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An Initiation for Men:
I welcome you to join me for a day of exploration, healing and initiation into the mystical power of the Sacred Masculine. By consciously choosing to surrender the polarizations and limitations of the egoic masculine in favor of a masculine energy that is compassionate, heart-centered and imbued with love, we bring a new level of balance and equanimity into our lives and we discover our true power as men; we form a brotherhood of men who will help to heal the world.
In this seminar we will explore and identify: what the Sacred Masculine is and what value it has for our lives; how to access the beauty and power of this benevolent force; the limiting beliefs that block our access to this profound way of being in the world. Using techniques for the unification of opposites we will process the blocks we have named and offer them up for for balance and integration. Finally, we will journey into the emotional body using the power of evocative music and passive listening to release our deepest levels of holding and resistance.
Saturday, October 26, 2013 10am – 4:30pm
Suggested donation $50-$75
Location: my home in San Francisco
Please call 415-666-3255 to register and for directions
Paul, a student (not his real name), asked “why is it I get in so many car accidents?” After a bit of self-inquiry he was able to name how he has a habit of identifying himself as a victim as he goes through life. We could say he holds the energy of victimhood in his consciousness, and that this energy lives as an energetic field or aura that inhabits and surrounds his physical body. Through the spiritual law of attraction this field acts like a magnet drawing to him people and situations (car accidents!) that victimize him.
I explained that if he were to clear his aura of this victimization energy his life would smooth out greatly. As we dug a little deeper he also noticed that, although he spends most of his time being a victim in life, he can also act out its opposite sometimes. He saw how, when push comes to shove, he can also be a dominator or a perpetrator (the energy of the Tyrant)!
Duality is the operating system that runs consciousness for most of us in the world right now. It is a consciousness divided, and it plays out in our minds and emotions and, in extreme cases, in our physical world as dance of opposites, or polarity. Although Paul identifies primarily with the victim, he was beginning to see how he flip-flops from being a victim to being a tyrant, depending on the situation on any given day. Victim and tyrant, in fact, all polarities, are inextricably bound to one another!
Spiritual law says that any polarized state of mind will in time turn into its opposite; we cannot have one without the other… When Paul is in victim mode this energy dominates his reality, and that’s all he can see. He feels small, inconsequential, needy and deprived. But his tyrant didn’t go anywhere! This character is just not conscious to him, and what is not in the conscious mind lives in the unconscious. Similarly, when Paul is acting out his tyrant energy, his victimhood lies unseen in his unconscious, nevertheless always present and eager to resume its starring role in his life’s movie!
The underlying energy that upholds and sustains the tyrant/victim construct in our minds is the energy of power vs. powerlessness, and like all polarities held in the mind, it is inherently unstable. So, as good as it feels to Paul’s ego to feel powerful, in control, and able to assert its will, it won’t last. Inevitably, tyrants become victims! On the world stage, they’re all too familiar: Look no further than Hitler or, more recently, Saddam Hussein; then there is Mubarak in Egypt, a tyrant to his people for thirty years. Now he sits in a jail with a sentence of life imprisonment; and we all know the fate of Osama bin Laden!
Because Paul is committed to growing his consciousness and living his life from a place of balance, equanimity and inner peace, he must be willing to give up both his inner tyrant and his inner victim. Through a process of self-inquiry Paul’s work is to begin to name and own all of the ways he plays the tyrant and the victim, and to free himself of the exhausting and perpetual dance between them. He needs to make what is unconscious to him conscious, and then be willing to hang up his dancing shoes! He must make a bid for true power by surrendering both aspects of ego. Here is where grace will take over if he asks. In fact, it is the essential piece that will create an integration.
Paul’s consciousness with this polarity is boxed in by the seen and unseen attractions and repulsions he holds around it. I asked Paul to create four lists: 1. Why I desire to be a victim 2. Why I fear becoming a victim 3. Why I desire to be tyrant 4. Why I fear becoming a tyrant. What Paul will discover is that he spends some indefinite amount of time with the consciousness of each of his four lists before he inevitably flips to the state of mind of the next list, and the next, and so on in a never-ending loop of desires and fears.
His flip-flopping consciousness between victim and tyrant is keeping him in a spin of opposites, manifesting adversity in his life and from the peace of mind that he seeks. By feeling deeply into and naming all of his desires and fears around being a victim and being a tyrant, and then surrendering them all back to Source, he will move into greater balance and equanimity with this polarity. And if he continues to scrupulously examine and release even the most subtle ways that he engages these self-defeating personas, he can be free of them. No more victims or tyrants need ruin his day!
How about you? Are you ready to give up the struggle between your victim and your tyrant? Your inner peace and true power await you there beyond all polarity…
I’ll meet you there!
Someone asked me recently: “When I get angry should I express it? Sometimes it makes a situation worse and we just get in a fight.”
When you feel anger rising in you it is best not to act from this anger. But, do pay attention to it as a vibratory field of energy. Some people are in the habit of suppressing anger and it gets tamped down into the cells of the body adding to a reservoir of suppressed anger that is dormant, but toxic. Eventually, it will get triggered by some external event and burst forth in an emotional explosion that will drain you and leave you feeling bad.
So, we witness that anger is present, and without engaging it with our minds, we simply allow it to be. Consciously we detach from any thoughts our mind wants to generate about it – that we have been wronged in some way – that we don’t deserve to be treated this way – that we will get our revenge etc. Any story we begin to tell about our anger only serves to justify the anger in our minds, which allows the anger to build. Then it becomes us. Then we become identified with the anger and it overtakes us, causing us to become reactive and say or do something that we will later regret. Anger, like any emotion, is just a frequency or vibration of energy in motion, and we have the power to allow it to pass through our awareness field. We bring the power of our Presence to bear witness to this wave of energy passing through, and we ride it out. In this way it will leave harmlessly.
In a situation with someone when your buttons get pushed and you feel anger come up, before you begin to identify with it, take some deep breathes and just allow the anger to be. Be completely present with it while detaching from your thoughts. Give yourself permission to excuse yourself from the situation momentarily if necessary. Then, when the anger has dissipated though the power of your witnessing presence, you can collect your thoughts and have your say from a more grounded and non-reactive place.
For a person with a reservoir of stored anger it is beneficial to release it in a therapeutic way. One exercise that does this very effectively without attracting a lot of negative attention (like screaming at the top of your lungs!) comes from Polarity Yoga developed by Dr. Randolph Stone, the creator of Polarity Therapy. Called the ‘Woodchopper’, it ignites the fire principle in the body, facilitating the venting of stored anger out of the cells. It is important not to create an object for your suppressed anger, but rather to maintain your neutral witnessing presence while doing this exercise. An explanation of how to do the Woodchopper is at the end of this post.
Remember, we are Pure Awareness. When you can allow the frequencies of existence, whether positive or negative, to pass through you, without pulling them towards you or pushing them away, you are free. Then you are completely available to enjoy the wonder and diversity of life, and, as my teacher says, “all that heavenly glory”.
Woodchopper
Note: The Woodchopper should not be attempted if you have back problems.
Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, keeping your knees soft. Clasp your hands above your head. Take a deep breath in through your nose arching your body backwards, and on your exhale, bring your hands down between your legs, hinging from the hips and dropping your head as if chopping wood. Let out a loud explosive “Ha” sound at the end of the stroke. Inhale and come up slowly and repeat as many times as necessary until the anger has cleared. The movement should be rhythmic and flowing. You may need to take a break and repeat the process before you feel complete. Please follow your own guidance on this and be careful not to strain or go too fast, as this can lead to dizziness.
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