• Recently Written

  • A Little Pattern
  • More Moe Dialogue #3
  • More Moe Dialogue #2
  • Parents, on Mother’s Day
  • Embracing Being NYC March 2009
  • Lie to Me, Please
  • Organizing Files?
  • How to Win by Quitting
  • Dvork Keyboard Simply Better
  • Moe Dialogues #1

• Categories

  • Awakening
  • Entertainment
  • Personal Topics
  • technology
  • Uncategorized

• Archives

  • September 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009

• Admin

  • Log in
  • Wordpress
  • XHTML

• Search

Dear Mom,

I just arrived home from the Embracing Being Course in New York City.  We held the workshop in a beautiful venue on the sixteenth floor in downtown Manhattan.  The room was huge with a smooth darkwood floor and windows all around with picturesque views of the city.  They called the meeting room a sacred space, which in this case meant we had to remove our shoes and weren’t allowed to eat in the room.  Sacred?

The first evening of the course was for both course participants and guests.  We had nearly fifty people that evening including old hands, people who have done courses with me for years, young hands, people who have done a course or two or who have been on cluster calls but not yet done a course, and new folks.  The mix of all three groups makes for a fast and very pleasurable evening.  I had to keep the attention of each group by delivering the course on several different levels at the same time.  Two of the evening’s guests were women who I had met on match.com but not in person.  I suspected that this would make me nervous, instead it inspired me.

I never really know how a course will go.  I begin the course by clearing out everything I know, so the evening is “new” to me.  Much of what happens in the course is dependent on the participants and in this course it was participant driven.  People started out with questions right away:  my favorite.  A theme that began to emerge as several people asked questions is that the people wanted grounding.  They wanted to know how to be more present and to quiet the crazy conversations or wild pictures in their heads.  Though they didn’t say it, it seemed that they wanted to settle down into a gentle peace that would let them relax and yet still get a lot done.

As you know I am endlessly fascinated by people.  Something you taught me well.  If you don’t mind I will tell you about several of the people who stand out from the first evening.  Anne deserves first billing.  She is blond, blue eyed and beautiful, but what is even more interesting about her is that she is an enneagram 7.  She has loads of energy and her focus of attention is all over the place.  Not in a bad way, actually in a very powerful way.  She is effervescent almost to the point of spontaneous combustion.  Not surprisingly she teaches hundreds of elementary school kids.  I played with her a good deal that first evening.  Anne wasn’t registered in the weekend.  But she came back the next day and signed up.  It was great to have her as she is endlessly curious and always has something to say.

Jeff, another person I haven’t met before came Friday night, has been listening to my work for three or four years.  He has been listening to many recordings of my courses more than fifty times.  He was far more present than most of the people in the group and attributes that presence to all the listening he has done.  I was amazed the first time Jeff spoke.  He was already peaceful, already at ease and offering deep gentle parts of himself for all of us to enjoy.  I was reminded that if people just listen, even to the same course over and over, they will get huge benefits in their lives.  Jeff continued to be a treat all weekend long.

Several other people stand out from Friday evening.  A man named Jan who is smart but suffers almost constantly was there.  I am so sorry he didn’t do the weekend as I would have enjoyed watching him begin to enjoy himself and take himself much less seriously.  There was a woman who is a life coach, who, though stuck in new age hyper-masculine hype, was fun to play with.  A young Russian woman, a photographer, interacted with the group.  Oddly, she was wildly visual and ungrounded, but the moment I had her speak in Russian she was grounded again.  Amazing to watch her shift depending on which language she was speaking.  One of the women from match.com was gentle.  She has been meditating for nearly twenty years and it shows, in both positive and negative ways.  She is very peaceful but at the same time so deep inside that she is difficult to reach.  The other match.com person was distant the whole evening.  One of the basic things about leading a course like this is to allow people to be just where they are, that way they get moving pretty quickly.

Friday night ended with Anne, the wild and wooly school teacher, in tears and with lots of laughs and learning’s for all of us.  It was both an auspicious and a really enjoyable evening.  I am amazed at the way courses take their own shape, just the shape they need to be for the people involved.

Saturday morning the course continued with people who would be there for the whole weekend.  Three people who had been guests Friday night registered and joined us for the whole weekend.  Saturday and Sunday we played, and played and played some more.  As usual I created new models and used those models to both get to know the people more fully and encourage them to get to know themselves.  Probably the most telling part of the weekend is that nearly twenty of the twenty seven participants were registered in the next New York Course by Sunday evening.

It is difficult to explain what we do in these courses, which often makes it tough to register people.  It isn’t possible to tell them exactly what they are in for or precisely what they will receive from a course.  Typically by Sunday morning course attendees are peaceful, playful and far more present than they began.  After the course people report that every aspect of their lives is far more livable and entertaining.  Not only do they have fun at the course but they continue to reap benefits in every aspect of their lives.  The results that people discover in their lives from coming to the course are so wide spread and diverse that they really need to experience them.

When I think back to the weekend, thinking of each person there, I realize that not only am I doing exactly what I should be doing and what I am really good at, but I have an ever growing population of interesting, competent, friends to play with in the process.

As you know I could go on and on, describing more course participants and discoveries from the weekend.   Instead I will give you a few glimpses of your son working (see video below) and begin getting ready for the next course which I lead in Portland, OR next week.  I go early to Portland to enjoy the flowers.  This time of year everything is blooming; the people will be blooming as well.

The unorthodox nature of my occupation and my life’s purpose comes back to you.  Your interest and endless curiosity about people inspired my interest in the depths and wonderment of my fellow human beings.  I made being compassionate of people into a career that makes my life worth living and surrounds me with people who are growing and exceeding their wildest dreams.

Thank you.    Love, Jerry

PS  Here is what another participant at the course wrote about the New York Course!  Click!!

PPS  And here are some short movies of me playing in the Course:

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Comments

• Blogroll

  • Hali’s Blog - Hali explores unique topics from interesting perspectives.
  • Pajamadeen - Really fun page for all sorts of news.