May 23, 7 – 9:30 pm
Please arrive at 6:30 pm for coffee/tea snacks.

THIS EVENT WILL BE DONE IN DUTCH!!!

Join us for this gathering for RC graduates and those interested in exploring on a regular basis the principles of Respectful Confrontation. Each gathering will include:

• a review of exercises and principles
• practice of real-life situations
• a chance to connect with others who share a similar vision of peace and empowered community,
• as well as have the opportunity to support one another in the process of mastering these skills and applying them in your daily life.

These gatherings will be lead by qualified RC facilitators.

The fourth Tuesday of the month, 7 – 9 pm
Please arrive between 7 and 715 pm.
Donations welcome!

Join us for the monthly gatherings for RC graduates and those interested in exploring on a regular basis the principles of Respectful Confrontation. Each gathering will include:

• a review of exercises and principles
• practice of real-life situations
• a chance to connect with others who share a similar vision of peace and empowered community,
• as well as have the opportunity to support one another in the process of mastering these skills and applying them in your daily life.

These gatherings will be lead by Joe Weston and/or a qualified facilitator.

Join us for the monthly gatherings for RC graduates and those interested in exploring on a regular basis the principles of Respectful Confrontation. Each gathering will include:

• a review of exercises and principles
• practice of real-life situations
• a chance to connect with others who share a similar vision of peace and empowered community,
• as well as have the opportunity to support one another in the process of mastering these skills and applying them in your daily life.

These gatherings will be lead by Joe Weston and/or a qualified facilitator.

I’m used to the in-your-face exhuberance of New York, the coziness of Amsterdam and the relaxed, all-is-well attitude of California. I not sure yet what message I’m getting from my new city. I’m not sure the inhabitants of this city are sure what the message is they are operating in.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited to be here. I’ve never been surrounded by so many people “on a mission” – a quest for power, for justice, for equality. The stakes are high here and I’m looking forward to playing the game. Although many people here are committed to heart-centered projects and causes, I’m noticing that when they engage with me and others, when they operate in their work and socially, many have forgotten to lead from their hearts.

I see this as my way into the game: to reawaken the power of the heart as a way to take the philosophical, political and intellectual endeavors to the next level. This is where lasting change can happen.

However, I’m noticing how ungrounded I am. I imagine I feel the way a plant would when it is repotted. My roots are still feeling out the unfamiliar foundation here, not ready to relax and receive nourishment, information and a sense of belonging from this new context. I’m reminded what I say about the importance of developing the Power of Grounding (find out more about this in my book Mastering Respectful Confrontation).

By focusing on the first of the four True Pillars of Power, you open to a deeper sense of belonging; you develop sure-footing and find a natural flow with yourself, others and your surroundings. With centeredness, presence and a heightened sensitivity to the impulses and resources around you, you may have a larger impact on others and play a “bigger game”.

Here is my own self-prescribed regiment of opening to the deeper innate powers of Grounding as a way to move through this wobbly phase:

1. Plenty of Elephant Walking
2. Constant reiteration of my core values and personal mission
3. Always bringing my awareness back to my center, where my sense of home, safety and personal power resides
4. Regular Tai Chi practice
5. Talking to my plants
6. Warm baths
7. Eating wholesome foods
8. Resting and practicing patience
9. Connecting with those I know who are on a similar path.

I am grateful for the opportunities I have and the people I know here in DC who are committed to living in an openhearted, mindful way. They are the real heroes and true change agents. I’m looking forward to securing my grounding and sure-footing in this city built on a swamp, so I can fully play the game of the seeming polarities and contradictions. This will, I believe, allow for new solutions and opportunities for enlightened change.

This is one of in a series of trainings.

For many of us, we have experienced relationships where we thought that to love someone meant to give completely and unconditionally. This is fine on the honeymoon and in a retreat space where the boundaries are clear and the hearts of all involved are open and generous. But what happens when we engage with people at work who don’t know the principles of loving community? Or when you and your partner are just having a bad day?

What happens when the boundaries are not clear, or when you are in your reactive, unconscious behavior? Will being nice and loving solve the challenges in relationship? Not always.

This is where Compassion and Respectful Confrontation come in to support, guide and empower Love. Yes, it is appropriate to love someone deeply and still claim your space and state your boundaries. Yes, it is possible to say no in a way that still encourages further discussion and connection. When Love is propelled by Compassion, you have the courage and confidence to have those “difficult” conversations and still stay in an openhearted and respectful place.

