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Stuart
Alpert, Keynote Address
Gestalt Center of Long Island Conference, May 2001
"Bonding
and Body Organization, the Creation of Reality and Our Connection
to Spirit"
All life, from single celled to human, depends upon the
absorption and release of
energy. Whether this process of absorption and release is
the intake of oxygen and the
release of carbon dioxide during breathing, the movement
of the tides or the constant
shifting of the mountains and the rivers, there is a constant
forming, un-forming, and
reforming that takes place in all of nature. Life creates
forms that support or inhibit this
natural flow of energy. Forms that harden against this process
of absorption and
release create stasis and darkness, forms that are flexible
and aid this process support
life and light.
I want to continue with a simple meditation that can highlight
this process, help us
center our energies, be more present in the room, and be
more present with one
another. The meditation may also provide us with an opportunity
to get in touch with
Universal Chi. Luke Chan, a Gi Qong Master, was the inspiration
behind my
developing this meditation.
Make yourself as comfortable as possible and give yourself
permission to relax as much
as you can. Allow yourself to be aware of your breathing.
With each inhalation, absorb
the energy of the clear blue sky. With each exhalation,
allow yourself to release
whatever negative energy, pain or trauma you are ready to
let go of. With each
inhalation, absorb all the positive energy of the sun, moon
and stars, absorb the positive energy of all the plants
and animals on the earth, the energy of the millions of
people on earth that practice mindfulness and feel compassion
and loving kindness toward one another and the earth that
we live on. Feel the universe as an unending source of energy,
of universal Chi, that we can tap into. Feel your head touch
the clear blue sky and beyond. Feel your feet touch the
earth and the sky below the earth, feel all parts of your
body expand out to the horizon and beyond. With each exhalation
let go of whatever needs to be released.
Absorb universal, loving Chi energy in order to heal any
spiritual, emotional, energetic,
and physical wounds, illnesses, and diseases that need to
be healed. With each
exhalation, imagine yourself releasing your negative and
toxic energies into the far
reaches of the universe where it will be transformed by
Universal Chi, and once again
be available as positive energy for all in need.
Allow each cycle of breath to be a part of a cycle of absorption
and release where you
are more deeply connected to the natural rhythms of the
universe. Be in this cycle of
absorption and release, absorption and release at your own
pace. And then when you
are ready, bring your attention back into the room.
I want to share with you something that may be totally obvious.
That is, that I am here
today with all the support that I have been able to integrate
into my body in order to
live the reality of who I am. I stand before you embodying
the degree of my
humanness that I have support for, as well as for the places
in me that I still have a
difficult time accepting, where I still need support. The
form of my present body carries
leftover memories of the old bonding that I grew up with,
as well as all the new
bonding energy that I have been able to integrate. I am
here with you today, a living,
breathing person in process. You see me today with all of
the power and aliveness,
softness and vulnerability, sensuality and spirituality,
intellect, compassion, and open-
heartedness that I can contain in my body. I am thankful
for the new and more positive
bonding that I have been able to take in. Also, you may
sense all of the places in me
that are not integrated, where I still live the impact of
my childhood assaults that are
alive in my muscles, tissues, organs, bones, blood, nerves
and lymph. My new bonding
that comprises the energetic basis of my new reality, allows
me to bring dignity and
respect for most of who I am, finished and unfinished, secure
and insecure, dark and
negative, centered and acting out, ego and egoless, solid
and shaky, as well as open-
hearted and compassionate.
In effect, who we are is based on the bonding energies that
are alive in our bodies. Until we release the old negative
bonding energies and absorb new positive energies, the old
bonding that we grew up with forms who we are. At the deepest
level of our existence, the old bonding forms how we organize
our bodies and in this way our bodies hold the reality of
our childhood. How we were treated as children becomes imprinted
into our energetic, bodily, and emotional makeup and we
carry these imprints with us.
Our characterological organizations that are expressed through
our chronic tensions,
are all the ways that we have learned to organize our bodies
in order to survive. These
organizations hold a reality that doesn’t allow for
mindful living. The organizations
hold us in our past and muscularly, energetically, and chemically
direct us not to be in
the moment. These body organizations, born of our childhood
bonding, are assuming
they know what this, or the next moment, will bring and
therefore, believe they are
justified in retaining their positions as protectors and
tormentors. In this way our
reality remains fixed, our bodies don’t reform and
our stories never change.
