To date, we have been teachers more than listeners...
Teaching vs. Learning
We have also paid more attention to what we were saying, rather than how we were being with our clients. These hierarchical notions need to be set aside, even though they represent the expectations of our society. Some clients have tried to ‘get it’ without accepting that their intention is critical to doing so.
Our process provokes failure if we cannot be present to our clients. We always assumed that people who were attracted to this work would be motivated to try out what we were saying in their lives. This has led to an overemphasis on content and a misunderstanding about how to shift into greater context. When a client expects to be told what to do (rather than directly creating their own intentions) it creates disharmony. Higher Alignment needs to live up to its name and encourage harmony. We must bring intent, content and context into balance so our participants can grow in consciousness.
We need to start with intent if we are to make real progress in changing our experiential frameworks. This means we need to start with asking ourselves what we want and how we want to create it. We have to start with a vision of how we want to move forward; otherwise, we become obstacles to our own transformation. The ways we become attached to particular expressions of being demonstrate this confusion. We want our intent to be open to change so our engagement allows adaptation and growth. Taking an inventory of what we want can calibrate us to our true opportunities. This means we need to see ourselves in action, responding to possibilities, even when some of them do not pan out. In short, our curiosity has to supersede the fear of making mistakes. Child-like, we need to discover new ways to show up so we can recognize which opportunities are in alignment with our nature.
Until we are grounded in a commitment to pursue what we want, our lack of focus will produce mixed results. For example, attachments to the way potential partners look may distract us from our true goal of finding someone we can creatively connect to and love. As a result, our intention is tested and found wanting because we are not following through on our inner quest. Intention is not about random action, rather a coordinated recognition of what constitutes our path. Pleasure guides this intent and joy solidifies it. Intent arises through “at-one-ment” with the stillness within. Intent reflects the courage to concentrate on what works in our lives so it can best unfold to support us. In Higher Alignment, we support individuals who want to recalibrate how to create and sustain conscious connections.
Intention requires the willingness to grow and learn from our circumstances. In this way, we come to see how the world works through trial and error. We need to be able to recognize the value of the mistakes we make so we can improve our circumstances. In learning about Higher Alignment, the benefit is that once we clarify the choices that do not work for us, we do not need to repeat them. If we do repeat a choice, it is because we are unsure about our desires, lost in excitement or do not want to make an effort to change. Higher Alignment attracts individuals and couples that are not yet clear about what they want or what is possible. This means we need to stimulate intention without limiting it through over-definition. To engage HA we need to take risks that declare our intentions to reap the benefits. Higher Alignment is a path where we do best when we esteem and respect our choices, even if they are temporary in nature.
We have never lacked content in Higher Alignment. There are so many patterns that operate in life; it could take several years to explore them all. Making these patterns conscious choices is the value of Higher Alignment. Placing all the elements in structures of increasing consciousness and awareness re-organizes our knowing. We need to learn the basics before we can understand the more sophisticated parts of relationships. Most importantly, we need to accept personal responsibility for how we construct our life. We then learn about the consequences of default assumptions. While others may influence us, our reactions form a personality structure that can be defined in terms of parental imprinting, pretenses and defenses. Our personality is a false-self or reactive mechanism we use to protect ourselves from others. Beneath this façade is our creative nature, which helps us to express our Life, Light and Love. Affirming this content has been the mission of Higher Alignment for 33 years.
The problem is how we embody our creative nature. It is not something someone outside of us can affect. We need to connect our inner knowing to our outer experience so they are in alignment. Otherwise, without this intention and connection, we possess no capacity for conscious self-growth. This is the first obstacle to relationship transformation. The more HA presents about our Creative natures, without aligned intention, the more our mission becomes compromised. This is a paradox. We need to encourage our clients to affirm their own intention and find a way to meet them without imposing our truth upon them. We have been caught explaining the complexity of how we deny aspects of our creative nature. This distracts us from letting our client’s knowing guide his or her own development. We need to engage the intent of our clients so they re-set their priorities for adopting new patterns on their own timeframes. Rather than offering classes based upon HA’s availability, we will now create self-paced programs that fit the client’s timing. This is a matter of mutual autonomy and choice.
When we fully engage intent and content everything becomes about context as we choose the meanings we seek. Just like exploring intent for our natural path, context is where we find the meaning (or goodness) of our choices. If we are fixated on our knowing, it limits our being. Identifying with what we already know, and imposing this reality upon others is called Subjectification. It prevents learning. Subjectification is the result of not being able to think beyond our positions and embrace what some would call abstract or unity thinking. The obstacle of Defenses is the false perception that what we know is enough. The arrogance of thinking we are smarter is based upon not understanding our true selves. Lacking the motivation and desire for Autonomy, we do not see things from multiple perspectives, which traps us in positional thinking. This might seem efficient from a defensive point of view, but it means we are not learning about ourselves or our partners. The result is a lack of cooperation, empathy and creative synergy.
HA’s work is now shifting to how we source our choice to grow in our relationships. First, we need to learn our unique truth without the baggage of our past. Second, we need to align ourselves to the mystery of relationships so we discover and renew our experiences with greater depth. Third, we need to clarify our patterns of connection so we can moderate differences and maximize creative similarities. Fourth, we step into a spatially sensitive, heartfelt way of connecting our experience to the experience of others using Higher Alignment tools (such as Common Neutral Ground). This is how we hold a connection to ourselves while simultaneously connecting to others. In this process, we integrate intent with content and context. It is our choice about how we grow and develop ourselves. We can then explore Compatibility Factors, Motives, Attractions and Relationship Skills to create a better future with customized relationships.
The final obstacle is how much we are able to love and affirm our Creative nature. Until we love ourselves we are not willing to reveal who we are to others. Most importantly, we are not able to take risks by Co-Creating with our partners. As long as we hide out, our creative process is incomplete, because defenses deny our connection to others and the universe. The final release is to let go of the way we want to love others (an idealization pattern), so they can accept us as equal partners. Loving ourselves allows us to see and accept others as they are. When we love someone, it confirms we have love for ourselves. Otherwise our shadow side (where we compare our personalities to others) distorts our connection. We cannot be simultaneously humble and creatively great without accepting that we are energetic, fallible, intuitive beings in the process of Self Transformation. Our personality needs to put aside the need to control so we can fully experience our creative gifts.
Mastery is achieved when we own our skills. Mystery is provoked by when we accept the perfection of where we are in our process. Mastery is the masculine and mystery is the feminine side that is brought together through participation and common purpose. We do this within ourselves so we can fluidly manifest it with others. We are designed to wake up, grow up and (finally) show up in relationships when we work from our inner Beauty, Truth and Goodness, respectively. This mirrors the development of our skills: Growth, Autonomy and Intimacy. It also mirrors our consciousness expansion process where we engage Intent, explore Content and embrace Context. Higher Alignment is now in a phase of responding to our clients as co-creative partners.
Instead of teaching, we are now a learning company. Our clients learn from us and we learn from them. We are making the creative assessment process quicker and more relevant. We will continually improve these creative assessments as we externalize many of our current internal tools. We will provide classes on demand, and add support and intent groups to make the process more balanced and interactive. We are open to your suggestions about how to expand or enrich the use of the Internet to facilitate mutual growth. We are also working towards connecting like-minded people for creative projects, romance and business. You may have noticed how we are reorganizing our classes to recognize the main factors that support better relationships. The whole purpose of these changes is to serve our constituents. As we unfold these options, we will seek and present conscious ways to address co-dependence in our world. Please join us in this endeavor of mutual discovery.