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.

ECSTATIC BREATHWORK comes to NYC! August 24-28

On August 24-28th,  I’m very excited to be back in New York City with Ecstatic Breathwork, offering an evening workshop in Chelsea, a Saturday  Intensive at my friend Elena Brower’s Virayoga in Soho, as well as private sessions by appointment in Soho.  The emphasis for this visit is deepening Self-Love, and developing and deepening your practices for embodying Self-Love and Freedom into every aspect of your life.  There is no end to the expansion of Freedom...it’s infinite!  And like the title of a recent LA Ecstatic Breathworkshop, The Doorway to Freedom Is Always Open!

So wherever you are with your life, your practices, and your relationships, we’ll work with deepening your relationship to Self-Love.  Self-Love continues to be the most powerful catalyst for every aspect of my life to grow and Thrive.  Self-Love opens me to directly experiencing an expanding Freedom that continues to amaze me and put me in deep gratitude for life, which in turn deepen self-love.  As my friend and mentor David Elliott says often, “It’s a circle!”.

So whether you’ve been doing this work for years, or are coming to taste it for the very first time, with deep love and gratitude, welcome!



Private Sessions of Ecstatic Breathwork by appointment:

These sessions last an hour and fifteen minutes and are $175.  48hrs cancellation by phone for changes to your appointment time.

All Private Sessions Are Happening At:

Living Meditation, Soho
580 Broadway Suite 717
New York, NY 10012

To schedule your session, please call (310) 922-4890, or email scott@trustthebreath.com



Chelsea Ecstatic Breathworkshop - Wednesday, August 25th, 7:30-9:00pm

Deepening Self-Love, springboard to Awakening, launching pad to Freedom

In this Ecstatic Breathworkshop, we’ll work with a rhythmic breathing meditation to reveal deeper layers of self-love and Freedom through the Heart, and ground it into your life.

When:   Wednesday, August 25th
Time:    7:30-9:00pm  (arrive early to avoid being late)

Where: Moving Body Resources
            112 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
            (Between 6th and 7th Ave on the South side of the Street)

Exchange:  $40

Bring:  A folded blanked or yoga mat and eye-pillow if you have one.  We'll be sitting on the floor at first then move to laying down for the breath meditation.  If you tend to get chilly, bring a warmer layer to put on.


Virayoga Ecstatic Breathwork Intensive in SOHO - Saturday, August 28th, 1-3:30pm

Ecstasy of Relationship ~ Deeper Freedom In and Through All Relationships

Releasing the past, trusting the future, coming in the moment with Self-Love.  An afternoon of Ecstatic Breathwork and specific exercises to Awaken and deepen your capacity for Self-Love and Freedom in every relationship and interaction.

When:  Saturday, August 28th
Time:   1:00pm-3:30pm  (arrive early to avoid being late)

Where:  Virayoga
            580 Broadway (btw Prince and Houston)
            New York, NY 10012
            (212) 334-9960

Exchange:  $60 Pre-Registered by August 27th ($75 day of event)

Bring: A notebook and pen, water bottle, folded blanked or yoga mat, and eye-pillow if you have one.  We'll be alternating between sitting on the floor for the group work and laying down for the breathing meditations.  If you tend to get chilly, bring a warmer layer to put on.



Love,
Scott
(310) 922-4890
http://trustthebreath.com
http://scottschwenk.blogspot.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-schwenk

(HuffPost) Finding Ground in Mid Change

How many of you remember that old commercial in the late 70’s/early 80’s:

“How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-roll pop?”

If I had a dollar for every time my mind had that kind of thought around my growth process, I’d be sitting on some huge cash reserves!  I don’t know about you, but for me, and most of the clients I’ve worked with, future growth can’t be calculated or measured like that.  Usually when my mind is asking for something like that, it’s really looking for some kind of certainty, some sense of solid ground on which to feel safe. 

Recently I’ve been looking and feeling deeper than ever into some of the core layers of ego inside of me; layers that can actively distort my thoughts and emotions about nearly anything if I’m not vigilant.   These are the layers of what some spiritual teachers call “inner division” – they create a feeling of being separate from the sense of well-being most people would say that strive to get to.  They create a feeling of being separated from love essentially.  Getting more specific, I’d call it self-love.

This afternoon while I was speaking with my friend and mentor, David Elliott, about his new book “Healing”, I was talking about my experience of working with the first exercise in the book – “Write down all the ways you love yourself.” 

I told David that generally my list starts with activities, things I’ve done to or for myself that would seem loving.  Yet my real sense of self-love is that it’s not based in actions, but is most definitely reflected in actions.  If I do not love myself while taking a shower, it’s just a mechanical act.  If I consciously actively love myself while showering, it’s a whole other experience that leaves me feeling expansive, refreshed, and full of joy.

It’s a feeling that I’m learning to cultivate and sense regardless of what I’m doing, or what’s happening around me.  If my love for me is dependent on any particular set of circumstances, my love will be absent without those situations.  If my willingness to move into flow and expansion is tied to what can be given to me, it can just as easily be taken away.

So far this might be sounding a little hard to wrap your head around and turn into practices that’ll abundantly reveal self-love.

