Making Sense

My husband and I watched a documentary called Wake Up this weekend.  The movie depicts a reluctant spiritual seeker, Jonah Elrod, who experiences an unusual phenomenon that changes how he interprets the world through his five senses.  In short, he now has the capability to see — with his own eyes — the interconnectedness of all humanity through our normally unseen energetic connections.  He can also see spirits, angels, and yes, even energy that is wounded and shattered.  The film depicts his journey to make sense and find peace with this new-found capability.  In the end, he calls on us to wake up to the fact that there is more to this world than what we can experience through our limited five senses or our rational minds.

After watching the movie, I voiced that everyone should hear Elrod’s story.  My husband quickly replied, “Not everyone would believe it.  It won’t make sense to everyone.”  I said nothing in response, because I intuitively understood these might represent his thoughts.  This left-brain intellectual who lovingly inhabits my life represents the majority of Western culture.  If we can’t see, measure, prove or make sense of something, it doesn’t exist.  And, in fact, it’s this limited paradigm created hundreds of years ago that closes humanity off from the extraordinary that lies beyond the mind.

In fact, at one point in the film Elrod visits with a Sufi Mystic, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D., in one of many attempts to understand his new reality.  Elrod asks the mystic why the human race has lost contact with the level of consciousness he is experiencing.   The Mystic says, “It happened over the last few hundred years…with the belief in science…with the belief in rationalism…and so, we actually developed a consciousness that created a veil between us and the spirit world and all of its manifestations.”  In other words, we’ve forgotten how to be fully awake to all of reality — and this has been exaggerated with our love affair with science and rational thought.   

As I reflect on this simple notion, I can easily associate this statement to one of my poignant moments where I expanded my own notion of reality.  It was a cold December day last year and I was making my third visit to see Sally Pechstein who does healing energy work. 

   

Like Elrod, I was a reluctant seeker.  If you would have told me a few years ago I’d be spending a busy holiday shopping day visiting with someone who claims to clear our energy centers, I would have fell down laughing.  But I’d already experienced my own awakening  — and once you start to awaken — you'll want to awaken some more.  So, I’d been exploring other healing modalities with great interest. 

 

After my very first visit to Sally, It was clear that my own veil of consciousness was lifted just a little bit further.  And therefore, I returned this day with the same openness, but with more deliberate intention.  I’d just finished reading the book Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, Ph. D.  The book chronicled a once mainstream psychologist who experiments with hypnotherapy to further the healing process and in return, stumbles upon a set of consistent themes regarding what happens to our soul after death: how our soul leaves the body, collect it’s life lessons and evaluates actions with those spirit entities who have watched over and guided us in the physical world.  The book was absolutely fascinating, but my intellectual mind was reeling with questions.  And yet, the notion that the soul exists beyond ones’ physical death made total sense in my gut.  So, I went to see Sally that day to make sense of whether any of this was true.  Sally humbly embraced my agenda.  

As I had two times before, I lay down on the table and covered myself with the warm blanket.  Sally started some relaxing music you’d easily find in the new-age bookstore and offered me a small lavender-filled pillow to cover my eyes.  As the room morphed into darkness, I promised myself to surrender to whatever feelings, pictures or sounds my senses could grasp.  Before you know it, my cognitive thoughts were reduced into a state of empty relaxation.  

Sally started her silent work and I retreated inward further. (I want to be clear that I was in a meditative state, not in a trance.  As a hypnotherapist myself, I know the difference.)  It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes before I was aware of the presence of others in the room.  It wasn’t a sense that I could hear or see people that would appear if I removed my eye coverings, but that there was considerably more energy in the room.  In fact, it was like being a crowded, darkened elevator and knowing, intuitively, that we’d passed the weigh threshold by three times.  

After this awareness heightened, a slideshow started to play in the internal darkness of my mind.  The slideshow was a montage of images representing my life — these weren’t pictures I consciously created.  It was as if someone had hit the play button on a projector as I involuntarily sat in the theater watching my life pass through my mind’s eye.  Like fireflies on a hot summer night, every challenging moment of my life flashed with rapid succession: my awkward childhood, failing in school, the heartache of my marriage, giving up my children.  

As quickly as it started, the images were gone.  In their place was a clear message in unspoken terms from someone who felt incredibly wise, “We were always there: in every challenging moment.”  And, I knew it was true.  Not because I needed physical evidence or a scientific study to tell me so, but because every cell in my body was basking in gratitude, love and a deep sense of knowing that this divine presence has followed me through my life.  In response to this truth, my body felt overflowing with bliss: as if I’d consumed too much gratitude on a gluttonous Thanksgiving Day.  So much so, I said silently to this presence, “Okay.  Okay.  I know you are here.”  I needed a reprieve from the emotion and the physical pressure that surrounded me. 

