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Having worked our way through the first nine steps, we have learned a lot about ourselves. We have accepted responsibility for allowing fear to block Love in our lives, have realized the value of Trust, and have made a commitment to surrender. We have taken giant steps toward eliminating the guilt and shame that kept us locked in the past. We have examined the way we live day-to-day and have made choices to replace imbalance with health, abundance, and joy. Accepting the Unity, Freedom, and Bliss that is our Birthright, we have expanded our view of relationships. We have begun the process of forgiveness and have discovered the peace that comes with balancing our past actions with a demonstration of Love.
Reviewing our experiences with each of the Steps, we make a list of the gains we have made. Noting the ways in which our lives have been transformed, we acknowledge ourselves for our courage and commitment to Love. We now prepare to take this process to even deeper levels through increased Self-awareness.
Step Ten is a spot check. With the technique presented here, we can, at any moment, shift from the experience of suffering to the experience of Bliss.
Although we experience Life according to our deeply held beliefs, experience, itself, is not about concepts or thoughts, but about feelings. We have all tried to talk ourselves out of a negative space and know how difficult it is to willfully change a belief once that belief is manifesting in our lives as suffering.
God has no son who does not suffer.
St. Augustine
The experience of suffering is not mental. When suffering surfaces, it involves the body and the emotions. Suffering is not rational. While suffering often seems to be caused by external circumstances, there is no direct correlation between what is happening in our lives and the experience of suffering. We can seem to have everything and still live in a painful reality of fear. Telling ourselves we should be happy does not make us so. Resisting physical or emotional pain only prolongs our suffering.
Resistance often takes the form of denial. When unwanted feelings arise, we suppress them, thinking denial will give us peace. The result is quite different. We end up suppressing our aliveness and capacity for joy. We lose touch with our true nature, and the emptiness inside intensifies our craving for anything that might ease the suffering. What we resist, persists.
Water is a universal symbol for our emotional nature. Feelings, by nature, are fluid. Any negative feeling that seems static or unchanging signals resistance and suppression. The purpose of a spot check is to help us become aware of what is happening within us at any given moment. As we learn to open to our feelings, we are restored to our natural state.
The point of power is always in the present moment.
Louise Hay
In order to release a negative feeling, we must first be willing to fully feel it and honestly identify it. A lifetime of distraction and denial has distorted our emotional reality. We frequently experience anger as depression, worry as stomach cramps, fear as hostility. An upset at one person may get expressed as irritability toward another. A desire for food or alcohol often masks a desire for Love.
In Step Ten we reverse our habitual tendency to turn away from uncomfortable feelings. Instead, we turn toward them. We pay attention to where we are holding tension in our bodies and get in touch with the Reality of the moment. We become willing to open to the deep underlying feeling.
Approval and control are the primary addictions of humankind. Since an addiction can never be satisfied, we cannot know peace until we confront our craving for approval and control. A feeling like jealousy puts us in touch with a deeper feeling-perhaps fear or grief. When we follow the fear or grief back even further to the craving for approval or control, we get at the root of the matter.
The reason the desire for approval and control is so persistent is that it is a manifestation of our deepest fears. Seeking approval is a way of avoiding our fear of unworthiness, while the craving for control is a way of avoiding our fear of change and death. As long as we continue to avoid these fears, we do not see that we are absolutely lovable, completely safe and eternal.
Until we deal effectively with our craving for approval and control, we must deal with the countless expressions of fear in our lives. These fears block our ability to know Love. When our inner state is fearful, we do not resonate with Unity, Freedom, and Bliss. Through fear, we attract circumstances that make separation, rather than Sacred Relationship, seem to be what is Real. We think that striving for approval and control will solve our problems. In fact, this striving is at the root of our suffering.
Once we become aware of a feeling and we allow it, identify it, and get in touch with whether it is an expression of the desire for approval or control, release is easy. We need to first let go of the conditions our mind has placed upon peace. The mind tells us that suffering must continue until we get the job, someone tells us we are wonderful, or some other turn of events brings us what we want. When we succeed at our quest for approval and control, the mind convinces us we have accomplished something. All we have done, however, is put off suffering, while deepening our dependence upon what is uncontrollable.
You are alive in this moment whether you like it or not; if you resist life, you will be miserable and weak; if you surrender willingly to the challenge of life, you will be happy and free.
Jim Leonard
The mind keeps us stuck. Release is not subject to anything but belief in the possibility of release, willingness to release, and a suspension of tendencies to procrastinate The time to release negative feelings is now! Once we become willing, we simply affirm, 'I release this.' After practicing release for only a short time, the power of this process becomes clear. When a critical word brings a pain in the stomach, we do not defend ourselves, but simply allow awareness and willingness to bring us release. When a mood swing makes us sad, we do not reach for a substance or distraction, but instead, we get in touch with the feeling, the desire for approval and control, and let go. If some of the feeling remains, we get in touch with it and repeat the process. There is nothing to figure out, nothing to explain, nothing to fix. When we are willing to release suffering and embrace Love, we do it now.
