Well Within, Elese's Blog

Transcend Trauma

10/14/2013

Many of us are troubled by things that have happened to us. In some cases we hold deep secrets about these things, so awful that even our close loved ones are unaware of our pain.

Yet even while these are hidden in the recesses of our minds, we seek ways to release ourselves from the past.

As one who had a violent marriage to a heroin addict, I was such a person. I would have given everything I had to someone who could have helped me transcend my own trauma. But shedding it looked impossible to me. For a long time I could not count a single day when I was not terrified.

Being in that wilderness without an exit was the lowest point in my life. As time passed I had good days when I forgot about it all. I had fewer bad days. I longed for, but wasn't quite able to find what I really wanted: my complete freedom.

Then the way to freedom showed itself. Not in a blaze of light, but a small parting of a curtain. And as I persisted in finding out what was behind that curtain I found my own way.

Sydney Banks, a great teacher of kindness wrote "The Missing Link" and in it he said:

There is no way to guarantee a trouble-free life.

Life is like any other contact sport.
You may encounter hardships of one sort or another.

Wise people find happiness
not in the absence of such hardships,
but in their ability to understand
them when they occur.

The "ability to understand" is they key I was looking for. I spent a lot of time rummaging in the drawers of the past looking for my answer, my freedom, but didn't find it until I found out something deeper about myself and my true nature.

To me, Syd is suggesting we all allow our own deeper nature to show us the way forward through love and understanding. He is inviting us to look away from the searing pain and toward the spiritual, formless side of life -- not to ignore what is happening now -- but to look behind it. To look to something more.

During the time I looked for my answers, I read many spiritual books. Among them, "A Course In Miracles." I even worked helping to translate the Course in the very early years before any translations had yet been published. The Course has been in my life for 30 years now, off and on, and I must admit it has both comforted me and confounded me.

I came across this on page 591 today:

You need no healing to be healed.

The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still.

I almost missed the great importance of this. I wished I had really seen this those many years ago when I was struggling to let go of all the painful memories I carried with me.

It comforts me to know that these messages of help are everywhere, although we may miss them or not understand them. But even more than this, what truly helps me today is to know that there is a spiritual, or formless life that is me, and remains unchanged regardless of what happens to me.

How can we turn to the remembrance of what we are, within the formless nature of life itself, and know that it is inviolate?

How can we be in acknowledgement of the events and yet separate and untouched by their consequences?

It seems impossible. Yet, it is not. That is all I know. For so it has been for me.

More books that have helped me on my way.

Love is the Answer. What was the Question?

3/30/2012

I believe humans are, in our nature, good.

I begin here because I am about to talk about helping others and anytime we talk about how we relate to others - whether in deep service or being a good friend - it seems important to begin with a good look at our assumptions about people.

A.S. Neill, author of "Summerhill" (see below) stated essential human-ness so clearly when he said that when children are left to their own devices they are "innately wise and realistic." He proved this at his Summerhill school by leaving children free of restrictions, including being obliged to go to school. What followed Summerhill opening of the educational cage door challenged and continues to challenge our views of troubled children. It showed that that without rules to control behavior, children gravitated naturally toward behaviors that were good and social.

Roger Mills, the founder of the Center For Sustainable Change told me something similar when he said, "well-being is buoyant" in each and every person no matter what situation or their history. His project in Modello proved this was true and did so in challenging socioeconomic circumstances ... the kind most of us will never come close to facing.

I wanted to lead with this as a clear, fundamental assumption of our human nature because in relationships with one another, where you stand on this changes everything:

how you listen
what you hear
what you say
what you don't say
what you do next

It changes the very definition of what you think is happening in the moment. If you think you are having an issue, it changes the nature of how to see and define that issue and as a result, the solution. It has a profound affect on how you help others and what you think you are helping. It changes the nature of the moment itself.

In fact I will go to far as to assert that what you assume to be true about the nature of people even affects another person's ability to think clearly in your presence!

As we watch the people we care about live in the troubled waters of their daily lives, the impulse to help, to advise, to try to alleviate another's suffering is a constant invitation. Everyone, including me, falls into the temptation to try to help another out. We like to lift their moods, solve their issues and take away their discomfort. We have many overt and covert ways of doing this.

But our impulse to help can be an very unhelpful thing.

