Beyond Secrecy, Privacy and Insecurity

I previously wrote a post called “Secrets, Confidences & Privacy,” in March or 2006, promising to write more. You can click this link:

Secrets, Confidences and Privacy

That blog gives some of the development of my thinking on the matter.

I notice that it was written a year before April of 2007. When I share this blog with people, I give a disclaimer that I no longer believe much of what I was writing prior to April 2007, but I leave it up as historical development and to connect with people who might connect better there. But what I would write now on the same subjects is significantly different. I re-read what I wrote, and while I would alter my allusions to spirituality and inner guidance to be more factual, and include conversation on “whose business am I in?” I would generally stand by most of what is written there.

My theme was the question of whether the expanding & contracting universe is a safe place or not. Let me review and then continue.

I will use words & phrases like “generally,” “usually,” “often,” and “most of the time,” for the benefit of those who are not seeing things the way I do.

Secrets generally hide something that we believe would hurt another or ourselves. Usually, we hold things secret out of shame or guilt, or fear of the judgment of others. We keep secrets usually to deceive or hide.

The Online Merriam Webster gives the origin of the word, “secret,” from the Middle English, from Anglo-French secré, secret, from Latinsecretus, from past participle of secernere to separate, distinguish, from se- apart + cernere to sift.”

It might be informative to check the synonyms and antonyms listed there:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secret

“Synonyms: backstairs, behind-the-scenes, clandestine, covert, furtive, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, private, privy, sneak, sneaking, sneaky, stealth, stealthy, surreptitious, undercover, underground, underhand, underhanded

Antonyms: open, overt, public”

Confidences, on the other hand, are generally held in areas where we may feel we are vulnerable, sensitive, “wounded” or learning. A confidence may be more temporarily held, and more likely to be shared when we learn … confidence! Internal confidence in ourselves, our views, our choices, preferences & lifestyle. We keep confidences to protect.  A confidence is held out of respect or for healing. Once we feel safe, we may share these more freely.

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary definition of confidence that applies is “reliance on another’s discretion.”  “Discretion,” it says, comes from the “Middle English, from Anglo-French discret, from Medieval Latin discretus, from Latin, past participle of discernere to separate, distinguish between.”

Privacy, as I wrote before,  is often not explicitly spoken of, and thus, is harder to pinpoint, define or follow. It is quite a slippery subject, particularly from culture to culture and from era to era.

The Online Merriam-Webster, gives the origin from  “Middle English privat, from Anglo-French, from Latinprivatus, from past participle of privare to deprive, release, from privus private, individual; probably akin to Latin profor, in front of.”

The bold in the definitions is mine. I highlighted separate, deprive and individual.

Secrets, confidences and privacy separate one person or a group of people from others, deprive others of information or knowledge and are a feature of individuation, a word which contains the same root as “divide,” which also means “to separate.”

While I was Googling for other information on these topics, I found the following article by Thomas Nagel, “Concealment and Exposure” at:

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/nagel/papers/exposure.html .

Nagel writes more about the social and political effects of constraint versus personal confrontation on matters that are generally private, and Nagel believes in a kind of privacy that protects people who hold unpopular views as a means to smooth wrinkles from the social fabric for the purposes of a “smoothly fitting public surface.”  Nagel writes that “it protects one from the sense of exposure without having to be in any way dishonest or deceptive, just as clothing does not conceal the fact that one is naked underneath.”

Such privacy seems to be a requirement in a society that is largely expressing itself in any of the following World Views:  Survival, Safety and Security, Outer Success and Relationship Lessons. From these perspectives, there is very much “two,” duality, not one. While truth is more than mere non-duality, this will do for now as a distinction for the purposes of this conversation. Everything seems to come from “outside” – until it doesn’t, about the time we become more inner directed, less blaming, less focused on others to meet our imagined “needs” and “wants.”

Unless society as a whole, is largely more secure and inner-directed, trusting and safe, it seems reasonable (is it?) and natural (oh?) to hold secrets, confidences and privacy. Anything outside of ourselves seems threatening, or at least holds that potential, and society adopts “norms” that “protect.”

It seems more reasonable to me, to question these assumptions, to find out if our attachment to “privacy,” is really only a way to divide and separate us from ourselves and others.

Does the desire for privacy actually spring from insecurity in a world that is truly safe in a bigger picture sense?  (Yes, bodies may die, be in pain, be injured – does that actually equate to a lack of safety?)

If you’ve been reading this blog much at all, you know what to do, and you have choices:

Write out a Worksheet. Ask the questions. Do the turn arounds.

Re-Pair Opposites

Release and Receive

Email me or Comment if you need help.

Love, Ann

“One and one don’t make two. One and one make one.”

~ Pete Townshend, The Who

Silly Question & Silly Answer – Email with a Former Lover

Recently, Jean wrote that she missed me.

