Who are these
naked
gnarled
nasty
interlopers so early in the morning
swaggering
down the hallways of my mind?
squatters.
squinting
they are
as the question
reflects the
flood light of Awareness
dissolving
shadows surfaced
not-so-sweetly
on the heels of
a night spent dreaming.
"Is it True?"
The ultimate
rechargeable
flashlight.
Scott Patrick Schwenk 10/25/10
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Recognizing The Support
As I continue to pay off more and more financial debt from my past along with deepening the conscious feelings of self-love, my vision for recognizing support gets clearer. And perhaps more clearly stated; as I continue to allow Universal Energy Flow to come into my life by opening the channels of receiving through deeper self-love, the more I recognize the support of Universal Energy Flow in my life. That might sound like a circular statement, and indeed the reality of it is circular.
The physical debt is simply a bookmark to remind me where I've left off in my growth and development in recognition of who and what I am as Love. When the financial debt has been completed, there will be other bookmarks and milestones in my evolution or devolution (depending on your perspective) back to embodied recognition of Truth.
The "mirror principle" (everything that shows up in my life as mirror of where I'm at within myself) is getting easier to work with. Or rather, my resistance to seeing it is less. Even when my resistance to looking in the mirror of my life circumstances feels like it's peaking, the memories of positively stretching past my comfort zone and getting the lessons continue to build a force within me that is more and more palpable, more available to me, day by day.
Today, the mirror is showing me that in my case it's all about support. Where do I feel unsupported? These are the places where I get to practice opening, trusting, and letting go of expectations around what my ego has made up that support should look like. How the heck can my ego possibly know what support looks like? Why would I look to it's notions, or past negative emotions, to let me know what support should look like in the present moment? It can't know. The ego is a perpetuated sense of separateness; it's a verb. It's the activity of perpetuating a felt sense of separation. If I'm letting my ego guide me to safety, I'm screwed. By definition, it's always going to attempt to steer me towards the feeling of separation. Feelings of Universal support aren't part of its benefits package.
It's funny to me sitting here writing this. Humorous because I still see the tendency to look to my circumstances, including how my ego is interpreting the support (or lack thereof) from people in my life based on how it sees their actions. Yet the ego is always looking through glasses colored by the lenses of separation. It's reflexive; it keeps turning back on itself. Maybe this is what the Buddhists are referring to when teaching about the "wheel of Samsara (suffering)". This endless hamster wheel of actions that perpetuate the same negative feelings, and which would try to convince me that since I'm still running that I must be getting somewhere. AND, if I run faster and harder that I'll get further. Further where? Around the same infinite wheel of same shit different day. Ha ha ha!
This is where it gets subtle for me, the keyhole into freeing Awareness, that is. Learning over time to work with my own Attention and rooting it deeper into a place of clear seeing, clear knowing, and clear hearing. Again and again, this brings me back to the teaching of the sages from the Yoga Vasistha, "The world is as you see it."
Learning to see with increased clarity arises from practices that shift the seeing from the eyes of separation to the Eye of Wholeness. This might be starting to sound difficult to grasp, or maybe even confusing. It's not. If it sounds confusing, you may be listening through the ego. If it sounds clear, you've likely meditated today, or engaged with a meditation-like practice that connects you to pure Awareness (the felt sense of Wholeness that ultimately recognizes no separation between myself and anything "else").
The most formidable act of self-support I can give myself on a daily basis is to meditate, to allow my attention to turn within to the Source of support; that which supports all of life, which animates all of life. From there, my actions, thoughts, and feelings become active demonstrations in my life of BEING SUPPORTED. It only follows that the mirror of my life will reveal supportive people coming closer revealing supportive circumstances.
Now here's the irony ~ even without being aware of this Net of Support, I've been supported by it all along. In having experiences of "feeling" unsupported by people or events in my past, I was and am, SUPPORTED through the negative experiences to want, look for, and take action towards experiencing a more supported life. So even the "negative" has been a form of active support in my life to teach me and lead me to the Truth about Love: Love is the Source of everything. It is always Here and Now. I am that Love, and so are You. When I actively live in this Awareness, life, people, and circumstances will look and feel supportive.
"The world is as you see it." ~ Yoga Vasistha
The physical debt is simply a bookmark to remind me where I've left off in my growth and development in recognition of who and what I am as Love. When the financial debt has been completed, there will be other bookmarks and milestones in my evolution or devolution (depending on your perspective) back to embodied recognition of Truth.
The "mirror principle" (everything that shows up in my life as mirror of where I'm at within myself) is getting easier to work with. Or rather, my resistance to seeing it is less. Even when my resistance to looking in the mirror of my life circumstances feels like it's peaking, the memories of positively stretching past my comfort zone and getting the lessons continue to build a force within me that is more and more palpable, more available to me, day by day.
Today, the mirror is showing me that in my case it's all about support. Where do I feel unsupported? These are the places where I get to practice opening, trusting, and letting go of expectations around what my ego has made up that support should look like. How the heck can my ego possibly know what support looks like? Why would I look to it's notions, or past negative emotions, to let me know what support should look like in the present moment? It can't know. The ego is a perpetuated sense of separateness; it's a verb. It's the activity of perpetuating a felt sense of separation. If I'm letting my ego guide me to safety, I'm screwed. By definition, it's always going to attempt to steer me towards the feeling of separation. Feelings of Universal support aren't part of its benefits package.
