This 32 year old handsome actor turned entrepreneur had a major heart condition in his adolescence and nearly died.  Since then he has been afraid of being alone and afraid of flying.  Before flights he can’t sleep and makes himself miserable on the way to the airport and at the airport.  Often he is miserable at his destination, feeling very far from his support system, and dreading the flight back.  Through previous interviews he has cultivated a number of self-aspects that help him with his fear.  He has three in particular that he is currently using, and took all three along on a recent short flight this past week.

Notice the different perspectives and attributes that each of these self-aspects bring to the issue of dealing with phobia.

Seahawk, how do you think Toby did on this trip to Frankfurt?

Good!  The best thing he did was decide to go.  He is not strong like me.  He hides behind loud music while he’s flying!  But it’s OK.  It helps him.  I’m a seahawk!  I’m strong!

Cloud, did you hear what Seahawk just said?

Yes.  I’m not as strong as him.  I’m just comfortable in the sky. Toby already had some minutes on this flight when he felt comfortable in the sky like I do.  That was a major accomplishment. He needs to do more short practice flights.  If he does, the minutes that he has where he feels like me will increase.

Pile of Shit, were you with Toby on the trip?

Yes!  I told him not to take himself and his fears so seriously!  He can’t influence what happens while he is flying so much anyway.  I told him to smile, listen to music, and read.  I’m not intelligent enough to have these fears!  I stink!

What would you do to continue working on this?

I would just fly and not give a shit!

What do you think about that, cloud?

I didn’t expect more from a pile of shit.  He’s not seeing anything.  He’s just there and stinking.  I’m wiser because I’m up in the sky and I see more.  I think Toby should go on and fly.  Try to see the good things about being up in the sky and looking down on the earth. A lot of people enjoy flying because they are away from their stress and regular activities.  No one can reach them by phone or email.  He can be more positive and realize there are beautiful things up in the air!

Sea Hawk – I’m not stupid like the pile of shit and I’m not as romantic and wise as the cloud.  I am strong.  I have to fly with power, looking for food.  I work at flying to survive.  Flying is part of my responsibility, but it’s also fun!   I think Toby can just fly too!

Sea Hawk, do you remember when your mother pushed you out of your nest?

I just learned! I practiced, became confident, and I had no more fears.

Notice that each of these three self-aspects bring different perspectives on dealing with fear to Toby. The seahawk awakens power and confidence within Toby.  The cloud brings perspective and wisdom.  The pile of shit brings absurd humor and a sense of meaninglessness to life’s drama.

By “becoming” and listening to these three aspects Toby reminds himself of who he potentially is.  He also hears that there is not only an internal support system always there for him, but that there is an internal consensus, at least among these self-aspects regarding a course of action: Toby needs to fly more.  So we discussed the possibility of short, forty-five minute flights, to and from Frankfurt, each week, in the middle of the week.  Not leaving the Frankfurt airport, but catching the next flight back.  The idea would be to do these once a week and then begin to move to slightly longer flights, like to Paris or Vienna, which are each less than an hour and a half from Berlin.

All of us have a doing “yang” part and a being “yin” part, but the two are mostly strangers!  We are always yang during the day when we act, think, and feel and mostly yin at night when we are deeply asleep!  How do we integrate these two halves of ourselves?

Here is a little dream that on the face of it has nothing to do with such an issue,  but that’s what came up when this lady interviewed of all people – the receptionist!

What are fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

Today I had a conflict with a teacher colleague.  He really told me off.  It really hit me.  It hurt.  It’s painful. I am swaying between feeling I was treated unfairly and accepting it.

My son disappointed me and surprised me that he acted the way he did.

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

We are on public transport.  My daughter Laura is supposed to stand in as a gynocologist during a holiday.  While we are on the public transport I spot a woman who gets off the bus with us.  I wonder if she is going to the same surgery as us.  She is looking around and looking at me expectantly.  I look at her and say, “no, no.  It’s not me.  It’s my daughter that’s the doctor.  Laura is very efficient and has two locks that she unlocks at the same time.   The other thing that happened is that someone said, “Ms. Stook, the practice is not open. Yet.  Ms. Stook is still cleaning.”  The only Ms. Stook I know is the wife of a dentist I know.  Perhaps she is retired and needs more money.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

No idea!

If this dream were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

The gynecological practice

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Public Transport, Keys, Laura, Ms. Stook, the building, a staircase, the locks, the medical assistant (secretary)

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Medical Assistant

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Medical Assistant (Maria), would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I’m not very tall. I’m not thin or fat.  Maybe strong legs.  I like to wear flat shoes.  Blondish-grey hair.  Now I’m changing.  I’m putting on a white shirt and skirt for the practice.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I’m busy.  I like being the assistant.  I am the SOUL of this practice!  Maybe it’s not the truth, but I often feel that without me this whole surgery would collapse.  I know everything.  I have everything under control.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I don’t like my nose!  It’s too big and it’s too hooked!

Maria, you are in Clara’s life experience, correct?  He/She created you, right?  Maria, what aspect of Clara do you represent or most closely personify?

I represent the busy bee in her. The “I control it all” part. I would prefer to work with my doctor and not for this young thing that is standing in for her.  I would have her back.

Maria, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I am going to open the practice and the clients would come but not as many as usual because it’s a holiday.  I would keep an eye on Laura to see that she did everything right.

Anything else?

I would be on an island surrounded by blue skies, surrounded by an ocean.  Maybe have a wreathe of flowers around my neck...

Imagine being there now…

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Maria, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 I’m not afraid of anything!  What should I be afraid of?

Compassion: 0 It’s perfect here!  I don’t care about other people.  I don’t do compassion toward others or myself. There’s no need….

Wisdom: 10

Acceptance: 10 I think my nose has become a lot smaller, now that you’re asking!

Inner Peace:   6        Will I be able to stay here?  It’s so uncertain…

Witnessing: 10

Maria, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

Then this practice would vanish.  Then I could feel I could stay here.  Then there would be this inner peace.

Are you prepared to stay there or not?

Good question!  Right now it’s wonderful, but what if a storm came??? If I had a house here…

How would Clara’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

If Clara was ten all she wouldn’t believe she had to control everything, would not have to work so hard.  Her life would be more peaceful.

If you could live Clara life for her, how would you live it differently?

I can understand Clara very well because I like to be busy!  I can still see myself running around in this practice.  It’s nice being on this island but I also like running around in the practice getting all the appreciation from others.  I would have more creative breaks, take time out, like I have now on this island.

If you could live Clara’s waking life for her today, would you handle her three life issues differently?  If so, how?

I would like to tell her to leave this colleague alone.  I’m never criticized the way Clara is.  I can only advise her to not react and to remain friendly.

Regarding her son, I too think that is sad.  If my son were to behave like that I too would be upset.  But the only thing to do is to remain calm and deal with it with equanimity. Talk about it.  She has done quite well so far.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Clara to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

When she feels stress coming up.

