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Emergent Leadership for a Thriving Planet with Abigail Lynam
252 Plays8 days ago
In this episode of The Choice to Grow, Scott Schwenk is joined by systems thinker, educator, and inner development guide Dr. Abigail Lynam. Together, they explore what it means to lead during planetary transformation—how our internal development shapes our external impact. From generational healing to the science of interconnectedness, Abigail shares her path through grief, shadow, and emergence. A profound dialogue on belonging, leadership, and the conscious evolution of systems and self.
Abigail Lynam
Abigail Lynam is a guide for transformation—of self, of systems, of the shared life we inhabit. As a coach, facilitator, and creator of transformative learning journeys, she invites individuals and groups into deeper presence, expanded perspectives, and more awake, whole ways of leading and living.
She serves as senior faculty for Pacific Integral’s Emergent Leadership and Generating Transformative Change programs, offered on three continents, and teaches in Fielding Graduate University’s PhD program in Human and Organizational Development. A teacher candidate in Integral Polarity Practice, she is also a developmental coach and scorer with Stages International and a qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory.
Rooted in adult developmental psychology and informed by awareness-based, embodiment, and relational practices, Abigail’s work bridges inner and outer transformation. She is particularly passionate about the interdependence of individual and collective development—bridging divides, cultivating capacities for emergence, and supporting the awakening and unfolding of humanity in service to all life.
Scott Schwenk
Scott’s teachings, courses and master coaching guide leaders, seekers and creatives to explore the embodiment of their deepest selves in service of thriving on all levels of being, both individually and relationally.
You can receive a free guided meditation and explore Scott’s courses, workshops, retreats, training and master coaching at https://scottschwenk.com and can find him on Instagram @thescottschwenk.
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Transcript
Introduction & Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
00:00:24
Speaker
Take a deep breath in.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hold breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands. Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
00:00:41
Speaker
Ah. Now let's dive in.
Meet Abigail Lynham
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody, to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk, and I'm delighted to share my next guest with you. My next guest is somebody I met a couple of years ago at the Integral Theory Conference of North America in Sedona, Arizona, and then at a small curated gathering of late stage practitioners right afterwards.
00:01:11
Speaker
Abigail Lynham is ah powerhouse. She's a guide for transformation of self systems So individuals and collectives, that's an interesting shifting point. Like so many of us think about growth as an individual, but what is it to hold growth and support growth in an effective way with groups and collectives?
00:01:36
Speaker
So she's exploring the shared life we all inhabit and all the layers and levels. As a coach and as a facilitator and as a creator of transformative learning journeys, she invites individuals and groups into deeper presence, expanded perspectives, and more awake whole ways of leading and living.
00:01:55
Speaker
Thank you. She serves as senior faculty for Pacific Integral's emergent leadership and generating transformative change programs offered on three continents.
00:02:06
Speaker
Now you might recall a recent episode we had with Jeff Fitch. Jeff Fitch also is the co-founder of this GTC, Generating Transformative Change Program through Pacific Integral.
00:02:19
Speaker
Abigail and Jeff are life partners and business partners, and it actually goes really, really well. So there's something to discover there. And these programs are offered on three continents. She also teaches for Fielding Graduate University's PhD program in Human and Organizational Development.
00:02:36
Speaker
She's a teacher candidate in John Kessler's integral polarity practice. She's a developmental coach. She is trained to score adult leadership development assessments through stages international.
00:02:50
Speaker
What those do is they can show through the answering of sentence stems like family is my mother when they rejected me can get our strong, clear sense of where we take and how we take perspective consistently, where our leading edge is when we're really resourced and where we can fall back to and where there's opportunities for growth and specific practices based on where we're really developed instead of one size fits all practice. So she's qualified to score those assessments.
00:03:25
Speaker
in this intercultural developmental inventory. She's rooted in adult developmental psychology and informed by awareness-based embodiment and relational practices. Abigail's work bridges inner and outer transformation.
00:03:39
Speaker
She's particularly passionate about the interdependence of individual and collective development, bridging divides, cultivating capacities for emergence, and supporting the awakening and unfolding of humanity in service to all of life.
00:03:53
Speaker
So without further ado, with all love and respect, welcome to you, Abigail. I'm so happy to have you on the show. been eagerly waiting this for some time now. Thank you, Scott. It's really lovely to hear your you know articulation of that and invitation and introduction and also just what you added to it. It feels so meaningful. Thank you.
The Human Journey & Wonder
00:04:15
Speaker
When you hear in this moment the title of this podcast, the title of the show, The Choice to Grow, I'm wondering what that evokes for you here today. Yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker
Thanks for the question. Yeah, as I was preparing for our conversation today, I just was struck by the wonder of the human unfolding journey. You know, it it is and can be so fraught with suffering, with, um you know, the ways we can be confronted by life and confused by the things that we encounter along the way. And at the same time, there's something so deeply wondrous about,
00:04:52
Speaker
the very fact that we do unfold, that there is a wholeness that one, we already are, but also a wholeness that we're becoming. that is actually in its own sense operating on our behalf.
00:05:04
Speaker
And so it's an incredible thing to to discover that, to recognize it. And and there's a choicefulness, there is ah a willingness to to move with that. um That is an incredible thing to you know to discover and to say yes to.
00:05:20
Speaker
So that's what that's what that evokes for me.
00:05:25
Speaker
What is wonder when you, how would you articulate what wonder is? Hmm, wonder. Yeah, it's a beautiful question. i mean, there's something very unutterably simple about wonder. It's it's waking up in the morning and you know hearing a bird singing or ah just the eyes that can encounter beauty even in the face of suffering. So in a sense, that's wonder.
00:05:51
Speaker
And even a wonder about, again, these you know these areas in our lives where we can feel confounded or or struggling or suffering that even... even those two can invite us into a deeper ground of who we are. and And in the process of that, discovering just a wonder that is, you know, ah just simple and available moment to moment.
00:06:14
Speaker
As I'm listening to you, and because it's you in particular, and the things that we've just, you know, articulated about your bio and your understanding and your embodiment, I'm curious about like, almost like stages of wonder, you know, how wonder expresses as we develop, like what more we have access to in the terrain of wonder, you know, like somebody who maybe hasn't got much experience with inner work, maybe is very familiar with um feeling anxious and worried a lot of the time about life. And it's like,
00:06:48
Speaker
wonder how do I? Well, sometimes it happens to me might be the experience, but how do can I cultivate it? And how do I begin in a way that's really grounded here and now as opposed to trying to get away from something i don't want to feel?
