Telling Family Stories
Where do I begin the story? The moving to California, moving back to Ohio after 8 years out West? It matters where one begins a story, because where you begin the, determines the context in which it can be understood, and felt. As families, why do we choose to tell certain stories, and why do we leave other ones out? Does it MATTER?
We are at a time where many of us are realizing how much PLACE matters. Energy needs to be placed where, and with whom it BELONGS, at the precise TIME. So does attention, or PRESENCE...
We are seeing that energy really DOES follow Attention, and when all of this is aligned, miracles HAPPEN.
Lynne
.
The Practice of Transparent Communication
"...maturity is recognized through a disciplined refusal to choose between or isolate three powerful dynamics shaping human identity: what has already happened, what is happening now and what is about ...to occur... " David Whyte
"...maturity is recognized through a disciplined refusal to choose between or isolate three powerful dynamics shaping human identity: what has already happened, what is happening now and what is about ...to occur... " David Whyte
How do we learn how to hold the past and the future in the present moment? What is it like to be felt, held and witnessed in those moments? That is what I am coming to learn through the practice of Transparent Communication. I cannot really explain how it works, I can only share my experience it. I am blessed and grateful to be studying with Thomas Huebl and the Academy of Inner Science
ESSENTIAL MOMENTS: Waiting for the “cut”
I am sitting here this morning looking at the drawing I taped above my desk. It is a drawing of a flower petal exercise I experienced as a part of a Thomas Huebl US Practice Group Leader Training. It was held at the Institute of Noetic Science (IONS) in Petaluma California. They are having a conference next week and it is not too late to join in the fun! Such beautiful land, incredibly caring people. and an exploration of a path to BEING love in action.
I am re-membering the exercise, looking at a bunch of words I had written on the paper. My eyes fall on the word unworthy. Immediately, my heart sinks, I feel the hot flame of shame rumble up from my belly and scorch my throat. Instead of turning away, I am curious about this unworthy one and I stop pushing that one away. I think about what this means to me and begin to understand the phrase, “Whatever is the most personal, is also the most universal.” Everyone has feelings of unworthiness at some point. To me, it is a matter of varying intensity. When the intensity is titrated properly, it can be felt and digested without overwhelming the nervous system. Areas that do not have the support to be felt will be numbed out in some way in an effort to preserve the “system.”
As I sit, I remember my breath and stay with the sick feeling of unworthiness in the pit of my stomach. The flame in my throat begins to recede. It is weird to me how this just happens. I follow the heat downwards and touch the emotional energy trapped in my pelvic bowl. I feel the depth and weight of the emotion of grief stored there. I re-member after the flower petal exercise, I got together with two of my classmates to talk with each other. In the Academy of Inner Science work, it is called it a triad.
In the triad we experimented with one another using the specific practice we are learning called Transparent Communication. During one of my triad partners time to share, she said, “I don’t usually cry in front of people because once I start crying, I am afraid I won’t stop.” I re-member how my mother used to say that same sentence. As I look into my classmates’ eyes, my heart floods with compassion and she is both herself and my mother. I say a silent prayer for them both. When it is time for feedback, I ask her if I can take a risk and share something and then say a phrase. She says yes.
I say, “My mother’s life experience is much like yours and she would say that frequently. My greatest fear is she died without knowing self-forgiveness. When I tell you that, I feel a lot of grief starting to come up in me.” Tears stung my eyes and I felt a lump in my throat.
The words, ‘Forgive Yourself’ come into my awareness. I feel fear in my gut and I tap into my heart. I feel shaky. I take a breath, I hear a whisper in my head saying, ‘Take a Risk’. I say, “Yes.” Tears well up in my eyes and I say, “Forgive yourself.” She starts to cry.
I, along with another classmate, just sit with her and energetically hold her in her tears in silence. She talks about her fears of not ever being able to stop crying. I feel disorientation and confusion. Is it my mother that I am feeling, my classmate, or myself? Maybe all of them? The confusion settles and clears and I continue to hold the connection with my other classmates, and together we meet in “the space between us” and her tears subside. We fall into silence.
The energy settles in the silence and our breath falls into a synchronistic rhythm within it. The exercise is over, and we all express that we feel more space inside our bodies, and we share a sense of connection, love, and peace that feels very healing.
I am back in my room now in Oakland (even though I never left) and I can feel the unworthy one relaxing as I take a deep breath and sink deeper into my body with a little smile and an AHHHH.
Namaste
Satisfaction
CONDITIONS OF SATISFACTION
The most important part the game seems to be the conditions of satisfaction: Who gets to decide? And for whom?
