codependency of microzoophobia

Everything I do with the intention of motivating myself backfires. Just within the intention to motivate myself there lies an implicit "should", which immediately sets me at odds with myself.

Human souls come into this world full of passion and purpose. And then well- meaning parents and teachers start trying to motivate them.

Rosemarie Anderson said "Who would have thought that play could be turned into work by rewarding people for doing what they like to do?"

Did you ever have to motivate yourself to go to recess or play your favorite game? Do you now have to motivate yourself to hike your favorite trail, read your favorite book or have sex? I hope not. Although there are people who have to, excuse the pun, pump themselves up psychologically to have sex because it has become an obligation that they feel duty bound to perform. It is a sad state of affairs, and perhaps the cause of many affairs, that something as alive and profound as erotic energy can become lifeless and mundane as study hall used to be.

In some ways it all comes from a basic distrust of human nature, and I believe it began in the Dark Ages with the concept of Original Sin. (See Mathew Fox’s book ‘Original Blessing’) In our western culture, there is a great distrust that human beings will do what is needed for themselves or others unless they are threatened with punishment or coerced with rewards.

I wish there were more understanding that it is the very use of coercion, positive or negative, that breaks or deadens the spirit, which is the source of motivation. This is not only true between people, but within oneself. So the more I try to motivate myself to do whatever I think I "should’ do, the less energy I have to do it.

Educational geniuses, who have PhDs and head our educational institutions, are forever coming up with new methods to coerce children into doing what would other wise be intrinsically satisfying.

I am reminded of the pizza for books program in Georgia called "Book it". This is where teachers give out coupons, good for a free pizza, for every book a child reads. This was sponsored by that bastion of altruism Pizza Hut. And of course the children picked the thinnest books with the biggest print. Why? So they could get past that nasty hurdle called reading as quickly as possible, to get to that which is really valued, the goodie, the pizza. I think what you really ended up with was a bunch of fat kids with eating disorders who hate to read.

Then there is our old buddy Representative Newt Gingrich who would come to my alma mater, University of West Georgia, to praise the education department for paying third graders two dollars for each book they read. His motto was "Adults are motivated by money why not kids?" (Newt taught at the U. of West Georgia. and used to regularly debate one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Mike Aarons, the head of my graduate humanistic psychology program. I, of course, think Mike won the debates but Newt definitely won the power struggle as he went on to become Speaker of the House.)

I start to wonder "What’s wrong with me?" I never got paid to read. I used to read because it was fun. Maybe I got ripped off. Maybe I could get together with a bunch of other baby boomers that were abused in this way and file a huge class action suit against the federal government. We could get billions in back pay.

Organizational development expert Douglas McGregor says that the answer to the question ‘How do you motivate people? – is, ‘You do not." And of course we can motivate ourselves and others to do things through threat of punishment or promise of reward, but at the cost of our passion to do it. And it is this passion to do something that gives us the energy to produce excellence.

It is like a father teaching his child to ride a bike. Which is more important: The child learning to ride a bike quickly? or the father and child maintaining and developing a rich loving connection? How tragic that so many children are afraid of their father’s anger or disappointment. If there can be a focus maintained on keeping a certain quality of relationship between the two, then the learning can be created together. The child can learn how to learn, and how to ride a bike. The father can learn how to teach in a way that keeps and enriches his relationship with his child.

This is the relationship I want with myself as I enter new realms and levels of creativity and self-expression. I never want to achieve, learn or create at the expense of a kind, gentle, loving, supportive relationship with myself. It is so easy to fall into trying to coerce myself. I know of many a father who either cracks the whip or begs and pleads with his child to become great bicycle riders/achievers. I know many an individual who cruelly coerces him- or herself to achieve and develop in certain areas. And they do gain great mastery or achievement in an arena. In that sense it "works". But at what cost to their relationship to their inner child and self?

So as I am now teaching myself to be an author and write this my first book, I am challenged to practice what I am preaching. Moment by moment I am choosing to monitor whether I am threatening myself with the stick of self harshness or holding out the coercive carrot of extrinsic reward.

I have been an abusive father with myself and now I am all too often afraid of me. Most of my effort to teach or motivate myself has been of the "cracker or the smacker" variety, to use a British term. It has either been the cracker (an British word for cookie) of an extrinsic reward – money, sex, acknowledgement, or simply the relief from self- hate and depression. Or the smacker- beating myself up with a barrage of self hating actions ranging from simple self derision/vindictive criticism to complex compulsions like alcohol/drugs/food, relationship roulette, schoolaholism, guru submission, depression, accident proneness, exposure to danger, illnesses, boredom, depression and suicide attempts.

As with any abusive relationship it will take time to change the patterns of it and redevelop trust. I am reminded of a line from a song that Dr. Rosenberg wrote for his son Brett. It is written from the perspective of the son speaking to his father about their painful relationship.

I need liberation from the concept of self-motivation. As long as I am trying to motivate myself I am caught in a catch 22. Immediately I am schizoid. There is one me that is trying to motivate another me. I feel a sense of the endless futile struggle to pick myself up by my own ankles.

Why do I even have to motivate myself? Do I have to motivate myself to have sex, play my guitar, or play my favorite game, basketball? No because I am connected with the intrinsic reward for doing these things. Did it take hours of focused strenuous effort to get to an enjoyable level of mastery at these things? (The sex part wasn’t so strenuous) Of course. Did it take delayed gratification and discipline? That was not my inner phenomenological experience. If it had been I probably would have rebelled and not been able to focus enough to develop any skill.

Because I was raised by Calvinistic religious joy/life-haters, the idea of delaying gratification, or selfdiscipline triggers my fear that we are talking repression again. I much prefer the concept of ‘Maximizing my Pleasure’ through Strategic Timing. I do not want to think in terms of delaying my gratification but strategically planning to have it when it will have the maximum impact. A small example would be having a wonderful meal in a restaurant and getting close to being full. I like to stop before I get full and bring the rest home in a container, not because I am delaying gratification but because it will taste so much better in several hours when I am really hungry again.

Someone once asked J. Krishnamurti if there was a difference between self discipline and suppression. He said that the only difference was that self discipline is a more subtle form of suppression and repression. He went on to say that the mind that is really intelligent is free of self-discipline. "So you must observe, become aware how your own thought, how your own feelings are functioning, without wanting to guide them in any particular direction. First of all, before you guide them, find out how they are functioning. Before you try to change and alter thought and feeling, find out the manner of their working, and you will see that they are continually adjusting themselves within the limitations established by that point fixed by desire and the fulfillment of that desire. In awareness there is no discipline." Like Krishnamurti, I want to move beyond self-discipline into enlightened selfishness.

I love to play basketball. I love the endorphin rush that the total immersion into the timelessness of the moment brings. Oh the physical emotional tension release that comes from a hard workout. I can maximize all these effects if I do a few hours of writing first. The contrast between the sedentary activity of writing and the physical endurance required on the court is sublime. It also increases the pleasure of the activity going into it with the sense of satisfaction that comes through productivity.

I am concerned that the concept of self-motivation starts to stimulate images of struggle and inner conflict. I prefer something more like self-liberation, where I am liberating the trapped energy of the wild child that lives within. I remember as a kid I never had to motivate myself to go out and play. I suspect there is already a powerful creative/productive urge within me, and I need to learn how to get out of its way. I chose to create an environment that makes it easy to develop a love for what I am doing and quit trying to coerce myself.

Five steps to getting out of the way of your own Elan Vital (Vital creative energy)

I frequently have an inner jackal commanding me to "get busy". When I try to appease this god by making sacrifices of my time, or making myself do something that I think would meet its standard of productive, I give my power to it and submit to It is oppression. I then start to lose motivation to do anything. I find myself strangely compelled to sing under my breath old-time spirituals like "Old Black Joe" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" as I drag one leg behind me, through my day.

