Love is scary, so we hold back. From the very first weekend of my Hakomi trainings we were taught to create a loving bubble with our client. If we could not find a way to love them it was suggested they should maybe not even be our client. So clearly Hakomi is grounded first and foremost in Love but it was not yet one of the principles. Which made no sense. I made a point of privately asking every teacher why Love was not one of the principles and every one of them kind of blinked in surprise and said – it should be! They couldn’t really explain why it wasn’t, but I think I know. It turns out that I am not the only one who thought that if you caress someone’s face and look deeply into their eyes that that means sex has to happen next. Therapists are taught to hold a certain separation from their client and to expect their clients to project all sorts of things onto them. Therapists fear that they will break down and maybe take advantage of their client’s hunger for love and validation. It happens all too often.
So how do we teach people to find their body? It has to be experiential. People need to experience it in their bodies to truly understand it. But it won’t be just one method. Different approaches will work best for different people. For example, HAI does a fantastic job of getting people in intimate relationship with their body, but for many people getting naked in front of a group of strangers is just a non-starter. There is simply no way they are going to sign up for that. Similarly a sacred MDMA or mushroom journey can offer incredibly healing, but again for many people that kind of journey is way too scary. So we have to meet people where they are at. We will have to make sure that for each person we find things that helps them with diet, movement, sex, and substance abuse. Each person will have something tailored for them, and it will be part of an integrated plan – not something that is held separate. Because all of our work is connected. We might think that maybe we just need to work on, for example, our relationship with our partner, but that is an illusion. As you work on that relationship you are also working on everything else. What happens in our body affects our Mind. What happens in our Mind affects our body.
Just like that. The first step is quite pleasant – learn to find a deep joy inside yourself. Deepen enough into that joy and you might find yourself surfacing back up into a world where we are truly one. Were your pain is mine and I can no longer ignore it. As I learn to love you, I learn to love myself. From that place miracles happen.
Body-Centered Psychotherapy
| Old paradigm | New paradigm |
|---|---|
| fundamental separateness | unbroken wholeness fundamental connectedness |
| absolute certitude only matter is real (materialism) |
uncertainty, relativity consciosness is real (dualistm, monism) |
| the mind/body split | mind/body integration |
| biology is destingy | we create our own destiny |
My goal is to first save the world, because it needs saving. If we don’t stop carbon dioxide emissions soon, billions will die. But we have to go way beyond just that because in some ways it already is too late. Climate change is now irreversible. There is no going back. We are going to have to learn to share a very different, challenging world. Simply to survive we now have no choice but to learn to care for all. Some will live in areas that benefit from climate change and many will not. We will have to learn to share everything. But this urgent necessity is also an opportunity. We can chose to create a world of our dreams. It really is possible. In fact it is our best hope of survival. I hope to convince you to join me. I need allies. This world needs allies.
This site is meant for people who are excited by the bigger dream of what we are all collectively waking up to. Waking up to finding their bigger purpose of service. Service coming not from a place of self-sacrifice but instead from listening to the call for the deeper joy that is struggling to be born but needs some midwives. Please join me. I can’t do this alone.
So many people are already working on saving the world. But often they are only bringing just a part of themselves to the work. Many people are doing great science (Mind) based work and wondering why people are not moved by what they have discovered. They are not meeting people where they are. Many people are doing the intense healing (Body) work that is so needed, but are not aware of how they fit into the bigger picture. We need people to step into a larger world view. Many people are doing the profound (Heart) work of loving themselves and the world. But they are learning to endure the unendurable. We need them to come back from their lofty heights and join the work.
For example, the Prosperity Gospel is a very Red mindset.
We wil regain the three primoridal freedoms:
But that is going to take time. The great spiritual awakenings led by Jesus and Mohammed took many decades before they reached critical mass. What do we do in the meantime? Again we need to meet people where they are at. Recognize that they think differently than people at other stages. And in the U.S. it would help if we acknowledge the betrayal of the working class. There is a reason for all that anger. There is a reason why so many people in Trump counties are dying of despair. There is a class war going on and the lower classes are losing badly. Most college educated people I know came from comfortable middle class backgrounds and they have a huge blindspot here. They can’t understand why people don’t “vote their interest”. Why do people vote against politicians who would give them more money? They don’t understand that most working class people don’t want to depend on government handouts, they simply want a good job that their families can depend on. A job that won’t get shipped overseas like all the others. Something they can be proud of, and feel like they are an important, contributing member of society. And people are willing to rally around this. When Trump imposed harsh (and seemingly arbitrary) tariffs on China, that policy was popular with his base. Red farmers were willing to sacrifice in solidarity with their factory brothers. Unless and until Democrats address this class divide I don’t see things getter any better.
