The Paradox of Relationship and Avoidance of Relationship

What we consider and call, "relationship", is, when discerned by feeling, exactly the avoidance of relationship.  Even in pleasure, there is the "low note" of lurking dissatisfaction and avoidance.

Both the feeling of relationship and of what we call, "avoiding relationship", are the avoidance of relationship.

It's all avoidance. "Qualified" relationship is avoidance.

"Unqualified" (or "quality-less") relationship, by definition and in actual experience, does not exist in the experience of things-in-relationship, which are themselves, aggregates of qualities.

To exist is to stand out.  "EX": out, as in, "external".  If it stands out, it stands out by virtue of some quality:  it's "qualified".

Nothing unqualified can be said to exist, or can be located by attention.  Attention, itself, is qualified by its objects.  No quality, no experience of attention.

Therefore, to seek, work for, or reinforce relationship or relatedness is to reinforce qualification, and to reinforce qualification is to reinforce relatedness, which is by feeling, recognized to be the same as the feeling of avoidance.  That may explain the difficulties of marriages and relationships and the frustration of perfectionism.

To reinforce relatedness, and its qualities, is to reinforce avoidance.

No action in that domain of experience, relatedness, can undo avoidance.  It's all avoidance.

Even this knowing fails to avail, for the same reason.  Seeking the "quality-less" event flavors it with the effort of seeking.

Only the tacit recognition of the common identity of avoidance and relationship pops one free of the dilemma.  "Tacit" implies felt, not analyzed out, by thought.

Feeling is common, or in-common, to both relatedness and avoidance.

Feeling persists and persists, by changing.

Feeling underlies all thought, all assessments, and all experience.

The feeling faculty is the substance of relationship.  It is also the substance of avoidance.

Feeling is made of attention, intention, memory, and imagination.  When those are awake, integrated, and balanced, they "go transparent".  Their qualifies fade into balance and are lost.

In that manner, "form is emptiness and emptiness is form".

But not otherwise.

To seek relatedness is to seek the very distress that motivates the search for release from relatedness.

Only integration avails, and in so succeeding, disqualifies itself from (or dissolves) the qualities of relationship.

No-seeking is not an attainment, but "what" is "left", or felt, an absence of both relationship and of avoidance.

The Stakes -- and The Call

 It's a choice between betraying the spirit of the Founding Fathers by allowing a criminal to prevail and to destroy the American Experiment in favor of self-serving authoritarian tyranny -- or temporarily betraying the spirit of the Founding Fathers by using his own weapons against him in an autocratic way -- as an act of service to the greater good -- as authorized by the Supreme Court ruling on "immunity".

One is a long-term betrayal of the higher values of this country and the other is a short-term betrayal for the sake of preservation of those higher values.  The difference is one of a habitual pattern vs. a deliberate, but temporary pattern.

How well does the metaphor of "at war from within" fit?  Old saying:  "All's fair in love and war."

Sometimes, extreme conditions call for extreme measures -- in this case, sacrifice of ones self-image for the greater good -- to beat them at their own game.  The motive makes all the difference.

It would be a great and courageous -- not "gesture" (which signifies only a symbolic communication) -- but course of action (which indicates lasting consequences).

The biggest problem could have been solved, when it was small.

It's no longer small -- and it has the potential to get much bigger.

Alito, Thomas, Trump, et. al., who are no longer "playing by the rules", must be neutralized, the sooner the better.  "Neutralized" as in, "neutered."  Outside the "rules".  The same is true of all who have been accessories after-the-fact.

Freedom without responsibility is the ideal of the adolescent; freedom without conscience is the mode of the juvenile delinquent -- and of the Supreme Court Six.

Orchestrated action, carried out.  That's where the courage is called for.

Keep Your Nose above the Water -- Afloat, Afloat

 What if you had a way to get "a leg up" on overwhelm? to get your nose well above the "overwhelm waterline" without anything situational having to change, first? -- by improving your mental equilibrium and buoyancy, your ability to float, rather than drown in situations, and go where you intend, rather than being submerged?

Wouldn't you start to feel more than "equal to the circumstances", if you could do that?   Nothing changed.   No need to let off steam.  You've just improved your mental equilibrium and buoyancy -- quite a bit, actually, so your nose stays well above the "overwhelm waterline" . . .

-- and it hasn't dented your intelligence, a bit.

Quite the contrary: Your mind is sharper and clearer, your emotions are quiet, and you feel more natural.

How do you do that??

There are four "floats of intelligence" in the life preserver we wear in the ocean of life. Those floats of intelligence are attention, intention, memory, and imagination and they're flexibly -- but not loosely -- connected.

When in good condition and well-connected, they maintain our buoyancy -- and we feel secure.

We trust them to be in good condition -- but when immersed in the ocean of life, those floats get waterlogged. They lose their buoyancy and we flounder in the ocean of life. That's what people call, Overwhelm.

It may be a truism to state that it's not the work, in general, that is difficult; it's the people that are difficult.

What's difficult is that the movements of change come up against people's memories of how things have been and are supposed to be -- water sogging their floats of intelligence -- and they're afraid for their ability to stay afloat. Everything becomes, "too much".

