March Facebook Madness and then some...

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Needing distraction from the discomforts of a recent cold led me to an in-depth exploration on Facebook. Initially, I began Facebook with a circle of people I knew and was already in touch with. Subsequently, while recovering from that cold, my curiosity brought on an explosion of new friends on my personal page, which then inspired my professional page. I’ve had the pleasure to survey what is interesting to my Facebook friends. In turn, I have posted when I felt inspired, or wanted to share something intriguing.

The progression has been cascading since that weekend, and I am gratified by the expansive, validating and fun process. It has not been the usual custom in my profession to be so Out There. Yet, in recent years I have felt a sense of freedom and liberation that has emboldened me to share more of my life experiences and inspirations.

This synergistic awakening has manifested with new developments in my work and I’ll soon be leading my first retreat in several years. The many retreats I’ve facilitated over the years have been among my most sacred memories, and this next one will galvanize all of my practice, research and life experience to date. Focalizing with a diverse group toward a shared sense of wholeness and renewal is utterly enlivening.

At the opening session of a past retreat, we created an intention that we would all experience being on a magic carpet ride. With our spectacular oceanfront location in Cape May, New Jersey, we were already off to a good start. By the second day, a growing sense of oneness was emerging in the group. During a break that afternoon we were greeted by literally millions of migrating butterflies; Monarchs flying by the retreat center over a turbulent Atlantic. The beauty and synchronicity took our breaths away, and participants still speak of it to this day.

Long time supporters from the Institute for Authentic Process Healing, it's web site (www.theInstitute.org), and some of my Focalizing students have inspired the direction of our next retreat. Creating it has spirited a revitalization of this non-profit, volunteer community, and I am enormously grateful for the encouragement and support I’m receiving.

I hope that some of you can join us for our next retreat.

Looking forward to continued connection, Michael

Can The Wisdom From Addiction Recovery Save Humanity?

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I have recently been enriched from the wise counsel of some younger people suggesting ways that my life’s work in addictions, trauma healing and Focalizing can be more relevant for the needs of current times. Several participants from last year’s Focalizing workshops, along with TheInstitute.org, (the non-profit community that has supported my work for many years) are helping me connect the dots between segments of my own research and practice. In short, there has been encouragement to merge my Stage Two Recovery techniques with those from Focalizing.

Stage One addictions recovery is a recovery from a destructive obsession that wreaks suffering in our lives and family systems. This can be from a substance, as well as from an addiction to conditioned thinking which causes destructive patterns. Stage Two is the recovery of our emotional, spiritual and sexual wholeness, while Focalizing offers guidance for a natural path of healing and moving forward with grace.

This powerful reshaping of my work to incorporate these previously separate factions utilizes the tools and community of addictions recovery. As Dr. M. Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled: I think of addiction as the sacred disease. Very probably, God created alcoholism in order to create AA, and thereby spearhead the community movement which is going to be the salvation not only of alcoholics and addicts, but of us all. Perhaps this healing path really is a way to positively impact the world.

As one of my wise, younger advisors, Barry Lipscomb takes it even further in a question that guides his daily endeavors: “How do we affect a mass conscious awakening which encourages sustainable living?” Healing ourselves in a way that has a positive impact for humanity and the planet; what could be better? Read my latest article titled Focalizing Stage Two Recovery: The Spiritual Core (click for entire article reprint) published by GoodTherapy.org. And stay tuned for developments on our emerging future as we begin to offer retreats, workshops, presentations, and interactive online venues.

Wish us well, as we wish the same for all of you.

Michael

(Click here to receive announcements of forthcoming events)

A Personal Aristocracy

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I have another story about a book that’s a new-release and timely to mention. Several years ago a new client came to me by way of the internet. She found me from Alaska, where she had been immobilized for a year with post-traumatic stress. After speaking with her on the phone, she decided to come to New York to do Focalizing work with me. We did a month of two-hour weekly sessions, which helped re-regulate her central nervous system. She left New York with a new, clear sense of spirit and resilience that could propel her life forward. It warmed my heart to know that back in Alaska, she and husband, True Blue Indigo, were thrilled with the success of our work. A year later, I received a manuscript in the mail from True with a note that said, “Michael, if you feel what I have written has value can you help me bring it out in the world? This is beyond my capacity as a simple man of the wilderness.”

