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Over the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing the 14 primary themes in our book, Rituals for Transformation. It’s a 108-day process with a short lesson each day, designed to help people release baggage, pain, and stories, and welcome a life of greater freedom, joy, peace, and connection. Today we’ll look at the last four of these “avenues for awakening.”
Courage
Courage may seem like one of those virtues you read about in fairy tales that seems to have little to do with being happy or successful in today’s world. In actuality, the presence or absence of courage can have a massive impact on our quality of life. It takes courage to choose a path that differs from what others expect of us. It takes courage to make hard communications. It takes courage to stand up for the truth. It takes courage to challenge our own thoughts. It takes courage to willingly be uncomfortable. It takes courage to enter the unknown.
And it takes choosing our own path, making hard communications, standing up for the truth, challenging our own thoughts, willingly being uncomfortable, and entering the unknown to have a life of true freedom and unrestrained potential.
The lessons in this theme deal with working through fear, forgiving ourselves for not always being strong, trusting in the Universe, tapping into our power, and accessing an experience of safety that transcends the impermanence of this human life.
Vision and Perspective
Vision and perspective are two facets of inner seeing that give us great power. When we speak of vision in the book, we mean the ability to see the truth (beyond all stories and interpretations) and the ability to envision as part of our creative power. And when we speak of perspective we mean the ability to choose where we place our focus and how we interpret what happens. Many of the happiest people we’ve met are great at continually seeing through the drama and holding an inner image of a good life. As we see it, optimists are just people who are in the habit of choosing positive interpretations (and anyone can learn to do this).
The lessons in this category are intended to help readers access their vision and actively choose their perspective. There are a number of invitations to “try out” certain perspectives, applying them as often as possible to daily life to experience what happens – such as “Every hardship is an opportunity,” and “I choose to focus on the blessings in my life,” and “Who would I be if I had no resistance?” and “My flexibility allows me to respond with grace to what life brings.” We also practice seeing reality beyond the mind and remaining conscious of the vision we’re holding of ourselves and the world.
Receiving
The creative power I mentioned above is something that’s received a lot of attention in books and videos over the past several decades – such as those on the Law of Attraction (e.g., The Secret) and Conversations with God. The recognition and conscious exercise of this power enables us to play, to turn our vision into reality, and to create something different if we don’t like the current story.
However, we felt there’s been too little emphasis on the other half of the equation: receiving. The ancient text called the I Ching or Book of Changes is an exploration of the fundamental forces and dynamics of nature – and how they also pertain to all aspects of humans’ lives. The 64 chapters of the book, with names like Peace, Stagnation, Conflict, Temptation, Adaptation, Danger, Attraction, and Retreat, are presented in a deliberate order. The book starts with The Creative or Creative Power – it’s the expression of pure yang. And chapter two is called The Receptive or Receiving, the expression of pure yin. Each needs the other. The remaining 62 qualities all follow from these two.
What good is it to set a creation into motion if we can’t recognize and receive it when it manifests? It seems silly to think that someone would do this, yet it happens all the time. It’s so common to focus excessively on what’s wrong that we frequently fail to notice that what we’ve asked for has come to us. Receiving is more vital than one might think. If we fail to receive, it’s not merely that we’re walking away from the vending machine before the candy drops down; what’s more detrimental is that we don’t get to see that our creative power works.
You might think as you’re reading this, “If I asked for money and money came to me, you can bet I would receive it!” But receiving goes beyond putting it in your pocket. Another interpretation of this dynamic in the I Ching is Yielding or Responding. It’s like you’re both the lead and the follower in a partner dance. When you utilize your creative power, you’re the lead. Being the follower entails responding, yielding, changing even, based on what transpires next. It means not just that you accept your gift, but that you become the person who is the natural and grateful recipient of that gift – and any feeling of lack associated with the original request ceases.
Expansion and Contraction
Our final theme, and really the whole gist of the book, is to encourage expansion of consciousness. For most people, our everyday consciousness is occupied almost entirely by our thoughts and emotions, often about the past and future. Our sense of who we are is a concept constructed from the history of what has happened to us, the roles we’ve adopted, and our redundant thoughts about all of this. As such, we’re immersed in something other than the truth and depth of reality, which is always happening right now.
