Transformative Practices

Inspiring Illuminating Integrating

Joy and Meaning

Interview with James Hollis

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I love talking with people I respect and learn from.  

James Hollis is a contributor to ‘meaning making’ and the human journey.  He is a Jungean analyst and researcher.  In the decades I have followed his work, I have felt continually gifted through insights, and more importantly, with useful ‘living questions’.  

In this interview Dr. Hollis discusses:

  • being comfortable with large questions,
  • welcoming the Soul’s protest which arises as depression, sadness, confusion, frustration or anger,
  • learning to ask what our Soul is asking of us, what is our summons?,
  • accepting personal authority and humility,
  • having the courage to explore the richness of our human culture, moving towards what resonates, and discarding what holds us back,
  • meeting the ‘Other’ in ourselves,
  • taking our Soul’s promptings seriously,
  • sitting with what is inside until we know what is right for us,
  • being patient, and
  • experiencing authentic joy. 

Enjoy the video

Judgement to Compassion

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A story worth repeating

Wednesday evening my friend was driving to visit me.  She left her home a few minutes late. You see, she chose to finish a conversation with her husband rather than leave in a timely manner.

As she came out of the side road they live on and turned onto the main road she found herself behind a particularly slow driver. She was a little frustrated at their slowness knowing that she had a few minutes driving time to ‘make up’ in order to be at my home when expected.  As the two cars approached the village my friend’s mind came up with the story that this ‘slow driver’ would likely pull into the shopping area getting off the main road. This story filled her head as if it was inevitable!  The slow driver did not turn in.

Past the village, around the corner, up the hill to the second shopping area; of course the slow driver would pull in at this shopping area. No.  Now frustration shifted to judgment and blame. New stories about the slow driver appeared in her mind. The slow driver was the ‘reason’ my friend would be late. The slow driver was to blame. As frustration and judgment heightened there was mental name-calling.

Past the golf course, up the hill to the next intersection; still no change in the speed of the driver and no opportunity to pass the slow car. Making a left turn at the intersection and heading exactly the same way as my friend, the saga continued, tension increased.  Stress chemicals (adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine) flooded my friends body.

Somewhere a few blocks before arriving at my home, my girlfriend’s awareness shifted.

A new mental image appeared. It was the vision of an elderly driver in front of her, someone timid to be driving at night. She imagined a cautious, light-sensitive, elderly person driving ahead of her. Her heart softened.

My friend shifted from frustration and judgment, in her head, shoulders and belly, to a softening at the chest and heart.  She felt more relaxation and recognized that being a few minutes late wasn’t the fault of the driver in front of her. The fault and the blame wasn’t to be placed on this ‘slow driver’. She realized that if she had truly wanted to be on time she would have finished her conversation with her husband in a timely manner, left the house with the extra minutes to spare, as she usually does.  Furthermore, being a few minutes late in this situation was also not extremely important.  Certainly not important enough to flood her body with stress.

I love that my friend was able to tell the story in its entirety. In the 10 minute drive she experienced multiple mental and physical states.  Frustration built to judgment and blame, then at some point a pivot happened.  She shifted as a new idea came into her awareness. The new idea gave her a new perspective.

She may never meet the driver of the other car. And it doesn’t matter. One thing that’s profoundly important is what was happening chemically within my friend’s body.

Stress chemicals flood the body

During the times when she was frustrated, angry and going through blame, her body was releasing stress chemicals.

Compassion heals

When she shifted to feeling curiosity and compassion her body relaxed, the surge of stress chemicals ceased and she stopped hurting herself! She stopped increasing the likelihood of disease that is caused through stress and anxiety.

This story is an example of the everyday ways we help or hurt our own health. Most of us understand that being in a state of stress, frustration and judgment releases a cocktail of chemicals which are hard on our body. Yet in the moment we still get frustrated with the driver in front of us. We still blame others for things that we could take care of ourselves.

The chemical benefit to the body being in a state of compassion and gratitude is the polar opposite of the detrimental effects of the stress. Once my girlfriend switched to feeling compassion, the increased available serotonin supported a healthy body function.  She was taking better care of herself by ‘cutting the other driver some slack’; by making up a story that could have been equally true to story number one.

Mature Friendships

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What is a mature friendship?

I love the fact that we can consider being in relationship with others in a way that lets them be fully who they are, knowing that they are also letting us be fully who we are. 

This doesn’t always happen.

 In fact, you could even say it’s unusual. Very often in social groups there’s kind of an expected norm of how we should think and feel.

We come together as groups of people based on similarities, similar world views, similar values and aspirations. But there are nuances. Inevitably there are nuances. In some friendships, families and social circles, people often hold back from expressing their unique perspective on a given subject. They hold back because they want to be accepted. And there’s perhaps an unspoken rule that if we disagree with the values and feelings of the family or group, even in a small way, then we’ve become a little bit of an outsider in the group or in the friendship. 

