The true spirit of Christmas.

Jingle bells, shining lights, presents and Santa Claus in his red suite (invented by Coca Cola).

The media give us an image of a neurotic ‘I love you all’ event, once a year. Many people stick to that but of course the true spirit of Christmas is something very different.

The true spirit has to do with reflecting, exploring the darkness and shadows of your soul and see how to bring light in there.
What happened during the last year that made you close your heart, what happened during your life that made you tough on yourself and others. Reflecting on these matter and next share them with the people you love. That is the true spirit of the sharing of presents with Christmas. Connecting on a deep level with yourself and from there with others, being vulnerable, open and receptive, willing to give yourself and receive the others just the way they are.

Find people that are willing to share this Christmas spirit with you. You may find them in unexpected places while you may find that the ones you really would like to share with are not available. Just focus on yourself, be like a Christmas tree, right up, with light and beauty for those who want to look at it.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Therapy & Coaching (part 2)

Therapy is integrating the past into the present.
It means giving a name to all the animals in your dark forest. Acknowledging everything that was always ignored, allowing the pain of the Past into the Now. No need to push it away.
Shedding all the tears that were never shed.

Coaching is using this experience to redefine your future relation with others but above all, with yourself.
Changing your goals in accordance with a new perspective of yourself.
Adopting more adequate values for those that we left in the therapeutic process.

Therapy is cleaning your garden, turning the soil around and taking the weeds out.
Coaching is deciding what flowers or vegetables you want, what is the right moment for planting and when it will be time to harvest.

Therapy & Coaching (part 1)

Biosynthesis is a somatic psychotherapy. It is a holistic approach of the human being that unites the cognitive, somatic and spiritual aspects in search for essential being.
It is developed by David Boadella based on the work of Freudian therapists, Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen. There is also a strong influence from several pre-natal psychologists and neurological scientists. Sylvia Specht brought in the energetic flow work based on the philosophy by Bob Moore.

Essential somatic coaching has the same basic influences.
Next to that, there are influences from postmodern philosophers and transpersonal psychologists like Ken Wilber, Thomas Moore, Stephen Levine and Zen teachers like Osho. Mindfulness, an important tool in ESC, derived from the ancient Za-Zen mediation technique.
ESC is open to enrichment from other techniques and philosophies as long as they are not redundant.

Why ESC when Biosynthesis already has such a complete vision of the human being?

For that, we have to look at global development. The main keyword for our time is probably, ‘Efficiency’. People ask for focused and short-term processes. Their agendas are full and everyday they try to get the most from life. With the industrial revolution that started in the 19^th century, everything changed in the world. Psychology and psychotherapy developed as a logical result because there was a need for them; nowadays they are fully integrated in our way of living.
In the end of 20^th century, computers changed our lifestyle dramatically. The modern human starts to think digitally in a partial virtual world. This has a huge effect on how we experience the world and what we want from it.

Here we have to look at the differences between therapy and coaching.
The main difference is that therapy pretends to help you integrate the Past into the Present. Understanding your past makes you realize why you live your life the way you do. You become aware of patrons and central motivations, and then you can change them where necessary.
In general, this is a long and profound process. It is intense and in the end gratifying and will change the foundations of your life.
No doubt, it takes a lot of time and is therefore costly.

Not everybody wants to spend so much money or commit to a process that often takes years. Today, people want solutions, focused and quick, they want to move on with their lives.
Here Essential Somatic Coaching has an important role because its core is preparing you or the near future. It is structured, focused and clear where therapy is often strolling through the darkness of your Soul without knowing what the next step will be.

Do not get me wrong because I do not intend to say that one is better than the other is.
They are just different approaches and it is very likely that who started with therapy at a certain moment wants to develop clear tools to handle the near future while those that achieved these tools through coaching may want to explore their deeper motivations and get a better understanding of their foundations in life.
It is a matter of priorities.

(to be continued)

The world is my oyster.