As I share this, I’m aware of my desire to be with
you in a real and human way. What
this means for me, is that I want to make an alive connection
with you as I present some of my understanding about bonding,
body organization, the creation of reality and our connection
to spirit. Furthermore, I want to make sure that my spirit
remains in my
body, rather than hovering above it, or hidden in some protective
place deep inside of
me, or else I will relate to you from role layer. Whether
I relate to you from role layer or
not, has to do with how I embody my spirit or life force
while I’m with you and that has
to do with bonding. My belief is that however we form it
all has to do with bonding.
Without pressuring myself today and by being aware of my
new bonding energy, I
hope to be able to open my heart because this is the place
that I always feel the most
powerful and alive. Also, I want to find a way to open my
heart so that I can touch
yours.
What I need right now in order to embody my life force and
be open-hearted, is the
support that acceptance, love, and understanding produces
for my humanness. This, in
fact, is what comprises my new bonding energy. I need to
live through whatever
victimizing energies and voices that emerge that want me
to believe I can’t have love
and understanding for all of myself. When I do live through
these energies and voices I
embody a reality that knows that support for all of who
I am is possible. I know that
the actual form of my body is different when I relax into
love and acceptance then it is
when the old, childhood bonding is active. My new body form
holds my new reality.
In effect, as children, our reality creates form and then,
as adults, our form perpetuates
reality.
In order to come to and maintain a new reality that allows
for the full embodiment of
our experiences, rather than living a reality that avoids
certain feelings and therefore,
reduces our vibrancy, we need to rededicate ourselves to
living mindfully in each
moment. We need to be aware of each breath absorbing all
the positive universal
energies and releasing whatever old assault energies and
fears that still live inside of us.
We need to soften and allow our inner child, that part of
us that can be wide eyed and
innocent, that can easily and open-heartedly walk up to
people and touch and be
touched, that can be filled with awe and wonder, to be present.
When this occurs and I form into a softer, more vulnerable
body, I feel more identified
with our common humanness; I feel more identified with the
truth that we are all
people in process, that we all possess light and darkness.
The softer form makes it
easier for me to live my new bonding energy. The experience
builds on itself. I know
that we all need the same thing to feel truly alive. That
is, we all need support, love,
and understanding. We all need to embody compassion and
loving-kindness. We all
need the feeling of safety and protection that comes from
feeling loved in order to
soften into our bodies and come more into the ground. As
we soften we can come to
our to our true power and our sexuality, while we are connected
to our heart and our
spirit. In fact, it is in softening into my body, and all
of you into yours, where true
understanding and meaning can blossom between us.
If we can soften into our hearts, our connection with each
other and with the universe
can be felt deep inside of us. This occurs because softness
allows for our muscles to
align and therefore, it allows our energy to flow. As we
work through our old
internalized bonding energy the softer form allows for integration
of our power and
vulnerability, our innocence and wisdom, our need and independence,
our intellect and
our emotion, as well as making room to accept and bring
love to our darkness. It is also
in the softening into ourselves, thereby, giving up our
defensive characterological
forms, that allows us to be in touch with spirit and the
ancient knowledge that spirit can bestow upon us. It is
in our bodies that we can be in the continual process of
absorbing positive energies from the universe and releasing
whatever negative and toxic energies we need to let go of.
It is through our bodies that we can be released into the
experience that we are all one sound, one vibration of energy.
We all have a life force that knows how to grow us, knows
how to move us through the
world with connections, authenticity, and aliveness. We
all have a spirit that is
connected to ancient wisdom. As I work with the full range
of behavioral, emotional,
intellectual, and spiritual issues, for me, psychotherapy
is a way of helping our clients
embody a state of individuation that leads to liberation
and being on their path toward
enlightenment. It doesn’t mean that all clients are
eager or willing to live their lives
within this framework.
However, what I believe to be true, is that we are all on
that path toward
enlightenment. The issue is not whether there is a path
to be on, it is whether we are
conscious of the path. Consciousness of the path toward
mending our connection to
our spirit is a possibility that I hold in my heart for
all people. That I hold this
possibility in my heart, keeps me more in touch with spirit,
with universal chi, with a
place of faith and belief that totally effects what I may
say or do with a client at any
given moment. In all aspects, it effects how I see the world,
how I live in the world and
how I verbally and energetically invite my clients to soften
into themselves. By
softening and moving more into center, both my clients and
I can live through our splits
that contain the darkness of our old assaults in order to
meet and greet our spirits, our
life force. It affects and underlies the belief that every
inner experience is a message
from our spirit, which attended to, leads us toward wholeness.