The intensity would subside and rise again on two more occasions in that session, leaving me with other profound experiences that culminating in an important message:  I am here in this lifetime to learn, so I may teach others.

 I would stay on the table that day well after Sally left the room.  At first, I didn’t dare stand because I was still overwrought by awe, so I let the tears flow in hopes the sensations would escape my body.  By the time I propped myself in the corner chair next to thin slice of light coming in from the window, my rational thoughts started to come into focus — what did I experience, was it real, what did it mean?  So, I invited Sally back into the room and attempted to put my experience into words, but it was difficult to translate the indescribable into a common lexicon that didn't exist.  I did my best.  And in return, Sally shared her written account of what she’d experienced as the practitioner.   Our accounts were almost identical.  

But regardless of the fact that I know what I know about this profound experience — and that Sally corroborated what I experienced through her own account — most of our society will automatically discount what unfolded because it doesn’t make sense in the rational mind.  I understand that, I do. I get that Jonah Elrod’s story pushes our boundaries.  Years ago I would have discounted it, as well.  But that was before a few years of experiences that have expanded my own understanding of how this world works.  Making sense has its place, but in the process of paying homage to what science and rational thought provides — we lost touch with the universal laws of what’s really true and the magic of what’s possible. 

Change vs. Transformation

Though it’s been a few years, I can still vividly remember sitting in the CEO’s office just days before leaving my post at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Before we jumped into the meeting agenda that sunny July morning, the CEO asked me again why I was leaving.  I proudly declared, “I am leaving to guide individuals through personal transformation.”  I’m sure my response included some surface comments about helping folks to navigate change, but today I understand there’s a huge difference between change and transformation; it’s the latter that creates sustainable momentum toward getting the life we want.

What I’ve come to value is that the process of change is nothing more than helping people to get closer to their goal by rearranging the content of their life, which should explain why this approach is often short-lived.

If someone decides, for example, she desires to live a healthy lifestyle — there’s a call to do more or less of something.  Doing new activities and creating different rhythms feels uncomfortable and energy depleting, but she does it anyway by shaking up how, what, when and why she eats or cares for her body.  When she accepts this challenge, she makes incremental shifts in the way she thinks, responds and behaves, but invariably pushes up against the internal resistance of navigating change.  Sometimes she doesn’t change the content…and suffers setbacks.  And, the saga of trying to solve problems or achieve her goal through the change process continues to be an uphill battle.

Personal transformation is vastly different and certainly more profound.  Where change is often short-lived, transformation creates the foundation for sustainable change by expanding the context of who you really are: your strengths, passions,and natural tendencies born from love and awareness, not protection.  As result, a pool of vast internal resources becomes available to you in order to achieve whatever you wish to accomplish — whether big or small.   And unlike change, you can’t undo what is birthed through transformation.  Undoing transformation would be akin to a newly formed butterfly ignoring the wings that now adorn her body.
      
So, if you want a healthier lifestyle — more happiness or greater success — you just have to plug into the full capacity of your personal power.  You see, you already have your own internal system of intelligence and genius which comes from an integrated mind, body and spirit.  And yet, many people have cut themselves off from all the aspects of who they are, so they live in their head and rely on willpower to change content.  They are, in essence, living in a cocoon of a fractured self which cuts them off from their full capacity.

However, when you are congruent and whole, your natural systems innately know how to communicate when you’re hungry or full, whether food is depleting or giving you energy, or if your body is asking for more self-care.  Your internal wisdom already knows what makes you happy, puts you in flow and maintains internal equilibrium. This wellspring of knowledge and resources come from the process of transformation, not change.

I understand that not everyone has the courage to embrace a journey of transformation.  People in our society prefers falling into the trap of changing content instead of looking at how their problems are trying to tell them something about who they really are. 

In fact, I am strong believer that if change is conquering you — this obstacle is an invitation to know more about who you really are…because your problems are created by who you are not.  You see, most of your unproductive habits, behavioral diversions and disempowering strategies are born from a place of protection.  You are more than that.  So, real transformation is about getting real with yourself; why am I eating instead of feeling emotions, what am I protecting myself from or avoiding by keeping the weight on, why is work more important that my body, health or peace of mind? 

When you take a journey of transformation, you honor those parts that no longer serve you…and ask them to leave.   You allow those aspects to die, and in return, create a clearing.  In that clearing emerges a deeper sense of self-understanding, more productive thoughts and deeds and a sense that you must honor what’s most important to your authentic self.  From this place of expanded context of who you are and what you are capable of in this lifetime, you start to support a shift in lifestyle from within.  And, change has no choice but to come along for the ride.

What’s Your Theme?

