Dear Phil:

I tried sending this an hour ago, but my server went down. So I'll try again in a shorter form.

Do you think there would be interest in a forum where people can share how they deal with the psychological pain that arises as Divine Grace awakens in the heart? I know this is already discussed under kundalini and spiritual emergencies, but I'm thinking more of the practical things that help us be with this body of pain that is also the temple of the Holy Spirit. The older counsels of John of the Cross, and even the more gentler guidance of Teresa of Avila with respect to the body, still seem to need a modern view of the inner life from a developmental standpoint.

Do you think there would be interest in a forum where people can share how they deal with the psychological pain that arises as Divine Grace awakens in the heart?

I'm interested, nick.

tee

The entire bibliography is excellent but be sure to scroll down this webpage to the hyperlinks:

Counseling & Spirituality Bibliography

These folks helped me a lot:

Spiritual Emergence

Although this was done tongue in cheek, it was also intended to illustrate the depthful beauty of the wondrously made human:

Development Issues are Important

Nick, maybe these links can give others some food for thought and stimulate some discussion. You have a great idea for a thread, I believe.

Namaste,
johnboy

Okee doekee . . . well Tee, with johnboy's posting, I guess this thread could go in many directions, so I'm inclined to leave it open-ended. There could be rich forays into what therapists have uncovered in helping people . . . I wished I'd discovered some of these resources 10 years ago . . . .

Thank you johnboy for all those references. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't realize there were so many resources already established.

One obvious direction here could be sharing of experience, and with this topic being what it is, that could get pretty personal. So I'll put my toe in first . . .

How could I summarize my own struggle? Well, as I said in the opening post, as the deeper recesses in my heart open through devotion, the more in touch I am with longings that seem mostly to do with early attachment needs. Part of me has always hoped, over the past 15 years, that either those needs could be met in intimate relationships with partners, through Divine Grace, and/or through the work of therapy.

The early therapy I experienced was simply not even addressing such processes as transference and how the therapist could assist the client with emerging subconscious material beyond merely the cathartic response or cognitive rationalizations.

Developmentally, a child doesn't heal from emotional pain by simply crying or thinking, but by seeking a certain quality of attention or presence from the parent(s).

I worked for about four years as a child psychotherapist, which began long after many years of my own healing work. In the play therapy with children, it was easier to see how important presence was for engendering an atmosphere that allowed them to create the relationships they needed with the therapist through the symbolic materials of play that function as containers for traumas and memories they can't tolerate facing consciously.

However, traditional play therapy, which generally engages the child indirectly through the play materials, doesn't seem adequate for children whose attachment/developmental deficits are more severe; for this there are so-called "holding therapies," and I've only observed one or two styles that don't seem coercive or retraumatizing/fragmenting to the child, although I was never ready to move into that modality myself as a therapist. But even here, among the few therapists I know that are capable of engaging the disturbed child without violation(e.g., Stanley Greenspan and Viola Brody, both published), the qualities of presence are paramount. As you can see, play therapy has become a metaphor for how I can be with my own inner life, especially its darker features.

So by presence I mean certain qualities of attention that also arise spontaneously in prayer, especially when the grace of contemplation is given, such as wonder, awe, reverence, appreciation, gratitude, not knowing, curiosity, receptivity, delight, etc... all more-or-less affective responses of the soul that transcend garden-variety emotions. Although I intuitively knew these qualities of attention or presence from working with children, I didn't know yet how to apply them to my own inner life, or even that one could outside of just bare attention to sensation.

These responses to the wondorous world of the child treat him as a separate being, an I-Thou relationship, allowing ego development to proceed in keeping with developmental windows.

But where I'm headed here is how I learned/unlearned to give these qualities of presence to my own unfolding inner life. It seems that spiritual devotion had gradually predisposed me so I could begin turning inward to the darker places, but I had no map, and perhaps didn't trust my intuition when it came to such precarious territory. I guess you could say that this was a step in the active night of the senses, where passive response or surrender to God in the cloud of unkowing wasn't enough. God was, in a sense, calling me to self-awareness, showing me how to develop enough presence containment so these painful places could emerge safely, more-or less. I say more-or-less because contemplative moments of grace seemed at times to give me more love than my nervous system could handle, hence the kundalini response, Keating's "unloading of the unconscious," to begin, I hope, rewiring my body for more accomodation of it.

