Author: admin

Issue 40 – December 2008

 

Meditation and Voice Dialogue

by

J’aime ona Pangaia
The goal of Voice Dialogue practice is the emergence of the Aware Ego Process . What is that? It’s operating with free will, the ability to make choices in the moment with compassion and an energetic connection to our body. Essentially that means separating from our identification with a, or any part of ourself and having an ego experience (“I”) that has the capacity to make choices with Awareness. By Awareness, I mean non-judgmental, unconditional, un-attached witnessing awareness. Choice-less awareness. Unvarnished beholding. Dispassionate Compassion. How many of us experience that?

This type of awareness may occur for moments, randomly in a person’s life, or we may never experience it consciously. But, we have a greater potential to experience this awareness when we’ve engaged in an activity to practice it, to cultivate it. One of the oldest, simplest form of awareness practice is breath meditation. This involves setting our intention that the natural rise and fall of our breath be the sole object of our attention for a set period of time. This is a humbling discipline, because as soon as one begins meditation, other experiences rush in to compete for our attention. Thoughts, sensations and emotions layer in and our attention on our breath is lost. We quickly become possessed by these competing perceptions; we become attached, identified with whatever wins our attention in the moment.

We become consumed by that feeling of anger, or sadness, we become obsessed with that sudden, relentless itch behind our ear, we are mesmerized by our plans for tomorrow’s meeting, we start rehearsing what we’re going to say to someone. Our intention to focus on our breath is forgotten and our attention has been hijacked by whatever perception has won the moment.

Practicing meditation helps us to develop the strength to separate from selves. When I sit down for a half hour of meditation, I have to separate from selves a thousand times. Or more. Over and over, I bring my attention to just watching my breath, without comment, without emotion, without distraction or avoidance, without desire or resentment, just watching. With every returning to my breath, I groom my capacity to just watch. I discover Awareness, which is omnipresent although not often consciously experienced due to the almost ceaseless possessions of the ego. Again and again, I intend to watch my breath and over time and practice, I become more attuned to the experience of empty awareness, and what clouds it over.

Awareness doesn’t do anything, and so we cannot ‘aware our way through life’. We must engage with life, make choices and live with the consequences. Voice Dialogue, a psycho-spiritual discipline shares the stance taken by Buddhism that we can train ourselves to recognize ego states (sub-personalities, inner selves, ‘parts’, individualized archetypal patterns) as states, not what-I-am, once we are aware. We call this the ‘aware ego process’. From there, we can begin to live life with choice, compassion, engagement and non-attachment. Through awareness, we recognize the existence of these selves while remembering and experiencing them as means of being; they are not our essential being. Our essential being is paradoxically full of every creative possibility, indelibly unique, and empty of anything in permanence.

Our closest common experience of awareness is with an inner part I’ll call the Inner Critic. While witnessing Awareness is non-judgmental and has no agenda, the Inner Critic also perceives everything, but with negative judgment. When bringing our Awareness to the Inner Critic, we can perceive that it has an agenda – to change our behavior in order to protect vulnerability. Awareness of the basic nature of the Inner Critic can transform our relationship with the Inner Critic. We can pay attention to what it’s trying to orient us to ~ our vulnerability, and when we start becoming relating to our vulnerability with Awareness, the Inner Critic calms down. Now we are no longer victim to the Inner Critic, nor trying to change or repress it. We accept it.

Meditation is a practice, it is an exercise, a discipline to potentiate a direct experience of Awareness. Any given time we settle down to meditate, we may or may not have much direct experience of Awareness. Or we may. We practice meditation, not so much so that we have awareness experience while meditating, but that our practice of meditation provides us with more Awareness experience in everyday life, on and off the proverbial meditation cushion. In fact the more we try to have an Awareness experience, the less we’ll have one, since we’re fixedly in a self that has an agenda.

The same goes for Voice Dialogue facilitation (a kind of engaged, two person practice of meditating). We may, or may not, have a big ‘aha!’ during the facilitation experience, in fact, it often comes afterwards, and more quietly. Because of Voice Dialogue facilitation, we simply see more clearly and immediately when we are in the throes of an inner self, and we can recognize it as such: ah, a self! There’s a choice now, and we’re more aware of it. We perceive that choice with less, or no judgments. We may still have to wrestle ourselves from the habit of our old patterns, but this is very similar to wrestling our attention away from passing thoughts, feelings, and sensations while meditating.

