Deepening into the Living Inquiries Intensive

I am pleased to be offering a small group intensive, Deepening into the Living Inquiries, for those interested in the direct experience of gently unraveling the seemingly knotted roots of suffering.

 

The Living Inquiries, developed and taught by Scott Kiloby, are a magnificent gift to the world of healing, self-help and therapies. And they are like nothing else I’ve ever experienced in any therapy in the past. Whereas I once believed that I was the problem – thoughts, feelings, and just all-around me – I’ve come to see directly that this problem was not, in fact, as I’d always believed.

We all have stories about ourselves. Often they are some version of a deficiency — a way of saying “not good enough” — ranging from unlikeable or unlovable to not attractive or impressive enough to total failure and everything in between. Then there are the stories we have about ourselves to keep ourselves boosted: I am good enough, I am worthy, I am rich and abundant forevermore. We notice, when we look more closely at these stories, that they are usually sitting on top of the deficiency stories. In telling the latter, we’re hoping to deny or replace the former, when, deep down, it’s the deficiency story that rings the most true for us.

In the Living Inquiries, we slowly, gently and powerfully look into each aspect of these ways we see ourselves and find out, directly, where the substance is. We look in the present experience to find the self who is unlovable, unattractive, failing, lost, lonely, etc. This method leaves no stone unturned and no stone rejected. Every piece of our experience is honored, from the sweetest to the darkest, and we gently as the question, Is that me?

As a facilitator of the Living Inquiries, I often meet people who say, “Well, that’s obvious,” when, deepdown, the beliefs are still running the show. This is not a mental nor logical exercise. It is not about gaining new insights or explaining why I think how I do, feel how I do, live how I do. This is experiencing openness and freedom in ways that cannot be told nor analyzed. Without going to the mind and analysis, we look, directly. In fact, we let the mind and all its conclusions rest. This is actually freedom from drawing conclusions. This is freedom to live.

But you know what? I’ve already said way too much.

I’m not a fan of dangling carrots and promises.

I’m a fan of looking — simply, directly, thoroughly and gently — into our unique experience and seeing what happens from there.

In addition to my regular individual sessions in the Living Inquiries, Deepening into the Living Inquiries is an eight-week on-line course. Note: this course is a required prerequisite to any future facilitator training. The dates and times are as follows:

Group Sessions
Tuesday, November 6, 6:30 – 8:30 pm CST
Tuesday, November 20, 6:30 – 8:30 pm CST
Tuesday, December 4, 6:30 – 8:30 pm CST

Also included in the course:
- four individual inquiry sessions (60 – 90 minutes each)
- a copy of Scott Kiloby’s Living Relationship ebook
- a private Facebook group for participants of this course to share experiences, ask questions and receive support

Total course cost is $400.

The course will cover the Unfindable Inquiry and the new and highly effective Compulsion Inquiry, which we’ve seen work on anything from compulsive eating to internet addiction to compulsively seeking enlightenment.

If you are interested in this or future trainings, please contact me at carin_channing@yahoo.com to register and get your questions answered. As soon as you register, you will receive Scott’s Living Relationship ebook and you can start digging in right away.

If the dates and times for this course don’t work for you, you can find other course schedules on the Relationship and the Unfindable Self page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/408220892542517/. Here you will also find testimonials of folks who have been working directly with the inquiries. Take a look and see if something resonates for you!

And write to me! There are just a few spaces left in this class, and I’d love to have you as one of them. carin_channing@yahoo.com

Looking forward to looking with you.

Much love,
Carin

P.S. Read some posts in the spirit of the inquiries at http://www.thetherapybooth.com/category/living-inquiries-blog/.

The Paradox of Freedom

This post was originally published at www.thetherapybooth.com.

 Innocent, by Alexei Harlamov (1842-1923)

Innocence. It’s not what I once thought it was.

My name, Carin, is a Swedish variation on the English name Katherine, whose deep etymological roots are open for debate, but whose more modern (like a few thousand years ago, modern) meaning comes from the Greek kathaors, or pure. One of the possible roots of kathaors, also from Greek, is aikia, meaning torture.

