Identifying Complexes or “why I lose my cool?”

Returning freshly motivated from a workshop with James Hollis I feel inspired to reflect on the journey into the child like responses that emanate from triggered complexes. James Hollis is likely the clearest most succinct teacher I have ever encountered. The workshop I took on the weekend was no exception to this rule. He taught through clear exposition of the principles behind his philosophy, illustrated brilliantly by examples from the dreams of his clients.

He began by explaining that each of us will experience an energy driven narrative that flows from our experience of starting powerless in a powerful world. ‘Basically the world is big and powerful and you are not.” He then  suggested that there were two key responses to this fact: overwhelment and abandonment.

In terms of overwhelment he identified three core coping strategies that we could have developed as children

1. Avoidance. This shows up as projection, disassociation, procrastination, distraction, suppression, repression.
2. Birth of a power complex – to take control.
3. Compliance – to get along, you go along.

In terms of abandonment the strategies are:

1. Self esteem issues: diminished leads to sabotage and avoidance, over compensation leads to grandiosity,
2. Power complex, narcissism, no connection with self leads to manipulating others because of emptiness within.
3. Inordinate desire for connection causes imposition on other and addictions.

“The bulk of our energy can end up being directed at self-anxiety management systems. We end up in service to archaic messages that are both systemic and evasive.” The result is complexes – charged clusters of history that emerge into a present situation but bring energy from the past that is often inappropriate to the situation.

For example, I am backpacking with some friends in Manning Park; our trip is planned for two nights; two of our party have inadequate sleeping bags and we decide to return after one night. I react extremely negatively and stalk off on my own for hours feeling extremely embarrassed by my behaviour. Is this the act of an adult or a child? A complex had been triggered around “it’s not fair” and the child’s disappointment at having to go home before he was ready. In the moment I reacted I am a child again.

So what should we do about these complexes and why do anything? Hollis suggests that “the bulk of our energy being directed at self-anxiety management systems” is the key. By exposing these complexes to the light, we begin to release the energy used to contain them and it is available for living; as we heal the complex, its power to trigger us becomes reduced; we assume control of our own behaviour. When we suppress a complex it becomes a submerged mine waiting to bump into the necessary trigger and explode. It’s not about avoiding the minefields, it’s about disarming the mines. Surely a goal worthy of pursuit?

The Two Voices

Have you ever noticed the two voices in your head?  They love to engage in a debate whenever you are facing a decision. The journey begins when something occurs to disrupt your equilibrium; for example it may start with being passed over for promotion at work or not getting the raise you deserve and you find yourself entertaining the possibility of moving. Then the forces for change begin to muster their strength like an army preparing to invade: you don’t feel motivated, they don’t treat you well, the money should be better, you don’t really “love” what you do, you want to work with nicer, more positive people and so on and so on. You convince yourself that it is time. Then you go to bed, and at 3.00 a.m. you wake up and you hear another voice, “Are you crazy?”

The second voice begins to outline its argument in relentless and challenging terms: this is not the time, the job market is bad, you will lose your tenure, what about the benefits and your security, it could be so much worse, money isn’t everything, maybe this is about you not the job and so on and so on. Welcome to the battleground of thoughts, feelings and fears. Inertia, procrastination and lethargy creep in; you cannot make up your mind and if you allow this voice to assume dominance, then what happens next? The original voice reemerges and starts the spiral chaos all over again. “Like a wild horse desperately circling a field looking for escape”, you are stuck.

The DecisionClarity process is designed for people like you. It helps to create clarity out of confusion using a simple four step model:

1) You need to identify your question and clarify the confusion of thoughts, feelings and fears.

2) Embark on practices to discern your best course of action by engaging your intuition or inner wisdom.

3) Surrender the issue to the universe,

4) Check in for your insight and clarity.

At a recent workshop James Hollis suggested, “”Every morning when you awake there are two gremlins at the foot of your bed – fear and lethargy.” Resolving conflicting decisions can help send them on their way.

For more details on this process visit www.decisionclarity.com

Wisdom from James Hollis – Seattle Jan 14th

Stories Told, Stories Untold, Stories That Tell Us

“Our lives course with stories, stories that run through us from ancestors, stories we tell others and tell ourselves, and stories of which we are unaware and thereby tell us. We will reflect on the role these stories play in the shaping of our lives, and how they invite us to greater consciousness of what invisibly informs the visible world.”

