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31 Oct 2010

Halloween Special : The Ego Death

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Surrender – The Mystery of Death and Rebirth
 
 
 
"Followers of traditional Western psychology are apt to be horrified at the idea of the ego death, because there are basically two very different understandings of what "ego" is. The first definition comes from Sigmund Freud. Freud believed the human psyche was composed of the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is made up primarily of our basic instincts. The ego concerns itself mainly with conscious perception and with everyday functioning. It is also a sort of guardian for the forces of id. The superego represents a kind of unconscious ideal for the conscious ego and performs the role of our conscience.
 
Using this definition of the ego, we can readily see why it’s destruction might be a cause for alarm among psychologists. Without a conscious ego self, which more or less keeps the lid on Pandora’s box, or the id, the resulting explosion of instinctual forces could cause what is termed psychosis. But there is another definition of ego, with a more universal application. From this second perspective, the ego is a false self that we mistakenly identify with as being who we really are. There are many different ways to characterise this form of ego. We could say that it is composed of everything that causes us to feel separation from others, the Higher Power, the universe, or even ourselves. We might say that it is made up of our character defects, sub-personalities, or patterns that we seek to transform through the Steps and psychology.
 
We can refer to the AA Big Book for our most personal and appropriate definition of ego: " Selfishness-self-centredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity . . . " Nearly every spiritual discipline on the planet has its goal the reduction, eradication, or death of this false self, or ego. They all affirm that without this death, we can never discover our true self or know real happiness in life.
 
If we examine once again Bill W’s story, especially the time just prior to his spiritual experience, it is clear that he himself was undergoing just such a death. Listen to his words: "Now I was to plunge into the dark . . . The terrifying darkness had become complete . . . ". In other places he spoke of hopelessness and utter futility, and about being beaten by alcohol. And throughout this time, there was always the sense of aloneness and loss – loss of job, friends, family, and ultimately, loss of self-esteem.
 
This extremely painful process whereby we are systematically stripped of every facet of our identity, every sense of who we are, is what we mean by the ego death. We may more easily recognize this death by a term we know intimately in our own recovery. It is what we call the "First Step experience". The hellish journey toward a recognition of powerlessness and unmanageability is our own first form of the ego death.
 
Without the First Step experience*, we cannot recover.






 
words by TAV SPARKS : Chapter 7 – the Wide Open Door /The Twelve Steps, Spiritual Tradition & The New Psychology
 
 
*Step 1 NA : We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
 
Step One: AA, DA, GA, NA, & OA  http://brevity0.tripod.com/Step%201.htm


25 Oct 2010

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner

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"London has always been a city of immigrants. It was once known as ‘ the city of nations’, and in the mid-eighteenth century Addison remarked that ‘when I consider this great city, in it’s several quarters, or divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations, distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests’. The same observation could have been applied in any period over the last 250 years.
 
It is remarked of 18th Century London in Peter Linebaugh’s book The London Hanged that
‘ here was a centre of worldwide experiences’ with outcasts, refugees, travellers, and merchants finding a ‘place of refuge, of news, and an arena for the struggle of life and death’. It was the city itself which seemed to summon them, as if only in the experience of the city could their lives have meaning.
 
It is the continuing and never ending story. It has often been remarked that, in other cities, many years must pass before a foreigner is accepted; in London, it takes as many months. It is true too, that you can only be happy in London if you begin to consider yourself as a Londoner.
It is the secret of successful assimilation".
 
Peter Ackroyd - LONDON The Biography.
___________________________________
 
Born in a North London suburb, I’m not quite a cockney ( one who is born within the sound of Bow Bells Church East London ) but certainly a Londoner. And a happy one. As a teenager I thought happiness was a fawn shortie raincoat with leather criss-cross buttons until I got one and realised that happiness was temporary. I always wanted more.
 
Watching immigrants or tourists come to this fine city, excited by it’s prospects, can offer a big yawn to people who live here trying to manage 24/7 without getting wound up. Yet it is only when I travel to other world cities do I see what tourists or immigrants have to endure here, like the mystery of the London underground map, the sheer volume of multicultural peoples and an array of attacks on the senses. No wonder I love it, because there is always MORE to uncover, witness and peruse, ad infinitum.
 
But the real issue is : Can I be arsed?
 
Procrastination can come as companion to comfortability, familiarity and routine. Procrastination refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.[1] Schraw, Pinard, Wadkins, and Olafson have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.[2]

Well that’s answered the question I couldn’t be bothered to ask. Thanks wiki.