Why do you think that you are in Clara’s life?

To remind her that any kind of stress can be dealt with equanimity.  Be loyal to yourself!

How is Clara most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

She won’t take me seriously

What would you recommend that she do about that?

She should take me seriously because I have a lot to tell her.

I think Clara had this dream because

Because it’s about opening herself.  A lot to do with stomach feeling…to concentrate on the nitty-gritty, the core of things.  The practice itself is not important.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

Laura is the stand-in doctor because of a diad – mother/child, mother daughter.  Going back to those roots.  It also has to do with letting a child go, realizing that she is so grown up she can actually stand in for a doctor.   I feel she is over-mothering her daughter a bit.

What have you heard yourself say?

This strange little lady is supposed to be taken seriously!  To calm down.  Get off my tree that I so often sit on.

Others: How happy Maria was on her island and without doubts!  She doesn’t have conflicts with anyone.  She doesn’t care what others think of her.  She has no conflicts because she concentrates on herself.  She didn’t grasp the concept of compassion.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Let go!

Notice that Laura got some practical recommendations about how to deal with her two life issues.

The island Maria personified for Clara the part of herself that is all beingness.  The challenge is for Clara to integrate the two – the Maria that is hyper-effective in the world with the one that seems unattainably calm and at peace.  After the interview Clara said she really, really didn’t like the first Maria, who she describes as controlling and self-important, but she really likes the Maria on the island.  The group remarked that she seemed to keep going back to the part of herself that she didn’t like instead of staying with the part it transformed in that she liked.  This led to a discussion about how this is part of the human condition- we return to our habits of mind and feeling, to our scripting, to our likes and dislikes, to our drama, rather than staying with those  parts of ourselves that are at peace.

5 September 2010

How do you work with a person or self-aspect that is so wedded to its worldview, that he/it cannot hear, see, or relate to a different one?  The person or self-aspect may be loving, talented, capable, respectful, and a great resource to have.  As long as you focus on its strengths and communicate in terms of its world views and the values that it has, you have a wonderful ally in growth, as we see in the following interview.  Comments on dealing with True Believers follow the interview.

(This is an interview of another dream character from a dream posted here, “Learning Compassion from a Hippie Woman.”)

I’m in the Los Alamos mormon church with Rex Friendly, a bishop of this Mormon ward.  He’s like the priest of a parish.  We’re not in his office (which is where I have met him in real life), but out in the building. There are lots of people moving around.  One is a very large woman with a long braid at the back of her head.  I say to her, “I think you were a hippie in earlier years” and everyone laughs.  I have a message for Ian: The two excommunications I have had from the Mormon church were examples of “unrighteous dominion” and therefore the Lord does not recognize them.  I am using church legal language to attempt to force a meeting on the matter with the local Council. My message is not only to see if the Church will acknowledge this unrighteous dominion, but also to use that acknowledgement to set an example for the city of Los Alamos, the originator of the Atomic Bomb.  If it can, then Los Alamos can transform its legacy and set an example for the world in terms of the possibility of transformation.  I cannot tell if the Bishop understands because he is being interrupted by others as we talk.  He looks at a man who is cleaning up after a church celebration and nodding approval at his cleaning up.

Why do you think that you had this dream?

I have a project I am working on in Los Alamos called “The Deep Democracy of Open Forums.”  Mary Wills book, “Bomb Power,” a history of the Manhattan Project.   It seems to talk about where I am and why I am in Los Alamos.  If that’s a grand delusion, it’s grand indeed.  It makes sense to me and gives me an enormous amount of motivation.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

“Transformation of Los Alamos”

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Building, Ward House, Rex Friendly, Hippie Woman, Vacuum Man, Rug, Debris on Rug, People milling about, Los Alamos, the Bomb

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Los Alamos Mormon Ward Bishop Rex Friendly

Rex, would you please tell me what you look like and what you are doing?

I am a balding 35-year-old man in good physical shape with wife and three young children, recently arrived in Los Alamos from Pennsylvania, where I completed my medical residency. I am building a new medical practice with an ENT specialty. No sooner than my young family and I arrived a year ago, I was called to be the bishop of the Los Alamos Ward. I had a premonition of this calling before I left Pennsylvania when I dreamed of two buildings which I could choose to enter. One was red brick, the other white. Even though the white building was in a more affluent area I chose the red brick building because I thought it gave a greater opportunity to serve.

I am now very busy with my practice, church calling and family and enjoying every moment. I feel blessed to have these responsibilities and opportunities to help people of all kinds.

What do you like most about yourself in this experience? What are your strengths?

I like that I am responsible and love people. It is a privilege to serve. My greatest strength is my love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the holy LDS priesthood.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What?

I really don’t dislike myself at all. On the contrary. If I have weakness it is lack of experience. I am eager to learn and receive counsel so that I can be a better servant.

If you could change this experience in any way you wanted, would you? If so, how would you change it?

I would not change anything.

If that experience were to continue, what would happen next?

I would want to understand Brother Kovalenko better. He seems to have a lot on his mind. I am open to developing a relationship with him and see much potential for good in him. I hope we can help each other.

Rex, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?

(You are in this person’s dream or life experience, correct? They created you, right?)

This is an interesting question. I think Eugene may have a projection on me, and in that sense he has created me. However, I believe that there is more to this situation that a projection. I can see a greater divine purpose in operation here.

(Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

I think I represent Eugene’s desire to serve the Lord and I’m interested to help him do that.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her, how would you live it differently?

This really is not my job to do. I do not know him well enough to suggest how he should live his life. He is much older and more experienced than I. Nevertheless, I believe I can be of service to him in being open to his honest approaches to me and the church people.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her today, would you handle his/her three life issues differently? If so, how?

Again, this is not for me to say. I cannot evaluate his life issues.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his/her life?

This would be presumptuous of me to say.

How would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? And why?

A most interesting set of values. I will answer as best I can.

Confidence: 9. I am still learning my craft and adjusting to church responsibilities. What confidence I lack is compensated by my reliance on the Lord and his local and higher level priesthood servants.

Compassion: 10. It is why I am a physician.

Wisdom: 8. I am inexperienced and do not want to take on airs.

Acceptance: 9. I think I accept people and situations as they are. But I do draw a line on certain misbehavior.

Peace of Mind: 10. I am deeply in tune with the Lord.

Witnessing: ? I am not sure what this means.

Rex, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?

I don’t know that I would be much different than I am. I’m sure as I gain experience I will grow in wisdom and acceptance. I still don’t know what you mean by witnessing.

How would this person’s life be different if he/she naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

I’m sure he would be a fine church leader.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

I would love to see him come back into the church in full activity. I do not understand his reservations yet.

Why do you think that you are in this life experience (or dream)?