Today I am in a writing mood.
I share a little secret with you, it’s only to avoid other things that I should be doing but do not fancy at this moment.
The world is my oyster, I do whatever I like to.

Sometime ago I already talked about the fact that everything is or should be pulsating. From the smallest cell in your body to the whole of the immense cosmos, always expanding and shrinking.
This is not only true for living things that we can sort of touch or see but also for thoughts, cultural movements, religion, anything.
If the pulsation is limited or even frozen, there will be sickness soon.

I woke up thinking about the Islamic invasion of the western world, as some, every time more, people call it. I realized that the rise and downfall of religion is a clear example of the pulsation law.

For centuries the Catholic religion has dominated the world, the very essence of this religion (of any religion) contains truth. Instead of only valuing this truth, the people started to value power. They started to rape, murder and violate others just to expand the religion in the name of God and subsequently gain more power. Millions were killed in these processes of Christening.
Such a paradox, because God is supposed to be Love.

With all this misuse and abuse it is predictable that the interest in and influence of, this religion is going down. The law of pulsation says that if something shrinks, something else will start to expand. It is a natural life process.

Therefore the Islam is expanding, as well as, more alternative new age thinking on religion. People complaining about the expansion of the Islam should realize that this was made possible, only, because of the abuse in the Catholic religion. If they had valued the true essence, instead of allowing the corrupt to take the rudder, what would the world look like today?
If you want to talk of blame, what is there to learn?

Of course, we can see the same thing happing in the Islam.
It is growing, expanding but the preaching of hatred and violence, discrimination is already preparing its downfall that will come maybe in a few hundred years, who knows.
There is always room the make a constructive shift.

In the meantime, for everyone, it is important to protect your own essential identity, instead of turning to rejection and discrimination.

Include others without adapting to them, make your boundaries clear without violating the boundaries of others, let your voice be heard without shouting down the other. Look at others as if you were looking at yourself, what good do you see and is there to learn for each of us?

The world is your oyster, step inside with respect for the pearl that is growing.

Health Care Paranoid Cow Syndrome (HCPCS)

A few weeks ago I went to a private hospital because of a really painful kidney stone. In a symbolic meaning these stones are petrified tears which makes sense to me. Painful emotions that were not or not completely expressed in a pulsatile flow.
But that is not what I want to write about today.

After entering the hospital and showing my insurance card, I was treated like a King, a dying King. I was put on a bed and given painkillers, what a relief, but I could sit in a chair with no problem. Seeing the bill later; lying on the bed for 1 hour, price €130.
Than they started to make X-rays, abdomen and lungs ( for a kidney stone) followed by Cat-scans €135 each and finally a echogram which was the only sensible thing to do for only €35. The whole bill was over €920 just to confirm what I already knew.

I was getting very suspicious, I felt like a cow being milked. There were two urologists coming to my expensive bed telling me that the best options was to take the stone out directly or I could leave it to see what nature would do.
I chose the last.

After a few days I was getting fever and the petrified tears were still blocking the way out. Extreme pains, so I went back to the hospital and asked to schedule a surgery to take the stone out, I needed some help.
It was scheduled for two days later. The morning I went to the hospital I felt that there was a difference, therefore I wanted to talk to the specialist and said that I did not want the surgery, just another echogram to see what has changed.

He agreed and send me to make to make more ten Cat-scans with contrast fluid, €137 each and since they had me planned for a day in the hospital they gave me a roll with ham and cheese and a drink €2500. The specialist ensured me to come back in a month to make more Cat-scans, very important.

From that day, I suffer from Health Care Paranoid Cow Syndrome.
I do not know whether a doctor is really caring about my health and giving me the best options or he or she just sees a fast growing bank account.

This was an expensive lesson, do not trust the doctor if your intuition is telling you otherwise. For the record, I also went to see alternative medicine that normally helps me well but this time did not result.

I understood that the only one to cry my tears is me, no-one else can do that for me. They just take advantage, at least in my allopathic case.