What I am really needing to do is to give that "get busy" jackal empathy. Which might sound like this, if you could listen inside my head:

My inner jackal taskmaster – "What the hell are you doing? Get busy. Do something. You are wasting your life!"

My wise old giraffe higher self – "I sense fear, anxiety, old hurt around a need to be fully engaged in the joy of full creative self expression and a request to dive headlong into the middle of the rushing river of life. I also hear the fear of self contempt being unleashed and a need for a gentle relationship with self."

As I was starting to write this book I told myself I would buy me a new car when I finished it. It took me months to figure out why it was so difficult to make much progress. The creative wild wonder child of my creativity did not want to be bought and sold and was unwilling to help me with my project.

Give yourself stuff because you want it and need it not because you have earned it or deserve it. Care for the many sides of your Self and creativity will follow, instead of trying to be productive so that you will earn your self acceptance. Creative writing teacher Julia Cameron recommends we give ourselves ‘artist dates’ where we go out and romance and indulge ourselves in an experience of creative rejuvenation. This would include things like going to an art gallery, a walk in a Japanese Garden, or -- for me -- a long talk with my zany writer friends.

Comparison thoughts are like "Why am I just now getting my first book written when that little sissy man wimp John Grey (who is doing great healing work with many people) has twenty best selling books out there?" Or "I know people tell me I look nice but I am nothing compared to someone with real beauty."

Psychologist Dan Greenburg wrote a book called "How to Make Yourself Miserable". One of the most powerful and ingenious techniques he recommends for achieving misery, is comparing ourselves to others. He has drawings of the faces of a normal man and woman with little centimeter numbers inscribed on them. You are directed to measure your face, or the face of your prospective love mate, compare your measurements to these Olympic specimens and then meditate on the difference. He reminds us that any variation, no matter how slight, is a defect. And if you find no differences, you are referred to the section on How to Make Yourself Miserable if You are a Beautiful Person.

But we all know beauty is only skin deep and that the measure of your worth comes from your soul’s expression in life. For this Greenburg offers Fig. XIII: Aid to Evaluating Your Accomplishments. It is a picture of what Greenburg calls four ordinary people who were chosen at random. The first one is a twenty-six-year-old patent office clerk, A. Einstein, who formulated a theory oabout relativity. (what theories have you formulated?) Then, a youthful piano player, W.A. Mozart, composed his first symphony and three sets of sonatas by age eight. Next, Abdullah al-Salim of Kuwait, receives a salary of $7,280,000 weekly. (What’s your salary?)

I recommend that as soon as you recognize a thought as being of the comparison variety, pull it out like a weed, because if you do not it will multiply. Here’s two ways to pull it out.

Here’s a little poem to help you recognize and understand your own Comparison Jackals:

The great psychologist Alfred Adler identified the need for significance and belonging as primary psychological drives for the pack animals known as humans. These needs can be met so much better in the community of a workgroup which energizes the individual, creates synergy, and thereby increases output.

I only enjoy serious working for an hour or two before I start to feel sluggish. However I can play all day. I can play all night too if I have other people to play with me. I have noticed that when I go by myself to play basketball, I really only enjoy practicing my shooting for a few minutes. If someone comes and we can shoot together or play one on one I may last an hour. But as more and more people come we sustain each other in an energy field that can soar for hours.

In case you already have too much motivation, here’s some exhausting games you can play with yourself to depress yourself.

Remember the old Top Dog/Under Dog model from Fritz Perls, father of Gestalt Therapy: Top Dog "You should do your paperwork". Under Dog, "Yea, but I do not feel like it." or "You can not make me!" Figure out what your number one ‘should’ is like: "I should do my taxes early" and then spend hours going back and forth demanding action from yourself, and then whining and making excuses about why you do not want to do it.

Screw up all your discipline and make yourself do those things you have been avoiding. You will then need several days to recover from the energy drain. The product, whatever you create from this kind of motivation, is low quality. It is similar to having one foot on the brake of your car and one on the gas and then stepping super hard on the gas. You will get somewhere but it will cost you. That is how I got through a four year undergraduate college program in just under thirteen years.

If a friend gives you a big beautiful box of chocolates you have at least two choices about how you will receive them. One choice is to receive them hesitantly, with fears of not showing the proper amount of appreciation. You might start eating them with an attitude of guilt. "Oh I should eat these to show my appreciation." Or you can choose an attitude of "Yippee, Chocolates!" I think Life is like the giver of that box of chocolates and would probably prefer them received from an attitude of enjoyment not drudgery.

Before I open my box of chocolates (otherwise known as my life) in the morning, , I want to make sure I remember how to receive. I need to remember what it was like before I learned about the concept sin, and being bad and not deserving. I need to remember what it was like when I was aware that everything was being given to me as a gift. This was before I started taking credit for everything.

I remember being only four years old, waking up just as the first rays of light slipped through the window of our house in the valley of the sun. I would sneak out of our house using a technique my sister taught me called "Indian feet". That is where you put the toes and ball of your foot down before you put down the heel to make less noise. Once outside I would hop on my little red foot push scooter with the handle that comes up (I am so excited that a new high tech version of these skate boards with handles are making a vicious comeback) and take off through the suburban streets of Phoenix, Arizona. I was bursting with joy, excitement, and adventure. "Who’s up?" I would be thinking. "Who wants to play with me?" I just knew that everyone wanted to see me and play with me.

I would roll up to the first house where I saw or heard any signs of life and simply present myself. "Hi, I am Kelly. I live down the street. What are you doing?" And often the answer would be "Well, we are fixing breakfast." "I haven’t eaten yet, what are you having?" I would inquire. And of course my innocent selfinvitation worked like magic. No -- it WAS magic. When I had finished my wonderfilled waffles I would be off to the next house and the next house. It was a terrific way to start my day, just to present myself and let people nurture me.

I like to think of this time as my Garden of Eden Days. It is like in the Bible where Adam and Eve just live in Paradise and they do not have to work or do anything. All they know how to do is enjoy the garden, eat, play, etc. Then they learned about concepts like good and bad. This enabled them to be doing one thing and thinking they should be doing another. This was the beginning of the fall. After this they had to toil the soil, otherwise known as getting a job. (If Maynard G. Krebes the 60’s freeloading beatnik from the TV show Dobie Gillis were here he would be screaming ‘EEEEEKKK!!!!’ Do not say that word ‘work’ around me. You know I am allergic to the work word.) Before I do anything I want to remember that I can choose to remember that I am still in paradise, that there is nothing I should do or have to do. I can choose to just start opening up the chocolates de jure.

There is a part of me that wants to see progress, the sweet fulfilling feeling of accomplishment and creative pride. Other parts of me just enjoy the process of creation. I also enjoy the effect of creation on my being. Sometimes when writing or talking I discover and clarify an understanding that now becomes a new part of conscious me. There is also the joy of being swept away on the currents of creativity’s river. Sometimes when I first put my little raft in the relatively calm waters of the rivers side eddies, my pen to paper, fingers to the keyboard, it can almost feel like effort. But as I push my way further into the river the strength of the current kicks in and then my effort is simply to hang on and try to keep up with where I am being taken.

I am afraid that even holding out the carrot of "a satisfying sense of accomplishment" is an attempt to coerce myself in the same way all my teachers and parents did. It begins to create a split within myself. I have never had to give myself a pep talk to get me to load up all my fishing gear, and drive all the way up the mountain, and climb through the bushes to go fishing. I have friends who are rock climbers. They do not have to tell themselves "Think of how beautiful it will be once you get to the top." They know that beauty is awaiting them, but if they held it out like a carrot and tried to motivate themselves with it in the same coercive fashion their parents and teachers had tried to control their behavior, they would resist. Or even if they did coerce themselves to climb one mountain, the next one would feel like all the more work. So I want to be very careful about forcing myself to do something that I might potentially love doing, or something I might want to be doing a lot of. (I know I ended the last sentence on a preposition (of), which your not supposed to do. I am not going to fix it because in this moment that would feel tedious. I refuse to interrupt the fun I am having writing right now to force myself to do editing because then I would start to hate editing.)

