sabato 28 maggio 2016

THE POINT BETWEEN RAGE AND SERENITY - Il punto di mezzo

“You know, I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity - Sai, credo che il vero punto focale stia in un punto di equilibrio a metà tra rabbia e serenità.” (Professor Charles Xavier in ‘X-Men - L’inizio’)



Nella nostra esperienza di relazione, con gli amici, con i partner o addirittura con noi stessi, forse talvolta ci siamo chiesti quale sia la giusta attitudine interiore da assumere, quella più funzionale, più rispettosa e più amorevole allo stesso tempo. Forse ci siamo accorti che lasciarsi risucchiare totalmente dai drammi degli altri non è di reale aiuto né a loro né tantomeno a noi - così come non lo è ergere un muro di separazione e indifferenza cercando di tutelarci dall’onda emotiva che, in alcuni momenti, può investire un rapporto.


Non a caso, sul Sentiero, si sente spesso parlare della ‘via sottile come filo di rasoio, che passa fra le coppie di opposti’. Possiamo trovare un esempio di ciò proprio in quella ‘giusta distanza’ che  siamo chiamati costantemente a modulare e ricalibrare in ogni relazione - compresa quella con noi stessi - e che, tra l’altro, salva la relazione dall’automatismo e dall’essere data per scontata. La giusta distanza relazionale è infatti una posizione dinamica della coscienza che richiede il regolare esercizio dell’attenzione, virtù cardinale alla base di tutte le dinamiche tra esseri viventi.
Comunemente ci barcameniamo in modo più o meno cosciente tra attimi di estrema fusione/identificazione e attimi di totale differenziazione/alienazione dai drammi o dalle storie dell’altro. E’ un po’ il dilemma dei porcospini di Schopenauer: troppo vicini ci pungiamo, troppo lontani patiamo il freddo. Saper trovare il punto di autentico contatto con l’altro e con noi stessi è dunque l’opera di tutta una vita: si tratta di quel luogo non-luogo in cui s’incontrano amore e saggezza, partecipazione e sano distacco, empatia e lucidità.


L’empatia autentica scaturisce dal riconoscere intimamente che l’altro è ‘della stessa stoffa di cui siamo fatti noi’, per cui aldilà dell’apparente varietà e diversità delle sue storie e vicende, siamo capaci di percepire che le emozioni e qualità  alla base dei suoi drammi sono le stesse che vibrano al cuore dei nostri. La saggezza o chiarezza di percezione d’altro canto, derivano dal non colludere in toto con le storie che ci raccontiamo,  o che gli altri ci raccontano,  al fine  (di solito inconsapevole) di confermare i loro drammi e i loro ruoli da vincitori o da vittime. Con questo, beninteso, non si vuole disconfemare  l’esperienza propria o altrui: si tratta invece di smettere di nutrire quelle parti di noi e degli altri che desiderano il dramma piuttosto che la sua soluzione o la sua accettazione. 


Una delle mie insegnanti preferite e più radicali, Byron Katie, sostiene che ‘in presenza di qualcuno che non vede il problema, il problema decade’. Questo non significa negare  o reprimere il disagio bensì approcciarsi ad esso come se fosse già risolto e passato - e nella mia esperienza, effettivamente, non c’è disagio che possa persistere nel presente se non con un volontario atto di trattenimento e spostamento mentale  nel passato o nel futuro. 


Ph. Elena Pratelli e Roberto Cei

Per prenotare un trattamento olistico o un colloquio  di Counseling contattatemi attraverso il mio sito  Le Vie per l'Armonia.

giovedì 19 maggio 2016

I THOUGHT IT WAS LOVE, BUT IT WAS JUST A STOMACHACHE (2) - Pensavo fosse amore, invece era gastrite

Thor : " I wish I could trust you" 
Loki:  "Trust my rage"
(From the movie 'Thor: The Dark World)


In my experience, the most decisive element in the recovery process is the firm and honest intention to get rid of our suffering. As long as recriminations, fears, sadism or victimization still provide some form of pleasure that we accept as nourishment, there is no Mepral or Holy Spirit that can get us out of that shit. For it is the kind of shit we still find functional. After all, we know it pretty well, and it affords us a kind of ease since it validates our vision of the world. And woe betide anybody who wants to take it way from us! 
In another relationship, not ended by a single brutal breakup but rather the agonizing slow death of going-off-and-on-for months, I turned to a counselor instead of tablets. I was totally exhausted, physically and emotionally, and my self-talk was driving me mad: “Good Lord, with all the meditation, respiration, intuition and liposuction I’ve been doing, must I still inhabit the lowest levels of consciousness? I should just go to the disco and drink myself silly like everyone else, instead of reading Alice Bailey’s books!” 


From such a distorted benevolence towards myself, perhaps you can deduce that I was not in good shape.
However, as soon as I entered my counselor’s studio and rapidly indulged in some liberating tears, I felt enormously relieved. Of course the path away from my all my romantic illusions had just begun. But considering my hard, proud temperament, I had taken the most important step: simply asking for help. Such a kind action toward myself was already activating the harmonizing energies of my inner Self — energies which, thank God, go far beyond the limitations of ego and personality. Even if the process would be long and laborious, it was necessary to start with a simple, self-respecting step. 