In everyday life, the practice of meditation conditions us to a return to the fleeting, yet expansive moment. Here I am now, and I have options. In meditation, our option is to return to our breath. That’s our intention, our practice. In everyday life, our intention is to return to the present, to complexity, to paradox, to include more of how we can be, given the actual conditions of the moment.

Without the Aware Ego Process, we live by habitual patterns, we live through projections on the world, we live identified with some ways of being and by disowning others, we live by ‘right’ and ‘wrong’: judgment, we live through memories and fantasies, without relating much to what actually is, right now. Meditation and Voice Dialogue are like twin practices, complementing each other. Either one by itself is helpful; together, our direct experience of Awareness, and the Aware Ego Process is more probable.

Issue 39 – October 2008

Sustainable Intimacy in Relationships

  by

Alison Poulsen, Ph.D.

 

“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.” George Levinger

Beware of fusion

Many people confuse intimacy with closeness. They think relationships will improve if we communicate with more validation and acceptance. Intimacy, however, does not thrive where there is too much all-accepting, all-validating closeness with another person.

Too much unconditional positive agreement results in fusion between each partner’s inner parent and the other partner’s inner child. With the dissolution of boundaries between partners, anxiety becomes extremely infectious, and the ensuing bonding patterns will smother intimacy, vitality and passion within the relationship.

Squeezing validation out of your partner

It’s a myth that people lack intimacy because they don’t communicate. The problem is that many couples use communication to squeeze validation out of each other, through manipulation, whining or complaints.

“Don’t you love me?”

“You’re always taking his side!”

“Don’t you think that’s unfair!”

A subtle look of disapproval is often enough to cause your partner to agree with you. Silence and withdrawal work wonders to pressure a person into certain behavior.

While there is nothing wrong with enjoying validation from others, we end up paying for it when we pressure or manipulate someone to provide it for us. The expectation of having to provide for someone’s well-being ironically increases anxiety, disappointment, and resentment-all contrary to well-being.

Take care of my inner child

Validation, in contrast to sincere compassion or appreciation, is an attempt to soothe the other person’s anxiety in order to soothe our own. Many partners have an unspoken agreement to validate each other. Each partner becomes the parent to the other partner’s inner child.

Everyone has an “inner child” (or several) that wants to be taken care of in some way, for example, through admiration, appreciation, affection, acceptance, or financial security. Rather than learning to parent one’s own child, one makes an implicit compact with one’s partner:

“I’ll admire you, if you will accept me.”

“I’ll take care of you financially, if you make me feel wanted.”

The Good Child

Each partner identifies with their inner “good boy” or “good girl,” doing and saying what’s wanted by the partner’s parent self, while repressing parts of him or herself that would provoke the partner.

Implicit in handing over the care of your inner child to another person is the threat of withholding reciprocity: “Take care of my child or else I won’t take care of yours.”

This pattern of obligatory reciprocity creates a stifling dependence on the other person for validation. Mutual dependence and fear then run the show, rather than independent choice, honest appreciation, and affection.

Self-presentation

A person who is dependent on validation or “parenting” from others often screens his or her behavior, showing only those selves that will generate the desired validation. People then stop challenging themselves and their partners to explore and develop new parts of themselves.
“I’d better laugh at her joke or she’ll be hurt.”
“I’d better not disagree with his ridiculous political view, or he’ll get upset.”
“I’d better not leave her side at this party, or she’ll feel insecure.”
“I’d better not wear this stunning dress, or he’ll be upset if other men start looking at me.”
Selective disclosure of selves is antithetical to intimacy. We hesitate to develop selves that are powerful, romantic, silly, smart, or passionate, for example, to prevent our partners from feeling threatened. We hide or stop developing parts of ourselves that enable us to become more whole and multifaceted individuals.

Stagnation

As more and more aspects of ourselves remain unexpressed, fear of rejection increases. When we stifle our selves, we stagnate. We shrivel up and resent our partner for lack of courage, intimacy and vitality.

“I’d better not talk about quantum mechanics, or he’ll feel inadequate.” By continuing to hide parts of yourself, your relationship starts to feel flat and dead. This positive bonding pattern no longer feels so positive. It loses feeling all together.

