Podcast appearances and mentions of John Welwood

In today's episode we talk about part of John Wellwood's book Love and Awakening — where he likens us to castles, with thousands of rooms. The rooms represent our many aspects, many of which we close ourselves off from over the course of our development. In our human need for love and connection, we alter ourselves in ways we deem to be “more acceptable” to the people around us. We cut ourselves off from that which we believe isn't lovable, or relatable — we close the door and throw away the key. If we wish to wholeheartedly love our entire selves, and each other, exploring these repressed and suppressed parts with compassion is needed. We talk about our personal experiences exploring our own castles, and more. ************************************************************************ Every episode comes with prompts for journaling and reflection. You can find these, submit your Qs and topic ideas, and learn more about Georgianna and Steph at ⁠wholeheartedloving.com⁠. And be sure to check out our online course! ⤵️ ************************************************************************ Priming the Body for Peace has what you need to rewire your system and repattern your relationships for more love and deeper connection — with live calls, group coaching, and video collections of practices and visualizations we're told are "like finding gold" and "the best therapy I've ever done for myself". We've made this program super affordable for everyone, and FREE for teachers! Please share

Let's talk about the apocalyptic— today's forecast is misty with a chance of monsters — low key 2007 creature feature, The Mist.I had seen this movie a handful of times over the years and upon a rewatch for this episode, I really wanted this movie to just be about climate change. It's easy to see it that way pure and simple — there's literally monsters in the mist outside that prevent people from going out lest they get eaten. But on closer inspection, there is so much much more going on here and begs the question — is climate change really just environmental terrorism? And who exactly is the real monster here?This episode explores the film's portrayal of climate anxiety, a psychological concept called sense-making, in and out groups, spiritual bypassing, and hopelessness. Good times!Mental Health is Horrifying is hosted by Candis Green, owner of Many Moons Therapy. ..............................................................Sources:The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula by Alexandra West https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-1990s-teen-horror-cycle/ Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9827912-incognito Canada wildfires: US East Coast sees worst air quality in years https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65828469 The Social Psychology of Organizing by Karl E. Weick https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/134489Deep Diversity: Overcoming Us Vs. Them by Shakil Choudhury https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/26781095 Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation by John Welwood https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14457.Toward_a_Psychology_of_Awakening ‘The Mist' Is Still Relevant for Unfortunate Reasons by Kristen Lopezhttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mist-is-still-relevant-unfortunate-reasons-1060573/  Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91953.Leviathan ..............................................................Mental Health Resources:Assaulted Women's Help Line awhl.org416-863-0511Centre for Addiction and Mental Health camh.net416-535-8501Distress Centres of Torontodcogt.com416-408-4357 Gerstein Crisis Centregersteincentre.org 416-929-5200Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape trccmwar.ca416-597-8808Victim Services Torontovictimservicestoronto.com 416-808-7066

This episode examines "enemy images" and how the practice of Nonviolent Communication is so effective in transforming those negative and destructive images into a language that can facilitate connection across differences. "To create the world that exemplifies our values, we need to liberate ourselves from enemy images — the thinking that says there is something wrong with the people whose actions or values we don't agree with. Whether our enemy images are with politicians, individuals with religions convictions different from our own, leaders of the corporate world, or our neighbors next door, lasting social change isn't possible until we learn how to transform these enemy images." —Marshall Rosenberg, PhD., Speak Peace in a World of Conflict (PuddleDancer Press, 2005) https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/resources/articles-about-nvc/transforming-enemy-images/ Also included in the episode is reference to the book Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships by author John Welwood: http://www.johnwelwood.com/perfectlove.htm If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes, please submit them here:   https://www.rachellelamb.com/contact-rachelle

In this episode, we explore the concept of spiritual bypassing, a phenomenon that was first introduced in the 1980s by Buddhist teacher John Welwood. Throughout this discussion, Laura helps us to better understand the ways in which we might use spiritual practices to avoid facing the emotional undercurrents that are taking place within us. & while it's meaningful to embrace spiritual practices in the coaching space, Laura shines a light on how we might be using this to avoid or remove ourselves from our own experiences.In the exploration of this within ourselves, Laura also speaks into the importance of being emotionally present and holding space for clients in order to build trust and safety, first. She encourages us as coaches and leaders to explore our own emotions so that we can provide safe spaces for our clients and meet them where they are.Through opening our awareness to this, we get to ask ourselves: "How can I become the space holder, the guide, and the leader that I dream of being by being that for myself first?"---I'm here to be and hold a safe space for coaches to break traditional molds and ascend into a frequency of simplicity and ease. If you desire to begin walking this path, here's a few ways we can do that together:

An episode devoted to the exploration of romantic love. "The ideal relationship is the equivalent of the snow leopard; our loyalty to it as a realistic possibility cannot be based on the evidence of our own experience. Instead it derives from a range of reckless ideas circulating in our societies about what sharing a life with another person might be like." Alain de Botton, The Sorrows of Love Resources: The Sorrows of Love: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-school-of-life-the-sorrows-of-love-the-school-of-life/9895667 Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships by John Welwood: https://www.shambhala.com/perfect-love-imperfect-relationships-1162.html Coleman Barks recites Love Dogs by Rumi: https://blog.sevenponds.com/the-next-chapter/love-dogs-by-mewlana-jalaluddin-rumi If you have comments about this episode or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes, please submit them here: https://www.rachellelamb.com/contact-rachelle

Andries & Thijs trekken naar het oosten des lands voor een mini-retraite bij Nelleke Nijhuis. Na omzwervingen in het social work, onderwijs en avonturen in Kenia kwam ze door een burn-out nog dieper in contact met haar lichaam. De uitkomst? Yin. En dat gaat verder dan een yogalesje. Nelleke vertelt hoe yin een levensweg is en hoe ze op die weg leerde met discomfort te zijn en waar ze dat soms uit de weg ging en in een spiritual bypass belandde. Meer over Nelleke: www.nellekenijhuis.com Advies van Dries: Liefde geven, liefde ontvangen (John Welwood)

Rachael Sardelich, Vedic meditation Teacher, Creative Mentor & Somatic Practitioner. Rach discusses how her own trauma led her to becoming a multi-modality trauma-informed practitioner. Rach and I discuss on this episode the concept of spiritual bypassing, “keeping the peace” during toxic relationships and the importance of being trauma-informed to support other through these situations, particularly when working with people who have experienced abuse. We also touch on connection to Self, and how when gaslighting occurs we can lose our sense of agency. There is so much more we could have shared, however we hope this discussion helps support you in some way as we bring awareness to this concept through our lense. The term ‘spiritual bypassing' was introduced by buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood in the 1980's and speaks to examples of people using spiritual practices to avoid healing unresolved traumas.  We also speak to our mutual love of Gabor Mate's (expert and world renowned physician / trauma & addiction therapist) Compassionate Inquiry work and how he describes trauma. We would welcome any questions around this subject and happy to dive deeper with you if you would like to reach out. Rach is highly attuned to supporting and empowering others to nurture their creative inner lives and embody their highest expression. Her approach is multi-disciplinary and informed by Vedic philosophy, modern neuroscience, somatic trauma healing and a deep understanding of working alongside artists and creative professionals. For more visit IG Rachaelsardelich or www.rachaelsardelich.com  In support of my podcast ‘The Shared Road', my doors are now open to mentor 1:1 for those seeking insight, non-judgemental guidance, and lived experience support to navigate complex and toxic relationships through the lense of compassion. For more about Mentoring visit: www.meditationbase.com.au  or Instagram @meditationbase If this conversation has raised any concerns for you or someone you know, please consider calling a support line. In Australia either 1800 RESPECT or Lifeline otherwise seeing your local doctor for further guidance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spiritual Bypassing, a phrase coined by John Welwood, is the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks. We have to develop the ego before it can be transcended. When one is committed to the spiritual process, psychological and spiritual work cannot be separated. It's possible to become narcissistically fascinated with psychological process. There are a lot of things about the spiritual supermarket that can be misleading. States that are not ordinary can be confused with spiritual experience. Real spiritual work is for something greater than ourselves. Swami Prajnanpad said that the Sage is 100% adult. An article by Arnaud Desjardins, “From the Child to the Sage,” is discussed. If we understand that we are more or less childish, without taking it as an insult, the path becomes clear. We can hold professional responsibilities and still function as a child. Emotion, dependency, the need to “have” rather than “be,” and the inability to be alone and to wait are signs of childishness. On the path, we must have the courage to look at our weakest link, the area of our greatest childishness that we tend to push away. Being with childish feelings and finding ways to come back to center allows us to move forward. There is a difference between being childlike and childish. Transformation into adulthood begins when the love of truth becomes stronger than anything. If we get carried away with our own liberation, we may try to bypass pain and not be very committed to other sentient beings. The dark side is as much part of enlightenment as the light; one does not come without the other. Deborah is a nurse by vocation who spent 19 years as the lead singer of the blues band Shri. She is a student of Lee Lozowick and a life-long imperfect lover and seeker of truth.

In the midst of whatever it is you're growing through right now,know that you are held, you are kept, you are His. I Love you, Nikkinikki@curlynikki.com LOVE CHARGING STATION, Live, Daily, Group Practice-  6:30am ET (Spotify LIVE):▶▶ https://apps.apple.com/id/app/spotify-live/id1517524960Bonus content:▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmorningsGo(o)d Mornings merch:▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmorningsWeekly LIVE Meditation, Tuesdays at 7pm ET (FREE on Spotify)▶▶ https://spotify.link/meditation_________________________________Today's Quotes:"When you have already come here, know that your fortunes have already changed."-Sri Ravi Shankar"Heavenly Spirit, bless me that I may easily find happiness instead of becoming worried at every test and difficulty."-Yogananda "Forget about enlightenment, sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind singing in your veins."-John Welwood"Dear companions, we have bene in love with God for so very long. What can Hafiz now do but forever dance."-Hafiz "This discomfort you're feeling is your life leveling up."- @spiritdaughter via IG "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.   Behold, I am doing a new thing;  now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."-Isaiah 43:18-19(the I AM is doing a new thing ;) )  "You recognize Him in front of your face."-Gospel of Thomas The one who takes shelter of the Supreme Lord has nothing to fear.  Even in the midst of the greatest calamity."-Bhagavad Gita Support the show

Join Xandra as she dives into dissecting the concept of "Spiritual Materialism" (coined by Chogyam Trungpa) and the popular term "Spiritual Bypassing" (coined by John Welwood). As she untangles these topics, she helps you explore a way of honoring your spiritual path through true embodiment and emotional connection, while also bringing in deep wisdom and research made popular by author and researcher, Brené Brown. 

GODSEY. FULL TEMPLE RESET. PART DEUX.  We freestyled for a solid hour:forty-five plus yall! We obviously sprinkle in some true Full Temple Reset topics, but there are just so many gems in this one. Come join us in Lockhart for the event and learn about your body, mind, spirit. As always, Love yall!   Fit For Service - Full Temple Reset  Connect with Erick:   Website: www.erickgodsey.com  Instagram: @erickgodsey Facebook: Erick Godsey Podcast: The Myths That Make Us    Show Notes:   KKP #234 Full Temple Reset Round 1 Spotify Apple Kyle's addition to Godsey's Spiritual Bypass insight: Spiritual bypassing describes a tendency to use spiritual explanations to avoid complex psychological issues (Ref: Picciotto G, Fox J, Neto F. A phenomenology of spiritual bypass: Causes, consequences, and implications. J Spiritual Ment Health. 2018;20(4):333-354. doi:10.1080/19349637.2017.1417756 ). The term was first coined during the early 1980s by a transpersonal psychotherapist named John Welwood in his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening. According to Welwood, spiritual bypassing can be defined as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks Ref: Tricycle. Human nature, Buddha nature. An interview with John Welwood ). As a therapist and Buddhist teacher, Welwood began to notice that people (including himself) often wielded spirituality as a shield or type of defense mechanism. Rather than working through hard emotions or confronting unresolved issues, people would simply dismiss them with spiritual explanations. While it can be a way to protect the self from harm or to promote harmony between people, it doesn't actually resolve the issue. Instead, it merely glosses over a problem, leaving it to fester without any true resolution (Ref: What Is Spiritual Bypassing, by Kendra Cherry. 12-6-20. Verywell mind https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing-5081640 ). Sponsors:   Aura offers all-in-one digital safety for your entire household. Identity theft, fraud, and malware are just some of their offerings. Go to https://aura.com/kyle for 14 days free and 40% off your plan.  Lucy Go to lucy.co and use codeword “KKP” at Checkout to get 20% off the best nicotine gum in the game, or check out their lozenge AND grab some of their pouches. I can speak anecdotally that they are FAST acting. BIOptimizers Go check out P3OM if you get as gassy as me and the Kingsbu clan do. This is my go to probiotic. Get 10% off by going to P3OM.com/KINGSBU and entering code  “KINGSBU10” at checkout. Super Speciosa is the absolute best Kratom I've worked with head over to getsuperleaf.com/kkp and punch in “KKP” at checkout for 20% off everything in store! Connect with Kyle:   Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service Academy  Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys   Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com  Zion Node: https://getzion.com/ > Enter PubKey  >PubKey: YXykqSCaSTZNMy2pZI2o6RNIN0YDtHgvarhy18dFOU25_asVcBSiu691v4zM6bkLDHtzQB2PJC4AJA7BF19HVWUi7fmQ   Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn't.

Keeley Rankin joins me in a conversation to talk about solutions for Premature Ejaculation. She talks about the anxiety attached to this problem, various approaches and why they don't work, and her five-model approach to help with early ejaculation. What Qualifies as Premature Ejaculation Keeley's work as a sex coach is oriented around connecting and communicating with one's body and focusing on making the experience pleasurable. She defines the experience of early ejaculation as ‘an anxious feeling of how long one is going to last during the act'. While for many it's a matter of normalizing and educating on what's expected. For others, it's an ‘anxiety response to arousal'. She categorizes each case as either severe, moderate or mild. Where Does Anxiety Start? Keeley believes this anxiety could either be traced back to someone's early sexual experiences or could cultivate in the later part of life. She notes that many of her clients are unaware of the anxiety they're experiencing in everyday life and warns people not to take random advice. Thoughts on Conventional Treatments She refutes some conventional approaches to early ejaculation, such as thinking about something not sexy during sex, strengthening one's kegel muscles, using SSRIs, and numbing sprays. She presses the importance of being present and connected with your body's sensations during sex rather than numbing them. Five-Model Approach Keeley talks about her five-model approach to help people with early ejaculation. She takes us through the five steps of breath, anal breath, arousal and anxiety curve, and spreading erotic energy through the whole body. The approach focuses on being able to slow down, relax the sphincter and pelvic floor area, breathe down your body and master the ability to hold the higher arousal state without anxiety. Tune into the episode to learn about each step in the five-model approach! Pleasure Work as Individuals and for Couples People work on this individually to understand the theoretical process and lay a foundation through self-pleasure until one can become capable of enjoying sex without the anxiety. They can then increase the stimulation through movement, noise or by adding new things, and then lastly bringing in a partner. She adds that a partner could be included to do bodywork. How Can a Person Bring it Up with Their Partner? Keeley advises partners to communicate around pleasure without pressuring the other person or consulting a professional to help when communication gets difficult. Biography: Keeley Rankin is a sex and relationship coach, pleasure advocate and a sexy-preneur. She works with individuals and couples who want to embrace their innate desires, build sexual confidence, and fully realize their sexual potential. Keeley received her master's degree in Counseling Psychology and has been featured in media outlets such as The Huffington Post and Oprah Magazine. She's trained in Hakomi Therapy and Recreation of the Self, both body-based mindful therapeutic modalities for uncovering and healing subconscious and childhood wounds. For seven years, she worked closely with the world-renowned author and transpersonal psychotherapist who coined the phrase ‘spiritual bypass', John Welwood. As an expert in male sexual struggles, she created the Premature Ejaculation Mastery Video Course for men to learn to last longer in bed from the privacy of their own homes. She also specializes in facilitating deep erotic connections for couples. Pre-Covid, she would meet couples in Paris for the unique-extreme-sexy-connected date night – private sessions aimed to prep the couple for an evening at a sex club. Resources and links: Website: keeleyrankin.com Course: https://www.keeleyrankin.com/premature_ejaculation_video_course_sale Instagram: @Just.The.Tip.Sex.CoachMore info and resources: How Big a Problem is Your Sex Life? Quiz – https://www.sexlifequiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to make sex easy and fun for both of you: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Secret Podcast for the Higher Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/hdppodcast Secret Podcast for the Lower Desire Partner: https://www.intimacywithease.com/ldppodcast

Keeley Rankin joins me in a conversation to talk about solutions for Premature Ejaculation. She talks about the anxiety attached to this problem, various approaches and why they don't work, and her five-model approach to help with early ejaculation. What Qualifies as Premature Ejaculation Keeley's work as a sex coach is oriented around connecting and communicating with one's body and focusing on making the experience pleasurable. She defines the experience of early ejaculation as ‘an anxious feeling of how long one is going to last during the act'. While for many it's a matter of normalizing and educating on what's expected. For others, it's an ‘anxiety response to arousal'. She categorizes each case as either severe, moderate or mild. Where Does Anxiety Start? Keeley believes this anxiety could either be traced back to someone's early sexual experiences or could cultivate in the later part of life. She notes that many of her clients are unaware of the anxiety they're experiencing in everyday life and warns people not to take random advice. Thoughts on Conventional Treatments She refutes some conventional approaches to early ejaculation, such as thinking about something not sexy during sex, strengthening one's kegel muscles, using SSRIs, and numbing sprays. She presses the importance of being present and connected with your body's sensations during sex rather than numbing them. Five-Model Approach Keeley talks about her five-model approach to help people with early ejaculation. She takes us through the five steps of breath, anal breath, arousal and anxiety curve, and spreading erotic energy through the whole body. The approach focuses on being able to slow down, relax the sphincter and pelvic floor area, breathe down your body and master the ability to hold the higher arousal state without anxiety. Tune into the episode to learn about each step in the five-model approach! Pleasure Work as Individuals and for Couples People work on this individually to understand the theoretical process and lay a foundation through self-pleasure until one can become capable of enjoying sex without the anxiety. They can then increase the stimulation through movement, noise or by adding new things, and then lastly bringing in a partner. She adds that a partner could be included to do bodywork. How Can a Person Bring it Up with Their Partner? Keeley advises partners to communicate around pleasure without pressuring the other person or consulting a professional to help when communication gets difficult. Biography: Keeley Rankin is a sex and relationship coach, pleasure advocate and a sexy-preneur. She works with individuals and couples who want to embrace their innate desires, build sexual confidence, and fully realize their sexual potential. Keeley received her master's degree in Counseling Psychology and has been featured in media outlets such as The Huffington Post and Oprah Magazine. She's trained in Hakomi Therapy and Recreation of the Self, both body-based mindful therapeutic modalities for uncovering and healing subconscious and childhood wounds. For seven years, she worked closely with the world-renowned author and transpersonal psychotherapist who coined the phrase ‘spiritual bypass', John Welwood. As an expert in male sexual struggles, she created the Premature Ejaculation Mastery Video Course for men to learn to last longer in bed from the privacy of their own homes. She also specializes in facilitating deep erotic connections for couples. Pre-Covid, she would meet couples in Paris for the unique-extreme-sexy-connected date night – private sessions aimed to prep the couple for an evening at a sex club. Resources and links: Website: keeleyrankin.com Course: https://www.keeleyrankin.com/premature_ejaculation_video_course_sale Instagram: @Just.The.Tip.Sex.Coach More info: Sex Health Quiz – https://www.sexhealthquiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to want more sex without it feeling like a chore: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Better Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/223-premature-ejaculation-keeley-rankin