My rock climbing friends enjoy the struggle of the climb partly because they do not split the activity into "the work" and "the reward". For them it is all one thing.

I want to escape wimp/whore consciousness when motivating my self. I worry about motivating myself with the "wimp whip". In other words telling myself I am a wimp if I do not take at least 6 classes this quarter from the community college. On the other hand I also hate to sell myself for money.

There is not enough pleasure in the world to balance the pain of being a human being, only purpose and love can tip the scale and make it worth it.

Everything I do with the intention of motivating myself backfires. Just within the intention to motivate myself there lies an implicit should. I should be doing a certain thing, and how can I motivate myself to do it.

Even if I put up little pieces of paper on the wall, with phrases to remind me of the reasons why I want to do certain projects, it does not help. For example with this book project I put notes on the wall about what writing this book will do for me: "Writing the book will provide me with more ways to connect with more people", and "It will help me discover more of myself", and "It will provide insights and tools to help people relieve their suffering". If I am coming from the self-conflicted attitude of trying to motivate myself, my mind will respond with "Yea, Yea, Yea -- you’re right. I really should be doing something to connect with more people and provide tools and knowledge to relieve their suffering. And God knows I could use more insight into myself, so maybe I could be a little more motivated." Each well intentioned, inspirational nudge becomes the image of my Aunt Willie, shaking her finger at me saying "You’re not going to get any supper unless you finish your homework!"

There is a difference between documenting moments of clarity about what I want to create in my life and trying to make myself do what I think I should. If the intention is to remind myself of a moment of inspiration I had about what would be fun to create, wonderful. If I take the moment of inspiration and try to turn it into a cattle prod, woe is me. I really am longing for the experience of my work to be a voyage of discovery, like reading about the adventures of "Silver Chief", a very loyal, intelligent German Shepherd.

Every afternoon in the summer, when there was no school, I used to climb the stylus to get over the barbed wire fence, and walk through the tall fennel weeds to get to Dave’s house. Dave’s house was a shack on my Uncle Jake’s property that was abandoned, but had a small, creaky porch with a cot on it, just right for reading and napping. I could not wait to get a few hundred yards away from my Aunt’s stern eye and shaking finger. And then I would escape several centuries and thousands of miles away as I joined the Mongol hordes with heroic passion in ""The Golden Hawks of Genghis Kahn". Or I found a way to my own grief and self -compassion as I read about "Greyfriar’s Bobby" a scotch terrier who dug his paws raw trying to get under the cemetery wall to be with his dead master. (I didn’t know until this moment why that had moved me so. I was a 10 year old boy at the time who had been forcibly removed from his mother, and this image helped me to understand what my puppy dog heart was feeling.) So whether I was feeling grief or grandiose, each entry into that world of books was an adventure in aliveness.

Do I want to think about the "whys", as in "why am I so resistant to writing my book?" Or do I want to do the writing? I can not do both at the same time.

Sometimes the thing getting in the way of me going toward what I want to go toward is asking myself "What’s in the way of me moving forward." Instead of better questions like "What might I be needing right now?" or "Would it give me satisfaction to take action towards my goals? And if the answer is yes, then what would help me take the action."

I chose to make a compassionate relationship with me my first priority and achieving outer goals second. Many times it is the greatest act of compassion for myself to strive with great drive and passion towards some goal. At times it would be an act of self hate to be forcing myself to keep working out of fear. I need to listen to myself and my body to know the difference. I want to quit forcing myself to fulfill an agenda. I want the agenda to be developing a caring, loving nurturing, accepting connection with me and then take action.

You must give up ‘must’, and learn to trust if you’re going to motivate yourself compassionately. I think it was psychologist Albert Ellis who told us we must quit musturbating.

Determination comes from having made a decision. But you can not fake yourself out about it, hoping that determination will come if you only tell yourself you have made a decision.

When we are extrinsically motivated, i.e. coerced by reward and punishment, we lose touch with why we might hate to do something. We lose touch with our own needs.

We are all like rats in an experiment. We have learned our behavior – pressing the bar – being cooperative, pleasing our boss/spouse etc. and lost connection with our instincts to forage for food, nest and all other activities that would nourish our whole being.

I am reminded of one of the treatments for alcoholics called antibuse. Antibuse is a drug that some alcoholics take that makes them feel sick if they taste alcohol.

I feel like I have taken a large dose of anti-productivity/creativity/dream. So that anytime I think of making effort to fulfill my dreams, do something creative that is not directly linked to a reward like money for survival, I start to feel that old familiar sickening fear arise.

"Good job culture, good job schools" your use of reward and punishment, pop behaviorism has effectively crippled my autonomy, entrepreneurial spirit and any intrinsic motivation to make anything out of my life. For many years my spirit was so broken and confused that all I could do was work in the factories that need docile subservient extrinsically motivated robots. I have even become "institutionalized" myself. That is, I became one of the spirit/autonomy breakers when I went to work for adolescent treatment centers. "Treatment center" - now, is that not a sweet name for it? As if these kids had developed tuberculosis and had to be sent away to a treatment center. Most of them were there because they hated how they were treated at school and/or home. Most were there because they had more spunk and/or smarts than their more obedient/cooperative peers. My job, which I hated, was to get the kids to do what their teachers and parents told them to. We used techniques like stars and candy bars for rewards. We used punishments like solitary confinement, increasing the medications and not letting them see their families, in an attempt to coerce them into attending their boring classes in their dehumanizing schools. All the while the therapists, social workers and administrators were constantly reassuring each other that they were doing it all "for the good of the kids."

It takes a lot of energy to motivate my self by pushing myself or by coming from fear. If I am to get done all I want to, I will need to learn to follow my bliss.

The idea that manifestation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration depresses my inner child and has prevented him from writing or creating in other ways. I now choose to believe that if your creation is taking 99% perspiration you need more inspiration. No wonder work stinks and you do not want to do it. Remember the ad for "Secret" deodorant? Time for "secret"! The secret is that it does not have to be that hard. With more inspiration, more breathing in of life, you can let spirit do the work. Find a balance between inspiration and perspiration. If you’re stuck on doing a lot of perspiration then you need more inspiration. A better balance would be fifty/fifty.

We do not need motivation we need inspiration. If we get inspiration then motivation will follow.

Keeping creativity flowing may be similar to breathing in that creative "expiration" often follows inspiration. Sometimes even my own expiration is also an inspiration to me. I need to expose myself to people who are on fire with the same passion I have. If I am writing, then I need to read writers who inspire me. To let some of the embers of their fires spark my soul, to catch a glimpse of their vision. And then I want to let that spark set fire to my soul’s work, keeping my eye on the Elan Vital of my vision, and my soul’s taking one step at a time down the path of my passion. Breathing in, breathing out. In with inspiring art, scenery, music, oratory, out with poems, songs, books, letters. In with great sex, out with great sex. In with provocative movies, out with written screenplays. In with soulful speakers, out with soulful speech. In with soul food, out with creative cookery for all my friends. In with powerful musical, theatrical, dance, comedy, sports performances -- and out with the same.

Creatively the soul aches, like the child who watches other children playing on the playground from the window of the detention hall. And if the soul stays obedient to internalized authorities, it slips into the selfmotivation maze.

Come out of the haze and a-maze yoursoulf, a-bove the box of paradoxical intentions. Having these two intentions create great tensions, to be both "good" and feel alive. So go beyond survive and into thrive, the land of spiritual milk and honey.

Sometimes when I am feeling discouraged a little sports trivia helps. Like who holds the record for the most strikeouts in baseball? Babe Ruth!

Neither writing nor creating is miserable. Thinking I should write or create, and then resisting, is miserable.