I'll stop here to see if this sharing resonates with others. If so, I can share further what I discovered from other teachers that has helped me the most so far.

Nick wrote:

quote:

Okee doekee . . . well Tee, with johnboy's posting, I guess this thread could go in many directions, so I'm inclined to leave it open-ended.

Nick, Tee - please take this in any direction you want. My references were more generic, some url's that would make great resources for any Shalomplace visitors, in any forum, on many topics.

Nick continues:

quote:

How could I summarize my own struggle? Well, as I said in the opening post, as the deeper recesses in my heart open through devotion, the more in touch I am with longings that seem mostly to do with early attachment needs. Part of me has always hoped, over the past 15 years, that either those needs could be met in intimate relationships with partners, through Divine Grace, and/or through the work of therapy.

Let me affirm your multifaceted approach to the meeting of needs as very wholistic; I default to the "and" of your "and/or" listing above, which the rest of your post reveals to have been the approach which evolved for you. I have spent a few days reading the S'place Boards, catching up, and recall your name, Nick, from another depthful contribution (as a contributor to really pay attention to). Foremost, let me thank you for your generosity as expressed in both the level of your personal sharing and in the quality of your knowledge and experience. Although I posted a few references, I had no preconceived notions about making any dialogic contributions to this thread. IOW, I did want to see the thread take off but wasn't sure I'd participate very much. I'm still not sure. I reverence your journey, Nick, and don't want to trivialize it with any cursory responses or be unintentionally dismissive of you with any knee-jerkish, canned pop-psychological observations. It is such a privilege to watch the birthing processes of souls, in general, especially knowing how passionately invested Our God is in each soul's journey, in particular. To think that God is romancing you and you are gifting us with some of the storyline! I'll respond a little, below, but mostly, know that I am going to hold this gift in my heart for awhile, in prayerful thanksgiving for your ongoing ascent and in prayerful petition for your reaching of the summit.

You continued:

quote:

The early therapy I experienced was simply not even addressing such processes as transference and how the therapist could assist the client with emerging subconscious material beyond merely the cathartic response or cognitive rationalizations.

Is it that so much of modern therapy is still merely about healing, missing the opportunities for individuation and transformation? What percentage of counseling professionals view our "dealing" with subconscious material as a dynamic that is useful outside of therapy? [Just wondering.]

Nick writes:

quote:

Developmentally, a child doesn't heal from emotional pain by simply crying or thinking, but by seeking a certain quality of attention or presence from the parent(s).

This was powerful for me as I am presently getting acquainted with some dynamisms underlying a mulitple disorder in a very special child in my life who possibly has ADHD, attachment disorder and other lingo that is still novel to me. In initially inventorying his innate psychological poverty, I got in touch with my own innate poverty and that of all of us and felt more solidarity with him and compassion for him and his parents. To find someone, like you, who is viewing the journey through the prism of "play therapy", using it as a metaphor for our inner lives, seems to be a great occasion of synchronicity/serendipity or whatever they call it. I'm listening.

You continue:

quote:

I worked for about four years as a child psychotherapist, which began long after many years of my own healing work. In the play therapy with children, it was easier to see how important presence was for engendering an atmosphere that allowed them to create the relationships they needed with the therapist through the symbolic materials of play that function as containers for traumas and memories they can't tolerate facing consciously.

I am strongly tempted to digress into how the concepts and realities of Eucharist, symbol and presence might interact in healing processes. I'll let that thread hang loose. As for "materials of play" functioning as "containers" for traumas and memories, that is so rich and a new insight for me. I hope to get more in touch with this dynamic by your educating us and by trying to experience it firsthand, too.

