In This Edition Of Mystical Scuttlebutt:
Upcoming Events
Practical Tip
Dilemma Of The Month
Clues For When You're Stressing Out
Testimonial

March 24, 2006 - Free Evening/Paradox Salon
Discover how we swim in an ocean of polarities without understanding the nature of this water and how it effects our decision making, and emotions. This will bring you closer to finding that elusive happiness and calm in everyday life.
7 to 9 pm. Registration closes on March 15. click here to register

May 20, 2006 - Labyrinth Walk for Couples
Explore the twists and turns of your committed relationship in this Labyrinth Walk for Couples. Within the ancient mysteries of the Labyrinth, you will open to a new awareness and rhythm of relating. Come and dane a deeper connection with your beloved. Facilitated by Narayana Granatelli. Fee: $125 per couple Discount: $100 if paid in full by May 1st. To register, call 425.681.0017. Registration closes on May 6th

Can you feel a moment of humor at your beautiful and sweet forgetfulness at how small you truly are? And can you feel a moment of compassion for the pain caused by the unawareness of this majesty of Being that is your existence itself?

If you can feel this humor and compassion, imagine it flowing towards you freeing your laughter and your tears. Envision this humor and compassion surrounding you and all others playing out their roles in this mysterious journey. Breathe into the moment as it is. Feel your heart and soul relax just a little bit more than ever before as you savor the remembrance, no matter how cynical another part of you may be. You are a part of a mystery far beyond even your most grand and splendid imagination. 

Dilemma of the Month - Closeness Vs. Distance

Are you aware of your inner need for both closeness and distance from others? This is one of the most compelling and disturbing dilemmas of the human experience. At some point in time, most of us claim one of these two experiences as statements about who we are either a relationship person or a loner/recluse. Friendships and Intimate Relationships are the most fertile ground for this struggle to take root and grow. And for most of us, it is a struggle indeed.

In one of the most consistent life dilemmas, you have undoubtedly found yourself drawn to people who appear to be your opposite. Whether you want intimacy or distance, they undoubtedly want what you may perceive as the antagonistic opposite. And the ensuing relationship issue usually take the shape of a power struggle over who is going to win out and create either the closeness or the distance.

This dilemma plays itself out every day, with each person's need for being close or being distant at the center of most of the struggles and disagreements. This is an example of Polarity Blindness, a situation where you actually cannot see the function, purpose, or value of the opposite pole. You simply take a stand against it as the problem.

The reality here is that each of us needs both closeness and distance. They are fundamental needs that, when filled, allow the desired state of true intimacy to arise. Most of us mistakenly choose closeness as evidence of intimacy and distance as evidence of a fear of intimacy. This blinds us to seeing what is actually happening and we end up struggling for power so we can get what we need.

Managing The Dilemma:

To manage this specific dilemma that permeates our lives, I invite you to investigate your own experience to discover how closeness actually changes into a desire for distance and how distance actually changes into a desire for closeness. There is a pattern here, a dance of desire to come together and to move apart.

When you begin to feel suffocated or irritated by your partner, is it in fact your own system telling you that it is time for some distance? When you begin to feel lonely and out of touch and isolated, is it in fact your own Being telling you that it is time to reach out and connect with an other?

Because closeness and distance define each other, you cannot have one without the other. They are an interdependent polar pair. Together, they create the two sides of the coin we call intimacy. Understanding this calls forth a practical wisdom that dictates marriage and divorce many times in a single day a coming together and moving apart again and again and again.

With this rhythm clearly in place, you can manage this dynamic shifting of needs in relationship with more clarity and confidence. Investigate for yourself and discover how closeness and distance are in fact, an organic unity that offers us the opportunity to drink of true intimacy with ourselves and others.

1)When your shoulders are hunched, your neck hurts, and your teeth are starting to clench.
2)When you find your voice tight or high and strident.
3)When you feel anxious and your solar plexus contracts.
4)When you feel the delight of getting what you want tainted by the threat of what you don't want returning.

Remedy:
Your body doesn't lie.When you pit what you want against what you don't want, consciously or unconsciously, your body responds with contraction. These physical sensations are the body's way of signaling that you are no longer moving with the flow of life as it is unfolding in the moment.  Instead, you are wanting life to be different than it is a position that is inherently unsatisfactory.

This dissatisfaction usually means you have taken a polarized position either seriously for or seriously against what is unfolding before your eyes. To hold that life can be better is, paradoxically, not against relaxing into life as it is. Being able to hold both experiences is confusing but, nonetheless, a more peaceful and productive approach to creating a better world now and in the future now.

When you recognize these physical tensions as signals of your polarized position either for or against what is unfolding, you can immediately reduce your stress by breathing into your body's contraction. This frees you to then act from your practical wisdom that what is unfolding cannot be different from what it is in this moment. Again, paradoxically, this is not against future moments emerging in a different way.

I invite you to be aware of your body's sensations throughout the day. Can you explore these sensations as signals? Are you in distress about what is unfolding before you???? Are you unwilling to accept the moment for what it is? Are you fearful that if you relax with an undesirable moment, what you don't want will overrun you and your life?

Sengsten, the Third Zen Patriarch is credited with saying, To set up what you like against what you dislike is the dis-ease of the mind.? Explore and discover for yourself whether or not this is true. If so, learning to manage paradox is the best stress reducer around, and a direct line to opening the compassionate heart.

". . . Discovering Facticity and how to manage paradox and dilemmas changed my way of thinking - of myself and the world around me. It has helped me explore, with great joy, the perspective that I am 'a spiritual being having a human experience'."

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