Men and Emotional Health – Grief
In recent posts I’ve been writing about emotional health and balance. And just yesterday I included some thoughts about balancing yin and yang energies as we go inside to seek guidance, to switch on our internal GPS and determine if any course corrections are needed. In these turbulent times, the waning days of 2012, I’m finding the need to go inside frequently to establish balance and take a close look at my route forward!
And part of what is going on for me, what I’m working on is processing grief. Sometimes I look back on my life and sense that I’ve done a lot of grieving, and of working through the grief that so many men seem to feel. This goes back to the 80s and Robert Bly’s Mytho-Poetic Movement. He was all about the grief process and how little western society allows any real space for this emotion. Another of my teachers, I met him through Robert, addresses grief as one side of a coin; the other side is praise! This comes from Martín Prechtel (see my review of his most recent book).
What Martín offers is very much in keeping with the Taoist approach to transforming emotions to virtues which I addressed here a few days ago. For Taoists Grief is transformed to Inspiration.
Grief is a good way to end this series on the transformation of emotions. We in the west pay much too little attention to this deep emotion. It is our unexpressed, unprocessed, unmetabolized grief, even more than anger, which leads us into wars. Grief leaves us empty if we don’t deal with it. And we then fill that emptiness with aggression. A milder but still potent manifestation of this emotion is Disappointment. Here again we have no good way to process this. We need to learn to transform grief and disappointment to Awe, Inspiration and Praise. Again there is deep Inner Work needed to work through this emotion. Our stories help with understanding. Meditation helps with moving from Grief to Praise, from Disappointment to Inspiration.
Grief is often associated with death, of course. Death is the ultimate loss. When we lose something, especially a loved one, an emptiness opens up that is difficult to fill. When we go inside and touch that emptiness we too often shrink away from it. It is a cold and bitter sensation that we would rather avoid, cover up, fill in, and ignore. None of us likes that hollowness; it is painful!
So, how do we get to Inspiration and Praise from that lonely, empty place? How can we even suggest that there is Praise on the other side of Grief? When we lose someone truly close to us through death, we turn to celebrating a life lived well. We remember shared stories, inspiring moments together, important milestones on our shared journey. We find many ways to praise that life. And from the specific, from that loved one’s life, we can expand to celebrate Life, the larger cycle of Life and Death in the great context of Becoming.
Here we find connection. And through this connection to the Greater we can begin to fill in the empty hole in our middle. This is a lengthy process. It takes time and work, inner work, to reach for the connection; to move into the context of Life. This is where we find Inspiration and reason enough for Praise.
Grief to Praise. It is not an easy route; it takes time (more than the three days offered by businesses to employees for the death of loved ones!). It requires an expansion; the hole in the heart is not filled in but the heart expands to somehow accommodate the hole! Take the time for this expansion process. If you find yourself grieving, whether it’s for the loss of a loved one or some other great loss (job, home, youth, energy, health…) sit with it; touch it gently; move into the emptiness; begin to see the possibility for expansion. Do the inner work, a bit at a time as you can.
And remember to bless yourself in this great work!
“Tap into Your Inner Guidance” A Commentary from Richard
Have you reviewed the video and commentary by Rosemary from her FREE weekly MuseLetter? I posted them over the past couple of days; if you want to receive them directly you can subscribe here. And today here are my thoughts on the support Rosemary offers for living a conscious life:
Rosemary’s Video and “Exploration” this week offer an excellent way to gain insight into our life, the direction our life is taking and even a method of acquiring that guidance, like our GPS systems acquire the satellites to help us navigate along the highways. And she makes it sound so easy, doesn’t she!
Well, for men this isn’t always the easiest thing to do. In Taoist understanding men have a lot of yang energy, active energy to go out and get things done (even if we are unsure of what it is we are to do at times!). Women have a lot of yin, passive energy to go inside, go quite and seek answers to “what is to be done” – and then to be receptive to what comes in the way of guidance. Taoists teach balance and seek balance between yin and yang energies – receiving and acting. And this is the core of Rosemary’s teaching this week.