Keeley Rankin joins me in a conversation to talk about solutions for Premature Ejaculation. She talks about the anxiety attached to this problem, various approaches and why they don't work, and her five-model approach to help with early ejaculation. What Qualifies as Premature Ejaculation Keeley's work as a sex coach is oriented around connecting and communicating with one's body and focusing on making the experience pleasurable. She defines the experience of early ejaculation as ‘an anxious feeling of how long one is going to last during the act'. While for many it's a matter of normalizing and educating on what's expected. For others, it's an ‘anxiety response to arousal'. She categorizes each case as either severe, moderate or mild. Where Does Anxiety Start? Keeley believes this anxiety could either be traced back to someone's early sexual experiences or could cultivate in the later part of life. She notes that many of her clients are unaware of the anxiety they're experiencing in everyday life and warns people not to take random advice. Thoughts on Conventional Treatments She refutes some conventional approaches to early ejaculation, such as thinking about something not sexy during sex, strengthening one's kegel muscles, using SSRIs, and numbing sprays. She presses the importance of being present and connected with your body's sensations during sex rather than numbing them. Five-Model Approach Keeley talks about her five-model approach to help people with early ejaculation. She takes us through the five steps of breath, anal breath, arousal and anxiety curve, and spreading erotic energy through the whole body. The approach focuses on being able to slow down, relax the sphincter and pelvic floor area, breathe down your body and master the ability to hold the higher arousal state without anxiety. Tune into the episode to learn about each step in the five-model approach! Pleasure Work as Individuals and for Couples People work on this individually to understand the theoretical process and lay a foundation through self-pleasure until one can become capable of enjoying sex without the anxiety. They can then increase the stimulation through movement, noise or by adding new things, and then lastly bringing in a partner. She adds that a partner could be included to do bodywork. How Can a Person Bring it Up with Their Partner? Keeley advises partners to communicate around pleasure without pressuring the other person or consulting a professional to help when communication gets difficult. Biography: Keeley Rankin is a sex and relationship coach, pleasure advocate and a sexy-preneur. She works with individuals and couples who want to embrace their innate desires, build sexual confidence, and fully realize their sexual potential. Keeley received her master's degree in Counseling Psychology and has been featured in media outlets such as The Huffington Post and Oprah Magazine. She's trained in Hakomi Therapy and Recreation of the Self, both body-based mindful therapeutic modalities for uncovering and healing subconscious and childhood wounds. For seven years, she worked closely with the world-renowned author and transpersonal psychotherapist who coined the phrase ‘spiritual bypass', John Welwood. As an expert in male sexual struggles, she created the Premature Ejaculation Mastery Video Course for men to learn to last longer in bed from the privacy of their own homes. She also specializes in facilitating deep erotic connections for couples. Pre-Covid, she would meet couples in Paris for the unique-extreme-sexy-connected date night – private sessions aimed to prep the couple for an evening at a sex club. Resources and links: Website: keeleyrankin.com Course: https://www.keeleyrankin.com/premature_ejaculation_video_course_sale Instagram: @Just.The.Tip.Sex.Coach More info: Sex Health Quiz – https://www.sexhealthquiz.com The Course – https://www.intimacywithease.com The Book – https://www.sexwithoutstress.com Podcast Website – https://www.intimacywithease.com Access the Free webinar: How to want more sex without it feeling like a chore: https://intimacywithease.com/masterclass Better Sex with Jessa Zimmermanhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/better-sex/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/223-premature-ejaculation-keeley-rankin

In today's solo-episode, Tess discusses Spiritual Bypassing- a term coined by psychiatrist, and practicing Buddhist, John Welwood. Using Spiritual tools to avoid healing deep emotional wounds. Spiritual bypassing became popular with the "think positive" movement. Tune in to hear more examples of bypassing and what Tess believes will help with true emotional healing.

We explore the story behind a secret burial at dead of night.  The deceased young man was only 30 years old but his brief life is worth remembering and some of his dying words retain a unique power. It was the field preacher John Welwood, and he left an abiding influence on another young man Richard Cameron.

Reading from John Welwood's essay “Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible.”“…to gain greater access to the gold of our nature in relationship, a certain alchemy is required: the refining of our conditioned defensive patterns. The good news is that this alchemy generated between two people also furthers a larger alchemy within them. The opportunity here is to join and integrate the twin poles of human existence: heaven, the vast space of perfect, unconditional openness, and earth, our imperfect, limited human form, shaped by worldly causes and conditions. As the defensive/controlling ego cooks and melts down in the heat of love's influence, a beautiful evolutionary development starts to emerge — the genuine person, who embodies a quality of very human relational presence that is transparent to open-hearted being, right in the midst of the dense confines of worldly conditioning.”John Welwood (1943-2019) was a psychotherapist, teacher, and author, and has been a pioneer in integrating psychological and spiritual work for the past thirty years. His books include Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love, Toward a Psychology of Awakening, Love and Awakening and, most recently, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart. Download this article here: https://www.johnwelwood.com/ If you enjoyed this episode and want me to continue sharing work I find in the course of my Soul Studies, please let me know! Email: hello@brianjames.caInstagram: @revealingthesoulWebsite: brianjames.ca

O desvio espiritual é uma "tendência a usar ideias e práticas espirituais para contornar ou evitar enfrentar questões emocionais não resolvidas, feridas psicológicas e tarefas de desenvolvimento inacabadas". - John Welwood. O desvio espiritual é mecanismo de defesa que muitas pessoas experimentam em sua própria jornada de despertar.É uma experiência comum. Quando alguém passa por um processo de despertar espiritual, pode sentir uma grade opressão e, por isso mesmo, pode tomar a decisão de não lidar com os problemas que estão sendo chamados a curar e encarar de frente. O despertar já é difícil o suficiente por si só. Eu compreendo totalmente. No entanto, é importante não se esconder daquilo que foi iluminado e precisa ser curado em sua vida. Nenhum de nós gosta de lidar com a dor, mas é a dor que nos leva a descobrir quem somos, o que nos serve e o que não nos serve mais, para que possamos viver em plenitude. É disso que se trata encarar a sombra, e quanto mais cedo começarmos a trabalhar para encarar e curar o eu sombrio, mais cedo as coisas começarão a virar em uma direção positiva. Seja bem-vinda, seja bem-vindo ao CUIDANDO DA ALMA. Produção: wepod.com.br

Transpersonal-psychologist  John Welwood, coined the term,  “spiritual bypassing,”  He defined spiritual bypassing as using “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional ‘unfinished business,' to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.” This presentation is moderated by John R from the Freethinkers Living Sober group in Cottonwood, AZ, December 11th, 2021 at the International Conference of Secular Alcoholics Anonymous on Zoom. More from Freethinkers Living Sober More about us: https://aasecular.com Email us: SecularAA@gmail.comhundreds of online secular AA meetings: https://bit.ly/secularmeetingsSocial Media: https://twitter.com/ICSAA2021https://www.facebook.com/SecularAA    

re/st your mind νιούζλετερ - διαλογισμός για να ξεκουράσεις το νου σου, ένα email που δεν θα σε αγχώνει https://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/GET DENA'S book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week journal to support your meditation practice and train your mind to see clearly." https://theonefierceheart.com/shop-the-journalIn each episode @dena.argyropoulou, a mindfulness meditation teacher discusses with other teachers how meditation has helped them find clarity, inspiration, creativity, wisdom, strength, and the ability to manage stress and challenges in life with courage and compassion. Meditation is a powerful tool that helps reconnect with ourselves and the world around us.This week Dena and Scott talk about the path of spiritual awakening, how profound or suffering as human beings is, how our minds struggle and our mental health gets challenged by it all. We also talk about what spiritual bypass is and how meditation we can see our mind for what it really is and use it as a self-care tool to love ourselves and others.Scott Tusa is a mindfulness and Buddhist meditation teacher who has spent the last two decades exploring what it means to awaken the heart through the Buddhist path. Ordained by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, he spent nine years as a Buddhist monk, with much of that time engaged in solitary meditation retreat and study in the United States, India, and Nepal. He teaches meditation and Buddhist psychology internationally in group and one-to-one settings, and supports Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Pundarika Sangha as a practice advisor. He trained in Buddhist philosophy and meditation with some of the greatest living masters since his early twenties, including Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and Tulku Sangag Rinpoche.Scott is featured regularly at Tibet House, Nalanda Institute, InsightLA, and teaching retreats with Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Pundarika sangha. He has also been featured at Ocean of Compassion Buddhist Center, Vajrapani Institute, New York Insight, Shantideva Meditation Center, Tse Chen Ling, the Den Meditation, MNDFL, and many other meditation organizations and communities.SPIRITUAL BYPASSING by John Welwood: https://www.johnwelwood.com/articles/TRIC_interview_uncut.pdfFIND DENAhttps://denaargyropoulou.substack.com/theonefierceheart.comFIND DENA'S tiny book "CLARITY OF MIND IS POWER: a 5-week meditation journal to support your practice and train your mind to see clearly."https://theonefierceheart.com/shop-the-journalFIND SCOTThttps://scotttusa.comhttps://www.instagram.com/scotttusa/?hl=enhttps://web.facebook.com/scottvtusa?_rdc=1&_rdr

El bypassing espiritual es un concepto muy interesante, acuñado en 1984 por el psicólogo John Welwood. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/fadriquesoma/message

