Lisa Dahlgren
Forum Replies Created
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Hi David,
I am sorry we haven’t met yet, and I am not sure how much of the class call I will be able to do this week, so may not even meet you then. But I wanted to respond to your question about the vision council and observing someone else’s council. I think that I am understanding you to say that it seems one question you have is if you should know what the person’s vision is or who is in their council as a way to be open to sensing their vision council. I don’t really know how it will be for you of course, but I am happy to share with you my experience, because I am now doing this a lot. I was never good at sensing individual voices or sense of individual energy around me when I first tried to feel my vision council. When I took my own vision council as a more combined sensation of support and connection to a bigger vision, then I started to feel it around me. I then was able to use the same “reasoning”, so to speak, as I sat with other people. When I just assume they have a vision council that surrounds them and their council is also connected to the same bigger vision as my own vision council, I then can sense into them having a vision council. To me it seems that it is the connection to the bigger vision that makes it so that I sense into this. I hope me saying what I have is helpful for you. And I would be delighted to hear more of your thoughts on this and on any part of your journey about this question as you continue exploring. -
Summary post.
This module has been very helpful for me in many ways. I feel that I am beginning to be more open to what nature connection is. I have needed to greatly widen my container for what I thought it was, and that has been a great sensation as some judgments on myself and others entirely slip away when I do that. I find I am less frustrated with myself as I allow for more variety in experiences happening around me. I have had a meditation practice for years and so that has been a foundation piece for me for a fairly long time. I also spend at least an hour a day in the woods and what is left of the wilderness near my home. So the routine of the sit spot and using surround awareness is not new to me and only needed some tweaking to be doing it on a consistent basis. I am slacking off a little bit now and going back to my meditation instead of surround awareness. Partly because I miss the meditation and partly because now that it feels I am less in a “discovery” mode of surround awareness I am getting lazy about doing it and slipping back into my older traditions.
The most wonderful thing for me with this module has been the vision council. I started out feeling I had none, and old feelings of not being good enough and not being supported enough were all triggered with the sensations that I had no one on my vision council. I was so glad when Michael reassured us that we all have one and that it sometimes just takes turning up the dial, so to speak, on sensing them. So I really stuck with turning up the dial and now feel very solid with my vision council. I don’t sense individuals in it, and so that again had me thinking that I don’t have a vision council. But then as you guy kept talking about your own experience with vision council I realized that I am experiencing it, even when it isn’t individual voices. I have now placed a token on the bookshelf behind where my clients usually sit that reminds me to be with my vision council and to allow myself to open to the vision council of my clients during our sessions. It is amazing to me that as I do that I experience myself, my work, and my clients in such a different way. I feel a shift in my baseline and a more open awareness. It is almost as if I can feel the support of generations in the room with us, and my clients even start to look different to me. My heart seems to “know” them like they are a family member.
It has been a great first module and I am so glad to have you all as my cohorts. Like Sandy mentioned, it is just so great that we are all so different but all in the same space of learning, growing, and creating for us and for our community. Thank you all! -
Hello again, everyone. I thought I would be able to join you all for Session 5, but now I realize I will only be able to be there at the beginning of our time. Still, I look forward to being on the call live for at least a little while.
I really like parts work, and am lucky enough to have been doing it for quite some time. I haven’t done the mandala on a daily basis. I only do it when I am faced with parts that have tension or seem to be in tension with other parts. But doing the mandala helps to bring me into the meta position and open inner space for contemplation, and lovingkindness.
When I do the chair work of Soul to Part I find it surprising some times what my part(s) indicate to me. I might start out thinking that a part will tell me about some certain aspect of myself. But if I am patient and just interested in the part, and ask it questions that evoke more about it’s own felt experience, it tells me more than what I “think” it will. Lately, I have been working with several parts of me that seem to not want me to feel a vision, or sense of purpose. They bring into my awareness a sense of not being good enough, and helplessness, discouragement, and feeling as if I do not have enough skills. I can logic my way around those parts, but prefer to not do that right now. These parts remind me of the little discussion I thought I heard on the last recorded call, about parts that seem to not work in the service of the system. These parts of mine seem on the surface to not work in the service of my system because so many of my parts like vision and moving with vision, and the parts that are uncomfortable with vision can squash my feeling of vision and purpose. I do not fully understand these parts of mine yet, but I have learned through the chair work that they have more needs than other parts of me fully appreciated. I have also learned that there are very good reasons for these parts to not be on-board with me experiencing a sense of vision. And the upshot of their reasons are very much in line with them working in service of the system.