We are all living a theme: a certain way of being or showing up in the world that defines who you are.  And the world acts as a stage, allowing you to play out your theme with every passing moment.  Your theme was created early in life when you unconsciously asked yourself who you needed to be in order to survive in this challenging world.  I wonder — what’s your theme?

I suspect you already have a hunch about how your theme in life is playing out. But being honest with yourself is still very different than having the richness of who you are boiled down into a thematic character.  Which is what happens when you stand in the audience, watch and ask, “What does my life tell me about myself?”  I did this for the first time many years ago and it was incredibly humbling.  However, recent circumstances offered a pause… and another invitation to look at my life’s theme again through the lens of the Enneagram.
 
The Enneagram is an ancient personality tool that describes nine distinct patterns of how we think, feel and behave based on our perceptual filters.  Underneath each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition or belief about what you need in life for survival and satisfaction.  Apparently, I am an “enthusiast” and have spent my whole life trying to avoid pain and suffering. 

Yup, that’s me. At my best, my theme serves me well.  At a place of unconsciousness, my theme holds me hostage.  Not a pretty thing to confess, but I’ve known for some time that I’ve spent most of my life avoiding hard, walking away from what is difficult, unpleasant or too emotional.  In fact, if I‘m really honest with myself, I’ve spend most of my life in an unending journey to find pleasure — even when it took me down a circuitous path or adversely impacted the people I loved the most.  In short, I created an unhealthy coping mechanism of avoiding hard with a little “h” and in return, would invariably bump up against Hard with a big “H.” I thought I’d left this theme behind, but even before the Enneagram, the last few months made me question if this was true.
 
I am still not sure if I want to call the catalyst for my self-evaluation a breakthrough or a breakdown, but it came a few months ago when I bumped up against hard again.  This situation was a little startling because I pride myself in that, these days, the more I evolve, grow, and connect to the real truth of who I am — the easier things seem to get in my life.  That is, unless you consider my writing struggles. 

On this particular morning I entered the session with my writing coach after a tough week of translating words onto paper.  I confess my frustrations and Kimberly compassionately greets me with a sobering pep talk which includes the wisdom, “Yes, writing can be hard.”  And somehow the words feel wounding.  A well of emotion pools in my body.  A lump forms in my throat as a way to call for my attention as my tears start to flow.  In the past, this would have been an invitation to stuff my feelings down, but now I can let the emotion show itself as a way to guide me to my words, “I’ve already had too much hard in my life.  I don’t want to do that anymore!”

Once those words leave my mouth, however, I know I have a question and a challenge for myself.  Am I still avoiding hard?  And, can I act as a witness over the next few months to see if this theme is still showing up in my life?  I am certainly willing to admit that most of the difficulty I’ve experienced in my early life was self-inflicted through too many self-indulgent choices.  And yet, the experience on this particular morning made me question if I’d really abandoned this strategy entirely.  So I vowed to watch and notice my current relationship to hard.  How would I respond when writing felt laborious, difficult and, yes, even scary?

But a few months later it wasn’t just my writing that caught my attention.  I took a class that pushed my comfort zone regarding my creative abilities.  The uncomfortableness of sitting around a table with five artists with my creative ineptness in bold view was almost unbearable…and yet, I vowed to sit patiently with the discomfort.  A large commitment to build and deliver a two-day workshop was followed by a feeling of being “boxed in” as I prepared to fulfill this commitment…and yet, I begrudgingly did it anyway.  A tough conversation with my husband beckoned my attention…and I wanted to crawl out of my skin to save myself from speaking my truth…and yet, I spoke from a place of honesty.  All of these situations made me acutely aware that I was more willing to plunge into the discomfort these days, but my theme still existed.  I’m getting better at hard, but I clearly haven’t mastered it yet.  
    
I know it wasn’t a coincidence I was introduced to the Enneagram right after my experiment concluded.  This tool made my life make sense; it made the last few months make sense.  I continue to try and protect myself from my own limitations or any potential pain because this innate behavior still exists within me.  And at the same time, I’m also clear that self-awareness, acceptance of my theme and an on-going commitment to take different actions, in spite of myself, is the answer to finding more of who I really am.

So again, I ask — what’s your theme?  Are you all or nothing?  Do you strive for perfection?  Is harmony so important that you’ve forgotten about your own needs?  Do you give so much of yourself that there’s nothing left?  Does accomplishment define who you are?  Do you strive for solitude and independence at the cost of yourself and others?  Do you spend your life skeptically looking for the gaps?  Has your deep longing for emotional connection somehow created a lonely life?  Or, like me, have you spent your life seeking pleasure?
  
You see, once you understand your theme you’ll come face-to-face with who you thought you needed to be in order to be happy.   Only then can you look behind the unhealthy coping mechanisms you’ve created and discover the real you.