I initially wondered what I could do to help since I’m a therapist and author, not a publisher or a literary agent. Yet when I had read about a third of the manuscript, my jaw dropped in disbelief of its power, I had to call my publisher to tell him about what had just fallen into my hands. Within a week of sending him a copy, my publisher and True were in contract negotiation. The book was just released. What an honor it is to have it dedicated to me, with a mention in the acknowledgements that made me weep. If you would like to read a lyrical manifest for the modern age that gracefully invites us to live at our highest potential, buy this book: A Personal Aristocracy: Cultivating the Power of Spiritual Nobility.

The synchronicities and serendipities never end J

You CAN Change Someone You Love…WoW

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I first met Brad Lamm, a vibrant, younger colleague, at the Palm Springs airport on our way to a Professional Weekend in December. He was beaming with delight, as he had just received the first off-the-press copies of his new book, How to Change Someone You Love. Sensing it would be a real myth-buster, I immediately bought it. God bless you, Brad; many people will be helped by your refined new insights that are easy to grasp.

Lamm, an interventionist by profession, leads us on his fascinating personal journey, and those of his clients, weaving them into a simple, loving process. They are not the stereo-typical interventions you see on television. Professionals in the addictions field will also experience a breath of fresh air in the book’s “Four Steps to Help You Help Them.” As the jacket says, “A Powerful, ground-breaking book that shows you in concrete steps how to stop a loved one from engaging in self-destructive behavior…not just a self-help book; it’s a help-you-act book.” I hope Brad has a best seller on his hands. The more people heal themselves, the more it will add to the energetic rippling of ongoing transformation for the good of all of us.

Happy February,

Michael

2010: Finding Calmness in a Storm of Change

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I spent the last week of December enjoying the holidays with friends, and renewing myself in the mountains. 2009 was a year with many challenges: Both my parents were seriously ill, often in crisis mode, I moved my private practice space after 15 years, and many clients and friends were losing jobs or finding themselves in a troubled world that none of us could have perceived. There has been much suffering in my immediate world and on our planet, yet there have also been many joys and I am grateful.

I seem to live in two worlds: Most of the time I’m in the world of consciousness, with its sensing, aliveness and awakening; then I’m in the physical world, with its beauties, joys and suffering, I often struggle to find words to express myself while bridging these divergent yet inseparable experiences. Sometimes I find that writing here helps me connect this duality. Also, when working with clients on their emotional and physical struggles, I can sense when they are in a better place of being. It’s contagious and helps me feel integrated.

Further than that, I’m aware that when my clients find resolution in the work we do, it affects their larger worlds, as in a ripple effect. It supports the notion that maybe we really can heal the world by healing ourselves. Another way I’ve heard this described is Acting locally to evolve globally, which is also the theme of a new book I’ve recently found inspiring. It’s called, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (and a way to get there from here), and in essence it’s about the scientific possibility that a spontaneous remission of insanity could occur on our planet. My own experience of having two deadly cancers going into remission makes the premise feel like a real possibility.

Three other books that serendipitously were holiday gifts support the above possibility: Taking the Leap by Pema Chodron, One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing all Relationships by John E. Welshons, and lastly The Red Book by C.G. Jung, are all highly recommended.

While I wholeheartedly look forward to the new year, it was an easy, fun vacation, relaxing and bouncing from book to book (between movies, of course) fortifying my sense that there is also calmness in a storm of change.

I wish all my clients, colleagues, family, and those reading the very best that this new year and new decade has to offer.

