My Vision Statement for Mid-Atlantic Pathwork School — Helper Session with Moira Shaw

Prologue: Why do I share in this public blog some of the very personal Pathwork Helper Sessions I have with Moira Shaw? First and foremost it seems that a lot of practical applied wisdom comes forth that is simply worth sharing.  In a way it honors my sessions with Moira in a way similar to how a dream is honored by writing it down. Having said this, what is shared comes through my utterly and merely human eyes with my limited, usually dualistic, consciousness. So the words I put into Moira’s mouth may not be what she said or meant but are the words as I heard them and understood them. Also, my stated thoughts and impressions of others – for example of fellow members of our MAP Helper Community, Pat, or other friends – again are MY impressions through these distorted eyes and defenses and should be taken as such and not as reality. Finally, my own many inner unconscious selves will show up as well, further clouding any Truths contained in this writing.  But these qualifications notwithstanding, I share all of this writing for two main reasons: First: writing is how I clarify wisdom for myself, so writing helps me to integrate my helper sessions with Moira. Secondly: If these writings can be of any help to even one other person on the planet, my many hours spent in writing this and other entries have been time well spent. May your Soul and its Journey be served by what follows in these dozen or so pages…  Shared with love, Gary.

Summary (and expansion) of my 12/27/12 Helper Session with my Pathwork Helper Moira Shaw:

My presenting Beautiful Problems were twofold: First was in regard to My Leadership – how to move my Vision Statement for the Mid-Atlantic Pathwork School (click to open my 12/25/12 Mid-Atlantic Pathwork Vision Statement) forward with the other stronger personalities in our Pathwork Helper community who may not agree with it or support it, or who may actually oppose it? How do I come to truly value what arises in me myself – noting that in my negative patterning I can often be the first person to dismiss what arises in me – not trusting my own leadership and vision, and hence depending rather on others to recognize my Vision Statement’s “brilliance.” Without supporting my own Vision Statement fully, I do not have the fortitude to see it through to its manifestation.  Then, without manifestation and only “vision,” I come to despise that part in me that will not carry a vision through to completion, seeing the vision-without-manifestation energy as an unbearable weakness in me that I often project out onto others who are great on “new ideas” but do not get involved in all the hard work required to manifest a vision. All of this negativity blocks any leadership I might have regarding the Vision Statement itself.

The second Beautiful Problem I presented was: How to stay in balance, building my loving relationship with Pat, which I claim is my top goal, while working on a Vision for the Mid-Atlantic Pathwork School.  LOVE is a challenging energy for me to feel and acknowledge as being in me, yet I say that in my loving I want to “Go for the Gold!”  I find it is so much easier for me to escape from Love and go off into the landscape of leadership and vision where I always seem to find more energy and have some sense that I know what I am doing. In leadership and vision goals seem more concrete, measurable, and more recognized and more valued by others and even more valued by myself.  Yet at the same time that I keep my heart closed to Love another part of me longs even more deeply for love feelings with Pat, my family, and others. Experiencing love, however, is much more evasive and harder for me to experience. Feelings of love are not familiar to me. I ask myself, “Gary, do you really value love?” I fear that the evidence of my life may indicate that the answer is, “No.” The truth, my truth, that I place a higher value on vision and leadership for the MAP School than I do on love scares me.

Moira: (after a very atypical 90 seconds of silence) I was getting an image of you as a bumblebee going from flower to flower. A bumblebee is a wonderful thing to be. You don’t have to land and stay with any one flower too long. You may return again and again to the same flower, like the flower Pat, but you don’t have to stay too long to really get the nectar. You are like a humming bird. You are very fast at what you do.

You don’t have to stay long at one flower, and that doesn’t mean that you are not faithful. You show up at a group meeting, a Board meeting, a Council meeting, and you’ll give the best of yourself, and then you’re off. You come to Sevenoaks for an event, a meeting, a workshop, and then you return to Ohio. That’s good. [Gary: At Moira mentioning hummingbird I got Pat’s carved humming bird to share, the one that is so precious to her and stands for Kenti the Hummingbird – the Winds of the North – that stands for manifestation, action, discipline, impeccability, and living in the unknown – all part of one of her meditations that I also used the first year when I was with her in Awakening Into Presence. Since Moira’s and my session this day was via Skype, Moira could see the wood carving of the hummingbird.]  Moira: Oh, how beautiful, how lovely. Gary: It means a lot to Pat. I’ll just set this here so this energy can be here. Moira: That’s why she attracted you, the hummingbird.

