Copy
MBCT 
View this email in your browser
I was not able to send out a group email this week and am about to send out info about our next visit to Amaravati monastery, which I had hoped to do today but time is against me.  Here is an email I sent out a while ago, but which seems relevant given some of th eocnversations I've had recently. I hope you find it of interest. 
 

I've recently been reading Teal Swans book "Shadows Before Dawn" which is a discussion on how to love oneself fully. She gives a number of suggestions for ways to open to loving oneself more deeply and I recommend the book. It's not about how to fix yourself so that you may love yourself at some point in the future, but how to learn to love yourself in the present moment. I was interested in seeing what podcasts she has available and on looking I found this one.  I'm including the transcript below and a link to the podcast so you can hear her talk. She speaks eloquently about the need to love ourselves deeply and to open to the full bliss that is there when you let go into the experience of intimacy. She is an inspiring teacher, all the more because of her own battle with a childhood destroyed through sexual abuse and constant fear. She has had to learn a hard lesson - how to love herself fully and all of her self when so much happened to make her fear her sexual energy and mistrust anyone who wanted to be intimate with her.  She had to come through numerous attempts of suicide, years of self harm and self-hatred to finally be free. As such she is a powerful teacher as she shares what she has had to explore to learn once more to love herself, and let herself be open to being loved by another. 

I hope you enjoy the reflections below and they help you connect more deeply with your own heart's love for yourself and through this help you open to the bliss of Being. You may not agree with all she says or her way of phrasing it, and that's the point of listening to a teacher and reflecting on what they say - feeling what resonates as true in your experience, questioning what does not and seeing if there is anything to learn from that or if it is simply a case of allowing them to have their perspective and choosing to stay with one's own truth. 

 


Interview with Teal Swan on Love, Attraction and Porn 

To listen to pod cast click here. Transcript below.
 

What do you see as attraction? What is attraction to you Teal Swan?

Teal Swan: To me, it means that on an energetic level, on a vibrational level, you are a match to someone, and because you are a match to that person, meaning you vibrate at similar frequencies, the universe pulls you together. And that’s experienced in the body as those chemical rushes that we associate so often with love and romance… that sort of magnetic pull we feel between two partners.

And, on a universal level, your higher self, your soul is interested in your expansion. Obviously if you’re lined up with your vibrational match, a mirroring takes place and through that mirroring, learning takes place. You will always find yourself attracted to… drawn together with a vibrational match to that mirror, which will serve as a platform for you to understand where you are currently and what you would like to change about where you are. So that gives rise to more desire.

Where you are currently in respect to what? Love?

Teal Swan: Where you are with many things. Love being first and foremost among them. For example, let’s say that you have self-worth issues: the person whom you’re going to be attracted to most likely will exacerbate those self worth-issues. This is the story nobody wants to hear about vibrational matches, and about attraction in general, that you will be drawn together with the person who serves your expansion. That means, if you need to expand in terms of self-love, then the mate you find is going to push you squarely into that necessity.

It’s as if love is designed to show you whatever love is not. Would you agree with that?

Teal Swan: I would very much so agree. It’s like love transforms and flushes to the surface everything unlike itself. Which is why it is the most amazing vibration as far as human expansion and development is concerned.

And so, how do we go about creating better vibrational matches for ourselves? Is it about diving deeper into our shadows?

Teal Swan: I think diving deep into our shadows would be one aspect of it. If you want to sum up in one word what will make you line up with an enjoyable partner, it’s self-acceptance.  And I am talking radical self-acceptance. When I say acceptance, I don’t mean resignation, because when most people hear the word acceptance, that’s what they feel. We associate acceptance with resigning to the fact that something is the way it is, and that is that sort of the sidestep, the fact that you are creating your own reality. So, what I mean by acceptance is approval.

And how do you do that?

