Integrated Preparation for the New Year

by | Dec 31, 2018 | Coaching

Integrated Preparation for the New Year

New Years (winter solstice) is my favorite holiday. As a long time yin yoga teacher and student of all things ‘yin’, I’m enamored with darkness, mystery, turning inward, quiet reflection, gentle subterranean preparation, etc. I actually find these things necessary for my survival and proper functioning. So, to set my year up right, I like to do some self inventory, some intention setting, and maybe even give myself some exercises and some field work. Perhaps we could call it Integrated Preparation.

This year, I really wanted to do some work with my teacher’s newest book, Presence Based Leadership. His name is Doug Silsbee, and he passed earlier this year, which makes this book all the more special to me. I’ve been working with the concepts in the book since he introduced them to us in late 2017, and think that this new years is a perfect excuse for a deep dive. In particular, I’m interested in his dynamic, nested systems of the self; context, identity, and soma. It’s possible we’ve also worked with these ideas together. But I simply love the clarity and perspective that they offer. They give me the resource to look at myself in ways I wouldn’t ordinarily.

Here is a diagram of the nested systems: https://presencebasedcoaching.com/wp-content/uploads/Download/9-Panes-Practice-Lab/cis.pdf
Here is an excerpt from the book, detailing the systems: https://presencebasedcoaching.com/wp-content/uploads/Books/chapter-4-pbl.pdf

This model seems particularly useful for those of us who are batting around the term ‘Integration’. 2018 has been quite a trip, and bringing the lessons we’ve learned into a wiser, kinder 2019 is no small feat.

So my question for myself, and for you, is how do we want to shift these three areas of our life in this new year?

You’re welcome to use these as journaling prompts….

Context:
What situations am I currently in, and how do I feel about them?
How have I been contributing to them, for better or worse?
How would I like to see these situations shift in this upcoming year?
In a perfect world how are those situations presenting themselves in my life as we begin the new year?

Identity:
Who have I been being in the past year?
What are some of my primary pieces of negative self talk?
What have I been attempting to present to the world over the past 12 months?
What parts of my identity have I been protecting or hiding?
What parts of my identity do people miss about me?
Who do I want to be in new year, in the various aspects of my life as described in the ‘context’ section.
What parts of me would change if my situation changed?

Soma:
How have I been holding tension?
What have I been doing to not feel that tension?
How is that tension is response to the negative self talk described above in the ‘identity’ section?
How is the tension in response to some part of my context?
How does the person I identify with sit, stand, and move in the world?
How would the person I want to be sit, stand, and move in the world?

I could go on and on with these. I’ll give you a brief example from my own life, nothing too extreme, and probably relatable:

When I am in a situation that is difficult for me, or at what I believe is the edge of my ability, (context)
I get into negative self talk about my worthiness, and my ability to solve problems elegantly. I start to believe I’m more of a blunt instrument, that has to solve things by brute force. (identity)
My upper chest and arms get tense, i lean forward as if to go into attack mode, my jaw tenses and my fingers tense up as if to try to grab and control. (soma)

Of course these things usually happen on a subtle level, but through a kind of meditative attention, I can start to get a fuller picture of what is happening with me in the moment.

What to do?
I don’t want to stop having challenging situations. I want to continue to work at an edge that keeps me growing. I just want to handle them better (hopefully this is also relatable for you!)
The person I want to be is more secure about their ability to generate elegant, sophisticated, and lovely solutions to life’s problems. He is increasingly soft, flexible, and pliant through his tissues. He sits in his center, not rushing forward to control, allowing things to flow.

Of course that takes practice
This is going to be a big part of my personal practice this year. I’ll be focusing on it though my meditation and physical practices, so that I have a greater chance of living this way in my daily life. I won’t bore you wit the details.

Suggestions for you to facilitate Integrated Preparation.
I truly hope you’ll try to answer some of these questions, and to look at yourself using these lenses. I’d like to suggest two things:

  • First, that you especially look at the way you’ve been talking to yourself, and see if there are places that you’d like to make a shift there. Make some new mantras, with some more positive and uplifting language.
  • Second, Take some time with your body language. Sit, stand, walk as the person you hope to be in 2019.

Good Luck, and please let me know these integrated preparation practices goes. If you’re interested in working with me on some of these ideas, of course I’m here for you.

Best wishes for the new year! Daniel

Our Inner Florence Nightingale

by | Sep 16, 2018 | meditation

We all have times when we feel like we’ve been kicked in the teeth by life, when we’ve been stabbed in the back, or dragged through the mud. It’s hard to know what to do in these times. We might be told to do ‘self care’, but that can seem abstract or meaningless.