James Hollis is likely the clearest most succinct teacher I have ever encountered. The workshop I took on the weekend was no exception to this rule. He taught through clear exposition of the principles behind his philosophy, illustrated brilliantly by examples from the dreams of his clients followed by some experiential work and sharing after lunch. He began by explaining that each of us will experience an energy driven narrative that flows from our experience of starting powerless in a powerful world. ‘Basically the world is big and powerful and you are not.” He then  suggested that there were two key responses to this fact: overwhelment and abandonment.

In terms of overwhelment he identified three core coping strategies that we could have developed as children

1. Avoidance. This shows up as projection, disassociation, procrastination, distraction, suppression, repression.
2. Birth of a power complex – to take control.
3. Compliance – to get along, you go along.

In terms of abandonment the strategies are:

1. Self esteem issues: diminished leads to sabotage and avoidance, over compensation leads to grandiosity,
2. Power complex, narcissism, no connection with self leads to manipulating others because of emptiness within.
3. Inordinate desire for connection causes imposition on other and addictions.

The bulk of our energy can end up being directed at self-anxiety management systems. We end up in service to archaic messages that are both systemic and evasive.

He then demonstrated the power of dreams to reveal our complexes that have resulted from our response to the above narratives. He described dreams as coming from an internal corrective process that can help guide us to self understanding.

Some great one liners. Every morning when you awake there are two gremlins at the foot of your bed – fear and lethargy. When in the grip of anxiety try lowering your energy and grounding yourself.

An experiential exercise to check your family story and how it may have impacted you.

Three columns:  Mother                     Father                           Self

Answer the following five questions based on your perception of them when you were a child. Your own answer is based on your sense of yourself now.

1. Define the main source of life satisfaction and happiness.
2. What story did I internalize as their major worry or concern?
3. How did your mother and father perceive their social role or identity?
4. What was their understanding of the transcendent?
5. When they woke in the morning what could their motto or intention have been?

You Snooze, You Lose – stories about intuition.

I am wide awake; the bedside clock says 3.00 am; I feel a little annoyed as I have to be up early anyway to catch a flight; I notice some angst about being deprived of sleep but turn on my back, take a deep breath and begin to practice some mindfulness meditation. “Breathing in I calm body and mind, breathing out I am at peace.” Then akin to a lightening bolt penetrating my brain I know why I am awake; I have set the alarm for the wrong time. I check and sure enough had I not realized I probably would either have missed my flight or been in a major panic attempting – likely both.

So what happened? My conscious self had felt completely content that the alarm had been set for the correct time yet at some other level of consciousness I knew I had miscalculated. Intuition is a fascinating gift that works in mysterious ways. We are all intuitive many of us either lose touch with these faculties or don’t know when to trust them. Carl Jung would suggest that intuition is perception via the unconscious. The Oxford dictionary defines intuition as being able “to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning:” I have found no good scientific explanation but my understanding is that the right hemisphere of our brain has the capacity to process data without us necessarily being aware. However we have to be paying attention to the clues.

A friend of mine woke up last night with a dream that the clocks in her house were wrong. In the dream she was discussing with her father the probability of a power failure when she realized that her clock was battery operated. Then she realized that two of the clocks in the house were wrong but one was right. She felt too sleepy to process the dream and drifted back to sleep only to be awakened by her husband twenty minutes after the alarm should have gone off. In some panic as she had an early morning meeting that she was chairing, she leapt into an alert state wondering how this had happened. Only later did she connect the dream to the fact that she had set the alarm for p.m. not a.m.

One of the keys to working intuitively is to pay attention or we can miss the cues. Fortunately my friend has a husband with a superb intuitive clock. I live alone and have no such luxury to depend on.

During 2012 I am offering an evening each month to “Train Your Intuition”. The first one is next Monday January 23rd. For more details see http://ta44.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/train-your-intuition/

Runes and Simple Decision-making

I love runes as a decision-making aide. They are symbols derived from the Runic alphabet, used by early Norse peoples, the runes have no clear origin as an oracle although the word “rune” derives from the Gothic word “runa,” meaning “mystery.”  Their popularity today stems significantly from the work done by Ralph Blum, who dedicated himself to the re-introduction of this “sacred oracle.”   He suggests that runes assist “training of sacred Intuition – a new way of listening to the inner voice.”

