TEN STAGE@BLOGSPOT.COM

Practicing Kindness Meditation is simple.

2015-11-19T09:33:00.001+00:00

Practicing Kindness Meditation is simple. Just take a comfortable seat in a quiet place and close your eyes. First think of somebody you love. Send them the four wishes.

May you be safe

May you be happy

May you be healthy

May you be at ease

can either repeat each for a time with that person in mind or just think about how those wishes might manifest and affect that situation. You can be creative about it.

Then move on successively to yourself, a "neutral person" (somebody you don't know well or already have strong feelings about), and then finally take the plunge and send the wishes to an "enemy." You may even notice that the choice of who the enemy is moves around and that's fine. yesterday's enemy could be tomorrow's ally. Also it's fine just to notice what comes up for you while you are trying to do this practice and simply allow space for that as well.

At the end, conclude by simply radiating out your loving kindness, your kind, sweet, loving open heart to all beings and send your good wishes to all of them (friends, oneself, neutrals, enemies, humans, animals, ghosts -- anybody you can think of). Then simply dissolve the meditation and sit quietly for a moment or two.

This practice might feel too "touchy-feely" for some of us. At first I thought maybe it was too innocent, too sweet. But it is an ancient practice dating all the way back to the Buddha and it can be surprisingly powerful. It would be great if some of us who actually try it can write in and share their experience. Or, if you wanna be grouchy and just say something about it without actually trying it that's okay too!

what’s interesting is that as soon as we start to take our new action at the stages – all these old stories and beliefs rear their head

2015-11-19T01:45:00.001+00:00

what’s interesting is that as soon as we start to take our new action at the stages – all these old stories and beliefs rear their head telling us why we can’t have our new life in our recovery that we want.

These are called limiting beliefs. But – there is also something else going on.

Deep within the limiting beliefs are the powerful voices of guilt and shame.

Our guilt voice will tell us that we are doing something wrong.

Our shame voice will tell us that we are a bad or not good enough person to ever get what we want.

The truth is that our guilt and shame voices are just mostly nonsense that we inherited from someone else. They aren’t actually true.

And yet – if we argue for our unworthiness – we will surely find ourself to be unworthy.

It’s all well and good to replace limiting beliefs with expansive beliefs, but if we really want to transform our life and fast – begin to dig into the voices of guilt and shame that lead us back to our child hidden within.

Do we ever feel like we aren’t enough?

Do we ever feel someone like us doesn’t deserve to live their recovery?

Have we tried and tried and tried and nothing has happened and decided that we are simply not meant to have what we truly desire?

What if none of these stories were true – they were just the inherited voices of guilt and shame buried deeply within our childhood memories?

What if these voices of guilt and shame aren’t self-sabotage, but self-protection?

The unknown can be so scary. And yet – it’s exactly the unknown that we must face if we are to live our recovery.

How scary is it to admit that we are indeed worthy?

What would that mean?

Would it mean that we’d have to make brand new choices that scare you?

Would it mean that if we were worthy we might have to speak up and stand out?

Not taking action on our contact with our child within is what holds us back.

The truth is, we are beyond worthy – just because we were born perfect.

Is the voice of shame clouding our true potential?

If we didn’t believe the voice of inherited shame, what would be possible in our recovery?

We will find that loving-kindness becomes the operating motivation

2015-11-18T23:43:00.000+00:00

We will find that loving-kindness becomes the operating motivation in a situation that previously triggered anger or fear.

Recognizing and expressing goodwill have a softening effect on our hearts. At times this evokes feelings of love, tenderness, and warmth. At other times this softening of the heart can expose difficult or painful buried emotions. Allowing all these emotions to surface in their own time is one function of loving- kindness practice.

Adapting ourselves to fitting in or being a rebel and standing out

2015-11-02T17:04:00.000+00:00

Adapting ourselves to fitting in or being a rebel and standing out – all of these behaviours stem from our thoughts about what others think. And living our lives from the perspective of what other people think creates massive pain in our lives. Because when we act based on what other people think, we are acting from the place of a deficit, that is, "We are not enough, so we are going to change ourself to be enough."

This core thought has caused A LOT of pain in our life. And I'd bet that this core thought has caused a lot of pain for you too.

The journey is that through feeling all of this pain, we come back to ourselves. And we stop identifying with what other people think we should be, or we stop rebelling against other people – and instead tune in and listen to who we really are on a heart and soul level. Comparison is the problem.

