Stress Defense Blog

Dear friends and readers. I am happy to announce that I am back and excited to blog again! First of all I apologize for being lax in my writing, life has been very busy as of late. Second, I did not realize so many people have been reading my blog and found it so useful. I figured this out when it came time to upgrade my Wordpress software and saw all of the comments (over 400).  It was only then I realized how far behind I had fallen and of my need to upgrade my education on blog etiquette. Having said that, lets get back to business.

First Response
Your first response to any situation, issue or event is to breathe.  Before you react, before your judge, before you even think, breathe. Take a deep breath is not just a catch phrase we tell others when they are upset, it is the master key to connection and command. When you take a deep breath you make a connection to your center, your emotional body and your nervous system all in one fluid move.  When you take a conscious deep breath and give that breath your full attention, you integrate your mind, body and awareness. You make whole what was fragmented. Being whole is essential to being powerful.
First response is a mantra I repeat to my self all the time. As I say the words “first response” I take a deep breath and focus my full attention on what my breath feels like as well as what I am feeling physically and emotionally.  Every time I do this I realign my energies and strengthen my integrity. Every time I do this I take conscious command of my energy and my actions. Every time I do this I exercise my power of conscious choice instead of unconscious reaction.

Taking the deep breath is your preparation before you launch your energy and intention into action. It is also the first of  the “Four connections”, breath, center, ground and space.  Taking the deep breath gives you a moment to pause and check in with your command center before you attack. It gives you a moment to asses your feelings and your needs (the need to center yourself) before you respond to the issue at hand. That little pause is a huge shift in focus and energy. In the time it takes you to take one deep breath you can detach and let go of your fear of control, and shift your focus to connection( with self) and command. This is a paradigm shift from feeling powerless to being powerful, this is a shift from conditioned reaction to conscious command. In the space of one breath you can enter the neutral space of infinite possibility. From neutral you are free to see reality as it is, you are also free to choose from a limitless number of potential paths. The path you choose determines your future, all in one breath.

Command vs Control

You may have noticed I use the term “command” instead of control. What is the difference? Control is based on fear, the fear of not being in control or the fear of being out of control. Command is based on conscious response, command is the intention to take charge and lead the action in a direction of your choosing. I like the analogy of the captain of a ship. The captain is in command of the ship, he/she directs the action of the crew in a fashion that supports the efficient operation of the whole. A good captain is a good leader who inspires the crew to work like dogs and to take pride in working like a dog. That is true power. How does the captain do this? By making clear specific choices and committing to those choices even in the face of uncertainty. That my friends is very different from control. If the captain is obsessed with controlling the crew at all costs, the crew will lose faith and mutiny. Control for controls sake is an obsession that leads to disaster for the simple reason that no one can truly control anything without creating some imbalance. Control is stasis,it is an attempt to stop some thing from happening or changing. Lets take the example of an actor on the stage, (something I have personal experience with). If an actor tries to control an audience they will reject him. No one likes to be manipulated. An audience does however enjoy being lead on a journey by someone who is making clear specific choices and committing to those choices with passion. We will follow a good actor down the rabbit hole if he/she is not trying to MAKE us go there, even if it makes us uncomfortable. As I often tell my theater students, “you do not go on stage to NOT do something, you go on stage to DO something”, and that thing is to take command of the space and lead the attention of the audience in the direction you choose.

So how does this apply to self? First you must discern the difference between the two and recognize when you are attempting to control. How do you know when you are in control mode? By the level of fear you feel. If you are feeling fear and anxiety about the thing you are trying to control, your in control mode. The hallmark of command is clarity and courage. If I am clear about what I need to do and commit to that course of action I feel courage. This level of commitment is not about being “right” or “wrong” it is about making a clear choice and following through with it. At some point in your life you must take charge if you are to succeed. Taking charge and taking command are both leading with strength and courage even when your not sure of the outcome.

Making a clear choice

I have been working with a cancer patient for over two years now, a man in his eighties who has been fighting the good fight for almost thirty years. When I first met Herman he was very, very weak and on the verge of transitioning. He had the look of someone who knew how close to the edge he was. He asked me if I thought he could heal from his latest surgery, I asked him what his intention was. He looked puzzled, “what do you mean my intention?” Do you want to heal? His answer was of course I do! My next question was why? His reply was ” so I can walk on the beach with my wife”. Very clear and specific. “The first thing you need to do is learn how to breathe because breath is energy and you need lots of energy to heal”, and so we began. One deep breath at a time, one step closer to vitality. I have seen seen Herman through three rounds of radiation, seven rounds of chemotherapy and at least three low points where I was not sure if he would survive. And yet each time I thought he was ready to pack it in, he rallied and recovered. Its really quite amazing and nothing less than miraculous, and it all comes down to Herman making the choice to live, the choice to stand up on shaky legs and do his qiqong exercises even when he is overwhelmed with fatigue, the choice to take the next deep breath and extract another liter of energy into his lungs. I have learned so much about the POWER of choice from working with this amazing man.

