The Call of the Soul

The Call of the Soul is that inexorable pull over the course of our lives to return home, to our soul, to who we really are. For me, the call has been getting louder lately, clearer and more compelling. How bout you?  Do you hear it?  Do you feel it? How is this showing up in your life, or not showing up?

When we learn to accept ourselves as we truly are, express ourselves authentically and live life accordingly, life gets much simpler and more joyous. And when we are disconnected from our true selves, it tends to be more painful, difficult, and dysfunctional.

It seems like a no brainer to be true to ourselves, but it’s not always easy. We may give a lot of weight to what others expect of us, or to appearing a certain way. We may have resistance to letting go of this. The parts of us that are invested in our stories and old wounds are, well, invested. Our wounds may cause suffering but they are familiar. 

The important thing to know is that when we are ready to move forward — when our suffering becomes too great, too unbearable, when we desperately need relief — a path will rise up to meet us. In the case of forgiveness, it provides a structure, an incremental method to release the painful past, so shifting to a new way of being is less overwhelming.

Forgiveness challenges the limited beliefs and false identities that give rise to our stories and our suffering. On the other side of our false narratives, is the true Self, who we really are.  As the past is released, we are better able to hear the voice of our true self, the call of our soul.

Spiritual teacher Gangaji says this is the great awakening of our life, and of our time:

If we are willing to take responsibility for our own depth of awakening, for our own peace … then we can actually be available to effect bigger change. Then at least this one place [you] are at peace, is free. Whenever any of us chooses peace within our mind and heart, an enormous force of energy is freed. To be peace is to offer peace. Only then will we see what can truly arise on this earth. …

You are not alone in this awakening. There are people all over the world at this very moment with the same commitment. Without denying the waves of terror and suffering on our planet, we can recognize that right now there is a great wave of support for awakening for the whole human race to shift its perspective of war, terror and hatred to one of openness and acceptance. Each one of us is essential.

Fear Not

As news mounts daily about the coronavirus, unfortunately many people are being thrown into panic. It feels like there is a secondary epidemic – of fear.

In short, there is a huge opportunity right now to be swallowed up by fear.

Or Not.

I’m reminded of these lines from Kipling’s famous poem (which I’ve included below):

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs . . . .

I was talking about this earlier today with my friend and colleague Dr. Gwendolyn McClure who points out the role emotional contagion plays in situations like this, wherein one person’s emotions trigger the same emotions in another.

In the meantime, how are you doing with all of this?  On a scale of 0-10, where is your fear level?

If you are in fear, can you take a step back and observe yourself being in fear?

I know we have many “good reasons” for fear.  There always are.  At the same time, can you see that you have a choice in the matter?  We have been conditioned to live in fear and worry. For many of us, it’s become our default setting.

But does it serve us?

I’m not aware of any evidence that people who panic fare better than those who stay calm and collected?  On the other hand, there is tons of evidence that fear and stress deplete our immune system, which is what we need to strengthen, not diminish.

What if we trusted ourselves to educate ourselves about the virus and use that information to take care of ourselves?

What if we could leave fear behind?

And take one day at a time.  One breath at a time.

Take heart my friends, and fear NOT.

Blessings,

Eileen

An Act of The Heart

The mind alone can never forgive. True forgiveness is an act of the heart.

I’ve met plenty of people who told me they ‘thought’ they had forgiven. What they mean is they formed the mental intention to forgive, only to later discover that the judgment and resentment were still there.  Does this sound familiar?  I call this forgiving from the neck up, or, emotional bypass.  It may provide temporary relief, but it is not lasting. I also frequently encounter people intent on analyzing their experience. They seem to believe that if they fully understand the situation, it will enable them to forgive – but this is not the case. True forgiveness cannot be intellectualized. 

You can say the words “I forgive”, and have the thought “I forgive”, until the cows come home, and still not have actually forgiven. The mind can only take us so far. At some point we must enter the arena of feeling in order to release the anger, blame, resentment, and so on.  They must be addressed.  Of course feelings are vulnerable and possibly unfamiliar, which is why we might want to avoid them, but the only way to heal is to walk through them. Feelings are the true pathway home.

