Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings- Living Your Own Truth

by Clinton Callahan

  MAP OF THE BLACK HOLE

  World Copyright © 2010 owner Clinton Callahan grants permission to use. www.nextculture.org

  WITHOUT A BLACK HOLE

  Communications that carry too much energy for your Box to manage are automatically blocked. The communications are not received. They do not get completed so they must be continuously repeated.

  USING A BLACK HOLE

  The Black Hole distinguishes between the energy and the information of a communication. The energy is sucked into the Black Hole. The information comes to you. This permits even high-energy messages to be received and completed.

  Also, sometimes during certain meetings, conferences, funerals, political rallies, or public confrontations, huge clouds of pent-up emotional fear, anger, or sadness are released. If the emotional energy gets too concentrated it can generate back pressure that resists more energy being expressed and causes people to explode, panic or go a little berserk. In these conditions you can vanish the energy down a giant Black Hole with a few clicks. You may need to make Black Holes ongoingly under certain conditions. The results can be miraculous.

  As soon as you are done using a Black Hole, I recommend that you vanish it with another click of your clicker. Leftover Black Holes may be where those second socks and missing earrings have disappeared.

  HOLDING DOUBLE SPACE

  The clarity of conscious, adult, responsible anger can be used to make precise energetic distinctions. A particularly useful anger distinction is to declare and hold energetic space. Making your bubble and grounding cord is an example of holding energetic space for yourself. After you can make and hold your personal grounded bubble space with some level of competence, you are prepared for the next application of conscious anger. This would be to split off an additional bit of your attention to declare and hold energetic space in a room for the purpose of serving a group of people with your Bright Principles.

  Every room, no matter its size or shape, has the equivalent of physical walls, ceiling and floor. These surfaces define the boundaries of the physical space. Physical space is relatively rigid and does not change shape without the building being damaged or remodeled (or folded up, for example, if it is a tent).

  Within the physical boundaries of a room you can click your clicker and declare into existence the four walls, ceiling and floor of an energetic space by asserting, “This is my energetic workspace.” As long as you use a bit of your attention to remember it, the distinction stays there. You are then the spaceholder of an energetic space.

  When you spacehold a box-shaped energetic workspace while at the same time spaceholding your personal grounded bubble, you are holding two spaces at the same time: one for the purposes of the team, project, or meeting, and one for you. This is called holding double space.

  Traditional forms of practice such as tai chi, archery, meditation, dressage, or gymnastics begin with a starting position—what in fencing is called en garde and in ballet is called first position. From this beginning position all other positions and moves in that form can originate. In Possibility Management, first position is being centered and holding a grounded and cleansed double space.

  The set of Bright Principles (the conscious purpose) of a workspace can also be declared with a click of your clicker: This space is in the service of integrity, clarity, teamwork, efficiency, nonlinear possibility, and easefulness, or whatever is needed to serve the meeting’s outcome.

  More than one person can hold the same space at the same time if they have the same purpose. In this way you can hold space for a meeting even if the official leader of the meeting is not holding space.

  With a click of your clicker you can expand or shrink the size of the energetic space you are holding. You can click and hold space for an entire business building, a city, a continent, a planet, a galaxy, even an entire universe, or all universes, for that matter. Try it yourself. Each click changes the size of the space for which you are taking conscious responsibility.

  Or you can shrink the size of the space you are holding to being smaller than the size of the physical space. This is useful, for example, at those times when you are in a restaurant with your partner or friends and you would like to have a private space of intimacy. Keep your grounded personal bubble, then click your clicker and declare an energetic workspace so that it surrounds just the people with you at your table. Now things are beginning to get interesting.

  Through your practice of holding double space you get to remain centered in your grounded, cleansed personal bubble while at the same time holding and navigating space for a project or team. This practical expression of clarity gives you tremendous abilities to serve.

  WALKING AT THE SPEED OF LOVE

  There is a particular form of holding double space that adds fascinating dimensions to a man-woman relationship. It works best when both people are engaged in the rite of passage process, so that the extraordinary adult space is familiar, and so that feelings work has stellated at least a couple of your archetypes, particularly the archetypal anger of the warrior and warrioress.

  Begin your experiments while walking down the street together, in the shopping zone or through a park. First of all, agree to be walking together at the speed of love. It could take a while before you figure out what this is.

  When absorbed in ordinary modern culture you naturally walk at the speed of mind. The speed of mind is quick because you already imagine yourself to be where you are intending to go, so you are not actually being where you are. Love has a very different speed, and walking at the speed of mind leaves love far behind. This could be one reason why you do not experience as much love in your life as you might like to. The speed of love is much, much slower than the speed of mind.

  To walk at the speed of love, hold hands and let your feet move at the speed that love moves them. It is slightly slower than a stroll, a little faster than not moving at all, and it meanders a bit, like a brook through a meadow. If you are accustomed to walking at the speed of mind this could drive your mind crazy for a while. Learn to walk together at the speed of love. This alone is already fantastic.

