A little reflection of what it is like to be in a long Training with Alan

TALKING TO THE CIRCLE OF PARTICIPANTS ON THEIR GRADUATION AT THE END OF THE LAST ART OF BEING TRAINING (2008-10)

I was remembering as we started to go around the circle here that at the end of the last Body, Heart & Soul Training which also ended just a few months ago, I said that it was the best training that ever happened. I was laughing with them about the fact that I had said that about the previous training and that I would probably say it about the next training – which is this one! And you know it´s beautiful that it actually feels this way.

I feel myself so nourished by the power, the depth, the truth and the authenticity with which you all participated in this training. To put it simply: I love how much you all really meant it, because it is what we really mean that really matters. I feel tremendous gratitude to you all that you dared, that you trusted, and that 17 months later you are still here.  And truly I don´t think I have ever seen such widespread transformation happening in a training as happened in this one.

Listening to you now is wonderful testimony to what we lived here, and I have my personal experience of each of you. And you know, in these 17 months I have gone through changes too, just as I have for the last 17 years and 17 lifetimes! I love this dance of being, the infinity of it. I love that we are always at the beginning. For me there is nowhere else to be that really matters. The moments when I´ve really felt this were when I´ve sat here and witnessed and felt some of you having to so struggle in your personality stuff, when you were held by the wounds of your childhood and upbringing as I once was myself. The first chapters in my book tell the whole story.

So witnessing you in your struggles I have had beautiful moments, recognizing that the only thing to do in the end is to dare to let go - to find the courage to simply let go of the personality and its story. Your personality stuff, like everyone’s, is such a mess that the only place that it is good to be is actually the only place that it matters to be - here and now, present in your whole being. This is where you discover that all your resources, your creativity, your brilliance, your playfulness and all that you can give to existence, to other people, to this crazy world - the best that you can give – all comes from your being present. It is only ever discovered in this moment. There is no time for theory because the moment doesn´t have enough time to contain a theory. Watching you discover this! You let go and your presence is brilliant. It may be for only a few seconds, it may be for much longer. Anyway it changes you. For ever! This is for me what transformation is all about.

And your words today have put a golden seal on what the training is for. You give me such an incredible encouragement and affirmation to keep offering these long trainings. Where we go we can only go because we choose to be here with each other on this long journey. The depth of this 4th circle contains the 3rd and the 2nd and the 1st Circles. And in the months between each of the 4 circles, when I may be sitting on the other side of the world, I see all the emails going back and forth in your e-group. Even when I don´t have time to read them all, even if I only flip through, I feel how everybody is talking to each other. Yes, and sometimes me, too, and what I´m feeling is not all the chit-chat but the soul of all of us with its intention of awakening, opening and healing. I´ve never felt this as vividly as I have in this training.

And C…, you said that we broke your heart again and again. I see how beautifully open is your many-times broken heart! For me this is one of the deep blessings and gifts of this space, this Art of Being circle. I don´t really think that anybody´s heart gets broken here. I think the break which is already there comes into the open. Your wounded heart breaks open.

And all of your, for the tears that you´ve shed and the pain that you´ve been willing to feel, for the fear that you embraced, for your willingness to climb through the anger to the vulnerability that it was protecting, for your trust and your courage to find what really matters in you - I feel so close to you all! This is how we learn to celebrate our lives with love and awareness.

And R…., really it gives me such a beautiful feeling to hear you say, “Alan, I didn´t like you at first.” The kid in me likes it that you didn´t like me and you came to like me! I also recognized something very important in what you are saying. I know that some of you have liked me from the beginning. What really matters is that those of you who didn´t like me kept being here. You let it not matter. Something in you felt the need to be in this training regardless of who Alan is. It´s funny, because that is how I am here. It´s not completely my choice. I serve something that makes it necessary to be here. What I serve is the same thing that keeps me up until 4 o´clock last night making this 30-minute meditation for you, even if Alan wants to go to sleep.
I have to honour what really matters and I encourage you always to trust that your little personal dislikes are not important. If you make your decisions dependent on them, you live a very small and limited life. What we live here becomes vast. The invitation is to let it become infinitely vast. It happens when we don´t get hooked on little likes and dislikes. Coming into the present is always a letting go of them. In the here and now there is no liking or not liking. This is one of the sacred mysteries.

Oh, and one of you said something about being a workshop junkie. The only thing I want to say about this is:  we are all addictive. It has to do with the power of the second chakra. What makes the difference is what we get addicted to. It is very creative to be addicted to something which helps to grow out of being addicted.
I trust that I will be seeing many of you again. And to those of you that for whatever reason I won’t, I wish you a beautiful life, and I know that we are dancing soul-to-soul. Bon voyage!