What happens to the repressed parts?

Sickness and depression

Repressed feelings and thoughts don’t go away; they go underground. Repressed parts of the personality may gather energy in the unconscious, and ultimately seep out in the form of depression, sickness, or a secret affair.

The Rebellious Child

Over time, the good-child self may become rebellious, retaliating for feeling oppressed or for not being taking care of adequately. A negative bonding pattern ensues. Each inner-child self demands, complains, or punishes the other for what it’s no longer receiving.

  Anger and control

Repressed feelings and thoughts manifest themselves in different ways. Sometimes, they erupt unexpectedly in anger. If your sense of well-being depends on how your partner reacts, it becomes important to control your partner. Someone who can’t tolerate disagreement or disapproval becomes controlling, angry, and sometimes violent, choking any spontaneity, freshness, and life out of the relationship.

“Don’t disagree or I’ll be angry!” permeates the atmosphere.

Tolerating intimacy

People say they want more intimacy, yet often they can’t tolerate much of it. True intimacy requires the ability to take care of one’s own vulnerabilities when developing new aspects of oneself.

For instance, a woman with low tolerance for intimacy will first ascertain her partner’s probable response before expressing a novel part of herself, e.g., being more sensuous, trying a new sport, or going back to school. If she thinks he won’t validate her, she might limit her expression to what’s tried and true between them.

In order to develop greater intimacy, then, we need to stop limiting ourselves due to fear of our partner’s reactions. Once we can tolerate the discomfort of their reactions, we no longer need to feign agreement, laugh at a poor joke, wear the ugly dress, or dumb down our conversation to avoid upsetting our partner.

Emotional separation

  Parenting your inner child

Emotional separation allows you to be intimately caring without needing to control the other person’s reactions. You become emotionally separate by learning to parent and take care of your own inner child and its vulnerabilities.

For example, when you crave admiration, resist the temptation to pressure your partner to admire you. Admire yourself if possible.

If you’re the type who works like crazy in the hope of receiving some appreciation, but never asks for it, parenting your inner child might involve asking for appreciation in a positive way:

“I made this fabulous dinner. How do you like it?”

Implicit in this request is the existence of the very appreciation sought after. Ironically, one needs to appreciate (or accept, admire, etc.) oneself before one can expect appreciation (acceptance, admiration, etc.) from others. On the other hand, in desperately seeking appreciation from others, and clearly not providing it for oneself, we repel others, sending the message that we are not worthy of their appreciation.

If you’ve counted on others to provide for you financially, developing a financially-capable self by learning job and financial skills will powerfully enhance your ability to have adult relationships based on equality, mutual choice and affection.

Expressing disagreement

Emotional separation allows you to accept the fact that your partner is disappointed or disagrees with you. You can also express disagreement or make requests without being angry or scared. Uncomfortable, yes; but angry, no.

Fused Couple: Paul states he does not want Sally to visit her sister. Sally doesn’t go, but is angry for days. Or Sally says she’s going anyway, and Paul stays angry for days.

Emotionally-separate Couple: Paul says he wishes he could go on a trip with her and is sad that she’ll be going without him. Sally says she’ll miss him, she’s sorry he’ll be lonely, but it’s really important for her to spend some time alone with her sister. Or Sally says that he’s welcome to join her if he can get away.

Growth and development

When we are not excessively worried about another’s reactions, because we are taking care of our own vulnerabilities, we can be truly intimate, that is, we can express our thoughts, emotions and new parts of ourselves more freely and deeply. When we are less hindered by our partner’s anxiety, we can grow emotionally, sexually, intellectually, and spiritually, bringing vitality into our lives and often enticing our partners to do the same.

Existential aloneness

Underlying emotional fusion is a fear of being separate and alone in the world. When we recognize that we can never be fully united in thought and feeling with another person, we can relinquish impossible expectations that our partners will save us from our basic humanity, separateness and mortality. We can then more fully enjoy connection with others, without insisting on controlling it, or resisting it to avoid the pain of its eventual loss.

