Now I'm going to move into the more personal as a way of sharing what I'm learning about these powerful areas, navigating the way to abiding love.
In the last couple of weeks, the clarity has been getting much sharper around my own relationship to insecurity in my lifetime, and perhaps many lifetimes. I don't mean to sound arrogant here, but I know that the work that has come through me is powerful and has helped many people to discover more about themselves, what they seek, and move towards awakening to their potential. This awareness has been with me since I was a child, though back then it would get me into a lot of trouble. I had no idea that I was working with fire, and that fire needs a strong container and a lot of respect in order not to burn me, the surroundings, or other people along the way.
Let me clarify -- it wasn't and isn't the power of intuition or Spirit or Healing that got or gets me into stuck places...it's nearly always some form of insecurity. And the further I walk the trail of healing and teaching, the more Awareness is cultivated, the more Awareness is cultivated, the stronger the force that hits against any illusions I'm still carrying, no matter the size.
Insecurity is one of the biggest illusions of all. It, at one time or another had me convinced I was unattractive, insignificant, not good enough, not strong enough, and just not lovable by anyone from whom I was wanting love and not seeming to get it.
Have you ever been out and about and noticed someone you found really really attractive, smiled in his or her direction, and got nothing in return? How'd that make you feel? Did you spend the rest of your time at that gym, restaurant, store, bar, club, or wherever working to make yourself appear more attractive to get the recognition you were craving. I have done that. And in recent times, have caught that reflex in-action. I have been working to connect the dots and notice how my insecurity can be triggered by outside events, and what choices I have made when I'm under its influence. Kind of like D.U.I, but more like L.U.I.I. (Living Under the Influence of Insecurity). Maybe we'll have programs around that one day! Maybe even "traffic tickets" for operating under the influence of insecurity! I'm being a bit funny here (even if only to myself), but maybe that kind of reinforcement would help us all wake up more quickly to how we live, think, and feel...and to begin to make new choices to see, hear, and feel the Truth, rather than what the voice or feeling of insecurity is trying to convince you and I.
In my adult life, one of the areas I've been most influenced by insecurity has been through the way my ego percieves my value. It has gotten this through how much money is in my bank account, what kind of people have been interested in me (or not) romantically, and what people say, think, and feel about me as a person. I'm sure I'm the only one here, right? Ha ha!
In the last couple of weeks, this study of mine has honed in on the area of my work as a healer and teacher. While I was up in San Francisco recently with the healing work, I was scheduled to teach my mentor David Elliott's Level 1 Healer Training Class. The registration for the class stayed steady at 3 participants, no matter what (the first and second classes had over 30 participants). I knew I couldn't afford to spiral into any ideas about there being something wrong, as that might close down the energy of the work entirely. I'd come too far to walk back down that old road. Though I did glance at it a few times! I decided to look at this particular class as holding some powerful teachings for me, and stayed engaged in asking what those teachings might be. And while trying to remain open, without preconceived notions.
I wanted to fill the class, and was reaching inside myself for the familiar energy I would use to do that...a combination of passion, enthusiasm, and something else. Well, the passion was there. The enthusiasm was there. But something was missing. What was it? And as I tried to reach for this "mystery substance", I felt my body contract, my throat close, and a very uncomfortable feeling move through my nervous system.
A wake up call.
What was this? What was going on? And if I couldn't use whatever it was, how would I fill the class?
What revealed and continues to reveal around this is extremely potent for me in my development as a healer, a teacher, and as a human man with a heart. What I've been seeing is that throughout my life, I've had a knack for motivating people and getting them to do or try things I believe in. What I hadn't seen was that there has been a strand of energy in the midst of my best intentions that would color people's experience of me and what could be delivered through the Work. And if you've ever cooked with the spice Saffron, you know that one tiny strand of it can color and flavor a huge stockpot of soup.
In my motivation of people to take a certain class, whether with me or someone else, there have been many times when this "strand" was present. This strand has a very masculine and somewhat forceful energy to it. So even when my heart has been wide open and energy flowing, when this strand was present, it would color the experience, and leave me wondering why this person or that person stopped showing up, or disappeared on the heals of having what they described as a profound, life-altering opening.
And there's plenty of training and development for this "strand" out in the world. Whole bodies of courses and coaching programs that have this feeling running silently in the background.
