Each Day R/Evolution

Transgenic Mod

My husband, Matt, asked me what transgenic mod I might like to have, if I could. After some consideration, I decided I'd like to have a tail like a cat with which I might express my emotions. I only recently learned that when a cat swishes it's tail fast, that is an expression of cat-annoyance or cat-anger. Our family cat, Kawawa, does this quite often when I pick her up and squeeze her and play our "Kitty Bagpipes" game wherein I squeeze gently and she lets out a series of low miaouls in protest. She swishes her tail quite fast during this game. I thought the fast swish was like a happy dog-tail wagging. I was wrong.

Managing LDR LTRs with NLP: Relationship Strategies

I've recently returned from Sheffield, UK, and I'm almost over the jetlag and all my trailing molecules have just about caught up with me from the transatlantic journey.

Airport goodbyes are never easy. The ache of separating your body from your partner is palpable and there is a keening within that logic cannot console. Despite my arsenal of emotion-management tools and skills, I still couldn't help bawling and blubbering when saying goodbye to my husband, who I won't see for a little while again.

However, it could have been more tragic. Using the following NLP exercises, we were able to keep our focus on our shared goals, and only had intermittent weeping spells before we had to release our handhold. These NLP exercises are useful for any relationship strategy.

Reframe I: We shift the context frame by thinking of our behaviors in light of a different situation. E.g. It's appropriate to be sad, but the context of our sadness is actually sandwiched in 'we just spent some time together, we have times together ahead soon, we're not spending another 6 months apart again.' Our sadness is alleviated by thinking of the context surrounding the situation in a different way.

Reframe II: We can focus on the fact that we have to part ways for now, or we can think about what would happen if we could be together, tomorrow? Immediately, something within realizes that we can't be together tomorrow - because there's so much yet for us to sort out and accomplish individually, in the next few months.

Visualizations and Next Actions list: To manage the nervousness and anxiety, as well as to console the thought of the Other being mopey and lonely - we emptied our heads of all our next actions, to create images in one another's minds of busy-ness and goals, and he wrote my next actions in his handwriting, and I handwrote his, too. Reading one another's handwriting is comforting.

Shifting Submodalities: We each created a visual trigger of a motivating, persuasive future vision of us together, and made it big, bright, movie-like, landscape-oriented and right in front of our eyes. This vision guides us and overrides our pouts and weepings.

Stack positive anchors:We each started to think about and visualize several of the happiest, most passionate, hilarious and joyous moments together during my stay. During that time of ecstatic reminiscence, we rubbed the first knuckle on our left hands. We did this several times, until all we had to do was rub the knuckle and it triggered the images and the smiles without effort.

Reprogram internal language: When I think to myself about 'tearing my body' away from my husband, or that leaving him feels like I am "peeling off my skin," or that the "ache is unbearable," it heightens the sensitivity to overwhelming physical pain, as the words trigger neuropathways of panic within me. If I think of our relationship as a flow or a dance, or a graceful, winding double helix wrapping around itself, I feel calmer and more at ease.

LDRs (Long Distance Relationships) and LTRs (Long Term Relationships) require a shared strategy for managing communications and emotions, to keep the love connection strong, stable and secure, a triumph over time and space. It's wonderful to have a partner who is willing to take responsibility for managing his internal state, and NLP has been a great tool for us both in staying focused on our shared vision of the future, and for creating the intimate context and perception of reality we both choose to share for this lifetime.

Fermata

Meditating at the beach
An endless moment
Of breaths shared together
Waves ebbing and flowing
'Make this infinite' I whispered to the Universe
Opened my eyes
to Fermatas hanging in the sky

Past, Present, Future: Intersect Right Now!

I've finally shaken off the jet lag, and have braved the cold to go out into the town. It's snowing here in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK. So my husband, Matt doesn't have internet at his flat yet, my powerbook is still under repair so I've looked up what seems to be the only internet cafe in the Sheffield phone book and hiked up to a taxi stand, then took a £5 or $9ish cab ride just to log on for the first time since I've arrived. Where is the free wifi? Where are the open wifi networks?

