Homework answers / question archive / One of the primary tenets of Buddhism is that suffering is universal and inevitable

One of the primary tenets of Buddhism is that suffering is universal and inevitable

Writing

Share With

One of the primary tenets of Buddhism is that suffering is universal and inevitable. Many Buddhist practices are focused on the elimination of suffering. Is it necessary to struggle in order to transform? Does the adage “No pain, no gain” apply to all situations? How do we honor the value of growth through suffering, while at the same time working to eliminate suffering?

For this module I wanted to give you the opportunity to reflect on the process of growth through suffering and trauma. You have certainly learned by now that there are many portals to transformation. Some of those are developmental, while others can come through religious ecstasy or dramatic insights. This week we are specifically focusing on those portals that come through trauma. For our discussion this week, I invite you to do some reflection on the process of growth. Here are some questions to use for your reflection. Do not feel obligated to answer each one. Rather use them to take your reflections into this topic.

Must read ALL Reading + Power point + Class notes.

APA 7th mention (quotes and in parenthesis) from attached readings.

This article was downloaded by: [Gabi Mihalache] On: 06 May 2012, At: 14:28 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wspi20 The Transformational Dynamics of Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable: A Qualitative Heuristic Study Gabriela Mihalache a a Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California, USA Available online: 03 May 2012 To cite this article: Gabriela Mihalache (2012): The Transformational Dynamics of Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable: A Qualitative Heuristic Study, Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 14:2, 111-128 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19349637.2012.671049 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 14:111–128, 2012 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1934-9637 print/1934-9645 online DOI: 10.1080/19349637.2012.671049 The Transformational Dynamics of Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable: A Qualitative Heuristic Study GABRIELA MIHALACHE Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California, USA This study was concerned with the investigation of the selftransforming nature of becoming forgiving following victimizing situations, initially felt to be beyond one’s ability to forgive. How did some individuals forgive that which was seemingly unforgivable? What facilitated, what inhibited, and what was the impact of this form of forgiveness (labeled in this study as “transformative forgiveness”)? These research questions were explored in a qualitative heuristic design, mainly at the individual, intrapsychic level. The final sample consisted of 13 participants from various ethnic and spiritual backgrounds, who had forgiven seemingly unforgivable offenses and experienced significant transformation in the process. KEYWORDS forgiveness, transformation, therapeutic, heuristic, qualitative research In this research project, the author explored, in a qualitative heuristic design, the process of becoming forgiving of the seemingly unforgivable, an experience referred to in this study as transformative forgiveness—a form of interpersonal forgiveness by a single victim of an offender or offenders who inflicted grave harm either directly upon the victim or upon the victim’s loved ones. Severity of offense is a distinguishing factor affecting the character of the forgiveness response experienced in these cases. Hence, the experience of transformative forgiveness might be generally understood as “the self-transforming nature of being forgiving following an event or situation Address correspondence to Gabriela Mihalache, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, The Global PhD Program, 1069 East Meadow Circle, Palo Alto, CA 94303. E-mail: gmihalache@ itp.edu 111 Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 112 G. Mihalache where being forgiving initially seemed impossible” (R. Valle, personal communication, May, 2007). This type of forgiveness has been previously studied in individuals who have suffered from trauma such as incest (Enright & Freedman, 1996), domestic abuse (Reed & Enright, 2006), the September 11th attacks (Rhoades et al., 2007), and severe human rights violations (Gobodo-Madikizela, 2002), to name just a few. Becoming forgiving in these circumstances has been described as a profound life change, “a process of re-creation that involves a basic shift in destinations and pathways in living” (McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2000, p. 303). Understanding the natural dynamic of transformation as it occurs in becoming forgiving of the unforgivable will contribute to our understanding of therapeutic change, and will aid in the improvement of forgiveness counseling interventions. The questions that arise include: How did some individuals forgive that which was seemingly unforgivable? How did the complex process of transformative forgiveness unfold? What facilitated, what inhibited, and what was the impact of transformative forgiveness? These were the primary questions explored in this research. Participants who had experienced becoming forgiving following seemingly unforgivable victimizing situations and who believed they had been transformed by it were invited to share a personal description of that experience. The seemingly unforgivable nature of the reported transgression was, for purposes of this study, a quality so characterized by the participant. The final sample consisted of 13 coparticipants who had experienced becoming forgiving following traumatic situations that included the murder of a son or daughter, severe childhood abuse, the Holocaust, childhood rape, a husband’s suicide, and domestic abuse. This was a retrospective study in which participants had already forgiven, and their process of becoming and being forgiving was studied from self-reports. Conceptual Foundations in Forgiveness Research Forgiveness scholarship has amassed an impressive volume of interdisciplinary academic literature in the last few decades. A quick search yields over 1,000 articles, books, and dissertations in the psychological literature alone. However, Strelan and Covic (2006) concluded, following a review of forgiveness models, that the most important research question that needed to be addressed was: What is forgiveness? The agreement among researchers centers more on what forgiveness is not, rather than on what it is (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Ho & Fung, 2011; McCullough et al., 2000). They agree that forgiveness is not pardoning, or excusing the offender, or condoning the hurtful action. The wrong should not be denied, minimized, or justified, nor does forgiveness achieved by the victim should rule out the application of justice for offender and victim. Pope John Paul II, for example, forgave the person who attempted to assassinate him, but the assassin Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 113 continued to serve his sentence in jail. Neither does forgiveness necessarily involve reconciliation with the victimizer (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Fehr, Gelfand, & Nag, 2010; Halling, 1994; McCullough et al., 2000). Becoming forgiving could consist solely of a private, intrapsychic resolution, if reconciliation is not possible (e.g., when the wrongdoer is dead) or not desired, or if renewing the relationship would expose the forgiver to revictimization. The notion of forgiveness has been, for psychologists, conceived of as a developmental construct. Enright and Fitzgibbons (2000) have organized the developmental perception of forgiveness into six styles of increasing moral character similar to Kolhberg’s moral stages. The first and second styles of forgiveness, characteristic especially of children, are revengeful forgiveness and restitutional forgiveness. Both strategies equate forgiveness with justice—exacted either as punishment or restitution, as in demanding that something be offered to the victim before forgiveness is extended. The third and fourth styles, expectational forgiveness and lawful expectational forgiveness, respectively, are reactions of forgiving that conform to either social or religious conventions out of a sense of obligation. Forgiveness as social harmony, the fifth style of forgiveness, is adopted as a strategy for establishing and maintaining harmony and control in social relations. In each of these first five styles, forgiveness is adopted as a means to an end implying some form of calculative reasoning, and Enright and Fitzgibbons admitted, “every level except Style 6 actually is a cognitive distortion of the essential meaning of forgiveness” (2000, p. 61). Only Style 6, forgiveness as love, goes beyond mere self-interest into extending moral love as a gift to the offender. Influenced by this conceptualization, the nexus of a set of influential definitions of forgiveness has come to center on this quality of giving a moral gift to the offender (Baskin & Enright, 2004; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Worthington et al., 2011). Another generalized definition that reached some consensus in the psychological circles is that “forgiveness is a positive method of coping with a hurt or offense that primarily benefits the victim through a reorientation of emotions, thoughts, and/or actions toward the offender” (Wade & Worthington, 2005, p. 160). In a meta-analytic synthesis of 175 forgiveness studies, Fehr et al. (2010) have found empathy and compassion for the offender to be among the central correlates necessary for reaching forgiveness. Self-transformation of the victim was also acknowledged by the majority of researchers as foundational to the essential nature of forgiveness (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Fehr et al., 2010; Pargament & Rye, 1998; Rowe et al., 1989; Williamson & Gonzales, 2007). Self-transformation in forgiveness was described as manifesting in a changed vision of self and the world, in finding a larger meaning, and in gaining wisdom and knowledge (Williamson & Gonzales, 2007). Empirical studies support the assertion that the self-transforming nature of becoming forgiving is transpersonal or spiritual (Rowe & Halling, 1997; Rowe et al., 1989; Williamson & Gonzales, Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 114 G. Mihalache 2007). In a qualitative phenomenological study of the subjective experience of forgiving another, Rowe et al. (1989) noticed that forgiveness had subtle qualities “that transcend one’s relationship with that person and open one up to oneself and the world in new ways . . . which led us to describe the experience as being spiritual or transpersonal as well as interpersonal” (p. 239). However, forgiveness is not conceived here as prescription, but rather as something one might discover as a result of working through emotions or during the processes involved in a spiritual practice. The transpersonal coordinates explored in this study are the coordinates of the victim’s transformational experience of becoming forgiving. Transpersonal psychology is the branch of psychology devoted to the study of spiritual or transpersonal aspects of the human condition. Major areas of study include the psychology of transformation and development beyond ego, and the integrative/holistic psychology. In transpersonal experiences “the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche, or cosmos” (Walsh & Vaughan, 1993, p. 3). Empirical Findings The applied research on forgiveness centers mainly on therapeutic process models. The majority of these models tend to have either a Christian theological or a therapeutic orientation (Lundahl, Taylor, Stevenson, & Roberts, 2008; Strelan & Covic, 2006). Two generic process models stood out as leading the applied research in forgiveness: (a) the Worthington REACH model based on a Christian scriptural interpretation (Worthington, 2005, 2011) and (b) the therapeutic social–cognitive model developed by Enright and his colleagues (Enright & Freedman, 1996; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000, Enright & Huang, 2004). Worthington’s forgiveness model, REACH, contains five steps: (a) recall the hurt, (b) empathize with the offender, (c) give the altruistic gift of forgiveness, (d) make public the commitment to forgive, and (e) hold on to forgiveness. Compassion for the perpetrator is elicited in this model through practicing humility, recalling others’ forgiveness, and praying for God’s forgiveness. The Enright social–cognitive forgiveness model proceeds across 20 steps in four phases: (a) uncovering negative emotions, (b) taking the decision to forgive, (c) engaging in the work of emotional/empathic processing and reframing, (d) and deepening the work through existential processing. Empathy and compassion for the offender is developed in this model through reframing, by attempting to gain a fresh perspective of the perpetrator’s life and the circumstances surrounding the transgression. In reviews of process-based forgiveness interventions, the Enright model significantly and consistently outperformed the Worthington model in inducing forgiveness in treatment groups (Lundahl et al., 2008; Wade & Worthington, 2005). Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 115 Process models, however, tend to be prescriptive, describing steps that lead to forgiveness, without sufficiently exploring its natural dynamics or what enables one to perform the steps. Qualitative studies, even though substantially fewer, examined the natural dynamics of becoming forgiving (Halling, 1994; Rowe & Halling, 1997; Rowe et al., 1989). In such studies, forgiving was found to have begun with the perception of hurt inflicted by another, with a focus on the wounding, and, consequently, processing and integrating the negative emotions was vital. However, it was not the affective load that was let go in these experiences of forgiving, as is frequently depicted in quantitative literature, but the expectations of a different reality—expectations that the offender would apologize, or that the past would have been different. It was not an emotional renunciation of resentment, but an acquiring of freedom—not a deduction, but an addition (Halling, 1994). Compassion developed in the context of recognizing and accepting one’s own fallibility. In these conditions “the hurt is no longer merely an injury that another has inflicted, that acts as a barrier, but instead becomes appropriated as pain shared with other human beings” (Rowe & Halling, 1997, p. 236). Becoming forgiving was experienced as a shift characterized by “a restoration of wholeness, of inner direction, and an opening up” (Rowe & Halling, p. 236), a shift often experienced as a revelatory gift of grace, rather than as an act of will: Forgiveness comes as a gift or a “revelation,” and it involves coming to a deeper sense of connection to oneself, to others, and in some cases, to something beyond oneself. There is a movement of transcendence, that is, an unanticipated and yet welcomed opening up to the new and experience of being freed from burdens and restrictions. (Rowe & Halling, 1997, p. 237) The progress made by psychologists in trying to understand forgiveness has led Fraser Watts, former president of the British Psychological Society and a priest, to declare that, “as a result of the therapeutic forgiveness movement, our understanding of the process of forgiveness is probably now clearer and sharper than at any previous time in Christian history” (Watts, 2004, p. 8). METHOD Historically, quantitative studies have significantly outnumbered qualitative studies of forgiveness, and, in the arena of qualitative studies, heuristic studies of forgiveness are almost nonexistent. The present study addresses this gap by exploring, through heuristic methodology, the self-transforming dynamics in becoming forgiving of the seemingly unforgivable. 116 G. Mihalache Participants Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 The sample consisted of 13 participants, nine women and four men, ranging in age from 38 to 75, with a mean age of 59 years. The education level was high, with nine participants holding master’s degrees or higher. In response to the need in the research field to study forgiveness in participants of different spiritual backgrounds, an effort was made to select participants from a multiplicity of ethnic and spiritual backgrounds. Two were Buddhist, two were Taoist, four were involved in spiritual communities with Christian Unitarian beliefs, one was Jewish, one was a Vedanta teacher, one was a Sufi/Muslim, one participant was practicing Native American spirituality, and one claimed no religious or spiritual affiliation. Sampling was purposive. Two specific attributes were sought for in participants: 1. Each participant has had an experience of forgiving an offense seemingly unforgivable—a victimizing event or situation previously believed to be impossible to forgive. (The researcher did not define what was forgivable or unforgivable, but rather accepted the participant’s own interpretation.) 2. Becoming forgiving has had a transformative effect on the participant, indicators of which might have included the transcendence of the victim mindset and, perhaps, a sense of closure. (The discovery of other transformation indicators present in these participants’ experience was among the research purposes of this study.) The trauma experienced by participants in this study, qualified here as the “seemingly unforgivable,” varied from direct harm to indirect and across a wide spectrum of victimization. Four participants forgave the murderer of a son or daughter, among these the father of a young flight attendant on 9/11. The other participants included survivors of severe childhood abuse, of the Holocaust, of a horrific rape, of a husband’s suicide, of a sister’s murder, and of domestic abuse. The condition of participants’ having transcended the victim mindset was included because there are many individuals who say, or even like to believe, that they have forgiven, but in whose narrative the emphasis is still on the offense rather than on forgiveness, betraying the hollowness of their forgiveness. A discerning criterion, therefore, became the amount of space in a written piece or the length of time in conversation the participant accorded to recounting the trauma, as opposed to that s/he accorded to becoming forgiving. For all participants in this study, the space devoted in narratives to becoming forgiving was much greater than that accorded accounts of trauma and blame. An achieved sense of closure as a characteristic of genuine forgiveness was important not only for the study’s focus but also for the protection of participants against reliving painful memories. Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 117 Research Design Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 The subject of this project emerged from the main researcher’s personal experience of transformative forgiveness. For this reason a heuristic design, in which “the heuristic researcher has undergone the experience in a vital, intense, and full way” (Moustakas, 1990, p. 14), seemed most appropriate. The heuristic design developed by Moustakas (1990) employs a plurality of voices in order to cover as many facets of the experience researched as possible: the voice of the main researcher, those of coresearchers, and accounts found in literature and wisdom traditions. However, “the emphasis on the investigator’s internal frame of reference, self-searching, intuition, and indwelling lies at the heart of heuristic inquiry” (Moustakas, p. 12). The phases of heuristic research, as outlined by Moustakas (1990), are: 1. Initial engagement: The researcher engages fully the main inquiry. 2. Immersion: The topic becomes the focus of one’s existence. 3. Incubation: A state of temporary retreat from the intensity of the search. 4. Illumination: New understandings and disclosure of hidden meanings are occurring naturally as a result of intuition and tacit knowledge. The perception of the phenomenon changes from looking at it, to looking from inside of it. 5. Explication: The researcher attempts to clarify and explain the subjective knowledge gained. 6. Culmination in a creative synthesis. Procedure Data collection was accomplished through a narrative session, and an indepth semistructured interview designed to uncover the dynamics, meaning, and impact of the self-transforming nature of becoming forgiving. A study of participants’ journals and other written materials or creative works added another data dimension. For purposes of better recall, each session started with a relaxation exercise, followed by an imagery exercise that connected the participant with the time and ambiance of his or her forgiving experience. Utilizing heuristic processes of immersion, incubation, and illumination, the researcher started by analyzing and trying to understand her own experience, and proceeded to the analysis of each participant’s data. The procedure was dialectic—reading and asking questions of the material, filtering data through personal meanings and insights until an empathic understanding of essential meanings and dynamics was achieved. The participants’ accumulated data were formatted into individual depictions consisting mainly of participants’ verbatim narratives divided into three broad sections: dynamics of forgiveness, impact, and qualities of forgiveness. Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 118 G. Mihalache A qualitative thematic analysis of all data followed and was directed toward identifying common themes, patterns, and essences in all depictions. These common themes were subsequently synthesized into the composite depiction presented next, a meaningful narrative of the qualities and dynamics of transformative forgiveness. The study is believed to have acquired internal validity, called credibility in qualitative studies, if every aspect of the described phenomenon rings true in the experience of the main researcher and coresearchers. Consequently, the individual depictions and the composite depiction were distributed to participants for verification of accuracy as member checks, the most important measure of establishing credibility. Errors were corrected and changes made upon request. The equivalent of external validity in qualitative research is transferability. Multiple cases of participants from varied ethnic backgrounds and thick descriptions of their accounts helped ensure some transferability in this study. However, “in qualitative research, the burden of transferability is on the reader . . . the researcher’s responsibility is to provide sufficient detail to enable the reader to make such judgment” (Mertens, 2005, p. 256). RESULTS One individual depiction—that of John’s process of becoming forgiving following the murder of his daughter in one of the 9/11 flights—was chosen from the 13 individual depictions to be presented in this article as representative of the narrative data that led to this study’s understanding of the phenomenon of forgiving the unforgivable. The reader should note that the names by which participants are identified in this study are pseudonyms. Individual Depiction: John DYNAMICS OF TRANSFORMATION The morning of September 11, 2001, felt like a typical day, except for a powerful dream about death the night before. In that dream, family and dear old friends from childhood came to give us comfort and help the family mourn. It was so real, so poignant, so divine in its message of love and harmony. I thought it was me who died in that dream. A part of me did die on that day, along with my dear sweet Carol. My wife had awoken in a start at 8:41 a.m., the time that the plane was commandeered by terrorists. She heard Carol’s voice in her dream, calling “Mom.” At my daughter’s memorial service, we had hundreds and hundreds of people, who lined up for 8 hours. It was just filled with compassion. My brother was hugging me and was saying, “you know that all of us are Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 here to share with you in this pain? If you give a little bit of it to each of us we can all share it together.” I think that was a real defining moment. Then I remember speaking at the service and quoting something that I remembered from my childhood, Jesus saying “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” I wanted to believe those words and I wanted to find forgiveness in my heart. I think at that point the seeds of forgiveness were planted. I realized that I must learn to forgive or the anger would consume me like a cancer. Sadness and pain of this magnitude, from the murder of a loved one, can send a person into a downward spiral of depression and desolation, into a deep abyss whose walls seem impossible to scale. At times it felt as if part of my soul had been ripped out. Yet, even in my deepest moments of despair, I could feel the presence of goodness and truth, I could feel the love that so many people were sending us, I could feel the power of God. I was not alone! During the grieving, there are fleeting moments like these, but they don’t last. That is why I say it is certainly an ongoing process. Later, I had a dream that seemed prophetic in many ways. Carol and I were enjoying a bright sunny day, when, all of a sudden, a huge jet flew overhead, maybe 25–35 feet above, and crashed into a building. We ran over to the building and, next thing I know, we were on top of it. There was a stairway that went down, and we could hear the screaming, crying, and moaning; the smoke was billowing out. We ran over to the stairway and I went partly down. Carol went all the way down and brought people out of the chaos and confusion into the light on top of the roof. I remember helping her lead them into the light. This experience left me with a very distinct feeling of what I needed to do and what her role was in helping those confused souls to make the transition to the other side. This had also a very healing effect and helped with my understanding. As the healing continued, forgiveness was certainly interconnected with all of these experiences. I realized early in my grieving that I needed to take care of my health and well-being. I am a runner so physically I made myself run, even though it felt as if I was pulling a heavy load. I would go into nature often and spend quiet time, doing yoga, reflecting, meditating, and praying, just opening up to God’s healing energy. I also made myself write about what I was feeling and experiencing, about my concept of God, life, and the journey that I found myself on. Through journaling, I would feel these intense emotions so deeply and I would just cry. When I would go back to read what I had written, I would sob again. For a long time it would have the same effect. Other times, I would seek out people I greatly respected. I have several friends with a counseling or theological background with whom I would reflect and talk. All of these things contributed to my healing and felt divinely inspired. Then, as war began, 119 120 G. Mihalache I could feel the pain and suffering of the innocent people in Afghanistan, the survivors who had lost their families and villages because of political violence. I felt deeply connected with those who were suffering from their losses. Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 IMPACT I can attest very strongly, there is a resurgence of new life that comes from forgiveness; there is a regeneration of sorts, and a returning of life-force energy. I have been able to achieve a greater sense of health, well-being, and, thus, creativity. I experience the spiritual aspect of life at a greater level, and I feel closer to God. I have a renewed sense of purpose toward peace, a peace that recognizes the oneness of life and is beyond the false sense of peace attained by the mere absence of war. Working for peace and justice in a world that seems so inept in both has given new meaning to my life. QUALITIES OF FORGIVENESS I wonder about the levels of forgiveness: at one level you can mouth the words and say, “I forgive you.” I can start to own that at a superficial level, but I think it goes deeper and deeper and affects us all the way to our soul and beyond. And I think that the “beyond” is really the mystery of how our forgiveness affects others, how that interrelates with other humans and with God. As I start peeling back the layers of forgiveness and work through the many complexities, I begin to understand from a different place, and I feel my perceptions and, consequently, my life changing. Then I begin to open more to the goodness of life, to joy, and I feel a return of life’s energy. Forgiveness is a part of opening up and allowing God to come within. That’s the mystery. It is not a linear process; it is an opening up in a very profound way. The changes that have resulted are beyond all previous experiences. The power of forgiveness is truly a blessing that has a much greater power than the violation that was done to us. The composite depiction that follows next represents a descriptive summary of the common essential themes of the phenomenon of transformative forgiveness, as evidenced in all individual depictions, and the qualitative thematic analysis. Composite Depiction The self-transforming process of healing, generally recognized only later on as becoming forgiving, is obstructed essentially by the strong expectation of change in the perpetrator. The expectation of the victim is that the Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 121 perpetrator would apologize, would feel tremendous remorse, would suffer, would be punished, or would even die. “For years I felt that if she would just change, she would be worthy of forgiveness, but she wouldn’t change,” recounted a woman about her abusive mother. Sooner or later the participants in this study realized the self-defeating nature of this position. “Forgiveness is not about getting the other person to do right so you can forgive them; forgiveness is about you,” declared the same woman. Becoming forgiving of the seemingly unforgivable is not brought about by the moral correction of the perpetrator; it is a process of self-transformation of the victim. According to the report of this study’s participants, redirecting the expectation of change from the perpetrator to oneself is a major initial facilitator of transformative forgiveness. The victim’s intention for personal change, to pursue either healing or forgiveness, gradually replaces anger as motivator. All participants realized the detrimental quality of denial and repression and resolved to engage in the painful cathartic process of reliving the trauma and making conscious the unconscious. “The whole process was psychic purging. I had to feel the terror, the rage, the pain. Only by facing my strongest demons and innermost terrors have my pangs of conscience and crushing shame ended. Risk always preceded relief,” one woman recollected. In what seems an endless recycling of pain and suffering, the trauma and the past are relived repeatedly, in a process that could take years. Some participants were prompted into cathartic work in therapy, while others evolved into it during their spiritual practice. In either situation, whether approached psychologically or spiritually, the core purpose was increasing self-understanding. Meditation, practiced by the majority of participants (84%), was emphasized as particularly therapeutic. In addition, writing— either in the form of journaling or via a prospective autobiography—has been appreciated by these participants as life changing. In the experience of grave trauma, the lost object (son, daughter, husband, lost childhood) is idealized, whereas the perpetrator is demonized. They achieve opposite inner representations. In confronting one’s own propensity for harm, one’s own shadow, one acknowledges one’s own fallibility. One participant concluded, concerning that shift, that: Forgiveness is the more conscious recognition of my own and the human potential to perpetrate harm, as well as receive it. When we finally get to own this dark side, we don’t have the tendency so much to hold a grudge, or resent. That was my biggest learning. In becoming aware of one’s own shadow, its projection onto the offender is reduced, thereby allowing for a more realistic perception of self and perpetrator as encompassing both positive and negative traits. This process of identity enlargement is for the victim the backdrop for Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 122 G. Mihalache the emergence of empathy for the offender. After one coresearcher, a Holocaust survivor, had gone through a cathartic processing of her victimization for years, it was her experience of meeting a Nazi doctor who was “very cordial . . . and looked like a nice old man, not like the monster I expected,” that was for her the motivating force to respond with a letter of forgiveness. In living intimately and intensely with pain, the participants have come to feel and know that personal pain has roots in the common, universal experience of human suffering. This knowing is an expansion of consciousness that brings forth a movement from passion (as suffering) to compassion. John related how, after forgiving, he “could feel the pain and suffering of the people in Afghanistan” and recognized that “compassion is a gift that comes out of tragedy.” Lasting compassion for the perpetrator and true forgiveness develop out of this generalized compassionate state of being, as one participant whose sister was murdered, described: In one meditation I was feeling self-pity, wading alone in this lake of tears, when suddenly the lake was filled with everyone who’d experienced bereavement by murder—people from the Holocaust, from Rwanda, from all the wars and atrocities of the world. Once I had made that connection, the pain subsided. I reached the bottom of my grief: a genuine purification of emotion. The emotional and cognitive processing, the development of compassion, and engaging in spiritual practices, such as meditation, create a transparency of being—an openness to the symbolic side of life and a receptivity to the transpersonal. Transpersonal or spiritual concomitants that determined, influenced, or completed forgiveness were present in the experience of every participant, either in the form of healing dreams, as was the case for John, or other spiritual experiences. When one is assaulted by severe trauma, the victim’s perception of life and the world is altered and reveals its cruel side as if it were the dominant reality. The transpersonal experiences, the “invisible help” perceived as grace, offer to the victim a new introduction to the benevolent side of the universe, an experiential process in which one regains the hope that one is not alone in this quintessential struggle of remaking oneself after severe injury. “There was something taking care of me in the universe and my desire to give