That means find everything you hate about yourself and find the way to find approval for it. One of the best ways to do this, (and you see this is what will happen), the more in approval of yourself you are, the more the partner you are attracting into your reality will find approval for you. And that’s really what we enjoy. That approval is pure positive focus; pure positive focus is the same vibration as love. So, love from another person is going to come as a result of you finding a way to completely approve of yourself exactly the way that you are. So, one of the best ways to go about doing this is to figure out every day (as it’s really overwhelming to do it all at once), every day you wake up and pick one thing you don’t accept about yourself, something you are majorly in resistance to. Like maybe I feel like I’m irrational, and you write that word down, “I’m irrational” and then you find every item of proof that makes you feel good about the fact you are irrational. And it works, really quickly.

It’s about you connecting to the love that you are within yourself, self-acceptance is the best way of accept your shadow, do you think?

Teal Swan: And so your partner will. This is the key part, if you want a loving relationship; you have to come to a place to approve these things. Otherwise, you’re going to attract a mate who hates it also. So if I’m in resistance to the fact that I’m irrational, I will end up being involved with a guy who turns to me and the says, “I just can’t stand how irrational you are, could you just think logically for 10 seconds, this is ridiculous, Teal!” Whereas when I’m in approval of my own irrational behavior, then I’m most likely to meet a guy who says, “Never change. I really need someone in my life who is this spontaneous.”

So it’s not about finding everything wrong with you and then trying to change everything about yourself… It’s about self-acceptance?

Teal Swan: Yes. Because I mean, why should we? It’s one thing if we want to change something, then we can always change something, but in and of itself that’s a flawed message – that I need to change in some way to find love. Talk about a messed up message to send yourself, talk about a messed up message to send to the world. What we all want, what we all didn’t get as children, is a person in our lives who said “I love you exactly the way you are in this minute, you don’t have to change one thing”. Honestly, you’re not in love until you find that person who you feel like that about. See, we have the tendency to fall in love with the potential – potential for somebody to be different than what they are and who they are, and that is the opposite of love. Love says you don’t need to change. Love says that if you stay this way for the rest of our lives, I still want to be with you. That’s exactly what we want, a partner who feels like that, so we have to start cultivating that in ourselves, and we can’t do that unless we’re willing to find approval for the things that we’ve been trying to change, and that’s sort of the problem. Most of the people who want to find out how to get a perfect relationship are self-help nerds, self-help nerds are all about changing their selves, and therefore they are self-haters.

I agree. And that’s a beautiful message. How important is channeling your sexual power and how do you use it in a healthy way for it to be a catalyst to your spiritual growth? Because I think, for me personally, in my experience, it’s a key thing to help facilitate your spiritual growth. What one night of sex can do, one night of connected loving, spiritually enlightened sex, I haven’t been in a cave for ten years meditating, but it could be as enlightening. What are your thoughts?

Teal Swan: Well, anyone who’s looking at sex in its purest light understands that sex is basically the purest expression we have on this planet as source energy itself. It is the unification of polarity, so being a unification of polarity, what you are actually finding is that it brings you into alignment with oneness more so than anything else you can do. So, it’s a bit of an understatement, to say that it can do for you (in alignment sex) what meditating in a cave for 10 years can do, it’s no joke. And my answer always is “the more shadow involved, the more we should be exploring it and looking at it”. Because we are fundamentally in resistance, because of the fact that we live with these separate identities (these egos), we’re fundamentally in resistance to our own nature.

So, obviously if we’re in resistance to our own nature and part of our own nature and natural expression of our love is sex, we would be in resistance to sex, but sex itself is not the issue, it’s the thoughts that we have around those things. It’s really the thoughts themselves that need to be looked at and done shadow work on. What you’ll find is that physical sex is just a symptom of a mental alignment, so when I am focusing in is purely positively towards this thing, be it another person or whatever, my natural inclination will be to combine myself, merge myself on a physical level, because that’s the physical expression of that love. So, sex is the most natural, spiritual expression of that type of positive focus, it’s a desire to line up with my own nature, which is that of oneness.