How do we help people do that? This is the work of Wising Up. Here are the wising up paths that I know to work. I’m sure there are many more:
Again, I think Michael Polan’s How to Change Your Mind is a fantastic resource for Green yearning for Yellow. He was open to this work because he understood that maybe just maybe there is more to this world than the rational parts of our brain can comprehend. That is very Green. And then when he experienced amazing journeys into himself he took his first steps into Yellow.
Medicine work is a great path but it is not the only way. Bill Plotkin’s Soulcraft brings back the Purple vision quest to our own day and age. It sounds amazing. People do several days of preparation and then head into the wilderness alone for up to four days to find themselves. When they come back out they are transformed. They see the world in a new light. What a great way to bring people to Yellow. I have not (yet) done one, but Forest Therapy was inspired by this kind of vision quest work.
Any group that encourages people to look deeply and courageously inside themselves can work. For example, when I did my two years of Hakomi training we learned how to do Hakomi style therapy, but we also went deep into ourselves. We learned how to stand up in the world in a much more grounded, authentic way. And my work at HAI changed my life. I will talk more about this in the next section.
But we obviously don’t want people to stay at this stage if possible. And we actually have a pretty good mechanism to get people from Orange to Green - a modern liberal arts education. The difference between just a college education and a modern liberal arts education is that the modern liberal arts education asks you to examine the deeper questions. It builds upon the base of critical thinking (Orange) and uses that critical thinking to show you how limited that base is. The problem we face with Orange is getting it to understand that not everything is as crisp and clean as a mathematical proof. That reason is not the only source of Truth. That we are firmly embedded in culture and many of our “Truths” are just cultural stories. Green actually does a great job of this – there are lots and lots of resources here. We just need to make it accessible. Drop the pretension and enormous cost and make this education available to everyone whenever they are ready. Maybe they are not ready right out of highschool? Again, that is pretty common. Again, let’s let them take those four years whenever it works for them no matter how old.
Spiral Dynamics gives us a better story. It helps us put into context all that has happened. We can step out of helpless victim and into problem solving mode. We see all the stages and recognize both their shadows and gifts. It breaks down the big problem into more manageable chunks. It offers us a path to follow. How do we save the world? One way is to help people move into higher and higher stages. And how do we do that? The First tier stages (everything before Yellow) have historical precedents for how to move people to the next level. But we don’t have that for Yellow. Getting people to Yellow and then helping them deepen into it has to be one of our top priorities. But I have to confess to an even bigger dream – getting Yellow to Turqoise.
Again, I am assuming that you are at Yellow and are committed to deepening into that work. You are not alone. Yellow is now well enough established that we can start to pull together some of the different schools and start to notice how much they share. Because you are Yellow, you more than most really get that there can’t be just One True Way, but instead you will have to find the way that works for you. That said, there are some things that I wish I had been told. Things that would have
The end goal is to get people up to Turqoise. Or at the very least help people deepen into their Yellow practice. We do that by getting people to truly love and embrace all the color stagesBefore we can fully step into the full solution we need to do these other steps as well. And just like Turquoisespirals back to Purple, Showing Up spirals back to Turquoise. We will find our way back to Growing Up but at a different level.
Each stage had some organization that pulled people into it. What is pulling people into Yellow? The biggest pull right now is from Medicine (psychedelics) work. There are many paths that can lead to a Yellow awakening, but the most popular seems to be Medicine work. If you choose to do this work, please be sure to do it with a reputable, trained guide who is part of a community that holds high ethical standards. And please read How to Change Your Mind. Michael Pollan (presumably without knowing about Spiral Dynamics) does a superb job of explaining to people mostly at the Green stage what it is like to explore Yellow. People who are still at Orange are not ready to go straight to Yellow because their god of Reason is a jealous god that will not accept any other sources of Truth. But at Green people start to get a glimmer that there are other paths to Truth and maybe just maybe Medicine is something worth investigating as a path of growth not just healing.