Through a dramatic representation, quotes, and examples, I walk you through how six dimensions of what it means for you to love yourself and others.  By bringing in the pioneering work of IFS therapist Derek Scott, we will explore how different parts within you respond to grief and loss in so many different ways.   Lead in: Lead-in Intro  Letter  Ron's reactions   Intro We are together in this great adventure, this podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, we are journeying together, and I am honored to be able to spend this time with you.   I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist and passionate Catholic and together, we are taking on the tough topics that matter to you.   We bring the best of psychology and human formation and harmonize it with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith.    Interior Integration for Catholics is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com  Today's episode, number 82 is entitled "The Many Faces of Grief Inside Us  and it's released on August 23, 2021  Heard a reenacted story about Ronald and Vivian Meerkamp, and I'll be using that clip throughout todays episode to add depth and examples to the concepts  In the last episode, Episode 81, we broached There is so much misinformation out there about grief.  So many myths, so many misconceptions to clear up.  Why is that?  We're going to answer that question with the professional research, the best of psychological theory, with Scripture, with poetry, with examples and with quotes to help you understand the experience of grief -- your grief and the grief of others.   Why should we learn about grief?  Earl Grollman sums it up like this: Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.  If we love, we will grieve.  Part of loving well is grieving well.   If we flee from grief, we will also flee from love.    You can't love without eventually grieving   Last episode, I mentioned how our understanding of grief can be limited by assuming we have a single, homogenous monolithic personality. Today I'm going to share with you a much deeper and richer way to understand grief. From Episode 72 What Keeps You from Loving?  Is it Really Only Your Vices?  Discussion of Dimensions of Understanding Others or Ourselves.  -- We will get into that more today.  0 Dimensions -- single point in space -- geometry, no dimensionality.  Personalizing it -- you are nothing to me.   No separate identity, not even really human, invisible -- the person doesn't exist for you.   “Love is not cold and what is cold is not love.” ― Marty Rubin  “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.”― Helen Keller  “Indifference is more truly the opposite of love than hate is, for we can both love and hate the same person at the same time, but we cannot both love and be indifferent to the same person at the same time.” ― Peter Kreeft, Prayer For Beginners  Examples: Emotional detachment:  Ron -- fear of loss.    1 Dimension -- line   Only one quality -- very self-referential, the person in orbit around me and my needs.   Often only a functional dimension, or not meeting a function “That politicians   who smiled at us and kissed our babiesblue eyes shining with triumphwell knew we were fallinginto our graveskicked by themas they countedour votes.”― Alice Walker, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart  “What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.” ― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in  For Vivian:  In her pain and loneliness, part of her takes over reduces Ron to one dimension:  cold, distant, ignores me -- reduces Ron to one dimension -- in order to protect herself from him.   For Ron blended with his angry part who is protecting him from agonizing pain from abandonment:  Vivian is a Betrayer -- She betrayed me, she is a traitor, a backstabber, she hurts me.   Still very personalized, very self-referential 2 Dimensions -- plane -- starts to be a little Less personal, less self-referential Cardboard Cutout-- person has a shape, not well understood.   Ron ignores me and is self absorbed.  But it's because of his job.  He shuts down emotions because of what he sees as a detective “It is a well-worn truth that cops grow callous, a cliché so tattered that it is even common on television. All cops face things every day that are so gruesome, brutal, and bizarre that no normal human being could deal with them on a daily basis and stay sane. And so they learn not to feel, to grow and maintain a poker-faced whimsy toward all the surprising things their fellow humans find to do to each other. All cops practice not-feeling, and it may be that Miami cops are better at it than others, since they have so many opportunities to learn.”  Jeff Lindsay, Dexter is Delicious   Vivian is a betrayer and a traitor.  But she's misguided -- she's reacting out of ignorance and emotion and because she doesn't understand me.  3 Dimensions -- taking into account much more of the person, providing a more complete snapshot of a moment in time  Person has A whole internal world  Many dimensions  Many competing values at one time.  Needs -- attachment needs and integrity needs  Emotions  Belief.   Thought  Intentions  Desires  Attitudes  Impulses.  relationships  Maybe even multiple points of view inside at the same time.  With conflicts and polarizations inside -- Vivian is betraying me and harming me and she's misguided, reacting out of ignorance and emotion, but she also really loves our kids.  And she's good at her job.  Vivian has mixed reactions to me.   4 Dimensions -- out of basic geometry now and into physics.  The four dimension is physics assesses an object's position in time.  Analogy to a person's position in time.   Dynamism of the person in time. She can be one way in one moment and another way in another moment  Realization of an experiential history -- that informs how she has come to be who she is now   Vivian has been miserable for a long time.  This has been building up. Vivian reacts to me differently at different times.   The future for us might not look like it does right now.   Ron ignores me and he is self-absorbed because of his job.  But he has choses his job over me.  He's afraid he's too damaged to do any other kind of work.  He's locked in.   5th Dimension --  dimension unseen by humans where the forces of gravity and electromagnetism unite in an elegant and powerful theory of the fundamental forces Like a shift from black and white to color -- like in the Wizard of OZ    Understanding the other person in terms of self and parts -- unity and multiplicity Part of her is miserable -- part of her wants to stay in relationship   If you really love someone, you love all of them, all of their parts.  Not just the parts of them that you like, that you find gratifying or useful, that float your boat for one reason or another.  You don't pick and choose -- oooo, this is an appealing bit of you, I like it that you compliment me and make me feel good, I'll take that in and love that, but parts of you carrying grief, your pain your loss  -- no time for that.  You just keep that to yourself.   Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches “I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”   6th Dimension -- no longer in just the natural world.   Seeing him as a beloved Child of God through the eyes of Faith, as God sees him.   Fearfully and wonderfully made, bearing God's image and likeness.   Intrinsically good, ontologically good, good in her essence.   Requires supernatural grace Three Dimensional Chess What we covered last time in Episode 81 Grieving is the Price We Pay for Loving Introduction to Derek Scott Derek Scott is a registered Social Worker with 35 years of experience and certified IFS therapist with an online practice based near Toronto, Canada.  He is the founder of Internal Family Systems Counselling Association, IFSCA, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness of the IFS model to counselors and therapists in Canada and internationally. Stepping Stone: 16 week Comprehensive IFS course --  I  recommend that as a great option, especially for those who can't get in to IFS Level 1 training.   Number of publications in the area of grief and Internal Family Systems.  And he is no stranger to grief in his own life, so he can speak from experience.   Relying heavily on his article Grief and IFS: Mapping the Terrain  What happens to parts when we experience grief? The experiences I'm about to describe are not the parts themselves.  Definition of a part --  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God and also its own understanding of self.   More than just one factor  More than just one emotion, more than just one desire or impulse  Rather -- a whole constellation of these qualities that endure over time, even if the part is not in conscious awareness in the moment.   Like the characters inside of Riley in the Pixar moving "Inside Out" The red anger character also had a full personality -- he was not just an angry mood -- he had beliefs, assumptions, intentions, desires, thoughts, impulses and an interpersonal style that were characteristically and uniquely his own.   Managers who present with disbelief  numbness  Depression  Guilt  Spiritual bypassing Exiles who present with Sadness  Missing/yearning  Protest (anger)  guilt  powerlessness/despair/resignation  Shame Common Exiles and Affect-laden parts Derek Scott:  When I am talking about exiles here I am not assuming that there is a part that is “only” sad or   guilty etc, but that the part leads with that feeling. Remember, parts are like complete personalities --many dimensions Some dimensions are more prominent than others.   Definition of Exiles most sensitive -- these exiles have been exploited, rejected, abandoned in external relationships  They have suffered relational traumas or attachment injuries  They hold the painful experiences that have been isolated from conscious awareness to protect the person from being overwhelmed with the intensity.  They desperately want to be seen and known, to be safe and secure, to be comforted and soothed, to be cared for and loved  They want rescue, redemption, healing  And in the intensity of their needs and emotions, they threaten to take over and destabilize the person's whole being, the person's whole system  And they threaten to harm external relationships  Burdens they carry:  Shame, dependency, worthlessness, Fear/Terror, Grief/Loss, Loneliness, Neediness, Pain, lack of meaning or purpose, a sense of being unloved and unlovable, inadequate, abandoned,  Examples of what exiles carry in grief.  Sadness  -- parts that carry unresolved sadness from childhood. parents dismiss or minimize the experience of losing a pet, or moving house, or changing school, divorce etc, parts that experience the distress become exiled protectors may mimic the parental injunctions to ignore the agitation in the system. I had sadness for breakfast.  Andy Milonakis Vivian Ron -- Sadness -- expressed behaviorally, crying, not feeling.  Body reactions.   Missing/yearning -- Just want what has been lost to come back Parts under six years of age don't recognize the permanence of loss -- why can't I have it back?  Example of blend with a missing/yearning part:  Virginia Woolf  To the Lighthouse:  “To want and not to have, sent all up her body a hardness, a hollowness, a strain. And then to want and not to have- to want and want- how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again! Feeling of emptiness, incompleteness -- a void within.   Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic  -- example of what can happen when an exile floods with a sensation of a void:  “At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.”  Viviaxxxn -- familiar -- yearning for companionship --  Trying to tell herself that Ron wasn't capable, no capacity, too damaged to fill her yearning.   Replacement for God.   Protest (anger) Reaction to perceived injustice.  This is not right!   May be deemed unacceptable and displaced to a safer person or to a situation. e.g. anger toward the deceased  Anger toward someone I need and fear  Women may be more likely to be socialized into rejecting their own anger -- good girls, or not wanted to be seen as scolds or shrews or bitches   “The anger welled inside me, with nowhere to go. I could feel it eating away at me. I knew if I didn't find a way to release it, it would destroy me.” ― Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Sublimes creatures  Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Ange l“There was something peculiarly gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out. Of course, the aftermath was less pleasant. Once you'd told everyone you hated them and not to come after you, where exactly did you go?” Guilt   Goes back to childhood:   Children's guilt can be so huge in relation to the crime (“I stole my brother's candy bar and blamed the dog”) Peeing outside “I've got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts - you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn't do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing.” ― D.D. Barant, Dying Bites  powerlessness/despair/resignation parts recognise that we are powerless to change the reality of attaching and losing and that   loss is certain and inevitable -- heavy burden, other parts not able to handle that Fantasies of omnipotence -- service of feeling safe and secure.   Now what? “I had the feeling deep in my gut that there'd been lines I should have spoken, gestures I should have made, that would have made things better. But looking back, I didn't know what they were. As a friend, I was pretty much useless, apparently.” ― Megan Crewe, Give Up the Ghost  Shame Episodes 37-49 -- long series on shame  Shame is:  a primary emotion, a bodily reaction, a signal,  a judgement, and an action.   Deep sense of fundamental inadequacy, irreparable brokenness, unhealable woundedness, intrinsic badness, fundamental unworthiness.  Differs from guilt.  Guilt:  I did something bad.  Shame.  I am bad.  Managers Present First -- disbelieving and numbing These are the proactive protector parts.  They work strategically, with forethought and planning to keep in control of situations and relationships to minimize the likelihood of you being hurt.  They work really hard to keep you safe.   Disbelieving  Managers What they say:  "This can't have happened"  or "This can't be happening."   Computer crashing -- the blue screen of death -- goes all the way back to Windows 1.0 in 1985.  indicates a system crash, in which the operating system has reached a critical condition where it can no longer operate hardware failure or a unexpected termination of a crucial process.   Hours of work lost  Their Role, their function Derek Scott:  Disbelieving managers may take the lead as the other parts of the system impacted by the loss are afforded time to adjust to the new reality. It is as if the sad, yearning, guilty and protesting parts sit behind the protectors that allow the information to be gradually filtered to them.  Example of Ron:  He could function that evening, make himself dinner, finish a report on an investigation, carry on at work the next day.    Colloquial phrase:  It hasn't hit him yet.  Replay the clip of Ron's disbelief Numbing Managers What they say:  They don't say anything, really.   they don't let you feel anything in conscious awareness.  Survival mechanism.  So you can deal with daily tasks.   Can last a long time.   Never a perfect barrier though -- it gets pierced by what Therese Rando calls STUGs Sudden, Temporary Upsurges of grief Those are the rejected exiles who bear grief breaking through and flooding with the intensity of their suffering.   Depressed Managers  Reactive depressed mood is a part of grief Attempt to titrate the grief.  Fighting fire with fire, fighting the intense depression with more manageable depression.   Still holding the exiles that bear the intensity of grief at bay.   Guilt carrying managers reflect on the “bad” things they said and did in the relationship.  The manager protector's voice telling us we “should” have done more, “should have been a better  spouse/friend/kid  These are the parts experiencing guilt but also defending against exiles with huge guilt going back to childhood.    Guilty parts stating that they didn't do enough or weren't present enough in the relationship may be unaware of the demands that other parts make on the system. Spiritual Bypassing Managers -- common in serious, practicing Catholics Spiritual Bypassing:  John Welwood 1984  "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."  Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks. Examples Death of a loved one:  External focus:  He's in a better place.  He's in heaven now.  See this all the time at Catholic funerals, a de factor canonizations at the eulogies.   Vivian:  God will take care of Ron now, there's nothing more I can do.  We'll just focus on the positive, the good times we had.  When I feel bad about how it worked out, I'll just pray the sadness away.   Ron.  When God closes a door, he opens a window.  He likely has a better woman for me in the future.  And he'll punish Vivian for what she's done.  Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.  She'll get what she deserves from him.   Manager Actions -- Straight from Derek Scott's article Grief and IFS: Mapping the Terrain Postponing – agreeing that there is griefwork to be done but “later”. When asked to be specific about “when” these parts become evasive or propose a future time that subsequently is not used for doing the work   Displacing – as mentioned earlier with regard to anger, the emotional responses connected to parts grieving the loss are displaced onto other targets; being sad about a movie, angry about poor service in a restaurant etc. Replacing – reinvesting too quickly after a significant loss, often a strategy in reproductive loss and loss of an animal companion Minimizing – cognitively diluting the experience of parts with big feelings by framing the relationship as one that “wasn't really that close” Avoiding – not going to the gravesite or talking about the loss. Removing pictures and not going to places that will evoke memories of the deceased and activate the exiled parts Somaticizing – bringing physical distress into the system (migraines, gastrointestinal distress, sleep disturbances) to distract from or channel the emotional responses of exiled parts  Particularly, when we're little if the grief is not supported, then it goes into the body. Shaming – particularly present in disenfranchised grief, shaming protectors will reinforce the social belief about the loss being one that the person is not “entitled” to grieve. Miscarriage, loss of a child who is a rapist, death of a spouse to AIDS; these are examples of losses that may carry a stigma or be trivialized by the broader community Firefighters  Definition When exiles break through and threaten to take over the system, like in Inside Out, remember the parts and the control panel?  So when these exiles are about the break out, the firefighters leap into action.  It's an emergency situation, a crisis, like a fire raging in a house.  No concern for niceties, for propriety, for etiquette, for little details like that.   Firefighter take bold, drastic actions to stifle, numb or distract from the intensity of the exile's experiences.   Intense neediness and grief are overwhelming us!  Emergency actions -- battle stations!   Evasive maneuvers, Arm the torpedoes, Full speed ahead!  No concern for consequences -- don't you get it, we are in a crisis  Parts can take over the person   Firefighter behaviors Drinking, using drugs  Raging  Watching TV, videos, binging on Netflix  Food bingeing -- chocolate for me.  Losses or grief about relationships -- Grace in the Poor Clare monastery.   Sex bingeing  Overworking   Identity Issues -- the disruption caused by not knowing who I am may open the door to behaviors previously prohibited by managers.   New firefighter activities.       Adapted Dual Process Model of Bereavement Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut originally the DPM in 1999 Death Studies article called The dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description  Derek Scott adapted this model  two clusters of parts one cluster is oriented towards the loss -- those are the parts we've been discussing so far  Focus on experiencing grief Focus on continuing relationship bonds Distraction from restoration Avoidance of restoration the other cluster towards restoration dealing with the new complexities in life for the bereaved that are occasioned by the loss  Readjusting to the new reality -- conforms to Elisabeth Kubler Ross' stage of acceptance and Colin Parkes' phase of reorganization and recovery   Activities Attending to live changes  New roles, new relationships  Distraction from grief  Avoidance of grief   The dual process model of coping with bereavement (DPM) identifies (from an IFS perspective) contends that these two models (clusters) oscillate as the mourning proceeds. the grieving individual at times confronts, at other times avoids, the different tasks of grieving.  This model proposes that adaptive coping is composed of confrontation--avoidance of loss and restoration stressors. It also argues the need for dosage of grieving, that is, the need to take respite from dealing with either of these stressors, as an integral part of adaptive coping.   This oscillation is very familiar to the IFS therapist as affect-laden parts may occupy the attention of the client, then pragmatic protectors may hold the floor to afford a break from the intensity of the other parts. The dance between the loss-oriented cluster of parts and the restoration oriented cluster of parts tends to be initially weighted towards the loss. Over time the restoration cluster of parts will become more prominent as the client lives into what may be considered to be the "new normal". Compassion Heals: An IFS perspective on Bereavement -- From Derek Scott.   Compassion heals. Bringing compassion to another invites their compassion for their own parts  The more significant the loss, the more profound the disruption to the system The system responses to the loss may be manager led, firefighter driven or characterized by erupting exiles The protective system may be in disarray and unable to function normally; resulting in the client feeling particularly vulnerable The protective system may become entrenched because of the perceived threat from or to the exiles  Present loss experiences may trigger parts connected to former loss events seeking healing  Unburdening parts in the loss cluster will facilitate healing and greater resiliency in terms of subsequent losses Advantages of IFS-informed understandings of grief  Last episode, we looked at the stage and phase models of grief trajectories Elisabeth Kubler Ross' five stages of grief DABDA -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.   Colin Parkes' model Shock and numbness, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair, reorganization and recovery How the empirical trajectory of grief didn't support a linear progression through the stages or phases Still valuable in describing experiences at a moment in time The myth of the unified, homogenous, monolithic personality really compromises our ability to understand grief.   Identity Issues -- not as often address Low self-esteem  Who am I now, that I am no longer married?  I am a widower   But now, understanding the person in terms of a core self and in parts, both a multiplicity but also a unity.   And why, again?  Why are we doing this?  In order to increase our capacity to love.  That's why.   Final thought from Derek Scott  --  Grief has its own timetable. There is a lot of wisdom in the system regarding when to allow access to affect-laden parts. There are, of course, frustrated, impatient parts that want it to be "over" so that the system can return to normal functioning. There may also be postponing managers (see "complicated grief”). Respecting protective parts saying, "We're not going there now" and asking them about their concerns, as well as when would be a good time to "go there "and what would need to change to allow access provides us with an understanding of how to best work with the system. Being patient  Accepting all parts as they are, where they are.  That does not mean we endorse all of their impulses or desires.  Check out Episode 66  Acceptance vs. Endorsement: A Critical Difference in Catholic Marriages.   Lots of gratitude for Derek Scott's work on IFS and Grief.   I am going to try something really new in the next episode.  In this episode and the last episode, I've brought you a lot of conceptual information, psychoeducation, all the intellectual material.  That's great for nourishing our conceptual and analytical parts, for feeding our minds.   But next week you will have the possibility to go deeper, not just in the abstract realm, not just in your conceptual zone -- but taking it down deeper inside you.   We will do an exploratory, experiential exercise, all about your personal grief.   We've all had losses.  We've all had the experience of grief We all have things to work through.   So we're going to put all of this information to work in our own human formation, in our own interior integration.  All voluntary -- we'll be working with our parts to make sure we have their buy-in, their consent.  So I invite you to that, we will see how it goes! Action Items  Subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice -- Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Audible Leave reviews and ratings   Give me feedback.  I want to hear from you Conversation hours T, R 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM  317.567.9594  Let me know what you like and don't like podcast -- including these dramatic interpretation -- like I gotta know was this opening lead-in dramatization cringey?  A part of me really wants to know.  It thinks it was cringey.  But it's not about putting together great performances, it's about illustrating the points.  Did that happen?  Let me know.  317.567.9594 or crisis@soulsandhearts.com Let me know what you need and don't need in this podcast Catholic Mental Health professionals -- work with  me in the Interior Therapist Community at Souls and Hearts -- find out how you can join one of my therapist groups, which are starting in September, They are all about working on your human formation, informed by Internal Family Systems and grounded in the Catholic Faith.  Find all the details at soulsandhearts.com/itc.  Email me with questions at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or call me on my cell at 317.567.9594 to find out how we can work together!  Pray for me and for the other listeners   Patroness and Patron IIC 81A Finding the Exiled Grief.   IIC 81T Exercise with Discovering Grieving Parts      

#selfreparenting Correction - One sided spirituality favours absolute over relative truth. Spiritual bypassing Spiritual bypass or spiritual bypassing is a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks". The term was introduced in the early 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. Wikipedia Types of Spiritual Bypassing We all benefit from becoming enlightened and interconnected by setting ourselves on fire to eliminate false beliefs, illusions and separating desires, ideals, and prejudices. Here we share spiritual bypass types that we sometimes do not recognise (or refuse to recognise) in life. Blame Bypass As we grow spiritually, we begin to see through the lies, delusions, and crazy behaviours of others, making us angry, downhearted, and frustrated. When we face challenges, we start blaming others, instilling ourselves with a false sense of righteousness, taking away our responsibility to look inside and work on ourselves due to fear and avoidance. 2. The Horoscope Bypass This bypass is when we frequently look outside of ourselves for help, allowing predictions and guidance to control our lives' outcomes using Horoscopes and Psychics. We then fail to tap into our inner wellsprings of wisdom and strength and allow external predictions to control our lives' outcome. The Prayer Bypass When we use prayer to avoid personal responsibility to solve all our problems and issues, it can easily become limiting and misguided. Intellectual Bypass The use of logic and intelligence to avoid addressing emotional issues can be rationalizations in psychology. Most people who get into their heads are " clever" and want to reason everything out. They are the same people who can also struggle with emotional control. Premature Transcendence In this bypass, we try to rise above humanness and dismiss feelings, relational, developmental, psychological issues. We can avoid ego development needs and our lives' challenging emotional issues by circumventing self-development while claiming to be spiritual. The Optimistic Bypass Forced optimism and positivity where people love to laugh and smile, an effect of anger-phobia, or the inability to deal with negative emotions. Optimism bypass disregards negative emotions. We cannot take away all our sadness, anger, fear, and other unpleasant feelings with positive thoughts. The Aggrandizement Bypass Self-aggrandizement is the process of promoting oneself as being powerful and important. In this bypass, we might delude ourselves and mask our deficiencies and insecurities. Disconnection Bypass Disconnection bypass is when someone may avoid connections. They may appear cold and overly detached. They avoid feelings, community, family, nature, religion, or society.. The Guru Bypass It is beneficial to follow a motivational speaker or spiritual teacher to learn and grow without worshiping them knowingly or unknowingly. They are just as human as all of us and as flawed as we all are. Venting bypass Venting is helpful and needed to let off steam, but if it becomes a way of coping, we can get useless feedback from people who do not want to hurt our feelings. Overly self-sacrificing Serves others out of obligation or personal responsibility to feel needed by being a do-gooder or a people pleaser. Compensatory identity. Compensatory bypassing involves covering up a lack of identity or lack of self-worth by becoming a spiritual healer or spiritual practitioner. Rather than do inner healing work, to address low self-worth and not feeling good enough and lack identity, someone becomes a coach or healer. One-sided spirituality One believes in absolute truth over relative truth, which is a one size fits all approach with no room for error. #Memories of my mother - Why am I thriving? I had a mother!

In this episode, Scott discusses the various types of spiritual bypassing common in the Mormon church and offers a few ways to interact with our friends and family that unknowingly bypass us emotionally. Wrapping it all together, Scott looks to Ernest Hemingway for inspiration on how to emotionally deal with a spiritual bypass.John Welwood introduced […]

In this episode, Scott discusses the various types of spiritual bypassing common in the Mormon church and offers a few ways to interact with our friends and family that unknowingly bypass us emotionally. Wrapping it all together, Scott looks to Ernest Hemingway for inspiration on how to emotionally deal with a spiritual bypass.John Welwood introduced […]

In this episode, Scott discusses the various types of spiritual bypassing common in the Mormon church and offers a few ways to interact with our friends and family that unknowingly bypass us emotionally. Wrapping it all together, Scott looks to Ernest Hemingway for inspiration on how to emotionally deal with a spiritual bypass. John Welwood […] The post Rameumptom Ruminations: 006: Spiritual Bypassing appeared first on Mormon Discussions Podcasts - Full Lineup.

Vasu Hancock joins the podcast again for another conversation on how our wounding impacts and distorts how we see the world and experience intimate (including sexual) relationships. Today's conversation pivots around the Mystified Child Wound, how we can move from the mystified to the mystical. Vasu outlines various mystified aspects -- hopeful, expectation, hopeless, mistrust, controlling; which are wound adaptations. Vasu first joined Dare to Listen to share about the Abandonment Wound. Vasu and Nameh explore.. the characteristics of communal versus individual focusing cultures how the shift to industrialization shifted us how our mystical self is our true nature how we can get lost in the suffering how the journey into our pain can bring us to wholeness how parents, when in their mystified adult self, unknowingly imprint their wounding to their children grieving what needs have not been met defining psychic space clarifying how we project parts of ourselves onto others Vasu shares her love of working in groups; specifically when groups come together there's a building of support and intimate depth that offers another way to know ourselves.  Show Resources: Vasu Hancock website David Richo's 5 A's via How to be an Adult in Relationships (see article)  John Welwood, the mood of grievance article Osho spiritual teacher Show audio: My Reflections by Adigold + Mind Voyage by AGsountrax 

Wie lassen sich spirituelle Entwicklung und die psychologischen Einsichten des Westens miteinander verbinden? Wie können wir die Entwicklung des Individuums mit der spirituellen Suche nach dem versöhnen, das hinter dem Selbst liegt? John Welwood geht diese Fragen mit außerordentlicher Sorgfalt und in aller Tiefe an. Seine Psychologie der Erleuchtung bringt drei wesentliche Bereiche menschlichen Seins zusammen – persönlich, interpersonell und überpersönlich – die bislang von noch keiner einzigen westlichen oder östlichen Tradition in einen Gesamtzusammenhang integriert wurden. In dieser Gesamtschau, Theorie und Praxis gleichermaßen umfassend, scheint nicht weniger als die Integration der psychischen und spirituellen Seite unseres Seins auf. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

Wie lassen sich spirituelle Entwicklung und die psychologischen Einsichten des Westens miteinander verbinden? Wie können wir die Entwicklung des Individuums mit der spirituellen Suche nach dem versöhnen, das hinter dem Selbst liegt? John Welwood geht diese Fragen mit außerordentlicher Sorgfalt und in aller Tiefe an. Seine Psychologie der Erleuchtung bringt drei wesentliche Bereiche menschlichen Seins zusammen – persönlich, interpersonell und überpersönlich – die bislang von noch keiner einzigen westlichen oder östlichen Tradition in einen Gesamtzusammenhang integriert wurden. In dieser Gesamtschau, Theorie und Praxis gleichermaßen umfassend, scheint nicht weniger als die Integration der psychischen und spirituellen Seite unseres Seins auf. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

Du wünschst dir einen positiven Start in den Tag? Diese Meditation weckt dich ganz liebevoll auf. Mit einer kraftvollen Visualisierung öffnen wir dein Herz und zeigen dir, wie wertvoll jeder Tag in deinem Leben ist. Diese Meditation unterstützt dich, deine Mitmenschen und dich selbst in neuem Licht zu sehen. Auch inspiriert sie dich, den heutigen Tag mit kleinen wundervollen Momenten zu füllen, die dir Freude bereiten. Wir schließen die Meditation mit dem Gedicht 'Forget about Enlightment' von John Welwood ab. Ich wünsche dir ganz viel Freude bei dieser Meditation!

