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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so my journey (and yours) goes on…

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Here’s the story: a parable worthy of ancient times.

Once there was a man who felt quite compelled to finish everything he began. While this was considered a fine quality in a person, enabling many others to be able to rely upon him and thus allowing his business to swell with gratitude and pride for his abilities to keep on going with his work at all costs, it also became quite a drain for the man who would not stop. Moreover, in addition to finding he was unable to stop and therefore felt quite compelled not only to finish his work, the man who would not stop also felt quite compelled to finish everything he said.

Now as you can imagine, this man after a time found himself in many a situation wherein it would have been just as well or perhaps better if he had only the power (or, as some would begin to say, the wits) to stop talking at just the right time. But no, the man who would not stop simply went on and on. And he grew to anger many a former friend and business client because of his inability to simply stop talking when the others around him had had enough.

One day, then, the villagers in this man’s village gathered together, meeting in secret. They knew that if word got out to the man who would not stop about the meeting, all their plans would be ruined, and of course he would be unable to keep any manner of secret himself, being unable as he was to simply stop talking when it was time to do so. The villagers decided to make the man’s life hard, very hard indeed. They decided to stop giving their business to him and to instead use a man two towns over who did shoddy work that was never on time but who possessed one redeeming quality that the man who would not stop did not: the power of judicious silence.

So all the village’s business that would have ordinarily gone to the man who would not stop went to the man two towns over. And the man who would not stop was puzzled. Where were his friends? Where was his business? Where were the coins that used to come rolling in aplenty? The man who would not stop was puzzled. And then he became angry. He became so angry in fact that he simply disappeared one day in a puff of angry smoke and was never heard or seen from again.

Now, the villagers of the former man who would not stop grew puzzled themselves. They felt that perhaps something bad had happened and felt guilt in their part in creating that bad thing. And so they began to talk. They talked amongst themselves. And it was as if they were becoming, each of them, a little piece of the former man who would not stop. And the quarreling started. And fights broke out. And villagers refused to do business with neighbors they had known all their lives. And the life of the village was disrupted. No one was happy.

After a time, however, a witch decided to take up residence in the village. After all, it was just her sort of place: angry, mean, spiteful. The witch felt very happy there in the village. But the villagers grew even more suspicious. They began to blame one another for the presence of the witch and for every bad thing they thought had ever happened to them. One day, however, the witch called the villagers together and told them that she was going to tell them a secret:

If it is me you no longer wish to see, call him in from the departed again
All you need to do is allow him to be; let him speak and you set yourselves free!

The villagers were perplexed. Did the witch mean that they invite back the former man who would not stop? But he was dead, was he not? They spoke among themselves and yet soon were in agreement. They would try what the witch suggested.

And so the villagers raised a man from the dead and he did walk again among them. And he never again spoke a word. And everyone was happy.

There was a little explanation of this in the channeling, but on this post I’ll stop here and let it sink in. If you want to see more, check out the full March message on light-spring.com via this link. But yes, it is a parable of inner meaning.

We’re off to Tuscon to do a workshop this weekend. Even with my condition, it should be fun!

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Centers and Balancing Them

Centers are a concept that is intuitively known to everyone, though not necessarily by that name. We know almost immediately when interacting with someone: Is this person a “head” person? Or are they a “heart” person? Or a “body-centric” person. This is the same as being Intellectually Centered, Emotionally centered, or Moving centered, respectively.

Expanding this, centers essentially little energetic “computers” in which the experiences we live are filtered, processed, and delivered to our consciousness. There are 7 centers in all, although there are mainly three most people consciously interact with on a regular basis. These three are essentially summed up as “heart, mind, and body”. In the Michael system, these correspond to the emotional, intellectual, and moving centers. The Gurdjieff system - and many other systems, such as NLP - also have analogous concepts.

This article will mostly deal with these 3 most commonly used centers and partly with the Instinctive center. The instinctive center, loosely speaking, is the center that supports all the other centers by keeping the body alive via instinct and keeping records of experiences. The remaining 3 centers – Higher Intellectual, Higher Emotional, and Higher Moving centers – are explained elsewhere. However, balancing the 3 “lower” centers is an effective tool to enable you to access the higher centers.

One interpretation of why they are called “centers” is that we tend to “center” our consciousness in one of them. Thus an “intellectually centered person” will interpret all experiences through this perceptual lens. Emotions could be categorized, labeled, psychoanalyzed, and even considered “not valid” unless the reasons for them are understood. A moving-centered person would listen to what the body says, store information in the body, and listen to the intuitive wisdom of the body more than others.

