Serving a community of private individuals and professionals who have the desire to cultivate a life of clarity, compassion, and creativity. Your feedback is encouraged. Please contact us at seishindo@seishindo.org.

1. Starting Line

I am still in the United States and I am now taking a nine day vacation with my wife, and daughter, and my daughter's two friends and their mother. It is always of great interest to me to view and take part in intercultural interactions. Here are a few things that have caught my attention while in the States:

1. Japanese people tend to be overwhelmed (to the point of losing their appetite) when being served American sized portions in many restaurants.

2. It is a mild shock to numerous people when they find out that the people running their local Japanese restaurant are not Japanese. In the States Japanese restaurants are often run by Koreans or Chinese. And yes of course, there are also many Japanese that run Japanese restaurants in the States.

3. Shopping at Costco is a very addictive experience. A Costco has recently opened up in Japan, but I have been afraid to join.

4. Shopping in a U.S. department store can be VERY frustrating if you are looking for a store employee who actually understands something about the product you want to buy.

5. Automated telephone answering systems that you are forced to enter when calling many companies, are getting more and more ridiculous. Twice I had to wait more than ten minutes to talk to someone who could assist me.

6. America is a vast country of great physical beauty.

7. More and more employees meant to be making contact with customers, speak very limited and hard to understand English.

If you are not a born in America American citizen, or if you have been living in another country for quite a while like I have, please tell me what catches your attention when you visit the States. I will post your observations in a future newsletter. Please send your replies to seishin@seishindo.org.

2. Main course:
Something extraordinary is taking place

Once again, I have had the honor of facilitating some very moving soulful work while leading this round of Seishindo Human Potential workshops. People come to our workshops to learn about somatic intelligence, mind-body coordination, and various mindfulness practices, and they also come to work on emotional and health issues that have been dogging them for years. I never cease to be amazed at the capacity we all have to make the seemingly impossible changes we so deeply desire. Time and again in the last month, people have stepped up and faced issues they have been struggling with for years. Each and every time, with the respect and heartfelt support of the rest of the participants, community members have come forth into a state of embodied presence, and created deep and lasting change. There are a number of key points in such deep personal change work that I find especially important, and moving and I want to share my observations with you here. The observations I share are not at all meant "just for workshops" but can be of equal importance in your every day life:

I. The Power of a Respectful Supportive Community

Although one can certainly work on one's own and achieve meaningful life changes, being a member of a respectful, supportive community can play a huge role in helping people make the changes they so deeply desire.

1. Building a vibrant community where a sense of trust, safety, and comfort, are present, takes a bit of time. If people do not feel safe and supported, then they will tend to not bring forth many of their important concerns.

2. Supportive communities act as crucibles that can help to absorb the energy that each person releases. The more a community space is able to contain people's pain, suffering, and joy, the more likely people are to address serious issues.

3. Members of a community stand as witnesses to important work, much like the witnesses we have at other important rites of passage like graduating from a school, or getting married.

4. The community can support a person who would not want to share their issue with only a single person being present, for fear of being misunderstood or mistreated.

5. The community can act as a "sounding board" for various issues that a member needs help in understanding.

6. The community can offer supportive safety to a person who believes he or she is taking a big risk in exposing certain issues. A supportive community can be integrally important in helping an individual to emerge from numerous dark places of the soul.

7. The palpable support of the group helps people to push through difficult patches that they would likely not be able to face on their own. In recent workshops there were several occasions when people spontaneously urged a friend on, and this proved to be just the support the person needed to stay with their process.

8. An important issue being worked on by an individual, is invariably shared by numerous members of the community. It is usually very comforting as well as liberating, for the individual working on an issue, and the community as a whole, to know that the hopes and fears of any one person are shared by others in the group.

It is very common that various members of a group report that they received tremendous benefit from supporting and watching another person work. It is also common for one or two members to approach a person that has just finished working, and say that they have been wanting to work on the very same issue for years, but that they just didn't have the courage to do so. It is very touching to watch people sharing their experiences at such times.

9. Short term and long term friendships are formed and community members often continue to support and encourage specific members long after an initial piece of work has been completed.

10. A supportive community acts as a functional family unit. Often, a supportive community is the first functional family unit that numerous individuals have had the opportunity to belong to. Being part of a caring, supportive community helps many people learn that shared experiences with others can be truly nourishing.

II. The Beauty that Emerges from Trauma and Tragedy

Tragedy, trauma, addictive behaviors, serious injuries, and other severe circumstances can play a major role in helping people to develop themselves in ways that would likely never occur if their life had been less challenging. Stephen Gilligan often talks about how many of us receive "terrible gifts" in our lives. Initially something "terrible" happens, and then we become involved in a journey of transforming the terrible event or relationship, into an important "gift" for our soul. Examples of people transcending their trauma and turning it into a gift can be seen when a recovering drug addict becomes a counselor for other drug addicts, when a parent who has lost a child to violence becomes a community advocate for peace, or when a rape victim becomes an Aikido teacher. We also often see such transcendence as we watch a person work hard to ensure that they do not duplicate as a parent, the dysfunctional family unit they grew up in as a child.

