It's All Good

It’s All Good
“There are people like that” he said after I had described myself as a one-time workshop junky. It felt derogatory, as though people ‘like that’ were somehow misguided. On reflection, must I indeed castigate myself for all the time I’ve spent in workshops, seminars, retreats and intensive trainings? Need I apologize for all of the above that I have brought to others? I think not. Why would I want to give back the multi orgasmic bliss of each time I arrived at my centre, my heart’s core and discovered the perfection within, the divine Self, my essence? The retention of what is forever a spark of light no matter how dark my night, is an extreme bonus. Like the savouring of memories of passionate loves, I will never regret shared moments of self-realization any more than I’ll regret intimacy with other bodies and souls in “eternal moments” of loving-making.

I used to say to the love of my life, “If this is all there is, it is enough!” I would wonder as I walked down the street after a night with Him, if any of the people that I saw there had ever known such ecstasy – such wonder. I thought not. The sky seemed bluer to me then and the grass greener. It was that kind of bliss that I often felt in Self-Actualization seminars, empowerment workshops & Insight Trainings. If intimacy may be defined by its phonetic syllables: “into–me–see”, I found it through group sharings and heart circles just as surely as I did with my husbands and lovers. If this is all there is, I am content.

The cliff hanger in both was surrender. It seems to me when one lets go and lets God, one finds the same heaven as at the moment of climax. The complete abandonment of self to Self is the epitome of what it is to be “Here Now” in the human experience.
As urgent as a rattlesnake’s rattle on the path in front of my bare feet, it grabs my total attention. To show up and be present is to save one’s self. Such immediacy taught me how to put to use, the greatest drug of all. New highs came with life, love and laughter.
The power of Now, the power of Love, the power of Positive Thinking were magnified when I recognized the uselessness of yesterday, the unavailability of tomorrow, the devastation of judgement and fear and the danger and destructiveness of negativity.

My first self actualization experience intervened with suicidal thoughts brought on after a car accident had disabled me for a year with the relentless pain of a severe neck injury.
To walk into the unknown with a room full of strangers willing to do “whatever it takes” is a daunting experience. I buy into the theory that empowerment trainings aren’t for losers. They are for wise, successful people who want to make their lives even better.” The magic of that weekend, was the Rainbow Meditation.. We were led through a guided visualization, using colours as symbols of different aspects of ourselves. Red was the symbol of my physicality, I could picture my life’s blood pulsing through my body energizing and healing enroute. Orange symbolized my emotions, I squeezed out feelings as juicy as a Sunkist orange. Yellow was mental. Clarity came from calming and stilling my mind. The colour green, took me to my quiet place within. Pastoral peace passes all understanding. Blue took me to the love in my heart, “Love wasn’t put in my heart to stay. Love isn’t love till I give it away”. Purple symbolized my dreams and aspirations. How clear they became. And Violet represented the perfect balance of all, my essence, my centre. How sacred that seemed. As I opened my eyes, wafting over my new state of consciousness was John Denver’s uplifting recording, “I want to live. I want to grow. I want to see. I want to know.” I wept, filling my journal with the miracle of an experience touching All of me and I fell in love with what I found there.

Heretofore, I had filled that large empty space within with ‘things’ like houses, clothes, antique collections and Christmas gifts or with ‘addictions’ like cigarettes, junk food, chocolate and work. or with ‘people’ like classrooms full, audiences full, dinner parties full, calendars full and beds full and even now, with ‘distractions’ like T.V., reading and e-mails. If my emptiness were a humongous pickle barrel, the cucumbers filling it would be dills fermenting, rendered useless as sustenance, having been there too long. And so I welcomed to my human experience, many more journeys of self-discovery to get out ‘of the pickle’ through empowering workshops. My cynicism was first triggered by the responsibility cycle. I kept the class awake long into the night as I stubbornly argued that I was responsible for my kids and for everyone I touched. I finally realized that that was a mistaken belief and that although I was responsible TO others, I could only be responsible FOR myself. It has taken years to put that into practice: To know I could not change nor “fix’ another has been a hard fought lesson. To find a clear answer in the “What do you want?” cycle, gave me a whole new focus; To realize that I was responsible for creating my own reality, removed all my props while empowering me to tap into my own inner creator; To know that I always have a choice in EVERYTHING left me free to be; To find that my biggest fear was fear itself was an enormous relief after an intensive process of sheer terror; Discovering projection and learning that others are my mirrors was amazing. To discover that my life works in direct proportion to the commitments I make and keep was the key to my successes and explained all my failures.
I have never been lonely after discovering the “Greatest Love Of All”. When I finally recognized my authentic self and truly loved it and even liked it, I too developed a transformational training. In Toronto, I founded “Yes Oh Yes Drama Outreach” and using Playback Theatre, facilitated others to tap into their own creative Selves. I developed A.R.T. which allowed the story tellers from the audience to Affirm, Repair or Transform their own life’s choices. Eventually I trained actors, therapists and teachers to conduct the same work and I now fly my successor to Mexico to train actors here too.

The list of my assisted transformations is so long, it defies remembering it all. In my fifties, I did my Masters Degree in Applied Clinical Psychology with a Psychosynthesis practicum after completing the Toronto Centre’s Psychodrama and Sociometry program. I trained in Playback Theatre in New York. Some of the most memorable journeys were with Jim and Ross Quinn, Ram Dass, Mary Ann Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, Scott Peck, Paul Ferrini, Ken Keyes, Gerald Jampolski, Louise Hay, Debbie Ford, Sondra Ray and Jean Houston. I did rebirthing trainings, Alexander Clinics, Yoga classes, Buddhist Ashrams, Sufi Retreats, Christian Mythology weekends and New Age Peace Conferences. I dated a Jew, lived with a Tai Chi master and married a Hindu. If this reads like my personal growth resume, it’s because it pretty much is, from the time I was forty. It lays out the pieces of the puzzle of who I AM or who I have BECOME. On my fourteen month odyssey through Asia and the South Pacific for my teacher’s sabbatical, when I was asked if I were a Christian, I answered, “Inclusively but not exclusively.” That potpourri of transdenominational experiences taught me that the real essence of every path is love. I make no apologies. It was good to be a junky.