Issue 38 – September 2008

The Language Of The Body

by

Judith Tamar Stone

Our illnesses, injuries and pain conditions can be both our greatest challenge and a profound opportunity for discovery and growth. Everything in our life can be affected by our pain and illness from our relationships to our jobs, family, friends and finances. Working the edge of our illness, pain condition, or injury offers us a bridge to look at all the areas of our life enabling us to see where the roots of imbalance lie.

Within each of us there is a reservoir of information. The Body Dialogue Process taps into this reserve and creates the opportunity for conscious communication with the overall voice of the body and the many selves / parts which support the bodies miraculous functioning. Hearing and appreciating the body’s own knowledge base is essential in supporting a healthy relationship with our bodies. In addition, this process inspires the development of an intimate friendship with our body. Imagine having the kind of relationship with your body that you have with your significant other or best friend, a connection based on mutual respect, effective communication and pleasure in each other’s company. This possibility exists.

The Body Dialogue Process is a profound communication experience inspired by The Voice Dialogue Process and my personal experience with a physically disabling illness. The Process offers a unique opportunity to bridge the chasm between mind and body, offering the body and its numerous selves the unifying experience of voice.

The body and its many selves, want to be heard and acknowledged for the significant role it serves in our overall well-being. Keep in mind that the body has one of the greatest jobs of all and yet is often the least appreciated or recognized. We forget that all the selves function in and through the container of the body. Without the body there would be no selves. It is our challenge and opportunity to bridge this gap.

There are fascinating themes that are elicited through The Body Dialogue Process. One essential motif is that pain and illness are a cry for help and not a punishment. This often occurs before the body actually breaks down into illness or a significant pain condition giving us fair warning through subtle signs and signals. This may vary from aches and pains, twitches and tension to colds, flu’s or minor bumps and bruises.

While working with a client that came in one day with an acidic stomach, he shared with me how this was not an uncommon occurrence in his life. In giving voice to his stomach we were able to find out that his stomach had become part of an information feedback system and would start to burn when he wasn’t expressing what was really going on with him. Upon tracking some examples in his life, he got the validity of what his stomach was sharing. In a short amount of time he was able to turn the pattern around by more consciously reflecting his emotional reality in the moment.

The Psychology of Selves reflects that what we disown we attract to ourselves. For example, a person who is overly responsible and refuses to take a break may attract quite a few seemingly irresponsible or lazy people into their life. The overly responsible person is most likely irritated by these people, but “lazy” people may actually be embodying an important message that the overly responsible person needs to hear – ‘it’s ok to take a break!” These same kinds of messages can also come to us on an internal level from the body.

For example, an overly camped-up or driven body will often attempt to get our attention. It does this by creating tension, headaches, colds, flu’s or even something more dramatic in an attempt to slow us down or even stop us. If we don’t read the subtle cues, we are setting up the body to have to call out or even scream to get our attention. Unfortunately, most of the time the body’s communication falls upon deaf ears. In fact, it was this very situation that became my discovery process for the Body Dialogue Process. While, ironically enough, working at a Health Maintenance Organization, my head and body were not functioning as one unified system. The part of me that claimed to know what was best for my “health” set up a daily routine of using the stairwell to the cafeteria for exercise.

What the part didn’t factor in was the high heels shoes on my feet. The many nights of rather intense muscle cramping in my legs was not a great enough sign to get my attention.

Eventually it took the development of a disabling condition, diagnosed as Rheumatoid Arthritis, to get my attention. And get my attention it did. In addition to the number of both traditional and non-traditional modalities that I explored, I had to relearn how to actually live in my own body. It was necessary for me to literally learn how to sit, stand, walk and lift a glass in as conscious and connected a way as possible to avoid pain. This illness brought me fully into my body and into my life work. I’m grateful for the result, but the path of illness or pain is absolutely not a path I would ever recommend. This is why I am so devoted to promoting this consciousness process of learning to listen to and understand the language of the body.

What is possible for us once we are in a conscious relationship with our body is to eat when we are hungry, sleep when we are tired and do exercise or movement because our body wants to. We often eat when and what our Inner Child wants over that which the body, i.e. stomach, colon needs. A sweet tooth belongs to the Inner Child not the body. The body tends to choose protein over sugar for energy. The body doesn’t eat for the emotional reasons that the child does. The body wants to sleep or rest when it is tired not drink coffee or artificially create a second wind. The body likes to exercise because it feels good not just because the mind or the critic says we should.