I wrote back asking what about me she missed. I titled it “Silly Question,” because I wasn’t sure she’d even know and wondering why I was pursuing it, anyway, as we’ve been estranged for some years over some things I said during our break-up that caused her some trouble with child custody arrangements later.  What I said was true, but it was neither kind nor necessary and an apology wasn’t going to take back the consequences.

Here is my first email:

There may not be a way for you to answer this, but for some reason, the past couple of days, I’ve been wondering:
 
You have said a couple of times that you miss me.
 
What is it that you miss about me? 
 
Maybe there’s a way to have/share that without threatening your security about confidentiality and Stuff?

She replied:

Not a silly question.
 
With the exception of the times I find you either bitchy or inappropriate, I miss your company.  In addition to being a think first, dynamic Priest, I often experience you to be bright, thoughtful, interesting, and stimulating.
 
You’d think these things wouldn’t be hard to find, but sadly, I find that they are.
 
Hope this helps.

Jean

So, I tried this:

How can I share those things with you without threatening the safety & security of your confidentiality concerns?
 
Email comes to mind. Just a thought.
 
Love, Ann

Jean wrote:

You can to some extent, but probably not very deeply, as I have learned that I can’t ever trust you to not turn against me if you are hurt and/or I cannot trust in your judgement of what constitutes inappropriate behaviour.
 
On the surface, it can be fine, but I always need to watch myself, protect myself, be on guard.
 
That’s why I am angry and sad.  IMO, your behaviour cost us our friendship.

Jean<

So, stepping totally out of my business and into hers, I sent:

Jean, when you learn how not to place the cause of your happiness or unhappiness outside of yourself – no matter what – well, if you ever do, we’ll see what happens.

There isn’t a single true sentence in your email.

That’s not an attack. It is the kindest thing I could possibly tell you. Knowing that, in anything, would instantly, infinitely and permanently change your life in every way you ever dreamed of wanting and more.

I know me. I’ll continue to check in sometimes, see how you’re doing, whether you’ve . . . there’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide quote for the moment.  Arthur Dent is lying in front of the bulldozer in Act I, Scene I, and Mr. Prosser the foreman, asks Ford Prefect, “Has Mr. Dent come to his senses?”  Ford replies, “Can we assume, for the moment, that he has not? And that he’s going to be lying in front of this tractor all day?”

Nevermind, that may not be funny to you for lack of HHGG familiarity and the other stuff.

I’m not saying what I did was right. I am only saying that it’s over. The same way I do regarding my father. That situation ended completely and forever in 1975.  To continue to beat myself up with it, would only hurt myself. Therefore, Daddy and I have a fine relationship. I generally don’t bring the past into it. He apologized. He never did it again. Those events are over and done with, forgiven, even when I experience things that seem to be the effects of that.  I now know that these are really only the effects of my thinking.

Mind you he didn’t change, either. I know who he is and I love him like that.

Notice the truth and lies disappear.

Alright, enough typing. I’m going to post this on the blog.

Don’t worry – I’ll use a pseudonym there.

Did you know that part of the way people are able to write memoir in our country without being sued is that truth is a defense in a court of law? Stories about events have many sides, as evidenced by eye-witness accounts, just minutes after the fact, of any newsworthy event that has ever occured.

I miss you, too. I am reluctant to stop typing because I may not have occasion again for a while.

Love, Ann

I miss her sometimes, too.  She’s right where she always was, though, in my thoughts.

Katie says, “No two people have ever met.”

A Home, A Job, A Dream – Trauma and Healing and Gratitude

Today, I could write about 5 blogs.

If you followed a Tag and didn’t find what you were looking for, please write a comment, so I know what you were looking for when you got here.

I woke up about 5 am, maybe earlier. I got out of bed about 5:30 am. This is beginning to be a lot of 5’s – a lot of change, the numerologist in me says.

One thing about living with cats is that you often remember your dreams. Why? The cat wakes you up in the middle of them. That’s why. Maybe it is  feature, not a bug.

Because there is so much, I’m will tell you what I’m going to tell you, tell you and then tell you what I told you. It’s an old formula for writing and speaking that can be very useful. While I may be no good at planning or cleaning, I am phenomenal at organizing. It helps me feel safe, so I got really good at it.

Several things play a part in today’s blog.

I’m going to tell you about home: my childhood home, the home I am working in for a temp job and the home I dream to live and work in.

I’m going to tell you about jobs. My first job was working for my father, beginning when I was about 12. This week, and maybe next, I am working in a house, donated to a mental health center and staffed by psychiatrists, counselors, nurses with office support staff to manage all the paperwork. Then there is my dream job.

I’m going to tell you my dreams, both waking and sleeping dreams. 