When we allow some space into the picture (as through meditation and spiritual practice) so that our ego doesn’t dominate the whole of our awareness, we begin to recognize that consciousness is bigger than our thoughts and feelings. It contains them and it allows us to witness them. It’s always present, it’s always now, it’s always still, it’s beyond conflict, and it’s eternal. And it’s more who we really are than the short-lived character we tend to get wrapped up in playing.
Expansion of consciousness also occurs spontaneously at times, when we witness great beauty, or tremendous kindness, hear an inspiring story, or through another form of grace. Usually we return to our contracted state – often the moment we reach for our phone – but these peeks into expanded consciousness can change us in a lasting way. We never forget what we’ve experienced, and that glimpse of awakening yearns to awaken us even more.
Along the way, we’ll also have times of intense contraction – especially when a period of expansion takes us out of the ego’s comfort zone. Sometimes it occurs right after a spiritual experience or a profound healing. Then suddenly we’re fabulously unenlightened. We’re starting fights, we’re depressed, we’re cranky, we’re petty. “Why is this happening?!” we may think, “I thought I had come so far!”
The lessons in this section address how to recognize a contracted state, stop fighting it, and move through it gracefully. Primarily, though, they speak to how we can expand. Some of these lessons are: When I expand my consciousness the world is freed; I can exchange my burdens for grace; I awaken to my true identity; and Everything I see is the play of Divine Love. Wouldn't it be lovely to embody these sentiments?
I hope I’ve conveyed just how much intention and love we put into this book. We want nothing more than for people to read it, practice it, and experience greater freedom, joy, and connection. Please check it out and share your experience with us.
Love,
Peter
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Later this week Briana and I will be hosting the Illuminator Training – part of Dragontree Life Coaching Program – and we’ll spend four days in a very special space. It’s going to be at our house, and while I think our house is a special physical space, the space I’m talking about here is something different. I really mean that we’ll be in a special state of consciousness – one in which people feel safe to really see themselves and others, to be in loving community, to learn and heal.
I am both proud and humbled to co-create such a space. When I write or talk about it, it’s hard not to feel I’m exaggerating; so much positive change occurs in such a short time. For me, it reinforces the value of what we teach in the course – primarily the value of holding space.
The first handful of times I heard the term “hold space” I regarded it as New Age jargon and didn’t give it serious consideration. Once I was 20-something at a big dance event and the movie Baraka was being projected onto the walls. Amidst beautiful, sometimes haunting imagery, we were taken to an egg factory. There were conveyor belts and metal chutes along which were tumbling thousands and thousands of fuzzy yellow chicks. Attendants casually pulled them out by a wing and then tossed half of them (the males) down a giant funnel (into a grinder). The remainder were de-beaked, and in the next scene they were sickly and missing feathers, crammed into stacks upon stacks of wire cages.
There was a sudden collective moan of sorrow through the crowd. Someone shouted, “Breathe! Hold space for them!” And I thought, “What does that even mean?”
Well, now I know what it means and I think it was good advice – not just to hold space for the chicks, but to hold space for everyone involved. I also think that the term “hold space” is perfect for describing this practice. It’s an art, really. It comes naturally to some people but not most, and many gifted healers, teachers, and guides are skilled at it even if they’ve never heard the term.
Holding space has a few meanings for me. First, it means to become a neutral, benevolent container for what’s happening. That is, hold this moment in your awareness – ideally until some resolution or balance has developed. This entails giving your attention to what’s happening right here, right now and supporting its natural unfoldment.
When we’re holding space, we’re not trying to diagnose, fix anything, or come up with the answer. We’re not trying to be impressive or spiritual, and we’re not hoping to get approval. And we’re not departing from the task at hand to meander into the forest of our own thoughts.
Second, holding space means focusing on and protecting the space itself – maintaining an opening. By space here, I mean the formless consciousness that is the Universe – the matrix from which all objects (things, feelings, ideas) arise. You could also call it God or Undifferentiated Awareness or Spirit. It’s the bulk of the iceberg of reality, while the stuff that tends to get 99.9% of our attention is the very tip. Because space is more ethereal than form, it not only surrounds everything, but also exists within everything.
When we happen upon a moment when our consciousness is on the space (rather than engrossed in its contents), it usually feels good – our stories fall away and we expand into that space (because we are the space!). But the ego doesn’t like it. “Hey! Don’t forget about me!” it yells. “Come back! I’ve got some juicy gossip and some intense fears and a long list of grievances with the world!”