Gary: I like the energy of the hummingbird – not being flighty, but being resourceful, and flexible, and I get that it actually becomes important not to stay too long in any one flower. To stay too long in one flower will result in a staleness. This staying in one flower is not my energy. My energy is more diverse than that.  Moira: Yes, it is. Gary: I get a little interested here – and then a little interested there. I just carry it so far – and then see where it goes after I’ve been there. Moira: Yes, you don’t have to stay too long.  Gary: And it’s a situation that if I stay too long – for example, in this planning and visioning – if I stay too long in it I becoming petrified with regard to certain aspects of the plan or vision and then my energy becomes a forcing current rather than just an offering. Moira: Yes, yes. You are not there for the materialization of it (solidification, petrification) but rather to inspire! To inspire is your role, not to manifest. Gary: This is important for me for me to get – that I do not need to get caught in the materializing – that materialization is the gift that others have. I notice that in some things – like recording the Pathwork Lectures – I do carry it through, sticking with it until all 258 lectures are recorded. And now hopefully the Q&As and The Path to the Real Self. Moira: You’ve touched 258 different flowers in recording the 258 Pathwork Lectures. If you stuck with one you would be petrified (laughing).

[As I pause here in the writing I can feel within me a rejection of this Truth – that mine is to be the hummingbird role rather than the manifesting instrument. It’s like Moses not being able to enter the Promised Land. Something in me says that to be valuable I have to produce, have to have a measurable outcome. So there is more work here rather than to over-quickly overlay this Truth of my hummingbird role on top of a belief that I have to do it all – the image that I have to manifest a successful end result or I have no value! Just being the thinker is somehow anathema to parts of my Soul. These images on my Soul Substance, these Soul dents, have to be expressed and transformed before I can really take on and value my legitimate role as hummingbird.]

Gary: I notice that even in the way that I work with the Pathwork Lectures – enjoying the audio, taking the phrases in one by one, letting the words stimulate and resonate with two or three little things in my Soul, realizing that, even if for only that moment, these words of wisdom will prove to be profoundly meaningful to my Soul as it unfolds. Upon hearing such words from a Pathwork Lecture a burst of energy comes forth, energy that is palpable. Sometimes I grab a pen and jot these words down, other times not. Then maybe two years later, listening to the same sentences of the same Pathwork Lecture, something else completely new to me will be awakened by the same words. This is not because the words have changed but rather because I have moved from where I was two years earlier. And I, now being two years older, just drink in these same words in in a new way. It is important that I don’t get stuck in how I saw these words earlier in my life. Always taking the words in in this moment as if they were brand new to me. This is how the Pathwork Lectures come alive in me and nurture me. I do not relate well to overly defining what a sentence or paragraph or an entire lecture says. Rather I ask, “What are these words resonating with in my Soul in this moment?” I sometimes think I have a memory disorder that leads me to forget, only to consider new the next time I hear the very same words. Sometimes the meanings are the same, but usually on a different level of my Soul.

Gary: I can really get hooked on having to manifest. “Now I am in leadership, now I have to manifest, not just be the visionary!” “Anyone can have a vision, an idea. The one who is important, however, is the one who can manifest.” This is my belief! But it would be a much lighter leadership if I could stick with visioning and have my vision as an offering for others to consider and to manifest. I do not have the skills or energy to manifest. Besides, I am not there at Sevenoaks. But I can be a resource to anyone who wants to discuss this vision. I am not going to be there to drive it through to the end. Moira: That’s right. And it’s not that you couldn’t, but manifesting is not uniquely, in this lifetime, your leadership role.  Your leadership is to be there to drop the seed, to inspire, to offer a vision, and then to move on to the next flower. You need to know that about yourself, because you need to know your uniqueness and not contract your energy by staying too long at one flower. When you stay too long at one flower you become petrified and rigid, a forcing current from your illusory separate self.

Gary: As I was working with this vision I added a caveat where I described this Pathwork as the seed and used Jesus’ Parable of the Sower – where the seeds land on four different types of soil.  So this applies to my vision as well.  I am the seed sower (Johnny Appleseed of Pathwork, from a session back in September), and not the soil where my sowed seed lands. I cannot be responsible for how the seed (vision) is received. If this vision resonates with you and you act on it, great. But if not, or if you do not understand (hard soil), or understand it but do not stick with it (rocky or thorny soil), or if you resonate and stick with it (good soil returning 100-fold) then that is not my issue to resolve. I am simply the sower, and cannot be caught up with what soil the seeds land on. Just let the Sower sow seed.  Moira: That’s beautiful.

Gary: OK – now let’s look at the practical side of how this seed-sower vision-offering role plays out. Earlier today I had a Board of Trustees meeting. I was truly frustrated through it all. There were so many diverse ideas of what to do, but there was no really cohesive vision to tie it all together. Here I had just sent out to some of them my vision statement, this was my offering, thinking this could really help coalesce where we are going. This document could help us know where we are going as a Pathwork School. We have all these different audiences with their various “beautiful problems,” some recognized, some not recognized. And as soon as you get into Pathwork what you thought was your need and problem turns out to be merely a symptom of something much deeper. And you will discover your oppositional stance to fight against tackling that deeper problem, primarily because it calls for taking self-responsibility, and that one does not usually want to do.

