today, we said, “I do.” And we still do!

Sandy and Robert had just broken up and it was a mess. They were part of a group of friends that went back fifteen years and the emotional tension was driving a wedge between all of them. They just couldn’t hang out together anymore.

One of the members practices EFT and offered to do some “trigger work” for the whole group. Each person identified what was hurting them most. For Sandy, it was watching Robert be affectionate with others in the group. For Linda, it was the familiar conflict of having to choose between the people she loves, something that went back to her parent’s divorce when she was a child. For Stacy, it was feeling helpless to help. For Robert, it was guilt because he was the one who initiated the breakup.

Each friend clarified what was troubling them and held it in mind while they rated the level of intensity of emotional pain on a 0 to 10 scale, 10 being as emotionally intense as it could be and 0 being no sense of distress at all.

They all sat together focusing on their individual issue and using the EFT procedure, which includes tapping gently on the end points of the major meridians on their face, torso and hands. After three rounds, in about ten minutes, they all stopped and rated their intensity level again. All but one of them had experienced a significant drop in their emotional pain and reported relief from the physical discomfort that accompanies relationship pain. Emotions can cause headaches, nausea, tightness in the face, chest, stomach and throat and a variety of other physical symptoms.

They decided to do several more rounds to see how much better it could get. Several more levels of improvement occurred for each of them. Most of their levels had dropped to a 0 or 1 and a few others were hovering at3 or 4. EFT had treated the invisible perturbations in their individual energy fields that were generating the group tension. This gave significant and rapid relief because they were treating the cause, not just the symptoms.

After the EFT treatments, about 45 minutes, they spontaneously started to discuss how each of them had been affected by the “breakup”. Instead of everyone feeling heavy and stilted, they were all laughing again, joined in the familiar camaraderie that had kept them together for fifteen years.

Our own experience with this invisible “whateveritis” has shown up in our own relationship since the very beginning when we first met. And it has continued to show up in our work with relationships, deepening our own sensitivity to fluctuations in the field.

If you do not have certain distinctions about what actually causes relationships to be the way they are, the way to healing, repairing and evolving relationships can appear impossible or difficult, at best. And without these distinctions many relationship interventions are more like a band aid on a gushing artery.

We’ve worked with families, companies, teams and communities in which there were relationship challenges between two or more people that had a significant negative effect on the entire group. Families have been torn apart, production in companies negatively impacted and communities damaged for lack of understanding how a single unresolved issue between people can affect and damage the whole.

It happens all the time and it doesn’t have to. In our view, this level of relational sophistication and maturity is actually the leading edge for human evolution.

All of our relationships exist in an invisible field of energy that can be calm and stable, in a state of homeostasis. But when there are powerful emotions between two or more people, those emotions, such as anger, sadness, resentment, hurt feelings, etc. ripple out through the field, having an effect on everyone involved. The more people suppress or deny their feelings the crazier the field gets which has an undesirable effect on everyone else involved.

Emotional Tanking

The illustration on the left depicts a phenomenon called “emotional tanking”. Click on illustration to enlarge

The story above is similar to the one we shared in our last post and is typical of what EFT can do. It is a deceptively simple and powerful tool for healing relationship issues of any kind. We use it all the time in our coaching practice and in our relationship with each other.

What most people fail to realize or know how to look for, is the earliest similar incident to what is going on in the present that appears to be causing emotional pain. Nine times out of ten, present time emotional pain has its roots in our childhood and our relationship with our parents and siblings.

It’s just that the present time incident is so overwhelmingly compelling that it really looks like that is the problem, when in fact the present time event “triggered” the  pre-existing, unresolved event from the past. The force and velocity of the feeling is historical. When you deal with the deeper historical level, the current issue loses its steam, as well.

It is one thing to “know about” this as a concept and another thing to “know” it as an opportunity to clear the past with tools designed to heal at the deepest level possible. Once it is cleared and resolved, your own energy field becomes less affected by difficult situations in the present. This allows you to be more resourceful, loving of yourself and others and a more powerful creator of your life and relationships.

EFT is an evolutionary tool that clears unwanted emotions. It isn’t always clear to people that their ability to adapt to accelerated change is directly related to the density of their “pain body”. The pain body holds the unfinished business from the past that often determines your perceptions of the now.

Because of these phenomena we often can’t see new and powerful possibilities in difficult situations. Now is a time for all of us to see clearly “what is” so we can make wise choices for ourselves and the people we love.