So, how do you enter the emotional realm?  How do you forgive from the neck down?

One of the keys for me is guided meditation.  I start with the breath, and then bring awareness to the body step by step.  This creates the foundation for all the other work.  For some, it might feel uncomfortable and even unsafe at first to bring awareness into the body, so we go as slowly as necessary to create safety.  When we can feel our body and not push our feelings away, we discover that the body has vitally important information for us, information far more reliable than that acquired from the mind alone.  

Here is a powerful passage on the topic of coming into the body, embracing our emotions and forgiving, written by Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now:

Unless you give it some attention, emotions will prevent you from gaining access to the inner body, which lies at a deeper level underneath it. Attention does not mean that you start thinking about it.  It means to just observe the emotion, to feel it fully, and so to acknowledge and accept it as it is.  Some emotions are easily identified as anger, fear, grief, and so on.  Others may be harder to label. They may just be vague feelings of unease, heaviness, or constriction, halfway between an emotion and a physical sensation. In any case, what matters is not whether you can attach a mental label to it but whether you can bring the feeling of it into awareness as much as possible.  Attention is the key to transformation — and full attention also implies acceptance.  Attention is like a beam of light – the focused power of your consciousness that transmutes everything into itself. 

In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span. It is like a momentary ripple or wave on the surface of your Being. When you are not in your body however an emotion can survive inside you for days or weeks, or join with other emotions of a similar frequency that have merged and become the pain boy, a parasite that can live inside you for years, feed on your energy, lead to physical illness, and make your life miserable.  

So place your attention on feeling the emotion, and check whether your mind is holding on to a grievance pattern such as blame, self pity, or resentment that is feeding the emotion. If that is the case, it means that you haven’t forgiven. Non-forgiveness is often toward another person or yourself, but it may just as well be toward any situation or condition – past, present or future — that your mind refused to accept. Yes, there can be non-forgiveness even with regard to the future. This is the mind’s refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future is ultimately beyond its control. Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self. Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life — to allow life to live through you. The alternatives are pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases physical disease.

The moment you truly forgive, you have reclaimed your power from the mind. Non-forgiveness is the very nature of the mind, just as the mind-made false self, the ego, cannot survive without strife and conflict.  The mind cannot forgive.  Only you can. You become present, you enter your body you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being.  

 A potent reminder that we are so much more than our minds, thoughts, beliefs and words.

Forgiveness is Sexy

Ok all you forgiveness lovers, here is our favorite reason to love forgiveness – 

Forgiveness is Sexy!

Think about it for a moment ….

Relationship problems can almost always be traced to emotional issues that cause us, often unconsciously, to push people away and create barriers to fulfilling intimacy. Dissolving these barriers and healing our deepest wounds is what forgiveness is all about. 

Without forgiveness we hang on to our painful past. We feel angry, resentful, bitter, depressed, closed down. We complain and blame, and judge the other person and ourselves. Depending on our personality, we lash out or withdraw. Either way, none of this is very sexy, right?

On the other hand, forgiveness brings you into the present moment where you can reconnect with your true self and shine your light brightly. Forgiveness enables you to embody self-love and wholeness, standing in the flow of love.

Ulysses Slaughter, a forgiveness teacher from Philadelphia, nails it: “Forgiveness is sexy because it creates magnetism, a powerful force that draws people to you.”  

It may not happen overnight, but when you walk the path of forgiveness, you experience gradual shifts. First you notice you  have less unhappiness and suffering. Then one day you find yourself feeling happy –  a sense of inner peace and contentment – maybe for the first time. After that, you discover joy and moments of bliss. And, you want nothing more than to share this with others. 

Is forgiveness sexy? You bet! I’m not saying this is the only reason to forgive, but it’s certainly icing on the cake!

Speaking of cake …. for Michael’s birthday, I decided to create a “Forgiveness is Sexy” T-Shirt for him.  Then, some of the folks at Esalen wanted them, so we made more … we’ll be selling them while supplies last. To get yours, use the link in the right-hand column to order!