And here we meet the paradox of freedom, the innocence in the darkness, purity in the torture.

When engaging in Living Inquiries with another person, the lines of separation blur. There is a melding of the facilitator and the one being facilitated, often in simple recognition. Every time I talk with someone, I hear something of myself in what they’re sharing, what they’re suffering, what they’re loving. I met with a man today who touched right into the heart of loneliness, just met it straight on and openly. Having been there, I smiled. What a great joy to touch that, with someone else there to relax with you. Not to add anything onto it. Not to take it away. The river flowing, unencumbered.

Also today I met with a woman who said that her emotions are all over the place. She said it’s likely pre-menstrual, but she wasn’t focused on that aspect of it. Just yesterday I wrote a post to our Living Inquiry Facebook group talking about my intense irritability – that was likely hormonal, but that even the description PMS wasn’t sticking to. It was just straight-on feelings.

So here I am, joining with these friends, even coming off of a morning of feeling pretty irritable and grumpy myself, resting together and mutually witnessing the minutiae of direct experience, straight-on feelings. And as I look, together, with them, I see the pure heart of innocence, even amidst what may feel like at times like torture.

Not calling the grief by name, not labeling the buzzing physical experience, we come to see that we are not culpable in the way we’ve always suspected or believed we are.

The very first time I ever met Scott Kiloby, my teacher and the author of the Living Inquiries, I was upset about the way I was clinging to my boyfriend, no matter how distant or withdrawn he was from me. I wasn’t feeling or behaving in a way that I thought I should, and I felt morally and mortally awful about it. Scott said to me, “I remember having relationships like that. The more they pulled away, the more I went toward them.” He paused and said, “I never did figure out why I did that.” And, right there, I recognized something radical. This guy wasn’t going to tell me to fix myself or get out of my relationship or look into my parents’ relationship history to diagnose and better me. All he did was point me to my own direct experience. As he talked with me that day, all he saw was innocence. Even amidst the torture.

Sitting with these folks today, it is this familiarity, this recognition, that breeds such empty compassion. By empty I don’t mean lacking or devoid of anything. In fact, it is all-inclusive. In that way, there is an emptiness. A lack of any particular structure, organization or list. There is no registry stating which feelings, thoughts or emotions are acceptable and which are not. That book has been thrown overboard miles back.

And it’s not just facilitating these sessions that has me plainly see this equanimity; it’s experiencing the inquiries first hand. I’ve had many hours of sessions with my fellow facilitators, as well as experiencing the inquiries infiltrating my day to day life. This is the direct route to true compassion: finding out — right in the fiery intense heat of emotion, of grief, of longing, of jealousy, of smoldering rage — if there is anything there that isn’t pure innocence.

When I was younger and looked up the meaning of my name and found out that it was derived from a word meaning the pure one, I just thought, “Yeah, right.” I may not have been the wildest child on the block, but I certainly wasn’t the most farm fresh either. I could imagine all sorts of sins that I’d committed by a pretty young age, many of them simply in thoughts or fantasies, that I’m pretty sure canceled out my name’s worth of virtue. Add on another 20+ years with mad forays hither and yon, and I just wouldn’t relate to my name’s origins at all. At least not the “pure” side. And the “torture” side, although I have experienced my moments in life, I wouldn’t fully relate to that one either. And anyway, who wants a name that means severe pain?

But now, as I put them together, as I inquire, as I watch others inquire, they all meld into an intimacy with life, a joyful reunion of the purity of the pain, the freshness of each moment, no matter what.

I would have thought that innocence meant untouched by drugs, sex, or dramas, unexposed to life’s suffering. And, in a way, it is untouched. As the woman said to me today, in the midst of her stormy weather, there was a thread that ran through it all, a restful space, even as the maelstrom blew roofs off houses and flooded the roadways. We notice and rest in that which is untouched and see that it is all innocent.  Innocence unencumbered by changing moods, thoughts, physical responses or rivers of tears. Purity and torture, seen to be inseparable, and, upon close examination, seen also to be unfindable.