This is what an astrologer would call a Chiron story, a story of a wounded healer. Chiron is an asteroid only recently included in astrology.  Chiron is one of the centaurs, half human, half horse, just like my Sun, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Midheaven, which are all in Sagittarius – the sign of the centaur. You know the picture. We carry a bow and arrow and are known both for flinging them wildly and for hitting distant targets. I guess Centaurs have very good eyes. We see deep into people and situations. Other people call us psychic, but really, it’s just about looking rather than looking away. If you want to know more about Chiron and centaurs, check Wikipedia or read Eric Francis at www.planetwaves.net.

Back to the story . . .  

Let’s start with the dreams the cat helped me to remember this morning.

Last night before I went to sleep, I read the first 3 chapters of Peter A. Levine’s book, Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body. I’ve known about Peter’s work for about 7 years. Some of the women I interned with during my master’s program were studying his work at a different school than mine. It sounded good to me, and I bought a copy of his book, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. I know I read some of it. Somewhere during the past 4 years of moving from home to home, I gave it away unfinished. Every now and then, I think I’ll try again.

The first dream the cat helped me to remember is, of course, not completely clear. I remember that someone wanted me to go out with him. It seemed like it was Michael, a former friend’s ex-husband. Okay, I remember thinking about him  yesterday. That makes some sense. I also remember being in an office building. It was kind of vacant and the time was early evening, I think. I was meeting my former roommate or at least he was there. Again, I emailed with him yesterday because he’s bringing me a bill of sale so I can register the car he so generously gave me. The last part of the dream, I was asking a chiropractor, actually, he’s the husband of a chiropractor I saw for many years. He rarely practices, but he is trained. I was asking him if I could pay his lowest price for a single adjustment. Single adjustments usually cost much more. He is a Network Chiropractor. I see a Flow Chiropractor now. But clearly the dream was about men, support and healing.

The second dream the cat helped me remember was about my childhood home. I was driving by and realized that the original red brick was back (some insensitive boob has actually painted the rich red brick, and it is now a creamy yellow – yuck). There were bushes sitting in pots ready to be planted. They were ligustrum, gardenia and something I used to call a bee bush, no idea what it really is, but the bees liked the white flowers. The old gardenias were dried and frazzled, but still alive and someone had removed them and placed them in pots. I suppose the nursery planned to bring them back to life.

Mema, my maternal grandmother, was there. She said that Mother still had the house and was refurbishing it. In the dream, I wondered what the rent would be and wondered about living there. I wondered if I could create my intentional healing community there.

I read both these dreams as stories of healing, healing trauma and sexual abuse, which is what this blog is mostly all about.

From my reading last night, here is a list from Peter Levine’s Healing Trauma.

Oh, first, let me say what trauma is.

On page 8, Levine says that after 30 years, it is still a challenge for him to define trauma. He says, “What I do know is that we become traumatized when our ability to respond to a perceived threat is in some way overwhelmed. This inability to adequately respond can impact us in obvious ways, as well as ways that are subtle.”

On page 20, Levine says, “The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning that they can come and go and be triggered by stress. Or they can remain hidden for decades and suddenly surface. Usually, symptoms do not occur individually, but come in groups. They often grow increasingly complex over time, becoming less and less connected with the original trauma experience.”

There are a lot of good lists in Levine’s book. It’s short and comes with a CD of guided exercises for re-visiting trauma and healing the body memories and associated symptoms. 

So, back to the lists I mentioned. You’ll find a list of “Obvious Causes of Trauma” and “Less Obvious Causes of Trauma” on pages 14 and 15. Levine suggests we pay attention to our bodies as we read these and notice any uneasiness or discomfort. I’ll let you get the book and do that.

He categorizes symptoms this way:

1. Hyperarousal
2. Constriction
3. Dissociation and denial
4. Feelings of helplessness, immobility and freezing

Now, here’s that list found on pages 18 – 20:

Symptoms: A Lengthy List 

• Hypervigilence (being “on guard” at all times)
• Intrusive imagery or flashbacks
• Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
• Hyperactivity
• Exaggerated emotional and startle responses
• Nightmares and night terrors
• Abrupt mood swings (rage reactions or temper tantrums, frequent anger, or crying)
• Shame and lack of self-worth
• Reduced ability to deal with stress (easily and frequently stressed out)
• Difficulty sleeping

Then he says some symptoms “can show up later, even years later.” He mentions that we are not meant to diagnose with these lists, just “get a feel for how trauma symptoms behave.”

• Panic attacks, anxiety and phobias
• Mental “blankness” or spaced-out feelings
• Avoidance behavior ( avoiding places, activities, movements, memories or people)
• Attraction to dangerous situations
• Addictive behaviors (overeating, drinking, smoking, etc.)
• Exaggerated or diminished sexual activity
• Amnesia and forgetfulness
• Inability to love, nurture, or bond with other individuals
• Fear of dying or having a shortened life
• Self-mutilation (severe abuse, self-inflicted cuting, etc.)
• Loss of sustaining beliefs (spiritual, religious, interpersonal)

Then he gives another list and says these “generally take longer to develop” (page 19). “In most cases, they may have been preceded by some of the earlier symptoms.”