I like this caveat, both metaphorically for our journey and in regard to behavior modification regimens which may be advocated for my loved one:

quote:

However, traditional play therapy, which generally engages the child indirectly through the play materials, doesn't seem adequate for children whose attachment/developmental deficits are more severe; for this there are so-called "holding therapies," and I've only observed one or two styles that don't seem coercive or retraumatizing/fragmenting to the child, although I was never ready to move into that modality myself as a therapist. But even here, among the few therapists I know that are capable of engaging the disturbed child without violation(e.g., Stanley Greenspan and Viola Brody, both published), the qualities of presence are paramount.

As you can see, play therapy has become a metaphor for how I can be with my own inner life, especially its darker features.

I deeply reverence where you have been and eagerly anticipate where you may take us regarding the above statement!

Nick writes:

quote:

So by presence I mean certain qualities of attention that also arise spontaneously in prayer, especially when the grace of contemplation is given, such as wonder, awe, reverence, appreciation, gratitude, not knowing, curiosity, receptivity, delight, etc... all more-or-less affective responses of the soul that transcend garden-variety emotions.

These responses to the wondorous world of the child treat him as a separate being, an I-Thou relationship, allowing ego development to proceed in keeping with developmental windows.

To be mindful of the I-It-ness which can insidiously pervade our relationships with other adults has been a gift I have received from Buber et al. To be made aware of how incredibly important I-Thou-ness is in the develoment and formation of little souls is something I wish I had been more aware of 20 years ago. Also, being mindful of those aspects of play which are most transformative for both me and my children is a wonderful insght you've given me, Nick. A separate intuition is the notion of how children at play so emulate the contemplative way to which Jesus invites us all.

Nick:

quote:

But where I'm headed here is how I learned/unlearned to give these qualities of presence to my own unfolding inner life. It seems that spiritual devotion had gradually predisposed me so I could begin turning inward to the darker exiled parts wanting to be seen and heard, but I had no map, and perhaps didn't trust my intuition when it came to such precarious territory. I guess you could say that this was a step in the active night of the senses, where passive response or surrender to God in the cloud of unkowing wasn't enough. God was, in a sense, calling me to self-awareness, showing me how to develop enough presence containment so these hidden parts could emerge safely, more-or less. I say more-or-less because contemplative moments of grace seemed at times to give me more love than my nervous system could handle, hence the kundalini response, Keating's "unloading of the unconscious," to begin, I hope, rewiring my body for more accomodation of it.

I'll stop here to see if this sharing resonates with others. If so, I can share further what I discovered that has helped me the most so far.

One thing about spiritual maps, I've found, is that they are really great for showing us where we've BEEN and of little use in helping us know where we are going. Still, even when we find no companions for our very individualistic journeys among contemporaries, often we can find them in the mystical classics. Pascal or Juan de la Cruz or Viktor Frankl or Simone Weil or whomever can become our best friends, our soulmates. The lessons of the nights of senses and of soul/spirit made a lot of sense to me, about the 13th time I'd read John of the Cross and mostly retrospectively. During the Dark Nights I just held on (hold on) and stay in the companionship of those who claim its all going to be okay. Like our parents (hopefully? for most of us), we need the mystics and fellow sojourners (like on the bulletin boards) to constantly reaffirm: Everything's going to be all right. What we need less of, however, is the appending of Don't cry. N'est pas?

I like the phrase Presence Containment and view it as a potential master metaphor for formative spirituality; the analogies are countless. I like the way your sharing here might interplay with 1)Rohr's ideas of liminality/liminoid, with 2) Steindl-Rast's notions of leisureliness (micro-vacations and mini-retreats vis a vis a Brother Lawrence-esque habitual Practice of the Presence of God, with 3) Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey's treatments of the "gap" between stimulus and response (vis a vis Pavlov, Watson and Skinner), with 4) Ram Dass and Phil St. Romain's Be Here Now In Love, with 5)the whole genre of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Growing freedom in the space between S --> R, that love may abound, is Divine Recreation! Nick, I'd be pleased if you could share more about how we can most efficaciously play toward the end of presence container enlargement, for both big and little people, from formative, deformative, reformative and transformative perspectives.