On whose behalf are you creating? To what end? What is Our purpose? Our raison d'etre? Our reason for BEING?Are we all aligned? we may not agree, but are we aligned? Do we know how we are related by the way we are relating? And do we have the courage and curiosity to keep asking the questions?
ELECTRO- MAGNETISM
Actually, you don't even need research. You can bring to mind an event that "shocked" you, and re-member that feeling in your body. We can learn how to hold the shock of stimuli. Maybe it doesn't stay stuck then? Maybe it just flows. Or maybe it gets stuck until erupts into another BIG BANGmoment? Have you ever done that out of Anger? When something precious was violated?
BOUNDARIED OPENNESS
As the world evolves and changes, we see so much disruption in the world. I often wonder if breakdowns really do lead to breakthroughs? The body is an open system, a semi-permeable membrane. It has a wisdom and intelligence if we learn how to interpret it's signals. Feeling the profound grief in the world can be a testament to how very much we love it. It is amazing how the darkest times can add depth and texture to the experiences of our lives.
to There are ways to keep the space around the HEART-OPEN. A wise membrane keeps the Cell of the Heart Nourished. It supports the organism to keep itself at optimal functioning.
How do we know when we are are at Optimal Functioning? Do we ever, REALLY know? What seems to support living with an open heart is to hold the instrument tenderly, feel the pulse, and rotate gently.
And oh yeah, don't forget to BREATHE
How do we learn to hold love and fear at the same time? How do we absorb the "shocks" life brings us and remain grounded in our bodies?
““My body’s been touched a thousand or more times but I am craving something so much deeper than that ~ I desire to be felt, right down to the core of my soul and the corners of my heart. That’s what love is about isn’t it ~ cracking yourself open to the possibility that it could change your life.”
Poem
LIFE IS
a series of conversations
between "self" and "other."
It begins with an energetic
impulse which brings us to LIFE.
It brings us out of the darkness,
Through the light
and into a system
A Family System.
Evolution is
kept in motion by asking questions like:
Who am I?
Who are you?
How are WE related?
Are WE relating?
Where do WE BEGIN?
How will WE END?
WILL WE END?
What is a Vow?
Living in this uncertain time brings many questions for most of us. I think an important one is "How do we find our place in the transition of our current reality?" What I have been curious about is the topic of VOWS. In particular, the kind of vows we make as a conscious world-centric family. How is our definition of Family changing? How are Families created by the words we use, the decisions we make, and the internal and external movements we pay attention to? I believe it is important for us to learn how to find stillness within ourselves so we can learn to be danced by the movements of life. Life being a series of continued discoveries of what is new and what is next in each moment. What are the conversations waiting to be birthed? What are the vows we want to take together in this very important time?
What are Vows, anyway? To me, they are commitments we consciously and willingly make with great intention. They come from the deepest part of the heart. The first commitment is always the one we make within ourselves. Only then can we make a commitment with our families. our friends, a partner or a spouse, a profession, an organization, a tribe, a nation, an ideal, or a higher calling. What I find most interesting is the place where they all inter-relate. I call that "finding the thread that connects us---that one binds us all." And you cannot ever let go of that thread, because that thread never let's go of you.
A vow is something that protects the intuitive “knowing” of the place we belong, both which bring us more fully in our wholeness. How do we know our place? Does it change? Vows are promises we make to ourselves and one another to help each other belong. The purpose of belonging is to evolve as a species; to use our thoughts, words and actions in order to develop a deeper meaning and an embodied understanding of the purpose of our species over time.
I believe we know it first and foremost by developing an intimacy with our own body/mind, which contains our brains, our hearts, and our guts and comprises our Spirits. This is why I became a nurse. How they all work together as a system fascinates me. And any system is always trying to find balance. It seems we come into balance or harmony when we have a felt sense of how everything relates to everything else. When everything is in its proper place, then we have a sense of wholeness, of belonging. It seems that when we cannot find a place of belonging within our inner landscapes, we begin to live a life of isolation, and separate ourselves from our outer world. Who are the real people in our lives that are willing to "show up" when we need support? Do we have the courage to reach out and ask for support?
Our words and deeds carry weight, they have substance. They carry different densities of energy and different frequencies. We can learn to experience and embody these frequencies and allow them to move in us/with us/and through us. The energy of our thoughts, words, and actions make a difference. It seems to me that it all begins with a conversation, an inquiry into discovering something as it truly is---in relation to and with something else. What and how much we will risk in bringing these energies and frequencies forward by staying with our own bodies and finding “right relation” with ourselves and others is a question we need to continually ask ourselves. We do this every time we authentically share our thoughts, words, and actions (=responses) with others. This is the concept of Transparent Communication. These energetic movements are what create our world. Inquiries bring about dialogue which support us to live into the answers to these questions.