Living in London, there is always tomorrow. A newly arrived immigrant or tourist avoids this trench to fall into, dashing about like a blue-arsed fly, cramming it in as if life was to end. When I go abroad I’m likely to do the same, but unlikely to bring this passion home to my own city just because it’s always there. Tomorrow, next week, next month, unplanned unconfirmed datelines, are the smirk of procrastination, like a dealer waiting at the school gates giving out bags of NOT NOW. DO IT LATER.
 
Although planning & booking ahead has it’s place in a managed lifestyle, recovery from Codependency and it’s sidekick procrastination, can depend upon the employment of spontaneity and just doing it. The scarfed late autumn sun is there to entice discoveries in Zone 5 ( . . where’s dat? ), a hidden museum, a lost nature trail, Dickensian alleys and multicultural platters.
 
Behave as if you have just arrived, and assimilate.
 
  

13 Oct 2010

Tunnel vision.

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The natural process of evolution is to wait as nature dictates, even though the ego stamps its childish foot in rage at the unfairness of having to. The Chilean Miners today is a lesson in giving time, . . TIME, as well as a lesson in action, hope and trust. Without these values, spirit withers, and today and over the following days we will witness tales regarding strength of the human spirit, and survival of endurance that puts what we call the X Factor on weekend TV into pale significance.
 
 
One aspect of their journey is one of forced REHAB or forced RETREAT. Once leaving a spiritual retreat of choice, many feel a change of attitude or life approach is required, to become more conscious, more trusting perhaps, expelling gratitude around friends, abundance and family. Leaving a forced retreat after more than two months underground must challenge all beliefs around immortality, trust and faith. Miners are trained to deal with these areas but perhaps not trained to deal with giving up alcohol, nicotine, substances, family, friends and other attachments so quickly and finally. 
 
If many users of alcohol and cigarettes say that they increase usage in times of stress and fear, then imagine how the Miners felt deprived of these familiar crutches, in the early days of entrapment. Many of the press reports about some Miners having drug and alcohol problems have been distorted and disproved, written by hacks who also enjoy a drink, as some would put it, or couldn’t complete a deadline without a line. Look toward the City of London financial district for REAL ADDICTIONS, or the tabloid addiction to celebrity, not men prepared to risk life and limb to feed family who depend on them.
 
It appears that the world media is more interested in the miners celebrity status than the miners themselves do, who in their forced retreat would have needed to pull from the bank of faith, not reward, in order to survive. Most will rise from the hell hole of time into a space of gratitude, respect and humility. In months to come when anger around mismanagement of the mines safety structure rises with expected force, when the desire for financial compensation is demanded, when trapped feelings explode at random, will humility, gratitude and respect be tested?
 
Giving time . . TIME, is always the downside of healing when our ego demands miracles NOW. Learning to wait is a spiritual lesson for all.
 
In the same week as the London 7/7 Bombing Inquest, when TV cameras show us what it was like when Underground trains were bombed in Central London our immediate reaction is likely to be one of hopelessness in such a situation, but the human spirit in a game of triumph over adversity does win through. It’s easy for us to underestimate our ability to survive, to experience darkness, blindness or torn limbs but the lifeforce within revs up to speed when we get away from the problem into solution and action required. Sometimes it means just waiting.
 
Those tobacco addicts down the mine chose the hardest cold turkey imagined, those trapped in dark tube tunnels on that commuter morning, holding humans to their hearts as they died in strangers arms, only magnify our untold strengths in crisis and faith restored in human rescue.
 
As we examine our own lives, we may notice how we yearn to rescue others yet fail to rescue ourselves, how we admire bravery in dark tunnels yet ignore our own bravery when faced with dark news, how easy it is to praise the fearless while ignoring the god energy within us that drives our breath and tenacity to survive.
 
Praise be to remember. That’s the real X Factor.
 
 

22 Sep 2010

It’s cool man, Byron Bay.

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The " Hippie Capital " of Australia is a place called Byron Bay which is situated at the top of New South Wales, near Brisbane. Byron Bay and surrounding towns like Nimbin, Mullumbimby, and Lismore are absolute havens for the alternative, new-age folk. It’s miles away from the urban sludge of London, that’s for sure.
 
The first thing I noticed yesterday, dodging rainfall, down Jonson Street, was how quiet it was, including traffic. When a car is motoring at snails pace through the centre spiral of Byron one is not sure whether it’s out of necessity or simply respect. It’s a bit like Glastonbury-on-sea twinned with Devon’s Newquay. Surfing dope-heads mix with middle class spliffers, retired and comfortably off in laid back villas, while visitors scan shops for ethnic goods that reflect respect and spiritual heritage. Not everyone here bows to the weed off course, people also live here for local organic produce, community values and eco sensitivity, as much as whales, waves, dolphins and music festivals.
 