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's such a good question. I just yesterday I was at a friend's um birthday party for her five year old and um I enjoyed hanging out with the adults, but I really spent most of my time with with this, you know, kind of group of five year olds and the wonder that they were just naturally in, you know, the pleasure of play and,
00:07:25
Speaker
you know, coming to know each other and running around. and um And so sometimes, you know, in in ah kind of harder, more bleak moments of life, I have in my own practice, a salt wonder actually as a as a kind of antidote or ah or something to sustain me through those difficult moments.
00:07:44
Speaker
um I can in particular remember a time where I probably was navigating some kind of developmental transition and felt, you know, life life didn't have a lot of wonder inherently, felt challenging to to walk and to navigate.
00:08:00
Speaker
And i I intuitively came across across a practice that, you know, just occurred to me that at the end of the day, I would look for where were there moments of color or beauty or wonder in my day? And in the process of that, I think we do, we can cultivate this very this very phenomena that can feel inaccessible in those harder times.
00:08:20
Speaker
yeah
00:08:24
Speaker
I'm just touched right now. and i'm I'm noticing you know my own experience lately of being confronted by so-called news around the world and what's happening around um the future of resources, ah the fragmentation of nervous systems, the confusion and pain about trying to find out what's true, human rights, so many things that are going on.
00:08:54
Speaker
i feel like many people are so overwhelmed and don't even know it, we're so overwhelmed, and stay at a surface level of interaction in mind while aching for depth and connection.
00:09:10
Speaker
What's your experience and view? It feels so true. feels so true. Yeah, I was just thinking about the analogy that gets made about the the frog that's in the pot of warming water. And at you know at what point does it...
00:09:24
Speaker
you know, does it or doesn't it know to, you know, to jump out. And um yeah, these are, you know, these are really challenging, disorienting times. And even as you were speaking that I i was, you know, sort of maybe recognizing or feeling how in In our avoidance of of, you know, the kind of challenging circumstances that we're in we we do lose access both to the highs and lows of, you know, just what it means to, you know, to be alive. And as we have the courage and support to
00:09:56
Speaker
to feel the you know the grief the the pain the confusion there actually can be a kind of wonder that um co-occurs with with that uh you know with the experience of grief for instance so again i'll notice it for myself i might avoid what could feel like more difficult feelings and there is a kind of you know bliss a beauty ah a wonder that can come alongside just feeling what's true just being with um the you know the very things that perhaps again we might avoid or confound us yeah i i don't i haven't spoken this much to anybody out loud and but here feels like a place to explore that with you which is
00:10:44
Speaker
Yes, I'm noticing so many things that could be challenging or confusing or distressing about this relative world and, or I should say my perspective in a given moment about it.
Integrating Wonder with Daily Life
00:10:54
Speaker
the same time, there's this burgeoning sense of being, ah of existing on some level and that's coming online consciously.
00:11:03
Speaker
almost like in more than one timeline or more than one dimensional reality at the same time. And as I say that, I'm like noticing myself grappling with how to make it sound relatable and concrete to anybody who is listening ah because it's not about like avoiding life. It's not a bypass.
00:11:24
Speaker
In fact, it's actually really kind of strange and invokes wonder. with this sense of being somehow in multiple happenings at the same time, even though my eyes predominantly see what we're calling objective reality.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what I really feel and what you're expressing is there's also a deep mystery in what's happening anyway and how we perceive what's happening. And yes, we can also tune our attention to, um you know, there's there's there's the perhaps the pain, the breakdown, the confusion. And also alongside of that is all kinds of um flourishing that is is sort of endeavoring to occur. um And then there's just this this deep mystery of, do we even know it you know at any level really what's happening? And so I'm not sure if that's what you're speaking to and I'd love to hear more about it. But yeah but there it there's that too.
00:12:24
Speaker
It's like, and I just saw an Instagram post that seemed to be science-based. I tried to do a little deep dive research on it that said that ah physicists had been playing with and repeated the experiment that somehow they were able to prove that a particle could communicate and and be a existent in at least 37 different dimensions at the same time.
00:12:50
Speaker
And my head kind of spun just trying to be with that as some sort of a real tacit experience. like existing If a particle is existing at least on 37 dimensions at the same time, I'm made of particles.
00:13:07
Speaker
So what is that like to have conscious awareness and access to different dimensional realities all at once and then to figure out how to have to prioritize where to put attention?
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you in the the wonder of it. But also I would say this isn't, you know, it's not totally the territory that I, you know, that maybe I, i'm you know, have much experience in and yet I can feel and imagine, you know, that very phenomena. And I,
00:13:37
Speaker
you know, as we recognize that time itself in the relative world is, you know, has its own linearity, but it's also time, you know, there's a timeless dimension where everything and nothing is present all at once.
00:13:49
Speaker
um And I can, so I can imagine that, but that's, that's probably my access to that. If I, if I have any access at all. When I was, uh, Awaiting your bio, I was looking at your LinkedIn.
00:14:02
Speaker
And there's so much profound and strong, powerful experience in academia. And yet, as I sit with you, I make the quantum leap of going, I feel like I'm sitting with a mystic who happens to be wearing the costume of somebody who has tremendous ah capacity as an academic, as a researcher, as an articulator, as ah teacher.
00:14:32
Speaker
And as I'm saying all this, part of our pre-conversation was a little bit about gender dynamics. And i I'm curious, hopefully this leap makes sense the way I'm asking it.
00:14:45
Speaker
how How do you sense that you as a female need to be approached such that the mysticism that you have access to or or the
00:14:56
Speaker
abstract ways of knowing and experiencing and participating can can be shared and experienced by others. How do you need to be approached as a person who's in a female body with the recognition, at least over here, that you know it's easy to ask a man something and and get ideas from his mind and lots of explaining or
Abigail's Background & Work
00:15:20
Speaker
facts and figures.
00:15:23
Speaker
I'm recognizing that people carry or hold certain, we could call it medicine or wisdom streams that aren't facts as such.
00:15:33
Speaker
Like they're not something that can be videotaped or that you could measure or put a fence around. How does, in your experience, a female, and you've worked with so many female leaders ah budding and actual actually blossomed, how does a female need to be approached in order that that wisdom stream that she carries
00:15:57
Speaker
is more willing to flow. Yeah, i mean you've you've expressed a lot in that question and I'm probably going to maybe I'll take a few moments to, you know, just kind of explore and maybe trouble even the kind of category of what it means to be an academic and then and then respond to your your question around gender. Both, you know, both territories. I really just appreciate you asking and. um Yeah, I just so appreciated that pre-conversation that you know that kind of brought us into some of these realms.
