The Intuitive Perspective

Sitting in the Fire of Attachment

Bonita Kay Summers — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 02:57:46 +0000

From the moment we are born, we suffer from attachment. We are born into hunger and a yearning for a comforting touch. As infants, we cry when we feel discomfort, helpless and hoping someone will come to our rescue. As toddlers, we wail or have tantrums when things aren’t going our way, or we’re just too tired and overwhelmed to process what’s happening around us.

This basic instinct to claw toward our comfort zone informs our adult experiences as well. We feel anger, resentment, fear and grief when we experience loss, disappointment, or deprivation of the things we desire or feel we need.

When we are suffering, it seems counterintuitive to sit still and sink more deeply into those uncomfortable feelings, yet therein we find the crucible that contains the fire to transform our angst into acceptance and ultimate joy.

In recent years, we in modern society have experienced deprivation unlike any we had known before, and at a time when many of us had become used to everything we needed being on tap. We live in a world of instant gratification. Food can be prepared with the push of a button, entertainment and connection with others sit in the palm of our hands, and, until recently, travel and the acquirement of goods operated with relative ease and speed.

Isolation, health mandates, disruption of the supply chain, and unprecedented issues with travel are just some of the ways that ongoing, persistent pressure is being applied to our normal coping mechanisms. We adapt or we react, depending on our personalities and belief systems. Evidence of this intense pressure is evident in extreme behaviour resulting from the expectation that we take relatively simple actions to socially distance and wear masks for the protection of the vulnerable in our society. Frustration has translated into fist fights with store owners, and skirmishes on public transit. Humans are at a tipping point just as much as our environment is. Will we find our way through our destructive thought patterns to a place of peace, or will we succumb to our most basic instincts to rail against discomfort?

What if we turn toward our troubling emotions? What if we sit into the fire of our powerful, overwhelming feelings and use them as fuel for our awakening, trusting that this is all part of the grander scheme of things? A worldwide evolutionary process accelerating the development of humankind’s higher consciousness?

When we think of raising our awareness, it’s easy to envision some retreat in a forest or by the ocean, where we quietly and peacefully attain Nirvana. I don’t think that’s really how it works – not for those of us who have spent most of our lives seeking creature comforts. I suspect we need a daunting situation from which we cannot escape, in order to bring our recalcitrant spirits into tow.

Tibetan Buddhists often travel many miles, prostrating themselves as part of their spiritual practice. They undergo a great deal of hardship and deprivation in order to find peace within themselves. This is a normal and accepted aspect of their society. In my travels to Tibet, I witnessed incredible warmth, kindness, and a peaceful joy emanating from the Tibetans I met, despite their being under Chinese control since the 1950s, having suffered greatly under their regime. Their property has been stolen, monasteries looted and desecrated, and horrible atrocities imposed on the monks, nuns, and laypeople. Yet, they continue to turn inward for their sense of peace, which is not destroyed by circumstance.

Our modern world isn’t set up for spiritual enlightenment, and most of us wouldn’t seek it out through such challenging practices as prostration or sitting in a cave in the Himalayas for years. So, it seems that the opportunity for awakening is being visited upon us through different circumstances, which require that we develop our patience, fortitude, and compassion. What stands in the way are our selfishness, indolence, and sense of entitlement.

I invite you to learn to sit in the fire of your most challenging emotions with curiosity and dedication. Allow your emotions to rise up and mix within you. Do not suppress them, but do not project them either. Sit with the powerful mix of overwhelming feelings, and observe them. How do they feel in your body? Where are the feelings located as physical sensations? As you sit and observe them, how do they change?

For a shift to occur, you may need to sit with your feelings for days. Whenever you can find time to sit still and contemplate, do so. Eventually, you will learn to go about your daily business and contemplate your emotions simultaneously. The key is to create space between that which irritates or overwhelms you – and your desire to react to it. In that space, awakening can arise. It does so through acceptance of your circumstances as necessary to your development and not as an affront to the way you would choose to live otherwise.

I believe that humankind is on the precipice of a great awakening, which has already begun. We are being guided inward through isolation, and through deprivation of comforts. We are being given an opportunity by a benevolent universe to accept the changes occurring in the world as a natural part of our spiritual path, to look inward when we are overwhelmed, to sit in the crucible and let the fire of our emotions meld and change us. If we accept our circumstances as entirely for our benefit, we may emerge with a greater understanding and appreciation of the life we have been given.