Let’s start Cleaning Up by visiting the stink spirit video from Spirited Away again. If you haven’t watched it yet please consider watching it now.
We all have a lifetime of accumulated junk that is keeping us from our true shining nature. Notice how much courage and fortitude is needed just to get started. It feels kind of hopeless. I’m not worth the effort! But there was curiousity – I wonder what Sen is going to do? Ask for help? And then we get that first precious bath of healing medicine and something starts to shift. We still are very much stuck in our “stink”, but possibilities start to open up. Huh. I see a bicycle handle sticking out. Let’s try pulling it out. Wait. We need to rally the whole community for this one. Pull! So much junk! And at the very end Sen is left with the gift of a medicine ball in her hand. When we find out true nature we also find our gift.
Let me start with a simple question. Why do we think the Civil War actually solved anything? Did that war really change hearts and minds? I don’t think so. Not really. Imagine the end of the U.S. Civil War. The North has just crushed the South using brutal, total war: Sherman’s March to the Sea. The South surrenders with the bitter realization that the North will stop at absolutely no unspeakable atrocity in order to totally crush them. And that truly may have been the only way to end the war. Imagine though that you are a slave owner that now has to free their slaves. Do you really awaken to your evil wickedness and acknowledge that the North was right all along? Of course you don’t. I don’t expect you to have sympathy at this point for the slave owner, but what about their children? Maybe you can find sympathy for them? They are growing up in a culture that teaches them a certain mindset. Why do we think that mindset would magically change? It didn’t of course. Within twenty years after the war, Southern whites had regrouped and replaced the old system of slavery with a new form of economic slavery called share cropping. Yes, still better than actual slavery, but Blacks could not vote and still lived in oppression. This is the Authoritarian mindset. Why do we think that somehow this changes? How does that even work? So of course there is ongoing, systemic racism in the U.S.
Those people proudly waving confederate flags carry almost the exact mindset of their ancestors. They are not stupid, they know exactly what they are celebrating, but they also don’t consider themselves evil. We do of course, but they definitely don’t. Interesting. OK, let’s take one more step back. How did slavery even become a thing? It turns out that throughout history slavery was pretty common. Greece and Rome were slave empires. In a very real way the Authoritarian mindset of the Roman empire is still very much alive. Just look at all those people waving that damn flag.
So how do we deal with this reality? Yes, completely unacceptable, but here we are. Calling people stupid and evil has not proven to be an effective method. In fact it can often make things worse – people harden in their opposition. And once we get past stupid and evil as the easy, lazy explanations for people’s behavior we can start to really understand them. And it is not just them. There are many mindsets operating in the world, not just Authoritarians. How do we navigate this? We need a map.
In some ways we are already too late. We already have launched irreversible climate change. That doesn’t mean we are necessarily doomed, especially if we can rally to halt emissions in time. But it does mean that we are going to have to learn to cooperate in a way we have not before. Places that used to produce food will likely become barren with drought. But places that used to be too cold to grow food will suddenly become productive farmlands. This is already happening. The world is going to be a dif want to go much further than just that
It is a pretty wild ambition to save the world. To even have a chance it will require many, many different voices speaking from a place of deep Truth. We all have our own paths to Truth, let me first start with mine.
When I let my heart open wider and wider into the vastness of all that is, I find pain. So. much. pain! Can you feel it also? At least a little? The sensitives among us certainly do. Here take this pill so you can function, as if shock and horror were not the most appropriate reaction to the world. As if everything is fine, just keep on going don’t pay attention to that homeless person huddled miserably in the corner. And our history! Generation after generation passing its trauma on to the next. So many people growing up in hurt and lack. It hurts so much! The pain can feel like an immense, implacable ocean wave sweeping me away from the security of shore. Better, safer to hide away.
And we are on a deadline. Global warming looks to be worse than scientists feared. If we don’t take drastic action billions may die. Yet most people don’t seem to really get how urgent the problem is. Don’t seem to realize it for the existential threat that it is. My daughter asks me if it will be OK for her to have children in the future, and I have to stop and really think about it. What kind of world will her children live in? What evidence do I have that things are going to get better?