I remember one day when I had been particularly involved in trying to help by listening and offering my "cheer up" approach. I was startled to realize that everything I was saying was totally selfish. It was all for me. I wanted this person to be happy, not for themselves, but for my sake. I wanted them to feel good so I could look at them and not feel bad. Ultimately, I had to admit to myself, I had my best interests at heart, not theirs.

If I had begun this same interaction by remembering that all people have essential qualities that include a tendency toward buoyancy of well-being and inner ability to solve one's own problems, I would have approached it differently:

I would have dropped all my devices and just loved them.

I would have looked beyond what I was seeing toward their true nature.

If you are a coach, friend or parent, loving people isn't difficult, it's just that it strips you of anything to do. Maybe we have a hard time with this. Loving in the sense I'm talking about, that is recognizing the person within, is not a "doing."

When we are doing love, we are probably not being love.

And what is the inner nature of us all if it is not Love itself?

There is nothing for Love to do, except perhaps look for itself in the other. Love is the recognition of wholeness in the other and the understanding of their capacity to see for themselves, in their own time and in their own way.

Ultimately, love allows the other all of their joys and sorrows and does not pretend to know what is best, what is good or what is needed. It never tries to take over for the wisdom of another. It can be there no matter what is happening. And it feels good.

A Course in Miracles asserts that everything we do is either "love or a call for love." This is a fairly high vocation for anyone and probably the single most important thing you can understand if you are a parent, lover or friend.

It is the great peace-maker, not just in our relationships but in our internal environment.

For those of you reading this who are coaches, it will remove your role as "helper" and turn you into someone whose presence is a true help to others.

A list of my favorite books including a link to the story of Modello by Jack Pransky

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing

Dr. Roger Mills on "Navigating Family and Other Stresses" (audio)

Matters of The Heart

1/13/2012

The human heart weighs less than a pound.

Do we really think it contains all the love that we are?

Most of what we think we know about life is no more than a jumble of ideas passed on from person to person without question -- no more substantial then platitudes and song lyrics married to assumptions -- "No pain, no gain," "finders keepers, losers weepers," and "the best defense is a good offense" are good examples of this.

It is hard to let ourselves express our natural kindness, love and care with our heads full of so much rubbish. No wonder the heart has such a hard time making its way to the surface.

I want to make a case for listening to your heart. Not the sappy, overly-emotional, possessive heart that gets so much press and air time; but the deeply satisfied human heart that finds delight in the smallest things and joy in the arrival of daffodils.

I want to suggest that the real nature of the human heart is satisfied. Happy and satisfied. The heart needs to add nothing to itself. Of course, the heart I'm speaking of is the symbolic heart, the one that represents the fact of what we are made of. The fact that we are made of love and what we love most is to love.

When we are loving we always feel happy. Which is why when you give a gift out of true love you feel wonderful regardless of whether the person says thank you or gives you a gift in return. The sign you are out of your true self is when you give love and feel disappointed. True love does not mind if it's ROI is lousy. Really. It does not.

And yet how many of us are pining for "lost" or "unrequited" love? There is no such thing. There is either loving or there is not. You cannot get love. It is the fiber of your being and the code in your bones. The reason you feel bad when you are not being loving is that you are hurting you to the core -- it's what you experience every time you forget who you are.

We should all be making love all the time -- not as a quest or a conquering or a bonding of rings with rocks on, but as an outpouring of Self.

Why do you think you have searched outside yourself for your whole life and never found love?

Because you are the one you've been looking for.

For more, read the chapter on Love in my new book 101 New Pairs of Glasses. To Preview, look through the book contents here.

I love you, but...

3/19/2010

i'm in New York. It's another Supercoach Academy weekend, I'm looking forward to being with the students again, and I am greeted by beautiful sunshine and a warm spring day. I have every reason to feel good.

As I walked around just enjoying being here, I suddenly became aware of what was going on in my head. My mind was bopping around like little bunny foo-foo scooping up everything it saw and judging, evaluating and labeling. People got tagged anything from "weirdo" to "oh, they must be very sad..."

As I listen to my internal narration I realize ... Simon Cowell lives in my head. And the deeper truth is, in fact, I'm no better, kinder or more loving to people than he is. We are the same. We are all Simon in little and big ways. We take what we see, we decide what it means. And we are pretty happy living like this.