It's funny to me sitting here writing this. Humorous because I still see the tendency to look to my circumstances, including how my ego is interpreting the support (or lack thereof) from people in my life based on how it sees their actions. Yet the ego is always looking through glasses colored by the lenses of separation. It's reflexive; it keeps turning back on itself. Maybe this is what the Buddhists are referring to when teaching about the "wheel of Samsara (suffering)". This endless hamster wheel of actions that perpetuate the same negative feelings, and which would try to convince me that since I'm still running that I must be getting somewhere. AND, if I run faster and harder that I'll get further. Further where? Around the same infinite wheel of same shit different day. Ha ha ha!
This is where it gets subtle for me, the keyhole into freeing Awareness, that is. Learning over time to work with my own Attention and rooting it deeper into a place of clear seeing, clear knowing, and clear hearing. Again and again, this brings me back to the teaching of the sages from the Yoga Vasistha, "The world is as you see it."
Learning to see with increased clarity arises from practices that shift the seeing from the eyes of separation to the Eye of Wholeness. This might be starting to sound difficult to grasp, or maybe even confusing. It's not. If it sounds confusing, you may be listening through the ego. If it sounds clear, you've likely meditated today, or engaged with a meditation-like practice that connects you to pure Awareness (the felt sense of Wholeness that ultimately recognizes no separation between myself and anything "else").
The most formidable act of self-support I can give myself on a daily basis is to meditate, to allow my attention to turn within to the Source of support; that which supports all of life, which animates all of life. From there, my actions, thoughts, and feelings become active demonstrations in my life of BEING SUPPORTED. It only follows that the mirror of my life will reveal supportive people coming closer revealing supportive circumstances.
Now here's the irony ~ even without being aware of this Net of Support, I've been supported by it all along. In having experiences of "feeling" unsupported by people or events in my past, I was and am, SUPPORTED through the negative experiences to want, look for, and take action towards experiencing a more supported life. So even the "negative" has been a form of active support in my life to teach me and lead me to the Truth about Love: Love is the Source of everything. It is always Here and Now. I am that Love, and so are You. When I actively live in this Awareness, life, people, and circumstances will look and feel supportive.
"The world is as you see it." ~ Yoga Vasistha
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Seeing The Good
People do things.
Often enough people do things I don't like. I used to give a lot of attention to internally grumbling about all the things I would think people were doing, why they shouldn't, and what they should be doing instead.
One day a coconut hit me on the head, I saw a tunnel of scintillating light which filled me with a peace beyond all imagining, and my disease of judgment was permanently and forever cured.
Okay, not really.
Actually, none of that happened.
I gradually became aware that all the judgments of different sizes and shapes were basically pissing away my lifeforce, and with it my happiness. A tremendous amount of the energy being cultivated by my spiritual practices was being eaten up by the energy of judgement.
One day, nearly two years ago I decided to do something about it. As a Capricorn, I tend to like structures. Not confining structures, not imposed structures, but strong supportive structures that I can stand on and see further, stretch my wings a little wider.
I'd heard about A Course In Miracles for years, and after reading another book that references the Course through and through called "The Disappearance Of The Universe" by Gary Renard, I was sold. The Course, in particular it's Workbook, lays out one year of short daily lessons that lead the sincere practitioner through reasons not to judge, the power of forgiveness, and ultimately the realization that nothing ever happened to forgive in the first place. It reveals that the idea of something being wrong in the first place is a flaw in perception, and that by healing perception, one is free from judgment.
It works.
I diligently went through the daily lessons, practicing these points of view for the entire year. And yesterday, I got to see some of the fruit of all this practicing.
Yesterday was a Monday. For the last 3+ years, I've been trekking out to Desert Hot Springs to teach at We Care Spa and do private healing sessions with the guests. People come from all over the world to cleanse, detoxify, heal, and retreat.
After teaching the morning breathwork class, I had some extra time between sessions and saw a voicemail on my iPhone from my Mom. 'Something's up,' I thought, 'Likely something intense.'
Sure enough, Mom left a very emotional voicemail that she'd just been told by her husband of fourteen years, and relationship partner of twenty years, that he'd been having an affair for some time. He'd brought this woman into their home of ten years more than once when my Mom was away. All this on top of being driven by very old wounds into addictive and reckless patterns around spending and online gambling.
She's my Mom. I love her. And I can be very protective, at the cost of my own lifeforce, over those I love. At least that's how it's been in the past.
Somewhere within five to seven minutes of sitting with this revelation, I let go. I was crystal clear that I was not going to help anyone, solve anything, or serve up some brand of equalizing justice by going into judgment and negative emotion. These weren't mere thoughts, I felt them. And I could feel my heart recognizing and choosing love. Love for this man. Love for my mother. Love for myself. Love.
I do not like what happened. I don't wish it for anyone. I do not like lying of any sort. My Mom reminded me over and over again, while raising me, that she'd rather have me tell her the worst true thing I might've done, than to tell her the smallest lie. "The truth," she'd say, "I can do something with. A lie isn't real, so I can't do anything with it at all."
Within a short time, I was in back-to-back private sessions. I wasn't going to cancel the sessions as people were counting on the healing. Nor did I need to cancel them. I don't need to be perfect or wait for the perfect conditions to help anyone heal. I have the tools.
I could feel the visceral support of all my past practices rising up to be recognized, and engaged to stay open, to anchor deeper into love, to let all the swirling thought forms and emotions MOVE. As I continued to breathe, soften my body, and remain PRESENT, all the inner dialogue about my step-father just melted into pure energy.
I know in my bones that he didn't choose the affair to consciously be malicious. Just as his spending patterns were not consciously chosen. His past unhealed pain, the insecurity he carries and hasn't released, manipulates his thoughts and emotions into actions that promise freedom, release, happiness, and pleasure, but only lead to more suffering and tighter bondage around his life and his heart.