It’s important to seek this guidance for a number of reasons; the most prominent is to be sure we are on the route of our “Soul Purpose” our raison d’être. Rosemary throws this out as a given…that we know what our Soul Purpose is, and that we seek the inner guidance to assure ourselves we are on the correct path. But sometimes what we have to seek is that Purpose itself!
Do you know your Soul Purpose? Do you know the answer to your “Big Why?”
Perhaps the answer to this question is the first one to seek inside.
In her commentary Rosemary offers a way to go inside and to get the answers to the big questions. Breathe, tune-in, stay quiet and listen. Listen for any answers, signs, symbols, that come up. Assess these. Separate out the ones that seem judgmental, are coming from ego rather than some deeper place. Note the yin approach to this inner inquiry. It often works quite well for men and women alike.
There are also yang approaches to gaining the guidance our soul urges on us. Rosemary has offered to share additional tools in future videos and commentaries. I look forward to these! Meanwhile I’ll share an approach that has worked well for me.
A number of years ago I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I can say that a few books have changed my life; this is one. I follow a practice recommended by Cameron to write out three long-hand pages of text every day, preferably first thing every morning. Cameron calls these “morning pages.” This practice works for me. And it is a way for me to “tap into my inner guidance.” Note the yang, active approach to this method. The guidance comes as I empty my mind and simply write what comes. In a way it is like “following the breath” in meditation practice; I follow my pen…
There are many ways to seek inner guidance. Active, passive, with words, symbols, studying our dreams, following our breath. The key is to first quiet the mind, the ego, to do the listening, active or passive; then to trust the guidance and follow it. And this is why we call it “practice.” It’s a life-long pursuit!
PS: In addition to the many tools to tap into your inner guidance there are ways to determine and expand on your Soul Purpose. Rosemary offers an incredible and comprehensive approach to this through Scientific Hand Analysis. If you are unsure of your Big Why? check out the details on Rosemary’s Website
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Tap into Your Inner Guidance
Here’s Rosemary’s commentary on her weekly video I posted yesterday. We all have this internal GPS, yes, even we men! The key is to tap in and then trust the guidance we get; act on it. Rosemary has many tools she uses to get in touch with the “inner guidance.” I’ll offer some of my own thoughts on this tomorrow.
Here’s Rosemary:
Did you know that you have an internal Guidance System that is like a GPS for your life? It’s there and it’s always available, but you must learn to crank up the volume and trust the guidance you receive.
Unlike the navigation system [or SatNav, as our friends in other countries call it] in your car, your internal GPS really DOES know the best route for you to take through your life. This is the guidance that keeps you on track for living your Soul Purpose. It’s important to learn how to turn this guidance system on.
The first step to tapping into your inner guidance is to take a deep breath and bring your attention to your inside being, your inner self. When you focus on deep breathing you energize your inner being and begin to disconnect from the outer turbulence we call ‘life.’
After a few deep breaths, bring your awareness to your heart area so that you are connecting at a deeper level than at your conscious mind, which will only distract you with ‘what ifs’ and ‘how abouts.’ Your goal here is to get to the guidance that is connected to your higher self so that you can ‘see’ the road ahead of you without worrying about the distractions around you.
Now ask your question. If you feel the answer in a feeling or a sound or a vision, then just stay with that until you understand the message. Sometimes the answer comes as a soft voice speaking in a way that you can understand. Sometimes it is a symbol that you can interpret by examining it further. Sometimes the message is very clear and sometimes it is subtler. But there is always a message, for even if you don’t experience a message, the answer might be ‘Pause’ or ‘Wait.’
You’ll know you’ve reached guidance that comes from a higher vibration than your ego if the message is neutral, that is, devoid of emotion or judgment or ‘should.’ Guidance that starts with ‘You shouldn’t have…’ or ‘What were you thinking of…’ is from the ego and not your highest self, so keep seeking a deeper connection if you start to feel yourself judged in any way.
It usually takes some practice to be clear about the inner guidance you are receiving. I’ve worked with some clients who, over time, learn to catch themselves in that self-judgment so that they can avoid the trap of beating themselves up for mistakes. There are no mistakes, only LESSONS. If you keep repeating an action and getting the same results, then you are stuck in the same lesson. Look around for what you are to learn. When the time is right, you will get it!