As I caught myself, I marveled at this automatic impulse to interpret everything. How my mind appears to just wander around and automatically use my eyes as the interpreters of who someone is. Biologically speaking I suppose some impulse has taken over and it's looking for lions everywhere. And although that might be understandable as a reason why this impulse is there - it is ridiculous. NY is a strange place and I do need to pay attention but when there is no imminent danger to me, my mind just slips into the Cowell function: the judge. And in this case, even on the basis of no information whatsoever - to decide who people are.

This behavior is no different when it comes love. It wreaks intimacy, it makes assumptions about what people want and what they should do and totally kills our ability to be loved for who we are. And even if people do love us, we can hardly let it in. We don't know Love. We don't know Real Love, that is, the kind without judgement or conditions, and although we are all trying to get that love from everyone all the time - we have almost no experience of offering it to others.

So just think...everyone else is just like us. They too have a mini-Simon Cowell, or the very least an undisciplined bunny foo-foo pulling the internal levers. So let me get this straight: on the basis of basically zero experience of giving love in a pure form, we want others so somehow know how to 'love us just as we are'?

I can hardly spend a few hours on the streets of NY without judging every moving creature.

No wonder we all need love so badly. And with so little practice at giving love, isn't it understandable why we can't find it anywhere we look?

For more on the key to unlocking real love in your life listen to my show with Greg Baer or search by topic on the right.

Love is a Verb

3/12/2010

I turn my attention to the topic of love and human connection just as San Diegans are struggling with a heart-wrenching murder case. The predominant feeling is deepest sadness but in equal measure there has also been a burst of hatred and outrage. A friend of mine described how some men had gathered in what he could only find words to describe as a 'lynch mob'.

It is mind-boggling to try to make sense of why anyone would want to hurt anyone else. It's not OK. So we get angry. But as we consider this and other crimes, (including things like global warming) is that what we should get? Can you separate what needs to be done from what needs to be considered? What do you consider worthy of living and breathing space in your heart? Do I remember someone saying we should love, but ... only as long as x, y, z, ... and not 'those sinners' who are really bad?

But even considering that us normal folk who don't have the breadth of spirit or divine love required to rise above the transgressions and love regardless, as humans, do we really need to hate in order to take the action necessary to keep someone from hurting another? If someone needs to be put in prison to protect children, let's do that. The effect of letting our hearts fill with hatred as we shut the prison cell door, may be creating more than one prisoner. And more than one killer.

At the same time, I'm reminded of the students in SuperCoach Academy who, in their first weekend of training got the challenge of lifetime. To love unconditionally. One person. Or all of New York. Whatever you could hold in your heart.

It sounds so lovely, doesn't it? We want to think we are (and we also truly want to be) 'loving people'. We have great investment in that idea. We like that as an image of ourselves. But we've put less investment into the mental and heart shifts that are demanded of us when we try to open up to loving without conditions.

Friday at 10 am Pacific, is the Power of Human Connection with Jason Lee Mitchell as we explore the benefits and challenges of approaching life, ourselves and others without conditions. Unconditional love for all? If you've tried to practice it, you know it isn't easy. Most of us have never experienced it - making it all the harder to even identify what it feels like to both give and receive.

(gosh, could all of this be, perhaps, connected?)

The next week, March 19th, I talk to Greg Baer about Real Love. Don't miss this rare opportunity to experience someone who really lives what he teaches.

Loving people is not an idea, it's a verb.

And you have to conjugate it.

What You Say Is What You Get

1/27/2010

"If you think you can, or if you think you can't, either way, you're right." Henry Ford

We all experience the world, not as it is, but through the filter of our thoughts about it. No matter how you think of yourself, or how you have judged yourself - good news.

Not everything you tell yourself is true.

We can stop because we started it
On the show today, It Is What You Say It is, (Jan 27) I talked about what builds the house you live in. Ever catch yourself saying "Oh, I'm not good at that"? Our opinions and beliefs build our limiting walls. I've had many clients tell me they can't manage this or that based on having never really tried it. We bust right through those to incredible new places. How? Because they are just lies.

They are lies that we install not just as our walls but also as the windows in our house. Through these lies we view the world outside: a limited place of ever decreasing possibility. It doesn't have to be this way. No matter how long ago you started, or how well practiced you are, or how scary the lie.

Luckily, you can't make a lie true, just by believing it for a long time

Love is one of the big, big areas where we make a lot of decisions about how limited our lives - and our chances! - are: there are only so many single people, only so many healthy single people, only so many not-entirely-insane single people.