Who Makes your Decisions?

Bonita Kay Summers — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:31:13 +0000

https://anchor.fm/bonitasummerspsychic/episodes/Who-makes-your-decisions-e1dohpa/a-a7b1v2q?fbclid=IwAR39j7xNWi2LdckwBJD4W0jyCzel31NfUf8ufYZWW-seWTGo56kqXXBJzLI

Stay Positive, Stay Asleep

Bonita Kay Summers — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:44:59 +0000

As you’re scrolling through your social media, how often do you come across profiles full of quotes on staying positive? There can be the temptation to “keep our head above water and paddle like mad” rather than allowing ourselves to feel the full extent of our emotional range. Thinking that being positive is a better choice can give us the idea that it’s somehow a failing if we don’t eschew the uncomfortable emotions for staying in our “happy place”. Happiness and optimism have their place in our lives, but we lose a great deal of our self-awareness if we exercise too much control over our emotions, preferring one feeling over another.

I often think about my 10-day stay at a Vipassana retreat in 2014, where we were encouraged to feel everything with “equanimity”. That meant accepting ALL the feelings, including rage, grief, fear, boredom, and every little spinal ache and muscle pain from sitting for prolonged periods while practicing Adhiṭṭhāna (determined sitting). This involved not moving a muscle while I observed the intense emotions that such stillness was bound to bring to the surface.

When movement does not disperse the energy, all kinds of feelings and sensations arise. The point is to not attach to the pleasant feelings or fight against the unpleasant ones, with the understanding that all suffering occurs as a result of attachment and aversion. When you can feel all your feelings with equanimity, you are free from the addiction to any particular feeling and the adverse reactions to uncomfortable ones.

According to vipassana, one cannot be addicted to a substance or behaviour, but the feeling that it gives us. In other words, if we cannot accept uncomfortable feelings, we will do whatever it takes to generate and cling to the feelings we want to have.

This is why I see “positive thinking” as merely another way of attaching to a particular type of feeling and suppressing the ones we’ve been conditioned not to tolerate. Eventually, we have to pull up the rug and look at what we’ve hidden underneath it due to whatever conditioning we received from early childhood (example, the grief suppressed from being shamed for crying).

With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, all of those emotions we learned to tuck away a long time ago are being wrenched to the surface. Reactions on social media range from contacts exchanging factual information along with humorous tidbits and cat videos (I’m guilty of all of the above) to those who argue conspiracy theories with everyone on their feed. In the middle, are folks whose social posts are mostly positive sayings, which may genuinely come from a generally happy disposition. However, sometimes, we may be wallpapering our feeds with quotes as a way of immunizing ourselves from the discomfort of acknowledging the fear, frustration and uncertainty of the times.

Now, I’ve nothing against uplifting material (I like to post inspiring articles, too), but there is a certain mindset among some in the coaching community (and the social community at large) where anything that isn’t “positive” is somehow taboo. If you prefer to think and communicate happy thoughts, that is a valid choice. However, it can be a limiting one if it blocks a more profound discourse where we allow ourselves to feel everything that is brought to the surface by our current circumstances.

Call me an anarchist, but I find life gets more profound when situations appear to fall apart, because I know that not all growth is incremental. Sometimes, we need the rug pulled out from under us, so we will face our inner demons. I am deeply affected by the deaths and disabilities caused by the virus, and the disruption to life as we knew it. Seeing what my friends and family members who have had the virus have experienced, I understand that it’s hell on earth, and I follow all the protocols to the letter, doing my utmost to support the end of the pandemic.

However, when I look at the effects the pandemic is having on our world, when systems collapse or undergo major change as a result, it’s often the birthing ground of innovation and creativity. Observe how quickly vaccines were created and distributed when the world saw a universal need, and funds went directly to a cause that affects everyone. We are learning more about how to engineer better vaccines for the next pandemic. Improved treatments are being developed for those stricken with the virus. The emergence of new viruses is highlighting the need to look more closely at climate change and how it precipitates these medical emergencies. What comes out of the pandemic is greater knowledge about what we are doing to our world and ourselves, and the urgent need to get serious about these global issues.