Working with a client, we recently co-created a meditation practice to support ourselves when we’re in this space.  We decided to call this practice The Inner Florence Nightingale. If you aren’t sure who that is, she’s the founder of modern nursing, and worked with wounded soldiers. And, like the name suggests, it’s a meditative practice of nurturing self care. It’s not a flashy, transcendent practice designed for reaching enlightenment or connecting with ascended masters. Those things are all fine and good, but sometimes we just need to sit still and pick energetic shrapnel out of our tender bellies.

The practice is simple and effective. It just requires a some time and self trust.

First, we just need to sit still and breathe evenly. We allow ourselves to be convalescent for a moment, to be in a position where we realize that we need care, and can’t do much else until we receive it. This means we stop trying to solve any problems, or retaliate to any perceived wrongs, and just focus on healing for a moment. Feel your body take on the attitude of the patient – vulnerable, open, willing to receive healing.

Then, we recognize just as we are the patient, we are also the nurse. We channel our inner Florence Nightingale. We recognize that we are capable of care and compassion. We are capable of generating a healing energy. Feel your body take on the attitude of the healer. Feel yourself sweet and motherly, willing to lovingly face whatever wounds may present themselves.

Once we’re able to embody these two archetypes simultaneously and can feel their energies alive within, we just let them mingle. We scan the body looking for the most sensitive places, and then we extend our love and care into them. We might feel these areas of the body as achy or painful, they might feel dark or gross. Just let your intuition and healing instincts guide you. You might feel like extending a healing light to the area, or it might feel like it needs to be psychically washed out and purified. Trust that your inner nurse knows what to do, and give it the space to do it.

There is sometimes a tendency to try to ‘figure out’ what is going on. You might find an issue and wonder to yourself, ‘how did this get here?’. Let that go. This isn’t forensics. It’s triage. If you want to try to figure it out later, you can. But for now, we’re spending our time cleaning our wounds, changing bandages, applying ointment.

That’s all there is to it. When you feel complete allow yourself to come back into your space slowly, and be extra gentle and kind with yourself for the next while. Drink lots of water and repeat as needed.

If you try it, please let me know how it goes. If you’d like private instruction, or my assistance in going deeper, please feel free to reach out.

Letting go of what doesn’t serve us, but, like for real

by | Jan 2, 2018 | buddhism, Coaching, yoga

I’ve seen a hundred social media posts asking me what I want to let go of in 2017. and part of me thinks these memes are goofy, but at the same time, I do think about these things.

We all have problems that have been problems for years. I certainly do. If you know me, you could probably share a list of them with me, and you would know exactly what I need to know about them. We’re good like that. Spotting other people’s problems. (also, don’t send that list)

But our meditation practice is about Svadyaya, Self study, not the study of others. Self study is where the wisdom comes

It reminds me of the old saying, ‘insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results.’

I get the same certain results.
I keep doing the same certain things.
I keep thinking the same certain thoughts.
I keep looking at life the same certain way.

What I’m trying to say, is that I’m very certain. We all have these places where we’re very certain, resist introspection, and lash out at feedback.

WE GOTTA STOP DOING THIS

I know it’s hard to root out the beliefs and the perceptions. They can be subtle and evasive, be design. I like to work backwards. What’s the situation? What’s the open sore of an unwanted manifestation?

Like we mentioned above, often it seems like other people or external situations are at the root of our unhappiness. If only such and such were different.

It’s not a bad place to start, but it’s no kind of place to finish. We’ve got to refocus on ourselves. We’ve got to be less certain that we’re right, that we’re justified, that we’ve got it all figured out.

What can we be less certain about? What thoughts are we holding onto so tightly they cause our jaw to clench and our forehead to furrow?

I don’t know what to do…
I don’t know if my ideas about this are actually in line with my highest truth…
I want to do better, I don’t know how…

This is a great place to start, admitting that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working, and that we don’t necessarily know any other way. It’s a mysterious place to be and full of possibilities.

This is our work.

And this is all for this email, for now. I’ll have more in a day or two. In the mean time, I hope your new year is full of questions, and mysteries, and possibility.

The Untold Story of The Buddha, Part 1

by | May 13, 2017 | buddhism, meditation

Most of you probably know the story of the Buddha, when he left the castle and his princely upbringing for the first time, and was confronted with the harsh reality of the real world.

First he saw an old man, then a sick man, and then a corpse.

He asked his charioteer, “Who are these people, why did this happen to them, what did they do to deserve this fate?”