© Paul and Layne Cutright

Resources: The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra  and The Field by Lynn McTaggert

Santa Fe Easter

“We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” ~ Joni Mitchell

This is Easter weekend, a time for the celebration of renewal, rebirth and resurrection. This time we call Easter is actually a blend of the secular and religious, deriving as it does from a myriad of cultures dating back to ancient Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Italy and Persia leading up to Judaism and Christianity. 

All of these cultures had central figures of legend who died and were resurrected centuries before the birth of Jesus. Even bunnies and eggs were associated with fertility and new life in Spring by Romans, Persians, Egyptians and Babylonians. Though they were probably not made of chocolate and sold in stores as we do today!

The true meaning of Easter is to be found within your own heart and celebrated in ways that bring you joy in feeling connected to the Universal rhythm of life as resurrection is made plain in newly budding and blooming nature; a nature in which we, as human beings, are as embedded as a fetus in the womb.

It is in this spirit that we share with you a story of the miraculous resurrection of a marriage relationship that was experiencing its own kind of death.

 John & Lisa Heal the Deep Pain of Infidelity in Record Time

When “John” and “Lisa” walked through our door together, it was the first time they had seen each other since his recent affair was revealed. It had been an ongoing affair, but Lisa had just found out only a week ago while John was away on a business trip.

John was in California and Lisa was on the other side of the country. She was going along in her life as usual when she had a strong impression he was having an affair. Without much thought she picked up the phone and heard herself ask him if it was true. He knew he had been caught and though his first impulse was to lie, he confessed instead.

"Oh my god, what have I done?"

Lisa sat there frozen in pain. The collision of feelings left her speechless. Disbelief, hurt, anger, wanting to strike out, fear and dread sent seismic shock waves through her whole body. John was in a panic. He loved his wife and never wanted to hurt her. He thought she would never find out. His mind raced trying to find the right thing to say. He kept running into dead ends. The silence over the phone line was deafening.

“We’ll talk later,” Lisa said and hung up. John heard the click, awash in a sea of his aloneness.

Lisa then called us and said she felt like killing him and asked for an appointment. The arrangements were made and within a week she flew in. John, already in California, drove down the coast, showing up at the same time for their session with us.

It was taking everything they had to appear calm and rational on top of a boiling cauldron of relationship pain. They looked as though their emotions would burst out of control at any moment. She loved him but felt betrayed, angry and hurt. He felt guilty, confused and he didn’t want to confront her anger. It was a very strained situation, to say the least.

Meridian Tapping Techniques

We worked with each of them separately, for about an hour, using a meridian tapping technique to calm and heal their pain. We have been using meridian tapping since the late 1990’s. It is a form of Energy Psychology that uses the invisible meridian lines that are used in Chinese acupuncture. But, the technique is to gently tap on the end points of the major meridian lines with your fingertips. The tapping activates what we call the emotional immune system.

Literally, in a few minutes our clients are restored to emotional balance and wellbeing. They are then free to access the more resourceful parts of their brains and think through problems calmly. They are in a good state of mind where they can be coached to locate the “learning opportunity” in the most difficult of situations and find workable solutions.

Within an hour Lisa had shifted from wanting to punish him and hurt him as badly as she had been hurt, to wanting to take responsibility for her part in the marriage deteriorating to such a place. She wanted to stop feeling victimized.

John’s feelings of guilt were so intense he could sense the part of him that wanted or needed to be punished to get some relief. The meridian tapping helped him work those feelings out and forgive himself enough to stop feeling so defensive and more able to support Lisa through her feelings.

After the individual work, they sat on the couch looking into each other’s eyes. Their energy was now completely different. It wasn’t that the problem had been resolved but they had defused their emotional pain sufficiently so they were able to think clearly. They were able to be in one another’s presence and look at each other without feeling like they were going to pop out of their skin.

They were then ready for us to coach them. There were a lot of questions asked and answered to bring clarity to how the whole thing happened and what they wanted to do about it. This situation had the potential to be a devastating crisis that ended the marriage or be a catalyst for more intimacy and understanding and perhaps an even stronger marriage than before.

After a total of about three hours they left holding hands and gazing softly into one another’s eyes. They had essentially fallen back in love with each other. Now, that’s a lot of territory to cover in three hours. Of course, they had work to do when they got home, but they were able to overcome a huge hurdle in a short period of time. They were able to gain enough perspective to be able to see this as an evolutionary learning opportunity and to embrace it as such.

Feelings of Gratitude

When they left, we talked about how grateful we are to have a tool so powerful that it can produce truly remarkable, some would say miraculous, results in minutes. We have been relationship educators and coaches since 1976 and we have a reputation for being on the leading edge of the latest theories and techniques for working with relationships. Even we were somewhat surprised at what we had just seen happen.

