1. Purpose of the newsletter
This newsletter is designed to serve a community of private
individuals and professionals who have the desire to cultivate
a life of clarity, compassion, and creativity. Your interaction
and feedback is encouraged. Please contact us at: seishindo@seishindo.org.
In general this newsletter will espouse the theories and practices
of Seishin-do. To find out more about Seishindo please go
to: http//www.seishindo.org.
2. Entrance way
In the last newsletter we talked about how "not knowing" can
be a powerful way to get a new perspective on life. Not
having quick and reflexive answers for much of what takes
place around you can be an excellent way to leave yourself
the emotional space to continue to learn and benefit from
your life's experiences, without needing to feel bad about
possible mistakes. If you stop thinking in a dualistic
fashion, by attaching to the concepts of "right OR wrong"
"good OR bad" "clever OR dumb" you will find yourself having
a wide angle perspective that will enhance your ability to
learn from and adapt to life. Life is long, and your
experiences many. The wider your perspective, the more you
will realize that no matter how good or bad anything is at
the moment, things are bound to change.
3. Examples of Embodied Spirit
The following is a true story that I have adapted here, for
the purposes of the newsletter.
I met an exceptional American man in Athens in my younger
years. When I first met him he had a beautiful and gentle
French girlfriend, and everyone was always complimenting him
and telling him how "lucky" he was to have met such an
amazing woman. His usual reply after first smiling warmly,
was something to the effect of "Lucky or unlucky is hard for
me to say, as this is only one small moment in my whole
life. But I will tell you this, at this moment, I am very
definitely enjoying myself and feeling thankful."
Shortly after meeting him he was thrown in jail in Greece,
which in those days was run by a brutal military dictator.
All his friends sat around in Athens talking about how
"unlucky" he was, since the police threw him in jail with no
real evidence. When I visited him and told him his friends
felt terrible about his bad luck he smiled warmly and said,
"Lucky or unlucky is hard for me to say. But I am sure I
will have a great story to tell some day! And for this I am
thankful."
After several years in jail he was released, and he returned
to the States. He was traveling along the coast roads of
California, when he met a lovely woman in a roadside cafe,
and began to flirt with her. Unbeknownst to my friend, the
woman had a boyfriend who belonged to a gang, and the
boyfriend soon appeared with his buddies and became furious.
In order to "teach my friend a lesson" they proceeded to
throw him off the side of the road, and down the rocky
expanse leading to the ocean some one hundred feet below.
They left him for dead.
Some hours later a rescue crew arrived and made their way
down the cliff and they were amazed to find that my friend
was still alive. As they slowly hoisted him back up to the
roadside, numerous bystanders remarked at how amazingly
lucky he was to not have been killed. If my friend had not
been unconscious at that time it is likely that he would
have said something to the effect of "Lucky or unlucky is
hard for me to say, but I can tell you that I hurt like
hell!"
In a few days time when he had regained consciousness he
discovered that he was paralyzed from the waist down. I
called him to see how he was doing. He said to me "What
would you say Charlie? Lucky to be alive or unlucky to be
paralyzed from the waist down." I had no ready answer.
Many months later we met in person again. By this time he
had already customized his wheelchair to make it more
"radical" and he was sporting a buffed out physique from his
many hours of weight lifting. He said to me "Previously when
people remarked about my life, it was very easy for me to
say that I felt neither lucky or unlucky. Now I know very
deeply that each moment, lucky or unlucky, is to be savored.
If I label my circumstances as 'lucky' what will this mean?
Will it mean that I am happy about what has happened? If I
label my circumstances as 'unlucky' what will this mean?
Will it mean that I am unhappy about what has happened? And
what about tomorrow, and the day after that, and the year
after that? Will I let 'lucky' or 'unlucky' determine how I
feel about myself and how I live my life? I certainly hope
not!" He smiled warmly as always, and I was thankful to be
in his presence.
4. Dynamics of Embodied Spirit
I can remember being about eight years old and having a
truck which housed a children's ride, come around my
neighborhood in Brooklyn. You paid your fee, had your ride,
and then on the way out, you got some small thank you gift.
When exiting the truck I got a large sheet of tattoos. I was
ecstatic because there was one HUGE tattoo showing Davie
Crockett killing a HUGE bear. I ran home to have the tattoo
immediately applied to my bare chest, and I remember
thinking how it was perfect that I did not yet have any hair
on my chest because the hair would only get in the way of
the tattoo. And then, as hard as this might be to believe,
my father totally screwed up in applying the tattoo, and I
was left with black water running down my chest, and then
great big tears running down my face, as I was in a state of
shock and disbelief. Feeling totally crushed I still managed
to run outside and dash feverishly all over the neighborhood
hopinging to catch the truck, but indeed it had mysteriously
disappeared, perhaps already on its way to Flatbush or Coney
Island. By the time the truck did come back again two weeks
later, it was giving away some terribly boring small plastic
whistles, and the truck never again showed up with tattoos,
and in those days tattoos were not to be found in toy
stores, and tattoo parlors only existed where kids were not
allowed to go.
When I tell this story now, to some extent it still feels
like it happened just the other day. I can still to some
extent feel how TOTALLY UNLUCKY I felt on that day.