Pardon any impertinence. My tangents may be somewhat obtuse. I don't how much I will observe this thread versus participate inasmuch as i'm more interested in what you are saying than I am knowledgeable. As for the personal sharing approach, I again thanks for that gift from you and others even if I remain on the sidelines from that perspective.

Thanks again.
Most respectfully,
QuiEst
jboy

Do you think there would be interest in a forum where people can share how they deal with the psychological pain that arises as Divine Grace awakens in the heart? . . .

Maybe not a whole forum, Nick. Looks like this thread is up and going, however, and I think it's in the right forum. Thanks for getting us started on it.

There's quite a bit here already. I'll be reading it over soon and posting some reflections. It's been an unusually busy day on the forums and I'm mentally whupped from reading through and responding.

Good of all of you to drop in and share on this topic.

Phil

Originally posted by nick m:
Okee doekee . . . well Tee, with johnboy's posting, I guess this thread could go in many directions, so I'm inclined to leave it open-ended. There could be rich forays into what therapists have uncovered in helping people . . . I wished I'd discovered some of these resources 10 years ago . . .

Thanks for leaving the thread open-ended nick.
I greatly appreciate hearing your comments and johnboys, too. However, I am an introvert intuitive, not an intellectual, so I will be taking quite a different approach. My way of initially knowing something is often through bodily feelings and responses, not the intellect.

....One obvious direction here could be sharing of experience, and with this topic being what it is, that could get pretty personal. So I'll put my toe in first . . .

Thanks, good start.

Developmentally, a child doesn't heal from emotional pain by simply crying or thinking, but by seeking a certain quality of attention or presence from the parent(s).

Yes, nick.....I agree. It is a quality of attention from the parent that heals the child.
I would add that it is a quality of attention from the therapist that heals the adult....and also the quality of attention from a friend or companion on the journey that heals the fellow friend or companion. Attention is paramount to healing.

..... But even here, among the few therapists I know that are capable of engaging the disturbed child without violation(e.g., Stanley Greenspan and Viola Brody, both published), the qualities of presence are paramount.....

I like this point nick. I think many therapists do inadvertently violate the child or adult, for that matter, too.

So by presence I mean certain qualities of attention that also arise spontaneously in prayer, especially when the grace of contemplation is given, such as wonder, awe, reverence, appreciation, gratitude, not knowing, curiosity, receptivity, delight, etc... all more-or-less affective responses of the soul that transcend garden-variety emotions.

Don't forget joy. I never knew what joy was until I began to meditate.

.... God was, in a sense, calling me to self-awareness, showing me how to develop enough presence containment so these hidden parts could emerge safely, more-or less. I say more-or-less because contemplative moments of grace seemed at times to give me more love than my nervous system could handle, hence the kundalini response, Keating's "unloading of the unconscious," to begin, I hope, rewiring my body for more accomodation of it.

nick, I resonate with this passage.....at times, initially, I, too, felt such overwhelming Love that I wanted to cry. It was so good, so totally loving, so totally accepting and It loved me!!!
In some way, this safe and secure knowledge of love let spontaneous memories arise during my 'psychic vomiting' that would have been difficult to deal with otherwise. The knowledge of a loving presence was there, in my memories, while I was
psychically vomiting my heart out. I don't think there is any other way around this. All of the accumulated gunk that builds up over a lifetime has got to come out. It can be very painful and sickening but it has got to be evacuated so new growth can occur in the process.

I'll stop here to see if this sharing resonates with others. If so, I can share further what I discovered that has helped me the most so far.

nick, if you don't mind, I'd love to hear more of your sharing and see how it resonates with my own process....

thanks, nick

tee

Tee and Nick, What a wonderful exchange is going on here. It is so very reminiscent of one of the audiotapes that nurtured me on my long commutes over the years regarding Carl Rogers and John of the Cross.

Teresa of Avila spoke of the prerequisites of good spiritual direction being prudence, learning and experience (I think it was her, anyway). Rogers advocated genuineness, caring and understanding as prerequisites for positive change in therapeutic relationships. Kevin Culligan, OCD, examines the letters of John of the Cross for evidence of these prerequisites.