Vision council is something that I really enjoy and want to practice even more. I so enjoy the sense of being supported by a vision council, and really enjoy the sensations I have when I am working with a client and pay attention to my sense of my own vision council and hold in awareness the sense of their vision council. For me, things really change a lot when I do that. For one thing I really notice my breathing changes. It slows down. The next thing I notice is that I feel so much less hurried-maybe that is being more present. Then I feel a sense of softness inside me. When I look at the other person they actually look different to me. I seem to notice a few more details or notice them in a different way. I feel as if I also get a sense of their life time-line, a sort of deeper awareness of them coming from a long line of their ancestors that connect me to them in a personal way. Kind of like suddenly realizing they are my long-lost cousin or something like that. My desire is to stay with vision council 24/7.
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Hi everyone, I am very glad that I will be able to join the call-in this coming wed. Everyone’s post has been so delightful for me to read. I really appreciate all of you, and all your insights and information. Thanks to every one of you, and I hope to see you all on Wed.
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Hello Sheri and Tamara,
I am late in joining the class, but just got up to speed this weekend (well, mostly. I haven’t done ALL the reading yet) and hopefully will be joining in at least for part of the time during the next call. I have really enjoyed all that Michael has presented. The part work is not new to me, I have been studying and using a part work model called IFS for about 7 years. I find it an amazing way to help myself and to help clients. It just seems so authentic.
This time of year it can be hard for me to stick to the things I want to put into my daily life regarding self improvement. Every time I turn around it seems like there is another challenge to what I was planning to do for myself. Whether it is because of a 33 degree drizziling rain to hamper my getting to my sit spot, or cloudy days triggering a sense of wanting to hibernate, or just the general sense of everything being harder when one has to put on and take off so many clothes to just go outside comfortably, it is just so easy to say “ah, heck with it.” Today we had a sunny sky, however, and that has really helped.
You both talk about the coaching you receive and I am hoping to start that sometime in the next few weeks. I have never done coaching and so wonder what it will be like. From what I am reading that the two of you have mentioned, it sounds like it can be very helpful.
I hope that I will be able to “meet” you this coming Thursday. I am looking forward to doing at least part of the class in “real time”, rather than needing to just review the video.
Take care.
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Hi again, I have continued to think about programming and intentions and parts-work. It is continuing to swirl around without really landing yet. Just needs a few more rounds of my 600 questions. But I have been taking time to be with my vision council. For awhile it seemed as if I was able to feel the vision council, and I really liked it, because at first I felt like I didn’t have a vision council. For some reason when I did feel the vision council it seemed to help me relax and feel confident, or whole. I also felt a certain sense of softening inside of me at those times. And much more a sense that I was in each moment rather than in a state of waiting for the next moment. When I added those sensations with remembering that each person I was watching, was with, or was thinking about, also had a vision council around them, it really felt powerful and connecting. Like I had less of a screen up between myself and the other person. I saw them differently-I mean they even looked a little different, it was that noticeable.
Over the last week, despite me taking time to be with my vision council, it has gone back to feeling as if I have no vision council. Once again, it just feels empty when I focus on it. I imagine it is possible a part is coming up that steps in between the vision council and my felt sense of it being there, but I do not feel a specific sensation of a part doing that.
So I have gone back and listened to the audio recording toward the end of this session, once again, to see if anything there would be of assistance. Michael said something like doing the programming “as a leader” and for some reason those three words really resonated for me (perhaps I was programming them already?). The resonating did not produce images or words, but it certainly happened. So I am going to use some of my meditating time to bring focused awareness on that resonation-even as I write that I feel the resonance within me. So I am thinking that meditation will be interesting and potentially enlightening.
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It has been wonderful experimenting with all of these things. There is so much to try, I am really just “sampling” it all.
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Hello tgvance, jenna, ivy, and Angelina, I got to do the Foundations intensive a few weeks ago and it was great. We did all the awarenesses and more. I try to do them several times a week but I am so used to doing my typical meditations that it is hard to put in these new ones. I like them when I do them. I would like to work toward being in the state of complete awareness all through my day. That seems like it is a place I will never reach, but I like the thought of doing it. I hope you all are doing well, where ever you are physically, personally, and on your journey with EBI. Take care.