It seems crazy to go back to that – a reality marked largely by conflict and resistance – but we all do it. The ego is hooked up our survival mechanisms and it’s able to produce some compelling thoughts and feelings which shrink our consciousness like a turtle pulling into its shell. “It’s smelly and dark and crowded in here,” some part of us registers, “but it’s familiar.”
So, holding space in the second sense means maintaining the space – staying expanded, bringing in and honoring Spirit. We prevent encroachment upon or eclipsing of that space mainly by abstaining from the compulsion to fill it up with our stuff.
In the case of the chicken scene, it would have been a difficult setting in which to hold space for all the layers needing illumination (from the suffering of innocent creatures, to the knowing that we are complicit in this if we buy chicken, eggs, or pet food, and so on). But there are opportunities for space-holding all the time, and I see the magic of it so clearly at these Illuminator trainings – the magic of a whole room of coaches holding space for one individual to see themselves, heal, and blossom.
Holding space isn’t just for a formal coach-client or healer-patient setting, it’s a practice by which the mundane becomes holy, and we can do it all the time. At first (and sometimes later) it can feel like hard work. It takes discipline to stop thinking and to instead hold your attention on the Now. It takes trust to not intervene or analyze. But it’s deeply rewarding.
When you hold space for someone, even if they don’t know what you’re doing, they tend to experience that spaciousness. There’s more space between their thoughts. There’s a broadening of perspective and they access their resources. They begin to open and heal. Your space-holding is like a bridge that helps them connect with their Higher Self.
You can hold space for anything, for any and every moment. Things that are naturally riveting – like a baby being born – can be easier to hold space for because they’re so uncommon and so obviously miraculous. However, there’s much to be learned and experienced through holding space for the “everyday” – for the blowing of a tree in the breeze, for the dripping of a water faucet, for the barking of a dog. One of the most fundamental yet profound meditative practices is to simply hold space for your own breath. Let’s both hold space for whatever is happening right now for the next thirty seconds.
Mmmm. That was good. It reminded me of something I wanted to tell you: thinking is optional. I know we all have times when we can’t seem to turn off our mind, but just as you can stop talking aloud, you can stop talking inside. It’s an expression of reverence for the space to take a break from talking once in a while.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => What is "Holding Space"?
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the fourteen main themes in our book, Rituals for Transformation. It’s a 108-day process for clearing away the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that get in the way of living a present, peaceful, ecstatic life. And it works! Let’s look at a few more of these themes now.
Self-Trust, Integrity, and the Power of the Word
Although these are three different things, they all tie together neatly. One of the main reasons people feel anxious, unsafe, or overwhelmed is that we don’t trust ourselves. The same is true for why we don’t create the life we’ve dreamed of – we don’t trust ourselves. And we don’t trust ourselves because we don’t really understand or honor the power of our word.
We use our word (mentally or aloud) to disparage ourselves and others, and to judge and complain. We use our word to make agreements (with others and ourselves) that we don’t keep. Using our word this way causes us to focus on the negative, it diminishes our integrity, and it squelches our power. This makes it difficult to trust ourselves – not only because of these effects, but also because we see ourselves doing this to ourselves.
When we’re looking at how an exceptional life is built – how we fully and consciously utilize our creative power – self-trust and integrity need to be part of the foundation. The lessons within this theme deal first with recognizing the impact of our words – how they affect both our inner experience and our outer reality. Then we move into making the choice to be intentional with our words and witnessing what happens, so that we can learn to trust ourselves and come into our power.
Self-Worth
Self-worth is closely tied to the previous theme. When we are conscious of our worth, we’re less likely to obstruct the expression of this worth by living in negative stories about ourselves, not honoring our word, thwarting our creative power, etc.
Whereas self-esteem is a value that can wax and wane, a quality that is defined in the context of our interpersonal relationships, self-worth never varies. You are Consciousness itself. You are undiminishable. You transcend every form of valuation or limitation humans have come up with. Your every moment could be spent in awe, gratitude, peace, joy, and beauty.
Most of us have a lot of programming that gets in the way of remembering this, but most of us can also access a place in our awareness where we know it’s true. The part of us that knows we didn’t come here to cower from life, or to spend our days watching Netflix, or to be always waiting for a future when things will be the way we want them to be.
