Despair is spiritual way-pointer.  It is the Gargoyle placed before the Way to your personal Nirvana, to repel you who are not yet ready to distinguish between gold and fool’s gold.

Take a closer look at despair. Notice it comes paired.  We despair about something. What is the ‘pair’ your des-pair is dis-sing?  Perhaps you despair over not having enough money, or looks, or health, or over a compulsive habit, or a troubling relationship.  Whatever the ‘object’ of your despair, it is something you have long ‘objected’ to in your self/life and have not found a way ‘out’.  Despair is the emotion that comes up around feeling you can’t find your way ‘out’: you’re stuck with this undesirable issue.

Because the issue persists, you begin to experience it as part of your ‘identity’, an inextricable & undesirable part of your nature, shame begins to build around it, making it even more painful, even more entrenched in your psyche as a personal defect.

That’s the Gargoyle’s effect on us, but it is not the Truth about Who You are, and Who You Are Here To Become.  You have a Purpose in Being Here.  There are many expressions of your Purpose, many pieces to it.  But the key to having your life unfold along the trajectory of your Highest Evolutionary Possibility as opposed to a diminished one, lies in mastering the core issue you were born to master.  How do you recognize what that is?

It’s the issue your Despair is pointing you to:  relentlessly, stubbornly, persistently, pointing toJ

What we refer to as an ‘issue’ is an incorrect mindthink that has corrupted energy into a destructive force.  This darkened energy has been around for millennia and is part of what is diminishing our existence into survival rather than the thriving that is our birthright.  This darkened energy is now hosted by me.  That’s the bad news that as spiritually foolish we accept as a prison sentence.  The possibility is to recognize that my contribution to the salvation of the world, lies in lifting the incorrect mindthink, and liberating the energy to be a constructive force.

This is not an academic endeavor, but a personal path of transformation.  It begins with seeing your despair as an ally, in its pointing you to the specific incorrect mindthink you are here to correct, and to correct by shifting your perspective within yourself, and cultivating the mindthink, skills, activities, and habits to master the issue at the heart of your stuckness.

Questions for your contemplation:

1. What is the ‘problem’ I despair about most deeply?
2. Close your eyes: scan how many people on the planet share this ‘problem’? think of all the situations people are in that might bring up this same problem.
3. Would the world be a better place if we could all be more masterful of this problem?
4. Are you Willing to invite in a Shift in Perception that holds this ‘problem’ as the PhD mastery course your Essence is asking you to take?
5. Are you Willing to invite in the shifts in perception that are calling for your attention in highlighting that your current perception, your current way of holding this problem, is the cause of your suffering?
6. “I seek a future different from my past” is A Course In Miracles principle I find helpful.

How do I help you cultivate ‘direct knowing’?

I say in the welcome on my website: There are two aspects that define our experience.

The first is Essence – aptitudes, talents, temperament, the intrinsic qualities that make up my uniqueness. This is the area of matters of the Soul, of the Who-I-Am, the ever-unfolding Self. Access to this information is direct, intuitive, felt. The second is Ego: those thoughts and skills that we learn in order to survive. Where matters of essence are part of the eternal, the skills of ego respect the time-space continuum. Where matters of Essence are intrinsic, the skills of ego must be practiced and developed.

We can process ego matters through usual conversation, usual thinking.

Matters of Essence? How do we tap into, cultivate our awareness of, and relationship to, the ‘intrinsic’? This is the realm of non-ordinary states of consciousness. The more common understanding of meditation is the sitting practice of stilling the mind, and this alone can open that access. However in psycho-spiritual work, and in the vast field of meditative and wisdom traditions, there are infinite ways to tap into that state of consciousness, e.g. guided meditations, somatic experiencing, psychosynthesis, family constellation work, hypnosis, breathwork journeying, shamanic experiences, (to name a few), all offer ways to induce altered states of consciousness that open our direct knowing.

We are in a moment in time that calls for an evolutionary leap. Although by definition we can’t know the details of what is yet to evolve, we do know that this next leap is a leap in consciousness becoming aware of itself as the creator of human reality. Although intellectually we understand that everything made by man, both physical and attitudinal, starts as an idea, and manifests into reality by the effort and behaviors we put behind that idea, we continue to live as if we are victims of our reality and in denial that we co-create the reality we live in.