“Self mastery is the act of aligning mind-body-spirit a thousand times a day.”

Ron NaVarre

Many of my students have this idealized image of me being calm, centered and grounded all day long 24/7. What they do not realize is I lose my center a thousand times a day, and a thousand times a day I realign my center. That is what gives me the appearance of being constantly grounded and centered. When I first began my journey toward self-mastery I mistakenly thought I was supposed to center myself once in the morning and then maintain that state all day long. No wonder I was so frustrated for so many years! Every time I would create center and ground myself something would either distract me or throw me off balance almost immediately. I felt like a constant failure and would compound my anxiety by telling myself I was weak or somehow deficient for not being able to sustain my calm state of being for more than a minute. This went on for a very long time and almost proved to be the end of me.  Now understand that this whole cycle of self-defeating frustration was based on a misconception and a fantasy of what I thought self mastery was-a constant state.  It only took me several years (more like a dozen) to realize the flaw in my fantasy logic. The only constant state is change itself. Life is a fluid state and so is self-mastery. The idea is to adapt to change constantly, a thousand times a day! Seems like a lot of work and it is, but the more you practice the easier and more effortless it becomes.

To master something is to become effortless in its action. To use just what you need to do the task, no more and no less. This is what is called “right effort” in Buddhism. I like that expression “right effort” because it’s not about being morally right, its about being efficient and effective. Right effort is economical, there is no waste, no excess and no deficiency. It’s just right! So how does one achieve self-mastery? Practice, practice, practice of course. If you want to be efficient and effective at anything you have to practice, every great athlete/artist knows that and so do you. What does practice mean? Some people would describe practice as hard work, I however think of practice as living in the moment. There is a difference. The common Idea of practice as hard work is what keeps people from practicing. Practice does not have to be hard or work it can actually be pleasurable and fun. Practice is process, it is the journey on your way to a destination of deeper meaning, experience and freedom.

When I hear people describe practice as hard  as in “hard work”what I hear them really saying is judgement and resistance. Hard=judgment of self and resistance to being judged by self or anyone else for that matter. No one likes the JUDGEMENT THING! We are brought up on judgment as a way to control and coerce our children into behaving properly (according to the societal norm otherwise known as mediocrity).  Judgement  is an effective tool to use if you want to prevent yourself or someone else from taking a risk or venturing into new territory. As long as judgement exists within the heart there can be no self-mastery, it will not allow it. How then do we stop judging or selves during our practice? One, by acknowledging the judgement  as something we borrow from someone else and two, by giving our full undivided attention to the task at hand. We are not born with self criticism we inherit it from others. Once you realize this you can then choose to either let it go or give it back to the one who bestowed it upon you.  I have learned it is more effective to observe my action without judgement than it is to judge my action without observing it. Observation in this sense is pure acknowledgement. I see what I am doing, how I am doing it and how effective my action is in fulfilling the task. If my action/technique is not effective then I am free to modify my effort/process until it is effective. I recommend you read the book Zen in the Art of Archery to better understand what I mean by this.

The path to self-mastery is a simple one. Practice until your action becomes fluid, effortless and second nature. That is the process of integration. To integrate is to become ONE with all things, becoming one with all things is to know all things first hand through experience. To experience FULLY is the task. To experience fully you must experience without judgement or expectation. When I practice grounding and centering my energies I simply DO THE WORK and nothing more. When I realize the need to re-align because I have shifted out of center, I simply align and center without making a big deal about it. Soften, smile, breathe, observe and integrate, again and again and again. That is the path to self-mastery. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the first installment of the Stress Defense blog.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the the term blog it is short for web log. It is kind of  running commentary on a subject or idea. I decided to start a blog on my website as a way to answer questions and give more detailed responses to issues that many of my students and clients are dealing with. If you find this information useful let me know, I will update this blog often so feel free to visit as often as you wish.