00:16:30
Speaker
I just, yeah, I want to say a couple of things about from the perspective of an academic. and You know, i earlier in my life, so I'll just tell a little bit about my own life story. um my My younger sister and I went to boarding school in England. My family's originally British. thought you have an accent.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. in my teenage years. And it was a it was a really hard experience. It was really an experience of loss of family, of loss of culture in a sense, because I'd started to identify with U.S. culture and British culture was, as I experienced, it was you know really different at the time.
00:17:05
Speaker
And I had a i would call it a mystical experience. I had an experience of walking down the hallway um when you know in in boarding school and feeling like that,
00:17:16
Speaker
the the story I had at the time was like, there's something not okay about what's happening here in in the name of education. And I had a felt sense that something you know wildly more was possible. um And I always am in wonder that we can have those moments, you know again, and in ah in a really challenging time. It was almost like a and almost like ah a lightning bolt or ah or a ray of sunshine that came through that said something more is possible here. And and without you know consciously knowing it, I dedicated my life to that possibility at that moment.
00:17:50
Speaker
And I thought it meant about being in educational contexts and creating settings that would you know feel more life giving, that would support a kind of deepening ah relationship with ourself and the world and a you know a kind of coming into greater wholeness.
00:18:05
Speaker
um That's my language now. It certainly wasn't my language then. And so I pursued a path of ah working and in education. But I've always taught in in fairly nontraditional settings. So I used to teach for a study abroad program in India in Auroville.
00:18:21
Speaker
You might be aware of it. Yes, so amazing. Bookmark that to come back to you. Yeah. And so and then also taught a field based program here in the US and environmental studies where we're living outside with students for three months at a time. So so very unconventional settings where really I was just cultivating relationship with students for the sake of their unfolding and.
00:18:45
Speaker
We're doing it in the context of community. So all of this to say that, you know, there's again, there's a sort of wonder to how life brings us right to you know the very work that's ours to do.
00:18:57
Speaker
And i still love my work in in the context of education, higher education, but but it's. um But it's really led me more to the heart of the work that I'm up to right now with Pacific Integral, this you know interface between individual and collective development, and realized that it wasn't so much about learning as it was about waking up and growing up and coming into wholeness as humans and communities.
00:19:23
Speaker
So that's a little bit about this notion of what it means to, you know, to to work in academia. And what I love love about it still currently is that, you know, I'm still able to be in those same territories and, um you know, supporting students in their dissertation research and their own, you know, kind of academic more academic and scholarly pursuits.
00:19:43
Speaker
um My interest is a little bit less in that territory than it is and in, you know, all of what I just spoke to. And then, yeah, and then I can answer the gender gender question.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah. From a gender perspective, I mean, it's so hard it's always so hard to talk about this because obviously we we we all have masculine and feminine um you know energies and qualities in us. And so it's a distortion to you know to talk about it at the level of gender.
00:20:09
Speaker
And I could never talk about this for, you know, sort of female bodied people as a whole, but I can talk about it from the perspective of my own experience. And it's so much more about relationship for me. It's so much more about being in a kind of deep territory of of unfolding together that I feel more welcomed and more evoked, less perhaps ah kind of pulled into what could feel like fear or doubt if it's up to me to I don't know what it would be. Give a lecture, which is something you'd think, you know, I do do in academic context, but um but less often than than just being in a you know relational space for for the sake of learning or unfolding.
00:20:53
Speaker
I hope I answered your questions to some extent. but Yeah, I'm curious to see a little bit more and maybe the lens could be um kind of fine-tuned when you reflect on the participants in GTC, generating transformative change, the signature program of Pacific integral.
00:21:14
Speaker
And you're seeing you're kind of at the side of the room, you're just watching a group interact. And there's men and women and maybe people who don't associate with a particular gender, they gender fluid or something like this. But what you've observed about drawing out anything, any differences of drawing out the best and how that moves through gender orientation and approach with one another.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, I i wonder, you know, i I don't know that I have some sort of particular insight to offer, but I can I guess I can share some observations of dynamics that I've been noticing more recently in our cohorts. We we work with, you know, what are some of the kind of patterns and dynamics that come up at the level of the group that might be getting in the way of, you know, of the groups unfolding and thereby the individuals?
00:22:11
Speaker
And working with gender dynamics has has been arising as a kind of more common common point of tension, you could say, I guess, or a challenge within the groups.
00:22:21
Speaker
um And so it's interesting that that's been you know a kind of more salient area of collective collective shadow that needs to be leaned in towards. And we've been doing work to kind cultivate a little bit more, you know, compassion and understanding both for, you know, for both, both halves. And it's, again, it's, you know, gender itself is not a, it's not a binary, um but, you know, but, but holding it it more so in that way, you know, cultivating compassion and understanding for the experience of how men have been shaped in their own upbringing and,
00:22:55
Speaker
the kind of, you know, the gifts of that and the the challenges of it. And then, and then, you know, equally so for the women. And it's, it's been profound actually, um, to watch that unfolding. And I hope it's, uh, you know, it's appropriate to say, to say in the setting, I feel like, um, in, in the context that we're in currently with the, you know, the, the women's movement and feminism, feminism and so forth, um,
00:23:21
Speaker
feels like the men are suffering and struggling more than the women in the sense that they're, you know, the particular challenges that they're encountering are, um well, perhaps less seen, less understood. And um and the messages they're receiving about toxic ma masculinity and and so forth is, you know, just a profound burden that gets carried. And so perhaps paradoxically so my own felt sense is that, you know,
00:23:51
Speaker
is that there's ah there's an opportunity to support a deeper integration and a deeper healing um where the women actually, instead of ah sort of identifying the men as as a barrier to them bringing in their own voice or expressing their own leadership, but actually almost conversely so, the women supporting a kind of healing and integration for the men such that we all, you know, such that we all are able to encounter a greater wholeness of who we are.
Wholeness & Development
00:24:19
Speaker
When you are pointing out wholeness, I'm starting to get a different sense of the contours than I'd had before, like the different ways that wholeness can show up, the different ways that it seems valuable and important to pay attention to how the wholeness is showing up, cultivating, and stabilizing.
00:24:45
Speaker
you know there's like this sense of grand wholeness i mean many of the guests i've had so far some of the guests i've had so far we go out really wide in this kind of like general sense of non-dual wholeness that holds all of existence and all form is relative and yada yada yada and there's another way there's other ways to see it that i'm really touched by right now like What is it to for me as a person who's in this body, 53 right now, man, body, what is wholeness in a male body at this time, in this place with the collectives that I'm a part of?
00:25:26
Speaker
What does that wholeness look like? And I notice, and perhaps you've noticed something similar, and curious, people who are seeking some sort of a really deep spiritual flowering,
00:25:40
Speaker
can have an allergy to or be avoidant of particularities like um binding energy in a relationship, binding energy to a home, binding energy to ah discovering and growing around one's past or shadow or gender integration, so many different things.