2009 Ending with Grace…

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…and a few new friends. Photo above (left to right) is of me, Brad Lamm, author of the important new book exploring progressive concepts in intervention, How to Change Someone You Love, and Alan Downs, Chief Executive Officer of cutting-edge treatment facility Michael’s House in Palm Springs. They were just a couple of the impressive, committed colleagues I spent the Professional Weekend with for those working in addictions recovery.

After a busy week and a joyous conclusion to the most recent 10-Week Focalizing course on Thursday night, I flew to Palm Springs early Friday morning. Spending much of my time with trauma healing professionals in recent years, it felt like a homecoming to be with my addiction colleagues. Though traditionally varied in their approaches, I noted this weekend how organically the philosophical merger of both fields is happening. I was thrilled by the generosity of spirit coming from all of the staff and participants from around the USA and Canada. Alan Downs gave an impressive presentation on how Michael’s House has distilled their own formula of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to succinctly meet the needs of those in early addiction recovery. Clients are learning new practical and physiological tools that will help them in the present, as well as prepare them for the ongoing healing journey into wholeness.

While at the airport heading home, I ran into Kristen Scheel, Director of Professional Relations at Pride Institute, who had also attended the conference. We had an inspiring conversation about our respective professional beginnings, and I was reminded of my gratitude for the resonance that seems to gracefully travel full-circle on my evolving path.

I offer heartfelt good wishes for your holiday season, whatever that entails, and for a brilliant 2010 beyond our wildest positive dreams.

Michael

Why Focalizing Now?

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Why Focalizing Now?, the query of my own life purpose, is also the title of an article soon appearing as a feature on goodtherapy.org (an association of therapists who believe people are equipped to transform their obstacles to optimum health and happiness).

Recently, I made a presentation on Focalizing and self-reinvention for The Meadows where their representative Judy Smith (below pic) and an engaged audience had a unique experience. It felt like profound healing occurred quite naturally in that room.

Why Focalizing Now? Our world has been deeply impacted by confusion and suffering stirred up by worldwide economic insecurities and resultant rapid shifts in experience and perceptions. On the other hand, never before in history has our global, human inter-connectedness been so tangible. To not seize the opportunity for self-growth and transformation in these times would be tragic.

Focalizing is one of an assortment of nature-based energy and somatic psychologies that teach us how we can naturally meet collective and individual challenges in ways that allow us to move forward with grace and dignity. We are swiftly moving from healing systems that are limited to linear biographical stories towards modalities that are holographic and sensed in our bodies. These evolving methods take some learning, going beyond traditional science into the world of phenomena, yet the results felt are substantial. Focalizing is best defined as a process that helps individuals and groups remove blind spots that prevent achieving goals and realizing intentions. It is a dynamic and effective process that allows us to respectfully set aside familiar thoughts and feelings to access nature’s gift to us: our innate intelligence. I will also define Focalizing as a technique for experiencing wholeness in your body.

I hope the excerpt is helpful. For the full article click here.

Happy Thanksgiving, Michael

Living on the Edge of Evolution

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In my blog entry of October 26, 2008 titled Global Crises: We Don’t Have to Hit Bottom, I shared my own intention for interacting with our times:

I am dynamically linked to a number of inspiring people, treatment centers and healing organizations. It will be my mission to engage a conversation with them in the days and weeks ahead about how we can organically meet our collective challenge in ways that allow us to move forward with grace and dignity and at the same time benefit all. Never before in history has our human, global inter-connectedness been so tangibly obvious — to have a blind spot to this and not seize the moment would be a tragedy.

This intention is being fulfilled while I am experiencing a new aliveness and thriving connections from conscious interactions. Since October of last year, I have engaged with many very bright people, along with pioneering institutions, and the results continue to manifest gratification of my desire. In the photo above, I am in my office with Lynn McKnight, the Clinical Director for Crossroads Antigua, an international non-profit recovery center founded by Eric Clapton.  Together, we are envisioning programs for their new renewal center. The photo was taken by Lisa Baruch, Crossroad's local community relations official.  The Meadow’s, a renowned treatment center in Arizona has honored me with an invitation to share a free introduction on Tuesday evening, October 13th to the Reinventing Ourselves Naturally course that is the cutting edge of my research. This event in New York City is open to all. Find out if the next course starting in late January in New York might be a good fit for you or someone you care about. Click here for details and to reserve complimentary limited space.