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I am lucky to have had the chance to hear about parts and part work for about 7 years, and use it a lot with my clients. Moving to a place of lovingkindness toward parts, and/or having the inner judgers that we all carry move back so that parts can freely tell their story, their needs, and their burdens, has been a big part of what I help clients do. I enjoyed hearing Michael talk about the inner board room of parts. I do that all the time, internally asking parts to come to the table and noticing where they want to sit at the table. Some want to be close to me and some farther away. Some won’t sit next to other parts and some are too scared to come to the table because they have been bullied or frightened by other parts. I find a lot of time our parts don’t even know they are parts until we gently point it out to them. So some of our parts think they are the only ones in there and think they are the one who is controlling the whole system!
If you haven’t seen the movie, “Inside Out”, it might be fun to do. It is a movie all about parts.
So here is a question I have been having; when we set an intention are we setting an intention regarding vision, or regarding dream? Sometimes when people talk to me about the book, “The Secret”, or other things in which they feel they should set an intention, it seems to me they are building the intention around the dream. I hear things like, “Easily clear a path for new clients to come to me”, or, “Opening a new store”. I was thinking setting an intention would be for the vision and expressing the vision. So it would be more like, “seeing possibilities for expansion”. Michael used the example of being thirsty and getting a glass of water. Thirsty was the intention and so it had no form. Was getting the glass of water the dream? I am just playing around with these ideas and so if anyone wants to comment that would be great.
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Hi Nadine,
I am so glad to think that you will be doing the NCC portion of EBI. I just completed the Foundations Intensive at the beginning of Feb. and really enjoyed it. Like you said, it seems to be things we can take into a business if we want, into our live vision, or into creating a life we love on a daily moment-to-moment basis. Let me know if you have any questions about the Intensive, or if I can support you in your journey in any way.
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Hey there, Brooke, it was so good to see your post. Just so thought provoking. I want to look up, “sometimes a wild God”. Sounds like a good book. I’ve been reading these posts and doing some more of the readings suggested, as well as introjecting as much severance into my sessions with clients as seems appropriate. I have really enjoyed all the posts, and in my sessions it has all been going well, I am happy to say. Today I had a sort of crazy idea of an offering for clients, and wonder what you and anyone else reading this, thinks about it. How about sessions in “Emotional Yoga?” I kind of feel like many of the things we did at Star House at the intensive was emotional yoga. For people who often feel overwhelmed and frightened of their emotional experience, I was thinking about which emotional “exercises” would help them stretch, hold, and breathe into their emotions, like I just did at a “Surrender” yoga class for my body this morning. I know the term “Emotional Yoga” probably sounds a bit bizarre. But I think I may just play around with it a little bit. And then it would be so easy to incorporate it IN nature, and maybe even USE nature while doing Emotional Yoga. Hey, who knows, it might catch on as well as “Goat Yoga”, (I mean, who knew THAT would go over so well?) and a whole new fad would be created helping people connect to themselves and the out of doors!
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Hey MJ! I just read the post on three days in the wilderness that you suggested. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. I am so glad that people are using opportunities to do research on what happens when we are in nature. We can do it and know it is really something, but so great when it is really studied and then given to people to validate their experience and to (hopefully) lead them to value an experience like that even more. The information it looked at did not surprise me. PS I hope you are feeling better and that you are over your vertigo.
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Hey, Sandy! I liked your post. got me thinking about a whole lot of stuff. You know, my usual 600 questions. I really enjoyed being reminded about the 10% outside and 90% inside stuff. The people I work with generally are absorbed into the 90% and often mistake it for their whole experience. I often offer to others the exercise of visualizing an orange. The peeling, smelling, feeling the texture of this imaginary orange as one gets ready to virtually eat it usually brings saliva. Once people feel that and we talk about how did our body DO that-produce the saliva-without an orange actually being there, they begin to notice that their brain can not easily determine the difference between “reality” and “imagination”. Your whole post was thought provoking. Thank you!
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Hi Daniel! I really liked your quote. Thanks for that. I am thinking of using it in a group setting to help people understand that their psychological lives are very relevant even if they are experiencing tension in that area. Reading your post I started to wonder how connected/disconnected am I? I, too, do not know how the lights work, understand my car, barely can navigate a computer, and see the oven light blinking (why does it always do that? I reset it and then turn around and it is doing it again!). I was also impressed by what you are connected to; your kids, knowing the sun will rise, awareness of yourself. I smiled, reading your post, just recognizing so much of similarities. Thank you.
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Ben-I am so glad to hear you speak of nature in the gym. I enjoy physical activity and although I am a bit embarrassed about it, I actually belong to TWO gyms-one near my house and one near my work. Sometimes I think people experience the gym like they do nature-feeling a sense of tension and awkwardness when they are physically present in each. I just really liked that you put it all together.