It is very clear to me that the Lord has brought him into our midst. He has experience that I hope will be valuable to us. I believe I have been brought into his life to help him gain full stature in his spiritual calling.

Eugene, what have you heard yourself say? (Read them over)

Rex Friendly has come into my life at an opportune time. Whereas I have had much conflict within myself and with the Mormon Church leadership, Rex represents the best attitude he has encountered. It bodes well for a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Keep your relationship with Bishop Friendly positive. There is much good that will come of it!

It  is pretty clear from the above that Bishop Friendly will be a great resource as long as it is within the context of the Mormon Church and its belief structure.  However, raising the issue of  ”unrighteous domination” would threaten that belief structure and doom any attempt at dialogue or support on other matters, including the Democracy Forum.  Problems only arise for true believing self-aspects when their worldview is questioned.  They are deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to taking seriously, or seriously entertaining as equally valid, other world views based on other premises.

This self-aspect sees everything in terms of service to the Lord in the context of Mormonism, but it could be a true believer in any “ism,” for instance, global warming denial, Republican trickle-down economics, or vegganism.  We often encounter this problem with lovers: we have so much in common and must get to know them quite well before we come to realize that they really, honestly see the world quite differently than we do and have absolutely no interest in changing their viewpoint.

You must choose to work with such individuals (and stuck or addicted parts of yourself!) within the context of their world view.  You give them something they want while you and your interests benefit. We do this when we get married, go to work for an employer, join the military, join a church or political party.  Such institutions see themselves as open-minded but in fact are highly exclusive and largely intolerant of those who disagree with them.  The higher in the organization you are the more likely this is to be the case. The problem is that they have their minds made up and any alternative world view threatens theirs. In our grandiosity we often think, “I will become a True Believer.  Once they see how wonderful I am and how much I have to offer that will help them, they will listen to me and change.”  This generally amounts to self-delusion, wasted time and wasted effort.  Recommendation: don’t try to change such individuals, self-aspects, and organizations.  Appreciate them for who and what they are.  Take advantage of their many strengths.  Ignore and avoid engaging them on the level of their delusional world view or you will wish you hadn’t.

Would you like to learn to roll with the stormy waves of life?  Would you like to stop fretting and worrying about things you either can’t control (like your age, what other people do or say) or really don’t matter? (like ) This simple, straightforward interview reminds us that we have inside ourselves what we need to put things in perspective, to let go, and enjoy our lives.  If Birgitta can do it, you can too!

Date of interview: 30 August 2010

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in
your life?

1. Living consistently as a disciple of Jesus

2. Getting organized

3. Being with my children regularly and with Zhenya

Tell me a dream you remember…

Four dreams, repeating theme:

On the Indigo, feeling its pleasantness, relaxed with the people.

Why do you think that you had these dreams?

These all came the week after the Bimini trip (August 7-16) aboard the Indigo and swimming with the dolphins.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

On the Indigo

These are the characters in the experience…

Boat, people, ocean

If a first character had something especially important to tell you, which
would it be?

Indigo

(Indigo,) would you please tell me what you look like and what you
are doing?

I look like the boat Birgitta was on in Bimini.

What do you like most about yourself in this experience? What are your
strengths?

Solidly built. Beautifully painted. Very sea worthy. Safe. Comfortable. Very free. Can go wherever I want. I rock gently on the waves and can also handle rough seas.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What?

Nothing, except I sometimes wish I was roomier.

If you could change this experience in any way you wanted, would you?
If so, how would you change it?

No

If that experience were to continue, what would happen next?

Don’t know.

(Character,) if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any
form you desired, would you change? If so, how?

No

(You are in this person’s dream or life experience, correct? They
created you, right?)

Yes, yes

(Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most
closely personify?

Her ability to rock with the waves of life.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her, how would you
live it differently?

I would help her to roll with the waves of life.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him/her today, would
you handle his/her three life issues differently? If so, how?

I think she is actually doing this pretty well.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of
his/her life?

Those three as mentioned.

How would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom,
acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?

Confidence: 10. I like the way I do things.

Compassion: 10. I take care of people

Wisdom: 10.

Acceptance: 10. I accept everybody and situations as is.

Peace of Mind: 10.

Witnessing: 10.

(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would
you be different? If so, how?

I’m there.

How would this person’s life be different if he/she naturally scored
high in all six of these qualities all the time?

It would be happier, more efficient, more relaxed, more organized and more energetic.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to
imagine that they are you and act as you would?

When things get stormy and unpredictable and there are no answers.

Why do you think that you are in this life experience (or dream)?

To help Birgitta see that she doesn’t need to fret.

(Dreamer,) what have you heard yourself say? (Read them over)

That I could roll with the punches of life even better.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you
think it would be saying to you?

Have more faith and trust that things will be okay no matter what.

Come swim with wild dolphins while learning Integral Deep Listening!  http://www.claudia-hahm.de/welcome-everybody/

Sexuality, Guilt, and low self-esteem

Can Guilt and low-self esteem show up as physical problems that interfere with your sex life?  If it can, what can be done about it?

This lady is a talented musician, but unresolved issues from her youth keep her from maximizing her capabilities and having a healthy sexual relationship with her partner, despite many attempts to address it throughout her adult life.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

I have a big issue I haven’t been able to solve for twenty years.  It has to do with my vagina.  It’s a chronic inflammation that does not have anything to do with a sexually transmitted disease, since I had this before I ever started having sex.  My guitar and my vagina are connected to my father.

Guilt:  I feel I don’t deserve a lot in my life.

I want to be a good musician so that who I am communicates to the audience.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Guilt

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Dark Blue

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

A tunnel!

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Tunnel, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am very very deep under the earth in the rocks.   I am very secret.  There is no one in me.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

That I am for me, for myself.  My walls are strong.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

It’s too dark in me.  Nothing happens for me.

Tunnel, you are in Darlene’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Darlene do you represent or most closely personify?

Her being separated from the world.

Tunnel, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be a big street with trees on both sides and many people walking, very alive! A lot of very wonderful alternative shops. It feels perfect!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Street, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 Because I’m perfect!

Compassion: 10

Wisdom: 10

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

How would Darlene’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She would feel fulfilled.  She would interact with many other people.  Her richness.    She would find many different ways to play all sorts of music and playing for other people…alive.  She would be able to celebrate her life together with the people with whom she is playing.

Street, do you feel guilt?

No.

How come?

I’m wonderful for everyone!

What does it feel like not to feel guilt, street?

It feels natural, without any doubt.

If Darlene felt the way that you do, how would her life be different?

Wonderful!

If you could live Darlene’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I would give her all the wonderful talents, love, enthusiasm, and joy of giving that I have.  In her sexual life she would be able to receive the love Peter has for her.

If you could live Darlene’s waking life for her today, would you handle Darlene’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

I would remind Darlene that if she feels guilty that she cannot give anything to herself or to others.  I would show her how it holds her down.  I would show her the possibilities of her potential.

