I was listening to a speaker once, some time ago, in a community room at the top floor of a hospital. ?He spoke passionately and vehemently about mental health, about meditation, about positive thinking, and above all about community. ?I could hear his thoughts:?I know the solution for you. ?I have overcome all you can dream of. ?I can be your guide.

His voice entranced, and I found myself wanting to believe. ?Surely there must be a simple solution to discontentment, to anxiety, to feeling isolated – these are with me still. ?The heartaches inside were in that moment were no longer beautiful, but the enemy, a cloud of terrorism sniping at me. ?And yet, after 10 minutes of a guided meditation, I found myself less peaceful. ?Feelings gathered: ?Resentment. ?Feeling manipulated. ?You don’t listen. Voices of my childhood, compounded with interest. ?Gathering myself later, I realized that this reaction wasn’t a problem, but a reflexion of the actual dynamic, to the timbre of his voice and how things were said.

The voice is the primary means of relation we have. ?It’s how we make connections. ?It’s the impetus for learning how to truly listen to others, to be loving. ?It’s also how we influence and try to find a sense of power in this world. ?As such, everyone has tactics and communication styles they use when they’ve been disempowered, to try to find a sense of power again. ?It’s the double horns of a defense that can also be manipulation and control. ?Some do this unconsciously, some consciously. ?In response to others, we then have our own reactions to these games, or at least unconscious until we see what’s actually going on.

One of my favorite skills I’ve learned from acting is in the studying of people. ? What is someone’s goal when communicating? ?What’s the subtext of what they are saying? ?One of my favorite statistics is that only 7% of communication is through the words; the rest is nuances in the voice and body language. ?Being conscious of the other 93% is the best tool I have for understanding dynamics and people at their essence.

The times I love both in watching others and in being with others are when things seem real. ?Conversation flows at its flowing, unmodified pace, without a seeming effort of anyone to appear to be someone else. ?The pace, tone, and intonation changes in sync with the emotion and what’s being communicated. ?There is a dynamism, flexibility and fluidity involved. ?When there’s anxiety, the voice is shaky and unprotected, perhaps quicker. ?When there’s disappointment, there’s that sense in the voice of having tripped, of falling down. ?When there’s joy, there’s a sunlight beaming in the voice.

It’s that sense of unprotectedness, ingenuous honesty and transparency of whatever’s there that makes me feel connected. ?Seeing another’s despair communicated makes me appreciate rapture even more. ?It’s the beauty of the human condition, a connection to a raw state. ?It’s not the forced connection of someone molding themselves so as to relate, but the manifestation that it’s our bare humanness, as we are, that connects.

And yet, most of the time, we limit what we communicate. ?We put on masks. ?We have styles where we’re trying to protect ourselves or get something.

Tactics

I want to identify some protection mechanisms I’ve noticed in the voice. ?These are ways of manipulation and control, the ways we aren’t natural. ?I find identifying them helps me let go of my own tactics and be gentle with myself in my reactions to others. ? (A gracious thanks to the theatrical vocal teacher Patsy Rodenburg for many of these concepts) ? Being aware of protection mechanisms can help one see “oh, I’m doing this, so maybe now I can let go – or at least laugh at myself for keeping doing it.”

Not all tactics are aggressive. ?In fact, most people in western culture have learned ways to defend themselves by non-aggressive or even withdrawing mannerisms. ?We have been taught suspicion of the used car salesmen, yet often have little awareness of how most subtler strategies can affect us strongly. ?Perhaps you can recognize yourself or someone you know in these.

I’ll start with the easiest one to recognize:

The Aggressive, Overbearing Speaker

This is the prototypical drill sergeant. The voice is usually deep and resonant, but always with confrontation at least implied. The chest is puffed up and the body leans forward, as if the person requires another to push back to keep their balance. While resonant and full, there’s little gentleness, nor room for warmth or sadness.

While this is the prototype for strength in military fashion, it also makes sure the environment is too unsafe for vulnerability. ?There is little room for compromise or friendship, but certainly room for fellow soldiers. ?Often it is a cover for emotions never felt and constantly kept at bay by the image of toughness and pushing others around through the voice.

The Hesitator

While someone who hesitates and stammers may seem to be powerless, there is a hook – that the listener is left hanging, waiting for the next word, dangling onto a potential completed idea. In the pause that follows, the hesitator can gauge the audience and draw others in the direction they desire, albeit unconsciously. Even though there is discomfort in the hesitator, there is a power in making others feel they need to tread lightly for fear of blocking the next phrase. If a room is feeled with kind, gentle people the hesitator can steer a conversation in a manner that a clear, fluent speaker never could.

The manipulation is that we are made to think that words and thoughts are being created organically before our eyes and ears. We excuse the habit in order to be generous and because we think the person is naturally shy or reserved. ?Yet this hesitation can constructed carefully over years – even if unconsciously – in order to learn about others without revealing one’s self. It is useful in that it leads others to vulnerability and openness without having to reciprocate. ? One sided vulnerability is also an imbalance of power.