Your sharing here is very rich, most generous.

Shalom,
jboy

Hello Tee, johnboy, Phil, and others:

From a posting of Phil's on another thread I found how to proceed with my thoughts on this one. In that other thread, where we were musing over quantum meanings of self, Phil spoke of Transactional Analysis and how its metaphors help understand the way voices of the unintegrated self arise into awareness, often unnoticed as voices of self, and known generally as just random internal dialogue(I hope I'm not veering too far from your meaning, Phil) As Phil went on to relate, the observer self that is not reducible to any of these others often favors one over the other. In terms of internal dialogue this can appear as monologue and/or dialogue i.e., talking to ourselves, or to others inside our own heads. I hope Phil will continue his reflections as a post to this thread, because it seems akin to what I've learned about being with emotioal pain so it can heal/integrate.

It occurs to me just now how this need to talk to ourselves reveals the need of voices of the unintegrated self to relate to each other, to come into a certain relationship which they don't currently have. However, they often appear opposed, sometimes in essential ways; hence the internal dialogue often takes the form of argument. How I learned to be with them when they are fierce was a turning point in my life just a few years ago.

But before I continue, let me share with you how I learned that being with emotional pain as parts of the self was even possible.

I had several teachers, some Buddhists, that showed me how to be with emotional pain as sensation in the body, along the lines of Vipassana. This was a real boon, as it kept me from over-identifying with emotion, and allowed the energy of emotion within the body to melt, transform, connect according to its own intelligece. However, this practice often involved plunging rather deeply into the sensation, into a trance state that wasn't necessarily conducive to integration. The pain would sometimes turn-inside out as considerable nourishment and inner meaning, but would mostly remain a deep well without lasting connections to everyday awareness.

It wasn't until someone handed me a copy of Eugene Gendlin's "Focusing" that I began to see more clearly what I was missing in these deeper, more meditative processes. And while savoring Gendlin's book, I rather fortunately "stumbled" upon another book, not even knowing what I was pulling off the shelf. This book was Ann Weiser Cornell's "The Power of Focusing." I've mentioned her and her colleague Barbara McGavin on an earlier thread, and it's to them I give the lion's share of credit for teaching/guiding me in this subtle art of being with pain as "exiled" or hidden parts of the unintegrated self, especially those in fierce opposition (Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin, copyright, 2001, www.focusingresources.com). So my previous references to presence, besides what I knew from spiritual practice and psychotherapy with children, was a direct reference to what they taught me, for their contact and support came during a rather dark period.

Nick, somehow years ago I also stumbled on focusing, but it was more from an inner guidance to just gently and lovingly observe what was going on in me and give it permission to dissipate. It worked! I called it the practice of acceptance, which wasn't a bad way to put it, I don't think. Later, I discovered Gendlin's work through a book entitled Biospirituality, which, at least in title, seemed right up my alley. I enjoyed the book and was led to Gendlin's work, which confirmed and helped bring to more efficacy the "practice of acceptance."

You asked me to say more about what I called the True Self state in another thread (which is very much akin to Bernadette Roberts' no-self state, btw; she and I corresponded about this at length years ago, until we had something of a "falling out"). Actually, there is no inclination for self-talk in that state. The mind is silent--no thoughts, or very, very few--and one's subjectivity is immediately present. There is no need to "inner dialogue" as there doesn't even seem to be much of an inner that is distinct from outer, and, at any rate, there is no need for one part of self to dialogue with another as the Self that manifests is clearly the "real deal." There is no sense of separateness from anything, yet it is abundantly clear that everything is what it is and is far from a delusional projection of my mind. I do like to relate myself to God, and it comes easily and naturally, but mostly without thoughts. Sometimes I like to speak to God anyway, which seems to more deeply intensify the heart sense of connection with God.

All very, very wonderful, wonderful!