If you have any doubt about this, and you’d like to find out for directly, contact me or another Living Inquiries facilitator and we’ll look together.

* * * * *

If you’d like to go further with the Living Inquiries, visit http://www.thetherapybooth.com/living-realization-inquirires/ to make an appointment,

or find us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/408220892542517/ to meet other facilitators and join the community conversation.

April Creative Freedom Classes - April 28 & 29

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. ~ George Lois

Register now for April 2012 Creative Freedom classes!

"I loved the exercises and it's been a healing time -- the time went to fast! I so enjoyed being open and genuine!" A.C., Austin, TX

Next class is April 28 & 29.

You, too, can doodle pictures of your teacher (that’s me!) like one student did in the last class:

Here’s more feedback from the March class:

* Scrumptious! Sooo much fun!

* Very rewarding! So much more than CEUs.

* Excited to use these techniques with my clients in session or on my own to help center myself between appointments.

Join us for the next sessions of Creative Freedom
(in life and in therapy).

This class is open to everyone, and we provide
6 hours of CEUs to Social Workers and LPCs.

About the class:

Through direct experience, I have come to know the benefits of using writing and visual arts in therapeutic ways. Whether you want to access your creative muse or whether you want to give freedom to all of your feelings, I encourage therapeutic creative exercises, 100%.

In this two session class, we will practice techniques to put words to that which we have been reluctant yet eager to express, and we will use visual arts to paint a picture of life that’s fully allowed and welcomed.

Practical and fresh skills to use in therapy and in life.

Sat. April 28, 1 – 4 pm
Sun. April 29, 1 – 4 pm

$75 (6 hours of CEUs)

3355 Bee Caves, Suite 510, Austin 78746

Please register in advance by clicking the “Buy Now” button on this page or email carin_channing@yahoo.com

A few additional supplies are required. Complete list given upon registration.

Registration is limited to 8 participants per 2 session class.
Call Carin at 847-732-0932 with questions.

Peace Now

(Originally published in the Stay Open Newsletter, Feb. 2010)

Greetings, friends. It's always good to be here to share with you.

It's more and more obvious to me that solutions do not arise from thinking about some imagined future . . .

I've had something on my mind for days, mentally toying with me, showing up as thoughts that ask me about how I'm going to manipulate the future. As if I could know anything like that!

Today I realized a sweet and subtle distinction. I felt the sensation of waiting. I felt the mentally un-relaxed state of waiting. As if I couldn't relax now, but in some imagined future, when I tackled the supposed problem, then I could relax -- maybe. Of course the thoughts aren't sure about the future either. So in the moment, I was neither relaxed, nor was I convinced that relaxation was possible in the future, yet I was projecting myself ahead to a moment when relaxation might be possible.

Then, I simply relaxed. I let my thoughts come to rest and noticed what remained.

Peace is available now. There's no other time that you'll ever find it. In fact, it's not something that can be found. It is naturally here - right now - no matter what is arising on the surface.

If you notice that you're casting yourself mentally into some unknown and non-existent future, please don't scold yourself. Don't cause yourself more suffering by making that wrong. Nothing is a problem. Instead, you can just take that moment of noticing to rest. That's it. And then, for that moment, peace.

The restful moment may be fleeting, as all moments, thoughts, emotions, and sensations are, but you have given yourself the opportunity to recognize what is always available no matter what is arising on the surface.

Thoughts and emotions are not problems. The mind that wants to sort things out and plan for unknown variables is not a problem. In fact, they can all be gifts, pointing us home to what is always present, unchanging, stable and peaceful.

The more we can recognize these moments of waiting for peace, and take the opportunity to rest now, the more mellow things become. We find that - in this moment - there is no problem. There may be something that you need to tend to presently, and if so, you do. And if there isn't, you get to have a real slice of life. You are actually living now. Life is spontaneously taking care of all that needs to be cared for.

