fruition – without any perception of separateness – there is never any possibility for war because there is no one ‘out there’ to make war with. Perhaps a better word for the state is dynamism. Dynamism is itself part of the spectrum of aggression, a great expansion of energy which includes and brings others together for a purpose. It inspires and provides a basis for positive change in the world.? Dynamism includes all the aspects of aggression mentioned above, but is not at all based in conflict, so the same energy that is used for conflict in one case is used for creation and beauty. 

?A wonderful example of this state is the spiritual teacher Krishnamurthi. There was a strong outward force around him which was joyful to be around, much like watching a panther in the wild.

All emotions â???? and personal characteristics – have this dichotomy. When blocked and based in the division of right and wrong, ‘me’ and ‘not me’, any emotion can create conflict. When fully allowed to the degree where there is no control and no judgment, there is a transforming that occurs to move us into the potential of the experience of that emotion. This will always be a movement towards love of self and others. Allowing always creates a space for this transformation and movement. All too often, there is a desire to take action to transform emotions into something â??˜better’. At its roots this is a non-acceptance of emotions as they are occurring in the present moment. Any action based on non-acceptance is likely to perpetuate that state.

Saying ‘we are complete and perfect just as we are’ is not an empty statement, nor is it based in a positivity that is about avoiding focusing on ‘negative things’ – though it has often been used for this purpose. It is a statement of fact. As we learn greater experience of allowing, we also gain more direct experience of this completeness. And thus, joy begins to be a regular occurrence.

• “You’re either for me or against me”
• “If you saying someone is wonderful, that’s fine, but bringing up mistakes made is blaming and should be stopped.”
• “I’m through be controlled by my fear!?I won’t listen to it any more!

The latter two are less obvious than the first one, so let’s look at them.?In the bringing up of mistakes, there are an infinite number of ways this can be done.?It can certainly done out of blaming and desire to punish.?It can also be done out of a sincere desire to help others via gentle teaching, much like we naturally do with children.?It can be done simply as a desire to bring people together, for walking on tiptoes around issues in order to be “positive” usually drives a group apart in time.?It is sincerity and goodwill that brings people together, and there are myriad ways this can be expressed – sometimes in ways that may result initially in conflict.

For the last example, there’s an assumption that fear is simply an enemy to overcome, all in one step.?Of course, our fears are usually not as simple as being afraid of heights.?They pervade our entire perception.?The humor in this is that rarely does someone proclaim overcoming fear except when they are motivated by fear.?”I’m afraid of fear, so I’ll make war on it!” might be that reasoning brought to light!

Bringing up the concept of fear is of course intentional, because it is central to black and white thinking.?There’s always a core of it in that thought process.?Within the desire to go to extremes, there is a universe avoided in the remaining spectrum of life, which clearly has infinitely more colors than just two.?Even in the spectrum of gray there can be a swirling of colors, so to speak, and a great beauty.?There’s little beauty in a black and white world; it’s a harsh world of enemies and allies in a constant battle.

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Everyone is affected by fear.?I too am affected by it on a daily basis.?And yet, by allowing myself to experience fears, without refusing them or trying to get them to end, I’m finding more and more there’s a perfect completeness in that.?Fear helps me.?It’s meant to bring awareness to threats, to pains, to issues needed to be resolved, and that’s what it does if it’s allowed to.?It’s not necessarily pleasant, but there is a great feeling of aliveness when I fully invite and surrender to it.

There is no one on Earth that has no lessons to learn, that never makes mistakes.?There is also no one who makes nothing but mistakes.?(Yes, that includes George Bush!)?We each have a limited perception, and acknowledging that is loving, because it allows the full totality of someone, warts and all.?It’s wise to be aware of potentials, for there’s always room for growths, but focusing entirely on them and not being present (and thus allowing) with the here and now is a form of cutoff and division.?

Though I rarely make reference to the Bible, one section I like (and usually find in a different interpretation than my own) is the part on Adam and Eve eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.?Most people overlook that description of the tree – the awareness of good and evil.?To me, that simply speaks that it is the splitting of our perception into “Good” and “Bad”, “Black” and “White” that takes us away from “Eden“.?Letting go of judgments and filters, and simply allowing whatever occurs without labels instantly brings us back to that state of primordial innocence.

“The opposite of love is fear, but what is all encompassing can have no opposite.”

According to this, the universe itself is composed of nothing but love. And yet our experiences seem to be full of things which do not appear loving. Others may treat us with disdain and rudeness, and we ourselves may experience emotions such as pain, anger, despair and grief that we think are as far from the experience and ecstasy of love as can be. And yet, if the universe itself is made of love and we are part of the universe, then logically we ourselves should be made of nothing but love. So why do we experience such intensely negative emotions such as pain, when love is supposed to be ecstatic?