Yesterday I realised I had come full circle. When I got back to my hosts Alakh & Vic, a facebook message confirmed that I had just been voted in as an Honorary Member of the Australian Academy of Rebirthing & Breathwork. After such a wonderful response to my work here over the past two weeks, this was icing on the cake, making me a true Aussie, in preparation for a return tour in March 2012.
 
The circle began on my first trip to OZ in 1987. Sydney was gripped watching Syd & Nancy, a 1986 British bio-pic of Syd Vicious, bassist of the seminal Punk Rock band the SEX PISTOLS, and the monorail foundations were snaking it’s way round Central Sydney. I had gained residency in Australia but returned to the UK within 3 months, sick again with chronic active hepatitis B virus and a projected shortened lifespan by the medical profession. Just before I left I saw a TV programme produced by Felix Dennis, with a different complimentary healthcare topic each week, on a breathing therapy called REBIRTHING. I just knew I had to do it. This was justified the following year when on my 5th session of dry rebirthing my liver function level dropped to normal, the first time in over 10 years. It took another 7 years of constant rebirthing breathwork practice to gain antibodies without any medication to release the self activating hepatitis from my body. I was told it was impossible but I still remain the longest term survivor of chronic Hep B in the UK.
 
That’s another story in itself.
 
So yes, I have followed the path of New Age, Crystals, Meditation, Oxygen Therapy, even urine therapy, so don’t say I wasn’t willing. Byron Bay reminds me of that particular journey of hope and exploration, of contesting beliefs, of seeking yet another solution. Next month I hope to claim 28 years recovery from active addiction to drugs of all kinds, including alcohol. I have paid the price, the fees and held the joys of recovery to my heart too. A bit of rain in Byron is not going to change THAT journey, but the changes I have made in my life since 1987 have never been of MY plan. None of it.
 
Doing what you have to do and getting on with it, rates way above goal work and all that live your dream, live your vision fluff. In my experience, when you do what has to be done, spirit delivers dead on time. So the message of this post is to keep truckin’, keep moving, keep reviewing and keep it simple. I watched a TV programme in 1987 and 23 years later I’m still walking the walk when doctors said I would never see the 90′s.
 
We do recover.
 

14 Sep 2010

Giving & Recieving

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I am reminded amid the energy of my current OZ Tour that GIVING & RECEIVING are the same; or as Lesson 108 from A Course In Miracles states :
 
" To give and receive are one in truth ".
 
Most of us are brought up to give freely but not to receive, because receiving indicates lack, scarcity or humiliation as in begging, poverty and underclass. As children we are taught to share things by parents, religion and educators (we have enough to share, we are abundant ). As adults we learn that to receive means the opposite ( we have less than abundance, we are less than, not good enough to receive because we can’t give back ). Some people go through struggle times and isolate as if hoarding a secret so the shame remains locked. I have known many people who will refuse a dinner invitation or theatre ticket because they can’t afford to return the favour, so they make up some excuse rather than feel humiliated. Feeling humiliated and feeling humility are not the same.
 
Here in Australia I am learning to receive all over again. Because I live alone I get used to my own self sufficiency – when I want a coffee I have to make one, no one is around to do it. It’s not unusual after a rebirthing session to offer a tray of treats with a hot drink to the client, and it’s also not unusual for clients to suddenly wipe a tear as they realize that THIS IS FOR THEM. We are so busy nourishing others than we forget about our own needs.

Like many I have survived difficult times and felt hopeless and humiliated trapped by the experience of lack. I soon learnt in the ’80′s after bankruptcy that with no credit for 5 years, receiving was a prime option in order to learn not to just survive. All of us need to embrace the world of EXTRAS. Sometimes on dinner invitations I had no money to bring something to the host, I felt awful. Humiliation instead of humility to receive was the order of the day. I had to turn this around and started on Codependency recovery work in 1986, to learn that " my presence is enough ".
 
Many years later, around 2004 I went with Gunnel Minett and others to see AMMA in London. It was my first such darshan. Having got my queue ticket for " The Hugging Saint " we waited a few hours before we were ushered into numbered sections ready to receive the spiritual energy that was already heady in the air from Amma’s presence. Suddenly we were on our knees in a line ready to be hugged by Amma, some distance away. Then I realised the big boo boo. I had not bought a flower, or a symbolic gift for Amma that most other devotees were carrying. Immediate shame kicked out the spiritual wave of joy in a swipe. Here was the hugging saint who GAVE to the world in the form of loving hugs and I was giving her NOTHING. 
 