00:26:02
Speaker
I said a lot of words there, so I'm just going to see anything that's there for you. Yeah, I'm actually curious just to hear a touch more about what you meant by binding energy. Yeah, it might be a term I'm just kind of using in my own way. So let's just see here.
00:26:21
Speaker
I notice that what I'm doing, certain forms of my practices, certain forms of meditative practice, there's ah there's a foregrounding of this sense of I am this person fluid awareness that is everywhere at all times in all places.
00:26:41
Speaker
And that's in the foreground, whereas particularities like I should clean the bathroom are far, far in the background. Like it kind of maybe seems like it doesn't matter.
00:26:54
Speaker
So binding energy for me is a contemplation I'm in lately. Like in one of my helpers, an energetic form of chiropractic I received for 30 years said to me the other day, said, you know, it seems like you avoid unconsciously, you avoid binding energy in relationships based on what your nervous system has taken in from previous relationships growing up.
00:27:20
Speaker
And like you enjoy and you you thrive in this spiritual wideness.
00:27:29
Speaker
And yet, like, how are you at being okay with wanting and building a beautiful home wanting and building a dynamic, loving relationship, you know, like it has a form.
00:27:43
Speaker
Does that make more sense? Yeah, it makes it definitely makes more sense. And yeah, i feel touched also, Scott, hearing about how that's, you know, some of the territory that you're navigating. And And I know it so well. I've known it so well. You know, I think about, you know, earlier in my life being way more comfortable and in in a kind of more transcendent realm, um the unconditioned, the unconditional. And then when it came to, you know, human relating, which has been part of my, you know, part of my own healing and and developmental and awakening journey is,
00:28:16
Speaker
is recognizing each other as nothing other than, um you know, awareness itself, expressing itself, you know, through this particular human form. But it's been quite a journey and I'm still on it, too, which is to to land in that knowing. um And and, i you know, maybe i'll I'll say this piece and then and then come back to what I heard you speaking to. um Yeah, and then to notice like, oh, I could encounter, you know, that sacred wholeness in another, but still was leaving this this being, this this human out of that, you know, out of that deeper ground and ah in a kind of more, in a more non-dual or or an um unlimited said sense.
00:28:58
Speaker
and And that's been yet another healing is to, you know, include ah me, she in that, you know, in that in that ground. Yeah. Yeah, and that's like, wow, what a, you know, that's the, I mean, that's a, that is the territory of awakening, but, and and embodiment, you know, the way we bring what we can access in the, you know, in our wider, wider sense of self right into, you know, into the embodied experience of, you know, the two of us sitting here together in this moment.
00:29:29
Speaker
And I, you know, in in the binding sense, it's, you know, it's the kind of potential liberation of commitment is what I'm hearing, you know, the potential liberation commitment that like like ah potential liberation of commitment Yeah.
00:29:45
Speaker
I feel like you just dropped a truth bomb in the center of the space. Like this luminosity is just like, what's that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, the kind of, form you know, sort of the the polarity of the form and formless, but also structure and freedom um that the two are not two, you know, that they're in a dance.
00:30:06
Speaker
And mean, I could say I living a kind of independent, lots of travel, solo oriented life journey up to the point where I, you know, chose to to marry and to, you know, to to join join my life with, you know, with Jeff Fitch, my you know partner in work and, you and in life, ah I had never really experienced the that depth and degree of of freedom in in the context of commitment as I do now. And yeah, it is a journey.
00:30:36
Speaker
The depth and degree of freedom in the context of commitment. How many of you listeners is this kind of shaking up some some of your thoughts and ideas like that there's liberation in commitment?
00:30:50
Speaker
yeah That's a great koan, I think, for all of us, wherever we are in the journey is like, where do I avoid commitment out of fear of being stuck?
00:31:04
Speaker
yeah and And can I actually be stuck or can I commit, go in learn something and then reevaluate and make a new movement if it's beneficial?
00:31:16
Speaker
yeah you know i can I remember I spent a good number of of my years early in our relationship looking, you know when things got hard, looking for the exit door and kind of being in that question of, you know is it is it good or is it not good? And when I let go of that very exit door or that very question is when everything started to unfold and deepen.
00:31:42
Speaker
But, you know, it's something it's something that we really work with directly in the context of of our program, too, because we're working with individual and collective development and awakening. And so it actually calls for a certain kind of commitment, a certain kind of willingness to be in deep relationship with this group of humans, some of whom you might love and easily connect with, and some of whom are challenging and create... um and create a kind of distancing or or desire to pull away.
00:32:14
Speaker
Like those are the teachers that that support a deeper deeper integration and wholeness. think we're in a rich vein here. And it's like really relative to the here and now of life for most people is like, we've got relationships wherever we go, whether it's two seconds with the person who takes my toll card on the freeway, or it's a long term committed relationship or a family where you can't unrelated even if you don't speak.
00:32:41
Speaker
This terrain of getting more familiar and competent about liberation or freedom within the relationship for everybody while still leaning into the things that are challenging yeah and using them to grow.
00:32:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah, but I mean, we could say there's there's, in a sense, there's nothing that's not a teacher to us in the world, and particularly, again, where we experience the rub or the that the impulse to distance.
00:33:11
Speaker
And this is not about, you know, not taking care of ourselves when, you know, when there's real harm or real threat, but this is about, you know, when, if and as we encounter people that, you know, perhaps trigger us or, or challenge us.
00:33:27
Speaker
It's about looking to you know to integrate what's ours to integrate that they're you know stimulating in us. So in ah in a sense, we could say it's recognizing each other as our teachers, but also as a mirror, a reflection of you know of ourselves, of who we truly are.
Emotional Growth Tools & Practices
00:33:43
Speaker
If you took a snippet of your life in the last maybe year or so and looked at a moment where you felt in some way triggered, handled it, but some way triggered you slow it down kind of frame by frame to see like, what are the what are the simple tools that you're using in the first moments of recognizing this is challenging or I don't like this to resource yourself that we might benefit from?
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So good to to name that. I mean, i think first is noticing that it's happening. And, you know, in that noticing might be the, oh, this person just drives me crazy or I'm so angry or frustrated, you know, so it's a noticing thing.
00:34:28
Speaker
And then it's ah caring for ourselves, like what's been what's been brought up and seeking to, as you said, resource ourself, whether that's breath, whether it's moving the body because it's in the body that we get really you know stimulated.
00:34:45
Speaker
so that we can encounter ah deeper resource of groundedness, what whatever access we have to that and in whatever form that takes. But that, that to me, feels like number one.
00:34:57
Speaker
And then we can turn towards the pain or the frustration and seek to um you know seek to come to know it. I'm curious about this.
