What About Consciousness?

What About Consciousness?
 
 I came across a quote today from Eleanor Roosevelt that I thought spoke beautifully to understanding our perspective in life. This is often referred to as one's level of consciousness.
 
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."  Eleanor Roosevelt.
 
It's a fairly well-known experience in life to be very caught up in the details of something. To be worried and concerned because you just can't see the way through. No solutions are coming to you about your problems.
 
And then something shifts. All of a sudden, we can see a bigger picture. You feel more spacious. You can take a deep breath and your shoulders come down. A sense of flow emerges. You realize there was never any real problem to begin with. Things will sort themselves out. Or the obvious solution is right there, in front of your nose, where it's been all along.
 
I've often seen this phenomenon explained with levels or height and depth metaphors.
 
At a lower consciousness, we get caught up in the details.  There is more urgency, more emotionality. More stress. As we rise in consciousness, we start to be able to calm down, there is less stress, less emotion, and less urgency. At times we realize (hopefully with laughter) that we were making a mountain out of a molehill. Then as consciousness rises even more, we gain more perspective, there is a feeling of spaciousness, expansion, and generally better and better feelings and sensations.
 
Sydney Banks, the Scottish mystic from BC, called these feelings and sensations beautiful feelings. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "look for a beautiful feeling; then go live your life”. You know you are at a nice level of consciousness if you have a beautiful feeling.
 
I’ve found that when people tell me about their problems there are generally three broad levels from where people are stuck.
 
The first is the personal level, where the problem is about a circumstance, an event, or another person. Eleanor's small mind. There is usually more urgency and emotions here. There is a small amount of the energy of life here. As we rise, we come to the impersonal level. This is the level of ideas. Medium mind. There's a little more room to navigate here, more space to breathe. More life energy to work with. If a person has a concern with their spouse, for example, moving from the personal level to the impersonal level might look like exploring what is the nature of relationship. Not all the things he said and did. This usually reveals insights into the truth of life that when the person sees it for themselves, the behaviour or problem on the personal level looks completely different. Or a course of action starts to emerge organically without effort.
 
Where I aim for in my work with others is above the impersonal level to the universal. What is just true for all humans? For example, our unending capacity for love and understanding is a universal truth. The fact that not everybody is living from there, all the time, doesn't make it less true.
 
There are three basic principles that create our experience of life. Sydney Banks articulated them as Universal Mind, Thought, and Consciousness.
 
"the true dreamer, wakes up, sees the illusion, goes back into his dream, knowing that he is the dreamer, and it is indeed all a conscious state, and it's up to you. It is your life. You are all things. You are all things. We are all things. All things are thoughts. All things are illusion. See this, and you'll walk in what is called bliss, or heaven, or in happiness. You see, happiness comes with understanding." - from the Beyond Psychology audio lecture by Sydney Banks. Here is the link to the full 30-minute lecture if you are inspired for more:
 
https://audio.com/sydneybanks-digitallyremastered/audio/syd-banks-beyond-psychology-digitally-remastered
 
So, when I said earlier that "All of a sudden everything shifted", well, what shifted?
 
Consciousness of course! Humans move up and down in consciousness all day long and often don't recognize how good we are at it. If life feels constricted and tense, slow down, take a step back and clear your mind. You will start to feel a sense of ease returning and more expansion. It's our nature. If you stay with it, you'll feel nicer and nicer.
 
When we get out of our own way and let our human spirit guide the way amazing things are possible. We become light hearted. The impossible becomes possible.
 
A wonderful example of the human spirit in motion is Phil Wizard. He is Canada's Olympic gold medal winner in Break Dancing or Breaking. Gravity doesn't seem to apply to this guy. He is truly made of light. If you haven't seen his performance, I highly recommend it. The whole sport is light hearted. Blew my mind! And certainly, raised my consciousness!
 
Watch Phil here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6NlPFdghdQ
 
 
What Else Are We Up To?
 
 If you would like to explore with me the nature of the human spirit directly:
 
1) Immersion Retreat Day:
 
Have you ever got quiet for just a moment, and everything dropped away. You were just plain happy. For no reason? That is you. That is our potential as human beings. That is a capacity and truth for everyone. Join us in a day-long fun and deeply restful retreat to soak in the amazing feeling of YOU.
For more information and to register, visit our website https://www.drsaraoneill.com/events-1/2024/9/14/immersion-day-2024 or email Nancy at frontdesk@drsaraoneill.com
 
2) Book a complimentary conversation with me about what you could get out of my transformative work and how you could have a richer experience of life and yourself.
 
https://calendly.com/sarajoyoneill/30-mins-with-sara-joy
 
Podcasts:
 
We Go Deep with Kat and Sara: A mostly weekly podcast with Dr. Kathleen Perry and Dr. Sara O'Neill where we go deeper with the understanding that life happens from the inside out. This is a raw and unedited podcast in a conversational style.
 