When Pathwork engages the Soul, it really calls for faithfulness to do the work of Pathwork.  The light may be dim at times, but the Soul’s Journey is to follow that light. It is important not to throw out a bunch of disparate programs but rather have consciousness about how these different Souls will respond to the message – where the Soul will be drawn by the Light, and where the Soul will oppose the Light. The nurturing both inspires the Soul and reveals the resistance of the Soul.  By understanding where the Soul is, just maybe Pathwork will become the Key of nurturing that that particular Soul will respond and commit to. It is our job in the MAP School to take all of this into consideration.

In areas where we ourselves have been helped by Pathwork are probably areas where we shall help others. For example, if I’ve not had a certain issue, say a particular addiction in my life, and a worker comes to me with that addiction, how could I work with a worker who has that issue as well as a helper could who has had that addiction and overcome it?  Moira: Well maybe. But the issue is the inner struggle of the Soul, not the outer struggle that may manifest as an addiction. The outer struggle, here addiction, is a defense against feeling the inner struggle. Actually if a person has had a certain addiction it may be more difficult for him or her to help another with that addiction than it would be for a helper who has not had that addiction. Why? Because the helper’s addiction IS where that helper is stuck him/herself, and may not really be able to help a fellow person who also has that addiction. So it could go either way.  Gary: I get your point. And it is important not to get too hung up with specificity because there are so many dimensions to these issues. So perhaps the best we can do is throw the seed out and let the soil do what the soil chooses to do.

Gary: I notice that I started this section of our session by introducing my frustration at the Board Meeting I was a part of this morning. In short, the problem is that I shrink from stopping the diverse discussions and systematically going through the Pathwork School Vision that I have prepared.  Why do I feel such fear? Yes the Vision Statement is complex and long, but I do not even want to venture into the water to present it. Am I ashamed of what I wrote on some level? Why do I suppose no one would accept the Vision? Why, after I have invested so much of myself and my energy in this vision, do I assume it will be opposed and rejected?

Moira: Can I give you comments about your vision? Gary: Absolutely (again, open to read this vision). Moira: I think your articulation of the different soils and the different people that would be attracted to Pathwork, each one unique in his or her issues, is great. I loved the way you articulated it – the metaphor of the hungry Soul. But on the other hand I think what you did not make clear was the true potency of Pathwork. Your Vision Statement seemed bland as far as what you said about Pathwork itself. I think this is where your leadership again comes in. What is central and unique about Pathwork to you, as the one who so loves the Pathwork Lectures? I think you do not call a spade a spade. As I read what you wrote I found myself saying, “Yes, this would be true for any humanistic school that wants to help someone become who they are, that wants to help people look at their pain and move beyond it. But I think that your Vision Statement does not say what uniquely is the Pathwork.

Pathwork is a metaphysical path (See Reference – a Pathwork Quote from Q&A 98). A metaphysical path is what Pathwork is. The Guide would invite the reader to just be open as the Pathwork Lectures present aspect after aspect, from many points of view, of this metaphysical framework that Pathwork offers. “This metaphysical framework is what Pathwork is and offers. You, as a reader and student of life, may believe this metaphysical framework, you may eventually come to believe it, or you may never choose believe it or some parts of it, but this is what Pathwork is and offers: a metaphysical path.” Gary: I know the Guide speaks to Pathwork being a metaphysical path (I had already included the preceding reference quote about this in my list of Pathwork Quotes on my website), but could you say more about what being a metaphysical path means?

[Before sharing Moira’s response, let me share some of the definitions related to metaphysics and related words – I am really drawn to these kinds of words as they provide a context for thought:

Philosophy: any of the three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy, that are accepted as composing this study.

Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology.

Ontology: the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.

Cosmology: 1) the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and especially with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom. 2) the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe.

Epistemology: a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.]

Moira: Well let’s look at what people say – “We are wounded in childhood.” The Guide, in laying out the Pathwork metaphysical frameworlk, would say, “No. That is not what wounded them. The weakness is not from a childhood wound but a characteristic in the Soul, a Soul dent. The Pathwork metaphysical framework would go on to say the Soul chose his/her parents. He/she chose circumstances in his/her childhood that would bring out the Soul dent, that would bring out this weakness in his/her Soul, so that the now-conscious Soul dent could be healed by the work of the healthy ego. So in Pathwork we say we come in with our issue. It is not created in our childhood but rather brought out in our childhood. And if we get caught there – thinking we were wounded by our parents or authority or others in our childhood – we are off the mark and we’re likely to get stuck in the blame game. Our parents have sacrificed themselves in a way, in the incarnation room preparing us for our incarnation, by agreeing on what would help this Soul. The parents say, “I’ll come in and help, so that the child will have something to fight against and bring out his/her issue or Soul dent. So when we get caught in language such as “deep emotional wounds from childhood,” which you use in your Visions Statement to describe the Soul, you mislead or distort the Pathwork metaphysical framework, and the Soul that could respond to the Truth that we are the source of our own wounding will not necessarily respond to the untruth that we have wounded by someone outside ourselves. The Soul longs for self-responsibility, but may not see that this is what Pathwork is about by the way you speak of “deep emotional wounds from childhood.”