As I write this I have my front door open and can see the once gray and now chalky white sky and evening approaching this February day in Texas. Across the street I can see just the hint of green fuzz on a tree, mixed with the spidery branches of winter limbs. The rocking chair on the porch is still, yet somehow vibrant, in its effortless existence.

Nothing has changed in the supposed situation that my mind was trying to solve. Nothing is needed. Life is totally managing itself. And when the moment arises that something needs to be done, I can rest assured, it will be. It cannot be any other way.

Peace is now.

But don't take my word for it. Verify for yourself by taking brief moments of rest when you notice this problem-solving tendency in yourself.

* * * * *

If questions arise from this writing, please email

carina@nowstayopen.com

New Class: Creative Freedom in Therapy & Life

*** please note: new dates! ***

From the Creative Expression Series . . .

Creative Freedom in
2012
presented by Carin Channing, LCSW

This class is open to everyone, and we provide
6 hours of CEUs to Social Workers and LPCs.



Through direct experience, I have come to know the benefits of using writing and visual arts in therapeutic ways. Whether you want to access your creative muse or whether you want to unleash feelings that aren't satisfied with just talking about or sitting with them, I stand by therapeutic creative exercises, 100%.

The more we allow our complete and natural experience to be expressed, the more we can experience freedom in all emotional states.

In this two session class, we will practice techniques to put words to that which we have been reluctant yet eager to express, and we will use visual arts to paint a picture of life that's fully allowed and welcomed.

Practical and fresh skills to use in therapy.

Saturday, January, 14 – 4 p.m.
Saturday, January 15, 1 – 4 p.m. (6 Hours of CEUs)
$75

3355 Bee Caves, Suite 510, Austin 78746

Please register in advance by emailing carin_channing@yahoo.com or by
clicking the “Buy Now” button on this page.

A few additional supplies are required. Complete list given upon registration.

Registration is limited to 8 participants.
Call Carin at 847-732-0932 with questions.

New Class! Therapeutic (and fun!) Writing

From the
Creative Expression
Series . . .

Writing for Full Creative Expression,
Therapy & Therapists
presented by
Carin Channing, LCSW

These classes are open to everyone, and we provide
CEUs to Social Workers and LPCs.

Learn and practice exercises to
deepen your own creative expression
and to expand your therapeutic tools. No prior experience necessary!

It's my theory that we all benefit from spaces and activities where full expression is allowed without repression.

As a creative tool, writing in an unleashed way opens up channels to our deepest creative wells. Imagine what might happen to our art (or music or business or relationships) if we started to tell the truth!

Saturday, November 19, 1 – 4 p.m. (3 Hours of CEUs)
Sunday, November 20, 1 – 4 p.m. (3 Hours of CEUs)

Take one or both classes ($40 for one, $60 for both).

3355 Bee Caves, Suite 510, Austin 78746

Please register in advance by emailing carin_channing@yahoo.com or by
clicking the “Buy Now” button on this page.

Registration is limited to 8 participants per day. Call Carin at 847-732-0932 with questions.

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.

Stability First

Yeah, I'm righteous!

I don't know anything!

Wisdom

Relief comes
but it may not stay.
How sweet it is
to know this.

Freedom from "Why?"

Sometimes I joke about the joy of not knowing (see video below).

But ultimately, I'm finding it to be pleasant and relaxing, even restful.

There are some things in this life that curiosity wants to investigate. How do leaves change colors in the fall (and how does my hair turn gray, for that matter)? Then there are practical questions: which road do I take to get from here to the bank? or what time does the bank open on Saturdays? There are questions that have specific answers: what was the Billboard #1 song on this date in 1973? It was Crocodile Rock, by the way.

Then there are questions that have answers that might make sense to us, but they are less certain: why does my partner yell at me when I leave the clean laundry in the basket instead of folding it? Why won't my mother learn to text? Why do I keep texting that boy who doesn't text me back?