Let me back-track a bit. I have carried financial debt since I entered college and took on student loans. Several of the loans were absolutely necessary to get me through school. The later student loans were so I could have a nicer lifestyle while doing it. This is where the insecurity comes in. You see, growing up, I didn't really fit in. Though I didn't realize that it was my insecurity that was keeping me from fitting in. Not my looks, not my clothes, not where I lived, insecurity. This insecurity would drive me to say and do things that had an abrassive edge to them, and the abrassive edge would push people away.
However, I couldn't see it. The ads I saw growing up told me that if I wore different clothes, owned cooler music, went to the right restaurants, that I would be seen as good enough, and wanted. It was all "outside" of me. That's the illusion that kept me on the hamster wheel all these years.
The insecurity pushed me to do all sorts of things in the name of self-improvement, and most of it on credit! Now, I'm not saying that credit is bad. Just like that old saying about guns. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Credit isn't bad, I just don't think most of us were educated about what it is, how it really works, and in cultivating awareness around how and when to use it (rather than being used by our own insecurity through credit). It's interesting to me that credit cards are considered "non-secure credit".
What I felt when using the credit was stored or suppressed for later. Well, later is now. And I am here now to connect the dots, rectify the past, and share what I'm learning along the way so we can all move beyond insecurity to what we're really here for and THRIVE.
So coming back to that "strand" in the midst of my efforts. That debt that I carry was loaded with all the insecurity I felt throughout my life around my worth and my value as a man and as person. So if that strand was activated in my experience when I was encouraging someone around doing the work, because it was woven with insecurity, it would look for and connect with any insecurity in you and unbeknownst to me at the time,it would have some leverage to get someone to take action. Amidst the best conscious intentions for the highest good, was the subtle energy of manipulation trying to pull at the good that was trying to be created and elevated through the work.
This has not been an easy thing to see and digest. I have to walk very consciously and tenderly through this territory, cultivating even deeper self-love and neutrality. I have to notice how insecurity would rather that I not share and expose this side of my humanity, that it would rather encourage me to sink in silence.
I've gone too far down the road to be interested in either sinking or silence. And the more I step into the work, the clearer it becomes that it's much bigger than me.
It has been my practice to send out emails and make followup calls to people on my lists that I have worked with around the country before heading out to their city with the Work. Some appreciate the calls as they get innundated with emails and wouldn't otherwise know I was coming. Others were able to feel this strand in the background, and probably some didn't even know what they were feeling...just felt something uncomfortable....something they could quite name, that didn't match up to their great experiences around the work, but which felt nonetheless.....off.
What I have learned in relationship to David Elliott and this work is that my job around my humanity and seeing through my shadow is to know in my heart, deeply, that I am 100% good and loving...to keep putting attention on this knowing and let it melt away the vestiges of the illusion of insecurity.
A few weeks ago 40 of us gathered with David in the high desert of Joshua Tree deep into Joshua Tree State Park for a simple and powerful ceremony around a fire. Prior to the ceremony, he sat in the early morning hours and opened his intuition through hearing, and was given statements for each of us to make and have witnessed by the elements, the group, the desert, Spirit, Reality....here is the one I was given:
"Do you know how much I care about you, and you, and you -- and this work. I am beginning to figure out how little this experience is about my ego, my needs, how smart I appear, how many answers I have, how enlightened I am. I'm a seed, I'm germinating, sprouting, and growing now. I am beautiful!"
For any of you over the years and lifetimes who have ever in any way felt manipulated, cajoled, pushed out of my insecurity through any you may carry, I deeply, humbly offer you my apologies. I have only ever had the best intentions in my heart. I call that energy back to me, and to the light of Truth for it to be fully healed. May you be completely free from any and all forms of suffering and the causes of suffering. May you have happiness and the causes of happiness. May you know you are 100% good, 100% loveable, 100% LOVE!
Thank you Spirit, thank you David, thank you Mom and Dad, thank you to all my friends past and present, thank you to all of my clients who continue to be teachers to me, bringing in areas that I get to work with more deeply in myself...and I thank myself, for not giving up, for reaching through the pain and illusions of the past to Trust and Faith and Love.
Love,
Scott
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Breathwork
July 2009 
Scott Schwenk