When we’re conscious of our true worth, this obliterates any perception of ourselves as broken, sinful, or undeserving. Further, when we’re conscious of our worth, we want to share it. We want to serve and contribute. We want to help others experience their worth. And regardless of our ability to do this through our various acts, simply owning our self-worth is empowering to others. Or, as we say in the book, As I claim my light, so is the world illuminated.
Purpose
The next avenue for awakening, life purpose, is also connected to the two previous themes. When we have a sense of our worth, we want to live on purpose – meaning, doing things intentionally, rather than by habit or because of our conditioning. Moreover, we may want to clarify a single overarching purpose toward which the trajectory of our life is aligned.
Sometimes this happens in the reverse order. That is, we’re not really conscious of our worth to begin with, but we choose a purpose anyway and start living in alignment with it, and then we witness our worth in the world – in the eyes of our fellow humans.
The idea of life purpose can be daunting sometimes. Many of our students have expressed concern that they can’t figure it out or it might be wrong. Given that most people have lived without any intentional purpose so far, choosing and living in accordance with any noble purpose feels significant. Only by choosing and living a particular purpose can we discover what happens when we give ourselves over to the guidance of Spirit (our Higher Self). Resources come to us, momentum builds, and we find ourselves in a flow state.
If these concepts sound appealing to you, I would love for you to join us in this process! It’s only 108 days, and it takes just a few minutes each morning and night, plus a willingness to keep the lesson in mind throughout your daily activities. You can do it. And you’ll be a freer, lighter, more self-aware person on the other side.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => Claim your Light and Illuminate the World
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Over the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing the 14 primary themes in our book, Rituals for Transformation. It’s a 108-day process with a short lesson each day, designed to help people release baggage, pain, and stories, and welcome a life of greater freedom, joy, peace, and connection. Today we’ll look at the last four of these “avenues for awakening.”
Courage
Courage may seem like one of those virtues you read about in fairy tales that seems to have little to do with being happy or successful in today’s world. In actuality, the presence or absence of courage can have a massive impact on our quality of life. It takes courage to choose a path that differs from what others expect of us. It takes courage to make hard communications. It takes courage to stand up for the truth. It takes courage to challenge our own thoughts. It takes courage to willingly be uncomfortable. It takes courage to enter the unknown.
And it takes choosing our own path, making hard communications, standing up for the truth, challenging our own thoughts, willingly being uncomfortable, and entering the unknown to have a life of true freedom and unrestrained potential.
The lessons in this theme deal with working through fear, forgiving ourselves for not always being strong, trusting in the Universe, tapping into our power, and accessing an experience of safety that transcends the impermanence of this human life.
Vision and Perspective
Vision and perspective are two facets of inner seeing that give us great power. When we speak of vision in the book, we mean the ability to see the truth (beyond all stories and interpretations) and the ability to envision as part of our creative power. And when we speak of perspective we mean the ability to choose where we place our focus and how we interpret what happens. Many of the happiest people we’ve met are great at continually seeing through the drama and holding an inner image of a good life. As we see it, optimists are just people who are in the habit of choosing positive interpretations (and anyone can learn to do this).
The lessons in this category are intended to help readers access their vision and actively choose their perspective. There are a number of invitations to “try out” certain perspectives, applying them as often as possible to daily life to experience what happens – such as “Every hardship is an opportunity,” and “I choose to focus on the blessings in my life,” and “Who would I be if I had no resistance?” and “My flexibility allows me to respond with grace to what life brings.” We also practice seeing reality beyond the mind and remaining conscious of the vision we’re holding of ourselves and the world.
Receiving
The creative power I mentioned above is something that’s received a lot of attention in books and videos over the past several decades – such as those on the Law of Attraction (e.g., The Secret) and Conversations with God. The recognition and conscious exercise of this power enables us to play, to turn our vision into reality, and to create something different if we don’t like the current story.
However, we felt there’s been too little emphasis on the other half of the equation: receiving. The ancient text called the I Ching or Book of Changes is an exploration of the fundamental forces and dynamics of nature – and how they also pertain to all aspects of humans’ lives. The 64 chapters of the book, with names like Peace, Stagnation, Conflict, Temptation, Adaptation, Danger, Attraction, and Retreat, are presented in a deliberate order. The book starts with The Creative or Creative Power – it’s the expression of pure yang. And chapter two is called The Receptive or Receiving, the expression of pure yin. Each needs the other. The remaining 62 qualities all follow from these two.
