Today I was speaking with a friend of mine (call her Meg). A couple of weeks ago she was telling me about a problem she was having with her main support staff person. This support person would ask her about her personal life and then make subtle, judgmental disparaging comments.
Meg wanted to keep her support person happy since her own work lives and dies at this woman’s mercy, but she was becoming very upset at the increasingly hurtful situation. She was reaching the end of her rope, and asked me for advice.
After talking through a wide variety of options, I finally suggested that the next time it happened, she say something like, “I know you probably don’t realize this, but when you say things like that it hurts my feelings.” Meg listened to what I had to say and said she appreciated it, and that was the end of it.
A couple of weeks later she called to tell me that she had taken my advice and she was blown away by the results.
The upshot of what happened is that another hurtful exchange took place. Meg says my words came to her head and, in desperation, decided to take my advice. The employee grew very sad and told Meg that she had no idea she was being hurtful, she was very sorry and that she valued their relationship, and would be more considerate.
A couple of minutes later she came to Meg's office and said that when she behaved in this inappropriate way, that it was really about her own pain which she went on to share briefly, candidly, and appropriately. She also said this was not something been able to talk about much before and appreciated the opportunity.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Healing Presence in action. I've been looking for a centerpiece for my talk, and I think it just got handed to me. Again, it's about vulnerability and, too some extent, surrender. When we make ourselves vulnerable we give other people permission to be vulnerable, a state necessary for healing.
When Meg shared that story with me, I told her that it made me feel that softness in my heart that allows me to experience compassion for this person I didn't even know. Meg responded that Yes! she felt softening in her heart in relationship to this person as well! That's exactly what it felt like!
You see, we were able to see the assistant's pain and understand what a wounded person she is. But it's about witnessing the pain; there was no attempt to resolve this woman's problem, nor was it necessary to share in or experience it. That's compassion. That's Healing Presence.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Beating it into the ground
My friend Dennis Cass, in preparation for a talk he was preparing for, made the commitment to blog about it multiple times per day. I told him that I supported this; that three posts might be shit, but they may lead to a fourth that is a revelation. I'll try to make my posts relatively interesting, at least to me...
As I draft my outline, I cannot help but think about the video sent to the Ortho-Bionomy® Yahoo Group of Jill Bolte Taylor sharing her experience as a brain scientist having a stroke. She is a powerful speaker. Why because she is funny and she allows it to be personal.
I am using this as a guideline. I have had discussions with many people who agree that my greatest asset is myself. (Note correct word usage -"myself " is hideously misused.) So, me it is.
As I draft my outline, I cannot help but think about the video sent to the Ortho-Bionomy® Yahoo Group of Jill Bolte Taylor sharing her experience as a brain scientist having a stroke. She is a powerful speaker. Why because she is funny and she allows it to be personal.
I am using this as a guideline. I have had discussions with many people who agree that my greatest asset is myself. (Note correct word usage -"myself " is hideously misused.) So, me it is.
Fasten Your Seatbelts...
I stated that the goal of this blog is to aid me on my path to embodying the healing presence. Since I am going to have to talk about Cultivating the Healing Presence for an hour in Duluth at the Northwoods Wellness Expo, I thought I'd make use of this forum to support me.
I believe that the challenge that confronts me is making it just one hour. I think I could talk for four hours - or four days, but one hour is a big challenge. How do I hit the highlights; be informative. I don't want the material to seem crammed, irrelevant, incomplete. I know it's considered bad form to dwell on that which you want to avoid, but often it's the only way to define what you would like to achieve. So what do I want? What are the opposites of these descriptives: Useful. Self-contained. Flowing. Complete.
What do I want for my audience? To feel gratified, educated, replete. To see me as a font of wisdom, a master teacher, approachable and entertaining.
No problem.
I have a reputation for being able to pull stuff out at the last minute. To quote my sibling: "For the number of things you can pull out of your ass, it should be a lot bigger." Granted, being able to do this has a lot to do with the fact that I've been cooking on stuff for a while, but I don't want to do it that way this time. So, lots to do. But I feel like I've made progress in defining what I want this thing to look like. Stay tuned.
Your comments and suggestions are always helpful and appreciated.
I believe that the challenge that confronts me is making it just one hour. I think I could talk for four hours - or four days, but one hour is a big challenge. How do I hit the highlights; be informative. I don't want the material to seem crammed, irrelevant, incomplete. I know it's considered bad form to dwell on that which you want to avoid, but often it's the only way to define what you would like to achieve. So what do I want? What are the opposites of these descriptives: Useful. Self-contained. Flowing. Complete.
What do I want for my audience? To feel gratified, educated, replete. To see me as a font of wisdom, a master teacher, approachable and entertaining.
No problem.
I have a reputation for being able to pull stuff out at the last minute. To quote my sibling: "For the number of things you can pull out of your ass, it should be a lot bigger." Granted, being able to do this has a lot to do with the fact that I've been cooking on stuff for a while, but I don't want to do it that way this time. So, lots to do. But I feel like I've made progress in defining what I want this thing to look like. Stay tuned.
