The Demarcation Point
I’ve come to see the process of Healing & Growth as a shift from seeking others to complete me to the experience of feeling whole regardless of the presence of others. This is not to say I don’t enjoy being with people. I simply don’t need them to feel whole.
I often describe this period and everything after as a demarcation point. A point so pronounced that everything before it looks like I was preparing for something that I didn't understand and everything afterward feels like an embodiment of that I sought. Life feels different, looks different and sounds different. However it's not just a sensate shift. It is a radical shift to living in purpose versus aspiring to live in purpose. I use the word purpose, however, it can be said in many ways. The phrasing, regardless of choice of words, simply does not express the experience of the before and after.
One can call it an awakening, though in my view, that sells the journey short. The notion of an awakening speaks of a moment in time and though I can articulate several moments as significant in the process, it is a process of intention first and foremost. A multicolored full spectrum kaleidoscope of consciousness, sometimes agonizing, most of the time very intense and most thankfully, fulfilling and inwardly true. Though I listed true last, it really carries the most significant meaning in the process as I have learned to actually settle into my own vivid understanding of what it means to be truthful with myself and the world around me. Though sometimes my truth is not well-received I have learned to stay grounded in practice around truth and allow it to be a practice versus a static state of meaning and attachment.
Along the path of this process of aligning myself with my Soul I have found a teacher whose unfolding mirrors my own. This teacher's name is Milarepa. Though he lived over a 1000 years ago I feel a sense of kinship in our life stories. He comes from a lineage whose roots serve us today in the form of Tantra. Unfortunately much of Tantra today is seen through techniques that limit the extraordinary opportunity that is this soulful practice. Fortunately Buddhism claimed him as one of their own, giving us a contemporary connection to a wondrous master of consciousness.
My initial connection with Milarepa lies in the nature of our habituated wounds. We were angry young men with too much knowledge and too little compassion and humility. We saw threads of connection yet chose to burn them for the sake of twisted and angry resentment. We saw people not through a loving and kind heart but through their shortcomings. We were taught these things by the examples of our mothers and chose in our respective lifetimes to Heal & Grow through these scorched inner wounds. To show that the process of Healing & Growth is possible for all. To show that redemption is a personal choice manifest in presence and not in the blessing from another no matter how blessed that individual.
For both Milarepa and myself, the process of Healing & Growth was built upon a foundation that requires building, tearing down and then rebuilding over and over again. For the most part, this way of healing and growing is seen by modern humans as untenable. An approach centered on letting go and rebuilding is seen as wasted effort instead of a necessary part of building a strong inner foundation. This solid foundation is necessary for the Soul to connect with depth so we can manifest the fullness of our purpose. This is more metaphoric in some lives and quite literal in others. The building of my creative healing center was both metaphoric and literal in its expression of building, letting go and rebuilding.
This opportunity facilitated a perspective I simply could not see and ultimately allowed a creative expression of self that was both redemptive and awakening. It comes back to preparing for something versus embodying it. I have been asked if I am proud of my creation of Simplicity Farm, and what arises is, “I let go and this is what happens.”
When I set forth the intention of creating Simplicity Farm as a Healing & Growth center, I operated initially to complete the project asap. While immediacy is important when embarking upon a creative endeavor, how one inwardly practices with the project is central. I initially saw the building of the center as an obstacle to my teaching practice rather than recognizing that how I approached the building process was essential to my development as a teacher. In my haste I skipped steps. The result was that only months into the process and nearing what I perceived as completion, I was forced to stop and begin again. To adhere to specific building regulations that were overlooked in my need to get to my intended destination or completion. This ultimately extended the building process for over a year. I was given an extraordinary gift. During that year I stopped trying so hard to finish a project and allowed the process to unfold. I connected to play and creativity, allowing them to guide me rather than my old habits of anxiety, worry and frustration. A freedom within resulted in allowing me access to a creativity that had often felt far away, beyond me.