Indeed, I see the pandemic as a teaching about Oneness. We now know that our very breath, our touch, how we treat each other and our planet can affect the people around us — and everyone they encounter. This is such a lesson in mindfulness, knowing that we are truly connected with everyone in the world. We only need to read about a viral cluster caused by one infected person to know how greatly we affect others, and why conscious action, care and compassion are so important.

When we only focus on the positive, we miss out on a lot of information. We disconnect from our inner guidance and we become numb to the wisdom that could be derived from world events and situations in our immediate surroundings. When we lose the ability to respond to our own emotional signals, we retreat into fantasy, false beliefs — anything to avoid our current reality. In so doing, the resulting reactions to our circumstances may become less constructive and potentially more disruptive or even dangerous for others.

This is also what happens when we choose to pay attention to only our pleasant feelings. We disregard the unpleasant shadow aspects of our psyche, trapped in the subconscious since we first suppressed them (often at a very young age). These shadow aspects attempt to rise to the surface with the emotional stamp of the experience that created them. If we refuse to acknowledge those patterns formed from early trauma, they will express themselves as physical illness, muscular tension, stress, breathing difficulties, and panic attacks, etc.

Triggered by current events, these aspects are being pushed to the surface, giving us an opportunity to support them to come to consciousness, and integrate them. The act of doing so gives us more energy and awareness, as we reconnect with those previously suppressed parts of our consciousness. Not only do we have more vitality, we make better decisions as more of our psyche weighs in on how we feel about our choices. We move forward with fewer emotional blindspots.

As challenging as shadow work can be, it allows us to move from reactivity to observation. When we can be present in the moment, noticing how we are responding to our circumstances, sitting with the variety of feelings and sensations that arise from our external stimuli, we can start to find space between stimulus and response.

We can move from immediate reaction (which can be projection or suppression) to an open curiosity about the feelings generated by events in our lives. We can learn to befriend the parts of ourselves that arise as fear, grief, anger, love, laughter, and every nuance in between.

When we stop trying to control how we feel, we experience more intuitive insights and more energy. It takes a lot of energy to suppress feelings, and when we do, we also hinder our psyche from giving us information. The more we feel, the more we know about our next move. We need our emotional intelligence along with our intellect for decision making. Otherwise, we spend a lot of time trying to “figure out” what to do next, and confusion ensues. If we don’t know how we feel, we don’t have a real sense of who we are, so we don’t know what’s right for us. Our intellect can take us only so far. We need to also sense our next step.

When we can accept all of our feelings, we operate from a greater understanding of ourselves, our place in the world, and how we need to respond to our circumstances. No longer addicted to having certain feelings, we are free to flow with life, to let it affect us, learn from it at a deeper level, and emerge from even the most difficult situations having become more capable of responding effectively to the next hurdle life throws our way. When we are willing to feel our lives fully, we don’t get hooked on “thinking positively” or shy away from upheaval. All of our life events are welcomed as opportunities to awaken.

New Year’s Resolutions: Do you have internal consensus?

Bonita Kay Summers — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 05:26:17 +0000

Many of us start off the new year with aspirations to be healthier, more productive, saner, and generally better off as human beings this year than we were the last. Often, that heightened sense of potential achievement dwindles in a matter of weeks if not days.

Why is that? I suspect it is because we placed our intention without checking internally to see if all of our internal patterns were in agreement with our decision.

As a kid, I was given to reading books on etiquette and columns by Ann Landers (which engendered my desire to have a career giving advice). My preoccupation with manners may have had something to do with being brought up by a British mother who wouldn’t let us leave the table without saying ‘thank you’ for the meal, and insisted we send cards of appreciation for gifts received (Thank you, Mom. I still think those are great ideas!). I was obsessed with being the best person I could possibly be.

I still love the idea of improving myself, mostly because I see my unexplored potential as rather interesting terrain. Ever since I took up meditation at the tender age of 13, I’ve wanted to plumb the depths of my psyche and become as aware and wise as possible.

Like many of us, I have set goals for myself that I have not achieved, or have done so on a timeline not of my conscious choosing. That’s because my little persona doesn’t have all the answers. The ego only does what it’s been told to do through its societal and familial conditioning. It thinks it knows who it is and what it wants, but it doesn’t have a clue how the unconscious aspects of the ego operate or what is important to them.