For me some form of meditative practice is essential for revealing and experiencing the feeling of this love.  At the moment, it’s a daily practice of sitting two times a day, once in the morning and once later in the day for a minimum of about 23 minutes.  23 minutes hasn’t got any special significance that I know of, it just happens to be the length of the CD track I’m using for meditation.  Several times a week, I also practice the breathwork that I teach.  Both of these constitute meditation practices that quiet my mind and open me to experiencing profound expansion, relaxation, and moments of no thoughts of any kind.  There’s a palpable “Presence” that moves through my body like a buzz or humming feeling, the sense of feeling spaciousness in my cells, and an ease in my breath.

It’s also crucial for me to get some form of exercise daily.  I need a combination of working with weights (which help me feel strong, grounded, and solid in my body) and cardio (which also gets my breath moving deeply and into a rhythm – excellent on the days I haven’t practiced the breathwork).

Then throughout the day, when any thought arises that carries or stimulates some form of tension or negative emotion, I’ve learned to question the truth of the thought.  The best-selling author Byron Katie teaches that any thought that creates suffering indicates an argument with reality and a belief in something that isn’t true.  The way to release the stuck emotion is to show myself the truth by asking myself good questions. 

One of my favorite questions is “Can I know this is the absolute Truth for certain?”

And finally, keeping all the spaces I occupy clean.  That goes all the way from physically cleaning and organizing my home, office, and car to maintaining the ecology of my relationships.  I have a practice of regularly scrolling through the contacts in my iPhone and noticing my thoughts and body sensations.  If my stomach clenches when I look at a name, I know I’ve got some work to do.  And doing this work always gives me more space to breathe.  It may mean questioning my beliefs or thoughts about the person, or it may mean picking up the phone and finding out if there’s an amends I need to make. 

All these practices are scalable, meaning they’re to be experimented with, tried out over time, and adapted to the situations.  By no means is this the end of the road on practices either.  Essentially I look for practices to cover the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual…all of me.

I also check in to make sure I’m having some fun.  This is a muscle I know I need to keep focused on building.  If I’m not careful I can start to get a little too serious, and it’s only a few steps from seriousness to heaviness. 

While excavating the Truth within, or even just navigating what’s real in a relationship, things can appear distorted and the process can feel incredibly destabilizing.  It continues to be priceless for me to get more comfortable being uncomfortable, to find the solid ground I’ve been looking for within myself, where no person or circumstance can take it away.  It’s a knowing.

All the things I listed above are activities that help me feel clear and awake so I can actively perceive the solid ground within. Find your own, experiment, and do something long enough to see results.  Then use the results to refine your experimentation.  And have some fun along the way.

Gardening Relationships

This new garden of mine (although it seems funny to write that word 'mine', and actually try believing it to be true, that the garden is actually 'owned' by me....I'm a custodian for it, even though I paid the money for everything that went into it, however I'm merely a custodian for all of those resources as well. When I pretend to 'own' things, all this worry comes with it....being a custodian feels so much more liberating and enjoyable. I can enjoy it while it's in my care, and when/if the time comes for something to move into someone else's care, I can let it go. Now I'm not saying I've got this mastered, but I'm in that class!).......so, this newly planted garden --- Wow! What a teacher it's been in just the two and a half days it's been up on the roof. I think about it all day. I have a deep love for it, the smell of the soil combination, the brilliant greens of the plants, the box it's in, the ravens, crows, hummingbirds, hawk, flies, and smaller insects that all seem to be circulating above, around, and on it when I'm up there.....the Sun, Wind, Water, and Earth supporting it.....and the Spirit that moves through me, the Garden, and in-between.

This garden is teaching me more about relationships than I could've known. And while I'm pretty young (37 1/2....lol!), perhaps some of the learning is coming through age/experience. I'm seeing myself letting go of some of the urgency and hurry-up-and-get-there-already mentality that I carried with me for most of my life. I'm finding joy in the cultivation process, recognizing the need for things to work with time....cultivating the soil, letting the roots grow, not having to tamper with the plants just to feel involved in the process, to be attentive to the garden without needing it to be any other way than the way that it is.....these are just a few of the lessons from the garden these last several days.

And this garden IS a relationship.....a very intimate relationship that is filling me with so much love and fulfilment. It comes into my dreams at night, I feel it's living presence above the healing space in my apartment.

And in the process, I've felt the very strong and supportive presence of my ancestors.....who've farmed in this country, and probably the land of their home countries of origin for aeons. In particular, I recognize my Grandfather, Pat McCreary....my Mother's Father. I've felt him around me quite a bit more than usual these last few days, helping to guide my intuition around the garden...showing me his Heart more than ever through his connection to farming and cultivating. He wasn't known as an overtly affectionate man by his family, and yet from spending time with him before he left his body, in the years since, and in particular these last few days, I see and feel the PROFOUND amount of love that circulated through him. It was safer and more comfortable for him to express this love in more overt ways as a farmer than through his human relationships. We all have our own ways and learning processes, and I honor this as his. He has much to teach me about the relationship to cultivation, patience, and nature, and I look forward to learning from him.

I'm sure I'll be sharing more here as it comes!