Recent Titles Include:

• That's Why We Call It Wisdom

• Connection Already Is

• The *Bleeping* Randomness and Freedom of Thoughts  

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, and Amazon Music
 
Wildspire Podcast with Stephanie Benedetto - Bliss & the Bigness of Who You Really Are With Dr. Sara Joy O’Neill https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SgFdNP8x5Oagt6AjxYhC0?si=88bc6551037c449a
 
Upcoming Podcast Appearance:
In September I will be a guest on a podcast with Shailia Stephens-Würsig who works with entrepreneurs in Germany with this understanding of who we are so they can effortlessly create the companies of their dreams. She also works with the 3 Principles Navikale Alcohol Department at the largest refugee camp (the Navikale district) in Uganda helping to raise funds to aid in their highly effective work of freeing people from addiction to alcohol. Stay tuned!

With Love, 

Sara Joy
 

What Smoothies Are You Getting? Part 2

What Smoothies Are You Getting?
  
This is the second part from last week's blog, it will likely make more sense if you start there. :)
 
We are looking at common incorrect foundational assumptions in life and how they can be the source of suffering and a less than full experience of life. They can get in the way of peace, joy, and love.
 
One assumption from last week is that the world is inherently stressful.
 
Most approaches never question that the world is a stressful place and that we are in the fight or flight response all the time. So given that, here is how to motivate yourself, how to pump up more energy, how to have better nutrition, better behaviours, how to have better thinking, how to reframe things we don't like. It goes on and on and on.
 
What if the world wasn't inherently stressful and the fight or flight response was optional or a very occasional thing we did?
 
 
Assumption: We are somehow not good enough or broken or need fixing deep down.
 
Reality: All humans are born whole and perfect beings of light.
 
Experiment to try: Have you ever felt great for no reason? Joy just out of the blue? Maybe during a stressful period in your life, you just felt fantastic for a bit. Think back to as many of these inexplicable times in your life as possible.
 
 
All of a sudden there is no need to get better at anything. We are already perfect and whole. We are already personally grown. We are already and always safe. We have high energy naturally. Our bodies function well naturally. We are designed to live in a feeling of love, joy, and peace. Beautiful feelings. What if there was no right way to live? What if we naturally are compassionate and think of others? What if the adjuration to "Be Kind" looked ridiculous because it's natural to be kind?
 
 
In the transformative work I do we sit together in conversation and look at what things are just true for all humans in life. What is the nature of life? How good does it feel to be fully you?
 
What if it felt amazing? What if it could feel amazing more and more of the time?
 
It's about freeing you up to life fully in whatever endeavours you may dream up. There is no homework, practices, or particular things to do and no one right way to live for everyone.
 
It's about how it works and what you would like for your life.
 
And now the smoothies!
 
I love using a blender as an analogy because in reality we are all blending up our very own experience of life in every moment. We are excellent blender operators. We do it every second of every day we are alive. Most people are blending up smoothies and then getting mad at other people because they don't like the taste of the drink. Or they get mad at the blender. Or they say "Well, a tasty smoothie is achievable for other people, just not people like me". Or “I need to strengthen my fingers so I can press the buttons with more authority so the blender will obey me”. Or “I need to believe in the blender more”.
 
If you know how the blender works, with a bit of practice you will get a feel for what you want to make and have beautifully delicious smoothies. Maybe a couple of disgusting ones along the way. There won't be any mystification about why you are getting the smoothies you are getting though. You'll know why because you mixed it up and will know why you got the taste of the smoothie you got. No confusion and full freedom to experiment with life.
 
In my chiropractic work, I look at how the body works with us in creating our experience of life and I help return your body system to its natural, fluid, responding to life state. I was and continue to be amazed at the power of when people know how the blender of life works, there is relatively little to do to help the body along. Our bodies are amazingly designed and self-correct if we respect them and use our powers correctly.
 
In my jewellery design work, turtlewhale designs, currently on Facebook and coming soon to Shopify, I look at bringing life energy and creativity into glass and designing pieces that embody how a person wants to joyously express themselves in the world.
 
Overall, my work is about the heart of life. Which is you. At the heart of life, there is an intelligent energy that enlivens and empowers everything. We are made of this energy. YOU are the very heart of all life.
 