The chronic inflammation in her vagina is a fear of her own beauty!  She does not feel safe! (Cries…)

What is Darlene feeling now, Street?

She does not feel safe! She feels sad and fearful.

What do you feel about that, Street?

She doesn’t have to feel sad and fearful anymore.

How come?

It is her own life now.  There is no one who might harm her, threaten her.

If she didn’t feel sad and threatened any more, would it make any difference with her vagina, Street?

Yes!  It would become healthy!

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Darlene’s life?

She needs to stop thinking that she doesn’t deserve happiness or that she is so small and doesn’t have anything to give.

If she stopped thinking those things, how would her life be different?

It would be indescribable!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Darlene to imagine that he/she is you and act as you would?

In her daily life with her pupils and her colleagues – other music teachers.  When she is playing the violin, when she has sex with Peter, when she is with her father and mother.

Vagina, have you been listening to what the Street has said?

Yes! I know this.  I have told her several times that I am healthy, safe, and cared for.

Is she not listening to you, Vagina?

Sometimes she listens to me but her reality seems so real!

What do you think about that, Vagina?

I have no problems.  I know I am natural.  I am a bit sorry that she does not connect with me.

What would help her to connect with you, Vagina?

She needs to understand that I am not a threat to her.  She is starting to breathe deeply into her belly in the last week.  This is a good way to connect to me.

Character, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

No.  I’m just me – perfect.

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

I don’t know.

What do you think about that tunnel becoming a street, Vagina?

I like it.  It’s much more rich, much more alive, much more a gift for everyone!

Why do you think that you are in Darlene’s life?

She is very ready to face me and to become me.

How is Darlene most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

Habit!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

She could remember my richness, my perfection.

Darlene, what have you heard yourself say?

The Street part of myself feels perfect and rich.  It likes that it is not a tunnel any more but that now it is a street and alive and has so much to give to others.  It is not secret and alone as the tunnel was.   Darlene has thought that she is guilty and small and has nothing to give because she has a fear of her own beauty because it was a threat to her at some point of her life.  She doesn’t have to be afraid any more because she is an adult and there is no one here who is a threat to her.

Vagina said that she is warm and healthy and natural. She has told me this but has mostly blocked it because I was iu my own drama.  If Darlene would remember to be this big, alive, street then her Vaginal problems would go away.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Stop holding on to these old thoughts about myself.  Allow myself to see my richness and my perfection.  There is no threat for me in my adult life.

While Freudians would have a field day with the relationship between a vagina and a tunnel, the real connections are in the secretiveness and protectiveness that a deeply hidden location provides.  Things that are hidden tend not to get sorted out or fixed.  Parts of ourselves that are protected too much never learn that they don’t have anything to be afraid of.

It takes more than an interview to change a life-long habitual attitude toward oneself and one’s body.  Deep listening defuses wake-up calls by waking us up so that we get the message.  Once we understand new behaviors and ways of thinking have to replace the old dysfunctional ones.  Just understanding won’t change these problems any more than a smoker’s understanding that they’re addicted to tobacco will cause them to stop smoking.  This awareness is a crucial first step.  It must be followed by behavioral changes.  One has to actually stop smoking. Darlene has to stop feeling threatened.  To this end, I recommended to Darlene that several times a day she ask herself, “How threatened do I feel right now, zero to ten?”  If the number she gives herself is anything below ten she is to ask herself, “What could I do right now to raise that number half a number?”  (Say, from a six to a six and a half.) Her answer might be to take a deep breath, to smile, to imagine that she is the broad, lively street.  It might be to call a friend.  It’s her choice. The way forward is to keep doing interviews to regularly re-immerse herself in an undamaged potential identity, while taking small, concrete daily steps to counteract the dysfunctional lifelong scripting.  The support of other students and Practitioners of Integral Deep Listening is critical in this respect.

Where does chronic pain come from?  Is there anything we can do with our minds to reduce it? Here is one lady’s solution…

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Lightness and freedom

2 Do I stay with the family I’m working for or not?

3 Partnership.  I haven’t  been interested in men for about eight years, since my divorce.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

A physical symptom: My joints.  Maybe I’m moving in the wrong way.  Maybe my body doesn’t want to go in the direction I’m going in.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Grey

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

Dolphin

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Dolphin, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I play in the water! I’m playing with light. There’s darkness and light falling into the water.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

That I’m so flexible, that I can move about so well.  I’m free!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

No! I have no weaknesses!

Dolphin, you are in Terri’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Terri do you represent or most closely personify?

Freedom and lightness!  Always moving!

Dolphin, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

No.  I would like to stay the way I am!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Dolphin, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion: 10

Wisdom: 10

Acceptance: 10 I’m not lacking anything.  I’m jumping about happily!

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

How would Terri’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She can! Who said she couldn’t?  She doesn’t believe she has them, but she does!

If you could live Terri’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I would definitely move my body!  I’m wild!  I wouldn’t think so much.  I would act from the bottom of my heart. That’s what freedom is about.

If you could live Terri’s waking life for her today, would you handle Terri’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1 Lightness and freedom: I’ve got it all!  She can imagine she’s me!

2 Do I stay with the family I’m working for or not?  — Community is important to me.  She needs to get out of that job to feel more light and more free.

3 Partnership.  I haven’t been interested in men for about eight years, since my divorce.  — She needs a strong partner!  A big dolphin that is very flexible!  You can feel his strength!

What life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Terri’s life?

Lightness and freedom is most important!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Terri to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

Always!

Dolphin, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

No.

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

If you just live, there’s no drama!  If you’re free, there’s no drama.  Be in the here and now.

Why do you think that you are in Terri’s life?

I’ve been here for ages!  I’m here for her to remember me!  I have often come in the past.  The question is, does she listen or not?

How is Terri most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

By not listening!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

She should look after me more and talk to me and contact me and not distract herself with other things so much.  A whole lot of things that aren’t important!  All this thinking all the time about things!  Instead of just living spontaneously!

Terri, what have you heard yourself say?

It’s a really wild thing, I can tell you!  It is very happy, it’s alive, it’s in the here and now, it’s totally flexible. The more it moved, the greater the light that came!  For the pain, I need to move.  He tells me I can live the way he lives!  You have to live in the moment, not to think so much, not to ponder about the future or the past, but live in the here and now.  It’s just all too much thinking.  If we all didn’t think so much, life would be easier.  It doesn’t want to hear what you have to say a lot of the time.  If I had listened to it a long time ago it could have helped me a lot.  There’s not enough freedom in my current work.  I need community and partnership.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Listen to my own self!  Don’t listen to all that clutter from the outside!

Recommendations:

Interview yourself and follow the recommendations.