How do I know all of this? I'm human. I've watched the same patterns in myself and thousands of people. We're not all that different from one-another, have you stopped to notice? There really aren't that many different varieties, just variations on a number of similar themes.
All in all, I was still a bit shocked, pleasantly shocked, but shocked nonetheless at the peace and freedom I was feeling with all of this. Not only that, but I was vibrating more intensely with energy than ever. And all of this was completely relevant in various deep ways to the healing sessions that day.
When I got to speak with my Mom live, I let her know I was holding a space for her to feel whatever would arise emotionally. I also encouraged her to notice and release the urges to project anger and judgment or any attempts to exact pain or revenge in subtle or obvious ways. "There's a heavy psychic cost to that way of operating," I told her, "And if it's freedom you want, if it's love you want, it's got to start with how you walk through this. Feel your feelings without suppressing anything. And remember all the good times you had together. Those really happened. Don't shred those. Use them to anchor in your choices to be peaceful and come from love. From these perspectives, you're going to have a much easier time knowing what to do, when to do it, and how. You'll have much clearer, stronger boundaries and guidance from Intuition as you're taking the steps to starting your new life."
I also encouraged her to ask all the people she's sharing the stories with to choose to send positive prayers out to this man. Sending anger and judgment will only magnify the cause of the addictions and lying into other future dramas.
She'll have easy moments with this, and challenging moments. I'm certain that this is one of the best things that could happen to her. The Universe doesn't mess with people for sport. Egos do that. With all the tremendous Grace that's circling around my Mom from friends, family, and colleagues, she'll come out of this a new woman. She'll emerge from this fire as the expansive phoenix that's been living within her all along. She's brave, beautiful, powerful, and gifted.
People do things. We like some things, we don't like other things. Perspective is everything.
Seeing the good takes cojones. Practice makes it easier.
Often enough people do things I don't like. I used to give a lot of attention to internally grumbling about all the things I would think people were doing, why they shouldn't, and what they should be doing instead.
One day a coconut hit me on the head, I saw a tunnel of scintillating light which filled me with a peace beyond all imagining, and my disease of judgment was permanently and forever cured.
Okay, not really.
Actually, none of that happened.
I gradually became aware that all the judgments of different sizes and shapes were basically pissing away my lifeforce, and with it my happiness. A tremendous amount of the energy being cultivated by my spiritual practices was being eaten up by the energy of judgement.
One day, nearly two years ago I decided to do something about it. As a Capricorn, I tend to like structures. Not confining structures, not imposed structures, but strong supportive structures that I can stand on and see further, stretch my wings a little wider.
I'd heard about A Course In Miracles for years, and after reading another book that references the Course through and through called "The Disappearance Of The Universe" by Gary Renard, I was sold. The Course, in particular it's Workbook, lays out one year of short daily lessons that lead the sincere practitioner through reasons not to judge, the power of forgiveness, and ultimately the realization that nothing ever happened to forgive in the first place. It reveals that the idea of something being wrong in the first place is a flaw in perception, and that by healing perception, one is free from judgment.
It works.
I diligently went through the daily lessons, practicing these points of view for the entire year. And yesterday, I got to see some of the fruit of all this practicing.
Yesterday was a Monday. For the last 3+ years, I've been trekking out to Desert Hot Springs to teach at We Care Spa and do private healing sessions with the guests. People come from all over the world to cleanse, detoxify, heal, and retreat.
After teaching the morning breathwork class, I had some extra time between sessions and saw a voicemail on my iPhone from my Mom. 'Something's up,' I thought, 'Likely something intense.'
Sure enough, Mom left a very emotional voicemail that she'd just been told by her husband of fourteen years, and relationship partner of twenty years, that he'd been having an affair for some time. He'd brought this woman into their home of ten years more than once when my Mom was away. All this on top of being driven by very old wounds into addictive and reckless patterns around spending and online gambling.
She's my Mom. I love her. And I can be very protective, at the cost of my own lifeforce, over those I love. At least that's how it's been in the past.
Somewhere within five to seven minutes of sitting with this revelation, I let go. I was crystal clear that I was not going to help anyone, solve anything, or serve up some brand of equalizing justice by going into judgment and negative emotion. These weren't mere thoughts, I felt them. And I could feel my heart recognizing and choosing love. Love for this man. Love for my mother. Love for myself. Love.
I do not like what happened. I don't wish it for anyone. I do not like lying of any sort. My Mom reminded me over and over again, while raising me, that she'd rather have me tell her the worst true thing I might've done, than to tell her the smallest lie. "The truth," she'd say, "I can do something with. A lie isn't real, so I can't do anything with it at all."
Within a short time, I was in back-to-back private sessions. I wasn't going to cancel the sessions as people were counting on the healing. Nor did I need to cancel them. I don't need to be perfect or wait for the perfect conditions to help anyone heal. I have the tools.
I could feel the visceral support of all my past practices rising up to be recognized, and engaged to stay open, to anchor deeper into love, to let all the swirling thought forms and emotions MOVE. As I continued to breathe, soften my body, and remain PRESENT, all the inner dialogue about my step-father just melted into pure energy.
I know in my bones that he didn't choose the affair to consciously be malicious. Just as his spending patterns were not consciously chosen. His past unhealed pain, the insecurity he carries and hasn't released, manipulates his thoughts and emotions into actions that promise freedom, release, happiness, and pleasure, but only lead to more suffering and tighter bondage around his life and his heart.