Would you like to know how to live that way?
 
What smoothies are you blending up?
 
Jack Pransky is well known for his quote "All we are is peace, love and wisdom and the power to create the illusion that we're not."
 
At our upcoming Immersion Retreat in Guelph on Saturday, September 14, we will explore the felt feeling of being in the world from our peace, love and wisdom beyond the illusion.
 
Contact Nancy if you'd like to join us by clicking here frontdesk@drsaraoneill.com. We have a number of spaces left.
 
 
What Else Are We Up To?
 
We Go Deep with Kat and Sara: A mostly weekly podcast with Dr. Kathleen Perry and Dr. Sara O'Neill where we go deeper with the understanding that life happens from the inside out. This is a raw and unedited podcast in a conversational style.
 
Recent Titles Include:

• Connection Already Is

• The *Bleeping* Randomness and Freedom of Thoughts

• The Feeling of Being Listened To

 
Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, and Amazon Music
 
Wildspire Podcast with Stephanie Benedetto - Bliss & the Bigness of Who You Really Are With Dr. Sara Joy O’Neill https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SgFdNP8x5Oagt6AjxYhC0?si=88bc6551037c449a

With Love, 

Sara Joy

What Smoothies Are You Getting?

What Smoothies Are You Getting?
  
I am commonly asked how my approach to helping others is different. Often words used by various approaches are similar with vastly different results or processes.
 
"How is this different? Your blog sounds different from other things I've read but I can't quite put my finger on why."
 
So here is one version of my answer to people.
 
Turns out it's quite long and so I've divided it up into two parts. This is the first part.
 
It comes down to our foundational assumptions of how we think the world and us in it works. Think of the universe around us like a kitchen appliance. You can work it better if you know how.
 
We generally have foundational assumptions about how life works that are incorrect or misunderstood.
 
Twice this week I was hunting down operating manuals for things in my house because I was confused about the results I was getting with the washing machine and the air conditioner. I was pretty sure the problem wasn't really a problem at all.  It's simply that I didn't know how they were designed to operate.
 
Once I found and read the manuals, I realized pretty quickly what I was doing that was mucking up the works. In the case of the washing machine, once I understood the how of it, I changed my actions automatically. It didn't require any figuring it out since it became obvious what to do. In the case of the air conditioner, my perception changed all on its own permanently when I realized it wasn't broken and it was supposed to make that noise. Just leave it be.
 
In both these cases, I didn't need to do any practices, meditations, motivations, psyching myself up or beating myself up mentally because the solutions were obvious and natural once I knew the system.
 
In a similar way, we are designed to operate very elegantly by default.  Much of the time people are very confused about the results they are getting in their experience of their own lives. We don't have an operating manual we can consult in the same way as a washing machine. It's like we go out and start pushing buttons all over the place and then get upset that we aren't getting the results we wanted.
 
A colleague of mine, Dr. Jack Pransky, wrote a book to address this and called it "Somebody Should Have Told Us!". He operates the Centre for Inside-Out Understanding. And a mentor of mine Mavis Karn wrote a book she called "It's That Simple: A User's Manual for Human Beings."
 
What are some of these foundational assumptions, you may ask?
 
Assumption: Things in life come at us from the outside and we need better and better coping skills to deal with them.
 
Reality: Life actually happens from the inside out. Many psychologists talk about the meaning we make about an event and that we can choose the story we tell. But what if we realize that we don't need to create any story about anything? Things just are. They are neither inherently good nor bad until we label them as such.
 
Experiment to try: If you are feeling tense or negative about something (start with a small something), what if you didn't label the something as "bad"? You can prefer that "what is" was different. But what if it wasn't "bad" to start with rather it just is.
 
 
How does your experience in the moment change?
 
 
Assumption: Life is inherently stressful and that negatively affects us.
 
Reality: Life is inherently neutral and our default state is joy. Stress is 100% internally created and is 100% optional. Nothing outside of us can affect us.
 
Experiment to try: Think of something stressful in your life. Is it stressful at the times you are not thinking about it? How does your experience of it change when you think about it vs not thinking about it?
 
 
I would suggest that no, it's not stressful when you aren't thinking about it as it's not in your awareness then. We live in the feeling of our thinking. When we aren't thinking we revert back to our default state of wonder, curiosity, contentment, and joy.
 
Stay tuned next week for the second part of this blog with another assumption and experiment to try. There will also be smoothies next week. I promise.
 
 
Overall, my work is about the heart of life. Which is you. At the heart of life, there is an intelligent energy that enlivens and empowers everything. We are made of this energy. YOU are the very heart of all life.
 