 I am also very psyched by the emerging results of the 2^nd session of this fall’s 10-week “Reinventing…” course in NYC. The participants are already sensing a new relationship with their own evolution that is pleasurable, beyond any preconceptions they have ever had. It is very exciting! In this version of the course we’ve included the simple yet elegant methods of Focusing. Developed by Eugene Gendlin 30 years ago, Focusing is the never-aging grandfather of my own Focalizing, and it makes the process even more accessible to participants. Enlarge photo (above left) for a metaphorical image and text on Gene's work. 

Lastly, a big thank you to my friend Jay Tyrrell for his beautiful photographs of nature's solemnity displayed in my new space.

Happy autumn to all, Michael

Invite from Great Learning & Vacation Experience

I just returned from a week in the Catskill Mountains preceded by a week attending the Focusing Institute Summer School at the Garrison Institute. There were 130 participants, about a third from outside the U.S. Both weeks were great. I was so inspired at the latter that one night I danced like crazy (injuring my back some :) and even did a solo comedy/song act at the last night Follies. The learning and synthesizing I did prompts the invitation below:

You are invited to a new 10-week experiential group I am putting together this fall: Reinventing Ourselves Naturally.  Its approach will be very different from psychotherapy, or any other self-help groups I have done in the past.  We will employ Focalizing to help us work through cultural blind spots and access natural messages from within to guide graceful movement through our challenges. Confidentiality is respected and you will not be asked to reveal any private information that you’re not comfortable sharing.

I am very excited by the benefits participants can experience in creating a positive circle of energy in “felt community.” I am also happy to announce that the elegant, simple practice of Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing, a technique developed over 30 years ago, will be incorporated to make Focalizing even more accessible and meaningful to all in the groups.  Here is what one of the last group’s participants had to say:

 “I've been feeling an ease of flow in my own life since the spring course.  I feel a deeper sense of trust that things are working themselves out as they will - and that I am participating in the process, neither pushing it nor being pushed around by it.  There's more freedom, more ease, more humility, more humor and more acceptance...I'm different!  What a blessing!”

There will be two groups to choose from, both starting on September 24^th, to meet on subsequent Thursdays for ten weeks.  For scheduling convenience, one group will be held from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., the next at 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., with a maximum of 16 participants in each.

For workshop details and to register, click here.  FAX the registration form to 646-530-8703 or mail to the address below. Enrollment will close on September 18^th.

The published fee is $950 for the full course.  However, in acknowledgement of the tough times we all are braving, I’m offering it to you on a sliding scale, based on your circumstance.  There may also be a limited opportunity for a work-study arrangement to be made.

If you have questions about the groups, your time preference, or to discuss fee arrangements, please call 212-242-5052, ext. 3 (registration/special services) by Thursday September 17th. Confirmations will be emailed as enrollments are received.

Best always, Michael  

Transitions, Connections & Journey Forward

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In these weeks, I’ve been able to observe and appreciate the emergence of my new healing practice space, a quiet intimate refuge in the NYU area. 

Also recently, my beloved friend Mary passed on, as did three others in my circle of friends & family. Each of these transitions was a reminder of the fragility of life and the importance of the moments we share.

As I was addressing these losses, I had a synchronistic delight on Facebook: my ex-sister-in-law Cathy contacted me, long- lost after her divorce from my brother and her move out of New York.  Like Mary, Cathy was another earth mother in my life. In 1983, when all evidence was contrary, she believed I could recover from two AIDS related cancers. It was through Cathy’s belief that I found a portal to survival that makes my today possible.  

Friday, August 21, I’m off to the 7-day Focusing Institute Summer School being held at the beautiful Garrison Institute situated in the historic Hudson Highlands overlooking the Hudson River. This sacred meeting place is dedicated to contemplation and education, transformational ecology, and transforming trauma. It occupies a large, newly renovated monastery surrounded by tranquil forests and fields. I look forward to learning and sharing with a community that has a long history of thinking and experiencing “the edge” of our human experience.

