Intro To Finding Presence

The Finding Presence series is a framework.

VortexHealing® is a healing modality but it's a lot more than that. It can be difficult to talk about. I always offer healing so that people can have a direct experience of VortexHealing® and have a sense of what it can do, which is much better than anything I could say about it. In offering these healings though, I found that people really resonated when I started talking about and working with specific issues. The issue of anxiety, for example, or depression.

There are a lot of universal issues that we all relate to. When I started talking about those specific issues, people better understand how the work could help them. I began a series that I was calling the issue series. I would offer healing on different themes. I would talk a little bit about different kinds of issues, to help get people's awareness into that and how they experience it.

My experience of anxiety would be very different from yours. Although most of us know what anxiety is, we've all known it on some level, it's a very personal experience. So I would sort of speak about that issue. The nature of it. Help people get their awareness into what that's like for them. And I found that that would help to bridge the healing even more deeply. People would have more of a direct experience of how the work was working for them.

I've written a couple of articles, and I was invited to be a recurring guest on a cable show called Oneness and Wellness. On that show we did a whole series targeting different issues and it's developed a following because these are things that we all share. This is part of the common human experience.

My team and I have recently been sort of sitting with the name. We've just been calling it The Issue Series, and we realized it needed a better name. The Issue Series doesn't sound like a lot of fun, does it? And I also don't want to present myself as a psychiatrist or a psychologist, because what we're doing is not traditional therapy in that way. What we're doing is really guiding people's awareness into the nature of the issue, how it holds them, so they can awaken out of it.

To really bring in the awakening element of what VortexHealing® is about. So that's how things are – in the process of evolving.

Part of the job in teaching VortexHealingⓇ is just to define terms.

What is it? What does awakening really mean? What does healing really mean? What is integration, and what is presence? If you sort of google it, you have a sense that it just means “existence”, but it has come to mean so much more than that. We actually have a VortexHealing® class called Presence – it's a particular tool, but it also explores the different factors of presence, which we think of as an element of freedom. An element apart and an element of beingness.

The freedom within presence is a detachment from our issues, from our concerns, from things that sort of take us away. There's freedom from that, but there's also a heart to it. Heart, to me, is like a hereness. It’s a location, not in physicality, but in heart. So I'm free here. I think the quality that makes presence, presence, is the beingness – the nowness of it. The in-the-moment of it. There's freedom from the things that would distract us, like issues, in heart, now.

The old Ram Dass saying “be here now” really speaks to that element of presence. I can be with you here, in a relaxed way, without agenda. Enjoy the moment in a sense of presence. At the end of the day, that's kind of what we're all looking for, whether we realize it or not. We’re seeking the peace that arises from that deep relaxation of knowing that we can just be here now.

What I’ve noticed is that as people relate to these issues, it helps them to change their relationship with them.

Issues, by nature, are very isolating. They keep us in an experience of ourselves, and away, distracted – all of those things. But when we realize that we all have them and that there are universal issues that we all share, oddly, it can bring us together. Then we realize that there is a common human experience. So that's an opportunity to put our judgment about our issues down about our issues. Change our relationship with, dare I say, pain.

As soon as we feel poorly, be it physically, emotionally, psychologically, we sort of step away, we hide. We assume there's something wrong with us, that it's bad. But if we have the courage to actually meet, whatever that is without fear and judgment, that changes our relationship to that issue. Then we can examine it. We can say, “Oh, isn't this interesting in this particular situation, I shut down. In this particular situation, I have noticed that my behavior changes. I'm open and free and happy over here, but I'm not here.” When we change our relationship to our issues, and we can use them as a vehicle for exploration, they become a gateway to our own evolution. Our own awakening process, our own path to freedom.

We can meet our issues and work with them with whatever tools we have - VortexHealing or whatever tools that we work with, and that can lead us to freedom. If we're not willing to meet them, if we're afraid of the pain, then we can't come through it. We can manage it, we can circumnavigate it, we can deny it, but we can’t awaken through it.