• Excessive shyness
• Diminished emotional responses
• Inability to make commitments
• Chronic fatigue or very low physical energy
• Immune system problems and certain endocrine problems such as thyroid malfunction and environmental sensitivities
• Psychosomatic illnesses, particularly headaches, migraines, neck and back problems
• Chronic pain
• Fibromyalgia
• Asthma
• Skin disorders
• Digestive proglems (spastic colon)
• Severe premenstrual syndrome
• Depressionand feelings of impending doom
• Feelings of detachment, alienation and isolation (“living dead” feelings)
• Reduced ability to formulate plans

I imagine we have all experienced enough trauma, even mild trauma, that reading these lists make us feel a little edgy.

So, take a deep breath . . . several.

When you’re ready, continue.

There is one last symptom on page 20. Levine calls it “The Compulsion to Repeat.” It is well worth reading the story he tells there. It is an amazingly specific example.

Now, what does all of this have to do with this blog? Or with “A Home, A Job, A Dream.” I think you are beginning to see. Some of you, especially those with similar experiences to mine, see very clearly. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you are still reading.

Trauma is a clear case of “reality is kinder than our thinking.”

Remember, it doesn’t matter if the threat is real or what is really going on. Thunder can traumatize a baby, says Levine, but there is no real danger. It is the perception that brings on these trauma symptoms. I’m not saying they are not real. Trust me, they are. I’ll get into some of my own symptoms as we go, and I’ve mentioned a lot of them in previous blogs.

But what Katie says is true, “The worst that can happen is a thought.”

Once we re-think the situation, and I feel Levine is right, we need to include the body in this re-thinking, once we re-think a situation, change our perception of it, healing happens.

A Course in Miracles  says “projection makes perception.” (Text, page 445) We project our thoughts onto people and situations, and believe this to be reality. It’s not. ACIM says we live in a dream world, not in reality. The 365 daily meditations in the workbook and the Text and Manual for Teachers are support in changing our perceptions and waking up to reality.

I call The Work of Byron Katie, A Course in Miracles in 4 questions and a Turn Around. It is much faster. I’m not necessarily saying it’s better, though. Time is a godsend when we are healing and taking a year or more to do A Course in Miracles can be very beneficial.

Steven Sashen gives a great and simple example of reality being kinder than his thinking in his Anti-Guru blog.

http://sashen.com/blog/34/rearranging-furniture-in-imaginary-houses/

Read his version. Basically, one element of his therapy for years was the idea that his parents took $42 from him as a child. The truth was much kinder than his thinking.

Steven is a great example of the Chiron archetype. After years of what you might call financial trauma, he woke up. The seminal event had more to do with relationships, and it generalized to everything. Reality was much kinder than his thinking, and he lived to tell the tale. I wish the book were out. Write and ask him for it. (steven@sashen.com)

And ask when he’s going to teach his next seminar, too. He only teaches on request.

The next seminar will hopefully be on the Instant Advanced Meditation or IAM.

http://www.advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?af=570391

If Katie’s Work is ACIM in 4 questions and a Turn Around, Steven’s IAM is a kinder reality now. It really is instantaneous.

Again, instantaneous is not necessarily “better.” Sometimes a full Worksheet in Katie’s way is exactly what I needed. Sometimes A Course in Miracles. Sometimes IAM. 

I’ve learned a lot from Steven.

So on with my story.  

I’ve told you about last night’s dreams, which include my childhood home. Let me tell you about a job.

Right now, I’m working a temp job at a place that houses counselors, nurses and psychiatrists who see the mentally and developmentally challenged members of our community. There is also an office manager, a person who helps these clients manage their money, and a couple of other business support staff.

Maybe I work temp jobs because I was traumatized by working for my father and going down on him both at the office and at home. I always knew some day I’d grow up and be able to work some other job. But there’s that compulsion to repeat that Levine mentions. I even had sex with co-workers at my very next job, working for an attorney when I was 16 and just out of high school.

I’ve been blessed to be supported by boyfriends and husbands for several periods in my life. This has allowed me to go to school, write, teach and work towards doing something with my background that might be healing for others and continue my own healing in the process.

That’s the job I really want. Well, more truthfully, that’s the job I really have.

So, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’ll bet you can put some pieces together and understand how it is that I have tried many major leaps to see how they would go in my attempts to create my dream home, which is my dream job. I moved to Georgia one year to see if I could build my dream there. My dream is how I came to go to Ireland last September. It is what I dreamed of doing with Audrey’s home. It is why I jumped in feet first to see if Paul was the partner I dreamed of who would work with me and complement my talents of writing, teaching and counseling, with his talents in storytelling, sales and money management.

When something looks like the Next Step toward my dream, I take it.