Would you like to know how to live that way? 
 
Jack Pransky is well known for his quote "All we are is peace, love and wisdom and the power to create the illusion that we're not."
 
At our upcoming Immersion Retreat in Guelph Saturday, September 14, we will explore the felt feeling of being in the world from our peace, love and wisdom beyond the illusion.
 
Contact Nancy if you'd like to join us at frontdesk@drsaraoneill.com or 519-880-0003. We have a number of spaces left.
 
 
What Else Are We Up To?
 
We Go Deep with Kat and Sara: A mostly weekly podcast with Dr. Kathleen Perry and Dr. Sara O'Neill where we go deeper with the understanding that life happens from the inside out. This is a raw and unedited podcast in a conversational style.
 
Recent Titles Include:

• Connection Already Is

• The *Bleeping* Randomness and Freedom of Thoughts

• The Feeling of Being Listened To

 
Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, and Amazon Music
 
Wildspire Podcast with Stephanie Benedetto - Bliss & the Bigness of Who You Really Are With Dr. Sara Joy O’Neill https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SgFdNP8x5Oagt6AjxYhC0?si=88bc6551037c449a

With Love, 

Sara Joy
 

Bliss & the Bigness of Who You Really Are

I had such a fun time recording this episode of the Wildspire Podcast with my friend Stephanie Benedetto of The Awakened Business. 

We talked about her transformation from fear and my own from brain injury. We talked about the transformational power of being in a feeling of who you are and how good it feels. We talked about curiosity, letting go of assumptions, and the nature of change. 

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did creating this episode of Wildspire Podcast. 

Bliss & the Bigness of Who You Really Are With Dr. Sara Joy O’Neill | Wildspire Podcast

Here’s some of what we explore:

• The most powerful force in the universe (hint: you’re made of it)

• The miraculous potential of saying, “This could change,” to our assumptions

• Sara’s story of healing from a permanent brain injury the doctors said would never change

• Creating fear in order to feel safe and then watching it dissolve

• The delight in finding out you’re wrong about what’s possible

• The resilience of being human

You can check it out on the blog here: https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/bliss-sara-oneill/

On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s1Ms-ke_40

On Wildspire via Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SgFdNP8x5Oagt6AjxYhC0?si=88bc6551037c449a

With Love, 

Sara Joy

Feeling Good: A Revolution

Feeling Good: A Revolution
 
I came up hard today against a cultural belief on steroids that I had internalized as my own.
 
The flash of insight that took me over dissolved a lifetime of limitation in the blink of an eye.
 
Then over the next few hours a dissolution of many old unwanted behaviours and beliefs that I had hidden away effortlessly dropped. ALL OF IT. Like a sandcastle melting in the waves, it crumbled. Like a smoke ring that takes a seeming form for as long as it lasts, it was never really there. The ease at which all these many unwanted and real feeling emotions and patterns of behaviour evaporated was shocking.
 
Even when I've seen that this is how we work as humans. It's how we are designed to work. Change happens when we see what is not real.
 
What was the cultural belief on steroids??!!?? I can hear you wondering.
 
The entirely made-up idea that feeling good is not to be trusted or is somehow actually bad.
 
Whether or not we are churchgoers, the idea of Original Sin is pervasive in Western culture. The idea that we are fundamentally bad or broken and have to continually make up for it by showing what a good person we are.
 
There are a lot of sayings we grow up with that point to not trusting good feelings. It's "too good to be true", "lead you down the primrose path", the idea that you have to feel bad or stressed to be motivated to get anything done, "every rose has its thorn", "Don't get your hopes up". It's the idea that if you feel too good, let your guard down too much, then bad things will happen or you won't be able to notice when real danger happens.
 
One of the fundamental misconceptions that I see when working with transformational coaching clients is the belief that feeling good is actually a bad thing. "But I'll be unmotivated, I'll lose my edge, I'll sit on the couch all day eating potato chips and get fat".
 
I can tell you from personal experience and having worked with many clients for years, that isn't true.
 
When we feel good, life gets so much easier. We no longer have to psych ourselves up to get things done. We just get things done that we want to do. Managing negative emotions is gone. We have so much more energy to use however we want. We may choose to rest for a while but our natural zest for life kicks in relatively quickly.
 
Every spiritual tradition speaks about peace. Inner peace, the peace of God, peace of mind. And they point to this peace as being at the core of who we are. We forget the absolute vastness and purity of love that we are born into and never lose. We just forget.
 
If you've ever looked into a newborn's eyes, you'll know what I mean when I say you can see the whole Universe. They know who they are.
 