After this is a week’s vacation in the mountains where I will be integrating and centering into my core to develop a 10-week Focalizing course: Reinventing Ourselves Naturally starting September 24th. I write this enjoying the balmy Catskills summer with wonderful friends and family.

Wishing all wonder and joy, Michael

Summer Gratitude as Everything Shifts

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On page 19 of my book Ritual As Resource I shared my “Mary Ritual” as the book’s first example of bringing “resource” to an opposite energy (or experience). I described her then (and still do) as: “a friend I’ve known and loved for over twenty years. More pertinent is that I know and deeply feel that Mary loves me unconditionally: In her eyes, I can do absolutely nothing wrong. It’s like having the perfect protective encapsulation of love.” Since my last blog, I’ve been witnessing and experiencing Mary’s last days on the physical plane as a true Earth Mother. Equally challenging is watching my best friend John courageously show-up as her primary care-partner. Additionally, aside from the complex tragedies abounding everywhere, my dear niece and goddaughter is undergoing breast cancer treatment and a bevy of other tough life challenges. Mary, John and Deb inspire me. None of them are complaining.  In the best ways possible, they express gratitude in their words and demeanor.

 In Alberto Villoldo’s book Courageous Dreaming he defines: “Gratitude, the feeling that we are blessed, helps us to stop being enslaved to our to-do lists and remember why we came here: to love, to learn, to grow, to discover what we can do to participate in the unfolding work called creation…with boldness and originality.”  Feeling “blessed” is something I can tap into during my current personal and professional experiences and challenges. I am amazed to feel blessed in a life filled with tragic losses and serious illnesses. These perspectives continue to humble and strengthen me as I am blessed at the same time. I am also grateful to be a part and parcel of “The Seismic Shift” that is presently occurring in the human experience. 

In the June issue of Spirituality & Health Magazine Paul H. Sutherland writes: “The change that is underway is profound and will seem to most to be revolutionary. What is this shift? The historic paradigm that our self-worth comes from what we own is ending. We’re moving away from valuing multiple cars, multiple televisions, plastic surgeries and saving little. The shift will underscore the false consumption-orientation economy that we in the West think is the key to prosperity and happiness. Finally, it is sinking into our collective head that our borrow/spend behavior does not make us happy.”  We are observing that a good resonant connection with nature, art, friends, family and the world as well as our Self (in the unfolding work of creation) can make us happy. Now, if we can only create the shared intention to organically evolve and share additional methods to support this shift while also focusing on reducing suffering and supporting possibility, we would have done our part to serve humanity.

My friend Mickey Lubell visited recently and shared three simple questions he uses, he has them posted on his computer monitor as a reminder to support the shifts I’m alluding to: 1) Is what I’m saying loving or respectful? 2) Does it need to be said? 3) Is it true? Initially, this struck me as utterly simple. Yet, when I practiced it myself, it improved my phrasing and communication became more impeccable and created space for other possibilities.  Simple as it is, it is also a practice.

A quick update from last entry: The move to the new practice space went as graceful as possible due to the wonderful help I received. I’m pleased in the newly emerging vibe of my new digs as I begin to feel more settled. It’s a perfect place to comfortably evolve my practice and art. Somewhat coincidentally, the two spring 10-week Focalizing groups I ran ended in the new space in very beautiful ways.

If I can be helpful, I have available time this summer for 1-1, couples, or other facilitation and focalizing.

To a grateful summer!

“The Times They are A-Changin"

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I have always loved the iconic ’60s song written by Bob Dylan. I had the privilege of observing fundamental revolutions happen then, and as I find myself reflecting on Dylan’s lyrics, I become deeply grateful to be partaking yet again in his visionary wisdom. Transformations happening now are even greater in their intrinsic global connection that is tangible.  They are noticeable not only in the media, but also in a felt awareness, and are challenging for all of us. 