  DECLARING EXTRAORDINARY AND ARCHETYPAL SPACE

  When you are comfortable walking together at the speed of love, use your clicker to declare and hold a box-shaped space of adult level responsibility just like you learned in the previous sections. The adult space provides you with conscious feelings and extraordinary love, where love is there because you are there responsibly sourcing love. (For more about this topic, you may be interested in reading my book Radiant Joy Brilliant Love.) All around you is the ordinary world, with its ordinary level of resentment, jealousy, greed, low drama, and ordinary love, where love is scarce and people go around looking for someone to love them. In the middle of that ordinary field, you have now created a sanctuary of extraordinary adult relationship, completed communications, respect, listening, and extraordinary love.

  MAP OF DOUBLE SPACEHOLDING

  World Copyright © 2010 owner Clinton Callahan grants permission to use. www.nextculture.org

  Distinguishing and holding more than one space at the same time is done through anger’s clarity, not through force. Begin by distinguishing the sensations of ordinary, extraordinary and archetypal spaces so that you can detect where you are and what is possible for you there. Then practice consciously splitting your attention three ways at the same time: (1) Being aware of what is happening in ordinary space, (2) declaring into existence the clarity of extraordinary space, and then (3) establishing the safety of the archetypal masculine holding space for the archetypal feminine. Your double spaceholding is now in resonance with an archetypal symbol. Continue holding these two spaces simultaneously, keeping them distinct from each other and distinct from the ordinary world. Each space has its own laws. Holding the outside layer of extraordinary adult space makes it possible to hold the inside layer of archetypal masculine-feminine space even when you are walking down the street with your partner in public. You will not already
know how to do this. Just keep trying, and learn to navigate through practicing.

  Wait for the extraordinary adult space to stabilize for you both. Whether that takes three minutes or three years does not matter. It is time and experience wondrously enjoyed together.

  When the extraordinary space stabilizes—almost like balancing on a high wire—the man additionally splits his attention, clicks his clicker, and declares an additional bubble around the two of you inside of the cubic sanctuary of adult space: There is now archetypal space for us. It is the archetypal masculine nothingness holding space for the archetypal feminine everythingness.

  Keep breathing.

  How can the masculine nothing hold space for the feminine everything? To find that answer, ask yourself this question: Which is bigger: nothing, or everything?

  Experience tells you that nothing is bigger. If the nothing weren’t bigger, where would the everything fit?

  This means that whatever comes up from the Feminine, the Masculine can assert, I am bigger than that (speaking from the archetypal I). This declaration does not come from a position of already knowing. He speaks from not knowing, and continues holding the archetypal space with his split attention. Navigating this double spaceholding in the midst of ordinary busyness is a form of living art, each nuance of which can be deeply experienced and pleasurably enjoyed.

  BULLSHIT AND COWSHIT

  There are two kinds of shit: bullshit and cowshit. This can prove to be a most useful distinction. Men do bullshit, saying things that are relevant but not true, such as, “Honey, I’ll fix the toilet on Saturday,” “Darling, I’ll be home at seven,” or “Sweetie Pie, I’ll help Stevie with his math before the weekend.” These are very relevant things to say, but coming from the man, they are just not true. This is called bullshit.

  Women do cowshit, saying things that are very, very true, excruciatingly true, absolutely, undeniably, totally true . . . but are just not relevant.

  Such as, it is Friday evening around nine o’clock, the kids are handled and the couple is headed up to the bedroom. The man steps through the door behind his woman. She turns around to him and says, “I noticed that you completely ignored the laundry basket full of clothes at the bottom of the stairs. What do you think? I’m your slave? I washed those clothes. I folded those clothes. The least you could have done is carry them up the stairs for me. But no, you were thinking of yourself again.” Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Each statement is an arrow in the man’s chest. Everything she says is true. Irrefutably true . . .

  But at this particular moment it is just not very relevant. This is cowshit.

  HOW TO BE KILLED AND NOT DIE

  Certain times when the woman is doing cowshit may not be the best times for the well-trained, beyond-patriarchy Possibility Management man to use his centered and grounded bubble, Sword of Clarity, Disk of Nothing, and the Black Hole to protect himself. If he uses those things then he may not appear to be authentically touched by what his woman is saying. She may sense that her message is not being thoroughly received.

  In such times you may not appear to be vulnerable enough for her to be vulnerable with you. Then she has to pull out her high powered bow and arrows to soften you up a bit more: “That’s probably the same reason you didn’t get the brakes checked on the car this week” (Thunk!), “or take the insurance papers in,” (Thunk!) “or pay the credit card bills” (Thunk!). “I mean, what exactly have you been doing all week anyway while I was taking care of the kids, doing the shopping and cooking the meals? Watching our investments online while they sink even further below sea level?”

