How to Keep Relationships Healthy

The Drama Triangle

Sometimes we shy away from relationships because they can get messy at times. Who hasn’t experienced a friendship devolving into something painful? We’d like to believe that people devoted to love and prayer don’t have this problem, but that isn’t always the case.

This messiness often comes from a drama with three different roles that we tend to play. I wrote about this four years ago near the beginning of Integral Christian Network because it is an such a helpful understanding about relationships. Called the Drama Triangle, this model reveals dysfunctional interaction originally described by Stephen Karpman. I learned this from him in a workshop forty years ago. It has served me to explain the cycles and patterns of behavior I saw unfold in so many relationships and conversations. It also indicated what we can do to get off the Drama Triangle. There are more nuanced approaches for the professional counselor, but I will give the basics here.

Paul SmithOctober 21, 2023Comment

Beyond Mindfulness – Embodying Holistic Presence

Whole-Body Mystical Presencing: Part Nine

Mindfulness has become one of the most prevalent spiritual practices in the modern world today. It’s now being taught and applied in businesses and schools, reaching beyond the usual confines of religious and spiritual settings.

There is so much of current society that thrives on distraction, entertainment, and other forms of numbing consciousness. And we don’t want to live mindless lives. We are craving a more substantive experience of everyday life and reality. In response to pervasive anxiety, detachment, and anger, we want to be more calm, engaged, and peaceful. We want to be able to be more fully present in who we truly are throughout the moments of our days.

Mindfulness is a wonderful practice that can help us greatly in this regard. While there are many forms of the practice, most teach a process of conscious observing, noticing, and focused attention. It is a practice of self-regulation that helps us cultivate an orientation of curiosity, openness, acceptance toward life. And it is great, insofar as it goes.

PracticeLuke HealyOctober 14, 2023WBMP, presencing, Embodiment Comments

Integrating Presence Into Life in Action

Part Eight: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

“Oh God, how can I help? What can we do?”

From the common prayer of “God, help me” we started with in last week’s article, we move from focus on ourselves into care and attention on the world, with our neighbors, in the moment right before us now.

From our inquiries of how we might live in resonance and wisdom from divine presence, we then respond to act with/in spirit consciousness.

For Whole-Body Mystical Presencing is not just about sensing or feeling divine spirit alive in us at any and all times. It is also about transforming how we live in each and every moment.

"My being is God, not by some simple participation but by a true transformation of my being." – Catherine of Genoa

PracticeLuke HealyOctober 7, 2023WBMP, Embodiment, presencing, Mystical Activism Comments

Presence in Prayer of Divine Inquiry

Part Seven: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

“God, help me!”

This might be the most common prayer there is and has been. I would guess most everyone reading this has prayed it at some point. Perhaps in a moment of desperation, perhaps in a time of childlike simplicity, perhaps this morning. Sometimes it’s not even said in words, but just a silent reaching out to the beyond. Even those who don’t believe in God have still been found to offer up this prayer in their darkest moments.

Asking for help is one of the most fundamentally human things we can do. And asking God for help is when we reach beyond what we are capable of, beyond what anyone else can do for us, beyond what would seem in the scope of possibility.

Some don’t believe in an interventionist God. And if we’re talking about Zeus casting lightning bolts down to smite the wicked, we have enough evidence to probably agree.

As we practice Whole-Body Mystical Presencing—which is a practice to enter the everyday reality of Christ consciousness, a moment-to-moment permeation of divine spirit—God is already here in our midst and within us at any and all times. Intervention is most often what we do as God’s presence in action, which will be the focus of next week’s article.

PracticeLuke HealySeptember 30, 2023WBMP, presencing, Embodiment, Spirit Guides Comments

Presencing Oneness in Our Lives

Part Six: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

"For this is the truth in nature, that this ego which thinks itself a separate independent being and claims to live for itself, is not and cannot be independent nor separate, nor can it live to itself even if it would, but rather all are linked together by a secret Oneness." – Sri Aurobindo

“May they all be one, as you, Abba God, are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us.” – Jesus

Whether it’s Jesus, other spiritual teachers, and now many scientists as well, the world is waking up more and more to an understanding and participation in the reality of Oneness, as Paul recently detailed thoroughly in a six-part series.

In spiritual practice, we can move into deep states of experiencing our Oneness. While it is sometimes bestowed upon us as a grace, it is a consciousness we can intentionally cultivate and develop with regular practice. Whole-Body Mystical Awakening can lead us into ways of experiencing this Oneness in our hearts and minds, in our spiritual womb, feet, and whole body. In meditation, we can consciously practice moving into unified reality holistically.

In Whole-Body Mystical Presencing—which is a practice to enter the everyday reality of Christ consciousness, a moment-to-moment permeation of divine spirit—we can live from Oneness while we’re having lunch, walking the dog, working, playing, talking, and resting.

Do you believe that’s possible?

Can we engage a universal sense of presencing Oneness in our daily lives, in our embodied mystical being at any moment?

PracticeLuke HealySeptember 23, 2023WBMP, Oneness, presencing, EmbodimentComment

Becoming More Than Myself

Part Five: Whole-Body Mystical Presencing

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. – Albert Einstein

The mystics throughout the ages have attested to the illusion of separateness and the fundamental interconnectedness of life, that we are more than just separate individuals. Scientists are now saying the same thing, as our awareness of quantum reality has broken us out of the boxes of physical materialism and a Newtonian view of the world and universe.

More and more are waking up not only to this knowledge, but also to the experience of this freedom.

Practice, WeSpaceLuke HealySeptember 16, 2023WBMP, WeSpace, presencing, Embodiment Comments

More Signs You Are Waking Up

Part Six: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

In this last part of our series on welcoming expanded consciousness, we continue to briefly explore some signs that signal that we are on the journey of waking up spiritually. Remember, a spiritual awakening is a continuing and highly individual experience; not everyone will go through all these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey.

While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some more common indicators that you may be moving into a state of expanded consciousness.

Paul SmithSeptember 9, 2023Comment

How to Tell You Are Waking Up

Part Five: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

Moving into expanded consciousness is a profound and transformative experience that often comes with identifiable signs and shifts in one's perception and awareness. However, we may not always easily recognize them when we are in the midst of such significant changes.

For the last two parts of this series, we’ll look at sixteen signs you are moving into expanded consciousness.

Remember, a spiritual awakening is a highly individual experience, and not everyone will go through all of these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey. While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some common indicators.

Paul SmithSeptember 2, 2023Comment

The Path of Devotion into Expanded Consciousness

Part Four: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

In our context, devotion refers to a deep sense of love, reverence, and commitment to God, a divine presence, person, and cause, such as bringing healing to the people of the world and the earth itself. It can take the form of prayer, meditation, reflection, other spiritual practices and always includes loving service and action. Devotion can be a powerful avenue for expanding consciousness/spirit and deepening one's connection to God.

The first followers of Jesus were devoted to him while he was in their physical realm. Their devotion became even more supercharged with the expansion of their consciousness/spirit at Pentecost and following. They now sang to him as the Living Resurrected Jesus, talked to him, and enjoyed his exhilarating presence in their gatherings. While in trance spirit consciousness, they received messages from Jesus and other spiritual presences of guidance, comfort, encouragement, and strengthening for one another.

Significantly, within a few years after his resurrection appearances, these first, soon-to-be-called Christians were giving Jesus the same devotion they gave the awesome God of their Jewish faith.

Paul SmithAugust 26, 2023Comment

How To Enter Expanded States Of Spirit Consciousness

Part Three: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

MysticismPaul SmithAugust 19, 2023ConsciousnessComment