Oh, we have so many fixed ideas!

But love isn't limited at all. Love is who you are and it doesn't arrive when your life partner does, or when your child hugs you, or when you complete a successful project. It is always there for you to have and depends on nothing at all. (see the show Jan 29 All You Need Is Love when I talk to John Welshons, author of One Soul, One Love, One Heart )

Greg Baer illustrated this so well in his Master Class with SuperCoach Academy this week. This is roughly the story:

So there you are sitting by the pool, enjoying the sun on your dream vacation. And someone from the pool is splashing you and splashing you, and you are getting wetter and wetter and angrier and angrier.

Then you finally move enough to look into the pool and give this person a piece of your mind, when you realize they are drowning. What would have to "happen" for you to lose you anger and get in touch with caring about them?

Nothing. Your anger is just gone in a poof, you become instantly overcome with a deep desire to help.

Love is just there, in every moment. It's a decision.

Love is just there in every moment. OK, I just said that. But...

Does that sound possible? Does that sound true? Why would you even care?
I'm reminded of an extraordinary day, a day when everyone in New York - and then around the world - suddenly became aware of the presence, the importance and the interconnectedness of us all. We were deeply moved by the preciousness of life.

What I notice when I think about 9/11 is, that day people made a choice to love, to care, to feel connected. You didn't have to. You just did. That choice is available always. Why is it important to know this?

So you can.

Listen to the show here

Exploring your own happy

12/14/2009

Last week on the show "Will the Real Happy please stand up..." I spent some time digging below the surface of a very commonly accepted idea: happiness is inside you. Very few people would quarrel with that idea anymore. We seem to have a sense that we can't find happiness outside ourselves, but guess what? We look anyway. As I heard this week. "I know money doesn't buy happiness but I'd like the chance to find out for myself!"

The way to find out about happiness could well be to become a gazillionaire and see, but between now and then, there's lots you can do to understand what happiness is for you. The show looks at these, and you also have two archive shows with Robert Holden (on June 5th and July 24th) exploring the 10+ Keys to Happiness. Great shows.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to explore this right now, here are some questions for you to journal on or think about:

What are the top 5 lessons on happiness your life has taught you so far? For each one....

How has it influenced your life?

How well have you learned it?

And you might want to take on a practice for the week to notice

When you are at your happiest

When you feel most alive / on purpose

Let me know how you go...

Our emotional ecosystem

11/11/2009

I'm sure there's an answer to this question, but when did all this madness begin? Not the madness of the economy, or the madness of the markets ... but the madness of not thinking for ourselves anymore? The madness of thinking that what we think has no impact.

I've blogged on a similar topic before, about the things that come out of our mouths when they are left unattended. Shocking. The automatic unkindnesses, the unthinking gossip - as if we just tossed out one more teeny tiny toxic and non-biodegradable plastic bottle onto a very, very large ocean of humanity. Like it doesn't matter because it's just the one. After all, how will the girl walking by EVER know you made fun of her hair, or compared her ass unfavorably....

I am not sure we can dissassociate what we are saying from the impact it has on the speaker. Yes, the words leave the lips, but the feelings linger and the only one experiencing the effects is us. Ever feel bad after cutting someone down or saying the mean thing just to be clever?

And that is just what we are willing to say other people! Our inner talk is far less sensored and just as, if not more, damaging. Our self- talk, or mirror talk... "I'm so fat" "I'm idiot" "I'm a pig" etc., etc.,

We are hard on ourselves. We are hard on other people. No one ever gets a break. No wonder we need motivational speakers to G-ourselves up with 'you can do it!' rhetoric. It is like some insane cartoon routine, I smack you on the head with the hammer and then take back the hammer so I can smack myself or make sure I'm standing in the way when you smack you.

There's no reason why we can't take a moment to question the things we say and the things we think before we release them like toxic gases. After all, we all know that poisoning the planet is the same thing as poisoning ourselves.

It doesn't seem that far of a stretch that maybe, just maybe, it's one emotional ecosystem too?

With all of us connected, what makes us think we'll escape the long terms effects of our own words after we are gone? The same little voice that tells us it doesn't matter if you toss that gum wrapper on the ground?

If you feel affected by this post, give someone the gift of seeing that you and they are the same and treat 'yourself' to some loving kindness. Do it for me.