It at this point, let’s go beyond the labels we have for these emotions. Labels keep us fixed into a relatively small concept, and in fact there are wide differences between two people for the same experience of an emotion. If looked at deeply, there is a fullness within every emotion that most people do not even glimpse. In fact, each emotion is not a limited experience – it’s an entire spectrum, much like the light that comes to us from the sun. And like light, there are even huge swaths of the spectrum that we cannot even see. In fact what we know of as pain, for instance, is but a small area of the spectrum available of this one basic experience, but a small part of the expansive range open to us.

To go into more detail, let us now take a look at pain. To use the analogy of the body, pain serves a very useful purpose. It lets us know when there is something important that we need to focus on. If we are being stabbed by a sharp needle, for example, it is good to take immediate action to remove the needle from our body. Sometimes the pain is more chronic and speaks of long-term actions necessary to create a healthier environment in the complex system that is our body. So to put it simply, pain is a good thing. However, if we think of pain only as an enemy, and therefore do not listen to it, it is quite possible that the symptoms will grow exponentially larger until we reach the point where we see nothing but the pain. It is not pain that is the problem, only our experience of it and our reaction to it.

The inward experience of emotional pain is similar. It serves a very useful function – it lets us know what needs to be listened to and transformed. When fully allowed, this can be a truly transcendant experience. In most cases we see, of course, it’s misery, but to give a wider picture of what pain can look like, it is useful to think of it again as a spectrum. Here’s a table showing a range:

Blocking A complete void. Overwhelmed with pain; wishing death Alone; lost in pain, blaming others. Bonding with others through sharing pain. Recognizing pain as an impetus to start caring for self. Fully listening to pain to help transformation. Allowing Transcendence.

All of these come from the same basic internal energy, that which we label ‘pain’. In this one emotion, there is a universe of difference in the experience. And yet the experiences are intricately intertwined; in each moment of meeting pain there can be an instant shift into another mode of experience. The only difference between the states listed above is the degree of allowing we have for the pain – which is the degree we make pain our friend, becoming one with it. Being completely in the present moment, in an ever-fulfilling process of allowing, opens us to the entire range. Resisting the experience will tend to move us to the more blocking side of the spectrum. Normally we sway back and forth a fair bit, even for minor pains!

Both ends of the spectrum are of course connected. Numerous accounts, such as Eckhart Tolle, exist of completely giving up in the pain of existing, surrendering to ‘the void’, and then dramatically shifting to an ecstatic experience of transcendence.

How does this then relate to love? Most people think of love as an emotion. If this were so, it would limit Love. Love itself is not an emotion. Love is the entire spectrum. Think then, that pain is not seperate from it; pain is part of that vast spectrum. Love is a complete allowing of everything. It includes pain, joy, anger, longing, connections with others, and all human experience. Love in some way can be likened to the space through which light can pass. It is Love itself that provides the allowing that enables pain to be the complete blessing that it can be, if it is surrendered to. If you think to a time where you sat in front of someone you knew loved you, it was at a time when everything in you was welcomed. This included all your emotions, all your thoughts, all your desired; it was all invited and allowed. Why then should loving ourselves be any different?

This of course in no way minimizes the paralysing agony that pain can be, or is it in any way saying people are “responsible for their pain”. It takes experience and wisdom to trust the process of allowing and surrendering to an experience, and most people need much support to do this. That’s what friends are for, after all. Still, I hope by looking at pain this has given a glimpse of possibilities that exist in every moment, inside every emotion.

PS. There’s an online group aimed at discussing concepts like this and integrating it into our lives which I’m a co-owner on. If anyone is interested in it – which does involve time, exercises and experiments – please send me mail. And of course, comments and questions are always welcomed!

In the self-help community, there is much emphasis on how you need to change your beliefs to change your life.? “Change your thoughts, change your life!” is a maxim of Wayne Dyer.? ?Beliefs are how we interpret the world – every one of our experiences is filtered through our beliefs.? This is why ten different people coming from different backgrounds can have fundamental differences of interpretation of the same event – the jury system in the courts gives regular examples of this!? So changing beliefs can indeed have a powerful impact on lives.? However, most people think of a belief simply as a pattern of thoughts, and it is far more than this.? So what are beliefs, if we look deeply at them?

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In the western cultural framework, we tend to think everything is intellectual.? We’re a society that usually values intellect above all.? So when we talk about “mind” we generally refer only to thoughts and leave the emotions and the body divorced from the equation.? Not so in many oriental traditions.? The word “mind” in those cultures encompasses all of the mental, emotional, and physical parts of ourselves. ?From these perspectives, we are a fully integrated system, with every part of ourselves affecting any other.? When there is recognition of this, there is more possibility of transformative changes occurring within ourselves.? Thinking it is only our thoughts that affect us and denying the real effect the body and the emotions have upon our thoughts and each other can easily lead to mind games, with no changes resulting, and thinking that all that it is needed is more effort in doing the same thing that hasn’t worked in the past.?