00:35:07
Speaker
i I noticed that whatever my energy state is determines how I'm seeing the moment. like yeah the moment of the trigger, the moment of the frustration, that like once I've taken some deeper resourceful breaths and my sympathetic nervous system has calmed down and shifted over to parasympathetic,
00:35:33
Speaker
oftentimes I no longer see an issue.
00:35:38
Speaker
And sometimes I've wondered if that's, this is just me, everybody. I have a mind that several of my providers over the years have said, would you stop bringing up spiritual bypassing already?
00:35:50
Speaker
But I have such a care for that I don't do that, that I that i turn over every stone in my shadow as a way of growing, one, to do less harm.
00:36:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So when I say about, you know, I feel resourced, my perspective is shift. Sometimes I'm like, but am I avoiding something? As though if I don't have the constant sense of something uncomfortable, like a like a itchy tag from the store box shirt that's somehow sticking me in the back and I just don't remove If I don't have that kind of stimulus, I won't grow.
00:36:33
Speaker
and what Some sort of imperative belief. Yeah. And what bad thing happens if you don't grow? What bad thing happens if I don't grow is end up under a bridge, broke, and nobody wants to talk to me.
00:36:46
Speaker
Like if I really extrapolate it all the way to the end and I see i see the that ah lack of reality around that. But in the moment, if I don't question myself yeah and ask what you just did,
00:37:02
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That that fear, that that story or narrative fear is is is kind of running what's happening or operating. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I say this by way of like out of compassion for the human situation, the human mind, like there's so many ways I notice that I or the people I'm coaching or working with can get stimulated to stay in ordinary thinking mind and to be perceiving from a very limited view.
00:37:32
Speaker
socially constructed by our past, and then just kind of walk in circles. Yeah. and And maybe conversely, the other, as you were mentioning, that we can you know utilize our perhaps meditation practices to open into ah deeper, wider view that is also missing um you know missing this younger part of ourselves, maybe we could say, that's still existing. So that you know that concern about bypassing.
00:38:01
Speaker
you do you have a You have a meditative practice, I believe. yeah Are you also practicing with Mahamudra? Yes, yeah I am. yeah so Deeply helpful.
00:38:12
Speaker
that My just limited access so far to that over the years is also very, very profound. And it's very syncretic with the Kashmir Shaiva meditative tradition I grew up in.
00:38:25
Speaker
um
00:38:28
Speaker
How do you how do you find... Mahamudra gives great, act profound access to timeless, boundless awareness. Profound. How do you find that you have been able to integrate that vastness
00:38:48
Speaker
with your relative Abigail-ness, wife of Jeff, person who lives on a certain street and is a neighbor? Like how how are you bringing it all together into the the embodiment piece? I guess this is where I'm really asking about more about embodiment and what that looks like for us.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, to me, and and this, you know, I was hearing a touch of this when you were speaking earlier as well, which is if we can open into, you know, this, the deeper ground of who we are, and yet we still find ourselves, you know, kind of repeatedly getting triggered or challenged by, you know, a certain circumstance or a certain person.
00:39:29
Speaker
then that is good information. It's indication that the two are, you know, they're not yet, you know, they're not yet one or not two. um and And then that's just a, it's an invitation to to bring that right into our practice. So to not have but two you know the two the two realms feel separate, but actually mutually supportive.
00:39:53
Speaker
um And so to bring whatever that that challenge is right into the practice and and vice versa, to bring um you know awakened awareness into our moment to moment experience.
00:40:04
Speaker
So in my own experience, it's you know, it's been a journey of, you know, remembering um the deeper view, recognizing who I truly am and and remembering that because I had forgotten over and over and over again and noticing all the the ways in which that had gotten obscured.
00:40:24
Speaker
And also as the practice develops, um ultimately seeing the two as not two, in other words, you know And that that's what I was referencing earlier, which is, oh, I could i could encounter the the sacred um ground in in another, but maybe wasn't fully recognizing that this too is nothing other than an expression of of awakened awareness.
00:40:48
Speaker
And so in that recognition, that deeper inclusion, that deeper resting in true nature, then yes, I care deeply about, you know, conduct and my impact on others and how I'm navigating, you know, day to day life um such that, you know, such that I heard Jeff say in in the podcast with you, such that the view doesn't get lost in the conduct and the conduct lost in the view.
00:41:12
Speaker
And so the two, you know, are, our ah you know, they're They're deeply mutually, you know, they're interdependent. we We can't have one without the other.
00:41:23
Speaker
but But to take them as separate is to, in a sense, almost reinforce that very phenomena. As you've been articulating this portion, ah particularly since I asked you about the maha mudra, I'm noticing, like ah at least in my body, a sharp uptick in a transmission of timeless, boundless awareness.
00:41:47
Speaker
In fact, your voice sound is sounds different in that flow of speaking. um Your posture seems a little different in that flow of speaking. And I'm, I'm curious, it seems like it's easier to deal with the relative or the triggers with this online and looking from the wideness rather than the reverse. It seems like if I look from just the, the sense of just being Scott, just being scared, like just being this body, just having this birthday and death day and ah likes and dislikes.
00:42:24
Speaker
There's very little room to move. What's your sense of that? I couldn't agree more fundamentally so, yeah. So when you're working with folks in the cohorts at GTC and Pacific Integral and the Emergent Leadership cohorts,
00:42:46
Speaker
What are the key ways, like how do you guys work with breath in particular? I used to teach ah for years and I became kind of known for this three part breath through the mouth.
00:42:57
Speaker
That was the only breath I was teaching predominantly for years and and a lot happened for people. and then right before the pandemic, I pulled it back, even though I have course that's still making its way around the world in different languages, I i pulled it back, I stopped publicly teaching it in ah in an active or alive way, because I felt like people were many people were just getting high and bypassing.
00:43:23
Speaker
And so I started to integrate other forms of breath that were physically gentler How do you guys work with breath where you're bringing somebody to ah to towards an edge, but not blowing them out so far out into kind of um dissociative awareness?
00:43:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there' there it's good questions. And, you know, I would say we we work with breath and other somatic or embodiment practices to support, you know, to support the unfolding and and deeper presence with ourselves just with what is.
00:44:02
Speaker
um So breath is an important part of it. um You know, I think about like but starting perhaps with a with a short meditation practice always working with breath to land more fully in the body and and more deeply in this this very moment um sometimes using breath to clear what can you know what can be contracting or constricting so blocks in the being and then also we we do also other kinds of um you know somatic body movements basically to open up uh places where just the flow of life itself is
00:44:35
Speaker
you know, a structured or held or what does that look like? The somatic movement practice? Like if I was in the room? Yeah, we we dance, ah we we do unstructured movements. So we'll guide people through a series of movements or invite us just to move our bodies in the way that just feels either a little risky or most right. You know, so just to open up the you know, just to open up our our physical bodies.