When I am scared and telling myself that I am not seeing enough progress, I have found yet another way to procrastinate. That is like hanging my head after I miss a shot at basketball instead of noticing that I shot the ball short and to the left, and begin making the correction to my shot. So instead of indulging in the self pitying notion that I am not seeing the progress I should, I chose to ask myself "How can I feel more energy to move toward my goals?"

Now that I have discovered that I actually love to write I need to be a little careful not to make myself sick of it again. One way I made myself sick of it was by forcing it down my throat when I was in college and graduate school. It is just like with food. If you really love butter pecan ice-cream, as I do, two surefire ways to make yourself sick of it is to force it down your throat when your not hungry and to make yourself eat too much of it. When we are coerced by rewards and punishment we lose awareness of what we really love and how much of it we really want to have.

I was at the pediatrician’s office today with my six day old daughter. There was a nutrition poster in the doctor’s office giving new parents basic advice about how and what to feed their children. It said, never make you child eat anything, because first of all you can not, and secondly it will damage their ability to notice when and how hungry they are. This is what happened to me with respect to my creativity and productivity. I was coerced by rewards and punishment to the point that I was no longer connected to my own need to be creatively productive. Now sometimes when I get a little taste of my own creativity and notice how delicious it is and how starved I have been for it, I pig out. This once again leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, which sometimes makes me doubt that I really enjoy creating at all. It is almost like restimulating the original allergic reaction that my teachers and schools created to my creative expression in the first place.

Why is it that when you do not feel like doing anything you have way more time on your hands than you want? Then when you really feel like doing lots and lots of different things you haven’t nearly as much time as you want?

If you quit trying to get yourself to produce you can start to let yourself create

It can be helpful to understand how we came to enter this coercive relationship with ourselves. Dr. Rosenberg once told me that if a culture can convince its members of the following three things they will become "good slaves" of the culture:

I can not write from the consciousness I want to write from when I am making myself write. And besides I feel very hypocritical forcing myself to write about how to get free from "coercive forces". I may be preaching selfdetermination but I am still practicing selfsubjugation. So how do I motivate myself to write? I do not. Although I may do some journaling until the part of me that is trying to motivate me merges with its evil inner twin - "resistance". Then what emerges is playful productivity. Because these two parts of me are just two needs that need to find a way to cooperate. One need is to give myself the satisfaction of self expression, another is to protect myself from giving energy to an expression that is not from my own self’s deep inner choosing. One need is for a sense of satisfaction, another is to have fun.

Someone once said that they wake up every morning torn between two wonderful urges. One to enjoy the world and the other to contribute to it. May I always trust that there is a way to do both, even at the same time.

Even though I choose not to make myself do anything I want to know how to prepare myself to make the tough decisions. For example sometimes I notice I have been suffering for some time, languishing in slothful sadness and stress about whether to do certain projects.

At some point I choose to notice that the pain is not going away, nor is the project getting done. It is kind of like when you’ve been feeling sick for a long time, dreading the thought of throwing up, but finally the idea of continuing being sick is more painful than surrendering to throwing up. So when I am completely sick of the pain of procrastination, I choose to go through a brief intensification of the pain to get to the relief that past experience has taught me will be there. The way I do this is to go to the project and simply begin working on it with all my inner jackals a-screamin’, "You are making yourself do something you do not want to do." "You are abandoning yourself!" "You do not feel like it right now." etc. As I start typing, I notice the sinking nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach that always comes when I am overcoming inertia, and I just wait for it to pass, knowing that it will. It is similar to the second wind phenomena that runners experience as they break through one level of blood oxygen functioning into the other. "Hello pain my old friend, you’ve come to be with me again." Really I can expect to go through this wall of emptiness and fear if I have let myself slip into the inertia of depressive languishing. And to the degree I am committed to fully focusing on my project I leave the demons of my mind behind and experience the sweet relief of momentum. It is the transition from inertia to movement that takes the most energy and can include the most pain. What helps is past experiences of breakthrough and/or faith that relief is just over the hill, through the woods and in the sweet flow of the river of life.

I once asked Thom Hartmann, Ph.D. award-winning best-selling author "What does it take to actually finish writing a book?" His answer was "It is similar to picking blackberries. Sometimes you just stick your hands into the thorny bushes and grab them even though you know you are going to get all bloody." If you notice that you have been staring at those blackberries a long time, suffering from the fear of getting all bloody, the compassionate thing to do may be to run screaming into the blackberry bushes.

My Uncle Jake used to explain, "Them cows need to give their milk or they get sick." Maybe people would find more cow-like contentment if they could find the balance between giving their gift and grazing in the green grass of whatever restores their soul’s energy.

To use my creativity and humor and wisdom to evolve the culture in a way that follows my bliss.

Static thinking is a great way to damn up the river of creative/productive expression. For example, chanting incantations (or "I-can’t-ations" until you hypnotize yourself into a zombielike trance is a good one: "I can not seem to get inspired." "I can not afford to buy a computer." "I can not find the right people to work with." Ad infinitum. If you chant these I-can’t-ations over and over, the power of belief will paint you into a very small corner of your consciousness.

A funny example of this is when I am looking in the refrigerator, screaming at Deb, "I can not find the mayo!" And she patiently responds, "It is right in the front shelf." "I can not find it," I say in earnest, hoping she will come and find it for me. The problem is that if I do start to see the mayo that is sitting right in front of me I have to make a liar out of myself. So my subconscious mind protects me from that humiliating event by making the mayo invisible to me. The mind has great power to create blind spots in order to protect itself from fear or shame.

Another type of static thinking is ‘have to’s’ and ‘had to’s’. "I have to work eighty hours a week just to make ends meet, so I can not learn to play piano." Here’s one I have heard a lot that I love. "I have to stay home and take care of the dogs so I can not really take vacations."

As I experiment with my life and my mind/body I find that there are no "have to’s" and "I can not’s" are really just "I am scared" or "I’m confused about how to." For example I used to think "I can not afford to buy a house." Then I translated that into "I am confused how to buy a house." I expressed this out loud to a few people and they turned me on to this awesome concept called a mortgage, where a bank puts up the money. I would still be renting if I had not made the translation in thinking.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said that in oppressive cultures, the governments will sometimes let you say that "the government is bad", but will not allow people to take action to change anything.. The same is true within my own inner government. It is OK to say "I am lazy" but my ego freaks out when I start to take action.

One big fear that keeps me from starting or finishing projects is the fear that I will not do it "good enough." A little motto that helps me with that is: "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." Or it’s corollary "Anything worth doing is worth regretting later." These will free up your creativity better than the motto: "You can not fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor."

One way to compassionately motivate yourself is to recharge your energy supply to yourself. I do this through "Re-Sourcing". Re-sourcing is reconnecting to the source of energy, creativity and the grounded state of being.

Writing, dance, reading, stories, nonfiction, seeing movies, meditation, walks in nature or in the city, conversation with certain friends.

Fishing, watching babies feed, feeding ducks, playing with babies, exploring new and old relationships, , talking to counselors or psychics, play/repotting plants, planning the future, meeting with mastermind groups, writing science fiction short stories, writing poetry , philosophy, making love with an older or newer relationship, meeting with people to synergize about making your dreams come true, painting, playing music, singing, writing, music, cooking, swimming, riding a bike, throwing a Frisbee, walking a dog, riding a horse, flying a kite, eating sushi, calling an old friend or relative long distance, reading scriptures, co-create a project with a group.

Climbing to the top of a tall palm tree to see which way towards the oasis/lake/land of milk and honey.

Swimming in the ocean, taking a sauna, walking up a hill (going for a hike), playing/practicing the guitar, singing, writing songs and singing them, chanting, practicing yoga.

What re-sources you? What re-connects you to passion, purpose, inspiration, creativity? Exercise: Compassionate Self forgiveness.