Your comments and suggestions are always helpful and appreciated.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sweet Surrender
I was being interviewed the other day by a woman who is in a health coaching program. I swear I am going to hire her to come in and ask me questions every two or three weeks. She's so smart and so inquisitive and asks such good questions. I get so clear and have so many great insights when I talked to her.
We were talking about the use of Ortho-Bionomy® with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She mentioned the connection between stress and IBS and we began to riff on that. Ortho-Bionomy is very relaxing on a surface level, but I mentioned that the stresses that contribute to IBS tend to be deep-seated issues and that really, the great benefit of this work is that it reaches deep through the surface stresses and down into the deep seated ones that lie beneath many of our pains.
Somehow through this, we got to a place where she said that, in some ways, she envied people of fundamentalist faith because they had access to this ability to have these profound healing experiences and then briefly related a story she'd read about a woman who was able to be rid of her chronic fatigue through Jesus.
The word or concept (I don't remember which) that stood out for me was "surrender". This woman gave herself up to Jesus, but what she really did was let go of any illusion of control or investment in being able to fix her situation. She was willing to let go of her ego, her attachment to her need to fix, and her intention for what and how the outcome of her healing should take place.
This ability to surrender the ego is something I believe to be a core piece of Cultivating the Healing Presence; there is no differentiation between creating that space for yourself or others.
Do you think Jesus took her pain or was it something else? Is it easier to surrender if you have something to symbolically surrender to?
As a sidebar, my tai chi instructor told me that if you strike someone between the eyes (without much force), it causes their body to temporarily freeze up and become disoriented. His teacher called it the "Preacher 's Knockout" - just watch some faith healers to see why (oh, there's one just below the xyphoid process too; you'll see him use this too):
We were talking about the use of Ortho-Bionomy® with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She mentioned the connection between stress and IBS and we began to riff on that. Ortho-Bionomy is very relaxing on a surface level, but I mentioned that the stresses that contribute to IBS tend to be deep-seated issues and that really, the great benefit of this work is that it reaches deep through the surface stresses and down into the deep seated ones that lie beneath many of our pains.
Somehow through this, we got to a place where she said that, in some ways, she envied people of fundamentalist faith because they had access to this ability to have these profound healing experiences and then briefly related a story she'd read about a woman who was able to be rid of her chronic fatigue through Jesus.
The word or concept (I don't remember which) that stood out for me was "surrender". This woman gave herself up to Jesus, but what she really did was let go of any illusion of control or investment in being able to fix her situation. She was willing to let go of her ego, her attachment to her need to fix, and her intention for what and how the outcome of her healing should take place.
This ability to surrender the ego is something I believe to be a core piece of Cultivating the Healing Presence; there is no differentiation between creating that space for yourself or others.
Do you think Jesus took her pain or was it something else? Is it easier to surrender if you have something to symbolically surrender to?
As a sidebar, my tai chi instructor told me that if you strike someone between the eyes (without much force), it causes their body to temporarily freeze up and become disoriented. His teacher called it the "Preacher 's Knockout" - just watch some faith healers to see why (oh, there's one just below the xyphoid process too; you'll see him use this too):
Monday, April 21, 2008
Turn Signals and Aunties
I was driving the other day and experienced an all too familiar event. As I was waiting to make a left turn, a driver in the oncoming traffic lane came to a stop, stared at me, and then eventually made a left turn. All without benefit of her turn signal. No harm, but it pushed my button.
I have a thing about turn signals. They are the most clear and most easily employed methods of communication between people operating large metal and glass objects careering (yes, that is the right word - look it up) through the world. I am completely at a loss as to why someone would fail to take advantage of this effective, and I believe necessary, mode of communication. Why wouldn't you want to? What are you hiding? Are you too lazy to swipe your hand, or are you unable to make the commitment?
Not 24 hours before this most recent cause for eye-rolling, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was in a bit of a quandary. She has an auntie who, it seems, likes to buy things for her nephews and nieces and their offspring. I say "it seems" because she has poor skills at offering to treat her young relatives and this is the kind of thing that compounds itself as no one wants to stop on anyone's toes, nor presume too much. This leads to all kinds of awkward behaviors and second guessing that leaves everyone feeling a bit out of sorts.
What do these two events have in common? Incomplete communication. How many problems would be solved if people could simply state their needs and preferences? What does this have to do with Healing Presence?
A question: What do you think incomplete communication has to do with Healing Presence? What do you think causes people to participate in incomplete or indirect communication? And, most of all, why don't people use their turn signals?
I have a thing about turn signals. They are the most clear and most easily employed methods of communication between people operating large metal and glass objects careering (yes, that is the right word - look it up) through the world. I am completely at a loss as to why someone would fail to take advantage of this effective, and I believe necessary, mode of communication. Why wouldn't you want to? What are you hiding? Are you too lazy to swipe your hand, or are you unable to make the commitment?