A Home, A Job and A Dream – Healing Trauma

It is my dream to live in an intentional community where I work with like-minded others teaching, writing and counseling.

Maybe I’ll post the latest version of that as a Cowgirl Interlude.

I would love to find others who share that dream with me, living and working together.

In fact, let me put that as a request.

If you feel moved to live and work with others who have experienced life paths of trauma, healing trauma and sharing with others about how to heal trauma, especially the perceived threat of sexual abuse, comment on this blog. I will reply to all serious inquiries.

We need funding, a location, a business manager, an editor, a book publisher, a computer geek or three, as well as teachers, healers, counselors and writers.

So that is my story of my childhood home and jobs, my current home and jobs, and how they relate to my waking and sleeping dreams.

It’s almost time to go to the temp job, so I’ll post this and I may edit it some over the next few days.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Love and many blessings, Ann

Shampoo Series – “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” Lesson 153, A Course in Miracles

There is no incompatibility between me and Paul that total defenselessness wouldn’t solve. That may be true with everyone, of course. There is only One of us here.

“Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Perhaps you will recall the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants.

Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight?”

The full text of this lesson is found here:

 http://miraclevision.com/acim/wbk/pc/workbook153-1.html

 The terminology of A Course in Miracles is very Christian. I like that.

Katie says, “Defense is the first attack.” 

Can you find that?

Think of 3 ways you can prove that thought from your own experience and understanding.

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause-effect relationship.”

                                               – Ann O’Johnson

5 Minutes to Deep Peace on Thursday 9/13

You will be entertained at the very least and enlightenment is an option.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310

Thursday, 9/13, there is a teleconference call where you can learn more about this. There will be sample meditations and a chance at a free gift worth $400.

http://advancedmeditation.com/cmd.php?Clk=2095310 

Trust me. You want to try this. The IAM Meditations are the product of the fertile mind of Steven Sashen who is also responsible for much of the Shampoo Method we talk about here every day.

It’s completely safe. I’d trust this guy with my life.

This feeling, this is what we have all been looking for our whole lives. It’s like coming home.

Love, Ann  

Jen Lancaster? She Rocks.

I am so totally getting into this book by Jen Lancaster: Bright Lights, Big Ass.

http://www.jennsylvania.com/

I tried a part time job at my favorite major bookseller, Borders. I was hoping to garner enough to pay rent on a part time, later hours job, so that I could entertain myself writing this blog in the mornings, and eventually, the book of Ann’s Tale.  I twisted my ankle at Paul’s son’s graduation back on Memory Day, and reluctantly took my leave of the 8 hour shifts of standing. Well, I don’t miss the standing part, but I do miss working with book people and getting paid to tell people what to read all day. That was awesome.

Did you know the whole store is your personal library if you work for them? Ooo la la! And you can check out the publisher’s advance copies of beaucoups of fabulous new books. Man, oh man. Book Worm Heaven!

So, our trainer, Reba, she told us one day we could take any book we liked from a stack of these promo copies. She said she personally recommended this Jen Lancaster book, Bright Eyes, Big Ass. So, I went for it.

And Jen? Jen can write like a Valley Girl Erma Bombeck.

Oh. My. God.

Like that.

You totally know what her voice inflection would be like if she was sitting there sipping coffee with you while you laugh your ass off at her book. I mean uproariously. If I weren’t so unselfconscious and exhibitionistic I would not read this in public! I laugh at this book like there is no tomorrow.

I am kinda known for my laugh anyway. I really let myself go when I laugh (or cry).

I’ve already found myself at the Braying Donkey, a new coffee shop,  with a girl who refuses to speak to me because I once moved in – as a roommate – with one of her exes she broke up with 2 years before that!1 Well, I was reading Jen Lancaster and looked up to spy Becky just sitting there, turned in her chair so her back was to me, so she could, like, pretend she didn’t know I was there. But then I’m laughing to beat the band at this Jen Lancaster book. There’s no way on Earth that everyone didn’t know I was there. People passing by on the street looked in to see what was so damned funny.

Honestly, when I first looked at the book, I thought there was no way I was going to like it. Why? It wasn’t science fiction. It wasn’t a mystery. And it mentions current events and celebrities. 2

But I? I heart Jen Lancaster.

My trainer used that one, too. Pretty clear what it means. Who knew that ancient bumper sticker would become a colloquialism?

Jen writes these cute little footnotes to her stories, too. 3

She spices up the book with little emails she writes to her girlfriends about her day. I won’t try that one here because I don’t know how to put it in a text box and make it look right.

She reads like your favorite gossipy neighbor next door. And it’s amazing how hilarious that can be . . . and how hopeful.

So, look her up if you need a laugh, and sometimes I just really, really do. It could relieve your depression.

Jen Lancaster, the next Erma Bombeck.

http://www.jennsylvania.com/

Besides, I like anyone who hates Halloween as much as I do!

