The News from Manchester

If you follow the news at all, this week's inescapable story was the suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in which 22 people were killed. After last week's piece, in which I talked about the negative impact of taking in certain kinds of information, it feels salient to talk about the significance of this story.

As with the kind of story I wrote about last week, there's nothing useful you can do with information about the bombing, but what's different is that it almost can't help but affect you. Coverage was ubiquitous. To filter out a story like this would require a deep commitment to actively avoiding pretty much every news source.

I felt deeply saddened by the news. Maybe it's that it's so easy to imagine myself in a similar situation. I know the feeling of leaving a big concert, carrying the glow of having shared a special experience with thousands of others, and so I feel a "There but for the Grace of God" empathy to all those affected by this horrific deed. It's no mistake that terrorists target this kind of event, not just a place where a lot of people have gathered, but also a place of happiness, of celebration, of sharing the exuberance of life. Terrorism of this nature means to attack the social impulse in our society, to corrupt joy itself.

Terrorism seeks to create exactly the kind of emotional response that I'm experiencing. It is meant to engender sadness, to make the world seem more dangerous, to impose the spectre of itself every time we engage in the sort of aliveness we experience when we attend a concert, a sporting event, or similar. Terrorism means to attack our very sense of the world's goodness, to corrupt our resiliency and our hope.

And the ugly truth is that terrorism achieves exactly that. Engaging in the act of imaginative empathy--that the people affected are exactly like me--creates exactly the result that the terrorist hopes it will. Furthermore notice that part of what is under attack here is our very ability and desire to empathize. Indeed, my taking the time to write about what happened and to grapple with how to respond is exactly the kind of response the bomber surely wanted. In some ways, my empathy and the response it calls for empowers the hideous people who did this in the first place. But to not feel this sadness feels monstrous. To disengage means dismissing some portion of my own humanity. Surely that is worse. Thus we are faced with the incredible corrupting power of political violence.

From the perspective of what we've been writing about here, the question arises, "How do we successfully use energetics to make a difference when this kind of thing happens?"

I wish I had some kind of answer, but I do not. I went into writing about this hoping I'd have something to offer, but I do not. Sometimes the world is a sad place in which people do awful things, and news about those awful things makes its way to us and affects our lives, and I don't know what to propose to do about it, except feel the sadness because what happened is sad. I wish I could even hope that someday our embodied sense of shared humanity might develop to a sufficient level that political violence of every sort will be seen not as violence against the Other but as violence against ourselves. But even that hope feels empty, because the suicide bomber himself showed quite clearly that he had no qualms about violence against himself.

There's no easy conclusion here, and that too is sad.

Information and Numbness

In Jerry's piece from Tuesday, he spoke of our propensity to meet information without feeling it. He said, "When we stop feeling, the area between right and wrong becomes fuzzy. We can be manipulated by the images we see and the things we hear. It's truly hard to stay centered and feel the truth." There's a reason we don't feel the information we experience: we are inundated with information that is directly harmful to us if we let it in.

While I was in New Mexico visiting family, I came across a story in the A-section of the Albuquerque Journal with a dateline from somewhere in Oregon headlined, "Man Holding Human Head Stabs Clerk."

I'm not going to ask you to connect with your center and discover how you feel upon reading this headline. In this instance, I'd prefer that you respond intellectually. Notice that this story has no informational value to you at all. Unless you have some kind of direct connection to what happened--you are on the police force in that town in Oregon, or you know someone involved--there is nothing whatsoever that you can do with this information.

It would be wrong to say that this story's value is zero. It's actually worse than that. It's value is negative, because if you allow a story like this access to your feeling self, it will harm you. The events the story tells of are essentially random. They happened far away from where you live. The horror we feel--or, more likely, recognize that we should feel, without actually feeling--comes from the essential rarity of events like this. However, we evolved in a world in which all information was immediate--someone telling us, "Watch out! There's a lion over there!"--and our processing systems, both intellectual and energetic, are still rooted in that world. So stories like this, when allowed into the feeling body, are actually a form of poison. They take on an outsize importance and thereby poison our understanding of the world. We come to see events like this as much more common and significant than they really are.