But . . . when there is a problem of some kind: a paper that needs to be written, or a relationship struggling, the mind becomes quite active. There are lots of spontaneous thoughts, and sometimes the Parent, Adult, and Child tapes get turned on. These are all seen in the larger context of the True Self, and it is seen that in this sense, the mind is like a talking computer. It's not the self, although it's one of the ways we experience and express self. Once the problem is resolved, there is no need for the computer. Only, for most people, there is always the problem of meaning and self dangling before them--so the mind never really shuts up.

I've quite a lot about all this in my new book, Here Now in Love, which I will end up practically re-writing here if I don't close this post.

Shalom,

Phil

P.S. I'm still waiting to hear back from you by e-mail. Did you get my latest?

Dear Phil:

Thanks for your reply. It makes sense that you came more "easily" to a sustained awareness in the present moment, given the descriptions of your kundalin experience in your earlier book. Years of devotion seemed to have built you quite a flexible container for its awakening. Also, I get the impression you had by that time a fairly well-integrated ego.

My own process appears to have had less continuity, since the deeper openings in the heart produced by devotion in you began for me with great difficulty during the early kundalini period, without the good containment which assists integration. There was much anguish and little trust in devotion to the Divine, since most of my spiritual support came from Buddhists, and from Hindus that nonetheless seemed more focused on meditation than the simple prayer of conversation with God.

And so for me I rather desparately needed to find some way to be with this immense pain, and even today, with a personal sense of the Divine in simple prayer, there is no experience of God doing the job for me. Certainly there is such grace that in that moment love consumes despair, but afterwards, I'm left to deal with my own nervous system. And, this grace, its presence, can activate so much in my nervous system that I'm often reluctant to surrender deeply in prayer. Often I just ask to be given the strength to face myself, and this God seems quite ready do.

Dumping, or catharsis, which comes easily to me, isn't a sane response to these crises, usually, since they aren't mainly about traumas in the simple sense, but about the need for new connections between many places in the nervous system that never received nurturing presence during childhood.

And this is where spending extended time with Ann Weiser Cornell and her colleague has brought an increasing capacity to be with the energies that want to integrate, but can't as long as I'm collapsing my awareness into them, which is no small deal when the pain is fierce.

It's my current impression that God is actually incapable of curing this kind of pain in a traditionally conceived miraculous fashion; perhaps it violates human freedom, which suggests hope. And so how to be with ourselves in a nurturing way, if we experienced little of that early on, is crucial. It almost sounds impossible, except for how, as you said in another thread, observing awareness is always large enough to be with this drama and give it the attention it needs.

You described your experience of observing awareness as a kind of acceptance, but in my case it wasn't enough simply to observe. I needed to know how to listen, or even to trust that listening to the pain was possible, since the idea that it needed to be heard was not clear, in spite of the fact this was what I'd been doing for children in play therapy for several years. This listening to pain from its point-of-view as it appears in the body was Anne Weiser Cornell's watershed for me, especially since they have developed such an intricate method that has none of the usual abstract clumsiness of technique-oriented processes. Gendlin helped to a significant extent, but not as much with the darker aspects of the unfinished developmental process.

I'll check my email now. Bye-the-way, how do two people have a falling out discussing "NO-Self?"

Never mind, I probably wouldn't understand, or even want to know.

Peace,

Nick

Just a thought which might merit some consideration in this thread, for those that want to follow it in their own way: the unnoticed neglect of authentic play in adult life.

There is much which is not play in the sense I mean here. Perhaps anything which is task- oriented, that has some eventual pleasure as its goal is not play, which, of course, would rule out much of what passes as adult leisure.

I'll assume I'm on common ground here. And while I have some interest in discussing play, especially what I learned from children in play therapy, I'd rather suggest an experiential step, which others may have already taken. But I suspect there is some version of this step for most any adult which is yet to be taken, something more simple, less sophisticated.

What comes to mind when I think of playing involves both solitude and sharing, but as I say this, the idea of sharing such intimacy with a friend gives some pause. So . . . the first step might be something like buying a set of blocks, or an inexpensive easle and paints at a toy store, and seeing what comes as I set myself before these symbols of the inner life.