During the early stages of Seishindo workshops we usually do a good deal of talking about how to be caring, sensitive, and supportive to the plight of others, while at the same time not feeling sorry for people who have had to endure through challenging circumstances. When people present seemingly impossible situations that they want to change or recover from, this can be a very tricky area to navigate. Feeling sorry for someone tends to help keep the person stuck in their role of being "only" a victim. When on the other hand, we are able to remain emotionally balanced, curious, and solution oriented while sensitively supporting someone, we can help a person begin their search for the hidden gift their situation is attempting to offer them. In the process of searching for their gift, the person uncovers the opportunity to become a victor as well as a victim. This is one of the most liberating and fulfilling experiences we can offer someone immersed in pain and suffering. The opportunity to transcend one's pain, and turn one's suffering into the fuel that helps one make important changes and contribute back into the communities we live in is a wonderful gift to receive. At such times when a person is struggling through the initial stages of their change process in a workshop, I usually say something like the following to the community members gathered around, "Please breathe fully and gently hold in your heart, the deep healing that is unfolding. You are taking part in a life changing transformative process. Please support this healing with your thoughts of joy and thanksgiving, knowing that at this time you are witnessing a person learning how to use their past challenges to help them live more fully in the present moment." It is only when we are able to transmute and transcend our traumas and tragedies, that we can look at past events and truly say, "Something extraordinary is taking place here!" At such times we release tremendous amounts of held energy, and this energy becomes available for creative, life fulfilling purposes.

In many different ways, we all need to know that we are not walking through our life alone, and that we have the possibility of transmuting our pain and suffering into a state of grace, wisdom, and celebration.

I hope to have the honor of meeting many of you on your journey.

3. Practice

As I have said in the past, Seishindo Practices are meant to be done over and over again as we deepen our ability to feel into our experience. Also, we have many new subscribers every month who do not know about any of the Seishindo Practices. For these two reasons I would like to once again suggest that you try our "Heartbeat Breathing" Practice. It is a core Seishindo Practice, and it can prove to be simple yet profound when done over time.

4. Links

http://www.somatics.de/

Robert Schleip, M.A., Certified Psychologist and Somatic Therapist. Robert was the first certified Rolfer in Germany, beginning his practice in 1978. He is a Faculty member of the Rolf Institute, Boulder, Colorado, and Director of Academic Affairs of the European Rolfing Association. Since 1987 he has also been a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Trainer and has taught in numerous Feldenkrais and other Somatic Therapy oriented educational centers. Robert is an author and publisher of numerous books, articles and research papers. He is the founder and Director of Somatics Academy in Muenchen, which offers interdisciplinary workshops and courses for somatic practitioners led by world renowned somatic therapists and psychotherapists. Robert Schleip's special area of interest is the complex interaction among fascial tension, autonomous nervous system, emotional attitudes and body posture. His website is widely known as one of the internet’s richest sources of professional information for somatic therapists of different schools.

Personally, I would like to thank Robert for taking the time to create such a fantastic resource. He is doing much to enrich the Somatic community.

5. Suggested Books and Music

Book: "Therapeutic Trance" by Stephen Gilligan
If you would like to delve deeply into the theory and practice of Ericksonian Hypnosis, then this book is a must read. Stephen Gilligan is one of the world's best known teachers of Ericksonian Hypnosis, and this book gives you wonderful insight into a very fascinating subject. This is NOT a book of scripts to use. Instead, this book will help you to understand a lot more about how people think, feel, and react to their internal and external worlds.

CD: "Come Away With Me" Nora Jones
I came back to the States, and the first three people I had a conversation with regarding music, asked if I was aware of Nora Jones. I was soon treated to hearing a wonderful new talent. Nora is lyrical, playful, soulful, and tender.

6. Endnote and Invitation

Last week a subscriber wrote to me and said the following:

"Charlie, the 'Dreams of Childhood' was a great theme for the last newsletter and led me to think of the 'Dreams of Adulthood' in regard to similar experiences in business. I had a wonderful childhood yet encountered blocks in business that parallelled those cited in your childhood theme. Instead of utilizing the diverse talents of associates and even execs in an organization, what often happens is that someone decides something is supposed to be 'this' way and doing anything different is then considered unacceptable (despite whatever may be said or proven to the contrary). Even though I tried to encourage innovation and open communication, a fundamental mistrust (no doubt gained from experience) often prevented that from happening."

My response is that yes, all too often the management of a company tends to diminish the dreams of its employees. This is a great shame, and the quality of many people’s lives is lessened by such behavior. It is good to know that there are many talented people working to change such conditions in corporations. Little by little some companies are making big changes.

We invite all of you to send us your responses to the newsletter. Your responses are always warmly welcome.

7. Copyright

Unless otherwise attributed, all material for the newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind"(tm) is written and edited by Charlie Badenhop ©. All rights reserved.

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