I believe that if you want your resolution to stick, you’ve got to sit down with your inner aspects and check in with where they stand. This is a technique I use when I’m setting an intention:

Ask yourself, “Is all of me in agreement with this intention?”
Notice how you feel immediately after you ask. Is there any tension in the body? Are there any off-centre emotions such as dread or elation (both suggest a lack of groundedness)?
Breathe into the part of your body where you feel the emotion the most. Really tune into it (we have a tendency to do the opposite and block any inner dissension, because we want to feel right about our decisions). Even if the feeling is uncomfortable, pay attention to it.
Have an internal conversation with that part. Not to bully it into submission, but with compassion and open curiosity, ask it why it doesn’t want to make the change. The answer may surprise you. Sometimes, it’s not time to start on that goal. There may be other priorities to attend to first, or patterns that need to be shifted before you can free up the energy to make changes. If you don’t know what’s holding you back, that’s where I come in. I can connect with your patterns for you, and give you insights directly from your subconscious (psychic coaches are cool that way).
Don’t worry if you don’t get an answer right away. If you’ve never conducted an internal dialogue before, that part of your psyche may not be ready to reveal itself to you. Keep asking, and allow the limbic space for answers to arise.

You may not always get full consensus on your decisions, but by paying attention to dynamic internal tension around your choices, you’ll start to operate with more information – and I suspect in a gentler and more balanced way. The goal itself may also shift in a new direction as you ponder any resistance and look for ways to address it.

A few tips for goal setting:

Keep them small and reasonable. For example: if you haven’t been to the gym in a few years, it’s probably not going to be appreciated by all aspects of you if you decide that you’re going to show up for a workout every day at 6 a.m. Planning to go at an enjoyable and humane hour 3 times a week at first, may be an approach for which you’ll get more internal agreement.
Leave yourself wanting more. If, say, after a few weeks, you want to go to the gym more often, hold off. Give yourself a month to cement your new routine. Build the desire to go more often, and add on one more day a week the following month, rather than overdo and lose the desire to continue.
Just do it. Once you have a sense that it’s time to follow through on a goal, you may still have patterns that just want to drag their feet when it comes to stepping out of their comfort zone. Acknowledge the inner reluctance (or utter resistance), and just go do it. Sometimes, we have patterns that don’t want to participate. Unless they have a sound reason for their resistance, ask them to step aside and let others aspects come into play.

If we want to grow, we need to step outside our norm, and try things that feel downright unnatural at first. We maintain neuroplasticity (needed for a healthy brain) by constantly stepping into the unknown. The more we have internal agreement, the more likely we will have the energy to take ourselves in new directions – and potentially lessen resistance to change.

Every part of us actually wants to awaken. When we do our internal check-in, we are acknowledging that, and we are giving those parts of us we have previously ignored a say in what we do, when we do it, and how we go about reaching our goals. In this way, progress will happen, but the path might be different than the dominant persona projected, and possibly richer, more fulfilling and with some interesting twists along the way!

Why is Vulnerability a Good Thing?

Bonita Kay Summers — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:10:53 +0000

Vulnerability seems to be the favourite buzz word of the moment. Whether you’re watching Brene Brown’s Netflix special on the subject, taking Pema Chodron’s online course, Living with Vulnerability, or reading Elizabeth Lesser’s book, Broken Open, you’re likely hearing the word more often these days.

If we look at the etymology of the word, we get the following:

c. 1600, from Late Latin vulnerabilis “wounding,” from Latin vulnerare “to wound, hurt, injure, maim,” from vulnus (genitive vulneris) “wound,” perhaps related to vellere “pluck, to tear”, or from PIE *wele-nes-, from *wele- (2) “to strike, wound”. From Etymoline.com.

Nothing about this looks very appealing. Why would we want to be wounded? Haven’t we made it our mission as a society to prevent wounds? We’ve erected dwellings, created protective clothing, even developed weapons to ensure our safety and survival.

In fact, we have become a very self-protective society. Before that first date, we might check out our potential beau’s Facebook and Instagram. Many of our homes have security cameras and motion-detection lights to warn us of possible vandals or intruders. We erect fences and enact laws to delineate space between ourselves and others.

So, why break the bubble? Why risk becoming more visible and so more vulnerable? Perhaps, by stepping out from behind the walls we’ve built, we will see the truth of who and what we are.