thanks for that has been my intention for forgiveness,” one participant stated after he miraculously escaped death in a suicide attempt. Nevertheless, opening up to the transpersonal, is not the end of suffering but the acceptance of it. A transpersonal attribute of these experiences was reported to be the discovery of a participatory understanding of all life’s interconnectedness and interdependence. Nine of the 13 participants reported realizing a fundamental unity of all life that, together with compassion, with which it was Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 123 felt to be intimately linked, was considered to be the source of forgiveness. “While I was experiencing this compassion, my isolated pain was transformed into a feeling of spacious ease that connected me with all forms of life. Yes, in that moment, forgiveness was spontaneous,” one participant described this transformational shift. When forgiving was completed in a transpersonal or spiritual experience, as it occurred for eight participants, there was an indubitable stamp of closure, a felt finality to the process. “Forgiveness heals, cures, is forever” emphasized one participant. The proof of closure came in the form of complete absence of emotion upon exposure either physically or in imagination to the traumatic context—exposure that previously had triggered emotional disintegration. “I’m just shocked that after all I’ve been through in my life there is no pain and anger about this anymore,” declared one woman who suffered from the effects of severe childhood abuse. On a rational level, the complete absence of any negative emotions around the trauma does not make sense to the victim. “Obviously I have all these memories but I don’t feel that they happened to me because I feel so peaceful about it. So what surprises me is that I feel it is so done,” stated one participant. The memory is still there, but its accompanying emotional power has died out in the forgiveness experience. Being forgiving was felt by all participants to be not only a blessing but an obligation, as well, to extend the reach of their newfound meaning and purpose through social activism for causes such as forgiveness, peace, and restorative justice. The process of self-healing becomes that of othershealing through this expansion of meaning and healing in the world, “a ripple effect,” as one participant named it. The same participant, who forgave the murderer of his son, explained that: “The more time I spend helping others find fulfillment on their own paths, the more fulfilled I am. It is a circle of love moving out, coming back, and moving out again. As other people heal, I heal further.” DISCUSSION A primary question explored in this study was, how do some individuals forgive that which was seemingly unforgivable? In other words, how does the complex process of transformative forgiveness unfold? Because existent therapeutic forgiveness interventions contain steps or stages, the general dynamic structure of transformative forgiveness is similarly summarized below in a short synthesis containing nine steps, in consideration of the possibility that these might help psychologists to improve old interventions or design new ones. It should be mentioned that, even though the process is developmental, it is not linear. Consequently, the following steps are not sequential but potential and repetitive. Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 124 G. Mihalache 1. The intention for personal change, either for healing or for forgiveness, initiates the process of becoming forgiving. Reversing the expectation of change from the perpetrator to the victim initiates the process. 2. Cognitive and emotional processing is crucial—processing of emotions, cognitions, motivations, expectations, and intentions. 3. Unconscious processing/symbolism—in confronting one’s own shadow, one confronts one’s own potential for causing harm, thus reducing its projection onto the offender. 4. Development of empathy—the humanness of the offender becomes apparent and empathy is born. 5. A movement from passion to generalized compassion—the focus on personal suffering dissolves into the realization of common human suffering, out of which a generalized compassionate state of being develops. 6. Interconnectedness—discovering a participatory understanding of all life’s interconnectedness was considered, together with compassion, to be the source of forgiveness. 7. Transpersonal concomitants are important because of their immediate, therapeutic effect and self-transforming nature. The resolution of forgiveness emerges out of the tension between the given and the transcendent. 8. Complete forgiveness—a powerful absolution unfolds from within, a sense of freedom from the past, freedom from a previous self. 9. Expansion of meaning: from self-healing to others-healing—the forgiver becomes a catalyst for transformation in others. Contained within the interpersonal context of victim–offender, transformative forgiveness was revealed heuristically to be primarily an intrapsychic process, a self-directed process of transformation. An inward orientation of increased self-awareness takes precedence over the interpersonal orientation toward the perpetrator. Results suggest that becoming forgiving is initiated not through a onetime decision, but through a persistent conscious intention to cultivate healing or forgiveness. Previous qualitative findings support the essential role of intention in becoming forgiving: “Even though not intentional at times, in retrospect one recognized that one was willing to heal, to forgive and ‘it seems that this willingness is crucial for forgiveness to occur’” (Rowe & Halling, 1997, p. 235). However, Rowe and Halling (1997) stated, “the process begins when one perceives oneself as harmed by another” (p. 233). This study offers a contrast to that assumption by arguing that the process begins actually with the intention for personal change, either to heal or to forgive, not with the perception of harm. There were participants in this study who had spent years in pain and suffering, a period during which forgiveness or the possibility of healing was not even contemplated. Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 125 An important stage in almost all existent forgiveness interventions is the fostering of empathy and compassion towards the offender (Fehr et al., 2010; Wade & Worthington, 2005). However, how exactly the potential of healing is effectuated through the relationship between compassion and forgiving is not well understood. It has been generally presumed that compassion is directed at the offender (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Worthington et al., 2011). This study’s results suggest that the forgiver develops compassion for self, other suffering human beings, and life in general—a state of generalized compassion, and that it is out of this generalized compassion that compassion for the offender, with its accompanying forgiveness, emerges. Rather than being a laser directed at the perpetrator, compassion appears more like inner light that encompasses everything. The underlying realization of interconnectedness in suffering is the precursor to generalized compassion, and, ultimately, to forgiveness. The victimized self, stuck in the past and with a limited repertoire of being, is transformed by forgiveness. Forgiveness, by report of these coresearchers, changes the felt past and, along with it, changes one’s sense of being in time; it changes the relational self, and, along with it, one’s being in the world. As one turns toward future tasks and new meaning, there is “a restoration of the order that previously has been violated” (Rowe et al., 1989, p. 236). For these participants, transpersonal experiences played a pivotal role in facilitating self-transformation, by inducing identification with a larger framework of meaning. In retrospect, the whole transformational process, including the victimizing event, holds a profound transcendent meaning for the forgiving self. “Everything that happened was exactly the way it had to happen,” one participant concluded. The descending into the bottom of pain was the necessary prelude to an ascending into peace and forgiving. In the results of this study, the dynamics of transformative forgiveness did not generally differ across participants in terms of religion or spiritual persuasion. What transpires in the experience of becoming forgiving of the seemingly unforgivable is a sort of reconnection or reconciliation with one’s source of being, of increased spiritualization of the individual, a condition well expressed by Pargament and Rye (1998) as “the sanctification of what it means to be human” (p. 67). Other qualitative studies have reached similar conclusions: “Forgiveness is not to be construed as an act of will. . . . Ultimately it is an act of faith, an affirmation not of doctrine but of trust, forming at a level below the ego” (Halling, 1994, p. 111). It is the tension of these polarities, the tension between the given and the transcendent reality, between personal and transpersonal consciousness, that results in new emergents within the consciousness, such as compassion and the resolution of forgiving. As a result, psychological processing on all levels, including the transpersonal level, increases the possibility of becoming forgiving. It might be argued that a delimitation of this study is that transformative forgiveness is not representative of other forms of forgiving. However, the 126 G. Mihalache Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 study does have merit, especially when the possibility is considered that “the commonplace may be understood as a reduction of the exceptional, but the exceptional cannot be understood by amplifying the commonplace. Both logically and causally the exceptional is crucial because it introduces the more comprehensive category” (Edgar Wind, Renaissance scholar, as cited in Hillman, 1996, p. 33). The nondogmatic model of transformative forgiveness outlined in this article could find its application in improving existent therapeutic forgiveness interventions or helping in designing new ones. The following premises would benefit from more research: (a) the contribution of meditation to forgiveness; (b) the claim that forgiveness is based on a generalized compassionate state, as opposed to a focused state of compassion towards the offender; and (c) experiences of transformative forgiveness in transpersonal therapy. Conclusion Forgiveness is not only the endpoint of emotional release or a decision limited in time but encompasses the whole transformational process of confronting and transcending suffering. Transformative forgiveness is not something one has to disperse left and right but something one becomes. The forgiver evolves from constricted states of being focused on a preoccupation with the past, the offender, and the negative consequences of the injury toward a liberating reordering of being that is reflected in an increased capacity for compassion, spirituality, and new meaning. Participants in this study have discovered in becoming forgiving of the seemingly unforgivable more than the resolution of their pain. They have discovered their raison d’etre. REFERENCES Baskin, T. W., & Enright, R. D. (2004). Intervention studies on forgiveness: A metaanalysis. Journal of Counseling and Development, 82(1), 79–91. Enright, R. D., & Fitzgibbons, R. P. (2000). Helping clients forgive: An empirical guide for resolving anger and restoring hope. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Enright, R. D., & Freedman, S. R. (1996). Forgiveness as an intervention goal with incest survivors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 983–992. Enright, R., & Huang, S. T. (2004). Forgiveness and anger related emotions in Taiwan: Implications for therapy. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 37(1), 71–79. Fehr, R., Gelfand, M. J., & Nag, M. (2010). The road to forgiveness: A meta-analytic synthesis of its situational and dispositional correlates. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 894–914. Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Becoming Forgiving of the Seemingly Unforgivable 127 Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2002). Remorse, forgiveness, and rehumanization: Stories from South Africa. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 42(1), 7–32. Halling, S. (1994). Embracing human fallibility: On forgiving oneself and others. Journal of Religion and Health, 33(2), 107–113. Hillman, J. (1996). The soul’s code: In search of character and calling. New York, NY: Warner Books. Ho, M. Y., & Fung, H. H. (2011). A dynamic process model of forgiveness: A crosscultural perspective. Review of General Psychology, 15(1), 77–84. Lundahl, B. W., Taylor, M. J., Stevenson, R., & Roberts, K. D. (2008). Processbased forgiveness interventions: A meta-analytic review. Research on Social Work Practice, 18, 465–478. McCullough, M. E., Pargament, K. I., & Thoresen, C. E. (Eds.). (2000). Forgiveness: Theory, research and practice. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Mertens, D. (2005). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic Research: Design, methodology, and applications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Palmer, G., & Braud, W. (2002). Exceptional human experiences, disclosure and a more inclusive view of physical, psychological, and spiritual well being. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 34(1), 29–61. Pargament, K., & Rye, M. (1998). Forgiveness as a method of religious coping. In E. L. Worthington Jr. (Ed.), Dimensions of forgiveness: Psychological research, theological perspectives (pp. 59–78). Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press. Reed, G. L., & Enright, R. (2006). The effects of forgiveness therapy on depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress for women after spousal emotional abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 920–929. Rhoades, G. K., McIntosh, D. N., Wadsworth, M. E., Ahlkvist, J., Burwell, R., Gudmundsen, G., Raviv, T., & Rea, J. G. (2007). Forgiving the September 11th terrorists: Associations with coping, psychological distress, and religiosity. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping: An International Journal, 20(2), 109–128. Rowe, J. O., & Halling, S. (1997). Psychology of forgiveness: Implications for psychotherapy. In R. Valle (Ed), Phenomenological inquiry in psychology: Existential and transpersonal dimensions (pp. 227–246). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Rowe, J. O., Halling, S., Davies E., Leifer, M., Powers, D., & Bronkhorst, J. (1989). The psychology of forgiving another: A dialogal research approach. In R. S. Valle & S. Halling (Eds.), Existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology (pp. 233–244). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Strelan, P., & Covic, T. (2006). A review of forgiveness process models and a coping framework to guide future research. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(10), 1059–1086. Wade, N. G., & Worthington, E. L., Jr. (2005). In search of a common core: A content analysis of interventions to promote forgiveness. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 42(2), 160–177. Walsh, R., & Vaughan, F. (1993). Paths beyond ego: The transpersonal vision. New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/ Putnam. 128 G. Mihalache Downloaded by [Gabi Mihalache] at 14:28 06 May 2012 Watts, F. (2004). Relating the psychology and theology of forgiveness. In F. Watts & L. Gulliford (Eds.). Forgiveness in context: Theology and psychology in creative dialogue (pp. 2–21). London, England: The Cromwell Press. Williamson, I., & Gonzales, M. H. (2007). The subjective experience of forgiveness: Positive construals of the forgiveness experience. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26, 407–446. Worthington, E. L. (Ed.). (2005). Handbook of forgiveness. New York, NY: Routledge. Worthington, E. L., Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., Miller, A. J., Gartner, A. L., & Jennings, D. J. (2011). Promoting forgiveness as a religious or spiritual intervention. In J. D. Aten, M. R. McMinn, & E. L. Worthington (Eds.), Spiritually oriented interventions for counseling and psychotherapy (pp. 169–195). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Module 7 Overview Transformational Psychology Class In the book Living Deeply, we read that there are many portals to transformative experience. While not all of the portals are through pain and suffering, trauma is a familiar trigger for many transformative experiences. There is a growing literature on the topic of Posttraumatic Growth, which has informed our understanding of the nature of transformative experience. This week we will focus on posttraumatic growth. The powerpoint highlights some of the key findings in the literature on growth through trauma. The first article for this week is on Transformative Forgiveness – Forgiving the Unforgivable. The author, Gabriela Mihalache, was a professor with Sofia for many years. This article summarizes her dissertation research. Last week I invited you to create a model of the stages of forgiveness. I wanted you to intuit the stages through your own experience first before reading some of the literature. See how close Dr. Mihalache’s model of forgiveness matches your own. The other two articles address both spiritual and wakening experiences in relation to trauma. I am attaching a link to the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory. I am including it here as a reference. If you have never completed the survey, then I encourage you to do so, even though we will not be using it here. If your research includes any aspects of transformation, consider using this inventory as a quantitative measure. While it has some limitations, I have known several Sofia students who have used the inventory to great effect in their research. For the discussion this week, I would like you to reflect on the articles on posttraumatic growth. The meditation activity for this week invites you to think of a mentor who has been influential to your growth and development. The book Living Deeply talks about the role of mentors to the transformative process, so here I am inviting you to reflect on the role of a specific mentor in your life. CH A P T E R SI X : Life as Practice, Practice as Life If you are really awake, conscious, and aware, then your life is a practice. Then everything you do is a practice. Most of us aren’t that aware or awake all of the time. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. —WINK FRANKLIN (2003) Changes in the way you view yourself and your world obviously affect all arenas of your daily experience. Transformative practices, however, can sometimes seem separate from the rest of your life. If you’re like many people, you may find yourself racing through your days, working hard to get everything done so that you can take a walk in nature or squeeze in a yoga class. You may work sixty-hour weeks so that you can fit in a ten-day meditation retreat. You may have a deep and profound connection to the sacred when you are in your church, temple, ashram, mosque, zendo, or garden, Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life but at work, in your car, and even at home, you may feel that the sacred is far away—that you need to go to a special place to reconnect with it. Vipassana teacher and author Sharon Salzberg spoke to us about understanding transformation as a form of spirituality integrated into all aspects of life. She recalled the perspective of a teacher visiting from India: When we were first starting to teach here we took one of our teachers from India around, to show him all the vipassana meditation groups that were springing up. We were very excited and proud. “Isn’t it great what is happening in America?” And he said, “It’s wonderful, but in some ways what’s happening here reminds me of people sitting in a rowboat: they’re rowing with great effort and sincerity, but they refuse to untie the boat from the dock. People want great transcendent experiences, but they don’t pay attention to how they speak to one another, or how they earn their living, or the things of day-to-day life.”    In the West, there isn’t a seamless understanding of what spiritual life is. It’s more specialized, like, “I’m going to meditate on a cushion, and something great is going to happen.” The classical understanding is that a spiritual life is how we live every day. It’s how we relate to our children, how we relate to our parents, how we earn a living, how we speak to one another, how truthful we are. That’s something that hasn’t translated completely into Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. our culture. (2002) In fact, many teachers said that transformative practices are often misunderstood as prescriptions for being more spiritual, when, in fact, they’re meant to provide a road map for life. At some point in the transformative process, you recognize that there’s no difference between who you are in the pew or on the aikido mat, and who you are in the grocery store, on the freeway, or at your office. The same mindful attention brought to the placement of your legs in a difficult yoga pose can be brought to a challenging conversation with your child. The same peace and joy brought to a beloved community of fellow practitioners can be brought to a PTA meeting. The same reverence that arises from spending 135 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply three days in the wilderness on a vision quest can be brought to the clouds in the sky and the spindly trees in the mall parking lot. As ecological and spiritual teacher and activist Satish Kumar told us: I use meditation as a practice—to focus, to learn how to be mindful, how to be present in the here and now. But for me the distinction between meditation and action must evaporate, must come to an end. Every action—whether I’m gardening or cooking or speaking or writing or talking to a friend or being with my children—everything is to be done mindfully, fully present and attentive and aware. Meditation becomes part of everyday living. (2005) Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. In this chapter, we’ll share with you what we’ve learned through our research about how, in ways shared across traditions, people integrate their transformative practices and insights into everyday life. Like Kumar, many people reported that living life to the fullest can bring transformation into being. Engaging in a daily mind, body, and spirit practice; finding a like-minded community; sprinkling simple reminders of your core values, purpose, and intentions throughout your environment; taking time out from the hustle and bustle; manifesting your realizations by giving them a form and body in this world; and being of service to others are all ways to create a more seamless fusion of life and practice. We identify little ways in which you can weave what has meaning for you through each and every day. INTEGR ATING LIFE A ND PR ACTICE The Venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw, a Burmese Buddhist monk and carrier of a tradition of vipassana, or insight meditation, told us that once you’re convinced of the benefits of spiritual practice, you begin to integrate the benefits into your being (2003). Sayadaw identified five positive spiritual factors that are important for the integration of the more common shortterm realizations into long-term shifts in worldview or way of being. The first factor is the desire to change and the conviction that practice will result 136 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life in your transformation. The second factor is effort, without which Sayadaw argues nothing will happen. The third factor is vigilance. Strong determination can keep you from falling back or losing sight of the path to spiritual well-being. The fourth factor, one that is central to Sayadaw’s vipassana practice, is concentration, which he describes as “the consistent integrity of consciousness” (2003). This is not, he says, an innate quality, but rather something that has to be developed by practice, something you can learn. The fifth factor is right understanding—accurately perceiving the nature of reality. Sayadaw explained to us that once you have even just a couple of these qualities, “you are sure to progress on the path. You will be able to shift short-term gains into long-term benefits in life” (2003). No matter what practice or tradition you engage in, you can make a conscious choice to use the following tools to make your life and your transformative journey one and the same—because, of course, they are! Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Going Beyond State-Dependent Learning Psychologists have found that people are better able to recall information when in the same state or situation as when the information was originally learned (for example, if you learn algebra in a yellow room filled with rows of desks, you’re more likely to ace an algebra test when taken in a similar yellow room with rows of desks). This long-studied cognitive phenomenon is known as state-dependent learning. For many people, transformative realizations seem to be subject to statedependent learning: it’s easier to recall your true priorities or get in touch with your capacity for deep compassion in the same setting as your first experiences of these things. For example, most transformative traditions include regular visits to a particular place of worship or practice. However, too great a dependence on these sacred places can lead to a constant search to recapture the states of your realizations—which are temporary—rather than the development of these realizations into sustainable traits. The key is to begin to integrate these realizations in to all arenas of your life. Many people spend years chasing transformative states, attending workshop after workshop, group after group. Often people will feel 137 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply e­ xhilarated at a workshop, only to come home and have difficulty integrating the realization the moment of exhilaration pointed to. As a result, they may simply start searching for another workshop to replicate the intense experience. Indeed, this cycle can be especially challenging when you live in a society that doesn’t support the integration of your practice into your daily life. As Catholic priest Father Francis Tiso told us: Remember, the great yogis went into retreat in the mountains from cultures that were traditional, religious, and favorable to at least some of the goals that the yogis were pursuing.   We live without retreat, in a society that is inimical to [the transformative process]. We are attempting to be part-time yogis… If you’re going to get any kind of results out of this, it’s probably going to take awhile—and they also might be a little on the thin side: very fragile, easily torn. You may get a glimpse or an insight and the day afterwards, you’ll seem not to have had it. It’s evanescent. Don’t be discouraged by that. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. (2002) In addition to extending beyond state-dependent learning, there are many ways to utilize it to help bring transformation into your everyday life. For example, one is to make your home and your workplace—even your car—more similar to places in which it is easy to experience your deepest self. Many places that are thought to be sacred incorporate elements of beauty, simplicity, images, light, or music to facilitate deep experiences of the numinous. You can integrate these elements into your own environment—lighting a candle, playing comforting music, etc. can all help you create a space that nurtures transformation. Another way to utilize statedependent learning is to make your mental and physical state as similar as possible to what you experience in your practice environment. Many retreat settings (though not all) emphasize elements like silence, solitude, creative expression, and a peaceful pace; they also often incorporate healthy food, fresh air, and exercise. Bringing these elements into your everyday life can make it more conducive to recalling what has heart and meaning for you. 138 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life Finding a Like-Minded Community When we asked our teachers how to integrate transformative realizations into everyday life and long-term shifts in ways of being, the most common response we received was to connect with a like-minded community. In fact, many teachers said that finding a like-minded community with whom you can share your transformative process is essential. Having people in your life who support your metamorphosis can help fortify the results that Father Tiso called “fragile” and “easily torn” (2002). Moreover, your community can serve both as a crucible for your transformation and as a sanctuary for exploring new ideas and insights. Psychologist Frances Vaughan noted that being part of a community is also vital to the part of transformation that involves learning how to behave with other people. She suggests that you ask yourself: Am I more compassionate? Am I more caring? Am I more considerate, or am I less so? You can evaluate these questions subjectively as well as asking others what they observe. It’s this latter form where I think it’s important to have a community that you work with. You may think you are having a wonderful enlightenment experience—and the people may feel that you are off the wall! You have to balance the inner and the outer, I think. It’s not Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. either/or, it’s both/and. (2002) Similarly, Zenkei Blanche Hartman told us how the practice of Zen, particularly in a monastery, works to enhance a sense of interdependence— and how, in the process, practice helps to polish people’s dull and rough edges: The monastic practice helps people to see how connected they are to everyone—how they affect others and how they are affected by others. To develop some compassion—that is, some feeling for others—is part of the way we live together at the monastery. At Tassajara, where we have the monastery, we live together, we eat together, we work together, and we read together. Pretty soon everybody sees who you are. You might as well forget yourself. 139 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply    To understand this, we use the metaphor of rocks in a tumbler. You take some pebbles and put them in a tumbler with some water and some abrasive. Then you put them on the roller. Have you ever seen a rock tumbler? It rolls and it rolls. The rocks keep falling and bumping. Then there is the grit, or abrasive, which I think may be the relentless monastic schedule.    We follow a very strict schedule at the monastery. Someone runs around with a wake-up bell. We get up and go to meditation. We sit together and chant together. We eat together in the meditation hall. We work together and so forth, always bumping into each other. We get to see where our rough edges are and someone else’s rough edges. After some time when their edges bump into yours, you get polished up. We have a sense of taking care of each Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. other and taking care of the community. (2003) Like Hartman, many of the people we met with noted that much benefit can come from practice done in synchrony with others. This doesn’t require actually living in a monastery or other spiritual community. Having a group of like-minded peers that you trust can help you calibrate your experiences. Supportive groups of fellow travelers can take many forms. For example, a supportive group might be any organized or semi-organized group of people that shares your goals, values, or interests—a book club, a travel cohort, a running group, a network of supportive friends and colleagues, or a spiritually minded class or program. Newer on the horizon are Internetand teleconferencing-based programs like IONS’ Shift in Action (www .noetic.org); these venues provide ways for people to discuss their transformative experiences with like-minded others who are (hopefully!) open and nonjudgmental. Finding the right community for you can help support you on your transformative journey. Indeed, being part of a like-minded community may actually even allow you to learn more from the transformative process. In his learning theory of social development, psychologist Lev Vygotsky posited that social interaction profoundly influences cognitive development (1934). Vygotsky sees development as a lifelong process too complex to be divided into stages. He refers to the distance separating your current level of development (problems you can solve on your own) from your potential level 140 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Life as Practice, Practice as Life of development (problems you can solve only with guidance from either more developed individuals or peers) as the zone of proximal development. For Vygotsky, this zone is where learning occurs. He observes, moreover, that it’s the social interactions that take place in this zone—with guides and peers—that define the degree to which someone can learn or internalize new information. Thus, for Vygotsky, development happens in the context of shared experience and connections with others. He argues that children learn best in environments with older children who can provide what he calls “scaffolding” for learning experiences—not solving problems for the younger children, but providing a supportive structure for them to reach solutions for themselves. Vygotsky also recommends reciprocal teaching as a learning method. In reciprocal teaching, students are given the task of leading small groups in the very subjects they’re currently learning themselves. Finally, Vygotsky believes that the optimal learning environment is small groups of mixed developmental levels, in which more experienced students are aware of the beginning learners’ level, and are careful not to dominate interactions. These elements can all be great criteria for choosing who you want to support you on your transformative journey. Look for a like-minded community consisting of people in a range of developmental levels; a community with guides who don’t just hand out solutions but help you discover them for yourself, and leaders who don’t dominate all interactions; a community where those who are learning are also given the opportunity to teach. Not surprisingly, many transformative traditions around the world have already built these optimal learning environments into their forms of practice. CULTS A ND UNSUPPORTIV E COMMUNITIES As Zen teacher Zenkei Blanche Hartman told us with her rock-­t umbling metaphor, relationships within transformative communities aren’t always easy (2003). While being part of a like-minded community can be a real blessing, just because the members of the community are focused on common goals doesn’t mean that personalities, reactivity, and conflict resolution won’t be problematic. Indeed, in a transformative community, these 141 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply challenges can even be more intense than in a more superficial situation like a workplace. It’s important to differentiate between like-minded practice communities that can help your transformation and those that will impact you negatively, because they’re cults or simply unsupportive. Cults are defined by a set of key criteria: cults discourage questioning of doctrine, leaders, or teachers; require you to either donate more than you can reasonably afford or give up your possessions or residence; use tactics such as humiliation or criticism; encourage you to keep the group’s doctrine or practices secret; or urge you to break off all contact with family and friends. If you find yourself participating in a group that follows any of these precepts, you have reason for concern. Lack of a supportive community can stifle the transformative process. If others completely reject—or simply fail to understand—your experience, it can be harder to integrate your experiences and realizations into your life. As cross-cultural psychologist Stanley Krippner told us: One thing that inhibits the integration of these teachings is social pressure. Some people will talk about an epiphany and their friends will make fun of them. Some people will go to an indigenous healer and they will have a sudden healing of some long-standing problem—say a sore throat or an aching muscle—and when they come back, their friends make fun of them. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Then back comes the symptom. In my opinion, for a lot of these anchorings to really stick, to really hold and take place, you’ve got to have social support. (2002) Indeed, Krippner’s point is similar to Tiso’s observation earlier—that our dominant culture does not always support the kind of consciousness transformation that emphasizes meaning over material possessions (2002). Transpersonal psychologist James Fadiman agrees that an unsupportive community can undo a lot of good transformative work. He explained to us that an unresponsive social world can substantially inhibit the integration of transformative experiences and new ways of seeing the world: 142 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life If everybody says you are crazy, at some point you are off the cultural norm and by definition you are crazy. And if you find yourself lonely and seem to be crazy, it’s hard to maintain your shift in perception. There’s a little Sufi story called “When the Water Was Changed.” It’s about a town in which, if you drank the water, you would behave in a bizarre manner. Everyone but this one guy drank the water. He hoarded the old water—he could see that everyone was behaving in this bizarre way… But finally this guy said, “I give up, I’m going to drink the water.” And everyone else said, “Oh, he’s cured, he’s healthy again, he’s sane. He was so bizarre, but now he’s one of us again.” Unless there’s some kind of support system—it can even be a book—some kind of external verification and validation, it can be very hard to maintain these changes. (2003) Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. There are many advantages to pursuing your transformative path with the aid of a community. Having a like-minded cohort can give you the opportunity to connect, share, and celebrate what’s working—and repair what’s not. Remember: not everyone in your community needs to agree with everything you say. Sometimes a voice of dissent can help us to refine and revise our sense of what’s right and true. However, as Gangaji told us, if a like-minded group prevents you from finding your authentic self, it can be the worst thing, rather than the best (2002). Simple Reminders Reminders of what you intend for your life—reminders done over and over, and in many different ways—can help you integrate your transformative practice into everyday actions. Sometimes even very simple reminders can help. Such basic acts as reading an inspiring book, listening to an inspirational tape, going to an educational lecture, chatting with friends around a fire, watching a great movie snuggled up with your kids, or even taking a leisurely bath can help transform mundane actions into deeply meaningful practices. And when steps are simple and easy, they become a joy rather than a burden. 143 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply Simple reminders can also include objects, symbols, music, or ­jewelry—anything that has meaning for you. Although the items themselves may be trivial—e.g., the bobble-head Buddha on the dashboard— they can be very helpful in keeping you in the flow of your own personal growth. It’s important to rotate reminders so they’ll continue to hold your attention, rather than fade into an unnoticed background. And it helps if you get reminders in as many forms as possible, through all of your senses. These types of reminders serve as cues, defined by psychologists as stimuli that, when perceived either consciously or unconsciously, elicit a behavior. Even something as simple as a string of beads—as used in Buddhism and Yogic traditions (the mala) and Catholicism (the rosary)— can signal you on both conscious and unconscious levels to behave in a way consistent with your values and commitments. With his wrist mala in hand, spiritual teacher and author Ram Dass explained to us how the practice of mantra repetition reminds him to see everyone as souls: I use this method where I pick a name of god and I say to myself, “Ram, Ram, Ram.”—I’m walking in the street—“Ram, Ram, Ram.” I’m visiting the supermarket—“Ram, Ram, Ram…”    It’s amazing how many souls there are in Safeway. They think they’re something else, but they’re souls… It’s just phenomenal, because if you’re Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. living… you’re the actor, you’re the audience, you’re the writer. And if you forget, the guru reminds you… “Ram, Ram, Ram…” (2003) Neuroscientists have found that cues can be extremely powerful motivators of behavior, both in learning (Dessalegn and Landau 2005) and in less healthy processes like addiction (Carter and Tiffany 1999). In addiction, environmental cues—such as the sounds, sights, or physical surroundings associated with drinking or using drugs—can trigger the addictive behavior (Zickler 2001). Introducing transformative reminders into your environment can work in a similar fashion, but with a positive goal: triggering the qualities and traits you desire to bring fully into your life. For Brother David Steindl-Rast, this takes the form of simple physical reminders, such as yellow Post-it notes that he puts around his house to remind him of his 144 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life own gratitude. For you, this might be a good fortune from a Chinese cookie or a particularly inspiring quote, stuck on your refrigerator. Even very little things can remind you of who and what you are at the core of your being. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Time-Outs Another simple but very important way to integrate transformative practices and realizations into your everyday life is to schedule quiet time to be alone. Taking a walk in nature or sitting quietly with some soothing music can be very helpful if done with intention and attention. While daydreaming may be a luxury most of us feel we don’t have time for, it is in fact a way of integrating information. Eric Klinger, author of Daydreaming (1990), has devoted over thirty years to the study of daydreaming. Klinger writes, “Daydreaming is one of the ways in which you keep your life organized, a way to milk experiences for the lessons they hold, and a way of rehearsing for the future” (1990, 3). Making time for unstructured silence and solitude—for daydreaming—actually makes your life more efficient, because it allows you to cognitively integrate what you’ve learned. Daydreaming can also help you generalize your realizations, by imagining how they might apply to other parts of your life and the future. Taking quiet time can be quite difficult—you may feel you can’t carve out the necessary space for yourself, and you may find silence or solitude uncomfortable once you’ve managed to make the time. Being in silence and solitude is like most things, in that you may not fully engage in the process unless you can find joy in it. Don’t worry if silence and solitude are currently strangers to you—there are many ways to change your relationship so you can become trusted friends. Don Hanlon Johnson, a leader in the field of somatic psychology and a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, brings silence into his family setting: I get up at six a.m. and do my things. My son has to get up at about twenty to eight to get ready for school. I get him his breakfast and my wife takes him to school on her way to her office: that’s kind of our ritual. Every morning he gets up. He sits on a stair, and I sit with him. Since he’s been an infant, 145 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply there’s been a period of about ten minutes when he is absolutely quiet. It’s the most profound meditation, sitting with him. We don’t have cable TV, so he’s been raised in a kind of quiet. That seems very profound to me. A lot of our interactions have that same quality. (2002) Just ten minutes of silence a day can make all the difference. Sitting quietly with loved ones, engaging with life and being aware of its sacred nature, can imbue your experiences of silence with delight and deep satisfaction. This can allow you to engage with your daily tasks in a way that makes them conscious, thus helping you bring your transformative practice into your daily routines. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Taking Action According to many of the teachers we interviewed, one of the best ways to bring the new perspectives you’ve gained through transformative experiences into your life is to consciously put them into action. Action can take many forms. It can be creative expression, putting your realizations— which can often be difficult to describe—into poetry, drawing, painting, sculpture, or dance. It can be creating new ways of being and spending time with your loved ones. It can be implementing new projects at work—or new elements of existing projects—that are in greater alignment with your emerging values and sensibilities. It can be volunteering in your local community or in broader social or ecological action groups. The bottom line here is bringing your new perspective into the world in some form. Many of the teachers we interviewed told us that bringing practice into action not only enhances your practice, it enriches all of your life experiences. In other words, consciously bringing transformative realizations into life makes life experiences themselves more transformative. Pagan teacher Starhawk explained it this way: If you actually take your ideals and put them into practice through action, then the actions that you take create very powerful experiences that you learn from. These open you up to other kinds of shifts. 146 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life    Probably the most powerful transformative experience of my life has been going to the West Bank and the occupied territories with the international solidarity movement. I walked into a situation with people who I was raised to think of as my enemies—who I feared would hate me and would be dangerous—and I was in solidarity with them, sharing some of the risks and dangers that they face every day. The profound welcome that I’ve received, the ways in which people have opened and taken us in have been incredible. For years I led people in trances in which they faced their deepest fear. And that was all very nice, but walking into Nablus when it was locked down and under siege—walking into a refugee camp, past tanks that were shooting at us, and then going into a Palestinian home and sitting and being with these people—that was transformation on a whole different level.    