We make these kinds of commitments both big and small every time we make a decision, even if it is just something as simple as creating a Facebook Post or not…or sending that email we wanted to send and are afraid to. We navigate the energetic complexity that lies between the desire for autonomy and need for communion. That is the line humans walk. The razors edge that lies between belonging and becoming.
It requires a certain kind of surrender, anallowing. What is it to embody surrender? What are we consenting to allow? How do we hold both the shadow and the light? Surrendering into and allowing in-and then expressing itself outward to create something---something greater than our individual human forms, greater than our individual organizations, countries, and maybe our world. In what ways are we giving our time, attention, and/or Presence to one another? Do we also have the capacity to receive? To be open? To be nurtured? To be healed?
These are some of the questions I believe are important for our time because I like to imagine we are all on a voyage of discovering more of ourselves and one another than we ever believed possible. And the way it works is you have to take a Vow. This kind of consenting carries a different weight, and it brings in energy from the space around us. This kind of discovery requires the capacity to see clearly, and take the time required for individual and collective discernment. It takes committed practice.
The kind of energies we are currently interested in exploring are the seemingly opposite energies of life or polarities. There is a paradoxical nature to life. What happens when we tune into the polarities horizontally and vertically from the spaces in between them? How free are we to actually choose our vows? How much of ourselves do we choose to give? How many of us feel we have had something taken from us without our consent?
We will be discovering together what it means to consent to bring yourself into the world as a co-creator. What is it to to consent to another from this place of transparency and authenticity? What is it to bring a child into this world from this place? To consent parent or co-parent a child who is not biologically your own? What if the child develops “learning disabilities” or a drug addiction? How do we navigate this from a collective perspective?
What about the consent required of a family with an aging parent? Are you aligned as a family during the death of your parents? What happens to children when that happens? What is it to consent together as families? As a collectives of family? How do we utilize practices that help us integrate and stay in alignment as a global social witness that is also participating in the Dance of Life?
This is what It's 'Just' a Conversation" is about. About the conscious and unconscious vows we make. It is what we choose to re-member and restore. I believe we have to be willing to re-member all of it through the gift of our bodies in order embody the wholeness of life.
Please stay tuned to learn how you can participate in our research projects on Inter-generational Collective Healing: The Imagination Project, Parent Vows and Feedback for Hire.
Blessing to each and all of us as we continue our journey as a Family.
What is a Vow?
Living in this uncertain time brings many questions for most of us. I think an important one is "How do we find our place in the transition of our current reality?" What I have been curious about is the topic of intergenerational healing and how the things we consent to; consciously or unconsciously, create our shared reality. What are the kind of vows we need to make as a conscious world-centric family?
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe North Dakota Pipeline
What is a VOW?
Living in this uncertain time brings many questions for most of us. I think an important one is "How do we find our place in the transition of our current reality?" What I have been curious about is the topic of intergenerational healing and how the things we consent to; consciously or unconsciously create our shared reality. What are the kind of vows we need to make as a conscious world-centric family? How is our definition of Family changing? How are Families created by the words we use, the decisions we make, and the internal and external movements we pay attention to? I believe it is important for us to learn how to find stillness within ourselves so we can learn to be danced by the movements of life. Life being a series of continued discoveries of what is new and what is next in each moment. What are the conversations waiting to be birthed? What are the vows we want to take together in this very important time?
What are Vows, anyway? To me, they are commitments we consciously and willingly make with great intention. They come from the deepest part of the heart. The first commitment is always the one we make within ourselves. Only then can we make a commitment with our families. our friends, a partner or a spouse, a profession, an organization, a tribe, a nation, an ideal, or a higher calling. What I find most interesting is the place where they all inter-relate. I call that "finding the thread that connects us---that one binds us all." And you cannot ever let go of that thread, because that thread never let's go of you.
A vow is something that protects the intuitive “knowing” of the place we belong, both which bring us more fully in our wholeness. How do we know our place? Does it change? Vows are promises we make to ourselves and one another to help each other belong. The purpose of belonging is to evolve as a species; to use our thoughts, words and actions in order to develop a deeper meaning and an embodied understanding of the purpose of our species over time.