The Whisperer

Otherwise known as the “de-voicer”, this is someone who goes quiet, either via a quiet voice or by simply not speaking. This is often used by guru-figures as a way of drawing people in.

It may not seem aparent as a way to manipulate others until you observe your own body in response to when you are trying to actively listen. By withdrawing and speaking more silently, the whisperer forces listeners to strain, to lean forward and to figuratively bow at his or her feet. It is de-centering to be around for a long time.

It can indeed be a hypnotic technique and is often used by executives, politicians, or theatre directors. Because it is more subtle (quiet voices are rarely perceived as dangerous) it can be more effective than being overbearing.

The Waffler

This kind of vocal manipulation involves abandoning clear and succint language in favor of rambling thoughts. Buzz words obfuscating real meaning are often the norm. ?The language used can be learned and embellished, giving the impression of education and erudition, yet leaving the listener with no clear idea to latch on to.

Even more so, the listener can easily feel that they are at fault for not deciphering the message, and so can try to argue using the same language form which they are not nearly as comfortable with as the waffler. It can be a useful defensive habit to avoid answering direct questions or avoid unpleasantness, or even to convince others of something using impassionated, yet unclear words. ? This is a habit often cultivated by politicians, so-called experts in talk shows and doctors trying to avoid telling the whole truth.

The Role Player

The role player communicates as if everyone around them was the same. They have chosen a role ?? e.g., mother, helper, or coach, to use positive roles ???and infuse their voice with this at all times.

Imagine the feminine presence of someone who addresses everyone around them as if they were a pre-pubescent child. The automatic reaction is either subservience or rebellion, both disempowering states.?Or the counselor who, through a lifetime of practice, has learned to infuse their voice as someone who truly loves and accepts all others, who contains nothing but love and compassion, irrespective of what they are feeling. ? I am not talking about a natural voice infused with compassion, but rather a constructed voice, an artifice. ?This creates a pied piper, hypnotic effect where the listener reacts as if it were true, that the speaker is indeed showing love at this moment and can be trusted.

Not all roles appear “positive”, but they all have one thing in common; it is an attempt to control how others react to you by inviting them strongly to jump into the role that matches what is played.

Deeper Connection Through the Natural Voice

All of these styles of communication are at the same time both weaknesses and sources of power. ?They enable us to make an impact of source, but also limit that impact to a vastly restricted playing field. ?They have usually developed over a lifetime, and as such they are not let go of easily, especially if there are rewards.

The problem is that in each of these, there is learned helplessness. There are always times where a soul-driven cry to speak is heard – and at these times, if our habits are too entrenched and opposite from the silent voice inside made vocal, we will be helpless. They atrophy our range and full humanness of expression. When we surrender to the monotonous use of a single habit in communication, we surrender many of our vocal rights and abilities to connect with others and be an active member of a community or family.

Again, it is through being ourselves, as fully as is humanly possibly, that we discover basic truths: ?We are connected at a deep, visceral level not through doing anything, but through being true and natural. ?Feeling loved grows from a foundation of being genuine. ?Warmth comes naturally when we’re being simply human, showing that there is basic goodness in however we are.

Now that I’m focusing on this, I see just how ubiquitous it is. Just yesterday, when staring out the window, I could see a child being curious about something in the grass, perhaps a little bug. Her eyes were alit with commodious wonder. Mother didn’t want to spare the time, and so pulled her along with a forceful word, and the child lost the look of vastness in her face. There was nothing abusive in it, nothing a normal parent wouldn’t do; but the child submitted to authority and lost something in that moment. A?despondency?came over me for a few minutes. I could put myself in the life of that child.

I’ve been well trained in this practice. I can think, “Other people know better than me. I should just focus on what I “should” be doing.” Or I go to the flip side of it and try to be the parent: “Hey you – I know what I’m doing! Listen to me!” I know how to speak with authority, at least in my voice and posture. That can cover up my own doubts and pain.

I can’t say I’m above any of it now. But I can say I’m a little less carried away by things. I notice my own reactions.

This morning I noticed my own reaction to several videos, which I’m including here. They are from two spiritual teachers who speak of somewhat similar things, Eckhart Tolle and J.Krishmnamurthi. I wanted to share these reactions.

First, let’s listen to Eckhart, who of course is very well known from his books and Oprah.

I listened to this Eckhart clip from a facebook update, and I experimented with simply surrendering to the energy, trying to let the stream of thoughts permeate me and experience it that way. To be honest, it wasn’t the most pleasant thing. I couldn’t find anything I disagreed with in it at all. There were no untruths spoken. I could take a different perspective, or not simplify it so much, but it’s all valid. However, at the end of it what I felt was that Eckhart knew all about ego and spaciousness – but I didn’t feel I did. I felt myself wanting to learn more, to reach out to get that feeling of spaciousness, like it was an emptiness in me that needed to be filled.

