What people say
I can honestly say that, for the first time in 50 years, I’m learning how to just be. How to relish the present moment, which, magically and mysteriously, unlocks the door to the treasure house that is the rest of my life.
- Jennifer Green, Salem, Oregon
From the moment Jon and I connected, I had this deep experience of loving presence and complete trust. Something bypassed my mind and my ability to figure things out, and communicated directly to my heart and soul that I was safe and in the right place. There was a creation of power in our relationship that he honored and witnessed as being mine. It was my power. I had the experience of being wonderfully, beautifully powerful, in the most loving, energized way.
- Laura Lind-Blum, The Idea Midwife, Waterbury Center, Vermont
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold easily and effortlessly.
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any given moment. It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA
My feelings changed from, “Quick, fix me, I can’t stand how I feel, make it better, hurry,” to, it’s not about hurry, and it’s not about fixing, it’s about staying where you are and getting more and more and deeper and deeper sensations that this is okay. You’re fine, this is okay.
It helps me reframe experience. I don’t see anything that’s happening quite the same as I’ve ever seen it before, because my viewpoint has been enlarged. There’s more, there’s peace, there’s joy, there’s love, there’s health, there’s everything.
- Layne Young, artist, Salem, Oregon
Free Article
A Matter of Commitment
The dictionary defines commitment in terms of promises and obligation.
What does commitment mean to you?
The work I do is grounded in my clients’ commitment to realizing and living what’s true for them. In individual sessions and in group program calls we talk about what commitment means, the various levels and types of commitment, and how someone’s commitment changes and evolves over time.
The deepest commitment you can make to yourself is one you’ll make over and over again.
That “over and over again” quality springs from two places.
The first arises out of the natural evolution of your understanding. As you experience a gradual deepening of your realization of what’s true for you, you’ll find that your commitment to yourself naturally goes deeper as well, opening you to new perspectives and new options.
The second is related, yet also somewhat different. It was described by one client as a result of her increasing ability to accept herself as who she is, with compassion and love. “I find myself wanting to re-state this commitment to becoming more open, more completely who I am,” she wrote to me. “As I recognize myself more fully, I’m eager to take it further. And that naturally draws me to want to re-commit at ever-deeper levels, even when that feels uncertain and scary.”
With that in mind, here are a few questions and observations to help you explore how commitment could play a different — and more powerful — role in your life.
It’s not a New Year’s resolution
The kind of commitment I’m describing isn’t about holding yourself accountable for doing something. In fact, it’s not about doing at all.
Change doesn’t come by deciding you’re going to do something different — and commitments to change things you do almost always break down quickly. As one client commented, the only New Year’s resolution she ever kept was to never make another New Year’s resolution!
Steps along the way
From the deep commitment to yourself, other commitments arise that are stepping stones along the way. These may be such things as exploring different ways to find Silence in your day; noticing the ways in which you drive yourself with “shoulds” and judgments instead of the deeper inspiration within you; or allowing your body’s desire for movement to express itself in different ways.
Each of the stepping-stone commitments arises from your experience in the moment. When you allow them to become a living exploration of what’s true for you, they lead you deeper into understanding yourself and your life.
The “ick” factor
A participant in one of the group programs I facilitate with my business partner brought this up a while ago. It’s become a theme with that group and with several of my clients.
A real commitment is a stretch. It asks more from you, in some way, than you’ve been giving till now. When you feel that sense of, “Ick! I don’t want to go there!”, you’ve probably hit on a commitment that’s a calling, something deep within you that’s moving towards a bigger realization of what’s true for you.
Real commitment has amazing power to heal and to facilitate transformation.
On the other hand, a commitment made from a desire to please or out of fear of what someone else might think will quickly collapse. So it’s important to recognize that the commitment you make to yourself can never be any more than what you’re ready for. You may feel uncertain or even frightened, but — as the client I mentioned above experienced — even in the midst of the fear, something compelling will call you forwards.
That’s the deeper voice of what’s true for you. Trust it, and allow your commitment to yourself to unfold.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it’s the only thing that ever has!” Margaret Mead, 1901-1978, American cultural anthropologist.
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