00:45:01
Speaker
um We also work with body awareness practices, drawing on Wendy Palmer's work and somatic experiencing. So there's different, you know, and core energetics is is one of the bodies of work that that we bring into into into GTC.
00:45:17
Speaker
And for those who are new to that term core energetics, what's the essence of that flavor of of work? Yeah, it's really, i mean, it's it's it um it overlaps with other other somatic you know somatic practices, but the fundamental idea is that life itself is a flow of energy through the body.
00:45:35
Speaker
And that as we experience and experience challenging things in life, our body structures or organizes that flow for safety, for self-protection, And you know in in the set in the way of you know the body keeps score, we're not always aware of of where those holding patterns are. They can be in the major muscle groups like the diaphragm or the neck or the shoulders or the hips or the thighs.
00:45:59
Speaker
And so it's it's um you know we do movements to open up those you know those kind of strong areas of holding such that again, life itself can just start to move more fluidly and with freedom through the body.
00:46:13
Speaker
That makes sense. Would you take us through a short meditative ah awareness experience with the breath?
Meditation & Consciousness
00:46:21
Speaker
ah Yeah, happy to. Happy to. Yeah. About how long you have in mind, Scott? Just a couple of minutes to see what feels like a really good flow. And the intent would be to give us a practice that we could walk around with today and this week and beyond when we notice ourselves kind of starting to check out or be overstimulated to come back to resourcefulness.
00:46:44
Speaker
Wonderful. Yeah, happy to. Yeah, so just invite us to start to bring our attention inwards. And if it's a support, you can close your eyes or lower your gaze.
00:46:57
Speaker
Just begin to contact breath as it's moving naturally through the being.
00:47:05
Speaker
and as we begin to settle in, we can feel the soles of our feet making contact with the ground.
00:47:20
Speaker
allowing a softening and release with the exhale
00:47:28
Speaker
and just noticing in our bodies where there might be sensation or holding letting the breath guide us to those parts of ourselves
00:47:47
Speaker
And in that noticing, just inviting our breath to come right into that particular place in the body.
00:48:03
Speaker
noticing as we allow that to happen that there can be a softening and a settling.
00:48:16
Speaker
A landing more fully and deeply in this moment, in this body. the way that the breath, in particular, our exhales can just invite us to soften, release, deepen and widen our sense of self.
00:48:55
Speaker
allowing awareness itself to unfurl and unfold just as it is
00:49:12
Speaker
allowing a kind of rest and holding that's a resource for whatever's present
00:49:26
Speaker
And as you're ready, invite us back into this moment of contact.
00:49:35
Speaker
Thank you. i I noticed such a it's a, it was a subtle quality, and yet as soon as I started to give it attention, very strong quality of loving kindness that just comes through Beautiful.
00:49:49
Speaker
As you were speaking, as you're being here, just this, and I do associate the particular flavor of it with the feminine. There's something about it that's like I was reflecting very kind of quickly on different facilitations I've had of sitting as an experiencer, men and women giving it and there's something about the different feminine transmissions
00:50:15
Speaker
that feels like the coziness of a totally resourced mother and being able to just to relax into that.
00:50:27
Speaker
Beautiful hear. Relax into that, yeah. And it's more than just like mother, it's also, there's a quality of ferocity.
00:50:44
Speaker
And it doesn't seem to announce itself and yet it's unmistakably there for me as I listen. So glad to hear. Yeah. And we, you know, there's ways that we, we hold ourselves, we can hold ourselves up and away from the very ground of support and the ground that we are.
00:51:01
Speaker
And just that deeper rest, that deeper relaxation just brings us right back into contact. I'm reflecting on something, I think Jeff might have mentioned it recently in a conversation offline or in the podcast that comes out of the Tantric Buddhist understanding of mother consciousness and child consciousness merging.
00:51:21
Speaker
yeah And that's very evoked for me right now, this part of our conversation. would you Would you share a bit of your understanding of that, what mother consciousness is in that context, child consciousness and the and the kind of merger or the recognition of the non-separation?
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And i I also really love the metaphor of the the wave and the ocean. It's one that is, you know, just been such a such a teaching for me in my own practice.
00:51:47
Speaker
But yeah, it's this, you know, it's just beautiful recognition that we humans in our, you know, relative embodied self are nothing other than that mother consciousness or the ocean, viewing its own waves and just recognizing that that is, you know, as our sense of self or,
00:52:05
Speaker
or perhaps a challenging experience arises, there can be a tendency to separate from that ground. And if we recognize again, that it's just a wave on the ocean, then we can just know it as not to slightly different form, but not separate ever from, you know, from that deeper ground of the ocean itself. And so we can just dissolve right back into moment to moment.
00:52:28
Speaker
It's amazing to tim keep confronting the experience, the taste I have that what we're calling the mother consciousness, this ultimate supportive resourcefulness is never absent in any place, time or circumstance, even though it might seem like it like in then that the that what it can give seems to be even more potent and and by far than any physical resource. and Yeah.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, and and it's incredible to access that and it's also you know just evokes compassion for all the ways we don't know that or don't recognize it. Yeah.
00:53:11
Speaker
Shifting gears a little bit to Oroville, ah Oroville being the the intentional community that Aurobindo and his co-teaching partner, ah the mother, Mira, founded that's still thriving and discovering itself over in India.
00:53:28
Speaker
I have only limited encounters with Aurobindo, great sage who started out as a revolutionary when India was still under British rule and had zero interest in awakening and had a spontaneous awakening in jail.
00:53:45
Speaker
ah much to, I think, his own disgruntlement even maybe a little bit, and ah became one of the most profound articulators and experiencers and embodiers of transcendental awareness while in a body.
00:54:01
Speaker
In fact, I remember going, there's a small center here in Los Angeles. It looks like an old 70s track house where there's a temple. that has relics of the mother and Aurobindo, it was one of the most powerful experiences I ever had. i was in there by myself.
00:54:20
Speaker
I can still touch it. This was probably like 10 years ago at this point.
00:54:26
Speaker
don't really have words to describe. And I'm curious what your experience was of being at the Aurobindo ashram and Auroville in terms of like the mystical unfolding for yourself.
00:54:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, I, um you know, I feel so blessed to have had the experiences that I have had. And I was it was so much earlier in my life. I was 28 years old, um taking groups of students as a study a abroad program to spiritually based communities for the sake of learning about, you know, at the time, the the focus of the program was on sustainability. But beautifully, we were looking at sustainability through cultural lenses and through spiritual lenses, which in, again, in the context of community, which is, you know, a fairly unusual integrative approach.