Now this is my own subjective personal reaction, but perhaps it resonates with you. We’re so used to authority, someone who knows more than I, that it’s so easy to jump into that dynamic. Perhaps it’s not Echkart himself, but the hype surrounding him. We can think that someone else is more knowledgeable about our own psyche, our own well being, than ourselves. I’ve seen this in groups of many spiritual teachers, especially of the Monty Python “you must think for yourselves” variety.

Here’s a video from the?library of Krishnamurthi

If I let the energy of this inundate me like I did with Eckhart my reaction is that I laugh. I lighten up. Something in the glint of the eyes and his passion bring that laughter from a place within me. He’s talking about conflict, about going beyond thought and the past – similar things to Eckhart – but for some reason I think that we are discovering this together. In that moment I’m not learning, I’m not accumulating knowledge, I’m simply seeing something.  I remember this reaction from other videos I’ve seen of him.

I think this is something universal about what a teacher is. This applies in all sorts of teaching, including high school – “A Teacher Creates Peers, not Fans“. A true teacher creates knowledge, not followers. They help you see, feel and think for yourself, not?imitate or thirst for more from them. They help you experience spaciousness and knowing, not simply want it.

I’m not actually saying that one teacher is better than another here. I’ve also seen people do the Monty Python thing with Krishnamurthi. too. I am saying that judging by my own reactions, I find him beneficial for me. Solely for me. But the process to get there is universal. Does someone help you hear your own voice? What does it truly feel like? Does someone feel like a peer to you? Does someone speak with you (even if via a video it is still with, not to) beyond power, beyond status? That is also what a friend is.

I think we need to unify the concepts of teacher and friend. I don’t know of any dear friend I’m not learning so much from.

I also think the issue of authority to be universal, at least in how we run our society today. It’s a process I’ve seen in so many journeys: First, we see how little we know and look for people to learn from. Then we learn from someone or something, becoming a follower or student. Then we want to rise above it and become a teacher, an authority. We want followers ourselves. (Notice this about bloggers?) Sometimes this is very subtle from without, but recognizable within – “hey, no one responded to this! Don’t they see I offer something of value here?!”

Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of the Shambhala Centers of Buddhism of which Pema Chodron is a teacher within, writes “The problem is that the ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality”. It’s easy to learn about awareness, spirituality, and love, and then want to be the authority on it.

But finally, if we are willing to let it all go, we can go beyond the interactions of power and worth, and simply become ourselves, with whoever we are, whatever we know, and all that we see. There is nothing needed to become except more of who we are. No external authority can help with that.

What is your relationship with authority?

Here’s another confession I have: I dislike affirmations. Like the following:

I am important. I am the Most Important Being in Existence.

This is so because of the oneness of All That Is.

What’s there to disagree with? It goes to the heart of what humility is, what false humility is, and addresses that the perception of separation is what creates problems in the first place. It’s not about arrogance, but about letting go.

The problem is that it’s nice in theory, but the execution of getting to truly know this has its own problems.

My first taste of affirmation was as a teen. I was in a fairly screwed up family dynamic: the pushy, British stiff upper lip Borderline Personality Disorder mother (not to use labels or anything!) and being expressive, I showed my pain. This was uncomfortable for those around me, so I was sent off to healers who of course focused entirely on me. One of them, a rebirthing therapist, actually helped by doing rebirthing (conscious, connected breathing) gave me an experience of what it was like to feel intensely without too many labels. Yet another thing she did was to send me home to do affirmations. 30 of each one, handwritten on paper.

Lines.

All of them were positive, like above. All of them sounded good. Yet they also felt like punishment. Like what teachers made you do when you did something wrong.

That’s just how it was introduced to me, of course. But it’s also the essence of what an affirmation is.? It is the intellect telling the heart and body to learn something. “Hey, you! There are problems here! Learn this so the problems can go away.”

But how do you learn about the oneness of the universe and the importance of Who You Are, if you treat parts of yourself as separate from others? By shouting a command from my mind, I was treating my heart as subordinate, as the one making mistakes. And of course my heart retreated. Nothing likes to be given orders like a punished child.

There are, of course, ways to talk to the heart. And to the body. Ways in which speaking and listening become the same thing. Talk without words. Desires without expectations. Paulo Coelho calls it “The Language of the World”, the universal language. It’s the same language that enabled Siddhartha in Herman Hesse’s book to understand the universe from the sound of a river, by understanding it through this language.It’s the language of the trees in the wind when your mind stops and just observes and feels. When the mind feels and the heart thinks, and you are completely present in your body. It’s the language of Being.

