A Couples’ Story, Part One: 

Should We Be Happy All The Time?

I was struck by a session I had recently with a couple.  They were separated and on the verge of divorce when the woman, Mary, came in for a four-day intensive.   Mary had faced some serious issues in her marriage over a long period of time, and had become very anxious, and, more recently, depressed.  She was tense, she didn’t sleep well, and was constantly pre-occupied with the issues she had experienced in her marriage.

After a few days of intensive learning about the inside-out nature of life, Mary’s experience of life suddenly shifted.  She saw how her own thoughts were creating the feelings of anxiety and low self-worth that she had been experiencing for so long.

First her mind got quieter – she started to feel more peaceful and, to her amazement, started sleeping better.  Then her own innate joy and well being welled up inside her.  Mary began experiencing happiness for the first time in a long time.  She was psychologically free, and it was beautiful to witness the transformation she experienced.

Mary and her husband re-united, and had a lovely honeymoon period that lasted for several months.  They just focused on enjoying each other.  Then something happened that reminded Mary of the issues from the past.  Her thoughts became focused on those issues and the pain the she had experienced with her husband.  Though they had put those issues behind them, suddenly it was all Mary could think about.  They arrived for their next session looking unhappy and downtrodden.

What was most remarkable to me about witnessing Mary in that session was the shift that took place in her consciousness.  When she first started working with me, it was as if she was caught in a world of mirrors, all of them reflecting her mental pain.  Learning about the inside-out nature of life had snapped her out of that dream.  Now she was caught back up in it and I could see that when I talked to her, she wasn’t really listening to me.  My words were like a distant echo, and what Mary was hearing, mostly, were her own thoughts cycling and re-cycling.

In Mary’s case, my mentioning that she wasn’t listening to me was what it took to snap her out of her dream.  Suddenly she looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, though we were half way through the session.  At that point I repeated much of what I’d already said, as I knew she hadn’t heard me.  I told Mary that it’s natural sometimes to re-visit issues that haven’t been healed in a relationship, especially as that relationship gets better.  Sometimes that’s what it takes to have enough safety and security to be present to the pain that occurred in the past, and get over it.  When we’re not available to have pain and grieve loss in the moment, sometimes we do so later.

Mary had stepped into a pitfall that people do sometimes when they learn the principles – thinking that because you know that your thoughts create your feelings  you should be happy all the time.  This is a misinterpretation of understanding the inside-out nature of life.  A more accurate way to put it is that when you see your thoughts creating your feelings in the moment, you can’t create as much unnecessary pain for your self.  You still may have grief sometimes, if you experience a loss, or other thoughts and feelings in response to life events.  But these thoughts and feelings will normally flow through you, creating depth and healing on the way.  It’s when we interfere with thoughts and feelings flowing through us, through over-analysis, resistance, or other ways of keeping thought in place, that we interfere with the design of our own minds – which is to experience our own innate well being again once the thought storm has passed.

Awake! Can You Really Change Your Thinking?
Carla is a medical doctor who tends to be quite analytical, work long hours, and have a very busy mind. After learning about the inside-out nature of life, Carla’s mind settled down quite a bit- all sorts of unnecessary thinking dropped away. Within that new mental space and mental quiet, she began to realize that she lived in different feeling states throughout the day. She sometimes experienced anxiety and depression in response to some adverse life events that had plagued her for many years. But the more Carla realized about the inside-out nature of life the more the repetitive thoughts that caused these feelings dropped away.

But recently Carla had been feeling quite down about a difficult case she was handling. It wasn’t going well, and she was worrying about it. Then, she said, she realized she could change her thought, and then it changed! She said she felt much better after that.

‘Did you really change your thought?’ I asked her. ‘How did you do that’?

There was a pause.

‘When most people say that, they mean something like that they replaced a negative thought with a positive one, as in positive thinking, or what cognitive behavioral therapy calls re-framing. Is that what you meant?’ I asked her.

‘No, Carla replied. ‘I realized I was feeling yucky and then I realized that that feeling was coming from my own thoughts. Then the thinking just seemed to go away- at least I noticed that my feelings changed for the better.’

