Posted by Dj on February 21, 2000, at 2:04:11
> Thanks for your insights, they help alot!
>
> Glad to hear you're feeling much better. Who are J&B? You've always seemed to know that you are better off without medication.
>...
> You're a complicated person dj, JaniceGlad to be of some assistance, Janice. I'm really a pretty simple person, like most. It's our minds that make us seem complicated and complicate things for us. Meditation can help cut through that, which is why it is healing. A friend best described it to me as: "Prayer is talking to God & meditation, listening to God." Perhaps...my record on both fronts has been haphazard, though I believe a life well-lived is the best form of never-ending prayer. As St.Francis of Assissi is reported to have said: "Rather than walk a mile to pray, I let my walking be my praying."
J & B, B & J (odd how the Subject line won't take the & (ampersand)stands for Jock and Ben or Ben & Jock as the founders of PD Seminars at the Haven are fondly known by all who've had the pleasure of their company and better yet have done workshops with them and have thus had the full Haven experience. The Haven is kinda like Esalen (sp?) North (or perhaps Esalen is Haven South) -- a place for full-on experiential workshops which have evolved and become refined over the years to a warm, potent and nurturing elixir of the best of Eastern & Western healing practices, right here on Canada's wet coast where we just today elected the first East Indian born and raised naturalized-Canadian Premier. Another example of the benefits of mixing cultures - life is richer.
J& B and their esteemed colleagues have been instrumental in helping me come to fully appreciate the inherent healing powers of the mind and body, when released from energy strictures we've learned and adopted (though often not consciously) over our histories.
Here's a sampling of their thoughts on acupuncture and healing from an article called: Needles are not the Point:
presented at the 6th International Congress of Chinese Medicine, San Francisco, April 28, 1997
"Most acupuncture theory is mechanistic, proposing that release of energy comes through insertion and manipulation of needles. Yet, the efficacy of treatment varies with different clients, and with different practitioners. Why is this? There is no widely accepted explanation for these variations. Usually, emphasis on practitioner training has been on better point location or more or less stimulation.
We propose that the client--not the practitioner or the needle--does the healing. This occurs when the client becomes open and vulnerable, responsive in energy to the self and the environment. When a person is open, the energy fixations that underlie disease states can release.
The personality is an expression of habituated conformations of the pattern of the energy body. Personal attitudes and habits can rigidify into chronic muscular and connective tissue tension--producing "blockages" in the energy, which manifest as illness. Illness is an expression of frozen energy, occurring when the energy body closes, or rigidifies. To heal, the person needs to thaw. The factors in the personality that encourage blockage are field dependency and roles and obligations, where the person is satisfying demands external to the self. A person opens up in intimate dialogue with self and others. Thus, the challenge is to help the client to establish intimate relationships with the self, and with others.
The release that permits the thaw can come through a variety of approaches. Acupuncture and moxibustion help to relieve blocks that permit freeing of the energy. In psychotherapy, clients can release pent-up psychological distress, with accompanying energy expression..."
For the whole article check out:
http://www.pdseminars.com/PD_Publishing/shen20.html#needlesOne of their core principles is that of self-responsibility as explored in the following article, which I will sample from:
LEARNING ABOUT SELF-RESPONSIBILITY
Programs At PD Seminars
. . . Jock McKeen & Bennet Wong
Much attention is being given to the spiraling costs of health care delivery. If this trend continues, it will consume the greater portion of our nation's gross national income. New technology which can extend the quality and quantity of human lives requires increasing funding for research and training, as well as for updating existent facilities. As the medical profession provides more, the public grows to expect and demand more of those practitioners --and less of themselves! Herein lies the roots of the current health care crisis.Our North American culture was built with a pioneering spirit of independence and self-reliance. We knew that we had to take care of ourselves, prepare for future hardship, assure ourselves of good health so that we could survive, and teach our families how to avoid poor health. We prospered. With fully well meaning intention, we wanted our progeny to suffer less hardships, so we provided increasing amounts of protection and care management. Both within the family and in society in general, people grew to expect less of themselves, and more from others--especially from those whose education we supported to become our experts. In short, the twentieth century was characterized by a wholesale surrender of personal responsibility!
We believe that each person can only do well in all aspects of life if (s)he carries a sense of direction, fullness and meaning. Not someone else's sense of meaning as we are so often taught; rather, we each should be able to discover our own unique sense of meaning and satisfaction, even while remaining sensitive to and respecting the rights of others. The path of healing begins with self-reflection--how have "I" participated in the creation of this situation (illness, behavior problem, etc.)? Note that this is not a search for self-blame (a moral and political activity)! It is an examination of the extent of self-participation. This practice of self-awareness is the essence of living a responsible life.
...Programs at PD Seminars offer the participants an opportunity to achieve more meaning, more understanding of the self, and especially to discover some tools to help themselves. Most emphasize the discovery of underlying patterns of behavior--especially the "choice points." What is happening in the person's life that has brought him/her to this point of wanting to use this drug, or deciding (yes, we believe it to be a "decision" even when it may be unconscious) to become depressed, or angry, or ill. When this is recognized, such a person can see a wider (and possibly healthier) range of available options..."
http://www.pdseminars.com/PD_Publishing/shen.html#responsability
For some takes on PD's Disengaging Depression workshop and what it's all about you can always check out:
http://www.pdseminars.com/PD_Publishing/shen20.html#depression
and
http://www.pdseminars.com/PD_Publishing/shen23.html#depression
Simple, but not easy!
Namaste!
dJ
poster:Dj
thread:22860
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000220/msgs/22860.html