Each and every one of us, and that includes YOU, is a unique soul. We each have a unique gift. We are all great at recovery.

And life comes into balance and our fullest expression begins to be realised when we align with our true nature rather than being a part of the herd or rebelling against the herd.

The journey is within. When we listen to and act from that place – we are trendsetters – we are unique – we are special – and ain't no one else like us!

And what's cool is that when we start to belong to ourselves and express ourselves, we put out a different frequency and, as a result, we start attracting and meeting people who are on that new wavelength. And what's even cooler is that in doing so, we no longer need to chase people. When we belong to ourselves, we find who else we belong to.

The joy of living a Self -Approved life is revealed when we begin to allow ourselves to be ourselves – we accept ourselves as we are – we accept ourselves as perfectly imperfect and the inner conflict begins to die down. And our true nature emerges and our child within comes out to supports us in miraculous ways.

Are you prepared start to live a Self- Approved life today studying the stages?

What is holding us back is the obsessive and debilitating need for certainty of outcome ahead of time.

2015-11-02T16:53:00.000+00:00

All of life is a giant leap of faith. And what holds us back is the obsessive and debilitating need for certainty of outcome ahead of time. But that is not how life works. Life requires faith, boldness and courage to step into the unknown with the knowing that my heart and intuition are always guiding me and know the way. As we step out of the way, a way will be made.

And as we take a stage towards our recovery, even though it looks like there is nothing underneath us, we know that we will be supported in our studies

We die twice: first when we give up on our recovery, and then finally at the end of our lives. But this is not the path of anyone reading this or within the chance of studying the ten stages. We want more. And that means that each and every day we take one stage, one inch or one giant leap into our personal recovery.

And in doing so, we face a fear daily – which means that every day we are going to be a little scared.

And soon enough, we build up a muscle to the fear and it becomes a normal and natural part of our lives. And after a year, two or three we cannot imagine the life we are living now – it's actually better than our present reality. But that kind of life must be earned through study and through facing our fears of the unknown child within.

Are you willing to be a little scared every day?

The true Ten Stager is a doer, not a dreamer

2015-11-02T16:39:00.000+00:00

Our critical ingredient is getting off our butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. We have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true Ten Stager is a doer, not a dreamer

Sitting quietly gazing out of the window

2015-11-01T08:37:00.000+00:00

Sitting quietly gazing out of the window, I spied an olive tree young healthy a sparrow dropped into the left hand twigs I noticed a sign which said our olive tree, our olive tree in north east England what a presumption, an olive tree young and healthy. My mind flew to a road in Spain the earth festooned in grey olive trees the wind blowing up the dust..... I returned to the solitary sprig.

Admitting that the traumas buried in our unconscious rule our lives

2015-10-17T15:02:00.001+01:00

Admitting that the traumas buried in our unconscious rule our lives, makes us powerless to embody the truth, and drives us to act out in ways destructive to ourselves, to others, and to the environment.

Come to believe that the truth at our core is more powerful than the lies imposed upon us, and that this truth can lead us into our recovery.

Taking a decision to align with our own truth, despite the pressure to submit to the distortions of family, society, and the historical voices we carry within.

We made a searching and fearless assessment of our traumatic history: personal, familial and ancestral.

Admitting to ourselves and to a person of our choice the full details of our past.

Become entirely ready to grieve this past and to let go of our falsely constructed self.

Aligning with our true self and doing the deep and transforming work of grieving our losses.

Study that's right studying ways we have hurt ourselves, others and the environment through replication of our traumas, and finally becoming willing to make amends to ourselves and them all.
Changing our inappropriate behavioural repetitions.
Continuing to monitor our attitudes and behaviour, and when we make a mistake we promptly admit it, trace its traumatic origin, and take steps to not repeat it.

Seeking through self-reflection an ever deepening connection to truth, desiring only to be guided to our life’s calling.

Having awakened to our inner calling, we dedicate our lives to its full manifestation and to nurturing the healing paths of others.

In the same way that treating a brain tumour by merely taking a pain reliever doesn't address the underlying issue

2015-10-17T14:51:00.000+01:00

In the same way that treating a brain tumour by merely taking a pain reliever doesn't address the underlying issue, masking the symptoms of an underlying need with punishment-induced compliance doesn't solve the problem; it intensifies it.