I thought that that’s what Carla meant, but it was actually quite different from what she said. Can you see the difference in the language? So many people talk these days about changing their thoughts or thinking positively, that it’s easy to slip into talking about ‘changing your thoughts’ when in fact it’s not you doing the changing at all. Thoughts change themselves. It’s a subtle distinction that makes all the difference in the world.

I had a call recently from a VP at a large advertising firm. She wanted me to work with one of her direct reports, a man named Jim. A was a general manager in his early 40’s. He had lots of talent, but he was a procrastinator, and it was getting in the way of advancing his career. He struggled all the time with getting things done, and, was chronically behind with deadlines. At his annual 360’s, his boss had told him several times that he had the talent to move up at the company, but he had to become more efficient and handle things in a more timely manner.

After talking with Jim, I started to ask him about the state of mind he lives in, and the feeling states that he experienced throughout the day. It soon became apparent that he was out of touch with his feelings most of the time. Digging a little deeper, he realized he was in a low level, anxious state much if not most of the time. That anxious feeling made him so uncomfortable that he had learned to tune it out to the point that he was, for all intents and purposes, unaware of it. When Jim tried to talk to me about his procrastination issues, he would get drawn into analytical thinking about it that only got him lost in thought. Or else he became distracted from the topic at hand – procrastinating about his procrastination!

What broke the cycle for Jim was learning to become aware of his feelings, and remembering that the only place his feelings could come from was his own thinking in that very moment. After the initial discomfort of feeling the anxious feelings he was in much of the time, his awareness of the source of those feelings – his own thinking – allowed the thoughts to clear themselves. When that happened, Jim said, his feeling shifted from weak to powerful. This provided the necessary motivation to keep bringing his awareness back to the uncomfortable feelings of anxiety that he had so much of the time, and that he had avoided for so long.

Little by little, things began to shift for Jim. He was less anxious, and felt empowered more of the time. And as his brain began to return to its normal functioning – having a thought, a feeling, then clearing itself – rather than being clogged up with anxiety-producing thoughts, he began to enjoy the normal flow of fresh healthy thinking that enlivens people and makes life worth living. This flow of fresh thoughts arising in the moment brings us the deeper feelings that nourish and inspire us, feelings like love, compassion, contentment, and joy.

As Jim’s brain recovered from the stress of all those repetitive, anxiety-producing thoughts, he began to get good, commonsense ideas for how to respond to the daily tasks that he had been chronically behind on, and how to run his life in a more efficient manner. Eventually his inspiration at work returned, and he began to have great ideas for the clients whose contracts he handled. His downward spiral at work self-corrected, and after three months, he called me to tell me he’d received a promotion!

It was hard initially for Jim to undo the override on his anxious feelings that had been in place for so long, but as you can see, it was well worth it. When we experience our feelings, the thoughts that created them move on and make room for something fresh. Optimal mental functioning includes having all of our feelings, the good and the bad – being present to all of it, so that we can stay present to life.

A Two Day Retreat on the Beautiful Island of Martha’s Vineyard

Dr. Annika Hurwitt Schahn is offering a two-day retreat in Sustainable Well Being. Well Being naturally heals stress, and an understanding of the workings of the human mind makes well being sustainable, rather than something we visit. Dr. Schahn will present a principle-based understanding of our mental life that has freed thousands of people from unnecessary mental stress and suffering. When you understand the principles behind experience, you not only have a lot less on your mind, but a greater, more sustainable level of well being, and a more beautiful life.

Date: November 3 & 4, 2012

Time: 10 A.M.- 3:00 P.M.

Location: Sacred Circle of Yoga, 157 Clover Hill Rd, Vineyard Haven MA .

Cost: $165 includes lunch

To Register: E-mail annikaschahn@gmail.com, or call 508-687-9946, or send a check to: Annika Schahn, PO Box 221 West Tisbury MA 02575
SPACE LIMITED – PLEASE REGISTER BY OCTOBER 15, 2012

Why do deeper feelings matter? They’re the greatest remedy to stress, for one thing.  Stress takes a great toll on peoples’ mental and physical health.  When we tap into the world of deeper feelings, the mind re-sets itself.  There’s a rhythm to everything in the universe – everything moves in a wave-like pattern.  When those waves are stalled in the body by too much sitting, too little movement, we get disease.  When they’re stalled in the mind, we get stress, and over time stress can turn into insecurity,  anxiety and worse.