Each time, his driver shook his head and looked at him like he was new, “Dude, this happens to everybody.”

The story glosses over another event. He saw two people, talking to each other, nervous and twitching, their eyes darting around.

The Buddha asked, “What is going on over there?”

“Oh, that’s an awkward social interaction?”

“Who does that happen to?”

“Everyone, brother. There is no promise in this world that you’re going to avoid things getting awkward from time to time. Awkward is going to happen.”

So, there you go. old age, sickness, death, ubiquitous awkward social interactions. Now you know. Take it easy on yourself, folks.

—————

Buddha image by Mark Henson

Widening and Narrowing the Meditative Focus

by | May 8, 2017 | meditation

When I decided that I wanted to put a little more energy into writing about meditation, the first thing I discovered is that the writing started to take over the meditation. I sat down, took a few breaths, and start to practice whatever technique I was practicing, and then the ideas for the article started to pour in. With the ideas for the article, came the justifications. These are good ideas, the mind said, these are thoughts about meditation. thoughts about meditation are important, it said. Thoughts about meditation are as good, if not better, than meditation itself.

This can be tricky.

As you may know, I’m not a big proponent of using time on the cushion as exclusively time to aggressively restrain the thoughts. It been my experience that sometimes letting the mind wander in an easy restful manner, casually checking things off the to do list, compassionately reviewing the previous day is a good use of our innate intelligence. Putting ourselves in a restful state can engage a creative part of ourselves that we maybe don’t always have access too. We often come up with new solutions, ones that include humility, forgiveness, and even ease.

However, we’ve probably seen firsthand that thoughts don’t always go that way. Depending the trials of the day, we can spiral, stuck in a mental rut or confusion, blame, gasping. And regardless of the flavor, it’s accompanied with that aforementioned justification. That voice telling us that these thoughts are important enough to take up all this space in our mind.

It’s even trickier when the spiral seems positive. We’re finally going to start that non-profit, we’re going to do all those nice things for all those people. We’re going to cure cancer. I don’t know about you, but if I had a dollar for all of the yoga meditation vegan homeless shelters in costa rica that I decided to build while meditating, I’d have enough money to build one.
So, what to do? One of the things I like to do, is to practice narrowing and widening my focus. This gives my mind a chance to be free and relaxed, and also trains me in some perspective and discipline. I’ll give you an example, but you’ll have to experiment with this on your own. It isn’t meant to be explicit instructions.

Perhaps I’ll start by just sitting down and settling in, watching my breath start to deepen. I’ll let my eyes wander over the altar, I’ll smile about the coziness of the Pendleton I’m wrapped in. I’ll say a few mantras, and scan my body a little to let it relax. I’ll check in to see if anything comes up that i’ve been ignoring in the business of my life, and I’ll give it some time. If there is something I don’t want to forget, I might even lean over to make a note on the phone. And this goes on for a bit, settling down, settling in, getting quiet, softening. This is a wider kind of focus, it’s natural, easy, soothing, creative.

Then, I’ll move into a shamatha practice. This is strict, disciplined. I’ll guide my attention to the tip of my nose and watch my breath go in and out. Exclusively. Thoughts still come up constantly, but are paid no mind. Attention goes back to the breath, again and again. Sometimes it seems as if the thoughts stop for a while, almost threatening that they might never come back. They are going to take their ball of good ideas and go home. It never lasts long, though, and once again I’m guiding the attention back to the breath.

To be clear, I don’t want the thoughts to go away forever, I just want a little more executive control over them. I’m not sure exactly what you want, dear reader, but it’s my guess that if you’re reading this, you want something similar. I just want a little bit of self control in the face of temptation. I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

I often don’t end my meditation with the narrow focus. Popping up quickly after Shamatha and running back into my day can be a little shocking, for me personally. I like to widen the focus again, and let the mind wander some more. If the stuff it was talking about before is still that important, it can talk about it again. It’s almost like a treat. Ice cream after the doctor. I feel like it lets the mind know that it is still seen as a valuable life partner, that it is still loved. A bit of integration, aftercare.

There are many ways to structure a practice. This is just a brief example of how one might work with the mind. Depending on your desires, your practice might be totally different. It might even differ from day to day. It’s personal, and deserves experimentation and curiosity. I just want you to know that you’ve got options, you don’t have to take what one guy said one time as gospel. You’ve got the opportunity to have a meditation practice that serves you, and makes you really, really, happy.

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Side Note/Plug: The image of the dancers is by James Jean. Brilliant artist. I have some notebooks with his art on the cover, one of them has been to India with me. Check Him out. http://www.jamesjean.com/

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