Want to know another dirty, little secret about punishment?

It requires constant escalation.

In order to maintain the temporary effect of controlling behaviour, the punishment, or threats of punishment, must constantly be ramped up. Parents who start out with popping a tiny hand escalate to smacking a chubby little leg, then paddling a small bottom. Over time, as their children’s needs which have been driven underground emerge in ever-increasing behavioural issues, parents often find that they are resorting to yelling and threats and physical punishment more and more often.

Even parents who use punishment-based parenting approaches other than physical punishment find that they must escalate and escalate to keep their children under ‘control.’ Behaviour charts, time-outs, grounding, and removing privileges are some examples of non-physical punishment-based parenting. While these behaviour modification techniques may be less painful to children physically, they still don’t address the underlying needs being communicated by the behaviour and often are nearly as destructive to the parent/child relationship.

Using isolation such as time-outs or sending children to their room separates them from their source of guidance and comfort just when they need it the most and not only misses a golden opportunity to help the child learn coping mechanisms for dealing with their emotions, but also fractures the very connection that should provide the safety for expressing those emotions. Using behaviour charts, removal of privileges, grounding, etc. separates children from their parents by creating an us-against-them mentality that inevitably leads to conflict instead of creating a teamwork mentality that leads to cooperation.

Here’s the thing, effective parenting and, more specifically, effective discipline, doesn't require punishment. Equating discipline with punishment is an unfortunate, but common misconception. The root word in discipline is actually disciple which in the verb form means to guide, lead, teach, model, and encourage. In the noun form disciple means one who embraces the teaching of, follows the example of, and models their life after.

On the flip side, the root word in punishment is the Latin word punire which in verb form means to penalize, chastise, castigate, inflict harm, humiliate. There is no noun form of punire or its English equivalent, punishment.

Many of today’s most popular self-proclaimed parenting ‘experts’ equate physical punishment with discipline and go to great lengths to describe the best methods and tools for hitting children as well as instructing parents to maintain a calm, controlled, and even cheerful demeanour as they ‘lovingly’ hit their children.

It is interesting to note here that, when it comes to the law, crimes of passion are treated as less heinous than premeditated, planned, and purposefully executed crimes which are termed ‘in cold blood.’ And yet when physically punishing a child, a crime in many places across the globe, hitting in anger or frustration (i.e. passion) is deemed wrong by proponents of spanking, while hitting children with calm and deliberate intent (i.e. premeditation) is encouraged.

It is also interesting to note that, in the not-too-distant past, husbands hitting their wives was also viewed as not only a societal norm, but also a necessary part of maintaining a harmonious, successful marriage. In fact, a man who epitomizes the words calm and controlled, Sean Connery, shared his thoughts on the ’reasonable smacking’ of his wife in a 1987 interview with Barbara Walters in which he explained the necessity of using punitive methods to control women.

The core belief behind ‘reasonable smacking’ of wives was that there was no other effective way to control them. I agree. If controlling another human being is the goal, then force is necessary. Fear, intimidation, threats, power-plays, physical pain, those are the means of control.

But, if growing healthy humans is the goal, then building trust relationships, encouraging, guiding, leading, teaching, and communicating are the tools for success.

Many parents simply don’t know what else to do. They were raised with spanking and other punishment-based parenting methods as a means of control and “turned out okay” so they default to their own parents’ choices without researching alternatives to spanking or considering whether “okay” could be improved upon.

Consider this, more than 90% of American parents admit to spanking their children, and yet the common contention is that it’s a decline in spanking that is responsible for the purportedly escalating rates of youth violence and crime. Is it really the less than 10% of children who aren't spanked who are responsible for all the problems of our society? Or could it be that the 90% of children who are subject to violence at home in the form of being slapped, paddled, smacked, yanked, whipped, popped, spanked, etc. are taking those lessons out into the world? Is it just possible that children who are hit learn to hit? That children who are hurt learn to hurt? Perhaps the lesson they are learning is that ‘might is right’ and violence is the answer to their problems, the outlet for their stress, the route to getting others to do what they want.