Stories with this kind of negative value abound. You'll hear about seven children dying in a school bus crash in Tennessee, or a man who kidnapped and imprisoned a woman in Ohio, and what they have in common is that the events in question have no impact on your life, but they tell you the world is a bad place. (These examples, by the way, are meant to be made up, but they probably bear some resemblance to things that actually happened, events that I couldn't help but have some awareness of just through exposure to news sources.)

Most of us have therefore learned, unconsciously, to not let these sorts of stories have access to our feeling bodies. Unfortunately, because we do this unconsciously, we are training to numb ourselves to negative or problematic occurrences in our lives. (Conversely, when we make the choice consciously, we are doing something good for ourselves, taking control of our own emotional and energetic spaces. Indeed, when we start practicing that kind of approach, we often stop reading or watching the kinds of news sources that offer this kind of information, because we notice it's easier and healthier to not engage with it at all.)

The impact of practiced numbness is nefarious. We become more and more disengaged from what's going on around us. The world seems out of our control, beyond our power to do anything about. Numbness about our personal lives dooms us to living attenuated lives, unwilling and unable to change things for the better, either because we believe ourselves powerless to do so, or because we have no felt, emotional access to the value of a potential change. In our political lives, we end up up with a situation like we're facing now, in which a benumbed populace is no longer able to engage intelligently with the problems it faces and instead chooses wishful-thinking pretend solutions.

While the path to re-engagement is learning to feel, a first step, especially in our political lives, is to stop feeding ourselves poison. If you want to get healthy, first stop doing the things that directly damage your health.

See. Hear. Feel.

It has been an interesting week in Trump land. Just to sum things up, the president decided to fire the director of the FBI, just as the investigation into his and his administration’s ties to Russia were heating up. This particular scenario hasn’t happened since President Nixon fired Special Investigator Archibald Cox during the Watergate investigation.

The rhetoric and turmoil around the firing of James Comey came from both sides of the political spectrum. Although, both the Democrats and Republicans were upset by the move, there was and has been a lack of true emotional response by both sides since before the election.

As I listened to the interviews, many of our legislators talked about how bad firing Comey looked, and that the timing sounded off or wrong. Their sentiments made for great sound bites, but truly lacked for emotional depth.

As a society, it seems that we have been programmed to see and hear things without actually feeling any of them. Maybe, it’s part of the 24-hour news cycle, that were exposed to the worst of sounds and images from around the world and for sanities sake we have learned to not let them into our bodies.

When we stop feeling, the area between right and wrong starts to become fuzzy. We can be manipulated by the images we see and the things we hear. In fact, so much of what is shown to us (on the news) and said to us (almost any Whitehouse briefing) is done simply to control what we think. We know we should be paying attention and feeling in response to what we’re seeing and hearing, but there is so much conflict and turmoil it’s truly hard to stay centered and feel the truth.

If we put politics aside and just look at the language, I think the problem with seeing and hearing things in place of feeling them, becomes clear.

When I look at something, anything, the visual image remains external. For it to affect me, I have to let it into my body. If it looks pleasing, I can look closer. If it’s disturbing, I can change the channel, shut my eyes, or turn my head. But it doesn’t have an emotional impact until I let it in and deal with the feelings the images create.

Hearing works the same way. I can turn it up, turn it down, or even turn it off. But until I begin Listening, the noise is just noise and doesn’t have the ability to affect me emotionally. I can even respond with my own talking points and not have to feel anything about what is said or heard.

To bring this back to politics, many people are expressing their shock and outrage over the present situation, but nobody is talking about how they feel. How bad the situation makes them feel, or how wrong this Russian mess feels in the body. Because that is the true test. How does it feel in your body?

Try it. Center and take a couple open and flowing breathes. Then let all of this settle into your body.

How does it feel?

Dealing with Distortions in Reality

It wasn't long after I read the initial draft of the piece Jerry published on Tuesday that I came across an article that struck me as relevant to the discussion of how centering allows us to come to learn the underlying truth of every situation.

