Tag Archives: interconnectedness

Chuck’s Place: Stabilizing and Contributing Now

…you need!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Whether we feverishly track the news or guardedly protect ourselves from incoming data storms we are all, at our interconnected core, impacted by what is happening in the world. Though we might insulate ourselves from the plight of children separated from their parents, at a certain level the emotional energy of their fear and sadness runs through us all.

The high profile suicides we have witnessed recently speak to the existential despair of our fragile egos, subjected to a milieu of instability, uncertainty, and disintegration. As a psychotherapist my role is to acknowledge these truths and help people safely cross the tumultuous river of our time.

Recognizing that we are all interconnected means that certain currents of thought and feeling that flow through us are collective in nature; they are greater than our individual selves yet we might interpret them quite personally. Ego can forge its navigating ship by recognizing its interconnected core but at the same time not identify with or attach its individual self to its collective affiliation.

Copycat syndrome is actually ego loosing its grounded footing and identifying itself with the mood, thinking, and action of another. Ego is indeed vulnerable to dissolving its identity and merging with a collective impulse, as is well illustrated by a mob mentality. In fact, at present we are witnessing mob mentalities emerging from many corners, deeply challenging our individual egos to know thyself apart from the collective self of the group.

Turning attention to the body self is most helpful at this time. The body registers the collective emotional currents of now in stress reactions that tighten the body boundaries through clenching. Giving ourselves the message that, “it is safe to release in this moment,” accompanied by slow deeper breathing releases these inner dams of tension and better prepares ego to go with the flow.

From this more personally grounded place, ego can contribute to calming the collective angst by tapping into love energy, which radiates back into the collective river of energy at its deepest current, our interconnected oneness. Love is the glue that binds us together as a human family.

Feel and send love to the separated children. Feel and send compassion to those in control of deciding the fate of those children that they might find their way to love in their actions. Arm the self with love energy that it may hold together while weathering through the great changes and challenges of now.

Encased in love we hold together and advance regardless of outer circumstance. Love endures the pain of separation. Love issues from beyond space-time where all is one, all the time. It is our deepest challenge and greatest opportunity to find our way to this enduring connection in this time of great distraction and separation.

Through stabilizing and dis-indentifying with the violent currents of now we find our way to the deepest current of love, which contributes to the restoration of our true oneness. Find your way down to that which always flows at the depth of your being, the universal current of love, and let it radiate, period.

Love is all,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Wednesday May 30, 2018

Stay connected to nature. Begin by feeling your feet upon the ground, by raising your eyes to the sky, by breathing the air around you, by listening to the sounds that surround you. Nature, in these ways, is always with you. You are nature too, physical and spiritual matter. All that you feel and sense around you is in you. When you experience the beauty and boldness and vastness of nature, know that you too are beautiful, bold, and vast, a creature of all that is. Let this knowing sit well within you and bring you comfort and groundedness today and every day. For this knowing and this connectedness to all that is truly matters. And it’s perfectly natural!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Thursday October 12, 2017

Steadiness is needed now, a firm hand and firm intent if progress is to be made, if worry is to cease, and if compassion is once again to be of any use. Ground yourself in right action. Ground yourself in clear mind. Ground yourself in loving heart. Ground yourself in knowing that as you breathe and clear a path to making changes in your own life so do your changes effect the greater world. Let your grounding intentions and actions ground others around you. Be a good example of what it means to be a mature and grounded being, loving and compassionate, within and without. Take responsibility where others do not. It’s time for someone to be in charge. To begin with, in your own life, it should be you!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: The Tao Of Melanie

Melanie a year after Woodstock

It was a Friday night. I put on some old Melanie albums. Jan and I sat and drank a glass of soon-to-be “leftover wine.”

Earlier that day, Jan was perusing the local news and events when she suddenly called to me. “Melanie is playing in Woodstock tomorrow night!” she said. “Do you want to go?”

“Only if we can sit very close and in the center,” I replied.

We checked the seating charts and there were indeed two seats, front and center, in the second row. Boom, we bought the tickets. We were going to see Melanie at an intimate 250 seat venue.

I’m not a nostalgist. I am drawn to music that is alive now. When I listen to old Melanie songs I feel the extreme purity of innocence seeking connection that she always embodied. This Grand Dame of the Woodstock Music Festival so captured the energy of rejuvenation of the time, of freedom, clarity, and the simplicity of love, so that every time I listen to her music it’s like opening a Gran Reserva 1969. I am never disappointed.

Melanie opened the set with “Beautiful People.” Her voice was a little shaky, seemed a bit strained, barely warmed up. I wondered, rather nervously for a moment, if she had become a glass of leftover wine. But in no time she began to open her heart and speak from her innocence. Her voice warmed and she took us on her deepening journey into new songs of love and innocence.

Melanie: Still singing, still relevant...

Like a shaman, in sweet playfulness, she reminded us that we are all beings who are going to die. She laughed and said, “Look, I wouldn’t have designed it that way, but it’s how it is.”

She appreciated the sweetness of youth, but valued our evolving selves in maturity as well. I was reminded of my blog on sexual maturity as she spoke, each stage of life offering its own unique fulfillments, if we can allow ourselves to enjoy each and every moment of the ride.

Standing transfixed on the stage, gazing off into another dimension, she sang about angels watching over us. Her husband of 45 years, who had recently died had left a note in their hotel room, addressed to her and her son, letting them know that “Angels are always with you.” And then he dropped Melanie off at Whole Foods in Framingham MA while he went off to Best Buy, something about his cell phone, telling her he would pick her up later, but he never returned. She turned his final communication into a song and when she sang it, he was there, watching over us.

And then the Tao of Melanie truly revealed itself in Smile. She spoke and sang in vintage form of the power of the smile; so simple, so down to earth, so practical, so available to everyone. Change the self, change the world, in this moment, by stalking a smile. SMILE! :)

She spoke of Amma, the Hugging Saint of India, soon herself to come to the Bearsville Theatre. For years she’s resisted “getting the hug.” Perhaps out of shyness or doubt, but finally she got “the hug.” And she was blown away! “That woman is connected to the source,” she said. “Get the hug! Get the hug!” And with that, I determined to get the hug.

My purple tie-dyed LP!

After the concert I stalked being a fan. I’ve never waited for an autograph, but there we were, on line.

Before the concert had started, I had purchased her new CD. As I waited on line after the concert, I thought, “No, all my Melanie albums are on LP, vinyl, and frankly that’s how I most enjoy listening to music.” So, I cashed in my CD for her limited-edition, purple, tie-dyed LP for $50—the realization of a lifelong dream for Melanie, as she had always wanted to have an album that was a color other than black. Now I shared the dream and became the proud owner of one of the 300 limited-edition, purple, tie-dyed LPs!

As she signed the LP, Jan commented to her, “You’re not so shy anymore.”

“Well, not on stage,” she replied, “but in my personal life I still am.”

And then I told her I didn’t have my camera to get a picture with her, but asked, “Could I give you a hug?” She hesitated only briefly and then said, “Sure.” And with that, I got the hug!

That woman is connected to the source!

Smile,
Chuck

NOTE: The new purple tie-dyed album Ever Since You Never Heard of Me is only available through Melanie’s website or at her concerts. The CD is available through iTunes and there are a few songs not on the LP and vice versa, so they are different, the CD cut in 2010 the LP 2012. Here is a link to her website. Also listen to Melanie sing Smile with her fans in this fun YouTube video in the Netherlands.