Love, Ann

1 – I tried to call her about it and she never returned my phone calls. I figured he was being a better friend than she was, so I packed my bags and moved in, trading cooking for rent. Our rooms were on opposite sides of a living room in a remodeled high school and I swear I never touched him.

2. I don’t even watch TV and very few movies.

3. Like this, but she knows how to superscript her footnotes and I haven’t figured that out on WordPress.

Shampoo Series – Peace

Good morning,

Thank you for the vacation.

There’s a theme today in the emails I’ve replied to from friends, and in my response to one of Eric Francis’ articles on dioxin contamination in New Paltz, on his web site. 

             http://planetwavesweekly.com/dadatemp/1267134807.html

We live in a world where we focus on our seeming separation.

Separation from what?

Call it whatever you like, but I call it God, peace, all-that-is, solutions, etc.

The other day Russ wrote to thank me for the “effort” I put in to “slow down and meet him at his Pacing.”

(Pacing is described in the link to the right under Pages called “Compatibility Factors.”) 

Russ and I spent several hours together Monday afternoon and evening. Up till now, he always felt exhausted after he saw me. He wrote to tell me it was the best time he had ever spent with me.

I had no conscious thought of “slowing down to meet his Pacing.”  

I wrote him back and suggested that possibly the difference in our time together, in fact, any difference in any experience that any human being ever has, lies inside, in our own thoughts, not in anything external.

He can think I did something different, and give me credit, but that only continues the illusion that we’re separate. If I let him think that I am responsible for his feeling good about our time together it perpetuates the lie that we are separate, the lie that I can “make” him feel anything, the lie that he is a victim, the list goes on and on.

Notice it’s just as true when he’s feeling “good” as when he is feeling “bad.”

That may sound tricky, but it’s not. All you do is check inside and find what’s true. That is what the entire Shampoo Series is about.

We find peace when we love the truth, especially when the truth conflicts with the lies we are constantly telling ourselves. What a relief!

I noticed some of those same themes when I read Eric Francis’ article linked above.

I love Eric dearly. He is the best astrologer I have ever read or consulted. See www.planetwaves.net if you want to treat yourself to this man’s writings and thoughts.

On the link above, Eric writes about his involvement in exposing a dioxin hazard in New Paltz, NY.

“My life is often thrust into chaos as a result of getting re-involved. My business typically suffers, my energy runs low, and along the way, I have to face my own fears and inner demons.”

Eric says he gets involved, “not entirely voluntarily.”

As wise as Eric is, on this issue, he seems to believe that he is a victim helping other victims.

Eric is a fellow student of A Course in Miracles. I invite you, Eric, and you, my blog readers, to consider that “there is another way of looking at this.” Just as students of ACIM find the inner peace that enables us to do the outer work in a clear, relaxed, guided and far more effective way, I suggest there is a more powerful way of thinking that can be engaged here, one that has no victims – not Eric, not the students, no victims at all.

Yes, of course, there are actions to take, people to talk to, clean up to do and Reality to face. We can act from clarity in a way that isn’t exhausting, that is completely voluntary and guided from within.

How do we know what Reality is?

Well, we inquire.

We ask inside.

Is it true? Can I absolutely know this thought is true?

How do I react or live when I believe this thought?

Who would I be without this thought, this story?

Then we Turn It Around and check all the opposite thoughts to see if they are as true or truer than the original thought.

Usually, the original thought hurts.

In Question #3, “How do I react or live when I believe this thought?” we discover exactly how it hurts, how much it hurts, how ineffective we are, how stressful the thought is.

In Question #4, we do a thought experiment.

“Who would I be without this story?”

Generally, Question #3 shows us our stress. Question #4 shows us our peace.

Don’t believe a word I say. Check.

Find out if  Katie’s statement “Reality is kinder than your thinking,” is true or not.

One of the reasons I took a break last week is that Paul, a man I knew from 7th grade to 10th grade, got in touch with me recently. I had no idea that he had a crush on me back then. I certainly did not imagine that he had been looking for me all these years, and that he is still interested in me.

Paul flew me to visit him and to attend his son’s graduation from high school.

Paul is worshipping me. He has many years of Romantic Mythology (see Compatibility Factors again) built up about who I am and what it would be like to be my lover, even my husband. There is no way I will ever be the person he has built up in his mind.

Byron Katie says, “No two people have ever met.”

Think for 2 seconds and you will realize she is right. All we ever meet is our ideas and thoughts about other people. We don’t meet them.

Paul wants to let Reality in, see who we are now and go from there. So do I.

I introduced him to Katie’s work through her introductory CD on her first book, Loving What Is. I pointed him to her web page. He couldn’t sleep last night and he watched all of her videos.

Wow.

I wonder what is next.

I have not told Paul something, and the first time he will hear this will be in this blog. For about 40 days I did Steven Sashen’s Goal-Free Goal Setting Mediation, which includes The Work and several other ways to move from the lies to the truth and from stress into peace, on the idea of getting married again.