 

Let Your Break Up Be A Wake Up

Use your break-up to wake-up!

If you do, someday you will be grateful for your broken heart.

Seems like an outlandish think to say, doesn’t it?

The loss of a relationship can be one of the most painful experiences, that leaves us feeling dazed and heartbroken, with a thousand questions left unanswered. What if I had ….? Why did he ….?  Why didn’t she?

We probably experienced more love with this person than we had ever felt before. And now suddenly, they are gone.

You replay events over and over in your head, wondering how and why you ended up here. You start to question yourself. It must have been my fault …. There must be something wrong with me …. Maybe I really am unlovable …. Your hopes and dreams are lost at sea, drowned out by endless waves of anger, sadness, despair, fear and depression.

If your heart has ever been crushed, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The loss feels devastating. And sometimes we get stuck here, feeling the sorrow for years, unable to move forward.

Consider the possibility that your break up might just be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Here’s the thing – your heartache is showing you the emptiness and pain that live in your heart, pain that has probably been there for a long time. This gives you a life-changing opportunity.

Now you have the opportunity to heal your heart at a profound level.

You may not know how to do that, but you can learn – anyone can. The Path of Forgiveness is dedicated to teaching people how to do this, step by step. 

It’s a choice – it’s up to you. But I promise you this. If you follow the path of forgiveness, you will discover more love than ever before.

So let your break-up be a wake-up. It is time to heal your heart!

Healing the Heart

broken-heart-broken-hearts-6853604After being in a self-imposed news blackout for many years, I recently decided to start reading the paper again. Oy. Things are really messed up out there!

I see it every day in the news and I’m sure you do too. Terrorism. Suicide bombers. Mass shootings. War. Violence. Sexual predators. Human trafficking. Corrupt politicians. Greedy corporations.  

And then there are the folks ranting about how awful things are, inevitably pointing fingers and assigning blame. Then come the usual “solutions” — like passing more laws, harsher penalties, etc. As if …. Sure we can pass more laws, put more people in prisons, torture more terrorists and even kill more people. I guarantee you nothing will change as a result.

I also know nothing will change as long as we tell ourselves we are powerless.

Are you willing to consider the possibility that we
have the collective power to change things? 

As Nelson Mandela famously said “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” He should know. Mandela went from being a maligned political prisoner for 27 years to becoming the first democratically elected President of South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and global hero. He helped bring about the ending of apartheid, which I’m sure seemed impossible to many.

I think about my forgiveness clients – courageous souls who are healing their hearts using the power of forgiveness. I am reminded that so much (maybe all) of the wounding starts in childhood. Is it possible that unhealed hearts are the root of all evil?  

I’m starting to believe healing the world must start with healing our hearts. Someone with a healed heart does not destroy the environment, intentionally hurt others, ignore the plight of others who are suffering, or harm children – their own or anyone else’s.

And this is what forgiveness boils down to. Forgiveness is the means by which we heal our hearts. It allows us to return to love, no matter what has happened. 

If you want to make a difference, here are a couple of ideas.

Use the power of thought. As Wayne Dyer said: “If you can conceive it in your mind, then it can be brought into the physical world.” Let’s envision a world in which humans everywhere feel whole and connected to love.

Be the change. Commit to healing your own heart. Practice forgiveness. Reconnect with love. Cultivate self-love, gratitude and kindness. 

The Tao of Forgiveness

Here is a wonderful pearl of Taoist wisdom from author Derek Lin:

One day, the sage gave the disciple an empty sack and a basket of potatoes. “Think of all the people who have done or said something against you in the recent past, especially those you cannot forgive. For each of them, inscribe the name on a potato and put it in the sack.” The Sack-of-potatoesdisciple came up quite a few names, and soon his sack was heavy with potatoes. “Carry the sack with you wherever you go for a week,” said the sage. “We’ll talk after that.”

At first, the disciple thought nothing of it. Carrying the sack was not particularly difficult. But after a while, it became more of a burden. It sometimes got in the way, and it seemed to require more effort to carry as time went on, even though its weight remained the same.