Not 24 hours before this most recent cause for eye-rolling, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was in a bit of a quandary. She has an auntie who, it seems, likes to buy things for her nephews and nieces and their offspring. I say "it seems" because she has poor skills at offering to treat her young relatives and this is the kind of thing that compounds itself as no one wants to stop on anyone's toes, nor presume too much. This leads to all kinds of awkward behaviors and second guessing that leaves everyone feeling a bit out of sorts.
What do these two events have in common? Incomplete communication. How many problems would be solved if people could simply state their needs and preferences? What does this have to do with Healing Presence?
A question: What do you think incomplete communication has to do with Healing Presence? What do you think causes people to participate in incomplete or indirect communication? And, most of all, why don't people use their turn signals?
Monday, April 7, 2008
Semiotics is the Root of All Chakras
Image from www.dancingshakina.comWhen I was in graduate school, I had a couple of ridiculously brilliant roommates. One of them became completely obsessed with semiotics in theater. She tried explaining the concepts of semiotics to me, but I quickly found myself over my head.
Fast forward 20 years later (YIKES!) and I am trying to understand semiotics for my own reasons. I still am struggling, but I have a clarity about why I might have a personal need to grasp it. One of my great frustrations in communicating with others about the kind of health care I provide and teach is helping them understand that all systems of healing operate based on metaphor. Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and yes, western-AMA-medicine, all have a metaphorical foundation. The problem comes when the metaphorical aspect gets lost. People become overly attached to the symbol, confusing it with the thing itself.
Why do I care? The danger of this literalism is that it leads, almost inevitably, to a kind of dogmatism, and a dogmatic approach is diametrically opposed to the Healing Presence.
We have a saying around here that "the map is not the territory". Investing in the "realness" of any of these metaphors is like gasoline on the flame of the ego. The need to cling to some kind of "fact" or "system" is a way of fooling ourselves into thinking we have more "knowing", more control, than we actually do.
I am so often questioned about the most prevalent and most firmly embraced of any of these symbolic systems - the Chakra system.
Sigh. The chakras. People are always screwing with each others chakras. Do I clear/balance/unblock, spindle, fold or mutilate them? I have to tell you, I don't know how to answer this. It's not like I do; it's not like I don't. It's not as though I'm not familiar with the metaphor; I know the designated locations, colors, correspondences and effects with which they are associated. But I realize, it's all semiotics. I don't know anything, but I know that.
I had an "Aha!" the other day when I realized that the chakras line up with places in the body I've found to be ripe for energetic and physiological logjams. They show up where there are structural transitions and, for whatever reason, these transitional areas tend to be prone to misalignments, divergent patterns, and lack of movement. This is my metaphor. Do I sometimes associate these with the chakras? Yes, sometimes, when it occurs to me. Does it change anything I do? Maybe. It's impossible to know what you'd do if you didn't know something you do know.
Maybe that's semiotics...
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Rending the Time/Space Continuum
My sister, a font of things weird and webby, sent me a link from the JC Penney's website. Clicking through, I was confronted by what may be the absolutely weirdest thing I have seen in recent memory.
It has captured my attention all day, but I wonder if my reaction is in some way disproportionate. Granted, there's the profound kitsch factor, and of course the darkly unsettling creepiness of the thing, but that's not what's captured me.
It was the fact that the existence of a Carol Channing ventriloquist doll in the JC Penneys catalog was something directly out of 1965. It is such a real world anachronism that I keep thinking that there must have been a tear in the time/space continuum, just large enough to let this thing slip through. The feeling this has created has left me a bit off-kilter. It's the inverse of the old wrist watch on the soldier in the gladiator movie. The reason it's funny in a movie is because we I'm practicing being with this sense of disorientation and recognizing my attachment to the rules of how things should be, how I expect events to line up with my expectations, and how I respond to having those expectations and assumptions disrupted. It gets particularly interesting when it involves my perception of the linear nature of time.
Anyway, in an attempt to find a nice little Carol Channing clip I found this. Here's the thing in motion. It's not brilliantly clever or entertaining, but it does show that someone actually bought it.
It has captured my attention all day, but I wonder if my reaction is in some way disproportionate. Granted, there's the profound kitsch factor, and of course the darkly unsettling creepiness of the thing, but that's not what's captured me.
It was the fact that the existence of a Carol Channing ventriloquist doll in the JC Penneys catalog was something directly out of 1965. It is such a real world anachronism that I keep thinking that there must have been a tear in the time/space continuum, just large enough to let this thing slip through. The feeling this has created has left me a bit off-kilter. It's the inverse of the old wrist watch on the soldier in the gladiator movie. The reason it's funny in a movie is because we I'm practicing being with this sense of disorientation and recognizing my attachment to the rules of how things should be, how I expect events to line up with my expectations, and how I respond to having those expectations and assumptions disrupted. It gets particularly interesting when it involves my perception of the linear nature of time.
Anyway, in an attempt to find a nice little Carol Channing clip I found this. Here's the thing in motion. It's not brilliantly clever or entertaining, but it does show that someone actually bought it.
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