So now, when I tell myself “I am important” the sense of the affirmation above, I deeply listen to the reaction of my heart. I’m not telling myself to do anything. I know I’m not mistaken or wrote in the perceiving that I’m unimportant, or even the times that it seems like this statement is a complete falsehood. I am opening myself up to Truth, which means opening myself up to my heart as well as all the reactions that come. It’s the big-T “Truth” that encompasses all the little truths, such that my heart feels pain when I really let in that possibility.

So now a conversation with my heart may look like this:

I am important. I am the Most Important Being in Existence.

Are you sure?

No. But I know it’s Truth, and I want to live it.

I know it is too, but I’m here to make sure you know it.

Is that what all this confusion and pain and believing the opposite is about?

Sure. You have to what’s not the truth before you can see the truth for yourself. For ourselves.

Even in this conversation, it is implied that my heart is something separate from who I am, and that’s obviously not the case. But that’s part of the journey of life here: we experience something as separate so that our mind can grasp just a little part of what the universe is.

It’s not equipped to see too much. But this helps us look at the little truths with more passion. The truth of the dandelion swaying in the wind. The truth of childlike wonder in running through a summer’s sprinkler and pointing it toward others in play. The truth of our own hearts. The Language of the World.

That sort of exchange is more of an affirmation of life than any exercise from an external source can be.

The bottom line is no one can truly know their importance, in an ultimate sense, until they also know that they are the universe. That is the nature of Being.

One big issue of being online a good deal is the blame game. You know the story: you don’t see the other person face to face to see their inflections, so you can easily interpret words in a way very different than the other intended. Then this triggers emotions, and of course this means that the other person must have issues – or at least should have said things differently. It’s them, not me! This is not just online; it is reproduced all through our culture at all levels, as demonstrated by one of my own thoughts not so long ago:

“Why am I feeling so awful, like I’m being hit by something again and again? Let me look at what’s happened to me recently. It must be because of one of those things. Well, my best guess is you, so I’ll go with that.”

Blame

One definition of the word blame is simply “to hold responsible“. The more standard usage of the word is more “to assign fault” – but I like the responsibility aspect more. I’ll get into that later.

Now, what’s wrong with that thought I had? Aha – there is nothing wrong, for that would be blaming in itself! But if you look deeply at my mental processes, there was an assumption that there was a cause, a singular factor that produced my state, and that changing this one ingredient in the broth would change everything.

It’s all very well to say “do not blame” as an unspoken commandment of maturity. But if you look deeply at this urging, there’s a blaming aspect in that too. So what if you do blame? That makes you ‘wrong’. And thus you start blaming yourself for blaming.

Some of the online discussions that I’ve seen lately have quoted “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone” as a way to shut up and hold responsibility to someone who brought an issue to the public eye with a little bit of blaming. But of course, directing blame to those with some blame doesn’t help move out of it. In fact, the use of that quote for such a purpose is quite ironic, is it not?

Responsibility

Rather than continue to focus on the word “blame”, I prefer to use “responsibility”. Blame is a loaded term; you hear it and you think “bad! evil! I can’t have that!”. But if you think in terms of holding someone responsible, perhaps you can look at it differently. So let’s look at one basic thought here:

“You are responsible for these feelings in me.”

This is one of the most common thoughts in relationship fights. It’s happened in talks with my own mother countless times, which probably makes me rather normal. It’s happened with friends and strangers, on both sides. Yet beyond the pervasiveness of it, I hope you can see that it is never true. How can someone else have responsibility for my emotions? They may have an effect on me, but so does the weather, the day at work, back pain, getting interrupted by telemarketers, and so on. There is no way to isolate another person’s effect on you, and there is certainly no way another can avoid triggering me at all times. In Buddhism, this falls largely under the thought of dependent origination; there are so many factors involved that it is impossible to truly isolate a cause. And yet we do this because we seem to need to. Assigning responsibility is just another form of the blame game.

Some people see this, see the futility of blaming others, and then go the other direction. “I am always the one responsible for my experience.” While this sounds empowering, what happens if you have one of the darker days of your life? What if someone yells at you and you feel awful? What if you get let go from a job for economic reasons? Are you responsible for this, in the sense that we’ve talked about? This is a heavy burden to take on, if you think this way. While appearing noble and mature, it is in fact a way to blame yourself. Culturally, this may get you pats on the back, the image of maturity, and sympathy from friends, but it is absolutely unnecessary.

Letting go of it all

It is impossible to not blame when you have any thought of assigning responsibility to anyone or anything.

Let us repeat that: By assigning responsibility to anyone or anything for a given result, you are assigning blame. It is the need to look for a cause for an experience that is the major factor in blame. So if you want to let go of the blaming process, you must let go of a need to assign responsibility.

You may be thinking now, “But what is life like without this? Isn’t our culture based on people being responsible for their actions? Wouldn’t the world go to hell if there wasn’t responsibility placed for everything?”