Sometimes with close friends it can be even more complicated. We want our best friends to feel the same way that we do about important matters. The closer these matters are to our heart and to our sense of identity, the more important it can be for us.  We feel we want our friends to agree with us. We don’t want to hear a different perspective. It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction for most of us.

So where does this come from? 

Are we at fault because of this? Not necessarily. As a society, over the centuries, we’ve developed through various phases of safety. Certainly within a tribe it was important for all members to behave in a similar fashion, to have consistent values, to face the world that was outside and unsafe, with a united front. So it is natural that our reflexive thoughts and habits, that have evolved over the centuries, consider difference of opinion as a threat. Alternative perspectives and different habits tend to register as unsafe in a pre-verbal part of our brain.  This is so routine as a result of centuries of slow evolution, that part of our chemical structure registers this difference of opinion and perspective as unsafe. This is wholly unconscious on our part.  When someone disagrees with our perspective we feel them as ‘other’. We may feel we need to convince them. Or we may feel that in some small way they have betrayed us.

In the western world we live in relatively safe times. We also live in communities of many belief systems, all united within our western countries. We live with multiple religious and philosophical beliefs, multiple political beliefs, multiple views of what success and happiness looks like in the world.

We are profoundly fortunate to live in community where this is true. This is not true for most of the planet. So we are at the cutting edge of changing relationships and that requires us to step back and look at our assumptions. In this case the reflex assumption is that a different perspective is in someway ‘at root’ a betrayal. Or perhaps a different viewpoint is just that, a slightly different perspective.  

Perhaps we can see our own perspective in new ways by ‘in a small way’ considering alternative views. It often takes a lot for us as humans to question our reflexive beliefs. Sometimes it happens with tragedy. Sometimes it happens when we lose an important relationship. Sometimes it happens through the suffering of disagreements within our family. Sometimes it happens because we consciously make a choice to say, ‘I may not be right about everything’. I’m curious. I’m curious about the other ways of understanding the world.

So what does it mean to be in a rich, mature friendship? 

What does it mean to have a mature relationship with our partner, our adult children and with our parents? What does it mean to harmoniously live in community? A great place to start is to recognize and celebrate difference. Be curious about the difference. Invite the expression of difference by asking questions.  

I can be in a relationship with you, I can love you and we can feel totally different about one of our core beliefs. We can still respect each other. We can still care for each other. We can still know that essentially we are good people. And we can accept the fact that we ‘don’t have to be right!’ We can accept ambiguity regarding the absolute solution to a particular issue, problem, or consideration in the world.

The scientific world is a great model. We see how what was believed in the 12th century is overturned in the 15th century, what is believed in the 15th century is overturned in the 19th and 20th century.  We see this overturning and new understanding. 

So why should we believe that any of our current thoughts on a given situation are absolutely perfect? Why should we think that we personally have to be right? 

Can we create a little more space inside of ourselves and in our relationships so that we celebrate, or at least except difference? I love the ability to be curious about another’s perspective. Inevitably when I probe through thoughtful questions, my own perspective broadens or alters. My perspective may not change entirely, but inevitably it broadens. I love the idea of being able to be in mature adult relationships; where others let me be as I am, knowing that essentially I am good, as I know that they essentially are good. The difference does not divide us, but rather is a place of comfortable expansion.

Let this mature relationship not sublimate or hide disagreement. 

Let the mature relationship allow different belief or understanding to simply rest open. Whenever we tuck something away in a psychological or emotional corner, there are ways in which it haunts us. When we let difference have fresh air, we can coexist with the parts of the person, or community, we care about and value.  The difference does not act as a poison seed.

Rather than hiding the difference, name the difference.  Naming opens space and takes away some of the reflexive primal need to change another.  When we ‘name’, when we describe the difference, this moment brings a choice forward.  In this moment we can expand rather than contract.  We can accept our differences. We evolve our minds.  We can help ourselves and our relationships as we commit to expressing sincerely, without fear of repercussions and without expectations of compliance. Besides, it is the tension of difference that brings about most growth.  What will you discover while making a habit of celebrating difference?

Harvest

As we go into this time of harvest and sharing the bounty, let’s let one of the bounties we share be the ability to stand in mature relationships. Let us be able to allow others to have different perspectives without feeling the need to change them or change ourselves. When we see that another feels the need to change us, let us have the words to open this up, in a gentle and easy way, so they know we do not think they are ‘less than’ or are ‘wrong’ because they do not see things exactly as we see them.

Friendships and family bonds nurture us deeply and are a source of growth.  Inevitably relationships expand us.  By choosing to embrace difference, we expand the love in our lives.