After a few days, the sack began to smell. The carved potatoes gave off a ripe odor. Not only were they increasingly inconvenient to carry around, they were also becoming rather unpleasant.

Finally, the week was over. The sage summoned the disciple. “Any thoughts about all this?”

“Yes, Master,” the disciple replied. “When we are unable to forgive others, we carry negative feelings with us everywhere, much like these potatoes. That negativity becomes a burden to us and, after a while, it festers.”

“Yes, that is exactly what happens when one holds a grudge. So, how can we lighten the load?”

“We must strive to forgive.”

“Forgiving someone is the equivalent of removing the corresponding potato from the sack. How many of your transgressors are you able to forgive?”

“I’ve thought about it quite a bit, Master,” the disciple said. “It required much effort, but I have decided to forgive all of them.”

“Very well, we can remove all the potatoes. Were there any more people who transgressed against you this last week?”

The disciple thought for a while and admitted there were. Then he felt panic when he realized his empty sack was about to get filled up again.

“Master,” he asked, “if we continue like this, wouldn’t there always be potatoes in the sack week after week?”

“Yes, as long as people speak or act against you in some way, you will always have potatoes.”

“But Master, we can never control what others do. So what good is the Tao in this case?”

“We’re not at the realm of the Tao yet. Everything we have talked about so far is the conventional approach to forgiveness. It is the same thing that many philosophies and most religions preach – we must constantly strive to forgive, for it is an important virtue. This is not the Tao because there is no striving in the Tao.”

“Then what is the Tao, Master?”

“You can figure it out. If the potatoes are negative feelings, then what is the sack?”

“The sack is… that which allows me to hold on to the negativity. It is something within us that makes us dwell on feeling offended…. Ah, it is my inflated sense of self-importance.”

“And what will happen if you let go of it?”

“Then… the things that people do or say against me no longer seem like such a major issue.”

“In that case, you won’t have any names to inscribe on potatoes. That means no more weight to carry around, and no more bad smells. The Tao of forgiveness is the conscious decision to not just to remove some potatoes… but to relinquish the entire sack.”

 

Slaying the Three Dragons of Forgiveness

I’d like to share a teaching from Deepak Chopra that was forwarded to me by Michael Gelbart. Chopra says forgiveness is often thought of as the domain of saints and religion, but needs to be brought down to earth for everyone:

3-dragonsTo begin with, forgiveness comes at the end of a process, not at the beginning. In order to forgive yourself or another person, three obstacles must be overcome. Let’s call them the three dragons of judgment, anger, and blame. Each has had powerful effects in everyone’s life. Millions of people feel justified in clinging to their own dragons, and it takes conviction to realize that nothing about judgment, anger, and blame actually serves anyone’s self-interest.

Chopra encourages us to move beyond the three dragons and become “units of peace” by walking the path of forgiveness.  He offers these practical steps for doing so:

A Path to Forgiveness – 7 Key Steps

  • Find your own peace through meditation, yoga, or other contemplative   practice.
  • Renounce the illusion that you can change someone else’s morality or worldview.
  • Know that you can do more to change the world by who you are than by anything you can say or teach.
  • Take responsibility for nonviolence in your speech and actions.
  • Address the issues of judgment, blame, and anger in yourself.
  • Associate with like-minded people who are committed to peace and forgiveness.
  • Adopt a vision of the highest possibilities for humankind.

For more elaboration, I encourage you to read Chopra’s article here.  He has more to say about the dragons and shares a video on self-forgiveness as well.

I hope this season brings warmth and cheer to your heart. Please be gentle and loving with yourself, especially if you are struggling in any way. May the New Year bring more light and more love into your life and those around you.

 

Is Family Baggage Weighing You Down?

Why is it that the people we love most are often the most challenging for us?  Even after years of therapy and personal growth work, conflict with family members often leaves a toxic residue in our lives. Whether the conflict involves a parent, sibling, child or other relative, as we try to move forward in our lives, we find our family baggage weighs us down.  It becomes a heavy burden, sabotaging other relationships and depriving us of the happiness we seek. 

