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
What If?
August 23 2011
The human mind tends to always be trying to anticipate what’s coming next, figure out what it should be doing, what it can hope for, and how to get what it wants. Yet asking the “how” question, problem-solving, and even hope and anticipation are just mental exercises — the mind’s attempt to manipulate what’s happening.
There really is no “how” to the bigger, deeper questions of living life as it presents itself. It’s not possible to anticipate what it’s like to open your heart and experience the spaciousness that’s always and already present. Nor is it possible to plan a way to recognize wholeness even in the midst of life’s turmoil.
Yet the mind’s drive is powerful. Even when my clients know there’s no “how” that can be described, they’ll often start a question — sometimes laughing at themselves as they do it — by saying, “I know there’s no ‘how,’ but how can I...”
I usually suggest curiosity. Curiosity is a doorway into actual experience. It’s an opportunity to live an inquiry into what if?
Here are some examples of my clients’ experiences with curiosity and the what if inquiry. Perhaps you’ll find yourself in one or more of them — and perhaps you’ll discover the power of asking “what if?” instead of “how?”
Observe open ... and closed
A client had been experiencing more frequent instances of her heart opening into a deep sense of spaciousness. And then something would trigger old patterns of thought and behavior, and she’d find herself back in the midst of struggle. She recognized the real and precious nature of the spaciousness — and the contraction into struggle was especially painful for her because of the contrast.
Knowing the futility of “how,” she still found herself asking me, ”How do I stay in that spaciousness, even when something difficult is happening?”
“What if,” I asked, “you were to notice the difference in your experience when your heart is open, compared to when it’s contracted and closed? Just notice — experience the difference — and see what happens.”
Later that week, she wrote, ”It feels like by observing the contraction as it happens, I stay more grounded in spaciousness — it’s as if the spaciousness is what’s observing the closing down, if that makes any sense.”
It makes complete sense. She’s seeing the larger context — how closing down occurs within that vast spaciousness, and how the spaciousness is never truly lost, even when it feels out of reach.
“And from that perspective,” she added, “it seems like I remain more open-hearted — it seems as if this short-circuits the impulse to contract.”
Without — as I pointed out — her having to know “how.”
Always and already ... okay
One client has been going through a difficult time in her career as well as with some issues arising within her family. At the end of a recent session, she wanted reassurance. “Am I going to be okay?” she asked.
“What if,” I answered, “you already are okay?”
She emailed me a few days later.
“I was kind of annoyed when you suggested I already am okay,” she told me. “I sure didn’t feel okay, and it felt like you were discounting the pain I’m experiencing. But in living with that question for a few days, there’s something strong there. There’s a sense of this too shall pass, and I’ll still be here. It’s subtle, and that’s not a great description of how it feels — it’s less resigned and more resilient than that sounds. And it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still struggling. But there’s a real difference.”
Pain doesn’t magically disappear. It’s a part of human life, along with joy and laughter. However, when you experience whatever is arising — pain, joy, struggle, or laughter — from a grounded place of always and already okay, the experience moves more freely. And that means it also feels less overwhelming — and becomes less of a struggle.
Opening to not knowing
Curiosity is a powerful response to the mind’s fear of not knowing, and an antidote to its frantic attempts to figure things out, understand what’s happening, what to do, and what to expect.
A client wrote, “I hate not knowing. Being the One Who Knows has always been my security blanket — the way I make myself feel safe, the way I win recognition from people. But when I’m curious, I can relax — it’s as if curiosity makes not knowing fun. It almost becomes a new game I can play.”
Exactly. Curiosity helps your mind feel like it has something to do, and at the same time opens your senses, your heart, and your being to possibilities.
The reality is that although we may not want to admit it, we don’t know what’s going to happen.
When you can let that reality into your heart, instead of holding it out at arm’s length, there’s a deep release and relaxation. As one client said, “It’s this extraordinary sigh of relief. Oh. I don’t know. Oh, yeah. And somehow, it all becomes okay.”
Yes.
Noticing what it feels like when you’re open, versus when you’re closed; experiencing what happens when you allow yourself to see that you’re already okay; and discovering that “I don’t know” is deeply, peacefully true ... that’s what tends to happen when you ask what if and experience curiosity.
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” e.e. cummings (1894-1962), American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright.
“Never lose a holy curiosity.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born naturalized American theoretical physicist and father of modern physics.
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