How do I know all of this? I'm human. I've watched the same patterns in myself and thousands of people. We're not all that different from one-another, have you stopped to notice? There really aren't that many different varieties, just variations on a number of similar themes.
All in all, I was still a bit shocked, pleasantly shocked, but shocked nonetheless at the peace and freedom I was feeling with all of this. Not only that, but I was vibrating more intensely with energy than ever. And all of this was completely relevant in various deep ways to the healing sessions that day.
When I got to speak with my Mom live, I let her know I was holding a space for her to feel whatever would arise emotionally. I also encouraged her to notice and release the urges to project anger and judgment or any attempts to exact pain or revenge in subtle or obvious ways. "There's a heavy psychic cost to that way of operating," I told her, "And if it's freedom you want, if it's love you want, it's got to start with how you walk through this. Feel your feelings without suppressing anything. And remember all the good times you had together. Those really happened. Don't shred those. Use them to anchor in your choices to be peaceful and come from love. From these perspectives, you're going to have a much easier time knowing what to do, when to do it, and how. You'll have much clearer, stronger boundaries and guidance from Intuition as you're taking the steps to starting your new life."
I also encouraged her to ask all the people she's sharing the stories with to choose to send positive prayers out to this man. Sending anger and judgment will only magnify the cause of the addictions and lying into other future dramas.
She'll have easy moments with this, and challenging moments. I'm certain that this is one of the best things that could happen to her. The Universe doesn't mess with people for sport. Egos do that. With all the tremendous Grace that's circling around my Mom from friends, family, and colleagues, she'll come out of this a new woman. She'll emerge from this fire as the expansive phoenix that's been living within her all along. She's brave, beautiful, powerful, and gifted.
People do things. We like some things, we don't like other things. Perspective is everything.
Seeing the good takes cojones. Practice makes it easier.
Freedom From Debt, Freedom to Love ~ ECSTATIC BREATHWORK, Sun 10/24, 4:30-6pm @Liberation Yoga
Sunday, October 24th ~ 4:30pm-6pm ~ Liberation Yoga (Hancock Park/Weho)
Freedom from Debt ~ Freedom to Love
Where do you carry debt from the past? Is it financial? Is it emotional memories of past experience? Debt, as I’m speaking about it, is anything from the past that still carries any power to contract you, and limit your ability to live HERE and NOW in the Truth of Love. This would include anything to do with money, relationships, difficult or painful past experiences, and memories. As long as you have any charge around any of these topics, you can know there’s room for you to experience more FREEDOM and deeper SELF-LOVE. Can you imagine the FEELING of having all forms of debt (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) fully paid-off and/or completed? Your ability, willingness, commitment, and consistent practice of Self-Love, Awareness, and Presence NOW can and will set you FREE. Using the magnification from the Full Moon, Awareness, and ECSTATIC BREATHWORK, we’ll bring light and Awareness to the debts and pulls from the past to bring deeper Healing, Freedom, and Self-Love NOW.
Breath Deep. Heart Awake. Body Soft. Attention Clear and Present.
Join Us.
DATE: Sunday, October 24th, 2010Where do you carry debt from the past? Is it financial? Is it emotional memories of past experience? Debt, as I’m speaking about it, is anything from the past that still carries any power to contract you, and limit your ability to live HERE and NOW in the Truth of Love. This would include anything to do with money, relationships, difficult or painful past experiences, and memories. As long as you have any charge around any of these topics, you can know there’s room for you to experience more FREEDOM and deeper SELF-LOVE. Can you imagine the FEELING of having all forms of debt (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) fully paid-off and/or completed? Your ability, willingness, commitment, and consistent practice of Self-Love, Awareness, and Presence NOW can and will set you FREE. Using the magnification from the Full Moon, Awareness, and ECSTATIC BREATHWORK, we’ll bring light and Awareness to the debts and pulls from the past to bring deeper Healing, Freedom, and Self-Love NOW.
Breath Deep. Heart Awake. Body Soft. Attention Clear and Present.
Join Us.
Time: 4:30pm - 6pm (come early to avoid being late)
Exchange: $40
Bring: Yoga mat and/or blanket-we'll be sitting on the floor at first then lying down
for the breathwork.
Location: Liberation Yoga
124 S. La Brea (btw 1st and 2nd)
Los Angeles, CA 90036
RSVP: You can reserve your spot through Liberation Yoga (323) 964-5222.
These ECSTATIC BREATHWORKSHOPS are nothing less than a journey deeper into the experience and expression of who and what you are, a journey into the Heart of Freedom within. Through a simple and powerful breathing meditation, you gain and deepen the tools for seeing past your former limitations, gain muscle for being your own best ally, teacher, and healer, and deeply taste a place free of insecurity, full of self-love.
LOVE,
SCOTT
http://trustthebreath.com
http://scottschwenk.blogspot.com
http://huffingtonpost.com/scott-schwenk
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
It Can Give You Life!
