 | Being Present | | | by KD Farris, Ph.D. |
Gentle Conscious Living
We don’t have to ride a turbulent wave to unwind from our past. We can survey the material of our lives with gentleness and still be timely and effective. Coming into this third millennium we have choices about how to heal, how to process, and how to move ourselves into consciousness. And we can choose a path that will support us through gentle conscious living.... 
I have had the great pleasure of working with a woman who could, in many ways, be any one of us. She is bright, educated, and self-sufficient. She has a strong mind, wonderful children, and a light, beautiful spirit. Her story begins in the middle of her life, with a business of twenty years still going strong; two marriages behind her; and a future awaiting, which she greets with excellent health. Just three months ago she responded to an inner urge to follow up on a book she had read. She contacted me, the lucky author, and we began a journey together which she would later say, changed not only her life, but the lives of generations. In a journal-like fashion, we worked each week delving into the details that made up her MESHE. Beginning with what she liked and loved, we created a special place for things she wanted to pay more attention to, things she would prefer not to have to do, and things she felt that, if she had a magic wand, she would be absolutely thrilled to get to do! One week we looked at everything in her physical world. We talked about her home, her health, and her work environment. She voiced wanting to eat more vegetables, take regular walks, and make peace with a house she’d lived in for years, but had never felt was home. Each week she’d return with more awareness for the subjects she had been willing to explore in the prior sessions. She came ready to deepen her questions, her answers, and her search. The second session of exploring her physical world together, we discovered that she didn’t eat enough vegetables because she’d long since stopped cooking; that she could walk more frequently if she would invite a friend along; and that there were very good reasons why she was not comfortable in her home, reasons that she would now be able to do something about. With every area we explored, another part of her wisdom came forward. It was beautiful - easy, nurturing, and most of all welcomed. One week we explored art. She spoke of writing poetry in her past. The pain that most of her poems expressed. The absence of creativity in her life, from as early as childhood. I questioned her, and she responded thoughtfully, with a memory of her older brother, recalling how he struggled as an artist when they were growing up. How the family rejected his talent and how he had never, even after coming into adulthood, recovered from the pain of their rejection. She teared up at the possibility that this might have something to do with the lack of creativity in her life - in all of their lives, not just her family of origin, but the family that she had raised, and the ones her children were raising, now. As her medicine, we agreed that she would sketch for at least fifteen minutes each night before she went to bed, a time when she would ordinarily read or journal. She returned the next week with a new light in her eyes. I realized then, and so did she, that her journey of transformation was gently and easily set upon its powerful path. She expressed that her released creativity was also touching her grandchildren’s lives. This was no subtle change, this was changing generations. She really embraced her art. The first week she discovered that it soothed her. The next week she told tales of seeing more detail in the world, of going to the local gardens and being able to appreciate flowers in a whole new way. She realized that she had never really seen the beauty of flowers before. By the third week she had purchased what she called, "real art supplies" and showed off a sketch book with pages of flowers, and vases, and fruit bowls she’d been painting. The colors were rich and the images beautiful, fitting of the newness so evident in her spirit. We kept exploring, coming upon her intuition next--her inner voice, her inner knowing. We really had to hunker down and stay focused to get the answers from her in this area, but we made it fun and stayed true to the process. The next week she returned proudly with two stories--two beautiful moving stories--of how her intuition had been working in her life that week. One involved the passing along of a gift that she had received years before. She had never thought of its value to another, nor was it something that she had ever thought to give away. It was intuition at work, inner knowing at play, allowing her life to touch another’s so perfectly without plan. It is gentle conscious living that can change our lives, and the lives of those around us. Our power, our nature, is inside of us waiting to unfold. It is an ever-developing process because we are always healing and always growing. We change the identity of the world when we change the identity of ourselves. Whether it is to face the artist inside yourself, or meet your mystical nature, you change the world with your conscious living. And you can do it--with gentle baby steps. © Copyright 2001 KD Farris, Ph.D.. KD Farris, Ph.D. is a successful counselor, healer, and bodyworker. For more than twenty years she has taught
extensive workshops based on MESHE, HESHE, MISON & ORBIT as well as many other self-discovery topics.
KD began developing her integrated bodywork and counseling techniques in 1983 under the tutelage of many prominent doctors and healers throughout the United States.
Her education into the spiritual and physical aspects of the human experience served as the foundation for her private practice and the development of a new philosophy. She combined her techniques into four guiding principles, which she shares in her book, MESHE, HESHE,
MISON & ORBIT: What My Grandmother Taught Me About the Universe. She teaches a companion workshop series, where she creates an interactive environment demonstrating the material from her book with tangible, life altering effects. In these workshops, individuals discover a
deepening of their relationship to self, others, and life itself.
Through individual counseling and group workshops, she has taught her results-oriented programs to many different types of people including those confined to mental institutions, substance and food abusers, and generally, people in life transitions, struggling with intimate
relationships, or who lack direction in their lives. Visit www.kdfarris.com. KD is currently touring a new body of work, Talking About People in Transition, Also Known As
Liminal Space. She will be writing about liminality and its relevance to day-to-day living in upcoming issues of Soulful Living. For more information on this new and exciting topic, or to learn about more her private practice, workshops and lectures, visit
www.kdfarris.com.
Contact KD at: info@MESHE.com
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