It’s been a whirlwind six weeks since my last entry.  I’m heeding an inner calling to move my practice to a quieter, more intimate refuge for healing.  After 15 years serving me and my clients well, I will be leaving my Fifth Avenue professional space. So, it’s “good-bye” to the hubbub of commercial real estate, and “hello” to a quieter, tree lined setting for a very private space. Like any big move or change, it has been quite consuming, and I want everything to be as gracious and welcoming as circumstances allow. 

Additionally during this time I’ve been leading two 10-week experiential courses called Focalizing Through Tough Times: Reinventing Ourselves Naturally.  We are entering our 8th session of an amazing personal and communal journey, exploring transpersonal realms of learning from a future that wants to emerge through us.  The nine points of the Focalizing Star Image have come alive for each of us in very unique ways as we have listened to one another’s sorrows, joys and challenges from a larger shared reality. We’ve learned about Conscious Courage and the cherished treasures we tend to overlook because of our conditioning. When we begin to tame the guard dogs that protect our blind spots, it allows us to be more open to the inherent voices of nature.  Then, these treasures can become resources for scaling the changing times as we allow them  to emerge and have flexibility to access them. We’ve noticed that there can be a loving space between our nervous system activation and a more soothing regulation. This is a subtle, yet powerful new awareness for many, as is discovering consenting to what is can be a path to serenity and a more informed energy flow. We have just begun to explore how to “crystallize” and “prototype” the future wanting to emerge through us, thereby providing some next “landing strips” for these mind-blowing evolutionary times.

I’m very excited to experience a landing with my students as our final gathering in this series will serendipitously be held in my newly transformed practice milieu.  This series, along with my ongoing studies, will inform two larger Fall Focalizing Courses beginning in September.

Stay tuned and join us on our ongoing journey to wholeness!

Additional Currency for our Times

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Joyous spring!

Since October, my world has been deeply impacted by the confusion and suffering stirred up by worldwide economic insecurities and the resultant rapid shifts in experience and perceptions. Everything is affected, and the intricate web of life is being felt more intensely in our day to day existence. If it feels like chaos that is because it likely is! On the other hand, we also seem to be creating a larger and more informed space and context for the resolutions of our personal and cultural “stuckness.”

I noticed a profound inner shift in myself recently and it came out of my own Focalizing practice. In all this, I realized that my primary currency for living life is transforming. I have been slowly observing this and watching how it is gradually manifesting in physical reality and the insights as they are reflected back to me.

It was only after this shift that I recognized that this currency manifested in the outer shapes and forms of life, namely my finances and other physical realities. I like to think of myself as a generous, big-hearted guy but I have always felt a deep need to being able to survive. Yet it came as a surprise to me that my system has been focused and anxious about financial security and physical realities. Not so odd, I guess, but compared to the “felt awareness” (as solid as a rock in physical reality) a new clarity is emerging. My renewed currency is about deepening my caring connection with others and myself and the sustainability of all that this entails. It’s all about the unseen tangible good feeling that comes from caring actions, both given and received. It is that place where the formless becomes form, and where felt and unseen realities morph into the physical. I have not given up my love for cool material things like my Mac—this love has simply been rearranged in the order of my conscious priorities. The former now takes a far junior role to this deeper connection with others and the nature that I emerge from.

It now seems that all my personal and client encounters are even deeper and more mutually gratifying than before. I am continuing to learn from this, and was delighted to get a synchronistic email from a participant in the “Focalizing Tough Times” groups that are presently under way. He wrote: “My experience in group today was profound. I came into the room with my feelings of restlessness and immediately felt that drop out of my head and into my gut where that energy could be dealt with. The other thing is my sense that this economic realignment is about connecting in more genuine and authentic ways that look externally like less income but the universe may be aligning itself in such a way that we may all make less, have less but live more. Could be quite nice.”

Yes, a tipping-point shift from “growth & more” to “caring, respectful sustainability” of the shared spirit that makes life worth living “could be quite nice.” I sense that this is already happening and invite others to join with me and share resonance and experience.