Misconceptions, images from childhood, these concepts are what is unique about the Pathwork. The images create the defenses. Something happens once in our childhood, creating as a result a generalization, a wrong conclusion about what happened to us, we conclude as children that we must have been 100% wrong for this to have happened to us, so we come to a wrong conclusion about ourselves, and then, since that would be too hard to take, we then have to generalize about life: I’m not bad, there is nothing wrong with me, rather, this is how life is in this particular area. So we create images about how life works, and we reinforce these images by allowing them to control our behavior and manifest more suffering, thereby proving our case. A vicious circle results. There are other unique aspects to the Pathwork metaphysical framework. I think that what is unique to Pathwork is that it is a metaphysical path, one with a cosmological framework.

Another aspect of this metaphysical framework that is unique to Pathwork is that we come into our incarnation with negative intentionality. Negative intentionality is what differentiates Pathwork. With negative intentionality as part of its metaphysical framework Pathwork is unique, there is not another path like Pathwork on this point of negative intentionality. And that does not make Pathwork better than other paths, it’s just that this is our unique path. Just like you, Gary, are uniquely a hummingbird. Not everyone is like you. They may have wonderful and incredible gifts of leadership, but you have this capacity that is uniquely yours. This is what the Guide’s teachings are: they are unique, and we don’t have to bring in other topics and modalities like body-oriented psychotherapy. So do the Pathwork in the MAP School, and then go outside Pathwork for body-oriented psychotherapy or other modalities if they help you.

But to bring these other modalities into the Pathwork as if they were part of Pathwork dilutes the Pathwork and makes it bland. Making Pathwork like every other path in order to attract people is not right.  People need to be attracted from a deep place within them that Knows that when all is said and done, when they have all the tools, and they still want to deliberately resist life, and they can connect with negative intentionality – in this felt understanding they are free! It is not our defenses that ultimately do us in. Rather it is our intention to hold on to our defenses that does us in. And this is the message that the Pathwork brings in its metaphysical framework: we as humans have 100% deliberate will to be destructive, to deny life.

And when we really make that transition we change our DNA. We then no longer have a human DNA, we have Divine DNA, we have the God Life Force within us. That’s what Jesus did. He became Divine, he totally transformed, he transfigured, he was no longer of human consciousness. He was of Divine Consciousness. And he lived forever, and he lives forever, because he has Divine DNA. We, too, could live forever, we don’t have to get ill when we get older. Getting ill is human consciousness. We tap into the greater awareness, the positive intentionality, the 100% toward Life, something else is surging through our veins, some other DNA. There is nothing short of Self-Realization. It’s to go beyond the physical, beyond the human. It’s to tap into Heaven.

And the Pathwork is not about “finding God,” which is another statement you use frequently in your MAP School Vision Statement. What’s there to find? God always was and always is. Rather the Pathwork is about becoming undefended. That is what the Pathwork is. Become undefended, and then you’re open to reality. Undefended you are totally vulnerable. You accept everything and resist nothing. And so the Guide says that nothing that could happen on an outer level needs to disturb us, but rather it is our perception of what happens on an outer level that disturbs us. We perceive things as life or death. Even if we see it in the non-dual consciousness of good and bad, ultimately, in unitive consciousness, everything has a purpose. How we perceive experiences in life is the key. How we perceive someone rejecting us. It’s not that they rejected us. Or take loving. How we perceive that we are unloving is key, not that we are unloving – being unloving is part of our humanness, but how we perceive being unloving, and how we react to being unloving emotionally and how we defend against being unloving and express ourselves in life – these are the key issues.

Gary: Yes – I am getting it. Consciousness is the level of awareness from which we perceive the experiences of life. As a Pathwork School it is important that we be the clear Light of Pathwork – and when we get into this body-centered psychotherapy and other things, while these might be good in and of themselves and even helpful, they cover up the unique Light that Pathwork offers, and the Soul will not as readily recognize the Light of Pathwork if it is covered up with so much material that is not Pathwork. So in this Vision Statement for the MAP School, because it is a Vision for a PATHWORK School, it is important to be clear as to what is Pathwork and what is not Pathwork, and I can trust my own Soul’s resonance with the Pathwork Lectures in this. My unique Soul does not seem to resonate or respond to these other modalities such as Core Energetics, etc. My unique Soul resonates with the Pathwork wisdom contained in the Pathwork Lectures. Moira:  Yes, when we sit at the table of spiritual paths we want to be clear as to what it is that we have to offer that is unique for those who are open to this path of Pathwork. And you are an expert in the lectures. When you bring in other things, leave that up to other people to do their thing. To add these other materials to your unique vision for Mid-Atlantic Pathwork dilutes your vision that you are offering for the MAP School to consider.