So, if I am thinking positive thoughts (about sex) on a daily basis, then that natural expression will be healthy. 

This is a good way to say it… sexual expression is a direct reflection of our attitudes towards love in general. So, if you are raised in a super healthy upbringing around human connection, which is satisfying to you, then it will never occur to you to use sex as a modality of harm. That literally doesn’t occur unless your attitude towards love and human connection (in general) is corrupted or severed in some way.

So, why all we focusing so incessantly on trying to fix people's sexualities, when really, sex is what comes more naturally? If we are getting out of the way of that natural expression of love and sex, by virtue of dealing with the issues that are created in the first place, always through our connection with our parents, our connection with our primary care givers, that’s what really sets us up.

So it’s the way we’ve been nurtured around sex that has made our realities the way they are now?

Teal Swan: Yeah, so this is going about the hard way. I’ll just tell a personal story, do you want a personal story?

Sure.

Teal Swan:  Okay. So, in my childhood, obviously, if anybody’s been following my whole childhood, you’ll know about all the sexual abuse that went on. I had this tendency during sex to disappear mentally. I can’t participate unless I’m in a mental landscape, which is not in the room. So it’s like I’m having a fantasy separate of the person I’m with, and that is a barrier to connection. So, if I sat there for a long time and focused on trying to be in the room, and taking action in that way, I noticed that it never worked at all, so part of me was thinking, “I’m never going to ever be with a person who makes it so that I feel safe enough to be in the room when I’m having sex. And that was sort of my life. So, what I started really attacking was my issues with human connection, my issues with self-approval, and I ended up lining up with a partner whom, for the first time in my life, I could immediately have that sexual expression with, I wasn’t leaving the room. It freaked me out, because I was like, wait a minute, I’ve done this for years and years, and suddenly I don’t feel the need to leave the room, in fact that  was the first time I’ve been present for sex.

So, what I’m getting to is that it wasn’t about any practice I had that related to the actual sex act, it was about the fact that I started to purify my self-trust, which is what really did it. I started to really trust myself and trust the fact that I had my own best interests at heart, and I would make the decisions that I needed to make based on how I felt. Once my body knew that it could trust me in that way, then when I chose a partner, it trusted me with the partner.

So, it was nothing in particular about him, it was all about you?

Teal Swan: Well, it was about both, because what happened is that I made it about me, but that made me a vibrational match to a partner who could meet me on that level.

I understand. 

Teal Swan: It’s a bit hard in the law of attraction universe to separate out all of the variables, because they all coalesce, because they’re all part of the vibrational match.

Interesting. And how might we use sex and connection for facilitating your spiritual growth, how might that be done? 

Teal Swan: I feel like in and of that question is the flawed premise that it isn’t done in and of itself when you’re in the middle of the act of sex. I feel like sex in general does it on its own, so it’s not like we need to do something different when you’re having sex with someone, I mean we run into barrier issues like our issue to, maybe, intimacy, in which case if we see that coming up, then we just work on what we’re afraid of.

Perhaps a better question to phrase it is taking the sex act away from it. That’s out of the question. How do you use your sexual energy that you feel when you wake up every morning to captivate more rounded and spiritual life without even having sex, say you are celibate for the rest of your life… 

Teal Swan: That would be sad.

Yeah, it might be… but it’s possible to be celibate and still use your sexual energy for manifestation and growth, expansion, soul expansion. Do you practice that on a daily basis, do you use that as part of your life, using your life force energy like that?

Teal Swan: I have too much sexual energy for most people, so I don’t really differentiate between sexual energy and just my energy in general. I suppose that the answer would be yes, but I don’t intentionally do it. I have worked with clients before, doing Kundalini work, where you feel that life force; that turned on vibe that you get. You basically breathe it up into your body. It usually starts in the sacral area, so you just breathe it into the rest of your body, especially your hands, and then you do whatever action comes to you most naturally, whether it’s paint a painting, or make a phone call, whatever, and obviously it’s going to backed by a lot more energy.