It is easy to give in to hopelessness. What can any one person really do in the face of the relentless forces shaping the world? People are going to suffer, and yes it is probably going to get much worse. We can do our best, but it probably won’t be enough. It is hopeless.
And yet.
Stop and breath, and know.
There is hope. Always.
Even in the depths of horrific trauma there can be moments when all that pain cracks something open and lets Grace shine through. When despite it all we recognize the beauty and glory of simply being alive in this imperfect world and are profoundly grateful. Mixed with the filth there is also beauty, glory, and awe. All wrapped up together. There is no deeper joy without the deeper suffering.
And again I say there is hope. Please try to let that in, if only a little. It is what I want very most for this world to know.
Know that you are not alone. Brilliant people the world over have been working on this problem. And they have come up with all sorts of useful ideas and practices. I wish more people knew about them. With these advances we will change the world:
I love movies where the reluctant heroes are desperately trying to save the world against what seem impossible odds. First they overcome their fears and limitations, and then they commit. Then they work through their bitter squabbles and commit to each other. I want to be like them. I’m hoping you do too, because the world is in desperate need of heroes right now.
Police kill black men seemingly at will. Large parts of the population seem to be indifferent to the needless deaths and suffering of a million people. And it gets worse. Global warming is here and we are burning. Species are dying in numbers we can barely comprehend. In our children’s lifetimes it is possible large parts of the planet might become uninhabitable. If we don’t make drastic changes, it is possible that billions of people will die. Seriously.
Still with me? I don’t blame you if your first instinct is to stop reading. If you let yourself really consider how bad things could get it is just too overwhelming. Billions of people dying? Surely that is hysterical hyperbole? It is just too much. Sadly it is a real possibility.
But please know this. There is hope. Really and truly. It is not going to be easy of course. It never is in dire situations like this. And unlike the movies there is no guarantee that everything will work out in the end. But I wouldn’t be writing this if I did not truly believe there is hope.
Again it is not going to be easy. No heroic journey ever is. Are you willing to at least start? The very first step is to embrace the pain. Really let yourself feel how awful this is. Yuck! Why would you want to do that? Because with pain comes a precious gift – the energy to do whatever it takes to get out of that pain. The bigger the pain the bigger the gift that comes with it. Think about times in your life when something hurt so bad that you just had to make a drastic change. That pain gave you the energy to make a change you might not have made otherwise. It is exactly like that but on a global scale.
We are going to need this gift of energy because we are about to embark on a heroic journey.
Ready to begin?
During the Trump presidency it felt like political commentators were crashing around their bedroom at night trying to get to the bathroom. Not really recognizing what they were bumping into. For example many focused too much on Trump without realizing he just represented the yearning of a huge number of Americans. Many others viewed him as a uniquely American problem, and failed to see that there has been an absolute plague of Authoritarian governments in the world recently. Others only focused on recent events without realizing that this is an age old problem. It turns out that it is rare for a democracy to not succumb to Authoritarianism collapse at some point. And even more failed to recognize that this authoritarian mindset has been with us from the very beginnings of recorded history.
We need to stop and take the time to turn on the light and see where we are. What exactly are we bumping into? We see this Authoritarian mindset, are there other mindsets that are also driving the world? We need a map. If we truly want to succeed in winning hearts and minds we need to meet people where they actually are not where we think they should be. In my experience telling people that they are stupid and evil just has not been an effective way to get them to change. Have you had a different experience? This is where theory and models can help. We need a better understanding of why people do what they do. We need to bring our thinking minds in and go much deeper than we have.
Later on I’m going to introduce a theory called Spiral Dynamics which has a very powerful explanation for much that we see in the world. It lets us understand people without resorting to just calling them stupid and evil. But right here I want to focus on the need for some theory period. Here are a few examples of questions any theory we adopt would have to help us answer:
I want people to end up where I am. How did I get to this point? I found a number of wise schools to guide me. I was asked to seriously commit to a rich, deeply fulfilling life. And I did. I now awaken each morning to joy. Then I was taught to find something bigger than myself, and then finally I woke up to what I am called to do. This is a powerful path to walk. Please walk with me.