In our work as therapist or as client, we are often focused
on awakening the inner child.
It is in the continual awakening of our inner child in each
moment that we resolve our
dual nature and become one with our spirit. Our inner child
is our voice of innocence
and freedom, spirit and magic. Reconnecting with our inner
child is our day to day,
moment to moment resurrection of open-heartedness. It is
our connection with that
natural, un-socialized part of ourselves who can have secret
friends and talk to God.
As a result of becoming one with the energy of the child
who can commune with spirit,
we are also in a position to allow for an openhearted connection
to one other. Our
connection to spirit simply becomes a part of us and then
shines through in our
interactions with one another. Yet, at the same time, we
need to bring acceptance to our darkness, and our incompleteness.
We need to accumulate support in order to continue to live
through our death layer experiences, in order to allow our
bodies to reform so that we can build and maintain our connection
to life.
I believe that centering into our hearts and our spirits
unleashes a deep healing power
within us. It is the power that comes from being unified
in ourselves where our
energies flow freely. It is the power that allows us to
be in touch with our wisdom and
the wisdom of the universe. It is the healing power that
comes from our absorbing the
positive energies in the universe. It is the old negative
bonding energies organized in
our bodies, held in our characterological organizations,
that creates our break with life
and spirit. It is the old negative bonding energies that
have created a reality that
encompasses isolation and alienation, and the illusions
that form us in role layer and
prevent us from accepting our humanity.
As we soften into our hearts and spirit by practicing mindfulness,
deepening and
honoring our inner child in each moment, we become more
aware that all of us are held
in, and are a part of a stream of universal consciousness,
a stream of universal energy.
We become aware that we are more than our minds, our bodies
and our personalities,
we are a part of something that is much larger than any
one of us. In fact, we are all
part of one another. We are essence, spirit, energy. Today,
in each moment, all of us
have another opportunity to bring awareness to the reality
that we are all part of the
same ocean of consciousness. We simply need to be willing
to focus our attention and
allow for belief to grow within us. Today is another opportunity
to bond with an
energy that supports our faith in the work that we do with
our clients and ourselves.
Experiment: I have an experiment that I want to offer you.
As I give you instructions, if
your spirit takes you in another direction, follow the direction
that your spirit takes
you. Also, if nothing happens for you, allow yourself to
be aware of the quality of the
experience of nothing. Is it blankness, darkness, static,
obsession? Ask the nothing
what it is here for and if it has a message for you. Then,
ask the nothing what it needs
from you. To begin, welcome your inner child into the world.
Spend some time
welcoming him or her with each breath you take. Release
whatever negative and toxic
feelings you are able to. Allow yourself to ask if there
is an image or sense or feeling of
protectors who can emerge and be with you and your inner
child. Perhaps the
protectors are real people that you know and can now visualize,
or images or senses of
perfect parents, or spirit guides, animals or angels. Perhaps
you might visualize
yourself inside of a tree or cave or surrounded by warriors
ready to protect you.
However they may come to you, welcome them and allow them
to be with you and
your inner child. In the same way that I suggested earlier
in regard to absorbing
positive energies, welcome the protectors with each breath
you take. Let yourself feel
how deepening into this connection, both to your inner child
and the feeling of
protection, can help you soften into your body. Now, ask
your inner child to lead you
more deeply into a connection with spirit. If no deepening
connection occurs ask the
experience of “no connection” what it’s
here for and if it has a message for you. If the
child is frightened, ask him/her what it needs for its fear.
If a deepening connection to
spirit occurs, allow it to fill you. Ask the connection
to spirit what it needs to remain a
part of your life. Honor the messages, whatever they may
be. When you’re ready,
bring your attention back into the room.
A part of how I’ve been sharing about myself is an
example of one of the important
aspects of Body-Centered Gestalt Therapy. That is, therapists
are equally encouraged to fully accept the feelings of open-heartedness
as well as their negativity. They are taught how to take
responsibility when their darkness is an aspect of what
is taking place in the therapy. We want to help therapists
understand that we are all on a path toward enlightenment,
and that in this way we all possess both light and darkness.
We
emphasize that both therapists and clients bring dignity
and respect to their finished
and unfinished places alike.
