One of my favourite poems, very timely reminder for a new year opening
love Rosalind
via Metta Refuge
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I just received notice about Leslie Temple Thurston’s new website Corelight which is really beautiful and infused with positive energy. I listened to the Conscious Awareness Meditation this morning and it was very sweet and powerful. I recommend this as a great daily meditation if you are looking for a guided meditation practise. I will definitely be using it again.
On the same page Leslie has gifted the Impeccability session of her Spiritual Warrior training as a free download, both as audio and written files here. I listened to the audio and found it gave me a boot to attend to some issues where my life is less than impeccable! Check it out and let me know how you find it.
Enjoy
Rosalind
I’m just having a conversation with Lucia Rene’s ‘Women Standing in Their Power‘ group on Facebook about clearing the energy field. There are lots of methods, some of which I recommend to clients after energy sessions or whenever they feel the need. One simple method is the tried and trusted Salt Bath. Salt alkalises your field and increase the negative ions which get depleted living in dense industrial city habitats and need recharging. Remember how good it feels when you’ve been swimming in the sea? And it’s not for nothing that spa towns developed around springs and waters rich in salts and other minerals, recommended for recuperation after illness.
I typically use a couple of handfuls of pure crystal sea salt on a routine basis, – ‘Tidmans Bathing Salt’ is good and cheap and available in the bathing section of Holland and Barratt and some supermarkets. You can also use rock salt, but not Table Salt which is pure sodium chloride. I’m adding below the advice I have followed and learned from in my training and my own healing journey.
This is from my ‘Healing the Light Body’ energy medicine training with the Four Winds Society:
‘Salt baths: These help to continue the release of heavy energy from the luminous body. Use one cup of sea salt (best without added iodine) plus one cup of bicarb. of soda in a hot bath. Soak for at least 20 minutes. Use this time to meditate and intentionally allow more release. Maybe light some candles and play relaxing music. Then rinse with fresh water. Do not let anyone else use the salt water. This is best done just before bed. Low alcohol during this time. Typically these are repeated every other day for the week following your session, but continue the baths beyond a week if you feel it would be helpful.’
For heavy-duty situations, here’s what the healer, therapist and scientist Barbara Ann Brennan recommends:
‘One of the best ways I know to clear the field is to take a bath in sea slat and baking soda. You can use as much as one pound of each in a tub of water. This is a strong solution, so it tends to deplete your energy. But if you have picked up a lot of negative energy or have accumulated a lot of lot vibratory energy from an illness, it is a good idea to try it this strong. Be sure that the water is not too hot. You will not be able to take the water as hot as you usually do without the salt and soda. If you have trouble with low blood pressure, be very careful because in some cases people have been known to faint in this bath, and you don’t want to take a chance with that. If you get dizzy, get out of the bath and try with cooler water. Soak for 20 minutes in the tub. Then lie in direct sunlight for 10-20 minutes to recharge your field. Use sunscreen. You will be surprised at how much cleaner and clearer you feel after such a bath. …It is nice to accompany your bath with music and candlelight. If you do this you can go into a deep healing state and do some visualisations during your bath.’ p.120, Light Emerging, Barbara Ann Brennan.
Personally, I just use my instinct, if I’m feeling heavy I will put half a box of salt in, or maybe just a couple of handfuls, and maybe bicarb. of soda if I have it in stock. Other things work too, like cider vinegar, tho not so enjoyable for me. Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) are famously used (in the UK at least) for this purpose and as a detox and muscle relaxant but I find they irritate my skin so I avoid them.
Experiment and see what works for you.
Let me know how you get on.
Munay, Rosalind
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- Benefits of an Epsom Salt Bath (brighthub.com)
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Last Wednesday was a big day for me. After a week with Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and 500 people in Nottingham on Living Mindfully, Living Peacefully retreat I elected to receive transmission of the 5 Mindfulness Trainings.
I have had this opportunity before, to take refuge when on retreat but this was the first time that there was no decision to be made, it was simply obvious that these trainings are already my aspirations and that the take transmission was simply an affirmation of intent and an opportunity to receive support in my intentions from others doing the same.
The 5 Mindfulness Trainings are not just for Buddhists. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, you cannot simply disown your root religion, and your spiritual ancestors, any more than you can disown your parents or blood ancestors, however much you have difficulty with them. This made some sense to me and I experienced a shift in being able to have some gratitude for my spiritual ancestors, as well as some forgiveness the nuns who I had experienced as hypocrites at school. Not that I want to go back to Roman Catholicism but I laid some ghosts to rest in honouring my experience and found some peace in my relationship with the church of my youth.