As I've been going much deeper in my own personal practice with the breathwork, and am back to doing it daily for about 30-50 minutes each morning right when I wake up, I'm noticing tremendous clarity and precision continuing to expand through intuition, awareness of Awareness, and so so much more. My friend and mentor in this work, David Elliott, just wrote this lucid piece about the Breathwork for his blog...like with the breathwork, there's much more happening in this piece of writing than just the intellectual information. Engage with it more than once....engage with it right after breathing....see what you notice in your own direct experience. Words are a fascinating thing...and only a small small part of communication....they're imprinted with consciousness, depending on the one delivering the communication and the degree of Awareness moving with the communication...LOVE, Scott
On the physical level “the breath” is the most direct way to exchange energy with the Universe, it is the direct link between cosmic forces and the bodies blood, ductless glands and nervous system. It is the way we pull energy in from the sun, stars, planets, sky, as well as from nature, trees, plants and the atmosphere. A consistent breathing practice will provide unparalleled clarity of mind through an instant experiential connection to Universal Energy Flow. This is often the spiritual practice you have been waiting for as it not only increases vitality and life force, but connects you to spirit. Whereas shallow breathing, into the upper lungs and chest, deprives the body of life-sustaining oxygen and energy because it is contracted and generally has fear at its base. Deeper breathing has a letting go property to it. It creates energy flow in the belly, diaphram, emotions, heart and chakra system with an expansive opening of love and healing not unlike birth. Shallow breathing holds one’s emotions throughout the body and has a consistent program of control to it. If you are accustomed to shallow breathing and tend to live a life with a lot of fear, sadness and anger defining your experience then deeper breathing is going to push your reality. It will push the illusions trapped in your body to the surface. Unfortunately it will feel uncomfortable (until it doesn’t). When the negative programing is cleared you will experience life in a whole new way. The breath is the one way I have found that does the cleaning process like no other, ultimately clearing the slate enough within your experience of reality for you to be able to choose love and joy as your life. Many try to choose love without doing the cleaning work and I would be the first to tell you that the power of love is immense. However, what you choose with your conscious mind is limited if your subconscious is saying the opposite. The beauty of the breath is it not only clears the negative energy out of the body, but it also puts you in a deep meditative state. Often the deepest meditative state a person has ever experienced the first time they do the breath work, and that is the most amazing combination offered by this practice. A clearing of the negative, a deep meditative state and a resulting open-hearted space to feel love from the Universe - all giving you the opportunity to bask in self-love in the most abundant way possible. Learn a breathing meditation, it doesn’t have to be the one I teach…and do it consistently. It can give you life! Love, David
On the physical level “the breath” is the most direct way to exchange energy with the Universe, it is the direct link between cosmic forces and the bodies blood, ductless glands and nervous system. It is the way we pull energy in from the sun, stars, planets, sky, as well as from nature, trees, plants and the atmosphere. A consistent breathing practice will provide unparalleled clarity of mind through an instant experiential connection to Universal Energy Flow. This is often the spiritual practice you have been waiting for as it not only increases vitality and life force, but connects you to spirit. Whereas shallow breathing, into the upper lungs and chest, deprives the body of life-sustaining oxygen and energy because it is contracted and generally has fear at its base. Deeper breathing has a letting go property to it. It creates energy flow in the belly, diaphram, emotions, heart and chakra system with an expansive opening of love and healing not unlike birth. Shallow breathing holds one’s emotions throughout the body and has a consistent program of control to it. If you are accustomed to shallow breathing and tend to live a life with a lot of fear, sadness and anger defining your experience then deeper breathing is going to push your reality. It will push the illusions trapped in your body to the surface. Unfortunately it will feel uncomfortable (until it doesn’t). When the negative programing is cleared you will experience life in a whole new way. The breath is the one way I have found that does the cleaning process like no other, ultimately clearing the slate enough within your experience of reality for you to be able to choose love and joy as your life. Many try to choose love without doing the cleaning work and I would be the first to tell you that the power of love is immense. However, what you choose with your conscious mind is limited if your subconscious is saying the opposite. The beauty of the breath is it not only clears the negative energy out of the body, but it also puts you in a deep meditative state. Often the deepest meditative state a person has ever experienced the first time they do the breath work, and that is the most amazing combination offered by this practice. A clearing of the negative, a deep meditative state and a resulting open-hearted space to feel love from the Universe - all giving you the opportunity to bask in self-love in the most abundant way possible. Learn a breathing meditation, it doesn’t have to be the one I teach…and do it consistently. It can give you life! Love, David
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Sacred Breath of Life ~ ECSTATIC BREATHWORK Friday~ 10/15 8-9:30pm @The Hub
Friday, October 15th ~ 8:00-9:30pm ~ The Hub (West LA)
Sacred Breath of Life ~
How clear can you be when your energy is flagging and low? How precise is your intuition when you’re feeling challenged? When the charge in your life-force batteries gets below a certain level, how easy is it for you to connect with self-love, to even make the effort to recharge?
This Friday night, we’ll focus on recharge, renewal, and rejuvenation as pathways to the Sacred within. The more quickly you can learn to recharge, the more quickly you get back on purpose, in flow, and feel the tremendous support of Universal Energy Flow and Grace supporting you every step along the way. It’s crucial to learn to rejuvenate and maintain openness going forward. With a strong base of support from within, expansion into and recognition of your True Nature are natural...
Breath Deep. Heart Awake. Body Soft. Attention Clear and Present.
Join Us.
How clear can you be when your energy is flagging and low? How precise is your intuition when you’re feeling challenged? When the charge in your life-force batteries gets below a certain level, how easy is it for you to connect with self-love, to even make the effort to recharge?
This Friday night, we’ll focus on recharge, renewal, and rejuvenation as pathways to the Sacred within. The more quickly you can learn to recharge, the more quickly you get back on purpose, in flow, and feel the tremendous support of Universal Energy Flow and Grace supporting you every step along the way. It’s crucial to learn to rejuvenate and maintain openness going forward. With a strong base of support from within, expansion into and recognition of your True Nature are natural...
Breath Deep. Heart Awake. Body Soft. Attention Clear and Present.
Join Us.