People throughout history have complained about ‘the trouble with kids today’ and they've pinned all the ills of their society on supposedly permissive parenting. They've ranted about out-of-control children, disrespectful youth, entitlement, spoiling, disobedience, violence, self-cent-redness, etc:

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders…. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers.” ~Socrates, 5th Century BC

“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” ~Plato, 5th Century BC

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint” ~Hesiod, 8th Century BC

“The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behaviour and dress.” ~Peter the Hermit, 13th Century AD

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Maybe, though, there isn't really any ‘trouble with kids today.’ Maybe the problem is with parents who repeat the patterns their own parents set or with societies who view normal stages of development as somehow abnormal.

Maybe ’kid’s today’ are just kids like they have been through the ages, full of exuberance and curiosity and learning their way in a great big world, and a listening ear, gentle guidance, and trusted arms to turn to when inevitable mistakes are made are really all children need to grow up into kind, helpful, responsible, productive members of our society.

The bottom line is that addressing our children’s underlying needs, the actual causes of their behaviour instead of just the behaviour itself, is a far more effective parental approach as well as being significantly better for a healthy, mutually respectful parent/child relationship. Sending our children out into the world as adults with their needs met, with coping mechanisms in place for those times when the stresses overwhelm them, and with the knowledge of a safe haven where comfort is always available when the world hurts them is a powerful way to change the world for the better.

Maybe, just maybe, sowing peace in our homes is the answer for our children, our families, and our world, after all.

Within our child often punishment has been used to control our child within’s behaviour temporarily

2015-10-12T13:33:00.001+01:00

Within our child often punishment has been used to control our child within’s behaviour temporarily while we’re small or when we are in our parents’ presence, but it cannot control us. As with all of us, outward behaviour is merely a reflection of our child within: our needs, our hurts, our emotional states.

While the temporary ‘payoff’ of punishment for adults may be compliance, the needs behind the behaviour is never addressed and those needs merely get driven underground and often emerge later in more potentially damaging behaviours such as lying, sneaking, anger, outright rebellion, depression, aggression, and our addictions.

Positive experiences that contradict a traumatised child's negative expectations are critical to helping the mind to readjust itself.

2015-05-20T22:23:00.003+01:00

Positive experiences that contradict a traumatised child's negative expectations are critical to helping the mind to readjust itself.The Stages Study, identifying with the child within opens a new scenario If our child within is removed from the traumatic environment and provided with a compassionate and nurturing , then healing will start to occur and the effects of childhood trauma will be minimised and start to reverse.

We have had traumatic experiences and, based on those experiences, our child within has decide that ALL of life is hostile.

2015-05-17T10:59:00.000+01:00

We have had traumatic experiences and, based on those experiences, our child within has decide that ALL of life is hostile. And we have have to constantly replay the trauma within our lives to get to a resolution. Until we can accept that the only resolution we can seek is that all life is not hostile we remain stuck frozen in time. Our time machine sees to operate We live in denial of the possible painful and negative outcomes of life. Lost in a locked room.

But the key is not to get stuck there and not to generalise all of life based on a few experiences. We have to unlock the door to our old playroom in which we sheltered. This starts with compassion for the child within us. We unlock with the tools of loving-kindness.

one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is this:

“Do I live on a friendly planet or a hostile planet?”

This is a fundamental question. Your answer to this question will determine greatly how you view, react, respond to and ultimately experience your life in recovery.

If we see our planet as hostile, it’s a COMPLETELY different world than if we see our planet as friendly. Many of us lived a life where we thought our planet was friendly UNTIL something happened… and then, based on that event, we decided that we were wrong and that our planet was hostile.

Obviously we must learn from our past and not make the same mistakes. Learning is why we are here and how we can grow. But the key is to not get stuck on ONE event from the past that may have caused us a lot of pain. At the stages we reintroduce ourselves back into our world we defrost the child within

Our family units have reached a crisis point. We are spending more time playing video games and texting then reading books or communicating with members of our family.

2015-04-18T03:31:00.000+01:00

Our family units have reached a crisis point. We are spending more time playing video games and texting then reading books or communicating with members of our family. Investment bankers and corporations seeking wealth and profit without concern for the health, happiness and well being of those who purchase their products or work for them. Consumers everywhere buying and throwing away materials in such a way that our planet is being treated like both an all-you-can-eat buffet table and a garbage dump.

How did we get to this point in our “evolution” as the dominant species on the planet? Can humanity change course, solve the problems we’ve created and become wiser? There’s no simple answer to this, but we will share some thoughts on what we see as a primary cause of the problem and a possible solution.