Die Schönheit und Großartigkeit der Liebe ist grenzenlos. Wie kommt es aber, dass es uns in Liebesbeziehungen meist nicht gelingt, dieses unermessliche Potential voll auszuschöpfen? Sensibel und poetisch schildert John Welwood den Grund unseres Scheiterns: Die meisten Menschen leiden unter einer tiefsitzenden emotionalen Verletzung, die all unsere Beziehungen sabotiert. Viele von uns können nicht wirklich glauben, dass sie, so wie sie sind, liebenswert sind. John Welwood hilft den Lesern, diese „Wunde des Herzens“ zu verstehen und zu sehen, wie sie unsere Beziehungen formt. Dabei geht es keineswegs nur um die Beziehung zu unserem Lebenspartner, sondern auch um unser Verhältnis zu Familienmitgliedern, Freunden und Bekannten. Vollkommene Liebe zeigt uns, wie wir unser verwundetes Herz heilen können – um so unsere Innenwelt und damit auch die kriegerische Außenwelt in in heilsame Bahnen zu lenken. In diesem Sinne kann jede Beziehung zu einem mächtigen spirituellen Lehrmeister werden und uns helfen, verborgene innere Quellen zu erschließen und mechanisch gelebte Beziehungen in echte Seelenverwandtschaften zu transformieren. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

Die Schönheit und Großartigkeit der Liebe ist grenzenlos. Wie kommt es aber, dass es uns in Liebesbeziehungen meist nicht gelingt, dieses unermessliche Potential voll auszuschöpfen? Sensibel und poetisch schildert John Welwood den Grund unseres Scheiterns: Die meisten Menschen leiden unter einer tiefsitzenden emotionalen Verletzung, die all unsere Beziehungen sabotiert. Viele von uns können nicht wirklich glauben, dass sie, so wie sie sind, liebenswert sind. John Welwood hilft den Lesern, diese „Wunde des Herzens“ zu verstehen und zu sehen, wie sie unsere Beziehungen formt. Dabei geht es keineswegs nur um die Beziehung zu unserem Lebenspartner, sondern auch um unser Verhältnis zu Familienmitgliedern, Freunden und Bekannten. Vollkommene Liebe zeigt uns, wie wir unser verwundetes Herz heilen können – um so unsere Innenwelt und damit auch die kriegerische Außenwelt in in heilsame Bahnen zu lenken. In diesem Sinne kann jede Beziehung zu einem mächtigen spirituellen Lehrmeister werden und uns helfen, verborgene innere Quellen zu erschließen und mechanisch gelebte Beziehungen in echte Seelenverwandtschaften zu transformieren. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

Immer mehr Menschen suchen in ihrem Alltagsleben und ihren Beziehungen nach einem tieferen Sinn, mehr Achtsamkeit und größerer Bedeutung. Der Psychotherapeut und buddhistische Meditationslehrer John Welwood beschreibt mit seinem Buch "Bewusst lieben", wie eine intime Beziehung zu einem tief gehenden spirituellen Weg werden kann, der zwei Menschen hilft, zu innerer Heilung zu finden und in Einklang mit ihrem wahren Selbst zu kommen, während sie lernen, sich ehrlicher, erfüllender und lebendiger aufeinander zu beziehen. Welwood stellt ein neues Modell zur Arbeit mit den eigenen Seelenthemen vor und zeigt, wie jedes psychologische Hindernis, das zwischen zwei Liebenden auftaucht, zugleich eine besondere Art von spiritueller Gelegenheit bietet, verborgene innere Quellen zu erschließen und miteinander tiefer zu gehen. In "Bewusst lieben" geht es um sehr viel mehr als um die Frage, wie Partnerschaften „funktionieren“: Dieses Buch zeigt auf, wie eine Beziehung bewirken kann, dass unser gesamtes Leben auf eine tiefere Weise erfüllender und befriedigender wird. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

Immer mehr Menschen suchen in ihrem Alltagsleben und ihren Beziehungen nach einem tieferen Sinn, mehr Achtsamkeit und größerer Bedeutung. Der Psychotherapeut und buddhistische Meditationslehrer John Welwood beschreibt mit seinem Buch "Bewusst lieben", wie eine intime Beziehung zu einem tief gehenden spirituellen Weg werden kann, der zwei Menschen hilft, zu innerer Heilung zu finden und in Einklang mit ihrem wahren Selbst zu kommen, während sie lernen, sich ehrlicher, erfüllender und lebendiger aufeinander zu beziehen. Welwood stellt ein neues Modell zur Arbeit mit den eigenen Seelenthemen vor und zeigt, wie jedes psychologische Hindernis, das zwischen zwei Liebenden auftaucht, zugleich eine besondere Art von spiritueller Gelegenheit bietet, verborgene innere Quellen zu erschließen und miteinander tiefer zu gehen. In "Bewusst lieben" geht es um sehr viel mehr als um die Frage, wie Partnerschaften „funktionieren“: Dieses Buch zeigt auf, wie eine Beziehung bewirken kann, dass unser gesamtes Leben auf eine tiefere Weise erfüllender und befriedigender wird. Julia Schütze #Whisper2Me www.juliaschuetze.at/whisper2me www.arbor-verlag.de

"Olvídate de la iluminación... Siéntate donde estés y escucha al viento que canta en tus venas, siente el amor, el anhelo y el miedo en tus huesos... abre tu corazón a quien eres ahora mismo, no a quien te gustaría ser, no al santo en el que te esfuerzas por convertirte, si al ser que eres aquí mismo, delante de ti, dentro de ti, a tu alrededor... Ya eres más y menos de lo que puedas saber. Exhala, mira hacia adentro, sueltalo". John Welwood

#051  Fed up with diets and wellness hype? Christine Okezie is on a mission to guide you to approach your food, weight and body image challenges from a genuinely "whole-istic" perspective.  She's passionate about you having the right tools to understand the deeper soul truths in your health challenges so you can feel empowered in your body and in your life. Spiritual bypassing shows  up in the holistic health and  personal development world, the “good vibes only” groups, the "love and light" circles  when spiritual development ignores psychology.  The term, spiritual bypassing  was first coined during the early 1980s by Buddhist and psychotherapist , John Welwood in his book,  Toward a Psychology of Awakening .  It's defined as the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds and developmental needs. It's what's happening for example when we find ourselves using meditation, yoga, bodywork, spiritual ideas - even healthy eating to avoid dealing with our unpleasant, unresolved  emotional stuff.Spiritual bypassing is a tempting defense strategy in today's complex world but it can have harmful emotional  consequences and become an  obstacle on the path to genuine spiritual development. Learn how to identify it and what you can do to avoid it.   

In this episode, Nikki and Haley discuss John Welwood's concept of Spiritual Bypassing, recent examples of this, why it's dangerous, and the full moon in Aries! Nikki sips a favorite - Jam Jar, and Haley enjoys Nikau Point Sauv Blanc (courtesy of TJ's).

Have you ever wondered why certain past hurt keeps resurfacing? It may be because you spiritually bypassed the emotional processing. I definitely have used spiritual bypassing in my marriage, break ups, and disappointments. Then I learned what it was and stopped side stepping the uncomfortable feelings. Tune in to learn more about ways we use spiritual bypass and how to prevent it. Enjoy this self love date! Show notes: "Toward A Psychology of Awakening" by John Welwood. Reach out to me here and here. Much love! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jenny-drake/message

Ari Goldfield joins me again to unpack some of the major wisdom he dropped in Episode 3. We discuss the importance of direct experience vs. intellectualizing. We also get into spiritual bypassing, which John Welwood details as follows: “While still struggling to find themselves, many people are introduced to spiritual teachings and practices that urge them to give themselves up. As a result, they wind up using spiritual practices to create a new “spiritual” identity, which is actually an old dysfunctional identity—based on avoidance of unresolved psychological issues—repackaged in a new guise.” I plead guilty. You can find Ari at https://wisdomsun.org/. As always, feel free to get in touch at theanxietylab@gmail.com or on Instagram @sagarbot. Music by Niall Connolly. Also, it's way too early for merch, but we like what we've done here: https://teespring.com/stores/anxiety-lab.

Here are some words by Scott Stabile that I came across recently: And then my sorrow whispered to me… I am not here to crush you. I have not come for your hope. I only want you to feel the deep pain of our world so that you will love everyone in it that much more. So, can we all just agree that it's time to give "love and light" a flaming viking funeral farewell, and be done with the spiritual bypass...? If nothing else, 2020 taught us that we can't bypass ANYTHING if we're going to actually heal. So what is healing? As Bria and I roam around in our spiritual and emotional arsenals to bring you these episodes, we dip into some pretty existential waters reveling in what Dead Hearts Club is actually about -- and not all of it makes the cut in our episodes.  But recently, we were talking about our own journeys through real-time healing, and realized that how we each approach the healing process as individuals informs basically everything we do and are creating in our personal lives -- and in the land of DHC. In this episode, we explore the question: Who Are We Really? How do we feel that core essence of Self without bypassing all the human reality? And when that buts up against some combination of trauma and story, labels and narrative…? How do you know which is the most reliable captain for your healing ship at any given time? What version of ourselves are we reaching for as our personal definition of "healing"? Who (or what) in us carries us toward an experience of healing that tells healing is taking root? This is an emotional, very personal episode, as we invited one of my clients to share with us her experience and story, and we explore the labels of "mental illness," depression, and the reality of the kind of pain that makes you want to disappear into it. There is a bit of a trigger warning, here, and we also want you to know how vital not hiding from these topics is to us, because being in the middle of healing -- which is where we all are, in some shape or form -- is honest.  It's a dance between our dirty, gritty, wounded, beautiful human lives, and the aspect of us all that is intrinsically…. whole. It's an agreement to not stand divided against ourselves. Honorable mentions + resources in this episode: + John Welwood, his book Love and Awakening and the term 'spiritual bypass' + Carolyn Myss' book Anatomy of the Spirit and the concept of Woundology + Brené Brown and how you can't selectively repress emotions + Embody Dance by Nadia Munla + Somatic Experiencing founded by Peter Levine + Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness, by David Treleaven + Nick Werber and his work with Family Constellations and Focalizing for working somatically + Bria's powerful experience with Network Spinal Analysis + Morgan's work as a transpersonal hypnotherapist (thanks Bria and Laura!) which you can find more about here and here, and also Morgan's personal Instagram, and as mentioned in the outro, the link to subscribe to Morgan's daily(ish) video series, Emotional Sobriety Listen and subscibe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher, and carve out a few minutes to leave us a review. We love hearing from you!

Spiritual Bypass es un término que fue introducido por John Welwood en los años 80 y se refiere a: "tendencia a usar ideas y prácticas espirituales para eludir o evitar enfrentar problemas emocionales no resueltos, heridas psicológicas y tareas de desarrollo sin terminar"Ananda y Maya conversan sobre esta tendencia, cómo se presenta y porqué es tan importante tomarla en cuenta cuando seguimos un camino espiritual. Sellamos este episodio mencionando tres señales que podrían indicarnos que estamos haciendo "bypass". Keep your Spirit up! -ANYMA- Más información enwww.the-soulab.comInstagram @the_soulabFacebook @Thesoulab

What is the "orgasm trap"? Why do a lot of people fake orgasms? What can folks do if they have trouble having an orgasm or think they can only orgasm one (or a few) way/s? And how do orgasms change with age? We also answer a sex question about herpes/STI's, and shame.  Want to skip to the interview? Fast forward to minute 18.  About our guest: Keeley Rankin is a sex and relationship coach, pleasure advocate and a sexy-preneur. She works with individuals and couples who want to embrace their innate desires, build sexual confidence, and fully realize their sexual potential.  Keeley received her master’s degree in Counseling Psychology. She’s trained in Hakomi Therapy and Recreation of the Self. For seven years, she worked closely with the world-renowned author and transpersonal psychotherapist who coined the phrase ‘spiritual bypass’, John Welwood. She also specializes in facilitating deep erotic connections for couples. Pre-Covid, she would meet couples in Paris for the a unique-extreme-sexy-connected date night – private sessions aimed to prep the couple for an evening at a sex club. She has been featured in media outlets such as the Huffington Post and Oprah Magazine as an expert in male sexual struggles where she created an Premature Ejaculation Mastery Video Course for men to learn to last longer in bed from the privacy of their own home. To learn more visit keeleyrankin.com/ Other links: Get 10% off + free shipping with code SHAMELESSSEX on Uberlube AKA our favorite lubricant at uberlube.com Get $5 off while mastering the art of pleasure at OMGyes.com/shameless Discover Amy's favorite vibrators at satisfyer.com Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code Shameless at Manscaped.com Get 15% off all of your sex toys with code SHAMELESSSEX at purepleasureshop.com Want to try one of our favorite boutique wines? Get 10% off of 3 bottles or more with code SHAMELESSSEX10 or 15% off of 6 bottles or more with come SHAMELESSSEX15 at marginswine.com Buy some Shameless Sex swag while supporting a good cause when you visit teepublic.com/stores/shameless-sex-podcast    

What is premature and delayed ejaculation, and how can folks develop more control?  Want to skip to the interview? Fast forward to minute 12.  About our guest: Keeley Rankin is a sex and relationship coach, pleasure advocate and a sexy-preneur. She works with individuals and couples who want to embrace their innate desires, build sexual confidence, and fully realize their sexual potential.  Keeley received her master’s degree in Counseling Psychology. She’s trained in Hakomi Therapy and Recreation of the Self. For seven years, she worked closely with the world-renowned author and transpersonal psychotherapist who coined the phrase ‘spiritual bypass’, John Welwood. She also specializes in facilitating deep erotic connections for couples. Pre-Covid, she would meet couples in Paris for the a unique-extreme-sexy-connected date night – private sessions aimed to prep the couple for an evening at a sex club. She has been featured in media outlets such as the Huffington Post and Oprah Magazine as an expert in male sexual struggles where she created an Premature Ejaculation Mastery Video Course for men to learn to last longer in bed from the privacy of their own home. To learn more visit keeleyrankin.com/ Other links: Get 10% off + free shipping with code SHAMELESSSEX on Uberlube AKA our favorite lubricant at uberlube.com Get $5 off while mastering the art of pleasure at OMGyes.com/shameless Get 15% off all of your sex toys with code SHAMELESSSEX at purepleasureshop.com Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code Shameless at Manscaped.com Get your Shameless Sex swag (t-shirts, tanks, masks, etc) here Want to try one of our favorite boutique wines? Get 10% off of 3 bottles or more with code SHAMELESSSEX10 or 15% off of 6 bottles or more with come SHAMELESSSEX15 at marginswine.com  

Your ego and your “calling” in life can look surprisingly similar. Both pull you toward the realization of your desires. Ego assembles your personality. It manages your fragile identity while you figure out who you are. It protects you from the onslaught of societal expectations and motivates you to work hard and achieve things. But ego alone can also skew you toward thinking that hard work and achievement are the goals in life. If your ego assembles your personality and manages your identity, then your calling is invested in making sure it's authentic — who you really are. So, how can you know which one is really driving your work? Time Stamps: 2:06 Shelley shares the impetus for this week's topic and how it is drawn from her own experience. Is the ego all bad? Should we work to rid ourselves of the ego? Shelley tells us what part the Ego plays in our mental health. 7:12 We talk about the difference between a small ego and a quiet ego 9:55 We discuss John Welwood's concept of Spiritual Bypass.  15:44 Get ready to go back to when you were 5. Let's dive into the 5 ways to distinguish your call from your ego. We talk about #1 here.  18:22 How are anxiety and silence clues? Shelley explains the second way to distinguish your ego from your calling. 21:20 Number three on our list is about burnout and fulfillment correlate with ego and calling.  24:14 The 4th way to distinguish your ego from your calling is to examine whether the focus is on the result or the process. We talk about that here. 26:15 Number five rounds out the list with whether we are focused on preserving ourselves or serving others. 28:40 We chat a little about the upcoming launch of Big Self School. Leave us a review and https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-big-self-podcast/id1485907203 (subscribe on Apple iTunes). https://open.spotify.com/show/1yx9VzUCRcYezd7cUlSRn4?si=Xygeo5a7T0ePnX7IaHu0AQ (Subscribe on Spotify). Find us at the Big Self Community on Facebook.

Welcome to a new paradigm of thinking! This episode of The Yoga Inspiration Podcast is all about Spiritual Bypassing - an important term I want every yoga student to get familiar with. Understanding this concept is integral to your yoga journey as it can be what’s possibly holding you back from your spiritual growth through yoga.  Spiritual Bypassing was originally introduced by John Welwood in the 1980s to describe the process when certain concepts of the yogi’s spiritual path are co-opted and used for avoidance, repression, and other negative mechanisms. All of the concepts that we learn about in yoga - the patience, the acceptance, the enlightenment - can be bypassed by our behavioral routines without us even realizing it. Do you ever find yourself thinking negative thoughts?  We all do. Yoga teaches us that we can’t have the light without the dark, but you should never feel guilty or be embarrassed by your negative thoughts. If you do feel guilty, then you are experiencing a Spiritual Bypass. That’s because it’s hard to accept your shadow shelf, especially if you’re stuck in a cycle of negativity. In the moments when you feel insecure, frustrated, even jealous, it can be hard to accept some of the metaphysical and spiritual concepts of yoga. These ideas that “everything is fine, just breathe” can feel ingenuine, even flippant. We can’t pretend that problems don’t exist, but we can take control of the way we feel. The spiritual tools of yoga are meant to give you the confidence to go into the deepest darkness of our shadow selves with the understanding that nothing is permanent. I share the ways these tools work for me and how you can implement them into your own yoga routine. This way, when a Spiritual Bypass tries to tell you that nothing matters, you can practice finding that balance between the bypass and your spiritual path.  The middle ground between the Spiritual Bypass and the Path to Enlightenment is my main focus on this episode. Because finding that middle ground is not easy. There are still days when I get on my yoga mat feeling angry and insecure about my poses or my body. The trick is to recognize when you are bypassing your emotions and learning how to sit with them instead. I share these 3 tricks on this episode -  Tune into your breathing. Listen to your body. Practice non-reactivity. I dive deeper into these 3 steps and ways I make them work for me and my yoga practice in hopes that I can inspire you to find a happy medium between your lightest and darkest self. You have to have faith in yourself and put in the work to build that strong foundation for yourself, otherwise your yoga journey will be anything but easy. It’s time to take the concepts of open consciousness and apply them to the nitty-gritty of your real world. Are you ready? If you’re a practicing yoga student with an inspiring journey, please share a bit of your yoga journey with me and my listeners! Send me an email at info@kinoyoga.com and tell me - what does yoga mean to you? You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast with Kino MacGregor! Stay connected: @kinoyoga and @omstarsofficial View my teaching schedule, blogs, etc on Kinoyoga.com Get your free 30 day membership on Omstars.com& use code: PODCAST

In this fiery episode I sit down with speaker, activist, writer and leading voice in the chorus of courage Sarah Stevens to discuss a hot topic...Spiritual Bypassing. No, it isn't a term made up by Instagram users; it was coined by John Welwood in the 1980's in regard to behaviors he witnessed himself and others doing in the Buddhist Community as a way of side-stepping the hard work on the spiritual path. Currently, in the yoga & wellness world we are watching this same thing happen and it is harmful. Yogis/teachers who are uncomfortable with the BLM movement are posting things like, "We Are One" which is really another way of saying 'all lives matter' right now. In this talk with Sarah we identify the different ways this is happening, how systematic and normalized racism is, and how we as white allies have to sit with and work through the uncomfortable realizations without diminishing the pain and oppression of the black communities. In this episode I refer to this article, and this podcast. You can find more about Sarah Stevens and her many projects by following these links:The Beautifull Projectby Sarah StevensBlack Pearl CoachingStripped: The Art of Being Seen (Sarah's TED Talk)Intro music by Orion MoranOutro music, "Yo Quiero Sol" by BRASKO (rights purchased through Soundstripe)Support the show (http://www.venmo.com/indigogrrrl)

There have been many different types of reactions to the calls for racial justice that are going on in our country right now. If your social media looks anything like mine you’ve probably noticed a lot of spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is a term coined by psychologist John Welwood in 1984, he describes it as, “a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”  It is calls for “prayer,” “unity,” and “love” without a commitment to action. It is the message that “we are all different and God loves everyone” and statements like “I’m not listening to the voices of the world anymore, I’m only listening to God.” Spiritual bypassing may look harmless on the surface, but it is actually a form of violence because it shuts down conversation and allows people to distance themselves from the responsibility they have to be part of the solution, which in turn perpetuates racism. In this episode we discuss how to spot spiritual bypassing, what makes it so dangerous, and what you should do when you see it.   Human Nature, Buddha Nature: On Spiritual Bypassing, Relationship, and the Dharma by John Wellwood    Spiritual Bypassing, White Privilege, and Black Lives Matter   Song Credit: “Away” by Geographer and “Beach Disco” by Dougie Wood 