Then, resistance, stuck points, slowdowns, regressions, interpersonal symptoms, stress-related ailments, resignations, and sometimes, injuries appear.

Wouldn't it be nicer if people could refresh their "floats of intelligence" at-need, for themselves, in minutes -- to keep their noses well above the "overwhelm waterline"?

I teach such a way -- a kind of intelligence-float training. It makes working much more pleasant -- and more efficient. When applied by members of a closely-working group, it is easy to imagine it "rightening the ship to an even keel, repairing the compass, and unfurling the sails."

Being as, "change is the rule of the times," to be able to righten ones own ship in stormy seas would come in handy -- wouldn't it?

Follow your nose and be informed by direct experience.

NOSE

No -- and Yes

"No!" simply chops off the persistence of something as of the last memory of it -- but the memory persists and conditions persist, despite opposition.

"No!" cannot and will not develop past the memory of what was.

"Yes!" picks up where, "No!", leaves off -- carrying the known of the past moment into further evolution -- memories that do not merely continue; they evolve.

"No!" ends as "No" and continues as, "Yes!"

"Yes!" carries the momentum of, "No!' forward -- as Yes.

"No!" and "Yes!" are a continuity.

On Hanna Somatic Education to Eliminate Sacroiliac Joint Pain and Related Symptoms (Sacroileitis)

 

Clinical Somatic Education to Eliminate Sacroiliac Joint Pain and Related Symptoms

Let me shed some light on the somatic approach, Clinical Somatic Education, which may be unfamiliar to you, due to its relative newness.

Clinical somatic education stands as a health discipline developed on a different foundation from conventional therapies. Its primary objective is to alleviate pain and relieve stress.  Sometimes, it's used in conjunction with standard therapies, but most often, it is applied, by itself.

Rather than focusing on manipulation, stretching and strengthening, clinical somatic education focuses on normalizing the brain's control of movement, muscular tensions, and posture, disrupted by injury. This normalization of muscle tone leads to muscular relaxation, loosening of joints, and the cessation of nerve pain -- the hoped-for result of strengthening, stretching, and manipulation,

What sets this approach apart is its utilization of a completely different technique that initiates a transformation at the brain level. By altering muscular activity through this method, the body becomes distinctly self-correcting, allowing for long-lasting improvements.

In summary, clinical somatic education offers a groundbreaking path to pain relief and improved mobility, providing results that differ significantly from standard therapies.

The main technique used in Clinical Somatic Education is called, pandiculation.

Pandiculation: The Direct and Natural Way to Change Movement Memory and Pelvic Shape

Let me share with you some information about pandiculation, a fundamental action pattern observed in all creatures with a backbone.

This innate action is exceptionally well-suited for the purpose of normalizing muscle/movement memory and addressing the forces that govern the shape of the pelvis and position of the sacrum. 

By engaging in pandiculation, you actively participate in resetting and reestablishing a harmonious relationship between your muscles, movement patterns, and overall bodily alignment.

Similar to yawning, pandiculation plays a crucial role in restoring balance to muscular tension, enhancing mobility, and reclaiming physical comfort.

Watch and listen:

 

DOES STRETCHING "ONE BETTER"

 

Everyone has experienced pandiculation in everyday life -- albeit not in the systematic manner employed in clinical somatic education.

It's a natural behavior observed in creatures with a backbone, including our feline and canine friends, horses, and even birds. 

It occurs when an animal arises from a state of rest.  You've seen what people call, "yawning and stretching".  While some may refer to it as "stretching," it is important to note that pandiculation is not stretching.

It's more like a clearing or de-bugging software -- something like anti-virus software -- or re-booting your movement system (something like [CONTROL][ALT][DELETE].  It's a re-set.

Its primary function is to restore your innate ability to relax and to move freely, to make you ready to go from rest into action. 

Pandiculation is fundamentally distinct from therapeutic or athletic stretching techniques -- offering a unique way to unlocking tension and improved bodily coordination.

In clinical somatic education, we use it to correct movement alterations and alleviate the pain associated with most injuries.

Pandiculation stands as the simplest and most effective method for reprogramming muscles and movement.  Unlike traditional stretching, it directly influences movement memory, bringing about comfortable and usually immediate and lasting changes.  

As I mentioned earlier, the involvement of muscles and the distortion of pelvic shape are intertwined:  "bones go where muscles pull them." Clinical somatic education addresses the nervous system, muscular system, and skeletal alignment.

Pandiculation unlocks muscle/movement memory, allowing for adjustments in movement and posture that are outside the usual capacity of a person with an injury.  It restores comfortable freedom of motion.

This unlocking is a prerequisite for any subsequent movement training to be its most effective.

Following the unlocking process (Unit 1 of the program), you do action patterns utilizing pandiculation to further normalize movement memory (Units 2 and 3). 

As the pelvis gradually reshapes and the sacrum finds a healthier position, symptoms dissipate.  

Remember, "bones go where muscles pull them."

While this explanation is an oversimplification, it captures the essence of how clinical somatic education brings about transformative results.