The feeling that we want to bring to each therapy session
is that at any given moment
any one of us can be therapist, helping someone embody and
understand themselves
more fully, or be client, on the receiving end of exploring
our own process. Body-
Centered Gestalt Therapy is not a therapy of hierarchy and
power; rather it is one of
equality, a therapy of compassion and understanding. Hopefully,
it is a therapy that
has embued its practitioners with a feeling of tolerance
for human frailty and
incompleteness, as well as a sense of the power, courage,
and the soaring ability of the
human spirit. We want it to be a therapy where we can understand
that the frustrations we feel with our clients are about
us, as well as them, and therefore, we can confront from
our heart, as well as take responsibility for our own frustration.
The same is true in regard to all relationships.
In all of our relationships, we have the ability to touch
each other with love, gentleness
and compassion, as well as the ability to act out and abuse
one other. Acting out, that
is, not being in center, is a part of being human, a part
of being incomplete. When we
act out, our next expression of love and understanding is
when we take responsibility
for how we have moved away from our center and can accept
the impact on others of
our un-centered energy. We have the ability to soften and
‘try on’ the other person's
experience entering into the true meaning of understanding.
That is, to feel the other
person’s experience inside of ourselves. We have the
ability to feel the impact that our
incompleteness, our acting out, has on others. When we do
this, we are bringing loving
kindness to our relationships. In this way, relationships
have the ability both to hold
the negative and unformed ways that all of us can be, as
well as the beauty and positive aspects of being human.
This is the energy of the new bonding that we invite our
clients and our colleagues to step into.
I want to invite all of us today to consider reforming our
bodies and softening, thereby,
taking a step into this new bonding and living from a compassionate,
understanding
heart for ourselves and others. To live from our compassionate
heart is to live in the
moment, to live in reality, rather than living from the
illusions that are built into our
characterological organizations. Examples of these characterological
illusions which
are organized in our bodies are: 1) that we can’t
exist fully in our body and have a
connection with someone else at the same time, 2) that we
aren’t supposed to move
between feeling independence and need, 3) that if we are
grown up we can’t also feel
like a child, 4) that if we are direct and truthful about
something someone else feels
sensitive about that we are being cruel, 5) that we can’t
have an open heart and have a boundary at the same time,
6) or that we can’t open our hearts and have our sexuality
at the same time.
In Body-Centered Gestalt Therapy we focus on how we embody
our intellect,
emotions, energy, and senses. We focus on having a spirit
that lives in our body. I
believe that the focus of having a spirit that lives in
one’s body, is what all of us are
doing in our clinical work, as well as what we are doing
in our own lives. That is, we
are helping people embody their spirits, their life force,
and we are seeking to embody
our own. I know that this is not what our work always feels
like. There are times when
it feels like we are simply in a process of helping our
clients and ourselves survive. At
these times, embodying spirit feels like a far off luxury.
However, spirit is a part of
everything that we do, it is a part of everything that we
are.
Each time we say to a client, “make room for that
experience, or don’t judge how you
feel, or simply be with yourself, or be with your feelings
and senses, or be aware of the
difference between immediate experience and obsession,”
we are teaching mindfulness
and through mindfulness, a connection to faith and spirit.
We are inviting our clients to
form a new body that can encompass mindfulness. Mindfulness
is an aspect of our
work that is based on an understanding that through living
the center of our inner
experiences without judgement and obsession that we can
help our clients and
ourselves embody spirit and move into life’s flow.
We are offering our clients the
ability to know themselves and create a life beyond their
defensive body organizations,
beyond the place where the old negative bonding energies
limits freedom and has
created a reality based on fear and projection. We are helping
our clients move into a
state of greater freedom through transcending the way they
have known themselves. In effect, we are helping our clients
form different body structures that allow for lives
based on faith in process and faith in the ability to contain
new supportive energies that allow for fullness and balance.
I want to stop and allow myself to re-focus so that I can
continue absorbing Chi into my body and release whatever
negative and toxic energies need to be released. Join me
if you wish. Let yourself be aware of the difference between
simple experience and
obsession. When you experience interferences include the
phrase, “this is me feeling,”
or “this is me thinking,” after each experience.
This can help you simply allow each
experience to pass, rather than becoming identified with
the experience and becoming
caught up in it. This is an example of how we need to continually
refocus ourselves
throughout each day.