 

 

 

Direct Experience . . . Magic . . .Essence

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When I meet people I am excited to know what magic they experience in life.  

I am excited to share essential experiences.  

I am excited to feel what has moved them to a state of wonder.

When theories or beliefs are presented as conversation I am left empty having hoped for essence.  

We have all learned through standing on the shoulders of those before us.

Teachers, guides and mentors are important sources of wisdom.  Religious traditions and spiritual systems are equally enlightening.  These methodologies detail habits of perception, thought and behaviour which can ease our way and deepen our experience.  I have valued these methodologies through-out my life.  

When is it time to insist on more?  

When we follow a system or someone, sometimes that’s all we do. 

We just follow!  

We follow prescribed thoughts. We accept an entire body of thoughts and beliefs.  

We make these beliefs, thoughts and feelings our own.  

Initially this shift can be profoundly useful.  

We experiment with perspectives. 

We experiment with behaviour.  

New understanding likely emerges. 

Life is easier to navigate.  There are moments of insight.  

Mind and Body

In many ways our mind is like a computer.  It has its own template or system. The mind-body-system has a tendency, and a specific bias, to filter out experience, thought and insights that are not in accord with the framework of the system we have chosen to live our lives.  When we believe a given set of beliefs the mind sorts incoming experience into what fits and what does not fit.  What doesn’t fit is ignored or named as ‘other’.  

The result of deeply engrained mental belief systems is we stop experiencing direct insight, direct knowing.  

There comes a point when following a tradition or another’s thoughts, accepting only these insights, even if they seem profound, limits us. 

Each of our human lenses is slightly different.  The way we see, think and feel is impacted by our unique lens.   

To experience our own lens and our own form of knowing we move out of thought and we move out of thinking we ‘know’.  This movement opens the door to direct experience.

What happens with Direct Experience?

There is a profound joy and a specific release of energy when we experience an insight for ourselves. The release of energy has a feeling of pure creative radiance. 

If we accept the perspectives and stories of others, and leave it there, we forgo the direct experience of creative energy birthing through us. 

Direct experience has a permanent impact.  It changes us at a cellular level.  We know from the inside out, not the outside in.

Each of us has benefitted from way-finders in our lives. And yet for each of us there comes a time when it is profoundly useful to draw on the principles we’ve learned and also hold space open for something profoundly new – direct experiences and insight that may even differ from excepted norms of science, theology and mysticism. 

Great leaders, way-showers and scientists insisted on pushing beyond the accepted.

Historically it is the people who have continued to hold space for direct insights that bring new ideas, energies and proofs to our world. These individuals, whom we venerate, learned from others.  They also continued to seek a greater understanding of truth.  

Take a look at the books you have on your shelf.  

Are the books from people who have gone beyond the confines of their tradition at the time?  Were often rejected?  Yet did they bring new perceptions and perspective to our world?  My shelf has books from multiple disciplines.  Each of the authors cultivated inner terrain beyond existing collective consciousness. 

Deep discovery, deep scientific questions and new ways of understanding, experiencing and interpreting this human experience, come from opening beyond the walls of the accepted collective wisdom.

We ‘know nothing’ as we ask to see something new.  We rest inwardly on the experiences of our life without letting experience limit us.

When is it most appropriate to step into newness?

The time for this work is after a solid foundation is established.  

Maturity is needed.  

In the work I do, I love holding space open for people to step into the habit of looking for their own insights; a habit of experiencing directly the wonder of our planet.  It is exciting to feel new ideas birthing. 

I love supporting heroes on their own journey!

I Know You By Heart . . .

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Until relatively recently, our psyche, our indwelling soul, our ‘life’, was considered to dwell in the heart.  To understand ourselves, and others, we were directed towards our heart.
Modern rational thinking and modern psychology have migrated away from placing the greatest weight on heart knowing, yet knowing by heart is still what we seek.

Knowing you by heart

When we know someone by heart, we may not understand some of their thoughts or  beliefs; we may not understand their inner landscape.
At times, modern left brain communication falters.  At times, trying to achieve perfect intellectual communication is not possible.  The attempt can crush that flower of love resident within us.

When we know someone with our heart, we experience a kind of innocent ‘pre-verbal’ love.  We can find this easily with a beloved pet or child.  We experience this in new love and in moments of renewed depth with a partner or friend.  At these moments, there is no expectation of understanding.  We feel our chest soften; hard places relax and we feel the ‘other’ with the physical sense of an open heart.  The heart opening relaxes lingering thoughts.  At those moments time stops.

Magnifying heart knowing

There are ways to magnify heart knowing.  There are things we can do to experience this means of relationship more often.  An easy way is to let ourselves stay longer with this experience when it spontaneously happens, to not rush the moment in favor of modern-day means.