The concept of centering applies both to the individual as well as to a family, a group, a community, a nation, or a world. The western world is very much intellectually centered, though there are pockets which have other centering. In general, the order of preference of the 3 main centers are:

1. Intellectual center: Almost all high paying corporate jobs are primarily based here.
2. Moving center: Some athletes are rewarded, and this center is needed to “get things done”.
3. Emotional center: Emotions are recognized, but are often seen as something to “deal with” rather than use with intelligence, as a form of perception or to enrich one’s life.

Centers are related to chakras, but are not identical. Chakras are gateways of energy, allowing energetic movement and interaction between the “outside world” and your own experience. A chakra is not where you process this energy, but is the conduit of that energy from within to without and back. There is thus a high level of interaction between centers and their appropriate chakra.

Imbalance in Centers

As mentioned, most people have a “favorite center”. This is usually where they spend the greatest amount of time – perhaps all of their time - operating from. There is nothing wrong with this, as no center is in any way “better” than any other. Each center has its own unique strengths. At the same time, when one center is relied on to solve everything – including areas which are not its specialty – imbalances occur. This might be equivalent to using a screwdriver when a wrench is the easiest tool. A common scenario might be an intellectually centered person in a relationship fight who insists on being “rational” while denying all emotions, intuitions, and warmth at that moment.

These imbalances affect health in the body as well. When there is imbalance or blockage, the flow of energy meridians in the body will be affected. There may be a concentration of energy in one area, leading to problems in that area or surrounding ones. Much of Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture comes from thousands of years of observing the flow of chi, or energy, in the body, and noting where the most natural flow is in the body. When energy gets re-routed in areas the body was not designed to handle it, over time illness can occur. This is analogous to what an imbalance of centers is.

Beyond health issues, being imbalanced – and this is the most important aspect - will restrict the perception of what choices are available. If you are imbalanced towards one center, you will only see possibilities based in that center, even if they are inappropriate ones. The imbalance creates a buildup of energy that can fixate into patterns of behavior that may not always be appropriate. Thus in the example of the person insisting on being “rational” above, there is usually no awareness that there is another way to be. The consciousness is seated entirely in one center and has no easy routes to other centers, and so only sees the options from that place.

When it comes to centers, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This means that if you have all of intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and body/world intelligence, you will be a much more powerful force to the world than three people manifesting each of these. Adding the awareness of the other 4 centers is more powerful still. Balancing the centers enables a much more regular and clear access to the higher centers, which are the source of epiphanies and ecstatic religious experiences.

Connections between Centers

The centers communicate amongst themselves. Because each center has their own intelligence, each benefit from the very different intelligence of the others. When used in co-ordination, there is immense power and wisdom that can be tapped by person. The emotions may inform the brain of their own wisdom, which then makes a more wider scope decision than it could have otherwise if it denied any emotional factors.

Most people have only certain pathways in the connections between centers open to them. To give an example, one person may be intellectually centered and base his consciousness there. He may not be open mentally to listening emotional sensitivities, and thus it is generally only the intellect that affects emotions, and not vice versa. There may be a good two-way connection between the body and the brain (but not the body and emotions). There may also be a strong emotional memory of certain pain in the past from the instinctive center, but thoughts of these events are unwanted and blocked. This may result in a connection flow such as this:

This is of course a simplified diagram of the connection in this example (your habitual connections may differ), but it is helpful to illustrate that connections exist and can be blocked.

The goal of balancing the centers, or being a balanced human being, is to ensure there is a good two-way connection between all the centers in the body. Each center listens and speaks to every other center, and each center performs its natural function while allowing others to perform in their own strengths. There is a perfect complimentary nature to all the centers, each helping the others in its own way. The idea of a ‘balanced man’ in Gurdjieff is based on this.

Parts of Centers

Nothing is an island in itself, and this includes centers as well. There are thoughts that have much emotional energy, and emotions that are close to being a thought. In this framework, this is because each center can be thought of as being itself a spectrum of all the centers, or a spectrum of 7 parts. (Again, we will focus only on the 3 “lower” centers here) Thus within the moving center, there exists a spectrum that covers the energy of all the centers in your body, but with a moving-centered foundation laid under it. So the emotional part of the moving center would deal with body-centered states and motions that have a definite emotional expression or focus.