When I empathize with someone I become a strong and gentle wind filling the sailboat of the other’s inner exploration. As the wind I have no control over the steering of the boat, that is left up to the captain of the ship, the person I am being present to. I do not try to direct, only to connect with where the other is in this very present moment. I bring in no ideas or thoughts about the past or the future. I bring in no thoughts of my own. I have no preference for where we go on this journey only that it comes from the captain’s heart and choice. The purpose of my presence is connection never correction. I am a steady present trade wind, not an impatient and gusty gale.

Empathy brings in nothing from the past. When I am empathizing I am not remembering when I was having a similar experience. In one sense I am not even there. The only thing present is your experience, feelings and story. I am not relating to you experience, feelings and story, I am being with the felt sense of them. Relating to another's experience is about you. Empathizing is about them.

Some people get so caught up in the fear of whether they are empathizing correctly that very little energy of attention or presence is left to "be with" the other.

It is not really doing empathy or giving empathy it is being empathy. It is the spirit Susan Seranden in the movie "Dead man Walking" who just wanted to be the face of love for her friend as he was being executed.

Empathy is an energy not a modality or a technique. Empathy is closely related to presence.

This is from the anthology book "Healers on Healing" from the article called "Presence" by Don H. Johnson:

"The dazzling successes of the great teachers and therapists and the unfamiliar quality of their presence have led to a mistaken belief that their success lies in their techniques. Moshe Feldenkrais watched people moving their limbs, paying close attention to what they actually do in a non-judgmental way, this is the essence of therapy. However he taught hundreds of specific exercises and even added to their arsenal of judgments. Although Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi taught that the path to reality is method less, his students are often obsessed with forcing their bodies into preconceived postures.

Two pure forms of teaching presence applied to therapy and education can be found in the work of Carl Rogers (who is one person Marshall Rosenberg studied with) & Charlotte Selver. Both have taught that the only goal of the therapist is being there for what is. Difficulties in transmitting their genius reveal how hard it is to comprehend presence. To be truly present with another person, I must find what interests me, what distracts me from my busy inner world, which is flooded with chatter and images. Rogers was fascinated by listening. The kind of listening that does not leave us feeling restless."

Also any time I am "supposed" to "give empathy" I hate it and will not do it. You can not give presence, love, empathy from 'supposed to' energy. It just does not work. No more than I can get ‘turned on’ because you put a gun to my head.

It is spooky and surprising to me to begin to sense the reality of the collective presence of a group. Lee Glickstein in his book "Be Heard Now" calls it a ‘listening field’. It is like bringing a bunch of magnets together and forming a stronger electromagnetic field than just one magnet creates.

Have you ever made the mistake of trying to talk to certain "friends" when you are in distress. Here are some examples of mistakes I have made:

My "I can top that" friend: "I can not even find an apartment to Rent much less buy. I wish I had your problem, you should feel lucky you are not in my shoes."

My Therapist friend responds this way: "Maybe this has something to do with finally cutting the umbilical cord that has been keeping you trapped in the womb tomb of your narcissism."

My Financial advisor: "It is not logical that you would have anxiety now. You have never been in better financial shape."

There that made the anxiety go away. I just told it, it was illogical and it went away.... Not!!!

Empathic friend: "Are you feeling scared about whether you will always be able to make the payments?" And this is said not as a formula but with genuine interest and presence.

When someone empathizes with your chaos it allows you to hear your confusion and thereby separate from it. You no longer are your confusion, but you are the observer of your confusion. This detachment from the confusion allows you to see it from another perspective. Even the word confusion suggests the problem. Con means "with" and fusion is of course a "merging with". So the problem with confusion is how to become "unmerged with" it.

There is a method of self awareness called "Focusing" developed by Dr. Eugene Gendlin. One of the techniques used is to have someone guide you in focusing in on what is really going on inside you. When overwhelming confusion is discovered inside it is recommended that the guide not simply hear or echo back that overwhelm or confusion. It is recommended that the guide say something like "A part of you is overwhelmed and confused." This helps the person being guided take their head out of the bucket of soup and simply smell the soup from above it. From this vantage point it is easier to get a sense of what it is all about without being lost in it. It is as though you were walking around, lost in one of those mazes used to test the memory of laboratory rats and someone picked you up above all the walls and corridors. You would then be above the maze. Amazed!! You could better understand where you were in the larger scheme of things and how to take a more direct route to where you want to go. You might experience the relief of amazement.

One reason I hesitate to say to someone "I am sorry" or "I apologize", is that it might be interpreted that I am admitting I have done something wrong. And of course there is no concept of wrong in a nonviolent consciousness. A consciousness of nonviolence leaves the idea of wrong up to God. Besides apologizing is way too easy. It is an indulgence in a feeling of guilt which can contribute to the avoidance of the deeper mourning, the soul’s remorse which is needed for true insight to develop and therefore true change of behavior. Suggesting I did something wrong is judging myself. If the other person was also judging me as having done something wrong, apologizing can reinforce that self judgment. To the degree the judgment is reinforced it will take longer for both to release the pain that was stimulated and reestablish connection with each other. The longer the other carries the judgment the longer they suffer with anger and resentment. The longer I carry the self judgment the longer it will take me to develop true insight into my behavior which could give me the awareness needed for true change. The sooner they can come out of their head full of judgments and into their body the sooner they can begin the healing and releasing of the pain. Reinforcing the judgments through self recriminating apologies serve to continue the re-wounding of the psyche and prevent learning and healing. Apologizing can also plant a seed of judgment that was not there previously.

I can not really have empathy for the other’s pain until I feel real remorse that is repressed underneath any guilt I may have. I also need to have a compassionate nonjudgmental understanding of the feelings and needs that led me to do any regretful behavior. Staying in the guilt, saying I am sorry, thinking I did something wrong, thinking I am a jerk and generally getting down on myself prevents me from feeling the more painful remorse. And until I feel this remorse I cannot offer the sweet salve of empathy to assist the hurting other in their healing process.

Angels can not give empathy because they are in constant bliss and can not really connect with human suffering. That’s why they envy us humans because we can give the healing gift of empathy to each other. Angels can only give love.

The empathy softens the person up but the honesty causes the shift from stuckness. Empathy is the massage, honesty is the chiropractic adjustment.

If I give empathy to make another feel better, it is not empathy it is often anxiety. It is very likely that the other person will end up feeling better, but to be high quality empathy all my attention needs to be on their experience, not on thoughts of helping them. When the other starts to share their pain or joy with me I would like to lose myself the way I do in a good novel. So I read the novel not to help the author feel better but, for a while, to become one with the story.

The person must first feel the presence before the "words of empathy" are offered or else it is irritating.

If you say something and the other person gets upset, hurt etc. They are deaf. They did not hear what was said. When I really hear the other person I always enjoy it. Even if I do not hear them accurately if I have my consciousness focused on what they are feeling and needing I never get wounded. And you do not have to guess right. Just guess human. Just imagine a human feeling and need that might be behind their words. Guessing feelings & needs are at least puts us in the camp of humanness, instead of judgment.

I find myself ever sharpening my skills at this mystical and profound, art and science of empathy. The process of developing my skills requires that I use them with myself. When I do not get the result I want, I empathize with myself, feel my own sadness, about that. Then I empathize with what made me chose to do it the ineffective way I did, and next I look for how I may have gotten the result I wanted. Life always provides me with another opportunity to practice again having learned something more. The following is a story of me sharpening my skill.

Storm asks me "Why do you listen and pay attention to the men in the group but ignore and criticize the women."

Me "Could you tell me what I did that you are calling ignoring & criticizing so I can tell you what was going on in me at that time?"

Storm "See there you go again, picking apart everything I am saying. It is just semantics and I am not going to play your stupid word games!"