The article describes the human cost of the the actions of the conspiracy theorists--Truthers, I guess they call themselves--who show up and insist that various atrocities never happened. The article in question deals with the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

(Here's a link to the article: Sandy Hook father Leonard Pozner on death threats: ‘I never imagined I’d have to fight for my child’s legacy.’ Be forewarned that there are details about the wounds suffered by his son that make this article a very tough read.)

An acquaintance of mine some years back was a 9/11 Denier. Our incipient friendship ended one night as he drunkenly shouted at me, "You have to accept that 9/11 was inside job!" No, I didn't, and I didn't need to be friends with someone who felt it was appropriate to treat me that way. We had an interaction in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, and he insisted that the events in Newtown that day constituted a "PsyOps operation" by the government, designed to distract the American people.

As my acquaintance offered insane details ostensibly contradicting the "official" reports of what happened in Newtown, I remember thinking of rejoinders to his claims, but I wisely chose not to engage in that manner. What was the point? But I also remember a sickening feeling of wrongness in my body as he spoke. I had a literally visceral feeling that the best course of action was to get out of the situation as quickly as possible and never look back. (I completely cut ties with him after that.)

This all happened well before I ever met Jerry, so I had never even heard of centering, and yet I still had a felt, embodied sense of wrongness as I experienced this man's unhinged diatribe. I guess I can consider myself lucky for that.

To say the very least, we live in complicated times. If we hope to engage effectively with the madness that surrounds us--and in some cases, like this one, madness is not too strong a word--we would be wise to cultivate the skills that will allow us to find our way through the distortions in reality that occur all too often in our society.

The Quest for Truth

Last week, I discussed the power that is to be found in the practice of the art of centering. The simple idea that the truth is available to us as individuals, groups, or even a nation as a whole should strike fear into the hearts of those who continually lie and deceive to enhance their own power. When confronted with lies, corruption, or just plain nonsense, Centering offers an avenue to the truth of any situation.

Recently, a client shared an article with me that outlined how over the last twenty years or so, Russia has been using a series of lies, propaganda, and fear to keep their people not only confused, but so beaten down by the constant lying and manipulation that they stop questioning the actions of their government.

During the article, the author suggests that our president and his supporters are essentially doing the same thing. Rather than give you my take or a synopsis of the article, I will share the link so you can form your own opinions. Please take the time to read it. It’s long, but I found it truly fascinating.

Here is the link to the article: > http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/is-trumps-chaos-a-move-from-the-kremlins-playbook

I feel the greatest weapon available to us as a people is to be able to center and feel the truth. We don’t have to stand up and shout down those that are taken in by the noise and confusion that the White House creates on a daily basis. All we have to do is center and breath.

To steal a line from the movie Pump Up The Volume “the truth is a virus.” By centering and breathing we can help expose people to the truth. Just stand next to them--they are our fellow citizens--and breath. Before you know it, their breath will match yours. Their posture will begin to shift. And the truth of what has been happening will begin to shine in their eyes as well.

The revolution begins with a centered breath.

When Things Get Bad

In the pieces I write for TTW, I speak with a voice that implies a certain mastery of my subject. I suppose I've earned it. I bring a seriousness and intensity in my approach to these practices, and I also bring the training in close perception I've developed from all my years as a writer. That Jerry, who is certainly a master at the energy techniques we talk about, has given me his imprimatur to teach is quite a gift. I do not take his confidence in me lightly.

Nevertheless, I'm still less than three years into the adventure that started when Jerry first taught me to center and thereby set me on this path. Yes, I've seen vast changes in my life. Compared to where I was when I started, my sensitivity to what's around me and my ability to deal with those things have gone off the charts. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm still something of a novice at all this stuff. Three years of exploring the practice of centering is far less than the 40 years I didn't. And that means that sometimes I get overwhelmed.

There's some deep turmoil in my personal life right now. Some days I navigate this well. Some days I pretty much go insane--I find myself unable to find center, my thinking gets utterly clouded, and I feel terrible. Some teacher I am, eh?