Returning to the topic I’ve been discussing, we utilize
a variety of techniques in our
clinical work: bodywork, chair work that includes working
with the inner child and
internalized victimizing energies, working with the client-therapist
relationship,
various kinds of imagery, ceremony, and practicing mindfulness,
to name a few. We
invite our clients to enter into altered states of consciousness,
trance states, in order to access a deeper place of their
own knowing and wisdom. We may offer people the
possibility of accessing a spirit guide as an important
partner in helping us find the
direction the work needs to go. Whatever technique we employ,
we are always focused
on the underlying energy and how it is organized in the
body. This becomes the center
of our attention.
Whatever technique we use we are always working with our
client’s body, intellect,
emotions, senses, and intuition. We are calling on their
spirit to come forth and lead
them through the challenges of personal dissatisfactions,
relationships, work, illness
and disease, loss and grief. We are helping our clients
deal with the pain and suffering
that can be a part of life, as well as helping them find
a place within themselves that can
know the pleasure and happiness of living in the moment.
Hopefully, we hold in our understanding that every moment
of living from center, or
living on the path toward center, helps us reduce or eliminate
suffering. As we live
from center, we give up the quality of holding on that creates
the tension in us that is
the cause of much of our suffering. That is, when we resist
living the experience of
what we are feeling and instead, attempt to get rid of our
feelings, or be angry and
disgusted with ourselves for what we feel, we are creating
tension which leads to
suffering. We are then living some old reality. Here the
bonding energy from our
childhood still lives supreme.
To live in center is to free ourselves of the attachment
to an old body form created from
the abusive experiences of our childhood. To live in center
means giving up being
addicted to old forms of safety that are meant to avoid
the reality of our inner feelings.
Living in center, living mindfully, means that whatever
arises we simply accept. In this
way, if pain is what we feel, we don’t numb ourselves
to avoid the pain. We accept it as a part of life. We don’t
victimize ourselves because pain is now present in our lives.
Living in this way, we are always moving toward total acceptance.
We allow ourselves
to follow our breathing into the pain and allow the pain
to flow through us. It’s our
holding on to avoid or alleviate the pain that creates tension
and suffering, while letting
go allows for continued flow and aliveness. Acceptance alleviates
personal suffering.
Acceptance allows us to feel ourselves as a part of the
world.
Tich Nat Hahn, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, has coined the
phrase, “interbeing,” to
help us relate to how we are all connected to each other,
to how we are connected to all living beings on our planet.
There isn't anything that we do or think that doesn’t
affect our energy or the energy of all of those around us.
In our Hartford Family Institute brochure, we have written
the phrase, “One person can make a difference.”
To me, this comes from the awareness of our interdependence,
our “interbeing.” It comes from the awareness
that our energy, our being, radiates out like the ripples
in the water caused by a stone that has been tossed into
a lake. Our individual energy, our individual consciousness,
does make a difference. It impacts those we come in contact
with, as well as becoming a part of the universal energy
stream. It becomes part of a universal stream of connection.
In Sharon Salzberg’s book, A Heart As Wide As The
World, she quotes writer Wendell
Barry as saying, “The smallest unit of health is the
community.” She then goes on to
state, “Community is another way of saying connection,
and connection is life itself.
This is revealed again and again in various studies. For
instance, people who have
suffered a heart attack seem to heal more quickly if they
have pets, as compared with
those who do not. When all other variables are controlled,
cancer patients who join a
support group tend to live longer than those who do not.
Those who are prayed for
when sick, even if they are unaware of the prayers, do better
than those who are not
prayed for. The mysterious root of healing is connection.”
I’ve worked with many people who have physical illnesses
and diseases. As they are
able to release their victimizing energies and then take
in, that is, absorb, positive,
loving energy directly into the sight of their physical
condition, their symptoms
improve. They feel more connected. My experience is that
connection is about good
bonding. It is the experience of being held in love. It
is the experience that allows
physical and energetic blocks to be released and labile
structures to be able to form. If
we follow the experience of connection to its ultimate source
it is about opening to the
awareness of our own spirit and then feeling that we are
a part of the greater universal
flow of energy. It is here that we can loose our ego and
become one with the universe.
Here is another experiment. Turn to the person next to you.
Give yourself permission
to look and to sense who this person is. Also, give yourself
permission to be seen. Use
your senses, the feelings in your body, your emotions, images,
and intuition to
experience the person you are with and to take them in.
Be aware of their humanness.