The only aspect of time that is eternal is now.
A Course in Miracles
When in the grips of a powerful feeling, our mind churns crazily, jumping to all sorts of bizarre conclusions that feed our emotional state. Once the feeling is released, we notice a lifting of stress and a clarity of mind that allows us to take appropriate action. Tuning into feelings and releasing them energizes us, allowing us to accomplish more in less time. Interestingly, as we learn to release our desire for approval and control, we actually experience more approval and have a greater sense of being in control of our lives.
Breath is synonymous with Life. The breath provides oxygen, which sustains our physical existence. The breath also is a source of prana, the Life force. This basic process of identifying our feelings, acknowledging the desire for approval or control, becoming willing to release that desire, and letting go of it is greatly enhanced by using the breath to focus on the feeling. By using conscious breathing, the process is intensified and speeded up.
When we inhale, if we hold the thought that we are filling ourselves with prana or vital energy; and when we exhale that we are throwing off all waste from the system, we cannot fail to be cleansed even by our ordinary breathing.
Swami Paramananda
When we are in pain or fear, we tend to hold our breath and tense our muscles in resistance to the experience we have labeled unpleasant. We lose our connection with the moment and the feeling involved. We seek refuge in our heads. As our attention gets drawn into the compulsive momentum of the mind, we berate ourselves, project catastrophic consequences, plan out strategies and endlessly review our defenses.
The mind is similar to a drunken monkey running amuck. The need to control our thoughts leads to a sense of frustration. By simply bringing our attention to the breath, the breath brings us back to the moment, allowing us to enter the natural flow of our feeling natures.
Sighing is a means of releasing tension. When we intentionally perform a series of connected sighs-that is, controlled inhales and uncontrolled exhales-we create a flow of oxygen and prana throughout our bodies. Making the breath our focus takes us out of our minds and into the moment. By breathing directly into a feeling or sensation that we wish to release, we embrace the feeling, and resistance melts. As we use this technique to move through the levels of feelings and desires, we ultimately come to the Love that is our Reality.
While consciously breathing, we inhale and exhale either through the mouth or the nose exclusively. We can choose to breathe more or less deeply. Taking in larger amounts of air tends to intensify the experience; making the breath shallow, softens the experience. We can breathe faster or slower. Slow breathing acts like a telescopic lens, helping us focus on a particular sensation; faster breathing widens the angle of our experience. In general, full, slow breaths bring patterns of energy into focussed awareness; fast shallow breaths are used when the experience intensifies; and fast, full breathing helps us stay conscious. We choose how to breathe in each situation.
Conscious breathing is the advanced science of converting resistance to enthusiasm.
Jim Leonard
The important thing to remember is that, like a sigh, we only control the in-breath, leaving the out-breath to occur naturally by itself. A forced or controlled exhale results in the involuntary clenching of muscles, a condition known as tetany. While tetany is not dangerous, it does not support releasing our feelings.
In the course of a session of conscious breathing, the breath goes through many changes. Our inner knowing guides us. The purpose of this technique is to support us in fully feeling, identifying, and releasing the desire for approval or control. Performance anxiety has no place. There is no wrong way to do conscious breathing. There are times, however, especially when we are new to this technique, when we may find it helpful to get coaching from someone trained in conscious breathing processes. These various processes are known by such names as Rebirthing, Vivation, and Holotropic Breathing. Such a person can support and guide us by keeping us focused and making recommendations to move us more smoothly through resistance, while providing a comforting presence. However, this technique is perfectly safe without professional assistance. If the experience becomes too intense, we simply change the breath and breathe through it.
Rebirthing is like a sacrament because you are partaking of the Holy Spirit. Rebirthing is making love to God. It is God making love to you. That is what rebirthing is to me.
Sondra Ray
There is great benefit in breathing with others. Some Benestrophe groups choose to hold Saturday morning breathing meetings for this purpose. [Everyone lies comfortably on the floor with pillow and blanket and breathes. The right music can also be helpful.] Often, as feelings are released, energy expresses through laughter, tears, or other sounds. Rather than being a distraction, the sounds we make help us get in touch with what has been buried deep inside. What may sound like agony is really the joyful noise of long-repressed energy breaking free. Once we become familiar with this technique, there are interesting variations we can try. One favorite of cocreators of Benestrophe is to sit in a circle and maintain circular breathing while making eye contact with one another. Doing the technique in a tub of warm water or in a shallow pool of cool water provides different experiences. We can breathe to different types of music or while getting a massage. While setting aside an hour or more for a breathing session provides the maximum experience, once we master the technique, we can use it anytime during the day. As we stop periodically to do a few breaths, we find such spot checks help us stay centered and in the moment.