- Excerpt from the forthcoming book Language of the Soul: A Path of Simplicity
The Unfolding
The energetic opportunity that occurs between the corporeal self and the infinite or Soul is one centered upon a letting go of control around the very fabric of reality. What appears to be occurring and what can be known around any given experience can be seen as unfolding within time. A concept of time within the Soul that is neither linear nor arranged in any rational order. One example that can help in grasping the notion of the unfolding occurs within an event that has already been experienced. As we Heal & Grow within a deep surrender into our Souls, this experience can continue to change within our perception. This can happen not just once with a given event but many times as the Soul has its way with our perception of reality. Practice in presence opens us for any event, past, present or future, to be an opportunity for Healing & Growth. In the absence of presence, the unfolding of the same event can become suspended, stagnant or depleted. This can be dependent on the individual and their accompanying patterns of habituation often expressed as dis-ease. In other words, unfolding is carried forth in time through the intention of presence. This is why consistent restfulness and stillness practice along with a conscious intention in presence are crucial elements of the Healing & Growth process. These practices allow us to experience healing in ways that exist beyond the rational mind’s understanding of what is possible.
Healing & Growth
Healing or Growth, without the other, is incomplete in the complementary way yin is incomplete without yang. They are companions and in this way complete each other. Healing & Growth are complementary human experiential practices that serve us in living a vibrant life.
Healing carries a larger meaning than to simply cure an ailment. Healing is the process of bringing life to soundness, to resolve. Its PIE (proto-indo-european) root, kailo, means to make whole.
Growth is to augment, to expand. Growth within this context is not so much about development as much as it is an awakening process.
By bringing together Healing & Growth we enable an integral practice through the awakening of our essential selves. It is conscious practice centered around our choices and how we make those choices. Making conscious choices that bring Healing & Growth into union. To make unconscious choices creates discord. Explained further, a choice made from reactivity is not the same as a choice made from presence or being present. Reactivity being choices made from anxiety, worry, frustration and chronic sadness. To further connect our awareness to these habitual patterns, let's include anticipation or expectation with anxiety, overthinking with worry, and anger with frustration. Another important thread to connect is recognizing depression or chronic sadness as a buried or segmented emotion like anger. They are buried in similar ways inside us and often arise as a habitual pattern because of our resistance to their expression. Said another way, we experience depression due to our resistance to feeling sadness. This explains the disconnect from self and others within the experience of the angry and/or depressed individual.
Any choice made from reactivity or non-presence is like falling into a hole and not knowing how you got there. Making wise choices can occur by accident in reactivity. Like falling into a hole. Even if the choice ends up appearing wise, it is accidental wisdom. Accidental wisdom is like any accident…not reproducible. This is why how we practice life matters so much. Though we are all inherently wise, conscious decision-making or wise choices are accessed on a consistent basis by practicing presence.
Presence is the outcome of stillness. There are many ways to quiet or still the mind. Meditation, yoga, qi gong, and tai chi are but a few of the more common ways. In my case, I practice Daoyin, the energetic root of qi gong and tai chi. Within a stillness practice a quiet mind creates the observer. The part of us who bears witness in the present moment. Without the observer in place, we don’t see that our conscious awareness is absent. That is the gift of the observer cultivated within the stillness practice. Our arrival here at the moment. And with consistent practice, we dwell more and more in presence. Said another way, practice in stillness activates the observer and potentiates a choice within presence. The choice to let go into being present or the choice to continue to suffer in our reactions or habitual patterns. Presence, as seen through the observer, opens up another opportunity as well. When we can reside in presence consistently, we gain entrance to the whisper that is our wisdom. Within this connection to wisdom we experience an ease. An absence of difficulty or effort. See this in contrast to its opposite: dis-ease. The feeling of dwelling in division and/or conflict. In a nutshell this clarifies the importance of seeing Healing & Growth as companions. It is no small thing to experience ease in one’s life regardless of what is happening. To do so by focusing on how one practices life rather than riding the rollercoaster of windfalls and obstructions that seemingly dictate one’s state of mind.
Coming full circle, I have outlined the how within a life practice that enables an embodied sense of ease in life. Healing & Growth, within the practice, is the why. It is why we are here. It is as well the universal path that connects us to purpose. Purpose has infinite expressions, however, it is most effective when the expression of why and how are answered clearly in practice. How and why, expressed through depth and stillness, creates a sense of peace and joy.