Although runes are not expensive to buy, it is also easy to make your own  by copying the symbols on small pebbles. Recently I made a set for a friend of mine and then wrote an “idiot’s guide” to their meanings when asking simple questions using Ralph Blum as my resource. Check them out below.

Train Your Intuition

Chinese Characters for Intuition

We all possess the capacity to be intuitive but most of us have either forgotten how to access it or feel unsure about when to trust that “niggling feeling”. I believe that when we begin life we are these amazingly creative and intuitive beings and when raised in a loving environment these gifts can develop. However at the age of six or so something terrible happens to us. We go to school where the focus no longer encourages creativity and intuition and we lose something precious. Except it has not been lost forever, it has temporarily become dormant, like a bear it has gone into hibernation. The good news is that we can all learn to reawaken this capacity “to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning:” ( Oxford dictionary definition of intuition)

I plan to offer an evening each month during 2012 to train your intuition. Each evening will last two hours and will offer tools to activate intuitive process. We will work with oracles, meditation, synchronicity, drawing, dreams and many more. If you are interested, contact Trevor Simpson at trevor@decisionclarity.com

First Program last Monday of the month – FULL

Second Program – First session Tuesday Feb 28th

Cost $20.00 each evening

Location: 1938 West 6^th Ave, Vancouver V6J1R7. One block and a half blocks west of Burrard, between Cyprus and Maple.

Items to bring: a pen and a journal

A Story about Intuition

One morning after my presentation on decision-making at Inspire Health, a member of the group approached me to share a story that she thought supported my contention of the amazing intuitive power of children. Her story went like this, “We had parked in a large multi-story parking garage but somewhat foolishly had not carefully noted where we left the car. When we returned from our shopping trip we stood in total confusion with absolutely no ides where to find the vehicle. My husband and I attempted to logically reconstruct our entry into the lot but of course by now hundreds of other vehicle and altered the landscape. Meanwhile my four-year old son was attempting to get my attention. Somewhat irritated I ignored his protestations until his voice broke through my resistance, “but mummy I know where the car is.” We watched with astonishment as with unerring focus he led us to the car. He had intuitively responded like a homing pigeon to the exact spot.

Some Reflections on Steve Jobs

I just finished Walter Isaacson’s compelling biography of Steve Jobs. Undoubtedly a visionary genius yet he seemed a very unresolved human being. From my perspective as a Spiritual Coach he appeared a classic example of someone who explored their spiritual nature but not the psychological dimension. The result is that his spiritual aspirations towards Zen Buddhism do not be appear to be reflected in his day to day life and I can only surmise the dissonance that this must have created at some level of his being. Jung suggests, “When the inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” I have long believed that one of the pitfalls of our age is when people evolve spiritually but don’t explore their psychology or the meaning of their lives.

My work with Inspire Health gave me a lens to consider Jobs’ response to his cancer. It focuses on the patients’ health using an integrated approach that combines nutrition, exercise, emotional and spiritual support with standard cancer treatments. I facilitate a men’s’ support group and my observation has been that two of the fundamental responses that help people through cancer are life change and stress reduction. Every single person in my group has at some time expressed the belief that his cancer was a gift. In fact Isaacson does not mention whether Jobs ever sought meaning in his disease but the suggestion is that he did not.

Although I do not necessarily hold with the concept that all disease represents an underlying metaphysical context or meaning, I am always curious when I get sick to peek into Louise Hays fascinating little book Heal Your Life so I could not resist looking up pancreas and cancer. The pancreas represents the sweetness of life; cancer can be deep hurt, longstanding resentment, secret grief and carrying hatreds; I cannot not help but wonder whether Jobs’ unresolved issues got in the way of the sweetness of his life.

Steve Jobs appears an enigma in so many ways. His profession of Zen Buddhism was all about non- attachment yet his creative and inspirational genius likely created more attachment to “things” than any other person of his time. As I complete these thoughts I find the elegant refrain from Mark 8:36 haunting me, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

The Daily Intention – Another Soulful Gift From My Clients

My practice as a spiritual coach is founded on the principle that each client has the power of discerning their own best course of action, my role is to reflect back their experience and perhaps offer a context that may help to facilitate their journey to soul connection and insight. Recently one of my clients was challenged by the morning monkey mind that greeted him as consistently as the dawn. “My mind becomes an endless, frustrating and at times discouraging to do list.” His solution was blindingly simple and a wonderful insight. Each day he replaces his to do list with a single word or phrase of intention. For example one day it may be “today I am a machine.” He then focuses his attention on that phrase and bypasses the list. The magic occurs as he grinds through the list like a machine without ever thinking about it. Yet another wonderful example of the power of intention and attention at play together.