The body has its own thoughts and feelings. It knows when it wants protein and not just vegetables. It knows when it wants to walk instead of run or stay home and rest on the sofa over going out. All we have to do is learn the language, wants and needs of our own bodies and respond. The result is a container / temple that feels honored and respected. This is often reflected in greater health and stamina.

The Body Dialogue Process additionally serves to identify a “map of the inner selves.” This map reflects the related patterning between specific selves that may be perpetuating the potential for injury and illness. This map offers a creative approach to tracking inner patterns of undue stress or tension that could over time lead to a compromised relationship with our bodies, such as illness or pain. In speaking with the body there is often an overriding self that is taking action or making decisions that are not and needs of the body.

By identifying and giving voice to these selves the body is supported. Some of the famous overriders are The Pusher, The Thinker, The Perfectionist, The Critic, etc. Overriders create the opportunity to find balance between the stronger parts of themselves and what has been disowned on the other side. The potential in doing this work is to support an overall balance of the inner system.

As with any other sub personality, the body and its numerous selves thrive on being communicated with as a meaningful member of our inner family. Establishing this line of connection with the body offers us the opportunity to take a proactive role as cocreators of our life. The Body Dialogue Process empowers us with a sense of choice, as opposed to the wear and tear of constant troubleshooting.

The body is a delegation of miraculous parts, each with their own unique personality, opinions and perspectives. Our mission should we decide to accept it, is to learn to listen.

Issue 37 – August 2008

Partnering:

A New Kind Of Relationship

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

Partnering is the next step in the evolution of relationship. It is the vital, exciting, and challenging linkage of two energy systems so they can work together harmoniously to create something new and sacred.

Partnering is cooperative and replaces the classic hierarchical, patriarchal relationship where dominance was the main theme. Partnering means many things, but most of all we see it as a joint venture in the exciting business of life. It means that you move from a life in which you were the “sole proprietor” to one in which you are a full and equal partner with someone else.

As in a business, each partner has something important to contribute, each partner’s contribution gets equal respect, and each partner has a voice in all decisions that affect the relationship. This may not sound very romantic, but we can assure you that romance not only survives, but thrives in a partnering relationship that takes this as a model because life is a business and a complicated one at that. Just like any other business, partnering requires work so that it stays vital and exciting. This includes working with (1) the emotional connection between partners, (2) the energetic connection between the partners, and (3) with the actual business details of life . We have observed that when these areas are working in the relationship, most couples find that they develop and maintain an exciting sexual contact that lasts over time.

Let us begin by looking at a new way of dealing with the emotional or psychological connection between partners. Since all of us are made up of many selves, or subpersonalities, each relationship is between not just two people, but two groups of people. It is important to know something about these selves when you are involved in a relationship. You are not always dealing with the same person. Neither is your partner.

We all grow up in family systems that require us to think and behave in certain ways. These represent our primary patterns of behavior in the world. Your particular pattern will depend on your physical body and your genetic makeup. It will also depend upon the world in which you grew up including family, friends, neighborhood, schools and churches, and anything else that might have influenced you. These patterns are automatic and are akin to the default setting on the computer. If you want the computer to work differently, you have to re-program it. If you want to have real choices in life, you have to separate from your automatic patterns.

For instance, you might be the oldest daughter with busy parents who had no time or energy for you. You learned not to expect anything from anyone else. Instead, you learned to take care of others. You gave to your parents and your younger siblings. As you grew older, you gave to your friends. Giving became your default position in the world. When you enter a new relationship, giving will again be your default position. What you never learned was how to take from others. Learning how to take -as well as knowing how to give – would give you a richer, fuller life. You would be able to choose and would no longer live by the automatic settings in your life

How do you learn about your own automatic patterns? One of the ways you learn is by looking at what it is that you judge in others. As a giver, you judge the takers of the world. You feel morally superior to those who take. Your relationships will bring the takers of the world into your life. The basic law of the psyche is that you will attract whatever it is that you need to learn. “The teacher appears when you are ready” and your relationship is that teacher.