Episode 17:  Loss, Grief, Mourning and Resilience – How do They Go Together?Intro: Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview.   We are going beyond mere resiliency, to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before.  I'm clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski your host and guide, with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me.  This is episode 17, released on May 25, 2020 entitled Loss, Grief, Mourning and Resilience – How do They Go Together?Some of you have been in touch with me and asked for work on Grief, which we touched on in Episode 3 with the loss of the sacraments in the lockdown.  There's been conversation about grief on the discussion boards in the Resilient Catholic: Carpe Diem Community space in Souls and Hearts, and now we are going to dive deep into this whole area of grief.  We are going to do two podcast episodes on grief and the coronavirus, and I will be doing one Zoom meeting for our members.  Seating is very limited for that, I'm only taking on 12 for that meeting at 7:30 PM eastern time on Friday, May 29, I saw one or maybe two open seats left, so check that out at Souls and Hearts.  Joining the community is free for the first 30 days, so come check it out at Souls and Hearts.com.   Our thinking can be heavily impacted when we are experience intense emotions, so let's really get some clarity, let's shine some light on things now.  The first thing, really quickly, is to define a few terms around grief, loss, and mourning. Let's get our vocabulary straight, because that really helps our thinking.    We're going to start with the concept of loss, loss – and that's because loss comes before grief.  Loss always comes before grief.  Loss precedes grief.  So we're going in order here, and starting with loss.  There are two kinds of loss:  Actual Loss and what I call the Loss of Potential.  Actual loss and the loss of potential.    Actual loss is the loss of a real, tangible good.  Something good is taken from us.  It could be death of a loved one, when we lose the relationship, with its intimacy, connection, the love.  It can also mean the actual loss of some part of us – our sense of hearing for example, or the Loss of Potential –  this is the loss of possibilities that we hoped for – something anticipated in the future.   a wedding that will never happen, children that will never be born, a promotion that will not come now, etc.  It also includes words that were never said, words that were never heard, stories that will never be finished.   Grieving at a funeral of family members – not of the actual loss of the abusive, alcoholic, philandering husband – not for the loss of the actual person.  But for the symbolic loss – no longer married, no longer the possibility of living happily ever after.  Grief is our individual experience of loss – so remember, the loss is the good we no longer have. Grief is our reaction to the loss.  It's our experience of the loss.  And that experience is emotional – sadness, anxiety, irritability we may feel mood swings -- or we may feel nothing apathyPsychological – disbelief, impaired concentration and attention, flashbacks, ruminations, going over and over some memory of the person.   Grief is also physical – for example when the tears flow, have intense fatigue, headaches, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping.   Grief is also expressed through behavior – the heavy sigh, when put our hands to our heads and groan or when we withdraw and sit alone in a dark room.   The experience of grief varies a lot from person to person, situation to situation.  It can be painful, sometime exquisitely painful, horrendously painful, it may seem intolerable.  Sometimes it's much more quiet.  It may also be bittersweet, or even have a sense of peace in it, such as when a loved one suffering from a terminal illness dies well.  There are different kinds of grief, and we're going to get into that later in this podcast, but for now, let's understand that grief is our individual experience of loss.  And with grief comes mourning.  Mourning is a public expression of our grief, it's what we show to others.  Mourning is how we show our grief.  How we share our grief with others.  How we connect in grief.  Some of this is conditioned by our culture – 3 rifle volleys salutes for deceased veterans, funerals, eulogies, the chicken dinner in the parish hall after the Mass, tossing a handful of dirt on the grave.  Review the above:             Actual Loss            Loss of potential             Grief            MourningSo how can we really solidify our understanding of these definitions?  How can we make these concepts come alive?  Hmmm.  Let me think.  [Ding]  I've got it!  How about a story, to make all this come together for us?  I think that's a great idea.  So it's story time with Dr. Peter.  Story Time:Richard and Susan (not an actual case).  We're going back in time 20 years, back to the early 2000s.  At that point, Richard and Susan had been married for eight years.  He was an engineer with an excellent job, highly successful and creative at work.  He really loved their three young sons, aged seven, five and three.  Susan was a professional translator in Spanish and Italian.   She had travelled and lived abroad before her marriage at age 32.  They had met through mutual friends, and both were nominally Catholic, attended Mass on Sundays and their sons were baptized, but it was not a central part of their lives.  Richard was somewhat emotionally reserved and kind of introverted didn't talk a lot about feelings, and had always been into racing go-karts.  Now he was getting the oldest son into the hobby in a mini go kart and really enjoying that together. Susan was more extroverted, and maintained a lot of connections with her professional women friends, many of whom were younger than her and unmarried and still living in Italy and Spain. Susan really wanted a daughter, and had been going through some recent fertility issues, there were medical complication.  Richard felt he had enough kids, at least in his opinion.  But at age 40, after a deepening of her prayer life – she began to take her faith more seriously -- she conceived again, and the ultrasound indicated the baby was a girl.  She was so excited, and at 22 weeks everything was going well.  And then complications with the placenta started, and by 24 weeks the baby had died.  Susan miscarried her baby daughter and because of medical complications, also wound up with a hysterectomy.  All right. So we have the story or at least the beginning of the story.  Let's work with the story.So what was the actual loss – remember the actual loss is the loss of a real, tangible good.  Know what it is?  Right.  The loss of the baby herself, the death of the little one.  What was the loss of potential?  Ok, so the loss of potential is is the loss of possibilities that we hoped for – something anticipated in the future.  So in this case, Susan's loss of potential was seeing her baby daughter grow up, her first words, her first steps, first day of school, ballet classes, report cards, prom, her wedding to a handsome young man in Susan's own wedding dress, grandchildren….  You see that, you get that.  But also, there was another loss of potential.  Remember the hysterectomy.  It was like a criminal sentence to Susan.  No more children.  No more chance of a daughter, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh.  All right, so we have an understanding of loss.  The loss is a cold hard reality.  That reality of loss exists outside of Susan's reaction or experience.  The loss just is.  Let's go to grief now.  Remember, grief is the individual experience of loss, with all its physical, emotional, psychological and behavioral aspects.  Now let's dive into grief in a lot more detail.  More than two decades ago, University of Chicago psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD, identified various stages that people who are dying may experience. Denial AngerBargaining DepressionAcceptanceDavid Kessler:  Sixth Stage of grief – finding meaning in the loss.    Integrating it into the narrative of life in a coherent way.  Four variations of Grief.  Anticipatory griefLuke 19:  41 And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. 43 For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, 44 and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”[Disenfranchised grief Complicated griefUnacknowledged Grief – suppressed.  Acted out by being intensely busy.  Manic episodes in bipolar disorder are the photographic negative of grief.  High energy levels, elevated mood, lots of goal directed activity – last ditch effort to becoming overwhelmed by grief. Numbing out in denial.  Spiritual Bypassing of Grief:  "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks". The term was introduced in the early 1980s by John Welwood,  I know she's in heaven, he is in a much better place, I'm happy for her.  This is just my cross to bear.   In the next two episodes, we will go further into Grief and Mourning – now that we know more about what grief.  We will discuss the difference between grief and depression.  We will continue with the lives of Richard and Susan, bringing them up to the present day.  We will discuss factors that interfere with the normal resolution and passing of grief, and also the things we can do to help ourselves and others through grief, bringing in both psychological resources and also the gifts of the Catholic Faith.  All that is coming up.   Action item:  Register for the Resilient Catholics: Carpe Diem! Community here.  Free for the first 30 days, after that $25 per month.  There are all kinds of extra goodies there, connected with this podcast.  On Wednesday May 27 I'm going to be putting up a running list of the things Catholics often grieve – some of them may be unexpected, and I'm inviting community members to add to that list.  On Friday May 29, we have our first small group meeting, one or two seats may still be open for that, at 7:30 PM, where I will make a brief presentation, but then answer questions and facilitate a discussion of what causes you grief in the present day, in these troubled times.  We will post the recording of that in our member space, too, so you don't want to miss it.  We are real Catholics overcoming real issues with real transformation and real growth.  Come join us at Souls and Hearts.com and you can also reach out to me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com with questions about the community.   Patronness and Patron.  

El bypass espiritual fue definido por el psicólogo John Welwood en los 1980s. Se refiere a él como una tendencia ampliamente usada de usar las creencias y prácticas espirituales para evitar encarar asuntos emocionales no resueltos, heridas psicológicas y tareas del desarrollo no resueltas. Es algo que hacemos con nosotros mismos y con otros y ocurre de formas muy obvias y otras muy sutiles. Fuente: https://www.institutocultivo.com/felicidad-genuina/el-bypass-espiritual-un-escape-de-la-experiencia-a-traves-de-la-espiritualidad/

Libro Amar y despertar de John Welwood

What Is Spiritual Bypassing? This time on Pretty Spiritual Podcast, we’re going to dig into a topic close to our hearts: spiritual bypassing. First off, what is a spiritual bypass? John Welwood coined this term to talk about a trend he observed in spiritual communities. Spiritual bypassing is when we “use spiritual ideas and concepts to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” Often, we fall into the trap of spiritual bypassing when we are in the thick of our messy, human process and we don’t love how it’s looking to others or to ourselves. Maybe we think it’s too much or not allowed or taking too long. We discard the messiness of the human process in favor of something that we think will look better to us or others.  We turn to this because we don’t accept the person who is here today or the experience we’re having. It’s not okay for some reason. Spiritual bypassing is actually a valid tool to pick up when we don’t have the capacity to bear the discomfort of the feelings underneath. Often, we use spiritual bypassing as a shield. It’s a way to protect ourselves from stressful stuff, like our true self and vulnerable work that needs our attention. By avoiding the shadow work that is calling for us, we also avoid growing. Letting Go Of Judgement It makes sense that we pick this up as a tool. It actually turns out that spiritual bypassing is a necessary stage of human spiritual development. If you’re seeing signs of this tendency in yourself, you are definitely on the spiritual path! Way to go, fellow travelers. We are cheering for you and ourselves! So what are some common forms of spiritual bypassing? Some manifestations we have noticed are things like an overly positive focus. Everything is great and complaining is bad and I’m happy and grateful all the time! Or maybe you fall into a different trap like self-deprecation. When we make ourselves bad or wrong, that’s its own kind of bypass. It keeps us from looking at what’s really here when we appraise ourselves accurately. Another popular side step happens around anger, especially for women since so many of us are caught in the trap of believing that anger isn’t spiritual. Or that if we were perfect or spiritual enough, then we’d never get angry.  John Welwood goes on to say this: “When we are spiritual bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it.” And it’s only when we go through the real and messy stuff that we find healing and relief. It turns out that life is messy and being a human is hard. So what can we do to love ourselves through this phase of our spiritual growth and development and be true to self? How can we let go of how we think it should look and get on board with what’s actually happening? Are you stuck in bypass mode and wondering how to find yourself? Where is the authentic person who is struggling with the unavoidable messiness of human life? We need those spiritual tools. Get The Tools You Need  Time to get those tools! Yes, spiritual bypassing is a tool in itself. But what spiritual tools can we pick up when this one no longer serves us? One helpful thing is to turn toward authenticity. Be who you are, messiness and all. We can learn to be authentic in the moment, whatever that looks like. We can trust that we’re supported enough to feel our feelings and be honest with ourselves about what’s going on inside of us.  Want even more tool that can help with finding yourself? We love meditation as a grounding tool. When we are grounded and feeling emotionally safe, there’s naturally more room for all the emotions to arise and be felt. Meditation helps us create space to experience all of what’s right here right now, including anger, resentment, fear, and judgement. We also like spiritual inquiry. Ask yourself questions like, what action requires the most faith right now? We can invite the shadow self into this exercise, fears and all. Ask your whole being, what would I do if I weren’t afraid? Ask the questions and listen for the whisper of the universe.  Please get in touch and let us know what your experience  is with spiritual bypassing and what works for you. Please share your experiences and tools with us. Find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Insight Timer, Google Play, Spotify, Soundcloud, Podbean, and Stitcher (or our Contact page) and share your feelings, thoughts, and anything else! Thanks for listening to our spiritual podcasts. We love ya!

“Spiritual bypassing” is a term coined by the late John Welwood to describe a phenomena he was observing in various Buddhist communities he was a part of. Welwood found that people were using religious practice to avoid dealing with “unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” In this episode, we explore the implications of this concept on our collective journey, as well as its impact on emotional development as a whole. Recorded November 23, 2019 http://www.johnwelwood.com/articles/TRIC_interview_uncut.off https://www.amazon.com/Dimensions-Human-Behavior-Person-Environment/dp/1544339291 Music by Tears of Mars https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FHUDYgxLf4RNGoDIDhUhh?si=r3hLSNF1TuaglHizxNRxKw

Today's episode of Dharma Talk covers the topic of spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass is a term coined in the early 80's by John Welwood. John is a Buddhist teacher and licensed psychotherapist, and described spiritual bypass as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, [...] The post Spiritual Bypass – Tuning into Aversion appeared first on One Mind Dharma.

Today's episode of Dharma Talk covers the topic of spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass is a term coined in the early 80's by John Welwood. John is a Buddhist teacher and licensed psychotherapist, and described spiritual bypass as a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, [...] The post Spiritual Bypass – Tuning into Aversion appeared first on One Mind Dharma.

John Welwood, PhD, was a psychotherapist and practicing Buddhist who integrated Eastern contemplative wisdom and Western science in his work. He published many books and articles, including Journey of the Heart and Toward a Psychology of Awakening. John passed away in January of 2019 at the age of 75. In honor of his amazing life, Sounds True is presenting a special episode of Insights at the Edge originally broadcast during The Psychotherapy and Spirituality Summit. In this segment, Tami Simon speaks with John about the nature of psychological suffering and the layers of meaning associated with our wounding. John comments on how spiritual practice can help therapy proceed with more awareness, and how spiritual practice benefits from the rigorous analysis of psychotherapy. Tami and John also discuss how to avoid falling into the trap of spiritual bypassing. Finally, they talk about the healing of relational wounds and the gradual spiritual awakening of the human race. (62 minutes)

« Le courage vient du mot coeur. L’essence du courage, c’est accepter de ressentir son coeur, y compris dans les situations difficiles ou douloureuses. »  – John Welwood  John Welwood, psychologue et auteur, a noté que « l’essence du courage, c’est accepter de ressentir son coeur, y compris dans les situations difficiles ou douloureuses. »  Le courage c’est d’accepter notre vulnérabilité. C’est de continuer à agir, à s’exprimer, malgré la peur d’être rejeté.  Regarder Comment Avoir Du Courage Regarder sur YouTube Comment avoir du courage Podcast Comment Avoir Du Courage Ou lisez la version texte ci-dessous: Considérons l’histoire de Marwan.  Un enfant timide et en retrait Marwan, 33 ans, a grandi au Canada, mais il vit désormais au Liban. Enfant, il se décrit, comme étant timide et en retrait.  « En classe, je m’asseyais toujours près de la fenêtre. Je m’évadais dans mes pensées dès que je le pouvais. »  Malgré son inconfort initial à l’école, Marwan a poursuivi de longues études. Il s’est spécialisé dans la biologie pour devenir technicien de laboratoire.   À Beyrouth dans la capitale libanaise, il travaille désormais pour l’un des plus importants laboratoires d’analyse médicale.  Marwan est talentueux dans son métier, et il s’intéresse à de nombreux autres domaines lui donnant une bonne culture générale. Mais ce dont Marwan est le plus satisfait est le travail qu’il a fait sur lui même. En paix en lui même mais de la difficulté à s’exprimer en public  Il note bien mieux se connaître et se sent généralement en paix avec lui même. Mais ce qui continue à travailler Marwan, c’est sa difficulté à s’exprimer clairement lorsqu’il se retrouve en public.  Durant les rencontres professionnelles et sociales, Marwan a du mal à s’affirmer. C’est comme si l’enfant timide resurgissait en lui même l’amenant à battre en retrait et à étouffer son envie de s’exprimer et d’être entendu.  Combien de fois, Marwan est revenu chez lui agacé de ne pas avoir dit tout haut ce qu’il pensait. « Mais pourquoi je ne m’affirme pas plus!? » Il ressassait alors les détails de la rencontre se disant qu’il devait s’améliorer (étudier plus, avoir plus de succès au travail, améliorer son apparence physique) pour enfin pouvoir être vu et entendu.  Cette attitude ne changeait pas grand-chose. Et Marwan vivait cela comme une déception, comme un sentiment d’échec.   Puis un changement subtil de sa perspective des évènements allait tout changer.  Accepter sa vulnérabilité Après un coloc de 3 jours à Dubai, Marwan est rentré chez lui dans son appartement en fin de soirée. Il était fatigué de son long week-end professionnel, mais comme à son habitude il repensait à ses quelques jours et se blâmait de son manque d’assurance. Cependant, le sommeil et la lassitude ne lui permirent pas de se plonger dans ses pensées habituelles. Il se dit alors que peut être qu’il n’est simplement pas un bon orateur, qu’il n’a pas autant de réparti et d’humour que certains de ses collègues…et que cela était ok. Il fut surpris par le calme qu’il ressentit alors. Le fait d’avoir accepté de ressentir ses faiblesses, d’accueillir sa vulnérabilité sans vouloir la changer ou la fuir avait amené un sentiment d’apaisement.  Cette perspective nouvelle allait tout changer.  Durant la sortie sociale qui suivit, Marwan n’attendit pas de revenir chez lui pour refaire le point, il ressentit durant la soirée ce manque d’assurance. C’était une sensation corporelle d’inconfort, mélanges de désirs et de retenues. Alors que Marwan expérimentait sa difficulté à s’exprimer, il ne cherchait pas à fuir la sensation inconfortable. Il ne se disait pas « je suis nul, je dois m’améliorer. » Marwan acceptait simplement de ressentir cet inconfort en lui, et cela était libérateur.   Durant les semaines et les mois qui suivirent, Marwan embrassa ses limites. Au lieu de lutter contre son manque d’assurance, il le ressentait pleinement. Et surtout, il commença à s’exprimer malgré sa gêne.

We sit down today with Craig Cashwell, PhD. to talk about his research and practical application into the nature of spiritual bypass.  Dr. Cashwell looks at how we either move toward or away from emotionally or psychologically difficult spaces- the use of spirituality or religion being one of the ways we can either move toward or away.   Join us for a thoughtful and illuminating conversation with Dr. Cashwell.   Show notes: Craig mentioned authors you may want to look more into: John Welwood and Charles Whitfield among others.     Research on the Spiritual Bypass Scale Dr. Cashwell mentioned can be found here: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-45103-001

We sit down today with Craig Cashwell, PhD. to talk about his research and practical application into the nature of spiritual bypass.  Dr. Cashwell looks at how we either move toward or away from emotionally or psychologically difficult spaces- the use of spirituality or religion being one of the ways we can either move toward or away.   Join us for a thoughtful and illuminating conversation with Dr. Cashwell.   Show notes: Craig mentioned authors you may want to look more into: John Welwood and Charles Whitfield among others.     Research on the Spiritual Bypass Scale Dr. Cashwell mentioned can be found here: http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-45103-001

"Mother Earth is suffering, we ourselves are suffering, and so this seems to be a constant bad news whenever we turn, wherever we turn. But I also want to say that there's obviously a lot of good news and that they coexist together, and so I begin with the premise, and this is deeply embedded inside of me, I think from the time I was a small child, that we are, as human beings, whole, resourceful, and creative people, and that we're born that way and we have what we need to live in this world that contains so much suffering and so much beauty." "Obviously within the United States there's a great sense of dividedness, us against them, and I believe that an important step toward a sense of internal healing and wholeness has to begin with ourselves. That can be a long journey that is both a psychological journey. I want to lift up the words of John Welwood and spiritual bypass. The idea here is that we need to do psychological work as well as the spiritual journey."

