Oh praise to the unrepressed being!

So convinced, by habit, that there is something wrong, I flail to relax when the thoughts bully me, first thing in the morning, and again, later.

As inseparability becomes apparent, it does so in surprising ways.

Sitting at the table in Whole Foods this morning, my chai and pastels on the table in front of me, and the new Rolling Stone, with Steve Jobs on the cover. The mind goes on another tangent here and wonders how will I die? And as I type this, "I" has no sense that it can die. Oh how the moods, the thoughts, the senses shift, and shift again.

I sat at that table for a few hours, mostly feeling like going to sleep. Also feeling a battlefield of thoughts, of longing, of missing a man I've loved, of feeling that I oughtn't be how I am, conflicted, conflicted. At last the repression can't contain itself and after resting and closing my eyes in prayer, a flurry of an unleashed honest message comes through me and is typed into my phone and is sent.

Oh praise to the unrepressed being!

And it was this that revealed to me its undivided nature. No separate me, no separate message, no separate receiver. Though they didn't disappear, which is what I've thought would happen in the realization of this. My mind hasn't been able to understand that inseparable does not mean one bland pureed soup. I still experienced me, and the phone still appeared on the table in front of me, and thoughts still arose that pointed to this man in my system, and yet the blending of the one dance revealed itself.

Our friend Pema Mags Deane wrote this today:

Oh these places that don't know yet they are Love, that don't know how included they are in the All.

When one of these finally feels the touch of the Heart after eons in the dark, what a cascade of tears , of tenderness, of heart swelling, of gratitude , of utter commitment to know and be this Love everywhere.

The unraveling of what binds us to the dream of separateness as Love shepherds all back into the Fold.

And I so recognized it. This is an unearthing kind of learning. We feel so deeply that we are madly flawed. Embarrassingly so. Shamefully so. Unworthy, broken, in need of repair. I mean forty-one fucking years of being so convinced.

What beauty is revealed when it is seen that nothing could possibly be separate. And that the awareness, to which all arises, holds us in its loving and welcoming arms, whether we are insane with lust and shame or dancing in the fields or resting on the couch and eating a snack.

I feel that I don't put this into words so well, and I hesitate to write, in part, because I do not claim to have reached an enduring sense of oneness. What matter? Whether it stays apparent to the apparent me or not . . .

I'll sign off by sharing my melancholy doodle from this morning, with gratitude for the impulse to rest in the storm being greater than the impulse to run.


I feel drawn to write poetry, where especially that which has been feared and repressed has a creative stage to sing its song.

Unleash creative freedom with Disco & Doodles

Opening your creative freedom . . .


I'm pleased to announce that registration is now open for

DISCO & DOODLES:
UNLEASHING CREATIVE FREEDOM!

This class is open to anyone who wants to spark/expand/loosen/lighten up the world of creativity
(and social workers and LPCs get 7 hours of CEUs)!

Disco & Doodles is here for creative inspiration & ignition. Through writing, doodling, collaging and a bit of disco, we provide a comfortable space to develop skills for releasing and expressing your natural creativity,
without reservation, repression or limitations.

No rules in doodling! Excellent skills to use in therapy.

Tuesdays, October 25 through November 15, 7:00 – 8:45 pm
Monsterlove Art Studios, 3119 Prado St. Austin TX 78702

* If this time doesn't work for you, please contact me with alternate times. More sections coming soon! *

Class cost: $50. This is a deeply discounted price that we are thrilled to be able to offer for this round of classes only. Check, cash or credit card through PayPal.

You may pay in 2 installments, with final payment due by the first class.

Moderate additional supplies required.
Must attend all four weeks for CEUs.

Contact Carin Channing, LCSW at carin_channing@yahoo.com or click the PayPal "buy now" button on this page to register.

Please register early and share with your friends and colleagues!

No prior art (or dancing) experience required!

An Unexplored Assumption: there is such a thing called "thought"

I went for a walk and found out that there is no such thing as thought.

Those of us who are on this so-called path (next we'll unfind that!) carry an assumption that there is an actual something called a thought, that is different from something called awareness or presence.

I've looked and have seen that actually awareness is not missing when what-we-call-thoughts are arising. How could it be gone? If it wasn't there, how would we even register the thought?

So there's that. I'm here to go further and say that there is no such thing as a thought -- at least not in the way we've come to assume it.

Let's start really, really basically.

