The Joy, Wonder and Ease of Being

"When our life force is cut off, we give up on our goodness and then we cannot meet it anywhere." - James Flaherty, Year Launch 2019

Our school is dedicated to human development. Nearly everyone imagines that means learning something. Mostly folks want to learn methods of greater control so they can have the outcomes they want and experiences they desire. That’s not what we mean by development.

Development is letting go, relaxing, trusting, all fundamentally different from control. Development unfolds as we let go of what we know, expect, desire and instead sense what’s happening. Trust naturally appears; we’re not exactly doing the trusting, inseparable from sensing. When there is no separation there is no fear, which is the root origin of our control impulses.

Typically our knowledge does separate us.* We have endless lists of the ways we are and the ways we’re not, of what we like and don’t, of who’s good for us and who isn’t… all in service of distinguishing ourselves from others, which is the way we’ve learned to know who we are and how to get what we want.

The developmental impulse I’m pointing to is the one we were born with. As infants we respond to sensation, unimpeded by concept. The socialization process is, at bottom, the embodiment of concepts our caregivers / culture consider essential for our physical / emotional / relational survival. Initially they help, later they hinder.

Nonetheless, sensing is always available to us, although it takes some practice to cultivate as an adult. We immediately enter the stream of development as soon as we do so. That’s because sensing experientially connects us to life as it streams around us, through us, as us. This connection does the developing, not us as individuals.

The blissful states of saints, sages and other adepts we may have read about (or experienced ourselves) is what the connection feels like. Suffering ceases. Anxiety crumbles. We are at home.

All well and good—perhaps, though, you see the trap we so easily fall into: we begin to want, to desire the blissful state, which puts us right back into trying to learn something so we can control it. Spiritual paths can become this, practices can reify into it.

When our control attempts fail we usually redouble them or start looking for better methods. Here’s where complex concepts and models come in, blocking our way. There is an alternative approach.

Paying attention, being present with what’s here undergirds our ability to sense. That’s why our programs always include them and why other developmental modalities—spiritual, psychological, somatic, ontological—are based on them.

Sensing puts us in touch with the life force and, from there, the world is quite a different place. Sharp edges, looming threats, unformed worries fade from our obsessive, scanning awareness. Life force recognizes itself in others, so their goodness radiates.

And that’s where powerful coaching starts.

Take care of yourself.

Sending love,

James

*Knowledge itself becomes stagnant. It gets calcified into concepts, habits, models and schema, all of which take us away from the process of life. Relying on knowledge can blind us to the uniqueness of just now. It has its place, of course, as long as we remember to not fully rely on it, but to pay attention to the particulars of the moment as well.