Your mind is always functioning in one of two ways – its actively going after thought, moving around your personal world of data, analysis, past and future, or its receptively settling into the here and now.  You’ll know how your mind is functioning by how you feel.  When you settle into the present, even for a moment, you get touched by the world of deeper feelings.  You relax, sigh, perhaps notice that the sun is coming out, there’s a beautiful scent of fir trees in the air, or that the silence of that moment holds you close.  When your mind moves back into its more effortful function, that awareness disappears, and your feeling state will be neutral.  If you stay in your perosnal world of thought for too long, you will begin to expereince stress, and eventually various forms of distress.

We Are Always Getting Prompts: Everyone has a core of innate health and wisdom, that sends out quiet thoughts to help keep you on track.  Its that same voice, or thought, that appears quietly in your mind when you’re leaving the house and “umbrella” passes through your mind.  You think, no, its sunny out, and leave without it, only to be drenched in a downpour later in the day.

That same quiet wisdom is giving you prompts all the time about how to keep your mind in its natural rhythm of moving in and out of the present.  When you’ve been hard at work, using your personal world of thought , you’ll have the thought, ‘take a break.’  It’s up to you whether you respect or ignore that thought.  If you listen to it, you might take a short walk, or close your eyes at your desk for a few minutes, or do whatever else occurs to you in the moment to take your mind out of current function and let its return to its natural rhythm of rest and be receptive, then retrieve or analzye data.  Again, if you ignore it, you’ll know it by the way you feel – you will begin to feel stressed and tired, or notice that you’re having arguments with people, or making a lot of mistakes at work, or being inefficient at your tasks at home.

Deeper Feelings Help People Function at their Best:

Deeper feelings fill you with joy and well-being.  People’s minds naturally become more inspired and creative.   You become more productive and successful.  And because your own feeling reservoir is full, you have more to give to others.   You’ll be kinder to your children, and get along better with your spouse.  You’re more likely to have the time and energy to check in on a sick neighbor, or volunteer at a food bank.  You become more interested in making our world a better place.

I accept checks and PayPal and credit cards for coaching and four-day intensive retreats.

A Couples’ Story: Sally and Sarah have been learning the prinicples, and it has changed their marriage. A couple in their mid-30′s, they had been married for 7 years. Their relationship was up and down, due to lack of communication and fighting. Whenever they would get into a disagreement, they would talk and talk, trying to sort it through. The more they talked, the more their relationship would spiral down. They had tried couples’ counseling before, and it had only made things worse. The more the therapist pointed them in the direction of their problems, the worse they felt about themselves and the more they fought. It was to the point where they were losing optimism about being able to make it as a couple.

The first thing that hapened after learning about the 3 spiritual prinicples discovered by Sydney Banks, was that Sally got more lighthearted, and Sarah became more confident. “I never realized before how much I keep things on my mind that weigh me down,” Sally said. “I’m feeling so much happier! I was completely happy for 4 days in a row – that hasn’t happpened ever in my life that I can remember. Then I went back to work and started to get down again, until I noticed that I was thinking heavy, serious thoughts, and then it lifted and I l felt great again. This is amazing to me.” Sarah said: “It used to be whenever I was mad or upset with Sally I would pretend that I wasn’t, because I didn’t want to upset her. Now I have the confidence to feel the way I feel without worrying about Sally so much. I don’t take it out on her, but I’m not afraid to tell her how I feel.”