I shared this shame with Gunnel who also was flowerless but innocent of any mishap. Give YOURSELF as a gift to Amma, she requests nothing more, and then I remembered the Lesson from A Course In Miracles " Giving & receiving are one in truth. " Another Course lesson states " whole people make no demands ". Amma has not demanded I bring a flower, she only asks that I bring myself unconditionally to her. When I did finally embrace her breast I nearly suffocated with the force of energy and had to sit for a while as others passed by tranced into a heavenly space. 
 
So thank you Australia for your open hearts and minds as we explore together the release of fears and shames. Thank you for giving of yourself in seminars and workshops, of places to stay, of food on the table and stories to tell. People say that I am generous with time and experience and I give this to you with ease but as many people in recovery programmes know, we get ten fold back, and when we get that back we give it away again in a conscious connected breath of love, support and oneness. 
 
It’s a small world with a big heart, should you care to look for it.
All you need is to offer YOURSELF to it, with no demands, to experience humility & love within and with others.
 
 

http://www.ammachi.org/

27 Aug 2010

Selective Memory

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Having endured the worst, wettest August since the Iron Age, London is awash with Autumn leaves & howling winds. People mutter climate change but within my memory bank, August was often like this as a kid.
 
Memory can be selective. The same happens in relationships when you scour over the past like Somerset professors on Time Team, scraping away with a trowel to find the jewel to make all the emotional pain worthwhile.
When you are knee deep in self-help books, in recovery or therapy it takes a while to dig deep, to find the innocent perfection that occurred before life became scarred, disappointing or laden with guilt.
 
One thing is sure – doing it alone is difficult, many read books or attend group but few do the exercises as a path to emotional progress.
 
Sharing pain, fears and selective memories in the beginning of any therapeutic process is like having a romance with the mind . .  it’s light, new and inspiring. After a while the concentration wavers, remembrance becomes painful and fight or flight turns up with a smirk to test your nerve. 
 
In her latest book THE NEW CODEPENDENCY Melody Beattie writes, in the chapter called Healing What Hurts :
 
" As codependency hit the mainstream, people not in recovery talked about ideas such as self-care and limits. We recognised that if a problem or illness – from Alzheimer’s Disease to a spinal cord injury – affects one family member, it affects the whole family too. What affects one part affects the whole. Support groups for caregivers spread like wildfire. Caregivers need care, too. Internet groups and chat rooms have been added to the list of resources. ( There wasn’t a self-help section when Codependent No More first came out ). Groups, therapists, treatment centres, support and information saturated society – from OPRAH to the newsstands. Less self-help? There’s never been more. "
 
The first point of reference in self-care is to ask for help and stay the distance. Journey on and avoid selective memory. Looking back over an unhealthy relationship past, it’s easy to use selective memory to convince that it " wasn’t that bad ". Many codependents air brush over truth, romanticise the pain and people please, rather than experience solo abandonment. This is what I call " can’t leave/can’t stay " bungie jump relationships, because when partners hit the wall of denial and fear they bounce back to a space of familiarity. Even one saturated in low esteem.
 
The easiest way to begin healing the hurts, in my experience, is to find another person in therapy, recovery or in groupwork. It’s harder to be in denial when you hear someone else telling your story.Then it’s more likely that the light bulbs will come on, when you realise the patterns of pain you can’t let go of. It’s hard at first to get into a group of like minded memory hoarders but the truth is it’s painful because the game is up.
 
Healthy relationships avoid babysitting, parenting and distorted truths.There is no point clearing the wreckage of the past, only to create another archaeological dig decades later. So it makes sense to tell the truth faster, to find your voice, your emotional equality and create a union worthy of remembrance. Today’s New Codependencies and attachments in the Internet age are as plentiful as self help groups so it makes sense to combat one with the other. 
 
 
Do our memories get better or worse with age?
 

12 Aug 2010

‘Me Transistor’

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I was not one of those that got recovery straight away, it took 8 relapses over a 14 month period while attending Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings for me to find NA, my spiritual home. It took me a while to surrender the lot.
 
In the end there was no choice, except live or die.
 
 
As long as we don’t pick up that first drug . . . . I haven’t and I’ve been clean of all drugs ever since. Booze was just fancy dress to the inner despair around using. In that awakening daze of discontent I had to admit financial defeat and sell the contents of my flat in order to eat and pay rent. I had no money a few days before Christmas and someone offered me a seat at their table and a week stay in Brighton, fares paid. 
 
Before traveling, my recovery sponsor suggested I went to a meeting in London, as I was less than 90 days clean. I don’t think she heard me when I said I had no money for the tube. She did, and said WALK there. Christ! . . the meeting was in Camden Town and I lived close to Archway. WALK there? It was miles. Well it was for someone born to taxi, who had to support 5 Bank Accounts and 15 Credit Cards. WALK?
 