We once drove a rental car in California from the Napa Valley to Big Sur and decided that we wanted to take the Golden Gate Bridge instead of the freeway on the other side of the water, which is the route our GPS [affectionately called ‘Nuvi’ after the model name] preferred that we take. Can you hear that voice saying ‘Recalculating’ every time we ignored Nuvi’s advice? After about 5 ‘Recalculatings,’ and I’m certain I heard her voice getting more and more disgusted, Nuvi finally said, ‘There IS a better route available!’ [Emphasis Nuvi’s!]
Our inner guidance never gets that judgmental! We just keep plodding along and our inner guidance system quietly ‘Recalculates’ to keep bringing our lessons to us.
Take some time this week to practice tapping into your own inner guidance system. There is a lot of good information available there about the road ahead. And there are lots of tools that you can learn for additional ways to tap in. Stay tuned for that information!
ROSEMARY’S VIDEO EZINE: Your Inner Guidance
In this video Rosemary urges everyone to pause, take a breath and check in with our “inner guidance system” – our own internal GPS! We all have these, built in. Too often, especially men, we tend to ignore this system. But the language is there for us to use and learn from; e.g. “gut-check.” That’s right, when we do a gut-check or rely on our gut instincts we are using this human GPS. The trick is to become very intentional about “tapping in” and doing the check. And then the second trick is to trust the guidance!
A Message from The Other Side for Richard (and everyone!)
Friday evening Rosemary hosted a Conversation with The Other Side. Several of us gathered together, some in person and some online, to hear what messages were available to us from loved ones who have crossed over to The Other Side, from Spirit Guides, Angels, and other multi-dimensional beings who are their for our highest good. I recorded my message and it’s a valuable one for many to hear.
Without further introduction here is Rosemary offering channeled guidance for me, and anyone else who needs to hear this; enjoy!
Over the next few days I will also be offering my thoughts on this guidance, especially about duality, polarization and the message from the Inuit! Please stay tuned.
PS: I do realize I had planned to write about Grief today. I sensed that this message was more important at the moment as we approach tomorrow’s election. I will return to the emotions and how to transform them in later posts.
Do you want to learn more about Rosemary, her Conversations with The Other Side? The next one is already scheduled for December 7 at 7:00 pm Eastern. For the details Go Here
Men and Emotional Health
The recent videos by Rosemary and our commentaries have been about health and balance. Balance is achieved by bringing all four of our bodies, Spiritual, Mental, Emotional and Physical into both a healthy state and into balance across them.
Examining Emotional Health and Balance I have presented how Taoist Chinese sages work with emotions by transforming them into virtues. I have previously addressed Anger and its counterpart virtue, Creativity (Resourcefulness). And I have looked at Anxiety and how it might be transformed into Connection and Joy. Today I address two additional emotions: Fear and Worry.
Working with Fear is to transform it to Wisdom. Fear is probably the most primitive, instinctual emotion, therefore most deeply seated. It is an emotion of the ego and the ego’s job is survival. Fear triggers the fight or flight response, the reptilian brain component designed to keep us alive. Through inner work it is important to transform Fear into Wisdom and Empowerment. We move from the primitive, instinctual response to an Enlightened response. Frank Herbert, author of the Dune science fiction series, wrote that “fear is the mind-killer.” Exactly! When faced with survival it is easy for the mind to shut down and move into automatic response mode.
The trick here is to catch our reaction to an event or an object which triggers fear, to pause and breathe into the fear, and then to examine if this thing or occurrence is truly something to fear. These days we rarely encounter saber-toothed tigers to which the flight/fear response is appropriate!
There is a Korean Koan practice that helps me in these potentially fearsome situations. The practice is very simple: pause and ask “What is this?” Go inside to find an answer. And then ask the question again, this time of the first answer that comes to mind. Continue the practice until the questioning comes to a satisfying conclusion. This is a way to transform Fear to Wisdom.
Worry is often a wasted expenditure of emotional energy. I prefer to transform it to Centeredness. Next to Anger, Worry may be the next biggest emotion Western Men have to deal with. While Anxiety is about our place in society, Worry is more about our place in the Cosmos. Who are we; why are we here; what is life all about anyway; and is there any purpose to any of this, to my life? And these questions extend to health, security, and general lack of well-being. To counter Worry it is good to go into our stories for insight into this emotion. How has Worry affected us, influenced our decisions, guided our choices? How does Worry feel on the inside? What color does it have?