Gary:  We have a dilemma in the Mid-Atlantic Pathwork Helper Community because some of the strong helpers place such an emphasis on Core Energetics and Gestalt Therapy (Emotional Processing) for bringing in the wisdom of the Body. Some of our faculty in our programs would say that it is Core Energetics that is more important for students and workers than are the Pathwork Lectures. Some of the Helpers, in reflecting on their own Soul’s Journeys, say their Souls did not relate to God, did not relate to the Lectures, until much later in their Journeys, but when early on they were in Core training and then in Helper training and really got into the various body types of the Charecterological Transformation work (seeing the Schizoid, Oral, Masochistic, Psychopathy, Rigid, and other body structures in the worker.), or followed the energy in the worker, then everything came together for them.  While I found the Chareterological work interesting, and truly appreciate people gifted with energy work, it was not central to me, it was not what was key to my own growth, at least not consciously.  And in being “characterized” as a type I often felt like I was being diagnosed as an “it” (“Gary, here are your masochistic body characteristics”) rather than a Soul with heart and mind in addition to body. Again, many of my classmates and other helpers truly related well to this outside work, even more so than to the unique wisdom of the Pathwork Lectures, but it isn’t something that worked for my unique Soul – either as a worker or in a helper role.

Moira: These characterological assessments are focusing on the defense of the worker. In the Pathwork we are working not on the defenses really, but on how to be undefended. The Character structure doesn’t have much validity if you are working on being undefended. Yes, you have certain defenses: you are holding, or you are rigid, or you are controlling, etc. OK, all well and good, but we in Pathwork will look at the misperception behind that character structure, and then your body changes, if, that is, you want your body type to change, and in your negative intentionality you might not.  But the thing is, that while characterology is wonderful and that folks come to healing through that modality is wonderful, these other modalities are not what the Pathwork is. And if you are going to have a Pathwork Center based upon a body of knowledge in the 258 Pathwork Lectures, then that is what you need to teach.

Gary: Another area that comes up among our MAP Helper Community is our emphasis on sweat lodges, breath work sessions, and things like that, and of course above all is emotional processing (Gestalt Therapy). An observer of our 4-day 4×4 Pathwork Transformation Weekends sometimes could get the impression that emotional processing IS Pathwork. The students get hooked on emotional processing and have the impression that if we are not doing emotional processing throughout a Pathwork weekend we might just as well go home. Moira: No, Pathwork is working with misperceptions and images; feelings and energy follow consciousness. If you change your consciousness you change your relating, you change your energy. The Pathwork process is about consciousness, that is, how you perceive something. As in Pathwork Lecture 166: Perceiving, Reacting, Expressing, if you are going to perceive life in a dualistic 100/100 life or death level of consciousness you are certainly going to have feelings of fear and you certainly are going to express yourself in life from a contracted place.

Your feelings are effects of underlying causes, so change the consciousness to change your life. So if you perceive in non-dualistic ways, you will express not from a consciousness of 100/100 life or death fear but in a more balanced both/and 50/50 way, that is, from a non-dual consciousness way. If you perceive that everything is perfect, that there is a purpose for everything, that you can do no “wrong,” then you have a whole other experience of life and its expression into life. There is nothing to fear, you have something to fear only if you are perceiving life in life-or-death dualistic consciousness. Gary:  (laughing) Speaking personally, instead of coming in with unitive consciousness with its, “I can do no wrong,” I come in with my dualistic Lutheran consciousness where, “I can do no right!”

Moira: And there is certainly place for breath work and Core energetics – anything people want to do outside of the Pathwork School in order to support what they are doing, that’s fine. But this is the Pathwork School. These are the Guide’s teachings. This is why we are all here.  In Brazil there are 3,000 people doing the work of Pathwork. The same for Japan – and in these places the teachings are not diluted. People are hungry for it. Their Spirits are hungry. As you say, they want to be fed. And they are thirsty.

Moira: I love when the Guide distinguishes between Soul and Spirit. The Soul is like the Akashic Records – everything impressed upon the Soul: wrong beliefs, true beliefs, everything we’ve carried over from lifetime to lifetime. Everything is in the Soul. The Soul is like a warehouse. The Spirit is different. The Spirit is who we are ultimately and who we are trying to open to by being undefended every day of our life, trying to connect with our true eternal Spirit. But the Soul is ALL of our beliefs and unbeliefs. The Soul is where our images are, in the Psyche. The Guide called us Soul doctors. We are working on the Soul – his/her wrong beliefs, true beliefs, misconceptions, true concepts, … that’s why we are called Soul doctors.