The Michael Channel Shepherd Hoodwin has written the following about centers, introducing the part of a center:

Every center has seven parts of centers, which is a sort of doorway into the other centers. The parts of centers have the same names as the centers themselves. So there is an intellectual center, and an intellectual part of every center. Also, your part of center is like your secondary centering.

The part of a center is both within the original center as well as part of a connection with the matching center. Thus, as shown in the diagram, the Intellectual part of the Moving Center naturally connects with the Moving Part of the Intellectual Center.

If you could imagine each of the centers in the body, the various parts, and the interconnecting energies, you would get a picture of immeasurable beauty, a complete system that is in effect a miniature reproduction of the energies of the 7 planes of existence. When someone has all the centers connected to each other, there tends to be a great feeling of peaceful completeness. All is well.

Each part of each center has their function. Here is a table of some manifestations of the parts of the 3 more common centers a person might have. It is by no means a comprehensive list.

When centers are discovered in someone or are channeled about them, what is usually given is the main center and the part of that center that is usually inhabited. In the example above, one’s consciousness can be fixated in the moving part of the emotional center. This is still the intellectual center, but is an aspect of thought that is focused on getting things done: thoughts about action.

The part becomes the trap

Returning to the connections between the centers, as mentioned earlier, most people have only a smaller number of connections active. When someone’s awareness is based in the Intellectual part of the Moving Center, this does not necessarily mean their connection to the Intellectual Center is well established. Often this connection is blocked to some degree, which means that there is some blocked energy, and the “part” becomes the “trap”. It is a “trap” because the majority of a person’s focus is spend locked in that part of the center, with significant inflexibility in accessing the wisdom of other centers.

For an example, say you were trapped in the Moving part of Intellectual center. In this trap, the energy that comes from a thought about putting something in the world would not move into action, nor come out as emotions that might inspire you further. You might think over and over thoughts about a plan of action, potential problems, analysis of other people involved and so on, but not do anything towards the plan. The impulse stays in the intellectual center, without using the balancing and completing energy of the moving and emotional centers. The trap tends to be a downward spiral, no matter what center it is based in. In this case, there might be a recognition of procrastination going on, in which case even more thoughts about doing something about it would form. Rather than solve the blockage in flow between the centers, this places even more energy in the already over-utilized centers. Those in a trap will have thoughts that things aren’t working because they’re not trying hard enough. There is thus more energy spend in doing the same thing with the same method, thinking things will be different.

Another example might be being trapped in the Moving part of Emotional center. This trap could appear in a number of ways, from always having a “jittery” feeling, to being very reactive to emotional events. In essence, there is an immediate emotional reaction to events, and then there is a reaction in the body (inwardly or outwardly) that keeps one in an emotional state. Any action that appears tends to be a frustrative reaction rather than a productive choice, and will have a strong emotional flavor. The full power of the Moving center has not been engaged and it is hard to step back and think in a detached manner about choices when a strong emotion is present. The trap is most noticeable when the reactions to emotions perpetually create even more emotions, leading to a life filled with emotional drama.

It is important to see that no trap is “better” than any other. They are all limitations: of perceptions, of resources, of choice. Society might have a preference that says it’s better to be stuck in the intellect, but aside from societal preferences there is no ‘better’ trap. Some will be more internal than external and are not as obvious to others who are not closely connected. The only issue is that of being whole; living more completely in who you are.

This ends Part 1. Part 2 involves techniques for balancing the centers.   If you like this, read the next in the series!

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

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

Focusing on the trap

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

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

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

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

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

Building up Inter-center communications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exercise 1: Instinctive-Moving Center connection

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

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

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

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

Exercise 2: Emotional-Moving Center connections (group)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exercise 3: Moving / Emotional / Instinctive Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Please feel free to suggest other exercises here!

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

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

Blame

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

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

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

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

Responsibility

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

“You are responsible for these feelings in me.”

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

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

Letting go of it all

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The wrap up

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

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

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

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

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I haven’t written much anymore, but I have written a few things at a blog with Karen on the Polaris Rising site.   This is there too.  Please check it out!   So on to the writing…

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

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

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

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

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

Lines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you sure?

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

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

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

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

Even in this conversation, it is implied that my heart is something separate from who I am, and that’s obviously not the case.  But that’s part of the journey of life here: we experience something as separate so that our mind can grasp just a little part of what the universe is.   It’s not equipped to see too much.  But this helps us look at the little truths with more passion.  The truth of the dandelion swaying in the wind.  The truth of childlike wonder in running through a summer’s sprinkler and pointing it toward others in play.  The truth of our own hearts.  The Language of the World.

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

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

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