I work in a psychiatric hospital, and I was considering these things as I walked through the unit today. In the mental health world, we often look to two major areas for answers. One is chemistry. We say that bipolar disorder comes from an issue with one's brain chemistry and there are medications that can help even out the mood swings. This is often shown to be effective. The other area is social history. What was the scene like in the patient's house while growing up? Is there a history of abuse or other trauma? These lines of questioning also lead to answers and conclusions that often make sense.

But then there are exceptions to both of these scenarios. There are people for whom medication doesn't work. There are also people who have had intense abuse histories who appear to be healthy, well-adjusted and healed. So how can one history (or explanation) be the cause of the current situation, when there's so much variety in results?

Before I go on, I should say that I'm not suggesting people shouldn't take their medication, especially if they've found it helpful! And I'm not suggesting that if a person has trauma in his or her background that he or she should go through life unaffected by it.

What I'm saying is: in the present moment, there is no history, and there is no "why."

What is - right now - is.

I was walking through the hall saying hello to different co-workers, noticing that I smile at some, say hello to others, warmly greet others, nod and pass by the rest. I started to wonder how it is that this happens. Why do I not offer the same greeting to everyone? Why would I be warm to some and lukewarm to others?

And then the questioning dropped away and there I was, walking down the hall, being in the experience. I notice in moments like this that the sensory experience often brightens. I see colors more distinctly. This morning I was eating grapefruit, mulling over something from the [recent] past in my mind. Then I checked in and saw that nothing right then was happening - or needed to be understood - other than exactly what was happening in that moment. Suddenly my grapefruit cheered with flavor and I found myself saying, "Mmmmm."

In our own mental/emotional lives, we often look for the "why" behind what we do, especially behind what we do that we don't like or don't approve of. We also do this with our partners, parents, siblings, friends, bosses, teachers, etc.

I've noticed that there can be a comfort in analyzing what might be driving someone to behave a certain way. I've mentioned in this column before that I used to analyze my boyfriends with a friend of mine who's a therapist. If I was feeling broken-hearted, it was soothing to me to find reasons why the man wasn't calling or wasn't behaving like I wanted him to. We would come up with scenarios from his childhood about his own trauma in his upbringing that led him to be uncomfortalbe with intimacy. One of my favorites was the one that says he likes me so much it scares him and that's why he's retreated. (As if, I say now. But I digress.)

Making sense of why someone else acts the way he does might work for the mind that seeks answers or comfort. But it's much more challenging when you turn it on yourself. Why do I chew on the inside of my mouth (and drive my sister and people over the past 20 years crazy)? Why am I ambivalent about my own intimate relationships? Why do I still hope for approval from my father, at age 40? Why do I stay up and sleep so late (again, at age 40)?

[It's funny, as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I don't usually do this with the things I consider positive. Why is my home so comfortable? Why am I a good cook (when I get around to it)? Why do I love to exercise? Why can I sing? Why am I a good writer?]

We seek the "why" in the supposedly negative situations because we think that insight will lead us to some healing or to a change in the behavior. Well, here I am at 40 saying, I'm not interested in "why," and I will go so far as to say, it doesn't even exist. If, in a moment, I find that I'm chewing on the inside of my cheek (I know, it's gross, right?), that's happening because it's happening. There is no "why" about it. If I'm feeling unsure about where I am in a relationship at any given moment, there's no "why" about that either. It's just what's arising right then.

I also see that this sort of allowing - or letting go - results in the dropping away of concepts that have held these scenarios or behaviors in place. Take, for example, ambivalence. For years I've claimed that I am ambivalent when it comes to relationships (and I've often said the men in my life are, too). Well, what if there's no such thing as ambivalence - just as there's no such thing as "why?" What if there's only what's arising right here in this moment now.

When I look for what's there, I don't even see any thoughts. Ask me again in the morning, and there well could be be some mental churning (I do my mental calisthenics most rigorously in the first few hours upon waking). The point is, what's arising right now is what's arising. It might be a thought. It might be a sound or a sensation in the body. But show me the arising of a concept like ambivalence. I'm coming to see that it doesn't exist.

