Perhaps you’ve noticed that the old way of doing things isn’t working anymore in little ways… ways that are mildly unsettling but not (yet) Earth shaking…  Perhaps if you were being honest with yourSelf, you would admit that you’ve noticed it before, and that it seems to be happening more, maybe getting stronger… So you become roused, curious even – and taking a step back, see that things are indeed changing or organized in ways you were unaware of before, and you realize you have some decisions to make…

Waking up intentionally starts out just like that, for some. For others hard and soft traumas play a significant role, a loss, healing from illness, some sudden change… include too – artistic compulsions, or irrepressible curiosity and inexplicable fascinations… The point being, there is a catalyst for each person, a right timing, their own elusive readiness factors which constellate within and outside of each of us, as Life supports our growth.

On the path of intentional change, there are some basic understandings that assist one at every step of the way, for the path isn’t straight – it’s a spiral. As it flows we revisit issues periodically and deepen our healing or mastery of them with each pass, just as it is said, like pealing an onion to its nonexistent center…

It all begins with Ownership and recognizing in yourSelf ALL of these: conscious intentional acts, automatic pilot or conditioned acts and unconscious reactions.

Before Ownership there is blame and finger pointing, talking about others instead of yourSelf. There is the trap of triangulation, or the victim’s triangle. In this conditioned, unconscious state of dis-ownership, there are 3 possible positions one can find themSelves in: Innocent Victim, Evil Perpetrator, or Rescuer Hero. Triangulated relationships rely on emotional manipulation, blame, excuses and most heavily on winners and losers. The players rotate positions endlessly with great angst and drama.

This is a no-growth dynamic that can trigger a pivoting event of recognition that leads to a choice to participate in relationships differently, or to participate in different relationships, replacing the blame dynamic with personal accountability.

Projection is the double edged sword of consciousness. Projection makes both blame and Self Recognition possible.  Learning to recognize both your own and others’ projections is the first step in a pivot that truly changes everything. The rule is deceptively simple, disturbingly accurate and unerringly productive.  It goes like this: ANYTHING to which you have an immediate and intense response of ANY emotional flavor, contains a projection, for we project onto other people and situations the qualities it is time for us to recognize and own as our own, and decide anew how we will wield this quality.

When your starting point shifts from blame to ownership, and from judging others to accounting for yourSelf honestly, it is very humbling, and slowing down is a natural, healthful response. The forms contemplation can take are infinite, and support us in our pivots towards more conscious, living choices.

The conditioned self lives in an emotionally prescripted trance, and finds dynamics such as triangulation and co-dependence safe havens from encountering what ever it is they fear or loathe.  Emotions are messy and complex because we are disorderly and complex. We are taught very little about human emotions and much of that is wrong. Emotional well being is not the domain of women. Feelings are not facts, and they are NOT irrational, no matter how intensely and thoroughly they eclipse logic on occasion…

Intuition and processing sensory data – those are our irrational functions. Thinking and feeling are our rational functions (Jung). Feelings arise attached to real events. There’s cause and effect involved, and usually a mix of emotions of varying strength bouncing off thoughts that are bouncing off feelings, causing more thoughts and more feelings, until one’s interior is in a turmoil, and a contemplative practice is called for…

Emotional flow is paramount. This means they must always flow. We harm ourSelves on every level of our Being when we clamp down on them and disallow their flow, deny their existence or resist their wisdom. Emotions, our feelings arise in response to moments and morph as moments change. They flow endlessly, separating out and blending back together, differentiating and integrating, intensifying and soothing, informing, facilitating and connecting us – to ourSelves and to each other.

Emotional maturity accrues organically in the absence of emotional strictures. It happens naturally as we pay attention to our emotional flow, and make time to sort out our feelings. It takes patience and practice to begin to move differently with the emotional aspect of our Living Intelligence. Emotions and feelings are not irrelevant or irrational. They are a meaning-filled dimension of our Beingness, a kind of intelligence that is its own language.

So, when your prescripted trances are producing the same old drama again, and you’re miserable, again, you MUST be on the verge of a Self Revelation! Congratulations! Step out of the triangle, back up a few paces, slow down and account for yourSelf. Withdraw your projections with gratitude to the ones who were willing to reflect what you were ready to see. Own the projection and feel all that’s connected to it. Observe your feelings change bringing with them a new tone of emotional resonance. Welcome to compassion.