Here are the 5 Mindfulness Trainings taken from the Plum Village website:
5 Mindfulness Trainings
Sisters and brothers in the community, this is the moment when we enjoy reciting the Five Mindfulness Trainings together. The Five Mindfulness Trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic. They are a concrete expression of the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the path of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness for ourselves and for the world. To practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings is to cultivate the insight of interbeing, or Right View, which can remove all discrimination, intolerance, anger, fear, and despair. If we live according to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva. Knowing we are on that path, we are not lost in confusion about our life in the present or in fears about the future.
Reverence For Life
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
True Happiness
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and reverse the process of global warming.
True Love
Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without true love and a deep, long-term commitment made known to my family and friends. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. Seeing that body and mind are one, I am committed to learning appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and cultivating loving kindness, compassion, joy and inclusiveness – which are the four basic elements of true love – for my greater happiness and the greater happiness of others. Practicing true love, we know that we will continue beautifully into the future.
Loving Speech and Deep Listening
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into my anger. I know that the roots of anger can be found in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will practice Right Diligence to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.
Nourishment and Healing
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.
Dharma Name
I was also given a dharma name, again to aspire to and support my mindfulness practice: Generous Stream of the Heart.
I’m still settling with all this and it feels like a very helpful choice I have made which brings much clarity into my life. Watch this space!
Rosalind (Generous Stream of the Heart)
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Maybe its sign of crone-dom but every now and then i have a moment, usually one of those when I’m wondered why I’m on the planet, of what are the things I really want to do, that if I knew I was going to die tomorrow, or in 6 months time, I would regret not having done?
Dave Freeman created a whole travel guide from this question ’100 Things to Do Before You Die’ and a cursory glance through it suggests that despite being a Saggitarian, I am not much of an aspirant outward traveller. More of an inward traveller maybe.
Certainly, the beginnings of my own list tends towards inner journeying. I think I might be hard pushed to find 100 things I want to do, since I don’t seem to be the kind of person with that kind of wish list, but I’m going to make a start here.
1. First on my list, which I’m glad to report I will be doing on Friday, is going on Mindfulness Retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh.
2. Second would be to meet Pema Chodron, another buddhist teacher, this time in the Tibetan Shambala tradition.
3. Third up would be to meet Brian Swimme, (pictured) the great mathematical cosmologist.
4. Fourth I think would be to work again with Genpo Roshi on a Big Mind, Big Heart retreat.
5. Fifth is to work with Lucia Rene in a workshop on Unplugging the Patriarchy. This one is definitely in the pipeline in my work with Catherine Barnard and our Women of Becoming project.
6. Sixth would be….now I’m running out of steam a bit….maybe I need to go and do these before I get any more?…
Ok Sixth would be to support other women in unplugging from the patriarchy at this crucial time in history. I feel like I am already beginning to do some of this, and noticing that more women on their spiritual path are finding their way to me.
7. Seventh….ummm…would be to generate enough income to be able to follow my dharma path and not be worrying about finances.
8. Eighth would be to live somewhere beautiful, among a network of people with shared interests and access to beautiful sustainable fresh food and community.
9. Ninth, Im realising that this is basically a wish list….ok, so ninth would be to find a soul mate who has done his inner feminine work.
10. Tenth would be to feel like I am making a worthwhile contribution while I’m on the earth.
Whew, well that was all even harder than I thought…
Be interesting to try the next 10, that could be a while before I have another go.
Whats on YOUR list of things to do before you die?
Happy days
Rosalind
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‘Yet perhaps we should look beyond acceptance. At a recent workshop I engaged in conversation with {this author RA} (i), another person-centred therapist on this issue, following a comment she had made about the need to move beyond self-acceptance to a place of ‘self-embracing’. In other words, acceptance of ourselves is one thing, yet there remains the division of that which accepts and that which is accepted. The point of self-embracing is reached where the client truly takes into themselves that which they may not like, or which they feel uncomfortable with. The process of self-embracing might be considered as one of integration, a merging with the possibility of moving on. We discussed this in the context of depression, and of the need to embrace the depression as a reality, as a genuine part of the person that is focusing a reaction to particular experiences and circumstances.’ (Richard Bryant Jeffries, email communication 4 Oct 02)
‘Im not clear yet whether Im advocating a move beyond acceptance, or whether we just need to really understand what is meant by acceptance’. (R Arden (i) email communication, Oct 2002)
The concept of self-acceptance (unconditional positive self-regard) as the basis for the person-centred theory of change (Bozarth 1998) seems in danger of becoming limited or misunderstood. The widespread dismissal of unconditional positive regard or acceptance as basic, obvious, even trite, ‘oh yes of course we need to accept our client, our selves, but is it sufficient?’ is widespread even among some who identify themselves as person-centred practitioners. Having explored this issue recently I argue that self acceptance is a sufficient condition in person-centred theory, provided that we truly understand the depth and extent of its meaning.