It can be so easy to freeze up and lose sense of the
entirety of one's life. It can be so easy to lose touch with
the fact that we will have a future, and that it will be our
wide angle perspective, or lack of it, that will play an
important role in determining the quality of our future. As
a child, especially during the summer time, each day was a
grand adventure, and each day would often seem endless, and
totally absorbing. This sense of fully being in the moment
is one of the true gifts of childhood, and at times it can
also be a liability. Because children usually have little
sense of the length and breadth of their life, and any one
moment can seem to extinguish the possibility of happiness
in the future.
I have at least a half dozen times that I can look back on
in my life, as times that seemed to play a major role in
determining the course of my life. In hindsight I can see
that it was not the actual events that determined my future,
but whether or not I perceived myself to be "lucky or
unlucky" "cursed or blessed" "stupid or clever."
Now I can realize that each moment will lead to another
moment, each event will lead to another event, and that
there are many, many moments and events in any one lifetime.
I can choose which moments and events I want to give the
most importance to, and which moments and events I will
define my life by. Over the course of my life, feelings of
sadness or happiness, good luck or bad luck, can be softened
by the passage of time if I maintain a wide angle
perspective and realize that there were good times as well
as bad, happy times as well as sad, unlucky times as well as
lucky. By accepting the fact that much of what goes on in
life is outside of my control, I can free myself to pay
attention to the aspects of my life that I do have some
ability to influence. And in times of difficult challenge I
can give thanks for the future, knowing that even as day
turns into night, and spring turns into summer, that my bad
luck will turn into good luck, my sadness will turn to joy.
Nothing stays the same, as long as we continue to breathe
and notice that change is inevitable.
5. Practices
Take a few moments when you are in a quiet space, to note
down four times/events/relationships in your life that were
seemingly very important at the time of occurrence. Best to
choose "two and two" meaning two times that you felt lucky
or blessed, and two times when you felt unlucky, or cursed.
Place these four events in the following order:
Lucky-Unlucky-Lucky-Unlucky. Now think of the first event
and do whatever works for you to revivify your memory. For
most folks I would suggest closing one's eyes while doing
this, but this is not crucial. As you revivify your memory,
notice what you feel and don't feel in your body, and notice
your breathing, posture, and tiny rocking movements if any.
Carry on until you feel like you have been able to notice
your somatic memory of the experience, along with the visual
and auditory components of your memory.
Open your eyes and take some terse notes about what you
noticed in regard to your breathing, posture, tiny rocking
movements, and any other parts of your somatic experience.
When you are done with your notetaking, takea deep breath,
and move around some until you feel like you have come back
to "neutral."
When ready, do the above again alternately with the three
remaining memories (Unlucky, Lucky, Unlucky). Again, in each
instance when done, note your somatic experience in detail,
and then shake out and come to neutral.
If you are able to follow this kind of process with any
success, you should definitely notice that a number of
physical/somatic variables are different depending on which
type of memory you are revivifying, "lucky or unlucky". If
indeed you can notice the differences, over the course of
time you can experiment with changing the physical variables
of your memories in order to change the way you feel about
your past experiences. The theory being: If you
significantly change the way you use your body when thinking
about, remembering, or taking part in, specific experiences,
you will significantly change the quality of your
experience, and how you feel about what transpires. This can
turn out to be quite a powerful learning.
And no matter what, if you look back at times that you
initially thought were quite horrible or devastating, isn't
it true that most of these events, over the course of time,
did not turn out to be nearly as devastating as you
initially felt they were? Certainly this has been my
experience.
And if you come across any Davie Crockett tattoos, I am
still in the market for one!
6. Suggested Books and Music
"Mind and Nature" by Gregory
Bateson
Gregory is difficult to understand on the first go around,
but incredibly rewarding once you do start to get a feel for
what he is on about. The essential unity of Mind and Nature
as described by Bateson has vast implications for our understanding
of ourselves and our place in the universe. A brilliant book
that can have a profound effect on how you think about life.
If you are into NLP this book can also help you to understand
a lot of the theory that NLP was initially based upon.
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil is a world famous totally mind boggling circus
troupe that originated in Canada. Most any CD by them is great.
Two of my very favorites are "Saltimbanco" and "Quidam". Without
doing a complete check on all of their music, I do believe
that most of it has been composed by Benoit Jutras, but I
might be off here. Anyway, check their music out under "Cirque
du Soleil." Once again, I have Patrick and Marleen in Belgium
to thank for introducing me to this music.
7. Endnote and Invitation
Liselotte Baeijaert, a trainer and coach in Belgium says: I
want to contribute something precious to me, by giving the
name of a CD that I listened to at least one hundred times,
including when I was in labour with my two sons and a
daughter. The CD I want to suggest is called "Chants of
India" and it is by Ravi Shankar. This music has a very
intense effect on me: It makes me feel quiet, peaceful,
accepting, and comforted. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as
me!
We invite you to send in
a) Questions and comments
relating to what you read here.
b) Experiences that relate
to the "Practices" presented.
c) The names of books/music/services/products,
etc. you feel might be of interest to the Seishindo community.
Please include a short write-up about your selections. Let
us know whether or not it is OK to have your name appear with
the information you share. We will do our best to address
most if not all input. Please send all input to seishindo@seishindo.org.
8. Links
http://www.nlpu.com
The main teachers in this high quality NLP organization are
Judith Delozier and Robert Dilts. Not only are Judith and
Robert first class teachers and innovators, but they are two
wonderful human beings as well. The NLPU site has a wealth
of information about various aspects of NLP, so it is well
worth checking out.
9. Copyright | [un]Subscribe
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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