How to set your “North Star” to the path of Light

Please note: If you want to be send notifications of my new videos about “Carpet Work Facilitation,” you must sign up by clicking this link. Only if you sign up will you be sent notifications about new facilitation training videos. – Dmitri

There’s a weird thing about how people generally handle traumatic experiences.

They often don’t say, “Wow, I’m glad that weird aberration to my normal experience is over.”

Instead, they unconsciously say, “That bad thing must have happened to me for a reason.”

Then they’ll often conclude, “The reason that bad thing happened to me because I’m on a bad, dark path in life.”

Then that new belief — that they are essentially stuck on a dark path — makes healing difficult.

They start to expect (and even seek out) bad experiences, and ignore the opportunities for good ones.

“I’m on a dark path” easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In this new 6-minute video, I talk about how you can recognize when you’ve gotten on to a path of darkness, and how you can get off of it. I also share some examples of people making that shift

If you are interested in healing, you’ll almost certainly want to know the ideas I present in this video.

The fundamental mistake that causes you to lose heart, and how you can avoid it

There’s a Fundamental Mistake at the core of every loss of heart:

Believing that if you can’t see a way towards achieving your heart’s longing, it means that there is no way forward.

There you are, pursuing your heart’s longing. Perhaps it’s to find a great job, or to build a great relationship, or to lose weight and develop stellar fitness.

You’re buzzing along, but then something gets in the way.

There's no way forwardWhat “gets in the way” will vary. It may be that you’ve tried everything you can think of, but still can’t seem to land the job you want. Or it may be that you’ve tried “spicing things up” with your spouse, but your spouse hasn’t responded. Or it may be you tried dieting, but diet food all tastes like sawdust and is flat-out boring to eat.

You hit a problem that is in the way, and you can’t seem to get past it.

In the face of that problem, you make the Fundamental Mistake: On a subconscious level you conclude, “I’ve tried everything, and nothing works to bring me closer to achieving my heart’s longing. Therefore, there must not be a way forward.

And that’s the moment you lose heart. [Read more…]

Who’s the Jerk Here? A Holiday Story by Dmitri Bilgere

So often relationship problems seem to come down to the question, Who’s the jerk here?

I’m not saying relationships should come down to that. But often they do. People assemble evidence about how their partner is being a jerk. They gather supporters to back up their point of view. And they create plans and take action to put a stop to this jerky behavior, once and for all.

While it’s certainly true that other people sometimes do things that should not be tolerated, it’s dangerous to jump to conclusions too quickly about who the jerk is in a situation.

I’d like to give you a real example from my life, in a little Holiday Story I call,

Who’s the Jerk Here? A Holiday Story by Dmitri Bilgere

Jerky, Jerky Fawn

My wife, Fawn, had been being very unreliable recently (even by her own admission). I’m not going to go into the embarrassing details, but she had been going through a time of frequently saying she was going to do things — sometimes important things — and either not doing them, or putting them off for so long I had to do them for her. [Read more…]

How to use "Authority" to change your limiting beliefs

I’ve noticed an interesting thing as a workshop leader and as a coach:

Sometimes I’ll simply tell someone that something is possible for them, and they’ll believe me.

And they won’t stop there — they’ll live from this new belief, and get awesome new results.

That’s because an Authority can change beliefs. My Authority is so strong for these folks, it overrides their own belief and allows them to be different.

An “Authority” can change your belief about yourself when you believe in that authority more than you believe your current, limiting belief.

An Authority can be a coach, a therapist, a guru, a friend… It simply has to be someone you believe in more than you believe in your own limitation.

An Authority is someone where you stop and say, “Wow, if they say it, it must be true.”

Click here to read the rest of this entry

How to be the ’empty cup’ that calls forth compassion and healing

As I’ve been preparing for this series of newsletters about compassion, I’ve been most surprised by two things —

First, by how hard it is to precisely define compassion in a way that really encompasses it — and

Second, by how well you can be guided in being compassionate by simple “do and don’t” -style rules.

Today I want to talk about the experience of compassion… And to give you the first surprising thing I’ve discovered about using compassion to bring healing to yourself and to others.

What is compassion?

Of course, I’m not in any way the first person to write about compassion — it’s a BIG subject. The Buddha said that “Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others.” Some have described it as an “emotional resonance.” I think of it as “feeling for” or “feeling with” someone as they are going through difficulty.

But rather than struggle with definitions, let’s talk instead about the sensation of compassion — where the “rubber hits the road” in your experience.

How do you know if you are feeling compassion, for yourself or for someone else?
Click here to read the rest of this entry

Self-Compassion: Healing’s Secret Ingredient

It’s almost a taboo in our society to have compassion for yourself. If you were taught anything, it was probably to NOT have self-compassion, to not be a “crybaby,” or to “stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

And that’s too bad, because opening your heart to yourself is a critical part of any healing experience. The better you are at it, the faster and deeper you will heal from any upset.

If you know me (ether through these newsletters or from my seminars or phone coaching), you know that I’m always looking for the “secret ingredient” — the one thing in any situation that has a disproportionate effect on the outcome.

In the healing process, one “secret ingredient” — the simple thing that accelerates you toward the “healing moment” — is self-compassion.

Opening your heart to YOURSELF does more to bring about healing than just about anything else.

I’m going to share some tips, techniques and insights I’ve found have made it easier for people to access their self-compassion. (And, as a bonus, it will also make it easier for you to be compassionate to others!)

Once you know these simple steps you’ll be able to get through upsetting experiences faster, get unstuck more quickly, be able to go for what you want with your whole heart. You’ll also be able to be happier and more at peace no matter what your circumstances.
Click here to read the rest of this entry

Audio: Spiritual Healing in Relationships with Jim and Zaina Keeley

[display_podcast]

I’m excited to be posting this 32-minute interview with Jim and Zaina Keeley.

Jim has more concentrated, useful, practical wisdom than almost anyone I’ve ever worked with, and I make it my business to show up at most of his workshops, no matter where they are.

Jim and Zaina have been married for 10 years, and are happier together all the time. The love and the excitement of the relationship has lasted for them.

At the end of July they are running their first relationships workshop.

My future wife and I are going to this workshop, so I decided to interview them about it, and share that interview with you.

Please note: I am not being paid to tell you about this workshop. I’m going to it, and I think you might get value out of it too.

In this 32-minute interview with Jim and Zaina, they cover…

  • Practical steps for growing spiritually in a relationship,
  • How a relationship can go from being just a place a person gets his or her needs met to becoming a place where people grow together into their fulfillment and happiness,
  • Why sharing feelings or your “truth” can sometimes turn into a fight or a session of complaining, and what to do about it,
  • How the purpose of relationship communication is not just to get your point across, but to discover the next place inside of you that you need to transform to move even deeper into the relationship,
  • The problem with thinking that your partner are the same person every day, and how who you partner is today asks new things of you… and how those new challenges can be catalysts for transformation,
  • How Jim and Zaina “hold” each other during conflict, and avoid the major traps of “just listening” to your partner.
  • How to get past the idea that “sooner or later all couples drift apart” or the other ideas that dull many relationships,
  • How to listen “deeper” to what is upsetting your partner,
  • The “subtle losses of heart” that happen in relationships, and how to overcome them,
  • Good news about how a couple can set the intention to be ridiculously and outrageously happy together, and can keep that intention (and experience) alive through the bumps and challenges of the relationship,
  • and more.

About their workshop:

Location: The workshop is happening in Auburn Massachusetts, USA. (By the way, Fawn and I are traveling from Madison, WI to this workshop, on the weekend before our wedding… We think it’s worth traveling to get to this workshop, and encourage you to think so, too.)

Date: Saturday and Sunday, July 26-27, 2008.

Price: Probably because this is the first time they’ve let this workshop, it is priced at only $150/person. (I think you can expect the price to go up dramatically in the future.)

Who can come: This workshop is open to people who are in a relationship, those who would like to be in one, or someone who is getting over a heartbreak or anyone else.

Next steps for you:

If you’d like to hear more from Jim, he has a free newsletter and many hours of free audio at his website http://howtowalkwithgod.com (Opens in a new window).

To find out more or sign up for the workshop, you can email Jim at [email protected].

[display_podcast]

And please feel free to comment on this post!