About Awakening
Joseph Campbell, author of The Power of Myth,
said that what we truly long for is the rapture of
being alive so that our experiences on the physical
plane resonate with the truth of our innermost
being. Yet most of us, most of the time, are lost in
the struggle of trying to make ourselves and our
lives different. In this struggle, we become
disconnected from the present moment which holds all
that we yearn for.
Awakening is dedicated to inviting people into deep
connection and a sense of belonging to themselves
and to their lives. By teaching people how to
cultivate curiosity, compassion and trust, they
become present to their lives, and in that presence,
become a healing force in the world.
In
Awakening, we cultivate both a passionate curiosity
about what is happening right now and a
compassionate meeting of whatever is there. One of
the core places we can learn this revolutionary way
of being with life is through the challenges of our
lives. Rather than seeing them as endless problems
to be solved, we can see them doorways to be opened
into the healing that we long for. Our challenges
are tailor made to help us see our conditioned
reactive self so it can be dissolved and we can
again fully engage with life.
One of the challenges we work with is compulsions,
for within our compulsions we can clearly see our
reactive patterns. To some degree, we are all
compulsive. By compulsive, we mean engaging in any
recurring activity to manage our feelings, an
activity that eventually ends up managing us. We can
get compulsive in many different ways — by
overspending, overeating, overworking,
over-planning, over-worrying, over-exercising,
over-drinking, over-computerizing, or just “over-overing.”
Many of us are compulsive without even knowing it.
It isn’t until the computer crashes or the credit
card is cancelled or the doctor says we can’t eat a
high-fat diet that it becomes clear just how much a
particular activity controls our lives.
Ultimately, our core
compulsion is to struggle. We live in
a story in our heads that is always trying to get us
to “do” life, telling us we need to make ourselves
and our lives better or different from what they
are. In our endless trying, we have forgotten how to
be. We have forgotten how to open to the
marvelous and magical adventure of life. We have
forgotten how to trust ourselves, to trust our
lives, and to live in joy. So we turn to our
compulsions to numb ourselves out from all our
struggles, only to find ourselves struggling with
our compulsions. As we know all too well, this cycle
wreaks a lot of havoc in our lives.
What would our lives
be like if we could move beyond struggle and instead
reconnect with the joy, wonder, and vitality of
being truly alive? And how would it feel not only to
heal our compulsions but also to be healed by them
in return? By being healed I don’t just mean that
our compulsions would never overtake us; rather, I
mean that we would again be able to experience the
deep peace that comes from being comfortable in our
own skins, knowing that we are okay, that life is
okay, and that everything is going to be okay.
In Awakening, we
work with our compulsions and the other challenges
of our lives by being curious rather than
controlling and by learning to respond rather than
react. Compulsions thrive in reaction; they heal in
response. Their gift is that they keep coming back
until we learn how to engage with them, giving them
the attention and the compassion they need to heal.
In the light of our compassionate attention, not
only do our compulsions lose their power over us,
but they become a doorway into the healing that we
long for.
Take a moment right now to lift your eyes from these
words. Be present. Be fully available to the living
moment. Meet it the second it appears. Notice
colors, shapes and the space between things. Notice
the dance of shadow and light. Feel the symphony of
sensations that is your body. Hear the music of life
as it swells and recedes all around you. This is
your life. All of the millions of moments of
your journey have brought you to this moment, to
this experience, and to this breath.
This is the only moment that matters.
Know you won’t stay here. The busy mind will take
over again and throw you back into trying to control
life. But moments—just moments—of returning will
transform your life and the lives of others in ways
more wonderful than you can imagine.
At
the heart of everything that Awakening offers is the
invitation to fully engage with the only moment that
matters—now—even in the midst of your busy life.
This not only brings forth the profound joy of being
present for moments throughout the day, but also
births a deep trust that allows you to be
passionately curious about the unfolding adventure
that is your life.
As
you know more and more moments where your mind, body
and heart are all in the same place at the same
time, you will discover that the peace you long for
is not in some far off moment when you have done it
all ‘right’ and figured it all out. The peace that
you long for is with you, right here, right now. It
is accessible, no matter what is happening in your
life!
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