Affter this initial progress, the couple had a honeymoon period of enjoying their relationsip more than they could ever remember. And then they had their first big fight. “I had been saving money for over a year so that we could have another child, and I went into that account and discovered that Sally had taken out a good part of that money and used it for a bill, without telling me. I was so upset – she knows how hard I’ve worked to save that money, and how very much I want to have another child. I couldn’t even talk to her for the rest of the day. But things went so differently when we talked about it! Normally I would have approached her very upset. But I waited, because I now know that wouldn’t work. She asked me if I was upset before going to bed, and I said I was, but that I couldn’t talk about it at that time. I waited until the next day, when I was feeling more calm about it. When we found a good time to talk, I asked Sally about the money, and instead of getting all upset and angry about it, the way she normally would, she said ‘of course I can see why that would upset you.’ Then she explained why she needed to draw on that money for an immediate need, and how she had more money coming in to replace it. I couldn’t believe how easily we resolved this. Of course what she told me made sense, but if I hadn’t waited until I was feeling better, I wouldn’t have been able to hear that. Something that would normally have dragged on for days or weeks was over within a day or so. Its like a miracle! Sally: ‘It was hard for me when Sarah wouldn’t talk or be affectionate before we went to bed that night. But it was different from before. I could tell that she wasn’t being cold or mean, and that made it easier for me to wait. Then when we talked about it it went so easily! It wasn’t even an arugment. We were back on track with our relationshp in no time! This is like a miracle for us – we are so happy!” Sally and Sarah say that they now have a confidence in their relationship that they didn’t have before, and confidence in their future together.

Here’s a report from a client who was really struggling with challenges from the economic downturn, and then turned the  whole thing around:

I’ve been going through a very challenging period – probably the hardest time of my life. The economic downturn hit me and my family hard. I’m having to move out of the dreamhouse I just spent a year building, and re-locate, as there’s no work where I live at this time. I’ve been feeling really bad and so tired of feeling bad and wanting to know why I was feeling so bad. I felt insecure, and I had self pity about my own insecurity.

 No wonder I was feeling that way – I was letting the external determine how I was feeling internally. And no wonder I was feeling bad, because my circumstances were really difficult, & I was making them even more difficult with the way I was responding to them. And then it just dawned on me. It was as if my wisdom was trying to get through to me the whole time, but I was jamming it with my own insecurity. It suddenly dawned on me that the inner creates the outer & I had the whole thing upside down; I was letting the outer affect my inner life. When the impact of that insight hit me it was as if everything stopped – all my insecure thinking, all my anxiety, my working on my agendas – and I felt this incredible sense of relief.

A sense of clearness and cleanness opened before me. I could see that it was a beautiful day, and that I was in a beautiful place, and that I might be in the middle of challenging circumstances but I didn’t need to let that run my entire emotional life. It was as if I became changed from an insane person to a sane person. The insane person was running & running, chasing its own thoughts, & then the sane person was totally content with the present that I felt . It changed my whole perspective .
It Happened Again. Later that day, my thoughts started getting funky & I started to feel insecure & anxious again. Then I realized that this is what I do – I get tired & hungry and chase my insecure thoughts around . So I ate something, and reflected on the insight I had earlier about how the inner affects the outer. I started asking myself for more clarity on that experience – how can my inner reach the outer – & I had this incredible experience of peace that came over me, and satisfaction, and a very simple gratitude, and I felt myself in my body – I felt my toes, and the fibers of the muscles in my legs – things I’m not normally aware of. This presence brought all my different faculties into the moment. I was experiencing the divine intelligence of life within. To me it came like a feeling of the long lost beloved – we spend so much time seeking things externally, and then when we get something internally, it’s like the answer to the ultimate question, whatever that is. I hear people say when you get really deep you can’t be alone because you have this experience of god in your body. And I’ve had thoughts like that but I’ve also experienced being alone, or lonely. This experience was so rich I was completely not lonely for the first time in my life. Even though I was alone I had this great satisfaction and wasn’t lonely.
I just have to remember that this is the most important thing in life, that the challenge of having to live with bills is no comparison to this experience of the inner life.

I was talking with Sarah today, a client who came for the Four-Day Intensive. She was describing how her life has continued to change since the intensive. This is a woman who has struggled with relationships. As we discoverd during the intensive, some of her relationship issues came from having a mind that was constantly busy.  She had so much on her mind that it was hard for her to listen to people.  Oh, she could listen superficially, but mostly while she listened she had her own agenda on her mind.  So people felt like she was hard to connect with.  Her teenage kids were often angry with her because they felt like she didn’t listen to them or respect their requests.

During the intensive Sarah worked with the principles and her mind got much more settled and quiet.  She found herself noticing life around her  in a way she hadn’t for a long time.  Many people experience this during meditation or sometimes yoga, but the principles helped Sarah awaken to the mental chatter she carried around with her moment-by-moment in her life.  Once she saw that, she was able to be more settled and present, even when she wasn’t meditating or doing yoga.  In fact, she said that even during these practices there was always mental background noise; it wasn’t until she saw what was going on her mind that she was able to back off from what she had been doing that kept her thoughts going.