The awareness of non-ordinary states of consciousness as the key to direct knowing, and to opening us to our next evolutionary leap is spreading as evidenced in the renaissance we are in of the use of psychedelics e.g. psilocybin, LSD, mdma, and shamanic plant medicines, e.g. ayahuasca, ibogaine, for healing, and personal growth. These medicines that for decades have been banned from research in the U.S. are now being found to have tremendous potential in healing the rampant PTSD and epidemic in suicides (e.g. those who served in the Iraq and Afghani wars died by their own hand 25:1 compared to those killed by enemy fire) and mental illness that we find ourselves in.

Given the sheer numbers of individuals suffering from mental illness and addiction, and the families devastated by it, I absolutely believe in the value of opening up the use of these medicines by healing professionals, and applaud the work of the Multi-disciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), in driving that research effort in the U.S.

However, I am committed to spreading the awareness that we have an inborn facility to access non-ordinary states of consciousness, a facility that has been studied and practiced for millennia by wisdom schools, indigenous and shamanic practices, energy/chakra modalities, and the mystical teachings within all religions. It is a facility that is finding a contemporary face in practices coming out of psycho-spiritual schools on the cutting edge of generating an evolutionary culture.

My hope is to help you cultivate a repertoire of ways, or a way that works for you, to tap in to the information and robust energy held in the ever-creating, ever-unfolding, Miracle of Aliveness you are an embodiment of. The Who-You-Are-Here-To-Become is the river ever flowing “while (the Allen Saunders quote immortalized by John Lennon’s song) you’re busy making other plans”.

Hi,

You’ve signed up to spend a day Towards Restoring Resiliency, and I acknowledge you for hearing that call.

In relation to your children being taken from you, is there any measure you could give to the depth and volume of your pain? Can you imagine what it would be like if that amount of energy was transformed into the energy of Purpose and Clarity of mission? if even a fraction of that amount of energy existed inside you as life-affirming energy rather than life-diminishing energy?

What you know by now, is that there is no answer available to you in your thinking mind.

This workshop offers some understanding and tools for tapping into and supporting the resiliency of the Central Nervous System.
Ultimately you will be guided through a profound experience of Surrender. Letting go of ego/thought mind, and Receiving from the Divine Spark that you are an embodiment of, and that is one with Divinity all around you.

Contemplate: what is your prayer? Recognize the prayer you hold on the deepest level. Tune in. Bringing your attention to the inquiry will allow things up from the nooks and crannies they are obscured in. the prayer will become more alive, more organic for you. However personal the details of it, notice the underlying prayer, perhaps:

‘Show me the Way to Resiliency’
‘Show me what is mine to do with this’
‘Show me the Way to Light the World’
‘Show me a new Way’
‘May Love prevail over fear/cruelty, and may Love prevail within me’
‘Show me the Way to be that best serves the Light in my children’

Yours is a Sacred Quest.

I will write you again next week with the location of our time together. if you know anyone who’s been interested in signing up , encourage them to do so now.

Sandra
Sandra Eagle, LCSW
www.sandraeagle.com
203-550-2111

Tapping into sensations and the body-wisdom to facilitate healing and promote consciousness

At The Cutting Edge Of The Psychotherapeutic Field

The study of profound healing and change has led to many new schools of psychotherapeutic intervention that view the body, mind, and emotions as an integrated system. Techniques that tap the sensations in the body, facilitating the intrinsic orientation towards healing and growth held in the sensations to emerge and prevail, results in profound change. Teaching clients how to become friendly with the work of the sensations promotes wellbeing.

Whole Brain Processing Involves More Than Words

Indeed, we understand now that the wiring of most of the symptoms we deal with in psychotherapy, such as panic, anxiety, depression, rage, PTSD, is held in the right side of the brain. The right side of the brain doesn’t process in words, so talk-therapy can give you an understanding of your issues, but only in using sensations, images, or emotions, can the issues actually be processed into healing.

For the Novice & the Seasoned

This is a fabulous introduction into the art & principals of mind-body healing for the psychotherapist new to partnering with the body wisdom in healing work, and a profound integrative experience for the therapist already using mind-body healing techniques.

Thursday, Aug. 27, 6-10p Stamford
Location address sent on registration. Fee: $85.
Sandra Eagle, LCSW, is a psychotherapist with 40 years experience working with children and families, practicing in Greenwich CT. In her practice and in her workshops, Sandra combines transformational techniques from the psychotherapeutic and consciousness traditions, that tap into the body’s intrinsic orientation towards healing and growth.
Register here or by email Sandra@sandraeagle.com or by phone 203-550-2111