Gary: And remind me again about the Soul Substance. The Guide often speaks about Soul Substance. That’s where these images, wrong and right conclusions about life, distorted and clear truths are recorded, right? Moira: Right. In the Soul Substance. So when something happens in your childhood, you may have a misperception about whatever it was that disturbed you. Then your Soul Substance is going to be greatly impressed by whatever happened to you that was negative. So now we want to impress the Soul Substance with positive concepts about whatever happened to you. Gary: This is all related to Step 2 in Pathwork Lecture 194 Meditation: Its Laws and Various Approaches — A Summary (Meditation as Positive Life Creation) where, after Step 1 (the step in which we determine the correct concepts of what we want to manifest) we then go on to Step 2 (the step in which we impress those right concepts onto our Soul Substance, and then in Step 3 we visualize what that manifestation with feel like, and finally in Step 4 wait in faith, knowing that what we long for will manifest. But it is important that in Step 1 we are expressing true and positive concepts. Moira: And to do that, first express the negative concepts so they can be evaluated, and purified. Then impress the Truth onto the purified Soul Substance and finally wait for the Soul to manifest from a base of Truth and Love.  And when you wait you can express the positive from another level.

Once we are expressing the positive, because we have impressed our Soul Substance with the positive, but then we may go to the next level. Here we get into and have to face the negative intentionality. And so now again you first have to express the negative intentionality. Then you really have to work at that level until transformation happens, and then you have to impress the resulting positive intentionality onto the transformed Soul Substance so that you can express the deeper level of giving to life. So it is a constant expressing (negativity and negative intentionality), impressing (positivity and positive intentionality), and waiting, then again, at a deeper level, expressing (negativity and negative intentionality), impressing (positivity and positive intentionality), and waiting – on and on in a spiral of growth. Gary: So the Pathwork process is to express the negative, correct the negative (knowing why it is wrong and why you grab onto it), express the positive, and wait. Moira: Whatever you have expressed out into life that is positive it is going to come back to you because You and Life are the same. So while you’re waiting because it hasn’t really happened yet but you are aligned with the truth.

Moira: So when you think about your leadership and being true to it rather than being bland, and when you can see yourself calling a spade a spade and putting the Pathwork metaphysical Truth out there, do you have any fears that you need to express? Gary: Yes, what comes up are fears that I’ll be wrong, that I’ll be opposed, I’ll have to work too hard to push it through. Moira: So if you are in integrity and express your fears that you may be wrong, that you may be opposed, that it may be hard work – and your perception of that human condition is what? That there must be something wrong with you? Gary: Yes, therefore I must be defective. Moira: So your perception of yourself is that you must be defective if you encounter resistance instead of encountering enthusiastic endorsement. So that perception (level of consciousness) that you are defective does what to your feeling body? How would you react on a feeling level if you perceive that you are defective when you encounter resistance, if you are wrong, if you are opposed? Gary: I can see myself as a sea anemone that just shrinks back and closes up. Moira: That is how you react – closing up, withdrawing – but how do you feel? Is there fear there? Gary: Yes, fear. Moira: So your expression in life would be like a sea anemone, closing up, backing off. Gary: Right. Moira: So you go out into life contracted.  So here we have you perceiving that you’re defective if you are wrong in any way, reacting bringing feelings of fear, and expressing that fear by being contracted. This is on an energetic level. You are not riding the wave, rather you are drowning. In fact you are not even near the water because there is so much fear there. This is your level of consciousness, your level of perception.

Moira: So if you change that perception to what…? If you encounter opposition, if it takes too much work, or if you are wrong, what is another perception (level of consciousness) that you could have other than “I am defective”?  Gary: That I am merely and utterly human, not God, and there is nothing wrong with being wrong or being opposed or not supported. Moira: Right. Gary: I don’t have to defend against being wrong. Moira: Right. And so what does that do to your emotional body, what would your reaction be? Gary:  I am at peace. Moira: OK. So you can express yourself and stand up for your leadership, knowing that nothing is wrong if you are opposed. So how then do you express yourself with others when you are at peace? Gary: I shall engage them and openly explore their views with curiosity rather than closing up in contraction. I’ll expand. Moira: OK, OK. Yes.

Moira: So right now, in this moment, you are impressing your Soul Substance with this truth. This part of your Soul is becoming very flexible in regards to opening up, giving what you have to give. So you are changing your entire movement into life. You are awakening to a higher level  of consciousness. Gary: In short, it is being undefended. Moira: Exactly. Now when you are undefended funny things happen. Now you can be open to something beyond the human three-dimensional realm here. You can just be an open system to reality. Gary: Yes, really be a channel to the Divine. Moira: That’s right. Because the higher energies can not come into a closed system. These higher energies come into the centers that are open.