In fact, it is BECAUSE of having the difficult conversations that you drop deeper into intimacy and the magic that comes from merging and mutual growth. When “unconditional” feels safe, there is nothing more profound and beautiful; when it doesn’t feel appropriate, unconditional can be replaced with the “acceptance” of the limitations, boundaries and finite self of all involved. The practices of RC shine a light on the sometimes confusing and misty realms of love, relationship, feelings, wounds, and expectations.

Respectful Confrontation helps us to navigate and unify the seeming polarities and contradictions. By asserting your “no” in an openhearted way, you open to more “yes”. By setting and clarifying your boundaries, you expand into a deeper level of yourself and relationship. By having the courage to express your feelings and needs, you open to a vulnerability that allows your True Power to be revealed.

Let’s all initiate this Dance of Love and Compassion and transform ourselves, our relationships and society!

May 31 – June 3 I will be leading a Respectful Confrontation retreat at Shalom Mountain Retreat Center, a community that has been practicing the principles of loving community for decades. Join us explore this dance.

The amazing grounds of the Feathered Pipe Ranch.

I am excited about the retreat that I am developing with Christian de la Huerta, Karen Chrappa and the staff of Feathered Pipe Ranch -Waking the Open-hearted Warrior: Empowerment Camp, June 16 – 22. I feel this work captures the spirit of our times and will provide an arena for us to open to skills and powers urgently needed at this time.

The idea of an empowerment camp for the open-hearted warrior may seem contradictory to some. I hope it does. Aren’t we living in times that seem and feel contradictory? We have such advanced technology, yet so many of us are hungry. We have mass media, internet and other convenient ways to communicate with anyone on the planet. Yet  emotional, social and spiritual isolation and separation has reached epidemic proportions.

The energy towards polarity is so strong. It is very difficult these days to have a conversation and not be forced to take a side or classify others in a disempowering and distancing way: right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, victim vs. perpetrator, left vs. right, 1% vs. 99%, … and the list goes on and on. We suffer and watch others suffer, and we don’t seem to be able to alleviate this in a clear, efficient way.

In order to successfully arm ourselves with the appropriate strength, courage, wisdom and skill to address the prevailing state of apathy, fear, confusion and cynicism, we must use the metaphors of the warrior and the martial artist to activate the power of love, compassion, understanding, respect and inclusiveness. To overcome the polarity, we need to tap into and harness the ancient innate energies within each one of us and within the universe, and convert it into a modern system that resonates with now.

These skills must be learned and practiced. We all have some level of knowledge of these principles, but until we master them, we will not have the impact we would like to achieve – stepping into our role as powerful, open-hearted, responsible citizens of this planet who use common sense and collaboration to introduce new and creative solutions for our current personal and global problems. This requires a training that offers a clear and comprehensive tools that can be mastered over time.

During our retreat together, you will be lead through a basic training that will empower you with the core philosophies and practices of Respectful Confrontation, advanced breathwork practices and rituals which deepen our relationship to the Earth. We will lead you as a group through a journey of self-discovery, stepping closer and closer to a clear awareness of who you are as unique powerful, open-hearted beings.

Christian will guide you through a series of advanced breathwork practices based within his Mastery of Breath system, as a way to gain deeper insight into yourself, your relationship with others and the Earth, stripping away layers to reveal your Soulful Power, a concept Christian is currently writing a book on. Karen, a modern-day medicine woman, will remind us of our relationship with the Earth and our obligation to honor its gifts through various traditional rituals. And I will arm and empower you with concrete tools and skills that can be mastered to help each of us navigate the high-paced lifestyle we lead and still maintain a sense of connection with self and our highest purpose.

And of course, the most significant member of this dynamic and diverse group is the Feathered Pipe Ranch, itself. We will spend time connecting with the sacred energies of the land to deepen our abilities to listen to the wise signals that are always offered to us. Taking advantage of both the Summer Solstice and the new moon which occur during the week of the retreat, we will lead rituals on the land, including time within an ancient cave used by Native American shamans, as a way to deepen our sense of personal power and alignment with nature. This is a great way to celebrate our highest and brightest selves, be witnessed by others in a loving community and walk away clear, empowered, supported and ready to embrace all that our current times have to offer us.

I hope you will be there to share in this experience.

Find out how you can register for this exciting retreat, Waking the Open-Hearted Warrior: Empowerment Camp, June 16-22nd, at the Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana. “Bring a Friend” & Feathered Pipe’s Community Discount Programs Apply!!!

Note: All posts are written with the intention of the Respectful Confrontation Polarity Antidote Philosophy.

I was quite discouraged by the recent Supreme Court debates on the Health Care Law. It seems that many people in this country have trouble with the “individual mandate” which claims that everyone is required to buy insurance.