Say hello inside of yourself to this deep place of the other
person. See if you can
identify a similar place inside of yourself. See if you
can experience the place of your
common humanity. Honor the person next to you and bring
your attention back to me.
I’ve been sharing in different ways that all of us,
and all of our clients, need a
connection for what we are feeling and to understand how
we have learned to organize
our bodies. We all need a connection in order to be more
fully alive and be more fully
in the world. One of the cornerstones of Gestalt Therapy
is our understanding of, and
working with, the importance of connection. Certainly, it
is essential to be aware of
how we are keeping or loosing the feeling of connection
we have with each of our
clients. Of equal importance, is that we need to be constantly
aware of where we are in
relation to our own inner connection to ourselves, to our
body, to spirit, and to the
universe.
As we come into deeper contact and acceptance of our own
body experiences we also
come into deeper contact with spirit. Then we can know in
our hearts that we are a part of something larger than ourselves,
that we are a part of a universal consciousness, that in
some basic way we are not separate. This awareness keeps
us from feeling alienated, meaningless, isolated, in denial,
and fear. The operative phrase here is, knowing in your
heart. However, when we know that we are not in our hearts
and can appreciate that this will impact all interactions,
we are more in our hearts than if we are totally unconscious
of our impact.
In order to feel a connection to spirit; we have to feel
it in our hearts. To live this only
as a concept or notion is to be living “as if,”
to be living a level of unreality. However,
that doesn’t mean we can’t intellectually understand
something about spirit and
universal consciousness, and begin a practice that helps
us become a part of the real
connection to heart and spirit. There’s an old story
that I’d like to share with you that
you may have already heard. A person walks up to someone
on the streets of New
York City and asks, “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
The person responds,
“practice, practice, and more practice.” I love
this simple story as it relates to what I’m
talking about today. How do we develop our connection to
a new bonding that allows
us to unform our old body structure and reform into a new
structure that allows us to
be aware of the path of connection to spirit? The answer
is, practice, practice, and more practice.
We have to create a practice that supports the development
of our connection to spirit. It doesn't matter whether the
connection we want to develop is to a sense of oneness with
ourselves and the world, or a connection to the Buddha within,
Christ
consciousness, Allah, Yah, the one God of the Jews, The
Great Spirit or within the
Goddess tradition. We can explore and then choose whatever
practice touches us.
What matters, is that we treat the possibility of this connection
with respect. Spiritual
connection and wisdom transcends all religions and all practices.
Charlotte Kasl, so
beautifully captured the essence of this in her book, If
the Buddha Dated. She said,
“awareness is awareness, love is love, compassion
is compassion, goodness is goodness. These qualities transcend
all practices.”
We need to honor each breath, each action, and each other
through our practice of
mindfulness. Even when we are obsessive within our practice,
the obsession simply
becomes a part of our practice. The more that we can know
that we are living within
the energy of our old bonding the more that we are becoming
conscious of new
possibilities of how we can form. In this way we develop
a way of living that is about
center, we develop a way of living that is about the experience
of wholeness, the
experience of wholesomeness that becomes our way of life.
In this way we are forming
a body that allows for all of these qualities.
I believe that each human being has a responsibility for
humanity as a whole. I for one,
want to be a part of helping to create a world full of warm-hearted
people. I wonder
how many of you here today, would want to live in this kind
of world. If we all feel this
way, that we all want to have a world of compassionate,
caring people, we need to
understand what part each of us plays in the creation of
this world. I believe that each of our actions are important
to this endeavor. The way that all of us live our process
with caring and responsibility is important. As I said earlier,
one person can make a
difference. One person’s energy, linked to another,
and their two energies, linked to two
more, and so on, produces an exponential increase of light
and becomes a part of a shift in compassion and warm heartedness
in the world. In this way, not only are we
effecting our own energy pattern as we live more in center,
more in wholesomeness, we
are effecting those around us. We enter into an energy system
that can have impact on the entire world.
I understand the arguments that state that cold-hearted
people abound, especially those people who have political
and economic power and make the decisions that rule our
world. This view is that we are powerless to effect real
change. I understand that there are cynical people who believe
that what I am talking about is maudlin and ridiculous.
My answer to this is that there have always been polarities
of light and dark in the world, as there is in all of us.
We need to bring awareness and acceptance to our own personal
darkness. When we live our darkness from the belief that
spirit is always
showing us what we need to know in order to take our next
step into acceptance and
move us toward enlightenment, then being in touch with darkness
is an important and
necessary part of our growth.