Moira: I remember when we left the Center and moved into a big house. There was an ad in the paper for a carpenter. He said he was $15/hour. We said that price was right. He came and did the work. We were going to pay him $15 an hour, but he said that that wasn’t his fee. “My fee is $7 an hour, but if I put $15 in the paper people would not take me seriously as a carpenter.” As we got to know him we found out he had been in a coma for three months and when he came out of the coma his entire perception (level of consciousness) of life changed. In a coma he was held down by these energies for three months and one day in this coma, this consciousness, he remembers there were men in purple robes that came and freed him. And in that moment he opened his eyes and his friend was there, and from that day forward he started to come out of that coma. We worked with him. Bert would do something and get frustrated with mistakes. But the carpenter said, “No, Bert, it is just not finished yet.” So we use that phrase when we make a mistake, “It is not a mistake, rather it is just not finished.”

So when you express yourself and people don’t take it in or oppose you, well it’s just not finished – this process is not finished yet!  He was an amazing person, but so real. So there is not right or wrong, it is just not finished.

Gary: So when helpers and teachers are so wedded to core energetics and emotional processing and see those elements as the powerful aspects of Pathwork, it is hard for me to know how to be in that energy. Moira: But you, not others, are writing this vision.  What is alive in you regarding Pathwork and the Vision Statement for the MAP School? So don’t dilute your message and make it bland, trying to make it all things to all people. This doesn’t negate what others want to bring to the MAP School. Not at all. But if you do not put out what is alive in you and stand in integrity with what you believe about the MAP School, your vision will come out blurry and hazy, diluted and not clear. People could not follow you even if they wanted to. By the way, you hardly mention Core Energetics in your vision, and so Core Energetics is not the problem with your Vision. The problem is that you left out some key points that would really reach somebody in areas that are uniquely Pathwork: the defenses behind the defenses: negative intentionality, the intention to hold on to defenses, or the other metaphysical aspects of the Pathwork that you hold true but left out.  You can put your stamp on your MAP School Vision. What are the most significant things for you in Pathwork? What draws you to Pathwork? Make this this core of your MAP School Vision Statement.

Gary: So stop generalizing and trying to make it so inclusive. Moira: Exactly. Because it sounds like you believe that if you are not inclusive of all modalities and paths then somehow you think you are better than all other spiritual paths. No. The Pathwork is unique. Other spiritual paths are unique. It’s not that you teach other modalities because you want to be inclusive, no. You are not putting other paths down but you are being clear as to what Pathwork is and what you have to teach as a Pathwork school. … What would Karen be saying?  Gary: I think she would be applauding. Moira: Yes, Karen passed the helper crystal on to you.

Moira: Being clear as to what Pathwork is does not make Pathwork better than other paths, being clear just shows how it is different, what makes it unique. It doesn’t make it better or worse, it’s just that this is what you have to offer in your teaching. What also is unique are the people who come to you – the various soils you mention from Jesus’ Parable of the Sower – the hard soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the good soil.  They do not have to take everything in as “gospel truth.” Rather invite them to be open to consider the possibility that Pathwork offers them. If what we have to teach connects with them, fine. If not, that’s fine too. But what we teach is what we are about. 

Gary:  So what I am having to deal with in my helper community are people who are very strong in doing different things – and I can be pulled off of my Pathwork moorings by these strong people and I collapse under that very dominating kind of energy. My defense (in my dualistic consciousness perception of life) is to shut down, withdraw, and compromise, to not call a spade a spade, but rather try to accommodate all points of view, including what I think each helper would want to have in the vision. And all of these additions are not me. My own vision gets buried. Moira: You are deadening yourself by including so much that has just not been Pathwork for you. You are making yourself bland. Rather, you have to say, “This is what I want,” and let the chips fall where they may. You can say, “OK, if that is where you want to go, fine, but maybe this doesn’t include me because this is not what I think we should be offering. It’s not a threat. It’s just saying clearly, “This is what I want, this is what excites me: the Pathwork Lectures and the teachings.”

Moira: Look at Sevenoaks. It is not thriving. But if others want to take it a certain way maybe you need to say, “Fine, I give it over to you.” Maybe this is the hummingbird that needs to go to another flower. Just be honest. “This isn’t what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.” Compromising, selling out, making it fit everybody.” That is not you. So just say, “No.”

You are good at this work, at going from flower to flower. You really are. Gary: My job is not trying to implement everyone else’s vision but rather to be clear about my own vision.  I can feel my fear in this.

I have energy for the April helper retreat where each person discusses his or her own Soul Journey. Can we each go deep and say what is really true for us in our own Soul’s Journey? And to get to know each other at that Soul level. Moira: But also to make your Helper Retreat Pathwork Guide teaching oriented: What has happened in you in resolving certain images that you had about life? How has the Power of the Word changed for you from the time when you first came to the Pathwork until now? Are you speaking the word of limitation today or the word of abundance? What did you come in with in your Soul in negative intentionality in a very specific area of your life?  How are you with that? Where are you today with your negative intentionality? This is key because each of us comes in with one particular duality and negative intent toward life in a very specific way – could we know ourselves and each other from such places? Your negative intentionality is different from mine. So where are you guys with regard with what you were to resolve in this lifetime?