This was the dialogue that erupted after we were fifteen minutes into an introductory class on Nonviolent Communication(sm). After some negotiation Storm agreed to go into another room with my partner Debbie to receive empathy about the big pain that was stirred up in her as I continued to teach the mechanics of the NVC to the rest of the group. After some period of time Storm comes back into the room. When she came in she looked a little more relaxed but her body language still showed a bit of tension so I asked, "I am a little concerned about whether you got the empathy you needed, how are you feeling now?"

I immediately felt connected with her empathically and could feel the energy of compassion go out to her. I asked "What is so scary?"

Storm tears up and her body relaxes as she takes in the empathy, but then suddenly tenses up again. "Why are you so empathetic to me now?" she asks with pain in her voice.

"Are you feeling hurt right now and would have liked this quality of listening earlier?" I ask, again feeling empathy for her pain.

"You made it easy to connect with you when you told me that you were scared, but I had to work hard and use a lot more energy when instead of revealing your feelings just now you went up to your head and asked me that ‘Why question’. I think you were wanting to protect yourself from that hurt feeling that was behind your question ‘Why are you so empathetic now?.’ It is the same kind of question with the same kind of pain behind it you were asking earlier. Remember? You were asking me ‘Why are you ignoring and criticizing the women in the group?’ Whenever we ask hurt or angry why questions we make it very difficult for whoever is listening to empathize with us. I predict most people will answer our why question with defensive information or by blaming in return. A why question is a shy question because it keeps in hiding the vulnerability of the hurt or fear that is often behind it. And again unrevealed hurt or fear is often perceived as an attack." I explained.

I too could have made it easier for Storm and I to get connected by empathizing with her feelings before trying to get clear on her observation. It might have sounded like this:

Storm: "Why do you listen and pay attention to the men in the group but ignore and criticize the women."

Me: "Are you hurt and angry because you’re needing men and women to be treated equally?"

Now that we are in heart connection less fear is likely to come up if I do ask her to tell me what I did that she is calling ignoring or criticism. Without this empathic connection the other person will easily go into fear when asked for the observation. Also it will decrease the likelihood that the request for the observation will sound like "Do you have any proof, any evidence whatsoever Mr. Fung that you did not hallucinate the entire event?!" (This in not meant in any way to offend, slander, or even vaguely refer to Attorney for OJ. Simpson, Barry Scheck)

When someone has been triggered by me, if I can offer empathy to them before I ask, "What did I do?" it often reassures them that I do care about their pain, and that I am not just in defensive mode. This will increase the chances that they will continue to disclose themselves to me.

Joe Blow: "You know Kelly, you are not exactly the most conscious person on the planet."

Me (hopefully): "Are you frustrated about wanting more sensitivity to your feelings in the situation?"

Another way to help the other sense that you are trying to really be understanding is to empathetically guess what they are reacting to or observing.

Me: "Was it when I said to Sheila that I was frustrated and wanted connection with her need for sharing the story?"

Here I am trying to empathize with the observation rather than just ask "What did I say that you are calling a criticism?". In my experience trying to empathize with the observation is usually interpreted as more of a sincere interest than just asking them, "What are you calling a criticism" or "What are you reacting to?" or "What is your their observation?"

The difference between a healer and a fixer is that one empathizes until what is needed emerges and the other assumes what is needed and goes about giving it whether it is wanted or not.

The essential first step in healing is an empathic-check-in-diagnosis. Some would-be healers fix first and ask questions later:

There were two motorcyclists who were getting cold as the wind blew through the zipper in the front of their jackets as they rode. They decided to stop and turn their jackets around and zip them up the back. … As they went on down the road they hit a rock and went flying into the ditch. A nice chiropractor came by in his car, saw what had happened and got out to help.

In the next scene the paramedic finally arrives and says to the nice chiropractor "What a shame, they are both dead, I wish I could have done more." "Yea," says the chiropractor, "I did what I could do. When I arrived they were both breathing, but their necks looked terribly twisted until I gave them a major adjustment."

One time not to empathize is when the request for empathy is sensed as a demand. By demand I mean that the person asking for the empathy is going to withdraw, get hurt, angry, judgmental or punish you if you does not empathize. Better to give honesty, silence or use protective force (such as walk away, or hang up, file a restraining order etc.)

You sense Jane is going to get angry if you does not empathize so you might say:

Dick, "I feel irritated right now as I am trying to unhook myself from taking on responsibility and guilt for your hurt. Would you be willing to talk to me about this tomorrow?"

It is wise to use no ‘whys’ when trying to empathize. Why questions take the other to their head and out of their present feelings. A better question might be: "Are you (or it sounds like you are) feeling__________ because you____________. ‘Why’ is a cognitive, mental question that leads one to start thinking and explaining. When I am empathizing with someone’s feelings I would to support them in staying in their feelings as long as they need to. Also when someone is in some painful feelings and they are asked a ‘why’ question it is frequently gets interpreted as an attack. If someone is hurting or in fear the ‘why’ question can sound like you are saying that they should not be feeling what they are feeling. The ‘why’ question can be heard as questioning or invalidating the person’s feelings instead of validating them.

Unhelpful friend trying to be supportive: "Why do you think planes are not safe?"

Unless the nervous traveler has great confidence in himself he is likely to start doubting and berating himself: "My friend is right. I should not be scared of flying. What’s wrong with me?"

Why questions are particularly distracting from the healing process when they take the conversation down another track than the one the person in pain needs to explore.

Here the friend is really expressing their own pain and anxiety which is likely to distract the son from their grieving process. The son may end up answering the question or trying to be their for his friend’s pain at the expense of his own process.

I would not bring in any of my own theories. I would not lead the witness by saying "Is this related to a sort of secret longing to be your father’s wife?" This falls under the category of asking "Interesting Questions" which are more about the asker’s theories and less about the person being asked the question. Better to ask "Interested Questions" where the intention is to show interest in and focus on the person being questioned.

Nor would I ask informational or historical questions like "How old were you when you started to feel this way ?" or "Did any one else in your family have a history of depression?"

A major block to developing empathy for others and to wholeness within the individual is the ‘fear of receiving empathy.’ It is particularly tough for men to receive empathy since they have had gender roll training to stay in their heads with the "hard" superior, masculine, dominator emotions like anger, contempt, disgust, instead of ever feeling the "soft" inferior, feminine, dominated emotions like fear, hurt, or sadness. Boys are taught they are "sissies" or "effeminate" and should feel ashamed as it is ‘inappropriate’ for boys to cry or be scared. The macho motto is "Don’t cry, get mad, get even." In a dominator society, such as ours, the men prepare for war or at least the war of the workplace which requires that they never give in to the "soft" emotions such as caring, compassion or empathy. After all how are they going to win the war if they care for their competition. It is a little easier for women to give and receive empathy since their gender roll includes the caring for crying children through comforting them. (A form of empathy)

Here are two more fears people have about receiving empathy. One is that they will lose control of themselves, fall apart or go crazy. Another is the fear that if they open up to their painful feelings, they will cry forever, or be stuck in the pain forever.

In other ways our culture supports a form of schizophrenia by teaching us to believe that people deserve to be punished and that we really are, in a static sense, wrong or bad if we have done certain things. This not only prevents sanity within individuals but blocks the clearing and release of painful beliefs that keep people separate.

An example of this is a young mother, Stacy, who came to me with her father, Maury, seeking to resolve her incest issues before it destroyed her marriage. It was very tough going because of the father’s fear of self empathy or compassion. Maury was totally willing to acknowledge what he had done to his daughter and all too willing to condemn himself for it. Why do I say ‘all too willing’? Because Maury’s willingness to condemn himself generated great guilt and shame within himself which completely blocked him from having true empathy for his daughter. It also blocked him from going deep into and sharing his own pain and sorrow about what he did. This sharing of his own sorrow about what he did was something his daughter was spiritually very hungry for. It was easier for Maury to stay up in his head blaming himself for what a monster he was, than to feel into the enormity of his daughter’s devastation.