It was harshly cold but I must have had the desire. I put on my leather padded zipped up to the neck blouson jacket ( well it was 1982 ) from Harrods and placed the sponge earphones from my SONY Walkman onto my ears for extra warmth as I walked to Camden Town. The meeting was called " a one bar electric fire meeting " for a reason. Bare boards, light green scuffed walls, a wobbly table with a huge battered kettle that even Mrs Bridges couldn’t lift. 
 
There was a similar NA meeting at the time – Monday night Millman Street Men’s Hostel in Chelsea, known throughout fellowship as a " wee-wee & wino meeting ". It smelt of damp and cabbage. Thankfully messages get carried in the strangest of places. Camden Town Meeting had a Millman Street ring to it, as many of the seats were taken by old alkies living round the corner in Arlington House, formerly Rowton House in Arlington Road. Some were silent while others ranted during the meeting munching on biscuits and steaming mugs of brew from said kettle.
 
I knew a few faces and nodded. One regular was " ‘arry from Archway.
 
Archway Harry was in his late sixties and been in prison most of his life. He always spoke first. We always waited for his Yorkshire tones to boom the room. He started. " Me names ‘arry and I’m ever so grateful. He went on to share how he was in Arlington House with his own room but best of all he had his OWN TRANSISTOR RADIO. He proceeded to tell all that he had never owned one and how not drinking and attending recovery support meetings had not only saved his life but he had his own radio. " Me Transitor " Harry always ended his share by saying " I’m so happy ". It was Harry’s tagline and signalled the end of speaking.
 
Harry’s gratitude held me in a trance as I touched my warm leather jacket, my Sony Walkman and my oncoming Christmas trip to Brighton, all paid for by a supportive friend. Then I got it. I was so happy too. I caught " Harry’s infection " and still remember his unkempt hair, his broken teeth and his transistor radio that he showed to everyone like a beaming parent. I still need the memory of Harry, the welcome teapot and open generosity of sharing to keep my life in emotional and spiritual balance. I still need to be reminded that during that 1982 Christmas period I thought I would never make it, my arrogance and shame too overwhelming, my finances too much like telephone numbers and the simplicity of what was suggested too infantile. 
 
But I did make it, even though far worse challenges were to come. Someone said ‘The power behind you is greater than the task ahead of you’, and I took it on blind faith.
 
In those early days when NA had only one recovery meeting a day in far spread London many of us gained experience in " the other fellowship" from the likes of Harry, in corridors we would never had entered in our middle class lives, hearing stories that we had no similarity with but knew there was no difference between our journeys. Within those grimy down-and-out Camden, Kings Cross and St Pancras Hospital meetings I found a generosity of spirit that I never found in an overflowing glass, from people I would never have mixed with.
 
In years to come I would go bankrupt in the High Court, wear other peoples clothes in jumble sales, have no credit anywhere for 5 years and after 11 years recovery found myself in a homeless hostel. I eventually got my own flat and for months only had one single bed, one chair and a kitchen table. Someone said " do you want an old Transistor Radio? I looked up to the heavens and said " thanks ‘arry "and laughed out loud. Humility and gratitude is greater than diamonds.
 
 
 

5 Aug 2010

Social Laziness

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Last week, quite by accident, I appear to have invented a new syndrome - Social Laziness. Not my own personal syndrome you understand, but it appears to be an unchecked dis-ease of self waiting to solved. I scoured the web and it doesn’t exist, or should I say – the Priory hasn’t made money out of it yet, spotting a gap in the ever expanding treatment market. No self help book either. Yet.
 
The phrase suddenly dropped from my mouth, coaching a client on skype. I often say I’m being channeled by Doris Stokes, as I can’t remember what I just said, either in session or seminars, if someone asks me to repeat something. Blank.
It’s like I start and something takes over. Which is the opposite to social laziness, or is it? Instead of rampant energy increasing the flow of desire, something untoward occurs that equally takes hold. Can’t be arsed.
 
Londoners know that if an invitation comes from the opposite side of the river a fear sets in. Do I have to go? Or as example, people in Hackney are on facebook because no one visits them. No tube, no friends. No wonder they bicycle everywhere, it’s not greening, it’s essential. Which is why such a vibrant social scene has developed in Dalston’s East London. Who want’s to be pissed on your own two wheels or even a Barclay’s bike? . . .  .
 
. . . we might as well stay put.
 
Some years back, I had a client who only socialised in Earls Court because he felt fearful that he couldn’t find his way back home if he went into the next zone. In his case he drank before socialising in order to get to a bar, and would wait to be chosen by someone as a chat-up, then was too pissed to continue a conversation let alone find his way home. London is full of people like this and I dare say anywhere in the world that uses alcohol as dutch courage. It’s the nature of the beast. But social phobia with it’s symptoms of severe anxiety, sweating, panic attack, dry mouth or muscle tension is different from social laziness. The question here is did he suffer from social phobia or social laziness? My client had a mix of both.
 