Whenever we erect a barrier, we push something away. From behind the barrier, we cannot see what that is, and we become afraid of the unknown. We come to see as dangerous anything we don’t understand. Yet, we cannot come to understand it until we take down the wall we’ve erected.

We can wait for death to take the veil from our eyes, or we can choose to wake up in this lifetime and see what is. That means being willing to look at everything we’ve been hiding from, both within ourselves and in the world around us.

What if our wounds are openings into infinity? Pema Chodron talks about that in her course. She discusses sitting with what is uncomfortable until you move through it into openness. It’s very difficult and painful to lean into our discomfort, but we can cultivate compassion for ourselves and others by being willing to go there. We may have less anxiety if we are actually willing to turn toward the mystery of ourselves instead of avoiding it, and hoping the uncomfortable feelings will go away.

What if in turning toward our wounds we discover a doorway not only into ourselves but our compassionate connection with others? Before we specialized our skills and erected buildings to house us separately from one another, we lived and worked together. Tribes only survived as a group. If anyone wandered off on their own, they were at greater risk. It was natural to care for one another, because we were intimately interdependent. We needed everyone in the tribe. No one was expendable.

What if the raw, painful feelings we experience during loss and tragedy are actually doorways to the ultimate happiness? When we shed our walls and let others in, we have an opportunity to feel truly loved and supported, to feel a deeper connection than we may have felt before.

What if a wound is only a wound because something had to be closed in order to open? If we are simply open, does our notion of woundedness cease to exist? Perhaps our wounds are there to remind us that we were closed off in the first place. Perhaps we can see them as an invitation to surrender to the deepest union with ourselves, with each other, with infinity.

Motorcycles, Yoga and the Art of Maintaining Balance

Bonita Kay Summers — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:07:53 +0000

Sometimes it takes me hours, even the better part of a day, to get up the nerve to ride. I go on Google Maps and contemplate my route, checking for gas stations, construction, even fire zones, before I jump on my motorcycle.

When I finally get up the nerve to take my beast of a BMW out on the road, I know there’s very little within my control. I wear all the gear: the padded pants and jacket, the gloves with hard knuckles and wrist guards, a full helmet. I even don a bright yellow hit vest designed to inflate like an airbag should I get thrown from my bike.

But, I can’t control the traffic, the weather or unexpected changes in my travels, such as gravel, deer and mountain goats. For that, there is surrender.

I surrender to my masculine side: that decisive, powerful part of me that knows how to ride, that loves the challenge of diving into the turns, eyes trained on the far end of the curve. I surrender to my breath, knowing that if it’s slow and deep, I’ll have the energy to focus on the moment, and not be distracted by the past or the future.

This is vitally important when I’m riding. If I lose my concentration, I could easily lose my life. Riding is accepting that this is a very real risk every time. Riding is facing my mortality, much like the Death Realization practice of the Tibetan monks who accept that each day they live could be their last. There is nothing more immediate for my spiritual practice than riding a motorcycle.

When I’m truly centered, riding becomes a meditation. It’s why I like to travel solo, getting out on the open road sometimes very early in the morning, while much of the world is still asleep, or in the afternoon when I have to brave heavy downtown traffic before I am rewarded with the open vistas of the highways between the towns, of lakes and mountains, of winding roads in the countryside and on the tops of cliffs. I can feel the wind rippling against my body, smell the land around me as I whiz by, feel the rumbling of the bike beneath me.

With the grey skies that greeted me this morning, I got up to practice yoga instead, to be present on the mat with my body and my breath, feeling where my tissues were tight and how they began to open as the minutes passed. I was aware of my fleeting thoughts slowing down with movement and breath.

For me, yoga and riding have a similar effect. In both, I get to contemplate how my body responds, and face my fears of my mortality. At 56, the changes in my physicality are more pronounced. If my body is tight, yoga will quickly reveal that. If I tense up on the bike, I tire more easily and my hands won’t handle the bike as well. Both practices require presence, breath, and being in the moment. Both use movement to direct me to the stillness within. Both remind me that there is just this moment, and no more. Both help me to see that this moment could be my last. So, I should pay attention and live it.

My First Podcast

Bonita Kay Summers — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:03:36 +0000

I have to admit that I haven’t done as many of these as I would have liked to this year, but I’ll try to share my thoughts more often in 2021.