Yet I am proud to say I have already made progress in my expectations of relationship. As I’m growing in spiritual awareness, it becomes ever more clear that I don’t want either a passionate romance or a passing sexual affair: I want a maid. If she/he is able to assemble Ikea furniture and do some home repairs in addition to cooking and tidying up, my life will be complete. 
“The voice within is what I’m married to. All marriage is a metaphor for that marriage. My lover is the place inside me where an honest yes or no comes from. That’s my true partner.” (Byron Katie)


Edited by D. Patrick Miller
Pics by Elena Pratelli 
To have a Counseling Session, also online please contact me at binisara@gmail.com or through the site www.sarabini.com

I THOUGHT IT WAS LOVE, BUT IT WAS JUST A STOMACHACHE (1) - Pensavo fosse amore, invece era gastrite


 There was a time when I regarded multiple gastrointestinal attacks as a clear sign of spiritual progress. (Sara Bini)


For reasons I don’t yet understand, my mind and body comunicate in a mysterious and melodramatic fashion. That is, I somatize a lot. Since I’m not that smart in decoding my body's messages, I’ve had some mishaps along the way. 
Here’s how it happens: although my  physical energy and emotions are hard-wired to each other, my self-awareness has a mind of its own. Under stress, it tends to fly to the highest reaches of Plato’s Hyperuranium and easily forgets the ground floor of my being, not to mention the cellar. When my consciousness tired of the intellectual stratosphere and grudgingly reinhabits my flesh and bones, I always feel a bit bewildered — with the result that I mess everything up.


An example is the sharp conclusion of a romantic relationship which I considered the most important of my life. (By the way, I believe that each and every sentimental involvement is of supreme importance, at the time.) At the end of that romance, there was the usual full bloom of heartaches, bursts of anger, feelings of gloom, and plans for transcendental revenge to be achieved via psycho-terrorism. However, what bothered me the most was a sensation of resentful emptiness in the belly, which prevented me from eating.
It was natural to blame my involuntary fast on the superhuman grief that my highly evolved soul was heroically enduring. So I was surprised when my doctor, apparently fed up with my endless complaints, simply prescribed Mepral: anti-gastritis tablets. Though skeptical that a mere medicine could resolve the agonizing pains of an Olympian passion dashed to earth, I decided to take the tablets in a momentum of magnificent cupio dissolvi — hoping that I would melt into nothingness along with the medication.


Surprisingly, after taking the tablets, not only the physical pain but also the mental distraction, resentment, and perpetual mourning all vanished. It was as if, by interrupting the vicious circle of stomach pain and obsessive thinking, my whole being started to breathe again. My body was suddenly fine, so why shouldn't my mind be fine too? The sense of emptiness disappeared and I started to eat with gusto again.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mean to say that prescription tablets are always the ultimate cure for heartbreak. I’d just like to underline the importance of stopping the wicked mind-body mechanism wherein a physical pain calls up specific emotions and beliefs that, in turn, make you sick to your stomach. We must intervene somewhere in this self-destructive cycle, and sometimes the breakthrough may be more chemical or mechanical than our self-importance would lead us to expect.

Versione italiana ai link Pensavo fosse amore 1Pensavo fosse amore 2 e Pensavo fosse amore3


Edited by D. Patrick Miller
Pics by Elena Pratelli e Dany Summo
To have a Counseling Session, also online please contact me at binisara@gmail.com or through the site www.sarabini.com

mercoledì 11 maggio 2016

LOVE AND BOILED CHICKEN - English version for 'L'amore e il pollo lesso'

“He moved closer to Mercier who stepped back vividly. “I just wanted to hug you” Camier said ‘I’ll do it some other time, when you feel better, if I remember’” (Samuel Backett, “Mercier et Camier")


In between a rock song and a pint of beer, I sometimes tend to get lost in existential speculations such as “What is the mystery of the blessed Trinity and how does it manifest in our daily life? How can we balance strenght and grace, compassion and healthy detachment? What can I wear for uncle Bob’s birthday party on Saturday night?”
These powerful questions are weighed up by my mind with an impressive calm and lucidity, whereas my body usually does something else entirely : I brush my teeth, I change my cat’s litter box or I prepare my morning coffee. By the way, some days ago, a friend of mine added fuel to the fire by posting the following ‘little question’ on our online study group: “What is the Energy of Love? Where does It come from and how does It express Itself?” Of course I have no answers to such question. I would only risk to belittle it, especially if I tried to put together some pompous words and  bombastic expressions.


Then, one evening, I had an amazing, enlightening dinner. My mother had given me a pot with some boiled chicken inside, because, I had my nth stomachache as usual. As I was reaching my hand for the little pot, I suddenly and unexpectedly ‘felt’ my mother’s love. It was as if a warm ray of light got out of that container which until then had been in the fridge. “My mother!” as Johnny Stecchino in Benigni’s movie would say. Although she is pretty sick and full of problems, she anyway takes care of me before caring for herself.
From that holy instant of love perception, the thought  spontaneously extended to the person I was then pretty angry with, someone I thought intentionally hurt me and who I hated the best I could. With my mind’s eye I saw him in my same situation: at home, maybe alone, with a boiled chicken pot in front of him, which his mother lovingly cooked for him.


I saw him so innocent, helpless, human -  so similar to me. I saw a person with his own difficulties, his sunrises and sunsets, his lights and shadows and it came to me that I might have been  just the catalyst of his negatives, unfortunately. I felt compassion, which is not pity; it has more the flavor of tenderness, respect, complicity, intimacy. What is love? Well, whoever am I to know that. Or, whoever am I NOT to know that. What I felt, that sweet melting of my inner barriers and the dissolution of my mental cloudiness, is probably as close as I can get to love right now. It may sound like a second-class feeling but it’s still better than judgement, bitterness or grudge. After all, it’s better to start honestly from where we are…and evidently I’m at the boiled chicken.



PS: The chicken, in all this non-vegetarian context, is undoubtedly the one who has manifested the greatest degree of love. Bless his bones!

To have a Counseling Session, also online please contact me at binisara@gmail.com or through the site www.sarabini.com