This all begins to sound very passive to me -- and I'm pretty sure my partner thinks so too! And I can understand that. We've been programmed to think that decision-making needs to happen. One teacher years ago told me, "Just keep getting off the fence." And there may be moments to do that.

But what if we don't need to know -- and in fact, we can't know -- until we know?

Two things may happen. One, the questioning, if allowed to come to rest, can drop away naturally, leaving us right here, present, awake, colorful, alert, alive. Or, two, an answer, be it a needed action or solution or possible understanding, is allowed to arise in its time, without our mental pushing for it.

There is freedom here. Freedom for us as individuals and freedom for others in our lives. When we aren't fixated on the questions about why someone is a certain way, that person is allowed to be. Well, the person is allowed to be already, just by the fact that he or she is. And then we no longer have a personal agenda to create anyone in any other way besides exactly how they are right then and there. And the same goes for us as individuals.

So when I wake up tomorrow morning, if I'm churning with thoughts or agitation, I can remember, through resting in the present awareness that is always here, always awake, always inseparable, no matter what is arising, that everything is already allowed and I need not pressure myself to attempt to change it.

Miracles happen through such allowing. The need to repeat behaviors to keep story-lines alive can relax.

But don't let's try to logic our way into this now, folks! That's just more should-ing. That's just more pressure. That's just more rejecting, wearing a dress called wanting-it-to-be-better.

We don't need to know why. We don't need to know what's next. We don't need to look for the causes that will create the next scenario that we then have to feel badly about.

It's all okay. It's all right now, if it's anywhere at all. And if it's not right now, it's not. Don't ask me why.

Love,

Carina

If questions arise from this writing, please email
carina@nowstayopen.com

Here's the Answer

How can any of it be wrong?

Carina,

I have had this feeling all summer and now into the fall. For the last ten years, I have completely, willingly, and with my whole heart supported, advocated, and provided over half of my services to The Jones Center on a volunteer basis. Granted I learned, grew, and was afforded a profession that prior to The Jones Center I didn't have. Nonetheless, as my contracted ended at the end of June, the Director, who meant the world to me and more, and I, completely dissolved our relationship.

Now, she says very little to me; if at all. Most remarks she makes are in the form of polite daggers which kill me even more. This has been a huge hurdle to overcome because as much as I feel "Rotten" about it, and as much as I try to accept the fact that someone who I looked up to, respected, admired, and cared for is settling with being a stranger to me, I come right back to the same place. I feel that there is a doorway...I don't believe that everything that I've learned, experienced, and all that I've accomplished was in vain. I just am burdened with understanding really how someone you trust with out question, has become someone who breaks your heart with out question. So, what do you do once you accept that you feel rotten about something that you can't change? LOL Jen



*****



Dear Jen,

Thank you for writing. It sounds like a mysterious situation.

I've been mulling it over for some time, and I want to focus on one angle: your experience of feeling rotten. You said, "What do you do once you accept that you feel rotten about something that you can't change?"

Jen, I can't say for sure because we have not been talking about this in person, but I suspect that you have not truly accepted that you are feeling rotten. Now wait. Before you feel that I'm shoulding you or placing more pressure on you when you're already struggling with feelings, know that's not the deal. In fact, I want to offer you space, permission, to just get into what YOU are experiencing.

There's really nothing else we can do anything about.

Even attempting to analyze the other people involved in the offending situation can't really be done with true understanding if we aren't fully experiencing, without apology, our present feelings.

So I recommend to you, my friend, that you just let that rottenness come when it arises. And get yourself quiet, still - even if it's just for a moment here and there - and drop into your body and feel the sensations of rottenness arising and doing whatever it is they're doing. This is a gateway that we rarely allow ourselves. It's a doorway whose key we don't realize we have.

See, 'cuz the thing is, we can't possibly know what's going on with the other person. And it sounds like your friend probably doesn't know either. We think we know why we do things or act certain ways, but we don't.

Which is relieving in a way, because then all there is left for us to do is experience.