Except that I've walked too far down this path to ever turn around now, or even to much lose sight it. The other day, I felt bad, lost and sad and angry. I was badly out of center. But that I was out of center was part of my understanding of how I was feeling. I recognized it.

As I was trying to find my way back out of that oppressive grey mood, I knew to be seeking center. This approach is already too ingrained for me to do anything else. I didn't succeed, by the way. It took Jerry's help and experience to re-center me, and I moved back out of center rather quickly. But today, in a much better place, I can see the benefit of that apparent failure. Through the vulnerability of that experience, I can speak to how do deal with this stuff.

So what do you do when things get really bad?

In part, you let them be bad. You don't fight their being bad, but you try not to feed the badness, also. Your perception of stuff is bound to be faulty, so try not to do anything rash. Don't be shitty to people around you--in this kind of state, when everyone seems like an asshole, chances are that the actual asshole is you.

If there's someone you can call on, someone whom you recognize has the ability to help ground you, call on that person. Don't suffer though this alone.

But above all, know that little bits of self-care can make a huge difference. Even if things do not immediately feel better, doing something positive for yourself sets positive energy into motion. So go work out if you can. Now, if I'm sufficiently in turmoil, I might find the prospect of even going to the gym to be too much. But unless you're in Antarctica or the middle of a hurricane, it's pretty much always possible to go out for a walk rather than wallow in the unhappiness of the present time and place. A walk is great because the natural world is going to support you with its energy.

When I asked Jerry what I should write about this week, he replied "Something light and fun to give you something else to focus on. The lighter the better." This piece, perhaps unfortunately, isn't that.

But there is something to knowing that I am perhaps, even in this space, able to help others, that takes a lot of the weight off. Yes, things are hard right now. They'll get better; they always do. I feel safe in saying this because I am paying attention, and it is true.

The Power of Centering

In his piece on Friday, Ben concluded with the statement, “With enough practice, the practice of centering will always reveal the truth in a given situation. “In these trying times, the ability to seek, find and live your truth is absolutely critical.

But, as Ben also pointed out, centering takes practice and a desire to know and feel the truth. It requires an individual to be willing to look at not only what they say, but how they say it. Often, they will say things with total conviction, but their body language will be telling a completely different story. It takes courage, determination and a willingness to constantly look at your feelings, thoughts and actions for an individual to live a truly centered life.

Occasionally, people need help sorting out what is truly going on for them. Whether it’s physically, mentally, or emotionally, reconnecting to self can present many challenges. Essentially, this is where I come into people’s lives. I use centering and breath to help people find and live their own truth.

In my work with individual clients, I am always looking at their choice of words and phrases in relation to how they hold their bodies in order to fully understand what is happening for them. Only by breaking down both what they say and how they say it, can I effectively help them overcome whatever issue brought them to my door.

A perfect example of this was just last week, I was finishing up with a client when I noticed that my next client had arrived and was warming up for our session. Everything about her body language said that she was having a bad day and really didn’t want to be there. When I asked her how she was doing her reply was “fine.” Now, I knew that wasn’t the truth. She knew that wasn’t the truth. But instead of confronting her with her less-than-honest choice of words, I had her begin a series of exercises that involved lots of centering and breathing.

The act of centering and taking conscious breaths started unlocking her posture and she began releasing whatever trouble she brought with her that day. I didn’t need to talk with her about it. It was obviously none of my business or she would have shared. But the act of feeling centered and creating open and flowing breaths allowed her to create a space from which she could not only process her troubles, but find a reasonable solution moving forward. By the end of the session, she was fully centered. From the openness of her posture and the smile on her face, I knew she was ready to handle whatever had her troubled only a few short minutes before.

The power of centering lies in an individual’s willingness to seek truth while taking a long hard look at what is and isn’t working in their lives and to be committed to making the changes necessary to allow themselves to thrive. The act of centering allows them to walk a path of truth and offers a sense of openness and wonder in everyday life.

Center. Breathe. Let it be easy.

Center. Breathe. Let it be easier.