But what was really interesting to me was what happened later, 3 weeks after the intensive had ended.  Sarah said that she continued to become more and more aware of the feeling state that she lived in, and knew from learning the principles that whatever feelings she experienced were a reflection of  Thought.  The more she tuned into this, the quieter her thoughts became.  It came to her like an insight, just a quiet thought arising in her mind out of the blue.  But it impacted her with the feeling insights have, of taking her out of her ordinary mindset into a different level of awareness.  Something new was happening in her brain. 

Since then, Sarah said, her mind has been getting more and more quiet.  Even her yoga teacher, who has known her for years, commented on it, telling her he was grateful that something had helped Sara’s mind get more settled and quiet.

I could tell that it was already easier to connect with Sarah than it had been, and have great hope for how her quieter mind will bring more depth and connection to all her relationships, especially within her own family.

During the intensive,k

When Brian and Mary came for their couples’ intensive, they were on the verge of a divorce. They had been married for 30 years, and had 4 kids who were now all leaving the nest. When I interviewed them before their intensive, he said he felt they just needed to spend some time together now that the kids were gone and get close again. Mary, on the other hand, was clear that this intensive was their last shot at staying together. “We’ve been having problems for 20 of our 30 years together. We’ve been seeing a marriage counselor, and she has recommended divorce at this point. I’m not really sure why we’re coming to you, but I’ve heard that sometimes this works when nothing else can.”

After working with Brian and Mary individually at first, it became clear that they both had habits of Thought that were getting in their way. On his part, Brian thought he was unatrractive. When he felt Mary was distant, it confirmed this belief, and then he would fele insecure, frightened and lonely. His way of dealing with those feelings was to find women in need of financial help, whom he would befriend and help out fnancially for a period of time. Their need of him made him feel less lonely and unloveable.

Mary, on the other hand, had picked up the thought somewhere along the line that she was stupid, or that other people thought she was. Whenever she would find out about one of these women who were benefitting from Brian’s philanthropy, she would think, “What does he think, I’m stupid?” This thought ws extrememly upsetting to her; whenever she thought it, she would become cold and distant. When she was cold and distant, Brian would look for someone new to help to get some emotional connection and warmth. And so the cycle would continue, to the point that Mary was ready to divorce him.

As Mary began to understand the role that Thought plays in relationships, she settled down, and began to see that her experience of being ‘stupid’ was coming from her, from her own thinking, not from Brian. This was a very big realization for her. She began to be less guarded around Brian, as she learned more and more about the principles and simply began enjoying the moment.

From my perspective, it was obvious that Brian adored his wife, and had tremendous respect for her. Her coldness made him insecure, and those insecure thoughts made him lose his bearings – he didn’t know what to do to re-connect with her. As Brian’s thoughts settled down, the wall of Thought he so often lived in, that he was unattractive, also loosened their hold on him.

Mary and Brian began to communicate with each other in sessions, without anger and defensiveness. They began to be able to have a dialogue, and even laugh about things. The turning point came when, at a break, Brian stood up, screwed up all his courage and said to Mary: “Would you like to spend the break with me?” Mary, taken aback by his forthright effort to connect with her, paused for a moment, then said “Yes! I would!” They began re-discovering what it meant to spend time together without all their old thought patterns, most of which had been invisible to them, running the show.

When Brian and Mary showed up for the last day of their intensive, they were tentaively a team once again. They had that sweetness you feel around people who are just getting to know each other and are a little shy about it. That newfound sense of connection grew and grew after they got home. Their fear and mistrust melted away as they began to re-experience their real connetion with each other. It was as if those 20 years of alienation and distance melted away without a trace. This so often happens when people re-connect with their true natures. No matter how many years you may struggled, been depressed or anxious, or had trouble in your relationship, when you re-connect with your innate mental and spiritual health your in-built capacity for truth re-surfaces, and all those years of struggle appear like the illusion they really were.

I check in with Brian and Mary at 6 month intervals, and at the two year mark all they have to say is: “Very Happy!”