So I invite you to take a little time and get still and quiet and let those feelings rise (arise? arrive? let it ride?), without any judgment on how you should be feeling or what you should be thinking. From the meanest and angriest to the saddest, most fearful or loving: they're all sensations that you can watch and feel move as waves, arising and always returning back home.

I'm curious whether or not you've talked with your friend about what may have gone wrong for her. Still, the most fertile ground is within the experience of your own sensations, without added stories.

It's courageous and a-typical and, paradoxically, so worthwhile.

I can imagine it feels pretty rotten, and I suspect there's some relief in there too. But don't take my word for it.

Thank you for writing and sharing your experience with us.

Love,
Carina

If questions arise from this writing, please email

carina@nowstayopen.com

A Benevolent Invitation

People have been coming to me with their heartbreaks. Mostly men the past few days, interestingly enough.

I'm not talking too much these days, and I have declined to get into much conversation. I see my role more as one of opening space within myself, feeling infinity, and knowing from here that the sad times are also filled with grace. They are grace ready to come out. When I'm riding the heartbreak waves, and I can remember this, it makes the experience very interesting.

What is it like to go through emotions that we call dark and at the same time feel light emanating from them? And how is it possible to have both?

It comes from a stillness of the mind. No thought can allow for such openness during heartache. The fire that burns as our suffering is fanned by our thoughts, playing out the story and its tale of woe.

And then there's a place deep inside that can actually contain . . . can hold you and your fear and your agony and the watery flow of sadness. For it is flowing. It is not fixed. Thoughts and emotions together want to lock something down, fix it as black or white, and hold to it. Only in letting our emotions erupt - with neither judgment of them nor of the catalyzing situation - can we experience this flow and allow everything to move.

This is a way to allow old emotions - I'm talking those that have been stored up since you were too young to remember - to arise and be released, leaving a door wide-open for the stillness that exists as our natural state to permeate the moment and, subsequently, our interactions with others.

Allowing.

We can't think our way into it. We just can't. Don't even try. If you find yourself doing it, just see it. Take a breath. Take a moment. And with that, you've used the futile attempt to mentally fix as a bell of mindfulness that brings you back to this. And this is it.

All of these situations are inviting us, sometimes subtly, sometimes like a raging storm, to awaken. It is a benevolent invitation. We needn't be afraid (see footnote).* Let the feelings come. Keep breathing. Feel the inner body. Feel infinity. Stay open.

I've been reading this Rumi poem for years, and I came across it today and saw it clearly. Can you find the knowing within yourself, when the head is bound with emotion and tragedy, that allows you to open your chest, relax your shoulders, breathe and surrender to this moment? Surrendering because you know deep within that there is grace in the sadness, and rich comfort on the other side of the woes . . .

I speak from experience. So does our beloved Mevlana (Rumi).

He Gives to Taste ~ Rumi (translated by Jonathan Star)

Do not despair
if the Beloved pushes you away.
If He pushes you away today
it's only so He can draw you back tomorrow.

If He closes the door on your face,
don't leave, wait --
you'll soon be by his side.
If He bars every passage,
don't lose hope --
He's about to show you
a secret way that nobody knows.

A butcher cuts off a sheep's head for food,
not just to throw away.
When the sheep no longer has breath
the butcher fills it
with his own breath.
O what life
God's breath will bring to you!

But the likeness ends here --
For God's bounty is much greater than the butcher's.
God's blows don't bring death but eternal life.
He gives the wealth of Solomon to a single ant.
He gives the treasure of both worlds to all who ask.
He gives and gives
yet does not startle a single heart.

I've traveled to all ends of the earth
and have not found anyone like Him.
Who can match Him?
Who can hold a candle to His glory?

Silence already!
He gives us the wine to taste,
not to talk about. . . .

He gives to taste.
He gives to taste.
He gives to taste.

***

* I wasn't sure about saying, "We needn't be afraid." Tonight I came across this excerpt from the Be Here Now blog project I've been participating in:

"The point is not to feel better; it is to feel. The depth of this moment is all there is and our folly is to attempt to escape this. We will never be away from the now. [This is how we must die. To every sensation but this moment. To past, to future, to thoughts that think past and future exist at all.]