Laziness can ruin your social life because the more time you want to be with yourself, the less time you spend with other people, and the less you practice the art of communication. Stored underneath this lack of action is a major component of codependency : PROJECTION. Projection will convince you of anything to justify your lazy arse on the sofa clutching a mobile. Projection will turn you into Doris Stokes and the gift of clairvoyance as you run through the obstacles faster than you slam the door to a Jehovah’s witness. You get an invite and try to work out who will be there, what they will be wearing, is the film or theatre any good? etc. We all do it. Where is it? BATTERSEA. Jesus, no tube. Social laziness is on the increase because we work harder to keep a job, manage a home and juggle our friends – no wonder facebook is so essential to London living.
 
But having said that, think of how many times you DIDN"T want to go somewhere and ending up loving it, saying to yourself , I must do this again, then never do. Social laziness. People love routine because of the security of familiarity but codependency breeds under these conditions. People in a coda relationship will find that friends drift away, workaholics will find that eventually they hold no space for socialising in their schedule, sub-urbanites cram socialising into train timetables and this all creates less room for spontaneity, which is the solution to codependent patterning. Swimming in unplanned waters is unfamiliar for most. A coda world is always a small one, livin’ it large is anathema. Coda relationships can fall into the trap of " having each other " as a cure for social phobia and laziness. Many in this kind of relationship have few friends ( except other couples ) outside of it.
 
An inter-dependant world is full of free floating actvities, growing larger by the minute, bringing in new people. I found that as I grow older, more effort is required to create new friends, ideas and energies. My saving grace has been losing so many people in my life over the years including deaths via AIDS and Addictions, recognising that everything is temporary, so stay alert to new people, but people drift from our lives anyway, it’s how it is, and hard to pin a butterfly. I always share in someones good fortune if they move country, job or relationship. When they WIN – I WIN. 
This also gives me scope to move with the wind, to be grateful on a daily basis, to know what steps I need to take to overcome fear of new things, new places. I have always traveled a lot on my own across the world and it amazes me that some people can’t even go to the movies alone let alone land in a country not knowing anyone.
You may need to work through your own fears reading that.
 
So today’s think-tank is to do something unfamiliar and break away from routine. Try a trip somewhere alone. Join a group, plan a journey into Zone 4, however dangerous that may feel. Write a whole A4 page on your social laziness, just considering the task is not enough. In my experience Karma Yoga (WORK & ACTION) are essential spiritual principles in order to live in the world of EXTRAS, instead of just surviving on crumbs. 
 
Demolish the ego of dismissal.
 
 

28 Jul 2010

Open the Kimono

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I was asked by THE HOSPITAL CLUB, a private members club for the Creative & Media Industries in Covent Garden, to write on the theme " Open the Kimono " for their quarterly Magazine and it has just been published. Each quarter is a different theme. 

Sometimes the situations that come our way require no explanation because we would go insane trying to discover WHY life has offered us this conundrum. Accepting, waiting. . .  and not wanting to know WHY? is the spiritual route I choose to take and it has served me well. I was 5 years clean in 1987 when I went to OZ and after the experience below I started Rebirthing Breathwork for emotional release. 
Read on to understand why. 

The irony ( . . . or the reason why I got "sent" to OZ by the great unseen ) was that I first heard about REBIRTHING watching a TV programme in Sydney. 
I had no idea that a year later in London a new career path would begin as a Loving Relationship Training (LRT) Rebirthing Coach.
It is my joy to remember that the universe gives me the jigsaw pieces, but has thrown away the box lid.
 
Here is the Editors Introduction followed by my article :
_______________________________________________________________
open the kimono  v. phr. to expose or reveal secrets or proprietary information.

The etymology of ‘open the kimono’ appears to be a somewhat sexist hybrid of Japanese philosophy and ‘90s business jargon. It faded away before the end of the century, but here at The Hospital Club, we’re breathing new life into the phrase and flinging it back at the lexicon. 

It is often said that the best creativity stems from honesty, to oneself and others. From Francis Bacon’s inner torment, brutally splashed on the canvas to the painful honesty in the bluesy voice of Nina Simone, it’s the truth which speaks to an audience and resonates with their experience. The Stanislavsky school of Method Acting made famous by Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio was founded on encouraging actors to open their emotional kimonos to facilitate genuine performances. 
Honesty can heal a situation, heighten a drama or create a very uncomfortable car ride; as David Parker found in ‘Truth Can be Murder’. It’s a good thing he’s one of the UK’s best therapists and well versed in hearing unsavoury confessions. 