I feel privileged to be on the edge of a personal and global transformation that appears to be quietly unfolding in and around us. If my readers have an interest in exploring these sensibilities explore my web site Resource Links & Books and join the fall Focalizing Workshops which will soon be posted on this site. Contact me directly to explore if you could use more personal and 1:1 facilitation!

Thanks for sharing the journey!

Inspired Visions

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Happy 70th Birthday

Roshi Bernie Glassman

A long-time friend and teacher, Roshi Bernie Glassman continues to inspire and guide us about Not Knowing (suspending certainty & preconceived ideas); Bearing Witness (to the joy & suffering in the world—listening deeply to the situation, to discover what, or even if, action is warranted); and Loving Action (when warranted, healing our self and others). These tenets of Not Knowing, Bearing Witness & Loving Action have become my cogent guidelines for navigating the many present personal and global uncertainties I and my clients are dealing with. On the fun side, we, with others, will celebrate Bernie’s 70th Birthday on March 12 in NYC at his favorite pizza parlor near Columbia University.

After a nasty bout with bronchitis and my back going out of whack in February, I had to cancel my participation in a Focusing Institute weekend event at The Garrison Institute, a community learning process I was really looking forward to. Inspired by tenets, and taking loving action, I was able to let go and make peace with myself for missing an event I wanted so much to be a part of.

Recently while on the mend, I addressed a large cluster of Robert Wood Johnson grantees in The Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx), a $13 million grant project for advancing recovery operated out of the University of Wisconsin. It was an honor to speak with such committed front-line individuals improving the “continuing recovery” needs for individuals and families with science-based research. Then excitedly, two days later I began my participation in a virtual global classroom of 160 participants from 28 countries learning more about removing the cultural blind spot that inhibits nature’s voice in helping us to resolve conflict. This online class with Otto Scharmer (senior MIT faculty and author of Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges) and organized by The Presencing Institute helps me stay attuned to this applied research that I’ve been tracking and integrating for over five years. It is a very powerful and gentle (perhaps, even pleasurable) present and future orientation to move with.

On February 12th I presented at The Open Center and the results and feedback were deeply gratifying, professionally and personally (including one participant sharing “this was the first time I truly felt connected to everyone and every thing. It was a powerful felt awareness”). In less than 90 minutes, I was able to produce an experiential “Introduction to Focalizing: Solutions to Real Life Challenges.” This presentation made me very excited about the two 10-week small Focalizing groups I’ll be starting later this month.

As mentioned in previous entries, I’ve joined an inspired global vision that the US government creates a cabinet level Department of Peace (legislation is already in Congress and at the top of people’s choices in the polling) with a modest budget. Within that infrastructure, we should invite brilliant minds like Roshi Bernie Glassman, founder of the international Zen Peacemaker Organization, Otto Sharmer of The Presencing Institute, Eugene Gendlin (University of Chicago) of The Focusing Institute, Peter A. Levine of The Foundation for Human Enrichment, and representatives from the The Peace Alliance, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Non-Violent Communication, and other national and global resources who can facilitate access to our deeper natural wisdoms for collective co-creative transformation. Right now, we must not become myopic on the economy when a much greater existence is being rewoven. I invite you to join me in this vision.

News, Inauguration....& Peace

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Dear Friends:

The news is what we are living, the Inauguration has the potential for creating a global, spiritual shift-in-the-wind of our experience.

I'd love to share my winter newsletter with you, click here   

Even more important, I invite you to join me in the "Postcards for Peace" campaign and prayerfully mail them on Inauguration day, click here for details.

At a press conference today, President-Elect Obama's transition team is being presented with change.org's top ten "people's desires." Creating a "US Department of Peace" is #2 on this top-ten list. Please help make this happen.