  The point is, some women end their day with a quiver full of these nasty little arrows and they just need somewhere to deposit them. If you put on your stainless steel armor and deflect the arrows untouched or turn yourself invisible, she feels unheard. On the other hand, if you let the arrows slam repeatedly into your heart and react emotionally from your parent or child ego state or from your Gremlin, you are dead. And the other little guy is dead, too—the one who was so excited about it being nine o’clock on Friday night . . . remember?

  What can be quite useful in this situation is to know how to be killed and not die—how to be authentically touched and at the same time not deflate little john.

  So here is how. First, get killed. Let yourself feel the bright pain of each arrow as it pierces your well-meaning heart.

  Let yourself get killed knowing that whatever can get killed was not real in the first place. Decide that it is fine to let those parts that are so easily offended get lasered like an ant under a magnifying glass in the hot sun. It may hurt tremendously. Let yourself feel the sadness, the fear, the anger. You do not have to say anything at this point. Just feel the truth of what she is saying. Admit the truth of it. Stay in the present moment. Minimize your now so that your timescale for what being present means is very small: about two heartbeats long.

  Keep breathing in this minimized now timeframe. Keep looking in her eyes and keep listening until she is finished. Stay in the exact present moment and watch how what she says slides out of the present into the past while you don’t. You stay in the present. As she stops talking, you keep breathing and you keep being with her. Notice how the sound echoes have faded completely away. It takes at most three seconds for all that sound to fade out of the space and into the past, where nothing has any power anymore.

  The only place those things she said to you still exist is in your mind as a memory. Recognize that the words that were spoken are no longer in the present . . . but that you are.

  You are still here, with your grounded bubble, Sword of Clarity, Disk of Nothing, and Black Hole. Keep breathing. You are still here. You were killed. And you are still here. You did not die.

  Here is a very small now, and you are still in it, here and now. And so is she.

  She is in the now with you.

  As you keep breathing in the very small time span of now and stay in contact with your woman, the word she begins to resonate with a very interesting sensation: a sacred, precious, tingling. This amazing she is still here with you now in the present moment, and you were indeed killed but you did not die. And he did not die either, the little guy. You and he are still together here in this small present moment with her, where touch happens, where contact happens, where what was just spoken has drifted into the distant past of more than three seconds ago, and you and she are still here in this now, where loving and kissing is happening. And what a great thing it is to be killed and not die, wouldn’t you say?

  FEELINGS MADE INTO SUFFERING

  A relevant question has perhaps come to you. Why bother to feel pain? Isn’t it masochistic to consciously feel pain? The answer becomes clear through making a distinction between consciously feeling pain, and consciously suffering.

  First of all, feelings are physical sensations that cover the full spectrum from pleasure to pain. Even with laughter, muscles cramp up all over your body, loud sounds strain your throat, tears come out of your eyes, and you may need to exert great efforts to keep from peeing in your pants. I have even fallen out of my chair because I was laughing so hard. Laughter can be quite painful.

  The feelings of anger, sadness, fear and joy may each become painful beyond a certain intensity. But the point at which to call a physical sensation painful is subjective. For example, each person has their own judgment about what is too loud music, too many blankets, too hot tea, too fast driving, or too much ice cream.

  Our assessment about what level of intensity constitutes pain may have been set during childhood and may still be distorted by childhood memories.

  The adult human body, however, is designed to experience and express full-out rage, horrifying terror, gut-wrenching grief, and extended ecstatic joy. One hundred percent maximum archetypal feelings are our birthright, acquired through rite of passage into adulthood. The thousands of people who have stepped beyond the limits of modern culture and engaged a rite of passage for themselves can confirm this. They experien
ce and express archetypal feelings at maximum intensity. When this happens in our trainings, afterward I ask, “Are you okay?” The one who just experienced and expressed archetypal feelings checks themselves out, and sure enough, although it is beyond belief, they discover, Yes, I am okay. And they are okay. They could do it again whenever they want and also then be okay. This pain is not suffering.

  On the other hand, any person can Is-Glue a victim story to any emotional pain to create a low drama. For example: “You cut in front of me in line, you asshole!” (emotional anger) “She didn’t remember to call me back.” (emotional sadness) “I’m not prepared to visit that horrible client!” (emotional fear) “I’m sure looking forward to going on vacation so I can finally relax!” (emotional joy).

  Through Is-Gluing stories to feelings human beings change pain into suffering. We are the only animal that can do this.

  Reasonable questions might arise at this point. For example: How can I become more sensitive to feelings through lowering my numbness bar, and at the same time be more relaxed and present? How can I be more vulnerable if it is going to hurt more?

  The answer has to do with gratitude: I can appreciate painful experience, no matter which of the four feelings the pain is, because my feelings are some of the most precious experiences of being alive.

  Appreciating experience in its original neutrality permits you to use conscious feelings for creating high drama. To consciously create high drama it helps to distill your destiny.