I don’t fully understand the problem. When I applied for my work permit in the Netherlands I was required to get health insurance. Insurance in the Netherlands is currently around $200 a month. This is for full coverage with an annual deductible of about $200. I can see any doctor I choose to see and when I need services I don’t have to wait long. It seems to work well.

My rights haven’t been taken away and I have the comfort that I am well taken care of. (In international polls, the Dutch always rank in the top 3 – 5 as the happiest and healthiest people in the world and the US usually one of the lowest for a “developed” nation.)

In my research of trying to understand those who are against this mandate (mostly Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers), I was always confused by their message. Then I started getting some clarity. When I was a volunteer teacher at a California state Prison, I had a long talk with a Republican-identified guard who helped me to see that the primary driving force of these people is the need for freedom. Freedom from government, from establishment, from anything that threatens personal rights.

However, I was confused. How could these people fight for freedom when they had little trouble allowing the government to take away their privacy with the Patriot Act? They didn’t seem to have a problem with government telling them where they can smoke, or who we went to war with, and they have spent an enormous of amount of time and money to get government to put more restrictions on women’s health. Where’s the freedom in this?

But these debates on the individual mandate helps me see the core of the issue. The real freedom that is truly valued by these parties is the freedom to BUY and SELL as they please! These parties don’t necessarily stand for the basic rights of the individual; these parties are only interested in protecting the right to consume. This made so much sense – most citizens of this country are not concerned with Democracy and human rights, most are committed to upholding the ideology of Consumerism!

The US thinks it’s the “champion of Democracy” around the world; however, the US is really the leaders of Consumerist Movement. Since the 1950’s, the American Dream has turned into the belief that all Americans have the right to be happy, not the right to “pursue” happiness (what you will find in the Declaration of Independence). And, according to this Consumerist Movement, happiness is determined by how much you can buy and consume.

This helps me better understand members of these parties, many of whom would like to restore this nation to the policies of the original constitution. When you think of it, most of the members of the first federal government were motivated to protect the rights of wealthy men to buy and sell as they please. If you look at our current congress, you could say that not much has changed.

I recently met an amazing woman, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, who worked as a financial advisor before becoming a chaplain, pastoral counselor and, as she puts it, a “Buddhologist.” In her book, “Vigil: Spiritual reflections on your money and sanity”, she compares large corporations and the system that has supported them with “hungry ghosts” – an entity that constantly needs to be fed, is never satisfied and sucks off of anything it can get it’s hands on

A solution she offers to our current problems is that one way to weaken the hungry ghost of large corporations is to address the patterns within us that feed this system. When we overcome our own discontent, confusion, neurotic cravings and lack of generosity, we weaken and starve the hungry ghost of big business and soften its current power.

Yetunde offers three clear practices to help us lessen the grip of corporate greed and economic imbalance: notice the influence the media has on us and make changes; acknowledge how much corporate dollars affects government and be mindful of where you put your money; and sincerely face your own suffering and the suffering of others and take actions to ask for help and support others

I’m so grateful to know that there are great teachers out there like Yetunde who offer us the simple message that happiness is not determined by the size of your house or how much power you have, but more about walking through the world with integrity and right relationship with yourself, with others and with the environment. Many blessings on your journey towards empowered contentment.

I just saw The Hunger Games. I hadn’t read the books. Oh my, it was very intense. My nervous system was so activated!

It’s a powerful film and an amazing metaphor for contemporary society. If you haven’t read the books or seen the movie, here’s a brief description and some of my reflections (I promise I won’t give away anything!).

In the story, you have the people of the Capitol (for the sake of symbolism, let’s call them the 1%) which is decadently wealthy because they have complete control of 12 other districts filled with workers who basically live at poverty wages to support the greed of the people in the Capitol (let’s call them the 99%)

As a way to keep the 99% in their place, the President and leaders of the Capitol force two of the children in each district every year to be part of a competition that is televised throughout all the districts where the winner is the last one alive. Basically they are required to slaughter one another for the entertainment of those in power and as a way to maintain peace.

This huge societal schism and the amount that the poor are expected to sacrifice for the benefit of the few in power is reflective of our current time. There is one moment in the film where the President warns the Game Master not to be too soft on the contestants and those in the poor districts. I paraphrase him:

“Why do we waste our time letting there be one winner every year? Why don’t we just round up 24 kids and slaughter them as a way to keep people in line?” In other words, use fear to manipulate the masses.

He goes on to say: “Because letting one of them live gives these people hope. The only thing more powerful than fear is hope. Not too much hope; that could lead to an overthrow of our power. But just enough hope to make them think that things could be better.”