00:55:14
Speaker
We also were, we also visited Plum Village and, um you know, had some amazing experiences with Thich Nhat Hanh and that community. but But in Oroville, so I, yeah, I was a much younger human who was a little bit more oriented towards the outer world. ah creating social and ecological change and and wasn't so available, really, probably to the deeper, subtler teachings of of Sur Aurobindo and the mother.
00:55:41
Speaker
And yet they had a profound impact on me. And I you know, this is one of the sort of timeless recognitions of life that, you know, that everything itself has you know been been a teaching in some form, almost like a, you know, like ah the rosary of of the life that, you know, that in this case, I've lived, but that we live. um And it brought me into, you know, I would say, um similarly, actually, while I was in Auroville, I met Joanna Macy, um who became a teacher for me at that time, and helped me to really see how
00:56:13
Speaker
You know, inner work and outer work are are you know deeply interdependent and ultimately not too. But and that was so that was the kind of opening into realizing that, you know, we're we're so much more than we take ourselves to be.
00:56:27
Speaker
um So I know that I was really shaped by that experience. And yet I almost have a hunger to return to encounter it, you know, from this place in life to take in and both of their teachings a little bit more deeply.
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's it's an interesting, it was ah it was a point in my life that I think that set me on a path that I didn't even know I was on at the time. When I was living in the Siddhi Yoga Ashram, there was a teaching and understanding that was articulated from time to time or often, which is when you really enter a true proper ashram, you can physically leave the ashram, but the ashram never leaves you.
00:57:10
Speaker
And that is my experience. like i Talking about multidimensional experiences, like I'm here in Los Angeles in my apartment in West Hollywood, and yet I can feel as though I'm walking around the grounds of the ashram and and how thick the energy was such that you could feel it with your hand.
00:57:30
Speaker
Do you have any any similar experience with the Aurobindo ashram? um I mean, I would say Auroville more than the Aurobindo ashram. um So Auroville itself is, you know, there's the matrimandir, which is the spiritual center of the community and this incredible,
00:57:47
Speaker
um sacred geometrical structure that's a meditation chamber ah more more there than you know i did visit the ashram used to when it was your birthday you could you could go into sri aurobindo's chambers with everybody else whose birthday you know who who you shared a birthday with and sit in silence and But yeah, i'll I'll share. I was, um I wasn't, I went, um but it yeah, wasn't so available, i think, to to what was being offered again, but yet I know it's part of who I am.
00:58:18
Speaker
And, you know, I can think about, like I mentioned Joanna Macy, but some other teachers that I encountered in Auroville that live fully in me now. And again, are, you know, they're inherent to, you know, the life I've lived, but I was,
00:58:32
Speaker
less conscious of it at the time. So yes, shaped, yes, with me, um but in in more of the kind of realm of mystery than than fully recognized or realized. This seems like a great moment to ask a question i ask every guest, and it's based on my favorite quote from Suzuki Roshi, who opened the Zen Center of San Francisco in the 60s.
00:58:54
Speaker
And he said, death is certain, the time is not. What is the most important thing?
Connection & Spiritual Awakening
00:59:00
Speaker
So I pose to you, for you, what is the most important thing sitting here as the Abigail we see today?
00:59:07
Speaker
i love the question. Yeah, it's... um I sometimes notice when I get ah asked a question that's kind of a superlative, you know, the most important thing, one I can go blank, which is teaching in a sense. and And in another sense, I feel like this human existence and what it means to awaken and to unfold, to evolve.
00:59:34
Speaker
is closer and simpler than we take it to be And it happens in these very spaces, you know this encounter with you, Scott, in relationship with one another. It's held in a certain kind of context and container. It's always available. It's right here. And we can turn towards um I would say so in a sense, almost like those very simple human activities of seeking connection, of seeking relationship, of of pleasure even.
01:00:07
Speaker
um you know It doesn't take us going off into rarefied, ah you know potentially removed context, but it's just just right here.
01:00:21
Speaker
So let's say it's the end of your life. May it not be for many, many decades. May it not be because... you know, we could get to hang out more.
01:00:30
Speaker
Everything you've ever written or or taught, and you've written some incredible documents that I have here in my folder that I take around wherever I'm teaching. um What couple of handful of or one or two things would you want to for sure leave for us as humans?
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:00
Speaker
I mean, in a way, it's in in a sense, i I just spoke it, you know, just about the immediacy and the no separation from, you know, it's the leaning into and through separation that we discover the embrace of of all that is.
01:01:15
Speaker
And that ultimately, it's about love, about how we love each other, how we love and embrace ourselves and, you know, and then all of life.
01:01:26
Speaker
I'm wondering if I ask this in a way that doesn't seem to have any superlatives in it, what you might say? Because I ah really relate to that, really relate to that, like the most or axiomatic speaking. what How would you articulate love today?
01:01:48
Speaker
or point at it, I would say. How would you point at it?
01:01:53
Speaker
It's a beautiful question. Yes, it and i was I was actually struck even as I spoke that because to me, love and truthfulness are, you know, ah our beautiful dance partners.
01:02:04
Speaker
And, you know, sometimes I think we can, we could separate those two, you know, not have one and not the other, but there's a kind of, you know, and that's where I think fierce love shows up is a willingness, a capacity to, you know, to be deeply truthful about, you know, who we are the moment, how we're,
01:02:23
Speaker
you know, impacting and interacting with one another and that that evokes this quality of love, which to me is is ah it's an unending embrace. An unending embrace.
01:02:38
Speaker
So in an embrace, I'm embracing and being embraced. like There's at least those two kind of yeah vantage points of experience, like what is it to be embraced and how am i letting myself be fully embraced or more fully embraced and or how am I at embracing? I grew up really training and embracing and really, really kind of underdeveloped at receiving em embrace and trusting embrace, which probably is articulating about attachment patterns more than anything right now.
01:03:13
Speaker
Any thoughts about that or observations from GTC cohorts? Oh, I would just say, i mean, it's so common that we have, you know, kind of one or the other, perhaps, and and the very pattern you spoke of is the, you know, it's the pattern I've known in myself.
01:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, so, and what a beautiful opportunity for, you know, a fuller, deeper embrace. And yet, you know, and yet it's a journey to, you know, to allow that to receive it. And it's,
01:03:41
Speaker
To me, it's so striking that, you know, we could say our relationship to ourself, our relationship to each other, to life is a reflection of our relationship to, you know, to spirit, to all that is. And so we can we can see that played out. And what gets evoked for me, Scott, is the liberation of commitment, you know, that we were speaking about previously that.