In a word, no. Keep in mind that we’re talking about mental processes here. Much in the same way there’s a difference between the physical sensation of main and the experience of suffering, there is a major difference between the natural consequences of one’s actions and assigned responsibility. Consequences are how we learn and grow. There is no way that these can stop. However, the mental “it’s because of him” thought process can stop.

Eckhart Tolle, who’s been very friendly with Oprah recently, bases his entire teaching on being completely present in the Now. In other words, it is by surrendering to the experiences of living with such utter completeness that you can work on letting go of the ego-mind and the pain-body. This applies especially to the times when you are immersed in pain, anger, and the attribution of this to something.

So how does this relate to what I’ve been saying? It is simply that the root of the need to assign responsibility and blame is the desire to avoid whatever experience you are going through. If you have peace and equanimity about what was brought up, you would simply let them be there, and they will move on as all experiences do. But when there is a desire to avoid the experience, then you must find a reason for it so as to control future experiences to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Again, any time there is blame, there is always a lack of surrender to an experience. It is this resistance that creates the labels of ‘bad’ which turn into the desire to control events and hold someone accountable. When a feeling is seen as just a feeling – no matter how uncomfortable it is – then it enables you to move away from the perception of blame into a more expansive perception. Ironically, this expanded perception also enables you to make more conscious choices in your life about what experiences you wish to attract. In other words, it is by letting go of control that you can choose your life more consciously.

The wrap up

Working on the blaming tendency is not a simple “oh, just stop doing it.”? It is a lifelong process.? It is also connected with so many things; the journey to balance the centers, mentioned in the last article, is very connected with it.? But let us end with something simple.

So the next time you are in a situation where you want to blame, ask yourself these questions:

• What experience do I want to avoid at this moment?
• What, exactly, am I labeling as “bad” here?
• What would happen if I simply allowed that experience and what is “bad” to be present to the ultimate degree?
• What would happen if there were no labels at all?

There is no magical solution to blame; all such attempts will naturally have blame in them, because they will be based in the labeling of blame as ‘bad’. It is the allowing of Self and others, simply as they are, that is the different path to blame.

To summarize the previous article, having an imbalance of centers will restrict the perception of what choices are available. If you are imbalanced towards one center, you will only see possibilities based in that center, even if they are inappropriate ones. The imbalance creates a buildup of energy that can fixate into patterns of behavior that may not always be appropriate. Thus in the example of the person insisting on being ‘rational’ above, there is usually no awareness that there is another way to be. The consciousness is seated entirely in one center and has no easy routes to other centers, and so only sees the options from that place.

So let’s get on to… Techniques for Balancing.

Focusing on the trap

To continue the example in the first part of this series, the solution to the downward spiral of the trap (when you’re in an obsessive loop that just gets more and more dysfunctional) is to bypass this trap by using other centers in your body. What is normally recommended is moving over to the actual center instead of the part. In the case of the Moving part of the Intellectual Center (which is still in the Intellectual Center) this would mean fully Moving centered activity: going for a walk, exercise, dancing, cleaning, or certain forms of energy work. However, utilizing any other center can often help break this pattern, including higher centers.

Doing non regular activities (e.g., going for a walk in a forest) can often help anyone stop circular thought or emotional patterns. Likewise, listening to emotional music and singing along with it can help intellectual or body patterns. And finally, stopping to do a Sodoku puzzle can help distance oneself from emotional and body roadblocks.

The usual downside with using the method of focusing on the trap is not really the method itself, but how it is approached : reading material and thinking about ‘how to approach’ something means that invariably you will be using the intellectual center somewhat. Having a living teacher can mitigate this, but most people read this method from books or online. This is why doing nothing but reading self-help books rarely provides a full balance; there will always be a thought-based focus.

Balancing the centers again means knowing when and how to access ALL your natural intelligence at a given time. Some situations call for certain specialization, and allowing yourself to naturally gravitate to that portion of your entirety is much more efficient than first moving to your comfortable or “favorite” center and then struggling to move from that one to where you really need to be in order to process the situation you’re in. So the trick is, then, is intuitively knowing what center to use that works for you and having the access and openings in place to use it without effort. This intuitively knowing must be intuitive: it cannot, for example, be based in the emotional center. It is also based in a good communication between the centers being already in place, so that when one center exclaims “this one’s for me”, it is heard.

Therefore, another method is to simply focus on opening these connections.

Building up Inter-center communications

Again, when there is an open, well-used connection between all the centers, it is far more easy to see all the choices available in every moment. Like building a highway system between cities, it can take time and attention to cultivate these connections. They are all available to all of us in childhood, but for the most part blockages and decisions cause many interconnections to become unused.

