Honor, gratitude and the gift of opening in process

Hello everyone,

I feel a great amount of honor and gratitude working with you all, being allowed into your hearts and souls and shadows...and your holding me so respectfully as I open up and/or enter my own.

This is such a fit for me, an answer to how I want to work with others. (It is also such a fit for my own growth and for what I see is needed between Karen and I as a couple.)

I'm having an interesting time living with more "being." What peace, what "observer self" place, for lack of a better term. Then I also see--as does Karen when I have feelings come up--how some of my newness seems fragile, where I'm quite protective of my new territory. I shared how I achieved so much in life and not been okay with "hanging," not okay with "partying" much at all. Well, if I'm so judgmental of self this will certainly get in the way with both personal relationships and clients. Anyway, I feel protective of this new territory...to protect my "hanging" and "cutting loose." It's interesting to see how I protect "it" or myself as though I'm protecting a child. Anyway, I'm protecting the very thing I used to be so judgmental about. Interesting, as I believe that this is not only understanding that is opening up, but compassion as well.

A huge learning for me is how huge it is have someone be a listener, a witness of process. (Of course, as counselor we not only listen, but also evoke there very process and keep it on track.) A few weeks ago I attended a 7-day Enlightenment Intensive where, when taking my turn as contemplator, I could communicate whatever arose as a result of my contemplation. It was an enormous opportunity to both allow stuff to surface, to recognize it for what it is, and to let it go through the process of communication.

Then, one of my compatriots from that event shared (from a private experience), "...if (as a circumstance arose for you, or between yourself and another and) you had a committed listener and enough time to discuss absolutely everything connected to (whatever issue)--to dramatize it, feel all the feelings, say what needed to be said, shout, scream, whatever--you might get underneath it in a way which simply has it be gone. ...When it is gone, you are simply you, unbent-out-of-shape."

My friend's writing endorsed for me the freedom to have the necessary process I need at times. And, as I get clearer, cleaner experience I can better tell what is perhaps just venting reactive, stuck crap vs. emoting as I move through something. I'm also--sometimes painfully--aware of how some people are not open to my very needed "communication release." In fact, I'd say that it is culturally accepted that someone is suspect if doing so. It's just not understood for the healthy process that it is.

All of this speaks to both the great needs people have of this work in the world, the need for us to become clear in ourselves in order to facilitate the process, and how we can't really be effective without the requisite compassion.

Much love and respect to you all,