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cure for depression.
Dodie Smith
Each conscious breathing session is as unique as the moment in which we do it. Some sessions are intense and others are peaceful. We remember there is no wrong way to breathe consciously. This technique is more than a powerful support for releasing negative feelings; the technique is a vehicle for Self-exploration. There is an infinite vastness within each of us; we have only scratched the surface of our potential to experience Love. As we learn to accept ourselves fully, the Love within us blossoms. No matter how good Life gets, it can always get better.
Life flows in an unending stream. There are bends in the stream and there are rocks. There are high tides and low tides, places of calm and places where the water rushes. There are places where the stream widens into a sea and places where it narrows to a trickle. We can swim with the current or against it. We can cling to the rocks or trust Life and simply let go. We can support those who flounder and learn from those who have mastered swimming, or we can stubbornly seek our own way. But we cannot change the nature of the stream.
Learning to relax and accept the flow of Life is an essential part of this Tenth-Step spot check. Once we release our struggle and let go of resistance to what is, we find the release of all our burdens come naturally. Relaxation always takes less effort than contraction.
Transformation only occurs during relaxation.
Anton
When resistance to Life brings stress into our experience, we flounder. When we dive too deeply into shallow water or pay no attention to rocks, we bump our heads. In the same way, when we allow our lives to be guided by the reactive, compulsive mind, we create suffering. Just as there are times when we should swim and times when floating serves us best, there are things we can change and things we cannot. As we learn to use conscious breathing as a spot check for deep relaxation, we learn to change what we can.
There is nothing wrong with either approval or control. The problem comes when we need them. By the act of craving, we actually drive away the experience we desire. When we cling to a need for another’s approval, we rob ourselves of our own approval. When we strive for control, we give energy to the feeling of being out of control.
Miracles happen all the time. When we relax, breathe deeply, and observe, we are able to notice them. By surrendering to the Perfection of the moment, all of Life takes on a miraculous quality.
As we learn relaxation and unconditional acceptance of what is, a miracle happens. We experience both approval and control. When we find we do not need circumstances to be any particular way, and we can use whatever situation in which we find ourselves to advantage, we experience a Freedom that cannot be taken from us. Resistance, rather than pain or change, is the cause of our suffering. When we let go of wanting things to be different, we let go of lack and discover the Perfection of the moment.
What we gain through this process we take with us through Life. This spot check keeps us in touch with an authentic experience of Life. The more we develop the skills of breathing, relaxing, and releasing, the more receptive and aware we become. The practice of Step Ten magnifies the healing process. Step Ten increases our ability to apply what we learned in all of the other steps.
We can only truly live in the moment. When fear takes us out of the moment, we sacrifice a bit of Life, and we suffer. When we block our feelings, we get caught in the web of our most deluded beliefs. When we live in the mind, rather than the Heart, we trap ourselves in recurring patterns of negativity, and the resonance of those patterns, rather than the resonance of Unity, Freedom, and Bliss works in our lives.
Living in the moment is its own reward. Being here now not only makes whatever we are going through a positive experience, it creates an inner condition that attracts outer conditions of peace, harmony, and joy. The process put forth in this Step, when practiced as a way of Life, transforms separation, bondage, and fear into Unity, Freedom, and Bliss.
When suffering surfaces, we breathe into our feelings, relax, and merge into the Perfection of the moment.
Laughter opens the door to relaxation. Share a story you’ve heard that you thought was particularly funny.
What are some ways in which suffering surfaces in your life?
Share an experience that demonstrates how futile it is to try to talk yourself out of suffering.
Share about how a belief you held manifested as suffering. How do you see that belief now?
Share an experience that demonstrates the statement:
'We feel it to heal it.'
What have you learned about yourself through conscious breathing?
What particular fears have vanished through breathing consciously?
Share about times when you focus on your breathing.
Describe an experience you’ve had of merging into the Perfection of the moment.
Share about what helps you relax.
Tell about a time when you felt the need to take a deep breath.
Share an experience you’ve had in which you felt total relaxation.
Share about a time when you experienced the power of breath. How did that experience benefit you?
Tell about an experience that demonstrates the power of letting go.
Share about a situation in your life that you would like to change. Describe a way that you could change your attitude instead.
Describe how shifting your focus from head to Heart helped you turn a negative experience into a positive one.
Share about a time when you used your breath to bring yourself into the present moment.
Coming from your own experience, how would you define the word 'merge?'
Share about how the Tenth Step has changed your life.
Letting go of wanting, we let go of lack
Whatsoever I ask for or desire, believe I have
it already and it shall be given unto me.
Mark 11:24Benestrophe is being here now
Even a happy life is not without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happiness’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
Carl JungBenestrophe is being here now!
Topics of Discussion
STEP TEN
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