What good is it to set a creation into motion if we can’t recognize and receive it when it manifests? It seems silly to think that someone would do this, yet it happens all the time. It’s so common to focus excessively on what’s wrong that we frequently fail to notice that what we’ve asked for has come to us. Receiving is more vital than one might think. If we fail to receive, it’s not merely that we’re walking away from the vending machine before the candy drops down; what’s more detrimental is that we don’t get to see that our creative power works.
You might think as you’re reading this, “If I asked for money and money came to me, you can bet I would receive it!” But receiving goes beyond putting it in your pocket. Another interpretation of this dynamic in the I Ching is Yielding or Responding. It’s like you’re both the lead and the follower in a partner dance. When you utilize your creative power, you’re the lead. Being the follower entails responding, yielding, changing even, based on what transpires next. It means not just that you accept your gift, but that you become the person who is the natural and grateful recipient of that gift – and any feeling of lack associated with the original request ceases.
Expansion and Contraction
Our final theme, and really the whole gist of the book, is to encourage expansion of consciousness. For most people, our everyday consciousness is occupied almost entirely by our thoughts and emotions, often about the past and future. Our sense of who we are is a concept constructed from the history of what has happened to us, the roles we’ve adopted, and our redundant thoughts about all of this. As such, we’re immersed in something other than the truth and depth of reality, which is always happening right now.
When we allow some space into the picture (as through meditation and spiritual practice) so that our ego doesn’t dominate the whole of our awareness, we begin to recognize that consciousness is bigger than our thoughts and feelings. It contains them and it allows us to witness them. It’s always present, it’s always now, it’s always still, it’s beyond conflict, and it’s eternal. And it’s more who we really are than the short-lived character we tend to get wrapped up in playing.
Expansion of consciousness also occurs spontaneously at times, when we witness great beauty, or tremendous kindness, hear an inspiring story, or through another form of grace. Usually we return to our contracted state – often the moment we reach for our phone – but these peeks into expanded consciousness can change us in a lasting way. We never forget what we’ve experienced, and that glimpse of awakening yearns to awaken us even more.
Along the way, we’ll also have times of intense contraction – especially when a period of expansion takes us out of the ego’s comfort zone. Sometimes it occurs right after a spiritual experience or a profound healing. Then suddenly we’re fabulously unenlightened. We’re starting fights, we’re depressed, we’re cranky, we’re petty. “Why is this happening?!” we may think, “I thought I had come so far!”
The lessons in this section address how to recognize a contracted state, stop fighting it, and move through it gracefully. Primarily, though, they speak to how we can expand. Some of these lessons are: When I expand my consciousness the world is freed; I can exchange my burdens for grace; I awaken to my true identity; and Everything I see is the play of Divine Love. Wouldn't it be lovely to embody these sentiments?
I hope I’ve conveyed just how much intention and love we put into this book. We want nothing more than for people to read it, practice it, and experience greater freedom, joy, and connection. Please check it out and share your experience with us.
Love,
Peter
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Wonderful tips! I write in my gratitude journal every morning after exercising, eating a health breakfast and meditation to acknowledge and thank the Universe for all my blessings.
What great practices, Donna!
I have spent the last 30 years slowing closing my heart. It was necessary protection at the time. But now, I am older and alone. And I don’t need those protections anymore. Learning how to feel is a gracious process. And a long, frustrating one. I’m not there yet. I am encouraged when I receive your emails. Thank you.
Hi Holly. Yes, it just becomes a habit. And it’s not something most of us look forward to dealing with, since it necessarily involves time, work, and feeling a lot of old stuff that we never wanted to feel. But I’m glad you recognize it & are in the opening process. Open, open, open, open, every moment open…
Thank you so much, what a lovely article.
And so timely as well. I often experience pain around my heart center and I feel it has to do mostly with emotions and being a very sensitive person.
This morning I experienced more acute pain than usual and then received a call that a close friend in Texas was a having a heart attack. Besides being very worried an for her I am also worried for my own health. So I found this in my email and it was quite a comfort.
thank you again, Love-Peace-Blessings
jeni cowick
Hi Jeni,
It sounds like your heart is trying to help you. I’m glad you’re listening.
Be well,
Peter