Once unlocking and repatterning have taken place, individuals can confidently engage in various activities, including strenuous ones, knowing that those activities are now safe, for them to do.

Click on the image, below, to see the entire comment.

TO SUMMARIZE: Compression and twisting forces at the S-I joints that occur in injury situations compress the S-I joints, strain the pelvic ligaments, trigger reflexive muscular contractions throughout the body and cause muscle and cause radiating nerve pain (that may be mistaken for spasm) -- symptoms that never let up.

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, also known as Sacroiliac Pain Syndrome, encompasses a complex array of symptoms that defies direct therapeutic intervention at the locations where symptoms appear.  Instead, symptoms disappear as the position of the sacrum straightens.

The best solution lies in the body straightening itself and maintaining the straightened position of the sacrum, through normal movement memory. 

Once the sacrum realigns with the rest of the pelvis, the pain of Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction is over.

Freeing Attention as the Key to Insight, Memory and Action

When daunting problems mount up, that mounting up is the situation in which we need the most free attention.

Free attention is the ability to move attention, intentionally -- and also to fixate it, intentionally.  It makes possible the ability to imagine and the ability to remember.

When attention is free, it can move; when it is free, we can more easily hold it, undistracted, upon the object (or subject) of our choosing.

One easy way to free attention is to solve accumulated, smaller problems that are not so daunting, that can be handled quickly.  Small problems generally resolve more quickly than daunting problems and solving them frees attention, now available to dedicate to daunting problems.

When attention is free and available, we are more capable of receiving insight and of recognizing resources to apply to daunting problems.

Insight is not something that we "dig for".  To "dig", thus, relies upon memory -- whereas daunting problems are daunting, in part, because we have no applicable memory for solving them.

Insight is an emergent.  Insight doesn't from "from" us; it comes "to" us -- when attention is sufficiently free to apprehend what is emerging.

To capture insight (foresight) at the instant of its emerging, attention must be sufficiently free to imagine remembering it.  To imagine is the key to remembering:  "imagining remembering".

The insight that is captured, that way, forms the seed for further insight, which crystallizes upon and around that seed insight.  This is also the way crystals grow:  if a tiny crystal is submerged in a solution containing the same substance, it acts as a "seed" upon which more of that substance deposits upon and around it.

The key is to capture the seed insight, which emerges spontaneously into imagination, to capture it in memory.

Free attention -- the freedom both to move what is imagined into memory and to fixate it in memory -- is the necessary key.

Free attention by solving small problems quickly.  Then use that free attention to capture and apply emerging solutions.

Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer Beware -- an alert about WiX and their discredited website designer, Jonathan Roumaine

Not an endorsement, but a "let the buyer beware" alert:


Since you're considering working with Jonathan Roumain, there are some things you would probably like to know before you sign a contract, with him.

THE WORTH OF HIS WORD

Before we signed a contract, I told him the scope of the project (299 pages, half HTML and half Wordpress) and gave him all of the necessary links to preview the job.

The contract we signed included these four conditions:

1. full payment in advance
2. unlimited revisions
3. completion date: April 2022
4. 299 pages

HOW IT WORKED OUT

Shortly after I paid the full amount, in advance, he told me:

1. that the job was too much, for him
2. that he needed more money and more time
3. that he does best with sales funnels, not information-rich websites
4. that his rate per page is $600.00, which would have made his fee $179,400 -- about thirty-three times the amount of the contract we signed

In response to (2.), above, I proposed, instead, that he render the most important pages of the website -- 31 pages of 299 -- to save the time of redoing the entire project with someone else and to enable me to test whether the new look he and I were developing would pay off.

Reducing the number of pages (for the same money) didn't help. As of this date, the job is still incomplete and not suitable for publication.

He has balked at correcting his own errors, instead blaming me for too many "revisions". By his count, I have made 486 change requests, an average of 15-16 changes per page -- most of which are for faults in his renderings of pages such as:

1. inconsistent line spacings, paragraph spacings, margins, and font choices (size, color, boldface) (Would you find that acceptable?)
2. awkward line breaks (Would you find that acceptable?)
3. loss of logical flow of content within each page because -- by his own confession, he did/does not read the material before he designed out the page (Would you find that acceptable?)
4. missing or incorrect hyperlinks and missing trial-period payment cancellation buttons present on my published, older website (Would you find that acceptable?)
5. placing photos that had no relevance to adjacent text (Would you find that acceptable?)
6. twice, he said that he would create a video to show me how to "tweak" his work -- when that is his job (Would you find that acceptable?)
7. twice, he has gone non-responsive to my communications and done no work on my project for months

By any reckoning, for work that has been proofread before my seeing them, fifteen changes per page is a lot. These are faults that I would never have seen, if he had done competent proofreading.

Eight months after his self-declared deadline for completion, the job is still incomplete, with changes necessary on most of the pages he worked on, so they are unusable.

There are other items to report, but this is enough, I think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The WiX platform promotes Jonathan Roumaine in return of payment.

I informed WiX of all of the details above and they suspended his account -- temporarily.  Then, knowing what I wrote, above, they reinstated him.

That tells me something about their intelligence -- or their ethics.