So all of these schools are working to get people to their deeper Truth. Get them past whatever is blocking them from getting there. Without ever explicitly mentioning it they also are teaching people to get into the habit of always checking inside for their Truth. To get in the habit of paying attention to what is going on inside. Encouraging them to take frequent pauses to check in with themselves. There is a name for this practice – it is call mindfulness. Let’s talk about that next.
For thirty years I have done nothing. Back in the 90’s environmentalists knew a disaster was coming. The science was clear. And I did nothing. Each decade the scientists kept on coming back to report that it was even worse than we feared. And I did nothing. The reports got so bad I could not make myself read them. It hurt too much. If you read them carefully, you can hear the scientists screaming in anguish. And I still did nothing.
No longer.
I will not do nothing for another thirty years. I have been waiting for someone else to take care of it. That hasn’t worked The world needs someone even as ordinary as me. No matter how hard it gets I can not imagine anything more painful than confessing to my grandchildren thirty years from now that yet again I stood by and did nothing.
Just about every morning I find myself in joy. A place of deep, sometimes even overwhelming happiness. It is hard to let it all in. Some days I go straight there, other days it takes a bit of processing, but I end up there never the less. And when I’m in that joy I find myself longing for others to join me. I long for the world to heal. It is what I want very
In my early thirties I was working at a very stressful job and my daily, long, and hard run was my lifeline. It kept me sane. I didn’t really time myself – I just ran as hard as I could. But suddenly I was no longer able to run so hard. Heck I was even starting to have problems just walking. I was also having to pee all the time. My neck hurt. My HMO doctor, trying to save money for the corporation, quickly dismissed the problem as sitting with poor posture at my computer and sent me to a physical therapist. Which was complete nonsense. I still had excellent posture from my early Zen practice, and besides I really was in pain. Fortunately the physical therapist was competent and quickly recognized that something was very wrong and managed to get me into the then very expensive MRI lab. They put me in this very narrow tube and scanned me for a long time. The scanning technician was astonished at how happy I was when they told me they had found a tumor. I was just so happy that we finally were getting to the truth of the matter.
Huge acne cysts sprang up on my face at the end of my sophomore year in high school. They swelled so big that my skin was pulled painfully tight and made it hard to smile. They were almost as big as ping pong balls – I am not exaggerating. And when finally, finally I forced them to pop they left very big, deep, pitted scars. And they kept on coming. I went from one of the cuter boys to one of the ugliest just like that. And in my bewildered pain I made a choice to protect myself. My ugliness made me vulnerable so I decided to do a sort of amputation. To cut off the part of me that cared about how I looked.
A woman I was exploring dating with asked me what my accomplishments were. I struggled to come up with an answer. I love computer programming and have done some good work on some fun projects, but I don’t really hold on to any part of my career as an “accomplishment”. The woman abruptly cut off contact after that — she needed someone who has “accomplished” something in life. That stung but it was fine, I already had recognized that she had way too much ego attachment for a relationship to work. But it was an interesting question so I kept on thinking about it, and eventually I came up with something.
Back at a time when I was in an incredible amount of pain, I signed up for an intensive set of personal growth workshops. The first weekend was designed to open us up to the work and the second, longer retreat was where we did the real work. That retreat was called “The Wall” and it was named after the “wall” of exhaustion that runners hit and then keep on going. It was described as a chasm mountain climbers might find on their path. Giving them no real choice other than to leap over the chasm. And in that moment when they are in the air new possibilities open up.
We met at Sea-Tac airport to take a bus to a remote camp somewhere in Washington state. We didn’t really know where we were going exactly. Just somewhere deep into the woods. We slept in bunkbeds and were woken up at 6am to the shrill whistle of our facilitator dressed as a coach and set out on our daily run. Which was timed. And the times were posted. Fairly early in the retreat the facilitator asked us to commit to our life purpose. If we didn’t already know our life purpose he suggested we take on the purpose of living a deep, rich, fulfilling life. He asked us to take a solitary walk out into nature to really think about this. When we came back the facilitator said, “Everyone who is willing to commit to their life purpose please stand.” Everyone stood but me. I looked around a little in amazement – how could everyone so easily stand? It didn’t seem fair. This was way too early in the retreat. Didn’t people understand what they were committing to? This was it. If I committed to this everything else was a detail. Hard, difficult details, but honestly? details.