What did we do that allowed John and Lisa to cover so much painful emotional ground in such a short period of time? We used a meridian tapping technique you may have heard of or be familiar with, called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). We learned EFT from the man who created it, Gary Craig, and we’ve been using very successfully since about 1997.. We were certified as EFT Masters in January 2006. EFT has transformed our coaching practice and allowed us to serve people all around the world working with them over the phone.

Relationship education and coaching has been a passionate commitment of ours for over 35 years. We are continually on the lookout for easier, more effective tools and methods for helping our clients. EFT is the simplest and most potent tool we have discovered, so far. The kind of miracle we relate here in John and Lisa’s story has become common place in our work with others.

EFT is easy to learn in a relatively short period of time and can become a life-long skill that you can use for releasing fears and phobias, dissolving anxiety, overcoming self-sabotage, fear of meeting new people, public speaking, insomnia and so much more.

If you have followed our blog for any length of time, you may recall our sharing about the incredible challenges we have faced in the months since Paul’s emergency open heart surgery last summer. We can tell you right now that the physical and emotional pain we have gone through individually and in our relationship was significantly mitigated by our regular (often daily) use of EFT, both with each other and alone.

In this time of great transition and uncertainty in which much of what we hold dear seems to be being stripped away, we need powerful tools that can help us navigate the unknown as we are being reborn into a new life in which it is safe to love, to trust and to embrace the unknown as the very crucible of our own resurrection into new life.

“We are stardust, billion year old carbon, we are golden, caught in the devil’s bargain and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” ~ Joni Mitchell

Easter Bunnies with Easter Eggs

 
© 2012 Paul & Layne Cutright

Emerging from the Dark

Have you ever had the feeling of being hungry, but you don’t know what you want? Maybe you open the cupboard or the refrigerator and look at what’s on the shelves, hoping to see something and say, “That’s it, I’ll have that!” But, you don’t find anything you really want to eat.

That’s how I have been about writing this blog post. I am hungry to communicate with you and let you know what’s been going on, yet I hardly know where to begin. Each time over the last several weeks that I have started something, I end up deleting it with the judgment that it’s just too trite or pedestrian for you to bother reading.

As unusual as this feeling is for me, I think I know where it comes from. I feel a sense of being inwardly pushed to be more revealing and vulnerable with you than I usually am in writing. Somehow, what I want to say would be easier to communicate in person, in a group, much like we used to do in our seminars and trainings. Then we could look into and through the eyes of love and my authentic vulnerability charged the room with a kind of grace. Telling the whole truth about fears and feelings joined us through  the heart in our common humanity.

To set a little context for what I am about to share, let me say this up front. This year has been perhaps the most difficult year of our lives. Actually, it’s been going on for a couple of years.

Have you noticed that it is rare to hear teachers of higher consciousness, supposedly enlightened
individuals or modern wisdom givers, talk much about their current or very recent hard times? They
may talk about hard times at some distance in the past, after they have learned and integrated the
lessons and they’re back to being enlightened again. But, you don’t hear or read much from a closer
perspective when things are not yet so clear or when things are still in a state of unsettled chaos.

And that’swhat I want to write about now because that’s where we are. And we have been here
for longer than any previous period like this. I think that’s why it has been so difficult to get to
writing about this, because it is still so close and fresh for us.

So, life has been about acceptance of what’s happening in the moment to what has seemed like
an onslaught of one catastrophe after another, and before we can even catch our breath we find
another anvil falling from the sky! It’s been about being as present as possible to the feelings our
situation has brought up and using all the tools at our disposal for dealing with the ongoing stress
of uncertainty and the accompanying doubt and fear.

Our last posts back in July, August and September have been about my emergency open heart
surgery and early recovery period (http://bit.ly/open-heart-surgery). Thankfully, according to my
surgeon, my physical recovery proceeded ahead of schedule. Having had nothing to compare it to,
it still seemed to be taking entirely too long to suit me!

I was having to listen to my body much more than I was accustomed, causing me to confront my
habitual impatience and push to be productive and get on to the next thing. In the process of
confronting things about myself that had been pretty invisible to me (but not to Layne, of course!),
what emerged was an unexpected level of healing.

As my physical healing progressed and I could tell I was getting better, e.g., being off oxygen and
going for long walks. My stamina and strength was returning. But then I entered an unexpectedly
deep level of depression that caused me to question everything about my life, including why I had
survived in the first place.