Body Mind (2)

The relation between body and mind is something so sensible that most of the time we do not notice it. When we think of something bad the body responds with tension of certain muscles, on the other hand when we think of something good or pleasant the body reacts with muscle relaxation.

The so called positive thinking is most of the time a stressful attempt to avoid all the negative thoughts that we have, even if we are not aware of them. Therefore this positive thinking will not help you because the body remains tense or will even tense more.

The real positive thinking is realizing that you are in this moment. When you read this, that is all there is, you and this text.

Because you took the time to sit down and read, it means that the past is not hunting you at this moment, nor is the future.
So relax your shoulders, belly feet, legs, eyes, neck and all you do is read calmly every word and breath in slowly knowing that all energy is coming your way, entering your system. When you breath out, feel the chair under your buttocks and let all body tension run out of your pores. You are here.

Your mind becomes so much more empty, silent and receptive for the miracle of life, the miracle of your Being. You can experience that you are the center of your world and everything is okay at this moment.

Body – Mind connection means being present in this moment.

Of course you have to prepare things for tomorrow and deal with other things that you did yesterday but do not bring your presence there into the future or past. Be here. Be Body Mind.

Sleep tight with a deep sigh and wake up fresh inhaling deeply.

XXX

Who am I & who are You ???

The majority of our western population spend their time in pretending to be someone that they are not. Driven by the need for being accepted as a useful member of our society they are willing to sacrifice all that is genuine, all that has true value. From very young, the children are stacked away in crèches while the older people are kept safely in nursing homes. In the meantime the adult generation steps into the daily rat race of keeping up appearances.
Earning a living as we call it.

But what is living if it takes away all that is really precious, our Essence.

In trying to construct an identity that society values, we do not hesitate to destruct the only real identity that we have.
Isn’t that crazy?

If you suspect that you might be in that illusionary rat race, it is about time to ask yourself.

??? Who am I ???
and next to that, look at your partner, chef, children, parents, friends and whoever falls into your life and ask
??? Who are You ???

This is the only way to end the spiral of craziness that we are in altogether. False identities corrupt, hurt, cause violence, hatred and immense suffering. Earth and Life should be paradise but we turn it into hell and nobody really knows why……..

Family matters and the Alpha principal

Of course family matters, they are important because they are our tribe in life. We were born there, we grew up looking each other in the eyes and knowing each other better then anyone else does.
The family has an identity, norms, rules and values that are specific for that family. Part of that identity is inherited from one generation to the other, another part is imposed through the alpha principal.
The most dominant family member colors the identity, often one of the parents and sometimes the children.
The adolescent age serves to consciously define your own identity and here many things go wrong. People either reject completely the family values and end up naked or they live in symbiosis and do not know how to define themselves. A life long struggle with the family is born. If this happens the best way to act is take a distance from the family and start to investigate your values, distinguish who you are, what remains. Don't wait for your family to resolve this because that will never happen. The struggle will go on until you resolve it within yourself and this includes accepting the others just the way they are.

A confusing process, indeed.

But it is difficult to clean your shoes while you remain standing in the mud.
Therapy can be of enormous help to redefine your identity. From there you may start to contact the family again but with a different attitude, a different Self awareness but still the same person-

become your own alpha.

The value of Catharsis

Catharsis means, the cleansing of pent up emotions. Normally it is a intense release of anger, jealousy, sadness or fear with a lot of screaming, breathing and movement. 
In the sixties and seventies catharsis was very important in somatic therapies, it was like a crown on the work. But is it??
No, it is not. It is not the final objective of therapy, not at all.
It may be a door to integration but that depends on many things.
The most important thing is that the client is ready for the cathartic experience, if that is so, it will come as a natural flowing expression from the client.
When catharsis is provoked by pressure of the therapist or the group it seems to be something intense and the client will maybe feel released for a little while and then it will disappear because he or she was not ready. Waste of energy and often re-traumatizing the client.
The important part of the catharsis is the aftermath, the silence where the dust settles down. This silence is different from meditation where we focus on centering.
If the catharsis was true then it opens a door and here we can make the first step into the unknown. The unconscious where the repressed emotions waited for maybe a lifetime to be revealed.
Here many insight can pop up, you can integrate and you do not feel the need to express the same emotion over and over again.
But like I said, many cathartic explosions are only showing off, most of the time unconsciously but not always, so be aware.
If you can focus during the catharsis and there is a deep silence afterwards where you can start to explore you emotional cellar. 
Well, so good for you.