TRUTH CAN BE MURDER . . . . 

Through an unexpected intervention, I found myself being granted residency in Sydney Australia in 1987, not quite what I had in mind for March of that year, but I went with it. Neighbours was big on the telly, as was Thatcher in the hearts and minds of the UK, so every reason to leave the homeland. Poor health and liver disease was my constant identity at that time, so sitting on Bondi Beach seemed to be the answer to my prayers. Sadly, the old battered liver couldn’t take the prawn, no one would insure me and medi-care said no, so it was time to fly home with dream shattered. 

Even in a short 3 month stay in Sydney I had formed close bonds with people with shared experiences and many knew of my imminent return to London. One guy asked me to dinner as a way of saying thank you for the support I had given him over his own liver health issues and drove me back over Sydney Harbour Bridge in his beaten up old Morris-Minor. Unlike the carefree chatty journey going, his sparkling aussie mood changed going back, as we clanked over the iconic metal bridge. He starts to hunch his shoulders up as he stared ahead, white knuckling the wheel. “ I need to tell you something that I can’t tell anyone and if I don’t tell someone I will go mad, so I’m telling you as you are going home in 2 days.” I see that he refuses to look at me.
The kimono was opening within his spluttering - “ over 12 years ago I lived in San Francisco and while I was on a drug binge someone physically abused me. I wasn’t sure who it was but eventually I realized and befriended the person. I had to move flats so I ended up manipulating to live with the abuser and sharing his dealer so a bond was formed. It was not unusual for us to spliff up overlooking the Bay of San Fran, car doors wide open, music blaring from the car speakers, head well back, eyes closed in contemplation. We had done this endless times, but this time I opened the glove department, clasped a gun I had placed there and blew his brains out “. 
What? We are now going over the metal bridge, with me sitting next to a murderer. All I could say was “ what happened next? – trying to be all stiff upper lip about it as I stared straight ahead. He then turned to me, tears streaming down as he said quietly “ I went to the boot of the car where I had a change of clothing, towels to wash the blood, a packed suitcase and a one way ticket to Australia. I hailed a taxi to the airport and here I am 12 years later. I have never told anyone“
For a moment I said nothing, I wanted to ask questions but this level of grassing himself up only fueled the compassion churning inside me at his storage and outpouring of suppressed grief, sadness, anger and relief. All while he was still driving I might add. Consequently I was somewhat relieved to reach the other side of Sydney Harbour Bridge where he slowed down into a side street, stopped the engine and sobbed in my arms. I just held him as someone had held me before, when I required silent non-judgmental support. We never spoke of it again.
On returning to England I found that my best mate Barrie had his humdinger of a mother coming from Canada for a week of expectant turmoil, but this was overtaken by his mum having her handbag stolen a few yards from Barrie’s flat in Notting Hill Gate. The whole lot gone. Six months later, the day after Boxing Day, Barrie and I was due to see a Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank concert, but he didn’t turn up. This was a Tuesday and the next day I was out of town ready for New Year but I kept calling his landline, still with no answer. Eventually other friends called the police but they refused to break the door down until the Friday when I rang the Police and said I would pay for the door myself and that I was returning to London right now on a train. Two hours later I was told he was dead, murdered in his sleep, 67 stab wounds and his head decapitated. When the body was removed I was asked to go into the flat to see if anything was missing. The murderer had taken 5 suitcases, stuffed them with spattered duvets and curtains, had a bath, cooked a meal and changed into Barrie’s clothes before leaving with the suitcases in a bizarre way of dissolving evidence. Going into the bedroom on the arms of detectives I recalled my own memory of being stabbed in the face 3 years earlier, how I should have been living in Australia, how I should be dead with liver failure, how Barrie should be alive, how I had heard the outpourings of a planned pre-meditated murderer in Sydney and how I was witnessing the aftermath of a blood-stained bedroom in London 6 months later. 
I was stunned and humbled by this spiritual opportunity for forgiveness. All veils of anger toward the killer lifted as I realized that I know nothing. I know nothing about the order of it all. Why was I stabbed, why was I chosen to hear the Sydney confession, why was I standing in this flat? Why was Barrie dead? Why me, why this? It was not until 6 months later at the inquest that the kimono was opened. Even after hair and blood samples were taken from over 300 people in 6 countries the murderer was never found and we still don’t know the motive. What we do know was that the keys were stolen to order in June from his mothers bag so the murderer could enter the flat 6 months later at 2am the day after Boxing Day and kill him in his bed asleep. This planned premeditated murder remains unsolved to the Police, as does the one in San Francisco, a closed kimono that heralds the thought that resentment kills the container it’s kept in.
There is no excuse for murder but every reason to expose secrets as quickly as possible. Unburden yourself.