Worry transforms to Centeredness and Ecology. When we sink into our own Inner Space, our Wisdom, we become grounded and wholly present. We connect here with the All, the Universe. And from this deep place of wisdom we begin to understand our connectedness to everything and everyone; this is different from the transformation of Anxiety to Connection which is more about our human connections. This is broader and deeper. And the result is a deep appreciation of everything, all of creation, including ourselves! Within this context there is no room for Worry. We are part of something so much bigger. And we begin to see where we fit in the overall Ecology of the Cosmos. We see ourselves at the microcosmic level fitting neatly into the overall picture of the Macrocosm. There is great peace here and the beginning of balance.
Wisdom and Centeredness. These seem so much more appropriate responses than Fear and Worry! Try them on. Pause and ask: “What is this?” Breathe and move inside; find your Center. Everything in the Universe radiates outward from that Center. You are a key piece in that Universe!
PS: for my next post I will examine one more emotion that men need to pay particular attention to: Grief. Stay tuned!
“How’s Your Health?” A Commentary from Richard
Have you reviewed the video and commentary by Rosemary from her FREE weekly MuseLetter? I posted them over the past couple of days; and if you want to receive them directly you can subscribe here. And today here are my thoughts on the question Rosemary asks:
In her Video and Commentary this week Rosemary asks a broad question about health. On the surface this may seem to be a simple, straightforward question. For the most part when we think of our health we immediately scan our physical bodies for anything that may be signaling a pain or illness. But probing the question of our health is a much deeper subject than that first reaction!
We have four bodies, at least! And Rosemary addresses each of them in her commentary posted yesterday. For optimum health we need to “treat” each of these bodies and balance them. For men this can be a real challenge!
Last week I wrote of the emotional body and one emotion I am particularly familiar with, Anger! In Taoist philosophy the ancient Chinese identified five primary emotions and their correlating virtues. For example Creativity is the virtue corresponding to Anger. The other four emotions are Anxiety, Worry, Fear and Grief. Treating these emotions and moving them, transforming them to their virtues is the work we must undertake at the emotional level to achieve a healthy emotional body that in turn supports the physical body’s health.
Today let’s look at Anxiety, a serious emotion affecting so many of us in Western Society. Here in the US we are nearing the end of a polarizing National election. And in the Northeast US we are cleaning up and recovering from a devastating storm, Hurricane Sandy. This election cycle has seemed to go on forever! And with the long prediction of Sandy’s potential as an historic storm, it seemed larger than any storm could live up to; yet for many, it did! Just holding the energy of these two intertwined events is sufficient emotional strain to give the healthiest person a severe case of Anxiety!
What do we do?
Anxiety is often associated with our place in society, our standing within our family, group, tribe, nation, world. It is about who we are; it is deeply connected to self-esteem issues. Using the Tao as guidance, the emotion of Anxiety is associated with the heart and small intestine; it is the Fire Element emotion. The virtues that correspond to Anxiety are Connection and Joy, clearly virtues of the Heart. Moving Anxiety to Joy is a natural transformation as we work on our place within the human family, recognize the importance of that place, our being in that place and the Connection we have with others from that place. And once we have that Connection, deep Joy is there for us. The process here is remembering our own connections. “It’s a Wonderful Life” that famous Christmas Capra movie, is an excellent reminder of just how connected we are in this life and how vital to the overall scheme we are.
The process is reasonably simple: breathe into your Heart Center. Visualize a ruby red light streaming in to your chest to cauterize the wounds inflicted by Anxiety and transform those wounds to Connection and Joy. We are humans, a connected species. We live in groups and survive through cooperation and connectedness. Anxiety is created through our sense of
disconnectedness. Breathing the color Red in to our Heart Center restores this sense of togetherness in all of Life’s experiences.
My 15-year-old granddaughter just came down to visit and to apologize for her over-reaction to an incident around the dinner table this evening. I accepted and in turn apologized for my own over-reaction! It reminds me of our connection; our heart-connection. Family, friends and neighbors, communities, cities, states, countries…we are all connected. We can transform our Anxieties through remembering all of our Essential Connections and taking great Joy in those Connections!
