Friday, April 29, 2011

Ten Minute Spiritual Challenge

There are many things that are important in a healthy couple relationship: communication, healing the past, respect, appreciation, gratitude, sexuality, co-operation, compromise, having fun together, and the list goes on. But the most important is allowing for spiritual time when two people can connect soul to soul and heart to heart. This type of connection is the deepest and most fulfilling for two people, for it allows the inner spiritual being to be felt by the other. By “spiritual” we don't necessarily mean “religious,” but rather a conscious recognition of something (an energy or love) bigger than your bodies, egos, and personalities.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Living With Passion and Enthusiasm

Our golden retriever Charley has taught us a lot about life. When he was a younger dog we would take him for long walks along the beach. He assumed that each person on the beach would like nothing more than to give him a pet. He would run up to people, sit down politely and wag his tail. Most people took his friendliness good naturedly. When people resisted him he would sit patiently in front of them wagging his tail and just looking them in the eye. His unconditional love and patience for all of humanity soon won over even the most dog resistant person and he would receive the longed for pet and then run on his way to the next person. In Charley’s world there was no room for rejection. He assumed that with enough love (and time), the person would come around and they did. Whenever my fear of rejection blocks my passion and enthusiasm, I think of Charley and his dauntless spirit. I never saw him give up on anyone.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Healing Our Relationship With Our Parents

Many years ago, Joyce and I learned how important it was to heal our relationship with our parents, to especially confront the memories and experiences of our childhood and adolescence, and then open communication with them. If we don’t do this, we place at risk every relationship we currently have. Unresolved issues with our parents have a sneaky way of invading especially our close relationships.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Our Healing Hands

Our hands can be used as beautiful instruments of healing and we do not necessarily need to be specially trained. All we need is love in our hearts and a belief that healing is possible.

When our daughter Rami was five years old I was teaching her about the healing energy that can come through our hands. We practiced on teddy bears and dolls. When she was five and a half years old her sister was born and my mother came to help me. Grandma got sick with bronchitis and fever. This went on for over a week, and antibiotics did not seem to be helping. One day, while she was sleeping, Rami slipped quietly into her room. She placed her small hands on Grandma’s chest and concentrated on sending healing energy to her. My mother woke up and said it felt as if an angel were touching and healing her. Several hours later her fever broke for the first time, and by the next day she was beginning to feel better. Was it a coincidence that she started to get better right away after Rami’s “healing session?” Perhaps it was, but we like to feel that Rami’s innocent gesture of pouring her love and energy through her hands to Grandma opened a door of healing.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Nice...Or Really Loving?

At a recent workshop, a participant I will call Warner asked for more and more attention from Joyce and me. We’d spend time helping him, and pretty soon he’d be asking for more help without his ever acknowledging our efforts. He wasn’t content with only asking during the workshop sessions. He would find us even during breaks and insist that we spend private time with him. He was irritating us both, yet we kept trying to be compassionate. 

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A Blue Ribbon for Love

We have a delightful family hobby of raising golden retriever puppies once a year. We’ve owned and loved goldens for 35 years and are dedicated to bringing only the highest quality dogs into the world. The entire family comes together for this project, and we have so much fun with the puppies, raising them with as much love as we can. As part of this hobby, we march in our town’s parade each July 4. We invite as many of our former puppies and their owners as possible to come and march with us. This is definitely a small town parade, with children on bikes, antique cars, local bands, dancing troupes, and seven or eight dog groups. Although blue ribbons are given for the best entries, we are totally unattached to winning. 

Monday, April 11, 2011

Do You Feel Responsible For Other People's Happiness

One July, Joyce and I were sitting on a sandy beach of the Klamath River with a group of participants during the first morning meditation of our annual white water adventure. Joyce asked each of us to reflect on what we most wanted from the 5-day trip. Even though we are the leaders/facilitators, it is still important to both of us to fully and vulnerably participate. When it was my turn to share, I told the group how it gives me great joy to share the river with others, to witness each person as they open their heart and quiet their mind amidst the surrounding beauty, and find their own joy in this amazing natural playground. Then I humbled myself and revealed the other side of this process, the part of me that gets caught in feeling responsible for other people’s happiness. I admitted to an unconscious attitude that it’s especially up to me for people to enjoy themselves. Charley Thweatt, at our summer renewal retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs, sometimes sings the following line when the children are present, “Who decides if I have a good time?” Then everyone loudly sings, “I do, I do.” In my heart I understand this quite well, but there remains an unconscious part of my soul that still occasionally sings, “Who decides if you have a good time? I do, I do!”


Sunday, April 10, 2011

Receiving Love From Our Parents

As my precious mother was in the last months or years of her life, I found myself reflecting on our relationship together. I find great comfort in knowing that I have truly given to her from my heart. I also feel comfort in knowing that I have received the love that she has for me. As I look into her almost 90 year old wrinkled face, I can feel the connection that runs into the depths of my soul. I love my mother totally and completely, but this love has not been a condition of her being a perfect mother. My mother has made mistakes, some of which have hurt me very much. And I am sure that I have made mistakes that have hurt her, but we have a non-spoken agreement that we will just keep on loving one another, despite our imperfections.


Thursday, April 7, 2011

Why Do We Settle In Our Relationships?

Phillip was forty-five years old and dating a wonderful woman, Beatrice, who adored him. Yet he was unhappy. He blamed himself for lacking enough gratitude for his relationship with Beatrice. He blamed himself for not feeling sexually attracted to her, even though he considered her beautiful. He blamed himself for the almost continuous and nagging feeling that they were not right for each other, even though they got along well and felt comfortable with each other. He revealed perhaps most of all when he said, “I’m afraid this will be my last chance at relationship, that there will be no one else for me.” 

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Swallowing Divine Guidance

Each day our heart gives us pure and simple guidance to live our lives in fulfillment and peace. It is our human nature to either ignore this guidance altogether, listen to it and then decide that our mind knows better, or else take the risk to listen and follow it. It is such a mystery as to why we choose to ignore this flow of wisdom within us, and yet we all do. Perhaps if we truly knew that this wisdom comes from a very loving place and is meant to bless our lives we would listen more often and carefully. This truth was brought home to me a few days ago.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Free Hugs

Early one December, some friends emailed Joyce and me a link to a video clip called “Free Hugs.” It begins with a young man standing on a busy sidewalk in Sydney, Australia, holding a sign reading, “free hugs.” People are awkwardly walking past him, some averting their eyes, some looking obviously embarrassed, some declining with forced smiles. Finally an elderly women walks up to him for a hug. He towers above her so he drops to his knees for the embrace. He says something to her and she tenderly places a hand on his face. A momentum of love seems to be building. More and more people stop for hugs, some staying with the man to help give out hugs.

Sitting there at my computer with tears in my eyes, I felt a powerful desire to do the same thing as this young man. I admired his courage to stand there with his sign, continually pushing past his fears of rejection.


Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Greatest Adventure of All

The following is an excerpt from our newest book, “A Mother’s Final Gift: How One Woman’s Courageous Dying Transformed Her Family.”

Three weeks before she passed from this world, my ninety-year-old mother, Louise Viola Swanson Wollenberg, began what she called her “greatest adventure of all.” It all started thirty-three years ago.