For my children, my grandchildren, and for all of us

I wanted to share with you that for a long time I’ve been struggling in an internal debate – been stuck in rumination, fear, and anxiety.  One part of me wants to trust life. Accept things as they occur. Be in the present moment. Another part is afraid to let go. It worries that if I stop worrying about the future I won’t be prepared for worst case situations.

When things don’t work out the way I want them to, I give myself a hiding. I’m really hard on myself. Blame myself for trusting someone or not seeing it coming. Blame others. Kick myself down the spiral staircase into the basement. That place in me where fear, blame and shame live, I reckon.

This war against myself has been going on for years. The opposing factions of trust and fear rise and fall depending on what’s happening at the time. If things are going well it’s relatively calm, although part of me never really stops worrying. When things aren’t going well it gets really intense. In a funk, I become debilitated – completely stuck. Go really quiet. Go dark.

I’m happy to share  that recently things have started to get lighter. There’s been recent success in bringing the factions to the table for peace talks.

Wanted to share with you that I’ve recently and successfully discovered a critical move.

It begins with the invitation. The welcome.

I’ve discovered it’s about how I hold myself, how I ask the questions, how I bring the different parts of me to the table. You see they all play a role in my self preservation.

The invitation has to recognise and honour all the voices. Let each one know they’re valid.

Let’s say one of them has a voice of ‘Trusting Life’ and another one, the voice of ‘Fear & Control’. To work with them I see that I need to invite them to the table with respect, with gratitude and compassion.

They’ve got to trust and feel that I mean to hear and hold what they have to say. When I show up with non-conditional positive regard they sense and feel this and I’ve noticed they’re more likely to open up.

When I do this, amazingly, I often hear things from them I didn’t know or had forgotten. They feel heard. I get to understand them. And we start to work together.

Listening to a sample of an internal conversation at one time you might have heard something like: “I’m worried you’re not moving fast enough“. Followed by: “Yeah, you’re failing, lift your game.” To: “Do not share this with anyone.” To: “You’re going to fall behind on this.” and on it would go.

Now, you’d be more likely to hear words like: “OK , I hear you. Tell me more. What are you worried about?” “Let’s work through this.” “It’s all good, you’re doing your best, maybe if you need to, ask for some help.” “All right, what can you do? What do you need?”  It’s a completely different experience.

I also find somewhat miraculously the different parts of me begin to listen to each other. And before I know it they’ve stopped fighting and are working together on a pathway for peace.

As I reflect on this, it dawns on me that the change itself is not derived from seeking change. It hasn’t come from setting an agenda or clever negotiation. And it didn’t come from trying to suppress one or rationalise the other.

It came through the nature and quality of relationship. A relationship formed through compassion, curiosity, non-conditional positive regard and a genuine desire for connection.

There was no bargaining just real listening. Competition replaced by connection.

I’m finding that as I show up to the parts of me this way they in turn are able to show up to one another in the same way.

I’m happy to share that while the questions are not all answered and the work goes on, the war is over and the conversation continues.

Lightness is coming in and I can safely say that the part of me that wants to trust, the part of me that carries the fear, and the part of me that wants to go dark are all committed to showing up and working it out together.

I gotta say – I’m all in for the keeping up the practice and the prayer for ongoing loving internal relationships. To seeing this flow out in turn to others and to all that becomes possible in the loving relationships we can have with one another.

With love
Martin  © 2022

For Zach B

This contemplation begins with four questions.

>  What becomes possible when I move from the frame of ‘I want’ toward the frame of ‘what is wanted of me’?

>  What happens within me when I shift the focus from ‘I need’ to ‘what is needed?’

>  What energy manifests when the patterns of: want/don’t want, should/shouldn’t, must/mustn’t, begin to shift toward the manifestation of acceptance, and the ability to simply ‘be with what is’?

>  What occurs when the ‘I’ of wanting becomes the ‘self’ of listening? Listening for what is needed in readiness to respond.

My lived experience of this movement is in the early stages. Initially I notice relaxation followed shortly after by a grip of angst. At first the contemplation brings spaciousness and peace. Then after only a few beats I notice the grip.

I sense this grip to be the ego-mind fearing a loss of power. It kicks in and uses an instinctual survival lever in an attempt to maintain its primacy and the status quo. It does not believe it can have its needs met unless it remains in a perpetual state of readiness to defend itself and/or take what it needs.

It assumes the ‘I’ as seperate from the whole and that it will not be taken care of, unless placed at the centre of all eventualities.

And so I set out to reassure it with the following:

As I stay longer in the state of listening I notice greater spaciousness, ease, and peace. In a state of listening I see clearly that the frame of ‘what is wanted’, is inclusive. In any given situation ‘what is wanted of me’ could well be: to assert a boundary, to take up a cause, to take care of self, to let go a hurt.

Shifting from an ‘ego’ mind toward an ‘eco’ mind moves away from fragmentation toward connection. Away from the central assumption of separateness toward the understanding of wholeness. With Fear driving separateness and Love informing wholeness, the felt experience of the former and the latter show up in remarkable contrast.

Eco Mind does not imply homogeneity. It does not imply abandonment of survival instincts. It points to the understanding that the source motivation for all action and movement can be an attuned response at the deepest level, to what is arising, to what is needed.

The doorway to the experience of Eco Mind appears to open in me as a state of presence. As Being and Doing align I am able to be in a state of ‘Withness’. Able to: Be With what is arising.

I see clearly that if I’m caught in Psychological time – past or future, the rumination of Ego Mind, be it anxiety or fear keeps the doorway firmly shut. The finite loops and patterns of rumination equate to an attempt to solve problems with the same thinking that created them.

In my understanding and continuing practice, what becomes possible in the movement toward the frame of ‘what is wanted’ ‘what is needed’ and the ‘Self of Listening’ is the opening of a doorway to an infinite field of potentiality. A connection to Life energy itself. Toward, as a dear friend once shared, ‘an ability and the choice to Trust Life.

Martin with Love. © 2022