When: FRIDAY night 10/15/10 8-9:30pm
((Arrive early to avoid being late))
Exchange: $35
Where: The Hub (http://thehub-la.com)
2001 S Barrington Ave, Suite 150, Los Angeles, CA 90025-5363 US
{ S Barrington Ave between LaGrange and Mississippi }
Entrance for the Hub is located on street level at the ground floor of the
parking structure located on South Barrington Avenue.
Bring: Yoga mat and/or blanket-we'll be sitting on the floor at first then lying down
for the breathwork.
RSVP: You can reserve your spot through The Hub 310-575-4200
These ECSTATIC BREATHWORKSHOPS are nothing less than a journey deeper into the experience and expression of who and what you are, a journey into the Heart of Freedom within. Through a simple and powerful breathing meditation, you gain and deepen the tools for seeing past your former limitations, gain muscle for being your own best ally, teacher, and healer, and deeply taste a place free of insecurity, full of self-love.
LOVE,
SCOTT
http://trustthebreath.com
http://scottschwenk.blogspot.com
http://huffingtonpost.com/scott-schwenk
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Source of Happiness is Within (Short-Cuts part III)
Before my weekly trek out to teach at We Care Spa in Desert Hot Springs this morning, I was reading an article my friend and mentor David Elliott sent me from Buddhist Monk, Matthieu Ricard. In it, he distinguishes a fundamental difference between pleasure and happiness. He references pleasure as something that mostly comes from contact between the senses and objects and situations of desire. Pleasures have to be repeated, he notes.
Happiness, on the other hand, is an inside job. It's a quality of our True Nature. Not the nature of the ego, or the mind, or the emotions (which are all very related as one large mechanism known in Sanskrit as antahkarana).
So as I'm getting closer to Desert Hot Springs, I'm thinking about short-cuts in reference to Ricard's article. It seems so obvious in the moment -- short-cuts are nearly always about seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, with some seen or unseen urgency around making it happen NOW.
Without having cultivated habits around looking within for happiness, or even knowing it could be there, it's incredibly natural to look outside for something to do, a person to connect with, a object to buy, or something along those lines to experience the energy spike that comes with pleasure. One of the challenges with this is that once is rarely ever enough. If it feels good, the ego wants it again, and likely with stronger intensity to the experience. If the experience costs money, and there isn't any, the ego feels justified in using credit to buy the experience.
At some point the emotional, financial, and spiritual debt reaches a peak and starts moving in to collect on the debt.
In my own case, as I've been paying off the financial part of accrued debt (just recently passed the half-way mark and can feel the light at the end of the tunnel), I've been amazed at the impact on my intuition, emotions, and physical stamina. In my experience, the states of emotion and mind I were in at the time of delaying payment by using credit were also put on a delay. In taking the short-cut through using credit, I wasn't aware of the ways I was suppressing my own confidence and happiness and cultivating a stronger habit of looking outside for happiness.
I'm not suggesting that credit is bad. It can be a very positive thing when used consciously and positively. Good and bad are human ego judgments that don't have much relativity outside the human realm (ie; in nature -- find me a good tree and a bad tree...no such thing!).
Short-Cuts. The seduction to take short-cuts is everywhere. Whole industries are predicated on making life experiences faster, cheaper, and more readily available. Again, that's not good or bad. However, there are costs to it all (see http://thestoryofstuff.com).
This afternoon, I felt some pretty strong pulls on my energy and they're connected to some unpleasant feelings. My knee-jerk impulse was to want to call someone who I could talk about it all with and be done with the feelings. If I feel better after the call, but haven't myself digested the emotions, what happened? The other person psychically begins carrying them through empathy if he or she doesn't have the priceless discipline to remain neutral. It's a short-cut. But at some point, someone somewhere down the line has to do the spade work of sitting down and fully digesting the emotions (and/or sending them back to their source if picked up empathically).
Yep, I did try to reach a couple of friends. And I'm happy to say I didn't reach either of them. I sensed what was happening with me, and chose to slow my attention down, slow my breathing, and tune into what I was feeling. In the slowing down, it's easier for me to recognize self-love within. As soon as I can detect the feeling of self-love, I can focus on it. At that point, I have to stay focused. My thoughts seductively attempt to draw me back into the sped-up familiarity of the negative emotions. As I bring my attention to feeling my feet and deepening my breath, a smile cuts loose across my face.
How strange, I think, to be feeling happiness and discomfort at the same time. And yet here it is. I don't need to get anyone to carry my discomfort in order to find freedom. All I need to do is slow down enough to be present with myself and just observe what I'm feeling as pure sensations. When I look at them in this way, they disperse fairly quickly. My next task is to continue staying present, rather than get involved in thoughts about the past. My thoughts about the past only have an impact on the present when I'm entertaining them in the present. And I've noticed that when any negative emotion is up, it seems to color the memories of the past in such a way as to convince me to feel worse.
Happiness, while already existing within, is a discipline for me. It takes conscious, continuous discipline to choose happiness and stay present (which I'm experiencing more an more as being intimately related; presence and happiness).
In chatting to one friend who's a gifted professional dancer on the way back from the desert this morning about some of these themes, I mentioned my hesitation about having a conversation like this with some folks as some would say I'm over-thinking things, over-analyzing. Yet, we discussed, there's often a profound difference between the skill and awareness level of Michael Jackson's dancing and someone in a video dance jam class at their local gym. There's a difference at the level of interest in and passion for precision that comes from countless hours of cultivated discipline.