Come to integral salons

Interview potential partners; bring them to IDL events.  If they refuse to be interviewed or won’t come, don’t have anything to do with them; they’re poison.

Why does pain personify itself as a free, joyous, pain-free dolphin for this dreamer?  Why is its main message to listen to it and to become it? Why should this lady trust the voice of an imaginary, made-up dolphin?  It’s a delusion and fantasy, right? She should just forget about it as quickly as possible, right?

Come swim with wild dolphins while learning Integral Deep Listening!  http://www.claudia-hahm.de/welcome-everybody/

This lovely lady came with us on a trip to swim with wild dolphins in Bimini, because she had experiences in which dolphins connected her to the divine, spoke to her, and through her.  This lady was not psychotic, delusional, or in any way appearing to be emotionally unbalanced. She is friendly, conscientious, helpful, empathetic, and generous.  Her intuitive connection to the divine is very important to her and dolphins have somehow become a central path or bridge.

This very interesting interview reveals the interface between out of control world events: a world perishing due to human greed and ignorance, and the worried, caring, individual conscience that holds itself somehow responsible.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Intuition: With all the life issues we have today we don’t have time for intuition.  I have some, but I want more!  If I did, my life would be totally different.  There were moments in my life when I was very intuitive.  Those were very happy moments.  Everything fits together harmonically. Harmony is missing now.

2 Harmony in my life.

3 Love!  Love for myself.  I miss that a lot.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

Intuition

I would like to do an interview about an event I had when I was mixing a homeopathic medication five years ago with a group of people that was led by an instructor in homeopathy, I was doing a very special mystery grinding of the “the milk of a dolphin” in a mortar with a pestal.  There was a mother dolphin in a zoo in Switzerland.  Our teacher asked the zoo to give him a little of the dolphin milk because he was making a homeopathic medication with it.  In the homeopathic preparation, you take one little drop of the dolphin milk and put it into 100 drops of sugar and grind it.  When we did that, very strange things happened.  All our senses became very active while this was happening.  We heard voices and saw pictures – not all the same ones – different people heard different voices and saw different things.  All our senses became very intense.  This is like wishful thinking, but you still see reality also.

The first step of the process was a dilution of one drop dolphin’s milk to 100 grams of sugar.  Then you do the same again, diluting it a second time in another 100 grams of sugar.  You take that dilution and repeat two more times for a total of four times.   The grinding only takes twenty minutes for each dilution, however, every step produces different visions and different illusions for the people in the group.  There were forty-five people in our group and everyone got different pictures and stories, so it took altogether two and a half days to do the four dilutions.  When we started to do this grinding I was tasting fresh fish in my mouth.  Normally, I hate fish.  I saw myself coming up from the very dark to the light above.  It was the sea and I was a dolphin.  For those two days I was a dolphin.

There are special themes that we discuss when we do the grinding for each dilution.  The first theme is home country.  Where is your home, where do you feel at home? The second is communication.  It was a very strong theme for me.  I and two others in the group were dolphins, the rest were humans.  I tried to say something to the humans but they didn’t understand.  Other members of the group were telling me I looked like a dolphin, with the nose and eyes of a dolphin.

During this time as a dolphin I saw that human civilization was destroyed.  It was like the end of the world.  Big earthquakes destroyed human civilization.  Everything was destroyed. I knew that we humans were responsible for it.  During the fourth grinding I was standing near to God and I felt very guilty for the destruction of the planet. I wanted to come back down back to Earth and tell humans not to do it, to somehow prevent it.   I was begging to be sent down to Earth because there was still time to change things.  It didn’t matter what shape I came back in, as a dolphin or as a bird, for example, to give this message to humans.  I was standing with my head down and feeling very guilty.  The Divine said, “Humans can’t understand each other.  Why should they understand you as a dolphin or some other animal?”  I said, “I will find a way to tell them so that they will not lose their contact with the divine.”  Then I was a dolphin for several lives.

The back fin connects dolphins to the divine.  As a dolphin, I was feeling that connection.  In my vision, all the dolphins killed themselves because they couldn’t communicate with the humans about the disaster in a way that humans would hear.  So the dolphins turned themselves on their backs to break their contact with the divine and drove themselves onto the land because they couldn’t contact humans.  They are still trying to be heard by humans today.

The leader of the homeopathic grinding said that there should be a fifth dilution but not all the group could follow it.  They could all sleep on it and he would decide which members could do the fifth step.  Fifteen people were selected.  The others were dreaming different things and got signs that they shouldn’t do the fifth step.

I did the step.  I woke up knowing that I should do it.  While I was taking a shower that morning I had a feeling that someone was pushing a knife into my back.   I was feeling it and I was screaming.  My roommate got me out of the shower because I couldn’t move because I was still feeling the knife in my back.  It was a big pain.   There was also a shaman in the group.  He stopped the hurting a bit when he gave me a wooden dolphin.  He told me that he wasn’t a dolphin man and that I am more dolphin than he is.  I caressed the back fin of this wooden dolphin and the pain in my back went away!  With this fifth grinding I was losing the ability to listen to the dolphins. At the beginning of the fifth grinding I was both human and dolphin but after the fifth grinding of the dolphin milk the dolphin went away and I was only human.  Afterwards, when it was finished, I was so happy to see the people, the sun, the trees that it all was still there after seeing everything destroyed during those two days.    Five years later, I still have this pain in my back sometimes; it comes and goes.

Associations: I have been dreaming of this dolphin trip. I would like to ask this pain why I can’t hear the dolphins anymore.  When I was swimming with dolphins yesterday in the Caribbean near Bimini I heard the dolphins like a choir, but I couldn’t understand them.

Pain, why can’t Terri hear the dolphins any more? Why can’t humans hear them anymore?

The pain is there, but it doesn’t talk.

Pain, why don’t you talk?

She’s not listening.  It’s as if she was just whistling….

What would be different if she was listening to you, pain?

I am still Terri feeling the pain.

Pain, what does Terri need to do to become you right now?

Love!

Are you willing to feel love right now, Terri?

I am feeling love for everyone but not for myself.

Pain, why is Terri not feeling love for herself?

It’s the same feeling that she had when she was standing next to the divine and feeling so guilty for the loss of the world.

Pain, do you think Terri should feel guilty for the loss of the world?

No, she’s not responsible.  She just feels that she is.

Dolphins, I understand that you turned over on your backs and beached yourselves because you couldn’t communicate with humans, is that correct?

Yes, we did that because this back fin of power is like a connection to the divine or like a TV remote control.  You can’t do what you want to do; you’re like a robot.  You are helpless.  We couldn’t stand that any more.  We had to disconnect this connection.

I thought your connection was to the divine.  Why would you want to disconnect it?

It doesn’t make any sense, but it was an inner weakness because I couldn’t take it any more.   I came back many times as a dolphin.

Dolphins, are you aware that Terri feels guilty and responsible for not being able to wake the humans up who are destroying the planet?