A Life in the Day

John  Lennon’s song “A day in the Life” was one of the most influential songs of the Beatles. Yes, I know that McCartney also did a part of the song, “Woke up, fell out of bed”, okay, okay.

Do we ever look to our life cycle in a day’s time?
We wake up, it is like being born again, coming out of a strange state of mind that is called Sleep. Or is it something else?
Then we start to organize our life, preparing for what some call struggle of survival. It is like our childhood and going into adolescence. After that, we close the door behind us and step into the street. Leaving the relatively safe place of our birth family, exposed to the ‘real’ world.

We work, study, communicate, we are busy until 18:00 and it is like we are building our life’s career and at a certain moment we come to the age of our pension.  Some of us are looking forward to the evening of our life, doing the things we always wanted to do. Others are scared because they know that the night will be followed by the Big Sleep that we may compare with physical death. For those that have no dreams it means darkness, for the dreamers it will be a shift of perspective.

Looking back at our life, most of us we like to make changes, “If I could do it over again….”
Isn't it wonderful that our every day lifespan gives as the opportunity to make changes every 24 hours, we can do things all over again. We wake up young and refreshed, and we can do things differently this day… and we can die content at night.

Isn’t Life perfect, giving us these great opportunities in such a normal way that lots of us do not see them, it is too normal.

Lets help each other to wake up and open our eyes instead of falling out of bed. Like Lennon and McCartney composed together and at that time they didn’t like each other anymore but they were still working together, creating something beautiful.

We can work it out.

A Case of Enlightenment

Enlightenment is probably the most badly understood concept in our time. At least, most of the people I meet talk about a flash of all purifying light, an extreme change in your perception and behavior, Love, ultimate understanding, etc.

What they all have in common is that something radical is going to happen, a final transformation that will free you from ordinary earthly matters.

Such a disappointment when I tell that they already are enlightened, all the potential is there and has been all of the time. It is hard to make a convenient metaphor but I’ll give it a try.

Just imagine yourself in one of these dark and starry nights in full nature, the wind is whispering through the trees, an owl screams in the distance and you are all alone.
A falling star draws a fiery line in the sky but you do not see it because you are looking down to find your way in the darkness.
The wind sings a song with a million voices but you do not hear it because you can only hear your accelerated heartbeat.
The owl sends you a greeting but all you hear is a bird that may be disturbed by someone. And you are all alone, who is there?
Than you see a shadow on your path, Jesus Christ, is that someone looking for me or a thief trying to rob me? I better hide in the bushes.
You do not realize that the shadow is your own, cast by the moon. The moon is a symbol of birth and transformation, represented by the Goddess Hecate, the purifier.
Exploring the shadow could bring you an enormous insight, namely, that it belongs to you.Instead of walking with a tunnel vision and hearing, we should learn to stand still and to look up to see the stars and the moon, hear the song of a million voices and the salutation of the owl who happens to be a symbol of wisdom and ancient secrets. Just listen and watch to recognize that it is all there, enlightenment is a very complicated but simple issue, wake up.

We are born enlightened creatures but most of us prefer to crawl in the mud, no problem because we have a free will, we can do whatever we like, it is part of enlightenment.

BE…

The beauty of life is, that it will sustain itself, if we let it.

We will have all the support we really need coming at just the right time.
Our questions will have answers if we stop to listen.
Others will see us if we show ourselves and we can see others if we truly look at ourselves.
Relations will be based on Love instead of needs.
Freedom will be like floating in the river of Life, just watching the landscape passing by.
If you want to see angels flying around, just see them.
If you want to be filled with Light, just let it happen.
Everything is possible on this voyage to the core of your essential Being.
Embrace your true Being.