Many psychology researchers like Viktor Frankel or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience", point to this effortless base state that feels amazing where we can flow and create and get things done without a lot on our minds.
 
Looking at my copy of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, I noticed a review on the back of the book from the Los Angeles Times that says it all.
 
"Csikszentmihalyi arrives at an insight that many of us can intuitively grasp, despite our insistent (and culturally supported) denial of this truth. That is, it is not what happens to us that determines our happiness, but the manner in which we make sense of that reality."
 
I would go further in saying that we are the creators of our experience of reality. We get to write the book or paint the feeling-scape of our lived experience. We exist before thought, before feeling, and before sense-making. We can make sense of it or not. We flow with life separately from the unending parade of happenings. When we look to life itself and fall into fascination with life, we gravitate towards our innate peace, our innate happiness, our innate feeling of being alive. Like a magnet, we are drawn into deeper feelings of stillness, inherent joy, foundational peace.
 
Somewhere along the line, I picked up the idea that I was foundationally a bad person and that I had to hide it at all costs. This might sound funny in that I'm aware that I don't particularly come off as a "bad person". But the life-changing relief when I saw that it wasn't ever real. It wasn't even my thought. I can feel good all I want. I don't deserve to feel bad. My jaw unwound. A lot of habitual tension fell out of my body.
 
We all deserve to feel good. It's not actually bad to feel good.
 
There's a song I really like these days. "For Real" by JoyBird. If you love feeling good and aren't afraid to show it, give it a listen. https://open.spotify.com/track/2ga7od2er6gFvwJ8D2DuDI?si=43bb8c771aa344d7

With Love, 

Sara Joy

The Feeling of Being Listened To

The Feeling of Being Listened To
 
As part of the Listening World Summit, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on deep listening given by a teacher of mine, Mavis Karn, and my friend and colleague Nikon Gormley. Mavis has been "the face of listening" for perhaps 40 years.
 
Her approach is very simple and turns out very profound.
 
Link to Mavis on Deep Listening on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BS_vNsolRvo?si=onxU_FdnBeC0sq8m
 
Link to Nikon and Mavis on Listening on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uqu4BCumfMs?si=2Af_wKI1_u9EqMTT
 
There are different types of listening. Each one has its own outcome and so its own purpose, depending. People are very familiar with distracted listening. This is where you are multitasking and maybe hear some or none of what's going on. This often happens to me when I'm driving in the car. A whole song can go by without me really listening to it as I'm busy navigating and actually driving the car. I can also be busy navigating my own thinking while in conversation with another person. And not hear anything of what they are wanting to convey.
 
Another type of listening is listening to assess. We are listening for agreement or disagreement, what is our opinion, what clever thing can I say next.
 
You may be like me in having been taught active listening and been told that's what listening is. Active listening is another form of busy listening. We are busy being present with taking in information, reflecting it back and what question can I ask of them? We still aren't actually present with the other person.
 
There are many other ways to "listen" or not listen as it were. Mavis likes to say "just listen". In all these other forms there is more than one thing going; on we are - listening +. Listening plus thinking, listening plus memorizing, listening plus deciding, listening plus doing another task.  None of that is listening, just listening, or deep listening.
 
In the workshop, Mavis and Nikon had us pair up and take turns speaking about a beloved family member or a favourite book and listening without speaking. Initially the instruction was to just observe. What type of listening am I defaulting to? What are my habits in listening? Notice: where am I? Am I present with my own thoughts, am I distracted, am I bored, am I wanting to jump in with an idea or am I feeling the person and just listening.
 
At first this kind of only listening can seem like we aren't actually listening because it feels very different from how we are accustomed to listening or what we've been taught listening is. Often, it's described as listening like a rock with ears or listening like a video camera.
 
Then Mavis asked us how it felt to really truly be listened to. Just listened to. The feeling of being listened to. All the words bouncing around the seminar room as we called them out were variations on peaceful, joy, love, relief, relaxation, connectedness, insight, felt smarter, and felt like they could hear themselves. Then when asked what it felt like to be not listened to, or listened to in a distracted or active manner. All these words were variations of stressed, angry, irritated, pointless, urgent, sad, hard to think, words wouldn't flow, and violent.
 
In feeling the stark difference between the two, I realized I never wanted to not listen ever again. The exercise was a quick, small thing and people felt the difference so keenly. Can you imagine a long-term relationship where a person didn't feel listened to? or a child? The act of just listening is also very simple. It really doesn't take a lot. All it takes is noticing.
 
And makes a world's difference to the other person and their world.
 