Michael (& Elias)

Awesome 2009 Ritual

[Note: While this ritual can be an antidote to the uncertainty I referenced during the most recent entries on global economic somersaults, it can also be of a much more personal nature, may I suggest that you trust your instincts. You’ll need to find a comfortable position that has a private feeling to it for this ritual. You can read this ritual and perform it, or you can download my 27 minute spoken version here and listen to it in a relaxed way]

Follow this: We can distill ritual into three refined elements and still benefit from its magical powers. These elements are: Intention the force making transformation possible, Resource a catalyst for amplifying the intention energy that also makes your BE-ing feel good, and the Curious Observer the inner part of your self that takes an interested, neutral, perspective or view allowing the inner energies to self-reclaim each other.

I am initiating this 2009 ritual with my own primary Intention: that each participant reading this has an awesome 2009 grounded in gratitude and humility. I invite each of you to bring your own realistic primary Intention to our virtual gathering (or, vortex of good energy). And, you can all Curiously Observe the results as they mysteriously manifest. No need to post anywhere, better to hold sacred these experiences as protected and subtly effusive.

You now know my Intention for this 2009 ritual, I hope you have yours or can grab it quickly. It can be the same as mine, or it can be the dissolving of any inner barrier impinging on or blocking your vital life force in any area, right now.

With clear intentions in earnest play, move to Resource, the energy that nurtures our Intentions and fosters their manifestation. We all have many more resource energies than we first realize. I'm going to choose a special couple as my resource energy to fuel this ritual’s Intention. As you get the drift, please allow your own mysterious resource-of-the-moment memory to surface (from yesterday or ancient history) and be a good energizer for your intention and those of the larger collective in this vortex and our shared humanity.

Shabd Sangeet Khalsa and her husband True Indigo are my resource couple. They inspired me in 2008, and helped me differently re-claim my calming sense of wholeness that makes my experience of them a resource, a felt-awareness. Shabd Sangeet has opened my olfactorary senses (and some of my clients) to foster the energy of re-patterning, in a method that also fits my new learning in neuroscience/neuron-plasticity.

True has written a book named A Personal Aristocracy: The Power of Nobility. There is no text that has captivated me so since Peter A. Levine's Waking The Tiger in 1998. True’s writing has me learning to dance/rest in an infinity I can totally trust. That is something, especially for one who considers myself a research scientist! This photo of my friends was taken two days ago in Arizona. I invite their spirits to grace our ritual along with all of 'your' resources.

Now, if we just let go of our Intention (allow to float away) this begins to bring us to presence (being present and sensing at the same time). Ritual does not like to be pushed; no judgment, no agenda. To come more into presence, in a relaxed way put aside voices of judgment, cynicisms and fears, even just temporarily. Just hold your resource image in your minds eye, letting it develop in a sensory way (color, smell, light, heart). Very gradually invite your body to connect with the image. No rush, slow is fast here. As we hangout in this experience a bit, we may notice body sensations (especially if we close our eyes). We just want to give them tons of space, whether they are subtle or expansive. Make believe you’re resting back into True’s aforementioned infinity, and just notice. Now, in your own time, slowly invite your intention back into conscious awareness, edge by edge. Notice any body sensations or images as you do this. Now, give these awarenesses space, just noticing

With presence and curiosity you will quickly or gradually notice a commingling of the Resource energy and the Intention energy, this is good. We just want to keep giving space to whatever we notice next. Space is love and it transforms. At some point in time, you decide without haste, just bring the original Intention front and center again and notice that it has changed. It will be more “approachable” and perhaps a blind spot has dissolved, giving direction for a graceful next step. Feel your whole body. Notice an adjective or two that discerns its sense-of-self in the moment. Envision yourself coming out of this ritual space and holding close to your heart whatever new information your innate intelligence presented you about your intention. Now, walk softly into 2009 allowing for this manifestation to mysteriously enter your world in the most perfect and timely way.

Repeat this ritual with new intentions to keep amplifying the awe.

Note: The elements of above ritual are graphically illustrated through Focalizing’s nine-pointed star, click here.

Mp3 download here.

Looking forward to sharing the awe-someness of 2009, Michael