I believe we know it first and foremost by developing an intimacy with our own body/mind, which contains our brains, our hearts, and our guts and comprises our Spirits. This is why I became a nurse. How they all work together as a system fascinates me. And any system is always trying to find balance. It seems we come into balance or harmony when we have a felt sense of how everything relates to everything else. When everything is in its proper place, then we have a sense of wholeness, of belonging. It seems that when we cannot find a place of belonging within our inner landscapes, we begin to live a life of isolation, and separate ourselves from our outer world. Who are the real people in our lives that are willing to "show up" when we need support? Do we have the courage to reach out and ask for support?
Our words and deeds carry weight, they have substance. They carry different densities of energy and different frequencies. We can learn to experience and embody these frequencies and allow them to move in us/with us/and through us. The energy of our thoughts, words, and actions make a difference. It seems to me that it all begins with a conversation, an inquiry into discovering something as it truly is---in relation to and with something else. What and how much we will risk in bringing these energies and frequencies forward by staying with our own bodies and finding “right relation” with ourselves and others is a question we need to continually ask ourselves. We do this every time we authentically share our thoughts, words, and actions (=responses) with others. This is the concept of Transparent Communication. These energetic movements are what create our world. Inquiries bring about dialogue which support us to live into the answers to these questions.
We make these kinds of commitments both big and small every time we make a decision, even if it is just something as simple as creating a Facebook Post or not…or sending that email we wanted to send and are afraid to. We navigate the energetic complexity that lies between the desire for autonomy and need for communion. That is the line humans walk. The razors edge that lies between belonging and becoming.
It requires a certain kind of surrender, an allowing. What is it to embody surrender? What are we consenting to allow? How do we hold both the shadow and the light? Surrendering into and allowing in-and then expressing itself outward to create something---something greater than our individual human forms, greater than our individual organizations, countries, and maybe our world. In what ways are we giving our time, attention, and/or Presence to one another? Do we also have the capacity to receive? To be open? To be nurtured? To be healed?
These are some of the questions I believe are important for our time because I like to imagine we are all on a voyage of discovering more of ourselves and one another than we ever believed possible. And the way it works is you have to take a Vow. This kind of consenting carries a different weight, and it brings in energy from the space around us. This kind of discovery requires the capacity to see clearly, and take the time required for individual and collective discernment. It takes committed practice.
The kind of energies we are currently interested in exploring are the seemingly opposite energies of life or polarities. There is a paradoxical nature to life. What happens when we tune into the polarities horizontally and vertically from the spaces in between them? How free are we to actually choose our vows? How much of ourselves do we choose to give? How many of us feel we have had something taken from us without our consent?
We will be discovering together what it means to consent to bring yourself into the world as a co-creator. What is it to to consent to another from this place of transparency and authenticity? What is it to bring a child into this world from this place? To consent parent or co-parent a child who is not biologically your own? What if the child develops “learning disabilities” or a drug addiction? How do we navigate this from a collective perspective?
What about the consent required of a family with an aging parent? Are you aligned as a family during the death of your parents? What happens to children when that happens? What is it to consent together as families? As a collectives of family? How do we utilize practices that help us integrate and stay in alignment as a global social witness that is also participating in the Dance of Life?
This is what It's 'Just' a Conversation" is about. About the conscious and unconscious vows we make. It is what we choose to re-member and restore. I believe we have to be willing to re-member all of it through the gift of our bodies in order embody the wholeness of life.
Please stay tuned to learn how you can participate in our research projects on Inter-generational Collective Healing: The Imagination Project, Parent Vows and others.
Blessing to each and all of us as we continue our journey as a Family.
“All True Vows
All the true vows
are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.
There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.
Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.
Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.
Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen
nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.
By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.
Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,
it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.
Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you
and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,
that way you’ll find
what is real and what is not.
I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.
Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years
in my own voice,
before it was too late.
to turn my face again.
”
Never Let Go of The Thread: What it means to be a family
That was 25 years ago, and I am still following the voice of the ONE who brought me here in order to be of service to our world. It is a time of great transformation in the way we know and learn about wellness and disease. I am gratefully excited to be walking this path with each of you reading this...and committed to the path of discovering new ways to look at IntegratingDNA into our collective journey of health and healing.
Parent Vows: What does it mean to live into your destiny? The one not given to you by fate? The one you were given by design. The Original YOU? The dream that is dreaming you?
I wonder about the dream that brought me here to this earth fairly often. I like to ponder things in my quiet moments. The one I have been pondering lately is coming out of the Parent Vows Project. I have talking to my father for a long time about the vow my parents made when they were thinking about conceiving each of us. My parents made a special vow... My Father has told me the story many times.
They laid each one of us on the altar of Our Lady of Loretto Church, and vowed before God that they would do their best to have a loving family. They promised they would gave us back to God.