This is a clear description of how those in power today maintain their greedy ways. By giving people the slightest bit of hope, you can easily manipulate them into sacrificing everything they have for you because you instill in them the belief that they might get out of their poverty and one day be the 1%!

This helped me to understand the Tea Party and those who lobby to cut taxes for the rich, and disempower agencies that would support those who are truly in need. I always found it confusing: how could people who have lost their homes, have no health insurance, no jobs, and continue to lose support from social services and a hope for a good quality of life still be so vehemently against social programs and ensuring that the rich take more ethical and financial responsibility?

How has the 1% and the large corporations managed to get some members in congress and the average citizen to do the dirty work of insuring that they (the 1%) will continue to gain more profit while systematically destroying the environment, social order and the happiness and health of the average worker?

They don’t use fear. Those were the tactics of the Cold War. Since the Cold War, these people in power had to switch to a different strategy: play on the inherent greed in most of us and give us a glimmer of hope that if we continue to support the values and customs of large corporations, maybe one day we too will become the 1%.

If we move to a society where there is more financial equality and government policies that propogate economic and social justice, where less people are starving and more are happier and healthier, there might not be enough for those few to still be multi-billionaires. It seems to me that members of the Tea Party and those who support its doctrines would rather create a world where the possibility to become one of a very few multi-billionaires is more logical, ethical and somehow in alignment with God’s plan than a world where the majority of the population has enough to eat and enjoys a quality of life that is healthy, fair and safe.

There is a Hebrew parable that has always stuck with me:

A Rabbi wants to know what Heaven and Hell look like. God takes him to Hell and shows him a room with a banquet table filled with an abundance of delicious food. He asks God, “How is this Hell?” Then he sees people sitting at the table, reaching for a fork that is too long. They can scoop up the food with the fork but it can’t reach their mouth. They sit at this table for eternity trying to get the food into their mouth. The Rabbi asks to see Heaven. God takes him to another room with a banquet table that is identical to the one in Hell.

The Rabbi is confused. “How is this Heaven?” He then sees people at the table with the same sized forks scoop up their food and, instead of feeding themselves, they feed the person sitting next to them. They will spend eternity feeding each other from this abundance.

Some may call sharing and fair taxation and universal health care and social policies evil. I call it heaven and actually the way to our salvation and evolution.

Joe Weston, Founder of Respectful Confrontation

In January 2012, I moved to DC with the hope of offering my skills, knowledge and passion for lasting peace to help bridge the gap between the polarizing times we are now in.

The energy towards polarization is so strong; especially in a city like Washington DC. It is very difficult these days to have a conversation and not be forced to take a side or classify others in a disempowering and distancing way: right/wrong, good/bad, victim/perpetrator, left/right, 1%/99%, … and the list goes on.

I truly believe that as long as we hold on to our own individual need to be right, and therefore make all others with different beliefs wrong, we will never find the new creative solutions that are just sitting there waiting to be revealed.

This polarity has brought us all to a standstill, maybe even a standoff, causing paralysis and powerlessness.

Think about it: if hanging out only with the people who already share your views was going to solve our world and personal problems, we would have already solved our world and personal problems. Since we haven’t already solved our world and personal problems, then it seems logical to me that the way to create successful solutions to our problems is accepting that one group may have one piece of the “truth” puzzle and that all other groups (even opposing groups) have other important pieces of that puzzle.

When we learn how to sit down and talk to all groups and really listen to hear how and why they view the world as they do, we will call out each others’ valid truths, weave them together and finally create the solutions necessary to affect real positive lasting change for our times.

To understand something doesn’t mean you have to agree or take on these beliefs. It simply allows you to get deeper insights into others that you may consider adversaries and maybe find some common ground for the sake of the whole.

As a practitioner and founder of Respectful Confrontation and the path of the Heartwalker, it is always my intention to do my best to not take sides, to not claim that I am right and others are wrong. Yes, I have my own strong beliefs and truths, but I proclaim them as “my” truth and not “the” truth. This practice allows me to have more respect and understanding for others and therefore the ability to listen from my heart (where wisdom resides) to hear things that others might miss.

In order to seek out new solutions to our current situation, it is my intention to empower those who share my beliefs with tools that result in effective communication and self actualization, as well as truly understand the motivations and beliefs of those with opposing views as a way to overcome the adversity and have productive talks that lead to real solutions. It is not my intention to judge and criticize them, or claim that they are wrong. This only creates more polarity and adversity. My purpose with this blog is to share with you my insights and understanding that came from my exploration.