My hope with the Finding Presence series is that we're creating a framework so that people feel safe enough to really meet the issues that they have. The common, universal issues that we all have to be able to meet and recognize for what they are.

Issues are a very real experience, but it's not the truth of what you are.

Change the framework and use it as an opportunity for growth. If we can create a framework where people can change and see that, then the doors really open and things can really move from there. That's my hope for the series. Meeting people in different ways and well, there's just an endless supply of materials – issues abound! We all have a lot going on at any given time.

I had a vision that we could dialogue about a given issue. Any issue: anxiety, depression, loss, loneliness, heartbreak. Have a little discussion about the general nature of that issue, because that helps people get their awareness into what that is about. Then there's a little question and answer session, and then a kind of guided meditation that allows people to go into their own experience of that issue and feel what it is for them, so that they have a lot of awareness. They have an opportunity to have a safe space to meet it, and then I bring in the highest level of VortexHealing tools and just offer what I can.

What I’m hoping for is a series of podcast meetings where we could just sort of talk about different things that seem relevant and then I could offer the support that VortexHealing® can bring to the table.

Once you can clearly define something, it's workable.

If you don't clearly define it, then you kind of just feel bad and you don't know why. That’s very hard. But just defining what an issue is can be helpful. The language that I've offered is that an issue is really anything that keeps you out of being present. That's what an issue is, on an emotional level, on a physical level, on the psychological level.

If I'm talking with you and I have a stomach ache, that is a distraction to me on a physical level, when I’m trying to be present with you. I'm trying to enjoy this conversation but I have something going on – I have a physical issue that distracts me. The fact of the matter is we have all sorts of stuff going on all the time. Emotional issues are the same. If I had an argument with a friend earlier in the morning, and I'm still kind of processing a narrative that they don't appreciate me, it's so easy for me to carry that from that moment into this moment with you. As a matter of fact, if it sits deeply enough, it becomes a point of view from which I meet the world and everyone in it. So that's the thing about issues – they're tricky. They express themselves on multiple levels. A really good issue is never just physical or just emotional, a good issue like anxiety or depression is going to have a physical issue, an emotional issue, it's going to have a psychological issue.

The thing that makes issues really hard though and challenging is that they create identity.

For example, in the case of the issue of anxiety. We don't just say, “I have anxiety that's affecting my physical body and my mental state.” We say, “I am anxious.” We live it. Like it's part of our being. It's a way of ourselves. That thing in us that believes that “I am that” is reflected in our language. That identity creates a consciousness component, which is very difficult to work with. The reason that VortexHealing® is so effective is that it has the energetic tools to work on the physical body to work on the energy system and all of that. But it also has that consciousness component that comes in and meets that place in us that believes “I am anxious, I am depressed, I am sad.” It challenges that, and wakes us up out of that story.

We believe these issues are who we are. Whereas in truth, we're so much more than that. And the difference between “I am anxious,” and, “I have anxiety that affects me,” – that's a world of difference. The identification with our issues becomes so key. That's why VortexHealing is not just a healing modality, but becomes a lineage about awakening because we're not just getting better or feeling better. We're actually letting go of those identities that keep us out of the moment that keeps us from being present. And so there's freedom – freedom to be in the moment and to know the truth of what we've always been which is much harder to give language to than issues. I mean it's hard enough to talk about issues.

We tend to put our awareness into what is distracting us – the squeaky wheel gets the oil or whatever that is. In a way, it's much easier to begin to recognize what we're not, which is our issues, and the way that they condition the system. We use that word “conditioning”. It's easier to recognize that it's very real, but it's not the truth of what we are. But when we begin to let that go and we begin to realize: I am not my anxiety. I am not my depression. I am not my loss. I'm not my pain. Then we can relax into the moment and a natural curiosity arises. If I'm not all that, and the stories that get created from that, what am I?