Perhaps the most exciting work that we have done is in the second area, our exploration of the energetic connection between partners. You are probably aware of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual connections that exist. There is a purely energetic connection as well. Peoples’ energy fields interact, or link. When this linkage is missing, you feel alone even in the presence of someone else. You will not truly “hear” protestations of love or devotion if you cannot “feel” the energetic presence of your partner. This energetic connection is the most important component in a relationship. Without it, there is no intimacy.

Become aware of this energy field between yourself and others. See where you have linkage and where it is missing. With some people you feel “met”; they are truly present with you. There is contact or a warmth that passes between you. Play with this connection and make it warmer and cooler. It is important to learn about this energetic connection and to gain mastery over it. This energetic linkage is the food we all crave and it is what nourishes us deeply in a partnering relationship that works!

Lastly, for romance to stay alive, we recommend regularly scheduled business meetings. Weekly meetings are a must. More frequent meetings should be scheduled if (1) there is too much going on to handle productively in a single meeting, or (2) if matters are moving quickly and follow-up meetings are required sooner than a week apart. All the business details of life are to be brought to these meetings from the question of who is going to pick up the laundry to who is going to return which phone calls to questions regarding financial planning or summer vacations. Everything is important, everything should be dealt with jointly and consciously.

Why, you might well ask, is this necessary? There are two reasons for this. First, we have found that life has become exceedingly complicated and, if they are not attended to, business details will invade every aspect of life. We can find ourselves thinking about them at the most inappropriate times. This restricts business to scheduled business meetings and keeps it out of the bedroom. Second, if they do not take care of these business details as a team, partners will fall into default patterns, with one partner in charge and the other dependent.

Each relationship, even one that ends, is a spiritual teacher and can provide us with a true spiritual path. An evolving partnering relationship leads us forward on our individual journeys of consciousness and makes space for the infusion of sacred energies into our lives.

Issue 36 – July 2008

  What is the Aware Ego’s role

by

Drs Hal & Sidra Stone

 

Question:   When we are in the Aware Ego Process, do we try to “make the selves happy”, i.e. cater to their wishes, or do we listen and reassure them that they will be fine, even if in a particular situation we do not do exactly what they want us to do?”

Answer: If we were to try to make the selves happy, to emphasize the satisfaction of the selves, we would be looking at the Aware Ego process as a parent that must care for the selves as though they were children. This view would place the Aware Ego in a position of responsibility and would be quite restrictive. A new set of rules would replace the ones held by the primary selves and the Aware Ego would lose its fluidity and creativity.

In actuality, the Aware Ego process does take care of the selves – but not always in the way they would wish. It honors and embraces them in such a way that their energies are represented in our overall consciousness process and in the daily living of our lives.

For instance, you must make a decision of whether or not to call Mom on Sunday. The loving child might want to telephone her mother each Sunday, while a self that realizes we need to rest doesn’t want to do so. Just knowing both of these selves and feeling them deeply gives a voice to each and includes them in your life – the Aware Ego must feel the pain of the loving child if you decide not to phone and, conversely, feel the annoyance or disappointment of the selfish self if you do decide to phone.

Whether or not you phone, and whether or not both selves are convinced of the wisdom of your choice is beside the point. Basically, you are leaving neither behind and – at some level – they know this and appreciate it. You are exercising and expanding your Aware Ego as you feel the opposites and come up with the best possible decision at this moment. When we are in an Aware Ego process, we can come up with really creative suggestions – perhaps you call your mother but you speak to her on your cell phone from a hammock with a cool drink beside you instead of phoning her from the office while you try to do your email and listen to her at the same time – as you usually do. Even more important, you are learning to live with the opposites – the ambiguity of real life.

We do not see the role of the Aware Ego process as focused upon caretaking the selves. Our aim for the Aware Ego process is to hold the tension of oppositesrather than try to satisfy any particular self. The Aware Ego process is an evolving and dynamic part of consciousness – something that we believe is an evolutionary step beyond the traditional ego. It is an ego that combines Awareness (or the traditional witness position of the meditator) with the experience of opposing selves to come up with an entirely new way of living life.

This way of dealing with life allows for our decision making to come from a deeper wisdom one in which archetypal information blends with personal experience. It invites our dreams to ignite, to give us information, and to guide us in our daily lives. We are able to move into the traditionally spiritual realms of the unfolding of our own soul’s journey. Sometimes we think of this as a move towards “enlifen-ment” as contrasted with “enlightenment.