Month: December 2009

We’re BA-AAACK!

: )

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“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”~ Maya Angelou

I’ve been talking to a lot of people the last couple of days about who we are, here at HHP, and what we’re about.

I have an added advantage in trying to communicate just how special what founder Kurt Hill has created here, in that I’m not only a practitioner, but I began my time as a client.

I found my way here – like so many of us do – because a friend told me I just HAD to meet Kurt.

And of course, Kurt being Kurt, he said some pretty amazing things to me that first day that, in retrospect, have had a tremendous impact on both the shape and direction of my life…

But that first day, I didn’t know what I know now – so it wasn’t his words that brought me back for the 2^nd visit that turned into a 3^rd which turned into 4 years, which turned into my becoming his apprentice and eventually a practitioner.

No, it was the feeling I had when I walked out the door.

I had had body work before, and I’d seen my share of counseling.  But never before had I walked out of a session conscious that real change had occurred.  I’m not the only one who has experienced the bursting of an emotional dam on Kurt’s table… in fact I had been warned that it probably would happen.  So I was prepared.

But when he first started to run energy, I felt as if there were doors across my heart that were jammed closed.  Like the sliding doors at the supermarket, they kept trying to open, only to slam shut, over and over again.

“It’s not going to happen, “ I thought. “I’m not going to be able to let go.”

And then Kurt moved his hand to the top of my head for a moment, and when he put his hand back on my chest, it was as if those stuck doors flew open.  The flood gates burst free and I was a sobbing wreck on the table.

“I see you,” he said, “and I’m right here.”

Which, of course,  only made me cry harder.

And when I got up – oh, when I GOT UP – it was like this enormous weight had been lifted.  I felt free; I could feel the light shining out of me, and, for the first time, it felt like it was safe to reveal that light to the world… that I was protected in some way from being harmed because I dared to let my Self hang out.

I noticed people on the street looking at me differently; babies smiled and threw themselves into my arms, adults smiled warmly… and I knew it was because Kurt had somehow managed to clean the grit out of the windows of my internal lighthouse, and now that beacon – that connection to my something larger – was available for everyone to see.

And it felt good to be that person…. so good that I never wanted it to end.

Today, if I can give a fraction of that experience to my clients, then I know that I have been a part of something wondrous and joyful; I feel privileged to be allowed to participate in someone else’s homecoming.

And I tell them so when they call.

“This indeed is a safe refuge, it is the refuge supreme. It is the refuge whereby one is freed from all suffering.”~ Buddha

“Neither can the wave that has passed by be recalled, nor the hour which has passed return again.”~ Ovid

This week marks a return to my roots; a revisiting of a life I thought I had left behind for good.

One of my best friends runs a theatre company specializing in full length Shakespeare for young audiences.  This week, their Juliet is out, and my friend asked me to fill in.  It’s a one-day gig, nothing permanent.

It’s strange to feel the words in my mouth again – familiar but distant – like your family home seen through the wrong end of a telescope.  It amazes me how quickly they come back – like they’ve been lurking beneath my skin waiting to be reclaimed.  In many instances I have to do nothing more than remind myself, and like I put a quarter in the slot, I’m off to the races – iams unfolding effortlessly, the story of star-crossed lovers expanding within me.

I am not the same person I was the last time I spoke these words.  Supposedly, 7 years is enough time for every cell in my body to have replaced itself.  Certainly, my life experience is astronomically different…

So, despite the fact that the words seem to have never left me, I have something new to bring to them – a different version of me, a different viewpoint.  Already, I am putting together pieces in ways that I never saw before, making new discoveries… seeing the text and the relationships anew.

This is a vacation – nothing more than a brief sojourn – like going home for Christmas.  I love the place where I grew up, but I don’t want to live there.

Once upon a time, theatre was my passion, but healing is my calling… still, it’s nice to visit old friends, to catch up, to remember why I love them and was once compelled to make them my life.

We’ll see how it goes.

“[T]he end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” ~T. S. Eliot

“Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.” ~ Emile Durkheim

I’m melancholy tonight… I don’t entirely know what that’s about, but I’ve decided, mainly because I have the time and the space, to just go with it.