PS: Tomorrow, November 2, just in time for All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead, you are invited to a Conversation with The Other Side! Rosemary brings in the Energies, Loved Ones who have crossed over, Angels, Spirit Guides, all manner of extra-dimensional beings during this time when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest! Join me! Learn more here!
ROSEMARY’S COMMENTARY: How’s Your Health?
Balance and Health; they really do go together! In the video posted yesterday, Rosemary speaks of balancing the four bodies: Spiritual, Mental, Emotional and Physical. And this is the way to health as well! So often we think of health as a well body, our physical body. The physical level may be where a symptom shows up most prominently, but how often does a dis-ease begin at another level? Here’s Rosemary on Health. I’ll be back tomorrow (Thursday) with my own commentary on Rosemary’s MuseLetter (subscribe).
I’m writing this as I sit in a doctor’s office while my daughter sees a surgeon about having her gall bladder removed. It’s sobering to see your loved one in pain.
So I’m thinking about the pain that so many people have, every day, because their health isn’t what they would like it to be. Not just physical health, but also emotional health, mental health, spiritual health. It’s so important to be healthy on all levels that just focusing on the physical doesn’t lead us to the life of our dreams.
What’s the last thing you did for your emotional health? Are you looking at your life for keys to the blocks that you are experiencing? Have you mined the past on your personal timeline to learn the lessons of your experiences? Are you developing new tools for your responses so your knee-jerk reaction isn’t where you get stuck when something happens in your life?
How about your mental health? Have you examined the tapes that play in your head for their source and to decide whether to keep them playing or to change them? Do you know what negative thoughts are popping up and keeping you from growing into the person you were meant to be? Are you holding yourself back from your greatness because you think you can’t be great?
And your spiritual health is most important because the beliefs you hold affect all the other levels of your being. Your beliefs affect your thoughts which generate your emotions and, finally, present as physical health problems if you haven’t cleared them. Oftentimes, beliefs come from our childhood or our family tree or our environment [society, teachers, churches, etc.]. They have not been generated consciously but are sourced in the unconscious mind.
What do you believe about yourself? Might there be a belief that ‘Everyone in our family gets arthritis by the time they are 50’? How about ‘No one from this neighborhood gets to go to college’? These unconscious beliefs operate to restrict us whether we are aware of them or not. Have you examined what you believe and made a conscious choice about holding onto that belief or releasing it?
At the physical level, you must choose to live in balance with all of your other levels. Are you eating in a way that matches your beliefs about food and its sources? Are you making physical choices based on unconscious emotions or thoughts that conflict with what is best for you? Do you ask yourself questions about your life and its balance when something presents as out of balance?
Many people can look at stress in their life and see the imbalance that is caused there. Too many believe that they can’t do anything about stress. But what they are really saying is that they don’t know what to do about the stress that they can’t change.
Things happen. We react. Then we choose our response to the event. That’s what life is.
And if we can’t change the things that happen, then we have to look at our reactions and our responses. This is the first place to build up our took kit so that we can live a conscious life and choose wisely our responses to events. This FOLLOWS doing all the other work to bring our beliefs, thoughts, emotions into balance.
When I spend a Muse Day with a client, where we have a whole day together to clear blocks and make plans, we often spend most of the day on the clearing blocks part of the agenda, checking in on the spiritual, mental and emotional levels. Creating a plan for the actions to take in the physical plan is often the easiest and quickest part of the day because we’ve brought every thing else into balance before we start the planning.
Trying to plan without the balance brings frustration and much harder work. Trying to deal with dis-ease without finding the source of the imbalance makes the task much more difficult, if not impossible.
Our daughter will be fine. She’s been working through many levels of what is happening. I’m sorry she’s going through the proverbial ‘2 by 4 to the head’ experience but haven’t we all had some of those? We learn!
And I hope that you, too, will examine the levels of your being for where imbalances live. Clearing those can really help you move the pain out of your life!