The first topic I want to address is the rapid state of change that we are all experiencing these days. If it feels like things are changing faster than ever, your right. The rate of change is accelerating on a global scale. Technology and consciousness are evolving at an unprecedented rate and will soon merge to form a very powerful shift in what we commonly refer to as reality. Reality as we know it and experience it is always changing, this is the nature of life. We all know this on an intellectual level as” things change”. What we  don’t often  acknowledge is how change affects us personally and how to respond to change when and as it happens. First, I want you to imagine life as a fluid state, a constant state of movement. We see this in the cycles of nature and the in the daily rhythms of night and day. The entire universe is constantly moving as are we as individuals. Breathing is movement, thinking and feeling are forms of movement, the beating of your heart is movement. Without movement there is no life as we know it. Motion equals change.  As things move they change. Some things move slowly and some quickly. Slow change is easier to adapt to than sudden change. When things change slowly we have an opportunity to respond to them more consciously, we have time to think about what is happening and to form opinions and responses based on our values and on how we feel about it. Responding to slow change is like eating a fine meal, we take the time to really taste the food, to savor and experience it. We also give ourselves time to digest and assimilate the food into our body/reality. Sudden change is more challenging to deal with. Sudden change often demands  an immediate response with less time to think and feel before acting. More importantly sudden change means a sudden shift in our sense of self and reality.

Imagine how you would feel if every day your identity changed, if every morning you woke up and you were not the same person you were yesterday. Would you feel confused, unsure of yourself, frightened, angry? Sure you would, that kind of change is very disruptive and would create a real sense of instability and insecurity. How would you respond to that constant change? Would you resist and try to stop the world from changing so you could feel more stable? Would you feel out of control? The answer I hear most often is YES. Most people feel this way on a daily basis because this is what happens to each and everyone of us every day. Every day you are different, every day you have to deal with change in the form of new rules and circumstances. Every day you have to realign your sense of self and acknowledge a new identity because the world around you has changed. The fact is the world is changing quickly and so are we. The question we must ask our selves is how do I as an individual living in a fluid state of change deal with it?  In my opinion this is the most important question to ask of ones self at this time. The answer to this question is directly related to the quality of your daily life and to your future as well. There is no right answer to this question just as there is no perfect way to live. How you  respond to change depends on how you have been trained to respond and how you utilize your resources.

Life Training

Is there a difference between life training and education? I think so. In our advanced western society a great deal of emphasis is placed on the accumulation of knowledge. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge and the retention of knowledge as a measure of self worth. We are encouraged to work hard, to study hard, to get a A so that we can “get ahead” of the next guy/girl. But something is missing. Upon graduating from college too many of us are not prepared for what comes next, the task of living creatively in the world. I have been teaching college freshmen for ten years now and every year I am surprised to discover how little life training most of my students posses. They are intelligent, smart and highly motivated to succeed (capable of getting an A). They are also stressed, overwhelmed and unaware of how to access or utilize much of their potential and inner resources.  From an energetic perspective  they appear to suffer from arrested development. I suppose that is what happens when too much emphasis is placed on intellectual development at the expense of emotional and physical experience. Too much “head” and not enough grounding or center my old tai chi teacher would say. I would agree.  Now let me clarify my view on this. I am not anti-intellectual, not at all. What I am is pro-active in regards to a balanced development of mind (intellect), body (centered awareness) and spirit ( expanded awareness which includes; feeling, sensation, intuition and creativity).

I have a high school education, I never attended college and yet I have taught for three highly acclaimed universities. I have a very successful private practice as an energetic healer/counselor and have taught seminars for some of the biggest fortune 500 companies. I also had an 18 year career working on Broadway, film and television as an actor, dancer, singer, director and choreographer. How was I able to do all of this? By integrating mind-body-spirit. This integrity has enabled me to activate all of my resources and develop  every gift and talent I could identify.