We can seek out the open-hearted knowing with resonant ‘others’, be they children, pets, trees, birds, or our particular beloveds.  We can practice knowing and loving in this way, literally time ourselves – three, five, ten minutes, (Heart-Math has a bio-feedback too, the EMWave2, that measures this).  Can we stay in this direct place?  Having achieved a level of mastery over the direct experience, we can ‘imagine forward’, into our days and weeks, meeting others, having conversations, and making decisions while maintaining this way of relating.

Mystery

Though I love you, you are still a mystery to me.  I can only know you through my poetic mind.  I can only truly know you if I continue to recognize and respect your ‘otherness’.
When we know another in this way these is no expectation of full understanding.  To know poetically we accept mysterious spaces.  How can this happen?  We can step back for the immediacy of expectation to include curiosity and questions.  We can evoke images and archetypal comparisons.  In doing this, we are letting our beloved be bigger than their last good or bad deed.   Every relationship benefits from poetic love and kindness.  There are obligations and daily performance demands, yet periodic wonder and curiosity help us re-member our beloveds greater nature.

We each have an ‘inner landscape’ that we ourselves only know part of.  Consider how it feels when another respects, and has genuine non-judgemental curiosity about, our nature.  This feels wonderful – a lot like love.

Poetic love includes avoiding the habit of finishing another’s sentences.  Perhaps you do not know what they were going to say.  Most likely waiting without expectation will harvest deeper understanding; certainly it will engender greater respect.  Avoid ‘pat answers’ or abbreviating another’s complexity – let complexity stand even when this makes us uncomfortable.  Avoid planning our next sentences while listening deeply to another.
We are different from one another, with complex inner landscapes, and varying ways of communicating. For example, each have a dominant sensing type; feeling, seeing, hearing or thinking.  We can practice asking respectful questions using words associated with the four main sensing types.  How did that feel?  What do you see
going on?  How does that idea sound?  What makes you think this?

Self Love

Self-love encourages us to practice ‘not knowing’, even with ourselves.  It calls on us to hold and create space for what is emerging – like the spring flower, at first delicate and unformed.  Self-love understands that ‘knowing’, in a deep way, is bigger than words and thoughts.  The same practices of loving, listening and inquiry detailed above, bring attention to our own emergent natures, our heart/soul direction.
For this Valentine, perhaps the greatest gift we can give each other is letting ourselves love in heart-felt and poetic ways.
We can practice the same loving curiosity with our own our psyche, our own indwelling soul, our ‘life’, our own heart.
We can know ourselves and others not by the mind, but by the more traditional way, by heart.

I know you in my poetic mind . . .
I am getting to know myself, perhaps, in a small way . .

Effects of Stress

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The effects of stress are every where.  We know stress leads to reduced physical, mental and emotional capability.  What can we do to take a step in moving from stress towards relaxation and vitality?

When was the last time you felt deeply relaxed, fully rested, and completely at peace?

Whats good about relaxation?

Feeling deeply relaxed has many benefits. Aside from the immediate experience of openness, trust and even joy, this kind of relaxation is called ‘Relaxation Response’.  It is a physical, mental, and emotional state that leads to the body systems healing and strengthening.  Relaxation is good for us, can help us heal underlying disorders and promotes resilience.

Whats good about stress?

Appropriate stress is good for us.  We learn and retain more, perform better athletically, and in all other areas.  Appropriate ‘doses’ of stress build strength and resilience.

When do the effects of stress become unhealthy and what happens?

We get into trouble from the experience of prolonged stress and insufficient recovery.  Here is a refresher on how the body responds to stress.  Energy in the body is immediately redistributed.  The energy moves to support the ‘fight, flight or freeze response’.  This is automatic.

Energy moves towards large muscles, increasing heart rate and lung capacity.   Blood vessels in the skin constrict to prevent bleeding and assist blood clotting, and our pain threshold is boosted.  To do this, digestion slows, blood sugar production is increased, blood pressure increases, and immune response diminishes.   Prolonged and chronic stress results in distorted physical and emotional patterns leading towards a wide variety of maladies.

Effects of Chronic Stress

From a state of chronic stress, rest alone may be insufficient for recovery.  Our bodies are locked into patterns of over, or under, response to stress and have misplaced the pathway to deep restorative relaxation.   The ‘Relaxation Response’ heals.

The Ideal

Ideally we experience stress and then quickly return to a ‘stress free zone’.  Information overload, a fast paced life, work/family stress, and illness are everywhere today.  For most of us, deep relaxation requires active cultivation.

What can we do to manage the effects of stress?

Learn steps towards cultivating deep relaxation, and beginning to alter the habitual stress levels we accept.  Over time, increase your ability to maintain a feeling of deep peace and relaxation, even when presented with highly charged situations.  We are working towards a level of mastery in life.