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Susie Mawhinney's avatar

Dearest Renée, I have been unforgivably absent in commenting on your letters for too long but for reasons purely linked to a lack of time and emotional energy. Summer has been complicated by many unexpected external intrusions of which these words are deeply pertinent.

The inner journey of self-awareness and the struggle to connect with a deeper, more authentic sense of self; why do we always seek external validation when these experiences can never fully satisfy?

I wish I weren't guilty... and yet, still I constantly turn away from inner reality, focusing instead on the external world for proof of existence and worth. Always I find need to defend myself.

How often our human need to connect with an inner truth is obscured by the distractions of daily life. It suggests that this truth can only be found through a deliberate effort to turn inward, to be present, and to let go of the need for external validation. I am learning... thank you so very much for Jeanne de Salzmann, and The Reality of Being, I think I must print this out and read often.

With love to you X

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Dear Susie,

How wonderful to connect over this very topic of the pulls from our need for external validation. What better timing to drop in than this for reflection from de Salzmann. Substack is a living laboratory for observing our need to prove our existence, be validated, run toward the next 'heart', run away from the raw vulnerability birthed of that last naked post, get chummy with the popular kids, catch up, keep up, compare and . . . and . . . you may have noticed my own absence.

I so appreciate your always sincerity.

With love to you.

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Thaissa Lara's avatar

True knowledge arises from a place of openness and presence rather than from rigid frameworks or preconceived notions. Beautiful, Renée.

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thaissa, thank you.

I echo you that these words (not my own) are beautiful.

Wonderful to 'see' you today!

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Mary Davis's avatar

My dear friend, Renee!

I read this today, Thursday the 5th of September, after a remarkable day yesterday at the Center for Conscious Living and Dying, attending to two residents who present with such Grace in there attitude toward their pending deaths. What you shared in this passage from Jeanne de Salzmann's Reality of Being feels like a perfect meditation for me to use prior to my work with the dying. I love the distinction between "taking" and "receiving", for it is such an intrusion to approach the dying with a need of one's own, but such a gift to them to be in open presence to receive whatever they may wish to extend. The connection that "un-needing receptiveness" creates seems to set them at ease and allow them to feel safe and still valued at this difficult transition where one feels so dependent on others.

The nature of my work in that community, both with the dying, and with the living is centered around presence practice, and within that practice the following quote articulates so clearly such a universal human tendency that stems from that developmental stage in our early life where the "mirror neurons" are so vital to our ego development, and so integral to our primal social dependence. But once developed, both the ego and our social orientation must gradually be modulated and put in their right place, especially later in life when our inner work and the deeper work with "individuation" becomes primary. It seems to me, as I am "eldering" that the outer world continues to be vital in that process, but it's outcome becomes more about internal transformation for the souls preparation to depart this physical world.

"There is in me something very real, the self, but I am always closed to it, demanding that everything outside prove it to me. I am always on the surface, turned toward the outside in order to take something or to defend myself."

Thank you for sharing this, Renee.... I LOVE what your voracious reading digs up!!!

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Dear Mary,

Thank you for reading this week's reflection with such presence. You mirror de Salzmann herself, who, I am told, moved through the world slowly, deliberately, never wavering in awareness from the wholeness of her being. To say, this passage is immanently lived for her.

The work that you are doing with the dying (and the living) is a profound offering, Mary, and I read that you are also receiving as much, if not more, by being a presence of un-needing receptiveness while offering your care.

I am reminded of a philosopher (Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life) who wrote of each individual having a "needful freedom." What you offer in presence--without your own needs pulling and tugging--allows the dying, in that most vulnerable transition toward complete dependence, the most necessary dignity. They are permitted in your presence a needful freedom to be sovereign, agential beings until and beyond their final breath. In this way, they continue to become. And so do you. And so do we. This work transforms not only the dying process and you. It opens the collective heart to loving dignity across the arc of life. Thank you for doing this work, Mary.

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Julie Schmidt's avatar

I love this contemplation, Renée! "I am always on the surface, turned toward the outside in order to take something or to defend myself." Isn't this how we have been conditioned, taught to be. To reach outward, to pilfer and seize the moment. Always wanting. Then to defend, push away, splinter and alienate. Always separate. I love how Salzmann then went into receiving... I too feel the power in this simple motion of redirection. Instead of conquering the moment, what about opening ones hands in receptivity? On "the surface" it is about playing small. Yet with openness there is substance, a depth and wideness. An "essence, a feeling that is not of my form but that can contain the form."

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Julie,

You came to mind at every turn while transcribing this passage. I wondered what you would contemplate and where you might take this. Your word, redirection, captures beautifully the turn from 'seize' from the world to fill the emptiness we cannot fill, to surrendering with open hands. Now we are not splintered from the world 'out there', separate. Now the world is a fount, and we are a delta pouring into the sea . . . with one simple (but not easy) 'redirect'.

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Kimberly Warner's avatar

“and there is a feeling of my essence, a feeling that is not of my form but that can contain the form.” This line resonates so deeply and became an integral practice when in the height of physical suffering. Some may have perceived it as an escape, but for me, it felt like an abiding, unconditional awareness of stillness that could hold (and love) the pain.

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Kimberly,

I am stirred by your comment––"some may have perceived it as an escape, but for me, it felt like an abiding, unconditional awareness of stillness that could hold (and love) the pain" ––so much so that after sitting with it for a few moments, I look up the etymology of the word, escape: freed from confinement. It does seem (in reading you) your presence during the height of suffering was emancipatory. Everything turns in on itself: abiding in the pain was a liberation into the unshakable center of your being--of essence, of love.

Escape as abiding. A Sufi quote comes to me but I paraphrase (poorly): Forgive them who seem elsewhere. They are with God.

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Kimberly Warner's avatar

Wow. “Freed from confinement.” That’s it! And such an important reminder for those who experience their bodies as a prison. The escape was indeed a liberation, and a returning to my/our essential nature that us love. My goodness thank you for this great insight.

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Kimberly,

Random echoes here.

"bodies as prison" . . . (echo)

There is a quality of presence to pain that hones in on the darkest tunnel of it and can birth us through to another side, to >>> "our essential nature that is love" . . . (echo)

I am sorry you suffer/ed such pain. I am glad to call you friend.

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Donna McArthur's avatar

What a fascinating idea to contemplate, "The movement of knowing is a movement of abandon." This is so true and also so difficult to allow space for in my human psyche. Thank you for opening this door Renee.

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Donna,

I, too, find this line to be arresting. If I sit with it for a few moments, this is what comes:

If I do not wish to abandon this moment, I must unknow everything that came before.

If I wish to truly live this moment, I must unknow everything that came before.

I must unknow even the idea of unknowing.

I must unknow.

Now I am naked. . . .

(and not very comfortable)

Is it this nakedness that is so difficult for us to allow space for in our psyche?

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Donna McArthur's avatar

Wow Renee! This is amazing. I hope you add this into your book.

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Renée Eli, Ph.D.'s avatar

Donna, you give me a good idea!

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Donna McArthur's avatar

That’s what I love to hear!

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