Podcast Interview by Brett Bailey

Bonita Kay Summers — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 10:01:25 +0000

Earlier this year, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed by Brett Bailey for his podcast: Life Like a Movie. It was a delightful opportunity to talk spirituality with a gentleman truly dedicated to deeply exploring the human psyche. Thank you, Brett!

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Ways

Bonita Kay Summers — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 16:05:11 +0000

Looking for that spark of love, but not sure how to get it?

A lot of people come to me to discuss relationships. They may be struggling with a current partnership, or wondering how they can find love. Often, when looking for that strong connection with a fellow human being, or wanting to deepen the one we have, we go about it the wrong way. Following are some of the missteps we take, and how to remedy them:

1. Failing to love ourselves first – Love yourself at least as much as you love your partner. Form a healthy, respectful relationship with yourself before you attempt one with somebody else. Learn how to meet your own needs and to be happy with your life when you are not in a relationship. Then, entering one becomes a source of joy in sharing a rich and abundant life – not an attempt to cure an empty one.

There is nothing more attractive to the right partner than confidence and self-esteem. When we love ourselves, we form a standard for how we expect to be treated by others. Knowing we can stand on our own two feet makes it easier to summon the courage to express our desires to our loved ones, to address issues that arise, and to let go of partners who are not invested in growing a respectful and caring relationship.

2. Asking our partners to be what we are not – Are you looking for attributes in a partner that you have not developed in yourself? Do you feel as successful, confident, and self-assured as the person you are hoping to attract? If we ask someone to be what we are not, we risk leaning on them to resolve our insecurities. Instead, become what you’re looking for. Develop the qualities you wish to see in a mate, so that you aren’t dependent on them to feel good about yourself.

3. Not examining what we are prepared to offer – Clients often ask, “How can I find love?” I usually counter by asking what quality of love they are prepared to give. When we have done the work to love ourselves and have considered the love we are ready to offer another, we enter relationships consciously. We start to recognize that we attract to us the partner we are ready to have. For example, if we draw to us someone who does not want to get too involved, before we get upset with them, we may need to ask ourselves if deep down we are really ready for a deep commitment. If we struggle with a companion who is not always kind and understanding, we can ask ourselves how ready we are to suspend judgment and build compassion for our partner. Whatever we want to get, we must be prepared to give first. This requires self-examination of what we really desire from a partner – not just what we tell ourselves on the surface. Recognizing our subconscious patterns that affect our relationships is key to understanding what we are ready to offer another.

4. Wanting intimacy to go only one way – If we are looking for love, chances are we want a deep level of intimacy. We want a partner who commits emotionally and who will be open and honest with us. Yet, when the same is expected in return, we may be tempted to say or do whatever we think will make a good impression with our partner. We want to be understood and appreciated – but we may still want to hide some part of ourselves we don’t want anyone to see. Our willingness to show up in a relationship is a direct reflection of how well we accept ourselves. If we love ourselves, why would we want to be with anyone who didn’t love us as we are?

Admittedly, this process of learning to love ourselves and being present in our relationships can require courage. While it’s perfectly acceptable to take your time in a new relationship revealing aspects of yourself as you are ready, be aware of any judging or distancing you exhibit if your partner reveals something about themselves you find challenging, or if he or she asks you to share something personal about yourself. Be willing to examine whether your hesitance is based on a genuine concern, or whether it’s merely reflexive, based on past experiences or a habit of mistrust that is not valid in the current relationship.

5. Not looking in the mirror – Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are drawn to our partners because of mutually compatible unconscious patterns. On many levels, we are reflections of each other. We run into strife in our relationships when we fail to realize that the things our partners say and do that make us uncomfortable may be triggers for unresolved issues we carried into the relationship. Our thoughts and assumptions based on past experience, and our resulting coping patterns and behaviours create dynamics to which our partners respond. We fail when we put the onus on them to change without owning our contribution to the interaction.

We can try to get our partners to alter their behaviour, so that our issues aren’t triggered, or we can contemplate our reactions, and do our best to understand what caused the reaction before we discuss it with our partner. By acknowledging our part in creating the situation, we move into open discussion where both parties look for ways to adapt, instead of one projecting blame and judgment on another.

