Vows for Relationship Enlightenment

1. I vow to be present and authentic in and apart from our relationship.

Authentic means true to my feelings, wishes, goals and moment by moment inclinations.
It does not demand of you to match, join, or even approve of my authentic self.

And most especially, authentic does not include the cowardly "honesty" of complaining about what's going on in me and blaming that on you.

2. I vow to have zero tolerance for any complaining about you from me. I.e. not to do it.
Ever.

3. I do vow to be honest in my feelings, rather than repressed. To combine this with #2, I vow to state my feelings only in this shortened form:
"I feel angry."  Period. No "because you..."
"I feel sad." Period. No "because you..."

4. I vow to take total responsibility for all the "because-s" after any feelings I have.
These usually include some or all of these:
a. lack of being present
b. a story about how the other is not (and should) match some picture in my mind
c. a trigger from some past "wound," which means an area I haven't "done" the Work on yet.
d. a cowardly attempt/ habit  to blame others outside for what I feel inside.

5. I vow to do the Work ( the Work of Byron Katie, TheWork.com) on any and all of my stories.

6. I vow to commit myself to your happiness, to your achieving your life goals and wishes, to your need for space, time and respect.

7. I vow to listen when you wish to communicate. Fully. In the present. No interrupting. No interpreting.

8. I vow not to interpret any of your behavior, thinking or feeling, unless you are doing some inner work and ASK for this.

9. These are my vows.
You can join them or not. I invite you to, and that's your business.
I you join them, I vow not to nag, scold, or even point out when you "fail" to meet them.

10. On the other hand, I vow to listen to your observations about when and how I have missed the mark on keeping them.

11. I vow to make requests, not demands. Which means I vow to honor and even enjoy any and all "no's" to my requests, as what they are: you exercising your right and joy to be precisely the one whom I love: you being exactly yourself, moment by moment.

Good

Day 20: A peek into the Other Universe

In the fourth question of the work of Byron Katie, we ask: #4: Who or what would I be if I didn’t have this thought, or didn’t attach to this thought?

This isn’t say, “let it go,” though if you can, great.

If you can’t, do this question: imagine just for a second or two, or longer, that the other person is doing whatever they do to drive you crazy, bother, “hurt” you.

And you see them doing it in your mind’s eye.

But you don’t have the story that they should be any different. You don’t believe the should or the shouldn’t.

You aren’t at war with “What Is.”

See how this feels.

Contrast it with how you feel when you do believe (#3) that they should be different, or that the world should be different.

Just notice.

No requirement to shift, change, or as I’ve said, to “let go.” Just notice.

And today, go for all four questions when any unhappiness comes along:

#1: Is it true?

#2: Can I absolutely know that this is true?

#3 How do I react when I attach to this thought?

#4: Who or how would I be without attaching to this thought?

See what happens.

Day 59: Other People and Staying Awake

Again: waking up in ordinary life

Ah, yes, we have a life.

Other people are in our life.

If they annoy us, we can do the work of Byron Katie.

If they don’t annoy us, and we start to have a happy conversation, that is one of life’s great sweet joys.

And we can go even farther.

We can be talking to them with an idea of being awake.

Awake to the wonder of our being alive.

Awake to the wonder of their being alive.

Awake to the wonder of all us humans being alive together on this big and beautiful Earth, and you and the other person being alive and with each other in this moment on this Earth.

Awake to our breathing.

Awake to their breathing.

Awake to the music and rhythm and tone of their voice.

Awake to the music and rhythm and tone of our voice.

Awake to the miracle of awareness, or knowing that we are in this minute, right now.

Awake to the possibility to be silent while they talk, really silent and just soaking in whatever words that they have to say and whatever words they might want to say but aren’t saying.

Awake to the words we are saying and the words we might want to say and aren’t say.

Awake to something between us and the other person that doesn’t require anything to be said.

Awake.

Have a sweet day in this form of play.

Slow down, travel plans, do you want to host?

I have this nice little ongoing
sermon in
this blog:
slow down
and be present.

And I have,
Sometimes,
or even often,
hurried through whatever I was going
to write,
not being present as the words
were being typed along.

Now,
I'm here.

I invite you
to whatever your present is right now.

This is my idea for
a good life:
to live and assist others
in Awakened Gardening
Awakened Movement
Awakened Relationship
Awakened and Ecological Living

Being present is a kick
and a great place to be of use
to myself, others and the planet.

Plans,
alas, are not in the present,
and they do present
a chance to the present
in some other "place"
at some other "time."

I'm interested
in additional hosts,
interested in allowing me to
assist them
as they assist me with a place to stay,
and an "in" to the local plant, nature and people world,
one month at a time.

During that time, I would be delighted to
assist
in all the Awakened pathways
mentioned above,
including either giving
or trading Neurological Upgrading Lessons.

Giving one a day if you have a child
with Special Needs,
or someone recovering from a Stroke or Accident,
or if you are someone
wanting to radically improve your golf,
tennis, feeling inside yourself,
connection to pleasure
and skill,
anti-aging, vitality,
grace and ease of thinking, moving and feeling.

Trading if another practitioner of
the Feldenkrais Method
or the
Anat Baniel Method is my host.
To give and receive daily lessons:
imagine the heaven of that.

Anyway:
as I write about this as yet non-existent world,
the plan world,
I was
slipping out
of the
present,
and here I am again,
back
home,
now

and you are whatever and however and wherever
you are.

So far, these places seem to be part
of my path:
Tucson, Arizona
Atlanta, Georgia
Orcas Island, Washington,
Amish rural Ohio
Chicago

Will keep filling in cities and places
as the pathways get more clear.

Thanks,

Chris