Mavis often says "Everybody needs a good listening to".
 
With Love, 

Sara Joy

I Don't Know

I Don't Know
 
Nancy and I are pleased to announce that we are holding our annual Immersion Retreat Day Saturday, September 14, 2024, at St. Brigid's Villa at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph. This is the 6th year we have done an Immersion Day in various iterations. Each year it's a little bit different and always with the express purpose of getting in touch with the space within ourselves where we are always and already perfect and whole. The space of unconditional love. With the intention of leaving with that space as more and more of our actual felt lived reality.
 

Our early bird rate is now available through to the end of June. Spaces are, as ever, limited. Contact Nancy at frontdesk@drsaraoneill.com

 
A couple of weeks ago leading a workshop at the Listening World Summit in Prague on Listening to Wisdom through Injury and Illness, I had the honour of being able to listen to my colleagues speak. One presentation stood out for me in particular by Lynne Robertson called The Wisdom of The Ages.
 
Lynne spoke about how she loves noticing when she doesn't know something. As she detailed the feeling of freedom of not knowing, I realized how often I try to push on with a version of "Oh, but I know this".  Why on earth would I (or anyone) hold on to being so sure that I am right? When in reality, the knowledge and feeling of flow I want comes so much quicker in the instant I realize I don't know. Even if I really, really thought I did know.
 
When you start with "I don't know", you stop looking for the answer in your memory or intellect. A space of possibility opens up where anything is possible and we have access to the wisdom of the ages. This is the space of inspiration. In this space, we relax into life. Answers come to us. Our bodies have the opportunity to heal. Often, I have to slow down and there's a blankness. I give it a minute or two. Then the richness of life starts to come in. The felt sense of who we are without all the things we think we "know". Without all of our habitual thinking. It's peace, contentment, and fluidity. Ideas float up from the depths to present themselves to me for consideration. Sometimes I don't know what it means or where it will lead to beyond the first step.  Then the next after.
 
Lynne is a bit famous for being a tech wizard. Entirely self-taught. Although she would say it's not her, it's the connection we all have with the energy behind life. The energy that runs the show when we aren't looking or trying to come up with the answer ourselves.
 
Her particular strategy is to stop, go outside and have a smoke, and wonder "What am I not seeing?" Then in the space of wondering and curiosity, ideas start to flow. This is not a special quality that Lynne has or a skill that needs developing. We are all born with unlimited access to the aliveness of all things. The knowledge of all things is "out there" or perhaps more accurately "in there" as it's a going within.
 
For me, it's a curious fascination with “I wonder what will come to me” about something. What words will show up to write to all of you? I don't know. What designs will pop into view to create in glass? I don't know. What will happen next? I don't know.
 
The feeling of "I don't know" is so much freer than the feeling of "I know this and I'm right". It's an open feeling of possibility rather than a tight closed feeling of urgent certainty. My body likes the relaxed, flowing feeling much better.
 
When I think I know everything, nothing new and alive shows up. When I have no freaking idea, new, fresh, and interesting things show up. I never know what will be around the next bend in the river of life. And that is fascinating.
 
I invite you to try it out for yourself. Amazing things might just show up.

With Love, 

Sara Joy

Listening To Aliveness

Listening To Aliveness
  
In preparing to speak at the Listening Summit in Prague this weekend (May 24-26) on "Listening to Wisdom Through Illness and Injury", I've been reflecting on what it means to listen to your body. This is a phrase that is thrown about in natural health practice a lot.
 
Over the years I've noticed that what is meant by "listen to your body" varies a fair bit. And then to make it more interesting, how people interpret what is meant varies as well. And so unsurprisingly; results vary. Clients very often express to me in frustration "But I've been listening to my body and I don't know what to do!" or "The more I listen, the more it hurts!".
 
I paused this week to wonder what is it that I'm listening to when I "listen to my body".  I was surprised and at the same time not surprised to discover that I'm not listening to my body at all! Even when I would have said that I was. No, I'm not saying that I'm ignoring my body. Quite the opposite.
 
What I've noticed most people do when attempting to listen to their bodies, is a judgemental hyperfocus on unwanted sensations in order to make a specific outcome happen right now. It's as if we are an angry parent telling a 3-year-old child that they are wrong and bad for smearing jam on the wall while yelling loudly to stop immediately. And to clean up your own mess immediately. Then we get confused when the pain or symptom doesn't stop immediately.
 
