Integrity = Being Your Word + Inner Guidance

Coming from a crazy family where people's minds changed like the weather, I adopted the policy of being true to my word no matter what. Even if the time came and I didn't feel like doing whatever I had agreed to, I kept my word and showed. I always wanted people to feel like they could count on me. I did not know I had huge underlying safety issues so I sought to enable people to feel safe with me. I figured, if they could count on me (my word), I could count on them. That should have equaled safe. Right?
Wrong!

Then I sought out learning experiences inside of paradigms where keeping your word equals integrity. For me, I felt I could finally feel secure knowing that I could trust what people said. After all, if I gave my word, I'd keep it. So, they must be the same. What was I thinking? People gave their word and made promises all the time. And they broke their word.

Things happened. What, I don't know. I never asked. I was not concerned with their excuses for not keeping their word. I was concerned with the fact that their word had been broken. I found myself making them wrong. I was even sneakier than that. I devalued them and still loved them, but less. I justified this righteous behavior of mine and had no room for their growth and development gap.

So were they safe with me? In fact, no. Did I feel safe with them? No.

Then I began studying Tantra. This Eastern philosophy encourages you to embrace it all, the right and the wrong, the light and the dark. I learned to embrace other's darkness (breaking of word) and my darkness (making them wrong). When this embrace empowered me to come out of the darkness, all of a sudden, I developed a lot of room for it all. I stopped taking it personally when a word was broken. I stopped being attached to outcomes. I became more appreciative of the process of transformation and just what it takes for people to keep their word, other people.

Inside of Tantra, I also became familiar with a powerful process called Latihan.

Latihan is a deep meditation where you go inside and then move following inner guidance. Some people call this authentic movement. During one Latihan session, I met my life's purpose staring me right in the eye. I began to listen to my inner voice rather than being distracted by what was "right" or "wrong" with the outer world.

I have been using this practice for 8 years. It has altered my life and altered my relationship to integrity and word. Now I follow inner guidance inside of my life's purpose when I commit to do something. Usually by the time the event comes about, I still want to do it. I am not merely toughing it out by keeping my word to anything and everything. I am keeping my word to something I have clearly chosen out of my deep commitment to what I am committed to in life. I have given up needing to have people count on me above all else and trying to make them feel safe. I have stopped making them wrong and myself right if things change. I focus on myself, my intentions and the messages I get from within. It is easy to keep my word and be with people exactly where they are. There is no more resentment.

At the end of the day, my word is in alignment with my life's purpose. And when I give it, it is a measure of the commitments that guide my life. Now it really does add up to my integrity, my truth. The bonus is that I'm experiencing many more people these days keeping their word. Something major has shifted in my life.



How to do Latihan:
You stand in a room with eyes closed. Playing on the stereo is ethereal music no lyrics.

The practice starts out by you picturing yourself standing at the edge of a cliff. You are strapped into a harness that is attached to a zip line. The zip line is stretched across a void. In other words, in your mind's eye, if you look down, you see only darkness, nothing - the void. In the meditation, you let go of your foothold and swing out over the void. You hang there attached to the zip line.

Then you reach up and push a red button that unfastens the clasp holding you connected to the zip line. Essentially, you let go and fall into the unknown.

Once you feel yourself falling, you begin to move only when movement moves you. This is not about prescribed movements, postures, dance steps or even asanas. It is simply to notice the impulse to move and then feel your way into the next movement.

Practice this for 10 - 15 minutes at first. Then move to a half hour.
Gradually build up to an hour at least once a week.

Copyright Butterfly Workshops, Inc. 2005

Emotional Release with Shamanic Release & Latihan CD

When I arrived in West Palm Beach, I was very pent up from a lot of pressure over the last four months and not knowing whether the books would arrive in time for the trade show. In addition, the DVD of the Bliss course I was planning to have in my hands had some technical difficulty in being re-produced. I've only been waiting for that for three years!

So, I walked into Randall's home and said, "I need to do emotional release right now. Care to join me?" He responded, "I know a great CD we can do it with." It did not dawn on me that he was going to put in my CD - Shamanic Release & Latihan by Laurie Handlers . Duh!

I laid down and the CD began. I figured, "I don't need this. I just put on any music lay down, hit the floor and clear in 20 minutes. Maybe he needs this direction." Ha ha on me.

But then I listened to the instructions and followed my voice to the letter. What an expereince! See I listened to the recording when I made it in the studio. And I often listen to it when I visit my MySpace profile. But the truth is that I had never done the process to it.

What was I thinking?

It's so great. I had the thought, "Damn this is good. And it's me! Wow!"

Anyway, it was an amazing experience for me to be facilitated by me. I don't know how to describe it, but it got the job done and then some. I had the release of the decade as far as I am concerned. I highly recommend it. Ha ha ha. You knew I would.

But if you are holding out on yourself about doing Emotional Release, why? What are you waiting for? If you cannot do it by yourself, then by all means get the CD. It will change the planet.

One of my students wrote and said this to me about my sharing of this experience: "This seems to me like a great example of making love to yourself. You let the creative powerful Get It Out There, Get It Up, Get It Now God in you make love to the Receptive, Open-hearted, Ever-Waiting Goddess. The Yin + the Yang of you = the release of the decade."

Yeah Baby, that's what I'm talking about!

Love & Gratitude,
L

When I arrived in WPB, I was very pent up from a lot of pressure over