We start to think that we need to bridge the gaps that exist within us – between our hearts (compassion), our imagination (visual thinking) and the complex knowledge we still hold from our childhood. Bridging those gaps is how we make contact with the intuitive voice ,and we restart the process of incarnation of our childhood spirit .

Compassion means to care, to feel empathy and sympathy for ourselves and others. That’s pretty straight forward. Knowledge is the complex information we teach our child within and considered to be important as a culture. But what is imagination, and why is that so essential?

Most of us think of the imagination as something active only in creative people and artists, a tool for making ideas and things that do not yet exist. That is indeed one of it’s primary functions, but even more importantly, the imagination is the means by which we do visual thinking, how we spatially represent and understand the world around us. When used this way the imagination provides a kind of virtual landscape for organizing information and knowledge.

Our world view- our understanding of everything around us- makes use of mental models and visual representations of the world. We build these up over time, based on the information that comes in – from teachers, the internet, television, books, movies, friends- work, school, entertainment and play – all realms of human experience.

We at the stages are into mind remodelling or building new healthy visual models so that they represent the complexity and interdependence of reality accurately, and then becoming skilled at using these understandings effectively with us this basic skill has to be rediscovered and completed to have a fully functioning life.We believe in the incarnation of our childhood spirit of awe and wonder.Related articles

Focused on our internal growth at The Stages, and nurturing our path toward full recovery.

2015-04-12T13:11:00.002+01:00

Focused on our internal growth at The Stages, and nurturing our path toward full recovery. That is where the true benefits of reality lie, and no one can steal them from you. The greatest investment of them all is the investment within – because it leads right into the overflowing gold mine of the incarnation.

Related articles

Acting out always catches up with the actor.

2015-04-12T12:36:00.001+01:00

Acting out always catches up with the actor. Acting out is nothing more than a replication of unhealed childhood traumas – and a step toward emotional relapse. Healing on the other hand expresses life. It is painful, it is heart-wrenching, and it is full of doubt. It is lonely, it is solitary, and it is tormenting. But it is honest. And it leads in the right direction. We at last open the doors to the potential of having a real relationship with ourselves happy,joyous and free.

Recovering into Reality: A new treatment paradigm for recovery we acknowledge that Addicts/alcoholics are not born so: we are created.

2015-04-11T07:21:00.001+01:00

Recovering into Reality: A new treatment paradigm for recovery we acknowledge that Addicts/alcoholics are not born so: we are created. We drink /use ourselves into oblivion not because of bad genetics but because of the traumas resulting from childhood abuse, neglect, and rejection. No one raised in a truly loving home – whatever his chromosomes – could become an alcoholic/addict. No one who had full connection with his true self – a fully non-traumatised person – would ever even want to experience even the mildest of dissociative pleasures of drinking alcohol at all.

By denying this reality we protect the abusive parents. But more so it protects alcoholics themselves from feeling their deeper pain, because anyone who learns the full truth of his parents’ cruelties is in for a horribly painful ride. Denying this truth may prevent some from relapsing, but it will prevent everyone from becoming fully enlightened.

Avoiding the deepest levels of pain is part of our mentality. We replace the depression of the alcoholic/addict with the grandiosity and dissociation of so-called recovery. This is an evolutionary step backwards. We have been programmed to believe that full recovery is attainable by simply admitting the damage we’ve done to others and making amends. This is untrue. Admitting our past wrongs does lessen the cycle of guilt and shame, but does not resolve our own traumas – the damage done to you by your parents. Traumas must be addressed and fully grieved and mourned for deeper healing to take place.

Any program, that thinks you can heal without fully exhuming, grieving, and ultimately healing our traumas is siding with our abusive parents/society and perpetuating the addictive cycle of self-delusion...https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Stages/1403170389989203

Recovery is the conscious awareness of truth.

2015-04-10T18:14:00.002+01:00

Recovery is the conscious awareness of truth. Everyone who has any consciousness is recovered to a degree, but where we are blocked from having resolved our own traumas of childhood – or adulthood – We will be blocked from our awareness of full reality. Full recovery is a consequence of full resolution of one’s traumas.

One of the most common effects of abuse is that it leaves survivors unconsciously drawn to situations

2015-04-10T15:34:00.003+01:00

One of the most common effects of abuse is that it leaves survivors unconsciously drawn to situations and people that simulate their dysfunctional family system.............
It's familiar to them.Related articles