On this week's episode of RECLAIM, I am joined by my dear friend and frequent podcast guest, Lindsey Rae as we explore the topic of spiritual bypassing and how it relates to capitalism, leadership, responsibility and emotions. Spiritual bypassing is a term introduced by buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, John Welwood and is now popularly used to describe behaviors where the individual uses spirituality to bypass responsibility. In this conversation we explore the ways we spiritual bypass and how you can tell you may be bypassing. Enjoy   To grab the show notes including all the information on today’s guest, go to www.ThaisSky.com/podcast/20.   If you like what you heard, it would mean the world to me if you took a moment to leave a review and share this podcast with your community.   Thank you for your generous attention. XO Thais   Socials // Website: www.ThaisSky.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/IamThaisSky Instagram: www.instagram.com/IamThaisSky

What do you do when you want to shift your relationship from the mundane towards something more transcendent? Is this something you could experience with just anyone? And if not, how do you know if your relationship has this potential? Also...what happens when the podcast guest starts interviewing the host?! In this week’s episode, we’re diving deep into the question of conscious relationship a bit differently, through a conversation with writer, seeker, and spiritual activist Jeff Brown.  Jeff is the author of the books Soulshaping and An Uncommon Bond, and director of the documentary Karmageddon: The Movie. His words and wisdom shine light on the journey of becoming more and more who we are meant to be, should we choose to follow that path. It’s not meant to be easy, but it is totally worth it - and in today’s episode of Relationship Alive we detail some of the important steps along the way. Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome, to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host, Neil Sattin. On this show, over and over again, we've been talking about the topic of conscious relationship. What does it mean to evolve your relationship to some place new, some place different? How do you recognize the patterns that are just about unhealthy relating, things that you've inherited from the culture, from your parents, from your friends, from your karma and how do you identify those things and get to a place where you can move past them to unchartered territory - that's about coming together clearly with your partner and helping each other, heal, grow and have a mission in the world, that's maybe something you do together or maybe it's supporting each other in your separate missions, but in the end, wanting both you and your partner to shine more brightly in the world and to do that in a way that enhances your connection as opposed to growing you apart? Neil Sattin: On today's show we are having a very special guest, Jeff Brown, who is the author of An Uncommon Bond which is a novel about conscious relationship. He's also the author of Soulshaping and he is followed by thousands and thousands of people on Facebook and elsewhere who tune in to the way that he writes and how it evokes new insight, new states of consciousness and it's a real pleasure to have him here with us today to talk about his book, to talk about conscious relationship and to talk about soul shaping and how we can craft our growth and development in a way that's generative for you and for the world around you as well. So thank you, Jeff Brown, for being here on Relationship Alive with us today. Jeff Brown: My pleasure Neil. I'm also quite grateful for this amazing work you're doing in the world, trying to raise awareness of conscious relationship and really deepen into the dialogue. I think it's such an important step forward for all of us. Neil Sattin: Thank you. Thank you, yeah, it's something I'm incredibly passionate about and it's always a pleasure to have, to be able to sit down with someone like you who also is equally passionate about, thinking about where we're going along with where we've been. So maybe we could start by just, I've already mentioned your books and, oh by the way, we will have a show guide for this episode so if you're interested in downloading that, you can visit Neilsattin.com/soulshaping or you can text the word 'PASSION' to the number 33444 and follow the instructions and we'll get that show guide to you. So, let's maybe just start with, what is soulshaping? Since that is at the core of your work. Jeff Brown: Soulshaping was really, I mean, when I had begun to write my first book, I was just trying to make sense of my own experience and what ultimately made sense to me at that time was that, as I looked back on my life, it seemed that I had some internalized what James Hillman called the innate image or what I have come to call 'soul scriptures', that I had some encoded sacred purpose, that included key relational figures, particular callings to certain work in the world, certain archetypal transformations that I was here to go through as though I was somehow shaping my soul towards wholeness and as I looked at every stage of my life, there were a lot of seemingly insignificant experiences in moments but there were these very fundamentally relevant and significant moments, externally sourced but also often coming from within, that seemed to be pointing me in the direction of a particular encoded path that I was here to walk in order to move in the direction of a more inclusive and whole centered consciousness. Neil Sattin: And so part of your work, I know you do soulshaping sessions with people as well, so you're writing about it and then you're also helping people discover that path for themselves? Jeff Brown: I am but I defined it very broadly. I think what shifted for me when I began, is I was very focused on callings. The calling to write Soulshaping, your work in the world right now. You know, Oprah Winfrey has worked to bring that message, whatever that message is or was, to the world and what I've come to believe and understand and so much of my session work is focused on, is really dealing with the unresolved emotional material. Because for me, I grew most in my spirituality through the evolution of my emotional processes. For me, emotional maturation and spiritual maturation are synonymous. I don't distinguish the two, that's why I'm so deeply opposed to split off or dissociative views of spirituality, ideas of enlightenment that exist, independent of the emotional body, the unresolved ego, the story that is yet to be processed, because for me, this is where most of the transformation happened. Jeff Brown: At the end of a deeper profound emotional process, I found that I was able to hold the space for the everything in a much more inclusive way. So soul shaping for me now is more than callings and archetypes. It's really, really about getting into that material that we hold individually and that we bring forward from the unresolved collective and doing the work that allows us to transform our individual and collective consciousness, so that we could move individually and collectively in the direction of a more inclusive or whole centered consciousness. Neil Sattin: And that's one thing that I really appreciated in reading An Uncommon Bond and I think you even mentioned it in your own notes at the end. This need to bring spirit into your embodiment, and so much of what I talk about and what my partner Chloe and I work on in the world is, allowing your body to be included in that experience, not in a way that is dissociating from your body, but where your somatic experience is actually intrinsic and gives you such a wealth of information about what's happening with you on those more subtle levels. I like how you did that in your book, and emphasize that... Jeff Brown: Well, I don't even understand how one has any experience of anything independent of the body. I think that all of that is just nonsensical for me. If I look back at the experience that inspired An Uncommon Bond that profound opening, all of it happened through my somatic structure. I felt as though I entered and opened and we opened together into some kind of a portal of experience, that seemed to transcend my embodied experience, but I'm not so sure that's true, I wasn't trained in the art of ecstasy, when ecstasy came my way, I didn't know how to hold it or contain it somatically and somehow imagined it was happening independent of my body. Jeff Brown: But in fact, every single piece of that experience was happening through the body and the self hood, that was the container for the experience and I'm not so sure that we're going to get anywhere, particularly if we're trying to break through the patterns that obstruct our ability to actualize love between ourselves and others, if we don't go deep back into the somatic structure and work the selfhood and work the story and work what's held in the cellular structure, in order to transform it in the direction of being able to be more open and available and sustaining of love when it arises. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I think for us, one thing that's been so profoundly transformative has been what happens in the quietness that, when Chloe and I are together, and I'm just speaking from my experience here, in the quietness and paying attention to what arises, what sensations arise, and even just speaking to those without labeling them, but just saying like, "Oh, this is where I'm experiencing some tension right now." or "I'm feeling this heat in this part of my body... " Those sorts of things end up becoming... The word that's popping into my head is transportational. They bring us somewhere to different levels of experience that wouldn't happen if you were focusing on the kind of intimacy that's just about getting each other excited and getting each other off. Jeff Brown: Right. Neil Sattin: I'm curious for you, the title of your novel is An Uncommon Bond and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what that even means, to have An Uncommon Bond? Jeff Brown: I think we may have to rely on definition, it's a little bit lengthy but maybe the first part of it. I had an experience in '98 and I had no words for this experience but this experience changed my life and I was doing a masters at Saybrook. I was at Saybrook University in San Fransisco doing a Humanistic Psych degree, a masters and it just so happened that, right at the seeming end of that connection, Jeanne Achterberg, who had written about uncommon bonds and had co-defined the term, I believe with Donald Rothberg, I was doing an Uncommon Bond weekend and I was oblivious, I had no language for this profound experience and I was in a really profoundly confused place and walked in that room and suddenly felt like somebody understood what my experience was. Let me just read the first paragraph maybe of the definition. Neil Sattin: That would be great. Jeff Brown: Yeah, "Uncommon Bonds are love connections that are sourced in the transcendent and transpersonal realms. The couple feels destined to have met, their connection is sourced in grace. This often leads to an experience of parapsychological or paranormal events, such as synchronicity, soulendipities, and non-local communications that defy known laws of time and space. There's a knowing of pure recognition of the other, a feeling of being cut from same cloth, a sense of having occupied the same body in a previous life, or perhaps one soul residing in two bodies. The lovers experience a prayer of gratitude and a sigh of relief as though coming home after decades of wandering, a transpersonal energy dances within and between the couple, spiritual practice is important to them, since the relationship is often experienced as the premiere spiritual engagement, an outgrowth of a relationship with the absolute." Jeff Brown: And then it goes on to say that, "The relationship polishes the rough diamond of the soul, for this reason, the relationship is sometimes dark, arduous, complex, accompanied by many dark nights of the soul. At the same time, there's a sense of the soul work could not happen in any other way than through the relationship, repeated dancing back and forth, no self, no disappearing wave to particle and back, characterizes the growing, changing, polishing and refining process." Jeff Brown: It's the profound crack open in the presence of another who feels destined to have walked your way in this lifetime. Feels deeply familiar even if you don't believe in past lives, you have this experience and you're certain that they existed and at the same time, at this stage of human development, because of where we're at in terms of understanding the shadow, they are remarkably difficult to sustain and particularly if one or both people in the dynamic are not egoic-ly strong enough to hold to their center and the merging, usually the studies indicate, Jeanne's studies that usually they end up breaking up unless they encounter each other or re-encounter one another at a much older age. Neil Sattin: Interesting. Jeff Brown: It's just too much to hold. It's just too much to hold. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And I think because, and this is why these kind of connections can sometimes just knock you on your ass, it's like it can... It takes you to that place where you have to recognize at some level, your dysfunction, as well as those transcendent states of, oh my God! I just met the most amazing person and they're... If it has all those feelings of reconnecting on a deep, mystical level. Jeff Brown: And that's part of the problem. And what you said earlier was true, they knock you down to your ass. Basically, they pull you up and out and that may just be because we just don't know how we get to orient that experience or to have that experience in a way that's integrated with our humanness, right? We don't have that training and I just don't know if we're at that stage developmentally where we can hold all of that at one time, that's the work. That's the work of conscious relationship. To be able to bring together the... Something called the transcendant, if in fact there is any way to transcend and the imminent. And in my experience, that's exactly what happened. Was a transport of experience or what you call a transportational experience but the opening into the light, the light was so powerful and profound, it could not help but reveal the shadow. And of course, not only our shadow, we were walking into the collective shadow in that experience because you can't have one without the other. You can't have a spirituality that only allows you to have ecstatic experience without also having the portal open to the shadow, the emergence of the shadow. Jeff Brown: So we entered into both of those places and then it just simply becomes a question of whether we're equipped, whether we're supported, whether we're capable and how toxic is our unresolved emotional material. Because if it's too toxic, if there's too much in the way of an abandonment wound, or a jealousy wound, or a betrayal wound, or whatever it is that you're carrying, it becomes almost impossible to sustain it because it just becomes too painful. Neil Sattin: Now, we spoke a little bit before the interview officially started and I come down pretty strongly on the level of, not that everyone has to stay together, like if you find someone and you fall in love that somehow you're like, you have to be together for the rest of your lives, that's not where I am. However, I do feel like there's a journey of skill building and opening and healing that could actually bring most people to this transcendent place. That's just my belief and I'm curious to know where you come down on that in terms of, do all connections have the potential to be Uncommon Bonds versus not. Jeff Brown: Yeah. I'm writing about this on an individual level in my current book. It is very similar to what people are doing individually, they're trying to pull up and out of the humanness in order to have some kind of an ecstatic or inclusive or unity consciousness experience. And then they find it's unsustainable when they try to come back into the world and they have to integrate with the world, and they have to confront their material. The unresolved material that they're actually carrying in their bodies. Jeff Brown: I think that the problem is this, if I think of dynamics I've had that started really on a ground or pragmatic level, they didn't have that element of pull up and out. They didn't have what we might call a mystical aspect. Usually, there's not enough charge in the connection to want to go through that process or to believe that you're gonna land at a place where you're going to have an expansive experience together. So usually, it starts with something that pulls you up and out that feels like there's some profound joy potentially waiting for you, if you can do some work along the path. Jeff Brown: But what I do believe, what does make sense to me is that something happens in the earth bound work, the relational work, the work that you're doing in your partnership, I'm sure, around the unresolved material that emerges, the social anxiety, the discomfort. All the levels of triggering that are happening in dynamics that have some charge to them. That if you can see that process through, and I don't think a lot of people have. We don't have a lot of love elders to talk to about this yet Neil, but I think that they do, that I have a feeling that they do integrate back into an experience of that ecstatic union in a way that feels more real to me, more sustainable for sure and may have a remarkably different tenure or resonance than the experience, for example, that I had in the initiating Uncommon Bond experience. Jeff Brown: I'm stuck with this. I'm not exactly sure which way to go with... I can't really fully answer your question because I'm still trying to figure that out myself. But I do know for sure that if you don't come back and do the earth bound work and you don't weave all the threads together within you and break through all of the obstructions within you that, for sure the experience that you're having is unsustainable. Neil Sattin: Can we get really practical for a moment and talk about what that process of resolving could look like for someone? And maybe even what's a step or two that someone could take after they listen to this episode of the podcast that would help them move along that journey. Jeff Brown: Okay, so let's say you've met somebody and you've had this awakening, we'll call it an awakening experience with them. And you feel like you've entered into some portal that feels beautiful, delicious and at the same time feels vulnerable and terrifying, or something. Then I think, probably what you would begin to do if you wanted to sustain it and deepen it and grow through it without knowing necessarily if this is someone who'll be with you for life, you don't know that really yet, is you would begin to work probably somatically to uncover all of the levels of material that are getting in the way. Jeff Brown: So for example, if you find yourself in that opening, suddenly feeling super triggered by the fact that this other person is presumably looking at other women, for example, and they may feel like they're just looking at them as they passed by them on the street, but a jealousy trigger might arise because now you have so very much to lose because your heart is so deeply opened. You have two choices, you either continue to sustain the reactivity that comes up rising in the trigger, or you decide you're going to work on your historical material. Past life aside, working on that, I don't know so much about that, but working somatically with a somatic-based psychotherapist, maybe a bioenergetic or core energetic or somatic experiencing therapist to really go deep into the caverns in the body to find out where the material is sourced, where it comes from and to try to work your way through to a more healed or transformed experience around it, so that when you re-engage in the connection and your partner happens to look at a woman walking down the street, you're not so triggered that you're going to obstruct the development of the connection. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So there's so much there in terms of being able to recognize that you have a trigger even happening and going through some sort of process to resolve whatever is stuck there that's causing the trigger. And with a jealousy trigger, it could be that there's something there, there's some reason that your safety radar is activated and that would be something to address in your coupleship. Jeff Brown: And to determine whether or not it's based in reality, or whether it's based in your holdings, right? Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Jeff Brown: The way I think of it more broadly is that if I think of my grandparents or my parents, they were organized relationally around a survivalist construct. They defined who they were by what put food on the table, and whatever roles or duties have been culturally conditioned into them, and the way that the system held that. Now, we're at the very beginning of this bridge crossing. And as a result of that, moving in the direction of authenticity as our orienting principle, that is we relate on the basis of who we really are, not on some basis of some role, duty, adaptation, disguise, or mask that allows us to get through a survivalist world. We're opening the door to a whole range of material that was really never been attended to by mostly anybody in historical terms. Certainly not in our family lineage, at least not most of us. This is the hardest time for everybody because it means if you're going to go on what we're calling a conscious relationship journey, which for me is an authentic relationship journey, you're going to confront a gigantic tsunami of unresolved material that you're holding and that's deep within the collective. Jeff Brown: You need to be brave, you need to be patient, you need to be incredibly realistic. And a lot of people are not realistic, they're dealing with fire, they don't understand what that really means. It means it's gonna go on for years and years and probably always be part of your interface because we're the first path travelers crossing the bridge towards an authentic connection. And we're carrying an enormous amount of baggage with us. Neil Sattin: Yeah. I'm letting your words wash over me because... And I'm thinking about how our parents and grandparents, because they were oriented around survival, then that was an orienting principle that allowed them to brush things under the rug or to live in pain without resolving it. Jeff Brown: They had a system. They had a system and a number of premises and beliefs that just allowed that to happen. "Don't look back." There's a million cliches that relate to that experience. They didn't expect anything different. They have no idea that anything else could even exist in that world and probably it wouldn't have been congruent with the way the world was organized. It's still really not. It takes a lot of time that we don't have to do this deeper work. And my concern is that people get an unrealistic vision of possibility for how quickly they're going to get there. I think that we need to understand we are doing the work of generations, we need to not be so damn hard on ourselves when we can't quite work a piece out, we need to allow ourselves to just step back and celebrate our little tiny victories 'cause in collective terms, they're humongous and not hold to some vision of possibility that's not sustainable or possible sociologically in one lifetime. That's not to be discourage us from doing the work, it's beautiful, it's beautiful work. But let's also be realistic about it. Neil Sattin: I was like, and yet we're gonna try. And there's... Jeff Brown: Absolutely. Neil Sattin: And there's some tension in there too because the temptation would be to, now that you're not orienting around survival necessarily but you still have to maintain. So you still have to somehow survive... Jeff Brown: We're still in a survivalist world Neil. We still have to adapt and mask and make a living and the whole culture economically is built around masking and branding and putting on a show and putting away your feelings and not throwing tantrums in the marketplace and all that stuff. It's mostly inauthentic. So that's hard stuff and then you gotta come back home to and wanna reconnect to the subtle realms, you wanna do conscious armoring, you wanna reach a stage where you go into the marketplace, you put on the armoring you have to, but you're conscious enough to know to come home and take it off. Not always that easy to take it off if you're trying to make a living and striving and grinding it out in the marketplace. And sometimes I know couples that get into this place where they're so impatient with each other because the partner comes home and they're saturated in the energy of the marketplace. Well, that's because we're just at the beginning of authenticity as a way of being and our social structures and economic structures aren't even built around any of this yet. Jeff Brown: So we have to be realistic. Let me just say my experience... My initiating Uncommon Grounds experience taught me two things, two amazing things in all of that suffering and all that ecstasy. One is the possibilities that exist between two humans, in my view are so much more profound. I mean all this work that's been done around Wilber sketching models of consciousness with men sitting in meditation caves, I'm not interested in any of that. To me that is just patriarchal spirituality, it's safer, it's easier. I know why they focus there but to me it's the tiniest fragment of possibility compared to what's possible between two hearts. Because my experience was not only did we open to another portal, I felt as though there was a way in which if we could have kept going we could have actually co-created some aspect of this universe with love as the transformative device for that. It is... We're singing about love not knowing what the hell we're talking about, but we're moving in the right direction. I mean there's a reason why we're here and we feel love for one another. It is the direction to go. We're not just here together to keep each other company, we're here together to show each other God. Jeff Brown: The other thing I learnt is how far we are for being able to sustain and deepen into that experience because of the stage we're at in the collective. Because the shadow is everywhere. Everyone is a trauma survivor if we compare their human experience to the realm of the most subtle humane vulnerable heart open possibility. So, we're going in the right direction, we got a real super long way to go and then we just have to decide if it's worth the energy that it's gonna take to get us some part of the way there. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I think it's worth it. I totally think it's worth it. Jeff Brown: You do, yeah, well, that's why you're doing this podcast. And I think it's worth it, and I also understand why some people who are carrying too much stuff or have too many practical challenges or don't have enough relational support because there is very little relational support out there for this kind of work, I can understand why they say, "Fuck it, it's not worth it. I'm just gonna have a more practical connection and put my energy somewhere else because the relational field is so challenging." It's all most people can do to manage and identify their own material. To put that two people in a room trying to do that and then weave the dynamic piece together and what comes up in the dynamic, it's extraordinary. Hard, brave, profound, terrifying work. Neil Sattin: Something that I think is ironic, 'cause I'm just pondering like well, why... How did we even end up here in conscious relationship land? And I think that the irony at least as I'm seeing it right now is that, it's the the cultural idea that you can meet someone and they can be your your hero, you can have that love that lasts forever, that engages you in like the practical question of well, how is that really possible? And especially if you're not willing to settle for... Well, my grandparents were together forever but they never had a kind word to say about each other or that sort of thing. Or frequently had an unkind word to say, [chuckle] let's just say it that way. So it's diving into that question around what gets you to the long term that I think takes you out of the common way of experiencing relationship which we center around - like how much dopamine we get from it, how much exhilaration we feel, how romanced we are and it moves us because that in and of itself isn't sustainable. Its sustainable when you merge that with the kind of healing work that you're talking about that takes energy and attention and intention 'cause it doesn't just happen on its own. Jeff Brown: Right. Neil Sattin: I didn't mean to monologue there. [laughter] Jeff Brown: Oh it's no problem. I didn't wanna respond I think what you said was absolutely true. Neil Sattin: So it gets me wondering then, if that's true, from your perspective, how would a partner bring attention to this, to... Like if you're in a relationship and you're caught in, like the first part of your book "An Uncommon Bond", I was frustrated, it was almost like how... Because it's portraying, this aspect of relationship and it... To me it almost felt like how there are all these songs on the radio that I can't even listen to anymore, that used to be themes for my life but now I just... I hear it and it just... I'm kinda like ugh, I don't wanna listen to that. So there's this question, if you know you're in that dynamic what's a pathway? What's a step in the right direction? Especially how do you bring that to your partnership? Jeff Brown: Sorry, define that dynamic? Neil Sattin: If you recognize like "Oh, We're just all over the map and we're getting triggered left and right and what we need to do is actually come to a recognition that what's required is attention and intention on our healing journey as well as our romantic journey. How do I bring that to a partner? Jeff Brown: Well, that depends on the partner. Probably, gently at first but at some point probably very directly. There really isn't a choice. If you're not going to fall back to a survivalist framework for a dynamic. The term "conscious relationship" doesn't work for me 'cause consciousness is so bloody relative, you know? And it implies everybody before was unconscious and like "we're conscious". And I mean, compared to where we're gonna be in 300 years, we're also unconscious. So, I think of it as just getting authentic, an authentic form of relatedness, and I think that every couple decides how far they're gonna go in the direction of authenticity, of getting real with who they are and what lives below the surface and all the stuff that they see flying around in the dynamic and taking it seriously and understanding that it's real. Not looking at it through the lens of ungrounded spirituality which pretends that everything about the personality is unreal, but the ecstatic experience is real, well that's just ungrounded and nonsensical. And not moving in the direction of pragmatism, where you decide to just accept that's just the bullshit of life and you're gonna keep yelling and screaming and abuse each other and keep moving forward. Jeff Brown: But every couple has to decide that, they have to have the conversation, somebody has to have the conversation, and we've all been part of that. I've been part of that conversation when I absolutely and utterly refuse to do the work. And I've been part of the conversation and the experience that initiated bond that then inspired Uncommon Bond, with somebody who absolutely refused to do the work. I had both experiences. At some point you just have to decide, you're either gonna break up, you're gonna embrace survivalism as a way of being, or you're gonna move in the direction of an immoral wakening, and authentic connection. Just initiate the conversation as gently as possible, it will often end up being a shouting match, because somebody very often, this was the experience with the Uncommon Bond studies. One partner wanted to really go forward and deepen into the shadow work and the other one absolutely and utterly refused to. It's rare to find two people who in a dynamic that is super charged and brings up the light in the shadow in really intense ways where both people are absolutely and utterly willing to do the work on the deepest deepest levels. I've encountered very few couples like that in my life. Neil Sattin: Yeah, it's something where I certainly feel blessed when I realize that with my partnership. Jeff Brown: If you got that, you're blessed. But it also means that you're gonna have a... In some ways a very hard path. A beautifully fulfilling path if you guys can see the process all the way through and not stop half way. Neil Sattin: Yeah. There are moments where it's really hard, and then there are moments where it's really beautiful. Jeff Brown: You're doing the work for my Bubbe and Zeda. Of course it's hard. You're doing the work for everybody. Really, that has never been able to do that work, or even be aware of that, existence of that work. It's really amazingly remarkable, couples who do this work really need to just go out and have congratulatory dates and just give themselves a break when they can't quite get it right just because they're doing the work for everybody. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And there's something that's coming to me too around how the container of your relationship is so important too... And establishing that container is often one of the most challenging initial parts of a couple embracing this kind of journey together, is creating the safety that allows them to do that so that, when I look at my own experience, the things that are hard now are still hard but they're not hard in a way where I feel like everything is just gonna potentially fall apart like I did in those initial hard moments. Jeff Brown: Because your container is solid. Neil Sattin: Yeah, Exactly. But it took a lot of work to get there, to the solid container. Jeff Brown: And what would you define as the key elements of that container? Neil Sattin: Key elements of the container. One, well there are the prerequisites to the container, so first is developing your presence and by that I mean an embodied presence. Although I think there are times when a more dissociative mindfulness can be helpul, particularly when you feel your trigger coming up and you're right there with your partner. But for the most part it's the kind of presence that is about really being solidly in your body and knowing what is coming up when you're with your partner. So that's pre-requisite number one. And number two is establishing your communication, the kind of communication that's based on presence and that already has a backdrop of establishing safety. So you're shifting your communication paradigm where you recognize, okay, how we talk to each other about whatever is coming up for us. Like, our mission is to keep each other safe in that conversation. Not that we avoid things to keep each other safe but we bring things up in a context of safety. And if you get knocked off the rails, you figure out how to get back in line. Jeff Brown: Got it. So it can be uncomfortable but not hurtful. Neil Sattin: Exactly. Exactly. Or if you slip and you're hurtful you're like, "Woah! I fucked up. Sorry". Willingness to bring that into your awareness of how you communicate. Jeff Brown: So the capacity for self reflection is very important in this process? Neil Sattin: Exactly. Jeff Brown: Okay. Neil Sattin: Those two things along with a whole bunch of curiosity, I think get you to a place where you can start looking at the container. And that's both in terms of how you close your exits...so that means even seeing what your exits are in your relationship. The way that you put energy elsewhere or leave the relationship... Especially in the hard moments. And then on the flip side of container, it's like imbuing it with the beauty of your vision and what you want and what you crave and what you hope to embody together, or what you wanna amplify that you already have. It's a combination of those two things that I think get you to a place where now you can dive into harder work and that structure holds you. Jeff Brown: And what do you feel... I know I'm turning this around on becoming the podcast questioner...but you have the wealth of experience in it. So how do you feel about the whole question of boundaries in terms of creating a safe container around monogamy versus polyamory. Can this work happen if one or both parties is engaged in the polyamorous lifestyle? Neil Sattin: That's a great question. I think that it really depends on the couple. I have friends who are happily polyamorous. And I've had some clients who are happily polyamorous. But happily polyamorous also includes always being or, I shouldn't say always but very frequently being stimulated in the way that your partner being with someone else brings up your abandonment trauma or your need to be acknowledged or seen or... There are all kind of ways that that can still tap into your deep primal issues around safety. The question in the couple is, are you in agreement around it? And can you... If you're in agreement around what you're doing then you can have conversations that either restore your safety because something did jeopardize it in terms of being polyamorous. Neil Sattin: Or you recognize like, "Oh, what I'm experiencing right now actually isn't about my partner at all. It's this deep issue that I've held within me that has no relationship to my partner except that they're stimulating it right now. And I'm gonna deal with that." That being said for myself and for a lot of people, the path of monogamy focuses energy in a way that I think is just... It's different. And I'm coming from a place too where I have two young kids and honestly, I can't imagine having the time to deal with all of that. I'm gonna do this conscious relationship thing but with more people in the mix. It seems on a practical level really challenging. Jeff Brown: Yup. Neil Sattin: And opening up to challenges. All the challenges around... And you brought up the word boundaries so maybe we re-visit that in a moment. But I think it introduces a set of challenges that create amazing growth. But that is not the growth that I personally choose. Jeff Brown: Yup. I think it really depends on where you're wanting to go. And I think if you're wanting to go to the place of trying to explore and possibly develop the capacity to sustain the most profoundly inclusive kind of love experience. One that opens the portal to the everything, one that explores the portal to the everything, that it cannot happen in a polyamorous union. What I think they're exploring is more a preliminary stage work which for many of us is absolutely and utterly necessary. But I think because of the collective carry forward in terms of abandonment, betrayal and jealousy material, that you absolutely have to have a monogamous container if you're wanting to go all the way. Whether that'll be true in a thousand years, once we clear some of this debris, I don't know. Although I suspect it will be. I feel like what's happening in the poly-community is, apart from the whole self avoiding aspect of that for many of them, which is shrouded in all kinds of spiritual fancy talk. I just think they're not going to the same place because I don't believe humans can hold that portal open, that most profound deeply vulnerable portal open unless there's a monogamous container. Neil Sattin: I think there's also a biological shift that is part of evolving a monogamous relationship. The way that the dopamine pathways in your body start to change where polyamory could potentially be counterproductive to that because... Well, here's where I come at it from. There are a lot of clients that I work with where their relationship has grown stale and what they long for, they think, is the rush of how it felt to meet and to be romanced and to have that huge sexual charge that I would say most people, not all but most people do experience in the beginning of relationship when they connect with someone. And they long for that and it's not there. And the challenge that I think... And so those people often come to me and say, "Do you think we should open up our marriage, so that we can get some more of that spark happening?". Jeff Brown: No, they should enreal themselves and enreal their dynamic and go deeper and clear the debris so that when they connect sexually, they're actually present in a way that they never were able to be in the beginning. Neil Sattin: Yeah, so let's go there. Talk about enrealment. Jeff Brown: That's my bias. Right? And I'm just writing a chapter about it in my new book and yeah, I just think that it's very easy to go to staleness and then go to spark, staleness, spark, staleness, spark. It's a life, right? It's a way of life but they need to at least have one experience of their lifetime of trying to go deeper into the shadow material together, clear the debris and develop a container or capacity, an experience of intimacy that's quite a bit different than the one that happens in the beginning when you don't really know one another. You don't know one another's shadow. For whatever reason we're transported to a place where we bypass that or crack through that or avoid that, whatever we're doing. But I think to move to the next place where you're actually deeply seeing of the other on every level. And if you're doing the work together loving them, devotionally, beautifully 'cause you have so much regard for the courage that they bring to the moment to moment experience of the connection doing that work, I think that the intimacy just starts to flow from a completely different place. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Jeff Brown: But because there was no space to do that work and there's no modeling for doing that work and there are no love elders out there who can really support us in doing that work, we're at the beginning of that journey, it's easy to understand why they go back to spark because something's alive because the other spark, the spark I'm describing is the more sustainable depth-full integrated embodied woven spark that travels through us on every level. And to get there as you know, you have to do all the individual work to be able to be integrated and woven best between mind and body and all your aspects as an individual. It's so much work to get to that stage. You understand why they run away and go to spark again. But I think now we're having this conversation because we're at the beginning of trying to lay down the framework for how we go back to a different kind of spark while staying inside of the same union and beautiful but... Neil Sattin: Yeah, there's a reason we're having this conversation and... Jeff Brown: Yeah. Neil Sattin: There's a reason you're listening to this conversation and I invite you, if you're listening and you're poly, from my perspective, I'm in no way gonna say, "Oh, you can't experience transcending conscious polyamorous relationship". I just invite you to examine the dynamics that are at work and see if that's what's happening or not. Jeff Brown: Well you can have all kinds of extraordinary experiences. I mean, for a lot of people and it may be true for most of us at this stage of human development, not really individually prepared for the kind of work required by one monogamous connection. The poly's the path to gather information about who we are from various types of dynamics, to explore different portals, how different connections bring out different parts of us is beautiful, magnificent. Don't misunderstand me but if we're wanting to go all the way through to that uncommon bond experience sustainably, that's what I was saying, I don't think we can do it in that form. Can I ask you a question Neil? Neil Sattin: Of course. Jeff Brown: You mentioned earlier, you were talking about this idea that maybe what we need to do is do this groundwork, the shadow work, the working through the material work in order to have a more real experience or a more truly sustainable experience of say, great love. Right? Neil Sattin: Yes. Jeff Brown: When you ask that question, then I ask the question to myself, where does this sort of thing that just exists between two... 'Cause when I hear that I think well you can throw any two people into an elevator and if they both have the willingness to do the work, we're assuming that they can go to that place. And I'm not sure that's true because I do think there has to be something that exists between the two people. And I always ask myself, what is that thing that needs to exist between the two people? Because it can't just be any two people. At least it's my experience it can't be. And what I came up with when I was writing the Uncommon Bond was fascination or what you may call curiosity. That with some people you just have this intrinsic fascination about this. So let me read you a quote. I'm interested to hear what your experience of this is. Neil Sattin: Great. Jeff Brown: You can connect from all kinds of places. Energetic harmony, sexual alchemy, intellectual alignment, but they won't sustain love over a lifetime. You need a thread that goes deeper. That moves below and beyond the shifting sands of compatibility. That thread is fascination. A genuine fascination with someone's inner-world. With the way they organize reality, with the way they articulate their feelings, with the unfathomable and bottomless depths of their being. To hear their soul cry out to you again and again and to never lose interest in what it is trying to convey. If there is that, then there will still be love when the body sickens, when the sexuality fades, when the perfection projection is long shattered. If there is that, you will swim in love's waters until the very last breath. So that's from an Uncommon Bond. How do you feel about that? Does that feel true? Or do you feel as though sustaining fascination with another's inner-world for a life time is unrealistic? Neil Sattin: Well I remember reading that and actually doing the translation... The way I translated that was curiosity. Or and now that I think about it even more, it's like, the word that comes to me is willingness... And part of that maybe involves the will because sometimes it is an act of will to bring yourself back and to remind yourself that there is a reason that I'm here. But what I also like about willing is that it implies for me, some vulnerability and openness. And that to me, leads to the curiosity. So it may be that and I'm just... This is just what's coming to me right here in this moment, I think it's true though especially that you'll do a different dance at different times. You're not gonna tango from now until the end of time although if you're Sue Johnson maybe you will do that cause she's really into the tango but I think that you are... There are moments where you are in your sexual realm together. There are moments where you're in your emotional realms, there are moments when you're in your intellectual realms, there are moments when all of those things intertwine and yes there are moments that will challenge us around illness, or if not... Between in you or in your partner, could be in a loved one or the way that what's unfolding in the world affects us. Jeff Brown: You're right. Neil Sattin: Things that require us to be called back to... Oh wow yeah there's something even deeper than that, that springs out for me and [chuckle] you know people who... You've been listening to this show for a while then you know I'm kind of a mystical guy so I'm really glad we're having this conversation Jeff, cause it allows me to go there. Jeff Brown: But Neil, let me ask this. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Jeff Brown: I guess what I'm asking is apart from the safe container, apart from my view that to go all the way to that most expansive thing monogamy is required, which many people won't agree with. I'm already ready to receive the emails of disagreement. [chuckle] Jeff Brown: But... And that's fine, I'm open to that. But apart from all of those things that we put in place to hold it safe so we can do the work, whether it's in monogamy or in polyamory, whatever it is, does there have to be some fundamental spark or some soul essential feeling, forget love at first sight 'cause it doesn't have to happen in at moment but does something have to exist, some kind of energetic or soululer or karmic or cosmic charge that just some thing that pulls two people together that they feel like they're meant specifically to be doing this hard ass work together? Neil Sattin: So, I think I missed your question initially, which was kind of like... Jeff Brown: Not two people in an elevator... Neil Sattin: Right, right. Jeff Brown: Not just two people in an elevator, who make all these agreements but they don't have that thing or does that thing not really matter if you do this work with any other person, what about chemistry or what I call "karmistry" or "karmastry", I mean it's multi-languaging but what about that piece, where is that piece in all of it? Neil Sattin: Yeah well then the question comes up for me like what led those two people to be in the elevator at the same time in that moment? [chuckle] Jeff Brown: And my answer is one of them works on the 11th floor and one of them works on the 8th floor. [chuckle] Jeff Brown: But anyway... Neil Sattin: Exactly. What led to that and what led to that? That's where I get my mind blown on occasion when I think about how circumstances lead to where we exist... Jeff Brown: But what about attraction, Neil? Clearly they're on the elevator... I'll go with you... They're on the elevator together for some reason, it was all destined, it was encoded, it was all... Fine. That doesn't mean they are supposed to be intimate partners. So where does attraction, where does... Neil Sattin: Agreed. Jeff Brown: The organic attraction fit into all of it? And where does attraction come from, in fact? Neil Sattin: Yeah... Jeff Brown: That's a whole other show, I'm sure. Neil Sattin: It is, in fact I was just thinking, wow we just had our 100th episode with John Gottman and Sue Johnson. It was totally focused on attraction and even their take on attraction was just their take on attraction. Jeff Brown: Right. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I... Okay so I harbor the thought that it's possible that if two random people on an elevator really opened their hearts that they might experience the attraction or the spark that I think is necessary for it to lead to this, to create the energy that sends two people off in this direction. They had one trajectory or they each had their own trajectory and it takes a little extra energy coming into the system to send their trajectories off in parallel or intertwined directions. So yeah, I think it's necessary and at the same time, there are people who are convinced that they've lost the spark with a partner and rediscover it. And how different is that from two people who just aren't open to the spark with each other but they could be? I'm not sure, I would love to do that study. [chuckle] Jeff Brown: You have a powerful mind Mr. Sattin. These are all good questions. To me, the important thing is that we keep the inquiry open at this stage. I don't think most of us know much of anything, and I might include myself in that. But these are the right questions to ask, what is the basis for attraction? What are we moving from? Is it just societal conditioning? Is there something karmic and internal that really knows this is one of the beings we're here to encounter? And then the next question, is this somebody who we're supposed to do a short amount of work with or appear at a time as part of the journey, Or is this the person we're supposed to do decades and decades of work with? And how do we distinguish the two? Neil Sattin: Yeah. How do we? Do you have a thought on that? Jeff Brown: I have all kinds of thoughts on that but I don't have a definite answer. I do think there's something to be said for a knowing. And that we have to be careful, we have to have gone through enough in our own experiences to know the difference between sort of an immature knowing and one that's really a seasoned knowing, like an informed innocence rather than just a naïve innocence. And you do enough work and you've had enough experiences and you've learned enough lessons and been through enough disappointments that you do reach a stage where it's clear and clearer, where it's sustainable and where it just... For me, when I had the initiating Uncommon Bond experience, I couldn't imagine, it was unbearable to imagine that that was only there for a short period of time. Impossible. Jeff Brown: I couldn't even hold that in my consciousness for more than it is, it was too painful. And it didn't make an ounce of sense to me because based on my experience, my limited experience with crack open love and my societal conditioning, if you had that kind of experience, of course you were supposed to marry and have children together. The only possibility that made any sense. Jeff Brown: Now having been down the road a little longer and written a book about these processes, I can very safely and clearly say that I was absolutely not supposed to spend my life with her. No way. No how. Not possible, that's not what that was about. But you only know that by living. Neil Sattin: Yeah. And I love how you address that in the book too. The rush to... Like, "Okay, now it's marriage". And then it's babies and it's like there is something in us that wants to... I don't know what that is, I think you say, control, it's about controlling that experience to make it last. Jeff Brown: Well, it is and it's also not being trained to know what to do with that amount of feeling so it wants to move somewhere, it wants to express itself in other forms and some people make the mistake of thinking that form has to be marriage and family life, which is not always true for every dynamic and... Neil Sattin: Yeah. Jeff Brown: Because when that feeling comes and you haven't had an experience, an uncommon bond experience, very few people have had that experience. It's all you can do to figure out where to send that energy because you're just not trained in the art of holding it. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah. There is one passage that I actually dog-eared here in my book that I wanted to read 'cause I think it speaks to what we're talking about, which is, may I? Jeff Brown: Yeah, of course. Neil Sattin: Quoting Jeff Brown. "You don't measure love in time, you measure love in transformation. Sometimes the longest connections yield very little growth while the briefest of encounters change everything". Maybe two people in an elevator, that's not in the book. "The heart doesn't wear a watch, it's timeless. It doesn't care how long you know someone, it doesn't care if you had a 40 year anniversary, if there is no juice in the connection. What the heart cares about is resonance. Resonance that opens it, resonance that enlivens it, resonance that calls it home and when it finds it, the transformation begins. Jeff Brown: Somebody made that into a song, he had a singer sing that. I love the song version of that piece. And how do you feel about that piece? Neil Sattin: I hate it. No, just kidding. Jeff Brown: Yeah. I hate it a little too sometimes. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Well, it has that... There's the potential, right? Of just being, "Oh, you know, it was meant to be" or this is the silver lining talking. I'm just gonna say this... I had to grow from this and it was only meant to be, whatever. I spoke those words a lot when Chloe and I were going through our break up. Break ups, I should say 'cause it happened several times. I guess, this is what was meant to be and I guess this is what I was supposed to learn. But on a deeper level, the way that that speaks to me, is less about the time element of it and more about the resonance, the way that it brings our attention to how do we foster resonance. That's, I think, so key to the longevity of a connection, is your ability to foster it and I think that is through what we were talking about at the very beginning which is, how do you embrace your embodiment? How do you bring yourself right back into your body in the way that it and your partners bodies and experiences vibrate in resonance with each other and where they don't and how do you address that with each other? Jeff Brown: And the absolute necessity of it. If you're just gonna do the transcendence bypass together, you're gonna be crashing down to earth pretty hard and harsh, right? You absolutely have to bring everything back into the body and we know what happens when we open the lines in the body, you don't have to do a bio energetic session with Al Lowen to know that it's gonna break everything up that's held within the container. This is the work right here and you're doing this work and this is the work that John Welwood's been writing about. Steven and Ondrea Levine have been writing about for years. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks have been writing about for years, which is what we do when we come back down to earth. And how willing are we to do the work to get back into our bodies and deal with what lives inside of us? Jeff Brown: At this stage of human development, resonance is... We need resonance in order to be... Feel the energy or the willingness or the hopefulness to go back into the shadow and do the work and hope that there is something in that connection that will still be there or even more deeply there later. But what we need more than anything are models and blueprints for what relational consciousness looks like and how we deepen it and how we sustain it and what has to be cleared through. This is the work of our lives and I'm fairly convinced that if we keep focusing on individual path, whether it's economically, as an economic accumulator or master of the economic realm or spiritually, individual practice and the meditation as road to God, that we are going to take ourselves farther and farther in the direction of the destroying this planet, 'cause we're not aware of anything horizontally outside of ourselves. And we're not going to know this realm of possibilities that exist between us. The profound realms of possibilities that exist between us, we have to develop blueprints for doing this shadow work and for knowing what embodied presence feels like and knowing how to hold to it and sustain it without running away from one each other in dynamics and that's the work right now that has to be developed. Neil Sattin: One thing I loved about and An Uncommon Bond was how it transformed from something that was really frustrating me, into a healing journey and so much in the middle towards the end part of the book is about the healing path and how important that is. Jeff Brown: Because Lowen had a choice - as did the author who was inspired to write the book. Either go back to armor and see the ending of the connection as more evidence of how impossible love is in this world and God knows we all have experiences that would fortify or support that belief or, and I remember the moment of my own experience when I had to decide, am I gonna walk away from this and close down and just stay shut down for good or am I gonna somehow find a way to walk right into that web of pain and try to find my way to love that experience forward in some other way in my life. And that's the moment of decision we make as individuals in a breakup and that's the moment of decision we make in a dynamic when the connection gets difficult. Neil Sattin: And for you, where did you find the courage to make that choice? Jeff Brown: It just didn't make sense to me, Neil. That... I guess I'm just not cynical enough or something. It just didn't make sense to me that this experience which seemed so... On so many levels, things happened that I didn't even put in the book that any normal person in the world would think that I'm insane to describe them, as true. Things happened that were radical. It's like we entered another realm and all kinds of things happened that never happen otherwise. And, it just didn't make sense to me that all of that could have happened just for me to spend my life suffering. There had to be some positive reason for this. And you know, I had beautiful grandparents who kept bringing me back to the light in my life, despite my difficult and challenging parents and they had something to do with that. I had enough of an experience with the light to know that there was some possibility that this was intended to take me to the light in a way that I could not possibly foresee in the heart of the darkness. I just believed it, I leaned towards that maybe 53% versus 47% in the other direction, that was enough. Neil Sattin: The word that I didn't speak when I was mis-answering your question before was, there's a lot of faith and you could call it belief or you could call it faith but... Jeff Brown: I had great faith. And I have great faith in humanity and I always, despite Donald Trump. I still have great faith in humanity. Neil Sattin: Me too, me too. Jeff I'm wondering if you can just tell us a little bit about what you're working on now and how people can find you and find more out about you? Jeff Brown: I'm writing, probably my last long book, a book about spirituality where I challenge through my own journey on grounded spiritualities, things that we've talked about a bit here and I make an effort to try to craft a model or a framework or more relational inclusive grounded framework going forward. So I'm hoping to have that book out in the Fall of '18. I'm continuing to publish other authors through Enrealment Press, you can see our books at enrealment.com. We just published Andrew Harvey and Chris Saade's book "Evolutionary Love Relationships" which I think you would love. Neil Sattin: Yeah. He was on the show to talk about it, actually. Jeff Brown: Oh. He was. Okay, great. And I'm teaching at Soulshaping Institute. I'm gonna develop that quite a bit more after the book is done and they can find me at soulshaping.com as my main website or on my fan page on Facebook. Neil Sattin: Great. And I'm reminded too of your movie that you did which I haven't seen yet. I watched a few trailers and excerpts from it. It looks like it's fascinating. But it's about this question of spirituality and... Jeff Brown: Yeah. And what is... It really, that is the question and it weaves the personal into it as the movie proceeds. It's a very intense watch. Definitely wear a tin foil hat while watching. But it does endeavor to speak to through the journey, this question of "What is real spirituality? Grounded spirituality? And what is dissociative spirituality?" I mean, that's really at the heart of the film. Neil Sattin: Well, Jeff Brown, thank you so much for your time today and I feel like we could easily just talk for another hour which I'd love to do. But I know that you have commitments and I have commitments too. But that being said, I hope that we can chat again. Jeff Brown: Great. Neil Sattin: For the podcast. And if anything has come up for you listening, reach out. You can get in touch with Jeff through his website. You can always reach me, neilius, N-E-I-L-I-U-S, @neilsattin.com. And if you want the show guide that summarizes this conversation and along with takeaways, you again can visit neilsattin.com/soulshaping or text the word "Passion" to the number, 33444, follow the instructions and we'll get the show guide to you. Thanks again Jeff. Jeff Brown: Thanks Neil Sponsors: Zola.com - a free, easy-to-use website that offers you the chance to create a custom wedding registry that represents YOU. Choose from over 500 brands and over 50,000 gifts and experiences, allow your guests to pitch in together on big gifts that will have an impact on your life, or to simply donate cash towards your honeymoon, house downpayment, etc. Zola is offering a $50 credit towards your registry if you visit https://www.zola.com/alive and get your registry started. Talkspace.com - Online therapy that matches you with your perfect therapist. You can communicate with your therapist daily - so they can be there for you during the moments you most need support. Visit talkspace.com/ALIVE and use the coupon code “ALIVE” for $30 off your first month of online therapy. Resources: Check out Jeff Brown's website Read Jeff’s book An Uncommon Bond www.neilsattin.com/soulshaping Visit to download the show guide, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Jeff Brown Our Relationship Alive Community on Facebook Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out