But if your inquiry and sharing is very vague and not aligned with the Pathwork metaphysical framework, then you give your helper friends the opportunity to talk about Core Energetics, breath-work, etc. No, keep your Helper sharing Pathwork focused. How have you let your parents off the hook knowing that everything that came to you from them was within you in the first place and that they were merely out-picturing these behaviors so that you could do your work?  Where are you undefended in certain areas of your life? Where are you still defended in a life-or-death battle? Make the retreat rich for yourself. What would you like to be sharing and see happening from this perspective in a group of seasoned Pathworkers? Gary: That’s a really good guideline! Creating this Helper Retreat in April is not about anticipating what others would like from this retreat, but what I would like from this retreat.

Moira: You are a treasure. They don’t know what they have. They are at once calling for you and opposing you and rebelling against you. But not their Souls. If they are in Pathwork they came into Pathwork to work on their Soul issues. Otherwise they would be somewhere else. Gary: Their Souls will relate, but their defenses will not. Moira: Rather, their Spirit will relate but their Souls may be resisting if there are dents in certain areas. Gary: So their Spirit will relate, but their Soul may not. Moira: That’s right. The Spirit is our Eternal Spirit. What manifests in truth on the earth plane is coming from our Higher Self. If we take an issue and really approach it in an undefended way, we are coming from our Higher Selves: Spirit coming through the ego personality. But the Spirit and Higher Self are not quite the same. When we bring our Spirit through our perception of something, then we are coming from the consciousness of our Higher Selves.

Moira: It is wonderful where you are – you want the Truth. You can do it; you can stand up with integrity. Gary: With integrity and flexibility. I cannot worry where the chips land, just be true to myself. Moira: That’s right.  Gary: And I have to hold that who I am is valuable first, and not rely on others to declare my value. My Soul Substance still has misunderstandings that have to be healed. My Soul dents that will come out as a jarring rigidity and being defended – as long as I am on this earth, this is what I have to work on.

Moira: And if it means taking another direction, of not being part of the Sevenoaks path, then that’s a good thing for you. Gary: I have a vision for Pathwork coming out of me. I am not hung up on that happening at Sevenoaks. Sevenoaks can come or go, but I want to stand for what I stand for and see who wants to come along – and that is all about Pathwork. Moira: That’s right. That is absolutely right. Gary: What really frustrates me is when a person is going down a path that is not Pathwork and becomes fixated on these other modalities, saying “These other modalities are where the juice is!” In our 4×4 Transformation program it sometimes seems to me like our focus is on how much of these other modalities we can cram into this 4-day weekend rather than focusing on Pathwork step by fragile step. Yes, “Good work” is done in these other modalities, but it is not Pathwork. And what I am about is Pathwork.  I am very clear about that. Moira: And you should be clear and faithful to that. Gary: I am so grateful for you assistance. Moira: For helping you be you! We need each other. It is so easy to slide back. We need each other in community. … I am really grateful for the deep work you do on yourself. I am enheartened by it. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring.

Afterwards.  Can I take in that I and my work on myself can be inspiring to another? That my work is beautiful? This truth is still so hard for me to see and claim. I was going to leave out this closing comment from Moira seeing it as arrogant, but chose to dare to keep it in – because it was part of my session and I can see that someday I may even come to believe this from my loving heart.

Shared in love, Gary

Epilogue…  I awoke at 2:30 AM, restless. Then insights came that fit in me what Moira put forth about images, etc. …

Childhood Experience #1: My love and care for others are not valued.  Childhood Conclusion: I am valueless, worthless. This is too painful to bear. An Image is created in me, a generalization that says: Life, God, the World do not value love, only performance, competency, obedience. My defense in Life: never show love, never respond to love, never open my heart. Always be sure to be competent, productive, and strong.  An undefended position would be to freely and deeply feel and express my care and love for others, being totally vulnerable to being considered unproductive, incompetent, soft, weak, spineless, and a fake in matters of love.

Childhood Experience #2: My curiosity and tireless search for spiritual and Cosmic Truth are not valued. Childhood conclusion: I am valueless, worthless. This is too painful to bear. An Image is created in me, a generalization that says: Life, God, the World do not value curiosity and a tireless search for new frontiers for Truth, only conformity, rote memorization, conformity, and obedience. My defense in Life: never put forth new ideas, new and more elegant ways of seeing things, new possibilities. An undefended position would be to freely explore and put forth all new ideas that arise in me, being totally vulnerable to being considered crazy, stupid, and wrong.