Stormy Weather

Seemed like a fitting post from the One Spirit Book of Days with the recent storms we’ve had lately.  Thank goodness for the sunshine today!

You may not get the chance to witness a storm at sea from a lighthouse, but a hotel restaurant or window will often provide great views.  Think of the double aspect of nature turned native–exhilarating but potentially destructive.  Think also of the precariousness of what we may wrongly perceive as a stable world designed for our comfort:  it wasn’t.  Watching a storm brew up and blow over is an object lesson in our frailty, and in the good fortune we enjoy when nature stays calm.

Shades of Intimacy

Maternal joy is the epitome of family harmony.  Among adults the rewards of blood kinship will often be more elusive.  You may fall out with some relatives or become indifferent to others–that’s your prerogative.  Taking a different path, you may find you have little in common with your cousin, your nephew, or even your sister.  But it’s worth making an unexpected overture.  When relatives rediscover love or friendship for each other, a rip in the social fabric is healed.

Stage 11–Descent

Gift Giving/ Prophet Like

Sponsorship/Service

When you first hear “descent,” you probably automatically think hellfire and damnation.  Not the case this time…

If you read my last entry, Stage 10, you learned about Ascent, when you experience nothing but pure immersion with Spirit.  You are then able to incorporate this experience and understanding into the deepest aspects of your being.

Now being in this experience of actually BEING love and light and actually BEING one with The Universe, do you think you would be able to DO much?

Probably not…

Stage 11 allows you to take the experience of Stage 10 and bring it to a more embodied place.  Your motivation is a pure desire to share your gifts with the world to give the world a more complete experience.

We really are all One, and you act with this understanding as your basis.

We are renewed beyond our limits and sense of self and enter into the world again.  We know that we are part of all we perceive and responsible for all that we know.  We live without being attached to our circumstances.  We love and we serve.  We participate in a larger circle of life, knowing our gifts and having a burning desire to effortlessly share them with the world, in service.  Our inner thoughts and desires are magically and naturally matched by our outer experience.  For extended periods, irrespective of external circumstance, I can find a place and experience compassion, empathy, love, forgiveness, and altruism.  I long to serve others with the gifts of my soul.  This is how I am, when I do what I do.

—SomatoRespiratory Integration Workbook

 

Adapted from The SomatoRespiratory Integration Workbook

 

Next Week:  Stage 12–Community

Stage 10–Ascent

Being the Light/Being the Love

Receiving Your Gifts

Merging Past the Illusion of a Separate Soul

Of the Twelve Stages of Healing, the tenth stage is known as the “ascent” stage.  This is the experience of the mystical that many religions and spiritual traditions seek as the highest experience of being.  You can compare it to “Christ Consciousness,” “Nirvana,” “transpersonal integration,” etc.

In this stage you lose your sense of self in the experience of absolutes.  In Stage 9, you experienced yourself as connected and full of light.  In Stage 10, the clear boundary of your own light dissolves and begins to merge with the Universe.  Donald Epstein compares this to having the light you experienced in Stage 9 represent a candle burning brightly.  As you move through Stage 9, you become aware that there is a bright light outside, and it is coming into the room.  You realize your candle does not seem as bright as it did before compared to this light.  If you were to walk outside into the bright noontime sun with your candle, it appears that the candle is no longer lit, but you know that is just an illusion.  This is what the loss of your sense of self is like.  Your own light has not diminished but merged with the greater intensity of the Light of the Universe.

We experience our union with the creative force of the universe.  We transcend the limits, boundaries, language, and judgments of our existing sense of self.  We gain the wisdom of knowing the oneness of all of creation during this stage.  We feel as follows:  “I have had moments where I have merged past the illusion that I am separate from the spirit of all life, the essence of love, and my experience of the most Divine.  I had had the experience that I am within all, and all of life is connected to me.  I have experienced the grace of love as a physical and spiritual phenomenon through light, vibration, or touch.  I know that I know and am humbled by this experience of the infinite element of life.  I am grateful to witness this Greatness.

—SomatoRespiratory Integration Workbook

There is no fear in experiencing the chaos in Stage 10 because you know that the Divine is fully supporting you throughout the experience.  In Stage 10 you merge with the unrecognized wholeness of your being.

In Stage 9 you experienced energy or consciousness expressing THROUGH you; in Stage 10, you BECOME consciousness.  You BECOME energy.  You BECOME love.  The concept of boundaries is blurred, and you lose your sense of time, space, meaning, and self only to fully surrender to Oneness.

Next Week:  Stage 11–Descent

Stage 8–Emptiness in Connectedness

Emptiness/Beingness

Effortless Flow

“After the discharge we are emptied.  Rather than a space of nothingness, we find ourselves in a place of possibilities.  We enter into a state of gratitude, vulnerability, connection with our external rhythms, and alignment with events around us.  We welcome serendipity as a natural way of life.  The sentiment is, “I do things because they feel right–not to move towards pleasure and avoid pain.  I do things because it is the time to do them.  I know that I will be supported by an abundant universe in my choices.  I experience peace when at times my thoughts, inner noise, or static cease.  I sense more room in my body for breath.  I sense the rhythms within and sometimes around me.  I feel gratitude for my connection to others and in a greater cosmic plan.”

–SomatoRespiratory Integration Workbook

Stage 8 is the first level of BEING.  It is the doorway to later states of consciousness.  You are eager for the connections that await your new awareness.  You might experience the “newness” of being separated from what you were previously connected to; however, you feel content with the separation and even excited with the energetic freedom.  Donald Epstein likens this time to the space in between grabbing the bars from a trapeze.  It is stillness and openess rolled into one.  In this space, it is easy to become more observant of your own rhythm and the rhythms that surround you.  You may feel more connected to your environment and be able to sense your alignment with others.