Heading into the holidays, the prospect of family gatherings often triggers contraction or even dread, and it is common for anger and resentment to resurface. There are many strategies out there for coping with difficult family members during the holidays, but wouldn’t you rather be truly free of your family baggage for once and for all? It is possible – through forgiveness.  

You might be thinking — “Why should I forgive when the other person is to blame?”  While understandable, don’t forget: Forgiveness isn’t for the other person’s benefit. It’s for yours.  And it doesn’t mean you are condoning or excusing their poor behavior. Nor does it require you to minimize your hurt. 

Or maybe your concern is that the other person really isn’t trustworthy. So why should you forgive and reopen yourself to further hurt?  Here again, there is often a misconception.  Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. It does not mean you forget what occurred. If you need to protect yourself with boundaries or distance, you can and should.

Forgiveness simply means you are no longer willing to carry the emotional baggage of anger and resentment. And make no mistake, that baggage is toxic. Anger, resentment and hatred hurt you far more than the other person. By forgiving, you are choosing to release these self-poisoning emotions for your own well-being.

Why not check your family baggage for once and for all – before the holidays? This means grievances, resentments, gripes, blame/shame. All of it.  

No matter how challenging the relationship, forgiveness is the one thing that can transform your relationship with your family. You can’t change them, but you can change yourself, including the way you see the situation, think about the situation and feel about the situation.  You can free yourself from the past baggage and reclaim inner peace and happiness.

I encourage you to give yourself this gift.  If you want to forgive, yet there is something standing in your way, what is it?  Drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you.

On November 12, I’ll be offering an evening program on this topic at the Sunrise Center in Corte Madera, CA.  Hope to see some of you there! 

Well-Traveled Path

Mountain-PathThis is a terrific article by Nick Polizzi entitled “A Well-Traveled Path to Inner Peace” – too good not to share:

The word below has been hailed in just about every major spiritual text, it is the centerpiece of hundreds of songs (rock, folk, and even opera), and if used properly, it can create almost immediate transformation in your life.

The word is forgiveness.

Over the past month I’ve had the honor of meeting with a few people who miraculously healed themselves of serious illness. In these conversations, 
one word has come up repeatedly as being the secret to their recovery. You guessed it.

We learn about forgiving others when we’re young, but somehow when we get older and more set in our ways, this simple act can become elusive. Life is funny that way, right?  Often when we find ourselves in a life “predicament”, we just need to revisit the basic travel tips that were laid out for us early on.

“To err is human, to forgive divine.” – Alexander Pope

What is actually happening during this godly act? One thing is for sure, we are doing the unthinkable. We are defying every impulse that has led us to associate an individual with pain and suffering. Rather than continuing a tempting pattern, we are hitting the reverse switch and flooding unconditional love and compassion back into the equation.

Unconditional love and compassion. These three power words feel so right, but sometimes it’s hard to find a cut and dried, no B.S. way to work them into our reality. When we’ve made a decision about someone after they’ve broken our trust, it can be very difficult to overturn our initial ruling and do the opposite.

A backdoor approach that helps us get around the ego and be less rigid is a regular forgiveness practice. This is absolutely critical if you are trying to recover from an illness naturally.

Wisdom of the ages

Whether you’re talking to an Amazonian shaman, a bush medicine woman from the Caribbean or a granny healer from North Carolina, they’ll most likely tell you that herbs, prayers, and energy techniques are only part of the healing picture.

My friend Christine, a granny healer from North Carolina, pretty much summed it up last week when we were talking about a few cancer patients she was helping. She is too humble to tell most people this, but Christine has helped a number of folks heal their cancer naturally over the past few decades. Many of them would tell you they owe her their lives.

According to her, “The herbs and other interventions won’t do a lick of good if the patient doesn’t have their life right.  All the natural medicine in the world can’t undo a toxic relationship with another or one with yourself.”

Her first prescription for her patients is a daily forgiveness practice.

“Sometimes we must do the unthinkable if we are to experience the impossible.” 