It is vulnerable in this world of ignorance because it has no limitations, no boundaries and it will create its own law:

Just Be.

The importance of forgiving.

People talk a lot about the importance of forgiving in an attempt to create a better world. Forgiving is important as a step on the way, but, it is not the final objective because it implies guilt. Forgiveness can not exist without blaming the other. First we blame and say that the other is guilty of something that did hurt us. Then we forgive.

It is a paradox, first we blame, then we forgive the other.

Forgiveness is a step on the way towards Freedom, the final goal is freedom. Once you understand that your life is yours only and that every action or non-action is your responsibility and to learn from, then  maybe you can understand that nobody can blame you for that. Of course there are consequences for your actions but they also are yours and yours alone. You cannot be held guilty for living your life’s experience the way you created it, simply because it is your life.

Therefore, at a certain moment you will not be forgiving others anymore, nor blame them. You will simply live your life and I trust that when you reach that point your life will be an example for all.

Only when we connect positive and negative without judging them true Light will shine, all other light is an illusion. A wish to be better then we think we are, because we are still pushing our shadow away.

Freedom is embracing positive and negative, fuse and sparkle.

The importance of touch

My father in law died and was buried yesterday.
His funeral started with a mess in a chapel. A young priest with a merry round head preached to the people gathered in the small chapel. He talked about the importance of touch.

Touch is an important issue in a human life. We can touch a person with our eyes, with the words that we speak, we can metaphorically touch a person’s heart but the most important is maybe the physical touch. The physical touch can be clinical, casual, abusive or loving and supportive. What they all have in common is that they have an intention, nobody touches without any intention. Therefore touch is an intended movement from one to another.

When you touch another person with a loving, supportive intention, something magical happens. The person relaxes and seems to come to the point of contact, muscles there become more alive.
Touching someone in this way means confirming his or hers existence.
It is like saying, “I see you and respect you for who you are.”

Recognition is a vital ingredient of life and touch is a strong way of recognizing someone. Nowadays there are somatic psychotherapists that promote psychotherapy without touch. This is a reaction to the threat of sewing a person in puritan countries like the U.S.A. for sexual abuse in therapy. I am sure that this sometimes happens but if you know that 30% of all people, as children, were somehow sexually abused in their family we cannot say, let’s put all children in an orphanage directly after being born to prevent them from possible abusive family members.

Therefore, I admire the priest, whose name I do not know, for speaking freely about the importance of touching each other. Especially because the priests are scrutinized for all the sexual abuse that happen(s)(ed) in church. And it all started with a simple touch.
Jesus touched to heal, Judas kissed to betray and Lionel Ritchie sings, ‘It started with a kiss, never thought it would come to this.’

It is not in the touch itself but in the intention and awareness of the touching person. 

Bio responsibility

Biosynthesis means integration of life.
In the Biosynthesis’s view this integration is not limited to the persons psychic, somatic or mental well-being. It stretches far beyond the personal limits and embraces our whole life system.

A person who is in contact with his or her essential being has a natural flow towards healthiness that includes a responsibility for the bigger picture. These are simple things like:

• Taking public transportation instead of alone in the car.
• Buying vegetables instead of meat.
• Separating the garbage.
• Cooking your own meals instead of frozen pre-cooked.
• Teaching your children more than what they learn at school.
• Looking at other people to see that they are unique and therefore not different from you.
• Looking for growth instead of compensation for all the things that are hard in your life, knowing that our children copy our behavior, they value our attitudes.
• Caring for a just political system with a vote from the heart.
• Understanding that greed is one of the biggest destroyers in our world, so live simple and act in faith, believing that what you really need will be there.

The most beautiful diamond can be found within each of us but its facets will always reflect the world that surround us. If you want to polish your diamond, right… You have to polish the world around you. 

Integrating the Underworld

Biosynthesis can be a journey to realize your biggest potential.