Each time his daughter would begin to get in touch with her pain body and express some of it, he would unconsciously interrupt her with an apology.

Maury interrupting her mid sentence "I am so sorry sweetheart, I can not believe how stupid and selfish I was."

Each time this would happen Stacy would stuff her pain and try to take care of her father’s pain, by reassuring him etc.

I tried to empathize with the father’s guilt and shame that was preventing him from really hearing his daughter but each time he would block me by going up to his head and defending his righteous self condemnation.

Maury: "No, I do not deserve any compassion, after what I did to her I do not even deserve to live." (In the background of my head I can hear a chorus of my right wing conservative friends saying "At least you got that right!") It was hard work to get him to see that right here and now his daughter needed him, and once again he was not available because it was too scary for him to let go of his righteous self image as a Cretan. The jackals were screaming so loud in his own head that he was unable to hear his daughter’s pain, which was exactly what was going on years ago that allowed him to molest her in the first place. In other words he had been so caught up in his own anger, hurt, emptiness, and shame that he had no empathy for his little girl’s fear, confusion and hurt at the time of the incest. Once again she is needing that parental presence and he is off to Siberia on a guilt trip.

Maury asked "Well then how to get off my self indulgent, self judgment trip and be there for her?"

I responded "By letting yourself drop below the self hate and self rage going on in your head and feel into the shame about what you did and the sorrow of the loss of connection between you and your daughter and between your self and your heart."

"We could try role play. I will pretend I am you. And you pretend you are the part of you that hates you for what you did."

"OK Dad you begin, but I want to give a little warning direction to Stacy first . Stacy: If at any time during this process you begin to feel angry, or scared, or even begin to feel a little numb, like you want to check out, quickly interrupt. Either say something, raise your hand or do something. That way if something starts to get stimulated for you we can clear it instead of lose it or stuff it. Also I will check in with you from time to time, OK?"

(The following dialogue is a condensed version or the real dialogue which took about an hour and a half)

Maury starts in the role of his own inner critic, "How could you have done this to your own flesh and blood? Someone should castrate you even now for what you did."

Me as Maury’s compassionate soul "Sounds like you’re feeling contempt and disgust and confusion about what could make you do such a thing? And you would like to somehow compensate for what you did?"

Maury "Yes, how could you have done this to your little girl?" (Maury now breaks down into uncontrollable sobs.)

"Yes." Maury says as he slumps down in his chair a part of him relaxing. "I have lived with this for twenty years, I think it is why I sabotage myself in so many ways, because I keep trying to pay for what I did."

Me "So you are feeling a great loss. You have felt guilt for many years and out of that guilt you have done self destructive things"

Me "So you’re really feeling the sorrow for the loss of caring and connection with yourself for all these years."

Maury "Yes." Who is now sitting with his head hanging down. "And I can see how feeling so ashamed of myself made me pull away from everyone."

Maury "Sure, I was a totally selfish sick individual, who apparently hated himself so much he wanted to take it out on other individuals."

Me "Too easy. Not deep enough. What were you feeling and needing that led you to choose to have sex with your daughter?"

Maury in tears again "I was desperate for relief from self hate, and loneliness and I wanted to feel loved."

Me "Now I understand you hate what you did. Can you just understand what made you do it?"

Maury "No, I can not go there. I can not forgive myself! If I forgive myself I might do something like that again."

Me "So It is real scary to let your self feel the acceptance of the loneliness and the need to be loved and connected with?"

Me "It was the lack of acceptance of that feeling and those needs that led to your acting them out in this way in the first place. Also if you do not feel and release that pain you will not be able to be present to help your daughter let go of her pain."

"OK." He said with a sigh and a whoosh of an exhale like a dying man’s last breath out. And with that he dropped down into his body and expressed the inconsolable sobs of a completely forlorn man. After twenty minutes he raised his head and said "I am ready."

"I have never been able to believe or understand that you could feel that way after what I have done. I have heard you say that before, but for some reason that I do not understand I completely trust what you’re saying. And all I can feel is grateful that you care about me at all and so very sad that my guilt stopped me from hearing you up till now." Says Maury.

"And Daddy what you did has destroyed my life, my self esteem, and all my relationships up till now." Says Stacy.

With some coaching from me Maury was able to reflect back her pain from his heart:

"You have felt a horrible confusion in your life and shame about yourself and this has created the loss of all your relationships so far."

"Yes, I have thought all my life that there was something really wrong with me that I would let such a thing happen. And then when you pulled away it just confirmed that I was worthless." Says Stacy.

"So all your life you have felt this kind of shame and core defectiveness, and when I pulled away you felt all the more worthless." Says Maury.

"Yes." Says Stacy with a sigh of relief. "And I just need to know how you feel hearing all this"

Maury starts to say something quickly but then stops himself. Slowly he closes his eyes and just sits there. Then his stomach begins to quiver, his chest goes into a heaving convulsion and his head starts to go up and down as the sobs start to pour from deep in his throat and abdomen.

At first Stacy said nothing as she seemed to be in shock, but then her body became animated, her eyes refilled with tears as she reached out to wrap up her father in her arms. No verbal answer was ever given to her question about how her father was feeling. No verbal answer needed. The knowing and the understanding was so thick in the room, any words would have diluted the deluge.

Of course a life time’s anguish about incest is not likely to be cured in a single therapy. This was a huge first step for Stacy and Maury in their journey toward wholeness, but the real work of course lies in the aftercare.

What allowed the transformation to occur was the healing potency of presence. If I had only had therapy techniques to use I am doubtful much would have happened. It is like Virginia Satir used to tell me "It’s not the technology, it is the technician." And a big part of what allowed this technician to offer potent presence was that I allowed myself to receive major empathy to my own pain at being abused as a child.

We all know people who cycle around and around in their story of having been abused. Even if they get to their feelings and receive empathy for them they will feel compelled to keep telling their story. They will also keep acting their story out until they allow the empathy to make them conscious of their ongoing unmet needs. If an adult lost a parent in early childhood they may need to grieve, but at some point they also need to get conscious that they still need mothering or fathering, and go out and find it.

Even as I work with my therapy clients there comes a point when the empathy is no longer serving them. So even though as the great psychologist and author Rollo May said "All healing begins with empathy," is does not end there.

I once had as a client an eight year old women who had literally been in all kinds of therapy for forty five years. She could write books on her various neurosis, from an Adlerian or Freudian or Gestalt or Behavioral or Cognitive or Transactional or Rogerian perspective. She would cycle through her different theories with me until I started to give her my honesty. She would become furious and insist that I give her empathy instead. To which I would reply "I feel uneasy about continuing to give you empathy when I think honesty would be more helpful to you. I wonder if that irritates the heck out of you." She told me she hated me, fired me and I have not seen her since. I like to fantasize that I cured her from her addiction to therapists.

As I was thinking about examples of the power of empathy I was reminded of my years in adolescent treatment centers, not as an adolescent, but as a counselor. Here’s a story of how I used empathy to help a young gang member begin to connect with himself. Two young gang members, one African American, one Latino, ran from the Offender Treatment Facility to escape the restraining arms of the staff. I imagine the only thing in their minds was their intense hate for each other and an overwhelming passionate urge to beat each other to a pulp.

Once they got into the open space of the basketball court they indulged themselves in their orgy of hate. One gouging at the others eyes. One swinging wild hay makers in an attempt to knock the head off his Nemesis.

Combatants and dragged them to opposite ends of the facility. I dragged my wounded warrior into my counseling office and lock the door behind me.

Me: "He must have really done something intense. You do not usually just go off on anyone."

Him: "Yeah man, he’s been trying to steal my shit while I am at school and he’s been trying to snake (steal) my girl."

Me: "So I guess you want him to know that you are not going to take that lying down."