It is a common shamanic understanding that spiritual and energetic blocks are what lie at the center of disease.  If this is the case, then consider your grudges and resentments to be the bricks and mortar of these walls of inner stagnation. The fastest way to dissolve them and begin recirculating life force is through forgiveness.

The biggest misconception around the term forgive is that this act is mainly benefitting the “offender”. “He insulted me and I was angry, but you know it’s been a long time and he’s learned his lesson, so I guess I’ll forgive him.”  In this context, forgiveness is considered a sacrifice we make to take the moral high road.

But what about the benefit to us, the “offended”, who have been wasting countless hours stewing, fearing, belaboring, plotting, regretting – all sour mental activities that do not lead to a harmonious existence?

Like a rising tide, forgiveness floats all ships, including our own. And we all know someone, whether friend or foe, who is ripe for a pardon.

Forgiving ain’t easy.  Sometimes it can feel darn near impossible. Our rational mind has a set of black and white rules accompanied by some absolute no-fly-zones. When these boundaries are violated, it can be hard for us to lower the drawbridge again.

This is the real work.  No smoke and mirrors or fancy candlelit ceremonies – just you and your truth.

If you are to truly thrive in this life, grudges and resentment have no place in your spiritual or physical organism. There is a reason this is spoken about in every major religion on earth – our health, happiness, and the well being of our cherished loved ones depend on it.

So where to start?

Below is a very simple forgiveness practice that you can try right now.  If it moves you, keep it in your back pocket for regular use.  But most importantly, find some way to integrate forgiveness for yourself and others into your spirit path.  For those of you that already do this actively, a gentle reminder never hurt anyone, now did it? 

A simple forgiveness practice:

  1. Write out on a piece of paper any relationship that immediately comes to mind when you think of forgiveness.  If that doesn’t work, think of the one or two people in your life that you have an unresolved conflict with. I would advise you use a pen and paper for this – it helps to get yourself off the computer screen and really take some space for this.
  2. For each person, write out exactly what it is that created the sense of uneasiness, offense, or negativity.  Be as specific as possible as these thoughts and beliefs are what hold the charge in us.
  3. Feel into the memory: put yourself in that situation once again and remember the pain or discomfort that you experienced from what your “forgivee” did or said. Sometimes looking at a picture of the person for this part is very powerful (Facebook can be a sacred helper here!)
  4. Cultivate empathy: it is much easier to forgive someone when we can imagine what it’s like to be them.  Flip the script and try to imagine what they were feeling, what challenges they were facing, how they were suffering when they committed the act.
(I’ve gotten into this weird habit of over-sympathizing with the other driver when I get cut off in traffic.  I tell myself that I have no idea what kind of day they are having or where they are speeding off to.  Could be the hospital, could be a terrible job they hate…  Might be none of those, but this practice immediately brings in compassion – I’ll take it.)
  1. Repeat this as many times as it takes until you feel the emotional intensity around the scenario begin to ease.  If you begin to feel compassion for the other person, it might be time to pick up the phone, or pull out the stationary and bring conscious closure to this issue.  Whether that means rekindling a friendship, or a peaceful pardon before moving on.
  2. Be patient: real and lasting forgiveness doesn’t happen instantaneously.  It can take time.  This is why an ongoing forgiveness practice like this can be so beneficial.

Polizzi is the Director of the Sacred Science Institute which offers “Healing Knowedge for the Strong of Heart.” Thanks to Lulu Perrault for sending this.

 

Path of Forgiveness News

October will be a busy month!  These are Eileen’s upcoming events:

October 9 – Helping Clients Forgive – Releasing the Past and Restoring Peace – ACR Conference – Reno, NV 

October 11 – Visit The Path of Forgiveness at Burning Man Decompression – San Francisco, CA

October 15 – Forgiveness as a Tool for Conflict Coaches (Teleseminar)
An Interview with Lorraine Segal, ACR Workplace Section

October 23-25 – Fall Forgiveness Retreat with Michael Gelbart, Mt. Madonna Center – Watsonville, CA