Our bodies are amazing, elegantly constructed and divinely inspired marvels of biological wisdom that allow us to play in the world and experience sensations and stay alive all the while. Think of what it takes for us to unthinkingly run along a beach with our dog, jump in the lake, get cold and start shivering, constrict the lens of our eyes when the sun comes out from behind a cloud, and taste and digest the moose tracks ice cream from the beach front stand. And all the sensations and emotional experience along with it.
 
We are truly marvels.
 
There is a basic principle that all life is animated by intelligent energy. It's the difference between an alive person and someone who has passed away. It's what intelligently beats our hearts our entire lives. It's what grows oak trees out of acorns when no one is looking. This principle is often called Universal Mind or simply Mind. We can feel it when we are quiet and look within. Some describe a rising energy; others a sweeping tingling across the skin. I often tune in and feel bubbles playing along the outside of my arms and then a warmth blooming out from the centre of my chest. A dropping down into the ground or my seat.
 
We often feel the intelligent energy of life when walking in nature or looking at a gorgeous sunset. After eating ice cream at the beach, of course. I feel it often when my cat comes to sleep beside me and gives me kitty kisses with his eyes before curling upside down and snoring softly.
 
"Mind is the formless energy and intelligence behind life - the life force that animates our world. It is everywhere and ever-present, and it brings with it a feeling of being alive and a knowing that regardless of what's going on in our head or in our world, all is well." - Michael Neill
 
When I focus on that energy of life there is a spaciousness and a silence. In that feeling (maybe a slightly different similar feeling for you), there is often an experience of just knowing. An experience of knowledge rising up from the depths of a lake. A bit like when a fish comes up to nibble your toes at the end of the dock. And you just know. All of a sudden there's that fish. Many people have the experience of "It just came to me" or "It popped into my head".
 
What I realized about when I "listen to my body" is that I go to that space of aliveness and wonder about my body or body part without a specific agenda. Might be a question; might be a connection only. When you get quiet and listen, what comes is usually quiet and undramatic. Take a rest. Drink some water. Eat lunch. Often there is nothing new to do. Sometimes a fish of insight comes and nibbles your toes.
 
Pay attention to that feeling of being alive and the quiet knowing rather than what's going on in your head no matter how compelling or urgent seeming.
 
In the next installment, stay tuned for how symptoms are an expression of our bodies' health.

With Love, 

Sara Joy

Salutogenesis

Salutogenesis

There's a lot going on!
 
As I mentioned in last week's blog, I sat down with the always wonderful Rob Cook, and we discussed deep listening, the first annual Listening World Summit: Listening from The Heart, and how listening is a Universal key to unlocking potential peace, health, and creativity personally and globally.
 
Listen to "We're Listening with Rob Cook" on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/we-re-listening/id1548161025?i=1000655143226  or on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/47ZfmNqP7LKW0qgVem1Puh?si=aa2e1e3be8564540
 
As many of you know, I've been helping organize an international summit conference in Prague and free online (https://thelisteningworld.com/) May 24-26.  Working with all the speakers, from many different backgrounds and countries who are bringing the inside-out understanding of life to the world in all their respective fields, has been a huge joy. I've also realized the depth and breadth of experience represented by this amazing group of people from psychiatry, psychotherapy, performance and executive coaching, to people reforming prison systems and educational systems worldwide. It's going to be a fantastic event.
 
I'm also super honoured and excited to announce that I have been asked to lead a 90-minute workshop on the Sunday at the Summit on our innate health and listening to the body's wisdom. The title is "Yeah, but What About the Body: Listening, Wisdom, and Innate Health".
 
It brings to mind one of my new favourite quotes from Dr. William Pettit, Jr.  "There is always hope because there is always health."
 
He wrote that primarily with mental health in mind; however, it's also true for physical health. Our mind and body are actually one thing and have innate health. What we call unhealthy is non-judgemental compensation or handling of challenges that arise in an effort to return to perfect functioning. The symptoms we don't like are actually the innate health of our body doing its job. It may require action on our part to help it along but often doesn't. We never stop expressing full health. We can also take salutogenic action to enhance body connection to innate health.
 
Salutogenesis is the study of factors that bring about health. When I was in school (both chiropractic and molecular biology degrees) salutogenesis was used to describe the inborn force observed at both a cellular and a larger physiology level that works behind the scenes to direct the unerringly perfect function of our bodies.
 