No, that’s her problem.  She’s feeling that.  We know that she has wisdom like we do.  We don’t make her responsible; she makes herself responsible.

Dolphins, do you think it’s realistic or helpful for Terri to make herself responsible for humans destroying the planet?

No.

Why not, Dolphins?

She had this experience and she can understand it more than any other human, but every single person is responsible for that.  They do not all know what they are doing.

Dolphins, why do you think Terri has had this piercing pain in her back?

The lack of connection of the line to the divine makes this pain. When she can listen again the pain will stop.

Is she listening right now, dolphins?

No.

What would she need to be doing right now in order to listen, dolphins?

She has to find a quiet place, sit down, and listen.

If she does that, what will she hear? (Terri has a problem thinking the dolphins are talking to her in the interview; she has to listen to them outside of herself.)

Does Terri have to go to quiet places and be by physical dolphins to hear you or can she listen to you in anywhere, or in interviews like the one she is doing right now?

Terri: I can communicate with them here and now because I am back in contact with them. (Problems staying in role: “I don’t know which one wants to speak through me right now, the dolphin part of me or the external, real dolphins.”)

Dolphins, what does Terri have to do to no longer have physical pain?

The pain is so she won’t forget what she saw.  When she starts to listen then the pain will go away.

Dolphins, do you think that Terri is listening to you right now?

Yes.

What do you want to tell her, dolphins?

We don’t want to talk to her now because it is too loud.

Is she putting you off, dolphins, or is she going to talk to you tonight?

We will talk to her tonight if she will get quiet and listen to us.

Thank you dolphins.  We look forward to supporting Terri and you in any way we can in the future.

When I regain this connection to the divine through my back then I will have regained my intuition.

Dolphins, how would Terri’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

Connected with freedom and happiness all the time!  She shouldn’t ask, she should just live it!  If she wants the pain relief she will take time to listen to us.

You say, “listen to us.” So we stop and listen to you.  Then you say, “It’s not the time.”  Which way is it, dolphins?

They are bored.  They went off. They don’t want to talk…

Two days later:

They are talking all the time!  They say, no matter where she is she needs to take time to get in contact with us!

Dolphins, thank you for talking to Terri!  Has Terri had that pain in her back since she started talking to you again?

No!

How come?

She should take the contact to the divine.  The pain only returns when she is not in contact.

Can she do that through listening to you, dolphins?

They are helping.

:

What is the relationship between dreams and mythology?

Can individuals dream cultural myths?

Can myths influence individual dreams?

How do cults and religions get formed?  How do world myths get created?

Notice that part of what creates cultural myths in when a person cannot easily differentiate between external voices and internal ones.  Terri assumed that the dolphins speaking to her were external.

Notice also that Terri felt personally responsible for the acts of all humanity and for the destruction of the entire world.  This is grandiose and narcissistic, although her intentions are based on genuine caring.

Notice that Terri felt not only responsible but guilty.  This added a third problem to the first two: 1) inability to distinguish internal from external guidance; 2) personalization of world responsibility; 3) guilt.

These problems were acute enough to create somatization in a way that paralleled her belief system: dolphins lost their contact with the divine through their backs; when Terri lost her intuitive contact to the divine through being a dolphin at the end of the homeopathic dilution, she developed intense and recurring back pain.

All of this was real for Terri

This interview also demonstrates how Integral Deep Listening, as a form of Dream Yoga, helps people wake up out of false awakenings, that is thinking they are awake when they are not.  Terri’s reality of pain in her back because of the guilt and responsibility she felt for the destructiveness of humanity is a type of “false awakening.”  It is a real and important insight for her, so real that it is externalized,  yet it is not true lucidity.  She is clearly asleep within the dream of her own belief system, which generates her own painful reality. This is an excellent description of and example of how karma works and how we create it out of our awareness continuously, because we think we are awake right now when we are actually in a delusional state, locked in the reality of our own delusions

Come swim with wild dolphins while learning Integral Deep Listening!  http://www.claudia-hahm.de/welcome-everybody/

Wherever you go, whatever you do, your self-image, generally formed when you were a child, follows you.  To change it, you need to get a sense of what it is and how it shows up in your thoughts and feelings and how it affects your relationships with others.  Diamond has been married long enough to have three wonderful children, the oldest nineteen.  She became a veterinarian but gave it up to raise her family. She is patient, kind, and trained in a number of modalities, including massage, Aqua Wellness, and Dream Yoga/Integral Deep Listening.    She’s the type of person you would want to have as a close friend, because when you are around her you know that she is listening and that you can count on her.

Diamond has issues that are common for a lot of people, perhaps including you.  What do you do if you are in a long-term committed relationship but feel distant from your partner?  How can you market yourself better to attract customers?  If you met Diamond, you would never guess that her self-image included something like a disgusting, gooey, shapeless, rotten lump that repels people so that she won’t get hurt by them.  In this interview, Diamond is telling herself that this part of her self-image that causes her to take her husband’s comments personally instead of responding in a light or funny way, which is how he communicates.  It also keeps her at an emotional distance from people, which keeps her from marketing herself and considerable skills.

From the perspective of parts of ourselves that have not gotten our childhood scripting and which do not do drama, such problems seem relatively minor and easy to solve.  There are parts of you that are not immersed in the daily struggles that accompany the assumptions of our stuck waking perspective.  Life would be so much easier if we could remember that our scripting, like misery, is optional, and that we can “come up for air,” by choosing to identify with parts of ourselves that are relatively free and powerful.  While it is much easier to grasp such a vision than it is to live it, change starts with a vision of where and how we are stuck as well as who and what we need to be in order to get unstuck and stay that way.

In this interview, Diamond is given not only such a vision, but the experience of what it is like to live her life from such a perspective.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1 Relationship with my husband

2 Business started

3 That I keep in touch with all the things that I want to integrate for my life or my business.  I get so busy I don’t have time for things like yoga, Dream Yoga, running.

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

The relationship: Emptiness; there is not much left of feelings, a lot of distance.  Deep sadness.  Numbness.  Our interests are very different.  He thinks our relationship is better than it is for me.  We are locked in routines, in our daily functioning.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

Dark brown.

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

Something round, wobbling, and brown.

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Brown lump, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am some jelly, sticky stuff and not really brown.  I was once round but now I am like a gooey mess on the floor.  A gelatinous lump in front of Diamond.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that everybody is disgusted by me.  They don’t want to touch me or get in touch with me.  My shape, color, and texture keeps them at a distance.  Also my smell!  It’s like rotten garbage!  My strengths are in making people aware of how rotten I am!

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

Maybe I’m a bit too small…

Brown Lump, you are in Diamond’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Diamond do you represent or most closely personify?

I am an aspect of Diamond that doesn’t want people to come too close to her because they might hurt her.  The distance, being alone. I don’t have to share Diamond with others.  I want her all to myself.