I wrote Steven to tell him that it doesn’t matter one bit whether I ever get married again or not. That’s a place of clarity, wholeness, acceptance from which our Next Step naturally emerges. I call it Spontaneous Right Action.

It doesn’t matter one iota what happens next. Yes and no are the same answer.

I’m doing the Goal-Free Goal Setting now on my income and career. No telling what may arise from that. Steven Sashen is the creator of the Quantum Wealth course. He says it helps us to “do the inner work that leads to the outer work that leads to the inner work.” I think I got that right.

Details on Steven’s class are at http://www.quantumwealth.com/ 

Love, Ann

“Peace in our minds and in our lives is a cause-effect relationship.”

                                                               – Ann O’Johnson

Shampoo Series – Reality Is Kinder Than Your Thinking

So much is relaxing in me since yesterday’s epiphanies with Cricket.

I’m pretty blissed out.

Oddly, since part of what has relaxed is my addiction to informing and being informed, I’m casting about a little for today’s blog. Funny how that works.

 You know, I think I’m just going to wait until something arises for me to say.

Love, Ann

“Reality is kinder than your thinking – but only always.”

                                  – Byron Katie

Shampoo Series – Image Management or “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to
hide them.

– Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

 

Or, as Katie puts it:

“If I had a prayer it would be

‘God spare me from the desire for love, approval and appreciation.'”

It took a bit for me to get my mind around that. I mean, sometimes my whole life is about that!  Oops.

It is a logical extension of “Whose business are you in when you think that thought?”

I think I know what other people are thinking. I even think I know what they think of me. I do not. It’s not even a useful thing to know if I could know.

First, it’s all a story, anyway.

Unless I’m going to investigate that story and find out what part (if any) of it is true, what use is it?

Just as we lie to ourselves about other people and situations in our lives, other people do the same thing. Their lies about me are probably 😉 pretty close to my own lies about me.

Oh sure, it’s fun to hear a lie I haven’t found yet.

That’s why it’s so cool to ask others to do a Worksheet on me. They catch some of the ones I haven’t found yet. Very helpful. I get blissed out when I find the truth side of some lie I barely knew I was telling.

I learned really fast not to ask questions that I didn’t want the answers to when I was dating Cricket. He’s a man of extremely few words (except when he’s not). But if I asked a direct question, well, I got an honest answer. I learned what to do with those, too!  Inquire!

But if I’m going to take their lies and make them my own lies, what good is that?

That’s what most of us do with other people’s opinions. Me, too.

I find out what lies they are telling themselves about me so that I can tell the same ones.

Check. Is that peaceful or stressful?

Pick one. Anything.

My boyfriend thinks I talk too much.

(You can choose your own thought to investigate.)

So, then I lie to me, too. I think I talk too much. 

1.  Is that true?

2.  Can I absolutely know that it’s true?

3.  How do I live my life when I believe that thought?

3a. How do I treat myself when I believe that thought?

3b. How do I treat my boyfriend when I believe that thought?

3c. Does that thought bring me peace or stress?

4. Who would I be without that thought?

Turn it around (to self, other or opposite).

This is The Work of Byron Katie. Further examples and explanations are at www.thework.org and in this blog, including Pages on the right.

Katie says she is “just someone who knows the difference between what hurts and what doesn’t.”

Isn’t that a nice thing to find out?

Love, Ann

“Reality is kinder than your thinking – but only always.”

                          – Byron Katie

 

 

 

Sexual Healing

On my 33rd day of complete sexual abstinence, I’m thinking about the sexual healing that led to this and wondering how to take that a bit farther, as well as when and how I might want to break my fast.

If someone came to me as a professional asking about sexual healing, depending on the person and the circumstances, I might recommend sexual surrogacy work. Surrogacy work is designed to provide a professional relationship space that can give sexual healing to those who are unable or unwilling to date enough to learn through the usual dating and relationship experiences that most of us went through as teenagers and young adults. It’s an alternate way to learn about sex and loving partnership.

I’m trained to do surrogacy work, but I decided 6 years ago that because I am so monogamous, if and when I am in a relationship, that I cannot do that work. Interestingly, my last two clients terminated therapy early because they realized that they wanted to go through their healing in a more usual personal relationship and that they didn’t want to do it in a professional setting. I agreed. They did not have the kinds of severe issues that most people who really need surrogacy have. My trainer works with people who are in wheelchairs or have serious physical limitations and are too worried about that to even ask someone for a date.

Now, I realize that, in relationship or not, I’m monogamous and I really only want to have sex with someone in a committed relationship.

Well, that, of course, brings up questions about committed relationship. Remember, the only commitment I can seriously make is to do my best.  What to do? I’m not a 16 year old virgin (and wasn’t when I was 16, either.) What choices would be healthy for me right now?