Depression and thoughts that death would be a welcome relief startled me into the reality of my
depression and plunged me into deep self-reflection.  Yet, there was no sense in denying the truth
with positive thinking or affirmations. If I did not confront and accept the reality of my depression,
I ran the risk of driving it underground and making it worse through denial.

I noticed how the feelings would come and go, rising and falling in intensity, like large swells on the
ocean.  I became reclusive and did not respond to messages from friends for weeks as I burrowed
deeper into my dark silence.

Another thing that was happening, and still is, was a heightened emotionality. Since I have been on
a path of emotional healing for the last 35 years I have learned to know, respect and express my
feelings. But, this has been something of a different order. I can hear a song, watch scenes of love
and tenderness or violence in a movie or TV show and find myself crying or even sobbing deeply,
way out of proportion to the triggering stimulus.

And over the course of the last few months both Layne and I are aware of deep, personal inner
changes that we are still trying to make sense of. Things have changed, continue to change and so
are we. We have a sense that our work will be changing as a result of our experiences the last couple
of years.

Of all the spiritual studies in which we have engaged, the teaching that has always sustained us
through challenging times of chaos and uncertainty is A Course in Miracles, in particular the lessons
in the Workbook. A Course in Miracles is all about making the shift from ego identification to
identifying yourself as your Soul.

The ego is grounded in fear and is subject to all the conditions and circumstances I have been
talking about here. If we believe that is our reality, our only reality, then we are stuck in those
conditions.

When we can identify with our Soul, however, then a vast space of peace and calm can open up
for us. We believe what we have been going through (and so many others are also going through,
perhaps even you) has much less to do with processing the effects of our negative, limited ego
mind than it does with a Soul transition. I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that my
heart failure and three near death experiences (all on the same day) had to do with my Soul’s
influence over my life.

A Course in Miracles is a radical teaching that can be, and usually is, ego shattering. But, it also
can put you in direct contact with your own Soul or Higher Self. So, being forewarned, below are
the first dozen lessons that have been particularly apropos for us. Perhaps you will find them
helpful, as well.

For example, Lesson 1 says, “Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window,
in this place) means anything.”

Lesson 2 – “I have given everything I see in this room (on this street, from this window,
in this place) all the meaning it has for me.”

Lesson 3 – “I do not understand anything I see in this room (on this street, from this
window, in this place).”

Lesson 4 – “These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this
room (on this street, from this window, in this place).”

Lesson 5 – “I am never upset for the reason I think.”

Lesson 6 – “I am upset because I see something that is not there.”

Lesson 7 – “I see only the past.”

Lesson 8 – “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

Lesson 9 – “I see nothing as it is now.”

Lesson 10 – “My thoughts do not mean anything.”

Lesson 11 – “My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.”

Lesson 12 – “I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

Lesson 13 – “A meaningless world engenders fear.”

Lesson 14 – “God did not make a meaningless world.”

A Course in Miracles also teaches that only Love is real and fear is an illusion. The one unchanging
constant through all of this has been and continues to be our love for each other. That is what has
always sustained us through any kind of trial or difficulty. That and the consciousness tools we
have learned and teach.

We will continue to share with you as these changes unfold. And, as always, we welcome your
comments and thoughts.

As this year draws to a close we are being presented with a wonderful opportunity. On January 1, 2012
we are catching a plane for Europe! We have been engaged by some clients to work with their entire
family of five in a six-day Private Intensive Retreat.
(http://paulandlayne.com/coaching-programs/exclusive-private-intensives)

We’ll be in Munich, Germany for about a week serving these courageous souls then we will fly to Turin,
Italy for a visit to the Federation of Damanhur, a conscious, eco-society and spiritual community that
has been in existence there for 30 years. (http://www.damanhur.org/)

In fact, Layne applied for and was accepted into a three month “temporary citizenship” program they
began last year. I will be with her for the first week or so to help her get settled, then I will return to
Santa Fe.

This is a HUGE change on many levels and portends wonderful new opportunities and
directions for our life. For one thing, we have never been apart for more than a week at a time
for the last 35 years! We don’t want to speculate too much right now about what those
opportunities and directions might be, but we will definitely keep you posted with more regular
blog posts, photos and possibly videos in the months ahead.

In the meantime, please know how much we appreciate you reading this and being a part of our
lives through this virtual connection. Your thoughts of love, healing and prayers are meaningful
to us beyond words.

We are wishing you and all those whom you love a most blessed holiday!

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Bee Love - Photo © Paul Cutright

I sat next to the bed of old man, a friend for over twenty years, and held his hand. Hal was dying. We both knew these next few days would be his last.