When it comes to the journey of Awakening and all the indwelling happiness, joy, and love to be recognized in the process, it seems to me that cultivating interest and skill in precise Awareness is my part in what allows for these highly sought-after qualities to be recognized and consistently experienced.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Connecting The Dots Around Short-Cuts
It's been a fascinating ride for a long time now, and an especially focused ride with a lot of surprises and twists and turns in the last several weeks as I've been preparing for this morning's Global Healer Group with David Elliott on "Psychic Boundaries", with my home as one of the locations for it.
I set a very strong intention after reading David's focus for the group: To have clear, strong, boundaries based in abiding self-love and to take a big leap deeper with my capacities to work with intuition that's based clearly from the heart, from love that is Universal, rather than emotionally based.
Little did I know how clearly Life was listening, and the speed with which it would bring me circumstances so far outside of my experience, and seemingly out of the clear blue sky (even though I keep being reminded that there just aren't any accidents).
I'm more than pleased with how I'm noticing more and more support from within to keep reaching through the discomfort in a handful of situations and choosing to feel love from within. Even when the felt sense of love has felt like a tiny grain of sand, I know that once I slow down and focus, it's not long before the feeling expands.
Cultivating the ability to recognize and feel love seems less an issue at the moment, thankfully. Remaining fully anchored there is still a work-in-progress.
As I look backwards (yes, Mom, you're so right about hindsight always being twenty-twenty) at the moments when I've felt stuck, heavy, depressed, angry, afraid, or sad, they all have a similar feel to them. I sense them like textures, and this particular texture is the same, irrespective of which negative emotion it's attempting to stimulate in me. It's heavy, dark, intends to appear immovable, knows how to create confusion and drama, and withdraws in the presence of real love.
My relationship with this heavy teacher (yes, I choose to see it as a teacher rather than adversary), feels like it goes back as far as my consciousness has had some form of existence.
Generally, it seems to come into my space in costume. Meaning, it often has a very different initial appearance than the less than positive ways I've described it above.
One of its many enticing costumes over the years has been to present me with the opportunity to get something I think I want very quickly, and with little to no effort. The absence of the need for effort or patience can make whatever it's promising (historically: money, love, intimacy, respect, and being appreciated, recognized, and included), appear to have a certain sparkle or glamour that appeals to my ego.
It HAS to appeal deeply to my ego to get my attention. And it has had to be sneaky of late to get my interest in what would seem like unfamiliar ways. It can't actually look like a short-cut, as I'm on the lookout for those and cultivating my discernment with these trojan horses. It will try to look like something I've wanted, like say a really ready-to-go relationship. And in a case like that, it'll have the potential partner be incredibly appealing to my ego so that when this person so emphatically tells me how amazing, how beautiful, how hot, how smart, how talented I am, that I'll take the bait.
Why is it bait? I didn't grow up thinking I was beautiful, hot, or amazing. And there are still holdouts through my memories of growing up with these insecurities. So these "tantalizing" opportunities will do their best to offer to erase my past pain by filling me up with another person's need, want, and desire for me.
I'm not interested anymore. The glamour is wearing off. I'm beginning to see the pumpkin masquerading as a Maserati sooner and sooner each time.
And because everything in this vast world of duality is generally a mirror, I'm becoming more and more cognizant of the places where I have let the little boy in me think he was being loved through a person's infatuation with the tremendous energy the accompanies the work I do personally and professionally. I'm learning to discern the difference between infatuation and readiness. I'm studying it more closely than ever.
Getting deeply involved very quickly with someone who is merely infatuated with me based purely on the externals of appearance or life-circumstances, or glamoured by the energy associated with the work is a short-cut. It's a temporary gratification to my ego, that has a tremendous cost to my personal energy when the obvious need to de-escalate the romance arises and drama of one sort or another ensues.
The closer relationships in my life require me to be very conscious, and I'm setting a stronger filter for that consciousness to be reciprocal and based in self-love.
As a very clear example, and a strong communication from me to the Universe, I said to a friend this afternoon, "I no longer wish or need or am willing to date anyone who needs healing from me." I am no longer willing to let my work be an enticing pull to be in relationship with me as a friend or a lover. While I recognize that we all will continue to grow in relationship with each other, it is not my job, my interest, nor am I willing to be holding the role of the healer in my close relationships.
This is something I have used in the past as a short-cut to connect with the appearance of Love. As my experience of self-love continues to expand beyond my wildest dreams, I'm far less seduceable in these ways. On the heels of these last several weeks studying boundaries with a more refined magnifying glass, I'm definitely not interested in being seduced by anything that doesn't know Love.
Someone recently asked me, "Why aren't you trying to 'sell' me on working with you?"
I said, "Well, for starters, for this work to go anywhere, you need to be sold on working with yourself. My job is to be a witness, not a salesman. When the time is right for someone to engage with this kind of work, they know it, they feel it, and their Spirit nudges them along to the best places to do the work."
I don't want anyone dependent on me for a sense of self. At some point they'll resent it, and get aggressive about it.
AND, selling anyone on working with me is an attempt to take a short-cut in expanding my work short-term.
It's far cleaner for me to love myself, focus my awareness on deepening and expanding this self-love, and in the words of one of my great teachers over the years, "Let what comes come, and let what goes go."
By the way, that last quote is not at all about being passive. It's not about being a victim of life's circumstances and just sucking it up.
The quote depends on a foundation of self-worth and self-knowledge which recognizes that everything truly lasting and worth having comes from the openings around abiding self-love. Self-love leads to awakenings, joy, peace, and happiness that aren't based on better circumstances. They're qualities of my True Nature. No one can give them to me. No one and nothing can take them away. It's my job to let these qualities live me fully, and from there to enjoy letting what comes come, and what goes go.