Several years ago I was a practice lover and partner to a close friend of mine, who is now, I think, very successfully and happily married. He made good use of the time before he met his wife, going to tantra classes, exploring his fantasies, having a couple of practice relationships with women who understood that he was practicing for marriage. I was one of those women. He did well.

However, I don’t think that he ever got emotionally involved with me or the other couple of women he did this with. He maintained some kind of distance and boundaries that I don’t seem to do. There are definitely differences between us there. His whole life is one big gray area. He doesn’t tend to the extremes that I prefer at all.

I never felt particularly bonded to him, either, he was definitely not a romantic interest to me, just a very intimate friend. But when I realized how monogamous I am, I could no longer have sex with him.

The surrogacy work does have some very good ideas about how to slowly move toward physical intimacy. It breaks down what some people do in one night to several slow sessions with gradually increasing physical intimacy. Surrogacy is available for heterosexual, homosexual and bisexually oriented people.

Here is a brief outline of what that might look like, keeping in mind that it isn’t formulaic. Exercises can be done in different orders and speeds depending on the needs and issues of the client.

Usually, the client is referred from a therapist to the surrogate, and the client continues to see the therapist at the same time, though not always in the same session. There will be regular meetings with the client, surrogate and therapist to discuss progress, but intimate sessions only involve the client and the surrogate.

In the first session, then, the surrogate has background information from the therapist, but the first thing we do is find out the client’s sexual history and listen to their description of their problem and goals. 

I would ask about their childhood sexual experience, both voluntary and involutary. I want to know what childhood sex play they can remember. What was their first experience like? Did they ever experiment with same gender sex? What turns them on? What turns them off?

What brought them to therapy? What issues do they want to resolve? And so on.

There is generally no touching in a first session. I explain that our relationship is a cross between dating and therapy. While I will maintain professional boundaries and ethics, I will be their partner, as well as their teacher.

I particularly emphasize that how we begin and end each session is important. Some day we will say goodbye forever. So, each time we end a session, we want to be very present with each other, very aware of the goodbye. We don’t want to surf over any feelings in those moments because we want a healthy clean ending when our therapy is complete.

Of course, that is different than personal relationships. I remain friends with nearly every lover I’ve ever had. The relationships only change, rather than end.

In the second session, we behave somewhat like two people on a date. We chat a little, find out how things have been going for them since we last saw each other, and I answer any questions that may have come up.

I describe the exercise and then we practice. We may repeat exercises at different times and each exercise builds on the previous one. These surrogacy practices were designed by Masters and Johnson in the late 50’s and 60’s. Most of the work is Sensate Focus exercises, as well as Body Image discussions and exercises and Boundary exercises.

Depending on the training of the surrogate and the needs of the client, other work may or may not be included. Training for surrogates is provided by International Professional Surrogates Association in California.

You can find IPSA on the web at: 

http://www.surrogatetherapy.org/ and 

http://members.aol.com/Ipsa1/basicinfo.html.

There is an excellent interview with my trainer at

 http://www.sexuality.org/vena99.html

Generally, the first exercise is a Boundary Exercise. 

One of us sits in a chair with plenty of space around them for the other to move around and take various positions at various distances from the person in the chair.

The person in the chair reports, on a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable they feel with the other person in whatever position at whatever distance they are.

1 means they are very uncomfortable, about to bolt out of the room.

10 means they are very comfortable, the other person could be in that position just about all day and they’d be fine.

We use this 1 to 10 scale a lot for our exercises throughout the surrogacy work to check in on how comfortable the client is with what we are doing. At first, we check constantly. It is very important when initiating physical contact, especially sexual contact, to notice whether or not we feel okay about what we are doing. Without that, we can easily overstep our own boundaries in one direction or another.

During the Boundary Exercise, I am likely to start standing as far away as I can get in a non-threatening posture, say, with my arms at my sides. I most likely move gradually closer, sometimes turning my back on the client, sometimes facing them. Sometimes I sit, sometimes I stand. I try to vary it as much as possible. I may sit at their feet and look up at them… or down at the floor. I may stand over them, in front or behind them, etc.

We notice our breathing. Are we holding our breath? We notice tensions in our body. We notice feelings, both physical and emotional. What is it like for the other person to be in that position in relation to us?

This give the client a chance to check their own body and feelings, fully clothed just to see when they are comfortable and when they are not. Without this basic skill, it is very hard to know when and how to open to physical contact or sex with another person.

You may recall that sometimes I forget to do this for myself. We all do. We get too close too fast or we hold back when we really need a hug or some physical reassurance.

I think these exercises are very valuable for anyone, not just people with serious doubts about their sexuality or ability to begin and maintain an intimate personal relationship.

I’ll keep going on this soon. I intend to write up the whole protocol with some personal discussion and thoughts about how I’m going to move forward with my own relationships after the abstinence.

Love, Ann