We spent time reminiscing about his long and fruitful career as a church pastor. We talked about old friends. We chatted about his family. And I listened as he offered sage wisdom and advice to a member of a “younger generation.”

At a lull in the conversation, Hal seemed to carefully consider what he was about to say next. Then he squeezed my hand, gazed intently into my eyes and whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, “Nothing is more important than relationships.” I knew that this was somehow near the pinnacle of his life’s learnings. As he considered all of his experiences — personal, professional, spiritual and family, this one ultimate observation surfaced above the rest: “Nothing is more important than relationships.”

“Don’t get overly caught up in your career,” he seemed to be saying to me. “Likewise, don’t use people in order to achieve your goals, then throw them away. No project, no program, no task should be pursued at the expense of friends and family. Remember,” I heard him saying, as clearly as if he were speaking the words, “that in the end, only your relationships will truly matter. Tend them well.”

Writer Og Mandino puts it this way: “Beginning today,” he said, “treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

At the end of a long life, my friend Hal would have agreed.

 Copyright  © Steve Goodier

On a random Saturday morning at Greenacres Shopping Centre in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the international award-winning Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir delights unsuspecting shoppers and passers-by with an impromptu practised routine which includes a number of popular songs. The flash mob is part of an awareness campaign to get students to apply to study at NMMU, one of South Africa’s leading tertiary education institutions.

We have certainly experienced a tremendous amount of love and support since Paul’s “heart episode” last month. Most of it has come in the form of e-mails, cards and phone calls. Some of it by local friends chaufferring Paul to various medical appointments.  And some of it even in the form of unexpected material assistance from tequila to checks! (The tequila was actually prescribed by Paul’s surgeon.)

Learning to ask for help has been a life-long process for both of us. We like to think we are better at it now, although there was not as much asking on our part recently as there was simply the spontaneous generosity of giving by people who love and care about us. We learned how much of a gift it can be to others to ALLOW them to give of themselves out of their own areas of abundance.

Below is a piece by Steve Goodier about giving and receiving help that seemed relevent. We hope you enjoy it.

Some people never need help. One man caught his foot in railroad tracks. He tried to pull it out, but his efforts only seemed to make matters worse.

He heard a noise and turned around to see a train coming. In a panic he prayed, “Dear God, please get my foot out of these tracks and I’ll stop my heavy drinking and smoking!”

Nothing happened. He was still stuck, and the train showed no sign of slowing.

So he prayed again, “Oh, Lord, please get my foot out and I’ll stop drinking and smoking and carousing and cussing!”

Still nothing. He tugged and pulled as the train bore down. In sheer desperation, he pled for help a final time. “Lord, please, if you get my foot out of the tracks, I’ll do anything! I’ll … I’ll … I’ll become a minister!

Suddenly his foot shot out of the tracks and he got up and dusted himself off as the train whizzed by. Then he looked toward Heaven and said, “Never, mind, Lord, I got it out myself.”

Some people seemingly never need help from anyone. They rarely call on friends or even family to lend a hand. They seldom, if ever, confide in a good listener. They seem to believe they should be completely self sufficient; that needing assistance is an unwelcome weakness.

But others find great value in occasionally asking for assistance, and in offering it, too. Needing help, even once in a while, reminds them that they were not meant to journey this life alone. It is a group outing, not a private experience.

Those who find help when they need it are fortunate. But those who give help generously are the most fortunate of all. Few experiences can produce a sense of joy and satisfaction like that of truly easing the burden of another human being, with no thought of return. Fact is… when we help someone else, we can hardly help but be happy. At those magical times we may wonder who really helped whom!

Copyright  © Steve Goodier

It has been five weeks today since my open heart surgery. I’m supposed to be walking 1.5 miles per day now to strengthen my heart and expand my lung capacity. We usually just walk around our neighborhood  in the cool of the early evening.  This morning Layne and I went up on the mountain for a walk in the woods, at about 8,000+ feet where I could definitely feel the increase in altitude from our normal 7,000 feet. My heart is healing and getting stronger.

One of the most remarkable and touching things about this experience has been the number of people from our past who have contacted us with their love and healing wishes. Many of them people who have been very important and instrumental in our lives that we have not been in touch with for more than 25 years. Yet, the felt presence of love in these communications was palpable and moving. What a gift!

The experience reminded us of the following anonymous piece of wisdom that we want to share with you.

Reason, Season, or Lifetime

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you figure out which one it is,
you will know what to do for each person.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty;
to provide you with guidance and support;
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend, and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON,
because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it. It is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person,
and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

— Unknown