1Niceguy asked me for help getting grounded one night, and here's what I wrote. It seems to me that when we're in the middle of chaos and desperate to get grounded, we have to start somewhere. This isn't HEALS and it's NOT going to help in the long term. It's nothing more than a place to start -- a life ring to hang onto when you can't do more. There are many folks who come to us in the middle of a crisis, though, and we need a few life rings, so I thought I'd put it out here.


I see three things that will help you in this situation. First, grounding and centering. Second, connecting to your essence, which is what HEALS is all about -- but HEALS takes practice, and I don't think we're going to get you to a solid knowledge of HEALS tonight. And third, and maybe this sounds crazy, but remembering to love the people who are around you.

Here are some things to think about....

Grounding and Centering

Try doing the grounding-and-centering meditation that's below. It arises from Wiccan and New Age practices, so if that conflicts with your religious practices, find something like it that's comparable and use that instead.

Tree Meditation

Begin this meditation either standing or sitting. Penny finds that standing works better for her.

Envision the chakras in the feet (those tingly spot in the arches of your feet). Imagine roots growing out of these chakras and down into the floor. Then down into the concrete and through the cold earth and down through clay and sand and rock and bedrock, down through the crust and mantle and into the core of the earth. Envision this with as much accurate knowledge of the earth as you have. Feel the rock grow warmer as you go down, feel the heat of the molten core of the earth. Pull that warmth up through the roots of the tree to the solar plexus, which is where the solar chakra is. Warm the solar plexus thoroughly and completely.

Then envision the crown chakra, which is at the top of the head. From it grow branches that stretch up through the roof and grow above the trees that are outside. They stretch further up through the atmosphere and in all directions, stretching silvery fingers out and out, up into space and past the moon, past the sun, past the stars and the global clusters and the nebulae. They reach yet further into the vast reaches of empty space in between the galaxies, into the darkest emptiness of the center of the great lacy bubbles of galaxies that are spread across trillions of light years of space.

Feel the utter cold of that dark, silent place, and allow all the heat above the solar plexus to flow out of the branches and into the solar plexus – making way for the cold. [Note: The original of this meditation has cold flowing from the depths of space down through the branches and to the solar plexus. If that works for you, fantastic. I'm a geek, myself.] Feel how the heat shifts into cold at your center, at the solar plexus; feel the dynamic tension of heat and cold, feel the energy flowing from the molten core into the silent vacuum of the coldest environment in the universe. Allow the heat and cold at your center, like masses of warm and cold air, to spiral and twine around one another. Feel the dynamic tension between heat and cold, then slowly let it go. (Spin and balance)

(Once you get the hang of this (one or two times!) it's better to use your own words and pictures. Here's a variant I found on the Internet which is also quite nice:
http://members.tripod.com/~onespiritx/medi15.htm)


The Prayer of St. Francis

Your goal is like parts of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, which I've quoted below. The goal is to take the peacefulness with you, to wrap it around you.

Make me an instrument of thy peace, O Lord.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon, Lord.
Where there is doubt, let there be faith.

Make me an instrument of thy peace, O Lord.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let there be light,
Where there is sadness, let there be joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

In other words, the goal is to transform pain. Your pain, yes. And also the pain of others. That pain will show up as rage and anger, stress and frustration, blame and fury and a whole lot of suffering. The Dalai Lama suggests that you practice breathing in all the pain of everyone you see, everyone in the world, and breathing out compassion. With each breath that you take, you will transform pain into compassion. Focus on your breathing while you're there.

There will be great pain in the room with you when you interact with people who are in chaos. You might not be able to breathe all of it. However, your goal is to reduce it with your breathing and your compassion, and never to add to it with anything that you say. Difficult, yes. Stay silent if you don't know how not to cause pain.


The Houses of Compassion

- One of the most important things about HEALS is, again, connecting to your essence -- to your soul and to your sense of the broadest and best parts of the world and you-in-the-world. So let's talk about what connects you to your essence. Here are the things we focus on:

-- Comforting a small child until she falls asleep on your chest.
-- Your membership in community
-- Your sense of connection to the universe
-- Things in nature that are beautiful to you
-- Manmade things that are beautiful to you
-- The people you love
-- The most important thing about you
-- Compassionate things that you've done

Penny's heart meditation will help you think them through. It's at

Penny's Heart Meditation

The more you can immerse yourself in that sense of connection, and the more you can return to that over and over again in the midst of crises and dealing with people who are in chaos, the better off you'll be. HEALS will allow you to return to it more quickly, and to work through the pain of the people you're with, too.

When you're in that place of connection to your essence, then remember what St. Francis wrote. Make me an instrument of thy peace. Find ways to be compassionate toward everyone in the room, including yourself. Don't be selfish, and give at the expense of your Self, but rather be compassionate toward everyone there.



HEALS

This is what HEALS does -- it transforms your own pain and then, once you are at peace, helps you start to look at, understand, and have compassion for the pain of others. Here are the links that will explain HEALS, but don't try to absorb it all at once. Read and re-read and practice and DO. The doing is most important, even if you feel like you don't understand it yet.

Graemlins Version

Compassion Power Notes Week One

Compassion Power Week Two Notes

Compassion Power Notes Week Three

Don't expect yourself to be perfect at this tomorrow! And that's okay. Every step you can take toward compassionate action is a good one. Even if you think you're doing HEALS wrong, do it.

HEALS takes weeks and compassion takes a lifetime and each person learns it in their own way. A single day of compassion is a wonderful place to start. Try starting with it -- try starting with a single hour of it.

bump for TxGal2

thanks J,

I needed that today....


also a word of *warning*...

the heart meditation can be extremely emotional...be prepared, well, as best you can...the depth of it and the 'places' it took me to were surprising in their powerfulness....


now back to calling movers for quotes..and to explaining to Mini why EVEY toy he ownsCANNOT come on a Greyhound bus...

quote:

1Niceguy asked me for help getting grounded one night

Thanks J for bumping it again. It truly helped the last time, and as the cosmic order would have it, it's at a time when I need it again. My biggest challenge lately has been how I deal with crisis situations, which aren't happening as ofter, but still rock me from my center.

quote:

now back to calling movers for quotes..and to explaining to Mini why EVEY toy he ownsCANNOT come on a Greyhound bus...

Did I miss something??? Where are you moving to?

Making a better life, one day at a time!
Joe

see my job offer post...

bump for tj