The most basic example is to simply go through all of the parts of centers in the table above and practice being in them. Practise moving from center to center as Figure 2 describes: moving from the part of one center to the part of the related center. (e.g., Emotional part of Intellectual to Intellectual part of Emotional). After exploration, ask yourself these questions:

• Were you completely immersed in the experience?
• Was there an extra resource of energy that came?
• Was there a sense of fun and playful exploration?
• Did you involve other centers? (e.g., if you are exploring the emotional center and its parts, were you analysing it while doing something?)

When you are fully immersed in a center, you are tapping in to a greater resource of energy than is normally available to you. Perhaps you have seen people participating in tribal African dances. If someone does not have a background in this very Moving centered activity, then there will be an attempt to do the movement from another center. They will think about the moves, and then do the moves while watching themselves and evaluating. However, there can be a shift in which suddenly there is no thought about doing it “right” – one simply dives into the experience of being completely in the body and loving the motion of limbs, the freedom and play of intense motion. It is at that moment that the Moving center is fully activated. It is also in those moments that access to the higher centers are more available.

All centers’ energies are more available to you when there is that sense of immersion and play. University professors usually learn to play with their thoughts in order to keep the joy and energy going of a purely intellectual experience. Emoting actors must have a great sense of play to keep the energy repeated throughout every performance. Balancing the centers is work, but for it to work, there must be a great deal of play as well.

It is useful in the path of balancing centers to have a series of exercises that aid in experiencing other centers and communication between parts of different centers. Again, this is because trying to learn something exclusively from printed words is a surefire way to keep yourself in the Intellectual center. Some exercises can be done alone, but it is recommended to do things in a group, or at least one other person. It is much easier to trick yourself into keeping to a familiar center when you’re alone. In a group there is a natural play and family feeling.

Here are some exercises that may help revitalize connection pathways between your centers.

Exercise 1: Instinctive-Moving Center connection

The instinctive center governs instinct, basis processes of the body, and a repository of memory. This exercise comes from Vipassana Buddhist meditations.

First, sit (or stand) and do nothing but pay attention to the breath. For a few movements, watch the inbreah and outbreath. Notice how it affects every part of your body. Notice the rise and fall of your chest, the gentle sensations in your nostrils or mouth, and how each breath creates a tiny motion everywhere in your body. Watch the impulse to breathe and the internal sensations. Enjoy the moments and, after some time, play with your breathing. How does pausing at some point feel? What parts of your body will speak up then? Simply notice and listen, then go back to playing.

The next part is a moving meditation. You will be noticing your body as it very slowly walks back and forth in a straight line. Ever so slowly, notice shifts in your weight. Notice all the movements in your body, from your breath to how your arms help you keep your balance. Notice the impulse to move and how it connects to your muscles. Again, play with your motion and notice the results.

Now, after this is done, evaluate yourself: did you immerse yourself and feel alive and in that state of play? Did you become somewhat childlike? Was there a joy in simply being alive? There is no “right” way to do this exercise, but these are signs that you are activating the energy of other centers. If you feel there is still more connection to be had, find some way to do things differently. There is always a way to turn a ‘chore’ of an exercise into a playful exploration.

Exercise 2: Emotional-Moving Center connections (group)

This exercise must be done in a group of at least 3 people, preferably 5 or more. Because Western society is primarily Intellectual centered, this exercise is extremely beneficial to most people. It also usually creates a good amount of laughter and fun.

It is something called “impulse passing”. It is to be done as quickly as possible, without pausing to stop for thought or to collect one’s self.

In this exercise, an impulse is simply an emotive sound and a movement. It can be any combination of the two. The sound should not be a word, but rather a sound with emotion attached such as “aiiigh!” or “blech” or “ooOoooo” or an animal-like sound. Again, it can be any sound you wish it to be so long as it is not a word. The impulse movement should ideally involve as much of the body as possible and be able to be performed in about a second. It could be making monkey faces, a mock punch, a wiggling of the feet or body, pulling one’s hair, etc. It should not touch others, but other than that, anything is allowed.

The group should arrange itself in a circle. The exercise is first done between adjacent people. An impulse is passed between individuals by one person showing an impulse, and the other person “receiving” it by repeating it. The receiver then creates a completely different impulse to the original person or the other person adjacent to them. Again, it should be done as quickly as possible. Usually when there is a pause it is a sign that another center is in operation. Emotional and moving centers react very quickly; there is no need for pauses here. (This does not mean people should not be cracking up with laughter, of course!)

It takes a little time for people to be comfortable with this, but is great as an introduction, to shift energy, or simply to allow more room for the Moving Center and Emotional Center.

After some understanding of the exercise is achieved, a slightly more advanced version involves passing multiple impulses in different directions around the circle. Care must be achieved to not lose impulses; it requires people to pay attention to the circle. If someone is “caught” with multiple impulses being passed to them, one “giver” will have to keep repeating the impulse until they know it is “received”. Still even more advanced variations involve passing across the circle by eye contact.