18 Jul 2010

New Age, New Rage . . . Next Stage.

Posted by theswarmite. No Comments

Trying to get people to attend Personal Growth Seminars & Workshops in London is like pulling teeth – I wonder why? Maybe it’s the product? It’s image? My view about NEW AGE is well versed – even though my path has been well etched with it : "Winging with Angels" is worthy but it’s not going to get the ironing done : footwork not visualisation puts creases in shirts. 
 
Ask people in the office what they think about therapy hug-ins, and personal growth workshop organisers lose 90% of the market as we speak. 

NEW AGE needs a revamp. 
 
How many trainings have I done as the only gay in the village, hugged by an older bi-guy with a greying ponytail, who " understands my differences", while they hide in a loveless marriage. Where are the out hip gay clubbers searching for a new high? How many trainings have I been to where the " long-term partnership" is the ultimate goal, the World Cup of Relationship Therapy, instead of focussing on apropriate temporary fuck buddies to play with and enjoy? No where to be seen or heard. Even A Course in Miracles states " everything is temporary " why aim that high when it’s all happening on the ground? 
How many times have I witnessed Trainers with mystical names at seminars that bear no relation to real life. Plenty and I never went back. Many ask why I call myself SWARMITE ANANDA in that case. ANSWER : It’s a brand persona to take the piss out of myself and the guru trainers. I avoid setting myself up as a Guru - the only guru you need are the results in your life.
 
I am the Master of the Marmite Jar, reminding all not to take ourselves and projected experts too seriously, but it does not mean that my message core is a joke. Recovery is serious business. So we go back to the question as to why the average Joe won’t go near a workshop that says " please bring a musical instrument and food to share ". Understandable really when most of the week they are caning it and trying to remember their pin number let alone deep search of childhood. I was blessed by attracting The Loving Relationship Training into my life in 1988 that trained me, as it turned out to be the sanest, most businesslike vehicle connected to Breathwork at that time. Thank you Sondra Ray. At least some attempt was made to address urban issues and hold Seminars in Hotels not Healing Centres miles away from nowhere. You can heal your Life, right now if you put your mind to it, you don’t need incense or the right clothes. Bring willingness and your arse to any table of hope and it begins. Add all the frippery for focus if you like but it’s not gonna mean a monkey’s unless you do the exercises as aftercare . . . and work it!
 
So this Blog is not about attacking New Age, it’s value has served me well, but most of it ends up preaching to the converted rather than addressing 90% of the population that could use some soul searching and holding the stick rather than holding the can. Presentation is a key to success, marketing has it’s moments but somehow the Self Help Brigade has missed the fact that most urban people who could use a good talking to, use the net, use expletives and use drugs. Hallo.
 
The NEW RAGE is that no one is listening and still churning out what the Self Help market wants ( which is usually another book title, another Audio CD to merchandise), this is odd to me when the purpose of said market is CHANGE, but very little of it seems to be happening in the floating, flirty-flirty fantasy world of esoteric activity and I have to say – Breathwork Trainings. It’s not 1976 anymore. The NEXT STAGE to New Age is to rebrand to niche markets. Getting a businessman to a " Feelings Seminar " is as difficult as getting a fat man to a gym, so the industry needs to see that keeping the flaky, airy-fairy stuff is right for one market and hopeless for another. Niche Marketing is how we will survive recession and catch those people falling with job cuts, marital woes and raised alcohol consumption in order to cope. A rainbow just ain’t gonna do it.
 
Years ago a flyer in a Health Food Store would bring bums on seats to workshops in droves, now people order on the net. Practitioners used to pin up business cards now those practitioners are out of business. I am always busy and never slack with clientele because I work in a business-like way and wont give concessions until Tesco’s adopt the principle. This allows me to give work for free should I choose to. Too many New Agers are operating Spiritual principles without backup which is why many are still sitting on the scarcity survival pot waiting for God to do the errand for them. My experience is that when you use Karma Yoga ( work/action ) as Babaji said, you develop and materialise inner wealth and outward abundance. This is the divine right that each of us have but rarely gift to ourselves. If no one is buying you flowers – go to the Florist yourself – and witness the change in energy, change in thinking and change in RESULTS. Work the room and re-work your life.
 
If you want something a bit different, have read Women Too Much and all the CODA books till you’re exhausted with knowledge, check out my NEW 6 Week Winter Course of CODA REHAB for an Action Plan. It’s all here on Facebook for you to procrastinate over, leave to the last minute and end up disappointed. Feel worthy to book early for November.