When I faced that fear, it really made me much less fearful. I’m just not afraid anywhere anymore. People will be walking around saying, “It’s such a dangerous area!” and I’ll be like, “I don’t really think so.” … It’s led me to look at people and expect friendship and expect connection. The real world teaches you a lot if you open yourself to its experiences. (2006) Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Of course, action may not be the same as activism. Indeed, it can be as simple as bringing loving kindness to a difficult relationship or even slowing down when your find your busy life taking over. A NCHORS IN A STOR M As we saw in chapters 4 and 5, our research suggests that engaging in a daily practice of some form or another will help you integrate transformative experiences into your everyday life. Indeed, engaging in a daily practice can aid you in ways fundamental to your sense of balance and emotional stability. Transpersonal psychologist Charles Tart summed this idea up eloquently, describing transformative practice as a form of spirituality: “In general, if you have any kind of even moderately strong spiritual practice, that practice 147 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply gives you an anchor in turbulent times. It gives you something to keep you more steady when the winds of change are buffeting you” (2003). Catholic priest Father Francis Tiso reminded us how practice can help you stay on an even keel during what can be a turbulent journey: Committing oneself to the spiritual path, although we may be seeking peace, actually … seems to put us into huge fluctuations of anguish and ecstasy. You can see there is peace, there is mystical absorption, there are all kinds of wonderful samadhis and states. But there is also this huge fluctuation of emotion and feeling and intensity.    Many spiritual practices—like penitential practices, the practice of humility, the practice of self-abnegation—although they sound like they are contrary to a self-esteem ideology, are actually designed to keep you on an even keel when you are going through those things. Because you are going to go through them. If you do yoga, for example, you’re sensitizing your whole body-mind complex so that your pleasures become much greater, as well as your pains. You can become quite attached, even to the physical pleasure of yoga. That’s why you have to learn to keep on an even keel.    We need to be more courageous in embracing the suffering aspect of the transformative process. Happiness is not found in evading the rough patches of the journey, and cannot be identified with little surges of happy hormones in the brain. That is not happiness, it is addiction! Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved.    Thomas Merton … talks about the fact that Cistercian-Trappist liturgy—the chanting and so forth—is designed to not let you go too high or too low, but to keep you in the middle. It gives you the kind of psychophysical stability that you need to cope with the fact that you are going to have highs and lows. You can get trapped in either heaven or hell; this [stability] brings you back, keeps you human.    There are many anecdotes about [the importance of stability, of staying in the middle] and we don’t appreciate it enough perhaps, when we are hungry for peace and hungry for ecstasy. We don’t appreciate why 148 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life we’re being told, “Come back down to Earth.” But in fact, there is wisdom in this practice and attitude. (2002) Many transformative practice traditions have built-in ways of helping you keep a relatively even keel during the transformative process. Transformative practices such as prayer, meditation, ritual, and many others have been designed in part to help you deal with the kinds of fluctuations Tiso describes. Having guides, a supportive community, a daily mind/body practice—all of these are engineered to both transform you and help you tolerate the challenges of the transformative journey. Likewise, Stanley Krippner, another transpersonal psychologist, used the metaphor of an anchor this way: I like the saying: “By their fruits, you shall know them.” If the person is a better worker, a more loving, happy, joyous person to be with, sure, that’s good enough for me. Psychotherapists use the term anchoring—you take the epiphany and you anchor it into your everyday experience. You find ways that you can put it to work in your daily life. Many people go to church, or temple, or synagogue, or whatever. They go one day a week and it’s completely divorced from the flow of their life. They make a big show of their religious piety, but it’s not anchored to anything… This is something you have to work on. You take these insights from these epiphanies and you Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. find something in your daily life that you can hook them onto and you pull the rest of your life along. (2002) As both Tart and Krippner suggest, transformative practices can help ground you in the face of new ways of being in the world. As you journey along the transformative path, it’s often helpful to have practices that can help you integrate new ways of being into your everyday life. As we also saw in chapter 4, studies on brain plasticity tell us that the more you practice something, the stronger new neural pathways become— and the easier it becomes for them to be stimulated. Whether your practice is daily meditation, periodic fasting, journaling, attending worship services, positive affirmations, walking in nature, or praying, practices foster 149 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply the integration of transformative experiences. Practice serves as a reminder of a larger set of possibilities than you may experience on a routine basis. Practice connects you repeatedly to the sacred, numinous, or divine. And practice also stimulates further growth and transformation. Daily practice can provide a strong scaffolding for the transformative process. As Michael Murphy (2002), cofounder of the Esalen Institute, put it, practice acts like the stake that supports the growing vine—you! Andriette Earl, reverend of the East Bay Church of Religious Science, considers daily practice akin to keeping your foot on the gas pedal as you drive uphill (2006). Practice thus fuels your transformative journey, supporting you as you seek to grow and blossom. BR INGING MEA NING INTO LIFE As you bring your transformative practice more and more into your life, you become an actor rather than a reactor. You become able to use conscious intention to propel yourself forward. Life is yours to give meaning to—you choose the story you want to tell. Yoruba priestess Luisah Teish echoed this sentiment: One of the things that I see as fundamental to personal empowerment is coming out of feeling like “I’m a victim of my life” into “I am working with Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. nature, community, and spirit to design and shape our lives.” You know, you go from a “me” to an “us.” You go from a victim to an actor or an initiator. You go from feeling devalued to valuing what’s already really around you. (2003) Transformation, then, not only shifts how you view the world, but also how you relate to the world. In every situation, ask yourself, “Am I being an actor or a victim? Am I valuing or devaluing? Am I focused on me or on us?” As humans, we are meaning-making creatures. We can create any meaning we want. Why not create a life-enhancing set of possibilities, rather than an endless refrain of victimization and suffering? 150 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Life as Practice, Practice as Life Life as Service Manifesting your transformation in the world is what makes it substantial. For many, transformative realizations are grounded through service to others. Such selflessness to others is a cornerstone of most religions and many spiritual and transformative paths. In English, the word “service” shares its root with the Old English serfise, or ceremony. To this day, “service” is used to mean both a religious ceremony and an act of generosity to another. Offering service to others can be a rite that both expresses your intention to grow and transform, and anchors your realizations in everyday reality. Physician Rachel Naomi Remen has devoted herself to the welfare of others for nearly four decades. As she told us: Service is my practice. Service is one of the most powerful of the practices. As you watch someone being taken unaware by something like cancer, they go through a process of healing. It’s a process of the evolution of the self towards wholeness. There are steps in the process, and people go through them in different ways. I believe the final step is service.    People who are able to use and experience crisis, suffering, and loss in a way that evolves their unique being, will, in the end, use that unique being in service to others, because service has become natural to them. The Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. experience they’ve just been through—of suffering and loss—is, in some sense, the universal experience. It’s the human condition. Having been through it, they don’t hold themselves separate from the suffering of other people. They don’t protect themselves in the way that most people do.    Often they stay in the lives they’ve been in. They’re a CEO or they’re a real estate agent, or whatever, but they do it now from a different place and for a different purpose. They do it from a place of deep connection to others. And for me, that’s the sign of true practice. I think that a lot of people speak of the web of connection as an intellectual thing. That’s very different from knowing it in every cell of your body as the ground of being. (2003) 151 Schlitz, Marilyn, et al. Living Deeply : The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, New Harbinger Publications, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sofia/detail.action?docID=1026795. Created from sofia on 2021-05-08 10:31:13. Living Deeply Gerald Jampolsky—another physician whose work has helped thousands, perhaps even millions, of ill and dying patients and their family members deal with the crises they face—put it this way: Not everyone is called to a life of service—at least not in the most obvious sense of becoming a social worker or volunteering in a soup kitchen. Indeed, many who take that path soon realize how even these activities can become divorced from the rest of your life. Service, defined broadly, can be how you interact with each person and in each situation, no matter what the circumstances are. (2002) Bringing service into your life can be a simple process. It can involve the way you interact with your coworkers, talk with your children, share your day with your spouse, or check in with an ailing parent. It can be volunteering at a local school, or running a marathon to raise money to help fight cancer. Service as a transformative practice is all about the state of consciousness you bring to these little acts of kindness. Copyright © 2008. New Harbinger Publications. All rights reserved. Living the Art of Transformation An interesting thing happens when we begin to creatively manifest what we’ve learned through the transformative process: a sort of reversal takes place. Where previously your transformative activities fed your life, now your life feeds your transformation. As Anna Halprin, dancer, choreographer, and cancer survivor, told us: One has to commit oneself to looking at whatever comes up wit...