This is a wonderful exercise because when there is no pause between impulses, it is virtually assured the intellectual center is not engaged. It is also extremely playful and draws a group closer together.

Exercise 3: Moving / Emotional / Instinctive Center

This exercise can be done alone, but it is best done with a group of people doing the same exercise together.

In this exercise, you lie flat on a floor. It can be a carpeted floor or on a mat, but it should be comfortable and give you free range to move a little from side to side and not bump into people.

The instructions are to breathe, connect to your diaphragm, and express as sounds or movement. There is always something in your body to feel and/or express. Often this comes out simply as laughter. You do not require an intellectual understanding of what is going on. Allow things to come out either via motion (without getting up) or via sounds.

When you connect to your diaphragm, there is often laughter there. Allow this to come. It is easier to connect with it when surrounded by a group doing the same process and a “model” to look at. If the connection does not come at first, practise nudging it a bit by forcing a little laughter and seeing if it connects with something. Don’t force too hard; this is about connecting, not doing something the “right way”.

What can occur is an “ecstacy-agony” cycle, where laughter connects to sorrow/pain, which brings one back to laughter again. Doing this regularly can help bring non-attachment to emotional states: each state will always flow into another when nothing is resisted.

Again, this exercise is hard to describe without seeing a good example in front of you, but if you try doing it with at least one partner, it can lead to great discoveries.

This exercise is difficult for most people because there is an assumption that things need to be “there” in order to feel and express something. So laughing for “no reason” is considered impossible without faking it. However, there is no such thing as a void in the universe. What this means is that there is never a place with no emotion in your body. There is never a time that you are feeling nothing. You also have the power in your consciousness to shift your focus to different parts of your body and feel different emotions there. What most people describe as “feeling nothing” is either feeling a calm peace, or feeling a block of some sort, depending on the ‘heaviness’ of the ‘nothing’. This exercise can also bring up energies stored in the instinctive center, and so can be wonderful as part of a healing process.

Conclusion

These are some examples of exercises that are available. I haven’t listed intellectually centered exercises because most of them are well known. Psychological exercises tend to be about the Intellectual-Emotional connection, while formal dance, martial arts, and movement meditation tend to be about the Intellectual-Moving connection. It is very helpful to invent your own exercises, as this brings a sense of your own play and creativity to the process.

Balancing the centers and building up communication between all the centers in your body is a lifetime project, much like working on childhood issues and fears that block your perception. There is thus no “magic” fix to do it immediately. It takes patience and some discipline, but also a sense of play that is the primary way to be willing to move to completely different modes of perceptions and experiencing life.

Please feel free to suggest other exercises here!

Question: I am really frustrated at my progress towards inner peace and balance. Why is this not ‘working’? What am I not doing or doing to sabotage myself? It’s all very well hearing and writing about my own wholeness, but it seems that no matter what I do, I feel more disconnection with my self and others, more pain, more isolation. What good is inner work and channeling if it doesn’t actually produce positive change? Please feel free to tell me ‘as it is’, without walking around anything that I might be afraid to look at. I want to know.

You have asked us to tell you things ‘as it is’, or as you are, without dancing around the topic. We understand that you value expression. You value Truth in expression. We will attempt to bring you that now.

You have asked what you are doing wrong or not doing, or doing to sabotage yourself. As much as you desire change, understand it is because you think you ‘should‘. This desire for change, then, you have allowed to come to you from an external source rather that from inside yourself. In other words, true change will not occur for you unless and until you are connected to your inner Self and the desire to change comes from there.

Now we can tell you reasons why you have allowed this external ‘should’ to come in. But understand that you do not have a desire to connect with that inner Self except with that desire that comes to you via this external ‘should’. In other words, until you drop the external ‘should’, change will not occur at the rate at which you think you ‘should’ have it. Now, ironically, once you are able to drop this external ‘should’ and become connected with your inner self, you will likely not feel the need for change, for you will likely already have what you want. So we would suggest looking at your pattern of external influences and determining you are going to continue to accept them. Once you drop them, if you should choose to, all that will be left will be that inner core of yourself. If, however, you choose to remain immersed in these external influences you have allowed to accumulate outside of you, you will always feel there is an inner emptiness. Now, are there any questions.

That is, as we said, ‘as we see it’. However, we understand it is not easy to get there. It is one thing for us to say drop the external influences, but when you are mired within them, that is all you could see. Now, you could manifest within yourself a very dramatic way to drop the external influences. This could look like insanity to others. It could be extremely painful. It could be part of a ‘near death’ experience. Any other really dramatic shift is likely to have that effect. So you must ask yourself: is that what you want? And in the asking, ask yourself also what are the influences telling me what I ‘should’ want?