When we speak of Essence in Biosynthesis, for me, we speak of the potential to realize the divine within us. Enter in contact with the God or Goddess within.

That may sounds pretentious but I believe that each of us can discover that our deepest and maybe final desire is exactly this longing for divinity. For most people it is already hard to admit that we are divine creatures, see the reflection in our society. Once we contact that particular desire we have to find the courage to go on a journey into our underworld.

Dwelling in our shadows, in the claustrophobia of repressed emotions and soul expressions to find the burning ruby that is the symbol for passion and embrace for Life in its total existence. With the glow of the ruby you can find the Horn of Plenty, owned by Hades. Discovering this horn within yourself means revealing all your potential.

Only then we can climb the stairs towards the light and join the two polarities of our Being.

Mindfulness

One of the latest concepts of modern therapy is Mindfulness.
It is discovered and brought to us as a good tool to achieve concentration and inner peace.
The funny thing is that Mindfulness exists for thousands of years in Zen traditions and it is a way to achieve ultimate focus in non-being , or illumination.

Practicing Mindfulness is like the positive affirmations, the more you recite that you are only a miracle of love, the more your shadow side will bang on the door to be seen. In this way it will help us to bring light to our shadow and balance or integrate our being. Most of our shadow is unconscious, therefore shining a little light there will make us aware of its existence.

Mindfulness or Zazen, as it may be called in the ancient practice, has a same sort of effect.
The more we practice unity and inner peace, the more it will help us understand how restless we really are in the western world.
It is a journey into the realm of our Soul and our responses to an ever more dynamic or challenging world.

Mindfulness, a mind full of nothingness.

Compassion Meditation

What is compassion?
Compassion is a human emotion prompted by the pain of others. More vigorous than empathy, the feeling commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another's suffering. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism.

Next to relieving the pain of others, compassion can be a strong tool to learn about yourself.
Most of the time when we are hit by the lighting of compassion, what we want to do is save the other from its own destiny.
Much more interesting is to meditate on that person and see, feel and understand what is going on inside yourself, than, who were you trying to save?

The meditation is as follows:

• Sit anywhere in a public place, just sit and breathe slow and deep, start looking around, just observing.
• A certain person will attract your attention.
• Without judging, observe that person closely, see how he or she is dressed, the way he or she moves, look at all the details, etcetera.
• Observe the thoughts that run through your head without judging them, let them come and go.
• Now, start to wonder, if I were dressed like that, how would I feel? If I said a thing with a voice like that, how would I feel, and so on.
• Slowly you’ll be getting to the essence of that unknown person and with it you’ll be getting to your own essence, otherwise you will bang against your defense.
• If you, like this, connect to your own essence, peace will enter into your system. Probably the need to save will be reduced.
• If you fall into judging you will start to dislike the person you wanted to save in the first place. Realize how important this unknown person has become to you. Observe her or him even closer and identify with all you see and feel.
• Thank the unknown person in silence and just observe your emotions.

Stay awake

The world seems to be going crazy. Suddenly all priests are pedophiles, the financial crisis is coming back again because the banks are still very greedy institutes, people die in natural disasters by the hundreds, Obama is going to be shot because he wants health-care for everyone, in the mean time oil spills threaten four USA states and all the wildlife on their shores.
We have so much horrifying information coming to us every day that it is hard to feel simply happy with a small good thing. We almost should feel guilty for having more than one simple good thing in our life.

All this information is like a big bombardment, people hide in neurosis, depression and craziness to avoid the impact of this all.

In this case closing your eyes will help you to stay awake, to focus on your core, on the things that really matter in your life.

Some people scream, "Wake up, wake, up, we're all going down together". In fact, that is a harsh lullaby to keep you in a big sleep. Waking up means closing your eyes to all these events and just sit still and enjoy the smell of spring coming through the open window.
Of course you can give some money to charity but after sending it, forget about all the good causes, just stay awake. Clear your head, clear your breath and simply humm....