Supervision (Karaj, Simran, Calvin, Shona and me). Michelle takes away my energy. She is good company but she infuriates me. Karaj (prompted by Shona) talked about his loneliness: it is a spiritual and philosophical loneliness. He and I are surrounded by people, yet we are still alone with our pain. He talked about not being able to see properly as a child until he received glasses at 16. That’s another reason why he is such a brilliant therapist. He sees things differently to us. He see things as they are, without the conditioning.
We all gathered in the evening for the Experiment in Self Healing Community. I challenged Dev about not contacting us when he is doing well. He was fined for it. He argued against it but I was adamant that this is an important learning point for him. If he does not contact us when he is doing well, he will go down and that is such a waste.
Seminar: ‘You cannot make people more aware than their experience.’ Knowing the consequences through experience. We can read all the books we want but until we experience things for ourselves we cannot know. We are the sum total of our experience; nothing more, nothing less. The process we go through is Thought-Practise-Consequence. Our awareness of the consequences happens at two levels: subconscious (which is all about hope and kidding ourselves) and conscious. With conscious awareness, which so often results in frustration and dissatisfaction, the research we do as a result either takes us back into subconscious awareness or onward through commitment and pain (re-experience) back to the consequences, which we experience as a result of our experimentation, curiosity about the reality of life and ourselves, and exploration.
This eventually becomes our life process, which in turn causes us to be focused in the present moment. It reminded me of how, throughout my life, I have put myself in uncomfortable situations because I wanted to watch how I reacted, coped, survived and dealt with things. I have always seen for myself how well I cope and learn (but still I maintain I am not good enough!) Go easier on myself. And keep going.
Summary: A hectic day. Simran is improving. I took six Tramadol today and felt no pain this evening. It was a good session, during which Karaj said that he has a beautiful relationship with me. He is right and I am fortunate to be in this privileged position. At the same time I have sought it, worked at it and I am now in a position to enjoy the fruits of my labour and move on. Every time I feel like walking away – and the cycles are about ten months apart – the drama or pull to leave is less and less. Seeing the nature of my relationship with Karaj makes me think that I can achieve anything I want to achieve. [Unfortunately, this feeling did not last very long.]