Aside from a dramatic shift such as we described, you could also examine every one of these influences that you already know about, travel with each one back to the source and allow yourself to let it dissipate, for you know you don’t need it. You must however, believe this can happen. If you believe you are nothing but what others think that you are, then you will be that. You have the power to choose what you are and who you are, and who you are not.

This was enormously helpful to me, because knowing my own blocks is just as important as knowing my own light. Like many people, my identity was largely constructed from others: how others looked at me, what part of me was loved, what was not accepted, what was painful, what was joyful, how I needed to act to gain acceptance. And all of these things are externals. Even my desires, such as for wholeness, can be things I think I should want. That’s the legacy of our advertising-based culture.

In this time of enforced inactivity called illness, I really can’t give to others as much as I used to. I can’t earn a living, I can’t help around the house much, I can’t think that clearly much of the time, and I even can’t do energy work without a reaction. It’s brought up a lot of self-hatred and confusion about my identity – because in some ways I perceived I needed to do all these things in order to be lovable. But looking at all my self-hatred now, I see that without exception, every hatred I have is because I perceive something (in myself or others) that is different from how I think it should be. And all of those “should”s came from somewhere outside myself. Every last one.

Most people in this culture, I’ve gradually perceived, have little awareness when there is a connection to this deep inner presence called “Self”. It takes time and space to allow this connection. There is no quick answer, no quick solution to becoming who you are. Any attempt to make it a quick solution is always because of another “should”. But there is no way to find inner peace and balance without this connection, however long it takes.

And so my journey (and yours) goes on…

For this writing, I’m going to focus on a particular dichotomy that is pretty universal amongst our relationships and in ourselves. This is the conflict apparent in the following two statements.

• I love you fully and completely.
• I really don’t accept ___ about you.

(one example for the latter might be “I don’t accept that you want to back away from any issue that may cause pain or conflict”)

Again, this is very common – in fact it’s the stereotypical ‘I love you, you’re perfect, now change!‘ motto. This isn’t a symptom of a neurotic mind; it is part of being human. The question is, how do we work with this instead of trying to be a romantic Jesus by denying what truly goes on?

As Walt Whitman wrote in ‘Song of Myself’ : “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. ” Most of us recognize this in ourselves to some extent. Part of us wants to relax under the sun, and another part wants to fix up the home and do ‘valuable work’. So how to bring this unity into our lives?

Paradoxically, both within ourselves and in relationships, we always move towards a more loving direction when this contradiction and lack of acceptance is allowed and not resisted. It is by loving that we aren’t all-loving beings that creates the room for it. We’ve all heard that you cannot love another more than you love yourself. What I’m saying is you cannot love anything more than the permission that exists to not love it. This sounds complicated, but isn’t if you think of love as total and unconditional acceptance. It is a totality that includes its opposite.

In relationships, when there is no freedom to not accept parts of the other, then when this occurs (and it will occur, for we are not Buddha yet), it will remain silent and denied. This denial, like all denials, shows up as tension, lack of trust, maintaining an image of what loving behavior is, and so on. That disowned part of Self atrophies. It thinks: ‘If she really saw me for who I am, she’d see I don’t love her for who she is, and therefore she wouldn’t love me because what I profess to be is different from what I am.’

The above two statements occurred for me recently, and I voiced them. The effect was very freeing. By saying ‘I don’t accept ____ about you’, I was in effect saying I don’t love all of you yet, but I want to. Oh, how I did want to – but I wasn’t there yet. It created a space for both of us to be human, warts and all. The paradox again is that without that space, there’s no love anyway.

The problem with romance in our culture is that it is rarely a true and deep connection based on reality and the present moment. It’s a pie in the sky dream. We learn romance from Hollywood movies and high schools, where the ideal of love is more important than any real emotions occurring. It’s more important to strive for that ivory pedestal of an ideal relationship than to bring every bit of one’s Self forward to the relationship.

Unfortunately, there simply is no shortcut to truly loving with our whole being. And yet the paradox is that the love is already there. All the relationships I’ve been in, extremely dysfunctional ones included, have always had that deep love at the core of my being, connecting to their own deep love within them. We all already know about Love if we go deep enough inside ourselves; we’re only learning to bring it up through all the surface personality layers so we can live it.

It’s even more essential to give ourselves this inner space and freedom. We can think in terms of the law of attraction if we want; we can use affirmations; we can proclaim that we love ourselves unconditionally. But unless there is room for not loving ourselves â???? for the hate, non acceptance and harsh desires to be someone else â???? then there will not be love, for there is no room for it. This is of mindfulness – a space of simply watching what arises naturally, without any attempt for control or change. The essence of mindfulness is spaciousness.

I wrote this on Valentine’s day and it’s traditionally a time for romance. Let’s make it a time for love as well. Welcome all of your Self, and welcome all of whomever you interact with. It’s only when you welcome hatred â???? not to cultivate or flame, but simply in giving it mindful space â???? that we make room for love to work its magic on it. There’s always room for that.