Me: "Yeah well I wasn’t enjoying your style of expressing your feelings. You know we have a difference of opinion about what is the best way to express feelings."

Him: "Yeah I know, say the feelings, make requests, but he’s a real punk, treating me like a friend just so he can dis (slang for disrespect) me when I'm not looking."

Me: "So you are really angry because you wanted to be respected for the trust you showed him by letting him be your friend and introducing him to your girlfriend, by leaving your stuff and girlfriend alone."

Me: "So are you feeling hurt because you really like him and wanted to stay friends."

Me: "So are you just feeling hopeless about ever having friends you can count on."

Me: "I wonder if you feel sad because you really would have like some people in your life you could count on and who would respect you."

Him: "Yeah man, but we got to stop this because how am I going to be able to beat him up when I am starting to feel all calm and shit."

Joe Blow: "You are totally irresponsible. How could you have forgotten again to lock

Jane Blow: "Yes I hear how frustrating that is for you. However it was John who left it unlocked this time."

If I think I have to get the empathy from a particular person, it is probably a sideways request for empathy. It is probably a form of punishment.

Jane: "I don’t want empathy from you Kelly, I want John to get it just how much he hurt my feelings by forgetting my birthday."

You can have technical skills at empathy and still have low octane presence in the empathy.

John in an anxious tone: "Well there was this big accident on 8^th Street, right where it intersects with Mission Drive, near where the old Wal-Mart used to be. And I thought about pulling over and giving you a call but then I would be even later….."

Each word digs him in deeper and is painful for Jane to be pretending to listen to. She will likely be getting more and more resentful as she thinks "I am the victim here and now I have to listen to all his excuses?"

As long as you are hating yourself you can not let in empathy. Without self empathy you can not stop seeing yourself as "weak, stupid, lazy, whatever." As soon as you let the empathy in you can "forgive yourself and like a caterpillar come out of the cocoon of self hate and judgment and see yourself differently and start to then act differently.

I was once confronted by an angry man with a knife threatening to hurt me, my partner and our one year old. By the grace of goddess and the power of empathy I was able to make a spiritual and emotional connection with him that allowed us all to resolve the situation safely. At first I had thoughts and impulses to try to lunge at him and knock him out. But then I had an intuitive flash into the future and the possible repercussions. I also thought of my daughter in that scary moment about what kind of world she will grow up in if we keep trying to fight violence with violence. (I am not philosophically however opposed to the use of protective force.)

I then made a conscious choice to try to connect with him instead of over power him. As I tried to tune into him and empathize with what must be going on inside his emotional body all images of "an attacker", "an enemy", "a madman" melted away. What was left was a desperately hurting tortured soul. As I was able to connect with that in him, I no longer felt at odds with him. I had the most amazing feeling that I was him and that he was not a threat to me. At that moment he stabbed himself in the forearm about two inches deep. He began screaming at me "I am in control here. You want me to show you control. I will show you who is in control." I felt compassion for his fear and his self hate and pain. As I felt the connection all fear left my body and I walked up to him with arms out reaching, looking with a face of love into his eyes. Just as I got up to him he turned away from me. I gently wrapped my arms around him, empathetically feeling his pain and said something to the effect "Your pain is my pain and your wounds are my wounds." He started to sob in my arms and wipe blood onto his face. I took a towel and wrapped his arm up to slow down the bleeding.

Ultimately we were all OK, but for a moment I knew what it was like to be the "face of love" and to see no enemy. I experienced the safety of becoming one with the "enemy" leaving no one else left for him to attack. Empathizing allowed me to become conscious of "The Pain." The great body of pain that all human beings share. Compassion to that pain removed all my fears and confusion and allowed me to know exactly what to do.

Here is another less dramatic but beautiful expression of the ecstasy of empathy:

It was a most beautiful moment. A loud clang and then a scream rang out across the village plaza of the intentional community called Zegg in Germany. All conversations stopped on a dime at the sound of that chime. All heads turned and every heart opened. I felt it. I felt the compassion from every heart go out to heal and comfort the three year old girl who had dropped a garbage can lid on her foot. The energy of empathy and compassion hung in the air like a thick fog. All action, all concern with all other things stopped. Breath taken in another scream goes out. Two adults turn on their heals and walk swiftly toward the hurt child. Already another 3 year old is petting the foot telling her It is all right in German and the universal language of compassion.

If you are hearing whining you are listening with a closed heart. Open your heart and hear fear and pain mixed together.

Mataya, my one year old, was fussing and I felt tense and stressed by her fussing, until the idea came to me that she was teething (actually Deb told me) and I felt a relaxing shift in my body and compassion for my sweet little one’s pain. It is a high and holy practice of Holistic Selfishness to practice holding an expanded consciousness of Empathic Understanding for everyone. Why do I call it selfish? Because I benefit by feeling more connected and less tense in relationship with all those that I use to allow to annoy me.

A cry, a whimper, a slight scratch wafted through the RV. My daughter's 8 month old voice was reaching out to me. Her tiny soul, her sweet innocent spirit sharing her vulnerability with me. I flash forward 20 years in my imagination and I pretend I am remembering what it was like to have a baby's cry blessing my daily life. Ah yes, I still remember it’s honeysuckle sweetness, and I can taste the preciousness of the sound of her. It is her. She is sharing herself without withholding, without restraint. Oh I pray I can always hear the purity of her reaching out to me and be touched in the same way. When her cries turn into whining words, when she screams at me in anger and frustration, please dear heart of mine remember this connection between our souls. The form has changed but the truth of her being reaching out for comfort remains the same.

Could I, would I, listen with the same compassionate ear to all such stirrings for connection. Whether they be in angry words, polite excuses, put downs, or punishments. If only I could hear what their mothers heard once upon a time, "Oh, my child needs me. How blessed I am to be able to respond."

It is my invariable custom to put out birdseed each morning and then sit back in my reading chair and watch them eat. My chair is fairly close to the feeder and I am aware that any quick movement on my part will scare the birds away. After five or ten minutes the first bird comes and I notice myself take a small gulp of air and gently hold it in with slightly pursed lips. It was my attempt to control any bodily movement, even the rise and fall of my breathing chest, so as to not scare away the tiny creature.

Another bird lands and I feel more pressure to control any movement, any sign of life in me that might frighten away my new flighty friends. I want to scratch an itch on my nose but I dare not.

Then it hit me, “These birds are controlling me. They won’t let me breath or move. They have taken over my will.” My over active imagination transforms the sparrow into the image of a giant Pterodactyl pinning me to the ground with its huge talons wrapped around my chest preventing me from breathing as it decides whether to carry me back to it’s lair (Did Pterodactyls have lairs?) or to eat me right there. Finally in one last desperate heroic lunge I leap to my feet and discharge my lungs with a roar of power as I throw off the sparrow demons. The two birds at the feeder quickly fly back to safe refuge in a nearby tree as I relish in my reclaimed freedom. I imagine that one of the birds says to the other “Wow! Does this guy have autonomy issues or what?”

Do I do this with all my relationships? Lure them in with some kind of nurturance, project onto them a monstrous need to control my very life energies, and then chase them away in a fear filled fit of rebellion.

I am particularly helpless if a cute kitten falls asleep on my chest. It might as well be a thousand pound adult lion. I can lay there for hours debating the relative importance of our respective needs.

Voice one. “You have things to do that are much more important than this kitten’s need to sleep.”

Voice two. “Oh, so now you’re more important than the kitten. Remember what Gandhi said about how you can tell a man’s character by how he treats least of creatures around him.”

Voice two. “But it’s so cute I hate to wake it up”. That one always gets me. So I lay there until the developing cramps trigger muscle spasms which jar the kitten awake. And this is only one of the painful symptoms of my disease - microzoophobia. That’s the fear that small animals are controlling you. Now seriously, what hope do I have for a real relationship with an adult homo sapien when I can’t even iron out my autonomy issues with pets?