"Hell is being 13 forever." Anon Rummaging around my adolescence for one week is not my idea of hell, but not a vacation either. I did just that last week with 40 of my Integrated Awareness® colleagues. The goal was to weaken, and ideally eradicate, the physical barriers established and anchored by our beliefs, crazy hormone storms and emotional roller coasters during that period of our lives. I'm still processing, but I will take up a beloved client's challenge, who asked me, "What did you learn about Sally you either did not know or were hiding from you?" That is an extremely insightful question. What I spent the week learning is that in order to feel belonging and connection all adolescents actually do the opposite. They hide from them selves any felt sense of a connection to something grander them themselves. Because we are looking outward for approval or connection we become less and less attuned to our gut and heart's messages. We may have felt a lot of emotions and gut churnings but the ability to listen to our divine connection was damaged in most of us. To not listen to our heart and gut, we must cut off actual sensory experiences and awareness of our embodiment. There are hundreds of strategies to do this - most are fear based. The result each time is some form of self abandonment. The result of my strategies was to turn myself into a chameleon in order to fit in. With this person I'll be one way and with that person another. I was always comparing myself with others. I believed everyone else was given the cues that somehow I missed; how to be accomplished at dance or music or how to be popular. Here are just two things I hid from myself. One, that I was way more in tune to a divine connection than I could have spoken about, understood or accepted. I didn't even "believe" in a higher power then. Yet my searching began when I was 15 because I felt something. Or maybe some thing. The second was that I held an underlying belief that success = not being loved. As infants, most babies equate being taken care of to being loved. If they change our diaper and feed us it must mean we are loved. As we anchor that belief through our childhood it morphs by adolescence into, if we succeed then we are taking care of our self. If we take care of our self, then we must not be loved. No wonder many of us look so hard outside ourselves for love and approval and validation. My adolescence began about the same year as the summer of love in SF. This summer's three classes will focus on how you can deepen your self love by breaking down some of the barriers you hold in your body that were anchored in your adolescence. Summer of Love - Part 1 Do I love you more than me? Workshop Thursday, June 16, 2011 6:00- 8:00 p.m. These classes will be designed as a series but can be done as stand alone classes, as well. You will have opportunities to release adolescent beliefs and postures. These experiential workshops offer simple, yet profound changes. All classes held at: 170 Professional Center Dr Rohnert Park, CA 94928 $25 per class $60 for the series, payable June 16 IA® teachers and apprentices - contact me for your discount rate Map Please Pre-register 707-217-7433 Email me | 