What does IT mean to me? I have many privileges my mother and father did not have...and I get to fulfill a dream that my mother and father sacrificed on behalf of my brother and sisters. They did it in order to bring us here. It is one hell of a story.
My mother was at the Christ Hospital School of Nursing when she met and married my father. He was a handsome, well dressed, wealthy Sicilian man. And he adored her.
Back in those days, the hospitals had their own training programs. It was run like a convent. Nursing students could not be married. They worked long hours and lived in a dorm, and received training, room and board in exchange for their education. Their purpose was to support the doctors and the hospitals in the practice of medicine, but nurses started to apply the science of Florence Nightengale, and began to notice the patterns their education was bringing, and were trying to be a profession and claim their science.
Back in those days, nurses had to stand up when a doctor entered the room and if there was not place for him to sit, (it was most usually a him), they were expected to give up their seat. There were still very few University Programs, and many nurses had to get their doctoral dgrees in other disciplines. The profession was still very young, and my mother chose to get married and have children. She chose to leave the dream of her career behind. It was a different time in history. That is what many women did at that time. I believe that is why she got cancer. She repressed a lot during her life.
So how did I become a nurse? In my mid-twenties, I worked two jobs. During the week I worked at a home health agency as a coordinator, and also helped my father run his Balloon shop on the weekends. I liked listening to the nurses. The stories they told, and the patients I got to interact with when I scheduled the nurses' visits.
My partner at the time was a Certified Nurse Midwife. She had a very good intuitive sense. She held the energy of the ancient midwives. There was a part of her that kind of reminded me of a witch. It was pretty cool. We did shamanic drumming and hung out in nature and listened to women's music. We went to festivals, and had a full life. She also had a daughter. I had a family.
My partner had a vision one night when we were on a retreat in the Hocking Hills of Ohio. We went there to help me find clarity on my purpose, and to learn what that would mean for us as a family. It was a women's retreat center. It was so peaceful and beautiful there. The food was simple and prepared with care. It was fresh, country food, and the air was clean and crisp. The nature was incredible and I could feel something in me starting to come together.
We drank in the moonlight while sitting in the hot tub. We marveled at the infinite blackness of the night sky. With no city streetlights to dim the scattered constellations etched against the inky darkness, we often fell into companionable silence.
It was from that place that my nursing career was born. I had been seeing a career counselor. I needed to find a professional career, and my life purpose. I was 27 years old, and was struggling to find my place in the world.
My partner awoke from a dream at 4 am on the third night of our journey. She sat bolt upright in bed, and shouted, "I got it, you need to become a nurse."
I rejected the idea immediately. I told her my mother also wanted me to become a nurse, and I was not interested in fulfilling her unfulfilled life. My partner laughed at my stubbornness and started asking me questions. With each question, more clarity came and it seemed like nursing was a perfect fit for the life I wanted to create, and the life we were creating together. My resistance softened.
It met all of the criteria I had laid out with the career counselor, for not only what I wanted to do, more like a natural progression of who I was already was...and who I wanted to become. I am still living into who I was meant to be. In some way or another, aren't we all?
That was 25 years ago, and I am still following the voice of the ONE who brought me here in order to be of service to our world. It is a time of great transformation in the way we know and learn about wellness and disease. I am gratefully excited to be walking this path with each of you reading this...and committed to the path of discovering new ways to look at IntegratingDNA into our collective journey of health and healing.
The Thread of Life
“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.” William Stafford
Life begins and ends in a world of infinite possibilities. How do I ever truly know what direction to follow? I don't know that anyone can ever be completely certain of anything. The world seems like it is upside down to me sometimes. All of the unrest, the violence, the very earth upon which I walk crying out for care. How do I learn to live into an uncertain future?
And even as I write these words, I wonder if that is completely true? There does seem to be a kind of knowing that we tap into in our quiet moments. A subtle sense of being invited into the conversation of life.
It seems to me that it all comes down to a matter of trust. Trusting the innate wisdom of the body. The container, the structure that holds us, the thing that makes us human. Learning how to sense the subtle energetic movements of the body by listening deeply, and then courageously acting from that place of trust from moment to moment.
It does not seem to me to be so much about trusting if I do this or say that, everything will turn out the way I planned. Rather, trusting that life holds me, and there is always something to learn from taking an action, and staying curious about the feedback I receive. It is kind of like adjusting a sail in the wind. It requires a slowing down, a kind of inner attentiveness that can be cultivated over time.
That is what IntegratingDNA is really about. Learning how to follow the thread that runs through the center...so that in the end, I will know I did my best to allow myself to be weaved into the tapestry of life.
“The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.”