Where does chronic pain come from? Is there anything we can do with our minds to reduce it? Here is one lady’s solution…
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1 Lightness and freedom
2 Do I stay with the family I’m working for or not?
3 Partnership. I haven’t been interested in men for about eight years, since my divorce.
Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?
A physical symptom: My joints. Maybe I’m moving in the wrong way. Maybe my body doesn’t want to go in the direction I’m going in.
If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?
Grey
Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.
Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?
Dolphin
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Dolphin, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I play in the water! I’m playing with light. There’s darkness and light falling into the water.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
That I’m so flexible, that I can move about so well. I’m free!
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
No! I have no weaknesses!
Dolphin, you are in Terri’s life experience, correct? She created you, right? What aspect of Terri do you represent or most closely personify?
Freedom and lightness! Always moving!
Dolphin, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
No. I would like to stay the way I am!
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Dolphin, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10
Compassion: 10
Wisdom: 10
Acceptance: 10 I’m not lacking anything. I’m jumping about happily!
Inner Peace: 10
Witnessing: 10
How would Terri’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
She can! Who said she couldn’t? She doesn’t believe she has them, but she does!
If you could live Terri’s life for her, how would you live it differently?
I would definitely move my body! I’m wild! I wouldn’t think so much. I would act from the bottom of my heart. That’s what freedom is about.
If you could live Terri’s waking life for her today, would you handle Terri’s three life issues differently? If so, how?
1 Lightness and freedom: I’ve got it all! She can imagine she’s me!
2 Do I stay with the family I’m working for or not? — Community is important to me. She needs to get out of that job to feel more light and more free.
3 Partnership. I haven’t been interested in men for about eight years, since my divorce. — She needs a strong partner! A big dolphin that is very flexible! You can feel his strength!
What life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Terri’s life?
Lightness and freedom is most important!
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Terri to imagine that she is you and act as you would?
Always!
Dolphin, do you do drama? If not, why not?
No.
What is your secret for staying out of drama?
If you just live, there’s no drama! If you’re free, there’s no drama. Be in the here and now.
Why do you think that you are in Terri’s life?
I’ve been here for ages! I’m here for her to remember me! I have often come in the past. The question is, does she listen or not?
How is Terri most likely to ignore what you are saying to her?
By not listening!
What would you recommend that she do about that?
She should look after me more and talk to me and contact me and not distract herself with other things so much. A whole lot of things that aren’t important! All this thinking all the time about things! Instead of just living spontaneously!
Terri, what have you heard yourself say?
It’s a really wild thing, I can tell you! It is very happy, it’s alive, it’s in the here and now, it’s totally flexible. The more it moved, the greater the light that came! For the pain, I need to move. He tells me I can live the way he lives! You have to live in the moment, not to think so much, not to ponder about the future or the past, but live in the here and now. It’s just all too much thinking. If we all didn’t think so much, life would be easier. It doesn’t want to hear what you have to say a lot of the time. If I had listened to it a long time ago it could have helped me a lot. There’s not enough freedom in my current work. I need community and partnership.
If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of yourself, what do you think it would be saying to you?
Listen to my own self! Don’t listen to all that clutter from the outside!
Recommendations:
Interview yourself and follow the recommendations.
Come to integral salons
Interview potential partners; bring them to IDL events. If they refuse to be interviewed or won’t come, don’t have anything to do with them; they’re poison.
Why does pain personify itself as a free, joyous, pain-free dolphin for this dreamer? Why is its main message to listen to it and to become it? Why should this lady trust the voice of an imaginary, made-up dolphin? It’s a delusion and fantasy, right? She should just forget about it as quickly as possible, right?
Come swim with wild dolphins while learning Integral Deep Listening! http://www.claudia-hahm.de/welcome-everybody/