In relation to my own experiences of ‘depression’, I know that it took me years of fighting before i was able to reach a place of sufficient self acceptance in myself that i could truly, viscerally experience my acceptance of my ‘depressed’ state as an aspect of me, as an unloved aspect of me, as an attribute which I could only be free of through the deep act of loving, embracing my depression, absorbing it within myself, welcoming it in to my life, holding it, embracing it, feeling the pain of it, the hurt of it, the fear of it, the terror of it. Only when i could truly accept, -embrace – this dimension into my self concept instead of fighting and refusing to accept that i was like ‘this’, could I move through the experience and emerge more whole. Then i could be free to participate in life almost for the first time.
Chapters 3 and 4 of Client – Centred Therapy (1951) are significant in looking at these concepts more fully. Rogers says: (p 148),
‘It would also appear that the release of ‘repressions’ or the bringing into awareness of denied experiences, is not simply a matter of probing for these, either by the client or the therapist. It is not until the concept of self is sufficiently revised to accept them, that they can be openly symbolised. The change in self precedes, rather than follows, the recovery of denied or repressed material.’
There is something important about the difference between knowing at a cognitive level that one is depressed, -I knew very well my experience, i was aware of my self as depressed- and yet this knowing, this level of understanding and accepting my experience was not the acceptance Rogers refers to, when one merges with ones’ experience at a visceral level. As Ollie Bown says, ibid; p. 165) …’acceptance is an emotional phenomenon, not an intellectual one.’
Yielding is another way of thinking about this concept. In the Miss Cam interview, (ibid; p 95), Miss Cam says ‘Yet how odd that I should think of finding peace by yielding to what seems chaos and disorder.’ Rogers follows, (ibid; p. 97),
”The theoretical terms in which we shall later try and describe this experience are that the organised concept of the self and the self-in-relationship, are congruent with the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism. ……When the self ”owns” experience, assimilates it, but has no need to deny or distort it, then there is naturally a feeling of freedom and of unity connected with the experience.”
It is clear then that (self) acceptance in person-centred theory is an embodied experience rather than an intellectual concept. Is this where the confusion in understanding lies? I often think that the contributions of many of the worlds’ great philosophies and religions are understood intellectually and their deeper meanings are lost to our visceral engagement. This is not surprising in cultures where we have been encouraged to deny our bodily felt sensing with layers of intellectual veneer, so that we lose contact and trust in our primary experiencing. This estrangement from our selves creates the tensions which prompt us to seek help from therapy or other means. Rogers said
‘[P]sychotherapy is a process whereby man becomes his organism – without self-deception, without distortion … [It] seems to mean a getting back to basic sensory and visceral experience. (Rogers, 1961, p. 103), cited in Fernald, 2001).
In relation to acceptance then, this is not an intellectual ‘I accept myself as I am’ idea, rather ‘I live all of my organismic experience without denial or distortion’.
If this is an accurate take on acceptance and self-acceptance, then it is important to understand in the development of the acceptant presence of the therapist. For Rogers it requires that
“I let myself go into the immediacy of the relationship where it is my total organism which takes over and is sensitive to the relationship, not simply my consciousness” (ibid; p. 202).
The implication then is that the extent of the therapists’ own self acceptance and integration of organismic experience will be a measure of the acceptance they can offer to clients. So perhaps we can conclude that therapist self acceptance is a basis for acceptance of clients and the development of their own self acceptance.
Notes
i) This author was previously know as Lee Field
References
Bozarth, J, person-Centred Therapy, PCCS Books, 1998
Rogers, C.R., Client – Centred Therapy, Constable, London (1951)
Fernald, P. S., Carl Rogers: Body-Centered Counsellor, Journal of Counseling & Development, Spring 2000, Vol. 78 Issue 2
Copyright Rosalind Arden
UPR Therapist self acceptance 2007
You may reproduce or quote freely from this article provided you include full reference to the author and source.
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Today I’m packing for a few days away. Not a holiday in the usual sense but a holiday from my mind. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is coming to the UK and I have long been a follower of his work since I read his best-selling book Peace is Every Step. Thay as he is affectionately known is 84 now and I have been promising myself I would sit in retreat with him for some time. This week is my chance since he is holding a 5 day mindfulness retreat in Nottingham. The Independent published a story on his visit yesterday, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.
Tonight, Wednesday 11th August he is holding a public talk at the Hammersmith Apollo which will be streamed live here.
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Annie Leonard is doing a great public service with her films which began with The Story of Stuff. Her latest offering is on The Story of Cosmetics and every bit as enlightening. All this chemical stuff adds to the toxic load on your physical and energy bodies and slows down the clearing process.
Watch the 8 minute film here:
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