I think this is the most powerful type of energy, and it doesn’t mean you have to use it for sex all the time, but is the most powerful source of energy for running your life and manifesting what you want. And being a leader and doing what you do in your life, it’s a great thing.

Teal Swan: Oh yeah. Sexual energy is not differentiated easily from the ability to bring the truth and the totality of who you are to the surface. It’s really the opposite of how most people are living. Most people are trying to fit into society by virtue of toning themselves down. To use your sexual energy is the exact opposite of that… it’s to literally throw yourself into the world. I mean, it’s to become an exhibitionist in many ways, on an energetic level, if not a physical level.

And would you agree society (well, I think most people would agree) and religion have suppressed sexuality, as many people knew the power of sexual energy? And now, although we have so much sex on display, it’s the wrong kind of sex. 

Teal Swan: I like to say it’s mutual masturbation. What they have on screen is not sex. It’s literally just a corrupted byproduct of what these people want us to believe that sex is. But actually, the way that they portray it inhibits intimacy and actually inhibits everything that sexuality was designed to create.

For example, in the mainstream media you have women who are ‘photoshopped’, and this creates self-body-image issues, issues around sex… And when it comes to men, boys will become addicted to porn from the age of 12, 13, maybe even earlier, and in porn the camera is often solely focused the guy’s genitals: no emotion, no connection, nothing else. So boys, from a young age, will associate themselves with just the genitals and nothing else. That’s perpetuating a whole host of problems throughout society. 

Teal Swan: Enormously, and it’s a major problem as well, because when you set up that neural pathway which men are doing, when men watch porn and they are masturbating, what they are doing is they’re creating a neural pathway that links sex and intimacy with what they’re watching on the screen. So, essentially they are setting themselves up for that to be the only way that they can reach climax, and climax is the moment in which you merge with your source aspect, it’s the dissolving of the ego, that’s why it’s so incredibly amazing and such a spiritual experience. The ego is essentially dissolved, and you are back in your basic essence, which is unified with all that is, and you can’t do that if you are continually linking your orgasms to with what you are watching on a porn screen.

Yeah. If you’re thirteen years old and if you’re listening, you need to turn off porn now. 

Teal Swan: And it’s not what women like either. Like, the sad part about little boys watching those types of porn films is that it does not actually represent what women (or men) like in sex at all. And so they get with their partners, and they think that’s what women (or men) want when they have sex, and it’s not. So they feel inadequate, and that leads to a whole host of relationship issues, just because we’ve never taught men how to be men in a sexual relationship with women (or another man), we’ve taught them how to use women/men, and we’ve hired porn stars to act like they like it.

Guided meditations - your toolbox:

Sounds and thought meditation (this was the new meditation introduced at yesterdays session as a way in to just sitting/ choiceless awareness)



Body scan meditation



Being with difficulty meditation

Mark Williams version of Being with Difficulty meditation

Extended breathing space meditation (includes being with difficulty)



Loving Kindness
 
Course notes

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7
Retreat venues:

Now you have more experience of meditation you may like to find somewhere to go for a retreat.  Going away for a weekend or longer gives a great opportunity to sit with your experience and explore what is there in the present moment! The following are the main retreat centres I know of but there may be others if you search around.