Scary? Go ahead and be scared. There’s the paradox — having the courage to be scared. I mean, what did I expect, taking on a process such as this? And these processes . . . am I willing to look into that mirror? Whose face will I see back?"

If questions arise from this writing, please email

carina@nowstayopen.com

On the Topic of Self-Esteem

Hi Carina,

We in the West are plagued with that critical voice in the back of our heads, telling us that we're not good enough, or we're bad. It is reflected in the fact that we are always told to "become somebody" instead of being somebody (implying that who we are now is somehow not good enough). And if we tell people that we're working on loving ourselves the way we are, people think it's narcissistic. How to combat this attitude? That's the tough part.

Steve



*****



Dear Steve,

I appreciate this topic. It seems to be one of the most common issues that people deal with. I'm seeing lots of pages popping up on Facebook that send out daily cheerful messages letting people know how great they are -- just as they are. These messages wouldn't be coming by the volume (and be being eaten up by the voracious readers) if the readers weren't convinced that self-esteem is something to be reaching for.

What if self-esteem and self-loathing are two sides of the same delusion?

Consider this: Having high self-esteem (in the way that our culture touts it) is as much a costume -- a role -- as having low self-esteem is. Both are built on foundations that lack inherent truth. That is, they are both passing, impermanent, in the world of form.

I know well that voice in the back of the head that says I'm bad. It's a specter that likes to hold my head underwater so I can't breathe and tell me that all of who I am is a failure. I'm happy to say that I don't experience it that often, but I do, and it is a convincing voice, to be sure. Here's the okay thing about it: none of it's true, nor is it fixed. It's a wave of energy passing through, and it can knock down everything in its path, or I can inhale, exhale, and surf it.

Neither is preferable nor better or worse than the other. That is, if you're being bowled over by thoughts and emotions, so be it. Can you consciously allow the knocking around? Surrender to the noise of the moment and just let it do its thing? You'll find in here the paradox of then being able to surf the next wave.

A thought comes in: "I'm so fucked up . . . I hate myself," and there are several ways the mind can go. It can join up with the thoughts like jumping on a box car and riding down the track with the train. Or you can turn around and face the thought, almost looking backward, to see what the source of the thought is. And then you see, it's nothing. Thoughts arise out of nothing.

When you are noticing thoughts coming up and rolling by, rather than running after them or trying to attack back (both actions are magnetic for attaching to your thoughts), you dis-identify with the content of the thought. And then it's just another ephemeral flower, bloomed and now dying. And we are still here.

In this moment, you are giving yourself access to true self-esteem, true confidence. In a non-dualistic sense, there is no such thing as a self to have confidence in. True self-esteem comes from stillness and a relaxed knowing of the deeper essence of consciousness, the field out of which all individuals and our corresponding egos and ego trips arise.

So when you're able, when you're sitting back in the spacious place of observation, and you hear, "I'm a horrible person," you can benefit yourself most greatly by taking a breath right then. Inhale, exhale, drop out of the mind and feel the rippling sensations in your body. That wave is moving and if you allow it, it will move on out, and there will be calm before the next one comes.



In this culture, so set on having us constantly striving and wanting, driving us to do more and shift more and change more and heal more and lose more and earn more, we are terribly misguided to hitch our wagons to stars with no foundation. True worth, which is ultimately neutral and spacious, comes from calming and quieting the external chatter and breathing with the waves that inevitably arise in any human's experience.

All of the experiences we have that seem negative -- and all of those that seem positive, too, for the excitement of good times and success is simply the other side of the despair and failure coin -- have within them the golden opportunity to come into that self-loving space, that tender space that sees the poignancy in human experience and opens and welcomes it, transmuting the fear of wrongness into the great space of awakening.

This has been great to contemplate. Thank you so much for writing.

Carina

If other questions arise from this writing, please email
carina@nowstayopen.com