I had only fairly recently returned from Japan and was still married to my Japanese wife. Unfortunately, she was emotionally and physically abusive to both my son and me. Our family was suffering. I was stumping along on duty and would have secretly welcomed a death by cancer as an honorable way out. I wanted to get divorced, but what if she returned to Japan with our son? I talked to expensive lawyers who warned me that sexism was alive and well in the courts and that the presumption was still that the child should be with his mother so there was little I could do to prevent her from taking our child. And to be honest I also shared that same sexism that assumed that a child needs to be with his mom no matter how troubled the mom is. And my son desperately needed me. I was his safe place.
So no. That commitment sounded lovely for others, but I didn’t have that luxury. I had a son who was counting on me. At the time my word was impeccable. If I said I would do something, I really would. And making that commitment meant I would hurt my son. And yet. Someone asked what I would want for my son to do if he happened to end up in my same position? Would I want him to make the same choice I was? No, I wouldn’t want this for him. And someone else asked me what are you teaching him by your example? If you don’t choose a fulfilling life how he is he going to learn to choose that for himself? He is looking to you for how life is done. And finally the instructor simply called me to the front of the room and asked everyone who thought that I deserved to lead a deep, rich fulfilling life to stand up. And everyone stood. I broke down sobbing and something cracked inside of me. I found I could say yes.
This was such an incredibly important commitment! How could I make sure that I really honored it? I mulled this over for a week or so after the workshop until one day at work I was transferring to a new group that happened to already have two Davids so my new boss jokingly said “You will have to change your name”. I looked at him thunderstruck and said “You’re right!” He quickly tried to backpedal assuring me that he was just joking but I knew he was absolutely right. It was time to change my name.
My birth name is David. It is a perfectly lovely name. Unfortunately my generation is over blessed with them. Back in high school there were so many Davids in my Biology class every time the teacher said “David?” something like 20% of the class turned his way. Ridiculous! Too many Davids! I stomped off to the library and looked through names. Aureolus? No. Borealis? No. Chrysostom? Maybe? … no. Odysseus? Something electric went through me. Yes. Yes that. Ok good, so when? When am I going to make this huge change? Not now – not while I’m in still in high school. It’s way too scary. But sometime in my life something big will happen and I will know it is time.
And now finally it was that time. I changed my name to Odysseus. That was the easy part. Keeping my wife in the US turned out to be easy too. I ended up buying my way out of the problem. I used my stock options to buy our house and give it to her. I also paid for all her expenses. Moving out when my son didn’t want me to go was the hardest thing I have ever done. I still cry about it. After moving out I came over frequently to read him bed time stories and Sundays were our special day together. I was still his safe place, but it was very hard for him. It is, however, what I would want for him. I found my way to a deep, rich fulfilling life, and he got to saw me thriving and happy. I was showing him by example what I wanted for him. It was incredibly hard but necessary. And it all started with making that commitment to myself. Everything else was a detail. Incredibly hard details but details none the less.
People often ask me about my name and every time I am reminded of this first, very sacred promise I made. I’m grateful for the question. It gives me a chance to recommit yet once again. By the way, that whole bit about getting woken up by a coach with a whistle? Brilliant theater. At the end of the retreat the facilitator confessed that every morning he would put on his athletic gear, send us on our way and then immediately change back out. Just to help us notice the unconscious stories we so quickly fall into. Notice how we just assumed we were supposed to run as fast as we possibly could. We were getting timed! We didn’t even consider the possibility that the run could be a time of connection and playfulness until the final day. We don’t have to stay in our stories. We don’t have to keep on running for our lives.
Things do come up and we all find ourselves running away in fear. But if we are committed, at some point we come back and try again. And again. So I’m asking you. If you already know your life purpose, great, please recommit to that. Otherwise would you be willing take on the purpose of leading a deep rich, fulfilling life? Are you willing to really, seriously commit to that? I warn you that committing to that means all the scary things you have been putting off will have to be handled. But the good news? They will now be details. Hard, scary details yes, but details.