Amaravati the monastery I lived in, based in Hertfordshire, a short journey from Euston. You can go for a day trip or write to the guest monk or nun to arrange to stay for a few days.  There are also under retreats run at the monastery. (Buddhist)

Gia House, a retreat centre in Devon. (secular)
Sharpham, a retreat centre in Devon.(secular)
Samye Ling, a Tibetan monastery and retreat centre in Scotland (Buddhist)
Plum Village, a monastic community and retreat centre in France. (Buddhist)


 
Apps to assist with mindfulness
 
Calm: gives a free seven day introduction to mindfulness practice. It also offeres a choice of timers to help you establish your own practice, starting at 1 minute then going to 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes or more.  It's very useful to establish a regular daily practice and starting with one minute might be a way of introducing it to a busy schedule.  You can sit for a minute and then return to what you were doing or if you have time let the meditation continue for as long as feels comfortable without worrying about setting a specific time limit on it. There is also an option to pay a monthly subscription and open up other guided meditations.
 
Click here for iPhone or Android

Pause: Based on the ancient principles of Tai Chi and mindfulness practice, PAUSE brings the act of focused attention to your mobile device. Using a patent-pending technique and a unique approach to modern technology, you can easily start the journey to relaxation – anywhere and anytime. By slowly and continuously moving your fingertip across the screen, PAUSE triggers the body’s ‘rest and digest’ response, quickly helping you regain focus and release stress within minutes. The calming audiovisual feedback in the app is designed to help you keep your attention and focus in the present moment. £1.49

Click here for iPhone (not currently available on 
Android)

Mindfulness Daily:
 Being mindful is often out of reach when we need it most. Mindfulness Daily helps you build a practice with just a few minutes sprinkled throughout your busy day.

Click here for website
 
Headspace: this very popular app offers a free guide to learning mindfulness in daily 10 minute tutorials over 7 days, and thereafter a monthly subscription to open up other options. 
 
Click here for iPhone or Andriod
 
 
Buddhify: offers a range of guided meditations depending on your activity or emotional state. This is not a free app but requires an initial one off purchase after which all of the guided meditations are available to listen to.  It's beautifully designed and gives options such as 'work break', 'feeling stressed', 'parks and nature' etc.
 
Click here for iPhone or Android
 
 
Mindfulness bell: when turned on this app will ring a bell at random intervals during the day, reminding you to stop and take a few breaths.
 
iPhone - Lotus Bud
Android - Mindfulness Bell
 

Mindfulness Daily AppMindfulness Daily helps you build a practice with just a few minutes sprinkled throughout your busy day. A great way to establish a practice as it gives you reminders in th morning, midday and evening to take a short break and breathe!
iTunes
Android

 
 
Insight Timer: This app is useful if you want to set a timer for your meditation sessions.  There are also some free guided meditations by world renowned meditation teachers. 
 
Android

Happier: record your happy moments! an app for supporting a daily gratitude practice.

Click here for iPhone or Android 

Yoga tuition
iPhone  Yoga Studio includes 65 ready-made classes. Choose your level (beginner, intermediate or advanced), duration (15, 30 or 60 minutes) and focus (strength, flexibility, relaxation, balance or combination) to find the perfect class for you. 

Android Daily Yoga is a yoga coaching app suitable for all levels, beginners, intermediate and advanced, providing more than 50 HD yoga exercises and the largest database of 500 yoga poses, HD VIDEOS, live voice guide, soothing music, social community, and more. 
 
 
Alarm clock: Finally, this is a useful app to use if timing yourself as it converts your screen into a large digital clock ( on iPhone you'll need to go into phone settings, then select general, and then select auto-lock and set it to 'never' or the screen will turn off. You can then do the same process and reset it to turn off after 2 minutes or however long you wish to set it for. I'm not sure how other 'phones work but it will be a similar process to turn off the screen lock)
 
Click here to view the book of the month and browse through the collection of books on mindfulness, wellbeing and Buddhism.
Mindfulness Classes every Monday in Central London

Friends Meeting House, 8 Hop Gardens (off St Martins Lane)



Nearest tube: Leicester Square or Charring Cross


Drop in Class: 6.15 - 7.20 pm   £8

Gay and bi men's group 7.30 - 9.30 pm £10

 
Copyright © 2016 Evolving Minds, All rights reserved.