The more that we are able to take responsibility for our
darkness and be able to share
with others when we are in our darkness, rather than living
in degrees of heartlessness
and blaming others for what we feel, the more that we can
continue along our path of
connecting to spirit. When we don’t have to believe
that we are different than other
people who have darkness we feel more deeply connected and
are separate at the same. We are separate because we now
don’t have to live in denial of the victimizing energy
that lives within us. This simply becomes part of the dynamic
of being alive. The more people live in this way, the more
there can be a joining together in the light. Standing in
the center of our negativity transforms an aspect of the
darkness into light. An example of what I mean is when someone
shares, “I need a connection for how I want to smash.”
In this way, in any given moment, we can add to the light
or become fused in the negativity. Every moment of our lives,
the decision is ours. This is a decision that we need to
continuously make in each moment of our lives. Every moment
of living consciously is support for the light. Every moment
of acting out, living away from center, without returning
to responsibility is a decision for disowned darkness.
As I move toward the endings of my remarks for today there
are two final comments
that feel important to me. The first, is that nothing I
am talking about today should be
interpreted to mean that if you are living away from center
you should feel guilty or bad
about yourself. As always, wherever you are in your process
needs support,
understanding, and compassion. Not having support isn’t
a reason for condemning
yourself or anyone else. However, to support being off center
and having a difficult
time living mindfully isn’t an excuse to justify acting
out. The way that we live is always
based on the amount of support and positive bonding we have
for being centered and
mindful.
The supports that we have are both internal and external.
Therefore, the second and
final comment that I have before I end, is about the importance
of community in
supporting how we live. Living in community supports our
practice of mindfulness and
the ability to reform our bodies into softer forms. That
is why people meditate in a
group. We need each other for support. Even though meditation
is a solo practice, there is a group energy that holds the
practice and allows for the discipline that is necessary
and important to allow us to continue during the difficult
times. We need to support each other on our individual and
collective paths of personal responsibility
Your being here today is about community. It is not only
about sharing our ideas and
ways of working. It is not only about being in workshops
and talks such as this one, or
to learn to work through the next piece of assault energy
that is in our way of feeling
more vibrant and alive. Our coming together is also about
a sense of belonging. It is
about allowing our mutual energies to build a feeling of
support and caring that both
can hold us through the difficult times in our process and
allow for a deeper opening
when the time is right. Basically, we are here for ourselves
and at the same time, we are here for one another. Each
of us is important and necessary. One person can make a
difference.
Stuart W. Alpert, LCSW, ACSW, BCD
Co-Founder and Partner, Hartford Family Institute
Co-Creator, Body Centered Gestalt Therapy
I have over 35 years experience as a psychotherapist and
still feel alive and excited by my work, as well as by my
desire to continue to grow personally and professionally.
My genuine caring for people is what I bring to my belief
in people's ability to heal themselves physically, emotionally
and spiritually. I continue to hold people's ability to
grow in awe and wonder.
Some of who I am and what I believe in can be found in the
book that I wrote "What To Do Until Enlightenment ...
Healing Ourselves ... Healing The Earth," which has
been published in both English and Spanish.
After graduating from the University of Connecticut School
of Social Work in 1963, my earliest work was with children
and families. I studied with Virginia Satir and other family
therapists and then attended the New York Bio-energetic
Institute between 1972 and 1976, graduating as a Certified
Bio-energetic Therapist. Soon after, I became a trainer
in the New Haven Bio-energetic Training Program. In 1969,
I co- founded Hartford Family Institute, and, subsequently,
co-developed the therapy that is practiced at HFI
and taught in the various training programs in Hartford,
CT, New York City, Kansas City, MO, and Germany.
In the past several years my interest in mindfulness, Chi
Qong, ceremony and spirituality have been a part of my focus.
Currently, in addition to my private practice, which is
mostly with adults in individual and group therapy, or with
couples, I co-direct and still teach in the programs. I
also lead supervision groups for therapists and am an approved
supervisor for AAMFT.
Contact Information:
Hartford Family Institute, LLP
17 S. Highland Street
West Hartford, CT 06119
860-236-6009
www.hartfordfamilyinstitute.com
info@hartfordfamilyinstitute.com
©2001, Stuart W. Alpert. All rights reserved. The duplication
or reprint of this material
is prohibited without the express consent of Stuart W. Alpert.
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