Show me a thought.

Can you show me a picture of one? Offer me a recording? A YouTube video? What does it feel like? Can I touch it? Hold it in my hand? Sit on it? Eat it? Can I eat a thought?

I've thought that my thoughts wanted to eat me alive in the past . . . have you?

Okay look . . .

next time you notice a thought, drop the name "thought" and look at it.

What is it?

Can you find the dividing line between it and you?

Just take a look.

This is radical for those of us who have been distinguishing between thoughts and a peaceful or quiet mind for so long, especially those of us who equate quiet mind with healthy, spiritually high, potentially enlightened . . . and who equate thought-filled mind with unconscious, un-present, unenlightened.

Keep looking at this assumption that there is something called a thought that exists.

Maybe there is an occurrence, but the occurrence that we would call thought cannot accurately be described as a separate object.

At least I can't find it as separate, especially when I don't have a name for it.

Something to play with . . .

enjoy. xx

Peace within the Storm: the first ever Stay Open Singing Response

Hey Carina,

I took your last advice and i've actually fallen in love with someone. He literally is the only person who can ever make me happy, I really think were soulmates. While this might sound good, I have other issues. We're in a band together and I'm 19 so I still live with my parents. My mom really doesn't like him at all and she makes fun of me for liking him. Now she tells me we actually have to stop dating if we're in a band together. This kills us and we end up sneaking around when the other band members aren't present. It also doesn't help that my sister is in the band who is best friends with my mom. She just told me that i can basically never date him again. and I really don't know what to do this whole situation makes me really sad :(
I hope you can help somewhat or give me some sort of advice,

Coen

* * * * *

Seeing through resistance

I can't say that anything I say here is, in an absolute sense, true.

But this is how it seems to me . . .

There is no such thing as resistance.

There are thoughts that say, I don't want to or I should.

And there is doing or not doing.

Ah yes, all concepts in themselves.

Look into the word resistance and show me where it is.

* * * * *

I also don't believe in blocks. (Don't shoot me!)

I had long thought that my life looked a certain way or didn't look a certain way, in part, because of blocks or resistance I had about something. Something was in the way of my wholeness, my success, my happiness. And my not being there was in my control and it was due to resistance or blocks.

How many of you have a block against something in your life, the removal of which you feel would give you freedom? Let's see a show of hands.

How many of you would say that you are resistant to some action that you know would make a difference for you? Raise your hands. Hold them up there. Let me see them.

Okay, put your hands down.

* * * * *

Now, what if the entire concept "resistance" was just gone? Poof. What's left?

I believe we are back to I don't want to or I should, and doing or not doing.

Where is the actual resistance?

I definitely have this kind of conversation with myself around exercise. But I no longer call it resistance. I can just see that there's this debate that goes on within me about when and what I'm going to do for exercise and this whole world of should-ness around it. Like there's a moral connection with whether or not I exercise, and so an inherent and true "should."

By the way, I don't believe in morality either. Not in an absolute sense. I hesitate to type those words, for the slippery slope that they have trailing them. So I don't want to linger here. But I will point out that "morality" is also a concept, and as we look at it closely, we see that it's made up of more concepts.

My friend tells me that she is resistant to doing her homework. I say there are the thoughts I should and I don't want to (or I want to), and there is the moment of doing or not doing. And I don't feel that the two have anything to do with each other.

The thoughts are arising, and the doing is arising (or not doing), equally, spontaneously, independently.

It seems to me that telling ourselves or others that we or they are resistant to something creates more of the feeling of resistance, or, to put it simply, more tension. It creates this attribute that is seen as negative and as something that needs to be changed. But how can we change something that doesn't exist?

We achieve what we achieve when we do. We hear what we hear when we do. We see what we see or understand what we understand when we do. And we act when we do. Or we never do. Even the word "when" doesn't mean anything. What is RIGHT NOW is what IS RIGHT NOW. And NOW. And NOW.

In this infinite series of infinite NOWs, how can there possibly be anything other than what is right now? Doing/not doing/wanting/wishing/relaxing/resting.

The more we relax, the more relaxed and trusting we are, and look at that: life still happens! And quite nicely, I might add.

No blocks, no resistance, no barriers to freedom. Every appearance is as it is, perfectly and effortlessly appearing. See what happens if, when these notions of resistance or being blocked come through, you simply relax. Find out if they're for real.