I recently wrote an email to one of the other doctor speakers at the conference about why salutogenesis is a concept worth exploring:
 
"What is this salutogenic force? It directs all intracellular activity. What genes get transcribed and when, what proteins form and when, what gets let into the cell and doesn't and when etc. At first, a chemical field was proposed and then discarded as no chemical field exists. Then electrical potential - nope. Now the current thinking is that there is an energy field that interacts with the greater energy field of the Universe at large and is directing cellular and molecular activity of our bodies. lol. We have the answer they are looking for. Also, the chiropractic profession looks for salutary principles. They say it's the removal of interference to the innate intelligence of the body in the form of thoughts, physical injury and chemical injury or toxicity e.g., poisoning. We have the answer they are looking for. "
 
The simple yet radical act of seeing your body, mind, and life as perfectly healthy while listening and trusting intuitive action is foundational.

With Love, 

Sara Joy

A Quiet Mind

A Quiet Mind
 
I had a huge realization a couple of months ago. It feels like everything is different and yet nothing has changed. It was around what is meant by a quiet mind.
 
Most people recognize the benefit to our lives and our health, both physical and mental, in approaching life with a calm, quiet, ready to respond mind rather than a busy, overwhelmed mind. And yet I'd noticed that for a lot of people, perhaps most people, this seemed a distant possibility. Or something thought to be impossible. In conversations with clients, people would go to great lengths to convince me that this just wasn't possible for a whole host of reasons and often one person's reasons were the exact opposite of someone else's reasons.
 
What if the only reason you can't is the thought that you can't?
 
One client, when I asked her to look to the quiet silence, started listing out all the reasons why she hadn't felt that in the past. That is not actually looking to our quiet mind. That is doubling down on busy thinking.
 
Human change is made via insight or realization. I mean the lasting permanent kind of change where everything is different after and you never go back to seeing the world in the same way. You've made real a truth about how the world works. We often call it insight because it begins by looking inward. It's a sight from within.
 
Many people, teachers, and gurus tell others to quiet their minds. This then leads, understandably, to focusing on why our mind is not quiet. Tips, strategies and techniques for how to "quiet the mind" proliferate. It's an action of suppression.  Many clients tell me how they focus on their thinking and imagine it like train cars or riverboats passing by. They aim to focus on the spaces between the cars or the boats.
 
This looks bonkers to me!  Why would you focus more on the disquiet if the quiet is what you want?
 
I remember telling one client who was habitually staring at the trains of thought and trying, mostly in vain, to catch the space between cars as they went whizzing by, why don't you just look up? There is a whole wide blue sky up there. You aren't the train. You are the blue sky.
 
The look of wonder on his face was contagious. He slowly said "Oh my God! I had no idea."
 
He just didn't know that you don’t have to focus on, think about, fix or resolve thoughts or thinking. It really never actually stops and in looking at it and engaging with it, you never leave that busy world.
 
What we can do is look up, look away, look deeper. For some people, the change is in seeing that they don't actually have to resolve or engage with each thought. Just let it be. Don't touch it. Don't pick it up. Just because it popped in your head doesn't mean it has any power over you. It's up to you where to look.
 
My big insight around this was that at all times "a quiet mind" and "a busy mind" co-exist. Take your attention off one and the other one grows. Or said differently whichever one you give attention to will flourish and the other diminishes until it seems to hardly exist at all.
 
This kind of hit me in the face one evening when I was listening to an audio recording of Sydney Banks, the Canadian-Scottish philosopher-mystic who first articulated the three principles of life.  He said, "Look for the silence, what everyone seeks is silence." And in other places, he constantly says to look for a quiet mind.
 
He never says to quiet your mind or to stop your thinking. Simply go looking for the quiet that already and always exists because it's an inherent inborn aspect of who we are.
 
Listen to the silence.
 
If you feel like there is no silence ever, then give it longer. It takes a bit of time for the shift from busy attention to silent or quiet attention to kick in. I promise you it will, if you actually look for quiet.
 
In the silence before all creation with Thought is peace, true rest and healing, contentment, love, intuitive knowing, and pretty much everything you've ever imagined you'd want.
 
Podcasts, Podcasts, Podcasts!
 
I've been busy recording podcasts!
 
I was a guest on the wonderful Stephanie Benedetto's podcast "Wildspire". Her business is The Awakened Business. We will have a link to listen to this one soon, it's not yet released.
 
I will be a guest tomorrow afternoon on the estimable Rob Cook's podcast "We're Listening" talking about deep listening and The Listening World Summit coming up in Prague May 24-26. The conference is free online and is going to be stellar. I'll post the link on Instagram as soon as we get it.
 
And each week I get together with Dr. Kathleen Perry, my friend, acupuncturist and transformative coach out of Texas and we talk all things life. It's called "We Go Deep with Kat and Sara".  Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Db97oHb2QWoyyF9OUd8Y3?si=fc9b303c8959437e

With Love, 
Sara Joy