Intergrity

Many an ailment can be healed through integrity, stress, anxiety, headaches, backaches, fears, and phobias to name a few. Living with integrity makes your life easier and far more productive. Imagine accomplishing all of your tasks and fulfilling all of your responsibilities using half the energy and effort you use now. Effortlessness is one of the hallmarks of integrity. Abundance of energy is another. Before I learned the value of integrity I worked far too hard at everything. I was always tired and frequently sick and injured. I suffered from constant anxiety and lower backaches. I wasted seventy percent of my energy through anxiety, tension and scattered focus. It wasn’t an issue of not being organized I was very organized and still worked too hard. I worked too hard at everything all the time because I was taught that hard work was the only road to success and failure in life was the result of laziness. This was how I was educated, to work hard at all things all the time. I never questioned the puritan work ethic until I found myself partially paralyzed with a herniated disk at the age of twenty-six. Unable to work let alone work hard, I found myself with the time and space to examine my life. I was exhausted, dehydrated and in excruciating pain. How did I get to this point at such a young age? This was a crucial turning point for me. Up until this point I had suffered a host of injuries and illnesses without questioning myself. I just went to rehab, got better and worked until I fell apart again. This time was different though, this time I was really scared. I realized something had to change or I was going to end up in a wheel chair or walking with crutches for the rest of my life.  I realized I needed to change my life. I needed to make a choice about how I was living and how to live differently. What I saw was a fear in my self that motivated me to push too hard and kept me in a state of fragmentation and anxiety. I felt like I was broken into several pieces and each piece had its own agenda. What I needed most was to heal these pieces by bringing them together as one, to first become sound and whole before I could really change and heal myself, and so my life training began.

I knew I need to change but I did not know how to go about it. Initially I approached the task the same way I approached every task, I worked too hard at it. I used too much effort and tried to overpower my circumstances with force of will. This only made things worse. Then I made an ancient discovery, I discovered the power of softness. I shifted my focus from hard to soft and allowed myself to receive inner guidance through meditation and listening. What i found in this approach was nuance and clarity. Everytime I sat still and focused on breathing and listening I felt better, I could feel all those fragments coming together like drops of water joining into one big lens of clear focus. In time I realized what I was doing, creating integrity of mind-body-spirit.

Integrity equals power and the ability to respond to change gracefully

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before mind-body-spirit. We see it on cereal boxes, cosmetics and even ads for automobiles. The term has been bandied about so often and so much it has become a cliche and has almost lost its true meaning, and yet……. every time we see or hear this catch phrase something deep down in our psyche and in our gut rings true. There is apart of us that resonates with this idea as if the phrase itself could evoke something more, some power within. And thats exactly what it is, dormant power waiting to be activated and claimed. This power is your birthright, it is inherent in each and everyone of us. Its like a pot of gold buried just beneath the surface of your awareness, you sense it but you can’t see it or reach it YET.

I have had the privilege of watching many of my students discover their inner pot of gold through training and practice. It doesn’t take long to set energy in motion. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to activate your inner resources. What it does take is clarity of focus and intention. Its as simple as breathing and listening. Soften, smile, breathe and listen. Try doing that for five minutes, just five minutes and I guarantee you will not only feel different you will BE different. Five minutes of this simple practice will calm and center you. It is a simple and effective way to create a state of personal integrity, a state of wholeness. With personal integrity comes power in the form of connection and energy. Energy is always available in the space around you  (the universe) and in the ground beneath your feet, an abundant and inexhaustible supply. It is merely a matter of connection. If you connect to this source of energy you can use it for anything you wish. The quality of your connection will determine the quality of energy you can receive, the quality of connection is determined by the quality of your personal integrity.  If you are aligned, centered and grounded you will be able to plug in to source energy easily and effortlessly. If you are fragmented and out of balance your connection will be very weak and you will have to struggle and strain in order to receive.

If you want to to heal you will need energy. If you want to create, you will need energy. If you want the power respond to change gracefully you will need energy and the integrity to sustain it.  If your integrity falters your ability  to connect and receive will collapse. That is my definition of  failure. My life experience has taught me that effort without integrity will result in failure. You may enjoy a brief moment of effective action that we associate with success, but without personal integrity and the ability to maintain integrity that moment will collapse and fade. That is the difference between trying and doing. Trying is connecting for moment and then disconnecting/collapsing. Doing is connecting for as long as it takes to complete and fulfill your task/intention. Those who succeed have the ability to sustain their connection with integrity and see the job through to its completion. Those who succeed wildly can complete the job easily and effortlessly.

By this time you might have a sense of how to deal with change from an energetic perspective.  Every time you experience a big change like losing a job or ending a relationship your identity shifts (sense/image of self) and fragmentation follows.  Fragmentation makes you feel ungrounded, tense and frequently overwhelmed, in other words stressed. Prolonged stress of this nature will lead to energy loss, fatigue and illness.  The response to this cycle of change-shift-fragmentation-stress is to heal the fragmentation with integrity of mind-body-spirit energy. Bring all the pieces together and realign your sense of self in the present. This is a constant process and needs to be practiced every day, many times a day. That is the purpose of training, technique and practice.