Matt is at work at the Apple Store at Meadowhall, and I've done the shopping for the bits for our New Year's Eve in the flat, just us, warm and cozy and together, sheltered by the bitter winter's frost here in Sheffield City Centre.

No use for cute shoes or cute clothes here.  Just whatever is warmest and most weather resistant.  Matt has one of those legendary washer+dryer-in-one units at the flat.  It does both. And a towel warmer in the bathroom.  These are the things I like. Of course, the #1 thing I like and love and adore, is my husband, Matthew.

I already have a blister on my heel from all the walking. No cable yet at the flat, so I'm confined to the 5 BBC channels. Just at this moment, a bit of sun has broken through the clouds.  The first I've seen since I arrived.

To back up, I had a wonderful Christmas, very simple and stress free, with much quality time spent with both sides of our family - singing, playing games, watching movies, cooking and hanging out.  The year feels very full, and as I am alone again, at least for a few hours, on New Year's Eve Day, I take the time to do my own private ritual of reflection: a process of archiving and deletion, taking inventory of 2004, and also projection: my future-paced visualizations for 2005 and beyond.

On December 31, 2004 I was alone in my apartment in Toluca Lake, CA, and I went by myself to Beverly Hot Springs, a Korean spa/bathhouse - a natural alkaline mineral hot springs in the middle of Koreatown.  Over a 4 hour period of different techniques of quantum incantation, self-hypnosis, TimeLine therapy, reframing, archiving and deletion, meditation, breathing exercises, prayer, self-organization and visualization techniques, I took the full soaked 2004 sponge and wrung it out, I was ruthless with myself in which hang-ups, fears, phobias, limiting beliefs and personal mythos I was going to eschew, I broke myself all the way down, a process of self-immolation through heating, soaking, steaming, drying out, rehydrating, purifying. 

Until I was reduced to the essence of me, the source of my inexhaustible fire, my seed of divinity, my infinite Spark, around which I wove myself new garments of belief.  In these moments I broke down the hard-core of me, and let my desire sing out across the world. I decided, with all my heart, breath, soul, fire - that this was the year I would let myself be seen, be found, and be loved.

On January 1st, 2005, Matt Kenefick arrived in my INBOX, a message from across the world - the man, the Mate, had read a poem I'd posted in lieu of a profile on my Nerve.com personals site. The most intense intellectual, ether-borne relationship of neural intermingling, map-meshing and divinely inspired connection kicked off a process of recognition and verification through music and word, and evidences of our patternlock filled our love database every day. Until we met in the flesh in March/April 2005, then married in October 2005.  It is now December 31st, 2005. I am in Sheffield with the 0ne I called out to, across the world, through the ether and with all the strength of my heart, one year ago. 

This year I have forged many wonderful partnerships in growth - clients, friends, colleagues, who inspire and support me. I've become closer to my mother and my family, more than I have been in my entire adult life. Close friends and family have engaged, married, given birth to beautiful babies, engaged in both joyous and sorrowful life transitions, and I am blessed to be connected with such loving, courageous, innovative and generous spirits. 

In 2006, my hypnotherapy practice and vocal studio will be housed in a wonderful space in Hollywood, CA, a private space with views of the Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood sign.  Opportunities, ventures and partnerships abound: for writing e-books, publishing my poetry, writing screenplays, producing a musical/cabaret, vocal performance instruction, recording some of my own music, expanding the breadth and the services of my hypnotherapy practice through further specialized education and training, collaborating on my husband's album, doing some professional blogging, podcasting, hosting workshops, more consulting work, getting some use out of my real estate agent's license. . . more travel! more joy! more love! Our 'Luvmigration' process for Matt's spousal visa should be all tidied up and ready for his importation to the US by June at the latest, with our 'Wedding Re-mix' reception scheduled for October of 2006.

With a full heart, upward views and unstoppable resolve toward abundance, success and the mutual arising, I send warm support and encouragement for your 2006 - a year to Unleash, Unlock and Advance confidently toward your life's goal, passion and purpose.

- Carmen Leilani De Jesus, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK