This shift works wonders for those who suffer from severe anxiety in front of groups as well as for experienced communicators who are ready to access a higher vibration of authentic impact and charisma. ______________________________________________________________________
NEW: Pleasure & Purpose Speaking Circles: Saturdays, March 12 (Petaluma)
and April 23 (San Rafael) -- See below
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As those who've followed these monthly articles know, in the past 25 years I've evolved a co-mindfulness practice--Relational Presence (sometimes referred to as Relational Stillness)--as a workaround for not having been able to sustain a meditation practice on my own.
For those new to this work, Relational Presence practice refines a gaze of attunement that matches the vibration of mother mirroring and evokes a luminous listening field. In Speaking Circles this field facilitates a level of co-creative synergy that expresses itself in a scintillating range of emotional intelligence with no efforting.
As I indicated last month, this practice that leads to quantum leaps in ease and impact with groups is greatly accelerated by entering any audience engagement through the portal of pleasure. This entails taking a deep breath or two to tap into the pure pleasure of their company before saying a word, and then maintaining awareness of that pleasure and letting it expand.
As I continue to open my Speaking Circles by breathing deeply into the pleasure field myself and sharing from there, the rarefied air of grace has lifted these sessions even higher. This has led me to schedule one-day sessions to meet the demand for spaces.
What's new since last month...
is that I found a way in to establish a sustainable solo meditation practice by applying to it the pleasure principle of public speaking. As I sit and breathe and locate myself as the observer of the three-ring circus of the mind rather than identifying with the spinning wheels, I notice the pleasure of every breath, letting each flow to a place in my body that wants its caress. Pleasure seeker that I am, I now look forward to sitting for a half-hour alone, a whole new experience for me.
I understand better now why I was passionately drawn to deconstruct public speaking anxiety into an opportunity for ecstasy. It's the one fear many of us are called on (sometimes forced) to confront in the real world, so it is an ideal arena in which to learn how to navigate fear of all kinds. Here we practice dropping defenses and coming back back back to co-mindful presence with one listener at a time. This allows us to embody the capacity to sit back and observe the anxiety rather than identify with it. There is no pleasure in the anxiety but there can be great pleasure in not cowering from it with the support of a warm intelligent receptive group.
The pleasure seeker's path to the other side of public speaking anxiety, from mild to severe, is through it. Or more accurately, to fully experience it and let it pass through you.
To close, would you take a deep, pleasurable breath with me?