You can probably recall a time when you experienced a release and enjoyed  the space created by its void.  In that space, you may have felt vulnerable–yet secure–and grateful by the possibilities that filled it.  What sort of new opportunities are coming up next?

Please feel free to leave comments below this blog post. Visit the CONTACT INFORMATION page to contact Dr. Katie.

Next Week:  Stage 9–Light Behind the Form

Stage 5-Merging with the Illusion

Swimming in the Current

Merging Past the Illusion

Merging Beyond the Wall

“So if you think your life is complete confusion

Because you never win the game

Just remember that it’s the Grand Illusion

Deep inside we’re all the same

Someday soon we’ll stop to ponder what on Earth’s this spell we’re under

We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are”

–Styx, “The Grand Illusion”

Nice touch, eh?  Although the song is more about becoming rich and famous and remembering that even though we have money, we still go through the same stuff, I think it can apply to discussing Stage 5.

Stage 5 is the time to confront the fears, pains, and illusions–the “shadow self”– that lurk BEHIND the suffering from your place of strength that you gained in Stage 4.  You may find you confront your “light self.”  Any part of you that you were keeping yourself hidden from will now come to the forefront.

You create a new sense of empowerment for yourself because you were able to use your own resources and break through that haze/film/nebulous barrier that was keeping you blind to the hidden parts of yourself.  “I know there’s something more to this…”

You KNOW there is something behind the barrier, although you are not always aware of what it is exactly.  This is the time to observe the illusion itself not necessarily what’s behind it.

Be careful you don’t enter Stage 5 until you are READY!!!  Many practitioners bring you to this stage to confront situation when the Bodymind is not ready for it.  Effective merging cannot be forced.

Stage 5 is essentially about moving to a deeper level of WHOLENESS.  To do that, you need to see those parts of you that have been remain hidden by the illusion of a barrier.  Before, the barrier seemed solid; the more you work with the knowledge and understanding of yourself, the more you realize it’s really just a smoke screen and can easily be swiped away…”Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” 🙂

In this stage of healing we revisit our alienated self.  We are now strong enough to own it, to merge past the illusion of self.  We know there is more to our body sense or symptom than just physical pain.  It seems like there is an emotion or an energy that must be recognized.  We want to hold our body or part and ask it, “What do you want?”  It seems as if there is a film or haze between what we are experiencing and a deeper level of ourselves.  That divide or membrane is scary, but we have a sense that we must penetrate it, because it is an illusion.  We know that past any potential discomfort we will be okay.  We must see what is on the other side of the illusion.  In this stage, we literally merge with the illusion of self, towards more wholeness.

–SomatoRespiratory Integration Workbook

Stage 4–Reclaiming Our Power

Building Courage/ Chi

Sounds like fun, right?  You’ve spent all this time really experiencing the depth of who you are…now let’s do something with it!!

There are three phases of Stage 4 that you must fully progress through in order to experience Stage 4 deeply and completely.  THIS IS CRUCIAL to your path of moving forward!!

Recognition

First you must recognize that you are angry you have lost your power.  This sense is an extension of your frustration with being stuck in Stage 3.  The most common experience is one of  “I’m not going to take this anymore!”

When in the Recognition step, you can take either of two paths.  One allows you to reclaim your power by delving deeper into Stage 4 and continuing to the Communication phase.  The other path allows you to go back to the previous three stages and delve deeper into Stages 1-3 in Discover.  Going back to Discover is not necessarily bad; it can be perfectly appropriate if it is necessary to explore more into Stages 1, 2, and 3.  Deepening the understanding of yourself will help you to feel a more authentic and powerful Stage 4.

When connecting to the feeling of “I won’t take this anymore!” it’s easy to connect to the OUTWARD expression of what you DON’T want to take anymore (bringing you back to Stages 1-3) OR you can move forward in your consciousness and progress to the Communication phase.  Be careful when making any decisions while still in the Recognition phase because it is usually a REACTION to your own frustration.  This will lead you to make choices from your own separateness (Stage 2).

Communication

The Communication phase involves a recognition of a great strength and power available to you beyond the acknowledgment of being stuck, beyond the anger at the Recognition portion of Stage 4.  “I take my power back!” is now said with authority and strength instead of anger.  You do not make choices at this point but instead experience an “internal growling” to sense how much internal power is available to you.  Note: to make a choice at this phase moves you AWAY from healing.

Completion

The Completion portion is marked by a shift that occurs in the Communication phase by ACKNOWLEDGING INTERNAL POWER!  This change allows you to move away from self-abuse, victimhood, and lack of power by declaring “I deserve to be more whole” or “I won’t do this to myself anymore!”

A strong “I” is associated with a greater sense of self and personal responsibility.  Shifting into a consciousness of “I deserve more than this!” allows you to complete Stage 4.  The only choice to make right now is to honor yourself.

This stage of healing is one in which we realize that the “script” determined by the above three stages [Stages 1-3] no longer works for us.  We are angry that we have lost our power and are determined no to let it happen again.  You think, “I have had enough of this and wish to take back my wholeness.  I deserve more than this.  I don’t mean more than a symptom or circumstance.  I mean I will no longer lessen who I am.”  At this stage, our focus is no longer on a single cause or answer.  It is not about our condition; it is about the courage to be ourselves.

–Somato Respiratory Integration Workbook-The Twelve Stages of Healing

Next entry: Stage 5–Merging With The Illusion