I stumbled upon this early on when working with children. I was cleaning up the playroom, and was rather tired and had no other sessions to prepare for. So I wasn't in a hurry, and had the office to myself. Actually, "cleaning up" after a play session always had something of a sacramental feeling to it anyway, with the child's shared inner life quite fresh in my mind and heart and in the room itself. And so this always slowed me down.

On this particular day, as I remember it, time slowed way down. Picking something up took forever, and was not separate from seeing, smelling, touching and hearing the "object," which was not a toy or an object or a this or that among named things, but something too rich and therefore vague to description. With the event and process of the child still fresh in what I was holding, before I knew it I was drawn into that world of play like I had never known it since a very young child myself.

In quite a literal sense, my body took over, and it became painfully clear later that what I'm calling authentic play now is not the function of the mind that understands what it is experiencing. There was a strong quality of not knowing what I was doing, or more so, the sense of playing as a mode of being happening on its own.

From this I could actually glimpse rather deeply into how and why play is so utterly absorbing for children, which I'd be tempted to describe as contemplation, except that within the experience itself there was no way or need to have a reference.

The next day I invited another therapist to just sit in the room with me as I allowed myself this strange disappearance from the known. She became an unobtrusive presence, important but hardly noted until later, except in moments when I felt ashamed of being seen in this way. And then I would invite her to switch roles, and unprompted she had the same experience.

This becoming "as a little child" is nothing less than having direct experience of life, before belief or understanding, with play equally the territory of being and doing. So what would it be like to do this 5 or 10 minutes a day, just to see what windows open?

Peace,

Nick

.

In quite a literal sense, my body took over, and it became painfully clear later that what I'm calling authentic play now is not the function of the mind that understands what it is experiencing. There was a strong quality of not knowing what I was doing, or more so, the sense of playing as a mode of being happening on its own.

nick, this is a beautiful description...'my body took over...' I've seen and experienced this in, not only play, but dance, too. I tend to think that our body has a wisdom that far exceeds that of the mind. A visceral response often happens first and our mind understands it only later...thus, we have our 'gut' feelings....

From this I could actually glimpse rather deeply into how and why play is so utterly absorbing for children, which I'd be tempted to describe as contemplation, except that within the experience itself there was no way or need to have a reference.

It's a total being in the moment, isn't it? Without self reflection......or awareness of time as we traditionally think of it.

The next day I invited another therapist to just sit in the room with me as I allowed myself this strange disappearance from the known. She became an unobtrusive presence, important but hardly noted until later, except in moments when I felt ashamed of being seen in this way. And then I would invite her to switch roles, and unprompted she had the same experience.

Was is really possible to duplicate the experience with another observing, even unobtrusively? The observer so often affects
the experience.

This becoming "as a little child" is nothing less than having direct experience of life, before belief or understanding, with play equally the territory of being and doing. So what would it be like to do this 5 or 10 minutes a day, just to see what windows open?

Great idea...also, why not try other direct experiences of life via therapeutic massage, dance, sufi dance, or other direct experiences that can occur before the mind interfers. Play is one very important way but I don't think it is the only way.....what do you think?

tee

Dear Tee:

Thanks for your sharing on this. As for the presence of the observer affecting or disrupting this purely being in the moment, I'm not sure. There is a flavor that is added, but as I said, sometimes it drew me out of prereflective body awareness; but that may have had more to do with feelings of shame peculiar to me at the time.

One might speculate from a quantum point-of-view that a non-observer state could be interrupted by another just in the fact of observing. On-the-one-hand, the quality of the observer's presence might be an important factor, or only able to disrupt to the extent the person playing is uncomfortable with being seen.

There is something uniquely relational about play that may allow being seen as its intrinsic extension, since play and being seen for children are equally important. Of course, children often do want to be alone when playing, and so it certainly has a quality of solitude about it as well, which may make it a unique way of transforming loneliness of the existential variety.