6. Losing our balance – Every relationship requires some alone time to contemplate the changes that are occurring between partners and within ourselves. Whether you need an hour, an evening, or serious time away, it’s important to check in with yourself occasionally. A healthy relationship should have you feeling calm and balanced. If you are giddy or fatigued, take time to check in. Are you giving too much? Are you making time for you? Are you allowing your partner to give too much to the relationship? Do you need to offer more? Do you take time for your friends and activities? Do you catch yourself acting out of obligation instead of clear intent? Are you being authentic in the relationship and true to your needs? Are you hearing your partner’s needs? Checking in once in a while helps to keep the relationship fresh, so that you don’t fall into habits of behaviour that mask your true feelings.

If you want more out of a relationship or you want to create the right one for you, it helps to know what subconscious patterns are interfering with building that close connection. An intuitive counselling session can help to identify these patterns and bring them to consciousness. Once you understand these patterns, you can work through them to create the love you’ve always wanted, and to build a deeper relationship that can withstand life’s challenges. I’d be delighted to work with you to help you create confidence, build self-esteem, and find that special love in your life.

Do you need protection?

Bonita Kay Summers — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:15:55 +0000

“How do I protect myself from negative energy?” This is often the first question I get asked at my Energy Experience workshops. Many of us believe energy to be dualistic, that it can be positive or negative. So, we’ve developed ways to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be a bad or dangerous influence.

As I see it, energy is neutral. It’s our perception that influences our experience of it. We can feel the vibration of someone in passing, and tell ourselves that this person is exuding negative energy. We can put up a barrier between ourselves and that person for our own protection. This then takes energy away from maintaining our body and its processes, and propels it to the outer layer of our field as a defence. If we are particularly fearful and mistrusting, we might have this defence up all of the time. This isn’t good for our health, nor is it helpful in understanding the world around us.

On occasion, I see these protective fields at work in my clients. As I am holding space for a chakra to come back into balance, the field will reflexively build a shield against the process. Suddenly, it will feel as though I’m touching a pin cushion, or the field will get very heavy in that location. Out of habit, the field is protecting against any new experience, any possible change, despite the benefits of the treatment being offered.

The result? Protection of our field actually works against us. There is no opening for experiencing things as they truly are from behind a shield that pushes away new information. We may push away benevolent people and experiences due to misinterpretation or conditioned cautiousness. We subconsciously look for reasons to protect, thus reinforcing our barrier. We perceive a new or uncomfortable energy, and decide we are better off without it.

Ironically, walking around with our shields up actually makes us less protected. We can appear aloof to others. People who would befriend us may respect the barrier and step away. Our protective shield can cause us to be alone and so more vulnerable.

Let’s shift this scenario to a new possibility. What if we realize that there is only one unified field of energy, expressing itself in myriad forms? If we realize that everyone is a reflection of some aspect of ourselves, then why shut out those aspects? Why not embrace the opportunity to learn about them?

What if we learn to center ourselves instead, staying open to the information that is presenting itself? Unprotected, we can experience things as they are, rather than through fearfully reflexive patterns of our minds. Then, we can move through our world with sensitivity and compassion, building deeper connections with each other.

I had an opportunity to put this into practice one day, while waiting for the city bus. A man started up a conversation with me, angrily explaining, with liberal doses of invective, that he had been taken to the wrong bus stop and had missed his appointment with his parole officer. He proceeded to tell me his plan for breaking a window on the next bus if he was again taken to the wrong stop. Clearly, this fellow had a very dark perception of the world, and a combative approach to problem resolution. I centered myself, and I listened to him. I paid attention and listened. I said very little except to remark that breaking a window might not yield the results he was looking for.

As he spoke, a most interesting shift occurred. Intermittently, he would stop himself during his tirade, look at me, and say, “I’m sorry I’m swearing.” Then, the pattern would loop again, and a slurry of invective would rush out of him, only to be disrupted again by a sincere apology. This continued for several minutes until our bus arrived. Since his angry outburst didn’t meet the usual protective response, he was able momentarily to see his own pattern of behaviour and its effect on others.

If we are all to wake up together, if we are to truly walk each other home, we cannot do so from behind walls that shut people out. True protection is discernment – knowing when to stand still and be centered, and when to act when real danger is imminent. Someone else’s agony does not necessarily pose a danger to us. If we can have the courage to witness their pain and our own, and respond with clarity and compassion, perhaps the journey back to consciousness won’t be such a lonely one.