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Now, on this expanded field of who we are, beliefs exists everywhere in who we are, even outside thoughts.? In a real way, they are analogous to habits â???? a pattern that repeats in how we process information .? I liken them to rivers across the continent that is the Self.? Over time, trenches and canals appear that are the result of the water flowing in a certain pattern.? There is then a tendency to continue on the same course (whether in thoughts, body movements, or emotions), but any of them can be changed with consistent effort.? If dams have been constructed, blocking the flow, there will be alternate ways things flows.? Many of these can cause more harm than good, of course, but our bodies are quite adaptable – within reason.? There’s actually a lot of similarities between the “flows” of our emotions, thoughts, and body processes.? For instance, an emotional memory might cause someone to feel anger and disappointment when someone doesn’t look them in the eye.? This “gut reaction” occurs without thought.? Similarly, a sound of a traffic accident might cause adrenaline in someone and they’d jump up to run outside, without thought or much emotion.?

Because we’re a complete system, it’s all interrelated.? For example, a man may have fixed thoughts about how a woman “should behave” in a relationship.? These thoughts may be a protective layer around a core pain in the body relating to abuse by a mother-figure in childhood; in this abuse there would be both emotional pain and body memories.? Now, trying to change the thought patterns of this man will likely run up against a brick wall because it’s only addressing thoughts.? This wall of course, is perfect â???? the thoughts are self-protective, and there is definitely pain that needs protecting, for it isn’t appropriate to bring up just anywhere or with anyone.? This isn’t to say changing thoughts is pointless; it creates ripples which may create a domino effect in other parts of the system.? But thoughts aren’t the master control of it all, especially when there’s not much consciousness in them.? We’re a great tapestry of interweaving energies we call thoughts, emotions, and matter, and we become more adaptable and powerful when we work with this whole, rather than a smaller part of ourselves.

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So then how to do this work in this quagmire?? The answer – which will be familiar to regular readers – is via allowing.? We’re not like machines that break and then require a mechanic to go in and fix. We’re constantly healing and balancing simply by being who we are, in every moment of every day.? Most alternative healing recognizes this and tries to support the body’s natural strength instead of imposing harsh chemicals, for example.? If everything’s out on the table – and everything includes thoughts, emotions, and the body â???? it’s quite a change provoking event in itself.? Anyone who’s been a witness to a person being deeply vulnerable cannot help but be affected by the experience.? Once the full wholeness of self is brought forward, there is a space of creation in that present moment that literally enables new worlds to be created.? These are worlds forced on your body by ramming affirmations inwardly; this is a process of mutual creation, and thus, a process of Love.

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To put this in action, here’s an exercise I wrote:

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Exercise

This exercise is about being big about whatever process is going on in the moment, in ways that encompass the physical, intellectual, and emotional aspects of ourselves.? To be precise about being big, here is my definition:

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Being big is about bringing the full totality of who you are to the world.? It has nothing to do with being loud, or pushing others, or speaking inspired thoughts.? You can be big no matter what your experiences in the present moment are.

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For instance, someone desperately angry might be very loud and attempt others to change.? They would feel small to others, because they are not showing vulnerability about where this emotion is coming from.? On the other hand, others might be feeling worthless, full of condemning thoughts and not feel like they deserve to take any space around them.? They might be very shy and quiet.? Bringing that forward, in its totality, without any apology or protective face, would be big.? They might tell others they need to express this, then crawl into a corner, crunch themselves into fetal position, and mumble the thoughts they are having.? So long as they bring the full totality of who they are â???? which includes the knowing that this is only an experience and not defining in any way – they are big.? They are showing they are bigger than their own experience.? This is vastness.

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So the exercise is to be big.? Bring whatever it is going on in its totality and express it.? If you need to scream, scream.? If you need to crawl into a fetal position in the deepest corner of your garage, do so.? If you need to hit pillows, do that.? But do it from a space of allowing.? Allow emotions to flow, whether through written words on the page, wordless sounds, or through the voice.? Let it come through your body; place your body in a position that encapsulates your experience.? Let thoughts ramble forth from your mind.? But above all, allow all this from a place of play.? Be a child again.? This is through a choice to let it all come forward, laughing at yourself from the dual perspective of seeing how whole you truly are while allowing all the “imperfections” come forward. ?You know that this is not defining you, and yet it is just perfect the way it is. ?If you can’t inhabit that space, allow whatever you can.? The point isn’t to change anything in this moment, but to allow it and give full expression without judgment or control.

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The magic of fully allowing is that it transforms.? If you are fully you in one moment, there is no limit to what you can be in the next moment.? It’s amazing how someone’s experience changes by the end of the exercise, especially if there’s someone you trust watching, which is encouraged!?

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Beliefs permeate the being on every level.? Transformation can manifest through altering one level or another of perception, and it is possible to alter beliefs within the space of an eye blink, thereby creating irrevocable transformations that reverberate through all levels of the Self.? And it is true also that transformation within the Self will create transformation within a wider space known as a family, a community, a world, or a universe, or all of them – for they are all essentially the same.? For this, then, we can change the phrase into “change your thoughts, change the world”.