When I was in high school, I had a few girlfriends with whom I would, several times a year, watch back-to-back-to-back the triumvirate of ‘80’s depression – Beaches, Steel Magnolias, and Terms of Endearments.

We would prepare for it – lay in the comfort food; make sure there were plenty of blankets, pillows, and tissues… and then we’d open up the flood gates and wallow in the beauty of despair… we’d sniffle, weep, sob, gnash our teeth, rent our hair – and really have a FABULOUS time…

I always felt wrung out, and gloriously empty and… free… as if I my angsty teenage life had been exorcised and I was a clean slate…

Totally

Of course, being a teenage girl practically comes with a license to be emotionally decadent…

But maybe we all need to be a little more uninhibitedly self-indulgent with our feelings.. or at least, allow ourselves to fully feel our feelings.

Buddhist author Sylvia Boorstein teaches, “Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.  It isn’t more complicated that that.  It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.”

Being with ourselves exactly where we are is critical to our growth as human beings…

So if you’ll excuse me, I have some movies to watch… ; )

“Emotions are celebrated and repressed, analyzed and medicated, adored and ignored — but rarely, if ever, are they honored.” ~ Karla McLaren

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~Pablo Picasso

“The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.” ~ Abraham Maslow

There is a story told by an art teacher… or maybe it was a music teacher… he was playing with his 4 year old daughter, but needed to stop to go to work.

“What do you do at work?” she asked.

“Well, I teach people how to draw (or sing),” he answered.

“You mean they FORGOT???”

No 4 year old will ever tell you they can’t sing, or draw, or dance, or paint.  They would think you were crazy if you told them they couldn’t.

So how is that we, as adults, insist we can’t do anything creative?

Within the spiritual world, we debate the presence of a Great Creator, in who’s image we are supposedly created… if there is some kind of creative force in the universe, doesn’t that mean that creativity then is our Divine Right?

In Western culture, we have put artists up on pedestals and confined ourselves to the ground at their feet.  As much as it is a show of our respect for their abilities, it also keeps we mere mortals from ever having to fail at creative projects… because we never even start them.

Michael Jordan is an artist on the basketball court… but that doesn’t stop the rest of us from practicing our jump shots.  How come we’re allowed to play sports at a non professional level, but unless we’re going to paint the modern version of Starry Night, or sing like Maria Callas (or Beyonce – take your pick), we’re not even allowed on the field?

Let’s take art back!  Let’s paint, draw, dance, decorate, sing, act, cook, garden, write with no apologies… it’s not about the finished product; it’s about the process and reconnecting to our birthright.

“Life is a creative endeavor. It is active, not passive. We are the yeast that leavens our lives into rich, fully baked loaves. When we experience our lives as flat and lackluster, it is our consciousness that is at fault. We hold the inner key that turns our lives from thankless to fruitful. That key is “Blessing.”” ~ Julia Cameron

“Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do. With such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” ~Virgil

I had someone today tell me that some of his workdays are ok, but that most days were like “a punch in the stomach.”

And it made me sad… and it made me grateful.

I was raised with the idea that I could do and be anything I wanted.  I was taught that I should leave the world a better place by my work, and I was assured that that work could be something I loved.

When I was a junior in high school, I had an English teacher, Mrs. DiMaggio, who, after reading our practice college entrance essays, declared herself disgusted with us.  She was furious; it seems that, in general, our papers were about money.

“You people,” she said to us, “you people need to understand that you are going to spend more time at your jobs than you will with your families.  You will spend more time at your jobs than you will with your lovers, so it had better be something you LOVE.

It would be nice,” she went on to say, “if they would pay me a million dollars to be a teacher.  But you couldn’t pay me a million dollars not to be.”

That was the day I told my parents I wasn’t going to law school; I was going to theatre school instead.  And, while they were scared for me, they let me follow my passion.

Fifteen years later, having reached my goal of being a professional actor, I realized I wasn’t happy.  Because I had my parents’ permission to go where my heart and soul might take me, and I had Mrs. DiMaggio’s admonishment that I must, as difficult as it was to leave behind what had been my life’s driving force, I knew I was doing the right thing.

And I found my calling, my work, my passion, my joy and myself.

And today I was reminded just how fortunate I am.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  ~Attributed to Howard Thurman