Being seen in love by someone who has no agenda for us, while we are this open and authentic, could be like "wherever two or more are gathered in my name." Children in play therapy are often astonished that the adult in the room with them is neither intrusive nor disinterested; for that to happen, though, the therapist must surrender to not knowing what is happening and to heart-felt curiosity and wonder for what is opening before him. And these children will often turn their backs and enter a private corner, or ask the therapist to turn around, and when these requests are honored, there is a deepening of trust and ease with having the therapist present.

Another possibility, which I also explored, is for two adults to play with blocks together, at first in somewhat separate spaces, and allowing the rhythm of presence to direct what may come. Sharing the silence and energy of this play space was very intimate, true friendship, I think. And, most of the time, there was an unnoticed drawing together of playing, where communion is unintentional and inevitable.

As for other avenues which you mentioned, I would only say that for myself, when I sit down in front of a set of plain, colorless wooden blocks, there is much less chance of already having some idea, some sense of gain or attempt at having an experience or a profound moment. But then, dance could be this way if it didn't already have an adult meaning for me.

And, of course, along with allowing ourselves to play in this simple manner, we could ask a child if he or she would let us play with them. Beware! Their generosity and genius can reveal us beyond expectation, since they are masters of moving within both being and doing at the same time, whereas for most adults it's like changing back and forth into different wardrobes. Even when we just ask "Could I watch how you play?" we'll probably find them inviting us to join in eventually, where they are the teacher in the art of unlearning.

Peace,

Nick

Dear Nick and uraqt, what a wonderful discussion about healing, love, observation and play. Thank you both for what you shared. I will address now a few points made by Nick in a post above which were directed to me.

by the way, I'm using IBM ViaVoice to dictate this response, as I find it helpful to speak to the issue; it feels more like I'm in a conversation. I mention this because sometimes there are awkward phrasings that I don't correct. Viavoice is good, but it's certainly not perfect.

. . . This listening to pain from its point-of-view as it appears in the body was Anne Weiser Cornell's watershed for me, especially since they have developed such an intricate method that has none of the usual abstract clumsiness of technique-oriented processes. Gendlin helped to a significant extent, but not as much with the darker aspects of the unfinished developmental process.

I understand what you're saying, and suspect that some of what I was trying to say is much the same. There has been with me, at times, this shift in awareness to not simply observed in love, but to enter into the experience of pain and blocked energy to try to understand their "Story". Sometimes I even use active imagination to engage the energy in relationship; maybe allow it to speak in my thoughts whatever it wants to say. As I'm sure you know, neurolinguistic therapies use some of the same approaches.

I'll check my email now. Bye-the-way, how do two people have a falling out discussing "NO-Self?"

Never mind, I probably wouldn't understand, or even want to know.

Actually, I don't mind talking about it at all. There are so many misconceptions about this topic that the more we see how things actually play out in real life, the fewer delusions we will have about how it works. It is perfectly possible for two people to have disagreements and not be acting out of ego concerns. In this case, the issue was about how to understand the no-self development in the context of the Christian spiritual journey. Bernadette Roberts considered it a further development on the journey, going beyond what Saint John of the Cross and others had described. She even fashioned herself as the first to report on it in Christianity, except, perhaps, for some of the Rhineland mystics like Meister Eckhart. She considered her self as having died as Christ died, and then experiencing the consciousness of resurrection and even ascension. Regarding her present state, she considers it Eucharistic. This is how she tried to account for a Christian dimension to her experience. What one soon discovers in attempting to dialogue with Bernadette Roberts is that none of this is in the least bit subject to any other interpretation. I tried to point out that perhaps what she came to was another kind of mystical experience that was more akin to what Easterners experienced, and so wasn't necessarily a going beyond what John of the cross wrote about, but a going "somewhere else." She would hear nothing of it, however. There is much more good reflection about this at Innerexplorations. In the end, our falling out was about getting nowhere in this dialogue about how to understand such experiences and their relationship to the Christian journey. I certainly do recognize the important contribution that she has made in her books and writings, but I would disagree with some of the interpretations that she gives. This might not seem like such a big deal, only I do think the way we understand the Christian journey is important, and I very much resist the common tendency among so many writers today to view the Eastern experience as being either identical to the Christian one, or superior to it in some manner.

Phil