Stinky, disgusting brown lump, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would like to be as big as a boulder!  But this jelly is more difficult in this size…Maybe I would just change into the shape of a multi-colored gummy bear.  I’m less disgusting now.  Being disgusting makes you lonely.  I would have other gummy bears, like in a package.  But we are all out on a meadow!  We bigger than normal gummy bears.  We are bumping around and having fun chasing and playing together.

Gummy Bear, you are in Diamond’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Diamond do you represent or most closely personify?

Flexibility, variety, playfulness, and joy!

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

Gummy Bears, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10 Because we are strong!  We are together and  have fun!  We have all that we need.  We can congeal into a big ball.  We can separate again.

Compassion:   10 We are good to each other.  We know what we need so we can share and support. We are a strong community.

Wisdom: 10 We know a lot about life issues and how to function.  We are not in her drama!

Acceptance: 10 We accept ourselves and we accept others too.   If a cow stepped on us we would just congeal into a big ball and roll off!

Inner Peace: 10 We are very peaceful. We don’t need to attack anyone.  We have inner peace within us.

Witnessing: 10 We see each other; we are all the same; we see each other.

How would Diamond’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She wouldn’t get so frustrated or upset when things weren’t working the way she wants.  She would always have buddies to play with, to exchange with and be around.

If you could live Diamond’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

We would get more color in her life.  Get more people around her that think like she does.  She hasn’t because of this brown clumpy, stinky thing that’s inside her that keeps distance to others.  We think she doesn’t need it and it doesn’t need her, if I can become a Gummy bear with other Gummy bears.

If you could live Diamond’s’s waking life for her today, would you handle Diamond’s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

1. Regarding her relationship with her husband, we would be more flexible, and respond differently.   If he is making direct and strange comments that he thinks are funny, she can respond in a funny way instead of taking it personally.  She needs to stop talking so much and get on that level of communication.  We think that if she would do that it would make their relationship better.

2. Regarding establishing her business, we would spread out and jump around and make people interested in what is going on that she has to offer to them.  It would be good and easy!  Just get people to know what’s happening there!

3. Regarding doing the things that maintain balance, we would roll along into a big ball and get her those qualities of moving onward.  She needs to congeal into a shape that gives her the strength to practice and move ahead.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Diamond’s life?

That she makes enough time to play around!

She could congeal into a big ball by rolling all together….

She needs others!

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Diamond to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

A variety of situations: In the morning when she wakes up, so that she gets the feeling that she is in the community of a lot of gummy bears having fun.  To approach her daily routine in this fun state of mind.  In her work she can be this ball and really focus on what she needs to do: bookkeeping, deskwork.  She needs our compact energy!

Gummy Bears, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

No! We don’t need to!

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

We can bend very easily, change directions.

Why do you think that you are in Diamond’s life?

To support her with her life issues!

How is Diamond most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

She’ll just turn into that brown lumpy mess.  Then she’s quite easy to ignore!

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Buy some of us Gummy Bears and place them around in her home!  Start jumping and bouncing like we do!

Diamond, what have you heard yourself say?

The Gummy Bears told me that in a group of Gummy Bears life is much easier.  To live my life as if I was in a group of Gummy Bears!  To create an internal Gummy-Bear-like structure.  It is good to congeal, to have concentrated power for work issues.  Feeling like I am in a healthy group will help me get daily book keeping and other work done.  I need to bounce around to other people so they get interested in my work!

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

Get this group of colorful gummy bears around me and let them support me!   I could visualize them jumping!  I need to get in touch with people who have those qualities; cultivate the core Gummy Bear qualities in myself!

If you have unfinished business with a deceased parent, what can you do? How does that wound affect who you are today?  How does it limit your options? What can you do to heal it? Your dreams regularly comment on how long forgotten early family relationships shape how you view yourself and others today.  If you listen to them, as this lady is doing, you will take a short cut to finding yourself, as opposed to the social identity that you had to become in order to survive.  Use this format and interview yourself today.  You can find the template for interviewing a life issue at http://www.integraldeeplistening.com/learn-idl/interviewing-formats/interviewing-life-issues and the template for interviewing a dream at http://www.integraldeeplistening.com/learn-idl/interviewing-formats/interviewing-dream-characters

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1. Health

2. Change of career

3. Living without fear to the extent as if I had never lived with fear.

Tell me a dream you remember.  It can be an old one, a repetitive dream, a nightmare, or one that you’re sure you understand.

There was a man that I was talking to that had a deep tan and dark hair.  He was telling me what his job was.  I also remember a shelf of books.  I was asking him, probably referring to my father, whether he thought it was bad if you were a soldier for a job.  I was justifying that my father, when West Germany built up its new military after WWII, was one of the first to join it.  I was getting across to this man that I was proud of my father for being a high rank in the military and that I was proud for the values that he stood for.  I was under the impression that this man was of the opinion that he regarded his own job, which brought him more money, as being more valuable than his father’s job.  As I was talking I realized within the dream that the man I was talking to was the real love of my mother’s life.  In the dream my mother was with me somehow and I felt betrayed and at the same time I felt that my mother was not loyal towards herself, betrayed herself because the love of her life she let go to choose another life with the man that I know as my father.   (Cries.) I think, “Is this guy I’m talking to my real father?”

Why do you think that you had this dream?

There are so many different feelings that are coming up.  I wonder in this dream, “Is this my father or not?”  This man claims that the job he does is more valuable because it makes more money.  It’s like yet another exam – whether I can really stand up for the values that my father represented.  He died when I was eight years old.  Whatever values I have are ones that my mother brought across to me.  I loved my father very much.  He is the only man in my life that I’ve loved.  There were secrets in this dream where I thought, “Now I have a starting point to talk to my mother about her feelings and about the love of her life.”  To talk from mother to daughter. That never happened before my mother died.

If it were playing at a theater, what name would be on the marquee?

Drama of Life

These are the characters in the dream, beside yourself…

Father, the love of your mother’s life, your mother, the bookshelf, Germany, the new military

If one character had something especially important to tell you, what would it be?

Mother

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Mother, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I look like the way Rainbow remembers me.  It’s not so much the external.  It’s more the inner connection, the way she feels connected to me.  I feel estranged from this daughter.

Did you hear the dream?

Yes.

What do you think about it?

I don’t understand about the two men.

What did you hear Rainbow say about them?

That Rainbow wonders if this man was the real love of my life.  I don’t understand that.  My husband, the father of my children, and for me, this was the love of my life.

What do you think about the difference in income that seems to be an issue for this man in the dream?

It would have helped if there had been more money after the death of my husband but in any case I respected the job my husband did.  I have definitely always been proud of him.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

At first I don’t know. But then I say I’m absolutely loyal.  I have always fulfilled all the tasks that have been given to me and everything that my husband expected me to be.  I took it for granted to do these things and that I had the power to do my duty.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

(Out of role: “I have problems staying in role and keep being overwhelmed by my feelings of hurt.”)