It's fine to take time open-heartedly exploring a situation before signing any binding contracts, physically or energetically. It may not feel like an exciting short-cut, but it may just preserve a tremendous amount of life-force down the road. I'm worth it. So are You!
I set a very strong intention after reading David's focus for the group: To have clear, strong, boundaries based in abiding self-love and to take a big leap deeper with my capacities to work with intuition that's based clearly from the heart, from love that is Universal, rather than emotionally based.
Little did I know how clearly Life was listening, and the speed with which it would bring me circumstances so far outside of my experience, and seemingly out of the clear blue sky (even though I keep being reminded that there just aren't any accidents).
I'm more than pleased with how I'm noticing more and more support from within to keep reaching through the discomfort in a handful of situations and choosing to feel love from within. Even when the felt sense of love has felt like a tiny grain of sand, I know that once I slow down and focus, it's not long before the feeling expands.
Cultivating the ability to recognize and feel love seems less an issue at the moment, thankfully. Remaining fully anchored there is still a work-in-progress.
As I look backwards (yes, Mom, you're so right about hindsight always being twenty-twenty) at the moments when I've felt stuck, heavy, depressed, angry, afraid, or sad, they all have a similar feel to them. I sense them like textures, and this particular texture is the same, irrespective of which negative emotion it's attempting to stimulate in me. It's heavy, dark, intends to appear immovable, knows how to create confusion and drama, and withdraws in the presence of real love.
My relationship with this heavy teacher (yes, I choose to see it as a teacher rather than adversary), feels like it goes back as far as my consciousness has had some form of existence.
Generally, it seems to come into my space in costume. Meaning, it often has a very different initial appearance than the less than positive ways I've described it above.
One of its many enticing costumes over the years has been to present me with the opportunity to get something I think I want very quickly, and with little to no effort. The absence of the need for effort or patience can make whatever it's promising (historically: money, love, intimacy, respect, and being appreciated, recognized, and included), appear to have a certain sparkle or glamour that appeals to my ego.
It HAS to appeal deeply to my ego to get my attention. And it has had to be sneaky of late to get my interest in what would seem like unfamiliar ways. It can't actually look like a short-cut, as I'm on the lookout for those and cultivating my discernment with these trojan horses. It will try to look like something I've wanted, like say a really ready-to-go relationship. And in a case like that, it'll have the potential partner be incredibly appealing to my ego so that when this person so emphatically tells me how amazing, how beautiful, how hot, how smart, how talented I am, that I'll take the bait.
Why is it bait? I didn't grow up thinking I was beautiful, hot, or amazing. And there are still holdouts through my memories of growing up with these insecurities. So these "tantalizing" opportunities will do their best to offer to erase my past pain by filling me up with another person's need, want, and desire for me.
I'm not interested anymore. The glamour is wearing off. I'm beginning to see the pumpkin masquerading as a Maserati sooner and sooner each time.
And because everything in this vast world of duality is generally a mirror, I'm becoming more and more cognizant of the places where I have let the little boy in me think he was being loved through a person's infatuation with the tremendous energy the accompanies the work I do personally and professionally. I'm learning to discern the difference between infatuation and readiness. I'm studying it more closely than ever.
Getting deeply involved very quickly with someone who is merely infatuated with me based purely on the externals of appearance or life-circumstances, or glamoured by the energy associated with the work is a short-cut. It's a temporary gratification to my ego, that has a tremendous cost to my personal energy when the obvious need to de-escalate the romance arises and drama of one sort or another ensues.
The closer relationships in my life require me to be very conscious, and I'm setting a stronger filter for that consciousness to be reciprocal and based in self-love.
As a very clear example, and a strong communication from me to the Universe, I said to a friend this afternoon, "I no longer wish or need or am willing to date anyone who needs healing from me." I am no longer willing to let my work be an enticing pull to be in relationship with me as a friend or a lover. While I recognize that we all will continue to grow in relationship with each other, it is not my job, my interest, nor am I willing to be holding the role of the healer in my close relationships.
This is something I have used in the past as a short-cut to connect with the appearance of Love. As my experience of self-love continues to expand beyond my wildest dreams, I'm far less seduceable in these ways. On the heels of these last several weeks studying boundaries with a more refined magnifying glass, I'm definitely not interested in being seduced by anything that doesn't know Love.
Someone recently asked me, "Why aren't you trying to 'sell' me on working with you?"
I said, "Well, for starters, for this work to go anywhere, you need to be sold on working with yourself. My job is to be a witness, not a salesman. When the time is right for someone to engage with this kind of work, they know it, they feel it, and their Spirit nudges them along to the best places to do the work."
I don't want anyone dependent on me for a sense of self. At some point they'll resent it, and get aggressive about it.
AND, selling anyone on working with me is an attempt to take a short-cut in expanding my work short-term.
It's far cleaner for me to love myself, focus my awareness on deepening and expanding this self-love, and in the words of one of my great teachers over the years, "Let what comes come, and let what goes go."
By the way, that last quote is not at all about being passive. It's not about being a victim of life's circumstances and just sucking it up.
The quote depends on a foundation of self-worth and self-knowledge which recognizes that everything truly lasting and worth having comes from the openings around abiding self-love. Self-love leads to awakenings, joy, peace, and happiness that aren't based on better circumstances. They're qualities of my True Nature. No one can give them to me. No one and nothing can take them away. It's my job to let these qualities live me fully, and from there to enjoy letting what comes come, and what goes go.
It's fine to take time open-heartedly exploring a situation before signing any binding contracts, physically or energetically. It may not feel like an exciting short-cut, but it may just preserve a tremendous amount of life-force down the road. I'm worth it. So are You!
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