The Life Jar

I am often gifted by hearing of my client’s soulful practices and although I can’t take credit I do have permission to share.  The Life Jar is one beautiful example. Five years ago my client courageously picked a year for his own death then went out and purchased from a hobby store sufficient white pebbles to represent every week of his life. At the end of every week he performs a ritual to let go of the past seven days. Sometimes it is to let go with relief that the events of the week can be consigned to history and other times his heart is full of gratitude for the magical moments that have transpired. Following his reflection, he tosses one pebble into his pond now lined with stones representing the passages of his life. The beauty of this ritual is not only that it gives special significance to the importance of every week that passes but it is an act of surrender. I think this a wonderful example of honouring our time on this earth walk. And as Rumi so wisely says in his poem the Guest House, “Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”

F*#! You, Strong Letter Follows

It is rarely a good sign when an expletive springs to mind when reading an e-mail from a dear friend. Fortunately I have been working on what James Hollis calls complexes long enough to know that this energetic reaction is not about the current situation but rather a past experience creating a trigger point. Hollis refers to complexes as charged clusters of history and my friend had activated one of my energy clusters; fortunately I recognized it immediately and began the work to calm and understand my own reaction.

I had been planning a treat for her birthday that involved dinner and a ride on the Stanley Park Christmas train. We were as excited as two kids going to see Santa as neither of us had done it before. She had one request that we were flexible about dates as she did not want to go in the perpetual rain, a feature of Vancouver winters. We compared calendars and chose a few dates that would work and I promised to keep an eye on the weather forecast. Fortunately I could buy tickets on the day if I went down to Stanley Park at noon. The first date was December 2nd so yesterday I checked the long term forecast and eureka! they were forecasting a clear cool few days. Eagerly I dashed off an e-mail to give her the good news.

The response was not quite what I expected. “I goofed up!  I’m so sorry. Another friend was looking for a time to celebrate my birthday and I tried a few times that didn’t work for her and forgot that Dec. 2 was one of the times I suggested for the train and I booked dinner with her.” The first response was energetic, my body seemed to flush with heat, always a sure sign a complex has been triggered. Then I noticed my reaction was a desire to cancel the whole thing. Fortunately I knew immediately that an old wound had been triggered so rather than respond I began my own inquiry into my hurt feelings. I recognized one part of this experience was related to the child who felt he was the second choice, the one who got excluded, then I tapped into a reason why this felt so significant. I had put myself out trying to make something nice happen for someone else and felt let down. I spent some time staying with the feelings of hurt, acknowledging the child’s woundedness and consoling that part of myself. I like to give the child an imagined hug because from the child’s point of view the desire to strike back is often all we can think of when we feel disempowered. As the adult I can finds a different way. I asked the child was there something unresolved. the question came back, “why did she tell you she had goofed rather than the other person when she had made the arrangement with you first?” The adult witness was unable to answer the question so I wondered whether I needed to have this discussion with my friend.

I drew a rune for guidance and got Protection. I use Ralph Blum’s insightful interpretations and this one was right on the mark. “Control of the emotions is at issue here….Algiz serves as the mirror for the Spiritual Warrior, the one whose battle is always with the self…. Remain mindful that timely right action and correct conduct are your only true protection. if you find yourself feeling pain, observe the pain and stay with it. Do not try and pull down the veil and escape from life by denying what is happening. You will progress; knowing that fact is your protection.”

It seemed so perfect. I know my friend will appreciate a dialogue around my inner child’s reaction. I suspect that much of my life I did “pull down the veil” and as a result developed this cluster of history. I think I also became extremely selfish in part as a protection from getting hurt. Bringing our old wounds into the light and acknowledging them, helps heal them and free up our life energy. As my teacher Atum O’Kane once said, it is not that we lose the wounds but the ability for them to hurt diminishes. The energy of the cluster begins to discharge.