That's where the Awakening process comes in. Because the answer to that question has always been there in our hearts, and it's difficult to give language to. But, we are Divinity and we are so much more than what our limited experience is. And we already know that but we forget because we're distracted by our issues. I'm modeling a process, not a product

This is a framework to help support people in recognizing their issues, and to find healing from that.

To embrace the process, and see it as an opportunity, not a painful torture, but an opportunity to find the freedom that's beyond the limited experience of what we know.

Awakening is another big word that deserves a definition because when you talk to different people, they'll mean different things by that word. Within VortexHealing®, we have a very specific term. We refer to something called The core veil, which is sort of an energetic consciousness structure. It's like a veil in the heart. A veil is something that hides and secures, and that place deep in our hearts when we know the truth of what we are, gets veiled. It gets hidden with the identities that get created. When you put the experiences of those issues together, the key core identity that we live with and live through, and experience our self as, is the main identity of “I” itself.

If I were to list all of my issues and we don't have time, I won't. I am my loss, I am my anger, I am I hurt, they all have that sense of “I” that anchors them in place. So you can think of the healing work that we do is dealing with the anger. The loss, the hurt. When that “I” gets shaky, and we question that experience, when that core veil that's created by that sense of I comes down, we in VortexHealing describe that as the beginning of the awakening process. We no longer see things through this construct of being an isolated individual in an experience of life. There's more of a direct experience of life playing through form.

In a way, healing and awakening become one and the same, because the ultimate healing is the awakening and recognizing that issue for what it is – that's not the truth of who you are. And of course, the ultimate awakening is the healing. Recognizing that, even though there may be stuff happening in the physical body in the system, it can never touch the truth of what you have always been. They really do come together as one thing. So naturally in talking about healing and working with issues and bringing space to that the awakening process, something just unfolds naturally through that because it's already there. Awakening is not something that you learn or attain, or that you get through a book or a class, or a teacher or a lineage. It's the recognition of what we have always been. And so we're just kind of clearing the decks of the issues that distract us.Giving language to issues takes a lot of the power and fear out of them.

We can't help but have our preconceived ideas of what awakening will be like for us.

We can imagine anything, except a reality without us in the center of it. When we imagine ourselves awake, we imagine ourselves omniscient, with whiter teeth, ten pounds lighter. We imagine ourselves better, and it sounds ridiculous to say it like that, but that's what we know. That's what we're familiar with. So to imagine a reality without that core identity in the middle of it is impossible.

I'm paraphrasing here, so forgive me, but Adyashanti said something to the effect of, “I have yet to meet the person who says, “Oh, awakening is exactly what I imagined it to be.” We can't help but come from the point of view that it's about us, and it's for us, and that we get something out of it. I think this is something that Ric Weinman does beautifully. Ric Weinman is the founder of VortexHealing, and the head of our lineage, and he's written a number of books. In his awakening through the veils books, he does some beautiful work with sort of breaking down the illusions that we all have about what awakening will be like, and our imaginings of how it's going to serve us and make us better.

The fact of the matter is that it's a process that works through us. When that awakening process kicks in, the divine wants to bring itself home. So it will create the sense in our minds and our egos to go, go, go, go go. Meditate. This will get it, we can do this. It's all a play to get us exactly where the divine wants us to be, and whatever path or whatever process is laid out for us. When you can recognize that, there's tremendous surrender. You are actively engaged by a process that is much greater than you are.

I think as soon as we can put our judgments down about our issues, it helps us to put our judgments down about other people's issues.

And we can be more present to meet people. If we have managed to meet our own loss, for example, in compassion, then we're far more capable of meeting someone else's loss in that same level of presence and compassion. Instead of saying what we think is right, or what we think they want to hear, or being uncomfortable with the whole thing, we can actually just put it down and be in presence. At the end of the day, presence is the master healer. It's just a willingness to be in the moment without agenda – that humanness becomes a beautiful thing. It’s not something that needs to be managed or fixed because we were never broken. It's something that we can meet and enjoy and engage with life. And so that whole relationship changes, and our issues become a way of being present with all of that.