01:04:02
Speaker
that in that ah willingness to, you know, to give ourselves to to something or to someone, um sometimes we can receive that embrace in a way that maybe we haven't been able to previously.
01:04:19
Speaker
I'm reflecting right now on a question that Jeff brought forward about from Adi Da's work. Adida was a teacher who's no longer in a body who, similar to Ramana Maharshi, would give a question to people. Ramana Maharshi gave the question to people who are really ready, who am I?
01:04:37
Speaker
Who am I? Who am I? and you inquire and you get down to some essence that can't be broken into smaller parts. And Adida would ask people, avoiding relationship?
01:04:49
Speaker
Avoiding relationship as a question. Like, where am I avoiding am i avoiding relationship? yeah And I noticed just even this week up until yesterday, until I actually made a choice late last night and actually concretely booked flights and sent a Venmo.
01:05:07
Speaker
So we know a number of people in common and there's a gathering happening that I was invited to in Montana that's coming up. And I was kind of hemming and hawing seemingly structurally about, can I afford the time and the money to to do this at this time?
01:05:25
Speaker
And yet, in the signal chat, seeing more and more people talking about it, I started to notice this undeniable pull to be with everybody.
01:05:39
Speaker
And then I noticed, wow, that's where my edge right now is, is to actually say yes and go. as ah somebody who didn't fit in as a kid who didn't know how to fit in growing up, and was like a puppy with big legs and lots of energy, but didn't know how it all worked.
01:05:59
Speaker
And made up all sorts of stories about I don't fit, I don't belong. They got embedded in my body forgotten about in my thoughts, and had been impacting my ability to bind energy in relationships like to to commit to
01:06:17
Speaker
two or more people connections and show up. Yeah, and show up for all of it, not just when it's easy or fun, but to like trust the underlying ocean of love and care and connection.
01:06:33
Speaker
and don't know if there's a question in that. It's just, yeah, it's beautifully though. It's yeah. it's So to me, it's, it's so meaningful to hear you express that and just beautifully expressed. And, and the question for me that comes, first of all, I love that question from Adi Ashanti. I'll, I'll carry that forward, but the question,
01:06:49
Speaker
that comes from me is like, what does it look like to allow a deeper state of rest in the context of relationship? um A kind of allowing. And even to me, that brings in that ah aspect of truthfulness, because if we you you know if we if we want to separate or withdraw a little bit from relationship or feel ah a lack of sense of belonging there, you know that that's so understandable. it's ah you know it's an active It's an attempt to keep ourselves safe.
01:07:17
Speaker
And if we can actually express some of that, be more truthful about what's what's unfolding, what's occurring, then we can sometimes make more room for ourselves just as we are, which can allow a certain kind of rest.
01:07:32
Speaker
Well, it's such a dynamic discovery for for some of us, for me, two to actually ask another human being for resourceful support.
01:07:46
Speaker
Yeah. to trust it's going to be there, to trust that they're capable of offering it, willing to offer it, and that it doesn't come at some high cost. you know That I don't have to be just constantly looking to rigorously resource myself so that nobody has to lift a finger so that I don't risk rupture in a relationship. That was and was how it was.
01:08:09
Speaker
yeah And to just be able to to, as you say, as you're pointing out,
01:08:15
Speaker
look to actively take rest in the relationship which is not to go passive or check out but to like slow things down breathe and yeah listen.
01:08:28
Speaker
and And also it's, I mean, it's paradoxically so that often what we seek from others, we're struggling to offer to ourselves. So, you know, even as like I, yeah, just even as we're with somebody and it feels like we're sharing something and they're not able to hold it in the way that perhaps we need or want them to, holding ourselves with that, not not shifting attention and holding them, but actually holding ourselves with that kind of love and care and and understanding can also support that deeper rest.
01:09:00
Speaker
And that's the ongoing realization. ah I have been talking about it in other podcasts. I take Dan Brown's work of ah of healing attachment wounds and have people do it and myself rigorously in the mirror eye gazing.
01:09:18
Speaker
So it's rather than just imagining ideal parent figures who are enlightened and attuned resourcing me sometimes at the same time, I gazing because I know what it's like to sit in the seat of the teacher or the facilitator and let that unconditional love and presence be be present.
01:09:35
Speaker
So I reflect on what it's like to do that then I go in the mirror and stay multiple times a day. That's amazing. I do that sometimes too.
01:09:47
Speaker
You know, particularly if I'm, you know, if I notice I'm in at a deeper state, it's like to encounter ourselves in that. And that's to encounter, you know, to encounter God, honestly, but it's, but to to let, yes, to let my own gaze of myself be, be that.
01:10:07
Speaker
It feels like we're moving towards a natural, completion point. And I'm just wondering if there's anything that's present or on your heart or on your mind that wants to be shared here at this point.
Conclusion & Gratitude
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. i mean, what's present is I feel so grateful for you and you're just the way you've invited and and received me in this, you know, conversational unfolding. And yeah, I just feel blessed by this moment and what it means to meet each other and lean into whatever it wants to move through.
01:10:40
Speaker
For those who are curious and feeling some kind of a tug to exploring the types of work that you facilitate and offer, what are some things that are upcoming or or that are consistently available that people can check out and where do they go to look at those?
01:10:58
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, we've mentioned a couple times some of the programs we have. there's We have Emergent Leadership. It's a 10-week online program, deep practice field. we have that We'll have that next spring. And then we've got the longer program, GTC, that's starting the next cohorts in October of this year. So it's a great time to check it out.
01:11:18
Speaker
And then we have ah we do a series of quarterly workshops. We have one coming up. I think it's September 12th. I can give you the information. And I don't remember the title in the moment, but that's a place for people are always welcome to join us for those workshops. always They're always practice-based, experiential, and often you know some really good work together. And it's PacificIntegral.com?
01:11:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It is indeed. Okay. And then people can go there and opt in to get notified about those programs as they're unfolding. Yes. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah. Thank you so much for your generosity, your time, your care, all the experiences that you've lived, all the surrenders that you've offered that nobody will know anything about that have brought you to being able to show up as this compassionate, powerful facilitator, person, woman, friend, mentor.
01:12:12
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Yeah. So everybody, we're going to go into just being together in some silence, the way we began entry into the episode.
01:12:25
Speaker
And so you can your eyes can be closed or open, or you can take a soft gaze somewhere and just start to freshly soften the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands like you're opening tightly closed fists with your imagination. And let the breath come in sweetly, and let it go out longer and slower.
01:12:42
Speaker
And just notice the soothing. We'll end together just being here. We are actually connected as one ocean with many waves.
01:13:05
Speaker
Loving the episode? Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
01:13:25
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.