PS: Halloween, All Saints Day, Day of the Dead…they are here! And to take advantage of this time, when the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest, Rosemary hosts a Conversation with The Other Side! Friday Evening, November 2, 2012. You are invited! Deails Here
ROSEMARY’S VIDEO: The Steps to Balance
Here on the East Coast in Mayland we can certainly use “steps to balance”! As major storm, Sandy, roars through the area we are all being challenged to remain centered and resourceful. The storm combined with a full moon is really taking a toll on emotions! Breathe, remain alert, present and resourceful! And take the advice of Rosemary’s video here:
“Are You Flipping Out Over Something?” A Commentary by Richard
As I indicated last week when I posted Rosemary’s video from her MuseLetter (subscribe here) I am posting my thoughts on that video on my blog. Without further introduction, my thoughts:
I was particularly struck by the topic this week: Flip-Out. In fact I too often find myself flipping-out and almost always over very small things. Computers suddenly running slow, or even worse, crashing for unknown reasons; a lost item, like keys; a negative checking account balance when there should be plenty of cash available; a credit card that inexplicably fails to work (and this is worst if it’s a client’s charge that won’t go through!); the dog’s 2:00 am need…the list can be nearly endless! Are these life and death issues; of course not. But in our hustle-bustle lives they do add fuel to the fire of an already hot burn life-style that keeps pace with a 21st Century clock!
Is it a particularly male thing to flip-out over small things? Rosemary goes through life at a pretty calm clip; her life is just as complicated as mine. She writes and speaks this week about a “Toolbox of Resources.” Well, I’m a pretty resourceful guy; I’m on the journey with her. And yet my fuse is so much shorter. But I’m ready to learn these lessons; the 2×4 upside the head is beginning to hurt, get through to me!
I am examining my tools and resources. In the last few months I have rediscovered the Tao, the ancient Chinese philosophy known as The Way. I have read fairly extensively about Taoism, studied it as part of my seminary program, practiced off and on through authors such as Mantak Chia, studied and memorized sections of Lao-Tzu’s Taoteching, consulted the I Ching, and practiced Tai Chi. And recently I found an excellent Qigong instructor who has brought me back to this Way. And there are some significant tools and resources to be found here.
Managing my “flip-out moments” is certainly a skill I am working on. An emotion I frequently reach for in these moments is “anger” in its various forms. I can too easily flash to a white heat over some relatively small irritation. I cool quickly and then realize the exaggerated reaction as an unproductive response to the situation. And I ask myself, “why the unbalanced reaction?” And, “why the wasted energy?”
The Chinese Masters identify anger as one of the obstacles to finding The Way. In addition to wanting to reduce my expenditure of energy on a wasted emotion, I want to overcome this obstacle. And, oh by the way, mastering anger will go a long way toward improving my environment!
In the Taoist traditions negative emotions, like Anger, can be transmuted into their corresponding virtues; in the case of Anger the work is to transmute it to Creativity or Resourcefulness. Wow! What if my wasted anger energy can be channeled into creative energy? What a concept!
This is not as easy as it sounds, however. But in my mind it is clearly worth the effort; I choose creativity over anger, calm over flip-out, any day! Rosemary mentions meditation as an approach to “hit the pause button” in the midst of over-reaction (or better yet before the reaction even occurs!). Qigong is often referred to as “Meditation in Motion” and I am finding this practice is a way to pull my energy and my resources, my consciousness, into the present moment when I can be fully aware of my environment, my reaction at any given moment to the environment and to then respond appropriately. When I am very, very present I can actually catch myself on the verge of anger and quickly seek a creative response, diverting the anger into resourcefulness! I have a long way to go to catch myself every time, or even often! But it’s good work for the journey!
Guys, Rosemary has many ways to channel the flip-out mode into presence of mind. Her toolbox is filled with fun things and even some neat toys! Sometimes it may seem easier just to go with the reactive emotion of the moment; but too often the consequences of the easy route bite painfully.
Flip-out reaction or creative response? The choice is yours if you are willing to do the work!
PS: Beginning today, Monday, October 29, Rosemary is offering you a new way to add to your toolbox! She is holding a FREE half-hour call of wisdom and guidance for Conscious Living; to support you Living Your Richest Life! As Einstein said: No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Lift your consciousness and lift yourself!
Click Here for the call-in details; it’s FREE!
Men and The Goddess 