She always wanted too much, she always needed too much.

Do you think she’s doing that now, Mother?

Now I’m dead.  It doesn’t matter.

I didn’t ask you that, Mother.  I asked you if you think she’s wanting too much now.

Yes, she still wants to talk.  This is over for me.  She still wants to know about my life and all my feelings toward love and life.   She still wants to know all about details of the past, like she had to run the household, like when I got to know her father.

Mother, you are in Rainbow’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right?  Mother, what aspect of Rainbow do you represent or most closely personify?

Her vulnerability, fearfulness, insecurity towards life.

Mother, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I’d love something.   I would love to be a mother to my daughter in a way that I myself feel strong and stable.  So that I feel I have clarity.  I would love to have a mother that has joy in life so I can have joy with my children, particularly with my daughter.

You are dead and imaginary, so you can have any kind of relationship with Rainbow that you want, correct?

It may be hard, but that’s correct.

What sort of relationship do you want to have with Rainbow?

I would like to tell her and let her know that I love her and that she is OK the way she is and that I am there to support her in any moment of her life and that I’m proud of her.  I also feel the need to take her into my arms from the very beginning of her life and I would not experience her as a burden while raising her.

Would you be willing to hold her now, Mom?

Yes.  It’s difficult, but it’s a good feeling.

Tell me more…

It feels like Rainbow has more power than me.  I feel like as mother that I should be stronger.

Mother, would you allow yourself to feel held by Rainbow now?

No.  It’s not right.

What’s not right about it, Mom?

Rainbow needs to be held by me. She needs appreciation by me, not the other way around.  I need my man, my husband.

Is there anything you want or need from Rainbow?

I need her presence and I need her acknowledgement…Rainbow needed me as a child and needed me to hold her, but I felt that children need to obey and do as they are told.

We’re not talking about then. We’re talking about whether you are willing to be held by Rainbow now.

I feel that Rainbow needs something from me.  She is stronger than me. She holds me and I cannot accept that.  It feels bad.

How come, Mom?

I’ve always criticized her. Whenever she told me something I used it against her.  It’s always been so difficult.

Do you want to criticize her now, Mother?

No, not right now.

Do you want to hold against her anything that she tells you now, Mother?

No.

Why not?

She’s managing her life.

Thank you Mom. Rainbow, what have you heard your mom just say?

My mother is torn between accepting my offer to take her into my arms and her interest in my life and what Rainbow would love, this exchange of mother-daughter knowledge and how we experienced everything.

What did you listeners hear Mom say?

I heard mother say that she was very proud of her husband.  She doesn’t understand why Rainbow is concerned about two men.  She says her husband was the love of her life.

I heard that mother wants to be left at peace and doesn’t want to be bothered by Rainbow.  She doesn’t want to be hugged by Rainbow and yet she doesn’t give herself permission because it has to be the other way around.  Because she can’t give it, she can’t accept it.

It would have been easier after her husband’s death with more money.

I think I had this dream because

Despite all the loyalty toward my father by my mother maybe she needed something else than what my father had to give to her.  That is represented by the other man.  Maybe that’s my own wish for a partner without financial worries and stability.  A partner that I can give my support to.    A combination between this kind of man that my mother loved with complete loyalty and voicing some criticism  also.

To attract such a man to yourself what sort of person do you think you need to be?

Clarity..I don’t remember…being open, talk about yourself, joy of life, have your own opinion.  Not be so critical, to see you’re OK the way you are, to accept yourself.

If you’re not those things, what’s your chance of attracting a man that has those qualities or can give you those things?

Not so good.  I need to work on them in myself instead of spending my life hoping that someone with those qualities will suddenly appear in my life.

Would you like to feel alive?  Would you like to be full of joy?  Would you like to feel the freedom that a dolphin feels surfing ocean waves?  Most people don’t; they don’t let themselves.  They think they can’t until they find their soul mate, make more money, live somewhere else, or get well. That’s called, “Waiting for Santa Claus.”

In this interview Rainbow learned that she doesn’t have to spend her life slowly dying while she waits for Santa Claus to come.  Instead, she has within her the ability to wake up to freedom, joy, and aliveness today, now.  You can too!

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

The way that I think does not bring me joy.

Chronic depression

Deteriorating physical health

Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?

My lack of joy.

If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?

red

Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.

Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?

an undulating vase-like shape of red energy

Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor?  It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind.  If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!

Shape, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I am not made out of anything.  I am energy.  I radiate red light and energy.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

My energy is strong and calming.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

I need to direct my energy inward as well as outward.

Shape, you are in Rainbow’s life experience, correct?  She created you, right? What aspect of Rainbow do you represent or most closely personify?

I am her life force.

Shape, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I would be the joy dolphins experience when they surf the ocean waves and I would be within Rainbow.  I would radiate into her and within her.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities:  confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing?  Why?

Confidence: 10

Compassion: 10

Wisdom: 10

Acceptance: 10

Inner Peace: 10

Witnessing: 10

How would Rainbow’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?

She would experience joy instead of depression!  She would feel free instead of always controlling her feelings with her thoughts!

If you could live Rainbow’s life for her, how would you live it differently?

I would stop suppressing feelings by thinking all the time.  I would learn how to just live. This is why she is attracted to dolphins and why she is on this dolphin excursion – to learn to be more like them.

If you could live Rainbow’s waking life for her today, would you handle Rainbow‘s three life issues differently?  If so, how?

All three of her issues will improve considerably if she will listen to me and follow my recommendations.

What would you focus on if you were in charge of Rainbow’s life?

Become me today.  Don’t wait until someday, somewhere.  She doesn’t have to travel to Bimini to swim with wild dolphins in order to experience their joy today in her life.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Rainbow to imagine that she is you and act as you would?

All the time, but particularly when she wants to feel more joy.

Shape, do you do drama?  If not, why not?

No.  I’m too busy experiencing joy!

What is your secret for staying out of drama?

I stay with the flow of my experience instead of getting pulled out of it by thinking or by being the roller coaster of feelings.

Why do you think that you are in Rainbow’s life?

I am here to wake her up to the availability here and now of the joy she longs for.

How is Rainbow most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?

By shutting me out with her thinking.

What would you recommend that she do about that?

Become me!

Rainbow, what have you heard yourself say?

I stop myself from feeling life, energy, freedom, and joy by the way I think.  It’s controlling and suppressing my life.  I am attracted to dolphins because when I am around them it is easier to experience those things that I long for.  The lack of them has caused my depression and lack of purpose and passion in my life.

If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?

I don’t need to be around dolphins to feel these things.  I can get in touch with the part of myself that they represent and feel these these things all the time.  When I do, my life will be transformed.