John Welwood developed a concept called Spiritual Bypass, it is defined as a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” Some features can be: exaggerated numbing from things, repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger phobia, overly tolerant compassion, poor boundaries, debilitating judgment of one’s own negative sides, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being. In previous sessions, there has been an exploration between a Fixed and an Open Mindset, and how having an open mindset can help you try different tools and perspectives to approach daily situations in a variety of ways. People often tend to escape from feeling how they feel, minimizing and over-rationalizing situations. If you don’t process the anger or frustration about your current situation, it would be very hard to attract a different outcome. Whatever your process is, it is your process; you have to walk through it and see what it is that you need afterwards. You thought until now that there was a reason to be afraid of negativity, but you can switch your mindset and every time you hear yourself saying “should,” take it as a sign to take a deeper look into yourself. You don’t have to pour your frustration on others, you get your chance to yell, scream, kick and experience your frustration but not pass that to others. Get the feelings that are bothering you out and feel the relief afterwards. Give yourself permission not to be perfect, not to be happy all the time; feel your feelings; walk the process. Release your spiritual bypass!   In This Episode You Will Learn: Consider/Ask Yourself: - Have you ever experience spiritual bypass?   Key Insights and Ahas: - In order to experience great love you also have to be able to feel great sadness and rage. - A good sign is when you hear in your head the word “should,” “should” only exists in logic but emotionally it is not that way. - Feelings want to be felt, not denied.   Action Steps: 1. What are you frustrated about? Share all the experience (write it, speak it). 2. Find a couple of things that you can acknowledge — what have you done right? 3. Share with someone that will cheer for you until you can cheer for yourself. 4. Set an intention. 5. Fill the empty will love, fill the pain with love.

LISTENER’S COMMENT: “I’ve been listening to your podcasts for the past few weeks and I’d like to say thank you for the insight and information. Unfortunately it’s too late to help in my current marriage, but it is very insightful. Coming from a family with parents that didn’t show love to one another I never learned how to express it in a productive way. My wife recently filed for divorce and it has placed me in a state of shock. I’ve been reflecting on our relationship, going to therapy and attending AA to help through this rough time and realize how broken I am … Nevertheless I am hopeful that I can become a better person in the long run and express myself fully with all those I encounter and your words and guests keep me going. Your podcasts have taught me new skills and opened my eyes to the reality of how to build a strong productive relationship and they also help me get through the rough days. I hope that others will hear you before it’s too late and work on developing themselves. God bless you and once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.” (PLEASE LISTEN TO THE PODCAST EPISODE OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT TO HEAR MORE EXPLANATIONS, STORIES AND EXAMPLES.) In this podcast episode, I share quotes and excerpts from Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible, by John Welwood. I also discuss client stories that exemplify these concepts. Here are a few from the show: “While most people would like to have healthy, satisfying relationships in their lives, the truth is that everyone has a hard time with intimate partnerships.” by John Welwood “For one person to love another, this is the most difficult of all our tasks.” by Rilke “After numerous hardships and failures, many people have given up on intimate relationship, regarding the relational terrain as so fraught with romantic illusion and emotional hazards that it is no longer worth the energy.” by John Welwood “Although modern relationships are particularly challenging, their very difficulty presents a special arena for personal and spiritual growth.” by John Welwood “Yet opening to another also flushes to the surface all kinds of conditioned patterns and obstacles that tend to shut this connection down: our deepest wounds, our grasping and desperation, our worst fears, our mistrust, our rawest emotional trigger points.” by John Welwood “Many of us have a cartoon-like notion of relational bliss: that it should provide a steady state of security or solace that will save us from having to face the gritty, painful, difficult areas of life. We imagine that finding or marrying the right person will spare us from having to deal with such things as loneliness, disappointment, despair, terror, or disintegration. Yet anyone who has been married for a long time probably has some knowledge of the charnel ground quality of relationship” by John Welwood “The problem with running away when a relationship becomes difficult is that we are also turning away from ourselves and our potential breakthroughs. Fleeing the raw, wounded places in ourselves because we don’t think we can handle them is a form of self-rejection and self-abandonment that turns our feeling body into an abandoned, haunted house. The more we flee our shadowy places, the more they fester in the dark and the more haunted this house becomes. And the more haunted it becomes, the more it terrifies us. This is a vicious circle that keeps us cut off from and afraid of ourselves.” “One of the scariest places we encounter in relationship is a deep inner sense of unlove, where we don’t know that we’re truly lovable just for being who we are, where we feel deficient and don’t know our value. This is the raw wound of the heart, where we’re disconnected from our true nature, our inner perfection. Naturally we want to do everything we can to avoid this place, fix it, or neutralize it, so we’ll never have to experience such pain again.” by John Welwood “In relationship, it is two partners’ greater beings, gradually freeing themselves from the prison of conditioned patterns, that bring about this decisive defeat. And as this starts reverberating through their relationship, old expectations finally give way, old movies stop running, and a much larger acceptance than they believed possible can start opening up between them. As they become willing to face and embrace whatever stands between them—old relational wounds from the past, personal pathologies, difficulties hearing and understanding each other, different values and sensitivities—all in the name of loving and letting be, they are invited to “enter into reality.” Then it becomes possible to start encountering each other nakedly, in the open field of nowness, fresh and unfabricated, the field of love forever vibrating with unimagined possibilities.” by John Welwood MENTIONED: Build Happy, Love Presentation (webinar replay link – expires 4/17/17) Relationship Map (opt-in download – you will want this for the webinar) Connected Couple Information page (only accepting 20 couples) Discount code: cc500w (expires 4/17/17) Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible TRANSCRIPT: Click on this link to access the transcript for this episode: ERP 103: How Love Can Transform Us In Relationship [Transcript] If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. Thank you!  If you are interested in developing new skills to overcome relationship challenges, please consider taking the Empowered Relationship Course or doing relationship coaching work with me.

We’re joined this week by clinical psychologist and Buddhist practitioner John Welwood. John has spent his entire adult life exploring the intersection between Eastern and Western psychological approaches. In our discussion we cover the following topics: the three realms of human experience, spiritual bypassing (a term that John coined), the Buddhist perfections, waking up and growing up as different tracks of human development, and the ways that spiritual awareness can be used in service of psychological growth and well-being. Episode Links: www.JohnWelwood.com Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation ( http://amzn.to/bKvera )

In this podcast episode, we discuss spiritual bypass and the use of spiritual practice as a substitute for doing psychological work. The history of the split between spirituality and psychology is discussed as well as the disconnection between intellect and emotions. This is followed by examples in our lives.The three books discussed are: Psychotherapy East And West by Allan Watts, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa, and Awakening The Heart by John Welwood.www.AbdiAssadi.com

While most of us have moments of loving freely and openly, it is often hard to sustain this where it matters most-in our intimate relationships. Why, if love is so great and powerful, are human relationships so challenging and difficult? If love is the source of happiness and joy, why is it so hard to open to it fully and let it govern our lives? Explore how to overcome the most fundamental obstacle that keeps us from experiencing love's full flowering in our lives.

Dr. John Welwood is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and practicing student of Buddhism and Eastern contemplative psychology. Dr. Welwood is an author whose books include Journey of the Heart and Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships. With Sounds True, he has created the audio learning program Conscious Relationships. In this episode, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Welwood about his understanding of the relationship between psychological work and the spiritual journey, as well as his view of the phenomenon of “spiritual bypassing.” He also talks about committed relationships and the most common issue that couples present in joint therapy. (60 minutes)

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. John Welwood, a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and practicing student of Buddhism and Eastern contemplative psychology. Dr. Welwood is an author whose books include Journey of the Heart and Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships, and with Sounds True he has created the audio learning program Conscious Relationships. In this episode, Tami speaks with Dr. Welwood about his understanding of the relationship between psychological work and the spiritual journey, as well as his view of the phenomenon of “spiritual bypassing.” He also spoke about committed relationships and the most common issue that couples present in couples therapy. (61 minutes)

The path of Buddhism begins by acknowledging the pervasive truth of suffering, not passively as mental concept but actively as lived experience. Yet for many this painful prospect may lead to complete avoidance of messy, raw and emotional aspects of being human in favor of a more "spiritual" approach, even using spiritual practice as a defense mechanism. John Welwood coined the term "spiritual bypassing" to describe this process. However without recognizing and opening to this vulnerable space, what Chogyam Trungpa calls the "soft spot", one further entrenches negative behavior patterns and emotionally reactivity. By learning to feel — honestly, rawly and nakedly — we become fully human, emotionally mature and authentically open to our awakened nature, both pure and spacious.

A new MP3 sermon from Still Waters Revival Books is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Heartwork, Assurance & National Judgement - Sermons In Times Of Persecution Subtitle: Sermons in Times ofPersecution Speaker: John Welwood Broadcaster: Still Waters Revival Books Event: Sunday Service Date: 10/5/1997 Bible: 1 Peter 4:18 Length: 53 min.

Welcome to episode 307 of the Sexology Podcast! Today I am delighted to welcome Keeley Rankin to the podcast. In this episode, we discuss what happens at sex clubs, what you can expect from the experience, setting expectations and the importance of setting boundaries.  As a leading sex and relationship coach based in San Francisco, Keeley Rankin has been successful in helping men, women and couples overcome intimacy issues and enjoy the best sex of their lives since 2010. She received a master's degree in Counseling Psychology with a focus on marriage and family therapy from John F. Kennedy University. Keeley is a co-founder of BetterSexEd.org and Co-Creator of the innovative group workshop series, Sex as Meditation, which integrates mindfulness and sex.   Keeley is also a Certified Somatica Method Practitioner (a relational and experiential body-based therapy), Certified Sexological Bodyworker, Certified Queer Conscious Educator, trained in Hakomi Therapy (somatic and mindfulness-based method), and Recreation of the Self, a system for re-empowering our ability to live from an undivided state of selfhood in relationship with others.   Since 2009, she has assisted world-renowned psychotherapist, John Welwood in bridging the gap between the psychological and spiritual. She lead educational workshops on male sexual difficulties for therapists and coaches and created engaging video series courses that help people overcome sexual dysfunction from the convenience of their own homes.       In this episode, you will hear:   How Keeley became interested in this line of work  What can you expect if you attend a sex club? Looking at the differences between sex clubs and swinging The importance of setting expectations when going to sex clubs Making sure you set boundaries How your female partner will likely get most of the attention at a sex club Analyzing the risk of STI's and how you can protect yourself Why Keeley became disconnected from sex clubs   Workshop  https://drmoali.clickfunnels.com/7-tactics   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sexologypodcast   Podcast Produced by Pete Bailey - http://petebailey.net/audioAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy